What are you reading in 2025?

[jian]

I’ve now finished American War, which is very good (I’m going to a talk by Omar El Akkad soon so it was sort of prep for that). As compared to Parable of the Sower, which is partly about how the US slowly disintegrates in the future into poverty and barbarism as the poor get poorer and the rich stay rich (and fortified), American War is mainly about how something like the Syrian civil war would be if it happened in the US.

So there’s a Second American Civil War as southern states secede (over a prohibition on fossil fuels) and so there’s fighting, militias, refugee camps, bombings, maiming, deaths, biological (rather than chemical) weapons, attempts at provisional governments, interference by foreign powers, and so on. But there’s also some very profound and convincing writing about how people become child soldiers, terrorists, and mass murderers, and even how those who don’t are torn apart by the loss of normality and personal identity.

Oddly the main thing that jarred in the writing is the lack of racism in this near future US - somebody mentions it once and is immediately laughed at - which seems weirdly optimistic in this dystopia. I guess it’s just something the writer didn’t want to tackle.

 

[overgeeked]

Just finished Battles in the Desert, a short story or novella by José Emilio Pacheco. The narrator and main character is Carlos, a boy from a moderately well-off family living in Mexico City in the mid 1940s or early 1950s. It’s a nostalgia trip or history lesson in prose. Not that it’s dry, rather there’s a real sense of time and place. Almost setting as a character. Carlos talks about his day, the kids at school, politics, literature, films, and various other topics in an almost stream of consciousness style as the story goes along. The main thrust of the story in unrequited young love and the aftermath of professing that love. Carlos makes the mistake of falling in love with his best friend’s mother.

 

[the Jester]

I just finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, by Fredrick Backman. It was fantastic. A quick read, suitable for younger readers while not being annoying in the way that a lot of young adult fiction can sometimes be, and very moving. I'd recommend it to anyone. I have never read anything else by the author but am open to checking him out further.

 

[Maxperson]

I just finished re-reading Count Zero. It's been about ten years since I last read it, and while I used to think it wasn't as prescient as Neuromancer, time has proven it just as.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Finished Underland.

If you run any kind of RPGs featuring descents into the underworld, realistic, mythic, urban, or whatever, this book will be incredibly inspirational.

I'm already planning on incorporating stuff from the chapter about vaults meant to keep post-human inhabitants of the Earth away from our nuclear waste into my Shadowdark campaign, for instance.

Instead of messages to the future about deadly materials, it'll be about "don't dig up these undead war criminals; they will destroy your civilization," which I expect neither the NPCs nor the PCs to pay the least bit of attention to.

 

[overgeeked]

Finished Underland.

If you run any kind of RPGs featuring descents into the underworld, realistic, mythic, urban, or whatever, this book will be incredibly inspirational.

I'm already planning on incorporating stuff from the chapter about vaults meant to keep post-human inhabitants of the Earth away from our nuclear waste into my Shadowdark campaign, for instance.

Instead of messages to the future about deadly materials, it'll be about "don't dig up these undead war criminals; they will destroy your civilization," which I expect neither the NPCs nor the PCs to pay the least bit of attention to.

I’ve started reading this as well. It’s really fascinating so far. Sounds like it’ll be a great read.

 

[Autumnal]

Underland is here waiting for me. Read in the last few weeks:

A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. This is one of those rare books where you really do miss something significant in the audio version: Zach W.’s cartoons, which are gently funny but also illuminate key points. Read it in print or ebook. This is an extended argument for the idea that the complications of long-term survival in space are so big, and still so much entirely unexplored, with some things that cannot be known without multiple decades’ experiments, that this is no time to be pushing any sort of vision of significant permanent presence off Earth. This is a time to learn things like “what challenges to the offspring of creatures born into space face throughout their lives?” and to work out space law that can withstand careless greedheads with no interest in respecting any rights but their own greed and ambition. The chapter on space law is particularly good for making the case for its crucial importance and how its being downplayed/dismissed so much now by space enthusiasts (which the Weinersmiths clearly are) is a really bad sign. The time for building cities on Mars (and elsewhere) is after we know a bunch of those things, and also after we have dealt more with the terrestrial calamities that space development can’t spare us from. I felt seen by this book. The authors speak my language. If reading my comments makes you curious, particularly if they make you inclined to argue you with it, read it. Darned good stuff.

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson Amazingly good horror short stories. I bounced off this a couple years ago, but I think it just wasn’t a good time on my end. I loved it this time around, and was fascinated by how much science fiction there is in here, along with elegant little connections between several of these pieces,,like the protagonist of one dreaming of being the protagonist of another. Some of the best-written horror I’ve read lately.

The Genocides by Thomas Disch. This book is as old as I am, since it came out in 1965, and wow is it bleak. We start seven years after something seeded Earth with a monoculture of plants that are taking over the surface of the Earth. They grow up to six hundred feet or more, their leaves interlock and cut off light to everything below, their roots interweave tightly enough to completely cover the ground, and they soak up enough water to noticeably lower water levels worldwide. It takes tremendous work to keep any arable land open, and everything is losing the battle. The shared experience of constant loss is doing nothing good to the survivors’ minds. There are characters alive at the end, but…things are clearly not going their way. There’s some gorgeous writing here, including a few genuinely funny moments, which only sharpen the overall effect. One of the best dystopias I’ve ever read. No audiobook for this one, it’s long out of print.

Soul Hunter (Night Lords #1) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. This is a Warhammer 40K novel focusing on members of the Night Lords, one of the heretic Space Marine legions. Aarons’s got an amazing gift for writing very engaging evil characters. You never lose sight of the fact that they are villains. They do bad things for evil reasons. But they’re interesting. Every character here has a history, goals arising for their shared and individual histories, fears and hopes, personal friendships and rivalries, the whole deal. They have successes and failures and deal them in various ways. Even the basic scumbags make sense. I had a great time following them and look forward to the rest of the trilogy. Andrew Wincott does an excellent reading for the audiobook, managing distinct voices for multiple characters all becoming inhuman at varying paces.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Insanely, A City on Mars was on sale as a Kindle book for $1.99 a while back and I snagged it after hearing the authors interviewed on the radio. Very excited for it.

I love The Martian, but I every time I watch it, I keep thinking "yeah, but he's going to have advanced cancer by the time he's rescued ..." which no one ever seems to be concerned about.

 

[Autumnal]

That, and changes to every tissue and organ in the body. The challenges for long-term life in space keep mounting as we get more experience with shorter terms.

 

[jian]

Insanely, A City on Mars was on sale as a Kindle book for $1.99 a while back and I snagged it after hearing the authors interviewed on the radio. Very excited for it.

I love The Martian, but I every time I watch it, I keep thinking "yeah, but he's going to have advanced cancer by the time he's rescued ..." which no one ever seems to be concerned about.

I also think, “why are there high winds on Mars? There’s basically no atmosphere.” But it’s a great book and film.