What are you reading in 2025?

[prabe]

Dead Silence, by S.A. Barnes. My second or third Barnes book, more space horror. Pretty much Titanic meets Event Horizon, as she readily acknowledges. Not earth-shaking but very solid. Digital, first-time read.

I remember thinking this was a pretty decent book, as well. The science had some wonky moments, and there was piano thing that ran counter to my own experiences with them--including moving one--but there wasn't anything that completely nixed my suspension of disbelief. That infrasonic thing reminded me of the first Three Investigators book, though.

 

[Alzrius]

Speaking of scholarly research on TTRPGs, have you checked out Nachtwey's Strictly Fantasy? While he makes a few pretty simple errors of fact in it, overall it's a really nice scholarly dive into cultural precursors and antecedents to the TTRPG, and covers a fair number that Peterson didn't get into, to my recollection.

No, I hadn't even heard about that one. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Mannahnin]

No, I hadn't even heard about that one. Thanks for the tip!

Some of the quotes in there (such as from Robert Louis Stevenson's essay A Gossip on Romance, about the nature of adventure fiction) were real eye-openers. It's also got pages and pages of primary source references, which naturally include PatW a bunch of times, but a ton of other interesting books and papers.

RL Stevenson:

"If anything fit to be called by the name of reading the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears, like the noise of breakers, or the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye."

RL Stevenson:

"Something happens, as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable things that we imagine in our daydreams; there are lights in which we are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded or calumniated. It is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in which every incident, detail, and trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life; and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it with all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves to recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction is called romance."

This latter section, among others in the essay, really strikes at the sense of first person IMMERSION so many people experience and value in RPGs. The bits about how "it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded, or calumniated" get into how suffering setbacks and losses (as we can in a game) can enhance that immersion and identification with the story, and be part of an enrapturing fantasy.

 

[overgeeked]

Some of the quotes in there (such as from Robert Louis Stephenson's essay A Gossip on Romance, about the nature of adventure fiction) were real eye-openers. It's also got pages and pages of primary source references, which naturally include PatW a bunch of times, but a ton of other interesting books and papers.

The one that really flipped the switch for me on adventure fiction and pacing was Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s the origin of the scene-sequel structure that so many writers use (including Jim Butcher of Dresden Files fame), but it works especially well for action-adventure fiction. It’s helped a lot with improvising something approaching a structured story at the table and helped immensely with the pacing of games.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

read a hundred books you own before buying new ones.

This is a good idea. I decided to simply read books I already own through the end of this year; and starting i 2026 I can begin to read books I don't own. But there are a lot of books backing up that I would normally read in the course of things, like all the Hugo nominees; and the newest Scalzi, Louise Penny, and final volume in the Maisie Dobbs series.

 

[Autumnal]

But there are a lot of books backing up that I would normally read in the course of things, like all the Hugo nominees; and the newest Scalzi, Louise Penny, and final volume in the Maisie Dobbs series.

I continue to use the library, and many folks on Booktube set up a variety of exceptions: series in progress, books by people you know, and the like. If I had a Worldcon membership this year, I’d make one for the Hugo nominees.

 

[jian]

Read Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour by Kate Beaton, which is a nice short read because (unlike most things Beaton is known for) it’s not a graphic novel but a transcript of a talk she gave recently. It’s mainly about the culture and history of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where she was born and came back to, and about how rich people write about poor people. It reminded me of some things I’ve read and seen recently, such as How Green Was My Valley, Hillbilly Elegy, and Demon Copperhead.

My favourite quote is “If you never get any authentic representation, then all you have are medieval drawings of elephants.”

(Which is based on the point that medieval artists knew some facts about elephants but had never seen one, so their drawings are both recognisable to us as attempts to represent elephants and as being completely inaccurate about elephants.)

 

[jian]

For no particular reason, I decided to start one of Booktube’s 100-book challenges this month. This is about what the name suggests: read a hundred books you own before buying new ones. I picked up a few things on Audible’s sale this month and then started the clock.

That is an interesting thing to try! I’m not sure I own 100 books I haven’t read (that aren’t currently in storage or are otherwise unavailable) and I tend to do about 90% of my reading from the library. I think the main thing I’d miss would be from Kindle daily deals, but it’s no great loss since I suspect the authors get very little money from those.

 

[Nellisir]

That is an interesting thing to try! I’m not sure I own 100 books I haven’t read (that aren’t currently in storage or are otherwise unavailable) and I tend to do about 90% of my reading from the library. I think the main thing I’d miss would be from Kindle daily deals, but it’s no great loss since I suspect the authors get very little money from those.

You can borrow some of mine!!

 

[Nellisir]

Polar Star, by Martin Cruz Smith. Last month, I reread Gorky Park, Smith’s story of Moscow police investigator Arkady Renko, who in 1980 handles a case that escalates from three murders in Gorky Park to international complications and the ruins of Renko’s career and life. This, the first sequel, takes place in 1988, mostly on board a fishing factory ship in the North Pacific. The discovery of a body in the nets again escalates into trouble and dramatic changes in circumstances for Renko and others. Fully as good as the original, and capturing the feeling of perestroika in the midst of things. Digital, reread.

I love Arkady Renko, and I love that every few years Martin writes another book about him. Time passes, but Arkady reluctantly, inevitably, compulsively slumps on to investigate another awful, career-ending, absolutely waste of everyone's time, event or disappearance that he absolutely agrees he really, REALLY ought to just sign off on and let go.