What are you reading in 2026?

[cbwjm]

I've only just now come across delphi classics which has ebook collections for sale including: The (near) complete works of Robert E. Howard. Great for getting all of the collected works without having to spend time searching through various archives, even though that can be a lot of fun. Best thing is, they update it as more texts are released into public domain. Howard wrote far more than I ever thought, I knew it was more than just Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane but still didn't realise he was so prolific. I have a lot to read through.

 

[jian]

Joan Aiken is mostly known for her children’s books set in alternate Victorian England (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, etc) but was also a very prolific writer who produced hundreds of novels and short stories. Many of her works have a characteristic, slightly surreal bent that is both fairy tale and macabre, often not really aiming to frighten you but make you feel and consider. This was probably the point of setting the Wolves books in an alternate history (James II was never deposed and the Hanoverian monarchy never happened) - it makes very little difference except to let her imagination run wild.

I just read The People at the Castle, a relatively recent collection of her lesser known short stories, and they were quite fascinating and nothing is ever really explained, with fairy-tale logic in the most mundane (mostly England in the 1960s or so) settings. I’ll be reading more of her work.

(Aiken also wrote actual fairy tales, my favourite is A Harp of Fishbones.)

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Finished a not particularly good graphic novel called Hell to Pay, a book of the Shrouded College. Art was fine, but not exceptional in any way. Story was about some characters who are indentured to this mysterious organization called the Shrouded College.

Ultimately, I didn't care about any of the characters, and the world building of a secret magical society didn't stand out to me as being special. I will say the various depictions of the demons and ultimately "The Devil" by which I assume meant Satan were pretty cool and inventive.

I already bought the second volume, which I think is about totally different characters? There's a page in the back saying these are meant to be stand alone all taking place in the same universe, but one can read them in any order (which to me says the stories are only lightly connected, if at all). Anyway, guess I'll read the second GN, and if it's great, I'll keep going (vol 3 is also out by now). But I don't have high hopes.

 

[Mannahnin]

On a personal note, I keep wanting to call this an isekai series, even though it's technically not. I consume a lot of media from East Asia, and so find myself defaulting to their terms for various (sub-)genres. While LitRPG and isekai are technically different (in that the former has the characters being aware of, and interacting with, various RPG statistics that govern themselves and other beings, while the latter means that the story begins with the protagonist being taken from their home world, typically Earth, to another), there's a lot of overlap in that particular Venn diagram.

I don't know why I felt that was important to establish, but given that I just wrote a paragraph about it, I apparently felt very strongly that it was.

My suspicion is that it has something to do with how both genres make heavy use of a particular set of tropes, which are quite often the same tropes. Incidentally, this is quite often the point on which these stories tend to be criticized, which is something I'm sympathetic toward. I think that originality is overrated, in terms of what's important for making a good story; execution matters much more.

I agree that it's worth keeping them distinct. I'm not sure that the two genres necessarily have a lot of trope overlap, except insofar as MOST LitRPG books (with Dungeon Crawler Carl being a rare exception) and most Isekai are a sub-set of Portal Fantasy. There are certain tropes true of Portal Fantasy which will necessarily also apply to nearly all Isekai and LitRPG, and certain tropes true of Isekai which will necessarily apply to nearly any LitRPG book.

Personally the only books I can remember enjoying in which the protagonists had any form of "game stat awareness" was Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame, but in those the game in our world was simulating concepts from the fantasy world in a more AD&D style; as in, literal numbers don't really apply to the fantasy world, but concepts like spell memorization do correspond to how magic works. The concept of the fantasy world having literal numbers and mechanics and experience points and so forth seems more modern, and post-CRPG. Everyone seems to really dig Dungeon Crawler Carl, though, so I suspect it might be an exception and an actual LitRPG I'd enjoy.

 

[TwoSix]

I agree that it's worth keeping them distinct. I'm not sure that the two genres necessarily have a lot of trope overlap, except insofar as MOST LitRPG books (with Dungeon Crawler Carl being a rare exception) and most Isekai are a sub-set of Portal Fantasy. There are certain tropes true of Portal Fantasy which will necessarily also apply to nearly all Isekai and LitRPG, and certain tropes true of Isekai which will necessarily apply to nearly any LitRPG book.

There are definitely subsets of LitRPGs that aren't also protal/isekai; the most common of which are "System Apocalypses". Dungeon Crawler Carl would qualify, it features a setting in which modern Earth is transformed by some large-scale alien force into a place where normal humans have access to "stats" and Earth is usually threatened by large-scale monster/alien invasions. Defiance of the Fall would be another popular example of non-isekai LitRPG.

Non-isekai LitRPGs are also relatively common; they simply act more like a normal fantasy novel but a gameified "System" takes the place of/controls magic.

But the genre is quite popular and still burgeoning, while still being "not mainstream" (outside of DCC); attempts at a taxonomy are definitely a challenge.

 

[Micah Sweet]

J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales. About halfway through, then moving on to the History of Middle-Earth series. Been meaning to read that for a long time.

 

[Alzrius]

J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales. About halfway through, then moving on to the History of Middle-Earth series. Been meaning to read that for a long time.

I was telling myself last month that I'd re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings this year, since I haven't read them since the sixth grade. I'll need to remember to actually keep that resolution.

 

[Retros_x]

I started WoT #3 - it feels like the prose is more refined suddenly, it feels somehow elevated, but maybe I am imaging because I read a few other books inbetween. I find it also interesting that there is a little reintroduction of the characters in the first chapters, book #2 didn't had this. There is also a very small time jump and we see now Rand from Perrins perspective, who isolates himself because he can't cope with the reverance he retrieves by soldiers who want to follow him. I thought it was a cool perspective shift.

However i am already a bit annoyed by the lack of communication between the characters. I understand that Jordan wanted to emphasize the miscommunication during large scale wars and conflicts especially in a fantasy world. But for gods sake:

• Moiraine tells the others that the 3 main charactes are in danger and the Dark One has some sort of supernatural assassins?
• Perrin and the others COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE freak out a bit and want to know what to expect of these assassins
• Moiraine shuts the conversation "enough of that" and everybody accepts it "oh thats just how she is"

wtf. You can't tell the heroes there are some supernatural assassins on their way and than decide to not tell them more. Whatever reasons she might have in the narrative, its clear the reason Jordan had: He wanted to tease the threat of the assassins, but he still wants the character and readers to be surprised by them and their abilities. I can understand this goal, but the implementation is just lazy writing to me.

Its interesting that Brandon Sanderson is a big WoT-fan and ended up finishing the book series, because I share a lot of the criticsm for both authors (although up until know I think Jordan is much better). Sanderson is also a slave to the plot and "this needed to happen, so I wrote lazy and bad stuff before that, so the cool stuff can happen later"-syndrome (name for the syndrome is still pending).

 

[Mannahnin]

There is also a very small time jump and we see now Rand from Perrins perspective, who isolates himself because he can't cope with the reverance he retrieves by soldiers who want to follow him.

"retrieves by"; did you mean receives from, or something else?

 

[jian]

I started WoT #3 - it feels like the prose is more refined suddenly, it feels somehow elevated, but maybe I am imaging because I read a few other books inbetween. I find it also interesting that there is a little reintroduction of the characters in the first chapters, book #2 didn't had this. There is also a very small time jump and we see now Rand from Perrins perspective, who isolates himself because he can't cope with the reverance he retrieves by soldiers who want to follow him. I thought it was a cool perspective shift.

However i am already a bit annoyed by the lack of communication between the characters. I understand that Jordan wanted to emphasize the miscommunication during large scale wars and conflicts especially in a fantasy world. But for gods sake:

• Moiraine tells the others that the 3 main charactes are in danger and the Dark One has some sort of supernatural assassins?
• Perrin and the others COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE freak out a bit and want to know what to expect of these assassins
• Moiraine shuts the conversation "enough of that" and everybody accepts it "oh thats just how she is"

wtf. You can't tell the heroes there are some supernatural assassins on their way and than decide to not tell them more. Whatever reasons she might have in the narrative, its clear the reason Jordan had: He wanted to tease the threat of the assassins, but he still wants the character and readers to be surprised by them and their abilities. I can understand this goal, but the implementation is just lazy writing to me.

Its interesting that Brandon Sanderson is a big WoT-fan and ended up finishing the book series, because I share a lot of the criticsm for both authors (although up until know I think Jordan is much better). Sanderson is also a slave to the plot and "this needed to happen, so I wrote lazy and bad stuff before that, so the cool stuff can happen later"-syndrome (name for the syndrome is still pending).

Yeah, Book 3 is definitely when WoT improved and found its voice for me.

Just finished A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by Emma Southon, which is an absolute delight and my favourite-so-far book of the year (which is very new! I've only read 10 books or something). Southon writes cleverly and critically about both Roman patriarchy/misogyny (which is intense; women were legal minors, weren't allowed to own property, needed male legal guardians) and the women themselves, who are mostly the only ones who get more than a throwaway line in history. She notes, of course, that such women are mostly elite, and I agree with her that the more plebeian ones are more interesting.

Of particular note are Lucretia (the woman who kicked off the Roman Republic and is the first Woman in a Refrigerator), Hispala (a sex worker who rescued her upper-class fella from his murderous parents*), Turia (a woman who seems to have lived a heck of an extraordinary life (mostly saving her husband) and - rarely - had a happy marriage, so that her husband put up the largest possible marble monument when she died), Julia Felix (the plebeian owner of an apartment and entertainment complex in Pompeii, among the first evidence that non-elite women may have been allowed to own property), and Julia Maesa (twice ruler of the Roman Empire via her relations, who died peacefully after enacting two coups).

*They'd spent his inheritance and were planning to murder him by signing him up for the Cult of Bacchus where he'd get killed in the festivities. That is an absolutely wild way to murder someone (but legally, presumably!) and the scandal resulted in a big crackdown on the Bacchanalia.