What are you reading in 2025?

Mannahnin said:
Right now I'm in the middle of David Ewalt's Of Dice and Men. It's a bit better than I had heard; readable but not amazing. Though I think the Taskerland review makes some excellent points about the unfortunate shallowness of Ewalt's delve, and it's difficult to argue with any of it. From the perspective of twelve years later, the short quotes Ewalt has from speaking with Lorraine Williams feel even more like a wasted opportunity for more depth and answers.
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Mannahnin said:
Ewalt's might not be as bad as Barrowcliffe's, but this book is absolutely ran through with shame and self-consciousness over gamer geekery. That Taskerland review aptly skewers it.
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Finished this over lunch today. The copy I have is the 2024 reissue, and am pleased to report that the ten years after 35 page Afterword chapter that's been added is better in this regard. Seems like Ewalt's either gotten over his issues or gotten better at writing so as not to put them on display.

Alzrius said:
In that sense, I'd recommend Flint Dille's The Gamesmaster instead. Leaving aside its lack of any sort of table of contents, it's a much more insightful take into various aspects of D&D's development (albeit largely restricted to peripheral things like the comic books and the failed attempts to make a Hollywood film in the 80s). It helps that Dille also has a much stronger personal voice, one which is incredibly evocative in the tapestry he weaves.
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Thanks for the post. :) I'm thinking of reading this next.
 

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When I read Of Dice and Men about a year ago, I took it as more a book for non-TRPGers about why people TRPG. Most of the history of the hobby stuff in it was stuff I'd already come across elsewhere. It didn't seem to me to have quite the attitude that "I play TRPGs" puts you in a plague circle as it did to some of y'all. I did note that some of the people he interviewed have to varying extents shown their asses in the intervening decade-ish, but I wouldn't lay the blame for that on Ewalt at all.
 


pukunui said:
I’m halfway through my latest re-read of Foundation. Toran and Bayta are just about to leave Kalgan with Magnifico.

It’s quirky and dated but I still love it!
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The message that people who are willing to cooperate at the hard work of understanding a situation and working out how to respond to it can do better than violence is always timely.
 

Just finished When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi, which I enjoyed more than his last two books, which were fun but light reading. Moon is rather more interesting because it’s a series of vignettes, about what would happen if our moon was replaced by cheese* one day, and some of the episodes are quite moving and honest. You can see a lot of Scalzi in there if you squint. The vignettes about the rock star, the would-be writer, and the pastor are particularly touching.

*Main points: it gets larger, brighter, and much more unstable as the cheese compresses under its own weight.
 

Started Flint Dille's The Gamesmaster last night, and it's a breezy read so far. Very conversational.

pukunui said:
I’m halfway through my latest re-read of Foundation. Toran and Bayta are just about to leave Kalgan with Magnifico.

It’s quirky and dated but I still love it!
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Which book is that? I read Foundation recently (the first book) and will probably go on and read the second and third volumes, at least.
 

Mannahnin said:
Which book is that? I read Foundation recently (the first book) and will probably go on and read the second and third volumes, at least.
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That was near the start of the second half of Foundation and Empire.

I have the trilogy collected in a single volume.

I’m now at the start of Second Foundation.



As an aside, I do not recommend the prequels / sequels that Asimov wrote much later. They are rubbish and only serve to tie Foundation and the Robot series together. (“It was a robot all along!”)
 

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