What are you reading in 2024?

[Nellisir]

Yes, her Raksura books are on my list.

Those too. Not every story has giant enigmatic architecture, but enough do.

 

[Autumnal]

I keep wanting to try to make the Backrooms into an RPG mini-setting, but we already have Stygian Library and Vast in the Dark, so I'm not sure what I could do to top either of those.

Modern-day and sf. Industrial and commercial spaces. Just for starters. Do it in Fate for QuestWorlds or FU and tag the bejeezus out of it.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is about a mysterious megastructure. Recommend it.

Loved it. Next, after a history break, will probably be either something by Williamson & Pohl or Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence.

 

[Zaukrie]

Started Babel last night. Made me chuckle twice and I'm only 2 chapters in. Good stuff so far.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading Rucker's Software. Good, but it only skates the deeper philosophical questions at its core.

Now I'm reading REH's The Incredible Adventures of Dennis Dorgan. I've never read any of his boxing stories before, but after reading his biography, finally decided to give them a shot.

 

[prabe]

Caught COVID, didn't feel up to reading for a few days, but since then, three books: The Bouncer by David Gordon, a light-hearted crime novel that also manages some depth; World Gone By by Dennis Lehane, a mafia novel that does a beautiful job of showing the difference between what gangsters think of themselves as being and what they are, with an ending that feels like getting shivved; The Wager by David Grann, an attempt to convey the nightmare a bunch of English sailors endured--months as castaways, years as prisoners, lifetimes as pawns.

 

[demoss]

Murderbot & Traveller books now, Babel & Ptolus later, I think.

 

[overgeeked]

Just about to abandon Goblin Slayer and Reincarnated as a Slime. I'm not a fan of over-the-top gore and violence, despite loving Robert E. Howard's Conan stuff, so Goblin Slayer is likely going to remain unfinished. The constant inclusion of game mechanics or achievements or whatever is going on in Slime is more annoying than evocative, for me, so that's likely going to remain unfinished.

Will likely be giving the Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk a spin shortly.

 

[overgeeked]

Will likely be giving the Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk a spin shortly.

I’m three stories in and already emotionally gut-punched three times.

The first story was co-authored by Jay Lake. I didn’t have the direct pleasure, but he was a friend-of-a-friend. I was invited to his pre-mortem wake but am incredibly bad with funeral-adjacent things, so missed it. I regret not going. Great story, too.

The second story focuses on the last days of the Spanish Civil War, an event I am incredibly fond of studying. The piece features two Republicans and their tank named Don Quixote. Wonderful story with a painful end.

And the third piece in the anthology is the fantastic and emotionally-captivating story of a dying Russian sniper in hospital.

Damn. I wish I’d heard of and read this so much sooner. Great stuff so far.

 

[Richards]

I finished my last vampire book yesterday and am impatiently waiting for a couple of books I ordered online to arrive (they're by favorite authors - I was just waiting for them to come out in paperback, and they finally have), so last night I just reread the "yuan-ti" section of Serpent Kingdoms at bedtime in preparation for an adventure I wanted to write, but I have a week-long business trip the last week of February coming up, so maybe it's best for me to save them for the trip. With that in mind, I picked up another in my stack of Lisa Jackson thrillers, Last Girl Standing, a suspense novel she wrote with Nancy Bush (her sister, who's also a best-selling author in her own right). This one involves a clique of popular high school girls who are dying one by one years later in a series of seeming accidents - but one of the girls is now a detective and is convinced someone's been killing them, and she needs to find out who and put a stop to it before the death count gets any higher.

Johnathan

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just about to abandon Goblin Slayer and Reincarnated as a Slime. I'm not a fan of over-the-top gore and violence, despite loving Robert E. Howard's Conan stuff, so Goblin Slayer is likely going to remain unread. The constant inclusion of game mechanics or achievements or whatever is going on in Slime is more annoying than evocative, for me, so that's likely going to remain unread.

I find the appeal of LitRPG to be a real puzzle, myself. Glad for folks who like it, but it baffles me.