What are you reading in 2024?

[overgeeked]

Trying to make room on my shelves for the last two books I read, I came across a small monograph of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, which I couldn't recall having read before. Resolving to fix that oversight, I polished it off earlier today.

While I hesitate to characterize Thoreau's moral opposition to government as libertarianism per se, his moral calling to (nonviolently) resist participation or cooperation with a government that he finds to be acting immorally is quite stark. Voting and democratic institutions do not solve this, in his view, and lack of resistance makes us complicit insofar as our participation (e.g. by paying taxes) in government goes. That we are by measures intimidated (by the threat of monetary sanctions and jail time) and seduced (by participating in the commercial spheres that government asserts dominion over) is how our voluntary submission to an unjust government is achieved.

Personally, I found myself unable to help but contrast this to Plato's dialogue Crito (which I've only read in part, and need to go back and finish), where Socrates refuses his friend's plan to break him out of prison, despite agreeing that the death sentence he's received (set to be carried out the next morning) is unjust. To Socrates, there is no virtue to reaping the benefits of living in society, and only to turn around and reject that same society when it becomes onerous. Better instead to work to do what you can to improve it, even if that means accepting the imperfections of the present.

Both men advocate living for virtue, but how they proclaim that with regard to the larger society in which someone lives – one by removing yourself entirely from an unjust society, and the other by working to improve that society even if it means countenancing injustice in the meantime – are stark in how they contrast.

This is what a Chaotic Good vs. Lawful Good debate would sound like, I'd wager.

I definitely align more with Thoreau's take than Plato's. Good analysis, by the way.

 

[Autumnal]

Agreed about Thoreau, not that I think is rise to the challenges of our time so well. I can hope.

In other news, wow, Nathan Ballingrud really is the one to read if you want more stuff like Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Check out the opening of “In Visible Filth”:

The roaches were in high spirits. There were half a dozen of them, caught in the teeth of love. They capered across the liquor bottles, perched atop pour spouts like wooden ladies on the prows of sailing ships. They lifted their wings and delicately fluttered. They swung their antennae with a ripe sexual urgency, tracing love sonnets in the air.

It’s got that very distinctive tang, with stories that are not at all derivative.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Finished Red Sails Under Red Skies. Not as good as the Lies of Locke Lamora, but I'm a lot pickier about pirate stories -- I read a lot of them -- so I'm probably grading more harshly. I did like it a lot, though, and enjoyed the author explicitly undercutting the real-world sexism present in the Western world's historical sailing culture (and one of his points matches my experience -- most of my good managers have been women, while most of my bad managers have been men).

He also continues to make his in-universe pantheon more interesting and believable than most fantasy pantheons are.

Some of the hustles here felt like retreads of the first novel -- no more giant magical skyscrapers full of rich people in the third book, please -- and the "shocking" opening of the book caused me to roll my eyes when what was really going on was revealed.

But overall, very excited to move on to the third book in this series, which apparently will finally introduce a character that's only been mentioned for two novels now.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

no more giant magical skyscrapers full of rich people in the third book

Given that elderglass is nigh-indestructible and only the wealthy can afford to live in structures made of it, I think that combination is part and parcel of the setting, albeit not every climax.

I've enjoyed the series to date, but long since given up any hope of living to see all the planned books come out. Even if future books have less troubled paths to publication than Republic of Thieves I'm not going to outlast Lynch.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Given that elderglass is nigh-indestructible and only the wealthy can afford to live in structures made of it, I think that combination is part and parcel of the setting, albeit not every climax.

I've enjoyed the series to date, but long since given up any hope of living to see all the planned books come out. Even if future books have less troubled paths to publication than Republic of Thieves I'm not going to outlast Lynch.

The YouTube algorithm, which knows from Amazon/Goodreads that I'm reading these books, has been showing me videos that are claiming the author and publisher hinting that the fourth book is coming before the end of 2025, along with new editions of the other three books.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

The YouTube algorithm, which knows from Amazon/Goodreads that I'm reading these books, has been showing me videos that are claiming the author and publisher hinting that the fourth book is coming before the end of 2025, along with new editions of the other three books.

Been seeing ads myself. I'm still not terribly hopeful of surviving another four novels, but perhaps that's just Game of Thrones-induced pessimism.

Not that I actually care about GoT at all. As far as I'm concerned I don't need anything more from Martin ever unless he gets off his duff and writes more scifi. The short stories that make up Tuf Voyaging were his best work by far. Another promising author ruined by editors refusing to constrain their page counts and insist on meeting deadlines. Sigh.

 

[prabe]

Again, the three most recent books: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, a really good Horror novel playing with the tensions and conflicts between tradition and modernity; I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, a surprisingly good novel with lots of angry things to say about true crime as entertainment, as well as the criminal justice system, unfurled at a deceptively relaxed pace, with a reasonably honest and well-earned twist; Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes, a Horror/SF novel with obvious antecedents (Alien, Event Horizon) and a distressing disregard for science and an ending that reminds me of an old Three Investigators novel.

 

[Zaukrie]

Finally finished Babel. I loved the book while it was about the characters. I skimmed the last fifty or so pages. Don't get me wrong, it's great writing and it all makes sense, but I no longer felt engaged after it turned.

 

[Zaukrie]

Rereading a lot of DnD bike to see which I'll keep, and I'll say this, I'm not keeping most of these rule books. I mean, have the PDFs for third party stuff, and I just didn't use them and love them like I thought I did

That said, the scarred lands 5e monster book inspires me all the time.

 

[Autumnal]

Wounds, by Nathan Ballingrud. Well…wow. My initial reaction is borne out: this guy’s writing the American version of Clive Barker. This is some of the best new-to-me horror I’ve read in years. It’s a set of six short stories and novellas that share a background, with connections happening in the final story. The others do each work as individual pieces, there’s just some more to find between and around them. (I just realized another connection while writing this.) Ballingrud really has the Barker-esque willingness to find beauty and wonder in the midst of horror and characters pursuing fascination to the depths of encounters they expect not to survive.

Five of the stories are modern-day, the sixth is set somewhat before the American Revolution. New Orleans features in half of them. They vary a lot in style, types of characters, and how they express the recurring themes - one of. The ways I’m reminded of the Books of Bkood, in fact. Highly recommended for horror readers.