What are you reading in 2025?

Currently focused on TTRPG books at the moment.

Continuing to read Wagadu Chronicles: 7th Era. About a third into it, but its biggest hindrance is its thickness. Over 700 pages, and the first three chapters make up about 200 of those. While contentwise it does look to be a full, detailed world, I think there is such a thing as too much detail.

The other book I'm focusing on is the Pathfinder GM Core as part of the Remastered line. I recently completed the Player Core, and as a 1e and D&D 5e veteran, PF 2e is pleasantly surprising me in many ways; it's by no means rules-light, but the writers do a good job of making things clear and important references are often repeated or cited with page numbers for easy reference.

The third book is Ultimate Engineering by Drop Dead Studios. It's the final book in their Spheres system line, expanding the Tinker sphere from Spheres of Might for Pathfinder 1st Edition to cover all manner of gadgets from various technological eras. Sadly, it's reminding me how I bounced off 1st Edition Pathfinder: when talking about the basics of their new sub-system, they also talk about exceptions and caveats to the rules before I even had the chance to understand the basics, which is something I recall being quite common in a lot of 1e material. I found my eyes skimming a lot of text as a result.

I did manage to finish reading one book, but at 37 pages that was pretty easy to do. After being impressed with Frontiers of Eberron, I checked out what other stuff Imogen Gingell (one of the two main authors, the other being Keith Baker) wrote. She made a Pokemon-inspired mini-bestiary for Eberron called Bag of Holding Monsters, where creatures from Thelanis were formed from national archetypes of Khorvaire and Sarlona, and one could use a Bag of Holding or other extradimensional space to capture and gain them as summonable allies. They're even called Bohmon, or "Bag of Holding Monsters" for short by planar scholars.

It seems rather nifty, and there's even some Pokemon-inspired mechanics such as some of them being able to evolve into stronger forms and a listing of damage resistances/immunities and vulnerabilities based on common archetypes. The text acknowledges that there are some monster abilities that would be OP if used by PCs, so made a rule that such abilities can only affect the Bohmon. It also has 3 legendary Bohmon which are based off of the 3 Progenitor Wyrms, but RAW you cannot capture and train them as you can only do this for Bohmon of a CR half your level or lower.
 
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I finished December by re-reading Homeland by R.A. Salvatore. And I hope I can go proper and in order with the War of the Spider Queen series (multiple authors) as I’ve mostly been scatter-reading it for a while. Besides this, I’d also like to give the Greek classic of the Iliad by Homer a try, A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto, or Hagakure. Also wondering on the Greek classic Xenophon’s Anabasis 🤔
 

Do yourself a favor and read Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad. As with her translation of the Odyssey, it comes with a great introduction that covers a lot of language details we monolingual sorts won’t have known, and some of the history of prior translations and how she made her choices, and like that. And the. There’s the work itself, which is graceful and engaging. You will likely end up quoting from it. It’s a delight. (Even more so with the audio version, which she reads herself.)

As for me, first book finished in 2025 was Beyond Apollo, as a memorial for the just recently passed Barry Malzberg. This was a challenging, confrontational story when it came out in 1972, and still is. It’s the story of a failed expedition to Venus, narrated in fragmentary short chapters by it’s only survivor. He’s not in good shape, and he’s lying to his debriefers about what happened and how the other astronaut died, partly to avoid reexamining the crucial points himself. I loved it, even with a nearly J.G. Ballard level of detachment when it comes to sex - at least it very well serves the overall theme of dehumanization and pushing humans towards mechanization of their sense of self. Darned good stuff if you want to see pessimistic sf by one of its masters.

Currently rereading Going Going Gone by Jack Womack. This is the concluding volume of his amazing Dryco Chronicles, the story of two broken, suffering timelines and the people in them. One is a 21st century where, essentially, the US collapsed and got taken over by ambitious business guys. The other is, in this volume, the 1960s of a world where slavery wasn’t formally abolished till the 1930s, FDR was assassinated in his first term, and people with any fraction of Black ancestry down to about 1/64th are still barred from public life. Now things are getting weirder. I had some ideas for gaming this year involving timeline shifts and decided to reread some relevant stories, starting with this one.
 

Yesterday I started The Players Ball by David Kushner (of Masters of Doom fame), which charts the 90s internet boom via Match.com

I also started Saga by Brian K. Vaughn. I have read the first trade paperback a couple times, but finally decided to go all in. Two volumes (12 chapters) in and I like it. it is weird, but good weird.
 

Just started Aftermath, book 7 of the original Thieves' World series.
Been slowly re-reading the Thieves World series. Considering they crafted a collaborative world without modern communication tools, it really is an exceptional feat.

I am re-reading the Robotech novels, followed by Wheel of Time.
One day I'll re-read The Wheel of Time, but that's a real commitment. I think it took me about a year when I first read them.
 


Has anyone else found it difficult to find decent new sci-fi and fantasy books? The shelves seem loaded with romantasy junk now. I have found that I am focusing on re-reading my existing library and I have virtually stopped trying new authors with the exception of a few indie authors on Amazon.

It feels like regular publishing has gone to garbage.
 

Not at all. The key for me has been following some authors I like on social media and checking out their recommendations. And there’s a nearly daily column at John Scalzi’s blog where authors talk about their inspirations and aspirations, which is a goldmine of info. There is far more high-quality work coming out than I can read.
 


Not at all. The key for me has been following some authors I like on social media and checking out their recommendations. And there’s a nearly daily column at John Scalzi’s blog where authors talk about their inspirations and aspirations, which is a goldmine of info. There is far more high-quality work coming out than I can read.
Weird.

I have not found a single book at B&N worth buying in over a year. I use B&N to look for new authors as I like to browse physical books.

I still have my stable of authors that I buy but many are aging and not producing as much content.

I find content discovery very difficult now outside of places like Baen.
 

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