What are you reading in 2025?

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

I picked up Cahokia Jazz based on the comments here (and by weird coincidence, a friend's kid being really into Cahokia right now; this 14 year old has apparently started a correspondence with the museum director there).

So...I'm on "Thursday" (the chapter, I guess). I like the worldbuilding. Joe Barrow is a suitably flawed yet complex protagonist. The opening scene was appropriately "noir." I'm just not sure I like Spufford's writing voice. It's striking me as distant from the action, too academic, which doesn't fit my perception of noir. Given his background, that makes sense to me. Any of those of you who have read it have thoughts?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I picked up Cahokia Jazz based on the comments here (and by weird coincidence, a friend's kid being really into Cahokia right now; this 14 year old has apparently started a correspondence with the museum director there).

So...I'm on "Thursday" (the chapter, I guess). I like the worldbuilding. Joe Barrow is a suitably flawed yet complex protagonist. The opening scene was appropriately "noir." I'm just not sure I like Spufford's writing voice. It's striking me as distant from the action, too academic, which doesn't fit my perception of noir. Given his background, that makes sense to me. Any of those of you who have read it have thoughts?

When will we get the Coyote & Crow play reports

 

[prabe]

I picked up Cahokia Jazz based on the comments here (and by weird coincidence, a friend's kid being really into Cahokia right now; this 14 year old has apparently started a correspondence with the museum director there).

So...I'm on "Thursday" (the chapter, I guess). I like the worldbuilding. Joe Barrow is a suitably flawed yet complex protagonist. The opening scene was appropriately "noir." I'm just not sure I like Spufford's writing voice. It's striking me as distant from the action, too academic, which doesn't fit my perception of noir. Given his background, that makes sense to me. Any of those of you who have read it have thoughts?

I adored the novel, but I'll admit I took the voice as it was, I didn't come into it with any set expectations for a "noir" narrative voice; I didn't find it distancing at all. Obviously, there's room for differences of opinions, here.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

When will we get the Coyote & Crow play reports

LOL. "Coyote & Crow" has a special place on the shelf of "Starter Sets I'll Collect But Never Actually Get Around To Playing" as one of the few CORE rulebooks up there.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve bombed out the Malazan Book of the Fallen, at least for now. I DNFed book 4, House of Chains. I cannot handle this level of rape on top of all the other violence. Dunno what I’m going to read next. Probably random short stuff for a little while.

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I hate knowing that there’s a lot I’d enjoy if I persisted and I feel like a wimp. On the other, I don’t actually wish I were less repulsed by sexual violence.

 

[overgeeked]

About halfway through the Monty Python at Work book by Michael Palin. Lots of great insights and behind the curtain peeks as you’d expect from a diary. A few too many in some regards. Opinions of some members going into the tank. And quite surprised at how little they made initially, how coming to the US basically saved them, and how the BBC giving ABC permission to edit the Flying Circus broadcasts cost the Beeb copyright of Flying Circus…which is ultimately what made the members collectively wealthy enough to do as they pleased. Interesting and informative though not much for someone who’s not utterly obsessed with Monty Python.

 

[TiQuinn]

Listening to the audiobook of Lies of Locke Lamora and I love how the narrator says “Locke F—-ing Lamora!”

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I hate knowing that there’s a lot I’d enjoy if I persisted and I feel like a wimp. On the other, I don’t actually wish I were less repulsed by sexual violence.

Also, the series gets worse, not better, and the sexual violence continues. I honestly wish I'd quit at book 4 because pretty much all the cool ideas in the series are in play by then, but books 5, 6, 7 were just progressively worse in all the ways that the series was bad, with book 7 introducing TWO (!!) new and exciting ways to make the book terrible which I hadn't even really considered as possibilities (which also severed my ability to take the series remotely seriously).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And quite surprised at how little they made initially

The parsimoniousness of the BBC was a running joke in the 60s-70s.

 

[Autumnal]

Also, the series gets worse, not better, and the sexual violence continues. I honestly wish I'd quit at book 4 because pretty much all the cool ideas in the series are in play by then, but books 5, 6, 7 were just progressively worse in all the ways that the series was bad, with book 7 introducing TWO (!!) new and exciting ways to make the book terrible which I hadn't even really considered as possibilities (which also severed my ability to take the series remotely seriously).

That’s what I see from others, too. I love the world history, a lot of the cultures, and the interrelated magic and gods. A lot it’s captured my imagination in ways fantasy hasn’t for me in a while. But I really need some other story.

This will sound sarcastic, but I mean it: Malazan made me freshly appreciate how little sexual violence there is in Warhammer 40K novels.