What are you reading in 2025?

[prabe]

I enjoyed it, but I also really liked Upgrade.

I find Blake Crouch to be a fun read every time. But I do prefer a longer, meatier book in general; I like a little more complexity and convolution than Crouch's typical length allows for.

Upgrade carried me along just fine, mostly. There were some things that didn't work for me while I was reading, and it fell apart for me more when I thought about it after reading it. Sounds as though maybe he's just an author who doesn't work for me, which is at least as much about me as it about anything else.

These days I mostly read novels in the 300-400-page range, that's about what I can read between dinner and bed; sometimes I'll grab something a little longer, and I'll start before dinner (or cook dinner earlier). Length doesn't bother me, at all, other than the logistics, and I do see the appeal of a longer novel, at least in some instances--I wouldn't, for instance, want to say that S. A. Cosby's novels lack substance, and they're all short enough that I can read them of an evening.

 

[jian]

Have now finished Long Live Evil, which was pretty great, and am halfway into Buried Deep and Other Stories, a collection of short stories by Naomi Novik. Just finished Seven Years from Home, which is something of a departure for Novik, being biotech sci-fi about colonialism.

It reminds me of Adrian Tchaikovsky, and that reminds me of another book I’ve read this year, which is Alien Clay by that author. It’s very Tchaikovsky in that it starts very much as a dystopia (political prisoners on a gulag planet in a human galaxy dominated by a totalitarian government, very Ivan Denisovich) but moves towards the virtues of cooperation and mutual acceptance, which is almost utopian (or at least hoping for utopia) with a solid dollop of body horror along the way. Not to everyone’s taste, but recommended.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I hope to finally read some Patrick O’Brien this year. dad would be disappointed it’s taken me this long.

I don't think you'll be disappointed, as you often list books I like, and I loved that series when I read it in the late 90's.

 

[Autumnal]

I don't think you'll be disappointed, as you often list books I like, and I loved that series when I read it in the late 90's.

That’s my expectation. Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books points out there’s a really long tradition of sf fans enjoying Napoleonics like the Hornblower series, and later the Sharpe series, and O’Brien getting the same enthusiasm. Patrick figures that it’s partly the competence porn and partly the overlapping requirements in worldbuilding.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I just finished Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson, the fifth book in the Stormlight Archive and last book in the first arc. I read the entire book within 4 days, and over 800 pages yesterday alone. I overall loved it and thought it was far superior to the last book, Rhythm of War, I have a ton of criticisms. A lot of Sanderson’s strengths as an author shine through, but a ton of his weaknesses tarnish the book and make it a bit of a slog to get through.

The book was too long. Sanderson needs a better editor. It could have lost ~500 pages and would have been a much better paced book. This has been a problem since at least Oathbringer, which felt meandering and unfocused compared to the first two books, and it has only gotten worse from there. And the story kept cutting away from the plot lines I was interested in mid chapter. This was a bit of a hard book to read.

Spoiler: Spoilers

There was way too much modern language in the book. A lot of it made me cringe. I’m fine with Kaladin becoming a fantasy therapist. But they shouldn’t call it that (“mind surgeon” would be a good example of the term in a way he could understand it), and he absolutely shouldn’t have been as effective of a therapist as the book wanted him to be. Treating Szeth in less than 10 days already broke my suspension of disbelief a ton, the Nale and Ishar stuff was a step too far.

I was super disappointed when Dalinar and the others got stuck in the Spiritual Realm. I immediately was able to predict that Dalinar would only be able to get back last minute, that Gavinor would be the champion, and that Shallan would free Ba Ado Mishram. And the way that the Gavinor twist was implemented, with a fake Spirit child, was dumb. It would have been way more interesting if Gavinor was separated in the Spirit Realm and they knew they hadn’t got him back, but had to go back and fight the duel. I did enjoy most of the lore dumps about the early days of Roshar, especially when we got it from Honor’s perspective, but a lot of it could have been cut out/shortened. Did we need to see Aharietiam again just to learn that Honor was there and let them choose? Did we need to see the foundation of the Oathpact just to learn that Taln was a peasant that tried to kill Cultivation? The Stormfather refusing to help Dalinar felt just like a way to pad the book, which didn’t need padding.

Moash barely did anything this book and El also felt like a useless addition. There are too many characters. I cannot keep track of 100+ characters with varying levels of importance, including Interlude characters, at least with how Sanderson treats it. A lot of characters could be merged together while keeping their roles in the story and making it easier for the audience to remember who they are years later. There’s already a ton of main characters. I barely remember half of Bridge Four, and most of the important ones that I was attached to were dead/gone from previous books (Teft, Rock), or barely present (Lopen).

I loved the ending, though. Dalinar sacrificing himself to give Taravangian another Shard and unite the Cosmere against him was great. Seems that the last 5 books will be much more Cosmere aware. Kaladin reforging the Oathpact and becoming a Herald was great, even if “Herald of Second Chances” is an idiotic name. Shallan learning about her mother being a Herald was great and I’m interested to see what she and her kid will be doing in the next arc. I’ve always liked Renarin and I’m glad he has a bigger role this book. Adolin was amazing throughout the book and I’m glad he’s spreading his Unoathed bond with dead spren. Navani kind of felt just along for the ride this time, which is weird because she was one of the few things I thought was great in Rhythm of War. I loved Szeth’s backstory, poor Molli, and while his video game style quest and heavy handed therapy sessions weren’t my favorite, I did like his role towards the end.

So even if the journey was a bit of a slog, the destination was well worth it. The irony.

6.5/10. I overall enjoyed it a lot more than Rhythm of War, but it was a slog and needed heavy editing. There is a great 800 page novel in this good 1300 page door stopper.

Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination. I’ll reread this book with the rest of the series in 8 years. If book 10 comes out when Sanderson plans to release it, I’ll be twice the age I am now.

 

[TiQuinn]

And as it turns out, pretty much everything John Amos says about Agincourt in that scene is completely wrong, at least according to this book.

Somewhat tangential but this is a problem I have with Sorkin: he writes fantastic, politically relevant dramatic scenes but also sprinkles it with “facts” that are no different from someone having heard something on social media. I could forgive it if it were intended to be someone talking out of their butt, however that’s never the way it comes off.

 

[Alzrius]

Somewhat tangential but this is a problem I have with Sorkin: he writes fantastic, politically relevant dramatic scenes but also sprinkles it with “facts” that are no different from someone having heard something on social media. I could forgive it if it were intended to be someone talking out of their butt, however that’s never the way it comes off.

I'm given to understand that this has been pointed out to him before, and his response was to plead artistic license. Or, to quote him directly:

"An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky."

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm in a Storygraph buddy read, and we are reading the Wolf of Oren-yaro. I definitely would not have picked this up on my own, but it's showing some glimmers of interesting faction conflict, and the protag gets jilted on page one, so that seems like it might bear some narrative fruit. I look forward to digging in further

The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso

"They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the ni...

app.thestorygraph.com

Also, on a different topic, a LOT of award nominated and winning fiction (Hugos/Nebulas mostly) from the 60's/70's and into the 80's seems to have been post-apocalypse fiction. It's all quite interesting, but also sort of numbing at the same time. If I had the spoons, I would start writing about this. Would need some sort of framework for it though.

 

[prabe]

Also, on a different topic, a LOT of award nominated and winning fiction (Hugos/Nebulas mostly) from the 60's/70's and into the 80's seems to have been post-apocalypse fiction. It's all quite interesting, but also sort of numbing at the same time. If I had the spoons, I would start writing about this. Would need some sort of framework for it though.

I'm sure you already know this, but trends happen. Also, it seemed more likely then that we'd do something (like, as a single event) stupid, as opposed to now where it looks more as though we've been doing something stupid for a few decades and lo!

 

[Autumnal]

It was the zeitgeist. The accumulation of close misses and leaders in whose good judgment it was sensible to be skeptical didn’t lend themselves to happy extrapolations, coupled with the reality over history and prehistory that weapons get used. We’ve been unbelievably lucky with nukes and various biochem weapons.

That’s one of the things it’s easy to miss now about cyberpunk. Gibson, Sterling, Shirley, et al were serving up non-apocalypses that didn’t depend on right-wing fantasies of heroic strongmen saving the day. Instead, they said, we’ll keep bumbling on through, sometimes fixing a mess, sometimes making a new one, but never quite wiping ourselves and everything else out. You wouldn’t want to call the Sprawl and its like hopeful but they weren’t despairing, either.

I highly recommend Jo Walton’s book What Makes This Book Great? for a lot of insights.