What are you reading in 2025?

[Hriston]

I'm reading A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits by Paracelsus.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Currently reading "When Valor Must Hold (Libri Valoris Book 1)." Easy, entertaining and quick book of short stories that I can read between cases in the OR if there are delays or when waiting for meals to arrive or what not. Like 'em a lot. Very inventive and entertaining.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Over the last week I read the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book, which I found disappointing after how much I'd seen and heard it hyped up, and Red Rising, by Pierce Brown, which I thought was fantastic.

Both are the first books in series; I don't really feel too compelled to go on in the DCC series, but damn, I can't wait to continue the story that starts in Red Rising.

DCC might have sat better with me if I hadn't seen and heard such high praise for it, but I found it... all right. It has one of the things that annoys me most in books with alien species- the aliens (at least the ones we talk to) are all just too human.

My buddy is all about DCC, so I kind of feel like I have to read at least book 1.

Red Rising was great. Don't want to spoil any more of it, so come back when you are done with at least first trilogy (I read up to what was released at that point, and then never got back to it. Happened with the Expanse too) and we can compare notes...

 

[the Jester]

My buddy is all about DCC, so I kind of feel like I have to read at least book 1.

Yeah, I have a couple of friends who raved and raved about it. It's not bad, but I don't feel any compulsion to read further. It's one of those series where I would if I had the next book around and I didn't have anything else to read.

Red Rising was great. Don't want to spoil any more of it, so come back when you are done with at least first trilogy (I read up to what was released at that point, and then never got back to it. Happened with the Expanse too) and we can compare notes...

I'm planning on picking up the next couple at the library on Monday!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm reading A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits by Paracelsus.

Paracelsus' stuff is wild. There are some great ideas for gaming in it, though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm reading A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits by Paracelsus.

Rivers of London-coded lol

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That still bothers me. The whole of the sci-fi fantasy community coming together to mercilessly bully a kid over a book he wrote at 16. Utterly unforgivable.

I'm just finding out about this, but unless the Wikipedia article on this is wholly wrong, you're engaging in some spectacular historical revisionism of a pretty unfortunate kind!

The Wikipedia article claims that, for the vast majority of the time this book was being mocked, no-one had any idea who had written it, and further, a lot of other people, including Samuel Delany of all people (!!!), where claiming to have written part or all of it. It's also unclear if anyone at all knew he was a teenager even if they knew the name of the writer.

The Eye of Argon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think there's a pretty huge difference between "We were reading this story we don't know where it came from, it's really funny" and "IM READING THIS TO HURT A TEENAGER LOL", or even "Respected SF author Samuel Delany says his students wrote this at his behest, it's really funny!". And "utterly unforgivable" can only possibly be true if people acted with malice knowing who the author was AND that said author was a teeanger.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The climax of the book came on suddenly, and, although I enjoyed the setpiece sequence at Skygarden, I found the prose a little overwrought at times and the big twist to be somewhat telegraphed, even if I did think it was plausible

I would definitely have to agree re: the climax and prose. It feels like some significant section of development and plot progress is kind of just missing, like it technically makes sense, but it is a very sudden climax to the book, and it doesn't help the book.

I actually didn't find the twist to be telegraphed myself, it made complete sense in retrospect though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would definitely have to agree re: the climax and prose. It feels like some significant section of development and plot progress is kind of just missing, like it technically makes sense, but it is a very sudden climax to the book, and it doesn't help the book.

I actually didn't find the twist to be telegraphed myself, it made complete sense in retrospect though.

I find Aaronovitch’s plotting rather uneven and prone to sudden jumps, especially with regards to action scenes. I think he is more of a characters and jokes guy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I find Aaronovitch’s plotting rather uneven and prone to sudden jumps, especially with regards to action scenes. I think he is more of a characters and jokes guy.

He's definitely done some good action scenes, especially in the more recent books but yeah I'd broadly agree.

Personally I think the biggest weakness with RoL in general is that Aaronovitch tries to be critical of the British elites (who, to be clear, do need criticising!), and of imperialism and colonialism, especially from the British empire, but there's a real tension because he's also very keen on the sort of... I don't know quite what the words are, but like "regalia" and "vibes" of the elites and colonialism, maybe? And also, very unfortunately, is extremely keen on the Romans, and has a sort of very common smug-and-shortsighted British "How dare you criticise the Romans!" attitude, which is completely shared with (and indeed originates with) those very elites, and this is severe and relevant enough that it actively damages the plotting of at least two (arguably three) books, and damages the plausibility of a really major character (and makes Peter himself seem like a bit of an airhead, which I dunno maybe that's fine, he never exactly seems like a genius).