What are you reading in 2025?

[Autumnal]

Now I'm reading Jack Womack's Ambient.

I’m a slavering fan of the Dryco series. Ambient is impressive by itself, but the series as a whole goes utterly amazing places, and keeps doing dazzling things with language. Random Acts Of Senseless Violence is heartbreaking, in particular.

And the bit with the refrigerator door in Ambient is gently hilarious.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’m a slavering fan of the Dryco series. Ambient is impressive by itself, but the series as a whole goes utterly amazing places, and keeps doing dazzling things with language. Random Acts Of Senseless Violence is heartbreaking, in particular.

And the bit with the refrigerator door in Ambient is gently hilarious.

It was after reading Womack's afterword to Neuromancer that I thought "I have to read something by a guy that writes like this!" So far, I am digging it.

 

[the Jester]

Currently reading Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock. As usual, his work is pretty dense, though this one isn't as dense as, say, Cryptonomicon. It's a big fat book with a lot of moving parts. I'm loving it.

 

[LouisFort]

Started reading The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin.
I've read just up to 30 pages, but I already like it a lot

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Started reading The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin.
I've read just up to 30 pages, but I already like it a lot

People bash it for being more contemplative than the earlier Earthsea books, and it definitely feels like she intended to end the series with this book, but I really like it. I think it stands up well in the death of magic fantasy subgenre.

And bonus, it helped inspire a new official Shadowdark class, which is another point in its favor.

 

[Autumnal]

For those who dig such things: Audible is having one of its periodic sales on Warhammer audiobooks. Pretty much the whole Black Library catalog is $4-7 this month, at least for members.

 

[jian]

Just read Once Was Willem by M R Carey, which was pointed out to me by this thread, and I’m grateful. It’s a remarkable piece of work, in my opinion - a superhero story set in 12th century England (during the Anarchy) and told using the tropes of English folklore and gnostic mysticism rather than using pulp and atomic science tropes from the USA in the 20th century. It’s something of a proof of concept - it’s clear that’s what Carey set out to do, and he’s very much succeeded.

It’s also an affectionate lampshading of some getting the team together cliches (the other clear basis for the story is Seven Samurai, generally acknowledged as the origin of the team recruitment tropes we’ve all seen a million times since) - how likely is it that one small village in Staffordshire could attract or create seven mostly separate magical metahumans, even if two of them are created by the villain? And it’s an interesting little confluence of the writer’s work and interests, from superhero comics to Vertigo comics to The Rampart Trilogy (a not dissimilar story but set in post-apocalyptic northern England; Carey lives in Liverpool). Recommended.

 

[soviet]

Started on the Horus Heresy books. The first one, Horus Rising by Dan Abnett, really surprised me with how good it was. I'm on book three at the moment and they're still pretty good. I'm not going to do the whole thing, my plan is to read the first five and the last four or so, picking out some more Dan Abnett books in the middle.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Started on the Horus Heresy books. The first one, Horus Rising by Dan Abnett, really surprised me with how good it was. I'm on book three at the moment and they're still pretty good. I'm not going to do the whole thing, my plan is to read the first five and the last four or so, picking out some more Dan Abnett books in the middle.

I just discovered this, but -- the whole thing is 54 novels! That'd be like a second job! It could take years, depending how attentive a reader you were. (Also, I picked up the first book. I'm a sucker for things of surprising quality.)

 

[gban007]

I just discovered this, but -- the whole thing is 54 novels! That'd be like a second job! It could take years, depending how attentive a reader you were. (Also, I picked up the first book. I'm a sucker for things of surprising quality.)

54 plus 10 siege of terra novels. It took me a few years reading them all, roughly two a month, but I did enjoy them some definitely more worth your time than others