What are you reading in 2025?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading Chuck Tingle's Lucky Day. Though there certainly are throughlines with his Tinglers, it's very much a different style. The book is all about how random chance can be horrific, or it can be freeing. Plenty of gore, too.

I re-read Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, for the first time in well over 30 years. Still a solid horror work, with monsters human and inhuman, as is par for the course in King's writing. Reading it on Kindle, though, didn't do the Bernie Wrightson illustrations justice.

Now I'm reading Ray Bradbury's The October Country.

 

[jian]

On something of a superhero comics kick at the moment and am interested to note a couple of new universes that have popped up in the last few years.

The one I'm reading at the moment is the Massive Universe, which is published by Image and mostly written by people who used to write Power Rangers, and it shows - if there's a common motif between our heroes it's that their powers come with helmeted colour-coded full bodysuits (very convenient for secret identities) and enhanced physical traits. The other theme is that our protagonists aren't particularly heroic people and try to work out what to do with suddenly getting superpowers. The ones I've read so far are;

• Rogue Sun: Dylan, a sullen high school bully, discovers that his deadbeat missing dad was Rogue Sun, the hero of New Orleans. He's left the powers in his dad's will and finds that they come with one lecturing and overbearing ghost dad. To his credit, Dylan does his best to be a hero, but is terrible at it.
• Radiant Black: Nathan, a failed writer with massive debts, returns to his hometown and reconnects with his old friend Marshall. He then finds an alien black hole that gives him gravity powers, which he sometimes shares with Marshall. There are other Radiants, and at least one has turned to crime.
• Supermassive: A crossover between various Massive heroes, including the two above but also Dead Lucky and Inferno Girl Red.

There's also Geoff Johns' Unnamed Universe (great creativity there, sport) published via Image again. These are really not particularly connected (or superhero) and are mostly sci-fi stories apparently happening in the same universe, such as:

• Geiger: Radioactive man wanders post-apocalyptic USA. Honestly better than it sounds.
• Junkyard Joe: Basically GI Robot, but well-written and probably the best of the bunch.
• Redcoat: Immortal redcoat (as in British soldier from the Revolutionary War) walks the earth.
• Rook: Bird-controlling sci-fi hero tries to save poorly terraformed planet.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I don't think Rook is part of Unnamed, it's just also part of the Ghost Machine imprint that Johns uses for them. And launched it at the same time. That and the fact that several titles that still haven't been published both really confused me.

 

[jian]

I don't think Rook is part of Unnamed, it's just also part of the Ghost Machine imprint that Johns uses for them. And launched it at the same time. That and the fact that several titles that still haven't been published both really confused me.

It’s honestly hard to know how any of the series join up - Redcoat turns up in a post credit scene (as it were) in Junkyard Joe but that’s about it. There is at least one piece of art with all four characters together, but I can’t see how it would work unless Geiger is immortal too (which he might be, I guess).

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I have a hard time enjoying audio books. The reasons are many, let’s just say reading text is an integral part of my reading pleasure.

But I can’t read at the gym, so presto audio books while working out. Currently listening to LeGuins Earthsea books, an old favourite. After that I plan a massive Isaac Asimov spree.

 

[Autumnal]

Thanks for the overview, @jian Do you particularly recommend any?

 

[jian]

Thanks for the overview, @jian Do you particularly recommend any?

All the Unnamed are fine in a straightforward Johns way, I’d probably recommend Junkyard Joe. I’m still getting my teeth into Massive - I do like Rogue Sun more than I thought I would, because while Dylan is a little (naughty word) from the get-go you can see how he got that way - pretty much all the adults are terrible - and there’s hope for him once he strikes out on his own.

 

[Retros_x]

I didn't touch Dungeon Crawler Carl for a year since I heard of it for the first time. I hate LitRPG, I alwas hated the trope of being part of a game and leveling up in a story and all that metagameplay being forced into a story. But everyone told me to give it a chance and that I would like it even as a LitRPG hater. And damn, they are right. I've started it yesterday and I am already 200 pages in. Its addictive like a good game. Its a fun and easy read but already had some hints of emotional depth and darkness (I know that it gets surprisingly deep later in the series according to reviews) and the weird mix of a dungeon crawler and a reality TV show works surprisingly well.

Its also surprisingly gorey, the action makes a lot of fun, I like the dialogue and easy accessible writing style - yeah I can already understand how everybody likes this.

My initial impression flattened a bit. I finished it yesterday and while the strenghts remain, I must say that unfortunately the author took something from videogames that I could've been good without: level grinding. In the middle of the book there are some boring passages where Carl and Princess Donut just slam boring fights to level up or loot and its just a bit... lame. That took to much inspiration from some games haha.

I also didn't like that the book just ended. A lot of storylines opened, some are even hinted to conclude or just continue much down further the line, and none storyline really finished. It honestly felt so much like a collection volume of a continous story published on a blog or something that I seriously wonder if that is the case?

I also wonder a bit about pacing, the dungeon is said to have 18 floors and the book series is supposed to end on volume 10. That means at some point the floors must finished in less page count, which feels weird because I was hoping the coming floors would be more complex than just some bland tunnels and rooms. But that is under the assumption that we see all 18 floors, maybe Carl breaks out at some point and starts a revolution.

The hinted world seems really fun though and I can't wait to discover more in the next volumes.

 

[jian]

Thanks for the overview, @jian Do you particularly recommend any?

Have finished Radiant Black vol 1 now and I must say I’m impressed by the character writing in this and in Rogue Sun, which is considerably more realistic and yet somehow woven into the superhero narrative than is usually the case in comics. There are at least a couple of scenes which have significant emotional punch. It’s very clear that while Dylan is an awful kid, his parents carry a lot of the blame for that, and their relationship was toxic for them both. Marshall and Nathan’s relationship is core to Radiant Black, but then Satomi (Radiant Red) comes in with her own story of breaking bad, which is honestly heartbreaking (no pun intended) - no wonder she gets a spin-off.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I also didn't like that the book just ended. A lot of storylines opened, some are even hinted to conclude or just continue much down further the line, and none storyline really finished. It honestly felt so much like a collection volume of a continous story published on a blog or something that I seriously wonder if that is the case?

IIRC yes, that is how the series started