What are you reading in 2025?

[SkidAce]

I'm still reading Anathem. I can admire the complex world-building and ambition, but...man. There is so much exposition, and that's not even counting the literal dictionary entries that are a significant part of the text. In a way, it's very old school sci-fi, with a bunch of scientists and technocrats arguing and explaining to each other (I like the way Socratic dialogue is acknowledged). I just wish more happened. Thankfully, things seems like they are about to pick up, as our narrator just got assaulted and now the conflict with the mysterious space travellers has begun.

But it's a slog. Maybe I should have finally checked War and Peace off my list, instead.

I felt Anthem was worth it. But yeah...its dense.

 

[prabe]

I felt Anthem was worth it. But yeah...its dense.

And Anathem is a big book, to be dense. Just saying.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Gygax thought that Lawful Good paladins should be killing orc children and babies. I suspect by early TSR standards (along with Weis & Hickman's religious upbringings), the Cataclysm was within the bounds of divine behavior.

Today's standards, obviously, are very different.

There is an awful lot of the religious aspects of Dragonlance taken pretty directly from their upbringings and then (in my opinion) awkwardly coated with a layer of Moorcock's Law and Chaos. That's one part of the setting that always felt...off to me, even in my most uncritical period of loving those books when I was a teenager.

 

[Autumnal]

I’m starting my current 100-book challenge with Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras. This is a 1953 fixup novel collecting a series of stories about super-intelligent children born to the survivors of a 1938 atomic power test disaster. Shiras’ work is repeatedly cited as a likely but not confirmed inspiration for the X-Men: the first part, the novella “In Hiding”, was published in Astounding in 1948, and Lee and Kirby were both reading it then. We can and therefore should see Claremontesque foreshadowing of Claremont’s run in Shiras being a woman. (Likely, Stan and Jack no more suspected someone named Wilmar was a woman than I did until reading an article about her and other female authors of the era, a few years ago.)

These are good stories. Very much of their time - the odds of heroic psychiatrists in a modern version are low. But they’re not just declared heroes. They’re good people, astute, sympathetic observers who recognize the super-intelligent teenagers for what they are and see it as their duty to help them find a safe place in which to mature and flourish, using their talents for the good of others and fulfilling their potential. This is, to put it mildly, not a bad dream to be reminded of. And there genuinely well-written passages and interesting characters. The youths aren’t carbon copies of each other, with wide-ranging interests but without any omni-competence. They have very different views of the world, and not all are altogether sane.

This is a very enjoyable read, and as much about the triumph of humane good will as, say, The Goblin Emperor. I’m deeply pessimistic in many ways, but I like to revisit lodestones of optimism from time. We can be marvelous together, even though we often aren’t.

Oh, also, a cover that’s been a favorite of mine since my own teens. This is the era:

(Cat breeding for unique combinations of traits is a significant plotline through all theee points.)

 

[pukunui]

Yeah, “you were all pissing me off so I dropped a mountain on you and then went and sulked for a few centuries” is far from ideal divine behaviour.

When we ran the DL modules the prevalent theory was that the Good gods had lost a massive series of bets with the Evil gods. Because the evil Gods cheat at poker.

“OK, so if we lose this hand then we’ll give you a five year head start and a hundred metallic dragon eggs!” (Loses hand.) Well, screw it, double or nothing!”

It's not just that. It's the idea that the time right before the Cataclysm was "too" good. The idea that goodness, without an equal amount of evilness to balance it out, is bad is anathema to me. Despite what Paladine says, the Kingpriest was not a good guy. He was a greedy, arrogant, jealous, paranoid, corrupt dude. His alignment would not still have been Lawful Good by the time the "fiery mountain" crashed onto him. And the idea that a loving, compassionate, good god like Paladine is cool with millions of innocents suffering in order to punish the wicked and set things up for the future is ... blech.

It's like when I recently reread Foundation. Given the context of our current dystopian era, I found the ending, whereby the Second Foundation has resumed control of the course of history, disturbing! The Seldon plan is presented as this wonderful, brilliant thing designed to reduce the length of the galactic dark ages and usher in a new era of civilization more quickly, but that new era of secretive psychic math-powered overlords sure ain't one I'd want to live in!

 

[Parmandur]

And Anathem is a big book, to be dense. Just saying.

That's the charm: it is always delightful when books are both thick and dense.

 

[prabe]

That's the charm: it is always delightful when books are both thick and dense.

I don't wildly disagree, but my first exposure to Stephenson was when I was recording audiobooks. He is not a novelist whose writing is shown in its best light in that setting, at least from the button-pusher's perspective. The narrators and the QA folks got to read/hear whole books, we button-pushers got 2.5-hour chunks distributed as best suited the studio managers' scheduling needs and whims. I got reading for pleasure back a couple of years ago, but reading doorstopping novels hasn't yet made it all the way back.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't wildly disagree, but my first exposure to Stephenson was when I was recording audiobooks. He is not a novelist whose writing is shown in its best light in that setting, at least from the button-pusher's perspective. The narrators and the QA folks got to read/hear whole books, we button-pushers got 2.5-hour chunks distributed as best suited the studio managers' scheduling needs and whims. I got reading for pleasure back a couple of years ago, but reading doorstopping novels hasn't yet made it all the way back.

Haven't listened to any of books as audio, interesting.

 

[prabe]

Haven't listened to any of books as audio, interesting.

Another side-effect of doing that gig for like fifteen years is that I mostly can't listen to people talk as a pleasure thing, whether that's audiobooks or podcasts or whatever, unless there's something to watch alongside (and watching the people talk isn't adequate). This--along with my bad experiences with Stephenson in that context--are entirely about what goes on in my head, they aren't snark on people who use audiobooks, or who enjoy Stephenson.

 

[Parmandur]

Another side-effect of doing that gig for like fifteen years is that I mostly can't listen to people talk as a pleasure thing, whether that's audiobooks or podcasts or whatever, unless there's something to watch alongside (and watching the people talk isn't adequate). This--along with my bad experiences with Stephenson in that context--are entirely about what goes on in my head, they aren't snark on people who use audiobooks, or who enjoy Stephenson.

I did quality assurance at Electronic Arts out of college. It was just 4 months, but mediocre video games still feel like work.