What are you reading in 2026?

[Zaukrie]

Guards, Guards

 

[Autumnal]

No question that some of Simmons’ work is vile trash. But his best work influenced both my taste and my writing style. Life is complex: it has real parts and imaginary parts.

Hey! Want a change of pace? Check this out:

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Back in school so school-assigned books are what I’m reading:

They Call you Back by Tim Z. Hernandez

The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo

The Lords of Misrule by X. J. Kennedy

The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser

 

[briggart]

I went through a Dungeon Crawler Carl bender and read all of them in a month or so, and looking forward to Book 8 in May. I thought that one was supposed to be the last book, given how over the top Book 7 was, but apparently the series will include 10 volumes, so I'm curious (and a bit worried*) how much more Dinniman can crank things up.


*

Spoiler: books 5-6-7

We already had a humanoid bear lady turned into a velociraptor, getting pregnant by an actual velociraptor, only to be turned back into a humanoid bear to give birth to some human-bear-raptor hybrid. Not to mention Meatus, a regular sized goblin who became a god after cutting off and grafting onto himself the dick of a hundreds meters tall god.

 

[Voadam]

Yesterday I finished the Doctor Who audio book of a Peter Davison (Doctor Five) Weeping Angel story involving Michaelangelo. It was fun, involved some time stuff, famous history looped in, and callbacks to David Tenant's (Doctor Ten's) Blink episode that introduced the Weeping Angels. I enjoyed the whole production including the audio play elements of crash effects and crowd noises and such. I am sure it was also fun for Davison or the writers knowing all the Davison-Tenant connections of Tenant being a big Davison fan as a kid who inspired him into acting and wanting to play the Doctor, and later stuff like Tenant eventually marrying Davison's daughter. Oddly for a Doctor Who story there was no regular companion, just temporary ones he meets and then leaves for this story.

I also finished the Batman Graphic novel The Cult from the 90s. Written by Jim Starlin I was pretty excited to see something by him (a name I recognized though not well) and a graphic novel I had not heard of at all.

I was unfortunately quite disappointed in both the story and the batman characterization. The celebration of Batman as a hard man who can cross lines and cause damage the Army cannot because of its restrictions on targets and methods, the abandoning people to die so he can push on to get to confront the main villain a little quicker, the exulting in causing pain. The building up of the supernatural immortal villain who had criminal records going back a century that gets exposed but then not following that up at all. The absurdly oversized monster truck batmobile struck me as ridiculous and not fun. The batman use of guns.

 

[Richards]

I'm reading a novella I picked up at a bookstore simply because it caught my eye: The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, the novella which formed the basis for the movie Mothra. It's a translation by Jeffrey Angles, based on the original work by Shin'ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta. Each one wrote about a third of the novel and then passed it along to the next guy, a process called rire shosetsu, or "relay novels." The novella itself is only 44 pages long, with a 70-page essay by the translator explaining the historical background of the novella and movie.

As a long-time Godzilla (and Mothra) fan, I couldn't resist.

Johnathan

 

[Autumnal]

I remember feeling that way about Batman: The Cult at the time. I doted on Starlin’s cosmic series like Warlock and Dreadstar, so it was a huge disappointment. Never had the urge to reread it.

Speaking of the 1970s and cosmic stuff, though, in 1978, Samuel Delany and Howard Chaykin worked together on a graphic novel called Empire. This is its opening page. (Students of the era will note the symptoms of Byron Preiss layout.) the lesson there is one that’s stayed with me about what vast space really means.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm reading a novella I picked up at a bookstore simply because it caught my eye: The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, the novella which formed the basis for the movie Mothra. It's a translation by Jeffrey Angles, based on the original work by Shin'ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta. Each one wrote about a third of the novel and then passed it along to the next guy, a process called rire shosetsu, or "relay novels." The novella itself is only 44 pages long, with a 70-page essay by the translator explaining the historical background of the novella and movie.

As a long-time Godzilla (and Mothra) fan, I couldn't resist.

TIL that Mothra is a literary adaptation.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I remember feeling that way about Batman: The Cult at the time. I doted on Starlin’s cosmic series like Warlock and Dreadstar, so it was a huge disappointment. Never had the urge to reread it.

Speaking of the 1970s and cosmic stuff, though, in 1978, Samuel Delany and Howard Chaykin worked together on a graphic novel called Empire. This is its opening page. (Students of the era will note the symptoms of Byron Preiss layout.) the lesson there is one that’s stayed with me about what vast space really means.

View attachment 430925

ooooh - I've got to track that puppy down. I have never even seen or heard of it until today, which is CRAZY considering my life experiences to date.

 

[Autumnal]

Glad to help complicate your life.

Empire (graphic novel) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org