What are you reading in 2026?
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
Agree, Silver and Lead was better after the wholeNext up: October Daye book #19. It's about 50/50 that I give up on it but we'll see. I remember thinking the past couple of books had been long slogs, with so much time devoted to reminding us who the massive cast of characters is and not that much to the new story. (Edit: already going better than expected.)
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recursion/all of Faerie has been wound back 50 years storyline
Finished a few books on the plane.
Sweep of the Heart by Ilona Andrews is the latest in their Innkeeper series, and it’s a doozy. The protagonists run a hidden inn in Texas that caters to intergalactic travellers, and they’re asked to host the consort selection for the Seven Star Dominion, an alien constitutional monarchy. This is basically The Bachelor with space vampires, carnivorous trees, and where one of the tasks is a nine-hour game of Civilisation (the Dominion version) to test the candidates’ political and strategic nous. It’s a blast and I was quite impressed with how well the writers juggled dozens of characters but still made the intrigue and payoffs work.
Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell is a collection of her romantic short stories and they’re all pretty punchy. My favourite is probably the last story, In Waiting, which is about two characters waiting to be written into a story (and occasionally changing as the writer changes her mind, disconcertingly) and falling in love.
Under the White Gaze by Christopher Cheung, a Vancouver journalist, is mostly concerned about white gaze in journalism in Canada, and it’s fine as far as it goes. I like his four Ds of how people of colour are represented in media (Damaged, Darling, Delicious, Deviant), the basic point that Canada is in no way a post-racist society (and nor is anywhere else), and the general advice to other journalists on how to write about POCs, but it’s all rather superficial.
Sweep of the Heart by Ilona Andrews is the latest in their Innkeeper series, and it’s a doozy. The protagonists run a hidden inn in Texas that caters to intergalactic travellers, and they’re asked to host the consort selection for the Seven Star Dominion, an alien constitutional monarchy. This is basically The Bachelor with space vampires, carnivorous trees, and where one of the tasks is a nine-hour game of Civilisation (the Dominion version) to test the candidates’ political and strategic nous. It’s a blast and I was quite impressed with how well the writers juggled dozens of characters but still made the intrigue and payoffs work.
Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell is a collection of her romantic short stories and they’re all pretty punchy. My favourite is probably the last story, In Waiting, which is about two characters waiting to be written into a story (and occasionally changing as the writer changes her mind, disconcertingly) and falling in love.
Under the White Gaze by Christopher Cheung, a Vancouver journalist, is mostly concerned about white gaze in journalism in Canada, and it’s fine as far as it goes. I like his four Ds of how people of colour are represented in media (Damaged, Darling, Delicious, Deviant), the basic point that Canada is in no way a post-racist society (and nor is anywhere else), and the general advice to other journalists on how to write about POCs, but it’s all rather superficial.
Well, just because the problems with the electricity in my general area was apparently not completely solved during the previous planned maintenance, there is more planned maintenance to the electricity grid in my area tomorrow (06-10) from approximately 08:00 to 16:00 hours. Leaving me with no electricity during that period. Guess that I now have some more reading to do, and in particular continuing with Stephen King's "Salem's Lot", which I had not touched since the last outage.Well, due to planned maintenance to the electricity grid in my area, it appears I will not have any electricity for about 8 hours (as planned, but who knows how long it will last in practice) on next thursday the 17th. So no computer, no internet, no streaming movies or series, no watching a DVD, no tv, no music, no backed bread for breakfast or lunch, and perhaps worst of all: no coffee.
Oh, the horror.
Guess that means that I now no longer have any excuse to not read any of the unread books I have sitting on my shelf. Starting with "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King.
Apparently, the universe has spoken to me: please read more books.
Yes, the universe is clearly telling me to read more books.
This premise reminds me somewhat of the novel Way Station by Clifford Simak.
Retros_x
Hero
Objectively thats true probably but I finished book one and book 2 I still havent finished it yet, I am somewhere in the middle. I havent officially DNFed the book and the series, because I am think maybe I am coming back. But I remember that book 2 expanded the world and the game in way that didnt really hook me. This level of murderous circus clowns just didnt hook me, I really did not care about the story there. It felt like - ok the world gets more expansive, but not more interesting, so ultimately just more bloated (for me). This together with my general disliking of litRPG.. I don't know.
Read Swan Song by Charles Spencer. Spencer is best known for being Princess Diana’s younger brother and having given a heartfelt and well-received eulogy at his sister’s funeral which was highly critical of both the tabloid media who drove her to her death and of the Royal Family whom he felt treated her very poorly. The book came out this year, just ahead of no doubt many other books and TV programmes about the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death.
Spencer does well at presenting himself as a stoic man and loving brother who was pushed very far by both the press and the House of Windsor; he is certainly not the most reliable narrator (he’s already been criticised for a minor factual error in the book) but his love for his sister and his anger at those who contributed to her hounding and death are very convincingly sincere. How much difference this will make when the RF are more unpopular than ever but remain quite unabolishable is hard to know, but I suppose it’s another drop in the ocean.
Spencer does well at presenting himself as a stoic man and loving brother who was pushed very far by both the press and the House of Windsor; he is certainly not the most reliable narrator (he’s already been criticised for a minor factual error in the book) but his love for his sister and his anger at those who contributed to her hounding and death are very convincingly sincere. How much difference this will make when the RF are more unpopular than ever but remain quite unabolishable is hard to know, but I suppose it’s another drop in the ocean.
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I just finished The sixth faction by Veronica Roth, it's the first in a duology that changes the events of The Divergent series. By having and incident happen during the choosing ceremony that alter's Tris's choice on which faction to go into. That incident causes other ripples that end up having the events unfold very differently from the original book at least as far as characters who live vs who ended up dying.
I honestly, can't wait for the next book but it won't be out till next year.
Sorry if my thoughts don't drive deep into the sociological aspects of the setting, how the female and male characters are handled and all that.
I honestly, can't wait for the next book but it won't be out till next year.
Sorry if my thoughts don't drive deep into the sociological aspects of the setting, how the female and male characters are handled and all that.
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