What are you reading in 2026?

[jian]

Rant incoming:

I've started Words of Radiance by Sanderson and I am already annoyed by his writing again, just 3 chapters in. I try to accept that I won't be happy with all of it and just try to enjoy the plot - which is enjoyable! But his worldbuilding and writing bothers me so much. The worlds feels so artificial, like a puzzle box for the main characters to solve, like a video game world just statically waiting for interaction.

It was blatant in the first SA-Book, with the Parshendi: the main characters faction fight this multiple-years long fight, half a decade if I remember correctly, against the Parshendi a secretful race of people. They never try to speak with them, they never parley, they never even try to find something out about their enemies (feels really unrealistic about big scale warfare) and than one of the main characters just gets the idea to look closely at one of the dead enemy bodies and suddenly realizes a big secret/revelation and I am just like what? In multiple years no one got the idea to just look at a dead body of the enemy?

The same thing but in smaller happens right at the start of book two: Shallan is on a ship, traveling at the coast, suddenly a rare creature swims next to the boat, but only their outer shell-like body is seen. She wonders how they look under it, but nobody knows! Because no sailor ever killed one, that brings bad luck! So she dives under water and looks at the creature - the sailors even have special masks so she can clearly see underwater. Its not just all sailors for centuries appereantly did a holy oath to never kill one (highly unbelievable), but not just that, no one ever got the idea to just look at them underwater, although they even have diving masks commonly lying around on their ships? And she just does this super easily, just in her dress, she jumps in the water and casually observes this creature that for centuries no one knew what it looks like? This is the most static world-building I have ever witnessed in a novel, its truly just full of NPCs doing nothing until a main character decides to do something.

The world doesnt behave like a world, it behaves like a mystery novel, it exists to be solved. Everything is placed by Sanderson with all the knowledge, it doesn't feel like it existed before the story, his cultures, religions, politics are all over-engineered constructs heavily cohesive and connected to the plot and the magic systems, the characters are all functions to the plot rather than fictional beings, the prose is militantly transparent - only existing to deliver information and move plot - and ironically it is lacking of genuine mystery: Because everything is a puzzle with an answer we know he will deliver at some point in the series. There is nothing in the world that feels irrational, truly strange or unknowable, because you know everything is connected like a tightly designed and engineered machine.

I think this is the difference between a designed world and an imagined world. Sanderson is an exceptional DESIGNER, but the greatest fantasy authors seem like people who actually visited a fantastic place and are reporting back, writing about it. The worlds of Tolkien, Le Guin, G.R.R.Martin (at least in the first ASOIAF novels), Susanna Clarke feel so much more real, lived-in, immersive.

Sorry for this rant, but I think it helps me to clarify my problems with Sanderson, but also help to manage my expectations. I think I can enjoy his book when I just accept it as a pure plot and discovery of mechanics.

Yeah, agree 100%. That’s how all of Sanderson’s books feel like to me - none of them were real before you opened the book and started playing the game. None of the characters have any life or breath, they’re just pushed around by you turning the page. It’s quite suffocating.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

The Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, agree 100%. That’s how all of Sanderson’s books feel like to me - none of them were real before you opened the book and started playing the game. None of the characters have any life or breath, they’re just pushed around by you turning the page. It’s quite suffocating.

I mean, all books feel that way to me...? Even a master like Tolkien can't avoid the artificiality of his creation, or even authors who being strictly realistic. Stories are fake.

 

[jian]

I mean, all books feel that way to me...? Even a master like Tolkien can't avoid the artificiality of his creation, or even authors who being strictly realistic. Stories are fake.

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I’d have to thoroughly disagree. Many writers are excellent at immersion and giving the reader a sense of a living, breathing world which was there before the story started and will be there after it ends, with characters who still exist and live human lives after they drift out of focus. Some writers, on the other hand, are so bad at this that they can make the real world feel artificial and paper-thin.

If the world doesn’t feel real, I don’t care about it or the characters, and I generally stop reading. Heck, Atlas Shrugged felt more real than most of Sanderson’s books, and that is written with zero empathy for character or reader.

 

[Alzrius]

My local library finally filled my reservation of the print edition of Gate of the Feral Gods, the fourth book of Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl saga.

Although I read the ebook version of this title back in January, I noted at the time that doing so made me miss out on the print-exclusive novella "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," which is itself a continuing narrative that occurs adjacent to the series' main plot. Given that I also noted how, by the seventh book in the series, that secondary narrative seems to be moving in the direction of intersecting with the primary storyline, it seemed worthwhile to work my way through those novellas.

As it stands, the fourth entry reveals some intrigue that's occurring among the "backstage" characters, as factions form among groups pursuing incompatible agendas, resulting in plans being made, clandestine observations being carried out, and lives being put at risk. It will be interesting to see the full scope of how this all ties together when the series reaches its conclusion, though for now it seems to still be in the process of setting things up.

 

[Parmandur]

I’d have to thoroughly disagree. Many writers are excellent at immersion and giving the reader a sense of a living, breathing world which was there before the story started and will be there after it ends, with characters who still exist and live human lives after they drift out of focus. Some writers, on the other hand, are so bad at this that they can make the real world feel artificial and paper-thin.

If the world doesn’t feel real, I don’t care about it or the characters, and I generally stop reading. Heck, Atlas Shrugged felt more real than most of Sanderson’s books, and that is written with zero empathy for character or reader.

Granted some are better than others at painting a picture, but in the end they are all artificial constructions that are pretty easy to see through. That really has fairly little to nothing to do with why I read.

 

[gban007]

Granted some are better than others at painting a picture, but in the end they are all artificial constructions that are pretty easy to see through. That really has fairly little to nothing to do with why I read.

I am in similar boat, I didnt pick up on those issues myself from Sandersons books , but I can see why it could be an issue / jarring for others.

I'm probably more like the others when it comes to video games though some I find quite immersive (MMOs, first person gsmes), in the world as such, vs others being more clearly games (Minecraft, isometric multi party RPGs). I enjoy both types, but are different experiences and need to be in right head space for either.

 

[jian]

Finished Gilded Rage by Jacob Silverman, a pretty succinct, punchy, and horrifying discussion of the pernicious and ubiquitous impact of technology oligarchs on the US (and thus the rest of the world), especially politics and public discourse, over the last decade or so. The cover shows Elon Musk and of course he’s pretty much the main villain here, but there’s plenty of room for others such as Alex Karp, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Jack Dorsey*, Mark Andreessen, Sam Bankman-Fried**, and Jeff Yass. And God almighty, they’re all such entitled whiner crybaby morons with only an atom-thin initial veneer of liberal civilisation, it’s barely believable. How did we end up here?

*One episode from the book I’d known nothing about was that the Saudi government and MBS ran a spy ring inside Twitter for years before Musk, and that’s how they identified and arrested anonymous dissidents on Twitter, probably with Dorsey’s knowledge and consent. It’s generally assumed that’s the case with many autocratic countries and many social media platforms, such as X and Meta.

**SBF at least has got his, for the time being. Silverman also co-wrote Easy Money with Ben McKenzie, which is a closer discussion of crypto (not that it doesn’t get some good chapters in this book), which is on my library waitlist. McKenzie of course recently produced (and directed, wrote, and starred in) Everyone is Lying to You for Money, which I recently watched and found entertaining.

 

[Retros_x]

I do think Words of Radiance isn't unreasonable as the highest rated novel in human history on Goodreads, but honestly if those things bother you it may not get better for you.

Another confirmation for me to not give a damn about goodreads. I mean I am only a few chapters in, but right now it seems like Sanderson at usual - without the great action scenes, but I am sure they will arrive.

I think his novels are okay, I do have fun with them from time to time. But I think his "magnum opus" might be the one that actually works the least for me. Because a lore puzzle over 1200 pages is just... I dont know what, but definitely not my definition of epic fantasy.

I certainly wouldn't compare his world building to three of the greatest fantasy writers of all time and George R. R. Martin.

He needs to withstand this comparison though, because he commonly gets called "the god of fantasy", the best modern writer of epic fantasy and when one of his books is higher rated on goodreads than all of these greatest fantasy writers. IMO he utterly fails in that regard and it feels so weirdly that so many are not bothered by stuff like the examples I posted. I honestly think I would enjoy a video game much more where he designed the world and the magic systems than I will ever enjoy his novels. A Mistborn videogame would be so sick. But as a novelist he bothers me a lot. I think the frustrating part of it is that I do have fun from time to time with it. He is "good enough" that I don't stop reading it completely, but it is dissapointing enough in so many areas that its frustrating to me. Its a weird and uncommon place to be in for me. Normally I like books enough to not be bothered too much with the flaws or I DNF them, but Sanderson is right on the edge for me. I just wish he had more natural worldbuilding, deeper characters and a less bland prose that is weirdly bloated at the same time, than his work would be awesome to me. Because I do like the plot and I love his action scenes.

Granted some are better than others at painting a picture, but in the end they are all artificial constructions that are pretty easy to see through. That really has fairly little to nothing to do with why I read.

Of course all novels are fictional, we are not talking about the fact itself, but the point is that good novelist build an illusion of reality and immerse you in it. The characters could exist, the world could exist. Sandersons worlds are way too artifical that I ever could feel that way about his work. He only cares about his twists and how to get there and his characters are only functional to that.

Also good novels have layered prose full of subtext. Never gonna happen with Sanderson, he reads almost like a screenplay (with bad dialogue) that just states what happens. Often I read fans defending him with that they appreciate the brevity and lack of unnessary flourishes - but they create a false dichotomy. You can have clear prose with no expansive flourishes - but also have imaginative prose, thoughtful metaphors, subtext, rythm. Sanderson lacks all of that.

 

[Parmandur]

Another confirmation for me to not give a damn about goodreads. I mean I am only a few chapters in, but right now it seems like Sanderson at usual - without the great action scenes, but I am sure they will arrive.

Sanderson himself thinks it is survivorshio bias, to be fair: fairly few people who gave bad reviews for Way of Kings are going to get through Words of Radiance. For what it is worth, WorR not only has good action scenes, it probably his best ones, and ones that may specifically appeal to you.

He needs to withstand this comparison though

Why? Not to nesnarky. I'm really not sure why any author "needs" to withstand comparisons to any other.

he commonly gets called "the god of fantasy"

Never heard him called a "god"...?

it feels so weirdly that so many are not bothered by stuff like the examples I posted

Here's the thing, I wouldn't day you are wrong with anything you said. Those issues simply don't bother me pretty much at all. They aren't irritants really even in any amount. It isn't something I am putting aside or putting up with, they simply don't phase me.

I think the frustrating part of it is that I do have fun from time to time with it. He is "good enough" that I don't stop reading it completely, but it is dissapointing enough in so many areas that its frustrating to me. Its a weird and uncommon place to be in for me. Normally I like books enough to not be bothered too much with the flaws or I DNF them, but Sanderson is right on the edge for me. I just wish he had more natural worldbuilding, deeper characters and a less bland prose that is weirdly bloated at the same time, than his work would be awesome to me. Because I do like the plot and I love his action scenes.

All valid. Enjoyable but with irritation is easily more annoying than something you feel like writing off entirely.

Of course all novels are fictional, we are not talking about the fact itself, but the point is that good novelist build an illusion of reality and immerse you in it. The characters could exist, the world could exist.

Right, I get that. But even the best of such illusions on offer, say Jane Austen, don't really give me that immersion trick. I can "see thtough* them all pretty much the same as WITH Sanderson, or something extremely artifical like Pilgrim's Progress. I am lookijg to a novel to explore ideas, not feel an illusion. All fiction is for me a series of clearly artificial scenarios to provoke thought (Sanderson's underlying theme of means versus ends in ethics is one I really appreciate ciate, for example).

Also good novels have layered prose full of subtext

Layed prose is a nice to have, sure. Not all novels need thst particular feature to be good.