What are you reading in 2026?

[jian]

So, this is clearly my month for reading classic science fiction, since my library app (Libby) popped up with Dune by Frank Herbert as a skip the line read, to finish inside a week, so I read it.

And it’s… okay. Solidly three stars out of five.

Let me unpack that a bit.

The good: It’s a clearly written and readable epic with a lot of lore, world-building, and interesting concepts. It’s nearly the equal of LotR in being a constructed and thought out saga. I can see why it’s been so influential on everything from Star Wars to 40K to Wheel of Time. I think a lot of the approaches and ideas, such as making ecology a big part of the setting, were new at the time (1965).

The bad: There is a lot of tell, not show. Herbert loves explaining stuff laboriously (almost as much as Tolkien) and I really didn’t need the appendices or a made-up word that means “delayed gratification”. The political and ideological biases - which are basically conservative, even libertarian - are obvious, tiresome, and in many cases historically inaccurate.

Overall, I’m inclined to view this the same way as I see Atlas Shrugged - it’s an epic work of polemical science fiction set in an alternate reality where the laws of physics and psychology are different enough from ours to make the story possible. It doesn’t have a lot to say about our world or our future. Im glad I didn’t read it when I was younger and more impressionable. I certainly have no interest in the sequels.

 

[Older Beholder]

I've just finished reading 3 books by Sayaka Murata.

Convenience Store Woman
Earthlings
Vanishing World

I enjoyed them all, but they got a bit dark, especially 'Earthlings' which catches you off guard when the cover looks like this...

 

[Alzrius]

The political and ideological biases - which are basically conservative, even libertarian - are obvious, tiresome, and in many cases historically inaccurate.

I'm a big fan of the ACOUP blog as well, and while I haven't read Dune yet (I have a copy of the trilogy on my shelf waiting to be read), one of the first things I'm going to do after I get around to it is read those articles.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dune is very anti-religion and pro mind altering drugs for the tastes of most conservatives.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Finished Alexander's Necrotech. An enjoyable read, but not particularly deep. It brings the action and ultraviolence in spades. But its worldbuilding clearly owes something to either Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun.

Now I'm re-reading John Shirley's Eclipse Penumbra. He was actually in town for a convention recently, but the price of a single-day ticket was way too high for me.

Already I am struck by the following quote, published in 1988:

“Almost anyone could be Fascist under the right circumstances. If they get scared enough. That's why we have to fight so hard. Because it never quite goes away.”

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've lost interest completely they've fallen off so much.

I have no idea if I'm going to pick up The Winds of Winter if it ever comes out. I wouldn't say I have zero interest, but I also find the thought of reading a thousand-page-plus book to be just unappealing.

 

[Autumnal]

I’m currently reading The Wolf In the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky, a historical fantasy with an Inuit narrator. It is very flavorful:

A walrus has hips like a fat woman, big wide hips that sway when she swims. Ataata taught that if you look carefully, you can see the woman the walrus used to be. The flippers don’t join together until far up her body, as if her legs have been slow to transform. Or perhaps the walrus has always been a walrus, but is now on her way to becoming a woman. It wouldn’t be the first time a sea animal changed to a human, or a wolf to a whale, or a man to a woman. These things happen all the time.

The walrus swimming beside my kayak was still a walrus, for now. A big female with long face bristles, as if a sea urchin had perched upon her snout, enjoyed the view, and decided to stay.

The cover blurb and introduction say that an encounter between these Inuit folks way the heck east of most of their people and Vikings in Vinland to the south. The first 60 pages (so far) of 549 are purely about the Inuit there fascinating, and contain a beautifully executed character twist about the narrator.

This book is particularly good in audio form, because the narrator has done her homework on Inuit pronunciation. I might fumble words like “angakkuq”, but she does not.

 

[jian]

I’m currently reading The Wolf In the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky, a historical fantasy with an Inuit narrator. It is very flavorful:



The cover blurb and introduction say that an encounter between these Inuit folks way the heck east of most of their people and Vikings in Vinland to the south. The first 60 pages (so far) of 549 are purely about the Inuit there fascinating, and contain a beautifully executed character twist about the narrator.

This book is particularly good in audio form, because the narrator has done her homework on Inuit pronunciation. I might fumble words like “angakkuq”, but she does not.

Reminds me of Moniquill Blackgoose’s books (To Shape A Dragon’s Breath, To Ride a Rising Storm; I’m reading the latter at the moment) which are set in an alternate* early 18th century where much of North America is occupied by descendants of Vikings, mostly from the point of view of the indigenous people in not-Massachusetts being colonised by them.

*Yes, it has dragons.

 

[Autumnal]

That sounds like something I should read. Thanks!

ETA: so far, Brodsky seems to be working within an actual historical moment. There was an Inuit migration from Alaska over to Baffin Island about thentime of this story, and the Vinlanders were there then, and there’s an interesting fragment of saga that’s a seed for the story. Less archeological evidence for the totemic spirits, though, or the gods seen in visions. We’ll see how it goes; I’m continuing to have a great time with it.

 

[Autumnal]

Pfeah. Another bad reading experience. The Wolf In The Whale is divided into five parts. I enjoyed part one without reservation. Part two is dominated by a brutal rape and ongoing psychological and physical abuse. It’s very well rendered. But I don’t want to immerse myself in rape right now. I’ve set aside for some other time.

After some yammering with friends and acquaintances, I’m experimenting with a change of focus, to essays and short stories (up through novellas). Not that there are no horror and other stories focusing on sexual assault, or anything like that. But there are stories focusing on other things, single-author collections by authors who don’t write about it at length, and so on. Likewise essays - I’ve got some Umberto Eco and Lewis Thomas and Ursula K. Le Guin volumes to start with.
Will it last? Who knows? Ifs nice to feel I’m taking a sensible change of pace right for the moment, whatever comes next.