What are you reading in 2026?

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, Severian is NOT a ideal person by a long shot. Very unreliable narrator and certainly a lot of an antihero as protagonists go. Wolfe's pretty clear in showing Sev's ignoble aspects despite his philosophizing and pretensions.

 

[jian]

I haven't read the source book, but the quote did not sound like the description of an ideal to me.

That’s true. But I also don’t think the statement is particularly true - people don’t believe what they’re forced to believe, and they generally can’t force others to believe things about them. I’d also say it’s unclear what’s meant by strong or weak - the definition sounds like a projection or an ideal, and not one I like at that.

 

[jian]

Wolfe isn’t holding it up for unqualified admiration, either. But the language is so good.

Sounds like I need to read some Aiken.

Hope you like her work. I think I always have, coming back to her ever since we read a passage from Black Hearts in Battersea in class when I was eight.

 

[Mannahnin]

“Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real. What is the Autarch but a man who believes himself Autarch and makes others believe by the strength of it?”

I haven't read the source book, but the quote did not sound like the description of an ideal to me.

That’s true. But I also don’t think the statement is particularly true - people don’t believe what they’re forced to believe, and they generally can’t force others to believe things about them. I’d also say it’s unclear what’s meant by strong or weak - the definition sounds like a projection or an ideal, and not one I like at that.

I don't think we're meant to believe it's true. It's Severian's opinion (himself a young, ambitious judicial torturer and executioner), and these two sentences tell us a couple of related things about the character and give us clues about how he's going to act and what he's going to do in the future.

Wolfe loves unreliable narrators, some of whom are so out of ignorance/limited perspective, and some of whom are deliberately misleading for one reason or another. But Wolfe gives you lots of clues to figure stuff out despite them.

 

[jian]

I don't think we're meant to believe it's true. It's Severian's opinion (himself a young, ambitious judicial torturer and executioner), and these two sentences tell us a couple of related things about the character and give us clues about how he's going to act and what he's going to do in the future.

Wolfe loves unreliable narrators, some of whom are so out of ignorance/limited perspective, and some of whom are deliberately misleading for one reason or another. But Wolfe gives you lots of clues to figure stuff out despite them.

I haven’t read The Book of the New Sun, so I was parsing the statement as given, and it does indeed sound like an ideal - of Severian about himself and his view of the world - which I personally find unpalatable, and I’m glad I’m meant to.

 

[Alzrius]

I just finished Carl's Doomsday Scenario, book two of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be.

It's been some time since a contemporary (i.e. not completed yet) fiction series caught my interest, and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that (so far), this one is another entry on that list. There's not much to say about this book that I didn't already say about its predecessor, but that's not a bad thing, as it means it maintains the first book's magic. I've already put a hold down at my local library for the third book, and I hope I'll enjoy it just as much.