What are you reading in 2026?

[Voadam]

I just polished off The Gate of the Feral Gods, the fourth book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and I'm happy about how it seems to be a return to form for the series.

Mostly.

I kind of outsmarted myself here, having picked this one up in ebook format at the same time as the previous book in the series, which means that I missed out on the "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret" novella tidbit for this book as well. Given that I still haven't gotten the print copy (which is the only place said novella can be found) of the third book from the library, I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just give up on the novella altogether; reserving and waiting to pick up multiple books just for a few pages of original content seems like overkill.

But I digress. Dinniman seems to have restrained his inclination to indulge in the particulars of the absurd nature of the next dungeon floor. Said particulars are still to be found, of course—"restrained" is a far cry from "abandoned"—but they don't seem to dominate the story the way that they did before. There's more focus on the characters, as well as how they're making use of what they have to solve the situations they find themselves in, and I think the story is stronger for it. It helps that the various plot threads laid down before are starting to come together in satisfying ways, even as more are laid down. Plus the ending packed quite a wallop, in a very good way.

So yeah, I'm still enjoying the series, to the point where I'm eager to find out where it goes from here.

Was three the subway one with the map stuff where he says most won't get that aspect of it from his storytelling, but he's going for it anyway? I was one of those who did not get or enjoy the map aspects of it. I still enjoyed that one for the other aspects of the story, but it was my least favorite of the series.

 

[Alzrius]

Was three the subway one with the map stuff where he says most won't get that aspect of it from his storytelling, but he's going for it anyway? I was one of those who did not get or enjoy the map aspects of it. I still enjoyed that one for the other aspects of the story, but it was my least favorite of the series.

Yeah, that was the third book.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading the Mirrorshades anthology. On the whole pretty good. There were only a handful of stories I didn't like. Rudy Rucker's writing just doesn't vibe with me.

Now I'm reading Greg Egan's Permutation City.

 

[Autumnal]

Catch-up time.

I had to shelve a reread of the Book of the New Sun. Just too damn much stress right now.

Four Lost Cities, by Analee Newitz. Fascinating and delightful, using four very different cities to discuss endings that aren’t necessarily calamities. I learned a lot and never felt overwhelmed. A good book for GMs and authors.

The Hidden Language of Cats, by Sarah Brown. The authors author is a zoologist who’s built a career studying cat/cat and cat/human communication, and part of the fun is learning how experiments are designed in this field and what results they get. She’s also a mother with a cat-owning family and a volunteer at a cat shelter, and draws on those experience as well as science, for a very holistic perspective. (“Holistic” is certainly a poor much-abused word, but it’s the right one here.) I learned a bunch and had a great deal of fun. Well worth cat fanciers’ time.

Red Sonja: Consumed. Gail Simone is, it turns out, as good a novelist as she is a comics writer. Read this if you like swords and sorcery, or are curious about the genre. Note that in recent times, the chain mail bikini has gone away except for on covers, and so has the thing where she can only submit to a man who beats her in battle. This is a character who wears sensible armor and makes her own relationship choices. So this’ll disappoint you if you need those.

 

[Parmandur]

Working my way through Tailored Realities, the new anthology collecting Brandon Sanderson's Science Fiction short stories and novellas. In another era, he would have done well with magazine submissions, I think, a very old school Golden Age sci-fi edge.

 

[prabe]

Working my way through Tailored Realities, the new anthology collecting Brandon Sanderson's Science Fiction short stories and novellas. In another era, he would have done well with magazine submissions, I think, a very old school Golden Age sci-fi edge.

As someone who enjoys, and has at times preferred, shorter fiction, I am always saddened when I think how the market for it has contracted (collapsed? imploded?) even just in my lifetime.

 

[Parmandur]

As someone who enjoys, and has at times preferred, shorter fiction, I am always saddened when I think how the market for it has contracted (collapsed? imploded?) even just in my lifetime.

Yeah, even since I was a teenager in the late 90s it is a total collapse. Heck, not even just short fiction, the same marketplace and technological forces that were the death knell of literary magazines are destroying my favorite form of book now. mass market paperbacks were everything in my youth and now they are going extinct:

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

After years of steady sales declines, the format will largely disappear next year.

www.publishersweekly.com

 

[jian]

Read Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today by Naomi Alderman, which is an excellent discussion of how social media and the modern information environment are terrible for us. She posits that, as has happened a few times before in human history, we’re in an information crisis and haven’t adapted to it, and suggests various ways to do so (such as regulation of social media and news sources, the Brick app and device to turn off apps, and whitelisting for one’s own feed). I don’t agree entirely with her thesis but it’s a worthwhile read.

 

[prabe]

Yeah, even since I was a teenager in the late 90s it is a total collapse. Heck, not even just short fiction, the same marketplace and technological forces that were the death knell of literary magazines are destroying my favorite form of book now. mass market paperbacks were everything in my youth and now they are going extinct:

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks

After years of steady sales declines, the format will largely disappear next year.

www.publishersweekly.com

I prefer trade paperbacks as a physical form factor, but there is (or at least was) a use-case for mass-market paper; I suppose for much of that use-case the replacement is e-books. Oh, well.

 

[Parmandur]

I prefer trade paperbacks as a physical form factor, but there is (or at least was) a use-case for mass-market paper; I suppose for much of that use-case the replacement is e-books. Oh, well.

I do like a decent trade paperback too, but there is just something about that small pulpy book form...

Long story short is, yeah, basically ebooks and smartphones means the market for people looking for a quick and cheap read at airports and drugstores basically dissappeared...or at least shrunk to the point where the retailers and distributors have dried up and thrown in the towel.