What are you reading in 2026?

[Autumnal]

Burning Chrome by William Gibson. A collection mostly of pre-Neuromancer short stories, including several that built out the Sprawl setting (“New Rose Hotel”, “Johnny Mnemonic”, “Burning Chrome”). Others range from present day weird fiction (“The Gernsback Continuum”) to Gateway-like future humanity facing an utterly mysterious hyperspace network (“Hinterlands”) to very 80s near futures (“Dogfight”, “Red Star, Winter Orbit”, “The Winter Market”). Even the pieces that have aged poorly have a lot of merit, and I enjoyed the reread.

Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years by Paula Fredrikson. This is great. Erickson organizes her material thematically, with separate chapters on topics like canon formation, hierarchy, and relations with civil authority and society. I wasn’t sure I’d like that, but she makes it work. I learned a lot and gained fresh perspective on bits I already knew. She integrates the use of Greek and Latin super smoothly - it reminded me of good sf/fantasy usage, respectful of the reader and encouraging with the sense that understanding the sounds and shades of meaning these people used helps us understand them more fully. Highly recommended.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. This is the first book I’ve read by Hurley, wow. It’s excellent, in a really brutal way. It’s set a hundred years in the future, with six corporations ruling a world a world suffering massive devastation from war and pollution. There’s a complex situation with Martian colonists turned independent, some returned to Earth to help restore it, with the corporations at war with them. The narrator is a young South American woman in the midst of all this, who finds she’s having strange problems with the teleportation system soldiers use. Complications ensue in a deeply satisfying way. Hurley pulls zero punches with the violence of combat or the degradation the characters must live with. It’s not an unmitigated crapsack of a story or a grimdark resolution, but this absolutely not going to be what some readers want or need, and I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone into reading a story that’ll just make them miserable. But if you’re up for this kind of thing, it’s superb.

 

[Hriston]

I've been continuing to read the fantasy novels of William Morris and, so far this year, have finished The Wood Beyond the World and Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair.

TWBtW was surprisingly dark for the most part. After reading a few of his novels, I think Morris had some issues with pacing. The action gets kind of bogged down in the love triangle (quadrangle?) at the center of the story but then is resolved perhaps a little too easily and without the protagonist's direct involvement except through violence. The way the novel ended was also surprisingly light-hearted, but the fantasy elements were interesting, especially the scary dwarf. This was probably the most fantastic of all Morris's novels I've read so far.

CCaGtF isn't really much of a fantasy, although it seems to get classified as such. It's more of an adventure tale. Like Morris's other novels, the resolution seems to be on easy mode for the protagonist who comes off as someone who does everything perfectly and for whom circumstances deliver success.

Now I'm off to read The Well at the World's End.

 

[jian]

I've been continuing to read the fantasy novels of William Morris and, so far this year, have finished The Wood Beyond the World and Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair.

TWBtW was surprisingly dark for the most part. After reading a few of his novels, I think Morris had some issues with pacing. The action gets kind of bogged down in the love triangle (quadrangle?) at the center of the story but then is resolved perhaps a little too easily and without the protagonist's direct involvement except through violence. The way the novel ended was also surprisingly light-hearted, but the fantasy elements were interesting, especially the scary dwarf. This was probably the most fantastic of all Morris's novels I've read so far.

CCaGtF isn't really much of a fantasy, although it seems to get classified as such. It's more of an adventure tale. Like Morris's other novels, the resolution seems to be on easy mode for the protagonist who comes off as someone who does everything perfectly and for whom circumstances deliver success.

Now I'm off to read The Well at the World's End.

The Wood Beyond the World is a fantastic title and also reminds me of Narnia, specifically the Wood Between the Worlds in The Magician’s Nephew, I wonder if it was an inspiration. The story is less like that, of course, but interesting in its Arthurian motifs.

 

[jian]

Burning Chrome by William Gibson. A collection mostly of pre-Neuromancer short stories, including several that built out the Sprawl setting (“New Rose Hotel”, “Johnny Mnemonic”, “Burning Chrome”). Others range from present day weird fiction (“The Gernsback Continuum”) to Gateway-like future humanity facing an utterly mysterious hyperspace network (“Hinterlands”) to very 80s near futures (“Dogfight”, “Red Star, Winter Orbit”, “The Winter Market”). Even the pieces that have aged poorly have a lot of merit, and I enjoyed the reread.

Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years by Paula Fredrikson. This is great. Erickson organizes her material thematically, with separate chapters on topics like canon formation, hierarchy, and relations with civil authority and society. I wasn’t sure I’d like that, but she makes it work. I learned a lot and gained fresh perspective on bits I already knew. She integrates the use of Greek and Latin super smoothly - it reminded me of good sf/fantasy usage, respectful of the reader and encouraging with the sense that understanding the sounds and shades of meaning these people used helps us understand them more fully. Highly recommended.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. This is the first book I’ve read by Hurley, wow. It’s excellent, in a really brutal way. It’s set a hundred years in the future, with six corporations ruling a world a world suffering massive devastation from war and pollution. There’s a complex situation with Martian colonists turned independent, some returned to Earth to help restore it, with the corporations at war with them. The narrator is a young South American woman in the midst of all this, who finds she’s having strange problems with the teleportation system soldiers use. Complications ensue in a deeply satisfying way. Hurley pulls zero punches with the violence of combat or the degradation the characters must live with. It’s not an unmitigated crapsack of a story or a grimdark resolution, but this absolutely not going to be what some readers want or need, and I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone into reading a story that’ll just make them miserable. But if you’re up for this kind of thing, it’s superb.

Wow, I bounced off The Light Brigade and returned it to the library, I should see if I can find it again and give it another go.

Also read a certain amount about early Christians recently in various places (such as A History of thr Roman Empire in 21 Women), that all sounds very interesting too.

 

[Parmandur]

The Wood Beyond the World is a fantastic title and also reminds me of Narnia, specifically the Wood Between the Worlds in The Magician’s Nephew, I wonder if it was an inspiration. The story is less like that, of course, but interesting in its Arthurian motifs.

Very explicit influence, yes.

 

[jian]

Very explicit influence, yes.

I can imagine Lewis reading that bit out down the pub and all the other Inklings groaning at the really obvious reference. Rather like running a D&D game that’s set in Westeros with the serial numbers barely filed off.

 

[Hriston]

The Wood Beyond the World is a fantastic title and also reminds me of Narnia, specifically the Wood Between the Worlds in The Magician’s Nephew, I wonder if it was an inspiration. The story is less like that, of course, but interesting in its Arthurian motifs.

William Morris is acknowledged to have been inspirational to the Inklings in general. The Lady in TWBtW, with her dwarf servant, bears a strong resemblance to Narnia's White Witch, IMO, and CCaGtF is said to have been an important influence on Prince Caspian, although it's been a long time since I've read PC, so I'm not sure how it might resemble CCaGtF other than being a coming of age story about a young king. I'm curious what Arthurian motifs you see in tWBtW, other than the protagonist being ensnared by a beautiful enchantress, of course.

Eta: Come to think of it, Jadis always did remind me of Morgana le Fay.

 

[jian]

William Morris is acknowledged to have been inspirational to the Inklings in general. The Lady in TWBtW, with her dwarf servant, bears a strong resemblance to Narnia's White Witch, IMO, and CCaGtF is said to have been an important influence on Prince Caspian, although it's been a long time since I've read PC, so I'm not sure how it might resemble CCaGtF other than being a coming of age story about a young king. I'm curious what Arthurian motifs you see in tWBtW, other than the protagonist being ensnared by a beautiful enchantress, of course.

The character types (the lady, the maid, the dwarf), the trickery by women (even for reasons Walter finds pardonable, which honestly seem to boil down to, “well, best make the best of it”), the knights giving Walter an obscure choice that results in him being king. It’s interesting that both the lady and maid are magicians. These are Arthurian tropes but also generic medieval mythical tropes, certainly not confined to just the Matter of Britain, I think.

(The Bear people and the introduction of agriculture is less like that, of course.)