What are you reading in 2026?

[Retros_x]

Institutions corrupt over time.

Yes I get that, but again: it doesn't read like authors intent to me. It feels more like a retroactive explanation and interpretation in good-will.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes I get that, but again: it doesn't read like authors intent to me. It feels more like a retroactive explanation and interpretation in good-will.

It is metat xtual, because I have heard Jordan talk about his goals and themes.

 

[Richards]

I finished the last of the "Expendables" series - book 4, The Venom of Argus by Richard Avery - and am saddened he didn't write any more in the series. So now I'm reading Angel of Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the latest in the "Agent Pendergast" series (although I recently saw a prequel in hardback; I'll have to wait for that to hit paperback and pick it up). This continues where the last book in the series (The Cabinet of Dr. Leng) left off, with the main characters going back in time to 1880s New York City. The thing i liked about this series was how it was grounded in the plausible; that's gone out the window in the last three books, especially, as all of a sudden space aliens and time travel became plot points. I'm really just riding this story out, as I no longer enjoy the series as I used to.

Johnathan

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Aunt moved to assisted living. Inherited many classic SF/F novels.

The prize is no doubt the Dick/Brunner Double Dr Futurity/Slavers of Space

The surprise is my aunt or maybe my grandfather loved MZB to the extent they had a fanzine re: Darkover

Will def read the Cherryh and re-read Dune and F451 and Bored of the Rings

Am willing to give Burrough’s non-Martian books another chance; same with the many Nortons.

The rest? Going to try them all and see where I end up. Any authors or titles that folks recognize and recommend or the opposite?

(Oh also! Enterprise deck blueprints. Perfect for a Traveller game!)

 

[trappedslider]

those old vintage covers before photoshop/digital was created

 

[Autumnal]

The Great Explosion is really funny.

So is Envoy To New Worlds. Laumer had been a diplomat, and had opinions about bureaucracy. To put it mildly.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. The book really evoked an emotional response from me. The world it crafted, with its obsession over likes, productivity, and conformity, the way it reflects the worst parts of our world, just made me so angry. Loved the book.

I read Vernor Vinge's True Names. Like the Artificial Kid, it is so close to being cyberpunk without quite hitting the mark.

Now I'm reading Tom Maddox's Halo.

those old vintage covers before photoshop/digital was created

There's no beating those classic paperback covers, when you needed a piece of art that could grab people's attention.

 

[Autumnal]

I read Vernor Vinge's True Names. Like the Artificial Kid, it is so close to being cyberpunk without quite hitting the mark.

It makes a neat duo with John Varley’s novella “Press Enter”. There’s an entering subgenre of stories about the Singularity coming early and unobtrusively, until an eruption happens. Wil McCarthy’s Bloom seems like a probable outcome for many such worlds - grey goo has consumed th inner solar system, with humanity surviving on moons far away enough from the sun. Not as cheery as John Varley’s Eight Worlds, but with a fascinating complication.

 

[Retros_x]

It is metat xtual, because I have heard Jordan talk about his goals and themes.

I believe that, but I did not read that in his prose. Contrary to what I just finished reading: Slow Horses.

Similar to Le Carree (although in a very different style) one of the big main topics in Mick Herron is institutional failure and corruption. I think one of the main reason it works, is that everyone who is working in or with those institutions KNOW that they are screwed and incompetent. But they are in power and you have to work with them. Meanwhile in Wheel of Time #3 the Aes Sedai hold a lot of actual power, people believe in them, even the one closely working with them, under them or be part of them. But they are hilariously bad and quite obviously, so at least the people working with them should know that. Maybe thats why it wasn't working for me.

 

[Parmandur]

I believe that, but I did not read that in his prose. Contrary to what I just finished reading: Slow Horses.

Similar to Le Carree (although in a very different style) one of the big main topics in Mick Herron is institutional failure and corruption. I think one of the main reason it works, is that everyone who is working in or with those institutions KNOW that they are screwed and incompetent. But they are in power and you have to work with them. Meanwhile in Wheel of Time #3 the Aes Sedai hold a lot of actual power, people believe in them, even the one closely working with them, under them or be part of them. But they are hilariously bad and quite obviously, so at least the people working with them should know that. Maybe thats why it wasn't working for me.

Holds true to my lived experience.