What are you reading in 2026?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The latest Black Company novel by Glen Cook, Lies Weeping. I did not think I would enjoy the novel told from the POV of two teenage girls but its pretty good. Kind of slow but its a 5 book story arc and it is keeping my attention.

 

[John Lloyd1]

I have recently finished reading two books about London history, London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd and London: the Autobiography by Jon Lewis.

The Biography was roughly chronological with the chapters organised by theme. It left me rather cold in the way it seemed to focus on the vibe of the city. Within the chapters it jumped around referencing different sources and time periods in a confusing and disconnected way. There were frequent descriptions of images, but rarely were the images provided.

The Autobiography was an collection of extracts from contemporaneous texts in chronological order. I much preferred this one. While the biography talked about the vibe, the autobiography did a better job embodying that vibe. The texts were selected with care, so they provided a grounded and comprehensible experience aided by short contextual remarks from the editor.

 

[Autumnal]

Thanks, John. I’ve been wondering about both of those.

I just finished rereading The Hobbit. It was again excellent.

 

[jian]

Read a few Avengers Masterworks recently and it’s a weird blast from the past seeing panels by John Buscema (especially from Masterworks vol 8) which featured as examples in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (which of course was mostly illustrated by Buscema).

Goliath (Clint Barton) getting punched out by Power Man (no, not Luke, it’s Erik Josten (though he doesn’t have a name yet), villainous Goliath/Atlas before he switches powers), Goliath climbing buildings and terrifying people inside, Vision racing to save people below Goliath from wreckage falling from Goliath being bad at climbing.

And man, Goliath is an idiot. It’s bad enough that he only has his powers because he’s all “wah wah, arrows suck and so does my whole character concept” and Hank takes pity on him. It’s like he gets Fate points from stupidity constantly but never spends them on anything. Maybe the Avengers have a FP pool and Vision keeps spending all the points.

 

[jian]

Read P Djeli Clark’s time travel short story, Cronus, today, and it’s a perfect little tale and very relevant to our times. Of course if a US techbro worked out time travel, this is exactly what they’d do. I’d love to see the concept expanded into a novel.

 

[Zaukrie]

That is a major theme of the series, ultimately: nobody rules the world, especially those who think they are powerful.

Like the Jedi, all powerful wizards that turn out to be inept for the most part. And blind to what's right in front of them.

 

[Parmandur]

Like the Jedi, all powerful wizards that turn out to be inept for the most part. And blind to what's right in front of them.

Yup, though I think Jordan had a stronger grasp than Lucas on how truly incompetent even the technically competent often are.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Read P Djeli Clark’s time travel short story, Cronus, today, and it’s a perfect little tale and very relevant to our times. Of course if a US techbro worked out time travel, this is exactly what they’d do. I’d love to see the concept expanded into a novel.

Ooh, nice.