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.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm all caught up on Rivers of London - what I thought would take me a month took me three to get through all 8 plus a volume of short stories.

It's good enough that I'll try to catch future volumes as they come out.

For fiction, going to read Charlie Jane Anders Lessons in Magic and Disaster which I've been excited about for over a year. After that, cautiously looking forward to the Tales of Talislanta. Then the Tainted Cup by Bennett, who I am not very familiar with, but it is supposed to be quite good. I've got literally 200+ fiction novels in my to-read shelves, but I'll end that I'm going to re-read The Wind in the Willows and then read The River Bank and probably follow up with the River Bank RPG with hopes of perhaps playing it soon. I may shift back to some classic SF books (see an earlier post above) after that, or mysteries, or who knows. I'm spoiled for choice.

Also, oddly, I've read through almost all of my graphic novel to-read pile! (I mean, odd since I've had a too-read pile of graphic novels for over 40 years, so...). I guess I've finally cut down my subscriptions enough. Just a personal graphic novel by an indie creator from Victoria BC called "Me Mum"; and most recent volume of Tower Dungeon. Currently reading something called "Closed Circle", which is from a company called The OR Strategy. I think it was an add-on for some other gaming crowdfund. Oh! Found it - it must have been something I tossed in with my order of a|state from Handiwork games. It's not bad, but I wouldn't buy any future volumes. Modern, but also steampunk (there are airships) and psionics. Seems like an RPG game put to graphic fiction.

On the non-fiction front, slowly still working through Death and Life of Great American Cities (DaLoGAC). I think I get her premise, but at the same time I have to wonder why after 70~ years, no cities have really adopted her approach, and instead have gone the way of sprawl? That would be an interesting read, tbh. Following DaLoGAC I'll do a re-read of the War of Art before falling into another Jane Jacobs Cities and the Wealth of Nations.

Game books - just finishing the Cairn Adventure Anthology 1 that came with the crowdfund - three adventures, all of which are super interesting. Last month read Cairn 2e Players and Warden's Guide, and have Trouble in Twin Lakes queued up next. I would 100% play Cairn 2e, and in fact may run something at an upcoming con.
After that will come D1-3 (Descent into the Unknown, Kuo-Toa, and Vault of the Drow); then The Perilous Void, and hopefully around summer-time I'll read the Forgotten Realms Heroes book and Wild beyond the Witchlight.

I've got a veritable s-ton of saddle stitched adventures that I'd like to have finished by end of summer. Won't list them here; but recently purchased from a mate ~20+ Goodman Games DCC and MCC books. I may bump those up the queue - if I do I'll report back here!

 

[jian]

I'm all caught up on Rivers of London - what I thought would take me a month took me three to get through all 8 plus a volume of short stories.

It's good enough that I'll try to catch future volumes as they come out.

For fiction, going to read Charlie Jane Anders Lessons in Magic and Disaster which I've been excited about for over a year. After that, cautiously looking forward to the Tales of Talislanta. Then the Tainted Cup by Bennett, who I am not very familiar with, but it is supposed to be quite good. I've got literally 200+ fiction novels in my to-read shelves, but I'll end that I'm going to re-read The Wind in the Willows and then read The River Bank and probably follow up with the River Bank RPG with hopes of perhaps playing it soon. I may shift back to some classic SF books (see an earlier post above) after that, or mysteries, or who knows. I'm spoiled for choice.

Also, oddly, I've read through almost all of my graphic novel to-read pile! (I mean, odd since I've had a too-read pile of graphic novels for over 40 years, so...). I guess I've finally cut down my subscriptions enough. Just a personal graphic novel by an indie creator from Victoria BC called "Me Mum"; and most recent volume of Tower Dungeon. Currently reading something called "Closed Circle", which is from a company called The OR Strategy. I think it was an add-on for some other gaming crowdfund. Oh! Found it - it must have been something I tossed in with my order of a|state from Handiwork games. It's not bad, but I wouldn't buy any future volumes. Modern, but also steampunk (there are airships) and psionics. Seems like an RPG game put to graphic fiction.

On the non-fiction front, slowly still working through Death and Life of Great American Cities (DaLoGAC). I think I get her premise, but at the same time I have to wonder why after 70~ years, no cities have really adopted her approach, and instead have gone the way of sprawl? That would be an interesting read, tbh. Following DaLoGAC I'll do a re-read of the War of Art before falling into another Jane Jacobs Cities and the Wealth of Nations.

Game books - just finishing the Cairn Adventure Anthology 1 that came with the crowdfund - three adventures, all of which are super interesting. Last month read Cairn 2e Players and Warden's Guide, and have Trouble in Twin Lakes queued up next. I would 100% play Cairn 2e, and in fact may run something at an upcoming con.
After that will come D1-3 (Descent into the Unknown, Kuo-Toa, and Vault of the Drow); then The Perilous Void, and hopefully around summer-time I'll read the Forgotten Realms Heroes book and Wild beyond the Witchlight.

I've got a veritable s-ton of saddle stitched adventures that I'd like to have finished by end of summer. Won't list them here; but recently purchased from a mate ~20+ Goodman Games DCC and MCC books. I may bump those up the queue - if I do I'll report back here!

Ooh, Jane Jacobs! I just learned about her from the Origin Story podcast about 15 minute cities. I see you can do walks in Toronto based on her writings (she moved there after she got arrested protesting developers in New York.

According to the podcast, she spent a lot of her childhood having Jefferson, Franklin, and a Saxon warrior called Cerdic as imaginary friends to whom she’d be explaining the modern world, discussing why things were the way they were, and so on. Sounds like a childhood well spent.