What are you reading these days?

Currently reading Wool and the first Mistborn book.

I want to finish the Bone Ships trilogy but the third book was in-app only (for Libby) and I really don't like reading on my phone anymore. Might have to break down and buy it.

Tehanu by Ursula le Guin,

My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Backman,

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

And I just finished the fourth Murderbot novella

Blindsight (Peter Watts)

"I did some research, and you better believe I'm gonna dump it all over you!"
(Peter Watts, probably)

I've read half the book.

I wrote about this book before and deleted it because I was afraid of being too harsh. I also wanted to finish it before writing, but this one will clearly take a long time and I wanted to put my thoughts in writing while they're fresh.

This is a highly praised hard sci-fi, Hugo-nominated novel. A bunch of transhuman future people with different "superpowers" (plus a sci-fi vampire) go into space and encounter things that make even their transhuman minds blow (check Goodreads for a real summary).

Fans of the genre tend to focus on cool science and big ideas, and honestly, I am no different. When I read science fiction, I'm not looking for something that will "blow my literary mind" as I might when reading Hemingway or Fernando Pessoa. Pretty phrasing is certainly a plus, but that is not the main reason why I choose a sci-fi book.

Blindsight has great ideas, superb even, and I like them all. But the way Watts writes is a bit much for me. The amount of scientific jargon is astounding, and, unlike Greg Egan who concentrates his deeply technical dives into distinct sections of his books (a sequence of pages or paragraphs), Watts floods the reader with technical language every step of the way. Even when more accessible alternatives are available, Watts gratuitously employs the most exoteric, obscure words possible. I know that because I check all of them on my Kindle dictionary, which shows the synonyms as well. A lot of times not even Kindle's Oxford Dictionary can define them! (and no, those are not neologisms, they are often on Wikipedia and are just needlessly specialized terms...).

People online will say this is a very difficult book because it's so philosophical and the science is so deep, but I don't think that is the whole truth. On some level, it is clear that the author wishes to create a disorienting narrative, but I also believe Watts is not great at describing spaces or action on a very elemental level. "Are they up or down?", "Did this action take place before or after that?", "Are they close or far apart?", and "Who's talking right now?" are questions I make constantly, trying to squeeze information out of the text.

I am not necessarily talking about anything that is intentionally crafted to be deep, nebulous, or mysterious, but rather simple stuff that prevents me from understanding basic, unremarkable facts. I often go back a bunch of pages just to understand that "oh, they're actually INSIDE the ship now. Okay". Watts always puts style over clarity, with "cute" descriptions that sound awesome but fail to communicate the most basic facts of the story. Fans will say that's a feature. I think it's a bug.

That is not to say this is a bad book. The good parts are in fact brilliant, sometimes sublime and philosophically insightful. I fully intend to finish it. The concepts are interesting and right up my alley. I love and identify with almost every character. But I refuse to classify its mistakes as "Peter Watts being deep". A lot of times, the apparent "deepness" is resolved with a dictionary lookup, showing that the concepts themselves are not nebulous, just the chosen vocabulary. I understand science has its own language, I'm okay with that. But I don't need that much jargon, and not all disorientation in Blindsight is the consequence of a sophisticated narrative. Some of its obscurity is either gratuitous or accidental. That said, hard sci-fi tends to get easier after "the hump" where the author introduces all the basic concepts. So it is quite possible that the later half is less scientific journal and more scientific fiction. Blindsight has its issues, but up until now, it doesn't lack excitement.

Off-topic: it's so nice that Tildes don't have downvotes... it is incredibly tiresome trying to express even a slightly negative assessment of a beloved product on Reddit and being instantly downvoted into oblivion...

I'm doing the /r/fantasy Bingo challenge with a card where every single book has the word "City" in its title. I'm calling it an "urban fantasy" card. So far (and some of these were earlier this year but most are pretty recent) I've read:

• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (pretty terrible)
• City of Boneheads, a parody of the above (fucking hilarious)
• Sixteen Ways to Devend a Walled City by K.J. Parker (excellent)
• City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende (The most YA thing I've ever read, and not very good for it)
• The Hidden City by Michelle West (really disappointing, found it super boring but I think I'll go back to the series still and see if the non-prologue books are better)
• Tales of the Frozen City, an anthology of Frostgrave-tie-in stories, I think you have to like the game to enjoy this
• City of Light, book 3 in Traveler's Gate by Will Wight - definitely not as strong as Cradle, but it has its moments
• The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (read the whole trilogy; book 1 wasn't great but I liked book 2 and book 3 was fantastic)
• City of Seduction by Jean-Luc Istin - do u know how hard it is to find something with both druids and a city? This is a weird graphic novel with a bunch of nudity that I did not expect. It's also book 2 and I didn't read book 1 so I was a bit confused. But it fills the Druids square.
• City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett - really wanted to read this series, I liked books 1 and 3 a lot more than book 2 but all 3 were pretty good.

I'm currently going through The Three Body Problem, which seems fantastic so far. I could say it seems to be like Asimov writing a manga, but I'm only 6 chapters in. So far, so good.

Children of Memory - third installment of the Children of Time series. I absolutely love how Adrian Tchaikovsky manages to come up with "alien" intelligences that are some how both incomprehensible and relatable at the time. This book particularly triggers some existential dread within me along the lines of Blindsight by Peter Watts though without the horror.

I have burned through a couple of books these last 2ish weeks

The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean Susan Casey (Non-Fiction)
I have always loved the sea, especially the deepest parts of the ocean. So much so that it directly affected my career choices, so this book was an instant buy for me. It mostly follows 'The Five Deeps' expedition with an engaging storyline along with some pictures and history of deep sea exploration as a whole.

The Deepest Map Laura Trethewey (Non Fiction)
Similar in topic with a focus on the actual mapping of the ocean floor. Much of the book is focused on Seabed2030 along with The Five Deeps and general history of deep sea mapping. The biggest issue with this book (IMO) is that it will rarely miss an opportunity to take a shot at the inequality in the industry. While those topics are important it slows down the pacing of the book.

Prosper's Demon K.J. Parker (Fiction)
A short book about an exorcist and the demons he removes. This book has good pacing and does not overstay its welcome. gives me DOOM 2016 "The only thing they have to fear is you" vibes

Strike of the Sailfish Stephen L Moore (Non Fiction)
A WW2 history 2 narrative about the USS SAILFISH and USS SCULPIN. It is an enjoyable read if you are interested in the topic, but don't expect Hornfischer level of storytelling or writing

Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal James D. Hornfischer
Another WW2 history narrative focused on the battle of Guadalcanal. A well laid out and well researched telling of Guadalcanal. The thread of history is easy to follow and gives plenty of context. I look forward to read Last Stand of the Tincan Sailors from the same author

I am also about halfway through American Gods by Neil Gaiman and I am enjoying the hell out of it!

Been making my way through The Moon and Sixpence. It’s ok if you keep in mind that Strickland is a sociopath and not some romantic version of an artist.

Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, second book in my read-through of The Culture novels.Im considering starting The Chanur Saga or Laundry Files when I'm done with the whole series, but that's probably a year out still.

I'm currently reading Regionalism and Rebellion in Yemen.

I am also slowly working my way through Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology on the side.

I got into sourdough ~2 months ago. I started reading this book: The Sourdough Framework.

It's a good book that explains what ingredients bring to the bread, or why some steps are done.

I read all of the Cosmere books this summer/fall and while I tried to go back to Shannara series (Currently on Antrax) I had a hard time getting back into Terry Brooks writing (the plots are all so similar) after Sanderson.

I’m now reading his Skyward series, it was YA so initially I was just going to pass on it but I heard good things.

The first book didn’t really grab me, but the. I read the Defending Elysium novella, which really sucked me into the world. Wrapping up Evershore and then going to dive into Defiant.

Read Greenwood by Michael Christie. Did not think much of it - it tries to be a kind of eco story but gets dragged down into family history and neither part ends up being very good. I also felt like the female characters were really underdeveloped for the most part, which frustrated me. I was reading it for a book group and I probably wouldn't have finished it if not for that.

I've just stared reading Land of Snow and Ashes by Petra Rautiainen which I'm enjoying, although it's quite heavy. It's set in Finland during and just after the second world war and I'm learning more about that history. I knew a bit about the Winter War against Russia, but this is set later when Finland were fighting on the side of Germany and there were Nazi troops and concentration camps in Finland, something I knew nothing about. I'd be super interested if anyone had any non-fiction recommendations about that period to broaden my knowledge more.

I am currently reading The Aeronaughts Windlass by Jim Butcher. It is a steam-punky fantasy novel. I had picked it up because the sequel looked interesting, so, hahaha. I am enjoying it so far, I like the fact that cats are really intelligent and Rowl is a great character. From what I can remember of the first Dresden File book (it's been years since I read it), Butcher's writing has gotten a lot better. And this book is literally the second book that I have read by him.

Billion Dollar Whale. About a real Crazy Rich Asian but from Indonesia and steeped in fraud.

Currently reading Demon Copperfield and can't put it down.

Demon Copperhead is a 2022 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and won the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Kingsolver was inspired by the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield.[1][2] While Kingsolver's novel is similarly about a boy born into poverty, Demon Copperhead is set in Appalachia and explores contemporary issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Copperhead

Binging on Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.