What are you reading these days?

I'm about halfway through A Memory Called Empire and rather enjoying it! It definitely appeals to the palace drama crowd but also has a touch of cyberpunk and regular old soft sci-fi as well. I'd also never really considered that I've not read much sci-fi by women authors before, so it's nice to see a change of tone.

I hear the sequel is equally good so I'll be on to that shortly.

Once I'm done with those, I usually like to give my brain a light dose of whiplash and switch to fantasy so I'll probably pick up the second Mistborn Era as I just finished the first trilogy a few weeks ago.

Picked up the Foundation series by Asimov again, I'm on to Second Foundation which is, funnily enough, the third book.

The core concept of the series is that far into the galactic future, a brilliant scientist develops the perfect mathematical model to predict human behavior. It's so perfect, in fact, that he is able to predict the exact moment when civilization will fall and plunge the galaxy into another dark age. He develops a plan to avert the worst of the catastrophe but, because of the nature of predicting human behavior, the plan is immediately invalidated if people know what it is; they'd change their behavior and throw off the precision of the scientist's model.

What I love about the series is that it takes place over the course of several hundred years, with a new cast of characters introduced with each timeskip, so you get to see the long-term ramifications of the long-dead scientist's actions and the things that do or don't go according to the plan.

Reading On stranger tides. Great swashbuckling adventure book that apparently inspired the 4th pirates film. Enjoying it so far. Very easy to read and get sucked into the story.

Also just started Braiding sweetgrass. It pairs well with my studies and even though I'm 20pages in I can tell this is going to be a great book.

I read and finished Shutter Island over the course of three days which is relatively unheard of for me after becoming a dad but I genuinely couldn't put it down, I loved it.

I'd held off on seeing the film because I wanted to read the book first and I'm glad I did, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I've moved on to fantasy again with The Lies of Locke Lamora, so a bit more substantial than my previous few reads clocking in at nearly 700 pages. Heard good things about it being a really fun fantasy heist novel and I'm enjoying it so far at around the page 100 mark. About to head up to St Andrews with the wife, kid and dog for a long weekend tomorrow so I'm hoping I'll get plenty of time to batter through it.

After hearing about the death of Vernor Vinge, I decided to pick up one or two of his books- I love a little sci-fi, and I'm getting very Iain M. Banks Culture vibes so far. I absolutely devoured "A Deepness in the Sky", and am currently quite enjoying "A Fire Upon the Deep ".

Jose Saramago's "Death With Interruptions" is a lovely musing into the idea that "Lady Death" is real, and decides to take a break at her job for a little while.

He mulls over how humanity handles their newfound immortality; how the govt, deathcare, and life insurance companies cope with their new reality, and how things are handled when she returns, and it's all packaged nicely in at a little over 200 pages.

Just finished The Da Vinci Code on audiobook. I had avoided it when it was popular, but one day I saw it while looking for a something to spend my Audible credits on, and I figured might as well. It's sold more copies than most of the Harry Potter books, after all. Well, it ended up being pretty much what I expected: cheesy, but quite entertaining. Every chapter seemed to end on some kind of artificial cliffhanger. Usually something like: "Robert was shocked at what he saw, but I'm not going to tell you what it was until after the next chapter!" It got to the point that I started laughing out loud every time it happened.

Despite somewhat low expectations, I was still a little let down, but I understand its appeal. The book came out around the same time as the National Treasure movie, so I guess these kinds of treasure hunt stories were popular around that time. I certainly enjoyed watching Nick Cage run around deciphering clues while talking "history."

I am in the middle of Naomi Alderman's The Future and really enjoying it. If you want a story about how AI, social media, and big tech influence our lives, I feel like this one is more grounded and hopeful than others like The Circle by Dave Eggers. If representations matters to you, several of the main characters are queer or non–binary.

I just was listening to a chapter where someone is demonstrating the Matchbox Educable Noughts and Crosses Engine – a real historical thing – to a college class. He is talking about how the AI is empty of real meaning. it's just cardboard and beads. It doesn't know anything about winning or losing, those are things the humans bring to it. There is more to it, but I am not going to go transcribe the whole rant. If it intrigues you, I'd say the book is worth your time.

Piranesi before book club.

Revisiting Callahans Cross time Saloon. I had remembered this as cozy but it doesn't fit. The stories are like blues songs that find happiness at the end.

Started 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Finished the Japanese Lover by Isabelle Allende. This one is beautifully written with a mix of intense sadness and joy and exuberance. It is also a tribute to the San Francisco Bay area as a place and culture/mix of cultures

Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon. It's a fairly thorough dive into the beginnings of ARPANET, both from a political and technical standpoint, followed by an enticing exploration of how TCP/IP, backbones, the internet, and e-mail grew naturally from that. There are a few excursions into "what-could-have-beens", such as competing protocols for data transmission, or radio instead of undersea cables, all of which I believe are tackled in a superb manner.

That being said, I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of How to Build a Car, but with limited success.

I've not long finished reading The Quest for Fire by J.-H. Rosny and it was superb, written in 1911 but it never felt like it unlike many other fantasy-esque works from around that time. A fantastic story of life and adventure in the stone age and has a nice focus on the animal life around the nomads. Thrilling battles with cannibals and all sorts I flew through it, the one I read was the 2020 translation.

Currently on Red Country by Joe Abercrombie, having burnt through his first 3 books, and more slowly his next two.

It's a shame, because the original trilogy feels like GoT if everyone was a fucking mess (yes, more of one), and was really well done. Best served cold was an interesting revenge story. The Heroes felt like every other "hey did you know war is fucking awful?" story, which was pretty well executed given that goal, but unfortunately still didn't hold my attention that much.

Red Country has me more invested, but it sure seems like certain factors from the first trilogy have been left behind (most of if not all of the fantasy stuff). That's...fine, but feels like such a waste. It was mentioned repeatedly, but there's certain things about the magic/history of the world that are fascinating, and it looks like I'm never getting more of that.

I know I have the other big trilogy next, so I'll see how that goes, but ultimately feels like something that started fantastic and is finishing merely "good".

Just finished the Broken earth series by N.K. Jemisin and really enjoyed it. Main character was a case study in how your environment shapes how you view yourself and how your personality develops when dealing with those society considers "normal".

Also ran through the first few books of the Red Rising sage before I got tired of the Mary Sue main character being an idiot despite being the best at everything.

Now I'm working my way through the Unhewn Throne trilogy and it's been good thus far, but some of the plot-demanded stupidity of the main three characters has been annoying. Might take a break and get back into my run through of Discworld after this book (the 2nd in the trilogy)

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth. It's a Booker prize winner from the 90s about the building and journey of a slave ship in the 18th century.

I'm enjoying it quite a lot so far but I'm having to look up on average a word a page, as it uses quite alot of uncommon words :).

I'm reading the Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb is the second book in the Farseer trilogy. Definitely enjoying it. Mix of fantasy and Viking/Medieval. About a kid who's an adult in the second book who has the ability to talk to animals but also technically to people but hasn't been able to get a handle on that. The Kingdom is in chaos with the king ill the youngest son scheming for the throne. It's entertaining.