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What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
I have a couple:
My non-fiction book is Why We're Getting Poorer by Cahal Moran. It's an economics book that investigates the root of systemic inequality in the world and how we can improve it.
He's the person behind the Unlearning Economics YouTube channel and I really like how he discusses nuanced, complex topics without the intimidating jargon that non-economists won't be familiar with, while also humanising it with personality and humour.
My fiction book is going to be Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. I read the prequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, earlier this year not knowing it was a prequel and I enjoyed it so much I wrote to him to express my joy.
I've just finished Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 before that so I need something cosy to even the balance.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve read Never Let Me Go by him which was great but very sad. Klara and the Sun deals with similar themes of love and meaning of soul, but has a different tone (albeit still a sad undercurrent). Very humanist, lighter science fiction isn’t usually my cup of tea, but he does a great job keeping it interesting. I’m gripped by it and the small worldbuilding mysteries he sprinkled in; I’m worried it’s winding up for bigger tragedy, but who knows! I only have 100 pages left.
It’s certainly a good palette cleanser of a book on my Sanderson completionist quest. Next I’ll likely be reading Mistborn Era 2, but maybe I’ll finish the year with one more novel(la) before embarking on that series. Dune and Circe have both been on my list for a long time, so we’ll see if I have the motivation to finally pick them up before the year runs out.
So I almost entirely listen to audiobooks due to my ADHD, but I consider it reading most of the time.
I've been enthralled with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series lately, I'm on book 4 The Gate of the Feral Gods. Absolutely enthralled. I don't think I've ever been into a book as much as this. I'm coming home and listening to this book instead of turning on the TV or computer lately.
I am actually worried by how quickly I'm going through it though because I'm having such a blast and it's so unique.
This year I've already read(listened to) all the Bobiverse books, Project Hail Mary, and the Murderbot Diaries, and I fear I'm running out of these kinds of immersive types of books.
If you look up LitRPG or portal fantasy or prog fantasy you'll get tons of hits. I'm sure DCC is popular enough now that there are lists of recs.
I highly recommend Beware of Chicken, because it's so good and I think after DCC you'll like the lighter vibes
Hello. I have heard the term LitRPG, and heard of Dungeon Crawler Carl multiple times by now in various forums (DCC has very high ratings on Goodreads, so ive been considering it for a while). Am i correct in assuming that LitRPG is basically an author framing the story in a way that it is told from the main character in an RPG ?
I am personally a sucker for good serious fantasy and sci-fi (i.e Lord of the Rings and The Expanse) and i like playing CRPGs. Will i enjoy LitRPG books ?
The key difference between LitRPG and "traditional" fantasy is that the protagonist (or often the entire universe) has access to their status and it can be seen and they can level up.
Aside from that, there are differences within the genre, there are more crunchy stories (where the stats are meticulously tracked, either by the author or by the characters themselves), and more lite stories, where the characters either can't do much with their status, or where it just doesn't get a lot of screentime.
I personally tend to glaze over stat blocks (think opening your character skills or stats in an RPG game), as I find that in 99% of stories, relevant changes are mentioned or obvious in the story text itself.
I would definitely recommend giving some LitRPG books a go! If you give me a few tags you typically search for when picking books, I can probably recommend some stuff
Thanks i think i get it. As for recommendations, my most liked tags would be sci-fi, fantasy, space opera, epic.
Also i first read your username as "Minthara" the Baldur's Gate 3 character, lol
I've been using Minithra as a handle since before BG3 was a thing, but it IS from a Drow name generator, so there's probably some commonality :D
As for recs... I'll link some of my absolute favourites. Disclaimer: I tend to shy away from tragedy and grimness.
Absolute top rec:
This is an epic 9 book series. Slight warning: The MC is bisexual and there's a relationship with a male, but it's very much a small part and there's no explicit scenes. There IS graphic combat content.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26727/arkendrithyst
Summary and Tags
A social worker father and his adult daughter crash land on a desert full of crystal plants and little else. The city walls of Ar'Kendrithyst rise in the distance, but as the pair hike closer they see those walls are more like mountains, and the mega-metropolis is long dead.Luckily, the adventuring city of Spur is alive and green and hospitable, and well outside of Ar’Kendrithyst’s shadow.
Follow Erick Flatt as he tries to make a nice life with new friends in a new home with his daughter at his side, but this land is rarely as kind as its people, and Erick will need to change if he wants to live the life he wishes to live.
What to expect:
Slow burn storyline, worldbuilding, father-daughter relationship, Erick is the MC, Jane is the side character, slice of life, numbers in blue boxes but also high fantasy, trying to understand magic, creating new magic, living the easy life but forced into dealing with problems, problems becoming very large, massive changes, traumatizing content, and most of all: character growth.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/43212/cosmosis
Summary and Tags
Tags: Space Opera, Psychological, Male Lead, Sci-fi, Adventure, Mystery, First Contact, Soft Sci-fiCaleb hasn't had a good day ever since he was abducted into outer space. The food sucks. Nobody understands a word he says. The aliens won't even let him leave his cell.
Best he can tell, he'll need to fight to escape and survive.
Confronted with hostile aliens, intent on holding him prisoner, Caleb chooses to dive headfirst among forces he can't understand. He'll either learn the eddies of the alien worlds he's stranded in, or else he'll never make it back home.
If his hallucination of one of the other abductees can be trusted, maybe they can make it through the trials before them.
At least there's no homework?
Industrial Strength Magic by Macronomicon
https://www.goodreads.com/series/387950-industrial-strength-magic
(Macronomicon, the author, has a few other series that might be worth a glance if this one is to your taste)
The Calamitous Bob by Álex Gilbert (aka Mecanimus)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59827524-the-calamitous-bob
Summary and Tags
Ah, Nyil, with its magic, its monsters, and its petty gods. A divine spat leaves French medic Viv stranded in the middle of an arcane disaster zone crawling with undead horrors. Thankfully, there are strange allies to be found, not least the mysterious interface that helps humans survive in this merciless world.Viv will have to progress fast to survive this calamity and find civilisation. She will also need a bit of luck. Unless, of course, she becomes the calamity herself. After all, luck is such a fickle thing.
This series recently finished (as in... less than a month ago or so?), and it's great. Definitely fits the Epic part.
Hopefully this gives you a starting point and something to read! I just saw that GoodReads has a "readers also enjoyed" section for these books, and I recognized all the names, so there's plenty other books out there to at least grab samples of :)
How to Defeat A Demon King in Ten Easy Steps
I think this is the first litrpg I read and I find it a nice, self contained introduction to the idea. With a touch of tongue in cheek nostalgic riffing off classic RPG video games.
Our main character lives in a world where everyone gets a class at adulthood. She does not get a particularly exciting one, but the Dark Lord is conquering the world and it isn't really time for the Hero to conquer him... So she's gonna have to do it herself.
I'd give good chances of you liking the Cradle series (first book is Unsouled, and it's a completed series). It's got similarities to DCC in that it's also got a lot of power/ability progression albeit not in an explicitly gamified setting.
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James —pretty good book so far. I think it all leads to an assignation attempt on Bob Marley. I don’t really know much about the politics of Jamaica during the 60s and 70s.
I'm reading (listening to) Mark Solm's Hidden Spring, on the recommendation of a TikToker I like, @ post.capitalist.pedagogy. For the last few years, I've been at a dead-end in how to further my understanding of the world. Having landed firmly in the Determinist and Adaptionist camp as far as free will and consciousness go, I've hard a time finding a pragmatic and interesting next step, so to speak. Hidden Spring is helping me out of it. He's constructing a science of the brain and mind that includes the subjective experience. He goes through the history of neuroscience, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, et al. to explain how science has come to the point it has, and puts forward a framework, neuropsychoanalysis, as a way to better understand consciousness and its contents. So far, I'm digging it, but parts of it are going to take a second and third listen so I can understand it better and know how to apply it to my own philosophy.
I'm also super pumped that I'm finally seeing English translations of Byung-Chul Han's works in audiobook format being made available. He's a philosopher I've been interested in a while, introduced to me by a podcast I like called Philosophize This. I've started Agony of Eros, but I decided I needed to pause it until I have a chance to rewatch von Trier's Melancholia. I didn't realize it would be referenced so heavily. Thankfully, no one in my library system seem to be fighting me for access to Han's work.
I just finished listening to Daphne Du Maurier's 'My Cousin Rachel' (Published 1951). Good old Gothic Fiction! I was introduced to Du Maurier through her novel Rebecca which is a masterpiece of Gothic Fiction, a riveting page turner with an ending that can never be forgotten. Highly recommended reading for anyone, this is not stinky old literature.
My Cousin Rachel is definitely not the quality of Rebecca, but it is still a very good book. A young man (Philip Ashley) coming of age is living with his Cousin Ambrose Ashley, Ambrose goes off to Italy and ends up married to a mysterious woman named Rachel. Ambrose then dies of mysterious causes but is able to get a cryptic letter off to Philip with accusations of poisoning, but things are not clear. What is clear is that Ambrose left a new will giving everything that was going to be Philips to Rachel but never signs it, why? Rachel then comes to see Philip back home and stay with him, Philip is wary of her but she is very charming and wins him over, in fact he falls in love with her. Philip then decides to 'right' Ambroses 'wrong' by gifting her the entire estate upon his 25th birthday when he rightfully inherits the estate. After this Rachel starts acting more and more mysteriously, is she playing games with him or is he reading into her actions too much? Philip falls seriously ill and eventually also suspects he is being poisoned, clues are found but that is it. The book comes to a head when he is finally determined to find out the truth, an unfortunate accident occurs and Philip is left to find the truth himself. I won't ruin the end but it is great. A totally unexpected ending where no actual twist occurs, the whole thing comes down to the last couple paragraphs. Masterfully done.
I'm reading Kathe Koja's Cipher. I'm not loving it but nearly through it. Nothing about it is particularly compelling to me. I'm eager to be done with it and into the next.
Next I have a story by a fellow tildo that I'm looking forward to diving into.
Stephen King's Fairy Tale.
We've reached what I thought was the climax but I am only half done. It's full of allusions which I like.
I’m about to finish Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I’m reading it blind, and I didn’t expect it to be heavy (at least to me).
Did you like it?
I like that I can physically see his intelligence change as I read — like how the misspelled words are getting fewer and his coherence is starting to get complex — I'm still not finished, so I'm withholding judgment, but there are parts where I've gotten teary-eyed.
I'm finishing Blood over Brighthaven which is a great story about the civilized city and the savages that live outside of it, being killed by the Blight.
Coincidentally it's also about colonialism, racism, sexism and how systems of power work, even when they're magical. It's really very good and does a good job of stringing me along with the hope that maybe they can fix things. Also the audiobook narrator is Moira Quirk, one of my favorites!
Vorkosigan saga - finished Captain Vorpatril's Alliance - I didn't like the writing choices in this one. The verbal ticks of the narration/POV characters were repetitive to the point of irritation. I think Ivan deserves better. (First read through of the series, and almost done)
Reading Hogfather with my partner for Christmas vibes
About halfway into After the Flood which is most quickly described as a woman and her daughter live in (Rocky mountain-ish) Waterworld, and she has to decide whether to go after her older daughter and rescue her from raiders near Greenland. They live on boats, some live on small outcrops of mountains. No tattoos to dry land yet (◠‿◕)
And next I'm starting The Small and Mighty about Americans who changed history despite being relatively unknown (I think, I will find out)
Still reading the Vorkosigan saga, in a reading order I found on line, mostly by omnibus. It's a strange old thing. I've read most of 2 omnibusses (??) now and I still don't know if I like it, but I'm keeping reading, so ... I guess? The writing style is strange.
It was recommended to me when I was looking for mil to read, but I don't really classify it as mil, at least not in my definition of it. Sure the primary world of Barrayar seems to be of a militaristic bent, but even then, not really. I'm finding it more opera than mil.
And that writing style, I just can't put my finger on what rubs me the wrong way. It's just weird.
But still, here I am, about to embark on my third omnibus.
I'm planning on reading in this order
Cordelia's Honour (Shards of Honour, 'Aftermaths', Barrayar)
Young Miles (The Warrior's Apprentice, 'The Mountains of Mourning', The Vor Game) <- I am here, near the end of Vor Game
Miles, Mystery and Mayhem (Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, 'Labyrinth')
Miles Errant ('Borders of Infinity', Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance)
Memory (not part of an omnibus)
Miles in Love (Komarr, A Civil Campaign, 'Winterfair Gifts')
Miles, Mutants and Microbes (Falling Free, 'Labyrinth', Diplomatic Immunity)
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (not yet part of an omnibus)
Cryoburn (not yet part of an omnibus)
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (not yet part of any omnibus)
It's definitely more space opera though there's some military elements built in with the books that focus on Miles feeling often like puzzles, with some of the later ones feeling like a farce or a romance. Some more action, some less.
To me some of the issues I have with them are that they're not written in chronological order so the character development seems to stall out often.
I'm just now to Cryoburn next myself on a first read through.
(1) I recently finished 'Exodus: The Archimedes Engine'. It is a high-concept space-faring sci-fi epic by author Peter F. Hamilton who has written multiple entries in this genre in the past. The book is kind of a tie-in to an upcoming game 'Exodus'. Even ignoring its association to an upcoming game, i found it a fascinating stand-alone read. The pace starts out a bit slow, but picks up gradually, so the book demands patience; i think that's just Peter Hamilton's style. It also does not really hand-hold the reader i.e you have to connect some dots on your own to understand what is happening. But it gets better & better as the multiple plot threads converge onto a pretty epic third act. It also has some 'hard sci-fi' elements, in the sense that futuristic technologies and space travel have relevance to the plot at multiple points in the story rather than just being a superficial backdrop, and i always enjoy when authors are able to do that (The Expanse is probably the best example of this). Now this is definitely more 'fantasy' than 'hard sci-fi' but i feel it is a good blend of both. Recommended for someone looking for something a bit heavy in the space-sci-fi genre.
(2) The Orphan-X series by author Gregg Hurwitz. The best way i can describe it is what if Jason Bourne put Treadstone behind him and decided to become a batman-type vigilante, fighting crime and using his abilities & training to help people in need. I know that the 'highly trained ex-government assassin' has become a crowded genre on its own, but this series particularly stood out for me for its emotional beats, and attention to detail, especially in the bits where the author lovingly describes every weapon, every vehicle, every combat tactic in great detail. So if you like that type of thing, you should check out the Orphan-X books.
I just finished reading I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, which has a plot like an action movie (including car crashes) but is very much about Reddit and social media. The setup is that a mysterious, sketchy girl somehow convinces a Lyft driver to drive from California to Washington DC, to transport a mystery box, by July 4, in return for a lot of money. The condition of her employer is not to look in the box.
The Lyft driver is a streamer and tells them he's going to be away for a few days. People on Reddit do research and come up with increasingly bizarre theories about what's in the box. It's funny. I recommend it to all excessively online people.
Before that I read the Steerswomen fantasy series. The Steerswomen are a guild of explorer-scientists who have vowed to answer all questions truthfully, but in return, you have to answer all their questions, or you'll be shunned. (This sounds a little gimmicky, but the story makes it work.) They're up against the wizards, who are powerful and secretive, keeping their magic to themselves. This series is about discovery - the known world gradually gets bigger over time, both literally (more of the maps get filled in) and conceptually.
Sadly only four of the six books in the series are written, but I'm okay with that; the ones I read were quite good and have satisfying endings.
I'm getting close to being done with Dust of Dreams, book 9 of Malazan Book of the Fallen. The book feels like it just keeps dropping lore bombs and that I'm building up to something big, but I also know that there probably won't be any huge payoffs at the end of this book since it is essentially part 1 of a giant final volume that ends this 10 books series.
I know that I'm going to immediately dive in to book 10 The Crippled God because I want to know how this ends!
I do plan to post a mainline series discussion thread for anyone who wants to talk about the main 10 books. I do plan to read the rest in the series, but I'm going to take a break before diving in to them and read some other series next year. I'll probably read some of the The Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas in between other books I read and will pick up the Novels of the Malazan Empire in 2027. That being said I may get the itch later in the year and start reading them sooner, but I'd like to read some non Malazan fantasy for a bit.