What are you reading these days?

I've been on a math/physics kick for awhile (specifically topology and non-euclidean geometry) and recently heard about the works of Greg Egan, a mathematician/author. I'm starting with Diaspora which is supposedly one of his better works.

I realized quite quickly that this is basically a textbook cleverly disguised as fiction, and honestly I'm here for it. He presents the topics in engaging ways without patronizing the reader and also tells an interesting story of humanity 1000 years in the future.

While it's not the best nor most innovative sci-fi I've ever read, it's definitely been good nerdy fun as opposed to "fun to read but forgettable". I enjoy using it as a jumping off point to rabbit hole down other adjacent topics - though I guess this does make it quite a slow read for me as I get easily distracted. But still, I look forward to reading it more than I have about a lot of books recently.

I am breezing through the Aubrey & Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian, which are great and fast and surprisingly comedic while also being the clear product of extreme research.

I’m also reading Vivien Pollak’s Erotic Whitman; so far it’s about Walt Whitman and the distance between the man he thought he was, the man he wanted to have been, and the man he actually was.

Finally got to "More Everything Forever" by Adam Becker.

Various Podcasters and Bloggers have chronicled aspects of this, but this book does a good job of describing the current zeitgeist at Silicon Valley, which (as a whole) appears to have fallen victim to cult-like thinking with the Effective Altruists and the logical fallacies produced by a room full of engineers who think they can tackle what they perceived to be "problems" within the Humanities... And how all these things are exacerbated under the current AI grift.

I just finished Wheel of Time book 11 on my lunch break yesterday and, thanks to the convenience of ebooks, immediately started on book 12. This is where the original author Robert Jordan passed away and the series was finished by Brandon Sanderson. The difference in writing style was immediately apparent and rather jarring if I'm being honest. And I mean immediately, like first couple pages. I am too invested to quit now but I am somewhat less excited than I was before to finish the series.

It all started with Wake Up Dead Man. After finishing tht movie, I was inspired to actually read a mystery from a well known author, and I started with Agatha Christie. I love paperbacks and there’s a Half Price Books in the area so I visited and looked up what the more well regarded Christie novels were. And Then There Were None topped a lot of lists, plus even I recognized the title, so I picked that up. Of the other repeat names I saw, however, I didn’t find available at the shelves… the closest was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

I started with And Then There Were None. Fun, entertaining, I hit the last several chapters late at night and I of course lost a good few hours of sleep because I had to finish it.

Funny note: I learned only afterwards that, in the new Knives Out movie that inspired this recent stint into reading mysteries, the book club reading list shown includes The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I normally don’t jump into new books so quickly after finishing one, but now I had to start this.

All I will say is, I have once again lost a few hours of sleep because at some point I just had to keep reading. I took a picture for my mahjong friends since there’s a chapter where some characters socialize while playing mahjong. That was page 164 at 11:09 PM. I finished page 255, the end of the book, at 12:51 AM.

I confess I do not have the brains for figuring out these mysteries before the reveal, but the drip feed of revelations is actually really addicting. I don’t think I’ve burned through books like this since middle school. Think I’ll go pick up some more!

edit: this is probably a “yeah no shit, idiot” moment but for my fellow naive readers: do not ever google just the name of a mystery. I actually did get spoiled on who the killer was in And Then There Were None, and I had been googling some terminology or words I didn’t recognize. My bored dopamine seeking brain googled just the name once and of course the Google AI summary has the killer’s identity in the first few sentences. Lovely! I’m very glad that I wasn’t spoiled at all for Roger Ackroyd.

Murtagh by Paolini and To Green Angel Tower part 1 by Tad Williams. Paolini still has much to learn, although his foray into SF with TSIASOS is much much better.

I'm working my way through the prairie trilogy by Wila Cather. I'm currently halfway through The Song of the Lark It's got some hysterically funny small town character interactions.

I finished and really enjoyed Fairy Tale by Stephen King. It's portal fantasy that becomes quite eerie and exciting. It riffs on several classic fairy tales. There is a loveable loyal dog.

I'm currently reading when breath becomes air, which was on a bunch of best selling lists several years back. I bought it back then but never got to it until just yesterday and I'm already half way through the book. Great writing!

Dune Messiah (1969 - Frank Herbert)

While I thought Dune was a bit overrated, I got invested in the universe and wanted to know what happens next. The sequel is much shorter, and written in a more conventional style, but also less interesting. It starts out very engaging, introducing some cool concepts (face dancers and gholas) and an interesting conspiracy, but it grows stale about halfway through. Since it's so short, I was able to finish it, and I quite liked the ending, but probably won't bother with the rest of the series.

Blood Ties (2024 - Jo Nesbø)

The sequel to 2020's The Kingdom, which is one of my favourite recent crime novels. It's set several years after the events of the previous books, with the protagonist involved in some (this time non-violent) crime, and the police picking up again investigation of the events in the previous book. I'm about 40 pages in, and so far I'm really enjoying it.

Finally finished The Power Broker, which I've been working on on and off for a while now. Great book! Robert Moses is a very interesting subject and his life story interacts with a ton of New York history, and encouraged me to do a lot of exploration of that topic as well.

After that I decided to pick up another biography, Richard Ellman's James Joyce. Joyce's work is to a large degree autobiographical, so much of the early stuff I already had some idea of, but it's nice to see a broader picture of that time and what elements of it he altered in his novels. I am more looking forward to reading about his later life and the time during the writing of Finnegans Wake. I've dabbled in reading the Wake, and have enjoyed the parts I've read, but it's not something I've ever committed to reading in full. It's extremely interesting though, and I'd like to learn about the process of writing it and Joyce's life at that time.

The biography talks a lot about Joyce's artistic influences, a major one being Henrik Ibsen. That encouraged me to read a few of his plays, starting with Hedda Gabler. I saw the recent film adaptation so I went in with a basic knowledge of it, but I think the differences were big enough that it was still interesting to discover. Now I'm about halfway through The Master Builder. I don't read plays that often but I am enjoying it!

After just finishing and loving Circe by Madeline Miller, I’ve jumped into her prior book, Song of Achilles.

I’m not nearly as smitten, and I think it comes down to pace as well as Patroclus as the viewpoint. Now that it seems the Trojan war is getting into swing, I imagine and hope it will pique my interest more. I don’t hate it though and I’ll definitely finish it. Circe was maybe a 9.5/10 for me so that’s a high bar to clear as a comparison point.

Miller is a very skillful writer in balancing a modern tone with a mythological one, as well as managing the complexities of character and narrative when dealing with gods and prophecies.

I just started Jake Adelstein - The Last Yakuza: Life and Death in the Japanese Underworld (2023, 416pg) after ditching Hugh Laurie - The Gun Seller (1996, 340pg). The Hugh Laurie book is supposed to be a bit of a spoof on spy books or whatever.. but it fell flat for me.

Back with Adelstein; he wrote Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (2009, 335pg), which was also made into a really good TV series. His writing style is really clean with a nice flow and plenty of information without it feeling like a cut-away.

He mentioned Robert Whiting - You Gotta Have Wa (1989, 368pg), which I'll be reading after this. It deals with honorifics and

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edit: I'm gonna breeze through Charles Portis - True Grit (1968, 224pg) today, if I can. Its short enough. I love the movies.

edit 01/01: Finished True Grit as planned and hit up book five of the Kenzie / Gennaro series from Dennis Lehane, Dennis Lehane - Prayers for Rain (1999, 375pg). I love this series anyway, but I think this one would really make for a good movie or miniseries. You'll be familiar with Gone Baby Gone; that was pretty good but missing a lot, as always -- anyway, that's the book before this one.

Next up: Mark Webber - Aussie Grit: My Formula One Journey (2015, 434pg)

I'm reading Ein König für Deutschland, lit. “A King for Germany”, by Andreas Eschbach. It deals with election fraud perpetrated by manipulating vote machines. It's embedded in real-world events, beginning with the 2000 US presidential election, specifically the Florida recount debacle, and it provides lots of sources for its real-world claims while setting an engaging and captivating story in within them, centered around a programming genius named Vincent Meritt who writes software to manipulate voting machines just for fun and then sees his creation take on a life of its own. I am about halfway through the book and I can't wait to see what's next.

I just finished Cipher (at great length) and am glad to be done with it. I'm now enjoying Embassytown. I'm only at the beginning but very intrigued so far. My first Miéville.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. I like it better than the first book, but that's mainly because I care about the The Handmaid's Tale universe from reading the first book.

Characters are more fleshed out in the second book. In the first book since we're reading from the POV of one person only we can't get into the heads of other characters, making them seem one dimensional.

In the second book we see the actual dire spot Handmaids are in and why they're so desperate to escape. In the first book, I can't help but empathize "There's a war going on, at least as a Handmaid there's a roof, safety, enough food plus walks. Isn't that decent enough to survive on for now?" But in The Testaments we are shown exactly why it's bad.

It's bleak. Yet I can't stop reading as a means to educate myself to be wary of such a timeline.

I'm wrapping up Aliette de Bodard's Xuya series, and it's a banger. Though billed as space opera, the alternate history foundation makes a fascinating, richly textured background for the galactic empires, technological whizbang, and intimate stories of the characters. There's some genre mashup elegantly layered in - a little Holmesian mystery, some straight-up romance, tragedy, thriller, swashbuckling adventure, comedy of manners...

It can be too emotionally wrenching and floridly poetic for pure escapism, but immensely satisfying. If you've enjoyed Robert Jackson Bennett, Seth Dickinson, R. F. Kuang, and others whose non-Western cultural scene-setting features prominently, I think you'll like de Bodard's series.

I've been re-reading "A Separate Reality" by Carlos Castaneda. It's interesting and strange. It's been so long since I've read it that it's almost like reading it again for the first time.

Nearly done with The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time book 3). It's taken me longer than usual to finish since I've been more sucked into Manga, but I'm really enjoying the series and can see how it is so acclaimed. I'm at the part

I really enjoy how straight the fantasy is played, everything is really important and serious and epic. I jump around between series when reading so it'll be a long time before I finish the series, but I'm really looking forward to it

I finished Dust of Dreams. I wasn't expecting anything major to happen since this book is essentially part 1 of a 2 part final volume. I was very wrong and the last couple of chapters hooked me so I had to finish it to see what happened.

I've started The Crippled God, but I've been busy with Christmas and the final stretch of my move so I haven't made much progress.

It'll take me a bit to finish this last volume, but I keep going back and forth on it I'll just keep reading Malazan stuff right away or something else. It's all been coming together and I can see why people so strongly recommend it.

In the mean time I've started reading The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. It's one of those books I've heard about and seen referenced for ages and since it's a short read I thought it'd make for something to read while I'm doing my move and unpacking.

I'm about 70% the way through and enjoying the heck out of There is no Antimemetics Division by qntm. I've never gotten much into SCP stuff, so maybe it's just standard fare in that realm, but the concepts are exciting for me: There are paranormal entities whose camouflage is that, after being seen, they're quickly forgotten. The story follows an organization with the mission of cataloguing and containing these anomalies.

The eldritch, existential, and transdimensional press buttons for me, and this book is nailing it so far.

So after reading (well audio booking) the first 3 in the Chronos chronicles to scratch the Dresden itch I then jumped to Eric Carter on a similar recommendation and I’ve been enjoying that a lot too.

Different vibe ( much heavier and earlier books took a while to get going) but I just need more magic detective nonsense in my life apparently you make traffic bearable

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!

This was an excellent book and I very much appreciate the ending. It felt very real, from the "accidental" racism of the MC to the complicity of the leadership.

Reading Hogfather with my partner for Christmas vibes

Still reading. I love Susan as a character and I forgot about Death of Rats + raven team up.

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 (⁠◠⁠‿⁠◕⁠)

Oof, I knew this one would hit hard in the end. And it does. This is not a happily ever after post apocalypse. But it is a "maybe we can make a life together" story

Also started and finished The Fourth Consort which just happened to be available on audiobook on Libby. Dalton is a human hired to help bring new alien species into The Unity, a collective that definitely helps them grow as a species! He and a representative from the rival Assembly are each trying to persuade this new species to join them. Meanwhile Dalton gets made consort to their leader. Everything goes fairly poorly for him from here, but it's really very enjoyable and fairly darkly comedic.

And next I'm starting The Small and Mighty about Americans who changed history despite being relatively unknown (I think, I will find out)
Literally just started this so I'm reading about Hamilton trying to get Last Rites and all the pastors/priests being like "nah, dueling bad"

Forgot to mention last week that I'm also reading The Tainted Cup (Hugo winner!) and need to finish it before the library slaps me on the wrist for overdue physical media. So of course I didn't read that one all week.

I read just about everything, but I'm currently waiting for the next book in the InCryptid series, the next book in Saint of Steel and the sequel to Swordheart. I also picked up the Innkeeper Chronicles, and it's been really good. I have a bad habit of picking up unfinished series, getting to the end, and picking up yet another unfinished series to kill time with, getting to the end of that, and repeating ad nauseum. I'm also reading a LitRPG series, called the Bee Dungeon, and can't wait to read Theads of Time. I also loved the Illuminae Files, but it's a bit long.

A light novel series I love is The Domain Lord Starts With Zero Subjects. I like how it doesn't fall into some of the traps that similar works can. I've read other ones where the protagonist buys slaves to join his party, and it's presented as 'okay' because he sets them free after. The book doesn't do that. The protagonist makes it very clear that buying other people would be a messed up thing to do, and that even if he were a completely perfect person, it would still be giving money to the slavers. He points out that merchants don't sell to just one person, and that they would have to kidnap other people to sell if there's a demand for it.

It's a power fantasy, but one I like, because the reason the protagonist wins is that he's a genuinely nice person who treats everyone with respect. He has allies who can negotiate trade deals for him, and one of the other characters has magic that tells her when people are lying, and when they mean to cause them harm. The protagonist is strong enough to fight most of the monsters that come into their territory, but he doesn't take unnecessary risks, and usually has a plan, because it's better to be overprepaired than dead.

Another thing I like is that he's humble, but not blind. In a lot of stories, the protagonist assumes that just because something was easy for him, it must be easy for everyone. The protagonist kills an earth dragon in the first book, under the impression that it was just a turtle monster, but when he's told what it was, he actually figures out that he's axe is enchanted from that. Later, when more dragons show up, he recognizes them as a threat, and gives orders to his soldiers accordingly. He understood that even if he got lucky the first time, and had a weapon that could break the dragons armour, the people around him didn't, so caution was the best strategy.

I read through Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff, ending the Nevernight trilogy. Damn it was good. It did an excellent job combining the expected/obligatory and the shocking/disappointing. The new characters were excellent. It really culminates Mia's arc well and has no shortage of badass moments. And I love the way the overall mythology/worldbuilding comes to such a tight close.

Among other books, I've started making progress through the Star wars: New Jedi Order series. I read the first one earlier in the year and have had the rest of the series sitting on the shelves since. I'm on #5 now (of 19), so making progress but have a ways to go. This is my first time actually reading through a multi-author series like this and hitting #4 was a bit jarring by how different the author was compared to #3. Stackpole was really great at characterization and the thought processes and emotions of the characters which Luceno didn't do nearly as well. It sort of works due to the different characters the two books focus on, but was jarring. I'm also a bit worried about the consistency of the Yuuzhan Vong.

I'm on the 7th dungeon crawler carl book. I find the series really fun. I'm disappointed that I'm about to catch up (8th book comes out next summer) right before I go on vacation this weekend. If anyone has similar fun beach reads let me know.

I've also been slowly reading "Journal of a novel" Steinbeck's East of Eden dairy. For when Im feeling more patient and contemplative.