What are you reading these days?

I am absolutely flying through Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. Hilarious and fascinating. I think I like it better than The Martian!

Back on bit of a reading kick.

I recently finished Dune, which as expected was fantastic science fiction. It was my 3rd time trying to read it and this time I managed to power through the beginning (which I found confusing, dry, and slow) and get sucked in to it. Fantastic world building, probably the best in any science fiction I've read, or at least read recently. It was a big commitment but I'm happy I read it and especially so before the movie comes out.

I also read The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through The Internet. This was a collection of essays about the internet and internet culture from a very personal perspective, and I thought it was fantastic. Essay topics include Bumble dates with tech bros, Monster Energy drinks, vaporwave albums, and more. I read a lot of books on the internet and its affect on us and on culture, and this was one of the better ones. I really do recommend it.

Finally, on a long plane ride the other day I finally read Do Androids Dreams of Electric Sheep? I thought it was a good book and I definitely got sucked it. I was surprised how different it was from Blade Runner, but not necessarily in a good or bad way. In a sense it was telling a different story in a different world, but with the core ideas the same. I can't tell if the final outlook of the story was bleak or not but I'll definitely be thinking about it for a while.

Now I'm deciding what to read next!

I just finished The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents from Terry Pratchett, a Discworld novel. Considering it is aimed at younger readers (it features chapters, which Pratchett only does because his editors really, really want him to use chapters for kids books), but what is advertised as a child's novel is something much more.

It's about a pack of rats (and a cat) who, owing to living on the dump of a magical university, have recently gained consciousness. The cat, Maurice, finds a young boy who likes playing the flute and together they scam town after the town until they find one where something is rather different. I won't spoil more, but it's a great book about what it means to be human, or sentient, about society and acceptance, belief, death and all those things that make life, well, life.

My favourite segment:

"Because, you just think for many rats." he said. "But you don't think of them. Nor are you, for all that you say, the Big Rat. Every word you utter is a lie. If there is a Big Rat, and I hope there is, it would not talk of war and death. It would be made of the best we could be, not the worst that we are. No, I will not join you, liar in the dark. I prefer our way. We are silly and weak, sometimes. But together, we are strong. You have plans for rats? Well, I have dreams for them."

I have recently taken up Tolkien's works - I have finished the Hobbit yesterday and started LOTR today. The world building is really nice. I missed out on these works for a long time hesitating to pick it up, and now I want to finish all of Tolkien's works - they just seem so magical and enrapturing.

My friend's brother self-published a book on Amazon, and I read it. I'm not much of a reader normally, and the book is definitely for a younger target audience than me, but you know what? I had fun, despite my initial skepticism. It would have been the kind of thing I was way into in my teens, and I think it'd make a cool TTRPG setting too. It's called Unbound, by C.J. Gagnon, and it's in a planned trilogy. And honestly I'm pretty happy for him!

Still, it actually got me interested to start picking up some other books... I was an absolutely insatiable reader into my teens, and that fell off a lot in university and adulthood. I feel like I'd like to read some more serious / seminal works interspersed with some more fun modern stuff. I have had a copy of The Cider House Rules on my nightstand for nearly a year now and I think I'm going to finally try and finish it.

Fun fact, the copy I have is signed by Amanda Palmer (the musician). I'm actually not... really a big fan of her, but she did a show themed around abortions that a friend wanted to go to so I tagged along. Due to a merch mix-up, none of her shirts or albums arrived at the venue so she ended up buying a lot of books from a local secondhand store and selling those by donation for autographs, with some of the proceeds going to a women's charity organization I can't remember the name of. I had a vague memory of The Cider House Rules being pretty in line with the themes of the show so I picked it up, and it turned out that was the "Secret Prize Book". I got some pins out of it.

Oddly I found myself reading The Arithmancer, which is Harry Potter fan fiction in which Hermione is a math whiz.

I didn’t read very far into the original series and have no particular desire to go back and read them now, but somehow reading an alternate take seems fun.

I just ordered a copy of The Algebraist, which I’m excited about.