20% through Schilds Ladder from Greg Egan now. It’s like Gregs other works, it’s good.

I finished the Classic of Tea, but am still struggling through The Legend of Darkness. As my backup brain-resting book I’ve now got The Thirty-Six Strategems on the side. It’s an interesting new edition that has all the strategems and classic commentary examples but also adds more modern ones from around the world and from spheres other than the military. It is, as so many of my books in this vein are, trilingual: the original text and commentary are in Classical Chinese, modern vernacular Chinese, and English. The examples are bilingual vernacular Chinse and English.

Just finished Trust, by Hernan Diaz. I read it without looking up at summaries or so before and at first I was a bit disappointed by the first part (and even asked myself if it would not be a dnf). But when I discovered there was 4 parts in this book, progressively revealing the facts, I told myself “what a great piece of literature it is”. This is just a real performance for the author to write in 4 different style as if the part were written by different people with the key markers of each type of writing.

Just started The Whisperer, by Donato Carrisi.

I just finished Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud, a collection of short stories about hell. Holy fuck, Skullpocket is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read. I starts kinda silly and then… damn.

Most of the way through Tilt by Emma Patee. A story about a woman who’s nine months pregnant in Portland when the Big One hits the Cascadia Subduction Zone (Massive Earthquake.) It’s a fast, easy, insanely emotional read. Not a favorite, but I’m hooked.

I just finished Alien III by William Gibson.

It is a script for the third movie but was not used. It was later turned into a novel.

I listen to an audio book version and I am pretty sure it is was the movie script not the novel.

I picked up Project Hail Mary from the library this week. Only just started but I’m enjoying it so far.

I just finished Stephen Baxter’s World Engines: Destroyer and while it was OK, I have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m discovering unsavory things about Baxter. There are commonalities in his main characters that are… unattractive? One main character, fine. But when the main character is basically the same character in different settings and with different names; and when the story literally contains “and then, everyone clapped”… well, I don’t know. The writing is better than I could do, and I’m interested to see where it goes, but I don’t know if I can enjoy the libertarian fantasy overtones. I’m torn.

I’m a couple chapters into A. Tchaikovsky’s Shroud, and have great expectations. I know I like Tchaikovsky’s world building and writing, and this looks so far like another novel (innovative?) premise from a great author.

I finally made it to book 2 of Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives.

Currently reading Consider Phlebus. Read the entire series years ago but thought it was worth re-read. Just as good as my first time!

“Harlem Shuffle” by Colson Whitehead.

It’s the 1960s and this dude is trying to make a go of a furniture store on 125th Street. He’s an honest businessman who wants to help people in the community get good products at a reasonable price, and provide for his wife and kids.

Of course, being an honest businessman in 1960s Harlem is a bit different from being an honest businessman in say Darrian, CT. So what if he’s doing a little fencing; hanging out with stickup men; aiding corrupt police, and suchlike?

Great depictions of the neighborhood with lots of action.

I just started Polostan (2024) by Neal Stephenson. I saw an interview where he said he’s been sitting on the idea for a new trilogy for years and finally sat down to start it with this book.

Sundial by Catriona Ward. No spoilers but its a very dark psychological horror. I’m not far into it but I’m already hooked.

Having recently finished Stormlight, I am very curious to read the Sunlit Man now!

I just finished Assassin of Reality by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko (book 2 of Vita Nostra). It honestly kind of felt like an afterthought to capitalize on the popularity of the first book. I didn’t feel like it added much and preferred the open endedness of the first book.

Now I’ve started Wool by Hugh Howey, the first of the books the Silo show is based on. Too early to give my thoughts but the first few chapters were very closely followed in the show.

Currently reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.

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Read:

The Crows by C.M. Rosens (eldritch horror chick lit… yes, for real) | bingo squares: different continent, creature, LGBTQIA+ (arguably HM), jerk HM

A woman moves into an old house on the outskirts of an unfriendly coastal town, where everyone seems to want her gone. Turns out, the house is sentient, and many of the townsfolk aren’t entirely human, including her nearest neighbor, a human/eldritch horror-hybrid.

This literally reads like Bridget Jones’ Diary-era chick lit, just with liberal amounts of horror (Lovecraftian and otherwise) thrown in. It’s actually a solid mashup, though, and doesn’t dwell on awfulness the way the yard-long content warning list makes you think it would. It could use an edit for continuity (and don’t think too hard about the world building), but it got me out of out of my post-Fisherman reading slump, so I recommend it as a fluff read if it sounds like your jam. Sidenote: this is marketed on one of the covers as “cosmic horror romance”, but while there is a something in the story, it doesn’t drive the plot, and isn’t what you’d expect from the “romance” label (but nice to see!).

Currently reading Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger II꧇ Down to Earth. This is a somewhat autobiographical trilogy, though mixed in with a lot of spiritualism, conspiracism, and some philosophy. I am mainly reading it due to my interest in discordianism. If you want to read part of it to check it out I would suggest reading down to earth, as it is far more readable than Cosmic Trigger I꧇ Final Secrets of the Illuminati.