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What are we reading? - quatilyAssuramce - 05-06-2026
I didn't see a book forum so I'll just dump this stream of consciousness here. I've been on a horror binge for a few years with occasional breaks/overlaps with sci-fi after an extended fantasy bender, but I took a sharp right into historical fiction and read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, just wrapped it up last week.
Neal's been one of my favorite authors since I fell ass-first into Anathem last year when I was searching for hard sci-fi that I'd never heard of; of course the first recommendations that a Neal-newb like me got were Snow Crash and Seveneves, but when I saw that Anathem was the book for logophiles I was intrigued and snatched it up. It actually took me a good 3 or 4 false starts before I made it more than 30ish pages in, I went in almost completely blind so I had no idea wtf I was reading, but once it got me I was fuckin' got. It's still a strong contender for my favorite sci-fi novel, possibly sharing the #1 spot with The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (which may also be in my top 10 for horror whether it belongs there or not, it sure scared the shit out of me).
Anyway, the Baroque Cycle was so good and absorbed me so thoroughly that none of the 30ish items on my reading list appealed, so I picked one at random and got King Sorrow. It's not bad, I'm not in love, but I think it's one of those situations where no reading journey was going to be as exciting with L'Emmerdeur himself shrinking in the rear-view.
I'll wrap this up with some of my other favorites from the last few years and see if anything strikes a chord with anybody and compels them to do the same.
For favorite horror I'd have to go with Last Days by Adam Nevill. This one seems kind of divisive because his exposition-heavy style really seems to piss people off, but I read this after something like a 8 book Stephen King binge so the massive info dumps were like...well, like reading anything else after a Stephen King binge I guess. But I'm a sucker for content about cults and I love his style, having also read The Reddening and All the Fiends of Hell and liking them but loving Last Days. Honorable mention to Pet Sematary for simultaneously being an excellent folk-horror novel (one of my favorite sub-genres), and one of the rare times that King paired a great ending with a great book. You almost always get one or the other. I finally read it a year or so ago after ruining my night watching that ass-awful remake from 2019 and it really sucked me in from start to finish.
For top sci-fi I already mentioned Anathem, but I did say "other" favorites so I'm taking my own loophole so I can mention The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. This sumbitch checked every box for me, I liked it so much that when I hit the end I spent the next week just jumping around parts of it. It was scary, the protagonist was perfectly flawed but also sufficiently likable, and I don't think I correctly predicted any of the major story beats.
I guess the last fantasy I read and really enjoyed was still Joe Abercrombie's First Law/Age of Madness trilogies, it's been like 5 years and I think they actually kind of spoiled the whole damn genre for me because everything else I've tried to read feels like YA fiction. I did make it through The Library at Mt. Char and it was pretty damn good, so I'll give that an honorable mention.
/rant
What are we reading? - BigPete - 05-06-2026
quatilyAssuramce, post: 2269980, member: 28512 Wrote:Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle
I read Quicksilver and liked it a lot, but then never ended up picking up the others when they came out. I should throw them on the todo list.
quatilyAssuramce, post: 2269980, member: 28512 Wrote:I guess the last fantasy I read and really enjoyed was still Joe Abercrombie's First Law/Age of Madness trilogies, it's been like 5 years and I think they actually kind of spoiled the whole damn genre for me because everything else I've tried to read feels like YA fiction. I did make it through The Library at Mt. Char and it was pretty damn good, so I'll give that an honorable mention.
/rant
I am currently reading a YA litrpg book called "Sufficiently Advanced Magic" It's okay. I like the magic system stuff a lot, but there's a lot more of the "At magic school learning shit and navigating the social perils that come with that" than there is the "In the tower using what I learned and solving puzzles" thing so it gets a little slow at times. Great world building and systems, Good if tropey characters, overall plot is good, but individual set pieces are hit or miss.
I've also recently read "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson and it was pretty great. I think [USER=28506]@Turk[/USER] was working on that one as well.
Outside of that, I visited some used book stores and finished my collection of The Death Gate Cycle (Weis/Hickman)
Also, I read another Diskworld book every few years.
My Daughter read a really interesting book a while back and relayed the story to me. I can't remember what it's called though, so I'll have to ask her. It was a psychological thriller kind of thing. Seemed good.
What are we reading? - BigPete - 05-06-2026
BigPete, post: 2269981, member: 4840 Wrote:My Daughter read a really interesting book a while back and relayed the story to me. I can't remember what it's called though, so I'll have to ask her. It was a psychological thriller kind of thing. Seemed good.
The Last House on Needless Street
What are we reading? - Turk - 05-06-2026
BigPete, post: 2269981, member: 4840 Wrote:I've also recently read "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson and it was pretty great. I think [USER=28506]@Turk[/USER] was working on that one as well.I've stalled big time on that one. I'm having a really hard time getting into it. I can't imagine reading 12 of these as it is.
What are we reading? - quatilyAssuramce - 05-06-2026
BigPete, post: 2269982, member: 4840 Wrote:The Last House on Needless Street
I've seen that one mentioned a couple times on r/horrorlit, sounds like some prime spooky dookie
What are we reading? - quatilyAssuramce - 05-06-2026
Turk, post: 2269983, member: 28506 Wrote:I've stalled big time on that one. I'm having a really hard time getting into it. I can't imagine reading 12 of these as it is.
I loved Sanderson's Mistborn series, but I keep meaning to go read the expansions beyond the trilogy. The Stormlight Archive sounds really good but I have (and mostly follow) a hard rule about starting unfinished series, so I'll probably dig into those when I retire some time around 2050. The Baroque Cycle and The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb, easily my favorite work of fantasy, really showed my waning stamina for these monster series. It's hard for me to read some really long stuff and not think about how much of it could have been cut without diminishing my enjoyment at all. I know this is probably controversial but Robert Jordan is probably one of the main offenders for me; I remember thinking "who TF edited this?" and then finding out it was his wife. Sometimes a writer just needs a cold red pen indifferent to their feelings.
What are we reading? - BigPete - 05-06-2026
quatilyAssuramce, post: 2269985, member: 28512 Wrote:I know this is probably controversial but Robert Jordan is probably one of the main offenders for me; I remember thinking "who TF edited this?" and then finding out it was his wife. Sometimes a writer just needs a cold red pen indifferent to their feelings.I don't think you'll find many here that are tugging their braids over this.
What are we reading? - quatilyAssuramce - 05-08-2026
BigPete, post: 2269986, member: 4840 Wrote:I don't think you'll find many here that are tugging their braids over this.
I'm used to reddit lol
What are we reading? - Digital Prophet - 05-08-2026
Oh boy its time for me to vomit opinions!
I have a sort of weird thing with Brandon Sanderson where I really like him as a person but I have never been able to get into his books. I feel similarly about John Scalzi. Great guy, I follow him on social media, I feel like i *should* like his books, but I just do not. Lots of people do! Clearly its a me problem! Its been so long since I tried to read books by either one of them I can't even tell you why at this point. I did like Elantris okay, from Sanderson. I guess he wrote some more in that but I think I recall them being disconnected from the first book so ppphth.
Robert Jordan: I liked the first two books in the wheel of time, and then I got really tired of it really fast. Nearly every character was an unlikable asshole in some way and it just turned into a slog of people I didn't care about. I'm sure if you dug Jordan up and asked him about it he would be like "it's realistic for everyone to have flaws!" but the reality is that it just made it tiresome to read a whole series full of assholes. Same with the game of thrones series, or whatever, Song of Ice and Fire, i guess. I did like Martin's attempt at scifi with his Tuf Voyaging book. I might try to read through ASoIaF again when its done, presuming it ever is. I read for escapism so if I have to make a goddamn flowchart to keep track of your characters, you can get fucked.
I read predominantly fantasy throughout my life starting early in childhood and then about 10 or 15 years ago I just decided that I was done with fantasy. So unless there is a pretty unique hook for the series, I generally skip it now. I mostly read scifi, horror, mysteries, and modern or "urban" fantasy now.
Anyway, I just got finished reading the recent Murderbot... novella(?), by Martha Wells. This has been one of my favorite series recently, though I usually don't read novellas or short stories. I highly recommend it if you haven't already. The show didn't really capture it, I don't think, but it was, you know, okay. The real, actual, novels in the series are great, and the novellas are... novellas, but also in the series so they're not terrible.
For older recommendations:
The Aubrey/Maturin sea adventure books written by Patrick O'Brian are probably my absolute favorite series. And then the RCN scifi series, which David Drake modeled directly on the Patrick O'Brian books, are almost as good.
Also set during the Napoleonic war, the Sharpe books are also fantastic if you are into historical adventure type fiction. Reading the Aubrey/Maturin series and the Sharpe series together gives you a real sense of the whole thing, since both authors did pretty painstaking research.
What are we reading? - BigPete - 05-08-2026
Digital Prophet, post: 2270005, member: 28507 Wrote:I feel similarly about John Scalzi. Great guy, I follow him on social media, I feel like i *should* like his books, but I just do not.
I started following him between books and didn’t realize he was an author because he was only posting about politics at the time. Threw me off guard when I saw his name on the endcap at Barnes & Noble.