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[Vector]

Purpose:
- Challenge ourselves or just keep track of our reads here on B12.
- Build a community of readers.
- Share books we liked, pick up new reads.

How to:
---> CHALLENGE MODE: Set a goal for yourself here in the thread and update regularly on your progress.
---> CHILLAX MODE: Just hang out and vibe, occasionally talk about books, it's all good man.

[Great Order]

I'll drop some recommends:

If you like sci-fi with a bit of horror mixed in (I emphasise "a bit"), try out The Expanse series.

If you haven't read them, the Discworld novels are definitely my favourite books. Satirises a lot of other works while doing some heavy lifting on real-world issues without shoving them down your throat. If you're after crime noir, start off with Guards! Guards! and follow the Sam Vimes series. The literal least magical person on the Disc who is a raging coward, try the Rincewind series but skip the first two and come back to them later. Psychology and magic? Witches series, start with Wyrd Sisters, Equal Rites is the first but it's better not to start with that one.

I read All Quiet On The Western Front this year, it's a good book if you're wanting a story about the horrors of the trenches in WWI. Unsurprisingly, it's really depressing.

The Red Mars Trilogy is a great book if you're after sci-fi Game of Thrones. It follows the colonisation and terraforming of Mars over two and a half centuries, it's very hard sci-fi, with the largest inaccuracies occurring due to the accelerated terraforming timescale and science having moved on since the 90s. The books are hefty, so only go into it if you can deal with that. It's a series I return to every few years because that's about how frequently I can reread it.

[Travis Bickle]

If I make even a dent in my stack of books this year I'll be happy.

[Vector]

My goal this year is to continue my education. I stopped reading seriously in my early twenties because I could tell that I was going through the motions and nothing I could find to read related to my life or that of anyone I knew. Also, I read Jude the Obscure at just the wrong time and it really damaged me.

Last year was a watershed in many ways, I've been more successful finding interesting books, and I'm recommitting to working at it. If I have a chance at becoming a professor, which I do, I really want to be one that I can respect. I have a few mathematicians in particular in mind.

I am focused on quality over quantity, but I hope that by the end of the year I'll finish more than 52 books and other pieces of media that can help me on my way.

In the name of completely burning to the ground any chill I once possessed, I will also commit to 1. not reading a single article from the transphobic New York Times in the calendar year of 2023 and 2. looking for more obscure and bracing stuff than the usual pop psychology, soft romance, easy-goes-it politics that I get funneled toward me thru algorithms and well-meaning people.

Don't bother arguing with me about point 1, this isn't the venue and it isn't about the NYT specifically, it's about a commitment to my community and, having handed them way too many clicks over the past ten years, refusing to be their captive audience. I'm taking my eyeballs elsewhere.


Overall I want to be sure that out of the 52, I read books from the following areas:

- 8 or more by trans* authors
- 8 or more by Black authors
- 5 or more by indigenous authors
- 3 - 5 math books
- 5 - 8 books on education/teaching
- 5 or more books on labor and community organizing
- 8 - 13 books in languages other than English, not including comics

At least two of the below:
- Finish one of the Great Chinese Novels
- Read and watch a Shakespeare play I don't know yet (so not Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, or King Lear)
- Read Les Miserables or Count of Monte Cristo
- Read the Iliad or Odyssey

I don't have any hope of actually doing either this year but I don't want to forget that I think about this often:
- Read the rest of Steinbeck's books
- Finish reading the Aubrey-Maturin series

I also want to go back to watching movies in some of the categories I haven't seen for a long time.

- 10 movies from the Sinosphere
- 10 movies that are anti-fascist or pro-labor or give that Italian neorealist cinema vibe, e.g. Battle of Algiers, Z, Salt of the Earth, Killers of Sheep.


It's a lot and I don't really expect to succeed, but my life has crumbled over the past few years into samey-ness. The important thing is not the volume, it's not the success, it's heaving myself out of this fucked-up Nash equilibrium that I'm sitting in by whatever means are available to me. Let's give it a try ... I have to at least try ...

[Cthulhu]

I'm starting things off easy.  Been reading the Red Rising series, finished the first book and working on the second.  I'm enjoying it enough, but it's very light, and overall I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Red Rising

Set on Mars, in a light sci-fi/space fantasy world where humanity's been genetically regimented into castes, with demigodlike Golds at the top and the rest of the castes more or less slaves.  The main character is a Red in a plot to overthrow society.

Spoiler: Spoilery impressions (click to show/hide)

It's very "YA" in plot structure, though I've heard the author was pressured to organize it that way and didn't really want to.  Darrow, the main character, joins a revolutionary group called the Sons of Ares after the Golds execute his wife for sedition, and ends up being "carved" by a cosmetic surgeon into a Gold. He goes to the Institute, which is ostensibly a college for the best and brightest young Golds, but turns out to basically be the classic YA death competition, where the students are split into houses based on the Roman gods and placed in an isolated valley to conquer each other.  The society's system of patronage means successful Institute competitors end up being groomed for leadership and power, and that's his path to destroying society from within.

It's a page turner, pretty simple plot, very in keeping with the "YA dystopian death competition with sorting hat houses" structure it copies.

Golden Son
The second book.  Hard to discuss the plot without spoiling the first one.  This one is less YA though, feels like it's leaning towards a game of thrones type space politics and betrayal scenario, though the first person present tense structure means you only get the main character's perspective.

This one's kind of weird though, a lot of false starts and bits where the book goes in one direction and then immediately veers in another.  It does this like five times in the first act, it feels like the author didn't know which way to go with it and didn't edit the changes out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Darrow won the Institute and joined the house of Nero, the ArchGovernor of Mars, who had his wife executed. He goes through a weird series of false starts, failing at the Academy and losing favor with Nero (partly due to his Wormtongue's manipulation), starts an alliance with Nero's psychopath son, then links back up with the Sons of Ares and gets a concealed nuke to use at a gala where all the leaders of society will be.  Then he decides not to use it because he thinks the Sons' plan will fail (they want to use the nuke to kick off a system-wide revolution, but having actually been in Gold society and seeing how it operates he knows the Sons have no idea what they're really dealing with and they have no chance of success).  Instead he starts a giant public fight with Nero's rival house, threatening civil war as the leader of the Golds undermines her own authority to try to stop it.  Then he defects to the Sovereign's house, then immediately defects back to Nero.  It gets kind of confusing.

[delphonso]

I've been on a warpath this year, already finished 5 novels and working on the sixth. Will likely slow down as I approach work and take less trains.

Finished:
Blood Bowl: Rumble in the Jungle - Matt Forbeck
Mercifully the last of the series. I finished it just out of completionism, though the whole series was just a downward slide from the first, which was, at least, a goofy adventure that I truly enjoyed.

Liberty's Crusade - Jeff Grubb
This kicked off a spree of Starcraft fiction (following me installing the classic version). Grubb is a pretty seasoned author and this is just a solid book from cover to cover. Follows the Terran campaign, but remains interesting despite the narrow plot.
Shadow of Xel'naga - Gabriel Mesta
Actually very bad and not good. Just a bit generic and bland. Sandwiched by two much better books.
Speed of Darkness - Tracy Hickman
Straight up one of the best sci-fi novels I've read in a bit (not saying much). If you like Starcraft or good old fashioned military op books, this is worth a read. It was a real page-turner. I read the whole thing within about 24 hours.
Uprising - Micky Neilson
Much like the first novel, it's a solid one. Hard to stand in the shadow of the previous novel, but a nice dismount from this series. They were all shipped as "The Archive" and omnibus of the 4. Only Speed of Darkness really stands on its own, having value even if you're unfamiliar with Starcraft.

All this finally put me on Blindsight - Peter Watts.
It was mentioned in last year's thread and I mentioned wanting to read it. On that simple sci-fi run, I decided to dive in deeper. I'm only about a tenth of the way through, but am already loving it. It's weird and horrific and amazing all the way through. Probably will hit up some of this Mars fiction next.

[Telgin]

I've still been reading the Dresden Files series and have gotten up to the last two published books.  Urban fantasy still isn't exactly my thing, though I've enjoyed the series overall.

Now that I'm getting close to finishing it, I need to find something else to start reading, but don't know where to start really.  For a while I've been wanting to find a fantasy book that's sort of xenofiction in that it's not written from a human perspective, and ideally is something like an alternate earth where humans don't even exist.  I did a bit of poking around looking for books written from, say, the perspective of dragons, but I only found a couple of examples and they weren't quite what I was looking for for reasons I don't really remember now.  Seems like most books about dragons written in the last 20 years are just dragon rider books.

I also kind of want to find something that's less grand in scale than the Dresden Files.  Seems most stories that go on long enough inevitably become about saving the world or universe, but I'd like to see something a bit more personal in scope.

[Travis Bickle]

Picked up Infiltration by Taylor Marshall. I've been meaning to read it for a while seeing as it's more or less required reading in some circles, but I've simply never gotten around to it until now. I have tentative hopes that there will be something new in this book that I haven't seen before, though I have a slight suspicion that most of it's just going to be traditionalist boilerplate that I've already read in other sources. That being said, if it does end up being mostly stuff I already know it might still make for a good refresher.

[delphonso]

Managed 8 books in January, and then ground to a halt with work resuming and losing the habit of reading at night. Let's recap first.

Blindsight by Peter Watts.
No amount of discussion will suffice for this book. Go read it. Even if you don't like scifi, I think it has enough interesting and creative ideas to make it worthwhile. I finished it a month ago and keep thinking about it at least once a day.

Despair by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov is unfortunately known for his widely misunderstood Lolita, but Despair takes his unreliable narrator to a clearer and comedic end. I loved the main character, despite his long-windedness, and loved the little sprinkles of truth amongst his self-admitted tendency to lie and stretch the truth. It was a fun read, slow after the snappy dialogues of Blindsight, but still a good one.

The Shame Machine by Cathy O'Neil
Switching over to non-fiction was a good change of pace. This book is mostly about how shame is used as an industrial tool (dieting, for example) and how that's not in the spirit of the social tool that is shame. Namely, that shame is supposed to encourage people to change their /behavior/ not to be miserable about the things they cannot control. Not a stupendously mind-altering book, but it was a nice refresher and made me think twice about a few things since reading it.

I started Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson on Great Order's recommendation. Over halfway done already, but it's only a few pages a day. So far, Robinson is a superb writer. The sci-fi is grounded and realistic. The politics and mysteries are engaging. The characters are all great. The scenery descriptions make me want to off myself, but I also recognize how well they've done to make Mars feel real and physical. Enjoying it so far!

[EuchreJack]

I hope, at some time in 2023, to post that I finished reading one book. Or even started one! _{Although for me, they're basically the same thing, if the books is any good}

[delphonso]

13 finished this year. Certainly taking a break for a bit. Sleep has been sacrificed a few too many times.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I loved talking about this book, but didn't love reading it. The characters are excellent and the plot is good enough to keep you going. The tech is interesting, though a few things we know aren't really possible, or at least the time frames are off. Anyway, the Martian terrain descriptions and overall slow speed made it a slog to read. This book took longer than anything else I've read this year, despite being comparable in size.

The Hoofer and The Ties That Bind by Walter M. Miller.
Miller is a sort of one-hit-wonder with A Canticle for Liebowitz, which remains one of my favorite books of all time. The hoofer was a little shortstory about someone who spent the last 6 months in space coming back and 'hoofing it' to his family. The Ties That Bind is about a far future earth that was packed full of interesting ideas that will probably be stolen for DnD sometime. Quite short and worth a read.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
I read this in less than 24 hours. It's riveting, fascinating, alien and deeply psychological. Truly a masterpiece. The prose itself was good, though the plot is what keeps it going, or really, the implications of the plot. Blindsight just squeaks by it in my mind, but the two books are top contenders for 'best scifi I've ever read'.

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.
Surprisingly modern feeling. I didn't understand that this was a criticism of colonialism when I read it as a kid (I think, for school, so it's fucked we didn't discuss colonialism). It's great, and holds up. The prose is beautiful in places and everyone's actions in crisis make complete sense, which unfortunately other books fail to do. I read it after discussing Three Body Problem with my wife (the TV series is just wrapping up here), and have been thinking a lot about the two books. One, anti-colonialist, and the other, pro-isolationist. A better analyst than me could probably dig deeper there.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Finally getting around to these 70's classics. This is basically a perfect book. It's not as riveting as Solaris or Blindsight, but builds up just as much world and sets up great, well-rounded characters. The last chapter is mostly internal monologue and ends on a beautiful note. Just a great time all around.

City by Simak might be my next one, but I might leave the classic scifi for a bit and go with some nonfiction whenever I do crack open a book.

[Travis Bickle]

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Finally getting around to these 70's classics. This is basically a perfect book. It's not as riveting as Solaris or Blindsight, but builds up just as much world and sets up great, well-rounded characters. The last chapter is mostly internal monologue and ends on a beautiful note. Just a great time all around.

How closely does the film follow the book? Is it more or less a completely different story?

[delphonso]

No idea, haven't seen it. Both Roadside Picnic and Solaris read like movie scripts, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if both of the Tarkovsky joints are pretty accurate.

I'm planning to watch and can fill you in whenever I get to it.

[Caz]

I'm re-reading old sci-fi. I need to actually read my genre but I hate it.

[Vector]

NYT I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO QUIT YOU

Whatever, toxic lover. Here's some books and stuff that I've read with my human eyes:

Babel: an Arcane History - RF Kuang
Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit - Marlon M. Bailey
Dragon Hoops - Gene Luen Yang
NewsPrints - Ru Xu
Beautiful Darkness - Fabien Vehlmann
Disorientation - Elaine Hsieh Chou
Son of a Trickster - Eden Robinson
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction - Joshua Whitehead
I Want to Be Your Doll - Mira Ong Chua
The Cosmic Ballad of Layla and Airy - Mira Ong Chua

Hmm... mostly graphic novels. I wonder if I'll read more while I'm on leave.