Casual Conversation

I finally read through all 9 main books of The Expanse and I cannot recommend them highly enough. for fans of the show, the books have so much more. including a 30 year time skip. the events also happen in a slightly different order than in the series, which, to me, changes the overall story more than I expected.

if you like sci-fi that doesn't skimp on the physics, pick up a copy of Leviathan Wakes (looking at you, Andy Weir fans)

currently reading through Asimov's Foundation series of novels and I'm loving them so far

I really enjoyed the Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee, a trilogy. Then I read everything else by yoon ha lee, mostly good, the Thousand Worlds series was a bit clunky at the start.

If anyone wants a read that’ll seriously fuck with your head, try Hardfought by Greg Bear. A somewhat small novella, it takes place thousands of years in the future where humanity is engaged in a fight for survival against an enemy that no-one can understand.

The military patois is thick and barely understandable, with turns of phrases that you are forced to figure out on your own. The physics reads more like mysticism and religious doctrine. The combatants are modified from childhood to become perfect warriors until it is debatable if they are still human. A budding romance between a particularly talented pilot and the civilian analyst tasked to figure out and replicate the successes that produced her - which, ironically, was the humanizing elements of the highly illegal romance in the first place - sets the stage for humanity’s defeat.

And yet, a project started by the enemy in an attempt to understand the humans comes within a hair’s breadth of actually ending the war… until the alien’s own hidebound and ideologically blinkered leaders kill the project out of horror at the heresy it encapsulates.

Its ideas and concepts are maximally dense while the prose itself is sparse to the point of being almost haiku-like. The descriptions alone hew strongly to Chekov’s Gun, with no excess characterizations that don’t directly contribute. I have re-read it over a dozen times in the decades since I got it and every time I have peeled back more layers to find new revelations and themes.

I read the following books:

• Neuromancer (Gibson)
• Consider Phlebas (M Banks)
• The Player of Games (M Banks)
• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Benjamin) (reread)
• The Wizard of the Kremlin (Da Empoli) (in French)
• You don't hate Mondays, you hate domination in the workplace (Framont) (in French)
• Franchise (Asimov)
• Use of Weapons (M Banks)
• Call for vigilance: facing the far right (Plenel) (in French)
• The State of the Art (M Banks)

I just finished Bobiverse series. It was such a fun ride. I won't say anything about it in fear of spoiling the ride, but I am going to start book one again. Oh and the last in the series in coming next year hopefully. Bobiverse first book = We are Bob, we are legion.

I also read Hyperion this year and I loved it! Currently reading the sequel.

Read in the last year

Dungeon Crawler Carl books 1-7 by Matt Dinniman (twice). Will reread again when the next book comes out. Found this series last December and it's one of my favorites now

Dune books 1-4 by Frank Herbert. No interest in continuing, but I can see why they're famous. This series ate up the majority of my reading time because I found it hard to read in long blocks like I'm want to do.

The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton. Sci-fi with a couple of interesting ideas within. Not something I'll reread. Very male gazey.

Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson. Solid entry in the Cosmere. Nice expansion to Sixth of the Dusk. Probably not a great starting point to The Cosmere, since there's a good amount of cross knowledge utilized in this book.

Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. Nostalgia reread, read this a lot in high school. More male gazey than I remembered, which is a minor shame. But overall a fun time

Night Angel Nemesis by Brent Weeks. Follow-up to the Night Angel Trilogy. Not as good, the forced first-person compared to the original Trilogy really hampers this one. Sequel is coming out next year

The Black Prism and The Subtle Knife by Brent Weeks. First two books in The Lightbringer Series. Reread, first reread since the whole series came out. The first three books are really good. The last two are a bit rough around the edges.

Sitting at over 30 books and 30 audiobooks so far. Plan on 2 more books to complete for the year then I will post my list. Shorter then 2024 but not bad.

Just finished Project Hail Mary the other day. Really enjoyed it, one of my favs this year.

Others I enjoyed were:

-The Way by Cary Groner. Reminiscent of King’s The Stand but more accessible.

-Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. Sci-fi based on a distant planet with an old lady narrator. Refreshing change of pace from teen narrators. Really enjoyed it.

-The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. A first (well not quite first) contact story from the perspective of a missionary sent to evangelize the aliens. A bit heavy on the narrator’s inner thoughts, but very creative. Should make you reflect on your priorities and whether God and his Promises make sense outside of earth’s context.

-The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. Another one that I found to be a nice change of pace from my usual sci-fi thrillers. Beautiful writing. Worldbuilds an entire galactic universe by weaving together short stories about various citizens.

-All the Water in the World. Dystopian climate sci-fi following the child of a museum scientist on her journey away from the flooded rooftops of NYC. Narrator driven and contemplative story about finding and protecting our humanity in a broken world.

So much. 42 books so far and 32 movies since July. I don't know how many before that because I imported data into Letterboxd and it messed everything before July up. I feel the full lists would be too long. And Letterboxd includes my ratings and I don't feel like getting dissed. Looking over it I feel like a lot of my ratings are contentious.

I also played through all Horizon games and DLC again.

https://imgur.com/a/2dDS7Z6 I really wish storygraph gave us a nice wrapped list or even a grid mode.. Can you tell I have a genre? Went on a book crawl in my city where I visited about 28 book stores and really got back into reading for fun.

Weee! Looking forward to looking up some books here and finding something new to read!

Used to read a lot, but struggle to find novels I like, to get back into it. So it's mainly non-fiction now.

Autocracy inc. by Anne Applebaum - very well done book
How to win an information war: The propagandist who outwitted Hitler by Peter Pomerantsev - It's pretty much the story of Sefton Dehlmer and the group of counter-propaganda he led in Britain.
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Nobody's Girl by Vrginia Roberts Giuffre
Code Name Pale Horse How I Went Undercover to Expose Americas Nazis by Scott Payne

Currently on Mysticism in the 21st Century by Connell Monette - very high quality text, picked it up after reading some of the things in the aforementioned book and wanting to dig in deeper.

Also reading some Graeber. Started with an audiobook and tried for months, but I just can't for this type of stuff.

I read, and I recommend this book if you like fantasy, Solaris by Stanisław Lem. It is about astronauts who are researching about planet Solaris and life on that planet. 

If you want a good David Brin book that isn't very serious try the practice effect.

Here's most of what I watched in 2025(not all released in 2025).

Movies

• A House of Dynamite
• The Amateur
• The Bad Guys 2
• Ballerina
• Black Bag
• Blue Moon
• Bring Her Back
• Captain America Brave New World
• Cunk on Life
• Elio
• F1
• Friendship
• Good Boy
• Good Fortune
• The Gorge
• London Calling
• M3GAN 2.0
• Fantastic Four First Steps
• Materialists
• Mickey 17
• Minecraft Movie
• Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning
• The Naked Gun
• Nobody 2
• Novocaine
• Primitive War
• The Running Man
• Roofman
• Sinners
• Superman
• The Watchers
• Thunderbolts
• The Toxic Avenger

TV Shows

• Arcane
• Black Doves
• Common Side Effects
• DAN DA DAN
• Fallout
• Farscape (Just started)
• Frieren
• The Last of Us
• Last Samurai Standing
• Love, Death & Robots
• Magic and Muscles
• Marvel Zombies
• Monsieur Spade
• Mrs. Davis
• Murderbot
• The Night Agent
• Pantheon
• Platonic
• Poker Face
• SAKAMOTA DAYS
• Scavengers Reign
• Shrinking
• Silo
• The Recruit
• Wednesday
• WITCH WATCH
• Zero Day
• Zom 100

Games

• Red Dead Redemption II
• Witcher 3
• Star Renegades
• Tower Wizard
• Noita
• Chained Echoes
• Severed Steel
• skate.
• Glyphica

Highlights from this year include:

• All Systems Red by Martha Wells First in a series of short novels about a cybernetic construct owned by a corporation in a dystopia. I found it extremely relatable and humorous in relation to my own autism. Please do not watch the Apple TV series; it's a literal hate crime.

• Other Ever Afters by Melanie Gillman A graphic novel of fairytale stories which teach good values.

• Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans Basically cyberpunk in fantasy clothes. Rather than hacking, our heroes deal in illegal magical practices. Very light-hearted and fun, especially if you want read about boys holding hands.

• Unnatural Magic by CM Waggoner Takes the basic premise of Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett and expands on it dramatically. Especially recommended if you're into wholesome dom/sub relationships.

• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu Humanity makes contact with an alien intelligence and politics ensue. More of a serious/heavy sci-fi.

• You Weren't Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White Extreme body horror. One of the best things I've ever read. Deals heavily with mental health, self-harm, and abuse/torture. All of this guy's stuff is great, but this is the first one written explicitly for adults, so he doesn't hold back.

• Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews Also a horror story dealing with mental health and self-harm, but intended for a younger audience.

All of these except Three-Body Problem are explicitly LGBT-friendly and come with representation euphoria built-in.

Since I'm an audio book guy I really only read one book this year, I was a Shelby Foote on the second year of the civil war so I used it and chased down most of that battles in the VA/MD/WV area.

I did however listen to 261 audio books

I’ve read 49 books so far this year. Some of my favorites include:

Road to Ruin by Hana Lee

Consortium Rebellion trilogy by Jessie Mihalik

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom Com by Kimberly Lemmings

Jules & Bun series by J.M. Griffin 

Run by Blake Crouch