2025 has been a bit of A Ride.
Go read The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed, even though I still need to finish it up. Re-read books that bring you joy.
And somehow that's all in terms of recommendations.
Be nice to good people, be decidedly-not-nice to fascists, and for the germans: engagiert euch für die Prüfung des Verbots gesichert rechtsextremer Parteien.
This one was recommended as a non-techbro-y cyberpunk novel, and that’s a pretty good description.
It follows the story of a journalist trying to uncover the story of an immense genocide, and in the process finding out about all the many unseen ramifications it and its aftermath hold over society.
It’s a good read, not a fun one, and you all should go and read it.
After reading Dracula a while ago I made the plan to also read the other works of historic vampire fiction, and Carmilla is in many points quite clearly an inspiration (and known to be one) for Stokers far more well known work.
To actually say I have not a lot: it’s a vampire story. It’s good. It’s old enough to be on Project Gutenberg, so you have no excuse to not read it yourselves.
The story of A— in the body of H— following the events of second book, the story of the last few days in the life of Nona and her “family” of Camilla, Palamedes and Pyrrha trying to figure out who she is, and why, and of some other people of comparatively little importance. To Nona, that is.
Compared to other Locked Tomb novels this is (mostly) a light, fluffy story, and just like the other books it is A Lot less confusing on a second read. It also contains one of Gideon’s greatest lines.
I’ll have to repeat myself however: ALECTO WHEN!?
This is.. so good.
You play as the inhabitant of a (very small) solar system, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And that’s all I can say without spoilers.
The game has a knowledge-based progression system, so you need to piece the fact together based on what you learn, with locations usually providing hints on how to deal with other locations, in a way that it doesn’t really matter in which order you go which places.
I highly recommend playing it, and to go in there with as little prior knowledge as you humanly can. (And if you’re getting stuck, the subreddit is very good at giving hints instead of solutions.)
I am now diving into the Echoes of the Eye-expansion, so… let’s see how that goes.
The second book of the Silo trilogy is just as much of a page-turner as the first one.
It starts in more-or-less current times and expands along several locations and timeslines on the background of the setting, detailing why the situation is the way it is, and just *how* fucked everything is.
It does this very well, it ups the stakes, it provides a ton of background lore, and really has me looking forward for the endgame in Dust.
After Eclipse I felt a need to re-read the titular Stories Of Your Life, which was the inspiration for Contact, which was an inspiration for Eclipse. And then I already had the thing open, so why not.
I have to say that the stories hit better the first time, however it remains a very good collection. It is not, however, a comfortable one.
The world is a giant underground silo. The outside is toxic. The order of society must be preserved at all costs, lest humanities last outpost crumbles to dust. Of course nothing goes ever wrong.
The story, or maybe rather “the collection of novellas”, follows the events of said Silo, beginning with the old sheriff volunteering to go outside to clean the cameras, and all that unravels from it.
I have devoured this book, and I highly recommend it for anyone up for some… rather dark apocalyptic fiction.
I was also not at all surprised to learn that this was one of the inspirations for Tales: Inside.
I’ve decided to read this one after the good people of Poltergeist announced a larp based on it and a lot of people were very excited, and now I do see why.
It is the story of a house made out of endless rooms, filled with statues, the lower level flooded, the upper full of rainclouds, and of a man exploring the house, and of the Other, his friend, and the people of the house’s past and present and future.
Being less cryptic would mean spoiling the fun, so give it a read!
The second time around this book continues to be an absolute fever dream, but knowing what’s coming (and maybe a few hours of wiki-binging beforehand) really did help to make a lot more sense of everything.
This does not mean the book is not recommended, but it features a protagonist of questionable mental health and in parts second-person narration, making the whole thing A Ride than can be hard to pierce together.
I also have the feeling that knowing what to look for made some statements stand out better.
Two down, one to go, Alecto when?
