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Reading Roundup, Q3 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step off the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley, A Greetings listener. It's a I always
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: going to say, lovely day here in suburban Chicago, and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I guess it is lovely. The sun is shining through
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a slight haze, but it's dang cold. We're past the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: halfway point in March. When I left the house this morning,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: it said fourteen degrees. It's significantly warmer than that. Now
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I would put it in the mid twenties or even
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: high twenties, maybe even the low thirties. That's still colder
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: than I want for mid March. Nonetheless, here I am
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: walking home, and I was looking back at the podcast
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and saying, ah, what should I do today? And I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: realized it had been a long time since I talked
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: about anything I read. That's right, I'm looking back and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I see that I haven't talked about reading since I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: did an episode on my reading from quarter two of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So normally I try to about a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: month after the quarter ends, I try to do an
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: episode talking about the quarter of reading, but I don't
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: think that I've done one on quarter three, so that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: means it's been like six months, seven eight months since
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I finished reading. I guess quarter three ended in at
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the beginning of October, so it's just been like whatever.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So today I'm gonna talk about quarter three of twenty
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: twenty five. Yes, so this is July, August, September of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So what I like to do is
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I talk about I will tell you all the books
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that I've read by the end of the walk, but
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I'm only going to talk about some of them because
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I don't time to talk about them all. So what
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do is just talk about the ones that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: stand out to me. I've ordered them in order of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: highest ranked to lowest ranked, so as I go along,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be talking about books I like less and less,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: but I'll start with the books I like the most.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And if I can think of a game that's relevant,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I'll mention it. But this is a less game focused
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: episode than usual. I also apologize in advance for any
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: fuzzy memory I have. As I said, I read these
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: books months and months ago now, and so some of
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: them didn't stick super well, so we'll see where we go,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: all right. The first book is The Future by Naomi Alderman.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: This is when I listened to as an audiobook. I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like this book a lot. I give it five stars.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It is a science fiction book about the near future
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: in which our main character is a woman who grew
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: up on a sort of anti technological commune that was
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: famous for some reason I think or a Waco style incident,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and then she is living on her own now and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: she works as a high power executive for a tech
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: bro mogul person. Like a lot of the more recent
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Neil Stevenson novels, there are a bunch of different characters
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that we meet and really interesting, elaborate world building that
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: feels both futuristic and remarkably sensible in terms of thinking
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: through what the future might hold. There is a level
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of sort of casual technology thrown around in the book
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that works really well, and the broad focus is thinking
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: about more generally what the world will be like. The
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: core plot has to do with the idea of the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: super wealthy creating a app that will alert them because
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: they've all because all the super wealthy people have built
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like these elaborate bunkers in various places around the world
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that will allow them to survive when everything goes bad
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: because of economic and or environmental collapse. But the question
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: of when should they head for those bunkers is the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: big question, because if they wait until it's obvious that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the collapse has started, then it's too late. And so
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: there's this app that's meant to warn them when it's
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: time to go. That's a simple explanation of a very
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: complicated plot. Well, that person certainly is exciting because they
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: have a loud truck. Yeah, So this is an app
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that that tells them when to go, and a book
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that imagines the story kind of built around that, along
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of other interesting near future prognostications.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: That's The Future by Naomi Alderman, published in twenty twenty three.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Next up we have Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Denneman.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: This is the second of the Dungeon Caller Carl books.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I like this quite a bit, gave it five stars.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It was published in twenty twenty one. I don't think
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I'm saying anything extraordinary when I say I enjoy the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Dungeon Crawler Carl series that it's pretty enjoyable. I liked
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: this book at least as much as the first one,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: if not a little more. I feel like Denneman's doing
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a great job developing the character and the world building
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of the story. There's an interesting element where this story
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: could just be a dumb dungeon crawling book. It could
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: just be a lit RPG with no substance to it.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: But the way that he has constructed the character Karl
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the nuances of how this dungeon
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: world thing works make for really interesting social commentary. It
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: feels related to or connected to stuff like The Hunger
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Games or Lord of the Flies more the Hunger Games,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: really thinking about the nature of media culture, violence, exploitation, capitalism,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and of course video games. The characters are also very enjoyable.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think they're really well developed and are making for
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: entertaining reading. It's probably about time for me to read
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the third book. I ought to read one every quarter,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I think if I want to keep the series fresh
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in my mind. So I'm a little behind on that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So that was Carl's Doomsday Scenario Book two.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Next up, we have Shards of Honor. This is by
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Lois McMaster Boujold. I'm not sure why. I think I
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: saw someone talking about their absolute favorite sci fi series
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: and they mentioned that the Vorkos Again saga by Boujold
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was there. McMaster Boujold was their favorite series, and I
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: remember really liking those books when I read them. A
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: while ago. I read Shards of Honor and Bara Yar,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: so I reread Shards of Honor. I listened to it
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and it was a delight. Now it is a bit dated.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I will say the book there is some vibeviolence in it,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: particularly sexual violence that is really unpleasant, and Boujeold seems
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: happy too, well, not happy to but there is a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: sort of casualness with which it's described that I feel
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: like fits nineteen eighties culture, which is when this book
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was written. Well, never mind, this is two thousand and three.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's the audiobook was two thousand and three.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think the original book was that late. I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: think the book was the eighties. I want to say
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: eighty seven, but I don't have that in front of me,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm moving on. The setup on the series is great,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to reading more. In fact, I
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: have since then, I have read bari Yar and like
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the audiobook i'm listening to right now is The Warriors Apprentice,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: which is the next book in the series. There are
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: like fifteen of them, though, so it's going to take
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: me a while. That is Shards of Honor. Lois McMaster
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Boujould I gave it four stars. Oh, I didn't tell
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you what it was about. It is about a woman
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: who is a scientific slash military lead who is part
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of an expeditionary force from a progressive, science focused planet,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: kind of socialist utopia, and she meets up with a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: stern military figure who is from a sort of backwards,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: hyper conservative militaristic society, but nonetheless he's driven with strong
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: honor and so he it's the combination of those two
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that really makes the book work, and barra Yar is
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: a sort of expansion of that initial idea. Next up
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: we have Titanic and The Californian by Peter Padfield. I
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have long been confused why so many people continue to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: blame the Californian for not helping the Titanic early on.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It seems to me quite clear that a smear campaign
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: was held because the Californian woke up and learned that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the Titanic had sunk, and there were people on the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Titanic who said that they saw a ship. Padfeld, this book,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: written in the sixties, did a careful analysis of what
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: happened of all the court transcripts and essentially identified that
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it was very, very unlikely that the Californian could possibly
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: see the Titanic, or vice versa. There's a whole bunch
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of very detailed conversations about the colors of lights and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the sizes of rockets and all sorts of stuff. But
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: for me, the preponderance of evidence, along with the fact
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that when they finally found the wreckage of the Titanic,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: they determined that it was not any It was like
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: twenty miles away from where they thought it was. That
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and the fact that in the morning the Californian had
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to steam for a long time before they found any
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of the other ships or the Titanic, tells me that
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Captain Lord was wrongly accused of having been derelict in
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: his duty to rescue the people on the Titanic. But
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I still encounter people, especially like on the Titanic Reddit,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: who Blametain I'm like, you need to read this book
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and then tell me why you think that's wrong, because
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: it's a very detailed and thorough discussion, and I'm getting really,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I really frustrated all the people who are like, well, no,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he obviously could see them. I'm like, if you read
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the transcript, he can't. So anyway, finding that frustrating to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: keep encountering. But Peter Padfeld's The Titanic in the California
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is a master work, really interesting. Four stars. Next up
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: is The Department of Truth, Volume one, The End of
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the World. This is a comic book by James Tinian,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the fourth I can't see the name of the artist
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on my app here. The premise of this book is
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: that of this comic book series, of which there are
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: six volumes. I have currently read five of them. The
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: premise is that there the world is shaped by knowledge,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and when enough people think a thing to be true,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: it is in fact true. So the US government has
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: discovered this and uses psyops and secret agents to try
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and control the prevailing myths of the country so as
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: to control how the country moves. That's the broad premise
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of the story. Now there's a lot of sub stories,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you know, if you talk about the broad premise of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: The Sandman or the broad premise of Preacher. These are
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: long comic series with sub stories that you can tell,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and that's the same with the Department of Truth. I
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: have really enjoyed this so far. The first one I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: thought was particularly good, and I'm looking forward to reading
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: more of them, although like I said, I'm almost done.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I've liked James Tinian his writing. He also wrote one
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Something's Killing the Children, and there was one I can't
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: remember the name of it about like a house that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: got separated from everything, and I can't remember what it's called,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: but I'll put a link in the show. Note I
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed the Department of Truth. Next up we have
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: a Hard Case and then Hard as Nils. These are
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: two books by Dan Simmons, who recently passed away. These
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: are I think Dan Simmons told himself, I want to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: write a Mickey Spallaine novel. I want to write a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: novel about a private eye who just punches his way
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: through stuff. He's eminently competent in the arts of murder
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and violence, and he's on the right side of morals,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: but not necessarily the right side of the law. But
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: he's clever. That seems to be the kind of the premise.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: They're enjoyably dark, but enjoyable. Nonetheless, there are three of them.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I read all three in quick succession as audiobooks, and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I've enjoyed them all immensely. So once again, Dan Simmons
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: proves himself to be a very capable writer. I read
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Hyperion a long time ago and I thought that was great.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I've heard the Terror is very good. I liked the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: TV adaptation of it, and I've really enjoyed these novels.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: So not particularly redeeming, but very enjoyable. That's hard case,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and then hard, as Nils I said, we have the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: graphic novel fish Flies by Jeff Lumour and Sean Karuneru.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: This is a fable about a young woman who are
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a girl whose family is terrible and are neglectful at least,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and about a man who accidentally are a boy who
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: accidentally commits murder. The fable part has to do with
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: this town where all of these fish flies grow. Fish
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Flies are like these gross bugs that live for one
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: day and then they die, and they make the whole
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: town smell like fish. These bugs become a kind of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: emblem for the story, and it involves a kind of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: person who turns into a fish fly fish fly, sort
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of Kafka esque like, and it's hard to explain. If
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you've read Jeff lumir stuff before it, we shouldn't feel
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that far outside the wheelhouse of his other work. I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: gave it four stars. It's from twenty twenty five. Pretty good.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Then we have Department of Truth volume two and three.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about those a lot more.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna end my conversation I think with of Monsters
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and Mainframes, which is a delightful science fiction novel I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: listened to about a ship and a bunch of other
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: denizens who got on that ship. It's a sci fi
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: story and there are all retellings of creatures like frankets
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Segin and Dracula and the werewolf and so on and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: so on. It's delightfully weird, but delightfully written and enjoyable
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: to explore. So that's of Monsters and Mayframes. I also
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: read Season of Skulls by Charles Frost, Dead Awakened by
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Lee Michelle, Turning to Birds, The Power and Beauty of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Noticing by Lily Taylor, The First Degree by David Rosenfeldt,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Department of Truth Volume four and five, The House that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Horror Built by Christina Henry, Death of a Poison Pen
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: by mc beaten, fuzz, When Nature Breaks the Law by
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Mary Roach, Hard Freeze by Dan Simmons, Strange Houses by Ukatsu.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I did not like that one very much, honestly. The
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes by James Lovegrove, Open and Shut
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: by David Rosenfeldt, and The No End House by Jeremy Bates.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: That one was two stars. I didn't like that one
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a lot either. Well, that brings me to the end
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of the books that I read in quarter three of
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I'd love to know what you read.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: You can share that with me by heading over to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: board game Geek and posting in guild three two six
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: y nine. Let us know what you read in September
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: or September, October or August, September and October, Tony, Tony, Well,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining me. I'm milwalk today. I hope your
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: next walk is disposed as mine was. Goodbye, brought to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you by that SERI