Re-org-er Want to see how power al-Sharaa drove in victory to Damascus, or how a CEO reclaims a stalled culture transformation? Skip the nonfiction. Read Pretender! (But certainly don’t read this if you haven’t read the proceeding 7 novels) This is the second leg of Bren Cameron’s long logistics return. Destroyer was apex tech: shuttles, starships, and Skyfall. This one drops to trains, buses, biplanes. 1917. ...
Author: Joe Abercrombie Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Completed: January 1, 2025 Last edited time: January 11, 2026 7:41 AM Status: Reviewed Type: Book Cards on the Table The Devils sits halfway between the grimdark First Law trilogy and the gamified chaos of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It may have been deliberate and more popular, but is not entirely to my taste. The book leans hard on the found-family dynamic. The result is serviceable cohesion rather than earned intimacy. With a large ensemble, the book prioritizes interesting combinations of characters over sustained attention to any one of them. That tradeoff makes sense in a long-running series; it’s harder to pull off cleanly in a single novel. The focus fragments, and no single arc quite takes hold. ...
Not a new message, but a more first principles approach to Chinese international policy. A new author on China to keep tabs on.
Can a single book be responsible for a book slump? The Good Life is my argument for yes. Over the years, I’ve found the way to keep reading is to make sure I have multiple different streams of books. My main streams are as follows: The fiction book - Trashy, zero effort, likely just another space opera. The easy non-fiction book. Probably written in the last 5 years, history about a person, company or phenomenon. ...
**In this Familiar Multiverse ** Infinity Gate and Echo of Worlds present a familiar concept if you’ve read other multiverse stories, like Dark Matter or The Long Earth. There’s a macguffin that allows stepping into a different dimension. Some of these dimensions are imperceptibly different, while others are completely alien. I enjoyed the multiversal play and while the premise was worn, the characters and pacing were enough to keep me going. ...
A Predictable End… of the World Not nearly as interesting as Sea of Rust. Especially for those that have read Sea of Rust, there’s little point in this book. The hope would be one about near-future tactics, but that is something that books like The Last Soldier covered in more detail. The transformation from nanny into tactical paranoid bot seemed interesting but underdeveloped.
Multiple POVs in quick succession dealing with unknown unknowns, not a good book to fall asleep to as I keep getting lost. Someday…
** Adventures in history and the land of Nod ** This may be the perfect book to fall asleep to. I know almost nothing about Assyria, but every night am excited to learn. There’s little ability for an author to assemble a plot, since we know so little about the Assyrian empire. Missing a few chapters cannot cause a reader to miss the plot - our historical record is already full of holes. The vignettes What we do have contains the rangu of skullduggery of history and civilization building that you would expect. I fell asleep to this book for a month, read and forgot chapters multiple times, and honestly still don’t remember too much about the Assyrian empire. But I did sleep well!
**Gone in 60 Minutes ** “Nuclear War, A Scenario” begins with the premise of the United States being entirely obliterated. This could only happen by a nuclear strike from Russia. The author traces this line of reasoning from its inception, setting the stage for an exploration of geopolitical tensions and catastrophic warfare. This book is not a lullaby, as I found out last night awake at 2am. Despite a compelling narrative, the book sometimes feels more like a speculative fiction than a plausible scenario. ...
Somewhere between a fairy tale and a clothing brand.