Finished Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley

Maybe even better than the first part of the series, even though some sections are fairly grueling.

Finished Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

Extremely cynical, very creative and weird book about conservation, ecology, finance and technology. The first third felt similar to Snow Crash to me, despite this book being much more conventional. Might be very interesting to reread in a decade or two.

Finished Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Amazing book and perfect ending of the trilogy. Great writing, characters and I enjoy the absurdity of it all. The aliens are feeling really alien and I am now kind of scared by fish sauce.

Finished Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Fun book. I can't decide if it is very current or very out of time, now that it is 30 years old. Very different from what I expected. Some parts feel quite tame compared to the evening news over the last two decades.

Finished Dune by Frank Herbert

Finished Wachen! Wachen! (orig: Guards! Guards!) by Terry Pratchett

I did not care for the beginning, as it felt more like a parody of a book I haven't read (similar to The Light Fantastic), but the book really found itself after 100 pages. Even though I knew 70% of the story by osmosis from the general culture before, it was great. From the current perspective, to me, it looks like a feel-good book similar to Becky Chambers and Travis Baldree from another, more ironic and less earnest time.

Finished The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Finished All Souls Lost by @dmoren@zeppelin.flights

This book was more funny and less dark than I expected from the title. It is a very good current take on the supernatural detective story, leaving the worst stereotypes of pulp novels behind. The (technologically old-school) detective clashing and mixing with the tech industry is a fun idea.

Great book with great characters and good plotting. Loved the Hawaiian shirt situation.

Mounting 2 SSDs with dubious 3D prints in an 5.25" bay is much less terrifying, then a 3.5" hard drive there. They are so light, the power cords might hold it roughly in place, if it all breaks apart.

Of course, all this only necessary because I cut out the 3.5" bay to fit the new GPU a few years ago. Might almost be time to get a new PC case after 15 year…

I build a little website to listen to random episodes of @blankbaby@mastodon.social Random Trek podcast. So it helps you to listen to random podcast episodes about random Star Trek episodes. Check it out at https://randomrandomtrek.duckdns.org

Finished Das Dämmern der Welt by Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog wrote his first novel at almost 80 years of age and the form of it is much more experimental than I could have imagined. I can't decide if all of it works, but it is worthwhile to me and impressive and enjoyable.

Finished Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Slow moving book. I liked it even more then the first previous installment in the series.

Finished Der Trafikant by Robert Seethaler

Finished The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

A sandwich of a crime mystery and a fantasy book about opera, death and religion. Very different from The Goblin Emperor, but still very interesting. I would have liked a glossary, but there may be a point to having none.

Finished Schachnovelle by Stefan Zweig

Great novella about chess, psychology and the Third Reich. Very insightful, especially for being written in 1942. I feel very lucky for standing in front of a shelf of classic books and picking this one basically at random a few days ago.

Finished The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

This is an exciting imaginative novel. I think it is very successful in having a series of alternate slow and fast scenes. A significant part of it is an epistolary novel where sender and receiver of the letters are kind of the same person.

Finished Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

This is a demanding novel. It is really not for everyone, but it is really great for the people it is for. It tells a military sci-fi story (which I usually don't care for) with a wide reach from a relatively grounded perspective. The world is completely alien and recognizable at the same time. I was very confused for the first half of the book if it is nonsense or great and I think it is great.

Finished A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Finished The Nova Incident by @dmoren@zeppelin.flights

Very thrilling, great set of characters. I read the second half in a very short time. A important character decision that confused me in a previous book was recontextualized perfectly. This volume got a little more philosophical, which is great. Sadly the series theme is quite topical in the real world again.

Hopefully, there will be more books! At least there are still some short stories in this world I will get to eventually.

Finished Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells