Another End Of Year Wrap-up, focusing (as the previous installations did) initially on reading¹.

Recaps

Potential spoilers, of course, for all the books (check here to see the full title list), though IMO I’m keeping them minimal - thematic rather than narrative.

I rarely write notes on book as I’m reading them, so please take review comments with a grain of salt - I may be misremembering!

The Year Of Sanderson

I knew that Brandon Sanderson’s Four Secret Projects were going to be the focus of the year, and they didn’t disappoint. The least complimentary thing I can say about them is that Frugal Wizard felt too YA for me, but me not being the target audience doesn’t make it a bad book. Yumi felt a little under-explained and -explored (surprising, for the king of well-established internally-consistent magic systems), but I still teared up a little at the appropriate emotional moments - and I loved seeing more of an established character. The Sunlit Man was a compelling action romp with a cool hook even without the tantalizing snippets of the broader Cosmere story; and TOTES (hehe), similarly, would be a delightful “reverse Princess Bride” even if you’re not someone who geeks at the sight of the word “Hoid”.

I’m lumping White Sands in here too even though it wasn’t part of the Secret Projects. Probably my least favourite of the Cosmere books, which still puts it in rare company. It was perfectly servicable both narratively and Cosmere-structurally, I just wasn’t particularly grabbed at any point.

The Laundry Files

9 of this years books were from The Laundry Files, “a series of novels [that] mix the genres of Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humour”, recommended by George. They had some high points - “what if an Investment Bank Analyst Pod, but Vampires”, in particular, was executed much more competently than just a series of lazy jokes about how finance/capitalism is blood-sucking and evil (though, to be clear…) - but overall I have zero desire either to finish the series (after a big in-world event leads to a significant character-focus shift), or to go back and re-read. Perfectly servicable leisure reading, though!

(As a point of comparison, despite the numerous flaws of the Dresden Files, I will be picking up those books at release date right up ’til the end of the planned Big Apocalyptic Trilogy finale)

The First 90 Days

As I began my new position with LegalZoom - the first time I’d changed companies as a mature, deliberate, somewhat-thoughtful somewhat-adult, rather than as a fresh-faced college grad in no position to be intentional about his career trajectory - I figured it behooved me to study some Real Adult Grown-up Techniques for starting a job off on the right foot.

It was definitely useful and I’m glad I read it, though the target demographic was more the “decision-making executives” cohort than the “primarily IC/executors” group that I’m in. Don’t get me wrong, Senior+ Engineers should be decision-makers (and good ones need to be political too - sadly), and the strategies for understanding the org and for discovering the “hidden org-chart” were valuable, but the heavy focus on understanding phase and segment of the business were less relevant to someone without significant input on hiring, external product selection, or funding. Still - I’m all for cross-training, it was neat to understand how execs think about such things, and I’m sure I’ll make use of the knowledge at some strange time in the future!

Very grateful to ex-coworker Kyle for lending this to me!

Underdog

An alpha-read of a draft novel by my cousin Nick. A thoroughly enjoyable semi-apocalyptic YA fantasy story, with hints of Dune. Trope-y in the best ways, a lot of fun. Looking forward to buying the published version!

The Rust Book

I’ve been working through Exercism’s 12in23 challenge this year, and Mechanical March’s challenge of working with Rust got me fascinated with the language that so many have spoken so enthusiastically about². I resolved to work through The Rust Book this year to deepen my understanding - realistically, 5 quick coding challenges barely gives you an understanding of the idioms of the language or how it really operates on a daily basis.

The book was reasonably well-written, but knowledge didn’t really sink in - I came away from each chapter feeling reasonably confident that the concepts made sense and that I could explain them, and then would invariably score a zero on the “check understanding” quiz that followed. I had (and still do have, as I work through Advent Of Code) real difficulty translating the theoretical ideas into practical applications. I suspect it’s something that will get easier with practice, as I rewire my brain to naturally think about concepts like borrowing. I got a recommendation for a book which is apparently better for learning practical application ("Programming Rust" by Blandy, Orendorr, and Tindall), which I’ll work through next year.

The Infinite And The Divine

The release of the WH40k Magic The Gathering decks last year resparked my interest in the sprawling lore of the mega-setting. I’d heard good things both about this book, and the “Twice-Dead King” series by Nate Crowley (a friend-of-a-friend), so I figured I’d give it a go.

Perfectly servicable low-brain-energy entertainment. Nothing to write home about, but enjoyable to speed through as an balm to the heavy thinking of The Rust Book!

Project Hail Mary

Spiritual-sequel to The Martian, this is another Competence-Porn In Space book, though with a little more characterization at the cost of some of the clever MacGuyvering. I did enjoy the smatterings of linguistics and sociology at the start, but from about halfway through it loses focus and can’t decide if it wants to be a buddy-story or a story about Cool Science, and ends up suffering as both. If you are desperate for more of The Martian, this will scratch that itch, though it’s a little inferior in most ways.

A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet

A recommendation from ex-coworker Amanda. “Cosy Sci-Fi” - take the multi-species interstellar-alliance structure of The Culture or Mass Effect, downgrade the tech to the level of (and apply the “found family on a boat-in-space” flavour of) Firefly, and round off the sharp edges (no disrespect! Pleasant comfy fiction is valid and worthwhile!).

Domain-Driven Design

…OK, I’ll admit, this was a spite-read. I have a coworker with whom I have a…challenging relationship, primarily because of our differing methods of communication - and for reasons of professionalism, I will go no further than that! For several months, he insisted on crowbarring concepts and quotes from this book into every discussion, until I eventually resolved to read it to understand what he was talking about.

For all that I read it for less-than-ideal reasons, it was a good read! Suffered somewhat from “Seinfeld Is Unfunny” syndrome (warning - TVTropes link), in that many concepts in it seemed self-evidently correct and barely even worth stating - the curse of an influential and insightful book is that, ~10 years after it’s published, everything in it will seem “obvious” because everyone will have adopted its ideas! Still, putting a structure on and vocabulary around the ideas is valuable.

On the positive side, I now have a better understanding of what my coworker means when he drops buzzwords without elaboration!

A Fire Upon The Deep

A standard of “best sci-fi” books, I had high hopes for this one - hopes that, sadly, were not met. It had some cool ideas in it, for sure (the composite-consciousness species was a new one to me), but other than that - well, I’ll just quote my Mastodon post³ of the time:

“A Fire Upon The Deep” may be the most disappointing book I’ve ever read. The intro teased truly inhuman AI viewpoints, never deliverd; popular reporting of the book makes much of “code archaeology”, only mentioned once in passing; the two alien races are interesting ideas but nothing’s done with them (I truly thought the radio-coats would lead to Flenser becoming a Power); the ending was a non-event that left countless plot threads open.

It’s possible that the sequel Children Of The Sky would pick up on some of those plot threads in a satisfying way, but I’m unlikely to chance it. Who knows, though - maybe going in with lowered expectations would make me enjoy it more!?

A comparison with Blindsight seems fitting, here. Both are space-based stories which use post-/in-human species as a way to examine assumptions about consciousness and personhood - but, by deliberately having almost no story (or, rather - having a story which was purely a vehicle for “cool discoveries about the puzzle/structure in question”), Blindsight avoided any necessity to have a satisfying story. AFUTD tried to have a compelling story with characters we cared about, and (to me) failed.

Naming Things

Classically, one of the hardest problems in computer science. This was a short but worthwhile read: very little in here that was truly unknown (aside from the term “polyseme”, for “a symbol [word] with multiple related meanings”), but, like “Effective Java”, “The Elements Of Style”, or Oblique Strategies, it will be a good collection of tie-breaking advice for those moments when I have a niggling feeling that something could be done better but I need a clearly articulated explanation of how (and why it’s better).

(And, yes, I fully recognize that EJ and TEoS are both pretty out-dated by now. I’m not claiming that every piece of advice they give is good and correct - but, at the very least, a clearly-articulated argument that you disagree with will help you formulate your own argument!)

Ward

Hoo boy. OK, this is the biggie 😅

Several years before I started this blog, I read Worm, a infamous web serial which was, at the time, nearly as long as the entire Song Of Ice And Fire:

I’ve described it previously as “A gritty grounded superhero story - like if Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin collaborated to entirely reinvent the MCU as a sci-fi story rather than ‘a soap opera with punching’”. It certainly wasn’t perfect - not all of that length was free from filler, and the author has some irritating linguistics quirks that begin to grate very quickly⁴ - but when it was good, oh my, it was fantastic. The superpowers were thoughtfully created (and limited, and combined/conflicted) and widely varied; the characterisation was masterful given what a broad cast of characters the author introduced (some for only a few paragraphs at a time, but with barely a placeholder character among them - they all felt like people); and, while not every arc was gold, on balance they were excellent, and the ones that were good were incredible. Seriously, this book - which, I remind you, was released for free, chapter-by-chapter, onto the Internet by an amateur - contains several of the most vivid, shocking, and compelling scenes I’ve ever read. It’s not a whole-hearted universal recommendation - I’ve already acknowledged that the pacing and prose are patchy, and it would honestly be faster to list the Content Warnings that don’t apply to the book than those that do⁵ - but if this sounds up your street, it probably is.

Fast-forward to last year, when I saw some Mastodon posts from someone who’d just finished Ward, the sequel to Worm, and was waxing lyrical about it. I planned to read it in 2024 as I would be dedicating this year to Sanderson, but I ended up having enough time to complete Ward this year.

It was great, veering on excellent! That’s certainly a step-down from my breathless praise of the original, which is intentional - it had its moments that stand alongside the original, and fleshed out the cosmology/power-system a little, but rarely measured up. Partly this was just the standard problem of sequels - after introducing such an awesome and epic (word choice intentional!) world, anything else would feel like a let-down. That said, the story itself felt disjointed - Worm certainly had distinct arcs, but there still felt like a coherent through-thread, or at least that there was a smooth transition from one to the other. Ward’s arcs, by contrast, simply…ended, and then started anew. The protagonist, too, cannot hold a candle to Worm’s magnificent anti-hero Taylor. A standout of the original was the way that the narrator’s intensely biased (but internally-consistent!) viewpoint is so compelling that you find yourself going along with their reasoning and justifications until you take a step back and realize how far down the slippery-slope she (and you) have slipped. By contrast, Victoria certainly has a hang-up that needs dealing with - but a) it’s just the one issue, b) she’s way more justified than Taylor ever was (though goes about it in a sometimes-unhelpful way), and c) her viewpoint is uncritically supported by almost every character, so the conflict between perception and reality isn’t foregrounded. Finally, the ending felt confused and rushed - I honestly still don’t understand the intention or stakes of one of the primary dramatic scenes. Again, comparing with Worm which is my favourite book-ending, and my favourite any-media ending except The Good Place, that’s a let-down. Implication from the tone of some of the comments was that the author had gotten bored of the story and just wanted it done with so that he could move on, which I believe.

(On that point, I made the decision to read this book on the author’s website, rather than using the “download to ePub” scripts that fans have created (as I did for Worm), so that I could read the comments as I went. Definitely a good decision - there are some very smart (and obsessed!) people out there who gave some insightful commentary and discussion that really enhanced my enjoyment of the book. Again, for free - the Internet can be a wonderful place sometimes!)

Still, for all those flaws - a capital-G Great work, and one I’m very glad to have read. Where Worm is one that I don’t-actively-recommend, this I think I would actively-(mildly-)dissuade someone from reading - so that it would only be read by those who are hooked enough to persevere despite discouragement, who I think are those most-likely to enjoy it.

…now I want to re-read Worm with comments…maybe in a couple years…

The Lathe Of Heaven

I picked this up in a second-hand bookstore in Chicago during a trip for a conference - I’d been meaning to read more Ursula Le Guin for a while (I read The Earthsea Quartet as a kid, and The Left Hand Of Darkness a few years back), and seeing this by the checkout prompted me to pick it up. It’s often on Best Of Sci-Fi lists - surely I’d enjoy it, right?

Again, as with A Fire Upon The Deep - heightened expectations lead to disappointment. It was fine, but I just didn’t get it. Scenes were described, a mechanic was introduced, but I just didn’t get the point of the book. I worried that I’d missed some subtle metaphor, as I did with Camus’ “The Plague”⁶, but no - from looking up reviews and responses, it seems that the story is the story. I’m really not sure what it’s trying to say - “be careful what you wish for”, or “power corrupts”, or (surely not!?) “don’t try to improve anything” (the protagonist himself seems to hold this position and is presented sympathetically, which is, as the youth would say, a big yikes from me)?

The Internet Con

I closed out the year with Cory Doctorow’s latest book, subtitled “How to Seize The Means Of Computation”. Nothing in here is new to anyone who hangs out on the same kinds of social media as me - I get the impression that this is a book intended to be bought-and-gifted (or, less charitably, read for the sense of navel-gazing self-congratulation). Which, y’know, nothing wrong with that!

Full lists and stats

(Uncounted but acknowledged - finished Rhythm of War re-read)

1. Tress Of The Emerald Sea
2. White Sands
3. The Jennifer Morgue
4. The Tyranny Of Faith
5. The Fuller Memorandum
6. The Apocalypse Codex
7. The Rhesus Chart
8. The Annihilation Score
9. The Nightmare Stacks
10. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook For Surviving Medieval England
11. The Delirium Briefk
12. The Labyrinth Index
13. The First 90 Days
14. Underdog
15. The Rust Book
16. The Infinite And The Divine
17. Dead Lies Dreaming
18. Project Hail Mary
19. A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet
20. Domain-Driven Design
21. A Fire Upon The Deep
22. Yumi And The Nightmare Painter
23. Naming Things
24. The Sunlit Man
25. Ward
26. The Lathe Of Heaven
27. The Internet Con

I’d pre-acknowledged that this was not going to be a good year on either of my primary tracking stats ("books by non-white non-male people" and “number of books read overall”), what with a) Brandon Sanderson spraying books all over the place and b) this being the year I finally tackled Ward. However, I actually ended up readding more than I read last year. Whadda you know!? I guess indulging in The Laundry Files (which I could easily tear through at a consistent rate of a-book-a-week) pumped my numbers up a bit.

• 22 Fiction, 5 Non-Fiction ("The First 90 Days", “The Rust Book”, “Domain-Driven Design”, “Naming Things”, “The Internet Con”).
  • No Genre analysis this year as too many are borderline. Most Branderson straddles the line between Fantasy and Sci-Fi too neatly to categorize, and The Laundry Files is positively allergic to picking a genre.
• 24 by Men, 2 by Women ("A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet" and “The Lathe Of Heaven”), and 1 by a collaboration between a man and a woman “with contributions from the Rust Community”.
• 1 Book by Friends-or-Family (level with last year)

Summing up, and looking forward

I’d definitely like to read more non-fiction, and more books by non-white/non-men authors next year. Some that are planned off the top of my head (not necessarily prioritizing those criteria):

• OverLondon (based on the author’s delightful Mastodon presence, and a review I saw somewhere calling it Pratchett-esque).
• Thinking Fast And Slow - also picked up in the Chicago second-hand bookstore.
• The Design Of Everyday Things.
• “Programming Rust” by Blandy, Orendorr, and Tindall.

In the previous year, I included a round-up of the Articles I read that year, but this post is already getting overlong - I’ll follow up with that in a separate post instead.

• end-of-year-wrapups
• reading