A Year in Reading

2023 was the year I began reading for leisure. After years of only reading technical and academic texts as part of my schooling, I wanted to explore what it was like having “free time.” Of course, the internet is 99% a dumpster fire, and so reading seemed like a great way to unplug and explore a new hobby. What no one tells you is that reading is not like riding a bike. It is hard, and after years off from reading quality literature, it takes practice. In order to make this task as least tedious as possible, I made the resolution to only read books from A) a genre I love, and B) that were highly rated. For this I sought out input from the experts, and what I found was a wealth of guidance from such youtubers as @MediaDeathCult and @Bookpilled. Both specialize in, and are strongly opinionated on, science fiction as a genre and hobby.

My progress started out slowly and painfully. I was disappointed that I was not devouring books as readily as Bookpilled. Delightfully, after picking my way through several page turners, I found that I was both better at reading for leisure and enjoying it more as an activity. So much so that I now look forward to weekend mornings for the sole reason that the house is quiet and I can give whatever book I may be working on my full attention. It has become my favorite time of the week.

Below, I wanted to include a list of the books I read this year. Some of them were fantastic and some were utterly horrible. BUT, I feel proud that I was able to reclaim this activity. I will include a few thoughts on select stories, but mostly this is to act as documentation for the journey.

1. Blindsight by Peter Watts
2. Neuromancer by William Gibson
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
5. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
6. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
7. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
8. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
9. The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
10. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
11. The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
12. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
13. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
14. The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
15. The Mightiest Machine by John W Campbell
16. A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I don’t want to write a full book review for each, mainly because my short term memory is shot. But I would like to point out a few worth reading: Dune… of course is terrific. This was a re-read for me but I love the book more each time. This go around I wanted a refresher before part-2 of the films is released.

Blindsight. This book was a bit of a revelation. It was the an entirely new kind of experience for me, one which takes an orthogonal world view to what we would consider canonical. A first contact story, It poses a question along the lines of: what if consciousness is essentially bloatware, stealing resources from the primary compute? Could we as a race be higher functioning without being self aware?

My favorite new read and top recommendation was hands down Hyperion. Dan Simmons seamlessly blends genres and themes together into what I can only describe as an utter triumph. The caveat here is that the book does end somewhat abruptly. I think this was a feature not a bug for many readers, but for me it felt more like a massive cliff-hanger. Almost as if the entire book was a prologue. So if you do decide to read Hyperion, it is my recommendation that you immediately continue on to The Fall of Hyperion, which is equally well written and captivating.

I don’t want to harp on my least recommended books, as I feel it is just negative. What I will say is that if you like pulp scifi, The Mightiest Machine is almost so bad that it is good.

Most Recommended

• Hyperion
• Fall of Hyperion
• Blindsight
• Dune

Least Recommended

• The Mightiest Machine
• A Stranger in a Strange Land
• The Dark Forest

Maybe I will write more in depth book reviews in the future, but for now this will have to do.