Read Report – Page 2 – Words Deferred

Xenocide — Read Report

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Xenocide is the third book in the Ender series, after Ender’s Game (link) and Speaker for the Dead (link). I read the book decades ago, and remembered almost nothing about it. I’m now reading it again with my daughter.

The plot is split between two worlds and sets of characters. On the planet Lusitania, the story of Speaker for the Dead continues, with Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, his AI companion Jane, and the Ribeira family that he has now joined through his marriage to their matriarch, Novinha. Soon, Ender’s sister Valentine and her family arrive as well.

The Lusitanians, including the native Pequeninos and imported Buggers, live under the looming threat of an approaching fleet armed with the planet-destroying MD device, as well as the constantly shifting threat of the descolada virus that is integral to the Pequenino life cycle, but eventually deadly to all non-native species. The fleet is held back temporarily by Jane, who disables all their communications at the risk of revealing herself to the universe at large.

On the planet Path, we’re introduced to Han Fei-tzu, an important official, and his genius daughter, Han Qing-jao. They are members of the planet’s high caste, the godspoken, whose intelligence is linked to OCD-like compulsions that the populace believe to be the way the gods speak to mortals.

Fei-tzu is tasked by the congress of the hundred worlds to solve the riddle of the fleet near Lusitania, which seems to have suddenly disappeared. He assigns this important task to his daughter. Soon they are joined by one more character—Si Wang-mu, a servant girl who is not godspoken, but also turns out to be highly intelligent.

** More Planets, More Problems

Ender’s Game was clearly intended as a single novel that stands on its own. Speaker for the Dead was decidedly more complicated, and left a pile of unresolved plot points to pick up in Xenocide.

Despite this “head start,” the first half of Xenocide feels plodding, and it mostly involves setting up a large number of major problems that the characters are going to have to solve, along with a web of reasons why absolutely every character is going to be at odds with every other character.

Conflict can be an engine of story, but Xenocide proves to me that it can go too far. I couldn’t help feeling that the constant animosity between characters was exhausting, and when certain characters finally gave in and decided to work with others near the end of the book, it felt abrupt and somewhat unearned.

** Thinking Fast and Slow

The first half of the book is slow, and it would be easy to blame this entirely on the setup required by the huge cast of characters and the many interconnected conflicts. That is absolutely a factor, and I think this book was trying to do a few too many things at once. However, I think a lot of this is actually just Card being long-winded and having too much editorial clout at this point in his career.

There are pages of internal narration where characters muse on their feelings. These deep thoughts are sometimes interrupted by one or two lines of dialogue, only to immediately drop back into more pages of their thoughts! If there was ever an argument against a third-person omniscient perspective, this is it. A first-person narrator or even a tight third-person would have limited these long and winding detours and perhaps forced Card to show how characters feel more through their actions and words.

By contrast, the latter half of the book ramps into a much faster pace. All of those problems set up in the first half have to get resolved. Unfortunately, this leads to another problem of pacing, where everything feels like it’s happening overly fast. Again it feels like there was simply too much going on, and some plot points inevitably got short shrift.

To me, some of the resolutions felt like an abrupt tonal shift. This is a far-future series with advanced technology, but felt like hard sci-fi grounded in reality. Near the end of Xenocide, ideas are introduced that are decidedly further afield. There is a brand new kind of magical physics. When the whole plot hinges on these ideas, there’s a whiff of deus ex machina—even if they would feel perfectly reasonable in a story that plays a little looser with its sci-fi extrapolations.

It’s been long enough since I read this series that I no longer remember anything about the fourth book, Children of the Mind. Without spoiling Xenocide, I’ll say that the final bit of sci-fi magic also brings a pair of characters more or less back from the dead, further complicating an already over-complicated book, and I suspect they’ll be heavily involved in the conclusion.

This may be the first inkling of Card’s eventual obsession with rehashing his old stories. It would continue with his “Shadow Saga,” where he spends another six books rehashing plots and characters from the Ender books. I see from Wikipedia that there are at least 19 books in this same world.

** New Perspective

When I originally read these books, I was a teen. Those memories are fuzzy now, but as far as I recall, I found them to be a powerful vision of a distant future.

Re-reading now, I think that’s true of Ender’s Game. But Xenocide feels far less grounded and almost metaphorical. The conflicts, from interpersonal to intergalactic, largely boil down to people talking at cross-purposes, unable or unwilling to understand each other’s viewpoint. It’s ultimately a depressing view of the world that suggests real empathy and compromise is almost a super power, and most conflict is inevitable. It’s depressingly resonant here in 2025.

If there is a central theme across Xenocide’s many plotlines, it’s that people and cultures tend to act in ways that make them dangerous to themselves and each other. Humans are easily controlled or manipulated, and often give in to their most base instincts, even when it’s obviously bad for them.

We see evidence of that on the nightly news, but it’s far more depressing to imagine that we’ll still be so barbaric and unenlightened in three thousand years.

** Final Thoughts

In an appropriate twist, Xenocide leaves me conflicted. It does a number of things that irritate me. I’m still of the opinion that Ender’s Game was the best book in the series. But Xenocide incorporates a lot of strange and provocative ideas, and it has made me think. It comes from an era when the genre conventions of sci-fi expected intricate plotting and…less intricate characterization. So the complexities of the plot can perhaps be forgiven, and the characterization, as heavy-handed as it sometimes is, should perhaps be praised.

Once upon a time, I would likely have considered these books among my favorites. I don’t think they still hold that place. They’re by no means bad, but I do think the state of literature has changed significantly in the past 25 years, as have my own personal tastes. I’m enjoying my foray through the series, even if I do have the old man tendency to complain the whole way. And there has to be merit to any book that you find yourself thinking about well after you’re done reading it.

Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2) — Read Report

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I purchased this as The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1 double feature—which contains the first two novellas in the series—so I immediately jumped into this story after completing All Systems Red.

While the first story in a series has to introduce characters, introduce a setting, and set the tone, this is really not very different from the requirements of a stand-alone story. The only additional thing a good series-starter needs is some dangling plot threads that can be used to pull the reader into subsequent entries. As a reader, my question for a series is always, “what’s my reason for reading the next story?”

All Systems Red did this setup well, ending with Murderbot sneaking away from the new friends that had just bought its freedom from the oppressive Company. It knows that its memory was wiped after an incident at a mining colony; an incident where many people died and it was first able to override the governor module that keeps all security bots under strict control. It feels compelled to return and learn the truth about what happened.

The ART of Security Consulting

This second installment begins to set up Murderbot as the travelling tough guy in the mold of classic ronin samurai stories and westerns. Murderbot is Jack Reacher with social anxiety, 50% artificial components, and (ironically) actual emotions.

As far as we can tell, Murderbot seems to be pretty good at its job. It knows how to hack the local security systems to avoid being spotted as it makes its way through space stations. It disguises itself as an augmented human, and tries to secure passage off-the-books by finding automated transports with no human passengers to be suspicious.

Unfortunately, a deep space research vessel that Murderbot uses for transportation turns out to have an advanced artificial brain, and once he’s aboard it immediately clocks him as suspicious and forces him to reveal who he really is. What follows is a strange and decidedly awkward relationship with the ship, who Murderbot eventually dubs ART—Asshole Research Transport.

ART eventually helps Murderbot develop a cover story as a security consultant and even helps modify Murderbot’s body in its emergency surgery bay to help it avoid detection. It also ends up acting much like the classic hacker in the protagonist’s earpiece for the ensuing heist.

Murderbot, seemingly unable to avoid human entanglements, ends up taking a security job for a group of out-of-their-depth researchers trying to get their intellectual property from a shady mining corporation. This serves as cover for Murderbot’s actual goal of finding information about the mining colony massacre.

A Lack of Loose Ends

After two volumes, my impression of the Murderbot Diaries is that it’s more comfort food than high-brow sci-fi pushing the boundaries of the genre. That’s not a critique. Now seems like a time when plenty of readers could use some lighter, comforting stories.

Martha Wells has assembled a number of recognizable tropes and familiar ideas in the story so far. But they’re put together in a way that feels fresh, and mixed in with the mild goofiness of a surprisingly effective security bot who prefers to avoid human contact and binge watch its favorite shows instead.

Unfortunately, I felt that the ending of Artificial Condition didn’t quite measure up to All Systems Red. There was a whiff of deus ex machina in the sudden appearance of a character that happens to neatly resolve the concerns of Murderbot’s scientist clients. Murderbot does eventually find some information about the mining colony massacre and its own origin, but nothing is fully explained, and there are no clues as to where it could learn more. I would have liked one or two obvious threads to draw me into the third novella.

Artificial Condition expands the world, introduces new characters, and lets us get further into the head of Murderbot. It also feels like a comfortable stopping point to me, at least for now. The ending doesn’t compel me to keep reading, and maybe that’s okay. I will probably jump back in when I feel the need for some cozy, lighthearted action-adventure.

For now, this volume goes on the bookshelf, and I’ll pick up something else from my TBR list.

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) — Read Report

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I suspect, in a vacuum, I would not pick up a book labeled Murderbot Diaries. It sounds like a combination of military SF parody and introspective John Green-esque YA fiction. Having read the first installment, the title comes off as tongue-in-cheek and less abrasively cheesy.

This is one of those cases where “word of mouth” unequivocally led to a sale. The book has been recommended to me by friends, acquaintances, podcasts, and blogs which would usually all have very different tastes. My interest was piqued by broad support across normally unaligned quadrants.

Who is this Killer Robot?

I can see why so many people like Murderbot. He is a protagonist for our times.

In another universe, he might have the makings of a charismatic action hero: a humanoid, partly organic robot with armor; built-in weapons; the ability to repair from near death; and extensive experience in private security.

In the universe of All Systems Red, he just wants to slack off, avoid talking to anyone, and watch his favorite shows.

Many robot narratives are either as emotionless as possible or essentially indistinguishable from a human narrative. Murderbot finds a middle-ground. He has emotions and can certainly get caught up in the moment, but he is also aware that he is more affected by the storylines of his shows than by the actual interactions between himself and the crew who has purchased his company contract for security services.

He needs his space, both physically and emotionally. He’s more comfortable talking to the crew with his opaque helmet on; more comfortable seeing them through the security cameras; and happy to spend his time alone in the tiny security room, or even tinier repair bay.

The company that owns Murderbot and sells his services to the highest bidder is an amoral edifice of shitty space capitalism. They worry about the welfare of the people Murderbot is hired to protect because they will suffer financial penalties for injuries and deaths. They care about Murderbot because he would be expensive to replace.

Murderbot himself has more theoretical autonomy than he should. He has hacked his own modules and only feigns following orders enough to not get caught. He also has actual morals, even if they often butt up against his limited emotional range and social anxiety.

Many readers identify with Murderbot because he reflects marginalized identities. He is aromantic, asexual, and exhibits behaviors and feelings familiar to many neurodivergent people. He is also a small character in a big world. He uses his very limited freedom to seek little comforts that help block out an indifferent and cruel universe, at least for a little while. He cannot possibly imagine leading a rebellion or overthrowing evil, but he appreciates when someone does it on TV.

I suspect many of us feel the same way when we flip on our favorite show these days.

Quick Hits and Remixes

I am a big fan of the return of novellas. When I was young I read huge fantasy tomes and played 100-hour JRPGs. Now that I’m older and cherish my precious free time, I quite like a book or game that I can finish comfortably in a day or two.

Novellas also lend themselves wonderfully to series like this. Much like a weekly TV show, each entry can provide a concise arc while building characterization and setting on top of the previous entries.

I’m also appreciative of the fresh familiarity of Murderbot. It’s hard to point to any particular element of the story that is a purely original take. The action-adventure, the robot learning how to be more human, and the mildly dystopic libertarian space future have all been explored elsewhere. However, Martha Wells puts those puzzle pieces together in a way that feels fun and strangely parallel to our current moment in time.

The Killing Moon — Read Report

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The New York Times calls Jemisin “The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation.” She has repeatedly won every major sci-fi/fantasy award, and when she’s not winning, she’s usually nominated. In short, I’ve heard great things about Jemisin for a while now, but I’ve never read her work. The Killing Moon was published in 2012, so I’m a couple decades late to the party.

I’ve been listening to a lot of audio books lately, and I’ve taken it as an opportunity to fill in some of these major gaps in my genre knowledge. I knew nothing about this book going in, I just saw it on Libro.fm while searching for something new to listen to on my commute.

The Killing Moon takes place in an Egyptian-inspired secondary world, a desert land with a loose pantheon of gods shared across nations. The technology is in the neighborhood of bronze or iron age, with the swords, spears, and armor a fantasy reader would expect.

There is magic in this world, specifically dream magic—narcomancy—attributed to the power of the goddess Hananja. But this is not a world where the gods are close. If they do exist, they are distant and do not meddle.

The story follows master Ehiru and apprentice Nijiri, gatherers who use narcomancy to collect magical energy from souls and guide them to the afterlife. This magical killing, sanctioned by the state of Gujaareh, is usually a gift reserved for the willing but sometimes used as a form of capital punishment for those deemed corrupt.

The pair are assigned to chase down Sunandi, a foreign ambassador accused of corruption. But they soon discover themselves embroiled in a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of their order, and to the prince of Gujaareh himself. It threatens to reveal long-buried secrets about the near-mythological founding of their country, the religious order surrounding Hananja, and the true nature of narcomancy.

Settings and Sentiment

About a third of the way into The Killing Moon, I found myself struggling. I wasn’t feeling that compulsion to continue that usually accompanies a fantastic book. With all of the hype around Jemisin, I was expecting to be blown away, and I found myself a little disappointed.

I have a hard time pointing to any particular issue. The writing is solid. The world is well-constructed. The plot is perhaps a little slow to get going. However, I was consuming this as an audiobook, and I’m coming to realize that is not a mode of reading that makes it easy to analyze a story in detail.

One thing I can point to is the setting. I am thoroughly burnt out on the “elves and dwarves in medieval Europe” school of fantasy, so I was hoping that the Egyptian-inspired world would prove interesting. However, aside from the names and the desert, I don’t think it made much of an impact. It’s still swords and sorcery. It’s still mighty kings and high priests and big battles and political machinations.

Jade City makes for an interesting comparison. It is also a fantasy book inspired by an underused geographical region, and another one that I read as an audiobook. Jade City imagines a world that is recently industrialized and recovering from war, akin to post-WWII Asia. It eschews the kings and kingdoms so common in fantasy, and imagines a complicated web of politics, religion, and family ties that feels more modern. It limits its scope to roughly two generations of recent history and the capital city of a small island nation. The result is a setting that feels fresh and richly detailed, and I believe that’s in large part because it’s not trying to cover a thousand years and an entire world, as so many fantasy stories do.

Another frustration I noticed is that practically every character in The Killing Moon is miserable all the time. Moments of levity or happiness are brief and far between. Everything is bad, and it’s getting worse. This is certainly an engine to drive the plot, but I found that it ground me down and made it tiring to be with these characters for an extended length of time.

There are a few twists near the end that piqued my interest and substantially improved my opinion of the book overall. I was also relieved to discover that the plot wraps up nicely, because I was expecting it to end with a cliffhanger. The Killing Moon is billed as the first book in the Dreamblood duology, but they apparently only share a setting and can be read as independent books.

(A side note, as I’m reading so much fantasy lately. I sometimes find it exhausting that the norm for this genre is huge tomes and multi-book series. If I’m trying an author to see if I like their work, I don’t want to commit to a 1500 page odyssey. Just one more way it feels like we’re still slavishly copying Tolkien. Where are all the high-quality standalone fantasy books?)

It’s Not You, It’s Me

I don’t like giving negative reviews. If I don’t like a book, I’ll often just not talk about it. I’d much rather discuss what makes good things work. I can’t help but feel that I’m heaping unnecessary negativity on The Killing Moon. I don’t think it’s a bad book. To the contrary, all of the components are here for a great book. It’s well written; it just didn’t resonate for me and I don’t entirely understand why. Maybe part of that was having my expectations calibrated by all the acclaim and awards I know Jemisin has accrued.

Oddly, this only makes me want to read another book by Jemisin. Is it this particular book that doesn’t work for me? Only one way to find out.

After some searching, I see that the Broken Earth trilogy seems to be the most recommended. It made history by winning the Hugo three years in a row, for all three books in the series. Plus, it apparently uses second person POV extensively, and that’s certainly an ambitious choice. I’ll try that next.

Speaker for the Dead — Read Report

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Speaker for the Dead is the second book in the Ender’s Game series. The last time I read this, I was probably still a teen.

For Ender and Valentine, it has been two decades since the events of Ender’s Game. But much of that time has been spent on starships traveling at relativistic speeds. A thousand years have passed outside those starship hulls. Humanity has spread across the hundred worlds. Ender’s pseudonymous books, The Hive Queen and The Hegemon have convinced most humans that Ender, “the Xenocide,” was a genocidal monster, and have inspired a secular religion of “speakers for the dead,” who try to eulogize those who have passed with complete honesty.

Ender and Valentine find themselves on the icy, Scandinavian-colonized world of Trondheim, teaching and speaking for the dead, when they hear the news that the only other known sentient alien species, the Pequeninos, have brutally killed a scientist on the tiny colony of Lusitania. A call goes out for a Speaker, and Ender follows it. His sister, however, is married and expecting her first child. For the first time in twenty-two years, they part ways, fully knowing that after the lightspeed journey she will be nearly double his age.

Ender arrives at the Portugese-Catholic colony with two secrets: the egg of the last bugger hive queen, ready to revive the species he destroyed a thousand years previous, and a jewel in his ear that lets him communicate with Jane, the only sentient AI in the universe.

Ender intrudes upon a decades-long family drama. Novinha Ivanova is the colony’s xenobiologist, the orphaned daughter of the original xenobiologists, who died in the process of saving the colony from the deadly alien Descolada plague. In her youth, she was mentored by the colony’s xenologer and fell in love with his son (and apprentice). These two important men in her life, the only people allowed to interact with the Pequeninos, are the ones the aliens choose for strange, ritual murders. And Novinha is determined to keep secret any and all information that might lead others to the same fate.

Speaker for the Dead is a very different book from Ender’s Game. That book was all about Ender’s struggles to overcome adversity at the battle school. Ender is a genius with a variety of remarkable skills, but it works in that context because the challenges stacked against him are so brutal.

In Speaker for the Dead, Ender is even more of a Gary Stu. He is the legendary Xenocide. He is the accidental father of a religion. Not content to have committed genocide, he plans to revive the bugger species. Jane, the AI, chooses him as the only human she will reveal herself to. Even the Pequeninos can only be fully understood by Ender, solving mysteries in days that the xenologers couldn’t penetrate over decades. He immediately gains the trust of almost everyone he interacts with on Lusitania, with apparently little effort.

It’s a testament to the setting and the mystery-driven plot that the book is still good in spite of Ender’s nearly inhuman ability to do whatever he sets his mind to. The alien ecology of Lusitania is interesting and well-conceived, and there are fun twists along the way. The resolution of the mysteries makes perfect sense thanks to the clues peppered throughout the book.

This feels a bit like two books that only come together in the final act. Ender has his own life (and years of post-Ender’s Game history that is only alluded to) before the journey to Lusitania. And many of the important events on planet happen before he leaves or during his long lightspeed transit. Much of the remainder of the book involves teasing out this history and connecting the disparate threads, in the same way the detective pieces together clues in the drawing room at the end of a cozy murder mystery.

The main plot points of Speaker for the Dead came back to me pretty quickly as I was reading. However, I remember very little of the next book, Xenocide, and I’ll be rereading that soon. I’m curious to see if it has more in common with the first or second book in the series.

Exhalation — Read Report

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(As I mentioned in my May Read Report, I’m going to try breaking out these posts per-book instead of the monthly summary that I have been writing. That’ll mean more of these posts, but each one shorter and more focused.)

Chiang first appeared on my radar via the 2016 movie Arrival, which is based on his short story “Story of Your Life.” The film made an impression on me by the many things it was able to juggle simultaneously. It is a great first contact sci-fi story and an emotionally fraught personal story that are intimately connected. It’s a great example of Chuck Wendig’s principle from Damn Fine Story—the inner emotional story drives the external action. On top of that, it is told in a cleverly non-linear way that not only enhances the tension, but fits with the key themes of the plot. It remains one of my favorite sci-fi movies.

Exhalation is a collection of nine stories. Two of the longest, The Lifecycle of Software Objects and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom account for about half of the total length, and the other seven are much shorter in comparison.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects begins with the invention of a rudimentary AI system that is designed to learn and grow. The main character is a former zookeeper turned software developer who is brought in to train and develop these AI companions for the company that hopes to sell them as an advanced Tomagatchi.

The AI companions are a success at first, enough that robot bodies are even produced to allow them to movie around in the real world, albeit a bit clumsily. However, the fad soon loses its momentum as consumers begin to realize that raising these AI is just as much work as raising a human child. They learn slowly, ask difficult questions, and show none of the super-human capabilities that sci-fi has long imagined from AI. The company goes under, but the protagonist and a dwindling group of die-hard believers in the project continue to raise their AI children with the understanding that it will be just as difficult as parenting a human child.

There are no shortage of stories out there about superintelligent AI taking over the world, but far fewer that suggest non-human lifeforms might need just as much raising and growing up as their human counterparts.

In Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, a device called a “prism” can create a quantum event at the moment of initialization, with two possible outcomes. The result is two parallel realities that diverge at that exact moment, a clunky briefcase laptop linking them with text chat and video calls to its parallel-universe counterpart. Each briefcase has a limited amount of memory it can use to communicate between the two worlds before it is used up, making older or less-used machines more valuable and rare.

The story explores various ways people are affected by this tech. Some obsessively compare their own lives to those of their alternate-universe selves or use alternate realities to justify their decisions. Some use it as an opportunity to “work together” with their alternate selves, or talk with alternates of people who have died in their own world.

While the prism device is the conceit on which the story hinges, it’s really about the choices we make. Alternate realities may make some question the value of a given choice, when the exact opposite is chosen in other worlds. But each choice still has consequences in this one, and an associated moral weight. Is a person defined by the accumulation of their choices across one life, or across infinite parallel lives?

There is little “hard” sci-fi or far-future technology in Chiang’s stories. Stories like The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny, and Exhalation dip their toes in steampunk sensibilities, while The Lifecycle of Software Objects, What’s Expected of Us, and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom posit worlds that could essentially be the one we live in today, but for one or two technological additions.

It’s also apparent from these stories that there are a few themes that Chiang keeps returning to, the bigger planets in his solar system, whose gravity is obvious across his work. Time travel and alternate universes are a recurring theme, but this may be because he is so intent on explorations of choice, free will, and whether our decisions have meaning.

As with any sci-fi, technology is at the heart of these stories, but they are not cold and robotic as sci-fi can sometimes be. Writers like Asimov are often critiqued for clockwork plots with flat characters who are merely parts in the machine. That’s certainly not a problem for Chiang. Most of his stories are character-forward, and are about human behavior and belief in the face of the changes wrought by technology. It’s easy to relate to these characters, because they face decidedly human problems in worlds much like ours, where technology drives change and sometimes creates new joys and new pains.

I often want to roll my eyes when speculative fiction authors escape the genre fiction ghetto and get themselves shelved under that haughty label of “literature.” It seems like a flimsy excuse by the gatekeepers to allow themselves to enjoy what they would otherwise be required to look down upon, due to the presence of spaceships or elves. For Chiang, I’ll make an exception. I think he deserves to be widely read, and I’d rather not see people put off by the time machines and intelligent robots.

The Read Report — May 2025

Another month has passed, and I’m here to talk about books.

There are a lot of them. Really, a shocking number of books. They keep coming out!

Despite my best efforts, I haven’t read them all. But I promise, I’m working on it. Let’s talk about the ones I finished in May.

Where possible, I include Bookshop and Libro affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a small commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of luxury ice for billionaires’ cocktails.

Annihilation (Southern Reach – Book 1)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

As I mentioned last time, I’ve been getting into audio books as a way to read more. The three-books-in-one Area X collection was my second audio book purchase, and it was a fantastic choice. I’ve loved Jeff VanderMeer’s work for years, but between the Borne books and the Southern Reach series, he might just be my favorite author.

Annihilation begins with a simple premise: there is a place somewhere in the coastal US where something supernatural or alien has taken root. (The exact location never entirely clear, but it’s in the South, and VanderMeer himself lives near Tallahassee.) This place, dubbed Area X, is surrounded by an invisible barrier that vanishes any living creature that crosses it. The only entrance or exit is a gate of scintillating light.

The government has surrounded Area X with a military blockade, created a cover story of “ecological catastrophe,” and created a clandestine organization called The Southern Reach to study it, because that’s the sort of thing governments do.

We enter into this situation with The Biologist, one of four members of the 12th expedition sent into Area X. Her fellows are The Anthropologist, The Surveyor, and The Psychologist, who also serves as the expedition’s leader. They are discouraged from knowing anything about each other, even their real names.

Within Area X they encounter mysteries and monsters, and The Biologist soon has reason to believe that the Southern Reach knows more about Area X than it has told the members of the expedition.

Annihilation was shorter than I was expecting, only six hours as an audio book, but it’s packed full. Each chapter provides new revelations about the situation or unfurls new backstory about the characters in a way that kept me constantly revising my understanding of what was going on. And even so, the central mystery of “what is Area X” kept the story moving forward.

It’s interesting to see themes from VanderMeer’s other books present here. His stories are off the map. Deep in the unknown. Places that feel alien, and characters that often feel alien despite being human.

The man is obsessed with fungus as a vector for our fear of parasites, a foreign body that brings death—or transformation. Mushrooms and mushroom-people figured heavily in the Ambergris stories. He also clearly has a deep love for ecology and nature, especially coasts and tidal pools. The Biologist, with her aquatic obsessions, mirrors the protagonists of Dead Astronauts, another book by VanderMeer.

This feels like cosmic horror, but subtle. It says the world is unknown, and unknowable. Inscrutable. It reminded me of House of Leaves. You can’t trust the laws of physics, the constancy of space and time. There is a feeling of Area X holding forbidden knowledge that will destroy anyone who comes across it.

Authority (Southern Reach – Book 2)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

As soon as I finished Annihilation, I jumped into Authority. I was hooked.

It starts with a twist that immediately grabbed me. One of the characters in the first book wasn’t who they pretended to be. Everything I knew from the 12th expedition was turned on its head.

This time, we follow the brand new director of the Southern Reach, a man who insists on being called Control— though it quickly becomes apparent that very little is actually in his control.

He has been brought in to replace the old director and “fix” the Southern Reach. Central, a shady government agency that may or may not be the CIA, is concerned that the organization is rotten—somehow infected or sympathetic toward Area X despite the directive to contain and control. They have become too close to the problem.

Control arrives just in time for the debriefing of the survivors of the 12th expedition, despite at least some of them appearing to be dead at the end of the first book. One of these survivors is The Biologist.

Beyond the weirdness of Area X and secret government organizations vying for power, Control has to contend with all the difficulties of being the outsider brought into a dysfunctional organization he doesn’t understand, to be in charge of people who don’t trust him and quietly resist any significant change.

As is often the case with clandestine organizations, Control soon realizes that he really doesn’t know everything going on at the Southern Reach or at Central. He is being manipulated from all sides while becoming more and more obsessed with the mysteries of Area X.

Even worse, the past has been purposely muddied. There have been far more than twelve expeditions, but the numbers are reused, the members lied to. The facts are hidden from all but the highest-ranking officials. The previous director’s notes indicate that Area X is expanding, though there seems to be no outward sign of it.

Control cannot even trust himself. The Southern Reach uses hypnosis to condition and control the members of the expeditions, and it seems increasingly likely that Central uses the same conditioning on its own people. Can he be sure of what he knows? Can he be sure of who he is?

The first book ended in personal catastrophe: death and failure for the 12th expedition. The second book ends in what appears to be a global catastrophe as Area X suddenly and rapidly expands, not only extending its border, but surpassing it, spreading its seeds out into the wider world. Control flees, but like everyone who spends time at the Southern Reach, he can’t really get away, and he finds himself returning to Area X.

If Authority has a hypothesis, it’s that nobody is truly in control. You can take a name or a title, you can construct borders to protect yourself, you can perform as much rigorous, scientific categorization and classification as you’d like. It won’t stand up in the face of the unknown.

Acceptance (Southern Reach – Book 3)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

Annihilation and Authority mostly follow linear narratives, even if information about the past is revealed in bits and pieces throughout. Acceptance is decidedly non-linear. It intermingles three stories.

The time before the border fell over the Forgotten Coast is told by Saul Evans, lighthouse keeper and former preacher. He encounters the Séance and Science (S&S) Brigade, a weird collection of locals who investigate strange phenomena from scientific and paranormal angles, and somehow seem to be intimately involved in the eventual advent of Area X.

The time after Area X appeared is told by the director of the Southern Reach who preceded Control. She reveals the origin of the organization, some of its ties to Central, and what really happened across the many expeditions and years of investigation.

The present, then, is told by Control and The Biologist—or at least something that looks like The Biologist, but calls herself Ghost Bird. Control is drawn to Area X, repulsed by it, obsessed with it and terrified of it. Ghost Bird has a connection to Area X that she does not completely understand. They both suspect she is the only one who can stop it.

In the aftermath of the border’s expansion, the pair trek through the pristine wilderness of Area X, to the island off the coast. They meet an old friend and formulate a desperate plan to return to the buried tower that forms the heart of Area X, to stop the threat it poses to all of humanity.

The trilogy is built as something of a mystery box, with the ultimate question for readers being the cause and purpose of Area X. Is it supernatural? Alien?

I’d argue that VanderMeer is better than most at constructing this kind of mysterious narrative while still giving up big, exciting revelations along the way, but there are plenty of questions left to answer going into book three. To his credit, most of the questions are answered by the last page.

There are revelations about the origin and purpose of Area X, but they are oblique. Some readers will be satisfied with that, either constructing their own head-canon from the pieces, or accepting that there will always be a little uncertainty. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of folks online still looking for more clarity.

Personally, I came well-prepared, having read another VanderMeer series first — the not-quite trilogy of Borne, The Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts. Those books are delightful explorations of language in a post-apocalyptic future, but they’re challenging and they leave a lot of questions unresolved. In comparison, the Southern Reach trilogy is practically overflowing with answers.

And luckily, there may be more. After ten years away, VanderMeer recently released a fourth Southern Reach book: Absolution. (Of course it has to start with A.)

What I’m Reading in June

When do you know you’re reading too many books at the same time? Right now, I’m halfway through an audio book that I listen to in the car. I’m also halfway through an e-book that I can read in spare minutes on my phone. And I’m halfway through a physical book that I keep next to my bed.

Next month, expect to hear about some sci-fi short stories, one of the most award-winning fantasy authors of recent times, and yet more from Jeff VanderMeer.

I’m also considering a change in format. I originally started these Read Reports as a way to combine my thoughts on a few books into a single post, but now I’m finding that it ends up being an awfully long post when I write about a month’s-worth of books.

So let me know in the comments — do you like these consolidated Read Reports, or would you rather have bite-sized posts on one book at a time?

The Read Report — April

It’s Spring. Here in Minnesota it may be 40 or 80 degrees on any given day. The animals have that springtime energy. The kids can sense that summer is almost in spitting distance. But there are also those notorious April showers, and some cooler days, and plenty of reasons to curl up inside with a good book. Let’s talk about some of them.

Where possible, I include Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a tiny commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of scalp polish for Jeff Bezos.

Audio Books and Libro.fm

I recently decided to try audio books as a way to “read” more while I’m driving, folding laundry, or performing other mundane tasks. I was excited to discover Libro.fm, an audio book alternative to Amazon’s Audible, much like Bookshop.org has become my default option for buying paper books.

While Bookshop is a B Corp and Libro is a Social Purpose Corporation, both share profits with local bookstores and seem to have a moral framework beyond simple money-making. While the moral aspects of my purchases have become increasingly important to me, I’ll also note that both of these websites (and in Libro’s case, their mobile app) are well-constructed and easy to use, and the buying experience is very good. So I don’t feel like I’m missing out or working harder for the same product.

The first audio book I purchased through Libro was Jade City, by Fonda Lee.

Jade City

By Fonda Lee

I could tell immediately that Jade City fits my fantasy sensibilities perfectly. There are no elves or dragons to be seen, no medieval castles. Yes, the story takes place in a secondary world, and yes, there is magic in that world, but it feels grounded and real. High fantasy this is not.

The story takes place in the small, Asian-inspired island nation of Kekon, and almost entirely in the capital city of Janloon. The country is in a transitional period in the decades following the Many Nations War, a world war which distracted colonial overlords long enough for native, magic-imbued freedom fighters to drive them out.

As is often the case, without a shared enemy to fight the guerrilla army fractures into feuding clans. While there is an official, somewhat clan-neutral government over Kekon, these clans have an effective monopoly on magic and exercise significant power. They operate like mafia houses with spiritual, commercial, and governmental components, controlling and battling over territory. The fight to free the country from outsiders is still within living memory, but that memory is fading.

Although the world of Jade City is in the early stages of industrial revolution, with cars being commonplace and guns only slightly less so, the magic is decidedly wuxia, focusing on close-range martial arts fighting with knives and swords. Even then, the magic serves to move the plot as a political and social element, and only occasionally comes to the fore in tense life-or-death battles.

Magic is derived from bio-reactive jade, and this jade is only to be found in Kekon. Moreover, not everyone can use jade. It requires a genetic component, luck, and training.

However, there is a loophole. A drug has recently been invented—SN1 or “shine”—that allows those without aptitude and genetics to use jade. It threatens both the political order of Kekon and the Kekonese control of jade. Larger powers out in the world are eager to get their hands on both jade and the means to use it, and most of them are indifferent towards Kekon.

Within this complex historical and geopolitical backdrop, the story follows a single family: the Kauls, leaders of the No Peak clan. They are one of the largest clans, second only to the Mountain clan. But the longstanding equilibrium is broken as the Mountain makes moves to consolidate power inside and outside the island, no longer following the codes of honor that have long bound the actions of jaded “greenbones.”

Jade City is a family drama, as well as a political and crime drama. It’s Wuxia Godfather. It’s a fantastic first entry for a fantasy trilogy, and I’ll definitely pick up the sequels.

Hellblazer Vol. 12 – How to Play With Fire

By Paul Jenkins, Warren Pleece, Garth Ennis, John Higgins

There are questions you ask at the start of any Constantine story arc. Which old enemy is going to show up? Which estranged friends? What terrible thing is going to happen to this girlfriend? Does the big bad evil plan to wreck up the entire planet, or only London?

This trade paperback collects three story arcs, four issues each. In the first, Constantine is in New York to meet the latest girlfriend’s family. And for some reason, he’s up against that classic villain, Satan. But the devil isn’t raining down fire and brimstone, he’s unleashing some kind of overly-vague psychic malaise on New York, the girlfriend’s family included. Of course, John manages to save the day with the help of the girlfriend’s grandpa and a psychic he happens to know. Or at least he clears off the bad mojo from her family. Everyone else is on their own.

This arc really felt like filler to me. The actual danger is described in such vague terms, and the solution is just as unclear. I don’t need every story to conclude with a beatdown of the villain, but I do need to actually understand what’s going on, and as far as I can tell the plot of these issues seems to be that America is psychically sick, and the only cure is to share memories with boomers who know what it means to really live.

The second storyline is classic Hellblazer, with old friends turned to enemies and demonic forces desperate to get even with Constantine. As usual, everything in John’s life begins to fall apart. His buddies are estranged and his girlfriend leaves him. But all it takes to fix it is making a deal with the devil.

The final arc is the best of the bunch. John’s friend Chas gets accidentally mixed up in some gangster business and hopes that Constantine can get him out of it. Unfortunately, John has history with these gangsters too—he once did them a dangerous favor that ended in a little bit of demonic possession. This one does end in a proper showdown with a big nasty demon. So maybe that is something I need in a Hellblazer story to really enjoy it.

American Gods

By Neil Gaiman

I last read American Gods about two decades ago. It holds up pretty well, all things considered.

It is a love letter to America and especially the Midwest, a novel whose story runs across rural highways and through chintzy roadside attractions. It looks on America kindly, but also observes our weaknesses and foibles as only an outsider can.

In American Gods, there is a spiritual void in modern America, and the gods are dying. They are being forgotten, their worshipers dwindling. In their place, new concepts ascend: media, the internet, and mysterious three-letter government organizations. And yet, for some, the transition can’t happen soon enough. Among the new gods, there are those who aren’t content to let the old gods fade. They want blood.

Meanwhile, Shadow is getting out of prison. He’s served his time and he’s going home to his wife. He has a job lined up. Then, right before release, he finds out that his wife is dead, and everything falls apart. That’s when he meets an old man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and Shadow is pulled into the war among the gods.

The end hinges on several surprise twists, which are nicely telegraphed, but not obvious. The final chapters are satisfying without being glib or wrapping things up too cleanly.

Acknowledging Monsters

I would be remiss to write up this book without acknowledging the recent accusations against Gaiman. His stories never shied away from dark topics like sexual assault—which once seemed like a clear-eyed view of an often terrible world. Now, it comes across as something more personal and disturbing.

I won’t argue for or against the death of the author. I can understand appreciating a piece of work, even while disagreeing with or hating the author. I’ve certainly enjoyed stories by authors like Card or Heinlein while vehemently disagreeing with their politics and social views. I also can’t blame anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) separate the author and the story.

There are things I love in many of Gaiman’s works. I would have called myself a fan of his not so long ago. It’s unfortunate that those stories will now be tainted. They will always have that dark coda attached.

What I’m Reading in April

Hey, it turns out audiobooks are pretty cool. I can turn a lot more of my mundane task time into listening time. And what I’m listening to next is the Area X trilogy by one of my favorite literary SFF authors: Jeff VanderMeer. I’ve also got short fiction by Ted Chiang, and maybe a couple other things from the TBR pile. See you next month.

The Read Report — March

March was my recovery month. I quit slacking off and got my writing mojo back, and I also read a few books. Some are oldies from the bookshelf, and one is a new library find.

As usual, I include Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a tiny commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of massive political spending by billionaires.

Hyperbole and a Half

By Allie Brosh

Hyperbole and a Half lives in an interesting space between web-comic and autobiographical blog. It began on Blogger at a time when blogs and web-comics were approaching their zenith of popularity, and was rocketed to fame by panels that became widespread memes, like this:

Brosh’s MSPaint-style art depicts every person and animal as wide-eyed and crazed, with mouths that span their faces. Every expression is extreme. It is as hyperbolic as the name suggests.

She mines her childhood, relationships, pets, and a wide variety of unusual life experiences for material, crafting stories in the vein of comedians like Mike Birbiglia or David Sedaris, but with a chronically online millennial perspective.

Several stories follow her family’s adventures living with a “simple” dog, and the adoption of a “helper” dog who turns out to be just as problematic. She describes her childhood determination to steal a birthday cake that belongs to someone else. And she recounts the experience of being attacked by an angry, wild goose in her own house.

Brosh also uses the same comic-story lens to examine her experiences with depression and becoming suicidal. These heavy topics are treated with vulnerable honesty while still managing to find the humor lurking in these dark corners (or under the fridge, in this case).

Solutions and Other Problems

By Allie Brosh

Solutions and Other Problems is the long-awaited sequel to Hyperbole and a Half. Seven years have passed between books. Brosh has gone through medical issues, mental health challenges, divorce and remarrying. The book still contains plenty of her trademark goofiness, but there is a notable shift in tone and perspective.

Brosh has also clearly leveled-up her art. It somehow manages to convey the same level of absurdity and retains the lo-fi MSPaint aesthetic while being far more detailed and varied.

Where many of the stories in the first book originally appeared on the Hyperbole and a Half blog, almost all of the content of this second book is new. Which probably explains the dearth of content on the blog in recent years.

If you enjoyed the blog and the first book, the second book provides more of the same, and does almost all of it even better.

The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

By Terry Pratchett, Illustrated by Paul Kidby

This was an unexpected library find for me. The Last Hero is a lushly illustrated novella, written for the same adult audience as Pratchett’s other Discworld books. It occupies that sparse space between comics, children’s books, and novels. In fact, the only other illustrated story like this that I can think of is The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains. It’s too bad that experimentation in format like this is so rare.

Drawing from the usual massive cast of Discworld characters, this story stars Rincewind (the original inept wizard from Pratchett’s earliest books), the brilliant Da Vinci-esque inventor Leonard of Quirm, Cohen the Barbarian, and a supporting cast of wizards and barbarian heroes.

The barbarians are growing old, and they want to go out with a bang. They want to return fire to the gods. A whole lot of it. Unfortunately, exploding the magical mountain where the gods live will very likely destroy the entire Discworld, so the wizards and Leonard set out to stop them.

The storyline following Cohen and the barbarians parodies the classic D&D “murder-hobo” style of heroism, and the storyline of Leonard building a craft to fly to the highest mountain on the Disc parodies classic space-dramas and the Apollo program.

The illustrations are incredibly beautiful and detailed, in the mold of the best classic fantasy covers, so the absurdity of Discworld details (like “Wizzard” stitched onto Rincewind’s pointy hat) stand out all the more.

What I’m Reading in April

I’ve come to the realization that I often talk about reading books in this section, only for them to not appear in next month’s report.

I’m not messing with you. I promise. I just have a bad habit of reading too many things at once. And now I’ve found an exciting new way to increase my number of half-finished books, through the power of audio books!

That’s right, I’m currently listening to Fonda Lee’s Jade City on Libro.fm. And I’m still in the midst of American Gods and Ted Chiang’s short stories. And some day I’ll get beyond the first chapter of the final Witcher book. If we’re really being honest, I’ll probably pick up something else before the month is out.

What will I actually finish? Tune in next month to find out.

The Read Report — January and February 2025

Alright, February was a train wreck for me, so I never managed to get January’s post out. But that’s fine. We’re all here now. We’ll do it live!

Moving Pictures

By Terry Pratchett

I’m still working through the Discworld series with my kids. Thankfully, Pritchett was a prolific author, and if I stretch them out I can continue reading his books for several more years before I’ve read them all. It’s nice to think that a favorite author can live on in this way, through his books.

Moving Pictures is an experiment in how many movie-related references and metaphors Pratchett can cram into a fantasy world. Alchemists have invented movies, their cameras powered by the dangerous combination of little imps and highly flammable cellulose film. Within weeks, the seaside shanty-town of Holy Wood springs up on an otherwise deserted stretch of beach, and people are drawn toward it by the chance for fame, and perhaps a more nefarious force.

One of the newly minted actors who found his big break at Holy Wood happens to be a student wizard from Anhk-Morpork’s Unseen University. He starts to see signs that there’s more than movie magic going on: in fact, there may be other realities (like our own) leaking into the Discworld from the void between universes. Where there are weak places in the fabric of the universe, there are Cthulhu-esque “Things” looking for a way in.

Much of the silliness of the book comes from twisted versions of familiar movie tropes: the Orangutan-transformed University Librarian picked up by a 50-foot woman climbing a tower in an inversion of King Kong; or the bald, golden, statuesque ancient protector against cosmic evil who just happens to look like everyone’s uncle Oscar.

Like the Simpsons, Discworld has a massive cast of characters that can be pulled into service for any given plotline. Detritus the troll and perpetual scammer “Cut-me-own-Throat” Dibbler get higher billing than usual, with the wizards of the University making a strong appearance toward the end.

Pratchett’s super-power, however, is the ability to write a silly story in a silly setting, packed with quips and jokes, and still build a real plot and characters with actual motivations that make you root for them.

Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Great Patriotic War

By Wayne Vansant

Like many of the more unusual comics I pick up, this was a Half Price Books impulse buy. There is now a whole sub-genre of historical fiction and biography within indie comics (see Maus, Palestine, and Persepolis in my previous months’ reading), and while I don’t generally gravitate toward it, I’m glad I picked up Katusha.

Firstly, this thing is a tome, clocking in at almost 600 pages. Unlike many trade paperback comics, this has a strong binding that has held up well so far, despite that size.

When I started reading, I wasn’t especially excited by the art, which has a sketchy look that sometimes skimps on detail. However, it grew on me over time, and I came to understand that Vansant was picking and choosing important panels to fully flesh out. I could call the art “workmanlike,” but that is not an insult. It is straightforward, and there is never any confusion about what is happening. It is impactful at all the right moments, and really fits the documentarian feel of the story. I can hardly blame Vansant for lack of detail here or there. The fact that one person was able to write and illustrate this entire book is a small miracle.

The story follows the titular girl soldier from the early war, before the German expansion east into Russia, all the way through the messy German retreat to Berlin.

The first few chapters provide a day in the life before the war, introducing Katusha’s mother and father, her adopted sister, her best friend, and her mysterious troublemaker of an uncle.

Katusha and her family are Ukrainian, and their life under Soviet rule is already sometimes fraught. When the Germans invade, making promises to civilians of a better life under their rule, rural Ukranians have to wonder whether the occupation might improve their lives.

Unfortunately, those promises soon prove hollow, as the family witnesses brutal suppression and an immediate round-up of Ukrainian Jews and others the Germans consider undesirable. Katusha and her family are forced to flee their home town to stay with relatives, and then flee again and again. The family is separated, and Katusha and her sister become partisans under the leadership of their uncle, creating a rebel base in a well-hidden cave.

After a winter of successful operations against the Germans, the sisters are briefly reunited with their father, a tank factory supervisor, who helps them enroll in the Soviet tank school. They spend the remainder of the war manning, and eventually commanding their own tanks.

For a book that is concerned with brutal war, there is no excessive gore. When there is violence, it isn’t skimmed over, and it feels honest. Over the course of the war, Katusha loses many family members and friends. It is a sad coming-of-age story that must mirror what millions of teenagers went through in many countries over the course of the war.

Vansent is careful to show the complexity of wartime politics, with multiple factions of Ukrainian partisans. Some fight with the Soviets, while others fight with the Germans, and some fight against both in a bid for independence. Even after the Germans retreat, the fighting continues in what eventually proves to be a vain hope for Ukrainian independence. It is a particularly timely reminder that the Ukrainian people have spent so much of their history fighting for the right to choose their own destinies.

Katusha ultimately survives beyond the end of the war, but like any good war story it is a melancholy victory. She marries a fellow soldier who nearly died of his injuries. Most of her family is gone. And despite the best efforts of the partisans, Ukraine returns to the grip of the USSR. It’s a long and bittersweet journey.

Severance: The Lexington Letter

(Unattributed)

Like the rest of America, I’ve been watching Severance. The Lexington Letter is a little in-universe book (exclusive to Apple Books, of course) that includes a series of emails and a pamphlet titled “The Macrodata Refiner’s Handbook.”

The emails chronicle the brief story of a severed worker who finds clues that her “innie”—the separated personality that only activates at work—has found evidence of bad things happening at her employer, Lumon. After trying in various ways to sneak information out of the company, the woman quits and contacts a reporter at the Topeka Star with her information. The story, however, is ultimately suppressed. The editor killing the story has a name that will lead observant fans to realize he is likely in the company’s pocket, and the woman turns up dead soon thereafter.

The handbook in the second part features a cartoonized severance brain chip as a mascot that guides new workers through the mysterious job featured in the show: macrodata refinement. It is full of the tone-deaf and slightly sinister corporate propaganda-speak that the show is known for, and filled with a plethora of little details that seem like they might be clues, but probably don’t mean anything. In short, perfect fodder for the mega-fan conspiracy theorists.

*Typical r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus Redditor*

The entire book can be easily read in a sitting or two, and serves to add a little more content to the Severance universe, without really revealing anything new or exciting. It is definitely focused on existing fans, and newcomers to the series will likely not find much for them here. However, if you’re a hardcore fan of the show and desperately counting down the days until the next episode release, this might just tide you over for an evening.

I’ll also note that I hate it when big media tie-ins do this thing where they don’t credit the author(s) of the tie-in material. Yes, the book is effectively a stealth advertisement for the show, but there was clearly some effort put into the writing and illustration. Those people deserve credit.

What I’m Reading in March

I’m currently working my way through American Gods, a book that I loved when I first read it, years ago. It’s by Neil Gaiman, award-winning author and person recently outed as being somewhere on the spectrum between avid sex pest and serial abuser. Never have heroes, kids. You’ll be disappointed.

I’m also working through some excellent Ted Chiang stories, something I’ve wanted to do ever since I fell in love with the movie Arrival, based on his Story of Your Life. See you next month!