It’s time for a new (and mostly random) feature on this blog: the reading game! Basically, I tell you what I’m currently reading and then hope everyone will do the same in the comments!
How about you?
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
Dr. Shaun Duke © 2010 - 2025. All Rights Reserved.
8 Responses
I'm reading the rather strange and wonderful number9dream by David Mitchell…
I am reading Iron Council by China Mieville. About half way through, I'm convinced it's his best of the Bas-Lag books.
I did a narration of a short story of James L. Sutter's over at StarShipSofa called Faithful Servants. I believe it's a companion piece. The premise seemed pretty cool. I'll be curious to know how a full length novel reads.
I am halfway through The Diviner by Melanie Rawn.
It is supposed to be a prequel to the novel The Golden Key, but I'm enjoying Diviner just fine without having read Key first.
I'm reading The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Hyperion was absolutely brilliant) and Embassytown by Mieville. God that man is God.
Currently reading The Zen Gun by Barrington J. Bayley (totally random used book store find, the title sold me), the Count Brass omnibus by Michael Moorcock, and The Strange Tale of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder.
In audio: Earthbound by Joe Haldeman.
In print: Zone One by Colson Whitehead.
I'm reading Fenrir by M.D. Lachlan and Bossypants by Tina Fey. Next up on the list is the new Mark Hodder, Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.
I really want to read After the Apocalypse by Maureen McHugh, I'm really looking forward to your review!
AmyTree: Is that one of his new ones?
Jonathan: Oh! Mieville is wonderful. Oh, and that's cool about the narration!
Greyweather: I've never heard of The Diviner. Will have to check it out!
Adam: You would read those books 😛
Dave B.: Those sound like fantastic books. I'll check out The Zen Gun for sure.
Sam M-B: Haldeman = amazing. Oh, and let me know what you think of the Whitehead.
redhead: If you can get After the Apocalypse now, I would. Don't bother waiting for my review. Buy it. It's amazingly good! So far, I've only felt "meh" about one story, but almost all of them are sheer brilliance.