What I Read in 2021, H1
Somewhat wanting for quantity and variety, but regardless, here’s what I read over the first half of 2021.
Sci-fi
Read more than one book from most authors on this list, and so the following list is organized by author.
Dune, Children of Dune. Frank Herbert’s excellent Dune has been making the rounds online for a while now. I read up to the fourth book (God Emperor of Dune) last year and remember not really enjoying the second (Dune Messiah), so on this round of re-reads I went back to the first and third books of the series. The ideas in Dune are just so far out there that they’re still impressive on a re-read, and many details make more sense once you have a general grasp of the world Herbert builds. I think sometimes the writing can be so bafflingly abstract that it takes away from what the characters are trying to say, but generally the characters are incredibly well-written. So much so that I don’t know if I can bring myself to leave Paul, Jessica, Leto and the rest in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune…
The Martian. Thoroughly enjoyed this fun read by Andy Weir, whom I previously only knew as the guy who wrote The Egg! (Still one of my favourite short stories, in no small part because of the way it was introduced to me). The book had some real laugh-out-loud moments that surprised me, and the movie wasn’t half bad either. I read about a third of his 2017 novel Artemis and didn’t enjoy it enough to continue, though.
Burning Chrome, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive. Finished the last two novels of William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy this semester as well as Burning Chrome, a collection of short stories largely set in the same world. Count Zero was written very beautifully, and my favourite moments are when Andrea and the Boxmaker meet: “Now I am only one…but I have my song, and you have heard it.” Mona Lisa Overdrive seemed to pale in comparison. I’d watched Extra Credits’ review of The Belonging Kind in Burning Chrome before (it’s great!) and it was nice to revisit the story. Hinterlands, though, is the one that really stood out to me from the collection for the incredible setting it paints in just a few pages. “Perfect strangers, but Hiro and I, for you, we make up the perfect stranger, Leni.”
Blackout/All Clear. Nebula and Hugo Award-winning two-volume monster of a novel by Connie Willis that’s surprisingly light reading, length notwithstanding. Like many reviewers have said, I do feel the books would have benefited from much heavier editing – certain motifs are used to the point where they become embarrassing (the Light of the World painting, for one). Still, it’s clearly well researched and reads almost like slice-of-life, a genre which I admittedly enjoy. I was happy to finish both novels within a week.
Worm. Ah, Worm, perhaps THE webcomic to define all webcomics. I can’t believe I didn’t hear of this earlier. At a staggering 1.7 million words, it’s about 4.5X longer than Blackout/All Clear combined. I read this while I really, really should have been writing my MSc thesis instead. I think the payoff is worth the effort, though I’ll admit to skipping past most of the interludes and some non-crucial dialogue. Taylor sticks to a similar line of reasoning as she develops in the story, that she’ll be the one to do distasteful things towards a noble end, and the final fight takes this to a logical extreme. In the process Wildbow (author) introduces some really interesting characters and powers (I found the Number Man, Contessa and Dinah fascinating). One of my favourite quips from the series: “If there are two and a half words you don’t want to hear from a person who can see the future, those words are “I’m sorry””, ha.
There Is No Antimemetics Division. I think most of qntm’s longer stories suffer from a lack of coherence/unclear exposition of ideas, and while there are hints of that here it’s much more subdued. I loved this short series (link here) – the concept of antimemes (ideas with self-censoring properties) is one I haven’t really seen explored, and qntm chooses to go with an awesomely creepy slant. This stayed with me for a while.
Comics
I did say this list was somewhat wanting for variety…but I did read some non sci-fi! A visit to Hyperbole and a Half on a whim was rewarded with news that Allie Brosh had released a new book, Solutions and Other Problems. If you’ve read her blog or previous book, the first thing you’ll probably notice is that her art style’s changed slightly (a tad more realistic). That fades away as you enter the stories, in which she answers the question of what she’s been up to after radio silence for the past seven years. The answers have this dual quality of honesty and deprecating self-awareness that makes them all the more heartwrenching – it’s something that you have to experience for yourself. Couldn’t recommend this more highly.
Blogs
I’ve been following medicinal chemist Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline for a while now, but started reading it more regularly only recently and found the wonderful trove that is the articles tagged “Things I won’t work with”. I actually felt an urge to flip through my old chemistry notes.
I am halfway through the final story of Exhalations, didn’t enjoy the opening chapters of What is Thought and dropped it, somehow haven’t picked GEB back up, and don’t have any concrete plans for what I’m reading next. Perhaps some of Tufte’s books on visualizations.