I guess I feel differently. Musk strikes me as the archetypal “watched a couple youtube videos and now thinks he’s an expert” kind of guy, and he seems to have trouble composing coherent thoughts longer than a tweet. Asimov, for all his flaws, is a legit smart and well-informed guy who in addition to all the fiction wrote a bunch of well-regarded non-fiction books as well.
I get how you could read, for example, the Foundation novels and think that “psychohistory” was basically magic for science fiction nerds (and I think Asimov made a similar observation himself in later years), but even if you want to use that as a sort of referendum on Asimov’s hubris about his insight or scientific understanding or whatever, I still think that’s just him being “merely wrong”. As opposed to the stereotypical bitcoin/tech bro “Dunning-Kruger incarnate” level of being wrong.
That’s what I see the fundamental difference as, anyway.
Just finished my first book of 2025. An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson. Dark academia. 3/5 stars. Now for my next novel started Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, my book club read this month. Initial impressions: writing style a bit brisk for my taste but sticking with it.
The galaxy-spanning conflict continues, Hadrian Harlowe’s desperate gambit for peace backfires.
Part 2 of the Sun Eater series, Howling Dark had me on the edge of my seat for the past few days. Grand scale space opera. Good action mixed with thoughtful backstory.
It set me thinking of humanity and otherness, linguistic and biological determinism, fate and choice,…
The story is narrated in memoire-style by the protagonist, imprisoned for war crimes centuries after the events of the first two books. The style of writing says something about this character’s view of himself, it has a certain gravitas, an almost prophetic tone which works most of the time, but can go off the rails at times.
Overall, good book, a series I will read more of.
And today, months after playing Pentiment, I’ve started reading The Name of the Rose.
The other day I finished The Transition by Luke Kennard, which is a near-future sci-fi story where a man avoids jail time by enrolling into a controlling program which seeks to turn his life around. It was very engaging, I read most of it in two sittings, though I felt like it suffered from being too near future, as several of its central conceits have been undermined by new developments.
I’m now a few chapters into Aethelred II by Ryan Lavelle. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a page-turner, but it’s really drawing me into the world of 10th century England— with the almost mafia-like family politics of schemes, murder, and bribery.
Yay! One of my favorite books, I hope you enjoy it.
After finishing Northanger Abbey, I read another of my Christmas presents, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, The Message. It’s quite good, though I think the public controversy around it sort of misses what he’s actually doing with the book (which is primarily about journalism and how a writer should engage with the world, rather than about Israel and Palestine as such).
My reading’s been somewhat derailed by having to leave home for a couple days due to a fire cropping up near us, but it’s under control now and we’re all safe and settled back in, so I’m looking forward to getting back into things. Next on my list is Paul Murray’s new novel - I adored his Skippy Dies, and this one looks great too, though I’m anticipating groans when I mention that the title is “The Bee Sting”.
Current main Kindle reading for me. The top 6 books in the picture below are the main books I’m currently reading. Titles in the alt text. A mix of fiction and non fiction.
Alt text for the picture above, including book titles
Screenshot of a Kindle Paperwhite showing rows of book covers. The top 6 books are “Days at the Morisaki Bookshop”, “Eerie East Anglia” Tales of the Weird from the British Library, “Captive Queen” by Jade Scott about the newly decrypted letters of Mary Queen of Scots, the “Complete Sherlock Holmes”, “Grimoires: a history of magic books” by Owen Davies, and the play script of “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis” by Sir David Lindsay.
Oh hey, I read that Grimoires book too! Thought it wasn’t bad, but I’d expected it to be more of a broad monograph rather than the compilation of specific papers it wound up being.
I started to read it a few years ago when my husband bought the ebook for me, but I was too ill then to get into it properly. I also fancy his “Art of the Grimoire” book, which is much more lavishly illustrated, not exactly representative of many grimoires! And I would like to read Lecouteux’s “The Book of Grimoires”. I watched an online talk today about collecting grimoires, and went to add those two books to my wishlist, only to find they were already on there from years ago!
I’ve always been into horror fiction, mostly Stephen King and Grady Hendrix, but I’ve been getting into more literary horror recently. I just finished reading The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim and highly recommend it. A few other literary horror novels I’ve read and recommend are:
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
The Haar by David Sodergren
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
Have recently been delving into non-fiction titles too. Just finished Morbid Obsessions by Frankie Miren and Alison Rumfitt. A quick read and a great entry point into discussing underrepresented minority groups, how they’re treated, and the intersectionality between how they’re discriminated against and marginalised
