I'm quite enjoying it so far! Not just the story, but the author's writing style too. :)

ROFL! Nomination accepted! xD

The Confession by John Grisham.

Exceptionally, I finished work earlier today, which meant that I was able to catch the sun before it set. Took my book to a nearby park and grabbed a seat at a bench beneath some shade. Was very happy to resume my current pick, The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke. I was feeling a bit giddy because I could see that I was fast approaching the end of this book and I'm very curious to discover how the story will end! :)

Contrary to my last reading session, I only stumbled upon two words that stumped me. Here they are:

"Whatever else he had been, at least the Master was no ascetic."

"The cause of the Central Sun's nacreous light was now clearly visible. The great star was shrouded in an envelope of gas which softened its radiation."

The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15 edited by Gardner Dozois

2001 (15th) edition of Dozois' annual collection of sci-fi short stories. In a way, a couple of these feel like opening a time capsule, as they were written before the internet was starting its decline, and before smartphones. The speculation about what the future might bring is interesting in that context.

My rating system for the 26 tales included: 3 stars: Holodeck, 2 stars: Cryochamber, 1 star: Airlock.

New Light On The Drake Equation by Ian R MacLeod
An elderly American expat living on a mountain in France, operating an anachronistic SETI project in a new age. (Cryochamber)

More Adventures On Other Planets by Michael Cassutt
Two rovers on Jupiter's moon Europa and the lives of their remote controllers back on Earth. (Airlock)

On K2 With Kanakaredes by Dan Simmons
Four climbers attempting to summit K2, only three of them are human. (Holodeck)

When This World Is All On Fire by William Sanders
A tribal cop dealing with refugees on a Native American reservation. (Airlock)

Computer Virus by Nancy Kress
You would think smart tech would ensure the most secure home ... (Airlock)

Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman
The promises of an imminent future that only a few in a rural community have doubts about. (Airlock)

Lobsters by Charles Stross
Patent hustling in the virtual fast lane and unwelcome dealings in meatspace. (Airlock)

The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick
A post-utopia London aristocracy, archaic tech, and anthropomorphic fauna. (Holodeck)

The Chief Designer by Andy Duncan
Based on the historic achievements of Sergei Korolev regarding the Russian space program. (Holodeck)

Neutrino Drag by Paul Di Filippo
Hotrod racing scene in the Californian desert gets decidedly more exciting when a mysterious driver turns up in his unique supercar. (Cryochamber)

Glacial by Alastair Reynolds
An expeditionary force investigates a mysterious disaster on a frozen planet responsible for base structures being abandoned centuries ago. (Holodeck)

The Days Between by Allen M Steele
Communication officer on a long-haul flight prematurely awakens from cryosleep. (Airlock)

One-Horse Town by Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy
Events at one location are felt by people across time. (Holodeck)

Moby Quilt by Eleanor Arnason
Lydia Duluth arrives on a planet to contact an aquatic lifeform alien to this world for the drama network she's working for. (Airlock)

Raven Dream by Robert Reed
A boy growing up in a tribal society which perpetuates a blind-eye narrative about the outside world to protect their microcosm. (Airlock)

Undone by James Patrick Kelly
A humanoid with unique abilities flees through time in her ship and shapes a new existence in a far future. (Airlock)

The Real Thing by Carolyn Ives Gilman
Arriving in the future via an experimental temporal procedure, Sage is faced with unexpected challenges in controlling her identity. (Cryochamber)

Interview: On Any Given Day by Maureen F McHugh
Navigating a teenage existence seems to get even more complex in a tomorrow where rejuvenation muddies the line between adults and minors. (Holodeck)

Isabel Of The Fall by Ian R MacLeod
One ordinary day there could be an unforeseen event that might make it seem worth straying from one's place and duty. (Airlock)

Into Greenwood by Jim Grimsley
A planet of sentient trees, human colonization, a freedom movement, and those altered to act as interspecies communicators. (Airlock)

Know How, Can Do by Michael Blumlein
The experience of a worm subject to scientific curiosity. (Cryochamber)

Russian Vine by Simon Ings
Alien colonization and human post-literacy existence. (Cryochamber)

The Two Dicks by Paul McAuley
An alternate path of Philip K. Dick's writing. (Cryochamber)

May Be Some Time by Brenda W Clough
A What-If-look at the fate of a member of Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. (Cryochamber)

Marcher by Chris Beckett
Immigration control when the border is time. (Cryochamber)

The Human Front by Ken MacLeod
A resistance initiative needing to adapt throughout slightly-off history. (Cryochamber)

A definite childhood favorite of mine, which I reread every decade or three.

I was kinda 7 to 8 when my dad read the first half of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to me, and I read the second half on my own. Loved it ever since, and gradually got the rest when my parents could afford them, and read them in order of publication. I still feel the magic, even if the books are a bit dated now.

P.S. I read them to my three kids, and may yet read it to at least one of my grandchildren.

Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano

A piece of investigative journalism revealing the complex structure of the Camorra, an organized crime group centered in Naples, Italy. This "other Mafia" also operates throughout and beyond Europe in a wide array of industries like fashion, building, waste management, as well as drug trafficking and the weapons trade. Yielding immense economic power orienting itself ruthlessly along neoliberalistic ideas, expanding on legal entrepreneurialism into criminial endeavors for maximizing profit and influence by employing military strength against competitors, officials, and politicial figures.

Saviano, having been born in the area and now needing police protection due to his courageous publications on the topic, seems to sport sufficient street credibility to make his writing believable. There are harsh realities described in brutal detail: killings, exploitation/grooming of local kids to fill the ranks, illegal waste removal and dumping on an insane scale, poisoning huge areas of the environment all over the world.

Sometimes the barrage of clan members named is a bit much. Furthermore, the two basic maps included mostly don't help in evoking a sense of place when coming across the many mentionings of towns, street corners etc. Then, the author shows a fondness for flowery metaphors here and there, for example when he says: "My memories of that day are spotty, like a Dalmatian's fur."

Very interesting look at the inner workings of this particular slice of Italian Mafia. I had watched the 2008 film based on the book before, which I can recommend too. That feels more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary due to the excellent filmmaking and performances than the fiction film based on true events it is, eerily so.

City, by Clifford D. Simak. A collection of eight short stories - I've seen this often described as a fix-up novel but that's BS. Much like Mutant, which I recently read, this is plainly a short story collection that simply uses a brief framing device to intro each new story.

Anyway, the first story is the one that gives the book its title, as it's about a city in the future that is running down because the march of technology has allowed humanity to evolve beyond the need for centralized cities. People now just live on expansive farmland and do their business remotely or by flying in with commuter vehicles. I appreciate the story's relatively low key premise. The lockdowns in recent years almost made Simak somewhat prescient about the possibilities of remote work, although as we've seen he obviously underestimated how various interests would try to drag people back to downtown offices.

With respect to the following stories, the important point is that the first story introduces a family named Webster who live in a pastoral house. The rest of the stories move through generations of the Webster family and their house and eventually zero in on one particular member who as a sort of lark decides to use science to give dogs the ability to speak. Then the book traces this concept of humans retreating from the Earth and leaving it to these intelligent, speaking dogs to run things. Another important detail is that the dogs also have self-replicating robots that act as their hands. There are some other ideas that float in like super-intelligent mutant humans, super-evolved ants, and cross-dimensional travel.

It's very Campbellian sci-fi in the sense that Campbell seemed to especially get off on concepts like evolution and events progressing over extreme lengths of time. In his own fiction he would struggle to balance these sorts of big ideas with a relatable focus but Kuttner and Moore and Simak here have a bit better luck in how they zero in on characters and their immediate struggles.

I found the stories enjoyable to read, although Simak comes off a bit misanthropic in his vision. He was obviously very affected by WWII and nuclear weapons and felt that humans were too warlike at their core, hence the idea that dogs would create a more harmonious society. And I love dogs, too, but as someone who has several and also fosters them, I can't really share the idea that they're better wired to make a pleasant, non-warlike world. Dogs are mostly great with humans but around other dogs they're actually quite combustible and even more prone to territorial and resource-based conflicts than people are. I found the book charming in the way that Simak does a good job capturing why we love dogs and animals, even if the premise is a bit too Disney-like to totally buy into.

Audio Books

Redwall: Outcast of Redwall by Brian Jacques
The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Listining to - The Witcher Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

Today I finished reading digital book Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility.

★☆☆☆☆ Null / Twardoch, Szczepan
★★★★☆ Geiger. Tom 1 / Johns, Geoff
★★★★☆ Czas wilka. Powojenne losy Niemców / Jähner, Harald
★★★★☆ Nic to! Dlaczego historia Polski musi się powtarzać? / Maciejewski, Jan
★★☆☆☆ Kaput: Koniec niemieckiego cudu gospodarczego / Münchau, Wolfgang
★★★☆☆ Duduś. Prezydent we mgle. Kulisy Pałacu Andrzeja Dudy / Gądek, Jacek
★☆☆☆☆ Papiez z getta / Unknown Author
★★☆☆☆ Złe nasiono / March, William
★★☆☆☆ Mózg Project Managera / Błaszak, Maciej
★★☆☆☆ Święty Józef. Niedopowiedziana historia / Tourneau, Dominique Le
★★★☆☆ Od Z do A. Jak to zrobiliśmy? Tajniki, zasady i sekrety Amazona / Bryar, Colin
★★★☆☆ Rozmowy z Bogiem. Tom II: Wielki Post, Wielkanoc / Fernández-Carvajal, Francisco
★★★★★ Izrael na wojnie. 100 lat konfliktu z Palestyńczykami / Zychowicz, Piotr
★★★☆☆ Netflix. To się nigdy nie uda / Randolph, Marc
★★☆☆☆ Motywowanie / Tracy, Brian
★★☆☆☆ Pierwiastki - tajemnice cząstek budujących świat / Chad, Jon
★★☆☆☆ Dbaj o dziś! 365 dni ze słowami ks. Piotra Pawlukiewicza / Pawlukiewicz, Piotr
★☆☆☆☆ Nic mnie nie powstrzyma. Osiągaj więcej dzięki sile umysłu / Mills, Alden
★★★☆☆ Nie widzę przeszkód / Ryszka, Marcin
★☆☆☆☆ Strażnik / Hendel, Paulina
★★☆☆☆ Prima Aprilis, towarzysze! / Urban, Jerzy
★☆☆☆☆ Kamień z serca. Ze spowiednikami o spowiedzi rozmawiają Dobromiła i Stanisław Salikowie / Salik, Dobromiła
★★☆☆☆ Rubik. Fascynująca historia najbardziej znanej łamigłówki świata / Rubik, Ernö
★★☆☆☆ Naziści po wojnie. Kariery ludzi Hitlera / Orbach, Danny
★☆☆☆☆ Lider - jak być skutecznym? / Mruk, Henryk
★★☆☆☆ Wszystko mam bardziej. Życie w spektrum autyzmu / Hołub, Jacek

All books read in 2025 – here.

Centrifuge by J. C. Pollock

Military action novel published in 1984, riding on the success of the first Rambo film in tone and themes like so much genre material during that era I suppose. Mike Slater unknowingly witnessed something during his last tour in Southeast Asia that comes back to haunt him now that he thinks his soldiering days are in the past.

It's a furious read, well written and its army/intelligence lingo seems adequate (my expertise here solely comes from '80s action movies); the author was apparently part of the U. S. special forces during the Vietnam war. There are the expected tropes of hardened veterans being disillusioned with the government, going up against seemingly insurmountable odds, lots of stealth kills, explosions, one-liners gruffly delivered. The counterespionage ballet provided a neat element of giving the action more narrative meat.

I found this book at a community book case in the local mall, at the time there were maybe two dozen Tom Clancys, Robert Ludlums, Dale Browns, and the like. Since Centrifuge turned out to be pure, simple fun, I'm now regretting not having grabbed a couple more of those. Also, it would be interesting to know who this substantial military action/thriller library belonged to.

Was on vacation last week. Somewhere between picking wild strawberries with my best friend and enjoying a couple sips of Eau-de-vie d'abricot, I managed to finally complete reading my second book of the year, The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.

I'm not very good at writing book reviews and I'd don't think I will ever attempt to do so in this thread. LOL! All I wish to say is that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. For a science fiction story that was written in the 50s, I found that it has aged quite beautifully and has touched on themes relevant even today. This book was also my first introduction to Arthur C. Clarke, so I am definitely looking forward to discovering more stories from this author! He's got an impressive imagination when it comes to world building and I found his treatment of science fiction very lyrical. :)

As with every reading session, I did stumble upon a handful of new words that I needed to look up and I'd like to share them here:

"Yet as the vision faded, he could still hear that imperious voice thundering into his brain."

"Yarlan Zey had vanished, but there was a strange interregnum when voices which he knew but could not recognize talked to him encouragingly."

Congratulations!
You're doing really well with that goal of reading again :)

Thanks for the encouragement, Cavalary! It's really appreciated. :) This thread is a great help too, in addition to your past advice about not losing sight of reading for pleasure. ;)