Zodiac by Neal Stephenson (1988)

Neal Stephenson is currently my favorite English-language author, and since he cannot write books as fast as I can read them, I have been working backward through older novels I missed. I found Zodiac on a shelf and remembered that someone else in my family had read it years ago and gushed about its portrait of the early environmental movement and the public pressure that eventually drove real progress through education and regulation.

The novel follows an environmental activist who doubles as an industrial troublemaker while he uncovers toxic dumping and corporate corruption in Boston Harbor. The story mixes ecological science, political conflict, and thriller pacing in a way that already shows many of Stephenson’s strengths.

I enjoyed the colorful characters, the melodrama, and the constant forward motion of the conflict. The science is excellent, as always with Stephenson. The historical setting is equally compelling. The novel captures 1985 Boston as a vivid slice of life, with enough texture and local detail to make the whole world feel immediate and lived-in.

The book lacks some of the scale and conceptual ambition of his later work, but the energy and intelligence are already there. It was a pleasure to see an early Stephenson novel working so well on its own terms. 5/5 stars.

The history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 1 by Edward Gibbon (1776)

I saw this blog post by Neal Stephenson and was sold on trying Gibbon’s immense seven-volume magnum opus on the long decline of the Roman Empire, beginning with imperial Rome at its height in Italy and Western Europe and tracing the political, military, and cultural decay that would eventually leave the surviving empire centered in Constantinople and Eastern Europe. I was curious whether a work with such a reputation could still command attention across nearly two and a half centuries. In some ways, it does.

I enjoyed Gibbon’s prose. The style often reminded me of Dickens, and at times even of Stephenson himself. Gibbon writes densely, with each sentence packed with meaning and attitude. The colorful anecdotes are entertaining, and his loaded language reveals the assumptions and prejudices of his eighteenth-century world in ways that are often fascinating. The writing itself is a pleasure to read.

The detailed history was too much for me. The book is a vast stream of names, dates, emperors, campaigns, anecdotes, and political details that arrive too quickly to absorb into any cohesive picture. The experience often felt like reading a phone book written by a brilliant stylist. I could admire the craft while failing to integrate the information. The experience reminded me why I was never a history major and why I prefer historical fiction to encyclopedic history or historiographic research.

The prose is excellent, just as Stephenson promised, but the density of information overwhelmed any larger narrative for me. I doubt I will continue through the remaining volumes. 2/5 stars.

The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi (2025)

I usually enjoy Scalzi’s books, and this light, escapist space opera was great fun. The novel continues the Interdependency universe with another fast-moving political and military crisis. The story balances interstellar diplomacy, shifting alliances, and looming conflict without losing momentum.

The heroine is plucky and imperfect, which makes her easy to follow. She is cunning, clever, and skilled in the arts of war, but what sets her apart is her empathy for wildly different alien cultures. That quality gives the political maneuvering real weight. The plotting feels sharp and believable. The competing interests and shifting loyalties never collapse into confusion.

I was less convinced by the Obin and their “consciousness prosthesis.” Even though I am inclined to think consciousness is largely an illusion, the concept felt muddled rather than provocative.

The Consu are a frustrating and humorous part of the setting. Their arrogance, secrecy, and habit of withholding every scrap of information make them both infuriating and fascinating. Their arrogance and technology makes them a great antagonist.

This book is a smart, entertaining continuation of Scalzi’s Interdependency universe. 5/5 stars.

Der Name der Rose von Umbero Echo (1982)

Das Buch lag schon ewig auf meinem Stapel. Ich hatte früher schon einmal angefangen, dann aber aus irgendeinem Grund wieder aufgehört. Diesmal hat es mich gepackt. Ich musste zwischendurch bewusst langsam lesen, um bei den ganzen Hintergründen, Verdächtigen, Entdeckungen im Kloster und natürlich den Morden den Überblick zu behalten. Die Mühe lohnt sich.

Auf den ersten Blick ist das ein grossartiger Krimi. In einem Benediktinerkloster im 14. Jahrhundert geschehen mehrere rätselhafte Todesfälle, und William von Baskerville beginnt zusammen mit seinem jungen Begleiter Adson zu ermitteln. Die Spur führt durch verborgene Bibliotheken, verbotene Bücher und gelehrte Streitigkeiten, die immer düsterer werden.

Was das Buch aber wirklich besonders macht, ist das historische Panorama. Eco zeigt das Klosterleben in allen Details, den Alltag, die Rituale, die Spannungen und Machtspiele. Gleichzeitig wird klar, wie sehr diese kleine Welt mit den großen Konflikten der Kirche verbunden ist. Armut, Macht, Dogma und politische Intrigen prallen ständig aufeinander. Das Ganze wirkt nie trocken, sondern lebendig und glaubwürdig.

Kein leichtes Buch, aber ein unglaublich lohnendes. Anspruchsvoll, packend und voller Atmosphäre. 5/5 Sterne.

When we were Real by Daryl Gregory (2026)

This Nebula Award nominee is another disappointment for me. I have always enjoyed stories about layers of simulation, where our universe runs inside another simulated universe, which itself may be running inside yet another. That idea goes back at least to fiction and non-fiction by Stanisław Lem, especially Non Serviam (1961), and for me the best treatment remains David Brin's Stones of Significance (2000). Daryl Gregory’s version feels as though he never read those stories or explored the idea very far. The science and software are so terrible that reading parts of the book hurt. The arbitrary supernatural events feel like obvious plot devices or symbols rather than consequences of the simulation premise.

That failure frustrated me because I have a soft spot for stories built on the pilgrimage structure of The Canterbury Tales. I loved Hyperion for exactly that reason. Gregory uses the same device well here. A bus full of colorful characters who don't know each other is stuck together and forced to interact. That setup creates friction, revelation, and momentum. Gregory writes rich characters with big-hearted character arcs. The twisting story holds the reader's interest. And the mysterious teleporting traveler adds genuine intrigue.

The whole book would have worked far better as high fantasy with an arbitrary magic system. At least then I would have known to avoid expecting coherent science fiction.

Entertaining in places, often warm and engaging, but conceptually hollow. 2/5 stars.

The Faith of the Beasts (Captives, Book 2), by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, writing as James S. A. Corey (2026)

This second volume in the Captives series does not disappoint! Abraham and Franck have built another immersive fantastic universe that rivals the scale and atmosphere of The Expanse (failed board game, book series, tv series, . . .). The setting blends survival, mystery, and cosmic awe with strange alien life, inscrutable overlords, and background technologies that remain just opaque enough to sustain awe-and-wonder.

The story expands the series’ central tensions without losing focus. The characters remain heroic without becoming simplistic. Their choices carry weight, and the plot develops through strong arcs that deepen both conflict and mystery. The pacing stays sharp, and each revelation broadens the scope without undermining coherence.

What works best is the balance between the immediate struggle for survival and the larger unanswered questions lurking behind the setting. That balance gives the book both momentum and scale.

This book is an engrossing and satisfying continuation of an excellent series. 5/5 stars.

Slow G-ds by Claire North (2025)

As a Locus Award nominee, this novel sounded intriguing, and its premise delivers imagination. North builds an unusual universe shaped by a distinctive fantasy-like system of power rather than scientific speculation. The setting is inventive. The characters are well sketched. The conflicts hold interest. The plot moves through enough twists to keep the pages turning.

The book falters in execution. The speculative framework has little scientific coherence, which weakens the setting for readers who expect rigor from science fiction. The alien races feel arbitrary rather than convincing. The ethical questions raised by the two god-like civilizations remain shallow and underdeveloped despite their central role in the story. Repeated digressions into gender discourse also feel intrusive and distracting rather than organic to the narrative.

The imagination is real, and the storytelling has momentum, but the weak conceptual foundation undermines the experience. 2/5 stars.

The Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen (2026)

I followed a link into this book and kept reading for reasons I still do not fully understand. The subject never matched my interests, yet the argument pulled me through. Cowen traces the history of marginalism, the economic idea that value emerges at the margin rather than from some fixed intrinsic worth. He explores how that framework shaped pricing theory, resource allocation, and modern economic reasoning. He also examines the recursive question of applying marginal analysis to the use of marginal analysis itself, which gives the book its most interesting philosophical dimension.

The book is dry. The prose is dense. Much of the historical detail feels academic rather than engaging. My interest flagged often. The subject matter rarely rose above abstraction.

The most interesting sections explain how AI-driven economic modeling has revived forms of marginal pricing that had fallen from fashion. That argument gives the book some contemporary relevance.

I am not especially interested in economics, and the book did little to change that. Still, the intellectual structure is sound enough that I kept turning pages. 2/5 stars.

Circle of Days by Ken Follett (2025)

When my family was visiting Vancouver in 2024, we saw a new-at-that-time traveling Stonehenge exhibit that had great displays of the latest archeological information about its construction and the life & times of the people who lived in Bath at that time. Follett builds a setting around early communities near Stonehenge, tracing labor, belief, and conflict as the monument takes shape. The story follows a small group of protagonists whose lives intersect with power, survival, and ritual in a harsh landscape.

The book shows familiar Follett patterns. The moral lines between good and bad characters are stark, with motives that can feel simplistic. Several antagonists act from flat impulses rather than complex drives. The portrayal of women lacks the depth given to many male characters.

Even with those limits, the narrative holds attention. The setting feels grounded in current archaeological ideas. The protagonists earn investment, and the plot sustains momentum. An engaging historical novel with uneven characterization. 4/5 stars.

Classic Science Fiction short stories (2026)

This collection gathers mid-20th-century science fiction, largely from the 1950s, with a focus on ideas over character depth. The stories explore familiar themes from that era: Cold War anxiety, hidden infiltration, first contact, and the social impact of emerging technologies. The tone reflects the period’s optimism about science mixed with unease about its consequences.

I had read Let's Get Together in 1968. The reread was not worthwhile. The rest of the collection was new to me and generally solid. However, stronger stories from the same period exist, and this selection does not represent the best work of 1957. 4/5 Stars.