Category: Books

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Books of 2026: Mistborn Era 1

Mistborn: The Final Empire

The Well of Ascension

The Hero of Ages

Brandon Sanderson

I first read Mistborn almost 20 years ago, after enjoying Elantris a great deal…and I bounced off it HARD. It was such a grim dark world, Vin was insufferable and “not like the other girls” in my eyes, and I just was not here for it.

But this year, I decided I would give them another try; and I’m so glad I did.

Being immersed in the Cosmere means that I was spoiled for most of the major events of the second two books, but that’s okay. I can accept a few spoilers.

I would like to get a marewill flower tattoo, to go with my bannion flower. Perhaps I will have a whole bouquet of literary flowers someday.

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Books of 2026: Hemlock and Silver

Hemlock and Silver, by T. Kingfisher

I picked up this one at a Boozy Book Fair (the local independent bookstore made a deal with a local pub to host a book fair, and it was a smashing success). Took me a minute to read it, but I was enthralled. I love twists on fairy tales (although this one is unique enough that I’m not even sure that’s an accurate description), and I love stories with middle aged protagonists (I need to reread Paladin of Souls).

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Books of 2026: There is no antimemetics division

This year or late last, I read “There is no antimemetics division” by qntm. This is a delightfully bizarre story based on stories from the SCP wiki. I would like to read more novel-form-factor SCP stories.

It bears a certain similarity to Ruin, and I’ll say no more about that.

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Books of 2026: Spinning Silver

I’m just trying to write down the books I’ve been reading this year.

In January, I read Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. I’m not Lithuanian, and I’m not Jewish, and I’m not as plugged in to my Eastern European heritage as I’d like to be…but this book felt like home. It’s hard to explain why.

The first time I read it, I was sad that Miriam/Wanda was not the ship.

The second time I read it, I was okay with how it turned out.

I would like to try krupnik. Apparently we call it boilo here?

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Very minor and silly epiphany

I realized today that a big part of why I never got into fanfic is that so much of it is so poorly edited I can’t get through it.

I almost put down ACOTAR because of “parameter” on page 1. I’m not exaggerating. (I instead got out a pen and corrected it.)

I read Manacled because the text was, by and large, legible. I bounced hard off another fanfic my friends recommended because it was not.

And I want to be clear: being like this does not make me morally superior. It just makes me someone who needs the writing to be basically invisible in order to suspend disbelief and immerse myself in the story. Poorly edited copy takes me out of that world as I try to figure out what the author was trying to say (usually by converting the letters into sounds in my head to guess what the homograph or malapropism was supposed to be).

I wonder if this is related to how, when I hear a word, my brain converts it into the visual “word on a page” in my head?

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Omelas

Many years ago (high school?), I read “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” by Ursula K. LeGuin.

I have been appreciating (perhaps “enjoying” is the wrong word) the recent short stories that build on this concept.

Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole


by Isabel J. Kim

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

The Ones Who Stay and Fight

by N.K. Jemisin

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

They are worthy reads.

I think of Omelas as a sort of koan; I think this is because I cannot bear the responsibility of what it would mean to accept the reality of the world we live in. I can try to reduce my dependency on items manufactured with slave labor, my need for things that objectively make the world a worse place; but I don’t know if I can rid myself of all that entirely.

I am not a follower of Christ. I have not sold all my possessions to take up my cross and follow him. I chose a different path, many years ago. Around the same time as I read Omelas, in fact.

But I can still try to get as close as I can to that ideal, in reasonable small incremental steps.

It’s not enough. But it’s not nothing, either.

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Long books

My friend just shared with me a video where a man is complaining about how Alchemized is 1000 pages, but then he realizes that it’s about the same length as many fanfics he’s read.

But all I could think was: this man needs more Brandon Sanderson in his life. 🤣

(I exclusively read Sanderson in digital format, because my house is only but so big…)

Anyway. I read Alchemized when it was just fanfic, not its own separate book, and: it was DARK but it was GOOD. It’s the kind of book that hollows you out inside, but leaves a nice little fire inside. Like a jack-o’-lantern. Or something. Anyway, go read this book.