By Nic Lindh on Sunday, 26 October 2025
So, have you seen the state of everything lately? Wow. Which has led me to spend a lot of my reading time on comfort re-reads like the Black Company and Neal Asher’s Polity series. So good, so comfy.
But nevertheless I persisted and have also managed to read a few new things.
Tells the deeply researched story of OpenAI’s beginnings almost through to current day. There are so many geniuses, cranks, grifters and true believers!
The book does a good job of painting the intellectual milieu that gave rise to the AI movement as well as the personalities and conflicts inside OpenAI itself, but also puts the technology in its place as it relates to the environment and labor and intellectual property.
Empire of AI does a thorough job synthesizing how Silicon Valley culture has permeated AI research and practice and in so doing paints a very, very dark picture.
Crossroads of Ravens goes way back to the beginning, when a young Geralt first sets out into the world from Kaer Mohren and learns how to be a witcher. It’s a fun and breezy beginning of the legend that kind of feels like playing an open world game. Geralt (who is at the time of the novel not yet of Rivia) deals with various monsters, both human and not, and in general putters on in his witchery way.
We also learn what caused the destruction of Kaer Mohren if that is important to you.
Crossroads of Ravens is obviously for fans of the series and while it doesn’t really break any new ground, it adds a few layers to the legend. Good times.
This is nothing less than a whirlwind whodunnit set in a completely bonkers fantasy world. Humanity is at war with leviathans that emerge from the ocean deeps at a certain time each year. Why? Nobody knows. But the leviathans wreak havoc and must be destroyed, and the Empire has over time been warped into this function above all else.
The leviathan bodies can then be used to power a kind of magic—plant-based magic—that has taken over society. Among other uses, the magic/technology can be used to alter people, giving them superhuman strength or senses or intelligence. Or, in the case of our protagonist, Din, perfect recall.
Din, who is a bit of a strange egg, is assigned to be an assistant for Ana, an investigator who is really, really odd. Think yes, Sherlock Holmes dialed up to 11 with some serious neurodivergence.
If you like fantasy or crime procedurals or both, this one is great. Especially great is how wide Bennett takes the turns in his world building—nothing seems to be too out there for him. Sometimes it seems like you can almost hear him giggling at some extravagant absurdity.
The sequel to The Tainted Cup, A Drop of Corruption continues the adventures of Ana and Din in their fever dream of a reality. The novel aptly continues the story started in The Tainted Cup and expands our knowledge of the world.
If you liked The Tainted Cup you’ll like A Drop of Corruption.
Weird, wild stuff.
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Includes Dark Wire, The Crusaders, Dominion, The Mercy of Gods, Livesuit, and Weaponized.
Includes Doppelgänger, Be Useful, Rose/House, System Collapse, and Empire of the Wolf.
Includes Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Extremely Online, Number Go Up, Mercury Rising, The End of the Myth, and The Big Break.
Includes Hello World, A Frozen Hell, Powers and Thrones, Dead Country, Blitz, The Hope that Kills, and Worth Killing For.
We pour one out for The Expanse and Sandman Slim, and we raise our glasses for a sequel to Malazan. Also, an extra-bleak Holocaust tour and a discussion of how cults control their members through language. Includes Cultish, Nein, Nein, Nein, Driven, Happy-go-Lucky, The Nineties, Fargo Rock City, The Scholast in the Low Water Kingdom, King Bullet, The God is Not Willing, and Leviathan Falls.
Why your body hurts, lots of politics, and some truly demented grimdark fantasy in this installment. Includes Reign of Terror, Evolution Gone Wrong, The Cruelty is the Point, How to be a Liberal, The Splendid and the Vile, Deep Work, A Desolation Called Peace, Black Stone Heart, and She Dreams in Blood.
Includes Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You), Pappyland, Backstory, and Medallion Status.
Some very good history, some very strange novels and some slick space opera. Includes Enemy of all Mankind, A Very Punchable Face, Confederates in the Attic,Ballistic Kiss, Harrow the Ninth, The Library at Mount Char, Children of Time, The Last Emperox, and Cage of Souls.
Back once again with the sci-fi and general calamity. Includes The End is Always Near, Eat the Apple, A Memory Called Empire,Gideon the Ninth, Infinite Detail, Permafrost, Fallen, and The October Man.
A sci-fi and fantasy heavy installment that includes The Valedictorian of Being Dead, The Mastermind, Broadsword Calling Danny Boy,Tiamat’s Wrath, The Raven Tower, The Liberation, The Light Brigade and Cryptonomicon.
Includes The Incomplete Book of Running, Aching God, The Murderbot Diaries, Lies Sleeping, The Consuming Fire, and Rendezvous with Rama.
Includes Hollywood Dead, Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood, The Court of Broken Knives, and Port of Shadows.
Includes The Storm Before the Storm, White Trash, Calypso, Tell the Machine Goodnight, Prince of Fools, and Provenance.
Mostly excellent non-fiction in this installment. Includes Fantasyland, The Miracle of Dunkirk, Das Reich, The Undoing Project, Waiting for the Punch, Vacationland and Points of Impact.
Lots of sci-fi in this installment. Includes Retribution, Boomerang, The Collapsing Empire, All Systems Red, and Ninefox Gambit.
Includes a mea culpa, Hillbilly Elegy, Gulp, The Stars are Legion, and The Kill Society.
Lots of fiction series in this one. Includes Grunt, 1177 B.C., Louder Than Hell, Smarter Faster Better, The Hanging Tree, Death’s End, Chains of Command, and Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?.
This installment features grimdark fantasy, peppy astronauts and the Roman Empire. Includes SPQR, And On That Bombshell, The Code Book, Schiit Happened, Beyond Redemption, The Severed Streets, The Martian and Veiled.
Includes The Antidote, One Nation, Under Gods, Losing the Signal, The Todd Glass Situation, The Last Policeman, The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Beacon 23, Killing Pretty and Queen of Fire.
Lots of fantasy and sci-fi in this installment plus a book about sports! Includes Boy on Ice, Difficult Men, Restaurant Man, The Red Line, Cunning Plans, Seveneves, Nemesis Games, Bitter Seeds, The Mechanical, Angles of Attack, and City of Stairs.
Nic is sad about Terry Pratchett's passing. Includes No Land’s Man, Idiot America, Something Coming Through, The Burning Room, Foxglove Summer, and The Dark Defiles.
Things go dark and magical in this installment. Includes So, Anyway…, Yes Please, The Mirror Empire, London Falling, Broken Homes, Perfidia, The Peripheral, Burning Chrome, and the Bel Dame Apocrypha Omnibus.
Lots of good reads in this installment. Includes All Hell Let Loose, Metallica: This Monster Lives, 10% Happier, Onward, Echopraxia, Cibola Burn, The Getaway God, Lock In, The Red: First Light, Terms of Enlistment, and Lines of Departure.
Solid reads abound in this installment of the roundup. Includes Console Wars, Your Inner Fish, Flash Boys, Digital Wars, The Perfect Storm, Tower Lord, By Blood We Live, I am Pilgrim and Lexicon.
Some great reads and a huge disappointment in this installment. Includes The Loudest Voice in the Room, Hatching Twitter, Dogfight, Ancillary Justice, KOP Killer, The Circle, Working God’s Mischief and Where Eagles Dare.
Some solid reading awaits you in this installment. Includes The Outpost, Masters of Doom, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, The Everything Store, Bomber Command, Gods of Guilt, and Low Town.
A slimmer-than-usual book roundup is heavy on the non-fiction, including several must-read titles.
Another book roundup, including some stellar athletes and soldiers, what might be the most jaded, soul-weary protagonist ever, and some grimdark fantasy.
Nic reads a book about the processed food industry and is incensed.
The Core Dump is back! Books were read during the hiatus. Includes The Coldest Winter, Oh, Myyy!, Tough Sh*t, The Revolution Was Televised, The Rook, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, Gun Machine, Fortress Frontier, Standing in Another Man’s Grave, and The Memory of Light.
From a true patriot to a world-weary detective, a dead god, and a civilization about to sublime from the galaxy, this book roundup spans the gamut. Includes Where Men Win Glory, Wild, Inside the Box, The Black Box, Three Parts Dead, Red Country, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
From the heights of athletic excellence to the depths of depravity, this roundup includes The First 20 Minutes, Double Cross, The Heroin Diaries, Tattoos and Tequila, Dodger, Farthing, and Devil Said Bang.
Includes Wabi-Sabi, Making Things Happen, D-Day, Tallula Rising, Blood Song, The Americans and Amped. All in all, a happy romp through the meadows of literature.
Includes Search Inside Yourself, The Information Diet, Redshirts, The Gone-Away World, Wool, Leviathan Wakes, and Prince of Thorns. One of these may very well change your life.
Includes Shadow Ops: Control Point, The Night Circus, The Hunger Games, Quiet, The Science of Yoga, and Kitchen Confidential. Lots of good stuff in this one.
Includes Angelmaker, The Magicians, Magician King, Iron Council, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Distrust That Particular Flavor, and Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. One of these is the most important book of 2011.
Includes The Drop, Ready Player One, Moon Called, Among Others, Excession, Inferno, The Paleo Solution and I am Ozzy.
Includes Sandman Slim, Snuff, The Cold Commands, Reamde, Goodbye Darkness, Steve Jobs and The Psychopath Test.
Some books you might enjoy reading.
Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia is an important book, and it will make you angry enough to froth at the mouth.
The Heroes is an intense, wild ride into a maelstrom of violence, brutality and flawed human beings. You should read it.