Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" trilogy might be the most impactful thing I've ever read, and I only discovered it recently.

Pardon me while I gush for a second.

I have always loved science fiction as a genre. My first foray into "books" outside of the ones I was assigned to read in school were works by Michael Crichton, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, and a few others in a similar ilk. Somehow, I skipped out on Kim Stanley Robinson. It wasn't until literally 2023 that I listened to his interview with NPR, and his appearance on Adam Conover's "Factually" podcast, that I discovered him. After a cursory google search (and no further information), I picked the most recommended book... and it literally changed my perspective on life.

I love how detailed and thought out *everything* is. From the story, to the geography, to the politics, to the way characters act and think and speak, it's blend of science fiction and literal science... I have rarely felt so intellectually engaged with the philosophical and sociopolitical discussions in a work of fiction. It's something I never knew I could get from a book!

I'm in the process of re-reading the series (albeit through audiobook, which is excellent) now, and I am *still* blown away by the depth and thoughtfulness and prescience a series from the 90's can have.

I have since read through all of KSR's other books (New York 2140 being a close second) and I wish I could find other authors as infatuated with details, specifics, big ideas, and philosophy as this. I wish I had discovered him back in high school, because this absolutely would have changed my life sooner.

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New Releases: July 2026

Hello readers and welcome! Every month this thread will be posted for you to discuss new and upcoming releases! Our only rules are:

1. The books being discussed must have been published within the last three months OR are being published this month.

2. No direct sales links.

3. And you are allowed to promote your own writing as long as you follow the first two rules.

That's it! Please discuss and have fun!

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This strange novel riffs on The Tempest, swapping its teen girl for a menopausal marine biologist
https://theconversation.com/this-strange-novel-riffs-on-the-tempest-swapping-its-teen-girl-for-a-menopausal-marine-biologist-283682

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Article: Want to be a better reader? Here’s how to practise active reading
https://theconversation.com/want-to-be-a-better-reader-heres-how-to-practise-active-reading-285447

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Short story widely accused on social media of being written using AI wins overall Commonwealth prize
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/01/judges-claims-ai-use-commonwealth-short-story-prize-jamir-nazir?CMP=share_btn_url

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Catch-22: I believe I know why Doc Daneeka got slugged.

Someone posted yesterday about Catch-22, and it reminded me of something. Remember, Doc Daneeka told Yossarian an anecdote from when he was in private practice.

Young newlyweds came in, wanting to know why the wife wasn't pregnant, despite the husband "puttin' it to her" constantly. Also, the wife was well-endowed, and wore a St. Anthony medal dangling in her cleavage. "It must be a terrible temptation for St. Anthony," Daneeka said, not quite to the wife, but aimed at her. The husband said, "Who's St. Anthony?"

Then Daneeka gathered that the couple weren't having sex in the optimum way to make babies. He had these anatomically-correct dolls, and he used them to show the couple what they should do. They went away happy and eager to practice their new skills. Sometime after that, the husband came back alone. "What are you, a wise guy?!" POW. "Knocked me right on my ass...How should I know why?"

I think I do know why. It wasn't about the dolls; it was that remark about St. Anthony. In the interim, the husband must have found out who St. Anthony was, made the connection, and was grossly offended. What he meant was, "Keep your eyes where they belong, and don't make suggestive comments about my wife."

Make sense? I think it does.

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Random thought about Wolf Hall / the Cromwell trilogy by Hilary Mantel and narration style

In the first book, Wolf Hall, she often refers to Cromwell as "he" without actually specifying who "he" is. I really liked this choice once I got used to it. It grounded me in his perspective without having to use first person, still maintaining the impersonal third person and the admission that this book is a product of imagination as much as actual history. But apparently a lot of people didn't like this about it, because I've just started Bring Up the Bodies and she's always saying "he, Cromwell" for the sake of clarity. I kind of hate it. Controversial take maybe?

Idk, just wondering if anyone else felt this. And also general thoughts about this narration style. Still really loving it despite this small complaint.

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Angel Down - An extremely well deserved Pulitzer !

(SPOILERS AHEAD)


I honestly went in thinking i'd hate the book due to its writing style but the one sentence thing was only extremely grating at the start but slowly just faded away and became.....good ? Like the lack of a comma does wonders in building up a sense of being suffocated which shines forth in the books extremely detailed gore ! Your never given a moment to breath and I found it amazing

The prose is also one of the best i've ever seen , there were moments where I just took pictures of the text due to how fucking good it was . Bagger is also an extremely well written and multi-layered protagonist for such a small book and I loved seeing all his layers and interactions . He genuinely feels like a real person ! The side cast is a bit on the weaker side , Veck was cool and a bit tragic but Godspeed and Popkins were cliche and Arno serves really no purpose to the story beyond being Baggers emotional rock

The scene where the Angel shows Bagger the soul-ammo-war machine factory thingamajig (this section is extremely wordy and is a singular passage making it intentionally very hard to read) was amazing even thought I really had no clue what was going . The Angel overall was cool but i'm not Christian so I probably missed something here and there . The Angel also being revealed to be a demon/hellspawn was a cool twist , after doing some research it seemed pretty obvious for anyone familiar with the religion but again i'm Christian so it was a complete shock lmao .

The vibe is amazingly done , the vivid descriptions of the trench's of France in their apocalyptic gory detail and done very well thought I sort of felt it was a bit excessive at times (but im not a ww1 soldier what do I know lmao)

Overall extremely good book and the Pulitzer was deserved !

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That Time When I Decided to Learn About My Adopted Country by Reading "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood

I wasn't necessarily planning to write this out and post it today, on canada day - in fact I can't quite remember what triggered my memories of reading The Blind Assassin during a sweltering hot Toronto summer more than twenty years ago. But of course, it pleases my brain immensely to do so.

I had not become acquainted with Margaret Atwood or CanLit at that time, and yet as we settled into our new home, it seemed quite the obvious thing to do. I can't quite remember how I "did my research" - there was no or basic Google, back then- but I learned somehow, the way people in those days learned things, that Atwood was the pinnacle of CanLit, and thus reading Atwood will lead to great learning about my new country, which frankly, I didn't know that much about, except that it was better than my own, and to succeed in Canada would mean that you have succeeded in life.

Anyway, there I was, from an ancient country full of carpets, just like the terrible country in The Blind Assassin in fact- those carpets that not only made their child-weavers go blind, so great was the detail and effort of weaving them, but were valued based on the number of children who had gone blind in their making. So this carpet made fifty children go blind, and thus was worth only half this other carpet, which led to the blindness of over a hundred children. So there I was, even more traumatized and upset about my own country, not having learned much about my new country either. Thanks, Margaret.

This is one of the clearer details that I remember about that book. For one thing, my plan was stupid and wrong. I did not learn anything about Canada by reading The Blind Assassin, and I would have done better, if that was my goal, to study the paper map of downtown Toronto (which was not the small town I eventually wound up in).

Two sisters, and a terrible family- the mainstay of every story since we began telling stories. Nothing particularly Canadian about that. A woman who enjoys tanning and selling artefacts. A woman who writes a story, and then dies. A woman who becomes famous after she dies. A car crashing into a freezing lake. A story within a story, a story about a very terrible ancient land full of carpets, and then another story about a modern land, less terrible, kinda just more generally shitty. I finished The Blind Assassin, and thought about the different lands and different stories. Perhaps I did learn something about Canada after all. Happy canada day.

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Review: “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” by Grady Hendrix

“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” by Grady Hendrix is a novel I couldn’t wait to read back in 2025. I’ve always enjoyed reading books about witches, and knowing this would be Hendrix’s first book about them made me even more excited to read this. Needless to say, it’s another solid book where Hendrix shines as a horror author.

Before I begin my review, here are all the trigger warnings I found while reading…

\- Underage pregnancy
\- Smoking while pregnant
\- Inappropriate sexual behavior
\- Rape
\- Predatory behavior
\- Sexual assault
\- Miscarriage
\- Physical abuse
\- Mental abuse

If any of these trigger you, please don’t read this novel. Moving along, this was a fun book to read, especially for those who love witches and witchcraft. Hendrix once again wrote another horror gem with incredible character building. I truly felt what all the girls in this novel went through, especially Fern.

Underage pregnancy is a sensitive topic, and Hendrix made you feel exactly what they went through, given the circumstances they were in. There is also a lot of story-building here, which makes it have a very slow start before the eventual horror hits. It’s worth the slow burn for the most part.

While reading this, the only setback was that the dialogue was too heavy. I don’t mind conversations between characters, but in “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls,” there was a bit too much talking happening where nothing was going on except dialogue.

Once I hit the 20% mark, things started to pick up. The body horror throughout this novel was fantastic and some of the best I’ve ever read. I made many weird faces while reading these parts, but I wish this novel had more horror scenes. Still, regardless, Hendrix has a brilliant writing style that mixes story, engaging characters, crazy horror, funny moments, and a lot of emotion. That’s one of the many reasons why he’s one of my favorite horror authors today.

I also love it when Hendrix mentions his usual fun references while reading. Seeing him mention Led Zeppelin, Rosemary’s Baby, and even Gilligan’s Island was fantastic. Heading into a novel like this, I expected a lot more horror around witchcraft, and there was some, but not enough. I did enjoy having a deeper understanding of witchcraft and spells, which added a creepier element to what all the girls went through. Everything from covens and spellbooks added to the immersion. I just wish there were a lot more of that and less dialogue.

I would never spoil anything for anyone, but I expected a lot more by the end. There was an interesting plot twist and some fun witch vs. witch madness, but it didn’t blow me away. It was decent, to say the least. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t extraordinary either.

I give “Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” by Grady Hendrix a 4/5. I enjoyed the body horror, learning about the history of witchcraft, the characters, and the story. The few witchcraft spells used in this novel were great, but left me wanting more. If it had a bit more horror, especially with witchcraft and not so much the body horror around pregnancies and giving birth, this would have been a perfect 5/5 in my book. Either way, it’s still a very good horror novel, and once again, as is the case in every Hendrix book, he delivers. You won’t be disappointed, but keep in mind it’s a slow-burning kind of book that, if you’re patient enough with it, you’ll enjoy.

Just remember, a real witch is never alone.

IEO VEO VEO VEOV OROV OV OVOVO

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For those tempted to read Micro after it keeps coming up here:

After seeing Micro by Michael Crichton brought up several times in different posts here, I figured I’d give it a read. I grew up on Jurassic Park- it’s one of the few books I’ve read multiple times. I read Pirate Latitudes after it came out, and while disappointed in it, I didn’t thoroughly hate it. Between loving his completed works, and not despising his posthumous work I had read, I figured I might as well give Micro a shot.

Boy was I wrong.

To put it bluntly, Micro is the worst written book I’ve ever read from a technical standpoint. It reads like a first draft. A very, very bad first draft. It could easily be half as long, simply by cutting out the ceaseless repetition. An example would go something like this:

Drake walked angrily down the hall.
“Those students make me so angry” he thought.
His stomping feet walked through the hallway.

Each sentence conveys the same thing, albeit slightly differently. It feels like a writer trying out different sparse sentences, fully intending to come back, delete the extra sentences, and rework the best one into something usable. The entire book is like this. I assume this was an early draft, and Richard Preston, rather than clean up anything Crichton had written, just went with it assuming that was Crichton’s preferred prose for this work. If that was the case, it was a horrible horrible mistake. This desperately needed a competent editor. I’m honestly shocked it was publishable in its current state.

I guess it just shows what bad art can skirt through the publishing house riding on the coat tails of a recognizable name.

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One of her books is banned in Utah schools. Now, she’s coming to the first Salt Lake Book Festival.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2026/07/02/jodi-picoult-whose-has-novel-utahs/

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Filmmaker Eli Roth Announces New Horror Book Publishing Partnership (Exclusive)
https://people.com/filmmaker-eli-roth-announces-new-the-horror-section-publishing-partnership-exclusive-12010946?

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This Austin book swap will help you find your next summer read
https://www.kut.org/station-information/2026-07-01/austin-tx-book-swap-summer-reading-kut-weekend-events-things-to-do

https://redd.it/1ulf5i0
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President Donald Trump facing online mockery after showcasing new Air Force One which features a library full of fake books
https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/donald-trump-air-force-one-qatar-fake-books-b3007672.html

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Russell Brand settles £220,000 lawsuit over "wasted expenditure"after failing to write two books
https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/books/news/russell-brand-lawsuit-books-panmacmillan-b3007376.html

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Thoughts on The Nix

I’m more than halfway through “The Nix,” have some strong opinions and wonder what other readers think.

\>!Bishop’s letter to Samuel!< is incredibly selfish. He gave Samuel permission to go after Bethany before their incident, one that he initiated, only for him to blame Samuel >!for being corrupted.!< I get that the author wants to introduce more conflict in Samuel’s love life, but this one is so infuriating.

The switching of povs and timeline in each consecutive part interrupts my connection with the character. Maybe it’s also due to not being as interested in Faye’s story as I am in Samuel’s (and even Pwnage’s). I read more novels by women authors and about female characters, so Faye’s should be someone interesting.

I wonder how other readers feel about Bishop & Samuel and who your favorite character is. Does the order and content of the parts work for you?

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Just finished Dungeon Crawler Carl. Does Dinniman grow in your opinion?

Based on popularity, recommendations, and my own deep love for fantasy and sci-fi, I picked up Dungeon Crawler Carl. I found the premise engaging enough, but Carl strikes me as a nothing-burger of a character, and the plot featured the same repetitive motions of "find mob" and subsequently "explode-mob's-head" (usually accompanied with graphic Gore and Marvel-esque quippy sarcasm.)

I found the book creative in moments but insufferable at times. However, whenever Carl stepped OUT of the game, and engaged with the greater narrative (Borant, the universe at large the, etc...) I found myself enjoying the book much more.

So simple question: does the series wallow in goblin-squashing for the majority? Or does the narrative expand beyond the dungeon?

Does it become more nuanced as it goes on?

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Swearing - Italian "mafia" novel

I'm reading Suburra by Bonini and De Cataldo (really recommend the Netflix series btw, one of the best productions of my country in recent years). It's a noir/thriller about 2011 Rome, where organized crime, politics and Church intertwine.

I went to read some reviews about it, and so many English-speaking (or writing) commenters went on and on about excessive swearing. I'm so baffled by this, unsure on what people expect? I've seen Pulp fiction and the like, so it's not like American gangsters don't use foul language lmao.

The funny thing here is that the novel actually depicts quite accurately our dialect. Swearing is a punctuation mark and a tool for emphasis so outside workplaces nobody really bats an eye. Street thugs, politicians and elite all swear behind closed doors just the same.

Is this because international media has created this myth of the gentleman mobster?

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Weekly Recommendation Thread: July 03, 2026

Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!

**The Rules**

* Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.

* All suggestions made in this thread must be direct replies to other people's requests. Do not post suggestions in reply to this self-post.

* All unrelated comments will be deleted in the interest of cleanliness.

____

**How to get the best recommendations**

The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain *what* you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.

____

All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.

If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.

- The Management

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