May saw me read less books than the previous month, but as I was deep in administration for the North Star convention for the first two weeks on the month, I think that wasn't unexpected. I did manage to read 10 books and 2,003 pages, which brings the year-to-date figures to 57 books and 13,075 pages. That means I've hit the target for the year (52 books, one a week) which I expected to as it was set as a baseline.
I read four roleplaying related books, three novels, a short story and two non-fiction books.
The roleplaying books were a re-read of Deepnight Legacy for Traveller in preparation for running it at North Star, and then the Solemn Vale roleplaying game line (the Wyrd Abacus engine). I covered the main Solemn Vale book in a first impressions post here, and then followed that up with Tales from the Wyrd (a collection of adventures set in Solemn Vale, which seemed very useful) and Summer of Strange. The latter is set in the USA in the 1980s, and is a blend of the young adult based genre that was popular in films at the time. It's set in small town America, and the players will take the characters of young adults (17 to early 20s) who encounter strange and horrifying things. Eventually, the town is doomed by some kind of event (three examples are given) and the only chance of stopping it is the actions of the players. Nasty things can and will happen. Overall, I prefer Solemn Vale to the Summer of Strange, but they're both very good.
The non-fiction were both audiobooks. First up was Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum. This was a (quite depressing) look at the rise of autocracies and oligarchs across the world, and how democracies are failing to react to prevent themselves being vulnerable to them. The second was How Democracies Die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. This was written in the shadow of Trump's first presidency and discussed how democratic norms could be dismantled in the USA, especially as many of them are unwritten conventions rather than codified in law or the constitution. It's scary to see much of what these books warned against happening now.
The fiction books started with the second of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May mysteries, The Water Room. This is a slow-paced and fascinating investigation into the murder of a woman who appears to have drowned in a dry room. I enjoyed how this twisted and turned.
I followed this with A Spy at War, by Charles Beaumont. This was a sequel to A Spy Alone which I read back in September. Both of these novels are dealing with the influence of Russia on the UK government and institutions. This novel is a sequel and is mostly set in Ukraine during the current war. Overall, I enjoyed this and will keep an eye out for any more books by the author.
Mickey7, by Edward Ashton, was the final novel that I read. This has recently been turned into a film, but I'd had the novel in the to-read digital stack for a while. It's a slightly darkly-humorous story of a man (Mickey) who has volunteered to join a colony expedition as the 'expendable'. This means that they have scanned his brain and memories and can create a new clone-body when he dies. Hence Mickey7. We're seeing the story from the perspective of the seventh iteration of Mickey, as the colony struggles to survive at its new home. There are also tensions, as the religious beliefs of some of the crew and the captain are that this technology is an abomination and that Mickey is a soulless monster. The pages turned easily in this, and I've just started the sequel.
Finally, I read one short story, Human Resources, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is set in the same world as Service Model, albeit slightly earlier. The protagonist is a Human Resources officer in a company that has shed most of its workforce because of the use of near sentient robots. It's a creepy view of the slide towards the collapse of society as the character knows it.
Overall, a good month. I'd probably rate The Water Room as the best of the fiction (Mickey7 came close) and How Democracies Die as the best of the non-fiction (if only because it taught me a lot about how the US governs itself).
1 June 2025
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