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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1912 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 31, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm finished with Sayers' Whose Body. Lord Whimsey was great, and it had enough intensity at times to grab my interest. I feel like the confrontation was a missed opportunity, given the convergence of themes which was implicit in the scene. A good read nevertheless.

Picking up Churchill's Savrola, because it has occurred to me that I've read more Hitler and Stalin than Churchill.

Dead World: Convergence book 6 by Craig Alanson. Other than being thoroughly annoyed by the, bad habit he's picked up of, placing out of place commas, in his sentence structure and much of his dialogue, I'm enjoying it thus far.

I enjoyed it. However in the audiobook RC Bray did the Duke voice for Mr Boots a couple of times, which was a bit annoying.

Alanson is a great story teller, he's especially good with the fun and witty banter between the main character and the foil of the moment, but his twists and turns can be great as well. My older brother actually introduced him to me because I had talked about how I was reading a lot of military themed sci-fi, enough that Columbus Day sounded like a dozen other novels I had read and I wasn't really that into reading yet another one, but I eventually got around to it, and whoa did that ever go six different kinds of sideways fast, and I've been enjoying the ride ever since!

What else have you enjoyed? I'm always working on adding to my backlog.

Good question! With my usual caveat that my bar for decent reads is not very high, the answer for the past couple of years, at least, has been way too much LitRPG, though urban fantasy (when done right) is a perennial favorite, as is old-school sci-fi and fantasy in general. If you're looking for a specific genre, I can talk more specifically about what I've been reading in those departments, but without knowing any more detail, recent reads that I've enjoyed would be the Unbound series by Nicoli Gonnella (LitRPG), the Noobtown series by Ryan Rimmel (humor/LitRPG), The Assembly series by Steve McHugh (Urban Fantasy/Vampires), the Book of the Dead series by RinoZ (LitRPG/necromancer), absolutely everything by Nathan Lowell (all Slice-of-Life/Setting Things Right, mostly merchant marines in space), the He Who Fights With Monsters series by Shirtaloon (LitRPG), The Hollows series by Kim Harrison (Urban Fantasy), and of course, my only must-read author, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, which is also urban fantasy.

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