Reading progress — 19oct25

Since deciding to take up reading at the end of August whenever I feel compelled to scroll on the internet, pick up a video game for distraction purposes, or give in to the statement, “I’m bored”, I’ve managed to knock out twelve books which amounts to what is just shy of 5000 pages, by Goodreads’ account. That includes an audiobook that I finished during that time (I include audiobooks as “reading”, because I largely listen to them while driving, and this one would only contribute about 300 pages to my total).

I’m pleased with my progress, and may even meet my arbitrary goal of twenty books for the last quarter of the year. While none of the books is all that intense of a read, they aren’t completely eye-candy levels of quality. In completing all but the recently released Witcher prequel, I have a greater admiration for the author than I had, reading the books in onsies-twosies as I awaited translations. Or maybe I’ve just regained an appreciation for that that style of book. I don’t worry much about it, but I really enjoyed the longer saga, although you could tell in the final book that the author was done with the story at times and wanted to move on.

One of the unexpectedly enjoyable reads had been “The Windup Girl”. I’m glad I finally got around to checking it out.

I am currently reading: “Crossroads of Ravens”, a Witcher prequel for when the main character was a young teen instead of an apparent middle-age Witcher (who is actually over 100 years old thanks to the mutations he has undergone). It is the last Witcher book that I believe is currently available, at least in English.

I also started Stephen Baxter’s “Flood”, which promises to be a good book if I can move beyond the continuity issues compared to contemporary timelines. It was written as a science fiction book that considered a near-term apocalypse of the climate, written in 2008, before iPhones and smartphones gained traction and the story starts in 2016. As speculative fiction, it does a decent job of predicting some near-term events, but I find it discombobulating to think that these events took place in my current past… and some of those things have not occurred in reality. It’s possibly one of the hazards of writing speculative fiction that looks at timelines closer to when it was written, especially for the writer who wants to limit the more fantastical estimates of what could happen. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” presents less of a problem of this type ( I’ve decided that I need to treat it as an alternate history and just go with the flow, even though it takes place in 2019, largely because it is so far removed from current events that it reads more like straight science fiction and less like “something that might happen”. There is enough of a gap from 1968 (when it was written, 51 years prior to the events speculated) than Stephen Baxter put on his work (8 years). As a result, Baxter’s book has some dissonance to it in 2025, in part because the speculation was not as fantastical as that imagined by Phillip K Dick.

Once I decided on that approach, the text became more enjoyable: Alternate history, not current events.

The Witcher author, Andrzej Sapkowski, also wrote some historical fiction that (as I understand it) has very little fantasy elements; his Hussite Trilogy. It is set in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown during the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) and these on part of my to-read list as well.

Speaking of which, here is my “to read” on Goodreads, if you want to check on what I’m up to:

Michael Raven’s To Read (Goodreads link)

If you want to check on what I’ve recently read, check out:

Michael Raven’s 2025 reads (Goodreads link)

Off to a book…