Well, this took longer than I care to admit to pull together. I thought I would try to put out more book reviews this year, like I had been doing with my movie reviews, but then I got my hands on Tears of the Kingdom, and suddenly reading took a nose dive as a consequence. Still, I did want to make these into more of a series instead of having just one or two long articles at the end of the year, so here are the first three books I've read for 2025!
by Andy Clark
Ever since I started going to game stores to play CCGs back in the 90, I've always been fascinated by Warharmmer. They always seemed so epic, with the cool little miniatures waging intense battles. However, they were always so expensive to get into, so I only ever played a game of 40K once at a convention. As I've been getting more and more into fantasy, though, I've been curious about the lore of the Fantasy side of their products, so I picked up this book as a way to get into their new Age of Sigmar brand. The result is a novel that really feels like a transcription of a mass game of war and strategy, but not much more, really.
After a scholar discovers an ancient tome in the dead city of Mordavia, she makes her way to the nearby chapter of Stormcast Eternals (knights whose souls have been "reforged" by their god Sigmar to be warriors who fight in his name). She tells them of an ancient, evil weapon capable of mass destruction, and that the orcs are already there to go pick it up. So the leader of the chapter, Kalyani Thunderblade, takes her soldiers to go recover it, or at least destroy it. However, there are two other factions eager to get their hands on it. The first is a swarming army of ratfolk called the Skaven, and a rather disgusting force of the diseased called the Maggotkin, their lumbering force of sentient zombies eager to spread their sickness with the hidden weapon.
Once the players are introduced, the story then devolves into a sequence of frenzied melees, as it describes each battle of the four-way game across the ruins of Mordavia. Perhaps it's a good representation of what the game is like, but as a story, it feels very mechanical, with little progress really being made. Kalyani is given the most spotlight, mostly concerned with her worries about being "forged" (as each time a Stormcast Eternal dies and is "reforged," they lose their emotions). However, by the time the weapon is found, more chaos ensues, and the intensity rides to the very end, for better or worse.
As a consequence, the book's relentless need for continual violence gets tiring pretty quickly. While there are occasional quieter moments, they hardly feel like a breather before the next twist of battle happens, as if the book would get bored without combat for even a chapter. Even the quirky characters of the other factions do little more than amuse in the moment, and the big showdown feels kind of weak as everyone else important dies in some fashion or another. I enjoyed parts of it, and it was an interesting introduction to the current version of the world, but not much more. While I think there's a cool story idea here (even for a fantasy war epic), the emphasis on combat rather than character made for a pretty tedious read.
by David Lavallee
So this is a book I picked up on a lark, as it looked like a decent survival thriller about a submarine getting stuck at the bottom of the sea. It wasn't until later that I realized it was made into a movie, despite it being clear on the cover. However, it sat on my shelf for a while, being ignored while I read other things. Then, at the beginning of February, I decided to re-read The Martian by Andy Weir, and it's survival drama reminded me of this book, so I finally picked it up and gave it a shot.
Originally titled Event 1000, the story follows a nuclear powered submarine that's about to dock at New York City, but accidentally collides with a boat and ends up on the sea floor in international waters. First it follows the fate of the survivors, stuck inside the hull as things break down, but also tracks the efforts by the US Navy to rescue the survivors with a bell-like mechanism that attaches to the hull of the sub and transports survivors back up to the surface. Unfortunately, their bell keeps having problems, prolonging the submariners' suffering, all while the news media keeps sticking their nose in, bureaucracy eventually bogging things down, and there's a Russian boat lingering around for some reason.
The book is an interesting read, going back and forth between the two groups. It's definitely procedure heavy, as the author does have experience in this department, but he does a decent enough job to humanize the sailors just trying to survive. He also dwells on the dread of waiting, as each attempt fails, leaving them to ponder their chances. However, there are times when its a bit dry, like when a disaster happens within the submarine that takes more than a few men's lives, but the way it's presented feels almost mundane. Sure, there's a rush to solve the problem, but once the moment passes, it feels like it should have been a bigger deal than it was. There's also some melodramatic moments, like a southern officer going a little Bible crazy in the circumstances, and how the surface operations get hamstringed by blatant politics and a general lackadaisical attitude to the tragedy, compelling the commodore in charge to resort to the obvious solution that any good reader figured out a while ago.
It's interesting to compare to The Martian, which has a much more optimistic attitude about things. Here, the book really lays into the misery, even getting a little philosophical towards the end, as the survivors are faced with dire circumstances, trying to decide who gets to survive. I don't know if the book is really recommendable, as it feels like a pretty typical disaster novel that kinda drags in the middle, but I did enjoy the small moments, and it did have a satisfying ending. I'm certainly going to check out the movie as well, because why not?
by Ray Bradbury
Once again, reading The Martian compelled me to check out another tangentially related book, though of quite a different genre. In fact, I'm hard pressed to even call this sci-fi, despite the material, as Ray Bradbury's writing is so utterly unique, blending science fiction with horror and genuine human drama. Essentially a collection of short stories that Bradbury weaved together into a kind of novel, it portrays a rather naïve humanity in their efforts to visit the red planet and contact its natives as part of its expanding desire to know and master outer space.
While there are no central characters (though a few show up multiple times), there certainly is a narrative outline that the stories follow, more or less. Much of the big moments seem to happen in the background as Bradbury focuses in on a handful of characters experiencing the consequences of their circumstances, both on the Martian and Earthling side. First attempts at contact do not go well, with the Martians enacting rather curious plans to turn the Earthlings away. However, when a chicken pox pandemic wipes nearly all the Martians out, Earth sees the red planet as free real estate and hurry to colonize it. As time goes on, though, the new colonizers seem to disregard the planet's civilized past in an effort to escape their own. Eventually, things back on the home planet don't go well, forcing humanity to consider why the left at all.
Through the various short stories and vignettes, Bradbury is able to use Mars to explore a lot of different themes, ranging from miscommunication and fear of the unknown, to censorship, racism, and even insanity. However, it's all told in the author's iconic style, full of wit and immediacy, making each moment feel alive and tense. While reading it today inadvertently makes the book feel like an anachronistic exercise in retro-futurism, imagining a far flung future of the early 2000s from the minds of the 40s and 50s, Bradbury understands that stories are about characters and their struggles, so the quaint technology gets buried under his characters' emotions and desires, making the book feel timeless and relatable.
There's so much going on in such a small book, it's to really summarize my thoughts, but there are two ideas that come to mind. First is that, in an understated way, the book seems to drift back and forth between the human need for novelty and the comfort of nostalgia, and how fickle we can be about it. There's also this sense of tragedy to it, as the early stories do have a small sense of wonder, only for that wonder to transform into a kind of passive horror, where even the ghosts have gone away, leaving an eerie sensation that leaves you unsettled, even when you put the book down. As always, I love Bradbury's writing, and this book is another testament of why he is one the greats, using classic sci-fi tropes to tell stories full of atmosphere and compelling you to reconsider mankind's existence in the grand backdrop of space.
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