Daniel Keast

I have read this before, but I could remember almost nothing about it. After having finished it again I can see why. It’s fine, but it feels like it doesn’t have a lot to say after the excellent original book.

I’ve read this several times before, but it’s this months pick for the book club. I figured I should read it again to have it fresh in my mind. I remembered almost all of it, the only thing I think I didn’t was the Soul Scrolls shop where unmanned printers are printing out prayers which get shredded straight away.

This is the story of a morbidly obese man that is addicted to food. He has become trapped in his apartment due to his weight, and at the start of the book is going to be removed by crane to go to the hospital and have his foot amputated. This goes wrong however when everyone else seems to turn into rage filled zombies.

I borrowed this from the library as an audio book. It’s written by the professor of AI at the University of New South Wales. Despite that, it’s not particularly technical or even all that in depth. It’s an overview of the current state of AI, the hype around it and the issues around it’s use.

This is the last full length Rincewind novel in the Discworld series. There are two main plot threads, one being Rincewind stranded in XXXX, a continent parodying Australia which has yet to settle in as it was added by the gods after the others were already there. The other features the faculty of the Unseen University trying to locate Rincewind hoping that he can help cure the librarian of his illness that causes him to change shape (Rincewind is the only person who knows the librarians name). The wizards end up stranded on a deserted island thousands of years in the past inhabited by strange and unique animals and plants created by the god of evolution.

The Colour of Magic is the first book in the Discworld series, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it. The book is structured as a collection of four loosely connected novellas following the adventures of the inept wizard Rincewind and the tourist Twoflower. Despite having read it numerous times, I still found myself laughing out loud at its silliness.

This is a part of the Discworld series, featuring the Lancre witches and a family of Vampires. Magrat and Verence are getting married, and Verence invited the vampires to Lancre as a part of the celebrations. They begin taking control of people’s minds and as such the town itself.

This is the last Disworld book centred around the City Watch, although most of the story focuses on Vimes on holiday at the Ramkin’s estate in the countryside. There’s not much in the way of a holiday happening though as Vimes is dragged into a criminal conspiracy around the exploitation of goblins.

This is a story set in a future where antibiotics are no longer effective due to overuse. People over the age of seventy are refused healthcare and end up in hospitals called waiting rooms.

I listened to this on Spotify. I started before he actually became Prime Minister, but just got around to finishing it now. On election night, I stayed up most of the night, going to bed as Labour hit the 326 total to become a majority and Jacob Rees-Mogg lost his seat.

This month’s pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. I’ve read it before, but so long ago that I’d forgotten most of the details. In it, a group of boys crash land on a deserted island and attempt to build a society with each person filling different roles. Throughout the course of the book, this all falls apart, descending into arguing, fighting, and eventually murder.

The eleventh book in the Discworld series. In this one, Death is removed from his duties and made mortal by the auditors for developing a personality. I think this is the first appearance of the auditors, literally faceless bureaucrats of the universe. This is also the story that introduces the Death of Rats, since living creatures start creating new mythological beings to replace the missing Death.

This month’s pick for the Dystopian Novels book club. It’s just been released on paperback after winning the 2023 Booker Prize. It tells the story of a family in the Republic of Ireland living through the rise of a totalitarian government.

I got my copy from Standard Ebooks, which is a site making excellent ebooks of public domain books. I’m finding them to be better than anything I’d find on the Kobo store other than Penguin Classics.

This was this months pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. It is a science fiction novel set in a future where women have been stripped of all rights in the US. Humans have gained contact with multiple alien species, and only a subset of linguist families called The Lines are able to communicate with them. There are a group of women who are creating their own language centred around the female perspective in the hope of freeing themselves.