Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
My resolutions for this year:
(That’s my Mac mini’s primary 4K monitor and secondary display, my MacBook Pro, and my iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch, respectively. Yes, I make this same stupid joke every year, ’cause it makes me laugh.)
Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year — an average of one a week. This year I made it to 67 books. Here’s a quick (not really) overview…
And again, the trend of the last few years holds true, with another year of primarily escapist fluff. Surprised? I’m not. Have you seen…everything? Still?
Non-fiction: Four books, counting for 6% of my reading, but I liked all four of them. On a historical bent, there was the World War II-era United States Office of Strategic Services Simple Sabotage Field Manual and Lucy Worsley’s A Very British Murder, John Tenuto and Maria Jose Tenuto’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: The Making of the Classic Film bridged the non-fiction world with my Star Trek fandom, and on a technical bent, Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon Z5II is a deep dive into the intricacies of my new camera.
Non-genre-fiction (where “genre” is shorthand — though not that short, if you include this parenthetical — for science fiction, fantasy, and horror): None, or perhaps almost none; the Nick Mamatas-edited anthology 120 Murders: Dark Fiction Inspired by the Alternative Era has a few speculative fiction entries, but as a whole probably wouldn’t be classified that way, so can count for this category.
Quality genre fiction: About the same as last year; primarily the Philip K. Dick nominees and my Hugo project, with a few others added here and there.
As usual, I read all of the books nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick awards. However, I’m no longer posting my thoughts or review on the nominees, as I am the coordinator for the Philip K. Dick award ceremony at Norwescon. While I have no input into selecting any of the nominees or the eventual winner, I don’t want to give any appearance of impropriety. So, I’ll just read and enjoy each year’s nominees, and you all will have to make your own judgements as to your favorites.
I only added four books to my Hugo reading project, and one was somewhat accidental. Only getting through four was due to a few factors, including deciding to read the entirety of Martha Wells’s excellent The Murderbot Diaries series before attending this year’s Worldcon here in Seattle where she was a guest of honor (this also accounted for my “accidental” read, as I’d forgotten that Network Effect was a Hugo Best Novel winner), and slogging my way through Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which took slightly over a month. Of the four I read this year, Network Effect was my favorite.
Outside of those two categories and in addition to reading all of the aforementioned Murderbot series, I also finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, read two of the books in Bujold’s World of the Five Gods series (one of which, Paladin of Souls, is another Hugo Best Novel winner), and read both books of Catherynne Valente’s Space Opera series. All of those were good. Apparently it was a series binge sort of year.
Fluff genre fiction: Unsurprisingly, this once again ended up being the strong majority of this year’s reading. Lots of Star Trek novels, with a few detours here and there. And given everything that was going on in 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025, it was very nice to have a bookshelf full of options that wouldn’t take a whole lot of brain power for me to disappear into. As I’ve now read most of the TOS books that have been released, most of this year’s reads were TNG-era, but I’m closing out the year with the TOS-era six-book “New Earth” series (again with “series” being something of a theme this year). That series will also start my 2026 reading, as I only got through four of the six before the end of 2025.
I’m still subscribing to two SF/F magazines (Uncanny and Clarkesworld), though I’ve slacked off on actually reading them for the past few months — not due to anything with the magazines themselves, but just because I’ve been more in the mood to work on emptying out my physical “to read” shelves. I’m not sure how much magazine reading I’ll do this coming year, but I will be continuing to subscribe, as I want both of these magazines to continue publishing, and it’ll be nice to have some back stock to dive into when I’m ready (or when I’m traveling, since these are both electronic distributions).
Finally, Storygraph’s stats on my year’s reading tell me:
On to 2026!
Book 67 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Almost a four-star, due to a particularly imaginative doomsday weapon that really had me lost as to how they were going to technobabble their way out of it. Settled on three, though, as it is a “middle book” that doesn’t stand alone on its own. Still, a more engaging entry than many middle books end up being.
While I’m not an SFWA member or even an author (beyond this little blog), as a lifelong reader of science fiction, I figured it was worth a few minutes to add my response to their current Survey on LLM Use in Industry. For the sake of posterity, here are my responses:
(Note: Some time ago there was an online tool to look up sources that were used in one of the earlier revisions of one of the larger LLMs; I don’t currently remember who offered the tool or the specifics of the training database being reviewed. I do remember that both this blog and the Norwescon website, of which I’ve been both author and editor of much of the content for the past 15 years, were included in the training database.)
How has your writing practice changed since the emergence of Generative AI and related LLM integrations?
(Note: The first and fourth of these options seem to contradict each other. For clarity, I either disable or, if it can’t be disabled, actively avoid using generative AI; as noted in the sidebar of this blog, I do use machine-learning/LLM-based tools such as speech-to-text transcription, but when I do, I check and edit the output for accuracy.)
Which of the following most closely resembles your position on the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) in the writing process?
My actual answer is probably somewhere between the first (no ethical use-case) and second (recognizing LLM use in some tools) options.
One of the biggest problems with the current discussions (including this survey and in the File770 threads started off of Erin Underwood’s open letter) is the grouping of several related but distinct technologies under the banner term of “AI”.
Machine learning and LLM-backed analysis models are one thing. These are the technologies that have been used for years in many different contexts, including (some) spelling and grammar checkers, speech-to-text transcription, simple text-to-speech generation (suitable for screen readers and similar applications, not for audiobook creation), medical analysis, and so on. These are analytical or simple transformative, not creative, processes. In all cases, though, the output should be reviewed and checked by humans, not accepted as-is by default.
Generative AI (genAI) is the severely problematic aspect, for all the reasons mentioned by many, many people advocating for its avoidance (the many unethical practices in the creation and ongoing use of the technology, social and environmental costs, high error rates, and many more).
It’s unfortunate that all of these aspects are now grouped together as “AI”, as it makes it nearly impossible to approach the subject with any amount of nuance. I suspect that was what Ms. Underwood was attempting to do, though, as she also falls victim to the same confusion, she sorely missed the mark (and has continued to do so in her responses).
As a reader, I would be very disappointed to see the Nebulas (and any other award) accepting the use of genAI in the creation of nominated (let alone awarded) works.
(Note:: I wrote about the machine learning vs. genAI confusion on this blog earlier this year.)
What forms of guidance do you think would most benefit writers trying to navigate the growing presence of LLMs in our industry?
Clarity in defining the differences among the technologies and determining which may be acceptable (such as speech-to-text transcription, spell/grammar checkers, etc.,) depending on the technology and its use, and which are unacceptable (genAI for text or art creation).
Book 66 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Colonization adventures continue on Belle Terre, as Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov deal with troublesome splinter groups and environmental aftereffects of the events of the prior book in the series. A solid mid-series entry, with a good focus on this secondary trio while the Enterprise is busy elsewhere.
Happy holidays (part one)!
This past week was, of course, Christmas week. One of the really nice things about working at Highline is that this entire week was designated a work from home week, and Wednesday and Friday (the two days on either side of Christmas) are considered “personal development” days, with a pleasantly broad definition of “personal development”. Email was monitored and work was done, but it definitely makes for a comfortably low-key week.
Our Christmas day was quite nice: Slept in as late as we could, had a fun breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate-infused butter and chocolate whipped cream (there was a bit of a theme there…), a comfortable walk around the neighborhood, opening presents, and a lot of relaxing and reading.
I also “finished” one I’ve been working on for a few months now (since this year’s major gift wasn’t a surprise), Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon Z5II. “Finished” is in quotes because as it’s something of a reference book, there were sections that I skimmed, and this is one that I’ll be sure to keep on my iPad to refer back to whenever I need.
We’ve also watched several movies, two from the stable of holiday favorites, one new holiday favorite, and a couple that we’ve been looking forward to seeing. This week’s lineup was:
Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central: Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025): Absolutely devastating zero-star review of James Cameron’s latest “Dances With Ferngully” film. “The indigenous people, the Na’vi, are giant blue cats who literally meld with the natural elements on their planet, Pandora, through their naked mole-rat tails, and boast of a harmonious existence that nonetheless requires a warrior class because those are the two things indigenous people in white fantasies are allowed to be: ferocious warriors and children of the Earth.”
Randall Munroe’s xkcd: Funny Numbers: “The teens picked a new funny number.”
Ben Keough at The New York Times‘ Wirecutter: The First Nikon Z-Mount Mirrorless Lenses You Should Buy (archive.is link): Now that I have a new camera, though I can use (and absolutely will be using) my existing F-mount lenses, eventually I’ll be adding newer Z-mount lenses to my collection. Time to start dreaming!
Barry Petchesky at Defector: What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?: The annual report! “This is the time of year to be grateful for not having things stuck in our asses, and to think of those less fortunate than us. So spare a thought for those Americans who misjudged the capacity of their own orifices.”
Lorraine Boissoneault at Smithsonian Magazine: A Civil War Cartoonist Created the Modern Image of Santa Claus as Union Propaganda: I had no idea about any of this.
Infinite Ball Drop: “On New Year’s Eve, the Times Square Ball drops for only 60 seconds over a measly 139 feet. What if we extrapolated from that and covered the entire year?”
Robin Buller at The Guardian: How effective is protesting? According to historians and political scientists: very: “From emancipation to women’s suffrage, from civil rights to Black Lives Matter, mass movement has shaped the arc of American history. Protest has led to the passage of legislation that gave women the right to vote, banned segregation and legalized same-sex marriage. It has also sparked cultural shifts in how Americans perceive things like bodily autonomy, economic inequality and racial bias.”
Doug Henwood at Jacobin interviews Émile Torres: Tech Capitalists Don’t Care About Humans. Literally.: “…there’s also a kind of capitalist influence, the idea that human beings do not matter in and of ourselves. In this worldview, we matter for the sake of value, rather than value mattering for the sake of us. ¶ …we are just means to an end. The only end is value, this abstract yet quantifiable concept that should be maximized to the physical cosmic limits. We matter only as the conduits through which this value can come into existence.
Book 65 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Really, this kind of needs two ratings: Five stars for the content, and two stars for the editing. Thom is incredibly knowledgeable about photography and Nikon cameras, and this book is an incredible deep dive into the Z5II, how it works, why it works the way it does, what all those settings mean, and suggestions on how to get the best results out of the camera. However, as he has obviously (and quite transparently; he mentions some of this on his website) adapted large swaths of this book from very similar books on other cameras in Nikon’s Z series, there are a lot of instances where the shift from one camera to another wasn’t caught, leading to everything from the wrong camera model being mentioned to slight errors (I’ve not come across anything major or that would cause a problem, though). Still very worthwhile, and I’ll be sure to keep this easily available on my iPad so I can reference it whenever I need.
Book 64 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Having made it through saboteurs and alien conflicts, the colonists now need the Enterprise’s help dealing with a moon set to explode in a week. The setup sounds far-fetched, but works to keep the overall tension going, plus a few new mysteries are tossed in, sure to be addressed again later in the series.
Book 63 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
An interesting start to this six-part series. Shortly post-V’ger, Kirk and the Enterprise guide a 70-ship convoy of 60,000 settlers to a new home six months away. Of course, things do not go well. Most interesting so far for its treatment of Kirk, somewhere on his road from the (perhaps overly) brash self-assurance of TMP to the depression of the start of TWoK, questioning his place and the effects of his career. The new alien races are interesting, as well. However, the primary antagonist is a little too one-note, and while “the Orions” are involved, I’m very confused by them, as they’re described in ways that don’t match the green-skinned humanoids we know as Orions (descriptive bits include: “…slimy muscular arm…”, “…arrowlike orange eyes…”, “…his many-fingered limb…”, “…his claw still tightened around [their] jaw…”, “…purple skin…”, “…turned burgundy with both fury and fear…”, “[his] excuse for eyes…those milky orbs…”). At some point in the editing process, those descriptions should have been corrected or they should have been given some other name than “Orions”.
Work was rather uneventful this week, being the week between the end of the quarter and the week of the holiday break. Quiet, with time to putter around on the list of things that have been in the “lower priority” pile for a bit. Not bad at all.
Outside of work, much of the week was just watching the world around us slowly start to emerge from the flood waters. There’s still a lot of water around, and the rivers are still running high, but things are improving and most roads have reopened. Soggy progress is still progress.
Today we went down to see the Grand Kyiv Ballet’s The Nutcracker down in Federal Way. We enjoy the Grand Kyiv Ballet’s performances — they’re a Ukrainian troupe that’s now based out of Bellevue, with a blend of Ukrainian professionals and local students, so the individual dancers range from very good to very enthusiastic — and it’s always good to support local artists.
Finished Catherynne Valente’s Space Oddity, the just-as-fun sequel to Space Opera. My only disappointment (and it’s not with the book) is that I was busy enough at last spring’s Norwescon where she was a guest of honor that I barely crossed paths with her and didn’t get to say how much I enjoy her work.
Rewatched Better Off Dead for the first time in a few years, thanks to Royce pointing out that it’s a Christmas movie. Still one of my all-time favorites.
Bootie Mashup’s annual Best of Bootie Mashup album is out; so far I’ve downloaded it and added it to my library, but haven’t started listening through it yet. Looking forward to seeing if there are any gems to be inflicted on my unsuspecting audience at the Norwescon Thursday night dance this spring….
Jim Milliot with Sophia Stewart at Publishers Weekly: Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks: “The format credited with making books more accessible via low prices and widespread availability will all but vanish from the publishing scene in a few weeks.” This is disappointing; I generally prefer the mass-market paperback size to the trade paperback size (same content, less money, and smaller, so more fit on my shelves).
Chris Parthemos and Martina Svyantek at Inside Higher Ed: No, Colleges Do Not “Over-Accommodate” (archive.is link): “…a pattern of uncontested opinion pieces…speaks to the enduring cultural conflict around how the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are actualized in higher education. ¶ As members of the executive board of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) in Virginia—a professional organization for staff of disability service offices—It is our intention to define and defuse the recurring arguments of this specific ‘type’ of opinion article, which for convenience we will call the ‘Do Colleges Over-Accommodate?’ piece.”
Lane Brown at Vulture: The Eyes Wide Shut Conspiracy Did Stanley Kubrick warn us about Jeffrey Epstein?: I put no stock in the conspiracy theory (this one in specific, and conspiracy theories in general), but this is a fascinating story. I had no idea this was even a thing.
Emma Stoye & Fred Schwaller at Nature: The best science images of 2025 — Nature’s picks: “The Sun’s fiery surface, a tattooed tardigrade, rare red lightning and more.” Some gorgeous photos.
Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal: We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars. (archive.is link): “Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free—including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for ‘marketing purposes.’ It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear. ¶ Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared.”
Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn at The Guardian: It’s time to accept that the US supreme court is illegitimate and must be replaced: “In Trump’s second term, the Republican-appointed majority on the supreme court has brought their institution to the brink of illegitimacy. Far from pulling it back from the edge, our goal has to be to push it off.”