Books I've Read Recently: August 2026
Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965) and Dune Messiah (Frank Herbert, 1969)
These are influential SF classics, I doubt I can say much about them that hasn't already been said. They do interesting things with the idea of destiny and the hero's journey, and have cool sprawling worldbuilding. All the eugenics stuff is weird and uncomfortable, but I think it's supposed to be? The "Dune" audiobook my library had was really well done, "Dune Messiah" had much of the same voice cast, but was clearly a lower-budget production. In particular, while "Dune" had one narrator, and several voice actors for specific characters' dialogue, "Dune Messiah" will just randomly switch to Paul's voice for a chapter, and doesn't even do that consistently for every chapter from Paul's perspective. I've been enjoying having an audiobook during my bike commute, and I'm excited to see where the upcoming books go.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte (Mark Twain, 1896)
It's kind of interesting that Mark Twain decided to write a book about Joan of Arc, and that he considered it one of his greatest works, despite its obscurity. Unfortunately, the fact of its existence is pretty much the only thing I found interesting about the book. It's a straightforward telling of the life and legend of Joan of Arc. Readable enough, but probably only worth reading for the real Joan of Arc heads and the Clements completionists out there.
Lucky Day (Chuck Tingle, 2025)
Picked this up for a book club. I'd never read anything by Chuck Tingle before, who I'd mostly associated with strange-on-purpose erotica with titles like "Space Raptor Butt Invasion", but who also writes other stuff. I found "Lucky Day" kind of a rough read. The protagonist is moderately suicidal for the majority of the book, and there's a lot of really gruesome violence (though I think the darker elements are necessary to ground the zaniness). One of the big ideas of the book is that probability has broken down, but I wish the book had gotten weirder with the math. It also took me way too long to realize the in-universe TV show that came up occasionally was supposed to be "The X-Files", and that the reader was meant to contrast the two main characters with Mulder and Scully. There is, however, an incredibly clever use of car accident statistics that kind of made me come around on the novel, despite everything else. And it was fun to leave my house and talk to strangers about it.