What's Good #22

published 2026-08-02 | tags: #whats-good

In between improving the shed, like adding a solar powered fan + vent, and then replacing the fan with a Noctua fan (yes really), I did have plenty of time to read some books on my xteink4 so this month has been book-heavy.

Call Me a Cab (2022 | Donald E. Westlake | ebook)

I found the way Westlake played with the mystery genre to be really fun, despite not really knowing much about the mystery/crime genre. I got this recommendation from Man Carrying Thing and it was sold as a mystery novel with no crime, and it lived up to that expectation.

It's also a "Woman hails a taxi and takes it across the country" book which I am starting to think is it's own genre...

Earthlings (2018 | Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator) | ebook)

This was also a Man Carrying Thing recommendation in a video about reading horror fiction. Over all I liked this story and especially liked that the real horror bits were (spoiler) mostly in the last chapter.

I enjoy reading horror, the sluts and in the miso soup most recently being two interesting reads I enjoyed. That said the sluts was a difficult read because while the worst is toward the end, it has a pretty linear ramp up so by the half way point I had to put the book down every page or two to process.

Earthlings on the other hand feels more like 80% tension build up and then a 20% release at the end. The characters are though provoking, even if they are a little unrealistic (even before the thing happens).

All Systems Red (2017 | Martha Wells | ebook)

This was an xmas gift from my parents who are enjoying the show, I finally got around to read it and did enjoy it.

It's pulpy sci-fi similar to John Scalzi who I thoroughly enjoy. My only gripe is it doesn't feel like much happened in this book, but it's a mystery sorta who-dun-it which inherently isn't very grandiose so that's understandable. I do intend to read the rest of the series, so it was pretty good.

There Is No Antimemetics Division (2020 | qntm, Sam Hughes | audiobook)

I listened to this audiobook and did enjoy the SCP-type story. I enjoy SCP as a genre and I liked that the author ran with it beyond the dry style of that wiki, introducing some compelling characters, a love story, and even a familiar!

I also like that antimemetics allows the author to play with time and memory, similar to memento, but a little less extreme and a bit more selective. Stories about memory and memory loss are compelling to me, so that scratched an itch.

Mountainhead (2025)

I did also watch a movie this month.

All I can say is that if you liked Succession, you will probably like (but not love) this movie. It was solid, I laughed at some insecure overpowered rich dudes, but it certainly wasn't a replacement for the Succession (TM) thing.