The Reads of 2026, First Half Review

 I started another blog post.  I've been down this week.  Busy week.  Tired.  Crabby.  Started a fight with Shyam yesterday, so I feel like shit.   The post felt like whining, so I've tabled it for now.  May return to it, may not.  

So, instead, I'll do the first half reading review, if'n you're interested.  Just a quick look though what I've read or listened to in 2026.   

January

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne   by Ron Currie

This one was tight.  Popped up as a recommendation from Anthony Jeselnik's favorite reads of 2025.

It's brutal.  Not quite the revenge story I'd expected from a couple of reviews....indeed, after reading, I wonder if they actually read the book in question.  But yeah.  Brutal.  Violent.  With some tremendous dark humor.  And a touch of the supernatural, which I loved, to be honest:  it's simply a plot point that Babs' oldest daughter (and right hand) can see ghosts.  I just like that touch.

All in all, a well-told crime story, and a nice pondering on poverty, clannishness, culture and legacy.  

I liked this one a lot.  It's also one of two (possible 3) books that wander in and around Waterville, Maine, this year.

Transformers, volume 1    by Daniel Warren Johnson

We had some snow this January, so I sat to read Daniel Warren Johnson's run on the book, which I'd read via single issue, but not in one sitting.  Extremely violent, but an original take on the origin story, which seems to get retold with a new camera lens every relaunch of the title.  Johnson's the best since Furman was writing the original Marvel book, 35 years ago.

100 Places to See After you Die     by Ken Jennings

Kindle read.  Quick chapters, looking at myths and fictional takes on the Afterlife through history.  Quick reads, filled with facts.

Transformers, volume 2:  Transport to Oblivion    by Daniel Warren Johnson

Second Volume of Johnson's run, which might already be topping Furman's runs in my mind.

Enjoyed the variance and nuance in the thinking of characters on the two sides of the conflict, but especially among the Decepticons, with players looking to fill the power vacuum left by the missing Megatron.

The potential parallels between Jetfire and Astrotrain were interesting, especially with Prime being left to use Jetfire as a packhorse.  Don't know the exact nature of Astrotrain's beef, but it makes you wonder.

Especially enjoyed Soundwave's & Thundercracker's mutual disquiet at the methods and intentions of the warlord Shockwave.

Transformers, volume 3:  Combiner Chaos

Third volume of Johnson's impressive run, and it turns into an interesting study of what happens to a authoritarian movement when it loses it Cult of Personality leader.....

The Getaway   by Jim Thompson

2026 is going to be a year of Anthony Jeselnik, whose new Youtube book club has given 4 or 5 solid reads this year.

Crime novels aren't always my thing, but there's an oomph in Doc that's easy to dig.  And this one triggered my claustrophobia pretty well with a sequence in underwater coffin caves.

And that last chapter in El Rey is a friggin' dark-assed trip, man.....

Transformers, volume 4: Conquer and Control   by Daniel Warren Johnson

Finishing Johnson's run.  It's turned into a helluva good story about why some go along with authoritarian movments, and the best ways to fight them...

Skull x Bones   edited by David B. Coe & Josh Palmentier

A gift from my buddy John, who conspired with Alex Bledsoe to include me in Alex's story "No Prey, No Pay."  SF/Fantasy with a pirate leaning.  Fun collection.  I liked Alex's tale, and though I thought I'd left Cyberpunk in the gutter years ago, I really enjoyed E.J. Delaney's  "Of Scourge and Skullduggery."

February

Doctor Sleep  by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project.  As an older cat, I enjoyed this one a little more in 2026 than I did in 2014 or whenever I last read it, but I still feel like it misses the mark a little.  At no point in either of my two readings do I feel like Dan and Abra won't succeed in their mission.  Even with Crow Daddy kidnapping her....King has Abra overpowered with The Shine.

I feel like this might have been helped by giving us even more of Rose the Hat's perspective.  Maybe underline the desperation of her spot as Head of the Cult that is leaning right on the edge of obvlivion and (perhaps even more sadly) obsolescence.....

That said, it's an enjoyable ride.  Part of the fun thing reading King chronologically is seeing which themes ebb, which ones flow, and which ones remain constant.  This one struck me as sad....a lot of his books look at family life, but this one really stands out because a lot of it is looking at family from the outside.  Almost like a grandfather looking in at his kids' families......

Batman: the White Knight    by Sean Murphy & Matt Hollingsworth

This one surprised the hell out of me.  I really dig it.  A grown up Batman: the Animated Series vibe, with some nudges here and there from Christopher Nolan and Grant Morrison

While the City Never Sleeps    by Alex Bledsoe

New from my buddy Alex.  Strong stuff.  A fun SF story with a classic superhero original leaning.  Lots of thought here on the role police and politics play in our lives, with a heavy consideration about the dangers of gutting the press, and not protecting it in the judiciary.

Paradais   by Fernanda Melchoir

Beautiful writing about angry, desperate people making bad decisions and doing horrible things.

It made me wish I had a stronger reading grasp of Spanish was stronger, because I would have liked to read Melchoir's words in her own language....I'm sure some of the music, poetry and impact is lost in translation.  That said, the translated prose is strong and effective.  Brutal, even.  And some of the music manages to make it through that filter.....Sophie Hughes' translation is quite effective.

An Obvious Fact    by Craig Johnson

Needed to cleanse the palate a little bit after Paradais.  Johnson always turns a good phrase and here writes an effective mystery.  And on the soap opera front, it seems we're leaving Vic's pregnancy unremarked for the time being....

March

Football    by Chuck Klosterman

It was the late great Steve Krodman (Elisson, his own self) that gave me my first sociological musing by Klosterman, 9 or 10 years ago.  I just like the way the man's mind works, and Steve did too.

I'd run into Klosterman's fiction a few years before when I was finishing up a Tom Robbins kick, and somehow went a while before realizing that that writer and the guy STeve was introducing me to were one and the same.  

This one, about Klosterman's favorite sport, examines why it takes up such an outsized place in our sports and cultural worlds.  Examines 9and attemps to debunk) a couple of the mian reasons for its ubiquity, and offers a couple Klostermanesque counterintuitive arguments for its dominance.

The examination of "best player of all time" was probably my favorite piece in the book, why comparing Jim Thorpe to Jim Brown to Derrick Henry is impossible yet unavoidable.  It reminded me of Hall of Fame discussions I'd had with my buddies Jason Russell, Steven West & Ray Wilson.

Also very much enjoyed the discussion on the Canadian Football League, and why its slight variance in the rules underlines the balance American Football maintains between speed and power.

This was a good one.

The Night Stalker   by Jeff Rice

Found the TV movie tie-in at an antique store along my route, and paid $2 for it, and its sequel.  Boring trivia:  Jeff Rice wrote this novel, and Richard Matheson wrote the TV adaptation for the first Kolchak TV movie.  The sequel, the Night Strangler, was written by Matheson, with Jeff Rice writing the novelization of Matheson's story.

This one is surprisingly pulpy.  Suitably Hard Boiled.   Fun Vampire Story.

Kolchak: the Night Strangler     by Richard Matheson & Jeff Rice

Just rolled right into the next one.  Fun.  The backwards stretches to include characters from the first novel/movie are....interesting, and Kolchak commenting on the cabbie showing up like it was part of the plot amused me perhaps more than it should have.  

Heartwood   by Amity Gaige

For a lot of 2025, Shyam, our friend Jill and I were doing a small book club.  When Jill had a particularly busy fall semester, we put it on hiatus.  This was our first book back.

Between this and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, I'm not venturing off any trails in Maine.

Solid read.  Hiker goes missing near the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.   Told from her point of view, that of the ranger leading her search and that of a retiree whose connection to the story turned rather pleasing, actually....

There is a plot point that continues to bother me, even 4 months later.  It gave all 3 of us in the group a moment's pause.  It is a decision made by the protagonist that seems questionable from a character standpoint....and it's a decision that seems familiar only if you've watched a horror movie or 3 dozen in your life.

Dust Frontier    by Graydon Colbaugh

Read in one day while my Mom had a heart cath procedure.  Fun read from our friend Graydon.  A Deputy out of a Southern Tennessee County that bears an eery resemblance to Polk County is drafted into some interplanetary intrigue.  It's a trip.  

Mr. Mercedes    by Stephen King

Continuing Project, blah blah blah.

Fun.  I like the Bill Hodges character a lot, even if we are jumping headlong into the phase of King's work where he is overly concerned into the Power and Lack Thereof of Older White Men.  I don't know why, unless it was being neck deep in Better Call Saul when I first read this, that I've seen Jonathan Banks as Bill in my head since 2015 or so.

Brady still gets at me.  One of King's better villains, in my opinion.  Jerome....is a choice.....

Hatchet Girls    by Joe R. Lansdale

I read this shortly after Joe announced on social media that the next Hap & Leonard book would be their last....the boys will get to retire.

I wasn't surprised to hear it, as Sugar on the Bones had a real Last Ride feel, and a lot of the characters who'd existed in the Hap & Leonardverse came together Justice League (or Magnificent Seven) style for one last jam....and it was mean very much to honor the late Andrew Vachss, as his avatar Veil figures heavily in the tale.

This one, a story filled unsurprisingly with people getting chopped up with hatchets, is more introspective, and had even  more callbacks to their previous novels than Sugar did.

This one was a rough one to go to immediately after Mr. Mercedes, as this one, Hap is overtly wondering, dwelling even, on his diminishing abilities on the back end of his 50s.

April

Katrina;  a History, 1915-2015

A look at the meteorological, physical, historical, political and fiscal reasons for the catastrophic days following Hurrican Katrina's landfall in 2005, as well as the response in the ensuing decade.....

Empire of Silence   by Christopher Ruocchio

Came recommended by a couple people.  There are shades of Dune and The Name of the Wind in there, but somehow it kept me going back to Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant, which I devoured somewhere around 1991 or 1992.

The alien races, especially the Umandh were interesting, and both they and the Cielcin have a lot of potential for storytelling, and that might get me back for a second book.

I did have some issues with the storytelling, inasmuch as I couldn't tell if the bloated prose was Ruocchio's or of Hadrian, who's telling the story.  From the couple of reviews I've read, it seems like it may improve in the subsequent books.

Dept. of Speculation   by Jenny Offill

Read with Jeselnik Book Club....this wasn't at all what I was expecting....not even sure what I was expecting.  Plenty dark with a surprising bit of levity.   It didn't end like I was expecting.  An occasionally lyrical piece of being an adult, a spouse and a parent, in a difficult marriage.

This made me want to look into become an Art Monster.

Revival   by Stephen King.

Project and whatnot.

This was a banger.  Up there with 11.22.63 as King's best since nearly losing his life.

Continues the theme of the utility and futility of being an older white man  in the 2010's.  This one is very concerned with death and dying.  Makes me wonder how many friends and acquaintances King had seen die leading up to the writing of this.

This is fun.  Crackles with energy, and contains a sadness you don't find in a lot of King's work.....

G.I. Joe:  The Cobra Strikes    by Joshua Williamson & Tom Reilly

Didn't care for it.  As far as I'm concerned, Larry Hama's the only guy who writes Joe worth reading.

May

Monsters in the Archive:  My Year of Fear with Stephen King    by Caroline Bicks

This one was a pleasant surprise.  Bicks holds the Stephen King Chair in the English Department at his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono.  She received access to King's personal archives, and did analysis of five of his early works, using the original manuscripts King worked with.  She went in looking for themes and motifs.  Digs in a bit to his early life, and examines bits from childhood to college and impact his novels and short stories.

As stated, I'm up to 2016 or so with his works myself, and seeing themes in play has been the interesting part of my project.  I'm not looking right now to go back to any of it, but Bicks' book made me want to go back and give Pet Sematary, Night Shift and Carried closer looks.

King's comments about not having revisisted Carrie were interesting, stating that the man who wrote that book was young, and didn't know what he thought he did about the world.

(The grouse in me says it didn't stop him from revising and stealing some of the charm from The Gunslinger....but I digress....)

Good read, and would serve as a nice companion piece to King's On Writing.

Harlan Ellison's Watching by Harlan Ellison

I'd been wanting to go through this volume front to back, and then Audible made it like $2 in its cash sale.  How could I not?

The downside of audiobooks is that I can't underline, and when I bookmark using Audible's app, sometimes I've lost the grain of whatever caught my ear and can't remember the thought that I'd had when I bookmarked it.  It's a little easier to regain when I can see something I've underlined or highlighted in an actual text.

That said, the list of shit I want to watch or rewatch after hearing Harlan yell and scream about it (and he yells and screams about both things he loves and hates), is long.

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake   by Breece Pancake

Steven West gifted me a copy.  Good stuff.  Short stories.  Pancake's prose reminds me of Hemingway and McCarthy, but his ear and use of irony remind me more of Flannery O'Connor than anybody I've run across.  All of that wrapped up in a vall and raised in the Appalachian hills of West Virginia.

He also reminds me very much of Tristan Egolf, another immensely talented writer with ties to Appalachia who also took his own life.

I See You've Called in Dead    by John Kenney

I don't dislike it, but in the couple months since I've read it, I've grown increasingly irritated that it's a well-to-do guy with incredibly fortunate circumstances and his friends who make time to undergo a philosophical learning experience.

Still, it's funny, and it is touching.  And I even agree with the philosophic lessons herein.

I'm just annoyed that I don't have more money than I do.  I'd just like to take the wife on vacation again some time.....

The Reformatory   by Tananarive Due

I'm not sure how often it happens that you read your new favorite book by one of your favorite writers.  Due is fantastic, and has been near the top of my list for a while, but it's largely been her short fiction that earned her a place in my heart.  I think she's the only writer out there whose name will make me pick up a collection, or a magazine with a story in it.  She's just got a remarkable talent for that medium.

Her novels are good.  The Good House and Joplin's Ghost are particularly effective.  But this?!?! 

This is fantastic.  I loved every page of it.

(And I say that with the caveat of having started it and only made it 40 pages in back in 2023).

I went back to this one as I'd read a couple of truly excellent pieces about it.  And even though I get my hopes up.....I loved it.

Equal parts ghost story, history lesson and prison break story.  This might be my favorite thing I've read this year....

Supergirl:  Woman of Tomorrow    by Tom King & Bilquis Evely

I may not like Tom King very much.  I hate to say that, because I know a lot of people hold him in high esteem.  It might just be that I've read or watched a lot of the source material he seems to be inspired by.

I've seen and read both True Grit and John Wick, though, and just didn't get as much out of this as a lot of people did.....

Three Miles Past  by Stephen Graham Jones

The ease with which Jones switches between goofy fun to very real disquiet is perhaps the most startling thing about his writing.  It's remarkable.  His Angel Lake Trilogy is a magnificent fever dream, and his books Mongrels and the Only Good Indians are stellar, and quite sad.

This is three tales...novellas, really.   Two of them really, really weird and the third tremendously sad.

I liked this collection.

June

Finders Keepers   by Stephen King

I don't dislike this one, but Bill, Holly and Jerome feel superfluous.  Almost unnecessary.  Almost like they're an afterthought....a way to get out of a story King might have originally tried to write for the Hard Case Crime series.

Mother Night    by Kurt Vonnegut.

One of the Vonneguts I hadn't read.  Read with Shyam & Jill.  Not the oddball romp I often associate with Vonnegut.  It's still looking to frame the absurd.  And some of the sadness seems to come from realizing how stupid we, it, and everybody is.  In this case, Howard Clark is an American who works for Germany in the Second World War as a spy for America, but creates some of the most damaging pro-Germany propaganda that the world sees.

Howard is The Dude Lebowski.  Impotent.  Unable to make his own way.  This made me uncomfortable.  

And it probably should

Cathedral of the Drowned    by Nathan Ballingrud

The second part of his Lunar Gothic trilogy, Ballingrud continues to really weird me out.  Especially at 2 in the morning, when I read this because our aging Siamese cat decided to do parkour on me in the middle of the night.

Don't read this if you also own a wobbly cat, who skitters as her main form of ambulation.

A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

I have a problem with this one, and it's similar to I See You Called in Dead.  I guess I'm less and less interested in the tribulations of the well-to-do.

The Western Star   by Craig Johnson

It's fun, Johnson's western tribute to Murder on the Orient Express.  This one just felt messy, though.....

Harlan Ellison's Endlessly Watching     by Harlan Ellison

Collected for a Kickstarter, finishing up Harlan's columns with Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine.  Lots of good stuff, but it felt like either I'd read too much Ellison, or Harlan was getting bored with the column towards its end.....