clong's 50 book challenge for 2026

after a very slow reading finish to 2025, started out 2026 by finally finishing

1. Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson - which I found to be pretty disappointing and far, far too long.

2. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski - fun and clever. Several of the better episodes in early seasons of the netflix series were based on stories from this book.

3. The Truth and Other Stories by Stanislaw Lem - a few of these were great and the rest were fine. Lem at his best is astonishing.

4. White Night by Jim Butcher - one of the better books of the series so far...

5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman - This is getting lots of love from many people but I didn't love it.

6. Memory's Legion by James Corey - I loved the Expanse series (both the books and the streaming series), but didn't love this collection as much as I had expected.

7. Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski - parts of this were fantastic, but it kind of lost steam and offers no satisfying conclusion.

8. Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick - The challenges of life in the suburbs on Mars, with a healthy side order of hallucinations.

9. The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley - entertaining and clever if dated.

10. Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley - a satirical take on many aspects of society and a bleak if not particular serious view of the future.

11. Mindswap by Robert Sheckley - this inventive and absurdist romp starts strong, is marred by a passage that many will find offensive, and ultimately disintegrates into a nonsensical Dumas pastiche.

12. Immortality Inc. by Robert Sheckley - another Sheckley re-read after many years.... this one really didn't work for me as well as it had the first time around.

13. Gateway by Frederick Pohl - continuing a string of rereading books that I hadn't read for decades.

14. Search the Sky by Pohl and Kornbluth - I hadn't liked this much when I first read it some 20 years ago, and it didn't particularly improve the second time around. Not anywhere close to being in the same class as this pair's The Space Merchants.

15. All Systems Red by Martha Wells - started to read the new Murderbot novella, but then decided to go back and reread the earlier books first.

16. Artificial Conditions by Martha Wells.

17. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells - liked this one more third time around, as well.

18. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells - still think this is a bit weaker than the first three. But at least it brings closure to opening tetrology.

19. Network Effect by Martha Wells - The first half of this was fantastic. The second half is a little bit disappointing.

20. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells - this one is a nice change of pace.

21. System Collapse by Martha Wells - a little less action and a bit more thought provoking.

22. Platform Decay by Martha Wells - continued the trend from prior book. Fine but not fantastic.