Personal Education
Recent Reading - 2026
Click the occasional spoiler buttons only if you wish to see plot-revealing material.
2026-05-19
To Fire Called
323 pages
Lowell, NathanNathan Lowell
Some cargo deliveries go to well-known systems. Others go elsewhere. The legalities are murky at best, but if you want to find the assassin who killed your lover, you won't find him in plain sight. The refurbished merchant clipper Chernyakova is known in the "Toe-Holds", so it is incumbent on Captain Ishmael Wang to work with his CEO Pip Carstairs and a quickly hired full crew to make themselves accepted beyond the limits of CPJCT jurisdiction.
Highly Recommended
2026-05-15
In Ashes Born
303 pages
Lowell, NathanNathan Lowell
What does a forty-year-old solar clipper captain do after his Icarus Trading Company is bought out by a larger interstellar shipping firm? What's the next challenge? Is retirement an option? How will he be able to come to grips with, much less avenge the murder of his lover? Returning to the Academy for advice is a start, but won't be a long-term solution.
I have not read a book in less than two full days in a long time. I'm very glad Ishmael Horatio Wang's story continues here in the first book of "The Seekers Tales" series.
Highly Recommended
The sixth book of the series "Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper" finds Captain Ishmael Horatio Wang in a position to buy his own ship and form his own shipping company. The trick to doing it, though, is accepting the daughter of his company's boss as a member of his new crew. It turns out to be much more complicated, and financially uncertain, than that.
Highly Recommended
First mate of the Tinker, Ishmaiel Wang, now a seasoned officer, is given a challenge when the ship comes upon a drifting vessel in the Deep Dark which does not respond to their hails. Ish leads a boarding crew and takes command of the derelict ship after finding all the crew of Chernyakova dead from failed CO2 scrubbers. They claim salvage rights after confirming no survivors.
After getting the salvaged vessel under way, Ish and a small crew get it to port safely. Upon return to the company's home port, Ishmael is whisked off to take the Captain's exam. Then the challenges really begin.
Highly Recommended
Ishmael Horatio Wang, freshly graduated from the Academy and successfully rated third mate, takes a job on a space merchant bulk freighter. The ship isn't anything like his first job on the Lois McKendrick. There, the crew worked together to increase their mutual and individual share of the profits. His first breath on the William Tinker gives early warning that something literally "stinks" aboard the vessel. In his own self-interest, he's forced to try to clean it up. It isn't a promising prospect.
(It has been a long time since I last read a book so late into the early morning, pulled along by the story.)
Highly Recommended
On the final leg of a journey between systems, space merchant vessel Lois McKendrick loses all navgation systems from an apparent EMP, and is suddenly in ballistic trajectory. The bridge crew must scramble to restore control because "ballistic trajectory" means free fall into the local planet's gravity well.
Ishmael Wang assumes a temporary systems analysis role specifically created for him by the officers of Lois.
Highly Recommended
2026-04-29
The Crossroads
256 pages
Box, C.J.C.J Box
Wyoming ranchers in Twelve Sleep County, jealous of their landowner rights, hunters from both in and out of state, and between them, local game manager, Joe Pickett. Joe gets ambushed, shot in the head. His family and the brand new local sheriff have to find out who is responsible, even if Joe does not survive.
Highly Recommended
Ishmael's effort to advance his merchant/spacer rating also results in a change of jobs, a change of clothes and a change of attitude. He embraces all of the changes and has a fling with an officer from another vessel along the way.
Highly Recommended
2026-04-18
A Star in the Void
312 pages
Cohen, L.J.L.J. Cohen
Ada May is gone, lost on the other side of a non-standard wormhole. Ro Maldonado, captain of salvaged spaceship Halcyone and her "crew" of misfits intend to find Ada May while hiding their plans from the Commonwealth and the shadowy "Reaction Chamber", a group of oligarchs. Both of those groups want control of Ada May's wormhole technology.
Highly Recommended
2026-04-10
Lincoln in the Bardo
303 pages
Saunders, GeorgeGeorge Saunders
History underpins this work of ghostly fiction. The death of his young son, William, during the Civil War pulls the president to question his actions as commander-in-chief. Many American sons have died in the war. Willy dies of a fever.
The story is told by quotations from books, letters and news accounts. Those are interspersed with statements by ghosts in the cemetery who have resisted admitting that they are dead.
Highly Recommended
2026-03-25
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
253 pages
Stradal, J. RyanJ. Ryan Stradal
Multi-generation story of families who run restaurants, one family runs a chain of locations while the other has just one, a supper club. The supper club has a regular clientele and long-serving staff, too. The chain is...bland.
Highly Recommended
2026-03-10
Quarter Share
221 pages
Lowell, NathanNathan Lowell
Other options exhausted, Ishmael Wang signs on to the merchant spaceship Lois McKendrick at the lowest tier, the only one he qualified for, a "quarter share" in the galley. He quickly makes a co-worker friend, Pip. Together, they serve their ship in more ways than Ish expected.
Highly Recommended
2026-02-05
Boneyards
314 pages
Rusch, KristineKristine Rusch
Squishy cannot stand that the Empire continues to do Stelth Tech research. Since joining the wreck diving company "Lost Souls" Squishy has learned that ancient space ships belonging to The Fleet had a working interstellar drive, called anacapa. Stelth tech is such a drive which malfunctioned. The Empire wants to know what she knows. She wants to destroy all stelth tech research, knowing the Empire only wants to weaponize it.
Recommended
2026-01-22
The Application of Hope
91 pages
Rusch, KristineKristine Rusch
As the Fleet's attempts at diplomacy break down, a cluster of tiny, unrecognized spaceships begin to fire their unknown weapons, "Coop", the captain of the Ivoire engages his ship's anacapa drive, intending to enter foldspace for just a short time to protect it from fire. Something goes wrong. Ships sometimes get lost in foldspace. The other frontline ships have been sent to help but must wait impatiently to have Ivoire pop back into normal space. Way too many hours pass and Fleet Command sends the closest frontline Fleet ship to investigate...carefully.
Highly Recommended
2026-01-19
The Galaxy and the Ground Within
312 pages
Chambers, BeckyBecky Chambers
Galaxy-crossing tunnels are busy and travel through them is tightly controlled by the Galactic Commons Transit Authority. For spacefarers, it often means parking your ship and taking a shuttle to the nearest plant for some time on the ground between trips. When a mixed species group visit the same ground facility they are not prepared for more than a bit of rest. Chance denies them rest as low orbit communications satellites begin to collide and plummet to the ground. It isn't safe to leave the planet. They are stuck until the space debris can be cleared for traffic again.
Highly Recommended
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The count is for my personal convenience. It's not a competition.
How it was done.
This year's authors in alphabetical order with duplicates removed.
It may not be very useful to anyone, but was good for ongoing JavaScript practice.
How it was done (in part)