what i read in February 2026

[tabacoychanel]

Leigh Radford, One Yellow Eye (2025) The problem with jumping in without reading the synopsis is that you misapprehend the scope of the book. I thought it was going to be a science-inflected foray into the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse but it’s actually a meditation on grief (workaholic scientist loses her husband). After I finished this I reread World War Z which was the zombie romp I needed; if you’re after something more reflective try I Am Legend.

Robin Hobb, Ship of Magic (1998), Mad Ship (1999), Ship of Destiny (2000) Welp, not my first reread but my first one this decade. And it left me with the same “finished it, don’t know what to do with my life” feeling. A big, bustling, textured story that absolutely should not work as well as it does. Every one of these tomes is >800 pages and the dialogue is so clunky it makes my eczema flare up (in an earlier draft I had typed “700 pages” lol). The thing that awed me on this pass is also the thing that I found most baffling/least interesting when I first devoured this trilogy as a preteen: the motherfucking serpents. I was like, why are they here?? Why does each book’s prologue, epilogue, and intertistial chapters all feature these useless reptiles whom I don’t care about at all? I thought I was here to watch a girl become the captain of her ship (and her destiny)! In the intervening decades I have read Game of Thrones, which is the most prominent example of an author seeding the story’s supernatural elements early in the prologue before pivoting to a tale of political factions vying for ascendancy. But meanwhile the supernatural stuff is simmering beneath the surface, and when it erupts it will upend everything.

When people talk about Hobb’s phenomenal character work in the Liveship Traders trilogy, Malta is the standout. Malta is the character whose journey is most surprising to the reader. She’s the character who has the farthest to travel. But collectively these characters are not living rent-free in my head the way Fitz, the Fool &co are… even though I will credit Liveship Traders with a tighter structure and harder-hitting themes. By the time I crashed into the big plot convergence showstopper that was the climax of Book 3, I had been scraping by on 3 hours of sleep for 3 consecutive days. At least Amber can relate. Amber is the only character genre-savvy enough to understand from the jump what’s coming down the pike for her. It’s the same thing that’s coming for all the characters: MISERY.

I have a friend whom I haven’t heard from in years and years who messaged me out of the blue to tell me she’d tackled Robin Hobb. Wdym “tackled”? Well, in the course of two weeks she read half of Assassin’s Apprentice, which is the first book in the Realms of the Elderlings universe, to which Liveship Traders belongs. Over the next two weeks she read the remaining 14.5 books. Yes, they’re all 800+ pages. Insane right? I probably would have done the same if all fifteen books had been available at the time I discovered Hobb.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956) Damn, this book definitely made me feel some kind of way about being American. It was short and devastating but if it hadn’t been for a book club I’m not certain I would have felt compelled to finish it. What I thought it was about: A repressed gay man in Paris. What it’s actually about: Why going to Europe makes Americans extra-American. Baldwin is justly lauded among the greats of twentieth century prose stylists. The story itself is excruciating to read, a total tonal rollercoaster ride where you wish just one character would be normal about what’s happening for one second. On page 2 we learn the titular Giovanni has an appointment with the guillotine and it’s all the protagonist’s fault. The rest of the book retraces the steps that led us to the guillotine. Lots of stuff to dig into re: homosexuality, by its covert nature, as a lens for recognition and revelation. Can I just say, there are so many predatory older gay men on the Paris nightclub scene! At first I was like “fuck these exploitative old geezers” but as the story unfolds the protagonist causes arguably more harm than any of them, and my sympathies began to swing toward the old geezers. One of their ilk warns the protagonist something to the effect of “You keep heading down this road you’ll end up just like me.” A fate the protagonist does not, in fact, manage to avoid. I can’t say I enjoyed this book but I read it in conjunction with Baldwin’s essay, “The Discovery of What It Means to Be American,” which is explicitly about the ways that Europe holds up a mirror to our own country, and I enjoyed that a ton more. I expect I’ll get along better with Baldwin’s nonfiction.

David Weber, The Honor of the Queen (1993) (Honor Harrington #2) This next rousing tale takes us to a backwater religious theocracy whose strategic location makes it a proxy in the escalating hostilities between the Kingdom of Manticore and the People’s Republic of Haven. Get ready for some epic space battles. I personally could not tell you the difference between a dreadnaught and a battlecruiser, but here comes Captain Honor Harrington and her CHARISMA and her COMPETENCE. Honor is equally beloved by her subordinates and her superiors; her enemies are either wrong or evil; respect to David Weber for planting his flag and proclaiming “this is my blorbo who can can do no wrong.” Honor has literally never not made the best decision based on the available info. Never. In this installment Honor sustains the loss of a father/mentor figure and it puts her on the warpath. She also sustains a serious physical injury that makes her moral fiber outwardly legible. I see what Weber is doing by showing us good officers on all sides of the conflict, Great Men reaching across the chasm of culture to befriend each other, but I think this noble theme of cooperation is undercut by Weber’s own smug self-righteousness. You can tell exactly where the author stands on certain “live” political and social issues.

David Weber, The Short Victorious War (1994) (Honor Harrington #3) I don’t know how much longer I can stomach Weber introducing every single character by rank and insignia, and stopping to explain every tedious new piece of tech, but I’m still rooting for Honor. A third of this book is people gushing about Honor while she’s offscreen and another third is people plotting against her. We encounter the original antagonist from book 1 who sexually assaulted her as a cadet: He’s a cretin but the narrative is careful to position him as the exception, not the rule. Someone (it might be Honor) calls him “not fit to wear the Queen’s uniform.” The remaining third of the book delves into the political machinations of the People’s Republic of Haven, and fellas did you know that socialism blows. In case you didn’t, David Weber is here to tell you. I actually enjoyed this portion the most because I liked watching characters game out their opponents’ moves; there are a lot of staccato scene cuts between Havenite and Manticorian POVs. When I say “staccato” I mean one paragraph per POV. My main takeaway was that the Havenite military's effectiveness is hamstrung by their officers' tendency to consider the impact to their own careers ahead of any strategic objectives. Because, as we know, socialism blows.

Honor acquires a love interest and i’m not sure he was the optimal love interest because her being with him doesn’t add any dimensions to the story. Honor is already the speshulest girl who ever specialed. She’s the smartest, she’s got the most integrity, she has a flipping psychic bond with her daemon—excuse me, emotional support cat. Her romantic/sexual insecurities ring hollow to me because Weber so clearly thinks Honor is without flaws.

Comments

[ambyr]

I have the last few Hobb books sitting around, and to fully appreciate them I feel like I need to do a reread from the beginning, but do I have the time/emotional fortitude/desire? Not thus far!

[tabacoychanel]

You could choose chaos and just …not reread lol. that’s what i did when the last three books came out and 10/10 recommend! they’re more of a meandering structure so you can dip in and out