By Emily Munro in Blog — 02 Dec 2025

Reading Report: November 2025

Luddite Literature, two excellent games to try, and a pair of excellent books read in in this month's Reading Report. Now with added acountability!

I get melancholy towards the end of the year. Maybe it’s the ever encroaching darkness. Maybe it is all the implied endings. Maybe it is the sudden flood of important tasks (professional, social, familial). Maybe it's all the rain we’ve been having. Whatever the cause, I start looking for light in the world. New games, new stories, new ideas to brighten the darkening months. I hope something here brightens your day as well. And I hope you have had, are having, or will have a restful and restorative holiday season, howsoever you celebrate. Happy writing. ~EM

Bright Ideas

Struthless - This is Your Brain on AI - a survival guide to keeping control over your thoughts. Share with the people you love today!
Ilona Andrews on writing character descriptions - "Most of us have a protective figure in our lives. Maybe it’s a parent, or a spouse, or a sibling. Someone who loves us and protects us. Think about that person. Chances are, what you are remembering isn’t just a set of features but a feeling that person creates. Writing characters is kind of like that. You are trying to evoke a feeling in the reader, and if you are successful, they will fill in the blanks."
Very good writing advice from Tom Morello via Chuck Wendig - "the more of yourself you slap up on that altar of success, the more of You that you have to cut away… the less it all means. The less reason you have to do it."
Bluesky - Pour one out for the Luddites - and maybe join them:

And here's the Cory Doctorow article from 2021 he references a little later down the thread.

Small Delights

Game Recommendation - Fairytale Hunt - Browser based. Explore connections between hundreds of fairy tales in this quick to play and fairly addictive text based game.
And Another - Tavernkeeper - on Steam in open access - Open a tavern in a hobbit hole and host the prize vegetable competition while the Thieves Guild and Philosophers Guild try to stab you in the back.
via 404 media - Surf the Web like it’s 2022 - a browser that references only things with a date before the release of ChatGPT.

A little hope

67NJ - Albert Camus on resisting despair

November Reading List

Profession by Issac Asimov - re-Read for free on Classics of Science Fiction after a refence to it in a skeet I can no longer find.
Techniques of the Selling Writer - Dwight V. Swain - a reread for this article
Aspects of the Novel - E.M. Forester - for the next article up on Tuesday
Red Star Hustle - Sam J. Miller - A Saga Double with Apprehension by Mary Robinette Kowal I purchased at Fantastic Fiction at KGB. Two for one books! A great strategy for publishing novellas and Red Star Hustle is a lot of fun.
Finder - Susanne Palmer - An interstellar repo man tries to recover a starship and ends up saving a network of stations. One of the most interesting settings I've read in a long while. I'm already reading the second one.
Read short fiction? A reminder that Transfer Orbit is doing the people's work in their Table of Contents and listing a ton of free-to-read scifi and fantasy by month. Here's the Table of Contents for November.