2026 reading goal

Last year, I made it a point to do better in finishing or making progress on reading a series. As my end of year post showed, my average rating for the series books that I read in 2025 was 4.125, higher than the 4.05 average for all books I read last year. Due to the success of last year's goal, I'm going to continue following up on various series on my TBR. 

So far, the series I've identified for 2026 are:

• The Broken Blades by Mai Corland - I read the first two books in this series last year and gave them both 5 stars. I look forward to wrapping up the series this year.
• All Souls by Deborah Harkness - I watched the Discovery of Witches TV series last year and liked it a lot. My goal is to read the first 3 books in this series, which covers the scope of the TV show.
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - I started watching the TV series in late 2025. I'm still on season 1, and now I want to read the books it's based on. Given the number of books, I won't be finishing the series this year. Reading at least the first 2 in 2026 is my goal.
• The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee - The Green Bone Saga has been on my TBR list for ages.  I considered adding it to my series-reading goal last year but ran out of time. This will be the year I finally read this series.
• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinnaman - The first book in this series was a lot of fun. This is also a long series with new books still coming out. My plan is to read at least 2 more books this year.
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan - I will continue to make progress in this 14-book series. Reading 2 more this year is my goal.

I may add more series books to my 2026 goal as the year progresses, but the above list is a good start that will keep me occupied for a few months. I'm curious if I will enjoy this year's series as much as I enjoyed the ones I read last year. Stay tuned.

Favorite reads of 2025

When it comes to ranking my favorite reads, 2025 was the year of Asian authors for me. Five books by three Asian authors made my top ten list. (Cixin Liu and R.F. Kuang each had two books on the list.) Another book by an Asian author (Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland) barely missed the cut. And this doesn't include R.F. Kuang's Katabasis and SenLinYu's Alchemised, both of which I plan to read in 2026. Don't be surprised to see more books by Asian authors on my list of favorite 2026 reads!

Here are my top 10 favorite books read in 2025:

1. Sunrise on the Reaping - Suzanne Collins 

The Hunger Games series is my favorite YA series of all time, and the first book in the series is one of my all-time favorite books, regardless of genre. Sunrise on the Reaping comes close to recapturing the magic of that first book. What I felt from reading the latest installment in the series took me back to how I felt when I read the first Hunger Games book. I didn't want the book to end, and I yearned for more when I finished reading it. All of the accolades heaped upon this book are well-deserved, and I recommend it to everyone, even if you haven't read the other books in the Hunger Games series.

2. Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Taylor Jenkins Reid does it again! Atmosphere is exactly what I expected and worthy of all the hype it received. This book gets bonus points for taking us inside the life of astronauts in training and Joan's explanation of the stars, since I was once obsessed with astronomy and the space program too. Once I started reading this book, I didn't want to put it down, and the ending was the most emotionally intense last pages of any book I've read in recent memory. I don't want to give away anything though. You have to read it for yourself, and you definitely should.

3. The Poppy War - R.F. Kuang 

The Poppy War has been on my TBR list for ages, and I'm so glad I finally read it. Based on Chinese history, in particular the Sino-Japanese War, the novel wrapped me up in its world and characters. It started as an outcast-at-school type of story, which I generally like (e.g., Harry Potter), but the second half quickly moved to a different phase of the protagonist's life. The action never slowed; it only gained momentum until the end. I appreciated the way the characters grew. For example, Rin reached a truce with her greatest rival at school, which is not something I've seen in other stories. I may not have agreed with all of Rin's actions, but she was portrayed realistically as a complex and human protagonist. This book gave me Grace of Kings vibes (possibly because both books were written by Chinese authors and based on Chinese history), which is a high compliment, given how much I love the Dandelion Dynasty series.

4. Wind and Truth - Brandon Sanderson 

What a satisfying conclusion to the first arc of the Stormlight Archive. Before reading Wind and Truth, I wondered how Brandon Sanderson would balance resolving major plot lines from the first four books while leaving enough open for the second arc. I needn't have worried. Sanderson is a genius. And he wrote a 1,300-page book that didn't bore me at all. In fact, I found myself more excited and engaged as the story went on. The only downside to finishing Wind and Truth is that I will need to wait years for Book 6.

5. The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu 

I read the Remembrance of Earth's Past series this year (a.k.a., The Three Body Problem series). Even if it wasn't my goal in 2025 to finish more series books, I'd probably have read all of the books anyway because The Dark Forest and Death's End were so good. This series has some of the most imaginative science fiction concepts I've ever read. Cixin Liu makes bold predictions about the future that are both plausible yet fantastic. In addition, the story, spanning centuries, chugs along at a good pace that kept me interested throughout.

6. Death's End - Cixin Liu 

I found the second and third books in the Remembrance of Earth's Past series to be equally good, so their places in this ranking can easily be reversed. Like The Dark Forest, the gripping story in Death's End spans centuries, and the science fiction was imaginative. Looking back on the series, as impressed as I am with the creative science, I'm also impressed with Cixin Liu's understanding of human behavior and how we are likely to act in times of crisis. I recommend this series to all science fiction fans.

7. My Salty Mary - Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows 

Every book by the Lady Janies (Lady Marys?) has been great, and My Salty Mary was no exception. I love the brand of humor that is a hallmark of the Lady Janies books, and this one had me laughing out loud while I was reading it. I breezed through this book quickly and when it ended, I wished that it hadn't. If you haven't read any of the Jane and/or Mary books, I highly recommend them. I can't wait until the next one!

8. When the Moon Hits Your Eye - John Scalzi 

The moon has turned into cheese. Once I got past the absurd premise, I was hooked by this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the ways that such a phenomenon could affect different people. Some of the stories were funny, some were touching, and some made me contemplate the current state of our non-cheese-moon world. The result is a highly entertaining book that I'd want to read again.

9. The Burning God - R.F. Kuang 

After reading this last book in the Poppy War series, I was sad that I reached the end. I wanted it to continue. In fact, the reason why this book wasn't ranked higher is because I felt like R.F. Kuang left me hanging with more left in the story. Maybe it's because I like my stories to have a happy and tidy ending. Aside from the final pages, the rest of the book was great, and I highly recommend the Poppy War series.

10. Blood Over Bright Haven - M.L. Wang 

I started hearing buzz about this book in late 2024, with some people saying it was the best book they read all year. I can see why. The themes of sexism, racism, and privilege really resonated with me, and even if they hadn't, the writing and world building and characterization would have been enough to win me over. It's been a while since I've read a novel where such flawed characters still elicited strong sympathy in me, a testament to M.L. Wang's writing skills. The main reason I didn't rank this book higher was the ending, and I won't say more for fear of spoiling it.

What I read in 2025

It's that time of the year to look back on the books I read in 2025. Once again, I set a goal to read at least 100 books, and I managed to read 104, 2 more than the 102 books I read in 2024.

The average rating for the books I read this year was 4.05 stars, a percentage point higher than the 4.04 average from 2024's books read. The breakdown by star rating was:

• 5 stars - 32 books
• 4 stars - 45 books
• 3 stars - 27 books

A 2025 goal I set for myself was to do a better job in reading a series. These series books turned out to be more enjoyable than the average book I read. There were 16 books that I targeted in order to finish a series (e.g., Remembrance of Earth's Past, Farseer Trilogy) or to make more progress in a series (e.g., The Wheel of Time). My average rating for the 16 series books ended up being 4.125. Given how well that went, it's likely that I will continue this goal in 2026.

In my next post, I'll list my top ten reads of 2025. Stay tuned!

The importance of sympathetic characters

I was recently reading two fantasy books at the same time (I often read more than one book at a time), and I found that I really liked one of them and didn't care for the other. Both were well-written IMHO with interesting plots. The difference was that I was sympathetic to the protagonist of the book I enjoyed and rooted for her throughout, while I couldn't care less about the fate of the protagonist in the book I disliked.

There were two traits that caused me to fail to connect with the main character in the second book:

1. She was not a good person - every character has flaws, but I'm more likely to care about a character if they are a basically decent person. Being good is not a requirement for me though, since I rooted for Kaz's crew in Six of Crows and for Kelsier in Mistborn, for example.
2. She nade dumb choices - whenever there were multiple possible courses of action, the protagonist seemed to always choose the one that put her or those she cared about in danger. I lost count of the number of times I asked "Why???" when I was reading the book. After a while, I was no longer invested in a happy ending for her because she was actively sabotaging her fate through bad choices for the sake of advancing the plot.

If not for the way the protagonist was portrayed in the book I didn't like, it could have been as good as the book that I did enjoy reading. The experience reminded me of how important sympathetic characters are to the overall quality of a story. The character doesn't have to be a saint, but they have to possess qualities that will pull readers to their side and root for them. 

You may have the most engaging plot and beautiful writing, but if the reader doesn't care about your protagonist, then it doesn't matter. A great character can overcome a mediocre plot, but I can't think of an example where I thought highly of a book when I didn't care about the main character. 

Have you read stories where you weren't sympathetic to the protagonist? What was it about them that made you not care? How did it affect your enjoyment of the story?

Introducing my non-fiction book, Your First Investing Playbook

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a new non-fiction book. Well, it's completed and published! Introducing... Your First Investing Playbook: A Beginner's Investment Roadmap.

What led me to write this book was wanting my kids to be financially prepared when they enter adulthood. Unfortunately, financial literacy isn't something that was taught to most of us in school, and we either learned it through trial and error or didn't learn it at all. I experienced the former path, so I wanted to pass along what I learned to my kids and to all beginning investors out there.

The book is short, only about 60 pages, but it covers the essentials, allowing readers to take the next steps on their own based on their interests. 

You may have noticed that the author name on the book cover isn't H.S. Stone. I chose a different pen name for this book to avoid confusing readers who may wonder why an author of speculative fiction also wrote a book about personal finance. I definitely didn't want anyone to think that Your First Investing Playbook was fictional. 

I enjoyed the experience of writing this book and being able to write for pleasure again. I don't know if I'll write any more non-fiction books in the future, but this first book was definitely fun. I hope you'll find it educational yet entertaining.

 

Writing a new book

It's been ages, but I'm writing a new book again! Instead of writing another speculative fiction story though, this time, I'm writing a non-fiction book. 

The main reason that I chose non-fiction is that I found my schedule is more suitable for writing non-fiction than fiction. Although I've been doing more research for this book than I have for any of my fiction books, it's also been easier for me to dive into writing when I have just a few minutes to spare. This has been a problem for me in writing another novel because I need time to get into the proper state of mind when writing fiction, remembering where I left off and what is supposed to come next, and I haven't been able to find chunks of free time to reach that zone for more than a year. 

With this non-fiction book, I can pick up any section that I want to and add to it. If my day job continues to leave me with little time for writing, perhaps non-fiction is the new direction my writing will take. For the time being, it sure feels good to write what I want to again!

Hopeless (After Z-Day Book 1) is free this weekend

Today and tomorrow, Hopeless, the first book in my After Z-Day series, will be FREE on Amazon! Go on and give it a try, especially if you're a fan of zombie apocalypses. If you like it, consider picking up Relentless and Soulless too. You can get the entire series for less than $7 this weekend!