Following the tradition of 2023 and 2024, here are my favorite books from 2025:

Disco Elysium

“Disco Elysium isn’t a book, Alex!” Ok, sure, but it is one of the literary masterpieces of the 21st century. It does a miraculous job of immersing the player in its world, exploring the grip the past has on the present, and creating some of the deepest and most fully developed characters in any medium. It’s my favorite game of all time, and one of my favorite literary works, period.

• 
  Disco Elysium by Robert Kurvitz et al.

  ★★★★★

  Disco Elysium, written by Robert Kurvitz et al., is a role-playing game produced by ZA/UM. It’s the story of Harrier “Harry” Du Bois, a man who wakes up with no memories and has to solve a murder while learning who he is.

The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

I didn’t love the Hyperion Cantos the first time I read them. I found The Fall of Hyperion, the easier and more straightforward of the two, to be great, but I didn’t really get Hyperion. This year I re-read them for my book club and focused on finding and understanding the influences from John Keats’s works. That completely transformed the experience. I LOVED Hyperion, seeing it as far deeper and more complex than I did the first time through.

This year I’ll be tackling Endymion and The Rise of Endymion, which I’ve heard don’t live up to the greatness of the first two, but I’m still hopeful.

• 
  Hyperion by Dan Simmons

  ★★★★★

  Hyperion is Dan Simmons’s masterpiece. It is the first book in his Hyperion Cantos. It follows seven pilgrims as they travel to the Time Tombs on Hyperion to petition the Shrike. Along the way, each tells their own story, weaving together history, myth, and prophecy to tell of the impending downfall of man.

• 
  The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

  ★★★★★

  The Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons, is the second book in the Hyperion Cantos, but really it’s the second half of Hyperion. It brings the seven pilgrims’ story to an end and depicts the war between the TechnoCore, the Ousters, and the Hegemony.

The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

Banks’s Culture series was one of my favorite reads in 2024. I deliberately delayed finishing it, spacing out the final few books because I knew that once I was done, it would be over for good. The Hydrogen Sonata was a fitting end to the series. It restates many of the themes Banks first explored in Consider Phlebas, but with a more hopeful bent.

It also feels like a fitting final book for Iain M. Banks himself, with its message that life only has the meaning you give it.

• 
  The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks

  ★★★★★

  The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks, is the tenth and final book in the Culture series. It explores the last days of the Glitz people as they prepare to Sublime.

The Teixcalaan series by Arkady Martine

Another pair of books picked by my book club. I really enjoyed Martine’s subtle worldbuilding and the deep integration of themes and motifs across A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace. The writing itself is beautiful, and often reminded me of Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, with its mix of archaic prose and intentional vagueness.

• 
  A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

  ★★★★☆

  A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine, is the first book in the Teixcalaan series. It follows Mahit Dzmare, an ambassador from the space station Lsel, as she tries to save her home from being annexed by the Teixcalaanli empire.

• 
  A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

  ★★★★☆

  A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine, is the second book in the Teixcalaan series. It tells the story of Mahit and Three Seagrass trying to stop the war between the Teixcalaanli Empire and a mysterious alien race.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

I picked up Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s best-known novel, Roadside Picnic, because I wanted to broaden what I was reading. I ended up loving it. The characters feel incredibly real, the dialogue has a simple but earnest quality, and the atmosphere is completely different from Western sci-fi.

It wasn’t the only book of theirs that I read, but it was easily my favorite.

• 
  Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky

  ★★★★☆

  Roadside Picnic, by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, is a Soviet sci-fi novel. It’s essentially four short stories—each presented as a chapter—about the life of Redrick “Red” Schuhart, a “stalker” who illegally enters an alien-contaminated Zone to retrieve items for the black market.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Everyone loves The Murderbot Diaries, and I’m no exception. Wells hits the perfect mix of pulpy action, fast pacing, and memorable characters, while still digging into deep philosophical questions about what it means to be a person. I’ve got a few more to go this year, and I’m really looking forward to them. I fully expect to see them on my 2026 list.

• 
  Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

  ★★★★☆

  Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells, is the second book in The Murderbot Diaries. It follows Murderbot as it digs into its past and, once again, saves some scientists.

• 
  Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

  ★★★☆☆

  Rogue Protocol, by Martha Wells, is the third book in The Murderbot Diaries. It follows Murderbot as it investigates a GrayCris terraforming station and, you guessed it, ends up saving a group of humans.

• 
  Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

  ★★★★☆

  Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells, is the fourth book in The Murderbot Diaries. It wraps up the GrayCris storyline as Murderbot returns to save its friends.

• 
  Network Effect by Martha Wells

  ★★★★☆

  Network Effect, by Martha Wells, is the fifth book in The Murderbot Diaries. It’s the first full-length novel in the series and features Murderbot getting kidnapped by ART to rescue its crew.

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

I read qntm’s original edition edition in 2023 and thought it was packed full of amazing ideas, but ultimately let down by a poorly written second act. His rewrite this year fixed every single problem. The result is a tight, cohesive book that brings its wild concepts to life. Highly recommend.

• 
  There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

  ★★★★★

  There Is No Antimemetics Division, by qntm, is a book about researchers trying to control dangerous antimemes—ideas that can’t be thought—and how you might combat a foe you can’t even remember exists.

A Mote in Shadow by A. N. Alex

I found this book when my corner of BlueSky started talking about it, and I’m glad I paid attention. Alex’s debut novel is a fantastic mix of hard sci-fi and techno-thriller, set in a fractured human civilization in the not-too-distant future. He’s working on the sequel now, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

• 
  A Mote in Shadow by A. N. Alex

  ★★★★★

  A Mote in Shadow is A. N. Alex’s debut novel. It follows two down-on-their-luck outsiders dragged into a war between shadowy mercenary groups: exobiologist Chaeyoung No, whose disagreement with the scientific establishment leaves her in no position to question a too-good-to-be-true offer to fund her research expedition; and space hauler Frederik Obialo, who is more than willing to take a dangerous job if it brings him closer to his dream of giving his daughter a permanent home.

The Triumphant by Linda Evans, Robert R. Hollingsworth, and David Weber

I started reading the Bolo books when I was a teen and absolutely loved them. They feature giant tanks blowing stuff up, but, like The Murderbot Diaries, they also broach deeper questions about the meaning of being alive and whether honor and duty translate to machines. I recently started re-reading the series for nostalgia, and while most of the books are serviceable but not great, The Triumphant is the clear exception.

• 
  The Triumphant by Linda Evans, Robert R. Hollingsworth, and David Weber

  ★★★★★

  The Triumphant is the twelfth book in the Bolo series. It’s an anthology of Bolo stories written by three different authors. They explore the emotional bond between a Bolo and the people around them, and the dangers of caring too much about a machine built for war.

Your failure of courage raises some fundamental questions. What is the point of studying history if we learn nothing from it? What is the point of our own history if we simply repeat the same mistakes we made in the past?

We tell ourselves myths about Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement, about the little circle of freedom in front of Sproul Hall, about how that history determined who we are now. But it is clear now that you have chosen to betray that legacy, siding not with Savio, but with the machine he warned us about. You aren’t willing to put your careers, never mind your bodies, upon the wheels and levers to make it stop.

You believe you’re saving the University. But you are destroying its soul.

Alexander Gude (‘08)

A computer’s job is to do work for you.

I hadn’t realized that before. Until I learned to program, computers could only do a small set of things for me—mainly the things other people had already decided they should do. But when I learned to code, I suddenly had the ability to make them do what I wanted.

Within a year I’d learned Python, picked up Vim, and switched my computers to Ubuntu. I started writing little scripts to make my life easier, like backing up my email, syncing files between my laptop and desktop, or converting Wikipedia pages into an archival format.

Back then, each script took me hours to write. I had to find the right libraries, learn their APIs, or sometimes write code from scratch. Because they took so much work I saved every one, sometimes even sharing them with the opensource community, just in case I ever needed them again. But all of that changed in the last two years when I learned to use an LLM for coding.

Now a Python script takes 30 seconds. Maybe a minute if I want to read it over and give some feedback. Gemini 2.5 Pro almost always writes a 100-line script correctly on the first try, just from a short description of what I want. It’s so fast and easy that I’ve stopped saving them—if I need another one, I can just prompt for it again in half a minute.

Python scripts are now free!¹ But I don’t think everyone has realized this yet. Once again, William Gibson was right:

The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.

At work, I use Codename Goose, which can directly interact with my local machine and files, switch between multiple LLM APIs, and connect to our infrastructure with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. At home, I’m more limited, but use GPT-4o and Gemini 2.5 Pro to generate code (that I have to copy back and forth between my browser and terminal).

After intentionally trying to shoehorn LLMs into my workflow to see where and how they work, this is what I’ve learned.

System Prompt

The system prompt, which the model “reads” before it gets started, is how you customize the way the model “thinks” and responds to you. I find a few things are useful to include:

1. A general overview of the task: This gives the LLM context about where you’re headed, even as it works line by line and file by file. “We’re refactoring a Jekyll website…”, “We’re building a set of machine learning signals in Java 17…”, etc.
2. A layout of the project: Locations of key files, what goes where, etc. Things like “a.py is where the main code lives, b.py provides helper functions…”
3. A style guide: Telling the LLM how you prefer to use the programming language. “Never use ternary operators”, “Always use {} with if statements”, “Prefer functional solutions”, etc.

A trick I use is, at the end of a session, I give the LLM the current system prompt and ask it to update it—adding anything new it learned and fixing anything that’s now out of date. Then I use that modified prompt when I spin up a new LLM to work on the project.

Unit Tests

English isn’t a very precise way to define what you want code to do, but that’s usually where I start, maybe with a few example code snippets. After that, I ask the model to write unit tests for the code we just wrote. This is where I make sure we’re on the same page.

I read through the unit tests and look for anything that doesn’t match what I was expecting. Sometimes it’s easy to just change the test to match the behavior I want. Other times, I try to understand why the LLM made the choice it did, then discuss the decision with it to come to an agreement. I often catch disagreements over when to throw errors, how to handle invalid inputs, or other rare edge cases in this process.

Once the behavior is codified in the tests, I ask the model to fix the original code so the tests pass. This iterative process of generation and verification is where LLMs truly shine. In this way, it’s sort of an inverse of test-driven development—I have the computer write the code and then the tests. I find that having some code to start with helps the LLM write broader, more useful tests, a practice whose importance I’ve previously discussed in the context of data science.

In some cases, I’ll even throw away the code, restart the LLM, and give it just the tests as the spec for what it should write. This is particularly useful when the model gets stuck and either won’t make a large enough change to the code, or loops back and forth between essentially the same few versions.

Iterate And Advise

When I’m working with an LLM, I see my job more as a manager or mentor than an engineer. My role is to define what we’re doing, then critique the result to get it into shape. It’s a lot like working with a junior engineer or intern—except one that can make a revision in 10 seconds instead of 4 hours. This lets me iterate a lot to get the code working exactly how I want.

The things I focus on are mostly high-level, like data structures and algorithms. The LLM often doesn’t need a lot of direction—just saying “Couldn’t we replace the double for loop with a single loop and a hash table?” is usually enough to get it on the right path. Only at the end, once the structure is solid, do I focus on nitpicky issues or edit the text directly.

The Future

I’m still learning how to use LLMs for coding. The technology and tooling is evolving so fast that I’m sure what I’m doing today will look antiquated in six months. Still, I hope it gives others some ideas about how they can use this technology to speed up their development.

ChatGPT 3.5 came out just over two years ago and sparked an explosion in Large Language Model (LLM) development. Dozens of companies released their own models, and the state of the art advanced by the hour.

At the time, I wrote about how I used ChatGPT to write. My method was primitive. With years of experience and improvements in the models, I have refined how I use LLMs to edit text. Here is my new method.

Drafting

I write the first draft entirely by hand. This helps me preserve my voice and prevents the writing from being overly influenced by the LLM. It also supports my main goal of writing: to clarify my thinking.

I used to write, edit, write, edit, and so on until I was nearly 100% happy with my work, but now I stop earlier and let the LLM handle an editing pass. Using the LLM early saves me multiple rounds of edits because they’ve become so good at fixing spelling and grammatical errors and slightly tweaking my writing without overpowering it.

The Prompt

The prompt you use with the LLM is important, because it strongly shapes how the model edits your writing. The prompt keeps the machine from filling my writing with phrases like “delve”, “showcasing”, and “underscores”. I currently use a slight variation of this prompt:

Help me edit this blog post I’m writing. Fix errors, make it clearer. Reword to make the arguments and sentences more coherent. Use the same sort of words I’m using, don’t substitute fancy synonyms. Maintain my voice. My work is below. Keep the formatting and wrap your output in ```.

Editing

Once I have the LLM’s version, I put it side-by-side with my draft to compare. Sometimes the edited version is perfect, and I’ll take an entire paragraph as is. Other times, I’ll borrow ideas about how to structure a paragraph or a transition, but I rewrite it in my own words. The model sometimes tries to fix sections that are fine, and I simply ignore it.

After that, I go through another human editing pass to ensure my voice comes through in every sentence. Sometimes, I will have the LLM focus on specific sentences or paragraphs that still need work and iterate. Once I’m happy, I commit my changes and publish.

Echopraxia by Peter Watts

Echopraxia is the sequel to Blindsight, one of my favorite books from last year. Although it wasn’t as well received by readers as Blindsight, it was my favorite read of the year. In fact, I liked it more than Blindsight because of its complex storyline, intriguing characters, and the broader perspective it offers on the world.

• 
  Echopraxia by Peter Watts

  ★★★★★

  Echopraxia, by Peter Watts, is the second book in the Firefall series, unfolding at roughly the same time as Blindsight. It follows parasitologist Daniel Brüks, who gets unwillingly dragged into a conflict between multiple transhuman factions, travels to the Icarus station orbiting the sun, and eventually back to Earth.

The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

I hated Consider Phlebas when I read it in 2023, but I gave the Culture series another chance because I had spent the better part of two decades waiting to get my hands on the books. I’m glad I did, because I read The Player of Games with my book club and loved it! My favorite from the series was Surface Detail, closely followed by Use of Weapons. I even enjoyed Inversions, one of the least well-reviewed of Banks’s books. It will be bittersweet to finish the series with The Hydrogen Sonata in 2025.

• 
  The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

  ★★★★★

  The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks’s, is the second novel in the Culture series. It tells the story of Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a master game player who is recruited to play Azad, an incredibly complex game that serves as the basis for the Empire of Azad’s entire government.

• 
  Inversions by Iain M. Banks

  ★★★★★

  Inversions, by Iain M. Banks, is the sixth book in the Culture series, but it is very different from typical Culture novels: there are no spaceships and almost no advanced technology. Instead, it follows Culture citizens DeWar and Vosill as they manipulate a medieval society.

• 
  Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

  ★★★★★

  Look to Windward, by Iain M. Banks, is the seventh book in the Culture series. It explores the aftermath of the Idiran–Culture War and Chelgrian civil war.

• 
  Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

  ★★★★★

  Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks, is the ninth book in the Culture series. It follows Lededje Y’breq as she seeks revenge for her own murder, set against the backdrop of a galactic conflict over virtual hells.

A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

A Fire Upon The Deep is a nostalgic favorite that I first read about 20 years ago and reread this year for my book club. It does a fantastic job of telling a story that feels small and personal while having galaxy-spanning implications. The Zones of Thought concept is also a unique way to structure the galaxy and explore how it shapes civilizations.

• 
  A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

  ★★★★★

  A Fire Upon The Deep is a sci-fi novel by Vernor Vinge. It tells the story of the Blight—a galactic-scale, transcendent evil—and the humans racing to stop it.

The Cheela Series by Robert L. Forward

The Cheela series consists of two hard sci-fi novels by Forward: Dragon’s Egg and Starquake. Even though the Cheela are extremely alien—living on the surface of a neutron star and experiencing time a million times faster than humans—their characters still pulled me in. It was exciting to watch them build their civilization from hunter-gatherers to a spacefaring society.

• 
  Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward

  ★★★★☆

  Dragon’s Egg is a hard sci-fi novel by Robert L. Forward. It is the story of first contact between humans and the Cheela: beings who live on a neutron star.

• 
  Starquake by Robert L. Forward

  ★★★☆☆

  Starquake is the second book in the Cheela series by Robert L. Forward. It follows the Cheela as they rescue the humans and rebuild after a devastating starquake.

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

Another nostalgic read, Clarke’s Childhood’s End was one of the first sci-fi books I ever read. Revisiting it years later was a treat, and I’m happy to say it holds up. The focus on humans’ psychic abilities feels a little dated, but Clarke’s crisp writing kept me engaged.

• 
  Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

  ★★★★☆

  Childhood’s End is a classic sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It is about first contact between humans and the mysterious Overlords, and the end of the human race.

I tried multiple different chairs in person, and although my heart wanted an Aeron, my sit-test (for 10 minutes) told me I should get a Steelcase Gesture. Giving me confidence was the fact that The Wirecutter had rated it their best chair, saying “This is one of the most adjustable chairs available—anyone can make it comfortable, regardless of their height or size.” After eight months, I’ve decided they were wrong.

Overall, I am disappointed with the chair, which has an uncomfortable back, poor recline, and arms that just don’t get out of the way enough to get close to my desk. I have replaced it with an Aeron Remastered Size C.

My Chair

I bought a Steelcase Gesture with:

• Headrest

• Upholstered Wrap Back

• Cogent Lizard Upholstery (5S94)

• Platinum Metallic Frame

• Matching Base

• 360° Arms

• Lumbar Support

• Wheels for Carpet

The retail price for this chair is $1679, but I got it through my work’s office supplier for $1079.

Headrest

I debated whether or not I wanted a headrest and finally decided to get one. You can mostly fold it out of the way if you don’t like it, so I figured I’d rather give it a shot. It’s fine. I use it when lounging but not when sitting normally. I would not get it again because it is superfluous.

Arms

One of the selling points of the Gesture is how flexible the arms are. They are very easy to move, easier than the Aeron’s, but I didn’t find this to be a great selling point. Generally, I set the arms once and leave them forever. I don’t adjust them for each new position or task as Steelcase assumes.

Additionally, the arms aren’t as nice as the Aeron’s. The Gesture’s arms don’t go as low, about 6 1/2 inches off the seat compared to 5 1/2 for the Aeron. This is extremely important to me because I have very long arms compared to my torso; the Gesture’s arms force my shoulders up. The Gesture’s arms also stick out further when pushed all the way back (10 inches from the back of the chair, compared to 8 for the Aeron). This makes it harder to pull the chair under a desk to get close to the keyboard. The pads are a little thinner on the Gesture, making it slightly less comfortable.

The Back

The Gesture has a very upright back. It forces me into a very straight position, even though I normally prefer a little bit of recline. The back moves in two ways: it tilts top to bottom to try to adjust to the curve of your spine, and it reclines.

The back is also very tall, extending about 24 inches above the seat (not including the headrest). Because it is very straight, it makes contact with my shoulder blades in a way I found uncomfortable. For the first week of use, I got upper back pain which I assumed was just my body adjusting to “sitting correctly”. Eight months later and I’m not so sure; the upper-back pain persists (although far less severe) and my doctor thinks my posture is most of the problem. I had no problem before using the Gesture.

Recline

The Gesture’s back can be locked into 4 different positions, and the spring tension can be adjusted from “you can’t push this back if you tried” to “absolutely no resistance”. Unfortunately, the recline just doesn’t feel very good on my chair. It is either too stiff or too loose. There is no middle ground that feels supportive. I think my spring is broken because the Gestures we have at my company’s office have better tension control and a more comfortable recline.

The back moves separate from the seat, which feels OK. On the Aeron, the seat slides a bit when you recline which feels more natural. Overall, the recline on the Aeron feels much better.

Lumbar

The lumbar support is TERRIBLE. It pokes me in the back and feels like it’s trying to push me out of the chair. The curve of the backrest is already aggressive, and the lumbar support makes it more so. There is an entire thread on Reddit¹ about how the lumbar support ruins the chair. I followed Steelcase’s guide to removing the backrest pad to take out the lumbar support and it helped a lot (but I still didn’t find it comfortable). I would not buy the lumbar support again.

The Seat

The seat depth is adjustable. Because I’m tall (6 foot 1 inch), I have the seat all the way forward. This leaves a small gap between the back of the seat and the backrest. The height is also adjustable, and I can make it high enough to fit me.

Some people complain that the woven and padded seat retains heat and isn’t comfortable on hot days. I used the chair during the summer and didn’t notice heat problems, even when it was 110 °F outside and a little over 80 °F in my office.

Final Thoughts

I don’t like my Steelcase Gesture. For eight months, walking into my home office each morning came with a sinking feeling, knowing I’d have to sit in this chair. I replaced it with an Aeron, and the difference is night and day—I couldn’t be happier with the switch.

I review all the books I read, here is a selection of my favorites that I read in 2023:

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Blindsight does a great job of exploring the nature of consciousness and intelligence. Watts keeps the tension high and the plot moving quickly in this thought-provoking sci-fi novel. My favorite book of the year!

• 
  Blindsight by Peter Watts

  ★★★★★

  Blindsight is a hard sci-fi novel about first contact with aliens in the near future. A crew of four transhumans and a vampire are sent on a spaceship to investigate an anomaly in the solar system after a swarm of alien probes scan Earth.

The Chronicle of the Fallers by Peter F. Hamilton

Hamilton is known for his space opera, but The Abyss Beyond Dreams is more urban fantasy set during the Russian Revolution (in space) and Night Without Stars is a thriller set during the Cold War (again, in space). Both feature Commonwealth citizens with special knowledge as “Outside Context Problems”, pulling the stories into science fiction territory.

• 
  The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton

  ★★★☆☆

  The Abyss Beyond Dreams starts off The Chronicle of the Fallers, another series in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth universe. Though billed as space opera, it often reads more as urban fantasy since most of the story occurs on the planet Bienvenido inside the Void where steam engines are their most advanced technology.

• 
  Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton

  ★★★☆☆

  Night Without Stars is the second book in The Chronicle of the Fallers. It is action packed, with great pacing, and complex characters. It is my new favorite Peter F. Hamilton book.

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

I enjoyed the sequel to Hyperion the most of the two books because it tied the personal story of the pilgrims to a much broader galactic conflict. Interestingly, you can see a lot of ideas in the Hyperion Cantos that Hamilton later adopted in his Commonwealth Saga including wormholes, a breakaway-but-helpful AI, and different factions of scheming AI who either want to eradicate the humans or uplift them.

• 
  The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

  ★★★★★

  The Fall of Hyperion is a sequel that outshines its predecessor. It is everything I was expecting from Hyperion and more! A true masterpiece.

The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton

Epic space opera with a massive cast of characters and incredible pacing.

• 
  Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton

  ★★★★☆

  I couldn’t put Pandora’s Star down! It is a sci-fi book that reads more like a thriller. There were always new mysteries that just a few more pages promised the answers to.

• 
  Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton

  ★★★★☆

  The sequel to Pandora’s Star, Judas Unchained continues right where the last one left off, but with the action ramped up to 11. The various storylines and loose threads come together one by one until it’s the good guys racing against the bad guys for the fate of the universe.

Serpent Valley by Scott Warren

1980s mech sci-fi re-imagined for the 21st century. Warren’s self-published series takes a few books to really find its feet, but once it does, it’s a quick, fun, nostalgic read. The third book, Serpent Valley, exemplifies the series.

• 
  Serpent Valley by Scott Warren

  ★★★★☆

  Serpent Valley, the third book in the War Horses series, is another quick, action-packed read—but without the flaws holding back its predecessors. Easily my favorite of the series so far!

This is straightforward when the officer writes FORD or HONDA, which they mostly do. But since the officer can write anything, they occasionally make it a little harder on us by abbreviating or mistyping, for example VOLX and DODDGE. And sometimes they make it impossible by writing -- or ______.

The solution is to go through, one by one, and create a mapping like:

# Enumeration of common vehicle makes
@unique
class Make(Enum):
  CHEVROLET  = "chevrolet"
  GMC        = "gmc"
  HINO       = "hino"
  INFINITI   = "infiniti"
  MITSUBISHI = "mitsubishi"
  # Special Token for unknown make
  NONE       = None

# Dictionary mapping raw values to Make enum
make_map = {
  "CHEVRLT":  Make.CHEVROLET,
  "HINO/":    Make.HINO,
  "INFINITY": Make.INFINITI,
  "MITSUB":   Make.MITSUBISHI,
  "TAHOE":    Make.GMC,
  "UKNOWN":   Make.NONE,
}

As someone who did this mapping by hand for over 900 entries, it is quite tedious. Fortunately, making sense of mangled text is something Large Language Models (LLMs) are pretty good at!

Automating

The goal is to perform few-shot, multi-label classification of vehicle makes. Few-shot because we are going to give the model just a handful of examples of what output we expect, and multi-label because there are many possible vehicle makes it will have to map to.

Prompting

The first step is to write a prompt explaining the task to the model, the expected return value, and a few examples of input and correct outputs. Here is a shortened version, the full one is here, starting with the instructions:

Then the output format, with instructions to include an explanation of its logic first, which can help model accuracy:

And finally some examples of inputs and correct outputs:

Answers

Since I was manually copying the prompt into the model’s web interface, I used batches of 100–200 string sorted alphabetically. With API access, I could have used retrieval-augmented generation to create custom examples for each string while sending them one at a time.

Splitting the data into batches helped the model figure out very short entries. For example, the model failed when given WNBG (Winnebago) by itself, but succeeded when I gave it the list:

WINN
WINNE
WINNEBAG
WINNEBAGO
WINNI
WNBG
WNBGO

I believe seeing multiple short versions next to each other helped the model infer the right mapping.

Performance

I obtained the following performance on my 902 hand-mapped entries:

• The model correctly fixed 2 entries that I had gotten wrong.

• It matched 682 (75.6%) of my hand-labeled mappings.

• It missed 218 (24.1%) of the mappings, frequently using made-up enum values.

This is reasonably good performance, as finding wrong entries is pretty quick (and many could be fixed with find and replace).

We’ve now put 1850 miles on the bike, mostly taking the kids to local parks. After all the time spent with it, would we recommend it to another family?

In short: we love the utility an electric cargo bike offers, and I think we will always have one in the garage to supplement our minivan, but the RadWagon has some significant drawbacks that make recommending it difficult. Read on for the full review.

The Bike

We ordered the Rad Wagon from the Rad’s website for $1500. With a “caboose” enclosure and pads for the kids adding $250, plus tax, our total was $1901—not cheap, but almost a third of comparable cargo bikes which are in the $4000–6000 range.

Assembly and Adjustment

The bike comes in a box and you must assemble it yourself. The assembly was not too hard, but I also have a lot of experience with bikes and bike maintenance which helped.

The seat post and headset are highly adjustable, allowing people of varying heights to ride the RadWagon. Both my wife (5’4”) and I (6’1”) can ride it comfortably, but we’re both near the limits. I have the seat all the way up and she has it all the way down.

Motor

The 750W rear hub motor easily brings the bike to its 20 miles per hour computer-limited top speed. The bike has a throttle, which I love for getting started from a stop, and enough power to carry me, two kids, and some balance bikes up a steep hill. The downside though is the hub motor puts a lot of stress on the rear wheel.

Flaws

A flaw in the design is the rear brake. The RadWagon uses cheap, mechanical disc brakes, which are enough to stop the bike when they’re well aligned, but which need constant attention to keep them that way. The motor blocks the typical through-spoke access for adjusting the rear brake. Instead, Rad makes a special flat Allen wrench that fits between the brake and motor but adjusting remains hard.

A major flaw is the rear spokes. They are stressed by both the motor—which puts all its power through the rear wheel—and the cargo. The spokes were not tight enough from the factory and I broke several in the first 200 miles. I have broken fewer since replacing and retightening, but I still break one periodically, which is annoying for me and likely a dealbreaker for less experienced riders.

Support

I’ve contacted Rad’s support several times—to order spokes and the brake tool, and to replace a faulty accessory. They were generally quick and helpful but I’ve never needed support for other bikes. And the last interaction was terrible: Rad’s front basket was defective, and after I sent them photographic proof, they accused me of being unable to use a screw driver and stopped responding. It was the worst support experience I’ve ever had.

Final Thoughts

The RadWagon was a savior during the pandemic, letting us escape the house and ride when we’d otherwise be trapped inside. It also beats driving kids in a car—hauling them on the back makes getting to the park part of the fun.

But the bike needs constant maintenance that is difficult even for an experienced mechanic, and Rad’s support is not great. I wish I had purchased a higher-quality bike that wouldn’t fail so frequently.