ARCHIVE 2024 // RECOVERED RECORD // 2039
Read in 2024. Recovered later.
Thirty-three completed books survive in this file. Fifteen belong to a single long route through The Wheel of Time. Around them: Dune, the Cosmere, the Iron Druid, mythology, political history, classic science fiction and one reading queue already turning toward Pern.
Thirty-three books. Twelve months. One record carried forward through time. What was ordinary reading in 2024 now survives as a glimpse of the stories, warnings, histories and imagined worlds that mattered before 2039.
33 completed records
15 Wheel route stops
41 future entries
22 Pern vectors
26 Human Record titles
RESTRICTED // CULTURAL RECORD
RECOVERED READING FILE
2024
SOL-RL-24 // RECOVERED 2039 // STATUS: UNSEALED
33
Completed
15
Wheel route
41
Future queue
22
Pern vector
RECOVERED WITHOUT REDACTION // READER RECORD 2024 //
ACCESS AUTHORIZED
THE WHEEL OF TIME // FIFTEEN STOPS THROUGH ONE WORLD
Fifteen books. One turning of the Wheel.
From The Eye of the World in January to New Spring in December, one immense story threaded its way through nearly the entire year. Follow the sequence and watch the Wheel turn.
01
The Eye of the World
January 8
02
The Great Hunt
January 31
03
The Dragon Reborn
February 20
04
The Shadow Rising
March 11
05
The Fires of Heaven
March 28
06
Lord of Chaos
April 22
07
A Crown of Swords
May 12
08
The Path of Daggers
May 31
09
Winter’s Heart
July 9
10
Crossroads of Twilight
July 30
11
Knife of Dreams
September 15
12
The Gathering Storm
October 5
13
Towers of Midnight
October 28
14
A Memory of Light
November 21
15
New Spring
December 5
RECOVERED RECORD // BOOKS COMPLETED IN 2024
Thirty-three doors opened. None led to quite the same place.
Fantasy kingdoms, distant futures, old myths, political warnings and impossible questions marked the path through 2024. The record begins with Robert Jordan and ends beneath Neil Gaiman's frost-filled sky.
I
SECTOR I // JANUARY–FEBRUARY
07 RECORDS
THE JOURNEY OPENS
Rise of Empire
The Great Hunt
Dragonsdawn
The Dragon Reborn
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Half the World
II
SECTOR II // MARCH–APRIL
06 RECORDS
THE PATTERN DEEPENS
The Shadow Rising
Stephen Leeds: Death & Faxes
The Fires of Heaven
Blood of Elves
Lord of Chaos
The Expert System’s Champion
III
SECTOR III // MAY–JUNE
07 RECORDS
IRON, FIRE & ANCIENT POWERS
A Crown of Swords
Hounded
The Narrow Road Between Desires
Hexed
Hammered
The Path of Daggers
The Winds of Dune
IV
SECTOR IV // JULY–SEPTEMBER
05 RECORDS
CROSSROADS & HIDDEN WORLDS
Winter’s Heart
The Seven Songs of Merlin
Crossroads of Twilight
Arcanum Unbounded
Knife of Dreams
V
SECTOR V // OCTOBER–DECEMBER
08 RECORDS
MEMORY, TYRANNY & THE LAST QUESTION
The Gathering Storm
Towers of Midnight
A Memory of Light
On Tyranny
New Spring
The Last Question
One More for the Road
Odd and the Frost Giants
UNREAD HORIZONS // WHAT WAITED BEYOND 2024
Dragons were already gathering on the horizon.
Forty-one books waited beyond the final page of December. More than half pointed toward Pern—dragons, Weyrs, Harpers and generations of stories preparing to pull the archive into a very different year.
34
Tricked
Kevin Hearne
35
Dragonseye
Anne McCaffrey
36
Wind and Truth
Brandon Sanderson
37
Dragon’s Kin
Anne McCaffrey & Todd J. McCaffrey
38
Lord of Mountains
S. M. Stirling
39
Dragon’s Fire
Anne McCaffrey & Todd J. McCaffrey
40
Fate of Worlds
Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner
41
Dragon Harper
Anne McCaffrey & Todd J. McCaffrey
42
Prequel
Rachel Maddow
43
Dragonheart
Todd J. McCaffrey
44
The Long Mars
Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
45
Dragongirl
Todd J. McCaffrey
46
The Sandman
Neil Gaiman
47
Dragon’s Time
Anne McCaffrey & Todd J. McCaffrey
48
A Plague Upon Your Family
Mark Tufo
49
The Masterharper of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
50
River of Blue Fire
Tad Williams
51
Runner of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
52
Heir of Novron
Michael J. Sullivan
53
Dragonflight
Anne McCaffrey
54
Half a War
Joe Abercrombie
55
Dragonquest
Anne McCaffrey
56
Lies of the Beholder
Brandon Sanderson
57
Dragonsong
Anne McCaffrey
58
Time and Again
Ray Bradbury
59
Dragonsinger
Anne McCaffrey
60
The Time of Contempt
Andrzej Sapkowski
61
Dragondrums
Anne McCaffrey
62
Sisterhood of Dune
Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
63
The White Dragon
Anne McCaffrey
64
The Harbors of the Sun
Martha Wells
65
The Smallest Dragonboy
Anne McCaffrey
66
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
Martha Wells
67
The Girl Who Heard Dragons
Anne McCaffrey
68
Hearts, Keys and Puppetry
Neil Gaiman
69
The Renegades of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
70
The Fires of Merlin
T. A. Barron
71
All the Weyrs of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
72
The Dolphins of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
73
The Skies of Pern
Anne McCaffrey
74
A Gift of Dragons
Anne McCaffrey
THE HUMAN RECORD // HISTORY / RIGHTS / MEMORY
Not every warning comes from fiction.
Beyond imagined futures are the histories that already happened. These twenty-six books confront race, power, injustice, survival, testimony and the people whose lives refuse to disappear quietly from the record.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Dee Brown
Capital and Ideology
Thomas Piketty
Four Hundred Souls
Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain, editors
Geronimo: His Own Story
Geronimo
Go Set a Watchman
Harper Lee
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Nobody Knows My Name
James Baldwin
Racial Formation in the United States
Michael Omi & Howard Winant
So You Want to Talk About Race
Ijeoma Oluo
Stamped from the Beginning
Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped (for Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You
Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
James Baldwin
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. • edited by Clayborne Carson
The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek
Richard Kluger
The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank
The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin
The Journey of Crazy Horse
Joseph M. Marshall III
The Last of the Mohicans
James Fenimore Cooper
The Life of Black Hawk
Black Hawk
The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Up from Slavery
Booker T. Washington
THE RECORD CONTINUES
One year closes. Another world is already opening.
The final book of 2024 is not the end of the trail. Continue into 2025, watch Sean's book conversations, or explore the larger reading archive.
2025: Here Be Dragons.
The books waiting at the edge of 2024 become the journey itself. Pern rises, dragons multiply, and Sean's reading archive enters its most visually documented year yet.
Enter 2025Sean O'Leary on YouTube
Hear Sean talk about the books, stories and ideas that stayed with him after the final page.
Open YouTubeEnter Dan Tesson
Some futures are imagined for entertainment. Others are warnings. Enter the forbidden world of Dan Tesson and discover what waits in 2039.
Enter the world