What are you reading right now?

[StanleyYelnats]

A Billion Years by Mike Rinder.

My escape from a life in the highest rank’s of Scientology.

 

[WolfeTone]

 

[A Grey Cat]

The Hellbound heart, by Clive Barker. Aka the novella that inspired the original Hellraiser. Before that; The Howling by Gary Bradner, which was later made into the Joe Dante movie in 81.

 

[Commander X]

Southwest Drifter, by Gordon D. Shirreffs. Shirreffs wrote adventure fiction, historical fiction and was one of the most consistently entertaining hardboiled Western authors for many years. In this novel, Wes Yardigan has been out by himself in the Arizona Territory, patiently mining a decent amount of gold from his claim out in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, his camp is raided by Galeres and his band of outlaws and he barely survives; he is left with nothing for all of his hard work. Then some gentlemen offer a proposition from his old friend and partner in adventuring and law-enforcing, Buck Coulter, the chance to find the Lost Killdevil mine worked by one Jesus Melgosa generations before, where he tapped a supposedly deep vein of gold.

Parts of a map have been found, and didn't Esteban Ochoa, the old man who had raised Yardigan after his family was wiped out by Apache raiders, know how to read those old Spanish maps? Didn't he teach Yardigan a thing or two about them? Wasn't Ochoa also related to Melgosa?
Though Yardigan is somewhat reluctant, for the old man went off to find the Lost Killdevil once and never returned, and there's been a pretty high causality rate for those who seek the lost mine. Plus, his old friend Buck, once a legendary figure now in decline, may be a lot more desperate to find the fortune than he lets on.

 

[Harambe]

Right now I'm reading Empire of the Steppe, it's a thousand pages or so of dense history in the stupid Wade-Giles transliteration. So Pan Ch'ao is Ban Chao, and Hsiung-nu is Xiongnu now, BUT
Ban Chao is one of history's baddest motherfuckers as these pages will attest.
You think you're safe? Rebelling against the Son of Heaven? WRONG
This shit's just the first 50 pages, it's 10000% worth reading. This guy's big dick psychopathy utterly cowed the Huns and the man appears to have single-handedly chased them to Europe, where they might be safe from him.

The guy whose go-to diplomatic move is beheading a thousand men is remembered as 'flexible and realistic' in his handling of Central Asia. When I read about this guy I felt like I had a greater understanding of Afghanistan and any country trying to tame the Central Asian devils.
In 102AD, he was 70.
Meaning in 97AD at age 65, he told his guy to go and conquer Rome.
Meaning in 94AD, at age 62, he forded a waist deep river to single-mindedly slaughter thousands to avenge an injury from his youth.
In 88AD, at age 56, with a vastly outnumbered army of questionable loyalty, he feigned retreat, returned, beheaded thousands, and compelled the surrender of the natives with his brutality.

Don't ever let someone tell you you're too old to do something. You're always young enough to be a warlord and accomplish great and heroic deeds.

 

[Buttz McSmellington]

I'm reading Tarzan of the Apes.

Tarzan really enjoys hanging black people.

 

[Titty Figurine]

Exterminator, Burroughs.

How did you like it? Cities of the Red Night has always been my favorite but he's such a weird, wonderfully imaginative guy. I stumbled into those a little early because my dad's taste in novels is eccentric to say the least but it's served me well as time has gone by.

 

[MrGodSlave]

Just finished Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov, going to grab Robots and Dickholes or whatever the next one is.

I, Robot was an interesting anthology that built towards the principle that ai/Robots could advance civilisation beyond our human limits, and sometimes in spite of them. Caves of Steel placed a discontent cop amongst Asimov's futuristic (Dys)utopia that followed from I, Robot. Elijah Bailey is cynical yet decent, good protag. He solves a murder and learns some shit.

Now Naked Sun, Bailey is called to a distant colonised planet named Solaria, sparsely filled with humans yet teeming with advanced robots. The citizenry exists within a carefully eugenic inspired system, children raised by robots and taught to 'View' others through realistic holographic projections. The populace is physically repulsed by the mere notion of 'Seeing' another person in the flesh, yet will present naked in Viewing, such is the distinction.

Anyway, the plot sucked, but for a 1957 novel I found the whole Viewing/Seeing concept very prescient.

Now going to finish Blood Meridian.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Alien in a Small Town

It's a short novel about the unfulfilled love of a rock tentacle monster alien for his pajeet Mennonite best friend in Pennsylvania.

Anabaptism is somewhat more common, it seems, in Alien in a Small Town's world due to Luddite movements becoming more popular in a response to bioengineering and robotics. The rock tentacle aliens are silicon-based lifeforms that colonized Callisto and turned Earth into a protectorate.

The book is sort of an exploration of some themes related to Mennonite/Christian religion and love. I don't know a lot to say about it. The writing isn't amazing but it's serviceable, characterization is very good. Thought is put into how the rock people's culture and general mentality is shaped by their biology.

I did finish this, and the ending is beautiful. I'm actually really impressed with it, it's really good at the type of worldbuilding where you refer to events and things but don't infodump* and its sci-fi setting reflects the values behind the writing, and the character drama is rock solid. I don't really want to post a lot about it, in case somebody here does end up reading it, but basically the tentacle rock monster and pajeeta are like real people, the book has some interesting play with its ideas about the Mennonite ethos and asexual romance, and the science-fiction aspects of it (the way the tentacle monsters culture is driven by their psychology is driven by their biology, but they can still reform through learning from humans) are all good. It's become one of my favorite novels.

10/10 would cry to rock tentacle monster Amish love again




I'm almost done with Flatterland, one of several unofficial sequels to Flatland, and it sucks. Most people, probably humorless TV Tropes/Reddit chuds, hate on it because of the puns, which I don't care about. It sucks because there's no plot and it fails to explain its concepts in any way but clumsy convoluted analogy like a textbook bit. The premise is that 100 years after Flatland, A. Square's great-great-granddaughter comes across his book and ends up making contact with an interdimensional traveler that teaches her everything about everything about new geometry and physics (specific topics it's covered so far: multidimensional Euclidean geometry, hyperbolic geometry, projective geometry, discrete geometry, discrete projective geometries, topology, the concept of an abstract geometry and its relation to group theory, general relativity, some bullshit about Hawking and wormholes).

This is mostly presented as a Phantom Tollbooth/Alice in Wonderland style whimsical world where they encounter entities like "Projective Lions" (projective lines), explore a "Fractal Forest," etc. The original Flatland was a very plain story - basically just the Sphere trying to explain himself to the Square, and then a bit of extra at the end - but in addition to the elegant presentation of the idea of higher dimensions there was a fun science fiction angle to explaining the fine details of how the fuck creatures would see and perform other basic tasks in their world, tied into clever worldbuilding with things like social structures and conventions that were used to satirize Victorian Britain. Even if you don't get any of the satire, it's still entertaining for how batshit crazy it is (like the women being subjugated by their sharp points pose a danger to everything).

I don't understand the geometry. I took a non-Euclidean geometry class in college and was a Mathematics major, so I understand a lot of what it talks about in a dim way - like the idea of turning a donut into a tea kettle through topology is nothing new to me - but anything I didn't get is largely impenetrable. Many reviews say the same thing, it's inaccessible to outsiders. Other than that, it cranks the whimsy up a thousand-fold but loses the wit. I haven't experienced a story or learned anything but a set of topics to write down for later and never look at again.

 

[NoSpiceLife]

I have just started Brave New World.

I swear I read it as a teenager but starting it, I'm now not too sure, weird if I haven't.

What I wasn't aware of though, is that it's a 'trilogy', with the middle book being a work of non-fiction, which were individual articles that Huxley wrote for Newsday, and assembled as a complete work, 30 years after BNW.

From SuperSummary:

Huxley ends the book with a call to reeducate ourselves in the lessons of individual liberty and democracy and instill them in the next generation; without these processes, we will all too easily yield to the power of propaganda and dictatorship. Huxley describes his ideal model for society, which allows human beings to fulfil their individual and social potential as complete persons and to live happy and creative lives.

 

[Meat Target]

Popped my Warhammer 40K cherry and started Horus Rising last week.

 

[Jewthulhu]

Finished the Silmarillion and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love mythologies and it made the elves more interesting than being perfect divine beings. Also managed to strike the sweet spot for me between being a darker, serious story, and not being completely edgy or thinking that shoving sex and gore into a story automatically makes it better.
Will probably purchase and read through "The Children of Hurin" and "Beren and Luthien" sometime as I really enjoyed those sub-stories.

Gonna start on The Iliad next.

 

[Harambe]

Finished the Silmarillion and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love mythologies and it made the elves more interesting than being perfect divine beings. Also managed to strike the sweet spot for me between being a darker, serious story, and not being completely edgy or thinking that shoving sex and gore into a story automatically makes it better.
Will probably purchase and read through "The Children of Hurin" and "Beren and Luthien" sometime as I really enjoyed those sub-stories.

Gonna start on The Iliad next.

What translation will you read?

 

[Overcast]

Decided to revisit my middle school obsession and am reading the Silverwing trilogy by Kenneth Oppel. Finished the first book and looking forward to reading Sunwing. (Which I remember being my favorite.) Hard to believe I haven't read this series in about sixteen years.

A trilogy detailing the journey of a silver haired bat going from being a runt desperately wanting to be the center of attention...

Spoiler

...to becoming a mature and devoted father who literally dives down to Bat Hell to save his son and kills himself to make sure he and his friend get out alive.

I remember not really being into reading prior to starting the first book as part of an assignment. But I found myself hooked from start to finish and desperately wanted not to give away what happens in the end in my book report because I wanted my classmates to read it as well, but my tutor insisted as that was part of the assignment. I then went out of my way to borrow the second and third books from the school library to read on my own time, independent of schoolwork. Something I never thought I would do.

I also recently learned the story was adapted into a stageplay....somehow. I mean, if it was adapted into a cartoon, anything's possible I guess.

Besides that, I've also read Pilgrim's Progress. A book written way back in the 1600's which serves as an allegory for the challenges a Christian has to face when trying to maintain his/her faith and eventually reach Heaven.

 

[Jewthulhu]

What translation will you read?

Robert Fagles' translation. Perhaps I should have looked into it more, but this is the copy I got for Christmas a few years ago so I'm sticking with it.

 

[Andrew Neiman]

Robert Fagles' translation. Perhaps I should have looked into it more, but this is the copy I got for Christmas a few years ago so I'm sticking with it.

Good Christmas gift. Also, Fagles is good. Maybe he's not perfect, but none of them are.

 

[TV's Adam West]

Humper Monkey. Found a physical copy of an old something awful ghost story, edited and formatted. Honestly a good read.

 

[Abbadon's Gate]

I just finished James S.A. Corey's Expanse series about a month ago and haven't decided what I'm moving onto next. I've technically started the Eye of the World several times but it hasn't grabbed me. Still everyone swears by it and I passed on Dune the first time I tried to read it too only to try again a year later and fell in love with it.

 

[SpotOnTheWall]

Just finished Peter the Great by Robert Massie. It was a pretty absorbing look at how batshit Russia was for decades before they even thought about modernizing and the batshit, brutal man who tried to drag Russia kicking and screaming into the modern age. I don't know if I'd call it thrilling, but it was an excellent read on an intriguing figure and place. Now I'm starting his book on Catherine the Great.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Finished reading Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). It was fine. VanderMeer really has a way with words and body horror so there are some very beautiful/very horrifying moments. But his prose is constantly purple and becomes a chore to wade through, and he seems to be mortally terrified of giving us any real answers about what these different characters want or what Area X is apart from some vague hints. I liked the movie significantly more.