What are you reading right now?

[AnOminous]

Edit: "Imperial currency has crashed hard, cratering with meteoric impact."
I sighed as the elevator began to shake, vibrating with motion. That imperial currency line is a crime, it's a horrible, filthy crime on language and Chuck is a word-terrorist.

This is some Tomlinson-tier shit. A meteor is the "shooting star" of a space rock that enters the atmosphere and burns up. It does NOT hit the ground, and if it does, it's a METEORITE.

 

[sleepermoded]

Just about finished Yarvin's 'An open-letter to open minded progressives', skimmed most of it and found its all mostly summarised succinctly at the end anyway since its a compilation of blog posts. It's alright but was expecting more. the parts I enjoyed was his breakdown of democracy and liberalism being a slow decay and death for a nation. Any more recommendations like that? Ideally ones that don't shy away from the role of race/multiculturalism to the extent he does.

Basically, I would like your best, accessible chud lit recommendations for someone who hasn't done much political reading but would like to understand why the world seems to be going down the path it is

 

[Ged!]

Basically, I would like your best, accessible chud lit recommendations for someone who hasn't done much political reading but would like to understand why the world seems to be going down the path it is

Just read For My Legionaries. It's as funny as it is tragic, and it's not like anything's really changed in the interim anyway.

 

[sleepermoded]

Just read For My Legionaries. It's as funny as it is tragic, and it's not like anything's really changed in the interim anyway.

Synopsis sounds incredibly interesting, glad I asked. Somehow this slipped through my few searches. Imperium by Yockey on the list too.

 

[Angry Mug]

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Monsters made from dead kid's lungs, Mexicans and finger banging.

 

[Hazel Motes]

Just about finished Yarvin's 'An open-letter to open minded progressives', skimmed most of it and found its all mostly summarised succinctly at the end anyway since its a compilation of blog posts. It's alright but was expecting more. the parts I enjoyed was his breakdown of democracy and liberalism being a slow decay and death for a nation. Any more recommendations like that? Ideally ones that don't shy away from the role of race/multiculturalism to the extent he does.

Basically, I would like your best, accessible chud lit recommendations for someone who hasn't done much political reading but would like to understand why the world seems to be going down the path it is

Land's The Dark Enlightenment is alright. However, it, like Yarvin's work, is too modern. Read TS Eliot's After Strange Gods. Far more interesting.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Books with no pictures are like the print equivalent of audiobooks?

 

[RedHeadKiwi]

I'm enjoying short stories by Maugham, especially those about south sea islands.

 

[Commander X]

Been on a pulp fiction kick recently, went through the collection The Phantom Detective: Phantoms in Bronze, published in 2010 by Altus Press (now Steeger Books). The Phantom Detective was the second pulp hero magazine published, after The Shadow and ran for 170 issues, compared to The Shadow's 325 issues and Doc Savage's 181 issues. The Phantom Detective is Richard Curtis Van Loan, who gained a taste for adventure during WWI as a pilot, but gained a reputation as a big-spending, cynical, terminally bored playboy after he got home. He is challenged by his friend Frank Havens, the publisher of the New York Clarion, to solve a case that the police cannot. Van Loan does and discovers that he has a talent for crime fighting. He trains himself in crime detection, disguise, criminal psychology, hand-to-hand combat, and anything else that will help him as less a vigilante and more of a freelance detective who with Havens' backing helps out law enforcement whenever he can, keeping his identity as Van Loan secret, which is helped greatly by his skills as a master of disguise. He builds a secret "crime laboratory" that he uses as his headquarters in the war against evil. In the lab he has all the latest equipment and science that can be used against criminals. He also has a special platinum badge, studded with tiny diamonds, he uses to identify himself to law enforcement types and other people.

Some say that The Phantom is a "meh" series but I haven't read a reprint story yet that failed to hook me. One prolific pulpster who contributed to the series under the house names was Laurence Donovan, who wrote nine Doc Savage novels, and thus we have the reason behind this collection's title, featuring four of his most "Doc Savage" esque Phantom stories, which often took the lead character and his allies away from New York City. The usual roster of allies being Havens, Havens' daughter Muriel who didn't suspect that Van Loan was The Phantom, pugnacious Clarion reporter Steve Huston, and the Phantom's young protege Chip Dorlan.

The Thousand Islands Murders - in the Thousand Islands area on the US-Canada border, one island, named Smith Island has become a sort of refuge for various men who have taken on aliases that end with "Smith". Some are men obviously on the run, and other seem to just want a refuge from society. The search for the missing uncle of one of Muriel Havens' high society friends brings the Phantom Detective and friends there, where they find some of the Smiths are part of a complex scheme involving grand-scale blackmail...and murder.

Death Over Puget Sound - near the Olympic Mountains in Washington State, strange fatal "accidents" and a gang of criminals lead by a nearly seven-foot-tall hulk of a man known as the Black Wolf are causing trouble for a big logging camp in the area, and the death of a banker with business interests in the region while climbing a nearby glacier brings the Phantom and crew there.

Murder Moon Over Miami - sport fishing boats have gone missing near a remote, forsaken island some distance off the Florida coast, charmingly known as "Corpse Cay". A gang of criminals are using the island for nefarious purposes, and they're planning something big that involves the wayward godson of the "Iron Judge", a respected jurist known for being harsh but fair. A very thin mystery man from the Florida swamps also figures in to the scheme.

Streamlined Murder - a retired silk tycoon has some serious proof of a criminal scheme he feels must be brought to the Phantom Detective's attention, but he's murdered aboard a Miami-New York passenger train, the Phantom Detective delves into a case that seems to involve members of an interstate criminal operation, the tycoon's grieving but determined daughter, a retired genius chemist who had worked for the tycoon, his own missing daughter, the tycoon's eccentric wheelchair-bound ex-circus acrobat sister and an old Arab circus primate trainer who also lived on the tycoon's estate, along with his various trained apes and orangutans.

 

[bindar dundat]

i tried to read The MANIAC

some fictionalized musings about Von Neumann... it was a damp squib... felt written for "clever" redditors... included a cameo by Feynman and his bongos... mmm memberberries

so instead, now reading The Perfect Heresy... about the Albigensian crusade... so far, s'ok... the author shares an anecdote about seeing French titties within the first 10 pages.

also been skimming a book by Yehudi Menuhin's son, Gerard, called Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Been on a pulp fiction kick recently, went through the collection The Phantom Detective: Phantoms in Bronze, published in 2010 by Altus Press (now Steeger Books). The Phantom Detective was the second pulp hero magazine published, after The Shadow and ran for 170 issues, compared to The Shadow's 325 issues and Doc Savage's 181 issues. The Phantom Detective is Richard Curtis Van Loan, who gained a taste for adventure during WWI as a pilot, but gained a reputation as a big-spending, cynical, terminally bored playboy after he got home. He is challenged by his friend Frank Havens, the publisher of the New York Clarion, to solve a case that the police cannot. Van Loan does and discovers that he has a talent for crime fighting. He trains himself in crime detection, disguise, criminal psychology, hand-to-hand combat, and anything else that will help him as less a vigilante and more of a freelance detective who with Havens' backing helps out law enforcement whenever he can, keeping his identity as Van Loan secret, which is helped greatly by his skills as a master of disguise. He builds a secret "crime laboratory" that he uses as his headquarters in the war against evil. In the lab he has all the latest equipment and science that can be used against criminals. He also has a special platinum badge, studded with tiny diamonds, he uses to identify himself to law enforcement types and other people.

Some say that The Phantom is a "meh" series but I haven't read a reprint story yet that failed to hook me. One prolific pulpster who contributed to the series under the house names was Laurence Donovan, who wrote nine Doc Savage novels, and thus we have the reason behind this collection's title, featuring four of his most "Doc Savage" esque Phantom stories, which often took the lead character and his allies away from New York City. The usual roster of allies being Havens, Havens' daughter Muriel who didn't suspect that Van Loan was The Phantom, pugnacious Clarion reporter Steve Huston, and the Phantom's young protege Chip Dorlan.

The Thousand Islands Murders - in the Thousand Islands area on the US-Canada border, one island, named Smith Island has become a sort of refuge for various men who have taken on aliases that end with "Smith". Some are men obviously on the run, and other seem to just want a refuge from society. The search for the missing uncle of one of Muriel Havens' high society friends brings the Phantom Detective and friends there, where they find some of the Smiths are part of a complex scheme involving grand-scale blackmail...and murder.

Death Over Puget Sound - near the Olympic Mountains in Washington State, strange fatal "accidents" and a gang of criminals lead by a nearly seven-foot-tall hulk of a man known as the Black Wolf are causing trouble for a big logging camp in the area, and the death of a banker with business interests in the region while climbing a nearby glacier brings the Phantom and crew there.

Murder Moon Over Miami - sport fishing boats have gone missing near a remote, forsaken island some distance off the Florida coast, charmingly known as "Corpse Cay". A gang of criminals are using the island for nefarious purposes, and they're planning something big that involves the wayward godson of the "Iron Judge", a respected jurist known for being harsh but fair. A very thin mystery man from the Florida swamps also figures in to the scheme.

Streamlined Murder - a retired silk tycoon has some serious proof of a criminal scheme he feels must be brought to the Phantom Detective's attention, but he's murdered aboard a Miami-New York passenger train, the Phantom Detective delves into a case that seems to involve members of an interstate criminal operation, the tycoon's grieving but determined daughter, a retired genius chemist who had worked for the tycoon, his own missing daughter, the tycoon's eccentric wheelchair-bound ex-circus acrobat sister and an old Arab circus primate trainer who also lived on the tycoon's estate, along with his various trained apes and orangutans.

Phantom Detective's a fun one. It's not as good as the big Street and Smith duo, but it's still pretty good quality for a proto-superhero.

I've been mildly interested in Steeger books but the price points kinda turned me off. I might wind up getting some of those Argosy Books they have that collect shit that's not been preserved on the internet.

If you like pulps, try the old Dr. Satan stuff. It's all collected by wildside press on a cheap .99 cent megapack.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

I will be eventually taking the time out of my day to read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s books and J.D. Vance‘s “Hillbilly Elegy”, since every four years we now have to pay attention to the fact that America has an election cycle every four years.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed James Blish that I'm contemplating picking up the NESFA set of short fiction sometime after Christmas. Surface Tension is just such a fun time.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I'll tell you what I just finished. They go together. Cult of the Presidency and The Rise of the Warrior Cop.
Both are absolutely depressing.

Cult of the Presidency is about how the US Presidency dangerously overexpanded its authority through the 20th Century. It was written before Obama but I know that the author hates Obama and Trump too. It's one of those civil libertarian, paleo-whatever things where if you're actually consistent about upholding the Constitution and Madisonian principles then it's a lost cause no matter who wins because both sides have done all they can to make the President a king.

The man makes a very good point that as long as that much power is invested in the President (the main gripes are the regulatory state and warmongering by police action) then every single presidential election will be a do-or-die thing, and you will, very soon, get civil war.

The Rise of the Warrior Cop is about police militarization. The author tries to ruin it as fast and hard as he can in the end by going all in on Trump Derangement Syndrome screeching about how the Right-wing was at fault for all those fiery but peaceful protests and they really were peaceful protests and yadda yadda yadda. Up until that point he had been perfectly reasonable. The short pitch is that police basically didn't exist, in any form recognizable today, until the late 1800s and people had extremely strong and extremely traditional civil rights. The Castle Doctrine meant far more than it does today. Then these evil fucks invented the War on Drugs and they invented no knock raids to go with it. He bitches about other corrupt bullshit (qualified immunity, civil forfeiture, and so on) but it really all goes back to no knock raids.

TLDR SWAT was invented to be ape patrol in the 1970s. It almost immediately degenerated into drug war nonsense because SWAT volunteers are pussies, the sort of tough guy bros that put Punisher stickers on their rifles but freak out and shoot little kids if they see them flinch during a raid. Almost ALL of the

My biggest gripe with that one is that the author, common to libertarians, only cares about tyranny. Dumbshit conservatives that worship cops only care about anarchy.

I care about anarcho-tyranny, and the remedy to anarcho-tyranny is vigilantism and self-defense. But this guy pisses himself crying because AR-15 Ken and Karen protected their home (without, remarkably, shooting anyone, go figure).

Still strongly recommend it.


In fiction I'm reading Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemmings. It started a firestorm of controversy due to being, on the surface, a romance novel about a 40-ish year old man and the 14-year-old slave he arguably raped.* But anybody that bitched about it was retarded, because right from the get go it's depressing as hell. The author knows his subject matter very well. (It's also very surreal.) He said that over the course of his research he actually mellowed out in his interpretation of it. Went in expecting to have a more negative view on it. But what I've gotten so far has been some moving (but very sad) writing from Hemmings' perspective and a depiction of Jefferson that comes across as both sympathetic and pitiable.

Jefferson deeply loved his wife, and Hemmings was her half-sister and a quadroon, so looked very much like a young but exotic version of her. He moved in on Hemmings after his wife died when they were both in Paris. Jefferson had what I consider the best vision for the country, but he was a monstrously selfish person. The only Founding Father that actually freed his slaves - on his deathbed, when it no longer cost him anything - was Washington, but Washington was also the only one of that bunch that was actually prosperous either. Madison and Jefferson were both financial failures and they liquidated their assets, which meant mass auction on their death, which meant that for over a hundred people each it was the worst day of their lives as their worlds were broken up.

I don't blame any of those men for having kept slaves when they were born into that life. Most of us cannot even be bothered to not buy products made by slaves today, like chocolates and Chinese baubles, that leave blood on our hands. They were born into that world, it would tick on without them, and they did try to do something about it.

But what disturbs my own conscience is that Jefferson lived a very profligate life. He spent like a madman building up a wine cellar of some 20,000 bottles and drank like an alcoholic (though not necessarily any worse than other Americans of the day). He bought books so fast he could not read but a fraction of them. He spent huge sums on scientific projects of his own. He only freed Hemmings and her children due to having to plead with her (which indicates a very unhappy relationship)* and he lived, later in life, with a deepening fear and ultimately loathing of his slaves, who he called "servants" (as if that would spare them from the auction block). He comes across as having been a deeply, deeply selfish and emotionally isolated man. He had many friends but was very shy and he never spoke to/of his mother, at all, and his father died when he was a teenager. Combine with him having been a genuine genius and I suspect there was a bitter coldness inside of him that he kept concealed.

There was one passage of it that reminded me much of a nightmare, very effecting, that I had once.


*Common sense would say that among master-slave relationships some would have been cases of pure rape, some mutual affection, some even initiated by real Jezebels. Somehow we're supposed to buy that no slave woman would have ever done that (because it's a "Jezebel stereotype") even though women do that all the time in the real world today (seduce their bosses to get power/privileges). But in all cases it's clear that the whole business is tainted by the understanding that it is a bad idea, regardless of what the master is like, to refuse him.

You add to this a man advancing on a girl a third his age and it's obvious that it's fucked up, not even by the standards of the day is that going to be a happy story.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

started reading Pohl's Gateway this evening. At 7/31 chapters. Damned engaging and, while I know this has probably been done to death in media now, his depiction of Gateway and future Earth and everything to do with it is just well executed and comfy to read. He doesn't linger on the hard science too much, but chooses to focus on the story and the world.

 

[Commander X]

Getting very into a novel, Stardust Trail, by J.R. Sanders. It's a good old fashioned hard-boiled detective mystery, and a historical Hollywood mystery - which has been done before but only a few authors have really pulled it off, like Stuart Kaminsky's series about Hollywood PI Toby Peters.

In Los Angeles of 1938, private investigator Nate Ross is leery of taking on cases involving Hollywood and the industry.

As a rule, I avoided all dealings with movie studios. I preferred more reputable business, like pool halls and whorehouses.

However a client's a client and he's hired by Republic Pictures, the biggest of the "minor" studios, to track down screenwriter David Prince, who has been missing a couple of weeks. His absence is holding up production of the studio's biggest Western production yet, one they have invested serious money on. It's not the first time the author has vanished, and it looks like it'll be as simple as tracking down a rummy on another one of his benders. However, it turns out not to be easy. The case takes him to locales like Vasquez Rocks, Fat Jones’ Stables, suppliers of horses and horse wranglers to Hollywood for decades, various movie ranches, and Gower Gulch, where B-Western actors and riding extras hope to pick up a day’s work. It appears someone is attempting to sabotage the film, and it may be connected to an unsolved crime of the Old West that occurred 45 years previously.

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

Finished reading The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi. Set in a near-future American southwest where more or less permanent drought has killed off any city that can't secure a water supply. Follows three characters, the titular water knife who basically functions as a fixer/assassin for his employer, a Texas refugee girl who made it as far as Phoenix, and a journalist who is chronicling Phoenix's slow collapse. Pretty decent overall, although it's obvious a book with Important Things To Say About Climate Change. Definitely changes things around in service to the story (no, water rights don't function on a finders keepers basis) and the central mystery is pretty obvious if you're paying attention.

Not bad overall but I wouldn't go out of my way to pick it up.

Ending was hilarious though. Total journo death.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

finished the SF Hall of Fame (Vol 1)

now, I guess I'll finish Dangerous Visions for my next SF Anthology before I head to the SF Hall of Fame 2-A and 2-B ones with Novellas.

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

Just finished the "Early Chinese empires: Qin and Han" and "Soldiers Live" by Glen Cook in his Black company books.
The Chinese history book is a interesting one and is well written, going into societal organization, laws, literature, social dynamics, philosophy and all of that, but purposefully avoiding political and military history, making this book at most a supplementary work. A solid work if you already know some Chinese history.
As for Soldiers live, it's good. It felt rushed and I'm just a bit miffed with the direction the series itself took, but it's a solid writeup touching on the isolation Croaker felt being 2 generations older than anyone.
And I've just started Solaris (absolutely loving it, excellent, evoking existentialism and cosmic horror, while being very well written and evoking legitimate unease, Lem is a very intelligent and creative person) and Medieval Russia 980-1584 (I'm not sure what to make of it yet and I might be disappointed and drop the book halfway into it if it fails to make itself either very readable or a good overview as I've gotten my share of hard to read Russian history with Soloviev).

 

[ThatBloodyTower]

Finished reading “We’ve Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson. A good realistic fiction horror. Kind of got how old the main character “Merricat” was twisted because of the cover and her sibling “Constance” seemed to read more younger to me. To me Merricat especially in the beginning is over protective Contsance and the fact it’s Merricat going into town and not Contstance. I only really switched around the two after some further reading and watching a bit of the trailer for the film version of it. The book does a good job setting up the very nasty spiteful relationship the Blackthorns (or whatever is left of them) and the town against each other which made me wonder if she was a psychopath or town is just as resentful and vile as she makes them out to be.

But after that first chapter, the book becomes way focused character wise on the family than the town. Had a good bittersweet (emphasis on the bitter) ending.

And can anyone link me to a post guide, I’ve been trying to make a spoiler thing and it won’t work for me, might have something to do with me being mobile but will figure it out later.

Edit: here’s the cover that gave the me impression Merricat was the older one being controlling behind who I thought was Constance.