What are you reading right now?

Recent bulk purchase, new and used. Just finished The Exorcist, now on Legion. 2024 and possibly early 2025 (at least) appears pretty well taken care of.
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Journey to the West.

It's about a magical kung fu monkey who is born from a stone and becomes the king of a bunch of other monkeys. He gets so strong that all of Buddhist heaven takes notice of him. One of the deities in heaven convinces all the other deities that it would be a good idea to diversify heaven by letting him in and giving him a job. So the make him the Keeper of the Horses but he's like "Nah this is gay." So they let him tend to an orchid filled with magical peaches that will make you immortal if you eat one. He steals and eats them all. Then he figures he's already going to be in trouble so he commits more crimes by breaking into a pharmacy filled with immortality pills and doing all the drugs. By now he's so powerful that all the other deities who want to fight him and punish him can't and he knows this. He attempts to overthrow all of heaven so Buddha has to come in with the power of his magical swastikas and trap him under a mountain where he has to wait for five hundred years until a monk sets off on a journey to India to retrieve a bunch of scrolls. Along the way they meet a dragon that turns into a horse, a rapist pig, an ogre who drowns monks in a river and eats them, and a shitload of demons who either want to eat the monk and gain immortality or rape him because they're horny.

If you ever read it, get the abridged version. The original version is a hundred chapters long and a lot of it is poetry.
 
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GamerGateSurvivor said:
Journey to the West.

It's about a magical kung fu monkey who is born from a stone and becomes the king of a bunch of other monkeys. He gets so strong that all of Buddhist heaven takes notice of him. One of the deities in heaven convinces all the other deities that it would be a good idea to diversify heaven by letting him in and giving him a job. So the make him the Keeper of the Horses but he's like "Nah this is gay." So they let him tend to an orchid filled with magical peaches that will make you immortal if you eat one. He steals and eats them all. Then he figures he's already going to be in trouble so he commits more crimes by breaking into a pharmacy filled with immortality pills and doing all the drugs. By now he's so powerful that all the other deities who want to fight him and punish him can't and he knows this. He attempts to overthrow all of heaven so Buddha has to come in with the power of his magical swastikas and trap him under a mountain where he has to wait for five hundred years until a monk sets off on a journey to India to retrieve a bunch of scrolls. Along the way they meet a dragon that turns into a horse, a rapist pig, an ogre who drowns monks in a river and eats them, and a shitload of demons who either want to eat the monk and gain immortality or rape him because they're horny.

If you ever read it, get the abridged version. The original version is a hundred chapters long and a lot of it is poetry.
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I just ordered it cause I like Dragon ball. Looking forward to Sun Wukong.
 
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Poe Must Die. a re-read of a book I'd read years ago by Marc Olden, set in 1840s New York. It starts in England, where Pierce James Figg, a professional boxer sets off on a trail of vengeance after Jonathan, a demon-worshipping black magician who had ensnared the woman Figg loved in his twisted schemes and rituals. With a letter of introduction written by Charles Dickens, whose children Figg had once saved from street criminals, he heads to New York City to meet with a man who knows the dark underbelly of the city where Jonathan waits and plans, seeking that which will give him ultimate power.

Said man is the writer Edgar Allen Poe, who when Figg first encounters him has little patience for, since he's now a broken man mired in poverty who drowns his sorrows in rotgut gin in an attempt to forget his late wife. He's been further shaken after an old lady friend he still has fond feelings for asks him to help deal with the "resurrection men" who've robbed her late husband's grave and are holding his body for ransom against threats of further defilement. The woman is desperate to get her husband's body back because some people, a circle of spiritualists and such have convinced her a Dr. Paracelsus can bring her husband back to life, and this may have something to do with the mysterious Jonathon and his ambitions.
 
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A book about James Cook's last voyage. Beautifully researched and written. Despite Cook's personality being still a bit of a mystery, as he was always very factual in his notes and rarely shared his feelings, I think the author depicted him well. The book is a bit too apologetic about even covering the topic, and spends an unreasonable amount of time on whatever native testimony could be found (particularly on Omai and his life story). The first few chapters have a lot of interesting details about the time (American War of Independence, viewed from England) and the society in Cook's era. Now I'm reading some speculations about what might have eventually led to Cook's death - the author is suggesting that he was a different man on his final voyage, tired and perhaps even a bit arrogant.
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Just finished Shadow Of The Torturer by Gene Wolfe. Really liked it. The worldbuilding in particular is fantastic. The idea of the moon being covered in trees is such a cool image for some reason. I also really liked how it's hinted at that it takes place in South America. For some reason that really struck me as fun since I can't really think of much fantasy that takes place there. It's a fitting location for fantasy. Only real annoyance was Severian being a poon magnet, found that a bit odd. People fear torturers/carnifex but every woman wants to be tortured by Severian meat mallet. Possible based commentary on hybristophilia?
 
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I still find The Archangel Project series by C. Gockel to have the biggest political shift halfway through. The first three books have the protagonists try to escape a deeply conservative planet and all its flaws, while the last three books have that same conservative planet be the ones working to save the rest of the super liberal planets - who are utterly divorced from reality and ignoring a dangerous alien invasion happening right under their noses.

Additionally, the shift happened somewhere around 2020
 
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Lately I'm re-reading "Eloge de la corruption"(Praise of corruption badly translated) by Marie Laure Susini

"Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate. I affirm that it is the incorruptibles who are dangerous. The honest inquisitors and rigorous purifiers, the virtuous leaders of collective madness, the apostles of health, the organizers of sanitation campaigns and massacres, the eradicators of evil, the assassins out of duty.

Are those around you denouncing the corrupt? Instead, beware of the incorruptible. Instead of giving in to the obsession with tracking down hidden corruption, seek to recognize the totalitarian ideology of the incorruptible. Wouldn’t we also have our witches? our imaginary corruptors? our corrupt people designated in advance?"

After that Necroscope sound cool I'll give it a try :biggrin:
 
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MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
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Damn, was thinking of reading this next, is it reddit? Was kind of in the mood for something angsty and depressing.

Just finished Gibson's Neuromancer, was a lot of fun and had a lot of interesting ideas regarding AI and the blending of humanity and technology Can see how it inspired its own sub-genre. The ending left something to be desired though and I would have liked there to have been a greater payoff, maybe the sequels get more into the omniscient global rogue AI aspect but I can't be fucked reading them. Got what I needed. Fast paced and I like how it was able to keep the tension while jumping through different modes of being (Reality, sim-stim spectator and cyberspace).

Might read 'A little life' next or 'Storm of Steel' since I already bought them.
 
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Agares said:
Blindsight. I'm really enjoying the near future existential horror in it. The author's prediction of a digital afterlife and a lot of people not giving a fuck about our real world anymore seems disturbing but realistic.
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I haven’t read a Peter Watts novel I didn’t like. His scientific background shines through, everything is coached in a rational light, even the psionics.
 
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sleepermoded said:
Which would you recommend for someone who hasn't ready any Peter Watts?
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He provides a bunch of short stories for free under Creative Commons on his website that you can quickly read in a few minutes. These are pretty good. The Island is a pretty good slice of the sort of thing he writes, deep and thick with thought given to the long term consequences of technology and scientific progress.
 
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GamerGateSurvivor said:
Journey to the West.

It's about a magical kung fu monkey who is born from a stone and becomes the king of a bunch of other monkeys. He gets so strong that all of Buddhist heaven takes notice of him. One of the deities in heaven convinces all the other deities that it would be a good idea to diversify heaven by letting him in and giving him a job. So the make him the Keeper of the Horses but he's like "Nah this is gay." So they let him tend to an orchid filled with magical peaches that will make you immortal if you eat one. He steals and eats them all. Then he figures he's already going to be in trouble so he commits more crimes by breaking into a pharmacy filled with immortality pills and doing all the drugs. By now he's so powerful that all the other deities who want to fight him and punish him can't and he knows this. He attempts to overthrow all of heaven so Buddha has to come in with the power of his magical swastikas and trap him under a mountain where he has to wait for five hundred years until a monk sets off on a journey to India to retrieve a bunch of scrolls. Along the way they meet a dragon that turns into a horse, a rapist pig, an ogre who drowns monks in a river and eats them, and a shitload of demons who either want to eat the monk and gain immortality or rape him because they're horny.

If you ever read it, get the abridged version. The original version is a hundred chapters long and a lot of it is poetry.
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Chinese literature has two premises

>rock becomes a monkey and does drugs and obtains immortality and it’s a great and wonderful time

>rock becomes a noble boy and watches his wonderful life slowly turn to ash and rot until the rock gets bored and sad and becomes a rock again

What is it with China starting books with the equivalent of

>be me.
>rock


Also I just read wuthering heights. I cannot wait to add “Moral Teething” to my list of unhinged traffic rants. It’s kind of sad all the classic lit I read in highschool was always the gayest shit imaginable while other kids got that banger. (Heathcliff did nothing wrong, Total Nelly Death)
 
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