What are you reading right now?

Recently finished another reading of the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, unfortunately sharing its name with Linkara’s horrible web comic. I've half a mind to start reading it again, if only because a few of the different fantasy series I’ve tried to start just don’t seem to have the same depth of intrigue. I have stumbled upon the Covanant of Steel (Anthony Ryan), and it’s been a very pleasing read as well.
 
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Recently finished another reading of the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, unfortunately sharing its name with Linkara’s horrible web comic. I've half a mind to start reading it again, if only because a few of the different fantasy series I’ve tried to start just don’t seem to have the same depth of intrigue. I have stumbled upon the Covanant of Steel (Anthony Ryan), and it’s been a very pleasing read as well.
I wanna give it a re-read, but the ending really salts me right on up. Brent Weeks writes some really good stuff, but is completely incapable of ending things in a satisfying way. I don't think anything will make me more upset than the ending of the Night Angel trilogy.

Lightbringer is on my list for a reread, gonna go thru it with a friend when he decides to finally pick it up.

Best magic system of all time though. And the 2nd chapter with Gavin and his flying boat really sold me on the whole series.
 
I wanna give it a re-read, but the ending really salts me right on up. Brent Weeks writes some really good stuff, but is completely incapable of ending things in a satisfying way. I don't think anything will make me more upset than the ending of the Night Angel trilogy.

Lightbringer is on my list for a reread, gonna go thru it with a friend when he decides to finally pick it up.

Best magic system of all time though. And the 2nd chapter with Gavin and his flying boat really sold me on the whole series.
Believe it or not, but I actually think the ending of Lightbringer was really solid, especially once I realized Weeks was going all in on the religion being real in universe. I may be a little biased, my perspective on my own faith and how the struggles I’ve felt in it were largely reflected in the perspectives written in the later books of the series. Doesn’t help that my main frame of reference on fantasy of the same scale was reading snippets of the Magic the Gathering Brother’s War novelizations. I read the night angle trilogy in the middle of reading the Lightbringer, and I ended up hating that trilogy, so I don’t blame you on your distaste in how Weeks ends his works. We can only hope he writes another series and that it has a more fitting ending.
 
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Samuel Delany - Dhalgren.
I like post-apo media and I heard good things about this book. Unfortunately, I was caught offguard with gay sex at the very beginning. Wiki'd the author and of course he's a fag (who used to be married to a woman and has a child. the derangement is beyond me). I've grown to be allergic to gayness recently, so I hope there isn't more of that in the book.
 
I didn’t really enjoy the foundation books that much. I think Asimov is at his best in the short stories to Novella range. Try some of his short works - you can find most of them free online or for pennies in the anthologies.
I need some inspiration so will trawl back a few pages and see if anything tickles my fancy
I started Foundation this year, but haven't really gotten into it. I think you guys are right about it showcasing his weaknesses. For Asimov, I enjoyed The End of Eternity and his multivac short stories. But generally I prefer Arthur C Clarke out of the old scifi writers. I'd like to read Asimov's books on physics and other subjects sometime though.
I'm 53 chapters into Moby Dick now.

The pace has picked up. We got some whaling action. Read a really good chapter today about how whalers relate to all the other sorts of sailors, and how whalers are just always somehow on the bottom of the sailor social hierarchy. Even pirates feel superior to whalers, which is pretty funny.
I just finished moby dick, and I really enjoyed it. It's probably a future re-read. I was surprised how action packed it was, and the prose was just superb.
I didn't personally mind the whale sperging chapters. I found it to be that charming kind of autism when the autist gets really into their special interest, and just enjoyed the ride. I think the most boring part for me was about 3/4 of the book until the final showdown. It just seemed like not much was happening. But it was ultimately worth it, imo.

I'm on a "read the classics" streak atm. Finished Swann's Way and Moby Dick, started Pride and Prejudice but decided it's not for me, and started Don Quixote, which is promising, but I'm not sure I'm up for all 1200 pages of it. Also reading the Brothers Karamazov which is pretty enjoyable but long.
 
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Believe it or not, but I actually think the ending of Lightbringer was really solid
Yea, I can see this perspective. I was really surprised when he made the religion real and Orlaham actually EXISTS
But I felt the delivery (literal black luxin delivery of Gavin) of the final moments jumped the shark SUPER fuckin hard.

Weeks has a tendency to have really fantastic ideas, but fails to deliver on them properly. I should really give it a re-read so I can articulate my qualms better.
 
I started Foundation this year, but haven't really gotten into it. I think you guys are right about it showcasing his weaknesses. For Asimov, I enjoyed The End of Eternity and his multivac short stories. But generally I prefer Arthur C Clarke out of the old scifi writers. I'd like to read Asimov's books on physics and other subjects sometime though.

I just finished moby dick, and I really enjoyed it. It's probably a future re-read. I was surprised how action packed it was, and the prose was just superb.
I didn't personally mind the whale sperging chapters. I found it to be that charming kind of autism when the autist gets really into their special interest, and just enjoyed the ride. I think the most boring part for me was about 3/4 of the book until the final showdown. It just seemed like not much was happening. But it was ultimately worth it, imo.

I'm on a "read the classics" streak atm. Finished Swann's Way and Moby Dick, started Pride and Prejudice but decided it's not for me, and started Don Quixote, which is promising, but I'm not sure I'm up for all 1200 pages of it. Also reading the Brothers Karamazov which is pretty enjoyable but long.

I'm on chapter 99 now. Getting close to the end.
 
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I started Foundation this year, but haven't really gotten into it. I think you guys are right about it showcasing his weaknesses. For Asimov, I enjoyed The End of Eternity and his multivac short stories. But generally I prefer Arthur C Clarke out of the old scifi writers. I'd like to read Asimov's books on physics and other subjects sometime though.

I just finished moby dick, and I really enjoyed it. It's probably a future re-read. I was surprised how action packed it was, and the prose was just superb.
I didn't personally mind the whale sperging chapters. I found it to be that charming kind of autism when the autist gets really into their special interest, and just enjoyed the ride. I think the most boring part for me was about 3/4 of the book until the final showdown. It just seemed like not much was happening. But it was ultimately worth it, imo.

I'm on a "read the classics" streak atm. Finished Swann's Way and Moby Dick, started Pride and Prejudice but decided it's not for me, and started Don Quixote, which is promising, but I'm not sure I'm up for all 1200 pages of it. Also reading the Brothers Karamazov which is pretty enjoyable but long.
If you're trying to read the classics and liked the spergery in Moby Dick, I recommend Les Miserables.
 
Samuel Delany - Dhalgren.
I like post-apo media and I heard good things about this book. Unfortunately, I was caught offguard with gay sex at the very beginning. Wiki'd the author and of course he's a fag (who used to be married to a woman and has a child. the derangement is beyond me). I've grown to be allergic to gayness recently, so I hope there isn't more of that in the book.

Delany is a degen, from what I've heard, his early works didn't go into that. I've been told the "cutoff" is his novel, Nova. Everything after that is, apparently going to have degenerate stuff. People tell me that Babel-17 and Einstein Intersection are worth reading, but I'm kinda iffy on that. Dhalgren is considered to be his big one, but it's got weird shit in it.

I started Foundation this year, but haven't really gotten into it. I think you guys are right about it showcasing his weaknesses. For Asimov, I enjoyed The End of Eternity and his multivac short stories. But generally I prefer Arthur C Clarke out of the old scifi writers. I'd like to read Asimov's books on physics and other subjects sometime though.
Asimov hits just right in the novella/short story form. I'll give his other novels a shot. But I think Nightfall is just sweet.

I find Clarke to be similar. But with the caveat that, perhaps Childhood's End> Rendezvous with Rama solely because I didn't like the hyper-fixation on hard SF detail in the latter.

Of the golden age SF writers, I'm a Clifford D. Simak fan all the way. Let's go Jenkins!
I just finished moby dick, and I really enjoyed it. It's probably a future re-read. I was surprised how action packed it was, and the prose was just superb.
I didn't personally mind the whale sperging chapters. I found it to be that charming kind of autism when the autist gets really into their special interest, and just enjoyed the ride. I think the most boring part for me was about 3/4 of the book until the final showdown. It just seemed like not much was happening. But it was ultimately worth it, imo.

I'm on a "read the classics" streak atm. Finished Swann's Way and Moby Dick, started Pride and Prejudice but decided it's not for me, and started Don Quixote, which is promising, but I'm not sure I'm up for all 1200 pages of it. Also reading the Brothers Karamazov which is pretty enjoyable but long.

If you're going through the big fat "classics", you gotta hit up Dune and LoTR.
 
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The Egyptian Campaigns (1900) by Charles Royle

Covers the demise of Ismail Pasha thanks to his spending money like a drunken sailor, the rise of the national movement, the overthrow of Arabi by the Br*t*sh, the reform of Egypt under their rule, and the rise, rule, and defeat of the Mahdists in Sudan. Next up will be England in Egypt (1892) by Lord Milner
 
Delany is a degen, from what I've heard, his early works didn't go into that. I've been told the "cutoff" is his novel, Nova. Everything after that is, apparently going to have degenerate stuff. People tell me that Babel-17 and Einstein Intersection are worth reading, but I'm kinda iffy on that. Dhalgren is considered to be his big one, but it's got weird shit in it.
I honestly don't get how someone would think that the reader would want to read about gay sex in a book that isn't specifically about that. It's disgusting.
I was watching a movie called In A Glass Cage recently and there's a scene that made me drop it about 30 minutes in. It involves a gay guy masturbating as a form of... revenge on a gay Nazi scientist who tortured him during WWII. So in this case there's gayness and Nazi war crimes, both in one neat package 👏
 
I honestly don't get how someone would think that the reader would want to read about gay sex in a book that isn't specifically about that. It's disgusting.
I was watching a movie called In A Glass Cage recently and there's a scene that made me drop it about 30 minutes in. It involves a gay guy masturbating as a form of... revenge on a gay Nazi scientist who tortured him during WWII. So in this case there's gayness and Nazi war crimes, both in one neat package 👏
because, out of all the SF writers of the New Wave, this motherfucker was the biggest degenerate.

To be fair, it's a trick that only works once.
 
Samuel Delany - Dhalgren.
I like post-apo media and I heard good things about this book. Unfortunately, I was caught offguard with gay sex at the very beginning. Wiki'd the author and of course he's a fag (who used to be married to a woman and has a child. the derangement is beyond me). I've grown to be allergic to gayness recently, so I hope there isn't more of that in the book.
That's nothing. He wrote another book about some homosexual rapist who tortures a boy (I think) and makes him eat his shit. Now I have a strong stomach and I read basically anything, but even I cannot be tricked into reading such degenerate filth.
I have stumbled upon the Covanant of Steel (Anthony Ryan), and it’s been a very pleasing read as well.
I've read all of Ryan's novels. Covenant of Steel is definitely his best work since his debut with Blood Song, which was not planned as a trilogy. Penguin picked him up after his success and gave him a book deal. Book 2 and 3 following Blood Song are noticeably worse, and The Draconis Memoria is absolute meme tier. Books about dragons and the dragons don't even do anything, and literally every single chapter ends on a cliffhanger. The Raven's Blade duology is slightly better than the original trilogy but that's not saying much. Covenant of Steel leaves some things to be desired but is overall fine.
 
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Currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo.
One of my favorites, really flows from start to finish. Whenever a goal is accomplished it's incredibly satisfying.


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About half way through The Black Company, just finished the whisper chapter. I really like what they're doing with magic, any book where wizards are insane assholes is okay in my book. Looking forward to see where it goes from here.
 
With Murderbot coming out on AppleTV next month, I'm reading at least some of the Murderbot novellas. I'd read All Systems Red nearly a year ago and enjoyed it, so I started on the next one, Artificial Condition. Much like ASR it's a novella, and thus a quick read. It's a fun book, with Murderbot providing an entertaining perspective on an Aliens-esque spacefuture (Aliensesque in terms of megacorps controlling large volumes of known space, with non-corporate polities existing sort of at the margins). The world itself isn't particularly interesting, but Murderbot and its new acquaintence ART (Asshole Research Transport, the machine intelligence that controls a large ship) are enjoyable in their interactions and observations.

One thing that struck me was the inclusion of a 'nonbinary' character who was a gender identity called 'tercera', with te/ter pronouns. Last year I'd read Alastair Reynolds' Posiedon's Wake trilogy, and there were characters that were given ve/ver prounouns. I find it amusing when SF authors do nonbinary inclusion like this, because it simultaneously says 'yes, nonbinary identities are heckin' valid' and 'no they actually aren't', since none of the current neopronouns end up being in use in the future.
 
One of my favorites, really flows from start to finish. Whenever a goal is accomplished it's incredibly satisfying.


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About half way through The Black Company, just finished the whisper chapter. I really like what they're doing with magic, any book where wizards are insane assholes is okay in my book. Looking forward to see where it goes from here.
the black company is fun, I found the crippled wizard nigga to be horrifying at first and then he got powercrept. The Lady is legitimately kinda terrifying. Hope you have fun, Croaker is a neat lead.
 
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Finished No Longer Human. This is one of those books that gave me that feeling of sadness that I can't read and comprehend it in its original language, because the translation was so moving and engaging--I'm interested in reading the translator Donald Keene's autobiography now. I'm definitely going to read the rest of Dazai's work.
I actually read Junji Ito's manga adaptation first when it first came out in English. Ito took a lot of liberties with the story and while it made for plenty of his typically fantastic art, the book is much better.
 
One thing that struck me was the inclusion of a 'nonbinary' character who was a gender identity called 'tercera', with te/ter pronouns. Last year I'd read Alastair Reynolds' Posiedon's Wake trilogy, and there were characters that were given ve/ver prounouns. I find it amusing when SF authors do nonbinary inclusion like this, because it simultaneously says 'yes, nonbinary identities are heckin' valid' and 'no they actually aren't', since none of the current neopronouns end up being in use in the future.
Once a thing becomes commonly accepted, it’s no longer cool. If neopronouns do end up becoming a lasting form of western cultural expression, the arms race to constantly produce new ones will be a fact.
 
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