What are you reading right now?

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

People appreciating the Dune series makes me very happy. The fourth builds on the first three and is potentially my favorite book ever. The fifth and sixth keep it up. Such a good series, and one of the few that I re-read periodically.

I'm halfway through Forever Peace, the spiritual successor to Forever War. It's fantastically written and pretty brutal in a number of parts. The title is cynical. It has a very DS9-esque vibe to it with regards to the pitfalls of a "utopic" society where everything is provided for. And it's about a drawn-out war. Highly recommended, along with the first.

[Kaharz]

I'll have to retry the Dune books. I loved Dune, but hated Messiah, so I stopped there.

My copy of The Count of Monte Christo got destroyed by a water spill in my car, so I've been reading a collection of all of Bradbury's short fiction. I only found the first volume at a used bookstore, so I'm hoping the second is still in print or easily obtainable used.

[Apocalyptus]

Hmm, I'd heard that only the first three Dune books are good. I should read beyond the first one one of these days.

[Felstaff]

I am reading A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. It is delightful.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

Is it in Ukrainian?

I finished Forever Peace. It was pretty gripping the whole time. Not much of a denouement. The way the book is written is really interesting - every other chapter switches between first- and third-person which mimics a major element of the story. It's almost like a cross between 1984 and Brave New World, or maybe 1984 from the perspective of one of the soldiers in the unending war. Definitely recommended if you don't mind some gruesome killing*. While it wasn't a direct sequel to The Forever War and is set much closer in the future, Haldeman did write an actual sequel which I plan on reading after The Raw Shark Texts.

*not that much

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

If the title The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit doesn't get your good book senses tingling, you've got another thing coming! I can't think Ed enough for recommending it.

Let's start off on page 17, still early days:

I was nearly sick with fright as his face loomed above me, satanic with shadows. I closed my eyes and felt is breath upon me. I expected a vast vampiric drain on my lungs, pain of some kind. I felt his lips, dry and firm, touch my own. His tongue like a thread of fire touched my teeth. He called it a sharing of breath. My arms curled around his back, which was hardened with stress and muscle. He called it a sharing of breath. Where I came from, we called it a kiss.

This is a 15 year old boy getting to know his 20-something lover, Cal.

In this book, they take effeminate young men and turn them into "Wraeththu", a sort of hermaphroditic trans-human species. Only guys can do this though. The only real change is in the genitalia, as our narrator ('Pellaz') discovers here:

There was no damage, no scars. Just this exquisite instrument of magic and pleasure. Not changed too much, just redesigned. An orchid on a feathered, velvet shaft. It is something like that. When I touched it, it opened up like a flower, something moved in the heart of it, but I had seen enough for now.

Then they have sex, or pardon, "aruna":

There is no coupling in eternity that can rival aruna. After a while we did not talk again; there was no need. Thoughts transferred between us like kissed. It was like dreaming and being in someone else's dream all at the same time. a star of pain inside me shot out light like a comet. It was a signal. His face was serious, but he did not speak, just culminated our foreplay by laying me back gently on the pillows. I was in agony, but for a while he did nothing, almost afraid. Feverishly, I reached for him, calling his name. End this torment. Dark flower. Touch. The star of pain fizzled wildly and went out. Tides of another ocean washed me delirious. Inside me, deep inside me, a nerve, a second heart, throbbed, itched, desperate to be stilled. Something snaked out from the heart of the flower and licked it like a bee's tongue. The head of liquid fire engulfed us, sizzling out sweat and I cried out. Aruna. Ecstasy that can kill. / We recovered and Cal said, 'Be Ouana for me, Pell,' shining, lazy, passive. We blazed again, and I bloomed within him.

At "Dark flower" I wanted to punch Ed in the face. I even drew a picture for you guys.


The rest of the book is him travelling around and having(?) aruna. Doing aruna? Making aruna?

He came to me and his heat was just Har, nothing more. I cried out once, but not with pain. His eyes never left my own; he wanted to read everything there. When the moment came, it shocked me like electricity, switching on, opening up to a greater current. His flame hair crackled with static dust and I could see his face, so vulnerable in ecstasy. A god trapped in the anemone folds of aquatic soume. I could control him and make him writhe, and I did.

Great.

[Edminster]

this is a book that spawned an eight book series, with a further handful of books set in the same universe by other authors, and is being adapted into a television show by some dude named brad carpenter. also, there was an official pen-and-paper roleplaying game about it. here's the cover, with fully erect wraeththu genitalia quietly in the background.

http://i.imgur.com/ORaG0U6.jpg

[Kaharz]

Storm Constantine. What a great pen name. I thought it might be Poppy Z Brite.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

She's a magician, so it's pretty fitting name.

[Kaharz]

If only John Constantine was real, maybe he could befriend her and then inevitably get her killed.

I just finished Long Mars, the third it what is apparently now a five book series by Pratchett and Baxter. I liked it more than the second and less than the first, but those are small margins. It seems to be going in a very transhumanist direction and reminds me a lot of Schismatrix by Sterling and the Mars trilogy by Robinson, although less boring than the deep politics Robinson gets into. It is a huge departure from anything I've ever read involving Pratchett except Nation. It is nice to see him working outside satire. I haven't read Baxter, but I'm probably going to now even if it is just to see of I can pick up on the differences between the two.

[Lethal Interjection]

Has anyone read any of the Discworld series? Giving some consideration to starting it somewhere when I'm done the Dune series. That or American Gods. Either way, I need something to read in January, especially for the road-trip/cruise in January.

[Apocalyptus]

Yeah I've read a fair few of the Discworld series, highly recommended if you like silly humour and subverting of fantasy tropes.

Edit: But you should probably read American Gods as well.

[Lethal Interjection]

Yeah I've read a fair few of the Discworld series, highly recommended if you like silly humour and subverting of fantasy tropes.

Edit: But you should probably read American Gods as well.

Any suggestions as to where I should start with Discworld? There is so much it is a bit daunting to figure out where to begin.

[GUTCHUCKER]

Guards! Guards! or The Colour of Magic, I think.

[DevoiD]

Altered Carbon