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Shining Path
The story of a violent rebellion in a world populated by people who have transformed themselves into anime characters.
Can be read for free here: https://shiningpathbook.com/
Can be read for free here: https://shiningpathbook.com/
Unknown Binding
Published February 28, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 26, 2024
So much potential here, so much the author appears to be interested in. I would have loved it if any one of these strands, characters, etc, had been expanded into a book of its own. I want to know more about seru, about joneko, about the various degrees of AI, and so much more. This book is an appetite-whetter, just tiny tastes of huge and varied world, and that’s fine if there are going to be more books, but if not, I am very unsatisfied.
Quotes that caught my eye
Charlie Soong was a pusher. It was his livelihood to hook as many new customers as possible, and keep them hooked and supplied. Little by little, one fix at a time, he made his fortune, while the heart of the city clogged with junkies and the death and misery around him escalated. The politicians declared War on Drugs, the police cracked down on other pushers, and the military were deployed to stop the import trade. But Charlie stayed in business, and never ran afoul of the Qing Dynasty’s War on Drugs. The war was already lost years before he came along anyway, and they never figured out how dangerous and addictive his product actually was. The Qing politicians were only concerned with the opium that comes from poppies. They hadn’t read Marx. Charlie Soong sold Bibles. (19)
All three filthy humanoids laughed at that, and she huffily turned her back on them, switched her tail, and pretended to be very interested in the advertisements flashing past outside the windows of the subway car. But her ears rotated backward to hear the rest of what they said. Konosuke wished he could turn his in the opposite direction, but he didn’t have the anatomy for it, and he was wedged firmly between two office ladies and couldn’t move away from the conversation without committing a misdemeanour. (24)
There is a story told to humanoid kittens as part of their cultural education. The story is called a fairy tail. Fairies are like mahou shoujo, but imaginary. There are no fairies mentioned in this fairy tail, and fairies do not even have tails, so the story is poorly named. Mew. (197)
The story of the paaido piper would be more instructive if it were more realistic. Nobody wastes perfectly good rats by drowning them in a river. Drowning rats is not easy because they swim. Contractors always negotiate the highest prices they can, but one given the task of destroying rats would not normally expect to also be paid with money. For that matter, taking away the kittens is a strange punishment in itself; kittens are cute, but easily replaceable and seldom in short supply. Maybe there are important parts missing from the story as the humanoids tell it. Maybe the original version of the story teaches a different lesson. (198)
Their marriage resembled a uranium nucleus: likely to split at any moment into fission fragments thrown violently in opposite directions, themselves unstable and ready to decay further. (207)
Sun Yat-Sen had documents to prove he was born in Hawaii on 2-day 10-leap-month Meiji 3, so never mind that other records claimed he was born in Guangdong Province twelve days earlier, he could have become the President of the United States. (266-67)
Sun Yat-Sen ... also had a unique talent: everyone from Libertarians to Communists thought he was one of their own and only humouring the others for sensible political reasons. (268)
It was said that in Germany in Taishou 12, you could take a wheelbarrow full of banknotes to the bakery where they would dump out the worthless money and swap you the empty wheelbarrow for a loaf of bread. Of course, that was only a metaphor. Nobody really had bread. (273)
In humanoid dwellings, in their most guarded bedchambers, there do joneko dwell also. Humanoids think a queen curled up in front of the door at night is cute, even reassuring; they consider not what any joneko kitten would understand, that she thereby controls the only humanoid escape route. (287)
The slogan is written in near-English, but transliterated into the claw script. The slogan reads “Somebody let out us the bag.” (306)
... and she wondered if the spirit of her grandfather was in this room today and if so, what he would think of what she was doing. Or, for that matter, Daddy’s spirit. She made a mental note to burn something for them both, later. Maybe a building. (338)
She ignored him so hard he practically got frostbitten even in the atmosphere of the hot-house. (368)
Everything seemed to have been just a little too easy—and she guessed, correctly, that what she was feeling might be a lot like what a rat feels in the last few moments before it becomes a sushi ingredient. (376)
These trees were both legally and spiritually protected, and they knew it. Some were hundreds of years old and circled by the straw ropes that marked them as homes of kami. Plenty of things out here that had never heard of human civilization, never mid that it was only by the whim of human civilization they could still survive at all. (396)
The sky was full of big, dirty clouds, which were grumbling like old-time thunder gods that hadn’t descended to consort with the peasant women in far too long. They were tense and irritable and just ready to smite somebody on a pretext. Miura Hitoshi felt much the same. (398)
The morning of 17-day started uneventfully, but then, they all do. (404)
Quotes that caught my eye
Charlie Soong was a pusher. It was his livelihood to hook as many new customers as possible, and keep them hooked and supplied. Little by little, one fix at a time, he made his fortune, while the heart of the city clogged with junkies and the death and misery around him escalated. The politicians declared War on Drugs, the police cracked down on other pushers, and the military were deployed to stop the import trade. But Charlie stayed in business, and never ran afoul of the Qing Dynasty’s War on Drugs. The war was already lost years before he came along anyway, and they never figured out how dangerous and addictive his product actually was. The Qing politicians were only concerned with the opium that comes from poppies. They hadn’t read Marx. Charlie Soong sold Bibles. (19)
All three filthy humanoids laughed at that, and she huffily turned her back on them, switched her tail, and pretended to be very interested in the advertisements flashing past outside the windows of the subway car. But her ears rotated backward to hear the rest of what they said. Konosuke wished he could turn his in the opposite direction, but he didn’t have the anatomy for it, and he was wedged firmly between two office ladies and couldn’t move away from the conversation without committing a misdemeanour. (24)
There is a story told to humanoid kittens as part of their cultural education. The story is called a fairy tail. Fairies are like mahou shoujo, but imaginary. There are no fairies mentioned in this fairy tail, and fairies do not even have tails, so the story is poorly named. Mew. (197)
The story of the paaido piper would be more instructive if it were more realistic. Nobody wastes perfectly good rats by drowning them in a river. Drowning rats is not easy because they swim. Contractors always negotiate the highest prices they can, but one given the task of destroying rats would not normally expect to also be paid with money. For that matter, taking away the kittens is a strange punishment in itself; kittens are cute, but easily replaceable and seldom in short supply. Maybe there are important parts missing from the story as the humanoids tell it. Maybe the original version of the story teaches a different lesson. (198)
Their marriage resembled a uranium nucleus: likely to split at any moment into fission fragments thrown violently in opposite directions, themselves unstable and ready to decay further. (207)
Sun Yat-Sen had documents to prove he was born in Hawaii on 2-day 10-leap-month Meiji 3, so never mind that other records claimed he was born in Guangdong Province twelve days earlier, he could have become the President of the United States. (266-67)
Sun Yat-Sen ... also had a unique talent: everyone from Libertarians to Communists thought he was one of their own and only humouring the others for sensible political reasons. (268)
It was said that in Germany in Taishou 12, you could take a wheelbarrow full of banknotes to the bakery where they would dump out the worthless money and swap you the empty wheelbarrow for a loaf of bread. Of course, that was only a metaphor. Nobody really had bread. (273)
In humanoid dwellings, in their most guarded bedchambers, there do joneko dwell also. Humanoids think a queen curled up in front of the door at night is cute, even reassuring; they consider not what any joneko kitten would understand, that she thereby controls the only humanoid escape route. (287)
The slogan is written in near-English, but transliterated into the claw script. The slogan reads “Somebody let out us the bag.” (306)
... and she wondered if the spirit of her grandfather was in this room today and if so, what he would think of what she was doing. Or, for that matter, Daddy’s spirit. She made a mental note to burn something for them both, later. Maybe a building. (338)
She ignored him so hard he practically got frostbitten even in the atmosphere of the hot-house. (368)
Everything seemed to have been just a little too easy—and she guessed, correctly, that what she was feeling might be a lot like what a rat feels in the last few moments before it becomes a sushi ingredient. (376)
These trees were both legally and spiritually protected, and they knew it. Some were hundreds of years old and circled by the straw ropes that marked them as homes of kami. Plenty of things out here that had never heard of human civilization, never mid that it was only by the whim of human civilization they could still survive at all. (396)
The sky was full of big, dirty clouds, which were grumbling like old-time thunder gods that hadn’t descended to consort with the peasant women in far too long. They were tense and irritable and just ready to smite somebody on a pretext. Miura Hitoshi felt much the same. (398)
The morning of 17-day started uneventfully, but then, they all do. (404)
March 23, 2020
Kind of peters out at the end, and I didn't learn as much about the book's world as I'd have liked, but those are minor complaints given how preposterously entertaining the writing is:
"My father is not yakuza," she said, like that was the most important subject they could discuss right now.
"Maybe not, but there's just one tiny stripe different between that bar code and the one for flower arranging. Or did you think all the other members of your club at school signed up because they really wanted to study traditional culture?"
"Oh." That did explain a lot of things she hadn't understood about the flower arranging club, actually.
"My father is not yakuza," she said, like that was the most important subject they could discuss right now.
"Maybe not, but there's just one tiny stripe different between that bar code and the one for flower arranging. Or did you think all the other members of your club at school signed up because they really wanted to study traditional culture?"
"Oh." That did explain a lot of things she hadn't understood about the flower arranging club, actually.
May 27, 2021
4 1/2 stars
There's a lot of people who are really connected on the internet who should definitely read this. I wish there was more of this, though.
There's a lot of people who are really connected on the internet who should definitely read this. I wish there was more of this, though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews