The Complete Immortals Handbook

The Complete Immortals Handbook is a humorous deconstructionist reader by Wang Xiaoqiang, published in 2009, with the subtitle "Teasing all the gods and immortals together..." Using Investiture of the Gods as his base text, the author reorganizes and retells its characters and events, attempting in a bantering tone to dismantle the logic of this supernatural novel that seems mysterious but is in fact highly similar to the ways of the human world. The book unfolds in chapters by character and event: first how Nezha was "forged"—birth, apprenticeship, troubles, revenge, nirvana, a whole assembly line for the growth of a young hero; then "the first old hand of the jianghu" Jiang Ziya, from his graduation exam at the immortal school and the world's sharpest tongue to a twilight romance and his "first pot of gold," pulling a founding military strategist back down to the mortal world; then the earth-burrowing Tu Xingsun, the bird-man Lei Zhenzi, and the whole process of King Zhou's march to his final end, down to the absurdities of the Shang dynasty's ten great tortures. The author's usual method is to translate classical stories into a modern context: rising temperatures are called the "greenhouse effect," characters' psychology is written as workplace anxiety and interpersonal calculation, and immortal arts and magical duels are broken down into battles of words. In this way, the original's themes of loyalty and treachery, good and evil, rise and fall are magnified again, but appear in a comic guise. The book features illustrations by Wang Shanjia, a cartoonist specially invited by CCTV, a preface by the writer Shi Kang, and joint recommendations from Cai Lan, Zhu Dake, Zhao Bo, and others; some reviewers have called it "a more gossipy version than Investiture of the Gods," with language carrying "Stephen Chow-style nonsense humor."