Reading Record 26.5(ish)

 Today I finished reading Legend of Exorcism, volume 6, by Fei Tian Ye Xiang.  (Volume 5 was the first book for this reading record back in May.  That's how long they're making us wait in between volumes of this novel that has been finished for years!  😭😭😭  I don't want to have to wait that long for the remaining two parts!! 😭😭😭😭)

Um.

Anyway.

This time, the character guide at the end did start out by saying that some of the side characters are historical, but it only gave the Emperor, his consort and her cousin the chancellor as examples.  Not anyone else, not even the rebel general who's leading a massive army against the empire.  And it still hasn't mentioned that Di Renjie was real, either, though maybe they figure he's so famous that they don't have to?  (Or maybe they think no one cares...?  I have no clue what they're thinking.  How could I?)  It makes me long for the greater effort they put into the supplementary materials on their earlier releases, particularly the character guide for Thousand Autumns, which listed (historical) or (fictional) after every name.  I don't know if it was some kind of administrative decision or if whoever was writing the character guide for Thousand Autumns was just feeling more invested than whoever has handled subsequent character guides, but either way, it boils down to being frustrating.

In any case...it's volume 6 out of 8, so how much even can I day about it?

Well, except that I fear all too many of the extreme horrors of war being depicted in the novel are historically accurate.  (You know, outside the ones involving yaoguai and demons.  Those particular horrors I think one can feel safely assured are fictional.)

...

Hmm.

I should probably say more, but I don't know what.

Oh well.

Original language:  Chinese

Reading record 25.5(ish)

 So, last night I finished Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett, the second of the City Watch sub-series of Discworld novels.

And I don't really have much to say?  Because, like, it's Discworld.  There's no need to say much more than that.  Solid works of fantasy-comedy, the whole series.  (Well, okay, I've heard there are a few outliers that aren't as good, but this isn't one of them.)

There was a bit at the end that I loved which (despite being at the end) I can share (possibly in paraphrase, because the book is in the other room so I can't check if the phrasing in my mind is the correct phrasing) because it's not actually connected to the plot.  After seeing something Carrot has written, Vimes reflects on some of the quirks of his writing style, namely his inability to put "i" before "e" and his "cruelty to the common comma" by putting commas in weird places where they absolutely don't belong.  I would call Carrot's abuse of commas "unique" (and it was probably intended to be unique) only if Carrot was truly the only one who ever used a comma that way, then much of the Internet is apparently Carrot.  😅

Anyway, rather than going straight on to book three, I'll be waiting until I can hit a bookstore today to pick up the new volume of Legend of Exorcism, because tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, and a nice paperback is much easier to read in a waiting room than a massive, three novel hardback.  (Also, I like the idea of being the middle-aged woman proudly reading danmei in a public place.)  Plus the larger print is easier to read in the less ideal conditions of the waiting room environment.

Original language:  English

Reading record 24.5(ish)?

 Okay, so this one didn't quite feel like it had enough meat on its bones to deserve a full number, which means who knows when/how I'll get back up to whole numbers again.  😅

Uh.  Anyway.  The book I just finished was Barbie:  The World Tour by Margot Robbie and Andrew Mukamal.  Which was much less an artbook about the movie Barbie than it was a photo journal of the tour for the premieres of the film, along with information and behind the scenes images about the outfits that Margot Robbie wore for the various public appearances as part of the tour.

Which is probably why whoever had bought it originally sold it to that used store, as they had most likely paid as little attention as I did in buying it.  😅  (But since I got it used, I paid a small enough amount for it that it felt like an appropriate price.)

But it was still an interesting read and had lots of pictures of vintage Barbie outfits and photos of Margot Robbie wearing outfits either recreating those vintage outfits or at least heavily inspired by them.  So it was still interesting, even if it wasn't quite what I thought it was.

In any case, like the movie, it was definitely something that a doll collector like myself got more out of than someone with no history with the dolls would.  (Though the movie stands better on its own than this book would, I think.  Although someone more interested in fashion than I am might like the book without needing an interest in dolls.  Probably?)

Um.

Anyhow.

It is late.  I need to start relaxing my brain or I won't be able to sleep.

Original language:  English

Reading record 23.7(ish)

 Just finished reading the next artbook in the stack, Strange & Eerie Cryptid Creatures by Jessica Feinberg and Daniel Faccio.

I've been supporting Jessica Feinberg's Kickstarters for I don't know how many years now--I have so many oracle decks with her art on them at this point!  Anyway, this was her most recent oracle deck/artbook combo.

The format of the book is pretty standard:  each painting gets an entry with various information about the depicted creature.  Which in this case was cryptids, though in some cases I felt like the chosen being was definitely on the other side of the fuzzy line between cryptid and folklore.  (Things like the barghest, cu-sith, and kappa, for example.)  Despite obvious effort to make it as worldwide as possible, certain regions were under-represented (Asia) and others over-represented (the US, especially West Virginia for some reason), but I think that's because that's just how it is:  there's no way for an artist to change what people all over the world are seeing and thinking they've seen, ya know?

Anyway, significantly more text (and more pages, for that matter!) than the previous artbook, but less than the next one. (I chose this particular decimal point number for it because in a few weeks the next volume of a printed web comic is being released, so that will round it back up to even numbers. 😅)

Original language:  English

IWSG - ack, I forgot!

 

    Argh, I forgot about today's post entirely!

😭😭😭😭😭

That sorta sums up my writing lately.

I've been distracted, forgetful, and unable to focus.

I think it's the heat.

The past three or four days, I've just opened my current project, read over bits of it to remind myself where I am...and then...nothing... 😭

I hope it's just the heat.

Reading record 23.2(ish)

 Maybe only 23.1?  There was almost no text whatsoever. 😭

Anyway, the book I finished reading (looking at?) just now was Legend of Mana - Art of Mana - 30th Anniversary SPECIAL ISSUE.  And yes, that whole thing is apparently the title.  What little text the book had was just image caption by Masaru Oyamada, the producer of the Seiken Densetsu series.

As an art book, it was actually more focused on the remaster/reissue of the game in 2021 than it was on the original release from 1999.  (The 30th Anniversary part must be for the series as a whole...which means at least three different major game series started in 1996, in addition to the two biggest JRPG series starting in...wait, really?  1986?  Dang, that's...I hadn't thought about just how early that really was.  (Though it took three years for the first Final Fantasy to be translated into English and released in the US.)  Back in 1986, I was still playing text-parser-driven adventure games like The Black Cauldron and the early King's Quest and Space Quest games...)  Wait, maybe the earlier book from 2018 was the thirtieth anniversary and that's why this was a "special issue"...?  'Cause there's no way both 2 and 3 would have been on the Super Famicom if the first one came out in 1996--the Playstation had already been out for at least year by 1996!

I really loved Legend of Mana back on the PS1, but I've never had the nerve to pick up the new version; I know it got a mew translation, and I'm afraid they wimped out and changed all the elemental's names back to the mistranslations and shortened versions they had on the SNES version of Secret of Mana.  Which may sound like a dumb reason to avoid the remaster, but...it was really frustrating playing Trials of Mana and hearing the Japanese voice work saying the proper names and then seeing the butchered SNES versions written on the screen.  Especially since I know the real names better, having played Legend of Mana so many times!

Anyway, this art book was a little disappointing because it was mostly filling in gaps that had been left out of an earlier whole-series art book (of which I was unaware at the time and thus do not have) and focusing on the remastered art that hadn't been made yet during that earlier book.  Also, it has the dippy-looking male player character on the front instead of the awesome-looking female player character.  😭

Oh well.

An expensive chunk of brief nostalgia, I guess.

Original language:  Japanese

Reading Record 23

 So, today I finished reading Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, the first of the City Watch sub-series of Discworld novels.

I read the novel for this month's book club meeting, which is on Saturday, so I'm left wondering if I should maybe not start the next book in the series until after the meeting to keep from accidentally confusing myself.  (I borrowed my brother's copy, ya see, which was a hardback of the "City Watch trilogy" which is pretty dating, since I believe there ended up being somewhere in the region of 6-8 City Watch books altogether.  But anyway it seems silly to return it after only reading one out of the three books within, yeah?)  Anyway, hilariously, this was a book I selected myself for the club to read, but I did so without so much as looking at a summary of what it was about, because I just knew I wanted to have us all read a Discworld novel, I thought the first in a sub-series made for a good jumping-on point, and I wanted it to be one I hadn't read before.  (Which left off the Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax and Death sub-serieses, so...books that actually fit those qualifications were a bit more thin on the ground.)  In any case, my total lack of research into the actual subject matter of this particular novel meant that I was quickly stunned to discover that it was the book that the first point and click adventure game had been (rather loosely) based on!

Obviously, since the game put Rincewind in the lead instead of a whole team of guards, most of it went quite differently, but the novel's final twist was still there, so...yeah, made for an odd experience.  (Though it has been so long since I played that game that I no longer recall if it went into any great detail regarding why that cult wanted to summon a dragon or what happened to the hooded brethren in the end.)  That game was my first exposure to the Discworld universe, so there's something weirdly appropriate, almost poetic even, about me having used this particular book to introduce it to however many others actually read it for the book club.  (Meetings have had varied turnout, based mostly on how many people actually decide to read the book.  If it hadn't turned out to be 800+ pages and I'd selected The Pickwick Papers, it would likely have been an empty house:  most people would have seen the name "Charles Dickens" and scurried away to hide.)

So.

Not really much I feel the need to say about it, ultimately.  It's a work of comedy-fantasy from the late 1980s, so some of it hasn't aged too gracefully, but most of it remains a solidly entertaining read.

I think to fill the time between now and the book club meeting, I'll read the three art-books I've gotten lately.  (One for a video game, one for a movie, and one just a general collection of folklore-adjacent art by an artist whose work I've been following for years.)

Original language:  English, and very British English at that