Reading Record 13

 Yup, finally cleared away the decimal points!

Hilariously, the "two graphic novels" I said would do the job actually turned out to be three!  (One was so short it wasn't really noticeable in the clear plastic sleeve with the others...)

Anyway!  Yesterday and the day before (didn't post about it yesterday because I didn't want to muddle an IWSG post day 😅) I read the following three works by Mira Ong Chua:

My Lover is a Merperson (I Think) - this is the super-short one which is probably only about 20 pages (they're not numbered and I don't think it's worth counting them manually) at most.  It is what it says in the title:  a young man suspects his non-binary lover might secretly be a merperson, and he acts on his suspicions in a sweet but goofy way.  Pleasant and fluffy.  🥰

24/7 Magical Maiden Mimi - this one is short, but much more substantial than the previous one.  In a world where being a magical girl is an annual gig, an unpopular teenage boy has his turn at the role, and after he accidentally transforms back into himself in public, he finds himself pressured by his classmates to attend school as Magical Maiden Mimi.  With results not all as he expects, obviously.

The Cosmic Ballad of Layla + Airy - much longer, almost (but not quite) twice the length of an average volume of manga.  This is the one the Kickstarter was actually for; the other two were just add-ons.  This is a sci-fi-with-magic romp wherein the galaxy's cutest adventurer phrases a wish badly and accidentally ends up transformed into an almost exact duplicate of the galaxy's hottest rock star.  Hijinks (and romance) naturally ensue.   It kind of feels like a love letter to early '90s anime/manga (especially Airy's hair, which is very Gourry to me) but with modern LGTBQIA+ sensibilities.  So, like, all the best things.  😁

I've backed some previous Kickstarters of Mira Ong Chua's in the past--the first was Road Queens, I'm pretty sure--and while they're often not quite what I was expecting them to be (Road Queens being an excellent example of that), they're always been quite good, and these three continue that trend.  Though of course I had forgotten about the add-ons entirely by the time they arrived, so I didn't even have any expectations for them! 🤣

Anyway, I've started reading an ebook of public domain mystery short stories to fill in the gap until I can borrow the next book club book from my dad (since I can leave off a short story collection partway through without feeling like it's a DNF), and if it keeps going as it started, it should be light years better than the last one!  (Not that that is a high bar to clear!)

Also, I have to brag this somewhere, and no one cares so it might as well be here:  yesterday I needed to distract myself from reality by getting lost in writing.  I ended up starting work on a fanfic that I had wanted to plan more fully first...and ended up writing 12.5k words!  It feels a bit abbreviated, like there ought to be twice as many scenes setting up events and everything, but...🤷🏻‍♀️  That's what second drafts are for, right?

Oops, almost forgot!  Original language:  English

IWSG July '26

 

    Someday, I will learn how to title posts effectively.  Unfortunately, today is not that day.

I'm not at my best right now; I've had a (fairly mild) headache for almost two weeks at this point.  I need to go to like the Urgent Care center or something, but in the middle of a heat wave on a sunny day is...well, I have serious heat issue, so I can't go unless someone drives me, and my ride is busy today, so...tomorrow, hopefully.  (Which will be "today" when this post actually posts.)

Uh.

Anyway.

I think the suggested topic was about changes we would want to make to the publishing industry.

As I am determinedly an amateur writer, I don't have any contact with the publishing industry as a writer, but there is something I'd like to change as a reader!

I'm not sure when--just in the last few years, I think--someone decided that colons should be followed by capital letters, and it is driving me up the freaking wall.  It's so wrong--no, so stupid!  It's the same sentence, so why would it be capitalized?

I know that's pointless and shallow, but...

...I don't have much to say about my own writing, as my game jam VN script has turned into a slow slog through a not-jam VN script (because the concept didn't actually fit the jam) and other than that I've only been working on proofreading past works and planning future ones, so...there just isn't much to say.

Reading Record 12.5

 Finished the next book off my ever-growing to-read shelf.  😅  (Two more arrived in the mail just a few days ago... 😅)

This book was Can't Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorpe.  (Hmm.  Maybe the 'w' should be capitalized...?)

This was a pretty good read, but I think the cover over-sold its "cozy" nature.  Because, yes, the two heroines were looking to have a nice cozy, romantic life together running a book-and-tea shop.  But also the one's past as a guard to a particularly vicious ruler and the other's present as the most powerful mage in the world (plus dragon attacks on the town) led to a lot of not-even-slightly-cozy incidents.  And the climactic events were actually downright stressful to read.  Like, we're talking they triggered my heart palpitations, they were so stressful.  That kind of thing.

It's just book one of a series--and some events were left unresolved--so here's hoping the rest are a lot cozier.  (At least the particular cause of the stress in this one should be unlikely to repeat itself...)  I won't be likely to go looking for book two anytime soon, though.  Next time I have room on my shelf to go out looking for a sequel to something I've recently read, it'll be the next book in the series that started with The Jasmine Throne.  (Because I need to know how that is going to play out!)

Anyway.

Next up are the two books that arrived the other day, because they are graphic novels from a Kickstarter, and just the thing I need to get the decimal points out of my reading tally!  🤣  Though then there may be a slight gap before I can start anything further, since I won't be able to start this month's book club reading until I borrow it from my dad on the 4th.  (I do have my own copy somewhere in this house, but...finding it would probably take weeks.  😰)

Original language:  English

Reading Record DNF 2

 Ugh.

I should definitely stop buying books on a whim just because they sound good.

The book should have been good.

The concept was great:  a sapphic sequel to Pride and Prejudice (one of my all-time favorite books) featuring Mr. Darcy's sister and one of Elizabeth Bennet Darcy's sisters.

What could go wrong, right?

And yet, I struggled to finish the first chapter.

I was already unimpressed by the book's characterization of Georgiana Darcy and the way it took an "easy out" by claiming that she hadn't actually been trying to elope with Wickham, but that he had been blackmailing her after seeing her kissing a girl.  But I figured I could deal with it.  That it would surely pull me in after Miss Bennet arrived.

Then Georgiana referred to her brother by name.  But she didn't call him "Fitzwilliam" or any variation thereon.

She called him "Darcy."

I...

I...

How in the flying $@&@! does a sequel to Pride and Prejudice get published in which the author couldn't be bothered to get one of the main characters' names right?!?!?

Yes, I know "Fitzwilliam" feels like a very strange name to a modern reader.  And yes, I was disappointed to learn that was his name the first time I read Pride and Prejudice, as my little teenage heart had been quite smitten by Mr. Darcy, a definite first for a words-on-the-page-only character.  But I would still never write fanfic (and that is absolutely what this book was!) without getting his name right!

I spent a day agonizing about whether or not to force myself to keep reading.

I have decided against it.  There is just no reason to torture myself like that.

Hopefully the next book off my shelf will be better.  (Though everything on my to-read shelf at least has the advantage that it's not a lazy sequel to a piece of classic literature.  There is one that seems to be doing a riff on a piece of classic literature, but as I haven't actually read Water Margin, that's fine, because even if that riff is egregious in comparison, I won't know.  But that's not LGBTQIA+ (as far as I can tell) so it's for next month or later.)

(Thankfully, the two impulse buys I made last time I was at the bookstore are guaranteed to be better than this was, because I've read other books by that author, and quite enjoyed them.)

Original language:  English

Reading Record 11.5

 So, finally finished reading the very lengthy The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri.

A fantasy with a setting inspired by the traditional culture of India, which was a refreshing change for me:  I've mostly ended up reading things in settings inspired by Medieval Europe (so overused!), feudal Japan, or ancient China.  The Indian setting was excitingly different from what I'm used to (though I was probably mentally mispronouncing most of the names 😭) while still having just enough touch of the familiar, since I have read some Hindu folklore/mythology, and seen some movies set in India (though typically not before the 19th century, but...)

I discovered the book via a conversation between two other people in a Discord server, as one was providing recommendations to the other for sapphic fantasy novels.  This one the recommender mentioned as being one they had "bounced off" because it was too "high fantasy" for them.  I, personally, thought "high fantasy" typically referred to Tolkien and similar authors, and I'm fine with that style of fantasy (The Hobbit is one of my perennial favorite books), so I figured "yep, sounds like a good match for me," especially since the plot as described on the back of the book sounded interesting.  Having read it, I now suspect that the recommender was thinking more of Game of Thrones than Lord of the Rings when they said "high fantasy."  (Not that I've ever read or watched any of Game of Thrones, but it does have a certain reputation...)  There was a lot more human violence--some of it particularly awful in concept (thankfully, there were very few visceral details in the violence) as the villain has a religious zeal for burning women alive--than I was expecting, and a lot more political wrangling and manipulation than I had any expectation of, since I went in with an inaccurate understanding of the novel's genre.

Honestly, The Jasmine Throne doesn't seem to me to be "high fantasy" at all; the presence of magic and magical beings was quite limited.  In that sense, it would seem to me to fall more into the "low fantasy" category, since most people and aspects of society function in a non-magical way.  For most of the book, the only touch of magic in the daily lives of the people is "the rot," a disease in which plants are growing in people's bodies.  But as it's presented as a blight, a disease, it often sounds less magical than it is.  What this novel does have in common with the "high fantasy" works mentioned above is the grand, sweeping landscape and story ahead, as this is just the first novel out of...uh...actually, I have no idea how many.  🤷🏻‍♀️  I'll find out how many there are eventually, because I need to find out how the story ends, 'cause that villain is especially horrible, and I need to see him get his.  (Ooh, I hope the series is already complete, or will be soon...having to wait years to see that villain destroyed would be painful...) In any case, I can't pick up book two until there are a few fewer books on my to-read shelf than there are at present, 'cause there literally isn't room on it for a book of this size.  (I honestly picked this over the other sapphic novels on the shelf because it was the largest, and removing it would add space for the two books that were on my front table waiting to join the to-read shelf...and I just picked up two more books yesterday...darn you, Barnes & Noble, stop putting interesting-looking books on tables where I can't miss them!)

Anyway, since this isn't a review, just me talking to my future self to remind me what I read and when...I just have one other thing to say.  I always give a cursory glance to the Acknowledgements section of a book, just to see if there's anything interesting beyond the usual thanking family, friends, colleagues and publishers.  And there was, this time, as the author also mentioned her pets:  two bunnies, named Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, and a pet of unspecified species named Asami.  🥰  Two MDZS-named pets and one that I took to be Legend of Korra inspired.  This author knows how to win my heart.  🥰

Original language:  English

Reading Record 10.5(?)

 Or 10.4? I dunno.  I need to figure out how to get rid of the decimal points in my count...but that will have to wait until July.  😅

Anyhoo, I am actually in the middle of a 500+ page tome right now (probably will take me another 2-3 days to finish reading it, between current speed through it and what's going on irl right now for me), but I needed some light bathtub reading.  (Light both in the sense of the physical book and in the sense of its contents!)

So, I decided to go with a printed webcomic, specifically Slice of Life, Season One.  I got it as an add-on to the Kickstarter for Aces and Aros, and I admit I hadn't realized it was signed until it was too late to change my mind about reading it in the bath.  😅  (Thankfully, nothing happened to it.)

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about it:  it was wholesome, charming and heartwarming...though with some angst and stuff as well.  I think the character I most connected with was Ravyn, the unpopular twin sister of the cheerleader Lucy, one of the two leads.  Ravyn is a hardcore otaku with no friends, who is constantly ignored and overlooked, even by the twins' father.  I really felt for her, and I think her suffering will only get worse.  😭  But hopefully she'll recover after she gets out of the toxic cess pit that is high school...

Anyway, yeah.  Good.  Will read more later (after getting more volumes to read... 😅)

Original language:  English

Reading record 10.2

 Or maybe only 10.1?  I dunno.  But if it's 10.2 then a standard manga/webtoon/etc volume will get it to 10.5, and then an extra large manga volume could get it to 11.  Or something?  I dunno.

What I do know is that the comic anthology I read today was waaaaay too short to count for anywhere near as much as the webtoon volumes I read earlier this month.

Anyway.  Whatever number I assign to it, what I read today was Aces and Aros (which identifies itself as "Vol. 1" but whether or not they actually run a Kickstarter for a volume two is not a given), an anthology centered on the asexual and aromantic spectrums.  Both of which I am on.

But the problem with trying to do an anthology centered on asexuality and aromanticness (uh...is that even remotely how I should form that form of the word?) is that the stories all just sort of end up being either semi- (or entirely) autobiographical or they end up being little mini-lessons on just what asexual and/or aromantic means and/or why it's not a problem in need of a cure.  Which...y'know, I don't need a lesson, nor do I need to be told that it's okay to be ace and/or aro, because I'm past that point; I figured myself out when I turned forty, and I don't need to be reassured that I'm not broken.  So, despite that this is one of those rare cases where my own orientation gets representation, it's also...frustratingly lacking in actual stories.  (Even the autobiographical ones are so focused on the writer's process of understanding/embracing their position on the asexuality spectrum that there isn't really time for much else in the narrative.)

So...yeah.  It didn't really do much for me, unfortunately.  It'd be great for a teenager still coming to terms with their own asexuality, but...🤷🏻‍♀️

The tragedy about writing about asexuals and aromantics is that unless they specifically say in the course of the story that they're asexual or aromantic, then it's impossible to tell if they're ace, aro, or just not presented with a love interest in the course of the story.  😭  Which is especially a problem when you're writing about an asexual/aromantic living long before those terms were coined.  Like, in my Atalanta and Ariadne books, Atalanta is aroace, like me, but the terms don't exist yet because she lives in Bronze Age Greece, so trying to telegraph the actual nature of her orientation is not gonna be easy.  (In the rough drafts of the later novels I did attempt it, though who knows if it worked in the roughs I wrote back in 2014 (before I had figured out my own asexuality), but I'll just have to hope I can make it work whenever the new drafts get that far...)

Original language:  English