Reading Record 38

 So, today I finished rereading volume one of Mo Dao Zu Shi (English title Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.

Took me a little longer to read than it should have, because I kept setting the book down to take notes.  Two kinds of notes, in fact:  some of them were general notes on details I might want to consult later for fanfic purposes, while the other was for a stranger purpose.  Specifically, I wanted to keep a list of things to check if they were fixed/changed in the fancy hardback release.  (So far, I haven't checked most of them, but I can at least confirm that the hardback's prologue fixed the error where it said "Burial Mound" instead of "Burial Mounds.")

One thing I'd forgotten since the last time I read this--surprising that I managed to forget it so fast since I last read it in January of last year!--was how artificially long the chapters are!  One of them was almost 100 pages long!  For some reason, the English editors decided to combine a bunch of the original online chapters, usually at least four, but that one chapter was made up of seven of them!

Another weird thing is that there are still things I was getting wrong in my MDZS fanfic, even though this is the fifth time I'm reading the book!

Maybe I just don't read as carefully as I used to?

Original language:  Chinese

Reading record 37

 And now I have finished rereading volume four of The Apothecary Diaries light novels by Natsu Hyuuga.

One thing I kept noticing as I progressed through the latter three books is how well-constructed the arc is; various details that only came up in this volume were set up throughout the previous volumes, all the way back to volume two.

Since the second episode of the new season will go up tomorrow, and I watch two episodes of anime every night to help my brain shut down for the night, I think I'll probably wait and watch the first two episodes of the new season together.

But I can't help thinking how sad it is, how an aromantic icon like Maomao deserves a better ending than to eventually be forced to marry.  (I mean, not that Jinshi managed to actually marry her by the end of volume eight, the last one I've read, but he had taken steps that made that fate unavoidable.  (Technically, that fate can be viewed as unavoidable from the very start, due to genre conventions, but...))  I may go out looking for fanfic that lets her escape that dire fate.  Something where Jinshi gets over his obsession with her, maybe falls for someone else.

Anyway.

Technically, I ought to find a banned or challenged book to read next, since this is Banned Book Week, but...

...I've been having such a bad time of it.  I need to read something I already know I love.

Soooo, since 2026 is the novel's ten year anniversary, I've decided to reread Mo Dao Zu Shi next.  (And let's face it, that's not so outrageous for Banned Book Week; if there were any schools that had copies if Mo Dao Zu Shi in their libraries, all those hyper-conservative jackasses would absolutely be banning the heck out of it, considering it has a gay couple bringing down a tyrant.  Twice.)

Original language:  Japanese

IWSG - Currently Cursed

 

    In case you're wondering, the post title is not a leading-up-to-Halloween thing.

Nor is it specifically in reference to this post.

It's more summing up my life at the moment.  😭

First, a sprained wrist has left me barely able to use a computer (or my phone) for weeks.

Then I had a dentist appointment, only to find that the crown that fell off couldn't be simply cemented back in place, because of further decay beneath it, and the tooth would have to be pulled.

The surgery was for one week later, exactly.

The day after the dentist's appointment, I had a sore throat.

By the next day, my nose was stuffed up.

By the day after that, it was a full-on sinus infection, complete with my horrible asthmatic cough, which sounds like a cross between a barking seal and those cries the velociraptors use to communicate with each other in Jurassic Park.

Somehow, I was just barely recovered enough for the tooth to be extracted on schedule...but...

Hrm.

Okay, actually, I don't think it would be fair to potential male readers to mention what started this morning (er, yesterday morning, since I'm writing this the night before), because I know how squeamish most men are on the subject.

Suffice it to say that at my age, it shouldn't even happen, and leave it at that.

So, yeah, that's been my life this month.

I thought "cursed" sums it up pretty well.

I mean, not that I haven't done any writing at all, but given the wrist brace I have to wear makes typing crazy difficult, there hasn't been much.  Mostly just some rewriting on book four of the Atalanta and Ariadne series.

So...yeah.

That's pretty much all I can say right now, I fear.

I am too much of a mess for more.

Reading Record 36

 Last night, I finished rereading volume three of The Apothecary Diaries light novels by Natsu Hyuuga.

My delay to let the figure arrive was not sufficient--it arrived the day after I read the moon spirit chapter.  😰  But that delay was also too long, because lo and behold, the first episode of season three of the anime went up on Friday.  😅  But I'll be done with book four before episode two comes out, so not a particularly big deal, right?

I'm trying to think what else I wanted to say here...

...but it is apparently too early in the morning for that.  😅

Original language:  Japanese

Reading Record 35

 So, last night I finished rereading volume two of The Apothecary Diaries light novels by Natsu Hyuuga.

Funny thing happened the day before that:  I was reading it at the dentist's office, and I had just gotten to one of the (many) scenes where Jinshi is being jealous (in this case because Maomao dared to speak to a man who wasn't him) while the music in the office was playing the song "Every Breath You Take."  It was hard to keep from laughing aloud. How had I never noticed before that that song could practically be Jinshi's theme song?  (And that being the case, is it any wonder that I don't want to read the novels past where I stopped?  I don't want to see Maomao actually forced to let him act on his obsessive, possessive and frankly childish feelings for her.)

Anyway, I will be taking a few days off before I start rereading book three.  That's the one with the "moon fairy" sequence, and I had a figure of Maomao in that costume in my Pile of Loot at Big Bad Toy Store, so as soon as I thought of that, I had them ship my stuff, and I want to wait a bit so it will be here by the time I get to that sequence.  😅

So I'll keep plugging away at reading through that CRPG ebook for a while.

Original language:  Japanese

Reading Record 34

 Welp.

It's been a thing.

After the last three books being pretty serious, I wanted something lighter.

Nothing much on my to-read shelf fit the bill.  The closest I could come was one of those books that seem to have been published with the intention of putting them in the "cheap clearance" section of large bookstores.  😅  But that ended up being a DNS.  (A "Did Not Start," in other words.  I sat down to read it, thinking it was art history only to find it was a particularly dry and bland regular history...so I ended up just leafing through to look at the pictures then putting it away.  I've recently read a far more complete history of that culture, one that was much less dry and absolutely more readable.  No reason to force myself to read something inferior as well.)

So I turned to an ebook about CRPGs--Computer Role-Playing Games, that is--which is fascinating, but also almost 700 pages and very, um, stultifying in large chunks.  It's just not the sort of thing that's meant to be the only book you're reading, ya know?  I'm gonna keep picking at it on and off until I finish it, but 200 pages at a time was just the limit of what I could take.

Therefore, I decided to turn to something that wasn't on my to-read shelf.

I decided to reread something.  In part to refresh my memory before the next season of the adaptation starts, and in part because I wanted to revisit a few sections because I might want to write a wee bit of fan-fiction...

Thus, on Friday night I started rereading volume one of The Apothecary Diaries light novels by Natsu Hyuuga.

And having just finished the volume...yup, I can't help it.  Maomao is an icon.  She is a fantastic blend, and absolutely the aromantic poster child.

As always, I'm sort of torn on the whole "Jinshi" issue.  He's an entertaining, likable character, and it's funny just how pathetic he gets in his endless pursuit of Maomao, but no matter how pathetic or charming he is, that can't justify how he continues to romantically pursue her when she so blatantly is not interested.

And, frustratingly, I feel like we, the audience, are somehow supposed to be on his side in this.  Even though he is objectively acting incorrectly.  (Sure, he looks great in comparison to his grandfather, but...that's not enough to excuse his behavior.)

Original language:  Japanese

Reading Record 33

 So, last night I finished reading A Radical Act of Free Magic by H. G. Parry, the second (and final) book in the series started by A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians.

As you would expect, this one moved on from the French Revolution to the Napoleonic Wars.  (Well, the first of them.) And, as you also might expect, it was still excellent.

In the afterward, the author said she had spent the last seven years working on the duology, and I can easily believe it!  The way she wove her story of magic and...something I shouldn't mention because spoilers...into the actual historical events was amazing in its seamlessness.  There were even actual quotes from the real people involved.  (Napoleon's line about "forty centuries look down on you" in reference to the pyramids is quite famous, but there were also several speeches in the first book (both in Parliament and by Robespierre) that I was pretty sure were the real speeches (with some modifications in some cases to add in mentions of magic), and so on.)  And although I'm still pretty sure Fina was entirely fictional, the words she used to start her life story were, I suspect, either quoted or adapted from those of a real person who had suffered the same fate (minus the magical/alchemical aspects) she had in childhood.

Even after giving myself overnight to think about it, I'm still not sure what to say, because it was just that good, you know?

Then again, if I'm mostly keeping this record for myself, I guess I don't need to say anything.

So I guess I won't.  😅

Original language:  English

(Also, what the heck do I read next?  It's gonna be a jarring shift no matter what it is.  But maybe something lighter, since this got pretty heavy at times?)