Category Archives: Books

Books

Book Review: System Collapse

This year had a new full Murderbot novel, System Collapse, which I was eagerly looking forward to the whole year? How eager was I – I pre-ordered the audiobook and spent Kumoricon listening to it when I was going back & forth from the con (instead of listening to anime podcasts like I normally do). So, how well did it meet my expectations? Fantastically.

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Books

Book Review: The Mimicking of Known Successes

If you asked me to describe The Mimicking of Known Successes by genre, I’d say it’s a queer science fiction cozy mystery that isn’t quite solarpunk, but I’d almost describe it as solarpunk-adjacent. It’s also a nice, brisk read that doesn’t break 200 pages, so if you’re also looking for a mystery that fits those criteria that you’d like to read when heading out for Thanksgiving (or other upcoming holidays), it’s a good book to pick up.

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Book Review: The Library at Mount Char

The Library at Mount Char was October’s pick for the Sword & Laser book club, as a “Sword” pick (meaning fantasy) and something meant to be mildly horror adjacent (as co-host Veronica Belmont doesn’t handle horror well – which is fine). The book itself is some okay splatter horror with a side of urban fantasy, but it didn’t quite land for me.

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Book Review: Children of Time

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky was this month’s pick for the Sword & Laser Book Club, and it’s a bit of a complicated book. The novel juggles two different kinds of stories, with two different levels of stakes, and which also vaguely intersect until the very end of the story. One of those stories was one which I enjoyed and looked forward to encountering – which was good because it took most of the book. The other kind of just had me on edge and wasn’t exactly a pleasant read.

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Picture of "The JRPG Book"
Books

Book Review: The JRPG Book

A while back I reviewed The CRPG Book, a book from Bitmap Books covering the history of Computer RPGs through various eras of titles in the medium, with write-ups from various authors. The book has since received a follow-up, The JRPG Book, written by Kurt Kalata with contributions by other authors. I’ve finished reading that, so it’s time to give my thoughts on the book.

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Book Review: Weird of the White Wolf

Weird of the White Wolf is the fourth part of the first of the current set of Elric omnibus volumes, and undoubtedly, this is where things get serious. I mean – there were serious things before, but this is where Elric gets shoved headlong into his destiny (the “Weird” in the title referring the Old English use of the word – Wyrd – meaning destiny) – like it or not (tending towards “or not”). And this is helped by the fact that here is where we encounter the first stories in the publication order, even if they’re not the first in Elric’s internal chronology.

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Under Fortunate Stars: Book Review

A time travel fiction concept that definitely falls under the category of “things I didn’t quite realize was a sub-sub-genre” until recently is the “Don’t Meet Your Heroes” story (with the alternative addendum of “Or do, I’m not your parental figure”). Basically, a story where the main characters travel back in time, either intentionally or unintentionally, and end up meeting someone (whether a singular person or multiple people) who are on the eve of doing some thing instrumental to the timeline, and who one or multiple of the protagonists idolizes, with the grand reveal being that they aren’t quite the kind of person that history has remembered them as being. Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Huchings – March’s Sword & Laser book club pick – is a really great example of this kind of story.

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Slayers – Book 1: Book Review

Recently, the first volume of the Slayers novels – which had been translated twice in the past (once by Tokyopop & now by J-Novel Club) received an audiobook review. This was ultimately the impetus I needed to get around to reading this, and this case, listening to the audiobook, read by Lisa Ortiz – the actress who voiced Lina in the English dub of the TV series.

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Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future – Book Review

Final Fantasy XV had a lot of DLC planned, to expand on the game’s story by providing additional plot details during the big time skip before the game’s final act, expanding on the game’s backstory, and even providing an alternate ending. We got… some of it. We got the backstory expansion. We got some elaboration on what characters were doing when they were off-camera at certain parts of the game. However, we didn’t get the whole story – we didn’t get the expansion discussing the time skip, and we didn’t get the alternate ending. However, the game’s writers wanted to make sure that story was told, leading to The Dawn of the Future – which adapts one released episode, and the plots of a bunch of unreleased ones, to give an alternate ending.

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Book Review: Sailor on the Seas of Fate

When I reviewed Fortress of the Pearl, I was partway through the next book in the first of the more recent Elric omnibus collections, and I came to the realization that book was written less with the thought of “How do I fit this story within the larger Elric saga?” and more “I have an Idea for an Elric story – where do I put it?” By contrast, Sailor on the Seas of Fate, which was published soon after Elric of Melnibone, feels like Moorcock continuing with the concepts he had with that first story – setting up the chain of events that lead to where the first published Elric story – “The Dreaming City” – picks up, and in the process further building up the concept of the Eternal Champion Mythos, based on the other incarnations that had been published at this point.

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