Emme > Recent Status Updates

Lately I've binged the Danny Robins podcasts, from Haunted to the fourth season of Uncanny, and I've got some thoughts on them, both positives and negatives. As much as I'd like to review them, I've got the reading challenge thing on so I believe that they'd be classified as books, and I feel like it's cheating if I end up adding them right now... Guess I'll wait and wrote them as notes somewhere else for now

I started this around a couple days ago but forgot to update GR lol. So far it's been a decent read, I've learned a few Japanese legalese terms thanks to it. I appreciate the fact that it's not super clique and the setting feels well-researched enough (I'm pretty sure that the author has seen the Lock Up tv show tho lol and took inspiration from it). What I don't like is that Yuuto is kind of a Gary Stu...

I boomer'd up on the mobile version and added the intended update as a comment. Oh well.

I really liked the argument between Angel and her mom. They're both selfish in their own ways and imo the mom underestimated Angel's mental state after a divorce and a huge move. I know that many readers probably see Angel as just a spoiled brat, but she's a young girl going through a lot, and her life was carefree before being given lots of responsibilities she wasn't prepared for

Lmao Billy turning into the Lister's man of the household is pretty funny. Doing chores for Angel's mom because he's reminded of his own is really cute too.

After the preamble in the previous note, I just wanted to add my current thoughts.
It is indeed a book targeted at a teen audience, but I do find it enjoyable and not demeaning. The character are multifaceted and not caricatures so far. The description of the tech clearly clocks this book in the '90s, and oh the nostalgia.
Angel is bratty but also tormented, and Billy seems to be sweet under the layer of angst.

I started after searching for something light, fun and with a little paranormal side to read. I'm not particularly in the mood for something heavy or complicated rn, and felt like reading some romance, but most modern day romance novels are quite difficult me to digest. This seems right up my alley.

Lmao I forgot about updating GR for about a good chunk of this year.
Anyway, the first LOGH felt very rigid. There were lots of new technical jargon and politics-centered words that I added to my Japanese language dictionary, but tbh the writing was pretty dry in most places. I think the anime does a pretty good job setting the atmosphere and manages to surpass the feeling of staticness from the novel.

Googling lots of legends that I had not heard about lol. Also Sir Gawain and the Green Knight mentioned! need to read that

It's interesting that the author reportedly has belief in fairies, and provides historically and culturally accurate accounts on them. Usually authors that have bias in magick and occult have difficulty parsing through more grounded lenses. Refreshing

Kircheis is uh-mazing. I'd say in general that the Galactic Empire has way cooler storylines than the Alliance, and has more interesting characters too

The whole Izel (R?)Loan capture event seems a bit rushed, but I hope that Reinhardt and Co. can make things more even.

That was a quick lol. "Impregnable fortress".

I forgot to add the first book of LOGH here. I started this during early August and I'm slowly making my way through it as I'm reading it in Japanese for study. It's actually quite full of complex words and kanji but overall still comprehensible and I enjoy the narrative. imho better than Consider Phlebas by a good margin

Between the bigfoot gf, the cannibals and some other fetish things scattered through the narrative, I'm starting to think that I'm reading the author's barely disguised fetishes rather than a thought-provoking SF novel. It also drags on and on, with Horza stumbling upon weird situations without much plot going on. Appreciate the ideas, but DNF due to all the other stuff. I'll use my time on something else

Peculiar torture choice right at the start uh. Let's hope it doesn't speak for the quality of the work later on.

Holy slog. At this point I'm mostly skimming. The structure is disjointed, jumping from one discourse to the other; the writing is pretty dry and genuinely feels like it's written by genAI despite coming out more than ten years before the AI craze (was the 2021 ed.'s text modified with it?) and worst you can get all this info in a better format by watching John Michael Godier's videos on yt, for free.