Danielle Thamasa's Blog, page 20

WIP Wednesday – Aug 16

Hey all, Sam and David here again today.

It’s the middle of the week again, already. Wow. This past week has felt really long, and yet even then it didn’t really feel that productive. Sam had to spend a little bit more time at work with a shifted schedule to cover a co-workers vacation…and it ended up being pretty busy, so she didn’t get downtime, which means she didn’t get any breaks. Labor laws in the US really kind of suck…did you know that employers don’t have to give lunch breaks? Actually, in the state of Iowa, the only thing they legally have to provide is bathroom breaks.

Anyway, as per usual, we are back to talk about everything we’ve been up to in the past week. Generally this means talking about reading, writing, watching, playing, crafting, and doing. We call this weekly series WIP Wednesday. We’d also love to hear what you’ve been up to lately, so let us know in the comments.

Let’s get started.

Sam

Reading: Face the Night by Lani Forbes, The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, Queen Charlotte by Julia Quinn and Shonda Rimes

It was a slower reading week, for sure. I didn’t get as much time as usual while at work, and when not at work, I was simply really tired and didn’t read as much. I think I’m starting to catch up on sleep a little bit, so hopefully next week’s update is a bit bigger. In fact, the only reasons I picked up Queen Charlotte were that my digital hold from the library finally came in, and because I knew it would be a quick read.

As for my current/upcoming reads, I have Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim, The City of Dusk by Tara Sim, The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, and The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu.

The first is a NetGalley read, which I’ll be reviewing I believe next week, and then with Tara Sim’s and Wesley Chu’s books, I’ve been approved for the sequels on NetGalley…and I keep putting off reading the first books, so I need to actually focus and get reading. Finally, I can’t believe I still haven’t read the newest Ashley Poston book yet, so I need to fix that, and I think it’ll be a nice contrast to the other more epic and dark fantasy tales I’m reading.

Watching: I’m watching some cool shows and movies…but I’m still not talking about that. I’ll keep watching things as long as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA say to stream/watch them, but I’m not going to talk about them. Don’t worry. I’m keeping a list and will have a big ol’ talk about everything once the strike has been successfully resolved.

Writing: I’ve been doing some editing and re-writing…but not too much, so I can’t really dig that deep into anything really. I’ve also been immensely tired the past week, and it has made it difficult for me to really get much done.

Oh, and I can officially say, since the web site has been updated, that I am co-ML of the USA::Iowa::Elsewhere region for NaNoWriMo. I’m already starting up chats with the region on the NaNo site and on our region’s Discord, and I’m trying to figure out what sorts of events I could get scheduled for October and November. I know I’m going to have some virtual events, but I’d love to have a few in-person ones as well. We’ll see what happens.

Other: We went for a little walk/hike in a nearby nature preserve, but we’ll have to go back some other time when we’ve actually planned a hike. David was not wearing proper shoes, and we didn’t have drinks and snacks prepared. But it was still a nice little trip out into nature.

I also just started playing “Stray Gods” last night. I think I played for 30-60 minutes, so I can’t really say too much about it just yet. I’m still getting used to everything. At this point all I can say is that a lot of it has felt pretty hands off, with me mostly watching what’s going on. I’ve only had to select my interaction options perhaps a dozen times. Otherwise I’m just sitting there, holding my Switch, and watching the story/musical play out. It’s interesting, but I don’t know that I’m sold on the game just yet.

David

Watching: Doing a rewatch of Dragonball Z, so that I can start Dragonball Super. I am at the point where Goku is about to fight Captain Ginyu the first time. Bulma is my least favorite character at this point, Vegeta and Piccolo are still my favorites. Me and Sam are rewatching The Wheel of Time season 1, in preparation of season 2. I am sad they had to replace the actor for Mat but I will of course give the new guy a chance.

I cant forget to put here that we started watching the original Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. We just made it through the like 60 episode season 1 and now are on season 2 starting with Lord Zedd. Which actually is the first season I can remember watching of the Power Rangers when I was younger.

Painting: Been making some pretty good progress on my Oathsworn figures for the boardgame. I plan to finish up painting the figures for the Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress next. Of course I am painting these while I am painting the Slicing Noose Kill Team. I went and bought some Ork Boyz for Kill Team as well and I cant wait to paint them as well.

Playing: With all the painting I have been doing I have not had too much time to play my video games, but I did manage to finally start a seasonal hero on Diablo4. I decided on a Sorceror. I think that that is my favorite class so far in this Diablo game, Demon Hunter was my favorite in Diablo 3.

I also started playing a little bit of Sun Haven on my computer as well. It is a bit Stardew Valley like game, but I don’t think I am limited by a sleep schedule in this one. I think the coolest part is being able to play fantasy races. I ended up playing as a birdman. He looks so cute in his striped shirt and shorts. I already managed to get my combat abilities to level 8 but considering I just opened up the second column of the combat skilltree I think I still have a bit to go on that aspect. It is a nice little cozy game though and I enjoy it.

All right, well that is all from us today. Feel free to tell us what you’ve been up to in the comments, because we’d love to hear all about it. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Tabletop Tuesday: Tanto Cuore

Hey all, Sam and David here today.

Wow, our schedules are all messed up right now. It’s like it took a week before the energy drain of Gen Con sank in and threw us all out of whack. We obviously now have a bunch of games and gaming accessories and supplements et cetera to talk about over the upcoming months.

We’ll be trying as best as we can to rotate around between different varieties of tabletop games (board games, card games, dice games, TTRPGs) and various accessories and supplements for those games. This gives us more time to work our way through all the new additions to our collection so we can accurately talk about the games and our feelings on them.

Oh, and speaking of, if you missed our Gen Con Wrap Up post, you can find it here and see everything that we picked up, which will give you an idea of what sorts of posts might be coming up in future.

All right, let’s get started.

Tanto Cuore is a deck building card game for 2-4 players. The players take the roles of “master of the house,” employ a lot of cute maids, and are served by them while slowly filling out their house (card deck). But take care! The maids can become sick or get bad habits. When the game ends, the player who has the most victory point-gaining maids in his staff (all his cards) is the “perfect master” and the winner of the game.

This is the first game in the Tanto Cuore series. All games are “stand alone expansions” and can be played on their own or combined with any other Tanto Cuore game.

Play Time: 45-60 minutesRecommended Ages: 13+Number of Players: 2-4Number of Cards Included: 280

We have picked up the original game plus several of the standalone expansions, but we only recently had the chance to play it…partly because of not having a lot of free time, and partly because we wanted to make sure we understood the gameplay and rules….and that is so easy to do when you find a game demo at Gen Con, which we did at the Japanime Games booth.

Because it was the end of Gen Con and we had the time, we actually got a full-game demo, which was pretty awesome.

This is not our first deck-building style game. They all have a pretty similar setup in that you can buy cards to add to your deck and that’ll change your gameplay and strategy.

So these are simple games with the potential for a lot of strategy and complexity. And of course, there’s also a little bit of chance/luck involved because it’s not like the cards of the deck stay in the same order. Every time you run out of a draw deck, you end up shuffling your discard and it becomes the draw deck…so sometimes you’re just hoping that the same cards come up at the same time when you need them.

Some cards give you more actions. Some let you draw more cards. Some let you hire more maids. Some give you more love (the currency you use to hire maids). Some are merely worth victory points. And some have to be sent over to your chamber to accrue bonus victory points.

We’ve played this original edition a few times, and we’ve also tried out one of the expansions.

What is cool is that you can actually mix and match the sets to make each game even more varied. We have not yet tried a game like that, but we will work up to it eventually. Each standalone expansion adds a new game element, so we’re currently trying them individually so we can understand the variations before we try and combine editions.

Our favorite games are ones that have immense replay value, and I think with the ability to use various editions together, this game certainly qualifies. Plus, depending on what you draw and buy in the first few rounds may affect your strategy for the rest of the game. So if you change up your goals, then it makes each game feel different anyway.

This is an easy to pick up game that is easy to learn and easy to play. You can just follow the rules and be happy, or if you and your friends are fun weirdos like us…then you can come up with backstories and voices for the maids and your household and everything else and turn it into a full-blown eventful evening.

All right, that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Manga Monday: One Piece Vol 3 by Eiichiro Oda

Hey all, Sam here.

Well, we’re back to the start of another week…and since it’s Monday, that means there must be another Manga Monday post to share with the world. And as I said last month, I am spending several weeks talking through the first main arc of the One Piece series…partly because that’s the only volumes I currently own, and partly because…well, I’ve mentioned it in previous posts…and I’m still not talking about things that deal with the current strike by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA.

If you’ve missed my previous posts, you can find Vol 1 and Vol 2 at these links…and let’s go ahead and jump into Vol 3.

Sure, lots of people say they want to be the King of the Pirates, but how many have the guts to do what it takes? When Monkey D. Luffy first set out to sea in a leaky rowboat, he had no idea what might lie over the horizon. Now he’s got a crew–sort of–in the form of swordsman Roronoa Zolo and treasure-hunting thief Nami. If he wants to prove himself on the high seas, Luffy will have to defeat the weird pirate lord Buggy the Clown. He’ll have to find a map to the Grand Line, the sea route where the toughest pirates sail. And he’ll have to face the Dread Captain Usopp, who claims to be a notorious pirate captain…but frankly, Usopp says a lot of things…

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

This continues to be a solid series, but I still feel like we’re in the beginning stages. We’re kind of slowly bringing together what I believe will be the core crew for Luffy’s voyage around the world to become the King of the Pirates.

This volume finishes up the Buggy the Clown encounter and then gets our crew of Luffy, Zoro, and Nami off on their next quest…which introduces us to Usopp. Honestly I like this new character…and I already know he’s going to be one of the main members of the crew because my husband likes talking about One Piece a lot.

I can certainly admit that I’m partly trying out this series for him. But I do enjoy series with fantastical elements to them (and Devil Fruit powers certainly qualify). I’m also a big fan of series that feature a found family aspect, especially when that family will push to their limits and beyond to help each other out.

I like that we’re starting to get encounters that span more than one volume. It’s only going to get longer as the series progresses…and I already know that this is a very long series…actually, it may be the longest manga series I’ve ever heard of, with well over 100 volumes and still going.

Zoro is still my favorite, though. I love a badass swordsman.

Well, that’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

NetGalley Review: Face the Night by Lani Forbes

Hey all, Sam here.

Sorry for not getting this up earlier everyone, but it has been a very long few days at work, and I’m feeling really worn out from it all. It has put me farther behind than I’d like to be…but the nice thing is that I have the next two days off work, so I should have some time to rest and relax, which I definitely need.

Anyway, today I am back with another book review, this time for a soon-to-be released book…and honestly I don’t want to take too much more time with this intro, so let’s go ahead and get into the review portion of this post.

This book will be out in the US on August 15th, so now would be a great time to get your own copy.

On a harsh frontier where good and evil contend for people’s minds, a young woman must fight for her true identity in this scintillating YA fantasy from the author of the award-winning Age of the Seventh Sun trilogy.

Once, Catriona Macgregor led a charmed life. Daughter of a wealthy rancher, pretty and educated, she looked forward to all the world had to offer–until fate took a turn. Now family, home, and even her name have been stripped away. As “Black Cat Whitfield,” adopted daughter of an outlaw, she’s wanted by the authorities. It certainly wasn’t the destiny she imagined–especially as one of the Blessed.

The Blessed, rare people like Cat, are supposed to use their gifts to carry out missions for the Patron Saints, but she can only imagine that Saint Prudentia made a terrible mistake in choosing her. Still, her gift has never deserted her. Whenever danger threatens, Cat receives a vision–just in time to save her life. And when she meets a renegade priest, Father Ignatius, he helps her understand how her ability may be part of a much bigger picture. A picture that involves facing up to the monstrous Baron Caldwell – the one who ordered her parents killed – and his son, Adrian, who betrayed them all.

Cat is torn between guilt over her parents’ death, a longing for vengeance against their killers, and a dismaying new interest in Adrian. It would be easiest to flee the whole situation and never look back. But as someone once told her, you can’t outrun the darkness on your heels. There’s only one way to break through to sunrise – by turning to face the night.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4.5 stars

I didn’t realize that the first book I read by Lani Forbes would be her final book. But this one started with a beautiful foreword from Lani’s husband, talking about the similarities between Cat’s struggles and battles and Lani’s. It was the foreword that announced to those who didn’t already know that sadly Lani had passed away.

This book, Face the Night, is a fantasy western…with cowboy/outlaws and gunslinging and cattle ranching…and just a hint of magic. And, I don’t know, somehow that blend of genres works really well, at least to me.

I liked Cat and Adrian and Father Iggy and Amos and Soap and Pedro and Edith. The characters were all just really cool. Honestly I loved learning about them, and wish there was opportunity to give them each their own stories within this world, because I found the world and the concepts within to be rather interesting.

This is why fantasy standalones make me sad. Yes, they’re great and I enjoy not having to settle in for a lengthy series…but at the same time, I love having a lot of time to explore different regions and peoples and magics. There’s nothing like it.

This book had some action and some intrigue, and even some romance. It was a good time, and I definitely found myself absorbed into the story, and wanting to keep reading so I could find out what would happen next.

I marked my rating down to 4.5 stars just because I would have wanted just a little bit more with this story. Also, because some of the revelations and twists I called a bit too early. Overall though, I had a great time reading this…and it definitely makes me want to go back and read the trilogy Lani Forbes released prior to this.

Well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Book Review: Strength Check by Katherine McIntyre

Hey all, Sam here.

I am so tired. I ended up having to stay at work an hour or so later than normal, and then, despite being really tired, I struggled to get to sleep, and then I struggled to stay asleep. That means that today I really feel worn out. It also means that I just didn’t get around to typing up the review I had planned for today…mostly because I didn’t actually finish the book yet. I’m hoping to finish it up in the next couple of hours, before I go to work.

I’m really hoping that my shifts today and tomorrow go by quickly. I really need my days off. I’d love to just relax and read…maybe play some video games.

Anyway, today’s review is for a book I read earlier this week, a book that I absolutely flew through and then immediately started downloading the rest of the series.

Let’s get started.

Roxie Esposito just opened a board game café in San Francisco and should be basking in success. Instead, she’s picking out shards from her last relationship and handling her perpetually drunk mother, both of which strain her finances and fuel the need for a roommate.

Melody Roberts finally got the promotion she’d been aiming for—across the country in San Francisco. The perfect escape from her stagnant life and the toxic relationship with her now ex-boyfriend.

The moment Mel answers Roxie’s ad for a roommate, the connection between them is explosive, warm, and real—everything they’ve both been longing for. Between horror movie marathons, board game nights, and deep talks, Mel and Roxie are falling for each other hard. Except the only problem with romance is they both seem to fail every single time, and when the grenade of exes, family drama, and their own insecurities drop, neither will escape unscathed.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

I’ll just start by immediately saying that I want more geeky romances in my life. And I’m talking about books where being a geek is a main aspect of the character, not where they say they’re a geek and we never get scenes of them indulging their geeky side. Give me board games. Give me TTRPGs. Give me video games. Give me convention trips. Let the characters gush about the things they love. I don’t know, I just love it, because it is so relatable to me.

And there was certainly some of that with this book. But the summary also mentions lots of horror movie nights and deep talks…and I feel like those were mostly glossed over. I was expecting a lot of movie talk leading to deeper talk, and it just didn’t deliver that.

What it did deliver was almost immediate attraction and obvious chemistry between our two main characters. Both Roxie and Mel pined for the other, but both assumed the other wasn’t interested FOR A GOOD CHUNK OF THE BOOK. Like, I’m talking 60% or so before one of them finally made a move. It kept me gripped, anticipating when they would finally get together. And then I just didn’t want to put the book down.

There is a hurt/comfort relationship to this story. So many of the characters have had to deal with various past traumas and anxieties and toxic relationships. I appreciated that, at least to me, the characters felt real, and they resonated with me as feeling developed and complex and deep. I will say that there were small scenes of homophobia, and of toxic/controlling relationships…so if that might be a trigger for you, be aware of that.

I really did like many of the characters in this, so I’m glad that the other books in the series will see several of them take center stage and get their own stories and hopefully happy endings. I want to spend more time in the Tabletop Tavern. It seems like a place I would love to hang out in. I love a good geeky found family.

All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Weekend Writer: Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict by Cheryl St. John Chapters 1

Hey all, Sam here.

Welcome back to another bookish deep dive for Weekend Writer. So, if you’ve been paying attention, I was supposed to spend this month finishing up my deep dive into The Emotional Craft of Writing by Donald Maass…but I just wasn’t connecting to the book and it just wasn’t working for me. So I have abandoned that deep dive and started a new book. I actually read the first couple chapters like two weeks ago, and I am finding this book to be better for me.

And NaNoWriMo started making the updates to their site for the 2023 session of NaNoWriMo–specifically the updating of regions and Municipal Liaisons for those regions…so I can officially announce that I am one of the co-MLs for the Iowa::Elsewhere Region. So I’ve obviously started the prep work for all of that, even though NaNo isn’t until November.

I’m definitely feeling that desire to write, which is pretty awesome…so let’s dive into some information about the craft of creative writing!

Craft an Emotionally Charged Story That Will Resonate with Readers

Emotional impact shouldn’t be dropped into your novel as an afterthought or forced upon your story with a pair of pliers and an iron grip. It should be carefully sewn into the fabric of the story to create tension-filled moments that will keep readers turning pages. In Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict, you’ll learn how to layer emotional moments and deep connections to create a tapestry filled with conflict, pathos, and genuine feeling.

 • Create emotional depth, conflict, and tension in your novel by carefully crafting your plot, characters, setting, word choice, and more.
 • Learn what makes readers “tick”—and what will elicit the strongest emotional responses.
 • Write believable, emotional scenes and dialogue—and trim away the sappiness.

When writing a novel, your ultimate goal is to make readers smile, weep, rage, and laugh right along with your characters. Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict will show you how to evoke a multitude of feelings in your readers—and keep them coming back for more.

Introduction

From the very beginning this book felt less dry to me, and I was drawn into it a lot faster. I even found that I was grabbing sticky notes to mark passages I wanted to highlight for the purposes of this blog post.

Probably the most important concept I’ve taken away from any book on writing is from Dwight V Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer: A story is feelings. In order for a reader to connect with a story, he must feel that he has a stake in the character’s plight and must care about the outcome. If you can create an emotional connection, you can hold your reader’s attention. You can prompt him to read on and even to buy your next book.

Page 1

Now let’s just ignore the use of gendered pronouns when the singular gender neutral term they/their exists. The book she’s referencing is from 1982…and you know, female readers and writers weren’t a thing back then. Just kidding. Obviously we know that there were readers of all genders even back then, but it was a societal thing to generalize as he/him/his.

I do have to agree though, that I tend to be drawn into a book more and remember it better if I have some sort of emotional connection to the characters. Emotion is powerful and important.So

So how do we create that emotional connection? How do we write those emotional and impactful scenes in our own writing?

How do you master all the various techniques and learn what works and what doesn’t? By writing stories. A lot of them. By being willing to be wrong. By dancing naked on the table.

Page 3

The simple and difficult answer to most things is that we need to write. We learn how to harness our craft better by actually doing it. Writing theory only gets us so far. But writing ourselves into corners and encountering road blocks of plot and characterization is the best way to learn how to get out of those situations …or to avoid writing our way into them in future.

We need to share our stories in such a way that they resonate with readers.

Page 5

Obviously we’re all readers. We love stories and characters and plotting…so we know what we want to see in books. That should give us an idea of what to do for our own projects. Write what we would enjoy, what we want to see in stories. If we succeed on the feels then we can polish up the rest, right?

Feeling tells you what to say. Technique gives you the tools with which to say it.

Page 5

Being able to connect feeling and technique is the goal, or at least I feel like that is the case. We want our books to be technically good, but we also want our readers to care about the characters and the worlds they live in.

Hopefully this book is one that can help with that. I know that even this introduction gives me hope that this will be a useful writing craft book for me.

Okay, Cheryl St. John does recommend keeping a notebook with you while working through this book, and to actually do the exercises included, and to take notes throughout, which makes sense. If we learn by doing, then actually doing the exercises would be a good idea, and having a notebook at hand would mean being able to do it without any digital distractions that may crop up by trying exercises on our phones or computers.

Treat your notebook with importance. Take the exercises seriously. We learn by doing. We learn by discovering things on our own. I can explain conflict to you, but until you dissect it yourself and understand the internal workings, you won’t have grasped how to set it up in your own stories.

Page 6

Do you have your notebook handy? Let’s jump into Chapter 1!

Part 1: Conflict Makes the StoryChapter 1: Defining Conflict

St. John begins by saying that she will never say that her way of approaching story is the only way of doing so, or that a technique is the correct way and all others are wrong. I like that, because I sometimes like to mix and match my creative advice to form my own system and method. That’s part of the reason why I pick up and try out so many books on the writing craft.

What I can and will assure you is this: the right way–the most effective way to do anything–is the way that works for you. So while I have learned much on my writing journey, I can only teach you to observe, analyze, and study the effective techniques and offer you tools to test for yourself.

Page 9

The way the information is presented, even in these early pages, leaves me feeling like it is very approachable, which I really like. I know I’m no expert when it comes to writing technically, but I have been writing my own stories for most of my life.

A true sign of maturity is a writer who can look at his or her own work objectively and who has a desire to grow and stretch.

Page 10

Yeah, so I know I definitely can look back on my older writing and pick out elements I still do like, while also pointing out places where I could write it better and more effectively. That is a step forward in terms of writing maturity, right? I don’t think that my writing is just wonderful as written. I can see where there are aspects I like, but I can definitely also see those weak places where I still need to work on improving myself and my own craft.

But this book is specifically about emotion and conflict and tension, so we should probably focus on that now

So…what is conflict? According to St. John on page 11, “Conflict is anything that hinders your character’s effort to get what she wants. Conflict is another person or a group of people stopping your character from reaching her goal. It might also be an inhibiting and possibly fatal situation, like terrifying weather or an asteroid hurtling toward Earth.”

Conflict is brought to life by the character’s motivation and reactions. What constitutes conflict for one person may be taken in stride or even considered an ideal situation for the next person.

Page 12

Okay, so conflict can be a bunch of different things, and clearly it changes based on the characters and what they want or need or desire. It is also relative, much like with emotion or tension or pain…what hurts one person might be something to simply shrug off by another person.

When we first start writing, many of us have difficulty giving our characters sufficient conflict. It’s our nature to love them, nurture them, fix things for them–it’s rather like they’re our beloved children. But we can’t fix these story people if they aren’t broken. They can’t grow if they don’t have room to improve. It’s your job to unfold the plot in such a way that your story people are forced to earn their happy ending. In order for the reader to root for them, your protagonists must deserve their happily ever afters.

Page 13

I know this was something I struggled with as a newbie writer. My characters were my babies and I felt bad putting them in tough positions or hurting them. Now, I feel bad but I still do it, because I know if I push them to their limits then I will actually be rewarded with more pushback and growth.

Put your characters into a situation where conflicts are inevitable.

“Conflict must be an intolerable state of affairs; it must be derived from problems or situations that your characters cannot ignore or explain away,” says St. John on page 15. She also mentions the tendency to use incidents to show frustration or to flesh out the story to makes it seem realistic, but even though they are useful, they don’t actually complicate the situation or make it worse, and therefore aren’t really examples of conflict.

Conflict also isn’t merely anger or bickering. “This is probably one of the most widely misunderstood elements and one I see repeatedly in the stories of beginning writers. Beginning romance writers often write page after page of characters arguing and getting ticked off at each other. Getting mad and yelling at another character without reasonable, believable motivation only makes that character childish or just plain mean. This type of behavior is acceptable for antagonists because it characterizes them, but your protagonists must have more depth,” says St. John on page 16.

Misunderstandings are fine and many of the novels we read start out that way, but misinterpretations between adults are easily discussed and cleared up. A story must have conflict beyond the initial misunderstanding, or that misunderstanding must be the catalyst for something more significant.

Page 17

We circle back around to an earlier statement when St. John says “Feelings must be part of every effective conflict. Why? Because a story is feelings.” This happens on Page 18, and then some time is spent with examples from media that showcase this point.

I should point out that in the Introduction Cheryl St. John does give us a list of movies she will reference throughout the book, and she recommends rewatching them as they come up in the book, because even if you’ve watched it over and over, you’ll be watching with a different perspective.

We sympathize with characters in conflict, especially if the conflict is of their own making and they’re doing their best to change it. It’s through their reactions to the conflict that we learn who these people are and see what they’re truly made of. When we see them react, we learn something about them.

Page 19

How often are the problems, whether minor or major, in stories a cause of decisions or actions of the character. Honestly that grounds the character more and makes it so they are an active part of their life, instead of just having problems and conflicts just happen to them, instead of the character happening to the plot and action.

Give your characters agency in their own story. Their decisions and actions should have an effect on what happens next or even what happens later in the story.

When starting your story, consider how you want to present your characters: in their normal lives, before all hell breaks loose, or right in the middle of it.

Page 20

The chapter ends with an exercise, asking that when you watch movies or television to try and recognize the difference between conflict and delay in the plot, as well as to try and pinpoint the main character’s goal and write it down in one sentence. Then note down the obstacles that keep them from reaching that goal.

All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

NetGalley Review: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Hey all, Sam here.

Getting back into a normal work/life balance and rhythm after attending a great convention is not easy. I find that I’m just feeling tired and my typical day-to-day just seems dull in comparison.

Then again, I have lived on the road, working convention after convention pretty much every weekend, and I honestly would not want to live that life again.

So, it has been nice to get back to reading (and the con did get me back into writing again). Those few days at Gen Con I did basically no reading and that didn’t work for me. I like getting to read every day.

It makes me very glad that a couple of my reads this week have been shorter, because I’ve been able to read them very quickly and get the reviews written up for the planned review schedule…which is what we’re doing today. This is one of my NetGalley reads, and this book will be out in the US on Aug 15th, so there’s not much longer to wait.

Let’s get started…

From USA Today bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.

*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*

There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of her: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…

“The way Thornhedge turns all the fairy tales inside out is a sharp-edged delight.”
―Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor

My Thoughts

Rating: 4.5 stars

I’m a newer T. Kingfisher fan, only starting to read her books in the last couple of years, and not reading them too frequently…which is stupid, because I have enjoyed every one of them.

Seriously my main complaint with this one is that I wanted it to be longer. I wanted to spend more time with Toadling and Halim. I wanted more time for the story to breathe and expand. This was a novella, and it felt like a shorter novella, so probably around 120 pages. I read it very quickly. I think it only took me like an hour to complete.

I enjoyed the concept and the setup. But I feel like many things were basically glossed over. And perhaps that’s because our protagonist narrator Toadling doesn’t pay much attention to these things, but still.

Toadling was so sweet and loving, and I’m glad she found a loving family…even if they were a bunch of swamp-dwelling faerie monsters. And Halim seemed gentle and sweet and good too. He mentioned how great his mother was several times, and I found myself wanting to see Halim take Toadling to meet her, but that didn’t happen.

Thornhedge is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, with the interesting twist that the princess is the antagonist, and so there is a different reason for the enchanted slumber and the hedge of thorns around the keep. It was also interesting in that Toadling was a human who was taken by the faeries minutes after her birth and raised in the faerie realm, which basically gave her some faerie abilities and such. Our princess is the changeling left in her place. And all of this is made possible by the difference in the passing of time of the human world and faerieland, because years pass in the faerieland in just hours of the human world.

The story wrapped up nicely, and so it doesn’t necessarily NEED a follow-up, but I admit that I’d love to have another story where we could follow Toadling as she explores more of the world, because there’s so much out there she doesn’t know, and her family will be there to welcome her back when she’s ready to return, even if that is years and years later. There was something cute and warm and cozy about that fact.

All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

WIP Wednesday – Aug 9

Hey all, Sam and David here again today.

After the lengthy post from yesterday, I think we’re going to try our best to keep today’s post a little more short and sweet…because obviously most of the past week has been spent at Gen Con. Basically we’ll be covering anything that happened last Wednesday after we finished our last WIP Wednesday post, and then whatever has happened Monday and Tuesday of this week…which hasn’t been a whole lot as we’ve been recovering from the excitement of being at a convention.

But that doesn’t mean that today’s WIP Wednesday will be a bare-bones one. We still have plenty of reading, watching, playing, writing, and doing to discuss, as we do each week. There’s not much else to say, except that we’d also love to hear what you’ve been up to, so let us know in the comments (here or on social media: David is @freestateofgeek and Sam is @SamRushingBooks). We’d love to chat with you!

All right, let’s get started.

Sam

Reading: Santa Claus: Private Eye by Jeremy Berenstein, Michael Dorman, Rob Schwager, Phil Smith, and Steve Blackwell, Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher, Strength Check by Katherine McIntyre, and Wisdom Check by Katherine McIntyre

Oh gosh, I didn’t really get much reading accomplished while we were at Gen Con, sadly. So I don’t have a whole lot to talk about here. But I made up for it a little bit after getting home. Although I guess that’s because I read one graphic novel and one novella. But the novel I picked up, I ended up devouring and immediately moving into the second book of the series. So, I’m a decent chunk into Wisdom Check, so I’m going to go ahead and include it in the finished category, because I think I should be able to finish it later today.

As for current and upcoming reads…

I’m actually in the middle of the Soul Screamers Vol 1 bind up, having finished My Soul to Lose and being a few chapters into My Soul to Take. This is a re-read for me, so I imagine it won’t take too long to finish it. And then I’m trying to balance the rest of my reading between cute fun romance and romantasy and cozy fantasy with some of the bigger adventure fantasy stories and such.

Obviously a couple are for NetGalley reading and reviewing, but I’m also trying to balance that with other books I just want to read. So, for the moment I have Face the Night by Lani Forbes and The Midnight Kingdom by Tara Sim as NetGalley reads, and Soul Screamers Vol 1 by Rachel Vincent and Forged by Magic by Jenna Wolfhart as my other reads.

And I imagine that I’ll be trying to pick up the rest of the Dungeons and Dating series very soon. I’m just a little bit obsessed with them at the moment.

Watching: Haha, nope…still not talking about stuff. Pay the writers and the actors for their work and for repeated use of their work/likeness.

I will say that because of some of the games at Gen Con, I have started a re-watch of a childhood favorite…well, a childhood obsession really…and I’m enjoying the early-mid 90s graphics and shenanigans.

Writing: I am writing. I guess more specifically I’m editing and re-writing…but I have actually started a deep dive into making one of my books better than ever. This particular book, Project Death: Resurrection was one that I started writing in high school, finished shortly after grad school, and then did a couple rounds of edits before self-publishing.

I’ve learned a lot more about writing and editing since then, and I still like the story and the characters, but I know that the book can be a whole lot better. So I’m doing a major overhaul to the whole book, polishing it up, and expanding on it to make the story a bit fuller and richer. Then I plan to re-release it, probably with a new cover and everything.

I’ve only made it through a few chapters so far, but thanks to the panels at the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium, I’m feeling ready to take on the challenge, and I’m already seeing where I can make some smaller changes in the beginning to make a huge impact on the story, in terms of description and action, and most particularly more showing instead of telling, and rewriting some of the info-dumping to better introduce the information.

Other: See the Tabletop Tuesday Gen Con Wrap-Up post for all of the stuff that would typically go in this category. For here, I’ll just say that we played and then picked up a whole bunch of games and TTRPG books and supplements, so we’re not running out of material for Tabletop Tuesday anytime soon, which is pretty awesome.

I don’t know if we have any “other” plans for today. David and I have today off together this week, but it’s supposed to storm off and on most of the day…plus we went a little wild with our fun and our purchases while at Gen Con, so we might just be staying home, playing board games, and putting something to watch on the TV as background noise.

David

Electronic fishies swimming in a small pool

So, on a whim I bought these fishies and a small pool, wanting to see if the cats would have fun with them. Well…the pool is a lot bigger than I thought. Didn’t really pay attention to the measurements, I guess.

We decided to try it out today and the cats don’t seem to want anything to do with it, at least not yet.

Playing: Ive been trying to play a bunch of the card and board games that we got at Gen Con and have been slowly working my way through that.

Tears of the Kingdom I have only managed to find and finish a few more of the shrines. I have been having trouble doing the ones where the shrine takes away all of your gear and only lets you use what is inside.

Painting: I have started on a bit of a painting binge and managed to re paint a bunch of my old painted figures. I painted two more of the Oathsworn and a few of the Druhkari from my Kill Team army as well. I am reorganizing the paint desk and the game area in the dining room a little but other than that not much has gone on since Gen Con.

All right, well that is all from us for today. Please feel free to tell us what you’ve been up to lately, because we’d love to know. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Tabletop Tuesday: Gen Con Wrap Up

Hey all, Sam and David here.

Okay, this might end up being a bit long. Well, at least it’s certainly going to be a whole bunch of photos, so I don’t think we’re going to take too long with the intro section. We’ve tried for the most part to divide things up day by day at Gen Con (with the exception of the Writer’s Symposium photo dump).

It was a jam-packed four days of gaming and geekery and we’re excited to get into it.

But we should probably start with the fact that we were very sleep deprived on Thursday. So, Sam didn’t get off work until a little after 3am Central Time from her shift on Wednesday, making it already Thursday by the time that we got on the road towards Indianapolis. David had thankfully at least gotten a bit of a nap, although only 1.5 hours instead of the hoped for 3 hours. That meant that he was driving while tired….so Sam stayed awake to just talk and keep David going too. Thankfully we made it to our usual parking garage and made it into the convention center just a few minutes after the exhibit floor opened for the day…and we made it through the whole day without any chance to get any more sleep.

All right, let’s jump into the Day One fun…

Obviously here you can see our haul for the day. We can certainly admit that we went a bit crazy on picking up stuff this year, but we’re excited about so many games, and we’re going to have a lot of fun playing all of them.

One of the first places we ended up stopping at was the Dice Guardians booth, where David picked up an Ashton Greymoore Dice Guardian from Campaign 3 of “Critical Role.”

We also definitely had to find Lauren Walsh’s art booth to pick up some of her awesome Critical Role art (and David was introduced to the adorableness that is Woubble and he is now in love)…and Sam ended up getting signed character art along the way from M.L. Wang, and then we found Tyler Walpole to get some of his incredible Critical Role art.

We absolutely had to make a stop at the Paizo booth, and we picked up Kingmaker, Abomination Vault, Rage of Elements, and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, plus the map folio and the management screen for Kingmaker, and the three parts of the Stolen Fate adventure path with the Harrow Deck to use alongside it.

We also picked up the Player’s Guide for Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition and the Core Rulebook for Werewolf the Apocalypse at Renegade Game Studios.

David picked up Bananya: the Card Game and a few core sets and expansion decks for Kamigami Battles from Japanime Games.

And David very very nicely bought the Deck of Worlds and all of its expansions for Sam at the booth for The Story Engine Deck…so yeah, expect the Deck of Worlds to start showing up for Weekend Writer prompt posts soon enough.

Oh, and David also made a stop by the Cosplay Deviants booth and picked up a deck of cards.

Sam: I started my day off with going to a book signing in the exhibit hall. It was supposed to be for R.R. Virdi and Erin M. Evans, but I found out when I got there that R.R. Virdi had cancelled his con appearance…which meant I was hauling around a 822 page hardcover for no reason. But I did get Empire of Exiles signed by Erin M Evans, and she gave me some cool bookmarks, character cards, and a sticker.

The last picture that hasn’t been talked about is the free books and bookish goodies I picked up at the Writer’s Symposium. They gave away a lot of Shadowrun books this year (and I’m happy to say that I’ve already found a friend who plans to give them a good home).

I also went to the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium, which I will talk more about in the next section.

David: Probably 90% of my time was spent checking things out in the Exhibition Hall. Trying out tabletop games and just generally hanging out with other board gamers. A few of the games I played as demos were Catapult Feud, Legendary: What If, Shadows of Brimstone: Gates of Valhalla, and Jungle Ball to name a few that I remember. I played and enjoyed so many that all of it kind of blends together.

Handed out a lot of goodies to Critters over the four days who all loved what we brought. We asked them their favorite of the three campaigns and they received a corresponding goody–a blue scrying poop for Campaign 1, a golden dick for Campaign 2, and a Pâté for Campaign 3.

These photos are of various panels, showing the panelists sitting at tables and speaking on the respective panel topics. First up is: Gregory A. Wilson, Katherine Monasterio, Howard Andrew Jones, and Bradley P. Beaulieu, then I forgot to take a photo from my second panel, which included Ajit George, Whitney Beltrán, Matt Forbeck, and Brandon O’Brien, next is E.D.E. (Emily) Bell and John Jennings, then Jennifer Allaway, Erin M. Evans, Sarah Hans, and Gini Koch, after that is E.D.E. (Emily) Bell, K.B. Wagers, and Brandon O’Brien, next is Toiya Kristen Finley, then Katharine Monasterio, and finally Karen Menzel, C.S.E. (Claire) Cooney, Brandon O’Brien, Monica Valentinelli, and Bryan Thao Warra.

Sam: I’m just going to talk about all of the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium here. I went to it on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And y’all, I took so many notes at my panels. I’m thinking of either talking about the panels in depth during some regular Weekend Writer posts, or possibly even just writing them up as bonus posts. I haven’t quite decided yet.

On Thursday I had Timing the Perfect Heroic Fight with Gregory A. Wilson, Katherine Monasterio, Howard Andrew Jones, and Bradley P. Beaulieu, and I feel like I learned a lot more from it than I did from my action/fight scene panel from last year. But the panel that really got me on Thursday was How to Get into TTRPG Writing with Ajit George, Whitney Beltrán, Matt Forbeck, and Brandon O’Brien. It was incredible and definitely got me motivated to work on some of my TTRPG ideas again.

Friday started with We’re in This Together: A Writing Community Discussion About Us with E.D.E. (Emily) Bell and John Jennings and I found a lot of what was said there to be pretty motivational and inspirational. I decided to skip my 3:00pm panel because we met up with our “Nerdparents,” a couple who owns a gaming and hobby shop back in Ohio, and they basically adopted us as their nerdlings. David and I were DMs at the shop for a couple years, and we just really like spending time with them, which was worth skipping out on Narrative Nightmares and Lessons Learned, even though I’m sure that would have been a handy panel. I ended my day with Comprehensive Intimate Scenes with Jennifer Allaway, Erin M. Evans, Sarah Hans, and Gini Koch, which was good, but didn’t give me as many tips and tricks as I had hoped for.

Saturday I started with Queernormative Language with E.D.E. (Emily) Bell, K.B. Wagers, and Brandon O’Brien, and that was certainly a useful panel. Then came my two workshop panels, as in they were ones with a ticket price (and they ended up giving me a hand cramp, but…worth it). First up was Making Stories More Immersive Through Descriptive Writing and Subtext with Toiya Kristen Finley, PhD…and I’m pretty sure I took like 8 pages of notes for that 50 minute panel alone. After that was First Chapter Milestones with Katharine Monasterio, and it was more useful than that book on beginnings I covered for Weekend Writer a couple months ago, and again, I think I wrote 7 or 8 pages of notes. Thankfully then I had an hour break before my final panel of the day: Speculative Poetry in Roleplaying Games with Karen Menzel, C.S.E. (Claire) Cooney, Brandon O’Brien, Monica Valentinelli, and Bryan Thao Warra….and it just might have inspired me to try writing poetry again. If the panel didn’t inspire me for that, then the conversation I had afterwards with C.S.E. Cooney while she was signing my copy of one of her books certainly helped.

And I decided not to go to my Sunday panel, which was Landing Your Character Arcs, because I literally did the panel last year. Originally I was going to do a compare/contrast on my notes and see if the advice shifted, because a couple of the panelists were the same as last year…but I decided I’d rather spend the day in the exhibit hall playtesting games with David.

Okay…that’s it for the Writer’s Symposium….back to the regular Gen Con wrap-up and haul….here’s Day Two…

We went back to Renegade Game Studio and picked up the Core Rulebook and the GM Screen and the Standee pack (plus Sam needed some dice) for the Power Rangers RPG, and we also picked up the Core Rulebook and the GM Screen for the My Little Pony RPG. David also had to pick up the Power Rangers Deck Building game.

At Magpie Games we also picked up Wizard Kittens and the Magical Monster expansion.

David picked up The Foulest of Spirits and Darkness in Genzacon from GooeyCube, which is 5e compatible adventures.

At Japanime Games, David picked up a copy of the TTRPG Glitter Hearts and also picked up a game called Dragon Pets.

And of course, Sam ended up with some more books…first off another Shadowrun book and Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald from the Writer’s Symposium, but also Piercing the Veil by Steven A. Guglich, which was brought over by the Nerdparents from a signing they hosted a couple weeks ago.

Friday also included our annual dinner with the Nerdparents at Yard House for half-off appetizers. This year, we treated them to the meal, because we had some questions for them and needed advice on things.

David: We ended up giving the Nerdmother a care package filled with a bunch of really cool stuff to help her through some personal and medical things. Some nice coloring books and some Cinderwings that were really cute. I wish I could have done more but I think Sam’s idea was a fantastic one. This is where I learned there was a consignment/auction near where the writer’s symposium was and decided I would go check it out on Saturday since the prices would be their lowest that day. Tell you what though after all that fun I am glad I decided to get a room with a whirlpool tub in the bathroom.

Day Three….yes, we know, we picked up a lot of stuff. This is a long post. We did try to warn you.

A stop by Green Ronin Publishing included picking up the Fantasy Age Core Rulebook 2nd Edition and both the Core Rulebook and the GM Screen for The Expanse RPG.

We went back to Renegade Game Studios to pick up two Sourcebooks for the Power Rangers RPG which give some pretty cool expansions to Ranger options for game-play (like adding Gold, Silver, Orange, and Purple Rangers). David also decided to pick up the Zeo set for the Deck Building Game.

At Slugfest Games, we picked up Red Dragon Inn 5, the Character Trove, which not only has new character options to add to the original Red Dragon Inn, but also is in a huge box that can house most of the expansions so they can all be together.

Both Sam and David picked up some bookish freebies at the Writer’s Symposium, which meant even more Shadowrun books. And Sam also made sure to swing by Kobold Press to get the Kobold Guide to Dungeons, which was the newest release of that series, and the only one she didn’t already own.

We also made a stop to Dryad Tea and got a nice selection of tea to try, because we do enjoy a good cup of tea, and that’s even more true when the blends are inspired by tabletop games.

David also went to the Consignment Sale and picked up a bunch of new/used games at a discount, so we added Say Anything, Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter, Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot with Green and Purple expansions, Testament, and Ex Libris.

Oh, and David also stopped by Rollacrit’s booth to pick up some the game and some glasses for the Heroes of Barcadia game.

Also on Saturday, we playtested Spellbook, a really cool game by Space Cowboys at one of the Asmodee game play areas on the exhibit floor. This game will be out September 29th, 2023, and we will definitely be reviewing it in a future Tabletop Tuesday, so stay tuned.

David: So waiting in line for the consignment wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sam already listed what I got there so I’m not gonna list them off again. I was really most excited to find a copy of Ex Libris, since I know Sam has wanted a copy of that for a few years, so getting a good copy at that price I did was great.

I was really looking forward to being able to hit up Rollacrit for Heroes of Barcadia, I had done a demo of it last year and never got around to getting it and was hoping they would have a good deal for the base game and character expansion and they did I think both cost a little under $100. I am going to have so much fun playing that with friends since your character token is a cup you can put whatever drink you want in. Just be careful taking damage cause you got to drink from that cup when your character takes damage.

I also cannot wait until we can buy Spellbook, I think it is a game we will love playing as well.

Whew…almost there…included in this Day Four photo dump is a signed book (Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney) that Sam actually got on Day Three but forgot to take a photo of until we got home.

We met Ginny Di! And Sam got her signature in her celebrity D&D PHB, so that’s exciting. While at Ginny Di’s booth, Sam got a water bottle, David got a beanie, and we both decided to share a NPC pin pack.

At Flying Frog Productions, we picked up a copy of Shadows of Brimstone: Gates of Valhalla, which is a fun, sort-of GM-less TTRPG board game.

At Japanime Games, we picked up a couple standalone expansions to Tanto Cuore, and David won store credit during a end-of-day raffle and picked up Sailor Moon: Imposterous.

At Nomnivore Games, we picked up Dungeons & Dinos and the Nomster Manual expansion. This game is ADHD & Dyslexia friendly, and even has an option to poke holes into the cards to basically DIY Braille. Nomnivore Games is all about making games that are cute and fun, and above all else, accessible. We think that’s awesome.

We picked up some game mats and stickers from artist Sasha R. Jones, because Sam is a crow and can’t help but be drawn to crow art.

Another trip to Magpie Games got us the Standard Bundle for Root: The Roleplaying Game, which includes the Core Book, the Travelers & Outsiders supplement, the GM screen, and a set of Faction Dice.

And another trip to Kobold Press had us picking up the Kobold’s Guide to Board Game Design and the Alpha Release of Tales of the Valiant, and because we were Kickstarter backers, we also were given a bunch of goodies including supplements, dice, and pins.

One of the final things we did at Gen Con was to play a demo of Tanto Cuore, which was really fun. And then we took everything to the car and officially ended our weekend of fun with a stop by Giordano’s for some pizza…thin crust this time, since we were hungry and didn’t want to wait around for a Chicago-style Deep Dish.

It was an incredibly fun four days of gaming and geekery, and it has left us feeling energized and inspired…while at the same time being physically very tired.

Thank you all so so much for stopping by and sticking with us through that rather long post. We appreciate you all. That is all from us for today, but we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.

Manga Monday: One Piece, Vol 2 by Eiichiro Oda

Hey all, Sam here.

There’s always this sense of exhaustion after coming home from attending a convention. Exhaustion mixed with exhilaration. Sometimes it makes it difficult to swing back into the normal work/life schedule. Thankfully, having dedicated series of posts on this blog means we don’t have to wonder what we’ll post as we try to settle down from the excitement of being at a convention surrounded by other people who are just as passionate about geeky hobbies.

The problem right now is that there is so much that we want to do and play and talk about, and we only have so much time free to play games and to write up blog posts, so it makes life a bit more complicated. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out, but I promise that we have a LOT of content to look forward to, because we played some really fun games over the weekend, and we have plenty more to play and talk about.

But today is not a game post. Today is a manga post, and I’m back to discuss the next volume in my One Piece voyage…David and I are doing a watch-through of the early anime episodes before the live-action show comes around at the end of the month, and I’ve also been reading the corresponding volumes of manga. It’s been a fun experience.

So, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s review post.

As a kid, Monkey D. Luffy vowed to become King of the Pirates and find the legendary treasure called the “One Piece.” The enchanted Gum-Gum Fruit has given Luffy the power to stretch like rubber–and his new crewmate, the infamous pirate hunter Roronoa Zolo, strikes fear into the hearts of other buccaneers! But what chance does one rubber guy stand against Nami, a thief so tough she specializes in robbing pirates…or Captain Buggy, a fiendish pirate lord whose weird, clownish appearance conceals even weirder powers? It’s pirate vs. pirate in the second swashbuckling volume of One Piece!

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

This is another volume that I read back in October 2022, when I had a week that had me reading a lot of books and just finding that spark of joy in my reading again…not that I wasn’t enjoying reading before that, but I had been in a terrible reading slump, and last October was when I started to feel like I might be breaking out of that.

I don’t know if I would have gotten into this series if I had paid attention to it when I was a kid. As much as I loved things like X-Men and Power Rangers and Animorphs (and Sailor Moon on the anime side of things), I don’t think I would have liked the seeming ridiculousness of the Devil Fruit powers back then. Now I appreciate their mind-boggling quirkiness and weirdness. Now they’re just fun, even if they are a bit exaggerated.

This volume gives us more to see with Nami, as well as getting a better sense of both Luffy and Zoro (still referred to as Zolo at times in these early volumes). But we also see Luffy face a new caliber of villain with Buggy, who also has Devil Fruit powers. So it’s Gum-Gum versus Chop-Chop.

Honestly though, the true hero of this volume is Chou Chou. Actually Chou Chou might be the reason why I’m really really starting to enjoy Luffy. We saw this a little in the first volume, where Luffy will step forward and help others, but we really see it here, when Luffy is ready to take on a crew of pirates because they threatened Chou Chou’s treasure, and Luffy knows how valuable a personal treasure is. It’s a very endearing trait.

And even this early on, we’re already to villains and fights that can’t be wrapped up in a single volume, which yeah, it makes sense. If every encounter was over quickly then it wouldn’t be that entertaining of a story, and would actually start to feel a bit repetitive. So, it’ll be cool to see the conclusion of Luffy vs Buggy in the next volume (although since I’ve actually read like 9 volumes by this point, it feels weird to type up my review this way…but I also try and approach these as individual volumes within the whole collective of the series).

I’m not entirely sold on Nami just yet, but I do know that I’m a fan of Luffy and Zoro (especially Zoro). I can’t wait to see Luffy bring more people into his crew.

All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back with more geeky content — like tomorrow’s Tabletop Tuesday post, which will be an overall wrap up of our Gen Con experience!