Gord’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2017)

Gord’s comments from the Vampires, Weres and Fae! group.

Yup, winter has shown up for sure. We've had snow the last couple days but only a bit. The city is now under a snow warning as we are supposed to get 4-6 inches of the white stuff in the next 48 hours. Oh, the other sign that winter is here is my yearly nemesis has reared its ugly head. I had someone in my neighborhood fire up their leaf blower at 9:30 last night. I wasn't starting to drift off and was feeling pretty chill when the battle cry of winter lets roar through the night air.

I find it's the older audiobooks that seem to have the most issues. Especially if they are just taking something that was recorded for cassette or CD and just flipping it into digital. There is no effort to clean it up and the quality is usually pretty rough. The other issue I have is the sound balancing as well. Each chapter in this book starts with this bit of music and I swear it's 10x louder then the actual narration.

I'm listening to my audiobook and man it's such a disappointment. Not the book itself but the overall quality of the audiobook. I think this is an older recording as everything sounds tinny and there is this constant background hum. It's not so bad if I'm listening to it on my computer on home but when I'm listening to it on my earbuds it's so noticeable.

It is starting to feel and look like winter out there this morning. Currently it is -13c/9f and there is a skiff of snow on the ground with more flurries over the next few days. Of course this is the perfect morning for an iced coffee. It sounds crazy but I just like iced coffee more then a hot coffee. I am bringing gloves though. Last week was rough walking around with an iced coffee and temps hovering around the freezing mark.

I have some concerns about the whole exclusive content business model as well. I simply don't think it will work. I'm saying that because I remember there was a time when that was all the rage with video games. Where you could only unlock a certain character or skin from a Gamestop or a Walmart or whatever. It didn't go well with fans and ultimately changed to other predatory business practices. Why should people have to buy multiple copies of the same game just to get the full experience? I also don't see it working well in the digital age. It probably won't take long before these extra stories end up the internet.

Now limited editions of books, we are talking super high quality books with fancy art and all that, maybe. There is a market out there for it of course but the market is also limited. You can't give this treatment to just any book or series it has to be something popular enough to drive fans to your store for a copy. Things like LotR, Wheel of Time, Harry Potter, etc. Even then it will still be a limited market. Not a lot of people can, or want to, drop a massive amount of cash on limited editions. For instance there is a limited edition box set of The Wheel of Time that is something like $1,400. Not many people are going to be going out of the way to buy that.

I do like the more decentralized idea where bookstores have more of a say in what they carry. There is that grumpy old man part of me that groans at the idea of it being used to curate things to Booktok though.

I kind of fell into the classic readers trap last night. I finished up what I was currently working on about 9:30ish. It was a bit early to go to bed and, honestly, I wasn't feeling all that tired. I decided to pick up my next read and get started on it. It was a comic so I figured I'd read a chapter or two just to see how the book was going to go. Next thing I know it's nearly midnight and my eyes are feeling real heavy and getting blurry. Of course what I was reading was a gory horror comic so I can't just hop into bed as I've still get all this messed up stuff floating around in my head. I've had about four hours sleep heading into this week. Things are awesome.

Oh, and for the record, I regret none of it. The book is really good. One of the first things I did this morning, after my normal morning stuff that is, was pick the book up again. This is why I have an alarm, not to wake me up but to remind me to put down the thing I am lost in and start getting ready for the day.

Time for a short update from this week.

The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 1: Deus lo Vult -4 Stars
This is one of those light novel series that I wanted to get into when I got into my light novel kick a while back. It took me a while to get to this one because there were a few holds on this book. It also took me a little longer to get through this one because I forgot how different this light novel was. Most light novels are YA books with a lighter writing style that makes for a quicker and easier read. This book is not YA and has a very dense writing style. The author, while anonymous, is clearly someone into some nerdy subject matter. This book is an alternative history version of Germany in the 1920's. WW1 never happened and the country is on the track towards an inevitable world war. Our MC is a young girl (9-11 years old) who is an orphan. She had one way out and that was joining the military and she is able to do that because her magic ability is incredibly high. Yeah, magic, there is that alternate history thing coming in but here is the big twist. This little girl is not just a little girl, she is the reincarnation of a modern day Japanese business man. A man obsessed with rules, and probably a borderline sociopath. To this man the only thing that matters is the rules and using them to get ahead in life. Human emotions just don't factor into his thinking. So you take this man, shove him into the body of a little girl, throw him into a military setting where everything is about rules and you have a frightening individual. This little child is emotional and mentally way to advanced for their age and is gaming the system so hard. Now there is a counter to this person and it will not be what you expect. This man is in a battle with God. God is upset with humanities lack of faith and is basically taking it out on this guy. Trying to prove that in a bad enough situation everyone will eventually turn to God. It's a weird book. For the most part it reads like a military alternate history kind of novel. Then every once in a while God just kind of shows up and throws a monkey wrench into our MC's life.

Now, one other thing I want to address and that is the anime. I love the anime but it is so different from the book and I can kind of see why that decision was made. The anime is pretty quick paced and there is a lot focus on the action that happens. In the novel things are much slower paced as the book loves to focus on a lot of other characters. It also loves to get into a lot of detail about human resources, supply chains, troop movement, etc. This element is what makes this novel so dense. Instead of "the troops moved here and fought this country" it gets into all the challenges of moving those troops, the various other options, the philosophy behinds these decisions. It really gets into the details of things and the action scenes are just kind of sprinkled into things. There is also one other element that pops up towards the end of this novel that is not in the anime and I hope sticks around in future books. There are parts of the book that are told from some 40 years into the future. You have a reporter working on a documentary about the great war and there is this thing that no one will talk about. It is redacted in every countries documents, no one dares speaks of it and if asked they change the subject. Who ever this person is, and the unit that they were in charge of, were massively influential to the war. As the reader we are well aware that this person is Tanya but it just raises so many questions. Is the world hiding this because of how horrifying it is? Is Tanya still alive? What happened? I am really looking forward to reading on in this series and seeing how things progress. It can only get more frightening as Tanya now has a her own battalion of hand crafted mages who are extremely loyal to her.

Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. Light Novels, Vol. 2 -4 Stars
Now this is more of the light novel style that I know. Just a low stakes popcorn read about our MC being a silly goober in this online video game. Seeing the devs losing their minds as she accidentally breaks the game in new and creative ways. This is just a fun read that I can unwind with and simply enjoy.

The manga section is also short

The Great Cleric (Manga) Vol. 11 -4 Stars
The 11th book in this series, what can I really say about it that I haven't before? We finally get the next dragon in the story and it was alright. It fits with the narrative shift from our MC being this lone warrior to being a leader of a large group. It just wasn't as satisfying to see our MC basically sit in the back lines while everyone else does the fighting. Granted, he is a healer and being in the back is kind of their whole thing but still.

As for what is next, again, it will be short and sweet. Still working on Harry Potter on audio and I'm having a good time with that. For things that are not audio I'm shifting from novels back into comics/manga as I've kind of acquired another giant stack in the last couple weeks. Shocking, I know, who could have seen this coming.

My library announced something exciting yesterday and that is a new digital platform for lending called The Palace Project. From what I have been reading so far it aims to become this all in one library platform pulling from Libby and other services into one. The most exciting part is that it will also being pulling in select Audible content as well. It looks like it's still kind of in its infancy though and it's only available as an app currently. They are working on a web based browser for it currently with a web based reader sometime later on. I'm probably going to stick with Libby until they get the web browser set up but this seems pretty promising.

Time for that weekly update once again.

A Bad Day for Sunshine -3 Stars
This was a buddy read and far from my first Darynda Jones novel. I've read most of the Charley Davidson series, I've read The Betwixt series, and now, here we are with this series. It's kind of what you would expect from this author honestly and this novel has me feeling a bit mixed. The premise for the novel is good, the quirky main character and her daughter are great, the humor is bit hit or miss depending on your taste, and then there are some things that took away from the novel. One of the big ones for me was that this novel felt like it had way too much going on. There was the main plot, there was the backstory for the MC, there was the daughter getting bullied, the romance line, the daughters romance line, the escaped prisoner line, the local running jokes, and on, and on. As a result it made the book feel really cluttered and hard to keep track of what was going on. You were never sure if what you were reading was a random thing happening or something that would popup chapters later, looking at you escaped prisoner. It also took the main story about the young girl getting kidnapped and kind of shuffled it into the background as it cycled through all these various story lines. The other big thing that annoyed me, and this is an issue I have with this kind of book in general, was the constant reminder about how hot all the main male characters were. When you were introduced to a male character it wasn't so much about their character but how hot they were. The only personality aspects you got were ones that helped emphasis how hot they were for the female lead. Now if this happened a couple times in the novel it wouldn't have been so bad but I swear it happened every time a male character reappeared. Is if we had somehow forgot about their hotness since we last met the character. With a tighter story this might not have bothered me so much but this felt like just more fluff that was distracting from the main story. I do intend to continue as we are buddy reading the trilogy but it's now a little lower down the priority list.

Encore in Death -5 stars
This is going to be a bit of an odd In Death review and that might be due to the week break I took part of the way into the book. This break wasn't really planned. I had started this as something to read at work while it was slow and then suddenly it got busy. I then had to factor this book into my much busier outside of work reading schedule. For the first half of the novel it was giving me what I want from an In Death book but the mystery wasn't really grabbing me. Then we get into the second half and the book started going through some twists and turns that I wasn't fully expecting. This is where things really started to pick up for me. After one arrest I was wondering where things were going as it was way to early in the book for this to be happening. This is where the twists really started kicking in and the novel really took off for me. Overall it was more In Death which is always a plus for me but the mystery was kind of weaker in this one.

Now for the manga

I Want to Be a Wall, Vol. 2 -3 Stars
I Want to Be a Wall, Vol. 3 -4 Stars
I'm going to be talking about this more as a series then as individual books as this was a short trilogy. I appreciate the message that it was sharing and the characters for what they were representing. It was interesting to see an asexual character as a story lead especially in a story from a different culture. The biggest issue I had with this trilogy was how it was, what is the best way to put this, how it was chopped up. This was a trilogy with three super short manga, 150ish pages versus the normal 190-200ish pages, which wasn't so bad but I think this story would have been better if it was two books. Reorganize the story a bit, spread it over two books instead of three, and I think I would have had a better time with this. The first book could have covered some of the current day stuff and the backstory all in one, the second book could be more of the current day moving into the big resolution, with a satisfying "years later" epilogue. I suspect that splitting this into three was a publishing companies decision to try and milk profits a bit. Normally this doesn't bother me as much bit with this one it just didn't feel right, if that makes sense.

The Moon on a Rainy Night, Vol. 2 -4 Stars
I don't get this one guys, I really don't. Normally this is one of those manga that would frustrate me with all the drama and the whole dragging the romance aspect but for whatever reason it's working for me here. At least for now anyways, this is the kind of story that could sour for me real fast. For now, I'm here for the ride and I want more.

Dragon Ball (3-in-1 Edition), Vol. 8: Includes vols. 22, 23 & 24 -5 Stars
Alright, alright, I think I'm getting the appeal of DBZ. I never grew up watching the anime and most of my knowledge about it comes from pop culture osmosis just because of how big this series was and still is. I had no interest in it as it seemed like it was just guys screaming for a few episodes before a quick fight. Reading the manga though has opened my eyes. This volume was a really good read. Yes, it was trope heavy but it showed what a story can do when it handles those tropes well. You knew a character was going to lose a fight before it started because it was a set up fight. This was a fight to show you how strong the villains are so that you could see how strong Goku was when he finally arrived on the scene. A lot of your major story elements are all towards setting up the inevitable big fight with Frieza which we haven't gotten to yet but it just feels so satisfying. It's that classic moment in a story where the bad guys do something monumentally stupid, like kidnapping the MC's kid, and now the story becomes this inevitable march towards the MC dealing out some sweet, sweet justice. I was enjoying the story already but there was something about this volume that just clicked fully with me.

Now, what is next
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This is my current audiobook from the library and I'm looking forward to this one.

The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 1: Deus lo Vult
This is the physical book I'm currently reading. This not so light novel that just feels so different from its peers. More on this next week once I'm done.

As you guys are aware I've been working on eating less and I've been at it for a little over a month now. I think I've actually hit the proverbial nail on the head with this one. So many times I've tried to change my eating habits by cutting out this or cutting out that and it would inevitably fail. Usually when things got crazy in my life. This one isn't cutting out anything or drastically changing anything, it's just simply eating less and I feel pretty good with myself. I've also noticed, over the last week or so, that my clothes are starting to fit me different. Don't get me wrong I didn't drop 100 lbs in the last month but I am starting to shed some of that weight.

Have fun!

As your neighbor I am greatly concerned about the affects on us as a country both in a day to day sense (economy and what not like that) as well as politically. We've seen how the win had emboldened a certain part of out society and I feel that part will once again be reinvigorated shall we say. We've got our own elections coming up soon with a popular candidate that likes to echo a lot of American rhetoric.

Oh boy what a lovely day, how much fun today has been so far, I'm just loving today...

No matter what happens today I hope everyone has a safe and good day.

I'm Canadian and while the election doesn't directly affect me like most here that is also something on my radar which is also not helping with things today. I kind of want to hibernate and wake up next week.

The main source of tension and drama is all coming to a head tomorrow. Long story short there were decisions made last week, as a group we didn't take this well and raised unholy hell about it, upper management panicked and tried back tracking. Regardless, everything is tense and on edge right now. There is now a high level meeting with our boss and the two bosses above him. We may or may not get pulled into it as well as we were the ones raising hell. Tomorrow is just a giant ball of stress for me and I can't wait for it to be over.

Monday's are hard enough as is but today is Monday, we just had a DST change so my internal clock is in shambles, and there is a whole bunch of tension and drama going on at work that is spilling over from last week. I normally want to stay home on a Monday morning but today I REALLY want to stay home.

Alright, time for that weekly update and I've been a busy little reader this week. This has been a bit of a weird week of reading as I've kind of bounced all over the place with various results.

The Way I Am -4 Stars
This was one of those weird things that popped up while browsing through the new books on my local libraries website. At the time I figured it would be an interesting read so I requested myself a copy. Overall this was an interesting read for me and it was a pleasant mix of stuff I knew, stuff I didn't know, and stuff I kind of knew. This book talked about his early life before becoming a superstar and that helped really put his early actions into perspective. It delved into his early challenges with fame and again it was something I knew about but getting an actual glimpse behind the curtains was interesting. The two big stand outs for me was seeing him break the cycle of abuse and poverty with his kids. His decision to step back from touring entirely and making his recording times into a 9-5 job allowed him to be there for his children. The other thing, and this was something I've heard of before, was his writing. I've heard for a long time that he was always jotting down lyrics as they popped into his head. Towards the end of this book was shots of some of these sheets of paper and holy smokes was that weirdly personal. These weren't neat and organized notes they were just scribbles at all angles on a random sheet of paper using whatever he could find to write with. Some were written in pencil, some were in pen with all colors of ink, it was just all over the place. It was kind of weird seeing this part of the creative process. One big thing that bummed me out with this book, and this is kind of on me, was that it came out in 2009. When I saw it pop up in the queue of books on order I figured it was a new book and that was part of what intrigued me. There was nothing wrong with the book but I would have loved to have read something from the last few years. A book a little further down this path of self reflection and growth. Overall it was a quick and interesting read.

Who's That Girl?: A Memoir -3 Stars
I had no intention of reading two biographies in one week but the library decided otherwise. Like the Eminem one I found this in the queue of new books coming at the library and figured I would give it a whirl. I remember Eve from the early 2000's and liking her music at the time. Unlike the Eminem one this was not a good book. This is the kind of nonfiction book that makes me not like nonfiction and was drifting hard into the two star territory. The first part of this book was just alright. It basically went over her early life in Philadelphia, her signing with Dr. Dre, getting let go from there, signing up with Ruff Ryders, her first three albums, etc. This part of the book was structured and flowed from one point in time to another. The biggest problem I had here was that it all just felt painfully generic. This is the bog standard biography kind of flow and the writing wasn't anything special. If this was the entire book this would have been a painfully average three star rating. Then we get the later half and this is where this boring book just turned into a slog for me. I had two major issues with the latter half of this book. First, the time line completely got chucked out the window and instead it felt like a boring version of Dr. Who hopping all over the time line. There was one chapter that started after the funeral of DMX in 2021/2022, then it flew back to 2006, then forward to 2017 all in one chapter. Every chapter in the latter half of this book was just all over the time line from about 2006 to the early 2020's. It made it hard to follow and to get invested in anything. The other big issue, and this is a weird one, is that the second half of this book had this weird PG-13 heavily sanitized feeling to it. It felt like stories were cherry picked for how safe they were and few names were shared. Instead of using names it was "another female rapper", "another rapper", "a man", etc. Here is the thing, I get not wanting to spill everything and playing stuff close to your chest but when every story feels like this it just takes on this weird feeling and gets really boring. It's not like I didn't learn anything in the second half of the book I just don't think the slog was worth it.

City Spies -3 Stars
I'm not sure how this popped up on my radar but it was the perfect filler audiobook for me to listen to between some longer ones that I am working on. This is one of those middle grade spy novels where the adults figure the best course of action in espionage is to form a unit of child spies, in this case early to mid teens. Our MC is of course the newest recruit so we get to learn all about the unit and how they work before going on their first mission. The mission that perfectly uses every element that was foreshadowed in the book up until this point. I know it sounds like I am ragging on this book but it was a very entertaining book, it just wasn't mind blowing. It took the formula for one of these novels and wrote a very solid book by coloring inside the lines. I do intend to continue with this trilogy as there are only three books and they are the perfect length to slot between larger things I am working on.

Now for the manga and comics

I Hate Fairyland, Vol. 7: In the Mean Time -4 Stars
I was bored at work this week and was cruising through Hoopla when I discovered the latest collection of this series that I love. It was a quick and easy read but I felt like there was something off with this one. This one was basically just a collection of what felt like meta jokes instead of any real story. The first volume was essentially one long joke about Taylor Swift, that football player she is dating, and farting. Then there is another about how bad Hollywood is, I Hate Fairyland getting selected for a movie, and all that junk. Not sure if this actually happened or if it was just commentary about Hollywood in general but I'd say it was the latter one. It still has all the hallmark stuff that I would expect from this series, it was just lacking a story.

A Witch's Printing Office, Vol. 3 -4 Stars
A Witch's Printing Office, Vol. 4 -4 Stars
I'm not sure I can properly describe my love for this silly and stupid series. This is a great example of how to do a meta or referential joke so perfectly. If you don't understand what it is referencing to you aren't lost and there is still humor there. If you do get it though it just makes everything even funnier. In these two volumes we had various references to publishing companies and authors that I've come to expect. What I did not expect was the Girls und Panzer reference that was out of left field. Then there is the wild meta joke in the fourth book. Basically the Magiket is preparing for the latest one when they get told by the adventuring guild that they have to cancel for this epic battle of heroes. This then goes into this tournament arc where the MC makes her way to the top of the tournament by essentially doing nothing. This whole story line was great by itself and had me laughing. Then I read the notes in the book that helps explain some of the references and my mind was blown. This entire story line was a reference to the 2020 Olympics. Comiket has always been held at the same time every year since it started except in 2020 when the Olympics were in Tokyo. The both had the venue booked for the same time and Comiket ended up getting bumped to a later date. The fact that the author could cook this into his series and make it fit so well into the in world lore was great.

The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World, Vol. 1 -4 Stars
Alright, I think I might have a new favorite series and this is after only reading one volume. This thing hooked me in hard from the very beginning with our MC. It started with a rather standard Isekai set up where god was telling our MC that they have been selected to travel to a fantasy world to be their savior. They will grant the MC with any wish and make them powerful in either combat or magic abilities. Our MC's response to this was "Nah, I'm good". She is in her thirties, loves to cook and read, and loves just relaxing after work on her couch with a good book and some good food. All this adventure sounding stuff was just not for her and she wanted none of it. Turns out she has no real say in the matter and uses her smarts to set herself up good in the next world. Not as an all powerful adventurer or any such nonsense. She has herself a book cafe in one of the safest countries in this new world, it's near the capital but still remote so she wont be bothered, and she has a laundry list of magical abilities. This allows her to essentially cook and read to her hearts content while being bothered by basically no one. Of course this is where the more Shojo like elements slide into the story. She gets one guest who is this long haired super hot guy who loves to read, oh and he is the captain of the guard. He is looking for a particular book and a quiet place to read. The romance hasn't started yet but the ground work has been firmly laid. There is a little conflict being set up with the previous savior and her being an absolute spoiled brat abusing her powers. I really loved this first book and I want more. I even want to see if I can track down the light novel.

Spy x Family, Vol. 9 -4 Stars
More of this manga and I'm having a great time with this series.

One Piece, Volume 4: The Black Cat Pirates -4 Stars
More One Piece, in this one we get into the main battle between the Luffy's crew and Black Cats.

Hirayasumi, Vol. 2 -4 Stars
Another manga that I have a hard time explaining why I love it. This is just a chill slice of life manga about a 30 year old man living his life. He was a former actor who retired and is now just living life. His cousin, who is attending art school, lives with him. There is the real estate agent who takes or of the house he lives in, his weird friend, and just things happening in all their life's. I love slice of life things but normally with a fantastical element to spice it up a bit. This is just a well written slice of life story about a dude living a slow paced life. I can't explain why I love it but I do.

Now, what is next

A Bad Day for Sunshine
This is my next audiobook and it is a buddy read. I'm about 11% of the way into the book and it's alright so far. I feel like it's way to early to be forming a strong opinion one way or another.

Outside of that I have some more manga, the next In Death novel, and some more light novels to work through.

That sounds like an awesome weekend plan.

It's snowing, it's actually snowing outside, run, panic, scream...


Alright, it's more sleet/snow, it's barely a dusting, and this is the first dump of the season so it will inevitably melt before long.