Eddie's Monthly

We keep on keeping on this month, and going down the booklog list.

Godzilla on my mind – William Tsutsui

The café's #1 Godzilla addict fan reporting in.

This book is a sorta retrospective on the godzilla phenomenon from it's beginning in 1954 until 2004, when this book came out. It is to note that this was released before Toho's final Godzilla in the Millenium era, Gozilla: Final Wars from 2004, and Toho's subsequent putting of Godzilla under ice until 2016. It is also before any of the modern american Godzilla movies, although the first american godzilla, from 1998, had released by then. This also mostly talks about pre-internet stuff, and definitely pre modern internet (youtube wasn't even a thing in 2004).

It was a nice little read. The author is a historian so he does do a good job of putting together an interesting and structured essay about godzilla. Although it's nice to have the point of view of someone from that time, it is a double edge sword. We have a nice time-capsule of was Godzilla was in the late 80 to early 2000's, but at the same time, every reference is extremely dated to the point of irrelevance. And it's not even a thing of “Am I too french to understand any of this anglo-saxon/american bullshit?”, it's just stuff that is too specific to that period and that just didn't stand the test of time. Other than that, it was really nice to learn about all the copycats that godzilla had spawned, and all the weird shit that happened for the american distribution (and therefore most likely canadian as well) of godzilla movies. Like imagine hollywood execs saying that the cast of the movie is not white enough so the american audience won't care, and them filming sequences with an american cast to replace the ones in the original movie. Insane.

I must see more Godzilla movies.

Baptism of Fire – Andrzej Sapkowski

(Book 5 of the Witcher Series)

I hate the characterisation of Milva. The trope of womanly characters falling head over heels for Geralt right away for no reason continues with her, but it's also done super weirdly, like she's a strong independent woman but in her heart she's just a damsel who “needs” Geralt. Maybe it's the translation that imbues that weird vibe, but I was really not a fan. The other member of the hansa were cool, even if it did take me pretty much until the end of the book to appreciate cahir. Regis is the goat. The Ciri/Falka plotline felt a bit off at times. One book to go until the end of Geralt and Ciri's story.

Les hérétiques de Dune – Frank Herbert

(Dune saga book 5)

PEAK but also a tad weird

After the end of God Emperor of Dune, I didn't think Frank could make me super invested in another Dune plotline. I was wrong, I was hooked within the first 20 pages. Great new story, interesting characters... I liked the new 5000 years in the future (from the last novel) setting, all the new world building that we get drip by drip, but with enough mystery left out to keep everything engaging. And bro, they've been making duncans for literally 10 000 years at this point, what's up with him?

But it also gets a bit weird at the end, with sex kung-fu.

The Lady of the Lake – Andrzej Sapkowski

(Book 6 [and final book] of the Witcher Series)

I really didn't like the this final book of the witcher series. The plot both grinds to a halt and gets resolved in the same book, and none of the resolutions for any arcs are really satisfying. It really felt like the author was just done with this part of geralt's story and just rushed through everything to get to the end. The narrative device used for the first part of the book adds many, many pages of fluff. I can and do appreciate less conventional story telling mechanics, and even digressions, but not when this is the last book of your saga and none of the plot lines have been resolved or even developed fully.

We don't really do anything of substance with Geralt, we have none of Yennefer's POV, and only Ciri's story moves forward. Only 200 pages from the end of the book — and the end of Geralt's saga — we were so far away from any resolution from any of the plotlines introduced in the book, and there's six books worth of material and setup and stuff, that I started doubting that this was indeed the final book in the saga. But it is. In 200 pages, the author concludes the giant geopolitical intricate war/invasion plotline of the series, has the main characters take care of the first and second main bad guys, has the situation with the third bad guy (who was a complete mystery until then, but let's throw in some last minute exposition) resolve itself. Also, we kill off all the troupe's companions, “resolve” some of the main themes, have the main characters — which had been running after each other for the last three books— finally meet up, concludes the arc of those main characters. On top of that the author uses more than one extra narrative device that take more breathing room from the plot, and has almost none of the character arcs, and honestly nor the rest of the plotlines, resolve satisfyingly.

The series overall is good, and even this book, but it really needed a good book or two to really have stuff wrap up neatly. I will probably read the other Witcher books, that are all prequels/sidequels (since this books concludes the witcher saga quite unambiguously) because I think the universe is really cool.

Arthurian Tales mentioned.

Now that I've read the books though, I can ask, what the fuck were they doing with the show? Not only is the plot is completely different, and so are the characters, so much so that it's not even an adaptation of the witcher saga after season 1, but it's also complete ass.

Going through book series is the easiest part of the boocklog, but I feel like as soon as I have to decide what to read next and it's only standalone books, I'll be overcome with choice paralysis. Still, so far I'm at 19/60 books in the booklog, and at 5647/19886 pages — or 31% and 28% done respectively — so have have some margin to manoeuvre. Let's keep up the good work next month.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

We are back with a new year, and new books. There's finally gonna be some more physical books as I have as a goal to go through everything that I have bought and not read yet, as I've mentioned in the previous monthly, I'm doing a sort of booklog. On the menu this month, a bunch of manga, and a decent amount of books.

Carmilla – Author

A classic vampire novella, predating Dracula by 25 years.

It was a nice little read. It could have been so much more, but it does some good things for what it is. I liked the lore of vampire that they established, that is not just derivative of Dracula (as it as written before). The predation relation of the vampire with the victim is more interesting here. The setting is kinda bland and too classic — a rich family in a manor with servants, with a doctor at their disposal and generally anything at their disposal. It was a bit repetitive at times. The story resolution happens kinda fast, but at least it's not wasting the readers time.

First book of the booklog read.

The Three Body Problem – Liu Cixin

Very enjoyable read. The story was very original, and the way the author incorporated the game into his story was cool. I think that was a really interesting and engaging way to introduced the three body problem and the trisolary civilisation. I had been talking to Shrey who remarked that the characters were a bit 1D (way to throw him under the bus), with only Wei Wenjie getting some love, but I think it's fine for that type of story. It was certainly a breath of fresh air after reading Katabasis — since I read the bookclub books on the train, it was nice not to have to pull up my phone every paragraph because something stupid or incoherent happened in the book. The characterisation of physics was generally alright, although the “physics doesn't exist” thing at the beginning made literally no sense. (shows bit of a misunderstanding of physics too, the most exciting time in physics is when measurements don't match expectations) The book quality kinda drops off a bit at the end, and I found the Trisolary POV we get from the other messages kinda incoherent. Thankfully we're saved with my favourite line in the book:

“YOU ARE BUGS“

how to – Randall Munroe

DNF

First DNF of the year, but to be fair, I stopped reading it around November last year, but kept lying to myself that I would “pick it back up again later”. The book is fine. The only reason that I stopped is it's like quirky science, with calculations and stuff that are supposed to wow people not very well versed in sciences, but are kinda all just very simple first year course “fun” problems. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's engaging science vulgarisation, but I'm just really not the target audience. It's also a bit too “internet quirky” for me. The stick figure illustrations are a nice addition.

Au Coeur de la Forêt – Many Authors

Also a book of the booklog. A little collection of stories centred around the forest.

It was a really nice read, and also very french but in the real sense of the term, it felt very regular french life, not whatever parisian romantic fantasy people mean when saying french. It was also a nice little mix with a bunch of stuff, some more regular stuff, some SF, some more poetic stuff. Made me kinda yearn having a forest nearby, and not some shitty grove, and actual forest where you can explore and get lost in.

Fire Punch (Volume 1-8) – Fujimoto

From the booklog. The world is experiencing another ice age, and some people have powers. Agni his sister and the village are trying to survive.

PEAK. It's easily in my top 2 manga series ever. I had started reading it when it came out in France, around 2017, which also the time I set off to Canada. I therefore had the chance to buy the first 5 volumes and completely forgot about it afterwards, until I went back to France in 2023 and grabbed the rest.

While the first volume is maybe a bit immature in some aspects, the rest of the manga is absolutely fantastic. There is a ton going on at all time, the story never gets comfortable and always pivots in an interesting way. The drawings are awesome, the themes fantastic, and we even get trans representation, which is way ahead of its time when it was written. It's also nice and short, no dragging anything for the sake of making more money or whatever, my man had something to say, his art and story telling is focused, and he got what he needed to off his chest. Absolute masterpiece.

The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny, Blood of Elves, The Time of Contempt – Andrzej Sapkowski

(Book 1-4 of the Witcher Series)

All books from the booklog. It took me a while to get into the Witcher III (a video game), but once I did, I found the lore and setting very interesting. I then saw the first season of the show, which was alright. The later seasons were ass, and so I turned to the books. I had heard that the books were super sexist though so I was a bit apprehensive. For books that were written in the 80 and 90's in Poland, they could have been so much worse. I think the main complaints I would have is the very male gazey tone the books have, how a lot of women are described by their looks and have their degree of promiscuity be a character trait, when it is totally absent for men. I also find it a bit odd how every single hot lady is infatuated with Geralt at first sight, our main protagonist, even if he is described in the book as a bit repulsive due to the witcher mutations. Women are overall written as smart, powerful and competent in the book, but that doesn't absolve it of the aforementioned.

I do have to share something I read on the forums though: in the book, there is a part in which, after vigorous fighting, the seam of the dress of one of the womanly protagonist rips a bit, and you can see a bit of her “shapely breast”. One of the poster, to reinforce their point about the male gaze in the book, asked if you could imagine the same thing happening to Geralt and the writer saying that through the crack in his pants, his “pert penis” was revealed. The book would have been 100% better if stuff like that happened to the male characters too though.

Putting the books back in their historical and cultural context, and going beyond this more modern analysis, we have very good fantasy books. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the world and its political canvas are detailed, and how rich and “alive” a world is presented here. There are some very interesting themes of colonialism, neutrality and moralism, and our protagonist Geralt does engage with all of those, they are not just things happening in the background. I also liked that Geralt, although undeniably being very capable, also gets a lot of things wrong and we are shown a lot of vulnerable sides of him, he's not just “hard strong brooding man/killing machine with no emotion”. The first two books are a collection of novellas about Geralt, and the later are full length stories. I think the short stories do a great job introducing us the witcher and his world, and it is definitely necessary as without those, following all the political stuff in the later book would have been complicated (and frankly not that engaging). The novellas also allow the author to jump around the timeline, without needing to fill all the blanks. Very enjoyable so far, my only complaint would be that with the later books, we are kinda ditching the usual witcher-monster slaying aspect of the story, with all the investigating and lore that follows, which I quite enjoyed

So far I'm at 14/60 books in the booklog, and at 3259/19886 pages. I do not expect to keep up this pace as a bunch of books of this booklog are about philosophy or sociology, which are not as quickly readable (unless I just read the words without parsing through their meaning). In any case, I'll catch you next month.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

I completely forgot to write about my readings in November and December, so I guess we'll merge both article and fly through everything. Also I got my Storygraph wrap-up now, so I'll share it as well.

Let the Old Dreams Die – John Ajvide Lindqvist

Collections of short stories from the guy who wrote “Let the Right One in” that I read in October. Very good, I think he's a very good writer and the way that in a few paragraphs he can already transpose the state of mind of his characters is very impressive. Some very good stories, some that are just alright, but overall they're original.

Lip des Héros Ordinaires – Laurent Galandon (script), Damien Vidal (drawing)

There is a bunch of history here (this in non-fiction). Lip was a french company that manufactured watches, and that was gigantic at a a time, producing millions of watches per year. They were a staple of the watch world in those days. They were the sole importer of some big brands like Breitling, Universal Genève and Blancpain in France, and as part of that deal also got to put their names in the dial. All of this to say they were a very big deal, and taking some business away from the Swiss, who have a huge stake in the watch business. Lip was acquired by Ébauche SA, a swiss company, that secretly decided to destroy it from the inside, to get rid of competition. Slowly but surely the business died, but as soon at it reached the layoffs stage, corporate had to fight with the workers' union, and couldn't just sack everybody without notice. During this battle, the employees discovered some documents revealing the scheme from Ébauche SA, and decided to fight back, occupying the factory, sending off the current inventory of watches to be hidden in a monastery, and building watches without supervision, with the little guys running everything, completely autonomously. Their slogan was “On fabrique, on vend, on se paie” (We're crafting, we're selling, we're paying ourselves). The workers were effectively owning the means of production. This was a first in France, and the capitalist state was not a big fan. The CRS (the police squadron that the french government sends to beat up civilians keep the peace during protests, even to this day) were sent to push the worker out of the factory, using violence. Using a combo of night operation, false fire alarm, cutting the power and rushing in, they were successful. But the workers had hidden the stock of 25 000 watches that was in the factory, and were continuing to produce off-site after this, so this was not the end.

All of this and more is told through BD format, through to the “resolution” of the conflict. It looks good, it's interesting.

Artificial Condition + Rogue Protocol + Exit Strategy- Martha Wells

Book 2, 3 and 4 of the Murderbot Diaries. Still very good.

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Very good, and fairly accessible for a classic. I'm always a sucker for unreliable narrator and my boy Victor Frankenstein is one. The way he portrays himself as the perfect romantical hero when he's a piece of shit who won't take responsibility for his creation is always flabbergasting. It was so funny how sick he got all the time. *mosquito passes wind next to victor* “Heaven's I am getting sick, I will be bedridden for the next 6 months” There is a lot to unpack and think about.

A Winter's Promise + The Missing of Clairedelune + The Memory of Babel – Christel Dabos

Book 1, 2 and 3 of The Mirror Visitor Series. It's originally a french series that I have read multiple times, but I brought the first book to the white elephant exchange and as most of the people participating didn't speak french, I had to get the english translation. Obviously, I had to re-read it first, this time in english. I think the french version slaps harder. During my re-read I also found more flaws in the book, but I still love them.

Le joueur d'échec + Lettre d'une inconnue – Stefan Zweig

Two short stories from one of my sister's favourite author. The first one was very good, but where it supposed to be dramatic, the situation is so funny to look at from an outsider perspective that I don't think I got the feeling of dread and despair that the author intended. The second short story was a bit yucky and too repetitive.

I can't choose a favourite book this year, but my unsorted top 3 would be:

• Let the Right One In
• Fire and Blood
• The Remains of the Days

And my favourite BD would be L'Aigle sans Orteils. Let's take a look at the storygraph stuff.

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Story Graph

Storygraph does all the data analysis for me, so I just have to steal the graphs from the app, what a delight.

Storygraph isn't super accurate in the number of books read so here's a more precise breakdown:

• Mangas: 60
• Books: 44
• BDs: 9
• Anthologies: 5
• Comics Compendium: 3

Here's the breakdown per month:

I do plan maybe balancing the books I read in french or english a bit better, and maybe adding some more languages next year. But I have another book related project from next year...

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2026 Booklog

I will be joining the challenge that our Glorious Leader has set for himself, of going through all the books/pdfs that he has amassed without reading. Obviously, I will not be going through his unread books, but through mine. Whenever I visit France, I love getting classics of french literature/philosophy/whatever which are way more affordable, and since I got an e-reader, I've been going a bit hard on the pirating. I have a pretty extensive booklog, that I've compiled here: google sheet. I'm not sure which rules our Dear Leader is imposing himself, but for my part, I will have the following:

• Read at least the first 50 pages/20% of the book, whichever is the shortest, before DNFing
• Be only allowed to DNF 10% of the list (6 books)
• Only allow myself to pickup something as a treat that's not on the list every 5 books from the list read
• Concerning the rule above, gifted, bookclub and group read books don't count as treats. As well, if the first book of a series is in the list, I am allowed to read the rest of the series without having them counts as treat books.
• Grant myself two red buttons which allow me to delete an epub instead of reading it.

That should cover it. My plan right now is to go through the low hanging fruits, and then just go based on vibes. See you next month.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

I feel like I've read all month, but I've read so little in total... Katabasis was way too drawn out, it took me off balance. Return to form next month maybe.

Let The Right One in – John Ajvide Lindqvist

Oskar is not doing too hot. As a 12 year old boy in a shitty swedish town known as Blackeberg and constantly bullied, he doesn't have many, if any friends. Comes Eli, a girl his age that lives in the same residential tower as him. She is a weird one though, and doesn't seem to be able to hang out most of the time, and never at night. At the same time as they get to know each other, everybody is on edge in Blackeberg, as the body of a murdered teenager was recently found, completely emptied of blood.

This is not the first “horror” book that I have read, but it's the first one that showed me that doing horror in a book format is possible. The other ones I have read were relying on plot twists, gross description or even jumpscares, which really don't work in printed medium. The authors presents us a very grim swedish setting, full of the worst things imaginable, while at the same time not feeling caricatural. There are some very disturbing scenes, that don't just rely on terrible things happening, but more so on how they happen, while giving enough space to the reader to fill in more. The pacing and writing was also great, and I really flew through everything, it felt like the shortest 500 pages book I've read. The authors' character work is very impressive, not in how intricate it is, but how within a paragraph, you'll get the sense that you're reading about the thoughts of a real person, and seeing the world through their eyes.

Katabasis – R.F. Kuang (Chapters 12 – end)

A full article with an edited breakdown of my notes per chapter will be released before the end of the year.

All Systems Red – Martha Wells

I re-read All Systems Red, which I had read in September, to wash the taste of Katabasis out of my mouth. We also watched the TV show with Tetyana, and there are some departures from the novel. Since I've already talked about All Systems Red before, I'll be comparing the show and novel here.

First of all, while the book is extremely short, 160 pages, Apple somehow managed to make a 10 episode series out of it. I think a mini series of 5ish episodes might have been better suited to the original material. There needed to be quite a bit of padding to fill those episodes, even if they're on the short side. There was a lot of work to be done and material to be created, as the novel has pretty one-dimensional characters, and since the main protagonist is very apathetic and we're seeing everything through its POV. I really didn't like what they did with the scientist characters. Where they were capable and level headed in the novel, if a bit naïve because they don't come from a system ruled by the exploitative hyper-capitalistic Company, in the show they were transformed into a bunch of weirdo hippies. They have weird rituals were they hold hands an hum, have contracts to form polycules, dress like ass, make shitty music by banging on random stuff and dancing horribly to it. I really dislike the subtext that the people outside of the ultra-capitalist society must be a bunch of ultra-woke hippy weirdoes. They are also unsufferable which completely makes the very last sentence of the book, and tv show as well, make no sense. It also weakens one major theme of the book which is that Murderbot is not a human, and doesn't want to be. The first 10min of the first episode were also reddit-cringe. I did love however how they expanded on “The Rise and Fall Sanctuary Moon”, which is the fictional shitty TV show that Murderbot binges. It's just the right tone, and exactly how I imagined it. Little bémol is that in the show, Murderbot literally quotes directly from it to other humans, which is a pretty stupid thing to do as human would potentially have seen it (and they have). The extra “memory wipe” plot, created specifically for the show, was alright. The show toes a weird line between staying faithful to the original material, by having a bunch of monologue sections play word for word, and creating some additional original material to fill the time. The extra friction plotline between the Company and the Free Society Something is good, especially the added Gurathin back story, but it is at odds with the Free Society Something hippy characterisation. They also at the same time turned Gurathin into a pillow sniffing weirdo.

The new stuff is a mixed bag, but with the original material, overall we get a decent to good show.

Not a lot this month, and probably still not a lot next month as I'll spend most of my free time writing for blogvember/notevember.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

We're back, and it's a weirder one this month. For some reason everybody was releasing some “favourite reads of the year” videos, so I picked some stuff from a couple of reading youtubers. We have also some stuff that was on my reading backlog for a little while, and some more visual media.

Bluets – Maggie Nelson

A collection of poems, observations and little anecdote about the colour blue.

Could you call this vapid, pretentious, irrelevant? Yes. But I liked that use of paper. That's the best way I could describe my meaning in a sentence, but to be more verbose, I liked that it didn't limit itself to the common rules of what a novel, a book or even a collection of poems is. It's more writing as an art form than writing as a way to convey information. It's writing as a way not to convey meaning, but a vibe/state of mind. Amongst those two hundred or so paragraphs, are there some that didn't speak to me, or worse had me roll my eye at how serious it took itself? Sure, but the overall vibe of this little book was still engaging and interesting, it's definitely a “more than the sum of its parts” thing. I also liked that it was centred around a colour, which is pretty original from my point of view (the pov of someone who never reads anything experimental or any poetry).

I would definitely have liked it way less if I had read something similar, but it was the first time I was exposed to something like this. I liked it. If it becomes a trend to write like this however, it will get very tiring, very fast.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe – Charles Yu

I knew that someone recommended/just mentioned this book in the group chat but I couldn't remember who. After reading it, it had to be Harrison. Now why did I read it? Well, I'll read just about anything, I'll do bookclubs, group reads, buddy reads, recommended reads, I just like to read. I'll even read books I know I will most likely dislike (looking at you Katabasis by R.F. Kuang). Anyways, I read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

This is more of a concept book, which I usually am not against, as long as they aren't too long, which this one wasn't. The pacing is a bit weird and the first third of the book is very slow and rambly. Well the whole book is very rambly to be frank, and even draws attention to that, and also about its very, very insisted upon metanarrative component. But pointing out and acknowledging that your writing is rambly and overly meta doesn't absolve it of those flaws. I also didn't really care for the pseudo-scientific manner in which he writes — everything is a vector, integralised over the [insert prefix]esimal concept with a sprinkle of theorems and greek letters, and don't forget your spacetime axis curves as well. It's very showy but also makes very little sense most of the time. Maybe because this is some wannabe physics, which is what I studied in uni, that it annoyed me more than it maybe should have. It also has a very silicon valley techbro vibe to it which doesn't help.

Even if the writing is a bit overbearing, I really liked the themes in the book, and especially the daddy issues portion. It showcases a very human dad, and the travel to the past introspection into the protagonist's relationship with is dad was great. And it goes a bit further than kid discovers dad is a human. The character of the mother was also briefly explored although their relationship not as much. Despite all the introspection, we end up knowing very little about the main character.

Overall, I thought this book was alright, it really struggles to find its footing in the beginning, and despite the sometimes obnoxious writing, it has some interesting things to say. The concept of time travel — this version of it at least — kinda went over my head, as it is very much based on english language stuff, and yours truly is only a poor immigrant for whom english is truly only a second language. I did like that it wasn't just the usual straight forward time travel, even if it was rambled about a bit too much.

Orbitals – Samantha Harvey's

The International Space Station (ISS) goes around the earth 16 times in a day. We follow the astronauts and cosmonauts habiting it around, and get into their head, following their thoughts and sometimes getting a glimpse of the people waiting for them below.

Amongst all the things I read, this felt like a breath of fresh air. How human it was. There is not real story to follow, it's more an etude of the human condition, and how we are a product of earth. With everything happening in space, we really get the sense that we are ill suited for it. This book was a kind of love letter to the earth and humankind. Very refreshing. The dialogs are very unstructured and the sentence construction sometimes a bit weird making it hard to follow but overall it's a great read. Despite the lack of story — as we just jump from one character to another, with everything happening in the span of a day, and with just mundane ISS stuff happening — it's never too vapid or inconsequential and random, as we get the typhoon and lunar mission red threads

The author reference omega's coaxial escapement in the most unsubtle way possible, she might be a watchhead. There was a banger of a line delivered by one of the cosmonauts, when one of the american astronauts has some difficulty answering question for a future press release:

”-With this new era of space travel, how are we writing the future of humanity? -With the gilded pens of billionaires, I guess”

All Systems Red – Martha Wells

Space exploration is upon us (as well as dystopian übercapitalism), but a SecUnit, a robot whose purpose is to protect people during various missions, doesn't give a shit. It only wants to watch TV, and at any possible opportunity, will do so. It's a highly irregular thing for a SecUnit, but this particular one, calling itself “Murderbot”, has managed to hack itself, freeing itself from the shackles of its governor module. When disaster strikes during one of the expedition, will Muderbot save the day, or decide to let everybody die, so it can finally watch TV in peace?

Very nice short book. While I have been known to be a 1000+ page monster enjoyer, I am slowly awakening to the treat that are novellas. It's interesting to be in the mind of a robot, and the fact that everything is in first person leaves the exposition to a minimum. Exposition dump is one of the major flaws of scifi imo, and it really makes the beginning of a lot of scifi novel drag. Not here, while we don't get a thorough grasp of the world, we get enough info to get by. There are a lot of characters we are introduced to at the beginning, and with my name-blindness, it made it a bit hard to follow sometimes, but it gets better. I really liked that there were a bunch of times where they were wondering if they were being sabotaged, or if stuff was actually breaking down — it is known that The Company provides only the cheapest and shittiest stuff to maximise profit margins. It was nothing super duper special, but it was a good novel with some great stuff in it, so I will read the next entries in the series

Katabasis – R.F. Kuang (Chapters 1 – 11 )

My thoughts on Katabasis are for sole ears of the people participating in the bookclub, until we are done with it.

Métal Hurlant – Many Authors

Volume 12 – H.P. Lovecraft — Murmures et Chuchotements

I am continuing to open my third eye to the visual medium. We are back with another Métal Hurlant, and only new stuff, centered around the theme of HP Lovecraft. While I can appreciate Lovecraftian settings, I have never read any of the novels or poured over anything because I'm just not that enamoured with it.
The drawings are all very good, and we have some very interesting original stuff, I especially liked one of the last BD which was entirely made out of paintings. On the story front whoever, a lot of stories are very one-note, with all of them being centered around an ending “plot twist” that is just what you would expect from a typical lovecraftian thing — a big monster comes out of a body of water and the story ends. This was the pitfall that a lot of shorter stories fell into. A bit of (unnaturally delivered) exposition, one weird thing happening, and then either you go directly to the ending “twist” or you get a couple more weird things before the twist. Some of the longer stories did do way more interesting, weird and original things with the setting though, have a lot more depth, and they were treats to read. But again, the drawings were all really well made, and it was truly a feast for the eyes.

Volume 4 – L'Homme est bien petit

Only old stuff in this one, and the quality just falls of a bit towards the end. Overall, I had the feeling that towards the end, some of the authors were just purposefully trying to confuse the reader at the expense of their story. Maybe it's because all those stories are almost 50 years old, but a lot of them just don't make sense, even in their own universe. The drawings are still great and we get some really interesting stuff, and the earlier stuff is really good.

Grappler BAKI – Keisuke Itagaki

Maximum Tournament – Chapters 277 – 290

They stopped yujiro with a net and some tranquiliser? the man that is supposed to rival the entire US army, to be unbeatable, was beaten by some sleepy juice and some net. nah

That's all folks, see you next month.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

Continuing my exploration of visual media (BDs) and of GRRM universe. Also threw a curveball in there.

Sun and Steel – Yukio Mishima

What the hell can I write about this? I gotta be honest, I don't know if I'm stupid but I didn't understand most of the first part of the book. I don't really think it is meant to be understood, what Mishima describes there is inherently indescribable. It's only in the second part when he grounds himself more in the physical that some things make sense. My man has a deeply unhealthy relationship with the human body. I think he also has a very unhealthy relationship with other human being. I think he needs to touch grass. I like the form though, that it was entirely weird and abstract and deeply and utterly personal. It was definitely just Mishima expressing himself, and he doesn't care if he is pissing in a violin.

Le Grand Pouvoir du Chninkel – Jean Van Hamme, Grzegorz Rosiński

Upon the world of Daar, three factions are fighting senselessly since anyone can remember. The three immortal are at the head of each faction, and there is no hope to ever bury the hatchet. Day and night they fight with humans, apes, dinosaurs, monsters and Chninkel. Chninkel are a slave race of this world, a mix of hobbits and rodents. By some sort of miracle J'on, achninkel, manages to survive one of those battles and flees. As soon as he does, the Great Creator appears before him, tasking him to end the wars, as he has had enough. J'on has three days, he says, after which if he fails the world will be destroyed. Before leaving, the Great Creator bestows upon J'on the Great Power. This task is impossible for an immortal, how can a chninkel hope to prevail?

Another BD, this time a classic of french fantasy. The drawings are awesome, and while originally it came out in black and white, what I read was a colorised re-edition (with the blessing and supervision of the original authors). The story is original, and the setting is nice change from the usual high fantasy setting. The premise really hooked me but it does take a direction I didn't expect. J'on is a bit more passive here, where I would have wished he'd be a bit more in command, really trying to extirpate himself from prickly situations. I did like the religious subplot though and the ending is really good. There's a couple of issues with it though. Being published in 1986 by two white men, we do stumble into the usual pitfalls of fantasy, namely sexism and racism. On the sexism front, the main supporting character G'wen spends half of the BD in various states of undress. That's pretty much all she's there for, apart from also being constantly sexually harassed by J'on. In general, if there is a lady in the BD that's not a background character, you will see their titties. On racism, it is very brief, but it's basically just fetishisation of the black male body. There is a scene with a white blond woman being 'taken' by J'on, who was transformed for this purpose (and also no apparent legitimate reason) into a black human male.

Fire and Blood – GRR Martin

The History of the Targaryen Kings of Westeros, from Aegon I to the regency of Aegon III by Archmaester Gyldayn of Oldtown.

GRR Martin is back at it again, and he managed to trick me into reading a history book, which is my least favourite type of book to read. And I enjoyed every second of it. My man can write and world build. It is also a very interesting concept to have the history of your world be retold in an in-universe history book by an in-universe historian. Completely worth having spoiled myself the end of House of the Dragon, which is adapted from this book. The way everything unfolds naturally, and just makes so much sense without being predictable. GRRM is just the goat and I'm almost looking forward to Blood and Fire (sequel to Fire and Blood) more than Winds of Winter (both will never come out).

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – GRRM

Dunk is a squire whose master just died. Thankfully before passing, he made Dunk a knight. So Ser Duncan the Tall is a knight whose master just died. He is sworn to no lord or land and therefore is of the hedge, an itinerant knight always looking for work. With how little he knows of the world, how will he manage to get by?

I am a fiend for anything substantial that GRRM wrote about the ASOIAF universe and have therefore read A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. There's also gona be an HBO show about it next year, because I guess they have to milk everything out of George before he passes. Anyway, it's not the same calibre as the ASOIAF novels, or even Fire and Blood, but this collection of novellas is still good. There's no intricate plot in the foreground, and the story is a bit more simplistic, but I really appreciated it for the glimpse of lore that it allowed us to see between the events of the Dance of Dragons and A Game of Thrones. It also has a ton of drawings if is great for someone like me who can't visualise anything. It did make my ereader freeze a couple of times though. We also finally have the POV of someone that is a bit more akin to a common man of the Seven Kingdoms (he's still a knight though so very privileged).

Métal Hurlant – third edition – Many authors

Métal Hurlant is a 250 pages french adult trimestral magazine. It's only short forms BDs. Many authors participate in it, and the themes are either horror or SF. The first edition, published between 1975 and 1987, was the ground breaker, really going in hard against the goody two shoes culture at the time. There is gore, there are penises, there's titties and there's themes that aren't talked about at the time. The second edition was shortlived from 2002-2004 and this third edition has been going since 2021. This last one mixes reeditions from the old editions of métal hurlant with some new stuff. I came to learn about Métal Hurlant through interviews of different artists, be it directors, writers, drawers (people that draw) none of them french. And yet each of them claimed to have been really inspired by that french magazine just with the drawings, despite not speaking a lick of french. I thought it would be cool to a get one volume of the new edition for some of the artists on the printhouse. I'll be very brief in my reviews, not to spoil anything as only Vivian got hers as of now.

Volume 2, 7 and 'Cat' Special Edition

Volume 2 is for Andrew. It is so based and is a collection of the best from the first edition. It is very horny.

Volume 7 is for Nick. It's only new stuff, and there are some very interesting modern things in there. It is a bit weird.

The 'Cat' special edition is obviously for Vivian. Every story is related to cats.

That's it for this month. There is some more based stuff waiting for you next month, I'll probably get back to reading word books more too.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

I did my best but I'm still late. Oh well. We are back with a lot of content this month, and I also spent some time in my home country at the end of it, so there will be a bit of stuff that I got in France. I have returned to my french roots and introduced a new medium here, the Bande Dessinée or BD. I talked a bit about those in my March 2025 Readings. To give you a quick rundown, the BD is a french comic. It's not american comics written/translated in/into french — there are vast cultural differences between them. We have very broad ranges of topics in France, and those can be quite different from one another, the BD caters to various types of reader of all ages. There isn't any stigma about reading comics, and like most adults have books in Canada, most french people's bookshelf will have a couple BDs as well. My grandpa has them, my mom, cousins, friends, friend's parents... most people that read have a couple. They hold an important spot in french culture. In any case, they rock, but had not graced the shelves of my bookshelf in Canada, and it is about time I remediate that. Before we get into them, let's look at the books and then manga from this month:

A Dance with Dragons – Georges RR Martin

Georges is still cooking with this one, but it is more obvious than ever that the previous book and this one were supposed to be one book. It was weird to see the one off chapters of Jaime and Cercei, and the Dorne plot in the middle of the book. It was cool to see the same events happening from a different POV though (Sam/Jon) and having access to both internal monologues; one in the previous book and the other in this one, it made it really feel like Dune. The Mereen plot kinda drags, and same with Tyrion, it goes pretty slowly. Considering this is the last book in the series so far (and probably ever) it kinda blows that we are nowhere along in the story. I really thought that more would have been written, but alas. Time to read Fire and Blood, another series that will never be finished :)

Cold as Hell – Kelly Armstrong

I told myself I would not read anymore of Haven's Rock novel, after how ass the previous one was, but I lied. I placed a hold on it a while ago on libby and it just became available; I had to see how much of a train wreck this would be. It was fine. There are some major flaws with it, but it was pretty inoffensive.

The beginning of the book is unbearable as always, with a crap ton of repetition, overexplaining and completely unnatural dialogs where people analyse themselves mid sentence and share their analysis out loud. Once it gets going though, it's alright, and we go back to the usual Rockton/Haven's Rock investigation shenanigan. We are introduced to more people here, and not knowing who they are adds a bit to the story. Casey finally does some good detective work without skipping over gigantic clues or extremely obvious deductions. But then, to setup the finale, everyone has to become dumb again. Spoilers ahead. Dalton, who was described many, many times as being overtly overprotective, decides to fly back to Haven's Rock with his 8-months-has-had-contractions-and-misscarriages-scares-and-is-predisposed-to-complications-pregnant wife from a city with a Hospital. And must I add that it was with a storm looming, in the middle of Yukon winter, right after they have discovered that a serial killer resides in Haven's Rock, a very remote town that doesn't have proper equipment and personnel to deal with a complicated birth? And of course, when they get to town and go on a manhunt to catch that serial-killer, in the middle of winter again, in the Yukon wilderness, guess who accompanies them, even if she has started getting other contractions... and then guess what, they split up. and then, guess what they decide to abandon the extremely pregnant lady without weapons with a rando also without weapon 5min away from the town, and then guess what, the serial killer shows up. And finally guess what, while in labour, the described “very small woman” overpowers the described “very strong” non-boypreggers man who has a gun, defeats him and gives birth in the wilderness. Absolutely insane amount of contrivance, and the worst is that, knowing the author, I already guessed some stuff like that was gonna happen right when we learnt that Casey was 8-months pregnant in the book. The rest of the book was pretty good, but my god, the ending was terrible. If the dialogues were worked on a bit more and if the story could refrain from going all out on the spectacle at the expanse of logic it could really elevate the books with very little efforts.

The Remains of the Days – Kazuo Ishiguro

That was a banger of a book. The prose was great and went hand in hand with the story, both really complemented each other. After you realise that a lot of the harmful opinions the main character has is due to his misplaced sense of loyalty and trust to bad men, you kinda feel pity for him. He really is a victim of the system, and it's his indoctrination by his masters and the general english high-society that leads him to shed every ounce of humanity, for the profit of those masters. It was really interesting reading about his almost change in point of view caused by his travel, and was devastating that, even if he came so close to waking up, he in the end just slips back to his comfortable and complacent servitude. I find it especially heart-breaking that he completely missed the meaning of the stranger at the end in a way, and instead of appreciating the work he's done, without dwelling on the past, and kicking back, he instead takes it as stop reflecting on his past mistakes and start looking forward to the work we'll accomplish in the future. Even if to the reader it is incredibly obvious from his writing that he has completely wasted his life by living sticking to his arbitrary principles, until the very end when he reflects about his meeting with Miss Kenton, he's almost completely oblivious to it. It is kinda crazy to think about people living their whole lives for other people, and it really sucked for Steven that he lived more than half of his life for a nazi sympathiser, who almost got England on bord with nazism. In miscellaneous notes, I found that the author really managed to create the most insufferable “english patriot” (derogatory), especially during his description of the english landscapeand objective beauty, and my french blood was boiling when he was speaking about the best races that make butlers, where he insults the celts, my people! I found it extremely funny his whole reflection about the butler profession and his little butler leaderboard, where he fangirls over some butlers. The butler gatekeeping (apart from the racist part) was also hilarious. I also loved how he, the stuck-up, broom-in-the-ass british man, was was completely incapable of bantering or having a shred of humour. The story about the tiger rocked though.

To answer Spenny's question, the GOAT was of course Miss Kenton. (Although Harry is a close second)

Grappler BAKI – Keisuke Itagaki

Childhood Saga – Chapters 143-180

The shenanigans continue and we get some more fighting. This does a great job at setting up the beef that Baki has with his father, and despite the extremely unserious nature of the manga, we get some very emotional moments that don't fall flat, unlike a certain pirate manga that overuses people crying for no reason. The panel in question was actually goated if you have the whole context:

Maximum Tournament – Chapters 181 – 277

Holy hell the time transitions are extremely rough. The fan translations are also pretty old and the scans are not of the greatest quality. It's a bit too much fighting right after another without much breathing. There are also way too many people introduced at the same time. And speaking of introductions, the way the Itagaki writes about the black zulu fighter is actually insane, and not in a good way, if you catch my meaning. Holy hell.

Néandertal (L'intégrale) – Emmanuel Roudier

Le Cristal de Chasse, Le Breuvage de vie, Le Meneur de Meute (Tome 1, 2, 3)

Laghou is a cripple, and despite being the best craftsman of his tribe, he is not well seen by a majority of the men folk who only value hunting. After his father dies, a chain of event unfolds leading him to leave his tribe, searching for one other in particular. Will this half-portion survive his journey and find this tribe?

This was really good, and a nice way to get back into BDs. The drawings are awesome and the story, although really, really fast paced was great. It might have lacked a bit of depth, but in total it's a 165-ish pages series so you can only get so much depth. It's nice to get a story set during this time (caveman time) which is something we don't see often, and one of my favourite setting. I think the creatures of that time and place are cool as hell, and they look fantastique here. Everything is gorgeous overall, but my favourite are the landscapes, which we have the pleasure to see often with the many panels where people travel, and the way the artist did the eyes, which I though were always very expressive. It was a bit disconcerting that everybody in the BD was speaking with a rather elevated language — not that I was expecting they all speak in grunt because they're neanderthals — but I was expecting more everyday french rather than literary french.

L'Aigle sans Orteils – Christian LAX

A one-shot retelling of the first few Tours de France, a cycling race where cyclist literally ride all around France, a cool 4700km at that time. It was first held in 1903, and apart from a couple of years during the World Wars, it has been held every year since. This retelling is through the lens of a fictional character, loosing his toes (hence the title), trying his darnest to win the Tour.

This was absolute cinema, the story was extremely engaging, the drawing gorgeous, and that's with me not ever giving a shit about le Tour de France. I loved the story of Amédée Fario, his tenaciousness despite his great handicap. I also like the friendship between him and Camille Peyroulet. The whole things was gorgeous, and I also really loved the colours, the palette used was very expressive but also restrained and consistent. The lines were kinda “brouillon” but it worked really well, breaking down people into simpler figures, while keeping a ton of detail. Going back to the story, the ending is very sobering. After failing to finish his last Tour in 1914, almost winning, the main character is eager for more, and eager to finally beat all his competitors, Petit Breton, le Géant... This will not come to be, as he dies, with all the athletes of le Tour de France, during WW1, where 25% of all french men aged 18-30 died, with much more coming back physically or mentally injured.

Le Tour des Géants – Nicholas Debon

A historical retelling of the 1910 Tour de France.

Alrightly, more Tour de France. There wasn't an overarching emotional story here to keep one engaged, so I had a bit more trouble getting invested in this one. The storyline they chose for the race was pretty bare bone and repetitive as well. It was still interesting to learn about all the shortcomings of the bicycle of the time — wooden tire frames that would just break, the fragility of tires that would just explode incessantly, having to remove the back wheel to change gears, if you had access to gears to start with... The pastel drawings were really good though, and I really loved the colour pallet. The choice of pastel really gave it a welcomed artsy vibe which was reinforced with the decision to have mostly panels with narration at the bottom and no speech bubbles, and having the speech bubbles take either the whole top or bottom half of a panel. The 'framing' was also very dynamic, with a lot of different uhh.. camera angles and interesting shots (I don't know how to talk about drawings).

Astérix et Obélix – Jean-Yves Ferri, Fabcaro, Didier Conrad

Le Griffon & L'Iris Blanc (Tome 39 & 40)

Astérix and Obélix has been a staple of the franco-belge BD since the 1960's and is extremely popular in France, and even abroad with it being the second most sold “comics” series after One Piece. I remember it very fondly having, as any self-respecting french person, read them. The original duo is not at the helm anymore however, with the writer René Goscinny dying in 1977 and Albert Uderzo leaving in 2009 (and dying in 2020). The latest volumes since, starting in 2013 with Jean-Yves Ferri then Fabcaro starting in 2023 writing and Didier Conrad drawing, have not been the best according to most members of my family. My mom lend me those last two from 2021 and 2023, and I found them just a touch above alright. I have read most of the previous ones as my grandpa religiously collects them, and there were more “important” themes broached in those, in the midst of the usual fun ambiance. There was also some extremely french specific humour, with untranslatable puns and references to obscure french culture or little facts of (french) life — but it was funny. With those, there is not much besides the story, which is pretty straight forward and while not bad, it's a bit less content than we're used to. Especially since they are so short, at a bit less than 50 pages. The second one was better in this first regard, and was definitely almost on par with the average originals, but again way too short and devoided of heavier stuff. The drawing is however, as good as ever, and Didier Conrad has a great command of motion, while keeping things very simple and true to the original.

That's all for this month, and was quite a lot. I should read less because writing those reports is taking too much time. Expect more BDs next month.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

We are back in business ladies, gents and others. I have been gifted a lovely e-reader by my lovelier wife Tetyana, and have begun sailing the seas of ink in Jack Sparrow's fashion (I pirate books). I have also finally joined the Toronto Public Library, and am also acquiring books that way. Obviously, I check Libby for books before obtaining them officially and legally from eastern european sources, to support the TPL. In any case, it is easier than ever for me to read, and I do, as you can see below:

A Storm of Swords – Georges RR Martin

Not much to say here, it's good. It starts out very slow though, and the pace kinda grinded to a halt, but we pick back up a couple hundred pages later. Ngl, I'm reading all the books one after another without stopping, so the events blur in my memory and I can't remember what happens in what book, and therefore cannot really write a proper review of something I've finished at the beginning of the month.

Kill All Normies – Angela Nagles

I had an epub of this lying around (no doubt coming from Spencer), and also have heard it referenced a couple of times from the bookclub peeps, so I thought I would read it. It is also very short, so that helps. I have never been chronically online, and even less now as I have forgone all social media and news apps. I was a bit more online during the period this book about, which is set around the early and mid 2010's during the radicalisation of the online spaces, and the rise of the alt-right. The book was alright. It's surface level and very descriptive in its approach rather than analytical, which is what I was originally expecting. This felt more like the script of a very long video essay/summary than a well-thought-out book. I found that at some points she was giving a bit too much benefit of the doubt/credit to the deranged individuals composing 4-chan and the early new right. The description of what was going on the left side of the aisle is also pretty biased. I have no doubt that Angela Nagles sees herself as the enlightened centrist during those time, not being part of the alt-right; doxing, threatening, harassing, being racist, homophobic and other -ist and -phobic words, while also not being part of the “crazy” left, whose crimes are equal if not worse: “inventing” genders, “faking” oppression and cancelling people online for not being politically correct.

With this book, you at least get the broad strokes of what went down during this time, if through a coloured lens.

A Feast for Crows – Georges RR Martin

This book was goated. Probably my favourite so far. I really liked the Cersei chapters. It is so well written and doesn't hold you by the hand, or think for you. Cersei tells it how she thinks it is, and you are to figure out how much of an unreliable narrator she is. The whole Dornish subplot, if a bit slow to get going, was interesting. The world building is as usual top-tier. I also loved the later Jaime chapters, where he forsakes Cersei and starts his “healing journey”.

This book is missing a lot of perspectives however, and its ending is quite abrupt. Not that there is a cliffhanger, but it just ends at an awkward spot. Brienne's POV does end on a massive cliffhanger though, and considering that the next book, and last since 2011, is supposed to be part 2 of a Feast for Crows with the missing POVs, it might remain a cliffhanger until Georges releases Winds of Winter — which is never.

No Baki this month, I've been quite busy and reading books is easier than mangas. It will be back as soon as I finish ASOIAF, which is pretty soon.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

Only one book and a bit of manga, but your honour, you must understand, I was travelling and as soon as I came back, I had to move — I could not possibly have read any more. And this only book was pretty big, here see for yourself:

A Clash of Kings – Georges RR Martin

Everything is still good and the plot continues in a satisfying manner. One big strength of the series is that the characters are evolving very naturally, and there is no decision they make that seems out of line. This is basically a ratfic if you will. Another great thing to see is that while the first book was very regular fantasy, with a tone akin to the first book of the Stormlight Archives, where despite the setback you still had hopes (the nightwatch not being what Jon thought it would be —> him climbing the ranks and making friends, or Robb being inexperienced at war and fighting against a much bigger force —> still managing to be all victorious in the early stages of the war). Here things take a dark turn and hope is getting scarce. You can definitely feel that things can only get darker from here.

Grappler BAKI – Keisuke Itagaki

Childhood Saga – Chapters 78-143

The tomfoolery continues and I still love it. Where the manga could easily have been slop power fantasy, here our boy Baki gets fucked up, loses, trains and comes back stronger. And after that he still faces against opponents that are stronger than him and gets his ass handed to him. For such a demented manga, the author sure does know how to make the protagonist's progression still interesting.

That's all folks, I was and still am busy as hell.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author

I am redeeming myself from the little I have read last month, and for the first time, we are starting with a compilation of poetry and prose:

If I Must Die – Refaat Alareer

For once, I'll talk about the author before moving on to the book. Refaat Alareer was a Palestinian professor who taught literature and creative in University in Gaza. He was critical of the israelian genocide of the Palestinian people (shocker), and wrote about it, leading to his murdered on December 6th 2023 by Israel, who targeted his residential building with an airstrike killing other civilians with him, including his sister, brother and nephews.

It is pretty clear-cut that Israel is committing genocide over there with the full support of the US and the complicity (even if sometimes by way of inaction) of many other western nations. There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said a thousand times better, so this is as much as I'll comment. If you are looking to do your own research (which you should) please beware of the pervasive zionist propaganda in our western medias. The lies and gaslighting are prevalent, and so are attempts at manufacturing consent.

The book is a collection of writings about Pr. Alareer's life in Gaza and his thought on the israelian genocide, interspaced by poems. I will admit that I do not have the greatest sensibility for poetry, and it may have been lost on me, but the writings were really something. He was already saying how the situation is crazy and inhumane in 2014, and 2021, but his more recent writing say that what's been happening since 2023 is way worse than what they've experienced those years. He shows through his writing how untenable the situation is for him and his family. But the real situation for the average Gazan is much worse than what he puts on paper, as he says himself that he is in a very privileged position, with money, access to the internet and not being an anonymous Palestinian face.

He is very candid about his thoughts and what he thinks are his shortcomings about protecting his family and raising his children in this environment, it was very moving.

Babel – R.F. Kuang

I had previously read Yellowface, another book by R.F. Kuang and really didn't care for it. It was entertaining, but I found the characters to not be consistent or even make sense and the story not be and to make as well. I brushed it off as it being a side project of a different calibre, when the author's claim to fame is her fantasy book, like Babel. I was very charitable. But not anymore.

I was thoroughly disappointed with Babel. While I gave Yellowface the benefit of the doubt, this will not get a pass. There is so much wrong with this book, I don't understand all the praise it gets. The world building is atrocious, and I wouldn't dare even calling it worldbuilding — there's nothing. The setting is regular 19th century earth with magic runes in it, basically. Those runes can almost do anything, as long as you can find the right words for it. With this monumental change in the way the world works, you would think world events would have unfolded differently, but no. The world is the exact same, it's lazy and boring. At first, I thought in the book that the runes had been recently discovered, justifying the fact that everything just evolved the same way until the 19th century. But it is revealed later in the books that the Romans discovered the runes and how to use them; and the world didn't substantially change for all 2000+ years with this discovery!? Then, let's talk about the magic system. The silver rune thing is a seemingly interesting concept, but it is so underutilised and inconsistent. Even if its functioning and the functioning of specific runes is also explained ad nauseam. The writing as a whole is very repetitive and the 'themes' are really ham-fisted. The fact that they are also very, very surface level, while being discussed non-stop, was also annoying. It is also not saying anything very interesting about them. What really did me in is at the end when the leader of the union is like: “you realise it's about class, right” and our main protagonist is like “yes I do now” which makes no sense as this whole time they had only been focused on race and colonialism and after this little dialogue, the book picks back up with the main character solely focusing on race and colonialism. Speaking of our main character, he is such a serpillère, always being pushed toward something and having zero agency. He is so passive and the whole time he doesn't really move things forwards, he's just barely reacting to things just happening. The rest of the cast is somehow worse, and are just one-dimensional caricatures. Nothing is meaningful about them, they have zero personality, and we are told about how they are such interesting and diverse characters, but we are never shown anything. The “family” that was built at Oxford doesn't feel genuine and organic. And how can I forget about the footnotes — they are utterly useless. They do not make sense in the context of the story as this is not a text found and annotated by a historian or someone after the fact, or a journal, and they are literally just full of stuff that should have been cut out. I feel like during the editing process, whenever a section of the book was asked to be removed, it was instead turned into a footnote. They are not consistent in their tone and what they are saying; at one point it's to clarify a reference to a real world historical event, sometimes it's about a historical event in the fictional world and then sometimes it's about some truly meaningless piece of detail about one of the characters. The only redeeming quality of the book is that it is consumable; it's a very easy read. But not an interesting one and barely an entertaining one.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

An apocalyptic event happened, most life on earth is extinct, including plants. We follow a father and his kid trying to survive the aftermath.

I had seen this book recommended by a couple of people in the bookclub group chat, which ironically enough is rarely talking about books, and saw that it was available at the library. The prose was initially very distracting and off-putting, but once it clicked that it was part of the experience™ I was able to enjoy my reading. It's kinda like in L'Étranger (The Stranger) — I don't know how well it was translated in english — but in french the prose is very particular and peculiar on purpose. The Road is definitely not for everyone but I really liked it. I found refreshing that this was a truly a tragedy of everyday life — there might be smalls ups but it doesn't distract (and even further reinforces) the hardships and struggles of day to day living. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, there is no hope, life is just objectively unbearable. Good little book.

Brave New World Revisited – Aldous Huxley

Guess who's back... After my presentation at theory night, I had acquired the last bit of motivation needed to finally finish the article about this book. However, I got some pertinent questions from the gang and I had to revamp the article a bit to address those. The article will have come out before this (it's here!), so I can now promise it is the last time I count this as a reading. (I do not wish to read this book a seventh time, believe me)

A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

You all know what this is, so there is no need for a synopsis. I had seen the show when it came out with my parents (horrible parenting, I know, I was only 12 years old). We all know how it turned out, but I had heard the books were goated. The world building is good, the dialogues are good as well, and the characters are great. They have their own personality and motivation and act accordingly. Every POV of the book is interesting, and it is also great to see the conflict from different angles and how each influence the other POVs. The only little issue I have is with the writing sometimes — when a character is witty, it feels a bit too forced how other characters are gobsmacked or lose their tongue. Another thing is the antiquated “man writes woman” that appear mostly in the Daenerys chapters. The books have been written in the late 90's, so I'm sure the sensibilities were different, and I'm just thankful it wasn't much, much worse, which it could easily have been.

Grappler BAKI – Keisuke Itagaki

Underground Arena Saga – Chapters 1-77

What the- If any of you are familiar with BAKI, I don't need to explain to you how insane it is. For the blessed others, BAKI is a fighting manga where people just duke it out using ancestral or extremely rare techniques that are always “backed up” by scientific reasoning (which never makes a lick of sense). For instance, one character's defence is impenetrable because he learned to move his eye independently like a chameleon. Or some techniques are just stupid as hell, and they are never consistent in universe. Like one character is doing the “unstoppable force” advance that cannot be stopped by anything in the world, but then the opponent one is using the “immovable object” stance which cannot be moved under any circumstance. It is absolutely beyond idiotic, and I love it. The only issue I would have is the beginning of this manga, the flow of movement is kinda hard to read, and it is not helped that fighters are doing things that almost defy physics.

There is also no official translation for this, so you have to rely on fan one, and the most readily available one is from the wildfang project (actually just one guy) who not only doesn't speak japanese and only “translated” by using context clues in the drawings, but after a while he starts to change the plot just because he doesn't like this or that thing. Dodging this translation was a nightmare, but I thankfully could try to find a version in either french or italian (turns out it was a mexican flag and not an italian one) for the chapters that we only available through that horrendous wildfang translation.

I'm thinking we're back. Some good reads overall, and some not so good, but I have read. I'd like to get back to some reading in a language other than english very soon, as — it might sound weird to say — I'm growing bored of it. I'll try to sneak in a bit of french or maybe a cheeky ukrainian book in there. There will probably be a couple less books next month as I am away to Japan, and also have to prepare my feminist theory presentation.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author