February 2026 Readings
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