October Readings
I have been slacking very hard this month, and the conjuncture of multiple factors made it so I did not have time to read. The main one, apart from being away for a week, is that they had the audacity to give me stuff to do at work, preventing me from being paid to read books. Unacceptable. However the slow season is almost upon us, and I will have ample time to make up for this time loss.
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Skin Taker – Michelle Paver
This book was significantly bigger than the rest of this trilogy, and a ton of shit happens in it. I loved the premise of it, but I think the author could have done a better job of conveying the catastrophic nature of a particular event. The characters talk about it a lot, but we don't really feel it in the story. It also was a case of “huge cataclysm happens — none of the heroes of reoccurring characters are seriously hurt” which I was not a fan of. Apart from the very beginning and the very end, it feels like a lowkey rehash of volume 5: Torak acts irrationally, the deep forest gets brainwashed again even though they said they would be very careful about that going forward, the antagonist is leading the clans of the deep forest while pretending to be someone else. Also, the antagonist is the same as in the previous book, so when he “died” at the end of that book, well he didn't. The antagonist is the same for the whole trilogy, to my regret, I liked that each book in the original hexalogy had its own antagonist. It kept things fresh, especially since each of them was so different from the previous, and we also had a buildup of power, starting with the weak ones, and then going all the way to the top. To come back to the catastrophe, the protagonists need to gather a couple of ingredients for a ritual to reverse the effects of it, and those ingredients are found way too easily, apart from one. I would have loved it if it was similar to the gathering of the pieces of the Nanuak in the first book. To end on a positive note, the writing is still good and engaging, and it wasn't a hassle at all to read through. I also loved the ending chapters, as well as the whole magic world-building throughout the whole book.
I must reiterate that I find the covers of the english edition absolutely stunning
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Wolfbane – Michelle Paver
It's over, again. Not much to say about this last book, everything positive I said for Skin Taker is valid here too. For the negative, Torak is still frustrating in that he never learns anything, and that leads him to the same issue over and over again throughout the series. But I guess it's more of a character trait; it doesn't change the fact that it annoyed me. Worldbuilding is still done very well, and the things introduced here are very coherent with the rest of the world, but also believable on their own. The story is very fast-paced as usual, but I was less entranced than with the last book. The ending of this one was also great, and befitting of this entire series.
Le Droit à la Paresse (The Right to Laziness) – Paul Lafargue
I have been rereading this in preparation for an article/bookclub presentation. This will most likely be my next presentation after the monster one I still have to prepare. I had read it previously in July.
One Piece
Drum Island
That was one long ass arc, but I'm not complaining, it was pretty good. Chopper is a likable character with a compelling backstory, and I feel like an interesting addition to the crew.
That's it for this month, as stated above, there should be more books coming in the near-ish future. The will to read is there, but I just need a bit more free time. I have two books that I started in October, but haven't finished yet, so they will join the ranks of next month's books.
Thank you for reading my logorrhea,
Eddie