Eddie's Monthly

Still doing good this month, two books, one essay and 54 manga chapters. There is also no Dune this month; I too am protesting against the treachery of a certain t*itter user. In any case, without further ado, let's get into it:

Brave New World Revisited – Aldous Huxley

When I bought Brave New World last year, it came with an essay that the author wrote in 1959, when the original book had come out in 1932. In it, he goes over the thirty or so years since the publication of the book, and compares the present with his past version of the future. He says he was spitting, and that he was more right than he could have ever imagined. Was he? Well I have dissected this essay, which sometimes include tangents that are more akin to non-sensical ramblings, and you will get the answer in a future mini-article.

Keeper of the Jewel – Richard H. Stephens

The Southern Kingdom, home of the elves is not as united and peaceful as it seems. Alerted by the Fae that something is stirring, the Queen sends her daughter and only living child to be trained in Highcliff, home of the High Wizard. Not only does the High Wizard reside there, but dragons and wyverns — and their riders — are also stationed there to protect the Crystal Cavern, making Highcliff one of the most, if not the most, secure place in the Realm. The Princess that has been sheltered her whole life is in for a rude awakening, especially as her death would be the easiest way to destabilise the kingdom...

This book is the first in the prequel series of “Soul Forge” by the same author. This is the Ren Faire book. For those unaware, some of the good people of the café went to a Ren Faire earlier in July (which was sick btw) and while meandering the booths, my eye caught the stall of a writer. I was intrigued, and went to talk to him. He explained his series, and I picked up his starter book recommendation which is the first book of the Highcliff Guardian series, Keeper of the Jewel. Of the Soul Forge Series (his main baby), this is the farthest back timeline-wise. He did warn me that he was still a younger author, and that his writing would improve as the series go on (his wife's favorite book is the fourth one of the Highcliff Guardian series). What are my thoughts on this book? Well you'll have to read my upcoming mini-article about it to find out! (I will keep getting away with).

Dungeon Meshi – Ryoko Kui

Chapter 43 to 97 (the end)

It's so good. The story is great, the character design is goated, the pacing is good, the ending satisfying and I've even heard that the lion is fuckable. There is not much I can say other than read it, but most of you have already done so.

City of the Lost – Kelly Armstrong

I am always eyeing our resident bookworm Elisa's Reading Roundup's 5/5s, to see if there is something that would be my cup of tea. Considering the number of books she reads, a 5/5 from her is anything but meaningless. In her penultimate Roundup, I spotted “City of the Lost” the first book in a mystery/thriller/investigation series that received 5/5 almost all around. Sign me up. For the synopsis, please refer to Elisa's Reading Roundup: I Love the Yukon/ it's Such a Brilliant Place.

I was not as entranced as Elisa with this first book and would only give it a 3/5, but to distract you from this fact I would like to announce that this was my first book borrowed from a Canadian library, in other words, I got a library card and am supporting my local library!

Firsty, let me say that the book is good, but there are some somewhat minor flaws that took me out of it, spoilers ahead. The first one is the way Casey is setup: she is ultra-rich (her parents passed and left her with a 7-figure inheritance), she's wicked smaaaht (her IQ is 135 — it is mentioned twice in the book), she's a great detective (it is mentionned never shown) and to top it off, she's really attractive. I have no problem with the main character being a bit OP, but she is just too perfect and it is hard to find her relatable/compelling in the beginning. The odd part is that it is unnecessary; she never uses her millions of CAD, and once she is in Rockton it doesn't matter anyways cause they only use credits. They also could have just said she was smart; being a great detective implies it, without shoving IQ scores at us. This also ties in with how off the character introductions felt like in the beginning of the book: a couple sentences after we are introduced to Beth, she casually humble brags that she has a pHoTOgRaphIC memory. First off, photographic memory is a myth and the single most annoying trope ever. Second, it is never used, she never uses it in the entire book, so it is also unnecessary and makes that characters also not feel real. The mentions of IQ scores and pHoTOgRaphIC memory really ticked me off, and to be fair, it's only an issue for the first 50-75ish pages of the book, and not an issue at all in the second book.

My second main issue is with the romance. I will admit that I am usually not very fond of romance in my media when they are the main focus. But here we were sold with a thriller/investigation with maybe a side of romance, but that side really is taking too much space in the plate. There is absolutely no mention of romance in the synopsis and yet the whole later two-thirds of the book are mostly about the relationship between Eric and Casey, and maybe Anders too (yes, there is a faint love triangle). I wouldn't have minded it if it didn't take so much time away from the investigation, which I was really invested in. But the investigation takes the backseat most of the book, and the resolution is less than satisfying and comes out of nowhere. I'm also not a big fan of Eric, “brooding guy™” who talks with his fists (because the most you can get out of him otherwise is a grunt) and only understands violence, but becomes a clueless baby/bumbling fool around Casey (not understanding jokes when he was doing fine with finer language thing before/running out butt naked in the forest in the winter against a fully prepared assailant). Eric is a compelling character, but his development goes out of the window when cute/romantical/white knight moments need to be setup.

Now let's rapid fire all the positive aspects of the book, as it would take too long to go in depth, to end on a good note: the pacing is great, the setting — Rockton — is interesting, the premise is original, the characters for the most part are well written, the writing in general is good, the balance between keeping the mystery and revealing all your card is perfect, it was an easy read without feeling too simple or lacking complexity...

Lastly, fuck Diana.

Alrighty, that's it for this month. I will be exiling myself to France for two weeks next month (unrelated to badmouthing one of Elisa's 5/5 books), but you can expect two small articles on the book and essay I've read here. As I'll be back at my parent's place, I will most likely bring back a couple of books from my bookshelf, and mangas too. But I'll be busy, so don't expect too big of an August Reading.

Thanks for reading my logorrhea, Eddie

We're back in business baby! 6 books and 40 odd manga chapters this month. Granted some of those books are on the smaller side, but I still read'em. I took my foot of the backlog gas pedal, and made a bit more time for reading. Without further ado, let's get into it:

God Emperor of Dune – Frank Herbert

THE GOAT, THE GOAT

This book being set 3000 years after the last one, we were leaving the Paul and kid's story, and I wasn't sure how Frank was gonna keep us interested. I forgot that he was the goat, and this is my favorite book out of the four by quite a lot. Of course Dune is iconic, Messiah is a really interesting change of tone, and Children of Dune a great end to the Paul and Co arc, but this just takes it a step further. I love reading about the God Emperor's thoughts, his inner monologue, how he's so ahead of the game but at the same time how he is so bored that he will let a bit of chaos in from time to time just to be amused. World building is as interesting as always, characters are well written even if our main boy takes most of the screen. I will definitely read the other two book, as long as Liam stays away from twitter (delete your new account 🔫).

Le Treizième Guerrier (Eaters of the Dead) – Michael Crichton

Some of you might recall that the entirety of one of my earlier article was solely dedicated to the dissing of Michael Crichton. I really don't like his writing style. While he can usually find cool premises, the way he treats characters and how the plot contrivedly unfolds is not my cup of tea. When I went back to France, I talked about it to my dad, who enjoys Crichton, and he gave me a couple of books of his to change my opinion. This is one of them.

I enjoyed this book but there are some big flaws with it. The book is a patchwork of the accounts/journals of Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāshid ibn Ḥammād (shortest royalty arabic name) and of a retelling of Beowulf. The way the two are linked is pretty clumsy, using a very convenient prophecy™. The retelling of Beowulf from an outsider's perspective, namely, Ahmad ibn Fadlan is really interesting but this could have been achieved by any other means. The account of Ahmad ibn Fadlan before he joins Beowulf on his expedition are boring; he went here, we stayed for two days, we met those guys.... Without any substance or anything of note happening, it reads like a boring report. The Beowulf tale is entertaining, but it looses the “epic” of the original, but on the other hand the outsider bit is interesting for a while. But of course because it's Michael Crichton, everything has to be based in “science” therefore Grendel is actually multiple people, and those people are just Neanderthals that didn't go extinct! bruh. Also, I hated the obsession of Crichton with the vikings having sex with everyone, which he writes it as “possessing” women. yuk

La Métamorphose – Frank Kafka

Dude wakes up as a insect, no chaos ensues

I have the bilingual edition of the book, in french and german (its original language), and planned to read the original with the help of the french — if I was having difficulties. Needless to say that my barely conversational german, which I haven't practiced in 5 years (apart from deciphering memes on ichiel) was not enough. The book is short and there are five thousand possible interpretations or analysis of it. Even I, a french idiot with 0 media literacy, was able to find a couple. There is not a lot to say here, it is a well crafted story. (sa fé rèflaichir🤔)

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Dude, it's like in civ!!1!!1

We're in the 26th century and society as we know it has changed quite a bit. Henry Ford meatriders have taken over the world and implemented enormous civilizational change in those few centuries. We follow around a few people who do not feel at completely home in this new civilisation, and who meet someone who somehow escaped being brought up in/by this civilisation. What will happen when they bring him back?

That was a strange book. Chapter one and two are utter gibberish. Chapter one reminds me of the most opaque SF books; throwing new words at you five times a sentence (my favorite one being bokanovskification). Chapter two's formatting is just unreadable. However, after reading those few pages, the writing settles down and we get a clear story. The pacing is good and I was invested enough that it took very little time for me to finish. We are offered a wildly different totalitarian regime than in 1984 here (because of course I have to be original and compare the two books); where 1984 is more “the boot”, Brave New World offers a “bread and games” approach to it. Although weird, I enjoyed the book. I hated that they described some women as “particularly pneumatic” 🥴

Candide – Voltaire

I had “read” it in high school (read a summary online cause I couldn't be bothered + french class made me despise reading) and I still remembered how silly it was. This is Voltaire so you know it's just gonna be criticizing people and institutions left and right and everyone will catch a stray. We follow Candide's adventures from his castle days until he retires in a small farm in turkey. As said before, it is silly all around, there's constantly stuff like: the duchy of Bukring Welchafen declared war to the chiefdom of Fundertürentrock, 10 000 died; the border changed by 5m. It's a fun read and it contains the famous “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” (One must cultivate one's garden); most people can't agree on its meaning (maybe it's a final troll from Voltaire; there is no real meaning but it sounds philosophic).

Standing in the shadows of Motown – Allan Slutsky

I've been trying to be a good boy and get back into bass more seriously, and after seeing many recommendation from bassists for this book, decided to pick it up. It follows the life of legendary (yet relatively unknown) session bassist (although he also played live) James Jameson. For those who are not familiar with music recording, a session player is the player who actually plays on the record. A main entity of this story is Motown, a black owned Detroit record label of the 60's that specialised in its own sounds, the “Motown sound” (think Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Four tops...).

The book starts with a biography of James Jameson, who is heavily intertwined with the history of the Motown label. He lead a pretty eventful life which had its share of ups and downs. It's kind of crazy to read that one of the most prolific session bassist of the 60's could go completely uncredited for most of his contributions (they just didn't do credits for them at the time). This definitely played a part in his future self destructive habits, amplified by alcoholism. There is a bunch of sheet music in the book that I'll have to decipher and play (if I can), but overall, I'm done with reading the “word” part of the book. The rest is partitions with some commentaries, I'll play them in due time as I am getting more serious about bass. Overall, the book is good and it was interesting to read about the music scene in the US in the 60's and onwards. I wish there were more comments about the relevance of Motown in African-American culture (or vice-versa), but the author is a white boy, and although the influence of Motown is mentioned as well as a very brief mention of the Detroit riots, there is no insightful commentary given.

Dungeon Meshi – Ryoko Kui

Chapter 1 to 42

Prior to dungeonclub forming, Tetyana and I had watched the first three episode of Dungeon Meshi on netflix and were digging it but our access was then cut-off due to IP restrictions. Damn you netflix!

In any case, I really like the manga. I love the art style, it looks so “soft” and satisfying (idk i'm not good with words). The characters are great, their relationships are believable and have depth. The monsters are cool and I love the attention to detail to make each of them edible. I think the concept of showing how adventurers would survive in a dungeon/on adventures is great, in some fictional settings, I've always wondered how the regular folk actual make it (for instance in the Dark Souls games).

I also liked how the initial arc doesn't drag on for an obscene amount of time. They have their goal and the always move towards it, without getting sidetracked by filler side quests that last for way too long. Overall, I loved reading it and I can't wait to read more.

There is no way I can keep up this reading pace next month, as you guys are organising way to many things that I want to attend, but I'll do my best.

Thanks for reading my logorrhea, Eddie

I honestly did pretty good in May, three books and a few dozens manga chapters, not bad. I am still in the middle of finishing my backlog, which takes a lot of time away from reading. I am enjoying myself doing it so I have no desire to take time away from it to read for now. Peak incoming as well as some hate.

Dune – Messiah

Peak

I remember reading Dune messiah back when I was around 14-15 and not getting it. I didn't dislike it, I actually don't mind reading something and only being transported by the vibes, but I didn't get a good understanding of it. As a whatever-year old, I could not understand just being stuck in the past as well, as resigning yourself to the future, and being absolutely done with the present. A chill depressive episode and growing tired with adult life later, I get it. This book has a totally different meaning to me now, and I like it a tad more than Dune. Paul and his ruminations are my favorite part, but I also like that everybody is playing 16D chess, but also knows that everybody is playing 16D chess, so they're also playing checkers on the side. The tone and atmosphere are just so different from Dune but also make a lot of sense as a follow up. For some reason it reminded me of the part of Beowulf (the 2007 movie, not the poem) after the time skip.

The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follet

Tom builder and his family have been out of work for a while, and a succession war rages on in England. Not many people need a mason in these trying times, and Tom's savings are running low. We follow them throughout the decades and see how war affect them. We also follow the life of Father Phillip, how was just called to improve the situation in a decrepit priory. Will he be able to set it straight? Aliena, the daughter of a nobleman, is living carefree while being pursued by many suitors including William. Will the war get the better of her attitude? Finally, Ellen and Jack are also not that affected by the war for now, as they live in the forest, but can they keep going with this lifestyle as more and more bandits roam the woods?

I needed a big book to read while everyone was finishing up Dune Messiah, and I had this one in my library for a while after thrifting it in first year of uni for 2$ (4563.93$ today due to inflation). I had seen the mini tv show about it went to came out in 2010, but my memory was really foggy (it was 14 years ago after all). This is a long book, as long as Dune, but the pace is good and I therefore was kept interested throughout. There is only one arc in the middle of the book that slowed things down and was a bit out of place. There are however many arc in this book as it takes place over 50 years or so, and seeing all the characters grow up, but also the towns and villages evolve was really cool. It was really entertaining all the way through and was a really convincing peek into day to day english medieval life (I know nothing about it and am therefore easily convinced). I love how ruthless the author is with the characters, and whenever you think their situation couldn't be worse, they are just kicked while they are down. On the contrary sometimes they will devise bold plans, and execute them, manipulating a bunch of people, which are entertaining to see unfold even if they are not successful. The only issue I had with the book is how one character weaponised r*pe — it is described twice in more or less detail — but every time it was mentioned, it made me wildly uncomfortable. The relationship of the men in the story with “carnal pleasure” is a bit weird, and is also focused on which I found odd; I can only read “stirring in the loin” so many times before getting weirded out. My favorite character was Phillip, who was a refreshing chaste and good character in the cesspool that was the average medieval person. Unless you have an issue with reading about intimate stuff, especially r*pe (it is not romanticised at all), I would recommend it.

Children of Dune – Frank Herbert

PEAK

I would say the beginning of the book is maybe a bit more accessible than Dune Messiah, but around the latter half, it gets pretty weird. It takes place 9 years after Dune Messiah, and it reminds me of it a lot. We start by having a diverse cast of POV through the chapters, and then we focus more on Leto II. Stilgar's character is very interesting in this one, and so is Alia, who steps a bit more into the light. Another character makes a reappearance, and I was jubilating when they were introduced. I won't say too much about the book as I know some people want to read it, but it is my favorite out of the series so far. I saw a lot of similarities between this book and book III of Dune, which was my favorite part (about equal with book I). I just started God Emperor of Dune so we'll see how it compares.

One Piece – Oda-san

Water 7

Oda, my brother in christ, do we need a giant close-up of someone's face crying/yelling every chapter? Also, the constant yelling of attacks, which is unnecessary and takes half of each panel is annoying as hell. It makes some of the action really hard to follow. The trope of “I can only survive one more attack, I'm on the brink of death”, and then surviving sixteen finisher moves from an adversary is so overplayed, and not interesting. The story is sorta cool sometimes but, it's not enough to keep me reading. All of the criticism, I pointed out here is valid for most of the manga. The way they build up the villains — have murk the heroes, no diff — and then without the heroes having time to recover, yet improve, having the villains be defeated because the plot demands it is very lazy. The Gear stuff was cool, but the downsides to using it are some small that Luffy might as well be overpowered all the time. After reading 430 chapters, I feel like I have earned the right to this critique, but most importantly to drop it. As the friend that asked me to read it said: “If you still aren't liking it at this point, you'll never like it. Also, as moncrief pointed out, maybe I just don't like shonen. After joining the bookclub in reading dungeon meshi, I'll try to read HxH which is apparently peak shonen. We will have a definite answer then.

This marks the one year anniversary of when I started publishing my monthly readings! ~37 books and 430 manga chapters in a year, not too shabby. Tetyana and I have been planning on getting our library cards forever now, but we'll get to it eventually. With this — and being done with my backlog in December — I should be able to enjoy more books per month.

It feels nice to be liberated from the shackles of One Piece, that I started in September last year.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie

Yeah, I was very lazy this month in terms of reading, and put more energy into purging my backlog, with the project reaching it's halfway point.

Dune: Book II & III- Frank Herbert

What can I say, you all read it, it's goated. Although I loved book I, book II was a bit less to my liking, but book III is my favorite. The ending of the book isn't satisfying though, and I find myself wanting to go through Dune messiah right away. I am planning a presentation, which might take a bit of time to prepare, but it requires everyone to have read Dune Messiah (or be fine with me spoiling the ending).

One Piece

Skypiea Arc

I wasn't completely done reading through the arc last time around, but reading it completely just comforts me in my opinions. Oda-san should have introduce the characters before all the shit went down, because to me there was no stakes as I did not know who anyone was, or why I should care about their demise. Having the flash back (which is btw my least favorite form of exposition, especially if overused) right at the end was a real waste imo.

Long Ring Island Arc

It's fine. I liked that it was self contained, and introduced some characters for later arcs, while having them not being super relevant there.

Water 7

What a palate cleanser. After the drag that was Skypiea, it is refreshing to have something that is setup properly. Can you imagine if they had the big reveals and all the action first, and then introduced people and why they matter? It would have been ass, and that's why I dislike Skypiea. No, here stuff is setup properly, but it doesn't mean that Oda-san reveals his whole deck right away. There are a couple of things he keeps hidden until the last minute for dramatic reveal. But the stakes are already there and the reveals are here to reinforce them. Franky is cool, but I hated the manufactured drama within the crew (looking at you Usopp).

I should be done with my mandatory One Piece reading next month, which means more room for books, which I am looking forward to. I have a backlog of books I already possess but haven't read as long as my arm, so I have enough to keep me busy.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie

A bit more reading this month, as I've put going through my backlog on the back burner a bit (I am still making great progress though). I've finished all the huge books in my collection, and re-started going through One Piece after a little break.

Mystery book – Secret boy/girl

Keeping the title of the book secret as I am planning a presentation on it. I had seen the movie from this book, but had no idea the movie was not faithful at all to the book. It was disconcerting at first, and really caught me off guard, but the book is still great. The movie adds a lot of depth to the story though, and it's one of those rare cases where the movie being different from the book is a plus. As I am planing to have a presentation about this book and its movie, I shall be brief here. My presentation will involve watching the movie, then me reading the book to everyone — estimated length for the presentation: 5h.

The Rhythm of War – Brandon Sanderson

Although I wanted to take a longer break from this series, especially after the third book, I couldn't resist going back. If you have failed to read my last Reading report, my main gripes with the third book was that the pacing was really frustrating. I therefore worried about this one, but my fears were unfounded; the pacing is good here. The author went back to the style from the two first books, and it works wonders. It was a pleasure to read, and I often found myself favouring this book, rather than playing video games or watching youtube.

The book is set a whole year after the events of the third book. Every one is figuring out what's going on, and — god damn — everyone is suddenly severely mentally ill. Our main boy Kaladin suffers from crippling depression, his lack of will to live, and the mask he puts on not to have other people worry are written about very well. They even pull a switcheroo on us, and as soon as we thought he was going to be able to crawl out of his own depths, the author pulled the carpet from under him. Kaladin's then resignation to his fate was heartbreaking. Our main girl Shallan, is also suffering from depression, but she had to one up Kaladin, and is also wrestling with some dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personalities) and repressed traumatic memories. Even our usual ray of sunshine, Adolin, is forced to repress some very negative feeling about his father. However grim this sounds, the author's whole spiel is usually contrasting the darkness with the light, and even if things get tough, it is there at the end of the tunnel. It looks like Brandon (we're on a first name basis) really wanted to add some depth to the characters here, and he's very successful imo. World building is still top-tier, and there are some cold as lines. This is my favourite book out of the four, and I can't wait for the fifth one that releases later this year.

Dune: Book I – Frank Herbert

Ok, everyone has read that, I won't be adding anything by talking about it. It's good, I love the seamless transition in POV, where some book would just have chapters at a time in the same POV. It really gives a sense of seeing behind the curtain, but at the same time, since this world is so strange to us, it's not as if we are getting the full show right away. I only wish Spencer people would haul ass on reading it, because I would love to read more at a time, and at an increased rate.

One Piece

Jaya Arc

Honestly meh and forgettable. There are way too many characters introduced at once, am I supposed to remember every single one of them when they're in the light for less than 20 panels. The monkey crew was fun.

Skypiea Arc

HONK-SHOOOO Honestly – worst arc so far. I just don't really care for anyone. They rushed setting up anything, therefore in my mind there are no stakes for the big fight. There are too many things going on at the same time, and the drawings are confusing me on what's going on. There are however some nice double pages, and the snake is cool. I can't give up though, Marco made me vow me to read until chapter 430 before considering abandoning the manga.

BOTTOM TEXT

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie

Not too many books this last month, I am busy with life and stuff. I still want to keep reading as a fun and stress-free activity, so I'm not putting too much pressure on myself to read more. Enough chatter, let's get started:

Oathbringer – Brandon Sanderson

Third book in the Stormlight Archive Series, and I must admit, where I devoured the first two, this one was a bit more of a slow read. Don't get me wrong, the content is great, each individual arc, the overall storyline, the twists and turns; everything is good. However, I found the pacing atrocious with this one. My little theory is that the author heard the criticism of the previous books, namely they were too slow, and set himself to “fix” it. Unfortunately, the pace is only artificially quickened; halfway through the book we change POVs every two chapters, then every chapter and by the later part of the book every fucking paragraph. Being ping-ponged around this frequently make the reading experience extremely frustrating. Especially since the writing style is not designed to accommodate that frequent POV switches. On the content side, the story is truly good. All the little things setup in the previous books come up again in a satisfying manner. The only thing I was afraid of got resolved immediately; there was a budding of a love triangle that was thankfully crushed in the bud before it becomes a main plot point.

The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His journey to the court of the Great Khan Möngke – William of Rubruck, Perter Jackson, David Morgan

After those 3800 pages from the Stormlight Archives, and especially after that third book, I needed a little break. Completely randomly, I stumbled on the excellent video “Advice for time traveling to Medieval Europe” from the youtube channel Premodernist. In it, he mentions one quirky factoid from the medieval times: people from the west were confused about Buddhism and thought it was akin to Christianity. He cites a book and gives some other fun fact about the book, and this book is the one I picked up.

I have presented this book at the Turkish Coffee, but I wouldn't rob those of you who couldn't attend of the opportunity to hear about it. The book is divided into a couple of parts: the intro by Peter Jackson (no, not this one), which serves as a historical “get into the swing of things”. Even if it spoils a bit what is going to happen in the book, I would recommend starting with it not to get lost. Then comes the actual report from friar William; it is filled with footnotes either about the translation (it was written in Latin), about historical/geographical context, fact checking of some of William's claims and other appropriate tidbits. The last part is appendices going into more detail than a footnote ever could, or just more off-topic.

The book is unintentionally really funny; everyone dunks on anyone at all times. The 13th century, for all it faults, kinda sounds like a grand old time. William, a french franciscan monk, dunks on the Mongols and their cultures, outfit, outlook, physiology... all throughout the report, and many other people catch stray bullets. William's interpreter (from latin or old-french to old-mongolian) constantly dunks on him by mistranslating stuff to his advantage, blackmailing William, getting way too wasted to be useful or straight up refusing to translate stuff. The Mongols dunk on William, trying to get money and gifts from him, not giving him food, openly mocking him, lying about him to the Great Khan... Even the authors dunk on William in the footnotes, usually rebuking claims he made and providing sources of the contrary, roasting his latin or correcting William when he misquotes the scriptures. Finally, we have a rare case of self dunk, and it's also the only piece of info we get about William in the whole book: he complains that the horses his companions were given for a part of the journey were too small and frail, but he thanks the lord that due to his portliness, they had to give him a strong one. The book also outlines a couple of funny things about the middle ages, namely that you could just pretend to be someone else and fraud your way through life and nobody would know. In the story, our friar meets with the Great Khan's “catholic priest from Bulgaria”, which had served him for quite a number of years. Turns out he was neither catholic, nor a priest as he hadn't been ordained, but also wasn't bulgarian at all! Also, the reason William goes to the Great Khan in the first place is because some mongolian emissaries had told the king of France, Louis IX aka Saint Louis, that Sartach — a great mongolian general — had been baptised and accepted the pope. William was sent to deliver a letter from the french king, which was not well received: Sartach was not christian at all and the “emissaries” had just lied to get gifts. Sartach sends William to his boss Batuu, which sends him directly to the Great Khan. A couple weeks after arriving at the Great Khan's court, the Khan asks William why he was sent here, as he had forgotten. When William tells him about the letter from the french king, the Great Khan admits that he lost it, and that he doesn't remember what it says. William is then free to make up a better worded letter.

I think this book will content academic and history noobs alike, and it's honestly a great read. I hate history books in general, but took a chance on this one and I'm glad I did. I would offer to lend the book to anyone, but it is currently with my sister, and I will only get it back in late August.

Although, fantasy books are fun to read, they're not as fun to present, and I enjoyed talking about The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck much more. I guess I'll have to incorporate more fun books to present; fortunately, my next book before going back to the Stormlight Archives should be a fun one. Until next time

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie

As stated in my previous reading summary, I hit a major reading slump in December. On top of that, I had to play a ton of video games to clear my backlog. I therefore decided, instead of reading one of the 20ish books in my backlog, to get something new. I went to indigo and moseyed on over to the fantasy section, looking at all the authors. I had heard good things about Brandon Sanderson, and decided to grab one of his books, which also had the merit of being cheap. Overwhelmed with choices, I resorted to looking at the stickers noting the staff's recommendations. “Marina”'s pick was The Rhythm of War, which is the fourth book in the Stormlight Archive series. Against her better judgment, I decided to start with the first book in the series.

The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson

I was gonna write a synopsis, but it was shit, and the one that comes with the book is better, so here you go:

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter. It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them. One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe. Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity. Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure...

VVoah, it's pretty good! It was kind of a gamble to try to get out of a reading slump with a 1200ish pages book, but the gamble paid off, and it only took me a week and a half to finish this guy. Although online detractors of this first book take jabs at its pace, I think its slowness is deliberate and works. It takes time to set up a world, and I hate being rushed by books; I will not remember anything if it goes too fast. Detractors also point out “bad writing”, but I disagree. Brandon's (yes, we are on a first name basis) writing is serviceable here, it is unassuming and gets the job done. It is easy to read and doesn't get in the way of the story. Sure there might be the odd choice of word or repetition here and there, but they are few and far between, and in this first book, it never took me out of the story. Taking about the story, well it's just good. The world building is great and very coherent, and the magic system also works very well and is explained comprehensively. I'm not a big fan of high magic, where there are no rules, or the rules can be broken my certain characters, and magic can do anything and everything... So this is a big plus. The book is divided in parts, and in between them interludes. It is during those interludes that we get a lot of world building that wouldn't really make sense in the main story. The parts usually wrap up nicely, so the interludes don't really break the flow of the narrative. Finally, detractors also have a gripe with the way Brandon handles character, I can understand certain aspects, but I disagree with others. We are very, very far from the horrendous characters from Michael Crichton. As one can expect from a book, the characters are introduced, their character reinforced, and then they slowly evolve. A lot of the development and explanation of the character's motivation is more tell than show, and I agree it might have been done better. Yet the characters are still interesting, multidimensional, and while being at the service of the story, don't feel contrived at all.

Words of Radiance – Brandon Sanderson

I was in such a haste to read the second book that I can't remember what events belong to either books. My synopsis is the following: the situations evolved and so did the characters. There are some new things, but also some old things. Plot points unfold and are resolved, although some aren't. You are welcome.

This is book 2 of the Stormlight archives. Everything I've said for the first one applies here mostly. Apart for the pacing, which like the previous book is slow but only at first. The multiple narratives pick up pace and gather momentum, and it is done well. There isn't one particular story line that is so much better than the other, that we can't just wait to get back to when the story shift pov. However, the interludes are still mostly the same, and some of them present a jarring contrast to the momentum of the main story lines. There is one of them that was particularly long that I sorta had to push through. The events of this one become relevant in book 3, but when I was reading the second one I couldn't have known, and it was kind of a drag. Those dull moments were, however, scarce. The main story gets great, and the 1300ish pages really allow the author to make some long as plot points and some twist which ramifications really have the time to be fleshed out. Although it's a tad longer than its predecessor, thanks to the solid foundations built in the first book, this second one can really accelerate its pace and build some momentum, and it only took about 8 days to finish.

That's it for this month, to books, although I would like to add that I'm 900pages into that third one, so it should kinda count. I have more things to say about that third one. You'll just have to wait until next month to hear about it.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie

Major reading slump this month, only read one book and got carried away by my next big project for the new year (subject to an upcoming article on the printhouse)

La peste – Albert Camus

Everything seems calm in Oran, a city in french occupied Algeria. The flower fields are blooming outside the city, the ocean breathing on its edge, the trams running throughout it and an old man is spitting on its cats. Deep in its bowels though, something is amiss. The rats start surfacing by thousand and start to die in the open, leaving many inhabitants perplexed. This includes Dr.Rieux, which discovers a strange disease during his rounds, one that is fatal. Upon deliberation with a colleague, there are no doubts; it is the plague.

Camus is just the GOAT. The way he writes characters is simply human, they feel like people, not characters. The way they act, either as individuals or when part of a group, just feel authentic and real. I will spare you a comparison with covid19 but I will say that what transpired reinforces the book's realism. As the characters in the books, I got tired of the plague about ¾ of the way through it, but pushed nonetheless, and I'm glad I did. You are made to care about the main characters and they are all very coherent. Camus writing style is good as always and reading is almost effortless, at least in the french version.

That's it for this month, I will most likely not have many books next month either, but my upcoming article will make it clear why.

Two books this month and about 60 manga chapters, not bad.

Dodici Racconti – Dino Buzzati

This book is a bilingual book; the left page is written in italian, and the right is translated into french. There are also annotations at the bottom of the page, explaining vocabulary and specific grammar used. The text however is just some regular italian novels written in the mid-1900s. I started this book last month, right before going to italy, to refresh a bit of my italian as I was gonna be the only traveller of my group speaking the language. Mr.Buzzati did not pull any punches and those novels took me so long to read through, I must admit I gave up on reading the italian part 80% of the way through and just read the french one. Even the french part would be complicated if you weren't familiar with less accessible vocabulary and grammatical constructions. The novels did a decent job of being an italian crash course, and I generally had no issue being the translator for my wife and brother-in-law. The stories vary from clever, to a bit nonsensical and not necessarily in the good way. Some of them are obviously set up as jokes, but the punchline just doesn't make sense (maybe I just don't get it — it's italian humour after all). They are however all pretty original, and entertaining. My favourite would probably be “Delicatezza” and “La farfaletta”. The first one is about a prisoner sentenced to death that is given the best treatment right after sentencing, and isn't even sent to prison. He then meets the prison warden, who talks to him about the philosophy of killing him. I can't talk about the second without spoiling it as it is very short. Another one I also liked was “Denuncia del redito” where a rich CEO has to do his taxes, but his usual CRA-equivalent agent, who he is friends with, is ill and one of his colleagues takes his spot. The CEO's friend never looked too closely at his revenues, so it always went great and he didn't have to declare a lot, basically evading taxes. We follow their conversation as they talk about the CEO's affairs.

Les maîtres du jeu vidéo (Masters of Doom) – David Kushner

I am not one to enjoy, let alone read biographies, but this one is an exception. It was approved and given to me by my father. My father reads dozens upon dozens of books a year, and usually only recommends his top 10%. To hype up the book even more, it has been credited as the reason why Oculus and Reddit were created — yes, it is partially responsible for the horrors brought by the metaverse and well reddit as a whole. We follow the adventures of John Romero and John Carmack. If you're a real nerd, you will know who those people are, if you don't it, must probably have felt nice to be popular in high school. Anyways, they are the creators of ID Software, the company that made Wolfenstein and then Doom which completely revolutionised the PC game market, but also PC game technology and design in general. Crediting them as the main reason why PC gaming is popular today would not be an overstatement. We follow them from all the way when they learned how to code, until a bit after the release of Quake 3 and Daikatana. The pacing was decent, the prose was good, and most importantly, the subject was interesting. Reading along I kept thinking “Hey I know that thing, no way they had their hands in that too” or “wow this is how [now big company] started, cool”. Seeing the evolution of the relationship between the two Johns, and the people caught in the middle was also engaging. In a word, I really enjoyed reading this book. The french translation is not as clumsy as it could have been, even if some things sound really cheesy in french. My only other complaint is that the french title is fucking stupid Les maîtres du jeu vidéo or “The Master of Video Games”, the original title Masters of Doom is much better imo. There's also a typo in the first word (name) of the front cover, it's supposed to be Carmack not Cormack lmao.

One Piece

Arabasta Arc

This long ass arc concludes the Arabasta Saga. I did appreciate the length of this, there was more time to establish characters, have plot setups and payoffs. I still didn't care a ton about the evil organisation, but the main antagonist was badass. It was also nice to see the crew be in a lot of trouble against opponents, I was getting tired of them kinda steamrolling through adversaries. Luffy getting murked so easily by the main antagonist, at first, made their victory more satisfying. The Usopp stick is bullshit though.

The holiday season is almost upon us, and with it comes the time where there is literally nothing for me to do at work, i.e. I will be paid to read. I am also planning on getting a library card, which will allow me to increase my book procurement rate. Expect more books for next month's December 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