Eddie's Monthly

I'm running out of time and I can't spare too much to read. My project — Humble Purge Act II — is near completion, and I just need a big push for the next two months to vanquish my backlog once and for all. I still managed to read a bit, two books, one artbook and 40-ish manga chapters, nothing to be ashamed of.

A Stranger in Town – Kelly Armstrong

For plot synopsis, please refer to Elisa's Reading Roundup: I Love the Yukon/ it's Such a Brilliant Place.

That book was good. It goes even further in demystifying the hostiles, which is not bad per se, but the mystery was more intriguing. A couple of the least interesting plot lines are dropped, and the main plot is more consistent. Everything that was good about the others is here. I just really hated the ending, kept imagining a fucking plane-clown-car.

Empire of Silence (Suneater Book 1) – Christopher Ruocchio

Hadrian Marlowe, son of the very dreaded Lord Marlowe, is not doing too hot. His father despises him, in favour of his more lordly, but also more brutish and stupid younger brother. However, Hadrian can rest easy, by tradition the oldest will be heir to the House. But at the same time, Hadrian does not want to rule, or at least not like his father. His wish is granted, and after one too many rebellious acts, his Father decides to send him to the Chantry (clergy equivalent), to be part of the Inquisition. The Inquisition is a branch of the Chantry that will purge your planet of the heretics, or simply destroy your planet if it is deemed too heretical. Somehow, Hadrian is even less keen on doing that; is there any chance he can escape his fate?

Did you like Dune? Well the author does and the 30 or so first pages are literally just like Dune.

• Son of a space lord (who's related to the Emperor) with a signet ring signifying his rank — check
• They fight using personal shields that stop anything fast so you have to be slow to penetrate them — check
• The use of computers was banned by the Great Convention Chantry so you have human computers called mentats scholiast. Our main protagonist initially wants to become one — check
• The hero has two instructors/father figures in his swords master and more philosopher teacher — check
• The throne room is gigantesque but imperceptibly gets smaller as you get to the throne, making the throne's occupant more imposing — check

There is more stuff that I'm not putting down, but damn man, chill. The story thankfully becomes something more and strays pretty far away from Dune in content, but the writing is still pretty similar. I'm not sure why all the Dune references needed to be put in the first 30 pages. It's a good book, it may be great even, but for some reason I had some trouble getting into it, and it took me way too long to finish it, almost three weeks, which is entirely too much for 600-page book. The third book of the series is apparently a masterpiece, so I will push on.

The Deepest of Secrets – Kelly Armstrong

For plot synopsis, please refer to Elisa's Reading Roundup: I Love the Yukon/ it's Such a Brilliant Place.

THERE IS AN INTRO SECTION SEPARATE FROM THE REST OF THE BOOK, AMEN. It might not seem like much, but this is such a quality of life improvement. There were the odd one or two paragraphs re-establishing relationships and events in the actual book, but they are completely manageable and didn't detract from the story. I like this one a lot, it was a nice break from the usual story structure we get from this series. Well almost, they faked us out, but it is still a nice change of pace. They dropped so many storylines and characters that were not as interesting in this one, and it's a breath of fresh air; everything is streamlined and nothing is fighting for its space in the book. Very solid and nice conclusion to this first part of the series. I'll probably take a break and only come back to Rockton in the next few months, can't have too much of a good thing.

This title kinda sucks ass though

Current ranking: Book 2>Book7>Book 3>Book6>Book 5>Book 4>Book 1

Disco Elysium Artbook – ZA/UM et al.

Yes, I pirated this as no copies are available — it only came with the collector's edition of the game which now retail anywhere north of 500$ on eBay.

Disco Elysium is an amazing game, where the writing is only rivalled by the visuals. I am not a very artsy person, and I still went out of my way to read an artbook. The writing is pretentious and smells of art students taking themselves too seriously, but they deserve it. The art is here to steal the show. Where I don't really feel either way for the character portraits, UI and set design, I fucking LOVE the artwork for the cabinet of thought and the skill portraits. I would happily get any and all of them and hang them in my living room (Tetyana would probably not let me). Below are my favourite skill portraits, one for each category, the though cabinet, etc.

The skill portraits are by Aleksander Rostov, the thought cabinet and horsey horse by Anton Vill

_{This is the original version that I like better, but couldn't find in high definition)}

_{I also love encyclopedia}

_{In the artbook, the painting is a bit different, with a black character having a knife on a white one, and vice-versa for the second pair}

Hunter X Hunter – Yoshihiro Togashi

Chapter 11- 50

All the secondary characters are only here to marvel at how strong our two special little boys are, and further explain how what they are doing is sooo impressive. A bunch of stuff is setups just to showcase their strength, and makes no sense. A multi door with increasing weight, lmao what? Oh, and the 11-year-old kid being able to push 16 tons, come on. That same kid was dropped into the arena of death where only the strongest survive, with 200 floors of increasing difficulty — he of course made it to the top when he was 6 years old! Him and his friend Gon learn about a new technique that takes bazillion hours to learn, they get it in 2min. Then Gon intuitively learns another technique that even the masters of this art take decades to learn, and of course he does it on the fly! We just follow two Gary Stus around and it's not fun because there are no stakes. Nothing matters in the end — they are stronger than anyone they meet, and by a lot. If they aren't, they just have to think hard (for a day or so) about overcoming a challenge and they'll get it. The power scaling makes no sense, whether they succeed at a task or not is arbitrary.

I think the jury has deliberated; I just fucking hate shōnens.

PS: announcing that you got married in your manga; based king

That's all for this month, no planning on reading a bunch, next month, so it should be a bit lighter. I do have to catch up a bit on the Fred Hampton readings.

Thanks for reading my logorrhea, Eddie