Reading Recap, week 20
Fewer, and greater.
It’s been no small feat to work my way through SHOGUN, and I am reminded once again that if I’m going to read a 1000-page Lizzo of a book, I might as well read something with significant historical/cultural/human value, instead of an overweight epic fantasy that does a lesser job of teaching me anything useful.*
*He says, as he reads THE SILMARILLION…**
**Anything by Tolkien is better than anything from Current Year.
Anyway, I’m enjoying SHOGUN. Goodreads actually made a useful recommendation based off of that, and I bought a hardcover of another book that’s coming in the mail this week. It’s a classical historic war epic. Maybe I’m developing a taste? I’ll post pics when it arrives.
(Psst…consider becoming a paid subscriber…the money helps me buy books…)
I also finished KRAKEN RIDER Z. Like I said in the video below, it was a lot better when it was trying to be a fantasy novel, and a lot worse when it turned into a hard mechanical textbook for the game-like elements of the fantasy world. Progression Fantasy is LitRPG’s ditzier little sister, and since I’ve already pissed off 85% of LitRPG readers on the Internet, I might as well feud with the whole family. So SUCK IT PROG-FANT, I’M COMING FOR YOU TOO.
That said, I’ll read the second book.
Anyway, this week I’m going to finish TOWER OF SILENCE. I’m 25% of the way through it. Truth be told, this thriller-paced epic fantasy is now becoming an epic fantasy-paced epic fantasy, but Correia still writes at a better clip than your Jordans and Sandersons and Martins (especially because Correia can finish a series, BOOM GOT HEEEEEEM). Even a mid-tier Correia book is more entertaining than the last several Sandersons I’ve read. I might actually finish the Invisible Wars series now. “Ah, yes, this is a soft analog for a Middle Eastern nation with a poor record on human rights, but at least Hoid won’t show up.” The Cosmere is lost on me. If I need to fall asleep I’ll just stop drinking caffeine and start listening to books by feminists.
I’ve got a few library books and a Speechify title to get through as well. Next week there’s a new Longmire hitting shelves and I’m really excited for that.
Finally, on the comic book front we have REDCOAT #2, which picked up where we left off last month: Simon Pure, accidentally turned immortal by an occult ceremony that was supposed to happen to Benjamin Franklin, has pissed off a lot of people in the last hundred years. He can’t really do anything about that since he can’t die and he won’t change. When a young Albert Einstein shows up and tells him the world is going to end unless Simon stops the bad guys, Simon initially doubts him…but then some convincing proof arrives.
Like a lot of comic series I’m reading, this one had a rip-roaring first issue and a slower second one that uses a lot of pages to accomplish a little less narrative movement. The writer found good ways of setting the table while also showing the setting and the artwork off, yet it still felt like I was waiting for something substantial to happen. There’s a cliffhanger ending that I have no reason to believe is actually going to leave our immortal in danger, regardless of what the sendoff line was, so I’m ambivalent on the tension that I’m supposed to feel.
Nevertheless I DO want to see what happens next and what Simon learns, and the artwork in these Ghost Machines books is awesome. Next week is ROOK EXODUS book 2. Bring it on.