Of Swords and Parasols

What are you currently reading

I've started reading the manhwa Abosolute Witch, set in a medieval-lite fantasy setting in which a young woman journey's to her husband's hometown after he goes missing, only to learn that no one has ever heard of him. There's also politics, a grumpy alchemist, a talking frog, a shape-changing lizard, retired pirates who run an inn, an eyepatchwearing seeress, an elderly lady who is the shrewdest merchant alive and a supposedly extinct race of witches. so far, I'm enjoying it considerably.

What did you recently finish reading?

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews.The 6th Kate Daniels book (I don't count Gunmetal Magic in the series. Mostly because I pretend it doesn't exist.) and one that takes most of the protagonists to the Adriatic in hopes of acquiring a drug that will help more shapeshifter children survive adolescence. There was some annoying relationship drama that unnecessary (and the revelation of why it was there didn't make it seem any less unnecessary) but other than that, I liked it more than the last few books I've read by the authors. i will admit to being amused by Curran's temper tantrum, and people's reactions to it.

I finished reading Legend of the White-Haired Demoness, but don't have much substantial to add to what I've said before, aside from being amused when characters from the two sequels, Qijian Xia Tianshan and Saiwai Qixia Zhuan (which Tsui Hark merged into the 2004 Seven Swordsmen TV series) started showing up as children, and one of the adult characters changed his name and became the master of several characters from the sequel. I knew Seven Swordsmen was based on two Liang Yusheng novels, but didn't realize that they were sequels to Legend of the White-Haired Demoness. (And I'd been thinking that Lian Ni Shang and Fei Hongjin from Seven Swordsmen were similar but not put much actual thought into the similarity, and then I realized than Lian Ni Shang was Fei Hongjin's master and it made perfect sense. Amusingly, Ada Choi has played both characters in TV adaptations.)

Now if only I could find a (non-vikii, because it always gives me trouble) subtitled version of the 2012 TV series with Ma Su and Nicky Wu, and English translations of Qijian Xia Tianshan and Saiwai Qixia Zhuan. (Or any other Liang Yusheng novels, but particularly those.)

A bunch of Claymore, which I posted on separately.


What do you think you'll read next?

More Absolute Witch, and the library has the latest "October Daye" book for me, as well as the next-for-me "Kitty Norville" book.

What are you currently reading
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 14. I think it's been about a month since 7 Seeds completely took over my kindle time, so I'm still playing catch up and trying to remember who all these secondary characters running around are.

What did you recently finish reading?

Finished Georgette Heyer's The Black Moth. Slow start but entertaining overall, though it's more a case of you can see the elements that eventually became Heyer's strengths than that it's really good on its own. I doubt I'll be reading These Old Shades, as "redeem the rapist" plots don't appeal to me. (And while it may have been a failed rape attempt in this book, not only was the intent still there, but he was obviously successful more than once in the past.) I'm curious, though, to see if we start getting some adaptations of Heyers books over the next few years, as they start entering the public domain.

Caught up with 7 Seeds, which I posted on separately.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Guay. Graphic novel set in a medieval-lite world in which a dragon is born 200 years after the last of the dragons were supposedly chased away. When a dragon begins attacking a town, several young men are sent out to find a "hero" to fight the dragon, and instead return with a braggart more familar with spinning stories than fighting. Meanwhile, the local healer's youngest daughter comes up with plans of her own to beat the dragon. It's simple and straightforward and relies more on wit and creative thinking than flashy heroics, and is more concerned with how the dragon affects people's daily lives than with the dragon itself. Very nice little book.

Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews. Fourth book in Andrews's "The Edge" series. I liked it more than the last 2 books in the series, but less than I do most of the Kate Daniels books. The first half is pretty much the protagonists setting out to destroy every human trafficker they can find, and it later branches out to wrap up most of the threads from previous books. I think it's supposed to be the last book in the series, but if so, I suspect it'll get revisited once or twice later down the road to focus on the teen characters as adults. My favorite part was when the heroine would invert healing magic to make her enemies sick, as I've always wondered why people with healing magic in fantasy worlds aren't able to do that more. (Sadly, the book didn't go where I wanted with that. Oh well.)

Black Bird Vol 1-3 by Sakurakoji Kanako. I read a little bit of this when it first came out, and couldn't quite remember if I disliked it or wasn't quite grabbed by it when I saw that the library had the first 10 copies, so I checked out the first 3. I feel like i need to read about 30 columes of good manga to make up for this.

The heroine, Misao, has blood that is superduper extra yummy blood that makes demons stronger. Her One True Love is a tengu named Kyo who was her childhood friend, and is now a teacher at her school. His saliva can cure wounds. Naturally, Misao is constantly bleeding. (I will pause a moment to ponder what Clamp and/or Kaori Yuki would do with this idea. Whatever it was, it'd be better than this.) The healing is frequently over Misao's protests, and often staged to look like sexual assault. This is aside from Kyo's regular sexual assaults (often at school) that are ok because they're in love and she's his destined bride. Kyo is also fond of deliberately terrifying Misao to teach her that she has to rely on his body for protection, and Misao thinking that there's no reason to refuse Kyo's sexual advances if he loves her, and that it's touching when he's cruel to her because he's trying to teach her to rely on him out of lurve. There is, I think, an average of about 1.3 rape attempts (not including anything from Kyo) per volume. All by people Kyo has warned Misao to avoid. In fact, I think every person Kyo has told Misao not to talk to (which is everyone but his servants) has tried to rape and/or murder Misao. She has to learn her lesson about never having an independent thought or decision of her own somehow, amirite?

Brain bleach required. Very glad I only grabbed a few volumes, because I probably would have felt to read the rest if I'd grabbed them.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn. This is kind of like reading Astro City in prose form. That's not a criticism. Celia West is the non-superpowered daughter of her city's (the world's?) superheroes. At 17 she became emancipated and ran away to college, and is now a forensic accountant who does her very best to avoid her parents' superhero lifestyle. Unfortunately, her parents' secret identities were exposed when she was a teenager, and she's been kidnapped so many times that it's become boring, and the prosecutor trying her father's archnemesis for tax fraud has decided that it'd be good publicity to have her hepling on the case. There are elements of a parody in there and a pretty strong critique of superhero/vigilante culture and romanticism (one that appears to have made some Amazon and Goodreads reviewers cry in agony at the book daring to resist), and the general feel is of Silver Age surperheroes giving way to more modern superhero through the eyes of someone on the outskirts. While I haven't read superhero comics in probably 5-6 years, I read enough in the 15 years before that to see a lot of the twists coming, but that didn't affect my enjoyment.

The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated by Gerald Morris. Part of Morris's irreverent "The Knights' Tales" series of children's books (not to be confused with his YA series, "The Squire's Tales," which can also be irreverent depending on Morris's opinion of whatever tale he's adapting at the time, but is another beast entirely). If you're familiar with the tale of Balin and Balan, you're probably going "but how do you make that a children's book?" The answer is "by relentlessly mocking obsession with fate and destiny." Light fluff, but entertaining and funny, and a quick read.

Rasetsu Vol 1-9 (complete) by Shiomi Chika. I read and enjoyed the first couple volumes of this when Viz first started publishing it a few years ago, then wasn't able to continue buying it because of finances, but the library now has the volumes I didn't, so I finally read all of it. Rasetsu is about a 18-year-old psychic named Rasetsu who was cursed by a demon when she was 15, with the demon claiming that he'd claim her for his own if she didn't find her "true love" by her 20th birthday. Thankfully, while the "find your true love" element isn't completely shelved, there isn't much of a focus on it more often than not (it's there and not something she can exactly forget, but there are other things going on) and most of the focus is on Rasetsu and her coworkers fighting malevolent ghosts and demons. There's a romantic plotline and something of a triangle, but it's generally well done (I say "generally" because I wasn't fond of the third party or his behavior, but it fits the overall plotline) and I liked the actual romance more than expected. My only real beef with it is that, as usual, Shiomi tends to surround her heroine with several men, and no other major female characters. It's connected to Shiomi's other series that was released by Viz, Yurara, in that Rasetsu's love interest, Yako, was in Yurara, and both heroines are psychics, but you don't need to read Yurara to read this.

What do you think you'll read next?

I have Natsuo Kirino's The Goddess Chronicle and the latest Kate Daniels book, and since I've read a bunch of Carrie Vaughn's standalone books, I went ahead and checked out the first couple books in her urban fantasy series. I also have the ATLA tie-in books that my library has, as I recall some listies liking them. I was going to say "I should back off a bit from manga for a while before I OD," but then I was at the Library's main branch this morning after a doctor's appointment and they had just acquired a lot of manga i haven't read yet, so that might not be happening. I also still have Kelley Armstrong's Omens to read.

I'm having to go in to work at 6 am this week and next week, as opposed to my normal 8 am, which is not really conductive to the brain handling things much more complex than pretty pictures save for brief periods of adrenaline, so I'm not sure how much reading I'll get done in the next week or so. I should take the opportunity to read manga, but I want to start 7 Seeds and start catching up with Skip-Beat and don't want to be reading those when not well rested.

What are you currently reading?

Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 5-6. Still love this book.

( spoilers )

What did you recently finish reading?

Unnatural Habits by Kerry Greenwood. The latest (in the US, at least) Phryne Fisher book, in which young girls go missing and a serial...attacker is running around, making sure rapists can no longer procreate, and Phryne acquires another minion. Also evil nuns, but thankfully good nuns too. (The evil nuns were rather jarring, having just read one of Jennifer Worth's memoirs.) In general, grand fun. I've rewatched the entire first season of the TV series, not to mention several extra viewings of the pilot (look, you have to suffer when shoving your fandoms at people, ok?) since reading the first 15 or so books in the series, so while I hadn't forgotten, it was a bit jarring to be reminded of the orientalism in the books. (Not that the show is perfect in that regard, but it does try to improve that aspect.) I remain of the opinion that everyone needs Phryne Fisher in their lives, though.

What do you think you'll read next?
Jennifer worth's 3rd midwife book, as it's an ILL and due back next Tuesday.