Of Swords and Parasols

What are you currently reading

I'm going to be trying out Sparkler Monthly (which I hadn't actually heard of until a couple weeks-or at least, I hadn't noticed people talking about it) which is a monthly online magazine with fem-focused content, much of which appears to be shoujo-esque. In preparation, I downloaded their sampler, which has the first chapter of various works, (and is free) and am working my way through it.

Off*Beat is something I've actually seen some people refer to a few times. The setpu is...basically a boy who starts stlking the boy who moved in across the street. MC boy is extra bright-seems to think he's smarter than everyone else, TBH-and the other boy is mostly introverted and hopefully aware that he's being stlaked. I...have no opinion so far, really.

Windrose is another comic. Set in the 17th century, Danielle is a young Spanish lady who receives a letter from her merchant father that goes along the lines of "I'm sending you this MYSTERIOUS OBJECT in a SECRET COMPARTMENT and you must hide it until someone comes along with the SECRET CODE and then give it to them. Oh, and I might be dead by the time you read this. Love, Dad." danielle, of course takes this to mean she must leave for France to look for him IMMEDIATELY. On the ship to Marseilles, she metts a pair of dashing "siblings"-a swordswoman named DAnielle, and her hunky brother, Leon, who may not be as wholesome and chivalrous as they initally appear. I'm really not thrilled that it falls into the common narrative trope of "the absentee father is beloved and admired but the mother who stays with the child and has to actually DEAL WITH the child is resitrictive and just doesn't understand," but I think the narrative, at least, doesn't idealize Danielle's father as much as she does, so I have hopes that maybe it won't go the normal routes. Anyway, I'm easy when it comes to this stuff, so I loved it.

Tokyo Demons: A novel about various kids with troubled backgrounds (some moreso than others) starting at a new school. This first chapter was largely introductions, but it drew me in, and i'm interested in seeing where it's going.

Awake: This is a transcript of an audio drama (the audio file is also included in the sampler, I think, but I haven't checked the audio files out yet.) it's a science fiction series about ships sent out to colonize other worlds. Each ship has thousands of people who are cryogenically frozen. To help pay for passage for themselves and loved ones, certain people are woken up for "shifts" that last several years, but are never awake at the same time as their loved ones. I wasn't very into it (most likely mostly because I was reading a transcript) until it had an interesting plot twist at the end.

I've read a couple pages of Dead Endings, about a girl who's a ghost magnet, but not enough to form and opinion of it yet.


What did you recently finish reading?

The Nancy Drew Scrapbook by Karen Plunkett-Powell. Light but entertaining non-fiction book about Nancy Drew. A lot of the material is a slimmed down (and so, to me, less interesting) accounting of the same material as Melanie Rehak's Girl Sleuth, but if you want the basics of Nancy Drew's publishing history and the changes in it but don't want to go through over 300 pages worth of information about the Stratemeyer Syndicate and all things related to it and Nancy Drew's publication, you might prefer this. Unlike Rehak's book, though, this one does get a bit into changes in characterizations and character interactions over the decades, which I enjoyed, and has a very entertaining account of all Nancy's automobile accidents (though, sadly, doesn't really get into the significance and liberation represented by a teenaged girl in the 30s who owns and drives her own car) presented in the form or a rejected car insurance application. I also didn't know, until this book, that there was going to be a TV series in the 80s that brought Nancy's mother back, and Margot Kidder was going to pla Nancy's mother, with her real life daughter playing Nancy. Apparently, Kidder was injured while they were still filming the pilot, and by the time she could work again, the network wasn't interested anymore. i feel a bit robbed.

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan Mcguire. about a ghost named Rose, who died on her prom night in the 50s. Rose is a hitchhiker ghost, and sometimes accompanies people who are destined to die so that they won't be alone, and can go home one last time, while also trying to avoid another road spirit who wants to take her soul. It's told non-linearly, and parts of various stories overlap with others. Very enjoyable, though not easy reading in a few places. My favorite part is how Rose's story gets told and retold and keeps changing, and ho other urban legends get folded into hers. Meta about storytelling within stories can go very badly (or it can be like the bit in that one water movie by M. Night Shyamalan and be THE DULLEST THING EVER) but when it works, it really works.

X-Men: Primer by Brian Wood and Olivier Coipel. I feel rather awkward reading this after some of the stuff that came out about Wood a few months ago, but was promised Jubilee/Kitty interactions without the narrative having a "who's the better sidekick?" tone to it. Which I did get, but not very much of it. I enjoyed it, even though most of the plot revolved around events that I'm not familiar with. (Aside from "Jubilee becomes a vampire" and some Jubilee/X-23 stuff, the only X-stuff from recent years that I know is by fandom osmosis.

( spoiler )
Bride of the Water God Vol 15 by Mi-Kyung Yun. I'm still reading for the pretty, and to see what Drama the manhwaga comes up with next. (Sadly, the current main drama is uninteresting love...triangle...shape....things. I think she sat down and watched a lot of late 90s/early 2000s kdramas while writing this part. But other ,much more interesting Drama things are going on on the side.)

What do you think you'll read next?.

The rest of the Sparkler Monthly sampler, more chapters of certain things depending on when I get my trial going, more One Piece and A Certain Magical Index. Whatever else I have from the library.