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.

It's been very light on reading here, lately. I've bounced off a few things in addition to what's here, but couldn't tell you what now.

What are you currently reading

Manna From Hades by Carola Dunn. First in a mystery series about a retired world-traveller who now works in a thrift shop in Cornwall. I haven't read enough yet to have a real opinion of it.


What did you recently finish reading?

A night Like This by Julia Quinn. Pretty standard Quinn fluff, which is what I was in the mood for. though I feel compelled to mention that according to the blurb, the 11-year-old who won the debate with the mathematician over the existence of unicorns in The Sum of All Kisses, thought she was a unicorn in this book. This is not true. She just wants to play a unicorn in her sister's play about Henry VIII. I feel a touch betrayed.

Youn In-Wan and Yang Kyung-Il: Shin Angyo Onshi Vol 1-5. A Japanese-Korean collaboration manhwa loosely based on the legend of Chun Hyang, in which Myong Rong dies very early on, and Chun Hyang becomes the bodyguard of a would-be-amoral angyo onshi named Munsu, who has a dark and angsty past and lots of secrets and is connected to the downfall of the government. I read the first couple volumes a few years ago and liked it, but didn't get very far due to only being able to read scanslations on a computer screen at the time. I still like it now, but am much more aware of how Chun Hyang has gotten far less development so far than Munsu (or Bang Ja, for that matter) and how incredibly scantily clad the women are. (Chun Hyang literally runs around wearing nothing but a few leather scraps and a giant cape.) It's very interesting and entertaining anyway, and I'll read more later, but I need a break for a bit.

A Bride's Story Vol 5. As charming and full of scenery pr0n as every other volume. I am greatly amused that, as soon as the plotline about the twins' weddings was concluded, there was a chapter that was almost literally nothing but gorgeous spreads of Amir's daily life. It was almost like "hey, in case you forgot who the main character is supposed to be..."

What do you think you'll read next?

The rest of the Dunn book and the other two books in the series, if I like it, and probably manga.

Absolute Witch is a 12 volume romantic fantasy manhwa that will probably never ever see the light of day in the us because there's about 2 publishers in the US who publish manhwa, and not a lot for either. I've commented on it a bit in my weekly reading posts, but wanted to give it its own post too.

Skyla is a witch in a world where witches, who maintained the balance between humans and nature, disappeared centuries ago after being persecuted. She's found floating in a basket by a quartet of pirates (three brothers and their first mate) who are returning to their home town, which was built by a witch, to open an inn. I am sad to report that the manhwaga doesn't actually do anything with "RAISED BY PIRATES." At the beginning of the series, Skyla knows she's descended from witches because she's been found by a familiar who was left behind by the witches, but hasn't developed any magic powers yet. She's married to Jewel, a traveller who stayed at her inn some time back, but it was a marriage of convenience to get her out of legal and financial difficulties. Nevertheless, when Jewel disappears, she sets out for his hometown to find him, being quasi-adopted along the way by Hismaela, a shrewd merchant who has become one of the kingdoms most powerful women, and Hismaela's reluctant escort, a cranky alchemist named Kaylus. When they reach Jewel's hometown, Skyla finds that no one has ever heard of him, the shock of which apparently triggers her powers.

A large chunk of the series is Skyla discovering her heritage, both magical and biological, and looking for Jewel, usually accompanied by Kaylus, who knows more about witches and their history than most humans. There's also Aine, a young noblewoman who believes she's descended from witches and is determined to gain a witch's power at all costs, and Armengarde, a one-eyed seer who serves as Aine's mentor, but is using Aine for her own purposes. Eventually, both Aine and Skyle start attracting the attention of the magicians, who are determined to keep the witches from returning.

The world is based on a hodgepodge of medieval and early-modern European cities and cultures (the manhwaga lays out what she used where in one of the volumes, but I forget the specifics) and the plot, which is rather sprawling (there are various subplots-laregly backstories-that don't get the development they really need, and I feel the lack of development isn't really that Kim Tae-Yeon forgot about or lost interest in them, but rather, she realized that if she fully developed them, she'd never actually finish the series) is full of Drama, but it almost never gets annoying with the drama (and I give her points for a love triangle that isn't annoying and where it isn't immediately obvious-or even clear for some time-how it will turn out without making anyone seem wishywashy or throwing one romantic option under a figurative bus to make the other look better, as is typically the case), and is actually rather upbeat about the Drama, save for times when that would be inappropriate. And I should mention that while it's usually an upbeat fantasy, there are some fairly horrifying elements such as hearts being ripped out, possible-cannibalism-to-gain-power (and at least one killing spree to gain power that did not make me go "wait, did she just refer to cannibalism?), and witch hunts that very closely mirror real world witch hunts. These things are mostly done off-panel and then referred to in the text, but they are there. As I mentioned in another post (and posted images) the art is also stunning, with incredibly detailed clothes and landscapes/architecture. I could (and maybe have) just keep staring at it for ages.


I especially recommend it for people who like something like Bride of the Water God with the mythology and amazing art (particularly artwise) and conspiracies and mysteries and mysterious women, but want a lot more plot and progress and character development. It also reminds me of Evyione, but I've only read the little bit of that that was released in the US, and that was years ago, so I don't really want to draw a comparison there, though I suspect it's actually a better one than Bride of the Water God.

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

Nothing at the moment.

What did you recently finish reading?

Finished No Humans Involved.

Swan Prince, a single volume manhwa by Bi that, as the title suggests, is a genderswapped adaptation of Swan Lake. It was cute, but pretty much fluffy shoujo fantasy romance.

All four volumes of Kaori Yuki's Ludwig Kakumei. If you just went "wait, isn't that her really weird fairy tale series where the hero has a collection of preserved women's corpses?," yes, yes it is. The first couple volumes are dark and weird and misogynistic and twisted even for Kaori Yuki, are pretty openly antagonistic towards the heroines of fairy tales, and the series appears to be KY's attempted to answer "are fairy tales princes really all secret necrophiliacs?" The collection of corpses and obsession with beautiful dead things is mostly in the first volume, is mentioned a bit in the second, and then abruptly disappears altogether, and the rest of the series calms down to normal KY levels of crack and weirdness and the stories are more darkly comic parodies. There are considerably more women with lasting roles than I'd initially thought, though they tend to be on the masochistic side (unless they have a healthy streak of sadism) and a lot of the last volume is "women run around shooting people and taking over kingdoms, Lui poses dramatically." The beginning is addictive in the trainwreck horror way, then the rest is more the addictive charming dementedness you expect from KY.

As an aside, KY's sidebars are usually hilarious, but I recommend skipping a lot of them here, as she tends to talk about how she didn't care for a lot of the heroines in fairy tales and was always curious about the princes, though they also reveal a LOT of research into obscure and early versions of various stories. The most memorable of the sidebars is when she's talking about "Cinderella" and said she decided to not include a scene because she thought it sounded too painful and dark for her.* If you've read KY before (or just read up on her), your jaw may have just figuratively hit the floor. Actually, if you read this series and no other KY stuff, there should still be jawdropping, because she has far worse than anything in "Cinderella" in this series, some of which she made up for herself.

*Presumably, she was referring to the stepmother and stepsisters being attacked by birds at the wedding, as the toe and ankle lopping off were mentioned.

By Loved Unveiled by Sabrina Jeffries, a reissue of a book from 1993 written as Deborah Martin. Set during 1661, the plot revolves around Our Heroine attempting to prove that her father was not involved in an attempt to assassinate the king, and believing that Our Hero, whose family owned her father's lands before the war, and who has returned to claim them, may be responsible. Our Hero, in turn, thinks she may be a spy sent by his dastardly uncle ("dastardly" is the only proper term), who is possibly a traitor, and who told everyone that Our Hero was dead for years so that he could run off with the family jewels. Lots of "I am very suspicious of you and think you may have committed treason, but boy are you hot" hijinks ensue. I generally enjoy romance novels (and fiction in general) set in this period, and I mostly enjoyed this. "Mostly" because...uhm...I DID mention that it was written in 1993, right? For the most part, it holds up well, but the hero is prone to being an alpha jerk, and way too sexually aggressive and there's a scene that borders on dubious consent. That said....err, worse is still being published now in that regard, and there was certainly far worse coming out at the time.

What do you think you'll read next?

Not sure. I have a few romance novels and Kelley Armstrong books checked out from the library.

What are you currently reading
Nothing! Because I finished Kelley Armstrong's Spell Bound a little while ago and haven't started anything else yet.

What did you recently finish reading?

I read volumes 6-10 of The Moment When A Fox Becomes A Wolf, which completes the series. The second half was a considerably more conventional high school romance shoujo than the first, but I still enjoyed it, and while, as tends to happen in shoujo, Yoo Ha's issues dominated a lot of the plot in the second half, Eun Song didn't become secondary or get pushed to the side, as often happens. Most of the interesting genderbender stuff is only in the first half, but I thought it was an enjoyable series overall.

I finished Dime Store Magic, and liked it a lot, and skipped ahead in the "Women of the Otherworld" books to the first 2 Savannah-centric novels, Waking the Witch and Spell Bound. I find Savannah extra-interesting because it's hard to tell how many of her actions are genuine, sometimes, and how many are her behaving. Her maternal grandfather is a high demon, her mother was an extra-infamous dark witch, and her father was heir to the supernatural mob, and then she got adopted by uber-do-gooders during puberty, and I don't think even she quite knows how much of what she does is because it's what she wants to do/thinks she should do, and how much is that she has abandonment issues and doesn't want Paige and Lucas to give up on her. (Never happening.) Waking the Witch is Savannah's first solo-investigation, and...it was good, and I liked being inside Savannah's head instead of getting other people's POV of her, but it didn't have the other characters from the series until Adam showed up near the end, and it felt like Savannah kind of went through a string of male partners. I liked Spell Bound more because it had more of the other characters in the series and felt more directly tied to Savannah and her coming of age, even though a lot of it was buildup to the next and last book in the series.

What do you think you'll read next?

Dunno. I think I'm through with books I have out on ILL, and so have to read first, but I'll have to doublecheck. I have the books I mentioned the other day checked out from the library, along with a couple other romance novels, Rick Riordan's The Mark of Athena, Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl, and I think a couple other books checked out from the library, and my brain is still in "must read all the manga ever" mode. I also need to see if the library has the volumes of Kimi ni Todoke that I haven't read yet. (I've read through volume 12, and I believe the US releases are at volume 16.)

Related to what I've been reading: "The Women of the Otherworld" is being adapted into a TV series, which you'd think would have me excited, given how I've been pretty much mainlining them, but it's afocused on the werewolves, which is my least favorite part of the franchise in what I've read, and Jeremy is being played by a blonde white dude. Who, for all I know, is a perfectly talented and likable actor, but Jeremy in the books is not a white dude, blonde or otherwise.

I keep forgetting to reread earlier volumes right before I read new ones, so that I remember what's going on. For a series about Celestial Heaven's Scenery Pr0n with a side of melodrama, it's certainly getting complex and plotty.

( spoilers )Does anyone know what happened to the kdrama they were supposed to be making of this? (Dark Horse says it's out in one of the books, but I think they were jumping the gun there.) Or is this going to be like the Jeon Woo Chi series where it's all "We'll tell you you get to have this and then we'll never say anything about it again."

The plot in this remains thin with all sorts of soap opera twists and developments (some of which I don’t have a clue what’s going on with) yet, the art is so pretty that I do not care. The characters could read phone books all the time and I’d be fine with it as long as we still had the beautiful clothes and architecture and spreads of the celestial heavens.

Though I should mention that there is more plot now, and even character development.

( spilers don't know what's going on and don't care )

The second volumes in two shoujo manhwa series that I really shouldn’t like as much as I do, given that both have plots that center around the heroine desperately chasing after a guy who isn’t interested. And yet, I do. Despite staring sternly at Yen Press for what seems to be a certain limitedness in shoujo licensing choices at times.

13th Boy is interesting in that it has all the trappings and setup of a standard love triangle (energetic girl with huge crush on cold, popular boy while his badboy-ish best friend secretly likes her, complete with scenes of Whie-Young being bitter that Hee-Soo doesn’t remrmber his being in love with her when they were kids-Korean media insists to me that you’re supposed to find your true love at age seven. I do not know.-and so forth) but doesn’t seem to actually be headed down the standard route. In fact, we learn that Whie-Young’s powers are killing him, to the point where I wonder if he’ll be dead by the end of the series. Despite her undeniably irritating traits, though Hee-Soo is pretty entertaining, and often appealing, and I’m glad she’s interacting more with the girls in her class. Also, Beatrice the talking cactus (yes, there’s a talking cactus) apparently turns into a naked teenaged boy for 24 hours once a month. My crack!glee has no words.

Sarasah, meanwhile, is much better now that the story is completely set in the past, though I wish we could see a bit of the present, and the repercussions of Syung-Hyu accidentally pushing Ji-Hae down the stairs. It’s possible that Ji-Hae’s actions in the past will completely reset their present, but I’d still rather see some resolution there, even if it may be wiped out in the end. I suspect we’ll learn that Syung-Hyu hates her in the present because of something that happens to his lover because of her in the past, but we’ll see. Regardless, I hope it ends with her moving on from Syung-Hyu. I’d actually rather Ji-Hae be unattached in the end, but the official who’s helping her, Bub-Min, seems to have the initial setup for an eventual love interest. Ji-Hae as a character works much better in the past. Her stalker tendencies are subdued, and the crossdressing and politics bring out more palatable traits. The past parts are also set in the reign of Queen Dukman, and it was a bit funny to understand all the politics and historical figures referenced just from people talking about the Queen Seon Deok drama.  The series also continues to have the prettiest clothing pr0n. And to continue the manhwa crack!glee, Thorny, the talking fox in charge of Ji-Hae, is genderless but omnisexual, and apparently will fall in love with anything pretty.