![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerWhat I've recently finished since my last post:
Sayonara Piano Sonata volume 2 by Hikaru Sugii -- oh the aaangst. With classical+rock music geeking out. And random Hungarian. Plus the band's first gig. What's not to like?
Tsurugi no Joou no Rakuin no Ko ("the sword queen and the branded/marked child") volume 1 by also Hikaru Sugii, an otherwise well-written European-ambient high fantasy that gets one point off for presenting a classic tsundere heroine without integrating that aspect with the rest of her characterization. She does look visually striking on the battlefield, though. I should mention that the story very bloody and angsty to the point of suicidal, and that the marked child is a teenager who has been living as a mercenary swordsman and occasional mass murderer for ten years, but with those caveats, recommended.
Mahô Kôkô no Rettôsei volume 8 by Tsutomu Satô, where within a frame that lightly sketches some consequences of the previous volume, we flashback to the critical events of three years before the series start and get to see even more of just how fucked up the Shiba siblings' family is -- not to mention more of the messed-up post-crash world they live in. A surprisingly well-constructed story, actually -- it covers all but one major backstory event alluded to so far, and it was only in retrospect that I realized how it would have been a failure of craft to include that. If Satô's moral vision keeps growing, this may get really interesting.
Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria ("the empty box and the zeroth Maria") volumes 1-2 by Eiji Mikage. In the first book, our protagonist, an otherwise ordinary high school student, is caught inside a wish gone horribly wrong -- one that causes the same day to be repeated, at the start of which a beautiful girl transfers into his class just before the end of the school year several thousand times. The non-linear structure is handled well, and it's even appropriate. In volume 2, the wish-gone-horribly-wrong causes different chronological difficulties, handled with equal structural aplomb. The writing sensibility (I can't gauge the style very well in translation) is slightly more literary than most light novels I've read, in ways I can't quite put my finger on but may have something to do with the existential concerns, even while the tone is shading more and more into psychological thriller territory. Will be reading more.
What I'm reading now:
Poems of Places ed. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- recently finished volumes 17-18, the Germany books, and 19, Greece and the Balkans. It's not like the Spanish books didn't include a lot of ballads about the Reconquista, but it sure felt like there's more German poems about war than any installment so far. One thing I've noticed: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is quoted a lot, at pretty much every location Byron toured, but Don Juan not so much -- shows how well I can guess at Longfellow's taste. (I was also surprised to see so much Góngora in the Spanish bits.) Next up is Russia -- I expect heavy exoticization. One can hope it will include bears.
By way of slower bits of poetry, there's Poly-Olbion by Michael Drayton (I've finished part 18 (of 30) and we're about to head north of the Thames), and by way of random bits, various pieces of Browning from his Dramatic Lyrics/Dramatic Romances/Men and Women period.
By way of orientalizing, I'm about halfway through Birrell's Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China and despite that have also started Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China by Richard E. Strassberg.
What I'll read next:
Probably the next volumes of Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria (#3) and Sayonara Piano Sonata (#3), or possibly Kokoro Connect (#4). And maybe -- just maybe -- more poetry. Possibly sonnets.
---L.
Sayonara Piano Sonata volume 2 by Hikaru Sugii -- oh the aaangst. With classical+rock music geeking out. And random Hungarian. Plus the band's first gig. What's not to like?
Tsurugi no Joou no Rakuin no Ko ("the sword queen and the branded/marked child") volume 1 by also Hikaru Sugii, an otherwise well-written European-ambient high fantasy that gets one point off for presenting a classic tsundere heroine without integrating that aspect with the rest of her characterization. She does look visually striking on the battlefield, though. I should mention that the story very bloody and angsty to the point of suicidal, and that the marked child is a teenager who has been living as a mercenary swordsman and occasional mass murderer for ten years, but with those caveats, recommended.
Mahô Kôkô no Rettôsei volume 8 by Tsutomu Satô, where within a frame that lightly sketches some consequences of the previous volume, we flashback to the critical events of three years before the series start and get to see even more of just how fucked up the Shiba siblings' family is -- not to mention more of the messed-up post-crash world they live in. A surprisingly well-constructed story, actually -- it covers all but one major backstory event alluded to so far, and it was only in retrospect that I realized how it would have been a failure of craft to include that. If Satô's moral vision keeps growing, this may get really interesting.
Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria ("the empty box and the zeroth Maria") volumes 1-2 by Eiji Mikage. In the first book, our protagonist, an otherwise ordinary high school student, is caught inside a wish gone horribly wrong -- one that causes the same day to be repeated, at the start of which a beautiful girl transfers into his class just before the end of the school year several thousand times. The non-linear structure is handled well, and it's even appropriate. In volume 2, the wish-gone-horribly-wrong causes different chronological difficulties, handled with equal structural aplomb. The writing sensibility (I can't gauge the style very well in translation) is slightly more literary than most light novels I've read, in ways I can't quite put my finger on but may have something to do with the existential concerns, even while the tone is shading more and more into psychological thriller territory. Will be reading more.
What I'm reading now:
Poems of Places ed. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- recently finished volumes 17-18, the Germany books, and 19, Greece and the Balkans. It's not like the Spanish books didn't include a lot of ballads about the Reconquista, but it sure felt like there's more German poems about war than any installment so far. One thing I've noticed: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is quoted a lot, at pretty much every location Byron toured, but Don Juan not so much -- shows how well I can guess at Longfellow's taste. (I was also surprised to see so much Góngora in the Spanish bits.) Next up is Russia -- I expect heavy exoticization. One can hope it will include bears.
By way of slower bits of poetry, there's Poly-Olbion by Michael Drayton (I've finished part 18 (of 30) and we're about to head north of the Thames), and by way of random bits, various pieces of Browning from his Dramatic Lyrics/Dramatic Romances/Men and Women period.
By way of orientalizing, I'm about halfway through Birrell's Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China and despite that have also started Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China by Richard E. Strassberg.
What I'll read next:
Probably the next volumes of Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria (#3) and Sayonara Piano Sonata (#3), or possibly Kokoro Connect (#4). And maybe -- just maybe -- more poetry. Possibly sonnets.
---L.