What are You Reading Right now?

to sleep in a sea of stars

 

I hear it's very good?

 

yes, it's by my so-called "nemesis"

 

Heh heh, that's right, you don't like Paolini I haven't ever read anything of his, but I've heard plenty of times that Eragon ranges somewhere between meh to terrible

 

this book is good though go read it

 

I am reading a post by @Embo and His Pet Anooba

 

I'm currently in the process of reading Darth Bane: Rule of Two. So far so good for me.

 

I finished the manga Demon Slayer on Tuesday!

This manga was a really fun read, despite the blood, violence, and death. It's a weird blend of the "supernatural hunter" manga like Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho, with historical fiction like Rurouni Kenshin, with the breakneck pacing of Black Clover and background character death quota of Attack On Titan.*

The manga is just 205 chapters long, so it's pretty easy to binge and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Pretty much every arc is "train to get stronger, fight demon, recover, train to get stronger" in an endless cycle until the end. Sure, there are time skips to heal, but given how fast they pass, it might as well have been an instant heal.

The characters around our main protagonist Tanjiro do have some growth, but it's not much. And that's fine. Most of them were awesome since Day 1 - or rather, Fight 1 - so seeing them grow in little ways was all the pleasure we needed. When needed, they made me laugh. When things were tough, I felt them persevere and grow. When they did something awesome, I cheered. When they grew, I was proud of them.



(Inosuke, Zenitsu, Nezuko, and Tanjiro)

And it's not only the heroes who touched me. The villains were just as tragic in many ways. They didn't start out as Vampires** - I mean Demons. But they all ended up there, usually working against what goals they had as humans but have since forgotten. There are a couple of backstories for the Demons that are just heartbreakingly sad.


As always, there were downsides to this pace, speed, and length. With the pacing, I rarely felt as if there was time to explore all of the cool characters added. They usually showed up for an arc and then exited for various reasons. The length was also a factor in this, since by the time we got to the end, I honestly couldn't be sure it was the end. It was weird. There were a lot of moments that felt like Deus Ex Machina's in terms of narrative exposition and plot contrivances. And some characters quickly gained powers and then those powers were left unexplained throughout the entire series. (Nezuko is the worst offender with one of her powers, but she's far from the only one.) There was also the fact that the women in this manga, while being just as awesome as the men, didn't really do much outside of their introduction fights and final fights.

Overall, Demon Slayer is an imperfect manga with a lot of flaws, but I don't regret this journey for a second. The epilogue also may be one of my favorite of its types - if not my favorite - EVER. It makes everything, especially the final battle, worth it. I look forward to watching the anime in a few weeks.


Main "epic moment" song was Interval's "The Waterfront." It gives me MHA vibes, and I wanted MHA vibes.
Final Chapter's Song was Laura Brehm and Draper's "Follow the Signs," and it was AWESOME.

*Honestly, I think Demon Slayer is far more bitter terms of deaths. Sure, AoT is grim, and hundreds of people die in every fight, but our main characters are safe for the most part. I can count how many deaths were impactful on one hand. Not so in Demon Slayer. If you're not Tanjiro, you are not a safe character. Characters that I thought would make it to the end don't even make it to the final fight. Characters that I thought would have happy epilogues may live alone. Characters you thought would live due to conventional story tropes still die tragically. No one is safe, and it hurt to realize that.
**Crumble to dust in the sun? Check. Have red eyes? Check. Need blood and/or human flesh to survive? Check. Some can even change shapes!

 

I logged in just now to recommend the book to you, but I see you're already on it Good stuff, isn't it? I'm also about halfway through, really loving it. Hard science combined with typical Weir's humour, I can't put the book down!

--- Double Post Merged, May 27, 2021, Original Post Date: May 27, 2021 ---

Also, I have a question to those who played the Mass Effect games and also read the novels - would I spoil anyhing for myself if I started the first novel while I'm playing the first game? I really love the story, and would love to learn more about the whole universe, but I don't want to accidentally ruin the game experience either!

 

Yeah it was really good, sort of a Spielberg movie like E.T. or Close Encounters meets an Asimov novel meets Mr. Wizard with some comedy tossed in.

 

to sleep in a sea of stars i cannot state it enough this book is the best thing i've read in a while

 

Judging by the title it's about me reading the "Star Wars: Aftermath" trilogy?

 

Hahaha

 

Usually every time it turns summer I kind of get the itch to read some Star Wars. I think because the summers when I was 11, 12 and 13 were when the Thrawn Trilogy came out and reading a Star Wars book kind of became a thing for me then became nostalgic. And I haven't read a whole lot of Star Wars the last year or two so I picked up this one which I heard was kind of dumb but fun. I was always interested by a Star Wars horror story but turned off it was another zombie story as if we don't get enough of those everywhere. I'm not very far in but so far it's not bad, it's kind of lazy but in a way those lame characters and horror tropes make it feel more like the kind of old dumb/fun horror flick I like. It's like throwing Star Wars production values at Death Ship or something.

 

books im reading the rest of this month, July/August

this month
-Star Wars Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy
-John Grisham's The Associate maybe since i read it a few years ago but forgot what went on in the book.

July
-Star Wars Black Fleet Crisis
-Winds of Dune or at least Children of Dune
-Wheel of Time Dragon Reborn

 

SW: From a certain point of view

 

The ANH one? Or the TESB one? I liked a couple of the ones in the ANH anniversary book

 

ANH