Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
Before Chise came to live with Elias, she was passed from house to house and had no place where she could feel safe from the creatures that it seemed only she could see. Until one day when she meets Riichi Miura, the guardian of a forest library… but few things last forever.
A drama with a small number of horror elements. It’s an Anime-original flashback sidestory which occurs during the 13th episode of the related TV series.
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Living alone in her grandmother’s dilapidated mansion, Kanae Otowa finally finds a buyer and is preparing to move out when suddenly Beethoven and Mozart arrive on her doorstep claiming to have been sent by her father. They are ClassicaLoids, beings able to use a mysterious power they call musik to produce fantastical visual effects, and both their origins and intentions are shrouded in mystery.
A random-style comedy featuring occasional semi-dramatic subplots and a few school life segments in the first half.
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Not all swords are created equal. Some have become so soaked in dark intent they develop wills of their own, wills that can overwhelm and supplant those of their wielder to become Busoma. Gai Ogata was born holding such a sword, and after an accident results in the loss of his arm that same sword is fashioned into a prosthetic limb… a limb which grants great power at the cost of forcing him into perpetual combat against the Busoma.
An action-drama with a small philosophical streak which eventually adopts a few battle shounen aspects.
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Investigating rumors of a child god, Kiritsugu and Shirou arrive just in time to witness the birth of a black vortex which destroys most of the town. Inspecting the origin point Shirou finds a young girl whom he saves from the imminent collapse of her house. The girl is Miyu Sakatsuki, the child of god they were searching for, and her existence just may bring about the world’s salvation.
A drama and action-focused prequel to Prisma☆Illya, chronologically placed immediately after Prisma☆Illya 3rei!!, which can be watched as a stand-alone alternative version of Fate/Stay Night.
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Kokone Morikawa has strange, persistent dreams about being a princess in a fantasy world, dreams she doesn’t give much thought to until the day her father is suddenly arrested. Afterward those dreams seem far more relevant to current events… and just may hold the key to clearing her father’s name.
A family-friendly action adventure that begins as half fantasy, half modern day and ends as fully merged urban fantasy.
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The phoenix, a mythical creature representing eternal life and rebirth whose blood is thought to grant immortality. These are the stories of those both past and future, selfish and selfless, who have crossed its path.
A collection of drama-heavy short stories focused on destiny and cycles of life/death.
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The Kim Harrison novella Sideswiped, a work meant to introduce you to the world of Peri Reed, is pretty bad. Both in its technical aspects and in the near-total lack of relevance it has to the first main novel in the series.
Which would be The Drafter. After the terrible showing of the previous story (and preview first chapter) I waffled back and forth quite a bit over whether or not to give this a proper chance… and I should have went with my initial plan of ignoring it. While certainly better than Sideswiped it unfortunately has some major characterization and plot-related problems and isn’t very enjoyable in any respect. One interesting thing about it though is how, rather than an agency thriller, it comes off more like a gender equality allegory.
Switching authors now, Seanan McGuire‘s Once Broken Faith is the tenth October Daye novel and does something a bit refreshing. Rather than further escalate matters it decides to take a step horizontally and introduce a number of the other North American Fae rulers while wrapping up both the aftermath of having found the antidote and (with the help of a bonus short story) the Queen of Mists’ situation. It’s a solid balance of humor, action, drama, and world-building.
The concluding novel in Kim Harrison‘s Hollows series makes it fairly clear that the series has been dragged out far beyond its expiration point with power-level creep that’s both ridiculous and inconsistent. Roughly half the book is someone doing something awful, blaming Rachel for it, and having everyone believe them for no apparent reason, while a quarter consists of Rachel beating herself up about ‘holding Trent back’. Only ~25% or so of it is decent-to-good and you wouldn’t lose much by just skipping straight to the epilogue chapter.
Originally R. Scott Bakker’s Aspect-Emperor series was meant to be a trilogy, but after a lengthy delay it ended up becoming a quartet. It’s very fortunate that The Great Ordeal is preceded by a detailed recap of what came before, because after nearly a half-decade gap I doubt many remember previous events at all clearly. It’s also fortunate that the book turns out to feel more like the earlier Prince of Nothing novels. I still don’t like the Esmenet/Kel sections at all though.
The Unholy Consult is a bit different though in that the disparate storylines are mostly merged into a single narrative while the vast majority of the book focuses on one battle. Ultimately I don’t think these two needed to be separate novels, as there are a number of aspects that end up completely superfluous (such as the Sorwheel/Serwa and White Luck subplots) or orphaned (those ‘vile angel’ interludes). The conclusion deserves special mention for being so… random? Though there’s a certain symmetry to the one person not damned being responsible for damnation, the way it happens does not feel natural in the slightest. It’s almost like an after-thought.
Ilona Andrews’ ninth Kate Daniels novel forces Kate to fully embrace her power and brings the conflict with her father to a head. Presumably the 10th book will be the series finale and this one does a pretty fantastic job of setting the stage while being entertaining in its own right.
There are many short stories in the Kate Daniels series that are scattered about. Several were collected into the Small Magics E-book, and of these the first two are probably the best while the second-to-last gives an interesting glimpse into a pre-shift time. Others have been released as stand-alone E-books, such as Magic Stars (which is decent), Magic Dreams (which is okayish, having originally been released in the anthology Hexed), and Magic Steals (which is similar to Dreams for obvious reasons but works better). All of them help flesh out the world and are worth taking a look at so long as you don’t mind bite-sized episodic stories.
Changing gears we come to The Turn, which is a prequel to the Hollows series that centers on Trent’s parents and how the virus that decimated humanity came into being. While it starts out good, once the plague is loosed and the focus shifts over toward action and demon summoning it does not hold up well at all; the scenes don’t really gel and most of the character behavior goes to shit. Rather than being its own thing it instead transforms into a pale imitation of the main series.
While relaxing on Spring break, Tatsuya and the others encounter a young girl who has escaped from a nearby military facility. After hearing of the inhumane human experimentation occurring at the site, they decide to take matters into their own hands and shut the program down by any means necessary.
An action drama with some comic relief and a bit of ecchi. It’s an Anime-original sequel to Raihousha-hen and requires having seen that first for character introductions.
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