Summary of my reading in 2023 (some extraneous books popping back from previous years, because Apple)

As in previous couple years, I tried several new LN series, and the clean winner there was The Eminence in Shadow, followed closely by So I’m a Spider, so What? Both were fun and smooth ride.

I also read a few “real” novels. The highlight there was Gideon the Ninth. Great narrative set in a uniquely bizarre world.

I’ve also read quite a few manga series, old and new (though the best summary for those is on Goodreads). My personal highlight would be Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End, Tomo-chan is a Girl and Shangri-La Frontier.

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This volume actually made some good progress on plot points. Rudeus meets Paul and Norn.

Character interactions are still incredibly jarring and unbelievable. As well as character motivations. It just reeks of authors dragging the narrative the way he intends it to play out, but with no skill to make it work in a natural way.

Almost no icky "fanservice" inserts, though there's one particular translation point where you just know the person behind it couldn't resist to insert their own opinion on the meaning of lolicon. Which was weird, but in another way than usual.

Honestly though, I'm not sure I want to continue reading the series. At least not for a while. The disgust for the main cast just has to subside a bit.

Kobo edition.

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Remember how the last volume was almost devoid of "fan service" bits? And then author tried to compensate at the end?

Well, as it turns out, the author is obsessed, because we got one full chapter of Rudeus contemplating if he should fondle and possibly violate Eris while she's too sick and powerless.

And then another half a chapter of Rudeus getting horny from looking at the naked beastfolk children. Not to mention a thick spread of Rudeus replaying the same thoughts in later chapters as well. With sprinkles of bestiality jokes on top.

And all of this just to distract from the lack of narrative progression. There's one whole chapter where author tried to construct a gag of Roxy passing by Rudeus in the same town, but it was so sloppy and boiled down to "it worked so because I said so", it's not even funny. Like, the author literally contradicted himself on the character motivations on two adjacent pages.

Somehow, the further into the series you go, the more unlikeable the characters become. I might give another volume or two a go, but it's kinda getting tiring to suspend the disbelief.

Kobo edition.

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Third volume is where the story goes somewhat more original. Or at least different enough to stand out a bit in the pit of all isekai novels.

The premise may be banal (traveling, registering in the Adventurer's Guild, doing jobs). But the few monsters and jobs that got featured were interesting enough.

Unfortunately, with slight increase in world building and scene details came pacing issues. This volume feels bloated as a result, and at times I felt bored. The positive (?) side effect of this is that author forgot to shove in the fan service bits until the very end, so you get triple dose of degeneracy in the bonus chapter.

Kobo edition.

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The first volume was solid, if not remarkable. The second volume is, incredibly, takes a nosedive on all accounts.

The story is once again, a very clichéd "the taming of a wild animal", which in this case is a second cousine of Rudeus, Eris Greyrat. There's very little in actual story development, world building, or general progression except for occasional infodumps and quick author descriptions of fast-forwarded time lapses.

Unfortunately, it seems the perverted side of MC will be the main gimmick of this series. In this volume it progressed to several musings of rape of the minors, with one particular scene at the end where the authors skims the very edge of acceptable with fondling and almost-having-sex between a 10 and a 12 year old children, barely cancelled at the last moment.

One can only hope this is as worst as it gets.

On a storytelling front, one interesting note is that author tries to cleanly separate events in each volume with a drastic even, which makes them largely self-contained stories with minimal backreferences or even relying on info provided earlier for narrative hooks. I do wonder how long it will last.

Kobo edition is quite clean this time around, no weird formatting with errant line breaks.

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This one was weird. It's a very clichéd isekai with nothing particularly special to stand out. It doesn't even have an explanation for the "jobless" part of the title in the first volume (unless it refers to the MC's occupation in the very beginning, or to be more precise, to the lack of).

The plot hook, the world, the magic system, it's all very standard so far. One twist on the formula (if you can call it that) is the absolutely unhinged random blurbs about perverted urges of MC (stealing underwear, ogling his own mother's breasts, dreams of grooming a childhood friend etc.)

At least the pacing seems to be good, and it's a smooth reading from beginning to the end, even if it lacks any substance.

Kobo edition is fine, though you can see weird line breaks in the middle of the sentences quite often.

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This is a standalone/prequel to the main Jumper series that was recommended to me in a random conversation. You may have seen the movie adaptation.

As a mindless action flick, it works well. The narrative is brisk and doesn't linger. Details are often sharp and vivid, which helps to ground the scene.

The mix of English accents, Spanish and French is a neat touch, but can be an issue for some people (especially considering the relevant parts are not tagged with appropriate language metadata).

Unfortunately, as a standalone book it's lacking in world building. It assumes you know enough about the universe already. None of the main plot mysteries are resolved. Time scale is also quite fuzzy and does not impress enough on the movement across months and years, so at times you may be surprised with callbacks' time frames.

Overall, it left a mixed impression. But most recommendations were for the first two books in the series, so I'm hopeful for a better experience next time.

Kobo edition has some Spanish typos in the later parts (i instead of ¡ and similar issues with italics). (Outside US there's only an omnibus edition with all the books).

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So, the premise of this series may sound interesting, but the execution is…lacking. This is very clearly written by an amateur writer, with lots of small issues from narrative structure to lack of expression.

The cover goes hard on fan service, and you might've expected some in the book, but the illustrations are very generic and not interesting in any way, and the few instances of attempts at female anatomy descriptions are once again very blunt and dull, with no details. Like, the author felt the need to put them there for the marketing checkmark to bump the sales.

What's particularly grinding my gears is how the narration has no concept of foreshadowing at all. There are no clues to how the events would transpire, the author builds the suspense in a very direct way, by asking the reader how the MC could overcome the supposedly impossible situations. And every time the resolution feels like it was pulled out of thin air.

The character development is lacking to being nonexistent. The in-universe rules are barely explained, but somehow feel contradictory at the same time.

All in all, I feel at least the first volume sits very firmly in the mediocre spectrum.

Kobo edition.

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This is a collection of short stories, completely independent, without any overarching story line or unified setting other than being dystopian in nature.

Despite being hailed as the progenitor for the Sprawl series of classic cyberpunk novels, not all the stories in Burning Chrome are cyberpunk. There's quite a number which is more traditional sci-fi.

Themes, narrative, and writing quality vary quite a bit too, so on average it comes out quite meh, even when there are very solid entries with engaging stories and distinct characters.

Even though I started this for Johnny Mnemonic story, the real highlight for me was the penultimate Burning Chrome, which undoubtedly served as a foundation for many cyberpunk stories that came afterwards. All the underpinnings of what we consider a cyberpunk now, were right there, painted with thick neon colors: the nonsensical yet plausible computer jargon, virtual reality visualization of cyberspace, the ICE firewalls, the cybernetic implants, the broken lives.

Kobo edition is alright but has some annoying formatting issues like zero margins between sections and weird headers.

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So, this one is weird and interesting, but also kinda boring at the same time.

The core concept of the Maiden's Bookshelf is to present contemporary and modern classic as a kinda mix of illustrated and art books. The text and artwork are split roughly half and half, similar to children's picture books, sometimes taking a full spread. But unlike the illustrated editions, these are simply inspired by the literature work, and not necessarily there to highlight the events described.

On the technical side of things, these are produced as fixed layout ePubs, which are super rare (Apple Books even open them in the PDF viewer/layout instead of the regular book layout).

The stories are a mixed bag, so I wouldn't go collecting everything (especially considering that the original JP series is up to 32 books at this point). And just to mix things up even more, the western release is going in random order compared to JP one. Why? Who knows!

The illustrations are pretty and detailed. But at one short story per book (60-80 pages), the price is kinda steep.

Kobo editions:
Hell in a Bottle
The Moon Over the Mountain
The Surgery Room
The Girl Who Became a Fish

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