Brendan Byrd
Adventurer
Pratchett:
Monstrous Regiment
Soul Music
Monstrous Regiment
Soul Music
What are you reading in 2026?
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
Bangers
3 volumes left of River's of London. Most recent volume, Lies Sleeping, had some stuff advance the plot (that's understatement...).
Like many series, around book 3-4 the thing takes off (imho). And the world building gets fun. I still can't decipher Peter Grant's Sierra Leonean mother's creole (is that the right term?) as represented on the page.
Also read a graphic novel this evening called "Cemetery Kids Don't Die" which is a chilling reflection on virtual reality/social media. Overall though I won't continue. I'm kind of done with stories of high school age kids. Call me old, but that's how it is for me now.
Another series that I think I'm done with is Under Ninja, I finished vol 5 last week. While the protagonist, a ninja, is an adult (barely); the book has veered into being set in a high school. There are SO FREAKING MANY manga set in japanese high schools that I imagine non-Japanese manga/anime fans are as familiar with the japanese manga high school tropes as american high school clichés. Anyway, my decision to stop after vol 5 is aided and abetted by the fact that I think vol 6 is well nigh impossible to get in dead tree anyway.
Still enjoying Versus, Kagurabachi, and Tower Dungeon; but unfortunately my FLGS is having trouble getting their hands on the new volumes
Like many series, around book 3-4 the thing takes off (imho). And the world building gets fun. I still can't decipher Peter Grant's Sierra Leonean mother's creole (is that the right term?) as represented on the page.
Also read a graphic novel this evening called "Cemetery Kids Don't Die" which is a chilling reflection on virtual reality/social media. Overall though I won't continue. I'm kind of done with stories of high school age kids. Call me old, but that's how it is for me now.
Another series that I think I'm done with is Under Ninja, I finished vol 5 last week. While the protagonist, a ninja, is an adult (barely); the book has veered into being set in a high school. There are SO FREAKING MANY manga set in japanese high schools that I imagine non-Japanese manga/anime fans are as familiar with the japanese manga high school tropes as american high school clichés. Anyway, my decision to stop after vol 5 is aided and abetted by the fact that I think vol 6 is well nigh impossible to get in dead tree anyway.
Still enjoying Versus, Kagurabachi, and Tower Dungeon; but unfortunately my FLGS is having trouble getting their hands on the new volumes
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Even good translations miss things. It maybe that in the original sense “koto string” referred to the type of string used to string a koto. Not an actual string from a koto.
NB Google Translate translate’s koto as “thing”.
Last edited:
Brendan Byrd
Adventurer
Kinda like piano wire?
The most traditional koto strings are silk, but otherwise not wildly different. I could see "koto string" and "a koto string" being different things that got just-missed in translation. (Or in reading comprehension, which I think is a possibility @jian mentioned, I'm not intending to slag on them by including it.)
In the book (not a spoiler, really) the household has a couple of koto (size unknown but up to 2m long probably) and therefore has spare koto strings in storage. One of these is used in the story but is probably required to be up to 20m long, which seems rather a stretch unless koto strings in 1937 came in spools rather than as individual strings, which IIRC the writer doesn’t mention.
The only thing I can see--and I don't know enough about kotos to know if this is the case--is if, as you say, the strings are stored on long spools or something and cut to usable length as needed. I do not know the extent to which they are different diameters the way guitar strings are. The fact the novel doesn't specify a pitch isn't really meaningful--if someone is, say, garrotted with a guitar string, the author probably isn't going to mention the size, or even the intended tuning (such as an A string).
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Koto string.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I just finished The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, the sixth book of Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl saga, and with the possible exception of the first novel, I think this is the best book of the series so far.
At this point, Dinniman seems to have near-totally given up on his previous tendency to make the environment be a major point of engagement for both the characters and the readers. Instead, he switches things up to changing the way that battles are fought, using (of all things) a card-based system which operates alongside the usual method of combat rather than supplanting it.
I was initially a bit hesitant about that, as I could easily envision the story getting lost in the intricacies of its alternative combat mode the same way it had previously for the local environment. But I was pleasantly surprised by how that didn't turn out to be the case; instead, Dinniman uses the card system largely as a backdrop with which to advance further developments of plot threads and interactions between characters.
And wow, do those areas of the book deliver!
Multiple plot lines are advanced here, and a large number of characters either undergo new changes or are killed off. We also get answers to several major questions, along with several startling revelations, to the point where we actually get glimpses—not hints or suggestions, but actual glimpses—of how the series could end. Of course, that things never unfold in the way that's expected is a major theme of this story, so I doubt that what we're seeing is how things will actually play out.
One thing that I have to mention here is the tone. This series has always had a mixture of the wacky and the morose, as the zaniness of the dungeon overshadows the horrifying nature of how it was formed and what that means for the people—crawlers and NPCs alike—who're trapped inside it. But here, it dials that mixture up to eleven, with several parts that felt Deadpool-esque in their somehow managing to pull off rapid-fire changes between "so irreverent it's hilarious" and "so poignant it's heartbreaking," which is exceptionally hard to do, and yet succeeds.
That said, this isn't completely without fault. For one thing, the pacing feels somewhat off, with this book's major emotional climax occurring two-thirds of the way through, which makes the last part (which is still intriguing for its plot advancements) feel a bit flat in terms of what it means for the main characters. Similarly, the final enemies faced don't receive the build-up they deserve, being introduced very shortly before their appearances, which takes some of the punch out of their fights (especially following the much more personal battle that happens earlier in the book).
Overall, however, this one is very much a case of Dinniman being at the top of his game, and the result is a lot of fun. For anyone who's a fan of the series, I think you'll have a great time with this entry into the saga.
At this point, Dinniman seems to have near-totally given up on his previous tendency to make the environment be a major point of engagement for both the characters and the readers. Instead, he switches things up to changing the way that battles are fought, using (of all things) a card-based system which operates alongside the usual method of combat rather than supplanting it.
I was initially a bit hesitant about that, as I could easily envision the story getting lost in the intricacies of its alternative combat mode the same way it had previously for the local environment. But I was pleasantly surprised by how that didn't turn out to be the case; instead, Dinniman uses the card system largely as a backdrop with which to advance further developments of plot threads and interactions between characters.
And wow, do those areas of the book deliver!
Multiple plot lines are advanced here, and a large number of characters either undergo new changes or are killed off. We also get answers to several major questions, along with several startling revelations, to the point where we actually get glimpses—not hints or suggestions, but actual glimpses—of how the series could end. Of course, that things never unfold in the way that's expected is a major theme of this story, so I doubt that what we're seeing is how things will actually play out.
One thing that I have to mention here is the tone. This series has always had a mixture of the wacky and the morose, as the zaniness of the dungeon overshadows the horrifying nature of how it was formed and what that means for the people—crawlers and NPCs alike—who're trapped inside it. But here, it dials that mixture up to eleven, with several parts that felt Deadpool-esque in their somehow managing to pull off rapid-fire changes between "so irreverent it's hilarious" and "so poignant it's heartbreaking," which is exceptionally hard to do, and yet succeeds.
That said, this isn't completely without fault. For one thing, the pacing feels somewhat off, with this book's major emotional climax occurring two-thirds of the way through, which makes the last part (which is still intriguing for its plot advancements) feel a bit flat in terms of what it means for the main characters. Similarly, the final enemies faced don't receive the build-up they deserve, being introduced very shortly before their appearances, which takes some of the punch out of their fights (especially following the much more personal battle that happens earlier in the book).
Overall, however, this one is very much a case of Dinniman being at the top of his game, and the result is a lot of fun. For anyone who's a fan of the series, I think you'll have a great time with this entry into the saga.
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