REVIEW: Fullmetal Alchemist: The Valley of White Petals (book, vol. 3) by Makoto Inoue, original concept by Hiromu Arakawa, translated by Alexander O. Smith with Rich Amtower

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Valley of White Petals is the third book in a series of light novels based on Hiromu Arakawa's manga. I got my copy via interlibrary loan.

This review includes slight spoilers.

Review:

Edward and Alphonse Elric are essentially forced to do a bit of work for Colonel Mustang in this one. Mustang is super busy but has also been tasked with monitoring a little town called Wisteria and writing up a report, so he delegates the Wisteria report to Edward.

Wisteria turns out to be a mysterious place. Everyone seems to think it's a desert utopia, the kind of place no one ever leaves. The only people allowed in are those who have nowhere else to go. Raygen, the alchemist who founded the town, explains that it operates under the law of equivalent exchange. As long as everyone works and contributes, they'll have a place to stay and food to eat. The harder jobs, like mining gemstones that are later sold outside Wisteria, pay better, but there's also easier work available in the local tavern and elsewhere around town. It seems perfect, until Edward investigates a little more.

REVIEW: Fullmetal Alchemist: The Abducted Alchemist (book, vol. 2) by Makoto Inoue, original concept by Hiromu Arakawa, translated by Alexander O. Smith with Rich Amtower

The Abducted Alchemist is the second book in the Japanese light novel series based on Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist manga.

Review:

After another unsuccessful investigation into Philosopher's Stone rumors, Edward and Alphonse Elric wait for a train. Strangely, when one finally arrives, it's hours late. They're also surprised to see Roy Mustang and Jean Havoc among the passengers, dressed in civilian clothes. They soon learn that there has been a lot of recent terrorist activity on the train tracks. The terrorists announce their bombing target 20-30 minutes in advance, enough time for civilians to get to safety but too little time for the military to do anything to stop them. It's terrorism without terror - civilians are more inconvenienced than anything, and they've directed their annoyance towards the ineffectual military.

Although he hasn't been able to find any proof yet, Roy suspects that the bombings are somehow connected to a string of kidnappings. The kidnappers abduct a child from a family with a connection to the military, demand and receive a ransom, and let the child go free, completely unharmed. As Ed and Al continue their own work, they accidentally stumble across something that may be key to both of Roy's investigations.

REVIEW: Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand (book, vol. 1) by Makoto Inoue, original concept by Hiromu Arakawa, translated by Alexander O. Smith with Rich Amtower

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand is the first of a series of Fullmetal Alchemist light novels. I bought a used copy a while back.

Review:

This volume is composed of two stories. The primary one is "The Land of Sand." The shorter bonus story is "The Phantom of Warehouse 13." Both of these stories were adapted into episodes in the original anime series.

"The Land of Sand":

Edward and Alphonse arrive at the dying former gold mining town of Xenotime and are shocked to learn that two boys who say their names are Edward and Alphonse Elric have been living in Xenotime for a while, researching how to make a Philosopher's Stone in order to revitalize the town. Who are these imposters, and how close are they to finishing their research?

Here's what I could be writing about...

I'm reaching new levels of pathetic - I can't seem to make myself write my posts! Or update my Shelfari bookshelf. Also, I managed to damage myself while sleeping and now can't turn my head all the way to the right - yesterday it hurt enough that I tearfully gobbled down arthritis-strength Tylenol just so that I could keep cataloging (we're about to get a 500-book shipment in, all at once, and I'm the only cataloger...), but today I'm doing a bit better and can laugh at how stupid the situation is.

So, since I can't offer anything else at the moment, I'll just write up a list of most of the stuff I'm procrastinating on writing about. As in, I haven't even written notes for myself. Crud. Well, I'll include some mini notes here.

• Foul Play by Janet Evanovich - A woman's job (as a TV clown entertaining children) is taken by a chicken. She gets blamed when the chicken goes missing, but, not to worry, a veterinarian who has fallen instantly in love with her is there to help her clear her name and figure out the true culprit. It's goofy romance - you've really got to be in the right mood to enjoy this sort of thing. I was in the mood for the romance, but not so much the mystery. Oooh, missing chicken, how mysteeerious...
• Slumdog Millionaire - It's amazing how much hype you can miss out on when you don't watch TV and only vaguely pay attention to news online, but even I heard about this movie. I just didn't want to pay $20 for it. So, when the local entertainment store had a "buy one clearance rental DVD, get a 2nd for $1" sale, I jumped on it. I liked the movie, but I felt the actual romance in it was lacking. The only thing I hated was the nearly unreadable subtitles. Also, I wanted to smack Jamal's brother.
• Naughty Neighbor by Janet Evanovich - A press secretary with an annoying (and sexy) neighbor finds her life turned upside down when said annoying neighbor's troubles start spilling over onto her. These troubles involve politicians and a missing pig. Notice a missing animal theme? The mystery is even more pathetic in this book than in Foul Play, but I found the romance more interesting. This is actually kind of embarrassing to admit, and, if I ever manage to make myself write a full post, you'll see why.
• Resident Evil: Degeneration - The Raccoon City tragedy is over, but that doesn't mean it's forgotten. After all, who could forget a bunch of zombies and other things even more horrific? Seeking revenge for the death of his family, a man lets the T-Virus loose, but things really start to suck when he becomes infected with the G-Virus. Actually, the outbreaks are pretty well-contained, so the horror is fairly small-scale. And kind of boring. With painful voice acting, despite the voice actors being veterans of many anime. The English voice actors - there's no Japanese language track. This was a horrible, horrible movie. I plan to sell it as soon as I've written a full post about it.
• Promises in Death by J.D. Robb - Coltraine, Morris's girlfriend and a fellow cop, is killed and it's up to Eve Dallas to bring her murderer to justice. It's not just any old case for her, not just the job - and I was thinking, "when is it ever just the job for Dallas?", but Robb made such a big deal about this I had to mention it. Robb tried to play with readers' emotions by bumping Coltraine up to "Morris's increasingly important girlfriend" status in the previous book, but I found I couldn't work up the kind of shock and sadness over her death that Robb was maybe going for. I did really like Dallas's new car though. I wonder how she'll wreck it?
• Serve It Cold by Ronnie Blackwell - One of my Podiobooks listening choices. It features several readers, but not quite enough people for me to always be able to tell the voices apart (especially when it comes to female characters). This one involves marijuana, nice New Orleans detail (not sure how accurate it is, but it all sounded good to me), a very fishy divorce case, some exhibitionists, art, and murder. I liked it, even though it was a bit too complicated for work time listening.
• 8810 by Nicholas Taylor - Another one of my Podiobooks listening choices. A guy gets a job in the auditing department of a big insurance company and must deal with the boringness of his job, his coworkers (some become his friends, others are just weird, and some fall somewhere in between), and the Dilbert-like idiocy that is just a part of corporate life. It's kind of like The Office, only it's not consistently funny. However, it's still well worth a listen. Plus, I love some of the Colorado details - the bit about Halloween in Colorado is absolutely perfect and absolutely true.
• Black Bird, vol. 1 by Kanoko Sakurakoji - Misao is horrified to discover that Kyo, her first love, is actually a tengu, a kind of demon, and that she has the dubious honor of being special - a demon who drinks her blood gains a long life, one who eats her flesh gains eternal youth, and one who makes her his bride will have a prosperous clan. Kyo wants her to be his bride and promises to protect her from all who would harm her, but Misao doesn't want him if he only wants her for what she can do for his clan. I don't know what the whole series will be like, but this volume was one big excuse for Misao to get hurt repeatedly, so that Kyo could heal her. By the way, he heals using licks and kisses. If you flip through it and think it has a lot of sex, that's because you're mistaking the healing scenes for sex scenes. I'm sure the similarity is intentional. It's not porn, but it's racy. I think it may become my guilty pleasure, at least until I tire of watching the many ways Misao can bleed all over the place.
• Fullmetal Alchemist, Season 1, Part 1 - I now own the whole series (minus the OVAs, which I might not be able to afford for some time - if I decide to pay it, the ALA membership fee will kill all my extra cash and then some this month). You have no idea how happy this makes me. I would list this series among my top 5 favorite anime. I've only ever seen it all in English dub, so it's a treat to see it in Japanese. Watching this while I'm watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood really brings home how fast the new series is speeding through things. On the one hand, I think that does a disservice to the characters and some of the heavier emotional stuff, but, on the other hand, the pacing of the original series could've been a tad faster.
• In Odd We Trust by Queenie Chan and Dean Koontz - I haven't quite figured out yet how much of the writing Koontz did versus Chan, but, regardless of who did how much, I wasn't impressed. This manga-inspired volume, which takes place before the events of Koontz's Odd Thomas, didn't communicate Odd's charm well. Plus, the story was very simplistic, and the art was wooden. I don't know what Chan's art is like in her other works, but, in this, the artwork as a whole needs to be more dynamic and there are basics, like perspective, that need work (Sherry's headband, or whatever you call it, really bothered me - you can always see the entire curve of it, even when her face is in profile).
• Skip Beat!, vol. 1 by Yoshiki Nakamura - ILLiad is down at my library and has been down for two weeks now, so, while I'm happy that I've started reading this manga, I can't wait until it's possible for me to request the next volume, because it seems like it might be a while before I can reach the point where the anime ended. I really like this series, but I have to admit that I prefer the anime so far - I just like the artwork in the anime better.

See how fantastically behind I am? Well, for now I'm just going to go do some neck stretches, but maybe I'll get a full post written tomorrow. Right.

Fullmetal Alchemist (manga, vol. 16) by Hiromu Arakawa

In this volume, Scar rescues Doctor Marcoh in order to enlist his help in figuring out how the alchemy of Xing differs from the alchemy practiced in Amestris. The Elric brothers also want to investigate the differences, but the books at the Central City National Library aren't very helpful and the only person they could ask has left. The brothers are told they can find this person if they travel east and then north, braving a cold, miserable climate and Major Armstrong's dangerous sister. In addition to all of that, Kimblee, a ruthless, murderous alchemist, is freed and given the task of finding and killing Scar and bringing Marcoh back to the Humunculi.

If you haven't read any of the previous volumes of this manga (watching the anime doesn't count, because by this point the plots of the manga and anime differ wildly), the first paragraph of this entry probably made no sense to you, which is reason enough not to start with this volume. I don't consider this volume to be one of the most interesting in the series, not on its own, although it does move the general series plot forward a bit more - nearly everyone's goal is now to figure out how Xing's alchemy is different. After the previous emotionally devastating volume, this volume feels a little like a pause that allows readers to collect themselves.

It is fun, however, to see Kimblee really have trouble with someone - he's the kind of scary character you just love to fear and hate. I also enjoyed getting to see another one of Major Armstrong's family members - this shows readers a different facet of his family that's less amusing than what's been shown in previous volumes. There's several exciting action scenes, including one where Ed fights in conditions he's not cut out for, and one between Scar and Kimblee. Also, there's a short scene where Ed and Al get to meet President King Bradley's son and wife - it's a strange-feeling scene, knowing what I and other readers who've been keeping up with the series know about King Bradley.

As far as the extras for this volume go, there are a few funny comic strips. Arakawa chose not to include one of her "body count" comics, which would've been sparse anyway (only one chimera, I think).

Read-alikes and Watch-alikes:

• The Golden Compass (book) by Philip Pullman - Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan in a world where everyone is accompanied by a daemon, a being that looks like an animal and basically reflects a person's soul, is given a mysterious alethiometer. After she escapes from a woman who wants to take it from her, Lyra goes looking for her friend and other children who have been kidnapped by a mysterious group she and others call gobblers. Along the way, Lyra makes lots of friends and discovers shocking things about herself, those around her, and the gobblers. Those who want to read something that is thought-provoking and yet has exciting action scenes might like this book. Lyra's world, like that of the Elric brothers, feels like a mix of things from the past and amazingly magical technology (the alethiometer may seem like magic, but it's actually considered technology). Also, Lyra, like the Elric brothers, is on a long journey. Her journey, similar to this volume, takes her into some cold and inhospitable places.
• Last Exile (anime TV series) - In a world that looks like 19th century Europe with awesome flying technology, Claus and Lavie are pilot and co-pilot of a Vanship and act as couriers. When they rescue a little girl and complete the mission that involves her, they end up becoming crew members of the legendary mercenary ship Sylvana. As this series progresses, the powerful and often scary Guild also gets involved a lot. Those who enjoyed reading about a world that mixes a chronologically older feel with awesome abilities and technology might like this series. There are also lots of battles - mainly between ships but also occasionally between individuals.