Vacation reading summary

I didn't get through as many books during my vacation as I had during past vacations, but I knew in advance that that was probably going to happen. I still took notes on everything, though, so here's what I should hopefully be posting about soon:

• Alice in the Country of Clover: The March Hare's Revolution (one-shot)
• Alice in the Country of Clover: Twin Lovers (one-shot)
• Attack on Titan: Junior High (vol. 1)
• Chi's Sweet Home (vol. 12 - Finished!) 
• Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto (vol. 1)
• Kobato (vol. 6 - Finished!)
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun (vols. 1-3)
• Natsume's Book of Friends (vols. 9-10)
• A Silent Voice (vols. 3-7 - Finished!)
• Skip Beat! (vols. 35-36)

That makes 18 volumes total, with 3 series finished up. Skip Beat!, Natsume's Book of Friends, and Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun were the best of the bunch. The worst was probably Attack on Titan: Junior High and Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto.

Manga wasn't the only thing I read. I also got through a few pages of Helen S. Wright's A Matter of Oaths and all of M.C.A. Hogarth's Mindtouch. I think I can safely say that Mindtouch has achieved the status of "comfort read" for me, although I still wish that Hogarth had ended it at a different point.

REVIEW: Mr. Holmes (live action movie)

Mr. Holmes is drama with mystery elements.

Review:

In the movie's present, Sherlock Holmes is 93 and World War II has recently ended. He has just returned from a trip to Japan to acquire jelly made from the prickly ash plant, which he hopes will help his rapidly failing memory. While tending his bees and living a generally quiet life, Holmes strikes up a friendship with Roger, his housekeeper's inquisitive and intelligent young son. It is Roger who helps Holmes remember more details about his last case, the one that prompted him to retire to the countryside.

Viewers get glimpses of Holmes's trip to Japan (his memory so bad that he wrote his host's name on one of his sleeve cuffs so that he wouldn't embarrass himself) and also his final case. In that case, Holmes investigated a woman whose husband was worried she was being used. She'd had two miscarriages, and the only thing that seemed to help her grief was the music lessons her husband encouraged her to take. However, she became obsessed with the music and seemed to think it allowed her to communicate with her dead children. Watson's version of the case indicated that it ended successfully, but Holmes knows that can't possibly be true. If it were, why would he have quit being a detective afterward?

REVIEW: Battle Creek, Season 1 (live action TV series)

Okay, time to try to write reviews again. I'll start off with Battle Creek. After I got home from vacation, I couldn't concentrate enough to read anything except Twitter and current news articles, so I binge-watched this instead. It's a comedy-drama mystery show. It's been canceled, so these 13 episodes are all viewers get.

Review:

The Battle Creek, Michigan police department is an under-funded joke, limping along with broken or non-existent equipment. Detective Russ Agnew hopes for help and improvements, but FBI Special Agent Milt Chamberlain isn't what he had in mind. Milt is friendly, well-liked, and backed by FBI manpower and technology. Russ doesn't trust him and resents how instantly good he seems to be at everything. He knows there must be a story behind Milt's apparent demotion to Battle Creek. He's determined to find out as much as he can, and outdo Milt while he's at it.

Back from vacation

I'm technically back from vacation, but not quite ready yet to write quickie review posts for everything. Today will be all about mopping up some final To Do list items before dragging my butt back into work tomorrow.

I haven't done an official tally yet, but, between my sister's kids and my post-election funk, my reading total was pathetic. Maybe 18 manga volumes and 1 book (reread). For perspective, last year I read 50 manga volumes, and the year before I managed to plow through 44 manga volumes and 2 books. Well, at least the write-ups should be quicker and easier to get through this year.

REVIEW: Inheritor (book) by C.J. Cherryh

Inheritor is science fiction, the third book in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series.

Review:

I waited too long to review this, and now my memories are a bit fuzzy, but I'll do the best I can.

In Inheritor, Bren is once again trying to make do with incomplete information. The book takes place 6 months after the previous one. Bren has been separated from Jase for a bit, and that separation makes their already strained relationship worse. Jase doesn't seem to be handling the culture shock of living among the atevi, living on a planet, and speaking mostly Ragi very well. Bren has his own frustrations and worries – after the events of the previous book, he doesn't dare go back to Mospheira for fear that he'll be arrested or otherwise prevented from leaving. Mospheira's conservative element has become more powerful, and the rift between Bren and his family (and all other humans) continues to grow.

REVIEW: Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (book) by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is middle grade humorous fiction.

Review:

Rafe isn't thrilled with the way his first year of middle school started. At the suggestion of his best friend, Leo the Silent (the guy who rarely speaks and usually communicates via drawings that are incorporated into the book), Rafe comes up with Operation R.A.F.E. (Rules Aren't For Everyone). The whole thing is based on the school rules. Each rule that Rafe breaks earns him points depending on the level of danger, the amount of planning that went into it, who saw him, and what happened as a result of his actions. He does have one limitation, however, his “No-Hurt Rule” - Rafe's actions can't hurt anyone but himself. Unfortunately, things don't always go the way Rafe plans.

REVIEW: Illuminae (book) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Illuminae is YA science fiction. I got it via interlibrary loan and unfortunately reviewed it a few weeks after turning it in. I did the best I could, considering that I didn't have the book on hand to check details.

Review:

The day that Kady and Ezra break up is also the day their whole world falls apart. The illegal mining colony they call "home" is attacked by BeiTech, a rival corporation. The survivors, Kady and Ezra among them, end up on one of three ships: the Alexander, a battlecarrier that tried to come to the colony's rescue and was severely damaged in the process; the Copernicus, a freighter; and the Hypatia, a scientific exploration vessel. The three ships end up on the run from a BeiTech battleship, the Lincoln.

Because so many of the Alexander's crew were killed or injured in the initial attack, any civilian survivors with the right personality or training are conscripted. Kady is seen as being too angry, bitter, and closed off to work well with others. She stays on the Hypatia, even though her hacking skills are excellent and improving every day. Ezra is transferred to the Alexander and trained to become a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, the ships have more problems than just the Lincoln. The Alexander's AI, AIDAN, is damaged, some of the survivors might be sick, and it isn't always clear who can be trusted.

The whole story is told via interview and chat transcripts, video footage descriptions, memos, and more, all collected and arranged by a mysterious group for their equally mysterious employer.

REVIEW: Only the Ring Finger Knows, Vol. 1: The Lonely Ring Finger (book) by Satoru Kannagi, illustrations by Hotaru Odagiri, English translation by Allison Markin Powell

Only the Ring Finger Knows is m/m romance. It was originally published in Japanese in 2001.

My review includes a few spoilers. Also, I'm still on my extended "not going to include read-alikes" break. I will say this, though, the relationship dynamics reminded me a lot of His Favorite. I wonder if that series was inspired by this one?

Review:

Yuichi seems like the most perfect guy at Wataru's high school. He gets good grades, has good looks, is good at basketball, and gets along well with everyone. However, a chance encounter at a water fountain shows Wataru another side of Yuichi, one that's cold and sarcastic. Wataru can't remember ever even talking to Yuichi, so why does the guy hate him so much?

The situation only becomes more awkward and upsetting when Wataru and Yuichi discover they've accidentally swapped rings. At their school, wearing matching rings and/or wearing a ring on your ring finger signifies that you're dating someone and, shockingly, Wataru and Yuichi's rings not only look exactly alike, but they also fit on each other's ring fingers. The matching rings are, of course, an indication that there is romance in Wataru and Yuichi's future.

REVIEW: Noble, My Love (live action TV series)

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Noble, My Love is a Korean drama consisting of 20 episodes that are each about 15 minutes long. The short episode length was unexpected (I'm used to K-drama episodes being about an hour long). It was also the best thing about the series. I don't know that I'd have been able to finish it if it had been 20 hours long. I expected it to be about a cold and arrogant CEO whose heart was thawed by an unexpected encounter with a sweet and energetic veterinarian, and maybe a dog. What I got was...not quite that.

Cha Yoon Seo is a veterinarian who is struggling under a mountain of debt. Her practice is small and caters mostly to rural clients, and she has to be available 24/7 just to get by. She's proud of what she has accomplished, but things do get awkward whenever she talks to former classmates, several of whom now have high-paying jobs at more fashionable locations.

Lee Kang Hoon is a rich, successful, and handsome CEO. People love him, even though he's an arrogant jerk. He first meets Yoon Seo when the dog he's using in a commercial escapes – she finds the dog and gives him water (don't expect much from the dog - he never shows up in the series again). They meet a second time after Kang Hoon is stabbed while escaping a kidnapping attempt. Although they didn't exactly hit it off during their first meeting, Kang Hoon becomes obsessed with thoughts of the kind-hearted veterinarian who stitched him up. How can he win over a woman who seems so determined to turn down everything he offers her?

REVIEW: Hospital Station (anthology) by James White

Hospital Station is the first book in James White's Sector General series. It was originally published in 1962.

Review:

Alien Emergencies was my introduction to the Sector General series. It contained books 6 through 8, so I could have opted to read Book 9 next but instead decided to go back to the beginning, Hospital Station. Although several of the stories do reference each other, Hospital Station is basically an anthology containing five short stories, so I'll be reviewing it as one.

All in all this was...okay. “Medic” and “Out-patient” were good, but the other stories all disappointed me a bit, for various reasons. I'm kind of glad that this wasn't my first experience with the Sector General series. I missed getting to see the full cast of characters I'd gotten to know in Alien Emergencies.

REVIEW: Ajin, Season 1 (anime TV series, CGI animation)

Ajin is a mix of action, mystery, and fantasy (sci-fi?). This first season is 13 episodes long.

Review:

It's been almost a year since I last watched and reviewed anime. I figured it was finally time to watch something new, so I checked my Netflix queue and picked Ajin.

Ajin stars Kei, a high school student who is completely and utterly focused on the bright future his mother has outlined for him, to the point that he even ditched his best friend Kai when his mother said Kai would be a bad influence on him. Kei never toes the line and never does anything wrong...but then he's hit by a truck and his whole world changes. Instead of dying or waking up in a hospital, Kei gets back up again like nothing happened, proving to everyone that he's an Ajin, an immortal being. Ajin are considered nonhuman, and it is Kei's fate, from that point forward, to be hunted down like an animal, captured by the government, and put through horrific tests. However, with a bit of help Kei manages to evade capture and soon learns that there are more Ajin out there than has been made public.

REVIEW: The Silenced (live action movie)

The Silenced is a Korean historical thriller movie with sci-fi aspects.

This review includes slight spoilers.

Review:

I wasn't aware of the history when I saw this movie, so some of the details of my description are the result of later online reading. Anyway, this movie is set in 1938, during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Ju-ran, assigned the Japanese name “Shizuko,” is sent to a Korean sanatorium because she has tuberculosis. The girls at the sanatorium are repeatedly told that they'll eventually be evaluated, and the two healthiest candidates will be sent to Tokyo and become Japanese citizens. It's something that many of the girls long for.

One of the two girls who seems most likely to be chosen, Yeon-deok (renamed “Kazue”) befriends Ju-ran. Yeon-deok takes her places the girls aren't supposed to go and generally encourages her. Ju-ran is given special medication, and her health begins to improve to the point that she starts to hope that maybe she'll be chosen to go to Tokyo with Yeon-deok. However, the sanatorium is hiding dark secrets. Yeon-deok used to have a friend who was also named Shizuko, but Shizuko disappeared, supposedly taken away by her family overnight. As Ju-ran begins seeing and experiencing strange things, she wonders what really happened to the first Shizuko.

REVIEW: Dragonbreath (book) by Ursula Vernon

Dragonbreath is children's fantasy. It's the first in a series.

Review:

Dragonbreath stars Danny Dragonbreath, a young dragon who hasn't yet learned how to breathe fire, and his best friend Wendell, a green iguana. Whereas Wendell studies, does his homework, and would probably never get into trouble on his own, Danny has waited until the morning bus ride to write his science paper. He was going to ask Wendell for help, but his topic was the ocean and Wendell's was bats. Danny's science teacher isn't particularly interested in Danny's paper on “the rare and elusive snorklebat” and tells him to turn in a better paper tomorrow. Library research isn't really Danny's style, so, at his mother's suggestion, Danny visits his cousin Edward, a sea serpent. Danny drags Wendell along with him.

REVIEW: Kizumonogatari: Wound Tale (audiobook) by NisiOisiN, narrated by Keith Silverstein, Eric Kimerer, Cristina Vee

Kizumonogatari is the prequel to Bakemonogatari (which I have neither read nor seen). It's one of Vertical's first two audiobook releases.

I go over the book's fanservice-y scenes in detail in my review but otherwise don't include much in the way of spoilers.

Review:

Kizumonogatari stars Koyomi Araragi, a 17-year-old loser. He avoids having friends because he believes they would “lower his intensity as a human” (although one wonders if this isn't just his way of making himself feel better because no one wants to be friends with him). His life seems to be going nowhere, until one day he comes across Tsubasa Hanekawa, class president and all-around model student, and accidentally gets an excellent view of her panties when the wind blows her skirt straight up. Instead of getting upset or fleeing in embarrassment, Hanekawa decides to be Araragi's first friend.

Later, Araragi tries to wipe away the memory of Hanekawa's panties by buying some porn. On his way home, he comes across Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (name found online, because otherwise I'd never have figured out how to spell it all), “the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.” Someone has removed all four of her limbs, and she is dying. She asks Araragi to save her by letting her drink him dry, and he, in a fit of pity and realization that he's a loser whose life, he decides, is probably worth less than hers, agrees. He expects to die but instead wakes up as Kiss-Shot's new servant, the one who now has to get her limbs back from the vampire hunters who took them.

REVIEW: Halo: The Fall of Reach (book) by Eric Nylund

Halo: The Fall of Reach is military sci-fi based on a game franchise.

I opted not to include any read-alikes.

Review:

Like I said in my review of the movie based on this book, I've never played any of the Halo games. I got this because I'd heard that the franchise has some good AI-human interaction. Starting with the first Halo novel seemed like the best way to go.

This book covers the origins of the Master Chief, the series protagonist. Dr. Catherine Halsey selected John for the SPARTAN-II program when he was only 6 years old, arranging for him and many other children to be kidnapped from their homes and put through intense training and brutal modifications. It's all hugely unethical, but the end result is something humanity turns out to sorely need: a group of super soldiers known as the Spartans, of which John-117 is the best. Their first mission pits them against human rebels, but it's not long before they find themselves fighting a much deadlier enemy, mysterious aliens known as the Covenant.