What are you reading at the moment?

I ended up buying it today and reading a few pages. So far I'm enjoying it.

 

Convenience Store Woman

by

Sakaya Murata


I think I found a hidden gem and I highly recommend this book.

Translated from Japanese is the story of a woman who is weird. Not in a Pschyo way her brain is just wired differently and in a society like japan where peer pressure to conform is like a lead anvil... she stood out.

So what does a child that's been told by his peers, teachers and even parents that's she's weird and needs to be fixed do? Well she believes them and since nobody told that child how to "fix" herself she went for the next best thing. Turn yourself into a mimic.

Notice other's speech patterns and facial expressions. If people are grumbling about something you personally aren't bothered by then grumble too and join in. People think that person dresses appropriately for her age? Check her brands and don't be creepy by getting the same exact things, just get the same brand of things and similar style.

She never stops being weird and this book got really, really, REALLY dark at times.

The tension comes from two things related to her "situation".

As a teen she got a part time job at a convenience store, same as a lot of people her age. Thing is it's been 18 years and she is still working in that same store as a part-timer.

She is 36, not just unmarried but a virgin that's never even considered a guy. Her life is nothing but her work, zero interests outside of it.

This is the cause of her problems. Not her lot in life, she's happy with her job, doesn't care about men or marriage. She's fine as is. It's peer pressure from her family, from her few friends and even her co-workers that are all trying to "fix" her.

The second problem stems from her attempt to camouflage and trying to give the appearance of normal which goes down a VERY dangerous path. This book is seriously good though so not spoiling that part.

The wording here is beautiful in it's simplicity. Although the MC Keiko is odd from beginning to end she is still relatable, you don't always agree with what she's doing but you do understand her reasoning.

This writer managed to make being a part-timer in a 7-eleven interesting. You actually care about all the little every day things that most take for granted like Keiko practicing how to say welcome and thank you over and over to copy the training tape for her very first day on the job and 18 years later still remembers that tape and follows it like gospel.

It's also an observation about human nature, about how we infect each other with our behaviors. About how change is part of staying the same.

It's only 170 pages long but god does it pack a punch!

 

The Witcher and Lenin's biography...

I'm hunting more world most infamous and famous figures' biographies right now, research materials for creating anti-hero MC in the future

 

I'm not sure that The Witcher counts as a biography, though it's one of my favorite series ever.

 

ehh, no, I mean for the Lenin parts
The Witcher probably the only fiction in my reading list now

 

I'm currently reading Creating Life (The Art of World Building Book 1) & Creating Places (The Art of World Building Book 2), both by Randy Ellefson. In a worldbuilding mood and they were on KU with good reviews!

 

Spinning Silver

By

Naomi Novik


I think I found an author to follow! This was my first Naomi Novik novel and I've already placed an order for a few of her older books.

Spinning silver is a fairy tail retelling. Which fairy tail? Try all of them!

We start out with the story of the Rumpelstiltskin. Only it's not a miller's daughter that boosted about spinning hay into gold, it's a Jewish money lender's daughter who's father is the one and only jewish man in history that gives money away and is too timid to ask for it back.


So at the edge of starvation she takes matters into her own hands. Whatever copper pennies she manages to get back she takes to the market and turns to silver and then into gold.

Which starts off the fairy tail aspect from her boosting about spinning silver to gold, to the tale of the ice queen, beauty & the beast as well as a few lesser known tales like the girl that knitted nettles for her brother to wear or the one that was sent out in a snowstorm for strawberries.

The book is crammed full of fairy tale references written in a way where they are part of a whole not a stand alone story.

I won't lie, most re-tellings are crap. The focus is on following the original story's path with maybe a modern face life rather then telling an actual tale.

This one however was written by a good story teller. In the middle it dragged a bit and it showed when the lesser known fairy tales references were dropped in randomly but otherwise it was an interesting tale all of it's own from begining to end... about a jewish girl that used her head and became a merchant first, ice queen second though that part was by force and she kept trying to melt her "husband", not in a teehee way either she hated him!

I know, not rpg but hey fantasy is where all of this came from so I'm going to mention it when a book is that good!

or that bad... I like some cheese with my whine...

 

If you like fairy tale retellings, I can heartily recommend Mercedes Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdoms books. They definitely stand on their own, apart from the fairy tales they’re retellings of.

You can find more about them on her website here: Mercedes Lackey - The Official Website

 

sounds interesting. WOW she's active!!! That's such a long list!

 

Yeah she is. She’s super prolific and writes incredible stories pretty much at will in whatever genre she decides to put pen to paper in.

 

Readin' harems to write one.

 

Why? Just fill it up with bouncing boobs aiming for the magical groin of the MC and you're done.

Give the MC a MC guffin so he wouldn't sleep with them if you want to keep the rating down and all those 14 year olds addicted to your series hoping for a side boob shot and an awkward as a first date encounter each and every time the characters interact.

 

Because I'm a goddamn hipster so I also want to add Nietzschean and Descartesian philosophical wankery that fits narrative flow like a parasitic bowel blockage, god-levels of overpoweredness so stupendously broken that even writing the words feel like I'm tearing a hole in my own brain, and clear and visible contempt for my audience that stops short of saying "f**k you, gibb me your money, f**k you again, I never cared, no one does, and I'm such a whore that I'll pound my butt with my own butt for your money."
I also want there to be actual erotic moments because let's face it— even if there are 14-year-olds reading, they're not "coming" for a sideboob unless that means something. Just one massive hate f**k for how much he doesn't want to be in a harem and then goes Ultra Instinct from reaching sexual Nirvana.

By the way, the story's functionally done.

 

The MC's guide to a harem. EVERY HAREM

 

I really ought to read more of the Shadowrun books.
Why not Shadowrun: Spells and Chrome (Shadowrun anthology Book 1)!

 

I don't think it was made at all clear how much of an omega male the MC has to be, though.

 

Just finished William Arand's "Dungeon Deposed." Thoroughly enjoyed it, and looking forward to the next (assuming he's writing it).

 

I read a lot... like, sometimes up to 5 novels a week other times 2-3.

I just finished the Hunt for Red October... It was alright, but I can't stand Scott Brick who was the narrator of the audiobook so I feel like I couldn't appreciate it as much as I probably could have.

I'm currently reading The Crystal Cave which is a retelling of the King Arthur legend from Merlin's PoV, starting with his childhood. Not bad so far.

I tend to LitRPG binge before I write a novel, and then while I write, branch into other varieties of fiction.