Project: Read Or Die - Chapter Five So Fish, And Thanks For All The Long

despite the fact that it has now been far to long since I actually managed to post anything I have not yet abandoned my stated goal of ongoing literary discourse, not indeed exhausted the supply of tomes purchased in it's furtherance. Indeed, whilst I would like to say that the interval was caused by my engaging in a somewhat lengthier tome than previously presented that would be somewhat disingenuous.

Once again I've been spending far to much time playing bloody Guild Wars as that's far easier, or at least more entertaining, than actually dealing with my life. Such as it is.

However, in between bouts of swearing loudly at dungeons I have been pursuing yet another book. Or 5 books, depending on how you look at it. Rather than launch into lengthy quotes in a misguided attempt at some sort of build up I'll just say that I have in fact been reading that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

The COMPLETE Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in fact.

All five tomes amalgamated into one complete, if rather bulkier tome. The convenience of getting all the stories in one place is only somewhat marred by the inconvenience of not really being able to fit it in ones pocket.

Still, what can I say about this set of tales that hasn't been said a thousand times before by more critics far more intelligent and lucid than I?

Sparfnargle gloompfnang omfranox klargynooit ftang ponjo gibble gabble coatrack.

I'm reasonably sure that few, if any, have ever said that about this or indeed any book before. I'm also reasonably sure that there is a fairly good reason this is so.

Anyway, let us press on. It may shock and appal you to know that I had never actually managed to read the Guide before this. When I was younger (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, books ran on steam and we ate grit for breakfast) I did however have them (or at lest as many of them as were actually available at the time) on audiobook. So it's been quite interesting finally getting to all the parts that were obviously cut for time if nothing else. I could probably make some scathing remarks about jobs being done properly if they're worth doing at all here, but I am rather fond of those old audiobook versions, so I'm not going to. Indeed, whilst reading it was rather hard not to hear the text in the voice which I had thus come to associate with them. So I didn't. It seemed better that way.

Much has of course been said about Douglas Adams and his writings. Much of it, after finally experiencing them first hand for myself, I can believe. Yes, he's obviously a very clever, very witty man with some great story ideas that the art of novel writing does not come easily to. Yes, book one was clearly published halfway through, and The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe is very much the second half of one book as opposed to it's sequel. Yes, there are parts of Life, The Universe And Everything that seem to have come out of an unused Doctor Who script idea. None of these are bad things, simply facts as I see them, in the whole general mish mash of the story.

Of course, generally speaking the stories are wonderfully inventive and witty and great fun. But coming out of reading the whole series my impressions are rather coloured by the final tome. This was of course the one of greatest interest to me, as we never had that on audiobook, so I had no idea what to expect.

It is, as they say, a bit dark, isn't it? I can see why it was that someone decided it would be a good idea to write another volume (presumably via ouija board or some other sending courtesy of Great Yod) as the act of !SPOILERS! killing of all your characters in a rather depressing and futile way does make for a perhaps less than satisfying ending. Perhaps I'm just bitter that Fenchurch got written out offscreen before the book even started as I quite liked the character.
I suppose one could say that the book doesn't quite feel like it fits in with the rest of the series owing to this rather sharp tonal shift, and you'd almost be right except for the fact that it still does. Either way, it's written now, so it's not like there's anything that can be done about it. As much as we'd like to see our favorite characters have a happy life we all know deep down that that would make a rubbish story.

Perhaps I'll look up that dodgy sequel thing sometime. Even if I don't like it I can always distract myself by moaning about it at length and repeating the phrase "shameless cash in". That's always good for a laugh.

Anyway, what else can one say? These are books that quite deservedly have their place in history, and it will take nothing less than a fully armed Vogon constructor fleet to put any sort of dent in that legacy.

Well, there's that atrocious looking film version that clearly no right thinking person should ever watch.

But other than that. Classic stuff.

Project: Read Or Die - Chapter Four A Correspondence Course In Literacy

Today I have been, believe or not, actually mostly working and not really playing Guild Wars at all. Apart from a bit, but that doesn't count. However in amongst all that actual work and whatnot I somehow found the time to finish reading Gloom Party.

Or, as it is somewhat curiously billed "How To Read Manga: Gloom Party By Yoshio Kawashima". I admit that when I first stumbled across this tome online that somewhat patronising title did rather put me off. I mean, I KNOW how to read manga. It's pretty simple:

10 Buy some Manga

20 Read it

30 GOTO 10

Simple, right?

However I was won over by both the title, the cute character on the front and the promises of dark humor.

So, what do we actually get here?

Well, it's (mostly) 4 koma comics, presented in the original Japanese and accompanied by translations and notes, perhaps not that far off the translation notes you often find in the back of manga these days. The point here is that this particular series of comics, whilst alternately obscure, risque and odd, are often highly culturally specific. The purpose of the volume is to then give you a bit of grounding in these aspects and explain the context. Though this noble goal is somewhat hampered by the translators reticence in explaining any of the more overtly sexual humour. When the whole point of the book is to explain the jokes this does seem like a bit of an oversight.

The strips themselves, whilst a little variable in places, do have some genuinely funny pieces on offer. Particularly the many involving Sacchan, the cute little preschool girl in the cat outfit on the cover. Who's also a wife and trying to be a mother. She is ADORABLE. Indeed, I suspect it may have been possible (perhaps even advisable) to collect these strips along with some of the other more straightforward material and publish it as a straight up translation. The main drawback I see here is in the educational focus of the book. Not that what it's doing is particularly bad, but the presentation is all wrong. This is, as the parental advisory note on the front indicates, not exactly a book for kids. But you thrust this toward your average adult manga fan and they're attitude is quiet liable to be, as mine was, "I KNOW how to read manga thanks" and pass by. Which would be a shame as there's some good material available here. If only you can get past that suspiciously reminiscent of comics fucking sans how to "read" bit on the cover.

Really, it's the putting the "read" in quotation marks that really sets my teeth on edge.

Anyway if you like slightly obscure humor and lots of jokes featuring girls panties (and let's be honest who doesn't) this may be worth checking out. Especially since it seems you can pick it up quite cheap online of you look for it.

Project: Read Or Die - Chapter Three Dead Tree Media

Today's book then is Harmony by Project Itoh.

Now, Obviously, me being me, I've had an interest in the Haikasoru imprint since I first heard about it. However I've been remarkably lax in actually picking up any of the goddamn books. Before this I'd only managed to get All You Need Is Kill, which is pretty daft when you think about it as I loved the shit out of that book.

There aren't really too many similarities between the two though. They're both Japanese sci-fi stories, and I powered through each of them during particularly lax days at the office. Oh, and they're both actually really good. Shouldn't forget that.

How do describe this story? A brooding cyberpunk Dys-Utopian conspiracy detective story musing on the nature of consciousness? Sounds a bit pretentious.
The world presented is certainly interesting and fairly compelling reading. The idea of a supposedly perfect world that certain members of the population just can't relate to. Part of what makes it interesting is the pacing of the narrative. I admit that right at the beginning things don't sound so bad, and you almost wonder what it is the main characters are rebelling against as it were. But over the course of time the ubiquitous intrusiveness of this supposedly perfect society unravels before us in a frankly chilling vision of the future. What makes it scary is simply how PLAUSIBLE it all seems. Building on contemporary technology, trends and fears we see a homogenised society of facebook gone mad, where privacy is not just a thing of the past but also a dirty word.

Where do the misfits go in such an all encompassing system of enforced physical, mental and medical attention? There's a palpable social claustrophobia that, I suppose, is an expression of the social pressures that are fairly uniquely Japanese.


It's hard to really discuss this book without giving to much away, and the plot is not exactly straightforward. Where we find ourselves at the conclusion of the narrative is not exactly expected. The characters presented are not always quite sympathetic, but not totally unlikable. More there is a certain alien-ness which stems from the world in which they exist. The use of various html style code fragments and tags throughout the text adds to this feeling I think.

I suppose you could classify this as some light heavy reading. Whilst it didn't take me a huge amount of time to finish it's not exactly what you'd call lightweight or comfortable. In all probability it'll yield some new insights on a re-read. But I've got some other tasks to attend to before I get to that particular pleasure.

All in all a bloody good read. Go buy it or something.

Project: Read Or Die - Chapter Two FOR SCIENCE!!

So, the next tome in my pile of trying desperately not to spend all my life staring vacantly at monitors is The Science Of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons.

Now, as for my particular motivation for getting this, that should be fairly self evident. I like Doctor. I like science (though I do prefer SCIENCE!! which is subtly different and tends to feature more robots). So obviously a book about both should be pretty good, right?

You were expecting me to say no then, weren't you?

Actually this book isn't bad at all. It's written in a fairly engaging style, and certainly doesn't descend into the sort of deathly dull dryness that is certainly possible for this sort of thing. Whilst being low on excruciating detail does perhaps limit the amount of information imparted, that really isn't the thrust of the book. Basically what we're doing here is using Doctor Who as a jumping off point to discuss various related scientific and technological advances. The book rattles through at a fair pace, providing a fairly broad sweep of topics, all of which may merit further investigation should they perk your particular interest.

It's nice to see that the book draws it's topics from the full range of Doctor Who, not just the new series. Of course, this may well have a lot to do with being published some time after series 1. The edition I got did contain a bonus chapter briefly discussing a couple of aspects from series 2, but not in great detail or depth. Perhaps this is for the best. Quite how Fear Her ever got made does defy rational explanation after all.

Since we're offered a fairly broad palette there's probably something in here to engage most people, either from the theories discussed or the references that engender them. As a book for a youngish fan this strikes me as a good present. Learning by stealth as it were. Though for the actually very young fans it's might be a bit much, but I'm really not the guy to ask. It's been more than a few years since I was a child after all.

I guess the only major drawback here is simply that the book is already starting to date a bit in places. There's no stopping progress after all. Time, science, and even Doctor Who itself marches inexorably forwards.

Still a fun and informative read, and certainly good value for the pittance I paid for it.

Project: Read Or Die - Chapter One A F.A.T.A.L. Worse Than Death

Right then. So, as you may or may not be aware I recently came to the conclusion that I really hadn't been spending enough time reading. In order to combat this anti-intellectual malaise I went and bought myself a big pile of books.

And then promptly started playing Guild Wars again.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.........................

Yeah. So in a no doubt vain attempt to provide some additional motivation I'm gonna make this into a project. I'm gonna read books, and then talk about them here. Because it's my goddamn blog and if I want to talk about the quality of my navel fluff or review my latest bowel movements I bloody well can and you'll just have to deal with it.

So, the first tome out of my lovely large pile of amazon packages is....

The Kobold Wizard's Dildo Of Enlightenment +2 By Carlton Mellick III.

Now, if you're wondering why anyone would buy a book called The Kobold Wizard's Dildo Of Enlightenment +2 then there's clearly something wrong with you. Specifically, that there ISN'T something wrong with you. That's not normal, you should probably get help.

Anyway, THE BOOK. This is, in a word, epic. Even if it is billed as being for levels 2-5. The idea of the story is really good. Simply, what if the characters in a role playing game became aware that they were just characters in a game? In a HORRIBLE game. Basically the world in which out hapless P.C.'s find themselves is being run by the sort of GM who'd think F.A.T.A.L. is a great idea.

For those of you who aren't aware of just what F.A.T.A.L. is, it has tables for both the size of your penis AND working out what size objects will fit in your arse. This I think should tell you basically everything you need to know.

So, anyway, we have our party of ineptly played characters trying to find their way through this nightmarish whirlwind of rape, violence, more rape, and large wangs on EVERYTHING. As a recreation of the sort of thing you'd expect to come from the mind of a sexually frustrated weirdo teenager it's pretty spot on. Hence the titular artifact. It's getting this used on them that grants the game characters their self awareness. It is not a happy world to find oneself in.

The whole book is presented as an old D&D module, as you can tell from the cover art above. There's character sheets for the P.C.s and N.P.C.s, there's maps, tables and drawings. It's a fantastically put together piece of work which really evokes the whole feel. And it's actually a decent story to boot. It's unusual, but since when has this ever been a bad thing. I mean,yeah, if you're easily offended then this is clearly not the sort of thing for you. But then you can just fuck right off.

I'd read Satan Burger by the same author a few years ago, so I had some appreciation for his particular style. Really this is either the sort of thing you'll love or hate. A bit crude, a bit gonzo. Well written and full of really great ideas. If you have any love of RPGs then this is a book that you really should read.

Unless you find the idea of dragons with gigantic prehensile man eating wangs CONFUSING.