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My thoughts after reading half of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series

I think there is something special about The Malazan Book of the Fallen’s magic. It’s honestly hard to put it into words, but I think it is something to do with how inseparable the magic is both from the world and from the text itself. The magic doesn’t feel like a system, it isn’t just the physical effects that affect the world. No, the whole world is magical and can’t be neatly separated into a ‘system’ and a ‘place’, nor can the magic be disconnected from the prose itself. ...

A spoilerfree exploration of a hidden villain in the volleyball manga Haikyuu.

In order to improve my sleep schedule I’ve picked up the habit of reading a bit before going to bed. It becomes a ritual that helps me ease into sleep. This however, places some constraints on the book as getting excited is counterproductive to the goal of relaxation. The book can’t get too boring either as the goal is to be able to read a book, and boring books are no fun to read. ...

This is a translation of my other post: En berättelse om berättande I don’t think I’ve had a reading experience like the one I had with Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace before. (sidenote: The version I have isn’t the one that is most widely known. Tolstoy apparently completely rewrote the book and it is that version that was published in 1867. It wasn’t until 2000 that the original version would be published in Russian as an ordinary novel. ...

A translation of this post exists here: A story about story telling Jag tror inte jag har haft en läsupplevelse som liknat den jag haft med Leo Tolstojs Krig och Fred förrut. (sidenote: Den versionen jag har är annorlunda från versionen som är mest känd. Tydligen skrev Tolstoj om romanen och det är den som sen blev publicerad i 1867. Det var inte förrän år 2000 som den ursprungliga versionen blev publicerad som en vanlig roman på ryska. ...

Invisible Cities The first time I stumbled upon the book Invisible Cities, when it was used in the video essay “Searching for Disco Elysium”, I didn’t really take notice of it. [1] [1], [2] The book played a secondary role, it was used to highlight an aspect of the titular game Disco Elysium, so it was perhaps unsurprising that it didn’t strike me as something remarkable. However, that changed when I read the essay “Two Concepts of Legibility”. ...

Note to people reading this from browsers with limited css-capabilities: This contains spoilers for Dune that are hidden using css, consider reading it in a web browser. I’ve been reading Dune and it’s shaping out to be one of my favourite books, but one thing in particular stood out to me: the characters are boring. How can a story be this good with boring characters? For me the answer is that the focus and enjoyment lies elsewhere: partly in the political intrigue between different factions, but mostly in the exposition. ...

One reason that I wanted to read Speaker for the Dead again was because I heard people say that the author was a massive racist, which is interesting because the same people would say that his racism conflicts heavily with the themes of the book. (sidenote: If you want to read this book, I encourage you to do so in a way that doesn’t support him financially, such as borrowing it from a library, a friend or from the seven seas. ...

Unseen Academicals, a book in the Discworld series by GNU Terry Pratchett, is about the wizards of Unseen University playing football, which the front of the cover helpfully suggests. The back of the cover on the other hand informs us that ‘The thing about football — the important thing about football — is that it is not just about football’. And sure enough, while Unseen Academicals is about football, it’s not just about football. ...

❗ Warning: This contains spoilers for the some character developments and the general structure of the Golden Age Arc of Berserk. Berserk is an extremely well crafted manga which I highly recommend. I think it would be best to read that first, although I think it is very enjoyable (maybe even more enjoyable) on second reading so I don’t think these spoilers would hurt the experience too much. In her video on Tragedies, Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions defines and describes the formula of the ancient Greek Tragedies. ...

❗ Warning: This contains spoilers for the some character developments and the general structure of the Golden Age Arc of Berserk. Berserk is an extremely well crafted manga which I highly recommend. I think it would be best to read that first, although I think it is very enjoyable (maybe even more enjoyable) on second reading so I don’t think these spoilers would hurt the experience too much. In her video on Tragedies, Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions defines and describes the formula of the ancient Greek Tragedies. ...

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is perfect for you if you are an science fiction reader looking to branch out into more conventional stories. It is still a sci-fi, but not the kind that builds a story around a question such as “How can a great galactical empire collapse?” or “How would/should humanity react to the invention of intelligent robots?”. Ishiguro doesn’t rely on exposition to explain the world or what is special about it. ...