telophase | Shaman Warrior 1-5, Death in the West Wind, House of Many Ways

Thanks to the magic of paperbackswap.com, I have now obtained volumes 1-5 of the manhwa Shaman Warrior and read them. So far, my general opinion is: nifty art, too much fighting, not enough plot. Erm. Not much else to say, honestly. I don't seem to be in the mood for in-depth analysis. :)

I'm also about 3/4 of the way through a Georgian mystery by Deryn Lake titled Death in the West Wind. It's part of a series about an apothecary who works for Sir John Fielding investigating mysteries, but this is the first one I've read (and I'm not sure if it's available in the States or not, as the edition I've got is an English one I picked up at a used bookstore). So far I'm enjoying it, and the anachronistic bits (i.e. murder-mystery procedurals) aren't throwing me out of it like they've done with other books (Laura Joh Rowland's books are a case in point - I could no longer take the modern crime-solving deductive techniques). And it has properly cracktastic elements - a crossdressing vigilante, a secret society, someone who seems to have slept with every man in town except for her fiance, Russian sailors, and headless coachmen driving ghostly coaches - but the one thing that's driving me nuts is the main characters not connecting the mention of angels by a dying man with the Society of Angels. Remind me never to leave clues that obvious and have the main characters overlook them. Aargh!

I also just read Diana Wynne Jones' second sort-of sequel to Howl's Moving Castle (the first one being Castle in the Air), House of Many Ways. My reaction to it is more-or-less the same as to CitA: a good read, I liked it, but I wanted more Howl. :)

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I seem to recall a bit more plot in vol 6 of Shaman Warrior. That or I just went into "Mangaka! Are you going to do what I think you're going to do?" mode.

(You know, I could handle the modern crime solving techniques in the Rowland books-even though they always solved the cases through blind luck more than anything else-I just got sick and tired of the "look, he is eeeeeevvvviiillllll because he likes to have sex with boys, but he is heroic because he only has sex with his wife, even though he lusts after every other woman he sees and thinks she's more interesting." I realized I was reading the wrong series when I only liked the ones I was supposed to hate...)

I'll hold out hope for vol. 6 then. I do like the art. :)

(I don't remember much else about the Rowland books. I think I gave up about book 3.)

There's a long flashback sequence in vol 6 that opened all kinds of possibilities!

(Yeah, I kinda wish I'd stopped at book 3. I may have been happier that way. It's before all the stuff that made me really annoyed...)

hmm, good to know re: Shaman Warrior. I picked up 4 and 5 remaindered, and 1 is on Dark Horse's website; perhaps I'll go on to 6 instead of finding 2 and 3.

Well, 2 and 3 actually have important stuff that impacts 6, as a lot of the setup for what's going on in 6 is there.

(Also, I am a completist and aghast at the idea of skipping...)

Also, I am a completist and aghast at the idea of skipping...

Usually I am as well, but having made it through 4 and part of 5, I'm not sure how much I care to go back. I don't know--the local shop doesn't have 2 and 3, so it'll be awhile anyway, even with good intentions.

Heh, I'm starting to wonder if there's *anyone* out there who doesn't find Yanagisawa more interesting than Sano... ;) I don't mind the series too much so far, in spite of the anachronistic attitudes, but I'm definitely mostly reading for the sake of the minor characters and nominal villains rather than our Plucky Hero Couple.

(It also probably doesn't hurt that I got the whole damn thing in hardcovers for free, mind you...I'd probably be a lot grumpier if I'd spent a ton of money on those books.)

I think I've only talked to you, sanada, and now telophase about the books, but the Yanagisawa preference does seem to be universal. I think sanada usually likes the character type, and I don't really remember discussing/seeing you discuss others of the type before, but I usually dislike his character type, which is probably pretty telling about the books.

Part of it is that Yanagisawa is kind of interesting in spite of Rowland's intentions, while her attempts to make Sano interesting and likable are things that make me dislike him.

I didn't really mind the anachronisms either, but Yanagisawa went away(I guess he could be back...he wasn't killed off or anything) and his enemy/ex was still better than Sano, but not as fun. And I kept wanting to strangle Sano for his attitude about his wife(and I didn't even care for her.) That whole "I love her, but I lust for all these other women because I find their danger exciting and my wife is boring" isn't really attractive in fictional men, especially when it's meant to be an "epic love." (Existing trait and attitude, both now and then? Yes. Attractive trait in fictional heroes, especially for "true love"? Not very often.)

Bearing in mind that while I've got all but one or two of the latest in the series sitting about here, but I've only read a couple of them so far so my opinion might change as I read further...

I'm not *entirely* sure Rowland was trying to present Yanagisawa as pure unalloyed evil (now with extra gay!) -- if she was, then showing us how shitty his life was in his early years was a pretty gross miscalculation on her part, as his parents' cruelty, pimping him out to predatory older men, etc. all winds up making it hard not to feel some element of sympathy for how he turned out. He winds up feeling to me at least less like a total villain and more like a tragic antihero. He's managed to claw his way up in society, but he's unhappy and emotionally crippled (and wound up sacrificing one of the few people who honestly seemed to love him in the course of his ambitious schemes); but I can't help but wonder how much potential was wasted by the damage of his childhood and adolescence.

(As for the character type...hmm, I don't know if I'd say I have a strong preference for it, but it's something I can like when it's done in certain ways. I think I made the comparison in the last discussion, but he reminds me intensely of Gisburne in the new BBC Robin Hood series.)

The gay=evil thing would generally be a lot more problematic for me, but so far in this series it hasn't irked me all that much because Yanagisawa's a little too sympathetic to be a proper evil bogeyman, ditto for some of his lovers (particularly the teenage actor who was so passionately devoted to him), and so very many of the heterosexual characters have such intensely skeevy relationships.

I tend to think that Rowland was flipflopping some on just how evil to write Yanagisawa, and a lot of other things. Mostly, he seems to be written as having had a bad life, but still evil, or at least weak. He has one lover, though, who doesn't really have any tragic background, and pretty much takes over the "evil gay enemy" role. (And who I also liked more than Sano...)

I suspect that Rowland was trying to incorporate that aspect of samurai life in the courts, that that did happen to many of them, into the books, but for either personal reservations or editorial dictates, couldn't apply it to the good guys. I think the gay=evil think would annoy me a lot less for just the reasons you stated if there wasn't also a straight=good thing going, and how the "straight" is portrayed. If it makes sense, it seems there's "straight because I only like the opposite gender" and "straight because I don't like the same gender" in fiction at times. "Sorry, not interested," and "Eew! No!" maybe. I think it'd also annoy me less if Sano's version of fidelity didn't irk me so much.

I do remember you mentioning Armitage's Gisbourne to me like that before, but I think the subject then was the whole "not-quite-evil villain and hero in love with the same woman" thing.

Ah, yeah, that love triangle is a big plot driver in this version of Robin Hood. Leave out the love triangle and the sexual orientation, though, and this Gisburne's backstory is an awful lot like Yanagisawa's -- old, noble family fallen on hard times, emotionally crippled heir driven by mad ambition to regain or exceed the lost social status and wealth, and willing to essentially deal with the devil and damage his own soul in the process. Gisburne's a bit more of an extreme case, from what I've seen of both so far; he really edges into sociopathic, but at the same time seems aware on some level of just what a monster he's become, and viewed Marian as a chance at redemption; he also hasn't risen as high as Yanagisawa, since the shogun is fairly weak and manipulable, whereas the Sheriff of Nottingham in this version is pure, calculating evil; Gisburne's just a flunky, nowhere near the same league.

Another sort-of sequel to Howl's Moving Castle? And it just came out? And I didn't know about it?! What sort of bookstore employee am I?

Guess I'll be picking that up sometime soon to add to my Diana Wynne Jones book collection.

:) I had it on pre-order from Amazon after learning of it from bookshelves of doom (http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/).

Shaman Warrior 1-5, Death in the West Wind, House of Many Ways

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