Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Ah, Sherlock Holmes.

The very name conjures up the image of a dude, who may or may not be followed by a dumpy guy with a mustache, decked out in houndstooth, magnifying glass in hand and looking for clues.  Lately, however, the general public is just as likely to think about Downey Jr.'s grungey, druggy, semi-gay Holmes as they are to think of Rathbone's deerstarker-capped Holmes.

Me, I'm partial to Jeremy Brent, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Contemplating on his inherent awesomeness.

When I was younger, I knew next to nothing about the great detective, other than 'No shit, Sherlock' is quite the put-down. (The combination of a swear and a weird name? Blew my 10-year-old mind!) I wasn't fond of mystery stories back then, so Hound of the Baskervilles was probably the only story in my fourth-grade reading textbook that I didn't read. In fact, the first Sherlock story I read was the fan-novella 'Reichenbach: A Love Story', way back in 2007. After that, reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (both Vol. 1 and Vol. II) was inevitable.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It's been a while, so you would think I've read all sorts of fun stuff, which is true. However, I don't want to get into all the crap when I can gush over great literature.

Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that everyone has read at one point in their academic careers, I think. Austen is a great writer, and Pride is probably her best known work. I know I had to read it once in high school, and while I liked it, it didn't leave that much of an impression on me.

That's not true for other people, judging from the mountain of profession fanfiction in the market today. You could read the entire thing from Darcy's perspective. (the cleverly titled Darcy's Story) You could read what happens if the book's timeline was changed. (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World is just one example.) You could even see Elizabeth fight against the zombie hordes. (the nerd-ification masterpiece Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) There are literally dozens of books that try to continue, alter, and play with Austen's original story, at least according to Wikipedia, and we should always trust Wikipedia.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Collision Course by K.A. Mitchell

There's a few things I want to get off my chest before I really get into it, and it is this:

FUCK THIS FUCKING FUCK OF A FUCKING BOOK.

... I feel a little better.

When it comes to gay erotica, I tend to read those set in olden times (i.e. historical romances) and those set in never-really-happened times (i.e. fantasy). I don't usually read anything set in modern times, and this book proved to me why.

Collision Course is about two guys in Jacksonville, Florida. Aaron is a paramedic with a hatred of social workers. Joey is a social worker who falls in love at the drop of a hat. They meet at the scene of an accident where Joey was doing the Good Samaritan shtick, and it's not long after that the two leads are having sex in the back of the ambulance.

Of course, my first reaction was, whoa, not fucking around, are we Mitchell? The gay erotica I usually read tends to save the sex scenes for after the guys get to know each other, angst over each other, or at least had a couple of drinks first. No, Mitchell knows why we're here and the writer does not want to disappoint.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu by Koshino

Let's talk about Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu.

You might know this or not, but a lot of professional manga-ka have cut their creative teeth in fandom. CLAMP, of course, is the most common example. They started up making Captain Tsubasa parody books (of the slash variety, of course), and look where they are now, entertaining millions of fans with their strange, confusing plots and constant ship-teasing. They made it.

Other artists continue making fancomics even after they debut. Murakami Maki, the creator of Gravitation, for example, has done doujinshi for her own comic. And she isn't the only one.

It's not something you come across back home, is it? You usually don't find a professional using his skills to make fan parodies...

It was a bit of a stretch, and I'm (not) sorry.

Which brings me to Koshino. She, too, has done (and continues to do) fanbooks, mostly Fullmetal Alchemist slash. She also has found success with Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu (I'm going to start calling it BKS from now on), a comic series that you can find on Libre Mobile's web service. It's done so well that they've produced an audio version (which is can be bought via Libre Mobile.)

I don't deal with Libre Mobile (and I'm pretty sure you can't either), so when I came across BKS for the first time in Magazine Be-Boy, the May 2011 issue, I thought it was a one-shot. Little did I know...

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Star Trek - Errand of Vengeance #1: The Edge of the Sword

(The hell? A non-numbered Star Trek book published within the last ten years? I must be losing my mind.)

Maybe it's because I'm not a Trek maniac (what are they called again? Trekkies? Trekkers?), but I'm not all that clear on the whole Klingon thing. In the Original Series, they were just these swarthy guys that kind of looked like Genghis Khan. By the time The Next Generation starts, they visually evolved into big, dark guys with a lot of ridges and a lot of hair. (The Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" gave a reason as to why TOS Klingons look different, but I don't buy it. I'd much rather pretend that they looked that way all along, which is probably why I'm not a Trekkie.)

OMG U GUISE! I totally can't tell them apart!

That said, I wonder in just what sort of way I should see Kell, the protagonist of Errand of Vengeance. Did he look like a TOS Klingon before he was changed to appear human? Or did he look like a TNG Klingon? I guess it doesn't matter in the long run; he looks human at the start of the story and he's described as small for a Klingon from the start. But I still wonder.

Hadaka Necktie-chan by Fujio

Let's talk about Hadaka Necktie-chan.

Several years ago, the doujinshi circle green park published a series of strips about a cute, innocent boy that says nothing and wears only a black tie and matching socks. The art style is very cute, and the stories are funny. Now, these self-published comics are being reprinted in Magazine Be-Boy.

Because of the art style, it isn't as pervy as it could have been, what with a lead character nearly naked the entire time (and that magical tie is always working, making sure nothing is seen.) If this was done in a more realistic style...
An awkward moment for all one.
From episode 18, "Necktie Koukan", Be-Boy 8/2011

Friday, July 15, 2011

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami Haruki (Part 3)

There's a couple of things I want to say about Murakami Haruki.

First, Murakami has a thing for ears, and so I have a thing for Murakami's thing for ears. I only really noticed it while reading A Wild Sheep Chase, in which the narrator turns his girlfriend's ears into something erotic and mysterious. I thought it was weird at the time, and I still sort of do. But, people become attracted to all sorts of things, so why can't perfectly shaped earlobes be one of these things? And who am I to balk against author appeal?

Second, I often find myself wondering if Murakami's works are just varying degrees of semi-autobiographical stories. "Folklore" from part 2, for example, felt very much like the author really was the narrator.Yes, I know that he probably did not work at an elephant factory, or that he really isn't a walking computer, but there is a lot of himself in his writing, which is true for every writer. 'Write what you know' and all that jazz. (Also, you can't tell me that he doesn't have an acting friend whose real name is the same as a Yamonote Line stop, because I won't believe you.)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami Haruki (Part 2)

I've always thought there's something weird about Murakami's Vintage covers. The US releases are these blocky, colorful things with close-ups of people's faces. (The one for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman even features an ear.)

The version I have, however, is the UK version, which has a minimalistic, Japonisme-style cover. Almost all their covers, with the exception of After Dark, are simple and mostly-white. If the American releases invoke the strangeness of his stories, the British versions invoke the quiet, simple way he writes.

Now that I've said my peace, let's look at the next three stories in Blind Willow, "Aeroplane", "The Mirror", and "A Folklore for My Generation". All three of these stories involve a man recollecting an event from his youth. Only "The Mirror" has nothing to do with women. And none of them mentions the ear, which makes me very sad.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Star Trek #41: The Three Minute Universe

I'm starting to wonder if Star Trek novels can be categorized by how silly/annoying/good they are. I tried to think of some, but I get stuck after reaffirming with myself on how stupid Killing Time was.

In The Three Minute Universe, Kirk and crew find a part of space so hot that their sensors cannot even measure it. It turns out to be the titular universe, which appears in the middle of an occupied system and wipes out a sentient race, the Zirgosians, in a flash. The Enterprise heads to Holox, the last remaining Zirgosian colony, in search of answers and, hopefully, a solution.

After reading the title, I immediately thought of eggs and cup noodles, two things that only take three minutes to prepare. I thought the universe in question would be a tiny, lab-grown universe, a baby universe. A cup universe.

Delicious.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Fanbooking: Heroes, Sherlock Holmes, and xxxHoLic

I have, for the most part, an addictive personality. If there's something I'm into, I become addicted to it.... basically.  And I've lost count of all the things I've become addicted to over the years. Chocolate, stealing, stickers, medal games...

Several hundred dollars went into this game alone.
Someone hit me.
Fanbooks are no different. It was really bad a couple of years ago, when I would go to events, buy anything that caught my fancy, then stack it somewhere and forget all about it. I know I don't have to largest collection, no more than 500, I'm sure, but they're collecting dust, and I really shouldn't buy another book until I go through the ones I have already.

Especially since I've found a couple of duplicates in my collection. Fuck.

I mostly have Harry Potter, Gintama, and Hetalia books, but I do have few oddballs here. Let's check them out before I chuck/sell them.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Star Trek #39: Time For Yesterday

Last time, that being the post before, I talked about Yesterday's Son, a Star Trek novel by A.C. Crispin involving Romulans, the Guardian of Forever, Kirk/Spock teasing, and Spock's son. Now, let's talk about the sequel.

In Time for Yesterday, we reunite with Spock's half-Sarpeidonite son, Zar, as the entire universe is being threatened by time running amok. Pockets of space are experiencing hypertime (or some bull): spaceships have been lost in black holes, suns are burning out in extremely accelerated rates, and the universe is going to end in a few months' time. Admiral Kirk and his friends are ordered to get the Guardian to stop fucking around, but there's only one person in all of time that could get the job done. There's time-fuckery, grundgy sword battles, and a bit of ship-teasing and power trio love. What else would you want from a Star Trek novel?

What's that? Space battles? Klingons? The hell are those?

There are no Romulans, either. The story revolves more around Zar, his life and predicted death, and his relationship with the crew and others, than it does about the setup that the book opens up with, which is, admittedly, a very typically Trek plot involving ulta-powerful beings wreaking havoc on the universe.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Star Trek #11: Yesterday's Son

You would think that a sequel to the original series' episode All Our Yesterdays, in which Spock gets it on with the prehistoric babe of the week Zarabeth, wouldn't be so... ship-teasing terrific.

I'm not even sure how I picked this book up. Perhaps it was the cover (I have a soft spot for the pointy-eared logic elf), and perhaps it was because it was written by A.C. Crispin. Her name does sound vaguely familiar (maybe because I've read her short stories in Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina and Tales from Jabba's Palace.)

I'm quite happy that I did, too. This is a really good story, and one that doesn't ignore or break apart the power trio that was the backbone of the original series. (I'm looking at you, Weinstein! Stranding Spock with Chekov of all people! in the middle of nowhere and ignoring him for nearly half of the book and he's on the cover! Everyone knows the bromance is the key...)

In Yesterday's Son, we find out that Spock's time in Sarpeidon was very productive indeed. An ensign finds a Sarpeidonite cave painting that looks suspiciously like Spock, which leads the Vulcan, with Kirk and McCoy in tow, to the Guardian of Forever in hopes of retrieving his son. They find the boy, of course, but he's no longer a child.


Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami Haruki (Part 1)

You might not agree, but I'm a pretty smart person. I'm also a really shallow person. I can't really think too deeply about anything, mostly because it gives me a headache. (And yet, I'm going to try to be deeply analytical tonight.)

I am also a fan of Haruki Murakami. His writing style is very simple, and his stories always seem to be about isolation and loneliness. He usually writes about the here and now, but there's a surreal quality to his world that causes the extra-ordinary to occur. And when the places aren't real at all, like in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, there's a dull normality to it all that makes the surreal ordinary.

However much I love his stories, there have been times when I had been Murakami'ed out. I happened after reading a slew of his novels, particularly Dance Dance Dance, It happened a second time after I tried to tackle his short-story collection Blind Woman, Sleeping Willow almost immediately after reading Kafka on the Shore and After Dark. I ended up reading about three-fourths of the collection before throwing it on my reading pile. I can only take some much surreal stories about making connections with other people.

But, I pulled Blind Woman out of the pile and started re-reading it the other day. Let's see how much Murakami I can take this time around.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fudanshi Monogatari by Narazaki Souta

Every yaoi fangirl worth her weight in slash doujinshi knows that 'fujoshi' is just another word for freak weirdo pervert a female fan of handsome guys in homoerotic relationships. Once a derogatory term, the fangirls have since reclaimed it and use it in a self-deprecating manner... at least according to Wikipedia, and we should always trust Wikipedia.

That term is the reason why this blog is called 'Rotten Reading'. I am a lost soul, forever doomed to look at the subtext and go, 'Yeah, I can totally see them hooking up.'

And I can't argue with the label. You have to be pretty rotten-minded to think of some of the things yaoi girls dream up. (Though, to be fair, fanboys can be just as bad.)

'Fudanshi' is the male equivalent of a 'fujoshi', i.e. a yaoi fanboy, and yes, they do exist. (I've even dated one once, just before I was infected by the BL myself.) That said, let's talk about a yaoi fanboy.

Let's play 'Spot the Bottom'.


Monday, June 27, 2011

Aoi Koi by Narazaki Souta

(I had to rewrite this because of some hiccup somewhere. Totes not my fault.)

Let's talk about Blue Love.


Aoi Koi is a two-part comic written by Narazaki Souta. It was published in Magazine Beboy, Feb. and March 2011. Shigemi is a baseball boy who accidentally walks in on an awkward scene, in which a girl was confessing her love to Rio, Shigemi's best friend.


Rio is your archetypical cool guy. He doesn't talk much, which gives him a mysterious air. He's very handsome, and that, with his mysterious air, makes Rio very popular with the girls. The twist: he is also a huge fan of Kamen Rider-style hero shows. Shigemi is the only one who knows about this, and is constantly rolling his eyes at the idea that this cool guy is the also the biggest dork he knows.

Rio turns the girl down, of course (gosh, I wonder why), and instead spends his free time with Shigemi. Shigemi, confused over why Rio rejected the girl, starts to think that Rio needs a girlfriend who understands him and tries to suggest that Rio would have more fun at an upcoming hero live-action show if he took a girl with him.

Rio refuses, saying that he prefers Shigemi's company. Shigemi, however doesn't get it, and he even tries to talk up some fangirls during their 'date' at the live-action show. Rio gets peeved, thinking Shigemi is hitting on someone during their 'date', and they finally put everything on the table.




Because I can't think of a more romantic place for a confession of love than a hero show packed with four- and five-year olds.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Star Trek #24: Killing Time

(It's not next on the list, but I needed to get some things off my chest.)

STATEMENT: Killing Time sucks.

ELABORATION: There was a time when Pocket Books would take any manuscript, apparently. Della Van Hise, a Kirk/Spock shipper (and fanfiction writer), is a prime example of this, although there was more to it than that.

The manuscript was riddled with blatant hints at K/S, and the fact that the more offensive bits weren't deleted before publishing is still a bit of a mystery. The first print edition is considered a lost book, though if you search long enough, you'll find a copy. Even the revised versions of the book are pretty slashy, and it's probably the slashiest official TOS books ever got.

... So why do I dislike it? It has slash overtones and it's about time travel, two things I enjoy. On paper, it sounded great. As soon as I heard about the book, I went off in search of a copy so that I could read it as well.

And now that I have... I'm pretty disappointed.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Star Trek #33: Deep Domain

I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of Star Trek (I grew up a lightsaber groupie, you see), but I love Kirk/Spock. (I am a dirty, dirty girl.) And the only reason I read Star Trek novels is to find some sweet ship teasing.

Deep Domain does not deliver on that. At all. Spock is sent off as a scouting party (of sorts) to a watery planet (with Chekov as company), and then disappears for half of the novel. Kirk doesn't even miss him all that much - he has an obnoxious Mary Sue lieutenant, a bad joke, and McCoy to keep him company.

And it's not like I dislike Maybri. I just think having a young officer act so snotty to her commanding officer because she can't go exploring is horrid. The fact that her skin darkens according to her feelings only makes me dislike her even more.