SF
Isekai: 1.2
Naturally she skipped out without paying. One moment she was eating her third tofu-and-artichoke pizza, the next she was gone. Which was odd, since I’d been checking her out every thirty seconds for the past hour. Mostly because she was a very enthusiastic eater and wasn’t wearing underwear, just a skimpy little outfit that walked the fine line between party dress and party favor.
Maybe I should have noticed that her dress had no room to hide a wallet, but the things it was hiding, barely, were a lot more interesting. She did leave a note behind that read “see you soon”, which was both promising and a bit worrying.
I checked the street outside, but there was no sign of her. I asked the three other customers if they’d seen which way she went, but they’d barely noticed she was there. It wasn’t until I got off work that I found out where she’d disappeared to: my apartment. More specifically, my shower, which she was coming out of as I walked in. Naked. Her, not me.
“You owe me $47, lady.”
“Think of it as buying me dinner first, so we can move on to the greatest night of your life. Also the last.”
Isekai: 1.1
It wasn’t an amazing life, but it was comfortable. I had a job, an apartment, a hobby, and even the occasional girlfriend. Okay, the job was assistant manager at a pizza joint, the apartment was upstairs, and the hobby was an obscure martial arts school on the third floor, but the nearby college was chock-full of pretty girls, which meant the restaurant was, too.
It was slow when she walked in, that mid-afternoon lull when everyone’s finished lunch and gone back to work or class. She was pretty enough that I was surprised she was alone, but when I went over to take her order, I understood: she was nuts.
Usually it takes at least a few minutes to figure out that a college girl is completely bonkers, but then, they usually don’t open the conversation with, “tomorrow you will die, and then I shall assume control of your fate”.
“I’ll be right back with our vegan menu.”
Isekai: Prologue
I was not run over by a truck.
I also wasn’t shot, stabbed, electrocuted, poisoned, buried alive, eaten by wild animals, or chased off a cliff by angry bees. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain that I actually died. I only have her word for it, and she wasn’t a reliable source. Hot, though.
She said I’d have five months to learn my way around, master my powers, and forge alliances, then defeat a rampaging Demon Lord and save the world. That was ten years ago. I haven’t seen her since.
I haven’t seen anyone since. Not a human, elf, dwarf, orc, goblin, dragon, ghost, giant, sentient tree, or talking rock. Well, there was that time I ate some rather spectacularly purple berries and everything talked to me, but it went away after a few days.
Also, powers? Unless you count “not dying from hunger”, nothing’s shown up yet.
In short, no powers, no Demon Lord, no friends, no enemies, no monsters, no villages, no damsels in distress, no damsels period. Nothing but trackless wilderness and tasty-looking animals that are really hard to catch.
I am the chosen Hero.
I am alone.
I live in a cave.
I eat bugs.
Summoned To Another World To Defeat The Demon Lord, I Arrived 5,000 Years Too Early, So I’m Stuck In A Cave Eating Bugs
No. Just 'no'.
Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League: this blurb reeks:
Still mourning the losses of his beloved Penny Priddy and his surrogate father Professor Hikita, Buckaroo Banzai must also contend with the constant threat of attack from his immortal nemesis Hanoi Xan, ruthless leader of the World Crime League. To make matters worse, Planet 10 warrior queen John Emdall has sent her Lectroid legions against Earth with a brutal ultimatum. Or is her true target Buckaroo Banzai? As the apocalyptic threats continue to mount, only Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers stand in the way of global destruction.
The listing also says “568 pages”, which is approximately 567 too many.
Culture clash
My Amazon wish list recently contained this happy news:
The reason Look to Windward was so much more expensive than any of the other Culture novels was that it was owned by a different publisher. Who has finally decided that a 19-year-old SF ebook should not be priced like a 2020 hardcover.
Downside: books 7-10 have off-by-one errors in the series titling (“Book N-1”), and books 4-6 are out of print in the US, and not available as ebooks. Pretty sure they’re on my shelves somewhere, though.
Unrelated, this categorization is not an error, it’s the work of Corona-chan:
My dentist is in full-body hazmat gear, because it’s a solo practice; if she gets sick, the whole place shuts down again.
(and I get to go back to her soon with a brand-new annual budget, so “drill, baby, drill!”)
Unrelated bleg
Does anyone remember the network vendor from The Before Times who used a soviet-looking travel poster to advertise their product with a tagline like “Welcome to Zeroslotlan”? Google and DDG have been unhelpful.
Peace Talks didn't suck
Given the direction that Butcher is taking things, I can see why he had to give up trying to fit it into one book. As is, it’s still bursting at the seams. As expected, however, if you’re not 100% up-to-date on the short stories, there are some things you’ll miss. Like why Carlos is bitter and badly injured.
Finally, Alita
One of the side effects of having the power go out Saturday night was checking the Amazon app on my iPad to see what I had downloaded, and suddenly remembering that I hadn’t watched Alita yet.
I have only a very vague acquaintance with the source material, and while I could see a few seams and obvious cuts, I found the result quite entertaining. In particular, the Big Eyes that seemed off-putting in early publicity shots quickly faded into the background as Just Part Of The Character, helped by the fact that no one ever called attention to it. Honestly, the only thing I disliked is that Jennifer Connelly is in desperate need of some calories. The severe look worked for the character, but oh, what has been lost.
The usual discrepancy between media reviewers (61%) and movie-watchers (91%) once again demonstrates how irrelevant they’ve become to the whole process. (not that every movie I like gets high audience ratings; I may be the only person in the world who thinks the Sam Rockwell/Anna Kendrick flick Mr. Right is a fun romp with high rewatch value)
