Jarulf finished reading Ilium by Dan Simmons
Ilium by Dan Simmons
From the author of the Hyperion Cantos -- one of the most acclaimed popular series in contemporary science fiction -- …
I work in a used book shop in a small town in Sweden. I often prefer to spend my evenings with a book rather than the TV. I mostly read Science Fiction and Fantasy, but the occasional non-genre or literary fiction book slips through as well as well as crime. I read to relax, to escape and recharge. I read shockingly few books in Swedish, my native language, but these tend to be non-fiction.
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From the author of the Hyperion Cantos -- one of the most acclaimed popular series in contemporary science fiction -- …
While I wasn't entirely sold on the first volume of this classic, I am slowly coming around. In the first one, I sometimes found the art a little difficult to make out in the action scenes, but it has either got better or I am better at understanding it. Taking my time on the pages and not rush through them certainly helps. Faces can still be a bit awkward looking, but backgrounds such as castles and landscapes are often gorgeous.
The story is interesting, though I definitely prefer the scenes that doesn't involve fighting, and develop the characters and their relationships. A lot more politics too this time around, something I expect will be a trend for a long while.
I have a the third deluxe edition volume already, and will definitely get to it soon.
Content warning Minor details revealed
Not sure what I think about this one. It's interesting reading about being deaf in Japan and the art is great and very clean. The main character, Yuki, is deaf. She meets exciting world-travelling boy and falls hard. At the same time she has an old hearing friend, a boy, who has learned to sign because of her. And we can see the general direction this is heading, little tropey, but nicely done all the same.
I loved this. It's a realistic slice-of-life portrayal of life for a group of college-age young adults, a slowly developing romance peppered with wild flights of fancy. This mix of mundane realism and more or less weird and bizarre tangents into imagination and memory, with art to match really appealed to me. The way conversations change and go off on unrelated tangents feels very real, and is often pretty funny. If coming volumes are anything like this first one, I can easily see this becoming a favourite of mine.