I would have loved to see an illustration (color preferred) of Alna's party outfit...

1st paladin: Time to blow smoke!
2nd paladin: Time to bust heads!
3rd paladin: Time to take names!
4th paladin: Bwa, ha, ha, ha!

@Phabiohost said in Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time Vol. 9 Discussion!:

Also the new Knight Commander being just as stupid as the original may actually be the most realistic part of the setting. Why are the people that suck seemingly only replaced with equally shitty people...

At least the king put him in his place explaining that there wouldn't always be Invited around and they should plan as much as they could without them just to make sure they'd still be prepared in the future if they ever did have to do it again without them.

@kuali said in The Blue Sea of Marielle Clarac:

This series is based on the real world right before World War I.

Huh. I would have guessed earlier - probably some point in the mid 1800s, with the equivalent of the Franco-Prussian War still to come...

Agreed. I was surprised by the author's comments alluding to this fact.

What do you mean last volume?

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@Cryten said in Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse! Vol. 3 Discussion!:

Something that interests me is that over these last two pre-pub chapter we have discovered that the enchanted monster stones that the master (and now the golems) have created are being called magestones. The same name as the ancient relics the other nations have found around (And the central magguffin of the one used by the humans).

What interests me is that they are sentient. Given that little wiggle when the kids said thank you.

@xdbx without knowing the inner workings of J-Novel Club, all we can do is speculate. I am assuming that they initially only licensed the first 5 volumes of the series as at the time, neither volume 6 or 7 was confirmed to ever be published. As J-Novel Club has never knowingly dropped a series being translated, they may have been waiting for volume 7 to be released and volume 8 to be added to the publishers release schedule before they attempt to license all three volumes for translation.

Of course, once they acquire the rights to the books, they then need to fit it into their translation schedule, ideally keeping the same translators and editors for the first 5 volumes to insure a consistent "voice" to the translations. Of course those individuals haven't been sitting idle this whole time and have started translating other series and need to wait for a break in between those volumes in order to start translating volume 6, 7, and hopefully 8.

I hope we get something other than battles soon.

The complete lack of romance and the fact that Liam acts as a puppet for everything not involving magic are the reasons I only read a summary and the final part for the last two volumes.

Did they decide to sic bodyguards on Fam without telling her?

The first story was the best one, mainly because I'm a fan of horror. A bit of the shame the Scooby-Doo ending, but a real horror story wouldn't have worked too well with an overpowered protagonist.
The curry story would've irritated me a lot if it was part of a main volume.
The shark story was fun and I learned there are sequels of Sharktopus which is invaluable intel. Ti,e to plan for a B-movie marathon.
The other stories were fine, although while I'm fine with the talking (well, at least telepathically) cat, I hope we won't end up with an overpowered little girl later in the main story.
I do agree that is annoying that Kei isn't doing anything with the girls that are clearly after him but I'm totally expecting zero romance until the end when he'll just marry Miyoshi.

@xdbx I'll be fine with just her being troubled instead of the usual "everything is going as I planned".

Mikhail reminds me of myself with I was young...idealistic, arrogant, irritated by those older than me who didn't see my potential or understand my intellect.
Yes, I was indeed a chunibyou.

That was cute. I wouldn't mind more, but I also think the story has a respectable ending, so it doesn't need more.

Somehow, in my mind's eye, Ruka kind of overlaps with Manatsu from "Girlfriend Limited to Seven Days".

I was amused when Suela needed some of Ruka's terminology translated into "older person language". I did also!

Speaking of translation, this one must have been incredibly difficult to translate in such a way that the youth culture carries over credibly. But it certainly seems like they succeeded, so complements to the translator Gwendolyn Warner and editor Ren Alea.

@grobinson2k1 Skipping town lets you avoid heat, but it comes at the cost of any established connections you've made. Easy for some random adventurer, hard for a noble. And if you've engaged in a contest at a specific location, it's not gonna help you win it (even if they went to another city and bought ranks or something, it's not like the guild here would forget what happened and they'd be suspicious).

@Cryten said in Heir to a Monstermancer Vol. 1 Discussion:

I really enjoyed this first novel. A pickup for me for certain. The afterword seems to indicate that the story is intended to be a short story possibly ending in volume 2.

I understood the afterward only to indicate that the first draft of the volume was originally quite long -- so long the publisher split it into two. That may be why the first volume lacks the usual 6-10 illustrations: the standard number were commissioned then half of them rolled into the split-off second volume.

Niice. Really nice.

@rkkn I also liked the joke. I thought her being that quick to jump on the first solution she thinks of no matter how crazy is a funny gag. But it's like the entire setting is built on people being that stupid regularly and that breaks my immersion.

Can we please not make the prey so sympathetic...

Great ride from beginning to end, and I loved the world building. Its been a while since I last saw such a coherent well paced narrative as this story's.

Vesper sounds like he's having a real identity crisis, and will probably end up being a nuisance to Aurora/Lam just like her three apprentices.