Too many titles, too little time.
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Yeah I was thinking about this recently. I follow a lot of titles currently (20 of them.) I just started another one (By the Grace of the Gods) and have three more that I have the first volume of them but haven't started yet so don't know if I'm following them ("Master of Ragnarok...", "Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles" and "The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious." Then I have four or five I plan to check out before long and like another dozen for down the line I intend to look at. (Plus five I was following but put on hold but eventually plan to go back to!)
Still it's a happy problem to have. I do sometimes put things on hold to catch up with other ones and don't start some until I've caught up with the one's I just started and want to read. I got really back logged when I started the "Is it wrong to ...dungeon" and its spin offs - it took a while to get caught up with all the English translations which made me fall behind in other series!
If anyone cares here's what I'm current and following right now and current on the English versions:
Altina the Sword Princess
Ascendance of the Bookworm
Asterisk War
Banner of the Stars
Combatants will be dispatched
Death March to Parallel World Rhapsody
Demon Lord Retry
Didn’t I say to make my abilities average in the next life
Goblin Slayer
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom
How not to summon a demon lord
I Shall Survive Using Potions
In Another World with My Smartphone
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
Konosuba
My Next Life as a Villainess
Overlord
Slayers
That time I got reincarnated as a slime
The Magic in this other world is too far behind -
@mystyk said in Too many titles, too little time.:
I find it interesting how several people have mentioned Death March. Among my friends the anime is considered one of the more prominent examples of “really not very good, though not utter trash either”, and in large part I agree, but I found myself surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed the novels and frustrated that most of my friends won’t even take a chance off of what I’m telling them because of their assumptions from the anime.
I read 9 or 10 of the books before watching the anime, and while I've loved the books, I thought that the anime was thoroughly mediocre. It stripped out and simplified stuff too much and lost a lot of what makes the story great in the process. I suspect that I would have liked it more if I'd watched it before reading the books (I almost always dislike an anime if I've read its source material first), but I doubt that I would have thought that it was significantly better without the comparison.
It's true that some anime series that adapt LNs do a good enough job adapting their source material that the anime gives you a very good idea of whether you'd like the books, but that's definitely not always the case. And the Death March anime did not do its source material justice at all - though I certainly wouldn't know how to convince someone to read the books if they thought that the LNs weren't worth reading because of how mediocre the anime was.
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@Kalessin said in Too many titles, too little time.:
It's true that some anime series that adapt LNs do a good enough job adapting their source material that the anime gives you a very good idea of whether you'd like the books, but that's definitely not always the case. And the Death March anime did not do its source material justice at all - though I certainly wouldn't know how to convince someone to read the books if they thought that the LNs weren't worth reading because of how mediocre the anime was.
This is exactly the problem I face. I also thought the anime was mediocre, though in my case I saw the anime first and read a forum post somewhere else talking about how the novel was significantly better so I took a chance. I’m glad that the books have turned out to be not only much better than the anime, but also simply good in general. But it seems that none of my direct friends are willing to make a similar leap even when I vouch for it.
Also, as a related aside, I think death march in particular had one of the more shocking tonal shifts with regard to a our-ethics-vs-the-isekai-world’s topic between the three different media. Take, for example, the scene where Arisa is sent to do some bargaining moments after being introduced to Zena for the first time, and remember that Arisa and Lulu are under a curse to remain as slaves. In the anime the MC comments that it’s mildly sad that they are slaves, but at least they seem happy. In the manga it makes clear that he is bothered by the fact that they are currently slaves and would free them if he could but it also isn’t a priority. In the novel, he’s quite clearly very disturbed by their slavery curse (and by slavery in general) and is looking for an open opportunity to break the curse and free them at the first possible chance (though he also reluctantly acknowledges that the Demi girls who are also reluctantly his slaves may be impossible to free because his status helps protect them from discrimination for being Demis). That’s a huge difference between the three, and feels impossible to reconcile, and it isn’t the only time that happens. That’s not merely “not doing justice” to source material; that’s sabotaging it, whether intentional or not...
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@mystyk
I feel the same way. The novels are lightyears apart from the anime. You just don't know until you actually sit down and read them. Unfortunately, they will have to get to the 3rd volume in order to be hooked for good. Not saying that volumes 1 and 2 are bad, but those were mainly about world and character building, and 3 is where the real story takes off. -
Too many titles, too little time in general. I have multiple TBR piles lying around. I suppose I have to accept I will never be able to read all what I would like to.
When it comes to light novels, there is only one I am currently following: Ascendance of a bookworm. I am very intrigued by Infinite dendrogram, so I might start that one.
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My issue isn't time.. it's money. Too many titles, not enough money to buy them! >A<
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I need to move all my "already read" stuff off the (main) shelves to make room for the "to be read" stuff. But, before that, I need to create my inventory system so I can find stuff after I've read it and it's in boxes. If I box up all the stuff I've already read, there should be JUST enough room on the main shelves for the backlog.
But, then I have to come up with where to store the boxes...
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@SomeOldGuy Oh - this. I buy everything ebook but I double dip with print for things I really like and even then I'm running into that problem. I'm also starting to move my all completed series that I've read elsewhere. Next will have to be ongoing series that I've read the ebook & print book (I sometimes go back and re-read what I've read as ebook in the print version as well.)
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@mwbworld I've been biasing my purchases toward epubs recently, but... If you factor in the Got Anime discount at RightStuf, a LOT of physical volumes are less expensive than their Kindle versions. So, I continue to get 5-10 new "Carbon Sequestering" editions each month.
If I retired from work right now, and stopped buying new stuff, and pulled a Myne, I have at least two years of books queued up.
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@SomeOldGuy said in Too many titles, too little time.:
If I retired from work right now, and stopped buying new stuff, and pulled a Myne, I have at least two years of books queued up.
So what you're saying is if you suddenly died from your books falling on you, your backlog would magically become zero ;o
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros I've engineered it so the mass of books is too low to crush me. Of course, the mass of the house above might be a problem...
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So I've ended up being just picky.
On one hand, I'm just following the things that I like to read right away. For JNC these would be on pre-pubs, with things that don't read that well weekly I'm just leaving them for "later."
Ironically for other publishers, there are a few series that I read right away whenever a new volume is out.
Aside from that, I may end up with whatever random excuse to avoid going through with a series. Like not reading Not Tearmoon for being the series that stops me from getting more Tearmoon sooner.
I also went and counted. I'm currently reading 12 JNC series on prepubs, and 7 series from other publishers the moment new volumes are out. (Plus quite a backlog of things to read "eventually.")
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@SomeOldGuy Yup - RigthStuf is where I get my print LN (& manga) and I love them.
I prioritize eBooks in huge part because of space. I already have 10 bookcases proper filled with books, DVD/Blu-Rays. And with Boston rents expanding my space to accommodate more real media is kind of cost prohibitive - so sometimes it ends up with a Sophie's Choice of what can I get rid of to welcome in new stuff.
And I won't even touch the issue of time to catch up on my reading. Humans live thousands of years so I have plenty of time, right...right? ;-)
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There are a few series I read right away, but a lot of stuff I just read a volume or two a year. That way I can follow a lot of titles because I'm not fussed about keeping current.
I read about 50-100 light novels a year and try to keep things a mix of titles I've already started and new stuff. One thing I like about LNs is even if I haven't read the previous volume in 2 years or more, I can usually remember what's going on after a chapter or two.
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There are series that I read right away, and some I wait until there is a lull in "must read" releases.
For JNC, I buy them, download them, then copy them to an unread folder. I wait until I'm ready to read them before using Calibre to add them to my Kindle.
For other, I pre-order the must read titles, and leave the others in my Shopping List until I'm caught up on all the must read titles and JNC pre-pubs.
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Haven't had to shelve anything yet, but I'm mostly reading JNC's stuff or fan translations of WNs, so even if I build up some backlog over the week, I get caught up on the weekend.
That might change once I start going in on LN purchases for other publishers soon though, but I think I'm still waiting for the volume 1s of stuff that was announced last year that I'm interested in let alone anything that was licensed this year, so I'm not sure it will be a problem given the lengthy turnaround time on releases for some of these series.
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It's a real problem for me, I have tons of LNs I want to read but cannot find the time and the number is only increasing. A partial solution I have adopted is to try at least to read everything I classify as high priority (because I know it suits particuly well my tastes) and come to term with the rest will be probably remain unread. Of course, there are times when I'm in the mood to read something in particular, so the pattern Is frequently broken.
To keep things more under control, when I find a new series, I often look for comments in order to have an idea of how much I would like it, even at the risk of spoiling some bits. -
I can definitely relate, in addition to my novel backlog I also have a show, game, and manga backlog that I'm not sure I will ever get through because new stuff keeps coming out.
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@Lex I try to dedicate some time each night to read in bed. It's supposed to be calming, and help you sleep.
As for getting through the backlog, I'm finding myself re-reading a lot of stuff, like all of Lazy Dungeon Master and Realist Hero, and large portions of others, so I don't advance through it very quickly.
Plus, some books are hard to put down before 2 or 3 (or 4) AM, which screws up the next day... Which lead to my formed signature line about the paper editions not displaying the time properly.
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@SomeOldGuy said in Too many titles, too little time.:
I try to dedicate some time each night to read in bed. It's supposed to be calming, and help you sleep.
Be careful about reading in bed, especially if you're using something with a backlight like a tablet or laptop. The more things you do in bed that aren't sleeping can make it harder to fall asleep as you start to associate being in bed with things that aren't falling asleep. Plus the lights given off by electronic devices can basically trip up your internal clock and make it feel more like the day which makes it harder to sleep.
So if someone does try to do this and finds they are having a harder time falling asleep, I'd recommend reading physical copies (or from an e-reader with orange back lighting) and do it outside of bed until you feel sleepy.
