JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook
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I can finally catch up on Housekeeping Mage and Full Clearing! Thanks!
I hope newcomers to D-Genesis enjoy the series. It's one of my favorites. x3
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It's interesting that Land Mines and D-Genesis are two of the choices for this month, because they're flawed in very similar ways. They both suffer from the authors not knowing what the most important thing is to focus on, at any given moment.
In the case of Land Mines, this turns into completely random digressions of stuff that has nothing to do with anything. For D-Genesis, it's replacing character development with pop culture references.
I'd been keeping mostly up to date with Land Mines, but stopped buying the books once it was clear that the author wasn't going to get any better at his bad habits. I hadn't read D-Genesis before, and it seemed to have a pretty strong start; for a while, I was almost convinced that it was Land Mines, but competent -- at least in terms of advancing the plot. Then I realized how much time I was spending skipping over the absurdly detailed science explanations and random pop culture references.
I could excuse the former because the main characters are researchers, but the latter took me straight out of the story. A lot of the references are incredibly obscure -- and yet, somehow, every single character knows them by heart. Once I understood this, I realized that the characters weren't being written or developed at all; they're all stand-in cyphers for the author's incredibly specific pop culture tastes. It was quirky and fun for one book; by book 3, it's pretty tiresome.
I haven't read Ready Player One or seen the movie, but D-Genesis feels a lot like how the worst reviews of RPO describe them -- an obsessive list of references without substance. That's probably a bad sign.
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I'd had To Another World...with Land Mines on my list of books to check out one day and lo and behold, I can now check it out.
I'd also been hearing about Full Clearing for a while now so I will also check that one out. Soap is short and looks sweet so I may round out my June reading with that. Looks like this month will be quite full for me. :) -
@Blindside said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
Land Mines and D-Genesis are two of the choices for this month, because they're flawed in very similar ways. They both suffer from the authors not knowing what the most important thing is to focus on, at any given moment.
To each their own. To me, precisely this aspect of both these novels makes them some of my favorites. The way they dither about is the way my mind works. There are very many other stories that go and expand in ways I don't care about (I skip food preparation and food consuming and especially the stereotypical gushing about the taste of food, but also almost all fighting sequences if they last more than a few paragraphs). Let's just agree that we find joy in reading some - or many - of these light novels and this is why we come here on a regular basis.
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@Blindside said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
I could excuse the former because the main characters are researchers, but the latter took me straight out of the story. A lot of the references are incredibly obscure -- and yet, somehow, every single character knows them by heart. Once I understood this, I realized that the characters weren't being written or developed at all; they're all stand-in cyphers for the author's incredibly specific pop culture tastes. It was quirky and fun for one book; by book 3, it's pretty tiresome.
I think it's more that the two main characters are like-minded with a fair amount of overlap in the trivia they know, partly from being co-workers for years. And they both don't have all of the same bits of trivia, for example she's much more of a food and wine nerd.
But if it isn't for you, it isn't for you. Forcing yourself to read something you don't enjoy just because other people enjoy it is a waste of your time.
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@topgnu said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
(I skip food preparation and food consuming and especially the stereotypical gushing about the taste of food, but also almost all fighting sequences if they last more than a few paragraphs).
whoa I feel the same way. The food is kind of a given, but it always surprises me how reluctant I am to read fight scenes
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@rkkn said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
@topgnu said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
(I skip food preparation and food consuming and especially the stereotypical gushing about the taste of food, but also almost all fighting sequences if they last more than a few paragraphs).
whoa I feel the same way. The food is kind of a given, but it always surprises me how reluctant I am to read fight scenes
I don’t like fight scenes that are basically ‘my kung-fu is stronger!’
I do like fight scenes where the protagonist is being clever, and putting their skills and environment to creative use. Infinite Dendrogram can be very good at this, though they also have an unfortunate taste for Kung-fu fighting as well.
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@saidahgilbert said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
I'd also been hearing about Full Clearing for a while now so I will also check that one out.
I have found Zero Believers to be a surprisingly good read; the MC is a fun oddball who finds creative solutions to get out of jams and there is good banter between the main cast. I've enjoyed enough to have purchased the volumes for rereading, which is quite the stamp of approval from me.
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@Lily-Garden said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
I have found Zero Believers to be a surprisingly good read;
I was waiting for Zero Believers to be made available in catchup, and after 2 1/2 volumes I am quite fond of it. If only the moronic squabble of the pseudo harem and a combatively dense protag could not be front and center. Oh well. I have seen worse
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@topgnu That sounds like 異世界支配のスキルテイカー ゼロから始める奴隷ハーレム except it's only because he hasn't discovered a means of contraception. And eventually, he does.
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I’ve been needing to pick up vol 6 of How NOT to Summon and was waiting for a good month of catch-ups in order to resubscribe and get it. This month did it and I’m loving SOAP so far. Hope to finish that and read a volume of Zero Believers. Great selection of catch ups!
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I have caught up to D-Genesis and am streaming it as it comes out (I am happy to report).
I should have the fourth Land Minds Volume completed later today. I do not think I will be able to catch up totally on the series but am fine with it. I like the story but it does get long in the tooth due to whole parts being only about food. I do not mind some slice of life in my rpg story (I really enjoy those parts) but I it does feel the story is longer than it has to be (for me). I suppose if I wasn't streaming so many books and had a huge backlog of other books I would have the time to try and push it until the end of the month. I will simply wait until it comes back on catchup.
I also read the first two volumes of Soap but will not officially finish it. I did go ahead in the last volume by reading a few parts and then skimming through it. My thought is that it was all about sweetness on one hand but I keep thinking it got a bit heavy handed in certain events in V3 which really turned me off (though as I mentioned above I did want to read the ending).
I have read 72 books through the premium service so far (started in January) so I am getting my money's worth from catchups, streaming and the coins we get as part of the package (which I use to rent books).
I also got hooked into playing Diablo 4 (My adult kids are all playing and it is quite fun being with the family co-op). That has shortened my reading time on the last third of June.
My grandkids are coming to visit first week of July so I am hoping that there will not be as many series that I want to read in July (never thought I would think that). I bought Curious George and Thomas the Tank Engine collections (They are almost 2 & 3 1/2 years old so that should be fun to read to them).
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@geetop said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
I also got hooked into playing Diablo 4 (My adult kids are all playing and it is quite fun being with the family co-op). That has shortened my reading time on the last third of June.
A worthy pursuit! I'm level 67 and currently the only thing left to do is grind to 100. No new content unlocks at Tier 4 (aside from unique items), so I'm taking a break until the first patch, then I'll get back into it for season 1 in July.
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Finished and really enjoyed Soap- now I’ve just finished the first volume of Full Clearing and despite having a very standard Isekai set-up, I liked it a lot better than I expected to. Will I have time to read Vol 2 before the month is up?
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@the-green-death said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
Finished and really enjoyed Soap- now I’ve just finished the first volume of Full Clearing and despite having a very standard Isekai set-up, I liked it a lot better than I expected to. Will I have time to read Vol 2 before the month is up?
The cast of not at all normal characters is what makes zero clearing fun for me.
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@HarmlessDave said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
@the-green-death said in JNC's June Catchup Travel Guidebook:
Finished and really enjoyed Soap- now I’ve just finished the first volume of Full Clearing and despite having a very standard Isekai set-up, I liked it a lot better than I expected to. Will I have time to read Vol 2 before the month is up?
The cast of not at all normal characters is what makes zero clearing fun for me.
Having a
crazydifferently sane MC does make the story more interesting than the premise would suggest... -
@HarmlessDave Yep, it's fun. I can't believe that I didn't start it before. Now I'm all caught up and when my budget clears up, I might even start buying the books.
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A bit late for a reminder, but June catchups will be changing on Monday, July 3, around morning US time. Get your catchup reading done before then!
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I just finished volume 4 of Zero Believers. Not sure I'll catch up by the end of the month, but it's going to be fun to attempt it. Although it is quickly heading into the territory of a full-on harem, I must say this is one of the best-done harems I've seen in a long time. The first two girls did fight with each other a bit when it first became obvious that they both liked him, but they eventually settled on sharing him, and have been best friends ever since (and have even gotten a bit romantic with each other a few times - ironically they've been more intimate with each other than they have been with the MC so far). As new people have been added to the harem, the existing members express disdain initially that he's picked up yet another girl, but once they actually join in, they're welcomed to the club and they all get along. The MC seems to care more about them getting along with each other than he does about actually being in love with any of them himself. He got hit with the proverbial clue-by-four at the end of volume 4, so he actually understands that he has a harem now and not just a bunch of girls he's friends with. :-) I've always enjoyed cooperative harems a lot better than the ones where everyone's constantly vying to be first on the MC's list all the time. I'll have to see if it remains that way throughout the rest of the story as he will obviously pick up more, or if any of them will become combatitive with the peers.
Of course, the best part is that him collecting a harem isn't even what the story is about, that's just a sideshow to keep us entertained between plot points. :-) There is actually a real plot going on in the foreground with the journey to unravel the harm done by the consolidation of power to the celestial gods 1000 years ago, and the MC has actually been doing a fair bit of fighting on his own without the assistance of his super-powered harem.
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I actually was able to complete Land Mines this week though a little behind on my weekly streaming.
I didnt try to read Zero Believers as I was reading the Manga for it (was it on a catchup recently - cannot remember).
See everyone on next month's catchup thread!
