echo

If you were to read one and only one Brandon Sanderson book it should be this one. He figured out his formula!

I love Brandon Sanderson's books but one thing he has had a problem with is not being able to distill the essence of his book down to less than 1000 pages. A lot of his early work is filled with fluff that doesn't drive the story along and should be cut out. Sometimes he over explains his lore at the expense of the story.

Not here. This is perfect.

Have you ever wished you could go back? Fix those mistakes that keep you up at night. Maybe chase a love that slipped by. Every time Joffrey Baratheon dies he wakes up at the start of ASoIaF. Every lifetime he learns a bit about himself and about the world. We see him torn down till he has no ego and then built up into the man and king that Westeros needs in its final hour. Can Joffrey Baratheon solo the plot of ASoIF? Purple Days isn't finished yet but we will find out soon.

It has limited re-readability in my mind seeing how insufferable Joffrey is at the beginning. Its fairly long but it stays fresh as the tone and setting shifts during each lifetime. The author does a great job giving life to the less visited parts of Planetos. If you like Louis L'Amour then I think you will really like Purple Days. Its almost as if for a third of the book every time Joffrey wakes up he decides to go live a different Louis L'Amour book. Then the tone shifts again and we get a Legend of Zelda story.

Up until now I find the book to be fantastic, even better than ASoIaF. We will have to see how he wraps it up and it may take another year to do that.

This book is fucking weird. I know as a Mormon Orson Scott Card doesn't do any drugs but this book makes me doubt it. Some heavy handed abortion symbolism and other typical Mormon messages tied up in an actual fever dream

Truth, reality, story, fiction. Fact is that if enough people believe something to be true it really isn't much different that just being reality itself. The leviathan binds us all. Lets kill it together.

Oh god what the fuck. I should have seen this coming. Of course One for All passes down all the quirks but really? Super strength wasn't enough. Getting to 100% wasn't enough for the series no we need 1000 anime episodes and 10k chapters. We gotta find the 9 pieces of the 8 One for All quirks. I should have fucking known. This is where the series goes downhill. Up until this point the series has basically made no mistakes and now its just gonna be drawn out and tedious.

This is where Endeavor realizes what he has done to his family.

Ward is longer than Worm and better in many respects. It has better characters and characterization. Better approach to romance and relationships. Better and more personal villains. Its themes of learning to live after trauma is just less fun than the themes of Worm

Kirishima's arc here is hype

This is where the main plot begins. United States of Smash punches through the pages to deliver a blow straight to your heart.

I absolutely hated this story. The overarching plot is pretty good. All of the side characters are fantastic. The story structure could be improved upon with some editing. It was very clever and predictable in a good way. The puns and references were absolutely delightful.

But our main character was dumber than a box of rocks. If you don't think that the main character in a book matters or if you think that story structure isnt important to a story then you will love this book.

For everyone else, lets talk about Aaron.

We are told at the very beginning how intelligent Aaron is. He escapes Unsong by encoding a spell into a story on the fly. He has studied encryption. He broke kilpot. (the encryption system the Government uses to hide spells) Despite all of this he acts like a total idiot and I feel as though the author treats us like we are idiots. He gives a computer a soul so that it can find spells by using spells. NO ONE EVEN CONSIDERS THAT MAYBE THE COMPUTER THAT THEY GAVE A SOUL TO SO THAT IT COULD USE SPELLS...HAS A SOULAND CAN USE SPELLS.We the audience find this out as if its some sort of reveal half way through the book.Aaron gets captured by someone who he doesn't know he can trust. He steals a component to one of her spells because he is rotten and childish. He even says he doesn't know why he does it. (he does it because the plot needs him to) They drive to Vegas to get another component for the spell and on the drive Aaron learns he can trust his captor. He doesn't give the component back because he is worth less than a box of rocks. Aaron is bad at basic problem solving and communication. It seems like this whole conflict with his captor could have been avoided if he just communicated with her. I hate, just hate that story trope. It seems as though in Unsong everyone except Aaron has a brain and can use it to solve problems creatively. The first thing I thought when learning about the Vanishing Spell was if you are in a hairy situation you should put yourself in a parallel, solvable, but different situation then speak the vanishing name so you are more likely to get out alive. Speak all but one syllable of the Vanishing Spell, stick your head in a toilet and say the final syllable. You end up with your head in a toilet somewhere else. Gross but at least you are not dead. The book reveals this to be a solution that other characters use. This would seem to make the reader feel smart for figuring out the solution but all gave me was rage towards Aaron for not seeing such a simple use for the spell. Remember the guy who is an encryption master who encoded a spell into a story right in front of the head of Unsong? Yeah that guy who broke the encryption that the government uses? That guy didn't even consider that maybe GOD HIMSELF could encode a spell into a short paragraph on why evil exists. Aaron does nothing to advance the plot. He is just a passive actor that we see the plot through. I honestly think that if Aaron gets stuffed into a fridge during the Unsong raid the whole story would be much better. My rewrite would have Ana and Aaron wake Sarah and say something like, let's see much good Sarah can accomplish with these names. Unsong raids, Aaron dies and gets stuck in Ana's head but he can still use names (cause that would be cool). Sarah has an interlude of her waking up, getting her primary directive of maximizing goodness done. She learns what good is from the internet and then we have a sort of twisted foil to the comet king. All sorts of hijinks ensue as Sarah does "good" Ana is trying to find and refocus her and the story proceeds as normal but Sarah has a bit more of an active role and Aaron is actually more useful.I was dissatisfied with Metatons answer for why there is evil. Evil does not mean suffering. Metaton needs to explain the lack of miracles as suffering is only evil when Metaton allows it to happen. And when Metaton allows suffering it is Metaton doing evil. Minor flaw as I can't expect an author to solve an issue that has plagued philosophers for thousands of years. I feel like the structure of the plot was sacrificed for the incredible puns and the 72 chapter haMephorash fractal. I don't hold this against the author seeing how incredible that is as a feat and choose to take the book as a poem rather than a coherent novel.

I absolutely loved most of this book. The main character was just garbage. Let me prove it to you.

Aaron is a metaphor for Hephaestus.
He created an automaton of metal to work for him in Sarah. He discovered the gift that God gave to man in the spell that he discovers at the beginning of the book, and created Pandora.
one of Hephaestus's names is Amphigýeis which means “the lame one” referring to how Hephaestus is crippled
“lame” in English also means,
(of something intended to be entertaining) uninspiring and dull.
(of a person) naive or socially inept.

If this book was just bad or forgettable it would be just that. I would move on and ignore this book. But because it is a fantastic piece of literature that is delightful in almost every way I will never stop being angry at how the main character ruined this book for me. I only hate this book because I love it so much.

This is where we start the Todoroki side plot and its fantastic. I really empathize with the kid who has an abusive father that only respects power. Its these moments that really set Boku No Hero apart from other Shounen series. Endeavor isnt some monster he is just a person so focused on his failures that he hurts everyone around him. This is a recurring theme that also shows up in the Bakugō side plot.

A great start to a typical Shounen manga. People like to say that Boku No Hero is a solid Shounen manga that doesn't make mistakes. That is definitely true for these first few chapters

Theft of Fire has the best space combat I have ever read. It is thrilling and engaging. Its also unbearably horny. If you are an Elon Musk fan boy and you want to read a book about a space miner who really really needs to jerk off but can't for some reason then this book is for you.

No doubt this was a masterpiece when it was written and completely revolutionary. When I read it for the first time it was some of the first fiction I had experienced. It shaped my view of the world and how fiction should be written. Looking back I realize how awful it really was. Each story tends to follow a particular pattern. It is not the pattern that is the problem but how it is implemented. Depressed Sherlock has to be convinced into solving a case. He gets excited over some random little detail. We get presented with the facts and Sherlock ponders while taking drugs. He makes an assumption that is wrong and leads him down a rabbit hole where he ends up with nothing. Doyle realizes he has written himself into a corner and Sherlock comes out with some random fact that he found using bullshit means that completely solves the case. Not all of the stories are like this and there are a few fantastic stories. In my opinion good mystery should be solvable by those following along. Set up some good Chekhovs guns in the beginning that an astute reader can pick up on which solve the mystery later when summed with the rest of the clues. Again, some of these stories do just that. Typically though Sherlock solves the mystery by pulling 30 jars of dirt never before mentioned that he collected from around London that he uses to match the dirt on some guys shoe. Deus ex machina defines Sherlock's character which is disappointing cause intelligent people really do exist and don't have to rely on plot contrivances to be clever.

Maybe I am missing the point because most Sherlock spinoffs tend to follow this pattern too. I thought Hound of the Baskervilles was the worst example of this and yet its the most popular Sherlock story.
If you want a mystery story that you have to read multiple times to catch the clues and puzzle out the answer then Sherlock is not your man. These are action adventure novels that star Sherlock as a god tier intellect that just solves the mysteries for you. I really do find it funny that HoB whole point is that logic and reason trumps the supernatural but its Sherlocks supernatural powers of finding exactly the right fact off screen that solves the case. The O.G. Sherlock books are great for people who want to be treated like Watson is treated i.e. like a dumb dumb baby who couldn't possibly solve anything.

TL;DR I like books that are clever and have the solution in the pages. I like rereading books that have the solution in them so I feel clever for putting together the pieces. These books do not leave clues for you to solve Sherlock just does everything for you. This is a collection of passable adventure stories and garbage mystery

Worm is 1.7 million word metaphor on how humans deal with trauma. We tend to let our trauma spiral out of control and cause trauma in others. Most people tend to read it in less than 2 weeks. Almost everyone who starts it finishes it. Upon finishing this book I swapped out all of my political and religious beliefs. Worm is dangerous. It is not without its faults. There is a section about 23 arcs in that drags quite a bit. It is obviously not a final draft and needs major revision.

That wont stop you from reading and rereading Worm. I want to read the sequel but I can't because I am stuck rereading Worm for the 3rd time.

read Worm

Meh, alright.

The occult simply means hidden knowledge. This is a tome of magick. Don't buy this book expecting to understand it. If you want to follow Crowley's footsteps. You will have to work for it. Crowley hid knowledge for you and it is expertly constructed. I am giving this a 2 star because he is simply wrong. There are other, less dangerous ways to learn magick.

This is a study on how cognitive biases effect everything we do. People like to say that Harry in this book is intelligent and rational but the whole point of the book is that he is an idiot who doesn't think through the consequences of his actions even though he may be extremely “intelligent”

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an AI researcher and it shows. Harry is closer to being an AI than a typical 11 year old. He is an insufferable dickhead with no conception towards other peoples feelings. He focuses on the problem at hand and will throw any solution that works at it no matter the consequences. If you were never a self aggrandizing kid who thought they knew everything then you probably will not like this book. I am, I was, I loved it. Like most self published web novels it needs serious editing.

One thing I loved about this was that any mystery in the book is fully solvable before the reveal. If you keep your eyes open and look for clues and piece them together you can fully put together the ending before it happens.

This “book” isnt meant to be read. It is meant to be meditated over. Go front to back, then back to front. Then “read” it upside down. Then read it standing on your head while the book is upside down. Then you should read it while the pages are facing away from you. After that tear out each page, shuffle them around and read them in random order. Hide the pages around the house and read them when you find them. Maybe you will begin to understand it. Maybe not. Maybe thats the whole point. That nothing is comprehensible, not even this book