The prose work was compelling enough to get me through a bit of a frenetic start. But, as per usual, the interconnected short story type format left me unable to connect to all parts of the narrative. I always felt at a distance, casually engaged, never really invested fully in the characters. But the writing is strong enough and engaging, so that it exceeded my expectations still, which is quite a feat, really.

I doubt this will age too well with me, considering only one story / character resonated fully, but it’s a quick read. 3.5 rounded up.

The brutality ramps up, but this, taking place in Guts’ past, does some work on humanizing him. Having already witnessed his cruelty, things are making a bit more sense as to why. And the larger thematics revolving around trauma are more interesting than juvenile arbitrary plot beats, such as a man’s wife gets corrupted and cheating on him with some weird god thing, and the events afterwords.

It also syncs up with my memories of the anime, which are disjointed with his being a merc here, running into Griffith and band, but also his battle with a creature in a previous volume - so I guess I saw a bunch of it and it’s all jumbled up in the noggin’, since it’s been decades.

Anyway, it is improving, so I will continue with it. I don’t think we’ve gotten into exceeding expectations (4 star territory), though. As an improvement to something I would have put down if I wasn’t urged to continue does not mean it’s great, as yet.

Cute, funny, great art. Surprisingly good action, when it comes up. Pretty blatantly emotionally manipulative, but it’s a weird mash-up that somehow works. I’ve actually watched the first episode of the anime previous to this and while the second volume is coming from the library, I think I prefer the anime, overall. Anya is cuter (somehow) in it, and otherwise it seems the same.

This really picks up in the final (sixth) volume. With better art, FAR better dialogue and character development, and plot beats that aren’t just battles-for-pacing. But that also is not the case until the very end of this omnibus. Perhaps the last 100 pages, if I was being generous. Overall, I expect the next one to be of 4 star quality, though, so I’ll be pushing on, for sure.

There is a definite misogynistic, juvenile tinge to this that is a product of its time. It’s going away though. Slowly but surely, it is getting more mature. Even Casca is finally getting some character development. Stagnant Guts, too.

In this volume, there’s some interesting questions being begged of the reader: Is this future, then, a nightmare born of Griffith’s ambition? The toad-like, glutenous count is mirrored in the nobleman who helps plot the attempt on Griffith. A demon? possibly? As seen in the future, makes a first appearance here and elides the fight because of the Necklace Griffith has, which we’ve seen in the future. I think Guts’ was wearing it maybe, but I can’t recall now.

If this future is completely due to the whims of the powerful attempting to co-opt Griffith, even as he looses his ambitions to transform it into a living hell—that actually is pretty interesting as a concept. Thematically, it would at least be attempting to say more than most dark fantasy, the genre tending towards writers who tend to have really juvenile ideas about pessimism and related areas, and communicate them via their “dark” world just being about rape and murder and almost always just trying to say morality isn’t “real”. Here’s hoping this aspires to more. It seems to.

The first marked improvement in each aspect of the craft. But I especially was impressed with the scene where Griffith is overheard at the fountain by Guts and Casca. Previously, Griffith has been intentionally opaque, but with this scene we get a dip into some mature character development for all three characters.

Annoyingly, it is somewhat trampled on later, when the 80s and 90s manga tradition of just really bad writing for women comes into play. But even this became slightly more nuanced and less, basically every guy calling Casca a bitch so we know she’s Not Like Other Girls, but yet still very much sexualized like one. I did like where it ended though; Casca finally clawing a minuscule amount of agency with her backstory. Though, her sucking in battle because it’s that time of the month is so eye roll 80s.

I debated on whether, even with the much better dialogue and Griffith scene this merited a 4 star, and I think so. Mostly because the Casca chapter slighted her, but tried to be more nuanced in the end, and I honestly don’t think that’s typical of manga written when this was. I still read some that are worse, and just plain fan service.

While the previous chapters are frenetic in pacing, this one slows right down in favour of character work, presumably to set up an earned downfall with the band of the Hawk, given what we know about Griffith. It’s Guts first run in as a young person (I think?) with an outright beast, of which he fights as a daily occurrence in those first couple volumes. The key seems to be in the necklace of Griffiths, which we’ve seen in the future as well.

The plotting is good enough. The dialogue remains very comic booky. Meaning… bad to passable. I’m really hoping for the largest increase in skill to be in this area. Though, you’d think with how many comic books I’ve read I’d be somewhat immune, I also do not rate comics that highly, though they’re enjoyable, just because of my requirement of exceeding expectations 4 stars being a fairly hard nut to crack, and I’ve read literal thousands of comics at this point in my life. But the ones that are most highly rated tend to be more literary. Sandman, various Moore, etc..

Still, as with other volumes it is maturing. We’ve clearly moved on to just naked women being used as emotional plots marching to their deaths and battles-as-pacing. Although, ironically, it’s outright stated that his development as a person across the… 4ish years? Is stunted, which is used as character development.

This is probably the most successful book I’ve read by Stephenson, but it still falls into the category of, well, technically you’ve written a novel territory. As a maxamilist effort, the thematic depth and range one wants from such a thing is not present. As usual, the character work dips into casual phobias, with the narrator somehow always attempting to be neutral but completely biased towards the characters’ thinking, and this dissonance distancing myself as the reader from any real suspension of disbelief.

If the goal is to show how the terrible milieu is the engine and catalyst both, for progress… it somewhat comes together, in the end. I think it could have been easily achieved, much more elegantly in hundreds of pages (easily) left off. Stephenson is fairly adroit at communicating more complex science and maths to a reader. But after reading something like, say, When We Cease To Understand the World, the comparison makes this feel like a very commercial work, and not a literary one. It doesn’t make it bad. It does make it less engaging, memorable, or impressive. In fact, that book communicates what this one does, much more to boot, and was an impactful, tremendous read.

I had this on my list only because it’s listed as cyberpunk (which it is not even remotely), and I’ve got an ongoing project to read that sub genre. This does feature cryptology and computers and various systems, but boy is it not punk, nor are the characters, even remotely. It has no hallmarks of the regular run or the post era, so I really don’t get that classification. I still own the sequel, Reamde, however. I wonder if that is and these get lumped in together, or something.

Regardless, this is more of the same from Stephenson, I think. If you already like him and you’re alright with his… quirks, I guess - you’ll probably like this, too. If, like me, you’ve never been impressed and actively disliked Snow Crash, I would advise you to move along, move along.

This was somewhat slippery, in a few different ways, but quite an enjoyable experience, especially as the author narrating. Where so many authors simply should not ever be narrating their story, this author is pretty excellent.

It’s a pretty grim story, focusing on the many, many creatures of passage, which almost feels adjacent to magical realism, given how often the fiction normalizes unexplained supernatural perceptions of some of the cast. A medium who sees only specific details, sometimes more symbolic than anything; other times she sees specific details, just, for instance, the face of the person being blank. Or the main character driving a car with a kind of impulse taking her to people and places where they ought to be/go.

All of the people are marginalized, preyed upon, suffer ranges of trauma, and continue to go on with their lives. But the most dark area is a child predator creeping amongst them as they try to go on.

The prose are poetic and compelling, but do sometimes leave more subjective space for what is actually happening, which made me confused. It’s usually clarified, but not always. The ending was satisfying and brought into focus some of the slippery parts. I can see some people not making it that far, though.

Like all good noir, it manages to get underneath your skin, twist up your guts, and then finished with an ice pick right to the heart. It is the ultimate Characters Get What They Need, Not What They Want genre, I think. At least, when it’s done right, as this does. Note that they don’t get what they necessarily deserve.

Dressing it up in super heroes is still as satisfying as ever too. There’s generally no room for nuanced morality in them, let alone taking it to noir country, where no one is Good at all. Mostly, it’s an exercise in unforeseen consequences and finding a way to live with yourself. Which, you would think super heroes would do a little more often, frankly.

This was going along somewhat nicely, in pseudo maxamilist Stephenson fashion, except for the last part. Boy, does this grind to a halt in favour of a convoluted, boring shoot out in the wilds of BC. It is far, far too long. But criminally, it also transforms the mostly nerdy characters into something incredulous: competent action heroes with wild thought processes around the situation and their actions.

I was shaking my head when it was just nerds going to China to track down other nerds in charge of digital currency reminiscent of the Diablo 2 fiasco. When it starts venturing into techno thriller territory with that particular cast, I was willing to go along, up to a point. At least, for something marked as cyberpunk, there was an identifiable sub culture within the digital game. The game itself was probably a lot more interesting when the book came out, as is, books centering MMOs always lose me a bit, just because they sound so stupid. Their characters and the magic system and other sub systems, all of it just… doesn’t sound interesting at all, and is a bit cringe, to be honest.

Then it goes into spies and drugs and things, which again, I’m willing to roll with. As an entire package though, it all comes together rather unconvincingly. It doesn’t help that Stephenson never met a plot beat he didn’t want to make 100 pages or so. Thankfully this ends my foray into his books. Last book owned, all because of my trek into cyberpunk, which this isn’t. Quest over. Still a better story than these books…