This starts off somewhat rocky, feeling a lot like something you could pick up on a rack at the grocery store, once-upon-a-time. Thankfully, around three quarters in the plot gets more nuanced and interesting because the one dimensionality of the dialogue and its delivery leaves a lot to be desired in contrast to the show. Which makes sense, I imagine that would be in the actors prerogative and not something in a script.

It’s a fun, commercial fiction romp, but not a substitute for an episode. I didn’t get the feeling I was getting more out of the book than watching a show, and that’s what a tie-in should be all about. I also mistakingly picked this up before I’d watched the movie, ruining a few parts of that for me before I stopped the audiobook. Whoops. So, yeah, if you haven’t watched seasons 1-3 and the movie, don’t pick it up. The recap at the start is thorough. Also. Surprisingly, Bell isn’t that great a narrator. Not so bad as I’ve come across. She’s good at differentiating the characters, but otherwise the performance is pretty wooden.

I wasn’t quite sure how this could end satisfyingly, but I actually thought this came together rather perfectly, ending on its own terms. I always like contradictory characters best, and as we see in plain terms here, all of the characters we met were. Patrick’s feelings regarding them more so, which is to be expected at funerals. Dredging up the past presents the possibility of symmetry for the story too, allowing for catharsis, or the denial of it.

Perhaps surprisingly, I found this to be the most laugh-out-loud instalment as well. I’ve always found the biting humour in the previous ones as something that would make me smile, but I found myself chuckling at the grocery store, listening to the excellent audiobook of this (the narrator sounds so much stylistically like the one of Pushing Daisies I couldn’t help but feel some cross connection).

It’s nice to finally get to a post-cyberpunk staple. Though, the “post” gets a lot of confusion for this sub genre particularly. There are works that are a reaction to cyberpunk, being post in the literary sense, and then there are people who mean post as in simply after cyberpunk because it “died”. I don’t think genre can die. People contribute to it, so it’s alive. This is decidedly just after the main movement, and in a technological age where the technology that was supposition has been fleshed out by virtue of time and advancement.

This also reads as something decidedly different, but keeps the high tech low life aspects. It is technical heavy, bordering on hard scifi. Personally, I think of hard scifi as having the technology and plot be something plausible and possible. I suppose you could say post singularity humanity Could end up here, but it is Snow Crashian in its bombastic wildness that it doesn’t seem so, to me. Sentient crustaceans being the kicker, the characters and plot beats are more fun than anything. A theme comes together throughout too, but it all feels beside the point, really, with the main goal shoving in the ideas to a workable plot that barely engages (Neal Stephenson, that you? {especially Anathem}).

I tend to like scifi that interrogates the human condition in a relatable way I can ruminate, possibly internalize. This is not that either. It’s a wild romp that had me questioning the purpose of what was happening more often than thinking about the ramifications of upgrading pets (or their agency), and when it was all done, I just sort of shrugged and said to myself, well that happened.

An interesting new arc, where the party reunites with Denken as he goes home, something we heard about in the previous arcs multiple times. But even more interestingly is the new villain: a demon who inhabits the land under a barrier and who has turned everything into a kind of fools gold, including would be adventurers who have tried to kill him. Frieren was defeated by him and Denken has some past with him.

If not for the filler-esk sections, where the same information is reiterated so many dang times, this would be another five star instalment. But it’s just too slow at moving things along without it feeling like it is purposefully dragging its feet. Otherwise, very cool setup and I enjoyed the flashbacks and cameos from other mages we’ve already met.

This series is consistently good at creating interesting obstacles. About half the book is the memories of the villain and the later half is setup and stakes for the fight that’s coming. A few little surprises help to keep you on your toes, such as the return of another villain. Fun stuff. I always prefer the more quiet arcs but even still, seeing Frieren galaxy brain people is also a heck of a good time.

3.5 rounded up

As usual, this is also somewhat of a mixed bag. On one hand, by the end, we finally get a lot of progression of the macro plot and a bunch of lore that explains some of what’s going on with Griffith and the eclipse. On another, Casca still gets the shit end of the stick, purely being a foil for Griffith and Guts, and is put in either danger or emotional circumstances to elicit a reaction from either character, including sexual assault. And a good a third of the volume is a really, really long fight that wasn’t very interesting, as it’s just Guts doing the same old: getting real beat up and being stubborn while bleeding and broken, and then winning anyway.

Decent cliffhanger though.

While the sexual components still feel pretty infantile aside from believable intimacy between Guts and Casca, the development of the plot in this one moves forward immensely. There is some neat world building around an ancient city and ruler in history. Stuff with Griffith finally moves along. Development of the Princess is pretty good, and the mmm demons? Or whatever they are, begin manifesting more so. I wonder if whatever’s happened to the world in the first couple volumes is taking place already?

Another reoccurring motif from before this flashback is the semi demonic beast dude and a harem of women. Only in the previous volumes it was how that road looking ruler guy discovered his wife had been corrupted or something. I’m pretty sure the creatures looked pretty similar. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ties into the future though, since this is the second similar thing that’s happened now. The other king also being incestuous towards his daughter too.

An overlong fight sequence coupled with Casca yet again getting into trouble she needs to be saved from, only this time with sexual assault as a motivator for Guts with the presumably erotic nudity of her hanging around just to run to Guts with TnA at its conclusion.

There is a small amount of lore dropped at the very end, but it’s still a full volume of just one fight and more frankly boring treatment of Casca and women in general. The black dogs pillaging and sexual assault on gratuitous display being the only way to try to establish any stakes, since so little is known and it’s difficult to keep one-upping bad guys when the only thing you’ve got is mysterious demons, gore, and rape at your disposal.

Finally a whole load of stuff is revealed. Basically all of it is a lore dump. The behelit chain thingy is explained, what the eclipse is, what Griffith is up to. All pretty interesting and the grotesquery is back in force as more demonic stuff goes down. We even learn about the brand on Guts’ neck! Loads of pay off and a good cliffhanger as it’s really hard to say what will happen to the band of the hawks, because we haven’t seen them in the future does not necessarily mean everyone is killed.

Generally, Casca has been merely a foil for Guts and Griffith though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if something terrible happens to her, now that the story seems to have outlived that particular eventuality, and she’s already been undermined, sexually assaulted, and had sex with Guts, in any outdated horror she’d certainly be on the chopping block, how else could a woman serve the purpose of a story, after all?

3.5 rounded up

This has everything you could want from an Iron Fist story, I’d wager. The wrap up of the last arc, nicely tailing into another. Three antagonists, one of which in a Kung fu tournament, the lore of Danny’s father story alternating with the current events, and a mysterious subplot that dovetails into the heroes for hire people.

It knows what tropes to hit on and which to subvert, making new characters compelling and the reveal of Davos’ backstory a contrast with the plot. It’s really tight and super fun. A good example of an author knowing the genre and the character and using it to full effect, with the partnership of some fantastic art. The annual is really spotty though, I must say. So many different artists, only a couple of which that are really good. But the annual is just a bonus thing, and apart from the arc, so I won’t knock it from the collections rating. And it’s not bad, I just dislike inconsistent art, personally.