Community Updates (From 1 To 3)

29 1月 2024

Update #1: Posts on What I’m Reading on the Side?

Are people interested in posts where I simply talk about the recent books I’ve read, the good and the bad? I’m still figuring out what I want for Kansoulations (it’s tempting to talk about doujin media and trains here) and I am afraid of alienating my audience.

But I could be overthinking here if people are just interested in whatever the hell I’m reading right now. I am somewhat self-conscious in not flooding the feed with silly thoughts on books when I want to mostly focus on high quality articles.

Of course, the point of Kansoulations is to give insight to the state of Japanese literature…

Let me know in the comments.

Edit: Another thing to consider is English stuff I’ve read if I happen to read them. Not sure if people would be interested in that either…

Update #2: In the Mood for Science Fiction and Some Random Thoughts on Reviews

Hmm, I've let this account lie dormant for too long. I'm not sure what could possibly make me stop reading books and instead play games forever -- cough, NonStories -- but I think I want to read books again.

I've been reading the pulp science fiction books that inspired Tomino Yoshiyuki to make his wholesome anime. Before that, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and I was thinking of writing a Kansoulations post on it.

I decided not to do that just yet because I feel like I want to read as many PKD stories as possible and just write a giant post about how I feel about the guy. He's important to my thinking about what science fiction and fantasy should be.

For him, the shock of dysrecognition is the most important element of science fiction. It has to be not just strange or fantastic, but in my mind capable of creating a new kind of society. To be considered good science fiction, a story must set off a chain of ideas and make the reader think creatively.

I find his definition of science fiction valuable because that is sort of what I like about genre fiction. I like to speculate. Arguably, all my criticism is me speculating and extrapolating on themes in fiction. If a work makes me write something in response and try to explore its implications, then I know it's a damn good work.

I've also been thinking about why I like visual novel criticism the most. If you've talked to me, you probably know that I take a lot of cues from Japanese criticism on sites like EroGameScape. They like to write these long reviews that go through a list of themes and argue convincingly why their reads are valuable; I don't necessarily agree with them, but I find their insight and structure valuable. They are the "creative reviewers" par excellence in my books.

I think all interesting criticism and analysis is creative speculation and extrapolation. The best works of science fiction make people do these wild and colorful analyses.

Anyway, I'm going to use this account to blog about books and random thoughts like this. I am of two minds when it comes to writing "real" book reviews. I originally proposed this account with a gimmick: I could only write reviews of books I had read at least twice. I thought it would give me less pressure to read new books and give me a deeper insight, but in the end I think it just means I write less. While I think it helped me write less, it may have been too effective.

I still like the idea, though. I'm open to the idea of re-reviewing books I've already written about. It might be interesting to, say, write a new review of that Takeda Ayano book that people liked three years from now. See what I think again. And there are still books I want to read again anyway...

Tell me what you think. I am still figuring out what I want to do.

As for me personally, I've been reading through some books from the Berserker series by Fred Saberhagen for my upcoming Zambot 3 post on the main account. The next book I will read is a book called Shinsekai Yori, and I think people are excited to see what I think. SSY is the reason why I think I should write about it instead of saving it for a reread.

I think people will skewer me if I don't write something about it.

I'm gonna do some Anon's Archives (if people are okay with Kansoulations dropping the reread requirement, this column will be retooled to read "Books I Don't Think Would Make Good Kansoulations Articles") or create a new "column" for light novel volumes that I want to go through. I kinda want to read and write some thoughts about the old science fiction and fantasy novels I want to pick up. The "spirit" of the blog is to throw novels people have never heard of at them, and I feel like reading boomer shit will be fine.

Also, no one knows what the distinction between light novels and proper literature anyway.[^1]

I think quality reviews are more important than quantity, and I don't want to burn myself out. Still, there are so many books that inspire me to respond that I wonder if it's a fool's errand to stop myself from writing. I don't like being the sole representative of these books, so I recommend that someone pick up my mantle and write about books with me. That way, I can be a little sillier in my writings.

Okay, comment on my post so I know what people are thinking. If you can't comment because you're not a Cohost user, I recommend sending me telepathic signals. I'm a Newtype. I know how to feel.

[^1]: For the purposes of this blog, it would be anything not published by a light novel imprint. Ever. Sorry, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Unless readers want that. In that case, (chuckles) I'm in trouble.

Update #3: Been reading for fun and thinking what to do next.

A short update: as some people know, I’m visiting my partner for two months-ish and I’ve been enjoying my time reading books and watching movies.

But of course, I still have a bunch of writing projects on my backlog including this blog.

The main goal of Kansoulations is to give people a view on the Japanese literary scene, but I have high standards for myself. This made me rethink on my approach since just writing about Japanese literature wouldn’t be a good introduction to Japanese writing.

We all take influences from foreign media. For example, did you know that Adventures of Tom Sawyer is rather big in Japan, big enough to create a little fashion subculture? It’s all thanks to the World Masterpiece adaptation.

Likewise, I think it would be interesting to bring up science fiction writers, small and large, who have made a huge impact on Japanese media. James Tiptree Jr. after all wrote the quintessential yuri story, “It’s the Only Neat Thing to Do.”

So if I want to commit to writing about Japanese media, I need to expand beyond writing on Japanese media. I have to write about The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein because that’s referenced a lot in UC Gundam. I have to write about A.E. Van Vogt because Oohara Mariko says one of his books influenced her a lot. And I have to write about my boy, Philip K. Dick, not only because his strange writings impacted me when I was younger but also he did have some impact on Japanese writing.

I’ll probably call this column, Outside Influences, and explore how much or how little the writer impacted Japanese reading and writing subcultures. I already did something similar wirh Saberhagen in the Zambot 3 post. And I know who I’ll be writing about next: Cordwainer Smith. I think you’ll understand why when you look up the name of the series of short stories; the connection with a certain anime makes it too tantalizing, and I’ve been enjoying his work for the most part.

I’m still thinking about how to approach the blog and to make it my own personal unique thing. I just don’t want to make it like Another Book Blog; creators like poparena’s Nick Knacks and Jimmy Maher’s Digital Antiquarian made me reassess my need to be more anthropological, critical, and historical in my own writings.

I like Kansoulations and related projects to show what I find fascinating about Japanese subcultures and the history they reveal. Maybe, I need to write some historical articles. Maybe, I need to write some political economy stuff to talk about books. I don’t know, I definitely don’t want to just write about Japanese books. I want to write about them and their contexts whatever that means.

The next post will be a while. I’ll probably take my own time. I have two posts on my main account to plow through. But I’m interested in hearing what people have to say about this direction.

Back to reading Cordwainer Smith. Fun guy. I recommend “Scanners Live in Vain” and “A Game of Rat and Dragons” if you’re interested: short, strange reads.