What I've mostly been buying for my Kindle Fire is Nero Wolfe murder mysteries. I have bought a few other things (e.g. "Space Cadet") but one reason my Kindle SF collection is pretty sparse is that most of the books I want aren't available for the Fire. (For instance, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" or "Downtiming the Night Side".)
But there are a hell of a lot of Nero Wolfe books, and I've been having a great time revisiting favorites like "The Golden Spiders" and "Too Many Cooks" and "Gambit".
I thought I had read them all, back in the day. The first one to come out was Fer de Lance; the second was League of Frightened Men, and I liked them both, though I haven't bought either one of them yet.
According to Wikipedia, the third was The Rubber Band, and I just bought it. And it turns out I have never read it.
Well, and now I'm half way through it, and I've figured out why. It isn't very good. I've figured out who the murderer is, and have a pretty good idea why he did it. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think I am.
That, alone, isn't really enough to make it lousy. The real problem is that the characters are off-character. Wolf isn't acting like Wolf should. Archie isn't the Archie I know and treasure. Inspector Cramer seems like an entirely different policeman.
It may be teething problems; Stout may not have really figured out the characters by that point. But the next two books are Too Many Cooks and Some Buried Caesar, and the characterization is right on the money in those. (At least Wolf and Archie. Cramer isn't in either of those.)
And so I'm having a strange experience: an entirely new Wolfe story, one I've never read before, and I'm not sure I want to finish it. Hell of a thing, isn't it? Really disappointing.
UPDATE: I was wrong about who did it. I jumped ahead and read the last two chapters.
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I never much cared for the Nero Wolfe mysteries, I'll admit. I always leaned towards Mike Hammer and the original James Bond novels. Perhaps not so much "mystery" as... um... guns and dames, I guess.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 12, 2012 07:08 PM (V/OLv)
What I like about the Nero Wolfe stories is the characterization. It's like the Sherlock Holmes stories: I don't reread them for the mysteries, because I know how they all come out. I read them because I like spending time with Watson and Holmes.
And I like spending time with Archie and Wolf. They're very vivid characters, and the character dynamic between them is unique and fun.
I was into Mike Hammer and James Bond before I knew about Nero Wolfe - which I first heard of while listening to Rush Limbaugh. My interest was piqued because I saw A&E's adaptation of the stories, though...
I take it you looked at TV Tropes' entry for Nero Wolfe already?
C.T.
Posted by: cxt217 at June 13, 2012 11:53 AM (hEbnX)
That particular story is especially interesting, because Stout completely rewrote it. In the original version, that old lady was the murder victim. After he died, the original version was found in his notes and published posthumously.
The two stories begin nearly the same way, but diverge massively at a certain point. (And they don't reconverge.) The original one was good, but the alternate version which was originally released was better.
But reading them both, it's kind of an eerie SF feel. Alternate histories, you know?
The old lady's name is Hattie Annis, and that story ("Counterfeit for Murder") is in the book "Homicide Trinity".
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I try to be fair, I really do. I mean, I love the Nolan Batman films.
But Avengers was the hilarious longshot gamble, and I find it awesome that it paid off. Doing a serious, dramatic Batman isn't half the challenge that is taking the Avengers, doing them practically straight, and successfully selling it to everybody.
Posted by: metaphysician at June 11, 2012 08:36 PM (3GCAl)
Let's be clear; I like the translation: "If you want a fight, you've got one!"
But I have a suspicion that the translator took some liberties with that, and I find myself wondering just what Marika really said. Especially since it was the line they used for the calligraphy which is always at the end of each episode.
Listening to her, it sounds like she's saying "kono kenka, katawa".
With that and the calligraphy, I get this:
ã“ ã®
ケ ン カ
?? ãŸã‚
kono (this)
kenka (fight, brawl),
something ta wa.
It's not a topic wa; that's printed as ã¯.
It could be kaatawa or kattawa. The first syllable sounds long to me. But I can't make any sense of it, using the dictionary, and I can't figure out what the kanji is from the calligraphy. I can't find a kanji that looks anything like that.
片端 katawa is a word; it means "crippled" or "deformed". (That's the one in Katawa Shoujo.) But that's not what she's saying.
æ–¹ kata means "method of" or "manner of" and if that was it, the whole thing could be read as "This is the way we fight." But it isn't; that's not the kanji they're using. (Besides, what is the "wa"? It sure as hell isn't a feminine softener!)
There isn't any word that begins kaata. There isn't any word that makes sense that begins katta.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 10, 2012 01:13 PM (5OBKC)
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I don't know if it's obvious, but yes, it's "katta".
kenka wo uru (Sell a fight) means to pick a fight, and kenka wo kau (Buy a fight) means to accept a challenge to a fight.
Posted by: tellu541 at June 10, 2012 01:29 PM (q5Mzl)
For whatever it's worth, I added "If you want a fight, you've got one" to the TVTropes page yesterday, as a "wham line".
Because it sure rocked me back a bit when she said it.
The way nearly all the episodes seem to end on cliffhangers makes me think that this show will work particularly well when mainlined, in another month or so. A lot of the complaints from people that it moves slowly won't really apply when you can watch four or six (or eight or twenty) episodes in close succession.
As we watch it week-by-week, it makes every week seem long until I can watch the next episode.
I see from the ANN page that Sentai has licensed this. I wonder when it'll start coming out in North America?
I just ordered the premium versions of all the remaining BDs. BD 4 just became available a couple of days ago. The others stretch out and the last one comes out in September.
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Just in case you guys missed it, Omo received a signage by Tatsuo Sato at AX, in person, of course, and it has the same signature. URL: http://yfrog.com/nx2xrcbj
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at July 03, 2012 04:44 PM (5OBKC)
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She needed a space license in order to do that? Well, I suppose
she could be considered a hazard to navigation. That other ship was passing awfully close to the windows in order to get a better look at her...
Posted by: Siergen at June 09, 2012 12:52 PM (PuIGa)
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Well, I was close... considering you're too old for her (by your own admission), I figured it was "I can't get no satisfaction..."
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 09, 2012 07:03 PM (V/OLv)
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Or "time for some satisfaction", given the usual translation of her old catchphrase.
I'm really going to miss this show when it ends. Season 2 and an OVA, please! (and if the OVA somehow involves Ririka fighting off unlicensed pirates in that outfit, I'll take two)
-j
Posted by: J Greely at June 10, 2012 09:02 AM (2XtN5)
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She had a good long run as a Pirate, retired to raise a daughter who is approaching legal age. Steven, I don't think she's THAT much younger than us, just MUCH better preserved.
Posted by: Mauser at June 10, 2012 07:42 PM (cZPoz)
That's in range. I had relatives 16 years apart who had a long and happy marriage. (Until the husband passed at 97. I attribute his longevity to waking up every morning next to someone almost young enough to be his daughter.)
And I have it on good authority that "half your age plus 7" is how young you can go and not be creepy.
Posted by: Mikeski at June 10, 2012 08:43 PM (1bPWv)
By the way, there's every reason to believe that their medical technology is as advanced as their other technologies by comparison to our own. There's ample evidence of that.
For instance, Oyaji-san
was a kid at the first pirate council, which took place more than a hundred years ago. He ain't any spring chicken any more, but he's healthy and still working, and to my eye is "middle aged".
So it's not massively surprising that a 40 year old mother could look as spectacular as Ririka does.
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I figure she started Piracy at legal age: 18
Ten years for a career in piracy good enough to be known as awesome: 28
Retires when she gets knocked up with Marika, raises her to legal age: 46 minimum.
Depends on how long she was Blaster Rerika. She could be pushing 50, and still looking damned fine.
Posted by: Mauser at June 11, 2012 11:09 PM (cZPoz)
15Is there an age limit for space pirates? I haven't seen any cops going after Marika or the
yacht club. Then again, considering the yacht club's reputation, the local police might figure it's safer to look the other way...
Posted by: Siergen at June 12, 2012 03:52 PM (PuIGa)
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One possibility for what Marika has in mind:
The Grand Cross has a blind spot in its fire pattern. All its weapons are mounted on the surface of the ship, and fire outward at various angles. Since it can't move and fire at the same time, then if Bentenmaru can get to its side, Grand Cross would have to switch to movement mode. During the switch-over, perhaps Bentenmaru can damage it.
Or during switch-over, perhaps Bentenmaru can escape. The Grand Cross's switchover period is longer than it takes Bentenmaru to begin an FTL jump.
Marika seems to have noticed blind spots before. The Maracot-class battleships have one, too. The guns are mounted on the outer surface of the two blades, so if you're between the planes of the two blades they can't hit you. I think that was why she had Ai-chan charge directly at the Jabberwocky in ep 18, just before making an FTL jump to escape.
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A priate ship registered to
the Galactic Empire. That's interesting. And if the Grand Cross is a G.A. experimental vessel, that would seem to indicate a schism in the G.A. Also, didn't Jenny say something at one point about there possibly being "a way around" the fact that no new pirate licenses are being granted? Perhaps that doesn't apply to "Galactic Empire" pirates? And perhaps those are by invitation only. And maybe Dad recently got such an invitation.
Posted by: Dave Young at June 09, 2012 02:45 PM (ZAk0Z)
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Misa seemed to react to
Ironbeard showing up as well. I think both she and Kane know the true score -- whatever that is. Although her reaction seemed kind of "troubled."
Posted by: Dave Young at June 09, 2012 06:22 PM (ZAk0Z)
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Liked the episode and I'm really looking forward to next week.
Here's a pretty big spoiler a few people at Anime-Suki figured out. It's apparently both LN information & stuff shown, quickly, in Japanese script:
What's going on with Kane is that he has a younger, twin brother. It was apparently listed on an information screen at some point a few episodes back.
Supposedly he was actually the guy in the cloak at the council that Kane + Ririka were at. Further, they've apparently been trading off duties a bit, so he was the one acting as "Coach" for the dinghy competition. (It's the reason "Kane" went back to addressing Marika as "Captain" on the shuttle. Different person, even if they look the same)
Further, it's thought he's the helmsman of the Parabellum. We'll find that out next episode, I imagine.
On the Grand Cross:
It definitely looks like a testing-bed ship. The design simply isn't suited to the combat style. It's like an advanced Marcot-class ship with a variable mode and a wall of weapons. The design for a final combat ship should likely be smaller.
Oh, and I loved Coorie leaving in the sound effects, that was awesome. See, there's sound in space! haha
I just noticed that Grunhilde in Mouretsu Pirates pronounces a word differently than I expected.
Being princesses, both Grunhilde and Gruier use watakushi. Usually that word is pronounced wah-tahk-shee. Grunhilde pronounces it wah-tah-koosh.
Or at least in one case she does, ep 15 06:20. She's using it with -tachi because she's talking about both her and Gruier. So it's wah-tah-koosh-tah-chee. Maybe that's the reason why; wah-tahk-shee-tah-chee seems like it's more difficult to pronounce.
Or is it a deliberate affectation by the voice actress? Or is it an attempt to make watakushi not sound like watashi?
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I think your first guess is right. It's purely a matter of what is easier to pronounce. (Subject to the understandability rule that for any leading consonant there is only one vowel that may be dropped,)
Posted by: Jonathan Tappan at June 09, 2012 05:37 AM (poC8e)
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Interesting. Gruier uses wah-tah-koosh-tah-chee in ep 23. I know that without the pluralizer she says wah-tahk-shee.
Xiaomei and Hank make another strike at the palace. Hank wants that glowing plate. Xiaomei just wants treasure. They get what they want, but Rouna and the guards corner them in an underground maze.
There's a magical seal on a wall, which holds a golem. Hank destroys it, and the golem comes out and starts rampaging. In the ruckus, Hank and Xiaomei escape, with their loot.
Next day, Rick and the girls, along with Kaguya and Rouna (by invitation) go out on a goody-collection trip, getting sugar grass and various fruits. Rick takes the wagon back, and the girls use a boat to follow a stream back down to the town. And they stop part way, and...
...we get a swim suit scene!!!
Well, seems that Rouna and/or the guards got a sufficient look at Xiaomei and Hank to see who they were. Not that Hank is easy to miss, after all; how many dwarfs like that are there on that island? (For that matter, how many catgirls?)
And the guards move in to arrest them both. At Hank's workshop, the android absorbs the plaque and activates, just at the end of the episode. Is she the big-bad? Or will she fight the big-bad? Maybe both?
ANN says this is 12 episodes, so three more to go to resolve everything.
Pixy just said nice things about Ano Natsu de Matteru, and I remembered seeing some pictures from it, which featured rather nice looking girls. So a plundering I go.
I downloaded rips of the first three BDs, all that are out. The first one is still downloading, but the second and third finished pretty fast. So I scanned through eps 3-6.
The yield rate was pretty good. I ended up with 47 grabs out of just those four episodes, though I'll probably end up tossing about half of those.
But as for the show? Ye Gods, it's got more angst than anything this side of Hatsukoi Limited. I ended up hitting the Wikipedia page for the show, just to get some idea of what was going on. Our hero, Kaito, is a dork.
If a girl in anime wears glasses, it means she's a volcano of passion waiting to go off. If a guy wears glasses, it means he's a dork. Kaito wears glasses, so Kaito is a dork. He's a camera otaku, and completely clueless about girls. He spends an unreasonably large amount of time looking at the world, and the girls, through a view finder. Naturally, he's also a babe magnet. At least three girls in the show are sweet on him, that I saw, and there are hints of even more.
The magical girlfriend is Ichika. She's gorgeous, has long red hair, has a killer figure, and she too wears glasses. See "volcano of passion" above. Unfortunately, it's more like a volcano of angst.
She crashed her spaceship on Kaito and killed him. Not to worry; galactic technology can solve that little problem. Good thing, too, because she eventually has to resurrect him a second time.
So, let's see. As best I can recreate the love polygon: Ichika loves Kaito. Kaito is coming around. Kanna loves Kaito. Kaito has her in the friend zone, so she's another volcano of angst. Tetsurou loves Kanna, but he knows she's sweet on Kaito, so he's waiting patiently. Mio loves Tetsurou, and I'm not just sure what she's waiting for.
Oh, and Mio hates clothes. When she's home, she doesn't wear any. Not a stitch.
Remon? I think she loves chaos. She seems to be evil. She's the oldest. She's the shortest and the least developed. She may be nursing a major league envy streak, and makes up for it by arranging for everyone else to have embarassing encounters, which she films.
And then there were the two strange girls in Okinawa, one of who loves Kaito and the other of whom starts chasing Tetsurou. Plus Tetsurou's older sister, who is separated from her husband, is a cougar and seems to be chasing Kaito.
At least that's what I put together. All of which leads to humor, it says here. At least it leads to a lot of tears. I remember Ichika crying at least three times, Kanna at least twice, and one of the Okinawa girls one time. And that's just in the four episodes I looked at.
So I got a lot of pictures from it, but the girls nearly always look miserable. They hardly ever smile, and that's why I'll be tossing so many of them.
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What bothers me is that the whole "alien girl with spaceship" didn't seem to matter. It was just there so they could play with it through misundertandings, but it didn't matter to the plot at all. Such as it was.
What finally blew me out was that in combination with the conversation on the train platform between Ichika and Kaito. It was deftly done and funny... but it's been done before so many times. And yes, Remon was annoying.
2
I'm going through it with sound off and no subtitles, so I don't know what they're saying. All I can judge by is what they do -- and what they mostly do is cry and/or look miserable.
And if we're going to have a magical girlfriend from space, I'd prefer she be more like Eris -- smart, resourceful, cheerful, and with not a trace of angst. (Except in the episode about the assistaroids.)
Missing the first episode kind of mixes up the situation, as most of the world building happens there. So that's a little important.
As for the series, it's Kuroda's 3rd attempt at the specific story and its the best of the bunch. It's a romantic comedy/drama told through sci-fi elements. The catch is, this time around, the characters are a lot better. It really helped that Nagai was directing it. He's just got a very good feel for the genre.
While Kaito does like filming with the camera and has glasses, he's not really a "dork". It's pretty smooth with people and, amazingly enough for an anime, extremely direct. His & Ichika's storyline is actually pretty straight forward. Most of the drama is built around the other 3 friends. Everyone is trying to sort things out and that's where most of the drama exists. You do get some really good character moments and payoff for the watch, though.
Oh, and Remon is downright awesome. It's fully explained later on, in hilarious fashion. You really won't expect it.
Posted by: sqa at June 08, 2012 12:56 AM (tmPk0)
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Should have put a warning label on that review for you, Steven; I know I have a much higher tolerance for angst than you do. (I think I've said this before, but do not watch Full Moon wo Sagashite!!)
If you scanned up to ep 6, you got the first beach episode, so that's good, but you stopped before the angst starts getting resolved. Ish. Resolvedish. But if you weren't attached to the characters by then there's probably not that much point in persisting.
sqa: Of course, just knowing how awesome Lemon is, is kind of a spoiler in itself. As of course is Mio's shameful secret.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 08, 2012 01:20 AM (PiXy!)
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As for the love directed-acyclic-graph: Yes, A loves B loves C loves D loves E (and F loves D and G loves B, but that's largely irrelevant), and each one is aware of the relationships to their right (A->B->C->D->E) but not to their left.
I didn't mind that in the end because, while the tears may flow like summer rain, it's not an idiot plot, that is, the angst wouldn't all go away if people would just talk to each other. By the end of the show all the little secrets are out in the open and things are better for that, but that's not enough to make it a cliche happy ending, because there are conflicts that can't be resolved that easily.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 08, 2012 01:44 AM (PiXy!)
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I do wonder, though: with some shows ( anime or otherwise ), are you supposed to be *laughing* at the people crying onscreen? Because that's the only way I could see them as comedies.
Me, if I hate a character enough that literal tear-wringing misfortune would be nice, I find "not watching that character anymore" to be so much nicer. Otherwise, I don't gain enjoyment out of watching people suffer.
Posted by: metaphysician at June 08, 2012 05:58 AM (3GCAl)
The Greeks had a word for it: catharsis. You're supposed to identify with the character, feel what she feels, suffer and cry with her, and once the story is over you feel renewed.
If you don't like that (and I don't) then DO NOT watch "Princess Nine"!!!
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Yes, catharsis indeed. I can enjoy angst-filled melodramas if (a) the characters we're supposed to identify with are neither stupid nor unreasonably obnoxious, and (b) the ending brings resolution to the story without forcing it. I do get that sense at the end of a good example (say, Haibane Renmei) of having been put through the emotional spin cycle and come out clean and new.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 08, 2012 07:06 AM (PiXy!)
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I don't mind watching characters go through hardship and pain, as long as they persevere in the end. In fact, my favorite stories involve massive amounts of danger/pain and the appropriate levels of angst, which serve to pay off the victorious ending and make it all the sweeter. Sort of goes along with your rules of villainy, I suppose.
Embarrassment and misunderstandings, though, I cannot stand. Most '80s comedies seemed to be built on people constantly getting into embarrassing situations that they didn't deserve. I can barely even stand to be in the same room when one is on TV.
About the only exception would be the John Cusack '80s "trilogy", but that's because a) they're awesome, and b) the "heroic wimp" saves the day and gets the girl in the end.
Posted by: BigD at June 08, 2012 09:52 AM (qLkdZ)
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Now that I think about it, I believe the final straw was Ichika's stated reason for traveling to Japan/Earth: She was looking for a certain tree. I sounded very "chasing-my-dream-esque"and my reaction was "what the hell kind of parents let their teenager take off to faraway planets to look for a tree? Don't say it isn't dangerous -- if it wasn't, she wouldn't have crashed!" That was my last episode.
Ichika heuristic: Uta~kata turned angsty, but I thought it was a good show.
Posted by: Mikeski at June 08, 2012 12:13 PM (1bPWv)
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I won't spoil anything, but the points about Ichika are all actually addressed in a logical manner. This was a veteran writer & director, it's actually a very well thought out world story. And it's not just characters being "stupid", either.
Further, this is one of the series you have to see to the very end. Everything, minus 1 relationship, gets resolved or explained. And the world story resolution will leave you in amazement.
But, if you don't like dramas, at all, then obviously this series isn't going to be for you. This plays with cliches more than falls into them (though the Beach episodes were a little overplayed), but you're not going to get anyone with clinically significant mental problems. This lets the drama feel natural and not insulting.
I have to say that I really like the Kindle Fire. It's very well made, for one thing. Considering that it's got a back-lit color LED display, the battery life is very satisfactory. And it's extremely convenient to buy books through it.
Almost too convenient. I've had to exercise self-control to avoid buying huge numbers of books.
Mostly what I've been buying is old Rex Stout murder mysteries. They were a favorite of mine lo these many years ago, and it's nice to visit them again. The most recent one I bought was Murder by the Book. It was originally published in 1951.
There's an interesting event in it. At one point Archie is setting a trap for someone he's investigating. He flies to Los Angeles and arranges with a woman who lives there to send an airmail letter to Archie's victim in NYC. The letter gets dropped in a mailbox the afternoon of a particular day.
And it's delivered to the office of the victim the next morning, in New York.
Imagine that! The Post Office delivered it in one night! These days you'd be lucky to get next-day delivery even in the same town, unless you paid for one of those express envelopes.
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I've considered getting one, but I'm still kinda holding out to see if somebody comes out with a decent Ivy Bridge/Win8 tablet-with-GPS-and-whistles this fall. If they do, I doubt it'll be in my price range, but at least I'll have options to compare against each other.
Hmmm. I should probably look up the local library, and see if their online lending options have improved.
