[Wings of Fire]

I finished Cloud Atlas today. It wasn't as good as a story as it could have been (The meta-lot was quite weak, but I think that was the point) but it was a great multi-faceted look at human nature over different eras and different nations. Perhaps the worst thing I can say about it is that the first half of the book was really really heavy going and as every short story finished halfway through, there was no emotional payoff until the second half of the novel where you get payoff after payoff as the story crams six well crafted endings into the last third of the book.

Also I've been on a CLAMP binge recently. They're a very very important and influential manga group who have been making award winning stuff for over twenty years.

I bought and finished Chobits over a year ago, but I can fit it in here anyway. It was a wonderful and sweet look at what can truly qualify as love and human emotions using android-computers that people fall in love with and there was no moralizing involved. Every cast member did their own thing and that was okay because everyone is unique.

I finished Magic Knight Rayearth which is a pretty old shojo adventure manga about three diverse girls who get trapped in a D&D style fantasy world. It was cute and friendly and cool and cuddly and the characters were very likeable and then the ending absolutely tore my heart in two. It had a sequel (Which I also read) which had a much higher quality throughout, but couldn't escape some of the trappings of the genre (It gave the main heroine a love interest for no other reason than the story was based around the power of love, so she should have a love interest) and the ending was worse by degrees and failed to rip my heart in two. Still damn good though.

I read Tokyo Babylon, which is oooooold and a damning satire on Japanese society. It was probably the most 'honest' of their works I've read, but really clumsy for that. The cast was great and the twist ending was fantastic (And tore my heart in two!). My biggest regret is it's out of print, so I had to read awful scans online.

I am reading Cardcaptor Sakura which is just simply the best manga ever. The art is wonderfully expressive, the setting manages to be both overly saccharine and charming (Which is a pretty hard balance to keep and especially to achieve) and it's a dense exploration of love and friendship around a very special nine year old girl. Pretty much everyone is in love with everyone else and it's astoundingly well done. Well well well worth reading.

I read Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, which is a big silly plotless romp through the depraved mind of a closeted lesbian. It's very fun and fanservicey, but not much else. I'd definitely recommend the oneshot anime adaptation (I know full well nobody ever listens to my recommendations, but there you go) simply because it has some of the best cinematic timing ever and is very charming.

I read Tsubasa Reservour Chronicles, which is sort of like their mass crossover series where alternate universe grown up characters from Cardcaptor Sakura journey through a variety of worlds to get plot macguffins and then plot twists and clones and sort of incest and time travel and crazy metaphysics and it suddenly becomes tied with CCS for my favourite manga. Really really good, but you need to be paying attention not to be caught out towards the end.

I read xxxHolic (Not what it sounds like) which is sort of the companion series to Tsubasa which tells around the plot of Tsubasa when it's not doing its own thing. Its own thing starts off a little stale and boring, but quickly gets very compelling and interesting when it builds up a cast of side characters. It's about the nature of wishes and belief, and how they can interact in less than stellar ways with human psychology. It also has an open and utterly depressing ending that leaves you feeling hollow inside. Sort of like what Steven King obviously wanted from the Dark Tower ending, but wasn't nearly talented enough to make work.

And finally I'm reading X. It's a big dark gloomy end of the world story where women give birth to swords and hemaphrodite androids and sociopathi civil servants go around hastening the end of the world. It's pretty trashy and contains far too much standstill pacing, but it's somehow endearing despite that.

Oh

I'm also reading an exceedingly trashy manga called Mahou Sensei Negima which someone from this forum who will not be named recommended to me. An evil time travelling chinese girl from mars is trying to expose the secret of magic to the world and I'm loving every page.

Also War and Peace continues to be Peacey. I'd like me some war in it please.