Bookfest, Please!

I just finished reading the novelization of Onegai Teacher, but it failed to impress me much.
The entire book is presented as episodes in between the anime, that serve to add some back story to the relationship between Kei and Mizuho. Now I was expecting service to be present in the book to some extent and the first four stories did give no surprises in that respect, but the final story and the epilogue did. I am still not decided whether I should be appalled by the semi explicit implicity of these two, or to applaud Go Zappa for going beyond the boundaries of the series and introducing not only sexual innuendo but the carnal acts as well.
Fortunately, the next books on my never shrinking pile will probably be Gakuto Coda's Missing and some combination of Nurarihyon no Mago, Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, Tsubasa and some Tsukihime for good measure.

On to the reason for my neverending supply of reading material.
Approximately once every month the Bookfest will come to a city in Belgium or The Netherlands, bringing with it folios, paperbacks, deluxe editions, computer programming books, comic books and whatnot, all at a very reasonable price.
Needless to say that I usually try to visit at least a couple of them each year.
Yesterday was one of those occassions and verily, it did deliver unto me some nice new volumes. Not too much, but enough manga to get me through a rainy day and some books to while away the weary travel to and fro university. (as if Pokémon and banter with friends could not entertain me otherwise)

Now I need only prepare for a weekend filled with birthday parties and conventions to attend.

Twas brillig when I typed this post

I finally finished Seeing Redd last night and it was one of the best books I read the last couple of months. Granted, I have not been reading that much lately, but everything else still paled in comparison to the spectacle that was Frank Beddor's second LGW novel.
To give an impression of the series: Imagine Star Wars
Now transfer that to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, or at least something that mostly resembles it.
You have your young prodigy that has lost her parents (our protagonist, Alyss Heart); her childhood love and brave palace guard (Dodge Anders) and a malevolent force bent on taking over as the 'rightful ruler' of Wonderland (enter long lost aunt Redd, nee Rose)
The sequence goes as expected, princess defeated, sent into exile to Earth and the entirity of the Queendom goes to ruins. She lives for 13 years as Alice Liddell and inspires Charles 'Lewis C' Dodgson to write a novel. Returning in secret, she defeats her aunt with the aid of her loyal followers, Dodge, advisor Bibwit Harte and her personal bodyguards, Hatter Madigan and Homburg Molly.
Redd escapes, with her most trusted assassin, by jumping into a maelstrom of power.
This, of course, is just a short summary of the first part of the Looking Glass Wars, the book of the same name.
The second book continues in the same vein, with conspiracies, Dark Imagination, razor card rifles, whip-grenades and everything you might find in a science fiction novel instead of this more fantasy themed setting.
Now it will be a long wait until the third book is finally released, but that just leaves me more time to reread the other two and reacquaint myself with reverend Dodgson's books.

Eidolon, Esper, Persona, Pokémon, it's all the same

I've been occupying myself the last couple of weeks with Persona 3: FES. And I must say, it has been an interesting game so far. For an avid grinder like myself, the idea of being forced out of a dungeon, because your party is tired, seems a bit distracting from gameplay. But the game has so many distractions that you scarcely mind staying out of harm's way for a couple of days. You go to the movies, exercise at the gym, sell all that hard earned loot and make sure you do not miss those scripted events or you will have to load your last save game again.
Saving seems to be the only thing that has been bugging me about Persona 3. The game has 2 save points, one located in your dorm and one located just outside of your random dungeon. Usually this does not pose such a problem, but once the Full Moon events of the game get started, it can be a hassle. Last night I was playing through the third sequence and when I finally got to defeat the boss, my main got hit by a critical strike that hurt him for his HP and then some. Needless to say, I was quite p'd off, but worse yet, I had to load and go through the same set of cut scenes once more, without any option to skip them. All in all I spent an hour (including the first run) to finally kill the darn boss, and I still played the game for about two hours after that. I guess I am hooked, as I imagine it will not be the last time that such a scenario might occur, but nonetheless I will definitely keep playing this, as I am a sucker for a good RPG.

On the same front I have been steadily making progress with Final Fantasy VI Advance. The advent of some new spells and Espers made me giddy with joy. And as it stands, my party is killing Cactuars left and right to get those sorely needed AP to fill up their magic lists. After that it will be a quick trip to the Veldt and levelling in the Dinosaur Forest to abuse the stat boosts of those friendly pieces of magicite.

As if this would not keep me occupied, it just so happens that some friends and I have started our own internal Pokémon competition, so I guess I'll finally have to blow the dust off my cartridge and show those Elite Four that you should have a more balanced team than just the one type.