Japón. Manga, traducción y experiencias de un apasionado del país del sol naciente - Marc Bernabé (4.5🌟)

Title in English could be: Japan. Manga, translation and experiences from an enthusiast of the country of the rising sun.

This is an interesting and extremely entertaining read. I fully recommend this book to any manga and everything japan fan. 

Partly autobiographical, this book explores the world of manga from the point of view of a manga translator. Marc Bernabe is a well-known translator of Spanish Manga editions. While the book is written in a semi-colloquial style of writing, the first two or three chapters are the most technical and professional-oriented. They include themes such as the Japanese language, the nature of translating in general and translating Japanese in particular, and the author’s professional career. After that we get more leisurely themes like the author’s favourite manga and mangaka, an excellent interview with mangaka Yuji Shiozaki and many anecdotes. And if the above was not enough,  at the end Bernabé gifts us with his personal guide to Japan, including his favourite places to visit and a chapter about the dark side if the country. 

Japón is beautifully illustrated (see photos below) and of excellent quality paper and binding.

My edition is in Spanish (no English translation yet) published in 2018 by Norma Editorial. It has 322 pages and is flexibound.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie (4🌟)

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a crime novel part of the Poirot series.

We follow Dr James Sheppard who narrates the whole story. One morning he is called to see a patient, Mrs Ferrars who died the night before. He can only confirm the death, but keeps thinking about her case the rest of the day. The same day he meets with Roger Ackroyd in the street and is invited for dinner at his house. After dinner Ackroyd tells Dr Sheppard his suspisions about Mrs Ferrars taking her own life because she was being blackmailed. Later at home Dr Sheppard receives a call from a stranger telling him that Roger Ackroyd is death. Obviously, the police come and start to ask questions. One of the suspects is Ralph Ackroyd, step son of the dead man. Fearing for her relative, Flora Ackroyd, decides to ask Hercule Poirot for help. And this is when the fun begins.

Opinion: I found Dr Sheppard narration engaging.  He plays a role similar to Hastings, who is now in Argentina, helping Poirot in his investigation. Christie made an excellent job at making the reader to suspect everyone in turns, but when the real twist comes at the end, boom!  Cannot say more only that this was a real treat.

My edition is a Facsimile published by Harper Collins. It has 312 pages.

Space Battleship Yamato - Leiji Matsumoto (3.8🌟)

Space Battleship Yamato is a short science fiction, shonen manga series. Shonen means its intended audience is children, teenagers. I do not really engage with this kind of reads because they tend to be simple but I took the risk with this one. Why? Because it is a classic. This series was written in Japanese between 1975 and 1980.

The story follows a starship, Yamato, on a journey to save earth. It is the 22nd century, and earth is dying due to radiation and attacks from the Gamilians, a hostile alien race. After losing most of its space fleet humans receive a message from Starsha, an alien woman from planet Iscandar. Starsha offers humans the knowledge to build a powerful spaceship to travel 148 thousand light years to Iscandar and collect a device which could clean Earth from radioactivity. Reinvigorated with hope humans rebuild Yamato (an old spaceship) with powerful weapons and engines which can travel faster than light. But Yamato's voyage won't be easy as the Gamilians set all their power to destroy the battleship and with it all hope for humanity.

Admiral Okita

Opinion: Considering its intended demographics I think this is an excellent book. Story and art wise. This is a space opera with light sciency elements. This means scientific issues are not discussed in depth, maybe only mentioned. For example at trying to explain how Yamato can travel at warp speeds and what happens during warp the author shows the crew saying they are about to or in warp, the space around changes and we cannot see the stars.    Of course I should not be asking for more but I felt the author left a hole there especially because of the vast distances (148,000 light years!!) Yamato travelled in a matter of days. Aside from the science, the technology depicted in the story seemed to me old fashioned. But I didn't mind, the art for the technology and landscapes is great. I cannot say the same about the drawings of people.  I think the designs of the Admiral and main crew are cool but the rest are forgettable.

The AI and the doctor

The story is a classic epic tale with the heroes fighting their way through the stars to save earth. The Admiral is a character who greatly influences the rest and who would become a legend. Susumu Kodai is the hero, brave and courageous who revers and follows the Admiral's steps.  This is most evident in the second part of the book were the earth government goes nuts and ignoring obvious dangers decides to go against its own heroes. This is a bit of political commentary I appreciated. The Doctor, who loves sake, provides an element of childish humour, a nice touch ever now and then.

And the robot was a great surprise to me. It teams up with the Doctor in some of the funny panels as it gets "drunk" with sake. Despite its silly behaviour this robot (an artificial intelligence in an old fashioned robotic body) has some brilliant interventions where it wants to risk it's "live" to get something done. The AI says it is a man and no one objects. I think it is because in that society people co-exist with AI. Understand they were created in the image and likeness of the human brain, so in essence they are the same as humans. Anyway, this is not part of the story, but something I thought after reading it. Actually this is what I like about reading science fiction, it provides food for thought and more questions.

My edition was published in 2019 by Seven Seas and it has 647 pages.

How we became Posthuman. Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics – Katherine Hayles (3.8🌟)

How we became Posthuman looks into the history of the science of Cybernetics to explore how the idea/concept of (post)human (as in classic liberal thinking) has evolved. Cybernetics looked to create machines using what we know of humans and biological organisms. For that it modelled the human mind, consciousness, senses and behaviour. Other concepts such as decision making, judgement also had to be considered. Since the late 1940s scientists of different fields worked together to develop theories which we could use to create machines to do our work. Several schools of thoughts developed with different ideas of how machines could be built but most importantly with different conceptualisations of the human being. This is important because all this work depends on what and how we think humans are. Are we our bodies or our consciousness? Are we information only? As in our DNA? As in our thoughts, language, communications?

I found the following excerpt useful at the start of the book (p2-3)   "First, the Posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life. Second, the Posthuman view considers consciousness, regarded as the seat of human identity in the western tradition long before Descartes  thought he was a mind thinking, as an epiphenomenon,  as an evolutionary upstart trying to claim that it is the whole show when in actuality it is only a minor sideshow. Third, the Posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prostheses we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born. Fourth and most important, by these and other means, the Posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines. In the Posthuman,  there are no essential differences or absolute  demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot teleology and human goals." I kept coming to this every time I got confused.

This was not an easy book to read especially because I was not familiar with Cybernetics and its concepts. I was not familiar either with other philosophical discussions such as liberal humanism and liberal subject, as well as semiotics but I think I have learned a lot. At least I marked all the ideas I thought important and interesting (which is most of the book). Ideas I want to revisit in the future when I read more about the topic. The writing is dense and almost every paragraph is charged with philosophical or scientific concepts I had to stop and look in the dictionary all the time.

The author discusses the life and ideas of some big names in Cybernetics, such as Weiner, McCulloch and Maturana. I liked her approach at relating crucial events in the (personal) lives of the scientists to explain why and how their thinking was framed. She also relates stories about the Macy conferences which run for several years and which are the foundation for modern developments.

Hayles also takes her time discussing concepts such as homeostasis and autopoiesis, reflexivity and virtuality. Before this book I would not have been able to connect these concepts together but now I can see an evolution there, an evolution which takes us to current work on artificial intelligence and artificial life. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable enough and articulate in this field to try and explain these and others myself. Hayles discusses them so much in depth I think I can only grab the surface. There were other concepts I thought I could manage better until I read about all their dimensions and interconnections. For example the concept of “embodiment” which Hayles takes almost a chapter to explain. A chapter titled The Materiality of Informatics, in which she talks about Foucault! Embodiment, body, inscription, incorporation, materiality, bodily experiences… I think I didn’t understand much but I can always reread this when I learn more.

Finally, what made the book more enjoyable were the author’s discussions of science fiction literary work. I might be unfair saying only enjoyable so I would add informative and illustrative. Hayles relates the stories in these novels, sometimes with spoilers, and then connects the ideas in the plot, or character construction, etc to cybernetic concepts previously discussed. Thanks to this I now have a few books added to my wishlist: Simulacra by Philip K Dick and Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers.

My edition was published in 1999 by The University of Chicago Press. It has 291 pages of content and 350 pages including notes and index.

Luna Moon Rising - Ian Mcdonald (3.8🌟)

Luna Moon Rising is the third and final book in the Luna series. I waited almost 2 years after I read Luna Wolf moon and I was excited to read it.

Opinion: short and to the point to not spoil the book to anyone. I liked this book, but I didn’t love it as I did with the other two. I think it is well written, the setting and descriptions are amazing and there are awesome action scenes to impress anyone. There is also a violent scene between Robson Corta and one of the Mackenzies which was nerve wrecking! I was hooked to the book all that chapter. I liked the corporate espionage, assassinations, family wars, wars. I liked the science fiction with the head implants, and  the discussions about the moon’s resources. I think those were interesting and why not educational.

So why did I not love the book? Three reasons:

• Too many new characters added to the story who I didn’t  contribute much to the development of the story. 
• Some main characters from the previous novels were barely present. I think Lucasinho was more an object than a character. Mariana Calzaghe’s plotline felt incomplete. What we got of her was uninteresting. I was hoping to get more until the last page but got nothing. 
• The ending… I couldn’t predict it but it wasn’t a surprise either. I think it was anticlimactic as I was expecting more excitement or action. 

My edition is a trade paperback published in 2019 by Gollancz. It has 528 pages.

Atlas Alone - Emma Newman (4.4🌟)

Atlas Alone is a science fiction and mystery novel set in the Planetfall universe. This is the fourth book in the series and a direct sequel to After Atlas the second book.

The novel starts with Dee, Carl and Travis, characters who appear in After Atlas, talking about their future a few months into their voyage following the Pathfinder traces. This time we follow Dee trying to come to terms with the events at the end of After Atlas and getting used to life in a star ship. She is determined to find whoever was responsible for the atrocities they witnessed and if possible, kill them. Her new freedom, far from her life as an indentured (a corporate slave), does not give her peace of mind. She still carries the weight of all those years not being able to decide on her actions and body. Far from trying to heal herself or look for help, she masks her emotions and her past. As Dee gets a job within the ship mining consumer data for Mersives (kind of virtual reality games) she is able to access data on the crew and population. She sets her target to discover everything she can about what happened in Earth with all the resources she has available. All of a sudden, she is contacted by someone who infiltrates into her “office” (set in a private mersive) and who wants to help her find the ones she is looking for. Despite the obvious dangers Dee accepts the help… and read the book if you want to know more!!

Opinion: I am impressed with Emma Newman’s capacity to keep the quality of writing and storytelling at a high level. This book is as amazing as the other three. Initially I thought the story was about space travel, life in secluded spaces, recycling food and water and similar BUT I was wrong. I am glad I was wrong. What Newman gave me with this book was total immersion into a character’s mind, flaws, traumas, memories, thoughts and bad decisions. I wouldn’t call Dee a likable character, but I didn’t hate her either. I think she was a perfect, controversial character, with so many layers we could talk about her for hours. To start, the topic of indenture comes to mind. Dee was (or still is??) a corporate slave, forced to do things she didn’t want to do. To pretend to be something she wasn’t. And she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about her situation. That was her life on earth, but it still affects her now. The only person who new her was Carl (Carlos Moreno, main protagonist in After Atlas) but she would not open up with him either. Through all the book she tries to escape her memories by avoiding them or by crumpling them as one does with paper and throwing them somewhere, she cannot see them. She hides her emotions as she hides her past. “My face is a mask in front of a mask” is one phrase of hers I particularly liked. It is self-defence. A strategy she uses even when she is not threatened. Her mission is revenge and escapism as well. From her memories and her past. She needs purpose in her life now that no one is telling her what to do. She needs to prove that she is capable and valuable. Revenge is the perfect motivation. She wants justice for earth, but I feel she wants it for herself too. Dee is not alone in her quest for justice. She is helped and guided by someone she doesn’t know. Sometimes this help looks more like an imposition. She feels she is forced to do things like when she was indentured but she doesn’t care as long as she can get justice. There are parallels between her new situation and her past. She is an object again. Used by someone else. Perhaps this is why her psychological and emotional balance crumble as she gets closer to her targets. That contradiction between believing in justice but not being able to make her own decisions in obtaining that justice destroys her.

Anyway, I totally recommend this book and the whole series, and I hope Emma Newman writes the fifth novel soon because that ending was …!!!

My edition is a paperback published by Ace in 2019. It has 306 pages.

The Third Testament - Alex Alice and Xavier Dorison (3.7🌟)

The Third Testament is a French graphic novel of mystery and conspiracy. It takes place in 1306 during the dark ages a time when sciences and knowledge were neglected and the Catholic Church ruled over states, morals and people believes.

The story follows a mysterious man, Conrad of Marbug, who 20 years earlier had escaped death by the Catholic Inquisition, and who has been living hiding from everyone. He is summoned by an old friend, the bishop of Paris, to investigate a slaughter of monks who had previously discovered a strange artifact hidden in a crypt in their monastery. Marbug does not want to get involved with any of the church's business and does not accept. All of a sudden the bishop is killed and Marbug has to escape taking with him his friends protégé, Elizabeth of Elsenor. Marbug suspects his friends death has to do with the slaughter of monks and the mysterious artifact.  Both Marbug and Elizabeth decide to search the truth and avenge the bishop. What follows is an adventure with the two protagonists travelling to Spain and Scotland searching for clues as to the location of the artifact which they then realise has something to do with the Third Testament.

Opinion: an entertaining, interesting and gripping story. The setting and atmosphere perfect for a mystery, action novel. I liked the main protagonist and how the authors constructed him. His past, made him what he is now and we can see that in his conviction to resolve the mystery. One thing though is Marbug's face resembles that of Sean Connery in the Name of the Rose movie. When I read the first volume of the novel I felt Umberto Eco vibes in the air but then I discarded them as this story focuses more on action and there is less brain power in the discovery of the Third Testament than strength and political negotiations. I have to say though that the graphic novel contains a good dosis of religious mysticism, and elements of supernatural existence, hmm maybe, not sure... find out reading the books.

The female protagonist, Elizabeth, while being fun to see was a character out of place and time. To start her physical appearance and her attitude and behaviour were that of a 21st century young girl. While all the male characters wore clothes of their time and weather she wore tight clothes not warm enough for winter let alone heavy snow storms. Also, she was never treated as second class human but with respect and as equal to men. Of course this aspect of the novel reduced its credibility because we all know how women have been treated in history.

All in all a good fun read for fans of mystery stories and medieval settings.

By the way, the art is outstanding. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I loved the landscapes and the almost impossible perspectives of the high castles and mountains. A pleasure to see.

My edition was published by Titan Comics, in 4 shrank (why!!!) albums.