If you’re reading this and you don’t know Moomin, stop reading this and go look up Moomin! No, seriously.

I read the Moomin novels as a kid and more recently the collected paperback comics. Both are truly excellent. I don’t think I’ve ever read a series where the novels and comics had such a similar, seamless feel as the Moomins (usually I tend to prefer one format significantly over the other, but this was not the case with the Moomins – maybe because the author and comic creator are the same? that hasn’t been the case with Marjorie Liu’s work, though, I definitely prefer her comics and graphic novels to her longform novels, but I digress…I should do my next Interlude post on Marjorie Liu…).

(Also I just realized I can change the font on these posts, how many years have I been doing this?)

Funny, I’m so fond of Moomin, but I’m having trouble coming up with words for the feelings. Never mind, it’s always going to be better to read Moomin than to read someone talking about Moomin anyway. See you next month if work doesn’t eat my life.

Title: Finn Family Moomintroll, etc.

Author: Tove Jansson

Genre: Fiction

Book Type: Novels, comics

Would read this author again: Yes

Blast to the past for this month, as it was either this or not have a post again. At least I have a book lined up with the intention of reading it for this blog, so we’re getting closer to back to normal. I read The Wheel of Time series many years ago, but it’s not the kind of story that most readers are likely to forget. I’ve heard there is or was a show (yeah, I don’t watch much TV) and I hope it’ll introduce some new readers to the series, as I think it’s well worth reading for any fantasy aficionado. I learned a lot as both a reader and writer from Jordan’s work. It would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on how he feels the genre has changed (or not) in the last decade or so.

Title: The Eye of the World

Author: Robert Jordan

Genre: Fantasy

Book Type: Novel

Would read this author again: Yes (though unfortunately he has passed away, so it’s not possible)

I don’t quite remember how I found out about S.A. Barnes’s novels, but I think I saw the cover and description of Ghost Station somewhere, probably in the upcoming releases section of some bookseller’s e-newsletter, which led me to check if Barnes had written anything else, which led me to Dead Silence. I’m still not entirely sure what differentiates the genre ‘space horror’ from science fiction…for example, I think of the Alien movies as science fiction, but ‘space horror’ doesn’t feel wrong either. Regardless, I’m excited to get back into this genre, whatever we’re calling it.

Title: Dead Silence

Author: S.A. Barnes

Genre: Space horror and/or science fiction?

Book Type: Novel

Would read this author again: Yes

I think I’m going to start doing an ‘Interlude’ series for books that are not by nikkei authors. It won’t be a regular thing, as this blog is still primarily dedicated to works by nikkei creators, and it will be rather less structured than Book Spotlight, but there are many non-nikkei-authored books that I’ve really enjoyed, and it would be as great for more folks to read these books as it would be for more folks to read books by nikkei authors.

I picked The Buffalo Hunter Hunter for Interlude because it’s the first English-language novel (i.e. not comic or graphic novel) in a long time that I read straight through. I’m still figuring out why I liked it so much, but I think it mainly had to do with Jones’s writing. Something about the way he puts words together made it extraordinarily difficult to put the book down whenever I got interrupted by Responsible Adult Life. In that sense, reading Jones makes me feel much the same way I feel when I read Marjorie Liu.

Title: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Author: Stephen Graham Jones

Genre: Horror + historical fiction (is there a composite genre for both?)

Book Type: Novel

Would read this author again: Yes