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Fullmetal Alchemist Read-a-Long

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I’ve started re-reading Fullmetal Alchemist from the beginning, mainly to pass the time until the next volume is released by Viz, and I’ve been posting my thoughts about it as kind of a read-a-long with others in a non-public place. I thought I’d try adding these posts here as well, to be publicly accessible. If anyone else wants to join me in re-reading, that’s great, or if you might start the series for the first time and read along, I’d be completely thrilled!

And so, on to discussion of Fullmetal Alchemist, Volumes 1 & 2!

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Hornblower and the Atropos by C. S. Forester: A

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From the back cover:
In the wake of a humbling incident abord a canal boat in the Cotswolds, young Captain Horatio Hornblower arrives in London to take command of the Atropos, a 22-gun sloop barely large enough to require a captain. Her first assignment under Hornblower’s command is as flagship for the funeral procession of Lord Nelson.

Soon Atropos is part of the Mediterranean Fleet’s harassment of Napoleon, recovering treasure that lies deep in Turkish waters and boldly challenging a Spanish frigate several times her size. At the center of each adventure is Hornblower, Forester’s most inspired creation, whose blend of cautious preparation and spirited execution dazzles friend and foe alike.

Review:
I am such a fan of Forester’s writing style. The Hornblower novels always have their fair share of adventure, of course, but less grandiose moments are equally riveting. This book opens with Hornblower and his wife taking a journey by canal. Through Hornblower’s fascination with the process and exhilaration at filling in for a wounded crewman, the reader is instantly drawn into the story. Later there are naval skirmishes and negotiations with nations of dubious neutrality, but it’s the efforts of Hornblower and crew to recover British funds from a sunken vessel that I personally find most interesting.

Forester is also deft at efficient characterization. Here’s an example: Hornblower has just taken command of his new ship and in the company of Mr. Jones, his new First Lieutenant, reads his orders. They contain the surprising directions to plan Lord Nelson’s funeral. Hornblower can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. The next line reads: “Mr. Jones decided that he should laugh, too, and did so, obsequiously.” I really like how that kind of sums up Jones’ entire personality.

Speaking of supporting characters, some are almost unbearably annoying. Hornblower’s wife seems to be more shrewish than ever before, and seriously needs a hobby aside from her husband. There’s a “ridiculous doctor,” which compels to me to wonder how often that character type may be found amongst military crews in various media. Certainly Gaius Baltar is ridiculous. Bashir was a trifle ridiculous at times. Are there more I’m forgetting?

I always like Forester’s endings, too. This one is no exception, culminating in an important event in Hornblower’s personal life and kind of bringing the series full circle for me. The first Hornblower novel to be written, Beat to Quarters, also the first I read, is the next after this one chronologically. After going back in time to when he was a Midshipman and Lieutenant, now he’s finally become the man he was when I first encountered him. It’s an interesting effect, though I still intend to follow internal chronology for any rereads of the series.

In conclusion, I continue to adore the Hornblower saga and recommend it unreservedly.

Time Stranger Kyoko 1 by Arina Tanemura: B-

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I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been invited to contribute reviews to the Manga Recon section of PopCultureShock. This is my first review for them, and it was originally published here. Carlos Santos from ANN has also written a review of this title, and brings up some points left out of mine, so you may want to check his out, as well.

It’s the 30th century and all of the nations of Earth have united to form a single kingdom. The treasure of the people is their princess, Kyoko, but she’d rather attend school like a normal girl than fulfill any of her royal obligations. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching, however, and along with it the celebration at which Kyoko must finally appear before her subjects, putting an end to her incognito scholastic career.

Kyoko resigns herself to her fate, but her father offers her an alternative—if she can awaken her younger twin sister, who has been asleep since birth, and turn princess duties over to her, Kyoko can have her freedom. To do this, she must locate twelve godstones scattered around the planet and the twelve telepaths who can use them. When gathered, they can set into motion the giant clock upon which Princess Ui sleeps and use its power to awaken her.

I was pretty put off initially by the notion that Ui was to be awoken for the sole purpose of foisting princess duties upon her. Even though Kyoko intends to give her sister a choice in the matter, it’s still a thoroughly selfish aim. Quickly, though, Kyoko ends up revealing her identity anyway (to thwart a band of thieves who’re menacing her schoolmates) and her goal becomes simply meeting her sister.

Adventure ensues, with Kyoko gradually acquiring more powers and, eventually, locating the first of the telepaths. She’s often tempted to use her powers for selfish reasons, but usually ends up helping others in the end. Other hobbies include requiring rescue by her bodyguards and behaving irrationally.

There are some comedic elements to the story, though not all of them are a success. I giggled at the instructions for the issuance of a royal greeting (step 5: gesture flamboyantly!) and I like that Kyoko’s magic cane has a personality and dialogue, but I can’t stand the character of Chocola. She’s the King’s cat android pet, and I reckon I’m supposed to find her unbearably cute, but instead she just creeps me out.

As usual, Tanemura’s artwork features big eyes, lots of screentone, and a plethora of flowers. I was a little disappointed that she didn’t avail herself of the opportunity to draw the kirito—humans whose DNA has been combined with that of plants or animals—in a new and different style. Mostly, they just get things like pink hair or gold eyes. Kyoko herself has pointy ears, but no one has commented on them thus far, so I’m not sure if she’s supposed to a hybrid or not.

While I didn’t love this volume, I didn’t absolutely hate it, either. It’s true that neither the story nor the characters particularly engage me, but because the series is only three volumes long, it’s really not that much of a commitment to see it through to the end. I expect that I will do so.

As a final thought, I leave you with a topic: Arina Tanemura is the manga equivalent of Meg Cabot. Discuss.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher: B-

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From the back cover:
With rent past due and a decent meal becoming an issue of some importance, Harry Dresden needs work, and soon. A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse.

Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires, while he himself is under suspicion of the crimes. One thing is certain, if he can’t stop whoever is on the killing spree, Harry will be the next victim.

Review:
I will confess up front that I spent $40 for the unabridged audio edition solely because it’s read by James Marsters. I’ll not be doing that again. Not that Marsters was bad—he was quite good, really, aside from a couple mispronunciations (I’m pretty sure that when one refers to one’s self as a “spellslinger” it’s not intended to be pronounced “spells linger”)—but because I can’t see spending that much money on a book in this series now that I know what I’ll be getting.

What will I be getting?

1. Sexay laydays. Of the six female characters (including the first victim), four were sexay. Three of those worked in the sex trade in some capacity. Scenes with them involved sentences like, “She laughed, a sound rich enough to roll around naked in.” The fifth was a client whose missing husband was into the orgy scene. The sixth was a cop, possessed of martial arts skills but not averse to using feminine wiles to extract Harry’s cooperation on a case.

2. A yawner of a mystery. I’m not sure it’s possible for me to be less interested in mob-related plots. Harry’s angsty backstory wasn’t that great, either. Oh, also, he has a totally eyeroll-inducing name: Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.

3. An interesting magic system. It seemed that a fair amount of thought went into devising it. Standard things like spells and potions seemed the norm, but I thought the method for preparing the latter was pretty neat.

4. A talking skull. Easily the most entertaining character in the book. It didn’t hurt that Marsters gave him a British accent, so that he kind of sounded like Spike.

I am reminded of the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom books by Julie Kenner because, though this series has some serious flaws, I kind of want to keep reading it anyway. My local library has all but one of them, though only the most recent is available with Marsters’ narration. I’ll miss the Spike-sounding skull, but he isn’t worth $40.

Seduce Me After the Show by est em: A

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From the back cover:
A stylish, tempestuous dance of anguish and passion. Seduce Me After the Show contains seven short stories which take place within the artistic worlds of dance, painting, and music. Overall themes focus on the dichotomy of hope and despair as well as the relationship between pleasure and longing. In the title story, devastated by the death of his world famous dancer mother, Theo Gallardo abandons his own dancing career to become an actor and co-stars in a film with popular Hollywood idol Darren Fergus. What should have been a joking kiss shared between them takes a sudden turn when Darren asks, “So what now?” Theo answers, “That depends on the script.” As lustful passions boil over, will Theo be able to regain the fire that he once possessed and return to the dancing world?

Review:
The back of this book is doing a lot of my (self-appointed) job for me! Though, to be honest, I probably never would’ve written about the “dichotomy of hope and despair” anyway.

Right up until I read the last story, I thought my favorite tale would end up being the two-parter starring Theo and Darren (details above). It’s wonderfully told, with an ending I adore even as I wish there were more to read about these two. The final story has a similar feel and tells the story of a man returning to Kyoto after a long absence. He’s come back to attend a festival and, while there, asks about an old friend of his. Gradually, the details of their parting are revealed and, I swear, the final page makes me sniffly.

I really like the art—the use of screentone and backgrounds is minimal, resulting in a largely black and white style. Some of the character designs are quite original, too. Theo looks more like Severus Snape than he does a typical manga character. One of the couples includes a guy in his fifties, and when’s the last time you saw that happen in this genre? Lastly, I appreciate that est em takes the “artistically suggestive” route with the pair of love scenes; depicting things in exacting detail would detract from the emotional element.

Usually, I don’t notice things like paper or print quality, but the production values from Deux (the yaoi imprint of Aurora Publishing, a fairly new player on the American manga scene) are good enough to attract my notice. The translated dialogue seems natural and though I had trouble a couple of times working out exactly what Theo meant, I think that’s just a facet of his character. There was one fairly glaring grammatical error, though. “You’re work has really matured.” Nails on a chalkboard, that one.

My only real complaint is the surfeit of ambiguity. There are times when it isn’t easy to determine which character spoke a line, whether two characters actually slept together, or how one really feels about the other. I’m sure all of this is intentional, but to quote Davy Keith from Anne of Green Gables (‘cos where better to do that than in a yaoi review?), “I want to know!”

Seduce Me After the Show is a character-driven collection featuring grown-up men dealing with their feelings for each other. There’s no blushing or glomping here, and though the stories may be short, they’re also original, thoughtful, and memorable. If you buy one yaoi title this year, buy this one. There’s another book by est em due in December, though, so maybe make it two.

A slightly different version of this review was also published at Manga Recon.

I.O.N by Arina Tanemura: B-

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From the back cover:
Ion Tsuburagi chants the letters of her first name as a charm to bring good luck when she needs it. Then she meets Mikado Hourai, the president of the Psychic Powers Research Society at school, and touches a mysterious substance he’s been developing. Now chanting ‘I-O-N’ gives her telekinetic powers!

Review:
I don’t normally comment on covers, but I.O.N has one of the prettiest I’ve seen. It’s all shades of green, blue, and purple, making Ion’s ginormous Ribon-issue brown eyes stand out. Her hair is blue on the cover, which prompts me to consider that I haven’t really encountered too many manga characters with oddly-colored hair (by which I mean impossible for a human and not merely improbable for a Japanese person). Maybe that’s more of an anime thing. In this case, I’m not sure whether Ion’s hair is truly supposed to be blue or if Tanemura is just having fun with the cover art. Either way, it’s purty.

Alas, it turns out the cover is really the best thing about this one-shot. Some of its problems are due to its length. Exposition gets crammed into dialogue where it doesn’t really belong, resulting in awkward sentences like, “I was wondering who that was, but what do you know, it’s Mikado Hourai, the President of the Psychic Power Research Society.” Emotional developments are also rushed, like when Ion declares that she might be falling for Hourai a mere 7 pages after meeting him.

The rest of the problems are due to the story itself, which just isn’t very cohesive. The nature of the plot is episodic, with Ion using her new-found powers to perform astonishing feats such as extinguishing fires, saving drowning kids from being struck by malicious logs, and protecting her romantic rival from a falling tree. Tanemura’s sidebars mention that her editors kept her in suspense regarding the ultimate length of the series, and it shows. She doesn’t really try to do anything substantive until the end, but even so, that mostly consists of Hourai being uncertain whether he likes Ion for herself or because she’s got psychic powers.

The artwork is typical of Tanemura’s style—lots of screentone, lots of flowers and stars—but as this is her first published manga volume, the result is a little less polished than in her later works. When seen from straight on, noses are just vertical lines and after I conceived of the notion that they looked like coin slots, I kept seeing them in the fashion. Pages do get a little overcrowded at times, but I didn’t have any problems following the story visually. I particularly like the character design for Tagosaku, who’s drawn in a different style from everyone else. The loyal henchman of the President of the Student Council, he’s essentially just a weird little dude who is used for comic relief throughout. I like him.

I.O.N is a decent read. It’s largely lacking in substance and purpose, but if one goes into it just expecting a magical girl fantasy, it’s not that bad. It might be better to procure it from a library, though, if one can.

Sand Chronicles 2 by Hinako Ashihara: A

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From the back cover:
Just when Ann has adjusted to life in the countryside—and even has a boyfriend!—her father invites her to live with him in Tokyo. Now she must choose between a father she hardly knows and a young man she is just beginning to know. But she soon discovers that they aren’t the only ones vying for her affections!

Review:
In a recent post on his blog, David Welsh said, “It’s entirely possible that Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles is less a great graphic novel for teens than a great graphic novel for former teens who remember the pointed moments of awkwardness and uncertainty of that time of life.” I kept remembering that comment as I read this volume, and I think it’s very true.

There’s a definite sense of “this was once terribly important to me and I wanted it to last forever, but now it’s all just a memory” about it all. This is bolstered by the way the story is structured—like a series of recollections and snapshots in time, with the shortest interval between chapters so far being six months. It induces strong nostalgia in me for those days—the me I was, the things I did, the people I used to see every day—and I think a distance of some years from one’s adolescence is required for that kind of wistful retrospection to flourish.

As regards the story itself, I really love both chapters included in this volume. In the first, Ann must decide whether to remain in Shimane with Daigo and her friends or to return to Tokyo to live with her father. The depiction of her divided loyalties and struggle to decide is very well done and I was impressed by how much of an emotional response the conclusion to the chapter provoked in me. In the second, the love triangle that’s been developing since the first volume gets explored. I really like that neither of the boys involved is an easy shoujo stereotype. One is more reserved than the other, but there are no fiery hotheads involved.

Seriously, y’all. Read this manga.

xxxHolic, Vol. 12

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I’ve been waiting anxiously for the official release of xxxHolic volume 12, and though it’s been quite an ordeal getting to finally read it (late shipments, car crashes, etc.) it was such a treat to finally really sit down with it. I read it once last night while I was still pretty screwed up in the head (that would be the car crash factor), and then again tonight, slightly less screwed up. Both reads were pretty intense. Volume 12 is very special to me, and I’ll talk a bit about why.

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Four Shōjo Stories by Keiko Nishi, Moto Hagio, and Shio Sato: B+

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From the back cover:
An unprecedented collection of stories by the greatest shōjo manga (girls’ comics) artists of our time!

In shōjo manga, a uniquely literary genre of Japanese comics, the relationships between characters are as meticulously crafted as the story’s action. Shōjo artists are renowned for their visual innovations, as well. Experimenting with page layouts, panel placement, the interplay of text and image, and expressionistic background effects, the three female manga artists of Four Shōjo Stories create a uniquely absorbing reading experience!

Review:
It would be impossible to write a review of Four Shōjo Stories without referencing its unique history. Who better to shed light on its origins than Matt Thorn, the original translator and author of the book’s introduction. Here’s a post he made on MangaBlog in March 2007. Suffice it to say that, although this wasn’t cheap, I am pleased to’ve found a copy significantly below the price range stated in Matt’s comments.

Of the four stories, two are sci-fi works by shoujo creators and the other two are by josei artist Keiko Nishi. I liked those by Nishi least, though they weren’t bad. The second one in particular had a melancholy vibe that I liked, but none of the characters were sympathetic.

I’d expected to like Moto Hagio’s “They Were Eleven,” since I’ve seen it praised before. I wasn’t disappointed. It seemed to drag a little initially (at 120 pp, it was by far the longest story in the collection) but picked up steam and by the end it was clear that all the stuff that happened at the outset had served a purpose. Fans of sci-fi in general but also fans of shoujo series that feature what I call “gender hijinks” would probably enjoy this story.

The surprise for me was Shio Sato’s “The Changeling.” I’d never heard of Sato before, but I liked her story just about as much as Hagio’s. In it, a competent and boyish female space pilot received a signal from a previously uncontacted planet and went to investigate. Her opinions on the inhabitants she encountered were thoughtful and different than I’d expected. The story stuck in my head after I had finished and made me wish something else by Sato would get licensed. It also had a cute final panel.

While the contents of Four Shōjo Stories might not be uniformly stellar, they’re still enjoyable. It’s too bad they probably won’t see the light of day in a readily accessible, $8.99 sort of package any time soon.

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers: B+

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From the back cover:
The Crown’s case was watertight. The police were adamant that the right person was on trial. The judge’s summing up was also clear. ‘The prisoner had the means—the arsenic. She had the opportunity to administer it.’ Harriet Vane was guilty. And Harriet Vane should hang. But the jury disagreed. And so did Lord Peter Wimsey—he had to prove that Harriet hadn’t murdered her lover with arsenic—and he also had to find out who had.

Review:
Alas, I was rather disappointed in Strong Poison. True, it addressed one of the complaints I had early on in the series and featured loads of personal drama for the investigators. I liked the turn Peter took here—in love and accepting rejection with grace and angst—and I liked Harriet, too, though there wasn’t enough of her. Miss Climpson and another enterprising spinster were also entertaining and made valuable contributions to the case.

But! I just about tore my hair out when another confounded will entered the picture. There was a twist involved that made it slightly different than a matter of mere inheritance, but just once, I’d like to read a Sayers book that mentions neither a testatrix nor a legatee! There was also a certain clue that, by the randomness of its inclusion, enabled me to immediately guess the method in which the arsenic was administered.

Despite not being everything I’d hoped for, it was still probably the best of the Sayers so far.

7SEEDS 3 (Japanese) by Yumi Tamura: A-

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Book description:
In the near future, a huge meteorite has collided with the earth. Governments around the world, who had forseen this worst case scenario, took countermeasures so that humanity would not go extinct. One example is Japan’s “Seven Seeds” project, in which young people were carefully selected and cryogenically frozen until such time as a computer deemed Earth safe for human habitation.

Team Summer B has left their inhospitable island in search of answers while Team Spring’s attempt to escape theirs failed due in part to the misogynist Yanagi, who wants to assume control of the group and refuses to heed the others’ suggestions. After a fall into a pit of deadly mantises, Yanagi is presumed dead. What could his sudden reappearance mean?

Review:
There were some sequences in this volume that were just downright COOL. In a deliciously freaky moment, Team Summer B discovered a Nagasaki landmark—a giant statue—almost entirely submerged in water. It was that discovery that really made the reality of their situation sink in. On their separate course, Team Spring realized that they were in Yokohama. Members of each group ventured off separately to check on the status of their home towns, leading to the exploration of creepy abandoned buildings and stuff. I love that sort of thing.

Tamura is adept at maintaining a tense atmosphere and kept the pacing of the story at a satisfying level. Some of the answers I’d been waiting for were provided, but plenty of plot potential remains. I suppose my main complaint at this point is the size of the cast. Sure, Basara had a ton of people, but they felt more gradually introduced. In 7SEEDS there’s already 15 or so. A couple of them got some development in this volume, but there really aren’t any that I particularly care about yet.

It’s the story rather than the characters that’s driving the series at this point. Luckily it’s a darned good one.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers: B+

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From the back cover:
This sinister, engaging case takes aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey from London to Paris and then back, to the austere dignity of the Bellona Club. There, 90-year-old General Fentiman was found dead in his favorite wing chair by the fireplace. Oddly, his sister died elsewhere the same day, perhaps within minutes of her brother. Investigating the question of who died first, a critical matter for inheritance, Wimsey grows suspicious about vital rigor mortis evidence. Might it actually be a case of murder? Intricate, elegant, and delightful—quintessential Wimsey.

Review:
There’s a complexity to The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club that is missing from earlier entries in the series. Lord Peter shows a darker side, capable of manipulation or steeliness. He gets into two verbal arguments (both with great dialogue), one even culminating in a fist fight. I am liking this Peter! There’s also more nuance to his relationship with Parker and a bit more sophistication in the plotting. A harbinger of good things to come, methinks.

Some things, however, remain doggedly the same. Yet another will with a strange clause figures into the plot. I have lost track of how many times that has happened now. And, if the perpetrators had had their way, the money would’ve gone to a medical purpose, just like in a couple of the short stories. Sigh.

There are also a couple of leaps in the solution that don’t quite make sense to me. The most major is that the suspect had a big secret and somehow the victim knew it. But I don’t remember it ever being explained how it was known; that bit was just kind of glossed over.

I look forward to the result of these various improvements in characterization combined with a fresher motive. The first person to recommend Sayers to me named the next in the series as one of her favorites, so perhaps I shan’t have long to wait for something satisfying on both levels.

Hikaru no Go 12 by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata: A-

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From the back cover:
Hikaru’s career as a professional go player begins! In his first game, he must face veteran player Toya Meijin, none other than Akira’s father. But to Sai, this round is personal. Then Sai attempts to teach a cheating go player a lesson he’ll never forget… Will Hikaru’s ghostly master do him proud or make him look like an amateur?

Review:
Parts of this volume are so difficult to read. Sai and Hikaru have a number of semi-arguments, Sai wondering whether he’ll ever be allowed to play a game again and Hikaru maintaining that such a demand is selfish and would deprive him of opportunities for his own development. It’s like watching a couple who wants different things from the relationship, but neither wants to break up. It bugs me especially when Hikaru ignores Sai, though at least by the end of the volume he’s actively trying to cheer him up and give him opportunities to play.

Hikaru plays one of his first games as a pro, with Toya Meijin as his opponent. Or, rather, Sai plays it. Sai has been looking forward to this since day one, and though the build-up and tense atmosphere were awesomely done, I was kind of disappointed that the game itself was so brief. I could’ve happily read a couple of chapters focused just on the details of that game. It looks like a rematch is on the horizon, though, so perhaps that will satisfy Sai and me.

This series is definitely one with reread potential. I can already picture myself—unfortunately several years hence—happily devouring all 23 volumes in a marathon. Until that day, I’ll take the little nibbles I can get.

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers: B

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From the back cover:
In this delightful collection of Wimsey exploits, Dorothy L. Sayers reveals a gruesome, grotesque, but absolutely bewitching side rarely shown in Lord Peter’s full-length adventures.

Lord Peter views the body in twelve tantalizing and bizarre ways in this outstanding collection. He deals with such marvels as the man with copper fingers, Uncle Meleager’s missing will, the cat in the bag, the footsteps that ran, the stolen stomach, the man without a face… and with such clues as cyanide, jewels, a roast chicken, and a classic crossword puzzle.

These stories contain twelve disturbing deaths, twelve perplexing puzzles—and twelve inimitable Wimsey solutions!

Review:
I had varying reactions to the twelve stories included in this collection. Some of them seemed fairly anticlimactic and pointless, like “The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker.” In it, a lady’s jewels are stolen. She comes to Wimsey with one suspect. Wimsey engages the suspect in a game of cards, frames him for cheating, and blackmails him into returning the jewels. The end.

Others were fun primarily for their characters, or for Peter’s interactions with same. The best example in this type is “The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head,” featuring Peter’s nephew, nicknamed Gherkins. I adored seeing Peter in an avuncular role, especially how he treated Gherkins with respect, and would love to see more of this duo in future.

There was only one that really surprised me, though I reckon it might’ve been obvious to others from the start. “The Bibulous Business of the Matter of Taste” involved two men presenting themselves as Lord Peter Wimsey—and one claiming to be his relation—to a Frenchman who was offering a poison gas formula to the English government. A wine-tasting contest ensued to determine which was the real Lord Peter. This was easily my favorite in the book.

There were a couple of recurring motifs, as well. In several stories, Peter was visiting someone away from home. Three stories involved Peter solving a hitherto baffling puzzle in a will, twice benefiting medical research as a result. Possibly the best known of these is “The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will,” which featured a full crossword puzzle and its solution. I’d been looking forward to this one, but it turned out that reading all of the esoteric clues was kind of tedious.

All in all, I enjoyed this collection more than I thought I would, but I still prefer the Wimsey novels.

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers: B

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From the back cover:
The wealthy Agatha Dawson is dead and there are no apparent signs of foul play. Yet debonair detective Lord Peter Wimsey senses that something is amiss and he refuses to let the case rest, even without any clues or leads. Suddenly he is faced with another murder: Agatha’s maid. Can Lord Peter find the murderer and solve the case before he becomes the next victim?

Review:
Unnatural Death was another decent mystery in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Despite some fairly dull patches, I think I liked it a bit more than its immediate predecessor.

Good things include the introduction of Miss Climpson, a resourceful old maid whom Peter hires to do some investigation on his behalf, recognizing “useful energy and inquisitive power” of her kind. Her reports to Peter were generally amusing and I hope to see more of her in the future. I also liked that, although it was never explicitly stated, the victim seemed to be the surviving half of a happy lesbian couple who’d been together for decades.

I wasn’t so keen on the tedium of family trees or inheritance laws, however. And while it was unique to know exactly who had done it but not how, it didn’t do much to establish a sense of menace or urgency. It was more a quest for sufficient evidence to prosecute than a manhunt. Things did pick up a bit at the end, though. It also occurs to me that there wasn’t very much Bunter, though he was essential in sussing out the big twist of the case.

I’ve liked the Wimsey mysteries I’ve read so far well enough, but if they were all in this vein, I think I might tire of them eventually. Happily, I’ve got something like Gaudy Night to look forward to.