u/Culper_Cell0 — reddlx

After listening to this weeks book club episode on A Court of Thorns and Roses, which was an excellent episode by the by, I have a recommendation to offer for the book club.

Recently I just finished the manga series “Delicious in Dungeon” and I think it would be a great addition to the lexicon of the book club for a few reasons. Here’s my justification for inclusion:

The manga series is a modern take on the high fantasy genre that Dominic and Tabby both seem to enjoy, so I think they both wouldn’t mind reading it.
The manga series has one of the most interesting structures of fantasy that I’ve encountered. It’s structured a bit like a D&D dungeon dive with a narrow narrative structure that broadens to encompass and reveal the whole world as the narrative goes on. It managed
It would be a good series to explore the differences and divergence between western fantasy and Japanese fantasy. They have shared elements, but different takes on monsters that come from cultural and corporate emphasis. For instance, in Japanese story-telling all orcs look and behave like pigs. Kobolds are dogs instead of lizards. Ogres have horns. And the series itself tries to understand why these differences exist in the context of the world.
It’s a way for the club to look at the rise of Japanese storytelling that have dominated Western reading markets in the past 10 years. Anime and manga used to be a really niche subject. Now most people in their teens and 20’s have watched at least one anime series or read one manga. I think it would be a good window into exploring the history of how manga came to prominence in the west.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant and Dom, if you read this I hope it can make it into the show… or that you and Sandbrook Jr. can at least enjoy a good series together.

So, I just finished listening to JTT’s first episode on the gunpowder plot and, honestly, I struggled with it. On the one hand, I liked the depth of analysis and the presenter’s knowledge. I learned a ton about the state of Catholicism under the first Protestant rules of England. My wife and I are having our first little girl in a few weeks, so I liked the emphasis they placed on the role of women in the story (like Anne of Denmark).

At the same time, I struggled listening to it because of all the modern judgments they brought to the table. For instance they spent a good three minutes on James II’s sexuality (apparently he’s bisexual, bi the bi). And then they were talking about his psychological profile as an abused kid. And privilege kept being mentioned for the first half of the pod. The end result was I felt just kinda annoyed. I wanted to like it, but I didn’t. I’ve never really had this problem with TRIH. Should I keep pushing through them? Has anyone else on this subreddit gotten into them? And if so, what kept you going back?