Felicia Fredlund

Writer. Editor. Reader.

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Reader Report: September, 2019

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This my reader report for September. Things I read, saw, played, and ate that I really enjoyed and would recommend to other people.

Good Omens cover image

I have been rereading the whole In Death series by J.D. Robb and finally finished rereading it. 48 books takes a while to read. I began the reread back in April. This is a mystery series, with romantic and science fiction elements that I really enjoy, but I’ve talked about it many times, so let’s move on to something else.

A friend told me about the TV series adaption of the book Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. One of my favorite books. I haven’t had a chance to see the series yet, but I went ahead and reread the book.

It is a fun romp about the biblical armageddon going completely sideways. Some really great laughs. It really doesn’t take itself serious at all, and is very well written. With hilarious footnotes.

Pitch Perfect dvd imageI am a fan of musicals and finally watched the movie Perfect Pitch. I’d actually not heard anything about it nor had it recommended, but it was on Netflix, sounded like fun, and I really need a bit of feel good that day. If you like musicals, this will probably be an enjoyable watch.

Since I’m currently living in Japan, it feels almost criminal to not put in anything from that. So let me recommend a meal I recently had at a restaurant: chabu-chabu.

On the table is a pot with soup-stock that is puttering away. You get meat and veggies to put in the pot and then pick them out when they are done and eat them. At this particular restaurant, they made the leftover soup stock into a kind of stewed rice when we’d had enough meat and veggies (we had all you can eat chabu-chabu).

A delicious meal and I’m sure to hit that restaurant again.

Lastly, lets add a game recommendation. I played a few hours of War Grove on Switch (also available on PC and other consoles) and enjoyed this strategy game. I’m sure it gets a lot more complex, but it introduces each mechanic slowly so you have a chance to learn everything well. For me that is a must with strategy games because while I enjoy them, I can find them a bit impenetrable.

That is all for this month. I actually spent most of the month reading In Death, so that is why it felt like I didn’t consume much media, but thankfully I had enough to put together this!

Reader Report: August, 2019

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Here we are again, this is what I have read, played, seen, and experienced in August that stuck with me. (Yeah, I don’t mention everything, only things I finished that I thought were great.)

Subsurface Circular is a very short game. Took me about 2 hours to play. It is a mystery game where you are stuck in one place (a subway car), and you talk to the people who get on. And try to solve a mystery.

Short and charming. I enjoyed my time with it. Although it doesn’t really have replay value from what I could research (I haven’t replayed it myself), it is possible to just replay certain sections.

I read a great historical romanced called Someone to Love by Mary Balogh. It was a little confusing in the beginning for me. I haven’t read a Regency romance in a while, so I needed to get used to that time period, but beyond that there were a few too many characters to keep straight for the first couple of chapters. (More name dropping than characters showing up, but still.)

However, I figured I’d get it straightened out eventually, and I did. (Plus there is a family tree at the start of the book, at least the ebook.) And even with that confusion I couldn’t stop reading because it was so much fun.

I throughtly enjoyed the whole book. And the premise is handled really well, in my opinion.

I’ll most likely pick up the rest of the series eventually. (This was the first book.)

Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson (aka Kristine Kathryn Rusch) is on this list because I really enjoyed it, but it was a bit slow to start for me. Still not so slow that it let me go. Charming Blue is part of a world of stories from Kris, all of them very good (I can only speak for the ones I’ve read, but still). Some more fluffy than others, some really good young adult stories. If you like charming (yes, charming) contemporary romance with fairy tale and/or greek mythology magic, then this series is for you.

I particularly like it when I need some light reading in my life. Although it can get serious too.

To finish of this month’s reader report I want to point to two different YouTube channels I enjoy a lot. One of them I only recently discovered, and the other I discovered a few months ago, but I’ve been binging both although I have not seen every video on either channel because there are a LOT of videos.

WeezyWaiter, aka Craig Benzine. I’m not even sure how to describe this channel. Whatever it is, it is usually funny, has great video editing, and also sprinkles in some wisdom. Recent videos are mostly about different monthly challenges Craig Benzine (and sometimes his wife Chyna) have tried and how they went. Pretty hilarious.

The channel has been around for a long time so it has changed in content over time, so there is a lot to see. And a lot of laughs to have.

I actually found WeezyWaiter from watching older videos of Vlogbrothers. The Vlogbrothers are John and Hank Green. (John Green wrote the rather famous book: The Fault in Our Stars, which I haven’t read.) That channel started because the two brothers apparently wanted to do an experiment by only communicating through video for a whole year (or that is how I understand it begun).

And then it went on and on and many things have come from it like these YouTube channels: 100 Days (John and his best friend have a very fit mid-life crisis)—I really enjoyed watching this a couple of years ago—and Crash Course—I have watched several of the courses.

In fact, I think the first Vlogbrothers related YouTube content I consumed was The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is a hilarious modern remake of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet have a vlog. I can very much recommend this!

(Actually, now that I think about it. I probably watched something from Crash Course first. But still a good segue to talk about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.)

And that will be all for this month. Just the YouTube content would keep you entertained for way more than a month, especially if you get into all the Vlogbrother things. My top recommendation is the historical romance Someone to Love by Mary Balogh though. Enjoyed that one a whole lot.

Reader Report: July, 2019

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Since this is my first reader report, let me explain what it is. This is a non-exhaustive list of stuff I read, saw, played, and experienced in the past month. A bit like my Great Entertainment posts. But instead of writing up reviews of each item separately, this is a list of highlights from the past month.

Cover image of Storm Cursed by Patricia BriggsRight on, let’s start with books I read.

Top of my mind is Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs, book 11 of the Mercy Thompson series. This book was sooo good, but not a good starting point for the series/world.

Read my post on the Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega books to find a good starting point.

I recommend every book and story set in this world. Obviously some are more to my taste than others, but if you fall in love of the world, I have still liked all stories I’ve read.

Japanese fairy tales. If you enjoy fairy tales, I can definitely recommend Japanese ones if you haven’t read those. I do not know if the ones I’ve reading are sanitized (like Disney did with the Grimm fairy tales), but I’m enjoying them nonetheless.

I am reading them in Japanese though, in simplified versions written for Japanese learners, so no reason to link them here. (Any Japanese learners out there can contact me through the contact page if interested in them.)

My suspicion is that my versions are sanitized because all fairy tales I’ve read in original form tends to be more gory, but maybe that is just a European thing and I need to read more fairy tales from more cultures.

If you have any good recommendations of books with fairy tales from other cultures, or even from European ones that aren’t Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. I’m interested in reading them. (I do know of Arabian nights and Aesop too.)

Lastly I’ve been rereading the In Death series by J.D. Robb (pen name of Nora Roberts). I’m almost back to the latest book. The characters, the mysteries, and the relationships are all soooooo good. I really love this series and it will hit 50 books next year. Just wow!

The characters grow/change, but still remain true to themselves; their changing however does shift the feel of the series a bit. Just like happens in many long series.

Rereading the whole series is a huge reading commitment, so maybe it is obvious just how much I love it. (I also wrote a Great Entertainment post on it, read it here.)

Cover image of Blue Smoke By Nora RobertsAnd while I wrote about the books above, I remembered another new-to-me book I read this month. Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts. Romance, with a bit of detecting in it (aka romantic suspense). Modern day for when it was written. *Goes to look it up* Published in 2005. Which made me realize it did have cellphones towards the end of the book. (It spans quite a bit of time.)

I enjoyed reading this. While I am a bigger fan of Nora Robert’s J.D. Robb books, aka the series I mentioned above, I certainly tend to enjoy the NR books too. And this was no exception.

Now on to other things!

I visited Nijo castle (二条城) in Kyoto. You can walk around the inside of some of it, and that was amazing. Unfortunately you can’t take photos, so I can’t share any. It showed a lot of the old woodwork details, painted ceilings and wall paintings. Some amazingly beautiful rooms.

Then there was the garden around it. It is a huge complex. There is even a very small Japanese garden right by a tea house were you can get tea and sweets, and some food.

I had some matcha with traditional Japanese sweets. So very good.

Promo image of the game Cadence of Hyrule

I played a Switch game that was recently released. Cadence of Hyrule is a rhythm and rogue-lite game. A Zelda themed version of Crypt of the Necrodancer. I never played the original game, but I really enjoyed Cadence of Hyrule. In fact, I finished my first play through after only a couple of weeks of owning the game. (That is unusually fast for me.)

That is it for July. What did you read/consume in July? Something old (but new to you)? Something new? An old favorite?

Great Movie: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

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This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.

They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.

They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, great action, and a fun (if implausible) story: What more can you ask of a great movie?

This is something of a theme with me. I love a lot of the big Hollywood action movies.

When I heard the plot for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I knew it would be a blast. Two assassins unwittingly married to each other going through marriage counseling.

Plus I enjoy watching those two actors and several of their movies are my favorites.

I also enjoyed how the story was told. When they switched between different times in the couple’s life and when it went to the counseling.

Admittedly, I really don’t know much about how to make a great movie. Like camera angles, when to cut, how to cut, what to leave out, how to… everything.

All I know is I really loved how they did it in this movie. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take it or leave, but if you tend to like Hollywood action movies and haven’t seen this one? Go see it. Then come talk to me so we can gush about it (I can hope!).

Great Books: Mercy Thompson, and Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs

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This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.

They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.

They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci

Mercy Thompson, and Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs

This post covers a fictional world/universe more than a specific series.

Some time in the early 2000s I picked up Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. It was the start of a few years of reading urban fantasy and paranormal romance, mostly because of Briggs’ book.

The cover you see for the book to the right is the cover of the mass market paperback I bought back then, and the reason I picked the book up up.

It is a gorgeous cover by the artist Dan dos Santos. Yes, it was gorgeous enough that I actually looked up and made sure to remember the artist’s name.

Moon Called is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series. An urban fantasy series set in the Tri-Cities in Washington state, USA. It has all the usual trappings of a urban fantasy series. And it is great.

The main character, Mercy Thompson, is a coyote shifter and not insanely powerful. She is resourceful, have great friends, and a tenacity and protective instinct that brings her into trouble all the time.

She’s a hero.

Sometimes her thoughts in the books matches exactly what I imagine I’d think in those moments.

A couple of books into the Mercy series, Briggs wrote a novella also set in the world called Alpha and Omega, which turned into the start of the second series. That novella is one of my favorite stories of all time.

There are more short stories set in this world, most if not all of them helpfully collected in Shifting Shadows. A great read with many gems. Especially Seeing Eye. And any story with Asil in it. (Asil is always fun to read about.)

I’ve read every book and story set in this world. I’ve enjoyed them all.

Of all the urban fantasy I read for years, this is the series and author I still keep up with. And whose books I buy as soon as they release and read them until I finish them in the middle of the night.

I also reread them regularly.

Great TV Show: Elementary

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This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.

They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.

They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci

Elementary

Growing up I had the pleasure of occasionally meeting Sherlock Holmes. I think the main way was an audio cassette with the Hound from Baskervilles and a couple of other tales.

When a new Sherlock Holmes movie came out in 2009, I went to the movies and saw it. And then a few years ago, there were two TV-shows based on Sherlock Holmes that came out.

A British one which is excellent in its own way, but today I want to talk about Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock and Lucy Liu as Watson.

The interesting thing here, beyond changing the gender of Watson, is the relationship between Sherlock and Watson. Sober drug addict with sober companion. Sherlock’s usual brilliant but strange detecting skill, and Watson’s routine-based advice.

While their cases are interesting and twisted. I really watch it for the relationship of Sherlock and Watson.

Watching them react to each other, change, not change, adapt, circumvent, amplify and more. I really enjoy the show for that.

I’m an avid watcher of crime shows, and the one thing I’m always looking for way more than interesting cases are interesting characters/detectives. If the characters catch me, I’m a loyal watcher.

This show has done that.