Category Archives: Uncategorized

Finishing Fairy Tail

Posted on by
Reply

OK, so this blog is supposed to be mainly about books, with a bit about movies and such here and there, so really I probably shouldn’t be subjecting my handful of readers to a rant about an anime, but I’m doing it anyway. Because I can. Not sorry.

I finished Fairy Tail yesterday. And I’m feeling some kinda way.

So, some backstory: Fairy Tail is anime that started in 2009 (it was a manga first, like so many anime, but that’s a separate discussion). The original run was 7 seasons that wrapped up in 2014. I didn’t start watching it when it first started – I started it just as season 7 was ending, on the recommendation of my brother (who keeps up with more anime than I can name!), and had watched all 7 seasons by the end of 2015.

Then, a new season – a kind of prequel/in-between arc – came out in 2016. SO, I made a crazy decision to re-watch the whole series again, from the beginning and then go through the new season. This time I skipped a bunch of filler arcs and some dumb throwaway episodes, and I was watching it with my mother (we are whole anime-loving family!) and we BLASTED through it (we sometimes would sit and watch 15-20 episodes in a single weekend!). The season ended on a somewhat sour note and then the show went into a long hiatus. The manga author was writing an ending in the manga, so the anime producers said they would do a final season when they had an ending.

That final season didn’t come out until the beginning of 2019, and by then it had been three years since I’d watched the show (except for re-watching an episode here or there just for the fun of it, of course). So I made the insane decision to ONCE AGAIN watch the whole thing from beginning to end. This time, I would watch every single episode, not skipping a single one, and this time it would TRULY be from beginning to END. I started the re-watch in early 2019 – I THINK around February, though I can’t quite remember. I watched usually just a couple episodes per night, and sometimes would not watch for a week or several weeks at a time if I was busy, or too tired at night. So it has taken me about a year and a half. But I finished it, all 328 episodes, from beginning to surprisingly satisfying ending, last night.

I’m not going to try to explain or recap the whole show for all you non-anime folks, but I’ll just say: Fairy Tail is in a lot of ways your standard shonen adventure anime. It’s a fantasy, set in a fantasy land, and it focuses on the adventures (on might say MIS-adventures) of a guild of wizards (in a world of many guilds of wizards) called Fairy Tail. The MAIN main characters are the central five (later seven characters) Lucy, Natsu, Gray, Ezra, Happy, Wendy, and Carla. There adventures, of course, get bigger and bigger as the series go, until by the end of the series, they are dealing with literally world-ending villains and events. It’s full of (melo)drama, and humor, and kickass fight scenes, and its cheesy as hell! In many instances, the day is saved (and in the last couple episodes, literally all of reality) by the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. Literally. And I loved every single fucking second of it!

I found the ending surprisingly satisfying. So many shows (Western or otherwise) end the series in some depressing way in which all the characters go their separate ways, or everyone dies, or in some other way that feels way too FINAL. I much prefer endings in which we get a sense of “and their adventures continued! (You’re just not going to see them).” Fairy Tail had that ending. The bad guy was defeated, the world was saved, a few people died but a few more survived than I thought would, a couple of my preferred ships went canon, a few others were left ambiguous as ever (anime loves to do that!), and the main characters were all preparing to go on their next adventure!

But I am feeling some kind of way, folks! Endings always mess me up, especially after a very long series. And I have been devoting SO MUCH time and energy to it. I watched the whole series three times through, and this was probably the last time I’ll do that (at least for a very long time…). As Zaphod says in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “I need to go find something else for my entire life to be about…” (I’m currently considering re-watching My Hero Academia and catching up. I was watching it pretty consistently for awhile, but completely lost track at the beginning of season four).

If you like anime in a general sense, but haven’t watched Fairy Tail specifically, I HIGHLY recommend it. Especially if you enjoy a good, exciting, endearing shonen-style anime.

For now, I think I just need to sit with my feelings for awhile.

Ok, anime rant done now. Back to your regularly scheduled program.

Nostalgia Kick

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been in a weirdly nostalgic mood lately, at least so far as my media/reading consumption is concerned. I keep thinking of more and more books and movies and tv shows I want to re-read/re-watch (some of them for the millionth time).

I am currently re-reading Lirael (the second book in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series). And I’m debating re-reading Watership Down, the first Abarat book (by Clive Barker), AND doing a MASSIVE Redwall series re-read.

On top of that, I have been re-watching the anime series Inuyasha with my best friend for a couple months now (we watch about 6-7 episodes over the phone together every sunday evening!), and I started a huge M*A*S*H* re-watch (thank you, Hulu!) And I’ve been thinking about re-watching both Yu Yu Hakusho (another anime), and all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1! Because, you know, I have SO MUCH free time (*sarcasm*). I have also been re-watching a lot of Phineas and Ferb lately as I prepare for the new movie, Phineas and Ferb: Candace Against the Universe coming out in Disney+ at the end of August. (Yay!)

Despite all that, I am trying to keep up with reading for my “Storm the Castle” Reading Challenge – I just started Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente for the challenge. AND I still plan to read the ARC of Garth Nix’s newest book The Left-handed Booksellers of London in time to do a review before official release.

So, you know, just keeping busy…

Attending SDCC @ Home

Posted on by
Reply

Over the weekend, I did something I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do! I attended San Diego Comic-Con!

Ok… sort of… 

Because of the whole Covid/quarantine hellhole we are currently living in, the actual convention was canceled for the first time (I think) in its 50-odd-year history, so the organizers decided to put together a virtual online version they called SDCC @ Home. This is not, of course, groundbreaking – after all, several conventions and even a few academic conferences transitioned to online participation to some extent or another. What WAS a little shocking (to me at least) was that the organizers made it COMPLETELY FREE for all to attend!

Most of the other conventions doing online/virtual versions are still charging SOMETHING, even if it’s somewhat discounted. For instance, World-Con (where the Hugo Awards are held) is going virtual, but you still have to pay for an attending membership (which is $200 USD!), and they didn’t offer even discounts! Now, I understand that even online, it still costs money to run and maintain these things, but OUCH! $200 to sit on a computer and watch some youtube videos and perhaps text on a discord server? NO THANK YOU!

So, yeah…. SDCC @ Home was FREE, and for the first time ever I was able to “attend!” And it was very cool. The SDCC website had printable badges and signs for various halls and things that you could download and print to turn your house/room/whatever into the convention center. (Yes, I did this! Of course I did!)

I had run out of color ink so I printed in black and white and then colored them in a bit with markers! Lol!

There was a virtual exhibition hall with links to various artists and retailers and exhibitors that would have had tables at the convention, and some artists and retailers still had SDCC exclusive items or sales going on their websites. There were activity booklets (like coloring sheets and stuff) to download for kids.

And the virtual youtube panels were, for the most part, excellent.

I made sure to wear one of my Star Trek shirts for the Star Trek panel! (I made a “badge” by printing their template and taping it to an old badge from a different con, because I am a nerd!

I “attended” a BUNCH: the Star Trek Universe panel, the Orbit Debut Authors panel, the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Retrospective, panels about the upcoming third season of Infinity Train and the Adventure Time specials coming on HBO Max, and the new Phineas and Ferb movie coming on Disney+, etc etc etc….

There were a couple panels that were pretty underwhelming, but for the most part it was pretty great. I couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money, but I did order myself one of the official SDCC pins, and one graphic novel that I saw advertised in the virtual exhibit hall that looked pretty damn cool. All in all, I am very glad I got to attend in this capacity at least. Lord knows I’m probably never going to be able to afford the real thing!

After A Long Absence

Posted on by
Reply

Hello all. Long time no see. It’s been nearly two months since I posted anything here, for which I apologize. There were a few reasons for this, some obvious, some not so much.

The last couple months have been difficult on a global scale, for pretty much everyone. On top of the continued stress and anxiety and weirdness of the COVID-19 situation and quarantine, those of us in the U.S. (and to a smaller degree, in other countries) have been dealing with the powerful resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, in response to continued and escalating police violence against the black community. This has obviously been a particularly difficult time for the black community, but it has also been difficult for those of us who consider ourselves allies. (I have been very vocal and active on this matter in other places – Facebook, Twitter, petitions, donation campaigns, etc. but I’m not planning on getting into here for the very simple reason that pretty much no one reads this blog anyway.)

On top of all of that, I have also been dealing with my own particular issues: financial instability, severe depression, and a family death.

I have been considering simply discontinuing this blog. Despite starting it in January, and posting very consistently in February, March, and April , it has seen almost no growth in views or reader interaction. And that’s fine. I knew when I started this that the big “moment” for blogs had mostly died down, and that I didn’t have any particular hook or unique angle to pull in a readership. It was an experiment, to see if I could get back into it the way I did with my old blog from 2011-2014 (Ironically, on my old blog which has not been updated since 2014, I still get an average of 100 views per day! Here, not so much). And I find it is an experiment that has mostly failed. No one seems particularly interested in what I have to say, and while I am content to mainly write for myself, there are other things I could/should be devoting my time to if I’m just going to end up talking to myself on here.

But that is a decision I am still on the fence about. And in the meantime, I have a few more book reviews and such that I am working on that I might as well share here, just in case a small handful of people are actually interested. To that end, some time over the next week or so you should expect to see:

1) not a review, exactly, but more of a rant about how much I love Artemis Fowl – possibly with my opinions on the movie which was released on Disney+ today (I’m still trying to decide if I’m masochistic enough to watch it)

2) A book review of Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott, an ARC I have from work, due for release in July

3) A book review of Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt

After that, we’ll see how I feel…

Addendum: A few more fun things to do while social distancing

Posted on by
Reply

Since I wrote my last post on Tuesday, a few more interesting/fun things have popped up on my feeds and various articles. Apparently a BUNCH more museums have made their collections virtual for online viewing, and so forth. So I thought I would just add an addendum here.

According to Google, approximately 2500 museums and galleries have now made all or part of their collections available for virtual viewing on the

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has now joined the Georgia Aquarium in making livestreams of various habitats available online. Fun fact: I lived in the D.C. area from 1st through 6th grade and the National Aquarium in Baltimore was and remains to this day one of my favorite places in the world.

There is also such a thing on VIRTUAL RIDE-ALONGS for various Disneyland rides. And as a Disney-fanatic (as mentioned in previous posts), I love this more than words can say.

The ebook/audiobook app Scribd is offering 30 days access to their entire library for free, without needing to put in credit card info or anything (so you don’t even have to worry about canceling your promo subscription for fear of being charged their monthly rate later!) Though, honestly, their monthly rate is pretty reasonable!

For more reading options, Humble Bundle has a great collection of Science Fiction/Fantasy ebooks from Tachyon for a minimum donation of $15! (Humble Bundle does, of course, also have enormous collections of video games, etc but I’m not a gamer so I can’t speak to that).

Lastly, for now, BroadwayHD is offering a free trial or their streaming service of Broadway musicals and plays. Now, this one is only a 7-day-free-trial, which under the circumstances is not that much, but its still a chance to maybe watch a few musicals you’d been hoping to catch but hadn’t managed to yet.

If you’ve seen something cool that I have missed here, please feel free to share it in the comments! It’s impossible to catch it all, and I’d love to see what else is out there!

Some Fun Things To Do While Self-Isolating

Posted on by
Reply

There have been a few of these posts and articles floating around the internet, but I thought it would be fun just to compile and share a few of the things I’ve found to keep you entertained, to keep you indoors, to keep your anxiety under control, etc…

Keep in mind that these are just things I’ve managed to find, and things that I personally find fun or cool or whatever (I’m sure you’ve seen many of these and more besides in other places).

First off, I love museums! So, here’s an article about 12 museums that offer virtual tours, including the British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Guggenheim!

And since we’re talking about museums, we can’t forget that these Paris Museums have put 100,000 images online for free unlimited viewing!

Next, I love music. I love going to concerts in genres ranging from classic rock to indie alternative to classical! I regularly attend concerts at the Houston Symphony. I was hoping they might do something online for audiences, but I suppose they didn’t have the setup necessary for it. Instead, the Seattle Symphony has done something very cool and is sharing previously recorded concerts for free streaming on YouTube and Facebook. More information can be found on their website here.

In for more classical music, you have probably heard that the Met Opera is doing free viewings of some of their previous Met Opera in HD programs (which they usually broadcast via Fathom Events in movie theatres and on their Subscription App). You can find more information, including a schedule on their website here. 

Yesterday (Monday, March 16th) they streamed Carmen, which I watched and really enjoyed. Tonight (Tuesday, March 17th) they will be streaming La Boheme. Just fyi: you can stream these performances straight from the website, however due to more site traffic than they were prepared for, the Met Opera recommends streaming from their On Demand App. The App does technically cost money, however you can access the free broadcasts without signing up by going to the “Browse and Preview” option! It’s a tiny bit glitchy (again, due to more traffic than they’re used to) but it worked me just fine!

For more fun, the Georgia Aquarium has live cams in many of their habitats so you can visit with the fish and animals going about their lives without any clue of the turmoil currently going on among us crazy humans.

I recommend watching some Mister Roger’s Neighborhood if your anxiety or restlessness is especially bad. Amazon Prime has quite a few episodes. And the Fred Rogers Productions website releases 5 new episodes twice per month for free.

I always, of course, recommend reading. If your local library has been forced to shutdown due to the social distancing efforts, I recommend looking for their digital collections. You’ll find that most (though not all) libraries have a partnership with one of the two e-catalog apps for ebooks and audiobooks: Overdrive and Libby. Keep in mind that you do need a library card from your local library to access the collections, but many libraries allow you to apply for a digital-only “card” on their websites that will give you a code or number to use the digital collections.

Speaking of books, I also HIGHLY recommend Levar Burton Reads. Obviously this is going to appeal to the millennials who grew up on Reading Rainbow, but really anyone who likes fiction would probably enjoy this. It’s a podcast that Levar Burton started awhile ago where he chooses a short story to read. It’s a delight!

And, of course, there are plenty of tv series and movies to watch on cable and on the myriad streaming services available these days. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think it’s generally safe to assume that most people have at least ONE of the major streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or DisneyPlus. Just for the fun of it, here are a handful of television series that I really enjoy:

The Good Place (seasons 1-3 on Netflix)
Community (on Hulu)
Lost in Space (the new one on Netflix)
The Umbrella Academy (on Netflix, and the wait for season 2 is killing me!)
Hilda (Netflix, animated and family-friendly)
Futurama (one of my all-time favorites, on Hulu)
Adventure Time (another favorite, also on Hulu)
Amphibia (a really cute new-ish animated series on DisneyPlus)
Gargoyles (if you want to go old-school on DisneyPlus)
Good Omens (on Amazon Prime, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and possibly the best thing to come out of 2019)

And for the anime fans: Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, Soul Eater, Tada Never Falls in Love, Golden Time, Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Yu Yu Hakusho (to name just a few…)

Also, a friendly reminder that STAR TREK exists and has gifted the universe with seven different series, 13 movies, and more novelizations than you can shake a stick at.

I might also suggest something to help keep you calm and balanced, such as meditation. There are a ton of meditation books, videos, and apps. But I personally use and really like an app called Stop, Breathe, and Think. It has both a free and a paid premium version, and contains quite a lot of guided meditations and some short videos for yoga and such as well.

So that’s what I have! I would love to hear about some of things you have found, either online or elsewhere, to keep you busy, calm, and/or entertained! Please feel free to share in the comments!

To Blog or Not to Blog

Posted on by
Reply
Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash

Blogs. Their boom has mostly come and gone. When I was writing my first (and only marginally successful) blog in 2010-2013 it was already reaching its peak, its saturation point. In 2011 there were approximately 174 million individual blogs published on the internet. I have yet to find a useful statistic for number of blogs still currently active as of 2019, but the fervor seems to have died down. Most people have moved on to micro-blogging on Twitter and Instagram, and posting videos on TikTok. And, though I have only anecdotal evidence, it seems even fewer people are still READING blogs than writing them.

Even I have fallen out of the habit of reading blogs consistently. There are several I used to follow religiously that I have forgotten about over the last three or four years. Still, I like blogs. Sometimes you need the long-form space to really discuss an idea or an opinion or make an argument in ways that Twitter, even a long Twitter thread, doesn’t really allow for. On this note, brilliant author, hilarious Twitter-ite, and all-around awesome person Chuck Wendig (if you don’t follow him, you really should!) make a great argument in favor of returning to the lost art of blog-writing on HIS blog (pretty much the only one I still read even semi-regularly) here: “Old Man Blogs at Cloud.”

I won’t repeat all the points Chuck Wendig makes in his post, but it boils down to: a) it’s something YOU own, unlike the “evil empires” of Facebook and Twitter and the like, b) it allows for more and better writing, and c) it can be good for your “brand” as a professional (in Wendig’s case, as an author, but in other professions as well).

Thus, I am here. Again. Trying to start and (hopefully) maintain a blog. Again.

As the name of the blog “Night Forest Books” might imply, I hope this blog will often (though not always) be about books. Books I’m reading, books I loved as a child, books I recommend whole-heartedly, etc. I also have an Instagram account called @night.forest.books which is a bookstagram account (ie, I take pretty photos of books). Hypothetically, all of this is a stepping stone to my big-huge-ambitious-probably-won’t-happen goal, which is to open my own science fiction/fantasy bookstore called Night Forest Books and Coffee (because how do resist attaching a little coffee shop to a bookstore?). In the meantime, I have this.

This blog will probably also feature discussions of my other obsessions: movies, anime, all things Disney… maybe NASA, maybe music? And will likely, because I am trying to be more open and honest, often feature posts about my personal life. I will try not to let this blog turn into a place to whine at strangers, but… *shrug* If I feel like sharing, I will.