He Who Fights with Monsters 11 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A true two-parter of a novel. Building that domain, making friends of enemies, and then the lead-up to truly becoming a king.

Which is, of course, very funny, considering Jason's opinions.

Saying goodbye is also hard.

But the second part of the novel was also rather healing. Moving on. Growing. And it was interesting to see what everyone else did with their lives.

It's not the end, of course, but it feels damn necessary. And somewhat unique, thinking about transition periods in so many other novels like this.

Quite good.

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He Who Fights with Monsters 10 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's honestly fun to see the rest of the world sigh in deep resignation when dealing with Jason, and not just his closest friends. It's a far cry from the times when all those others would just use and abuse him, betray, kidnap, murder, or otherwise play deeply disturbing political games before setting him up for massive death.

Sighs of resignation are definitely an improvement. At least they're taking the godling seriously now. Or not. Or they wish they didn't have to. One of those. :)

This one definitely leads up to some serious compromises and tragedies, however. Because that's what happens in real life when you have to pull off miracles.

You know. Pull one out. But that also makes for some pretty great fiction, too.

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He Who Fights with Monsters 9 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The flavor of these books continues to be quite a bit different from normal LitRPGs in that it's not primarily focused on progression for progression's sake but in how to remain a good person when everyone around you and your power itself wants to turn you into a monster.

This particular book isn't unique in this observation, of course, but the healing aspects to it are really quite beautiful. Go out with an assumed identity, search for trouble, find it, and then land yourself into a big pile of steaming shit-smeared bird wings. Messengers.

Yes, well, this kind of thing needs to happen. A bigger, badder foe. But now the baby monarch is in town.

The quality of mercy is quite strained. ;)

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He Who Fights With Monsters 8 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think Jason has a sneaking suspicion that he may not be entirely mortal anymore.

I mean, aside from dying multiple times, no longer being human, being able to slam people around with just his aura, or being a freaking monarch of a domain and having a consecrated temple devoted to Knight Rider that can imprison cult leaders and torture them with Baywatch memorabilia.

Though, to be perfectly honest, you don't have to lose your mortality to do the last bit. I think that's just a perk of being awfully weird.

Fortunately, it's not an exclusive trait!


The novel is awfully fascinating, too, on the god-encroaching territory. Too much power, too many bad choices, and everyone is leery. Including the gods that keep popping into his life.

Fun stuff.

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He Who Fights With Monsters 7 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This one hit me in the feels. Coming back home (to another world, not Earth where he ACTUALLY came from) was the best thing that could happen to him.

Except that people are shit everywhere.

The powerful still play games and they're never nice ones.

And nobody ever tries to understand where others are coming from. Like a returning world-savior coming back from the dead, having undergone a dozen soul-scouring experiences, who just wanted to get back to something light and normal and soul-healing--being forced in stupid regal politics out of none of his doing. And throwing him into the shit without realizing just WHAT they had grabbed.


What was healing about this book?

Friends. Trust. Faith. They made this book everything.

I love it.

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I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For what is VERY much a novel of its time, 1970, with free love, challenging normal family relationships, being accepting of all kinds of LGBTQ setups, or even freedom for age limitations (December/May relationships), it's a book that really ought to feel right at home with modern audiences.

Indeed, for a good 3/4 of the novel, it really would be. Just get beyond the first quarter of the novel and fly right into the whole SF true sex change (old man's brain in a young woman's body, trying to deal with social/sexual situations), and it pretty much flies. It's fun, free love, sex, and especially love, love, love transcending all boundaries. And I don't mean true love or monogamous love, but freedom to love.

It's a wild ride just so long as you place the novel in exactly its right place and time.



But in modern time? LOOOOL. I almost quit it over the opening sequences of the dirty old men oggling the young woman who, even though she was perfectly happy with it all, still felt... ugly and dirty because so many modern examples shows it to BE ugly and dirty. But this IS a character novel and taking it all on the cases presented here, it's actually rather sweet and accepting and it becomes a clever and honestly interesting take and condemnation of closed-mindedness all across the board.

Trans politics through the easy SF lens? Yep. All sexual politics m/f f/f m/m and everything else inbetween, challenging critics and readers through that easy SF lens? Absolutely. It's bold and fearless.

There's a LOT to love about this novel. It's also easy to condemn for the sheer creepiness of a few aspects.

Would I recommend this to anyone without this caveat? No. But with it? It's honestly worthwhile. Just problematic. :)

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He Who Fights with Monsters 6 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an appropriate time to quote a line from another property. "Earth--what a shithole."

It's encapsulated quite nicely in this volume.

Of course, when your home is a dumpling slowly being suffused with much too much soup, to the point where it'll frankly dissolve if it takes a single more iota of broth, you can't really judge much on the niceties, like how fine the bowl is or what kind of utensil you use.

This is just a nice way of saying the ends justify the means and the shit's already gone in the drink. But hey, we LIVE here. We know.

Or rather, we live in a non-magickified version of the shithole, but the underlying concept is the same.

I just wish we had our own hero trying to unsoupify the wonton. Alas.

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