The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

The Resurrectionist is a historical novel set in 1820s Edinburgh, which was the centre of medical learning of the time. Not only were the ideas concerning medicine more enlightened, the students were able to study with actual human bodies, albeit those of the dead. But people weren’t exactly willing to donate their bodies to study medicine, so the only legally available bodies were those of people executed by hanging. It didn’t offer many opportunities, so the bodies had to be obtained by less legal manners, hence the rise of body-snatchers like Burke and Hare, who made steady business with providing bodies to anatomy schools.

James Willoughby is the third son of a landed gentry and is expected to find a profession to support himself. He spends a brief spell in Oxford, studying to become a clergyman, which he is wholly unsuited for. But science, especially medicine, draws him. So he abandons Oxford and declares to his family that he’ll be studying medicine in Edinburgh instead, leading to his father’s untimely death. That has unfortunate consequences for James, because it turns out, his father has gambled away the family fortune and there’s barely any money for his studies.

It doesn’t matter at first. He finds a cheap accommodation, throws himself to his studies, and makes some like-minded friends, enjoying the freedom of spirit Edinburgh offers. But then he learns about the anatomy schools that offer a proper chance to practice with human bodies, and he has to join one. Problem is, it costs money he doesn’t have.

Unwilling to let the opportunity go, he asks if he can help out at the school in exchange for a cheaper tuition. And the surgeon’s assistant, Aneurin MacKinnon, a dashing and brilliant if slightly eccentric young man, agrees. James is to be a lookout while Nye tries to capture body-snatchers. Only, that’s not what it’s really about, as James discovers for his horror. Nye is a body-snatcher too, or a resurrectionist, as he calls himself.

They part ways, but when James’s family informs him that the money is completely gone and order him to return home to become a businessman instead, desperation leads him back to Nye to become a body-snatcher too, as the money is good. It’s a life-changing experience for him. Things seem perfect at first; his friendship with Nye is blooming amid their criminal adventures, soon deepening to love and adding another thing he needs to hide from his friends. But this doesn’t last. A ruthless gang of body-snatchers arrive to Edinburgh, and James and Nye find themselves stepping on toes of Burke and Hare.

This was a good book, and an excellent debut. The story was interesting and flowed in a fairly fast pace. The narrative emulated 19th century prose very well, made fresher by the first-person point of view. James was a likeable if single-minded in his need to study medicine, but not always observant when it came to his surroundings and his friends, so the historical setting and side-characters apart from Nye remained slightly vague. It’s not a long book, and while it wasn’t a “Twisty Gothic Mystery” that the subtitle promised, it was entertaining. The ending was open enough that there might even be more adventures of James and Nye. I would be willing to read them.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint vol 1 manhwa by Sleepy-C and singNsong: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint vol 1 manhwa by Sleepy-C & singNsong

I kept hoping the manhwa would come out as an e-book, but no such luck, so I finally caved and bought a physical copy. My bookshelf is not thanking me.

This is an excellent start to a series, if somewhat abrupt. No time is wasted with backstories. We meet the protagonist, Kim Dokja on a subway train on his way home from work as he finally finishes a book that he’s been reading for ten years, Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse. He’s been its sole reader the entire time, and as he sends a thank you note for the author, he gets a free download in return, after which the book disappears. And then the world ends.

It turns out, the universe is a playground of constellations who watch the worlds and their inhabitants struggle in their final moments for their amusement. The best they support and sponsor as their incarnations, until it’s time to move to the next world. And everything is unfolding exactly like in Kim Dokja’s book. But he’s not the protagonist. He’s not even someone who’s supposed to be in the book, let alone survive the first scenario designed to kill as many people as possible.

However, he has the entire book at his disposal and knows how to play the game, which comes with displays of dialogue boxes and experience points. And he’s granted a special skill: omniscient reader’s viewpoint, which allows him to read the minds of his opponents. Armed with this knowledge, he sets out to survive.

The first book sets the scene and gives us a good idea of the kind of person Kim Dokja is. He’s a survivor, not a victim, underdog, but not discouraged by it. I like how he’s atop of things from the start, morally a bit grey, intelligent, and cunning. Other characters are introduced as well, but only briefly. Art is beautiful large-panel webtoon illustrations, and work in print too, which isn’t always the case.

My only complaint is the insistence of these English translations of switching the order of Korean (and other Asian) names to western one with first name first and family name second, as if readers are too stupid to know the cultural difference, and leaving out the polite ways of addressing people that are integral of these cultures. But it’s a minor thing; I can switch it back in my mind—and in this review. I’ll definitely continue, even to the detriment of my shelves.

The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish Vol. 3 by Xue Shan Fei Hu: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish vol 3 by Xue Shan Fei Hu

The delightfully silly transmigration story has reached its third volume. Prince Jing has been ordered to the empire’s western border to show his mettle, and naturally Li Yu, his beloved pet fish, follows him there. It’s a quiet town pestered by bandits and locusts, and Li Yu has practical suggestions for solving both. The latter is handled by bringing ducks to the affected areas to eat the insects, which leads to establishing a restaurant too.

The main story is Prince Jing and Li Yu consummating their relationship (which I thought they’d done already), which leads to a surprise pregnancy. The fish scamming system, the programme guiding Li Yu’s transmigration journey, had asked for Li Yu’s consent, but did it during the act itself, when he wasn’t exactly paying attention and just agreed to anything it said. The possibility of pregnancy hadn’t even occurred to him, both of them being male.

Luckily, the system gives him a choice to handle the pregnancy as a fish. It still makes him a rather unique male fish, but at least the entire thing is easy for him. The only difficulty is hiding it from Prince Jing, because he still believes the prince doesn’t know the man in his bed and his favourite pet fish are the same. But when four fish eggs pop out, it’s difficult to keep secrets anymore.

Four lovely boy fishes emerge, but they need to wait for nine months before they turn into babies, a good stretch to fake Li Yu’s pregnancy. Despite some questions raised, most people take it in a stride. In the background, Prince Jing is trying to make the emperor to accept Li Yu as his consort instead of concubine. Once the babies are born, i.e. turn human, he finally gets the permission and the two get married. No one opposes and no one questions that the babies are theirs. There’s even blood test done by imperial physicians who confirm the children’s lineage.

Apart from one last test for Li Yu, during which he learns to transform into a merman, the rest of the story revolves around the babies. They’re rather unique, having spent nine months as fishes learning things a normal human baby has no idea of. They can communicate with each other and try to do so with others too, and learn to walk and talk and even sort of write before they’re even a year old. They’re cute, but not as cute as Li Yu as a fish, and there are no silly antics. Even outsiders notice this, when Prince Jing tries to show off a substitute fish as his favourite pet.

But the sixth prince hasn’t given up his ambition to be named as the crown prince. He’s stirring trouble on the background, and is ready to strike. The volume ends just as he makes his move. It’s a cliffhanger of sorts, but I would’ve read on even without it. The feel-good, low angst silliness of this series keeps me happy for days.

That being said, I only gave the volume four stars for slightly slower pace. Li Yu turned into a respectable adult who no longer had time for his fishy antics, and the children weren’t quite up to his level of cuteness yet. The next volume appears to be the final, so I’m hoping it’ll bring the old Li Yu back.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol 7 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The Husky & His White Cat Shizun vol 7 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Volume 7 continues the hunt for Xu Shuanglin who has hid himself in the ancestral burial mountain of the Rufeng sect. Led by Nangong Si who is the only one who can open the mountain’s defences, the entire cultivation world head there, only to face a battle after another. Xu Shuanglin is more powerful than they believed, and he’s managed to harness the entire mountain, including the dragon at its heart, to his help.

It’s mostly Nangong Si’s story. He’s the last member of his sect and Xu Shuanglin—Nangong Xu—is his uncle. Time and again, he throws himself to defeating the mountain to help others reach its peak where Xu Shuanglin is hiding, facing not only the dragon but his most revered ancestor too. In a very moving scene, he has a chance to encounter his long dead mother, reanimated by Xu Shuanglin. But despite his constant sacrifices, the wrath of the cultivators against his sect doesn’t ease, not even at the end.

Mo Ran is having difficult time during the battle. He struggles with keeping the truth of his first life hidden while trying to use what he’s learned during it to help defeat Xu Shuanglin. At one point he’s poisoned with a substance that makes him relive scenes from his past life, trying to convince him he’s never left it, which really messes with his head. But when they finally reach Xu Shuanglin, he’s the only one who can reach through is madness, having gone through the same.

Mo Ran is the only one who realises too, that Xu Shuanglin isn’t the final boss, on top of which there’s a secondary player among the cultivators, who attacks at the worst possible moment. The one who suffers most is Shi Mei. Facing certain death, he gives a speech that I’m not entirely sure how to take. Maybe he wanted to give his piece of mind to Mo Ran and Xue Meng, or maybe he wanted them to act against him to focus on winning the day. Either way, it isn’t dealt with in this volume. (He didn’t die though, in case you’re worried.)

But just as Mo Ran starts to believe he might make it out of the mountain without facing his past, the worst happens. The past arrives, concretely. The last quarter of the book focuses on Mo Ran and Chu Wanning, as the latter finally learns about the other Mo Ran, in a very physical and painful way. But the volume ends before we learn what he thinks of it.

The most interesting twist is saved for the last couple of chapters. We learn where Chu Wanning comes from and it’s nothing I could’ve imagined. He had no idea of it either, but the aftermath of that is saved for the next volume. There’s also a twist about Mo Ran’s connection with Rufeng sect that stems from his past life (if I understood it correctly, which isn’t all that certain.) That’ll have consequences later too.

This was a mixed read for me. First three quarters was an endless battle that focused more on other characters than Mo Ran and Chu Wanning. It was interesting enough with its twists and turns and moving sacrifices, but much too long. The volume was saved by the last quarter though, that focused on the two main characters. The stunning revelations for both of them were enough to lift the volume back to excellent. If (when) the aftermath of that goes sideways, there’s a long road ahead for the two to happily ever after. I can’t wait.