Reading Report: 09 August 2026

ソウル・サクリファイス

ソウル・サクリファイス

In gaming input I played quite a bit of Soul Sacrifice Delta. I also played a bit of Monster Hunter, finishing the Gogmazios quest and subsequent stories in Wild, but anyway. Soul Sacrifice is the only Monster-Hunter-like game that actually has an interesting story. I played up to the point where online/multiplayer is unlocked, which includes the Nimue prologue, Bowman (Avalon) story, Elaine (Sanctuary) story, and Red Hood (Grim) story. I love how each of these stories progresses over the quests you do with them, often subverting your expectations about the characters. I especially like how Soul Sacrifice uses its core Save/Sacrifice mechanic as a storytelling device to show forged and broken bonds.

砂漠

This week I read quite a lot, pushing my quota most days. This week I finished the Summer story and moved into the Autumn story. I'm currently about half way through that section.

Following last week, a huge twist occurred right around where I resumed. The gang, staking out the suspected house of Presidentman, see the house invaded by a bunch of young criminals, one of which looks like Reiichi, the guy who tried to fleece Torii at the bowling alley. They make a commotion and flush the criminals out of the house, but when they speed away, the car hits Torii, crushing his arm. The doctors can't recover the nerves in his arm and opt to amputate it where there's still healthy tissue, and Torii goes into a depressive episode for basically the rest of the section. The gang tries to get involved in his life to help him, but he's lost his vibrant spirit. Eventually, Nishijima arranges a mahjong game at Torii's house and everyone comes despite the gloom. It turns out Nishijima had a plan all along. He basically throws game after game of mahjong until he can finally align his hand just right so that he can use the "中" from his work-place's billboard as the final piece he needs to create a winning hand. It's such a silly way to win that Torii is broken out of his own miasma and he laughs for the first time again. It was a very sweet, foolhardy act by Nishijima.

Autumn has had a few diffuse things going on so far, so I'm not sure if there'll be "one thing" that binds it, but so far we've found out that Toudou, a girl who is described as being so pretty and popular she could get any guy she wants, was rejected by Nishijima (she takes it well); Nishijima took in a rescue dog and then, realising his apartment doesn't allow pet dogs, he passes it onto Toudou and her mum; and Kitamura has been introduced to Asou Kouichirou, a researcher at the university who strongly doesn't believe in psychic abilities and now has Kitamura questioning Minami's abilities. There's been a bit of tension about whether Kitamura should involve Minami so she can prove herself, or whether that's just needlessly putting her on the spot, and so far only Kitamura and Nishijima have met with Asou, unable to convince him without any hard evidence.

The Martian Chronicles

I started reading bits and pieces of this at least a month ago but kept putting it off because I just wasn't making much time for English books. My fiance told me if I read it all by/on August 4th I'd be able to get the elite experience of reading There Will Come Soft Rains, the second-to-last story in the book, on the day that the story is set, August 4th 2026. So between August 3rd and 4th I read the book and finished it that afternoon.

The book is a compilation of short stories written by Ray Bradbury that explore the quiet, mundane lives of Martians, the unremarkable and unwelcome visitation of Earthlings, and then the accidental genocide of those same Martians, and the not-so-accidental colonisation of Mars. I liked how Bradbury never trapped himself in any one genre. One story will be extremely funny and the next will be heartrending and sombre. One story explores comradery and brotherhood and the next explores political division, war, and bloodshed. While it took me a while to really get into it, I think it's the kind of book that just keeps going once you start.

For the sake of timeliness I'll comment on my thoughts about There Will Come Soft Rains. I think the poem within the story does plenty to make its case. In a post-apocalyptic world, all of our bickering, our bonding, our art, and love won't be concerns for anything we leave behind. It can be scary to think about our lives having no meaning, but I think it can also be freeing to remember that the meaning is made within us alone, and that gives us the freedom to choose what meaning to make. It's interesting that the automated house, unlike many of the other "lifeforms", inherits its meaning from the humans who have left it to decay. Its an emotional being, full of frustration towards outsiders, fear of its own death, and love for the humans it (formerly) cares for, but all of those sensations were given to it by humans and feel strained when compared to the natural movement of the fire that burns it down, or even the old dog in the story.
There's also much to be said about the purpose of the house pre-apocalypse as well. What meaning can we derive from a house that provides its master with a scheduled cigar? It feels as though the humans in that house (perhaps in that society) had optimised the spontaneity out of their own lives, automating themselves to be more like the machine which was meant to serve them. Is bridge as fun when you feel like you have to rush from the dining room to the bridge table and know that the table will collapse into itself in precisely thirty minutes?