I didn’t read much (fan)fiction this year as I usually do. So I just combined some regular books, both fiction and non-fiction, and some the online stuff this time.
Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches by LeadVonE. In-Progress, but updates regularly. Your bog-standard power fantasy and politics harem story. Funny read, if you’re into it. I kind of lost my way after reaching the then-current chapter. I’ll come back to it later and will likely revisit next year, whether it finishes in 2020 or not.
Mother of Learning by nobody103. In-Progress, but likely nearing its end? Continued from last year. Time-loop web original in a fantasy setting. Nice and long. Rec.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Book. Modern take on the Old Gods (and the New ones). Better than the adaption (I watched the Amazon series first).
The Will To Battle by Ada Palmer. Book. Continuation of the Terra Ignota series. Not as strong as the first book in the series, but better than Seven Surrenders in my opinion. Soon the grand finale will reach us in Perhaps the Stars (I think it’s gonna be a tetralogy, right?).
Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Book. How statistical analysis and advanced stats took off in Baseball. Good overview of the history, but a bit shallow.
This Team is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them) by Steve “Dangle” Glynn. Book. An autobiography of one of the biggest contemporary Leafs fans. I don’t know if this will be to your liking if you’re not a regular watcher of Steve’s videos, but for me it was worth it.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Book. Great sci-fi from the point of view of an alien species much closer to home than expected. There’s a sequel out I’m definitely gonna get. Rec.
Ring-Maker by Lithos_Maitreya. In-Progress and updating semi-regularly. What if one of the most terrifying warlords in literature woke up one day and was reborn as The Most Terrifying Warlord in literature? In other words: a LotR/Worm reverse-isekai crossover in which Truck-kun is Mount Doom and Annatar really just wants to make some precious friends in Brockton Bay.
As N Approaches Infinity by Corisanna. In-Progress, but updates semi-regularly. Cont’d. PMMM/Bleach crossover. Meshes both storylines very well. Follows Homura on a visit to Karakura. Urahara. It’s still PMMM, so there’s more death than would be expected of normal Bleach fic. Rec.
To The Stars by Hieronym. In-Progress, but updates semi-regularly. Cont’d. I still really like it, but being up-to-date with it takes out the oomph of binging this fic a bit. Rec.
A Type of Programming by Renzo Carbonara. E-Book, still in progress. I’m not through yet, and the book itself isn’t finished, although I’d say it’s quite far along and will be preliminary finished soon. It makes for an enjoyable read and is one of the most approachable introductions to functional programming I know of. And it isn’t just an introduction. The later chapters provide some (opinionated) insights into common Haskell patterns and type theory. Never hurts to revisit the basics as well.
Category Theory for Programmers by Bartosz Milewski. Book. Exactly what it says on the tin. Very down to earth as well. Rec.
2019 wasn’t a very good year for anime, at least not for me. I didn’t watch a lot of shows this year. Mostly some seasonals to pass the time (others count as long as I first watched them in 2019, no matter when they came out). Nothing much stood out. The very few that did will comprise this list:
Liz and the Blue Bird. This was a very subtle and quiet story. You can watch it without any prior Hibike Euphonium knowledge. For once, this one isn’t even so much about shipping for me, but about an extremely deep bond and the fear of losing it. It hit me pretty hard, to be honest. Rec.
Yagate kimi ni naru. There were some beautiful shots, don’t get me wrong. And they basically adapted the source material as well as we could’ve hoped for. But the adaption just covers the first half of the manga, and I can’t seem to manage to watch it without looking at the final chapters of the manga. Despite that I still hope for a second season of course.
Hoshiai no sora. In-Progress. I already posted some things about it here.
Araburu kisetsu no otome-domo yo. The previous season’s Hishiai no sora. A bit lighter in tone, but honestly hilarious for the most part and the rest of the time it’s truly heart-warming. Rec.
Of course I need to start with the one that definitely stood out this year: Yagate kimi ni naru by Nakatani Nio. After much suffering and anguish over the four years of its run, Yuu and Touko (and Sayaka and most of the supporting cast, as far as we know) got their well earned happy ending. I’ve said this before, but I genuinely think that yagakimi has been one of the greatest character studies ever undertaken in manga. In my mind, it is basically only second to Vagabond, and even that mostly comes down to the art, not necessarily to the writing itself. If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and read this outstanding work. Rec.
Inshin no Yuki by Hoshiki Nana. Somewhat surprising debut romance one shot. I wrote about it here.
Canno’s Ano Ko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo also came to an end this year. It doesn’t play nearly in the same league as yagakimi, but it was still and enjoyable read over the years.
Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko! by Yanagida Fumita. The relatively abrupt ending after so long a wait was kind of underwhelming.
Nothing else I started or finished this year really stood out. You can always keep up with what I’m reading on my anilist page.
2019 in Various Other News
I went to Canada! And the US! And Iceland! And Belgium! And Spain!
My skating got marginally better. Maybe.
I translated some Yagakimi fanart.
I published some Yagakimi headcanons.
