Books, novels, literature, what have you read lately?

(Side thing about Phantom of the Opera but I haven't seen any movie or read any adaptation but is there a reference to black flowers or only stems?

I read Discworld Terry Pratchett's Maskquerade and there was one paragraph that talked about finding black flowers and the person there didn't get it. I feel like it's a funny reference I missed.

Also the chocolate aphrodisiac scene had me actually scream laughing in a book. The timing and descriptions were amazing! Pratchett is genius)

There's a Dungeon Crawler Carl Free Comic Book Day comic that came out. If you got it, was it good?

I should get back to the current book. It's nearing the end, right? With the cookbook, Carl would be having all the plans set soon.

The webtoon isn't bad. Got the first graphic novel, which collects the webtoon. Stops in the first book just before the goblin massacre (iykyk)

As far as the plans . . . . . . kind of a lot has happened. Like, holy jive.

Fero McPigletron said:

Side thing about Phantom of the Opera but I haven't seen any movie or read any adaptation but is there a reference to black flowers or only stems?

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There are a few references to flowers. When Erik (the Phantom) first takes Christine to his lair, she describes it as being full of flowers, like every flower shop in Paris had been bought out.
There's also a scene, where Raoul and Christine go to Christine's father's grave in the middle of winter. Raoul sees roses in full, vibrant bloom laid out on the grave, and the implication is that these out of season flowers are from Erik.

The ALW musical adapts this as Erik having a thing for gifting Christine roses. Sometimes they're black roses and sometimes they're red roses with black ribbons around the stem.

Ooooh. Hmm, I must have just been that, the gifting of flowers. I thought it was something about beheading or no head / face that I missed, from just stems.

Seriously, the book is interesting.

One way Erik leans into the ghost thing is in leaving silent little "I was here" gestures. If you've ever had a legit ghost in your house, you know what that's about. AlW focused on roses, but there is so much more than that, and it's not just with Christine.

Latest Book Read: Magic the Gathering Strixhaven Omens of Chaos by Seanan McGuire.

Never read a MtG book before and havnt really played the game in decades but I've read and liked some of Seanan's other books and I saw her talking about how much she loved making this book and how she was hoping it would do well so they'd let her do more of them and so I gave it a shot. I liked it a lot. It's basically the first semester of a quartet of interplanetary misfits at magic college and they're fun characters in a cool setting. I would absolutely read a "Book 2."

-ZacWilliam, Next Up- The new Murderbot Diaries short novel. I have LOVED all of these so really looking forward to it.

Fero McPigletron said:

Ooooh. Hmm, I must have just been that, the gifting of flowers. I thought it was something about beheading or no head / face that I missed, from just stems.

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Don't know if it's what Pratchett was thinking, but Morticia Addams has a thing for cutting the blossoms off roses.

CoffeeHorse said:

Seriously, the book is interesting.

One way Erik leans into the ghost thing is in leaving silent little "I was here" gestures. If you've ever had a legit ghost in your house, you know what that's about. AlW focused on roses, but there is so much more than that, and it's not just with Christine.

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The virgin Edward watches his girlfriend sleep. The chad Erik watches his girlfriend's other boyfriend sleep.

ZacWilliam1 said:

Latest Book Read: Magic the Gathering Strixhaven Omens of Chaos by Seanan McGuire.

Never read a MtG book before and havnt really played the game in decades but I've read and liked some of Seanan's other books and I saw her talking about how much she loved making this book and how she was hoping it would do well so they'd let her do more of them and so I gave it a shot. I liked it a lot. It's basically the first semester of a quartet of interplanetary misfits at magic college and they're fun characters in a cool setting. I would absolutely read a "Book 2."

-ZacWilliam, Next Up- The new Murderbot Diaries short novel. I have LOVED all of these so really looking forward to it.

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I've thought about grabbing the Strixhaven book, but more just for the Command Tower card it comes with. It's been a minute since I picked up a MtG book. The hype of seeing Greg Weisman write the book for War of the Spark a few years back soured after realizing he juggles multiple characters better visually than in prose. And the subtle character assassination didn't help. Didn't bother with the second book afterwards.

I've slowly been working through Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's been a fun read. I'm a dozen chapters into The Butchers Masquerade. And damn I'm kinda wishing I had Mongo's luck right now

Butcher's Masquerade is my current favorite DCC book. The stakes are just so grand and I love the humor.