突然のことですが、さいきん寂しいや鬱病やそういったような感じに籠ってて、
話し合ったり、会ったり、救い合ったりする素敵な友達にこの曲たちをささげる。
Ｐｅｎｇｕｉｎ Ｒｅｓｅａｒｃｈさんの『ワイルドブルー』と『千夜祭』
ＡＫＩＮＯ Ｆｒｏｍ ｂｌｅｓｓ４さんの『エクストラマジックアワー』
特にしょっちゅう家に遊びに来てくれる１年前にできた友達ゆいつひとりに、Ｕｖｅｒｗｏｒｌｄさんの『ＬＯＮＥ ＷＯＬＦ』
さらに中国語での、うまく理解がで刑ていないけど響きが美しくどうやら相当するように感じる劉宇寧さんの《奉上》を捧げます。
ご意見を、お待ちしております。
宜しくお願いします。
さいきん、自分以外のみんなが大学生で試験まみれの時期だと思いますが、会えなくてとても残念に思ったことからこう自分の貧しい心に陥ってしまって、日本人ならぜったいに分かち合えるのではないかと思って、シェアさせて頂きました。
Disclaimer 1: This is NOT a ranting review or deliberately spread of hate BY ANY MEANS. And I wanted to make that clear beforehand since at first glance I admit it might feel as such, but nothing further from reality than that. Personally I LOVE everything that has to do with Assassin’s Creed and its franchise with all my heart, but coming up with this novel I was (and I am going to use this word) slightly disappointed by some tiny little details that almost everyone I bet you would have completely overlooked but I couldn’t ignore them and I wanted to discuss them with you, while being the most objective, detailed and sincere as possible, as your fellow lover of this whole unmatched lore.
Disclaimer 2: I also wanted to write this as soon as possible in so as to avoid misunderstandings, unexpectedly get downvoted (it already happened a couple of times before) or anything similar to that unpleasant response; This review has been elaborated a hundred percent by me, Ezequiel Jano Lamas, and given the fact that although I can make my way through, English is not my first language I feel that I constantly need to “[word] meaning and translation” everything if I wanted to accurately let out my thoughts without being redundant or simplistic at any degree in order to let out something that’s stuck in my through. For the record, my mother tongue is Spanish, so if something in the writing feels off I just wanted to let you all know I’m writing this in Google Documents and the red underline is constantly showing up and being automatically corrected from time to time.
Having clarified that, here’s the FULL SPOILER REVIEW of “Assassin’s Creed The Secret Crusade” (Oliver Bowden)
Yup. You’re reading it the correct way. Although Assassin's Creed for me would have been undoubtedly 4 stars and worthy of any sort of praise… I felt completely disappointed by The Secret Crusade: the untold story of Altaïr-the Master Assassin”, nevertheless won’t rank it lower than 3.25 (which in my personal scale would be the same as placing that somewhere a little bit over “normal” or “expectable” and pushing that slightly throughout “brilliant” or “worth recommending”) stars if anything. (I opted to let the final verdict as above as I could since I felt it could affect the feedback towards this review, which again I’m trying to make as objective and transparent (sheer?) as possible.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the franchise, I enjoyed playing the game the most, and I would have loved the novel as well, if it wasn’t misleading or at least a little bit less deceiving of both what it promised in the first place, and what it turned out to be in reality.
I mean… Altaïr was not just any assassin, but the most brave, selfish, arrogant, among other things. He would just follow the creed and let people get what he thought they deserved, then break it and face the consequences of what that dishonor implies… For me, it would have been worth even a thousand more pages than just the 350 summarized story that clearly doesn’t make the justice a character like him truly deserves.
I think that the written version of the story made it a hundred times more smooth in movement, it contained some of his inner thoughts that in the game weren’t always that clear, and I appreciate that because it let us read one side of him we wouldn’t have been able to in any other way. And the novel develops that in the most exciting and amusing way possible, it truly got me on hype.
And not only that, but something I noticed when I started to make parallelisms with the two versions of the same story, I could almost immediately spot some things out that were just not as cool as I would have expected such as the first mission in Masyaf being skipped just because, or even the deep and meaningful backstory each templar revealed after being outrun, which in fact are those the ones to make Assassin’s Creed what it is, and they never should have been removed or whatsoever. I mean, imagine drinking an orange juice without even squeezing an orange to get that. Pointless, meaningless, boring. That’s what the novel deserves to be taken as. Where did they go, and why wouldn’t you also include those in Bloodlines or the second part of the novel if you literally could just make that up and nobody would have complained? I guess we would have done the opposite, indeed.
Also [wait Revelations was actually released after The Secret Crusade so it wouldn’t have made sense that the book based on the games featured actual content of an unreleased yet game. That’s a fair point to the book not contemplating Altaïr and Maria’s future, if you ask me. But I’ll play stubborn and object that it doesn’t quite live up to what Bloodlines could have been and didn’t give.
Ok so, after going through the rest of Altaïr's “untold” story, I've found some juicy things I'd love to discuss in depth. First of all, the story is, as stated at the back of the thin tome, narrated by Nicolo Polo, which does not quite bother me at all, but I think it's interesting who the legendary Master Assassin himself chose to spread his legacy.
Secondly, I could feel there was so little of Bloodlines it's almost a draw back, since most of the core aspects of him and Maria's relationship are in fact introduced and carried on in that frame of time, and I would not have called it anything but “untold” as the novel so much claims the written part of the story is meant to be.
After that, I would love to mention that Malik being imprisoned, Altaïr’s son (Sef)’s death, Abbas taking over the leadership of the creed and much more mention in here (prior to Revelations being released) IS, indeed, some sort of “untold” story and I won't lie about it; it's interesting, clever choice of theirs, and entertaining as worth reading from a videogame based short novel… but my point does still remain untouched. The novel is so shucking short!!!
However, that part of the story the game gives us a quick shortcut of (Revelations’ flashbacks) are, in my most honest and sincere opinion, awfully reconstructed. I mean, I won’t pretend they rigorously follow the script and try to recreate every single detail they otherwise could have possibly missed out, but c’mon! How many of us would have actually enjoyed the game a hundred times more if having those plot-twisting scenes that sadly didn’t come out? Something more “lore accurate” to word it out somehow. Although I would partially agree with some of you here claiming that “it would have been some Brotherhood scenes being recycled. Therefore, boring and repetitive, it would not have been that cool” (meaning the film where Ezio goes to outprison Lucrecia Borgia, I totally get it and you got a fair point there). But yet… I think I have mixed feelings about it (as so may you).
Making a little pause and at least sharing with you an undoubtedly 5 stars rating in “Emotional Impact” subcategory of this ranking, there’s this moment when Altaïr goes back to Masyaf when death is practically whispering in the back of his neck, when he was about to be chased down by an (I guess) not to experienced recently admitted assassin, and not so long after that we discover that it was no less than the legitim son of Malik (after whom he let us know he was named, as one of his alias).
The moment I started thinking about how emotional would that exact moment have been if only it had happened in real life, full-charged with melancholy of the once upon a time hero that was unfairly made walk through hell back and forward to end up being unjustifiedly and recklessly murder by the ones who knew he was indeed the one to ascend to the top the moment Altaïr was disguised as traitor, errant, and some many other things that would nothing but reflect Abbas's corrupted heart… I almost cried so bad the book would have been completely wet by now.
Ok, so I finally made it to the last sentence of all this amazing story and I felt a little bit shocked and at the same time amused by Ezio’s appearance at the very end of it (Epilogue) which give me the final bit of courage I needed to dive deep into Revelation’s written novella right after this. However, as I would have to rent it from a friend I see just occasionally and he can’t meet up with us this Sunday already, I would need to wait for him to be available. I’ll patiently be on the wait.
Cheers, my dear Assassin’s Creed lover fellows. It’s been a pleasure.
Ezequiel
I mean... I've bought this Eye of The World physical copy, and the first thing that shows up is the PROLOGUE. But then I decided to take a look at the digital format and not it but the PRELUDE comming first?
Why wouldn't that just show up in the physical copy as well? Is that meaningful, relevant or important of some sort to the actual experience of reading the whole story?
仕事をしていたら日本からのお客様がいらっしゃってて、オーナーの父親に「はい、好きなだけ喋ってて」って言われてホッとした。
まあ、「どうして日本語を？」とか、「食べ物は何がおすすめですか」とか初級レベルの話ばかりだったけれども、まあ。当時はすごく恥ずかしかったの！
ほんとうに言葉が出てこないくらい恥ってて、隠れ場はないかと心配してた一方だった。だけど、日本語を職場で使えてよかったなぁと思った。
すると帰宅後、海外でも大人気な夏目漱石の『吾輩は猫である』のスペイン語、
つまり「Yo soy un gato」もしくは「Yo, el gato」がすごい話題となる。
ただし、日本語での原作となるタイトルの意味そのものがわからない
ようするに、ただスペイン語だけよんで翻訳の議論に参加しようという
そういう方がいって、どう思えたらいいか分からなくなってきちゃった。
たしかに、「吾輩」とか「～である」のほんとうの概念が分からねば
翻訳の議論をすることはできるってまずないと思います。
そう説明したら「なにそれ？」ってなって、
「あのね、日本語ではね」と一人称を指すあらゆることばや
文末に書くあれとはなにかと説教しなければ私からの日本語教師としての
失敗作となったのではないだろうね。
ほら、こういう話は、綺麗な街が見たい日本からのお客様と
せっかくだったのでやればよかったんじゃないかと。
意味深くて、ほぼ文学レベルになり、「日本語上手」より
聞こえのいい褒め言葉が耳に囁かれたんじゃないかと。
Buenas noches, ya que no he visto post recientes que lo hagan, me habrá tocado a mí recomendarles este pedazo de saga de la cual no voy ni por la mitad pero desde el primer momento dije "los quiero todos"
Dicho esto, tengo un documento de word de aproximadamente 15 páginas explicando detalladamente y defendiendo esta magnífica obra a puño y espada, pero me gustaría simplemente decirles que vale completamente la pena.
Y no sólo el primer libro está bueno. Sino que cada tomo que pasa escala a algo muchísimo más grande, y no es "humo" o "sacado de la manga" como podrían pensar de una serie de 20 libros en los cuales "en cada tomo 'se inventan' cada cosa para poder vender"... Nonono, esto es pura y duramente fanatasía de la buena... Y lo mejor es que es family friendly por lo que es ideal para incentivar a nuevos lectores.
Lo que sí, después de esta saga ya nada se vuelve a sentir "a la altura"
You'll see... I've recently discovered these Japanese Illustrated version of the whole series and I wanted to share it with you, guys. I know you will appreciate it as I will as well.
Disclaimer, I've NOT read LotR yet... Just waiting until I finish some other books I'm reading right now and no doubt getting straight away into this series, that now I came aware I will love it.
Now... The fact that English is not my first language, and I'm far way profitient in Japanese than I am in English makes me doubt.
On one hand, there's this Tolkien wrote it as a linguistic view that would immideately make me read it in the original language. But I'm afraid of missing something out.
On the other hand, Japanese language is considered poetic, lyrical, and the way it is told (in my suspicion) makes me want to read it in Japanese since there's this ancient way of phrasing that japanese used to (and I'm almost sure nowadays they still do) link directly to literature and prose that would make it feel almost as magical as the original English version.
And la cerecita del pastel, I'm one of those guys who refuses to own more than one copy of each reading regardless. That would mean, I get it either in Sp, Eng or Jp but no more than once. That's my biggest trigger right now. I'm doubting so much...
And let aside that Japansese version will also look cool even for those who don't know how to read it but in fact it would seem as a "elf language transcript" of the series (if you want to think about it that way which I consider completely valid and fair if you want to brag about it LOL)
Se me va de las manos muy fácilmente.
Primera imagen, reading schedule de lo que queda del año.
Whatever it comes significa que voy a lanzar un d20 digital con los valores que aparecen en la segunda imagen.
Lo que está previsto para leer a fin de año (Mes 10 a 12) es 指輪物語 (LotR) en Japonés (porque lo quiero importar para esas fechas teniendo el dinero justo y necesario para no quedarme corto.
Y lo que se aprecia en la segunda imagen es
読み始めた日付（Date I started the reading）
読み終えた日付（Date I finished the reading）
評価（徹底）（Rating（thorough））
¿Qué opinan de los títulos que tengo para leer? ¿Ya conocían alguno?
Aparte de esos, tengo pensado pedirle a la embajada de Japón 『人間失格』 (Indigno de ser humano), y 『街とその不確かな壁』 el último de Murakami pero en Español porque no lo tenían en japonés (según me dijeron, no hay demanda de eso)
Y si me preguntan otros títulos que me quiero importar desde Japón serían
『雫』『僕の記憶に輝く君を焼きつける』、および
『汝、星のごとく』『十戒 』『アバラ』『バイオメガ』『蟲師（愛層板）』etc.
También, alguno que otro de 漢字・語彙、古文読解、現代文 y capaz 国語難問
Pero a 蟲師 y 指輪物語 así como también los de 弐瓶勉（アバラ／バイオメガ）los quiero sí o sí
Pd: ¿Quién crj me metió en este hobby tan caro? (pero preciosísimo)
La Feria del Libro se realiza 1 vez al año, por suerte...
Just came home after moving earth and sea seeking for the damn book 2 of the series. Nobody got that. I guess I'll just have to buy it online and wait almost 20 days for it to get home.
Have you read even the prologue yet?
I mean... Look at that!!!
The prose is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!! Envy me I'm reading it for the first time.
I can almost attest it's gonna be a long, fruitful, sensacional journey...
And let me call it "The finished GOT" because I can spot some similarities such as how the world is built (although I'm aware of the fact that GOT is mainly character driven and it would not be payiing that mucha attention to worldbuilding perse), or the languaje used being interpretated as lyrical...
Man, now I want to go back to La Feria del Libro and get them all!!! (I will, in fact, go today with other friends so I have no doubt it will be a you see it, you buy it kind of instant insane impulse.)
May I file it under the R for "Path of The Ranger Syndrom" (another series I literally just could not read beyond chapter 1 in digital because it was so good I had to get it in paper and so it went on and on and I'm now updated on when the following - 17 to 20 - tomes will come out in hardcover. And just for the record, I own 15 of them waiting for the 16th to arrive but I'm not even done with 9.)
I just knew it was gonna be big, and amazing at the same time. And NO WONDER WOT WILL BE THE SAME!
I mean... Here in Argentina there's this book fest called La Feria del Libro
And I decided to search for WoT.
The first day was a pity they didn't have book one but hello today I went againg and guess what.... (Picture)
Book one already in hand!!! (Fortunately , it was not as costy as I would have expected such a thing book to be, but UNFORTUNATELY they didn't have book 2 so I had to live with just book one.)
