It seems that we do learn more about the past of Yuushun? He is from Kou Province.

We also finally see who the Secretary of the Judiciary is (Also a member of the nightmare exam group).
Kouyuu is busted down to being a supernumerary official (I think this is what the spoilers are saying?) Eventually things finish with Reishin’s post being left empty and You Shuu promoted to Kouyuu’s old post as Undersecretary.

We learn that Shuurei’s mother was the Red Immortal, and that those little ball creatures (Kuro and Shiro) are the Red Immortal’s strongest guardians, which are supposed to preserve Shuurei’s life as a human.

Shouka resigns his post as librarian and goes to Kou Province to do something.

The Kou officials all go on strike, although neither Kurou nor Reishin ordered them to do so. Even worse, there is an economic embargo, because someone has ordered the merchants patronized by the Kou clan to stop supplying the capital. Also, at a meeting You Shuu reveals that Shuurei is the princess of the Kou clan.

Shouka and Reishin have returned to Kou Province, and there we learn of the existence of the military strategist of the Kou Clan, Hou Rin. It seems that this person is behind it all.

Shuurei and Seiga are investigating the Kou clan, but then they are attacked by assassins. Seiga throws himself in front of Shuurei and suffers serious wounds. Shuurei somehow manages to cure him with her powers. We learn that Shuurei has until spring?

Ryuuki tells Shuurei he wishes for her to enter the Inner Palace as the princess of the Kou clan. (In other words, for political reasons) Shuurei agrees, but says this is only under the condition that Jyuusan-hime must become queen, because she cannot bear children.

As her last duty, Ki Kouki tells Shuurei to go to Kou Province, and meanwhile, Shouka returns, this time as the clan head, and apologizes to everyone on behalf of the Kou clan, swearing his loyalty to the emperor.

So anyway, Shuurei and Hyou Riou (Jr.) are going to Kou province, but they disappear?

Apparently we also find out who Yuushun really is, but none of the people giving spoilers seem to feel like revealing that yet.

[EDIT 1: Hourin (I guess it should be one word) is vaguely like the title of Ryuuren, but it's not a title conferred upon a Kou family member, but related to a clan of military strategists (they are the Ki clan, probably, but NOT the same as Kouki's Ki clan. It's a different Chinese character. GUUUUH. ) who serve the Kou family. They are very secretive, and said to be full of villainy.

I am getting the impression (from another confusing post) that Yuushun is Hourin or somehow related to him/them, and Reishin (or his father) just kind of ignored him when he tried to ask him for help (was all like "whatever"), so that's why Reishin doesn't have any idea about him. (Hmm, Reishin isn't a very good clan leader. But we knew that already. ) And then the king destroyed the clan. If it was Reishin himself who ignored him, though, then Anju was really correct about Reishin. 0_o

Yuushun also seems to have deliberately let some things slip because he wanted Seiran to be on his guard against him.

There is something about how when Bara-hime awakens(?) (curse these vague posts) that Shuurei's personality will be erased or something, or she may die. ]

[EDIT 2: There's a picture of Shouka in the book (possibly with his eyes open? 0_o). Kan Hishou does some stuff, and Ouyou Gyoku decided to stay at court after all, it seems. Even if Yuushun's past is clarified, his goals still are not. We don't find out what happened to his leg either, it seems. It doesn't seem to be simple revenge though. People are speculating that Tantan might show up in the next book, but I'm not sure whether this is a given or not. It doesn't seem, since no one has mentioned it, that there have been any developments about Heki Karin and the mirror. ]

Am also reading more Kindaichi Shounen Jikenbo (The Case Files of the Young Kindaichi), which is a mystery manga. I’ve read the first ten or so volumes in English, but the translations started to get really slow. Anyhow, it’s fairly simple to read in Japanese, except for the discussions of the mechanics of the case (to be honest, I like mysteries more for the psychology than for the puzzles. So I read for characterization and suspense, and sometimes I kind of uh… (don’t tell anyone) skim over the details, especially if a timetable is involved, or a cipher), where I sometimes have to look up vocab. Kindaichi is especially good if you like super angst and melodrama, because in every crime, it’s an elaborate plot conceived to take REVENGE for an even earlier crime by the now-victims. And so therefore the villains always have a semi-sympathetic sob story, and like most of the time, they commit suicide or die dramatically. Well, except for the recurring villain, who is an unrepentant psychopath. Anyhow, reading Kindaichi, although because of the nature of the plot (Kindaichi goes somewhere, and then there is KILLING, or Kindaichi is called in to investigate some mysterious case, or Kindaichi goes to a fun mystery event and then it suddenly turns into KILLING) is kind of repetitive, is pretty fun.

[Yes, this is the first extended work in which the author has used the second person present throughout the work. It works here because there's a clear justification, in addressing a reader, in a conversation between the construct of the Reader, to differentiate it from the narrated world of the books, which are generally narrated fairly conventionally. Too often I see people trying narrative tricks in works that are simply too conventional for such things to be grounded well. ]

Quotes which I liked:

“Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven’t Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You’ll Wait Till They’re Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too. “

What kind of books Ludmilla likes:

“I prefer novels,” she adds, “that bring me immediately into a world where everything is precise, concrete, specific. I feel a special satisfaction in knowing that things are made in that certain fashion and not otherwise, even the most commonplace things that in real life seem indifferent to me.”

“The novel I would most like to read at this moment,” Ludmilla explains, “should have as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon stories, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you, simply allowing you to observe its own growth, like a tree, an entangling, as if of branches and leaves…”

“There’s a boundary line: on one side are those who make books, on the other those who read them. I want to remain one of those who read them, so I take care always to remain on my side of the line. Otherwise, the unsullied pleasure of reading ends, or at least is transformed into something else, which is not what I want. This boundary line is tentative, it tends to get erased: the world of those who deal with books professionally is more and more crowded and tends to become one with the world of readers. Of course, readers are also growing more numerous, but it would seem that those who use books to produce other books are increasing more than those who just like to read books and nothing else. I know that if I cross that boundary, even as an exception, by chance, I risk being mixed up in this advancing tide; that’s why I refuse to set foot inside a publishing house, even for a few minutes.”

“This thought of his, you, Reader, can perhaps read on his brow. For many years Cavedagna has followed books as they are made, bit by bit, he sees books be born and die every day, and yet the true books for him remain others, those of the time when for him they were like messages from other worlds. And so it is with authors: he deals with them every day, he knows their fixations, indecisions, susceptibilities, ego-centricities, and yet the true authors remain those who for him were only a name on a jacket, a word that was part of the title, authors who had the same reality as their characters, as the places mentioned in the books, who existed and didn’t exist at the same time, like those characters and those countries. The author was an invisible point from which the books came, a void traveled by ghosts, an underground tunnel that put other worlds in communication with the chicken coop of his boyhood….”

(B’sides, ALL fiction, IMHO, is supposed to make you think. All fiction is a laboratory of ideas, original or unoriginal. )

I was later talking to Meril about the supposed decline of SF; apparently it is felt by some that younger readers shun SF in favor of fantasy. But if this is so, how can people propose this ‘mundane SF’ as an antidote to the problem? If the problem is that this demographic is leaving, then how does giving them more of what they’re not interested in help, unless the idea is to attract a different demographic? Meril and I then when on to discuss how in some ways, SF’s lunch is being eaten by regular old literary fiction, because we are living in the future. Er, meaning that in some ways, advances in science, especially of the medical variety, are impacting human lives in extreme and intimate ways, meaning that they now almost fall into the realm of normal literary fiction, or very minimally speculative SF. (See the fertility industry, for one) However, the tone, style, and attractions of ‘mainstream literary fiction’ are to my eyes, often very different from popular SF. I’m stereotyping here, and generalizing greatly, but in the aggregate, it seems that mundane SF-literary SF, is less escapist. And maybe drifting entirely away from the topic, in practice, IMHO, escapism and fandom, to my mind, are highly linked.

I’ve previously discussed the mysterious process in which some sucky series gain huge fandoms, and some good series have minimal fan activity, especially of a fanfic variety. IMHO, one thing (besides romance focus:  the more characteristics something has of the romance genre, the less fanfic is written about it, no matter, and maybe even because, of how good it may be) that tends to drive fandom is escapism. Now, maybe I’m wrong and this only applies to some kinds of fandom, but fandom in its most extreme and classic forms tends to be driven by shows/books that are “unrealistic” in those terms.

Anyway, this is not the only thing that drives “fannishness,” by far (and it obviously doesn’t apply to all people), it but it is one of them. So, I think, the more unescapist and realism focused a world becomes, the more it falls towards the “literary” reader, the person who does not read for “intentional moe,” or for escapism, but often for “quality,” “aesthetics” or “social relevance.” Of course, in general, there is more of that kind of reader in the SF readership than in say, fanfic fandom.

(Okay, have ended on a rather jumbled note here)

2. Have also as a result of Tari’s post gotten a goodreads account.

The jpg is supposed to dynamically update. So far I have only those two books.

3. I was considering joining library thing, but although someone I know (Meril) is an early adopter on that service (people there seem somewhat odd. Several people asked her to review… the Tale of Genji? I just don’t understand why people would clamor for that to be reviewed, because it’s not as if there’s a lack of opinions on the work), I wanted to be able to store an unlimited number of books for free. If I can break two hundred, my decision will be rational. XD In any event, I don’t really need to be recommended new books by a search engine. I have lots of people who are willing to rec to me.