I have seriously slacked on reading for… Fuck knows how long. Read mistborn which was decent but the last time I seriously read before that was a few years ago when I started discworld but kinda fell away from it.

I read the inner cover of Carl in a book shop and instantly bought it. It’s the perfect amount of unhinged to keep me interested. I tore through them all in about a month, just in time to pick up the 7th freshly printed.

I noticed the books have an interesting numbering system using skulls. The first book has 3, 2 of which are blacked out. The second has 1 of 3 blacked out, the third has none. The second three books have six skulls each, following the theme of black skulls not counting for the number of the book.

The seventh has 7 skulls. Were it to follow the same theme, there would be 9 with 2 black. I don’t really have a followup or comment here, just thought it was weird.

That said, this comm is dead and I hope we can liven it up a bit because I’ve been dying to talk about Carl. I guess I’ll share what I love about it in hopes people will follow suit. I live for the ridiculous Ai achievements and descriptions. I thought it was just a gag at first but the lore for it is actually holding up surprisingly well. Also the books can get rough at times, but they’re never emotionally devastating like others can be (my girlfriend just picked up a book like she was walking to her own execution because she knew what was coming wasn’t cheerful). The stakes are high but our protags usually come out more or less intact, and I love that. Sometimes you just wanna watch someone kick ass, not get emotionally dragged behind a car. Additionally, the message is more appropriate and pointed than I expected up front. Very pro throwing a wrench into the orphan crushing machine.