Sword Art Online volume 10 is the second part of the Alicization arc, Alicization Running. Aside from Reki Kawahara's skill in general, I'm continuing to enjoy this arc because of how distinct it is from previous ones.
First of all, it is split in two segments, one for Asuna and one for Kazuto.
I like the first one because it has a genre shift to Mystery. Asuna has to put her head together with Silica, Suguha and Yui to find Kazuto so that they can rescue him. It can be seen as a flip of the alpha couple's situation at the start of volume 2, and, in fact, Yui points this out. She has a MUCH harder time of it than Kazuto.
He was forwarded a picture taken in a publicly available server. She has to search for clues, piece them together, and make logical deductions that drift rather far into conspiratorial speculation. Then she has to devise a way to enter a private, highly secured, area. It is not action-y but it is awesome. Really, that scene was my favorite part of the book.
The continuing development of the mechanics of Underworld fascinate me. It is a shame that SAO's haters don't read the light novels. Then they would see that Reki Kawahara's is not some hack terminally dependent on harem fanservice. There is a ton of thought and foresight and literary skill going into the science fiction here, and more goes into how it is set up and delivered through the narrative.
There is this one scene in particular where a human talks with his fluctlight clone, and the clone has a critical case of Cloning Blues. It is genuinely unsettling. It is an existential terror.
As for Kazuto's section, he is still inside Underworld where he goes by Kirito. This book is about the VR nerd part of him. He spends basically the whole of his section trying to figure out how the Underworld works, and he does it through experimentation. The OP Mary-Sue that haters insist that he is cannot be found here; he has three fights and two of them are against practioners with more experience than him. The later two are struggles and neither of them is a victory. Neither is the harem seeker his detractors deride him as present in this volume. On the contrary, he resolves to be a Celibate Hero out of faithfulness to Asuna.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Sword Art Online Volume 11: Alicization Running" an A+
Click here for my next book review (also for fun): Dungeons and Dragons - Dungeon Master's Manual
Click here for my previous book review (also for fun): Don't Know Much About History
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
First of all, it is split in two segments, one for Asuna and one for Kazuto.
I like the first one because it has a genre shift to Mystery. Asuna has to put her head together with Silica, Suguha and Yui to find Kazuto so that they can rescue him. It can be seen as a flip of the alpha couple's situation at the start of volume 2, and, in fact, Yui points this out. She has a MUCH harder time of it than Kazuto.
He was forwarded a picture taken in a publicly available server. She has to search for clues, piece them together, and make logical deductions that drift rather far into conspiratorial speculation. Then she has to devise a way to enter a private, highly secured, area. It is not action-y but it is awesome. Really, that scene was my favorite part of the book.
The continuing development of the mechanics of Underworld fascinate me. It is a shame that SAO's haters don't read the light novels. Then they would see that Reki Kawahara's is not some hack terminally dependent on harem fanservice. There is a ton of thought and foresight and literary skill going into the science fiction here, and more goes into how it is set up and delivered through the narrative.
There is this one scene in particular where a human talks with his fluctlight clone, and the clone has a critical case of Cloning Blues. It is genuinely unsettling. It is an existential terror.
As for Kazuto's section, he is still inside Underworld where he goes by Kirito. This book is about the VR nerd part of him. He spends basically the whole of his section trying to figure out how the Underworld works, and he does it through experimentation. The OP Mary-Sue that haters insist that he is cannot be found here; he has three fights and two of them are against practioners with more experience than him. The later two are struggles and neither of them is a victory. Neither is the harem seeker his detractors deride him as present in this volume. On the contrary, he resolves to be a Celibate Hero out of faithfulness to Asuna.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Sword Art Online Volume 11: Alicization Running" an A+
Click here for my next book review (also for fun): Dungeons and Dragons - Dungeon Master's Manual
Click here for my previous book review (also for fun): Don't Know Much About History
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
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