Even though it was inadvertent, this was a great pick for a somewhat spooky October read. The premise is simple, 10 characters are invited to a VR Chat style room to tell weird stories. The book explains a 奇譚 as being a strange or fantastical story (Twilight Zone episodes are probably the closest frame of reference), not necessarily a mystery though many of them are, and the broader framing story is a classic style whodunnit, but there's a murderer in the room and if the murderer doesn't like a story, you're dead!
I was pretty engaged with the broader framing story from the get-go and all of the stories the characters tell were pretty absorbing too. Even the first two which are deliberately sort of hacky and tropey on purpose to facilitate a Stephen King's Misery-eque discussion on writing between the characters were still pretty intruiging and fun, but they really start to pop off even more after those first two. Some of the tales are just something weird that turns into a strange scenario, other stories have a more "real-world" explanation that allows the detective character to do a really classic, Sherlock Holmes style explainer of what went down, and they're all fun with great variety.
The reading level was perfect in terms of something I could immerse myself in and enjoy, but still be challenged by. I actually knew most of the words most of the time, though each story has some jargony words pertaining to the theme of the story (and even the profession of the storyteller). It was probably my smoothest experience reading a Japanese author I hadn't read before so clearly something's sticking. Some of the more medical or scientific words were things I'd never heard of in English, but the book does a good job defining the really out-there terms. The grammar is all pretty simple, standard stuff but since so much of the book is about the logic of picking apart the stories and clues, the sentences do have a rather rigid structure you need to be able to follow to understand the line of reasoning. I think that's the best aspect of this book for learners. The individual grammar points aren't hard, but there were a lot of times where I almost went to run a sentence through Google Translate or DeepL but went "hang on, let's try that again slowly" only to realize that I could indeed figure out what was being said. A few bits involving set phrases did stump me, but everything important was pretty easy to get so long as I took it slowly. Each story at the font size I used was about 30 pages and this was a perfect "one chapter a night book" with each tale being long enough to be interesting, but not so long I started to feel fatigue.
As far as the actual mysteries, the book is fantastic. I had about two pages of notes and while I didn't guess exactly what was going on or the exact motives (I never just sat and locked in a "this is my final answer and I'm not changing it), I did, at various points, correctly guess who was involved and what was important (though my suspicion shifted all over the place). I think if I had nailed everything perfectly it wouldn't have been satisfying since there'd be no surprise. There are one or two things that I may have overlooked but by and large I felt rewarded that the things I made note of were worth making note of and played a part in the true solution which is part of what made this book so much fun.
It's a tricky book, but in a good approachable way, and I enjoyed reading about some of the influences in the author's afterword (I gotta read some Ranpo sometime but I'm scared there'll be difficult archaic Japanese). There's a sequel out to this that's weirdly not available as an eBook at the moment, so perhaps that'll be my first stab at reading a print book because I really do want to read more of these. I think I just want more thinky whodunnits in general regardless of language. Maybe I'll finally get around to Poirot which I've meant to do since seeing A Haunting in Venice.
Even though it was inadvertent, this was a great pick for a somewhat spooky October read. The premise is simple, 10 characters are invited to a VR Chat style room to tell weird stories. The book explains a 奇譚 as being a strange or fantastical story (Twilight Zone episodes are probably the closest frame of reference), not necessarily a mystery though many of them are, and the broader framing story is a classic style whodunnit, but there's a murderer in the room and if the murderer doesn't like a story, you're dead!
I was pretty engaged with the broader framing story from the get-go and all of the stories the characters tell were pretty absorbing too. Even the first two which are deliberately sort of hacky and tropey on purpose to facilitate a Stephen King's Misery-eque discussion on writing between the characters were still pretty intruiging and fun, but they really start to pop off even more after those first two. Some of the tales are just something weird that turns into a strange scenario, other stories have a more "real-world" explanation that allows the detective character to do a really classic, Sherlock Holmes style explainer of what went down, and they're all fun with great variety.
The reading level was perfect in terms of something I could immerse myself in and enjoy, but still be challenged by. I actually knew most of the words most of the time, though each story has some jargony words pertaining to the theme of the story (and even the profession of the storyteller). It was probably my smoothest experience reading a Japanese author I hadn't read before so clearly something's sticking. Some of the more medical or scientific words were things I'd never heard of in English, but the book does a good job defining the really out-there terms. The grammar is all pretty simple, standard stuff but since so much of the book is about the logic of picking apart the stories and clues, the sentences do have a rather rigid structure you need to be able to follow to understand the line of reasoning. I think that's the best aspect of this book for learners. The individual grammar points aren't hard, but there were a lot of times where I almost went to run a sentence through Google Translate or DeepL but went "hang on, let's try that again slowly" only to realize that I could indeed figure out what was being said. A few bits involving set phrases did stump me, but everything important was pretty easy to get so long as I took it slowly. Each story at the font size I used was about 30 pages and this was a perfect "one chapter a night book" with each tale being long enough to be interesting, but not so long I started to feel fatigue.
As far as the actual mysteries, the book is fantastic. I had about two pages of notes and while I didn't guess exactly what was going on or the exact motives (I never just sat and locked in a "this is my final answer and I'm not changing it), I did, at various points, correctly guess who was involved and what was important (though my suspicion shifted all over the place). I think if I had nailed everything perfectly it wouldn't have been satisfying since there'd be no surprise. There are one or two things that I may have overlooked but by and large I felt rewarded that the things I made note of were worth making note of and played a part in the true solution which is part of what made this book so much fun.
It's a tricky book, but in a good approachable way, and I enjoyed reading about some of the influences in the author's afterword (I gotta read some Ranpo sometime but I'm scared there'll be difficult archaic Japanese). There's a sequel out to this that's weirdly not available as an eBook at the moment, so perhaps that'll be my first stab at reading a print book because I really do want to read more of these. I think I just want more thinky whodunnits in general regardless of language. Maybe I'll finally get around to Poirot which I've meant to do since seeing A Haunting in Venice.