冷たい密室と博士たち - Doctors in Isolated Room (S&M Vol.2)

[NicoleRauch]

This is a spinoff of the Advanced Book Club. Join the Advanced Book Club here!

Welcome to 冷たい密室と博士たち - Doctors in Isolated Room (S&M Vol.2)

This is Volume 2 in the Saikawa&Moe (S&M) series by MORI Hiroshi.
Volume 1 is called すべてがFになる - The Perfect Insider and has already been read by the club.

Despite this book being Vol. 2, it shouldn’t be much of a problem to read it without knowing Vol. 1. There seem to be some back references to persons we met in Vol. 1 but it’s probably not too involved. In any case, if you are wondering about anything while reading this book, you are of course free to ask and somebody can fill you in.

Where to buy

Amazon | Bookwalker

Discussion Threads and Reading Schedule

We started reading on June 26th, 2021.

Week	Start Date	Chapter	Page Count
Week 1	June 26th	Chapter 1	~32
Week 2	July 3rd	Chapter 2 + 3	~36 + ~34
Week 3	July 10th	Chapter 4 + 5	~34 + ~28
Week 4	July 17th	Chapter 6 + 7	~36 + ~42
Week 5	July 24th	Chapter 8 + 9	~39 + ~26
Week 6	July 31th	Chapter 10 + 11	~28 + ~22
Week 7	Aug 7th	Chapter 12 + 13	~47 + ~15

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
• When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
• To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Member List

Are you planning to read 冷たい密室と博士たち - Doctors in Isolated Room (S&M Vol.2) with the book club?

• Yes
• Yes, but I might start late
• Not sure
• No

If so, which version will you be reading?

• eBook
• Paperback

[NicoleRauch]

Welcome to Volume 2 on our journey with Saikawa and Moe

This volume has ~100 pages less than Vol. 1 while it has 13 chapters instead of 11, so each chaper is quite a bit shorter. Therefore I thought we might aim for reading 2 chapters per week, perhaps? That means about 60-70 pages per week instead of the ~45 we had for vol. 1.

The numbers in the OP are based off of some backwards calculations from the ebook, so I might be off by a few pages per chapter, but I feel like that doesn’t really matter at that speed anyways. I think.
In case anybody has real page numbers from the paperback book, I’d be glad to have a glance at the index!

What do you think, does that sound reasonable to you? Do you have an alternative suggestion?

[NicoleRauch]

When should we start reading this book?

Volume 1 ends on June 25th. I was thinking of having a 2-week break to give @valkow a bit more leeway for keeping up with volume 1, while on the other hand not waiting too long. (It sounded to me like @Redglare and @Belerith probably won’t join us soon anyways…?!)

That would mean starting on July 10th. What do you think about this?

[miwuc]

I all sounds good to me, but I’m also willing to accommodate anyone who would like to start later or read fewer pages.

[NicoleRauch]

@miwuc

but I’m also willing to accommodate anyone who would like to start later or read fewer pages.

Oh absolutely! I’m just putting out some proposals and am happy to adjust of course.

Regarding the reading speed, I was of the impression that I’m probably the slowest person in the group (it usually takes me about 3 days to read the current assignments), but now that I think about it again, I’m not sure about @Jfredel78 reading speed? (@Jfredel78 please feel fee to speak up and tell us what you think about the schedule.)

[Belthazar]

Sorry, what volume two?

[Belerith]

Yes, please don’t mind me while you’re making the schedule. I’ll probably decide whether I want to read along when you all start.

[Naphthalene]

S&M volume 2

[Belthazar]

Yes, any schmuck can search Wikipedia. It’s just that when you search the English Wikipedia, what you get is an article containing images that can’t be shared here on WaniKani without violating the ToS.

[Jfredel78]

My problem is that I read very little during the week and then rush to finish the chapter on Friday or Saturday. So I’m always lagging behind. But one chapter a week is good for me, helps to keep me on pace.

[Naphthalene]

Ah yes, the page does not exist in English. They do have a page for the individual books though.

Edit: wait no, they only have the first volume there and no mention of the series You have to navigate to the author’s page to get a brief mention of it.

[miwuc]

It’s probably worth mentioning somewhere that (I assume?) the volumes are mostly independent, and anyone can join without having read the previous one?

[valkow]

If others don’t want a break, I don’t mind not having one! (I also don’t at all mind having one, if others want one.) I’ll probably finish the book I’m reading tomorrow, and then I’m going to try and focus on this one. I can aim to be done by June 25th.

[NicoleRauch]

@Belthazar

Sorry, what volume two?

Yeah, sorry. The author tends to assign a letter to most of his series, and in this case it’s the two protagonists Saikawa and Moe that lend their initials.

If you add the author’s name to the search term, the results get surprisingly SFW.

[NicoleRauch]

@Jfredel78

But one chapter a week is good for me

Actually my proposal was to have two chapters per week
The chapters in the new book are quite a bit shorter than what we have currently, but two chapters together will be a bit more than that.

I really like sticking with chapter boundaries, so a slightly slower schedule might alternate between one and two chapters:

Week	Start Date	Chapter	Page Count
Week 1		Chapter 1	~32
Week 2		Chapter 2 + 3	~36 + ~34
Week 3		Chapter 4	~34
Week 4		Chapter 5 + 6	~28 + ~36
Week 5		Chapter 7	~42
Week 6		Chapter 8	~39
Week 7		Chapter 9 + 10	~26 + ~28
Week 8		Chapter 11	~22
Week 9		Chapter 12 + 13	~47 + ~15

How does that sound?

[valkow]

According to at least one site, this seems to be true!

“それぞれに時系列的なつながりはないので、どこから読んでも大丈夫ですが、刊行順で並べると以下の順番となっています。” (source)

In any case, I would say that this is almost certainly true for book 2, since book 1 was originally written to be later in the series.

(Also, unrelated, but it looks like book 2 is what was adapted into my favorite mystery in the drama, woohoo.)

[Belthazar]

@NicoleRauch

The author tends to assign a letter to most of his series, and in this case it’s the two protagonists Saikawa and Moe that lend their initials.

It’s ok. Whatever you get up to in the privacy of your own thread is no business of mine.

[Jfredel78]

Either option is fine with me! I’m sure I could do two chapters a week too, I would just have to push myself a bit more.

[NicoleRauch]

@Jfredel78

Either option is fine with me!

Ok! In that case, let’s go with the 2-chapters-per-week schedule I laid out in the OP. (I need to put this in writing right now before my courage dwindles )

Unless somebody speaks up and says that they think it’s a bad idea, of course.

And if we discover that it was too fast, we can of course adjust the schedule at any time.

@valkow

I can aim to be done by June 25th.

Great In that case, we can start straight away! June 26th is the start date, then.

@miwuc

(I assume?) the volumes are mostly independent, and anyone can join without having read the previous one?

Good point! I checked back with @Myria who already finished this volume, and they said that it shouldn’t be much of a problem to read vol. 2 without knowing vol. 1. There seem to be some back references to persons we met in vol. 1 but it didn’t sound too involved. In any case, if people are wondering, they are of course free to ask and somebody can fill them in.

I will update the OP with all of this soon.

[Redglare]

@NicoleRauch

In that case, let’s go with the 2-chapters-per-week schedule I laid out in the OP.

@NicoleRauch

In that case, we can start straight away! June 26th is the start date, then.

ohh, interesting Maybe I can juggle between this book and all the other books I’m planning to read this summer. I’ve changed my vote in the member list poll from “might start late” to “yes”