金田一耕助 Series Reading Club - NEXT: 悪魔が来りて笛を吹 (Starting May 18 '24!)

I guess I vote for reading all four too. Who knows if I’ll even stick with the series all the way to the point in the chronology where 香水心中 takes place. At this point I’m just intrigued to see how a story that takes place 10 years later compares to three from 金田一’s early years.

1 Like

I read 八つ墓村 because the Amazon kindle store lists it as #1 in the Kindaichi Kosuke series… :pensive: (I’ve also read 蝶々殺人事件, although that’s not Kindaichi.)

That pace would be fine, it wouldn’t be too fast for me.

1 Like

I’m fine with whatever!

I’d selfishly vote for no break (but that’s just because I’ve been on a longer Yokomizo break…). And a faster schedule is fine with me I think. (but those are both things that should prioritize accommodating anyone who wants a less harsh schedule).

I’m mixed on 殺人鬼 – I’d lean reading all of them at once in general. I did read out of curiosity the background for the one set much later and it does sound like a pretty different context for Kindaichi, so I’d be ok putting it off too I think. I’d still personally probably opt for 夜歩く if it were just me to put off dealing with it myself. :sweat_smile:
Very likely not a big deal either way!

3 Likes

Here are a few quick polls to get everyone on record.

Which book should we read next?

  • 殺人鬼 (first two stories only)
  • 殺人鬼 (all four stories)
  • 夜歩く (skip 殺人鬼 for now)

0 voters

What should our maximum reading speed be?

  • 50 pages / week
  • 60 pages / week
  • 70 pages / week
  • I’m fine with 80+ pages / week

0 voters

Should we take a week off before starting the next book?

  • Yes (start the next book on May 9)
  • No (start the next book on May 2)

0 voters

1 Like

We seem to be locked in a standoff between 殺人鬼 and 夜歩く. I changed my vote to the first two stories of 殺人鬼 just to make things easier. If we could read those two over the next two weeks, we could start 夜歩く in mid-May, which I would be happy with. Of course, if we end up voting to skip 殺人鬼 altogether and start with 夜歩く right away next week, I’ll be fine with that too. It will just be a bit more difficult to know where to slot those 殺人鬼 stories in later.

In the meantime, we could use a tiebreaker! @wangqiwen @BadPlayer , did you both vote?

2 Likes

By the way, it looks like 夜歩く would be a 5-week read if we don’t split up any of the chapters.

  1. 汝夜歩くなかれ(77 pages)
  2. 大惨劇 (92 pages)
  3. 金田一耕助登場 (71 pages)
  4. もう一人の女 (63 pages)
  5. 最後の悲劇 (25 pages)

We could also combine the last two chapters into one week if everyone wanted a week off at the end. Or just keep it at one chapter a week and make the last week a light one.

1 Like

Agreed. If we don’t manage to break the tie, I’d be okay with going ahead with 夜歩く for now, too. Breaking the tie would feel more satisfying though! :laughing:

That’s the one I’d prefer. It’d be easy enough to combine the last two chapters for those who want to. :slight_smile:

Thanks for all the scheduling! :pray:

1 Like

Yes, I voted for 夜歩く. My preference is 夜歩く > 殺人鬼 (all 4) > 殺人鬼 (first 2).

1 Like

Some possible tiebreak reasoning: I think for 殺人鬼, it makes the most sense to read that either now, or after a bunch of novels (since it would just be the same discussion again after 夜歩く), so if we don’t think we’ll wait until after a bunch of novels to read it, I think it would be better to read it now.

So I’ll change my vote to the other side of the tie! (which is first two stories at the moment - I think I’m neutral on 2 vs 4 stories)

2 Likes

Another thing that I just realized: the new Saikawa and Moe book starts in mid-June, so if we read the first two 殺人鬼 stories plus 夜歩く, that would lead us right up to that. Then I would personally like to take a break from this club for about six weeks while we read the S&M book, since that also has a pretty fast paced schedule, and a mystery.

So what I’m trying to say is that if we read the first two 殺人鬼 stories followed by 夜歩く, then there could potentially be an extended break where those interested in the other two 殺人鬼 stories could read them (or not) on their own time.

2 Likes

Hi there @NicoleIsEnough. :wink:

So the poll says 2/4 of 殺人鬼, then 夜歩 - I’m fine with reading the other 2 stories after that. :+1: plus 1 or 2 weeks break we’d be a couple weeks into S&M at least before starting something new would be on the table again.

I’m fine starting the next big novel towards the end of July personally, but would be okay with some overlap. I guess we can poll again when it’s closer to the end of our next two books. :slight_smile:

I’ll create a thread for 殺人鬼 next week!

2 Likes

I created threads for 殺人鬼 and 夜歩く:
殺人鬼(金田一耕助 Reading Club)
夜歩く(金田一耕助 Reading Club)

I used this to base the schedule for 夜歩く on. At a pace of a chapter a week, we’ll be done with 夜歩く on June 19.

The next S&M starts on June 18, so that would work out perfectly in that regard, @Jfredel78 :grin:

Personally I plan to read the other 2 stories in 殺人鬼 after 夜歩く.
Would you all prefer having a set schedule for those, or would you be okay with leaving those unscheduled? The thread could still be used as a discussion platform in that case too.

If we want to schedule them, we could leave a week’s break (or 2) before and after. That way the wait wont feel so long. Or we could schedule it in for after @Jfredel78’s S&M break.

Also, if anyone would like to suggest any changes to either of these threads (schedule or otherwise), please feel free to do so. :slight_smile:

Thanks @Belerith!

I fully support having the remaining two 殺人鬼 stories slotted in during the S&M break, either scheduled or unscheduled. I will likely read those later on and refer back to any discussion after the fact. Either way, I would always have the option to jump in along the way if I feel that reading two chapters per week of both the S&M book and 海辺のカフカ isn’t enough. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

Thanks to having lots of free time over Golden Week and putting my other reading on hold for a few weeks, I managed to get through all of the 殺人鬼 collection over the past two weeks - including 香水心中 and 百日紅の下にて. I’ll set aside some notes about each so I can discuss them with you when you get around to reading them, even if I’m too busy with S&M and 村上. :grin:

One thing I will say is that 香水心中 works perfectly fine as a standalone story, although it’s apparent that 金田一 is older and more respected than he is in the other three stories. Quite a stark contrast from the way he’s presented in 黒蘭姫 (which falls directly before 香水心中 in the book). There is one brief reference to 犬神家の一族 and 不死蝶 when discussing 金田一’s reputation, but absolutely nothing about the details of those cases.

I would also like to say that I know we’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by the majority of the short stories that we’ve read so far, but I do think that they have been very helpful in filling in the chronology of 金田一’s early life and development as a detective. This is true of both the 本陣 stories, as well as the ones in 殺人鬼.

But for those who have been ambivalent about fitting the short stories in, keep in mind that the 殺人鬼 stories will be the last short stories on our queue for quite a while now. Based on the chronological timeline and publishing order, it looks like we will have at least five major novels in a row before we have to make any more short story decisions.

It looks like the order will be:

  1. 夜歩く
  2. 八つ墓村
  3. 死仮面
  4. 犬神家の一族
  5. 女王蜂

These novels were all serialized either consecutively or even simultaneously. Then there seems to be a break of about a year between novels - this would probably be a good place to slot in the short story collection 人面瘡 (falling chronologically around the time of 犬神家の一族 and 女王蜂) and the chronologically earlier novel 悪魔が来りて笛を吹く (published after 女王蜂). That’s if we even make it that far!

2 Likes

:partying_face:
Time well spent, I’d say! :wink:
I think it’s fine if you want to post your opinions on 香水心中 and 百日紅の下にて in the 殺人鬼 thread under a spoiler tag. Of course if you’d rather wait so you can comment more specifically that’s fine too~

Thanks for letting us know about the other stories! That’s about what I expected after the references in the short stories at the end of 本陣殺人事件 but definitely good to know for sure. I’m looking forward to reading about how 金田一 will become an established private detective~

Haha yeah. I’m no way near tired of 横溝 yet, but it’s a long way to go still. Having a bit of a break scheduled thanks to S&M will probably be quite helpful to keep motivations going strong too.

Speaking of, do we want to schedule the other 2 short stories in that time frame (end of June to end of July basically) or rather keep them unscheduled, ‘read at your own pace’ kind of deal? @rodan @BadPlayer, since I assume you haven’t finished the book yet and might have more of an opinion on this than @Jfredel78. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I say schedule them in.

2 Likes

scheduling them’s fine with me!

2 Likes

Alright, so scheduling it is! :+1:

We’ll be done with 夜歩く on June 19 (Su). The last week is a very relaxed 25 pages.

The two stories remaining in 殺人鬼 are ~90 and ~45 pages. Alloting 2 weeks for the longer one would give us a very even page count. We have however already read 90+ pages in a week, so just reading that story in one week would be possible too.

  • 2 week schedule for 香水心中
  • 1 week schedule for 香水心中
  • Either is fine
  • I’d prefer something else (please explain)

0 voters

The other question is, do we want to take a bit of a break to wait for the S&M bookclub to finish? Their last week ends at the end of June, so we would start our next book in July. Personally I’m in favor of this, I don’t want to just run full speed ahead and leave them behind. Let me know if you’d prefer a different approach though!

  • Start right after 夜歩く, then take a longer break
  • Take shorter breaks before and after the remaining short stories
  • Yes to breaks, but either is fine
  • I’d prefer no breaks
  • I’d prefer a different approach

0 voters

よろしくお願いいたします~

1 Like

I’m not really sure what you mean in terms of scheduling… 夜歩く’s last week begins 6/13, and then S&M starts on 6/18, and its last week starts on 7/23.

Anyway, my idea is to mix up the order a bit and read the 45-page story the same week as the last chapter of 夜歩く and then the 90 page story after S&M (late July/early August).

I seem to remember we talked about reading the remaining 2 stories during the course of the S&M bookclub. It sounds like you’d prefer to take a break for the 6 weeks and read the rest of 殺人鬼 outside of that time span with no overlap?