Xanth volume #49, Knicklepede Knight, read:

It didn't take long to read Xanth's latest volume, I finished it a day after the book's release.  There was nothing particularly offensive about it, but it followed the same ruts the series has been in for a long time.  A group of nonentities, this time bugs, get caught up with all-powerful Demons and their contests, and end up saving the mortal universe (this time multiverse) yet again from nefarious Demon threats.  This has happened for like ten books in a row.  It's getting a little old.  Sort of like the author, who is also an elderly 91.  But he still intends to write a Xanth volume #50.  There's no stopping this old man and his old, repetitive tales.

My biggest complaint with the book is it threw out all the established lore about zombies in the past Xanth book and imported a new zombie menace that has nothing to do with the past zombies which were a feature of Xanth's history from a foreign universe.  If you're going to make the book about zombies, it should be about the zombies from Castle Zombie, and the Zombie Master, and all that preestablished lore.  You can't just write about new zombies and ignore the old ones.  It creates a discontinuity in the setting.  But oh well, the book was still better than the feminist nonsense of the past few volumes.

The bizarre take on gays continues in this volume, as Santo is still the main character of the story, supposedly gay, but still dating Noe, a girl.  They spend all their time together yet again in this book.  It's like the author doesn't really understand what the word 'gay' means.

I've narrowed my Octopath Traveler 0 song collection down to 35 tunes.  I could reduce the number more before reaching my required 100-listen threshold to reach my music hall of fame.  Most of the eliminated songs were remixes, some were plain no good.  As for Wishvale, there are three songs that all have the same central melody, but represent the town at a different time in its turbulent history.  I don't consider any of the Wishvale songs to be 'remixes' of any of the others, they're all part of the same overall 'tale of Wishvale.'  Or 'Song of Wishvale,' if you prefer.  So I stitched all three songs together and titled the 'Song of Wishvale' as 'Wishvale, For the Future, Prosperous Days Ahead.'  Then I gave this 5-star song, the best song in the game, to Stia, as Octopath Traveler 0's first wonderful character.

The other songs still need to prove themselves, but Wishvale, the heart and soul of this game, doesn't need to prove itself any further.  Stia, the builder of Wishvale from the ground up, from '0', as it were, is the heart and soul of this game's characters.  It's perfectly connected.  She's also voiced by Haruka Tomatsu, the voice of Asuna Yuuki, so her attractiveness is top notch.

By a lucky free ticket, I got Monaca's first limit break ever.  Now all the seraphs in my army have at least one limit break.  That's got to be a relief to Monaca, who in the game is supposed to be the strongest, but in my collection was the weakest.