A Certain Writer

I went to a Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy performance a while ago and wanted to record my thoughts before I forget about it.

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy is an official Final Fantasy symphony concert tour led by conductor Arnie Roth. It tours around the world and, since the Final Fantasy 35th Anniversary, seems to have performances in a different city once or twice a month. I had been to the Eorzean Symphony, a Final Fantasy XIV concert, but had never been to Distant Worlds performance before. I had always wanted to, though. I listen to the Distant Worlds albums all the time and they’re among my favorite Final Fantasy arrangement tracks. So, when a performance date was announced for my city, I jumped at the opportunity to finally see it in person.

The event is a lot different from the other Final Fantasy concert tours like Eorzean Symphony or the Final Fantasy VII Remake tour. For starters, Distant Worlds features music from all the Final Fantasy games instead of focusing on a single entry. At the performance I attended there was at least one song from almost every game in the series - Final Fantasy XII was the only exception. There may have been more songs and I may have gotten the order incorrect, but I’ve listed what I can remember of the setlist below:

• Prelude
• Liberi fatali from Final Fantasy VIII
• One-Winged Angel – Rebirth from Final Fantasy VII Remake
• Final Fantasy VI Melody – Phantom Forest ~ Phantom Train ~ The Veldt
• Cosmo Canyon from Final Fantasy VII
• Blinded by Light from Final Fantasy XIII
• Roses of May from Final Fantasy IX
• Torn from the Heavens from Final Fantasy XIV
• Chocobo Medley
• Apocalipsis Noctis from Final Fantasy XVI
• Battle with the Four Fiends from Final Fantasy IV
• Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy VIII
• Heavensward from Final Fantasy XIV
• Festival of the Hunt from Final Fantasy IX
• Final Fantasy ~ Final Fantasy VI Battle Medley
• Victory Theme
• Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X
• Final Fantasy Title Screen (credits)
• One Winged Angel (sing-along) from Final Fantasy VII

I’m an old-school Final Fantasy fan so it was nice to hear so much music from games like Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI. Battle with the Four Fiends was probably my favorite song of the night. Some games were featured more than others. Songs from games like Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy XI were only featured in medleys. As mentioned above, there were no songs from Final Fantasy XII which was kind of a bummer. Despite this, I still enjoyed the setlist a lot.

The concert was a lot more casual than most orchestra performances I’ve been to. Actually, I think it was the most casual preference I’ve ever been to, Eorzean Symphony and Zelda Symphony included. There were a lot of cosplayers at the venue and most that weren’t in cosplay wore t-shirts and jeans. I decided to dress in business casual like I normally do for these types of events, but I felt out of place in a polo and slacks. The program was designed for audience interaction. The conductor encouraged the audience to laugh at moments like Sabin suplexing the Phantom Train and sing along to songs like One Winged Angel. The casual atmosphere certainty wasn’t what I was expecting but it was still lots of fun.

While the concert itself was amazing, the venue for Distant Worlds in my city was kind of a letdown. The doors only opened a half an hour prior to the start of the performance so there were still people entering and being seated a few songs into the concert. The venue sold food and alcohol, something that I’ve never seen before at an event like this. The couple sitting next to me ate and drank through the entire show and got very rowdy after intermission. A security guard came to talk to them, but nothing was done. They continued to be loud and even belligerent with other audience members for the rest of the performance.

Problems with the venue aside, I still had a great time at the performance. Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy is absolutely worth seeing if you’re a fan of the series. I wouldn’t travel abroad to see it like I had with the Eorzean Symphony concert but if Distant Worlds ever has a performance in my city again, I wouldn’t hesitate to see it a second time.

I wanted to collect my thoughts on The Daughter of Doctor Moreau before I completely forget that I read it. Please forgive this needlessly long brain dump as I try to turn my thoughts into text. I’m going to touch on spoilers so please avoid this post if you have any intentions of reading the book yourself.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau was written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia who I already knew as the author of Mexican Gothic. I adore Mexican Gothic but I didn’t read The Daughter of Doctor Moreau because of that admiration. Instead, I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend who told me that Moreno-Garcia’s newest book had monster girl romance in it. Now, I’m not a furry, but when I heard that some of the monster girls were cat girls, I just had to get my hands on it as soon as possible.

There was no way a western novel, especially not a mainstream “best-seller” had cat girl romance in it, right? That had to be a mistake.

I was wrong. There is indeed cat girl romance in The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

The monsters in this story are mutants – human and animal hybrids created by the mad scientist Dr. Moreau in his bid to perfect humanity. They range from 1-3 on the furry scale and come in all shapes and sizes so there’s fun to be found for everyone no matter where you fall on the monster enthusiast spectrum. As mentioned above, there is cat girl and human romance. The romance is light – not quite enough to be a Fur Affinity or Deviantart submission – but it exists. In my opinion, it does not go as far as I would have liked it to but it was my favorite aspect of the book. The extraordinary romance adds an interesting dynamic to the other genres this book touches on.

I’ve seen The Daughter of Doctor Moreau described as genre-blending historical, science fiction, and romantic narrative. In accordance with the genre mixing, the story alternates between the perspectives of Montgomery, an impoverished alcoholic forced to find work in the Yucatán, and Cartola, a mutant creation of her mad scientist father. In the end, both the historical and sci-fi aspects of the book seemed more like info dumping rather than world building – a way to contextualize the romance but with little to no major implications on the story. While romance was far more prominent than the other genres, even that seemed to fall short.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau takes place in Mexico during the Caste War of Yucatán. The struggle for power between different castes within the Yucatán acts as a framework for the story. The Lizalde family holds power over the Moreau family who are dependent on them for research funding. The Moreau family, Dr. Moreau and Cartola included, hold power over Montgomery, who is dependent on them for work and housing. Finally, Cartola and the other hybrids are dependent on Dr. Moreau for a mysterious injection that keeps them alive. There are mentions of Maya rebels and other aspects of the social system present in the real Caste War of Yucatán but outside of the direct power struggles mentioned above, they have very little bearing on the overall plot.

If you’re looking for a grounded sci-fi story like H. G. Wells’ original The Island of Dr. Moreau you may be disappointed. There are indeed sci-fi elements in Moreno-Garcia’s reimagining, but I found them strangely written and hard to take seriously. The doctor himself hardly sounds like a doctor in the few times he rants about his science and the methodology behind his creations is very inconsistent. For example, the book’s major revelation about Dr. Moreau’s injections seems contradictory to the way Cartola acts without them. It gets even stranger with how inconsistent the other mutants act in the climax of the book. What I thought would be a major turning point in the narrative to show how Cartola was no longer dependent on her father made me question if that even was the case at all.

Speaking of Cartola’s dependance on her father, the ending itself seemed inconstant and contradictory to the larger narrative of escaping from a power struggle. While no longer under direct control of her father, Cartola is still ultimately dependent on the Moreau family to receive an inheritance and sustain her lifestyle. I feel like it would have been more meaningful for Cartola to become a self-made scientist, but I digress.

The romance aspects of the book seemed both overdone and underdone. The romance clearly outshines the historical and science fiction elements but it just doesn’t go far enough. The love triangle is more annoying than dramatic. Early on the Lizaldes are painted as villains so I found the son’s betrayal predictable, if not comical. There is clear romantic tension between Montgomery and Cartola but the book paints him to be more of a father figure to her than a lover. I mean, I get it. There’s a large age gap between them and Montgomery is a remorseless alcoholic but their relationship felt so frustrating to me. The love was clearly there but it was almost like the author was too afraid to commit to writing them as a couple and left it up to the reader to fill in the blanks.

Looking through my rambling thoughts, it’s pretty clear to me that I didn’t really like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. I wasn’t expecting to read a mainstream book with cat girls in it this year but after I got over the fact that such a thing exists, it left me feeling underwhelmed. That being said, it certaintly wasn’t the worst book I’ve read this year and I don’t regret reading it. In the end, I am a sucker for gothic romances and that genre combined with my weeby love of monster girls made this book worth reading for me.