Spiral Labyrinth. (No spoilers.)
Some quotes from Mark Ma's translation of Spiral Labyrinth: [My (hopefully) minor edits are in square brackets.]
"War is a giant consumer system that could never be linked with [reproduction], and a fruitless economic action that draws human life and energy into the black hole of death and destruction. [It] wasn't constructive, but, including Yang, those who participated in [the military] profession numbered hundreds of millions. If each of them drank one cup of coffee, it would create a tremendous economic effect."
"This thirty-ish man was Lieutenant Minci, an officer with help-colored hair. Because Yang was staring at [the] ceiling and deep in thought, he had no memory of what the man looked like or of his name."
The bit about the coffee always makes me laugh, and the 'help' typo gets me every time. ("What on Earth is 'help-coloured hair'?" It boggled my mind. "'Hemp'?" ...but it's forgivable.) Also, unlike the animated version, the Spiral Labyrinth novel is more like reading Yang's stream of consciousness with interjections from the narrator. I can't speak for the writing style; the author's voice is most probably muffled at best, as it's been translated from Japanese to Chinese to English. I'll admit that I find it a joy to read by virtue of it being about Yang and his troubles with his newfound Hero of El Facil status.
Sadly, Mark Ma only got up to the fourth chapter in the story. To the best of my web search-fu (while being reasonable with time), he hasn't been active in the LoGH fandom for ages so I'm waiting for Central Anime to help fill in the rest. They're already up to Episode 4 and that's about ... chapter two-ish?
"War is a giant consumer system that could never be linked with [reproduction], and a fruitless economic action that draws human life and energy into the black hole of death and destruction. [It] wasn't constructive, but, including Yang, those who participated in [the military] profession numbered hundreds of millions. If each of them drank one cup of coffee, it would create a tremendous economic effect."
"This thirty-ish man was Lieutenant Minci, an officer with help-colored hair. Because Yang was staring at [the] ceiling and deep in thought, he had no memory of what the man looked like or of his name."
The bit about the coffee always makes me laugh, and the 'help' typo gets me every time. ("What on Earth is 'help-coloured hair'?" It boggled my mind. "'Hemp'?" ...but it's forgivable.) Also, unlike the animated version, the Spiral Labyrinth novel is more like reading Yang's stream of consciousness with interjections from the narrator. I can't speak for the writing style; the author's voice is most probably muffled at best, as it's been translated from Japanese to Chinese to English. I'll admit that I find it a joy to read by virtue of it being about Yang and his troubles with his newfound Hero of El Facil status.
Sadly, Mark Ma only got up to the fourth chapter in the story. To the best of my web search-fu (while being reasonable with time), he hasn't been active in the LoGH fandom for ages so I'm waiting for Central Anime to help fill in the rest. They're already up to Episode 4 and that's about ... chapter two-ish?