Since a 3rd season is as likely as me seeing a human walk on Mars I decided to read the novel. I do not regret this choice but it was a hard series to get through at points.

Now I'll make this clear, I DID NOT read the yen press version. If I did, maybe my enjoyment would have been higher but I sailed the seas for it instead.

The story is what you'd expect having watched the anime. Holo and Kraft travel, make deals, get screwed, get unscrewed and move along. All in the hopes of Kraft starting his own shop and Holo going home. Pretty simple story.

A problem I ran into was a lot of the story or things taking place seemed to be implied. I'm not sure if that was a translation problem or just the way the story was written. But I spent a lot of time confused as to why the characters were doing certain things or what had even happened.

The book took place in Krafts head except for a few chapters (which those other chapters were by far my favorite) and you'd think that'd mean you'd get all of his thoughts yeah? No. You don't. It's more like the narrator tells you most of them. Then you get the result and go "OH! so that's what that meant." Not the way I like my story to be told.

There's a lot of "sigh" as well. All the characters sigh. A lot. All the time. If you've ever read Wheel of Time and thought "Man, they sniff a lot" this series beats it with sighs.

The characters are what you saw in the anime. They don't really develop but the story itself takes place within a year I think and Holo is a few hundred years old anyway so growth wouldn't happen.

Some of the side characters are interesting and I wouldn't have minded side stories about them. The Shepherd girl was expanded on a bit but even that was lacking a bit.

Overall I'd say it's worth reading once if you loved the anime. Find out what happened to them and how. If you just thought the anime was okay, go read a wiki.