[acesn8s]

Fly kinden are Apt, or at least the characters I've encountered are Apt.

Yes, aptness is a rather new thing (couple hundred years) and has upset the balance of power in the world. Some of the kinden are transitioning from inapt to apt (Spiders are an example - if I remember correctly).

[End of Disc One]

Book 2 had some awesome large scale battles. That's the main reason why it's my personal favorite out of the first 4 books.

[Andorion]

12 chapters into Dragonfly Falling.

Battle of Tark was great. I am discovering that I don't care about Totho so all the space he is getting is really tiresome.

The Dragonfly woman on a revenge quest is clearly a ghost out of Thalric's past probably

Spoiler

the noblewoman whose kids he killed, I am surprised he didn't kill her as well

She has become a very fascinating character to follow

Drephos is somebody I want to know waaay more about.

Stenwold/Arianna/Tisamon dynamic is a good read as well

[acesn8s]

Briar King, on 13 October 2015 - 02:35 AM, said:

I love Felise. She seems to be the focus of hate that people had with with disliking and putting bk 2 down for good which I don't get but everyone is due their opinion.

I thought Felise was a great addition too.

I found Totho whiny and boring.

[Andorion]

acesn8s, on 13 October 2015 - 12:01 PM, said:

Briar King, on 13 October 2015 - 02:35 AM, said:

I love Felise. She seems to be the focus of hate that people had with with disliking and putting bk 2 down for good which I don't get but everyone is due their opinion.

I thought Felise was a great addition too.

I found Totho whiny and boring.

I find Felise fascinating. A

Spoiler

periodically amnesiac, borderline psychopathic swordmaster trying to avenge her dead children

. vs an apprentice engineer whom we have yet to see engineer anything who won't shut up about being friendzoned. It doesn't even seem like a choice

[Mentalist]

Andorion, on 12 October 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

Briar King, on 12 October 2015 - 03:04 AM, said:

1 is the thing that indeed is strange throughout the 10 books. I find it hard to take in that Inapt can't even grasp the brain power to turn a doorknob which leads to quite a few sigh moments in series.

The man knows how to write out fights/battles though.

I am about 7 chapters into Book 2.

Something else that struck me - there seems to be more inapt kinden than apt

Moth, Dragonfly, Mantis, Grasshopper, Mosquito, Spider, Butterfly

Apt are only Beetle, ant, wasp, thornbug

What are fly kinden? Apt or Inapt? Same question regarding scorpions

Regarding battles I would love to read more large scale battle descriptions as his opening descriptions of the siege of Tark are very good.

Iirc, flies are Apt. At least, most of them. Scorpions can be either, but mostly inApt.

[Mentalist]

Briar King, on 13 October 2015 - 02:35 AM, said:

I love Felise. She seems to be the focus of hate that people had with with disliking and putting bk 2 down for good which I don't get but everyone is due their opinion.

If I was to put Bk 2 down, it'd have been due to the combined emo-ness of Totho and Salma.

Luckily, I was on vacation at the time with books 2 and 3 my only reading material.

[End of Disc One]

I don't know, I thought Totho and Salma got a lot more interesting by the end of book 2, due to their roles.

Also Drephos was always the one character I wanted to see more of. I love the way he's written.

This post has been edited by End of Disc One: 13 October 2015 - 02:59 PM

[Mentalist]

End of Disc One, on 13 October 2015 - 02:24 PM, said:

I don't know, I thought Totho and Salma got a lot more interesting by the end of book 2, due to their roles.

Also Dresphos was always the one character I wanted to see more of. I love the way he's written.

It's a pet peeve of mine, but I cannot stand characters singularly driven by a single obsession/trait, which is then highlighted as "tragic flaw". Both Totho and Salma DO interestin things, but neither is well-written in terms of thoughts/feelings beyond "woe is me, I've been friend-zoned fo being a half-breed/it's my DUTY to be the hero, b/c I have a crush on the butterfly-chick". Salma's battles are awesome, Drephos is awesome (in a "wow, that's a true psychopath" type of way), but both POV characters grate and never move beyond the one-dimensional. YMMV, ofc

[Andorion]

25 chapters in and things have improved greatly. But this author, while good is not great. For example:

Quote

As that thought came to him he looked up, and Thalric landed not ten yards away, sword drawn, and their eyes met. The shock of recognition was a physical thing, two-edged and cutting. Tisamon remembered the fire and pain, the injury he had still not entirely shaken free of. Thalric, for his part, remembered the wounds he had taken, the wounds he had given, and how Tisamon had simply refused to die.

I don't think SE would have spelled out the thoughts of the two like that. That info was already there, presented to the reader earlier. SE would have let the reader remember and imagine for himself.

[Andorion]

Finished 2, I thought it ended very solidly. On to 3.

I think I have picked up the basic structure of the series

Spoiler

There are 2 themes: One is the explicit one: The Wasp Empire and its opponents.
The second is the one that got a heavy boost here: The return of Dark Magic from the Days of Lore.
Of course the two themes are intertwined

[Macros]

Just finished up book 4.
I noticed an improvement in writing over the first 3 most definitely, and I think its raised the series above the complaints I saw at the start of this thread that were levelled at the first two books. Considerably so.
Buying book 5 right now

[Andorion]

Finished Book 3.Very impressed with the way this series continues to improve. Tchaikovsky writes awesome battle scenes

[Andorion]

I am about 23 chapters into Salute the Dark. I am taking it slow because I know, I just know some big, bad things are about to happen

Tisamon, Collegium, Thalric.... I am concerned about all of their futures

Also I have a couple of issues

Spoiler

The wasp force to Collegium came literally out of nowhere. I would have liked to get more background on the general and his moving fortress strategy

Also the Spider defeat would have been better received if the spider forces had gotten more narrative space

Also Thalric kissed Che? WTF. If she starts getting mopey about this another triangle crops up I am going to think about dropping the book.

What I miss in this book: The Water Beetle kinden of the lake near Jerez. Would have loved to get some more info on them.

[Andorion]

Finished Salute the Dark.

Now that was a good book. But there were a couple of weird aspects

Spoiler

What I liked

Tisamon and Felise fighting before the Emperor. That entire segment gave me chills

Salma getting the job done, even at the cost of his life.

Taki's entire Solarno fight as well as Cesta just slaughtering the officer cadre


But how did Drephos survive the gas? And why did Totho bring him along with him later?

Who was that presence at the end? Achaeos?


This book felt a lot like MoI in the sense that several storylines and characters are over. But I am pretty sure new PoV characters will be introduced. What I am curious about is how the ancient magic thread will be continued now that the Darakyon is gone

[Mentalist]

Andorion, on 22 October 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

Finished Salute the Dark.

Now that was a good book. But there were a couple of weird aspects

Spoiler

What I liked

Tisamon and Felise fighting before the Emperor. That entire segment gave me chills

Salma getting the job done, even at the cost of his life.

Taki's entire Solarno fight as well as Cesta just slaughtering the officer cadre


But how did Drephos survive the gas? And why did Totho bring him along with him later?

Who was that presence at the end? Achaeos?


This book felt a lot like MoI in the sense that several storylines and characters are over. But I am pretty sure new PoV characters will be introduced. What I am curious about is how the ancient magic thread will be continued now that the Darakyon is gone

Exalsee was the thing that kept me reading until I got to "Salute the Dark". Then I just got properly hooked. But before that, it was all about insect-kinden doing Tale Spins.

As for spoilers:

Spoiler

Drephos has plot armor. And Totho needs a mentor and is basically incapable of making decisions himself, so he kinda falls into things.

Don't remember the "presence", so won't comment, cuz I may spoil some stuff.

The magic thing is big in Bk5. Ke-raaazy shit's gonna go down. (Edit: now that I think about, a bit old-school Indiana Jones-y, /edit)

I guess it could be seen as MoI. But Tchaikovsky's got a much clearer (in the sense of, "less convoluted") story arcs, b/c he's replaying human history. The parallels will get even clearer as you RAFO.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 22 October 2015 - 02:54 PM

[Andorion]

Mentalist, on 22 October 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

Andorion, on 22 October 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

Finished Salute the Dark.

Now that was a good book. But there were a couple of weird aspects

Spoiler

What I liked

Tisamon and Felise fighting before the Emperor. That entire segment gave me chills

Salma getting the job done, even at the cost of his life.

Taki's entire Solarno fight as well as Cesta just slaughtering the officer cadre


But how did Drephos survive the gas? And why did Totho bring him along with him later?

Who was that presence at the end? Achaeos?


This book felt a lot like MoI in the sense that several storylines and characters are over. But I am pretty sure new PoV characters will be introduced. What I am curious about is how the ancient magic thread will be continued now that the Darakyon is gone

Exalsee was the thing that kept me reading until I got to "Salute the Dark". Then I just got properly hooked. But before that, it was all about insect-kinden doing Tale Spins.

As for spoilers:

Spoiler

Drephos has plot armor. And Totho needs a mentor and is basically incapable of making decisions himself, so he kinda falls into things.

Don't remember the "presence", so won't comment, cuz I may spoil some stuff.

The magic thing is big in Bk5. Ke-raaazy shit's gonna go down. (Edit: now that I think about, a bit old-school Indiana Jones-y, /edit)

I guess it could be seen as MoI. But Tchaikovsky's got a much clearer (in the sense of, "less convoluted") story arcs, b/c he's replaying human history. The parallels will get even clearer as you RAFO.

I have already moved into Book 5. 5 chapters in. This lost city thingy does seem very Indy.

Something I forgot to mention about Book 4

Spoiler

Thalric being the consort to the Wasp Empress just came out of left field. There was almost no plot basis for this. I am hoping it gets enlarged upon later, because it deserves an explanation.

This is basically also my problem with the Wasp siege of Collegium There was zero build up for that general who overcame the Mantis kinden and almost took the city. It just came out of nowhere

Totho is an idiot. A genuine five star idiot. This is so obvious I am not even going to spoiler code it.

[Mentalist]

Tchaikovsky did wonderful things with Che. Totho, sadly, never gets such treatment.

Re: the wasp army: iirc, it was the same one that took Tark early on. There's some brief flashbacks about the Gears, but they aren't super-miportant, so the background isn't really that well grounded.

Re: Thalric- there's so much random crap happening to him, that at that point I kinda stopped wondering, and just rolled with it.

[Andorion]

I am 17 chapters into Scarab Path. If I didn't know better I would have said I was reading a book by a different author, This book is completely different in approach and feel from the earlier four.

Spoiler

Khanaphes is confusing and interesting at the same time. The larger political themes are present yet they seem peripheral. I have a couple of ideas about the central mystery but it doesn't seem likely that anything is going to be resolved soon.

Che's PoV has gotten more interesting due to her rather sudden inAptitude. But the concept of the inapt is rather confusing and problematic. She can't even see through a telescope? Thats not using tech, its letting optics work. It seems there is a fundamental biological/neurological difference between the Apt and the inapt.

Far more problematic is Thalric. Why is he scared of Seda? From what has been revealed so far, she made him drink a goblet of blood before they had sex. How did that make him weak and feverish?
Is she taking up mosquito kinden practices like vampirism? This wasn't even hinted at in the last book. In fact Seda's persona in the last book would hardly be terror inducing. She was a good plotter. So Thalric could be wary off her. But he seems terrified.

Iron Glove faction is Tothos. Has to be.

[acesn8s]

The Scarab Path helped breathe new life into the series for me. It's one of my favorites of the series, so far.