[End of Disc One]

Just finished Avempartha and loved it even more than the first. These books are near perfect to me. Fun reads with all the fat trimmed, and just enough world building/backstory to keep me interested. The only complaint I can think of is that the action scenes can be lacking, and Sullivan sometimes breezes through them too quickly.

[QuickTidal]

End of Disc One, on 12 November 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Just finished Avempartha and loved it even more than the first. These books are near perfect to me. Fun reads with all the fat trimmed, and just enough world building/backstory to keep me interested. The only complaint I can think of is that the action scenes can be lacking, and Sullivan sometimes breezes through them too quickly.

There are some great action sequences coming up in latter books. Just keep reading.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 12 November 2013 - 02:41 PM

[Abyss]

So i finished the HEIR OF NOVRON series and enjoyed it.
Nicely written, fun characters, great action scenes. Hadrian and Royce are a great team in the spirit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

I will cheerfully spend dollars on more from this author.


I do, however have one 'complaint' i'd like to see what others think of:
SPOILERS FOR LAST TWO BOOKS IN SERIES

Spoiler

The 'threat' of the elves comes more or less out of nowhere.


As of the end of book five they're sitting across the river ignoring everyone including the half-elves being massacred all over the place, and two chapters into bk 6 they've wiped out most of humanity.


The goblin exodus was pretty much the only major hint the elf invasion was coming and it doesn't really make sense that the elves could drive them out but not be noticed by anyone else anywhere, magic hypnotic marching song notwithstanding. There were other hints that 'something' bad was coming, but the even so i found the transition from ominous foreshadowing to 'oh fuck the dragon riding magic tossing mighty elf army just wiped most of humanity off the map' abrupt.


It wasn't a major issue for me but i did find it a bit jarring the way the story shifted from the Empire being the big bad to more or less wiping it out by way of elves. Sure it was all part of the diabolical master plan, but verging on randomly so.

Did this jump out to anyone else?

[Stormcat]

I grabbed the free short story on my kindle, put the others on my wish list.

[Ukjent]

Now you just have to start reading The rose and the Thorn and The Crown Tower. Both are set some time before the happenings of Revelation.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 12 November 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

So i finished the HEIR OF NOVRON series and enjoyed it.
Nicely written, fun characters, great action scenes. Hadrian and Royce are a great team in the spirit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

I will cheerfully spend dollars on more from this author.


I do, however have one 'complaint' i'd like to see what others think of:
SPOILERS FOR LAST TWO BOOKS IN SERIES

Spoiler

The 'threat' of the elves comes more or less out of nowhere.


As of the end of book five they're sitting across the river ignoring everyone including the half-elves being massacred all over the place, and two chapters into bk 6 they've wiped out most of humanity.


The goblin exodus was pretty much the only major hint the elf invasion was coming and it doesn't really make sense that the elves could drive them out but not be noticed by anyone else anywhere, magic hypnotic marching song notwithstanding. There were other hints that 'something' bad was coming, but the even so i found the transition from ominous foreshadowing to 'oh fuck the dragon riding magic tossing mighty elf army just wiped most of humanity off the map' abrupt.


It wasn't a major issue for me but i did find it a bit jarring the way the story shifted from the Empire being the big bad to more or less wiping it out by way of elves. Sure it was all part of the diabolical master plan, but verging on randomly so.

Did this jump out to anyone else?

I'd say...

Spoiler

...that the foreshadowing of this begins as far back as Book 1.

It's not a given that it's going to happen, but it's certainly a given that Elves are maligned in the human world. There is that bit in book 1 with Myron, and the fleeing elvish slaves who are hiding their features ect...the books are all peppered with this sense of foreboding about the elvish community. I also thought to myself, why are they treated so poorly when people speak of them being so powerful, and in that vein why have they pulled back into their own lands and basically left a very aggressively xenophobic humanity alone? They were pulling the elastic back...

Our main view into their world is through Royce, his skill-set is all we really need to know that elves CAN be a force to be reckoned with when they choose to. We are left to imagine an army of Royce's...invincible...and in fact I THINK Sullivan actually eludes to such a thought-process a few times coming from either the Riyria themselves, or from the Pickerings, or Arista...Perhaps it was even Esrahaddon? Can't recall. But yeah, so when it actually drops as a big plot point and a forgone conclusion, as "holy crap they came across and began this massacre!", I felt like...of course! If such beings DID decide to come and do us dirty, we wouldn't see it coming till it was all over. It made the fact that they were all just sitting across the river, end of book 5, all the more poignant.

At least that's how I saw it.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 12 November 2013 - 08:32 PM

[QuickTidal]

Graablick, on 12 November 2013 - 07:37 PM, said:

Now you just have to start reading The rose and the Thorn and The Crown Tower. Both are set some time before the happenings of Revelation.

I'm staring the ROSE & THORN later, but I can fully vouch for the excellence of THE CROWN TOWER.

[Dragnipurake]

The crown tower was great but the rose and the thorn was filled with useless 'spacefiller', pages and pages of irrelevant stuff to pad up the book. I just wish he made this into a short story instead.

[QuickTidal]

Dragnipurake, on 13 November 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

The crown tower was great but the rose and the thorn was filled with useless 'spacefiller', pages and pages of irrelevant stuff to pad up the book. I just wish he made this into a short story instead.

Part of it WAS a short story funnily enough, the second or third chapter is actually a portion of THE VISCOUNT AND THE WITCH.

I'm about halfway through and I've not found it to be filler-ish at all. He's kind of filling in the world of the main series with back-stories, like Hilfred.

[Dragnipurake]

The background story on other characters like Hilfred is good but i just felt the scenes in this book had a lot of unnecessary descriptions (something like you see in the latter WOT books).

[HoosierDaddy]

I enjoyed the trilogy, but the "revelations" were rather... predictable. As far back as 50 pages into Theft, I had two storylines figured out. Now, I didn't have it all down, and that's what made it quite entertaining, along with the fact that Sullivan does a nice job of mixing in some newer tropes into his classic fantasy world.

Would recommend. Would recommend Alera before.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 12 November 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

So i finished the HEIR OF NOVRON series and enjoyed it.
Nicely written, fun characters, great action scenes. Hadrian and Royce are a great team in the spirit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

I will cheerfully spend dollars on more from this author.


I do, however have one 'complaint' i'd like to see what others think of:
SPOILERS FOR LAST TWO BOOKS IN SERIES

Spoiler

The 'threat' of the elves comes more or less out of nowhere.


As of the end of book five they're sitting across the river ignoring everyone including the half-elves being massacred all over the place, and two chapters into bk 6 they've wiped out most of humanity.


The goblin exodus was pretty much the only major hint the elf invasion was coming and it doesn't really make sense that the elves could drive them out but not be noticed by anyone else anywhere, magic hypnotic marching song notwithstanding. There were other hints that 'something' bad was coming, but the even so i found the transition from ominous foreshadowing to 'oh fuck the dragon riding magic tossing mighty elf army just wiped most of humanity off the map' abrupt.


It wasn't a major issue for me but i did find it a bit jarring the way the story shifted from the Empire being the big bad to more or less wiping it out by way of elves. Sure it was all part of the diabolical master plan, but verging on randomly so.

Did this jump out to anyone else?

NECRO!!!!!!!!

Abyss... so this is neat all these years later to necro this thread. The new series Sullivan is currently releasing, which starts in AGE OF MYTH...actually answers your years-ago complaint from above in a very interesting way.

The history of the elves as we know it in The Revelations...it turns out is NOT the history of the Elves really at all and was fashioned by unreliable-narrator/historian humans after the fact. AGE OF MYTH is very much like Erikson's current series in that respect. Completely rewriting what we think we know about the world that the author created, and more specifically...the elves (in Erikson's case the Tiste) story.

Just a fun factoid about the new series. I was rereading the thread and came across your old spoilered comment, and thought...holy crap, Sullivan is dealing with this very thing in the new story.

[JPK]

BK start with Theft of Swords.

[JPK]

As much as I'd love to get you on Wurts, I'd recommend waiting until you've finished either Safehold or Outlander. WoLaS are fairly dense reads.

[Andorion]

I am going to have to finish Riyria at some point - I read the first book and liked it.

BTW I asked the author himself, and he prefers a publication based reading order: Revelations - Chronicles - Age of Myth

[Andorion]

Cheesewiz, on 10 February 2017 - 01:57 AM, said:

Andorion, on 10 February 2017 - 01:39 AM, said:

I am going to have to finish Riyria at some point - I read the first book and liked it.

BTW I asked the author himself, and he prefers a publication based reading order: Revelations - Chronicles - Age of Myth

Cool. I ll add it to my 2034 pile.

Yeah Kitsu I'm super happy I got the call when I did otherwise I'd have bought another fucking bk when I still have 20+ unread at home. I just happened to have be standing right fucking in front of those when I was reading QTs post. Fate

Very strange they didn't have Wurts or GGK. Figured they would. Guess I ll have to Amazon them.

I will have to echo JPK here. Wurts is fantastic, but huge. And the series is still ongoing, I think one book this year, and the last one next year.

So go for GGk. Have you read anything by him? I would recommend Lions of Al Rassan as a starter, I plan to read the Sarantium duology and Tigana this year.

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 10 February 2017 - 01:57 AM, said:

Andorion, on 10 February 2017 - 01:39 AM, said:

I am going to have to finish Riyria at some point - I read the first book and liked it.

BTW I asked the author himself, and he prefers a publication based reading order: Revelations - Chronicles - Age of Myth

Cool. I ll add it to my 2034 pile.

Yeah Kitsu I'm super happy I got the call when I did otherwise I'd have bought another fucking bk when I still have 20+ unread at home. I just happened to have be standing right fucking in front of those when I was reading QTs post. Fate

Very strange they didn't have Wurts or GGK. Figured they would. Guess I ll have to Amazon them.

LOL, sorry BK!

But yeah, start with the Revelations for sure.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 09 February 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

Abyss, on 12 November 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

So i finished the HEIR OF NOVRON series and enjoyed it.
Nicely written, fun characters, great action scenes. Hadrian and Royce are a great team in the spirit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

I will cheerfully spend dollars on more from this author.


I do, however have one 'complaint' i'd like to see what others think of:
SPOILERS FOR LAST TWO BOOKS IN SERIES

Spoiler

The 'threat' of the elves comes more or less out of nowhere.

As of the end of book five they're sitting across the river ignoring everyone including the half-elves being massacred all over the place, and two chapters into bk 6 they've wiped out most of humanity.

The goblin exodus was pretty much the only major hint the elf invasion was coming and it doesn't really make sense that the elves could drive them out but not be noticed by anyone else anywhere, magic hypnotic marching song notwithstanding. There were other hints that 'something' bad was coming, but the even so i found the transition from ominous foreshadowing to 'oh fuck the dragon riding magic tossing mighty elf army just wiped most of humanity off the map' abrupt.

It wasn't a major issue for me but i did find it a bit jarring the way the story shifted from the Empire being the big bad to more or less wiping it out by way of elves. Sure it was all part of the diabolical master plan, but verging on randomly so.

Did this jump out to anyone else?

NECRO!!!!!!!!

Abyss... so this is neat all these years later to necro this thread. The new series Sullivan is currently releasing, which starts in AGE OF MYTH...actually answers your years-ago complaint from above in a very interesting way.

The history of the elves as we know it in The Revelations...it turns out is NOT the history of the Elves really at all and was fashioned by unreliable-narrator/historian humans after the fact. AGE OF MYTH is very much like Erikson's current series in that respect. Completely rewriting what we think we know about the world that the author created, and more specifically...the elves (in Erikson's case the Tiste) story.

Just a fun factoid about the new series. I was rereading the thread and came across your old spoilered comment, and thought...holy crap, Sullivan is dealing with this very thing in the new story.

Neat.
...tho is he expanding on the history or dealing with that particular plot point i was annoyed about?



Will be getting back to Sullivan eventually. He's not high up in the e/TRPFH just now, but definitely an author i want to read more of.

[QuickTidal]

You know what? Before I started my Riyria re-read, I would have said a late-game retcon....but in THE CROWN CONSPIRACY, Myron starts to talk about the elves as if he knows that the histories are incorrect, but Royce silences him with a look...so I wonder if Sullivan always planned that the history everyone knows would be wrong, and the elves had a wholly different one to tell. I'd be spoiling if I told you more from AGE OF MYTH tho, so I'l leave it at that.

[QuickTidal]

Sullivan is kickstarting the next Ryria book THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WINTER'S DAUGHTER. If you're into these books, head on over and see if you might take part.

https://www.kickstar...of-winters-daug