[dietl]

MODGOD NOTICE OF
BOT SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOWUNBLOCKED MAJOR
SERIOUS BIG
BOT SPOILERS
FUCKING SPOILERS

Abyss, on 06 September 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Moved over from dietl's post in the review thread.\\

From my comment at the 'Reading at t'moment' thread (spoiler for BoT):

...what happened to Kollberg, who I kinda liked in the first book as a character, was a bit too abstract for me. I didn't really get why the Blind God chose his body. Generally, the who Blind God thing felt a bit forced to me. I saw no reason why it acted the way it did.
The point where I really struggeled was the ending, which was just to long (and "happy") for my taste. Couldn't Stover just have let it ended with the FUCKING brilliant scene where Caine gets Vilo?
The virus thing was something else. Pallas Ril must have had the antivirus ready where she was killed by zombie-Berne or Caine couln't have gotten it into his blood. So why wasn't it floating around already in the end considering how fast it spreads?

This post has been edited by Abyss: 06 September 2013 - 05:02 AM

[Abyss]

BOT SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW
MAJOR
SERIOUS BIG BOT SPOILERS

dietl, on 05 September 2013 - 11:23 PM, said:

From my comment at the 'Reading at t'moment' thread (spoiler for BoT):

...what happened to Kollberg, who I kinda liked in the first book as a character, was a bit too abstract for me. I didn't really get why the Blind God chose his body. Generally, the who Blind God thing felt a bit forced to me. I saw no reason why it acted the way it did.

i always figured Kolberg was picked because his envious ambitious petty bastard nature was so perfect for the Blind God.

Quote

The point where I really struggeled was the ending, which was just to long (and "happy") for my taste. Couldn't Stover just have let it ended with the FUCKING brilliant scene where Caine gets Vilo?

Pallas is dead, Caine is trapped on Overworld. His legs dont work right. Not so the happy.

Quote

The virus thing was something else. Pallas Ril must have had the antivirus ready where she was killed by zombie-Berne or Caine couln't have gotten it into his blood. So why wasn't it floating around already in the end considering how fast it spreads?

Gah... not remembering this very well. Did Caine actually have the antivi in him?

[Tattersail_]

Not reading the thread but asking a question, are these books rare? Twice I have had a look for them in Waterstones (big book store) and they have not been there.

[polishgenius]

They haven't been published at all in paper form in the UK. You might occasionally find Heroes Die in a Forbidden Planet or something and maybe the latter two, but rarely, and Blade of Tyshalle you won't at all, that's hardly available even in America.

Ebook is the way to go on this one, I'm afraid.

[dietl]

Abyss, on 06 September 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

BOT SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW
MAJOR
SERIOUS BIG BOT SPOILERS
i always figured Kolberg was picked because his envious ambitious petty bastard nature was so perfect for the Blind God.

What I don't get is, where does the Blind God come from? Is he from earth or Overworld? Both things are possible but not very satisfyiing in my view. If he was from Overworld, how did he get to Earth. And if he was from Earth, how can he have so much power considering that magick is dead on Earth?
Furthermore you get to know that somehow all of humanity on Earth contributes to this being. Again, how does this work and why is the result such an "evil" being?

Abyss, on 06 September 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

Pallas is dead, Caine is trapped on Overworld. His legs dont work right. Not so the happy.

Of course there are some negative things too but what gave me a kind of Happy-Ever-After-feeling was:
Deliann being the great king of Overworld till the end of time, because he is immortal now thanks to the Gods.
Overworld is potentially protected from major catastrophies like the virus because of the new Gods (Pallas/River/Ma'elKoth)
And I quess we all know that the love between Hari and Shanna was always a double-edged sword. Caine was never happy with it. He had to surpress his true nature.
Now Caine is free to do what he wants. It seemed to me that Hari didn't even feel an obligation fro his daughter anymore.

Abyss, on 06 September 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

Gah... not remembering this very well. Did Caine actually have the antivi in him?

It was explained that Caine having the antivirus in him was the reason the disease didn't spread in the Pit.

[Tiste Simeon]

The Blind God (as I saw it) was created by the raw urges in humanity - lust desire greed etc & Kollberg fit the bill for becoming an Avatar of that. Its less about "magic" in the Thaumaturgical sense & more about a vast power arising from the combination ofall those desires. I think the Board is such an example of those urges that the Blind God was able to work quite powerfully through them... My take anyway. CL was a well confusing book so I may have missed something...

[Gnaw]

dietl, on 05 September 2013 - 11:23 PM, said:

MODGOD NOTICE OF
BOT SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOWUNBLOCKED MAJOR
SERIOUS BIG
BOT SPOILERS
FUCKING SPOILERS

Abyss, on 06 September 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Moved over from dietl's post in the review thread.\\

From my comment at the 'Reading at t'moment' thread (spoiler for BoT):

...what happened to Kollberg, who I kinda liked in the first book as a character, was a bit too abstract for me. I didn't really get why the Blind God chose his body. Generally, the who Blind God thing felt a bit forced to me. I saw no reason why it acted the way it did.
The point where I really struggeled was the ending, which was just to long (and "happy") for my taste. Couldn't Stover just have let it ended with the FUCKING brilliant scene where Caine gets Vilo?
The virus thing was something else. Pallas Ril must have had the antivirus ready where she was killed by zombie-Berne or Caine couln't have gotten it into his blood. So why wasn't it floating around already in the end considering how fast it spreads?

Good news, bad news. The next two get weird. Still good. But the audience understanding the plot is not high on the author's list of priorities.

Or I'm just very dim. Could be both.

[amphibian]

The audience understanding the plot and the points of the story is very high on the author's list of priorities. It's why he put it all in Caine form.

It's much like the Malazan books. You get out more than what you put in it and once you get past a certain threshold, well, things are much easier to understand.

[dietl]

Tiste Simeon, on 06 September 2013 - 02:12 PM, said:

The Blind God (as I saw it) was created by the raw urges in humanity - lust desire greed etc & Kollberg fit the bill for becoming an Avatar of that. Its less about "magic" in the Thaumaturgical sense & more about a vast power arising from the combination ofall those desires. I think the Board is such an example of those urges that the Blind God was able to work quite powerfully through them... My take anyway. CL was a well confusing book so I may have missed something...

I guess saw it similar but, to explain what I mean, there is this scene where the Blind God takes possession of Kollbergs body through a screen he was working on. Where did this energy come from? Was there someone who pressed a button to achieve this? To me it looked like the only explaination for this was magic, which seems like a weak critique against a fantasy book but from Heroes Die I gathered that this shouldn't be possible on Overworld.
But in the end this point about the Blind God was more a matter of taste. What I like about science fiction is that it show things that might really be possible in our world and Stover achieved a great thing by mixing science fiction with fantasy in Heroes Die. In Blade this line between these genres, just like the gap between Earth and Overworld, got a bit blurry, which for me put it one step further away from reality. Some might like that or don't care but ...well there's no accounting for taste :-)

Gnaw, on 06 September 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

Good news, bad news. The next two get weird. Still good. But the audience understanding the plot is not high on the author's list of priorities.

Can't be worse than Book of the New Sun, right? Weird is good and I like challenging books.