[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 06 November 2023 - 11:14 AM, said:

... honestly, each book could be a couple of hundred pages less and it would lose none of that.

And this is what threw me out last time in a virtual nutshell. That re-occurring feeling of 'i've read this already, why are you making me read this again?' or 'i get it, i'm not an idiot, the character misses her mother, can we move on now plstnx?'.

Thus....

QuickTidal, on 06 November 2023 - 04:41 PM, said:

Like WOT I don't think these are meant to be binged in succession the way Pat read them. I've been giving them breaks between them so the things about them that can grate a bit don't affect you as much.... I'd just take a long break before going on with the rest if I were you.

this is the way.

Quote

Also I can't imagine listening to this series in audiobook...that would be taxing with West's verbosity....lol

No lie, it is a thing. Fortunately so is 'increase speed'.

[Tiste Simeon]

And here we go!

Well I say that but I've been blasting it at 1.5x speed and actually it kind of works because even when it drags (oh great the den are showing how useless they are and can't do literally anything without Jewel around!) it only drags for a little bit.

So I'm flying through. Once again, the best scenes involve Kallandras especially the bit with the 5 demons who turn up and casually get destroyed by him and the elf lord dude.

Finally it seems we might get some war that everyone's been on about for years and done nothing about! Troops are moving! People are plotting! The den are whining!

Actually the most intriguing bit so far has been the bits around the Mancorvans and Callestans. As in, did the Tyr Agnate of Mancorvo kill the son of the Tyr Agnate of Callesta? I don't think so if the Lamberto lass is anything to go by. Will the two ancient enemies end up joining forces against the rest of the Dominion? I think they will.

Anyway I was dreading this one after how much I disliked Sea of Sorrows but actually it's not been as bad this time around. So far at least.

[Tiste Simeon]

I must say THE RIVEN SHIELD was a major breath of fresh air after the absolute drudgery that was Sea of Sorrows. It could be that I listened to this one faster than the others so it never seemed to drag at all but man I enjoyed this one so much more!

I think that because things are finally beginning to come together, the action is a lot more focussed and the battle between the armies of Clemente and the demons/southern lot in the village was so well written!

Kallandras continues to be the best but seeing Avendar become the Warlord was incredible and the two fae (the stag and lord Celleriant - sorry for spelling!) were great.

I'm going to take another break but I have the final book ready to go.

This was definitely my favourite, followed by the one with the Kings challenge. Then book 1, book 3 and finally book 4 is definitely the worst of the ones I've read.

[pat5150]

Glad you enjoyed it! Looking forward to see what you think of the ending!

[Tiste Simeon]

So I'm a few chapters into the final installment of this series, The Sun Sword huzzah!

And we're spending all the time with the "utterly inept but everyone loves them for some reason" den. Again. Who miss Jewel. Because they can't do anything without her. Eye roll.

However, my snark aside, the sequences this far have been good and the whole thing with the desperate attempt to wake the A'Terafin up and all that was thrilling. We're now seeing that the armies of Lamberto and Callesta are heading towards each other. There's some nice tension building though it's fairly obvious they won't fight each other and will reluctantly join up to face the southern armies/demons in the big final fight.

I'm glad I stuck with this series as despite it's many faults it has been a good ride overall. I hope the ending lands well after all this!

[pat5150]

West sticks the landing, don't worry.

[Tiste Simeon]

Spoilers up to Chapter 16 ahead.

Oh wow, the conversations between Kirriel and Yolanna brings back a whole bit from the very beginning of book 1 - she gave Ashraf the heart of Havallah! That was excellent!

As was Valedan using the Sun Sword to destroy a kin lord!

As was the whole sequence where Diorra finally meets him and delivers the sword to him!

In fact, Diorra is finally showing her steel and she's quickly becoming a favourite character! Honestly I was ready to give up after Sea of Sorrows but I am very glad I didn't. I think this final book will be my favourite.

[Tiste Simeon]

So I have finished. My first reaction was "thank goodness it's over" and my second one was "why spend all that time building up the stupid house war in Terafin, and show us how Jewel is the saviour or whatever and how important she is, only to basically spend the entire final quarter of the book ignoring all that and having some kind of battle in a field in Averda!"

Honestly, I had high hopes at the beginning of the book but so many things just didn't seem that clear to me.

Ok so we've been on this journey with Alesso beginning Tyr after betraying the Leonie family, we see him making deals with literal demons in order to bolster his troops against the North (for some reason the demons need the South to help them fight the North, not sure that reason was ever explained) we've seen them faff around for thousands of pages, always undermining each other but finally - finally!! - we're getting to this war.

Then instead of using the demons to fight the North, he then turns his own troops on the demons. They have this pan to do with cannibal trees that are going to turn into a portal and allow the lord of night to step through or something and instead just a few kin lords arrive, and a few people fight and others just stand around pontificating and then suddenly Kirriel is in charge of the demons somehow and all human troops are together and not fighting each other? Then some massive beast arrives? And Kirriel rides it but then decides to kill it?

It was all a confusing mess tbh.

Speaking of the demons, they're all there ready to fight for Kirriel but then they just, what, go away? She starts fighting the massive beast thing and instead of using the confusion to kill more humans, they just decided "well, we tried!" And that's the last we see of them? Ashavriel does something similar after taunting Aurelius as well. The only one left is Isladar who hangs around to speak to Kirriel after the fight.

If West hadn't spent so long telling us the same things over and again, or filling countless pages with inner monologues that added nothing to the story, this could have been a much sleeker and more interesting series. Instead we have a bloated confusion that did not, in the end, satisfy...

I enjoyed much of this series and there were some good characters but honestly I keep coming back to my initial thought: thank goodness it's over!

[JPK]

Working my way through THE SUN SWORD now. I'm up to chapter 25.

How in the bloody hell have the two armies not even met yet!? Sure, there's some interesting stuff going on with weird trees, Auralis getting a power up, and Yolanna, but it's so late in the game now and I just don't see how the war for The South can possibly come to a satisfying conclusion at this point.

It's so frustrating because there's so many awesome little snippets throughout this series but they're just sprinkled through so much horrible pacing that I'm really debating if I'm going to continue forward with THE HOUSE WAR books or not. If I do, I think it'll be after a long break and not likely until mid-2025 or so.

[Tiste Simeon]

Sadly I won't be reading any more Michelle West books after the ending of this series. It s just not worth the effort imo.

[JPK]

I don't think I'd be debating it if I hadn't pulled a stupid move and bought all of the books after really enjoying the first two. I've really gotta learn to stop doing that.

[pat5150]

JPK, on 08 April 2024 - 05:12 PM, said:

It's so frustrating because there's so many awesome little snippets throughout this series but they're just sprinkled through so much horrible pacing that I'm really debating if I'm going to continue forward with THE HOUSE WAR books or not. If I do, I think it'll be after a long break and not likely until mid-2025 or so.

As hard has it is to believe, the House War (at least volumes 4 to 8) are worse than the Sun Sword in that regard.

[Abyss]

JPK, on 08 April 2024 - 06:30 PM, said:

I don't think I'd be debating it if I hadn't pulled a stupid move and bought all of the books after really enjoying the first two. I've really gotta learn to stop doing that.

I feel your pain. On the bright side I bought them on deep sale. On the other side, no returns for sale purchases.