[Abyss]

 polishgenius, on 01 October 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

 Andorion, on 01 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

I had a hard time with it because about 50-60% felt like a LotR clone and a bad one.

This is another big part of the reason why I've had to take a knee on it. I'm told it breaks away from that in the second half so I will come back and see, but unless it's fucking mindblowing I doubt I'll be continuing with the series, not soon anyway- after all it's a pretty huge investment of time and attention and it's almost universally reported to turn into a right slog in the third quarter- and then it's ended by Brandon Sanderson, whose writing I'm not a huge fan of in any case.

A word about the third quarter slog...For people following the series as it was released books 7-10 were indeed brutal because we were waiting years to recapture the sheer holyfuckdidijustreadthatism of 6 only to be dissappointed repeatedly. I won't sing those books praises, but they do have their high points.
But read without the massive pause, it seems they aren't nearly as frustrating, and you can skim knowing something good is coming... Which was harder when you knew the next book was years away.

[Andorion]

Started Aeronauts Windlass.

[Macros]

PG, if you aren't feeling WoT by mid book 1, just quit.
It doesn't get any better, it stays on that level, with (admittedly) a few minor peaks (sigh, before people shout DUMAI WELLS!!! It was a good battle scene but only so good because the rest of this epic shitsterpiece is dros) and it nose dives like a stricken German bomber after that scene.
There is more skirt smoothing and braid tugging (not euphemisms), well turned calves and women stamping feet at men's woolen headedness on an average page of WoT than most entire series.

[QuickTidal]

Finsihed WEAPON OF A JEDI which was excellent, and now am halfway through SMUGGLER'S RUN by Greg Rucka. These Star Wars novella's are pretty awesome!

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Chanur's Homecoming.

[QuickTidal]

 Briar King, on 02 October 2015 - 11:45 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 02 October 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

Finsihed WEAPON OF A JEDI which was excellent, and now am halfway through SMUGGLER'S RUN by Greg Rucka. These Star Wars novella's are pretty awesome!

Liar! You will not convert me anytime soon!! I know your sole purpose is to seduce me.

Goooooood. Gooood. Give in to your hatred. Strike down your old EU books and you can rule the New Canon at my side!

[Andorion]

 QuickTidal, on 03 October 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

 Briar King, on 02 October 2015 - 11:45 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 02 October 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

Finsihed WEAPON OF A JEDI which was excellent, and now am halfway through SMUGGLER'S RUN by Greg Rucka. These Star Wars novella's are pretty awesome!

Liar! You will not convert me anytime soon!! I know your sole purpose is to seduce me.

Goooooood. Gooood. Give in to your hatred. Strike down your old EU books and you can rule the New Canon at my side!

Warning: Star Wars Noob posting. Nostalgic sentiments maybe damaged critically




Whats the deal with the old Eu anyway. Most of the ones I read seemed a bit silly. The only ones I liked were the ones about an ancient Sith called Darth Bane who IMO would have made a better Dark Emperor than the one we got.

[Abyss]

WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE in earbook.Some of the segments are great fun in the context of the series, but wow, some of it draaaaaaaaaaags.And I realize there's a real world precedent for reusing names in subsequent generations, but if I even meet someone names Aeron I think I may have to punch him in the throat on principle for how annoying it gets here.
Liking AERONAUGHTS WINDLASS in ebook. More in th dedthread.
Not reading anything actively in dead treebook.

[Andorion]

 Briar King, on 04 October 2015 - 03:22 AM, said:

There's certainly some utter shit in old EU Ando like The Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi. Those are the only 2 out of my vast library of SW that I started and put down in disgust. That said there's a lot of gold in it to. Anything with Thrawn in it is a win. The 19 NJO bks I loved for the most part it just takes time to wrap your head around the idea of main baddies. After that it's down hill with various trilogies and 9 LOTF bks. Some of those were good though. Then the last arc 9 bks FOTJ were much better. I loved the idea of the Lost Tribe of the Sith and it had connections to the comic series that was set 130 yrs past Ep 6.

I read a couple set around Episode 2. They were comedy pieces with Obi Wan and Anakin. At least I hope that was comedy. Ughh

[Andorion]

 Briar King, on 04 October 2015 - 04:34 AM, said:

I tended to stay away from those prequel bks cause I generally hate reading past events unless I have no knowledge of anything. Those bks are more popcorn compared to bks set after Ep 6. There's one bk set just weeks/days before Ep 3 called Labarinth of Evil that's just epic and should not have been scrapped!

Darth Plaguise by same author is also epic. James Luceno.

Ah, so its those books that are good? I didn't know. I thought it was internal chronological order, I found this huge list sorted by era, and I followed that.

[amphibian]

 Briar King, on 04 October 2015 - 03:22 AM, said:

There's certainly some utter shit in old EU Ando like The Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi. Those are the only 2 out of my vast library of SW that I started and put down in disgust. That said there's a lot of gold in it to. Anything with Thrawn in it is a win. The 19 NJO bks I loved for the most part it just takes time to wrap your head around the idea of main baddies. After that it's down hill with various trilogies and 9 LOTF bks. Some of those were good though. Then the last arc 9 bks FOTJ were much better. I loved the idea of the Lost Tribe of the Sith and it had connections to the comic series that was set 130 yrs past Ep 6.

My Star Wars knowledge ends immediately after the movie prequels appeared. I vowed to never give Lucas a dime again and I stuck to that, even with the new movie coming out.

I'm of the opinion that The Crystal Star was pretty decent in terms of giving Luke a new adventure in a very, very wacked out galaxy.

The best Star Wars run is indeed the Thrawn books by Zahn and the subsequent long-afterwards-follow-up books. However, Shadows of the Empire was great, Shadows of Mindor is maybe the single best Star Wars story ever told, Children of the Jedi was kinda cool and the last Callista book was fairly decent. The New Jedi Order is mostly kinda bad - they took interesting antagonists and flattened them out into irrelevance.

As with a large, shared universe, the key to finding the nuggets of gold is to find the authors you vibe well with. Matthew Stover knocks every book he writes out of the park. Timothy Zahn does pretty well too. However, I hated Kevin J Anderson long before he also ruined the Dune sequel books with Brian Herbert. I'm indifferent on Troy Denning and Stackpole.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 04 October 2015 - 05:23 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

I finally finished the first book in the Void Trilogy and I loved it! Fairly slow start but it got really good. I especially like the more "Fantasy" scenes (the dreams that show what is happening in the void with Edeard etc.) but it was all good. Starting the 2nd book.

[amphibian]

Btw, I just realized that The Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi have something in common: they have slower paced stories that question sanity, rightness, otherness, and the possibility of Jedi ways not being enough.

For those looking for a certain mode of action-based and faster paced stories, these two books are going to be disappointments.

[Andorion]

Started Shadows of the Apt, Book 1.

[Serenity]

Made a start on Naomi Novik's Temeraire this morning. Only 50 pages in so too early to call - hard to resist the mix of Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series plus dragons, though.

[QuickTidal]

 Serenity, on 05 October 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

Made a start on Naomi Novik's Temeraire this morning. Only 50 pages in so too early to call - hard to resist the mix of Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series plus dragons, though.

It's a good series...the first three books are especially strong....after that from books 4-5 and parts of 6...it goes a bit off the rails into samey-samey territory. 7 is MUCH better, and 8 is a return to form of the first trilogy. So Novik KIND of goes off a bit in the middle books (though not in an off-putting way or anything), but she brings it back strongly after. Also: Iskeirka (whom you've not met yet, but you will) is the bestest.

I'm reading a few issues of RED SONJA (the end of Simone's run) while I await tomorrow's release of SHADOWS OF SELF. Though I may check for it on my way home tonight...unscrupulous Canadian book sellers FTW.

[Nicodimas]

Aeronauts Windlass

With the inclusion of Cats--Are these like Felines, or Cat-people. This caught me by suprise!! wha?...

[Macros]

I had avoided the shadows of the apt series for a long time, reading the blurb for some reason generated a vision of medieval animorphs, which just sounded like dogshit to me.
Also Apt liked the series, and well, apt, taste, you understand.

But I was buying Windlass the other day and the first book of the apt series popped up, I thought, fuck it why not.
Excellent book, well paced and a decent story line, reasonably well realised world and good action sequences.
Have got book 2, and if the quality stays the same I can see me getting the while set.

[Serenity]

 Briar King, on 05 October 2015 - 06:54 PM, said:

 Serenity, on 05 October 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

Made a start on Naomi Novik's Temeraire this morning. Only 50 pages in so too early to call - hard to resist the mix of Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series plus dragons, though.

Bk 2 was my fav of the 3 I read. I wasn't impressed enough on the whole to read bk 4. I got 1-4 as a gift. I don't have any plans to continue after 3.

I read about 150 pages of it yesterday and then put it to one side - it was a bit too YA for my current mood (plus Marie Brennan's dragons were so much more exciting!), and I was being tempted by Christian Cameron's Alexander: God of War and Mary Renault's The King Must Die, which was tending to make me wish I was reading those instead. After much deliberation I decided to go with the latter.

[Mentalist]

 Macros, on 06 October 2015 - 06:26 AM, said:

I had avoided the shadows of the apt series for a long time, reading the blurb for some reason generated a vision of medieval animorphs, which just sounded like dogshit to me.
Also Apt liked the series, and well, apt, taste, you understand.

But I was buying Windlass the other day and the first book of the apt series popped up, I thought, fuck it why not.
Excellent book, well paced and a decent story line, reasonably well realised world and good action sequences.
Have got book 2, and if the quality stays the same I can see me getting the while set.

If you didn't find characterization poor, and none of the characters in Bk 1 grated on you for being emo, then you should like the rest of the series no problem.