[JPK]

Andorion, on 16 October 2016 - 11:04 AM, said:

Now I am at a bit of a crossroads.

Fifth Season or Curse of the Mistwraith.

The Fifth Season and it's sequel are boot pretty short and great reads. I'm sure you'll enjoy them and tear through them in a few days.

The Wars of Light and Shadow have a lot more substance to them and will actually take you two or three weeks to rip through. I'd put it on par with WoT for complexity. If you choose this route, would you set up a ded-thread with on-going thoughts?

For myself, I'm working on Joe Hill's The Fireman. It's a near-future novel after the US gets attacked by ISIS with a fungal weapon developed by Russia during the cold war. It's called dragonscale, and appears as black scrollwork tattooing with gold specs if you've been infected. It also makes people spontaneously combust when experiencing strong negative emotions. It follows a nurse working in a hospital quarantine zone after she discovers she's infected.

[Mentalist]

I really need to read Light and Shadow Bk 4 at some point... and start buying the next ones...

[JPK]

Mentalist, on 16 October 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

I really need to read Light and Shadow Bk 4 at some point... and start buying the next ones...

You're talking Fugitive Prince, right? You picked a good place to pause then, since the third arc of the books starts there. It's also where I feel Janny really grew into her own as a writer.

[Andorion]

JPK, on 16 October 2016 - 09:20 PM, said:

Andorion, on 16 October 2016 - 11:04 AM, said:

Now I am at a bit of a crossroads.

Fifth Season or Curse of the Mistwraith.

The Fifth Season and it's sequel are boot pretty short and great reads. I'm sure you'll enjoy them and tear through them in a few days.

The Wars of Light and Shadow have a lot more substance to them and will actually take you two or three weeks to rip through. I'd put it on par with WoT for complexity. If you choose this route, would you set up a ded-thread with on-going thoughts?

For myself, I'm working on Joe Hill's The Fireman. It's a near-future novel after the US gets attacked by ISIS with a fungal weapon developed by Russia during the cold war. It's called dragonscale, and appears as black scrollwork tattooing with gold specs if you've been infected. It also makes people spontaneously combust when experiencing strong negative emotions. It follows a nurse working in a hospital quarantine zone after she discovers she's infected.

Then I am going to go for Fifth Season and Song of Achilles. Both are relatively short. I will tackle the big epics later

[Mentalist]

JPK, on 17 October 2016 - 12:19 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 16 October 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

I really need to read Light and Shadow Bk 4 at some point... and start buying the next ones...

You're talking Fugitive Prince, right? You picked a good place to pause then, since the third arc of the books starts there. It's also where I feel Janny really grew into her own as a writer.

Yeah. It was actualyl the first book I bought- started reading it, then realized it was 4th in the series, so put it down.

I like the series, but it takes forever to read- and I'm struggling reading more than 1 book at a time.

[acesn8s]

Macros, on 13 October 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

I think you will, for me 2 was a better book again, and I enjoyed the First book a lot.

Just bought A Crown for Cold Silver, by Alex Morgan for my Kobo. pointless expense as I have dead tree books arriving tomorrow but I'm a compulsively impulsive purchaser.

You were not wrong, I immediately bought The Shadow Throne, on my Kindle, after finishing The Thousand Names.

ACfCC is really good. I need to pick up book 2. See how many Heavy Metal band references you can identify.

[Tattersail_]

This Dark Tower series just keeps on getting better and better by book.

[JPK]

Mentalist, on 17 October 2016 - 05:44 AM, said:

JPK, on 17 October 2016 - 12:19 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 16 October 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

I really need to read Light and Shadow Bk 4 at some point... and start buying the next ones...

You're talking Fugitive Prince, right? You picked a good place to pause then, since the third arc of the books starts there. It's also where I feel Janny really grew into her own as a writer.

Yeah. It was actualyl the first book I bought- started reading it, then realized it was 4th in the series, so put it down. I like the series, but it takes forever to read- and I'm struggling reading more than 1 book at a time.

Yeah, they're hard to read in succession. I think it's because the series does shades of grey so well. It's also very emotionally engaging. It's hard not to feel for the "villians".

Tattersail_, on 17 October 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

This Dark Tower series just keeps on getting better and better by book.

Which one are you up to Tatts? I'm going into the final book as soon as I polish off the last few pages of The Third Section by Jasper Kent (russian vampires set in the 1800's).

[Andorion]

I hate depressed reading me. I make totally irrational decisions

Today in the doctors and hospital waiting room I finished off Hunger Games 2 and 3. I don't even know why except my brother was bugging me

So Catching Fire is OK. Not as good as Hunger Games, but OK.

Mocking Jay was bad. Zero character continuity, bad story decisions, bad ending.... just bad.

And the overall worldbuilding for this series is weak. It simply does not stand upto scrutiny

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 17 October 2016 - 05:36 PM, said:

I hate depressed reading me. I make totally irrational decisions

Today in the doctors and hospital waiting room I finished off Hunger Games 2 and 3. I don't even know why except my brother was bugging me

So Catching Fire is OK. Not as good as Hunger Games, but OK.

Mocking Jay was bad. Zero character continuity, bad story decisions, bad ending.... just bad.

And the overall worldbuilding for this series is weak. It simply does not stand upto scrutiny

See I flat out ADORE the ending of MOCKINGJAY because it's SO against the typical.

Spoiler

It literally ends with Katniss having severe PTSD, realizing she was horribly used by the very people who helped to rescue everyone from the clutches of the society that had kept them down so long, and married to someone she never TRULY loved. It's literally the opposite of everything I thought the series was going to end on. And to me that was SUPER brave on the part of the author. She alienated SO many fans with how she ended it by doing that.

So, while I love the first book best....the 3rd book holds a special place with me for simply how brave it is.

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 17 October 2016 - 06:06 PM, said:

Andorion, on 17 October 2016 - 05:36 PM, said:

I hate depressed reading me. I make totally irrational decisions

Today in the doctors and hospital waiting room I finished off Hunger Games 2 and 3. I don't even know why except my brother was bugging me

So Catching Fire is OK. Not as good as Hunger Games, but OK.

Mocking Jay was bad. Zero character continuity, bad story decisions, bad ending.... just bad.

And the overall worldbuilding for this series is weak. It simply does not stand upto scrutiny

See I flat out ADORE the ending of MOCKINGJAY because it's SO against the typical.

Spoiler

It literally ends with Katniss having severe PTSD, realizing she was horribly used by the very people who helped to rescue everyone from the clutches of the society that had kept them down so long, and married to someone she never TRULY loved. It's literally the opposite of everything I thought the series was going to end on. And to me that was SUPER brave on the part of the author. She alienated SO many fans with how she ended it by doing that.

So, while I love the first book best....the 3rd book holds a special place with me for simply how brave it is.

Its unconventional, but unconventional does not really equal good though.

Spoiler

The strong resourceful girl from 1 and 2 basically vanished. She spent book 3 doing stuff because other people told her to. What this did for me at least was to remove the heart of the story.

And ignoring all storytelling strategies, the worldbuilding is so ridiculously bad.

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 17 October 2016 - 06:35 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 17 October 2016 - 06:06 PM, said:

Andorion, on 17 October 2016 - 05:36 PM, said:

I hate depressed reading me. I make totally irrational decisions

Today in the doctors and hospital waiting room I finished off Hunger Games 2 and 3. I don't even know why except my brother was bugging me

So Catching Fire is OK. Not as good as Hunger Games, but OK.

Mocking Jay was bad. Zero character continuity, bad story decisions, bad ending.... just bad.

And the overall worldbuilding for this series is weak. It simply does not stand upto scrutiny

See I flat out ADORE the ending of MOCKINGJAY because it's SO against the typical.

Spoiler

It literally ends with Katniss having severe PTSD, realizing she was horribly used by the very people who helped to rescue everyone from the clutches of the society that had kept them down so long, and married to someone she never TRULY loved. It's literally the opposite of everything I thought the series was going to end on. And to me that was SUPER brave on the part of the author. She alienated SO many fans with how she ended it by doing that.

So, while I love the first book best....the 3rd book holds a special place with me for simply how brave it is.

Its unconventional, but unconventional does not really equal good though.

Spoiler

The strong resourceful girl from 1 and 2 basically vanished. She spent book 3 doing stuff because other people told her to. What this did for me at least was to remove the heart of the story.

And ignoring all storytelling strategies, the worldbuilding is so ridiculously bad.

Spoiler

Indeed, and I think that's where the PTSD comes in for me. She becomes completely resigned by that point. And the fact that Coin seems to her to be worse, and in the end is actually WORSE than Snow is so upsetting to her that she spends most of the book shutting down as a result. She's completely and irrevocably broken by the end, she even needs to use her touchstone from the Hunger Games years in the post-HG time "Real, or not real." to try to sell it to herself. It felt very much Vietnam-ish to me...

I can certainly see your point though, and you are not alone in your dislike of that volume.

And yes, the world building is super weak...if only from the global vantage-point. Like S.M. Stirling's Emberverse is about a post-apocalyptic America....but it doesn't ignore the rest of they globe at all, and from Book 2 onwards even incorporates it....meanwhile I haven't a clue what the rest of the world is doing in Hunger Games-universe while Panem is suffering under Snow's yolk...are they all dead from some apocalypse they never touch on?

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 October 2016 - 07:11 PM

[QuickTidal]

I Got Crabs, on 17 October 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

How can y'all read those and not lol everytime it says Catness/Katness on pg? Don't think I could do it.

LOL, it's not that bad actually. I'm more astonished that the name has permeated real baby naming culture and people are making their kids Katniss.

[worry]

I'm gonna say book 3 is the best in the series, and I thought it elevated the stuff that came before.

[Abyss]

I liked the series well enough to finish it. It dragged at times, particularly in earbook form, but overall it was worth reading in a don't overthink kind of way. I do give the author credit for going against the more cuddly fan service story beats repeatedly.

[polishgenius]

Yeah, that's where I stand on it- it could be better written in places (the prose was workmanlike, and the final volume should have been much longer), but I really like what it was going for.

Spoiler

Re: Andorion's complaint that it removed her from the heart of the story- I thought that was rather the point. In fact, she had never been at the heart of the story, she was always just a figurehead/patsy and her going off and doing heroic, Mary-Sue-esque things was just fucking plans up and putting people in danger. Volume 3 was just when she finally realised that.
I suspect that was also part of why it was so closely focused on just her and being in her head- as well as putting across the PTSD, it did prevent her from becoming a side character. I'd say that it would be more accurate that the story was removed from her than her from the story- it became a character piece.

I thought it was some very brave choices and while it didn't work flawlessly I think it worked well enough that I'm glad she did it.

[the broken]

The Lies of Locke Lamora. 400 pages in and it's...fine? I've heard so many good things about this, but there's too much stressing about how smart the lead is, and so far he hasn't really performed all that well.

Spoiler

Win or lose, the trick with the Don Salvara was going to get the real Midnighters gunning for him. And with the Grey King and the Capo he just got really lucky.

Re Hunger Games, I agree that book 3 was well done.

Spoiler

The running theme is that the Hunger Games are a distraction from the greater problems of Panem, and Katniss in book 3 continues to be a distraction from the real machinations,

[Abyss]

I Got Crabs, on 18 October 2016 - 09:42 PM, said:

You may consider backing out of Lies. Bk 1 is the best and they fall off with each one. Bk3 is a waste of the precious trees sacrificed to it.

I read the ebook and lament the wasted pixels.

[Andorion]

Finished Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles. Good book. Recommended.

Will start Fifth Season soon.

Meanwhile Outlander 2 rolls on.

[Andorion]

Finished 8 chapters of 5th Season and 16 chapters of Outlander 2.

I must say 5th Season is so far at least a very remarkable book. The worldbuilding and plot premise are top notch, the writing is excellent, the character buildup is great.

Thoughts on Outlander in the dedthread.