[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 10 July 2017 - 02:35 PM, said:

Abyss, on 10 July 2017 - 02:12 PM, said:

Just finished VE Schwab's SHADES OF MAGIC trilo (in earbook).
...

Worth your money and eyetime.

Admit it, you just want Kell's coat like the rest of us!

I want Kell's jacket, and i want to visit

Spoiler

Meryse's floating market because it was awesome.

Also, i wanted, but am totally cool with not getting, the jacket's backstory....
"Ah, i see you found my jacket. Is it still eating coins and spitting out lint? No? it must like you."

Ahhhhhhhh...

[Salt-Man Z]

Macros, on 10 July 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

I haven't actually read any of the Grey Mouser books.
Is there a preferred reading order or are some better than others?

If you're a Kindle person, keep an eye out on Amazon US; these frequently go on sale for $1.99 (along with lots of other Open Road Media books); I've picked up volumes 1-3 & 5-6 all within the past year...

[polishgenius]

Reading Godblind, another June grimdark debut by an author named Anna (this time, Anna Stephens).

Reactions so far:

*opening* 'well, I'm a little unsure about this way of starting a story, but well enough, we'll see.
*character intros and such* 'this is nicely familiar, not setting any records for originality, but in a good way*
*things start to settle in, hints are dropped* 'hmm, I don't think the author is going to surprise me with the identity of the nefarious ones, if that's what she's aiming for'
*things kick off for real* AAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCKWHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ


Basically, imagine something in the vein of Brian McLellan or Django Wexler, but REALLY BRUTAL.
Past the winces, am enjoying it so far.

[acesn8s]

Andorion, on 06 July 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

Briar King, on 06 July 2017 - 04:05 AM, said:

No worries on that note I promise!

I wanted to ask something else, a bit off-topic from Rome. I am wondering whether to start a new thread over it.

About three years back I decided I would read and finish all of the big-name, big series fantasy authors. I would do this on an annual basis.

I had already done Tolkien and Erikson.

So far I have done:

Robert Jordan: All of Wheel of Time.

Brandon Sanderson: All the published Cosmere books

Guy Gavriel Kay: Lions of Al-Rassan, and Tigana.

Mark Lawrence: Prince of Thorns series, Prince of Fools series.

Pat Rothfuss: All published books

GRRM: All published books

Glen Cook: The first Black Company trilogy

Janny Wurts: All books of the Wars of Light and Shadow

R. Scott Bakker: Prince of Nothing done, Aspect Emperor: 1 book done.

So which authors am I missing?

Donaldson? Terry Brooks?

More female authors?

I read through all the comments agreed with a lot of them. Here are some other classic older series.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Stephen R. Donaldson
Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
Thieves World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
The Elric series by Michael Moorcock
Renshai series by Mickey Zucker Reichert
The Sidhe series by Kenneth C. Flint
Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg
The Gor series by John Norman

[Abyss]

acesn8s, on 10 July 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

Andorion, on 06 July 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

Briar King, on 06 July 2017 - 04:05 AM, said:

No worries on that note I promise!

I wanted to ask something else, a bit off-topic from Rome. I am wondering whether to start a new thread over it.

About three years back I decided I would read and finish all of the big-name, big series fantasy authors. I would do this on an annual basis.

I had already done Tolkien and Erikson.

So far I have done:

Robert Jordan: All of Wheel of Time.

Brandon Sanderson: All the published Cosmere books

Guy Gavriel Kay: Lions of Al-Rassan, and Tigana.

Mark Lawrence: Prince of Thorns series, Prince of Fools series.

Pat Rothfuss: All published books

GRRM: All published books

Glen Cook: The first Black Company trilogy

Janny Wurts: All books of the Wars of Light and Shadow

R. Scott Bakker: Prince of Nothing done, Aspect Emperor: 1 book done.

So which authors am I missing?

Donaldson? Terry Brooks?

More female authors?

I read through all the comments agreed with a lot of them. Here are some other classic older series.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Stephen R. Donaldson
Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
Thieves World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
The Elric series by Michael Moorcock
Renshai series by Mickey Zucker Reichert
The Sidhe series by Kenneth C. Flint
Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg
...

I will keep saying this until you all fucking learn it....
Fucking Stover's fucking Acts of Caine.
Fuck.


But otherwise, solid additions to the list, esp Rosenberg.

[Coco with marshmallows]

polishgenius, on 10 July 2017 - 05:15 PM, said:

Reading Godblind, another June grimdark debut by an author named Anna (this time, Anna Stephens).

Reactions so far:

*opening* 'well, I'm a little unsure about this way of starting a story, but well enough, we'll see.
*character intros and such* 'this is nicely familiar, not setting any records for originality, but in a good way*
*things start to settle in, hints are dropped* 'hmm, I don't think the author is going to surprise me with the identity of the nefarious ones, if that's what she's aiming for'
*things kick off for real* AAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCKWHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ


Basically, imagine something in the vein of Brian McLellan or Django Wexler, but REALLY BRUTAL.
Past the winces, am enjoying it so far.

Saw that at the weekend but didn't pick it up, sounds right up my street now.

Will keep an eye out in future, cheers Polish!

[Salt-Man Z]

acesn8s, on 10 July 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

I read through all the comments agreed with a lot of them. Here are some other classic older series.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Stephen R. Donaldson
Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
Thieves World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
The Elric series by Michael Moorcock
Renshai series by Mickey Zucker Reichert
The Sidhe series by Kenneth C. Flint
Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg
The Gor series by John Norman

Shoot, yeah, Moorcock is essential. (And ridiculously prolific.)

I've been wanting to check out the Saberhagen books; there was a writeup on Tor.com not too long ago that made the Swords books sound really interesting.

[polishgenius]

Coco with marshmallows, on 10 July 2017 - 07:48 PM, said:

Saw that at the weekend but didn't pick it up, sounds right up my street now.

Will keep an eye out in future, cheers Polish!

You can even take your pick: severe emotional brutality from Anna Smith Spark, or severe physical brutality from Anna Stephens (not that both books don't deliver their share of the other side too). But really, get both eventually, if this sort of thing is your thing.

[acesn8s]

Salt-Man Z, on 10 July 2017 - 08:18 PM, said:

acesn8s, on 10 July 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

I read through all the comments agreed with a lot of them. Here are some other classic older series.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Stephen R. Donaldson
Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
Thieves World edited by Robert Lynn Asprin
The Elric series by Michael Moorcock
Renshai series by Mickey Zucker Reichert
The Sidhe series by Kenneth C. Flint
Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg
The Gor series by John Norman

Shoot, yeah, Moorcock is essential. (And ridiculously prolific.)

I've been wanting to check out the Saberhagen books; there was a writeup on Tor.com not too long ago that made the Swords books sound really interesting.

They are short compared to modern fantasy novels: Book of Swords trilogy averages 325 pages. The 8 books in the Book of Lost swords series average 230 pages. They are about $5 per ebook in the US.

It's a fun series with some interesting world building. At some point I'm going to have to head down to the book totes in my basement and pull them out for another reread.

Oh, I should have added the following to my recommendations list:

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon

and of fucking course, the god damned, fucking Acts of mother-fucking Caine! Shit, piss, fuck, fruitloop, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits!

edit: to the auto edit! I guess George's list of 7 dirty words stands the test of time.

This post has been edited by acesn8s: 11 July 2017 - 12:27 PM

[Coco with marshmallows]

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff.

quite enjoying it, the footnotes are very much in the vein of Pratchett, adding a dose of narrative humour to what's (so far at least) fairly standard child of dead parents growing up to be assassin to get revenge stuff.

[Stalker]

Stross's newest The Delerium Brief released today. So far I'm enjoying the return to Bob as the protagonist. It's fun to see how things are changing at the Laundry as a result of the events of the last book.

Plus the Prime Day deal meant that I got 40% back ($5) for other ebooks. win win.

[Andorion]

Finished Caesar's Women. Ok book. Not the best.

10% into Caesar. Yeesh that is a dark beginning.


Also finished Kings of the Wyld. I really liked it. Clever, funny, action packed, nice world, over all well written.

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 13 July 2017 - 04:29 AM, said:

You ll enjoy this through 7 I'm sure. Bk 4 was the low point but I didn't want to say anything to discourage you about it. It set the stage for sure on what you will read shortly...

I am just a little bit disappointed about the time skip. Otherwise it seems things are going to get exciting very fast.

[Mentalist]

Vengeance, on 05 July 2017 - 02:11 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 05 July 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Finished Magic Rises , the next Kate Daniels novel. Eh, I still can't say I overly care for shapeshifter politics, but some bits of the meta-plot were nice.

Been powering through commute books, while my at-home reading has seriously dipped (basically since I've still not had any time at all to read "Land Without Joy" before digging into Godsdoom-2).
So I think I'll try "The Emperor's Blades" as next commute read.

Let me know what you think about the Emperors blades. I have had it on my list for a while and still haven't managed to get to it.

Finished today.

Very typical "traditional epic fantasy". World has some Asian overtones (well, that cover kinda gives it away). Three Emperor's Children, each with a pretty cliched development path. A few twists in the story, but mostly quite predictable. Not bad, mind: characters aren't really flat, pacing is solid, and Staveley avoids really bad cliffhangers when he skips PoVs-- just... really not exceptional.

I liked it enough to keep reading at home at a few points, and I'll grab the sequel to see where this goes. There's some interesting world-building bits there, but as a whole it feels fairly average.

Next for the commute I'll try the last of my "first book in a series" from last year's massive book splurge- "Stormdancer" by Jay Kristoff.

[Andorion]

Sigh..

With every chapter I read of Court of Broken Knives, I am reminded of why I don't really like Grimdark.

[Chance]

Recently finished up The Blood Mirror and American Elsewhere. American Elsewhere was good but not much else to say about it, perhaps some stuff was a bit to telegraphed to be surprising, making it less good then if some stuff where more shocking. The Blood Mirror was better then I expected once it got going, in some ways it might be the best of the series even with the lack of things happening. That might be because it lacks the elements I hated in the last one. Weeks is still writing YA about growing up (even for the grown characters) in many ways but some of the characters get fairly grim and great storylines even if less action. Not sure about some revelations (The Old Man and Gavin) they could be retcons but I'll decide that on a re-read of the series once it is complete or so.

Andorion, on 14 July 2017 - 04:21 AM, said:

Sigh..

With every chapter I read of Court of Broken Knives, I am reminded of why I don't really like Grimdark.

Just started that book, hope I'm in the mood for grimdark. Doesn't always work, but that also depends on the kind of grimdark.

This post has been edited by Chance: 14 July 2017 - 08:38 AM

[Abyss]

The BOY ON THE BRIDGE.

Carey generally leans more towards suspense and tension than action, but when he does action HOLY ZOMBIEFUCK.


If you read/enjoyed THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, i think that you will really want to read this or earbook it.

More in the ded-thread.

[Dadding]

Finished up Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies during my holiday to Vancouver (so many used bookstores!), and got about halfway through The Republic of Thieves on my flight back. Thoroughly enjoyed book 1, and launched right into book 2 with the same attitude, and it didn't disappoint. I found it measured up quite well despite the comments here to the contrary, but I don't really have any concrete ideas to back that up, I just didn't see anything to complain about. Throughout the whole thing I was asking myself who Sabetha is/was, so book 3 is proving to be right up my alley too, though it is decidedly a bit slower.

I'm glad I decided to continue the series. Next on the list is The Farseer Trilogy ... or maybe try Wheel of Time again, I promised my friend I would try if she tried Malazan. She seems to think WoT is the best fantasy series of all time.

[Andorion]

Abyss, on 14 July 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

The BOY ON THE BRIDGE.

Carey generally leans more towards suspense and tension than action, but when he does action HOLY ZOMBIEFUCK.


If you read/enjoyed THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, i think that you will really want to read this or earbook it.

More in the ded-thread.

I am a bit interested in this, but then again, not that interested. While I liked GIRL, my general dislike of the postapocalyptic is keeping me away.

How does the characterization compare?

[Abyss]

Andorion, on 14 July 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Abyss, on 14 July 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

The BOY ON THE BRIDGE.

Carey generally leans more towards suspense and tension than action, but when he does action HOLY ZOMBIEFUCK.


If you read/enjoyed THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, i think that you will really want to read this or earbook it.

More in the ded-thread.

I am a bit interested in this, but then again, not that interested. While I liked GIRL, my general dislike of the postapocalyptic is keeping me away.

How does the characterization compare?

I would say a bit more complex than those in GIRL. Motivations and archetypes are a little less concrete.

It's no less postapocalyptic than GIRL. Same basic setting a bit earlier in the apocalypse. I can't really say more without spoiling. If you liked GIRL, there is likely more of what you liked, but sufficiently different that it doesn't feel like a retread.
It also adds (so far) a fascinating layer to the story in GIRL.