[Maark Abbott]

Finished Reincarnated as a Vending Machine3 and moved onto SukaSuka 1.

Things are also getting interesting in Black Sun Rising. Edgy Boi Tarrant giving us all the edge.

[acesn8s]

Puck, on 02 November 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

Andorion, on 02 November 2019 - 02:22 AM, said:

acesn8s, on 01 November 2019 - 09:05 PM, said:

Finished Warriors of the Altaii. It was ok. He developed a lot as an author between finishing WotA and writing EotW. The Witcher trailers looked so good that I picked The Time of Contempt from my queue for the next read.

I have read that series. Please start with the 2 short story collections - Sword of Destiny and Last Wish if you have not already read them. They set the stage and start the story

Edited for obvious reasons, Ando

But also this. Time of Contempt makes no sense without the short stories and it's still a mystery to me why they market it as book 1.

Thank you both for the heads up. I have read both books already. Just dipping back into the series now.

[amphibian]

I read Ilario, by Mary Gentle. It's an alternate history companion story in the same world as Ash: A Secret History, but the two don't overlap significantly.

The story centers on Ilario, who wants desperately to be an artist in the newly developing styles that Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo best exemplified. Ilario is also a hermaphrodite and on the lam from a royal court in a kingdom that Spain eventually encompassed.

I believe that this is one of the best works of character development that I've ever read. The characters are super well developed and the story makes sense. However, the story is weirdly low stakes after reading Ash and I'm wondering why Gentle felt compelled to tell this family + royal intrigue over great distances story.

The hermaphrodite part of Ilario is a built in feature of the story and Gentle handles the in-between nature of Ilario with lovely style. It's a little bit of a disappointment in that the story doesn't go go go like Ash does or like Miles Cameron's Traitor Son series because the respect for history, context, people, food, art etc is absolutely superb.

[Mentalist]

Puck, on 02 November 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

Andorion, on 02 November 2019 - 02:22 AM, said:

acesn8s, on 01 November 2019 - 09:05 PM, said:

Finished Warriors of the Altaii. It was ok. He developed a lot as an author between finishing WotA and writing EotW. The Witcher trailers looked so good that I picked The Time of Contempt from my queue for the next read.

I have read that series. Please start with the 2 short story collections - Sword of Destiny and Last Wish if you have not already read them. They set the stage and start the story

Edited for obvious reasons, Ando

But also this. Time of Contempt makes no sense without the short stories and it's still a mystery to me why they market it as book 1.

To be fair, they market "Blood of the Elves" as Book 1... lol

But yeah, "Sword of Destiny" is essential for understanding most things Witcher (including the games). Not to mention it's one of THE best short story collections EVER.

I've been reading "The Poppy War" by R. F. Kuang. It's yet another Asian-inspired fantasy series, and I'm getting a bunch of Jay Kristoff vibes with the whole "young girl discovers an ancient divine power" trope, but the setting was primarily a military academy, so it doesn't feel as awkward.

Not sure what to think yet, I'm about halfway through, but losing steam somewhat.

[Morgoth]

Mentalist, on 04 November 2019 - 07:00 PM, said:

Puck, on 02 November 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

Andorion, on 02 November 2019 - 02:22 AM, said:

acesn8s, on 01 November 2019 - 09:05 PM, said:

Finished Warriors of the Altaii. It was ok. He developed a lot as an author between finishing WotA and writing EotW. The Witcher trailers looked so good that I picked The Time of Contempt from my queue for the next read.

I have read that series. Please start with the 2 short story collections - Sword of Destiny and Last Wish if you have not already read them. They set the stage and start the story

Edited for obvious reasons, Ando

But also this. Time of Contempt makes no sense without the short stories and it's still a mystery to me why they market it as book 1.

To be fair, they market "Blood of the Elves" as Book 1... lol

But yeah, "Sword of Destiny" is essential for understanding most things Witcher (including the games). Not to mention it's one of THE best short story collections EVER.

I've been reading "The Poppy War" by R. F. Kuang. It's yet another Asian-inspired fantasy series, and I'm getting a bunch of Jay Kristoff vibes with the whole "young girl discovers an ancient divine power" trope, but the setting was primarily a military academy, so it doesn't feel as awkward.

Not sure what to think yet, I'm about halfway through, but losing steam somewhat.

That was my experience with The Poppy War too. It lost it's steam when they left the academy and never really found it again.

[Tiste Simeon]

Can echo that with the Poppy War. I was loving it up to a point and then the protagonist for progressively more annoying and I couldn't get behind her in the same way.

[Chance]

Reading An Echo of Things to Come and I find it slightly less interesting then the first book which was more confusing but had a lot more drive then the second one.

Morgoth, on 05 November 2019 - 08:16 AM, said:

That was my experience with The Poppy War too. It lost it's steam when they left the academy and never really found it again.

Same here the fantasy parts for the first half where pretty good, then it becomes a bit too much real world history/commentary for my taste at least when done in the way it is.

This post has been edited by Chance: 05 November 2019 - 03:39 PM

[JPK]

It took me longer than I anticipated but I finally polished off Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone this morning. The Craft Sequence continues to delight me with how interesting Gladstone makes magicial law. I've wanted to recommend this series to a couple friends, but I keep balking because I cannot for the life of me find a way to describe the series to another person without it sounding like it's going to be much more boring than it is.

"You see, humans and Gods went to war and the strongest human mages won. Now our pov character is a magical paralegal that is investigating the potential murder of a God, and trying to prove what happened in magical court. Yes, I know that sounds terrible, but it's actually really good... Trust me."

Next up is Saint's Blood by Dr Castell. Yay musketeers!

[Mentalist]

Morgoth, on 05 November 2019 - 08:16 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 04 November 2019 - 07:00 PM, said:

Puck, on 02 November 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

Andorion, on 02 November 2019 - 02:22 AM, said:

acesn8s, on 01 November 2019 - 09:05 PM, said:

Finished Warriors of the Altaii. It was ok. He developed a lot as an author between finishing WotA and writing EotW. The Witcher trailers looked so good that I picked The Time of Contempt from my queue for the next read.

I have read that series. Please start with the 2 short story collections - Sword of Destiny and Last Wish if you have not already read them. They set the stage and start the story

Edited for obvious reasons, Ando

But also this. Time of Contempt makes no sense without the short stories and it's still a mystery to me why they market it as book 1.

To be fair, they market "Blood of the Elves" as Book 1... lol

But yeah, "Sword of Destiny" is essential for understanding most things Witcher (including the games). Not to mention it's one of THE best short story collections EVER.

I've been reading "The Poppy War" by R. F. Kuang. It's yet another Asian-inspired fantasy series, and I'm getting a bunch of Jay Kristoff vibes with the whole "young girl discovers an ancient divine power" trope, but the setting was primarily a military academy, so it doesn't feel as awkward.

Not sure what to think yet, I'm about halfway through, but losing steam somewhat.

That was my experience with The Poppy War too. It lost it's steam when they left the academy and never really found it again.

Tiste Simeon, on 05 November 2019 - 12:51 PM, said:

Can echo that with the Poppy War. I was loving it up to a point and then the protagonist for progressively more annoying and I couldn't get behind her in the same way.

Chance, on 05 November 2019 - 03:38 PM, said:

Reading An Echo of Things to Come and I find it slightly less interesting then the first book which was more confusing but had a lot more drive then the second one.

Morgoth, on 05 November 2019 - 08:16 AM, said:

That was my experience with The Poppy War too. It lost it's steam when they left the academy and never really found it again.

Same here the fantasy parts for the first half where pretty good, then it becomes a bit too much real world history/commentary for my taste at least when done in the way it is.

Got to Part III. The end of part II with the whole divination was all right, so I guess I'll find out today which way the rest goes.

[QuickTidal]

Chance, on 05 November 2019 - 03:38 PM, said:

Reading An Echo of Things to Come and I find it slightly less interesting then the first book which was more confusing but had a lot more drive then the second one.

The second half of this book is where all your melons will get baked. Caden's memories begin to come fast and furious and the whole thing just starts to sing as the revelations hit one after the other.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 November 2019 - 06:14 PM

[Mentalist]

Hmm, ok, so I finished The Poppy War it's... fine, with glimpses of maybe awesomeness to come?


Part 3 moves pretty briskly. There's a lot of shock value stuff here, which I'm not bothered by, but don't think it's particularly well-done either. The book definitely has tone problems.

regarding the plot, I didn't really feel the

Spoiler

nuclear option

payoff was earned. Even though we were building to the Phoenix this whole time, it still felt too Deus Ex Machina-y.

At the same time, I must admit that the prospect of having a whole bunch of divine avatars slugging it out causing untold destruction has the potential to be totally epic. Or it could end up being like The Born Queen and just cram a bunch of exciting showdowns into like 15 pages of nothing.

Basically, what I'm saying is, if I see see Book 2 at a discount, I will probably buy it.

Moving on, and continuing the divine-inflictied horrors theme, feels like a good time to read "The Dark Blood", the second Chronicles of the Long War book. So that'll be next.

[QuickTidal]

Finished Sullivan's latest AGE OF DEATH and it was fantastic! LOTS of world building, pantheon of gods, and backstory/history of Elan in this one...it ends on a cliff-hanger but the next and final book in the series is done and kickstarts in Jan 2020, so apparently we can finish the series by Feb.

Got stuck deep into Shannon Chakraborty's CITY OF BRASS, which so far is quite wonderful!

[acesn8s]

JPK, on 05 November 2019 - 04:52 PM, said:

Next up is Saint's Blood by Dr Castell. Yay musketeers!

Falcio and friends, getting into trouble again. Such a fun series.

[Abyss]

Abyss said:

Currently still in Alex Verus 6 HIDDEN,....
good fun all the same.

And then on into bk 7, BURNED, which i Just Finished.

Solid, picked up some of the bits from veiled and escalated nicely. And i appreciate the status quo shift for so much of the cast.
On to bk 8, BOUND.

Verus is so fucked.

BOUND was all good. Fun finale.


On to bk 9, MARKED.

[Andorion]

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

[End of Disc One]

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

I’m reading it at current BK pace so it will be a long time before I’m finished with this brick

[Andorion]

End of Disc One, on 09 November 2019 - 03:45 AM, said:

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

I'm reading it at current BK pace so it will be a long time before I'm finished with this brick

Yeah its pretty long. Took me over a week to finish

[Tsundoku]

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:46 AM, said:

End of Disc One, on 09 November 2019 - 03:45 AM, said:

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

I'm reading it at current BK pace so it will be a long time before I'm finished with this brick

Yeah its pretty long. Took me over a week to finish

A book took you over a week?
Must have been a real slog.

[Chance]

Currently on Turtledoves How Few Remain which has been on my radar for at least a decade and it is a pretty nice alt-history war story.

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

Finished it a while ago and was the same.

Some parts where pretty good, some where not. Much more then that would be spoilers.

[amphibian]

Andorion, on 09 November 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

Finished The Burning White and along with that Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series
Very mixed feelings on this one. Anyone else read it?

I too had mixed feelings. I thought the top of tower stuff was honestly stupid. That crushed a chunk of my enthusiasm for the book.