[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 19 January 2021 - 04:56 PM, said:

Just started The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende. I barely remember the movie now a days. Something about a big rock giant, an evil wolf and the saddest horse death scene in a movie.

The version I'm reading is a new print with a beautiful cover. The kids passages are printed in red text and Atreju's in blue.

Know that the movie only covered half the book, and Ende HATED it, and he hated the sequel (which incorporated elements of the second half of the book, but destroyed them and made its own thing).

This is all to say I've heard the book is FAR superior to the movie(s).

I have never read it, what edition did you get?...maybe I'll finally grab it and read it.

[Aptorian]

It's a Danish translation. Don't know if the new cover is international or a Danish flavor:

https://www.bog-ide....wE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 19 January 2021 - 06:28 PM, said:

It's a Danish translation. Don't know if the new cover is international or a Danish flavor:

https://www.bog-ide....wE&gclsrc=aw.ds

That's a lovely cover, but it must be only Danish as I can't find it. Ah well, they English covers are nice too, and there is an illustrated version too.

[Zeto Demerzel]

1 - Finished Siege of Terra 3 - The First Wall. Thought it was a bit rubbish apart from one nice pre-climactic twist. Didn't buy much of what happened, didn't see the point of the rest. Humdrum stuff for the most part. At one point:

Spoiler

Dorne and Perturabo come face to face, wave to each other and agree to meet later ... ugh!

Moving on to Sons of Selenar (same series) next.


2 - Finished Tales of the Ketty Jay 2 - The Black Lung Captain. Loved it although although Frey's actions in the climax made me uncomfortable - thought they were out-of-character and ridiculously ill-advised. It all worked out though!


3 - Earbooking First King of Shannara based on QT's advice and it's been good so far. The only downside is that the narrator (Scott Brick) is atrocious.


4 - Just started Khaavren Romances 2 - Five Hundred Years After. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment but I'm loving the writing style and the fact that Brust can pull of such varied styles.

[Macros]

Finished the first two parts of Gameshouse by North.

Again something wildly different from her other offerings and a lot of fun so far

[Macros]

I made some predictions to myself after part one, so far I'd say I'm on the right track.

[Macros]

Nope.

50% correct.

I figured the game would be WW2

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm on the third one now Macros, safe to say there's been some surprises along the way, really enjoying it.

[Yllana]

haven't posted here in a while...I've totally run out of fantasy series I'm interested in and are kind of desperate. My favourite authors are taking their sweet time with their books and Goodreads is so not helpful. So..
Does anyone have experience with the Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne books? Are they worth reading and on what level compared to MBotF? Any other good, modern series you could recommend?If I should put this into a separate thread, please tell me *bow*

[Macros]

Not comparable to Malazan in scope, I'd say it does what it does well, it's a solid enough series, and in some respects benefits from the smaller scale, it's tighter than Malazan on a lot of fronts, not too much navel gazing for a start.

If you enjoy things like.....Anthony Ryan's Tower series I'd say go for it

[Chance]

Still trying to get through the Craft Sequence shouldn't be hard I like it but the reading time just isn't there.

Yllana, on 21 January 2021 - 10:53 AM, said:

haven't posted here in a while...I've totally run out of fantasy series I'm interested in and are kind of desperate. My favourite authors are taking their sweet time with their books and Goodreads is so not helpful. So..
Does anyone have experience with the Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne books? Are they worth reading and on what level compared to MBotF? Any other good, modern series you could recommend?If I should put this into a separate thread, please tell me *bow*

It's decent a lot of people like it, me and quite a few others accuse it of being a bit too stupid to be good a lot of the time.

This post has been edited by Chance: 21 January 2021 - 11:32 AM

[Yllana]

Quote

me and quite a few others accuse it of being a bit too stupid to be good a lot of the time.

stupid how? Any other recent series you could recommend right now? I'm not really into Grimdark, but do like my books gritty.

[Aptorian]

Hundred and twenty pages or so into The Never Ending story. This book is delightful. It's a children's book so the language isn't to heavy or flowery and the locations and characters are colorful and fairytale like. And the whole world is full of boundless creativity. This is basically everything I want out of a fantasy book.

Did you know Atreju actually has green skin and blue hair? Also the luck dragon is decidedly more chinese and less hairy dog-like.

[End of Disc One]

Yllana, on 21 January 2021 - 10:53 AM, said:

haven't posted here in a while...I've totally run out of fantasy series I'm interested in and are kind of desperate. My favourite authors are taking their sweet time with their books and Goodreads is so not helpful. So..
Does anyone have experience with the Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne books? Are they worth reading and on what level compared to MBotF? Any other good, modern series you could recommend?If I should put this into a separate thread, please tell me *bow*

I'm on the last book right now and I really enjoy the series. The scope is not close to Malazan, but more typical for an epic fantasy trilogy. The first book is quite narrow with most of the time spent on two characters in a training academy type setting. I didn't think that was something I wanted to read about again, but the storytelling is quite good. I'd say Blood Song is a good comparison for the first book.

Regarding the "stupidity" that people criticize the books for, most of it is the characters working off of limited information and not sharing what they know with each other. IMO their decisions make sense and they have good reasons to not trust each other. Then there are characters that they should know NOT to trust but they do anyway, but again I think sort of it makes sense.

[Yllana]

I wonder if there are any recent fantasy books of similar scope to Malazan. I feel they either go down the Grimdark route too much or they are older, more "innocent" books like WoT or something. The last series with really interesting world building I read was Red Rising, but where is that 6th book....
Thanks for the info on Unhewn Throne, I think I'll just give the first book a shot.

[QuickTidal]

Yllana, on 21 January 2021 - 01:51 PM, said:

I wonder if there are any recent fantasy books of similar scope to Malazan. I feel they either go down the Grimdark route too much or they are older, more "innocent" books like WoT or something. The last series with really interesting world building I read was Red Rising, but where is that 6th book....
Thanks for the info on Unhewn Throne, I think I'll just give the first book a shot.

UNHEWN is good and I enjoyed it. Definitely has an Asian flavour to it, so that's refreshing in high fantasy. The last book is divisive, but I liked it.

I would also check out John Gwynne's Faithful & The Fallen series if you've not yet. I read book 1 only so far but quite enjoyed it. It's kind of like Joe Abercrombie without the bleakness and much higher fantasy elements.

[Yllana]

Abercrombie without the bleakness sounds good. I quite like his writing style and his characterization, but the way everything always ends up shittier than at the beginning in his books just makes me mad. Except for in Best Served Cold, I loved that one.

[amphibian]

Yllana, on 21 January 2021 - 10:53 AM, said:

haven't posted here in a while...I've totally run out of fantasy series I'm interested in and are kind of desperate. My favourite authors are taking their sweet time with their books and Goodreads is so not helpful. So..
Does anyone have experience with the Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne books? Are they worth reading and on what level compared to MBotF? Any other good, modern series you could recommend?If I should put this into a separate thread, please tell me *bow*

I quite like the Chronicles of the Unhewn. At first, it seems a bit "watch a character go through military school", yet it transforms into something much bigger and better. I also think Skullsworn (the prequel that was written after the first three books) is an exceptional book, especially after reading the first three.

I highly recommend them and will be getting the new book when it releases in July this year.

[Tiste Simeon]

Read some cracking books recently. Read a standalone called THE STARLESS SEA by Erin Morgenstern. A beautiful and wonderful fantasy in a richly woven world about a subterranean library and whole universe built on stories and the people who go/live/work there and it's links to our world.

Read THE GAMESHOUSE sequence (3 novellas) by Claire North who is definitely my favourite author behind SE. Each story is mostly it's own thing but they culminate in the third one. It's hard to describe but they're all pretty short so worth reading.

In audiobook I've been listening to the First Law trilogy and have finished THE BLADE ITSELF and have moved onto BEFORE THEY ARE HANGED. You all have likely read this before me so you know it but I love the characters and the humour (dark though it mostly is).
Glokta especially is a brilliant character (bad guy? I guess?) May have to get more Abercrombie books after this especially if they're narrated by the same guy, who is marvelous.

Onto the next thing which is THE EARTHSEA series by Le Guin. I got the fantastic illustrated omnibus edition for my birthday last year. It's been years since I read them so I'm looking forward to it.

Also planning on re-reading MISTBORN soon(ish) as I was chatting about it on Reddit and remembered how much I enjoyed it.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Finished my Bear and the Nightingale series re-read, and am now working through some books that were Christmas presents to others, now lent after they read them.

First up, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness - other contenders include Bernard Cornwell's War Lord and Dan Walker's Remarkable People.