[Briar King]

Oh no please don’t remind me of the excellence of Fitz! I don’t want to have to dig that out again! Damn it QT!

I’m going on WoT 10 and Night Angel 4 currently.

[Tsundoku]

 Briar King, on 23 June 2023 - 02:52 PM, said:

I’m going on WoT 10

Oh you poor bastard ...

[Briar King]

Shit I’ve been reading that one since 2/8…. That’s February and not August with your broken ass dating system.

[Chance]

Currently closing in on the end of Will of the Many and I enjoy it, it isn't a complicated book but it is entertaining. Islington never reaches mystery of The Shadow of What Was Lost which probably was a one of for him but this is a good and reasonably simple fantasy book.

 Tsundoku, on 23 June 2023 - 05:38 PM, said:

 Briar King, on 23 June 2023 - 02:52 PM, said:

I’m going on WoT 10

Oh you poor bastard ...

Yepp not much else to say about Twilight...

This post has been edited by Chance: 23 June 2023 - 07:18 PM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

 Briar King, on 23 June 2023 - 02:52 PM, said:

Oh no please don’t remind me of the excellence of Fitz! I don’t want to have to dig that out again! Damn it QT!

I’m going on WoT 10 and Night Angel 4 currently.

I just read the scene in Fool's Quest where the Queen and then Chade make back to back big announcements and a minstrel plays a song for the first time. If you know, you know. Fuck — I cried AGAIN. Hobb knows how to jerk a tear!

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 24 June 2023 - 07:29 AM

[QuickTidal]

 QuickTidal, on 03 May 2021 - 03:27 PM, said:

Reading LEGION OF FLAME by Anthony Ryan, I really really loved THE WAKING FIRE, and this one is already amping to be even more entertaining. Just a really cool concept series, with touches of steampunk, but not overwhelmingly so (I'm put off by extreme steampunk) while still being largely fantasy. Throw in a fantasy Alan Quartermain element, and this trilogy sings.

Dropped off this back in 2021 not for any reason that it was bad or anything, but I think some other book released while I was reading this and demanded my attention and I let this one and the 3rd book linger back in the ToRead pile.....so I've dived back in (starting at the beginning)...and since it's been a few years since I read THE WAKING FIRE, I'm REALLY impressed at how well Ryan inserts a sort of recap of those events into the narrative of Book 2 without it being info-dumpy...just really deft and a good reason Ryan is one of my fave authors. This will be my vacation read as next week we are driving into the States to go to Maryland and DC to visit with two sets of friends who live there.

[Mentalist]

lastt weekend had some time at the beach hous,e so finally finished off the last 100-odd pages of the Veiled Throne

Liu recommends that I read Book 4 right after, but, uhhh. no. First off, I need to buy it, and secondly, after the pacing slogs that this one had, I need something different.

So I started the 3rd volume of Brian Lee Durfee's "Five Warrior Angels" The Lonesome Crown Not 100% sure if I should re-read bits of Book 2 for a refresher yet or not- the first few chapters do include some onboarding/recap but I'm not 100% sure I'm getting it yet.

[worry]

Gonna read The Way of Edan by Philip Chase. See what this turkey has in store for the world of fantasy.

[Tiste Simeon]

Ok decision time. The Silmarillion, as read by Andy Serkis is now out. I have some credits to spare which I've been saving for the next books along in the Sun Sword series...

But it's the Silmarillion as read by Andy Serkis!

So should I stick the course or take a detour? I mean by the time I've finished that and caught up with some podcasts, I should have another credit anyway and the Sun Sword books are quite long so it'll probably not make any difference...

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Sil. You know you want to

Also, fair warning - even with Serkis reading it, the first couple of sections (The Music of the Ainur and Of the Valar and Maiar) are a bit of a snoozefest. The latter is just a running list of players, really. Just don't let those be the things that put you off

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 02 July 2023 - 06:03 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 02 July 2023 - 06:03 PM, said:

Sil. You know you want to

Also, fair warning - even with Serkis reading it, the first couple of sections (The Music of the Ainur and Of the Valar and Maiar) are a bit of a snoozefest. The latter is just a running list of players, really. Just don't let those be the things that put you off

The Silmarillion as read by... Gollum?

Doesn't seem that appealing since

1.

Spoiler

Gollum doesn't appear in it

2. Serkis is better at physical acting than voice acting,

3. though his voice acting in the LoTR was impressive, that style seems unlikely to transfer over to the Silmarillion---or maybe not?...

Finished listening to The Farseer trilogy; audiobook narrator made it more seem more maudlin and precious than it otherwise might have, but I didn't particularly mind. Some major plot elements are arguably a little too predictable, but it's more a case of dramatic irony being taken to a bathetic extreme (as in 'Fitz is so thick ffs...')... but overall it contained plenty of surprising elements, and was even more interesting than I'd expected.

Started on Liveships. Audiobook performer is much better, though her habit of ending most sentences that end in 'r' with a drawn-out guttural non-rhotic rendition of a pirate's 'arrr' (kind of like 'ahhh') even when she's doing the narrator voice is a bit distracting. (Like 'oh there are pirates in this? I know what to do!' Actually I kind of like it, cheesy as it is.) Seems like a significant improvement in the prose style; after the intro I think it took me a bit longer to get interested in the characters and the plot, except for the scenes with the

Spoiler

sea snakes

, but a few hours deeper in now it has me hooked.

[Tiste Simeon]

Azath you're talking crazy, Andy Serkis is the GOAT at narration and listening to LOTR with him narrating was sublime.

TRB thanks for confirming what I wanted to hear if I'm being honest with myself

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Tiste Simeon, on 02 July 2023 - 07:29 PM, said:

Azath you're talking crazy, Andy Serkis is the GOAT at narration and listening to LOTR with him narrating was sublime.

TRB thanks for confirming what I wanted to hear if I'm being honest with myself

Come to think of it the voice he does in Planet of the Apes does seem like a good fit for the Silmarillion....

[Abyss]

 Abyss, on 19 June 2023 - 03:34 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 15 June 2023 - 07:27 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 11 May 2022 - 06:23 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 20 April 2022 - 05:51 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 12 April 2022 - 05:30 PM, said:

...

OH FFS...

...so... JK Rowling, David n Leigh Eddings, Richard Morgan, Warren Ellis, Myke Cole, Sam Sykes....

WOULD ANY OTHER AUTHORS I ENJOY LIKE TO FUCKUP NOW AND SPARE ME SOME ANGST LATER??????

Yknow what the worse part about this is....?
SEVEN BLADES.... Just Finished....great book.
Really great book. fast paced, great fantasy elements, some of the bestest action scenes i've read since the last Dresden book, Sal the Cacophony is an easy candidate for my favorite character of the year, utterly satisfying story, wraps up nicely, hooks but no hangers.... and the sequel is right... there... fnck.

My library just notified me that the sequel is in. I had put the hold request in before the upthread exchange about Sykes likely being a bad person.

Dammit.

And now book 3 is in and book 2 is available... i don't need this level of existential angst around my recreational reading....

K fuckit. It's from the library, he gets no money from me reading it and i won't say anything about the books so he gets no good vibes from me into the universe either and *ears the first three chapters of TEN ARROWS OF IRON*.... fuck. This is how all those hard core harry potter people with actual souls feel, isn't it.

 Abyss, on 20 June 2023 - 03:06 AM, said:

 Chance, on 19 June 2023 - 04:56 PM, said:

Selling a very small piece of soul is easily worth it in this case, it is one of the most entertaining recent series.

I'm not saying it's excellent but...

...and now i'm at the finale of book 3 and ... fuck.
People.
This is unfairly good fantasy.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

 Whisperzzzzzzz, on 24 June 2023 - 07:27 AM, said:

 Briar King, on 23 June 2023 - 02:52 PM, said:

Oh no please don’t remind me of the excellence of Fitz! I don’t want to have to dig that out again! Damn it QT!

I’m going on WoT 10 and Night Angel 4 currently.

I just read the scene in Fool's Quest where the Queen and then Chade make back to back big announcements and a minstrel plays a song for the first time. If you know, you know. Fuck — I cried AGAIN. Hobb knows how to jerk a tear!

And I have finished Assassin's Fate. I'm bawling yet again. The Wolf of the West!

Is there any word on future Realm of the Elderlings books?

[Chance]

In a reading lull for the moment.

 Abyss, on 05 July 2023 - 04:13 AM, said:

...and now i'm at the finale of book 3 and ... fuck.
People.
This is unfairly good fantasy.

It really is awesome, book 1 and 3 more than book 2 I think but it is such a top notch series.

This post has been edited by Chance: 05 July 2023 - 12:55 PM

[polishgenius]

I read Nick Harkaway's latest, Titanium Noir. Shorter than his usual, being about 180 pages long- it seems to be a halfway house between his usual high-concept SF fare and the crime fiction he writes under a(nother) pseudonym (Aidan Truhen). Entertaining, he's an excellent writer, though it is a bit slighter than Gnomon or Gone-Away World in ideas as well as just length, so doesn't quite go up there with them for me. Also while it's not a totally straight-serious book, one of the clues/breadcrumbs/herrings red or otherwise and how it comes in to play was a little too silly for me- just a bit distracting in the end. But it manages to pack a lot of character into the length.

Look, if you haven't read Gnomon or Gone-Away World, fucking do, alright?



Before that I read Seven Faceless Saints, by MK Lobb, a debut that's also something of a murder mystery, but one set in a sort of fantasy Italian-City-states-based setting. You know, palazzos and religions and poisons, oh my. Also mostly fun and I'll keep an eye out for the sequel, but I think it did fall in to the trap that fantasy murder mysteries sometimes do, where the answer to the mystery lay in clues it wasn't really plausible for the reader to put together because it relies on concepts inherent to the invented world. Like, I don't mind not working out a mystery before the text reveals it, that's kinda the point, but I do mind when I feel I never had a genuine chance to, and I felt like that here.

But there's enough going on besides the mystery that I wasn't too put out.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Olivia Atwater's Small Miracles

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm now about halfway through What the Hell did I just Read (John Dies at the End book 3) and overall this has been a good fun series, each booking giving me some chuckles and visceral reactions in equal measure, which I suppose for comedy/horror is to be expected.

[Abyss]

 Chance, on 05 July 2023 - 12:55 PM, said:

In a reading lull for the moment.

 Abyss, on 05 July 2023 - 04:13 AM, said:

...and now i'm at the finale of book 3 and ... fuck.
People.
This is unfairly good fantasy.

It really is awesome, book 1 and 3 more than book 2 I think but it is such a top notch series.

That ending.

Holy.
Gunfuck.