[polishgenius]

I liked The Hidden City fine, the characters were very solid and the action when it got going was cool, but at the same time as a 'crew of rogues'-type story (which I assume this was building towards)... well, that's been a strong scene recently and there are higher priorities for me. I'm sure I'll read more, I said so at the time, but it ain't a rush.


(the third book in Davinia Evans' Burnished City series- Notorious Sorcerer etc- comes out in a few weeks, that's a Day 1 for me)

[JPK]

Briar King, on 15 November 2024 - 08:22 PM, said:

Soooo then does anyone actually enjoy this gal?

I’m bored out my mind and no one is giving me hope.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I did overall. It's more that the issues that you're having are very unlikely to go away anytime soon. If you're hating this this much now, do you really want to push through thousands of pages of it?

[Tiste Simeon]

Abyss, on 15 November 2024 - 07:33 PM, said:

JPK, on 15 November 2024 - 06:12 PM, said:

Briar King, on 15 November 2024 - 12:54 AM, said:

Mmmmmmm……on pg 358 of Hidden City. This. Is. Boring. As. Fuck!

Unless something epic turns this around it's approaching DNF territory and I don't say that lightly cause I'm a stubborn ass cajun when it comes to seeing something through. This is just painful to chip away at though…

So I didn't read the House War books but I did read the 6 Sun Sword novels. I hate to say it but you're likely better off bailing on this now. West has some high peaks but you have an awful lot of long slog to get through between them.
...

This is funny/timely bcs here i was contemplating a return to The Sun Sword series aaaaaaaaaand nah.

Yeah I kind of wish I hadn't spent so much time on the Sun Sword. The epic bits weren't enough to make up for the relentless slog!

[Briar King]

JPK, on 15 November 2024 - 09:40 PM, said:

Briar King, on 15 November 2024 - 08:22 PM, said:

Soooo then does anyone actually enjoy this gal?

I’m bored out my mind and no one is giving me hope.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I did overall. It's more that the issues that you're having are very unlikely to go away anytime soon. If you're hating this this much now, do you really want to push through thousands of pages of it?

Well you have an idea how stubborn I can become with projects and I am actually curious to see these peaks.. but I can very much see myself not power reading through em back to back even if the peaks tingle my dingle.

It all has just felt like such a filled in info prequel the way it’s written so far without the actual info.

[amphibian]

The Hidden City is better written than the middle pieces of the Sun Sword books. I'd bail. There's a lot of complaints in your future.

I bailed at Book 5/6 and think I may not go back.

[polishgenius]

So what we're saying is that when this forum was raving, at roughly the same time (don't quote me), about Hidden City/Sun Sword, and Hands of the Emperor, it was the Goddard truthers who were right?


That's right, I am making a competition where there was none.

[Tsundoku]

What I picked up by reading some summaries and the comments here in the Michelle West threads was she went full Robert Jordan Wheel of Time there - early stuff good, then turned decent 300 page books into crappy overly detailed 1000 page doorstoppers with waaaaay too much chaff compared with wheat.

That sound about right?

[Tiste Simeon]

polishgenius, on 16 November 2024 - 09:33 AM, said:

So what we're saying is that when this forum was raving, at roughly the same time (don't quote me), about Hidden City/Sun Sword, and Hands of the Emperor, it was the Goddard truthers who were right?


That's right, I am making a competition where there was none.

Hands of the Emperor is a phenomenal book and one day I may even get round to reading some of those other ones by her!

[pat5150]

For my money, West's highs are great enough to make me want to read the rest. But there's no denying that the last couple of House War volumes were letdowns. Chances are I'll never read the first 3 House War books.

But I'm planning to read the Sacred Hunt duology and, unless these two kill my interest, the new series afterward. I was too invested in the Sun Sword and I really want to know how it all ends.

[Macros]

I didn't even get a quarter way through Broken crown, gave the whole trilogy away to a charity shop.
Nope

[HoosierDaddy]

Finished the Cradle series by Will Wight last night. That was a fun 6 weeks of reading. Not breaking any literary barriers, but really entertaining.

[Briar King]

Definitely not very inspiring.

We ll see what happens with the bks I do own as of now.

Very happy I didn’t go apeshit with ordering everything.

[Tiste Simeon]

HoosierDaddy, on 16 November 2024 - 06:02 PM, said:

Finished the Cradle series by Will Wight last night. That was a fun 6 weeks of reading. Not breaking any literary barriers, but really entertaining.

I picked up the whole series (minus the final one) when he randomly offered it for free last year and I should really get round to reading it.

[HoosierDaddy]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 November 2024 - 10:38 PM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on 16 November 2024 - 06:02 PM, said:

Finished the Cradle series by Will Wight last night. That was a fun 6 weeks of reading. Not breaking any literary barriers, but really entertaining.

I picked up the whole series (minus the final one) when he randomly offered it for free last year and I should really get round to reading it.

I got the first 7 free. Got kindle unlimited to finish.


It took about 60 pages or so to get interesting. And then it did. And it just kept going. Formulaic, but it’s litrpg, so that tracks.

[QuickTidal]

Just finished ESRAHADDON by Michael J. Sullivan. Was really good. Not QUITE as good as FARILANE (my fave of that trilogy), but still really good. It was also long and really HEAVY so it was a pain to read laying in bed, but oh well.

And now we wait a long time for the final Riyria books he's currently writing, The Cycle.


Started Ryan Cahill's OF BLOOD & FIRE (book 1 The Bound & The Broken), and so far it's a blast. Classic old school fantasy!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 18 November 2024 - 04:14 PM, said:

Started Ryan Cahill's OF BLOOD & FIRE (book 1 The Bound & The Broken), and so far it's a blast. Classic old school fantasy!

Did spot that one in Audible's current "2 for 1 credit" Goodreads sale but I think I'll wait until the series is finished to consider it.

Against Amphibian's suggestion---because of the limited alternatives on Audible Plus, which I don't plan on renewing unless they extend my ridiculous "three months for $1 / month + free book credit / month" offer a third time---I listened to The Element of Fire (by Martha Wells of Murderbot etc.). Should've listened to him. It starts out well---there are some nice descriptions of eldritch magic near the beginning, and then another good magic / combat scene a little after that---but other than that... the book was very dull, and the worldbuilding was overly derivative, not particularly well developed, and overall uninteresting (the Fae, Renaissance France, blah blah). I can certainly enjoy political intrigue, but found it boring in this book (granted, I was distracted by the US election and its aftermath).

Was going to let go of the series at that point but decided to google what her best books are and... a bunch of people on Reddit wrote that The Death of the Necromancer is one of their favorite books of all time. Which is also the next book in the series. So I decided to slog on.

And oh it has been a slog. Granted, I was fasting, but I'm about halfway through and so far it's one of the most boring books I've ever listened to. And derivative, with minimal redeeming qualities (except I guess that it's just bland, not egregiously badly written---oh no, that might actually have made it a little more interesting or entertaining, in a laughably bad way).

It did help him me fall asleep early though.

There was one mildly (but not really all that) interesting plot twist but... it has to get better I guess for all those people (it was a huge number, like---three or four!) to say it's one of their favorite books of all time?

[QuickTidal]

I own the new copy of those two books, and I wholeheartedly agree. There is SO much good stuff and scenes in them, but it's spread between such drudgery and nothing happening. Like which book starts with the mansion where the room comes to life with different shit being enchanted by the owner? That was cool as hell, but then It dove into boredom.

DEATH OF THE NECROMANCER is a better book, but it's not really stepping out of the mire it finds itself in. Like every time there was a reveal to the protagonist (who apparently is the most successful thief to ever thief), I felt like Wells wanted me to be impressed and I was like "Nah, I guessed this a while back".


I've heard tell the followup series about his daughter is good, but I don't think I'll give it a go.

[Abyss]

Re Michelle West's SUN SWORD/HOUSE WAR

Briar King, on 16 November 2024 - 09:40 PM, said:

Definitely not very inspiring.

We ll see what happens with the bks I do own as of now.

Very happy I didn't go apeshit with ordering everything.

...i semi regret that I did scoop up the rest of the series, albeit on heavy sale so the investment was minimal if annoying.

I'm on the fence... there was what to like - hell to be fair there was what to LOVE - it's just that at three books into SUN SWORD the quirks and elements i did not like were, if anything, getting worse, not better. The needless scenes making the same point for the fifth time, the sitting around talking about a thing (again), the incredibly bad-at-being-bad villains, the lack of pay-off for so so much set-up... these things just did not relent and once i start skimming... by the end of book three i was barely paying attention to Jewel or the festival mask thing... it's just not working for me and as far as i can tell that doesn't change whether i go fwd or back in her catalog.

So I'm out at least for now, likely forever but raving reviews of the last books might prompt me to try it one more time.

[QuickTidal]

It's funny, I know Pat loved the Sun Sword series over the House series, but I struggled to finish the Sun Sword series over the last year as it's SO dragged out....but the House series feels fresher to me as a result. That said, it's West so she still uses 1000 words when 50 would do...she freely admits to this...so YMMV.

It's probably going to take me a few years to finish out the House series though as I'm only on book 4 of that and there are 9 I think, because I find them more digestible after long breaks in between. It's the farthest thing from a binge series that exists.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 18 November 2024 - 05:02 PM, said:

I own the new copy of those two books, and I wholeheartedly agree. There is SO much good stuff and scenes in them, but it's spread between such drudgery and nothing happening. Like which book starts with the mansion where the room comes to life with different shit being enchanted by the owner? That was cool as hell, but then It dove into boredom.

Yeah, that's

Spoiler

The Element of Fire, the first book.

My favorite passage by her so far. I particularly liked the description of the

Spoiler

tentacles.

Also slight correction to my previous post---it's a fantasy world with the main kingdom loosely (but very clearly) based on Renaissance France. Perhaps worth mentioning that (so far) there's no substantial connection between books one and two---there are a few references to book one and that's about it. Book two takes place about a hundred years later and the Fae have pretty much left (with a very unsatisfactory vague explanation iirc---she might as well have said "because I felt like writing about something completely different, but making it equally boring!").

In The Death of the Necromancer she does invoke some tropes I enjoy, like

Spoiler

the French inspector who adopts different disguises,

but (so far) fails to explore them in substantial or interesting ways. Guess I could imagine someone who has never ever encountered those tropes before having their minds blown even by her tepid presentation of them, but I'd think these would be familiar to most people from childhood tv shows and movies...

[Edit: correction to my correction---I meant Renaissance France not medieval France]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 18 November 2024 - 05:31 PM