[Briar King]

I HOPE NOT! I’m only like 65 pgs in though and there is already so much references to all the mental Debby downer shit from both the headcases that are the main characters. Just ughhhhhh MOVE THE FUCK ON ALREADY BRANDON!!!!

Give me Lift being awesome for 1300pgs and then no complaints from me.

Also I think this is the 1st book BS has actually used a real word curse word in. He said SHIT! Like holy shit yall he said SHITTTTT!!! Crazy shit there..

This post has been edited by Briar King: 09 December 2024 - 04:15 AM

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 09 December 2024 - 03:47 AM, said:

I HOPE NOT! I’m only like 65 pgs in though and there is already so much references to all the mental Debby downer shit from both the headcases that are the main characters. Just ughhhhhh MOVE THE FUCK ON ALREADY BRANDON!!!!

I am getting a physical copy for xmas most likely, but audible has me on a $0.99 for three months thing where I get a credit a month, so I nabbed it as audiobook to start listening early.


I dunno, it's fine so far.

The Prologue:

Me: There's probably nothing that Sando can show of Gavilars death in the prologues 5 books in that will surprise me:

Spoiler

HOLY FUCKING SHIT....Kelsier?! In his muthafuzuckin' Mistcoat? Not only that, but godlike Kelsier sassing Gavilar and threatening him if he doesn't deliver Restares/Kalak?

HOLY FUCKING SHIT...Gavilar was talking with The Stormfather? Holy shit The stormfather's reluctance to bond Dalinar all this time was because Gavilar betrayed him? Gavilar was trying to force himself into being a herald? Gavilar is a galaxy class moron.

And HOLY FUCKING SHIT Kelsier kills a herald OFFSCREEN?! And we know know about it because there stormfather feels his absence in the force? In know people would want to lean Szeth killed someone who was also a herald at the feast, but we just saw Kelsier exhibit power and threaten Gav to get a Kayak, a herald.

What the fucking Sketch is going on with the Stormfather....starting to think he's not who he says he is.

Also Me: Holy fucking shit.

[polishgenius]

Meanwhile I'm reading Kalyna the Cutthroat, sequel to Kalyna the Soothsayer which I much enjoyed earlier in the year. Very entertaining start. Interesting jump because while the first book was from the PoV of Kalyna (a con-artist fortune teller in a world of real fortune tellers), this jumps to someone else, a new character, who Kalyna is helping out in a rather dire situation.

Anyway this series is fun and deserves fans.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 29 November 2024 - 02:45 PM, said:

Semi off topic but if ( any of ) you want to read an interesting/different take on Lancelot (and Arthurian myths generally), Kieron Gillen/Dan Mora's ONCE AND FUTURE is absolutely worth a read.

Just finished Martha Wells' Raksura bk 4, EDGE OF WORLDS. Solid, sticks the landing despite the hooks set for bk 5. The cast ends up in a sort of dungeon crawl but since the cast are bipedal flying monkey lizard people that opens up all kinds of fun. Started bk 5 HARBORS OF THE SUN, it's fairly fast for the first third, builds to a fairly major plot point. Coming right off bk 4 i enjoyed it but felt like a break, so took advantage of the nice people at SPOTIFY raising prices but throwing a bunch of free earbooks at me to try ALIENS: BISHOP by TR Napper (never heard of him but he's got a few books out before this). It's a fast short read at 10hrs and about an hour in it feels very much like an 'ALIENS story', with our pov Colonial Marine character defrosting, assessing her new squadmates and getting into a fight w the smartgunner. Fun nod, her CO is the older brother of Sgt Apone from the ALIENS movie, and the story is - of course - about a mission to retrieve the Bishop android from the movie.

Catching up here...

Just Finished ALIENS: BISHOP. Napper just nails the movies vibe and takes advantage of what an unlimited budget gives him to work with. He keeps all the standard tropes, the badass colonial marines, the hopeless fight, the evil corrupt plotting Weyland-Yutani people, but also goes all in on the firefights, zero G combat, hand-to-claw-and-tail-and-ministabbymouth fighting, android martial arts... it was a fun read, firmly in the IP zone, and i see he's written some cyberpunk so i'll try to check that out at some point.

Back to Wells and her RAKSURA, bk 5 nicely stuck the landing as our flying monkey lizard bisexual polyamorous hivemind heroes travel across their world, fight the evil flying lizard people and the flamethrower wielding flying moss wearing stone people, find the lost cities, and generally work their way to a satisfying end. Wells does amazing work w her supporting cast, also satisfyingly wrapping up a mass of slow burn subplots that have quietly wound through the five books. I still have the two short story anthologies so i'm happily not done w the Raksura just yet.

And Brandon's latest STA, WIND AND TRUTH, has landed, ded-thread in progress, YAY!

[Macros]

On a Troy reread
Just finished Sheiod of Thunder.

I've read this trilogy I don't know how many times but still Gemmell gets me right in the feels some times

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Macros, on 16 December 2024 - 10:08 PM, said:

On a Troy reread
Just finished Sheiod of Thunder.

I've read this trilogy I don't know how many times but still Gemmell gets me right in the feels some times

Such a good trilogy!

[Macros]

We go down there, kill any cousins get in our way and find something to eat

[Tiste Simeon]

Just finished The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang after seeing it hyped a lot in that Fantasy Faction group. Spoilers ahead.

I was... Meh.

Like, the world is wonderfully built with a sort of classic Japanese/samurai culture with a fantasy twist meets modern tech vibe going on, and some pretty strong themes around the dangers of blind nationalism.

Then it gets really exciting for a bit and I'm keen to see where it is going and what secrets the "Empire" is holding back from it's citizens.

And then it just fizzles out. Like they plan to rebuild and become more independent from the Empire because they realise they can't trust it. They make amends where amends need to be made. They are hopeful for the future at last.

Which is fine but that bit takes up the last 35% of the book! Like there was so much room to build on what had just happened and it doesn't.

The author is firm on it being a standalone so where there could have been the excuse of "ah but this is setting it up for the rest of the series! " This just doesn't apply.

Which is inherently frustrating.

So overall a good book, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

[Tiste Simeon]

Don't know what to read next. I have the first four Stormlight books on my Kindle so may take the plunge into that. I also have the Cradle series, the Riyira Revelations trilogy and a bunch of standalones (which I may intersperse between books of a bigger series.

Thoughts?

[amphibian]

I'd launch into the Cradle with the understanding that the first half of the first book is kinda ho-hum, then it takes off.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

We were looking for something light to read between heavier things, and we managed to pick up the first three Redwall books. Been fun to read those again (I read them as a kid).

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 19 December 2024 - 12:41 PM, said:

I'd launch into the Cradle with the understanding that the first half of the first book is kinda ho-hum, then it takes off.

Seconded. There is a moment in Cradle Book 1 that will ring true as the moment you realize that things are much bigger than they seem, once you pass that you should be off to the races.

[Tiste Simeon]

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 02:53 PM, said:

amphibian, on 19 December 2024 - 12:41 PM, said:

I'd launch into the Cradle with the understanding that the first half of the first book is kinda ho-hum, then it takes off.

Seconded. There is a moment in Cradle Book 1 that will ring true as the moment you realize that things are much bigger than they seem, once you pass that you should be off to the races.

Thanks both. I'm sorting of considering doing that interspersed with Stormlight Archive but maybe I'll just run with Cradle and see how far I get.

[pat5150]

Been plowing through Tad Williams' The Navigator's Children and it's been a slog so far.

There's some pretty cool stuff happening, but it's offset at every turn by the unnecessary bloat of superfluous storylines that plague the plot. . .

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 19 December 2024 - 09:10 AM, said:

Just finished The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang after seeing it hyped a lot in that Fantasy Faction group. Spoilers ahead.

I was... Meh.

Like, the world is wonderfully built with a sort of classic Japanese/samurai culture with a fantasy twist meets modern tech vibe going on, and some pretty strong themes around the dangers of blind nationalism.

Then it gets really exciting for a bit and I'm keen to see where it is going and what secrets the "Empire" is holding back from it's citizens.

And then it just fizzles out. Like they plan to rebuild and become more independent from the Empire because they realise they can't trust it. They make amends where amends need to be made. They are hopeful for the future at last.

Which is fine but that bit takes up the last 35% of the book! Like there was so much room to build on what had just happened and it doesn't.

The author is firm on it being a standalone so where there could have been the excuse of "ah but this is setting it up for the rest of the series! " This just doesn't apply.

Which is inherently frustrating.

So overall a good book, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

The middle section is one of the bestest action sequences i have ever read in a fantasy book.
The rest of it is mid to bad, boring, redundant, overlong, unnecessary, poorly developed, or just dumb.
Such a frustrating book.
Btw the 'standalone' thing is just her current spin, she originally tied it in to her other series that's supposedly in the same world only a completely different timeline different time period different cast and also a high school soap opera story.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 19 December 2024 - 03:42 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 19 December 2024 - 09:10 AM, said:

Just finished The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang after seeing it hyped a lot in that Fantasy Faction group. Spoilers ahead.

I was... Meh.

Like, the world is wonderfully built with a sort of classic Japanese/samurai culture with a fantasy twist meets modern tech vibe going on, and some pretty strong themes around the dangers of blind nationalism.

Then it gets really exciting for a bit and I'm keen to see where it is going and what secrets the "Empire" is holding back from it's citizens.

And then it just fizzles out. Like they plan to rebuild and become more independent from the Empire because they realise they can't trust it. They make amends where amends need to be made. They are hopeful for the future at last.

Which is fine but that bit takes up the last 35% of the book! Like there was so much room to build on what had just happened and it doesn't.

The author is firm on it being a standalone so where there could have been the excuse of "ah but this is setting it up for the rest of the series! " This just doesn't apply.

Which is inherently frustrating.

So overall a good book, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

The middle section is one of the bestest action sequences i have ever read in a fantasy book.
The rest of it is mid to bad, boring, redundant, overlong, unnecessary, poorly developed, or just dumb.
Such a frustrating book.
Btw the 'standalone' thing is just her current spin, she originally tied it in to her other series that's supposedly in the same world only a completely different timeline different time period different cast and also a high school soap opera story.

Fun fact: indie self-dubbed author Rob J. Hayes did with his Mortal Techniques series what M.L. Wang could only dream of in SWORD OF KAIGEN....It just achieves on a much higher level while also leanig HARD into the things that it's homaging and the worlds it's playing around in.

https://www.amazon.c...s/dp/B09KRWM7D9

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 03:49 PM, said:

...

Fun fact: indie self-dubbed author Rob J. Hayes did with his Mortal Techniques series what M.L. Wang could only dream of in SWORD OF KAIGEN....It just achieves on a much higher level while also leanig HARD into the things that it's homaging and the worlds it's playing around in.

https://www.amazon.c...s/dp/B09KRWM7D9

I'm a fan of Hayes. Nice guy too.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 19 December 2024 - 04:23 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 03:49 PM, said:

...

Fun fact: indie self-dubbed author Rob J. Hayes did with his Mortal Techniques series what M.L. Wang could only dream of in SWORD OF KAIGEN....It just achieves on a much higher level while also leanig HARD into the things that it's homaging and the worlds it's playing around in.

https://www.amazon.c...s/dp/B09KRWM7D9

I'm a fan of Hayes. Nice guy too.

I read NEVER DIE on a whim, and loved it and bought into everything else he wrote.

[Tiste Simeon]

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 04:28 PM, said:

Abyss, on 19 December 2024 - 04:23 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 03:49 PM, said:

...

Fun fact: indie self-dubbed author Rob J. Hayes did with his Mortal Techniques series what M.L. Wang could only dream of in SWORD OF KAIGEN....It just achieves on a much higher level while also leanig HARD into the things that it's homaging and the worlds it's playing around in.

https://www.amazon.c...s/dp/B09KRWM7D9

I'm a fan of Hayes. Nice guy too.

I read NEVER DIE on a whim, and loved it and bought into everything else he wrote.

Gosh darn it will you lot stop recommending awesome sounding series! 😡

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 19 December 2024 - 04:33 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 04:28 PM, said:

Abyss, on 19 December 2024 - 04:23 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 19 December 2024 - 03:49 PM, said:

...

Fun fact: indie self-dubbed author Rob J. Hayes did with his Mortal Techniques series what M.L. Wang could only dream of in SWORD OF KAIGEN....It just achieves on a much higher level while also leanig HARD into the things that it's homaging and the worlds it's playing around in.

https://www.amazon.c...s/dp/B09KRWM7D9

I'm a fan of Hayes. Nice guy too.

I read NEVER DIE on a whim, and loved it and bought into everything else he wrote.

Gosh darn it will you lot stop recommending awesome sounding series! 😡

No. If we have to suffer you have to suffer.


Same thing happened to me w NEVER DIE.

Almost backed his recent triple-trilogy GODEATER kickstarter thing, missed the deadline by accident, will likely jump in if it's reoffered or pick up the whole thing when it's done.