[Tiste Simeon]

It's disappointing how often it happens, quite honestly...

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 02:56 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 March 2026 - 04:04 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 23 March 2026 - 07:31 PM, said:

Read Notorious Sorcerer. With a title like that how can you not? Great book too.


Pretty much exactly fits the description Abyss used for Eli Montpress tbh, very much seems in the same vein. The whole series is one of my favourite new reads of the last couple years or so.

eta: I feel like I should challenge Abyss to a recommendation swap now. I read Eli Monpress and he reads Notorious Sorcerer. En guard!

Challenge accepted. HAVE AT THEE!!!

(one i finish Clocktaur and assuming Richard Morgan's just released No Man's Land remains irritatingly unavailable in Canada)

polishgenius, on 25 March 2026 - 08:13 PM, said:

Looks like I'm gonna have to get the first three ombnibus. Partly because the collection only costs four quid more than each individually, and partly because the single books have covers so bad I'd be embarrassed to have them even though I read on ebook and no-one would see it.


Got Clocktaur on deck too, lol. But finishing Rogba Payne's Testimony of Blood is the first order of business.

k i'm ready, got some audible credits to burn and i feel the need, the need for read....
LET'S DO THIS


(like, whenever you're set, like nbd....)

Well, I bought it, anyway. Ready to go.




I also couldn't decide which series-starting epic fantasy book to get - The Book of Fallen Leaves by AS Tamaki, a Japanese-culture-based effort that just came out, or Birth of a Dinasty by Chinaza Bado, another of the West-African wave of epic fantasy that's been coming out the last few years. So I got both.

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 26 March 2026 - 12:08 PM, said:

Holey moley.

JL Odom's first two Land Of Exile books — By Blood, By Salt and A Haunt for Jackals — are so, so, so insanely good.

If you have not yet read them...please do. I don't even know what to compare them to, but everything is executed flawlessly. The plotting, the pacing, the characters, the history, the prose (oh man, the prose!), and the twists.

It's like GGK meets Gemmell meets Erikson meets Hobb (sorry, yes, these characters get wrung out like sponges).

(Oh, and she won the SPFBO 2025).

Yeah, I started this a while back. Put it aside for a bit because I wasn't really in the mood for that particular kind of emotional damage, but it's clearly very very good.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 04:01 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 26 March 2026 - 03:15 PM, said:

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 26 March 2026 - 12:08 PM, said:

Holey moley.

JL Odom's first two Land Of Exile books — By Blood, By Salt and A Haunt for Jackals — are so, so, so insanely good.

If you have not yet read them...please do. I don't even know what to compare them to, but everything is executed flawlessly. The plotting, the pacing, the characters, the history, the prose (oh man, the prose!), and the twists.

It's like GGK meets Gemmell meets Erikson meets Hobb (sorry, yes, these characters get wrung out like sponges).

(Oh, and she won the SPFBO 2025).

Dang it man I don't have time for more books and I can't believe you would

Oh hey they're only £8 for both on Kindle so I've snapped them up!

it's always nice to watch you break like a twig.

Tiste Simeon, on 26 March 2026 - 04:20 PM, said:

It's disappointing how often it happens, quite honestly...

Counterpoint: no it isn't.

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 26 March 2026 - 04:51 PM, said:

I also couldn't decide which series-starting epic fantasy book to get - The Book of Fallen Leaves by AS Tamaki, a Japanese-culture-based effort that just came out,

Heard nothing but great things about this debut.

[Tiste Simeon]

Finished Oathbringer! Will post some thoughts on the dedthread later. Going to read some stand-alones including non fiction that I've been gathering on my Kindle and take a break from the Stormlight Archive.

Also finished Dust of Dreams on audio. I enjoyed this one and actually I thought the narrator did some of his best work in this one. Still not his biggest fan but there were some excellent moments I enjoyed in this one.

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 26 March 2026 - 04:51 PM, said:

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 02:56 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 March 2026 - 04:04 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 23 March 2026 - 07:31 PM, said:

Read Notorious Sorcerer. With a title like that how can you not? Great book too.


Pretty much exactly fits the description Abyss used for Eli Montpress tbh, very much seems in the same vein. The whole series is one of my favourite new reads of the last couple years or so.

eta: I feel like I should challenge Abyss to a recommendation swap now. I read Eli Monpress and he reads Notorious Sorcerer. En guard!

Challenge accepted. HAVE AT THEE!!!

(one i finish Clocktaur and assuming Richard Morgan's just released No Man's Land remains irritatingly unavailable in Canada)

polishgenius, on 25 March 2026 - 08:13 PM, said:

Looks like I'm gonna have to get the first three ombnibus. Partly because the collection only costs four quid more than each individually, and partly because the single books have covers so bad I'd be embarrassed to have them even though I read on ebook and no-one would see it.


Got Clocktaur on deck too, lol. But finishing Rogba Payne's Testimony of Blood is the first order of business.

k i'm ready, got some audible credits to burn and i feel the need, the need for read....
LET'S DO THIS

(like, whenever you're set, like nbd....)

Well, I bought it, anyway. Ready to go.


...

took a stroll at lunchtime, i'm one chapter in, do we need a ded-thread?

[polishgenius]

Might be worth one.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 06:29 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 26 March 2026 - 04:51 PM, said:

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 02:56 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 March 2026 - 04:04 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 23 March 2026 - 07:31 PM, said:

Read Notorious Sorcerer. With a title like that how can you not? Great book too.


Pretty much exactly fits the description Abyss used for Eli Montpress tbh, very much seems in the same vein. The whole series is one of my favourite new reads of the last couple years or so.

eta: I feel like I should challenge Abyss to a recommendation swap now. I read Eli Monpress and he reads Notorious Sorcerer. En guard!

Challenge accepted. HAVE AT THEE!!!

(one i finish Clocktaur and assuming Richard Morgan's just released No Man's Land remains irritatingly unavailable in Canada)

polishgenius, on 25 March 2026 - 08:13 PM, said:

Looks like I'm gonna have to get the first three ombnibus. Partly because the collection only costs four quid more than each individually, and partly because the single books have covers so bad I'd be embarrassed to have them even though I read on ebook and no-one would see it.


Got Clocktaur on deck too, lol. But finishing Rogba Payne's Testimony of Blood is the first order of business.

k i'm ready, got some audible credits to burn and i feel the need, the need for read....
LET'S DO THIS

(like, whenever you're set, like nbd....)

Well, I bought it, anyway. Ready to go.


...

took a stroll at lunchtime, i'm one chapter in, do we need a ded-thread?

After Odom's books, I could use something a little lighter, and I loved the Eli Monpress books, so I'll give Notorious Sorcerer a saucy taste.

[Tiste Simeon]

Huh turns out I previously bought Notorious Sorcerer for Kindle, presumably on a recommendation from PG. I'd be up for a group discussion as I just finished a book on Kindle so I'm ready to begin if we're doing this!

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 27 March 2026 - 07:13 AM, said:

Huh turns out I previously bought Notorious Sorcerer for Kindle, presumably on a recommendation from PG. I'd be up for a group discussion as I just finished a book on Kindle so I'm ready to begin if we're doing this!

ok, we have buy in, i'll start something shortly...

[QuickTidal]

I finished up CLOCKWORK BOYS, once again a great read. T. Kingfisher is awesome!

And I wanted something mythic and I follow Terri Windling on social media and she posted one of her cover art pieces for Charles De Lint's work, and I was like "That's the vibe my mood wants"

So I found a used copy of DREAMS UNDERFOOT by Charles De Lint, which is apparently where people say to start with his Newford series (a short fiction collection of interconnected stories that revolve in and around the fictional Newford, a place that borders on the fantastical and the faerie), and so I did and while I'm only on the third story in I am ADORING the vibes of this...urban fantasy but with a distinct almost naturalist and dreamlike edge to it. The first story UNCLE DOBBIN'S PARROT FAIR was more a sidelong story, a wonderful intro into De Lint's mind, but it was the second story THE STONE DRUM which introduced me to one of his longtime protagonists from Newford (Jilly Coppercorn) that I really fell in love with his writing and the locale of Newford itself. And then came TIMESKIP which introduced another long time protagonist Geordie Riddell and I was enthralled. I'm not done this collection yet, but I know now I'm in for the long haul with De Lint, so I found used copies of the next two Newford books MEMORY & DREAM and THE IVORY AND THE HORN (another interconnected short story collection) to get on deck.

Funny aside, I owned a copy of De Lint's THE WILD WOOD for years, which I'd found at a used book store on the cheap and I bought it because the cover (Windling's art again) was SO evocative that I HAD to own it....but I never got around to reading it. Crazy it took me decades to do so with a Canadian author from Ottawa to boot!

[JPK]

Abyss, on 25 October 2024 - 03:37 AM, said:

Just Finished Martha Wells' BOOK OF THE RAKSURA bk 1, THE CLOUD ROADS. I enjoyed it. I can see how she ended up writing Murderbot so well, because while her Raksura are humanoid, they are definitely NOT human, and Well's is very effective at making them just different enough without being outright alien. It's a fun book about a solitary Raksura (shapeshifters who can appear more or less human but have a winged lizardperson form too) finding his people and tryng to fit in while helping them against a competing but mustachetwirlingly evil competing flying lizardsperson race. It moves fast, the characters are engaing, and she nicely dodges a lot of the self-pity and angst traps the book could have fallen into. SOlid work from the earbook narrator. I went straight in to bk 2 THE SERPENT SEA, which picks up immediately after bk. So far so good.

Also, still listening to THE SILT VERSES audiodrama, still impressed, still recommended.

Confession time: I bought the first three Raksura audiobooks back in 2018 and have been sitting on them ever since. Lately though, I keep thinking about how you were raving about these and threw on the first book. I feel dumb for sitting on these for 8 years now. You're completely right about how well Wells did with making the civilization sympathetic and yet clearly not human.

[Abyss]

JPK, on 31 March 2026 - 04:35 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 October 2024 - 03:37 AM, said:

Just Finished Martha Wells' BOOK OF THE RAKSURA bk 1, THE CLOUD ROADS. I enjoyed it. I can see how she ended up writing Murderbot so well, because while her Raksura are humanoid, they are definitely NOT human, and Well's is very effective at making them just different enough without being outright alien. It's a fun book about a solitary Raksura (shapeshifters who can appear more or less human but have a winged lizardperson form too) finding his people and tryng to fit in while helping them against a competing but mustachetwirlingly evil competing flying lizardsperson race. It moves fast, the characters are engaing, and she nicely dodges a lot of the self-pity and angst traps the book could have fallen into. SOlid work from the earbook narrator. I went straight in to bk 2 THE SERPENT SEA, which picks up immediately after bk. So far so good.

Also, still listening to THE SILT VERSES audiodrama, still impressed, still recommended.

Confession time: I bought the first three Raksura audiobooks back in 2018 and have been sitting on them ever since. Lately though, I keep thinking about how you were raving about these and threw on the first book. I feel dumb for sitting on these for 8 years now. You're completely right about how well Wells did with making the civilization sympathetic and yet clearly not human.

I WIN


I hope you enjoy, they're pretty great.

[Abyss]

Just Finished THE CLOCKTAUR WAR duology THE CLOCKWORK BOYS and THE MIRACLE ENGINE, by T. KIngfisher.

I very enjoyed these. The two books are very much a single work separated for whatever reason, and the overall story was fun, engaging, move quickly, and held my interest even when it paused. The characters were reat, and wonderfully written, all exceptional in their own ways but not superhuman at all... no magery, very little magic at all, but the author does such a nice job of showing the reader why we should care about the characters that it makes them exceptional despite or even because of their relative normality for a fantasy book. It's a fantasy/sf writing niche i've always enjoyed when done well, seemingly ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances who have to become more in order to survive. Slate, Brennar, Caliban, Edmund, Grimehug... they're just a great cast who are written to bounce very well off each other, and it carries a fairly by the numbers (tho still imaginative) fantasy story. Slate is completely convincing as mildly suicidal leader, Caliban's fallen paladin totally works, Brennan is probably one of my favorite assassin characters ever, and the other characters ll fill familiar slots very nicely. The plot is simple, rejects and convicts forces into a suicide mission to travel from A to B and stop the Big Bad. They do that, they have rando encounters along the way, they interact and converse and evolve because of that... the titular clockwork golems they're trying to stop are almost secondary to the story itself, but the conclusion is satisfying even as it really just serves as a way to the epilogue that wraps up the interpersonal plotlines.

There is action, and it's nicely done, if brief. There is magic, tho most of it is fairly subtle. There are some great twists and some that are easy to see coming, but even so the writer executes them so nicely i was never bothered.

Earbook narrator is flawless, does a wonderful job w the voices.

Worth the read.