[End of Disc One]

Glad you're enjoying The Dragon's Path! It took me a little while as well to get settled in. I'm surprised that you're finding Geder's chapters to be dry, but then again I'm not sure exactly what point of the story you are at. A consistently great series.

[QuickTidal]

 End of Disc One, on 05 July 2016 - 02:25 PM, said:

Glad you're enjoying The Dragon's Path! It took me a little while as well to get settled in. I'm surprised that you're finding Geder's chapters to be dry, but then again I'm not sure exactly what point of the story you are at. A consistently great series.

mild spoilers

Spoiler

Geder's chapters have basically consisted (thus far) of the latrine joke on him, the events afterwards where he is basically sent to the flank with Jory Kalliam and other misfits and ambushed by the Maccians, and only survive because he goes to the general guy (Terringan?) and tells him to circumvent what is probably machination of Captain Klin...and then Klin ends up in charge of the conquested/subdued Vanai anyways, and Geder is worried about it. I'm sure it gets better, and I don't dislike Geder (on the contrary, he's a quite interesting guy!), but so far it's kind of just spattered about in a haphazard way, while Marcus, Cithrin AND Dawson's chapters have been cohesive and full-on interesting. I think with the knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes with Kalliam's dad and the upstarts looking for power) from Dawson's chapters (which happen after Geder's for the most part) I'm more infomred to make sense of it now?

Anyways, like I said, they are fine, and they will presumably get better now...I was just wrong-footed initially, and I'm unsure why.

But yeah, really, really enjoying this book.

[amphibian]

I will say to temper your expectations - as Abraham's series is not James Corey. Lower any expectations of stakes, pace, and action that are carrying over from there.

[polishgenius]

Can someone with artistic talent design us a QT/PG double-stamp so we can ceremonially award it to this book if QT still likes it come the finish? Which he should!

[QuickTidal]

 amphibian, on 05 July 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

I will say to temper your expectations - as Abraham's series is not James Corey. Lower any expectations of stakes, pace, and action that are carrying over from there.

So far I'm enjoying this FAR more than the James S.A. Corey (Abaraham/Franck) series. That series I enjoy but find it fairly flawed in comparison. But then my jam has always been Fantasy over Sci-Fi, so that's probably tempering my feelings.

 polishgenius, on 05 July 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

Can someone with artistic talent design us a QT/PG double-stamp so we can ceremonially award it to this book if QT still likes it come the finish? Which he should!

I endorse the design of a stamp. We have like a magical shortlist of books we both like that are like gold approval.

[End of Disc One]

I've started Brian McClellan's Promise of Blood. I'm not very far but I'm really enjoying this easy to read, no-words-wasted book. Characters are already interesting and likable. I'm aware that McClellan was a student of Brandon Sanderson at BYU, but I can already tell he's much better at humor than Sanderson is. The one humorous scene I've read so far reminded me of Malazan marine humor. He's also more free with swearing (no fucks so far, but more shits and bitches.) Good stuff.

[Slow Ben]

Still moving along in a Dresden reread. Just finished Dead Beat.

This book is so damn good. Looking back I remembered it as my second favorite. But in the haze of time I wasn't sure of it was the whole book or just the awesomeness of Sue.

But this book is just awesome from start to finish. Butcher basically improves in every aspect in this book and it's really where the series goes from a must read to DRESDENCRACK!!!


On to Proven Guilty.

Along with progressing in FoL. which I'm enjoying even more on the reread.

[Mentalist]

wrapped up "Stormbringer", the last of the original Elric books.

I think I'll now focus on Purge of Ashes, try to read it both at home and in commute.

[Salt-Man Z]

FoL was great. Sloooow. But great.

[polishgenius]

 End of Disc One, on 05 July 2016 - 05:44 PM, said:

I've started Brian McClellan's Promise of Blood. I'm not very far but I'm really enjoying this easy to read, no-words-wasted book. Characters are already interesting and likable. I'm aware that McClellan was a student of Brandon Sanderson at BYU, but I can already tell he's much better at humor than Sanderson is. The one humorous scene I've read so far reminded me of Malazan marine humor. He's also more free with swearing (no fucks so far, but more shits and bitches.) Good stuff.

I've read the first two books of this in the last couple of months. For some reason I was wary of the series for ages, but I'm glad I finally took the plunge, because I'm enjoying it. Solid military musket-fantasy. Not really a lot at all like Sanderson, and I'm enjoying it much more than I did Mistborn- although there is an odd problem with pacing over the course of the books, like McLellan doesn't take much care to make sure things all move together so in one plot strand climactic things will happen in the middle of the book and the rest will be spent wrapping up and marking time while the other strands build up. Probably more realistic than a Malazan-style convergence but a little odd narratively.


Myself, after finishing the aforementioned Ninefox Gambit, which I highly recommend- it's very much a first-book-in-series but it satisfies and I think this is a series worth getting in on the ground floor on, especially if you like your morality mottled, your settings weird and your weapons really, inventively gruesome- I started another debut from May, epic fantasy this time: In the Shadow of the Gods by Rachel Dunne. An interesting entry into the current darker trend in fantasy, it hasn't so far shown the self-conscious tendencies of much of what's labelled 'grimdark' - there's a more sincere edge to it that somehow channels the old-school farmfolk fantasies without ever going anywhere near the cliches so far- it's quite unusual in that there's a big theological battle between two sets of gods and it's actually kind of hard to tell which side I'm supposed to be supporting. There's one faction that would normally be really obvious bad guys... but, well, their underlying belief has a point, and they're on the same side as what would normally be some really obvious good guys.

Warning though, don't read the blurb if you can avoid it- it's either spoilerific as fuck or highly inaccurate or quite possibly both. The story's clearly set up to be read knowing as little as possible about the backstory and stuff going in, and the blurb rather ignores that and just tells you loads.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 06 July 2016 - 09:54 PM

[Macros]

Anything like the thousand names (which I enjoyed a lot)?

[polishgenius]

 Macros, on 06 July 2016 - 09:44 PM, said:

Anything like the thousand names (which I enjoyed a lot)?

Yes, actually (referring to the McLellan, for clarity for others reading this, as Macros asked that before my edit), I nearly mentioned but I didn't, they're very similar - enough that when I read the second Thousand Names just after Promise of Blood, only a few weeks later I had to work a little to disentangle in my head which plot was in which book before I read the second McLellan.

I prefer McLellan a little at the moment though- the testing of its military geniuses seems a little more committed, the actual danger realer. So basically a little more tension (though Shadow Throne improved considerably on The Thousand Names in this, so it's close).

[Macros]

Excellent stuff, cheers pg

[Maark Abbott]

 Salt-Man Z, on 06 July 2016 - 02:53 AM, said:

FoL was great. Sloooow. But great.

Slow like... The flight... OF WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALES.

Anyway, I'm 3/4 into Dancer's Lament. It's solid, but it's ICE solid. Not spectacular, kind of middling in parts - I imagine it'll be rated at about a 7/10 or so. After this I'm onto The Bakkakening II/II: The Black-Sperm Warrior.

[QuickTidal]

I've not even cracked into FoL yet because I'm scared of how slow it is.

As to me, I hit the halfway mark in THE DRAGON'S PATH and it's the dogs bollocks so far. I find I can't wait to read it every time I sit down with it, and it's never long enough when I'm forced to put it down. Oh, and I like Geder's chapters just fine now.

[End of Disc One]

Yeah you guys are scaring me with your FoL comments, even those of you who really like the book. You all are taking waayyy longer to read FoL than you normally would read a Malazan book. Plus I still need to read Dancer's Lament, which I'll probably get to in a couple of weeks.

Still enjoying Promise of Blood and Nemesis Games. I don't think Nemesis Games is the best Expanse book like some people do, but it's still quite good. I have about a third left.

This post has been edited by End of Disc One: 07 July 2016 - 02:25 PM

[Maark Abbott]

FoL is slow in the way of a classical piece with a long buildup. And yes, it's not hugely pacey. But you have to take into account that the orator is Blind Gallan. Those who can't get into it are demoted instantly to Unready, because it's EASILY SE's strongest work to date. No Unready on the slog.

[QuickTidal]

 End of Disc One, on 07 July 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

Yeah you guys are scaring me with your FoL comments, even those of you who really like the book. You all are taking waayyy longer to read FoL than you normally would read a Malazan book. Plus I still need to read Dancer's Lament, which I'll probably get to in a couple of weeks.

DL is a great, quick, and solid read (ICE's best IMHO), so maybe knock that one out before tackling FoL?

[Abyss]

 End of Disc One, on 07 July 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

...
Still enjoying Promise of Blood and Nemesis Games. I don't think Nemesis Games is the best Expanse book like some people do, but it's still quite good. I have about a third left.

I don't know if it's the best, but it's certainly the most epic in scope.

 End of Disc One, on 07 July 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

Yeah you guys are scaring me with your FoL comments, even those of you who really like the book. You all are taking waayyy longer to read FoL than you normally would read a Malazan book. Plus I still need to read Dancer's Lament, which I'll probably get to in a couple of weeks.
...

 Maark Abbott, on 07 July 2016 - 02:39 PM, said:

FoL is slow in the way of a classical piece with a long buildup. And yes, it's not hugely pacey. But you have to take into account that the orator is Blind Gallan. Those who can't get into it are demoted instantly to Unready, because it's EASILY SE's strongest work to date. No Unready on the slog.

 QuickTidal, on 07 July 2016 - 02:52 PM, said:

DL is a great, quick, and solid read (ICE's best IMHO), so maybe knock that one out before tackling FoL?

Yeah, they are very very VERY different kinds of books. Depends on what you're feeling. Both are utterly worth the read.

[Salt-Man Z]

I would almost, almost recommend waiting for Walk in Shadow, and then reading the entire trilogy in one go. It's really not at all episodic like the first half of MBotF was, but one continuous story; but on the other hand, it might take half a year to read all 3 books back-to-back-to-back like that. (At the very least, I'm extremely glad I reread FoD immediately before FoL.)