[End of Disc One]

Lady Bliss, on 23 March 2017 - 08:21 PM, said:

Finally picked up the Codex Alera series (I know... ) and am regretting not starting them sooner! For some reason I had thought they'd suck.

You may want to delete this last part before BK sees it!

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 23 March 2017 - 03:59 PM, said:

Andorion, on 23 March 2017 - 03:30 PM, said:

Briar King, on 23 March 2017 - 04:58 AM, said:

Finished Safehold 7! That ending! Holy shit! Started 8.

Took me 48 days to read 7.

ED: double holy shit! 8 is picking up right at the moment of 7's end which hasn't happened yet in these bks!

Remind me BK, which ending?

Also finally started reading Shogun.

Enjoy.

Where

Spoiler

Angelic was waiting in Merlins quarters and called him Abraham. Picked up right from there in 8. She is part of some other group I just learned but idk what it's about yet.

Oh yeah...

Spoiler

She is one of my favourite characters. I really liked her interactions with Merlin. It's also after this that Merlin decides to become more direct

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 24 March 2017 - 02:02 AM, said:

Andorion, on 24 March 2017 - 01:47 AM, said:

Briar King, on 23 March 2017 - 03:59 PM, said:

Andorion, on 23 March 2017 - 03:30 PM, said:

Briar King, on 23 March 2017 - 04:58 AM, said:

Finished Safehold 7! That ending! Holy shit! Started 8.

Took me 48 days to read 7.

ED: double holy shit! 8 is picking up right at the moment of 7's end which hasn't happened yet in these bks!

Remind me BK, which ending?

Also finally started reading Shogun.

Enjoy.

Where

Spoiler

Angelic was waiting in Merlins quarters and called him Abraham. Picked up right from there in 8. She is part of some other group I just learned but idk what it's about yet.

Oh yeah...

Spoiler

She is one of my favourite characters. I really liked her interactions with Merlin. It's also after this that Merlin decides to become more direct

I've liked her as well. I've gotten to the explanation of

Spoiler

her telling him about Cody and his Spanish journal entries and I can't wait to see what's in them. Cody has been mentioned a few times in past bks. I've been wanting Merlin to take her bed ever since he met her as Abraham in bk 4.

Oooh yes

Spoiler

, the Cody part is veery interesting. And has some rather nifty pieces of history

[Abyss]

You SAFEHOLD readers need to get a room.
Or rather, a ded-thread.

Go start one, i'll move your more recent posts.

[Andorion]

Read 2 chapters of Shogun. Highly entertaining.

I could probably read 10 chapters at a sitting, but I am taking it slow.

[Chance]

Recently finished 1932 by Eric Flint hoping for something like Island Lost in Time but not really finding it also finished up Sins of Empire which really is powdermage book 4 rather then a new series just a new badguy and setting I guess still it was entertaining. Currently working up my conviction to go through the Witcher books, now that I actually own all of them in audiobook form.

Andorion, on 25 March 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

Read 2 chapters of Shogun. Highly entertaining.

I could probably read 10 chapters at a sitting, but I am taking it slow.

One of the best books out there so enjoy it. Have read it at least half a dozen times and it was as good the last time as the first one if not even better.

[QuickTidal]

While on vacation in the States, I was in a Barnes & Noble and grabbed a book called THE BATTLES OF TOLKIEN by David Day...largely because it was gorgeous, a red soft rubber cover with the art embossed into it, a thick stock, and a generally pretty volume. I flipped through it quick and it looks like it covered the major battles of Middle Earth, and I thought it would make nice companion reading to the existing Tolkien literaure.

Sadly, I didn't notice till after I bought it and brought it home that on the back it says "Not official, and not authorized by the Tolkien Estate or Harper Collins"...and this is more telling than you know. The book is largely the guy riffing off trivia he knows about the Silmarillion and LOTR, without getting deep into anything. It's basically a bunch of crappy summaries of the battles, with everything important as random footnotes...sprinkled between him telling us what existing mythologies Tolkien was homaging.

It's awful, and I feel crappy for having fallen for buying it.

Just read THE SILMARILLION and forget about this travesty cash grab attempt.

[worry]

Were you like, "What the hell is this guy tolkien about?!"

[Chance]

Started the Witcher series and the first few stories of the Last Wish are really nearly perfect short stories. Will be interesting to see if I still stall on Blood Of Elves as the last few times I've tried the series.

Briar King, on 26 March 2017 - 03:22 AM, said:

Indeed. Prob my all time fav bk I ever read. It's just beautiful to absorb. Curious if you read the other 5? I read 1-3 and while they are still very good they can't even approach the quality of Sho Gun. The bar was just to high. If you have are the more modern times setting 4-6 any good?

It is certainly up there for me too, probably why I never could get through the others simply too high expectations. Haven't tried in a few year however so maybe I should add them to the to-read pile for this year, which is already out of control so I shouldn't.

This post has been edited by Chance: 26 March 2017 - 08:47 PM

[polishgenius]

Is it just me who didn't think Shogun was mindblowingly awesome? Like, in a lot of ways it is definitely really good but it had quite a lot of irritations.

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 26 March 2017 - 09:19 PM, said:

Is it just me who didn't think Shogun was mindblowingly awesome? Like, in a lot of ways it is definitely really good but it had quite a lot of irritations.

What were the irritations for you?I've read it twice and enjoyed it muchly, but don't put it in the mindblowinglynawesome category.

[polishgenius]

If I recall, the main one was that the PoVs would jump so quickly and chaotically that I swear sometimes even Clavell forgot where he was and what he was doing. Like, I can't remember what it was now exactly but I distinctly remember one moment where a major plot point was finally revealed (regarding the motivations of a certain character) and then promptly forgotten for 100-odd pages until everyone suddenly realises it at the same time, including the character who's PoV we'd been in when the revelation was made in the first place.

Also, there was a lot of infodumping. It didn't kill the book like it would with most authors, but neither did he quite get away with it the way Neal Stephenson normally does for me.

[Abyss]

The infodumping could be a bit much, but i i thought that was done in an interesting way, explaining things to an ignorant character who would be expected to listen and appreciate the info.
For me my main issue lay in the conclusions...

SHOGUN SPOILERS

MAJOR SHOGUN ENDING SPOILERS


SPOILERS


SPOILERS

YOU WILL SEPPUKU ALL OVER YOURSELF IF YOU READ THESE SPOILERS


SPOILERS

NINJAFUCKING SPOILERS

Spoiler

I found the notion of Blackthorne endlessly building ships so that Toranaga can burn them as bargaining pieces to be ridiculous and disregarding everything we saw about Blackthorne as a willful and stubborn character to that point, as well as contrary to Toranaga's apparent respect for or at least understanding of that.

Also, i had mixed feelings about the entire book being a mere prelude, almost a side-story, to the ascension of the the Shogun. it's an interesting element, but i felt as tho i missed the story i really wanted to read vs the one i got, fascinating and engrossing as it was.

Still utterly worth reading tho'.

[JPK]

I finished Galactic North yesterday. Overall, this was a really solid collection of stories and it's clear that Reynolds excells in the short story and novella formats. The high points of the collection for me (after The Great Wall and Glacial) were Nightingale and Grafenwalder's Bestiary with the touch of creeping horror present in both works. I'd love to see him revisit the universe with more centered around the Trintignant character as well. Low point of the collection for me was Dilation Sleep. I just don't feel that it really added much to the overall lore. Now, in it's defense, I know that it was actually one of the first written and published works in the universe so a lot of the really cool material that comes about in the series actually originates there.

Next up I'm going for a classic that I haven't read/listened to before with Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

[Mentalist]

Finally finished "Jerusalem Commands", the 3rd Colonel Pyat novel by Moorcock.

This one was a struggle. It went some really disturbing places towards the middle, and then it tried to pick up the light picaresque tone like nothing happened. Which was a tone change I'm not sure I can buy.

In the process, Pyat's diatribes lost their flimsy internal coherence. Some of them seem scarily relevant now (they very much echo the current refugee crisis in the EU), but Pyat himself is losing his perceived genuineness in his (admittedly, mistaken and often horrific) views.

Overall, the book leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.

So, since I need a palate cleanser, tossing the next Kate Daniels, "Magic Slays" in my bag as the next commute book.

[Andorion]

So I have finished 6 chapters of Shogun - decidedly darker tone, but the world seems pretty rich, lots of politics and characters discussed.

Finished Girl With All the Gifts, comments in the dedthread.

Also started Zen Cho's Sorceror to the Crown, and I have to say I do not like the narration at all.

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 28 March 2017 - 03:45 PM, said:

So I have finished 6 chapters of Shogun - decidedly darker tone, but the world seems pretty rich, lots of politics and characters discussed.

Great book, glad you are enjoying.

It's also fun to keep in mind that Toranaga is essentially the fictional version of Tokugawa (Ieyasu) the first Shogun of that Shogunate (in Edo...modern day Tokyo) and everyone Japanese in the book has a real life counterpart from the era (Clavell just gave them all fictional names). Not sure how much you know about the Tokugawa, but his era is one of the most interesting in feudal Japanese history.

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 28 March 2017 - 04:42 PM, said:

Andorion, on 28 March 2017 - 03:45 PM, said:

So I have finished 6 chapters of Shogun - decidedly darker tone, but the world seems pretty rich, lots of politics and characters discussed.

Great book, glad you are enjoying.

It's also fun to keep in mind that Toranaga is essentially the fictional version of Tokugawa (Ieyasu) the first Shogun of that Shogunate (in Edo...modern day Tokyo) and everyone Japanese in the book has a real life counterpart from the era (Clavell just gave them all fictional names). Not sure how much you know about the Tokugawa, but his era is one of the most interesting in feudal Japanese history.

I don't really know Japanese history. Kind of embarassing to admit but I opted for a different special paper in my Masters. Guess I should do some reading up?

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 28 March 2017 - 04:54 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 28 March 2017 - 04:42 PM, said:

Andorion, on 28 March 2017 - 03:45 PM, said:

So I have finished 6 chapters of Shogun - decidedly darker tone, but the world seems pretty rich, lots of politics and characters discussed.

Great book, glad you are enjoying.

It's also fun to keep in mind that Toranaga is essentially the fictional version of Tokugawa (Ieyasu) the first Shogun of that Shogunate (in Edo...modern day Tokyo) and everyone Japanese in the book has a real life counterpart from the era (Clavell just gave them all fictional names). Not sure how much you know about the Tokugawa, but his era is one of the most interesting in feudal Japanese history.

I don't really know Japanese history. Kind of embarassing to admit but I opted for a different special paper in my Masters. Guess I should do some reading up?

I only know a fair amount because of my Japanese heritage on my dad's side, and how it actually relates to this era and people specifically (our familial clan, Tosa, were gifted land and title by Tokugawa himself for service in the Battle of Seikigahara).

You don't need to read up, but it's fun to look up the people everyone is based on later and see how close Clavell got to their truth.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 28 March 2017 - 05:11 PM

[Andorion]

Incidentally, since many of you listen to audio books, can you recommend some fantasy stuff where the narration is good? Zen Cho is making me cringe.