[amphibian]

I'm still so mad that only those who read Russian can read that much Perumov. We have only Godsdoom in English.

He's even working here in the US. I contacted the translator years back to see if there were more scheduled and the answer was "Nope."

[Mentalist]

Yeah, I don't get that. I really don't. His later stuff verges on SE levels of epic convergences, and the whole background concept of the Consistent and its Gods, and the shifting cycles and power struggles behind the scenes is pretty brilliant. Why publishers aren't looking into that, I just don't know.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 23 April 2017 - 09:14 PM

[Andorion]

Started reading the first part of To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams. Its a pretty huge book.

[Chance]

Currently running through the last of the Witcher books and yes there have been a few moments of awsomeness and cleverness but no not worth it, average at best in total. Extremely ambitious in some parts and way bloated for most of the rest, the premise worked far better in the short story formate and the Last Wish is a glorious short story collection. The last books got hours left or so to convince me but it looks average unless the ending is mindblowingly awesome but the big showdown already seems to have happened so not much seems to remain.

 amphibian, on 20 April 2017 - 02:36 PM, said:

I'm still so mad that only those who read Russian can read that much Perumov. We have only Godsdoom in English.

He's even working here in the US. I contacted the translator years back to see if there were more scheduled and the answer was "Nope."

Pretty sure those who read Swedish can read most of his work...at least there are a hell off a lot of translated volumes.

How good is his writing? Where best to start? Been having a few of the first books around for a while but I usually detest reading outside original language normally so have put it off so far. Perhaps I should put it off while the last try the Witcher books receed into distant memory.

This post has been edited by Chance: 20 April 2017 - 07:09 PM

[amphibian]

Godsdoom is like a fever dream that morphs from what appears to be a "power behind the throne" type story to a bugfuck of convergence and "really, Perumov is going there? It's fun, I'll allow it. Wait, this is awesome. Just keep going. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"

I want to read more, but can't.

[Mentalist]

"Godsdoom" is amazingly awesome, as long as you can stomach the frivolous interpretation of some Norse myths (they are not the point, so don't dwell on them).

The second book "warrior of Great Darkness" is his most "traditional" heroic-fantasy type work, and it's nice, but quite simple. Kinda prequel-ish, but that's not it's true intention.

"Land without Joy" is more of the mindfuckery of "Godsdoom" in a "well, what happened after?" sense, with strong continuity links that only become obvious much later.

Then you got "chronicles of the Rift" .
The 2-volume "Wooden Sword, Diamond Sword" is like putting Roman Empire into LotR (with swords instead of Rings), and then write it SE-style, throwing in cosmic powers trying to manipulate the conflict.

Then "Birth of the mage" changes tone and setting YET again, introduces another world, and gives you an "amnesiac becomes a magic school prodigy" story with a nice twist.

And the rest of the Mage books take that story, run with it (necromancer is someone who is like a Witcher in concept, only his job is to put down the undead), while you get a parallel story that draws the world from the "swords" book back into a picture, AND then in the 4-part "War of the Mage" you also got the characters of Godsdoom (who are kinda important in the cosmic sense) showing up and taking part.

All with decent action, fun plot twists, and enough sides and characters to keep track of that you may need a notepad. Oh, and there's some amazing convergences. Did I mention those yet?

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 23 April 2017 - 09:16 PM

[EmperorMagus]

 Mentalist, on 20 April 2017 - 09:20 PM, said:

"Godsdoom" is amazingly awesome, as long as you can stomach the frivolous interpretation of some Norse myths (they are not the point, so don't dwell on them).

The second book "warrior of Great Darkness" is his most "traditional" heroic-fantasy type work, and it's nice, but quite simple. Kinda prequel-ish, but that's not it's true intention.

"Land without Joy" is more of the mindfuckery of "Godsdoom" in a "well, what happened after?" sense, with strong continuity links that only become obvious much later.

Then you got "chronicles of the Rift" .
The 2-volume "Wooden Sword, Diamond Sword" is like putting Roman Empire into LotR (with swords instead of Ring's), and then write it SE-style, throwing in cosmic powers trying to manipulate the conflict.

Then "Birth of the mage" changes tone and setting YET again, introduces another world, and gives you an "amnesiac becomes a magic school prodigy" story with a nice twist.

And the rest of the Mage books take that story, run with it (necromancer is someone who is like a Witcher in concept, only his job is to put down the undead), while you get a parallel story that draws the world from the "swords" book back into a picture, AND then in the 4-part "War of the Mage" you also got the characters of Godsdoom (who are kinda important in the cosmic sense) showing up and taking part.

All with decent action, fun plot twists, and enough sides and characters to keep track of that you may need a notepad. Oh, and there's some amazing convergences. Did I mention those yet?

This makes me want to learn Russian.

[Macros]

Means you have to learn Cyrillic too.
Which I've always wanted to try, but I struggle with English at times so maybe not

[Puck]

The Cyrillic alphabet is the easiest part about learning Russian. A bunch of the letters are the same as in the Latin alphabet, with some false friends (like how C is the Cyrillic equivalent for S, and P the equivalent for R, for example).

@Ment: Where would you recommend starting with Perumov? I got Wooden Sword, Diamond Sword a couple of years ago for some occasion, but I looked and the Russian ebooks are dirt cheap, so in theory I could start anywhere, but Wikipedia isn't helping much in where to do so.


Also, currently halfway through Acceptance and about to wrap up the Southern Reach trilogy.

[Mentalist]

 Puck, on 21 April 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

The Cyrillic alphabet is the easiest part about learning Russian. A bunch of the letters are the same as in the Latin alphabet, with some false friends (like how C is the Cyrillic equivalent for S, and P the equivalent for R, for example).

@Ment: Where would you recommend starting with Perumov? I got Wooden Sword, Diamond Sword a couple of years ago for some occasion, but I looked and the Russian ebooks are dirt cheap, so in theory I could start anywhere, but Wikipedia isn't helping much in where to do so.


Also, currently halfway through Acceptance and about to wrap up the Southern Reach trilogy.

"Ring of Darkness" is his first work, the "Middle-Earth 200 years later" knock-off. It's like fan-fiction, but it gives a nice exposure to Perumov's intricate style of plotting. Its very last paragraph introduces the new world of Hjorward, which is Perumov's own creation.

I think "Chronicles of Hjorward" are the best place to start ("Godsdoom/ Гибель Богов") is the first volume of that. The next 2 volumes- "Warrior of Great Darkness" and "Land without Joy" are mostly standalone (they kind of come up again in "War of the Mage" and I'm pretty sure "Land Without Joy" is essential for "Godsdoom-2" ), but as a bare minimum, you need original "Godsdoom" . Then you can read "Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword" , then the Mage books up to and including "Loneliness", I think. Then it's a good idea to read the " Necromancer's daughter" novella, b/c 2 characters from that are prominent in "War of the Mage" (but they could show up in "Loneliness", don't remember right now, but you can check that w/o any major spoilers).

But basically, once you've read " Godsdoom", the rest of the Consistent stuff can be read in publication order. The "Chronicles of the Rift" cycle includes "Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword" and then the "Mage" books (referred to as "Keeper of the Swords" + the novellas (only Necromancer's daughter is essential reading though).

The "Thousand Years of Hroft" duology is technically volumes 4 and 5 of the "Chronicles of Hjorward" , but they are 2 prequels to "Godsdoom" , that were manuscripts that were read and annotated by one of the chars AFTER the stuff in "Chronicles of the Rift" happened. So I guess kinda how MT is Trull telling his story at the end of HoC?


And "Godsdoom 2" comes after everything else, and is supposed to be the last things in the Consistent universe.

So, just in case that was confusing: I recommend starting with "Godsdoom", if you love it, read " Warrior of Great Darkness" + "Land without Joy" . Then all of Chronicles of the Rift.

If you're on the fence after "Godsdoom" , go straight to "Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword". Then the Keeper of the Swords cycle, with " Necromancer's daughter where it's appropriate). Then you can go back to the rest of Chronicles of Hjorward (2-5), and then "Godsdoom-2"

[Abyss]

[Puck]

@Ment: Thanks! I've been feeling like making my next read something in Russian, so getting Godsdoom/Гибель Богов may be a good idea, instead of some random trash.

@Abyss: You're just jealous

[Mentalist]

He sure is. And he should totally read "Godsdoom" as well. It's an awesome book.

[Mentalist]

Finished Kevin Hearne's "Hexed", the second Iron Druid book

Impression: eh, it's a decent popcorn action fix. But there's next to 0 development for supporting cast, and it felt like Hearne was tryign to cram TOO many different mythical beasties in the plot. I got this as a freebie in one of cahpters' "Buy X, get one free" sales, and that seems to be about its appropriate value.

Might follow the series, but only if I can find it cheap, or if I have extra cash and nothing else to grab.

Next for the commute, I figure it might be time to go back to Moorcock and wrap up the last volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet. The Vengeance of Rome

[Mentalist]

Ok, wrapped up the first part of "1000 years of Hroft", which is basically everyhting leading up to and including the famous battle where Young Gods fought the Old Gods.
Once again, this is VERY much Norse myths twisted, as Odin tries to gather the Z kingdoms of hsi world to deal with the new threat. Basically, the key stuff here is the backstory of "where did New Gods' power come from?"

The book is presented as a manuscript being read and annotated by Hedin- so he's basically reading and annotating Hroft's memoirs. Some foreshadowing bits towards Godsdoom-2, but really, this is basically an epic saga about a big-ass battle, and nothing more fancy than that.

Moved on to the prologue of part 2, and, yeah, there's already a long discussion about the nature of Mages, so I'm pretty sure reading this was a good idea.

[QuickTidal]

Finished STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY by Alexander Freed. Fun book. Probably the most entertaining grunts-eye-view of the Star Wars books I've read. Had a GREAT Darth Vader scene as well.

Started into THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, 5th book in the Outlander series. Goddamn these books are huge.

[Abyss]

RED RISING...

ok, for a minute there i thought we were going to Space Harry Potter at Space Hogwarts.
Blissfully that was not at all where this was going. 75% through and yeah, i get it now.

[Salt-Man Z]

 amphibian, on 16 April 2017 - 05:43 PM, said:

The only thing I'm mad about with Glenn Cook is his refusal to write more black company.

 worry, on 16 April 2017 - 07:32 PM, said:

A Pitiless Rain & Port of Shadows are just perpetually "upcoming".

According to Tor.com Port of Shadows is "tentatively scheduled for release in 2018 from Tor Books"!

(Also that's me totally burying the lede, since the above link is for a Black Company TV series announcement!)

[worry]

So the new books are mid-quels? Didn't know that, but I suppose it makes sense.

[QuickTidal]

 Briar King, on 24 April 2017 - 10:40 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 24 April 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

Finished STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY by Alexander Freed. Fun book. Probably the most entertaining grunts-eye-view of the Star Wars books I've read. Had a GREAT Darth Vader scene as well.

Started into THE FIERY CROSS by Diana Gabaldon, 5th book in the Outlander series. Goddamn these books are huge.

Obviously keep me informed with your opinions of it.

I'm kinda surprised you haven't jumped on Thrawn yet. That's gotta be the biggest want/curiosity generator for NuCanon sheep to date. Esp for old EU'ers, even non Thrawn fans as so much hinged on Zahn kicking off yrs of entertainment.

Never been the biggest Thrawn fan.