[acesn8s]

Finished Kings of the Wyld. Man, that was a fun book. I'll get book 2 when it is released. On to The White Luck Warrior. Slog!

[Macros]

QuickTidal, on 28 August 2017 - 12:41 PM, said:

Made my 3rd and final attempt at reading FIRST MAN IN ROME by Mcullough.

The first 100 pages are so muddled, and overly verbose with a prose that seems a tad Victorian...that I could stomach no more. I think this book is going to the used book store.

Aw man, I have to say I'm surprised by this, it's something I thought would be up your street, I loved the series, once you get used to the style and the Latin arrangement for names it's fantastic!

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 28 August 2017 - 06:38 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 28 August 2017 - 12:41 PM, said:

Made my 3rd and final attempt at reading FIRST MAN IN ROME by Mcullough.

The first 100 pages are so muddled, and overly verbose with a prose that seems a tad Victorian...that I could stomach no more. I think this book is going to the used book store.

Aw man, I have to say I'm surprised by this, it's something I thought would be up your street, I loved the series, once you get used to the style and the Latin arrangement for names it's fantastic!

Yeah, I thought it would be too. I dunno, I've tried three times and I can't get into it. Ah well.

EDIT: Maybe I'll push through another 100 pages and see if I get into a rhythm.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 28 August 2017 - 06:56 PM

[Macros]

I struggled a bit at the start until I got my head round the naming structure, I'll echo what BK said, try and push on to like the 50% mark, if it's still not for you then ya, walk away but if you do get into the groove of it, it's such a rewarding series.

[Chance]

Finished up The Fifth Season and it was decent, with one of the best novel structures I've seen. Good enough to read the next one, not good enough to really change my view on the author yet. I wonder if she spent all her time researching geology so that she failed on quite a bit of the more basic science and biology. It might merely be that I have no clue one geology so I'll just accept what I'm told since it sound nice. The real problem is likely that it is set in the "real" world, I would have bought a lot more bullshit if it wasn't.

This post has been edited by Chance: 28 August 2017 - 08:57 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 25 August 2017 - 11:44 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 25 August 2017 - 07:45 AM, said:

Nicodimas, on 25 August 2017 - 06:35 AM, said:

worry, on 25 August 2017 - 03:59 AM, said:

Get a Kindle already fool.

People don't have kindles? It's 2017! I think I just passed my 300th download on it too..

What's the point in reading on something that you can't kill a man with?

If you can't kill a man with a plastic mechanical gadget, you're not trying hard enough.

True, just load it up with some Stormlight and they'll die of boredom.

[Abyss]

Maark Abbott, on 29 August 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 25 August 2017 - 11:44 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 25 August 2017 - 07:45 AM, said:

Nicodimas, on 25 August 2017 - 06:35 AM, said:

worry, on 25 August 2017 - 03:59 AM, said:

Get a Kindle already fool.

People don't have kindles? It's 2017! I think I just passed my 300th download on it too..

What's the point in reading on something that you can't kill a man with?

If you can't kill a man with a plastic mechanical gadget, you're not trying hard enough.

True, just load it up with some Stormlight and they'll die of boredom.

Or enough Bakker that they die of semen poisoning.

[Andorion]

Chance, on 28 August 2017 - 08:53 PM, said:

Finished up The Fifth Season and it was decent, with one of the best novel structures I've seen. Good enough to read the next one, not good enough to really change my view on the author yet. I wonder if she spent all her time researching geology so that she failed on quite a bit of the more basic science and biology. It might merely be that I have no clue one geology so I'll just accept what I'm told since it sound nice. The real problem is likely that it is set in the "real" world, I would have bought a lot more bullshit if it wasn't.

Kind of curious what you mean by basic science and biology? I didn't really notice anything of the sort.

Also I am not sure it does take place in the real world. Even if it does, it is so fundamentally altered, it might as well be a secondary world.

I am reading Stone Sky now, and a lot of the revelations really explain the strange world.

[Chance]

Andorion, on 29 August 2017 - 03:29 PM, said:

Kind of curious what you mean by basic science and biology? I didn't really notice anything of the sort.

Also I am not sure it does take place in the real world. Even if it does, it is so fundamentally altered, it might as well be a secondary world.

I am reading Stone Sky now, and a lot of the revelations really explain the strange world.

Going through the Stone Sky too now and yes it does give a few answers but not much for my pet problems so far, but that is what happens when soft science people write great people and nonsense worlds. The author is more interested in discussing problems in our world then making the background world make sense.

Some among many problems not everthing might be a problem for everyone but they do break my suspension of disbelief. Mighty be spoilery perhaps.

Spoiler

If you got working geothermal/hydroelectricity your not going to be using flint for much, the advanced mechanical and metal production capabilities required pretty much mean an industrialized civilization. It is also unlikely without an early petrochemical industry which seems to not be present.
It is also a pre-industrial world where they seem to have communication from one end of the world to the other over what would be rediculous distances especially with limited sea travel.
If you have extinction events creatures won't adapt they will die. The few who can survive will remain and slowly evolve like normally and 25 000 years just ain't that much time for evolution. Especially with multiple different extinction events.
In the normal world people survive on vegetarian diets in a lot of places, not here it seems. With the restrictions of seasons it would be a prefered way due to low comparative resource use.
Small survivor enclaves for long times seems very likely to encounter the problem with limited gene-pools.
Cannibalism for humans might be among the least efficient ways to get sustenance ever deviced, it won't help much during a long extinction.
The magnetic pole change that is described as a season just wouldn't do anything that will kill off any significant amount of humanity.

This post has been edited by Chance: 29 August 2017 - 11:41 PM

[Andorion]

So I finished the Witcher series. I ended up being quite annoyed with it. I have copied over my GR review:

Quote

I have become increasingly disenchanted with this series. The first two short story collections were excellent. They built up a rich and intriguing world while also bringing to the reader some very memorable characters. The writing was very well done.

All of that went away with the novels. It seems to me that the author has a problem with the format. he cannot handle pacing or endings. The first two books did not actually have any endings or climaxes. From the the third book onwards I got increasingly annoyed with character development.

Who is Ciri? A girl of destiny who spends the entire series getting traumatized, yet still in the final book remains naive. Her decision regarding the main antagonist in the last book was inexplicable.

Who is the Witcher? A very, very cool character in the short stories, he spends the novels getting caught up in events beyond his control, embarking on completely futile ill-informed quests, and somehow succeeds in the last book with a huge narrative jump that is never explained well.

Who is Yennefer? No clue really. After a rather interesting foster-mothership to Ciri to begin with she spends the entire series being imprisoned ot trying to escape from being imprisoned. That is literally all she does.

Also the author apparently learnt how to write female magic users from Robert Jordan. The continuous backbiting vindictiveness was exhausting.

The author tried a huge number of narrative strategies mostly consisting of flashbacks or historical narration, sometimes flashbacks within historical narration. What this did was introduce some completely inconsequential side-characters to the story.

Lastly, this series and this book has very little narrative momentum. This book is the series finale. Yet literally the first part of the book is mostly quite inconsequential stuff. The entire Jarre section could have been skipped. There is then a very good battle description, a very very forced climax, then an huge section of completely irrelevant politics which does not really draw interest. And then the rather bizarre ending.

This ends my rather long stint with the Witcher audiobooks. I am going to start on the Ben Aaronovitch books next on audio.

This post has been edited by Andorion: 30 August 2017 - 02:25 AM

[Andorion]

Chance, on 29 August 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

Andorion, on 29 August 2017 - 03:29 PM, said:

Kind of curious what you mean by basic science and biology? I didn't really notice anything of the sort.

Also I am not sure it does take place in the real world. Even if it does, it is so fundamentally altered, it might as well be a secondary world.

I am reading Stone Sky now, and a lot of the revelations really explain the strange world.

Going through the Stone Sky too now and yes it does give a few answers but not much for my pet problems so far, but that is what happens when soft science people write great people and nonsense worlds. The author is more interested in discussing problems in our world then making the background world make sense.

Some among many problems not everthing might be a problem for everyone but they do break my suspension of disbelief. Mighty be spoilery perhaps.

Spoiler

If you got working geothermal/hydroelectricity your not going to be using flint for much, the advanced mechanical and metal production capabilities required pretty much mean an industrialized civilization. It is also unlikely without an early petrochemical industry which seems to not be present.
It is also a pre-industrial world where they seem to have communication from one end of the world to the other over what would be rediculous distances especially with limited sea travel.
If you have extinction events creatures won't adapt they will die. The few who can survive will remain and slowly evolve like normally and 25 000 years just ain't that much time for evolution. Especially with multiple different extinction events.
In the normal world people survive on vegetarian diets in a lot of places, not here it seems. With the restrictions of seasons it would be a prefered way due to low comparative resource use.
Small survivor enclaves for long times seems very likely to encounter the problem with limited gene-pools.
Cannibalism for humans might be among the least efficient ways to get sustenance ever deviced, it won't help much during a long extinction.
The magnetic pole change that is described as a season just wouldn't do anything that will kill off any significant amount of humanity.

All of those are quite valid points, but I wonder, given some of the stuff being revealed in Stone Sky, if they actually apply. These things are true now, for us, but clearly in none of its iterations did the Fifth Season world have any similarity to us. Lets see...

[Maark Abbott]

Abyss, on 29 August 2017 - 02:43 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 29 August 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 25 August 2017 - 11:44 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 25 August 2017 - 07:45 AM, said:

Nicodimas, on 25 August 2017 - 06:35 AM, said:

worry, on 25 August 2017 - 03:59 AM, said:

Get a Kindle already fool.

People don't have kindles? It's 2017! I think I just passed my 300th download on it too..

What's the point in reading on something that you can't kill a man with?

If you can't kill a man with a plastic mechanical gadget, you're not trying hard enough.

True, just load it up with some Stormlight and they'll die of boredom.

Or enough Bakker that they die of semen poisoning.

The COFFERS!

[Chance]

Andorion, on 30 August 2017 - 02:27 AM, said:

These things are true now, for us, but clearly in none of its iterations did the Fifth Season world have any similarity to us. Lets see...

It has humans, dogs and a lot of similiar stuff in it, more then enough for me to expect some similiarity in function unless explicitly told not to preferably at an early stage .

Going to finish up the book today got about half of it to go.

This post has been edited by Chance: 30 August 2017 - 11:15 AM

[End of Disc One]

Down South, on 30 August 2017 - 07:15 PM, said:

I have finished Safehold

Holy shit!

[JPK]

Down South, on 30 August 2017 - 07:44 PM, said:

End of Disc One, on 30 August 2017 - 07:34 PM, said:

Down South, on 30 August 2017 - 07:15 PM, said:

I have finished Safehold

Holy shit!

NO SHIT!

The beast is dead!

[worry]

Mods, please close this thread.

[Mentalist]

Finished "Iron Druid 3". Meh. This series is now relegated to " wait for sale" urb-f.

[Andorion]

Chance, on 30 August 2017 - 11:10 AM, said:

Andorion, on 30 August 2017 - 02:27 AM, said:

These things are true now, for us, but clearly in none of its iterations did the Fifth Season world have any similarity to us. Lets see...

It has humans, dogs and a lot of similiar stuff in it, more then enough for me to expect some similiarity in function unless explicitly told not to preferably at an early stage .

Going to finish up the book today got about half of it to go.

I finished Stone Sky. I think we can safely say that the world it takes place in is not our world in any recognizable sense.

[Andorion]

Down South, on 30 August 2017 - 07:15 PM, said:

Does anyone have any fireworks?

Took 56 days but I have finished Safehold 9. That took over a year of my life. I ll read anything else set in this world which seems likely given the author note but I doubt I will ever pick up any other Weber.

I hated the antagonist in this series so much cause he made zero sense was completely stupid. How his peers and direct underling didn't snuff him out by book 2 or 3 is a mystery. He reminded me of an 8 year old kid who frequently needed his hand held as his peers explained everything to him. Holy shit he was dumb.

Looking forward to the next arc but I sure he gets a good editor... bk 9 had grammar mistakes out the wahzoo.

Yay! Time for a party!

So what are you going to read next?

[Andorion]

Down South, on 31 August 2017 - 01:18 AM, said:

Roughly 200 pgs left of Tigana which I'm going to try to focus on mainly so I can be done with it an I'm still on MT reread. I'm including ICE bks in this read of which I only finished NoK before.

After Tigana I'm thinking about redoing Dresden. I have Lions but I don't want to be reading multiple bks at the same time like I have been doing this entire time with Tigana.

I ought to be busy with something until SLA 3 gets here.

Finish Tigana. Its a good book, though nowhere near GGK's best. I plan to read Tai Pan by Clavell sometime in October.

SLA3 is going to take a lot of time to read.

Down South, on 31 August 2017 - 02:17 AM, said:

Do you agree or not about Clinton being completely dumb? He was good at nothing but pulling the wings off flys and to me

Spoiler

Rayno was the true brains and nothing in Siddermark would have happened without him, so how did he never once consider challenging his position? The Church would have fared much better in the Jihad with him at the head of department. How come the other 3 didn't use their clearly above his intelligence to put him in his place? All they wound up doing is holding his hand in meetings as he huffed and stamped his foot all series long

Seriously prob the dumbest/worst baddie in any book series I've ever read. Curious if you feel different.

Spoiler

Clinton became increasingly blind throughout the series. The problem was that he had one set of perceptions regarding the world and these were being swiftly overturned, and he was really bad at adapting.

Regarding the attitudes of the others, it comes down to institutional inertia. Clinton represented a very important and very dangerous part of Mother Church, one the others had been conditioned to obey throughout their lives. Once the Foreign Affairs guy became irrelevant, only the army generals could have taken out Clinton. The reason they didn't was the same reason the German generals did not take out the Gestapo and Hitler. They had been conditioned to obey.