[Abyss]

If Silk had been Mara's spymaster she would have won in the first book. Belgarion only needed ten because Belgarath was in charge and too busy getting drunk and banging wolf-ladies.

Arakasi retires because he got stabbed in the head and would be too recognisable. The title with marriage was just a nice way to reward/dump his scarred ass.

[Abyss]

Re LOW TOWN / STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE...

Macros, on 19 February 2019 - 05:07 PM, said:

Abyss, on 08 February 2019 - 04:15 PM, said:

So i enjoyed the hell out of that book. It moved well, had a fun anti-hero, good setting, not wildly original but very well realized.
The 'big twist' was obvious, even predictable, but nicely done and logical.

I would have grabbed, immediately, the second and third earbooks for immediate consumption.

...Except that they don't exist. Only the first book got the earbook.


I AM SO VERY VERY PISSED.

Man up and dead tree it or ebook them.. so very worthwhile

I will ebook, but it's going to take ages to finish them, and i wanted to jump right in and enjoy.

Dead tree... meh... my dead tree efforts are more likely to sprout roots and leaves before i finish them lately.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 19 February 2019 - 08:33 PM, said:

Arakasi retires because he got stabbed in the head and would be too recognisable. The title with marriage was just a nice way to reward/dump his scarred ass.

Nah that gets brought up as a possibility after the stabbing but ultimately isn't a factor in why he resigns. That's because he no longer feels either ruthless enough or focused enough to keep his agents safe (or, unspoken but obvious from earlier in the book, cull them when necessary).


Silk would have gotten everyone killed coz, despite his badassery, he has a heart from the start.


Also I was just reading how Feist fucked up the continuity of how these books ended in one of the later mainseries books and then tried to handwave it together with a series of excuses that made the ending of this series in hindsight really depressing.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 19 February 2019 - 09:29 PM

[Zeto Demerzel]

Zetubal, on 19 February 2019 - 04:24 PM, said:

It's nice to read that I wasn't the only person to dislike She is the Darkness here. I am curious though: IIRC there were some people here who argued that BC gets progressively better with every entry. Anyone care to comment what's supposed to be good (or even great) about She is the Darkness?

Reaching here but I thought:

• It was, at least, better than Bleak Seasons (we get some new events this time instead of a rehash)
• Catcher was fairy cool
• The book had two passable plot twists in terms of Blade's 'treachery' and Sahra's fake death

Still was pretty crap, mind you. Here are my notes from way back in 2014 (yeah I'm weird and keep little notes and ratings for my reads )

Quote

Murgen, the narrator, is a whiny, self-absorbed, lazy jerk whose 'little shit' barbs grow old. All he does is feel scared, avoid fighting, sit at home, eat, sleep, bitch, call One Eye and everyone else names, secretly send a young Black Company 'brother' off 1000s of kms to send an idiotic personal message to his wife, ride Smoke, dream and whine about his Sahrie. There are *huge* lulls in the plot in between brief bouts of action. Relatively little happens for 100s of pages at times. The 'engineered' (snicker!) bamboo guns that can't miss at 14 km (?) are just plain nonsense too. A bunch of villains are captured and kept tied up instead of being offed so that they can conveniently cause trouble down the line. This is partly explained but is still dumb. And finally, the big bad villain Longshadow is a complete loser. All in all, it was a bit of a snoozefest.

[Cyphon]

Salt-Man Z, on 14 February 2019 - 06:34 PM, said:

Cyphon, on 14 February 2019 - 06:03 PM, said:

Came back to under the Pendulum Sun which is shaping up nicely.

Haven't got to Queen Mab as yet but the questions about what the hell is going on nicely. While it's a book 'about' the Fae I liked the reference to Enochian... I suspect some nice foreboding there.

Just finished the other night. It definitely took a couple of turns I was not expecting! Very good.

Agreed! Very good book but I think it would not be to everyone's taste. The gothic, fae, theology combination works well and the imagery and imagination are great. The pace can be a bit meandering at times and it felt heavy on the main protagonist's musing.

[T77]

Finished Cold Iron by Miles Cameron. It has a few things I really don't care for in books, a lot of training and duels. And while I don't like a lot of action in books and movies, I get bored, this was rather slow going. It was also a bit long and probably should have been edited down. With all that going against it, I enjoyed it. Looking forward to book 2 in September.

[Abyss]

Zeto Demerzel, on 20 February 2019 - 05:02 AM, said:

Zetubal, on 19 February 2019 - 04:24 PM, said:

It's nice to read that I wasn't the only person to dislike She is the Darkness here. I am curious though: IIRC there were some people here who argued that BC gets progressively better with every entry. Anyone care to comment what's supposed to be good (or even great) about She is the Darkness?

Reaching here but I thought:

• It was, at least, better than Bleak Seasons (we get some new events this time instead of a rehash)
• Catcher was fairy cool
• The book had two passable plot twists in terms of Blade's 'treachery' and Sahra's fake death

Still was pretty crap, mind you. Here are my notes from way back in 2014 (yeah I'm weird and keep little notes and ratings for my reads )

Quote

Murgen, the narrator, is a whiny, self-absorbed, lazy jerk whose 'little shit' barbs grow old. All he does is feel scared, avoid fighting, sit at home, eat, sleep, bitch, call One Eye and everyone else names, secretly send a young Black Company 'brother' off 1000s of kms to send an idiotic personal message to his wife, ride Smoke, dream and whine about his Sahrie. There are *huge* lulls in the plot in between brief bouts of action. Relatively little happens for 100s of pages at times. The 'engineered' (snicker!) bamboo guns that can't miss at 14 km (?) are just plain nonsense too. A bunch of villains are captured and kept tied up instead of being offed so that they can conveniently cause trouble down the line. This is partly explained but is still dumb. And finally, the big bad villain Longshadow is a complete loser. All in all, it was a bit of a snoozefest.

I agree with 2014 you. The redundant storyline we had already read once from a far more interesting pov, the reptition, the ineffective badguys, the sitting around waiting for something to actually happen. Meh.

I pushed on thru WATER SLEEPS. ended up skimming large chunks and bailing on the series.

And it's always bothered me because so many here and elsewhere who i usually agree with love the Black Company series end to end. But i just figure it's because i'm smarter more discerning deviant inadvertantly damaged their brains with invasive nanites drunk easily bored.

[Salt-Man Z]

I remember She Is the Darkness being one of my favorites, but it's been long enough that I couldn't tell you why. Water Sleeps was one of the hardest to get through, I think partly because it's such a change of pace, but also it's just a sloooow book. The concept is great, though. And it's worth it because Soldiers Live wraps the series up perfectly.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 20 February 2019 - 04:28 PM

[Macros]

polishgenius, on 19 February 2019 - 09:27 PM, said:

Abyss, on 19 February 2019 - 08:33 PM, said:

Arakasi retires because he got stabbed in the head and would be too recognisable. The title with marriage was just a nice way to reward/dump his scarred ass.

Nah that gets brought up as a possibility after the stabbing but ultimately isn't a factor in why he resigns. That's because he no longer feels either ruthless enough or focused enough to keep his agents safe (or, unspoken but obvious from earlier in the book, cull them when necessary).


Silk would have gotten everyone killed coz, despite his badassery, he has a heart from the start.


Also I was just reading how Feist fucked up the continuity of how these books ended in one of the later mainseries books and then tried to handwave it together with a series of excuses that made the ending of this series in hindsight really depressing.

There were no later books.
Everything stopped at the end of Rage of a Demon King.

There were no more books


Shut up

[Mentalist]

moved onto part 2 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe". hmm, I feel there is definitely a mafia game set up idea here somewhere. Also, will never look at lab mice the same way again.

In "The Terror", just got to a murder most foul... and I'm not sure I buy that plot development.

It's a powerful book, but also an arduous one.

[amphibian]

In She Is The Darkness, I liked the thugee cult story deepening, the movement of Morgen from unstuck in time to being more in sync with everyone else, and the dumbass shit the bad guys do because they're frantic about the events of the next book.

It works for me because much of the atmosphere is similar to my south Asian heritage.

[Tsundoku]

polishgenius, on 19 February 2019 - 09:27 PM, said:

Also I was just reading how Feist fucked up the continuity of how these books ended in one of the later mainseries books and then tried to handwave it together with a series of excuses that made the ending of this series in hindsight really depressing.

OK, I'll bite. Please explain. Or provide link.

Macros, on 21 February 2019 - 12:00 AM, said:

There were no later books.Everything stopped at the end of Rage of a Demon King. There were no more books. Shut up

Wow, that sting really hasn't faded with time has it?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 21 February 2019 - 11:27 AM

[Zetubal]

Zeto Demerzel, on 20 February 2019 - 05:02 AM, said:

Zetubal, on 19 February 2019 - 04:24 PM, said:

It's nice to read that I wasn't the only person to dislike She is the Darkness here. I am curious though: IIRC there were some people here who argued that BC gets progressively better with every entry. Anyone care to comment what's supposed to be good (or even great) about She is the Darkness?

Reaching here but I thought:

• It was, at least, better than Bleak Seasons (we get some new events this time instead of a rehash)
• Catcher was fairy cool
• The book had two passable plot twists in terms of Blade's 'treachery' and Sahra's fake death

Still was pretty crap, mind you. Here are my notes from way back in 2014 (yeah I'm weird and keep little notes and ratings for my reads )

Quote

Murgen, the narrator, is a whiny, self-absorbed, lazy jerk whose 'little shit' barbs grow old. All he does is feel scared, avoid fighting, sit at home, eat, sleep, bitch, call One Eye and everyone else names, secretly send a young Black Company 'brother' off 1000s of kms to send an idiotic personal message to his wife, ride Smoke, dream and whine about his Sahrie. There are *huge* lulls in the plot in between brief bouts of action. Relatively little happens for 100s of pages at times. The 'engineered' (snicker!) bamboo guns that can't miss at 14 km (?) are just plain nonsense too. A bunch of villains are captured and kept tied up instead of being offed so that they can conveniently cause trouble down the line. This is partly explained but is still dumb. And finally, the big bad villain Longshadow is a complete loser. All in all, it was a bit of a snoozefest.

Glad that me and 2014 you agree for the most part Not sure if I share your views on what's positive about She is the Darkness, though.
For one thing, I actually liked Bleak Seasons much better, simply by virtue of Murgen being more central to the story, more meaningful events and relations, as well as actual credible emotions on display. Sure, a gimmicky book with an unfocused plot...But still a better entry than She is the Darkness.
As for Catcher, I am fairly sure that she has no more than 2 pages of dialogue throughout the entire novel. Instead, we occasionally see Murgen dream-creeping on her when she does cliché villain stuff, and there're a couple of times when she's being chased. Not really what I'd call cool. Catcher in the first BC novel was cool...
While I did like the twists, I felt that their execution was a little wonky. As mentioned before, the foreshadowing about Blade being a double agent was fairly heavy-handed. I mean, he doesn't fight any of the important characters head on, instead focuses on religious fanatics that would've been a pain in the neck for Croaker&Co. later on, he has no reason to turn on the main characters and his friends - even dumb ol Murgen notices that this shit doesn't add up. As far Sahra...while that came out of nowhere, it really made Croaker and One Eye seem like total dickwads for not telling Murgen. And, considering that they went through the effort of hiding this twist, it feels really random and arbitrary when they just give in and are like "Yo Murgen, enough of your moping around - go watch the death of your wife. You might be in for a surprise". Like, why hide the fact when you're just gonna tell Murgen later anyway and for no specific reason...?

amphibian, on 21 February 2019 - 02:06 AM, said:

In She Is The Darkness, I liked the thugee cult story deepening, the movement of Morgen from unstuck in time to being more in sync with everyone else, and the dumbass shit the bad guys do because they're frantic about the events of the next book.

It works for me because much of the atmosphere is similar to my south Asian heritage.

Um, not sure if we're talking about the same book but in She is the Darkness the Deceivers are already reduced to like a handful of guys, most of whom are killed within the first 200 pages without a single line of dialogue. The only noteworthy remaining deceiver, Narayan Singh, also doesn't talk about Deceiver stuff but has a few lines worth of "Ohmygawd we're screwed, Kina save us", gets captured, escapes, and picks up the Daughter...but all of that happens without any dialogue by/about him. I think it's not an exaggeration to say the this book teaches nothing new about their cult.

[QuickTidal]

While on vacation I read EATERS OF THE DEAD by Michael Crichton (the book THE 13th WARRIOR is based on), and really enjoyed it. Part Arabic travelogue, part Viking exploration, part historical mystery, and part Beowulf. Just a solid little read.

Oh, and for the Black Library crew, this Friday sees the release of a full book (there were short stories) with a brand new female Commissar, Severina Raine...I like me some Astra Militarum regiments!

[Abyss]

Tsundoku, on 21 February 2019 - 11:26 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 19 February 2019 - 09:27 PM, said:

Also I was just reading how Feist fucked up the continuity of how these books ended in one of the later mainseries books and then tried to handwave it together with a series of excuses that made the ending of this series in hindsight really depressing.

OK, I'll bite. Please explain. Or provide link.

Seconded/curious.

Quote

Macros, on 21 February 2019 - 12:00 AM, said:

There were no later books.Everything stopped at the end of Rage of a Demon King. There were no more books. Shut up

Wow, that sting really hasn't faded with time has it?

It never does.

Zetubal, on 21 February 2019 - 12:07 PM, said:

...She is the Darkness. .... I think it's not an exaggeration to say the this book teaches nothing new about their cult.

About anything, really. the hints are there but it never crystallises.

[Andorion]

Reading a new book - The Gutter Prayer. So far its really good.

Weird god haunted city policed by enchanted tallow men made of wax and tallow by alchemists, PoV is an ex-noble thief and a gradually petrifying stone man - its quite entertaining.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 21 February 2019 - 03:03 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 21 February 2019 - 11:26 AM, said:

OK, I'll bite. Please explain. Or provide link.

Seconded/curious.

I read about it at tv tropes under the 'retcon' entry. Looking at it again I may have overestimated how much it does that but basically House Lujan lasts no time at all before being wiped out whereas because Feist apparently forgot she exists Kasuma pretty much must have died young.

Andorion, on 21 February 2019 - 04:38 PM, said:

Reading a new book - The Gutter Prayer. So far its really good.

Weird god haunted city policed by enchanted tallow men made of wax and tallow by alchemists, PoV is an ex-noble thief and a gradually petrifying stone man - its quite entertaining.

And the flesh-eating ghoul, don't forget him.

I just finished this today and indeed, really good. Only minor thing I'd say is that at times it could do with things maybe taking a touch longer at certain times to set things up, but minor thing.



Now really cracking into Foundryside, boy can RJB write an action scene.

[Macros]

QuickTidal, on 21 February 2019 - 02:53 PM, said:

While on vacation I read EATERS OF THE DEAD by Michael Crichton (the book THE 13th WARRIOR is based on), and really enjoyed it. Part Arabic travelogue, part Viking exploration, part historical mystery, and part Beowulf. Just a solid little read.

Oh, and for the Black Library crew, this Friday sees the release of a full book (there were short stories) with a brand new female Commissar, Severina Raine...I like me some Astra Militarum regiments!

Who's authoring? are we to expect something as wonderfully entertaining as Caine, or as Cool and ruthless as Gaunt?

[Cyphon]

Reading Altered Carbon for the first time, about a quarter of the way through, I can see why this is so well regarded and why it was picked up by Netflix too.

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 22 February 2019 - 08:03 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 21 February 2019 - 02:53 PM, said:

While on vacation I read EATERS OF THE DEAD by Michael Crichton (the book THE 13th WARRIOR is based on), and really enjoyed it. Part Arabic travelogue, part Viking exploration, part historical mystery, and part Beowulf. Just a solid little read.

Oh, and for the Black Library crew, this Friday sees the release of a full book (there were short stories) with a brand new female Commissar, Severina Raine...I like me some Astra Militarum regiments!

Who's authoring? are we to expect something as wonderfully entertaining as Caine, or as Cool and ruthless as Gaunt?

Rachel Harrison, I know nothing about her as an author.