[amphibian]

You should keep going in The Hod King to find the equivalent of the Chain of Dogs, but with three key characters.

[QuickTidal]

Andorion, on 03 June 2019 - 04:48 PM, said:

Abyss, on 03 June 2019 - 04:22 PM, said:

Abyss, on 22 May 2019 - 02:54 PM, said:

...
Now three chapters into THE HOD KING.... it astounds me how much i enjoy this considering how little i enjoyed SENLIN ASCENDS.

So HOD KING lost me. Enjoyed part 1 but part 2...


...BOOK SPOILERS here...

Spoiler

I was good thru the Senlin chapters... enjoying the setting, the character, Senlin's quest to find his wife despite other things...
and that part ended with her thoroughly unsubtle rejection of his rescue effort... but ok, fine, that was sort of inevitable.

Then Part 2 moves to Valeta's pov... and meh. Too cutesy, too obvious, too predictable, tedious... basically so much of what i disliked about SENLIN ASCENDS. I liked Valeta back in ARM OF THE SPHINX but here i'm finding the things i enjoyed are being lost in a dull story running entirely too long.

...so given my ambivalence towards Part 2, i took a break for Mira Grants short story ROLLING IN THE DEEP, was drawn in and moved ahead to the book INTO THE DROWNING DEEP, and as i'm closing on the end of that i find myself not really wanting to go back to HOD KING vs something else.


Anyone want to argue i should give it a further chance?

To be honest I am not that compelled to even start it.

The weakness of the series IMO is the sub par worldbuilding. All the creative effort has gone into the Tower, but the Tower does not exist in a vacuum. The vacuum needs to be populated.

Yep. Book 1 didn't even impress me enough to go on to book 2, let alone book 3. It felt like the whole thing was occurring in a tiny vacuum that existed solely for the characters and nothing else.

[Abyss]

Andorion, on 03 June 2019 - 04:48 PM, said:

Abyss, on 03 June 2019 - 04:22 PM, said:

Abyss, on 22 May 2019 - 02:54 PM, said:

...
Now three chapters into THE HOD KING.... it astounds me how much i enjoy this considering how little i enjoyed SENLIN ASCENDS.

So HOD KING lost me. Enjoyed part 1 but part 2...


...BOOK SPOILERS here...

Spoiler

I was good thru the Senlin chapters... enjoying the setting, the character, Senlin's quest to find his wife despite other things...
and that part ended with her thoroughly unsubtle rejection of his rescue effort... but ok, fine, that was sort of inevitable.

Then Part 2 moves to Valeta's pov... and meh. Too cutesy, too obvious, too predictable, tedious... basically so much of what i disliked about SENLIN ASCENDS. I liked Valeta back in ARM OF THE SPHINX but here i'm finding the things i enjoyed are being lost in a dull story running entirely too long.

...so given my ambivalence towards Part 2, i took a break for Mira Grants short story ROLLING IN THE DEEP, was drawn in and moved ahead to the book INTO THE DROWNING DEEP, and as i'm closing on the end of that i find myself not really wanting to go back to HOD KING vs something else.


Anyone want to argue i should give it a further chance?

To be honest I am not that compelled to even start it.

The weakness of the series IMO is the sub par worldbuilding. All the creative effort has gone into the Tower, but the Tower does not exist in a vacuum. The vacuum needs to be populated.

QuickTidal, on 03 June 2019 - 06:01 PM, said:

...
Yep. Book 1 didn't even impress me enough to go on to book 2, let alone book 3. It felt like the whole thing was occurring in a tiny vacuum that existed solely for the characters and nothing else.

Interesting... because the setting was to my mind the most interesting thing about bk 1, and to an extent i don't really care about the rest of the world. It's there, but part of the Tower's thing is that it is self-contained.
It's even explained somewhat tho i can't remember if that was in 1 or 2.
The setting was what kept me engaged when i was down to skimming chunks of bk 1, which ended well enough to give 2 a chance and I really enjoyed 2. Now 3 is giving me more of what i didn't like.

amphibian, on 03 June 2019 - 05:43 PM, said:

You should keep going in The Hod King to find the equivalent of the Chain of Dogs, but with three key characters.

That's a hell of an endorsement amphi.

[Aptorian]

Half way into White Death. This book improves as the book goes. Right now I think it's the best of the four book, solid plot, the detective business is evolving, curiosity is making it into a page Turner.

[amphibian]

The Valeta storyline turns the cute frippery stuff into "this is inhuman". Trust in Bancroft.

[Aptorian]

Finished Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling's White Death.

I started this one somewhat unenthusiastic because of my reservations about the last book but White Death is surprisingly good. There's a lot of character stuff that shifts in this book and it feels like all this relationship dross actually paid off.

Can't wait for the next one.

Think I'm going to start The Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve.

I've heard conflicting opinions about the series but it's about roaming machine cities eating one another. I have to check this out.

[Macros]

I read the first book and stopped.

Really YA and just not very good to boot

Finished Calgars Siege last night. Solid 40K space marine action, well drawn characters, solid (if predictable in places) plot and sterling action scenes

[Andorion]

Finished Transformation by Carol Berg. This is really good stuff. Enjoyed it.

Neal Asher's Warship was very action packed and a very good setup for book 3.

Also finally finished Seanan McGuire's Middlegame. Very different, very entertaining. Alchemical twins of doom.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 31 May 2019 - 04:01 PM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 31 May 2019 - 03:30 PM, said:

Abyss, on 31 May 2019 - 03:11 PM, said:

Just finished SeanMiranin McGrantguire's short ROLLING IN THE DEEP and plunged (hee hee see what i did there) right into INTO THE DROWNING DEEP, ten chapters in now.

ROLLING is a short story, and it holds no surprises and doesn't try to... the author tells you right at the outset how the story is going to end (badly, with no survivors)... it's a gutsy way to write, but framed in the context of a 'ghost ship' Mary Celeste nautical disaster mystery type thing it works very well. Even as the story beats are predictable... you can pretty much see every violent death coming paragraphs before they happen... the author nicely reproduces that horror movie style where the viewer knows the jump scare is coming but sticks with the story anyways.

It also serves as perfect setup for INTO, where the story very deliberately follows the events in ROLLING without the foreshadowing... in effect the tension in ROLLING is even more effective in INTO because i'm wondering how/whether these characters will have better luck than the first set.

I do want to read ROLLING eventually, but I feel like INTO recapped it enough that it's not strictly necessary. (And though I got INTO for $3, I've yet to see ROLLING go under $5.) INTO is definitely awesome, though.

Yeah it's odd that ROLLING, shorter, hasn't gotten the sale treatment, and only just got an earbook like a year after INTO when the film was announced. It's variously marketed as book 1, book 0.5 and the prequel to the DROWNING DEEP series, and before recently it was virtually not marketed at all while INTO was called 'book 1'... all just confusing.

I'm only a third into INTO so i can't say whether it's worth it beyond the basics of a fun well written short story. There are a few points from ROLLING that i'm curious to see whether arise in INTO.

Just finished INTO THE DROWNING DEEP.

It's very entertaining in a slightly-deeper (heh) -than-Hollywood-movie-in-text-form kind of way.

Unlike the prequel story ROLLING IN THE DEEP, the outcome is not clearly set out... you don't know who will die from the start, and McGrantGuire gives the reader enough emotional investment in each pov character that their potential deaths and deaths do impact. At times this backfires... she falls into the trap of doing the entire character development segment in the same chapter where the character gets eaten... that's just too trite/obvious a play for reader reaction, and after a couple of these i could tell when a character was in for the stabby simply because of how much development they abruptly got. It works well for the majority of important characters tho'. Everyone ends up in jeopardy at some point and the sense that they could die works.

The plot... entertainment company that lost a research/documentary ship hunting for mermaids in ROLLING sends a second bigger better stronger ship to determine what happened to the first ship... isn't exactly subtle. It's obvious how this is going to go, but the author works with that. The base plot also helps overlook the plot holes. It's like yelling at the character on the screen in a horror movie not to go into the basement... the whole point of the story is for them to go into the basement, or here, the Marianas Trench.

There is even some science that both makes sense and isn't boring to read. And i have to give the author kudos for working in a very subtle 'save the environment' message.

Earbook narrator is generally solid minus the 'teen-age girl' voice she uses too often.

This was a fun read, worth getting if you feel like a Hollywood horror type thing about predatory mermaids.

To pick up a point raised upthread, i would say short story ROLLING IN THE DEEP is totally worth reading before INTO THE DROWNING DEEP. It helps set the stage for the longer book very nicely. It's not necessary... everything important in ROLLING is raised in INTO, but the plot points are better (deeper... hee...) with both stories behind them.

There is stuff i could criticise... one particular death is just needlessly drawn out and gratuitous to the point of being silly... but it's minor, brief, and not worth detracting from an entertaining book. It's not worth overthinking, the reader is here for a good time, not a long time.

I will absolutely read the sequel. The book has a satisfying ending but the plot hooks for another in the series are well set (hee...). Will probably see the movie,



...next, back to THE HOD KING (no pressure amphi but if it sucks i blame you...).

[pat5150]

Just finished Suyi Davies Okungbowa's David Mogo, Godhunter. Like most SFF debuts, it's far from perfect but quite original.

If you're in the mood for Nigerian god-punk, check out my review.

[worry]

Sounds good. And it's under 400 pages!

I'm currently reading The Vagrant by Peter Newman. Not my usual cup of tea in a few ways so far, but it's quick paced and pretty short so I'm still making good time. Goin' with the flow!

[amphibian]

worry, on 06 June 2019 - 01:34 AM, said:

Sounds good. And it's under 400 pages!

I'm currently reading The Vagrant by Peter Newman. Not my usual cup of tea in a few ways so far, but it's quick paced and pretty short so I'm still making good time. Goin' with the flow!

🐐

[Andorion]

Dawn of Wonder is waaay too much bread and butter fantasy for me
Bitter Twins by Jen Williams is decent, but I just don't feel hooked.

[Abyss]

pat5150, on 05 June 2019 - 10:57 PM, said:

Just finished Suyi Davies Okungbowa's David Mogo, Godhunter. Like most SFF debuts, it's far from perfect but quite original.

If you're in the mood for Nigerian god-punk, check out my review.

Nigerian god-punk.....?

NIGERIAN GOD-PUNK!!!!



SOLD.


....hey, do Nigerian gods try to get your soul's account details so you can share in a vast international spiritual enrichment opportunity....?

[pat5150]

Haven't received an email from a Nigerian god asking for my details yet, but the review only went up yesterday. What with the different time zones, maybe it will arrive later today. . .

[Aptorian]

Macros, on 05 June 2019 - 08:13 AM, said:

I read the first book and stopped.

Really YA and just not very good to boot

Finished Calgars Siege last night. Solid 40K space marine action, well drawn characters, solid (if predictable in places) plot and sterling action scenes

100 pages into Mortal Engines now.

It's decidedly YA if not outright a children's fantasy book I can confirm. I don't mind it. It's very basic in terms of plot and characters but the setting itself is so fantastic I'm happily flipping pages.

This is definitely a setting suitable for movies and videogames.

[JPK]

Andorion, on 05 June 2019 - 01:32 PM, said:

Finished Transformation by Carol Berg. This is really good stuff. Enjoyed it.

Holy crap, someone else finally found Berg! I really need to reread The Rai-Kirah trilogy, it's been like 15 years since I read them. The good news though, is that she has a bunch of other works that are pretty much all as strong as Transformation or even better (I'd skip her Bridge to D'Arnath series though, it's her early work and not nearly up to par). The covers for her novels eventually get better too.

[Andorion]

JPK, on 09 June 2019 - 06:41 AM, said:

Andorion, on 05 June 2019 - 01:32 PM, said:

Finished Transformation by Carol Berg. This is really good stuff. Enjoyed it.

Holy crap, someone else finally found Berg! I really need to reread The Rai-Kirah trilogy, it's been like 15 years since I read them. The good news though, is that she has a bunch of other works that are pretty much all as strong as Transformation or even better (I'd skip her Bridge to D'Arnath series though, it's her early work and not nearly up to par). The covers for her novels eventually get better too.

I really loved the book. I will be continuing this trilogy, I also want to read the Flesh and Bone books and the Collegia Magica series.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Gibson's Neuromancer.

[Aptorian]

How does it hold up?