[Tsundoku]

Chance, on 25 June 2020 - 04:55 AM, said:

T77, on 23 June 2020 - 03:03 PM, said:

Finished Hereticus by Dan Abnett, the third book in his Eisenhorn series. It was great!

Just finished it myself and started Ravenor directly, Abnett is playing in a different league from the rest of the 40k writers which I can only tolerate in small doses.

Yup, he's definitely the best by far of the Black Library-centric writers.

Paul Kearney is of course the best of the lot, but he does other stuff mainly and only occasionally works in other people's mileux for $$$.

[Andorion]

I just finished a very different sort of book.

The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff.

The story of 2 families from the 20th to the 21st century. It felt like haunted magical realism. We have ghosts, time travel and small scale magic.

The themes explored are heavy and serious. But I really liked it. Quiet, introspective and thoughtful, it was a nice change of space.

[Cyphon]

Finished Redemption Alley, which was a bit meh of the series. The big bad wasnt that bad and it felt wrapped up in fairly short order. Think it might be set up for other books. It lacked the tension with the main antagonist. While the series' world is quite black and white because of necessity, more grey wouldn't hurt.

Started the next one FLESH CIRCUS which starts out with a neutral hellbreed cirque du Soleil arriving which is intriguing. I'm going to finish this series but some of the writing is quite recyclable, yeah I get it's a slog for the protagonist, but doesnt mean it needs to be a slog for the reader too. Why do writers write like someone has started with book #3 in a six books series!?!? Has anyone actually done that (excluding post publication prequels)?

This post has been edited by Cyphon: 25 June 2020 - 09:11 AM

[QuickTidal]

Tsundoku, on 25 June 2020 - 06:41 AM, said:

Chance, on 25 June 2020 - 04:55 AM, said:

T77, on 23 June 2020 - 03:03 PM, said:

Finished Hereticus by Dan Abnett, the third book in his Eisenhorn series. It was great!

Just finished it myself and started Ravenor directly, Abnett is playing in a different league from the rest of the 40k writers which I can only tolerate in small doses.

Yup, he's definitely the best by far of the Black Library-centric writers.

Abnett is tops, but I also think that Graham McNeill, and Aaron Dembowski-Bowden are near his talent as well...beyond that, yes it's a small doses kind of thing. I learned that in the lesser authors doing the Horus Heresy, especially because the first two books are Abnett and McNeill, so after that things start to pale until their books come around again.

[T77]

Chance, on 25 June 2020 - 04:55 AM, said:

T77, on 23 June 2020 - 03:03 PM, said:

Finished Hereticus by Dan Abnett, the third book in his Eisenhorn series. It was great!

Just finished it myself and started Ravenor directly, Abnett is playing in a different league from the rest of the 40k writers which I can only tolerate in small doses.

I still have to finish The Magos to complete Eisenhorn, then I already have all of Ravenor purchased. Agreed, Abnett is a top writer, and not just for Warhammer.

This post has been edited by T77: 25 June 2020 - 12:31 PM

[Chance]

T77, on 25 June 2020 - 12:31 PM, said:

Chance, on 25 June 2020 - 04:55 AM, said:

T77, on 23 June 2020 - 03:03 PM, said:

Finished Hereticus by Dan Abnett, the third book in his Eisenhorn series. It was great!

Just finished it myself and started Ravenor directly, Abnett is playing in a different league from the rest of the 40k writers which I can only tolerate in small doses.

I still have to finish The Magos to complete Eisenhorn, then I already have all of Ravenor purchased. Agreed, Abnett is a top writer, and not just for Warhammer.

Kind of partial to publishing order for interconnected work so going for Ravenor before Magos.

[Abyss]

Just Finished Max Brooke's' DEVOLUTION.
It is not WORLD WAR Z with Sasquatches.
Not even close.
The style of shifting narrators, infoclips giving the reader info the main character doesn't have is there, and it works, but this is a much smaller, less epic book than WWZ. Also, slower paced. Things do not really launch until about halfway, tho the hints are clear, as is the subtitle 'THE MT RAINIER SASQUATCH MASSACRE'.

It's not a brilliant set up... introduce a bunch of normal people, isolate them, set the monster on them. That said, Brookes does a solid job of making the characters not so much likeable as familiar. If the setup drags at times, it helps make it easy to care what happens to them if if i didn't like most of them much. So when things go bad... and, of course, they do... 'massacre' after all... it held my attention. The action scenes are superbly written, gripping, 'real', and the climax is just wild.His monsters are pretty much perfect for the story. The individual characters arcs work very very well.

I have one complaint... SPOILER

Spoiler

seriously this is a major spoiler

Spoiler

don't til you've read it.... just don't

Spoiler

LAST CHANCE this utterly blows the finale and the twist...

Spoiler

The idea that Kate, having survived everything, and changed as much as she did, packs up an eight or so year old child - who just watched her adoptive parents die - and goes Sasquatch hunting with her homemade weapons is ludicrous.

I understand why its there for the purpose of the story, it's more or less explained well enough, but it makes no sense based on what she just witnesses of the Sasquatches killing everyone around her and Kate essentially getting a lucky kill in, unless we're supposed to conclude that Kate went batshite crazy, which doesn't really follow from her character shift to a tough survivor.

It's not a story-breaker, but it felt unnecessary.

Worth the money and time, just do not expect WWZ.

[Andorion]

Started Sarah Gailey's Magic For Liars.
Urban fantasy, murder mystery at a magic school. Interesting so far.

[Cyphon]

I'll be interesting to hear what you think Ando. I tried her Hippo ranching books, (who wouldn't!?) and bounced off it quite hard. Something about the writing just didnt click for me, which is a shame as I was so rooting to like it.

This post has been edited by Cyphon: 27 June 2020 - 08:53 AM

[Andorion]

Cyphon, on 27 June 2020 - 08:52 AM, said:

I'll be interesting to hear what you think Ando. I tried her Hippo ranching books, (who wouldn't!?) and bounced off it quite hard. Something about the writing just didnt click for me, which is a shame as I was so rooting to like it.

Yeah I didn't really like River of Teeth either. Idea was great, execution, not so much.

I will see how this turns out. So far its good.

[Aptorian]

40k is future/Sci-fi. Chronicles is past/fantasy. More specifically (I typed Warhammer Chronicles into a search engine) Chronicles is the books published before the Age of Sigma event, cirka 2015.

[Abyss]

Andorion, on 27 June 2020 - 11:51 AM, said:

Cyphon, on 27 June 2020 - 08:52 AM, said:

I'll be interesting to hear what you think Ando. I tried her Hippo ranching books, (who wouldn't!?) and bounced off it quite hard. Something about the writing just didnt click for me, which is a shame as I was so rooting to like it.

Yeah I didn't really like River of Teeth either. Idea was great, execution, not so much.

I will see how this turns out. So far its good.

I adored the HippoPunk, but will overlook your heretical antiHippopotamidaeist sentiments and express interest in your thoughts on the new book.

[Andorion]

Finished Magic for Liars......6.5-7 out of 10. Plot and worldbuilding have issues, writing could be better
Moving onto Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

[stone monkey]

I recently finished NK Jemisin's The City We Became. It's well written. has interesting concepts, well drawn characters, and some fairly cool set pieces, but it didn't work for me as well as it probably should have. The problem imo is that it felt just a little too on the nose for its own good.

Spoiler

the gang of boroughs are essentially betrayed to R'lyeh by Aisling, who makes her own deal with it, which, had things gone differently at the end of the book, would have allowed her to live in peace, for a time, in her own little enclave, while the others are consumed and destroyed and the newborn city killed, before the otherworldly entity proceeds to go on and destroy our universe. Aisling, the Avatar of Staten Island (Staten Aisling, get it?) is a sheltered, straight, white woman, who is the daughter of a racist cop that hangs around with alt-right types

So yeah... As extended metaphors go, that one is perhaps too strikingly blunt. It didn't put me off reading any sequels, but it did dull my enjoyment a bit.

[Andorion]

Started and around 30% into Devolution by Max Brooks.
Unlike WWZ, this is not a straight jump into the action, but I love the foreboding suspense he has built up.

One quibble though - he has included a bunch of super contemporary references. The book might not age well.

[Abyss]

Utterly thrilled to dl the earbook of Shannon Chakarabortay's EMPIRE OF GOLD, bk 3 in her addictive DAEVABAD trilo.


Had planned to start right away but Jack Campbell hooked me hard with the end of LOST FLEET BEYOND THE STARS bk4, and i need to finish out the series with bk 5 before i move on.Credit where due, this sequel series is way better than i expected.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 03 July 2020 - 02:24 AM, said:

... Campbell hooked me hard with the end of LOST FLEET BEYOND THE STARS bk4, and i need to finish out the series with bk 5 before i move on.Credit where due, this sequel series is way better than i expected.

Halfway thru this and holy flying spacefucks... Campbell is killing it with the build to this latest fleet engagement. 11 books to get to this point and he's drawing on everything... I haven't felt this level of suspense moving into a conflict in an sf book since Pierce Brown's DARK AGE.

[Abyss]

Not a Sheep, on 04 July 2020 - 12:36 AM, said:

And I legit recoil at the thought of my entry in our Forums bragging year’s end thread. It’s July and I’ve finished all of 2 books thus far only 1 of which was actually started in 2020 to.

Just end the post with 'but I had a threesome in the back of my truck', then we can all legit recoil.

[Chance]

I've tried to read Red Rising before, dismissed it as unreadable YA after only getting a little bit into it, possibly a Hunger Games clone.

After finishing it I recant it isn't high art but it is pretty damned badass after a while, it is also quite entertaining .

This post has been edited by Chance: 05 July 2020 - 09:14 AM

[QuickTidal]

Finished DRAGONS OF A FALLEN SUN by Weis & Hickman...man, I forgot what a great book that is.

I feel like the things that worked in the DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES, and were improved in the LEGENDS trilogy, are perfected in the WAR OF SOULS trilogy.

I'd also forgotten the denouement of the "Magic left with the Gods" stuff is:

Spoiler

actually the dead sucking magic and life out of the living

it's such a clever way to handle that.

I rolled straight into DRAGONS OF A LOST STAR last night.