[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 05 September 2023 - 03:08 PM, said:

, but the characters' mental health issues are by far the weakest writing, imnsho.

Agreed.

Shallan being his attempt at someone with BPD brought on by trauma as opposed to just brain chemistry shit lottery always feels so tropey and I don['t care for it. I need Shallan to become herself and stay there if she's going to be tolerable in the next book. The other two personalities need to drop if she successfully deals with her childhood trauma if that's all that's causing her mental health issues.

[polishgenius]

The Stars Undying, by Emery Robin, a space-opera telling of the story of Cleopatra and Caesar (and Mark Anthony, albeit she is a woman and this is the first part of a series so more on that later I'd imagine). There's also an avatar of Alexander the Great bouncing around for good measure.

Good stuff. The pacing is kind of odd- it begins and ends with high action but the entire middle section is spent on pretty much literally meandering around getting to know the characters- which is very well written but means there's no huge build-up of anything except in the tension of knowing where the story must in some way or another be going from the history. Still, overall it just about hangs together, helped by the characters being tons of fun.


Also started Heir to the Empire, because I haven't for aaaaaaages and I have little interested in watching Asohka but all the talk of it made me fancy some Thrawn.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 05 September 2023 - 03:37 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 September 2023 - 03:08 PM, said:

, but the characters' mental health issues are by far the weakest writing, imnsho.

Agreed.

Shallan being his attempt at someone with BPD brought on by trauma as opposed to just brain chemistry shit lottery always feels so tropey and I don['t care for it. I need Shallan to become herself and stay there if she's going to be tolerable in the next book. The other two personalities need to drop if she successfully deals with her childhood trauma if that's all that's causing her mental health issues.

Also agreed. Shallan's multiple personalities are just such a blunt take. I dislike Kal's depression story (for being overdone, not for the story itsef) but at least it reads like what it's supposed to be.

[polishgenius]

Re: your like on my comment, Abyss, at some point you should give the Machineries of Empire trilogy (and short-story-collection-that-contains-an-extra-finale) by Yoon Ha Lee a try because Admiral Shuos Jedao is in some ways very Thrawn indeed and as the series develops so do other characters prove to be, turning it into a multi-Thrawn machination battle. It's a delight.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 07 September 2023 - 02:55 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 05 September 2023 - 03:37 PM, said:

Abyss, on 05 September 2023 - 03:08 PM, said:

, but the characters' mental health issues are by far the weakest writing, imnsho.

Agreed.

Shallan being his attempt at someone with BPD brought on by trauma as opposed to just brain chemistry shit lottery always feels so tropey and I don['t care for it. I need Shallan to become herself and stay there if she's going to be tolerable in the next book. The other two personalities need to drop if she successfully deals with her childhood trauma if that's all that's causing her mental health issues.

Also agreed. Shallan's multiple personalities are just such a blunt take. I dislike Kal's depression story (for being overdone, not for the story itsef) but at least it reads like what it's supposed to be.

There is more than just the lack of viable sex and believable romance in Sanderson books...as good as he can be and as entertaining as he can write SFF...some of his stuff is just so clearly filtered thorough the Mormon upbringing and life, and all the clunkiness of his mental health allegories feel like exactly that, what his mormon upbringing taught him as opposed to reality.

[stone monkey]

QuickTidal, on 07 September 2023 - 04:08 PM, said:

There is more than just the lack of viable sex and believable romance in Sanderson books...as good as he can be and as entertaining as he can write SFF...some of his stuff is just so clearly filtered thorough the Mormon upbringing and life, and all the clunkiness of his mental health allegories feel like exactly that, what his mormon upbringing taught him as opposed to reality.

Not a fan of his. I have read a few of his books and I think they're okay, but not things I would go out of my way to read. Although I have met Sanderson (I was actually getting some books signed for someone who was not able to be in the UK at the time - because I am the best boyfriend ) and he does come across in person as someone extremely invested in, and focused on, the World Building and plot stuff to the point where he seems, if not disinterested in, then not necessarily that wedded to character as he might be. Although the venue could have been an issue; inasmuch as people at these things love to ask plot and worldbuilding questions and I expect he knows his audience. This was several years, and many books of his, ago, so he may have changed in that regard.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 08 September 2023 - 06:46 PM

[pat5150]

 butcher.jpg (330.33K)
Number of downloads: 0

This one's for Abyss!

[Tsundoku]

Pat, aren't you and Abyss both Kwee-beckers, or near enough?

I'll just leave that there.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 13 September 2023 - 06:56 AM

[Abyss]

I know where he lives.


...sort of. Within a reasonable orbital bombardment radius in any event.

[worry]

Olympian Affair? Is this a novelization of The Cutting Edge?

[QuickTidal]

That's a TERRIBLE cover. Oh gods, it makes me graphic designer eyes bleed.

And what's worse is that it's pandering to the Booktokers who read spicy romance fantasy (Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer Armintrout, ect.) as this is exactly the same type of cover design they all use. Transparent marketing pap.

Say what you will about Chris McGrath's art, but at least it's trying to do something...

[Abyss]

worry, on 13 September 2023 - 01:45 PM, said:

Olympian Affair? Is this a novelization of The Cutting Edge?

More like BLADES OF GLORY.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 13 September 2023 - 02:01 PM, said:

That's a TERRIBLE cover. Oh gods, it makes me graphic designer eyes bleed.

And what's worse is that it's pandering to the Booktokers who read spicy romance fantasy (Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer Armintrout, ect.) as this is exactly the same type of cover design they all use. Transparent marketing pap.

Say what you will about Chris McGrath's art, but at least it's trying to do something...

That's just the publisher trying to damage Pat's credibility when he's seen reading a spicy romance book.

[pat5150]

Ace have reissued the first volume with a similar cover. Though I prefer McGrath's art, I figure that it probably wasn't "steampunk" enough. These new ones are more generic, in my opinion.

As far as my credibility is concerned, according to some I never had any to begin with!

[Cause]

I read the entire 12 book series of Cradle last month. Its pure popcorn fantasy and it was certainly important that all 12 books were already out. However it provided a glorious month of reading.

Its asian inspired Wuxia fantasy I think is perhaps the right description. Not familiar with the genre very much so apologies if thats not quite right. Was just great to read a complete series again.

Although despite the series being 'complete' he appears to be following in Sandersons footsteps and is creating his own cosmere essentially. All his books exist in the same multiverse so the story isnt really done. By no means the greatest series I ever read but being able to just pick up the next book and go was great.


https://www.goodread...s/192821-cradle

[QuickTidal]

Cause, on 14 September 2023 - 11:33 AM, said:

I read the entire 12 book series of Cradle last month. Its pure popcorn fantasy and it was certainly important that all 12 books were already out. However it provided a glorious month of reading.

Its asian inspired Wuxia fantasy I think is perhaps the right description. Not familiar with the genre very much so apologies if thats not quite right. Was just great to read a complete series again.

Although despite the series being 'complete' he appears to be following in Sandersons footsteps and is creating his own cosmere essentially. All his books exist in the same multiverse so the story isnt really done. By no means the greatest series I ever read but being able to just pick up the next book and go was great.


https://www.goodread...s/192821-cradle

I own it all, but I've only read up to Book 5 so far, and yeah even though the first two books are a bit rote and pedestrian, the 3rd and beyond starts amping things up nicely. Also Will is apparently one of the most down to earth nice dudes.

I have all his other books too.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Finished the Liveship trilogy. I'm generally not all that into pirates or quasi-18th-19th century bourgeois romance novels, and I like the basic concepts of the first trilogy more (soft spot for assassins---and wolves (

Spoiler

psychic link

with cat would be more than enough material for another trilogy of trilogies... no other plot required)), but the second trilogy is much better. Major improvements in the prose, the character development, and the depth and extent of the world-building. Still a bit maudlin and predictable in places, but I didn't mind. Overall very good.


Started listening to Fool's Errand. The audiobook performer is much better than for the first trilogy, but he has a habit (especially in the beginning) of dramatically over-enunciating too many of the words and drawing out their musicality, which I wouldn't mind if he wasn't also doing it in a way that awkwardly breaks up the rhythm and the flow. And he inserts unnecessary pauses. A bit like Dylan Thomas in style, but with a regional English accent, and largely without the appealing rhythmic flow.

He gives

Spoiler

Chade

a thick Scottish accent and Fitz and the other characters so far English accents... which seems completely inappropriate. Their accents should be similar. I also don't find his Scottish accent entirely convincing, though I'm certainly no expert, and he did 'train at the Royal Scottish Academy' (but did he actually graduate, or did they fail him for not being able to do a convincing Scottish accent?... he's from York originally).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 15 September 2023 - 01:35 PM

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 15 September 2023 - 01:32 PM, said:

He gives

Spoiler

Chade

a thick Scottish accent and Fitz and the other characters so far English accents... which seems completely inappropriate. Their accents should be similar.

Especially because...

Spoiler

Chade is part of the royal family who has always lived at the keep with his younger brother King Shrewd, and the rest of his immediate family...like I could understand if Chade had been sent away young and educated elsewhere for decades and then come back...but that's not what happened. There is zero reason for him to speak in a Scottish brogue, when everyone else just speaks in aristocratic English accents. That would irritate the shit out of me.

Not to mention poorly done regional accents by audiobook narrators VERY often turn me off audiobooks....hell the narrator of the Green Rider books was SO bad that the only reason I got into the books at all was because I pushed through the physical copy and tried to forget her pronunciation and terrible accents. Another one is the Patrick O'Brian books...Patrick Tull AND David Pigott-Smith give Stephen Maturin a typical and deep Irish accent...but Maturin largely grew up in Catalonia/Spain, so his accent would not have been a full Irish accent, but rather a lilt that would show up occasionally (I think even O'Brian mentioned this while he was alive.....but then he hated the idea of audiobooks altogether) in certain words and phrases, but would not be so dominant. I don't know if Simon Vance does this on his O'Brian readings, but at the very least Ric Jerrom does not....he's the only one I can listen to do these books as a result. Meanwhile everyone thinks Tull's readings are best....it drives me mental.

[polishgenius]

Reading War of the Maps by Paul McCauley. It's a space western, essentially, where a former policeman from a communist state goes on a quest to find a criminal who has for reasons only hinted at been allowed to leave the nation, but that so far is mostly the impetus for a 'man with no name' sort of journey. It's good fun and I'm (almost) definitely gonna finish it, but it is lacking some kind of something. Dunno. I don't want to sound down on it, it's good and I'd recommend it to like most people on here. It's just entertaining rather than wowing me.


Previous to that I read Storming Heaven by Miles Cameron. Probably too far to say that wowed me either, but it does have panache. You guys would almost definitely like Cameron and his Malazan-lite ways. The premise alone (the pantheon of gods in this world are bastards so humanity rebels) should sell you tbh.

[pat5150]

Abyss, on 13 September 2023 - 01:39 PM, said:

I know where he lives.


...sort of. Within a reasonable orbital bombardment radius in any event.

Spoiler

There are more cats in this one. And there is a visit to the surface.