Books (General)

[long sorrel]

I love just about every mc Kingfisher has written minus like the first 2 women in saint of steel but this one is specially good

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 1 ||"Easy, Vis. We kill a god." 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥||

SoTF 2 prediction ||praying with my soul that Vis gets a super cool magic arm in Lucieum that would be so sick||

[long sorrel]

Snake eater 13 ||oh noooo, Selena only realised now, that's awkward||

[ivory cypress]

i didn't realize at all same moment

[long sorrel]

Oooh, I had suspected

15 ||the uh ... uuuh.... things are weird||

[ivory cypress]

lotta good lines i can't share due to the swearing 😩

[long sorrel]

Technically you can 😌

16 ||idk about taking your aunt's bird lover as yours, what. This ch is going to be weird ||

[ivory cypress]

snake-eater 17 ||Father Aguirre's smile would not have shamed the Mona Lisa. is SUCH a good line omg||

[long sorrel]

Wtff 16 ||He looked very, very male. Very. Extremely. I didn’t know birds even had those parts.||

Im snickering in my bed...

This is a horror book. Kingfisher, what are you writing!

[minor sleet]

Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
||sexy djinn: give me a contract and let me off the island. Also you’re really hot
Amina, super drunk and recently divorced: no contracts because it’s a pirate ship
Djinn: can we hook up anyway?
Amina: I only sleep with my husbands
Djinn: husbands
Amina: someone I’ve had a marriage contract with
Djinn: contract you say? Ok let’s do it
Amina still super drunk: yeah ok let’s get married then have sex

Next morning
Amina, hungover: sorry about waking you, ex’s name. Wait…
Djinn, now not disguised: I was hoping you wouldn’t see me in my sexy tiger monster form. But hey, new wife who I have a contract with ||

Very funny

[long sorrel]

You know what?? Snake eater 16 ||“And you are already mated,” said Snake-Eater, in tones of deep disgust. The clicking sound started up again. “Where is he? I will kill him and it will no longer be a problem.” do in fact go ahead, then you might leave. ||

[long sorrel]

||i can only imagine the deep satisfaction of Walter actually eviscerated by a very manly feathery bird god ||

[minor sleet]

New divorce method: this guy

[ivory cypress]

snake-eater 18 ||OH my GOD!!!!!!!!!!! FATHER AGUIRRE!!!!!!!!!!!||

[long sorrel]

!!

Wtf

||“Oh my god,” she said, “you were eating bacon!” ||

This book is making me laugh so much

||“Ain’t nobody gonna eat your hams. You got no ass, Father, no matter what species you’re being.” Grandma nooo ||

[sleek jungle]

SotF general ||tbh, even with the prose version on hand, the instant I look away from the text I forget how the book spells things. My brain doesn't grok latin =(||

[ivory cypress]

there is so much good stuff in here........

the book is also really making me want some late night bacon and eggs

[long sorrel]

||please don't eat Father Aguirre, I do like him!||

[ivory cypress]

ahahaha oh my god the epilogue got me 😭 ahhhhghghhghh out of nowhere

[long sorrel]

Almost there

... but first ||Walters here as expected, being so f dismissive 😠 ||

[junior dew]

Oh do I have the book for you

[long sorrel]

Ok I'm done

[junior dew]

Not commenting on SoTF. Different book

[long sorrel]

Snake Eater all ||That was very fun, not much horror tbh, but very fun||

[wraith lynx]

I was about to be SO mad spooky omg 🤣

I was like "ain't no way you spoiled that for me" (not that you would) 😂

[ivory cypress]

i really liked that!

i wasn't expecting to like it this much

[mild lance]

Acquired!

[long sorrel]

I was expecting a bit more creepy but I'm not disappointed that it wasn't and, I loved all the characters so much ||including all the gods, not you Walter, go die.||

[ivory cypress]

yes yes yes yes

[long sorrel]

I like even her oldest books but I think the ones this year are much higher quality, like Hemlock & Silver reached quite a, height. Very curious if Daggerbound will also be this quality! I'll be fine if it isn't but you know

[marble sinew]

SotF XLIII ||The fact that Ka has set themself up as a Pharoah has me increasingly suspicious about the (seemingly) dominant religions of the various. Especially the phrase "Rotting Gods". I suspect the various Res gods do (or did) exist, but were slain in Obiteum, and thus have lost access to their eternal life magics, and are scraping by on scraps of Obiteum Magitech that's somehow leaked through (or been created by historic Synchronous fellas and/or Ka), and as such literal Rotting/Rotten Gods will come into play. Vek is probably just Ka's Luceum name.||

[ivory cypress]

finding out that daggerbound is gay DID rocket it up the tbr

not that i WAIT to read Kingfisher

[long sorrel]

I think even What Stalks the Deep has a lot better writing than What Moves the Dead and since I already loved that, I'm very happy to be noticing this

[ivory cypress]

agree

[long sorrel]

I kiiiinda was very hoping for Zale as an mc, but it'll be fine as is

[ivory cypress]

i remember leaving Hemlock & Silver going, damn, that was kinda one of her best

[long sorrel]

Yes, yes

And now we got this and damn.

[marble sinew]

And now I wait, knowing it'll be like a day or two until anyone reads this (based on reported progress)

[long sorrel]

I still liked Hemlock & Silver better, but I think that's just cause it's more my jam than this. Hemlock & Silver just hits all the right buttons

[wraith lynx]

Sharfie why are you so far ahead bud

[ivory cypress]

i guess i could read SotF next....

maybe i'll treat nameless land to being my christmas read?

[long sorrel]

We also have Wolf Worm coming out in March, we're eating so well 🙏

That one says gothic horror so I'm very 👀 about it

[marble sinew]

Well you see, when I finish one page, I tap my screen, and to my great pleasure there's another page!

[long sorrel]

Snake Eater was book 178

[ivory cypress]

i just refreshed myself on her upcoming, i'm soooooo

[long sorrel]

I have only those 2 listed. Nine Goblins is a repub right? Though I've not read it

[ivory cypress]

idk anything about nine goblins, MIGHT not pick it up since it's looking meant for littles

but yeah, wolf worm and daggerbound

[long sorrel]

Good enough good enough 👀

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 4 ||Shirtless Caeror, I cant stop winning||

[long sorrel]

It is rated as "YA or adult" 👀 so maybe i will, it sounds pretty silly which fine by me as long as its not middle grade

I don't think I'm in the mood for SotF 🤔

[ivory cypress]

i kinda need a wotm recap, i need a refresher even just on like, names

[snow vessel]

I'm just planning on rereading the last portion of wotm before I continue tbh

[long sorrel]

The acknowledgement of Snake - Eater is talking about a tiny sex swing for an owl in a zoo...

[ivory cypress]

i saw! lmaoooo

[snow vessel]

... I don't think this server was a sufficient "huh?" emote

[craggy cargo]

You could read the extra chapter he wrote as a recap!

It's a bit awkward.

But it does summarise the first book.

SotF III ||He's a horrible person by all means, but I do like Veridius. I do think his worry is genuine but he's also willing to just threaten people with murders and the like to get what he wants. There's an inherent humor to him that i find compelling.||

[ivory cypress]

i'm reading that now and i'm like. i think i just need to reread the first 😅

wotm/sotf ||oh, something about his dad opens each book... ha||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 5 ||Ooo vis mentioned his sister. One of my hopes was that a copy of her was still in one of the other dimensions, specifically cari in obitueum and Ysa in Luceium...... pleaseeee let it be true later please||

[sharp steeple]

Exordia ch3 ||"By the end it is so close that she dreams of teeth and nothing else."||
||Honeslty am not sure if this is a deliberate Destiny reference or if Seth just likes the phrase that much (like how he used the Hive name "Arath" for a Cabal general).||

[analog geode]

Reading The Running Man and wow, Stephen King really likes his slurs

[craggy cargo]

SoTF 5 ||It's funny how Res Vis is just broodily dissing Veridus while Ob Vis is hiding from flying ultra zombies.||

[craggy cargo]

Same tags ||I found that a bit weird ngl. He says that it's been a while since he thought about his sister but he thinks about her a lot last book lmao.||

[sleek jungle]

sotf general ||the book would be a lot easier to listen to if the narrator said which world the chapter takes place in. ||

[craggy cargo]

SotF general ||It may change later but early on its been pretty easy for me because of who Vis is currently with.||

[mild lance]

SotF X ||what the storms was that? I’m guessing that a hidden command in Lanistia was just activated, maybe caused by those same daggers from Obiteum? Super unexpected anyway||

SotF XI ||is Vis ever going to ask the obvious question of why Caeror isn’t synchronous?||

[rugged tartan]

Now this is a surprising one, normally when I misread an acronym, its because I know a different piece of media with a similar/the same initials, but this I'm getting something completely new... I keep reading "sotf" as "Sins of the First"

[cunning estuary]

Hmm kind of ||but while his methods are morally questionable it seems like hes the one actually working for "good" side?||

[cunning estuary]

WHAT IF ||HIS FAMILY IS STILL ALIVE AS IUNCTII SOMEWHERE||

https://tenor.com/view/copium-meme-pepe-frog-gif-26117735

Man I dont know what to believe in this series anymore

[sleek jungle]

SotF 43 ||DOGGO RECRUITED! Diago is such a sweet man-eating fluffy boy It's also kind of funny to see ResVis learn druidic will manipulation before LuceumVis ||

44 ||DAD FOUND! I hope the sisters are alive as well||

[merry galleon]

after my tests im free for about 5 months

what should I read first

option a: reread stormlight

b: read will of the many

c: malazan

[tight kindle]

b.

I'm channeling Cosmic's energy in order to say b. again and have it count as a different vote because I know what she would say

[low hill]

Read whichever one's premise sounds most interesting at the time.

[snow vessel]

That's the real answer. But if you want an "optimal" answer, wotm is the shortest option and currently getting a lot of hype, so maybe b

[old bone]

Option D. Read One Day All This Will be Yours.

Jk. Yeah what premise sounds interesting to you

Malazan is long and huge but is completed

Will of The Man is on 2nd book of trilogy. The wait might be difficult for some

Stormlight 6's 8 years away

[snow vessel]

These are all big series of big books

Therefore I propose option e:

Will of the many
Way of kings
Gardens of the moon
Will of the many
Words of radiance
Deadhouse gates
Will of the many
Oathbringer
Memories of ice
Will of the many
Rhythm of war
House of chains
Will of the many
Wind and Truth
Midnight Tides

etc. For the second half of malazan, restarting stormlight and moving on to sotf

[low hill]

That'll keep you busy until Stormlight 6 is out.

[old bone]

Is this your version of Warbreaker Order

[snow vessel]

More or less

Really the problem is that we need ten books to cycle through for each series, but wotm only has 2, so each get repeated 5 times. While stormlight gets repeated twice each

[old bone]

What if they don't like Zan

[grim veldt]

Reread Mistborn a bunch

[snow vessel]

Read wot up to Crossroads of twilight, get sad+bored, drop it

[old bone]

Or follow CoT order

[long sorrel]

I read swordcrossed and thought you got bored 😩

[old bone]

start from CoT
Then read b1-9 || as a flashback to understand what they are preparing for || and then rear KoF onwards

[long sorrel]

I was reading The Magpie Lord but, I can't believe imma say this, I think it might be a bit long? Not like "wow this drags" but hmmm

I think @tight kindle might like it, however the setting is like The Last Binding series where homosexuality is banned, probably set in the same supposed history period (ish)

The Magpie Lord general ||It seems to be a collection of stories in chronological order but I feel you could pick any one of them that's not the 1st two and read it in isolation, as in, every arch has its own complete end I'm not used to reading books like this nowadays||

OH, that's cause I got the full collection lol, okay, nvm

[cunning estuary]

SotF ch 23 ||Aequa is back 🎊 🥳 I waited so long for this 😭 im glad to hear she didn't leave Callidus for dead at the Iudiceum||

[long sorrel]

It's weird to not be able to click people's spoilers

[analog geode]

Finished The Running Man. Great, bleak book. It strikes me that Suzanne Collins must have read this before writing The Hunger Games. It’s very similar. ||The ending in particular. I really liked how King made me think he was actually going to take the deal. Maybe I was thinking of that Black Mirror episode. It was a satisfying ending, he took out the top floors, just as he wanted. But in the end, it was all pointless. Bradley likely dead, along with Richards’ family. The pollution continuing, the masses still being oppressed. Sure he took out the tower, but another will spring up in its place. ||

[craggy cargo]

SotF upto 17 ||I'm liking the triple PoVs more than i expected. I thought it'd be really off putting but the three stories are different enough to make it work. Weirdly enough I'm enjoying farmboy Vis most even though he's got the least going on. Something nice about its relatively grounded, old fantasy vibe compared to the other 2.||

||Also the audiobook narrator sometimes says warrior in the same way ultimate warrior said it and that's making me laugh. War-iughs.||

[junior dew]

43? Bruh

[long sorrel]

The pros and cons of audio

[small bloom]

SotF 10 ||What the hell is going on with Lanistia ||

[merry galleon]

@grim veldt hi do you recognize me

[craggy cargo]

SotF XIX ||This interview is giving me second hand anxiety.||

[grim veldt]

Yes
Welcome back 👋

[junior dew]

Sotf X halfway through || Feeling like the aurora columnae are related to Rez’s Ka in some way

Would be interesting if ceding gives a portion of the Will ceded to Rez’s Ka ||

[wraith lynx]

Nah I need to lock in, all of yall are ahead of me

[junior dew]

SoTF X || “Complete the journey warrior” 👀👀👀

What a chapter ||

Blowing. WoTM. Out. Of. The. Water.

(So far. Obviously we’ve only just begun)

[craggy cargo]

SotF X ||I was pleasantly surprised neither Ulciscor nor Lanistia died.||

||Killing a character like that early into the book is a pretty common trope but I think that kind of stakes raising is not needed in a book like this where the stakes are already going wild. Instead both characters have a lot to them still and can be explored a lot more.||

[junior dew]

SoTF X || Curious as to who or what is driving this. Depends on what completing the journey means. Completing the journey to join in on Ka’s hive mind? Completing the journey to Synchronization? If it’s the latter, it calls into question who is behind this controlling of Lanistia because Ka in theory doesn’t want that, at least going off of Obiteum understanding of Ka.

Unless Ka in Rez has veered off from Obiteum Ka substantially and is tired and wants to raise a successor or something 👀

There’s so much we don’t know ||

[wraith lynx]

Lemme grab this book man 🤣

[junior dew]

SoTF X + Mistborn || Could pull a lord ruler with Ka though too ||

[craggy cargo]

SotF X ||I think it's about dying and going into the other realms to fight while avoiding synchronism. I personally don't think mr Ka is Kapable of being our big bad.||

||Also I don't trust the supposedly dead mr Yusef who had all these details and whatnot.||

||In fact i don't trust Caeror either.||

[junior dew]

SoTF X || Will be very interesting to see where this all goes.

My god I already like this so much better than WoTM though. Night and day.

I know I keep saying this but my god. Finally ||

[craggy cargo]

SotF general ||I'm enjoying it at the same level but i already enjoyed book 1 a lot so it's good. I think it's definitely been a much faster opening, for sure.||

[junior dew]

SoTF general || Tbh this may have me drop WoTM down to like a 3.75 or 3.5 out of 5. With this having 5/5 potential. I’m just so glad we’re out of “guy in school” and on to the gorilla in the phone booth ||

[craggy cargo]

||I was really worried that I would enjoy one or two Vis' and be annoyed by the others but I've liked all 3, though i definitely like two more than one. It's definitely a very different story from book 1 ofc but it's working well enough for me right now.||

||The weakest Vis to me has to be Ob Vis just because I can kinda tell where the plot is going and the character work is probably the weakest there. As in there's essentially two total characters having the same conversation a lot.||

[junior dew]

|| Fair. For me so far this is the book I was expecting WoTM to be based on how it was hyped up.

WoTM to me was just so tame 98% of the time compared to what I was anticipating ||

[craggy cargo]

||Yeah, expectations play a big part here. I had zero hype for WotM, just was looking up something good to read and it was literally a Google search result and i didn't even read the premise. It'd been one of those names I'd seen recommended a lot vaguely but I knew nothing about it.||

[junior dew]

SoTF X || I think it’s possibly my favorite just because the worldbuilding has me really curious. Though this chapter just bumped Rez up a notch for me. Luceum is the least interesting so far for me somewhat but I’m still curious to see where it all goes ||

[craggy cargo]

Same tags ||I love the almost disconnect of Luc Vis. It's very typical fantasy in many ways and that's a really different direction from the wacky ways the book is going. I could read a whole different low stakes spinoff on farmer Vis doing local farmer things lmao.||

||My guy has no idea about what's going on, he thinks he's still on Res.||

[junior dew]

|| Yeah that obviously makes a big difference. My gf was the same. When I was discussing with her she made that argument essentially “imagine going in knowing nothing and having no expectations and then getting to that ending”.

Meanwhile I have watched her for years now ravenously check Islington’s blog every few months for updates on when book 2 would be out, and seen constantly from numerous people that the book is peak. ||

[craggy cargo]

Not really spoilers, just tagging cuz it's a spoilery convo overall ||And worth noting the book I'd listened to (my wife read aloud) right before this was an abysmal billionaire romance novel after some really meh grimdark stuff I'd read. So it was a real "water to drowning man" situation.||

||Wait, not drowning. That makes no sense no matter how i twist it.||

[junior dew]

|| Ahh yeah I came over from the first four Cradle books and DCC basically lol||

[craggy cargo]

||There's no good single word for dying of thirst huh. Parched doesn't quite do it.||

[craggy cargo]

Might be recency bias but I'd put WotM above both, more or less.

[junior dew]

SoTF XI || Dig the Egyptian vibes ||

[craggy cargo]

Cradle book 1 and most of 2 were just okay to me.

I started loving it from 3 onwards.

Haven't read DCC.

[junior dew]

Fair. Cradle just worked for me from the start. I would probably say book 4 is my least favorite of the first 5 overall maybe?

[wraith lynx]

Cradle propaganda breaking containment

Spooky did nick put you up to this 😂

[craggy cargo]

I'd say overall aside from rereads WotM is the best fantasy book I've finished this year, but it's like winning a grand slam in 2025 if Sinner and Alcaraz are both out.

[north scaffold]

Cradle good.

[craggy cargo]

I've just had a terrible reading year.

Until WotM my twentieth reread of Leave it to Psmith was probably the most enjoyable read.

[junior dew]

Nah it’s just peak

[wraith lynx]

Every day someone tells me cradle is peak

[craggy cargo]

Oh, Isles too. I think of Sanderson books as their own thing for some reason.

[junior dew]

Join

Granted I’m only on book 6 of Cradle

[craggy cargo]

Cradle is really good for sure. It contains one of my favourite characters of all time.

I started reading it a few years ago, got to book 8 or so and got massively spoiled and that killed my motivation for a while. Will finish it someday.

[junior dew]

Realm of the Elderlings definitely holds my favorite characters

[craggy cargo]

I like the artistry of RotE but I really dislike the characters just because my reaction to their choices isn't a sense of, well, (RotE general) ||tragedy, I just get annoyed at them and that takes me out of the story.||

||They, to me, are horror movie logic characters in a drama heavy fantasy book.||

[junior dew]

RoTE general || Huh. Ngl I didn’t feel that way at all.

Like I know that some dumb decisions were made. But I think the characters felt so real. So human. Often flawed, but I could understand based on who they are and their background and how they think why they would do what they did.

I love those characters. Even when their decisions frustrate.

16 books (kinda) and I still wish I had more time with those characters. ||

[craggy cargo]

||I can definitely see that perspective, but I also just have a very low tolerance for trope unawareness and character stupidity in general. I also don't like any of Shakespeare's tragedies aside from hamlet from because of this. Hamlet works for me because he's very trope aware and that's his downfall.||

Do I have to tag Shakespeare spoilers?

[junior dew]

Fair! Anyways I need to bounce. Work to do. Spent too much time talking here and not enough time progressing on reading 😭

[sleek jungle]

To me, RoTE read like misery porn. If I didn't know better, I would say the author enjoyed kicking the characters further and further down

[junior dew]

I truly never felt that way tbh

[sleek jungle]

[small bloom]

SotF general (I’ve read up to 17) ||I’d say Luceum > Res > Obiteum right now but yeah I’m glad I enjoy all 3 because it’s always annoying when a book switches back to the POV you don’t like ||

[craggy cargo]

Yeah, I'd say i broadly feel similarly.

[craggy cargo]

I'd agree completely to this.

Elantris spoilers ||The last book with the three POVs structure I remember reading was Elantris and i really didn't like that either.||

[sleek jungle]

SotF general ||my favorite pov switched a few times by now (I'm at 46 rn)||

[craggy cargo]

So this was a pleasant surprise.

[small bloom]

Elantris ||Yeah I wasn’t a huge fan of the structure especially since it was always (or at least very often, don’t remember exactly) Raoden chapter -> Sarene chapter -> Hrathen chapter so you knew what to expect||

[tight kindle]

I went to put it on my TBR and it's there already

[marble sinew]

SotF 55 ||And thus began the collapse (maybe reforging) of the Catenian Republic.||

[long sorrel]

hah!

[long sorrel]

it has some nice... stuff you'll like 👀

[royal carbon]

I did acquire SotF yesterday but I have like 4 other books to read first.

[long sorrel]

I am so not in the mood for it lol

[wraith lynx]

Tbf it did come out yesterday so theres no rush

Im just feinding

SoTF 8 ||I am absolutely butchering the Luceium speak omg 😭||

[idle trellis]

So, if it's will of the many, strength of the few, what's the third book gonna be called

[ivory cypress]

[x] of the one?

[idle trellis]

It must be a virtue, in place of x right

[ivory cypress]

yeah

[idle trellis]

Wisdom of one ?

[wraith lynx]

I see Power of One thrown around a lot

[long sorrel]

I do not like that

[wraith lynx]

I can see why, im not the biggest fan either

[alpine drum]

Sounds like a 1980s rock ballad

[long sorrel]

it sounds lame, that's what

Wisdom of One sounds slightly forced but not that bad

[alpine drum]

Virtue of the One has the best mouth feel of the titles suggesred

[long sorrel]

I think Teddy means "the word must be a virtue type of word" and not the actual word "virtue"? Or so I understood

But also well, I suppose depends what the book is like

[marble sinew]

SotF general ||Depending on how things go, I could see it bucking the trend and being Unity or Division of One. Or Concurrence||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 9 ||Pissed Ulciscor... I cant stop winning||

||Also lani is getting headaches..... that has def something to do with the whole "vis getting copied into alternate dimensions" thing||

[cunning estuary]

Agreed (SotF 17) ||Normally in multi-POV books, there is at least 1 POV where when it starts im like "oh brother can we please get back to the good part???" But in this book im genuinely excited to read every chapter||

[cunning estuary]

SotF X ||IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO LANI IM GOING TO SOB||

[wraith lynx]

Hang on yall im comin 😂

[cunning estuary]

||Man I feel like I cant trust anything anymore in this book...||

[cunning estuary]

I agree here just because ||at this point Obiteum only has like, 1 real non-Vis character. It severely needs to expand it's cast||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 10 ||Okay... so lani got hyper possessed. Thats not great. definitely has something to do with the wonky dimension stuff.

But also.... Vis didnt cede 👀👀👀👀 his wonky bonky Will sense came back though, curious 👀👀👀||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 10 ||Yeah, it sucks but the fact that I dont know what anyone is saying in Luceuem takes me out of it a bit, but I expected Rez to be the least interesting and thats defo not true anymore 😂||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 11 ||Caeror is so funny, vis says he thinks caeror has been saving jokes for people who pass into Obeitum and I fully believe him 😂||

SoTF 11 + MB era 1 ||If I had a nickle for every time there was a ruler/god antagonist whos priests held power over the people...... id have two nickles. 🥴||

[cunning estuary]

SotF 26 hahahaha ||when will these idiots learn to stop challenging (or accept challenges from) Vis ||

||Haha you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this: never go in against Catenicus when (checks notes) literally anything is on the line!||

[ivory cypress]

@long sorrel went and got bacon and eggs special for tonight

[long sorrel]

Maybe I get that tomorrow after gym

[ivory cypress]

ayyy

[ripe tide]

Is there a series name for Will of the Many/Strength of the Few?

[marble sinew]

Just call the hypothetical thread Islington Station, and we can tie Licanius into it too

[versed agate]

is there enough discussion outside of book releases?
Spiders Cosmic is an outlier and should not be counted

[proper silo]

an advantage of forum threads is that we can retire and then reactivate them pretty easily, so it's not a real issue if the hypothetical WotM/SotF thread is only highly active for a short while

we did the same with MonHun

[versed agate]

what I should say is I didn't think discussion had been overwhelming enough to encroach on other topics and require its own space

I wouldn't have thought a thread was in the offing except that several mods have asked suspicious questions about it

[junior dew]

That was my initial thought but I don’t like it either. I think *something of One though for sure

[junior dew]

Hierarchy

[wet belfry]

Knowing basically nothing about the series but the naming convention "Voice of the One" has always struck me as the most likely

[tight kindle]

Ohhhhh I like that a lot

[proper silo]

so like, what are those books about? I've read the synopsis, but all I gathered is that it's another one of the "hero who hates the government joins the government academy to infiltrate the System" stories that seem to have been dime a dozen lately 🤔

and something about magic system that drains willpower out of people

which i suppose is where the title comes from

[tight kindle]

The way I like to describe the first book is that on the surface it is that dime a dozen story.
However, periodically through the book Islington peels back a layer of the story and reveals an entire (kinda terrifying) world underneath that plays on completely different rules. Then he smooths the story over that and then continues on again

[proper silo]

huh 🤔

oh, right, it's Islington

[versed agate]

pretty much everything about that description is wrong, but it gets into spoilers to explain why

[tight kindle]

It's a pretty well written "hero infiltrates the academy" story imo but it was the glimpses into the actual plot that kept me hooked

[proper silo]

i think the only thing i read of him was The Shadow of What Was Lost and inasmuch as that had an interesting premise, the character work has failed to get me invested enough to pick up the sequels

i assume from the mass fondness everyone here seems to have for WotM that that got better? 😅

[tight kindle]

Character work is not his strong suit
But it definitely is better in WotM. Not amazing still, but better

[proper silo]

also, the Polish cover gave me a flashback to what book covers here used to look like in like late 90s-early 2000s

something about the artstyle

well, regardless; might pick it up after i'm done with the three most imminent books on my to-read

[alpine drum]

Borat voice "wola wielu"

[junior dew]

Book 1 : Guy in school
Book 2: RAFO to the max

[proper silo]

Not sure how to feel about how you're roughly 3.5 thousand kilometres off target with that choice of voice

[sleek jungle]

A bit of a hot take
As of a little bit further than halfway through SotF, I would still say the Licanius books were more interesting and impactful for me than WotM and the sequel. I assume most people will disagree, but for me, as a plot reader, the mysteries and reveals and so on were significantly more engaging than in the Hierarchy books thus far.

[wet belfry]

I liked Licanius a lot and the little I know about Will of the Many indicates to me that it would be very much not for me

[wraith lynx]

I love being an outlier!! XD

https://tenor.com/view/eevee-jumps-gif-2696845723667273642

Also I will say SoTF has been 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 COOKING with a capital C

Ignore that im not even 15% into the story

Id be further ahead if a certian someone didnt scramble my brains into mush but thats besides the point, im having fun 🥰

[snow vessel]

I'm sure there's another way to take that but it sounds like you got attacked

[marble sinew]

Alright, book done, book good, now everyone else hurry up so I can talk about it

[cunning estuary]

SotF Ch 33 end
||Vis: "Are you suffering?"
Anguis member: "Yes"
Vis: "Good"||

https://tenor.com/view/ufc-joe-rogan-knocked-out-gif-21306265

||THATS RIGHT VIS LET HIM KNOW||

||I'm actually crying rn though, Callidus was protecting Vis as he died||

I love Callidus so much...

[wraith lynx]

My friend got me a birthday gift! It was another copy of SoTF, omg 🤣

I really am the WoTM girl arent I

Good, that means im doing my job

[quaint burrow]

Now it is your duty to convince every single close person to you to read SoTF

[marble sinew]

Embrace your inner Chaos Goblin and only lend out SotF, never WotM

[quaint burrow]

Glares at Libby

8 weeks wait

[wraith lynx]

Thats what ive been doing!! XD

"Its so peak and I cant even tell you why" is what I just told a friend

[snow vessel]

I do find it funny how hard (i assume) it is to pitch SOTF because of [wotm vague] ||how massively the ending of bk1 blows up all expectations||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 12 ||Caeror is so funny. Hes like "yeah that sucks that this random zombie dude is scared but like.... you did a good job vis! :D"

Vis, visibly concerned: ||

[marble sinew]

Oh, huh, I could've sworn I'd read somewhere authoritative that this was going to be a trilogy...

[wraith lynx]

QUARTET?? we are so back guys

[snow vessel]

Does that mean book 4 will be "[x] of the none"

-# strength of the few, wisdom of the fewer, power of the fewest

[quaint burrow]

....... Are you sure it just wasn't me saying it? I'm Authoritatively attituded adam

[snow vessel]

I wonder if James Islington pulled a RR/Locked Tomb and split book 3

[junior dew]

SoTF XVI all || Blackmail oooo. Fun.

Also mech arm incoming? 👀 ||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 12 ||Yipee, the bean room! XD||

[junior dew]

Well whether a quartet or trilogy were all going to be stuck waiting for the next book for a few years

[junior dew]

Honestly part of me in the past day was like “would this series be better if you started on book 2 and pretended book 1 didn’t exist?” 👀

[wraith lynx]

WoTM all ||I personally dont think so and yes its because I liked it when vis put belt to ass on various people, my lil crashout ||

[quaint burrow]

We should do a social experiment

[junior dew]

Yeah I mean ultimately I do think that certain background and character foundational stuff built in book 1 is valuable.

That said part of me does wonder if you could just cut a lot of stuff out of book 1 and tack it onto the front of SoTF and call that part 1 😂

Mostly kidding. Kinda

[snow vessel]

Can you imagine how much more insane the epilogue of wotm would be as the end of part 1

[junior dew]

WoTM all || It’s tricky because so much of WoTM is just “overly competent guy in school climbing the ranks with each ‘obstacle’ barely being an obstacle and reluctantly making friends with people from a society he loathes”. And that all feels like “seen that a thousand times before” stuff. But then you get the intermittent hits of the good stuff that’s interesting ||

[snow vessel]

WOTM all ||you get 1 part of school spy mission and then suddenly boom multiverse||

[junior dew]

Might want to clarify WOTM all there

WoTM all || But yeah tbh I think WoTM would land much weaker as a book if not for the epilogue. I really do feel like it’s like a small handful of scenes and the epilogue that carry the whole book ||

[snow vessel]

WOTM all ||I mean, I personally really quite enjoyed all of the book, but I think the ending (espec. the epilogue) definitely helped carry it into the like... top tier status||

[wraith lynx]

WoTM all ||this is so funny because im on the other side of this where if I see "scorned victim of oppression infiltrates the school of the elite to topple the oppressive regime" im gonna go YIPEE 😂 but without a doubt, the cave/ruins chapters were the best by a lot, and the ending||

[junior dew]

Wotm all || And the colosseum scene ||

[snow vessel]

WOTM all ||Honestly I'm a simple man and enjoyed all the school stuff just for its own sake ||

||I kept going "awh man, plot?" when we switched to ruins scenes and then "awh man, school?" when we went back to the school xD||

[junior dew]

WoTM all || Fair! I think the school trope is just not my thing as much these days. That or the character work is just not strong enough to knock it out of the park ||

[marble sinew]

WotM all ||TBH, I kinda feel like the weird magic stuff works all the better because of the juxtaposition against the school ladder and training arcs||

[junior dew]

Wotm all || Yeah again, I think it’s just a matter of expectations too.

Like it’s funny how the more I read SoTF the lower my opinion of WoTM gets just because of how big the chasm is between the two in terms of personal interest in what’s actively happening. Given that SoTF is the level of book I was expecting going into WoTM just based on context-less hype ||

[cunning estuary]

I meannn I really liked this part of WotM LOL

I did have a similar thought regarding the structure earlier though

Like what if (WotM + SotF structure spoilers) ||we started on a book with 3 seemingly unrelated stories in different settings and THEN at the end of book 1 its revealed the protagonist of all 3 books was the same person the whole time||

[junior dew]

Wotm All || That’s also why I mention the gorilla in the phone booth thing.

The entire time we were in school I was just like alright can we please get back to the compelling mysteries/what my brain flagged as the “real” plot ||

[cunning estuary]

I dont think that would've made the story better but it would be interesting at the very least

[junior dew]

Oh do I have the book for you. But I can’t recommend it because it would be a spoiler

[cunning estuary]

...

Tragic

[wraith lynx]

I also have a book for you and its called Red Rising :3

[cunning estuary]

What if you reccommended it anyways tho 👉 👈 🥺

[junior dew]

As soon as Red God release date is in sight

[snow vessel]

2026 🙏

[wraith lynx]

Of course I would!! its only the peakest thing ive ever read in my life 😌✨️

I even convinced my bf to get it yesterday

[snow vessel]

-# peakest thing implies Cosmic finds it more peak than wotm... is that possible?

[junior dew]

I can’t in good conscience do that because said book is just too good

Ruining it would be criminal

[snow vessel]

Spooky what if you recommend 3 books

And then its not clear which is the one

-# (this would almost certainly not work)

[junior dew]

It would be too obvious for sure

Probably

[marble sinew]

WotM all, SotF Very Early ||Oh man, how funny would it have been if the books were written like they were the 3rd-party stories of a man called Caeror and people's attempts to figure out who he was/what happened to him, and at the end of book 2 we discover it's protagonist's name is also Diago "Vis Catenicus Tellimus" son-of-Cristoval||

Just have some give Robin an amnesiac concussion then wait 3 weeks and give a blind recommendation with no context

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 13 ||If you told me L-Vis was gonna play Irish stardew valley I would not have believed you and yet here we are||

[junior dew]

Wotm all + SoTF first 5 chapters || I will say part of why I think wotm’s school stuff may have not worked for me as well due to the character work is because Callidus dying didn’t make me feel anything. Wasn’t until a scene in SoTF where I actually felt anything about it.

And the thing was I liked his character well enough. I feel like that death should have gutted me but it just… didn’t? Like I don’t have any characters I’m particularly attached to at all. Eidhin probably is the one I have the strongest attachment to? ||

[craggy cargo]

SoTF XX ||I really like the Latifundia angle Vis is going with.||

||This was a real and massive problem in irl Rome.||

||And a big part of what brought down the republic was exactly what Vis is doing.||

||Populist but rational politicians took up the cause of the common people in terms of taking a stand against the Latifundi. A famous case being the Gracchi brothers. And they got thoroughly murder-ized for it.||

||This was a recurring theme in most civil wars and the big thing Caesar got in trouble for was pushing land reform by, in part, having poop throw on Bibulus, his co consul.||

||That was what began the chain of events where the Senate constantly wanted to put him on trial and he didn't want to give up imperium(which included immunity from criminal acts) which eventually led to the crossing of the Rubicon.||

||Including it in this situation is pretty neat.||

||I wonder if Sextus Aquila happens to be a reference to Pontius Aquila, by any chance.||

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 44 ||Shen Qiao: "You're my friend!"||
||Yan Wushi: ....... (yan_wushi.exe has stopped working)||

||I wonder if he's more stunlocked by the idea that someone would want to be his friend with no hidden agendas, or that the guy he's been trolling for the last 44 chapters sees that trolling as a prelude to a friendship||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 16 ||Now Missa.... in what world do you think Vis is just gonna..... GIVE you hid Will?? You stabbed him and broke my son's heart!!! The red flag is flagging||

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 45 ||Ah, the actual answer to my wondering was "stunlocked cause he was planning how to make absolutely dead certain Shen Qiao would never see him as a friend again" 😒 ||

||Yan Wushi, my guy, I better see some absolutely top tier grovelling by the time you get around to falling for the guy you just sold into slavery 😤 ||

[cunning estuary]

SotF 16 ||To be honest I do feel bad for Emissa, she truly did what she thought was best||

||And I think its clear she did and still does genuinely love him||

||that being said Aequa is way cooler than her, has better chemistry with Vis, and is also one of the few people I think he genuinely trusts wholly||

||So regardless of what's going on with Emissa I ship Vis with Aequa instead. But I do feel a bit bad for Emissa||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 16 ||speaking of my queen.... where the hell is she??? 😂 Shes in Governance so shes gonna show up eventually but I miss my girl ||

[cunning estuary]

I assume thats a rhetorical question?

Or did you actually want an answer

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 16 ||I do feel bad for missa, yeah, but...... mmm. You cant do my son like that 😒||

[cunning estuary]

||I did a search for her name on my ebook around this point because I was getting impatient and wanted to know when she would show up ||

[wraith lynx]

Valid, honeslty

[sleek jungle]

sotf 16 ||some mistakes you can't take back||

[cunning estuary]

SotF 16 ||True. What she did was logical at the time and I dont really blame her. But it also did indirectly cause Callidus's death and nearly result is Vis's death too.||

||and even if Vis understands logically why she did it, the trust issues are gonna be hard to overcome||

[wraith lynx]

SoTF 16 ||lowkey if she goes on a generational run to earn that trust back, im flying to Australia to thank Mr James personally||

||also Eidhin my goat, he is a real one omg||

||Also also... METAL ARM VIS??? please please I beg itll be so cool omg||

Favorite chapter so far

I should sleep now byt I stand by what I said, its COOKING 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[proper silo]

Hey folks! Given the rather massive influx of people reading Strength of the Few over the last few days, we've decided to create a temporary thread for all your liveblogging and discussion needs: #1438404310429073489 (very concise, we know). Please feel free to take all your discussion of the books there.

[untold leaf]

I just saw that right before the announcement, hehe. This channel was being overwhelmed.

[wraith lynx]

Yipee, containment!! XD

[untold leaf]

I look forward to joining the conversation when I get ahold of a copy of WotM again.

Until then, I've passed the halfway point of Avatar; City of Echoes. CoE 29 + ATLA Season 2 finale and Season 3 beginning ||At about the halfway point of the book, it covers the fall of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation storming the streets of Ba Sing Se. This is right about where we see the third season begin, and we even see Jin (the girl who went on the date with Zuko and the main character of this book) at the beginning of that episode. Because we didn't see much of Ba Sing Se after that, I'm interested to see where the story goes from there. This is now unknown territory.||

[ripe tide]

I have a problem. I really want to go back to ADoW but I have so much to read between class and the other library loans and holds I have so I can finish things.

So I kind of decided to listen to World of All Souls which is the only one I haven’t read, as a little thing to tide me over.

[grim veldt]

[RR 1] || Helldiver, lol
Also, Darrow does not seem fond of his uncle, or the other men on his crew
He will make a fine revolutionary! Plenty of rage and hatred, yes, and passion. But who'x to say if he'll last? Such fires burn quickly. ||

[snow vessel]

RR 1/slightly series gen ||that's such a spot on darrow-take that I'm unsure whether or not it's a quite from the book xD||

[craggy cargo]

I first read that as A Dream of Winter and was so flabbergasted.

[ripe tide]

Mixing two titles too. Dream of Spring and Winds of Winter.

[craggy cargo]

Exactly. I was like, wait did george announce a plan to recompile them into one book again? And i was actually excited for one second.

[snow vessel]

I think I might read ADoW as my next book

Assuming I've got the acronym right

[ripe tide]

Oooo do tell me what you think. I’d appreciate a tag for anything All Souls.

[snow vessel]

I'll do my best to remember

I've requested it from a library, so I'll probably read it between MT and SOTF

[grim veldt]

|| It's not, I'm just being poetic
Funny to know that I immediately pegged this man's character ||

[quaint tendon]

This inevitable ruin 51-52 || jfc Lee Na….||

https://tenor.com/view/big-oof-size-small-medium-switch-gif-17355313

[merry galleon]

tips on healthy reading?

i have a problem with addiction

[merry galleon]

Read until your eyes fall out

[merry galleon]

Do books, not drugs

ayo

addiction to books lol

[merry galleon]

Still stands

When I start a good series I abandon everything—showering, sleeping, eating

[long sorrel]

do your obligations before reding if you can't stop

set alarms, make sure you eat, drink, etc

[wraith lynx]

Seconding the alarms thing. A lot of the time what happens is you lose track of time because youre so engrossed, so forcing yourself to havw reminders should at least help prevent that

[minor sleet]

Went from reading the Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, where the cursing and insults are creative, old fashioned/archaic, customized to the person, and funny to reading a modern romance novel where the cursing/insults are like someone on twitter trying to be funny and combine random words together to make new obscenities but it doesn’t work

Hell of a down grade

[long sorrel]

Chakraborty is that good

I really ought to get onto Amina

oh book 2 is may 16th, I'll try to slip 1st book before then

[minor sleet]

Yes you want to read Amina it is so good

[long sorrel]

I sure do

[random dome]

I need to read it still toooo

Technically I'm still only halfway through River of Silver though 😅

[long sorrel]

Well, that one doesn't feel very mandatory given how conclusive the trilogy is

though some stuff had me going

[mossy gyro]

I really gotta get to Kingdom of Copper but audiobooks are expensive

I neeeeeeed answers after how City of Brass ended

[long sorrel]

yes yes you do

[junior dew]

Gah I need to read City of Brass still. SoTF and Cradle first. Maybe I’ll finally do it after

[mossy gyro]

Oooo Cradle

[junior dew]

Yeah I’m in the middle of book 6

Paused for SoTF

[mossy gyro]

I gotta at least finish my last haul first. Just finished Emberdark which was incredible, and already finished another 40k book I got. Still have Black Company

Actually I might start that later today since I'm caught up on all my podcasts too

[random dome]

yesss more daevabad readers 🙏

[long sorrel]

We will get cosmic on that eventually

I'm sure

[random dome]

Folk of the Air first!

we can't split the streams

[merry galleon]

hmm

[long sorrel]

oh yeah, but we got her in in this one now 👀

[junior dew]

Eventually! Been high on my TBR for a while now

That and The Cruel Prince. And about 500 other books and series surely

[random dome]

yessssssssssss good picks, good

[junior dew]

Gotta see what TCP hype is all about

[wraith lynx]

The hype is real spooky

If the SoTF demons didnt drag me away I would have kept going

[random dome]

As someone now 1/3 of the way in, was the hype overblown?

[long sorrel]

Surely we wouldn't... right, Feather? We are perfectly normal about it.

[random dome]

(we need the testimonials from our new converts)

[long sorrel]

https://tenor.com/view/bunny-cute-animal-glass-gif-9619190

[wraith lynx]

No!! I really adore it, despite me coming to realize (TCP) ||I dont think I like enemies to lovers? Either that or I just cannot stand cardan 😂 like, why do you hate that you like this queen who stands on buisness?? But my adoration and love for jude kinda trumps how much I dont like some characters 😂||

[long sorrel]

This seems pretty normal

like ||Cardan has had no character arc or just nothing going for him except being down bad for our Queen (which like, )||

||he's just an asshole with a tail||

[wraith lynx]

Tcp ||Dont get me wrong, I get why. I empathize and all that but its still annoying!! 😂 like i hope in the next book jude punches him in the face or somethinh cause if she wont I will||

[random dome]

I am very interested in how you're going to react to TWK 👀

[long sorrel]

Oh, like, ||he's inexcusable whatever his reasons, even if we can understand||

[long sorrel]

||She did one better, she made him a promise then punched a crown on his head even though she controls everything he does and says , literally, Queen. ||

[wraith lynx]

Speaking of peak

TWK up to 6 ||I love her controlling him, even if him refusing to be even a decent king pisses me off but thats the point 😂||

[merry galleon]

hmm

[random dome]

you've hmm'd twice so far, did you have something you wanted to add?

[merry galleon]

just contemplating on whether to continue reading will of the many or restart from the beginning since its been a few months

leaning towards restarting because I only read a few chapters

that was the second hmm

the first hmm was contemplating on what usha and cosmic said

alarms sounds like a good idea

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 54 ||Chapter title: "Yan Wushi's Death". GOOD.||

||Stay dead for a little bit and think about what you've done 😤 ||

||(reading this genre has taught me better than to expect that the death will stick, so no worries, he can still grovel to Shen Qiao later)||

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 54 ||The chapter ends, and Yan Wushi still isn't dead 😒 I have been scammed. Scammed, I tell you!||

||(it was a really good fight scene, tbh, like one of the better ones in this endless barrage of fight scenes)||

[merry galleon]

Anyone here enjoy the Sword of Truth books?

[versed agate]

For a time, at the time

[minor sleet]

No. But I read them all anyway and enjoyed mocking them to my friends

[minor sleet]

Can’t keep him down!

[hollow hedge]

yeah, I read some of them like 20 years ago, I liked them at first but by a certain point I was just not happy and eventually stopped entirely

[merry galleon]

Tomorrow is the day! Sigra’s Roost by TD Orel is available on Amazon to be bought.

[proper silo]

Not if Shen Qiao has anything to say about it, I guess

(he is a better man than me)

[merry galleon]

That’s unfortunate. I very much enjoyed the series.

[merry galleon]

He made a questionable choice to have a book smack dab in the middle of the series feature 0 of the main characters until the last eighth of the book.

[mossy gyro]

Black Company ch 1 ||okay I did not have vampire wereleopards on my bingo card||

[long sorrel]

I hate that every time one of the forums gets a new post, it makes the forum start giving me notifications for posts having new messages for a few days, like every time without fail

[terse flax]

I heard the writer was controversial, so I’ve kinda avoided them.

[merry galleon]

Idk about any of that, I just like the books.

[minor sleet]

If you define “controversial” as a devoted Ayn Rand fanatic who looked down on other fantasy authors and put his femdom & BDSM fetishes into his works while ripping off Robert Jordan and later mocking him while Jordan died of blood cancer, sure

[merry galleon]

So you don’t like him. That’s neat.

The books are great though.

[terse flax]

That’s basically it. I’ll read his books someday, but I’m fine with taking my time with authors that I really want to read for now. 😁

[merry galleon]

That list has also become ridiculously long for me 🤣 even just Sanderson is like 15 books

[mossy gyro]

I'm sorry what's that last part?

About Robert Jordan

[terse flax]

For Sanderson, I officially have two more books to read in the Cosmere and that’s basically it until 2028.

[ripe tide]

RJ had a very rare illness which he died of, and Goodkind made some very rude comments while RJ was struggling with that.

[minor sleet]

From Jordan’s final blog post. I am unable to track down Goodkind’s comments, so they may have been verbal or simply lost to the ether since 2007 https://dragonmount.com/blogs/entry/379-a-very-quick-check-in/

[quaint tendon]

My friends grandfather actually died of the very same disease

It’s part of why he feels such a strong connection to Wheel of Time

[merry galleon]

Nice! On the contrary I’m 2 books IN to my Sanderson adventure 😮

[vital ibex]

My grandfather passed from amyloidosis too last year

[minor sleet]

Jordan also goes on to mention he is displeased with Red Eagle (now Iwot) in this post. Because sometimes things don’t change

[merry galleon]

There is a third option…

It also seems unlikely that Goodkind mentioned his heart being in good condition, as he has long stated that his heart was in condition where he could have died at any moment

[terse flax]

Nice, I envy you. Which books have you read?

[merry galleon]

Dragonsteel Prime and Elantris. Though I read the first ~10% of Tress a while ago before I got sidetracked

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 59 ||Have you ever gotten a head injury so bad, your personality turned into a playlist on shuffle mode? ||

||I kinda agree with Shen Qiao though, genuinely nice Yan Wushi is creepy af||

[merry galleon]

Now working on Warbreaker

[terse flax]

I’ll read the Prime books at some point. I feel less enthusiasm to read those, because they’re not canon. But it’s intriguing to read a “What If” scenario. 😁

[merry galleon]

I had a long drive and that was the only audiobook version I had, so I played through the first 10 chapters, then went back to the book and started reading it through

[minor sleet]

||Concussion is the only way to make area man behave ||

[terse flax]

Nice! I have the audiobook on YouTube, and I own the book. I got it through the Words of Radiance Leatherbound kickstarter. And to me, Words of Radiance is the greatest fantasy book ever written. I was just pumping my fist in the air during every big moment in that book.

[merry galleon]

I think I got it along with the Emberdark kickstarter, but then I saw that the audiobook was free on Sanderson‘s site so I got that

I am excited to get to the Stormlight archive though!

[terse flax]

Yeah, the Emberdark was a surprise extra book for the Words of Radiance kickstarter. Sanderson does that these days, he just secretly writes a novel every year. 😂

[merry galleon]

Didn’t realize that! Pretty neat though

[terse flax]

Yeah, Sanderson shocked us again! And I love Emberdark. Getting a really good glimpse into the future era was amazing. Dusk’s whole story was incredible.

[versed agate]

I wouldn't expect that to keep happening

[mossy gyro]

Oh wow

[snow vessel]

Didn't goodkind also criticise Jordan for not making it to a con while he was in hospital?

I swear I heard that

[merry galleon]

Sounds like someone didn’t like him and started pushing rumors that haven’t been verified. Seems even Jordan hinted at it sounded made up, from that quote of his posted

[ivory cypress]

Jordan said that because he was being gracious.

[versed agate]

https://dragonmount.com/forums/topic/42263-rj-related-please-tell-me-this-disgusting-thing-i-read-isnt-true-goodkind/
Unfortunately, Goodkind's Letter seems to be lost

[merry galleon]

Made up, then

[versed agate]

bruh

it existed when that thread was posted

[ivory cypress]

that you like him has nothing to do with the truth

and you liking him doesn't take away from the facts of the kind of guy he is

[merry galleon]

And the inverse to you

[ivory cypress]

that isn't how it works, actually

you seem to think this is about my opinion

it's about facts, but your opinion doesn't invalidate a fact

note how i haven't actually said anything about Goodkind here

[merry galleon]

So you just claim something you can’t back as fact?

[ivory cypress]

did you notice that?

What part of my claim do you deny?

Let's be specific.

[merry galleon]

Okay it was the other person

[ivory cypress]

Uh huh.

[merry galleon]

Same thing though

[ivory cypress]

No, it isn't

[merry galleon]

Yes it is

I’m arguing the legitimacy of said letter that has vanished

Which is entirely beside the point

[ivory cypress]

You're being more than a little rude here, and going "no it's not" at facts is not the way a conversation goes well

So please cut it out.

[merry galleon]

“Facts”

I’m hardly being rude

[ivory cypress]

This is FAR from the only place you'll find people with negative opinions on Goodkind

Are you aware of that?

[merry galleon]

My bad for asking if people liked a book series 🙄

[ivory cypress]

If this is a first for you, please just stop saying "that didn't happen"

That is not your bad and people did NOT come out swinging at you

People explained why they don't like Goodkind or don't want to try and you're the one getting up in THEIR faces about it.

So again, stop that

[merry galleon]

I am?

[ivory cypress]

this counts

[merry galleon]

Seems like I tried to steer it to the books

But okay

[ivory cypress]

and then just said something wellknown in the sff community is "made up"

you've made it so people can't really talk to you unless they agree with you

it's not good converstaion

[merry galleon]

I said it seems made up

[ivory cypress]

if you want to talk the books, then talk the books

[merry galleon]

Because people don’t seem to have an origination

But it’s fine.

[ivory cypress]

you do not need to go to bat for Goodkind or his character

[merry galleon]

Am I?

[somber timber]

You understand that people were alive and remember the mid 2000s right. It’s not some made up time

[merry galleon]

I was not around to witness any of this supposedly well known drama, and was wondering about the validity of it

[versed agate]

to go back to your original question, I no longer like his books because his philosophy/politics are continually less filtered as the series goes on, and I don't like the concepts he espouses.

I'd hesitate to go deeper because of the "no politics" rule of this server

[versed agate]

well you have two options:

1. believe people who do remember it
2. don't believe people who do remember it

if you're very lucky, the evidence for (#1) won't have linkrotted

[merry galleon]

He does delve heavily into it for a few books. It seems to steer away that toward the end, but by then people would be driven out if they disagreed

[merry galleon]

See, the problem is, even with the best intentions, information could be incorrect. But I’m going to drop that side of the discussion because I don’t believe it will be beneficial for either of us

[versed agate]

this is very true

on a different note, I put this in my username for a reason. I'm in active conversation with you, please don't ping me on replies

if you're not aware of that discord function (and many aren't, thanks discord), it's down on the right of your screen

[merry galleon]

Ah. I only do it to clarify who I’m responding to, but I didn’t know that option was there. Got it

[versed agate]

it looks like this for the other person when you click it :)

[merry galleon]

I have all notifications turned off always, so I don’t notice anyway 🤣

[cloud socket]

Looks like this is the thread though the attachment is dead
https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threads/terry-goodkinds-recent-surgery.13992/#post-326970

[merry galleon]

The comments on the thread are interesting, for sure.

How about the Throne of Glass series? I’ve been having fun reading through that as well

With so many recent fantasy TV series being canceled, I hope that doesn’t keep execs away from fantasy, though

[wet belfry]

Brandon's said in the last year a lot of the interest around Mistborn has dried up, so that indicates to me that it largely has

[merry galleon]

Hopefully it can work if they give it a few years! It looks like the interest in his TTRPG was quite high

I’ve noticed the trend currently is back into Sci Fi stuff (Foundation, Murderbot, Dune) probably just cyclical

[versed agate]

we were having a discussion about this the other day actually (in #1364954411582885899 )
modal opinion seemed to be that Hollywood sucks at fantasy adaptations, in comparison to Scifi (i.e. there are a lot more acceptable-to-banger rated Scifi adaptations than there are fantasy adaptations)

[merry galleon]

I wonder if special effects factor in there also. I wouldn’t think that fantasy writing in general would lend itself any less to becoming live action. But they faked like 98% of OG Star Wars with cardboard and plastic models. Harder to do that with a wizard who shoots ice/fire mixture from their hands

Sorry! I'll figure it out eventually

I wish I could just have it permanently disabled for you :/

[versed agate]

I wish I could turn it off on my end 😔

[merry galleon]

for all notifications?

[versed agate]

I mean have "reply pings by default" be controllable by the receiver

[merry galleon]

does this setting not address it?

I hope I'm turning the @ off properly in my last couple messages at you

[mossy gyro]

No that's for emoji reactions

[merry galleon]

is it? I literally never have received a notification when I've gotten an emoji reaction. 🤔

[versed agate]

you did

you can tell because they don't have an @ at the beginning

[mossy gyro]

Sometimes they won't go through when you have it set to notify you. Other times it will notify you even if you told Discord not to

[wet belfry]

It should be off by default

[merry galleon]

or be able to set it user by user

[wet belfry]

I do want people to be able to get ahold of me if they are specifically requesting my immediate or direct attention to a thing

[merry galleon]

ok this sounds about right

[wet belfry]

But I don't want every device in my home going off every time I'm in an active conversation, or at 2am to a conversation I had hours ago

[merry galleon]

Yeah I have all my notifications across the board turned off sound wise, and then when I get on discord I can see if anyone has replied to me

sorry for getting off topic!

[light drum]

SoTF 1+Mistborn||Ok so we are killing God. Why does overthrowing governments so often inadvertently result in killing gods?||

[tight kindle]

(Just an FYI Banished a thread was created for Hierarchy
https://discord.com/channels/304777819936784385/1438404310429073489)

[cloud socket]

Huh, I've never noticed that before re: nonping replies

[snow vessel]

I enjoyed that

[cloud socket]

I have mixed feelings about Sarah J Maas but her books are very much like popcorn in that they feel pretty easy to binge (I haven't done Crescent City or the nesta book, but did complete ToG)

The first book annoyed me because I came in with more expectations around assassination (the cover blurb on my library's copy said something like "for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire" which put my expectations in the wrong direction, I think)

[analog geode]

She has a really misandrist way of writing

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 61 ||It's lowkey really funny how the nicer Yan Wushi is acting towards Shen Qiao, the more horrified and disgusted Shen Qiao is. Like he can claim he prefers those alternate, nicer personas, but ehhh, I don't think I believe him ||

||I wonder if anyone's made a "screaming internally" reaction image of Shen Qiao, my guy's been doing that a lot lately||

[snow vessel]

Out of curiosity, whys this?

I read ToG a little while ago so my memory of her style isn't the best

[analog geode]

She constantly objectivizes and dehumanizes men. Shes the equivalent of those guys who walk around talking about “those females and their emotions”

[snow vessel]

Ahh sure

Kind of women writing men I suppose? (As the flip of the men writing women thing)

[analog geode]

Yeah

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 63 ||We interrupt this high fantasy political drama romance to bring you Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception||

[ripe tide]

https://hiddenbooks.nationalbooktokens.com/default.aspx?competition=22#
Anyone else playing this game? Its fun but frustrating as always

[proper silo]

Thousand Autumns 69 ||Ordering a sugar candy specifically shaped like someone just so you could bite their head off right in front of them is a new and exciting level of passive-aggressive ||

[minor sleet]

I love him he’s so fun

[long sorrel]

I wish i had the kinda money that let me be this petty

I cannot think who would I do that to, but I'm sure if I had that kinda money I'd have enemies

[lucid isle]

I'm 100 pages into Red Rising and love it

I've heard Golden Son is even better

[wraith lynx]

yessssss~ its so tasty and fun and amazing and fun and did i say fun

And yes GS is imo 1000000x better

[lucid isle]

The hits just keep coming and coming, every chapter is a whole new adventure

[proper silo]

the funny thing is, he didn't even pay for it himself, he used that guy's money

[long sorrel]

okay

who wants to be my enemy?

[terse flax]

It happened again, but this time Sanderson is co writing a fantasy book inspired by Heavy Metal music. 😁

[versed agate]

Songs of the Dead? He's been working on that for years

[proper silo]

real OGs remember when it was about pizza instead of heavy metal 😌

[versed agate]

IIRC, it only got finished because he handed it off to the coauthor

[alpine drum]

first mentioned in 2010

[terse flax]

I haven’t read it yet. My only experience with Sarah J Maas, is reading the Crescent City trilogy and that ended really badly. 😂

[long sorrel]

My one experience was ACOTAR

And that is still my worst read of the last 2 years. And I've read some massive piles of trash

[proper silo]

i read the first 30% or so of throne of glass and then never finished 🤔

i don't remember why at this point

[long sorrel]

I've heard it's better than acotar

But acotar was simply forgettable

It wasnt bad enough that i could rant

It's like tasteless cotton candy

[torpid kiln]

I read ACOTAR and it was fine, I started the second book and hated it

Spoilers for the second book (I forgot what it’s called) ||It made the entire plot of the first book not matter because apparently the blond guy is abusive and the black haired guy who was garbage to her was actually just trying to protect her||

[proper silo]

I've heard about this, what a bizarre swerve

I heard rumours that it was because ||the blonde guy was based off her partner at the time she wrote ACOTAR and they broke up in-between books||, but I'm not sure how much of that is true and how much is gossip

[torpid kiln]

Yeah I can believe that ||It feels so out of the blue, like between books SJM just decided she hated the blond guy and loved the black haired guy and switched around the plot||

[proper silo]

actually, didn't she do the same thing in Throne of Glass? ||set up one character as a love interest only to suddenly pivot to a completely different guy halfway through the series?||

[torpid kiln]

Tbh I haven’t read any Throne of Glass so I don’t know but it wouldn’t be surprising

I also tried to read Fourth Wing and then decided Romantasy isn’t my taste

[wraith lynx]

Dont lose hope just yet because I think there may be one book ive liked you could try, coming from someone who wanted to climb into FW and punch the mc 🥰

The Cruel Prince is pretty very actually good 🥰

[proper silo]

honestly, i don't think i hated FW per se, i stopped reading it cause i got bored of it 🤔

or at least, felt absolutely 0 compulsion to continue reading

[ripe tide]

There's a lot of romantasy (and a lot of what existed before the subgenre was called that) that's very different to the hyper popular most well known names.

[wraith lynx]

FW structure ||I can see how this happens. Violet both rambles and talks in this really weird way that can be kinda... off putting??||

[proper silo]

pretty sure what i'm reading right now counts as romantasy in a broad sense, but i am very much engaged, so yeah, i don't think the whole genre is bad 😅

i guess Fourth Wing just needed more magic martial arts battles

[wraith lynx]

and an entirely different mc

[mossy gyro]

Everything could use more of that tbh

[proper silo]

It's less the style, really, it's more... I did not care for any of these people? Like, as characters, they failed to engage me.

[wraith lynx]

FW ||No joke, why is the story not from the pov from the son of the terrorist leader who infiltrated the military and has banded all the other poor orphaned rebels??? That would have been so cool????||

[proper silo]

the love interest guy is hot and mysterious, the mother is a general from a template, the not-love-interest is broody and secretly-in-love, and violet is also there i suppose

[torpid kiln]

I’ve read The Cruel Prince actually! It’s been years but I really liked it as a kid

[proper silo]

(i was going to say something more specific about violet but i realized that the only things i remember about her were that she wanted to be a scribe and there was something wrong with her bones)

[torpid kiln]

FW ||At least the dragons were cool, they were my favorite part of the book||

[proper silo]

i don't think i read far enough to get to that part 😔

[wraith lynx]

FW ||Her antagonizing a rebel girl knowing that violets mom killed her parents what what turned me off, she was insufferable||

I didnt read that far either

[torpid kiln]

FW ||Violet is Super Special and gets to bond with two dragons, a really big one and a baby one, the big dragon was honestly my favorite character in the book lol||

[wraith lynx]

All I got to was (FW 7) ||Violet snuck out of school for a second to find xaden and a rebel girl talking and this idiot thinks "omg is that his secret lover??" GIRL. THEY ARE REBELS COLLUDING IN YOUR MILITARY!! 😭||

||like. It kinda brushes off the fact that theres just terrorist children that HATE THE GOVERNMENT in the military, including the head terrorists SON 😭||

[proper silo]

FW ||The fact that they gave dragons to children of terrorists is still the funniest part of Fourth Wing worldbuilding||

[wraith lynx]

It is HILARIOUS omg

[proper silo]

like obviously no shade if someone likes it, but the book kinda does require you to accept some incredible worldbuilding silliness

[wraith lynx]

FW ||I would be reading and violet would clutch her pearls at the rebels (red flag) and im like "why are there active rebels in your military and WHY did they let XADEN progress that high 😭"|| cracked me up every time

It didnt help that I was reading it in tandem with red rising 😭

[proper silo]

one must imagine it made for quite the comparison, given that both are about rebels infiltrating the military school

[wraith lynx]

Omg why did I read so many books about that exact premise this year

[proper silo]

it's become shockingly popular

[wraith lynx]

I say keep em coming 🥴

Nothing hits like "scorned youth infiltrates the school of the elite to topple the oppressive regime"

FW ||Its just weird with FW because.... violets family is the oppressive regime 😅 it was hard to determine if the rebels were justified or not because the book didnt tell me what they were rebelling for and then violet deadass says "im proud of my mom killing your parents because they were a threat to the border" and that cleared it all up :)||

[mossy gyro]

The more I hear about this book the less interested I am lol

[proper silo]

anyway, back to my romantasy-with-magic-martial-arts, Thousand Autumns 74 ||I know it's not supposed to look like this, but every time Shen Qiao carries Yan Wushi around while using his superhuman speed, this is my mental image||

||This has been happening surprisingly often in the last few chapters||

[ivory cypress]

FW ||it's shockingly relevant information that a lot of the stuff popular on booktok does not go into||

[wraith lynx]

Right like... I need to know this, please 😭

[long sorrel]

I've read a bunch of books in which like, something like this happens but as you go through the books the mc that is like this does change and is challenged. I've not read FW and I won't and I've no idea if this is the case but I think it is possible that this type of plot isn't necessarily defending the oppression.

And maybe you have 70% or even more than one entire book where it feels like all the mcs are literally defending opression because they know better

[torpid kiln]

FW ||NGL it feels like she just wanted to write a book with dragons and romance while the worldbuilding was just there cause it's in a fantasy world||

[long sorrel]

I do like books where the bad guys aren't bad and the good guys aren't good and it all gets messy. Ofc many books try to do that and they don't develop it at all in which case is either awkward or kinda trashy

[wraith lynx]

True! I should finish it to really get an idea of what its trhing to do

[long sorrel]

No, you shouldn't

you should only read what you want to read

[wraith lynx]

But like Violet is like anti-Jude so id rather shove gravel in my mouth

[long sorrel]

you said "shove gravel" and my brain went "that sounds a lot like 'grovel' "

"hmmm that sounds a lot like what Cardan should be doing"

[proper silo]

took me a hot second to figure out you meant "the opposite of Jude from Cruel Prince" rather than "she disapproves of someone named Jude and that's not a position I'm willing to tolerate"

[long sorrel]

brainrot brainrot!

[torpid kiln]

I need to read more again, it's hard being so busy with school

[merry galleon]

Like the writing was bad? I haven’t gotten into those

[torpid kiln]

The only book I've read in 2025 was IOTE

[mossy gyro]

Okay but that's a good book

[torpid kiln]

Yeah I just wish I read more

[merry galleon]

Worst book I’ve read the past few years was The First Bright Thing. My book club at the time picked it and it was absolutely painful to read.

[torpid kiln]

I started the Farseer Trilogy at the beginning of the school year but I'm like a chapter into the first book

[long sorrel]

aah, i don't know this one

[merry galleon]

Literally not worth your time. I actually threw it in the trash. Usually I donate books I don’t like to the library, but no one should have to suffer through reading that book

[mossy gyro]

Black Company ch 1 ||so that mysterious wizard person almost certainly released that wereleopard on purpose to devastate the city and provide a reason to move in and occupy it. Black Company got out despite heavy casualties including Tom-Tom (RIP) but the only way they could make the deal to "accidentally" allow their contractor to die was to join up with Soul Catcher. And of course it turns out after they leave with him(?) that they learn they've just signed on to work with The Lady, who is one of ten evil wizards that came back to life recently and now rule the northern empire. While they're not particularly nice people (Croaker aside) they don't want to work for the bad guys but have little choice now||

[ripe tide]

Oh I am so curious to see what you think as you go on reading

[brazen pilot]

||wacky times ahead!||

i'm gonna read the silver spike and the books of the south soonish

[mossy gyro]

I am partly through the second chapter already

Black Company ch 2 ||so far they've picked up another dude going by Raven who has....business to attend to. Turns out that business involves killing a bunch of people who most likely tried to kill him and thought they'd succeeded, including his own wife. However this has caused problems as while Raven is a useful source of information about the north and the Company needs recruits, the people he killed were underlings of another of the 10 called the Limper. It seems most of the wizards don't like each other much and this extends to their followers, so now other followers of the Limper have shown up to demand the Company goes to meet him. Said messenger was rude so they beat his ass before listening to his message and that was kinda funny. Now they're tracking the Limper down through a territory in open revolt against the empire||

||this empire really sucks to live it. Seems those pledged to one of the wizards get favored treatment and do pretty much whatever the hell they want to anyone else. No wonder people are rebelling, but many of those people are getting killed because, again, evil wizards ||

[terse flax]

Yeah, the writing gets worse with each book.

[merry galleon]

I won't waste my time with that series then lol

[terse flax]

It gets worse with each book, so I am DNF the series. Fourth Wing wasn’t good, but it wasn’t the worse book that I’ve read. And it was entertaining in spots. But the second book was worse, and the third book called Onyx Storm was the last straw. That book was horrible. 😂

[cloud socket]

Empyrean is frustrating because like, I do want to learn more about the dragon-y bits but our POV character is annoying. And then similar to my mismatched expectations about "ooh, horny dragon book" I was expecting it to lean more into romance and instead I think she spends the first half of the book trying not to die before finally having a romantic scene?

the mortality rate of the world is ridiculous, though in OS ||I'm glad the griffin riders call it out how much of a deathtrap Basgiath is. "wdym your initiation ritual doesn't kill dozens of would-be riders??" violet, this is not normal!!!||

they're definitely check-out-from-the-library-and-not-actually-own reads for me

[merry galleon]

the empyrean series was the worst series I have ever read!

there were some memorable scenes though

no actually

I think I liked it

[merry galleon]

I read the Fourth Wing series, and what got me to not continue after Iron Flame was how the author approached the “Enemies to Lovers trope”. I understand how the author is trying to create something new out of it. The execution was a MASSIVE failure in my eyes. The worldbuilding was good, the “Concept” of the plot was okay, characters - okay. Moments in the book series were memorable. But put all that in execution - it failed for me.
Which is why I said to people (in real life) who asked me if I was continuing the series - “I’ll wait until the series is finished and look up the plot on Wikipedia”.

[proper silo]

Out of curiosity, what did the author try to do with the enemies-to-lovers?

[long sorrel]

I'm curious too

[deft stream]

First they were never enemies, the enemies are just the assumptions of Violet.

[long sorrel]

this is very common right? like a lot of enemies to lovers are "kinda on opposing sides sometimes" rather than enemies?

[deft stream]

Is more like violence thinks she is gonna get killed by his hands cause her mother killed his father I think, but he was always simping

I don't remember much cause I dnf it as it is not for me

[marble sinew]

Fourth Wing ||It isn't enemies to lovers, it's paranoia to lovers||

[deft stream]

This

[random dome]

Every spoiler I open about FW validates my DNF on that one so hard

[merry galleon]

The assumption of they are enemies but quickly revealed they are not, forgoing the enemy part of the trope. Morgan Rhodes’ Falling Kingdom series does a better job of exploring it.

[long sorrel]

The Cruel Prince does a fantastic job of it too 👀

Just saaaayin'

[merry galleon]

Throughout Fourth Wing, I kept thinking, “this author has no idea how the enemies to lovers trope works, does she?” It was so frustrating.
Also, I haven’t read Cruel prince yet but I’m curious now.

[random dome]

Yessss we need to get another

The Cruel Prince was what I read immediately after the DNF and it was exactly the palette cleanse I was looking for

And also yes, is my gold standard on how enemies-to-lovers is meant to be done

TCP thrives on making all its relationships as complicated and crunchy as possible and it's excellent. Family relationships, friendships, rivalries, and romance when it crops up

[rugged tartan]

I did buy a copy of Cruel Prince from the target I worked at in Florida, but I sadly was unable to keep it with me when I left the statebecause I didn't have enough room in my luggage for many books pensive

[torpid kiln]

I should reread TCP

It’s been years

[merry galleon]

Sigra’s Roost by TD Orel is now released and on Amazon! LETS GOOO!

[wraith lynx]

Further proof Jude is anti-Violet in Almost every convieveable way

TCP scratches pretty much every itch I had with FW

[merry galleon]

I tell everyone, they don’t need to toe the line with spoiling the Forth Wing series (this is what I call it - don’t change my mind) with me. In fact spoil me - I’m not reading the rest of the series for the foreseeable future.

[ivory cypress]

our spoiler policy is for everyone

feel free to click whatever spoilers you want, but it's the policy for all entertainment and community channels/forums

[random dome]

TCP relationships ||Jude and Madoc? crunchy family relationship, right out the gate and then contorted even further in the ending. Jude and Taryn? Very crunchy, how could you do that to your sister who you love!!! Jude and Viv? A crunchy extra angle on the Madoc relationship because The Daddy Issues Are Different And Clashing. Taryn and Locke? Absolutely nasty crunch, girl leave him, but hey that's what happens when you get tangled with the fey. Jude and Dain? So crunchy, learning so much but all the resentment, and that hand scene, like dang. And then we finally get to Jude and Cardan, who are the epicenter of crunch, but they're gonna slow burn that development and we're only in book one, so you're just STARTING to see the trajectory of where they're gonna go 🙏 😔 ||

It's. The best.

[wraith lynx]

TCP ||GIRL. LEAVE HIM. 😭||

[long sorrel]

TCP all! (for book 1 only) ||And there's like, nearly true hate in book 1. Even if Jude learns about Cardan abuse she's like "oh this checks out, but he's still a fing asshole, screw him"||

[long sorrel]

I have to agree

Because he's mine, ||I can make him worse 😈 I'll weave the most messed up story for him||

[wraith lynx]

-# why, so you can take him?? I know your games

SEE 🤣

[long sorrel]

TOO LATE

I'm fine with sharing tbh

[random dome]

It's not enemies to lovers unless the hate is genuine, like if they don't fundamentally loathe each other for at least part of the story then what is the POINT

[long sorrel]

That is it, the one romance troupe I will take. Folk of the Air all ||"Enemies to lovers" to "let's rule the world together" completely morally grey, preferably leaning kinda evil||

[snow vessel]

She did this multiple times

TOG series ||has 3 love interests for her||

[rugged tartan]

||My DNF of that book feels more and more vindicated every day||

[snow vessel]

Honestly I didn't mind TOG, though it probably helps that imo it leant far more "fantasy with romance" than any of her other books

Well, admittedly I've not read CC but compared to acotar

-# which I ragequit on book 2

[rugged tartan]

To me it felt like two books clumsily smushed into each other, and the seams were really distracting

Throne of Glass ||One second she's a hardened assassin who's stood up to years of slavery and degradation in the mines, the next she's throwing a flower pot at a passing noble from her balcony because she overheard that the other woman wanted to hook up with her crush/the prince of the kingdom that destroyed her homeland while she was living in it, and then next one after THAT she's barely able to stop herself from trying to kill the king in the middle of a crowded audience chamber because she hates him that much. But the prince is hot though, so he gets to be someone she snarks at and crushes on||

[wraith lynx]

I know why this woman keeps writing the same book in different fonts but.... man

[torpid kiln]

Ngl I feel like the popularity of her books and Fourth Wing gives romantasy a bad rap lol

[snow vessel]

I do feel like ToG was overall a bit stronger than ACOTAR, probably because it didn't feel as entirely driven by the romance

ToG/ACOTAR ||we didn't rewrite characters for the sake of getting a hotter man so far as I remember 😒 ||

The ACOTAR books felt like every plotline and character was written around the romance. Which, it is clearly more of a romance book, so i suppose is fair

[cloud socket]

which is interesting because TOG is the first series, starting from when she was on wattpad or something right?

[snow vessel]

I think so

[wraith lynx]

SHE WAS ON WATTPAD??

Suddenly it all makes sense

[merry galleon]

What is wattpad?

[wraith lynx]

Its a website/app where you can write your own stories/fanfics and post them online

Similar to fanfic.net and Archive of Our Own but.... with a lot more.... ametureness to it, I feel

[merry galleon]

huh?

[tight kindle]

(this is very on brand for AgU)

[deft stream]

Just be happy I didn't made them riddles

[merry galleon]

Did I do something wrong? Did I spoil something and not put in the spoiler tag?! Im trying to not cause trouble. IM SO SORRY!

[ivory cypress]

No, you're good!

[quaint tendon]

I’m not good at interpreting emojis

[snow vessel]

For the poll?

I didn't try to interpret them :p I just clicked my favourite set

[quaint tendon]

I like the dragon

I chose the one with a dragon

[light drum]

Ya i dnf'd it at 31 chapters and ya read about 31 to many chapters of it.

[snow vessel]

I finished it and... don't think you're missing out on anything much

Like, I didn't mind it, it was at times fun, but definitely not anything worth pushing through for

[zinc flicker]

CC (note: I read all of ToG and the first trilogy of ACOTAR) I only read book one, but I’d put it somewhere in the middle. The romance is clearly the point, but there is actually a plot (unlike ACOTAR). ToG the romance is very secondary (and yeah I have more to say on this but it boils down to “the rest of the books are fantasy unlike book one which is a lame romance”)

[zinc flicker]

I think ToG generally gets stronger as it goes on

[snow vessel]

Oh definitely

I think I struggled with #2 but 3 and onwards I actually enjoyed

I also feel like it really went "fantasy w romance" in 3 onwards

[zinc flicker]

I def enjoyed 4 onward yeah

3 was better but iirc that was setup for 4

[snow vessel]

Like it was already a bit less romance heavy

[analog geode]

I liked ToG way better than Acotar

[zinc flicker]

Yeahhhh

[snow vessel]

Yeah 3 was setting up the main plot

I read 7 books of ToG and 1.5 of acotar so...

[analog geode]

I read all of both

[zinc flicker]

Like 3 involved (?) ||her identity reveal and her leaving to go train at the end||, right?

[analog geode]

To be clear I dislike both

[zinc flicker]

Did you read past book 3 of ACOTAR because there are more now

[snow vessel]

I think that was 2?

[analog geode]

Yeah

[zinc flicker]

Was it?

Idk

It’s been a while

[snow vessel]

3 has the ||training and Rowan and Fae stuff iirc||

Or whatever the ||fae|| equivalent was in tog

[zinc flicker]

I read them as a young teen woman who enjoyed both series at the time and I’d rather keep the happy memory of them than re-engage and dislike them

[random dome]

I bailed at like Chapter 3 and still regret reading that much even

[snow vessel]

I think 4 was the ||more assassin-y one because I remember I read the prequel before it and it paid off a lot of stuff from that||

[analog geode]

Pretty sure it was also just ||fae||, but it’s been a while

[zinc flicker]

Now, listen, I could not stand TFW

And I enjoyed ACOTAR and ToG

Where I sit now, I don’t think I would like ACOTAR, but do think I would like ToG if I read again

[snow vessel]

I thought acotar was fine but actively hated acomaf

So for me it's TOG>FW>>>>ACOTAR

[random dome]

FW early ||I knew the writing was unsalvageable as soon as she recited a worldbuilding dump while crossing the bridge, but I kept going until they at least got to the top and were getting sorted into their Hogwarts Houses. (Wow, she got sorted into the super sexy evil guy's house or something??? Wow really? No way, I can't believe it, wonder how that's gonna turn out) And then I actually stopped.||

Then I ran into the loving arms of Jude Duarte and she healed me

I have not read throne of glass but I did read the original trilogy of ACOTAR onwards and it was very clear why that book spawned people obsessed with the idea of it as a great new genre because the concept had legs but I found the actual writing and execution of that book perfectly mid

Not really anything egregiously bad but not really anything particularly good either

(I regret reading three books worth of it)

[zinc flicker]

Yeah that’s fair

I think ACOTAR is of better quality than TFW writing wise but still very mid

Unlike the Cruel Prince

[snow vessel]

I just despised the love interest in acomaf

The rest of the book was decently enjoyable but that ruined it

[random dome]

Oh yeah ACOTAR was inoffensive, it's readable, but like I'm not hype about any of it

[snow vessel]

And the rewriting of book 1 to force the romance

[random dome]

TFW was unreadably terrible to me, I couldn't do it

[zinc flicker]

I’m in a romantasy mood which is a bummer because I also kinda done with usually popular romantasy. Leaning towards trying out Kingfisher.

[zinc flicker]

I finished TFW And completely agree with you

[ivory cypress]

the big two romantasy that are like, the popular ones, ARE kinda... bad

would recommend almost anything but

[light drum]

Ok found my thoughts on fw from when I read it
I don't understand the 4th wing hype. I tried I I listened to 32 chapters of it, I thought I knew what i was getting into. But at the end of the day it's generic and I've read pure smut on a03 that has a stronger plot. I DNF-ed it a while back, and while I'm not one to criticize a book just cause it didn't vibe with me, I think 4th wing is a cheap poorly written cashgrab that fails in the most important part of a book, making me actually care Spoliers up to 32|| And not to mention the lazy writting. Oh i don't know how to world build, I'll just have my mc spill it out verbatim from a textbook. What the person that you're clearly attracted to yoi wind up with, just cause umm. Nevemind that part he's a baddie enemy their doesn't need to be a complex relationship dynamic a relationship dynamic. Whoa what you mean these mated pairs mean they are forced to be together(oh cause the author couldn't actually make them have a chemistry that seemed non-creepy and natural so let just make it so that their lives depend on eachother and they can't ever leave eachother. I truly despise this book. I wouldn't even burn it cause then I might have to have some of its distasteful form enter my body again. I wouldn't despoil the earth by polluting it with this. The one condolence is that I paid for the audiobook, so that no one else should be so unlucky to come across my copy of this.
If you enjoyed the book. Great. Wonderful, I'm glad you where able to find some enjoyment. But I just don't understand any appeal of it
Oh also budget divergent
Oh also lots of meaningless death just to make the setting edgy
||

[ivory cypress]

LOVE Kingfisher, LOVE Heather Fawcett

[zinc flicker]

Awesome! Kingfisher seems very my vibe

[light drum]

Always more people should read Cruel Prince

[zinc flicker]

Paladins

[analog geode]

My favorite romantasy is All Souls

[ivory cypress]

oh also Olivia Atwater, if cool fay men are still your speed

[zinc flicker]

Cool fae men are amazing

Tyty

[ivory cypress]

read two of hers, VERY much enjoyed them

[zinc flicker]

Adding to my TBR to come back to

[light drum]

Ive heard a lot about Kingfisher and am interested

[random dome]

I went into TFW with my expectations at low as possible, expecting nothing respectable, my standards dragged in on the floor and then a sinkhole opened beneath that floor and it was somehow worse than I had prepared myself for

[merry galleon]

Only thing I’ve ever experienced the loss of enjoyment like this from was Space Jam

[ivory cypress]

Kingfisher writes in a LOT of different genres and several of them overlap

[light drum]

Ya i dint think any book has disappointed me more.

[ivory cypress]

she definitely has a fascination with the grotesque, which shows itself in varying levels depending on whether you're reading a romance-fantasy of hers or a dark fairy tale or a horror

[ivory cypress]

reading the whole thing DID give me an ego boost like you wouldn't believe, though

[zinc flicker]

I lovelovelove creepy horror so that sounds fun

[merry galleon]

TFW?

[analog geode]

Yall should read All Souls

[zinc flicker]

What was that other Paladin book I was thinking of trying

It’s a new one

The Knight and the Moth

[random dome]

It is both motivating and infuriating to see terrible writing get not only published but praised like. Come on. I could do better. I should do better! Time to write I guess.

[zinc flicker]

Dunno if it’s any good

[ivory cypress]

oh, All Souls looks to be a m/f romance with a vampire, monkeygirl

[random dome]

The Fourth Wing

[ivory cypress]

i probably won't read it but hey

[zinc flicker]

I’ll add it to my list haha!

[analog geode]

Cheyenne recommended it to me

[ivory cypress]

i haven't heard anything particularly exciting about the knight and the moth, unfortunately

[merry galleon]

https://tenor.com/view/facepalm-really-stressed-mad-angry-gif-16109475

[zinc flicker]

Rn I’m just compiling books to actually sit down with when I have more time soon

[merry galleon]

Duh I knew that

[merry galleon]

Gotta look at the market tbh

Whenever I read a terrible book, it gives me hope

“If this heap of trash can get published, then so can my book”

[ivory cypress]

tbh the writers looking at the market and using that to decide what to write are the ones releasing shlock

[merry galleon]

At least some of them write their bad stories still instead of AI generating it

[zinc flicker]

What really frustrated me about TFW wasn’t the bad prose (which I could deal with) it was ||the fact it was marketed as a smut book and the sex was vanilla and plain and very scarce. Like one sex scene != a smut book. A romance book? Yes. But marketed as one of the smuttiest books? That’s crazy.
Also the dragons were just there for aesthetic and they could have done some interesting stuff with that sex-wise but no. Vanilla sex it is. ||

[ivory cypress]

i hesitate to give kudos for that bare minimum bar

FW ||honestly the dragons should have even just done something plot-wise, but no....||

[merry galleon]

Tbh she could have cut the ||smut altogether and focused more on the dragons/war|| and had a much more dominant series long term

[random dome]

Sometimes I think about what Tamsyn must have felt like writing The Locked Tomb before it got published, like. That's SUCH a weird book that could have flopped because it's not like anything else and she thought it would probably just be her obscure little book. But by god she wrote it her way, not worried about conforming with genres or market trends and whoa what's that? Oh it's peak and it's a smash success and everyone loves it and there's nothing else like it in the whole market and you won books, Tamsyn, congrats

[light drum]

||Ya it was just so meh, I think like the sex feels like the author's has never done sex and instead based it off what she saw on tv||

[merry galleon]

Ngl this is the first I’m hearing of it

[light drum]

TLT is so good

[light drum]

Read it!

[ivory cypress]

well, writers like Tamsyn are the kind who walk their own weird trot from the beginning. she has a past of original fiction that's honestly very similar (i read one of her short stories and like.......... god i can see it - you can be a LOT weirder in the sff short story magazines because most of the time you have about time for a HOT premise and a few solid glimpses into that) and when you start with being one of the greats for homestuck fanfiction....

[merry galleon]

Ohhh I looked up the name and I know those books. Didn’t know that was the series name

[ivory cypress]

i was about to suggest you probably have heard of the book titles

[random dome]

This was also a major contribution to my DNF because I was spoiled about this and I was like (TFW) ||I already know the sex is basic and it is not worth sitting through this bad writing when I know the sex isn't even going to be freaky!! It's supposed to be a sexy sex book, that's why everybody likes it right?? And it's just vanilla?? No thank you, this is not worth my time||

[zinc flicker]

It is interesting what combination of luck, timing, and audience propels books to success

[ivory cypress]

the book seems to have smut that general audiences largely haven't seen before

one of my older colleagues was VERY impressed with the spice

[zinc flicker]

||and it’s ONE sex scene. One vanilla, bland, plain sex scene. ||

[light drum]

Umm minor TLT spoiler thats super obvious character art

[ivory cypress]

and i was like . i can never let on my true opinions of it

[merry galleon]

I certainly hadn’t read anything on that level and tbh skimmed through it because it wasn’t my thing at all

[random dome]

Noooo that's so much worse I didn't realize 😭

[ivory cypress]

the smut in fourth wing?

[zinc flicker]

I generally also prefer my sex scenes to be ||sensual descriptions than like literal descriptions and TFW was the latter by far||

[merry galleon]

Yeah

[ivory cypress]

i'm talking about why it got popular

[light drum]

I think its a disservice to smut to calm what FW has smut

[ivory cypress]

the older ladies long for smut

it's perfectly serviceable, it's just bland

[zinc flicker]

Yeah I was def let down haha

[merry galleon]

I’ll be sure to avoid anything smut then 🤣

[ivory cypress]

it's not impressively spicy like i was told

[random dome]

TFW ||one scene??? My god, we have to save these people. We have to tell them about fanfiction. Help. Somebody drop them links to AO3||

[wet belfry]

Fly planes overhead dropping leaflets

(The monthly dunk on bad smut session never fails to entertain)

[zinc flicker]

I do find it funny how many Draco x Hermoine fanfics that were repurposed into actual books for publication I’ve come across in dark fantasy romance search

[deft stream]

I only have gay ones

[zinc flicker]

~~Gotta find the Zutara ones ~~

[merry galleon]

I don’t mind romance in books, but I prefer more intellectual and emotional rather than physical romantic scenes

[random dome]

I'm of the stalwart opinion that sex scenes are good when they're about something!! Show me characters at a deeply vulnerable moment, (or not being vulnerable at all for some reason), or exploring power dynamics or conflicting desires or something

[merry galleon]

Or that

[ivory cypress]

LOVE a smut scene. but it has to be what i think of as good. the characterization still has to exist in the smut

[random dome]

People put lots of meaning in intimacy and being close to other people, so if you're going to show characters in that situation, give the audience something interesting about the characters that we're exploring

[merry galleon]

Like, I don’t need descriptions of how certain characters’ dangly bits are tingling and changing density

[random dome]

Not just "here is a sex scene because this is a sex book and now they are having sex" bleh

[zinc flicker]

I’ve talked about this before but I think a lot of romance in modern writing tends toward more literal descriptions and what I prefer can best be described as “sensual” more about describing the vibes, the sensations, the emotions of the scene than strictly literal definitions. It’s more poetic the second way in my mind and I just like it better in a “fairy tale romance” or “soulmates connecting” way idk.

[ivory cypress]

i also prefer literal descriptions of the sex actions, too, but the characterization has to be there

[deft stream]

I use to read the filthiest mm romance when I was a child so I want true connection now that I am older

Child being 14-17

[merry galleon]

Wow you would not enjoy the Kama Sutra then

[analog geode]

lmao

[ivory cypress]

i find i'm really disconnected from the more poetic descriptions of smut, it does nothing for me - i feel neither connected emotionally to the characters NOR am i even titilated, so it's like... what am i even getting out of this, for me

[zinc flicker]

I think it’s really a sign of sex being a casual thing for many people than a “soulmates connecting” thing. Not to say one is better or worse but I definitely prefer one. Others will prefer the other based on their own lives and enjoyments while reading lol.

[merry galleon]

I wonder if this is because of the shift to more female writers and that women tend to read more smut?

[zinc flicker]

This is interesting! Complete opposite here haha.

[deft stream]

I like how danmei does it as it is so poetic the censor in china allow them

I learned a lot of euphemism

[ivory cypress]

"poetry" in the descriptions, for one, tends to be a completely different style from the rest of the book. the characters and world and plot don't exist in the same language and register that some authors shift to when they're trying to be "special" about it, and tbh, it could not be more meaningless

[cloud socket]

I got my book club to read Lady Chatterly's Lover last year and thought it'd be smutty because of the obscenity trials etc, but we were surprised how class differential is a bigger theme than the sex scenes

[ivory cypress]

"soulmates connecting" stuff is like... that's the stuff where i tend to find the most cliches. and nothing is more generic and less good character writing than a cliche

[merry galleon]

You could get really humorous with smut poetry though I suppose

[ivory cypress]

i don't want smut scenes to be humourous?

[merry galleon]

Douglas Adams but writing a smut scene

[random dome]

there's a make some noise prompt about that

[merry galleon]

That’s what I want

[ivory cypress]

okay...

i'll say there is one more poetic/sensual sex scene that got me BLUSHING and that was by tanith lee

bless her

first chapter or something into the first book of hers i ever tried

[merry galleon]

About humorous smut? Does it have Ross or Brandon?

[random dome]

It's the latest episode, but that's a question better handled in #1364955573782708344

[light drum]

Ya sensual tends to also be what im looking for. Somthibg sensual generally will have me blushing far more than just some blandky explicit

[snow vessel]

Has anyone here read Bunny and if so did you enjoy it?

[light drum]

I feel like it should be used to show a complex of emotions and dynamics rather than just being.
With this I shout out A Memory of Empire and it's sequel

[random dome]

A memory called empire!!! What a great book

[wraith lynx]

The way that book taught me how to write by example (never do what any of it did ever) 😌✨️

[ripe tide]

See, I wouldn’t call it romantasy. Paranormal adult romance, thw first book is dark academia, thr second is historical fantasy.

[analog geode]

IMO, it’s fantasy where the focus is on the romance

Dark academia and historical fantasy are definitely sub genres it fits in, but not primary

[ripe tide]

Yeah. But my point is that each book draws on a lot of different structures and genre conventions.

It’s not going to fit with what people call romantasy.

Fantasy romance but not romantasy.

[snow vessel]

Agh I don't have anything to read right now

Discovery of Witches hasn't come in but should soon enough that I don't want to start something big

[light drum]

What genere are you looking for, im assuming you want a shorter read?

[snow vessel]

Honestly the main problem is just that idk how soon my next read will come in

It could be Monday or it could be another week

I have things I could read but don't want to start one and immediately have to drop it

Maybe ill work through some Edgar Allen Poe or lovecraft, because I have some collections of their stuff on hand

Or a light romance novel, because I won't mind dropping that part way through as much

[old bone]

Read some short stories online

Ken Liu has some great ones

Or read some SCP

or some novella like Psalm for the Wild Built

Or some 1 volume manga

[snow vessel]

I have a few manga I could (re)read I suppose

I prefer to read physically than online though

[snow vessel]

Swordcrossed 8 ||seems like luca may have some connection to the business stuff going on??||

||I might be misunderstanding the implications here though||

||chorus is the spy 👀 ||

[long sorrel]

You should read Kingfisher 👀

Remind me, Monkeygirl, have you read Emily Wilde?

@ivory cypress do you think id like Olivia Atwater?

[long sorrel]

Well i read the synopsis of 2 of them and it had me at illmannered 😩

[minor sleet]

Finally getting around to reading Tinker Belles and Evil Queens (2000), a book on Disney’s relationship with the queer community and I’m surprised to see this in a book from 25 years ago

[ivory cypress]

I think she's at least worth a shot, though I'm not confident about the character archetypes for you in the romances - but do let me know!

[long sorrel]

I think I might like the archetypes idk about the relationships themselves 👀