Books (General)

[long sorrel]

Meanwhile something like A Master of Djinn is more rounded in a way (which isn't necessarily a positive or better thing but it's easier that it's gonna hit some stuff you like)

[random dome]

That's a good way to describe it. It is a really lovely book and very unique for the fantasy space, I feel like

[long sorrel]

I need to read the next books

[random dome]

Also now I can never do this because I would be taking you away from better things you should be reading instead

[wraith lynx]

Why read abour violet when I could read about literally anyone else 😔

[long sorrel]

more TWK!

[ivory cypress]

yeah I'm always 👀 looking for "is this the one? is this someone who has The Factors?" but you know... it's not for everyone

[random dome]

No one can say no to Jude (nor should they because she's always right about everything)

[long sorrel]

mhm, it's a bit harder to recc if you don't know the person

[ivory cypress]

hellooooooo please 🙏 my scrungly sad gay elf cleric has a trilogy

[long sorrel]

Jude! Jude! Jude!

[random dome]

Speaking of great books with sequels/prequels I haven't read though, I need to read A Day of Fallen Night at some point

It's been on my shelf forever 😭

[ivory cypress]

yeah, I'm basically always in wait, eyeing every request for recs to see if it lines up

not always

[long sorrel]

blinks you hadn't put those words together before???

[quaint burrow]

Katabasis 21 ||I mean.......... Valid Crashout Alice but maybe become less evil next time? ||

[long sorrel]

(to me that is)

[ivory cypress]

sometimes I gotta go "sounds like you might like Islington/Abercrombie/Brown/Ruocchio" which is a whole distinct sub category of Sanderson fans

[ivory cypress]

hkdwhdkhlf lmao

[long sorrel]

I like so so many type of things that it's really hard to explain why something doesn't do th thing™

[wraith lynx]

sigh Jude in TFW-verse..... oh what could have been....

-# I could be the change i want to see in the world.... 🤔

I think about "[insert random character] in TFW" so often its not even funny

[long sorrel]

Cosmic and I got to gush about Jude yesterday on vc ☺️

[wraith lynx]

We did!!

[long sorrel]

Which is always 🥰

[ivory cypress]

we need brown girls in dragon riding fiction

[wraith lynx]

WE DO

[random dome]

Not Safe For Cosmic ||Queen of Nothing|| ||I mean, Jude kind of gets something like a dragon later on? That basically counts right?||

[ivory cypress]

need more

[long sorrel]

This is the Osreth chronicles right?
-# Slowly starts bumping it up the list

[long sorrel]

This killed me

[ivory cypress]

I think that's the term for all books in the world, the trilogy is Cemeteries of Amalo

there's also a smaller book in Orb of Cairado

*in world called OfC

[junior dew]

I guess I would be better served by detailing books that didn’t work for me as much since those are far more rare:

• Percy Jackson (too middle grade)
• Good Omens (should have been a hit due to some of the humor and ridiculousness but it just felt too all over the place ultimately and was one of the only 2 stars I’ve given)
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (something about the writing didn’t really work for me and I DNFd it)
• All Systems Red (It was alright but also kind of… bland?)

Honorable mention: Starless Sea I haven’t finished yet but may try to finish this month. Can’t quite place why it just didn’t land for me as much. Like I didn’t dislike it but I also had no real drive to pick it up and read it more at any given time, and it eventually got paused

[wraith lynx]

Starless Sea is different, yeah

[random dome]

NSFCosmic continued ||Queen of Nothing|| ||is better than TFW because the huge snake monster is actually the love interest and they sleep together in this series. okay fine not AS a giant snake monster but it still counts let me have this||

[wraith lynx]

I need to try it again

[ripe tide]

Only reason I had an inkling of who you were was the PJO point

[junior dew]

It does some stuff well but it also feels like it kinda… meanders?

[junior dew]

Oh yeah hi it is I, SpookySpren

Reborn

[long sorrel]

-# Continues pushing Witness for the Dead up.

I had liked the character in the brief amount we get from him in TGE but now you've sold it to me pretty hard, by mistake yet again

[junior dew]

My list of favorites and loved books is so much longer

[long sorrel]

I think Starless Sea takes a bit of time to see the vision

[ivory cypress]

yeeeeEEEESSSSSSS

[long sorrel]

It doesn't actually meander... but I can see why it feels like it? But it's all very purposeful

[ivory cypress]

I'd also recommend trying more murderbot - the first one is the blandest

[quaint tendon]

starless sea

[long sorrel]

I've not tried any yet, for some reason I tend to only read one series of one author at a time?

[quaint tendon]

is that the new paolini book

[long sorrel]

I'm not sure why I do that, but it's some sort of limitation I do to myself?

[quaint tendon]

yeah i get that vibe

[long sorrel]

PJO didn't work for me awt all, I thought it would despite being middle grade but just nope

[quaint tendon]

even when i was going between HWFWM and the earlier dungeon crawler carl books i was unable to really look into dinimans other stuff

though ive heard its all pretty good

[junior dew]

Yeah meander also didn’t feel like quite the right word. Like I know it definitely doesn’t, but the prose feels like it does even though it also definitely doesn’t? Idk what it is because the prose is great, the story itself is interesting, and the structure is interesting. But it also didn’t quite captivate me or charm me like I feel it should have

[wraith lynx]

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is the Paolini one 🥰

[quaint tendon]

PJO is something i have fears of returning to in a reread

[quaint tendon]

ah okay. nvm im completely a hermit for books

[quaint burrow]

Katabasis 21 ||WHAT||

[quaint tendon]

i dont hear about things until i get them recommended to me

[quaint burrow]

||PETER KILLED GRIMES?||

[quaint tendon]

the bartimaeus sequence was so exciting to return to, and find i loved it as much as i did as a kid

[random dome]

This is probably why I will never go back to Eragon, because the peak of my Eragon phase was... fourth grade and I am a very different person than I was back then

[ripe tide]

I love the reaction, Theres more to this

[quaint tendon]

my distaste for the final 1.5 inheritance books still lives pretty fresh in my mind tbh

but my brain does sometimes want to go back to read Eragon and Eldest

[minor sleet]

I just know the suck fairy would hit Eragon super bad for me

[quaint tendon]

100%

eragon as a book wears a lot of its inspirations on its sleeve

[long sorrel]

I read Eragorn when it came out and the outstanding thing about it was "hey this guy is only a few years older than me " and that's it

[quaint tendon]

which when i was 15 was super cool

it probably would not feel that way now

[random dome]

Oh see, that's even more damning because Eldest was the one I found really dull and then I never went back for the third one

[quaint tendon]

brisingr is like

fine

[random dome]

I could not name the fourth book if you paid me

[quaint tendon]

id argue two thirds of that book are pretty boring. the middle being fun

its

Inheritance

[random dome]

Oh

Oh no

[quaint tendon]

Inheritance cycle book four

[random dome]

Oh. Bad

[quaint tendon]

Inheritance

its like a Ketek from stormlight

but stupid

i mean tbh idk what id have named that book either

but im not a world famous author am i

https://tenor.com/view/creepy-vsauce-smile-gif-2980605684719370270

[random dome]

This is like when the Maximum Ride series (which only has three books, they never wrote any other ones after Saving The World and Other Extreme Sports) gave up around book six and just started using the character names as titles instead

Max: A Maximum Ride novel

b a d

[quaint tendon]

its a sort of similar issue i have with he who fights with monsters

the books have no subtitles outside of the number of the book

it makes talking about them very annoying in a setting where you need to spoiler tag

[random dome]

Then again, at least it's not whatever this is:

[quaint tendon]

tbh i could probably not bother you all with my infrequent one on none conversations about HWFWM lol

[wraith lynx]

Me, who read Fang first: wow thats so crazy

[quaint tendon]

no one else is really reading it so im mostly talking to the wind

[wraith lynx]

Oh max ride should have been better than it is

I wanna take Nudge and put her in a better story

[quaint tendon]

but my friend just had a baby so, i cant really talk to them about it

and sometimes i need to ramble and rant

[random dome]

COSMIC THEY ONLY WROTE THREE MAXIMUM RIDE BOOKS, NOOOOO 😭 😭 😭

[junior dew]

List of Definite Favorites/Loves:

• The Girl With the Louding Voice
• Homegoing
• Kindred
• Sword of Kaigen
• Children of Time Series
• Broken Earth series
• Dandelion Dynasty series
• Beartown series
• Tress
• Cradle series
• Realm of the Elderlings series
• Dungeon Crawler Carl series
• Expanse series
• Project Hail Mary

And of course Sanderson’s Cosmere stuff is generally a given

Chain Gang All Stars is also a complicated one in that it’s a stellar read that does what it sets out to do very well. But it’s a rather unpleasant read and I wouldn’t read it again nor put it amongst my favorites or books I love

[long sorrel]

are this the following Hierarchy books?

[wraith lynx]

no feather.... no dont take be back I WAS FREE 😭😭

[long sorrel]

Wait, spooky, you have read Mercy of Gods right!?

[wraith lynx]

👀👀

[quaint tendon]

this feels like a fast and the furious fanfic list

[junior dew]

I have not yet

I kinda forgot it existed because there’s only one book currently

[marble sinew]

Back in my day, we were just grumpy the series didn't end with a book three called "Empire"

[junior dew]

I need to eventually read it and tainted cup

[random dome]

The fact that I Am Number Four got a movie made is such an injustice

[long sorrel]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Spooky please

[quaint tendon]

how old are you ookla

[marble sinew]

30's

[wraith lynx]

The worst part is it isnt even good or accurate 😭 ass on top of ass :((

[random dome]

Now you've summoned them all

[junior dew]

That good?

[quaint tendon]

ah so we lived in the same back in the day

shakes fist

[long sorrel]

My favourite from 2024 reads

[quaint tendon]

why are there so many ooklas 😵‍💫

[junior dew]

I promised my gf that I’d do Licanius after Cradle. Perhaps I’ll check Mercy of Gods out after.

Though I do really want to do City of Brass and The Cruel Prince too

[marble sinew]

!ookla

[dreamy willow]

Ookla Season: Ookla-the-Mok is the username Peter Ahlstrom (Brandon’s head of editorial) used on the Timewaster’s Guide forum, where Brandon originally talked about his earliest books. We celebrate Ookla season by changing our usernames to some variation on the word Ookla, usually in the pattern ‘Ookla the [adjective]’, in the month or so between Peter and Brandon’s birthdays (November 26th and December 19th - the latter of which is also known as Koloss Head Munching Day).

KHMD is explained by Brandon as: "A fan asked if there were any holidays in the Mistborn world. I jokingly said Koloss Head-Munching Day. Fans ran with it." (See here and here.)

On that day, we get a new State of the Sanderson, which is Brandon's yearly blog post where he recaps the work he did during the year and the events he visited, then runs through all his projects and gives updates on them.

[random dome]

Tis Ookla season

[wraith lynx]

-# I just followed everyone else lol

[quaint tendon]

ohhhh

[long sorrel]

Book 2 comes out in April, so I think it's a good time to read before then if you've the time

[wraith lynx]

-# excuse to go from yellow gremlin to orange cutie patootie

[ivory cypress]

I want to be findable, pingable, and for no one to be confused if they need a mod

[quaint tendon]

fun

[long sorrel]

Mhmmmm I will not ping myself thinking it's you, I swear

[ivory cypress]

all y'all? have fun

[junior dew]

Before April sounds doable

[quaint tendon]

https://tenor.com/view/futurama-bender-everybody-was-doing-it-i-just-wanted-to-be-popular-gif-12392283687730907550

[random dome]

I've done "Ookla The Feathered" some years but I wasn't feeling it this year

[long sorrel]

I quite don't like changing my nick

I've been usha for nearly 2 decades

and Ushagi when Usha was taken, and that's fine, but that's the extent I'm willing to go

[marble sinew]

I make sure I stay largely recognisable, with apparently mixed success

[long sorrel]

Frick, not nearly, actually 2 decades, since 2005

[quaint tendon]

that is fully two decades

[random dome]

People who change their username and icon AND don't include their original username at all in their new name have merely erased their identity completely in my eyes

[quaint tendon]

deuxades

dw

ill always be the #1 gawyn hater

its basically the only personality trait i have here

outside of being one of the gentleman bastards fans

[wraith lynx]

Everyone's got somwthing

[quaint tendon]

GB fan and GT hater

thats me

[wraith lynx]

If it wasnt clear the first 8 times, im the resident eragon freak :3

[junior dew]

I’ve gone through multiple username changes over the years lol. Current one has me wondering how long I need to keep my old name in my nick though before it’s safe to drop it

[quaint tendon]

id be shoving bartimaeus down peoples feeds way more if the books werent such a pain in the ass to find

[wet belfry]

Oh yknow what I'm just this very moment realizing Cosmic erased herself to me with an Ookla'ing and a color change

[junior dew]

I’m hoping this new username sticks. At the very least I know I should always love Pokémon and the Mareep line lol

[ivory cypress]

the thing about having a character name in this part of your username is that you always risk people calling you gawyn

[junior dew]

And a pfp change

[quaint tendon]

like how darth vaders suit serves to keep him angry and filled with the dark side, this is a risk ive been willing to take

[wraith lynx]

Tee hee hi kon!

Im a Mistress of disguises ooooo~

[alpine drum]

numbers out of order, some numbers repeated, skips some numbers
this is amazing

[random dome]

The dark ritual of Ookla promises great rewards (satisfaction of succumbing to peer pressure) at great cost (forsaking your very identity and sense of self)... Your dearest friends and loved ones will look upon you, wholly unrecognized, as though you were naught but a stranger to them...

[wet belfry]

Yknow somehow I'm not worried about it

Not for myself anyway

[random dome]

If you say so, Ander

[junior dew]

Oh hmm looks like anything over $10.66 on Audible should just be bought via credits

Honestly, $10.67 per extra credit beyond membership isn't terrible

[quaint burrow]

Katabasis 22 ||Huh, maybe I don’t dislike Peter that much, good job, Peter.
You should have left Grimes to rot in hell though||

[junior dew]

I still miss my free 45 credits

[quaint burrow]

Ah, libby my beloved

[wraith lynx]

Would you believe me if I told you there was a legit reason for this 🙃

LL ||so like. Theyre aliens. Numbered aliens, and so like each book in the series is about a new alien on the team.... leading to disjointed numbering 🙃 terrible idea in hindsight but at least theres a reason 🤣||

[long sorrel]

There being a reason doesn't mean there's a good reason

it only means it's intentional

which obviously it is

[wraith lynx]

True! It is still very silly and in general irs just not a good series anyway :/

[long sorrel]

I don't even know what series that is

[wraith lynx]

I only liked one character in the end...... and then Mr James (the bad one) was like "hey you know what would be funny? If we took your baby and ruined him halfway through the series for NO reason" 🥰

[junior dew]

TIL Audible caps your cart at 50 books

(I'm not buying 50 books)

So much for the plan of add everything under $10 in my TBR to cart and then take out anything with no wait on Libby

[quaint tendon]

https://tenor.com/view/well-ill-tell-you-when-i-have-had-enough-gif-10131121

[cloud socket]

Belated brothers K comment- I haven't read it, but I have accidentally picked up at least two retellings of it in the new fiction section of the library before so I should probably read the original at some point

[long sorrel]

One day I'll get to Becky Chambers...

[cloud socket]

Really loving Record of a Spaceborn Few at the moment- we're reading it in my book club and I felt weird jumping to 3 even though they're all standalone so I read 1 and 2 last month. It's spurred my husband to read the fourth so he can stay ahead of me

-# maybe he should've thought about that before suggesting RoaSF as our book club pick

[snow vessel]

I didn't realise it's December, which means new audiobook credit

Do I want to start The Vampire Armand...

[unreal dirge]

hi guys, do you know any fantasy books similar to vermis by plastiboo?

[brazen pilot]

The Silver Spike 19 ||those absolute fools, they got the silver spike out||

20 ||raven trying so hard to chase croaker instead of anything he should do is just painful||

[low hill]

So naturally I started Fool Moon instead.

[tight kindle]

Seveneves is keeping me enthralled. Feels a lot like Project Hail Mary but... Better

[low hill]

-# carefully deletes several replies
Maybe I'll look into that.

[tight kindle]

Yeah I remember your opinion of PHM
I still quite enjoyed it but it definitely feels like Seveneves is a step up in writing quality

[long sorrel]

I shouldn't have stayed up reading til 7am...

[snow vessel]

Was it good reading, at least?

[long sorrel]

hmmm, it was fine

[low hill]

Oh, it's Neal Stephenson? I might well like that then. I liked both Snow Crash and Diamond Age.
I should get around to more of his stuff.

[analog geode]

Highly recommend Cryptonomicon if you can invest the time

It is longgggg

Much less action focused, but it’s very well written

[low hill]

I think I've got some of that.

[analog geode]

Minor conceptual spoilers ||It manages to weave together 2 storylines decades apart into one whole and it’s amazing||

[low hill]

Oh no, it's Quicksilver I've got.

My dad might have Cryptonomicon then. I'm sure I can picture the cover on a shelf somewhere...

[idle trellis]

Neal Stephenson is the only scifi author so far who has managed to make learning science fun

He has such wacky ideas

Meanwhile I'm reading the expanse right now and the scifi stuff is just not doing anything for me

[old flint]

I live for his Sumerian neurolinguistic virus content

[low hill]

Certainly my favourite of the two books I've read.

[tight kindle]

Anathem is my dad's favorite of his books so that one is on my list to read eventually

[cloud socket]

Stayed up to finish Record of a Spaceborn Few, and I wonder if I'll keep going "no THIS one is my favorite of hers" after I read another Becky Chambers book, though themes in this one definitely resonated with me- particularly the Tessa chapters. Not sure if I'm going to immediately go on to the galaxy and ground within yet, or do a different online book club's pick for that "slot" in my current read juggle (The God of the Woods by Liz Moore)

[frozen glacier]

my friend is going through gentleman bastard and apparently Lynch says 6 or 7 alot its breaking them.

[royal carbon]

I don't remember that but [insert psychological term here]

[alpine drum]

baader meinhof

[hollow hedge]

I can have that sort of effect with music at times, there's a song I think I hear for the first time, because someone directs my attention to it, and then suddenly I realize it's a 30 year old pop song that's played literally everywhere and I just never paid any attention at all

(the song I'm thinking of was only a 20 year old pop song, my mistake)

[untold leaf]

Turns out, "I Am Not A Serial Killer" can be kind of a disturbing book at times.

[proper silo]

who could've guessed, with a title like this

[oblique zodiac]

I have this strange urge to reread twilight

[low hill]

We are, as I believe they say, so back.
-# Book 1 of December done and dusted, moving onto 2.

[cloud socket]

I started a reread with another server but rereads get put on the backburner as other things come up- I should try to finish it before the year ends though.

I also sought out a used copy of the 10th anniversary edition which has the genderswapped Life & Death (I've read before), with Beau Swan and Edythe Cullen who I found to be a liitle bit more likeable than their original versions

[tight kindle]

Seveneves 17% (tf is this lack of chapter numbers Stevenson?!?) ||Fyodor is an ass. He sounds hot, but also like an ass.||

[jagged lake]

Is your friend at sixes and sevens about it?

[oblique zodiac]

I have no idea what you are talking about with Beau Swan and Edythe Cullen

But that reminds me of that Edward POV book that got released

Midnight Sun

I read it a few years back and dropped it because the vocabulary was tough

I hope my vocabulary got better since, because I finished the whole Stormlight series and made it though Robert Jordan's long descriptions!

[wraith lynx]

Beau and Edith are in Life and Death, the gender swapped version of twilight!

[snow vessel]

Oh I've gotta read that

My gf dnf'd twilight though and we dnf'd the movies so I don't know if I want to xD

[wraith lynx]

I never read twilight so I cant say, but I ADORE the movie + I liked the books afterwards

New moon is my favorite (amd the best one)

[snow vessel]

Ok I didn't mind the first 3 movies

We had to dnf because I hated the first half of breaking dawn pt1

Ive not touched the books and don't know if I'm going to

[oblique zodiac]

Vek!

[snow vessel]

-# speaking of vampire books... libro still hasn't given me my credit so I can't start The Vampire Armand

[wraith lynx]

Oh yeah BD part 1.... is definitely a movie 😂

But! BD book ||I like it because Jacob has a fairly long pov and i liked him interacting with the werewolves!||

[snow vessel]

BD pt1 ||the whole wedding and everything felt really off-putting because ultimately Bella becoming a vampire doesn't feel like a good thing to me, and then I just hated the handling of the pregnancy thing||

[wraith lynx]

BD part 1 ||Yeahhh Jacob's character imo gets way way WAY worse in eclipse, and it comes to a head here during the wedding and subsequently the pregnancy||

[snow vessel]

BD part 1 ||oh yeah Jacob... wasn't great||

||i remember one of the boys had a few moments I liked but I'm not sure which||

[wraith lynx]

||100% sure its seth||

[snow vessel]

||out of the love interest, I mean xD||

||I think Jacob was the one I disliked because it didn't even feel like he was in love with Bella, it felt like he just didn't want Edward to have her||

[wraith lynx]

OH, whoops 😂 well now you know my favorite character

[snow vessel]

||like, Edward has issues but at least it seemed like he cared for Bella beyond as a possession?||

BD pt1 ||I think I also just didn't love how... life changing BD was for Bella because it really made it hard for me to ignore the idea of like the "twilight is a horror movie from Charlie's pov" sort of thing||

||she's getting married, having a child, and potentially becoming an immortal vampire at the age of like... 18? for some guy she met at most a year or two ago||

[minor sleet]

||This is where knowing the author is a devout Mormon suddenly made the story make a lot more sense ||

[quaint tendon]

Well I must say. He Who Fights With Monsters book 7 really did a great job of bringing me back to my interest in the series

I think though I have to be realistic and say that books 4-6 have irreparably damaged my ability to enjoy Jason as a main character. I’m hoping that the return of my favorite characters will continue to balance him out.

Idk what to read next, The Pilot from Last Horizon, He Who Fights with Monsters book 8, or read my first ever Star Wars novel and go either with Resistance Reborn

[junior dew]

Idk how good Last Horizon is compared to Cradle, yet I feel like I have to say the Will Wight book

[quaint tendon]

I have enjoyed Last Horizon a lot

I think about the same as Cradle.

Hm. I think I will do Pilot

It’s been too long since I heard Travis Baldrees dulcet tones

[junior dew]

Oh really? Good to know!

[minor sleet]

I’m reading “The Door to the Sea” by Caskey Russel. It’s inspired by the author’s Tlingit heritage and is (as you can see) very funny

raven agrees on the next page for five boxes of salmon all his own, and Íxt of course provides the smallest boxes imaginable, all for raven

[alpine drum]

@long sorrel
3 chapters into What Moves the Dead. Getting real Boss Baby Gideon the Ninth vibes

[long sorrel]

I've not read Gideon!

[alpine drum]

WMtD 3 ||Enjoying it so far. Surely nothing bad will happen to the annoying American ||

[long sorrel]

The way Alex talks about him is so funny and relatable

[random dome]

Oh you should definitely read the Locked Tomb series

It's excellent

[long sorrel]

I knooow

You don't have to convince me

Ill get there

[ivory cypress]

keep me updated too

[long sorrel]

first i must finish my monster smut series

[wraith lynx]

👀👀

[oblique zodiac]

I also have this urge to reread Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus!

I heard there was a new percy jackson book!

[snow vessel]

You gottaa

[cloud socket]

Several, actually! There's two senior year books out I believe, and then some Nico adventures

(I will resume my first time read at some point)

[untold leaf]

I'm almost done with I Am Not A Serial Killer. Just finished the climax. I'm not sure if I want to keep reading this series after this book. It's been kind of a disturbing read.

[valid cloud]

The second book gets more disturbing, believe it or not, but I would still recommend it if you can stomach that. The first three books are really good, imo (especially the third).

[snow vessel]

I still gotta get around to #3

[long sorrel]

Ooooh, I breached the 200

[valid cloud]

(The Queen of Nothing Prologue) ||Ah, I see this is to be a tragedy.||

[valid cloud]

(tQoN Chapter 4) ||I am astounded. Locke died off screen? The most punchable face in the story, metaphorically unpunched by the one who most wanted to punch it. ||

[long sorrel]

Ain't that great

[ivory cypress]

teehee

[random dome]

QoN 4 ||Taryn redemption arc tho 👀 ||

||The only thing that could save her after marrying him in the first place||

[snow vessel]

QoN 4 ||I find it really funny how in a meta way like... locke just got completely dropped from the story. He made himself such a problem but didnt even last 4 chapters into book||

[valid cloud]

These two, lol... (tQoN 4) ||I am glad to see that Taryn has some backbone, though murdering your husband probably isn't the best choice for your first grand expression of violence. Truly, she should have learned from Jude in this regard. A gradual escalation works better for... actually nevermind. I guess it could be worse, if we were going for maximum drama she would be pregnant. ||

(tQoN 5) ||This dream is excellent for helping me get more of a handle on Jude's character. I always feel like I understand her, until she does something drastic and I have to reevaluate everything. (To be fair, that happened more in tCP than it did in tWK)||

(tQoN Ch5) ||No, don't touch your stomach!||

||gdi||

(tQoN Ch5) ||I am kind of baffled by this plan, though. Doesn't it require Jude to not be recognized by the guy who was completely obsessed with her before they even had a much contact or a physical relationship? You know he knows that you're twins, right? There is no way he won't be able to tell.||

[long sorrel]

||he sucks so much he doesn't deserve screen time to die. I love him||

[unique turret]

Almost 1/12th of my year listening to books. Not bad.

[valid cloud]

QoN 7 ||Funnily enough, the existence (and tone, I guess?) of the letters is one of the only things I've been spoiled on in this series. It came from, of all places, the Intentionally Blank podcast. The episode where they did the 'book boyfriend quiz' featured an apparent quote from one of them and a bit of the context was given in the youtube comments (all I really remembered was that it was written from him to her in exile, so I was waiting for her to get thrown in the tower the entire second book). I was hoping the copy I was reading would be the edition that has the letters in the back, but alas. I'll have to hunt them down after I finish reading.||

[snow vessel]

QoN 7 ||wait, you can read the letters?!||

[long sorrel]

Yes

[valid cloud]

||Supposedly they were in the back of the book in a special Barnes and Noble edition.||

But I bet they're in a wiki somewhere

[long sorrel]

QoN 7 ||there's a letter from Taryn to Jude between book 1 and 2 and then the letters, as 2 short things you can read. I read the Taryn letter and got annoyed and didn't bother with the other letters||

There's a couple more short stories out there that I've also not read

[snow vessel]

I did not know this

Maybe ill track them down before I start the sequels

[valid cloud]

QoN 10 ||Someone should tell Taryn that she finally has something to really bond with Madoc over.||

QoN 11 ||Wow. Amazing how you're making me even more mad at Locke. He's dead, you don't have to keep making him worse.||

QoN 13 ||Cardan!?||

||This is not the time to be charming, Cardan!||

[random dome]

||it's always the right time for Cardan to be charming 😏 ||

[tight kindle]

Seveneves 30%
||me: I wonder if Stevenson puts any queer people in his books.

THREE SENTENCES after I paused reading to formulate this thought: Moira herself was largely heterosexual. When she was younger she had slept with two different women...||
I'm psychic

I'm still really enjoying this book

This is the most reading I've done in a while

[untold leaf]

I finished I Am Not A Serial Killer. Wow. Intense. And then I found out there was a movie adaptation of it back in 2016 that I'm admittedly kind of interested in seeing now.

[merry galleon]

Titan’s Nest ||an attack by zealot cultists was so chaotic||

[snow vessel]

Downloaded the Vampire Armand audiobook. Unsure if I'll start it immediately

I also do need to finish Swordcrossed...

[oblique zodiac]

hi

I just finished Strength of the Few

🎉 🎉 🎉

what should I read next

Should I reread or read something new

[low hill]

I would generally lean towards reading something new.

[oblique zodiac]

yeah I knew you'd say that lol

Oooo

How is Game Changers?

[long sorrel]

Something new

[oblique zodiac]

a spicy gay hockey romance

[long sorrel]

I'm going to get my books finally

[snow vessel]

...I read get as eat and was very confused

[oblique zodiac]

big nate sounds interesting

[long sorrel]

Nooo i finally got an email saying folk of the air is there!

Coincidentally when i was going over anyway 😌

[snow vessel]

Ooh! Is this the special/nice editions you were showing?

[long sorrel]

Yeeesss

[oblique zodiac]

Oooo

Tiny Humans, Big Emotions: How to Navigate Tantrums, Meltdowns, and Defiance to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Children sounds interesting

Red Rising sounds awesome aswell though I haven't tried SF but Dune

Anger Management Workbook for Men: Take Control of Your Anger and Master Your Emotions sounds great too

I just downloaded Kindle and am browsing new books

[grim veldt]

Red Rising is great!

[snow vessel]

RR I wouldn't say is like... the hardest scifi or too hard to approach

I'd probably give a few content warnings, especially for book 1, but the writing/story itself isn't too hard to get into imo

[long sorrel]

It wasnt that it was the other order I was waiting for 😭

Which is good but damn

Its very cute

[snow vessel]

[snow vessel]

-# I cant tell if youre reacting to the content warnings or me saying its not hard to get into xD

[long sorrel]

I found it hard to get into

Not in the way you mean, it's not complex but regardless

[snow vessel]

Yeah, different issue to what I'm referring to

[long sorrel]

Oh yeah i also saw Addie LaRue with the edges and like

It looks too cute for what the story is I feel

[snow vessel]

I think I gotta read that book sometime

[low hill]

Ah, I think I have that one.

-# In English.

[long sorrel]

I bought an English copy of Dracula too, cause I couldn't stop myself

[long sorrel]

You doooo

[long sorrel]

I don't like it enough to want a print copy, compared to other books

[snow vessel]

I remember I saw a (somewhat) negative review of it that put me off it a little, a while ago, but I'm starting to suspect they may just not have been vibing with the premise

[long sorrel]

Id rather get many others by Schwab

[long sorrel]

What was it?

You've read Bury Our Bones... you know Schwab writes... bitter things

[snow vessel]

Addie Larue review/Bury our bones vibes ||I remember they said something about how they... were uncomfortable with/didn't like the way the invisible life was had, because they felt it would be really creepy if it was a man doing it||

||or at least, that was an example they gave to explain it||

[long sorrel]

Aaaah

[snow vessel]

Having read BOB I'm not totally surprised that it maybe touches on/does some maybe slightly uncomfortable things xD

[long sorrel]

It does!

Lol

I know what the author of that review is talking about

I don't agree though

[snow vessel]

I remember them specifically mentioning ||the idea of someone dating/sleeping with people and them not being able to remember the person the next day was not something they loved||

[long sorrel]

Right, yeah

[snow vessel]

But now I'm not totally shocked it does some potentially questionable relationship stuff

[long sorrel]

I think you'd be fine with it

[snow vessel]

Yeah, I expect so

[long sorrel]

If anything it does the mental swoop of "well, frick, I understand"

[snow vessel]

But having a bit more exposure to Schwab makes me... trust more that any issues/toxicity/etc. are probably on person/handled well rather than being an accident

[long sorrel]

Certainly not an accident

It show cases the mental state of Addie

[snow vessel]

Yeah, that makes sense

[long sorrel]

Personally I found the execution of the concept could be a bit better

[snow vessel]

I kiiiind of want to reread Bury our bones....

[long sorrel]

It's not a favourite but I still enjoyed it a lot

And the setting/concept does make you sit down and think about it

All the way to the end

[snow vessel]

I'll probably read vicious or darker shade of magic first, I think

But I'll probably reread Bury Our Bones first

[long sorrel]

From what I've read it goes after all of those

I think it sits along with Gallant

[snow vessel]

I don't think I've heard about that one 🤔

[long sorrel]

Gallant i enjoyed a lot because it's hella creepy

But that's about it

Schwab can write a vibe

[snow vessel]

Atp its possible I'll put aside a month early next year for rereads

I have a handful I wanna go back to

[long sorrel]

Same but I also want more time before I reread

But I'm 100% rereading Bury Our Bones

[snow vessel]

I wanna go back to Bury Our Bones knowing the whole picture

Knowing what the themes and arcs are

I've gotta head off now though so 👋

[long sorrel]

Mhmmm

I'm going to read Witness for the Dead as soon as I'm done with what I'm reading

My current read I should have DNFed a while ago but now I'm so close to finish that might as well skim through the end

[long sorrel]

Oh yeah

[low hill]

Very nice.

[long sorrel]

It is

I realise i forgot to post my last haul

That said its time to stop buying books

And get on buying shelves

[low hill]

The two related hobbies.

[long sorrel]

(I'll do this later)

[alpine drum]

@ivory cypress
WMtD 4 ||ok well the direction I am definitely meant to be speculating in is that the Ushers have some weird fungal infection but i guess real witchcraft is the actual answer. Entirely baseless theory but the unseen sister may be the witch? I don't remember if we have any details on her||

[ivory cypress]

interesting!

[long sorrel]

@buoyant whale did you ever finish What Stalks the Deep?

[long sorrel]

Ok the mc just died and this seems to be setting up to a massive tragedy so I'm enjoying the end more than the rest of the book

Ah no, he's not dead 😩

I finished

It ended on a cliffhanger

I'm not touching book 2

[low hill]

Yay?
-# Not yay.

[long sorrel]

It was a vampire book, I wish I could recommend it

But it's pretty badly written

Not that I can say the title after telling the end

[low hill]

I don't object if you want to PM me the title.

[oblique zodiac]

I think I'll reread stormlight

because I have a mission!

[untold leaf]

I finally got ahold of my library's copies of The Will of the Many and Six of Crows!

...Right as my finals for the semester are creeping up to overwhelm me.

I could read one of them in a couple weeks, but two? We'll see.

[oblique zodiac]

whats Six of Crows?

[tight kindle]

It's a book by Leigh Bardugo
Fantasy heist with some cool magic powers

Great book

[versed agate]

one the books the recent Shadow And Bone TV Show was based on (they essentially dragged the characters from Crows into the plot the show was actually using)

[long sorrel]

Oh really?

I mean there's some crossover

but not of any of the main characters

I should read the last book

well, I think it's the last book?

Rules of Wolves

[oblique zodiac]

Oh I watched the show and I enjoyed it

[untold leaf]

I haven't read any of the Grisha books or seen the show. I only started Six of Crows because my brother-in-law recommended it to me.

[ivory cypress]

i'm rereading Witch King in prep for Queen Demon and (1) this was a good idea, i forgot a lot of detail (2) oh my god i forgot how much i adore Kai 😖 🥺 🥴 😍 mr king of witches himself

[burnt girder]

I recently started Blood Over Bright Haven. I didn't realize how much this book was right up my alley. Reminds me a lot of R.F. Kuang's last 2 fantasy books

[spring turtle]

it's very much like Babel (affectionate)

[long sorrel]

Witness for the dead 1 || "Drink thy tea, Celehar, I said impatiently to myself, and cease repining." I found this sentence way too funny||

Im too sleepy to read much more today

But, I had forgotten how nice her prose is

[ivory cypress]

yeee

[unreal dirge]

hi i have been told that webnovels and progression fantasy is better than classic literature and lord of the rings, is it true?

[ivory cypress]

uh... it might be true for you. it doesn't make it objective fact

that's all personal preference

[snow vessel]

Better in what way?

From what you've said before, it might work better for you

-# not only is it personal preference, there's like 30+ things you could compare them on

[lusty meteor]

probably not

[unreal dirge]

someone was telling me the wandering inn and mushoku tensei are better than lord of the rings

and the wandering inn somehow has more words than all of stephen king books combined

[lusty meteor]

idk about wandering inn but mushoku tensei is almost assuredly not better than lotr

and i dont even like lotr

[unreal dirge]

for me? why

[ivory cypress]

from what i know about wandering inn, there is not a CHANCE it's better than lord of the rings on basically any metric

[snow vessel]

Potentially more action and stuff?

I think that was you asking for anime-like fantasy

[ivory cypress]

and as good as i think lotr is, there is no chance i think mosy would like it

[lusty meteor]

also not sure about saying all of classic literature and also lotr

classic literature has some bangers

[brazen pilot]

sounds like a solid reason to read some progression fantasy webnovel and read some classics, and see which you like more

[unreal dirge]

i will be reading lord of the rings someday! i love the hobbit

i like action but i also like when fantasy feels magical and adventurous, i can like different things lol

[ivory cypress]

yeah i'm basing this off your mistborn opinion, for sure

[unreal dirge]

im also looking for stuff similar to vermis, which is perfect for that feeling, it's one of the most immersive books i have read and it's not even a book!

more like a game manual for a game that doesn't exist

[unreal dirge]

i havent resumed reading mistborn yet, but hopefully next time i give it a try i like it more! i just didnt care at all about the whole rebellion or political stuff

[zinc flicker]

My opinion is both is good

Prog fantasy can be very fun and addictive. Classics can be really insightful and have great prose.

Just like some people might watch the Godfather and the well-developed plot and story be their favorite movie, others might enjoy the excitement and hype of an Avengers movie

Both can be good but serve different purposes

[junior dew]

Agreed. RoTE and Cradle are both peak and hit super well in very different ways for example. Have thoroughly enjoyed reading both series this past year

[zinc flicker]

ORV is a prog fantasy I really enjoy. Have to read more.

[wide olive]

Oh, right! How much added value is in readin orv novel's first volumes (the official english ones) for webtoon readers?

Like, how much changed, or maybe there is slightly different perspectives or more thoughts of cgaracters?

Beside the simple fact that it is in novel form (personaly for me a plus)

[low hill]

Feels like this will appeal to many people here.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/99216-prh-announces-kpop-demon-hunters-publishing-program.html

[ripe tide]

I saw that

[versed agate]

Right, well that's the nibling's birthday sorted

and mine

[ripe tide]

I mean it depends on the publishing dates

These announcments are early

[versed agate]

2027
oh
they really weren't expecting KDH to be as popular as it was

or frankly, popular at all

[ripe tide]

And books take a long time to write

[idle trellis]

Sometimes too long

[low hill]

I have now read as many books in December as I did in November, so I think things are looking up again for my free time.

[idle trellis]

Are you gonna spend that free time reading more books ?

[low hill]

Other way around. I have free time again, so therefore I am reading books.

[idle trellis]

Wait December just started

How many books have you read so far

[low hill]

Two.

November was very slow.

[idle trellis]

November is the worst month of the year

If I could make a tier list with every month of the year, November would be an F

[grim veldt]

😔

November is my birfday 😭

[low hill]

November is fine, it's just busy.

[snow vessel]

November has one of my favourite month names, I think.

[zinc flicker]

Novel changes a few terminologies and uses English style names. The novel also only has two volumes out (prob 2 /25).
Manhwa is after the 1/2 way point.
Overall, it is an excellent manhwa adaption of the original webnovel (which has a bad translation). The novel is the webnovel but officially translated.

Off the top of my head the new translation ||calls the Dokkaebi “goblins”||

[wide olive]

Ah, all right, thank you!

So I'm not in a hurry to read it, but it still would probably be worth it

[quaint burrow]

IG 17 ||Kavax... Isn't actually insane?||

[grim veldt]

|| WYM, he never was||

[ivory cypress]

fell into the momentum of Witch King at around 40% and zoomed through until I was finished last night (staying up way too late of course)

[long sorrel]

Of course

[ivory cypress]

but it does mean it's finally Queen Demon time!

more Kaiiiiii 😍

[long sorrel]

One day I'll reach there, either after I read all of her previous works or when i allow myself to read more than one series by the same author at once

[idle trellis]

Is the witch king a romantasy novel ?

I assume it has politics, and magic

I've abandoned leviathan Wakes and I feel bad about it, I really need to finish it

It just hasn't hooked me yet, it's not bad but I'm not overly excited about it either

I dont think I'm in the mood for another story where society sucks and people are awful to one another, and you have the lonely literally me character

[long sorrel]

As much as I love the expanse, you shouldn't force yourself to read something you don't like or don't feel like reading anyway

[ivory cypress]

uh no it's not romantasy

[idle trellis]

Or at least, it's not as compelling in the expanse

[ivory cypress]

it does have politics and magic

[long sorrel]

Like I could tell you it's worth on the overall plot but you really just shouldn't force yourself

[idle trellis]

I assume it's gonna get more epic and complex

But I don't really see anything that I haven't seen done better before

[long sorrel]

It sure is

hmmm

I don't think you've reached what the plot is about, per se? Book 1 does a lot of situating you I guess

But as I said, lol, if you're not enjoying it then leave it, you can always come back to it later if you feel like it

[idle trellis]

Im in the mood for some scifi but on the more adventurous side? Kinda like star trek, where they explore different cultures, aliens, diplomacy, space exploration

[long sorrel]

Yaeh, that's not The Expanse

[hollow hedge]

The Expanse might have a little of that but it's really not the focus, no

[burnt girder]

Have you read the murder bot diaries?

[idle trellis]

Nope

I've heard good things about the sun eater series

[burnt girder]

Very small novellas scifi

Android who hacks his own governer module to make decisions for himself

[ivory cypress]

itself

[burnt girder]

Themselves*

[ivory cypress]

murderbot and all constructs use it/its

[idle trellis]

Androids are not human beings

Right ?

[ivory cypress]

there are non-binary humans in the series who use they/them

[idle trellis]

They are it's

[long sorrel]

I think depending on the story you can have androids identifying however way they want

if they're sapient

[idle trellis]

If they have a soul

[burnt girder]

Still going to use they/them lol

[long sorrel]

Eh...

[idle trellis]

Hmm that might be a good premise for scifi, what makes something human

[long sorrel]

Let's say that's besides the point to me

(the soul bit)

[idle trellis]

This is the kinda stuff I want to explore in a book

[ivory cypress]

that is still misgendering

[long sorrel]

My mom's watched the Murderbot series and she said it's pretty good, I was considering getting her the books even though I've not read them yet

[north scaffold]

Androids are robots who have physical forms resembling humans.

They can have gender identity like Star Trek's Data being a he/him.

[ivory cypress]

like I know humans who use it/its, "they/them" is misgendering

Security Units in the murderbot universe are a mix of hardware and human tissue

constructs and bots are distinct but all use the same pronouns

[long sorrel]

Yeah it really depends on the setting, some androids cannot self identify, some have it baked in, and some have the full capability of self identifying as whatever they wish.

[idle trellis]

English is not my first language, but isn't "it" offensive to use towards humans

[long sorrel]

Obviously irl this doesn't exist but in fiction it is whatever the setting has set up

[long sorrel]

Not if its your own choice

You can consider that calling someone that's a "she" a "he" offensive too if you're doing it full knowingly that the person is a she, right?

So this is the same

[ivory cypress]

if someone chooses to be called it, then respect that. it's not about how you feel.

[long sorrel]

if you're purposely ignoring someone's pronouns that's 😬

(Which is different from getting confused or being unaware)

[ivory cypress]

it's the same as being uncomfortable calling a trans woman she/her, you understand?

they (plural) chose that

[idle trellis]

I get that, but just the use of "it" confounds me, in Italy pronouns are not as flexible

[long sorrel]

Yeah, it's a fair question

In Spain they're not either

[burnt girder]

As a cishet, white dude I'm not going to argue how people should be addressed, I just follow instructions after I get it wrong at first and try to do better

[north scaffold]

Yeah there are no IRL androids with the capability to self-identify as anything.

Obviously someone can stick a language model in one and convince it to have a certain gender but uh those aren't conscious either.

[long sorrel]

The "it" pronoun in spanish is really awkward to use even when using it with objects

and a neutral "they" doesn't exist

[ivory cypress]

then you know in the books, murderbot would not use they/them because it doesn't use the pronoun they/them

[junior dew]

Site-wide audible sale is danger. So tempted. 36 books in cart currently. Cross-referenced against libby. Most of the books are ~$3-4 and either not on Libby or have multi-month waits

[ivory cypress]

and you know it's an option because Wells writes people with all kinds of pronouns in the murderbot books

[long sorrel]

This conversation has made me remember that I want more Everina Maxwell 😩

[ivory cypress]

mmm I should check on what she's up to

[idle trellis]

Has anyone here read the sun eater books

[ivory cypress]

I read the first one and got 5% into the second

you might like them

[idle trellis]

Is she actually your friend ?

[ivory cypress]

no?

like, I'll go check her socials and website and so on

[junior dew]

My girlfriend read book 1 and then dropped the series. She was of the opinion that it felt very catered to white men specifically

[long sorrel]

I don't see any news past 2021

but I'm bad at checking lol

[idle trellis]

Wasn't that the majority of media until like the 2000s ?

[ivory cypress]

bruh

[long sorrel]

Not quite, but also that's no reason she'd want to read it

Understanding the society context of when a book was written is important but that doesn't mean I have to deal with it when I can turn around and pick literally anything else to read

[idle trellis]

Im not saying you have to read it

[long sorrel]

Fair

[junior dew]

Yeah. Iirc I don't think she thought it was necessarily particularly bad per se, but it wasn't for her

[ivory cypress]

that's... a little over simplified in a way that borders on not true, but like. some are worse than this than others. even back in this era (which wasn't as broad as implied), some were better and worse than others

and in this day and age when there ARE options, it SUCKS to "go back"

[long sorrel]

I'll probably read it eventually

[junior dew]

Yeah I may check it out eventually as well. But it isn't high on my ever-expanding list currently

[long sorrel]

Btw, Sun Eater is from 2018

(just as a side note that, less of an excuse even, less of a "product of their time")

Anyway, idk what specifically bothers people about it and some stuff I don't care at all about whatsoever so I guess I'll find out on my own

[ivory cypress]

I have this whole mental list of authors that I've never given a name or label even to myself, but it is "Sanderson (the lead because of this server being what it is), Abercrombie, Brown, Ruocchio, Islington"

I build into it sometimes

[junior dew]

She also wasn't a fan of Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynn for a similar reason + apparently the way slavery was casually normalized in the book/the feeling of there being an expectation that you are supposed to empathize with a slaver at some point in the book

I haven't read either Sun Eater or Shadow of the Gods

[idle trellis]

It used to be an oversaturated market, white men protagonists, especially in fantasy

[ivory cypress]

"if you like x author, here are authors in the same bucket that seems to have appeal with readers who also liked y"

[idle trellis]

I can see someone being tired of the same default protagonist over and over

[ivory cypress]

I think I may be older than you and have been reading sff for the equivalent number of increased years

[long sorrel]

It's a lot about how it's written too

[idle trellis]

I don't doubt that

[long sorrel]

I don't mind traditional protagonists at all. I like a cliche, hypercompetent mc just fine

[junior dew]

Yeah she was talking specifically about how it's written I believe

I don't know all the details specifically

[long sorrel]

But then you do stuff like, idk, Black Prism, and I could throw up

[junior dew]

I just know that was her take on it. I know a lot of people place Sun Eater highly

Pretty sure she presented it very much as "there's nothing wrong with this being the case, it just wasn't my cup of tea/I didn't feel like I was the target demographic"

[ivory cypress]

there is something about how it's written, what the narrative focuses on, how it treats the female characters, how it treats the world, what light it puts the lead guy and his actions in... it's not just about "the protag is a straight dude"

[somber timber]

That series. Such a mess

[long sorrel]

Riyria Revelations, as traditional fantasy I've read in the last couple of years, comes to mind. And I quite enjoy that even though it's super cliche, white male, formulaic fantasy adventure. The first book is pretty poorly written (not in the "white male" way). But after taht I just really quite enjoyed following this super cliche mcs around in their adventures

[idle trellis]

My point was this, you can definitely be tired of having the same white protagonists in books, but there's a difference between doing one right or wrong, if you tell me your friend didn't read the book because it has a white protagonist that doesn't tell me much about the book itself, only about what your friend wants

[junior dew]

Ahh

[long sorrel]

I actually spent a while missing them 😭 I got so attached who knows why lol

[ivory cypress]

"this feels like it was written for straight white dudes" is so so much more than just what demographic the lead mc is

[junior dew]

Sure. Hence why my wording was what it was. Saying it feels targeted to a demographic doesn't necessarily imply that the protagonist is that demographic

[somber timber]

Oh yeah those books are pulpy as hell!

[long sorrel]

I think there's generally a connotation and nuance attached to saying this that doesn't mean literally "white dude", like there's nothing wrong with being a white cishet dude!

[somber timber]

Just hey let’s do all the cliches but fun

[idle trellis]

If I hear that something caters to a white male audience I tend to gravitate towards negativity

[long sorrel]

What JMT said: Just hey let’s do all the cliches but fun
What I read: Read The Devils

[somber timber]

Exactly

[long sorrel]

Because that's what it means

[somber timber]

Make the characters feel fun make the adventure fun. Profit

[idle trellis]

Well I wouldny say negativity per se, more so the traditional values of being a man

Which I don't necessarily agree with

[ivory cypress]

that isn't what it means to me

it's not a values thing to me so much as a worldview thing

[long sorrel]

The issue with "white male catering" is that it does so generally by putting down everyone else

It's not something like "hey this is catered to a specific audience" which, literally every book does! But the way it caters to it is by downgrading everyone else in the process, and segregating and pushing everyone else away from it, too.

[idle trellis]

I can enjoy some testosterone fueled power fantasy as much any other man, what I dont like is when a book transforms that as being the objective truth, this is how things should be etc

[long sorrel]

I love some testosterone fueled books

There's no need to put down everyone else in the process however

[somber timber]

And that’s why wizards first rule is bad

[idle trellis]

yeah thats what I feel when someone says it caters to a white male audience

that it puts down everyone else to sell me some uncritical powerfantasy

[long sorrel]

Like if you need to say people of other genders, races, religions, sexuality are worse to feel good about yourself, uhm... you have issues, we have issues with you, etc. (You meaning the author)

many testosterone fueled books, as you called them, have every woman be dumb or a damsel in distress and that is putting down people

There are some that don't do that, and I think those are dumb fun and I enjoy them

[idle trellis]

a recent good example of male powerfantasy that is quite harmless, warhammer space marine 2, I loved that game

[ivory cypress]

for me, I started the second sun eater and ||it was all just very weird about women in a way that I am not sure a straight dude would even notice, because in books for straight white dudes, women are written like that and written about like that all the time||

[somber timber]

There’s always that line between “dudes rock” and “dudes only”

[junior dew]

I honestly don't think she even meant it negatively per se in this case. If she did, I think she would have said explicitly that it felt like it in a bad way and that she wouldn't suggest I still give it a chance (as she did say that I may enjoy it more than she did and that I should form my own opinion).

I think she just that it felt like it wasn't written for her/wasn't her thing. I think she may have at some point included some stuff about Star Wars when she mentioned it as a comparison point?

[ivory cypress]

"dudes only" is a great way to pinpoint it, that feels right

[long sorrel]

A good semi-testosterone induced fantasy that comes to mind that's all Guns blazing, sex, swearing, "raaaah" that was pretty decent was The God Fragments that Vecna had recommended and I read last year

Maybe you'd like that, Teddy

[junior dew]

Yeah I can't quite remember all she said about it. This was I think early this year? And I barely remember stuff from a few months ago lol

[idle trellis]

well its also an issue when authors dont realize they are writing dudes only fiction

a lot of this stuff is not done on purpose

[somber timber]

Feel that lol

[ivory cypress]

we know it's not on purpose, but that doesn't really do anything for me knowing that. I still don't care to read it...

[long sorrel]

Yes, it's just ingrained in their brains

[tight kindle]

I mean I would argue it's bad for more reasons but that's definitely one of them

[idle trellis]

oh yeah wizards first rule

I was more into that than leviathan wakes LMAO

I am just too fantasy pilled

I just love fantasy, gimme a medieval world with adventures

and fantastic beasts

and magic

ill eat it up

[tight kindle]

Which is fair
There are legitimately good elements in it
Just the bad/weird ones significantly overshadow it for me

[long sorrel]

You should check this out, Teddy, it has a lot of cool factor baked into it

It's not power fantasy though

it's magic guns

[idle trellis]

To be fair id rather play something thats a powerfantasy

because its me who plays it and im the powerful one

[long sorrel]

I don't think I read powerfantasy per se

Does Erha count

[junior dew]

Yeah I think that saying it feels catered to white men isn't inherently negative. It may often be in a negative way, but sometimes it's just as simple as it does so through a certain lens or perspective that just ultimately leaves the book feeling like it isn't quite for you/isn't quite what you feel like reading - like it's lacking in a certain perspective. It can be subjective thing based on the person saying it as well and what their associations are too

[zinc flicker]

I like power fantasy

[long sorrel]

Hmmm, I don't think anyone says this without it being inherent negative

So like, you're "technically correct"

[somber timber]

nudges the tainted cup in teddy’s direction

[long sorrel]

Obviously not every book is for everyone and each book has its audience, but nowadays "catreing to white male" doesn't mean simply "the main audience are white men"

Which is what it means in the literal sense

I can't type

I can't be bothered to keep correcting my typos lol

[idle trellis]

I aint drinking from that

[brazen pilot]

IMO it tends to signify that the author is like, not necessarily regressive, but certainly staying within the status quo. That their creative vision doesn't include pushing themselves beyond what is standard and familiar to them.

[ivory cypress]

generally, I say "this feels like it's for SWM" when there is a particular problem with women or other minorities and how they're written. they feel small, shallow... irrelevant

[junior dew]

I think the vibe I got in my gf's vibe is that for her Star Wars feels like it's catered to white men to her and Sun Eater book 1 felt like that to her. It really did feel like it was more just not her vibe, but that she didn't outright recommend not reading it.

Meanwhile Shadow of the Gods felt like she meant it in an inherently negative way.

[idle trellis]

ahhh star wars

[long sorrel]

Right, I obviously don't know what your gf specifically means haha

[somber timber]

https://tenor.com/view/boo-gif-19787475173016375

[tight kindle]

Also random thought (triggered by WFR) but I've only ever read one book with a trigger warning at the beginning and I've read several more that should have them.
I wish it was a more common thing because being blindsided by a trigger isn't my favorite experience

[long sorrel]

But as a general rule, unless you specify, saying something's catered to white men isn't going to mean anything neutral or positive

You'd need to give me an explanation of what it means for me to understand that

which is fine, that's what talking is for

[versed agate]

Murder Mystery in a Biopunk empire with Sherlock esque protagonists
Told from the PoV of the Watson, of course

[tight kindle]

It's quite good

[long sorrel]

Tainted Cup is really good

[zinc flicker]

I just bought Tainted Cup

[idle trellis]

Alright ill give it a try

[junior dew]

Yeah I just was clarifying kind of why my thoughts maybe were a bit more along the lines of there's room for nuance there, even if it very often is meant negatively. Which is also why I was trying to convey that in the first place

[long sorrel]

was the TW the ASaSE?

[somber timber]

Won the Hugo, World Fantasy

[idle trellis]

But if I dont enjoy it im gonna blame you guys

lmao

[junior dew]

My gf just read The Tainted Cup and the sequel and really enjoyed them both

[long sorrel]

wild, I think a lot of what I read has TWs, or at least a link to TWs. I actually fully ignore TWs

[somber timber]

https://tenor.com/view/jack-nicholson-jack-nicholson-yes-yes-nod-head-nod-gif-17444176260167585294

[low hill]

Only The Black Hunger that I've read recently had one I think.

[junior dew]

I need to read Tainted Cup myself at some point. I really want to, just a matter of when to slot it in and I haven't been in a rush because more books are on the way

[long sorrel]

I like when there's a link to go check it, or it just tells you "this has TW, please check them out"

[tight kindle]

Yeah I really appreciated that.
I will admit that ASaSE ||I didn't expect all of them to show up in the first fifty pages but the warning really did help.||
I need to reread that book. It hit so hard the first time.

[long sorrel]

I don't like when there are TWs upfront 😔

[somber timber]

Read it!!!!!

[zinc flicker]

I do too. I just saw one at the start of a Touch of Poison. I agree with you. Put it somewhere external or reference elsewhere rather than a list at the start.

[long sorrel]

Yes! They should be available!

[ivory cypress]

I don't need the TWs but I assume that for people who lean on them more, up front is best

[long sorrel]

But I always read some by mistake and I don't want that

Maybe at the end of the book so you can check them without needing internet would work for me best

like last page or so

[ivory cypress]

it's easier access for the people who need or want them, I can easily skip, and it doesn't ruin anything for me to see it

[idle trellis]

Put an ESRB rating on books

[long sorrel]

And something at the front telling you they are there at the end of course

[long sorrel]

I really don't like reading them, I skip but I always read a few by mistake

I understand that this is better than no TWs ofc

[ivory cypress]

I think it's nicer to not have people who need them risk seeing the ending

front of the book is accessibility

[long sorrel]

mhm, I understand 😩 but I don't like it myself

[ivory cypress]

and it's hard to complain about an accessibility feature

[zinc flicker]

I get why it’s a thing and it makes sense and being accessible is more important than what I think because I don’t need the TWs lol

[long sorrel]

I can and will say what I prefer, but I'm not gonna go complain and tell people to stop putting their TWs up front, that's for sure

[zinc flicker]

Seeing the Wicked book in stores has made me very pro this

Or at least put 18+ books in like plastic like they do with manga that are 18+ because damn

[long sorrel]

I think ESRB is kinda useless tbh, and largely unrelated to TWs

[junior dew]

Eventually!

• Next book is Threshold and then I have to slot in 3 more books by the end of the month for my 52 this year.
• DCC book 7 is high on my docket right now, possibly after I hit my 52 for the year.
• Licanius Trilogy is as well because my gf wants me to read them and thinks I'll really enjoy the world building + she has been itching to spoil them
• City of Brass is as well because I have been really wanting to read those personally

Some others high on my list to check out are TCP, more Tchaikovsky books (Cage of Souls and Final Architecture series I think maybe at the top of that sub-list), and Last Horizon.

I also kinda am itching to do a quick re-read of Broken Earth (may do that for my 3 books after Threshold since I feel like they were short/quick reads)

[long sorrel]

the one time I found Quicksilver in the middle grade section

and I was like "uh... this is porn, why is this here"

[zinc flicker]

I think the Wicked book is the exact case why a book age rating system would be good (because the largely family friendly musical is extremely 18+)

[zinc flicker]

ACOTAR gets thrown there too. ACOTAR isn’t as bad but still.

[long sorrel]

I mean age ratings have their uses

[somber timber]

One day I will reread broken earth… one day!

[long sorrel]

But this is not the same as if, like, idk most of the people in this conversation are at least 18+. But that doesn't mean you want to read about idk, drug abuse, for example.

[zinc flicker]

Berserk gets bound in plastic with stickers saying “do not buy this for you 10 year old sons that watch Naruto”

[junior dew]

My turn to say read it!!!!! It's unbelievably good

[long sorrel]

mangastores here do have a different full "18+" section behind a curtain, just like in Japan

(he did say reread)

[junior dew]

Oh I missed the re

[somber timber]

Oh I’ve read it. I’m just uh… not in the head space to go through it again

[junior dew]

Thanks lmfao

[long sorrel]

I do feel ACOTAR is 14+ in the society I live in for example

which wouldn't be the case in the one you live in

[somber timber]

And I haven’t been in….7 years!

[zinc flicker]

Yeah I think it’s like 16+ here

[long sorrel]

Yeah that's fine

[junior dew]

Super fair. I also want to re-read Dandelion Dynasty but that's a long one so that's not happening any time soon

[long sorrel]

It's definetely not middle grade though! And even less is Quicksilver lol

[junior dew]

So many books I want to read... Not nearly enough time. Especially because I kinda really want to get my second game released before I turn 30

And get back to writing

[long sorrel]

When I saw how short Witness for the Dead is it made me kinda happy in the way of "oh this is going out of the list in like 2 sittings", though then I will be like "I want more" when it's over, probably

(But then I will have more books after it so it's fine!)

My "I want more of this thing" lasts a total of 5 minutes until I start the next book usually

[somber timber]

I think age warnings are a bit unnecessary for books. Like there are kids/ya sections and outside of that… I mean kids won’t die if a book has sex or gay people in them.

[zinc flicker]

I disagree solely because parents can look at R-rated movies and know what their kids are watching

[somber timber]

That’s what those sections are for

[tight kindle]

Remember that thing a while ago where a book reviewer or something did chapter by chapter content warnings and included m/m and f/f romance?
I think the Internet overreacted a little bit (as it does) but there is, I think, a justified level of indignation as being included as a content warning.

[zinc flicker]

But books are (often) sorted out of section

The Wicked book is the recent alarming one because that book is pretty explicit and its advertised as a book for 10 year old girls rn

[somber timber]

Parents can look up stuff about what they give to their kids, a forced rating system of appropriateness will just result in what is happening with school libraries currently

The most extreme view holder will complain loudly and try to enforce their views on everybody else

And suddenly book stores will stop stocking anything with gay people because they don’t want to deal with the headache

[versed agate]

"currently"

People have been banning books in libraries for as long as I've been alive (and for much the same reasons 😩 )

[somber timber]

I’m referring to a specific push in the last 3 years

[tight kindle]

Ngl the library thing is one of the reasons why I like collecting and owning physical books

One of the reasons. I'm also a book goblin

[long sorrel]

Mhmmm, so this is why age ratings are kind of useless

"gay" isn't an age thing lmao

"trans" isn't an age thing

and then we ban things like nipple showing but have full on gore like that's fine

[low hill]

Age ratings are certainly ... inconsistent.

[long sorrel]

So, age ratings have some uses but they're overall not useful since they're not used under a consensus of what they mean

I feel the "violence, parental discretion advised" or whatever that sign goes

is far more useful than age ratings

[tight kindle]

One of those "good in theory, impossible in execution" kind of things

Due to people being people

[marble sinew]

The trick is to only let children consume media that's Next In The Queue, and to always stay ahead of them

[long sorrel]

also ulitemately kids have varying ranges of what they're okay with

My 12 yo brother is completely not okay with even the smallest amount of violence for example

but other kids same age are out there reading Mistborn and being completely fine

[marble sinew]

I think some sort of (voluntary) "these are the sections you may want to discuss with child" flagging system might work

But nobody's ever happy with voluntary flagging

[long sorrel]

right but the age rating systems are just "age X" and nothing else, they don't give you a reason of why

so at the end of the day TWs are still more useful

[junior dew]

Honestly I was a bit surprised by how graphic some violence in mistborn is on a re-read, particularly with it being Sanderson and with some saying it teeters on YA

Namely Mistborn book 2 || Vin headbutting the guy so hard his head popped like a balloon and sprayed gore everywhere, and her horror around Elend seeing that. Surprisingly visceral for Brandon ||

[somber timber]

Reject classification, embrace whimsy!

[long sorrel]

||all of the koloss stuff is gorey, the inquisitors at the end of book 1, too. The way Vin's ex crew gets split into limbs, as well. Etc||

||not to mention the mentions of Vin's near rape and brothels. The actual mention of rape of skaa in the prologue, etc||

||coincidentally many books don't consider mention of rape (without depiction) to be worth considering for age rating, one more reason it sucks||

[marble sinew]

||Rape, with a death penalty attached (for the victim)||

[junior dew]

(Response to the whole set of messages) || Yeahhhhhh there’s quite a bit of stuff in Mistborn…

And yeah age ratings are as a whole handled very poorly ||

[late orchid]

There's a sale in a bookstore. In my country the Wayward Children series got published with two stories per book.

Sale is quite significant, over 60%. I got myself Every Heart a Doorway / Down Among the Sticks and Bones. But now I see that also the 3 & 4 and 5 & 6 will be on sale and I'm wondering if I should buy it. I haven't even read the first two, so...

is it good?

and if it isn't, are the ideas at least good? Portal fantasy is interesting to me

[ivory cypress]

godddd Queen Demon is so good already. I don't know if this was actually a planned sequel/series, but it's exactly the perfect sequel so far, just feeling like a combination of precisely where the first one left off with the same momentum, absolutely no "recap weirdness" or stumbles with getting the ball rolling. right back into the action and focusing on all the things I was most interested to see explored and continued. 😩 😤

[burnt girder]

Blood over Bright Haven || finished, what a ride. Definitely a favorite ||

[long sorrel]

Back to Witness for the Dead

[ivory cypress]

I've been reading Queen Demon all day

god I love Martha Wells

[ivory cypress]

Queen Demon all ||AHHHHHHHH okay so there's gonna be a THIRD at least right???! RIGHT????!||

||man that was good though||

||I want mooooar||

I can't wait to make my Martha Wells shelf section bigger...

mooooarrrrrr

aaaaand that's already more books finished in Dec than Nov

[tight kindle]

Red White and Royal Blue is definitely one of my comfort books

[snow vessel]

I think December is going to be a slow reading month for me

I have two audiobooks I could be reading but haven't really felt motivated to listen to either lately

[old bone]

Maybe you need a palate cleanser

a different variety

[snow vessel]

I don't know if it's really those specific books as much as it is I just don't super feel like reading audiobooks right now

I figure I'll give it a break and come back in a week or so when I'm actually excited about it

And then physical I am reading, but working through a big book

[old bone]

Maybe like try radioplays?

Or a different medium to books

[snow vessel]

I do have a few audiodrama podcasts to work through...

[old bone]

Might be the time then

[tight kindle]

I uh
Finished it in one sitting
It was a long sitting but it took me one

And now it's 4 am lmao

[light drum]

I have given into the DCC propaganda and the prose is very much not what I expected in a good way

[merry galleon]

I’m slowly getting there but I’m at 33 pages on Titan’s Nest!

[wraith lynx]

TWK 8 ||Awww the bomb is in love!||

||go get your freak of a man, queen, you are genuinely the only girl besides jude who deserves happiness in this story well, and Viv too, I like her||

TWK 9 ||"haha yeah I snuck in your rooms silly!" 😒||

TWK 9 ||also Taryn.... shes so. Every time I almost feel bad for her she goes and whines about Locke as if she didnt sacrifice her sisters relationship for mr "I wanted to date 2 sisters because I thought it would be funny" 😒||

||and honestly jude being like "I dont have time for this but im gonna let you be stupid" is so funny||

[snow vessel]

TWK 9 ||I really like how taryn is written because like... she makes some very poor choices and sucks sometimes but I get why she did it? But also, it still sucks||

[ivory cypress]

TWK 9 ||sometimes i'm like. it's so hard to write characters who suck, sometimes. that's quality. how much she sucks||

[snow vessel]

TWK 9 ||everyones suckiness is done so well here. They suck to an extent and in a way that makes sense for them||

[wraith lynx]

TWK 11 ||I feel kinda bad for Jude here. She really doesn't deserve to yearn after someone who hates her. Someone who hates her SO much, hes going out of his way to drunkify his kingdom just to spite her 😅||

[snow vessel]

folk of the air gen ||god I love cardan :p||

||hes so horrible||

[oblique zodiac]

hmm

[junior dew]

What is TWK?

Also Adrian Tchaikovsky I think has a special interest

[random dome]

The Wicked King (sequel to The Cruel Prince)

[junior dew]

Ahh

Ty

[random dome]

Both from the Folk of the Air series

[junior dew]

Oh hmm TCP is only going to be like a 6 hour listen

Guess I’ll do that one next instead of Spiderlight

[ivory cypress]

oooh

[random dome]

TWK ||Cardan really is like one of those cats who got a harness put on him for the first time, except the harness is becoming the king and now he's lying limp on the floor and making Jude drag him around by the leash||

[marble sinew]

I just had the seed of an idea for an awful parody series: The Cruller Prince. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about TCP to know where to go from there...

[junior dew]

Just bought TCP. Downloading

[wraith lynx]

Ooooooo 👀👀

[snow vessel]

TCP all/series gen ||the balekin spin-off:||

Wait I didn't realise cruller was a thing ignore me xD

[marble sinew]

||It's okay, balekin almost sounds like baking, so it works||

[junior dew]

TCP 1 || I wasn’t expecting fruit punch, ketchup, and tv ||

[random dome]

TWK colorized: ||https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-15-2015/-djU-h.gif ||

[random dome]

it beginssss

[junior dew]

Looking forward to seeing what this is all about

Given all the talk here about it

[random dome]

I hope we have set the right expectations because this book definitely does have some Specific Tropes (and they're excellently written, but they are Specific™)

[junior dew]

Tbh I know nothing except it’s an TCP general || enemies to lovers romance ||

[random dome]

that's the big one!

[snow vessel]

Big on the TCP general ||enemies to lovers part||

[lusty meteor]

Well, if you were going to know one thing…

[junior dew]

TCP 2 || “In faerie there are no fish sticks, no ketchup, and no television”

You know, I feel targeted right now ||

[random dome]

||baited and switched!||

[junior dew]

|| I mean it was pretty immediately clear in chapter 1 that we were just very temporarily on earth and that the book wouldn’t actually be happening there.

But the callout of no ketchup or tv after I mentioned it earlier was funny ||

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/niceferatu/802233145192775680

🔁 charl0ttan

If you enjoyed this book you should read every other book in the world for extra textual context. All things are intricately related to one another.

Tumblr · Dec 7, 2025, 12:59 AM

[royal carbon]

Part of my Thanksgiving visit to my brother and his family included visiting the local indie bookstore to acquire SIL recommendations and acquiring several library cards from libraries in the area. The upshot is that I now have access to the rest of Terra Ignota.

[long sorrel]

I don't tihnk I'll read much today cause it got pretty late, but onward we go with Witness for the Dead

[ivory cypress]

oomp 👀

[long sorrel]

I'm at the end of section 1 ||currently about to interrogate everyone working at the opera about the dead woman||

This is on no way a critique but reading this book is making me miss Maia, a lot

[ivory cypress]

it's very real

i don't blame you

[zinc flicker]

||Cardan is so funny||

||he’s just so pathetic ||

[long sorrel]

Yeah like being inside Maia's head felt me with like warm things in a very specific way.
This guy is fun... well maybe that's the wrong word . But it's fun to read but it's not the same

[somber timber]

Who is Maia || does she investigate dead people?||

[long sorrel]

Aaalso, Witness for the Dead ||I hope this opera guy isn't the culprit cause I'm loving him ||

[long sorrel]

The Goblin Emperor's MC, and it's a he. The book is set in the same world some time after that book.

He's a half goblin son of the Emperor who suddenly inherits when his father and everyone in the line dies.

[somber timber]

|| does he investigate murders???????||

[long sorrel]

No, that's the MC of the current book

[long sorrel]

||yep, I love Pel-Thenhior, he's so forward. "You can suspect me but its a very inconvenient time for me to lose a singer" ||

[wraith lynx]

||you: tee hee hes so silly
Me: I am two seconds from climbing into this book and beating the brakes off of him 🥰||

[long sorrel]

Not silly, pathetic

@ivory cypress Witness for the Dead ||was being gay illegal here? I dont remember, but it rings a bell about to his dead lover 🤔 ||

I have very vague recollection of his personal story in TGE

[ivory cypress]

||i don't think illegal but maybe the next thing to. definitely seems to be proscribed by the main religious practice! and yeah, thara's story as he told it in tge is pretty sad. his lover was being abused by his wife, and so thara's lover killed his own wife, and thara witnessed for the woman and saw that it was his lover who did it, so... he turned in his own lover for the murder||

[long sorrel]

Aaaah

TGE ||i did seem to recall that he had turned in his own lover but not why. That makes a lot more sense||

That was like the last piece I was missing that was nagging me

[ivory cypress]

found it

TGE spoilers for certain witness for the dead things

[long sorrel]

Maia

[royal carbon]

54 books from Libby this year, remind me that I should actually track what I read again

[ivory cypress]

Maia is the BEST

[cunning estuary]

||Are you too a Taryn hater perhaps?||

[mortal wren]

You rang

Oops had @ on sry

[mortal wren]

Fax

@cunning estuary is your name tag a reference to Monty python perhaps?

[cunning estuary]

Yes it is!

[mortal wren]

Sick

[cunning estuary]

https://tenor.com/view/sir-robin-ran-away-scared-brave-gif-16666575

[mortal wren]

Haha that’s the exact scene that popped into my head

[mild lance]

The Aeronaut’s Windlass up to Ch 7 ||some early thoughts: Rowl is the best character with Bridget as a close second. I’m enjoying the rest of the main cast too.||

||It’s interesting just how different the writing of this series is to Dresden Files in many ways; it’s about 95% less horny, for one thing. At the same time, the witty bantering between characters feels very Butcher, and I’m a big fan.||

||Also Butcher is definitely a cat person||

[minor sleet]

Yes!!! More people reading those books!!!

[long sorrel]

In Witness for the Dead, this is such a mood. I told myself it was much too early in the evening to become hysterical and continued up the path.

This too, is a mood ||I wanted, very badly, to lose my temper.||

[long sorrel]

Witness for the Dead section 3 ||he took Thala to his mom's place. Hmmm~~~ ||

[long sorrel]

Almost end of Witness for the Dead ||"We can take a different way down" after seeing someone jump off the roof has me cackling||

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/mxscorpiostrange/758941726283022336

witch, poet, scholar, dreamer, and the rest

-# #octavia butler #kindred #parable of the sower #fledgling #dawn #bloodchild #octavia's brood #star child #ibi zoboi

Tumblr · Aug 16, 2024, 4:40 AM

[long sorrel]

I finished

This books are quite highly rated on storygraph

Im considering jumping to the next book but i think imma do a detour

I will at least get the next book

[long sorrel]

The gay elf cleric really is sad. The entire book had this melancholic feel to it 😭
I think I am going to read book 2 quite soon, it helps that this books are short.

Melancholic might not be the right word but it has a sad tinge without being sad

[deft stream]

Sad gay???? Give me the title pls

[long sorrel]

The book is Witness for the Dead but to be clear the book isn't particularly related to the MCs gayness, like it is relevant to who he is ofc, but that's about it. For book 1 at least.

[ivory cypress]

yeah you get it. I think that's why I'm good with him being sad and the stories being sad, there's just something... his life is not terrible, but there's just something he's feeling all the time that just comes through

[long sorrel]

It comes through so well 😭

His life is so busy I feel exhausted reading it but also he's sort of just going through the motions but he's also so unbelievable honest

And then ||it doesn't beat on it but it gives you enough about the nightmares and the feels to take you over into his depression||

[ivory cypress]

yeah!

[wraith lynx]

||I don't hate her!! She is hella HELLA annoying though 😭||

[long sorrel]

I think it's the bit where I feel he's going through the motions but while doing his best that is what makes me sad about it

[ivory cypress]

I've described it to other people as claustrophobic. ||There's this feeling of like... no matter where good or bad about his current circumstances, there's something about him that feels like he doesn't fit here. it kind of drives me crazy how well she was about to put this into all of the writing||

[long sorrel]

Ooooh

yeah I can see that yeah

||He is trapped in life, which is a really sad thing to say, since that shouldn't be a bad thing 😭 ||

[ivory cypress]

yes... that. ||I just feel kind of pinched and hemmed in from all sides, like on his behalf/sympathetically (not the feeling of sympathy like going "awww", but like feelings transference) and he just carries on cause like. what are you going to do? thara hurts me||

[long sorrel]

I understand exactly what you mean

[junior dew]

Thanks for the reminder that I should read more Butler. I read Kindred this year and it was so good

Lilith’s brood series was last year and that was such a wild series

[minor sleet]

Do it!!! You will not regret reading more of Octavia Butler!

[junior dew]

Yeah her stuff has all been great. I’ve read Kindred, Lilith’s Brood, and the Bloodchild collection and loved them all

[minor sleet]

I wish she’d gotten to finish her Earthseed books. She wrote 2 out of a planned 6

[junior dew]

TCP 3 || I think we may have our enemy.

Prince Carden is cruel. So he’s a cruel Prince, but is he The Cruel Prince.

If so I’m curious to see how this goes because he seems like a true prick ||

TCP 4 || Maddock dips his hood in the blood of his enemies?

I’m sorry, that’s metal AF ||

TCP 4 + Wicked || You hate him so much you can hardly breathe, eh. Said right after talking about how beautiful you think he is? Cue song about loathing ||

TCP 4 || I do think the way the narrator delivered that line very much impacts the way it reads to give that vibe. Reading it off the page I think the vibe would feel very different to me given the context of the scene ||

[wraith lynx]

||hes so fine 🥴 I mean, yes yeah metal af mhm||

[junior dew]

|| Bruh, he cut down his ex wife because she left him ||

[long sorrel]

||Daddy Maddy though ||

[wraith lynx]

||yeah you know some people can make mistakes! Me personally, I would have never left him in the first place sooooooo 🥴||

[junior dew]

|| I mean at least he does seem to actually take care of the kids after you know… murdering their parents and kidnapping them ||

[alpine drum]

Re: this convo #1364954411582885899 message

I think Malazan and First Law trilogy (plus the sequel books) are the two /r/fantasy golden boys compared to Gentlemen Bastards/ASOIAF/Rothfuss which will get some pushback for being unfinished and Brandon books get (more) push back for being popular and more entry level

Obviously for most book recommendation requests there are often better answers than any of those

[analog geode]

Yeah

I try to spread the Earthsea gospel when I can

[lusty meteor]

malazan hype comes and goes in waves

it got a big boon when it hit the booktube scene, and is in the enviable position of both still being active and having a main finished series

[alpine drum]

What Moves the Dead ch 6 || well... i think i am picking up what the title of the book is about||

WMtD 7 ||yeah don't like that||

WMtD 7 + Alien Earth (up to episode 4 i think) ||the hares remind me of the sheep that had the eyeball alien||

[south zinc]

I got into the Reacher books recently

Finished Die Trying in a week (after reading nearly half in one day) cuz it felt so fast paced lol

[alpine drum]

WMtD 8 ||new guess: Roderick is the witch||

[junior dew]

TCP 11 || Carden having desire in his face when asking her to kiss his foot is uh….

Also this group is pretty freaking awful.

Her becoming a spy is an interesting direction. Granted Dane being like I can control you completely is uh… well that’s surely not going to bite her in the ass later ||

TCP 11 || Fury, desire, and shame in his eyes while asking her to kiss his foot.

What is it with authors and foot fetishes I swear ||

[alpine drum]

WMtD 9 ||Potter is the witch? Bit derivative for the british Potter to be magic||