Books (General)

[half raven]

the story doesn’t conclude any more or less satisfyingly after any particular point. its mostly a string of jokes

[versed agate]

H2G2 All ||Arthur knows where he will die||

||At "Stavromula Beta"||

[light drum]

Oooh i just saw that 12 months was out as I finished a book

[half raven]

i decided the joke i wanted to make with this wasn’t funny. but thanks anyways

[oblique zodiac]

My next book on my list is "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" by 황선미. It's very famous in Korea. This again is a children's book. It's read by all Korean grade schoolers, but I haven't because I spent most of that time in America

[twilit ocean]

Finished rereading I have no mouth and I must scream. I think this might be the best horror execution in any novel I have read

It does convincing gore, and has a psychological component to it at the same time

[low hill]

It's a trilogy in five books.

[minor sleet]

https://youtu.be/74jfnTczdG4?si=wvQcI3zpeHjY1oAW

The stupid TikTok voice really elevated the monologue

[oblique zodiac]

finished it. very beautiful book

I give it 5 out of 5

alongside Tree Girl

[versed niche]

officially read 2 books this year, The Hobbit by... you all know. And The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Going to either read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis or The Name of the Wind next

[wraith lynx]

Ive got a lineup, I just gotta get started 😭

[proven token]

Finished Gardens of the Moon, started House of Leaves

[oblique zodiac]

I read 11 books this year

[wraith lynx]

Oof, I didnt realize I stopped mid chapter in TWK

I wanna finish it today though

Omg

TWK 26 ||I stopped right before Cardan's generation run for redemption i hate myself 😭||

Okay I cant make that mistake AGAIN for Qon

Ive already done it twice in a row where I wish something would happen, I stopped reading RIGHT BEFORE SAID THING HAPPENS 😭

[astral atlas]

It will happen again, I can feel it

[long sorrel]

Yep

[mild lance]

You need to start ending every session with wishing something would happen

Start manifesting

[wraith lynx]

I do, and then I get fustrated it doesn't happen immediately 🤣

Something something I need a lesson in patience

[zinc flicker]

Anybody know of good mecha books?

Feels like a kinda empty literary genre in the west but idk maybe I’m wrong

[wet belfry]

Skyward

[proven token]

House of Leaves light ||OH GOD THE FORMATTING||

||I was like "oh yeah these footnotes are kinda quirky uwu" and then all of a sudden the book gets real||

[proven token]

||For context I'm at the part where the strikethrough text starts||

[haughty frost]

I finally finished Licanius book 3 and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED this whole series. Little bit heartbroken though because while I know that James Islington is becoming a fairly well known author with a decent following in fantasy spaces there’s still not much of a fandom surrounding his books (specifically Licanius) and I so badly want more content from that world 😭

[wet belfry]

There was supposed to be a side story that just for whatever reason never materialized

Not entirely sure what happened there

[haughty frost]

According to the authors note and what I read on his blog I think there’s still a potential for more stories in that world it’s just that everything else that wasn’t Hierarchy got pushed to the very far and distant future so he could focus on Hierarchy

[junior dew]

Oh hey I just finished Licanius 3 this week as well!

[oblique zodiac]

My next book is "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame

This too was in the children's section

[proper silo]

Finished volume 2 of Remnant of Filth. ||Murong Lian is like 100% an antagonist, but I hope he doesn't turn antagonistic until very late in the book, he's too entertaing to die.||

[oblique zodiac]

idk.. this might be the worst book I read this year

[potent linden]

Swordcrossed all ||called it that it'd go Adrean, Maya (that was clear from the first time she and Sofia were on page together). I thought Luca might somehow also challenge and it'd be a double wedding but what even would he be challenging at that point, yeah, fair enough. And he and Matti deserve to have time!!!||

Great book

[snow vessel]

Swordcrossed!!

[wide hearth]

The Wind in the Willows has some pretty deep flaws imo. If I reread it now it would purely be for nostalgia. But I don't plan to read it to my kids, anyway.

[earnest grail]

Still looking at Gideon the Ninth on my table and anti-feeling like reading it

This week, I promise

[wraith lynx]

TWK 28 ||I would be feeling bad for Taryn and then she turns around and pulls mess like this 🙄||

[low hill]

Moved all my multi-author collections onto a shelf of their own, and it turned out I had more than I thought...

Now I have to decide how to order them, because not all of them have an editor so that option's out.

[ripe tide]

Any ideas as to how you'll order them?

[earnest grail]

By the mean initials of the authors in each collection, surely

[old flint]

By height

[low hill]

Genre is probably my best bet at the moment.

[wraith lynx]

TWK 30 ||I take it back. I take it all back. Jude better burn all of faerie down when she gets back in Queen of Nothing||

[abstract elm]

That still leaves the question of how to sort the books in the genre sub groups

[low hill]

Title would be the next level down, I think.

[wraith lynx]

TWK epilouge ||I like thinking theyre watching Yuri On Ice||

[long sorrel]

its a great end

[wraith lynx]

IT IS!!

Twk all ||the way i was SO fooled into thinking Cardan actually had her best interest...... man. Thats what I get, honeslty 😂 should have never trusted that bum, so I hope Jude thoroughly humbles him (and Locke, havent forgotten about him either) in QoN||

But I like that QoNs title makes sense now 😂

[long sorrel]

||She is Queen ||

[wraith lynx]

QoN prolouge ||oh man its like every story Dain gets worse and worse, I love it 😭||

[long sorrel]

||This is why Locke is best boy and Dain second best boy, then there's Madoc who is bestest not a boy||

[wraith lynx]

||mhm, Maddy daddy is a whole man 🥴||

[long sorrel]

yeaaah

though obviously best character is Jude

[random dome]

TWK epilogue ||It's 100% Yuri on Ice ||

you finisheddd!!!

[wraith lynx]

I did! Finally 🤣

[long sorrel]

Now QoN!

[wraith lynx]

TWK all ||I knew there was a switch coming from the last book, I just didnt think it would be against Jude... man... 😭||

[long sorrel]

||Everything's against Jude , but she's the bossest boss so she can deal with it all 😌 ||

[wraith lynx]

Also QoN general ||The dividers in this book are constellations! ||

[random dome]

i am sooooo excited to see your thoughts as you go on, and i'm being very very nice by not sending some Not Safe For Cosmic messages here but i very much want to

[long sorrel]

I want to say things to Feather but I do not trust you won't read the spoilers cosmic
I hope Feather can telepathically get what I'm trying to say

HAH

[random dome]

YES SAME

[long sorrel]

🤝

[random dome]

we are Communication

[long sorrel]

You can dm if you want or we can talk about it 3 months from now when Cosmic has read it

[wraith lynx]

No i have books to get to, I wanna finish this quick to move on to Broken Earth and The Devils 😂

[random dome]

i have a russian literary novel for you but it's disguised as a video game

[wraith lynx]

👀👀😏

[random dome]

the people in the pathologic discord are yelling at me to get out of the spoiler channel b/c i haven't finished the game yet but i am so thirsty for path content 😭

i do feel like the streams i've been doing are almost audiobook-esque with all the dialogue reading, but i love reading books aloud so it's been kind of delightful

i told my sister we could do a reading call tonight tho and she's gonna want me to read this lame book called wind and truth tho, so no pathologic tonight

[merry galleon]

I just noticed that TD Orel misspelled ‘ore’ as ‘oar’. I had a little chuckle reading that.

Also, reached 377 pages on Titan’s Nest. Lore is getting unfolded here.

[tight kindle]

Embrace the chaos
Choose color
/s

[wraith lynx]

QoN 4 ||LOCKE IS DEAD??? WE ARE SO BACK!! 🤩||

||TARYN KILLED HIM??? I am mentally doing backflips omg, there's hope for her yet 😌||

[long sorrel]

This is one of the things Feather and I talked about

[low hill]

No...

[wraith lynx]

Omg im so glad neither of you said anything (not that you would but still) 🤣

This is my favorite of the series now, yeah im locking that in 4 chapters in 😌

[random dome]

QoN 4 ||Not entirely a Taryn redemption arc, but damn if she didn't make a hell of a comeback with that one 😤 ||

QoN 4 ||In the end, they're both Daddy Maddy's girls 👀 ||

[wraith lynx]

||yeah she ain't off the hook but... I have hope again 😌||

QoN 4 ||also! The way she described how Locke treated her... I knew that was coming but I feel bad for her again DARN 😂||

[random dome]

QoN early, on another note ||There's something so poignant and tragic about like, how much Jude hates Faerie's scheming and cruelty but... QoN shows how much she just doesn't work in the human world. She gets a chance to fully be out of that world (and doesn't get a choice about it) and... she spends her days finding these little sprinkles of the magical world out around in modern society because that's where she fits. Jude just doesn't work trying to live the normal human life, she's transmuted her own nature in a way to be of Faerie even if she wasn't born to it. She adapted and changed so much and so thoroughly to survive there that she now struggles to be away, even though it was often so awful. It's a really crunchy characterization moment for her, I think.||

[long sorrel]

||Jude's legit one of the most ruthless fae but without fae since like, c11 of book 1! lol||

[untold leaf]

Finished Castle in the Air. It didn't have the strongest start, but it got better in its second half and everything wrapped up neatly in the end. The connections to Howl's Moving Castle become clearer the closer you get to the end.

I think the main thing holding this book back from being really good is that's very Orientalist, in that it's clear that a Western (in this case, British) author is trying to write Middle-Eastern characters and settings with a bare minimum knowledge of the Middle East, a lot like the original animated Aladdin movie. That may have been the norm at the time this book was published, but in hindsight... it's clear that this book is quite Orientalist.

And as it turns out, all three books in this series connect to each other. I read it in order of 1, 3, and 2, thinking that order didn't matter after book one, but it really kind of does. Not hugely, but book 3 (House of Many Ways) would have made more sense if I'd read Castle in the Air first.

Next up on my reading list: "Star Wars; Splinter of the Mind's Eye".

After which will follow The Wingfeather Saga, The Complete Novels of Sherlock Holmes, and The Strength of the Few whenever I get ahold of it again.

[long sorrel]

Starting Dark Rise reread

I forgot this book doesn't beat around the bush with the start either

[urban rose]

I'm reading the Age of Wrath series by Anthony Ryan. Brilliant novel. It

Is basically like The Shadow of The Gods by John Gwynne is y'all have seen that.

Also reading Gardens of The Moon

[proper silo]

hey, guess what book I just got for myself

[long sorrel]

Lmao

[quaint burrow]

fun fact: we have a #1404515195941945455 👀

[proper silo]

Dark Rise prologue ||Obvious bad guy: "well, we've killed everyone! Good going, team"||
||Good guy(?): "Actually, you've missed a guy, haha, don't you feel stupid"||

||Marcus, my guy, way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I am blaming you for everything that is about to happen in this book||

[long sorrel]

You started

[deft stream]

Starting captive prince

[long sorrel]

Man, Rasarr's reading Dark Rise, Agu's reading Captive Prince and Cosmic is reading Queen of Nothing...

happy bunny noises

[wraith lynx]

You know what would make me happy in turn usha

points to Red Rising with a devious and almost desperate smile :3

[long sorrel]

Maybe after I finish rereading Dark Rise

i could read Red Rising at the gym tbh

[wraith lynx]

https://tenor.com/view/yes-yes-sir-yayy-kataman-gif-12260883688244422951

[quaint burrow]

I don't think Usha would like Red Rising at all

RR vague ||Too much rape||

[long sorrel]

I decided to click on that and I don't particularly care about that?

[quaint burrow]

huh I thought you would've, probably someone else cares about it and I conflicted you both, my bad

[long sorrel]

I have talked about it before

So maybe you're misremembering, or misunderstood, or I didn't explain properly

Or all 3

[snow vessel]

Tbf I think that's a complicated issue with RR

[quaint burrow]

probably yeah

[snow vessel]

RR series all ||because the amount of it MASSIVELY decreases after book 1 and the treatment of it changes a lot (imo)||

||there's a lot of criticisms I have of book 1 that I feel like Pierce also picked up on and worked on in the future books||

[long sorrel]

I don't like when non-smut stuff (sexual assault) ||sexualizes rape like it's hot, and I don't want to read anything of the sort on page with children, like, explicit||

I can read the first but I'll think very lowly of it

Its not triggering, I just think it's bad

[quaint burrow]

I especially hated RR major spoilers ||How Tactus was just.....accepted into the fold again after raping whoever she was, she's probably dead anyway||

[snow vessel]

RR ||is really rough with rape and female deaths and general treatment of women imo, and I think Pierce locks in and does a lot better in the following books||

I think RR [series general/book1 all] ||leans very hard into the... macho anything goes manly war games stuff and then later books pick up a lot more nuance and restraint||

[quaint burrow]

RR series ||Aja of course isn't like that||

[snow vessel]

||like what?||

[quaint burrow]

||She's very well written imo, unlike most female characters, expecially in the first trilogy||

[snow vessel]

||I do think a lot of the female cast past book 1 are just generally better. Mustang, victra, octavia, etc., even if some of them weren't as good in bk1||

||but I have read the second series more recently, so I might be projecting nuance from there onto first trilogy stuff||

[quaint burrow]

||I mean.... all barring Virginia were never in book 1||

[snow vessel]

True

||i suppose that's sort of part of what I'm saying - books 2&3 adding more female characters as important players helps||

[quaint burrow]

DA like.... 25 percent ||I didn't like that Romulus's daughter just.... died for nothing.... and we never even knew her, I also didn't enjoy that Lysander's opinion on her just.... completely shifted midbooks||

RR series all ||End, when does Cassius au Bellona return? I miss my man (I know he does)||

[snow vessel]

Do you want an answer?

[quaint burrow]

yes

[snow vessel]

RR series all ||returns with a very quick appearance near the very end of DA, but is a major character in LB||

||I only remember him having like 1-2 lines in DA though. He's mainly just reintroduced in this book, not tons more iirc||

[quaint burrow]

||OH COME ON, I wished you'd have told me the next chapter, I dislike Dark Age more than Iron Gold, but Virginia is making up for it||

[snow vessel]

||yeah don't expect much Cassius this book :,)||

[quaint burrow]

Disappointed Adam noises

[snow vessel]

||LB has a lot of him though! He's part of the main cast in LB!||

||one of my irl friends had a hard time with DA as well. I think she's giving it a second go now. I reckon there's some really strong arcs in it, but yeah I get struggling||

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise general ||i feel silly at the amount of stuff I didn't pick up on when I first read this lol||

[minor sleet]

This mouse child is autistic

(From the children’s picture book Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes)

I loved Kevin Henkes’s books as a kid

[random dome]

y'all. my sister read all of the folk of the air series on my recommendation.

Folk of the Air general ||She doesn't like Jude 😭 ||

i didn't... even know that this was an opinion that was possible to have but i am trying to accept how wrong she is with forgiveness in my heart

[wraith lynx]

Oh... hm. Did she say why??

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 2 ||See Marcus? This is what happens when you brag to the enemy, teen boys get their moms murdered and get chased down by weirdos||

||insane fumble on Marcus's part, I am not getting over it||

[random dome]

Folk of the Air general ||She didn't like the darker sides of Jude, her ruthlessness and ambition and stuff. She didn't find that to be an enjoyable protagonist to root for...||

And I was just like. I disagree so much b/c those are all the things I love 😅

[wraith lynx]

Ohhh I can see not liking that but my thing is (Folk of The Air general) ||Anywhere else, and id agree. But the Folk are downright atrocious to her and Taryn that everything she does to this is entirely justified. People want to outright kill them just because they think itll be funny 😭||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise up to 7 ||I can't help but compare Will to Damen, both being Pacat's protagonists, and I can't help but notice they both share this fundamental quality of being like... Trustworthy people. Self-sacrificial, in a way. In your corner, even if it's not the smartest place for them to be.||

||I guess that's what Pacat likes in a protagonist, which very fortunately also matches up with what I love in a protagonist||

[snow vessel]

I kinda get that though. Or at least, I think Tfota is very unapologetic about the things it's doing, so I see how, if you don't groove with them, it would really not work

I know one of my irl friends really hated the Cruel prince because they really didn't like TCP All ||cardan/jude||

[oblique zodiac]

I really don't feel like reading today. tmi but its 5 pm and i havent eaten anything yet

[vagrant torrent]

Hey so Stormlight will eventually be the second book series I ever finish. Does anyone have recs for afterwards? I’m okay with any length

[uncut shoal]

Mmmm you're still on WoK. Might be a good idea to finish the series and see if you like it first (and perhaps which parts) for proper recommendations

[vagrant torrent]

Mmmm yeah that’s a valid take

I trust Sanderson after reading all of Mistborn, but this is truuuue idk yet if Stormlight will take

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 8 ||I know Usha said that this book toys with who the love intererest is, but the most Laurent-looking mofo just walked into the scene and Will immediately saw him through shoujo filter I will be shocked if James isn't the love interest||

[vagrant torrent]

Hmmm then how about recs for someone who loves Mistborn? These are what I preferred from each era:

Mistborn all || Era 1 = Better MCs, character development and progression, dark tone, worldbuilding, plot, plot twists, hints to what’s going on (epigraphs), conclusion, Shardic plans, Ruin is amazing despite my issues with him. Fav book is The Hero of Ages

Era 2 = Better magic, antagonists (Paalm and Autonomy), side characters, dialogue, relatively lighthearted tone, comedy, Wayne, Steris and Marasi, Wayne’s growth in TLM. Fav book is Shadows of Self though I love all of them ||

[uncut shoal]

The Brandon-adjacent series I usually recommend are Licanius, Cradle, and A Darker Shade of Magic (which even has its own orphaned morally gray protagonist named Kel)

[earnest grail]

I feel like you'd enjoy Philip Pullman's Northern Lights but that's a biased opinion coming from someone who enjoys reading through your mid-book theories

[vagrant torrent]

Thank youuuu so much

[vagrant torrent]

Hehehe I try to make them juicy 😌 will definitely keep that in the TBR

[uncut shoal]

Powder Mage, as well. Brian McClellan was one of Brandon's students

[vagrant torrent]

One of my buddies on this server really likes Powder Mage so that was definitely on the top of my head 😆

[earnest grail]

I should add all this to my list

[vagrant torrent]

These are already on my list :P

[vagrant torrent]

Good idea

[uncut shoal]

If you want more obscure, Dan Simmons' Hyperion, Geraldine Harris' Seven Citadels (still rips my heart out) (and it has epigraphs), Garth Nix' Old Kingdom...

(Why do all of those end in S sounds? I don't know)

Bujold's Vorkosigan, Shinn's Twelve Houses, Wells' Murderbot

I've read a lotta books 🙂

[vagrant torrent]

Ooooh I’ve never heard of Seven Citadels 👀

Or Twelve Houses

[uncut shoal]

It's old but one of my all time favorites. It's just wonderful

Although a bit ambiguous

[vagrant torrent]

I love hearing about great obscure series :D

[analog geode]

Try Earthsea

Also I highly recommend Vorkosigan as well

Though that’s sci-fi not fantasy

[vagrant torrent]

Vorkosigan is one of the sci-fi greats I’ve heard of

[long sorrel]

I said the book toys with the reader (in general)
I'm up to ch 9 myself now 😌

I am liking it more than the first time which is kinda surprising for my reading habits

[long sorrel]

Also, I think I like Will more than Damen

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 8 ||Will and James haven't exchanged a single word yet and Will is already so whipped he almost ruins his own escape My guy's got it bad.||

[long sorrel]

||"show me what you got"||

I remembered that scene wrong. ||I forgot Will provoked it||

[snow vessel]

WMTD 2 ||what is a sworn soldier, I wonder||

||wait. Did they just address me?||

[snow vessel]

||huhhh interesting||

[long sorrel]

Huh?

[snow vessel]

WMTD 2 ||Alex said something about their listener/you the listener||

||I don't remember the exact wording but it sounded like they were breaking the fourth wall/addressing some sort of listening audience. Unless I misunderstood||

[long sorrel]

aaaah

[deft stream]

Third book of the year finished

[oblique zodiac]

Didn't read at all today. I think I'm starting to get into one of my depressive episodes where I just stop caring about everything.

no im taking the next step

I wish I didn't exsist aswell lol—jk

[old flint]

Will of the Many 34%: ||Enjoying this so far. Obvious parallels to Warbreaker, but more developed and meaner. I don't know how solid the magjc system will be yet, and I don't have a clear idea of the overall shape of the story. Will it end at solving The Mystery of the Brother's Death? Dunno||

[loud atlas]

top 50 comic books by units of 2025 is pretty much all DC and mostly Batman. kind of a sad state for everyone.

[oblique zodiac]

you should react in #1438404310429073489 to help me keep the channel alive!

[hoary path]

The Sword of Destiny ||I really like the collection of short stories in this style, and the prose was a lot better. I think some of the stories I found were a little boring but the one with Ciri was great. As usual, the dialogue is excellent. Also, this book has made me a hardcore certified Yennefer hater 😇||

[long sorrel]

I feel so silly reading Dark Rise now I know it's all hindsight and no reason Id have caught all of this on my first read but still 😩

[ivory cypress]

wait what Libby gave me captive prince and didn't TELL ME

[long sorrel]

How dare it!

I'm so very curious to see Rasarr figure out the entire plot

You did pretty well with Captive's Prince, though I had figured that one out a bit more than I did Dark Rise

[proper silo]

we'll see

[long sorrel]

Show me what you can do 👀 (hah)

[proper silo]

well, then, for your amusement, right now, (Dark Rise up to 9) ||I feel like it's... maybe not reincarnation romance, but some kind of romance-with-past-baggage. Like Will seems descended from the Lady, who seems to be big dealio for the Stewards and thus presumably defeated the Dark King the last time, and James, as "Simon's Prize" is... perhaps descended from the Dark King in turn? Or maybe James is also Lady's descendant and he's Simon's Prize because Simon managed to turn him away from "the Light"||

||Also, the villain being named Simon is hilarious||

||My brain has unfortunately been exposed to Alvin and the Chipmunks at a young age so now characters named Simon keep reminding me of the chipmunk||

[long sorrel]

Lmaaao

I'm eating all of this up like you've no idea

[ivory cypress]

I keep hearing "ALLLLLLVINNNNNNN" every time

[long sorrel]

🍿

[proper silo]

well, happy to entertain

[long sorrel]

I had thought some of the same things as you at that point (I won't tell you which ones or which were correct/ wrong)

Dark Rise ALL/11 ||I'm screaming at chapter 11, this is written in such a very specific way that aaaaah. I get it. ||

Dark Rise ALL ||He'd prove to his mother that he— omfg||

[versed agate]

Birthday books

[alpine drum]

No cap dead ass fr fr?

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 10 ||Using the name "janissary" for servants is... an interesting pick 🤔 Real-life janissaries started off as an elite military force (one of the first professional armies post-Rome, in fact), and they were originally formed from children taken as tribute from their parents, against the families' will||

||So using "janissary" specifically to refer to non-combatants is odd. I'm not sure what to make of it, or if there's anything to make of it anyway, but the fact that real-life janissaries were slaves (albeit high-ranking and well-paid ones) is putting me a bit on edge regarding Steward janissaries||

||"the fourth [king] fled, his line lost to time" Bet you a dollar someone in this story is descended from the fourth king||

[long sorrel]

Ive reached half of the book already...

Since i have no Internet

[royal carbon]

Think how productive you would be without Internet permanently

[long sorrel]

... i can't do anything of what I need to do

I had to message my boss and give a bunch of instructions and so on

[royal carbon]

Reading is the only productivity that matters.

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 11 ||Okay, maybe I'm overthinking it, but I feel like Will knows more than he's letting on 🤔 For some reason he's convinced that defeating the Dark King is his mother's destiny, not his own.||

||Maybe I'm overthinking it||

||Huh, so James is a reincarnated ancient general (there goes my theory about him being descended from the Lady, I guess), and Will keeps having those super strong reactions about things from the past, and about James, and he can read the magic language... is Will also a Reborn? Are we actually in a reincarnation romance here?||

Dark Rise 11 + bit of Words of Radiance ||Hm... there's some interesting bits in this chapter where Will's narration seems to cut itself off at points where it shouldn't really need to if he really is as underinformed about the situation as he claims. It's kind of giving Shallan in WoR, when her narration was cutting off every time it came close to the big truth about her. So I'm thinking there's more to Eleanor's death that both Will and the author don't yet want us to know about 🤔 ||

hol' up a minute

Dark Rise up to 11 ||James and Marcus in the prologue talk like they've got history and used to know each other, enough so that Marcus is trying to appeal to James's affection for the Stewards. And now apparently James is an old general reborn. So like, does this mean that the Stewards took Betrayer reborn under their wing and then he ditched them when he remembered who he is? Or did they not know who he was and tried to merc him when they realized they had the Betrayer reborn on their hands?||

...I need to liveblog this book less, I keep having thoughts

[long sorrel]

Keep having thoughts please

I'm eating so well

[proper silo]

alright

[long sorrel]

Chapter 11 is such a good chapter

[proper silo]

I get the vibe that it's got a ton of foreshadowing packed into it that won't make sense until later

Dark Rise 12 ||I haven't said anything about Violet before, but I think she's cool. I like that she's out there having her own arc. I feel like she could still carry a story if Will wasn't here, which is neat||

||Cyprian, meanwhile, reminds me of a small barking dog. Like a little chihuahua with a sword||

[long sorrel]

I was going to ask you about her and i forgot

She's a great character

Like ||hey my gay book has relevant important women in it!|| shouldn't need to celebrate that 😬

Jokes aside she feels very much like a main character that took position 2 more than a secondary

[proper silo]

Yep, she feels particularly refreshing in this specific subgenre

[long sorrel]

Yeaaah

[proper silo]

I feel like I just reached a well after walking thorugh a desert here

[long sorrel]

Captive Prince all ||and this one didn't have anyone notable but I did actually love (and hate) Jokaste||

||she was well written and I think made perfect sense||

Dark Rise 18 ||okay, yeah I found this as dumb as the first time, not that I fault her for her naivety but ||

[twilit belfry]

the seven dials mystery starts with too many names

[long sorrel]

Seven?

[twilit belfry]

im 6 pages in and theres like 7 or 8 characters who have been name dropped already

lady coote, mr wade, mr bateman, sir oswald, mr thesiger, mcdonald, tredwell

this is too many people

this was written in 57 agatha you had experience writing this slow down

she just said 5 more names in one paragraph

im drowing

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise 19 ||aaand this is as facedesking as the first time||

20 ||go, you beautiful barking chihuahua!||

[long sorrel]

Lions of Al-Rassan all ||I've been reading on the figure Ammar parallels to 👀 ||

[ivory cypress]

sir cameron is almost here.... sir cameron save me from January....

[tight kindle]

Seriously 😭

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise 21 ||‘Do the Stewards realise you’re clever?’ hmm~||

[ivory cypress]

please be as weird as the early reviews are saying

[long sorrel]

Meanwhile I'm having so much fun rereading this thing

[long sorrel]

Wait, we're one week away!

Only one week

[tight kindle]

Ahhhhh

[long sorrel]

I've been holding the hype back but it's creeping out!

[junior dew]

Oh yeah which GGK books are the ones to start with and which are the “absolutely don’t start with these” ones?

[ivory cypress]

don't read the summer tree and sequels

[long sorrel]

I think you can read most books in isolation. I've heard The Fionovar Tapestry is not good (that's the trilogy Grey is saying)

I didn't quite love Tigana, it was... aggressively okay? So Id skip that one too.

I am glad I didn't read Tigana first because Id have probably not considered reading more of his books

[tight kindle]

Yeah I tried Tigana first, got like 15% in and put it down. Haven't tried anything else since then 💀

[ivory cypress]

Lions of Al-Rassan was in fact my first GGK, it's standalone and might be a good intro to his style and what he's good at

[long sorrel]

Yeah, it was really good. Next in my GGK list i have A Song of Arbonne which is a bit older than Al-Rassan. But I can't recommend that one until I do get to it

[long sorrel]

I got through because it wasnt my first ggk book.

And honestly the plot overall was pretty good

But it had enough things I didn't like to put it into "that was ok"

[ivory cypress]

from what I hear (mostly stuff about female characters) I think I would have loved tigana if I'd managed to get to it as a teen, but now that I'm here I wouldn't be so gripped. but I'll have to wait and see on that if I can eventually make it through the first twenty pages

[junior dew]

Yeah I couldn’t remember if Lions or Tigana was the one that I heard was best avoided as a first GGK

Thanks for the confirmation

Will add lions to TBR

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 13 ||So, if innate magic is something that comes with being a Reborn, then that's another bonus to my theory that Will is a Reborn. But if all Reborn are Dark King's old minions and generals, wouldn't that mean that rather than being a descendant of the Lady, he's actually from the "wrong" side of the war? Or maybe he can be both?||

||If he is, I wonder if we'll get a name we can match up to him. So far we have Betrayer and Rassalan, and James is the Betrayer while Violet has the Lions of Rassalan plot on lock 🤔 Gonna have to keep an eye out for any other names of Dark King's generals||

[long sorrel]

I found it a very interesting exercise, because a lot of the narrative devices he uses with Jehanne, he used with female characters in Tigana but very poorly executed. So it really felt like "oh, here he was trying to do the thing which I know he manages to do later on"

[proper silo]

Dark Rise general ||Actually, the convo here about Lions of Al-Rassan made me wonder if Pacat got inspired by this when naming the First Lion "Rassalan". Or maybe both Pacat and Kay are referecing the same thing with their names 🤔 ||

[long sorrel]

And that's like not enough to read a book I guess but it added a bit to my interest

[long sorrel]

This did come to mind because a friend of mine is reading Al-Rassan which is why I was talking about it, at the same time I was reading this in Dark Rise

That said it is a similar word to "lion" in arabic

Which is... funny in both cases

Google says that for "Raslan"

So like "the lions of the lions" is the book title

And for Dark Rise its ||"The first lion "Lion"||

[proper silo]

well, i suppose at least it's descriptive

[long sorrel]

It's kinda lame ngl

But in like a funny way

[proper silo]

yea

Dark Rise ||I mean, it's at least cooler than a villain named Simon 😌 ||

[long sorrel]

You're on 13 right?

||So you know what the S stands for, which is a bit more cooler sounding than freaking "Simon"||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise up to 13 ||Right, Sarcean, which, yeah||

||Also, sounds a lot like "Saracen" 🤔 ||

[long sorrel]

The wheat?

[proper silo]

I was thinking more the old, old term for "things/people from middle east"

[long sorrel]

I know but ||The Dark King Wheat||

Is so much better

[proper silo]

Okay yeah, fair enough

We have established that none of those characters have names with any degree of aura

[long sorrel]

||with his descendant Simon||

[long sorrel]

Hey, Violet is fine!

Though idk if that name has aura lol

[proper silo]

Nah, Violet is fine

It's the antagonists that are auraless in name department

The Betrayer is carrying the whole team, name-wise

[long sorrel]

||James as a name doesnt have a lot of aura tho||

Like, it's fine, but not like antagonist-aura like

[proper silo]

Dark Rise general ||Well, he is still an antagonist, no matter how whipped Will is for him ||

||Which means he's caught in the curse of auralessness that plagues the antagonists here||

[long sorrel]

Yes

I'm very excited for you to teach where I am 😌

Reach*

Not teach

[proper silo]

oh my

[long sorrel]

Well I want you to reach some stuff in between but i don't want to point at like specific chapters or anything

I forgot how much I like the pace

Dark Rise 24 ||‘I know what a kiss is,’ said Cyprian, but he’d flushed slightly. lmao||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 15 ||I was sure Marcus was already dead, but now I went to check and he doesn't die at the end of the prologue 🤔 So, my guess right now is they're using him as bait. Maybe corrupt him with one of the armour pieces? Then once the chihuahua becomes a full-on Steward, he goes out there, brings his big brother back, and then we're gonna get an invasion of the Hall by Simon's forces||

[long sorrel]

Because of you I've been calling him chihuahua in my spoilers

Which you cant read anyway but it was too funny

[proper silo]

hehehe 😌

[long sorrel]

24 || aah. This is happening now 😬 ||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 15 ||bruh, Sarcean made himself his own Nazguls ||

||There's gotta be a twist to all this, I genuinely do not think this author would write a plot this by-the-numbers||

[long sorrel]

I can see a lot of various popular references in the plot

I was thinking of something else earlier

I forgot what it was now

Oh actually not popular reference but something about it reminded me tangentially of Starless Sea

[proper silo]

I don't think I'd catch that, I haven't read Starless Sea

[long sorrel]

Mhm, it was very tangential ||The organization of the stewards as a whole, has like a vibe||

This isn't even Starless Sea spoilers because it was more reminding me of how I felt reading a section of Starless Sea

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 17 ||O hey, I forgot Katherine existed||

17 ||Not Will casually rizzing Simon's fiance ||

[long sorrel]

since you're there ||this is one of the things I wanted you to reach this chapter is like, so out of nowhere?||

[proper silo]

||Katherine in general is a very out-of-nowhere character. Like ma'am, who are you, why do you have POVs||

[long sorrel]

mhm

[proper silo]

||Also Will, you were supposed to stay put in an inn, and instead you're getting an... in with Simon's household||

Okay, conspiracy glasses on, Dark Rise 17 ||Katherine gets the same sort of instant-connection shoujo vision that Will got when he first met James. Maybe she's also a Reborn? Simon keeps collecting Sarcean's various odds and ends, maybe he's gathering the reincarnations of all of the Dark King's dead minions too||

[long sorrel]

||I do think it was very interesting to see Will from a completely outside perspective like that though? Like he has such a different vibe than he does from his own or Violet's PoV.||

[proper silo]

💯

[long sorrel]

||Like with Violet, she's so in with him that we don't see him being aloof or casual or whatever||

||I also really like the relationship Will and Violet are developing it feels just so natural||

[proper silo]

17 ||Will from his own POV: "I suck. I'm terrible. I can't help anyone, and I'm a total failure". Will from outsider POV: "Goddamn who's this handsome stranger? So heroic, so attractive, wowza"||

||Katherine's off living in her own romance novel where she's engage to some old git but meets and falls in love with a nice city boy she meets at random||

||Katherine, buddy, I'm real sorry but he only has eyes for the sorta guy who could crush someone's spine with a flick of a wrist||

[long sorrel]

||Katherine living her own romance but turns out the nice city boy is probably quite gay ||

||though, better Will than Simon though.||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 18 ||"He was the Dark King’s favorite, and now he’s following Simon’s orders . . . you think that doesn’t give Simon a thrill?" I am reminded of how James was first called "Simon's Prize", and how he's a Laurent expy, and how this is the same author that wrote the Regent, and I am concerned ||

||Like I hope this is not where we're going...||

||Oh dear I wonder how much Violet's father knows, if he's locking her up cause he knows she's with the Stewars, or if he's locking her up cause he wants to make sure she's there to feed to Tom||

||I don't wanna say "at least her mom's nice", but, uh... at least her mom's hatred came in handy?||

[long sorrel]

||Her (mom) name is same as mine (mom) in a different language so I was like "uuuuh "||

[proper silo]

unfortunate

i wanna keep reading... but also i need to go to sleep

[merry galleon]

After finish reading Titan’s Nest, I’m going to read Seeker’s Bane by PC Hodgell

And the edition I have, has TWO books in one

[long sorrel]

do you really

oh you know what, if you've not started 19 better stop now

[proper silo]

i got like two pages into it, reached the point where ||Violet realizes the chihuahua outed her as a Lion|| and realized I need to stop for the night

[long sorrel]

Yeaaaaah

||I like the chihuahua very much despite being so... chihuahua||

[minor sleet]

If I were to be an author, I would like to write like Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Even the English translations of his novels are beautiful and moving, and I can only assume the original Spanish is better, because every translation loses something of the original

I’m back at Love in the Time of Cholera

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise 30/ALL ||"You could run from your enemies. You couldn't run from yourself." I love this sentence, having the full context ||

||WILL MY DUDE, why are you threatening a child ||

Dark Rise book 2 all ||I think that one moment might actually be quite... pivotal in the whole story 😬, totally brought upon himself ||

[ripe tide]

I haven’t really seen tje English translation (going to look at it now for an assignment) but I wish I could write like he does.

[minor sleet]

I love that many of his paragraphs end on a sentence that twist the meaning of the previous ones, or add a sense of wry humor or an observation that is out of place

One of my favorite lines so far is “in her final years she would still recall that, with the perverse lucidity of nostalgia, became more and more recent in her memory”

“Perverse lucidity”is a very apt set of adjectives for nostalgia, especially if you are framing it negatively

[minor sleet]

I just finished chapter two and || got to the part where Ferminia Daza reunites with her lover and looks at him and goes “all that feeling…. For him?” And breaks up with him. ||

I’ve been in that exact same situation and it sucked. ||I suspect my ex’s method of moping and being heartbroken and the moving on with life will not be the result, given that Florentino Ariza proposed to her again before her husband’s corpse was cool in the grave||

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise 34 ||Heh . It uncurled something in Will, a desire to say, That’s right. Show me. Earn my attention.||

... I should go to bed, not start Dark Heir... right?

[minor sleet]

No you should start Dark Heir

https://tenor.com/view/evil-devil-gif-10281342401405903300

[long sorrel]

nooo...

(I will)

[minor sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/sickos-sicko-haha-yes-creeper-gif-25057805

[merry galleon]

Titan’s Nest ||Darren is a bastard, maximus is his half brother|| what? Excuse me, WHAAAAT!

This is too juicy. TD Orel how could you?!

[merry galleon]

FINALLY! I finished this book! And guys? ||YOU ARE SLEEPING ON THIS BOOK! It is so good, I cried, I laughed, and I was shocked||

But the worst thing about this? I have to wait until my order for next book comes in. Hopefully it comes in the next two weeks.

AHHH! I cannot wait! I need to know what happens next!

[proven token]

House of Leaves... somewhere in the p200-300 range (I genuinely lost track) ||Wait a second something from Tom's POV switched into first person in the middle of a sentence... Is Zampano actually Tom? Is The Navidson Record a hidden memoir? Will the formatting ever stop being cursed? When Jed is waiting for whatever comes "from" him and it's corrected to "for" by the editors in a footnote, is it implying that The Minotaur comes from the people it threatens? Does The Minotaur even exist, since the book is doing the Expanse thing and|| [Same tags + Expanse gen] ||having all of the problems not be caused by the terrifying horror threat and instead be caused by humans being kinda awful?||

This book is so peak

I am so excited to read more of it slowly going insane

[ivory cypress]

about halfway through captive prince ||amd i've spent most of it livid||

captive prince ||i s2g there better not be any turn the other cheek bs, this had BETTER end with damen committing many acts of violence. laurent should be flogged at minimum||

[proper silo]

🍿

(ha, I finally get to do that)

[long sorrel]

Is this where I say the typical Usha thing... but ||I love Laurent 😌 ||

[proper silo]

||he grows on you, like a fungus||

[ivory cypress]

||i actually kinda want him dead||

||it should be ugly||

[proper silo]

Also a valid reaction at this point!

[long sorrel]

||I already liked him at this point but yeah, certainly valid reaction||

[ivory cypress]

80%

it's a bit short!

i don't mind that

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 19 ||I know this is a very serious scene but there's something about those comically massive manacles that makes me giggle||

||Like my brain insists they are foam props||

The fact I am reading this scene at 6am may be a contributing factor

[long sorrel]

I was sort of imagining them like this too for a while

[proper silo]

||Methinks we are having a Theme of the story shown off here, something about how the past needn't define the present. Like yeah, Violet is a Lion but that's half the story at most||

||and the Stewards are so high on their whole "we remember the past" thing they are forgetting to look at the present||

...Theme(tm) thought: ||What if the Dark King, once he shows up, isn't evil?||

Dark Rise 19 ||lmao, imagine if it's Katherine. Like everyone is running around murdering each other over the Dark King and meanwhile the Dark King is living her best Regency Romance life out there||

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise general ||I love that it's kinda twisty with this theme. It's not like super original as a theme but it's a bit gritty. ||

[long sorrel]

||the Dark King in pink laces tho ||

[ivory cypress]

i'm DONE?

oh

ok

[long sorrel]

The entire trilogy is probably shorter than your average fantasy book

[proper silo]

You'te basically reading a single webnovel split into three, so each volume ends up kinda shortish

Not to be one of those people but I'd say book 2 is where it gets real good

Dark Rise 19 ||Chihuahua to the rescue? ||

20 ||Will: "My big plan is strutting in front of James and hoping he's as whipped for me as I am for him." A bold move, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for him.||

[long sorrel]

My comment on that

[proper silo]

[long sorrel]

||Given how Katherine reacted Will is very much a hottie ||

[ivory cypress]

prince's gambit 2 ||at this point i'm pretty entrenched and i am not feeling any of damen's weakness for laurent. it's just the m/m version of "i should hate him but. there's just something about him!"||

[proper silo]

Kings Rising all ||Methinks Grey's gonna like Nikandros (if Grey gets far enough to meet Nikandros||

[long sorrel]

Are you liking the plot tho, Grey? (Out of curiosity)

[ivory cypress]

it's interesting

i do want to see what happens next

prince's gambit 3 ||god that was . a bit obnoxious, could do with less laurent glazing||

[proper silo]

Kings Rising all ||Grey is basically saying everything Nikandros will, if in different words ||

[long sorrel]

||The fact that I love Laurent does indicate he is deserving of death for like, the entirety of CP lol||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 20 ||They're rolling up to this mission like a D&D party, and dressed about as coherently ||

||Cyprian as the Paladin, Violet the Barbarian, and Will as... The Bard, I guess||

[long sorrel]

Oh my god, I lived this the other day

[proper silo]

||His plan of seducing James away does feel like a Bard plan||

[long sorrel]

||I was telling someone in my party to stop being dressed as a jester and he said it was a good disguise to commit crimes and like. That's it. That's Will looking at the cute chihuahua like "wtf dude"||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 20 ||Will, I need you to start channelling a little less Damen and a little more Laurent here||

||or, in planer text, be smarter about being horny for the enemy||

||oh hey, he was! Well, my bad, Will, I underestimated your game||

Dark Rise 21 ||Ooh, well, that answers my question about what James's connection to the Hall is||

||And given the Stewards' charming reaction to learning about Violet, methinks it's not hard to guess why James defected||

||Hell, given the Stewards' reaction to Violet, his own dad prolly tried to kill him||

[ivory cypress]

prince's gambit 13 ||i'm ROLLING my EYES, i'm so mad this book expects me to go with damen being mad about laurent catching a beating. BOY talk about scales not being balanced before it asks the big emotional switch on me||

prince's gambit 14 ||okay put your money where your mouth is. atone by taking a few hits||

[ivory cypress]

prince's gambit 17 ||fully expecting one of the reveals to be that years ago it was laurent's idea to set up a fake parlay, provoking the akie's anger in the first place. please give it to me. it would be delicious||

[tight kindle]

I wanna read Captive Prince but the hold is still 8 weeks out ;-;

[ivory cypress]

prince's gambit 20 ||"except it was kastor who put the collar on him and laurent who was freeing him" no????? absolutely not? oh my god 🙄 ||

prince's gambit 21 ||okay this is kinda exactly what i feared was gonna happen in damian being all like, wow my own people are so warlike and bloodthirsty damn was i really like that||

https://tenor.com/view/ugh-ughh-oh-boy-tired-lazy-gif-13987646

||babe NO get in a book where you don't dump your own cultural values and mores cause the guy who delighted in enslaving you was pretty for you one night||

[ivory cypress]

king's rising 4 ||throwing my hands up in the air and going to bed. eat crap and die laurent||

[proper silo]

Prince's Gambit all ||The cultural values of... Slave-making and slave holding? I'm not sure what other cultural values of Akielon Damen doesn't like any more||

||Also, the whole "Kastor put the collar on him and Laurent freed him" is like... Genuinely what happens ||

Dark Rise 21 ||Man, James's dad seems real determined to make me disdain the Stewards||

[oblique zodiac]

I might get back to reading today

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 21 ||James spreading his legs out when Will is about to spear him with the horn is a bit, uh||

||suggestive||

[ivory cypress]

Prince's gambit all ||yeah not until after enjoying all the benefits of having him as a slave. I see what's on the table and I'm knowingly disregarding it because nothing that's happened has leveled them, never mind a little pendulum swinging in the opposite direction for a bit.||

||and the bit damian was thinking that about his own culture had nothing to do with slaves, that was all him thinking about how utilitarian his people are and realizing he thinks they're warlike and it's all very weirdly written as though Damen is foreign to akielos, and not in a way that the books have earned. there's a lot in his reaction to at least the aesthetics of his own people that rings really weird||

[proper silo]

I must say, your utter refusal to engage with anything the book is putting down regarding Laurent is genuinely really entertaining to read 😅

[proper silo]

||his reaction to seeing Akielon architecture and sensibilities made sense to me in that he'd been living in a foreign country for months at this point, so it'd make sense for him to get unused to what Akielos aesthetic looks like||

Dark Rise 21 ||Oh gods, the Stewards are damn idiots||

[ivory cypress]

Prince's gambit all ||it didn't land "seeing his people after months away", the language used was more implicitly denigrating||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 21 ||"Let's fight evil by drinking from the Cup of Makes You Evil" brilliant plan, team. Genius. No way to for this to backfire on you!||

[ivory cypress]

||and I'm picking up what the books are putting down but I'm not freaking biting until it gives me a reason to. I'm not into this dynamic as the permanent one and I think it's being left far too late into the story to have a dramatic impact on me||

[proper silo]

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, I suppose

[ivory cypress]

||whatever leveling or reversal of dynamic is being left way too late. he was WAY too awful for a book to get let off with the typical woobification beats||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 21 ||Man, the convo between James and Will I love how clever Will is. And how it's obviously slowly winning James over||

||You know what would be funny? With them both (probably) being Reborn and the instant attraction - what if Will is not one of Sarcean's generals but Sarcean himself?||

[oblique zodiac]

I'm reading the Wind in the Willows, and omg it's the hardest book to get through

It's my 2nd day and I haven't read even 100 pages

and I constantly keep involuntarily pausing mid-read to ruminate what happened to me in the past, and it's so annoying

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 22 ||if the chihuahua keeps going like this, I'm gonna have to start calling him by his real name again, he's being neat||

||Also a daily reminded that Violet is, in fact, awesome||

[snow vessel]

Finally got my hands on a physical edition of Tale of the Body Thief

-# also the cover has "lestat embarks on his most dangerous enterprise yet" on it which... glances at Queen of the damned is it really his most dangerous??

[long sorrel]

This one is great. Love that scene

[ivory cypress]

Kings rising 5 ||i'd be more encouraged by nikandros if I thought the book would ever prove him right (and therefore Damianos would get to have some violent revenge), but no, it's just more Laurent getting his way fit the umpteenth time 🙄 END me||

[soft inlet]

|| Violet is, in fact, my favorite character. She's so awesome ||

[ivory cypress]

||the whole PROBLEM is that Damian has become a much weaker mc because at this point I know he'll roll over for Laurent for anything. give someone else the kingship, maybe, I no longer have any faith that Damian will ever protect his pride or his country's pride if Laurent is in the room. half of Damian's people died in that assault, the akies think for very understandable reasons they were betrayed, and then Damian walks out going "damn well I guess I'll give him delpha too" and then his people have to take it ? this is infuriating||

Kings rising 5 ||I swear to GOD above that the whip gift is maybe the worst thing this series has made me read. whip Laurent actually, what the HELL is going on here. I'm genuinely insulted!!! on Damian's behalf, if nothing else, because he's incapable of it now||

[proper silo]

Grey why are you still reading this book if it pisses you off so badly 😅

Like I have not seen you say a single good thing about it

[ivory cypress]

idk, it's like with cradle in reverse?

[proper silo]

I mean, with Cradle I had side characters I was interested in, like Yerin, Ziel, eventually Eithan...

I am genuinely unclear what's keeping you reading

[ivory cypress]

the hope it'll give me something that I like

[proper silo]

Fair enough

[long sorrel]

Kings Rising 5 ||the whip gift is horrible. I love it||

[proper silo]

same tag ||For me it was the peak of Laurent's post-"i slept with Auguste's killer and i hate that i liked it" dumbassery ||

[ivory cypress]

I'm READY to root for this romance and every turn it's like being slapped

Kings rising 5 ||every few paragraphs I entertain the notion that Damianos will get to be nasty in return and I am constantly being let down||

||whip him, make him kneel, deny him delpha publicly, do anything, Dam||

[long sorrel]

||I just derive a twisted pleasure from Laurent ||

Which is very in line with me lol

[proper silo]

Kings Rising ALL ||I am terribly curious if Grey finds anything that happens in this book (the spar, the Kingsmeet) sufficient, cause like, those are the scenes he wants, but will it be enough?||

Well, my bar for judging fictional love interests is Mo Ran, so Laurent clears that with flying colors 😅

[long sorrel]

||I don't think so. But we shall see||

[long sorrel]

Everyone clears Mo Ran!

Well idk how he actually is later on. I'm thinking of the flashbacks and, being like "well yeah"

[ivory cypress]

you know what it is, is that Damen is the anti-Jude

[proper silo]

He gets much better, but the flashbacks are a lot

[long sorrel]

Yep

I mean, I do get where you're coming from and what's bothering/not clicking with you

Except I did enjoy it

[proper silo]

I mean Damen and Jude are not in any way intended to be similar characters

If anything, Laurent is Jude-er

But yeah, different tastes, all valid

[long sorrel]

Oh god... Damen is a little bit like a dog anyway

[ivory cypress]

Kings rising 5 ||"You will lose Straton. You will lose Makedon, Nikandros had said, but he hadn’t counted on the fact that Laurent would arrive, and begin, dangerously, to control everything." yeah I know and I have zero faith this will be challenged at all, ever||

I'm not saying that because I expected them to be the same, I'm saying it because it clicked why I love Jude and am feeling my respect for Damen slip down the drain every second that passes

[long sorrel]

Safe for Grey. Kings Rising gen ||the reality is that Damen isn't rolling for Laurent because he's good, or has forgiven him or anything... it's because he's blonde. This is only half a joke ||

[ivory cypress]

KR general ||he shouldn't be rolling at all ||

[light drum]

Twelve Months + Mirror Mirror Speculation ||This book was a nice return to Dresden, I really really really liked his dealing with grief and just the cremshow hes gone through. Jim said hes around 33% done with Mirror Mirror and hoping to get it out early 2027 and idk im super excited to see the time travel/alternative reality stuff especially since it was kinda hinted at with one the healing of Thomas as demon reach, like how he needed so much power, and then us being shown how much power the castle gives him. We know that he will break all the laws of magic at one point so I wonder if he is the one to initiate the time travel as to some of the theory of encountering his double||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 22 (or, The Adventures of YA Laurent & Friends) ||It's genuinely so funny to me that the forces of Light are just so dumb. Like, this is obviously on purpose, they're meant to be dogmatic and hypocritical and kind of not up to the job, but it's so funny.||

(gen) ||Also, I still can't get over the fact that both Will and James feel like recombinations of Damen and Laurent, just in different proportion. Pacat very clearly has a type, both when it comes to MCs and love interests||

[long sorrel]

I do like Will a lot more than Damen. And I have things to say but I need you to finish first

[proper silo]

I don't think I have a preference for either, I like them both

I will say, though, that Dark Rise already has a lot stronger non-main characters than the entirety of Captive Prince trilogy

Violet and the chihuahua clear most of Captive Prince's side cast effortlessly

[long sorrel]

Yah...

I mean, I can barely think of Captive Prince secondaries tho?

There's like background, support, antagonists

It doesn't have anything in between that and main

[proper silo]

Yeah, that's why I went with "non-main" characters rather than "secondary" 😅

Like I have many thoughts about Dark Rise but tl;dr you can tell this is the author's second book

[long sorrel]

Meanwhile Violet is almost a main character, chihuahua is defs a secondary. All of the support Dark Rise ||Stewards||

[proper silo]

and also I just found out that I've been mistaken about the third book in this trilogy coming out soon (must've mixed it up with the discussion about something else) and I will indeed be soon trapped in a hell of waiting for the finale 😭

[long sorrel]

The book was handed to the publisher last summer

So it is written

[proper silo]

🙏 thank you, at least there's that

[long sorrel]

I just don't know where in the process it is atm

[proper silo]

i am content knowing it's in the process for the time being

[ivory cypress]

Kings Rising whatever I'm not sure ||"A part of Damen acknowledged, a little guiltily, that Laurent probably hadn’t deserved to get thrown around the training arena as a result." oh my god STOP feeling even a little bit guilty holy CROW||

[proper silo]

I was dreading a Game of Thrones situation

[long sorrel]

But Pacat published an excerpt of book 3 in his patreon in Christmas with a "still no official release date" message

That's all I could see since I'm not subscribed to it

[proper silo]

well, gonna have to wait, then

[long sorrel]

Yup

[proper silo]

and, uh, finish the preceding book, in my case

since I'm at 64% of the first one still

[ivory cypress]

Kings Rising wherever ||" ‘Should I have told him I didn’t enjoy it?’ said Laurent. ‘But I did enjoy it. I liked it most near the end, when you broke down.’" die die die die die die die die die die die die||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 23 ||Katherine still living that regency romance plotline 😅 I get the distinct feeling that by the end of this book she's gonna be either severely depressed or severely deadd||

[long sorrel]

But Rasarr have you not noticed... that she is ||blonde||

I was laughing my ass off yesterday when I realised that because I had been ignoring it

[proper silo]

Pacat so has a type

Dark Rise general ||At this rate I am 100% expecting someone to get enslaved by the end of this book Maybe not in quite as explicit a fashion as Captive Prince but it's absolutely going to happen||

23 ||ngl, I was expecting Will to rizz Katherine, not tell her the plain truth||

||The Laurent-Damen scale has swung to the Damen side for this chapter, I suppose||

[ivory cypress]

Kings rising ||oh my god can't even let Laurent lose in a foreign contest he's literally never trained for before. end me. at least I'll be finished the book soon||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 23 ||...is Will's magic activated by love. Does he have to kiss James to wake up the dead tree in the Hall ||

Dark Rise 24 ||Well this took a turn for the worse ||

||JUSTICE NO Goddamit, you were too cool to live||

[long sorrel]

Wait, which ch is this? 👀

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 24-25 ||Will, Violet and Cyprian came back to find that the Hall has been massacred by shadow-Marcus||

||Now I feel kinda bad for laughing at how dumb the Stewards were||

||Like yes, they were, and it got almost all of them killed||

[long sorrel]

||you were right tho it is unfair to most who didn't know||

[proper silo]

yeah...

Dark Rise 25 ||Wait hol' up. Should we check up on James? Like yeah, he's probably out of here, he probably left when Simon's men plundered the Hall, but like, did we check up on James?||

[long sorrel]

||I think you were quite on the money with these thoughts. The Stewards barely had a choice but to take on the cup and even then they weren't enough, the Lady was needed to kill the Dark King. But they had to right? To stave off things and such, however at the same time they got stuck in the past, they became a relic themselves which kept them attached to this system of making themselves into shadows and then just dying, because. Idk how long ago the Dark King was but there has been centuries? (probably) of stewards just dying on their late 20s early 30s? for no reason but keep the memory of it. It ties onto the theme of past/present/future in an interesting way.||

[ivory cypress]

well that sure was a trilogy of books and short story follow-up

[long sorrel]

You read the Summer Palace too?

[ivory cypress]

captive prince trilogy all ||well I was denied the satisfaction of seeing Damianos get a single good win, let alone one he earned. barely even a punch delivered. even when he very shortly loses his temper, he always loses for it next. screwwwwww that||

[long sorrel]

I'm ngl I didn't think you'd get past the first book

And while I don't enjoy that you didn't enjoy things your reactions have been entertaining nonetheless

[ivory cypress]

they went so fast, and I figured out I'd have them read to have an informed opinion on them

[proper silo]

Honestly kinda agreed with Usha, I figured you'd drop it after Prince's Gambit

[long sorrel]

Unironically Dark Rise would probably be more your thing except the plot is kinda YA and I know you don't like that

but it doesn't have any of the things you disliked of Captive's Prince

[proper silo]

You were saying you were waiting for something to make you root for the relationship in Kings Rising, but the book was already assuming you've bought into their relationship in Prince's Gambit 😅

[ivory cypress]

Prince's Gambit ended with ||the return of Prince Damianos and I was briefly tricked into imagining things would turn around in like any way for him, but nope, the dynamic is kind of exactly the same all throughout||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 25 end ||o hey, they did check in on James after all, and yep, he is gone||

||would've been lowkey funny if he was just there like "yep. they ditched me here. what now" But that'd make no sense||

[long sorrel]

||just a passing thought. I do like that it isn't the first thing they think given the enormity of the situation of you know, the whole massacre||

[long sorrel]

I am a terrible person and had bought into it by like chapter 3

way earlier than Rasarr I think

[proper silo]

Re: Prince's Gambit, I admit that I disagree on most of what Grey said about Damen and Laurent, but like, not gonna argue with you, two equally valid opinions an all that. And it was an interesting experience, for once being the one who did like a character while someone else hates them.

[ivory cypress]

Captive prince trilogy ||there is some YA-ness in the lack of depth in world building and the way Damen makes decisions/the narrative has Damen make decisions based on the relationship rather than earning it with the character I was told he is. everything I feel I was promised I would get a return on in book one went nowhere. I need more then just the romance, I need the things around the romance, that support the romance and inform the romance, to work. and it just fell completely flat||

[proper silo]

Oh yeah, I wasn't even anywhere near on board until final chapters of book 1

[ivory cypress]

in terms of what I don't like about YA, that is usually what it is

[proper silo]

But yeah, from even like technical and plotting standpoints, Dark Rise is definitely the better book

[long sorrel]

Hmm, Dark Rise has a YA-ish plot but not a YA writing. I think what you're describing is the writing (?)

[proper silo]

Dunno about from romance standpoint, the romantic couple is still in the "enemies" stage of enemies-to-lovers where I am

[long sorrel]

Not that I'm going to insist you read something by an author you disliked lol

[ivory cypress]

I can be down with YA, but usually what I described is a very common issue with modern YA but I'm not actually opposed on principle. I still go back and enjoy tamora pierce and megan whalen turner

and talking about Megan Whalen Turner, TALK about building a romance between royals that initially I hate but manages to make me believe in it

The Queen's Thief unparalleled still

[long sorrel]

Mhmmm, there are things in YA that I specifically dislike but overall I don't mind it

[proper silo]

oh, i could not get past the first book of Queen's Thief 😅

Like I don't even remember why, I tried it like ten years ago

But it just did not agree with me

[long sorrel]

Though a lot of the time YA is like fast-entertaining reads more than anything deeper

[ivory cypress]

maybe that's what I'll reread, wash my hands of this

[proper silo]

And Tamora Pierce, she's the one who wrote the books about that lady knight? 🤔

Protector of the Small

yeah, that was that

so yeah, I liked that, but nothing else from her

[long sorrel]

I've not read either authors but I think I'd like both

[proper silo]

oh lmao, while i was googling it to confirm the name, Protector of the Small apparently got like, the grittiest looking re-releases

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81C2rj0NOsL._SL1500_.jpg

This is not the vibe I remember that series having

[ivory cypress]

captive prince trilogy all, stormlight all but mostly wor ||actually what Damen and Laurent remind me of in the worst way is Shallan and Kaladin, in that kaladins legit feelings and grievances get completely shrugged off, shallan gets a narrative pass ala "you're right about everything you do because you had a crappy life, unrelated to the dynamic that we're actually discussing here" complete with shallan doesn't change in ANY way but Kaladin gets hit with the "damn she's hot so I guess I'm actually not that mad about the injustices" and laughing about boots. Laurent was an ass the WHOLE time, Damen was the only one who changed, really, and in a frankly upsetting way because everything nikandros said was right, but it wasn't even satisfying because you KNOW the whole time it's not like nikandros' position is going to be justified in text||

||"oh you were meant to be king, you're so kingly, you were never a slave" shut???? up?????? shut the hell your mouth? stand for the whip before you start with that revisionism||

[proper silo]

This is genuinely so entertaining

[long sorrel]

I know right? I feel bad even

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 26 ||Violet NO||

||Violet just because almost all the Stewards are dead doesn't mean you should be picking up the slack in the bad-decision-making department||

[ivory cypress]

captive prince trilogy all ||Nikandros is there to make the reasonable emotional correct position be wrong. every time Damen disagreed with him, I was furious because one, obviously Damen is going to be proven right by the end but two, he shouldn't have been. he shouldn't have rolled over, if I was an akielos soldier I would have revolted. Damen just got them to back off by just continually saying "back off I got this" and nothing even really comes of that??? Damen is legit like like, not standing up for his own country like he should, he genuinely IS giving Laurent concession after concession because Laurent is pretty and he likes him, I cannot believe your books frame this as Damen being even-handed and thinking coolly and clearly about the situation, it's just "wow Laurent is so so so so smart" at every turn and also at every turn is Damen being shocked and impressed at Laurent's maneuvering, I'm embarrassed for the attempt at medieval politicking||

captive prince trilogy all ||it honestly made Damen look like an idiot every time Nik came to say these things because he couldn't even form an argument or justification, it was always just "bro trust me"||

||god, like these books are so obviously not even about Damen at all, not in any way that matters. it is ALL Laurent glazing, which makes it such a huge mistake that so much is put up front into the "making you feel bad about Damen" premise||

[long sorrel]

||When i was naming good support characters I almost mentioned the stewards by name and thankfuly l stopped myself because to you they were all still alive ||

[ivory cypress]

... so yeah after Kings Rising chapter 4, I needed an Advil to sleep last night

[proper silo]

...

I am genuinely shocked you continued the book after that

[ivory cypress]

I think it's about exorcised

well at that point I needed closure, it was making me insane

[proper silo]

You could've asked, we would've told you how it ends

[ivory cypress]

oh I looked up a summary last night after that too

not the same as seeing it yourself

[long sorrel]

True, at least the books are short 😅

[proper silo]

still, like, the need to medicate feels like a good indicator that a story should be DNF'd?

[ivory cypress]

I've been having tension headaches for a month or so For Reasons, but also when I'm this mad, I need the closure, otherwise I can spin myself up forever

[proper silo]

well, fair enough

[ivory cypress]

like I think what is the worst part is that (captive prince trilogy) ||I tend to REALLY like characters like Laurent, but this was.... not handled in the way I need to start getting on his side. one little pov from his side. he is never presented as being on the back foot (except in sex and that's not good enough, sorry, in sex when you lose you still win), there is nothing the least hint of being pathetic or something to pull me in, and already as I've said, I needed a dynamic change, even a dynamic flip. even Laurent not knowing who Damen really was could have been enough! even that! but no, the text was like, seeing Laurent lose in any way is bad, you can't see that, and like fine, cool, but i feel robbed of a chance to sympathize with him. damen is sexually assaulted with a quickness in the first book even and he is constantly having to swallow large and small indignities throughout ALL THREE BOOKS and Laurent has to endure basically nothing in comparison, and definitely not in the role damen was in. and it's not that in stories I've liked with this dynamic, there is at least something. after finishing book one, I was genuinely expecting the series to switch halfway through and have them, like, captured by akielos and then Damianos could be prince, Laurent would be the captured prince and ofc even better if the pov switched to him so we could see the emotional impact of like. anything. literally anything that Laurent feels that isn't super cool guy. the more fool I!||

[proper silo]

Captive Prince trilogy ||I do feel like the lack of Laurent POVs is severely hurting this story, yeah||

||Putting aside that his sexual assault happened in the backstory and the book is pretending like that's not obvious until the last possible moment, seeing him flail a little would be nice||

Unrelated, Dark Rise 27 ||CS Pacat, we need to talk about your fondness for golden slave collars. It's very blatant||

[ivory cypress]

captive prince trilogy ||Laurent even gets to see his abuser killed on his order, Damen gets literally nothing. he doesn't get to see the slave handlers, the soldiers, the nobles, and DEFINITELY not Laurent pay an inch. the narrative goes "well Damen just blames it on kastor and then eventually the Regent" and I'm like..... just.... shut up||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 27 ||also, apparently my guess about someone becoming a slave before the book was over was more or less correct?||

[long sorrel]

I have been waiting for you to reach this lmao

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 27 ||Custom-made slave collar, oh my ||

[long sorrel]

Funny enough first (?) published (?) Pacat story is a ... fencing romance?

Dark Rise 27 ||i expect there are no golden collars there?||

[proper silo]

I wouldn't be so sure

[long sorrel]

(I hope? )

[long sorrel]

I must go look for the blonde

[proper silo]

Was about to ask, are they snarky blue-eyed blondes

[long sorrel]

I found one in a cover

I don't think is is Laurent coded though

well, idk

[proper silo]

🤔 is this a poly romance?

[long sorrel]

I am curious to see if it has all the Pacat things

but not curious enough I think

I have no clue

[proper silo]

Yeah, I could not possibly express how not interested in this I am

[long sorrel]

I googled if it was poly

and the autofill is "is it gay"

[proper silo]

I mean I feel like a single look at the cover answers that

Dark Rise 28 ||Oh gods, that's horrific ||

28 ||James must be so confused by everything Will right now ||

[long sorrel]

So was I

28 ||this is also such a good chapter 🍿 ||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 28 ||I dearly hope Pacat gives us James POVs cause I need to see what thinks about all this||

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise 28 (full chapter!) ||Here Will talks about how the Stewards drinking from the cup must have been the Dark King's will and I think everything that happened up to this point with the Steward just clicked. Not that I think he had somehow planned this to detail when he was alive but it makes so much sense to leave these things that are so so so enticing...||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 28 ||Very Sauron of him, leave a bunch of corrupted stuff that entices people to use it||

29 ||"You'll be safe. I promise" Will, my guy, the side characters in this story do not have a good track record of surviving thus far||

||Katherine is raising more death flags than a pirate fleet||

[ivory cypress]

opened a new book to get my mind off it and the lead is named Lawrence

AGHHHH

okay, mountain in the sea, you'll wait a bit, wisteria society of lady scoundrels save me

ahhhhh lovely

[proper silo]

oh, i've had that one on my TBR for a while

[long sorrel]

I've had it on my tbr for 3 seconds

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/galacticneighbor/767337050168066048/tbh-if-i-was-bella-swan-and-some-guy-wanted-to-go

in the face of extermination say FUCK YOU.

tbh if I was Bella Swan and some guy wanted to go to the beach w me up until he found out it was the one on the reservation and then I asked the kids from the tribe why he was weird about it and they said the Cullens don't come here :/ I would just assume I was trying to hit on the town's most notorious racist.

-# #the cullens are SO white. #just found this in my drafts from a YEAR ago. i was right though.

Tumblr · Nov 16, 2024, 8:40 PM

[ivory cypress]

I have several different readings of "not the level moon" in my head and I'm chuckling at all of them

NOT the level moon. NOT the level moon?? not the level MOON!?

[proper silo]

I personally love the "An explosion" followed by "Luncheon is served"

It's very casual

[long sorrel]

i like the "semantics semantics"

really that page is almost like doing a YP description

[ivory cypress]

wisteria society 1 ||okay this rules already||

[wraith lynx]

QoN 11 ||Oh Hello Ghost. wow I didnt think to see him again||

||happy for more locke slander though 🥰||

[merry galleon]

Now that I finished Titan’s Nest! I can start reading Seeker’s Bane by PC Hodgell

[oblique zodiac]

nice

[mild lance]

Finished In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan! Great book, would recommend!

Starts with a very trope-y premise of a main character getting invited to a school in a magic realm, but then very much does not follow the typical tropes of that premise

Also it has a pretty good gay romance which I know a lot of people here are into

[quaint burrow]

silently tags @tight kindle

[low hill]

-# Not that silently...

[tight kindle]

Taml ypi Adam

[quaint burrow]

whenever I am in a reading spree or just weeded like, 50 books from my tbr I be like: wow, that must've made my tbr noticably smaller

punched with 1156 books on the tbr

[long sorrel]

I understand and do not understand having a 1000+ tbr

Like, I am generally not trying to actively find new books since mine is 200+

Still find a lot but not enough for... 1000+?

[velvet umbra]

I could see it if I just added like every book I see people talk about that I might consider reading at some point

[long sorrel]

I do that

[velvet umbra]

maybe you're just more discerning than me idk lol

[long sorrel]

maybe

[velvet umbra]

Also I don't add any sequels/connected books until I have actually at least started book 1

[long sorrel]

yeah neither do I

[velvet umbra]

just seems like unecessary clogging of the list

[long sorrel]

I do think however I'm not in many spaces where new books are talked about

like it's here + a few friends

And in here a lot of the times it's the same books being talked about

[velvet umbra]

some people just add stuff if they like, think the cover is cool

I could see that getting you to 1k after a few years lol

[long sorrel]

mhm

I do think Adam does add entire series

but that's still something that'd maybe make my tbr go from like 280 books (current) to maybe 340

[velvet umbra]

yeah true even assuming like half the books on my current TBR are book 1 of a trilogy+ I doubt thatd get me past like 550

[quaint burrow]

I add every book in a given series, excluding short stories, unless there are anthologies, or extremely independent books that I don't wanna read in a series, like Agatha Christie. the most wanted criminals are:

damn only two women.....WHERE IS ROBIN HOBB

UGHHHH Gene Wolfe has 17 books while Robin Hobb has 16

[long sorrel]

Name based isn't it 3?

[quaint burrow]

Agatha and Karin... who's the third? Gene? that's a man iirc

woah Mercedes Lackey is a woman

[ripe tide]

Yes

Mercedes has always been a female name as far as I know?

[quaint burrow]

I never heard it before I read the name of the author

[minor sleet]

Mercedes Lackey should stop writing

Her last 15 years of Valdemar books have been bad. Especially when they are cowritten with her husband

Please rest on your laurels, ma’am

[quaint burrow]

like Dune? when his son took over?

[minor sleet]

No

More like… Anne Rice when she fired her editor and just started doing whatever

But also it’s just like her technical skill at writing has vanished

I think she’s just gotten older and more ill (she doesn’t look well at all in photos, although has kept her health information private) and that makes writing harder

Also I think her husband is just a bad writer so he drags down the quality of any books they coauthor, which does not help

To be blunt, I don’t think he would be published if not for her support

[quaint burrow]

contemplating removing all co-authored books....

[minor sleet]

You should try the prequel books (White/Black/Silver Griffin from the 1990s) first before taking my word for it but I cannot recommend their/his recent griffin books

[quaint burrow]

Yeah I'm gonna remove the later co-authored books, when/if I read the books (and remain interested enough I wanna read the following books) I'm just gonna add them again

[maiden verge]

read dungeon crawler carl btw, 2/10 max

[buoyant whale]

first based Kris take???

[maiden verge]

its so millenial

[junior dew]

What does that even mean

[quaint burrow]

.....it is millenial though

[junior dew]

Again, what does that mean

[analog geode]

Vibes

[junior dew]

I legitimately don’t understand lol

Like what about it ties it to a specific generation?

[hollow hedge]

I can see it

Just a general sense of humor, idk, but I can see it

[maiden verge]

the humor especially

its just so millenial

[junior dew]

I’ll be honest I still don’t see how humor can be lumped up into an entire generation of people but alright

[snow vessel]

I mean you have "gen alpha humour"

[junior dew]

I mean I kinda just see that more as young kids humor rather than specific to the singular generation

Like the brainrot stuff isn’t at all unique to Gen Alpha. It may be exacerbated by what the evolution of technology and the internet + social media enable, but I think that’s just kids being kids

Like even the comment “that’s so millennial” is kinda giving teenager scoffing at the generation that came before. Which is also just a very normal, common thing

[long sorrel]

There's definetely humour that is largely and in a general way milenial

Its not insulting, it just is

It's also not exclusive but a generalisation

[junior dew]

Not trying to say I’m pegging it as insulting. Just was inquiring because I’m curious

Since I see DCC as a “it’s not for everyone” thing, but I wouldn’t draw that line based on a generation

[ivory cypress]

ah yeah. the generation gap does cut both ways as well. i definitely don't like a lot of the new stuff and genuinely find it worse than what i read as a kid. i would probably like DCC's humour based on that if only cause that's my generation's humour. ....although that said, who knows, i've been in some internet communities long enough that i definitely laugh at stuff that isn't all that funny. but it is funny! to me

[junior dew]

But I also don’t know what “millennial humor” is

[ivory cypress]

i'd want to see an example, for sure, not having gotten to it yet

[long sorrel]

Have you never seen something and thought it was millennial humour?

[ivory cypress]

i haven't tbh

[long sorrel]

🤔 i don't think it's all exclusive but a lot of self deprecating sarcastic humour is characteristic

I've found myself going "no i don't hate myself it's a just a joke" at uni quite a few times lol

[alpine drum]

I feel like "MCU humor" might have replaced "millennial humor" in many people's lexicon

[long sorrel]

That's terrible

[somber timber]

Jokes about the the 2008 financial crisis am I right? Man those bankers huh… is this mic on

[ivory cypress]

well i resent that, for sure, mcu humour is a thing i can think of specific examples that aren't funny and i hate despite me being millennial 😩

[long sorrel]

I despise mcu humour

[minor sleet]

Joss Whedon is to blame for many things

[snow vessel]

What actually is mcu humour? /gen
Is it the like... making fun of/jokes about what's happening sort of thing?

[ivory cypress]

whedonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[wet belfry]

Also, not nearly a millennial

[junior dew]

Nope

[long sorrel]

I in fact can't tolerate MCU because of the humour 😬

[ivory cypress]

he is on the cusp of gen x and boomer!

[maiden verge]

MCU humor is a subtype if millenial humor

[maiden verge]

i hatea lot of millenial humor too and im a millenial

[ivory cypress]

🤔

no i just think this is not a category of humour nor self-hatred that i've ever picked up

[maiden verge]

Millenial humor is like. Meta self aware, MCU humor and lol so randomz

[ivory cypress]

mmmmm i wouldn't say so

specific early internet 2.0 subculture humour

[wet belfry]

Yeah

Even then there were a good number of early internet 2.0 subcultures and what they commonly found funny often had little if any overlap

[viral fractal]

Murderbot is very millennial humour

The show is better with it

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 30 ||"maybe he’d known since his mother had died and he’d stumbled away with a bleeding hand and bruises around his throat. The Lady is meant to kill the Dark King." Okey, my earlier guess of, what if Will is Sarcean Reborn was just s funny joke cause of the James insta-attraction, but this sounds like evidence in favor of that theory? Like did Will's mom try to kill him cause he's Sarcean???||

[long sorrel]

You are so close!

To the end, i gave myself a break before starting book 2

[twin hull]

old millennial humor sure! I think people who grew up with Neil Cicierega will now perfectly understand the appeal of Siivagunner, which is based on mainly in depth reference and surprise humor

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 30 ||Will being immune to withering effects of Dark King's stuff... Wasn't Simon also supposed to be immune cause he's Sarcean's descendant?||

I feel like that one meme of crazy guy in front of a red string conspiracy board

[uncut shoal]

The last Dragon Prophecy book was so bad

[merry galleon]

81 pages on Seeker’s Bane!

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 30 ||Damn, I guess Simon's just dead dead now. Rest in pieces, loser||

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 31 ||I am genuinely unsure how the gang can possibly win against the Shadow Kings, given that they have no Shadows on their side 🤔 Unless Cyprian drinks from the cup and speedruns shadow corruption, but that somehow feels unlikely||

[long sorrel]

||At this point I decided "Simon" does fit him as a name because after everything he says he sounds just like a comically evil clown villain ||

Alsooo Dark Rise 30 ||Will's whole "I made everyone abandon you" speech made me go "ah, he's defs much more Laurent than Damen" ||

[earnest grail]

Yay started reading Gideon the Ninth

[snow vessel]

Yessss

Peakpeakpeak

[random dome]

I'd say DCC definitely has a millennial leaning in its pop culture references, but I don't necessarily think the humor is particularly millennial

I don't really read them for the humor though, they're not really books that are making me laugh too often. DCC vague plot ||I feel like I more relate to Carl when the scenarios he's put in are clearly trying to be "funny" in a cruel way at his expense and he finds it aggravating and insulting. Like, I'm with him there, it's not funny that he's getting mocked while they try to kill him in ridiculous ways||

[old flint]

I mean, it's just a Hitchhikers / Pratchett style with more swearing and foot fetish jokes. As a Gen Xer, I don't especially see it as being redolent of any particular era

[random dome]

It's very internet but not specifically millennial imo

[random dome]

Also in honor of this, I give you a dumb meme (swearing, but no spoilers)

[earnest grail]

[Gideon the Ninth ch1] ||So I was not informed this was modern/sci-fi before going in||

[snow vessel]

HtN all ||that's not how it happened...||

[earnest grail]

[Gideon the Ninth ch1] ||I do, in fact, have a weak spot for settings that mix magic with futuristic technology||

||"Orphaned baby raised by evil step-parents" is a trope I'm not particularly fond of, but jumping out of prison and landing dead is one hell of a way to orphan the protagonist||

Also appreciating the dramatis personae

[old flint]

As I always do, I'll reshill that the audiobooks are top tier with a fantastic union of book and narrator. The eyeball mode books are much easier to follow, because it does get complicated though

[earnest grail]

This is one of the first books I've bought in physical form in a while, I want to detach myself from the digital world for a bit

[old flint]

I can certainly get behind that

[true falcon]

Have y’all read the middle school book by James Patterson?

[wraith lynx]

The Max Ride series?

Ive read books 1 and 6 and half of 2 but I DNF'd it a couple years ago

[versed agate]

he's got a few dozen YA or Middle School books

[wraith lynx]

Yeah considering max ride is a dozen in itself 💀

[true falcon]

No. That one with a movie adaptation with rob riggle

[wraith lynx]

Oh! Yeah I loved those!

Rafe was great

[minor sleet]

He has a few dozen of everything

Comes of his massive publishing empire and army of co-authors

[true falcon]

Probably his ghost writers taking half the credit I heard

[minor sleet]

I mean, he’s not really using ghost authors if the second name is right on the cover

[true falcon]

lol

[minor sleet]

You can see “and Chris Tebbets” at the bottom

[true falcon]

How does he write so many books then?

Like solo

[ivory cypress]

isn't James Patterson the most notorious user of ghost writers ever lmao

[minor sleet]

He gives the “& [coauthor]” an outline and lets them do the work

But again, it’s not really ghostwriting if the other author is openly credited

[long sorrel]

if he isn't writing anything but putting his name there, even if the other person is credited... isn't it still sort of?

[velvet umbra]

I mean not really I think the main issue with ghost authors is the not acknowledging you used them

[long sorrel]

I mean, that's unethical yeah

I do think slapping your name on things you don't write is partially unethical too though

If you do the full review/rewrite where needed of the drafts I can give it a pass

but otherwise, nah

I don't know which is the case for this author to be clear

[hollow hedge]

that's the Ghost of Brandon Future you're throwing shade at

[long sorrel]

Absolutely 😬

[junior dew]

Finished Cage of Souls.

Least favorite Adrian Tchaikovsky book so far. It was still good, but I think there was an expectations issue. I saw some people saying Alien Clay was just an inferior Cage of Souls but I wholeheartedly disagree - they are entirely different books with the only similarity being that they both follow a man who was sent off to work as prison labor basically. But the stories are entirely, radically different. And Alien Clay appealed to me far more.

I think that had I not gone in expecting Alien Clay, but even better, my thoughts may have been different. Still a very good book, but not what I expected or hoped for

[true falcon]

Might finally read supergirl comic by tom king

[minor sleet]

Quick before the movie comes out

[true falcon]

I’m busy rn

[minor sleet]

You have until June

[velvet umbra]

That’s kind of my thing, like theres certainly a level of hands off where having your name listed as an equal co-author is unethical but since there’s no way to know as the general public how much involvement they did or didn’t have I typically try to give benefit of the doubt

[long sorrel]

I don't support someone else writing your stuff whether you credit them or not, the later being straight up theft

Something like what Sanderson is doing with Skyward is just about the limit for what I am okay with

but if in the future he stops being deeply involved with the process but he still has his name as coauthor I will fully judge him

You can do "from the world of Sanderson" or whatever to slap his name on it without crediting him for writing

[wraith lynx]

Especially when you turn around and say "when's it my turn to be on the shelf" the actual audacity 😭

[versed agate]

who said that? 👀

[wraith lynx]

James Patterson himself! He said that white writers dont get attention anymore.

Here's a link to him apologizing for it but. Welp let's just say I havent read anything from him since 😌
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61808108.amp

[brazen pilot]

this is a real good old fashioned "they made me apologize" type apology

none of that talking around it and apologizing for how people felt but not for saying it

none of that culture war doubling down

the money people made him say it, so he did

[wraith lynx]

Yes exactly

[ripe tide]

This does not surprise me.

[proper silo]

I am fascinated by how the photo BBC News chose for this article makes him look like a turtle peeking its head out of its shell

Like I don't wanna correlate his bad behavior with his appearance, but the turtleness of this photo is incredible

[wraith lynx]

Honeslty? Me neither, but the audacity of it still stuns me. Like sir. You take of like half the shelf in every book store I go to, have several seats 😂

[junior dew]

Yeah white authors really don’t get any attention anymore tbh.

Anyways, how about all that news surrounding non-white author Brandon Sanderson’s massive adaptation deal

[true falcon]

I do wanna read dungeon crawler Carl!

Just forgot to pick it up at the B&N

[velvet umbra]

I literally saw people saying that "white male authors are basically not allowed to publish anymore" like 2 weeks ago lmao

[hollow hedge]

honestly DCC is something that is significantly elevated by its audiobook performance, it's cool that it's available in print but I wouldn't blind buy them all if you aren't certain

like, on its own it's fine, but it wouldn't have reached the same level of popularity

[true falcon]

I wanna get the first book first with the Sanderson starter set

[versed agate]

NGL, if the audiobook is elevating DCC, the book must be rock bottom

The narrator is great, but the material is cringe

[true falcon]

People love the series so I wanna love it as well

[versed agate]

🤔 though I suppose if cringe is the point, then it is in fact doing an excellent job

[hollow hedge]

I wouldn't say rock bottom exactly, but it's not independently great. Sort of like how sometimes in a movie, there can be a brilliant performance of a lackluster script

the point I'm mostly trying to make is that the performance is a huge part of what people love about it, and you don't get that in the printed version

[versed agate]

Mhmm
I guess what I'm saying is that I recognise the narrator is technically great, but that's not going to save a bad script for me

[junior dew]

Meanwhile Adrian Tchaikovsky with:

• Tyrant philosophers book 4 in February
• Children of time book 4 in March
• Green City Wars in June
• Elder Race sequel in September

[velvet umbra]

but have you considered that if I walk into a bookstore and go to the "Booktok books for sale" table it's mostly romance books written by women?

[junior dew]

People. Gotta love em

I personally found DCC fun and definitely didn’t find it cringe myself. I think it knows what it wants to be and it does that well imo. It’s not for everyone. It’s definitely ridiculous. But it also has its serious moments that I think do land/do work. I do think books 6 and 7 I was feeling some fatigue though perhaps.

It’s not among my top books or series, but it’s also above average for me. Would it be so without the audiobook narration? I don’t know tbh. I do think Cradle as a whole was stronger and more enjoyable for me for sure

I think even without the narration it’s stronger than stuff like Licanius and Eragon

Hell I am pretty sure I enjoyed DCC more than Hierarchy

[oblique zodiac]

didn't read at all yesterday

It's always the same. I stay motivated, stay consistent for a time, but I just stop caring after a while.
But that doesn't mean I failed. I'll try again today.

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 32 ||Ha, I guessed it right!||

||Huh, and I guess I was also right that Will's mom tried to kill him||

[true falcon]

Might also wanna get Hail Mary

[proper silo]

Dark Rise 32 ||Katherine, please, I desperately need you to apply some logical deductive reasoning to the scene before you. Like there's waving a death flag and then there's merrily marching yourself off the cliff, and you're doing the latter||

||aaaand she's gone||

||I was honestly expecting to feel a little sadder about it, but like||

||She has blown past like a thousand alarm bells and whistles to get to this point||

Dark Rise 33 ||Violet the Barbarian has now multiclassed into Paladin||

[random dome]

I've listened to four of the DCC books and I went in with low expectations (and actively disliked the early chapters) but was pleasantly surprised after sticking out the first book. Are they incredible? No. But they're enjoyable enough and I liked them enough to keep going, despite my early reservations. I'm not someone who usually does audiobooks, but my friend who recommended them insisted the audiobook was a really great experience, and I think he was right. I enjoy the performance of the narrator enough to like it in its own right.

[small bloom]

Today’s purchases may or may not have been inspired by this channel

[proper silo]

well, we'll see if your opinion of Captive Prince falls closer to me and Usha, or Grey 😅

[small bloom]

Well I loved Dark Rise so I would assume you and Usha

[proper silo]

😅

Speaking of which, I just finished Dark Rise

[small bloom]

Peak

[proper silo]

Good book, definitely an improvement in most regards from the author compared to his first book

Dark Rise all ||I do love the delicious irony of both James and Violet swearing that they'll oppose their fate and not follow the Dark King only to immediately all but swear themselves to Will's service||

[low hill]

What is Dark Rise? I've seen a lot of comments about it over the last few days, but missed the start of the conversation.

[proper silo]

Pretty much the only negative I have about the book is that it feels a bit... too glum? ||Like I get that the author is going for "the protagonists are severely and badly outmatched", but they feel almost too outmatched. It's a very dire story, an it almost veers into grimderp in places (see: Katherine's death)||

[random dome]

DCC general ||The books do have an element of kind of having their cake and eating it too in terms of absurdity and pop culture references, like there are in-universe reasons why memey or ridiculous creatures or quests appear in the dungeon, because the whole thing is a denigrating pastiche of earth culture that the actual human character themselves find tasteless and rude. Within the narrative, these things are played as kind of an "insult to injury" thing, that after the horrors of the actual premise, there's also this chewed up and regurgitated, mocking pop culture pastiche slathered all over the death and degradation. The characters don't treat the "silly" things as silly, but YMMV if the audience thinks it's subverted enough to pass, or if the book actually is just absurd/ridiculous for having those elements in its plot at all.||

[proper silo]

YA fanasy, from the same author who did Captive Prince. The premise is very, very classic (boy in 19th century London learns that he's a descendant of a powerful person who once defeated an evil overlord, must train to defeat the overlord cause the overlord's returning), but it plays with it a lot by putting all those classic elements from this sort of premise into question

Plus, it's also an m/m situationship (I'm not calling it romance yet, they are firmly in the "it's complicated" territory)

[low hill]

chuckles

[proper silo]

But yeah, despite my grumbling about the tone being a bit too dark (perhaps the title was a warning, lmao), I am definitely reading Dark Heir and then getting trapped in the hellscape of waiting for book 3

[small bloom]

Dark Heir was much better imo

[proper silo]

I'm not really surprised, (Dark Rise all) ||now that it doesn't have to pretend like it's doing a classic fantasy story (and now that James is joining the party, lmao). The team had their Barbarian, Paladin and Bard, and now they've got a Sorcerer.||

Dark Rise + Captive Prince general ||I really hope for James POVs in Dark Heir, Captive Prince disappointed me a little with lack of Laurent POVs||

[random dome]

Ok fine more DCC thoughts, because now I'm thinking about it (actual plot spoilers through book 4) ||The times when DCC loses me is when, every so often, it'll try to play something morally horrifying for laughs, and it's a tonal miss for me every time. Repeatedly killing the gnoll bartender in the train level was one of those moments, and on the bubble level, I'm still ambivalent about how they handled the AI punishing Carl for not doing foot stuff for it, and Carl eventually giving in and complying to make the attacks stop. Like, that latter section was very clearly coded as sexual harassment, and Carl was genuinely upset about it, but I feel like the book more often treats the AI's "foot fetish" as just a stupid joke. Just because Carl is a straight male main character doesn't mean it's okay for the book to make light of him being genuinely sexually harassed, and I don't think that scenario was handled as seriously as I would have liked. Donut (usually my favorite character) outright telling Carl he needs to get over it and just accept that he needs to act like a prostitute for the AI to get them rewards was bad. ||

[versed agate]

||Don't forget the No Trousers thing, more forced exhibitionism||

[random dome]

DCC ||The no trousers thing doesn't get the same level of focus and plot airtime as the foot fetish thing, I'll say, but it is adjacently part of it, I'll give you that||

[proper silo]

Oh huh, there are like, official character illustrations for Dark Rise cast

I did not at all clock that the chihuahua is supposed to have long hair, that is a significant shift in my mental image of him

Dark Rise all ||also, putting James in the Collar of Makes You Mind-Controlledd in the official portrait is nasty 😅 ||

[true falcon]

Wah eh?

[long sorrel]

I was waiting for this

[proper silo]

[tight kindle]

I finally finished the Starless Sea fanfic Fateheart
And oh. My. Gods.
It was a truly amazing creation and I absolutely love it.

I was getting towards the end and thinking that "hmm I still have a couple criticisms of what was done with the setting"
And then the author resolved them in a really talented way

I'm still half convinced BoogleBoot is just Morgenstern in a trench coat

Also
✨ There's another one ✨
[Mild Starless Sea spoilers]

276k words, 69 chapters

Plus another like
18 shorter fics

Set in the canon after the entire novel that they wrote

[oblique zodiac]

I promised myself no english books, but I couldn't help myself after watching that one Twilight clip

Though I'm reading from the 430th page of breaking dawn, not from scratch

[proper silo]

why that specific page

[oblique zodiac]

Breaking Dawn ||I kept rewatching the scene where Bella meets Renesmee and then abuses Jacob for imprinting on her because it was so entertaining, and I wanted to read the book version||

[proper silo]

Ah 😆

[ivory cypress]

why no English books?

[oblique zodiac]

Because English fantasy books are so addicting to me to the point where I get nothing else done and I wanted to focus on reading Korean books to improve my Korean this year

[ivory cypress]

I see...

[true falcon]

I hated reading ready player one when I did read a bit of it

[long sorrel]

@proper silo Dark Rise all. ||I did not clock Will's actual "heritage" until very late. Much like you I had a suspicion it was not the lady but the kiss did the job of diverting my attention quite well. I did notice Will is an unreliable narrator but did not clock how much until the sister lights up the tree. It is so horribly delicious for Will to be nauseated by James attraction to him. Pure giddiness when he realises James doesnt know. Its all so twisted! ||

[proper silo]

💯

[long sorrel]

||Also c11 does tell you soooo much in hindsight! This is the point where Will knows its freaking c11!!!!||

[proper silo]

Hmmm might have to reread it with that in mind 🤔

[long sorrel]

I only realised on my reread

It is very "hindsight" moment

[proper silo]

Dark Rise all ||Also, this is all gonna put an interesting spin on the romance, cause like - there are good reasons for James to be attracted to Will on his own. Be he is also magically compelled by the Collar's lingering influence to follow the Dark King's lead, so like, how much of his attraction is natural, and how much is the Collar? And would it even be... ethical for Will to start a relationship with James in this scenario?||

||It all feels delightfully crunchy and I do hope Dark Heir spends some time wondering about that||

[long sorrel]

||Will and James are both compelled by their past I think, not just the collar influence. But yes its so twisted 😈 ||

Will you read it soon? 👀

[proper silo]

Bought it already, gonna start on it tomorrow

Actually, I did read through Dramatis Personae and (Dark Rise all?) ||I do appreciate the confirmation that the brief spark of Katherine/Will was not, in fact, surprise incest ||