Books (General)

[tight kindle]

7 ||The cat talks now -_-||

[cunning pivot]

I am picking up operation Bounce House and seeing Matt at a signing in like 2 weeks. It will be interesting to see how this diverges from DCC given the premise.

[low hill]

Holiday book haul...

[analog geode]

Bartimaeus!

[low hill]

I have the trilogy already, I didn't know there was a prequel.

[potent linden]

(what Grey is saying about authors applies to content creators in general as well - YouTube or Twitch for example aren't stable enough to live on on their own unless you're big)

(Patreon isn't just for using as your only means of income, it's for supplementing your income)

[long sorrel]

Patreon is just a service, if you want you can buy it and if not you don't. If you want to do it for the sake of support rather than receiving a product that's just entirely up to you but ultimately, it is just a service. You don't need to be A B or C to have it.

[velvet umbra]

Maybe I'm dumb and don't understand something about how Patreon works but I fail to see how using Patreon as a person over X amount of success takes away from anyone else on the platform

It's not like (beyond just personal budgeting) people have X amount of Patreon dollars they can use and if it goes to big creator #56 now you can't give money to small creator #345

also the number of people who started Patreon as a YouTuber with 10k subs (or their field's equivalent) and it still exists now that they've grown to a YouTuber with a million subs (or their field's equivalent) is quite large, to the point I would say it's a normal part of the platform's lifecycle

if it was purely donations then I could see the argument a little more but basically all of them offer a fairly reasonable level of perks for the amount being paid

[long sorrel]

Personal budgeting pulls a weight here tho

If all popular authors (like real popular, not the DCC author) had patreons, people would sub to those and not anyone smaller. The amount of people that sub to small authors just to give extra support isn't that big

[velvet umbra]

I mean sure but that's still up to the person and idk how much people who have the money to be a target audience are actually like strictly budgeting themselves to that degree

I also think that if you just offered the same perks through some other platform instead it's not shifting the equation

[junior dew]

Oh…

Oh god…

Fifth season 8 || The node maintainer stuff is even worse than I remembered ||

[buoyant whale]

I mean it's like. A couple years ago Brandon talked about starting up a patreon for more book notes and wobs and it was like. A pretty bad idea that got a lot of pushback

[long sorrel]

I agree that its up to the person, and most big authors don't have a patreon either way. But I do think people ought to be responsible with the effects the tools they use have on others
This is all hypothetical anyway since I don't think it applies to this author

[velvet umbra]

I mean fair enough I was mainly thinking in terms of the specific example brought up I'm sure there are examples one could find I would consider an issue

[long sorrel]

Yeah, like Sanderson getting a patreon I do think is obnoxious and greedy

I did start by agreeing with you about the example brought up :p

[velvet umbra]

im bad at reading for someone who reads so much apparently

[cosmic sundial]

I think the biggest thing is that the better known you are the more you'll monopolize attention, which if you don't NEED the extra income stream means you're taking eyes away from people who do

But also it's all very in the air anyways

[velvet umbra]

I also think it's different if you like start it as a legitimate nobody and just don't stop it when you get big

cause like, at what point are you supposed to do that? Who knows

[maiden verge]

eh you unnderestimmate how stable it can be after like 1m subs or so

[ivory cypress]

.... SO many of the people i follow are sub 1 mil

[brazen pilot]

sub count isn't really a good metric these days tbh

[maiden verge]

Oh yeah sure same lol but thats not who i was talking about

[brazen pilot]

doesn't correlate perfectly with # of views, video length affects # of ads, consistency with which you put out videos is hugely important

[ivory cypress]

why are we orienting around who you're talking about (and not being specific about)

[brazen pilot]

plus willingness to take sponsors, since a whoooole lot of sponsors for youtube videos are ethically iffy

[velvet umbra]

idk I've seen quite a few 1-5 mil channels tank down to like avg per video views in the 50-70k range

some of them I think deserve it lol but still 1 million aint what it used to be because the platform is so exponentially larger

[alpine drum]

you don't get paid by the number of youtube subscribers you have

that's twitch

[deft stream]

Intermezzo is a weird book, I like it but it feels mundane and cotidiano .

[velvet umbra]

Finished the Fifth Season, great book, damn what an ending

I feel like kind of dumb for not figuring out that ||all 3 POVs are the same person but I think since I just couldn't figure out the sequence of events that would connect each timeline until it actually happened, I dismissed the idea when I considered it||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || You’re definitely not dumb. It’s done really well.

I just listened to more of my reread and it’s so interesting listening back, noticing where things start to get peppered in in chapter 10. A comment during the second person POV saying “become someone new maybe. You’ve done that before”… “a new name, a new focus”… ||

Also fifth season all ||
And there’s one point in chapter 10, still the second person POV where it says “such a formidable pair we are”, whereas everywhere else in the chapter it’s “the boy” and other language that hides that it’s Hoa telling the story ||

[velvet umbra]

||I kind of just assumed Essun was a different character with a similar backstory (which seems silly in hindsight?) ||

||also it is clear in the last short chapter that Hoa is the narrator||

[junior dew]

Fifth Season all || I thought so until the reveal at the end on my first read too. The narrative is crafted in that way to intentionally mislead. It’s something one can figure out clearly. But it isn’t made to be obvious ||

[junior dew]

|| Ahh thought so but couldn’t recall. Thanks. So that second spoiler I had put in the message earlier is safe. Will update ||

[velvet umbra]

||yeah like idk how to explain it but it like tricks you into talking yourself out of it? The thought occurred to me many times but I would always go "nah probably not"||

[junior dew]

|| Ahh yeah I didn’t even think about it I don’t think on my first read ||

[velvet umbra]

||its a very unique thing ive never read a book that did exactly this||

[long sorrel]

||It is very well done!||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || Yeah it’s unique or at least fairly unique (can’t rule out someone else having tried to do something similar prior or since), AND it’s executed flawlessly ||

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season ALL ||I did notice about midway that Essun and Syen were likely the same person. but it took til they basically told me that Damaya was Syen which definetely confirmed the other theory too. I had a hunch about Hoa because he was the only one not accounte for from all the past and present cast but that was mostly it, not a concrete thought. Like I think midway as well I started thinking Alabaster was the man from the prologue but I had no reason to think so so I was I like... but why am I thinking that? Til the stone eater woman appears and then I was like "oh now I have a reason"||

||Anyway, I think it's very easy to see how you should have noticed in hindsight, but alas, you're not reading in hindsight the first time ||

[velvet umbra]

||yeah I don't think there's much reason to assume that but like after the POVs were revealed to be the same person the first time idk why I kept acting like that being the case for the third POV was an unreasonable possibility lmao||

[junior dew]

|| I think there were even more subtle hints peppered a bit prior to chapter 10, but chapter 10 I think had the first clear “slip-up” in the narration with the Hoa bit, and the “have changed names”, and other mentions of names changing prior provide some small early hints that I think could reasonably be picked up on.

Granted of course I saw cosmic guessed SUPER early that Essun and Syanite or Damaya were the same person ||

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season ALL ||I still don't get what's up with the stars and the moons and the obelisks 👀 there are swirling thoughts but nothing concrete||

[brazen pilot]

Fifth Season all ||I'm not gonna say nobody ever calls it in advance, especially if they just call one part of it, but I'd say "oh my god, this is insane, how did i not realize it" is the most common reaction to the book.||

[long sorrel]

||We focus on specific details when reading and ignore the rest and it so depends person to person on which are you focusing lol||

[somber timber]

Yeah I don’t know what || tipped me off to them all being the same person or the alabaster stuff but I just remember that it kinda just popped into my head as I was reading. Like something had tripped that alarm in my head but I couldn’t say what|| Fifth season all

[junior dew]

|| Which is a sign of an excellently crafted book with great foreshadowing ||

[velvet umbra]

||see the changing names/identities didnt register as part of this to me cause that seemed like something ANY orogene who had escaped the Fulcrum would do, not just Syen||

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season all ||The bit about how she had been different people before was living rent free in my head. But I wasn't clicking in what way specifically, yet.||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || Cosmic guessed at least 2 POVs were the same person in the first 5 chapters ||

[long sorrel]

yeah something similar to this, I did register it, hard into my brain forefront

OH I know

[velvet umbra]

||I almost made a complete ass of myself and replied to this message saying "nah I dont think so" ||

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season ALL ||The moment it all clicked was when Syen is on the coast city and she mentions it's not a Season yet and nowhere near it, while I was reading about the Season in Essun's PoV that my brain started aligning the timeline.||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || Yeah exactly. I just have the benefit of knowing that twist is coming and so I have a close eye out for those small details that can serve as foreshadowing one can pick up on if they’re paying close enough attention and thinking really hard about things. It’s super fun ||

[long sorrel]

||Well not "all" clicked, but that's where my brain went AHA, about Syen and Essun||

[somber timber]

|| this might be mine also… I remember being near the water ||

[junior dew]

But fifth season all || Still reeling because the node maintainer stuff is so much worse than I remembered. Like I remembered it being bad but I completely forgot about the child rape being added on top of it all and I want to forget it again ||

[long sorrel]

||there's some info in there aswell that suggests actual decadese and Essun is 40+...||

[velvet umbra]

||see I didn't really get all the timeline stuff or recall this line.|| I was really busy with work this week so while the first half of the book was physical reading or very locked in audiobooking I probably got a little more lax and was doing some distracted listening for about the 3rd quarter of the book

[long sorrel]

Fifth Season ALL||Add to that that the child is Alabaster's to make it even worse for the reader!||

[somber timber]

|| I think I figured out the kid was in the past pretty early, and then once I had the adults being the same person it kinda logically flowed that the kid was also the same person || fifth season all

[long sorrel]

||This is part of the reason that I keep thinking about all his children, he did free them, he really did, and I need to swear to express how I feel about this and why I've not gone immediately to book 2||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || Yeah…. That chapter is really brutal ||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || Not swearing in relation to stuff here is in fact a major challenge ||

[long sorrel]

I read chapter 6 - End in one day I think

like I picked it up, skimmed the first chapters that I had already read and then basically read it in 2 sittings with a break for food

||At various points I just put the tablet down and went F- out into the room||

[junior dew]

Fifth season all || It is amazing to me just how masterfully crafted the whole book is. The way the timeline is woven together. The way the second person pov is told and that one single little “we” thrown in chapter 10. Just… everything. It’s so meticulously and lovingly crafted and the prose is so good and gahhh ||

[somber timber]

I bought the first one May 14, 2018 and then the second and third on the 17th and 18th. From that I’m guessing I was equally as gripped with the books.

[somber timber]

Mhm

I think it’s the best book I’ve read

Even 8 years later

I think tainted cup is the only thing that comes close for me because that book is just perfectly crafted and structured

[long sorrel]

On like, a technical level

[somber timber]

Yes

[long sorrel]

But Tainted Cup doesn't reach the depth, I feel

nor does it try to

[somber timber]

Agreed!

[long sorrel]

not saying it's worse, but it doesn't do the same things so it's so hard to compare

but on a technical level yeah

[junior dew]

Yeah I don’t have the date range for when I read book 1. But books 2 and 3 I read in 12 days. And that was with another read interspersed during book 2’s read. And I think I was still listening at 1x speed at that point in time

I really need to read the tainted cup

[long sorrel]

OH

[junior dew]

But I seem to have entered a brief reread season with fifth season and then I may do a dandelion dynasty reread next

[somber timber]

Oh yeah I still think it’s fifth season because like it’s just so good at transporting the reader into the head of the POVs and the world that I can’t reread it because that’s not a good place for me to be lol

[long sorrel]

There's the new Heather Fawcett book out in 3 days, i forgot

[long sorrel]

I'm so so sold on body horror that that just gives Ana & Din a few extra points just because

I don't think either are like my favourite book anyway, though they're surely high

[somber timber]

I think tainted cup might be my fav at this point

[junior dew]

Hmm I wonder what I would consider the best book I’ve ever read. That’s a really tough one. And I think best vs favorite may also be different for me

[somber timber]

Oh wait no I love city of stairs

[junior dew]

The Girl with the Louding Voice and Homegoing are really strong contenders for best. Fifth Season is up there. Sword of Kaigen is up there for me too.

[somber timber]

Atmospheric spy stuff is just my jam

[long sorrel]

Well Fifth Season is 100% my favourite of 2026 so far

[junior dew]

I’m on chapter 11 and it’s my favorite of 2026 so far easily

[long sorrel]

I think it might take over almost any 2025 read too

but uuuuh, dethroning 2024's Mercy of Gods is hard

[somber timber]

I want to reread it because you all are gonna read the rest of the series but I also need to get through the discworld books I bought. And uh talk about whiplash

[junior dew]

I really need to read this too I’m so damn curious like how good can it possibly be

[long sorrel]

but in 2025 I read The Night Circus, and At the Feet of the Sun and and and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil 😌

[junior dew]

Fifth season?

[somber timber]

Yeah and the whole trilogy

[junior dew]

You shoulddddddd

It only hurts a lot

[long sorrel]

I'll be real with you because I don't like overhyping things, the book is really well written but the reason it's my favourite is because it just hits every single thing I like both in plot and premise and character development, which is quite a taste thing.

So if those things don't hit for you it's just not gonna go as high as it went for me, even if it's well written

[somber timber]

I tried way back in like September or whatever when Usha tried to read it the first time and uh… yeah that didn’t go well

For me

[junior dew]

That’s really fair.

Like Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky hit really good for me but I don’t hype it up because it’s just really specifically my kinda thing with the whole studying of alien biology aspect and all that

Something about it just really worked for me

[long sorrel]

I need to read more Tchaikovsky... after I read Children of Time

[junior dew]

Yeah I am slotting in more Tchaikovsky this year for sure

Children of Ruin is definitely amongst my favorites

[ivory cypress]

i started with tchaikovsky's shorter novellas first, i liked them as stepping stones

elder race, to start, and then the system-keeper's brother and sequel

small little weird scifi bites

[junior dew]

God Elder Race was so good

[ivory cypress]

really great

like canapes

[junior dew]

Super fun read

[long sorrel]

I'm incapable of going to something else by an author when I've already started one of their books, because my brain is... like that

[junior dew]

I think Tchaikovsky does character voice really well. Something that stood out to me doing Elder Race and Cage of Souls this last month or so

[junior dew]

Ahhhh yeah that’s really fair

I appear to just be a masochist

Given the list of my favorite books and the list of the best books and series I’ve read

[velvet umbra]

Well I went to the used bookstore just now and will you look at what they had

[long sorrel]

I see the one underneath too 👀

[somber timber]

lol what are these prices

[long sorrel]

lol

[somber timber]

I really hate how Amazon and Apple don’t even pretend to compete on ebook pricing

Barnes and noble also had it at 14.99 but those physical copies are 21 and 20

And the only local bookstore doesn’t have it

[deft stream]

Finally finished my January wrap up, now I can start February

[junior dew]

Wait are you doing like a granny square per book you finish or something?

[deft stream]

Yeah I did the same last year

[junior dew]

Very cool!

[deft stream]

Want to see 2025?

[junior dew]

Sure!

[junior dew]

Nice!

[proven token]

The Aeneid 9

[light drum]

Elder Race +Children of Time all||I loved this characters and all I cant wait for the sequal ive hesrd of, also this setting feels pretty simular to The Children of with the dead earth ||

[main wren]

Did anyone else read the Five Lands Saga (Godfire) by Cara Witter (aka Janci + coauthors)? I recently finished and wasn't sure if others had done so

[tight kindle]

DCC 10 ||If not for the fact that they're all forced into this situation by a dystopian nightmare corporation and can (and almost assuredly will) die, this would be really cool.||

||I conceptually really like LitRPG stuff but this particular situation is harsh.||

[junior dew]

Elder Race sequel and a fourth Children of Time book this year! We eating good!

[little dock]

And at least one new standalone book. Oh, and the new Cities book or whatever that series is called. Tchaikovsky fans always eat good!

[light drum]

Ooooh im glad you're liking it! The books are very good and only get better

[tight kindle]

DCC 18 ||Welp. That was... A lot of child murder.||

19 ||I fully do not believe that they spare the children. There's no way. They're just dead.||

||Yup I read the rest of the description and I was right 😭||

[light drum]

Atrus feel free to ping me for your live blog if ya want

[tight kindle]

Oki

[ivory cypress]

i'm also 👀 reading

[junior dew]

Yeah I’m curious about the genetically engineered animals book

Haven’t read the cities books yet

[analog geode]

Which one is this

[potent linden]

I have it but haven't read it, what did you think?

[junior dew]

Green City Wars

[analog geode]

Nice, I love biopunk

[tight kindle]

DCC 26 ||Agatha is either going to survive an obscenely long time or die horribly in the next few minutes.||

[tight kindle]

29 ||Satellite dish sized boob armor?!?!?
Why though?!???||

30 ||Kay the foot fetish thing is wild.||

[main wren]

I had a couple false starts because the pov switching was a bit much but the story earns the multiple povs once you get going. Overall though really liked the story.

Book 3 did some really cool character stuff that i wish there was more of but i can't really explain without spoiling lol.

[light drum]

Are you reading or listening to the audiobook?

[tight kindle]

Reading

[light drum]

If you reread it highly recommend thr audiobook Jeff Hays is amazing and does spectacular voices for all of the characters

[long sorrel]

okay, well, I finished Red Rising

Down to 7 books now

7 books started that is

[snow vessel]

Oh? 👀

Did you like it more as it went on or mostly the same?

[long sorrel]

Eh

Red Rising all ||I think once he stopped constantly thinking about Eo it improved a bit, but besides that I didn't find it interesting or hooking and I read the last 25% skimming through it. None of the "competition" fighting over the houses was interesting to me in any way tbh. There was a sort of underlaying wider politics in there and I did like a couple of secondary characters. (I really don't like Darrow). Also the book is just really poorly written which I'd have been "fine" with if the plot was something I like. Seeing kids be "ruthless" fighting on a forest is just very whatever. I can sort of see how the next books might be better now that he's pledged to the arch governor's house. And also I think that if the author learnt to write after book 2 perhaps the psychological aspects of Darrow becoming the monster could be interesting but I have like 0 will to subject myself to more of this atm, perhaps one day, who knows. I'd have liked the angst and edginess of it if it wasn't half prompted because Eo decided to suicide for the hell of it like a dumb idiot. (Worst narrative device I've read in a long while).||

Oh ||the two characters I liked a lot where the Jackal and Sevro, everyone else didn't do much for me||

I have said that in my best tone because I think my unfiltered opinion is just yucking on people's yum really

[snow vessel]

Honestly? I enjoyed RR (the book) a lot but I feel like I totally get a lot of those thoughts? Idk

Like, I dont share them but I feel like... I get why you would say that

[long sorrel]

mhm

||It's not like the plot itself is bad, so I get why someone else would enjoy it. It is not very well written though. Ultimately I just didn't give a crap and was honestly hoping that the whole competition would be a much smaller section of the book and I'd get a bit of actual politics before the end of the book?||

[grim veldt]

[RR, Hunger Games] || I quite enjoyed the competition, personally - I'm a sucker for Hunger Games-style competitions.
That being said, that's just my personal opinion, and I get that not everyone would enjoy it||

[long sorrel]

||the way the kids are all so edgy and ruthless is very teenagery, which yeah! They're teenagers! I also don't read books with teenagers going through trials or competitions because I'm 20 freaking years older than Darrow and I don't care||

[long sorrel]

Yeah this is like, one of my anti-troupes

Why I've never touched Hunger Games

[snow vessel]

RR ||it is always funny to me how much of book 1 I just dont remember||

[grim veldt]

|| Was Mustang the girl whose stylus Darrow stole, or was that someone else?||

[snow vessel]

||Especially a lot of the characters. I dont think I even started paying attention characters other than Darrow/Sevro/Cassius/Mustang until book 2 because I have almost no idea who some of the characters in book 1 are||

[snow vessel]

||...I have no idea what youre talking about with styluses xD||

[grim veldt]

|| There's a scene during the examinations where a Gold girl is continuously tapping her stylus against the table, and Darrow has enough of the distracting noises and swipes it while she's not looking ||

[snow vessel]

RR bk1 + possible future books? ||I remember people in the fandom/other books would like, lament the death of x character and I would just be like... "who were they again?" and that's how I know it was a book 1 thing||

RR ||that sounds like a mustang thing but I dont remember that scene at all||

[analog geode]

||No it isnt||

||I feel like she would have stabbed him||

[grim veldt]

[SA all] || This legit also applies to the more forgettable bridgemen
(The ones where their names crop up in WoK, the reader's like "Huh, I don't remember this character", then the bridgeman dies two chapters later and the reader's like "Oh, that's why I don't remember them")||

[grim veldt]

[RR] ||Well, the Gold girl didn't know he'd done it either way, otherwise she'd have confronted him
But it likely isn't Mustang, she's smart enough that she likely had spare styluses or just wouldn't lose the stylus||

[long sorrel]

pretty sure it wasn't her

||I'm pretty sure that woman does appear at some point on the way to the trials and then she dies or something happens to her, idr||

Im not 100% sure and I just read it

||But he does comment on her being that girl when she sees her||

||She is also the one that mocks him for being on a pony when he's being taught to ride||

[grim veldt]

|| Yeah, he meets Mustang twice before their 'official' meeting during the Institute
She laughs at him for being on a pony, and then they bump into each other after||

[long sorrel]

You know what else had me kinda 😬 ||This is supposedly a sci fi book, it has a sci fi setting but the plot might as well some generic medieval setting for this book?||

[snow vessel]

||yeah, book 1's setting is very medieval-ish for some reason. It dives harder into scifi after||

[long sorrel]

I expect it so

[grim veldt]

|| In fairness, the scifi elements do become more prominent in later books||

[snow vessel]

||I dunno how much the bk1-rest difference is Pierce changing his mind or Pierce being forced to do something different by the publisher, but 1 stands out as very different from the rest to me||

[long sorrel]

I don't doubt the books after ... this thing are better but I feel 0 compulsion to read them besides you guys saying "it gets better" which, with all my respect, isn't a reason for me to read something

Or actually, I'll read something because some of you say it's good but I won't read a second book after disliking the first because of it

Oh that reminds me I wanted tot ake a look at Vecna's haul, but I was on the plane yesterday

[snow vessel]

Obviously people are free to dnf whenever but personally RR is one where like... I get it a lot more if someone dnf's in book 1 than after that

It's funny, an irl friend was telling me they met someone who dnf'd RR

I asked if it was during book 1, they said yep. I was nooooot as surprised as they expected, I think

[long sorrel]

Aaaalso, still processing thought but

RR + WotM ||I sort of get where the comparison is coming from now, and I dislike some things in both books equally. But they feel like very different books to me||

[snow vessel]

RR/WOTM ||I think it's like, both are rebellion books with isolated academy settings and a similar sort of friendship politicking and competing||

[long sorrel]

At least ||infiltrating the higher powers to change the world/carry on revenge is generic and done enough that I don't think it's a point of comparisson across those two books? It feels like the actual common point is just the roman-like paint coat they both have||

[long sorrel]

I've read this before quite a few times so it doesn't feel like something about these books specifically, I guess

[snow vessel]

I think also maybe... the audiences feel somewhat similar? But that's not totally unique either, I suppose

[long sorrel]

I do like WotM way more than RR

I think WotM reads a bit less YA than RR to me

RR was hmm... written in a very YA way (lowly)

[snow vessel]

Definitely agree xD

Though I ate it up

[long sorrel]

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed books written like that, but because I liked what was going on or something about them

[snow vessel]

Yknow, I think I probably enjoyed the two a similar amount but enjoyed RR's sequels drastically more than I enjoyed the half of SOTF I read

[analog geode]

What is wotm?

[snow vessel]

Will of the many

[long sorrel]

WotM all ||Probably one of the worst parts of WotM is that it is actualyl academy setting (my arch nemesis) and how utterly hypercompetent Vis is, it's not a "he's so hypercompetent he overcomes challenges" but "there's just no challenge" for Vis. But I think the plot itself was interesting and the book certainly has a much more refined prose||

Golden Son general ||Is Golden Son academy now that the trials are over?||

[snow vessel]

GS ||time-skips the academy iirc||

[long sorrel]

Oh, that's encouraging

[snow vessel]

||I remember it's about 3 years later and starts with darrow finishing off some sort of academy thing, and the book is a lot more concerned with the actual politics||

[analog geode]

GS ||You get the last bit of the final exam||

[long sorrel]

||that's fine, well maybe I'll consider some time when I'm not feeling "wtf did i just read" (lowly)||

[analog geode]

IMO GS is the best of the series

[snow vessel]

I'm not sure which I think is the best tbh

[long sorrel]

||Also! Now the name makes sense!||

[snow vessel]

LB is my favourite, though I'm definitely biased towards the longer/larger second series book

[analog geode]

I really disliked the second series

[snow vessel]

Out of curiosity, why? /gen

[analog geode]

Red Rising second series ||Too many characters, the whole kid plot line felt unnecessary and annoying, I had zero interest in Lysander||

[long sorrel]

Am thinking Children of time or Long Live Evil next 🤔

Also, I've been with my dad for a few days on this last holidays and so we ranted about books ofc, and I've developed the ability to fully block him out at will I'm sure I can apply this to others from now on.

The idiot will go "I've read this book that has X premise, AND IN THE END IT'S ALL (spoilers the entire book), you should read it!"

[wraith lynx]

manifests

[long sorrel]

He actively told me the entire plot of Shroud and I didn't catch a single word!

[wraith lynx]

Usha, as someone who loves RR down, everything you said about it was 1000% valid, and im glad you finished it 🥰

Though at the same time I think RR is at the bottom of my ranking

[long sorrel]

I finished because I told you and JM that I'd push through

Well, it wasn't like a huge ordeal to finish, but it was close to it

RR ||If that stupid competition had taken 25% of the book instead of 75% I think my opinion would be SO different 😔 ||

[soft inlet]

I'm listening to a LitRPG called He who fights with monsters, and it is very happily dumb. Yours seems much more intense

[minor sleet]

Is he beating up the monsters super good?

[cunning pivot]

Yeah DCC's setting and circumstances make it hit harder on real world circumstances especially as it goes along and becomes a bit less strictly Lit-RPG/Isekai.

The tropes are still there but th Author de-emphasizes some of the trappings of those genres.

[junior smelt]

I was wondering, is this book a part of a bigger series that I should read before reading this?

Because I know JSAC has a big shared universe.

[junior smelt]

Lol I love the Yumi speaking style there

[untold leaf]

I'm so behind on reading 🙁

[long sorrel]

It's just so very convenient

[untold leaf]

I've got a long backlog, but it's one book at a time, and I've been taking my time with it, and it's slowing my reading down a lot.

[long sorrel]

No, this is the first of a new series

Its not a big shared universe, is the Expanse

[junior smelt]

I meant like how TSM is connected to Stormlight or

Age of madness is connected to First Law.

Ah but good to know it is not

I would also like to read Expanse sometime soon

[soft inlet]

well he sucks at it but he's getting better

[minor sleet]

We all have to start somewhere

[tight kindle]

Hmmm interesting
Did you get the audiobooks from Libby or are you using Audible?
Cuz I think I still remember the Audible password

[soft inlet]

audible, pretty sure

it's so dumb I love it. And the main guy has an Australian accent. It scratches my brain in the best way

[tight kindle]

Ok maybe I'll listen to that after I finish DCC then

[low hill]

FYI, Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl) is the opening guest for season 4 of V.E. Schwab's podcast, which came out this week.

[tight kindle]

Ooh 👀
What's the podcast about usually?

[low hill]

Interviewing authors about their writing process and their books.

[potent linden]

I don't mind spoilers, might help me decide to read it sooner 👀

[tight kindle]

@ivory cypress @light drum just pinging you two in case this is something you'd be interested in.
I might listen as well

[ivory cypress]

fun!

[junior dew]

Children of time

[iron pond]

Another vote for Children of Time. One of the best scifi I've ever read

[long sorrel]

I think it's better than the other for sure, it's more a matter of my mood

[iron pond]

I have no opinion of Long Live Evil; I just really enjoyed Children of Time 😂

[long sorrel]

Yeah, I will read both, just don't know which order

I'll decide when I start reading tonight

[minor sleet]

Long Live Evil was so fun

I’m excited for the sequel

[long sorrel]

I think I didn't read enough for it to be real fun

but it was quite entertaining so far

It was dumb in a pretty fun way too

[unique turret]

I’m reading Children of Time right now for the first time. It’s really good. Don’t know anything about Long Live Evil

[long sorrel]

I've read a bit of each lol

[main wren]

Five Lands Saga ||So one of the mains Daniela is introduced very early on to have her memories tampered with. Like by chapter 1 she recalls what happened in the prologue wrong. As the series goes you learn she had actually done some really bad stuff but had those memories swapped out with fake ones so she's essentially lived two lives without knowing the other life. Until in book 3 when she gets them all back and remembers everything, and the result is like some of my favorite character work in a story I've seen in quite a while||

[velvet umbra]

The Shadow of What Was Lost early chapters/general ||I can't figure out why it says for fans of Wheel of Time on the cover, completely mystery, I haven't seen anything that would broach that comparison /s||

[rare edge]

Just finished Babylon's Ashes on my reread of the Expanse, and I have a new favourite book in the series.

[long sorrel]

fun

I love the book titles so much 😌

I have just realized I didn't have Faith of Beasts on my calendar

[snow vessel]

Is that... mercy of gods 2?

[long sorrel]

Yup

[hollow hedge]

it's coming out right when I get back from a vacation

[long sorrel]

It is coming out the day after I come back from mine too

On the day I'm planning to go to a live concert

I better not start it before I go to the concert or I might just not go lol

That's gonna be an exciting couple of days

[hollow hedge]

WAT came out on the day I had a stand-up comedy show to go to, I still went, the drive to that was the only time I spent with WAT's audiobook

[long sorrel]

I'll just read it next day, it's fine

[hollow hedge]

fair, I'm not even certain I'll read it day one either, I might want to reread the first 1.1 books first

[long sorrel]

Oh, I will, I've no intention of rereading atm

[hollow hedge]

I'm torn, I feel like I remember the basics well enough to not necessarily need to

I suppose it will depend, I'll have 10 hour flights to Europe and back and I wouldn't be surprised if I poke at the first books on the plane

(I guess I could also troll around bookstores to see if any drop it a day early for the return flight, I hear EU bookstores are a little looser with breaking street date)

[long sorrel]

I've never seen this actually happen but I'm sure it does

[hollow hedge]

I poked around for WAT the tuesday before its release and didn't see one, a Wal-Mart left a big box of unsorted books unattended on a floor and I considered poking through them but I'm not that scandalous

[long sorrel]

I suppose I don't care enough to read it one day early or not

In general that is. I do really want this book

[hollow hedge]

for WAT I cared enough, for this book it would just be for the sake of something to do on the plane back

[tight kindle]

DCC 44 ||Oh... Fanfiction porn. Of course that's a thing 😭||

[velvet umbra]

I don't remember this but there's a LOT going on in these books lol

[velvet cargo]

Excited to read this.

[zinc flicker]

Long Live Evil looks like so much fun

(I love isekai villainess manhwa so it has an extra boost for me lol)

[long sorrel]

The mc in it is great

You should give it a go

[torpid kiln]

I’ve started The Captive Prince. It’s not something I would normally read but well, things I’ve been reading on AO3 are giving me a craving for this type of book and it was at the library anyways so why not

[tight kindle]

@ivory cypress @light drum
I finished DCC! Was good. Am excited for the next one 👍

[ivory cypress]

interesting!!

alright, can't wait to see more of your reacts!

[tight kindle]

Damn
My Libby libraries suuuuuck when it comes to this series

[velvet umbra]

its functionally not on Libby

[ivory cypress]

yeah :( only book 1 and 2 and text only

[velvet umbra]

thats not a your library thing, the audiobooks are audible exclusive

[ivory cypress]

i was hoping for the audiobook

[velvet umbra]

yeah not a fan of that but oh well

its a low enough % of my overall reading I can make it work with various sales and deals they have

[tight kindle]

My library seems to be doing much better in the physical copies department though

...I have to go return an overdue book before I can place a new one on hold. Damn

looks at the weather for tomorrow
...

Faaaantastic

Well it might take a few weeks but it's good to know that I'll be able to continue

Public libraries FTW!

[ivory cypress]

woohoo

[light drum]

Nice there currently *7 books to you have plenty of book left!

(*7 cause 8s on the pateon)

DCC Book 3 ||Aparrenly the Dungon crawlers cook book was a prize choosen on the pateron which is wild cause it was s,o influential||

[torpid kiln]

Captive Prince up to chapter 3 ||I wonder if this trilogy can ever make me like Laurent because right now I hate him||

[tight kindle]

I'm rereading A Strange and Stubborn Endurance because I can

ASASE 1ish ||Going from DCC's very modern tone to the much more ornate tone in this book is a little bit of a shock.||

...How did four of us end up finding ASASE anyway?
Did I rec it to Usha?

Ooh no looks like you recced it to me Grey

But I read it before you did

Still 1 ||Killic. Oh how I would love to murder him.||

2 ||"He didn't deserve you"
Markel my king. I've missed you.||

||I forgot how vivid this scene was.
Damn.||

[ivory cypress]

ASASE had been on my tbr for years

i'm SO glad it held up

sometimes after so long looking at it, it can be a letdown, like, why was i holding on to that for years? but no. this is a fave of all time

[tight kindle]

Reading Don't Let the Forest In a couple weeks ago bumped it down to fifth place but it might go back up. I'd forgotten how good it is

[ivory cypress]

i'll get to that one

i should revisit my top ten list

r/Fantasy asks every year

and i don't think i submitted anything last year

[tight kindle]

I really, truly doubt anything will top The Starless Sea for me and the Myst books are going to be similarly difficult to budge (I want a legal name change to a character from them ffs ) but stuff underneath those two keep shifting around. There are so many amazing books in the world 😩

I'm only keeping track of a top 5 right now but I should maybe expand to top 10

[ivory cypress]

the starless sea came on libby at the WORST time

so i'm #1 on the list but i had to kick it to the next person in line

[tight kindle]

Oh oof
I've had that happen

[ivory cypress]

given how people talk about it, i know i gotta give it its best shot

[tight kindle]

I don't expect it to hit anyone else as hard as it hit me, but yeah I think it's a book to read in the right circumstances to appreciate it no matter who you are

Tis worth it

I actually loaned one of my copies out to a new person today!

And another person texted me that they bought a copy
And a third put it on his tbr

I'm very passionate about recommending it to everyone in earshot

[ivory cypress]

I know Usha really really likes it too

so that's two people i share certain spheres with

[tight kindle]

Vecna loves it just as much (and probably more) as I do

That sentence is a grammatical disaster

He has gorgeous special editions that I envy

[ivory cypress]

hell yeah

[tight kindle]

Would you mind expanding on this really quick?
I'm having a lot of trouble discerning what you mean

[ivory cypress]

mm when it comes to certain books/genres/types, you and usha and i are of a type

[tight kindle]

Ah ok, taml ypi.
I've noticed that quite a bit as well and I do find it really fun

Means we get great book recommendations from each other

[ivory cypress]

[wraith lynx]

Hm, I think i mix with a lot of different people of specific things 🤔

But thatz what makes book recs fun!! XD

[zinc flicker]

Yeah. I have a wide variety of likes and dislikes

[tight kindle]

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance 10 ||This scene made me tear up again. Not only is that rare to start with, but it's almost unheard of on a second read.
It's just... Cae waking up to see Velsasin with the knife... And then Cae swearing to never force him, and then him asking if he can touch Velasin to comfort him when he folds...
There's just something so emotional about this scene that hits me so hard every time.||

[tight kindle]

I'm like that with most people, but for some random reason the Venn diagram of my, Usha's, and Grey's tastes is practically a circle

[rare edge]

Oh, that's an excellent comic! One of my favourites from DC, actually!

[long sorrel]

I have a specific overlap with Grey that I can't even explain, but there's a certain vibe that when he talks about it I can identify and go "I needs that", and it has worked 100% of the time.
Then we have the overlap over the type of books we've all 3 been reading. I have overlap on other things with other people, too.
I have like a mental catalogue of each person and which of their tastes I overlap with

Its great.

[keen marlin]

So I was away from home over the weekend and picked up Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Only other book I've read of his was Day of Ascension (a Warhammer 40k novel from the perspective of a Genestealer Cult), which I enjoyed.

Overall, it was a good book. Felt a bit cliche in places, but that fell away around 2/3rds of the way through. I think Adrian played the whole 'hero's party assembles to defeat the Dark Lord' thing pretty straight to begin with so that he could explore the very human flaws they have as the stress ramps up.

Could have done with checking for some trigger warnings before buying it though, as there's a bit in the mid-book that I didn't enjoy.

Character talk ||Enth the Spider Creature was also an interesting take on alien perspective as he gets transmogrified into a Man-Spider thing that is a mish-mash of giant spider and human instincts, with social skills that are only learned over time with the party (the wizard that created him has no social skills either).||

||Dion was the least interesting character to me, which is a shame because it really took the impact away from the climactic reveal. The other members of the party and their flaws made them equal parts awful and fascinating, especially Cyrene once I got past the rape discussion. Showing that she wasn't that different from Harathes was an interesting take that I didn't see coming.||

||On that note, Harathes holds a weird spot in my head. I really dislilke his worldview on a fundamental level and he doesn't have any real character development through the course of the story, but the purpose he serves in the narrative to reflect and highlight the flaws of the other human characters is absolutely vital. He is a terrible person, but without him Dion's doubts, Lief's ends justify the means philosophy, and Cyrene's entitlement issues would be much less visible.||

[old flint]

Apropos of nothing, this interesting extract from a 1977 book by Tzvetan Todorov on genre rules as they relate to whodunnits was interesting - https://www.studocu.com/sg/document/national-university-of-singapore/introduction-to-operating-systems/tzvetan-todorov-1977-the-typology-of-detective-fiction/104367032 - especially how people have complained about genre forever

[ripe tide]

Todorov has a bunch of genre studies.

[old flint]

Well, he and it were new to me

[minor sleet]

He also has a cool name

[snow vessel]

Merrick ch2 ||welp, I got too excited with ch1 starting with the plot and now we get 2 chapters of yapping about other stuff||

||wouldn't be a gothic novel if we didn't spend chapters on recounting backstory||

||honestly, it's not horrible. It's just funny that after books 4&5 only getting to the plot 50% in, we start a book with the premise and then backtrack to a bunch of backstory and introspection||

[proper silo]

Finished Remnants of Filth vol 5 and it has given me exactly what it promised: a lot of page time for my favorite character

Which is, surprisingly enough, neither of the main characters

[minor sleet]

He turned out to be Meatbun’s favorite too

[proper silo]

Really?

[minor sleet]

She wrote a series end note I think you’ll really like

[proper silo]

Nice, nice

But yeah, I can kinda see that she came to like him, his plot relevance definitely increased over time

[minor sleet]

Also he stopped being one note evil

[proper silo]

Yep

Remnants of Filth vol 5 ||And I think he might actually survive until the end of the book! I mean, there's still a decent chance he'll end up on the chopping block, Erha taught me Meatbun loves killing named characters, but he's already survived one guaranteed-death moment||

[minor sleet]

I don’t think he stop being evil though. ||”I’m abusing my enslaved half brother because mommy didn’t love me” is whining excuses only||

[proper silo]

Ye, he's like... entertainingly antagonistic now

I genuinely feel like I'll have to look up some books with similar sort of protagonists to him after I'm done with this

[minor sleet]

Reading a semi fictional book written by a Japanese woman in the 1930s about her trip to Taiwan. That cant be right….

[minor sleet]

This woman loves to eat. Shout out to Aoyama-sensei, her travelogue is like 1/3 about how much she wants to try Taiwanese street food, delicacies, tea and everything else

The chapters are named like this

The last one is XII. Mitsumame/Fruit and Jelly Ice

[torpid kiln]

Captive Prince up to chapter 7 ||I can barely put this book down when I’m reading it despite the fact that everyone in it makes me angry, huh||

Captive Prince early chapter 7 ||OH MY GOD I HATE LAURENT SO MUCH||

Captive Prince early chapter 7 + vague ASOIAF spoilers ||I want to do what Dany does to slavers to basically everyone in this book istg||

[tight kindle]

Finished my A Strange and Stubborn Endurance reread.
It's a really good book

I'm also already at 17 books for the year, somehow

[long sorrel]

nice

I joined a few challenges this year for the hell of it

on storygraph

not that I care if I don't complete them nor will I base my reading on them but it's fun to snoop around and see the numbers go up

[ivory cypress]

i just pick 52 books a year as my basic number

i don't put a lot of thought into it

my winter is already uh crazy

[minor sleet]

Number go up is great fun

[long sorrel]

Oh these are the "read X numbers by female authors" kinda stuff not just a number

[minor sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/killabears-we-like-the-bears-number-go-up-moon-wen-moon-gif-836365537663199235

[ivory cypress]

had to fend off the bad feelings somehow, and reading is how i did it

i guess it's still a couple more weeks until daylight savings and i'll really feel over the hump tho

[long sorrel]

I know I will complete the female author challenge anyway but it's fun to see and I get to see what other people have read for the challenge

[torpid kiln]

I haven’t read anything this year since I didn’t want to spend money on new books, but now that I have a library card I’ll read a lot more

It feels like a lot more of a commitment to buy a book rather than just borrowing one

[long sorrel]

That's for sure, if you can afford it then you can buy copies of your faves anyway

[long sorrel]

The eclectic mix of book types when there isn't any prompt but that is kinda funny, you'll have Jemisin (which I added but I wasn't the only one) to nonfiction to Hunting Adeline

and everything in between

[tight kindle]

This is what I tend to do
The libraries and borrowing from friends has been really useful

[ivory cypress]

well, i just finished............. huh

that was wild

easy 5 star book, am not sure i 100% enjoyed it. what a fantastic writer

[minor sleet]

I have Vajra Chandrsekera’s second book on hold and I’m excited to try it

It has a skull on the cover, always a plus

[junior smelt]

Yeah it was very innovative in the world building but the vagueness of it did become detrimental in making us connect to the characters the way a standard story would

[ivory cypress]

yeah i def don't think that was the point

extremely on purpose for what he wanted to do with this story, absolutely

[junior dew]

This sounds really interesting 👀

[long sorrel]

Its on my tbr but I'm a bit scared of it

[ivory cypress]

the turns of phrase throughout the whole book were just incredible. it also took me two months to get through

wooooooo

[junior dew]

Wait why are you scared of it

I just read the synopsis. Sounds really interesting

To the TBR it goes

[long sorrel]

Hmmm, I'm not sure, it seems emotional but I don't know enough about it

[junior dew]

Ahh

[long sorrel]

I've not been in a bad headspace per se, but I've not been in a headspace to deal with things for quite a few months now

I hadnt read anything remotely deep until Fifth Season last thursday since... maybe Snake-Eater?

[junior dew]

Totally fair!

[long sorrel]

And Snake-Eater didnt demand much of me though it dug deeper than I expected due to the MCs personality

Which gave me anxiety to read damn that character was so well written

[junior dew]

Totally fair! I can’t say I’m not looking forward to having some more of the Pokémon anime playing in the background during work tomorrow after watching The Pitt season 1 and working on the Fifth Season reread these last few days

That mix has not exactly been emotionally light lol

[long sorrel]

I bet

I'm currently reading stuff that makes me 0 involved with it besides 😈
Before returning to my other reads

[ivory cypress]

switching to the adventures of amina al-sirafi and immediately getting some % in since it's so much a lighter read

[long sorrel]

Ooooh, I have that one in print, every time I look at it I think about how pretty it is. But it's competing with so many other things to reach the top of my tbr

[random dome]

Ayyy I finished DCC 4, Gate of the Feral Gods

(DCC4) ||Bea's aliiiiiveeee, and Audette has her now? 👀 Now that's fun||

[ivory cypress]

hm actually i think adventures is incorrectly formatted on kindle, there is no way i'm 10% in according to the math

[ivory cypress]

yoooooooooooooo

oh i really

had to reconsider who you were talking about

[random dome]

I don't trust myself to be able to spell that character's full name correctly :p

[ivory cypress]

DCC general ||Odette. it IS Bea||

[random dome]

DCC 4 ||Beatrice?||

[ivory cypress]

||yeah you're good on Beatrice||

[random dome]

OH, man i didn't even guess about that one, it just felt so right

w e l p

[ivory cypress]

haha oh no

[random dome]

this is why i can't liveblog, the audiobook is my enemy

[ivory cypress]

i would struggle for sure

[random dome]

DCC ||Hays says her name as like, starting with the word "awe." "awe-det" hence my surety that it would be an "au" like "audrey" or something. just an o??? that is so strange||

[ivory cypress]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah that would throw me

[oblique zodiac]

😔

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 2 ||I still love Kingfisher's writing style. I need to own more of her books. I just have Defensive Baking.

Anyway this looks interesting so far, although I am reading it mostly to have all the correct context for the gay one :P||

||> Bastian's oldest sister will swear as a son, I expect, and then he will take up the sword.
Blinks||

||Y'know what hell yeah.||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron 37 ||Domitia might be an antagonist, but at least she's an ally? Which is more than one can say about Glenda, to be sure||

[long sorrel]

||I like Domitia a lot||

[royal carbon]

I did finish The Saint of Bright Doors this year (February, probably. I can't keep track of these things but I probably updated storygraph.)

[tight kindle]

||Glenda needs a good smack. Domitia is cool. I like her.||

[long sorrel]

||another one you mean ||

[royal carbon]

Doing a bunch of rereading apparently. Or relistening I guess. This Is How You Lose The Time War finished on Friday. King's time travel book this week, probably.

[ivory cypress]

like last year or the month we are currently in right now

[proper silo]

It occurs to me, as I come back to this book after a short break, that I am this far into Sir Cameron and still have no idea (up to ch37, I guess) ||why Merulo is in love with Cameron||

[royal carbon]

The current month

Well, checks storygraph

[long sorrel]

I think this book is better than the previous one, also ||have you guessed who the mcs of the gay one are?||

[tight kindle]

...I read the desc on StoryGraph

So I know one of them is ||Piper||, which I'm excited about. I liked him

[royal carbon]

Feb 6th I returned it to Libby

[long sorrel]

.......
................
||because he's blond?? ||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron up to 37 ||Like physical attraction, sure, but I'm supposed to believe Merulo loves Cameron enough to sacrifice his magic for him, and idk why??? What does he like about Cameron other than his looks?||

[proper silo]

Imma need a bit more than that to explain what happened at midpoint of this book

[royal carbon]

I should add more holds to Libby

[long sorrel]

||he's one of my fave characters in the series||

[ivory cypress]

my problem with putting things on hold on libby is that somehow they ALL keep coming up at the same time, despite a difference of weeks in estimated hold time

i'm constantly having to hit that "give to next person in line" button

[tight kindle]

Saints of Steel general ||Him and the... Er...
The enby whose name starts with a Z?
I like them quite a bit.||

[royal carbon]

Yes, they all come at the same time 🙁

[long sorrel]

I was making a joke about Pacat there

[long sorrel]

||Zale!!!||

[royal carbon]

Like this next Dresden book will come tomorrow probably since I am first in line.

[long sorrel]

||Zale, Piper and the woman in book 4 are my favourites I think||

[proper silo]

Fair, but that is a serious question I have 😅

This fantasy comedy romance book is just failing to sell me on the romance

[long sorrel]

I know, but it just worked for me, ||there's a level of implied off page connection that was enough for me to see they've been spending time together and grown fond of each other which is a thing that happens without any reason needed||

That is how it worked for me and it worked much better than many other romance ||often times having a reason you love someone sounds very foreign to me since it doesn't align with my experience||

Then again I also just glance over romancy parts quite often so we're defs different target audience here

[ivory cypress]

sir cameron ||same, i do feel like it landed the connection without the spelling it out? merulo seems desperately lonely at the beginning, andthe book being from cameron's pov actually obfuscates how much his shtick is actually working, and by the time it hit i was like "ohhhhhhh" realizing that merulo was putting up a front and was really appreciative of cameron's company, and was coming to believe cameron was going to stay. and the big switch happened when cameron didn't do what he said he was gonna do, he didn't throw merulo under the bus the moment staying with him threatened his life, and that loyalty was clearly all merulo has been longing for||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron general ||If I wanted to imagine there's romantic development offscreen, I'd be reading gacha game stories 😅 If I'm reading a romance, I expect the author to convince me there is a romance||

[ivory cypress]

||but the implicative moments, the implied off screen, did thread the connection well enough for me||

[long sorrel]

||I did convince me! ||

[proper silo]

Like I'm not asking for much, just a sentence about what ||Merulo likes about Cameron beyond his looks|| would be nice

[long sorrel]

||Also Merulo reads like a tsundere which probably helped me see it||

[ivory cypress]

||cameron is quite bad at reading people and doesn't understand what's working with merulo, so the reader has to look past cameron's understanding to see what merulo is thinking and feeling||

[proper silo]

Because like seriously, ||what does he like about Cameron beyond his looks???||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron ||He's got the tsun down pat, but where's the dere?||

[ivory cypress]

i... don't know what that means

[royal carbon]

Hmm, book club never set a date to discuss the book

[proper silo]

"Tsundere" is a portmanteau of two words, tsun (aggressive, more or less) and dere (sweet), with the idea that a tsundere vacillates between the two behaviors

[ivory cypress]

sir cameron ||my read, putting words on what i was feeling during reading, it's because cameron doesn't think he has anything other than his looks to offer that's all he can consider as the reason, but merulo has characterization and it's shown what his weak spots are, what made him waver at the near beginning of the whole relationship. he WANTED cameron to earnestly believe, and short of that, put loyalty to him above cam's selfserving desire to save his own life. by the midway point, cameron has actually shifted his thinking and feeling to wanting merulo to live, putting merulo first even though he doesn't quite share merulo's values/reasoning, and made merulo feel prized. cameron himself does not get it||

like i grew up on some anime and know the term but splitting it doesn't help and i'm not sure what the split of the term means for the characters in sir cameron

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 10 ||Her voice had 3 settings, "seductive", "mocking", and "mockingly seductive". None were appropriate I had forgotten why I liked this book, it's Rae, that's why ||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron ||Merulo has a lot of tsun behavior towards Cameron, but almost no dere, so when he sacrifices his magic, it comes out of nowhere for me cause I did not realize he felt this strongly and did not see any evidence he sees Cameron as more than an attractive body with an annoying personality attached||

[proper silo]

See, i just don't see this

This is why we should have had Merulo POVs instead of godsdamn Glenda

[ivory cypress]

that's fair, but i did see it

it was there for me

[long sorrel]

Sir Cameron ||someone that shows a cold agressive exterior but is caring and sweet inside but they don't want others to see. Is more or less how Merulo acts for a great part of the book, pretending he's pushing Cameron away while wanting Cameron to be around instead||

[long sorrel]

||But Glenda is so nice?||

[tight kindle]

Sir Cameron ||And she's Not A Bigot™ too!||

[long sorrel]

||It is Not her fault she's superior||

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 4 ||He likes the large women.
Istvhan gives me a little Nick vibes tbh ||

[proper silo]

I want to put her into a blender and throw her off a cliff while it's working

She commits a cardinal sin of a fictional character: being annoying af

This is not a compliment to the author

[ivory cypress]

sir cameron ||i genuinely find her hysterical. i love her role in the story. she's like a car crash||

[proper silo]

The prospect of more Glenda chapters is what made me take a break from reading

Well, that and Feather infecting me with Pathologic fever that made me watch an 8-hour vid on Patho 1, but mostly the prospect of having to be in Glenda's head again

[tight kindle]

The double tap strikes again

Paladin's Strength 4 ||omg I forgot that Istvhan was banging Bishop Beartongue in the last book
That was very funny.||

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 11 ||Rae was so glad she was a villain. Innocent maidens were useless and Rae's evil minion was making her proud ||

I love Rae

This book is so silly

[proper silo]

What's the premise?

[long sorrel]

||"Did I not please you?"
"You did, I'm proud of you, minion "
||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron 40 ||aaaaaa why do we have to have Glenda every other chapter now???||

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 5 ||Ooh so Gale is the other gay one.
I like him too. I think I'm going to very much enjoy the next book.||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron 40 ||DIE DIE DIE DIE GO AWAY GLENDA I NEED YOU TO BE IN A DIFFERENT BOOK, ONE THAT I WILL NEVER READ||

[tight kindle]

||It's unfortunate that her character isn't working for you, because I really enjoyed reading about her dumpster fire of a personality.||

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil premise ||Rae is on her deathbed when she gets offered a second chance inside one of her favourite books as one of the villainess from the book so she's like "okay, Ill be the villain and recruit a bunch of evil minions to achieve my goal"||

[proper silo]

Ooh, fun

[tight kindle]

Oh dear
I wish I had my copy to check what prompted this but it's still with my friend

[long sorrel]

||she doesn't know what the second chance is until she's in. But she knows the story in full. ||

[proper silo]

It's not a big moment, just the straw that broke the camel's back

[long sorrel]

Oh also, about Long Live Evil gen ||she's from our modern world so her way of thinking is very clashing with "hot knights" and "damsels in distress" kinda thing, which is really fun||

[proper silo]

I am feeling a sudden burst of sympathy for Grey's disdain for Laurent, just aimed at a different fictional character

[ivory cypress]

haha

[proper silo]

Okay yeah, this sounds really entertaining

[ivory cypress]

i never felt like i was supposed to like, agree, or coo at glenda

[proper silo]

Different details, but she brings this whole book down by her presence

Of my three cardinal character sins (being annoying, stealing pagetime from characters I enjoy, and making characters I enjoy look stupid) she commits the first two

I'm deducting half a star from this book for making me read about her

[long sorrel]

Never read Dollmakers

[proper silo]

Never heard of it until now, so I think I'm safe from it

[long sorrel]

Dollmakers gen ||I think the mc does all 3 lol||

It's great

[proper silo]

Well, as evidenced by our differences in Glenda opinions, 1 is not guaranteed 😌

[light drum]

As a primarily audiobook listener spelling is my mortal enemy

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 11 ||Key is so interesting, I want to pry him open, I don't get him at all and now the null stone? ... Is he a construct? Is he perhaps controlled by someone else??? 👀 ||

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 5 ||Ok I freaking love Galen and am so excited for the next book.
I identify a lot with how he's acting in this scene in particular.||

[proper silo]

Sir Cameron 43 ||Author, Glenda could just show up. I do not require seeing every step of her showing up||

Okay, I still have two hours of that Pathologic 1 summary video to watch and I think it's going to be a nice and pleasant break from this

[random dome]

uwu???

[proper silo]

The one I showed you a while back, "Pathologic for those who will never play it"

I am two and a half hours into part 2, so a little over halfway

[random dome]

Also y'all reminded me that I can put the DCC book on my story graph, so now I have two whole books read for the year

[random dome]

Oh yeah, I just am always curious about Thoughts (but this is the wrong channel for that)

[ivory cypress]

hey let's be storygraph friends

[random dome]

I thought you got me already!

[proper silo]

Tl;dr, I need to seek out something similar for Pathologic 2 afterwards cause I am drawn in by the characters and story but I have 0 drive to suffer the mechanics

[ivory cypress]

you have to accept the friend request 😅

[random dome]

...oh

Okay! I have done that now

[ivory cypress]

:D

[wraith lynx]

manifests can I be storygraph friends with you guys too

[ivory cypress]

hell yeah

[wraith lynx]

🤩

Tee hee more people can see how much I like eragon~

[ivory cypress]

oh sick haha i just did the other thing

[wraith lynx]

Also WoTM is getting hard replaced by the fifth season

[ivory cypress]

one seeeec

[proper silo]

Y'all's obsession with Storygraph is a little scary

[astral atlas]

Making my eye twitch that the series isn't in order

[random dome]

I hit the follow button? Is that the same as sending a friend request?

[astral atlas]

It is the Fifth book on there...

[ivory cypress]

i don't think there's anything obsessive here?

there might be a privacy setting about opening up for friend requests cosmic but i did follow you!

[tight kindle]

I am here on SG as well :3
Need to update the pfp though

[wraith lynx]

If i had my way it will be 😂

[long sorrel]

You can have more than 5! They appear at random!

[tight kindle]

The fact that Heated Rivalry has started showing up absolutely everywhere is immensely funny to me

[long sorrel]

I love seeing what pops up

[long sorrel]

It is insane, it has taken over my yt and I really don't care about any of the content it's trying to give me 😬

[tight kindle]

Ugh me who still needs to go back and finish ADSoM 💔

[torpid kiln]

Captive Prince, I’m midway through chapter 8 ||Glad to see I’m not the only Laurent hater, I know I’m early on but it would take a lot for this series to make me like him. TBH I kind of hate Damen right now too but I think it would be easier for me to like him since he seems more naive rather than actively cruel and uncaring||

The adjective that starts with C Prince books are getting their names mixed up in my head

[velvet umbra]

wait that's actually awesome

Im way more willing to make a bigger vibes based list then

[tight kindle]

You can also pin up to 5 if you want them to always show up

[ivory cypress]

captive prince ||if you want a laurent hater, i'm your guy. 💪 never came around on him even once||

[light drum]

I was looking g back at a book review I made and could not understand why I rated it so poorly

[tight kindle]

spies on StoryGraph
Grey (and Banished I see that you've read it too)
Do you think I'd like The Saint of Bright Doors? You both rated it really highly

[ivory cypress]

i am not sure

it's not like... a really fun book

it's really REALLY well-written, and it's a bit difficult, especially in this time and place. it's not "nice". it's also just... incredibly well constructed. well conceived. i think this guy is so so good at words, at conveying feelings, and putting ideas in new and fascinating forms, making complicated things simple (highly). the horrors are mundane and still horrific for their mundanity.

idk man!

[light drum]

What i haven't heard of that

[tight kindle]

...Hang on are you not @queenswit on SG?

...Wait no you sent me a friend request

Well who the hell is that then?!?

I've spent the last like six months thinking you were that person 😭

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 13 ||"We can go to the Bone Room" ||

[analog geode]

My StoryGraph is bean422, send me friend requests!

[light drum]

banisheddemoness if any one wants so I can see ya reads!

[royal carbon]

I sorta remember to update mine

[light drum]

I like seeing number go up

[tight kindle]

Funny number go up is the primary reason I do it at all

Also graphs

They're delicious

[wraith lynx]

Mmmm tasty book numbers 😋

[light drum]

The TBR is nice too not that I use it much

[torpid kiln]

I’ve never used any reading cites like those, I’ve tried but I always forget to actually update them

[royal carbon]

TBR would take me forever, although I guess it might be a better method than having a tab in a browser to remember something to look into.

[tight kindle]

Yeah I was about to say that I love the TBR but honestly how much do I actually pull books off of it 😭

It isn't getting shorter that's for sure

[torpid kiln]

I remember reading Heart Of Darkness for school, then hating it so much I downloaded Goodreads just to give it a one star review

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 13||She's be the only person in the universe to get kissed by her fictional crush. She should do it for everybody who'd never kiss the pirate, the goblin king or the girl in the gold bikini. hah! ||

[tight kindle]

Ok that's really funny because

Guess what that dot at the bottom is

[torpid kiln]

Did you like it any more than I did?

[tight kindle]

I thought it was fine

It's not the kind of thing I enjoy reading but from a literature standpoint I thought it was very interesting

[torpid kiln]

I think being forced to read it for class made me like it less, everyone in the class hated that book lol, one of the students said when she graduated she would burn it because of how much she hated it. I didn’t hate it that much

[tight kindle]

Oh wow

I didn't get to keep my copy unfortunately

[torpid kiln]

I have no idea where my copy is

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 14 ||Key trying to tell her eloquently that he wants to go down out and it taking 4 attempts till she goes "Oh go down" is so funny||

[long sorrel]

Well, I had wanted to get hooked to this book again, good job, me. It's 8am

[low hill]

This is me and my apparently heretical opinion on Kruppe from #1404515195941945455 Book of the Fallen... :⁠-⁠P

[light drum]

There is no antimemetics division full review
TINAD is a captivating mind boggling that will have you both utterly confused and utterly compelled to see where its going. Having read this book in part when it was still an SCP I found myself just as excited for this and the adaptation was excellent. Its an amazing scifi mystery that made me always wonder f what new revelation would come next.

Slight/trivial spoilers||
Its somewhat apparent the different meshing of tales from TINAD on the wiki to theses current version, and it works excellently to enhance the mystery, to feel like you work at The Organization and are discovering whats happening
||
Spoiler Section
||I found myself very confused at time in this story, it puts you in an interesting place of characters who have large parts if who they are, their memory routinely thane away, being new people with somthing intangible lost. As a story mechanism i found this interesting cause you got distanty different characters all working for the same things at different levels of knowledge, and pov character at any one time knew exactly what was happening

As a reader you get these snippets as various charters start to paint a picture of the problem and possible solution I think it paints a good parallel to the idea 3125 being a series of things that initially look unconnected, but like these accounts we start to see the whole picture. It made for an amazing story that had a feeling like this is just forever out of reach that I throughly enjoyed||
Highly recommend ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

[proper silo]

I mean, that is an opinion I shared during the first book, I'd say I started liking him in the second

If you're not sold midway through book 2 tho then I'd say don't hesitate to DNF, you will not be sold on him later

Kinda fascinated tho how dramatically different opinions here are. Been a while since I've last seen a character this love-it-or-hate-it

[rare edge]

That's pretty tall for that part of the world, to be fair.

[wise haven]

Apparently, Taiwan has had a huge increase in height over the last few decades, so escpecially over 100+ years? Kinda believable. Also, it's the fact that she's shocked too lol

[junior dew]

Ooo this has been on my list

[minor sleet]

It’s more that I’m 5’1”/155 cm and am struggling to imagjne a world where I’m like average height instead of noticeably short

[light drum]

Highly Highly Highly recommend it. One of the best books ive ever had the pleasure to listen to

[junior dew]

Perhaps it’ll be next up after fifth season 👀

Which I may be able to finish today

[torpid kiln]

Surprisingly enough, despite most if not all the characters making me angry in one way or another, I’m actually really enjoying the read

[proper silo]

🤔

Fascinating

Maybe we'll even get you to read Dark Rise and join us in waiting-for-book-3 hell

[long sorrel]

@minor sleet idk if you saw but I'm now fully hooked to Long Live Evil. Up to 13 ||I'm really about Key, we got his tragic backstory but I'm sure there's a lot more to him, and I'm not really truly entirely sure he isn't also isekaid 🤔 ||

[long sorrel]

I think Dark Rise would hit better if you dislike the setting and also if you dislike the Laurent-like behaviour

[proper silo]

It is a better-written book on almost all counts, too

[long sorrel]

Yeah, that too

But I think some of the dislike towards it would be there regardless even if it was better written, for Captive Prince

[proper silo]

Probably, yeah 🤔

[long sorrel]

At least, I'm sure there's a way in which the characters are better fleshed out that maybe would have worked slightly better for Grey for example but the underlying issues are gonna be there regardless because that's just what the book is I think

Captive Prince full series ||Like I don't think better writing would have made Laurent less... Laurent, I don't think he'd have ever been apologetical or particularly redeemable, that's just how Laurent is. But I think maybe he'd have been more interesting with better writing, same for Damen. But I feel their relationship would have developed in the same way||

And the setting is what it is at the end of the day

[proper silo]

Yeah

[long sorrel]

You know, I think a secondary plotline would have been interesting too

like, Violet style

It really made Dark Rise so much more three dimensional

And Violet is amazing of course

AAAAAAAH, I want book 3 😩

Having someone to talk about it with is making it harder for me to tamper down the hype

OH Rasarr, I used the chihuahua portrait for my new cleric on my new dnd campaign

[proper silo]

[long sorrel]

I haven't based his personality on him but he's gonna be a very dumb too good-in an annoying way cleric

And we have a bard that I showed the portrait to and was like "I hope your character is gonna be gay"

[proper silo]

Captive Prince all ||Could've intoduced Nikadros earlier, have him dealing with Akielos politics while looking for Damen 🤔 ||

[proper silo]

Dark Heir ||this is incredibly hilarious considering the chihuahua is like one of two (three?) men in this series that show any interest in women ||

[long sorrel]

Oh Rasarr, this has made me go into Pacat's last Q&A because there's a few interesting questions 👀 I'll let you know if I hear anything interesting

[proper silo]

👀 ooh, nice

[long sorrel]

||I can make him bi or pan, it's fine, he doesn't have to monogamous either 😌 ||

[proper silo]

Yeah

[torpid kiln]

I’ve had enough of waiting for an incomplete series

[long sorrel]

Oh, but this one has book 3 already written

We're just waiting on edition/review/publish date, I'm not sure

[torpid kiln]

Ooooh, so it’s not a Winds Of Winter type thing

[long sorrel]

No, lol, this is like "normal waiting"

[ivory cypress]

most waiting situations are not winds of winter types these days

for better or worse, most fantasy has left that with grrm (and rothfuss if anyone still is anxious for that)

better. it's for better.

captive prince trilogy ||if pacat had been willing to show Laurent put on the back foot in like any way it would have gone miles, but by the end it started to feel pathological how unwilling the books were to touch him being wrong/surprised/literally anything||

[proper silo]

Kings Rising ||Not that you're wholly wrong, but isn't the first chapter from his POV exactly that?||

[ivory cypress]

||but I do think part of it was just the trilogy not being well constructed. my one star review of book 3 is the lowest rated of all three books not only because it's when I got to decide how I felt about it, but because the plot of it was so weak ||

[proper silo]

Anyway, Dark Rise solves it by making everything go wrong for everyone all the time

[ivory cypress]

||not in regards to Damen ||

trying to find the paragraph I wrote that I can quote...

bits carved out from my kings rising review. only one is relevant, the other I just reread and went YEAH

oh I DID forget a curse word - warning for cursing

almost

[proper silo]

Holy, you went and wrote a full review?

That is dedicated hatred

[ivory cypress]

I write dedicated reviews for books I like too

[torpid kiln]

Captive Prince, I’m almost done with Chapter 8 ||I just need Damen to have an arc where he realizes slavery is wrong even if he thinks they’re treated well, I want to strangle him rn||

[ivory cypress]

but I did review all three captive prince books mmhm

I do think 3 was ||the worst plot and writing execution wise tho||

[alpine drum]

wait is Captive Prince or Dark Heir a sequel to Cruel Prince?

[ivory cypress]

no, different first book of series by same author

[long sorrel]

Those are 3 unrelated series

[alpine drum]

damn

[ivory cypress]

oh I just saw cruel prince. lmao. yeah cruel prince is a book I LOVE by a fully different author - Holly Black

captive prince and dark rise are first books of two different series by same author - CS Pacat

[alpine drum]

I do think that Dark Heir would be a very good sequel title to Cruel Prince though

[proper silo]

Would you like a vague spoiler?

[random dome]

the actual sequels to the cruel prince are "the wicked king" and "the queen of nothing" respectively

[long sorrel]

And then there's a sequel duology called The Stolen Heir

[random dome]

I should read those at some point

[proper silo]

No wonder it's all so easy to mix up way too many royal titles

[alpine drum]

is The [Adjective] [Royalty] the new A [Blank] of [Blank] and [Blank]?
Many are saying this

[long sorrel]

They're nowhere near as good, but i had fun

[ivory cypress]

just in this channel probably

[random dome]

Yeah the premise seemed less... crunchy, but I wouldn't mind returning to the setting for a bit

[proper silo]

(at least you can always count on Dark Rise books being titled Dark [ something]?)

(at least until Pacat decides to name book three Sun Queen, lmao)

[random dome]

||also it started to feel what? ||

[torpid kiln]

I always want to type Cruel Prince instead of Captive Prince, I actually did that once and had to edit it

Fun fact, I read a fanfic I loved in the Captive Prince series once. Before I ever heard of the books. I don’t remember the plot of the fanfic at all but I remember enjoying it

[long sorrel]

Minor spoilers/general for Stolen Heir ||I think the FMC is actually very interesting but she isn't Jude, better to read it as a complete separate series than expect more cruel prince because she really isn't Jude, but she's crunchy in her own way, Oak on the other hand I think is a bit less interesting. There's a couple of support characters that I found were also pretty good. The story of Wren is actually quite messed up on a lot more levels than the book/premise lets you on at the beginning.||

||Oak is more petulant and less messy than Cardan, which, I guess it's not like it'd make sense if he was Cardan 2.0 but it is missing a something compared to the male characters in Cruel Prince for me||

[proper silo]

You know, there is a fic I know of that retells the entire trilogy from Laurent's POV and while I am dead certain that's not what you're referring to... It'd be so, so funny if that's the fic you mean

[minor sleet]

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

[random dome]

Honestly that's the real reason I'm not reading books as much right now (although lbr i was not reading much before this either) because I am clutched in the vice grip of fanfic reading lately

[long sorrel]

OMG

TODAY'S CAT BOOK DAY

I forgot

[ivory cypress]

went to go pick it up and lah, it already predownloaded ☺️

for the curious

[long sorrel]

Yes, imma buy it right now!

huh

the left one is cheaper but 1.5€ but like

I think I like the right one cover more

[proper silo]

the right one definitely looks more mystical

[old flint]

And the left one looks more cosy and cottagecore

[torpid kiln]

It would be so funny if I loved him in a fanfic but hated him in the actual book

[proper silo]

that's the magic of changing the POV!

[ivory cypress]

if that were the case I think Glenda would be shining for you more

[proper silo]

[long sorrel]

I hate Glenda but like

I don't hate that she's in the book

It's not making the book worse for it

[proper silo]

I have literally stalled on reading today cause I flipped the page and saw it was another Glenda chapter 😅

Glenda's special magic is the ability to make me hate her more when I'm her her head than when I'm out of it 😌

[torpid kiln]

That fanfic was weird tho, it was tagged both as an original work and as a The Captive Prince fanfic, that’s all I remember about it

[proper silo]

🤔 huh

[long sorrel]

You know I want a fanfic in which (Captive Prince ALLLL, big spoilers-ish) ||The Regent's pet doesn't die and gets to live and be after. (I forgot his name)||

[torpid kiln]

When I’m done with the series, in the rate I’m reading it’ll be like two weeks, I’ll come back and see what this is

[ivory cypress]

I will link you the conversation for when I finished 😅 I zipped through them all in two days

[long sorrel]

got the book!

Now I have to decide if I jump to it or finish Long Live Evil first

[minor sleet]

Nicaise

[long sorrel]

Ah thanks!

Yes, that one

[minor sleet]

Also finish Long Live Evil

[long sorrel]

but but, cat?

[minor sleet]

The cat book will be there

Finish what you started

[long sorrel]

so will Long Live Evil!

[torpid kiln]

If I didn’t have an exam this week I’d be reading so much quicker

[long sorrel]

My weakness 😭

[minor sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/periodicazo-fifidonia-newspaper-gif-20050186

[wraith lynx]

Fifth Season 10 ||Hoa.... Hoa why can you do that bud 😭||

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 12 ||Good lord the way this is being described is beyond funny.

She claimed his mouth like a conquering army and he was entirely willing to surrender
Wheezes
Like what||

14 ||He's so horny for her man 😭||

[long sorrel]

||the way he feels about having improper thoughts about her is really funny||

[ivory cypress]

the paladins are paladining

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 19 ||Ok I'm struggling a little bit.
I'm only 36 percent of the way through the book and while the romance is funny I'm not finding it particularly compelling and I'm not very invested.
It's just gotten so much screen time that the rest of the plot doesn't feel super compelling either.
I'm going to do my best to persist but it's a little bit of a slog right now.||

[desert socket]

The Knight & the Moth 5 ||Idk what exactly Roderick's expectations were with the idleweed, but they were certainly not realistic. That said, more fantasy protagonists need to do copious amounts of drugs. As a treat.||

The Knight & the Moth 6 ||"Do we really wanna give this guy a divination?" "No, but he was mean to Six, so let's flatten him. 😈" I love them.||

[tight kindle]

Paladin's Strength 22 ||JUST FREAKING MAKE OUT ALREADY OH MY GOD.||

I can't decide if maybe it's just the wrong time, or if this book isn't for me and I should look up a summary. I'm struggling way more than I did with the first one and I'm not sure why

[long sorrel]

Interesting

i found the first one pretty bland

[low hill]

The book hivemind fractures...

[long sorrel]

This book is not within the Grey-Atrus-Usha circle

That would be Paladin's Hope

This one's just from the Grey-Usha-and a bunch of others overlap side

[long sorrel]

(yes, that's the gay one)

[tight kindle]

The Kingfisher polycule fanclub

[long sorrel]

I still have to read a few of her things

She's going to Celsius aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Anyway, I think book 2 is a bit better than book 1 however the characters weren't super compelling to me, though the plot was fine

[tight kindle]

I have a friend whose default word for a group of people is polycule and it's infecting me for whatever reason

But anyway Paladin's Strength midway ish ||I liked it more when there were more characters but now it's just the two and they're horny for each other all the damn time and it's just argh 😭||

[cloud socket]

Stayed up wayyyy too late to finish Ship of Destiny, and I can say that overall I liked the Liveship Traders way more than Farseer, though [SoD, cw SA] ||I reallllllly didn't like Althea's rape||.

The first two Tawny Man books aren't available at the library so I'll probably read something else for now- thinking I'll continue the fantasy theme and do a TBR from last year with Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne (I was gonna say boats but I think that's the second book)

[desert socket]

The Knight & the Moth 7 ||This gargoyle has gallons of tea about the Abbotess, I just know it. I need to hear him rant.||

[velvet umbra]

fwiw I felt the same way about this one

it felt more idk "ok I get it" than the previous one

[desert socket]

||I also still have no idea where the name Bartholomew comes from, but I'm really hoping there's no good reason. I just think it would be funny if the gargoyles have collectively labeled Six as Bartholomew because ||

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 17 ||“Your Highness! You can’t understand what being a lady-in-waiting entails. Allow me to explain.” “I do not enjoy when men explain things to me,” said Vasilisa. YOU TELL THEM GIRL||

||Rae bringing the feminism to this crappy book 😌 ||

[wraith lynx]

Fifth Season 11 ||Calling this girl Crack is so sad and funny 😭||

11 ||WOAHHHH wait wait wait 😭||

||I am learning very quickly that damaya will never see peace in this book 😭||

[junior dew]

|| Whatttttttttttt, and why would you say that? ||

Fifth season all - chapter 19. Not safe for cosmic || We’re coming up on throuple time soon ||

Fifth season 20 || Forgot about the 2 year time skip ||

[deft stream]

@junior dew If I finish the lies of locke lamora before the 4rth I will read the fifth season

[desert socket]

Knight & Moth 9 ||There is no good reason. Everyone is Bartholomew. I love the gargoyle.||

[oblique zodiac]

my books are 10 days overdue

😔

[ivory cypress]

just finished Dark Heir

https://tenor.com/view/joy-harper-smirk-maybe-idk-i-dont-know-gif-21560485

mmmmm :)

i honestly can't stop smiling

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

lightheartedly (captive prince trilogy/dark rise trilogy) ||the answer is to make them both laurent! grabbed the bits and pieces of character it's obvious she's more interested in writing and spreading it around||

[proper silo]

Hahhh I really am glad you like it more 😁

[proper silo]

Dark Heir ||and yeahhh they're both like... The best bits of Laurent (and bit of Damen), just in different proportion ||

[long sorrel]

Literally just changed the rates

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil (about 2/3?) ||I'm starting to suspect Lia 🤔 Also Key did tell Rae "remember, they're not real people". I know they talked about how his socipathy made him see other people as not people and so he probably means that and not what Rae means when she says it but wtf? I'm so suspicious||

||Everyone's suspicious||

This book is SO much more fun than I thought it was gonna be when I picked it up

It's such a silly premise

I expected something fun and entertaining and it is but like two fold of what I thought

It also has all of this little gibes at society and a lot of the traditional romance troupes

[desert socket]

Knight & Moth 11 ||I'm not sure if this is a god or just a wizard, but I'm leaning wizard. Walking the world for 200 years really isn't that big of a boast in terms of divinity, but he does have the vibes of a Dark Souls NPC, so it could still be either I suppose.||

[long sorrel]

how's the book? Have you read The Shepherd King duology? I enjoyed those but I found some of the sexual tension repetitive and the dialogue ocasionally, too.

So I'm a bit like, is this better/worth?

[desert socket]

I haven't read The Shepherd King, no. My fiance has read ODW and really enjoyed it. I was actually planning to read it before Knight & Moth, but she told me that one of the characters has similar vibes to a character from my own writing (one that I'm not writing right now). So I decided to read this one over ODW so I don't give myself longing for a character I'm not supposed to be writing right now. 😅

As for your actual question though, it's really fun so far! That said, I'm coming off of a reread of Memory of Light, so I'm sure anything would feel fun/breezey. Still, it took awhile for the actual plot to get going. The first 50-80ish pages are worldbuilding, fun character interactions, and the FMC/MMC flirting with antagonizing each other. It's been a really fun intro, but I don't think the book actually started moving until recently for me. I'm really enjoying it so far, and it has been a lovely change of pace. But again, that could just be relative to my last read. Still, really enjoyable though. I think I can see a bit of the repetitive dialogue issue, but it feels more of a tropey thing to me than it does an annoyance. So far, at least.

[long sorrel]

Mhm, the duology had pretty fun setting/plot so there's that

I guess I'll put it in the queue

[desert socket]

The plot that's actively unravelling is intriguing at the moment. The setting is also very fun so far, and there's even a very marketable, Disney-resemblant comedic relief character that's working well for me.

[long sorrel]

Oh, that last bit sounds like really not my thing but probably not enough to make it unreadable

[desert socket]

He has yet to become annoying to me, but I can absolutely see how he would be annoying to others.

[ivory cypress]

i just can't believe how giddy i was after finishing dark heir last night. that was hours of grinning and wiggling. i woke up this morning, remembered, and started smiling again

[long sorrel]

It makes me incredibly happy to hear that

because that has been me every time I remember since I read it lol

It's terrible

Which was June 2025 😩

[ivory cypress]

ahaha oh no

[long sorrel]

It's like, I'm very fine with waiting for next books and letting people cook and all that

but this is the book that actually has me being impatient for book 3

Now that you and Rasarr have read it I remember all the time and it's WOOOORSE

[tight kindle]

Damn I really need to read this, don't I?

[long sorrel]

Dark Rise?

Yes

I firmly believe this one's probably part of the Grey-Atrus-Usha circle

[little dock]

I know there’s a lot of Bobiverse fans here. There’s an audible sale and I’m curious if people recommend the audio or reading for this one?

[tight kindle]

I prefer reading myself, but the audiobooks are well narrated. I had to listen to book 5 (so I didn't have to wait an extra six months) and it was good

[old flint]

I thought the narrator was pretty good with the different characters. His ||Homer|| is passable

[proper silo]

Clearly, time for another reread

actually no, you have like 6 unfinished book

[long sorrel]

haha I'm really making my way through Long Live Evil

hard to recommend a book I haven't yet finished but I think this might be your thing

like, Im 60% recommending it to you up to what I've read so far

Because evil lady is evil and funny ||and making people feminists in the process ||

[proper silo]

well, it definitely sounds interesting from what you're posting about it 👀

tho, it's gonna have to wait until i finish Sir Cameron, if I drop it in favor of another ebook, i'll never pick it back up

and i think the second book of that war god-concubine book with a horrible title i can't be bothered to remember comes out sometime early march 🤔

[minor sleet]

Rasarr would like Long Live Evil

[proper silo]

we'll see

[little dock]

New RJB book, A Trade of Blood coming in August!

[long sorrel]

RJB and Kingfisher both in August is bliss

[tight kindle]

I'm 80% through Paladin's Strength, and it's getting more interesting
I'm making it through 😌

||Once they finally started banging and the angst went away it got way more tolerable.||

[ivory cypress]

part of it is that like, book 2 ended right... ||yes cliffhangery, but like, EXACTLY in the middle of a situation that just broke open and now i need to see it resolve. like mid scene!||

actually

[spring turtle]

Strength is book 2 right?

I like that one because the whole conflict is built on ||more efficient methods of making salt||. It's so banal

[ivory cypress]

paladins ||but foundational to society||

Salt: A World History is on my non-fiction tbr for a reason

[long sorrel]

||It stopped midway the delicious moment when Will realizes that James is in FACT not supporting him ah it was so terrible! I love it, it's so good. It's so crunchy and messed up. The only one that supports him, ah, no, not really 😌||

||I need more of this delicious pain and suffering 😈 , it made me so giddy||

||I just can't contain this feeling haha||

There's a massive salt mountain near where my mom is from that is one of the main reasons that whole area was SO rich during the roman empire, and it's one of the few (I think there's like 2 or 3) fully made of salt mountain (more like a hill). It's really interesting stuff

[alpine drum]

I'm not anywhere near where your mom is from

[ivory cypress]

dark heir ||if i have any nits about this book it's like, setting up that moment required that setup of will going "but what you do if the dark king returns" and i'm like, will. baby. even you YOURSELF are against the dark king, don't fish for answers you obviously know are going to be like "uh? kill him?" why are you doing that to yourself. gotta thread the needle of finding answer to like, what if i was the dark king but didn'tttt want to be bad? or something. cause the answer at the end he was so hungry for wasn't "oh it's okay if the dark king comes back", he wanted to hear "i believe you that you're not the dark king" baby??? baby. dumb baby boy.||

[long sorrel]

||also the almost kiss was such a tease 😩 ||

[ivory cypress]

dark heir ||it's fine the magic sex scene was incredible||

[long sorrel]

I have like a few things I didn't completely love on the story so far but like, nothing egregious

||Actually, destroying the staff so no one can control the army was kinda dumb, I understand the logic behind it and like, probably they'd have done something different if it wasn't such a pressure, high stakes, stress moment but I was like "... and then what?"||

But I think my main thing was ||That I REALLY loved Violet's plot in book 1 but in book 2 it felt kinda sidelined||

Oh Grey ||have you seen the official art of the collar that looks like his throat has been cut? 👀 ||

[ivory cypress]

a couple things here and there but nothing that i can't look past

[ivory cypress]

i didddd

[long sorrel]

I kinda want it for myself

[warm leaf]

Why arguing again about whether GRRM is a good author on X? I thought it was obvious he was

[ivory cypress]

i'd say dark rise was rougher than dark heir ||the first few setup chapters wereeeeee you know, a bit workmanlike as it got everyone into position, there's a little element of "the light" and "the dark" where i'm like it's a bit basic, but honestly, stuff i can super live with. the thing with destroying the staff actually makes sense to me as something that makes sense for cyprian/that side to do, the work was done to show that this was only one in a line of decisions that they will never give much thought to something that risks opening up the door. they'll find some way for it to be will's fault in book 3, i'm sure||

[velvet umbra]

argument about authors on X
Like 75% of the people involved either dont read or are bots just ignore it

[long sorrel]

||I thought I was reading a pretty cliche YA book when I started, but it seemed entertaining enough so I was like "sure whatever"||

[ivory cypress]

mmhm

dark rise is a 3.5 for me, dark heir is a 4.5 😍

[long sorrel]

OH the other thing I didn't love but I sort of get it but only half way is, as Rasarr had said before ||Everyone's blaming James for killing the Stewards when it's like... in some very indirect way, yeah? And it's part of the hatred feels towards Cyprian but James says the same himself (maybe to provoke, maybe because of guilt) and I think even Will thinks/mentions it that way at some point. And it is said enough times that I was like "mmh, k, yeah 🙄 ||

[long sorrel]

I gave them both a 5, I don't have half stars where I'm rating though

they fully fall into how these books aren't THAT good but they made me have so much fun that they got bumped up

[ivory cypress]

storygraph has quarter stars so i rate with that flexibility in mind

[long sorrel]

mhm, i don't rate there

maybe I should

[ivory cypress]

dark heir ||hmm yeah i don't think that really hit me. that's a bunch of young traumatized people trying to make sense of their situation and james was being antagonistic on purpose. the book opens with james telling marcus that's the plan so that it was technically at marcus's hands doesn't change anyone's feeling i would think||

[long sorrel]

mhm

It's one of those things I get it but as a reader sometimes I'm like a bit... not fully happy with it?

I'm just nitpicking at this point anyway lol

[ivory cypress]

yeah just one of those things my brain glided over, i wouldn't have thought to make a note of it

[low hill]

New series, or following on one of the existing ones?

[long sorrel]

That's Ana and Din 3

I think he's already writing book 4

according to whatever JM posted the other day?

ah yes, this

[low hill]

nods

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 21 ||Marius and the Cobra just read very gay||

||"Are you in love with this woman?" Marius demanded despairingly Yes, as I was saying ||

||I hope the Cobra doesn't die 😭 ||

[lunar sundial]

Chronicles of Amber are good but if I try to explain them I sound like a lunatic

[somber timber]

This looks so much better without whatever background was on the publisher’s site lol

I was really out on the cover lol

[snow vessel]

August... maybe ill try to get to the first two by then

[wraith lynx]

Thats pretty doable ngl

[snow vessel]

...hopefully

[long sorrel]

Not if you get drawn to the next shiny

[snow vessel]

-# I'm sure no one here would ever let that happen...

[long sorrel]

stares

[wraith lynx]

I- damn, youre right 🤣

[oblique zodiac]

I'm taking a break from everything including reading until my medication works(hopefully)

[tight kindle]

I've been there
I wish you luck!

[long sorrel]

GASP! Long Live Evil 22 ||Emer and Lia used to have sex???? Omg. I had not seen that coming? ||

||There has to be a lot more going on about these people and how the story comes to be right||

[zinc flicker]

It looks like such a fun time. I can’t wait to read it.

I think villainess novels / manhwa are really fun and this seems like a meta western take on that genre in a funny way

Which I am here for

[long sorrel]

I think it has a similar premise but it's not similar at all

But quite fun

Long Live Evil 24 ||For how much Cobra keeps telling Rae to stop messing the story he just screwed up big time, ||

||Lia is now fighting for herself aaah, what a mess this is||

[warm leaf]

Guys, I think I can recommend a book to my brother who doesn't like to read but likes manga and anime, I just don't know whether to do it

He liked the premise of mistborn but when he found out it was a book he went back

[junior dew]

My gf is 5 chapters into Mercy of Gods and she’s saying she thinks I’m going to really like it

So I guess maybe that’s going to be next after Fifth Season

[warm leaf]

Guys, you think I should recommend the great book/comic of... White Sand?

[long sorrel]

I so love all of the characters

[snow vessel]

Unless you really love WS i say probably not

[warm leaf]

I mean, I think I love the romance that doesn't have it

[snow vessel]

At least from my experience, I dont think WS is really like... a standout book, so I wouldnt recommend it to someone as their first or only brandon book (or book in general) unless you were a really big fan of it and could sort of give your perspective to them on why you like it

[tight kindle]

I finished Paladin's Strength!
Now I can move on to the one I really wanna read 😌

[junior dew]

Hey Katabasis readers, is it really dark/does it feel like it gets dark just for the sake of getting dark like Poppy War gets? Asking for my gf, since she had to DNF Poppy War book 2 (something she pretty much never does)

[snow vessel]

I didnt find it especially dark

There's definitely a few heavy topics involved, but in terms of content I didnt find it particularly bad

Especially for being a book set, yknow, in hell

Ive not read the poppy war, so I cant really compare them, though

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 26 ||Aaaagh, I hate the level of miscommunication in this chapter||

[junior dew]

What type of heavy? She can do heavy but she has less of a stomach for it than she used to, and she doesn’t like when it feels like it’s heavy just for the sake of shock value

[snow vessel]

IIRC [content warning/slight spoilers for whats in the book] ||one character's story involved some SA/sexual harrassment (I dont entirely remember how far it went, but it felt like more of... an important part of their character/storyline, rather than just something that happened), and another character's involved... a serious illness, I think. But, from memory, that was the most of it - both were pretty important character things||

||there may have been some depression-y suicide-y thoughts as well, my memory is a bit rough, but I dont remember anything major beyond that||

It all felt more, to me, like important character details than just shock value

[light premise-ish spoilers] ||Both mcs had a few major negative experiences that impact who they are and what they do in the book, but I dont remember tons of darkness beyond that||

[long sorrel]

Long Live Evil 27 ||Key having a standoff against the King has me internally screaming. Omg, idk where are we going from here? What's going on??? There's only a few days til the flower but like... aaah||

||"Beg for mercy, it amuses me" daaaamn Key 😳 I'll beg for whatever you want||

||"Let's see how much treason I can commit within 12 seconds" 😳 murder them all baby ||

28 ||Emer got saved but what about Key? God I can't see how this book is gonna end and it's making me stressed||

||no! No? Wtf||

||I can't believe this, there has to be something else, surely? There are 60 pages for him to come back 😭 ||