Books (General)

[minor sleet]

Probably going to be mostly about the cat

[long sorrel]

That is valid

[minor sleet]

Second most important character located

[long sorrel]

You can't have Kingfisher not put in dogs really

I'm not sure she's capable of it

[ivory cypress]

i admire kingfisher's restraint in not having a killdeer

[minor sleet]

I love those guys and their acting’s Very helpless birdie here! Broken wing! Easy prey this way! Follow me!

[ivory cypress]

she puts them in SO many of her books

[long sorrel]

Yes lol

[ivory cypress]

I should make some stats on that

[minor sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/picmix-bird-meme-bird-dancing-bird-bird-dance-gif-14632477430848065746

You could probably get a good post tracking all the species mentioned in her books

[ivory cypress]

oh hell yeah good thought

[long sorrel]

Fun

She wrote something about Hemlock & Silver's cat on the afterword that made me sad

[royal carbon]

Do I want to read that?

[long sorrel]

Which?

[royal carbon]

The afterword.

[long sorrel]

Oh, it was fine, her cat was fine

It talked about how the book would outlive her cat so she was talking about the cat in past tense

And like yeah, the book will outlive us all but did she have to go there with the cat 😭

[royal carbon]

Hmm, I can't find the book

One day things will be organized

It might take a while

[long sorrel]

I don't trust that very much

[royal carbon]

I am even more of a monster than I thought

[long sorrel]

Well. You found it

[junior dew]

Oh yeah What Moves the Dead audiobook hold came in today

So that’s next up after I finish Tombs of Atuan and Starless Sea

Less than an hour left in Tombs and only a couple hours left in Starless Sea

Might finish both today

[junior dew]

I can’t even say why but Tombs of Atuan has really been working for me. Fantastic book. Half an hour left

Starless Sea Interlude 4 || The paintress is Allegra!? Dayummm wild interlude ||

[minor sleet]

I finished Wolf Worm

I did not expect it to end as it did

[long sorrel]

Faaaast

How'd you like it

[minor sleet]

Libby was going to repro it tomorrow and I’m doing laundry

It was nastier than most of her books

[long sorrel]

For a second I had to process if this was Starless Sea or E33

[long sorrel]

Nasty is correct

It was gross

Most of her books I don't find gross at all 😩

Body horror: ✅
Wolf Worm: ❌

I was telling Grey the other day that a big ass fly flew into my hand when I was walking the street and it made me panic for a second
(I'm completely fine with insects usually)

[minor sleet]

Blegh

Reminds me of when I was watching Starship Troopers a few months ago and I found a cockroach in my room and all the anti fascism went right out of my head

[long sorrel]

Now I'm past the "that was so gross" and appreciating everything else

[ivory cypress]

haha

i was able to keep the visceral feelings away from my body this time

sometimes i get the big itchy feelings but thankfully not this time, for whatever reason

[long sorrel]

I was on the treadmill reading the climax, I had to stop reading cause i was getting nauseous

I read another book about bugs about a year ago, I love-hate them

This one was physically more gross but the other was so much more messed up

[ivory cypress]

wolf worm all ||my favourite part ended up being at the end when sonia is locked in and has to actually talk with saul, and while it ends up surprisingly wholesome, i loooooooooooove the initial shock of "now we must stare the body horror in the face without looking away"||

wolf worm all ||especially when at first you aren't sure if there's some horrible wretched torture at how they were keeping him ALIVE. shudders.||

[long sorrel]

Wolf Worm ||from the moment Saul eats Phelps till they get back made me feel "this is my reward from going through all of this" and it made me feel slightly giddy, like I deserved these scenes, I EARNT them||

Oh, I remember exactly the scene I had to stop reading after on the treadmill

[ivory cypress]

YES ||this was honestly the most SATISFIED i think i've everrrrrrrrrrrrrr been with a resolution in her books, like CHEF. KISS.||

[long sorrel]

Wolf Worm all ||It was the scene of the squirrel jumping on his face||

Which in isolation itd not have done anything

But that sequence ending there made my stomach go noooope

[ivory cypress]

haaaaaa

[long sorrel]

I imagined how itd feel if it was happening to me

Curse this too realistic imagination 😭

[ivory cypress]

freaking rip

[hushed kettle]

Rip

[junior dew]

I thought about making an E33 joke

[low hill]

For once, I think I'm vaguely grateful mobile doesn't automatically remove spoilers despite that being what my settings are set to...

[long sorrel]

Is this about Wolf Worm? If anything it doesn't involve spiders at least

[iron pond]

Strange Animals ch 15
||No!!! Look at it now!! I guarantee that text is something important!!||

[junior dew]

45 minutes left in Starless Sea 👀

[ivory cypress]

just wondered how long it might be if the urge to reread struck me and yeah that makes sense

[light drum]

I hate books getting the movie poster cover

[iron pond]

Finished Strange Animals tonight. Really enjoyed the whole experience. Might have to write a more in-depth review

[cloud socket]

PHM's movie poster does look nice, at least

[velvet cargo]

Yeah it’s honestly one of the few movies covers I am fine with. But I don’t have any real attachment to the original cover either so

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/corantus/812460836238049280/invisible-hand-of-the-free-market

The power! The passion! The danger!

invisible hand of the free market ❤️

-# #baru cormorant #the traitor baru cormorant #the masquerade series #this pic is boring lowkey i just wanted to figure out how im gonna draw her .

Tumblr · Mar 29, 2026, 10:23 PM

Everyone’s favorite mentally ill butch lesbian math genius

[long sorrel]

I don't like PHM movie poster

I don't dislike it either, it's just a thing that exists

[junior dew]

Was really tired last night and was falling asleep while trying to finish Starless Sea. So will be knocking out the last 25 minutes or so of that this evening

[junior smelt]

Damn I don't remember half of it

At least add the "also edgy" part. That exclusion will somehow offend both the Haikyu fans and Blue Lock fans simultaneously

[light drum]

Grr trying to find fan art and its all AI

[junior smelt]

Feels the worst thing to ever happen.

[sharp steeple]

DeviantArt is nigh unusable these days

ArtStation isn't far behind either.

[cloud socket]

Didn't a lot of artists move to Cara?

[true falcon]

Do y’all read comics? Whenever you feel uncomfortable reading a novel full of big words?

Because that’s me

[old bone]

Comics I have tried have more words that make me feel I'd rather read a book

remember trying hellboy recently and first few pages were just words...

[mild lance]

A lot of older comics went really heavy on narration/internal monologues

Newer ones tend to be better about it in my experience

[long sorrel]

I do like some of the very wordy comics

when I feel it makes sense

[hollow hedge]

I have a few comics from the early 2000s but haven’t really read much of any since, a little bit of manga but not even that much

[ivory cypress]

the occasional manga or graphic novel, but very occasional

Monstress and The Adventure Zone are it for comics, basically

[old bone]

Manga then books
Only read 3 comics

[true falcon]

I like looking at the pictures more than words

[proud stone]

i dont read that much comics other than some IDW sonic here and there tbh

[old bone]

Older comics seemed to rely more on words anyway

Only 3 I was able to complete/ catchup were Batman

[true falcon]

Like Alan Moore?

[junior dew]

Starless Sea finished! 🎉

Alright. Book good

[long sorrel]

niiice

[junior dew]

What moves the dead up through part of chapter 4 || If I had a nickel for every gothic story involving a sick person and mushrooms/fungus/mycelium, it seems I would now have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but strange it happened twice ||

[potent linden]

I actually tend to struggle more with comics and graphic novels than with novels, I find it somewhat more difficult to focus on and take in/get information from a bunch of images with some dialogue than words

[true falcon]

Ok that’s true

[snow vessel]

I struggle with comics because they keep having lots of words just in a smaller font/on a smaller page

[true falcon]

I love comics and agree with the statements

[potent linden]

there are some I've still enjoyed and a couple webcomics I even managed to get hyperfixated on for a while and made my way through the backlog of (though I've fallen off of both and there's more backlog now lol), but it's a lot harder to focus/stay excited about the format most of the time. I've read the three volumes of White Sand but haven't gotten back around to the omnibus despite owning it, it took me a while to get to Dark One, I love Wings of Fire but I've been plodding through those GN adaptations, and I'm genuinely interested in reading The Old Guard comics but stalled out on that too just a few pages in

[snow vessel]

I like comics, but I tend to find they take a bit more energy from me (though that could be because I usually read comics on my phone, so it's very small text/images)

[potent linden]

prose on phone is bad enough, comics on phone sound like hell

[snow vessel]

It's not the best

I just have it on hand more often than laptop, and I'm not super close to a comic store

[mild lance]

I don't love reading comics on phone but I do it occasionally out of convenience

Smart Panel helps a lot but it's not perfect

Anyway here are mini-reviews of everything I read for 2025 Book Bingo! https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1s8fl63/2025_bingo_hard_mode_minireviews/

[abstract kiln]

Dungeon crawler Carl ||I do not appreciate being called out on my MTG habits like this||

[sleek jungle]

Does anyone have some sci-fi recommendations? Something in line with the Expanse, Bobiverse, the Martian, PHM? Something good enough to keep me occupied until Faith of Beasts' release

[wet belfry]

Have you Murderbotted yet?

[sleek jungle]

Yep, all of it

[wet belfry]

Imperial Radch is very good

Took a while for me to warm up to it but once I did I finished the trilogy in like two days

[analog geode]

Vorkosigan, Honor Harrington, Republic of Cinnabar Navy

[wet belfry]

Hexarchate maybe, though that might be wandering a little further afield

[sleek jungle]

I read the first four or five Harringtons and quit. The world is great, but everything character and Honor related isn't imo

[analog geode]

Fair enough
Try out Vorkosigan, its very good

[wet belfry]

If you can tolerate a bit of YA the Illuminae Files is really quite good

[analog geode]

You could also try one of the other series in the Honorverse, which dont feature Honor

[wet belfry]

And in this case YA is really, the protagonists are overwhelmingly teenagers/young adults who are maybe more competent than their age would suggest

[sleek jungle]

I'm trying for something less popcorn than milscifi

[analog geode]

Tbf Id say the ones you listed were pretty popcorn

[wet belfry]

It is harder sci fi (though not exactly mil sci fi) than any pitch can really grant it is what's weird

[analog geode]

I hesitate to mention it because of the author, but Enders Game?

[wet belfry]

Popular ≠ popcorn

[analog geode]

I know

But Ive read those books and they definitely felt popcorn

Except the Expanse

[wet belfry]

I wouldn't call any of them popcorn

Well, I haven't read Bobiverse

[analog geode]

its funny scifi

[wet belfry]

Certainly Imperial Radch and Hexarchate are very military

The main character of Imperial Radch is (kind of) a troop transport ship

[analog geode]

I just think hard scifi trends towards military

[wet belfry]

And Hexarchate is space Brazilian Napoleon as told by a Korean author

Imperial Radch is the harder sci fi of the two

[analog geode]

Ill have to try that one, it looks interesting

@sleek jungle How about cyberpunk?

[sleek jungle]

I haven't read cyberpunk in a while, why not

[analog geode]

Could go with the classic Neuromancer trilogy, or Snowcrash

[low hill]

The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi.

[mild lance]

Children of Time

[sleek jungle]

for all of those, I'll get a few and see how it goes

[analog geode]

Thats next on my physical tbr

[sleek jungle]

I read the first one, but DNFed the second one

[old flint]

Rendezvous with Rama has some Martian/PHM energy. If you want more military space opera (4D ship formation stuff), The Lost Fleet is fun.

[sleek jungle]

Similarly to Honor Harrington, I read the first arc of the Lost Fleet and quit.

[unique turret]

The Culture?

[minor sleet]

I can’t believe Weber is still making those

Just end the series bro

The YA books about her ancestor Stephanie Harrington are pretty good

[royal carbon]

How do I tell if I am missing murderbot books or my library is just disorganized

[hollow hedge]

there's got to be a list of them out there somewhere

[dreamy osprey]

John Green has a 'secret project' of sorts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7DlWoG9qvg

He's even going back to signing preorders

[untold leaf]

The Martian is really interesting so far. I was worried my lack of scientific knowledge would make the scientific focus boring to me, but it's actually really not. It just makes me more curious.

[wet belfry]

As I understand it Weir's background is dabbling in CS and then going to college with some friends who would go on to work at JPL more than actually being a science guy's science guy (or an engineer's engineer) himself

[royal carbon]

He tries to use good science at the time of writing but the science has changed since publication

[analog geode]

The Lost Fleet was so bad.

Awful characters, really stupid premise

[light drum]

Shards of Earth/ The Final Architecture Seris

Its a space oprea by Adrian Tchaikovsky

[light drum]

Enders Game is like the epitome of author not understanding the message they books is about

[analog geode]

Yep lmao

[velvet cargo]

I read Speaker for the Dead and I was like wow this is an amazing story about seeking to understand others and not getting stuck in one’s own mindset. And I am like, did OSC understand what he wrote.

[placid crane]

I can't wait to read this! His two non-fiction books were great but I want to see new fiction from him, and his first adult novel at that.

[drifting bridge]

Project Hail Marry 10 ||Holy hell, the alien noise scared me listening to the audiobook in my car while driving.||

[junior dew]

Finished What Moves the Dead. Pretty fun read. Cool direction it was taken. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series

And with that, March is wrapped up. Definitely not finishing anything else by the end of the month. Solid month of reading overall. 9 books completed

[long sorrel]

Oh yeah, it's april

[alpine drum]

False

[long sorrel]

You're false

[alpine drum]

Certain places in the world think it is april, I however do not

The Usha retreats in the face of incontrovertible logic

[vital ibex]

Yeah its obviously not April!

April fools

[jovial tide]

It sucks when you're loving a book and then the last third really lets you down. 😔

[ivory cypress]

oh yeah i can post my march stuff

what's the book, claincy?

as suspected, march was a MUCH quieter month than jan or feb

[long sorrel]

I, too, have Wolf Worm on my month highest rated

[jovial tide]

Strange the Dreamer. It's slow-paced with florid prose but I was really enjoying the prose, the world building, the characters and just the whole thing generally until about the two thirds mark.

It's not terrible after that, but I have a lot of criticisms and things I plain just didn't like.

I'll probably still read the sequel soon, because I don't want to leave my experience with that story on the note that book ends on, and I hope it'll get back to some of the things I actually liked again, but my excitement is dramatically reduced.

[jovial tide]

Ooh Queen's Thief!

[ivory cypress]

oh i've heard of strange the dreamer, that's been on my tbr forever

i didn't even know there was a sequel

[snow vessel]

Well that's a graph

[ivory cypress]

and yeahhhh!!! i'm rereading queen's thief and finishing it, because i've only read the first three

[jovial tide]

It's less sequel and more "part 2" honestly, based on where the first book ends. 😅

I should also note that I could easily see someone reading it and not being bothered or disappointed by the things I was.

[tight kindle]

I should really learn how to rebind books one day

I can make all my ex-library books much nicer

Anyway
Book haul

Debating whether to reorganize the entire bookshelf

[potent linden]

oh interesting! I just started the sequel recently, loved the first book. what did you dislike about the end third? the end was a bit of a cliffhanger lol but I didn't mind it

[raw musk]

Nah, not yet

[light drum]

March Graphs

[minor sleet]

Only 2* for twilight?

Harsh but fair

[light drum]

I wanted to like it but it just didnt work fir me, my review here
#1404497733108236318 message

[wraith lynx]

Fair and valid 😔💔

[minor sleet]

I’m pretty sure twilight is only meant to be read and enjoyed by tween girls

[wraith lynx]

Twilight has both 5 stars and -5 stars for me 🥴

[wraith lynx]

ahem I was a 13 year old girl thank you very much 🥴

Ah dang you got me 🤣

[minor sleet]

I was 9 when I read it so I had to revise the statement anyway

[wraith lynx]

NINE??? 😭

[minor sleet]

My grandma gifted to me for Christmas and I made my whole family see it in theaters

The series has indelibly impacted my life

[wraith lynx]

Agreed

Its how my best friend and I bonded

[minor sleet]

I mean I meant that it gave me a vampire kink but yours is much more wholesome

[wraith lynx]

glances at my very normal feelings about werewolves mhm, wholesome 🥴

[jovial tide]

(Heavy spoilers for Strange the Dreamer for anyone who hasn’t read it.) ||It’s a combination of different things. I was on board for the romance between Lazlo and Sarai (even though I’m not big on romance generally, which is obviously going to influence my feelings on things) and I enjoyed the first part of it. I bought the initial fascination and attraction easily, but supposedly falling deeply in love inside a couple days is always an extremely hard sell for me.

My bigger issue was that it felt like after the first silk sleigh ride the plot basically stopped in favour of the romance. Outside of the one conversation with Errol Thayne and the others where Lazlo tells them a bit about Sarai, that was basically the end of his role in the story (for this book). The only forward momentum we get is the little interludes of Thyon Nero (I listened to the audiobook I don’t know how the names are spelled :p) experimenting with Spirit of Librarian, and the demolitionist getting antsy. Ruby, Sparrow, and Ferrel have nothing to do with the end of the book except kiss each other or feel bad about not being the one doing that, and stand around looking sad while Lazlo and Minya face off. I assume they’ll be important in some form in the second book, but they just felt kind of unused and largely irrelevant in the final 30% of the book, as did many of the other Weep characters and Calixty (I’m sure I’m spelling that one wrong). The slow place and florid prose wasn’t a negative for me before, but when we’re spending what feels like 20 minutes describing nothing but two characters kissing, it is. 😔 ||

||I knew the explosion and tragedy was coming, obviously. But I thought it would be an element of the escalating tensions and long-standing/well-founded hatreds and desire for revenge between the main groups, when instead it’s basically just the demolitionist being a fool and apparently very bad at his job (he really should at least have had some idea how long he needed to get clear) while having very little actual context to anything that is going on or emotional connection to it. Him getting crushed by the mural would be poetic (if straining credulity) if he had any connection to those parts of the story. It also leaves me really meh on Sarai’s death.

I don’t like Lazlo having the ability to control Misarthium. Like I get what it’s doing and why, and I recognise the seeds leading to it, but he was more interesting to me as a character who did not have immense power. There is something interesting to be done with how the Tyzakain feel about someone they were already fond of turning out to be godspawn, but we don’t do much with it in this book. And him turning out to be godspawn does work significantly against the thematic power of his and Sarai’s relationship.

I imagine Minya controlling Sarai to control Lazlo was supposed to be a big gut punch, but it felt clear to me that was obviously where things were going by that point, and I just flat out don’t like it.

(There are a couple of things about the prologue that either don’t make sense or don’t quite fit with what actually happens, though I wouldn’t make much notice of that if I wasn’t disappointed with other aspects.)

That’s the main things, I think. Like I said I can see how those things mightn’t bother someone else, and how the second book might pay off stuff with the characters who got unceremoniously dropped in the latter part of this one, but I wasn’t thrilled personally.||

[snow vessel]

Blood canticle 18 ||i have not read the witches trilogy but this feels like a recap of the witches trilogy||

[ivory cypress]

i hope i remember to come back to that when 've read it

[jovial tide]

If you do, you can enjoy my complete butchering of names (I listened to the audiobook). :p

[drifting bridge]

Deciding if I want to do a mid review for PHM. 🤔

[wraith lynx]

Im around where you are so I dont mind hearing what you have to say halfway through!

[minor sleet]

Nimitz the treecat my beloved

[analog geode]

I love him

[minor sleet]

My neighbor had a tailless cat named Nimitz. For years we all thought “ex navy guy, named his cat for the admiral”. Years later I learn nope, he was a big David Weber fan

I wanted to pet that no tail kitty cat so much but he did not want to get within grabbing range of an elementary schooler. ☹️

[analog geode]

Awww

[proven token]

Shorefall mentioned

Peak fiction

[analog geode]

I just finished it a couple hours ago

[potent linden]

I think this underestimates the numbers/kinds of people who enjoy that type of story lol, it's definitely YA but I don't think it wasn't written for adults

[potent linden]

fair fair! Strange the Dreamer ||I didn't feel a dropping off of plot, but then I generally enjoyed the character stuff. not audiobooking probably also helped me get through kissing descriptions that might otherwise have dragged on lol. (not that I skimmed, just faster reading especially when it's a section I'm not doing much thinking about, just moving past.) the climax being kicked off by one idiot instead of the tensions orchestrated between various characters is also a super valid complaint lol, and Lazlo and Sarai losing some thematic power is also a good point.|| it was some months ago that I read it so I don't remember all my thoughts in the moment but if I had any problems they didn't linger long. I have definitely forgotten timeline details as I go into the second though - hopefully the characters recap important stuff at some point lol because I might be a little lost otherwise

the only spelling I'll comment on is Feral because I want to see if you have any particular reaction to learning that one's just the word

[snow vessel]

Part of me wants to read Twilight for myself and part of me doesn't.

[potent linden]

that's fair, I know it doesn't jive with everyone so it's not as easy a recommendation as her two standalones

[snow vessel]

I think for me it'll come down to whether its rough enough to be charming, or just enjoyable

(having seen 3.5 of the movies I dont think it'll land as super good, unless they significantly changed things)

[jovial tide]

Strange the Dreamer ||I did like Lazlo and Sarai a good deal, and other characters as well, I'd call the character work a strong part of the book overall.||

[jovial tide]

Strange the Dreamer || I certainly wouldn't have guessed that, some deliberate irony in the name I guess. 😅 ||

[potent linden]

lowkey Maximum Ride vibes with some of those names if I'm being honest XD which I'm not necessarily saying negatively, but hmm

[light drum]

Ooooh Harrow is a really fun book

[snow vessel]

HTN mention!

Peak!

[drifting bridge]

Project Hail Marry Half-review 15 ||I am really liking the book now. I am liking how it is giving a chance to figure somethings out. Like why Rocky couldn't read the tape measure.

Rocky=

Guesses: He's gonna give Rocky the drive full of data to take back.
The whole star thing seems... Curious. I feel like the plot for a while has ignored the actual issue, so I am guessing maybe it has already been hinted out how to actually solve it, but I haven't figured it out yet.
Grace and the other doctor hook up.
Grace gets to see his kids again. 🥺

I still think the coma premise was stupid, but I know why he did it. Did it better than Sanderson atleast.||

9/10 Owls

[tight kindle]

I had a month, that's for sure 😭

[tight kindle]

Ooh book by Django Wexler
Do you like his stuff?
I love his middle grade series (The Forbidden Library) but haven't read anything else by him

[wise haven]

I only rated two books, average will not be a 5 lol

[tight kindle]

I've been wondering whether to take a look at the other stuff he's written

[small bloom]

Haven’t read anything by him apart from those first 72 pages of Ashes of the Sun so I’ll let you know later
So far it’s pretty good though

[drifting bridge]

PHM question ||How did the book handle the alien talking?||

[potent linden]

||little music note symbols||

[drifting bridge]

||Thanks. Hmm, interesting. I wonder what he said at the start before we learn stuff.||

[minor sleet]

I went on a bit of a reading binge last month & cleared out my comics, poetry, and shorter nonfiction books off my tbr list

[long sorrel]

Nice

[royal carbon]

The copy of Twilight I read was so full of typos it felt like maybe the copyeditor took a day off. The story was also underwhelming but I mostly remember the typos.

[wraith lynx]

Ene why must you bring up my demons like this 😔💔

Every time I think about Max Ride I think about Nudge and wishing she was in a series that actually cared about her 😭

[minor sleet]

All those characters deserved to be in a better series

Except maybe Fang. I think Fang could only work in a badly done middle grade novel as the edgy boyfriend

[wraith lynx]

Yeahhh thats true 😂

[snow vessel]

Fang??

[wraith lynx]

But if I could take any of them and make like something else id take Iggy and Nudge and I wouldnt be weird about Nudge being black

Max Ride book 2 ||Its why I DNF'd the series. I will never forget the part where angel was in school and she was thinking of the flock as actual birds and everyone had birds associated with their personalities. And then "Nudge is a pheasant because shes brown" 😭||

[minor sleet]

James Patterson when I get you and your ghost writers

[wraith lynx]

Same tags ||canary was such an easy answer, it was already mentioned multiple times that nudge talked too much but nope James "when is it time for white writers to get attention" Patterson wanted to be weird.||

[royal carbon]

Audible is stalking me and the vampires want their due as well.

[minor sleet]

Are they sexy vampires?

[long sorrel]

Yes, pay up.

[junior dew]

Oh yeah so I started up on What Feasts at Night this morning

The Saint of Bright Doors hold just came in but I figured I’ll finish the Sworn Soldier Trilogy first since they’re short and can be knocked out in a day or two

I will say they’re also very easy reads too

[royal carbon]

The beginning of The Saint of Bright Doors is very relevant to the end.

[minor sleet]

Saint of Bright Doors was so good

I was disappointed by the author’s second book because i thought “this would work better as a series of short stories” then I looked at the end and it turns out most of them were originally published as short stories then later connected together

Sigh

[jovial tide]

I saw people talking about T. Kingfisher's latest book here, then I was browsing Libby for my next audiobook and saw A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. I probably would have borrowed it anyway with that title. 😂 It's off to a fun start.

[royal carbon]

Hmm, reminds me I need to ping book club since we seem to have let life get in the way again

[long sorrel]

That one I've not read

[junior dew]

Good to know 👀

[royal carbon]

I can't even remember what the book was supposed to be

[long sorrel]

They are! I think mostv of her books are light and/or easy reads, and most are quite short

[royal carbon]

Ah, Ministry of Time

[junior dew]

Yeah I do wish What Moves The Dead had a bit… more to it?

What Moves the Dead All || I enjoyed what it did particularly at the end with… Melanie I think was the name? Like her being controlled by the fungus and the whole like “I was teaching it” and “I’ve been dead for a month thing”. I think perhaps it just could have been a bit longer in this case? Granted I don’t know how it could have been drawn out. But I think “body horror stemming from people controlled by fungus/microscopic entity/alien sludge” is very up my alley. At least I’m noticing that trend Curious to see what these sequels do. ||

[snow vessel]

Speaking of vampires... 50% into Blood Canticle. It's not very good imo but it is fun. It feels a bit like a fanfiction.

[long sorrel]

tbf this specific book is a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe, I think she does slightly different on the following books, though I'm not sure if exactly what you're looking for is what you'll find (in terms of drawing out things)

[junior dew]

Ohhhhh really? I did find it curious how she was using the name Usher because I remembered the show. Tbh I didn’t know that was originally a Poe story 😅

That’s neat

[long sorrel]

Remind me, have you read Tainted Cup?

[junior dew]

Not yet! Planning on doing so later this year closer to the release of book 3

[long sorrel]

Yep, though Kingfisher retellings are very much not like the original, they're like "hey I can see the elements but this is a new story" type of thing.

[junior dew]

Gotcha. Which other stories of hers are retellings?

[long sorrel]

A lot of the fairytales

[junior dew]

I’d have to take a look at what she has done 😅

Have you read Mexican Gothic as well by chance?

[long sorrel]

Nope

[junior dew]

Gotcha. Definitely had some similar vibes. Which I mean makes sense because gothic. It’s not a sub-genre I’ve read much so idk if it’s all “dark, dreary, sketchy house and things are off” but 🤷‍♂️

You might enjoy it possibly? Depending on what you liked about What Moves the Dead

I’d probably say Mexican Gothic I enjoyed more than What Moves the Dead overall? As far as gothic stories with that sort of vibe go

But I do wonder if the reverse may have been true if I had read What Moves the Dead first

[long sorrel]

I like the body horror the most

[cunning pivot]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jzacharypike/crypt-currency

Excited for new Orconomics stuff! Author is doing a Kickstarter in May. The new series is called "Crypt Currency"

[hybrid kettle]

lmao

[junior dew]

Gotcha. Can’t quite say for sure if Mexican Gothic goes full body horror exactly.

But it is a solid read. A bit of a slow burn, but I personally found it very gripping. And it does go in some interesting directions

[snow vessel]

someone has not read the book I am currently reading

[long sorrel]

I dropped a book because it had so many mistakes I couldn't follow the plot

it kept swapping tenses which I originally thought it was on purpose

It was not on purpose

but it also had time jumps

but the tense kept going present-past between the same sentence in aw ay that was just grammatically wrong

cool premise, not touching that

[snow vessel]

BC has such an emphasis on not being edited that I believe it even got mentioned in the narration

[long sorrel]

I have a feeling people don't understand what "editing" means?

Not "people" the people that say this kind of stuff

[snow vessel]

I guess it'd editing as in spelling/grammar vs editing as in the magical person who will cut the bits I dont like from the story

[long sorrel]

Yeah, there are all sorts of editing and a good editor can surely tell apart what is asked of them 😩

[brazen pilot]

The job of the editor is to have the same opinions as me on what the book needs or not

[hybrid kettle]

The more I read fiction, the stronger my conviction editors are doing the god's work grows. To give an analogy with our lives outside writing fiction, I think many of us work better when given a second opinion

[snow vessel]

Tbh I kind of do agree with the op though

I often appreciate when things get a little rougher, even if it's worse, if I can see more of the author in it

[hybrid kettle]

Many people like august in that tweet above are concerned with editors flattening out authors' ideas, but I think they can also clarify them

[snow vessel]

I like the self-indulgent chaos that can come when an author stops listening to someone else

It's not at all better

But it's fun

[hybrid kettle]

August has a Kageaki pfp (Muramasa) which especially surprises me since majority of VNs would benefit from some editing. Pacing is on average terrible, even among my favorites

[ivory cypress]

i do think good editors allow you to see the author's ideas at their best

[hybrid kettle]

I agree

[ivory cypress]

I don't think the rougher, pre-edited work is actually more authentic or true to the author

[hybrid kettle]

the mess distracts from the idea

*not always

[brazen pilot]

Editors are an important job, but readers going like "wow, this author needed an editor" because a book is spending time on something they aren't interested in is a nonsense opinion most of the time

You don't know how it was done behind the scenes. Maybe the editor worked overtime just getting the book to where it is, and it was worse before. Maybe the editor was focused on entirely different aspects than what you, the reader, think they were. Maybe it's just your opinion that something isn't necessary but the editor made the correct call that the target audience wanted it.

[hybrid kettle]

In the cases of what specific works did you notice this

It's possible, I'm just curious

[brazen pilot]

Wind and Truth, for a recent one. I think at the end of the day, Sanderson wrote a book with some issues. There's no under-editing there. Some books just end up worse than others without the editing process being different.

[light drum]

I think a editor can help bridge the gap between what the author is trying to tell and what the reader reads/expects

[hybrid kettle]

Eh really? To me all Stormlight books can be cut down. Well first 3, I haven't read the rest

[brazen pilot]

Anything can be cut down

That's a meaningless statement

[hybrid kettle]

I remember seeing a reddit thread that Sanderson isn't really listening to his editors anymore since he's afraid of removing a chapter that might become someone's favorite

[brazen pilot]

Editors' jobs aren't to cut everything down to its shortest possible form. Some people want slower-paced books that spend more time on things. Stormlight is for that audience.

[brazen pilot]

And what was the source in that thread?

[hybrid kettle]

I don't know, did I claim it to be 100% correct? It certainly is how reading Stormlight feels to me

[brazen pilot]

I also find it highly indicative how Sanderson's old editor mostly retired. And people blame his works getting worse on that change. Yet the book where his old editor returned, The Sunlit Man, was in my opinion one of his worst, and a big dip in quality compared to stuff published right before it.

[snow vessel]

Even if that's the case I don't think you would've hit it in the first 3

[hybrid kettle]

I have my own limits of what's acceptable on the slower and faster end, and Stormlight crossed it. That's all

[brazen pilot]

Okay, but what do your personal limits have to do with whether the job of the editor is being done

[light drum]

I think there's a problem when authors get too big they feel they dont need to listen to their editors as much

[hybrid kettle]

I have heard Sanderson doesn't listen to his editors much and reading his books does give that impression. Is there something strange in that logic

I've found the comment. Again, not claiming it's factual, but it does match my experience

[snow vessel]

I don't agree with the logic of their statement

[brazen pilot]

Yes. "I have heard it" is not a statement with a source. It's just a bunch of random people online doing the same thing as you are right now — reading a book and ascribing problems to "an editor should have changed it" instead of just accepting that you don't know what the process was, and that maybe the editor and author agreed it was good and you just disagree. You have no grounds to assume that the editor agreed with you and just wasn't listened to.

[snow vessel]

If that is what brandon says, he said he thinks that chapter could be someone's favourite, not that every chapter could be

[hybrid kettle]

I see. Are you claiming uncertainty or that Sanderson is listening to his editors?

[snow vessel]

That just seems to me like Sanderson understood a value of that chapter that the editor didn't, not that he's including everything he thinks someone might like

also honestly this was like 10 years ago. If Sanderson wasn't listening to his editor then, then he hasn't been for like half his career

[brazen pilot]

This is, frankly, a massive and unwarranted extrapolation from a minor statement. Keeping chapters that don't move the plot forward but flesh out the characters is a normal thing. It's not bad editing to leave something like that in, either — chapters that don't progress the plot are a breather so the plot progression doesn't feel breakneck and stressful. And, importantly, authors and editors having a back-and-forth where they disagree about whether something should be kept, is a normal part of the process. It happens with every book, and sometimes the editor will win, while sometimes the author will win. That's just how it goes. It isn't a sign of any kind of problem to mention a case of this happening.

Also, the fourth paragraph onward is basically pure speculation. "So now he doesn't want to cut anything that he feels like..." where are you getting that? He didn't say that? He was talking about one particular chapter that showed a lot of valuable character interaction, which is something with an actual reason to think would be a favorite chapter to people. Nowhere did he imply that he'll never cut anything that might be someone's favorite chapter. What this actually boils down to is "Sanderson wanted to keep that chapter because he knew it was good, and he was right." Which is, you know, the kind of thing an author should be thinking about?

[snow vessel]

I do feel like people sometimes just treat the editor as the magic person who could make everything the way they wanted

[brazen pilot]

The uncertainty is the most important point. I also think Sanderson does listen to his editors, and he and his editors can both just have different priorities from you as a reader. But the uncertainty is more important to recognize.

[alpine drum]

Also Brandon absolutely does cut stuff

[snow vessel]

It's a very like... absolute way of thinking imo. I think theres a lot that goes into a book/reading experience - the editing that does happen, the editing that's overridden, the actual writing and your own experiences/expectations/whatnot. Boiling it down to just "the editor would've made it good but couldnt" feels like an overly simple explanation to me

[alpine drum]

I think he could cut more stuff but hes not keeping everything he writes because it might be someone's favorite

[lusty meteor]

WaT got more editing than any SA book by a long shot

[brazen pilot]

Also Brandon actually talking about the editing process, saying he's more edited than ever, and saying some issues are possibly caused by him and the team just being rushed for a few years (and losing his old editor who was good at a specific thing)

[ivory cypress]

the amount of editing is also not the quality of editing

a lot of people think like all editing is equal

[light drum]

Iirc it was very time rushed however

[alpine drum]

Yeah, it should have gotten more rounds for the size of the book

[brazen pilot]

I blame WaT and how busy Brandon and the team were while doing it, for how bad Emberdark was

[light drum]

Emberdark didn't bother me as much as WaT cause ember dark was somthiing new WaT wasn't but felt like it was

[brazen pilot]

Emberbark bothered me much more than WaT because I thought the writing was extremely bad, while WaT's writing was passable

[alpine drum]

I think further cosmere discussion can go in #cosmere

[old bone]

Not furthering that Brandon specific convo but making a general statement
Both book and manga fandom really seem to treat Editors as a magic person

that vague argument of "Its bad cuz the editor changed" is one of the reasons I steered away from manga fandoms in the first place so seeing it in books side of things is also interesting

[tight kindle]

Omg you're queenswit
A couple months ago I realized that that account was not Banished like I'd been assuming and then I couldn't for the life of me figure out who it actually was 😭

[minor sleet]

Why would my account have been banished?

And yes, I’m queenswit on storygraph

[tight kindle]

No, Banished the person

[minor sleet]

Ohhhhhh

[tight kindle]

Ok, that's great to know
I knew you were from the 17s but I was looking at my 'social' page on SG and just so confused because I couldn't for the life of me figure out who you were

[hybrid kettle]

I find treating them as pure evil and an obstacle to introducing novel ideas more common

[ivory cypress]

ayyy three new books upcoming from greer stothers, image spoiled because it has ending spoilers for Sir Cameron, as one of the three books is its sequel: Obviously, Sir Cameron Is Still Alive

[tight kindle]

Feb '28 huh?

Already counting down

😌

[wraith lynx]

Ah the sequel title is even better than the first one 😂

[velvet umbra]

First synopsis is WILD

[ivory cypress]

mmHM

[long sorrel]

I'm so down for it

[oblique zodiac]

i have about a week left until my reading break ends

i am excited to continue haha

I am better than i was a few months ago

I mostly started reading korean books to improve my vocabulary because i felt so behind compared to my peers

but i think the biggest problem was anxiety, obsession, and fear

without that now

i realize I had everything i ever aspired for right here inside me

[tight kindle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1s9jf71/rfantasy_2026_book_bingo_challenge/
r/Fantasy has a category to read a Cosmere book
Though this is probably an April fools joke?

Can't really tell

[potent linden]

interesting, they must've been fixed by the tenth anniversary edition

[velvet umbra]

I think they were just listing words that sounds similar and went Hard -> Shard lol

[tight kindle]

Well yeah, but they associated it with the Cosmere

[velvet umbra]

Yeah cause Shards

I think they just wrote all the bingo squares as a joke and then made up the explanation based on the name

[mild lance]

This is an April Fool’s joke. Every year they do a ridiculous joke card and then a real card a few hours later

In the past they’ve done things like a card fully themed around Taylor Swift, and a goose card with “Honk Mode” instead of Hard Mode

[minor sleet]

Honestly this looks like fun and I might try it anywya

[loud atlas]

I didn't know Fablehaven adaptation was a thing in pre-production
I always knew it was trying to happen for a long time but I thought it was in earlier stages

it feels a bit late and it's something I would've been more excited about ten years ago, but still cool

[velvet umbra]

Let us know how this goes

[minor sleet]

Easy

I’ll just do this again (with a different animal, as I don’t live in the same state as the tuxedo cat anymore)

[forest sierra]

Got to meet Adrian Tchaikovsky today

[minor sleet]

Cool!

[junior dew]

Nice!

[alpine drum]

Did he talk about bugs, reptiles, or other nonhuman animals?

[forest sierra]

Mantis shrimp

That seems to be his current obsession

[alpine drum]

I think those show up in Shadows of the Apt but don't remember

Makes sense though, they are very him coded

[forest sierra]

It's in his new book the release event of which I went to

Children of Strife

[minor sleet]

He has a new one already? Pretenders to the Throne of God isn’t even two weeks old yet

[junior dew]

He has a release in like half of the months this year

[minor sleet]

Bro save some for the rest of the publishing world. It’s called a back catalogue

[junior dew]

Two are novellas at least?

But yeah he has a new standalone coming in June

[tight kindle]

@ivory cypress @long sorrel
It wasn't even me
This is my public library

[long sorrel]

lol

[ivory cypress]

ayyyyyyyyyy

[tight kindle]

Also just picked up DCC 3

And a book that's actually on my tbr

An MM romance by the same author as Boyfriend Material, which I own and quite like

Randomly found it on the "new books" shelf

[junior dew]

So uhhhh

What Feasts At Night finished 👀

I liked the book a fair bit more than book 1, though I enjoyed book 1’s climax moment more

Quite enjoyed the characters in book 2

[vagrant torrent]

TIL Naomi Novik has an AO3 account with a lot of fanfics 🤭

[analog geode]

She is one of the founders of the site

[alpine drum]

Has she written fanfic of her own books or am i misremebering?

[analog geode]

I mean, kinda?

Idk about on Ao3, but she wrote a short story in the Temeraire world that was explicitly Pride and Prejudice

Some of her books definitely began as fanfics

[true falcon]

I’ve finished chapter 1 of this and this story is getting insane

[vagrant torrent]

Just noticed on my physical bookshelf I have several book #1s without the rest of their series

Like, I have The Fifth Season without the trilogy’s following books

Also I really gotta clean up my bookshelf 😅

[tight kindle]

DCC book 3 ||I want that beddddddd||

[snow vessel]

TMoG good 👍

[low hill]

• March: Sunbringer, Hannah Kaner; House of Chains, Steven Erikson; Summer Knight, Jim Butcher; A Close and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers; The Doors of Eden, Adrian Tchaikovsky; Midnight Tides, Steven Erikson.

[low hill]

@ripe tide Have you seen the book out next week that's co-written by V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke (writing as Evelyn Clarke), a locked-room mystery about the publishing industry?

Was just listening to them both talk about it on Schwab's podcast.

[ripe tide]

I haven’t

[low hill]

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-ending-writes-itself/evelyn-clarke/9780008739263

[ripe tide]

Thank you

[snow vessel]

blood canticle 20 ||a well deserved roasting||

[junior dew]

What Stalks the Deep is fun so far

The MC of these books is a fun POV and I dig the premise of this one

Makes me wonder if book 1 would have been stronger for me had it not been the feeling of semi-Déjà vu

Was still fun, but these 2 subsequent books feel stronger to me. Like the author has the character voice figured out a bit more

[sleek jungle]

-# the shadows of april fools linger, as ducks misread the book title as bionicle

[sleek jungle]

=(
https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/1sals0m/dungeon_crawler_carl_tv_series_from_seth/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[cunning pivot]

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/dungeon-crawler-carl-tv-series-peacock-seth-macfarlane-1236705436/

Here is the original article.

I'm seeing Matt on Tuesday and hoping he can actually talk a bit about this now.

Live action though is gonna be tough. Though I could see them lean into themes that might let them cut corners if they are consistent.

[junior dew]

Oh wow that… sure is… something

[cunning pivot]

Matt had I think wanted animation but he also knew it would depend on where the money led.

[hollow hedge]

I think you could probably make a reimagined version of the story work in live action, I don't think you could stick terribly close to the source material but the first few books should be doable

[mild lance]

Christ Yost as a writer is actually kinda hype

[cloud socket]

I didn't keep up with The Orville, but that's what I'm imagining for a Seth Mcfarlane live action project

[raw musk]

Yesss. The cult grows

There will be 16's of us! 16's!

[hollow hedge]

The example they offered was Ted, where Seth plays an animated teddy bear

these days it's at least technologically viable to have a series with human actors and makeup where almost everything else is CG

it might fit the vibe of the series to do it that way anyway

[cloud socket]

yeah, I know Ted's making headlines for the $$$; Orville seems more thematically similar because of the sci-fi/fantasy aspect

[sleek jungle]

The Orville started as something like a parody of Star Trek and grew into its own, coming out as a decent show in the end
But Seth Mcfarlane is not a person I'd want to be in charge of live-action DCC

[cloud socket]

after Project Hail Mary I wonder how much puppetry you can get away with for mongo

[sleek jungle]

dcc 1 all ||mongo budget will be inversly proportional to the odette chest budget||

[hollow hedge]

More Star Trek than Star Wars, but sure? Though I'm not sure why he'd be a turnoff, seems like a fine fit to me. I don't think he's gonna run the day-to-day anyway

[sleek jungle]

I meant to write Star Trek, but I have Andor on in the background and my skull melon got confused

[proud stone]

Seth mcfarlane is amazing when hes actually writing but i dont thibk he could do DCC well conpletely different styles of humor

[hollow hedge]

everyone accepts Jeff's voice for everything in DCC but I think Seth could also come up with a worthy take on the System AI if he wanted to

(I try to be optimistic I guess, it's not going to be perfect, we all have our limitations)

[proud stone]

oh he could do the boices well

id assumee seth mcfarlane wasnt just voices but seth is an amazing comedy VA tbh so

[cloud socket]

I think I'm ok with Peacock, since Poker Face and Mrs. Davis were both fun (though definitely not as CG heavy)

[wide hearth]

Finished Grace of Kings and (spoilers all) ||honestly in no hurry to continue, since it seems like a pretty well wrapped-up self-contained story. What's the hook for the sequel supposed to be? Even the gods are at peace. Solid book, though.||

[junior dew]

Grace of Kings || GoK is more or less a prequel to the actual story of the series. This book just lays all the groundwork and sets up the worldbuilding and historical context that the actual story hinges upon ||

[wide hearth]

Grace of Kings all ||Actually I have to talk about how it made me legitimately laugh out loud at various stages in a way few authors' works have in the past (Vance springs to mind, although I've not seen that comparison made much, presumably because the styles are so different). But I love the wry humour and ridiculously twisty dramatic irony. Huno Krima Will Be King; the death of Goran Pira I mentioned before; the pseudo-slapstick of the weddingbanquet and the airship escape scenes; even the staged "execution" of Kuni's father was so over-the-top in the way the two misunderstood each other. But in a good way, I think. I love tragic irony, I guess, is what I'm saying||

[junior dew]

Grace of Kings spoilers all and premise for book 2 || https://kenliu.name/blog/book/the-wall-of-storms/ ||

[wide hearth]

(Grace of Kings + book 2 premise) ||Ok so I've now read the blurb for book 2, and "invaders from the far West + forging a dynasty" does sound like direction the story should go in, there just didn't seem to be any setup at the end? But ok! Sounds good, I'm in||

[true falcon]

Been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

Got 3 issues left to finish this short series

[junior dew]

GoK all and book 2 premise || It’s really good. Tbh I was trying to figure out how to explain it because I thought the invaders thing was a spoiler haha.

Been too long since I read it and I didn’t know it was going to go in that direction so I can’t quite comment on the setup. Other than to say book 1 as a whole is effectively setup for the real series ||

[junior dew]

Looking forward to seeing what you think! It’s a very fun ride imo

[junior dew]

Making me really want to reread it. I remember the sequels much better than I remember GoK . Though I’m sure I have forgotten a ton of the sequels at this point too

Much of my appreciation for GoK came after finishing the rest of the series

[wide hearth]

I'll put book 2 on the tbr, but there's a few other books I want to read first. Unless you think it'll be better if book 1 is fresh in my memory?

[tight kindle]

Looking for Group 10 ||Bro does not understand the concept of an introvert||

[minor sleet]

My library has three full shelves of Mercedes Lackey

Good grief that woman is prolific

For context, Pratchet only has a shelf and a half and they have almost a full collection. Three c shelves is not a full collection of Lackey

Ha! They only have half a shelf of Sanderson

Two of which are frugal wizard

[tight kindle]

Me when there's relationship conflict in my romance book:

[spring turtle]

listening to the new Brandon Mull book, Guardians: Forbidden Mountain (got it early through Libro's educator ALC program)

it's giving Rithmatist in the way they're both cribbing off Mormon endowment

[minor sleet]

#myhaul

For the low cost of $0. Life hack

The library didn’t have any other absolute titles. Annoying

[forest sierra]

Because Grace of Kings is pretty much a reskinned retelling of actual history (rise of the Han dynasty) almost beat by beat but the sequels are original fiction (now only borrowing elements from history)

[minor sleet]

Absolute Batman #1 with some absolute comic nonsense

This Batman is Gen Z???? Oh god Batman is younger than me now

[forest sierra]

Younger by a year

[minor sleet]

Absolute Batman #6, Stormlight ||Moash core||

[alpine drum]

One of many iconic pages

[proven token]

I just finished Kraken!
6/10 for me. The book had a lot of good moments, but the plot didn't really hold together and the characters were kinda meh.
Slight spoilers ||Loved Wati, though. Everything about him is amazing and exceptional and his character was amazing. Goss & Subby were also creepy and well-written.||

[warm leaf]

Well, I bought the Red Rising bundle because it was the most expensive one and the stars aligned for me to buy it. Now, I don't know if the next thing I should buy is the eight Wheel of Time books I'm missing or Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. I'm also considering buying the next three RR books because I saw that the last one that came out has, I think, the highest rating on Goodreads

[snow vessel]

Personally I would probably be inclined to go based on which you are enjoying most/are most excited for

[proven token]

The prose was difficult and strange, which honestly worked both ways. I understand that Miéville writes weird fiction (that's kinda his whole brand), and it did help further the vibe of slight insanity underpinning the whole work, but it often made things ambiguous and vague. I personally subscribe the the House of Leaves theory that prose should become more impenetrable as the sanity of the situation degrades, so it doesn't become an annoyance.

[warm leaf]

Honestly... I'm excited for all of them, haha, it's just that the WoT books are quite... dense, so to speak? I have a feeling I should take a break between certain books

[proven token]

Despite my mixed feelings about Kraken, I do think I'll read more of intend to read more of Miéville. The book was fundamentally interesting and weird, which was the goal. I think I'll read Perdido Street Station at some point,

[junior dew]

I think that’s entirely your call on how you want to time it and if you have any concerns about retention of information

Also I finished What Stalks the Deep 👀

Probably my favorite of the 3

Fun series. Very quick reads

[ivory cypress]

on fourth book of The Queen's Thief in my reread and I'm like. this is a young adult series that existed before young adult as it exists today developed and I'm like. bro by comparison, this feels adult. it still holds up, 100%

now there's a sticky romance with possibly unforgivable actions taken that somehow they can look past and also you understand why

[junior dew]

Oh damn really? Almost beat by beat? That’s wild. Though makes sense given that one thing I saw Ken Liu write about the series and his intentions behind GoK in relation to the rest of the series

Oh yeah saint of bright doors on Libby ended up not being an audiobook whoops. Soooo I started Earthsea book 3 instead

[proven token]

Oh yeah started Gideon the Ninth
Not really enjoying it thus far but I'll reserve judgement until I get further in

[velvet umbra]

I just got recommended a YT video of like an 8 year old kid tier listing fantasy books and he gave up halfway through cause like all of them were too mature for him to have read lol

which is I guess better than what I thought was happening which was that an 8 year old had actually read like The Blade Itself and A Court of Thorns and Roses lmao

[proven token]

Literally me lol
(Actually I only started reading romantasy with sexual themes that young me very much didn't get until like 11 or so)

[velvet umbra]

I blame the generic book covers industry

[proven token]

Nah that actually wasn't it

I was a strong reader, ahead of my grade, and so I read stuff that was meant for older people

Which was fine until I started getting to things like Shadow and Bone

I know I read stuff that had a lot more adult theming than that, although they don't particularly stick in my memory. I was spared the worst of it by the fact that, with a few exceptions, I really don't like romance plotlines

I found that out quickly and began reading more Sci-Fi and fantasy books that didn't advertise their romance elements

Eventually, I picked up Mistborn from my local bookstore when I was in early middle school, and the rest is history.

^^Provides context for the early thoughts on Gideon

[velvet umbra]

I just kinda spammed middle grade sci-fi fantasy stuff I didn't really get into much older

I was obsessed with Star Wars so I read a ton of the endless spinoff novels

[ivory cypress]

I read ahead of my age a little bit, but in terms of sexual content, I found the stuff I wasn't ready for was mostly in the fanfiction, but I just skimmed past it mostly

but I read wheel of time when I was fourteen and that was just fine

same with like, the dragon prince (Melanie Rawn, not the TV show) around that age

a little heat, it was an adult book, but it wasn't like erotica

I never did touch erotica until my twenties, haha

[velvet umbra]

my mom was pretty strict so anything requiring unmonitored internet access to read wasn't in the cards until I was like 13ish anways

[proven token]

Yeah I never read actual smut intentionally. I think once or twice a series I was reading went there, at which point I would take a while to realize what was going on and then stop reading because no plot was happening

[velvet umbra]

I think I pretty much exclusively read via the library

which like go libraries dont get me wrong

but it has lead to a weird situation where I have no copies of the like foundational series I started with

[proven token]

Something I tend to do a lot is get the first book in a series from a library and then buy the rest so I don't have to wait on holds

So I have a ton of second and third books in trilogies with no firsts

[velvet umbra]

I have the opposite now cause Im an adult who can just buy book 1s of a bunch of series I have yet to start lol

[cloud socket]

I'm gonna do Perdido Street Station this year. My husband is on book 3 (Iron Council) and lovingly calls it magical train communism. He's getting the Folio edition of PSS for his birthday this year

I did read Kraken but it was forever ago- I remember loving the build up but I do not remember specifics

[mild lance]

The recent MAD About DC issue did a whole sequel to this

||Batman train the kid to become swole as Absolute Robin, and in their first battle, he punts the kid into the villain’s head||

[snow vessel]

When does faith of beasts(?) release?

[somber timber]

In a couple of weeks give or take a few days

[snow vessel]

MoG 29 ||I'm so curious where this is going coz there's not tons of book left and I still feel like we're only maybe halfway through the story||

30 ||ahhh||

[junior smelt]

Hell yeah

[junior smelt]

Ohhh

[snow vessel]

Close to finishing the two books I'm reading right now

For the rest of April, I'm hoping to read/reread Dune Messiah, Gideon the Ninth, and Prince Lestat

[junior dew]

Nice!

[old bone]

Nice!!

That reminds me

[minor sleet]

Series of book about people who are mentally unstable havjn a bad time

Actually I don’t know the plot of the Prince Lestat. He could be having a great time

[snow vessel]

Maybe he'll finally catch a break

I say as if 90% of his problems since book 3 haven't been his own fault

[vagrant torrent]

Holy crap I need to read LOTR. I’m skimming through Tolkien’s legacy on wikipedia and it’s INSANE. This man truly is a mountain

[snow vessel]

I sort of got the hang of a proper personal rating system when I set up my letterboxd, but now I don't know if I should start using it for books as well or not

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/michaelmoonsbookshop/54505467793/19th-century-leather-bound-books-with-marbled

Old Books & Things..

19th century leather bound books with marbled pages edges

-# #19th Century #leatherbound #Leather bindings #leather bound #Antique #antiquarian book #old #books #bibliophile #michael moon's bookshop #bookshop

Tumblr · Jul 3, 2013, 11:20 AM

Ye olde sprayed edges

[low hill]

Delightful.

[long sorrel]

I think my pride & prejudice book has those edges

The 3rd ones

[uncut shoal]

I need this series set on a world where Jesus never existed to stop using "Jeez" as a swear word lol

[ripe tide]

I had never realized thats where it came from

[forest sierra]

My grandfather's old notebooks to record sales in his shop looked like these

[spiral jungle]

I know how marbling is done and how to paint or spray edges but I can't fathom how to marble edges. Looks great of course.

[alpine drum]

I would guess they bind the pages very tightly then dip them carefully

[spiral jungle]

Mm that does make sense

Good shout

[long sorrel]

this is definetely fake but it does look great

[cloud socket]

There's this guy who is a book binding hobbyist and he just finished his series on rebinding books for Andy Weir, and he watermarbled the edges (and then ||due to a sizing issue had to redo the long side a second time||). Very soothing to watch
https://youtube.com/@fourkeysbookarts?si=l6Btp8lLSpVdC1CP

[tight kindle]

Mortal Engines is interesting so far

[long sorrel]

I forgot to bring any book and I've some travel time today 😭

In fact I might have a lot of travel time later

[tight kindle]

Noooo 😭

[long sorrel]

I suppose I do have my phone but ugggh

I do have some books on my phone at worst

[tight kindle]

Phone reading isn't nearly as nice

But definitely works in a pinch

Tends to give me a headache on longer reading sessions

[long sorrel]

Oh hey,i got Children of Time here, we're good

[tight kindle]

That's how I did the first two books of both Adam Binder and DCC

[long sorrel]

Yeah, I don't usually read on my phone, I have a tablet for that

[tight kindle]

Tablets are better but I still struggle.
It's pretty rare I read on anything other than a physical book or my e-ink

[velvet umbra]

Im dying at the DnD players handbook on the TBR

[cloud socket]

lol a decade ago I said I'd read it cover to cover and I don't wanna say DNF so I am chomping at the elephant, bit by bit

[low hill]

I'd have to check, but I think most of my RPG books are technically on my To Read list.

-# Because I am bad at getting around to actually reading them...

[vagrant torrent]

Very late reply but thanks so much for the detailed answer!!!

[low hill]

Any time. :)

[wraith lynx]

PHM all ||omg. Omg. I am in tears. The ending where hes teaching a bunch of alien kids, because thats what he dedicated the whole mission to, was the children of the future???? Im actually sobbing omg 😭😭💕💖💕💖||

That was incredible omg

[cloud socket]

amaze amaze amaze

my DAD spoiled the ending for me lol because he saw my copy sitting on the table, PHM all ||flipped to the back and said, "see? look the chapter numbers change when you're on an alien planet"|| luckily I'm not too bothered but thx dad

[wraith lynx]

I would have been LIVID omg 🤣

My only complaint is (PHM all) is ||The human characters are just... not engaging to me. Thankfully the science was cool but the only person I came out liking was Hatch. And im lowkey mad the only black character showed up and died after barely any time with him 😭 DuBois was so cool and funny||

[long sorrel]

Apparently the og author of [ ] is going to Celsius

[ivory cypress]

of what?

also I'm finally almost done the Queen's Thief for the first time, starting The Return of the Thief, which is weird given how long ago and how many times I've read the earlier books

[drifting bridge]

I got like 6 hours hours of PHM(about 60% through) but I am going to see the movie tomorrow with my dad. Should I finish the book or should I watch the movie then finish it?

[lofty glen]

Not me forgetting that Daredevil #1 released yesterday

I usually go to the comic store on Wednesdays but I didn’t since I was busy

[long sorrel]

Callie Hart is also going to Celsius, lol. I don't think I'm wanting a signed book by her

[potent linden]

is the name untranslatable or something?

or literally just blank brackets?

[long sorrel]

No, I'm just making a very bad joke and hoping someone does get it

[drifting bridge]

PHM 18 ||I like the idea that the humans are more advanced but the aliens have better... Brains. They must have been alive for a shorter time.||

[drifting bridge]

PHM 20 ||🪨 😭 ||

[snow vessel]

Finished the mercy of gods 👀

[light drum]

Just in time for Faith if the beasts

[long sorrel]

Weeeell???? Thoughts?
Feed me

[snow vessel]

Sooooooo how soon can I get book 2?

XD

I thought it was really good

[long sorrel]

April 14th

Oh but end, there's Livesuit 😈

Which is a novella

[snow vessel]

Oh?

[long sorrel]

Worth the read

[snow vessel]

Same series?

[light drum]

YES!!!

[long sorrel]

Yep

[snow vessel]

Aaaah don't give me more to read in April 😭

[light drum]

Its very vet good

And adds a lot of context

[long sorrel]

Its planned to be a trilogy with 2 novellas in between I believe

[snow vessel]

Ok ideally where would I find this novella?

Is it sold individually or should I look for a collection or something

[long sorrel]

Probably in any digital store

Individual

Its like 70-80 pages

[snow vessel]

...oh the series title makes a lot of sense now

[long sorrel]

Yeaaaah

Also I'm in love with the last line of the book

Between that one and Bury Our Bones 😌

[snow vessel]

Somehow I remembered you mentioning that sometime ages ago and was looking forward to the last line all book

[long sorrel]

Lmao, oh no

[snow vessel]

It hit

[long sorrel]

Oh phew

Mercy of Gods all ||The Swarm is maybe my fave character, along with Dafyd and it's so so well written. And the Carryx voice is so well written and inhumane and alien||

I love this book so much

[reef pasture]

Same!

You can get the 5 first chapters of book 2 on Libby

[long sorrel]

Oh huh, at this point I'll just devour book 2 when it's out

We're just 2 weeks away

[snow vessel]

MoG all ||I think my favourite thing about the book is just all the complexities of the situation and characters I guess? Like you have Dafyd both fighting the carryx and also working with them over the humans to do so, you have the rebellion which we know will be pointless but is kind of justified in their action... and the swarm who's splitting between different purposes and all||

[long sorrel]

I've a concert on the 14th though
I told my friend about Faith of Beasts being released the same day and he was like "are you gonna bail the concert last minute?"

[snow vessel]

Oh I have no idea what to do with my reading now

[long sorrel]

Livesuit is just 70 pages~

[snow vessel]

😭

[long sorrel]

😈

[snow vessel]

I was going to start dune messiah again, but I also should probably start my gideon the ninth reread for a book club. Orrrrr livesuit

Tbh I can probably throw livesuit in as an audio read sometime

[long sorrel]

It is really so very short it won't derrail your reading

Idk how relevant it is to read before book 2 or not. In the Expanse a lot of the novellas were quite worth the context and/or worldbuilding. (I think this one does a bit of both)

[snow vessel]

I'll definitely fit it in before bk2

Omg I've read shockingly little fantasy this year

[royal carbon]

Finished White Night and put a hold in for the next one.

Decided to finally listen to Project Hail Mary. I read the book when it came out.

[little dock]

I’d say it’s important if you want to have a better understanding of the world than the characters do. Livesuit helps you understand some context when characters are baffled

Basically some reveals happen in both Faith of Beasts and Livesuit, so one of those times it’ll be your first time finding things out and then whichever you read second, you’ll have some context for. Kinda like a MB:Secret history/bands of mourning scenario

[long sorrel]

Hmmm, I see, didn't exactly feel that way with the expanse. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks

[little dock]

I think Strange Dogs is the closest parallel to how it relates to the next book

But I wouldn’t say most of the Expanse ones were like that, no

[long sorrel]

The best book in the expanse 😌 (along with a few others)

[uncut shoal]

Mmmmm why do the midlife type novels all involve the lady being divorced, with an asshole ex?

[cloud socket]

my husband was going to try to pitch Livesuit to book club even though it's a novella (though at 70 pages maybe that's more of a novelette? short story?) and he was saying it isn't as connected other than being in the same world- ymmv. to him, Mercy of the Gods was more science nerds and Livesuit is military? or some such (I have read neither but I will probably attempt this year)

[little dock]

It’s not as attached to MoG but it is more so to Faith of Beasts

[light drum]

Sussy puppies my belov'd. I was do happy they had it in the TV show along with adopting most of the novellas

[drifting bridge]

PHM 25 ||I am right. 😎 ||

[jovial tide]

I had the hardcover of The Return of the Thief sitting half read on a shelf beside my desk for over a year because my neck wasn't up to continuing and the e-book and audiobook release in Australia were absurdly delayed. 😩

Also, Queen's Thief general || This didn't stand out to me when I first read the earlier books, way back, but more recently I really appreciated the handling of disabled characters in the series. The way people treat Pheris in this book made me mad, but in a good way. And Eugenides is such a complex and interesting character, in a role that disabled characters very rarely get to occupy.||

[ivory cypress]

yeah I'm LOVING that aspect

zoomed through it, almost done

like twenty pages left

[jovial tide]

Oh really almost done, I'll stop interrupting 😅

[ivory cypress]

return of the thief ||I really am crushed at all the deaths. the three states need a break||

[ivory cypress]

;_;

done (and also the short story at the back of this edition)

return of the thief all ||Eugenides really is the character of all time. man........ man. I am relieved by that I was correct that there was going to be a last minute reveal that relius was alive. absolutely devastated by losing philologos. like that one HURT. and like all of gen and helen's family. christ. but what an ending. they're going to get their time of peace to rebuild and strengthen after all. but I guess eddis the country will be gone in a couple more generations. at least as it is. they'll be more a people group, almost like a diaspora||

[jovial tide]

The Return of the Thief ||Making me quite like Sejanus after all only to kill him was very rude.
The whole court dancing on the roof was a great way to end though.||

[ivory cypress]

yes to all.... ||so many conflicting emotions||

[jovial tide]

The Return of the Thief ||I loved the inside cover mini-blurb (or could have been back cover I don't remember) of the copy we had which said something like "The history of the Great King, penned by the Grandson of the Baron Erondites. Because history is written by the victors." Masterful trolling. 😂 ||

[ivory cypress]

oh I didn't even look at that. rott ||diabolical||

well I'll see if I can even sleep rn

[jovial tide]

The Return of the Thief ||I don't remember if this occurred to me at the time, but with Erondites getting struck down by lightning: after mostly 6 books of characters frequently reminding each other not to offend the gods, we really did need an example of what happened when someone actually did. 😅⚡ ||

[ivory cypress]

return of the thief ||I was so distracted at the appearance of like, an enemy god (although it may have just been Lader, thinking about it) that I forgot to be considering what the supernatural event here was going to be. crazy crazy stuff. like clearly they were never going to be doing stuff like, opening up the earth beneath the mede army's feet, but then that lightning bolt. it felt earned, damn it||

return of the thief ||relius and teleus becoming lovers at some point offscreen though ||

[drifting bridge]

PHM all ||Twelve kids raised their claws.||

https://tenor.com/view/absolute-cinema-raccoon-absolute-cinema-gif-17862327649353748812

[minor sleet]

Finished the rook & rose trilogy

Book 1 was the only good one

I can’t stand series that start with one premise then swap + everything worked out too perfectly and happily + all the books were too long

Also the constant fantasy tarot readings were tedious

[low hill]

Wow.

[ripe tide]

Hard disagree. I feel like the true premise of the series is there throughout the entire thing.

[minor sleet]

I picked it up as rec for a story with a con artist

That storyline does not carry through all the books

[ripe tide]

||Ren keeping up the con would have been tedious for an entire series. What I found fascinating, and why I'm rereading it so soon (I took the excuse of an essay) is the way you see those shifts between the personas as the character arc goes on. The diaspora problem is really evident here, and even by the end of it, where yes, things end happily, it took a lot of work to achieve, and just because the primordials are gone doesn't mean that the Rook isn't necessary. Humans are still humans and corruption will still exist even without the magical element.||

[minor sleet]

I still think everything was wrapped up too neatly in a little bow. For example ||Tanaquis living||

[ripe tide]

It absolutely does. I've been tracking the quotes of ||each persona and the bleed through|| and while the proportion shifts as the books go on, we get it in all 3 of them ||even after the unmasking, there's a ton of fallout of the con to deal with. These things don't just end.||

[minor sleet]

You’re not going to convince me. The book was recommended to me wrong

[ripe tide]

Yeah that's always a risk with recommending on one specific aspect of a premise.

Like for me its not a series || about a con artist, it just has that as an important part of it, but that's not the center on which it all turns||

[low hill]

Sorry you didn't enjoy it, because I really liked it and would like more people to.

[junior dew]

I’ve been meaning to read some Schwab and bought bury our bones a while back!

Worth getting to sooner rather than later?

[snow vessel]

Yess

[junior dew]

Oh? Hmm I was really kind of middling on Livesuit and worry I may have already kinda forgotten a bunch of it 🤔

[vital ibex]

The books of the south arrives in 2 weeks or so too

Need to reread Chronicles

[old bone]

lets gooo

enjoy

[little dock]

I think a quick search for a recap would be enough, but also, FoB will explain everything on its own, the novella isn’t required reading, just useful

[junior dew]

Gotcha, thanks. I read Livesuit beginning of last month I think so I imagine things should come back. Like I remember the gist more or less?

Livesuit all || People join the service and get Livesuits installed. They’re promised it’s temporary. It’s not. Zombify ||

[junior dew]

Dang, Farthest Shore is really not working for me so far.

[brazen pilot]

Yeah it didn't hit for me either

[junior dew]

The thing is I loved Tombs of Atuan and I thought book 1 was very good as well

But this one I’m just kinda like “okay I just have to get through another hour and a half or so”

[brazen pilot]

Yup, still exactly how I felt

[junior dew]

Glad it’s not just me lol

I’m going to finish it but yeah I’m ready to move on to something else

I may read Blood over Bright Haven next. Though my Remarkably Bright Creatures hold just came in

[long sorrel]

The Wildersongs book 2 draft is done, so we're a step closer 😌

[junior dew]

Oh that first book sounds cute

[cunning pivot]

This book worked for me because of when I read it in life. Farthest Shore all ||It had a major impression on me in middle school with it's themes around death, the afterlife, and humanity's fear of it. Particularly the fear of death that consumes greedy and powerful men.||

Le Guin's writing in these books evolves so much from a more standard boy's come of age myth in AWoE to Tehanu which is excellent and also purposefully so different from that original premise.

[spiral jungle]

Even the first book is quite different to standard tropes, I feel. She was definitely uninterested in simply churning out genre-convention adventures, which she certainly could plausibly have done with the world/character; each book is a significant step and deals with different themes and ideas.

[hidden jolt]

quick question: which will be easier to get into, wheel of time or malazan

the only major fantasy series I've read and enjoyed are cosmere and first law

and frith chronicles if anyone's heard of that

I need more

[marble sinew]

WoT would be easier to get into, a lot of people bounce off the start of Malazan

That being said, the people that stick with Malazan tend to speak very highly of it

[vital ibex]

Wheel of Time is easier to digest from the beginning

[marble sinew]

While Wheel of Time has a big reputation for https://youtu.be/xWNXqwMtPbk

[hidden jolt]

are malazan's first books just harder to get into?

why do people bounce off

[marble sinew]

The best way I can put it is they're weird

[old bone]

People say they are complex but I would just say if you just pay attention, it's simple enough

it's approach to story telling is very very very nice

[marble sinew]

(for me it was less bouncing off and more just not picking it up again)

[old bone]

I think the reason I bounced off was first book didn't have any emotional core for me

to latch onto

[hidden jolt]

I need multiple rereads and usually spoiling myself a little bit to fully understand a book usually

[long sorrel]

They're differently set up narratively than whatever you're used to

[old bone]

and I realized I needed that when I was reading gotm

[hidden jolt]

...elaborate

[long sorrel]

I dont think I can

You're led through a series of things happening that are more evocative of feelings than very clear plot points (there are very clear plot points they're just not very explicit at times)

[hidden jolt]

hm

[long sorrel]

Like in the cosmere you have things happening, they might be part of a mystery but it's very defined

In malazan you're sort of led around in a more vague way

[half raven]

When Le Guin writes “bisexual” (“bisexual societies”) in 1969, am I to understand it as “having a binary of the sexes” or as “tending towards displaying both homo- and hetero- sexual impulses”

[velvet umbra]

also speaking from personal experience as someone in this situation right now it is a little frustrating how there's a lot of (vaguest of general book structure spoilers) ||"alright, got it, I've finally figured out what the plot is and we're going" and then it switches to some new seemingly unrelated guy||

[hidden jolt]

wacky

[long sorrel]

I think malazan works as, "im here for the ride and at some point things will start to click"

[long sorrel]

I think it is people being bisexual

[velvet umbra]

yeah like knowing that I'm not supposed to get everything and the big picture going in it hasn't bothered me that much

though I am going very slowly just reading like a chapter or half a chapter every other day so I can actually pay attention and process it

[hidden jolt]

I'm the kind of person that can't stand cliffhangers or otherwise not understanding what's going on in a book so I'll intentionally seek out spoilers so I can understand what's going on

will this greatly impact my experience of malazan more than with other books

if a book has the gall to hide something from me that I know will be revealed later I will reveal it myself

[velvet umbra]

I think the confusion (so far) is less me not being able to like, understand the events happening as they occur

[hidden jolt]

even if the proper time for it's reveal has not come yet

[velvet umbra]

more that how it all fits together and what the big picture is is not immediately spelled out to you

[long sorrel]

I would not recommend malazan atm then. Maybe pocket it for the future? Idk

[hidden jolt]

I feel like having the inkling that something's going on behind the scenes but not knowing exactly what would bother me to no end

[long sorrel]

That feeling is stronger in malazan than cosmere

[hidden jolt]

unless I'm totally ignorant to it

[velvet umbra]

back to the original question I would say Wheel of Time is much more your speed then

[hidden jolt]

fair enough

[long sorrel]

No, it is very obvious you're missing a loy

I don't think seeking spoilers would mess your experience but you're gonna be doing it non-stop yknow

[hidden jolt]

mmm

[half raven]

the passage in question

[velvet umbra]

without getting too much into it I think WoT is a lot more "you get answers through the eyes of limited knowledge characters, and the reveals are what those characters missed or were misled about" as opposed to Malazan where both you and the characters know you are missing a ton

[half raven]

left hand of darkness ^

[long sorrel]

Oh huuuh, ok. I think that might be societies with 2 sexes, just by context

[hidden jolt]

I will keep malazan in my back pocket

wheel of time it is

[half raven]

||if it means the latter, i do not know why homosexuals and not heterosexuals are singled out. if it means the former, well, i’ve never encountered “bisexual” meaning that||

[hidden jolt]

I feel like first law's reveals worked for me because ||I had no idea at all what bayaz was doing behind the scenes, that bayaz is valint and balk, the whole proxy war thing||

[velvet umbra]

also I haven't gotten far enough in Malazan to say for sure but I think it's probably the case, and I know for WoT, it's fine to take your time and take breaks getting through early books

[hidden jolt]

the "answers" chapter of laok dropped all of it on me and it was great

then you go back and see everything in a new light

[long sorrel]

I looked up a bit around the language at the time and it does suggest it's about sexuality, but I think that doesn't make much sense in context, perhaps the "odd" thing is being attracted to only one sex?

[long sorrel]

Right, yeah, I get what you mean

[long sorrel]

I feel in this case it should be something more like bi and monosexual

Ig?

[velvet umbra]

this is more what WoT is like, though said questions and answers are more plot/lore/things about the world

as opposed to character stuff

[velvet umbra]

this is my read

the society being described sees bisexuality (or maybe pansexuality and she's just beholding to limited 1960's vocab) as normal and being "lopsidedly" attracted to one sex over the other as perverted

[long sorrel]

It does say homosexual specifically tho

[velvet umbra]

hold on

I cant keep reading this sideways my neck will be cooked

[long sorrel]

Lmao

I could ask my mom lol

When I'm home

[velvet umbra]

I think it just means monosexual instead of homosexual yeah

[long sorrel]

Maybe?

[half raven]

sorry phone camera moment

[cunning pivot]

Given the context of the book it's probably a bit of Left-hand of Darkness general ||Both since sex is fluid along with gender but she is conflating the two.||

[ivory cypress]

I am in just book hangover mode... maybe different flavour than usual. it's not even that I don't want to keep reading my other books but I'm honestly like, is anything going to be as good as the queen's thief series. probably not.

[junior dew]

So… A Saint of Bright Doors. Absolutely killer opening line.

5/5 opening chapter. I’ve read the first 3 chapters.

I am so intrigued. The book has me hooked. I need to find more time to sit down and read it

Like this is the opening of the first chapter

[ivory cypress]

the writing is so good sentence to sentence, throughout the whole book

[junior dew]

Yeah I’m so impressed so far

[ivory cypress]

it is relentlessly good

[junior dew]

Metal AF off the rip

I very much appreciate I think you mentioning this book at one point

[minor sleet]

You guys know about Chainsaw Man but what about this character?

[junior smelt]

Hell yeah

[junior smelt]

About damn time

[minor sleet]

She predates the manga

She’s an alter of the Doom Patrol supporting character/member Crazy Jane

[junior dew]

You really aren’t kidding. I’m finally continuing.

Saint of bright doors chapter 4 || Also this is so deeply fascinating. The vision. The fact that this is totally, completely normal.

The fact that this world has crowdfunding. I love the whiplash of “what technological level is this world at?” ||

I’m enthralled at every word. And it makes me want to really slowly take my time with this book. Which is at such odds with how go go go I’ve been recently with my reading

[long sorrel]

Is the prose 3rd person present across the book?

cause if so uh... it's getting bumped on my list 👀

like very high up

[minor sleet]

wait hold on you can’t say real bad words in comics

From “Green Lantern: Far Sector” by N K Jemison, edited by Gerard Way

She did it again! Jo! You can’t say the s-word, you have to say &@%! like all the comic book characters

[long sorrel]

oh my, how dare she

[snow vessel]

That is not a duo I expected

[junior dew]

I’m not far enough into it yet to say for sure. Only on page 24 currently since it has been a very busy day. But scrolling to a couple random points in the book it does appear so

But based on those 24 pages so far. Yesss, read it immediately

It has 5⭐️ potential for sure

[long sorrel]

I'm not going into it immediately but it's gone up into like, within the next 10

[minor sleet]

Also check out the art in this book

[lusty meteor]

I enjoyed far sector but i also have some quibbles that only manifest at the end

[minor sleet]

This is the second comic I’ve read that has had AO3

Maybe the third? The other was Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan canonically writes fanfiction) and the maybe was Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

I love when comics do a name drop with the brand stylization

[minor sleet]

She said another one. Jo!

[junior dew]

Very valid. I wasn’t sure if I’d get around to starting it when I saw the libby hold that came in was the ebook lol. But circumstances had me today without any internet so I popped the book open. And I was like oh welp this is going to be a good chunk of my free time over the next few days because I was just floored by that opening chapter

[long sorrel]

I've had it on my tablet for ages so it's just a matter of, y'know, going through my tbr

[mild lance]

I feel like “ass” is said pretty often in Marvel and DC

[junior dew]

Ahhh lmfao. Yeah I think when Grey mentioned it I checked the blurb and thought it sounded good and the level of praise that was being lauded for it had me like “sure, I’ll place a hold”

But it being an ebook had me like “oh whoops” maybe I’ll just buy the audiobook

I’m very glad I popped it open and checked it out though. I literally stopped after the first sentence to just appreciate how much of a banger it was as an opening line

[minor sleet]

She just said the f word!!!! Jo you especially cannot say that word in comics

being given a carnivorous plant would work on me

[minor sleet]

She cusses 11 times. Half of which are the f word

Also I finished the story and I liked it. It would make a good prestige tv show, even if it’s a little heavy handed in its themes

[proven token]

Well, I just finished Gideon the Ninth and I have opinions. Tags through Gideon, except when I reference other books, in which case that tag is through those.

But first, a angry blog post digression that should somewhat contextualize the rest of my thoughts:
I'm generally not into romance when I'm reading. I don't mind it, per se, but it does grate on me pretty heavily unless it feels like a natrual consequence of the characterization -- ||Holden and Naomi|| in the Expanse or ||Sancia and Bernice|| in Foundryside are two good examples. Even then, the best praise romance subplots usually get from me is that they don't actively make the book worse. Maybe they help advance the plot or characterization through other avenues. The only romantic subplot that I can recall genuinely enjoying (and I read fairly prolifically) is from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: ||Rosemary and Sissix|| are an amazing couple and I wish their relationship had more screentime. Furthermore, if an author writes a romance that isn't natrual -- tropey, forced, clearly there to provide fanservice, etc. -- I get inordinately pissed. This has actually driven me away from the fantasy genre, because every author and their significant other seems to need to squeeze in the most over-the-top, trope-filled, character-breaking, plot-torpedoing love triangle into an otherwise perfectly good novel. This will sometimes ruin books for me even if the worldbuilding, characters, and plot are otherwise great.

With that alienating pre-rant out of the way, time for my actual angry blog post, already in progress!

[alpine drum]

please just tag it entirely rather than trying to only tag what you consider a spoiler

[proven token]

The actual rant, which I am currently typing, is fully tagged.

Gideon all ||That was the least enjoyable fantasy book I have read in a very long while. Within the first two chapters, we see Gideon break character for no reason other than to ensure that ~plot~ can happen, and then we get to see that Harrow, the most transparent secondary romance lead ever, is actually, genuinely, evil (probably moreso than the actual villain), we get to see a Grimdark setting based on a bastardized Roman Empire so overdone that it makes Warhammer 40,000 look tastefully refined, and we get a quick lesson in why swords, which are for some unknowablereason the only weapon used by anyone are the least practical weapons available.||

||The book does not improve much from here.||

||From this point, the book has a chance to develop into either a) a space opera, full of political and social drama, or b) a slow-burn romance styled after the fairly nauseating deluge of YA fantasy novels that have filled bookstores ever since Twilight (I acknowledge that the latter I probably would have hated more, but at least then I would have seen the warning signs on the back cover and not have read the book. Other people enjoy romantasy very much, and I don't want to yuck their yum. I would not be ranting if I thought that a tropey romance was Gideon's only flaw). Instead, the book chooses option c) have the main character become a silent protagonist and spend around half of the book's length dropping exposition in the form of that one really lazy trick where the expositionee hides in the shadows as two other characters walk past and exposit heavily. This handily nips the first option in the bud, and since Harrow isn't around and the book keeps to Gideon's POV the entire time, we don't even get to see the plot from the eyes of someone who's actually contributing to it. Harrow's absence also stops the latter from happening with any real efficacy. One might think that the exposition would help develop a rich and detailed world, but haha no.|| cont.

[mild lance]

||"within the first wo chapters, we see Gideon break character" I genuinely have no idea what this is referring to, or how it's even possible to "break character" at the start of a book before a character is even fully established||

[proven token]

Lemme finish ranting first.

[cunning pivot]

I took me 5 tries to get into Gideon then I loved it. But it certainly is a thing that either clicks with you or absolutely won't.

[wet belfry]

Man I am not a Gideon Enjoyer but I didn't hate it like this

[ivory cypress]

this isn't romantasy

[cunning pivot]

I absolutely think that GtN general || expectations are falsely set because of all the "lesbian necromancers in space" descriptions you see. It's a locked tomb room murder mystery. And absolutely a product of a modern writer encapsulating a certain brand of online cultural awareness which does not work for all.||

[ivory cypress]

GtN general ||indeed, i can't imagine the typical romantasy reader going for this. definitely not its demographic, nor is it marketed as one||

[proven token]

||When Gideon and Harrow finally begin to solve the trials together, any sort of investment in the plot is broken by frequent social interactions with characters who spoke on a page one time and thus are fully fleshed out, at least according to the book. This also stops any semblance of emotional impact when people start dying. When the horrifying bone monster showed up for the first time (the one time the book managed to actually be creepy), I actually felt relief. Maybe things would actually start happening now! But no, apart from occasional snippits of trite, tropey romance that makes no sense given Harrow and Gideon's entire relationship, the book remained similarly stagnant.||

||The third-act brakeup cliche was a third-act breakup cliche, with everything that entails. At this point, I put the book down and started reading Peanuts for a little while until I felt that I had read enough good characterization to see me through. Honestly, that's more of a gripe about third-act breakup cliches than it is about Gideon specifically. The pool scene was kinda okay, I guess, but the revelations didn't fit within the framework of the already shoddy worldbuilding. The climactic buildup, with all of the various side characters making stupid decisions, absolutely failed at any reasonable metric of engagement. Ianthe's ascension, Cytherea's reveal, and the whole final fight didn't resonate in any meaningful way because there were no stakes. No matter who wins, everyone probably dies! Wahoo! Do the characters pull an underdog victory by using the skills and knowledge acquired from participating in this shining example of everything I don't like about YA fantasy? No they do not! Gideon's suicide does kinda check that box, I guess, but that is after multiple chapters of a singularly uninteresting fight. This isn't even the full list of everything I disliked, but a lot of the character dynamics and worldbuillding would just be the same complaint over and over.|| cont.

[proven token]

||Honestly, this should make the book more up my alley, but it does not, which is kinda telling about how I feel about the plot, characters, and setting.||

[brazen pilot]

gtn ||i like the book but i do not think it is a locked room mystery in any sense beyond the aesthetic.||

||at one point it sets up an explicit locked room murder where the answer is "oh it was done with magic"||

[proven token]

Still Gideon but a heck of a lot more vague ||I don't think the book is trash, contrary to what the last hour of ranting may imply. 'Trash' would imply that the book is meritless, which this clearly isn't. I can even see why people enjoy it! I just found that it utterly failed to check off any of the boxes I look for in a novel that I personally enjoy, while also managing to do everything that I dislike. For what it's worth, I did enjoy the prose quite a bit (imo the book's main redeeming quality), but it did fail quite a bit during fights, where cool scenery was often interrupted by leaden one-clause descriptions of random details. Also, getting out of every action scene with line break "[Character] fainted." line break felt a little cheap.||

Unpopular opinion espoused, I retire.

[proven token]

Too tired to coherently respond atp but I will eventually.

[ivory cypress]

this is a book (and series) that definitely rewards digging underneath the surface, and GtN ||gideon herself is a wonderful unreliable narrator, where it's worthwhile not to necessarily trust what she says about herself and what she's like and what's important to her||

[mild lance]

GTN all ||I also strongly disagree with the idea that Harrow is “evil”. Everything she does is a direct result of her horrific upbringing and blaming Gideon for her parents’ death. It’s a massive overstatement to say she’s more evil than Cytherea, a literal mass murderer||

[velvet umbra]

||yeah she's just kind of mean in a way that is fairly understandable for the environment in which she's grown up with||

[velvet umbra]

||I think a lot of these problems seem to be based around viewing the book as a romance which it really isn't? Certainly not a tropey one, it's very background and not the main plot of the book||

like is there a ||third act breakup? Don't characters have to be together for that to happen?||

[velvet umbra]

||I think it's more just a general mystery and the series title invites you to mislabel it as a locked room mystery lol||

[junior smelt]

It also has some of the most unique but also very abstract to imagine worldbuilding

And I have the buff of being asian too

[velvet umbra]

also not just harp on the classification thing but I would not call it YA either. Less of a misnomer than romantasy but not how it's shelved or marketed. YA is a wishy washy classification, you could argue the character ages make it such but I would default to the publisher/author and say no, especially given how grimdark the setting is

[junior smelt]

There isn't as much asian ness in the world building as I had first thought when I read the word Caste. It is used completely differently here

[light drum]

I disagree with almost every point but respect the rant as books that make you mad at them deserve to have vitriol filled rants

[sleek jungle]

ancillary justice 20, pronouns stuff ||I get that Radch language doesn't distinguish between genders, but the use of she instead of they as a default genderless pronoun for Radch breaks my brain a bit ||

[minor sleet]

Radchaai neopronoun user who goes by he/him

||she/her as the default/only pronoun was a deliberate choice by the author to produce that effect. Did you notice that Seivarden shaves her face? ||

[junior dew]

Yeah it definitely has a unique feel even very early on. I really really dig the vibe

[wraith lynx]

does a little dance I start Assassin's Aprentice today!! XD

[long sorrel]

Uh oh

[wraith lynx]

I will be very normal >:3

[low hill]

doubts

[wraith lynx]

Assassin's Apprentice 1 ||oh we arent even a paragraph in and hes already kinda moody broody 😂||

[brazen pilot]

👀

@lusty meteor @near lion

[alpine drum]

@alpine drum

I don't want to be left out of this

[long sorrel]

I'm trying to mentally map what the reactions are gonna be

I should really get to book 2

Agh, so many books

[sleek jungle]

And I'm done with Ancillary Justice. The book had a few cool ideas and interesting worldbuilding, but was kind of bland otherwise. While I won't be continuing with the series, I don't regret reading this this book.

[zinc flicker]

👀

[minor sleet]

You might like Translator State better

It’s the same setting but a very different set of characters and concept

[proven token]

Valid take. I read through the rest of the books, and while I enjoyed them, the first is definitely the best by far.

[junior smelt]

Let's goooo Assassin's Apprentice

[raw musk]

Can you bop around between RotE series, or do you have to go in chronological order?

[uncut shoal]

I kinda loved it haha

[brazen pilot]

Basically it's just chronological/release order

[junior smelt]

The most you can do is read Liveship Trader series seperately as that follows different set of characters while all the other books follow similar/connected cast.

Even there many people suggest reading them in publishing order as Liveship might talk about some knowledge that was a secret in Farseer.

[wraith lynx]

So wait... can I start Assassin's aprentice? Like like I know its a part of RoTE but I never knew where the start was 😅

[brazen pilot]

Yeah it's the first book

[alpine drum]

it's sort of like mistborn, the RotE series is made up of sub series

the first one is the Farseer Trilogy which is
Assassin's Apprentice
Royal Assasin
Assassin's Quest

[wraith lynx]

Ohhhh okay! Awesome! XD

[junior dew]

Oh hell yeah!

RoTE is so damn good

[junior dew]

So glad Farthest Shore is almost over… I think I’ve pinpointed that Farthest Shore through chapter 11 || Aaron is such a bland and entirely uninteresting character. Just zero personality. Zero depth. Just the most generic teenage boy ||

[junior dew]

I think this book is somehow worse than Licanius

[long sorrel]

Everytime you mention the book i gotta go lookup which it is, every time i go "ah"

[junior dew]

Lol. The thing is I loved Tombs of Atuan. But this? Nope. And it’s made so much worse by how incredible the start of Saint of Bright Doors is

Like how do you go from Tombs of Atuan to this?

Just have to get through another 23 minutes lol

[long sorrel]

I am considering Saint of Bright Doors for after Children of Time

Being a standalone is giving it a lot of points in the tbr

I should really lock in

[junior dew]

Yeah that was my thought too haha

You should!

I might end up binging a bunch of it tonight

[long sorrel]

I won't get to it till i finish CoT

Its so good my brain is all over the place

I'm sure I'll get hooked soon

But for that I need to continue reading

[junior dew]

I totally get that. My brain was like that a few months back. Like Earthsea 1 was clearly very good and I enjoyed it but my brain was just scattered. So it hit, but I think it could have hit more

I think Farthest Shore is going to have to get a sub-3 rating…

If it weren’t so short I very possibly would have DNF’d

[long sorrel]

I just can't focus on anything that requires more than half a brain cell

[junior dew]

Yeah that’s exactly what happened to me. Felt like I was doing a disservice to some of the books I was reading haha

[long sorrel]

I managed Fifth Season while on holidays, maybe my upcoming trip will let me use a whole 2 brain cells

[junior dew]

It’s so brutal when that happens

Hope things improve for you before Faith of Beasts drops too haha

[somber timber]

Oh yeah I was supposed to start mercy of the gods soon

[long sorrel]

Oh tbf, I'll likely be able tp lock in for that

My brain is good at making convenient exceptions

Like every Kingfisher book

[junior dew]

Definitely super fair lol

[long sorrel]

Yeeeeessss you were

I will say, I feel that Children of Time setup is taking forever

It isn't, it's just taking me forever

But it feels I've read 200p of set up

(Its 50)

I'm not 100% sure what the plot is yet, which is exciting, wish my brain was less stupid

[junior dew]

I’M FINALLY FREE OF THIS BOOK

[somber timber]

Agatha Christie got her hooks in me!

[minor sleet]

That’s also how I felt reading the Earthsea books

I’ve loved everything else by her but not those

[somber timber]

-# which is funny given she’d probably call me some sort of slur if I talked to her

[junior dew]

I liked the first two!

[minor sleet]

The first one gave me nightmares

The scene where Geb disobeys his teachers

[cunning pivot]

I wish the Earthsea adaptations had worked... SciFi just couldn't pull it together and, well,bno Ghibli movie is ever a faithful adaptation but then they gave it to the younger Miyazaki...

[spiral jungle]

Man I love all of Earthsea. So wild to see people really down on it.

[velvet umbra]

I thought it was just like, pretty good

didn't really have any problems with it, just didn't "click" for me

[long sorrel]

I read it so long that I only remember that I liked it a lot

and so my entire analyzing of it is "I liked that enough to remember I liked it 20 years later"

[junior dew]

Tombs of Atuan was 4.5⭐️ for me! I thought it was fantastic

[cunning pivot]

Yeah I read them in middle school so they were really formative but if I had read them later in life I would have liked them but the impact would not have been the same.

[velvet umbra]

yeah I think a lot of that formative classic genre fiction is SO formative that when someone like me who has read so much stuff that was inspired by it reads it, it just doesnt hit the same

[potent linden]

Yeah, I've bounced off of a few classics because I didn't read/watch them when I was young and it would've been new 😅