Books (General)

[long sorrel]

No i just haven't had the time

I read 3 chapters on Friday and that's about it

But I'm not sleepy today so i won't sleep off my entire flight I expect

So that's 2.5h of reading

I've read 6 books in half a month only

(I read 29 in March, for reference)

[junior dew]

29!?

[oblique zodiac]

I read no books since January

and my break ended last week

but exams are here, so maybe I'll continue after

I forgot the point of reading at this point. why does one read again?

[long sorrel]

Mhm, sometimes you gotta focus on other stuff or you just want to do other stuff

[long sorrel]

Because you want to is the most common point, learning things a second

[oblique zodiac]

yeah I had a discussion with myself on whether I should read during exam period or not

[oblique zodiac]

yes. I remember my reading list, and I really really do want to finish everything there

I remember being so excited

Hopefully I have the capability to read this time

Which I think I do now

🙂

[wraith lynx]

Assassin's Apprentice 5 ||Hes only like 10 and hes already aura farming, I love to see it 🔥🔥🔥||

[long sorrel]

This was a lie I guess, plane was too warm

[frozen glacier]

Guys I think they are buy 1 get 1 half off just a hunch

Seriously why do they need to put that there so many times

[ivory cypress]

okay, The Liar's Knot finished, extremely good, very excellent books so far. just gonna clear up a couple library reads I have in my queue and then get into the final book!

[wet belfry]

Corporate policy probably

Which is to say, they probably got shipped a batch of signs and were told they had to use them all but the batch was shipped without consideration of the specific size of this specific store

[ivory cypress]

oh yeah and Faith of Beasts is out tomorrow and i won't want to fall too far behind usha on that one

[forest sierra]

Tomorrow?

I saw it in our local Blackwell's last week

[ivory cypress]

not coming to my ebook reader until the real release tomorrow

[long sorrel]

hahaha, well I won't be doing much reading tomorrow! So you have like half a day of advantage, and then on wednesday I got a long dnd session so you get like 0.75days of a headstart

Have I preordered this book? I wonder

[ivory cypress]

i just did

sooooo it's just a matter of tiiiiime

[minor sleet]

I just wanna say congrats to Samuel R Delaney for writing a book in 1976 about a character who estrogen canonically did not fix

Few authors would be bold enough to do that today but the lead character’s instant scifi future sex change did not resolve her personal issues

The book also featured a character whose sex change (and race swap!) did resolve his personal issues and make him happier

Trouble on Triton is really something

[versed agate]

I got FoB from the store last saturday, but I've been trying (and failing) to finish CoT first

[reef pasture]

Ooh, speaking of I’m midway through livesuit…

[junior dew]

82% of the way through the Saint of Bright Doors. Should have it finished tonight in time for Faith of Beasts.

Won’t manage to finish Deadly Education before Faith of Beasts so I’ll finish that after

[minor sleet]

DC comic’s Ratatosk is much nicer than Marvel’s. That one is an enemy of the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, while this one is helping Wonder Woman with a quest!

Oh did she now

[minor sleet]

Wonder Woman: Afterworlds #6 || Bondage, an all woman order, a lecture about the pointlessness of violence in Man’s World? Classic Wonder Woman stuff. Now we just need to add the homoerotic subtext to get Marston’s full approval ||

[junior dew]

Saint of Bright Doors chapter 32 major spoilers || I’m sorry… WHAT!? I feel like I definitely remember seeing another mention of “me” vs “fetter” when dealing with the perfect and kind. But I didn’t fully clock it. Is this the shadow then?

Oh dang how much foreshadowing was staring me right in the face. Time to see what’s going on here 👀 ||

Speculation on Saint of Bright Doors prior to reading the rest of chapter 32|| Wait, was it all mother-of-glory training the shadow this whole time? 👀 Is it the shadow who is to kill the perfect and kind, rather than Fetter? Hmmmm ||

Saint of bright doors 32 || ||

[ivory cypress]

Saint of bright doors 32, for grim ||so like, when Usha asked if it was all in that tense and I was like... oh my god I guess I have to lie.... ||

[minor sleet]

Now, Diana, that can’t be true in any universe

[light drum]

Finally I can speak about!

(That being said i squandered most of my early release time and feel kinda silly I wont likely finish it till after realse lol)

[junior dew]

|| Lmfaoooooo ||

Finished!

Quite the read

Digestion time

Saint of bright doors all || Trying to decide how I feel about the turn to center around the shadow and the shadow killing the perfect and kind/the ending pulling away from “Fetter’s perspective”. Trying to decide if I find that somewhat unsatisfying a bit or not after spending the whole book focused on “Fetter’s perspective” ||

Saint of bright doors all || Unsure if it feels a bit anticlimactic somewhat. I’m a bit torn ||

[hushed kettle]

Anyone here read anything my Marie lu

[warm leaf]

https://x.com/i/status/2043853265821933850

IGN (@IGN)

George R.R. Martin is not releasing The Winds of Winter this fall, book publisher confirms. https://t.co/2jAKhxeDxR

X · Apr 14, 2026, 12:46 AM

They really wanted to deny it

[analog geode]

Theyre saving it for winter

[warm leaf]

They didn't want to leave even false hope😔

[junior dew]

Saint of Bright Doors All || So I feel like I’m a bit torn on some of the stuff here. Loved the set up and worldbuilding. There’s definitely some stuff that I wish it had done a bit more with. Like the bright doors themselves and these empty realms. The scene with his young mother was cool. Him taking out the Saint with the explosion was cool.

I think the book took some turns and went in some directions I didn’t quite expect. And I’m probably going to have to ponder on how I feel about the direction it was taken.

The whole man in the fire thing seemed also like it was going to be relevant and there was a scene that pointedly called attention to it but it ended up being just kinda dropped ultimately.

I think I’m a bit confused by the whole fetter being like “I am the world” at the end. ||

I feel like I really need to let this book stew a bit before I can decide where I’d rank it or how I ultimately feel about it

[warm leaf]

I've always wondered, how many sales records would Winds of Winter break?

[old bone]

They didn't deny the many rumors

But they did this one

https://tenor.com/view/coincidence-i-think-not-coincidence-i-think-not-the-incredibles-gif-5096707

[uncut shoal]

Ummmmmmmm other than maybe worldbuilding these are nothing like Brandon's work lol

[light drum]

Not the Lightbringer trilogy😭

Flowers for Algernon 6% || The Nurse's idea of telling him its wrong to want for more and to be otherwise than we were born really resonated with my experience being trans and knowing what I should be||

[hushed kettle]

was this really ever a question though

[mild lance]

I read this three times trying to figure out how knitting fit in lmao

[mild lance]

tbf I used to see Lightbringer recommended a lot to Sanderson fans, I imagine because of the magic system. But yeah, bad rec

[light drum]

Autocorrect strikes again

[uncut shoal]

The worst rec I saw was someone asking for books like Brandon's, clean and hopeful and not grimdark, and the second rec out of the gate was Warded Man

[ripe tide]

Nice nice. Theres so ma y moments in that book I love

[potent linden]

to be fair, it doesn't say there any particular way that those are like Brandon's work, it just says they think fans would also enjoy them. and I have heard a bunch of people who like Sanderson books also like those authors

[snow vessel]

I wonder, if you were able to total and examine the data of all the books sanderson fans had read, what the most common non-sanderson reads would be

[ivory cypress]

yeah i liked the first one and this easily tops it. mainly cause it's so built on the first, existing drama and mysteries. the books all feel so PLANNED

it's satisfying

[old bone]

Suneater and Stormlight both have broader worldbuilding, a lot of lore and major story point happens in the end?

Brent Weeks is recommended for the hard magic thingy. That way it works.

I haven't read dragonriders so idk

[uncut shoal]

There are slight similarities in certain ways but the resemblance is very low, and I would call all 3 bad recs

Anne McCaffrey was a good writer, but several times in a book, her continuity would go belly up, or she would have characters that lose track of their conversation a couple of paragraphs in

[old bone]

I mean what would you say is good rec then

Cuz Brent Weeks series are the easy first rec if you want hard magic series

and Brandon is famous for his magic systems for most

[uncut shoal]

Powder Mage and Licanius are very similar in tone and worldbuilding

[old bone]

I won't call Licanius same at all

[uncut shoal]

Lightbringer certainly has a hard magic system, but the characters, settings, plot, etc etc are so different than the way Brandon writes

[old bone]

And Powder Mage also not really?

Powder Mage is more millitary in nature

and more darker in tone than anything Brandon does

[frozen glacier]

I mean powder mage feels like it’s trying to be more military Mistborn right down to its structure

[old bone]

Even the magic system is much different from Brandon's

[uncut shoal]

Brent Weekes is way darker than either Powder Mage or Brandon

[old bone]

is it

Been a long while since I read so maybe confusing things

[uncut shoal]

Yes, especially Lightbringer

Olive Oil 🤢

[old bone]

Powder Mage i always pitched to people as Asoiaf but Brandon's magic system

which ig isn't proper

but it worked for people and their expectations so far

Okay wait Licanius is a good rec

sorry I read it as Hierarchy

😭

[uncut shoal]

...

lol

[old bone]

Yeah rather than read it as

I thought of Hierarchy

Instead of Licanius

Yeah Licanius would be the first closest rec. But don't really see Powder Mage

[snow vessel]

Didnt the powder mage author study with Brandon or something?

[old bone]

He was a student of Brandon yes

and also got a foreword from him I think?

[snow vessel]

The magic definitely feels purposefully evocative of Brandon's style to me, not sure about everything else though

[old bone]

Magic to me doesn't really. But I can at least see that case

[uncut shoal]

The magic, and the style of the writing

[old bone]

For the rest, I don't agree. But I also didn't complete the book. Was bored still to like 60% of it

[uncut shoal]

I've read both trilogies 😛 There are strong similarities

[old bone]

If there were, I would have enjoyed it enough to complete

[snow vessel]

I read all of trilogy 1 and 2 books of trilogy 2, I think

...But not super recently and I dont remember the details super well

[uncut shoal]

Hubby called it Mistborn with gun magic 😛

[snow vessel]

I see it

...I'm getting really tempted to reread the whole locked tomb series

[old bone]

I hadn't read Mistborn when I read Powder Mage. Maybe if I did I would have that perspective

But I don't like Mistborn much so might not like PM anyway

[snow vessel]

I remember feeling like both PM and the Glass Immortals book felt quite Sanderson-esque

Though a big part of that could be just the "ordinary concept-based hard magic" thing

[light drum]

Yes!!!!! Except we have the Alectopause

[snow vessel]

I'm rereading Gideon for a book club but I might just keep going onto the rest of them

I say knowing full well that I've also committed to reading two other series in the next month or two

[light drum]

https://tenor.com/view/doja-cat-star-wars-gif-25078126

[snow vessel]

Maybe I can just alternate series... (delusion) (copium)

[wise haven]

I'm about to commit to Realm of the Elderlings, Malazan, and Wheel of Time 😭

which one should I start with?

[mild lance]

Gonna say RotE for no reason other than I’ve started that one and will probably continue soon

[snow vessel]

I dont know what advice to give because I've started 2/3 and finished only one but liked both

[uncut shoal]

Of the three, the one I liked most was probably WoT, but I don't love any of the three

[light drum]

Well faith of the beast is about to relase

[snow vessel]

Do not give me more to fit in xD

[frozen glacier]

||The trio of magic systems intersect in similar ways is the most obvious one for me || powder mage+ Mistborn all

[sleek jungle]

THE TIME HAS COME
-# hehehe

[light drum]

Is it finally out?

Ooh it is

FoB 12 + Livesuits||Oooooh thats 100% a person with a livesuut, I wonder if Jeslynn is the person thr swarm used to get the information out with the livesuit as the intetmidary||

FoB up to 12 ||I do find the use of the myths and story's used ad epigraphs intresting cause it implies a significant period of time takes place before the freedom. I might be just misinterpreting things but it seems that this story likely will extend well pass the lifetime of our current cast

I do like just how distant they are making Dafyd from the rest power wise, especially with the brutal utility he does, with the intention at all cost to preserve and foster a human rebellion which currently no hope of rebellion
||

[junior dew]

Time to see how faithful these beasts could possibly be

Surprisingly short book

[snow vessel]

Prince lestat 37% ||so there's a Voice controlling vampires to make them kill vampires. Prior to this vampires couldn't make more vampires, perhaps because there were too many of them, spreading Amel's power too thin. Amel was/is a living thing, and once may have had a voice... I have a suspicion as to what's going on here||

[sleek jungle]

Faith of Beasts 1 ||"you are to breed locally for the empire's use" is a hell of a thing to hear ||

[forest sierra]

https://tenor.com/view/james-sunderland-silent-hill-2-video-tape-tired-gif-4957921194616308317

[long sorrel]

Oh god

I've so much to do today

Aaaaah

[reef pasture]

I will say, I saw an old video where he recommended/met with Brent Weeks to talk about lightbringer, and dragonflight was the book that got him into reading-so there’s some connection, but different than actual book content

[alpine drum]

Oh its today is it

[junior dew]

Faith of beasts 2 || “Today is not the day” ||

Faith of beasts up through end of chapter 3 || The Dafyd Swarm dynamic is going to be fun. Jessyn plot seems like it could be interesting ||

[sleek jungle]

FoB ch3 ||For a second, I feared that "World" was a bad translation of "Earth" but it would've been "Ground" or "Dirt" or smth then||

[lusty meteor]

I think licanius and LB are both pretty close stylistically

[junior dew]

I would just straight up never recommend Licanius

[junior dew]

FoB 5 || Well that’s certainly a turn ||

[junior dew]

FoB Part 1 finished || “Small moments, unnoticed at the time, change the fate of empires” 👀 ||

And with that, I must conclude for the time being

FoB part 1 all || The swarm did it. The dynamic with Dafyd is surely set to change. Juicy ||

More to come after work

[cunning pivot]

For those interested J. Zachary Pike just launched a Kickstarter for Crypt Currency the first of the sequels to the Dark Profit Saga (Orconomics). It will be the only way to get the ebook outside of Kindle Unlimited for the next year or so at least.

Ebooks will get sent out just after the campaign closes in May.

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

[sleek jungle]

FoB 12 + Livesuit ||Livesuits!||

[light drum]

||Yes I was so excited when we saw them, thats about where I stopped but based on that im assuming livesuits is mandatory reading||

[sleek jungle]

We'll have to see after finishing this book.

FoB 13 ||The sudden shift from a cockroach librarian to Canpar was abrupt||

||I assume the ship got ripped out or was attacked inside the asymmetric space? hmm||

huh

[sleek jungle]

FoB 14 ||Communications! Anticipation intensifies||

[sleek jungle]

FoB 17 ||So humans aren't the only species in their polity/organisation. Sort of inevitable, given the scale of things, but it's good to have a confirmation||

[proud stone]

to me this makes it more likely that its actually real because the publisher hasnt denied any other rumors in years

https://klipy.com/gifs/better-call-saul-chuck-mcgill

[royal carbon]

Ah, I missed the Powder Mage discussion

[hollow hedge]

I think it’s at least possible that George is at a point where he’s like ‘it’s as done as it’s ever gonna be’ and just wants to publish his last writings as he sees fit

I didn’t see whatever rumor they were debunking but I wouldn’t presume to put a date on it

I cold started Faith of Beasts, without any real recap or fanfare, and it’s gone okay but I’ve definitely forgotten some things

[velvet umbra]

I think the difference was this one included plot details and they want to nip them in the bud before they start circulating as fact

[warm leaf]

I just started Red Rising, And I just finished the first part of the book, to Chapter 8 ||Wow, since I read Mistborn I haven't seen a society that died and worked like animals, and worst, for a lie||

||And everything seems great to me except for that last "surprise" of Eo, who is obviously expecting a child in her womb, I bet whatever that is, but the rest of the book seems to me to be written very well, and with a very successful and adult prose despite seeming like a plot YA||

[junior dew]

FoB 12 || You couldn’t give a little more warning as to what he’s about to walk into in your note? ||

[sleek jungle]

FoB 20 ||Death by brilliance was one of the better ways Tonner could've gone, I think. Given the whole slavery to the cockroach kings situation, I mean. If his death brought a temporary maybe alliance to the table, maybe his death will end up being a greater contribution to the human moety in the end. It's still sad, even though he was an ass. ||

FoB 21 + Livesuit ||I'll start fantasizing about Livesuit Jellit killing Carryx now, thank you ||

[ivory cypress]

i was hoping to have more time to read today but things conspired - made it to the end of part 2 tho

which is the end of FoB 15

[craggy wadi]

Managed to get the last copy of faith of beasts at the bookstore

[long sorrel]

Nice

I still haven't started

Maybe tonight

I've got it on my pc ready to move to my tablet but didn't have the time to do so

[sleek jungle]

fob 28 ||Vaudai is my favorite character in the book so far. ||

[low hill]

twiddles thumbs in paperback reader
-# Not that's stopping me following the comments, of course.

[snow vessel]

I keep almost clicking them on instinct and then remembering I actually don't want spoilers for this book 😭

[old bone]

Is this a popular release

[snow vessel]

Decently? I think

[old bone]

Oh it’s that expanse person’s series’s second book

[long sorrel]

The series Captive's War

And it's 2 authors

[old bone]

Ah apologies

Noted

[sleek jungle]

FoB 28 ||I kind of hoped for Canpar or his friend to get "conscripted" by the Livesuit tbh||

[versed agate]

Easy mistake, they go by a single pen name

[junior dew]

FoB 14 || Archaeology/history nerd W ||

[viral fractal]

This is cope but I also believe it

Why try to deny a random 4chan rumor if there’s not some truth to it?

[junior dew]

FoB 15 || Dafyd being skeptical about the Carryx body language study stuff is kinda weird to me here. Literally he is in his position because of basically picking up on Carryx body language more or less and mimicking it in the last book ||

[old bone]

I don't think its really cope

[viral fractal]

Guys it’s soooo real

[old bone]

their rejection is more proof of smth is coming than the 4ch post ever was

[viral fractal]

We’re so back

[small bloom]

It’s not releasing this fall because it’s releasing this winter

[hollow hedge]

it's like I said yesterday, I think it's at least possible that George is getting ready to publish whatever it is he managed to write over the past 15 years

whether that means the book is finished to his honest satisfaction, I don't know, but I hope it is to at least some extent

[uncut shoal]

I just read a book called Overgrowth by Mira Grant and holy crap it was good

[light drum]

FoB 13 ||I really like just how alien fhe Carryx seem time and time again||

[minor sleet]

Seanan McGuire (via pen name) strikes again

[sleek jungle]

I have thoughts on this, but they're better expressed with the context of the whole book

[sleek jungle]

And I'm done with FoB! Good book

[hollow hedge]

I'm guessing I'll finish it by the weekend, maybe friday?

[sleek jungle]

FoB all thoughts ||As a book, I felt like Canpar and his crew were the weakest plotline, but it had Vaudai, who's the best. In two or three non-human pov's, I felt like the prose was a bit overwritten and just waited for the book to move on to stuff. Also, what TheGrimMareeper mentioned about Daffid felt extremely off to me. His super empathy and ability to view the world from the Carryx perspective felt diminished, compared to MoG. Otherwise, the book was great. ||

[light drum]

Not clicking that took all of my feeble strength

[sleek jungle]

FoB all ||The last chapter sort of recontextualized the Carryx for me. They are the authors' version of the ultimate organism. A kind of peak evolutionary combo of a tool-wielding sapient and a hive organism, a species where each individual is also a tool that can shift into other tools when needed. They're animal-sized stem cells. So while their specific way of thinking is alien to us, it's also a very natural and straightforward feeling to me when viewed from a distance, if that makes sense. In that way, the Carryx vs deathless war is somewhat analogous to humanity's struggle against disease and sickness and so on.||

FoB all ||It will be interesting to find out what the deatless enemy really is. If it's a technology or a tool, various species discover it on their own, or if it's an entity/being that propagates on its own. ||

[tight kindle]

I'll do it for you

[tight kindle]

(I've never read either book)

[light drum]

So how bad do we think books is going to be and is it going to get a contaminat thread when Red God comes out

[sleek jungle]

From what I've seen, the Captive's War generates less traffic here that WotM did, and that petered out quite hard after SotF's release

So the containment thread doesn't seem necessary

so far

-# idk im not a mod

[tight kindle]

I believe Banished is referring to the Red Rising book release :P

[low hill]

That is not obvious to anyone who doesn't know, given no one else even mentioned Red Rising...

[light drum]

Ya admittedly it was a bit of a non sequitur

[tight kindle]

I doubt it'll get a thread though
I know we have some people very vocally excited for it (yes Cosmic I'm talking about you ) but idk how many there are
We'll see

[junior dew]

I know I’ll be reading the whole series for the first time once Red God’s release date is nearing

[wraith lynx]

I have been yelling about it to all who will listen RED GOD WHERE ART THOU

Im pestering my bf to finish WaT faster so we can jump to red rising already because I KNOW he and our friends are gonna like it DX

[versed agate]

Finished Children Of Time
Book good
||It was sad to see that no one could escape the ghost of old earth. I would have liked to see an ending where the Tribe could coexist even if the old earthers couldn't||

[mild lance]

||coexist with who? Also no one is truly from “Old Earth” by the end anyway||

[iron pond]

this is on my TBR list :D

[versed agate]

||Tribe (Ship Born Engineers) coexisting with the Spiders, without needing the Virus to rewrite their sense of in/outgroup||

||And most of everyone in the cargo pods are from old earth||

[mild lance]

||ah okay, I forgot who Tribe referred to. Don’t really see what the point of not having Old Earth be part of it would be though.||

[versed agate]

||Because there was a huge throughline of them being unable to leave behind the tribalism and warring the killed the old empire?||

[mild lance]

||so what? They just all die?||

[versed agate]

CoT all ||in the big fight? Maybe??||

||I'm not saying I want them to die, I just think that was another ending that could have happened, based on some things that Alpash said||

[ivory cypress]

remember to tag what book you're talking about

[versed agate]

Just you typing was enough to remind me

[ivory cypress]

haha

[velvet umbra]

it's like alt + tabbing back to work when you hear your bosses door open lol

[reef pasture]

How are people finding faith of beasts?

[brazen pilot]

in a bookstore prolly, but maybe a library

[reef pasture]

I did just find one in a bookstore…

[ivory cypress]

i do have a FoB question that depends on some detail i don't remember from MoG, so spoiler question for all the mercy of gods ||do we know who the swarm injected with its exploding offshoot thing?||

[snow vessel]

I think there'll be a few people reacting a lot, but I'm not sure if RR is as widely popular with the active people in this channel. Though it's possible it'll get a bunch of less active fans to start reacting, because its such a big release

[long sorrel]

Children of Time 3.9 ||The ants are way more terrifying than I thought they'd be 😭 ||

[sleek jungle]

||I don't remember it mentioned in MoG||

[versed agate]

CoT All + FoB General ||It occurs to me that I've gone from the perspective of the Carryx (CoT Spiders) to the perspective of the Ants (FoB Humans) 🤔 ||

[iron pond]

See also: Animorphs #5

[uncut shoal]

I just noticed that hahhaa

[little dock]

No it’s just a FoB thing. Unless there was some real subtle foreshadowing that I missed.

[ivory cypress]

okay Faith of Beasts is a banger

FoB all/ending ||INCREDIBLE shot calling. I love this. I was also like, but... what are they are even going to do, and BAM. yes!!!!||

FoB all/ending ||also, fascinatingggg that the other humans also don't know how/who the swarm/spy is. or what it is. it's all so mysterious. yum yum||

i'm really like... MAN i gotta read the expanse

[little dock]

Oh you haven’t read it?? I assumed that’s how you got so into MoG

[ivory cypress]

i watched the show and loved it!

and i think it was just usha loved mercy of gods SO SO much and i was like. well okay! will do! kon was also there....

[wet belfry]

I know you have opinions on adaptations and I'll be fascinated to see how the Expanse plays into those opinions

[wide hearth]

I'd like to get back to the books, having also watched the show and loving it. I read the first and it was... Fine. A bit weird, didn't completely land for me. Expanse general ||I know the books and tv adaptation slice the story and scope up in different ways, and have different characters, so maybe revisiting the story in book form will feel new again? Especially as I think the body horror stuff at the start is the weakest bit.||

[uncut shoal]

Seanan McGuire keeps referring to books she's written herself under one of her other pen names and it's getting to Stephen King levels of silliness. I haven't decided yet whether it's charming or annoying lmao

[minor sleet]

Everyone who has seen the show only is shocked when I tell them Avasarela is more crude in the books

[minor sleet]

So I know this super cool author, her name is Mira Grant, and she writers amazing novels that can be purchased for real world money and Ive heard she really likes it when you do that

[uncut shoal]

Alternately, she's referring to her pen names as characters lol

Passages from the books she wrote as A. Deborah Baker are being used as epigraphs, and A. Deborah Baker herself is being treated as a sort of paragon or prophet lmao

[wind sinew]

Just finished Never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

And goddamn

[junior dew]

FoB 19 || The carryx are quite interesting. Neat scene with the sovereign there ||

[junior dew]

Oh then you definitely need to read the books! Those last 3

The stuff the show didn’t cover. I genuinely still hope they adapt those books one day because the show was one of the only good adaptations I’ve ever seen

[junior dew]

I definitely enjoyed my time with the books. The books and the show I think cover ground differently and I think both have things they do well.

And as I mentioned a message or two earlier, the stuff that the show doesn’t cover - those last 3 books, they’re quite fun

[forest sierra]

I sure hope so

Just wrapping up book 6 and the 5-6 arc really hasn't been anywhere near as good as the first 4 books

[junior dew]

5-6 were by far my least favorite books. Expanse books 5-6 || It felt like these books were a side plot to me. It felt like it was time away from what I saw as the main plot of the series ||

Make sure you’re reading the novellas. Read strange dogs in particular because it’s fantastic

[forest sierra]

I did enjoy book 6 a tad bit more than 5

[long sorrel]

5-6 were really weak to me as well, not bad but just... not doing much for me

7 however

7-9 really

If you've finished 6 I do hiiiighly recommend you don't stop there

[forest sierra]

Hated the part of 5 where ||literally the single worst thing in human history happens and the only POVs to it we have are the ones who are only worried about getting to each other lol||

So far I'd rank them like

2 > 4 > 1 > 3 > 6 > 5

[alpine drum]

Expanse 5 ||is this the one where they drop rocks on Earth? I really enjoyed that part of the book, the stradily growing dread as things got worse and worse was very up my alley. I did not enjoy any other part of the book though ||

[forest sierra]

Whatever we got to see of it was good but that's my issue: We really didn't get to see enough for an event this serious

[alpine drum]

Expanse 5 ||that was good for me, having to piece together information felt thematically appropriate and was fun||

[junior dew]

Yeah I didn’t think they were bad. Just… they weren’t what I was reading the expanse for. The book 5-6 stuff was my least favorite part of the show too.

Expanse show + books all || The final season having strange dogs though Best part of that final season by far. Was so bummed that the show ended with what felt like the main plot in my eyes unresolved and so many open questions remaining. Getting to the books eventually was great ||

[old bone]

Noice

You should read more of his books

[wind sinew]

I think I will, after how that made me feel

Not that it made me feel good, but maybe in a good way? 😭

That book was so good

[old bone]

You should read The Buried Giant next

continue more of that

[junior dew]

FoB 20 || Fun little exchange between Dafyd and propaganda woman. Her gloating and Dafyd being like if I have tonner make you wine will you be nicer to me. And she’s like “only when I’m drunk, so yes” ||

[wind sinew]

Will get that the next time I go to the candy store

[junior dew]

FoB 20 || I like when stories tell you what’s going to happen and then drop little bits like “oh hey yeah so this was happening. Maybe if they had noticed, things could have been avoided or would have turned out differently” when done well it’s very fun. How, oh how is Tonner going to die. ||

[old bone]

✍️

Don't think I have ever seen that done well so now I am interested

[junior dew]

FoB 20 || Jesus ||

You know something I don’t think I was able to appreciate when I read the expanse a few years ago but do now having read many more books is James S.A. Corey’s prose. These books (Captive’s War) are quite well written imo

[ivory cypress]

indeed!

[junior dew]

Reporting back on Saint of Bright Doors as I’ve still been waffling on where the book lands for me rating wise.

It’s kinda between a 4 and a 4.5. The writing and worldbuilding is great. The story is very good.

I think it lands at a 4 though? I think that the direction the book went was good, but also it wasn’t quite what I was expecting? And I don’t know that the ending was quite as satisfying as I was hoping it would be.

Still would absolutely recommend it though. Very well written. Very good story ultimately.

I still may bump it up to a 4.5 just on the writing and worldbuilding alone. On a re-read, I think that perhaps it would be bumped up a bit. Some of the minor gripes I have may fall away and even as I think about them I contemplate whether those gripes are valid given some other pieces of context of the story and what the story ultimately ends on

[long sorrel]

I think, I've not read FoB but I think all the way through the expanse and into MoG, that each book is better written than the last one (prose wise)

Which is expected of people improving but that also means that MoG has better prose than the Expanse imo

Specially compared to 1-3

[forest sierra]

I loved the first part of Mercy of Gods but it was an exponential fall from there

Ultimately it felt more like act 1 than book 1

[snow vessel]

Strong disagree lol

[snow vessel]

I do kinda agree on that though

[junior dew]

Saint of bright doors all || I still think the man in the fire thing feels like a dropped ball because of that one scene that specifically called direct attention to it towards the end of the book. And that one character just goes off to deal with it and it’s like “yeah don’t worry about that”.

And I still am iffy on the ending a bit? Like I think on a re-read it could be quite interesting with seeing more of the foreshadowing and signals of the shadow because the character telling the story basically.

And I think that all the worldbuilding was great, but the lost realm stuff could have been handled a bit better I think? Idk. It’s hard to explain. Just the way it all came together, it feels to me like it could have been done in a way that explored some of the concepts a bit more? Like it was all tied together and connected, but for some reason it feels to me like it could have been done a bit more coherently or with a bit of a heavier impact?

It’s really hard to pinpoint for me. Like it felt like it touched on a bunch of interesting stuff on a surface level but didn’t go that extra level deeper I would I have liked? And I think the time-warping stuff felt a bit… convenient? Specifically how it could be done on a whim to save the life of the Perfect and Kind, but then he was saying how difficult it is. And it didn’t really feel like there was much significant impact of that warping?

Like Fetter having to wrestle with so much being undone as he was worrying about and figuring out how to deal with it all would have been interesting. And it felt like things were going to go in that direction, but then it took a turn to be in the prisons and during that whole thing Fetter seemed to be a bit less… proactive?

Apologies, this is all over the place. Just trying to pinpoint it. I think the first half or so of the book was just so strong and the worldbuilding so good. And then the direction it went made sense but didn’t quite match the established expectations? ||

@ivory cypress @junior smelt Curious to get your thoughts (re: Saint of bright doors stuff above)

I feel like one of you may be able to refute some of this stuff or lay a different framing/offer perspective that may be helpful

[junior dew]

I think that’s definitely fair yeah. I think my gf may have had a similar feeling. That it felt like there should have been more book

[forest sierra]

Anyone who's read Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture: How Lovecraftian/wondrous does the story get?

Not just the setting itself in the background but the story itself

[ivory cypress]

ping me again tomorrow, I'm having a sick day 😭

[junior smelt]

Saint of Bright Doors all || I can't help you there much because I don't remember the exact events that closely in my memory. Especially the whole fire thing you are talking about with the "dealing with it"

The Shadow thing is perhaps my most favourite thing and I think it works with the reading that Unfettered was not actually given the mission of killing Perfect and Kind.

Because before, Better was seen as this hidden unknown of the world and in the end it turns out it is not him but the somebody out there even more unknown and disregarded who gets to kill but only of his own volition (at least that is what I feel would be the better narrative decision to take)

Regarding the time warping. Unlike the fire thing that I hadn't paid enough attention even while reading it. I think I have just forgotten enough details to really say anything meaningful. Besides I do think I found the Prison stuff nice but yes I do remember the point beforat when he was in hotel to not be so.

But I can't speak about the difficulty and validity of the mechanics itself

Also regarding the door stuff, I... Man I have to read the book again because I have forgotten stuff but I remember having opinions about it but I can't even remember now if I had positive or negative ones for it.||

[junior dew]

Hope you feel better soon!

[untold leaf]

Lost my hold on The Martian before I could finish it. 😭

And the wait to get it back is longer than I thought. 🙁

[long sorrel]

Aw

No other place to get it from or get it lent?

[untold leaf]

I thought it was gonna be, like, 3 weeks and instead it's gonna be about 12.

I could check my actual library for physical copies.

[long sorrel]

Yeah... if you're midway through...

[untold leaf]

Yeah, 70% 🤦‍♂️

Why didn't I read more when I was sick? I need to lower my reading goal at this point.

[long sorrel]

oh man, so much free time when you're sick but, idk for you but I have a very hard time processing words when I'm sick sometimes

[vital ibex]

The Devils ch8 ||Estella of Artois? ||

[untold leaf]

I was just a dum-dum for how I utilized my available time. I spent too much time gaming or watching TV when I could have been reading.

[long sorrel]

well, you did what you felt like while sick

that's good too

[wide hearth]

The fomo is too strong. I've restarted MoG so I can read FoB

[junior dew]

Saint of bright doors all || Lol that's all fair. I didn't dislike the prison stuff entirely. It had it's good moments.

I think it's just that I found the worldbuilding and the door stuff so intriguing and I think I just wanted a bit... more to ultimately come of that? Like I know we got the ties with the devils being people from lost realms coming into that world, and we had the scene where his mother came out of the door and killed the one guy. So like... things all connected together with the doors and the worldbuilding. But I think in a way that only felt partially satisfying for me.

Maybe I had expected more science-y investigation into the doors and diving deeper into the phenomena.

And I think I perhaps found the premise of him being raised for that singular purpose of basically killing his father and ending this religion, and then turning his back on that and healing to be an interesting premise, but then the story ended up reversing again on all that and having him eventually buying into the whole killing his father and trying to do what his mom raised him to do thing. Like the mother's backstory was cool and all, and it was a neat twist. And the story we got was good. The character actions did make sense. And I feel like I can see the themes that are being touched on there. But I think I had it in my head that I was going to be getting a different story ultimately? I think perhaps it's just that I could see so many fun things that the book could have done that it didn't really do? So many directions it could have gone that I think could have been more interesting and that would have felt more complex, nuanced, and satisfying. ||

[junior smelt]

|| true, I get why you say that. With some of the chapters during the Peroe days being about researching the doors in a systematic manner||

[junior smelt]

|| at the last you went into my exact point of why and what I want the Unfetter reveal to be. Mother raising Fetter to ultimately destroy Father and Fetter even walk down that path but then story takes a different turn and he is not the one to do it but someone that was not in Mother's plan. In a way they both broke from expectations. One broke it by not doing them, other by doing something that was not expected of them. ||

[junior dew]

|| Yeah, I think perhaps I just feel like it's not for lack of Fetter trying, which I think makes it less satisfying? Like he still wanted to do it, he just didn't succeed. So Fetter didn't really break from the expectations. He just got a deus ex machina to solve the problem for him. And yeah there's some foreshadowing. Probably more than it seems even that one would catch on a reread. But idk, I think it all could have been pulled off in a more satisfying way. The concept is cool, but the execution I think falls a tad flat for me there. ||

[junior smelt]

|| hmmm, I am having a hard time remembering but I thought there was some personal reason different from Mother of Glory's backstory that made him fully commit to it.

It is still a burden which he is just given because of others and those expectations. But when it comes to internal motivation I thought there was something more to it. Perhaps not. ||

[junior dew]

|| Hmm. I already don't quite fully recall. I mean when he tried with the tooth he afterwards reflecting on the fact that it was basically just on a whim without strong internal motivations.

I mean later on he did see what the city had turned into with the Perfect and Kind and his lackeys there. But idk that that was his motivation necessarily.

If it was there, that much wasn't super memorable I guess. It felt like he was just kinda going through the motions or that it was purely due to his mother. And the stuff with the friends and their uprising kinda felt like him somewhat just tagging along, and it just happened to align with things ||

[junior smelt]

Yeah I think I'll agree with you

I do have the problem of sometimes reading things at surface level

[junior dew]

Oh yeah so do I for sure haha

[junior smelt]

This is the problem I am seeing as how differently people are reacting in the Malazan Channel

They have some significantly different reaction/emotions to events than I had

[junior dew]

Lol, I'm curious to see where I'll fall in Malazan. Eventually

But I do wish Saint of Bright Doors delivered something a bit deeper in the end I think?

[junior smelt]

For sure

[junior dew]

Still fantastic writing and some very cool worldbuilding

But yeah

It is a shame when a book feels like it has 5 star potential and then it just... doesn't quite stick the landing entirely

[old bone]

Oh damn its by a Srilankan author

[junior dew]

I would say it's worth reading. I still definitely enjoyed it

[old bone]

Well its now in my ptr due to that reason

Haven't yet found good fantasy from South Asia

which is painful for me because of me being from that region

[junior dew]

That's definitely very fair! Hope you enjoy it!

Pretty sure it was a 5 star read for Grey?

[junior smelt]

Y'all already know that since I am only a beginner level in fantasy books reading.

I mostly read the most popular books that are already in the surface of zeitgeist.

So me having read Saint if Bright Doors in the early days just because I saw a news of that book winning some awards and then a few chapters saying that it definitely deserved it made me pick it up

Just on a whim

What a decision

[old bone]

Have you read any good Indian fantasy recently Farstrider

[junior smelt]

Nope. In fact I have not finished any fantasy book this year

I am still stuck at Howling Dark already

[old bone]

I had tried that Gourav smth's dark retelling of Mahabharatha and it was disappointing

[old bone]

I finished couple of short books but not any fantasy

dnf ed every one of those I tried

[junior smelt]

The only non western fantasy (middle East) I read was City of Brass and that was amazing but also not by someone from that region. Just someone who did some meticulous research due to studying that culture in college

[old bone]

Who is that by

Sounds familiar

[ivory cypress]

she married in :P

Shannon Chakraborty

[old bone]

Oh amina one

[ivory cypress]

yeah, that's the one

[old bone]

Amina alsirafi was p good. Not too satisfied but not disappointed either

[junior dew]

I need to get back to City of Brass eventually.

The audiobook narrator's voice for the MC in dialogue was just... too much of a dealbreaker so I dropped off after 3 or so chapters with the plan to read the physical copy instead

Just need to find the time to actually sit down and read it

Tomorrow could have been good for that maybe, but I think the book is at my gf's place

[junior smelt]

I think the direction for fantasy could be seen with stuff like Bahubali and Magadheera

Where they are fantasy but they do not have to get too bogged down in being tied to A) a religion of sorts
B) a specific historical empire

Of course, Bahubali and Magadheera still feature Hindu religion but they are not the central piece nor is the empire for which the story is situated trying to be too fixed on being accurate to any empire of sorts

It is literally just a fantasy story

[ivory cypress]

the burning kingdoms by tasha suri has been on my tbr forever, i hope i can get to that soon

first book is the jasmine throne

[long sorrel]

Oh that's on my tbr too

the eternal tbr

[junior smelt]

My problem with these Hindu Gods fantasy stories is that while our mythology is a rich ethos from which we could create stories about.

We don't really have to do the Mythological Retellings of sorts always

It just becomes a prison for the ecosystem of fantasy stories in India

[ivory cypress]

i've heard mixed things about keikeyi, but i did find it on very good sale so i just decided to pick it up anyway

[old bone]

Every Indian fantasy I have read (which have been mostly Hindu religion stuff) don't have that good understanding of the mythology or the ethos and pathos of the religion

[old bone]

Yeah

[old bone]

I doubt I would enjoy them if I try them now

watched them like 10 and 15 years ago respectively

and those were some great time

I liked like that Zamil Akhtar series

I want to see one such story using Indian myths

[junior smelt]

Like, make your own gods and mythology in your Fantasy. Your own empire.

This is one thing where they could look at what the fantasy authors are doing outside and learn something.

Many fantasy outside still uses settings where it still feels christian inspired or Greek/Norse/other pagan religion inspired but that is fine. Since changing the coating a bit here and there goes a long mile in making it feels fresh

Giving things a different name would automatically allow them to be more creative with them.

Like instead of Indra, the King of Gods is actually a pair.

Or something else.

[old bone]

I think that would still be surface level

a bit more deviation from the mythology but still feeling inspired by it would lead to smth newer

Like even not just mythology but regular culture stuff and etc

Like idk. A duel which is fought with Kabaddi instead of how duels are in western fantasy

Or combining it with that

[junior smelt]

Yeah there is a lot of potential but the one thing about these kinds of criticism is that we can only criticise the current creative climate but not any specific book because then we are the ones stifling the creativity and decisions of an author.

Now that I said all that, Saint of Bright Doors is something that leans in the "very unique world" category

You will see some South Asian influences here and there but it is definitely more than just that.

[old bone]

Noted

[junior smelt]

If you just read the first page alone. You'll already see just how different it js

[old bone]

I will be happy if I find a fantasy book I like from this region

[long sorrel]

I think most stories are based in some pre-existing mythology, religion or otherwise isn't it? (I'm not opinionated on south asian authors as I've no clue, just tbc)

[old bone]

South Asian fantasy, going from Indian and Nepali ones that I have read, are usually very crude or imaginative, but without proper understanding of the mythology, retelling of the mythological and/or historical events

So much so that reading the actual texts feel more imaginative and broader and etc

[long sorrel]

Hmm, I see, I think I understand what you mean

[junior smelt]

I am actually fine with that

[old bone]

I think that's very poor approach and kinda goes in unexpectedly-insulting to a mythology and religion that is very much active todsy

[junior smelt]

I think I see it the same way I see stuff like Lucifer, Supernatural mention angles. Jesus and Buddha living together in manga

Trying to be true to the thing... If it stifles creativity then I think it is fine.

[old bone]

I am not christian or well versed with their mythology to speak on that

[junior smelt]

The creator has the responsibility of showing that this is not indicative of the true ways that religion / mythology is

The rest is just enjoyment

[old bone]

I mean like I said I don't mind retelling

[junior smelt]

I am much more prudent of adaptations than Retellings

[junior smelt]

Yeah me neither

[old bone]

but it'd when its uninformed retelling

[junior smelt]

But overall my man take is that I am not against Mythological Retelling

I am against Retellings being the only things in the pool of Fantasy. The diversity pool feels too small.

[junior smelt]

But what does that mean?

[old bone]

When the retelling tries to change smth of an event but the implications that it has and the difference of it and the original event shows the author didn't have a proper understanding of the source

if that makes sense

Amish's stories had that issue a lot but its been ages since I read them to give specific example

[long sorrel]

This is sort of what I've meant, I think some people do it better or worse, but a LOT is based on someone's culture in some way

But also I've certainly seen authors go like "this is where my influence is coming from and I'm doing whatever I want" vs "I'm just flanderizing/mocking this thing because it's convenient and Idgaf"

[old bone]

I think for Farstrider he doesn't want the only pool of Indian Fantasy being retellings

[long sorrel]

I do get that yeah

[old bone]

Like take Mistborn or Stormlight
It easily had picked up from different sources and you can tell the inspirations

[long sorrel]

But it's not trying to be the thing it's taking influences from, yeah

Which makes it detached

[old bone]

Yes

I think just cultures in the books showing inspiration from Indian cultures and combining them with other elements would add to a different experience

Like say a political fantasy like GoT. If it was set in Indian inspired setting,
There would be vibrant and colorful festivals almost every now and then which would in turn have for different types of plotting and politicking

[alpine drum]

Mercy of the Gods All (rereading) ||I'm on chapter 6 and it's funny how quickly the swarm almost outs itself as Else. They say "we should go to me room now" and makes up an excuse about having a telescope to watch ships with overnight||

||also chapter 1 is full of pretty blatant foreshadowing about stuff Dafyd will do later in the book||

[alpine drum]

||and when they get to the apartment you can sort of see the swarm sifting through her personality||

[long sorrel]

Yeees

[alpine drum]

MoG all ||Usha can you tell me why you think the swarm kissed Dafyd in the apartment||

[long sorrel]

MoG ALL ||The swarm is trying to learn how humans work is my best guess there, Else wanted to kiss Dafyd in some subconscious level, which doesn't mean she would have, although I think she would have. And the swarm was interpreting whatever output from Else, either as a disguise or just simply for knowledge. I don't think there's anything deeper going on there as there is by the end of the book||

but REALLY, MOG END ||Is so they can burn this world together || 😌

[alpine drum]

||that makes sense, I think it also knew what Dafyd was feeling (it demonstrates the ability to sense emotions via hormones earlier) ||

[long sorrel]

||Oh yes, I think that is the disguise part of the action||

[ancient bay]

For you DCC fans, how are you feeling about that BackerKit?

[hollow hedge]

About the same as I feel about Brandon’s, wish them well, I don’t need it

[alpine drum]

MoG All ||also thought I'd share this fan art of the aliens https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCaptivesWar/comments/1f0jc2c/a_few_more_species_sketches_and_a_fixed_carryx/||

[cloud socket]

yeah, it's reminding me of the Cosmere RPG in that while I do think a lot of things look neat, I don't need more dice, and given my gaming group hasn't met in a long time is it really worth it to get the whole set. Cosmere RPG was a yes for me because I have a lot more known cosmere readers who also roll math rocks, but I'm less certain about DCC overlap. The prepainted minis are cool though so I might pick one of those sets up

[proper silo]

Was this supposed to be in this channel? 🤔

[vagrant torrent]

I’m at a barnes and noble that’s closing down. No idea what to buy from the fantasy and sci-fi sections. Anyone got suggestions?

I think the only one that’s on my TBR is Forge of the High Mage. But I haven’t even started the main Malazan series 🤣

Oh and those Cradle books

[cloud socket]

I was replying (without @ing) to Neon's question about the Dungeon Crawler Carl backerkit that's ongoing
*fixed my parentheses

[proper silo]

oooh, i see i see

[cloud socket]

it's definitely interesting watching one happen after the other, though I feel like DCC's had a LOT of crowdfunding ventures in a short span of time (this, the graphic novel side story, the fancy hardcovers on kickstarter)

and arguably brandon's stuff has had several decades to accumulate multiple series before going into crowdfunding (even if he uses it more like a preorder), whereas DCC is one series with 7 books so far

[vagrant torrent]

Heh

[cloud socket]

ooh I do see some of Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut books in the first pic! I haven't read that series but I did like her Glamourist Histories

[velvet umbra]

Cosmere just on the basic concept is way more appealing to me to buy and RPG of than DCC

[ancient bay]

I didn't see a DCC thread

So I figured this was the best place

[velvet umbra]

like the basic premise of DCC makes me feel like I could get a very similar experience from just playing any general RPG

[proper silo]

oh, there is none, i just thought this was something meant for #1404997600687689799

[ancient bay]

Ahhh

I see

[vagrant torrent]

Thanks!

[cloud socket]

let's see... cosmere RPG ended with $15 mil and 55,106 backers, DCC RPG + card deckbuilder (because there's actually two different games on that campaign) is currently at $5 mil and 23,738 backers with a month left to go. I actually haven't pledged yet because I'm not sure if I'd actually play either, though I will probably end up with something

[low hill]

I see Revenant Gun, but that's the third in the trilogy... If they've got the first one (Ninefox Gambit), I'd recommend that.

[cloud socket]

which reminds me, to get a lil more on topic I'm finally trying to catch up on the DCC 8 chapters released via patreon and it's fun to come across lines that feel intended for Jeff Hays to go wild with voicing

[vagrant torrent]

Thanks buddy!

[hollow hedge]

I’m just waiting for audio with DCC8

Also I’m not really happy with Patreon as a platform so I haven’t been using it at all lately

[vagrant torrent]

Fantasy on left, romance (or is it fantasy?) on the right

[cloud socket]

over on the soundbooth theatre youtube, Jeff's been doing livestream cold reads of him recording! fascinating to watch in person when he does multiple takes, or listens to previous clips of a character before voicing them again if it's been a while

or just like, trying to keep a straight face with what's written sometimes https://www.youtube.com/@SoundboothTheaterLive/streams

totally fair to wait for the finished product though, esp since live reads don't have the filtering for the AI voice etc. that the final version will likely have

[forest sierra]

Finished Strange Dogs

[alpine drum]

Just to confirm, Livesuit is read before FoB?
I could easily Google this but am afraid of spoilers

[ivory cypress]

yes, do

i mean, like, i guess you could leave it for after

but publication order is fine

[vagrant torrent]

I bought these books. They seemed the most interesting out of the standalones

[unique turret]

Can’t remember if I’ve read The Algebraist, but Banks writes good stuff

[ivory cypress]

so i was going to be good and finish my library non-fiction before moving on with my tbr but i was really not well today and just wanted to read something i was excited for, and so i started Luck in the Shadows by lynn flewelling, the beginning of a whole series

a guy named alec gets picked up by a bard!spy, serengil, and becomes his apprenctice and something something there's a war and i'm trying to figure out what serengil's angle is, it's still not clear. also i hear the series is gay

[buoyant sedge]

Is this Culture?

[unique turret]

No

[vagrant torrent]

Good to know

[light drum]

Its always fun to recognize words or phases authors like to use again and again

[iron pond]

ooh, my hold on The Kaiju Preservation Society came in! :D

[light drum]

FoB 18 ||Oooh I wonder if they will see that they have humans in tbe other ship||

[junior dew]

Oh yeah!

FoB 21 || Shooting yourself in the chest to sell the story is WILD.

The whole “Yeah I’ve felt pain before, it’ll be fine” thing was hilarious. The absolutely unhinged confidence.

Though when things turned bad I was worried she might also die. But I thought surely not ||

[warm leaf]

Red rising until Chapter 13 and mistborn ||Every time I believe that this society suffers a lot, much more than the skaa, although maybe it's because if someone prefers to live a lie or not. Darrow is like a combination of Vin and Elend, he will get into politics and will also have powers or better bodies in this case||

[wide hearth]

||You mean you don't keep your telescopes underground?||

[snow vessel]

Locked tomb all/gtn ||omg I keep catching little bits of foreshadowing||

[light drum]

Flowers for Algernon all ||Stars this book made me cry several times. The bitter melancholy of being able to find meaning and understanding just to know you wont be able to keep it. Loosing everything and seeing it be taken from you helplessly. The bitter irony of the pinicle of dreams beyond what even your dream could be being the inadvertent folly.

Him progressing in his capabilities as he goes bsck and confronts the trauma just to start getting mistakes in the reportd again.

This book hurt and devastate me in a way few others have. Highly recommend ||⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

[forest sierra]

Can anyone give me a rundown on what happened to ||Duarte and Laconia|| pre Babylon's Ashes?

[hollow hedge]

BA ||I don't think we saw that much of them, all we really know is that Duarte took a significant chunk of the Martian military to Laconia and settled there during the chaos on Earth||

[forest sierra]

Was this Nemesis Games material?

[hollow hedge]

I'm pretty sure? It's been a hot minute since I read them but I was pretty sure

Wikipedia indicates that much is told to us at the very end of NG

[long sorrel]

Yep

That is what I recall as well

[light drum]

I think one if the novellas gives some context for it as well iirc

[viral fractal]

@junior dew rain wilds is mid but fatf made me want to die

[junior dew]

Could you expound?

Also the fact that 4 of 16 books could be mid and the series is still a top 5 easily

[wraith lynx]

AA 13 ||Patience is. Weird. Like I think she's funny and janky and erratic but Fitz not liking her makes me feel less happy about her, especially now that she just randomly named him like a pet 😭||

[junior dew]

Oh huh wait maybe WoT won’t be so bad after all

Yesss more RoTE reactions

Good

[viral fractal]

Fatf ||I hated the way the fool acted, the decisions in the final showdown with the tower, and also felt the Liveships characters were really shoehorned in||

[brazen pilot]

||Consider something here: How much name does Fitz even have, prior to Patience giving her one?||

||Like Fitz reads as a name to us in modern times but it literally means "son of"||

[zinc flicker]

|| Yeah isn’t Fitz basically just calling him “Bastard”||

[wraith lynx]

||Yeah i looked up what it meant the other day, which is killing me 😭 burrich deadass named him "son" 💀||

[brazen pilot]

||i don't think burrich even explicitly named him that so much as everyone around him settled into using it||

[junior dew]

RoTE all || I think that’s all very fair. I don’t know if anyone like the way the fool acted. My gf was PISSED. That said I still loved my time with all the characters and getting to see their stories all play out even when I disagreed with their actions or decisions. Tbh I forgot the liveship characters were tossed in there.

I still loved FaTF though myself and didn’t bat an eye at the liveship inclusions when I read it. Book 1 of FaTF is hands down my favorite of the whole RoTE series because of how deeply it broke me at the start with the “I think my wife has Alzheimer’s” thing. ||

[junior dew]

|| Yeahhhhh Fitz didn’t get the best start on life ||

Y’all need to stop making me want to reread books

[long sorrel]

I have acquired second hand shelves for 15 bucks

they're not pretty

but, but after some washing it'll let me migrate all the extra books in my room

[hollow hedge]

finished FOB

[versed agate]

RIP Book Pile

[long sorrel]

book pile is currently 2 rows and 2 deep, not good

[versed agate]

https://tenor.com/view/wolf-of-wall-street-rookie-numbers-gif-20904132

[minor sleet]

The book pile will return

It never fully goes away

[wind sinew]

Abbadon's gate annoys me. WHY'S THE TEXT FACING THE OTHER WAY?

[abstract elm]

English Vs Spanish books.

[forest sierra]

Faithful and the Fallen?

[long sorrel]

It'll be fine once I slap it on the shelf with the other books on the series (though it's only 3 atm)

[viral fractal]

fitz and the fool

[wraith lynx]

AA 14 ||So. Remember how I said not a few hours ago that there wasnt anyone I hated outside of Regal. I lied. I hope Galen gets his teeth kicked out of his mouth. 😒||

[junior smelt]

Man entered late in race but he was on a sprint

[long sorrel]

this is true

[brazen pilot]

||Robin Hobb is the most visceral, realistic character writer I've ever read. She uses this power for evil, as she writes the most despicable people I've ever imagined.||

[junior dew]

Hobb || She is a sadist ||

[mild lance]

Avengers Academy is so freakin peak

[minor sleet]

🎃 👍

[tight kindle]

Mortal Engines 18 ||Me when class consciousness||

[leaden coral]

AA 6 ||“Molly Nosegay” 🥺||

AA 6 ||Fitz finding out Chivalry is dead actually made me legitimately sad. Regal is such a little prick. ||

[leaden coral]

AA 6 ||if fitz and molly dont marry im gonna be sad enough to fuel a sad boi train||

[long sorrel]

I didn't want to start FoB till finishing Children of Time... howeveeeeer, it seems my mom's kobo is just skipping half the words while my copyv is completely fine... and now it's open... right in front of me (so we could compare)

I feel like I'm having the angel and devil on each shoulder situation here... except it's the 2 books...

[junior dew]

Usha don’t do it

[long sorrel]

Children of Time won

Idk why my brain is fighting so much against this book, I'm enjoying it a lot 😩

I shall finish, yes

[junior dew]

I’m glad you’re enjoying it at least!

[long sorrel]

Yeah, it's really good

I'm halfway through part 4 atm

[sleek jungle]

-# mmmm book of spooders

[long sorrel]

Children of Time 4.5 ||there's a plague down with the spiders, and the humans have found a planet that's basically one giant grey fungus (yum!)||

Also ||This one Bianca seems to have understood electricity? ||

We'll see

[junior dew]

That it is. And I suspect you may like book 2 even more

[long sorrel]

Idk how long it'll take me to get there tbh

For now my goal is to finish this book only

[junior dew]

Yeah I don’t expect it to be any time within the next year

[long sorrel]

Well that might be so

The current trilogy I do want to finish once I'm done with all these books is Broken Earth

But after that it might be Children of Time

[junior dew]

Very valid to want to do those imo haha. I want to continue my broken earth reread too. I might next month

[long sorrel]

Children of Time 4.5 ||I really like Lain||

I think part of the reason I'm not getting hooked is that everything feels very disconnected narratively

I logically can tell it is not, and I can follow the plot threads just fine

But at the moment I'm initially processing each chapter it isn't hooking directly

[sleek jungle]

book 2 is a bit more straightforward in that regard
-# though I enjoyed it less, personally

[long sorrel]

Well. I dont really want to know, I'll find out when I get there lol

[junior dew]

Totally valid! I love both books. Book 2 just happened to have the (children of ruin all) || These of we stuff, which I really loved. The body horror and all that was peak. And I like octopi too. Though the spider uplifting stuff is also peak.

The these of we stuff was just too good and made that book extra stellar for me ||

[long sorrel]

Children of Time 4.5 ||Viola has discovered the language of Understandings... so DNA? This sounds a lot like DNA, though in some previous chapters it did imply that their tech wouldn't be up to that||

Ah ||The virus||

I got that confirmed 1 paragraph later, I'm a genius

Also ||Getting old all on your own while everyone remains young is pure nightmare fuel ||

[junior dew]

That is often how it goes lol. I have done the same on multiple occasions

[minor sleet]

Reading a lesbian vampire/vampire hunter novel and the vampire is from Lesvos

[forest sierra]

The first quarter of Persepolis Rising outmogs the previous two so hard it's not even funny

[tight kindle]

Book club was discussing summer books and I put forth both The Starless Sea and The Will of the Many for consideration

It had to be books that were >500 pages

TSS is 498 so we decided to include it

There's this one girl that REALLY wants the Count of Monte Cristo

But I doubt it'll win personally

[junior dew]

Exactly

[ivory cypress]

... okay I don't want to wait until I'm done my non fiction

labyrinth's heart, I'm starting!

[vagrant torrent]

Is it a local book club? I’m always looking out for book clubs I can join lol

[low hill]

-# Semiregular muttering that page count is a terrible metric because it's going to vary by edition...

[long sorrel]

tbh Strange Dogs on its own already does

And yes any part of books 7 through 9 also does

It's like they pooled down all they had learnt and went now we are going to write

and they did

I think books 5 and 6 would be better if the previous books had had other things done differently

And despite that I do quite like books 1, 2 and 4, some of the information and subplots revealed in book 5 could have been done before that so that the character arcs were a bit less jank, and that would have eased books 5 and 6 into more interesting plots, I feel

So I don't think 1 through 4 are bad at all but 5 and 6 suffer a bit from trying to do things that would have usually be done already

[wet belfry]

I've always really liked Nemesis Games

Babylon's Ashes is I think among the weakest of the Expanse entries, but Nemesis Games I like a lot

[long sorrel]

I like some sections of it

but the books as a whole

Just don't do it

[wet belfry]

Nemesis Games was the first Expanse book to be written with the acting choices made by the show as an available tool for Dan and Ty and I don't think it is an accident that the Roci crew are for the first time the POVs of that book

With perhaps the exception of Avasarala (a character Dan had already written before, ever so slightly altered), the character work in the Expanse is mostly just functional, and in NG I feel you really get to see some layers getting pulled back for the first time

[long sorrel]

Yeah, I think a lot of it made me feel like it wasn't the right time for all that character work

despite liking most of the subplots individually

It made me kinda sour, NG all ||Why am I getting to know the characters after 5 books...||

||some of the secrets made sense that they'd be secrets and all but some of it was like just basic fleshing out of regular character traits||

[wet belfry]

I didn't mind it, but I also read it on release and so the pacing may have felt different

[long sorrel]

Maybe? I guess we won't know haha

[wet belfry]

I could see swapping it in order with Cibola Burn

[long sorrel]

for some stuff, maybe

[wet belfry]

But certainly the first three books felt like taking the time to breathe that NG takes just wasn't plausible anyway

[long sorrel]

So-so

[wet belfry]

Yeah Nemesis Games and Babylon's Ashes are kind of a one-two punch and you need to find a way to justify the Roci just dipping for like what a three year round trip (accounting only for travel) to have a space cowboy adventure

[long sorrel]

Putting the backstory where it does is fine, but the character writing could certainly have been better prior, that's mostly my takeaway

I didn't dislike the books

they're just much lower than everything else in my enjoyment

Now, when are we getting the next special editions 😭

[wet belfry]

I like the books a lot just for very different reasons than I like the show

The character work is weak in the first half but I actually think s1 of the show overcompensated with the intra-crew strife they added

I like Abbadon's Gate a lot but also appreciate that they cut it in half for the show because it would have been miserable TV

[long sorrel]

I mean "the books" as in, book 5 and 6

I do love all the other books except 3

the main reason being Abaddon's Gate all ||that I think the book is great but I can't stand Anna, which I've said many times||

But I've no "objective" criticism of the book

[wet belfry]

I do like seeing authors grow, and I think Dan in particular has a habit of either writing characters who seem like people he must know IRL (Avasarala) or who are sort of an idea as much as a character (Holden), you can see this in some of his other books. And I think seeing an actor come along and kind of specialize in a specific character he'd created, looking less for ideas and more for humanity, has been good for him in the long run, you can see it in Captive's War and in Kithamar

[lusty meteor]

I think the first two books are also largely bereft of in depth characterization which made it possible to refine later

[wet belfry]

I know you didn't like the books but I definitely think "bereft" is a strong overstatement

Of the core cast Amos emerges functionally fully realized and I think they had strong if, as you say, unrefined ideas about who Holden and Naomi were that are present in the first couple of books

In Holden's case in particular, I think they do a good job of disguising their own refinement of their understanding of Holden as character growth and Holden himself becoming more refined

[lusty meteor]

Expanse book 3 ||i dont think alex or naomi have any compelling characteziation. Amos is fine as a character but is hurt by the rest of cast. Holden’s issue isnt lack of character per say, but just that that character didnt land for me. I do think his relationship with naomi is just a writing flop. I have issues with avasarala and bobby, but those i think are more execution for concept. Even the crew dynamics are more assumed than actually developed||

||miller being well developed really carries book 1 on that front imo||

[hollow hedge]

I might be itching enough for DCC to just Patreon it

[wet belfry]

Expanse general ||I'll agree with you about Alex, I think he was the hardest for them to discover. For Naomi I think she's characterized by a sort of elephant in the room in terms of having fairly obvious OPA connections and/or sympathies that she literally never mentions and how she chooses to navigate around that elephant. I don't think Holden/Naomi is one of the spicy romance subplots of all time but I don't think it was a flop either. I'm happy to skip most of the will they won't they oh the culture differences oh the tragically hidden backstory look at the relationship drama of it all. Couldn't disagree more about Avasarala or Bobbie, both work for me very well. The crew family dynamic was always one I saw as being set with deliberation by Holden. Of course it wasn't an organic sort of found family scenario, Holden went out of his way to treat the crew as a group as a family, which in its way squares with how he was raised||

[tight kindle]

I fully agree with you
It's an easier metric to find though

[tight kindle]

It is indeed local :P

[minor sleet]

From “Winter’s King”, a short story by Le Guin

[buoyant sedge]

Very Iriali

[long sorrel]

cat likes the new piece of furniture

[minor sleet]

Another surface for her to sit on

[long sorrel]

The light was off and I didn't see her so it was more like another surface for her to hunt me from

[minor sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/elmer-fudd-elmer-bugs-bunny-movie-bugs-bunny-movies-the-bugs-bunny-and-roadrunner-movie-gif-10082276702093848665

Bella ^

[long sorrel]

She was just swyping from there

[wet belfry]

https://klipy.com/gifs/pounce-the-chance-to-strike

[light drum]

||Anna is tge worst part of the show and books||

[mild lance]

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an opinion on The Expanse I’ve disagreed with more

[wet belfry]

It is a character I have almost no opinion on at all tbh

[ivory cypress]

expanse ||i think i was fine with anna in the show, but i expect i won't like her as much in the book||

[light drum]

Expance General ||I mean its hard fir me to out of the blue come up with thjngd I dislike about the expance, Anna isnt horrendous but certainly comes to mind in terms of what I do dislike||

[wind sinew]

Back to the mud again

[tight kindle]

New books :D

[tight kindle]

@long sorrel One of the MCs of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards feels maybe like someone you'd like
I'm not very far in yet though

[celest cloud]

Nice

[proven token]

Dangit I missed the AG discussion
[Abbadon's Gate all] ||Anna was fine imo. As someone with clegy in my immediate family, she felt pretty much right.

I still really disliked the book, but that's because of Clarissa Mao.||

[forest sierra]

I disliked both to some degree but I loved the first half way too much to say I dislike the whole book

||Clarissa's switch up at the halfway point felt far too drastic and I pretty much never like strict no kill rule characters especially if they preach that to others||

Caliban's War still remains my fav of the series by far but Persepolis is coming in at a decent second place

[alpine drum]

AG ||I liked Anna and the book in general. I don't agree with her character about a few things but i enjoy reading the perspective of well written characters who earnestly feel or believe things i do not. Imo she was well written so that fits the bill for me||

[forest sierra]

I'm a plot over character guy so if a character begins to impede the plot in a way that feels annoying unintendedly or on a meta level then that's a strike against the book for me

[alpine drum]

Isnt a character impeding the plot just "conflict"?

[old bone]

I think amir differentiates between conflict caused cuz of plot element and conflict caused by character's beliefs and doesn't enjoy the latter

which makes sense with what he generally talks about but TWOK being his fav book of all time is contradictory with that statement

[wraith lynx]

me, eyeing that fine ass brown man on the cover of the wizard book 👀🫣

[forest sierra]

Emphasis on "feels annoying unintendedly or on a meta level"

[forest sierra]

Eh it's not quite that simple

[forest sierra]

Once again

[long sorrel]

😩 it is terrible that at this point I know you know me well enough about this so you're probably right, let me know when you've read more

[forest sierra]

Expanse ranking at where I am

2>7>4>1>3>6>5

[long sorrel]

I actually am completely fine with both characters plot wise, I think they're written well enough and work with the plot really well, my issue is that I find one of them completely insuferable and I simply don't want to read this character if it's more than a one note thing.

Which is why I don't think there's anything wrong per se with the book, and it's just my own preference

[brazen pilot]

i still don't really know what there even is there that provokes that strong of a reaction

[long sorrel]

Compared with books 5 or 6 which I think has some issues

It is harder to articulate now that I'm further away but I found, Abbadon's Gate all ||Anna's way of relating to her faith and then relating through it with others extremely patronising, selfish and self serving. And I have met a few people like this irl that and it just triggers me pretty badly into getting instantly annoyed||

[forest sierra]

I'm finally beginning to get the "Expanse 5 and 6 were just a side plot" angle

The last arc feels like a much better fitting continuation of the first trilogy

Ig Cibola Burn can stay

[long sorrel]

Hmmm

[forest sierra]

I like that one

[long sorrel]

I think books 5 and 6 are plotwise just as necessary for the crew to grow and be as they are on books 7-9

Cibola Burn is one of my faves, along with Persepolis Rising and Tiamat's Wrath

[junior dew]

FoB 29 || We’re only going to have one character left by the end of this series ||

[long sorrel]

Those are my top, with Strange Dogs hovering around

[long sorrel]

I almost clicked

[junior dew]

Luckily that wouldn’t have really spoiled anything as you lack context. But yeah still don’t click it haha

[forest sierra]

Tiamat's Wrath prologue

peter_griffin_quagmire_i_just_sat_down.gif

[junior dew]

Oh wow that was fast through book 7

[junior dew]

FoB 34 || So I feel like this book works when it’s at the more human level and it loses me a bit when it’s at more of the space opera level. The human captivity stuff and Dafyd’s POV I think is definitely more interesting than the “being in space with the alien slug” bit.

I find Dafyd’s POV quite fun. He’s here trying to keep them all alive and mount a super slow revolution and he’s exhausted and you have these people out here who can’t fathom anything that falls outside of their own human experience and so they think Dafyd is a monster.

And you can easily see why people would think that about Dafyd as well, looking at him from the outside ||

[sleek jungle]

fob 34 ||To me, the spaceship plotline felt weakest because, despite the large-scale near-magic space warfare, a lot of it is just humans trapped in a space can-shaped zoo + Vaudai. ||

[iron pond]

Plowed through the entirety of Scalzi's Kaiju Preservation Society this afternoon. Very entertaining, definitely recommend 👍

[junior dew]

FoB 34 || Yeah also I think there the whole humans + a bunch of aliens stuff just felt a bit… ridiculous? I don’t quite know how to put it. It just didn’t work for some reason. But I didn’t feel that in book 1 or the world pillar segments of book 2 so far. And I didn’t feel that with other books in the genre. So idk what it quite is.

This has been a bit of a weird read in some ways. There’s some stuff it does really well and some stuff that hasn’t quite landed as much for me.

I was for a moment wondering if this one dips into 3.5 territory for me. I think it may still get a 4 but I’ll know in about 40 minutes to an hour ||

[low hill]

@long sorrel The Black Coast continued to be good all the way through. Just finished it.

[long sorrel]

Oh, adding that to tbr.

I had intended to do that already but I'd forgotten

[low hill]

You're welcome. :⁠-⁠P

Now I just need to remember to book the event the author is at that I was reading this to decide if I liked his work...

A tomorrow problem.

[long sorrel]

Yep, sounds fun, always interesting to meet authors that write outside of the norm

The upcoming book sounds like it could be quite fun too

[low hill]

I've met him briefly in the bar at a con last year, but I hadn't read any of his books by that point. :⁠-⁠P

[long sorrel]

Mhm

[junior dew]

FoB complete

FoB all || What if there were 2.

Ngl, banger way to end the book and make book 3 more exciting.

Will share more thoughts in a bit but I will say this doesn’t feel like a series that will be complete with only one more book. ||

[ivory cypress]

fob all ||this really feels like it could be an expanse length saga||

[long sorrel]

You know Grey, in the end I've not even started yet 😭

[junior dew]

FoB all || Yeah part of me feels like the story isn’t quite getting the room it needs to breathe entirely? ||

[junior dew]

Honestly surprised by this

[long sorrel]

I've 90p left on Children of Time

I'm getting this done!

[ivory cypress]

[alpine drum]

I read livesuits friday night so we are neck and neck

[junior dew]

Nice!

Back to Deadly Education for me

[ivory cypress]

can't waaaaait

[long sorrel]

I should be able to start tomorrow

[alpine drum]

What a coincidence

[long sorrel]

I've like 40 pages left now

[alpine drum]

Oh

[long sorrel]

Of Children of Time

[alpine drum]

Oh

[long sorrel]

Now I'm starting The Faith of Beasts

[light drum]

FoB 34 ||I find it Interesting Dayfd is translating the human actions into the carax equivalent now instead of the otherway around||

[junior dew]

Deadly education is really working for me so far. About halfway through

[ivory cypress]

hell yeah

[north scaffold]

Just finished The Faith of Beasts.

James S.A. Corey is still James S.A. Corey.

TFoB all ||I can't help but thinking that the Carryx vs the Deathless (being the million year old nanites, not the humans who are just their current host) is like, Dan's ultimate organism vs Ty's ultimate organism and they had a lil worldbuild-off. They definitely strike me as the sort of writing duo who would do that.||

[north scaffold]

||I love the space opera stuff. All the details and the creatures and setpieces and tech and everything. As with The Expanse the human story is the heart of the narrative, sure, but I am but a basic fool who adores spectacle. I had some really intense theater-of-mind visualization going for like. everything.||

Ending ||The ending definitely launches the idea that the destruction of the Carryx comes from a schism among the Carryx, and not the Deathless and the humans who are clearly losing.||

||How the hell there can be a second Sovran inserted into the system they've got going so well tho remains very much to be seen.||

[ivory cypress]

FoB all ||i didn't really feel uninterested in certain parts of this book, it was all great to me. and i really LIKE that campar and that group didn't get to see all the space battles and so on, that really suits the place that they exist in this society. and i remember the way my brain broke open a bit when i realized as the characters did that there is no "revelation" of "the enemy are humans" to the carryx - they simply are incapable of seeing them as people.||

fob all ||and i don't think the story doesn't have room to breathe, i think this book was paced just fine - but i have a difficultttt time seeing how book 3 isn't going to feel rushed if there really is only one book left. this book feels well paced if there are a few more to go||

[north scaffold]

TFoB all ||Yeah, considering the first book obviously was setup, and this book was also... setup, trying to resolve everything in a third book of the same length would be incredibly rushed.||

[ivory cypress]

fob all ||the trick IS going to be seeing how they get a second sovran into the mix but that's the fun part||

[light drum]

An hour till I can click those spoilers

[ivory cypress]

fob all ||i guess i'll judge how the series is paced once we get the final book but yeah, like... hope they land it??||

[light drum]

FoB all ||So the ending is just kinda eh it felt like unsubstantiated. Honestly it took down my entire impression of the book. Ill have to see if the 3rd changes this, either way its a weaker book than the first ||

[cloud socket]

Second Sunday in a row I have accidentally read a couple hundred pages of Tawny Man; might stay up and finish Fool's Fate tonight because dannnnnng it has me in a chokehold

Up through FF 27 ||Farseer Trilogy was good but rough in parts for me because I couldn't help but cringe at teenage Fitz and being in his head. What I REALLY love about Tawny Man is all of those decisions coming back to reverberate and Fitz facing them head on instead of hiding away from the world. And of course, the dragons! The Wit and Skill coteries! People becoming aware that Fitz isn't dead, despite him pretending they didn't know! Aaaaah||

I assume with another trilogy named ||Fitz and the Fool that the Fool isn't as dead as everyone thinks||

[junior dew]

It’s so good! Can’t wait to finish it tomorrow. Deadly education up through chapter 7 || The character voice and the narrator’s delivery in the audiobook are both fantastic ||

[ivory cypress]

yessssss!! 👀

[uncut shoal]

I'm liking Indexing by Seanan McGuire so far. Reminds me of the 500 Kingdoms stories by Mercedes Lackey

Only sort of worse, but that's modern life right?

[royal carbon]

Hmm, I don't remember that one well

[uncut shoal]

It's about fairy tales wanting to happen

In the 500 Kingdoms series, it's called The Tradition, and they have Fairy Godmothers (and various other genders) that fight/guide it. In Indexing, they hhave the ATI I guess

[mild lance]

So I read Livesuit

Livesuit ||that was a terrifying freaking ending||

[ivory cypress]

[mild lance]

||so I guess humans eventually just get replaced with their livesuits. A lot easier to see why an anti-war movement would exist if they’re doing stuff like that||

Livesuit + MoG ||assuming the humans are the mysterious enemy of the bug creatures, I wonder if we’ll see any humans and/or sentient livesuits show up in the main series||

[rugged tartan]

Oh, I wonder if my local used bookstore has any copies of Faith of Beasts...

[mild lance]

Livesuit ||the fact that Kirin just lies about how the old joke between him and Piotr used to go and Piotr doesn’t call him on it was a nice touch||

[uncut shoal]

Darn it, half the time that I see "Agent" in this book, I read it as "Argent"

[wide hearth]

Is it necessary to read Livesuit before FoB?

Or, shall we say, highly recommended?

[uncut shoal]

Lol she has a Harald March in one book and a Gerald March in another?

[light drum]

Let's say highly highly recommended

[light drum]

Huh I found out the Joel Martinsen translation of The Dark Forest has major changes in plot from the Chinese version which is really frustrating. I feel like translated books shoukd try to be as true to the original and changing the plot goes way too far

[old bone]

On this topic

https://www.reddit.com/r/threebodyproblem/s/pHrayZCeg5

[ripe tide]

I was wondering who'd translated it because I'd heard Ken Liu did a good job with the first one. But looks like it was someone different

[minor sleet]

Ok so book 2’s misogyny is after someone tried to remove it???

[minor sleet]

They had Ken Liu back for book 3

[light drum]

Three Body Problem All ||Do they mention ball lightning in the 3rd book cause I swear ive heard the term quantum ghosts in it||

[junior dew]

What’s funny is that I thought “okay maybe I’ve just completely grown past magic school as a setting” after reading Will of the Many. Turns out it was perhaps just that book

Deadly education through chapter 8 || The amount of sass and snark and Britishness of the MC is just so fun. And the concept that Novik is working with is just such a fun spin on it all. Just this nice likeable guy being nice and likeable and this girl is like “this guy is my mortal enemy”. And “I am truly destined to be an evil all-powerful god of destruction and I’m genuinely so annoyed by it. Like what does a girl have to do to get a simple cleaning spell” is just so fun to me. ||

[spring turtle]

Finished Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos. as a non-MtG fan it was alright. ending was really rushed though

(Omens of Chaos) ||there was something a little icky about the group all being women...except for the trans guy||

[cloud socket]

well, I stayed up entirely too late reading Fool's Fate and made myself stop when I got to ch 34, because despite having ~100 pages left it'd be irresponsible to not sleep (and I'm sure my mind would've been buzzing even though it already was with ||Fitz's Buckkeep homecoming||)

[brazen pilot]

how many emotions are hitting you

[minor sleet]

Finally getting around to reading He Who Drowned the World & it’s so good

I hope Parker-Chan keeps writing

[jovial tide]

Deadly education general || It is such a fun voice. It would have been a significant influence on The Vigil if I hadn't just finished writing it before reading A Deadly Education. 😅 The setting is very different and the PoV character is too, but the voice was surprisingly similar to what I'd been aiming for. ||

[junior dew]

Same tags || Very fair! 😂 ||

Deadly education 10 || I keep dreading the moment the shoe drops. Who ends up being evil and plotting against our MC ||

Deadly Education 10 || I keep worrying there will be a big twist with Orion ||

[wraith lynx]

I might finish AA today or tommrow, I got 30% left!

[cloud socket]

So manyyyy (last quarter of Fool's Fate) ||like Lacey and Patience crying and also getting mad at him for playing dead for 16 years, King Fitz in telling Chade no re: Dutiful spending a couple more months with Narwhal Clan, the whole Fool revival thing ||

[forest sierra]

Thought I'd resume Expanse once I was done with my exams by June

I now doubt my ability to physically accomplish that

[alpine drum]

FoB Ch 4 ||Jellit would have said something if the swarm infected his sister. Rickars stomach pains seem to be foreshadowing hes the one infected. I feel like thats a misdirection though and its Campar.||

FoB Ch 7: ||swarm is just like me fr fr||

Had these saved in my notes app from reading at the airport

Didnt take any notes on the plane but i am on chapter 17 now I think

Enjoying it so far

[alpine drum]

FoB 17 (this happened in a previous chapter but I didnt write down when) ||the swarm telling dafyd he was its first kiss after describing the first kisses of the people it had killed was wild||

[long sorrel]

I've only read 2 pages so far!

Tonight more

[alpine drum]

I have mentally been noting lines that I expect you to quote here

Quite a few so far...

[long sorrel]

I didn't have much intention to live react tbh

We'll see

So far my only reaction has been, FoB 1 ||Ah, I missed Dafyd||

[wind sinew]

Gonna be my next 5 reads (After I finish Red Country)

[alpine drum]

I have mentally been noting lines that I expect you to mentally note

[long sorrel]

You're baiting me to be the utmost random from here on out just to prove you wrong

just so you know

(you're succesfully baiting me*)

[low hill]

Hmm, doesn't look like Livesuit is obviously obtainable in my usual places.

[long sorrel]

I suspect it's not that available in print?

[low hill]

That had been my conclusion, and therefore the likelihood I will read it has dropped to near zero.

[long sorrel]

Maybe they'll do a little collection when they finish the series

[versed agate]

They did a collection for the expanse, I don't see why they wouldn't for this

[long sorrel]

mhm, it'd be like 2... 3 at most? novellas vs... the 9 that The Sins of Our Fathers contains

But Livesuit is 90 pages so 2 of those is enough I guess

Memory's Legion rather

[junior dew]

https://tenor.com/view/let-me-in-eric-andre-wanna-come-in-gif-13730108

Omg

My gf just told me she may have previously gotten it on Audible

We’re so back

Deadly education all|| Stay away from Orion Lake. Everyone knows who her mother is. She has FRIENDS 🥰 She’s got a little mouse now Orion is such an awkward child lmfao

My curiosity is so piqued ||

One of my favorite reads of the year so far

I super didn’t expect to love it this much

[ivory cypress]

same reaction

unexpectedly adored it

[craggy wadi]

The Faith of beasts All ||Really great follow up to book 1. My favourite chapters were the Carryx chapters, the writing is done really well to show just how alien they are and showing the deeper workings of their society. Aside from that one little thing I thought was a really cool decision was that we don't get to see any of the grand space battles, it fits the story so well||

the faith of beasts ||One worry I have is that I'm struggling to see how the third book is going to wrap everything up without rushing certain aspects.||

[junior dew]

Yeah I am so excited to continue the series. Like I knew my gf really liked it but if anything she undersold it

Just so well executed on Novik’s part

[ivory cypress]

yeah I don't know if I'd be able to describe what hits the YES button for me, like just explaining the plot doesn't do it

[junior dew]

Lol yeah it’s definitely the very strongly written character voice for me. I was just saying to my gf that on a surface level this book shouldn’t have worked this well for me.

Deadly education all || The audiobook narrator also knocks it out of the park with the sassy British tone. So not only do you get the strong character voice but then you have it just perfectly narrated. Just such a fun time ||

[ivory cypress]

absolutely agree, it's very strong

[cloud socket]

finished Fool's Fate and I am emotionally devastated. in a good way! but also like, ||Hobb this could've been gayer! I mean, I see what she's saying comparing humans and the Prophets to wolves and humans re: the Fool and Nighteyes' respective relationships to Fitz but his name is Beloved c'monnn

so pleased and relieved Fitz seems to get a happy ending for now, at least, and I know I will have [questionably romantic and/or platonic] Feelings presumably about the Fitz and the Fool trilogy so there's that to look forward to||

[lusty meteor]

||i really like the resolution to fitz and the fool's relationship in this book. i think a very realistic way to resolve that situation||

[wraith lynx]

Assassin's Apprentice 17 ||quietly marks Burrich off of my list of people I like||

||because how are you gonna turn your nose up at Fitz when he had to literally escape the trenches TO SAVE YOU just because Fitz just so happens to spiritually connect with animals. Like????||

[cloud socket]

first three ROTE trilogies all ||🥲 Cosmic being exasperated with Patience and Burrich when I am still devastated at how Fitz's adoptive parents never stopped loving him even when they thought he was dead for sixteen years AAAH||

[cloud socket]

FF ||you are right, especially with the long ages of the white prophets (not sure if I have another name for their people yet). but I am still dismayed over the broken link even if it is Beloved doing their best to drive him away to have a good/safe life for the rest of Fitz's human lifespan||

[lusty meteor]

||also molly really is that bad||

[cloud socket]

first three ROTE series ||mm, I think she has the right of it in that it should've been her decision whether or not Fitz should be in her life and he denied that option for sixteen years, and in that time she's gone and had a full life and it wouldn't feel right for Fitz to pop in Burrich's place. I do recognize per the last chapter he does take his time.

I just feel so bad for Beloved though! from what I can tell Prillkop is one of the few if only of his kind to be a friend, and while Amber was friends(?) with Althea there just wasn't the closeness as shared with Fitz. I think Beloved has a very lonely existence.||

[brazen pilot]

AA 17 ||the prejudice runs DEEP. he sees it as a way to save fitz, to refuse to indulge what he sees as a horrible vice. it's horrifying and tragic and sadly realistic.||

[brazen pilot]

Tawny Man all ||Cosmic thinking that it's that easy to stop liking Burrich or his relationship with Fitz. Nah Hobb has us along for a RIDE. patience is the goat btw.||

[long sorrel]

FoB 2 ||Hello Swarm||

[alpine drum]

||this but unironically||

[long sorrel]

||Ah, what a first Swarm chapter ||

[alpine drum]

LotR + ASOIAF ||I don't think the point about the tax policy thing is that GRRM was talking about the internal consistence. I think it's more about how framing the happy ending as "man gets put in position of more or less absolute power which is unambiguously good" should be questioned as to how it actually affects the common folk. GRRM is very interested in the plight of the smallfolk and I disagree that Prachett is more angry about it than GRRM. GRRM is just writing about a less industrial society but anytime there's a possibility to talk about a Vietnam War allegory he's going to call out the injustice of it||

[cosmic sundial]

same tags ||I agree that the phrase wasn't necessarily about internal consistency, but the phrase (About what he'd do with orcs, for example, to not quote tax again) is about the nitty gritty decisions of ruling we hardly see except (And I admit it slipped my mind) with a very specific kind of choice with Dany and slavery. Other than that I feel the comparison is flat because the point is Aragorn walks into peace whereas every single ruler bar Bob Bobbins is in a survival war at all times. About the anger, I think that while George 100% is sympathetic to the plight of the smallfolk, he also sometimes falls into the old "No such thing as an anti-war movie" trope that, fittingly, usually applied to Vietnam movies too. Pratchett, mostly by virtue of his kind of prose, could make his contempt permeate the text a lot more. Note that I don't mean this in detriment of George or his morals, just that Terry couldn't help himself in viciously making a lot more obvious parallels to real life situations||

Again this is not a knock on any of the three series I just find the contrasts intriguing

[forest sierra]

25% into Tiamat's Wrath and it's been a much slower first act

||Elvi is by far and away the most interesting POV rn. Teresa is fine but the Roci crew have been quite meh||

[forest sierra]

Persepolis Rising was bang bang bang bang

[jovial tide]

Deadly education ||I felt the ending section of the book was kinda weak, it would have been fine on its own but as a climax it was lacking. Particularly compared with something like the maw mouth encounter, which hit way harder on character and narrative. But I think that's because structurally the first two books really feel like one book split in two, so the real climax is still to come. Even so, definitely one of my favourite things I read last year!||

[junior dew]

Deadly education all || That is definitely very fair. I can’t say I disagree. But it did enough to not have the book fall flat or disappoint me/enough to stick the landing and ensure I’m excited for boom 2.

There is that part of me that also is like… “how is it that she couldn’t just WMD all the mals in the graduation hall like she did with the maw mouth if she has basically the school’s resources at her disposal” though ||

[ivory cypress]

deadly education ||hm i don't recall feeling like this - all i can remember feeling was "MOAR."||

[jovial tide]

Deadly education all ||El is extremely powerful but she does have some limits as to the speed at which she can kill things. 😅 And the horde of mals in the graduation room includes several maw mouths, at least two of which are much much larger than the one she killed.||

[jovial tide]

Deadly education ||It's mostly El standing in the line chanting the shield spell while Orion has fun fighting in front and other people attempt to do the actual fixing thing in the background. I just didn't feel it did all that much on a character level, or that the action was especially interesting, and I guess I expected something more dramatic and interesting from facing the graduation horde. I think it works fine if you go straight onto the next book without pausing, it wasn't a bad sequence in itself, just when taking it as the climax of the book I didn't feel it actually did much of the character arc or general excitement and drama I would expect from a climax. (I did have a couple weeks to wait before my hold on the second book came in.)||

[ivory cypress]

deadly education ||i think i saw it as different because the stakes were so different. the maw mouth fight was one on one, and she was the only one around. it's fundamentally different when her mindset is not "i need to survive" anymore, which i found compelling, particularly as it was such a good clincher of her changing mindset throughout the whole book, as her arc||

[jovial tide]

deadly education ||It is different, but I see the maw mouth fight as a much stronger turning point on that arc. She wasn't in any danger or at any risk herself until she put herself in its path to save others. And that in the face of having every reason not to do so. Like, here is everything you (always said you) wanted, your perfect opportunity and an incredible prize with the book, ooooor you can throw yourself at the incredibly terrifying monster in the hope that you might perhaps be able to save some other kids you don't know without suffering the worst imaginable death yourself. And even if you succeed, there's every reason to think you'll burn through most of your mana and destroy your chances of surviving graduation later. And she does it anyway! To me that is the perfect moment in the whole trilogy that defines who she is/chooses to be.

But after that, facing down the graduation hall with a better plan and alongside a group of other very capable people doesn't quite compare. Of course she would, she's already made the choice when it was so much harder.||

[ivory cypress]

deadly education ||mm i guess, i just don't feel it was less emphasized||

[jovial tide]

deadly education ||Fair enough 🤷 ||

[light drum]

What is deadly education about/ like tonaly

[jovial tide]

deadly education general setup/vibes ||Imagine a magic school that is ridiculously deadly, but there is care taken in the worldbuilding as to why it is still better than not going to it. Then we have a main character who is extremely powerful and prophesied to be an ultimate dark sorcerer, and is really trying very hard not to be, despite it feeling like everything is pushing her in that direction. Then just add a really big helping of snarky humour. The situation is really almost laughably terrible, but despite all the cynicism there is an underlying hint of optimism that maybe things could get better.||

[light drum]

Added to TBR

[jovial tide]

I really enjoyed the series.

[old flint]

The first Scholomance book is a bit setuppy in context of the whole trilogy. The next two books are stronger in comparison because they don't need as much exposition

It's a real "all the details matter " type book, and it really sticks the landing

[brazen pilot]

Lathe of Heaven 9 ||I think what makes Haber work so well as an antagonist is that he's not defined by his self-serving nature. He's just as willing to 'upgrade' Orr's life as his own. His worldview is not without upsides — his precise control was necessary to avoid and then fix mistakes like causing the aliens to invade. The metaphor of his control over Orr with the political structure of the world he creates is very strong.||

[analog geode]

Please please read it, it’s one of my favorites

[wide hearth]

||I'll wait until you finish to comment more, but yes, great character. I wouldn't say his control up to this point is precise, though. He would say it is, but then he is apparently incapable of self-criticism, plus cares only about the end not the means.||

[uncut shoal]

Indexing book 2 almost at the end ||The second thing that hit me was her fist|| lmao

[forest sierra]

Oh

[wide hearth]

Mercy of Gods all ||Love it. But I wish the Carryx were more alien. I mean, the neat and entirely coherent mission statement wrap-up from Ekur at the end seemed a bit convenient. Also, I presume we're supposed to root for Dafyd and the Swarm, but that betrayal was already pretty damn cold before it became apparent Swarm went fully hands-on. I wasn't completely sold on the inevitability and urgency.||

MoG all ||Also is there more to the old librarian's execution? The Carryx seem to have many options to cull weakness other than execution. It's clear Carryx breeding is tightly controlled, for example. And it's unlikely the rebellion would have achieved anything. So what did "being saved by an animal" really mean, and why does it mean permanent removal from the moeities?||

[wide hearth]

||oh except I've implied there that Dafyd knew the Swarm's plan to take Jellit, when he didn't, he thought she just talked to him. But that in itself is bizarre, how could he not have guessed? Also, what happened to "if I do it, the Carryx will look at me more closely"||

[alpine drum]

||he did not realize that the swarm actually controlled people, he thought it was a ride along type thing ||

[wide hearth]

||aha, I missed that ||

[alpine drum]

||the way i read it was he though Else was still alive even after the swarm revealed itself to him. ||

[wide hearth]

||ok, I see that now, agreed. Still it was so improbable Jellit would play along like that... And the weird "you're so brave" speech. This is going to be one of those slow burn join-the-dots reveals for him in FoB, right?||

[minor sleet]

https://www.lacon.org/hugofinalists/

Hugo Finalists out

[long sorrel]

huuuuuh @ivory cypress

I did a little jump on my chair

[ivory cypress]

gasp

[long sorrel]

right?

[ivory cypress]

ohhhhh do i buy a worldcon membership this year to voteeeee

[long sorrel]

in best series category

[ivory cypress]

oh GOOD year

[long sorrel]

Good year indeed

Seeing Citizen Sleeper there has me

[ivory cypress]

lmao was just about to post that too

like "well guess what's gonna win"

[long sorrel]

We know 😔 but in my heart it isn't the top, so it's fine

[ivory cypress]

awwww

[ivory cypress]

yeah... it really is silksong for me 😤 but oh well, it's a finalist

[minor sleet]

Guess who’s up for best comic

that’s right

[long sorrel]

yeah

[long sorrel]

I was expecting you to say something haha

[long sorrel]

It is Citizen Sleeper then Silksong for me haha

Can't say about Hades 2 or Dispatch, though I'll play both eventually

[minor sleet]

And none for the rest of the Absolute Universe

[long sorrel]

i reckon Hades 2 will probably go lower than E33

[ivory cypress]

this is always so complicated

[minor sleet]

Also not sure why Ada Palmer’s very long nonfiction book about the Renaissance is up for best related work but it is REALLY good

Wheel of time 3x04 Road to the Spear is up for best tv episode too

[ivory cypress]

okay, well, time to get on the best novel finalists i haven't read yet

and i will be voting my little heart out for my dark horse chronicles of osreth

[long sorrel]

haha

I wasn't expecting it there!

Which, idk why, I guess I'm not aware of it's level of popularity

But yeah I will be uh, morally voting for it

[ivory cypress]

i can't imagine it's huge

[analog geode]

God I hope Blue Prince wins, it deserves more recognition

[wind sinew]

It really does

[long sorrel]

While I do agree I don't think it takes the peak in narrative from those finalists for me

[wind sinew]

But personally, I'll go for dispatch

[analog geode]

Dispatch has pretty big flaws imo

||Invisigal is pushed way more than Blond Blazer, she’s essentially a deuteragonist at the cost of Blond Blazer’s character depth||

Great game, but the core gameplay was pretty weak too

Blue Prince was imo the most well executed and innovative of all the games on the list

[brazen pilot]

While Silksong has gotten plenty of appreciation, I think the impressiveness of the writing as a work of epic fantasy is still very underappreciated, and I'd love to see it get some recognition here

It's a masterclass in building theme and setting through very little

[wind sinew]

Haven't played it yet but no one's talking about Hades 2?

I just started and it's good

Really good

[long sorrel]

I think this awards are specifically talking about interactive narrative

Or at least that's how I'm taking them

And so as a game itself Hades might land higher for me, than it does from the narrative perspective

Which is also partially my issue with Blue Prince, it has a very interesting principle of interaction, narrative wise but that's about it, it also lands higher as a game than as a narrative piece

while Silksong is narratively something else, and still it ranks lower than what Citizen Sleeper makes me feel

[ivory cypress]

hades ii was not my favourite narrative or game OF the ones on the finalist list i've also played

[long sorrel]

yeah, same but I think it goes even lower in this case, WELL, I've not played 2, so I'm unfairly extrapolating

[versed agate]

huh, I'm surprised to see a GN I recognise on the Hugo's (A Girl and Her Fed)

[ivory cypress]

i also am fine rating things as games

they're in a games category

[minor sleet]

I need to post more about Absolute Wonder Woman apparently

[versed agate]

ok, a GN I recognise and have read

[analog geode]

The flurry of reading this week has pushed me over the edge, I’m down to 2 days average this year

[ivory cypress]

for the whole year, hell yeah

[long sorrel]

I think April really screwed me over

oh, nvm

[analog geode]

April has been insane for me, I’m up to 20 books so far. Mostly because I’ve been reading 3 books a day for the past week on vacation

[long sorrel]

April though

yeah I've had a bunch of 1day books which is why I guess I'm still at 2d average for the year

[velvet umbra]

my days to finish is like 9 rn and I think it's because I've been reading Gardens of the Moon for like 2 months and am only halfway through

[ivory cypress]

my year

my april so far

as you can see, my january and february were crazyyyyyyy

(that was the seasonal depression)

[low hill]

@ripe tide New Susanna Clarke, set in the history of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-bishop-of-durham-attempts-to-surrender-the-city/susanna-clarke/9781037211850

[ripe tide]

Yeah I saw the announcement. Very funny it’s about Durham lol

[low hill]

Indeed. :⁠-⁠)

[mild lance]

the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom got nominated for a Hugo which is hilarious

[junior dew]

Sinners and E33, the goats!

Damn y’all be reading up a storm

Meanwhile here I am like “damn I’m crushing it so far this year” at 28 books so far 😂

My April currently. Admittedly may drop Faith of Beasts to a 3.5. I’m torn on that one’s rating

[ivory cypress]

oh yeah I forgot to get back to you on the Saint

uhhhh I'll try to remember after I'm done making dinner

[junior dew]

Oh yeah lol. All good. It’s not a big deal or anything

This month may end up having my highest number of books completed. Seems May of 2024 is my highest so far at 10 books and I’ve had a few at 8 or 9

[junior smelt]

Having watched the bottom 3 of the movies.

Sinners and Mickey 17 in fact on the same day half a month back. I can say my vote goes to Mickey 17.

Sinners is a close second.

Nah actually I change it back Mickey 17 could have used a bit longer runtime to explore all the plot elements it kept jumping through

Although I would say the very last moments of Sinners isn't the strongest

[wide hearth]

Ok, Livesuit is really quite short, isn't it. ||And a little horrifying, but in a fun predictable way||

[alpine drum]

||yeah, I think the real twist is that he's ok with the truth since i feel like the reveals about how the suits work and that they can't be removed were so clearly telegraphed||

[junior smelt]

Also Sinners || I thought the psychological horror part of the movie about the entry would be more stronger. The only time it was ever strong was when Smoke was considering forgetting every thing he knows because he heard Stack's voice. But nothing else comes close to that.

||

I would say Iron Lung works as a better horror for me but Sinner's was a better movie

My movie pool of recent horror is only these 2

[minor sleet]

That’s because most horror movies come out in the fall

Also I dunno maybe you just don’t like the genre that much

[junior smelt]

Oh for sure I am not well versed in the genre

But I generally don't see a lot of movie these years

It is just Sinners felt a lot less Horror-y

More Supernatural -ly

Which I know is wrong, because there were a lot of horror moments in it.

[wide hearth]

||Is he ok with the truth, or just completely powerless to resist? Which is an obvious theme in this universe of course...||

[junior smelt]

Sinners || But it is not commiting to it strongly for me. It felt like it drops the horror element after the big song and then the wife just invites them in. Because afterwards it is just a brawl with some great set piece action. ||

[wide hearth]

MoG + Livesuit ||Also do we know the chronology? Livesuit shows us on screen fighting between humans and Carryx, which should put it after MoG subjectively. But I like the idea that the "fivefold symmetry enemies with related biomatter to humans" are just loooong gone Livesuit infantry. I guess it could work either/both ways because of fog of war/scale/special relativity shenanigans?||