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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2021 13:58:44 GMT
Sixteen ways to defend a walled cityFantastic breezy kind of fantasy novel about an unlikely character who ends up being in charge of the defence of the Imperial Capital when the barbarians attack. It's set in a fictional universe but it feels very much like the Roman Empire. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it's a bit of a one trick pony. The anti-hero is faced with a problem, everyone else is an idiot, the anti-hero breaks all the unwritten rules and saves the day. Rinse repeat. But it doesn't overstay its welcome, AND it has a few surprises up its sleeve. Well worth reading If you enjoy a fun fantasy siege then check out Legend by David Gemmel - also featuring Druss, one of my favourite fantasy heroes. There's some excellent sieges in his other books as well. + Lots. I'll have to look at 16 Ways to defend a city too.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 18, 2021 14:00:22 GMT
If you like the whole silk punk idea, then I can heartily recommend The Dandelion Empire suite, starting with The Grace of Kings. But that is even longer than the poppy war and its sequels. Dandelion Empire is up to four books now. Only two published so far with the third coming any day now.
Poppy War starts off like a mix of Harry Potter and Drunken Master, and turns into X-Men meets modern Chinese history. I liked the HP/Drunken master bit. Dandelion Empire does a much much better thing out of fantasy meets Chinese history.
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Post by Chopper on Oct 19, 2021 10:11:00 GMT
I read The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People by John Le Carre. They are sequels of sorts to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the three books form the 'Karla Trilogy' which deal with the Soviet Spymaster of that name.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was the most grounded of the three, in that it dealt with rooting out a Soviet mole in the leadership group of MI6. Very nicely done, lots of detail and complex motivations and paranoia against the background of a series of real-life spies defecting to Russia, affecting the Special Relationship.
The Honourable Schoolboy is very different, in that it follows an agent in the field in South East Asia, and is a rollicking good read with plenty of action and betrayal.
Smiley's People rounds out the trilogy back at home by detailing the operation to trap the Soviets and restore British credibility.
They're the first Le Carre novels I have read, and looking forward to more. I said on the RPS forum before, that the look at post-war Britain, and its decreased standing in the world, through the lens of the secret service, is very well done. And reading about the upper classes, who feature heavily in these books, is like observing an alien race (I'm not British).
A good time. 8/10
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Post by Wizzard_Ook on Oct 19, 2021 12:15:43 GMT
I really like reading Le Carre. He kinda slotted in with Pratchett and Murakmai being one of my go to authors. I've been reading them from publication order recently, A small town in Germany being the last I read. If you're not British, as you say, its probably a good way to learn about Britain. He doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the ruling classes as you say, but he rightly earned the reputation as being a voice of England , or even a chronicler of England using his novels to expose and add voices to a lot of societal issues. A very humane author.
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marcp
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Post by marcp on Oct 19, 2021 12:17:03 GMT
Just finished Welcome to Cooper by Tariq Ashcanani. Good stuff with a decent twist. 9/10, definitely recommended.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 20, 2021 1:37:16 GMT
I finished Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. I went in with zero expectations as I'd never heard of it and only picked it because I felt I should make use of one of the free books on audible plus and she was one of the few authors whose name I recognized. Not that I'd read any of her stuff before.
I ended up really liking it. It's a sci-fi novel where the protagonist is a grumpy old lady, which is pretty refreshing in itself. It's relatively slow paced, with no battles or space flights or anything like that. But the characters and their motivations were interesting. The basic plot is that their colony gets cancelled by The Company, so they all have to leave, but she's fed up of dealing with annoying people who ignore her, so she hides out and stays by herself on the empty world. Or is it?
Despite there not being much action, and a lot of the time being spent on mundane things like her activities around the colony, I found it a pretty easy listen which went by pretty quickly. I have no idea even when it was published, or if it was well regarded. I imagine Elizabeth Moon was an elderly lady by that point, because some of the bitterness about being deemed unimportant seemed to be coming from personal experience.
PS/ Decided against The Poppy War, as dramatizations of all the very horrible things that happened in the Nanjing massacre didn't sound very fun.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 20, 2021 2:47:22 GMT
I’ve bought that Richard Osman book to read on holiday. I just wanted something quite basic and easy to read Has anyone read it? It’s called The Thursday Murder Club Yeah, I read it. Not really out of personal interest, just because my job requires me to be able to recommend things to people, and Osman is pretty hot right now. It's fine. Just your standard quirky murder mystery, really. Maybe above average, but it's such a well-populated genre - seriously, there's thousands of these things - that individual titles don't often stand out that well. But it's a mega-hit (as is the sequel), so I guess he's doing something right! (or his publishers are)
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Post by Chopper on Oct 20, 2021 7:49:13 GMT
...he rightly earned the reputation as being a voice of England , or even a chronicler of England using his novels to expose and add voices to a lot of societal issues. A very humane author. Yes, that makes sense. I was quite impressed at the 'social commentary', though that makes it sound a bit preachy when it isn't. I was telling my dad about one of the action scenes in The Honourable Schoolboy (the grenade in the gas tank) and he said that all he could remember of the one Le Carre book he'd read, was some guy sitting in an office shuffling papers and going on long walks around London, so he might give them another go.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Oct 20, 2021 10:16:15 GMT
He is a pillock at that. But the book doesn't seem to realise it, because it's too busy jerking off about how great he is at everything, how all these women are in love with him, how this woman who is with someone else actually wants to be with him because HE UNDERSTANDS HER BETTER THAN ANY OTHER MAN. He's in the friend zone for now, but that will change! I guess you could excuse some of it by saying that the story is told from his perspective, and presumably he doesn't have any capacity for self-reflection. But there's only so much I can take; if I'm going to have a central Point-of-View character, I need to not be rooting for them to fail. It's a shame, because I did really like the prose, and the system of magic Rothfuss came up with was really cool. I just hated the main character, and that's a huge problem in a book where everything revolves around him. I think a lot rests on whether you assume Kvothe is an unreliable narrator or not. When I read the The Name of the Wind if just read a unreliable narrator book and the review I read of TNotW suggested it was unreliable narrator. So reading it in that light, whilst I didn't like Kvothe (who does, honestly? I don't think even Kvothe really does), the book really worked well as Kvothe's story from his perspective - especially considering he's a bard and he sort of implies he's a liar. And really most "my story"-framed novels are implausibly honest. Had I taken it as "we are meant to take this all as gospel truth" I would have gotten pretty annoyed with it I think. The second book isn't actually that similar and is a lot more irritating, because it's mostly a tale of how Kvothe gets super-good at stuff, and it's like, we don't need multiple chapters of elf sex and conveniently polyamorous sword ninjas, thanks. If feels like the main reason Rothfuss has been struggling with Doors of Stone is that next to nothing happens in Wise Man's Fear, plot-wise. It's just like the backstory for someone's ludicrous high level D&D character. As an aside, the actual best-written fantasy series in existence is the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, starting with the Shadow of the Torturer. Some literary types regard them as some of the best books of the 20th century, and his writing is ridiculously elevated above most fantasy. And that is written by a definitely unreliable narrator, because sometimes he recounts the same events and his story is a bit different. You want something amazing try that, if you can get your hands on it. I recommend read them rather than listening though because they benefit from close reading and thinking about what is going on which isn't as possible with audio books.
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Post by nazo on Oct 20, 2021 10:22:26 GMT
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
I've never read any Asimov before, this was much more accessible and easy to read than I expected. There was surprisingly little world-building involved, we get told that there is a great galactic empire on the verge of collapse but not much more detail than that. The setting seemed fairly incidental anyway, it's more of a political story and probably would have worked as well if it were nations pitted against each other rather than planets. The story plays out over several generations, mostly through dialogue rather than action. I found the shifts from one set of characters to another a bit distracting and the story interesting rather than really engaging. I got the 2nd book as well as they both going cheap so perhaps things will heat up a bit later. There wasn't really an ending, it just stops, without any real cliff hanger or sense of closure, which was a bit disappointing.
The lack of female characters is really noticeable. I think there were only 2 in the whole book and they were only mentioned in service of the men.
3/5
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 20, 2021 10:23:39 GMT
Tbh I don't think it would matter to me, even if the "unreliable narrator" thing is the correct interpretation. Either way it's irritating, and doesn't make me want to continue.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2021 10:51:20 GMT
He is a pillock at that. But the book doesn't seem to realise it, because it's too busy jerking off about how great he is at everything, how all these women are in love with him, how this woman who is with someone else actually wants to be with him because HE UNDERSTANDS HER BETTER THAN ANY OTHER MAN. He's in the friend zone for now, but that will change! I guess you could excuse some of it by saying that the story is told from his perspective, and presumably he doesn't have any capacity for self-reflection. But there's only so much I can take; if I'm going to have a central Point-of-View character, I need to not be rooting for them to fail. It's a shame, because I did really like the prose, and the system of magic Rothfuss came up with was really cool. I just hated the main character, and that's a huge problem in a book where everything revolves around him. I think a lot rests on whether you assume Kvothe is an unreliable narrator or not. When I read the The Name of the Wind if just read a unreliable narrator book and the review I read of TNotW suggested it was unreliable narrator. So reading it in that light, whilst I didn't like Kvothe (who does, honestly? I don't think even Kvothe really does), the book really worked well as Kvothe's story from his perspective - especially considering he's a bard and he sort of implies he's a liar. And really most "my story"-framed novels are implausibly honest. Had I taken it as "we are meant to take this all as gospel truth" I would have gotten pretty annoyed with it I think. The second book isn't actually that similar and is a lot more irritating, because it's mostly a tale of how Kvothe gets super-good at stuff, and it's like, we don't need multiple chapters of elf sex and conveniently polyamorous sword ninjas, thanks. If feels like the main reason Rothfuss has been struggling with Doors of Stone is that next to nothing happens in Wise Man's Fear, plot-wise. It's just like the backstory for someone's ludicrous high level D&D character. As an aside, the actual best-written fantasy series in existence is the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, starting with the Shadow of the Torturer. Some literary types regard them as some of the best books of the 20th century, and his writing is ridiculously elevated above most fantasy. And that is written by a definitely unreliable narrator, because sometimes he recounts the same events and his story is a bit different. You want something amazing try that, if you can get your hands on it. I recommend read them rather than listening though because they benefit from close reading and thinking about what is going on which isn't as possible with audio books. Elf sex you say...? Where can I get this literary masterwork? I love Tolkien and David Gemmell (read them all and Legend 3 or 4 times). I also liked the Jim Butcher Codex Alera series oh and also Stephen Donaldson's White Gold Weilder series and Ursula Le Guin's one about a mage...that I can't remember the name of now. The Dragonlance books were fun when I was younger but are a bit crap now sadly. I'll add Book of the New Sun to the list, probably after 16 ways as I like Roman stuff. I can't see me getting book two of TNOTW and I'm on 92% of the current one.... and wondering why its taken so long to get where it has.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 20, 2021 12:55:34 GMT
I read the Book of the New Sun books ages ago. Like at least 25 years ago. Still have them in the bookshelf. I remember really struggling to wrap my head around what was going on in the latter books. Or... maybe all of the books. I should re read the. I have them in Swedish though so maybe switch to English. Weird thing is that when I read the Earthsea trilogy in english I found that I preferred the Swedish translation.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Oct 20, 2021 21:48:21 GMT
I read the Book of the New Sun books ages ago. Like at least 25 years ago. Still have them in the bookshelf. I remember really struggling to wrap my head around what was going on in the latter books. Or... maybe all of the books. I should re read the. I have them in Swedish though so maybe switch to English. Weird thing is that when I read the Earthsea trilogy in english I found that I preferred the Swedish translation. I'd say there's literally no point in reading The Book of the New Sun in any language but English, because a lot of Wolfe's English-use is untranslatable, at least not in any meaningful way. I can definitely see how it would be hard to understand - it's not easy to understand even as a native English speaker. With Le Guin I think her stories are much less about the words used andore about the events and characters, so it makes sense that a good translation would speak to someone whose native language that was.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 21, 2021 1:43:57 GMT
I think this is the 3rd time I've thought "I must put The Book of the New Sun on my wishlist". Maybe I'll remember this time!
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Post by Chopper on Oct 21, 2021 7:07:14 GMT
I grabbed it yesterday for a couple of euros, so *cracks knuckles* we shall see. 😛
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2021 9:28:55 GMT
The Name of The Wind (written by some overweight weirdo) 5.5/10
It is well written in as much as the english used is good. However, after a while I realised that it didn't actually have much at all happening in it and it was very 2 dimensional. Characters are almost transparent, with very little physical description (all women are beautiful obviously) and even less personality. I can't actually tell you anything about the main side characters. As for the "world" there's nothing at all about it, aside from some gypsies, a city, a University and a short break to remember this is a fantasy book and go and chase a rumour about the supposed bad people. There's nothing about the world as a whole though...nothing at all.
The main character is a pain in the ass and seems to go out of his way to piss people off and he's good at that. He's also good at everything else, and I mean everything. There's nothing Mr Wonderful isn't good at, aside from realising that women like him and its okay to move out of the Friend Zone. The ending was just dreadful... it just sort of went nowhere and just... stopped.
On reflection, it just read like the author's wish fulfilment and was left feeling like this was a book about how he wishes he was. I'm not woke or anything, but how he views women is pretty pitiful on the whole. Mostly they seem to be there to be rescued and look pretty. Its a shame as it started off great, with stuff about "the silence" and demons and arcanists and revenge and... it went nowhere... slowly.
I'm now reading 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City. This started off a bit undertainly when the lead character was going all "Dune Intro" and dumping a load of info. However, now its (quickly) got into the seige, its starting to get really good. I'm also chuffed it seems quite short (I'm at 25% at the moment) so as has been said it shouldn't outstay its welcome. The lead character reminds me of a more ascerbic Niccolo (From the Niccolo Rising books which I loved).
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Roddy
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Post by Roddy on Oct 22, 2021 5:00:54 GMT
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Period horror novel with atmosphere in spades. Not particularly scary, but well-plotted and pretty gross in parts.
Builds to a satisfying conclusion.
8/10
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Oct 25, 2021 8:03:55 GMT
Before they are hanged (First Law book 2), by Joe Abercrombie
Man this is dark AF. Really good, though, I like how grimy everything is, and how the story takes turns you wouldn't necessarily expect from this kind of thing. The descriptions are really evocative, too, especially when violence is involved. And the characters have real, believable arcs!
Well... most of them do. Unfortunately the female characters are still a lot more thinly-sketched than their male counterparts. The main female character is tsundere to the point that it gets really annoying. There's some justification for it, and other characters do comment on it, but I don't think her attitude is nearly as fleshed out as most of the other characters are. There's a couple of other female characters too, but they barely do anything.
Anyway, it's not that big a deal; most modern fantasy seems to have issues with that kind of thing, so at some point you have to make your peace with it.
still thinks glokta is a dumb name/10
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2021 9:03:25 GMT
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. Really enjoyed this...until the ending, which I didn't like. 8/10 as I enjoyed it overall and it had some good twists and some laughs as well.
It was good. I kept trying to think about books it reminded me of, but aside from the House of Nicollo series and Legend, I still can't recall the others. Apparently there's a sort of sequel to it called "How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It", which is set 8 years after, still in the same seige, but with a different cast and this time using an actor who has to save the day.
Not sure what I'm reading next tbh.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 25, 2021 14:36:25 GMT
Read When the Sparrow Falls, is like to hear other people's thoughts on it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2021 16:29:22 GMT
Read When the Sparrow Falls, is like to hear other people's thoughts on it. I've taken a look. Its not the sort of things I'd usually read (I've read 1984 and got "so far" in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which it says its a mashup of), but what the hell, I'll give it a go. I hope its not miserable...
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Post by Sarfrin on Oct 25, 2021 18:55:20 GMT
If it's a mash up of those two it's pretty much guaranteed to be miserable.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2021 11:01:30 GMT
The Solar War - John French
After 54 books in sequence (and dozens of other novellas, short stories and audiobooks), The Siege Of Terra begins. And it's good.
Exactly what you would expect if you've read any of the others, as the pace picks up - dozens of characters now in place for the finale, feints and counters, dour expressions and possessed monsters, but mainly explosions.
Reactor breach / 10
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Post by Bill in the rain on Oct 26, 2021 14:21:59 GMT
Good grief. I gave up after book 3.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 27, 2021 6:38:19 GMT
Read When the Sparrow Falls, is like to hear other people's thoughts on it. I've taken a look. Its not the sort of things I'd usually read (I've read 1984 and got "so far" in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which it says its a mashup of), but what the hell, I'll give it a go. I hope its not miserable... It is extremely miserable. One of the most uncomfortable reads I've had since I gave up on The Handmaids Tale. Haven't read 1984, but it did remind me a bit of Blade Runner due to the noir aesthetics (I don't remember much of Do Androids dream because it was such a long time since I read it)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2021 10:19:40 GMT
I've taken a look. Its not the sort of things I'd usually read (I've read 1984 and got "so far" in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which it says its a mashup of), but what the hell, I'll give it a go. I hope its not miserable... It is extremely miserable. One of the most uncomfortable reads I've had since I gave up on The Handmaids Tale. Haven't read 1984, but it did remind me a bit of Blade Runner due to the noir aesthetics (I don't remember much of Do Androids dream because it was such a long time since I read it) Erm...can't say you're selling it to me to be honest. I'm just finishing up "Project Hail Mary" on Audible (which I'm loving at the moment), but if I fancy a come down and find this cheap, then I might take a look. Might...
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Post by tricky on Oct 27, 2021 11:31:18 GMT
Before they are hanged (First Law book 2), by Joe Abercrombie Man this is dark AF. Really good, though, I like how grimy everything is, and how the story takes turns you wouldn't necessarily expect from this kind of thing. The descriptions are really evocative, too, especially when violence is involved. And the characters have real, believable arcs! Well... most of them do. Unfortunately the female characters are still a lot more thinly-sketched than their male counterparts. The main female character is tsundere to the point that it gets really annoying. There's some justification for it, and other characters do comment on it, but I don't think her attitude is nearly as fleshed out as most of the other characters are. There's a couple of other female characters too, but they barely do anything. Anyway, it's not that big a deal; most modern fantasy seems to have issues with that kind of thing, so at some point you have to make your peace with it. still thinks glokta is a dumb name/10 Every book in that world that he’s done are amazing - easily my favourite series in the genre. The most recent trilogy addressed the issue with a lack of fleshed out female characters; so much so that the Internet neckbeards got all up in arms about it, slinging accusations of wokeness etc. In other words, he did a good job.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Oct 27, 2021 12:41:41 GMT
It is extremely miserable. One of the most uncomfortable reads I've had since I gave up on The Handmaids Tale. Haven't read 1984, but it did remind me a bit of Blade Runner due to the noir aesthetics (I don't remember much of Do Androids dream because it was such a long time since I read it) Erm...can't say you're selling it to me to be honest. I'm just finishing up "Project Hail Mary" on Audible (which I'm loving at the moment), but if I fancy a come down and find this cheap, then I might take a look. Might... Glad I stoped you. Seriously, it's super grim and it the same way as handmaids tale, nothing is invented, everything that happens has happened somewhere in some east bloc state. Or is happening right now.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 1, 2021 0:16:00 GMT
Before they are hanged (First Law book 2), by Joe Abercrombie Man this is dark AF. Really good, though, I like how grimy everything is, and how the story takes turns you wouldn't necessarily expect from this kind of thing. The descriptions are really evocative, too, especially when violence is involved. And the characters have real, believable arcs! Well... most of them do. Unfortunately the female characters are still a lot more thinly-sketched than their male counterparts. The main female character is tsundere to the point that it gets really annoying. There's some justification for it, and other characters do comment on it, but I don't think her attitude is nearly as fleshed out as most of the other characters are. There's a couple of other female characters too, but they barely do anything. Anyway, it's not that big a deal; most modern fantasy seems to have issues with that kind of thing, so at some point you have to make your peace with it. still thinks glokta is a dumb name/10 Every book in that world that he’s done are amazing - easily my favourite series in the genre. The most recent trilogy addressed the issue with a lack of fleshed out female characters; so much so that the Internet neckbeards got all up in arms about it, slinging accusations of wokeness etc. In other words, he did a good job. Yeah, I just finished book 3. It's great! Lots of battles, twists and turns. I particularly like how no character is unambiguously good; even low-fantasy classic Game of Thrones had its fair share of boring heroes. But I'm glad that the female thing is going to be addressed in the next trilogy. I don't want to keep banging on about it, but almost without exception every woman in this is completely one-dimensional. One of them is still angry revenge lady (but still gets moist thinking about one of the heroes!); another is a sad, drunk hot mess like Dee from It's Always Sunny; and the queen is just... well, she's a spiteful bitch. And, unlike the male counterparts, none of them grow all that much. It's a real shame when most everything else about the book is so well-realised. I'm going to be well pumped for the next series if that slightly off taste is removed.
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