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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2021 10:41:23 GMT
Project Hail Mary (Audio Book) 8/10
Really enjoyed this book which is by the same guy as the Martian. It was very heavy on science stuff throughout and starts off with someone waking up with no idea who they are or where they are and having to piece it together bit by bit. It had quite a few twists and turns along the way and was really well narrated. I did find myself thinking "and now what's gone wrong" towards the end. There were just a couple too many of these things I thought which made me want to get it over with, but by that point it pretty much was thankfully. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending which seemed rushed and there were a few things that didn't make sense, but over all it was enjoyable. I'm not sure how it would play out if I'd read it.
Talking of which (SPOILERS BELOW)
The Axe and the Throne (fantasy book) DNF
Seemed a bit too tropey this book starting with Northmen who were raiding tribesmen from the cold, snowey wastes, the brothers competing for power etc. It was also told from almost everyone's perspective which made it so there was no mystery or uncertainty. You could tell that peple didn't like each other or instance. The book also had odd pictures of the people the chapter was about, which was handy as the text didn't really bother describing them much.
This is a grimdark fantasy apparently. Apparently Grimdark in this book means if something horrible can happen to a woman then it does.I got as far as one of the characters who up until that point had been devoted to his wife calling her (corpse) a whore for allowing herself to get raped. At that point I binned it. I nearly binned it just beforehand with another woman locked in a dark room by her parents with just a bucket for company. The author opens up the book saying something along the lines of "This is a complex book with many layers and if you don't like it, that's your fault and not mine" and that should have been warning enough for me.
This book was highly rated on a website I'd been using for recommendations as well, but looking at the review properly it said somethign along the lines of "book 1 isn't all that good, but it all good by book 3. Oh and book 2 can be a slog as well". Goodreads was a mix of loathe it and love it reviews, but it was low overall.
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nazo
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Post by nazo on Nov 5, 2021 11:36:57 GMT
Sex Robots and Vegan Meat - Jenny Kleeman
I thought this was going to be a light-hearted "doesn't the future sound weird" type book but actually it was more "isn't the future going to be awful if big-tech has its way".
In addition to the titular sex robots and lab-grown vegan meat, it also covers artificial wombs and suicide machines. There are some good interviews with the people (men) behind the tech, who mostly come off as creepy / fame-obsessed and some thought-provoking discussion of the ethics involved. The author takes a sceptical view on most of the topics but her arguments are pretty convincing and there are a lot of downsides to even the most benevolent sounding developments I hadn't considered.
8/10
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2021 16:31:53 GMT
I'm reading "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson at the moment and it is a 9-10/10 at the moment. Really well written, page turningingly good plot and a well realised and different fantasy world. I am not very far in, but after The Axe and The Throne, I'm glad that "so far" this seems like a winner.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Nov 5, 2021 19:19:57 GMT
It's been a while since I read the first law trilogy, but I remember a rather abrupt change in tone for the very least bit of the last book.
Before that it was a great fantasy romp, written by someone who knew the tropes and happily subverted them.
Then it felt as if Abercrombie was afraid none would take him seriously so he pulled on the brown (because real is brown) and I ended up being disappointed by the end.
I've never seen it heard anyone else voice this critique, so now I'm wondering if maybe I got it all wrong.
Been meaning to read the other books on the same world, but since they're described as dark fantasy (or rather something similar that I can't remember at the moment) I'm not that keen.
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Post by Nanocrystal on Nov 5, 2021 19:55:19 GMT
Blood and Bone - Ian C Esslemont
The 15th book I've read in the Malazan series and fifth by Esslement. Aside from Night of Knives which was strangely YA in tone, I'm finding his books much easier going than Erikson's, they are a bit smaller in scope, there are fewer meandering internal philosophical monologues and he hides the identity of his characters a lot less. Still really enjoying this world but will take a break from this series after book 16, I'm a slow reader and have literally been reading them for years.
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Post by tricky on Nov 6, 2021 10:44:44 GMT
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. You should still read the standalone books first - Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country. They fill in even more colour to the wider world of the series, as well as setting up numerous plot points/characters for the future (and closing out a few from the first trilogy). Oh and there’s Sharp Ends, which is a collection of short stories. Tonka (🐑,🪤) don’t let that description put you off. Grim dark is what people usually say about the series (it’s Joe Abercrombie’s twitter name too @lordgrimdark) but I still say there’s plenty of humour in the writing (okay, dark humour) to carry it through. The whole series is essentially lots of people doing shitty things to each other, for a variety of reasons, but there’s usually some lightness still in there.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Nov 6, 2021 13:24:29 GMT
You should still read the standalone books first - Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country. They fill in even more colour to the wider world of the series, as well as setting up numerous plot points/characters for the future (and closing out a few from the first trilogy). Those novels are pretty variable in quality and style compared to the original trilogy, and re: grimdark-ness, they vary wildly too. Best Served Cold is incredibly grimdark, almost laughably so, like verging on unintentional self-parody, because the "hero" is such a total wanker that the world would literally be better off if they died. The Heroes is easily the most forgettable book Abercrombie has ever written. Some assholes have a battle and several of them realize they're assholes. But other ones don't. It was so forgettable I thought I hadn't read it, then I saw in on a shelf and looking a synopsis realized I definitely had. I honestly don't think it's worth reading. Red Country is another matter, it's basically a Western, and only "grimdark" because of the extreme violence and futility of a lot of the deaths/actions (which is sometimes a tad contrived). On the other hand, it's a memorable and highly effective book with engaging characters. So personally I definitely couldn't recommend reading those books except Red Country for anything but plot-obsessives ot superfans. Honestly The Heroes and Best Served Cold were so bad (like, I wouldn't rate either above 5/10, and I ain't got time in my life of 5/10 books if I can avoid them) that I decided not to even move on to the more recent Abercrombie trilogy. Reading-wise, I read a couple of Naomi Novik books recently. She's another somewhat variable author. She's picked up a lot of awards but her books aren't always terribly compelling or indeed even well-written. She wrote a long series of novels about 1800s warfare but also with dragons (Temeraire), which start well but gradually devolve into a paen to capitalism (?!?!?! but no seriously they do it's bizarre) and the writing gets more complex but also lazier, then the incredible Uprooted, which is hard to even describe (and totally worth reading), but involves a lot of evil trees, then Spinning Silver, which is more of a weird apologia for capitalism/wealth - I mean it's also a decent fantasy novel but it's a weird fucking subtext. So obviously I was kind of ready for her new books to be more of the same, but fortunately they were not (good thing to or I'd have been done with her despite Uprooted being one of my top 5 favourite fantasy novels). The books are A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate. They're about a bizarre and complicated situation where, in the present day, wizards/potential wizards who hit 14 are teleported to The Scholomance, which is a bizarre unmanned (i.e. no teachers or the like) magical school full of monsters (but ironically safer than not being in there). It focuses on El, a Welsh girl (who is half-Indian), who has the potential be an extremely powerful (in an evil way) sorcerer, and her struggle to stay alive. She's a pretty fun and strangely likeable character, who rarely has a good word to say about anyone, initially. It's very clearly post-Harry Potter and sort of a reaction to that, but is absolutely the opposite of the cosy and bullshit-filled world of Harry Potter, and interestingly for Novik, is actually a fairly harsh critique on inequality, exploitation, colonialism (to some extent, and without being preachy) and perhaps even capitalism, though El is just a wee bit too understanding of people who want to exploit her to be truly believable (especially given the book starts when she's 16/17). I would say A Deadly Education/The Last Graduate are both pretty damn good, not Uprooted good, but like, way above average. Probably 8/10 overall. It's interesting because the other post-Harry Potter "magic school" novel I've read focused on many of the same themes - I may do a review of that at some point.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 6, 2021 13:31:50 GMT
Yeah, I might have a go with the standalone novels at some point, but I was more interested in starting the second trilogy. Which I've done. And lo and behold, multiple female characters who aren't immediately hateful, all in the first few chapters. It's an improvement already!
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dogbot
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Post by dogbot on Nov 6, 2021 13:40:09 GMT
The Axe and the Throne (fantasy book) DNF I've read this. It's possible for grimdark fantasy to not be complete shit, but this book is just rubbish. Tropes galore (world, characters, plot) and literally wallowing in attempts to be edgy and offensive. It is terrible. I suspect the good reviews come from a very specific section of the male populace. I've seen it compared to ASOIAF too, but it's not remotely of the same thing. And I don't much like Martin's books.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 6, 2021 13:50:35 GMT
I think the thing that separates low fantasy from other types isn't really the grimdarkness. It's more that the genre is more comfortable with characters being cynical or morally grey, rather than straight heroes or villains. And that's basically what I liked about First Law.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Nov 6, 2021 14:14:08 GMT
I would say A Deadly Education/The Last Graduate are both pretty damn good, not Uprooted good, but like, way above average. Probably 8/10 overall. These all sound like just my kind of thing. On the epic wishlist they go!
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Nov 7, 2021 11:39:47 GMT
I thought low fantasy was supposed to be fantastic stories set in our world, Like the Marvel crap or Harry Potter, and high fantasy being 100% imaginary places. I never really got my head around the terminology or why it would be needed. It's not as with hard sci-fi where I can see the theoretical point. That breaks down because it all ends up being a subjective discussion about what's feasible or not. I mean, The Foundation series could be hard sci-fi I guess. Or not. tricky Yes, grim dark was the term I was looking for. I really don't mind grim and dark fantasy (or sci-fi) but it wasn't the grimness that I liked about the first three First Law books. It was the tongue in cheek cheekiness of it. Like how their classic fantasy quest is handled. Not a real quest at all but a PR stunt arranged by the wizard. I rememebr there being plenty of other things like that, where everything had a Tarantino esque inside joke to it. Up until the end where no one could have what they wanted for some reason.
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Nov 7, 2021 11:48:51 GMT
The shadow of what was lost by James Islington
Perfectly fine fantasy, a bit too much going on and a bit too clichéd. Plus.. if an army is decimated, it means they lost one tenth of their strength, NOT that they were annihilated. Also, having just read a thin book on the thirty year war, sending out nine thousand troops to stop an invading army sounds puny. Try fifty thousand, oh but the King only has access to a grand total of fourteen thousand men... What? LOL.
But the book has some nice tricks up its sleeve, and I'll probably read the other two sometime in the future. I'm more likely to re-read the First Law books. (Hate that the first trilogy and the entire series seem to share name)
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Post by Bill in the rain on Nov 7, 2021 13:16:10 GMT
I thought low fantasy was fantasy without much of the Magic and Dragons and stuff like that? More just dudes with swords and stuff. By which yardstick I'd have said Song of Ice and Fire started as kinda low fantasy, and then got progressively higher fantasy. I may have made up my own definition though... I tend to do that.
Plus.. if an army is decimated, it means they lost one tenth of their strength, NOT that they were annihilated. Well, that's the original Roman definition, but it's not really how it's used in modern English.
I actually had no idea that decimation was related to 10 until I watched Spartacus.
(A surprisingly large amount of my historical knowledge comes from Spartacus... and is therefore guaranteed to stand up to scrutiny).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2021 18:08:16 GMT
I'm half way through "The Way of Kings" and would still massively recommend it if you're after a good old fantasy tale. SO far, there's been no Grimdark stuff.
I forget what series I was reading where it got to the end of a book and the heroes that had fought all the way through the book to get somewhere were all tricked into opening their gates and then all got crucified. I thought "what the hell is this crap" and binned the series. It was a real kick in the teeth and the end of me and grimdark.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 7, 2021 21:25:56 GMT
Yeah, Stormlight Archive is a good series. It's a bit YA-ish in the way that characters are grizzled, seen-it-all veterans reminiscing about the good old times, by the age of 25. And some of the character arcs get repeated a bit too often, as if growth is just reset between novels.
But I still thoroughly enjoy them on the whole.
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Post by PazJohnMitch on Nov 7, 2021 21:30:32 GMT
I am very slowly working through Rhythm of War at the moment. So far it is a step down from the others.
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dogbot
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Post by dogbot on Nov 7, 2021 21:42:47 GMT
I got bored. I finished Oathbringer, but I just don’t care what happens to any of them.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Nov 8, 2021 15:39:07 GMT
I think the thing that separates low fantasy from other types isn't really the grimdarkness. It's more that the genre is more comfortable with characters being cynical or morally grey, rather than straight heroes or villains. And that's basically what I liked about First Law. As someone who reads a ton of fantasy I don't think that's true at all, and I'm surprised that you say it. Do you read much fantasy? Which series starting after about 1995 would you say have "straight heroes and villains"? I would say that whilst a lot of low/dark fantasy is indeed "morally grey", which is basically a dogwhistle for grimdark and/or "at least one main character is a rapist" at this point, there's very little fantasy in general which has clear goodies and baddies. Stuff like Harry Potter is an exception. That's true across the spectrum from ultra-epic fantasy to really small-scale fantasy. The Naomi Novik books I mentioned for example don't - basically none of her books do, except maybe Uprooted. The antagonists are rarely entirely in the wrong. It would be hard to think of more morally grey books than the Malazan series, and they're ultra-extreme high/epic fantasy. Obviously ASoIaF has a ton of morally grey stuff but perhaps you'd call that "low fantasy"? I could go on - but I think the vast majority, like 60-70% of fantasy today features quite a few "morally grey" characters, including protagonists. Often there are actual villains too - but that's also true of The First Law, I'll avoid spoilers but we all know who the bad guy is and indeed the book all but spells it out immediately, albeit whilst attempting to confuse the issue. I think this more a product of the last quarter-century of fantasy writing than "low fantasy" specifically. YA fantasy leans a lot less grey I'd note.
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Post by Techno Hippy on Nov 8, 2021 17:12:49 GMT
Still working my way through the Asterix books, and I have to say they are a delight :-)
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Nov 8, 2021 18:04:46 GMT
I got bored. I finished Oathbringer, but I just don’t care what happens to any of them. I felt similarly by the end of Oathbringer. I haven't bothered with the next one. Just tedious.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 18:36:15 GMT
I've joined a book club in our village. Couldn't make the first meeting and they've decided to read some Booker Prize winning tale of inner city misery called Shuggie Bairn or something. I read the precis and thought "Diskworld this isn't".
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Post by Tonka (🐑,🪤) on Nov 8, 2021 18:55:46 GMT
Please let me know what you thought of it. There was a lot of talk about it in Sweden and I was tempted to pick it up.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 8, 2021 21:21:34 GMT
I think the thing that separates low fantasy from other types isn't really the grimdarkness. It's more that the genre is more comfortable with characters being cynical or morally grey, rather than straight heroes or villains. And that's basically what I liked about First Law. As someone who reads a ton of fantasy I don't think that's true at all, and I'm surprised that you say it. Do you read much fantasy? Which series starting after about 1995 would you say have "straight heroes and villains"? I would say that whilst a lot of low/dark fantasy is indeed "morally grey", which is basically a dogwhistle for grimdark and/or "at least one main character is a rapist" at this point, there's very little fantasy in general which has clear goodies and baddies. Stuff like Harry Potter is an exception. That's true across the spectrum from ultra-epic fantasy to really small-scale fantasy. The Naomi Novik books I mentioned for example don't - basically none of her books do, except maybe Uprooted. The antagonists are rarely entirely in the wrong. It would be hard to think of more morally grey books than the Malazan series, and they're ultra-extreme high/epic fantasy. Obviously ASoIaF has a ton of morally grey stuff but perhaps you'd call that "low fantasy"? I could go on - but I think the vast majority, like 60-70% of fantasy today features quite a few "morally grey" characters, including protagonists. Often there are actual villains too - but that's also true of The First Law, I'll avoid spoilers but we all know who the bad guy is and indeed the book all but spells it out immediately, albeit whilst attempting to confuse the issue. I think this more a product of the last quarter-century of fantasy writing than "low fantasy" specifically. YA fantasy leans a lot less grey I'd note. Ok clearly I don't read much fantasy. Sorry sir I won't say the wrong term again sir.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 21:44:12 GMT
Please let me know what you thought of it. There was a lot of talk about it in Sweden and I was tempted to pick it up. Only thing the book is tempting me to do is leave the book club 🙂
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Nov 8, 2021 22:11:17 GMT
Anyway, here is another review of a fantasy thing (Is it low fantasy? Please don't write another essay at me sir, I'm ever so sorry) that I probably read A Little Hatred (the Abercrombie one) I didn't feel like reading the standalone novels, so went straight to plowing through the second trilogy. There's a couple of characters in it that I would probably know if I'd read the in-between stuff, but they did a good enough job of introducing them so I wasn't confused. Though some of the "as you know, we've been fighting such-and-such over this place for the last decade" expository dialogue felt a bit clunky, even though it's probably necessary. Anyway, it's good! Much improved female characters, though the ones that appear from the previous trilogy seem to not have changed over the last 25 years. But the new ones are already more compelling and 3-dimemsional. The new plots are interesting. Feel very contemporary with the protests and riots and such, though I know it's meant to be a riff on the Luddites. And terrible things happen, though I'm so used to terrible things happening in these books that I saw certain plot twists coming from miles away. I don't think I like the new crew quite as much as the old ones, but there's still two books left for them to grow on me.
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dam
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Post by dam on Nov 8, 2021 23:35:09 GMT
Please let me know what you thought of it. There was a lot of talk about it in Sweden and I was tempted to pick it up. Only thing the book is tempting me to do is leave the book club 🙂 Maybe it's a bit Scottish! The author seems a decent sort, lives in NYC. Have got it, not read yet.
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Post by spacein_vader on Nov 9, 2021 7:42:07 GMT
Star Trek Coda books 1 & 2.
For those not aware this is an attempt to bring the Star Trek book universe into line with the new Canon brought about by Picard/Discovery/Lower Decks. R as there than say "they're all legends, they don't count any more" like Star Wars did they're taking a different path.
The story hinges around time travel and temporal anomalies, I suspect leading to some sort of great time line reset which will feed into Picard. It also means they can and do kill anyone.
It's very much fanservice, they've brought Picard, Data, Riker, Sisko, Dax, Worf, O'Brian, Spock, Paris, Torres and more into it and haven't been shy with the death toll. The 3rd part is released at the end of the month but it'll have to wait till after the final Expanse novel which is out the same day.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Nov 9, 2021 9:43:02 GMT
Ok clearly I don't read much fantasy. Sorry sir I won't say the wrong term again sir. LOL sorry I'm just saying that whole lack of clean badguys and good guys has become pretty common, and it always surprises me when people are surprised by it. As aside the surest way to tell someone doesn't read much/any fantasy is if they insist dwarves, orcs, halflings and so are common in fantasy writing, because people assume Tolkien and D&D tropes are common in fantasy writing when they're actually really rare. Elves (or close equivalents) and dragons are common as heck though. Book-wise, I recently listened to: The Painted Man by Peter V Brett I'd been ignoring the series for years, but Robin Hobb (author of the great Assassin series) seemed to like them so I gave it a go. It's an interestingly bizarre setting, a rebuilt post-apocalyptic quasi-medieval society where every night demons coalesce from the air to slaughter people and magical runes have to be inscribed carefully on buildings to keep them away. The book uses a mult-POV (point of view) approach like a lot of fantasy, following three young people over fifteen years or so of growth. Generally it's clearly trying to be realistic about human behaviour and how people are warped by fears and exploit the fears of others,and it avoids being grimdark as a result, presenting a mixed picture of kindness and cowardice, bravery and exploitation. The characters are likeable and largely believable, and if plot has some inevitability to it, it also has some surprises and shocks, and uses time-skips quite effectively. The author is genuinely good at making you afraid or mad on behalf of the characters, too. Good pace and switches characters in an interesting way as well. So I'd give it a solid 7/10. Unfortunately I'm now reading the sequel, The Desert Spear which I would not rate nearly so well so far. This book spends a huge amount of time on what I can only say are pointlessly grim or uninteresting POVs, following the entire life story of an asshole antagonist from the previous book, which would be fine if it was interesting or surprising and his culture wasn't epically misogynist (basically ISIS). In the end there's literally one interesting revelation (soothsayers who actually seem to be right) in hours and hours. And then we have a long and frustrating POV about an abused character getting abused and not being able to do anything about it, which is realistic but like what the fuck? If you literally said to the reader "So what do you think would happen with X characters over those fifteen years?" any reader could have guessed this. Finally coming up on the halfway mark we're back to the main characters of the previous book and the plot is actually moving. Also some new baddies got introduced and they're kind of B-movie, which is unhelpful. So far it's more like 4/10 and only the fact that it's an audiobook and I liked the main characters is keeping me going. Going to need to improve drastically if I'm going to read the next one I think.
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Post by PazJohnMitch on Nov 9, 2021 11:35:13 GMT
Anyway, here is another review of a fantasy thing (Is it low fantasy? Please don't write another essay at me sir, I'm ever so sorry) that I probably read A Little Hatred (the Abercrombie one) I didn't feel like reading the standalone novels, so went straight to plowing through the second trilogy. I recommend reading The Heroes but would skip the other 2 and Sharp Ends. There is nothing wrong with the 2 main novels but The Heroes is the only one I found to be as good as the original trilogy. (Actually probably better than any of the first 3 individually but weaker than the 3 combined. If that makes sense). (There is a Glokta chapter in Sharp Ends which is always welcome but overall it was substandard).
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