What Are You Reading, Part 2

[Briar King]

It's is very good. Heavy though so prepare to use your think meatz!

[aneonfoxtribute]

4 hours ago, Briar King said:

It's is very good. Heavy though so prepare to use your think meatz!

Yeah I've heard that it's hefty and has a very big learning curve. We'll see how I do

[Silver Phantom he/him]

I just got a new book and it’s crazy. It’s called flight from the dark and it’s a rpg book. It like a choose your own adventure book, but turned up to 11. There’s five in the first series and choices your make in book one will effect you in book five. You have a character sheet in the book that you have to keep track of you stats with

Spoiler

 

[Mags she/they]

I finally finished Keeper of the Keys, by Janny Wurts, I can finally move on with my life. For now I'll just ignore that there's a third book in the series I will force myself to read at some point . . .

I wrote a pretty extensive review of the first book in this series, Stormwarden, for those who check this thread regularly. I'm too tired to write a longer review listing all my likes and dislikes, but here are some of my main thoughts:

(Spoilers beyond this point, for those who care. I'm not too worried about it because this an obscure book from the 80's. But you never know.)

Rating for those who don't feel like reading my rambles: 2/5

Spoiler

If you read the other review you'll remember I felt a little weird about the circumstances of one of the main characters. Basically in the first book, there was this 10 year old girl who got put in a magic science pod so she could master sorcery quickly (and it also healed her, etc.). She was in the pod for about a year but when she came out she was a fully grown woman (so 18ish). I like the concept, I think it's interesting and could lead to a really neat character. However . . .

1-The book never clarifies whether it felt like she spend 8-ish years aging, or whether it felt like just a year to her. It also heavily implies she is still mentally childish which would be interesting if it weren't for the fact that:

2-In the second book, the main character, an 18 year old man falls in love with her (with the implication that she reciprocates those feelings). And it's lowkey kinda weird. Like yeah she's physically an adult but also . . . brother that's a preteen.

3-The books description, as a part of explaining how beautiful and lovely she is, constantly describes how childlike, and small, and innocent she looks. Which started to come off as a little creepy.

At this point, she should have just stayed a kid, the only purpose of her becoming an adult is so the romance is technically justified. It makes you wonder why she didn't start out older--I talked about this in my first review too--and my only thought is so we wouldn't misinterpret some of her relationships with other men before she speed-runs aging (like, the author wanted to make sure we knew it wasn't romantic by making it clearly a guardian and child dynamic). When I talked about Stormwarden, I said I had hoped the romance thing wouldn't go anywhere, but it did. Maybe this is just the series being a product of it's time, idk. I stuck through it anyway because it wasn't that bad, but it is bothersome.

One thing that struck me while reading this book is that the language is very . . . fanfictiony? I don't know if it was this way in the first book, and I'm only noticing it now because I've had more experience with fanfiction, or if this book really is different. I actually praised the prose last time, and don't get me wrong I still liked some of the old language-y description. But the description of characters and their emotions specifically felt very over the top and kind of angsty. Calling it fanfictiony is the only way I know how to describe it, even thought that's probably not the most accurate. It's like:

I held my breath is a I talked to him, because I knew this man was highly skilled. He could strike me down where I stood at any moment. I was but a pawn in his games. His muscles rippled when he sat down, further clarifying his terrifying strength.

And they're just talking about some random political plans. Like, the author constantly wanted to remind me who dangerous and skilled some of her cast members were, even though the character describing it to me was meant to be a friend/ally of the dangerous person?? It just felt so strange.

That sort of leads into my next point. All of the relationships between the characters felt forced, and when two characters would naturally be closer, the author is like 'nah.' Like I said, there's the romance between the two younger characters, and I just don't feel it man. They've know each other for a few weeks, and had a strained relationship at the start because one betrayed the other. And suddenly they're close friends? For absolutely no reason. There's also this pirate captain, who I liked, but grew soft on the younger characters way too fast, and once again without reason. Bonds between people are one of my favorite parts of reading fiction, but every character in this book felt like they either should or shouldn't care as much as they do about each other.

The characters had potential to be incredibly interesting and unique, and then the author made them as basic as possible. So many themes that could be explored, so many ways to make things messy, so many ways to have an impactful storyline, all ignored for the sake of drawing a straight line from point A to point B. I already talked about the aged up sorceress girl, who I think could have explored some interesting things about growing up. But lets talk about this books main character.

His whole storyline in this book is basically: Because he's the heir of this famous fire wizard, he's the only one who can train with fire powers and be the next fire wizard. But his dad (the old fire wizard) went insane because of the fire powers and killed a bunch of people. So he is hesitant to get the fire powers. But the world will end if he doesn't. You get the gist. He spends the whole book avoiding his fate and looking for other options before ultimately having to go get the fire powers anyway. I don't actually hate this concept, once again it could have gone in an interesting direction. But it didn't. He changes his mind for very basic (though I guess believable) reasons, and the extent of his struggle is just him constantly narrating how awful he feels. It's a pretty exhausting reading experience. I'm not a good writer, but I'm sure there could've been some way to make it cooler. I also would've liked to see one of alternate solutions actually work, instead of him caving, which is very predictable. But the series is literally named after his fire powers, so whatever. My point is, it's like this with the other characters too. And it's genuinely not because they just fit into traditional fantasy archetypes, and the book is old and a product of it's time, and yadayadayada. They're not! These are characters with intriguing premises, they're just written in an incredibly boring way.

Moving on to some other random complaints.

Because of the psychic adjacent nature of the main magic used in the story, there's a dream sequence like every other chapter. I'm not exaggerating. There were a few times when it was used as an interesting narrative device, but it got old very quickly. Need some exposition? Dream sequence. Need to show a new pov we haven't previously been following? Dream sequence. Need to scare the MC into excepting his fate? Dream sequence.

I felt like some of the worldbuilding explored also fell flat. We were introduced to a new culture and it was extremely basic, but played off as interesting and exotic. It sort of fell into uncomfortable stereotyping at times, but wasn't that bad. I wouldn't mind the stereotypes if it felt like care had been put into how they were written.

There was a corruption arc character who became fully evil during this book, and it all happened way too quickly, and without nearly enough struggle. He also became too powerful too quickly.

This series also falls into the trope of "look at my cool fantasy world SIKE IT'S ACTUALLY A SCI FI, ALL THE HUMANS ARE DECENDANTS OF SPACE COLONISTS FROM EARTH" which is a trope I strongly dislike. I knew this from the first book, and tried to not let that effect things for me. But suffice it to say, I just dislike scifi in general (for purely subjective reasons), so the sci fi elements weren't for me. I do quite like the base of this fantasy world, it has some unique stuff going for it, but the sci fi stuff kind of diminished that and shoved it all aside. Idk, maybe that's just me being biased, lol!

There are things about this book that enjoyed, but they don't outnumber my complaints and I have a lot less to say about them. I liked how this book built on and connected with the first one, I thought the plot progression was interesting, if a bit slow. Outside of the characters, things weren't too predictable. I enjoyed some of the featured side characters and side plot lines.

And yeah. Those are my rambles. Your welcome . (If anyone actually reads these lolllllll)

This turned into a bit more a rant review then I had intended, I didn't hate it that much, it was just very exhausting and I'm glad I can finally move on.

Next I'm going to read Mockingjay, because I want to finish the HG trilogy before I forget all the details of what happened. I'm hoping this'll be a good break and refresher because it's YA, fast-paced stuff that should be easier to read. (On KotK, I was reading 20 pages in a dedicated hour  that's not an exageration).

Until next time!

[Treamayne]

Started a Web Serial (complete) based on a coworker's recommendation and that it has an epub download option. It's looking to be more complex than I first thought (shared universe with other web serial books in the same canon sharing characters and affecting each other's storylines). Synopsis:

The Deathworlders
 

Spoiler

https://deathworlders.com/

You may already be familiar with the concept of a Deathworld; planets so terribly inhospitable that any hapless explorer landing on one is likely to meet a swift and unpleasant end. Science Fiction is riddled with such worlds, beginning with the planet Pyrrus from Harry Harrison’s novel “Deathworld,” and from there to the Arrakis, Catachan, Z’ha’dum, Midworld, Pandora and many, many more…

Including, in this series, the Earth. Not that humanity knows any different, as we have never visited any other planet to make a comparison. But to the other species of the galaxy, humans are terrifying in our strength and intelligence. Our arrival on the galactic scene will change the course of history…and not necessarily always for the better.

Exerpt: <minor spoilers - language content warning>

Spoiler

“Category one is, like, the Garden of Eden. You could drop any species in the galaxy down there completely buck bare and they’d be happy as Larry for the rest of their lives.”

“Most planets are like, a four to six or so. You don’t want to get caught in the rain and you’ll need to work for your food, but generally it’s pretty easy living on those worlds.”

“Anything above Class ten is considered a deathworld.”

“Deathworlds have things like high gravity, poisonous plants and critters, lots of carnivores, nasty little microorganisms, natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanoes, acid rain, high background radiation, stuff like that. Like I said, a deathworld is everything Class Ten or above, and anything that evolves there is supposed to be really goddamn dangerous.”

Kevin Jenkins opened a beer for himself.

“Earth,” he said, with vicious satisfaction. “Is a Class Twelve.”

- - - - - - -

The first chapter of what would eventually become “The Deathworlders,” was posted on 4chan some years ago now, as a self-contained story.

At first I thought it had received some pleasant comments and then sank without a trace. It was only after Reddit user “Guidosbestfriend” set his own story “Humans Don’t Make Good Pets” in the same universe and I confessed to having created the setting that I learned that “The Kevin Jenkins Experience” was considered a HFY classic.

Surprising as this was, I then decided to write a sequel, and from there the clamor for more has picked me up and swept me along.

For those who are upset by the strongly antitheistic content of part 0.2, I implore you to power on through it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the resolution to that content.

—Hambone

Only starting Chapter 6, but interesting so far (especially the exploration of evolution's impact on resiliency and how that may be different for xenobiology).

[Use the Falchion]

On Saturday I finally started Pride & Prejudice. It'll take me a while to get through, as I'm finding I have to be incredibly intentional about reading so I can understand everything. I'm happy I saw the Bollywood film version of the movie beforehand, so I have a rough understanding of some of the major characters. 

[aneonfoxtribute]

I am now rereading Mistborn, and reading for the first time Soulsmith, Gardens of the Moon, and Siege and Storm. I will also be reading a few volumes of Bleach and Black Clover before the month is done 

[Briar King]

Only just breaking pg 700 of W&T. 600 to go. It's gonna take forever to get through this mess.

Very close to dnf point with this one. I just don't know how much longer I can take it.

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I am now rereading Mistborn,

If it is a re-read, have you considered going for an Integrated Re-read (Assuming Era 2 and M:SH are also previously read)?

[aneonfoxtribute]

5 hours ago, Treamayne said:

If it is a re-read, have you considered going for an Integrated Re-read (Assuming Era 2 and M:SH are also previously read)?

I'm actually rereading it along with a Reddit read along, I have considered rereading other stories in chronological order, but that time isn't now.

[Eluvianii he/him]

Finished the first volume of Lord of Mysteries, Clown. It's a fun read. Mostly sol, with some good action here and there.

It introduces all these occultist and lovecraftian concepts for its magic system, but also keeps the tone (mostly) light, so you can focus on how ridiculously cool the magic is without having to worry about every single character meeting a horrible mind breaking death (some do though).

Progression is fun, I like the characters, wish we got more pov changes. Looking forward to Volume 2.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

I recently read Scythe by Neal Shusterman, probably wasn't a good idea as WaT will just overshadow anything I read for a bit. Trying to take WaT bias away, the book was alright. 

[JDharmawan]

I have just finished the entire Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. I think CDPR's games raised the bar a lot for me, and I was kind of disappointed about the books especially with how it ends. Hmmm yea hot take kind of, I prefer the games...

Anyway, right now I'm reading Indie Author's books. It's titled The Lastest of Words by Louigi Verona.

Afterwards in my list will be the latest ACOTAR. I haven't continued the series after finishing the trilogy, I figured it's time to read Book 4.

[Dunkum he/him]

Started up The Tainted Cup the other day on the advice of a friend, and really enjoying it so far. have the sequel in the wings as well, and after that Mordew.

[Mags she/they]

I finished my reread of the hobbit today!! It was amazing and wonderful, as always. I’ll probably start Fellowship tomorrow.
 

I’m technically also reading Unfinished tales, but my copy is way too heavy to take to school, so I need a paperback to read and I just got a really nice new lotr paperback so . Part of me thinks I should take a break from Tolkien, but I’m so so hyperfixed lol.

 

Spoiler

And yes

Spoiler

Rereading the hobbit has sparked a Thranduil obsession what about it

 

Edited May 19, 2025 by Mag

[Eluvianii he/him]

I kinda just devoured the first volume of A Practical Guide to Evil. It's kinda been a while since I was this glued to a book. My sleeping schedule was already in poor shape but this book managed to do some extra damage to it.

My expectations for the thing were kinda average since the summary didn't give me the biggest picture on what this was going to be like, but I guess it's the most popular web serial for a reason.

Magic is cool (as magic usually is), it goes half the way through being a litrpg, but doesn't land there. No stats, no levels, but yes classes, and I like the way they work tbh. The author turned fantasy tropes into a magic system and I find that unbelievably cool. Even more so the fact that he made it work.

The world feels big and someone seems to be having fun revealing it just a tiny drop at a time. First volume represents an incredibly small portion of the total page count, so I can only imagine how big this world becomes.

There's also this weird feeling I get reading this. Pretty much every character here is a bad guy, protagonist included despite her trying not to be. They all make choices that would make me hate a person for life. But they're likable bad guys, and watching them make said choices can be really satisfying. It's like watching an action movie where you can turn off your brain and ignore the ever increasing body count of the protagonist, except this book doesn't really let you turn off your brain because it keeps bringing up how morally dubious everything is. Enjoyable, but it does feel strange (to me anyway).

Gotta say tho, I don't know if there's a revised version of the book on kindle or something, but the web version has probably the most grammar errors I've seen in one of these. A particularly bad portion of the book even starts using first person and third person both within the same sentence (novel is told in first person, but for a few chapters, the author regularly forgot). Curiously not many typos, mostly you'll see the wrong word being used. Like someone ran the draft through Microsoft Word's spell check without manually checking the result.

Looking forward to see how big the story becomes. The transition to book 2 already seems to be quite a leap in scope, and I'd imagine it only keeps growing from there. It is a pretty damn daunting story though, length-wise. Don't get me wrong, few things get me as excited as a stupidly long fantasy epic, but can't deny that the commitment is hard to keep up. Hope I'm up for the task.

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

I've finished The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. 'Tis a good book. I'm going to read the sequels soon. For now though, I'll have to decide my next read between Neuromancer, The Black Prism and Old Man's War.

[Treamayne]

6 hours ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

The Black Prism 

The Black Prism (and all five of Lightbringer by Brent Weeks) has been discussed in this thread a few times, if you want to do a quick search to see some opinions, in case it informs your decision. 

[KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren He/Him]

5 hours ago, Treamayne said:

The Black Prism (and all five of Lightbringer by Brent Weeks) has been discussed in this thread a few times, if you want to do a quick search to see some opinions, in case it informs your decision. 

I've decided to read it. If I don't like it after 100 pages I might stop, but I usually don't stop reading books mid-way unless they're really, really bad.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

4 minutes ago, KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren said:

I've decided to read it. If I don't like it after 100 pages I might stop, but I usually don't stop reading books mid-way unless they're really, really bad.

It's one of my favorite series! The MC is great if you've struggled with being overweight. 

[Briar King]

Lightbringer is a fun read.

I've somehow broke pg 800 on W&T so haven't put it on shelf to dnf quite yet. Still close though.

[Treamayne]

On 4/10/2025 at 7:25 AM, Treamayne said:

Started a Web Serial (complete) based on a coworker's recommendation and that it has an epub download option. It's looking to be more complex than I first thought (shared universe with other web serial books in the same canon sharing characters and affecting each other's storylines). Synopsis:

The Deathworlders
 

  Reveal hidden contents

https://deathworlders.com/

You may already be familiar with the concept of a Deathworld; planets so terribly inhospitable that any hapless explorer landing on one is likely to meet a swift and unpleasant end. Science Fiction is riddled with such worlds, beginning with the planet Pyrrus from Harry Harrison’s novel “Deathworld,” and from there to the Arrakis, Catachan, Z’ha’dum, Midworld, Pandora and many, many more…

Including, in this series, the Earth. Not that humanity knows any different, as we have never visited any other planet to make a comparison. But to the other species of the galaxy, humans are terrifying in our strength and intelligence. Our arrival on the galactic scene will change the course of history…and not necessarily always for the better.

Exerpt: <minor spoilers - language content warning>

  Reveal hidden contents

“Category one is, like, the Garden of Eden. You could drop any species in the galaxy down there completely buck bare and they’d be happy as Larry for the rest of their lives.”

“Most planets are like, a four to six or so. You don’t want to get caught in the rain and you’ll need to work for your food, but generally it’s pretty easy living on those worlds.”

“Anything above Class ten is considered a deathworld.”

“Deathworlds have things like high gravity, poisonous plants and critters, lots of carnivores, nasty little microorganisms, natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanoes, acid rain, high background radiation, stuff like that. Like I said, a deathworld is everything Class Ten or above, and anything that evolves there is supposed to be really goddamn dangerous.”

Kevin Jenkins opened a beer for himself.

“Earth,” he said, with vicious satisfaction. “Is a Class Twelve.”

- - - - - - -

The first chapter of what would eventually become “The Deathworlders,” was posted on 4chan some years ago now, as a self-contained story.

At first I thought it had received some pleasant comments and then sank without a trace. It was only after Reddit user “Guidosbestfriend” set his own story “Humans Don’t Make Good Pets” in the same universe and I confessed to having created the setting that I learned that “The Kevin Jenkins Experience” was considered a HFY classic.

Surprising as this was, I then decided to write a sequel, and from there the clamor for more has picked me up and swept me along.

For those who are upset by the strongly antitheistic content of part 0.2, I implore you to power on through it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the resolution to that content.

—Hambone

Only starting Chapter 6, but interesting so far (especially the exploration of evolution's impact on resiliency and how that may be different for xenobiology).

Now on "Chapter" 41 - Though I will say that around Chapter 30ish, each chapter is closer to a novella on their own. I guess there are also related stories in the shared universe - I guess I did not realize it was around 4k pages/1.7 million words total.

Still mostly interesting though - Worldbuilding is excellent, most of the authors are good (if unedited) and many many (human and alien) viewpoints are represented.

Edited May 28, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Dunkum he/him]

21 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Now on "Chapter" 41 - Though I will say that around Chapter 30ish, each chapter is closer to a novella on their own. I guess there are also related stories in the shared universe - I guess I did not realize it was around 4k pages/1.7 million words total.

Still mostly interesting though - Worldbuilding is excellent, most of the authors are good (if unedited) and many many (human and alien) viewpoints are represented.

A friend of mine has been reading that, and told me he has read something like 17 novels' worth of Reddit Posts just in that overarching series

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Dunkum said:

A friend of mine has been reading that, and told me he has read something like 17 novels' worth of Reddit Posts just in that overarching series

Most of it can also be found on the Website, including download links for epub versions (either by chapter, or all together - but the formatting leaves much to be desired, so I am fixing my copy). You can also offer, they are interested, I've taken some of teh Reddit-only material and made epubs for that as well (and will offer them to Hambone for his site, if he wants).

• Xiu Saga - 90% complete
• Good Training - 90% complete (includes Champions and Champions 2, plus Interludes)
• MIA - 80 % complete
• Waters of Babylon - 60% Complete
• Humans Don't Make Good Pets - 20% complete
• Salvage 10% complete

Not sure if I will finish the last two. HDMGP I may just do season one, since that's the only relevant part so far. Salvage I have not started reading (just converted from Reddit to Word - which is my first step to crafting an ePub version) and since it is so big, I'll have to see if I like it enough to invest the time. The top three and Deathworlders through Ch 41 should be sharable shortly - which is all integrated into one book, with those three integrated in timeline order.

 

Edited May 29, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[GeneralHZRD he/him]

I just finished The Licanius Trilogy and absolutely loved it!

Now I'm reading "Sword of the Fallen" by G.J. Ogden. I'm also on book 3 of "King's Dark Tidings" by Kel Kade.