What Are You Reading, Part 2

[urrutiap]

Finished reading the last 100 pages of Wheel of Time Dragon Reborn earlier today.

Now Ill be reading Wheel of Time Shadow Rising 

[Briar King]

On 6/30/2021 at 3:02 PM, Spren of Kindness said:

Finished The Eye of the World, and am now reading Fires of Heaven.  So far, it's pretty good.  Question: could someone tell me the ages of some of the main characters, specifically the Emond's Fielders?  I'd go on the wiki, but I don't want to spoil myself.

You skipped quite a few books if you went from Eye to Fires.

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

1 hour ago, Briar King said:

You skipped quite a few books if you went from Eye to Fires.

I was rereading Eye of the World.  I read it about this time last year, but then I went six months before reading The Great Hunt, and subsequently had forgotten almost everything.  Plus, I just bought my own copy of EOTW, so I really wanted to use it.  Edit:  I actually finished EOTW in early August 2020, and read The Great Hunt in March 2021, so closer to eight months.

Funnily enough, I just noticed this notification as I finished up Lord of Chaos.  I think it's the shortest amount of time I've needed to read a WOT book so far.  I started yesterday morning, and it took between seven and ten hours to finish.  It was pretty good.  The same fairly minor complaints I've had so far.  I'm thinking of writing them up, along with what I like, to do something with when I finish the series.

Other stuff I've read: Crash by Eve Silver, Specials by Scot Westerfeld, Ben-Hur, Ember by Anna Holmes, Sky Without Stars, The Star-Touched Queen, The Inventor's Secret, and Dark Shores by Danielle L. Jensen.  Mostly YA.  The Star-Touched Queen was particularly good.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Spren of Kindness

[Orlion Blight he/him]

Currently reading The Past is Red by The Catherynne M Valente 

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

Got through A Crown of Swords, which is probably my least favorite of Wheel of Time book so far, and The Path of Daggers, as well as Ruin and Rising, so now I'm done with Shadow and Bone.  It was okay.  I actually got a little emotional at the end, so I think it was pretty well done.  Probably not going to read Six of Crows.

I got An Ember in the Ashes and Light of the Jedi, both of which I've heard a lot about, so we'll see how good those are.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

2 hours ago, Spren of Kindness said:

Got through A Crown of Swords, which is probably my least favorite of Wheel of Time book so far, and The Path of Daggers, as well as Ruin and Rising, so now I'm done with Shadow and Bone.  It was okay.  I actually got a little emotional at the end, so I think it was pretty well done.  Probably not going to read Six of Crows.

I got An Ember in the Ashes and Light of the Jedi, both of which I've heard a lot about, so we'll see how good those are.

Light of the Jedi was fun. I'll be reading it's sequel, The Rising Storm, soon

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

55 minutes ago, Orlion Blight said:

Light of the Jedi was fun. I'll be reading it's sequel, The Rising Storm, soon

Oh, I didn't know it had a sequel.  Neat!

[Orlion Blight he/him]

3 hours ago, Spren of Kindness said:

Oh, I didn't know it had a sequel.  Neat!

Just came out!

It's part of the High Republic portion of Star Wars that is using different "mediums" to tell stories in a time a few hundred years before Episode 1.

So books ("adult", YA, middle grade and children's),  comics and eventually manga a little later this year. 

Get in on the ground floor on canon that won't be acknowledged anywhere else! *laugh-sobs*

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

Finished An Ember in the Ashes.  It was well written.  I was a bit surprised at how fast paced it was.

Also read Winter's Heart!  I'm burned out on reading for the rest of the day, it was so good.

[urrutiap]

Im currently reading Wheel of Time Fires of Heaven and Children of Dune

[Eluvianii he/him]

Needed something simple and went for Zero's Familiar. This reads like a machine translation half the time but it's more than tolerable.

[Spectromixer he/him]

Started reading Tiamat's Wrath by James SA Corey

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

About to start Crossroads of Twilight!  I've hit the double digits of WOT, which for some reason feels like an accomplishment.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

1 hour ago, Spren of Kindness said:

About to start Crossroads of Twilight!  I've hit the double digits of WOT, which for some reason feels like an accomplishment.

Good luck! That's where I stopped due to life happening. 

From what I heard, it is the weakest, buuuut important stuff still happens in it. 

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

Finished Crossroads of Twilight!  Overall, positive feelings.  Next up, a stack of sci-fi and natural disaster/survival fiction, and I expect Knife of Dreams pretty soon.  At this rate, I just might be able to finish the series by mid-September.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

6 hours ago, Spren of Kindness said:

Finished Crossroads of Twilight!  Overall, positive feelings.  Next up, a stack of sci-fi and natural disaster/survival fiction, and I expect Knife of Dreams pretty soon.  At this rate, I just might be able to finish the series by mid-September.

That's good to hear. I always suspected fans are harder on a series as it's going on then it may deserve. 

 

[Briar King]

Star Wars Rising Storm. I’m liking this much more then Light of Jedi but I still find these books weak compared to my old EU.

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

7 minutes ago, Orlion Blight said:

That's good to hear. I always suspected fans are harder on a series as it's going on then it may deserve. 

 

Absolutely, especially with something as big as the Wheel of Time.

[Mulk he/him]

Crossroads was awful in the context of the time of its publishing (I still thought it had its moments but man was it disappointing after Winter's Heart), but it works far better when you don't have three plus years to wait for Knife of Dreams, which was excellent.  All downhill from here, imo!

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

I'm not a big poetry reader, but I got a book called Alone, by Megan Freeman, about a girl in an abandoned town.  The whole thing is written in verse, though I'm not sure what kind.  It's not rhyming.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I also read If We Survive by Andrew Klavan, which I have described to friends as the 'every Christian parent's worst nightmare' plot.  It was good.  Shorter that I would have liked, but still a good length.

Next up:  Into the Black by Evan Currie, an adult sci-fi about a starship's maiden voyage, and Knife of Dreams!

[Eluvianii he/him]

Read Survivor Type by Stephen King. It's scary not gonna lie. I also read it while hungry which was either a brilliant idea or a terrible one depending on your viewpoint. 

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

Knife of Dreams has proven to be slightly slow going.  I'm about to start And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer by Fredrick Backman.  I've heard it's a very emotional book.  Excited to see how it goes!

[Honorless he/him]

Recently wrapped up The Torch That Ignites The Stars (Book 3 of Arcane Ascension) & Defying Destiny (Book 3 of War of Broken Mirrors) & Soulbrand (Book 3 of Weapons and Wielders) all written by Andrew Rowe and set in the same universe. And just wow. The characters and the magic system are amazing. Absolutely recommend if you're looking for something similar in scope to the Cosmere. The magic system, the magic system, the magic system... Squeeeeeeee! It subverts expectations, so I won't say much except that it's good, and don't go in expecting LitRPG, it's only one in name (thankfully... sorry, just not really into the genre), the author himself prefers the term progression fantasy and that fits.

Also completed the Mage Errant series and ooh boy, I had severely low expectations. Book 1 was so meh, so full of tropes, it was unbelievable. Book 2 was also meh. Books 3, 4 & 5 on the other hand... were on fire. A lot of people did like the first two books actually, very comfortable, nostalgic, well-worn is how they described them. I think you get the gist. The magic system here is also just superb. This is also a broad scope multiverse, right now the hints are only in the appendices at the end of the books and a few scattered mentions, including a major one in the Lost City of Ithos (Book 4). Despite the YA tones of the first two books, the series dives into pretty dark stuff at times later on and the characters mature really well, and all of it is written really well. I'm vibrating here, trying not to give spoilers. There's another standalone book set in the same multiverse (the Aetheriad) called the Wrack, which is really unique. It follows the course of a plague in a world and so is pretty grimdark. The magic system here in this book is very unique. People replace their eyeballs with gemstones. There's... a sort of proto internet magic. It's all really cool. I'm doing a terrible job of selling this... just give it a try, it's good.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Honorless

[Spren of Kindness she/her]

On 8/18/2021 at 3:18 PM, Spren of Kindness said:

I'm about to start And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer by Fredrick Backman.  I've heard it's a very emotional book.  Excited to see how it goes!

I cried.  More than once.  It grabbed all the emotions about similar things in my own life, and dragged them right out into the open again, in a heart-wrenching, but cathartic way.

I also finished Knife of Dreams, because what better way to stall making a skirt, then reading about skirt smoothing?

Next up, six Jane Austen novels, and Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth.

[urrutiap]

Stuff Im reading the rest of this year

Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Due, Chapterhouse of Dune

the Butlerian Jihad Trilogy Dune prequel

Star Wars High Republic Light of the Jedi hardcover

Star Wars High Republic Rising Storm

the original Forrest Gump novel and its sequel