Books

[Lady Door]

Three Body Problem- A mix of Chinese cultural history with a dash of extremely hard scifi. Pretty good even if I had to google some of the math concepts involved.

This was a very interesting book, pretty high on the list of "I guess I liked it but I couldn't exactly tell you why." It had the same generally floaty psychological feel as 1Q84, I think because in both cases I was as lost culturally as I was philosophically in the exploration of what the hell was going on.

--

Since Peace Talks officially has a release date now, the re-reading has begun. There's a Facebook group that was started by someone in my Wayward Backers group (a sub-group from Name of the Wind, Worldbuilders fundraiser, and Kickstarters) that's dedicated to this, and discussion of such. It just so happens that if you start now (well, on December 17, but finishing #1 by December 30) you'll re-read Skin Game down to the day of Peace Talks release.

Group for people who have read the books and would enjoy spoiler-y conversation covering the whole series: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2504519489769768/
Group for everyone else: https://www.facebook.com/groups/800762033703721/

[superaielman]

The cultural stuff I had a pretty good grounding on; but I have studied that period in history. The math, whoof. One of my friends read it and he found the math out there, and he has a PHD in the field.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I've read a few books since I posted in here last:

The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert - A chronicle of the history of modern extinction and the pursuit of understanding why things go extinct in order to try to prevent it from accelerating in the future. Very interesting book, but a little dry.

The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk - A book about trauma and treatment of symptoms of trauma. Very interesting, and I can see various aspects of trauma manifesting in a variety of people I know, including myself. It talks about long-term treatment for trauma and how to recover from an endless cycle of either rage or being dead inside. Great book, even if I'm never 100% sure how scientific psychology is.

The Ends of the World - Peter Brannen - Another book about extinction, this time about the five previous extinction events in history, how they happened, and how they can help us predict the point in which we will trigger mass extinction in our world today. Pretty much every extinction event happened because of massive changes in CO2, both an increase and decrease. One of the extinction events was caused by a massive amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere at once, making the concentration like 20x higher than it is today, but a massive decrease in CO2 rapidly can also cause extinction events. Because drastic changes in climate can alter the living space of species, many of them die off when it changes rapidly.

Of course, we are changing it very rapidly compared to even those events. The book talks about the human 'wet bulb temperature' limit, which basically means how much heat our body can tolerate at 100% humidity, and that once the surface begins to reach that temperature in certain regions, we will have to start migrating (and of course, so will animals, disrupting pretty much all of the ecosystems on earth), creating migration events far beyond what we currently see. Long-term, water supply will also be a major problem.

Of course, most of us will be dead by the time all of this shit really goes down. Unless they preserve my brain in a jar.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I recommend it if you are interested in climate science.

Educated - Tara Westover -  A book about a girl raised by a survivalist family who never went to public school and was taught all kinds of crazy stuff. It's a pretty extreme version of the southern experience, but not so crazy that I don't believe it. She ends up talking about her journey through university and the process she went through to learn how to interact with the world normally, like learning that medication was not the great Satan and learning about the Holocaust. it was also interesting for her to talk about how she slowly began to open up to people about her experiences, which reminded me a bit of my own experience.

Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold - Another Miles book, this time with twin hijinks. I think... I am probably done with this series. It was good enough to keep me going for a few books, but I guess I'm a little bored of them?

[Dhyerwolf]

Board ate this the first time

The Blinding White (Brent Weeks)- Read over Christmas/NYE. For Ashley, the physical book fell has a hair short of 1000 pages. Definitely understand the critique that it felt super high stakes and yet there were no stakes at all...

Because basically nobody died. Cruxer was the only hero and he died before the fighting started. Kip died but was prophesied to come back, so there was no real question there. Corvan basically blew himself up as a diversion and still lived, and contrary to the prediction I made on the board previously, both Teia and Tisis lived (although at least no concept of a love triangle was carried forward). And on top of that, all the characters effectively got a likely life extension thanks to the revised Blinding Knife.

Anyways, it had a good scope and location for a final book, which is about as much as I can ask for from it since final books are ones that can often veer far off the rails. It was basically just hitting character beats the previous books had established except for a few things with Andross (who got a...fitting conclusion).

Could see Weeks writing more in this world since both the Everdark Gates and some of the higher level lore could be explored more if he choose.

The Witchwood Crown (Tad Williams)- Book 1 of the trilogy follow up to Sorrow, Memory and Thorn (or whatever order those are supposed to go in). Also clocked in around 1000 pages, although it was a pretty easy read. Williams is good at painting characters (although in the case of the Morgan, maybe too good since the character is a massive brat. At least its intentional). Didn't see either of the twists at the end coming at all (although one of them comes of nowhere); however, part of this is because some of the character ages are very nebulous.

Unver and Tzoja are twins, but Tzoja seems at least mid 30s (has an adult/late teen daughter), but there's no way Unver makes any sense at a 35 year old.

Based on some of the POVs, I'd be surprised to see this series end in a big battle. Also, the fact that the trilogy title is the "Last King of Osten Ard" seems like an obvious trick. Williams leaned into it way too much (only male heir is a horrible brat, Simon mentioned at the end that the parts of Osten Ard weren't one kingdom before).

[Lady Door]

Since Peace Talks got a release date (July 14, 2020 - the 20th anniversary of Dresden Files' debut), I've joined a re-reading group. I'm more or less reading at my own pace but the timing also varies based on how annoyed I am at having to pay $10 for an eBook when my library doesn't have a copy. Past Ashley was a jerk and donated the hard copies figuring Future Ashley could just buy them again if she wanted to read them, forgetting that she reads things 10 at a time and dropping $100 on paperback books is never fun.

Anyway, I'm reading Summer Knight now (#4) and a few things have stood out to me.

• I forgot that basically none of the pivotal characters in the later books show up in the first 4.
• God that white knight chivalry thing is obnoxious.
• References to 90s tech (and assumptions thereof) amuses me.
• I really enjoy how these books build upon one another. While they're self-contained, each new book really does add something more and something new and something which changes your understanding of what you already thought you knew.

I'm currently on pace to finish the re-read ahead of schedule but that's cool. I'm also reading other books in between. Turns out when I take lunch breaks and read, I polish off books pretty fast.

--

Other book I am concurrently reading is Impossible Times #2, Limited Wish, through Kindle Unlimited. I specify the source because Kindle Unlimited is where I go to find the shelf remainders. When I used to go to the library a lot as a kid, I exhausted their main SF/F section and had to start digging the back collection for other things. The things no one really read, that hadn't been checked out in years. In modern parlance, Kindle Unlimited is that - it just also includes brand new stuff by midlist authors. Mark Lawrence wrote The Broken Empire series. I don't think I ever read it, but I think I got the first book in this particular series off of the Kindle First newsletter that lets me choose 1 book a month of a small selection that I get to read for free.

Anyway, I definitely consider this a midlist title. It's interesting but it lacks the kind of depth that pulls a story up from the "serviceable entertainment" category. Not that I mind - I read a lot of stuff, especially SF/F, that fits that category.

Core concept is it's the 80s in England and there's a kid who has leukemia that is met by his future self and given the knowledge that the work he will do is pivotal in creating the future where he survives this rare cancer. Kid, being a kid, needs his D&D friends to help him navigate the weirdness and Get Stuff Done.

I like it enough that I'm reading it. It won't go down as a favorite for me, at least not yet. Time travel in semi-modern England is, weirdly, a thoroughly explored topic and I'm not seeing too much here that really sets this approach apart. But I do like how it tackles the social side of things, the realism against the surreal, how a precocious pre-genius kid navigates this stuff happening to him -- the cancer, the time travel, the implications that time travel has on his relationships.

[Lady Door]

Haven't gone on to reading Death Masks (Dresden Files #5) yet because it's one of those ones my library doesn't have an ebook copy of so I either have to buy it ($10) or trudge down to the library for a phy-si-cal copy, neither of which I feel like doing.

Instead, I finished Impossible Times #2 and started reading The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2, Scalzi).

Limited Wish was okay. I enjoyed it well enough but it didn't end up turning into a book I felt like I had to come back and read the next bit of. I guess I just find the story too unrelatable -- I have no terminal illness (or potentially terminal), I'm not a subject-matter genius and definitely not for mathematics, I'm not from the UK, I'm not male, I'm not attracted to women, I've never had a literal mortal enemy, and I've definitely never been involved in time travel (that I remember) -- and that was enough to push it to the outside bounds of entertainment. I'll undoubtedly read another if it came out, and probably something else he writes, but it will remain firmly in the Kindle Unlimited closet.

The Scalzi book is a Scalzi book. I have fuzzy memories of the previous book and story set so I'm kind of starting from scratch, but I am being fed the important bits so that's good. The snarky science fiction philosophy is exactly what I expect it to be. I'm only about a chapter or two in so there's plenty of room, but I expect I'll like it much like I like the rest of Scalzi's stuff.

[superaielman]

Re Dresden: Books don't find their pace and setting until book 4. Book 3 has Michael and Thomas, but they don't feel like themselves until later books. And yeah the Chivalry thing/Harry being a walking ball of hormones is a thing in the early books, definitely a reflection of Butcher being in his 20's when he wrote those. He has definitely matured as a writer and person.

[Lady Door]

Books bear that out, super.

--

I've continued reading a book every couple of days, so now I'm up to #13. They definitely get progressively more complex, and Harry's story fills itself out as one big long continuous narrative with episodic elements (as opposed to a bunch of episodes loosely connected by a central character). Case in point is Harry's relationship to Susan and where that leads. That one ties together the original vampires, the new vampires, Susan, Susan and Harry's relationship, the Swords, the White/Black/Grey Councils, the Faerie, the Winter Knight, etc., into ONE SINGLE STORYLINE. Which basically just did not happen in any of the previous books. Also, that one had the most obnoxious ending of any book yet, what with Harry mysteriously DYING on the last page and that thing not getting resolved until the start of the next book (which is actually not resolved, because that's what the whole book is actually about).

So I'm nearing the end of the re-read because there's only #13, #14, and #15 of the series available. #16 is the one that comes out in June. I'm going to have to start figuring what else I'm going to read. I've put in a hold for N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy because I haven't read it yet but was really impressed by the Broken Earth trilogy (plus she's coming to SF with a new book). My goal is to read 100 books this year and I'm more or less on pace to do that now, but I know I'm going to need to pick up the speed a bit in order to build the buffer I'll undoubtedly use.

How do people even find new books anymore?

[superaielman]

Peace Talks is out in June? Score, I'm getting that for my birthday then. LD: Did you read the Dresden mini stories? The Donald Morgan one that was just released was fantastic, as was the Christmas story set after Peace Talks.


And I find new books through my book club! Recommendations that I found through my book club: The Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.

[Lady Door]

My bad, July 14. But yes, Peace Talks is out this summer! It spurred my re-read.

I read Side Jobs FOREVER ago, like after Changes came out, and I was planning to read it again soon. I did read the Christmas story, too, but I didn't know of any others. I'll round those up probably after I finish reading the series again.

I read the first 3 of the Red Rising series. Liked them well enough, didn't care to keep going on to the Iron Gold trilogy or the comics. Uprooted is one of those books I keep seeing but never manage to read so I guess I'll add that one to the list. Never heard of The Raven Cycle but I'm down for anything with ravens in the name. Cool.

Book clubs are for people who can stand socializing. Mostly I just have to find something on the web that catches my eye, or the recommendation from an author I already like, or Amazon's algorithm, to find the next thing. It's terrible, I know.

[superaielman]

Brief Cases came out a few years ago and was excellent too.  The Morgan POV wasn't in there, Butcher just wrote in last month: https://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2020/morgan-microfiction-rpg-art-and-more

[Luther Lansfeld]

Timothy Caufield - Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? – Interesting book about how celebrity culture and obsession with fame has influenced people and how celebrities have such sway on people’s lives and the way they live. It chronicles the rise in people wanting to be famous, as well as the precarious nature of seeking jobs such as musician and actor. It’s an interesting book; for all that the title is a bit misleading.

It does talk a bit about cleanses and facials and other such things and largely how they lead to the illusion of doing something, so their primary purpose is more in making you feel as if you did something rather than actually doing something. Interesting stuff.

Yanis Varoufakis - And the Weak Suffer What They Must? This book is primarily about the foolishness of the austerity inflicted on Greece and the history of the Euro as a flawed economic currency. It talks about how having a currency with no democratically elected people controlling it leads to idiotic decisions that can inflict long-term harm. He was Syriza’s economic minister before resigning after disagreeing with the capitulation of Tsipris, and it was interesting to see his view, even if it was very biased. Lots of interesting information that I didn’t know, and he ends the book with a roadmap on how to fix the euro to prevent more economic harm than it has already caused.

Anne Applebaum – Gulag – I’ve already read The Gulag Archipelago, so reading this was more supplementary historical material than anything. I am fascinated by the Soviet Union and think it is interesting to examine to understand the pitfalls to avoid when building a future socialist state.

Next up is "Who We Are and How We Got Here" by David Reich, which is about the changes in DNA over time.

[Dhyerwolf]

Melissa McPhail- Kingdom Blades (Book 4). Finally caught up on the re-read so I can finally get started on new stuff. Probably my favorite author for having constant tentpole events. The books are long, but there's so many spectular events that it doesn't feel like a slog at all. Most of the complaints I had early are still present (characters falling into archetype groups, bad gender balance), although I will retract my complaint about the character that was described as rash since the author finally switched to showing instead of telling there. Granted, I'll take large interesting events and just okay characters over the reverse most of the time.

[Luther Lansfeld]

David Reich - Who We Are And How We Got Here -  - Tracks the mass migration and talks about the different theories of where humans came from, using genetic analysis to try to identify similarities in groups by their DNA. A few interesting notes.

1. Northern Europeans and Native North Americans have a common ancestor, which likely came from southern Asia.

2. There have been migrations in and out of Africa multiple times, leading to a mix of different traits from those groups. They believe that a group of people who lived in eastern Europe / western Asia ended up migrating to both India and to Europe, which is where the shared language family comes from.

3. As observed in the media, all non-Africans have about 2% Neanderthal, which has been decreasing over time with natural selection.

4. He basically nails the coffin for any theory that there is any sort of pure race, since all races are an amalgamation of different peoples over the history of the human race. Racism is trash.

Greatly enjoyed.

Colin Woodward - American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

This book is about the parallel histories of North America’s colonization and why the cultures that exist within them are fundamentally in conflict. The Northeast, called Yankeedom in this book, believed strongly in morality and community, whereas the Deep South was built on the idea of the aristocratic masters living in leisure while the poor were powerless and black slaves were in permanent bondage. Appalachia was founded by people who just hated all governments, all of the time, and the west coast’s leftist views are a combination of the yankees who settled there along with some libertarian mix from other cultures. I can definitely see the remnants of Appalachia, with a macho, tough guy culture and appeal to emotional evangelism from my experience in Oklahoma. Until this book I never really knew exactly how to classify my home state, but the descriptions of Appalachia mixed with some north Texas culture makes as much sense as anything.

Anyway, great read, really makes sense of all of the cultural division and turmoil in America. He punctures a hole in the idea of a unified American identity, and in particular that all parts of America have a high stake in democracy. The Deep South was not founded at all on democratic principles and opposed them vehemently, calling common people basically rabble, and obviously not wanting slaves to vote. I see this reflected in the general anti-democratic bills and laws passed to try to disenfranchise minority and poor voters. I was always so confused by this until now; they don’t care about democracy and care more about protecting the interests of the wealthy, so obviously they don’t care for democracy.

Next is The New Jim Crow. All of my library books got extended in honor of Covid.

[superaielman]

The Immoralists by Chloe Benjamin- Read this for my bookclub. It was much less less scifi and much more slice of life than expected, but that's okay. Was an intense but enjoyable read. The last book I finished for bookclub was a Rothfuss dumpster fire, so something of better quality was appreciated.

[superaielman]

Peace Talks- Finished. Very much looking forward to battle ground in September. It's fair to be critical about the plot structure and the way the books are split up, but I am happy to have more Dresden. The editing feels slipshod; the late decision to split the book has to be the cause of that. Oh well. I still really enjoyed it.

Small text spoilers:  Justine as the traitor seems like the best bet. There's way too much about her behavior that doesn't add up; she's being followed by way too many people and too many bad things happen around her.  Also see Thomas's reaction to her name in the scene after his capture. Thomas is clearly a broken person there and that has to be the reason why. It could be Lara as well.

The scene where Marone rallies the Accords signees is pretty damn great. Corb's entrance was pretty good in general too. I'm guessing he will greatly regret that course of action by the end of Battle Ground, but we'll see.

Just about every Dresden character is either mentioned or touched upon in this book. Guessing some major events go down/everyone starts to gear up for the final trilogy. My guess for major character deaths in battleground: Eb, Murphy, Thomas in descending order. Sania is possible too. The biggest hole in the story that jumps out at me is how in the hell is the water beetle still working/Harry's getaway car working after the whammy from the Fomor. It's just something that normally wouldn't be overlooked. Also, the bit about the last dragon dying on earth? Michael did that to save Charity back in the day. Bleh.

[superaielman]

Done with Battle Ground. This was much better than Peace Talks; everything from tone to pacing was much better done. It's up there with Changes and Dead Beat for best book in the series for action, and it marks a pretty drastic change in tone and direction. Things are definitely gearing up for the endgame now, especially when Mirror Mirror is up next and will be mostly set in an alterate universe ala The Wish from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After that.. ayep, getting towards the final trilogy. The last couple of books have been Harry growing up. He definitely isn't a raw kid any more; mouthiness aside he has grown dramatically in power and planning ability and it really shows in this book.

Non spoiler: The scene where where Redcap and Harry talk about their opinions of each other is pretty great. The book a good job filling in some blanks; this was a small but very good example of that. The stuff with Toot was good as well. Mab gently clued Harry into just how effectively he had weaponized the Little Folk.

Both of those scenes play into things first established in earlier books. There was a lot of good in the book, but those two non spoilery bits in particular merit praise.



Now for the spoilers.




I loved how the book ended with Molly and Harry coming home to Michael's house. Michael knowing the truth about Molly was a relief and handled perfectly.

The action flowed well, considering how many characters fight during this book.

I want to focus on a couple of the less surprising twists first.

Justine being the backstabber was a major twist, but it was one that the splitting of the book in two hurt. If I had read them back to back without a break, I don't know if I would have twinged to her being the traitor quite as hard as I did. It still made sense, it had emotional impact and it set up a scene where the main baddie of the series and Harry finally get to talk and it provided an effective capstone to the action of the book. It just wasn't extremely shocking like a few of the other twists. Nemesis, eh. I have mixed feelings but it works. I do like that Nemesis directly quoted Nicodemus. I would guess something happened to Justine during her mission to the Fomor in Even Hand, but that's just a guess. (That story in general takes on a whole new light after this book)

Murphy dying was not a surprise. Not just because of her injuries, but because she had served her purpose in the story. It's possible she could be back in some kind of afterlife role; we'll see on that.  The way she died wasn't surprising either but it was still an impactful scene. Just speaking from my own personal moral code, I don't think Harry was in the wrong for being willing to murder Rudolph there. I know it doesn't fit as much with the moral underpinnings of the story and the Christian theology the series leans into at times, but gods above. Rudolph deserved it.

Harry getting kicked out of Council was unsurprising. I am not being critical of Butcher for this; it's the logical progression of the story. Harry's outgrown them in his current role as Warden and it's been that way since the death of Donald Morgan. Ramirez is completely in the right for how he reacted to Harry and the constant lies. He comes off like an asshole to Harry, but his reaction makes complete sense with what the character knows. Harry had a lot of chances to come clean with Ramirez going back to White Night and never chose to do so. The consquences of that were shown at the end of Battle Ground.

Chandler being dragged off to what appeared to be literal Hell was brutal. That was hard to read and so was the fate of Bill and Yoshino. They weren't major characters, but they allies of Harry's and they had a truly grisly end.  Remember Harry's promise to Mavra at the end of Dead Beat? He is going to squash her like a bug at some point in the books for this.  I really want to see the fallout for Drakul's actions, but that is something for another book.

Mab got a lot of character work. Butcher made pains to show that she is the winter mantle, but also that she still retains some humanity and that she pays a price for power. I personally enjoyed it and liked the dynamic between Knight and Queen here. Mab as an endless monster is boring, there are plenty of things in the books that fill that role.  Harry's finally getting clued into Winter.

Hendricks dying was a gutpunch, especially after you get to the end of the book. There's a duality to him dying at the same time as Murphy, as both were stalwart allies to their respective teammate from book 1 onward. In some ways this had more impact than Murphy's death, which was so clearly telegraphed that you could see it from space.

I'll put Listen to Wind and Eb both surviving the book here as a surprise. Related, STOP PUNTING ON GIVING INFORMATION ABOUT STARBORN. Lash promised more on that in book 9. You can't keep kicking that can down the road forever. Though I suspect that'll be the book where we see Elaine next and finally get the reveal on who Cowl/Kumori really are.

There were two massive spoilers in the book that were definite bombshells: Lara/Harry and Marcone's coin.

I almost feel bad for TN, because Marcone is not going to take any of the Fallen's nonsense.  The fact that Harry looked Marcone in the eye and saw absolutely nothing different than normal takes on a whole new meaning after finding out that twist. It also revs up the gut punch factor of Hendrick's death; it was entirely to save face for his boss. Like any good twist, it makes perfect sense when you know it and is still a surprise when it comes. The question of what happened to TN's coin was a mystery after small favor; just wasn't addressed on camera. The question of when Marcone took up the coin is interesting in of itself. Definitely want more information on this.

Not gonna lie, I dig Lara/Harry as a couple. It's so delightfully wrong on so many levels and was the perfect bit of levity that the book ended after being so heavy from start to end. Damn it, Harry hasn't had a fun romance since Susan. Lara and Harry have wonderful chemistry and won't be boring. Also, Thomas's reaction to it will be priceless.

[Dhyerwolf]

The Chathrand Voyage Quartet- Robert V.S. Reddick
Reread this series over the last couple of months

Some highlights/things I really like:

A really great example of that having a physical "location" that really becomes a character in the story. Abour 75% of the series takes place on board a giant crazy ancient ship with all the magical bells and whistles you could want, and a good chunk of the the 25% that doesn't definitely suffers (even if the remaining locations are unique and interesting enough).

The ship setting is used well to the advantage of forcing together a lot of complex characters. There's a really strong cadre of mysterious and villains, several of whom I will touch on in my character section. Everyone is stuck together, which makes for lots of great machincations.

Magic is well utilized. Very powerful with nasty blowbacks. A spell cast my the most powerful mage in the world started to give animals human thought processes (...with a nasty side effect that was used as an amazing twist at the end fo the 2nd book). My favorite hero and villain are both animals.

The key to the plot is a magical hellstone that only someone without fear can touch instantly dying. This is far less hokey than this description sounds

There are a lot of really interesting characters or really well done character arcs so I'm writing this out mostly for my own later recollections. Also, the author clearly knew exactly all the plot points he wanted to hit, which is why some of the arcs are so strong (because he was able to set up integral backstories that wouldn't be revealed for several books and then have the characters act very cohesively; there are a few plot points that I think changed mid-writing but the vision is very clear in book 1 once everything is revealed).

Spoiler tagging these since I think Super would like the books and I could one day get him to read it.
Pazel- Another well done rebellious teenage hero who can't hold his tongue, but you can't really blame him (mouthing off to the Admiral to who overthrow his country and plunged it into chaos). Granted the magical ability to instantly learn any language he hears (at the cost of horrible fits), which is used to great effect.

Thasha- Pazel is the Tidus to Thasha's Yuna, which is to say that Pazel is the main character, but Thasha is the hero of the story but making her the hero would give way too much insight into things (although that comparison sells both Pazel and Thasha short; there's several summoners, but Thasha is truly alone in the world).  She is the reincarnation of the greatest mage in the world (although reincarnation is the wrong word perhaps), but in order to get rid of the hellstone, she needs to let the mage basically take back over and she has to struggle through how to due that because of her innately strong will to live.

Felthrup- A "woken" rat turned scholar. Probably the bravest character in the book; thrust into a situation where literally everyone in an enemy. Also, the relevation that the books are written by him many years later when magic made him into a man for a period was very enjoyable.

Captain Rose- Insane ship captain who is revealed to be tormented by ghosts. Great wild-card character even though I don’t have a lot to say beyond that.

Sandor Ott- Magnificent Bastard character. Always 1 step ahead of everyone else (although more like 1 decade ahead...of your characters at least) except for the characters who played him. Despite there being far more eminent villains, Sandor Ott actually felt the most dangerous because you just couldn't get rid of him, you never knew what his full intentions were (sometimes even working with you) and he  had so many people working for him that you were always in his reach. Masterminded a truly insane scheme: to plunge involving spreading fake prophecy, setting up a false alliance that would end in a bloody murder, tricking an insane cult into attacking an  enemy country and just generally plunging everything into chaos. The layers of which is slowly revealed over time. Granted, one other villain fake him some fake maps, so he wasn't portrayed as some infallible creature. His fate is that he gets to live, but his decades long scheme is foiled and the empire he devoted everything to falls apart. He probably would have rather died.

Shaggat Ness- Insane cult leader who claims to be fearless. Was locked away for decades after causing a major insurrection. Thanks to Sandor Ott, he is freed and finally gets his hands on his precious hellstone…only to discover he has a sliver of fear in his heart. Via machinations have tied his survival to Thasha’s, so Pazel uses a OPG spell to turn Shaggat to stone before the hellstone kills him. Impressive raving lunatic who somehow also brings some parts of comic relief.

Taliktrum/Talag/Diadrelu-Royalty of the ix’chel, a race of 8 inches people known for sinking ships. Hard to fully separate the three. Their race’s goal is to find their mythical homeland, but they have to manipulate humans into getting them there. Talag plants false maps in places Sandor Ott will find them that lead to their mythical homeland, but when the voyage starts Diadrelu realizes that the world is in mortal peril and that they might be able to stop it. Her brother and nephew don’t believe that’s the case, setting them up for an interfamily conflict which has a lot of meat.

Unspoiling here because all must know the greatness of:
Master Mugstar- God tier villain. Appears in 1 (maybe 2 scenes) and instead is only referred to for the 2 books leading up to his appearance. A woken rat who went insane upon his waking and decided that he sees God, who has told him to eat the tongue of the Captain of the ship for being a non-believer. Leads a giant army of rats that he has basically turned into a religious cult.

Lots of other really interesting characters (Neda, Sunithia, Chadfellow, Lady Oggosk (who totally changed backstory mid books but the author got away with it because her initial backstory is 1 line), Bolutu, Hercol but none quite rose to the level of writing it out although the first two come close).

Best Moments
Pazel meets the Egaur- Book 2- An eguar is a nasty ancient creature described as being similar to an extremely large crocodile (or at least having the head of 1) and super frightening. A much better choice than your generic dragon, which totally could have been in its placed. Pazel and several other characters run into one in book 2 and due to Pazel's  ability to understand any language, he's able to intrepret the Eguar's hellish roar.
Master Mugstar reveals himself- Book 2 (discussed in characters, but there had been so much build up because Felthrup and the Ix'Chel had constantly been fighting off his under-minions)
Battle of the Bridge in Book 4- Just a great high-cost action scene as characters are trying to escape a proverbial closing noose.
THE ENDING- This is so good. Pazel is given 3 Master Words in the first book and is told that he'll know the right moment to use them.  The last 2 books he has no concept of what the final one "Blind to give new sight" can do. The hellstone raises a deadly swarm that has almost covered the sky and they are still miles (vertically) from the entrance to the River of Shadows (where the hellstone can be sent back), but Thasha is still unable to let the Mage take over her mind. She finally tells Pazel that it's her love for him that keeps her from being able to relinquish, so Pazel uses the last Master Word to make Thasha forget about him. She then lets the mage take over, and the mage uses the hellstone to drop a mountain into the sea, causing a giant tidal wave with lifts the mage as Thasha, the grand ship and the hellstone into the River of Shadows. However, the spell also made everyeone else forgot Pazel (For a time at least); considering Pazel started the books with no friends, unsure if any family was alive it's a extra bit of a bittersweet tist. It's a touching tear-jerker, but it's also an over the top insane scene that just caps off most of the story so perfectly.

I also read
The Priory of the Orange Tree- Probably just even mentioning since Super's book club had read it. Complete tonal shift between the first and second half ot he book. In the first half, there are some very sudden deaths. Random landslides, executions, assassinations. The world felt extremely dangerous and then all of a sudden, the book basically tells you that nothing bad will happen to literally anyone. Big climatic battle against a super powerful horde of enemies? One tertiary character got a scar. At one point, a character discovers that a lost-hidden mystical gem was hidden inside a scar she had and somehow she was randomly related to some mystical lineage and the gem had been inherited for years this way.

Wasn't great with movement around the world either. Characters would face nasty danger and then suddenly jump over great distances (where the danger felt like it would still be present) off-screen.

So basically, interesting first half, interesting world, bad back half.

Reread of the first two books of the Tide Lord series. Interesting premise with immortals whose power rises and falls with a somewhat bad framing of over-focusing on a love story that doesn't really make much sense between a mortal and immortal. It works okay in book 1 because the immortal basically got himself imprisoned and the mortal is interviewing him, but once he is out it doesn't make a lot of sense that he falls so crazy in love with her given the near 10000 age gap. The mortal character is also beyond beautiful, is immortal catnip and is supposed to be very smart, but can sometimes be beyond obtuse (meets another immortal, literally thinks that the person talks about events that happened thousands of years ago like an immortal...and somehow doesn't realize they are immortal). That said, I can't find the 3rd or 4th book but I definitely remember:

--The immortals have had a tendency to destroy worlds as is revealed in a later book and have cycled through several
--The ending is that after they destroyed the world where the story takes place, some of them escaped to Earth.
--Yes, one of them was Jesus, which is how he "resurrected".
--By the end, several of the Immortals were fighting over the mortal. The mortal somehow was in stasis floating through space after the destruction of her planet. She is discovered in our era and two immortals basically look at each other thinking how after being alive for thousands of years, this one mortal is that special that they will be fighting over her again.

Points for two minor characters
1. Maralyce, an awesome immortal who hates the rest and spends her eternity digging holes everywhere. I also liked this particular exchange between her and her mortal grandson:

"But that's what it is to be mortal. We're compelled to hope."
She treated him to a rare smile. "Then I hope you die young and quickly, lad. Disillusionment's a bitter way to spend your old age."
He smiled back. "You know, that's probably the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

2. Tilly Pointing- Head of a cabal trying to resist the immortals, who paints herself as a frivolous social-climbing fortune teller in order to make it that no one would guess her true goals

[Dhyerwolf]

Ruins of Ambrai- Melanie Rawn

Really should have written this up when it was fresher especially since there is a lot of stuff to talk about with this book, but oh well. Half even just writing about it so Super can make his perennial joke about Melanie Rawn actually finishing the series.

For just 1 book (in fairness a very long book), it feels like Rawn makes the world feel fairly tangible, especially considerating that the reader doesn't see a lot of it (the use of mystical ladders is a great touch, allowing characters to cover a lot of ground to interesting locales while giving a lot of magical mystery). I guess in fairness it's a small world (actually, just kind of one country), but the structure of society feels very pinned down (extra points for a having a massive Census; also, the split that caused how the villians came to be feels very natural with a bunch of powerful people believing that their own magical power has somehow conferred them a wisdom that means they should be able to tell everyone every aspect of their lives).

The book focuses on three sisters, although the star on the middle sister with the other two playing strong roles. Sarra Liwellan is a fantastic character that I find extremely relatable; her driving motivation is thinking about the in and outs of creatively restructuring a fairer society and her relative youth and inexperience is very well balanced by her drive and intelligence (Which is subtly reinforced throughout the book). Also, a well done hate to love romance where both sides balance each other well. Sarra definitely holds the book together very well.

The eldest sister Glenin is also great as someone immerses with the villains, but also resentful and looking to undercut them while also wanting to come out on top. She's nearly as clever as Sarra is. Anniyas is a great foil and parallel to her.

The youngest sister is a bit of a cypher who doesn't really have time to cook, so definitely the weak link of the chain.

This was always intended to be a trilogy, but I never saw why. This book is relatively self-contained. If it wasn't for the villains having some specific calamitious referenced plan (which seems irrelevant by the end of the book anyways; for all that the heroes suffered very bad losses (very literal bloodbath), it feels like they cut off the head of the snake very decisively.

Not doing the second book, which jumps ahead in time 20 years. From my memory, it just reinforced that there wasn't a clear concept after book 1 and that's why book 3 has been stalled for decades. Book 1's strength is definitely it's clever structure (both in world and story), but without that present it's easy to see how the series could stall out.

Best Parts
1. Sarra's speech/gambit in front of the Council
2. Sarra and Collan's interplay especially when they are by themselves
3. Anniyas reveals her role to Glenin
4. Ladders!

Otherland Series- Tad Williams
Because I needed an even longer read after Ambrai... Just started book 3. Otherland is a series about society falling into the trap of living it's entire life online.

The books definitely resonates a lot more after experiencing the past decade. The progression of society and tech make the future in Otherland feel a lot more real than it was the last I read it and I am shocked that it was written in 1996 (not there is anything particularly serendipitous, especially since this book is still set in the far future)

Tad Williams is a fantastic character writer. Even the books that are weaker on characters still tend to have amazing standouts, and Otherland is one of his best (the Last Arden book is probably just as good). Renie is an especially amazing protaginist; tenacious, insightful and protective fighter with an openness and an ability to admit fault (literally how of the characters crossing her thinks of her and it's very accurate). Xabbu is also amazing as a man from a world gone by thrust into the full brunt of technology and further finding the truth in his ancestral beliefs that he hadn't taken seriously. Renie and Xabbu pair together very well because they are both very adaptive and the characters feel like they are evolving constantly in a way that feels believable in light of what they face (which also like a strength of Tad Williams); characters definitely feel fully impacted by whatever is going on in a full gamut emotions in a way that few other authors match, which lead to even interesting little girls or broken alcoholics (even if the last one is also quite frustrating).

Martine is also great from what we see of her. Plays well off Renie, and hearing her character progress in book 2 is really great. Actually, a lot of side characters are given very distinct personalities, which are then grounded when hearing their often extreme backstories. This all comes together really well to illustrate the world.

Book 1 is stronger than book 2 since book 1 is so fresh and we get a lot of the real world and book 2 can get a little sloggy in some ways since there is so much travelling across Otherland (it also becomes a little hard to remember which character has had what epiphany).

Hard to pick out the best parts since the arcs span so many characters and there are so many major moments in each one.

[Dhyerwolf]

Finished the Otherland series. Tad Williams book generally have pretty satisfying conclusions, often filled with some level of well built up insanity, and Otherland is no exception. This series should be a classic, but its length definitely stands in the way of that (although there isn't any part that I would cut). It's a fantastic read. As mentioned previously, Tad Williams is a master character writer (managing to have characters like a fairly average child and a broken dunkard who feel realistic, well fleshed out and integral to the plot without being shoehorned in at all; almost every side character shines), and the setup of people effectively falling into an endless internet trap feels very real in 2021 compared to when I first read this. It's funny to see the use of "Neural Networks" a decade before the concept really resurged back (and there's a lot you could say about it's implementation and what real life Neural Networks now try mimic).

Tad Williams definitely plans out everything major, because all the plotlines in book 4 really came together so well and there were explanations for...almost every question the books raised, and there were a lot of questions (I'm still a little hazy on the Circle and how they clued into all this or to Xabbu, so we will call that one exception). Compared the Shadow series which throws in the answers in a very large cluster very later, the explanations were much better paced out.

In thinking about my own writing, what I can really learn from this series is how to have a super effective slow buildup while having almost constant action (granted, it helps to really dig into characters). Some characters just spend books building up to 1 singular major event. There are plenty of characters who are going through many events, but having that broad character spectrum really brought a greater cohesiveness to the story.

Now to rave about the Other, which ties into several points above.

The Other that powered the whole system being Olga's son that she believed was long-dead who had extreme telepathic power, and then being powered by other auxulliary children tied everything together so well, and was a very literal implementation of a Neural Network (which is generally designed to mimic the complexity of human thought). The reunion between Olga and her son, which ended up resulting in Olga getting him get free by...crashing an entire massive satelite into Jongleur HQ was fantastic, as was that the Other had been making his own digital lifeforms, which main characters helped send out in space to keep them alive (also gave the religious Circle a conniption thinking about how it was the literal creation of a form of life). The Other's desire of just wanting friends really was used so effectively and created a believable reason for why basically all the main characters minus two ended up in the network that just served the hyper cohesiveness of the books).

The best part of the last two books
1. ENDLESS! LIBRARY! HOUSE!- God tier location (perhaps the best in a book I've read). Such a cool design: super original, complete with a living, evolving culture that I could hear about forever (cool scholarly stuff, architecture, random warring, bandits, tough roof dwellers), lots of really interesting locations, some interesting fun mystic stuff, and there are some great plot evolutions here (including a very critical fight and when the main characters first start to see the "NPCs" as legitimately "alive"). The one shining NPC here is also fantastic (a well reasoned likely autistic character who shows some great backbone).
2. That! Fucking! Satelite!
3. Renie and Xabbu- Just kind of categorically. There's one great line a character has about imaging Renie and Xabbu spending the rest of their lives arguing about who was going to do the hard tasks. This could definitely be my favorite fantasy couple (I'm actually stumped on thinking of one that comes even remotely close as they are both such fantastic characters on their own merits, and they both really lead to an evolution in each other and their relationship really transcends romantic love).
4. The Grail Ceremony's disasterous outcome.
5. ENDLESS! LIBRARY! HOUSE!- Did I mention the endless library house?

So the series has my likely favorite fantasy location (contested at least) and favorite fantasy couple (probably uncontested)

Ranking the Worlds
Take Me There Now
1. ENDLESS! LIBRARY! HOUSE!- This is where I would live.
2. The Flying World- Obviously! If you could visit one place for just a day, this would be the choice.

Fun to Visit
3. Mars- Felt vibrant and relatively fully realized for what we saw. Would be an interesting place to explore.
4. Hobbits with Fighter Jets and Nukes- We didn't see it, don't care. Seeing the hobbits destroyed with fighter jets would be great.
5. Golden City- Talking with Atasco after the growth paths of the civilization seems more interesting than the city itself (partially beacuse we saw so little of it, but there isn't a hook).
6. Cartoon Kitchen- This would be a fun place to visit for a day. Honestly, the gruesome death of the partying vegetables was the best part.
7. The Other's Land- Similar in whimsy to the Cartoon Kitchen since this is stitched together fairy tales, but Cartoon Kitchen has better design aspects and humor going for it.
8. Venice- Doesn't have the novelty value some of the above choices have, but I'm sure it would be perfectly fun.

Indifference
9. Egypt- Theoretically would visit, but given who made this world maybe not...
10. 8 Fold (Alice in Wonderland? Chessboard? Both?)- Had potential, but didn't feel fully realized. It got more interesting when we saw the hints of Alice in Wonderland, but we didn't see a lot.
11. Troy- If you have to have war simulation, this isn't a bad choice. But it's not up my alley.
12. Prehistoric Ice World- Not bad for what it was (surprisingly hospitable)

Avoid
13. Wizard of Oz- Obviously this one had gone to hell, but was probably decent before then.
14. Bug World- Went to hell, then went to a much deeper level of hell, but even when it was pristine I wouldn't want to go to it.
15. Destroyed England- War of the Worlds. This one actually stands out as being the only one that's seemed purposefully bad without being...
16. Endless World War I- Granted, this was a literal virtual torture chamber

[Dhyerwolf]

Night Angel series reread- Finished the series a few weeks ago. I wanted something very, very, very light after Otherland. Rereading this makes patterns in Brent Weeks' writing really clear (he really loves to put people in crazy pits!), and the Lightbringer series definitely refined a lot in Night Angel.

The winning character is definitely Sister Ariel, a mage who reads as being a very high functioning autist with masterful planning abilities that tacitly propels several of the key arcs. Killer intro scene.

The characters that do not work in some way are Durzo Blint and the Jackal. Durzo Blint is a get out of jail free card, who is drawing on thousands of years of experience. Literally half the legendary figures of this world are Durzo Blint in disguise,

The Jackal would be fine, but his book 3 revelation was a very cheap execution execution. Basically, Weeks likely wanted to keep the truth of the MC's power from him (that he was immortal, but every time he died and came back to life, someone else that he loved died in this place, but generally as casualties of war in times that generally made sense).

Durzo Blint would 100% tell the MC this, so to get around that, Weeks had Durzo write a letter which got covered in blood. This becomes in no way believable that Durzo would only pass on the most crucial information the MC would ever receive in his life in a single letter or method. Then the Jackal just assumed the MC read it, and made snide remarks about a power backlash but despite also supposedly being incredibly smart, doesn't catch onto the very obvious fact that the MC doesn't know what his remarks refer to.

That said, the execution of the twist initially is a total copout. The MC died 4 times before learning, and the first 3 otimes the person who died was an adopted sister who either was never really onscreen at all or had a weird relationship with the MC that did not come across as loving. As such, it really didn't have any impact since it just feels like Weeks could have had him die even more and would have been made up more adopted siblings).

A lot of the characters shouldn't really work (Logan and Elene especially, parts of Dorian's story), but Weeks gives them all a lot of character growth that works very well.

Gender balance was something that really failed here. There are great female characters, but there are also too many who are love interests who had no real control (despite one being a ruler of a powerful nation).  Although I guess the MC's love interest does truly completely subvert that in some very specific ways, but the book was in dire need of a few more Sister Ariel's.

There's something in the books that don't quite gel together; a randomness in the world? Lack of good descriptions of magic structures? I'm not quite sure. This was one area where Lightbringer is a great upgrade.

However, unlike Lightbringer, Weeks at least didn't pull so many punches with the final battle. For all that there weren't many deaths or other hideous fates (maybe not any more than Lightbringer), they were central to the plot.