Picked up Gideon The Ninth because you people won't stop talking about it, and it's pretty interesting.
I freely and ashamedly admit that I'm over halfway through the book and can't actively picture and name each cav and necro for each house. It's just a lot of letters and faces swimming around Gideon and Harrow. It's like I started reading GoT halfway through Feast For Crows. This lamentation is brought to you more by my mushy brain than the writing (I think).
Picked up Gideon The Ninth because you people won't stop talking about it, and it's pretty interesting.
I freely and ashamedly admit that I'm over halfway through the book and can't actively picture and name each cav and necro for each house. It's just a lot of letters and faces swimming around Gideon and Harrow. It's like I started reading GoT halfway through Feast For Crows. This lamentation is brought to you more by my mushy brain than the writing (I think).
I got through all of both books and couldn't tell you which characters are which house or name more than 3 or 4 of them. There's, what, 19 cavaliers and necromancers, plus a few named other characters to keep track of, and a lot of them don't really get much characterization.
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+2
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Picked up Gideon The Ninth because you people won't stop talking about it, and it's pretty interesting.
I freely and ashamedly admit that I'm over halfway through the book and can't actively picture and name each cav and necro for each house. It's just a lot of letters and faces swimming around Gideon and Harrow. It's like I started reading GoT halfway through Feast For Crows. This lamentation is brought to you more by my mushy brain than the writing (I think).
I got through all of both books and couldn't tell you which characters are which house or name more than 3 or 4 of them. There's, what, 19 cavaliers and necromancers, plus a few named other characters to keep track of, and a lot of them don't really get much characterization.
It took a 2nd reading right before Harrow to really lock in the supporting cast. I did find it very useful though.
Ha, thanks all. Kinda makes me feel better. Look forward to picking up Harrow after Gideon.
Hm as with the goblin emperor, maybe my background in russian lit is helpful here
I thought she did an incredible job of creating 20 distinct imaginable characters with different personalities and looks—but I can also easily see that if you read in a different way than I do/focus on different things, you wouldn’t necessarily retain any of that from page to page. So I’m glad that Muir happens to write directly for how I process books hahaha
In contrast, I can’t imagine a single character in Ann Leckie’s Raven Tower visually, and I also can’t name the city it takes place in/am not sure what’s going on with the geopolitics at all. I don’t know what my problem is with this book but I just kinda wish it were a short story about the rock god. Either there’s not enough content to fuel a whole book or it’s just not landing for me at all (I don’t mind scenes where nothing happens, but in that case they should be scenes where characters we care about have feelings we care about, or scenes with beautiful writing—these are neither, though).
I'm reading some random scifi and this sure suffers from Excessive Exclamation Marks!
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Okay, finished part 2 of Don Quixote, the part where everything gets very meta. Final thoughts:
First, you know how he's always portrayed as this doddering senile old man? He's like 49, "not quite 50" in fact. It's a delayed mid-life crisis more than anything else.
Second, yes I'm sticking to my conclusion that he's larping and larping waaaaaay too hard. The second part really pushes a theme about people who play pretend to have adventures too hard and how it just causes problems and mischief. Like, Cervantes definitely isn't doing some "FUN IS EVIL" bit, and there are definitely people who are enjoying themselves and it's shown to be positive and fine. The problem comes when people go too far with it, like a big elaborate puppet show that was going very well and everyone was enjoying it, and then Don Quixote went mad and started chopping the puppets with his sword so the hero and his lady could escape. Don Quixote is fine until he gets lost in the chivalric fantasy and goes completely overboard, just absolutely nuts. There are still indications here and there that yes, Don Quixote knows what he's doing, but he's being a Jared Leto-level dick about his method acting. He and Sancho Panza also come across a duke and duchess who had read the first book (the second book is very meta, also) and then decide to humor him - taking it waaaaay too far and being horrible malicious dicks in their escalating pranks.
Meanwhile there's also people just larping a pastoral Arcadia for a picnic, and that's fine until Don Quixote has to take things too far as usual. There's also legit adventures going on in the backgroup (like the exploits of an escaped slave who then recruits a rescue mission to save the other people he had been enslaved with) and legit romance stories (it's like a telenovela) which happen parallel to and mostly without interference or aid from Don Quixote, out looking for his imaginary chivalric romances to defend a fictional lady. The whole theme seems to be that it's fine to have fun, but don't let it go too far because you'll then miss out on all the good parts of real life while making yourself miserable.
Incidentally, the only person who seems to materially benefit from these misadventures in both books is Sancho Panza, who both times ends up with the equivalent of several years' worth of his usual wages, which he can then spend for the benefit of his family. It's notable because to him, this wasn't acting or playing; he was convinced he really was on a real-life adventure the whole time.
Also for the ending
Don Quixote dies at the end. In-universe, he probably died due to the accumulation of all the injuries he got on his "adventures" but really he died of Cervantes wanting to make sure there wouldn't be yet another fanfic-level unauthorized sequel circulating around making money. There's an entire throughline of Don Quixote refuting the fanfiction sequel through the second book. Again, it's really meta.
Tl;dr The book is a lot.
+4
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Further thoughts on Don Quixote because yeah, the book was a whole lot.
There's been this debate with two schools of thought on the book. The first is that Don Quixote is a crazy old man running around being crazy, and the book is a straight satire of chivalric romantric tropes that are rightfully mocked by being imitated by this insane (and dangerous) coot. The second is that Don Quixote is a sort of tragic figure, a romantic dreaming of a better world and trying to go out and make that better world happen, but real life is cruel and mocking.
The thing is, it's easy to pick one side or the other because there's really both of those directly in the book. There's often major sympathy for the man, both from an authorial standpoint and from other characters, because a lot of people in Don Quixote's (well, Alonso Quixano) life really do love him dearly. But yeah, he's also a major danger to himself and others as he follows the ridiculous chivalric formulas of the books, going from smart though maybe a bit whimsical ol' guy one moment to raving lunatic the next.
I'm still going for wacky option 3 and claiming larping gone to Jared Leto lengths though.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Reading the Robin Hobb stuff back to back definitely shows an aspiration to have more nuanced characters as you go from the Assassin's trilogy to the Liveship trilogy. I also fully did not remember anything from the back half of the third Liveship book, which surprised me but I think the narrative is also a bit less straight forward.
I absolutely love the settings though.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I read Battle Ground by Jim Butcher almost in one go before work yesterday, and finished it while waiting for reports to churn through. It's one of the better books in the series - I'm looking forward to the next book more than I was looking forward to Battle Ground after finishing Peace Talks. I'm really curious about where the status quo stands at the start of the next book.
I also ended up reading Tales From the Folly, Ben Aaronovitch's short story collection. I hadn't realized until yesterday that said collection existed, so that was a pleasant surprise. I've decided that Aaronovitch has the same trouble with his short stories as his full length novels; he basically isn't much of one for writing an epilogue. Here's your climax, The End. His October Man, which I read for the first time last week, is the rare exception.
Now I'm reading Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott, which seems perfectly fine but isn't thrilling me yet, about a fifth of the way through. And for non-fiction, I'm slowly plodding my way through Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. And, uh, yikes. It may be the single most depressing and horrifying thing that I've ever read.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Postscript: I started reading a book about the medieval Italian city-republics, in part to see if the fall of all those republics had any useful information applicable to attempts to prevent the fall of current day republics. There was a section talking about popular arts and entertainments, and mentioned how chivalric novels and stories were popular "centuries before Don Quixote argued about Amadís de Gaula with his barber" and I was like, "I understood that reference!"
(Incidentally, the fall of the Italian city-republics into just becoming little places run by lords were of course very complex things that happened due to a wide variety of factors, but a very major factor were the super-rich of the time, the noble landlords. As always, eat the rich.)
I, also, did not realize Tales from the Folly existed. Now it's on my kindle. I love that series.
There's a weird shared universe bit that's bugged me for years now. (spoilers for one of the early Aaronovitch Rivers of London novels, I guess, but not in a way that actually spoils any plot points)
When the protagonist goes to the supernatural mall there's an obvious reference to the pub in Butcher's Dresden Files novels. I thought it was kind of awesome at the time but it has bugged me for years because Aaronovitch's magic doesn't follow any of the same sort of rules as Butcher and the surrounding mythology is totally incompatible.
Speaking of crossovers between series... I've been reading the latest Bobiverse novel, Rivers of Heaven by Dennis Taylor. It has a lot of references (well, a lot of the same reference) to Craig Alanson's Columbus Day series, which is probably the closest I come to a guilty pleasure. Are they that popular? This is the second unrelated sci-fi series by another author I've run across with blatant references to Alanson (The other being the Dimension Space series by Dean Cole). In the Cole case I assumed it was at least in part because Cole's audiobooks are narrated by the same guy who narrates Alanson's books. Taylor's narrator is a totally different guy and he seems to be referring to Alanson as a sufficiently popular author that he can make the reference with no explanation and expect his audience to understand.
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+1
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I, also, did not realize Tales from the Folly existed. Now it's on my kindle. I love that series.
There's a weird shared universe bit that's bugged me for years now. (spoilers for one of the early Aaronovitch Rivers of London novels, I guess, but not in a way that actually spoils any plot points)
When the protagonist goes to the supernatural mall there's an obvious reference to the pub in Butcher's Dresden Files novels. I thought it was kind of awesome at the time but it has bugged me for years because Aaronovitch's magic doesn't follow any of the same sort of rules as Butcher and the surrounding mythology is totally incompatible.
Speaking of crossovers between series... I've been reading the latest Bobiverse novel, Rivers of Heaven by Dennis Taylor. It has a lot of references (well, a lot of the same reference) to Craig Alanson's Columbus Day series, which is probably the closest I come to a guilty pleasure. Are they that popular? This is the second unrelated sci-fi series by another author I've run across with blatant references to Alanson (The other being the Dimension Space series by Dean Cole). In the Cole case I assumed it was at least in part because Cole's audiobooks are narrated by the same guy who narrates Alanson's books. Taylor's narrator is a totally different guy and he seems to be referring to Alanson as a sufficiently popular author that he can make the reference with no explanation and expect his audience to understand.
Columbus day and it's sequels were free on kindle plus, so I imagine they got out there a bit.
I, also, did not realize Tales from the Folly existed. Now it's on my kindle. I love that series.
There's a weird shared universe bit that's bugged me for years now. (spoilers for one of the early Aaronovitch Rivers of London novels, I guess, but not in a way that actually spoils any plot points)
When the protagonist goes to the supernatural mall there's an obvious reference to the pub in Butcher's Dresden Files novels. I thought it was kind of awesome at the time but it has bugged me for years because Aaronovitch's magic doesn't follow any of the same sort of rules as Butcher and the surrounding mythology is totally incompatible.
Speaking of crossovers between series... I've been reading the latest Bobiverse novel, Rivers of Heaven by Dennis Taylor. It has a lot of references (well, a lot of the same reference) to Craig Alanson's Columbus Day series, which is probably the closest I come to a guilty pleasure. Are they that popular? This is the second unrelated sci-fi series by another author I've run across with blatant references to Alanson (The other being the Dimension Space series by Dean Cole). In the Cole case I assumed it was at least in part because Cole's audiobooks are narrated by the same guy who narrates Alanson's books. Taylor's narrator is a totally different guy and he seems to be referring to Alanson as a sufficiently popular author that he can make the reference with no explanation and expect his audience to understand.
Columbus day and it's sequels were free on kindle plus, so I imagine they got out there a bit.
I really don't think they'd work well as actual books. RC Bray's delivery is like 80% of why I enjoy any of them.
I have of course, already read the entire thing because there are no breaks on the penguin book eating train
It's real good. Real good. I'm very much looking forward to book 2, even as I scream about the final line in the book.
Well, I too bought this yesterday, in response to this (I'd forgotten it was coming out)
I blame you for the fact that I'm a zombie at work today, because I started it at 10, and didn't put it down until I finished it at 1. It's definitely fun - it reminds me quite a bit of Nevernight, actually. I can't help but feel that I now have this entire subgenre of "weird schooling", though, and that worries me somewhat.
Reading the Robin Hobb stuff back to back definitely shows an aspiration to have more nuanced characters as you go from the Assassin's trilogy to the Liveship trilogy. I also fully did not remember anything from the back half of the third Liveship book, which surprised me but I think the narrative is also a bit less straight forward.
I absolutely love the settings though.
I read her series up to the Tawny Man series
is any of the newer stuff worthwhile?
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Reading the Robin Hobb stuff back to back definitely shows an aspiration to have more nuanced characters as you go from the Assassin's trilogy to the Liveship trilogy. I also fully did not remember anything from the back half of the third Liveship book, which surprised me but I think the narrative is also a bit less straight forward.
I absolutely love the settings though.
I read her series up to the Tawny Man series
is any of the newer stuff worthwhile?
Part of the reason I was doing the reread is that I realised she'd finished the Rain Wilds books so wanted to remember what was going on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I have of course, already read the entire thing because there are no breaks on the penguin book eating train
It's real good. Real good. I'm very much looking forward to book 2, even as I scream about the final line in the book.
Well, I too bought this yesterday, in response to this (I'd forgotten it was coming out)
I blame you for the fact that I'm a zombie at work today, because I started it at 10, and didn't put it down until I finished it at 1. It's definitely fun - it reminds me quite a bit of Nevernight, actually. I can't help but feel that I now have this entire subgenre of "weird schooling", though, and that worries me somewhat.
Wait I love weird schooling but I don't know tons of books in that genre that are really palatable to adults
Like obviously we have The Magicians, and then I also have Sorcery and Cecilia and Year of The Griffin and....surely there are more books like this, but I can't really think of any right now! (I also do like Harry Potter but more in a nostalgic way; not sure if I'd super enjoy them as an adult).
I have of course, already read the entire thing because there are no breaks on the penguin book eating train
It's real good. Real good. I'm very much looking forward to book 2, even as I scream about the final line in the book.
Well, I too bought this yesterday, in response to this (I'd forgotten it was coming out)
I blame you for the fact that I'm a zombie at work today, because I started it at 10, and didn't put it down until I finished it at 1. It's definitely fun - it reminds me quite a bit of Nevernight, actually. I can't help but feel that I now have this entire subgenre of "weird schooling", though, and that worries me somewhat.
Wait I love weird schooling but I don't know tons of books in that genre that are really palatable to adults
Like obviously we have The Magicians, and then I also have Sorcery and Cecilia and Year of The Griffin and....surely there are more books like this, but I can't really think of any right now! (I also do like Harry Potter but more in a nostalgic way; not sure if I'd super enjoy them as an adult).
What's on your list?
For me, I was thinking Nevernight, Harry Potter, Wilder Girls and Red Sister. I mean, Potter is more nostalgia (at least for the first 3), Wilder Girls is genuinely quite good, and I just loved the style in Nevernight, and am willing to forgive it's flaws. (I mean, sarcastic demon cats, what's not to love?).
If the requirement is just "takes place substantially at a school where magic is taught" then you've also got:
* Ninth House
* Magic for Liars
* The Black Magician series by Trudi Canavan
* The Name of the Wind
If the requirement is just "takes place substantially at a school where magic is taught" then you've also got:
* Ninth House
* Magic for Liars
* The Black Magician series by Trudi Canavan
* The Name of the Wind
Oh I totally forgot Name of the Wind but yes, I love all the parts about magic grad school and was sad when the second book spent significant time away from magic grad school
I am going to put all these books on my list and read a bunch of school books
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
Eh. I was fine with the ending. It was weird and it felt like Weeks suddenly decided he wanted to ape Sanderson's Cosmere at the 11th hour but it tied up all the dangling threads I could still remember by that point, gave everybody some story time to shine, and closed out the series in a reasonable way. It reminded me a fair bit of Sanderson's wrap-up of The Wheel of Time.
I was never super attached to the Black Prism series, though. I could see being more disappointed if I'd been more invested.
(Black Prism ending spoilers, though not specific plot points)
I was always expecting it to get fairly Christian. I may be incorrect but I'm fairly certain I remember reading at some point that Weeks is a relatively devout Christian, so I figured all along that he'd end up playing his Abrahamic deity analog straight and have faith somehow or other save the day.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
Eh. I was fine with the ending. It was weird and it felt like Weeks suddenly decided he wanted to ape Sanderson's Cosmere at the 11th hour but it tied up all the dangling threads I could still remember by that point, gave everybody some story time to shine, and closed out the series in a reasonable way. It reminded me a fair bit of Sanderson's wrap-up of The Wheel of Time.
I was never super attached to the Black Prism series, though. I could see being more disappointed if I'd been more invested.
(Black Prism ending spoilers, though not specific plot points)
I was always expecting it to get fairly Christian. I may be incorrect but I'm fairly certain I remember reading at some point that Weeks is a relatively devout Christian, so I figured all along that he'd end up playing his Abrahamic deity analog straight and have faith somehow or other save the day.
Yeah, it just felt like there were zero consequences for all the various things that occurred. It was just like, "oh hey, nobody actually dies, Dazen gets his power back, and Andross turns out to be a good guy, and everything is fine."
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
Eh. I was fine with the ending. It was weird and it felt like Weeks suddenly decided he wanted to ape Sanderson's Cosmere at the 11th hour but it tied up all the dangling threads I could still remember by that point, gave everybody some story time to shine, and closed out the series in a reasonable way. It reminded me a fair bit of Sanderson's wrap-up of The Wheel of Time.
I was never super attached to the Black Prism series, though. I could see being more disappointed if I'd been more invested.
(Black Prism ending spoilers, though not specific plot points)
I was always expecting it to get fairly Christian. I may be incorrect but I'm fairly certain I remember reading at some point that Weeks is a relatively devout Christian, so I figured all along that he'd end up playing his Abrahamic deity analog straight and have faith somehow or other save the day.
Yeah, it just felt like there were zero consequences for all the various things that occurred. It was just like, "oh hey, nobody actually dies, Dazen gets his power back, and Andross turns out to be a good guy, and everything is fine."
I think “good guy” is a bit of a stretch for Andross. He might have meant well but he was still a narcissistic monster.
Dazen was always going to either die heroically or get his power back. It’s just that kind of story.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure The Black Prism series counts... A significant portion of it takes place in a place which is a school of magic but it's also the seat of government and is mostly not about magic schooling.
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
Eh. I was fine with the ending. It was weird and it felt like Weeks suddenly decided he wanted to ape Sanderson's Cosmere at the 11th hour but it tied up all the dangling threads I could still remember by that point, gave everybody some story time to shine, and closed out the series in a reasonable way. It reminded me a fair bit of Sanderson's wrap-up of The Wheel of Time.
I was never super attached to the Black Prism series, though. I could see being more disappointed if I'd been more invested.
(Black Prism ending spoilers, though not specific plot points)
I was always expecting it to get fairly Christian. I may be incorrect but I'm fairly certain I remember reading at some point that Weeks is a relatively devout Christian, so I figured all along that he'd end up playing his Abrahamic deity analog straight and have faith somehow or other save the day.
Yeah, it just felt like there were zero consequences for all the various things that occurred. It was just like, "oh hey, nobody actually dies, Dazen gets his power back, and Andross turns out to be a good guy, and everything is fine."
I think “good guy” is a bit of a stretch for Andross. He might have meant well but he was still a narcissistic monster.
Dazen was always going to either die heroically or get his power back. It’s just that kind of story.
Idk, everyone just kind of goes, "Oh, it's ok that you were a massive dick."
And it would have been perfectly fine to have Dazen come back and be physically healed, but still mundane. It probably wouldn't have annoyed me so much if he got his power back if Kip wasn't also miraculously resurrected.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
A few chapters into the second Fitz trilogy and Robin Hobb has decided she needs to confirm to the fantasy food stereotype.
We know how the characters feel, Robin, but how do those fuckers like their fish cooked?
That one feels a little bit like fanfiction of her own books, but still enjoyable. I still think Liveship is the crown jewel of her bibliography. Though to be fair, I'm always much more partial to third person limited than I am to first person.
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I'm on the second book (The Dark Forest) of the Three-Body Problem trilogy.
On the one hand, I think the plot beats are pretty great and some rock-solid hard scifi.
On the other hand, I think the actual writing is kind of... bland? Occasionally strangely amateurish?
Unless it changes dramatically from book one to two I don't think I'd ever call Three-Body Problem hard sci-fi. Usually 'hard' implies it's grounded in real-life physics with maybe a speculative hand-wave here and there, or assumes some currently-theoretical physics is really how the universe works. Three-Body Problem was pure technobabble with an at best "I read a wikipedia article and skipped the complicated parts" understanding of whole swaths of scientific fact.
I'm on the second book (The Dark Forest) of the Three-Body Problem trilogy.
On the one hand, I think the plot beats are pretty great and some rock-solid hard scifi.
On the other hand, I think the actual writing is kind of... bland? Occasionally strangely amateurish?
I really dug the key plot beats, but yeah the writing never felt great, and it was hugely padded to my taste. I really don't need to see a huge mini story about a guy looking for love that seems really tangential to the plot.
Interzone 270 was reasonable good. The best story was a thoroughly depressing one in which an injured labourer is given a new body after an accident instead of damages and finds it's deliberately of limited intelligence to make him more docile. The focus is more on the impact to his family, so the dystopia is kept as an effective undercurrent.
Now reading Melmoth, by Sarah Perry, which is so far about spooky goings on in Prague.
I have a problem, which is a nice problem to have, where I can't pick which book to read first. The Library of the Unwritten or The Starless Sea. Any suggestion?
Posts
I freely and ashamedly admit that I'm over halfway through the book and can't actively picture and name each cav and necro for each house. It's just a lot of letters and faces swimming around Gideon and Harrow. It's like I started reading GoT halfway through Feast For Crows. This lamentation is brought to you more by my mushy brain than the writing (I think).
I got through all of both books and couldn't tell you which characters are which house or name more than 3 or 4 of them. There's, what, 19 cavaliers and necromancers, plus a few named other characters to keep track of, and a lot of them don't really get much characterization.
It took a 2nd reading right before Harrow to really lock in the supporting cast. I did find it very useful though.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Harrow is a portrait of a highly dysfunctional family
Hm as with the goblin emperor, maybe my background in russian lit is helpful here
I thought she did an incredible job of creating 20 distinct imaginable characters with different personalities and looks—but I can also easily see that if you read in a different way than I do/focus on different things, you wouldn’t necessarily retain any of that from page to page. So I’m glad that Muir happens to write directly for how I process books hahaha
In contrast, I can’t imagine a single character in Ann Leckie’s Raven Tower visually, and I also can’t name the city it takes place in/am not sure what’s going on with the geopolitics at all. I don’t know what my problem is with this book but I just kinda wish it were a short story about the rock god. Either there’s not enough content to fuel a whole book or it’s just not landing for me at all (I don’t mind scenes where nothing happens, but in that case they should be scenes where characters we care about have feelings we care about, or scenes with beautiful writing—these are neither, though).
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
First, you know how he's always portrayed as this doddering senile old man? He's like 49, "not quite 50" in fact. It's a delayed mid-life crisis more than anything else.
Second, yes I'm sticking to my conclusion that he's larping and larping waaaaaay too hard. The second part really pushes a theme about people who play pretend to have adventures too hard and how it just causes problems and mischief. Like, Cervantes definitely isn't doing some "FUN IS EVIL" bit, and there are definitely people who are enjoying themselves and it's shown to be positive and fine. The problem comes when people go too far with it, like a big elaborate puppet show that was going very well and everyone was enjoying it, and then Don Quixote went mad and started chopping the puppets with his sword so the hero and his lady could escape. Don Quixote is fine until he gets lost in the chivalric fantasy and goes completely overboard, just absolutely nuts. There are still indications here and there that yes, Don Quixote knows what he's doing, but he's being a Jared Leto-level dick about his method acting. He and Sancho Panza also come across a duke and duchess who had read the first book (the second book is very meta, also) and then decide to humor him - taking it waaaaay too far and being horrible malicious dicks in their escalating pranks.
Meanwhile there's also people just larping a pastoral Arcadia for a picnic, and that's fine until Don Quixote has to take things too far as usual. There's also legit adventures going on in the backgroup (like the exploits of an escaped slave who then recruits a rescue mission to save the other people he had been enslaved with) and legit romance stories (it's like a telenovela) which happen parallel to and mostly without interference or aid from Don Quixote, out looking for his imaginary chivalric romances to defend a fictional lady. The whole theme seems to be that it's fine to have fun, but don't let it go too far because you'll then miss out on all the good parts of real life while making yourself miserable.
Incidentally, the only person who seems to materially benefit from these misadventures in both books is Sancho Panza, who both times ends up with the equivalent of several years' worth of his usual wages, which he can then spend for the benefit of his family. It's notable because to him, this wasn't acting or playing; he was convinced he really was on a real-life adventure the whole time.
Also for the ending
Tl;dr The book is a lot.
There's been this debate with two schools of thought on the book. The first is that Don Quixote is a crazy old man running around being crazy, and the book is a straight satire of chivalric romantric tropes that are rightfully mocked by being imitated by this insane (and dangerous) coot. The second is that Don Quixote is a sort of tragic figure, a romantic dreaming of a better world and trying to go out and make that better world happen, but real life is cruel and mocking.
The thing is, it's easy to pick one side or the other because there's really both of those directly in the book. There's often major sympathy for the man, both from an authorial standpoint and from other characters, because a lot of people in Don Quixote's (well, Alonso Quixano) life really do love him dearly. But yeah, he's also a major danger to himself and others as he follows the ridiculous chivalric formulas of the books, going from smart though maybe a bit whimsical ol' guy one moment to raving lunatic the next.
I'm still going for wacky option 3 and claiming larping gone to Jared Leto lengths though.
I have of course, already read the entire thing because there are no breaks on the penguin book eating train
It's real good. Real good. I'm very much looking forward to book 2, even as I scream about the final line in the book.
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I absolutely love the settings though.
I read Battle Ground by Jim Butcher almost in one go before work yesterday, and finished it while waiting for reports to churn through. It's one of the better books in the series - I'm looking forward to the next book more than I was looking forward to Battle Ground after finishing Peace Talks. I'm really curious about where the status quo stands at the start of the next book.
I also ended up reading Tales From the Folly, Ben Aaronovitch's short story collection. I hadn't realized until yesterday that said collection existed, so that was a pleasant surprise. I've decided that Aaronovitch has the same trouble with his short stories as his full length novels; he basically isn't much of one for writing an epilogue. Here's your climax, The End. His October Man, which I read for the first time last week, is the rare exception.
Now I'm reading Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott, which seems perfectly fine but isn't thrilling me yet, about a fifth of the way through. And for non-fiction, I'm slowly plodding my way through Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. And, uh, yikes. It may be the single most depressing and horrifying thing that I've ever read.
(Incidentally, the fall of the Italian city-republics into just becoming little places run by lords were of course very complex things that happened due to a wide variety of factors, but a very major factor were the super-rich of the time, the noble landlords. As always, eat the rich.)
There's a weird shared universe bit that's bugged me for years now. (spoilers for one of the early Aaronovitch Rivers of London novels, I guess, but not in a way that actually spoils any plot points)
Speaking of crossovers between series... I've been reading the latest Bobiverse novel, Rivers of Heaven by Dennis Taylor. It has a lot of references (well, a lot of the same reference) to Craig Alanson's Columbus Day series, which is probably the closest I come to a guilty pleasure. Are they that popular? This is the second unrelated sci-fi series by another author I've run across with blatant references to Alanson (The other being the Dimension Space series by Dean Cole). In the Cole case I assumed it was at least in part because Cole's audiobooks are narrated by the same guy who narrates Alanson's books. Taylor's narrator is a totally different guy and he seems to be referring to Alanson as a sufficiently popular author that he can make the reference with no explanation and expect his audience to understand.
Columbus day and it's sequels were free on kindle plus, so I imagine they got out there a bit.
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I really don't think they'd work well as actual books. RC Bray's delivery is like 80% of why I enjoy any of them.
Well, I too bought this yesterday, in response to this (I'd forgotten it was coming out)
I blame you for the fact that I'm a zombie at work today, because I started it at 10, and didn't put it down until I finished it at 1. It's definitely fun - it reminds me quite a bit of Nevernight, actually. I can't help but feel that I now have this entire subgenre of "weird schooling", though, and that worries me somewhat.
I read her series up to the Tawny Man series
is any of the newer stuff worthwhile?
Part of the reason I was doing the reread is that I realised she'd finished the Rain Wilds books so wanted to remember what was going on
Wait I love weird schooling but I don't know tons of books in that genre that are really palatable to adults
Like obviously we have The Magicians, and then I also have Sorcery and Cecilia and Year of The Griffin and....surely there are more books like this, but I can't really think of any right now! (I also do like Harry Potter but more in a nostalgic way; not sure if I'd super enjoy them as an adult).
What's on your list?
For me, I was thinking Nevernight, Harry Potter, Wilder Girls and Red Sister. I mean, Potter is more nostalgia (at least for the first 3), Wilder Girls is genuinely quite good, and I just loved the style in Nevernight, and am willing to forgive it's flaws. (I mean, sarcastic demon cats, what's not to love?).
* Ninth House
* Magic for Liars
* The Black Magician series by Trudi Canavan
* The Name of the Wind
Oh I totally forgot Name of the Wind but yes, I love all the parts about magic grad school and was sad when the second book spent significant time away from magic grad school
I am going to put all these books on my list and read a bunch of school books
And also it flubs the landing in a major way.
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Eh. I was fine with the ending. It was weird and it felt like Weeks suddenly decided he wanted to ape Sanderson's Cosmere at the 11th hour but it tied up all the dangling threads I could still remember by that point, gave everybody some story time to shine, and closed out the series in a reasonable way. It reminded me a fair bit of Sanderson's wrap-up of The Wheel of Time.
I was never super attached to the Black Prism series, though. I could see being more disappointed if I'd been more invested.
(Black Prism ending spoilers, though not specific plot points)
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Dazen was always going to either die heroically or get his power back. It’s just that kind of story.
And it would have been perfectly fine to have Dazen come back and be physically healed, but still mundane. It probably wouldn't have annoyed me so much if he got his power back if Kip wasn't also miraculously resurrected.
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We know how the characters feel, Robin, but how do those fuckers like their fish cooked?
On the one hand, I think the plot beats are pretty great and some rock-solid hard scifi.
On the other hand, I think the actual writing is kind of... bland? Occasionally strangely amateurish?
That one feels a little bit like fanfiction of her own books, but still enjoyable. I still think Liveship is the crown jewel of her bibliography. Though to be fair, I'm always much more partial to third person limited than I am to first person.
Unless it changes dramatically from book one to two I don't think I'd ever call Three-Body Problem hard sci-fi. Usually 'hard' implies it's grounded in real-life physics with maybe a speculative hand-wave here and there, or assumes some currently-theoretical physics is really how the universe works. Three-Body Problem was pure technobabble with an at best "I read a wikipedia article and skipped the complicated parts" understanding of whole swaths of scientific fact.
I really dug the key plot beats, but yeah the writing never felt great, and it was hugely padded to my taste. I really don't need to see a huge mini story about a guy looking for love that seems really tangential to the plot.
Now reading Melmoth, by Sarah Perry, which is so far about spooky goings on in Prague.
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It is a translation, I can believe something got lost in the process.
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