The Book Lair - all book talk ITT

[eddyak]

Been reading the Sword of Truth series. Six or seven books in so far, and honestly, it hasn't been the best ride. It seems like the author just found a (honestly pretty crappy) formula, and stuck to it. I'm not even gonna spoiler, because honestly, it doesn't feel worth it at this point.

Protags notice something vaguely wrong. Protags infodump what's happened so far in the series for eleventy pages to somebody, doesn't really matter who. Ominous events happen. More infodumping. Protags, purely by chance, find out about an obnoxiously designed and pointlessly convoluted magic system, trap, spell, creature or person. Bleh (my word for basically filler content that's neither exciting, interesting or meaningful) happens for approximately most of the book. Along the way, protags talk a lot more than anybody actually talks in real life. Infodumps galore, along with a Richard lecture on whatever the author likes the best this week around (buhh, communism bad because north korea-style society). Protags solve it just in time~!

For a series about a WAR WIZARD, with a MAGIC SWORD that gives him all the ability with the sword that all of its previous wielders have had, with magic like NOBODY'S EVER DREEEEAAAAAMED OF for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, the fight scenes are shit to nonexistent. Honestly, the series should've ended with Darken Rahl. The only thing that makes Jagang remotely scary at this point is his army, and it's even cheaper than Game of Thrones' approach to warfare and one-upmanship.

"Well, there goes another king and his army, defeated by [insert kingdom here]! But wait, there's more! Suddenly, a kingdom that hasn't been mentioned, thought of by any of the characters in the series so far or even possibly existed up until this point has shown its ugly face, and its king is a bigger bastard than these other guys, and oh look, they have an army from out of nowhere that they couldn't possibly support in a medieval age!" Randomly out of nowhere there's a guy with an army that consists of millions, and when the protags kill a couple hundred thousand with strategy and tactics and a Russian winter, it turns out the enemy's expecting reinforcements bigger than their millions.

This villain's arc has not only overstayed its welcome, it's taken a shit on every piece of furniture, upended the plant pots, and made out with the homeowner's dog. At this point all I can hope for is that at the very least, there's a cool swordfight between Richard and Jagang- Guy who has the swordplay skills of every man to ever wield the Seeker's sword against a guy who invades the minds of everyone around him and can take their memories and skills for himself should be one of the best written fight scenes on the planet, but I have the sinking feeling the author's gonna screw it up.

[RoydGolden]

Wasn't that the series where the author converted into a hardcore Objectivist about midway through and started peppering his works with incredibly didactic paeans as to the ~glories of capitalism~ and whatnot? Not to mention where the heroic protagonist heroically slaughters a bunch of evil pacifists "armed only with their hatred for moral clarity". Yeah, don't think I'm touching that with a ten-foot pole.

[eddyak]

Basically, yeah.

There was a book that was basically an entire society that took Tumblr SJW white-shaming to a ridiculous extreme. Former slaves freed by their masters, turned on their masters in the most bloodless and socially responsible upheaval in history, and started teaching the former masters' kids that they're inherently evil and need to be punished for their ancestors' sins, and actually had them believing it. They all eventually got murdered to death by the Incredibly Evil Army of Evil, who they invited in.

One book felt like the entire point was to put the protag into a society which I think was literally worse than the stories we get about North Korea- neighbours and family turning each other in, incredibly inefficient bureaucracy that can't even get their industry's goods delivered because bureaucracy, Kim Jong Whatever figure, the entire society preaches this twisted sort of "YOU ARE GARBAGE COMPARED TO THE LORD YOUR GOD AND YOUR ROLE IN LIFE IS TO SUFFER" Protestant-type mindset, a Government-sponsored Benefits society, and the protag solves it all with a rly gud statue.

Felt like the author was trying to decry the evils of communism, but really attacking a really badly made strawman just means your arguments are shit.

[SleepMode]

A while ago I re-read The Tales of the Dying Earth, written by Jack Vance; within the book detailed a Sci-fi/Fantasy hybrid, with advanced tech and bizarre magic galore. And by the gods was it more prosy than Tolkien; his use of antiquated vocabulary was extremely frequent, I even had to regularly search my dictionary to get some of their definitions. Heck, there are some words that he outright made up.

Out of the collections of stories, I really liked The Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga the most. Cugel's such a fascinating anti-hero, using mostly his wits to basically use others to further his goals. Although the guy's clever, there were times that he screwed up gloriously, mainly due to the two books' overarching antagonist. Also, the ending of TEotO was absolutely hilarious.

The book is pretty long due to the proses, so it will take a while to finish it.

[aldeayeah]

Reading 1Q84, one third remaining.

this shit is weird

but aomame is bae, everything's fine

[Sesto]

Read "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders". The entire mystery was a bit convoluted, so it was kind of hard to even think of a solution. In the end I wasn't really close at all.

Spoiler:

Honestly I couldn't help but think the concept was similar to Kara no Shoujo, what with the idea of creating Azoth and Heikichi's entire note. So I had been rather deadset on the idea that it involved his first love and her son. Unfortunately, I was nowhere close.

To be honest it was just kind of bad, Kiyoshi was really annoying.

[eddyak]

The Wheel of Time series is disturbingly similar to the Sword of Truth (fuck's sake, fantasy writers, a thing doesn't need to be "of" something else, you could just call it a bloody magic sword), except, y'know, more imaginative, better written, with a less insufferable, far less Sue-like MC (though at present, barely- the guy's going mad thanks to ~plot~, and for most of the series he's just sitting around while all the other characters do things, and his magic just does things ~all by itself~).

It's more interesting so far. I like the characters, there's a lot more actual fantasy elements, and the villains are actually sometimes threatening.

[SpoonyViking]

Finished Ursula K. Leguin's "A Wizard of Earthsea". Overall, I really enjoyed it! Now to see if the other books in the series have been translated - I hate switching languages mid-series.

[Trubo]

The Wheel of Time series is disturbingly similar to the Sword of Truth (fuck's sake, fantasy writers, a thing doesn't need to be "of" something else, you could just call it a bloody magic sword), except, y'know, more imaginative, better written, with a less insufferable, far less Sue-like MC (though at present, barely- the guy's going mad thanks to ~plot~, and for most of the series he's just sitting around while all the other characters do things, and his magic just does things ~all by itself~).

It's more interesting so far. I like the characters, there's a lot more actual fantasy elements, and the villains are actually sometimes threatening.

http://i.imgur.com/U0xj5pI.gifv

Starts to drag on a bit too much by book 6 or so. Also, didn't really like Sanderson's hand at the story after Jordan died, though I enjoy his Stormlight Archive books.

Edit: Seems like .gifv isn't a supported format for the IMG tags.

[castor212]

The Wheel of Time series is disturbingly similar to the Sword of Truth (fuck's sake, fantasy writers, a thing doesn't need to be "of" something else, you could just call it a bloody magic sword), except, y'know, more imaginative, better written, with a less insufferable, far less Sue-like MC (though at present, barely- the guy's going mad thanks to ~plot~, and for most of the series he's just sitting around while all the other characters do things, and his magic just does things ~all by itself~).

It's more interesting so far. I like the characters, there's a lot more actual fantasy elements, and the villains are actually sometimes threatening.

Dont worry, Rand has some seriously awesome (by my opinion) character development throughout, and by the end of the series he was really a satisfying character

[You]

The Wheel of Time series is disturbingly similar to the Sword of Truth (fuck's sake, fantasy writers, a thing doesn't need to be "of" something else, you could just call it a bloody magic sword), except, y'know, more imaginative, better written, with a less insufferable, far less Sue-like MC (though at present, barely- the guy's going mad thanks to ~plot~, and for most of the series he's just sitting around while all the other characters do things, and his magic just does things ~all by itself~).

It's more interesting so far. I like the characters, there's a lot more actual fantasy elements, and the villains are actually sometimes threatening.

sword of truth gets preachy

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http://i.imgur.com/U0xj5pI.gifv

Starts to drag on a bit too much by book 6 or so. Also, didn't really like Sanderson's hand at the story after Jordan died, though I enjoy his Stormlight Archive books.

Edit: Seems like .gifv isn't a supported format for the IMG tags.

I thought Sanderson was good.

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But towards the end i was just reading for ships.

[castor212]

sword of truth gets preachy

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I thought Sanderson was good.

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But towards the end i was just reading for ships.

but

Spoiler:

rand didnt even get any of the girl in the end

[Trubo]

I thought Sanderson was good.

I really didn't like his take on Mat, which is a problem considering how important he becomes towards the end.

[eddyak]

sword of truth gets preachy

It gets preachy, it gets judgmental, it gets self important and extremely strawman-esque.

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Dont worry, Rand has some seriously awesome (by my opinion) character development throughout, and by the end of the series he was really a satisfying character

Is this before or after Sanderson takes over?

[You]

but

Spoiler:

rand didnt even get any of the girl in the end

its all about the side character romance with Wheel of Time

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I really didn't like his take on Mat, which is a problem considering how important he becomes towards the end.

I liked Mat better under Sanderson.
He seemed more self-aware in his comedy.

[LJ3]

The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler.

Pretty anxiety provoking for me. Shouldn't really have been surprised at how relevant it still is.

[castor212]

It gets preachy, it gets judgmental, it gets self important and extremely strawman-esque.

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Is this before or after Sanderson takes over?

its already happening before, but sanderson wrote about a third of it

i think 2 or 3 volumes before? its a pretty slow burn. but a satisfying and convincing one (imo)

[RoydGolden]

Been reading The Dark Prophesy- second book in Riordan's Trials Of Apollo series lately. It's been a good read but I'm really not sure at all where Rick pulled all this stuff on Hemithea from. I actually searched her up online out of curiosity, and there doesn't seem to have been anything to do with her becoming a huntress of Artemis as Riordan depicted her or even really associated with Artemis at all (beyond what seem to me some fairly weak name-associations). Obviously Riordan often takes artistic license with the myths to some degree to better integrate into the story, but it feels odd in this case to turn a mythical "literally who?" into someone who's done so much stuff.

Well, that's my nitpicking and likely totally unfounded literary criticism for today, anyways. As a whole though, the book is really good so I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

[castor212]

tbh imo riordan reusing same stuffs again and again is starting to get oldlike, i still like his storytelling and anrration but i want something newer

[RoydGolden]

tbh imo riordan reusing same stuffs again and again is starting to get oldlike, i still like his storytelling and anrration but i want something newer

At least having Apollo as the POV character freshens things up somewhat.