Good timing, literally just started these last week. Already onto the second book, really interesting and somewhat unique tone so far. The big 'halfway through book 1 twist' had me briefly gawking!No release date yet, but cover is out!
Books Fantasy Reads
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
I just found out that David Verberg, who writes web serials under the pen name ErraticErrata, writer of the top-rated completed webnovel A Practical Guide to Evil, has just started a new web serial, Pale Lights. He has posted 4 chapters so far. I took a quick look and it appears that, while APGTE has lots of African cultural influences, Pale lights would appear to be based on Spanish/Portuguese cultural themes. Those who want to embark on the serialized journey with him can find Pale Lights at: https://palelights.com/table-of-contents/
Or join his patreon for advance chapters
Btw APGTE has a big mix of cultures really. Somebody on the discord even made a chart of all the coding. There's the west african/bedouin/turkic byzantine empire, the german/french/spanish HRE, Al Andalus, Greek city-states, England, Irish Native Americans, the nazis...also off screen the RE(gone, actually lost the punic wars), Carthago, China, Korea, India....
I see. I'm about to finish Book 2, and it seems to me that the Dread Empire of Praes is made up of two human cultures, Soninke (West African), and Taghreb (Bedouin), as well as the non-human Orcs and Goblins. The former kingdom of Callow seems mostly English. I don't have a feel for Procer yet, because we've seen very little of it so far, but the little we've seen gives me England vibes as well. Is there a way for you to post a copy of the cultures chart here?
Finished Book 3 of A Practical Guide to Evil. What a ride it's been so far! The world is complex, the magic systems are deep, the contending factions are varied and all have believable motives, and the pace is relentless. And there are four more books of this stuff. Really top-rank storytelling.
Word of warning, the final arc of book 4 stagnates a bit, though the payoff is awesome. Also keep track of Cat's characterization
I'm midway through Book 5 now. I'd give books 1 and 2 a straight 10/10. Books 3 and 4 would probably be a 8/10.
The macro geopolitics is just brilliant and the characterization is superb.
The fact that the plot tone leans towards surreal rather than real/grimdark is what I like the most.
Cat making plans, then it blowing up, she's about to lose, pulls out a trick and emerges more powerful was nice in first two books....but it has become a recurring theme now. Takes away a lot from the immediate if you can predict broadly how it'll end.
I'm a bit confused about A Practical Guide to Evil. How do people here read it? I can't imagine reading stuff on a monitor, phone or tablet. As I understand it, there doesn't seem to be an official publication, either on paper or in ebook format. If I'm going to read it, it would have to be on my kindle, but I don't want to read something unofficial as I'd like to support the author. Seems like I don't have any options at the moment, or am I missing something?
There's sites that convert webpages into ebooks. That said, since the plan is to publish, making ebooks is discouraged(and sharing them a big no-no)
If you want to give him money there's a patreon btw
Me I just read it online
Yeah, reading online isn't bad. I had a stigma against that before, but having read a bunch of web serial books, it doesn't bother me anymore.
And web serial book world has come cracking hidden gems!
And web serial book world has come cracking hidden gems!
I followed APGTE for years. Every month I would convert the month's posted chapters into an ebook I was building of the series, waiting for the series to be over so I could read it all on my tablet. There are about 10 web serials I'm still following in that manner, including The Wandering Inn, Pale, Defiance of the Fall, Savage Divinity, Forge of Destiny, and, just started, Pale Lights by ErraticErratica, author of APGTE. You can easily compile the APGTE Patreon chapters into a book to read on your Kindle. It isn't illegal so long as you don't share the book, and you'll be supporting the author. You can find the software you'll need to compile such an ebook earlier in this thread, a few months up.
That is one of the disadvantages of the first-person narrative employed in the series. We know going in that she will survive whatever dangers she'll face, so that removes some of the tension that would have been present in a 3rd-person narrative structure. Your point about the repetitive nature of how she always has a trick to pull out a victory just as she is about to lose is well taken. At least each time she pulls out a pyrrhic victory of that sort she emerges as less human, the author acknowledging that she pays a cost for each last-minute survival.
I mean
She also just gets a whole lot better at it so it gets significantly less forced when everything pretty much went the way she predicted. She still takes some heavy losses most of the time.
I am going to give this a try but a big warning to anyone doing this/question for people who have completed the whole series:
In between chapters 37 and 38 in Book 2 there is a chapter called Conspiracy I that does not show up in the ToC and is therefore not imported into an EPub. Anyone find a way around this and are there more "hidden" chapters?
edit: It's in the extra chapters sidebar, so those can be exported, but I assume they make mores sense if read in the right order within the main book?
edit: It's in the extra chapters sidebar, so those can be exported, but I assume they make mores sense if read in the right order within the main book?
Some extra chapters make more sense if read in order within the main story, but no, they don't actually affect the main story, so you can read them whenever you want in whatever order you want. Though you might want to already know about the character the EC is about from the main story...
Yeah, spent the last couple of hours while on a company meeting call converting the 2 epubs into word documents and splicing the EC's into the right slots. Really good use of my time
Has anyone read the Court of Thorns and Roses Series by Sarah J. Maas? Had a friend telling me it has Thrones-like intrigue and they'll be making a show of it.
Nope. Tried a Throne of Glass series and abandoned it midway through.
If you have Calibre (free) you can use a couple of plugins to splice and merge epub documents directly, without first converting the epub to Word or pdf.Yeah, spent the last couple of hours while on a company meeting call converting the 2 epubs into word documents and splicing the EC's into the right slots. Really good use of my time
Thanks for the suggestion! I, of course, figured this out after I took the long and stupid route. Whatever the case I now have it done!
Book 7 now.
Cat, Alaya, Black.....others....... Feck.
The setup, the drama, the emotion....it's brilliant!
This is a gift that keeps giving. I love this series.
Cat, Alaya, Black.....others....... Feck.
The setup, the drama, the emotion....it's brilliant!
This is a gift that keeps giving. I love this series.
Despite my earlier reservations about Cradle, I finished Dreadgod last night so that means I've read all 11 available books in about a month and a half. Took me until about book 6 before I really started to enjoy them, but by then I couldn't stop reading. Shit timing on my part though, now I'll have to wait for the final book. And find something else to read in the meantime.
Book 6 is Underlord, an action-packed book. However, I think most fans who've rendered an opinion (Reddit) consider Book 5, Ghostwater, one of the two best books in the series.
I suspect you might enjoy the series a lot more on a re-read, perhaps just before Book 12, Waybound, comes out.
For something new to read, I'll suggest A Practical Guide to Evil or Mother of Learning. Both are Web serials, but if that is not your cup of tea try Mage Errant.
Finished APGTE. It was great.
I'm still unsure on what the Wandering Bard wanted. Is she meddling just for the sake of meddling? She was against the Dead King simply because he was immune to her meddling till the end?
Also , Cat seems to have slept with every major female character with Aisha being the sole exception. Was it hinted that Aisha and Juniper were in a relationship?
Also , Cat seems to have slept with every major female character with Aisha being the sole exception. Was it hinted that Aisha and Juniper were in a relationship?
Right
WB wanted an out for herself, that is to say, to *die* for real. For that she needed to nuke the continent to reduce the number of people alive to a number where she could effecrively erase herself from memory. Her backup plan was to have Cat take her job
She was against the DK because she works directly for the Gods and Nessie "figured out" the trick of creation and wasn't playing along, instead was trying to cheat his way out of the game by becoming a demon - demon being creatures that survived previous iterations of creation. His whole endgame was surviving Creation
As for Aisha and Juniper, yes, they are a couple
She was against the DK because she works directly for the Gods and Nessie "figured out" the trick of creation and wasn't playing along, instead was trying to cheat his way out of the game by becoming a demon - demon being creatures that survived previous iterations of creation. His whole endgame was surviving Creation
As for Aisha and Juniper, yes, they are a couple
@Ainu if you craving Cradle replacement...
Mage Errant
Desolate Era - Bad translation, but super epic story once you get past the prose.
Rob Prince: Warformed StormWeaver - Progression Fantasy with mechas and arena fights.
Mage Errant
Desolate Era - Bad translation, but super epic story once you get past the prose.
Rob Prince: Warformed StormWeaver - Progression Fantasy with mechas and arena fights.
No. They are a plot device, nothing more. Irrelevant to the story. Essentially they exist to keep creation locked in medieval/early modern age technology minus gunpowder
Took a stab at another classic series I'd never read before, Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy. About a third through book 2 and I'm not sure I want to carry on. I can't fault the writing, characterizations or world building, they're all exceptionally well done, but the whole thing just makes me feel anxious and miserable.
I find myself not looking forward to another reading session and when I'm reading, I want to get through it as quickly as possible. By all accounts it seems like it's only going to get more miserable, so yeah, I don't think this is something I need in my life. It's a shame, because in terms of writing this is a level above most fantasy literature I've read, but if it doesn't bring me any enjoyment, there's no point.
I find myself not looking forward to another reading session and when I'm reading, I want to get through it as quickly as possible. By all accounts it seems like it's only going to get more miserable, so yeah, I don't think this is something I need in my life. It's a shame, because in terms of writing this is a level above most fantasy literature I've read, but if it doesn't bring me any enjoyment, there's no point.
Hobb is brilliant, but yes she will put her wonderful characters through hell. But Fitz, Burrich, Kettricken, Verity, Nighteyes, The Fool, they are some of my favourite characters in fiction.
I read it, it is more a popcorn reading and more for female NA (new adult) readers. It is a comparison to Games of Thrones?! I didn't like much the first, the 2nd was ok, the 3rd was so bloated, it is a ok series for someone used to YA books, I am not convinced it would be enticing to most adult fantasy readers. It isn't at all on the same level of GoT, I am not even sure why there is a comparison.
Most great fantasy series are like that.
I need to still get back to Malazan - it is a great series but lost interest at some point.
Gentleman bastards was so much fun in book on and got so dreary and repetitive by the middle of book 2.
I gave up on Gentleman Bastards in book 2 as well, it just wasn't all that interesting. That's definitely not the issue in Farseer for me. It's captivating stuff, even if it's slow-moving. I want to explore more of its world and characters, I never felt the same way in Gentleman Bastards. Literally the only issue I have is that I feel it's going to be too emotionally draining.
I might just read on but find something light and fun to read at the same time.
You can try The Liveship Traders the second trilogy, there is a lot more happening and we follow several characters. The story happens in a different place though I think there are few minor spoilers relative to the first trilogy. I really enjoyed more the second one (great series), I remember complaining (a lot to myself) that the first book of the first trilogy was so slow and there were two others?!
I have a friend that loves Thrones (the book series) have that series recommended to him as somewhat similar. It sounds like a bad recommendation he received from the replies here
Finished Book 6 of A Practical Guide to Evil. Wow!
Speaking of, author has unfortunately decided to publish with webtoon through their new predatory micro-transaction app. So, yeah, unless you want to either pay waaay more than you should for any book or wait years for it to be free, little chance of the final edited version(unless somebody rips it off the app somehow). EE says he retains traditionap publishing rights, but I have little hope
Recommend me a series that is available on audible. Just finished the last unread cosmere novellas (dawnshard and white sands). I can try to get back and finish Hyperion otherwise. Also downloaded Farseer but looking for something less torturous right now. Half way through Malazan from a while back but that will require a lot of rereading to remember the previous books and all the Easter eggs.
What's torturous about Farseer series? Just curious as I'm halfway through the first book..If you haven't read the First Law books, try them. I think it's the highest overall consistency of any series I've read. Each book is just as good as the last.
Going by Ainu’s review from earlier - just downloaded book 1 of the licanius trilogy from an earlier reco on this thread.
I haven’t read the first law books though have heard of them. Thanks - will give it a gander.