I hadn't realized Wrath of Empire had came out. Man that is a good series.
There is something awesome about a series with mages in a society with 19th century level technology. Specifically Blackpowder Mages who rail blackpowder like it was cocaine to give them superhuman strength and speed... along with doing absurd trickshots with muskets that defy the laws of physics.
I hadn't realized Wrath of Empire had came out. Man that is a good series.
There is something awesome about a series with mages in a society with 19th century level technology. Specifically Blackpowder Mages who rail blackpowder like it was cocaine to give them superhuman strength and speed... along with doing absurd trickshots with muskets that defy the laws of physics.
Don't want to ruin for ya but I do have some serious complaints about the retconning shenanigans going on. Please correct me if his many novellas I haven't read address this. No real spoilers about the Wrath of Empire book just the setting itself.
The, "Gods" are already established as just being extremely powerful Privileged with almost no understanding of Blood Sorcery at all.
In the first series Brude's whole plot was to use Blood Sorcery he didn't understand to absorb Kresimir's power.
Kresimir created Brude for reasons out of his own power directly. This went for all the God of the Nine then they ran off into the universe for whatever reason.
Godstones make no sense.
Brude explained in the first series about the nature of his own creation and his siamese twin. Kresimir killed his parents and separated them with sorcery. Made them into his lieutenants and then into Gods.
Kresimir left artifacts covered in Old Dynize language (he created the Kez kingdom and languages) that are bound in Blood Sorcery that he has no comprehension of.
The Predeii agree that Kresimir created the Godstones.
The Godstones themselves and the process for creating Gods makes no sense.
Kresimir personally created the Gods of the Nine. Gurla and the other gods were created how?
The Adran Powder Mage Cabal outright killed the ancient gods of Gurla. Why will a brand new god be so theatening?
I may be a nitpicking neckbeard faggot here, But these aspects make no sense. A case where the setting and story are awesome. As long as you ignore the plot armor of the main characters and weakness of the world construction.
I love it. But I will still criticize it. Do read though it is very enjoyable.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt series probably counts.
Hmm, looking through my library I see :
Flash Gold, Lindsay Buroker
New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear
Emperor's Edge, Lindsay Buroker*
* This one is labelled steampunk but I am not sure it counts for reasons that are a spoiler.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadow of the Apt series probably counts.
Hmm, looking through my library I see :
Flash Gold, Lindsay Buroker
New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear
Emperor's Edge, Lindsay Buroker*
* This one is labelled steampunk but I am not sure it counts for reasons that are a spoiler.
Hmm, not looking too interesting for my tastes. Where do you find stuff to read? Ukerric
is there a good recommendations list on goodreads I should look for? I don't really record what I read there so I don't make good use of its algorithmic features.
Hmm, not looking too interesting for my tastes. Where do you find stuff to read? Ukerric
is there a good recommendations list on goodreads I should look for? I don't really record what I read there so I don't make good use of its algorithmic features.
I got 1493 books tagged "read" on Goodreads and it still tends to suggest mostly useless books I'll never read.
I still get most of my recommendations from amazon. I'm using three different stores (US, UK, FR) on which I could record what I read back when you could (before they limited the "I already own this" option to any of their suggestions). It tends to suggest a few interesting things by theme. However, given that I've probably tagged 15k books as "not interested", whenever I purchase a book, I get 30+ suggestion from the same author/author circle. Last year, I purchased something that looked like some interesting fantasy theme (ancient avenging spirit of the stepped gets locked in a quasi-mortal body and turns night vigilante) and had to spend like a months removing suggestions in lesbian romance (not kidding) that were 70% of my top-100 suggestions.
Goodreads has player-curated lists by themes, where people can nominate books and vote on the books in the list. The most read dominate in the order rather than the good ones, so you get mostly mainstream books, not independent gems.
But the real gem in goodreads is the ability to link up with a few friends whose tastes you know, and follow/browse their shelves. Goodreads helpfully will let you know how similar your tastes are (it looks at how you rate books that you both have read). And, of course, you can immediately purchase on amazon (since goodreads is owned by Bezos' conglommerate).
I got 1493 books tagged "read" on Goodreads and it still tends to suggest mostly useless books I'll never read.
I still get most of my recommendations from amazon. I'm using three different stores (US, UK, FR) on which I could record what I read back when you could (before they limited the "I already own this" option to any of their suggestions). It tends to suggest a few interesting things by theme. However, given that I've probably tagged 15k books as "not interested", whenever I purchase a book, I get 30+ suggestion from the same author/author circle. Last year, I purchased something that looked like some interesting fantasy theme (ancient avenging spirit of the stepped gets locked in a quasi-mortal body and turns night vigilante) and had to spend like a months removing suggestions in lesbian romance (not kidding) that were 70% of my top-100 suggestions.
Goodreads has player-curated lists by themes, where people can nominate books and vote on the books in the list. The most read dominate in the order rather than the good ones, so you get mostly mainstream books, not independent gems.
But the real gem in goodreads is the ability to link up with a few friends whose tastes you know, and follow/browse their shelves. Goodreads helpfully will let you know how similar your tastes are (it looks at how you rate books that you both have read). And, of course, you can immediately purchase on amazon (since goodreads is owned by Bezos' conglommerate).
The Viking World by James Graham-Campbell. This history book doesn't really cover the Viking raids, but rather is more about Viking-era Scandinavian culture. It's not a large book, and thus not much of a deep-dive into the subject, but it has a ton of high-quality color photos and illustations throughout. A nice read overall.
The Purgatorio by Dante. I read The Inferno a couple years ago, but never got around to the rest of the Divine Comedy, but I got the random urge to come back to it. For whatever reason, I had an easier time with this one than I remember having with Inferno; something about it just grabbed me a little more. That being said, thank God these books tend to be endnoted out the ass these days. As far as laymen go, I feel I'm in a good place to catch historical and classical references, but these books contain references that you aren't going to organically catch unless you literally went to high school with Dante. Still, I liked the book, and this time I'm probably not going to wait years before I wrap it up with The Paradiso.
Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan. As we were just discussing in previous posts. Book 2 of the Gods of Blood and Powder series, which is in turn a sequel to the Powder Mage trilogy. These are fantasy series that take place in a setting that--unlike most fantasy--isn't based on late medieval or renaissance culture, but on the 19th century, especially the French Revolution. The eponymous Powder Mages are magic users whose magic is entirely based around gun powder--mentally detonating it, being able to control the flight of their shots, snorting it like cocaine to give themselves enhanced senses, reflexes, and stamina, and fun things like that. Really fun books; highly recommend them to just about anyone.
Almost done with Critical Failures. Definitely plan to read more of the series. It's got a great use of vulgar vocabulary, with my sailor mouth i appreciate characters that talk that way. Im hoping that now characters have been painted out that there will be more action in the second book.
Critical Failures (Caverns and Creatures Book 1)
Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan. As we were just discussing in previous posts. Book 2 of the Gods of Blood and Powder series, which is in turn a sequel to the Powder Mage trilogy. These are fantasy series that take place in a setting that--unlike most fantasy--isn't based on late medieval or renaissance culture, but on the 19th century, especially the French Revolution. The eponymous Powder Mages are magic users whose magic is entirely based around gun powder--mentally detonating it, being able to control the flight of their shots, snorting it like cocaine to give themselves enhanced senses, reflexes, and stamina, and fun things like that. Really fun books; highly recommend them to just about anyone.
Don't want to ruin for ya but I do have some serious complaints about the retconning shenanigans going on. Please correct me if his many novellas I haven't read address this. No real spoilers about the Wrath of Empire book just the setting itself.
The, "Gods" are already established as just being extremely powerful Privileged with almost no understanding of Blood Sorcery at all.
In the first series Brude's whole plot was to use Blood Sorcery he didn't understand to absorb Kresimir's power.
Kresimir created Brude for reasons out of his own power directly. This went for all the God of the Nine then they ran off into the universe for whatever reason.
Godstones make no sense.
Brude explained in the first series about the nature of his own creation and his siamese twin. Kresimir killed his parents and separated them with sorcery. Made them into his lieutenants and then into Gods.
Kresimir left artifacts covered in Old Dynize language (he created the Kez kingdom and languages) that are bound in Blood Sorcery that he has no comprehension of.
The Predeii agree that Kresimir created the Godstones.
The Godstones themselves and the process for creating Gods makes no sense.
Kresimir personally created the Gods of the Nine. Gurla and the other gods were created how?
The Adran Powder Mage Cabal outright killed the ancient gods of Gurla. Why will a brand new god be so theatening?
I may be a nitpicking neckbeard faggot here, But these aspects make no sense. A case where the setting and story are awesome. As long as you ignore the plot armor of the main characters and weakness of the world construction.
I love it. But I will still criticize it. Do read though it is very enjoyable.
Completely independent of anything in this thread, I've just started the powder mage series and am loving it so far (about halfway through the first book). A friend of mine is reading it and suggested it, and I hesitated way too long because I've never been a fan of western stuff mixed with sci-fi/fantasy in books. Same reason that I waited WAY too long to start the Sanderson Wax & Wayne series, which I also ended up loving. I had no idea there was a second series for the powder mage stuff, so that's even better news.
I have been reading the Space Team series by Barry J. Hutchinson. Good fun books. If you have Kindle Unlimited they are all available.
Space Team The galaxy just called for help. Unfortunately, it dialed the wrong number.
Small-time conman, Cal Carver, is having a bad day. Imprisoned and forced to share a cell with a cannibalistic serial killer, Cal thinks things can’t possibly get any worse.
He is wrong.
It’s not until two-thirds of the human race is wiped out and Cal is mistakenly abducted by aliens that his day really starts to go downhill.
Whisked across the galaxy, Cal is thrown into a team of some of the sector’s most notorious villains and scumbags. Their mission should be simple enough, but as one screw-up leads to another, they find themselves in a frantic battle to save an entire alien civilization – and its god – from total annihilation.
Featuring epic space battles, alien gangsters, and several thousand flying Tobey Maguires, Space Team is the first book in the internationally bestselling series by award-winning author, Barry J. Hutchison, and is perfect for fans of Hitchhiker’s Guide and Guardians of the Galaxy.
The Starfighter Invitation - Andrea K. Höst
The launch of a ground-breaking new MMO with breathtaking scope stuns a lot of gamers when it turns out to be even better than the ridiculously hyped previews. As people explore the game, they begin to become suspicious that the game is actually better than is possible under current technology - the starfighter invitation is one of the popular fan conspiracy theories to explain this, suggesting the game is actually a recruiting tool for an alien race, ala The Last Starfighter.
I've liked all of Höst's other books and this was no exception - it was a great read, and that ending: oof, critical hit to the feels. It was funny, it was obvious that the author had actually played MMOs, which highlighted for me how rare that actually was in books and shows about MMOs.
As an amusing shoutout, the team that won the first system-wide challenge in the book was an aging ex-EQ guild called 'Pyres of Heaven'.
Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett
Really interesting setting - is more or less the early industrial revolution, but fueled by magic basically. The magic isn't standard mage type things, but is more like hacking reality - with a particular language people can make glyphs that change the properties of physical objects - the uses of this type of magic have become sophisticated enough to produce automated carriages, street lights, massive warships etc. The knowledge for making things is kept close in insular merchant companies, who have basically all the political power. In this story, an experienced thief is hired to steal an unidentified package but gets more than she bargained for. ( Why is it that thieves offered insane amounts of money to steal something but with orders not to look in it never realise that the person hiring them is obviously going to kill them afterwards ? ;p )
The main character in this one is the magical equivalent of a cyborg, which is nowhere near as fun for her as it sounds, although it makes for an interesting story.
The deep original setting and the details of the magic system reminded me a lot of Sanderson, in a good way. This was an excellent book, will get any sequels as they come out.
Children of the Nameless - Brandon Sanderson
Villager goes to confront local Lord, after he sends an army of soul-stealing spirits to wipe out her village. Her assassination attempt does not go entirely to plan.
This is apparently a magic the gathering tie-in or something ? In any case, Sanderson being Sanderson, he takes a totally random concept for some background lore and makes an entertaining and engaging story out of it.
Swordheart - T Kingfisher
Middle aged widow, locked up and being forced to marry a cousin so they can seize control of her inheritance, despairs and tries to kill herself with what turns out to be a magical sword. The sword is having none of this though. This was an interesting mix of sensibilities and styles, and was quite funny at times. It was a good read, but a bit too romancy for me though - if that's your thing then I'd strongly recommend it though.
The Poppy War - R F Kuang
War orphan in fantasy china takes the civil service exam to avoid being sold into marriage to a corrupt official. She ends up acing it and getting a scholarship to the most elite military academy. From here a serious of seemingly reasonable steps end up in a nightmare situation.
This is dark - very dark. You can argue circumstance, but the main character is a monster.
I liked the way that it uses what seems to be familiar tropes, but everything is twisted just a little bit out of expectations. It was an excellent book overall.
Into the Darkness - K F Breene
Teenage girl has a run-in with some not-vampires and becomes an increasingly large problem when she proves extremely resistant to memory wipes.
This one was fairly clumsily written, and is tilted pretty far toward the Laurel K Hamilton end of the urban fantasy<=>porn scale. As an example - while sneaking into a vampire strongold, the main character breaks into the head vampires office and masturbates on his couch... to distract him ? It's not clear how that works. Probably won't read anything else of this author's stuff without a strong recommendation.
The Paper Magician - Charlie N Holmberg
Victorian England style setting, but with organised magic. A graduate student is forced to give up her dreams of metal magic and apprentice to a paper magician due to a critical lack of paper magicians in the country. Paper magicians apparently make magical origami and it's, unsurprisingly, far more useful than the main character thinks it is.
This was well-written and decent fun. I found the romance element to be awfully implausible, but it didn't detract much from the story. Will probably read more.
The Black - Paul E Cooley
Exploratory mining rig crew faces off against the most insanely overpowered movie monster ever*. This is kind of standard last stand, horror from the deep stuff. It wasn't bad, but this kind of stuff lives by the characters, and they were only so-so - I probably won't read the other books.
*It's a virus ! It has a fear aura ! It's a shapeshifting assassin ! It's a tentacle monster ! It's a kaiju ! It's an alien with acid blood ! It eats metal ! It's intelligent ! It can form up like voltron !
I think the only reason it doesn't have laser eyes is because it doesn't have eyes.
Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven - Bella Forrest
Urban fantasy about witches and secret world shenanigans. Pretty predictable, but readable enough. May read more.
Expeditionary Force Series - Craig Alanson
Read books 2-7 (Renegades) of the expeditionary forces series. This was a fun series - I don't think the later books lived up to some of the high points of the first book, but if you have read the second book, they are all around that level of quality. Will read any others in series that show up.
As an aside, I found the reaction to the sex-bot downright unbelievable, there's like two women on the entire ship, the spec-ops guys would be lining up to take turns on that thing ;p
Ok, fess up, which of you uses that pseudonym to write?
(I have to read it now)
Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett
...
The deep original setting and the details of the magic system reminded me a lot of Sanderson, in a good way. This was an excellent book, will get any sequels as they come out.
Que? In this series the, "gods" are explicitly defined as human sorcerers who used unknown means to make themselves into superhumans basically. They are just extremely powerful sorcerers. Immortality isn't even unique to them. Regular sorcerers in the series have achieved it also.
I just mean that the whole godstone situation is nonsensical based on what we learned in the previous series and some of the novellas.
Anyone have the epub or mobi of critical failures 5 and 6 they are willing to share? Or can direct me to a site to get it. I have checked skytorrents ebookee and kickass
