Rob’s Comments (group member since Jul 06, 2012)

Rob’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

"Grow a pair of tits Q"

I love Margo..

Rick, please put your analysis of book 2 in spoilers..you may have tried to keep it vague, but I think you get into too much detail.

If I hadn't read it already, I'd have felt like you were spoiling some of it..

Michael wrote: "Hey all,
I'm thrilled that Theft of Swords was picked. I don't want to "hang out" in your discussion area because I want people to feel comfortable talking about the book without the author nosing ..."

Thanks for offering. I created a thread for that here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Michael J. Sullivan has offered to answer any questions you may have about Theft of Swords, or any of his other books, or writing, or publishing, etc

Please you mark your spoilers if asking about plot points of any of his books.

Yeah, the banter of Royce and Hadrian are what led me to give Avempartha a try, and that one led me try the next omnibus the next time I was in the mood for lightweight/fun fantasy.

I do hope you like it better if you give it a shot, but if you decide to stop with the first one, that's understandable too.

I'm a few hours into The Crown Conspiracy and I've been cringing at a few of the scenes. I do still love that opening scene and the narration though, so it's on pace for me to hit my original 3/3.5 star rating.

I don't plan to listen to Avempartha until AFTER I finish Holy Sister, but hopefully that is still a 4 star for me..

Down? I live across the country...

Viola wrote: "Seems like Captain Marvel is to replace Captain America."

Sounds good to me..

Event for April: https://www.goodreads.com/event/show/...

I don't feel like it works as well as duologies..but they are the ones who wrote it..

AndrewP wrote: "I'm waiting until book 9 is out as the authors have said the last 3 books are a trilogy."

I believe the author's don't agree with this notion, but I've always felt that it really reads like a trilogy of trilogies:

Arc 1:
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate

Arc 2:
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon's Ashes

Arc 3:
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat's Wrath
Untitled

Incidentally I've found I like the middle book of each arc the best (so far).

Trike wrote: "I do like how the events of The Crown Conspiracy make Riyria famous and someone creates a play about it called, cleverly, “The Crown Conspiracy”, which manages to get nearly everything wrong.."

Yeah, that bit was a great callback to me. It also continues that trend with his prequel series First Empire

We discover that basically everything everyone believes is totally wrong!

Aeryn98 wrote: "I loved this book. It made me quite tense reading it. And a great ending. However..."

I agree (view spoiler)[about Bobbie. I kept hoping/waiting, but in vain (hide spoiler)]

As to Teresa: (view spoiler)[I didn't like her until Amos shows up. His interactions with her made me feel sympathetic towards her and draw parallels to her and Clarissa.

I'd like to see her stay with Amos, and I want to see Amos on the Rocinate. She doesn't seem inclined to stay there, but it seems like it would be good for her if she did. (hide spoiler)]

Yeah, these early books aren't meant to be dark and serious. They are mainly intended as a reaction to how dark and serious fantasy had become.

Even the later books don't get that dark, although they do get more serious.

That's one of the reasons I think I like them so much.

Yeah, I thought I read this before The Lies of Locke Lamora. Apparently I read it not long after. I guess after enjoying that I wanted another story about thieves.

I liked The Lies of Locke Lamora much better than Theft of Swords, but I still enjoyed this.

Also I could be wrong (I probably am) about what else had been published at the time. It more correct to say I wasn't aware of anything similar to this at the time I read it..

Seeing how wrong I was about I read this compared to The Lies of Locke Lamora, I'm sure my memory sucks..

One Word Kill is free to Prime members during April in both the US (North America?) and the UK:

US: https://smile.amazon.com/Word-Kill-Im...

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Word-Kill-Im...

For my own personal challenges, I'm finished with:

Sword: 10/40 (25% complete, on track)
Laser: 5/20 (30% complete, 5% ahead)
Comics: 4/10 (40% complete, 15% ahead)

This month I've added +3 Sword, 2 Laser, 1 Graphic novel.

I've been in a bit of a book hangover since finishing Underlord and haven't picked up anything to read with my eyes apart from the latest volume of Attack on Titan. I finally started a new book last night, but we'll see how much motivation I have to actually sit down and read again.

For April I'll add at least 2 Sword and probably 1 Laser. I'll probably add at least 1 more Sword since apparently One Word Kill is free to prime members during April.

Once again, my Graphic novel challenge was wrong until I clicked on it. Then when I refreshed the challenge page it showed the correct number. That's what happened last month too. My Sword and Laser challenges were both correct. This is annoying. I know it's a free site, but I don't get why the challenge stuff is so buggy..

March Results:


Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 359 (+28)
Total Read: 1,560 (+694)
Average Books Read: 4 (+1)
Total Committed: 6,115 (+448)
Average Books pledged: 17 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 2 (+1) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.


Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 360 (+27)
Total Read: 1,337 (+557)
Average Books Read: 4 (+2)
Total Committed: 5,673 (+372)
Average Books pledged: 16 (0)
Total Challenges Completed (Goodreads): 2 (+2) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.


Graphic Novel Challenge
Total Participants: 96 (+8)
Total Read: 375 (+142)
Average Books Read: 4 (+2)
Total Committed: 2,146 (+171)
Average Books pledged: 22 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 1 (0) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.

Short Story Challenge
Total Participants: 33 (+3)
Total Read: 93 (+39)
Average Books Read: 3 (+1)
Total Committed: 465 (+31)
Average Books pledged: 14 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 1 (+1) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.

With March done we see the Laser challenge is slightly (1 person) ahead in participation, but behind in pretty much everything else.

While participation continues to grow, it's still down from last year.

The Sword challenge also continues to pull ahead on both the number of books committed and number read. However at this point neither challenge in on pace to hit the the numbers (8,500/7,000) we saw last year, let alone the 10k mark.

Projections are trending upwards this month by a fair bit compared to February however. Right now Sword is looking at 6,240 and Laser with 5,348. We'll see if that upward trend continues and if we can actually come close to meeting the numbers come December.

However recent conversations have me questioning the accuracy of any of these numbers at this point..

So I meant to come back here over the weekend with some mid-book thoughts and got busy/forgot.

I agree with you Silvana. Spoilers for the whole book:

(view spoiler)[I was gutted that BOTH of my favorite characters died in this book. I want to go back and read the old books, or maybe start my planned binge of the first 3 seasons of the show a bit early because I want to spend time with Bobbie and Avasarala again.

Both had fitting deaths. Avasarala died of old age and "off screen" but she was remembered for her enduring legacy. Bobbie dies in a blaze of glory turning the tides for the rebellion.

Not to mention she already has a station named after her.

When Amos "died" I was ready to riot. When they talked about the repair bots, etc I knew it was going to be ok though well before he shows up at the end.

I loved Holden asking him if he was himself and he just says "yup" and doesn't elaborate. Totally Amos.

I'm so happy the Rocinate crew is back together again finally heading into the final book.

I'll be really curious to see where Teresa's arc goes in the final book.

Elvi went from my least favorite POV to well, I guess still my least favorite but I'm way more into her story line by the end of the book than the start, and certainly more than I can recall of Cibola Burn (hide spoiler)]

Here we are in April already, so what else are you reading this month?

Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth wrote: "I checked the publishing date because the book feels so dated and you can't blame a book for using a cliche if it wasn't a cliche at the time."

Which publishing date are you using? If you're Theft of Swords that was published by Orbit like 3 years after The Crown Conspiracy if I recall correctly.

I believe he wrote these books in the mid 2000s.