When the Heavens Fall [Dec 10, 2017]

[Veronica]

Carpe diem, Niki!

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Niki Hawkes wrote: "I'm throwing my carefully laid reading plans out of the window and starting this sometime today. I haven't started a series on impulse (or at all, for that matter) in months. Niki is living dangero..."

Between this and the vocabulary thread they clearly modeled the death magic characters around you.

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

My mom didn't nickname me "wild child" for nothing. ;)

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

Through Chapter 1. Very engaged so far. I'll probably go at a slugs pace, but I'm happy to be aboard. :)

[Samir]

I agree with Veronica regarding Will. It is really similar to the Force and I think Luker is a derivative of Luke Skywalker. Mind you, these are pre-coffee thoughts so I could be talking nonsense.

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

Through Ch2, and so far my favorite component is the atmosphere he's building.

[Solseit]

I totally agree with both of you, Samir and Niki!

I am enjoying this book so much; I just enjoy a good book that has gods meddling with human affairs because they are taking care of their own cause. Just so good!

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Still chugging away having finished 11 chapters. I still like the world and characters but it's time for something to happen.

(view spoiler)[
The attack of the undead was anticlimactic to this point as was the journey through the rent. Mild action with Luker and Jenna escapting the city. I feel like he's missed some opportunities here for much more decisive action.
(hide spoiler)]

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

I'm just a little ways into Part 2 (Ch 9). Incredibly slow pacing, but the world building and interesting characters are sustaining me for now.

[Veronica]

I'm through the end of chapter 14 and I'm starting to wonder where this is all going. The characters are interesting - except for Romany, her arrogance is extremely annoying - but this is starting to feel like one long road trip. (view spoiler)[Parolla has just crossed paths with Mayot and Romany so maybe things will start coming to a point here soon. (hide spoiler)]

[Margret, Caladan Brood Face]

I’m done. My review is posted if you want to be influenced negatively. To me it just seemed to be missing something, could be I’m just not in the mood but I will be dropping the series

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

I'm at about the 50% mark and am starting to get bored. Nothing is moving past status quo for any of the characters at this point and it really needs to. I'm thinking based on Margret's review I might need to continue curbing my expectations lol.

Is anyone else planning to continue in January?

[Solseit]

I wonder if I am getting different feelings about the books because I rely heavily on the audiobooks.
I actually liked the book quite a bit. Could it be that the narrator makes the difference and turns the book into a “better” experience?

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

I have found audio vs print book the difference-maker for some series. However, I'm also doing the audio for this one. Part of my problem may be my impatience for how long it's taking me to get through (been busy). My impatience with the story could very well be influence by my desire to catch up with a buddy read I should have started a week ago lol.

[Solseit]

I have to say that I felt the story became slower at some point but the it suddenly resumed and all fit in its place.
I guess I was also driving for 7 hours when I finished the book so I was “stuck” with it!

[Margret, Caladan Brood Face]

I did listen on audio as well, and the story did pick up quite a bit like you said Aristea, but I guess I was looking for more character development. It could have been that I literally had just read a Daniel Abraham/James SA Corey book, and you just get so much more from him than the usual in the character development department that you expect more from other authors.

[Solseit]

Margret wrote: "I did listen on audio as well, and the story did pick up quite a bit like you said Aristea, but I guess I was looking for more character development. It could have been that I literally had just re..."

I see what you are saying; I guess I was fascinated by the world building and the magic systems (somehow Vale's ability really stayed with me).
I have also to confess that I already bought books 2 and 3 and I am considering just jumping into reading them right away! Yet, I have too many open series so I need to be more structured.
Goal for 2018 - less random behavior, more structure in my reading. The joke of 2018.

[Margret, Caladan Brood Face]

I’m happy that you enjoyed it more than I did. The author clearly has but a lot of planning and effort into his work. Talking with you about it helps me to see the good points much better as well. It is unfortunate how mood can so greatly influence your enjoyment of a book as well, maybe if I didn’t read it during the busiest time of the year? I don’t know.

[Solseit]

Margret wrote: "I’m happy that you enjoyed it more than I did. The author clearly has but a lot of planning and effort into his work. Talking with you about it helps me to see the good points much better as well. ..."

I know, our expectations on one side and our real life situation really has an impact on whether we will enjoy a book or not! This is good for re-reads though :D you might end up picking up the book some day in the future and simply enjoy it!

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I'm through 17 and I'm still waiting on things to pick up. It's his first book and will end up a 3* where I'll continue the series but I was certainly hoping for more.

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

Finally finished. This books took me a whole week longer than it should have to get through. (view spoiler)[my biggest issue was that there wasn't enough plot advancement every time we switched POVs. Everybody kind of maintained status quo through most of the book. What's more, all of the "discoveries" weren't interesting because we already knew who opened the book and why. Dramatic irony drives me nuts in books for that reason. It drags everything out until the characters finally figure out what the reader has known for ages.

All that said, I will likely still read the next book. The fact that it's covering different characters is actually a selling point for me. I'm willing to give the author another go to see if he can weave a better plot the second time around. I liked the basic writing and thought his characters were decent (even if they were kind of flat). We'll see how it goes. (hide spoiler)]

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I still have 50 pages left. While not bad it's been disappointing.

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

Yeah, all of the right components, it just needed help with pacing and plot construction. This is why I'm hopeful for the second book - those are the easiest things for a writer to fix imo.

[Samir]

Niki Hawkes wrote: "Finally finished. This books took me a whole week longer than it should have to get through."

I agree with the issues you mentioned in the spoiler tag but somehow, those things didn't bother me as much.

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I finished this morning. The author for better or worse is definitely going to be identified with Malazan and lists SE as a major influence. While this book wasn't close to that it was better than Night of Knives the first ICE book in Empire. Esslemont had the advantage of all the epic characters that Erikson setup and his prose in that first book wasn't great. I think Turner's prose was much better and his story telling will get better. This was a pretty good first effort.

[Samir]

My main issue was the lack of emotional investment. I'm not saying characters should have suffered like they do in Malazan but their inner thoughts and emotions could have been more expressed.

[Veronica]

I finally finished this. December turned out to be a really busy month for me IRL so I got very little reading done. It didn't help that my motivation to pick up this book took a nosedive around the halfway mark. I pretty much agree with the sentiments of those who found the lack of any real character development to be detrimental to feeling any sort of investment in the story. I didn't care if any of the characters lived or died. It wasn't badly written so it's just a shame that the story ended up being less than it could've been.

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Samir wrote: "My main issue was the lack of emotional investment. I'm not saying characters should have suffered like they do in Malazan but their inner thoughts and emotions could have been more expressed."

This ^^^^^^^^^ X1000

[Margret, Caladan Brood Face]

Indeed. I just couldn’t put my finger on why it wasn’t a hit with me, but I think that’s why