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Archive [Retired Book Clubs]
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RETIRED THREAD: Vagabond Treehouse Book Club
I'm such a dork! Life stuff is de-railing my reading spree a bit. It's been easier to have a show running while I do stuff this month.
So, I'm SUPER close to finishing Toll the Hounds #8 of Malazan! SO CLOSE!
Anyway, now on the screen to play is American Horror Story. I figured I messed up by watching Apocalypse but I thought that title is ironically fitting for current state of the world. Haha
I was right. Apocalypse is the latest season of AHS and I'll have to dig back to see what I missed. This show is so weird. Actors are great but the story lines are messed up! Ha!
Maybe I should watch one of the Asian action dramas. Hmm. I love good wire-fu!
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I think I'm done with my show spree. Apocalypse took me a few days to watch. I liked that they tied up details from other seasons and brought actors back to do it. That was really well done.
Michael (view spoiler)
I have been mostly in Temple the the last several days - Rosh Hashanah! Tomorrow it will be over, so I will be back...
Dream Park #1 & The Moon Maze Game #4 are currently on Audible Plus. They're good! Co-written back in the 80's and solid thriller style stories. I liked #4 more than #1 but there's a link between the two.
Try Into the Storm by Larry Correa as well. Free on Audible Plus. Not too shabby
You enjoyed Dream Park a lot more than I did.
It was clunky & heavy handed with the important details but the concepts & most of the story was ok. I think a part of the story relies on the reader to be a gamer (of some sort) and adding details about that without being written to give added layers to the story. You should give #4 a go. It's a much better story and written well. I spree a lot of thriller adventures that pretend to be a mystery. They tend to be bad to okay popcorn reads.
Dream Park suffered from first book, maybe first co-writing teamwork and trying too hard to be a mystery & action. Not enough to make it a bad story but it has more cliche characterizations & detail presentation that could have been polished.
Soo, I was driving all day yesterday and finishing my Harmony book, but once it finished, I couldn't change it to another book on purpose, so it started playing the next book that was in the queue. It happened to be the first book in the Heartland Trilogy, Under the Empyrean Sky. Once I got home I noticed you read it in the spring. I am almost at the end and I am intrigued, but could you tell me if you think it is worth continuing with the series? I don't particularly like any of the characters and I am not very big on YA dystopian, but if you tell me there is an ending that is worth it, I will finish it up now...
The world setting is more interesting than the characters involved. I thought it was well done. The whole thing is available on KU as a Read & Listen. So you don't have to buy the books or audio to listen to them. 1st book was the best. 2nd was good but could have been better. 3rd was lopsided in story flow but ended the trilogy ok. I feel like most of the answers I had for the stories were answered within the first two books and a little bit in the last.
They're not long. You could read them in a few days if you want. I'd only continue if you enjoyed the first book.
Well that's the thing, it hooked me because of the world building, but the characters have a lot to be desired. And I just finished it, and have more questions than answers. So I am going to have to finish it, darn it! I would like to see the underdog win and I want to know what happens to Wanda, the very nice but unattractive girl who Cail is obligated to, but he stole and abandoned her family's boat after they were so nice and trusting to lend to him, and now he abandoned her and broke her heart too... And what about the girl who was obligated to the gay boy? What happens to them???
Oh yeah. You'll get those answers. This story will make you confused, angry, weirded out and pleased.
Choko & Narilka (anyone who read Malazan): Can we talk about Dust of Dreams #9?
I really want to rant about one scene. Plus, anyone else notice how Erikson re-uses certain type of scenes & describe them more or less the same way? Also, around book #7, I started to re-think the idea that there are multi-layered characters in the series. It's more like a handful of character types and it's repeated with minor changes throughout the series.
I liked 2/3 of the book. The rest annoyed me and went on the "what is wrong with this picture" group. I have a long list for the series. Ha
Go for it. It's been a while, I might need to go look up a full book synopsis lol
I'm a little vague on exactly where stuff happens in the books because I'm listening vs reading but the internet says the one I am thinking about happens in Ch15. Ya'll know I read a wide range of stuff and violent scenes are not going to make me dislike a series or think any particular fashion about the writer. Well, if you didn't know that, you do now. =)
There's a lot of nightmarish violence in Malazan. No biggie. It's all about war, backstabbing & power grabs. It's not news. But if anyone is reading the series in relative order, you'll notice that the most graphic violent scenes have women as the victim. I thought that's a bit strange. Though, I guess that's an easy way to pull emotional strings.
Dust of Dreams - Ch15 - Hetan (view spoiler)
That's my rant.
Also, we have different people, species, gods & ?? types in the story but they all kinda act like the same kind of self involved person vs races that are alien to each other and should stand out in some fashion or another.
I need to mope about the mold damage on my books. I had a bunch in storage and on the bottom floor of the townhouse. I thought I had finished recording & trashing my books a few days ago. Then I realized today that I'm missing books and they are all downstairs. In the mold infested storage. Booooooooooooooooo!
Upside:
- At least I am going to catalog the books before I toss them. It will be cool to have a final count on romance books. Well, the ones I read. I have some I haven't read and they're not damaged. As far as I know. *crossed fingers*
- I have a lot of romance books. I think it's over a thousand. I already threw out a little over 450.
Downside:
- I stored my romance books because I wasn't reading them as much and needed space for other books. Not sure yet, but I think I only saved a quarter of my romance books & the rest will be thrown away.
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Are those Cradle books any good TL? Think I tried to start book 1 and quit early.
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Hmmm. Maybe I’ll try it again. Thanks bro
Cradle is awesome! It also makes more sense if you think of it in anime/rpg terms as a story. The first book is the roughest of the batch. Audio is the best way to do it for book 1. After that, you can do either book or audio. I didn't know Wintersteel is coming out. About time! I'll probably get the audio. =)
Soo wrote: "I'm a little vague on exactly where stuff happens in the books because I'm listening vs reading but the internet says the one I am thinking about happens in Ch15. Ya'll know I read a wide range o..."
Oh yeah. Hetan. It is disturbing enough it garnered it's own special blog post on TOR's Malazan Reread a few years ago. Even the author makes a post about it in the comments - you should check it out: https://www.tor.com/2014/03/26/malaza...
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Hetan: I saw the post and read the first part but I don't want to go into it because of potential spoilers. Though, honestly, #10 is a gigantic battle with a lot of thoughts shared. Such an odd choice to draw out the climax in this manner.
Audible Plus:
I think most of the Escape titles will be on Plus but we'll have to see. I'm not too upset about it because I wasn't using the Romance/Escape package enough to keep it but I kept paying for it anyways. Which was lame on my part.
Re: Hetan - Skip to the first comment by the author. No book spoilers there.
I'm almost done with the Crippled God. I think I am. Thus far, not impressed with this final installment. Will go & read the post after I finish the book. =)
I finished Malazan and I say BAH HUMBUG! Maybe I'll feel differently after I wake up but I doubt it. Who writes a freaking ending that takes almost 4 books of a 10 book series? Blah
It wasn't even interesting and I LIKE battles. Oh well. At least I finished it.
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I saw the post and read the first part but I don't want to go into it because of potential spoilers. Though, honestly, #10 is a gigantic battle with a lot of thoughts shared. Such an odd c..."
People say so far only 900 of the 10,000 titles are guaranteed coming to Plus... the rest is worded to basically say they can buy them...
I used it a bit, but not too much... half the stuff I read on Escape I could also get on Hoopla... Graveyard Queen, Penric & Desdemona, Married with Zombies, and a couple others...
Probably more annoyed than I should be, overall...
lol Yup! It saved us money. More free & included books that we'll probably read vs a bunch that are bad. I think 70% of the books on Romance/Escape were terrible.
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I got my money's worth and more during the first year I had it. Not so much before & after the name changed to Escape. I never understood that change either because it was still romance mixed genre. Advertising can be weird.
About Hetan - probably the MOST HORRIBLE THING I HAVE EVER READ, when it comes to that... You have no idea how many nights I had nightmares about it and how deeply depressed I got while reading that story ark and all together the two books that finished the series. I still thought that the books are works of genius, maybe because they traumatized me so deeply... She is shown to be extremely strong as a character while alive and before said torture, but this is exactly why her becoming what she did is so... demoralizing... I know Erikson does that so he can show us how horrible we are to each other and how we perpetuate our own demise, but I thought I could have lived the rest of my life without ever having that scene in my head... You even mentioning it brought the whole emotional experience back!
On the rest, he definitely works with archetypes and manipulates them in different characters. I think the scale he is working with allows for that to work. Glen Cook does the same in his Black Company series. When he puts the characters in smaller works he goes a bit deeper, but in his work overall, he tries to tackle philosophical questions instead of looking for a story, so I understand his choices in characters much better that way...
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I think they were trying to appeal to a larger audience... Romance readers are a large readership, but they also read alot, so it probably wasn't the best for them financially... a different name might have gotten more subscription to subsidize the cost... probably why they're moving to Plus, too...
I have a handful of books I want to read before AE is canned in November. It'll make my October reading list interesting. Doesn't even matter if it's a good author. lol
I'm re-reading Cradle series (1-7) before #8 drops in a few days. Just stared third book. Story is still a lot of fun but now I'm wondering where the "overseer" bits will lead to. Not the first time I'm questioning it but those are the parts that stick out more because they're awkward but interesting tidbits thrown into the story.
I have Cradle in my TBR. I think I picked up 1-6. I will get to them eventually :)
I'm thinking of starting the Poppy War series. Although, not sure I want something that heavy.
I can't recommend Poppy War. I don't think it's written well and it doesn't match all the hype said about it. There's a lot of leeway because the author is Asian. Except the story sounds like it was written by someone who doesn't understand Asian culture or history. Like she watched movies and shows based in Asia & decided to use that fictional context as "real" basis for the series. You could always read the sample of the book & decide for yourself. =)
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Soo wrote: "I can't recommend Poppy War. I don't think it's written well and it doesn't match all the hype said about it. There's a lot of leeway because the author is Asian. Except the story sounds like it wa..."Ok thanks....I should always check in with you two since your have read EVERYTHING! lol Thanks, I will send it further down the TBR list. Happy Saturday
Happy Saturday! GR Notifications are on the fritz so the only way I know if posting happened are if they show up in my feed or look at the My Group Discussions.
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In a lot of ways, I think Iain & Choko are more likely to try stuff I pass on. They're nicer people than me! lol I can be a disgruntled dork about books. lol
Like, I don't think you have to be a female to write realistic females. I think you have to be a person who is observant and or creative that can make up realistic scenes, dialogue, etc.
Being of Asian descent does not mean you understand Asian culture. In general, I only think of say China, Korea & Japan as being Asian but that's not true. Parts of middle east, Taiwan, etc are Asian too. Some would say that Hawaiians are of Asian descent but that's debatable. Even what I know about Korea is old news until I make time to visit S. Korea again. On the to do list.
Reading one article or book on a historical event does not make you an expert. It could inspire a cool scene, plot development or whatever in the story but I wouldn't say it's true to source. It's a fictional spin of whatever the person understands of the event.
Writing & publishing a bunch of books does not mean you're a good writer. I've read plenty of bad stories that people pay money to read.
One that bums me out is finding more authors that write one series well and the rest of the books are not that great.
Just wanted to say, I am reading The Dresden Files # 3, and those ghost creatures are nothing like any ghosts I have ever read about. The way the different levels of reality make them represent differently and whatever someone or something is doing to the spirits of ghosts and living humans with the barb wire, is horrible! I am only up to Ch 15, so I am really interested to find out what the hell is happening and why... It is very interesting that (view spoiler)
I finished the Harvester Trilogy. Great premise, but I had some issues with the way the characters were written... Overall, I am glad I got to read it, because it had some fascinating ideas.
Wendig is great with weird. Though he's been a little hit and miss. He's trying out new ideas and narratives. Cool enough to keep trying. =)What were the issues?
Dresden Files:
Ghosts - It's fun yeah? The style & approach isn't new to me but I like how Butcher made an unusual character to be super normal and lazy. lol
Harry's Godmother - Things would go better if people stop treating the Fae (in Harry's world) like they're human. lol
Cradle #1-7 ebooks are all FREE for a couple days in anticipation of book 8's release if anyone wanted to join Soo for a future reread :) I picked up #7 to add to my TBR.
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Apparently "Ira" with the same last name as me, live in another unit, and that caused the clerical error... I'm pretty sure I kinda know the guy, too... but the Ira I know moved to another state a few years ago, I thought... guess he moved back...
Whatever, all sorted...