Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
Archive [Retired Book Clubs]
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RETIRED THREAD: Vagabond Treehouse Book Club
I'm going to wait until you finish the book and see what you think of the story. I'm in a picky mood and sticking to stuff that doesn't annoy me. Remember when I was all hopeful and happy to be able to listen to the Wheel of Time? I think I made it to book 6 before I had to give up. LOL I lasted longer than I should have when the narrators ruin the storyline for me.
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Yay! That one comes up in sale regularly. =DVor Game
I remembered the first part and the last part of this story. However, (view spoiler)
It's good to see Miles grow into himself. The way he is portrayed is well done. To be the only one that's different in a society that praises those that fit the ideal is tough! It's a nice mix of knowing himself and yet being human enough to doubt. No matter how smart he is, he has flaws & makes mistakes. But he bounces out of them in a spectacular fashion! =)
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Sweet! I'll keep the author in mind for sales. I need to make a big dint in the audiobooks I bought this year. lol I hope Audible does the site wide sale every year. That one is the best!
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Started Hard Luck Hank… still need to go back and finish Beyond Redemption in the next few days… maybe when Brian starts?
Yeah sorry. The Cellist came avail on Libby so knocking that out first. Also, I’m battling my way through Dune on paperback. Names are tough and find myself having to go back and re-read paragraphs to understand what Is going on.
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I finished Screw The Galaxy, Hank #1... it's a pretty fun book/series that keeps the insanity rolling by making big plot developments that shift the narrative, every 5-10 chapters... happened 4-5x throughout the book... sounds like the whole series is like that...
If some of the side characters stick around, I could compare this to a Brute Force James Bond... kinda... Hank is introduced as a hard to hurt bruiser, but the story fleshes him out to where he's really the glue that holds the space station together, thanks to his reputation and inability to be hurt by anything short of a super cyborg or spaceship weaponry... and even that he can heal/regenerate from, given a couple weeks...
Definitely gonna continue...
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Timelord Iain wrote: "No rush... I'll probably end up finishing it in the next couple days, on my days off, if nothing else...I finished Screw The Galaxy, Hank #1... it's a pretty fun book/series that ..."
I just read Hank book one too. I enjoyed it but thought It was going to be funnier then it was. Some of the chapters lingered on too long and didn't really push the story forward. I am sure that will get fixed as series continues so Ill join ya in the series when we can get to it.
Timelord Iain wrote: "Moved on to Swordheart, my 4th Kingfisher book, 3rd in a connected fantasy setting... this one seems like a Fantasy version of Fantasy Lover... widower that just inheri..."Swordheart is in my TBR. Hope it's as enjoyable as her other books.
@Soo I finished The Vampire Knitting Club. It's fluffy fun. The story/mystery portion isn't anything special. I liked the concepts and characters. I'm going to read the second one to see how it goes before deciding to drop the series or not.
Let me know what you think of #2. =)I have a small stack of print books I plan to read, but I'm still in devour comics mode. =D hehe
Soo wrote: "Let me know what you think of #2. =)I have a small stack of print books I plan to read, but I'm still in devour comics mode. =D hehe"
I have a TON of paperbacks I need to get to and about 15 audio books I bought during sales. Maybe I should make that a goal for 2022
Soo wrote: "Let me know what you think of #2. =)I have a small stack of print books I plan to read, but I'm still in devour comics mode. =D hehe"
It will probably be a month. I'm still trying to get through some titles I already own ;)
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I finished Screw The Galaxy, Hank #1... it's a pretty..."
Sounds good... some friends haveread the books... sounds like the series has it's ups and downs... but more ups than downs...
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She hasn't really let me down, yet...
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I read this book a couple months ago, because it's on Audible Plus or Hoopla... think it was recommended... I didn't think much of it...
I haven't had much success with true paranormal cozies since my first couple successes... I like the blurbs, and then find so many problems with the characters/stories...
I really liked the Night of the Living Deed series last year...
Here are some paperbacks. I have so I am avail for buddy reads if anyone wants to in the future:The Guards
Gideon the Ninth
Magician: Apprentice
The Poppy War
Trophy Hunt
Out Of Range
King of Ashes
Elantris
The Cuckoo's Calling
Collusion
A Dance with DragonsSavage Son
Winter Be My Shield
The List of Seven
The Silent Corner
Whiteout
The Traitor God
Shadows Past
Covenants
The King's Own
Here are about 3/4 of the paperbacks (I have a problem). lol. Let me know if we have any interest in the future on these.
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Timelord Iain wrote: "I did my Gideon the Ninth re-read last month... still struggling to make time for Harrow the Ninth... Harrow has weird structuring, with time jumps and 2nd person narrative..."UGH. Second person POV is too challenging and annoying to follow along
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The first book is pretty great, even on re-read... and I'm sure the final book will be interesting, given the title...
@Iain - I did well with the Pawsitively Secretive series. Cozy paranormal about a family of witches in Oregon.@Brian - I have Gideon in my TBR if you're up for it even with Iain's dislike so far of the second book :)
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@Brian - I have Gideon in my TBR if you're up for it even with Iain's..."
I haven't really given the 2nd book a chance... the first time, I was lost, so I did a re-read... the 2nd time, I made it further, but paused so I could read something easier at work...
Brian, I'd do these with ya. =D ReReads for me but totally worth reading again:
Magician: Apprentice
The Silent Corner
On my TBR:
King of Ashes - I'm down for it when you are.
Maybes:
The Cuckoo's Calling - My library has it. I'm curious to try it out but I'm not a huge fan of Rowling. Kinda curious to see if the book is up to the hype. Ha
Others:
Joe Pickett - I only read the first one. So I need to catch up for #4. Either way, we can post about it in here or Mystery Club.
Terminal List - My library has the books & I put myself On Hold for #1. You'll probably read #4 before I get to it? lol
Beyond Redemption Audio:Okay, I went to look up the narrator. Turns out that he was the narrator for Finder #2. I liked that book. I re-downloaded the book and gave it a whirl at 2.55x (my current default listening speed) and he's ok.
In the sample for Beyond Redemption, the s sluring hisses are ridiculous! Not sure if it's because of the words or if he's trying for a type of accent, but it doesn't come across well.
He's also the narrator for Finder #3 that's coming out in 2 days. I'm going to listen to that book. I suspect I will enjoy that one too. It's one of the books I've been looking forward to, because #2 was a setup for #3 and on. =)
Then I'll get the audio for Beyond Redemption. I figure if I can enjoy the narration for a different series, it's not necessarily the narrator but a mix of other factors.
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Timelord Iain wrote: "One of the main characters is perpetually sick with a cold/flu... maybe that is the slurring?... memory hazy..."No idea? I'm not sure where the sample audio is in the book. They don't always put the first page in the sample.
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I think romance is probably the weakest aspect for Kingfisher. lol She's a good writer for wanting something a little different from usual. Sort of fits in there with A. Lee Martinez on the weird, but I've never read a story by Kingfisher that can make something super weird into relatively normal like Martinez. *mental jump for great weird writers*
I really need to get back into Bookburners! I never finished it and that's a great series.
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It's safe to say that I've read 3x the comics I've actually found & updated on GR in the last few months. BwahahahI'm a little torn on updating them on my Tracker or not. I did update some of them, but not all. Plus, I think the page count for some of them on GR are wrong.
I want to update on my Tracker because it's my reading record, but don't want to have a list of "ongoing series that I'm waiting for chapters to be released". Which is like 12+ right now. Hahha
Found a bunch of completed comics on Webtoon that I can zoom. They're not on the "Daily Pass"/pay to read ahead ones. Sweet Home is one of the finished and on the Daily Pass deal. It's a great horror. Looking forward to finishing it. I'm unlocking chapters with the Daily Pass and letting it pile up a bit before reading.
Eggnoid (4 Seasons/Complete): YA/UF/SF On the surface, this is a cute story about teens. It has great characters, solid central plot line and wonderful mini-arcs on how to tackle problems. I loved the way it showed different levels of friendship, love and dealing with difficult emotions/thoughts.
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You could create a workaround, similar to Virginie's short story workaround...
Go down to the bottom at row 1000 or whatever (needs to be deep, because of your prolific reading)...
Track all your comics down there... wipe the points columns to disable their formulas...
Add a webcomics row at the top, above January in the main section of the sheet... sum all comics rows at the bottom and divide by 4... let all the other formulas run using that as you mega page count (it's probably gonna be a big page count still, like WORM, as much as you read...)
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Seems crazy that almost 50% of the story is about the first month at school, when this is meant to span years of learning...
Tracking Comics:Biggest problem is that I'm reading them on website/app. The page count is totally wrong for most of what's on GR. (I have zero desire to track down the correct info and fix them. I can do that, but I don't wanna.) Some artists have long chapter/episode posts. Others have super short ones. If it was traditional print, the format would be different and I could find at least the printed page count. lol
What I decided to do for the ones I did add to my tracker is to post chapter/episodes as my page count. It's an easy way to configure a # vs weird stuff like counting screenshots/etc. I'm definitely on the easy to work side. lol
I still come up against the ongoing list and that's makes my tracker more cumbersome. Considering I use it as my TBR and read tracker.
Timelord Iain wrote: "Picked up The Wandering Inn: Book 4 - Winter Solstice where I left off in the audiobook... put a dent into Wistram Days... almost past the halfway mark...Seems crazy that almost 5..."
Pirateaba has pacing issues. It gets better over time, but pacing is still a big issue for his/her writing. A big thing happened in Vol7 and Vol8 is sort of dealing with that in a haphazard manner. I'm hoping it will all even out sooner vs later.
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Biggest problem is that I'm reading them on website/app. The page count is totally wrong for most of what's on GR. (I have zero desire to track down the correct info and fix them...."
At this point, I think you need a secondary, personal spreadsheet for TBR and comics, probably... sheets get cumbersome when they have 1000-2000+ lines, and I bet yours does between reads, TBR, and comics...
You can copy your tab/sheet to your Google Drive to start as a base, then duplicate it for each purpose, rename, and delete the rows with irrelevent things to each tab, and you have a halfway decent start...
*grin* I already made my own tracker several times and just don't use it consistently in the long term. If I don't do the Team Challenge next year, I probably won't track it the way I have been.
The sad thing is, at this point, in order to keep on top of where I am with all the series and stuff I am reading, a tracker is necessary. Before the TC, I had a Current Reads tracker list that I updated.
Not sure what I'll do for 2022.
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You have to admit that none of the characters in the Wandering Inn are highlighted as just good or bad. That's part of the charm and annoying grumbles. They're all shown in the best and worst lights. The thing I appreciated the most in my re-reads of the series is how all of them strive to become stronger or grow as a person over time. I like that it doesn't ever quite go the way I think it would. =D Keeps you on your toes!
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Formerly Florist, that Crazy Clown... half the goblins... the Medic/Healer with a Selphid inside her... the Blind Emperor... more recently, the Worldly Princess... etc etc etc....
Right now, I'm kinda just glad to be back with Erin and the main characters all converging on the Wandering Inn location...
Two cheers for Threadbare! =)Wandering Inn: I do like the way that the Inn becomes home plate for the story. Like, it's cool to have all the side stories going on and meeting new characters, fleshing out the world, etc, but it's pretty cool to get back to the inn & have the people pile together there.
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Erin hit level 30 and became (view spoiler) and the Inn became (view spoiler)... not to mention that (view spoiler) that the Horns of Hammerod brought back from their dungeon run...
The "gods"/world really like facilitating useful synergies... (view spoiler)
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I'm honestly a bit worried about Threadbare #4... even the positive reviews have a bit of a warning to them... (had to look up nadir)
Is Threadbare 4 out on audio? I haven't checked.
Guys, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read King Bullet #12... It's slated as the last book of the series and I have HUGE doubts on Kadrey being able to tie up the series in one book. It's only 320 pages! Eep! Obviously, my fears will not stop me from reading it, but I'm gonna be so bummed if it's a fizzle book.
Threadbare #4 doesn't have an audio yet. I do see that Blasphemy Online is now complete. I went ahead and got the first book.
Wandering Inn: Yup! Lots of cool stuff start to happen after those key points.
Fantasy Buddy Reads
Books mentioned in this topic
Boundary Crossed (other topics)Into the Black (other topics)
Terms of Enlistment (other topics)
The Palace Job (other topics)
The Cuckoo's Calling (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Rysa Walker (other topics)Rysa Walker (other topics)
Charlie N. Holmberg (other topics)
Also, I'm extra harsh when narrators change for a series that's all told from a single POV... it can recolor characters/relationships and ruin my mojo...