Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
Archive [Retired Book Clubs]
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RETIRED THREAD: Vagabond Treehouse Book Club
I need lighter stuff. Currently reading Prince Charming's Lovely Gaze manhua comic. LOL The main character, Ai Xin, is the nice, gal next door type. She comes across a bracelet that enables her to have distinct personality changes: smart, strong, charming, etc. She doesn't know how to trigger the bracelet, but it zings on and changes her when she's in distress.
Each of the personalities attracted a different male attention. She doesn't fall for any of them and all of them are interested in dating her. The "smart" professor decided to go after her with, "Mate with me."
HAHAHAHA!
I'm enjoying the wacky situations and the unexpected ways that Ai Xin deals with them. =)
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Toren was never really given space to be anything with Erin. I mean, she treats people the way she's given to understand them within whatever boundaries. Erin is interesting because she's insightful and blind. Yet, it makes sense within the context of how she lived her life. She was always dedicated to a particular path and gave her all to it. That's how she is in the story. When she has a goal, she's super driven despite how easy-going she seems.The planet for WI is said to be flat. LoL Thus far, that hasn't changed. hahaha Snow doesn't go everywhere. Like warring area with Flos/etc. It's mostly hot there.
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I'm not sure WI planet is flat... I think it's also possible most (view spoiler)
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New Grey Man book coming in February Iain. Also, a tv series coming too! When it gets closer lets set up a BR for it.
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Brian wrote: "New Grey Man book coming in February Iain. Also, a tv series coming too! When it gets closer lets set up a BR for it."I'm in. =D
Timelord Iain wrote: "I think I preferred when I was complaining about too many Flos chapters, to this painful Lyonette chapter, where she has to deal with the barmaids Erin hired... things are deteriorating fast... and..."Necessary events. No one is safe from trials by hardship! Not in the WI world. =D
The flat deal is due to a convo that happens within the series. There's a couple of them that had happened by Vol8. Though, between the fairies, dragon, witches and other high powered beings around, there should be a real answer coming around at some point. It's probably not really flat. lol
Diving into Relentless again. I decided to embrace the angst + rage and super sad. Going to finish the book this time around.
Started a new action, cultivation comic. This one is hilarious! My Three Thousand Years to the Sky is about Bai Qiuran. He was considered a genius martial artist and quickly developed the first few stages of cultivation. In this comic, stages:
1) Body Training
2) Qi Refining
3) Foundation Building
4) Core Formation
5) Nascent Soul
6) Deity Transformation
7) Integration
8) Heavenly Tribulations
9) Great Ascension/Become Immortal
In this comic, cultivators usually enter stage 3 at lv15 of Qi Refining. But! Bai Qiuran has been working on his cultivation for 3,000 years and reached 6,664th (I think it's 6K, but it could be 66,664th) level of Qi Refining. He hasn't been able to get beyond the 2nd stage. So, he's considered to be a kind of laughingstock except he's really powerful for the stages he has developed.
I'm only on Ch5 and already laughed a LOT! Grinning to see where the story will unfold. Intro was a nice big fight to stomp down Bai Qiuran's sword sect.
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All the painful stuff works out well. =D Agreed!Okay, I finally finished Relentless. Turns out it last 1/3 was way easier to take in than the first two. =P
I think Mayberry wussed out on the ending. It should have been stronger because a bunch of great stuff happened in the book.
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I've read half to 2/3 of Relentless a bunch of times, but didn't finish it until last night. It was just upsetting to read for me. That last 1/3 was easier than the first 2! Should have realized how Maberry would wrap it up at this point. I've read most of his books. =PAnthony Ryan's The Pariah is today's Audible Daily Deal. I went ahead and got it. Cheap & 1st of that series.
Brian wrote: "I grabbed Pariah as well."Another BR for us! =D
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At first, I thought they were the kids that Magnolia released from her parlor... but I quickly realized they were new characters... and I quickly grew to like the main trio...
Probably finish the last of it tomorrow, and get to the Mystery BRs I'm behind on... guess I'm not behind, yet, actually...
Nah, you're good. We're all reading at our own paces. Which is nice. I think I'm still excited to see what our group thinks about Cork #9. lol I actually like the questions and situations that the Doctor & adventure crew brings up and how each of them deal with being stranded in the new world.
Vol5 is where I grew to love the Wandering Inn. Before that, it was mostly great ideas and grew to love the characters. A mixed bag of events that end up not being completely terrible. I can't wait to see what you think about Toren's development. That goes in some crazy paths and then _____. Bwahaha~ I am a plot teaser! lol
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Most of the first 3 volumes took place on the Invrisil continent... but this one has spent pretty equal time on Baleros, Chandrar, and Invrisil-continent... but big stuff still keeps happening in Liscor, for all it's such a small town on the Invrisil-continent...
Yup! Lots of interweaving events that connect in more than one way. I like how Pirateaba does that. =DTowards the end of the month, I'll make a new thread for Vagabond and clean my up personal tracker thread, etc.
In many ways, I think 2021 was a harder year for me because I didn't feel like I could let down my guard about Covid19 & mutations. I have a lot of thoughts about the virus and how people deal with it, etc. I mean, who doesn't at this point, right?
The last two years really hit home to me about my immune system issues, other stuff that came up or maybe I glossed over, and how important it is to have a healthy active life + keeping my brain/skills sharp.
Glad I had ya'll to keep me partial company! =D
Last year, I read 972. Most of them were audiobooks except for a few series. If I add all of the comics + light novels I read this year, I'd have another 90ish to my current 668 count. I'll probably get in another 20-25 by the end of the year.
It's cool to note that my listening comprehension and my reading have improved steadily since I've started my experiments. Reading faster in print and can listen to faster speeds in audio. =D
I'm going to guess that I'll settle back down to a doable 350/400 books a year once I can be out and about doing other stuff.
Soo wrote: "Last year, I read 972. Most of them were audiobooks except for a few series. If I add all of the comics + light novels I read this year, I'd have another 90ish to my current 668 count. I'll proba..."
You are an animal Soo!!!!! I wish I could get to 400 a year. Im at 182 and feel like I am always reading! lol.
I'm Asian. I gotta be an overachiever in something? LOL!!! Totally kidding. Er, mostly. =P Haha
Hahaha. My wife is Asian too. I totally get it!
Anyone hear from Choko? I see her updates but she's been quiet for a while. Hope she's doing ok
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I feel like she's waiting for 2022 to get seriously active again... just scrubbing 2021 from the calendar completely...
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I don’t think we’ve explicitly read anything together, outside of the Mystery thread, since before the competition ended… we’ll ramp back up after New Year…
We also discuss random stuff and books one of us are reading that the others have read… or just what we happen to be reading in general…
Things with wider group interest get their own thread like regular Buddy Reads (Alex Verus 12 earlier this week)…
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That last chapter ending sucked... but honestly, it was probably about the best it could go, given the overwhelming odds of the situation... (view spoiler)
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There are a number of spoilers I've seen, due to curiosity and the partially completed wiki... I just don't always know what part of the story they correspond to...
Iain, you and your spoilers. Dude, it's better to flesh out on the spoiler moments after you read them the first time! =P lolThat part you're talking about was great, because I liked how most of that was done in unexpected ways. *two thumbs up*
I'm totally psyched to see Choko's updates come up in my GR feed. Looing forward to when she's chatting with us again. =D
Brian, lol - Guess you can understand me better! lol
Reed, this is a hangout thread. We do spontaneous buddy reads for the most part. Usually, fantasy or thriller stuff. The mystery stuff, we've been trying to use the Mystery Club thread.
We'll chat about current reads and that generally will spark up a little conversation here & there.
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That part you're talking about was great, because I liked how most of ..."
I don't usually intend to spoil myself... but I can't help myself sometimes, trying to read other people's reactions online and stuff...
I didn't expect the Ijvani and Venitra stuff to be the end of this book... but it's been pretty epic... and the casualty count is wracking up (altho it's mostly nameless villagers)... they've been hyping the coming Goblin Lord/War, but I guess that won't happen until the second half of Volume 4... only got 1.5 chapters left now...
Sounds like other things are gonna overlap with the Goblin stuff... (view spoiler)
Nice to finally get more Niers... see him finding joy in life again, and the epic Rat Battle ;)
Niers is awesome! His tests are insane and hilarious! You'll see. =DI started Risen and it's weird to start an Alex Verus book with a bang. Right into action!
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It's gonna suck when the audiobooks catch up to the webnovel... then again, if the GR page counts are accurate, Volumes 6 +7 are longer than Volumes 1-5 combined...
Yeah, the volumes have gotten longer. The question now is whether or not Pirateaba will continue to try to limit each volume to a year-ish deal in order to keep the length down for audiobooks. She's been making different adjustments for that and other stuff in the last 3 years. I've tried using those text readers to listen to WI and I can't hack it. It's just too robotic, dry, etc. I'd rather read it than listen to de-tached narration. lol
Risen!!! Iain, what did you think of the book? I just finished and I'm 50-50 on it. Put in spoiler tags for our buddies. ;)
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WI: the 3rd book definitely felt more episodic, with Pirateaba writing little multi-chapter story arcs instead of jumping around as much… and that’s not really a bad thing…
Risen: Yeah, but did you enjoy the ending? Is it what you expected? There were a few surprises in there, but it wasn't quite what I thought it would be. WI: I think it's all episodic. Pirateaba is getting better about how she chains events together, but the mini-arcs are much more obvious than the bigger arches. It gets a bit wobbly later, but that's mostly due to so much happening. Not wobbly enough to throw you off completely, but enough to make you growl a bit. lol
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WI: I think it's all episodic. Pirateaba i..."
I posted a ton of thoughts in the Risen thread... I didn't fully expect everything, but I wasn't too surprised, either... except by the power changes... and I think something else I listed in my spoilers in the Risen thread... I speculated about an epilogue from the POV of Luna halfway through the story...
WI: I feel like Pirateaba alternated POVs more in Volume 1-2... now she (she?) chunks more... was the story originally split into Volumes, or was that done when prep started for ebooks and audiobooks?...
It's definitely a series with tons of things for people to WANT to happen... but so much other stuff has to happen first, or takes priority...
I'm curious if the author has any idea how long this story is going to take to tell/finish?... it can't go on forever (can it?... it shouldn't)... but at the same time, there's tons and tons of world stuff to deal with... not to mention any potential for the Earthers to return home (without Flos/etc invading) :D
I forgot about the Risen thread. This is what happens when I stop recording other BR links & stuff in my tracker thread. Hahaha! I was using the notifications to remind me about the other BR threads. Will go check that out now. lol WI: I know she has outlines. Each volume is a story arc. When she started, I don't think she thought it would gain enough momentum to be what it is now, but she had an idea of what she wanted. At least for the starting line and then it grew more complicated from there.
I think until Vol5/6, Pirateaba would write until the story arc was done. There was no limitation on how long that would take. It took as long as it would take with all the side stories, etc. Once she started releasing the audiobooks, that's when bigger changes on time tables started to appear. The ebook only happened because it's a byproduct for the audiobook process. Once she learned about how much time it takes to narrate a volume, etc, Pirateaba started to change up her habits a bit.
- Volume/Story Arc - Marked to start & end within a year or so.
- Overall length is taken into consideration because of editing/etc that has to be done to make the audiobook/ebook.
- She started to work more on the technical aspects of writing and has hired several editors to give herself an idea of what editorial help will be like for the series. This has actually delayed writing for several chapters because she wouldn't release until the edits are done or other related stuff.
I'm going to guess that she does have plans on wrapping up WI sooner vs later. She's already started a comic spin off series with a comic artist. She does little writing projects that are for fun and tests out different styles by using the current plot lines. You can tell when she's in a magic phase, horror, action, fable, etc.
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I kinda manage my feed? I turned off notifications for groups that I'm not interacting in, but still like to look into sometimes. Otherwise, I just leave notifications on because that's gives me a nice element of chance to jump into new books or join current BR's, etc. Like remind me about BR's I said I'd do during my "I'm not doing a bunch of BRs/tracking them phase". HehAlmost done with Threadbare #4 and not as excited about it. Andrew Seiple has fun ideas but doesn't seem to write up to the potential of the plot he's created. Hmm
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Threadbare 5/6 is ongoing on Royal Road, a webnovel hosting service I found online, awhile back...
Seiple kinda seems to have fizzled a bit, after a strong start with Threadbare and DIRE Saga... I think most of it is webnovels that had time to flourish and be edited in a short time, because they were just waiting to be converted into traditional books... new content has been lacking, outside of the NPC project that spun off from the Threadbare series, that we read already...
Half his newer stuff doesn't even seem to be correctly linked to his author profile (Dungeon Core, Blasphemy Online, etc)...
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If I need help finding a thread, I just start using the Find function on the notification page for book/thread names...
The GG&G What are you reading? thread is visible... and polls from Polls for your Souls... not sure much else is visible outside of FBR... and I get about a half dozen newsletters from groups I don't participate in, each month...
Hm, I think Seiple may need more time to write and edit his books. They're better for it. Otherwise, he may be a gimmick writer?1st half of #4 was setup for the "new" trilogy arc. The last half was much better, but the pacing could have been better overall. There was a big dollop of political stuff that was only sorta interesting. Hopefully, Seiple will add another character developing arc to Threadbare or he's gonna be awful stale. Some of the jokes that were funny in the beginning are growing old.
The problem with GG&G is that the drama from a few years ago drove away a bunch of good people. Except, it was like they joined the dark side. LOL The annoying people that caused the drama are still there. The monthly reads are almost never what I would want to read. Not a lot of discussion on the threads, but that may be true across the board for GR.
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1st half of #4 was setup for the "new" trilogy arc. The last half w..."
Some people/authors are definitely better at writing consistantly / on a deadline, than others...
Did I miss the GG&G drama... or just forget it?... I know it used to be a more active group... it's been withering, as a general discussion thread only group for a few years now... kinda like my 1st GR group (Urban Fixation, before it became Spells, Space & Screams run by Lena)... I was most active when Veronica was around more... and Holly / Bunnycore... I never had much luck with the Buddy Reads, tho... I never had much luck with Buddy Reads in general, until this group... and it's rare to get a solid chapter-by-chapter discussion going...
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Fantasy Buddy Reads
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Discord works. I rarely use it, but I got it.
Exciting news on Sanderson. I think I'm caught up on that one? Need to check.