Vagabond Treehouse (2023) [Beware of Chicken 3 - December 4th] Showing 5,501-5,550 of 5,829

[Soo]

Making my last spree on Audible sale.

JAG in Space series by Jack Campbell - 4 books, each around $3

[Soo]

Farming Space Makes Me Rich - Realized I'm close to finishing this LN and decided to make book list on GR. It's like 3k+ pages.

Feeling too lazy to hunt down my other LN reads and updating records. LoL

Only able to do this one cause it's the most recent. 😆

[Soo]

Woah I think I found a fraudulent copy book on GR. Rather doubt that the actual author posted an incomplete series on KU. I'm reading another LN by Lilac in May. Did a search for the title just in case on GR and found a book. It's linked to a KU ebook. The blurb is copied from one of the translation sites and it's 66 pages long.

The LN is ongoing and has over 1400 chapters. I started it yesterday and on ch115. These chapters are pretty short and vary between 1-4 pages each.

66 pages with ebook format - Bet that's about 35-40 chapters.

It's a known thing. That LNs are copied from original websites and posted under different author names in the 'pay to read' story apps. Pretty crappy of people to do that. 🙄

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

People always seeking new ways to steal money...

[Choko]

I am reading Dungeon Crawler Carl#1... Wow! Up to Ch. 14 and that got really bloody really quickly! Killing some very sad characters so far, including baby Goblins! My heart kind of hurts for them...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I never mentioned it during the Black Friday sale, but we totally need to read/schedule some Drew Hayes Buddy Reads...

I've been vaguely mentioning the NPCs series a bunch of times, as the only one I haven't read everything of already...

Super Powereds: Year 3 is on sale this month on Audible ($8)... Year 1 is free through Audible Plus library...

Most of Drew Hayes' other series are available on Hoopla: NPCs, Fred the Vampire Accountant, Villains' Code... Super Powereds & Corpies technically is, too, but I ignore Graphics Audio, not my cup of tea...

All that's really missing from Hoopla is some standalones and Five Minute Sherlock, the Audible Original Series...

[Tonari no Emily]

Soo wrote: "Woah I think I found a fraudulent copy book on GR. Rather doubt that the actual author posted an incomplete series on KU. I'm reading another LN by Lilac in May. Did a search for the title just in ..."

wowww that's messed up

[Tonari no Emily]

Timelord Iain wrote: "I never mentioned it during the Black Friday sale, but we totally need to read/schedule some Drew Hayes Buddy Reads...

I've been vaguely mentioning the NPCs series a bunch of times, as the only on..."

I have no idea when a good time would be, but I remember wanting to read those!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Choko wrote: "I am reading Dungeon Crawler Carl#1... Wow! Up to Ch. 14 and that got really bloody really quickly! Killing some very sad characters so far, including baby Goblins! My heart kind of hurts for them..."

it was gruesome from the beginning, when the houses/cars pancaked most of the world...

The writing tries to balance it with quirky leveling AI voice and weird foot fetish achievements...

It definitely doesn't pull it's punches... like a LitRPG version of Running Man... Stephen King pseudonym book / Arnold Schwartenegger movie with the Family Feud guy from the 80s...

[Soo]

NPC series took me a while to get into, but I was happy to stick with it. The details compile well. It's not a finished series and may be a while before it is.

Only series I haven't read by Drew Hayes is the vampire one. Plan to get around to it. 😄

Choko, you'll like Dungeon Crawler Carl. Mix of action and humor.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "I never mentioned it during the Black Friday sale, but we totally need to read/schedule some Drew Hayes Buddy Reads...

I've been vaguely mentioning the NPCs series a bunch of..."

Right now, the going trend is 2nd half of 2024, since we've got January through May pretty full up already with 20-30 BRs per month... by June it quickly drops to 10 or less on the schedule so far... but also, part of that is my longest BRs are only scheduled through June and will probably continue... but others have scheduled everything already... we're just slowly scheduling replacements for things ending in April/May...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "Soo wrote: "Woah I think I found a fraudulent copy book on GR. Rather doubt that the actual author posted an incomplete series on KU. I'm reading another LN by Lilac in May. Did a search for the ti..."

To say more on this, I think this is a symptom of Amazon's GR book page creation bot/script... Amazon just creates Goodreads pages for every book on their website now... it's been causing Goodreads Librarians headaches for awhile now, in excess work cleaning up things that don't meet the site's standards or duplicate listings of identical books with ISBN discrepencies/etc... and now this... until someone reports it, there probably aren't enough librarians to find every issue...

[Soo]

Ewwww. That's messed up.

I also dislike how book default page is Kindle format and the Kindle Recs are placed right below the minimized blurb.

I can't easily change "shelf/category" settings from book page. I have to go into review page to do it. Lots of small to large changes that make GR less useful.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I'm hit hard by their bot prevention tools... start having to do CAPTCHAs after 5-10 reviews in a 5hr period, or somesuch limit that is pretty small for anyone that reads a book a day or more and falls a week or more behind (never mind my 6-18 month backlog at times)...

[Soo]

Eek. I haven't run into that because I'm only doing note-reviews when I finish a book.

🫠😅

If I tried to update the other LNs I've read this year, it would be a pain.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

At the start of the year, I hadn't done much of any of my books from 2022... for the first couple months of the year, I managed to do 1 month of 2023 reviews and 1 month of 2022 reviews each month... then I fell behind... in September, I spent like 6-8hrs doing ALL my 2022 reviews... I'm still behind on every book since June 1st 2023... I hope to be caught up through at least September, by the end of the year... and be closer to caught up that I was at this time last year...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

@Soo: Were you around when I finally caught up on Pendergast?

Cabinet of Dr. Leng came out, I binged the last couple releases, and now I'm stuck waiting for the conclusion of the Dr. Leng cycle... with that cliffhanger ending / hook for the finale...

And then Preston & Child turn around and focus on Nora Kelly this year...

I still need to read the Nora Kelly books... they've been in my TBR queue for months, but I constantly have other things to read...

Thunderhead
The Cabinet of Curiosities (not sure if I'll re-read this one)
Old Bones
The Scorpion's Tail
Diablo Mesa
Dead Mountain

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Just went checking, and Angel of Vengeance has a cover, blurb, and release date of July 16, 2024...

The blurb is full of bad tidings for Constance and company...

[Soo]

I'm on Cabinet of Dr Leng for Pendergast. I'll read it before 2024. I will try to post in here when I read it. 😎

You should be able to get the Nora Kelly books via library. That's how I read them.

That author duo write regularly. They publish individual work and the co-authored series. To be honest, Pendergast is the best + consistent work by them.

Between Audible +, KU R&L and libraries, I read a bunch of their books. I feel like Nora Kelly series is ok because it's within Pendergast realm.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

It's definitely a series I tried, looking through your 2020 reads... and I mostly want to read Nora Kelly for Pendergast universe completeness... not really looking to explore outside works of theirs...

[Choko]

I just finished Dungeon Crawler Carl #1... You guys were right - it didn't pull any punches and I enjoyed it quite a bit:)))) I am looking forward to continuing for sure!!! "Damn it , Donut!":)))

[Soo]

LoL Dammit, Donut!

Matt Dimminon is one of the better & consistent indie writers in LitRPG. I've enjoyed all of his books.

[Nirkatze]

Scheduled Dungeon Crawler Carl #1 for this month too, but I'll be latter half rather than earlier... lots of catch-up to do...

I'm also interested in some Drew Hayes... my Hoopla has both regular and graphic audio editions of mentioned books...

[Soo]

If I add 194 books to my TBR and not read anything, it'll be an even 7500 TBR!

🤣🤣🤣

[Tonari no Emily]

Glad to see people enjoying Dungeon Crawler Carl as much as I did :D
Good to know that he's a solid author, Soo!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

@Choko: I assume you meant you'd take me up on the Vagabond thread recap of Marla Mason 0.5 to 5...

Prequels: (view spoiler)[covers Marla's early days from runaway stripper/bartender, through her apprenticeship and growth into a mercenary and eventual magical leader of Felport...

Some of the shorts are non-canonical early works that differ from the real series, but interesting to see...

Shows her obtaining her white/purple cloak that is an artifact/sentient interdimensional being... also her meeting Rondeau and tearing his jaw off and reattaching it... Rondeau being the body-hopping spirit friend that doesn't know where he comes from... (hide spoiler)]

Book 1: (view spoiler)[Marla is in California, seeking help to avert death/disaster back in Felport, due to some seer stuff... deals with a Mayan/Aztect god while there, and comes up with an alternate solution to her Felport problems, by moving her enemy/threat to lead California magical community... also meets Bradley Bowman, smalltime hollywood star with a penchant for spirits... (hide spoiler)]

Book 2: (view spoiler)[hijinks back in Felport, tied to a new wizard in town with a magical voice that can get people to do whatever he wants... including Marla for awhile... couple other assassin plotlines along the way, and an escapee from the magical asylum who can make her dreams real... (hide spoiler)]

Book 3: (view spoiler)[The Walking Death comes to town, and wreaks havoc... Marla eventually travels to the afterlife and confronts an older death to solve the problem... learns the Death knife is the origin of the knife of the leadership of Felport... use it to slice the Walking Death into a better death, after marrying the older death for symbolic reasons... doesn't realize the marriage will carry over when the Walking Death replaces the old dying one... manages to make a deal to delay her Bride of Death status until she dies a "natural" human life... (hide spoiler)]

Book 4: (view spoiler)[Marla's estranged brother comes to town, and tries to reconnect, but it turns out he's a conman, and doesn't really believe in magic... he orchestrates a series of events that leads to Rondeau's death... which would be bad enough, but he's a bodyhopper with little control, and dying sents him into Bradley Bowman's body, ejecting Bradley and killing him... this causes issues, as one of Marla's few friends and apprentice... also some PTSD for Rondeau... this might also be the one where Marla gains a hereditary butler that had never left the mansion he lived in... (hide spoiler)]

Book 5: (view spoiler)[things go off the rails, and Marla pays the consequences of her actions... in one of the early books, Marla and Rondeau and Bradley had reason to go to another dimension, using a weakness in the fabric of reality in Alcatraz... meta the Multiversal Mage/controller...

With the death of Bradley in #4, Marla doesn't handle it well, and decides to visit another dimension and rescue a Bradley in a bad situation that she can bring home to replace her Bradley... doesn't go well, and ends up helping re-solve the Aztec God thing from the first book, in another dimension...

Dimensional fiddling has other side effects, tho, and an evil Marla that succumbed to the evil of the white/purple cloak dimension hops to Marla's dimension while she's away, with a Rondeau minion named Crapsey with a metal jaw (she never reattached it in this dimension, since she never took the cloak off after accidentally ripping it off)... this evil Marla wreaks havoc, goes all the way to Felport and kills half the wizards... frees a bunch of people from the asylum I think, and tears the simulacrum doctor in charge into pieces...

Marla returns home, and deals with the problem eventually... but then gets evicted from Felport/leadership by the survivors... and she didn't even get Bradley back... she almost did, but the fabric of the multiverse was falling apart, and all the Bradleys across the multiverse had to take up the mantle of the interdimensional controller to save it all...

So Marla and Rondeau go off to Hawaii & lick their wounds... (hide spoiler)]

Where Book 6 picks up: (view spoiler)[Marla is pretty bored in Hawaii, and looking for purpose...

Surviving minions/villains of previous books team up as a kind of Sinister Six to take Marla down... this is spearheaded by Nicolette (a chaos mage and apprentice to villain or dead wizard from previous books)... she recruits Crapsey from book 5, Marla's brother from book 4, the asylum doctor that was torn apart in book 5 and put back together, and 1-2 others I forget... the asylum doctor lets Nicolette take the most dangerous witch/wizard out of the Asylum: Elsie Jarrow... the chaos witch Nicolette idolizes... she's a bit of a loose cannon and the author's favorite character (hide spoiler)]

I think that's a decent summary... I'm sure I've forgotten a million things, but that should cover the gist, and hopefully your memory fills in any gaps that matter, when you start book 6...

[Nirkatze]

On the other hand, Choko... if you want to reread Marla Mason from the beginning, my audio skills are finally up to snuff, I have all of them, and I've never read any of them...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Guess I'll backburner book 7+, if that happens... probably take you a few weeks/months to read 1-6...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The perennial BR problem... making plans means you need new now books :D

[Soo]

I don't believe it. 😆

We don't need new books.

We just love finding new ones to explore! 🤣🤣🤣

Perpetual story hunters! Yay! Also, my GR TBR alone is almost 7500 books. Who needs to add to that? 🤣

[Nirkatze]

Timelord Iain wrote: "Guess I'll backburner book 7+, if that happens... probably take you a few weeks/months to read 1-6..."

Choko hasn't responded yet! You could be saved having to wait for me. ^^

The "need new now books" problem is one of the reasons I liked the themed months thing... something to fill in the wait holes...

Of course, you could just join all the BRs. I think there's a few you're not signed up for, Iain.

Perpetual Story Hunters for the win!!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I need 3-5 backup series at all times, for lulls in my BR schedule, to minimize the chances of not being in the mood for something on my shortlist… and still end up Doomscrolling my Audible library options sometimes…

[Soo]

DOOMSCROLLING 🤣🤣🤣

[Soo]

I'm almost caught up to the end of current releases for the LN I'm reading. Trying to decide if I wanna make GR post for it. I should. It will count as 1 read. This one is much longer than the Farmer Space one. Same author for both. I'll make a decision when I'm closer to latest chapters. Gotta zoom in a bunch of 10-12 hr audiobooks.

I'm only semi-serious about hitting 100 recorded books for this year. 😋😆🥸

[Ann-Marie]

Timelord Iain wrote: "I need 3-5 backup series at all times, for lulls in my BR schedule, to minimize the chances of not being in the mood for something on my shortlist… and still end up Doomscrolling my Audible library..."

Rainbow Crate just announced a special edition of Nora Sakavic All For the Game early next year so I think I will be revisiting my boys. Definitely not Holiday theme books but one of my all time faves, I owned them for forever but the covers are plain and stupid so I ignored them, I finally read book 1 and immediately read books 2 & 3 <3

Not SFF either but so good!!!!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Soo wrote: "I'm almost caught up to the end of current releases for the LN I'm reading. Trying to decide if I wanna make GR post for it. I should. It will count as 1 read. This one is much longer than the Farm..."

I'll break 500 books read in a year this year, for the 2nd time ever... first did it in 2020, despite burning out over the summer... I was getting so much more work reading done back then...

This is the first year I might break 200k pages tho... probably gonna fall short and only manage 195k tho... so close...

[Soo]

Most of my LNs have been over 1k chapters. Most tend to be either around 1200-1500 chapters or 3000. Only a few with 300-600.

🧐🤔

Dang, if I want to figure out estimated page count, it will take some digging.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Wise Men of Gotham came out on the 3rd, so we can definitely start scheduling the 2 BRs...

Also, in my rush to read all my December books, I forgot about BOC 3, so I'll definitely be reading that in the next 2 days or so :D

[Choko]

Nirkatze, I am totally in for re-read from the beginning:)))

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

CALLED IT!!!... are we making threads now, and cluttering up the first half of the year some more?...

[Nirkatze]

Choko wrote: "Nirkatze, I am totally in for re-read from the beginning:)))"

I'm still trying to catch up for this month--probably take me another week to be on-track with BRs--but I'm good for whenever you want to start after that!

I like the idea of separate threads... we might be able to get other folks to join us too.

@Iain, LOL

Oh, also, Choko, if you're looking for fun feel-good shenanigans books to read, Monika and I are still putzing through the Rick Riordan universe, and Ryan joined us... we're up to The Mark of Athena mid-December...

[Choko]

Thank you!

[Soo]

There's a 2 for 1 credit sale on Audible. Good if you don't have these:

- Wandering Inn 3
- Beware of Chicken 1
- Noobtown 2
- Noble Roots
- Master Hunter K 1: Initialization
- Black Jewels 12
- Project Hail Mary
- Kaiju Preservation
- Murderbot 6

[Nirkatze]

Thank you for that head's up... ended up picking up a couple books, but managed to restrain myself more than normal.

[Nirkatze]

Choko wrote: "Thank you!"

Do you have a preferred schedule for Marla Mason?

[Choko]

Nope, whenever is good for you...

[Nirkatze]

LOL decisions are hard! A few questions before making them:

Do y'all recommend we start with Blood Engines or Bone Shop? And if not with the prequel, where is it best read?

I'm most partial to the 1/month scheme, but can try to make 2/month work if you want to move faster... barely have holes around the 13th or 27th... could start this month on the 27th...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

It's like you didn't even read my comments... I just talked about how Marla Mason is one of the few series I recommend starting with the prequel... somewhere...

[Nirkatze]

That "somewhere" being the operative word... Thank you for the confirmation though!

[Choko]

The prequel for sure! And two a month is preferable. 27th this month to start with sounds good to me:)