Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
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The Perfect Run
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Vagabond Treehouse ~ [Fall 2025: World of Chains #1-3 (Wayward Bard) | The Perfect Run 1-3 (alternating)]
All eps for Gyeongseong Creature S1 is on Netflix now. Plan to watch tonight. It's urban thriller kinda like maybe Joe Ledger. S2 is supposed to be out later this year. 🍿🍿🍿
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It's 10 eps at about an hour per. I'll start normal speed and prob up to 1.25-1.5x. Take out intro/outro and it's maybe 52min per ep.Who knows if I can zoom it all in one night. 🍿😆🍿
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I'm a few 30-45 episodes behind on Make Some Noise & Dirty Laundry... I'm making little to no progress on Dimension 20 lately, with their 30-60hr seasons...
And I still have 1 season of Bosch:Legacy, 1.5 seasons of Reacher, and 1.5 seasons of Jack Ryan to watch, at some point...
Yeah, I don't worry about it. I have a huge Watch List that I keep adding to but hardly ever crossing off as done. 🍿🤗🍿 It's all good. Nice to have options.
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@Soo. @Iain Lone Wolf comes out Feb 13. You want to plan a read? I am just getting over a nasty cold and need to catch up on my BR but I usually Orphan x gets me out of any slump
Ooo yah! I'm down for OrphanX.This weather is made for snot-colds. Drink hot fluids, sweat and feed the cold away!
Soo wrote: "Ooo yah! I'm down for OrphanX."Yay! I pre-ordered in on Audible but can be ready whenever you are in Feb
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Here's where you agreed to read them with me when they come out, back in September: https://www.goodreads.com/comment/sho...
:D
We need a good thriller! Let's read it around release day. 🤗
- This is on KU and looks like a cute slice of life manga. Can add to cozy pile.
Soo wrote: "We need a good thriller! Let's read it around release day. 🤗"Perfect
Scum of the Earth by Alex Kane came out a few weeks ago. LoL no notice anywhere about it. Just got a random notification today from Audible. Adding to wishlist. Gonna see if it'll go on sale. 🧐
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I'm sure it'll be good tho... there's gotta be more to the plot than what's listed in the blurb...
Amazon says it came out the 14th, Audible says the 16th, Goodreads says the 20th... the audiobook and ebook aren't correctly synced... Amazon doesn't list an audiobook on the ebook/KU page...
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Something to look forward to...
Ooh, thanks for the Alexander C. Kane head's up...*sigh*... my boiler/water heater is still broken, so I've been spending the last three hours using all my pots to heat water and then running them downstairs to tip into the bathtub.... I feel like I've gotten a better appreciation of the servants in every scene in every medieval-ish fantasy book where the characters relax in a bath after weeks on the road...
It's an art to wash up without hot water from tap. Hope it gets fixed soon!If you have gym membership, ready shower there. 🏋♂️🤸♀️🚿
😅 I went from 2 library loans to 7. Gotta get my reading in! Gallant
Kaikeyi
The Inheritance Games
The Unmaking of June Farrow
The Giver
Book of Night
Spin the Dawn
Ooh, I've read several of those! I found Kaikeyi interesting, good debut, I thought. Unmaking of June Farrow was a fun puzzle with a side of romance. Book of Night kept me turning pages. Gallant was an interesting premise, but execution was just ok for me. Giver is a classic... interesting to see how it holds up to adult minds.Haven't read Inheritance Games or Spin the Dawn yet.
Are any of these rereads for you?
In other news, I just got email back from my contractor--he says he'll be able to start tomorrow and should be finished by Friday! I'll have hot water again! Which is good because it's been below zero all week! Been running home right after work each day and running the fireplace to keep pipes from freezing. I have thought about trying the shower at the school gym, but haven't wanted to leave my house alone longer than I have to... thank goodness I won't need to now!
😭😭😭Gallant started so well! Too bad it was written as a vague event out of time story.
I'm switching between LN and manga on KU to read while listening to audiobook now. 📚🤸♀️🎶
Soo wrote: "😭😭😭Gallant started so well! Too bad it was written as a vague event out of time story."
I didn't even think about that. It has gothic vibes, but we never really get a sense of what's going on in the world in relation to the story, do we?
Yeah. There is no concrete setting, time, etc in Gallant. Everything was focused on Olivia and the only concrete thing we knew about her was that she's probably young, female, can't talk and lived in a forgotten & abused manner.There are good stories that are placed out of time, but you have something to focus on like main character, plot, etc.
Gallant had lots of snapshot imagery and compounded vibes for loss. That was about it.
Most exciting guy was Death and he only came across as wicked interesting at intro 1/3.
Author wanted a gothic, dreamy story and managed to write that, but not in a manner to draw reader in and make the reader want to stay.
Like Alice in Wonderland is a dream of crazy dreams, but a trippy romp that many are drawn to.
I can totally see that... I really liked the premise, but the story wasn't compelling enough to really engage me, though the scary bits were decently scary.
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Not his mega-series, for now, just the long-planned ones I've been talking about for like 1+ years now... as a group thing, I figure we can restart with:
Ghosts of Gotham -- August 15th
A Time for Witches -- September 15th
and then continue on to the new stuff:
The Hungry Dreaming -- October 15th
The Wise Men of Gotham -- November 15th
If that goes well, we can consider doing the main Schaeferverse after... things should have settled down a bit, by then...
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I was very unsatisfied... and have found myself largely let down, since my initial foray into Schwab with the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy...
Schaefer - 😱 Not for me. His writing annoys me. Gallant - It could have been a gothic epic but ended up as a sedate grim tale. 🤷♀️
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I'm down for Schaefer. Not sure if I'm ready to reread 1&2 though, it wasn't that long ago... probably will anyway...
YAY more Kane! Fantastic news :DAnd I'll be there for Schaefer!
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Bought audio for Captain when it was $1. Not sure it was worth a buck though.
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You and Nirkatze are nuts. That's coming from a fellow speed reader. Also, I want to note for both of you:
Make some time to slow down cause I'm sure (from my own experiences and reading some of the current BR threads) that both of you aren't necessarily paying attention to the books you are reading.
Like DCI Logan #2 was a re-read for me and I intentionally took time to listen to it. Cause I found myself tuning out for longer patches than I should for a re-read.
Whether it's a 1st time or 8th time reading, we should enjoy the reading. Otherwise, why would we read right?
Super happy we have this eclectic group! Don't burn yourselves out.
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I'm pretty much at the upper edges of what I can manage, reading-wise, unless I find new apps to listen to my non-Hoopla/Audible books at 3.5-4x speed, or get a new job where I can listen to books 24/7...
Over the years, my ability to listen to books at work has shrunk considerably, but has been compensated for with speed listening... I also do alot to read easier books at work and books I want/need to pay more attention to at home...
I worry about burnout sometimes, but not too often... I've been doing a fair bit of focused reading, I think... mostly measurable by how much I comment in BR threads...
The intensity of focus also has alot to do with how much I'm enjoying the story, I think... the 2 Discworld books I've read, so far, can slide by at times, but I've been riding on the promises of people that the story becomes more character-driven in book 3+... books 1-2 were more disjointed event sequences...
Just doing audiobooks, I'm never gonna be able to quote as much as Mel does in BRs, sadly...
The way the both of us read Narrator was a good indicator for how much we are paying attention to a story. Well, gotta acknowledge 2 factors:
1) We didn't like the story for different reasons. Which means it won't stay in memory that long.
2) Based on above, our semi-involved chat about the story was entertaining and flawed. Cause juggled story based and pseudo assumptions. 😆
Brian read ebook for Narrator, Tammie wrote some comments for it and neither joined our 50/50 WTHeck chat about Narrator.
If it was REALLY bad, all of us would have said more.
But I think none of us remembered enough to have a good talk about it. Brian enjoyed it the most out of the 4 of us. 🥸
Gallant - I was surprised by your note on the book. Based on what I know of your reading taste, you should have liked it more than you did. Cause you like atmosphere and gothic vibes. You are more forgiving about strong plot details. Gallant has a great beginning, okay middle and clean ending. Technically, story that fits in your fun reading box.
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If I mishear something, or misunderstand, I definitely latch onto it, like the wife/girlfriend thing...
I feel like Brian's enjoyment runs counter to mine half the time :D (he rates alot of things 2 stars that I like, and vice versa)...
If there's one thing I can say about my reading/enjoyment, once I start getting annoyed at something, it becomes easier to just snowball it... and that's definitely what happened with Gallant... but I might have also read Gallant right after I DNF'd Dead Silence and been on a negative streak... also fueled by my problems with the Vicious trilogy... I know I wasn't happy with the ending, and trudged through the middle... this was all in the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards BR thread...
Anyway, I thought I grasped Narrator well-enough, since I was pausing and commenting in the moment... the more I think about it, the more I feel like I could give a full summary right now... except for the confusing parts where I can't tell if they were Phillipa or Jasmine POV early on... the transition is rough, and intentionally hidden for the reveal at the end...
Timelord Iain wrote: "Emily seems to have her reading mojo back, and then some... about to drop me into 3rd place on the spreadsheet..."Hah, I've just really had a good January I guess! I'm sure it will slow down later, but I'm taking advantage while reading mojo is high :D
Timelord Iain wrote: "Maybe I have a flawed understanding of how much I'm grasping each book I listen to...If I mishear something, or misunderstand, I definitely latch onto it, like the wife/girlfriend thing...
I fee..."
I don't like Narrator. So not willing to get KU and figure out the gaps between all of us reading and commenting. It's pretty high though. The gap that is. We need all four of us to chat and piece together the story for Narrator. Which could be a fun group thing but why waste time on a bad book.
🤭💩🤭
I think my reading might have picked up because I've mostly not been interested in TV lately, and I've picked up my crafting hobbies again after a lull. I can easily sew/knit, etc and listen to books till I get off work till bed time... I'm trying to take the time more to stop and comment on books as I go though
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And yea... I think we've mangled Narrator enough with our hodge podge comments, Soo :D ... we all agree it wasn't great, and was quite nonsensical in the name of some twists at the end...
Timelord Iain wrote: "You definitely like to catch up on 3 days of comments all at once, Emily...And yea... I think we've mangled Narrator enough with our hodge podge comments, Soo :D ... we all agree it wasn't great,..."
Lol guilty as charged...
I read the Giver and I'm astounded by it's popularity. 🙄😱🫣Good material for a critical thinking class.
Good example for how to write an emotive Tell style story.
Amazing example for plot holes.
I'm ok never seeing the movie. I was interested before reading the book. Zero interest after reading.
I totally agree. I DNF it. Movie wasn’t much better
Fantasy Buddy Reads
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Nathan Lowell (other topics)Nathan Lowell (other topics)
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Ditto--didn't realize it was something entirely new.