Elizabeth Allen > Recent Status Updates

RTC

Warhost of Vastmark is a difficult book for me to talk about. Book 1 was phenomenal, and book 2 was a good (if slightly flawed) successor. This book however is simply the extended conclusion to book two, and spends an excruciatingly long time re-treading the same well established facts of the characters and setting to tell nothing new. It genuinely put me in a reading slump.

First time reading Tolkien since childhood. Nothing I could say about the series that hasn't already been said so I probably won't review, but I will put any strong thoughts I have here.

Reading with special illustrated editions that are simply gorgeous. Pure joy to look at.

Reading with the fella as it's his favourite series. It is slow, but very involved and I'm enjoying it. I like a fantasy world that feels lived in and this is exactly that.

Finished this a while ago. I'll see if I can write a thorough review but it's difficult when so much time has passed and my thoughts aren't as fresh.

RTC @ EPICINDIE

Kyyd's obsession with nautical terminology has never abated, and I admire that commitment, I only wish it was balanced with explanation. It is still strange to me that a book can take the perspective of someone new and uninitiated to sailing, but not use that as an opportunity to teach the reader with the character.

Laurus has mellowed out quite a bit from its strong start. The latest chapters have felt like a battering of names and places without any of the emotional crux that highlighted the earlier chapters. There is narrative and creativity there, but it's much more difficult to wade through.

Approaching the end! I found this to be a worker work than Curse of Mistwraith, and it shows signs of being the first half of one complete book. That said, I love the world Janny imagines, and any author that can have me devour 700 pages so casually is doing something right.

More than a little impressive how easily Andrew has slipped into cozy fantasy (with gusto)

Quieter fiction than I'm used to. There is a lot of social interplay in the book, but also a feeling of not a lot happening, it's quite unusual. It will be interesting to see how the book adapts to conflict, if it ever even intends to indulge in it.

The Martyrdom of Sister Ishani - There is some kernel of a story here, but it is drowned under poor writing than prioritizes technobabble and broken sentence structure over readability. One of the worst 40K stories I've experienced to date as a result.

The Ships of Merior is resisting the pull to become solely about the central conflict, distracting its characters with side plots that expand the scope of the world and add a lot of detail to the edges. I like a lot of what Ships of Merior is doing, and still class it as good fantasy, but the slow pace and confused wording have come close to approaching boredom for me.

Already a great continuation of the first book. I love the pace with which Janny unravels the mysteries and history of her setting.

Kydd feels written to be as historically authentic as possible, layering period relevant mannerisms and accents on top of near excessively detailed descriptions of a ship of the line. It actually does work, but it will be interesting to see how the book evolves from that to become the 20+ book series it belongs to.

Final stretch. Feel ready for the forth book!

Audiobook copy. Really enjoying the narration. It is well produced cozy!

RTC

A real struggle. The character work is so deeply buried underneath a mountain of pop culture references that it's hard to find it.

Entering the final stretch already committed to reading the sequel. This is remarkably compelling.

A tour de force of classic fantasy. It utilises a large cast with balance and grace.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I have been as quickly engrossed in a story as The Curse of the Mistwraith. As a modest classic fantasy fan, this is ticking all the right boxes.

I'm reserving my judgement on the prose, but my gosh, nothing is breaking the gravitational pull of this book.

I can't wait to tell future generations that I was there when the Kallattian Saga was still being written.

RTC

Literary fiction remains one of my favourite genres due to how effortlessly it manages to blend art and introspection. Laurus has so far been a wonderful exploration of grief and faith, with weird and evocative writing to compliment it.

My first experience with both Sharpe AND Bernard Cornwell, initiated at the behest of my partner. I can certainly see the appeal, but as a character work, it hasn't gripped me the same way a more historical work like Simon Scarrow's Napoleon & Arthur quartet did. A big factor behind that is just how cartoonishly evil the antagonists are.

Art of Prophecy has not progressed how I expected, and that is keeping my interest up. I really like the subtle world-building that comes out naturally as the main plotline progresses too. I'm not sure I like the characters much, which is more to do with them being abrasive than Wesley Chu not writing them well enough.

40k Novels have set a low bar for me as their adherence to corporate direction limits them just as evenly as it promotes them.

Longshot, so far, has been the best offering of military fiction that I've read from the Black Library. Most crucially, the descriptions feel fresh and evocative, which is important given how often writing like this tends to blur into one indistinguishable smear of action-violence.

This is a competently written book, but even with its unique twists, it is still fighting the feeling of being overly familiar.