Jurjen
Much like all DCC books before it, this was quite a lot of fun. I will say that this is the first book in the series in a while where there are cracks showing.
As it has been for the last 3-4 books, the meta-narrative part of the story is the most fun and engaging, though the scope of the plot, and all the elements that play a part in it, is kind of starting to balloon. I appreciate the story growing more complex, but there are absolute growing pains. The humour is a bit hit or miss with Dinniman. I thought it was mostly a miss in Operation Bounce House, and it's generally always a miss with Samantha (who, unfortunately, is Dinniman's favourite character to write [she is my least favourite character to read]), though Donut, Prepotente, and now Penny as well are hits.
I think overall this was one of the weaker floors in the series, and the first 75% of the story was some of the weaker DCC stuff because of it, but the ending was very strong.
Overall I did definitely enjoy it, but I hope that this book isn't a sign of the series going in a bad direction.
Much like all DCC books before it, this was quite a lot of fun. I will say that this is the first book in the series in a while where there are cracks showing.
As it has been for the last 3-4 books, the meta-narrative part of the story is the most fun and engaging, though the scope of the plot, and all the elements that play a part in it, is kind of starting to balloon. I appreciate the story growing more complex, but there are absolute growing pains. The humour is a bit hit or miss with Dinniman. I thought it was mostly a miss in Operation Bounce House, and it's generally always a miss with Samantha (who, unfortunately, is Dinniman's favourite character to write [she is my least favourite character to read]), though Donut, Prepotente, and now Penny as well are hits.
I think overall this was one of the weaker floors in the series, and the first 75% of the story was some of the weaker DCC stuff because of it, but the ending was very strong.
Overall I did definitely enjoy it, but I hope that this book isn't a sign of the series going in a bad direction.
It's been a while since Fonda Lee's last full-length solo novel released, which was Jade Legacy about 3.5 years ago (covid time is so fake). Jade Legacy being my favourite book of all, Greenbone Saga being my favourite series of all time, and her book with Shannon Lee falling a bit flat, Isako had a lot to live up to. And it was great!
The emotional heart of this story is the parallel journey of two contractors struggling to live by a code, one young and one old. Both increasingly growing disillusioned. As you can expect, Fonda Lee's character writing is on-point, and I was invested in both their stories immediately. Combined with interesting and complex secondary characters, the whole cast of this book meets the standard she set with Greenbone Saga.
The story is about a contractor on her last mission before resignation (which entails voluntary suicide to spare resources for humanity on a world with great scarcity), in which she gets embroiled in the mysterious fate of her old student, who is a contractor to the big rising star in The Company. Overall the narrative is very well crafted, and its many twists foreshadowed quite well. Some twists I was able to guess, others blindsided me. Both worked! The pacing is solid, the narrative structure interesting and constantly engaging (though I expect this part to be perhaps a little more of a contentious thing among fans), and the ending worked really well.
Lastly, worldbuilding. What made the world of Greenbone Saga so interesting is that it felt so lived in. From macroeconomics, to microeconomics, to how finance relates to politics, to geopolitics, to car brands, food and technology. There's such attention to detail in those books, and I was gladdened to see that Fonda Lee paid just as much attention to crafting the world in this story.
Really looking forward to whatever next project she's working on! Fonda Lee is an insta-buy.
It's been a while since Fonda Lee's last full-length solo novel released, which was Jade Legacy about 3.5 years ago (covid time is so fake). Jade Legacy being my favourite book of all, Greenbone Saga being my favourite series of all time, and her book with Shannon Lee falling a bit flat, Isako had a lot to live up to. And it was great!
The emotional heart of this story is the parallel journey of two contractors struggling to live by a code, one young and one old. Both increasingly growing disillusioned. As you can expect, Fonda Lee's character writing is on-point, and I was invested in both their stories immediately. Combined with interesting and complex secondary characters, the whole cast of this book meets the standard she set with Greenbone Saga.
The story is about a contractor on her last mission before resignation (which entails voluntary suicide to spare resources for humanity on a world with great scarcity), in which she gets embroiled in the mysterious fate of her old student, who is a contractor to the big rising star in The Company. Overall the narrative is very well crafted, and its many twists foreshadowed quite well. Some twists I was able to guess, others blindsided me. Both worked! The pacing is solid, the narrative structure interesting and constantly engaging (though I expect this part to be perhaps a little more of a contentious thing among fans), and the ending worked really well.
Lastly, worldbuilding. What made the world of Greenbone Saga so interesting is that it felt so lived in. From macroeconomics, to microeconomics, to how finance relates to politics, to geopolitics, to car brands, food and technology. There's such attention to detail in those books, and I was gladdened to see that Fonda Lee paid just as much attention to crafting the world in this story.
Really looking forward to whatever next project she's working on! Fonda Lee is an insta-buy.
The Faith of Beasts is an incredibly successful sequel to The Mercy of Gods, and has got me really excited to see how Franck and Abraham wrap the trilogy up in the final book in The Captive's War trilogy.
This installment basically does everything I wanted it to after b1. It advances the character work, setting and plot in really interesting and satisfying, with tons of surprises spersed in. I particularly enjoyed the story's musings on the conflict between rejecting oppression vs trying to make the best of it, in a setting with so much immediate seemingly arbitrary violence.
Learning more and more about how the Carryx think, and how their society is structured was great–they really do feel alien. Seeing the Carryx in a great amount of detail contrasted at just the faintest hints of the deathless enemy is also a cool way to frame the wider conflict of this story.
Overall I have no notes and no complaints. Really not a lot to critique about The Faith of Beasts. This series is very different to The Expanse, but I think it's just as good, if not better.
The Faith of Beasts is an incredibly successful sequel to The Mercy of Gods, and has got me really excited to see how Franck and Abraham wrap the trilogy up in the final book in The Captive's War trilogy.
This installment basically does everything I wanted it to after b1. It advances the character work, setting and plot in really interesting and satisfying, with tons of surprises spersed in. I particularly enjoyed the story's musings on the conflict between rejecting oppression vs trying to make the best of it, in a setting with so much immediate seemingly arbitrary violence.
Learning more and more about how the Carryx think, and how their society is structured was great–they really do feel alien. Seeing the Carryx in a great amount of detail contrasted at just the faintest hints of the deathless enemy is also a cool way to frame the wider conflict of this story.
Overall I have no notes and no complaints. Really not a lot to critique about The Faith of Beasts. This series is very different to The Expanse, but I think it's just as good, if not better.
The first two Mark Lawrence books I read, being the first two books in the Library Trilogy, I thought were pretty fantastic. I fell in love with its setting, story and most of all its characters. The Book That Held Her Heart, the final book in the trilogy, was probably the most disappointing book I had ever read. I kept thinking: “why is any of this happening? Why is the story *this*?
Unfortunately, Daughter of Crows continues that streak, as its narrative, especially in the first half of the story, is a hot mess. The Rue POV chapters for the first 150 pages followed the exact same formula 3 times in a row. Thing A happened, then B, then C, back to A. This exact sequence 3 times in a row, and I had no clue what story the book was telling. Fortunately, Rue's story in the second half of the book was much stronger with a much clearer narrative that I ended up enjoying a bit.
I think the Academy chapters were much stronger, and contained some fun character dynamics and character relationships. The setting was interesting (though it seems like it's largely windowdressing, at least in this first book), the ending came together quite nicely, and the prose was pretty good. Mark Lawrence is obviously a very skilled writer, I just felt like this book needed two more rounds of outlining, and a much clearer direction from the start.
2 hits and 2 misses.
The first two Mark Lawrence books I read, being the first two books in the Library Trilogy, I thought were pretty fantastic. I fell in love with its setting, story and most of all its characters. The Book That Held Her Heart, the final book in the trilogy, was probably the most disappointing book I had ever read. I kept thinking: “why is any of this happening? Why is the story *this*?
Unfortunately, Daughter of Crows continues that streak, as its narrative, especially in the first half of the story, is a hot mess. The Rue POV chapters for the first 150 pages followed the exact same formula 3 times in a row. Thing A happened, then B, then C, back to A. This exact sequence 3 times in a row, and I had no clue what story the book was telling. Fortunately, Rue's story in the second half of the book was much stronger with a much clearer narrative that I ended up enjoying a bit.
I think the Academy chapters were much stronger, and contained some fun character dynamics and character relationships. The setting was interesting (though it seems like it's largely windowdressing, at least in this first book), the ending came together quite nicely, and the prose was pretty good. Mark Lawrence is obviously a very skilled writer, I just felt like this book needed two more rounds of outlining, and a much clearer direction from the start.
2 hits and 2 misses.
The trouble you cause will chase after you forever. Doesn't matter how good you seem, if what you did is evil, that is what you are. If you act like a coward, you are one. If you're on a path of vengeance, you'll be trailing blood, and more blood will be ahead of you. You can’t take back what you did; you can't change who you are… but in rare cases, granted you meet the right people at the right moment, you can.
Whenever people rank all ten First Law books, Red Country usually finds itself near the bottom. I disagreed on my first read of the series, and this reread has solidified that view. Red Country is phenomenal.
I think one of the reasons why people don't like Red Country as much is because its main characters, Temple and Shy, aren't as immediately charismatic or exciting as Glokta, Logen or Orso were. But I think these two have such tremendous heart, and their emotions connected me so well to the book's plot. Temple specifically I am a big fan of, and I feel somewhat of a personal affinity to, as out of all the Abercrombie characters, I find him somewhat relatable in temperance, if not character. Then there is Lamb. Man did this character get a flawless conclusion. Red Country in general probably has a 10/10 ending, I don’t think it could have been done any better. The earlier story climax with the Dragon People was heartbreaking, but the more personal ending for these characters… just wow.
By now it's common knowledge that with the First Law Standalones, Abercrombie set out to write three archetypical cinematic stories. Best Served Cold is a bloody revenge story, The Heroes is a war-epic, and Red Country a classic Western. Although of these three, The Heroes is still my favourite (Red Country second, having grown closer than on my original read), but I think it's Red Country that does its genre best. It feels *so much* like a Western. The slow, morose tone felt perfect for the story Abercrombie wanted to tell. I think the book being pretty slow paced is another reason why people generally rate it pretty low, but I think it was the right decision for this story in this genre.
Spoiler talk
Not everybody can change, but you're better off trying. You are what you were yesterday, but with great effort and a little luck, that's not who you will be tomorrow.
Thematically, the story is about a lot of things, but the main theme that's on my mind is on whether or not people can change. There are four characters in this book whose stories run parallel. Glama, Temple, Shivers, and Logen.
Glama undergoes a big off-screen arc since we saw him last in The Heroes. Humility and regret have replaced blustering ego. Glama feels to me a lot like Logen near the end of The Last Argument of Kings. He knows what he is, and it seems likely that much like Logen did in the original trilogy, he tried being someone else. It did not stick. Glama finds his end against Logen much like how Logen went down in LAOK. Alone.
Temple's arc shows that people can change. All Temple needed was to meet the right people to help him along the way, and finally stand up for himself and do the hard thing. To really try.
Shivers is the main character of the standalone trilogy, and Shivers’ transformation across these three books feels like the thematic thesis or Red Country. It is both possible to try and be better and fail as Logen does–as Shivers does in Best Served Cold. But it is equally possible to try and do better and succeed as Temple does–as Shivers does in letting Logen go at the end of the book. I don't think Abercrombie figured out the formula for when someone fails or succeeds, but he seems to emphasise the importance of trying. After all, isn't there any character worth more pity and scorn than Cosca? Right before be dies we find out that he *wanted* to be something else, yet he never tried. And what did that bring him? Nothing much good at all.
That leaves us with Logen, my favourite character in all of the First Law, and one of the most complex and hard to parse characters in this genre. Is Logen evil? As he said himself, going by what he did, it's hard to argue he's not. But why does the reader find themselves rooting for him despite Logen failing to walk away from violence knowing what it does to him, time and time again. It's because he tries *so damn hard*. Logen leaving the North and helping raise Shy, Pit and Ro was an act of so much good, and yet… And yet Ro wishes Caul Shivers killed Lamb right in front of her eyes, for what he did.
I think for every sequential First Law read, I'll have new thoughts on this character.
All in all, I adore Red Country, and I think it perfectly wraps up the story of its characters, as well as The Great Leveller trilogy as a whole. This book deserves a lot more love.
The trouble you cause will chase after you forever. Doesn't matter how good you seem, if what you did is evil, that is what you are. If you act like a coward, you are one. If you're on a path of vengeance, you'll be trailing blood, and more blood will be ahead of you. You can’t take back what you did; you can't change who you are… but in rare cases, granted you meet the right people at the right moment, you can.
Whenever people rank all ten First Law books, Red Country usually finds itself near the bottom. I disagreed on my first read of the series, and this reread has solidified that view. Red Country is phenomenal.
I think one of the reasons why people don't like Red Country as much is because its main characters, Temple and Shy, aren't as immediately charismatic or exciting as Glokta, Logen or Orso were. But I think these two have such tremendous heart, and their emotions connected me so well to the book's plot. Temple specifically I am a big fan of, and I feel somewhat of a personal affinity to, as out of all the Abercrombie characters, I find him somewhat relatable in temperance, if not character. Then there is Lamb. Man did this character get a flawless conclusion. Red Country in general probably has a 10/10 ending, I don’t think it could have been done any better. The earlier story climax with the Dragon People was heartbreaking, but the more personal ending for these characters… just wow.
By now it's common knowledge that with the First Law Standalones, Abercrombie set out to write three archetypical cinematic stories. Best Served Cold is a bloody revenge story, The Heroes is a war-epic, and Red Country a classic Western. Although of these three, The Heroes is still my favourite (Red Country second, having grown closer than on my original read), but I think it's Red Country that does its genre best. It feels *so much* like a Western. The slow, morose tone felt perfect for the story Abercrombie wanted to tell. I think the book being pretty slow paced is another reason why people generally rate it pretty low, but I think it was the right decision for this story in this genre.
Spoiler talk
Not everybody can change, but you're better off trying. You are what you were yesterday, but with great effort and a little luck, that's not who you will be tomorrow.
Thematically, the story is about a lot of things, but the main theme that's on my mind is on whether or not people can change. There are four characters in this book whose stories run parallel. Glama, Temple, Shivers, and Logen.
Glama undergoes a big off-screen arc since we saw him last in The Heroes. Humility and regret have replaced blustering ego. Glama feels to me a lot like Logen near the end of The Last Argument of Kings. He knows what he is, and it seems likely that much like Logen did in the original trilogy, he tried being someone else. It did not stick. Glama finds his end against Logen much like how Logen went down in LAOK. Alone.
Temple's arc shows that people can change. All Temple needed was to meet the right people to help him along the way, and finally stand up for himself and do the hard thing. To really try.
Shivers is the main character of the standalone trilogy, and Shivers’ transformation across these three books feels like the thematic thesis or Red Country. It is both possible to try and be better and fail as Logen does–as Shivers does in Best Served Cold. But it is equally possible to try and do better and succeed as Temple does–as Shivers does in letting Logen go at the end of the book. I don't think Abercrombie figured out the formula for when someone fails or succeeds, but he seems to emphasise the importance of trying. After all, isn't there any character worth more pity and scorn than Cosca? Right before be dies we find out that he *wanted* to be something else, yet he never tried. And what did that bring him? Nothing much good at all.
That leaves us with Logen, my favourite character in all of the First Law, and one of the most complex and hard to parse characters in this genre. Is Logen evil? As he said himself, going by what he did, it's hard to argue he's not. But why does the reader find themselves rooting for him despite Logen failing to walk away from violence knowing what it does to him, time and time again. It's because he tries *so damn hard*. Logen leaving the North and helping raise Shy, Pit and Ro was an act of so much good, and yet… And yet Ro wishes Caul Shivers killed Lamb right in front of her eyes, for what he did.
I think for every sequential First Law read, I'll have new thoughts on this character.
All in all, I adore Red Country, and I think it perfectly wraps up the story of its characters, as well as The Great Leveller trilogy as a whole. This book deserves a lot more love.
I'm a big fan of the SCP-verse, and getting a full novel as an SCP story did not disappoint. SCP really excels at giving you an awesome scifi-mystery premise, and SCP-3125 was no exception. The concept of anti-memetics, and showing what an anti-memetic war could look like through the perspective of a foundation was really well done. It was definitely confusing at times–I still don't entirely understand the chronology–and I think the second half isn't as good as the first half (asking the questions is usually more fun than finding answers is par for the course with SCP), but I do think the book stuck the landing. It showed quite a lot of heart, especially the last few chapters, which I wasn't expecting.
I'm a big fan of the SCP-verse, and getting a full novel as an SCP story did not disappoint. SCP really excels at giving you an awesome scifi-mystery premise, and SCP-3125 was no exception. The concept of anti-memetics, and showing what an anti-memetic war could look like through the perspective of a foundation was really well done. It was definitely confusing at times–I still don't entirely understand the chronology–and I think the second half isn't as good as the first half (asking the questions is usually more fun than finding answers is par for the course with SCP), but I do think the book stuck the landing. It showed quite a lot of heart, especially the last few chapters, which I wasn't expecting.
Yeah I didn't fuck with Mythos. I feel like it takes up an almost anti-intellectual approach to Greek myths. “No need to think about the sociological reasons behind these myths or the way they were passed down and changed through history, just sit back and enjoy the narrative”. Fine–the book is obviously very much pop-history, but the problem is that the way Fry presented the narrative was just not super fun to read. The quirky millennial humour tone felt quite grating. Unfortunate.
Yeah I didn't fuck with Mythos. I feel like it takes up an almost anti-intellectual approach to Greek myths. “No need to think about the sociological reasons behind these myths or the way they were passed down and changed through history, just sit back and enjoy the narrative”. Fine–the book is obviously very much pop-history, but the problem is that the way Fry presented the narrative was just not super fun to read. The quirky millennial humour tone felt quite grating. Unfortunate.