Kyle Erickson
“He lived up to the story he wanted others to tell about him, instead of a story that was true to his soul.”
I've never read a book like this. I've never read a series like this. 75% into this book I was pretty confident it was going to barely make it into the four star territory. But I underestimated Ken Liu, I forced my own expectations onto this work of art. I will have a full review incoming, I am overfilled with thoughts, but The Dandelion Dynasty is one of the most ambitious, incredible series I've read. I will miss Dara, and it is safe to say that the characters in this series will continue to inspire and challenge me for a long time.
Speaking Bones is the final book in the Dandelion Dynasty, and what an ending. This book made me feel every emotion. I was angry, I was happy, I laughed, I cried, I thought. This series makes me consider so many things about life, about the world, memory, identity, culture, civilization, the human experience... Ken Liu is able to convey so much with his prose. I am constantly awed by the story he's telling and I will be considering the events, conclusions and dialogues of this series for years.
So much made me very angry. A lot of bad things happen. There was a point where I couldn't go to sleep after reading it because my chest was tight with pure rage. This book was emotionally exhausting to a point that I've maybe never experienced. It challenged me. Not the difficulty of the ideas, but the level of empathy I developed for these characters and how much I felt their journeys. Liu writes amazing characters. The ending of the book does bring catharsis, though. There is meaning, and the series is ultimately hopeful. The tears I cried were (mostly) not tears of sadness, but tears of joy.
I do think Speaking Bones could have been edited down. But most of the deviations help contribute to the overall narrative and picture of Dara that Ken is painting. I can honestly say that at the end of this series, I will miss Dara and its inhabitants. That's an incredible achievement.
Speaking Bones is definitely one of my favorite endings to a series ever, and DD is one of my all time favorite series. Please read it!
“That a story is too neat doesn't mean it's also not true. If there is anything to be learned from this tale, its the power of desire for a good story.”
“It's both a curse and a manifestation of grace that children must make their own path, independent of their forebearers. Those who plant saplings will not live to enjoy the shade of the full-grown tree; those who build the city-ship will not get to steer it into the unknown storm. I'm asking you to trust that the wisdom of the people will be wielded by the people you saw as your duty to defend.”
“History has no plot, and kings do not follow characters arcs.”
This book was fine, but the main problem with it is that it doesn't feel like it adds anything at all. I know these EU novels are working with a stacked deck, but you can still find ways to expand upon something in a meaningful way, and I don't think this book did, except with the stuff with Sabe. But the Padme, Anakin, and Palpatine stuff was all the most basic, run of the mill stuff you could imagine yourself took place in between films 2 and 3. I would read another book about Sabe, though.
Also this audiobook was absolutely terrible, the sound effects added nothing to the experience and were loud and mixed in with the audio the entire time, things like the swaying of the ship but constantly. It was a weird choice.
In the words of Ducky from Land before Time, “nope nope nope”
I hated this. I hated this with a passion. This is a bad book, and nobody will ever convince me otherwise. I do not understand why it exists. This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I usually try to mitigate my bad ratings on a book, like “this just wasn't for me”, “not really my thing”, “made choices I didn't agree with”.
But I just fucking hated this book. I should have DNF'd except that I wanted to get the complete experience. This book cemented its one star rating when our main group needed to pass a test and the test was to strip naked and jump in a lake and fight giant crocodiles. But then it got even dumber as it went.
This book felt like it was drafted by a 14 year old, and Staveley just went “yep, okay” and wrote it as presented, no changes. There was constant nudity for literally just the sake of being naked, like “teehee wouldn't it be cool if they were naked but THEN they had to wrestle because they don't like each other, teehee”. The philosophy in this book is garbage, like if a 14 year old and a 16 year old got high together and the 16 year old just started telling the 14 year old a bunch of wild, nonsensical theories about life and the 14 year old was like, “wow my brother is so wise and deep”. Your brother is not wise and he is not deep. He is 16, high, and stupid.
The ending of the book, which I won't spoil, I disliked every single aspect of it. All of it. Top down re-write would have been my note.
Anyway, my suggestion is don't read this. But some people love it, so I don't know. I don't get why, I don't understand whatsoever, but I am apparently in the minority for this eyestain not being worthy of existence, so I will console myself by writing this scathing review and hopefully in time, I will forget how much I didn't like this book.
This book was fine. The first third is actually about the oral history of action movies, and there is an entire chapter about Atomic Blonde near the end, and I think these were just filling page count. But the core of the book was interesting, even if it didn't hit all the spots I would have preferred. I would recommend this to die hard action film fans, John Wick fans, or Keanu fans, but that's about it. Side note, everyone in this book has a lot of nice things to say about Keanu Reeves, as you'd expect.
I don't know who could read this and not come away with a lot of respect for Malala and her father, but the middle section of this book is obviously her co-author inserting a ton of political info-dumping without it being really filtered through Malala's POV. I get that she was a child or not born when most of these events happened, but it still could have been cut down or presented differently. I don't mind learning more about the political landscape of Pakistan, but in a memoir it should be filtered through the perspective of the person the memoir is about.
The first and last third were excellent, however.
Idk guys this is the hardest won four star of my life. Robbie Jords and I see the world in fundamentally different ways but dude also made me want to know what happens despite not caring if 97% of these characters all immediately died. I'd really like to finish this series but people always point to this one as the bee's knees, the farmer's factory, the fish's foundry, the bobcat's catbob, whatever the kids are saying these days. They tell me it's the best. And it didn't feel like the best of something. Mostly it felt like the same but also with plot. And “Same but also with plot” might not get me through.
The Bladed Faith is a new release from David Dalglish and it centers on Cyrus, a deposed prince in an island nation whose family is killed as a larger empire takes over and slays their patron gods. Cyrus is spirited away into a rebellion as Vagrant, the face of revenge against the Everlorn Empire, as the rebellion plans to loosen the grip that the Empire has across the world. Cyrus must learn how to be Vagrant, and how to work with his rag-tag team of revolutionaries each with their own skills in order to maximize the ability to stir the people against the Empire.
I kept almost DNFing Bladed Faith. It took me nearly the whole month to finish it. The beginning is very good and then the next 20-25% is a very long training section. It just went on and on and on. I also found the characters to be interesting separately but I never found their dynamic together to be elevated. We kept being told how much they liked and cared about each other but I never really felt it. I'm also tired of teens getting really strong fast, montage aside. The main character is a spoiled prince until he's 14 and then he spends about three years training, and then suddenly he is able to defeat some of the world's strongest fighters; I hate this trope. It just feels very unearned to me, and is such a slant towards younger fantasy protagonists. Skip forward a decade and have a 25 year old protagonist instead of 18. It will still get read, I promise.
I did really like the world, and the magic, and one of the villains, Sinshi. The last 10% of the book did some really interesting things and I may read the second book because of it...but for so much of the middle 60% of this book I was pretty bored. 6/10
“What is a man's life worth?”
“The slavemasters say one is worth about two emerald broams.”
“And what do you say?”
“A life is priceless.”
It took me five months of casually dipping into The Way of Kings in between other books to finish my reread. Well, not true. It took me five months to read the first half. It took me three days to read the second half. Oops.
Doesn't meet the level of the original trilogy, but I didn't expect it to. Essentially plays out like an action movie. Some really great parts, with some memorable characters, but even more backstabbing than you'd expect and at a certain point it just got a bit tiresome. The action and the banter remained quality, though.
This novella was really well written. I enjoyed the fresh perspective. Unfortunately, it fell into the problem I have with many novellas, which is that they are not my preferred length. The second half of this novella was pretty rushed, and I think condensing the whole thing into a short story or expanding it into a novel would have worked a lot better.
Still, though, it was good. I was also under the impression it would be a retelling with Arthur as the MC but that was not the case.
“Wow my sister is in the news again, quick let's pump out a book”.
In fairness, I didn't really read this. I skimmed it while sick and feeling too ill to read something I actually needed to pay attention to. People have been hating on this book since it came out so curiosity got the better of me. Still, this genuinely read like someone took two hours and used a voice-to-text app to explain some vague points about their life and justify some decisions. It's truly a bad book. I'm glad I didn't actually read it. Literally the definition of a cash grab.
Excellent. It's early in the year but this will almost certainly make my top reads of 2022. The second half of this book was just spectacular. No notes. Found family trope very well done here. The epilogue I was not a fan of, but I am assuming it was necessary for an upcoming book, so I will accept it. While this book will give you a little more from having read the first two Mortal Technique books, especially Pawn's Gambit, 95% of the experience is standalone and so I am comfortable saying this is one of my favorite standalone novels I've ever read. I can't wait to get one of those beautiful hardcovers.
3.5/5 but a rare case when I'm going to round down, because having this as a 4 star doesn't feel right.
This not the book I wanted or had much interest in getting. Kuang made a lot of choices that made me roll my eyes - Rin gets dumber than a block of cheese for half this book, plotlines are dropped entirely, characters are killed off-screen because she didn't have a use for them anymore, the villains having a seeming huge shift in motivation that is never made much clearer than “because they're bad now”, not enough time spent on characters that are not Rin, depicting a war with the most bare bones details possible, etc.
But what I think her goal is in this novel, and series in general, is still impressive. I read most of this book in a day even though those elements bothered me because I was still engaged. I thought the second half especially was very good. This series is just...not what I wanted it to be based off the first two books, and Kuang has different interests than I do. Her characters became obvious stand-ins for the themes she wanted to explore and because of that, I don't think their actions always made a lot of sense, and we are pretty reliant on just accepting how we are told these characters feel about each other and not given a lot of evidence for why they would feel that way.
So, I'm vaguely disappointed, but it still made me think. It still made me appreciate what Kuang was going for; exploring the trauma of war, of colonialism, of genocide. There were still badass moments, and great fight scenes. So all in all...still a good book.
I didn't like this that much as a book, and I actively disliked it as the end of a trilogy. I can't imagine reading this in 1997 when it was first published and people didn't know there would be 13 more Elderlings books.
I could excuse the long journeying and meandering, and lack of important characters for large chunks of it, but the conclusion is just so unsatisfying for me. I thought the big reveal about what the point of the quest was, was silly. I was like
“The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master.”
I have finished Green Bone Saga. I am very sad it is over, but what a journey. The trilogy is beyond impressive. Each book is very different and I don't think anybody could predict where book 3 would be going from book 1. There is not one thing that happens in Jade Legacy that I would have guessed at the end of Jade War. The sheer scope, the imagination, the bold choices of where to focus and how to use the alloted page count, the themes it is dealing with, the expert characterizations. There is not one storyline that does not pay off, no matter how tangential. I think the series is better than the sum of its parts, but I think each part is fantastic itself. I am in love with all of it.
I'm unsure yet if JL hit the high heights of my all time favorites, but I was constantly impressed and along for the ride. The book made me cry 3 times, which is a lot. Everyone compares this series to the Godfather but I thought even starting with book 1 it was more like The Wire, and the thing Jade Legacy reminds me most of is the scope and ambition and themes of The Wire, even if they have different goals by the end.
The series is presented as action heavy with the kung-fu tag, but this can easily give people the wrong idea as it is much more a family and political drama. The restraint for when to employ fights is incredible; Fonda Lee makes every action sequence important.
There are books that come around that just shake things up, that take the genre in a different direction. I imagine the people who were reading Tolkien, Jordan or Hobb, who were reading La Guin, Martin or Rothfuss right when they first came out, knew that something special was in the making. Those are some hefty names, and we are never getting another Tolkien or Martin, but I really believe that in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, people will be releasing incredible fantasy books and citing Fonda Lee as their biggest influence. I have read a classic in the making.
This is truly one of the most impressive books in one of the most impressive trilogies I've read.
Crown Conspiracy- 3.25 stars
Avempartha- 3 stars
This book is fine. I'm told they get better and I will be continuing, but from this bindup alone I genuinely do not understand the praise. Not enough focus on Royce and Hadrian and a whole lot of convenient plot threads and villain monologues and info dumps.
9/10 or 4.5/5 for those who insist on stars.
This book is still really good. The ending is excellent. The melancholy is well done. The writing is still moving and evocative. But it's my least favorite due to some plot decisions that I just didn't love. I still highly recommend this trilogy and it is now my go-to recommendation for people who like fantasy to try historical fiction.
This book was determined to be a 4 star until the last 30 pages or so. So it gets 4.5.
Hunger of the Gods was my most anticipated book of the year, after absolutely loving Shadow of the Gods last year. I was so psyched to get an ARC of it, and it bounced right to the top of my TBR.
And it is really good. We got even more in depth worldbuilding, more time with the characters I loved in SotG, the mythology of the first book is expanded. Gwynne remains excellent at writing combat, and developing characters that you root for. Gwynne added two new POVs that gave us perspective on the villains and this added a lot to the brewing conflict. The ending of this book was incredible, even better than book 1!
Unfortunately, this book did feel like a step down to me from SotG. It felt very much like a middle book. Tons of traveling, doing a task, travelling, doing a task. At one point all of the POVs are travelling at the same time to different places and I'm like this is ludacrious haha. Also, there is so many blood feuds in this book. You need a chart to keep track of all the people who have vowed to kill each other.
There are moments of this book I absolutely loved, and I really enjoy this world and these characters, so even a step down is still fantastic. I cannot wait for book three after that amazing ending.
9/10
