Jonas
Unexpected read. I have to admit, I started this purely because of hearing him speak in the Audible preview and expected mostly some laughs. While I got those, a whole lot actually, I also gained some insight and respect to how he got where he's now, to reading out loud his own book. It feels partly a memoir, but mostly a helping hand to those who could use it.
Most things have been said in other books; sometimes better, sometimes worse. These are the strategies he uses consistently to grow himself in life: being curious, helping others, setting goals, breaking the normal, listening instead of speaking,... All tried and tested methods, and they simply work.
The ‘seven tools...' feel slapped on for sales.
Just: ‘Be useful, Shnitzel' would have been way better
Most epic fantasy readers will feel right at home. The setting felt very familiar, but the story was fresh enough so it didn't feel like a rehash. A healthy mix of Lord of the Rings (races & cameraderie), Wheel of Time (magic & fades) and Game of Thrones (Lots of moving POV's and Dragons, but the bond makes this interesting).
The writing is fluid, the only thing I noticed were some double descriptions of the same thing with only a few sentences apart, but these felt like minor inconveniences, they weren't breaking the experience.
All in all this felt like a safe, but strong starting point. I'm hoping the brakes will be removed for the continuation.
If you're coming in blind, this could be a great entry point. I came to the book as an app user, which is the wrong mindset for this book. This is more of a memoir than a practical guide, but it has some great references.
A lot of the content I've heard already (meditations and the app conversations, both highly recommended) and so it felt like an odd reread. Still, Sam makes great observations and I happily follow the weekly conversations in the app.
I liked the cover and the first part, but struggled to reach the end. Decided to push through because of the short length.
The magic system feels like a mix of Sanderson's Mistborn (90%: powers, obsidian weapon) and Warbreaker (or Brent Weeks's Lightbringer). Though I like these systems, and their limitations, it fell flat here. My biggest issues besides it feeling under-used:
- The push and pull not working on obsidian weapons feels obvious, as it did in Mistborn with the glass/wood weapons. Yet on multiple occassions, abilities are used directly on people (or their threads), so why not just push/pull on them instead of the weapon? Or the hilt/ cloth of however they wield it. This felt like an excuse for having a shiny magic item.
- The limitation to only work when someone's eyes aren't blocked. This seems to act like an on/off switch: you see anything (even in dim light) = full power, small blindfold = no power. I'd expect some kind of curve or strain since the eyes are a requirement for picking up Threadlight.
The writing and story is fine, yet not very memorable imo. Some frustrations:
- The Logen Ninefingers/Chrys likeness.- We're reminded a few times how the forest is dangerous because of the Chromawolves.. How are they not present when it goes up in flames?- "He could feel the threadlight in his chest, it was too much for his aged heart.Just before the world faded away, Pandan caught one final glimpse of Chrys at the edge of the Fairenwild.And smiled." Well, this reads as a death-scene for me (still does), especially since it was a one-off POV switch. So I felt cheated to find him alive, tortured heavily several times and still able to live for at least a couple of days. For a moment, I thought they switched him for a dupe so they could trick Willow, which would have been an unexpected twist. Alas, it didn't happen...
I feel my frustration growing in writing this review.. I won't continue this series.
This felt like it was written by someone very frustrated. There are some tidbits in here but nothing you can't find in other books or even blog posts, which would only enrage the author if he knew that. The worst thing, these tidbits are hidden in an elongated rant.
I gave it a realistic shot, but once I hit 10% I had to start skimming... skimming a book on how to read, oh the irony. I guess it just didn't age that well.
Good story, great dialogue, lots of progress, but not a full match for me.
I found the Deflecting, Steeling,... (any magic usage) to be very vague, it just wasn't popping any vivid images in my head. So I wasn't feeling fully immersed.
I'll continue it sometime later in the future, possibly it'll click then.
Weird what a year can do: last year I gave this 5 stars but now I had to change it to 2 stars. I'm quite puzzled by that myself. Because of another review, I started my reread with a skeptical vision and I'm sad to see the contents fall apart.
The techniques described here could help someone (hence one star) but most of these aren't born in NLP. A lot seems rehashed and stamped with a vague ‘common NLP term'. In most cases, other books do these techniques better.
Quotes which made me frown: “You're sure to find a payoff within your first hour”, “You really do have all the resources you could want or need. Isn't that great?” in reference to the first technique used in the book, “Because you've chosen to pick up this book, you've probably already done a lot of work on yourself”... Yeah, that's actually in there, page 18. I'm ashamed I read these the first time without any alarms triggering.
Since I gave this 5 stars once, I pushed myself to go through it all. I skimmed most after the third chapter but zoomed in on potential nuggets. What I found was a lot of rehashing of the same material and an occasional good point but none felt new or groundbreaking.
I did learn one thing (hence the other star): don't blindly trust your own opinion. If I come back to this next year, I will revisit my notes in my copy and be done in 5 minutes.
Slow burn and too similar to The Great Hunt for me.
I find it becoming problematic how some just seem to learn to use their powers/skills like it is nothing. Rand: Swordfighting (only some training and yet in fight scenes he flows from move to move seemingly), channeling and especially using Callandor; Moiraine and Balefire; Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne just get bumped up the ranks. Have they even had some training? ; Egwene and the dream realm, especially the moment she started locking people into dreams... That's just too overpowered to pick up because she saw someone use something similar... Perrin's and Mat's arc feel way more natural opposed to the others. For a series this long, I sure hope that gets straightened out somewhat.
Fun things: the dream world and Mat's luck
Strong ending of this era, but not as strong as I'd hoped. This book on its own is a 5 star book, but since it finishes up this era, I'm going to be harsher on it.
This story (from Alloy to Lost metal) felt like watching a juggler whose balls disappeared mid-juggle, only for other ones to show up instead. The ending was still strong because of the characters built over the stories, but I found it very lacking in all the ‘specials' that remained unused or sometimes overused. Especially if you compare this against the first era where most of this came together in a beautiful ending.
Alloy: This feels like the strongest of the bunch, effectively introducing the main characters and the magic/tech used. Shadows of Self: Very Kandra and Harmony driven. This shows Harmony's deep historic involvement.. yet also extremely shallow if you compare this to how both Ruin and Preservation could do a lot more in the first era, hard limits included and the two of them working against each other. I was just hoping for anything except some dialog and mostly restrictions to this supposedly very dangerous being. I loved the return of the Kandra, but except for MeLaan's involvement in Bands, this also felt rather underwhelming. Bands of Mourning: Reading Lost Metal and looking back at Bands, makes it almost feel like it didn't exist except for Harmonium. In 6 years, there has been no change in the relations with the Malwish. The medallions? Forgotten. And the Bands... My. Sure, a constant Deus ex machina effect isn't any fun, but this 'use'? He dedicated an entire book to this and then pulls the mat from under the table. Nope, sorry. Also, no progress into someone's involvement in it, who also seems very uninterested in it all). Lost Metal: Opens up a bigger part in the Cosmere, but also leaves more question marks. Which for me, only pulls attention from the cool characters that were already there. A few beloved characters returned, but not how they were. Emperor's Soul (one of my all-time favorites) was a short, but deep dive into the main character. While I was expecting Moonlight to be from the same planet, she didn't feel like ShaiLu. And don't get me started on Kelsier..I would have liked all these bigger involvements to show up way later, in its due time.Now it felt like an extravaganza of spices, where ordinary salt and pepper would have been enough. Too much and too soon.
Well, this became a longer rant than I expected. I just hope future works won't all become like this.
I really liked this format: document based, dialogue only and the gaps between everything. I expected this to be hard to keep track of but I was fully engaged with it. Secretly hoping there are some extra mysteries in between the files.
Only time is a bit hard to track. Having a timestamp on the documents would have been a nice addition but would also ensure a lot more backtracking.
The story and the characters felt fresh and realistic for a scifi. I think this could be a nice entry level read for those who want to go deeper in scifi.
I'll be continuing with the next one soon.
Some fun parts but it felt more political than fantastical. Not a great fit for me but I liked the twists, it had a few interesting ones in the short span.
The world felt a bit template fantasy setting. I think there were a lot of ideas here but they could use some more exploring.
There were also a lot of characters to keep track of. Some didn't really have a lot going for them which made it a jumble in my head.
I did find it annoying how many chapters ended with the character getting knocked out. It's a nice extra for some time skips but it was a bit overplayed here.
Maybe I'll check out the next one sometime but not soon.
Beta review: Great round-up of this trilogy.
The stakes are very high. The magic/technology gets bumped up once again with some very interesting fresh takes (yes more new things after the first 2 books).
I believe almost all questions were answered and there's a clear, bittersweet ending for the main cast. What's not to love?
Mostly got it for the awesome cover.
I can see why some like this but I wasn't really invested in the story or the characters. I think the quick-paced switching was a bad fit for me and I don't really know why this decision was made since the stories don't really intertwine. If I had to reread, I would read per character instead.
Also took some time to get to the ‘Oh, it's going to be this kind of story' moment and well actually had to wait for it three times (for each character).
Got the second one too but I will take a break on the series before starting this.
An unexpected gem for me. Sure, some parts are written in an older style but the overall atmosphere and the quality of the (sub)stories told here doesn't feel aged at all. It all felt really fresh too. Time has been used a lot in scifi and fantasy but I've never seen it used like this before.
Like I read in another comment: ‘it just ends'.. but there is a next one so I know where to head next.
Not the best story but a very worthwile experience, almost on par with GraphicAudio.
I recommend doing this fully with headphones, it really uses spatial cues which get lost with speakers.
I read in some other reviews that most get annoyed by the music between the chapters. I have to agree on that but it is a clear end of the chapter. A voice declaring “Chapter 2” would have broken the experience somewhat. Maybe a sort of short jingle would be enough instead.
I really hope to see more stories told in this format.
Quite a ride and exactly what I was expecting from “Texas Reckoners”.
Audiobook experience was on point, the only thing that could possibly make it better would be a Graphic Audio version.
The story was predictable on a few things but there were some new things which kept it fresh. Great villains, great tech (the Scorch Notes are awesome and I'm ripping this for my RPG sessions), Martha, and an interesting new cast with some familiars passing by.
I hope they add more of these side stories.
Beta review
Where I was expecting a close follow-up to Nolyn, this was actually a brand new cast with a serious time skip. Which is a good thing for me since I wasn't the biggest fan of Nolyn.
Some keywords to describe fun parts in the story: Tomb Raider, Sherlock and “It's a trap!”.
There's a few overlapping characters (we all know who) who get introduced rather fast and to the point. A lot more of the lore and history gets shown too, though a bit short in some parts but still a lot more than some of the other stories in the world.
A few other books in the series are better than this one but with some polishing I believe this one can be up top with those.
My personal score is 4/5 but for the ratings it deserves a 5/5.
I had a great time reading this addition to the world of Elan and I want to thank Robin and Michael for inviting me to the beta again. Cheers!
Fast paced action, memorable characters, katanas, and a coherent story. What more do you need?
Loved the introduction of each member individually, it's quite a big cast for a short story. It gives time to learn their convictions, open interactions with the others, and shows their weaknesses. The magic used is subtle but very visual, each effect with its individual flavor.
This is the first story I read from Hayes but I will be diving deeper in his other worlds.