#117

It is. Basically, once Jonathan turns up itā€™s off.

Hope you enjoy it.

#118

Iā€™ve gotten further this time and itā€™s still doing nothing for me

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#119

Hmm, well Iā€™m past that and it definitely did improve it.

I mean I enjoyed the Pickwick Papers and sheā€™s captured it perfectly, but at the same time I do find old style writing less good than modern

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#120

Did a reread of the whole thing a couple of years ago, also prompted by discovering the podcasting community. I found I have better feelings about it after rereading than I did after the first read - probably because I did it in one go and didnā€™t have to wait 10 years (and a whole author) between finishing Crossroads of Twighlight and the end.

I will say though that on reread, starting Gathering Storm was massively jarring. Sandersonā€™s style is a lot different to Jordanā€™s on ways I hadnā€™t quite noticed the first time around. Took me about 250 pages to get used to the transition.

I also will confess to skipping a significant chunk of the Andorran succession bollocks too. Seemed to be there just to pad an already ridiculously long story out.

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#121

The brilliant and ridiculous ā€œGentlemen Bastardsā€ series is one that made me want to get back into reading fantasy again, then I read a Patrick Rothfuss one and remembered why I gave up.

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#122

Read those Broken Earth ones!

#123

will check them out definitely cheers, did she win a Hugo award or something recently?

#124

ā€¦4 years ago in fact

#125

She won a MacArthur genius grant recently though

#126

I think one for each volume in fact

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#127

Btw you might enjoy the Rogues anthology as a bunch of the stories are quite Gentlemen Bastards.

Equally, if you liked that style you could check out this

Itā€™s not as well written but it has a lot of that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser / guys playing D&D energy that Scott Lynch develops

#128

So on the subject of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell my feelings are summed up by this Instagram Post I made

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I really enjoyed the final 10-15 chapters and the world she crafts is amazing (if thereā€™s not already an RPG then there should be) but itā€™s just really frustrating watching your lead characters just fail to get anywhere over and over

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#129

On a run of excellent fantasy recently:
Rivers Solomon - The Deep
Kai Ashante Wilson - A Taste of Honey
ā€¦and a couple of chapters from finishing Ursula K Le Guinā€™s Annals of the Western Shore books and honestly they are up with her absolute best and I canā€™t understand why they arenā€™t more widely acclaimed as such (wouldnā€™t even be because of the YA tag, because Earthsea has that too and gets deserved praise)

#130

At a guess the literature is very contemporary-heavy now.

I feel like in the 80s most books we read as kids were classics, stuff that our parents likely read. Even in adult terms Agatha Christie was a standard as was Conan-Doyle.

Iā€™m not sure thatā€™s nearly as strong now. Unless your big books were also few (e.g. Tolkien) then you get reduced to just those that were big enough getting noted in lists.

Or could just be confirmation bias and bad memory from me :slightly_smiling_face:

#131

Halfway through Nalo Hopkinsonā€™s Brown Girl In the Ring and itā€™s excellent so far - Caribbean magic in a future run down Toronto.

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#132

Not sure if anyone on here is actually waiting on the third and final Kingkiller Chronicle book (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Manā€™s Fear) but Rothfuss has talked about the ā€˜timelineā€™ here

Fairly tragic to read. Seems like heā€™s completely lost in the pit of stress due to knowing how much expectation there is on him to produce the book. Not really the best frame of mind to be creating stuff in but then itā€™s also unclear if heā€™s still writing the book or just lost in an endless maze of tweaking the prose. Very much making think of Mavers and that Laā€™s album.

#133

https://m.facebook.com/RSPCA/photos/a.76251508046/10160697137863047/?type=3&ref=m_notif&notif_t=group_activity

Artax!

#134

Broken Earth trilogy was so good!!! Any other fans here?

6 Likes
#135

Yes loads of us.

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#136

Discovered this last night:

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I guess @ma0sm might be familiar with this but despite my best efforts to pack efficiently and logically to move to Australia I still had stuff spread around different boxes and I still canā€™t find things.

So this means I have two separate boxes with the few physical books Iā€™ve kept hold of for sentimental or non-ebook availability reasons. Anyway, last night I realised I have a copy of this book in each of those boxes. This is book 8 of a minor fantasy series

I recently found I also had the 2nd Omnibus of stories (books 4-6) but not the first omnibus which I was convinced I had. I also thought I had M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link (number 7) but also not that it seems. I definitely read them all back in the 80s/90s. I got a new 2nd hand copy of the first 3 in an omnibus via the internet so thatā€™s sorted.

But yeah, why do I have two of this book? Iā€™ve contacted the only friend I know who also read them and itā€™s not his.

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