Juraj
Muuuuch better than the first book. I'm reading in chronological order so given that this is actually 8th book in the series it makes sense. I just hope the rest between book 1 and book 8 will be more similar to this than to Elric of Melniboné. I doubt it for the next two books at the very least, though.
The story is alright, prose is beautiful in the tokienesque fairy tale sense and characters actually weren't pissing me off 90% of the time with their behavior. I still have issue with the ending because Elric acts like honorable warrior for 98% of the book only to slaughter half a city for no reason at the end. Like wtf? Maybe other novels will explain his relationship with chaos more and make it make sense...
But this is what I expected when I heard all the praise for this series. Not post-modern garbage the first book was. Moorcock is also exploring philosophical ideas here but it doesn't ruin the flow of the story unlike in the first book.
Obe knihy som čítal za sebou a žiaľ, toto je jeden z tých prípadov, kedy sa prvotina vydarila viac.
Stále sú tu solídne príbehy, hlavne dve chaty a lysohlávky, no zvyšku čosi chýba. Možno viac sarkazmu/cynizmu charakteristického pre Peťovu tvorbu? Neviem to pomenovať. Mnohé z tých príbehov nie sú ani Peťove, takže to bude určite aj tým. Pri svojich príbehoch ponúka viac vnútorných myšlienok a vtipov, tie príbehy sú prepracovanejšie. Druhá polovica knihy (od Slavkovej chaty) ma však bavila.
Menej je niekedy viac možno by bolo lepšie, keby sa venoval menej príbehom, ktoré by lepšie rozvil. Hlavne tie zo základky ma moc nebavili (až na jeden), čo je pochopiteľné, keďže v nich chýbal sex a rock'n'roll. Drogy sa tam už ale mihli. Celkovo kniha pobavila, ale čakal som čosi o triedu vyššie.
Mimochodom, chválim ten nezvyčajný štýl stmavovania strán, ale večer pri lampe sa tie šedé tesne pred čiernou čítajú fakt blbo. Tam už malo byť písmo biele.
I picked this book up because everybody loved it. So I was curious even though the series is not yet finished.
It follows Emperor's Justice Sir Konrad Vonvalt and his small retinue as they travel through the empire and solve crimes. It's told through memoirs of his clerk Helena but the story is very much about Vonvalt himself and, as she often says, fall of the empire. This book is only setting it all up, though.
I was wondering what is so amazing about this book for 120 pages. Nothing was happening, mediocre mystery story that was progressing slowly. Then came the first quality spikes. Two scenes in span of two chapters (I think), one after another, where I couldn't breath, so tense the scenes were. I was finally hooked.
Then the book returned to its routine and then amazing scene again. Rinse and repeat basically until the end. To me it's very inconsistent. There are moments that are on the level of the best of the best authors and then there are whole chapters that are boring. There is one whole chapter dedicated to Vonvalt's opening speech in front of a jury. Like 15 pages of his monologue, going through the case he's been investigating. If you like TV shows Matlock you will enjoy this. I did not.
The good parts of this book are amazing. But for some uncomprehending reason Helena, the main character and Vonvalt's clerk, steps out of her character for one scene towards the end of the book, then back to herself, then behaves completely differently again. It's during the action sequence. I just couldn't understand why would she be written in such sloppy way in such crucial moment of the book. I suspect this comes from one of the first scenes Swan had written for the book and since then the character evolved but he did not adapt the scene sufficiently. That's entirely a guess, though.
Another thing that pissed me off is that the main villain was spared solely for the reason that he could be utilized in the sequel. Vonvalt had him but didn't kill him despite giving him judgment and punishment of death. He's also incredibly one dimensional religious zealot. Another disappointing thing.
And aside from that, what the hell is this?!
“(Knights) smashed bodily into [retracted] and his men. This was no arcane, elemental power drawn from ancient magickal tomes or siphoned off from the astral planes; it was naked force, raw, powerful and brutal. I found the effect enthralling. I felt as though I were at the centre of a storm, the thunder exploding through me, energising my blood as powerfully as any herbologist's concoction. I was filled with a bizarre urge to laugh, as though I had been overstimulated by excitement.”
Short horror story from central Bohemia during middle ages. It has thick atmosphere in the second half but I wish first half was paced faster. We get some basic info about the main character and his group of mercenaries. Some exposition is necessary but I just wanted to get to the good part while reading it.
Once the plot is set up the story finally starts to move and doesn't let up until the end. It feels like a cliché to say it but it had Berserk vibes. It's brutal at some places.
I do wish there was more at the end, though. It felt rushed, like one or two scenes were missing before the twist reveal. And after the twist is revealed there's a hard cut for the last paragraph which skips some time. I know what the author tried to do there but for me it was too abrupt. I didn't like it, you might. It's not the worst ending to a short story.
Author mentions that this was originally thought of as movie script and that something might be in the works. I hope so! This would work even better as atmospheric horror movie or a story in some horror anthology show. I don't think any exists, though... Lastly, I have to praise the author for getting the local names correctly including punctuation. Now that's rare!
Half way through I had to go lie in my bed and stare at nothing. It gave me existential crisis and depression. Masterpiece.
Every journalist should read this book. And everyone should read at least the second half of it.
He attacks left and right but unfortunately still isn't self-aware since in one chapter he criticizes Rachel Maddow and her insane Russiagate conspiracy and yet in the very next chapter interviews Noam Chomsky and they talk about other insane Trump conspiracies, I guess even more insane than Russiagate, without any self-awareness or a single critical thought.
Nevertheless, he did a great job summing up Russiagate, Iraq's WMD hysteria and even older conspiracies and how unimaginably poorly media handled them, how their corruption, stupidity and malice made the world half insane with hatred toward one another.
This started as a five star read. It was so refreshing after the bunch of grim dark novels with Malazan leading the way. Heartwarming even in its traditionality. I didn't mind the LOTR aspects as the story overall was more mature. I'm not a fan of Tolkien because LOTR is fairy tail for kids up to 12yo and no more. The genre has moved on but fans don't seem to.
This book appealed to me in that it has the same or similar tropes, hero's journey, high fantasy feeling but it's not afraid to go a bit darker (but not too dark) and down to earth.
But then came the middle part where the characters just keep traveling and traveling and it gets boring after a while. So one star down for that, I struggled until they met Loial.
And then there's the ending. I hated the TV show and its ending sucked. But it's what made me want to finally read the books. I intend to continue reading but it's a coin toss deciding which ending was worse. And I think the book looses.
Behavior of Perrin and Mat at the end didn't make sense. They just accepted vague absurd explanation of how the climax went without a second thought. Those two Dark One minions appeared out of nowhere and immediately were defeated despite being Dark One's closest servants? That's not how you write a novel! This was stupid and anticlimactic. Especially everything that Rand did (except teleporting and saving Fal Dara's army, that was cool). Another star down.
What a stunning ride. It's unbelievable but this series is only getting better. It took me long to finish this giant but not because I didn't want to read it. With these books it's like with the best wine you've ever tasted - you just can't drink it in three mouthfuls and be done with it. You savour the taste and enjoy all the 1200 pages (sips).
My third attempt to read Berserk. Since new chapter was just announced I think it's a good time to give it another try. I always stopped in Griffith's arc as I just don't give a damn about Guts's past and the flashbacks seemed endless. I'd much rather see what happens after the end of Guardians of Desire but skipping is unacceptable.
Edit after finishing main 4 books: Oh boy... I was so wrong... I will not be changing my review nor my rating for my own posterity as I find it hilarious right now. Rating may not actually change because I really did struggle with some of the book's parts but my opinion has changed very much. There is nothing comparable to this. This series is a masterpiece but you have to think and even search the Internet for some stuff. Similar to Malazan but oh so different. Even though I rated 3 out of 4 books with four stars and only Sword with five I find this series a masterpiece of fiction when put together. There is so much hiding within in the second, third, fifth, eighth, thirteenth layer!
This book pleasantly surprised me at first, I was ready to sing praise for it. I loved the first half! And then Severian met Agia and it became a filler for the entire rest of The Shadow. Don't expect much plot, entire book is full of worldbuilding and atmosphere which isn't my issue. Agia is. And how nonsensical the entire subplot was with plotholes that I doubt will ever be explained because they're logical ones.
It's sort of a mix of Malazan and The Witcher. Which is more than great set up as far as I'm concerned. Torturer shunned by everyone traveling alone, getting mixed up with politics and other people even if he doesn't want to. And it's written like Malazan where nothing is outright explained and there are words, things, animals we don't understand because it's happening hundreds of thousands of years in the future, after “Urth” fell. I loved some of the descriptions too. Like “sun has set” is described as the “west was lifted to cover the Sun”.
I see now that this is actually one novel split into four parts and were it to be released today it would have 1000+ pages and from what I can tell most of the latter half of The Shadow would be crossed out. I guess Wolfe needed to fill up the space somehow. It picks back up after the entire Agia debacle but abruptly ends in medias res. No wonder that books are bundled into two volumes. This wouldn't fly at all today and I have no idea how it could back in the 80's either.
I was promised a lot of foreshadowing and hidden things in the book that will be revealed on re-read. But if by that people mean Agia's subplot no thank you. I'm sure there will be something about Thecla and Dorcas and Vodalus of course. Which reminds how weird Severian's thoughts about women were, how easily he fell in love on first sight. I understand he grew up in what could be considered monastery but even then. He's too easy.
If you want to read this book after finishing the first trilogy thinking it will expand on the lore, before the surroundings change in the sequels, don't bother. Author pulls the rug under everything that happened in the last chapter saying the most revealing lore parts are to be dismissed completely... The rest is inconsequential. Read it after you're done with the rest and feel like visiting your friendly neighborhood annalist for a new tale.
There are slight spoilers for the first three main Black Company books as well as Port of Shadows below so beware!
I did not have big expectations from this story as when I was deciding whether to continue with Books of the South or jump to this mid-pre-side-whatever-quel no one was praising it as much as what I will call the main series. Nevertheless, I love the bare bone style of writing unique to Cook and Croaker is great main character.
However, it's sort of a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Croaker as “family man” and every scene with Beloved Shin. I laughed out loud more than with any other BC book I've read so far too. But what was the point? I don't want to hate on Cook because “how dares he write a book”. Not at all. I'm glad he's still writing and fully admit I'm relieving my frustration mostly because my expectations were different.
I wish the book mattered. It's written 20+ years after the series began, takes place between the first and second novel and there was certainly a lot of space to expand on the lore, flash out characters like some of the Taken, Captain, Elmo... (If you know you know...) But instead it takes place in one region, has a new Taken it completely focuses on, action is mostly off screen even during the climax of the story, and when it's time to wrap up, everything is magically forgotten, characters disappear and author leaves us to contemplate what was real and what not.
There's a side story that takes place during the time of The Domination that doesn't fit with the narrative from the main story and while I was reading it I was wondering how will this fit together at the end. Well... it doesn't! Narrator says in the last chapter that it was probably a made up story.
Had I read it after I finished the main series I probably would not be as disappointed because it would return me to the beginning, although only a little bit. But reading it after first three novels it feels like a waste of time. It's a fan fiction written by the creator of the series and cleverly set in the time between The Black Company and Shadows Linger, loosely wrapped by spell of amnesia so that it doesn't disturb the already written story.
My recommendation is to read this after the main series, maybe wait a bit, and when you feel like you want to read some more misadventures of Croaker and The Black Company pick this one up if you don't feel as re-read of main series is in order just yet. You will enjoy it a bit more that way and I think that's kind of what Cook was aiming for.
I heard there are two types of people. Those who prefer Dark Matter and those who prefer Recursion. I guess I'm in the second camp? But only barely.
As much as I liked Dark Matter I guessed the ending at the beginning and situations they got into were getting more and more ridiculous. But it was a thrill ride until the end even though now that I look back I consider the last third of it the weakest.
On the other hand Recursion was borderline between 3 and 4 stars until the last third where it got crazy and amazing. I guess it shows that if you have strong ending it counts for more than having strong core story and weak ending. The re-readability is also much higher than Dark Matter's as the story is about manipulating time.
First three acts (out of five) were kinda losing me. I also admit I wasn't in the headspace to read about deaths and time manipulation while going through a loss myself. Pacing is slower throughout most of the book which was actually welcomed because the situations MCs got into weren't as ridiculous even when they were mind/reality-bending.
Around 100 pages before the end one of the MCs made the dumbest thing I've read this year only for it to lead to the best scene I've read this year so far. So let's call it even. And the book did not let go from there until the end which solidified the 4 star rating.
There was also no cheating regarding page count with no
...sentences structured...
like...
this.
There are suppose to be some plot holes here. Can anyone tell me what they are? Slade says that he manipulated the timeline at the end to make Helena believe it's impossible to enter dead memory. So the interview with the convict who died was orchestrated by Slade to convince Helena. Which means it's not a plot hole. What else is there?
This is the part where on my first read I started struggling. Except for Nosferatu Zodd there is no epic fight and it's just Griffith's politicking and hinting at how he doesn't respect anyone who follows him.
Looks like anything by Brando gets a standalone physical release these days... Even if it's mediocre and would be better off in some non-cosmere novella collection.
Best of the three volumes. Art is better than the last chapter of Vol. 2, though I did prefer the original artist of Vol.1 and 2. Dialogues are somewhat improved. They're not as cringe anymore, except for Ais's inner thoughts. She's set up for a sequel which I will surely not touch.
Sometimes it's hard to review a collection of short stories. Some are great, others usually suck unless it's “the best of...” type of book. In this case, though, I have no issues rating it 2/5.
This is the first of five volumes of PKD's short stories going through his whole career and organized chronologically. So that means these are the earliest and I guess it shows. There wasn't a single great standout. Interestingly, I have a feeling that the quality went down the page count went up instead of other way around. The first bunch of stories were the most interesting. Or at least I wasn't so tired of their predictability and poor characterization.
The only stories that are worth a mention are Beyond Lies the Wub, The Gun and The Infinites.
All stories are from late 40's and early 50's and they really show their age. There's also a novelette hidden in the middle called Variable Man which was looking promising but as the story went on I was losing interest. Major theme of many of these is war. Given the time period they were written it makes sense.
I forced myself to read everything though by the end I was losing interest. PKD is one of my favorite authors and if Electric Sheep TV anthology is something to go by when it comes to his short fiction at least some interesting stories are waiting in the remaining volumes. But this one was just ok.
Ridiculous. As much as I enjoyed the previous two stories in the collection this one's a bridge too far. To assume everything would go exactly as planned is laughable.
Writing is solid but story is about cookie cutter redneck villain who goes crazy. Incredibly predictable and eye rolling, not to mention dumb.
For anyone with TDS this will be a nightmarish masterpiece, I guess. Media propaganda makes them think every pro-gun person is like Kellaway.
For normal people a big disappointment.
Merged review:
Curse me and my OCD for finishing this. Worst thing I've read since high school and college mandatory reads.
Looks like I finally found a LeGuin's book that's not overrated. About time.
I loved the overall narrative, the richness of the culture Genly is discovering and the slight alienness he experiences because while they are human... they are not quite human like him.
The “aliens” have amorphous gender but they are still people, humans left on icy planet and experimented on long time ago - they cycle through being man and woman once a month like a PMS, the rest of the time they are infertile and something in the middle. It is a fascinating idea and I'm glad the book was written in the 60's because today it would have several dozen preachy passages with LGBT metaphors and “THE MESSAGE” (read the word in Critical Drinker's voice for best effect). This way it was ideologically free and LeGuin simply went discovering what a culture like that would look like, which was, in a way, refreshing.
Two thirds of the book are spent in political match between two nations while Genly is trying to get at least one of them to enter Ekumen union of planets. He knows that if one agrees the rest will soon follow. But they don't believe or don't want to believe him for their own political sake. He came alone and while he looks weird to them and the spaceship is being analyzed he's still struggling against political forces that want to keep the power to themselves and fear joining galactic union would undermine their plans.
This part was good but not as good as the last third where Genly is forced to travel through icy plains with a native companion. I was quite surprised that this was the stuff I enjoyed the most. The bonding between them was the best part of the novel. I wouldn't say that LeGuin is in any way good with writing rich and complex characters but this part made me care about both of them.
I've rated only Wizard of Earthsea this high but this book was slightly better and it's not as highly praised as that one. So far Hainish Cycle was improving with (almost) every book and I hope this keeps going. LeGuin will never be among my favorite authors but at least I'm finally starting to understand why she is for many other people.
P.S.: China Miéville wrote introduction to this and it just solidified my opinion that I wouldn't enjoy his work. He doesn't understand Heinlein's ‘The door dilated' metaphor and misunderstands that LeGuin used masculine language for pregnant ‘king' because we have no other way to address a ruler that is most of the time sexless eunuch and turns into one of the sexes only for a day each month.
Everything bad from Volume 1 applies here too but Khriss is now insufferable in the first half of this volume (at least gets better later), Kenton is just visiting one place after another and the worst character in whole Cosmere is probably introduced further here - Ais. I have Warbreaker flashbacks. The saving grace of this series was the art but the last chapter was for some reason drawn by another artist and the quality in comparison looks like child doodles.
Tower of Babylon - 4/5
The ending made it worth the read. Loved the twist.
Understand - 5/5
Best short story in this collection, hands down. Page turner I couldn't stop reading.
Division by Zero - 2/5
Here's the first stinker. Chiang tries to create a cosmic horror by math breakthrough but it's ridiculous and changes nothing about the reality of the universe.
Story of Your Life - 4/5
My all time favorite movie is based on this but I had a feeling that the short story would come short compared to it and I was right. Still solid and enjoyable.
Seventy-two Letters - 3/5
Weird one. Feel like a novel set in this world would fare better.
The Evolution of Human Science - 1/5
Thank god it's three pages long. You know, for fiction to be good it needs to make internal sense. The world author creates can't be a mix of garbled nonsense, there has to logic to it. There's none here.
Hell is the Absence of God - 2/5
Am I suppose to sympathize with a jealous prick that sends angels to kill and mutilate people as side effect to miracles and brainwashes some of them? Cuz the best part of this story was description of fallen angels - freedom and independence.
Liking What You See: A documentary - 1/5
I almost never give out one star ratings but I really struggled with this one and if it wasn't the last one in the book I'd probably just skip it. Not only is it dry and slow but it also goes against all of my moral and ethical principles. At the same time I feel like after wokists are done with racism and sexism they could very easily go for “lookism” in our real world as well. The issue is that author is biased towards this and actually states in his story note that he wants this to be a thing.
On one hand I admit that it really didn't feel like Kelsier's story was done after the first book and I was kind of expecting some hints in later novels.
But this is it? This feels like a fan fiction written by the author himself! It completely reveals all the secrets about the Mistborn series and Scadriel in general. I would've prefered to be kept in the dark or at least to think that all of this was the work of Preservation and not Kelsier's.
The Cosmere connections I liked but gutting the original story and “revealing” that all those things Preservation supposedly had done were actually done by Kelsier broke all the magic and mysticism of the series.
I wanted to know more and if the story focused more on the elder ones (or whatever they're called), other travellers and the actual secrets of Cosmere I would've loved this novella. But it doesn't. Instead it focuses on the trilogy and reveals that every important act done to further the plot was actually done in secret by Kelsier and not by Preservation.
And so I can't accept it. I don't want to accept it because it ruins otherwise great and supremely original story and degrades it to the mediocre levels. Maybe I just pictured everything better in my head and this book shattered my image and now I can't accept the mediocrity of it.
However, I admit it got better towards the end but even that's mostly because Vin is probably my favourite female lead character.
Still, though, I wish I've never read this novella.
If Mistborn was a videogame, this novella would be infinite ammo and life cheats :/
This started so good. New clans, new powers, new world was shown to Lindon. However, as the story went it started to drag.
Don't get me wrong, I loved every second Eithan was on the screen, but 5 clans alliance kept being mentioned and we only saw two of them with third one mentioned here and there. Will is definitely keeping stuff to be revealed in sequels and I didn't like that he sort of artificially inhibited the world building third of the way through.
I don't mind Lindon stopping by to train, to reach new levels, but it's like stopping the flow by putting the cork back in the bottle.
I'm much more persuaded that this series has huge potential than I was while reading Unsouled which really now feels like a prologue and nothing else. It's sort of Naruto for adults and I'm now here for it because it started going in its own direction. Only I fear the series is struggling from the same thing as many mangas do - artificially prolonging the story development for the sake of profit but... I guess this is the perfect moment to mention that I got almost the entire series along with the rest of Will's books for free on Kindle. So no harm there :) Kudos to Will for doing this, it's almost unheard of but he got a new fan.
Once I catch up I'm definitely buying the last book, I don't see how this can go wrong from here. I just can't give it 5/5 for the lack of progress in the second half of this book.
Lindon is in a lot of troubles by the end of this book and one thing that frustrates me is that I read descriptions of sequels and this stuff doesn't seem to be resolved in book 3. :/
P.S.: If Eithan turns out to be even remotely like Ardyn Izunia from Final Fantasy XV he's going to be one of my favorite villains. He's not a villain yet, don't even know if he becomes one. But he has the same “joker” persona vibes as Ardyn and I'm all here for it!
Under the guise of man-beasts there's a story of order and chaos and of what makes us human. About the animalistic nature and rising above it. I saw Moreau as a god, similar to the one from old testament. He's a creator but also a vengeful spirit who is not afraid to cause pain and suffering. And without him chaos ensues. I'm not a believer but I do believe that society as a whole needs to have something (spiritual) above it in order to function well.
It's a great theme and I guess for its time the novel explored it well enough to become a classic but in today's age it doesn't hold a candle to more modern variations on this theme. I find myself liking the old writing style more and more lately but even that did not make me feel fond of this book above what I expected.