Hunter
I am always in awe of stories that I recognize I could never write. This is one of them. Characters have never made me feel so foolish. Here I am, a no sabo kid and this child, Ludo, is simply sucking up new languages at a record pace. I think Tolkien would have enjoyed this book due to the sheer amount of language talk.
7 Samurai is my favorite film, so having that weave throughout the book was a pleasant treat. Anything that continually glazes Kurosawa, I am all for.
There were a few chapters that could have been eliminated, those being the backstory on characters that did not matter. Felt a bit like the 60 page side story in the Count of Monte Cristo that served no point.
Fun fact this is my second favorite book by a female author. Frankenstein still reigns.
Contains spoilers
This is the third book in the Horus Hersey, which completes the required introductory trilogy before most people start to pick and choose what they find interesting. The conclusion was well executed and feels like a generally satisfactory ending even if you were to stop here. Of course, the central plot remains but the characters which we experienced these events through mostly wrap their stories.
Contains spoilers
Although the prose is perhaps a step down from Horus Rising, the story is just as engaging. I was also very impressed by how the story built itself to a satisfying conclusion from four different viewpoints.
However, Horus quickly falling to temptation and falling for the half-truths of the warp was disappointing. He went from good to bad in record time.
Summary:
Petronella Vivar, a remembrancer, seeks to document Horus. After taking a liking to her, the Warmaster agreed. She spends her time forming a powerful narrative of the primarch before he falls to chaos, killing her to stop her well-written tale from spreading.
Garviel Loken, Captain and member of Horus's advisor council, is still haunted by the events of the first book and his fellow comrade's corruption by chaos. He seeks further clarification on the events before discovering the plot of Erebus, First Chaplain of the World Bearers. Too late to stop Erebus, Loken can do nothing but attempt to hold true to his moral path doing all he can to save his beloved primarch.
Erebus challenges the Warmaster's pride publically forcing him to lead a mission himself to the moon of Davin. Upon the planet, they discover a ship where a chaos-infested marine wielding the weapon stolen from the first book strikes a blow on Horus. Even with his mighty ability the Warmaster quickly falls ill to the blow unable to heal.
Back on the ship Erebus convinces several members to take the quickly fading Horus back to Davin to receive a magical healing session from the witches. This is of course heresy but they agree. Loken is on a mission to recover the sword so he is unable to stop the other members of the advisory council.
Horus quickly succumbs to temptation when he is placed in the warp. He learns the truth that the emperor created them and that he had been taking the powers of the gods of the warp and seemingly placing them into the primarchs. Fulgrim attempts to save Horus in the warp by casting himself across the galaxy but it is to no avail.
For some reason, Horus does not murder Erebus even though he should be able to realize all this happened under his hand. Even if you agree with what Erebus showed you the scheming alone should cost his life.
As the powers of the warp slowly reveal themselves. A religion develops around the Emperor even though he strictly forbade it. The humans who are weary of the Astartes for good reason and through what seems to be a miracle survived an attack from the creature of the warp through faith in the Emperor.
This is annoying because when I exported this from Goodreads I cleaned up my library over there. Somehow I deleted my Monte Cristo review. Without my reviews, I am a mess.
This book while brilliant would have been better served by not being published in a newspaper and instead as a single volume. You could cut four hundred pages from this text and the book would be the better for it.
Beyond that I loved it. A modern book would not have the gall to punish Mercedes.
I wish good reads let us do half stars. It is a 3.5.
My brother bought this for me for Christmas with a note saying it would help me in my writing. I'm not sure that's what I took away from this book. The fables are fun but nothing eye opening.
The author is right that this is a book of questions but them being questions I have encountered before they don't have me reflecting very hard. I enjoyed the characters talking to each other in the epilogue.
The Tennis chapter bothered me because it is clear the wife doesn't like Tennis and we never dive into that and the questions at the end don't even bring that up as an issue.
The deadman bleed test was quite fun and probably my favorite of the fables.
The author is religious and has some fairly antiquated views of the world.
This felt much more in line with the tone of the show than the ATLA comics. The art is also much better for the most part.
I'm getting very sick of Korra losing fights for some dumb reason. Seriously can we stop nerfing her all the time it's bad writing. Korra loses to low level street thug part 90.
The beginning of the book really hammers you on the head with Korra being gay. I have no issue with that my issue is just how preachy it is. Once again poor writing. One example would have been sufficient to get the point across.
Fucking gag me. Korra loses more fights. They continue their tired trend of redeeming every villain. Hey you killed a bunch of people but all good you said you're sorry so house arrest it is!
I really love this universe and Korra is one of my favorite characters of all time but she deserves better.
Eh not my favorite comic so far. They return to the souther water tribe and everyone magically shows up? Come on let Katara and Sokka have there own story.
I loved this book until the final chapter. I would give this 3.5 stars but the app won't let me and it's not worthy of 4.
The whole story is learning to accept death and move on into the next phase of existence. Then the Manager comes in and resurrects the main character at the last second for no reason. It's cheap and it ruins the whole point of the story.
I feel books lately are trying to get cheap points for revealing that their character is actually gay. It's 2022 people who read books don't care about that. Just make your character gay no reason to have this whole slowly coming out thing.
I really am annoyed with the ending because this really was enjoyable until then. The writing is clean and concise.
Mei is a great character and an interesting way to approach grim reapers.
Amazing work here. I poured through this omnibus in a few days. Just addicting as I only needed a small pallet cleanse from the 2nd Omnibus.
A great conclusion to the story. I only had two story points that sort of happened off screen that bothered me.
I had a big issue with the art in the last quarter of the book. It looked like it was a whole new artist or something which really bothered me. The art was less “serious” and it took some impact away.
Also I had a mad crush on Anissa even during THAT scene. I actually thought it was (redacted)
I actually started this book in high school after seeing the author come on the daily show with Jon Stewart. At that time civil war history didn't interest me like it does now. A shame because I wish I had started this book fresh in the present. I finished up the last third today which I could have done them but I must have thought it dull.
Interesting that the author notes the screenplay for this book came first and only then did they develop this into a book. That's very cool.
The bit of reconstruction was the best part. Every time I read about how bad this era was it really captures the damage that was done when Lincoln was assassinated.
Andrew Jackson probably the worst president ever set back the country for centuries by allowing the democrats to run wild over the south.
Nakata steals the show here. I often found myself quickly reading through Kafka's journey just to get back to Nakata.
Surprised this isn't a movie.
Simply brilliant writing. This was my first official step into the 40k universe making the leap from YouTube lore videos. The Horus Heresy was always the most interesting (for the lore that could be developed) and so I gave the first book a go.
While I have heard good things I did not expect a level of writing that would knock nearly everything I've read away. Dan Abnett has a masterful command of prose and coupled with the oh-so-fun sci-fi fantasy playground that is the 40K universe he leads you through a brilliantly told tale.
The culture of the different legions is fascinating. Subtle hints at the future of the series are always fun as well as observing and learning new things about the universe along with the characters.
Sadly I had a sci-fi series idea that touched on many of these same topics. Even worse a portion of this book was nearly an exact idea I had for perhaps the third in my series. It is always odd to read a story that is so similar to the one floating around in your head.
I will continue the series but am a bit worried about the future prices of some of these books. It seems they go out of print and then get jacked up to hundreds of dollars. I refuse to read the digital copies.
I can respect how influential this book is and still not like it. 2.5 but Goodreads only has a 5 point scale which is dumb.
The Matrix basically ripped this whole thing off. Good on them but I also consider that movie much less creative now.
I really struggled to move through this it was as if my brains was caught in a fog. The details were hard for me to visualize. I wasn't sure who was speaking more than half the time.
Characters would just become he and she between scenes and I had no idea what was happening.
This book is a fever dream.
The first issue in this collection was so creative. All full page spreads and I loved how they did the credits like a movie.
Enjoyed that we got back to the main story here and away from any stupid tie in events. God I hate those.
Going from invincible to this you can really feel the difference between corporate comics and independent ones.
This is the best Nightwing story I've read in years! Heard a lot about how great this run has been by Tom Taylor so I finally got around to picking it up.
The story is small enough and I love that he's back in Bludhaven. The new villain is interesting and the art is great.
My issue is the sister they introduced. Stuff like that is always weak. No reason to always change up character histories.
I've always been a fan of his YouTube page so buying his book was an easy choice. Much prefer this over other YouTube merch which I never really have a need for.
This book was fun with some insightful musings. The Emerson chapter was a bit hard to slug through and it's at the beginning of the book which is always a dangerous combo.
This story really is picking up. We seem to be past all the stupid “I want to touch a boob” thing and onto a fun story.
I'm excited for the anime.
This book was a breeze to read through which I always appreciate. I find it to be the main indicator of a mastery of writing more often than not. If Arnold wrote this all by himself then I am even more impressed.
A lot of good wisdom to pull from these pages. This isn't bogged down like Jordan Petersons rules for life.
He really comes across as a thoughtful and considerate man who wants to help communities wherever they maybe. These tools seem universal and I would wager implementing even one will help your life. I'm happy with the time spent on this.
Memoirs are best when read by the author. The voice especially when it's one so famous lends itself to the authenticity of the piece.
Ken took much of the narration duties from Alex due to his cancer but their connection being so close and well known to the public it felt natural. Further with Ken being called the host of Jeopardy! now it is a natural transition.
I wish we would have got more focus on his life prior to Jeopardy! but that's okay.
The ending of the book was powerful and hearing Alex say goodbye and to have a good life really got to me. These parasocial relationships are so odd because I've seen and heard him for hundreds of hours and he will never know I existed.
Well I had a review and this stupid app crashed and deleted it. Should be 3.5 stars but this app sucks. The last third of the book made a bunch of dumb decisions and now I don't know if I want to go on with the series.
Stop sparing hitler.
The story that resolves the largest unanswered question of ATLA. What happened to Zuko's mother?
As far as a story goes it is much stronger than the first avatar comic which I believe is the promise. I still have character issues in comparison to the series here but overall it felt much more true to the show.
Azula would not be given this many chances nor would she be so easily defeated. Seriously I think they take her out in a few panels at least three times. She's arguably a top three fire bender in the world and a master of her special element and yet she's so easily bested?
Discovering his mother and being able to have a relationship with her is sweet but perhaps too so. It takes away much of the tragedy of Zuko and I think his character would be better without it. Just discovering her grave would have been a far more impactful moment.
I plan to read every presidential biography capped at one book per president. If the president reads their audiobook then that's the way I will consume it as is my general rule with biographies.
The book is a great insight into how Obama views his time in office and how he views himself. The book largely avoids his 2nd term perhaps because he achieved essentially nothing.
His god complex comes through quite a bit with almost nothing being his fault. A handful of times he will acknowledge that he was rude or short with someone or didn't prepare a staff member properly for the media.
He justifies starting new military action because the republicans did it before him. All while saying how much of a mess those unneeded conflicts were.
He avoids all his war crimes and drone strike policies while parading the moral authority of his presidency and America.
Nothing about the continued use of the patriot act.
Really this book is just more of a feel good story for neoliberals than a thoughtful look at one's time in office.