There’s a trilogy I won’t name where the first book was pretty good, though extremely derivative of Avatar (the series). I finally checked out the 2nd book and sped through it, it was so good. It ended on a cliffhanger so I immediately checked out the 3rd book afterwards and…
…it’s so bad
ranting
I mean, it might be a good book as a standalone but it sucks ass as part of the series. It feels like the author completely ignored what the entire second book was about when she did the prep for this one. There’s a whole big Thing that is pivotal to the end of the second book and there’s zero mention of it in the third book. Book 2 is all about how Revolution Is Hard because of all the different people with different priorities and deep trauma you have to take into account also hey maybe monarchy is bad and book 3 treats that whole plotline like a throwaway, “fix it by throwing in a brand new big bad from an outside force, no further questions, everyone comes together now as one big happy family to fight back, also maybe a single person in charge is fine if they are a god”. After spending two books deeply embedded in a specific land and cultures, the majority of this book is just like “and then they went to this other place which is completely different!” which is fine, but early on the only POV character that ends up in the original place leaves to join the other MCs so we never see how the reconstruction and unification of the place we cared so much about progresses, just a quick snapshot at the beginning and the end and that’s it.
A character whose love interest breaks up with them in book 2 because they did a war crime gets together with someone else in book 3 without anyone ever telling the new love interest about said war crime, in fact nobody ever mentions it again after like the third chapter. In book 2, another character has a love interest who’s a character I don’t really remember from book 1 and that person is just gone in this book outside of a one-sentence mention. The protagonists make bad decision after bad decision, which also happened in book 2, but in book 2 you could see and understand why the characters were making bad decisions even if you knew they sucked. Here it’s like…just obviously terrible decisions for tactical reasons and they do it anyway because “we just gotta”???" Oh and there’s a culture that’s clearly supposed to be based off pre-Columbian civilizations and they speak…modern Portuguese. Which really stands out bc there is a decent amount of Yorùbá spoken in the series so it’s not like the author is unaware of pre-settler languages.
Is it a bad book if you read it on its own, other than that last bit idk, most of my criticisms are of it in context with book 1 and 2, especially since I went back-to-back with 2 and this one (first book was on hold so I couldn’t compare). Maybe book 2 is not a good followup to book 1 after all and I just don’t remember since it’s been literal years since I read the first book, but I did like it on its own at least (in fact, I think I might actually like it quite a bit more than book 1). In the acknowledgments she thanks one set of editors for the first two books and a different set for this one, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a stark and obvious difference. None of the emotional weight of the first 2 books matters here, it completely loses its resonance and none of the sacrifices made in book 2 matter at all. It feels like the author either wanted to write books 1 + 2 or books 1 + 3, but 1+2+3 don’t go together at all. In fact now that I’m done with 3 I might just headcanon that it and the cliffhanger ending of 2 don’t exist as part of this series.
tl;dr: trilogies were a mistake, though sometimes the middle piece is actually the best one.
I finished Gwen and Art are Not In Love the other night. Cute little YA gay romance. NOT a gay retelling of Arthur and Guinevere like i expected, but still good. Medieval ish and features the character Gwen being a totally useless lesbian, which i may have mentioned, but it really kept me reading until the plot finally kicked in.
Carnacki was losing me so hard I would choose not to read it even on break at work, so I returned it to the library and checked what else was available. What was available? The Mercy of Gods, apparently, so I’m working on that now. I’m not very far into The Expanse, but I did love what I have read, so I’m excited to see more from these authors
all I’m saying is i recommend book 2. a third book would’ve been nice but it’s fine that she didn’t write one because the ending of book 2 wraps things up nicely.*
*this sentence is untrue and based on my new headcanon that it was a duology
I recently read both volumes of The Night Eaters by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda. It’s a graphic novel trilogy (third book due out in April I think!) with gorgeous art, fun characters and world, and can be devoured (heh) in a single sitting. I don’t normally go for horror (and cw’s, there is SO MUCH body horror and gore) but it was worth it for this. Eagerly awaiting the third and final book…
: the Uprooted reread continues and WHY IS THIS BOOK SO CISHET
AUGH
NOVIK YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS
YOUR BOOKS BEFORE AND AFTER ARE BETTER THAN THIS
WHAT HAPPENED HERE
WHY???
ahem
They’re otherwise fun its just. A lot of weird cishet tropes contained within the protagonist and the guy she ends up with for absolutely no reason that arent reflected on the world around her
Her magic is all weird and feelings based but thats apparently Only Her (and a handful of others), the other witches have totally standard math/science expy magic which is genuinely neat, but also why is the juxtaposition between the main couple “methodical, clockwork, logical man” and “idealistic, natural, vibes-based woman”
Why did you do this Novik
What happened to you in 2015 that made you write these two characters
Im so confused
The thing that disappointed me more was like literally after she and the Science Mage hook up for the first time, she spends a moment staring out the tower window and realizing that actually they’re Not well suited for each other - they want different things in life in a way that makes this long-term incompatible. And yet they are still endgame? Make it make sense.
The logical man/vibes-based woman dichotomy is frustrating but a little buffered for me because as you mention other women practitioners practice this kind of thing too. But there’s a degree to which this comes across as “folk magic” because of her rural background as much as her gender. Le Guin I think does gendered magic pretty damn well in Earthsea - it being a matter of social mores and access that have shaped the dichotomy of how people practice
: i like it in theory and practice; making it a matter of class and social mores is more interesting to me in general
But in the context of it being the main, baffling pairing with the dichotomy, it stands out to me even with the background radiation of more equal practices and practitioners elsewhere
Leviathan Wakes has one of my all-time favorite horror sequences in literature (Around about chapter 32, give or take, and goes on for a bit after that), and goddamn is The Mercy of Gods living up to that level of mood setting. This is incredibly written, but also so painfully dour and miserable, I get why people were saying it needed a lot of CWs (I will not be stopping, I’m very excited to see where this all goes
Finished reading The Mercy of Gods last night. Fuck. Really really liked it. I loved the mysteries at play, and how the hints were dropped and how the answers were provided, I loved the characters, I loved the prose… Cannot wait for book 2, gonna have to pick up the novella next time I’m in a bookstore (Which will be soon, an author I like is gonna be at a signing event at one just down the street from me in like, two weeks!)
finished climbing that mountain that is Wind and Truth finally. I enjoyed it but man I don’t want to read another 1000+ page book for a while. that Animorphs re-read is looking more and more tempting.
I put some stuff from Rose’s 2024 book blog on my phone and earlier this week I listened through Jade City, really fun read.
So today I pressed play on the second book, been going about my day at work listening, I just went on here to post about how I’m cackling over chapter 13… When I look at my player and realize oh. I mislabeled the files and accidentally marked Jade Legacy as book 2 but this is book 3. I skipped over Jade War. I mean I thought it was interesting starting this book with such a massive time skip from book 1 and having so many big character events happen off screen. But they weren’t off screen I’m just foolish. What do I do now do I pause Jade Legacy and go press play on Jade War… Oops.
But I have to say Jade Legacy ch 13 “Hey kid, you know how we kill people who betray and dishonor us. Your dad was actually really nice and didn’t do that to your mom she cheated on him and he let her go live with her new boy. And then your dad died and years later we found out your mom had been pregnant with you so we went to get you and had to kill her because she wouldn’t let us have you. You understand it was very traitorous and dishonorable of her not to let us have you, we had to kill her but I made it quick she didn’t suffer. Your mom might’ve been a bad person but that doesn’t make you one you will learn from her mistakes and be stronger and better.” This owns.
: im so glad pirates of the caribbean was a trilogy :]