re: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Recommendation & Discussion Thread

Yeah it’s Blood of Elves. I’m about 75% through it. It’s just a slog.

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Murderbot Diaries is very good.

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I enjoyed the first 3, will be listening to the rest soon. It's fast paced and easy to follow.

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Finished Expeditionary force series after seeing it suggested on here. After 16 books I thought it would end but there will be 2 more it seems. Was very entertaining. Not sure what do read next as it's been about 3 months of the same series

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I just finished book 15. Gotta wait a week for my next audible credit to get the last one. I have very much enjoyed it. Skippy is Awesomely an a-hole that I actually wouldn't mind having around.

Empire Of The Vampire

It's sort of dystopian space opera. Definitely not "hard scifi," but there's no "magic" or fantasy elements of that nature in it.

I told a buddy if he'd read The First Law trilogy I would read this. Everyone on here seems to talk good about it too,

Finished Red Rising and I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed. I hear that this is the worst of the series but it was so hyped up I was still expecting a little better.

I realize a new author is going to have flaws and I'm sure he gets better, but it was kind of hard to read at times and he had cliche lines throughout. Also quite a bit of plat armor going on there for Darrow. He's not every good at writing fight scenes as well.

Going to keep going on with the series though since pretty much everyone says it gets much better. The framework for a good story is there.

A few minor spoilers/complaints....




***spoilers***

Darrow is too perfect. I mean the guy can do no wrong. He's just perfect at everything and everything comes waaaay too easy for him. I mean a horse could be riding at him full speed and he just throws a punch and the horse falls and he's out. Three guys come at him, three punches and their out.. He's left without a scratch throughout the whole book.

Except for the dumbest part of the book. He needs to punish Tactus for attempted rape, so the way he gains everybody's respect/gets people to follow him is by... taking the lashes himself. Tactus attempts to rape someon, Darrow takes a beating for it, everyone is so impressed by it that now they all follow him without even being marked as slaves. Makes no sense. Was seriously rolling my eyes at that part. And when after a fight, he pats a few slaves on the back and drops a "they'll remember that pat on the back for the rest of their lives." Come on dude, get over yourself.

The Jackal was definitely disappointing. Half the book builds up to a showdown with the Jackal and all the repercussions that would come if he goes against him and all wo get is Darrow pinning him to a table with a knife and then him escaping only for Mustang to bring him back naked and tied up. Boom, it's over, he wins. Pretty big let down.






***end spoilers***

Don't want to sound like I hated it, I still liked it, but it was definitely had some parts that were pretty dumb and cheesy.

Very Good

New stuff seems to be getting few and far between.

Amazon is almost comical with all of the author names like "First Defier" and "Vowron Prime". The rest is about 8/10 female authors and the subject matter tends to seesaw between thinly veiled social commentary or video game jibber-jabber. A lot of the better new writers from a few years ago have been on radio silence for a while now. Covid damage, I guess.

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Starting book 2 now. Tried to listen to the audible with RR to maybe knock it out a little faster but wasn't a fan of the narrator. Am I alone in that or is he typically considered pretty good?

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You are absolutely alone. If you don't like Tim Gerard Reynolds, then you don't have a soul.

But seriously, everyone does love him.