Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Foundryside

New trilogy by Robert Bennett Jackson

In!

I think I'm going to start this on the release day since I paid for the preorder.

The PO price is killing me. Oh well. I might start a bit later than Sept 3.

Silvana wrote: "The PO price is killing me. Oh well. I might start a bit later than Sept 3."

I hear ya. I'm using an audible credit which is how I justify the early purchase. That's how I use a lot of my credits.

I got this from NetGalley, so should probably join up

Good news! My friend gifted me a gift card so I could afford to preorder the book :D

Still going to start early Sept though, I am behind my BRs this month.

Scott, I think you mixed up the author's name. Jackson is his middle name, not the last :D

wonder if he's open for a Q&A....

^

Well, well, the Hugo nominated author of Divine Cities fame, Robert Jackson Bennet, has just agreed for a Q&A next month.

Come on guys, we need more buddies here!

Just waiting for my pre order to arrive so I can join this one!! :D

This started off slowly and is a bit YA in content but I'm starting to get into the story seven chapters in.

So excited for this one. All of my friends have given this great reviews!

The primary relationship sort of reminds me of Stormlight Archives with Lift and Wyndle with Sancia.

In

in

Just finished chapter 13. Now that was a great chapter.

(view spoiler)[
Great magic and battle scenes. Good tension.
(hide spoiler)]

Done with part one. I've fully bought in on the story and characters now. Although completely different stories the one aspect where this reminds me of the Divine Cities trilogy is the books take a while to get going but once they do their quite good. I think you need some patience through the first quarter of the book.

Also one of the things I loved about Divine Cities was it was all adult characters and I was expecting that with this. It isn't and has a YA feel. Once I've gotten over that I've enjoyed it more. There's nothing wrong with YA but there's so much of it out there and so little in terms of adult characters I was hoping he would stay with it. Nonetheless loving all the main characters in this now.

Scott wrote: "The primary relationship sort of reminds me of Stormlight Archives with Lift and Wyndle with Sancia."

I was about to drop in and say this. Just started and I can totally feel the vibe! :D

Scott wrote: "Just finished chapter 13. Now that was a great chapter.


Great magic and battle scenes. Good tension.
"

Absolutely loved the usage of magic in this book. Feels like reading a Sanderson book, and that's a praise from me! :)

Chapter 17

(view spoiler)[Whoa.. I knew something was up with Sancia. Why didn't think of human scrived though... interesting, very interesting! (hide spoiler)]

Dropped this too. Basically battle battle fight fight the whole way. A magic smart-mouthed key can only keep my interest for so long.

idiffer wrote: "Dropped this too. Basically battle battle fight fight the whole way. A magic smart-mouthed key can only keep my interest for so long."

too? who else dropped it? too bad. I'm really enjoying it! :)

I have just started - only two chapters in!

Petrik wrote: "Scott wrote: "The primary relationship sort of reminds me of Stormlight Archives with Lift and Wyndle with Sancia."

I was about to drop in and say this. Just started and I can totally feel the vib..."

Luckily Sancia isn't one-millionth as aggravating as Lift and Clef the same proportion to Wyndle's wimpiness.

I'm done. This got better and better as it went along. RBJ has a tendency to start really slow and gain momentum. I would say this was as good as the last Devine Cities books which IMO was the best of the series so that's a good sign. Looking forward to the rest of it.

@Petrik
I meant I also dropped another one of my BRs here - riftwar saga 1.

Real life (read: work) has interfered again and I could only start this weekend at the soonest. Anyone coming late as well? ;p

Good to know Bennet's fans in this thread like the book - seems like our likely high expectation paid off?

Silvana wrote: "Real life (read: work) has interfered again and I could only start this weekend at the soonest. Anyone coming late as well? ;p

Good to know Bennet's fans in this thread like the book - seems like ..."

It did but I think you may be annoyed with the YA feel at the start like I was and Sancia being a bit like Lift.

I have no idea who Lift is so I think that's good LOL

The YA feel... well, let's see about that, thanks for the warning though.

Silvana wrote: "I have no idea who Lift is so I think that's good LOL

The YA feel... well, let's see about that, thanks for the warning though."

Sorry, I have a tendency to think everybody has read Stormlight Archives at this point.

Scott wrote: "Silvana wrote: "I have no idea who Lift is so I think that's good LOL

The YA feel... well, let's see about that, thanks for the warning though."

Sorry, I have a tendency to think everybody has re..."

She disliked Stormlight, Scott! xD Anyway, I just finished it a few hours ago. I absollutely loved it. It's like a combination of all Sanderson works in one but like you said, without the annoyance of Lift behavior xD

Silvana wrote: "Real life (read: work) has interfered again and I could only start this weekend at the soonest. Anyone coming late as well? ;p..."

I will be. I found out this morning that I won a giveaway for this book so I'll be reading it whenever it arrives in the post which won't be until the end of this week at the very earliest I would imagine.

Petrik wrote: "She disliked Stormlight, Scott! xD Anyway, I just finished it a few hours ago. I absollutely loved it. It's like a combination of all Sanderson works in one but like you said, without the annoyance of Lift behavior xD"

Yes you're right I remember that now. While next to Malazan SA is my favorite series I can see why people wouldn't like it.

Glad you loved this. It was definitely very good after the slow start.

Scott wrote: "Petrik wrote: "She disliked Stormlight, Scott! xD Anyway, I just finished it a few hours ago. I absollutely loved it. It's like a combination of all Sanderson works in one but like you said, withou..."

Yeah, there were a few info dump in the beginning but other than that I was thoroughly entertained!

I'm pretty sure that Malazan and TSA will duke it out for my absolute favorite spot soon. Right now Malazan is sitting at my #3 spot just under TSA and TFATF xD Anyway, back to Reaper's Gale!

Petrik wrote: "I'm pretty sure that Malazan and TSA will duke it out for my absolute favorite spot soon. Right now Malazan is sitting at my #3 spot just under TSA and TFATF xD Anyway, back to Reaper's Gale!."

I didn't know you were a, The Fast and the Furious, fan. :)

I gave up on TFATF after Malice. It just didn't resonate me with. I thought it was OK at best and other than Corban I really didn't like a lot of the characters. I did do it on audio and the narrator didn't do the book any favors so I may return to it at some point but with a TBR still overflowing it won't be for a long time.

Scott wrote: "Petrik wrote: "I'm pretty sure that Malazan and TSA will duke it out for my absolute favorite spot soon. Right now Malazan is sitting at my #3 spot just under TSA and TFATF xD Anyway, back to Reape..."

Bahahahahaha goddammit, The Fast and the Furious. xD

Ahh that's too bad! I do get it though, the first book was more mixed received than the sequels and I know my friends have complained about the quality of the audio. I hope when you do get back to it, you'll find it working for you more. My suggestion is to give the series two book, I know some of my friend gave the first book 2 or 3 stars but had an upgrade in the second book to five stars. If the second book still doesn't work for you, just give up on the series. :)

Petrik wrote: "Ahh that's too bad! I do get it though, the first book was more mixed received than the sequels and I know my friends have complained about the quality of the audio. I hope when you do get back to it, you'll find it working for you more. My suggestion is to give the series two book, I know some of my friend gave the first book 2 or 3 stars but had an upgrade in the second book to five stars. If the second book still doesn't work for you, just give up on the series. :),..."

I eventually will. At this point I'm waiting for one of my libraries to own all 4 on Kindle.

The person I won my giveaway from can't post the book out until next week so it looks like I'll be getting to this later than I expected to. Probably not till around mid-month.

Started. 13 chapters done.

Its so hard to put down. This is excellent.

I am loving this book.

Good worldbuilding, engaging characters (except Gregor)
and hints of a large expansion of scope

Arkadeb wrote: "I am loving this book.

Good worldbuilding, engaging characters (except Gregor)
and hints of a large expansion of scope"

nice! I really loved it too! I thought Gregor was engaging as well though :D

Just started and now around 5%. I might be too sleepy to notice the explanation, but if (view spoiler)[Clef has been in the dark for ages unknown with nothing else, except for his ocean trip and meeting Sancia, then how could he know things? Like ocean, prison, guys, apartment, dirty, and so on? I guess he just came to be or created with all some knowledge/intelligence embedded? (hide spoiler)]

Petrik wrote: "Arkadeb wrote: "I am loving this book.

Good worldbuilding, engaging characters (except Gregor)
and hints of a large expansion of scope"

nice! I really loved it too! I thought Gregor was engaging..."

Well he became a lot more interesting towards the end.

Silvana wrote: "Just started and now around 5%. I might be too sleepy to notice the explanation, but if [spoilers removed]"

that will be answered later on in the story! :)

Good to know, thanks, Petrik!

37%

I do get the Sanderson vibe, kind of Mistborn magic - like with all these scrivened stuff. Thank goodness Sancia (view spoiler)[did not attend balls, meet some mean girls and fall in love (hide spoiler)]as of now so the YA aspect got reduced a bit.

I did not expect there would be so many action scenes, I felt almost overwhelmed at one time but the one in chapter 12 was crazy bloody and bloody crazy.

On what Scott was saying previously, I do miss the adult (female) characters in Divine Cities so I hope we have more of those later.

Still not sure whether I like the worldbuilding since it is definitely (view spoiler)[post apocalyptic fantasy with all these dead ancient civilization thing (hide spoiler)] but let's see.

I finally finished! Gosh it sure took a while.
I liked it overall especially since it has such strong final chapters. Indeed I was a bit disappointed with the choice of main character but Sancia was alright, at least she is not annoying.

The magic part was really intricate, so I guess this is what you call a hard fantasy.

I am still not too comfy with the world, as I said before but I trust Bennet will expand it and I could enjoy it better in the next installments.

So, my question is now do you guys still want to do a Q&A? It seems that we don't have many readers and most are finished and moved on to other reads anyway. I hate to see an empty Q&A thread.

Yay!! Glad you loved it. I'm pretty sure majority of reader gave it 4 or 5 stars.

I can't wait to see how Bennett will expand upon this series.

As for Q&A.. I don't think it's a good idea. Too few readers within this BR and seems like everyone has moved on already. :/

Yeah, I thought so too. Well, we could always do it for the next book :)

I've struggled to pick it up. Only a few chapters in...

Do you guys feel the romance part in this book kind of forced/too fast/awkward/out of nowhere?

I am of course talking about (view spoiler)[Sancia and Berenice. I appreciate the diversity part, but still. I would appreciate if the relationship grew along the series, more slow burn. Does Bennet feel since he is now writing New Adult/YA then he had to put it in? (hide spoiler)]

It seems that the more I think about this book, the more criticism I have.