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Book of the Ancestor trilogy by Mark Lawrence {spoiler thread}


AncalagonTheBlack

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3 hours ago, Contrarius+ said:

That may be because men in romance novels are usually portrayed in extremely flattering terms already. ;-)

Seriously? I very rarely say this, but seriously, dude -- if you actually believe this, just go away. As someone else mentioned, Gor is probably the series for you.

Since when does most fantasy depict "otherwise normal" men, much less women?

He could also try Goodkind or Vox Day. Maybe some Ringo?

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40 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

But what do you really think?

Did you notice one of them called Bakker's writing "misandrist" in the other AMA? That was a new one...

Hahahah, hahah.

Oh my GOD.

I just literally sat here laughing my ASS off for a good 5 mins.

Truly the word has gone mad.

Also, where's Lyanna when we need her, she would love this.

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2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

He could also try Goodkind or Vox Day. Maybe some Ringo?

Hey -- for an author who's actually not terrible, maybe Charles Gannon. I've only read one of his books, but it was okay -- but with a very pronounced male gaze. SF, though, not fantasy.

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35 minutes ago, Contrarius+ said:

Hey -- for an author who's actually not terrible, maybe Charles Gannon. I've only read one of his books, but it was okay -- but with a very pronounced male gaze. SF, though, not fantasy.

No, he doesn't have enough respect from me at this point for me to rec good things.

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Just bought this on Kindle. I'll read it after Expanse, unless I need a break in between. I don't care about the female characters, all of Lawrence's stuff has been good. If, it is a bit tedious the first book, I'd still give the second a go. To me, from reviews I've read, it seems to be more of a pure set-up book to the rest of the series, just my opinion. But, Red Sister, well, that just sounds badass.

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It's actually getting really good reviews on GR(which ok yeah its GR). I haven't seen any one complain about a female main character outside of this thread. I'd be reading it now but I Had nothing to read monday so I started Rendezvous with Rama finally after like 20 years and I never read more than one book and I never drop a book unless its complete shit.

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I write stuff with action girls all the time be they cowgirls with guns in Cthulhu Apocalypse or deranged Harley Quinn types or female Space Marines. But keeping this to Mark Lawrence: he's already written an underused but awesome Norse shamaness and a zombie necromancer sexpot who participate in his story's action beats.

In the case of the Red Sisters, the world they're in kind of reminds me of Warhammer 40K except Medieval. Which would be a funny joke (i.e. "Like Warhammer") if not for the fact its the Sisters of Battle which it reminds me of. I will say I appreciate the handling of combat for women in the book, though.

Which is to say it's nasty, brutal, and violent as it is for men. No hand-holding here which makes the sacrifices here feel stronger.

Oh and Rob J. Hayes books will be back up in Kindle in a month--they're down because of his termination with Ragnarok Publications. I recently terminated my contract with them too.

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20 hours ago, red snow said:

.

 

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Yeah, because Jorg massacring an entire band of outlaws by himself, as a teenager, was soooo realistic. Ditto half the shit that Jorg does, now that I think of it. Ditto literally everything about William's character. Ditto Snorri for that matter.

Reading the rest of your post, I assume you're talking about Monza, and the question I'll put back to you is, why not? Does the fencing style of swordsmanship that the Union employs require some mass of upper body strength that I'm not aware of? Because the reaction to Gorst's style in the original trilogy seems to me to indicate that this style of dueling is traditionally more about speed and dexterity than raw physical power. Is Monza being a renowned killer any more unrealistic than half the shit that Logen does? The Feared broke people's shields by punching them, and we're supposed to believe Logen kills that thing just by flying into a berserker frenzy? Bull-shit.

Monza's martial abilities weren't even that exaggerated. She was more of a tactician and a leader than a fighter. The one straight up duel that we see her fight, she loses until Cosco comes in and helps her, IIRC.

I'll never understand how there is a specific subset of SFF fans that are okay with gods, aliens, demons, and magic, not to mention male fantasy heroes performing acts that are physically impossible, but throw a hissy fit every time a woman picks up a sword.

That's correct.  Monza's fighting skills are considerable, but they aren't extraordinary.  Her real strength is as a commander and ruler.

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8 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I'll never understand how there is a specific subset of SFF fans that are okay with gods, aliens, demons, and magic, not to mention male fantasy heroes performing acts that are physically impossible, but throw a hissy fit every time a woman picks up a sword.

So much this.

 

It's those girl cooties. They transcend all.

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36 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

It's like the people who complain about romance in any female written SFF but are perfectly ok with Rothfuss's 300 pages of ninja sex.

Well, that was just SEX, of course. The cooties only come into play where there's actual ROMANCE, doncha know.

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It's like Batman.

Most fans think if they had a billion dollars and a iron will to avoid being a playboy layabout, they could be Batman.

But girl heroes?

You can't project on them!

They're....weird....and mysterious!

So we must work against them being heroes because that shows dudes up!

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THE UNITED FEDERATION OF CHARLES' REVIEW:
http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/04/red-sister-review.html

"Friendship is, well, it’s caring for somebody more than you do yourself."
"Fool, that’s not friendship, that’s love."

-The Doctor and Zagreus, Zagreus audio drama

    Red Sister is the third series to come out by Mark Lawrence, who holds the position as the third most famous grimdark author alive after George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Indeed, he might be the second most famous since George R.R. Martin doesn't self-identity as that sort of author.

    His first series, The Broken Empire Trilogy, showed a Lelouch-esque boy genius destined to conquer the world like Alexander and prepared to sacrifice his soul in the process. The second, The Red Queen's War, followed the corrupt lothario Prince Jalan as he struggled to avoid doing the right thing as such always ended up being difficult. Both took place in the Hundred Kingdoms and were delightfully dark fantasy.

    Red Sister, by contrast, takes place in a new world called the Corridor. Much like the previous volumes, it is a Medieval fantasy world but eschews the post-apocalypse elements to take place in what appears to be a planet suffering an ice age. It stars Nona Grey, a young peasant girl who is sold to a slaver who sends her briefly to the fighting pits before she ends up "rescued" from the noose by the region's militant order of nuns.

    In the process, Nona, makes an enemy out of a serial killer pedophile as well as his extraordinarily rich father. As the words "serial killer pedophile" are used in this description, one should note this is not going to be a story with much in the way of moral ambiguity nor is the fact the protagonist a young girl a quality which makes it lighter fiction.

    Some people label this Young Adult fiction due to the protagonists age while others believe this is just dark fantasy which stars children. Honestly, I think it's both and note that as a teenager, I loved reading dark and horrible stuff. It's why the Hunger Games is good and its derivatives aren't. The Hunger Games was awful to its protagonists and that's what made it awesome.

    So is Red Sister any good?

    Oh definitely. I have some complaints but, overall, I think Nona is every bit as enjoyable as Mark Lawrence's other protagonists. She has her faults, not being nearly as smart as Jorg or as funny as Jalan, but she is tirelessly determined. In fact, Nona is aggressively ignorant of the way the world "should" work and refuses to change when people try to teach her otherwise. She just doubles down on her own self-made of honor and stabs anyone who violates it. Nieztsche may have a disciple in this world.

    Much of the book is devoted around the principle of what friendship really means. While this is a topic which seems more appropriate for a Saturday Morning Cartoon, Lawrence adults it up by making it clear this is about what real bonds are made of. Nona is willing to fight, die, and kill for her friends but expects them to hold to the same standard of companionship. It's a Band of Brothers-esque friendship with none of the twee despite the protagonists all being adolescents, with the exception of a few flash forwards to their adult days.

    The book also spends a good deal of time developing the world's magical system, which relies on the subject being from one of the world's four tribes that have occasionally inbred over the past millennium. Describing it is difficult but I'd say it's basically like someone merged Harry Potter's bloodlines with the Dark Side of the Force. Most Sisters use their fighting skills in a state of calm but Nona manages to master her powers by being in a state of perpetual barely contained fury.

    I liked the supporting cast as well with each of the young girls and their teachers having a strong well-defined personality. You could argue that some are "the rich one", "the royal one", and "the pious one." Also, I could spot which one of the sisters was going to turn traitor a mile away by their backstory but that didn't hurt things. I understood why Nona bonded so strongly to all the people she met and why they cared for her in return. Indeed, one of my favorite scenes is when I believed the otherwise corrupt clergy was willing to go to bat for her against a rich patron--just because she exposed how a person should be treated and briefly reminded them of their duties (as well as how much of a jackass their prosecutor was).

    I give credit for some really stellar action sequences. Mark Lawrence proves himself a master of sword-fighting, gore, and emotional content in the Bruce Lee sense. The Red Sisters really do master the titular words Sword and Sorcery. There's almost a dozen battles, both serious and otherwise, in the book and all of them are awesomely described.

    Are there flaws? A few.

    Despite being a nunnery devoted to teaching women how to be a cross between Red Sonja and Warhammer 40K's Sisters of Battle, the Convent of Sweet Mercy doesn't actually feel that different from a lot of Hogwarts-influenced fiction. It functions more as a boarding school for those who have the talent of magic versus a place of genuine silent contemplation for the glory of the local deity (The Ancestor). Indeed, Nona isn't devout in the slightest and gets away with heresy and blasphemy that would have gotten me a good beating in modern day Catholic school let alone ancient times.

    The next bit is difficult as I don't want to sound perverted but the book also is weirdly sexless. I'm aware the teenage young women are in a convent/fortress but it does seem a bit strange the subject of sexuality or attraction never comes up. When Harry Potter and company hit fourteen, they thought about it constantly because that was realistic. Nona never seems attracted to anyone nor do any of her fellow novices, which is conspicuous by its absence as they're surrounded by men (or women as a couple of characters' tastes may range). This brought me out of the story just a bit.

    The book also sometimes devotes a little too much to the training montages of Nona and her schooling. While that's arguably the point, the fantasy genre is so littered with magical schools and the students thereof, that it felt a little longer than they should have been. Patrick Rothfuss, at least, put blonde ninjas in his schooling of Kvothe to liven things up. I would have preferred a couple of more field trips into the Emperor's court or gladiator pits than classes where the professors try to poison you.

    Despite this, Red Sister is a great book and one I recommend for Mark Lawrence, grimdark, and YA fans alike. Some folk will dislike the book's central theme (friendship and what it means to have people you can trust) but I think it worked well. Nona is an excellent character and I'm interested in how she's going to develop in future books of the Ancestor series.

9/10

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9 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

THE UNITED FEDERATION OF CHARLES' REVIEW:
http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/04/red-sister-review.html

"Friendship is, well, it’s caring for somebody more than you do yourself."
"Fool, that’s not friendship, that’s love."

-The Doctor and Zagreus, Zagreus audio drama

    Red Sister is the third series to come out by Mark Lawrence, who holds the position as the third most famous grimdark author alive after George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Indeed, he might be the second most famous since George R.R. Martin doesn't self-identity as that sort of author.

    His first series, The Broken Empire Trilogy, showed a Lelouch-esque boy genius destined to conquer the world like Alexander and prepared to sacrifice his soul in the process. The second, The Red Queen's War, followed the corrupt lothario Prince Jalan as he struggled to avoid doing the right thing as such always ended up being difficult. Both took place in the Hundred Kingdoms and were delightfully dark fantasy.

    Red Sister, by contrast, takes place in a new world called the Corridor. Much like the previous volumes, it is a Medieval fantasy world but eschews the post-apocalypse elements to take place in what appears to be a planet suffering an ice age. It stars Nona Grey, a young peasant girl who is sold to a slaver who sends her briefly to the fighting pits before she ends up "rescued" from the noose by the region's militant order of nuns.

    In the process, Nona, makes an enemy out of a serial killer pedophile as well as his extraordinarily rich father. As the words "serial killer pedophile" are used in this description, one should note this is not going to be a story with much in the way of moral ambiguity nor is the fact the protagonist a young girl a quality which makes it lighter fiction.

    Some people label this Young Adult fiction due to the protagonists age while others believe this is just dark fantasy which stars children. Honestly, I think it's both and note that as a teenager, I loved reading dark and horrible stuff. It's why the Hunger Games is good and its derivatives aren't. The Hunger Games was awful to its protagonists and that's what made it awesome.

    So is Red Sister any good?

    Oh definitely. I have some complaints but, overall, I think Nona is every bit as enjoyable as Mark Lawrence's other protagonists. She has her faults, not being nearly as smart as Jorg or as funny as Jalan, but she is tirelessly determined. In fact, Nona is aggressively ignorant of the way the world "should" work and refuses to change when people try to teach her otherwise. She just doubles down on her own self-made of honor and stabs anyone who violates it. Nieztsche may have a disciple in this world.

    Much of the book is devoted around the principle of what friendship really means. While this is a topic which seems more appropriate for a Saturday Morning Cartoon, Lawrence adults it up by making it clear this is about what real bonds are made of. Nona is willing to fight, die, and kill for her friends but expects them to hold to the same standard of companionship. It's a Band of Brothers-esque friendship with none of the twee despite the protagonists all being adolescents, with the exception of a few flash forwards to their adult days.

    The book also spends a good deal of time developing the world's magical system, which relies on the subject being from one of the world's four tribes that have occasionally inbred over the past millennium. Describing it is difficult but I'd say it's basically like someone merged Harry Potter's bloodlines with the Dark Side of the Force. Most Sisters use their fighting skills in a state of calm but Nona manages to master her powers by being in a state of perpetual barely contained fury.

    I liked the supporting cast as well with each of the young girls and their teachers having a strong well-defined personality. You could argue that some are "the rich one", "the royal one", and "the pious one." Also, I could spot which one of the sisters was going to turn traitor a mile away by their backstory but that didn't hurt things. I understood why Nona bonded so strongly to all the people she met and why they cared for her in return. Indeed, one of my favorite scenes is when I believed the otherwise corrupt clergy was willing to go to bat for her against a rich patron--just because she exposed how a person should be treated and briefly reminded them of their duties (as well as how much of a jackass their prosecutor was).

    I give credit for some really stellar action sequences. Mark Lawrence proves himself a master of sword-fighting, gore, and emotional content in the Bruce Lee sense. The Red Sisters really do master the titular words Sword and Sorcery. There's almost a dozen battles, both serious and otherwise, in the book and all of them are awesomely described.

    Are there flaws? A few.

    Despite being a nunnery devoted to teaching women how to be a cross between Red Sonja and Warhammer 40K's Sisters of Battle, the Convent of Sweet Mercy doesn't actually feel that different from a lot of Hogwarts-influenced fiction. It functions more as a boarding school for those who have the talent of magic versus a place of genuine silent contemplation for the glory of the local deity (The Ancestor). Indeed, Nona isn't devout in the slightest and gets away with heresy and blasphemy that would have gotten me a good beating in modern day Catholic school let alone ancient times.

    The next bit is difficult as I don't want to sound perverted but the book also is weirdly sexless. I'm aware the teenage young women are in a convent/fortress but it does seem a bit strange the subject of sexuality or attraction never comes up. When Harry Potter and company hit fourteen, they thought about it constantly because that was realistic. Nona never seems attracted to anyone nor do any of her fellow novices, which is conspicuous by its absence as they're surrounded by men (or women as a couple of characters' tastes may range). This brought me out of the story just a bit.

    The book also sometimes devotes a little too much to the training montages of Nona and her schooling. While that's arguably the point, the fantasy genre is so littered with magical schools and the students thereof, that it felt a little longer than they should have been. Patrick Rothfuss, at least, put blonde ninjas in his schooling of Kvothe to liven things up. I would have preferred a couple of more field trips into the Emperor's court or gladiator pits than classes where the professors try to poison you.

    Despite this, Red Sister is a great book and one I recommend for Mark Lawrence, grimdark, and YA fans alike. Some folk will dislike the book's central theme (friendship and what it means to have people you can trust) but I think it worked well. Nona is an excellent character and I'm interested in how she's going to develop in future books of the Ancestor series.

9/10

Thanks for this.  I'll put it on my To Read list.

I share your admiration for The Hunger Games trilogy.  I thought Katniss was a really compelling protagonist, and considered it finished very strongly.  She was like Frodo at the end, completely broken by her experiences (as I think anyone would be in her position).

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18 hours ago, SeanF said:

Thanks for this.  I'll put it on my To Read list.

I share your admiration for The Hunger Games trilogy.  I thought Katniss was a really compelling protagonist, and considered it finished very strongly.  She was like Frodo at the end, completely broken by her experiences (as I think anyone would be in her position).

Oh yeah.

The cost of those books was brutal and it made it better.

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From the Tor.com review:

Quote

Think Harry Potter meets Blood Song..... framing the rest of the story like a much more exciting version of Kote’s narrative in The Kingkiller Chronicle.

Nobody likes change. At least, not at first. I myself—a keen admirer of Mark Lawrence since 2013—felt leery about this new world, these new characters. How, I asked myself, could Nona Grey’s tale possibly match up to those of her predecessors? Jorg Ancrath and Jalan Kendeth both leave behind big, bloody shoes to fill, after all.

Yes, fans of Lawrence’s writing will be accustomed to a very specific kind of protagonist: namely, a witty, self-centred young male. And when readers learned that the stars of Red Sister would be almost exclusively female, apprehension fluttered through a sizable portion of Lawrence’s fan base as they asked themselves: what if this decision to write an all-female cast was no more than a middle finger aimed directly at feminist critics of his other books? What if this new protagonist—this “Nona”– turned out to simply be a gender-flipped version of Jorg or Jalan—a pale imitation, rather than a unique individual?

It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.

I believe most of us were reassured, if not by Red Sister’s first line, then certainly by its second. I for one knew I HAD to read more about this woman—a bloody nun, no less—who is apparently so badass that it requires an entire army just to challenge her.

Like I said: nobody likes change. At least, not at first. But in this case, the switch in style, setting and substance from the Broken Empire to the Book of the Ancestor is perhaps the best thing Mark Lawrence has ever done.

 

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I'm a little surprised there's actually controversy to begin with.

I've always been fond of Mark Lawrence's female characters.

Katherine develops into a strong POV character
Miana was adorable and horrifying
Chel was an excellent female antagonist

I also love the only woman who can resist Jalan's questionable charms was the woman who'd usually be the love interest.

Yes, quite a bit of terrible stuff happens to them but that's true for the male characters too.

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