Pellert

Well, it’s a wrap. As a note, I have never read (or heard of..) the book, so show-watcher only. In general, loved this show immensely from ep 1-9. Final episode was also good, in one way, but at least personally for me, it lacked some depth and punch. To me, the whole undercurrent of the show is how big of a manipulator and puppetmaster Toranaga is, and then (and I think it’s mentioned by someone else earlier in the thread) the big reveal is a two-minute conversation about his masterplan… I kind of think I see what they are trying to do, and in some way it is quite clever (in the sense that simplicity sometimes can be quite forceful I guess), but at least for me personally it was not a home-run. I wouldn’t require a huge battle or long action-scenes, but at least spending more than 3-4% of the episode on it would be good (I also felt the turnaround to lady Ochiba was explained in a very superficial way, with some other parts also a bit underplayed..). I still rate it as a 5 out of 6 show without hesitating, but until the finale it was an undisputed 6/6 for me, so a bit of a let-down unfortunately. (but what do I know… )

This sounds like a f*cking stew of whatever you decide as your ingredients. That’s being said, Joe (‘s work) is absolutely amazing and based on previous work I definitely give him the “benefit of the doubt”. Reason for putting in it “ “ is that I maintain 110% trust that Joe knows fully that he is cooking a questionable stew, but is fully capable (and then some..) of turning into a delicious Michelin-worthy 10-course, with wine-pairing - so it’s not really a doubt at the end of the day..

Cool stuff, nice to hear that there are likeminded here I fully agree, there are for sure flaws, but the story, world building, characters, action etc is simply really good, and perfect (subjective..) classic fantasy with a modern twist and some uniqueness to not make it to “seen this, read that”. Ryan Cahill keeps a well updated writing progress on his webpage, latest projections is that fourth book is due probably early 2025! So much looking forward to it!

Thanks all, I’ll then definitely give it a go when I am done with 1.5 remaining Bakker books @Rhom - I also have on the agenda to ask more about Mark Lawrence, I think I read the Prince of Thorns some 10-15 years ago, but didn’t particularly liked and never continued. I can’t remember exactly why I didn’t like it anymore, so I have been considering to try it again - but that is for another thread at another point in the future

Can anyone pitch in if The Shattered Sea is worth a read? The First Law books (+ the standalones and Age of Madness) are one of my favourite reads, but I have so far been steering away from the Shattered Sea as it seems to be a bit YA. But planning my next read soon and thinking of giving it a go, but if it is very “young YA” I may be looking elsewhere, but if it’s something that also fits quiet well for “old YA” I would probably give it a go, a decent JA series is probably better than 99% of everything else..

Thanks! I knew of the mental illness to a certain degree, but not to the depth you described it here. Of course it is awful and I only wish Scott the best, regardless of what that is. The key point of my first point still stands though, but in view of your explanation it might come across as a bit harsh, so I’ll moderate it to that I then hope that at least the post is written “in honest and good faith at this point in time” that a release of ToE is upcoming in not too distant future.

Sorry in advance, I have not followed the development of Lynch’s writing updates/development in detail after RoT (I started reading some time after it was published). So barring that I may be naive, but if his post is anything else than a soft confirmation that the fourth book is to be confirmed in a very short time, or at the minimum that the writing is on track with a very firm timeline for completion and release, then I am honestly very disappointed and will loose faith in any author update in the future. Because to me this response is very straight forward and binary, either a) you have a genuine and real belief in releasing your book, or b) you are deliberately misguiding to play on the hunger for release to promote something else. Feel free to enlightened me/argue, please, but to me there is really no middle ground here. And for what it is worth, I am a huge fan of Lynch, and LoLL is one of my favourite books. Even if I think that 2&3 are not as great, to me the series as a whole stands out as one of the better ones in fantasy and I really look forward to the continuation and conclusion and I am 100% rooting for Lynch to finish (at his own speed).

A very fair and good point. I will try to rephrase to what I actually tried to say I didn’t necessarily meant they needed bring it _all the way_ back to the “seriousness” of LotR, but there should be more of the seriousness that is in the Hobbit, and less of the silliness that is in the Hobbit, and they could still manage to keep a significantly lighter overall tone of the Hobbit than LotR, or as a bare minimum the silliness should be “less silly” and the actions scenes “less unrealistic”. Because it is still in the “Hobbit serious” sequences where the Hobbit are best in my opinion, so more of those please, and significantly less of / tone down on; Bombur being to fat, Lecolas flying upside down from a bat laying down Orcs, Legolas running upwards on falling rocks like it’s a video game, master of Oldtowns moustache twirling, silly fighting scenes in the goblin tunnels, less of Alfrid dressing like a woman and acting overly silly, silly fighting scenes on floating barrels in the river (it didn’t work in the goblin tunnels and doesn’t work here), and for the love of god - less giant testicles in the face of the Goblin King! it may have been a honest attempt to recreate the tone of the book as more of a child story, but alas it didn’t work. And oh; I have seen a lot of praise on how RoP depicts dwarfs and this being on of the only/better parts of the show. Unfortunately I disagree, I just see silly dwarfs that I don’t really take serious, neither characters nor their motivations/problems. But I acknowledge I may be the outcast here.

My two cents, trying to keep it brief; The LOTR movies are epics (as movies, not as 100% faithful filmatization of the books, despite I steep increase in the frequency of flaws between FotR/TT and especially TT/RotK) I very much agree with (how I interpreted) Ran that FotR is a masterpiece, TT is very close and RotK despite its many flaws is still a very good movie of an epic scale very seldom seen. The Hobbit(s) on the other hand, are much more lacking. What bothered me the most (there is much..) is the childish attempt of humour and overly exaggerated actions scenes and goofy characters. If they had managed to keep the “seriousness” of the LOTR I could have forgiven much more. But despite all of its flaws, the movies still managed to bring me back into middle earth with the setting and really feeling I was back into the universe, and that I am forever grateful for (yes they score some free points such as same actors carrying the movies, Howard Shore etc, but end result is the same). Rings of Power on the other hand, lacks (almost) everything. There is no epic scenes, no new stars born or excellent performances (some are better than others, but no-one is really shining IMO), no-one bringing a beloved character to life and level he/she deserves, no depth, no (good) plots, no anything. Basically all the show managed was a few good landscape shots. Same as with the Hobbit, if they at least managed to bring me back into the Tolkien Universe, I could have forgiven much, but I have no feeling whatsoever that I am Middle Earth, I feel like I am in a low-budget adaption of a 6th tier fantasy series. Don’t want to bring on a WoT discussion, but I have heard people claiming the TV show to be “a new turning of the wheel” and on a good day I can be inclined to accept that reluctantly, but with RoP I can’t even do that. I know I am harsh, but unfortunately this is how I feel about RoP. and Sean Bean is the King of Kings, no-one shall ever disagree with that.

Excellent series I must say, however I didn’t find it to be up there with the biggest epics (and that is not expected either, just saying). And just in case you are “new” to Abraham, I can recommend you next read to be the Long Price quartet, it’s a bit different but still a very good series from Abraham.

I’m not sure if this want intended to me specifically or not (if not just disregard) but at least for me I have already heard lots of positive stuff about the (full) series and when I have listed my favourite series, Bakker came up many times as something to check out. Obviously, who knows what I will feel in a book’s time (or two, or three, or four) but at least I am very confident in trying it out and see where it takes me, so far so good at least *fingers crossed*

Thanks all. Let’s see how it progress, for now at least I am very very content with how it has started and outlook going forward, but it’s still early days @Fragile Bird - yup, I just decided not to dig into those threads in fear of spoilers, seeing that I am only 30% into book 1 out of 6..

I am about 30% into “The Darkness That Comes Before” by R Scott Bakker. So far I am extremely stoked, and I think these books are right up my alley in terms of what I like (in very broad terms relatively classic fantasy setting with swords, magic, globals wars, political plotting and twists/surprises), even though I could have easily lived with it being a bit less dark/grim, but it’s not a showstopper, it’s just not a necessity for me. but I have to admit, I am getting a bit confused struggling to follow all names, places/kingdoms, factions (/Schools), plots/plans and how they are connected and “who is where” and so on. Can someone pitch in if this is normal for this and you just have to get used to the world and writing style and then it will fall into place by itself (I would say this is normal for most books I read, it takes some time to really get familiar with the world, but I seem to find that I am a bit more confused than normal in this series), or is this series “extra confusion” and require above-normal focus when reading?

Thanks, wasn’t planning anything out of order, just doublechecking I had the right order

Sorry, I am a bit in a rush, hoping to get some quick input. I am thinking to start on R. Scott Bakker this holiday, is there a particular reading order or one series/book that should be read before another? My assumption is to just start with tPoN and move on to tAE (pending that I like them), correct?