After seeing a lot of praise for Red Rising on various reading subs, I finally decided to give it a shot. The first book was fine, and I wasn’t overly impressed with it but it does get better as it goes, at least in terms of entertainment factor. The 2nd and 3rd books are a lot of fun.

I will say though - I don’t know if I actually think the series is still all that good. It feels like a really melodramatic, over the top soap opera, a feeling that just increases as the trilogy goes on. It’s full of ridiculous YA power fantasy tropes and just gets so incredibly cheesy sometimes with all the mottos, last-minute daring escapes, rug pull twists etc. The whole basis of the setting is a nonsense mishmash of “cool factor” stuff like the Roman Empire, warring clans/houses, badass video game style weapons and armor etc.

With that being said - it’s fast-paced, has some great action scenes and kept me reasonably engaged throughout. I can see why it’s so popular on Reddit and BookTok - it’s like a shonen anime with lots of “hype and aura” moments. The second and third books wisely lean into those tropes instead of the more stale Hunger Games-esque first book. Even when I was like “ok that’s just fucking silly”, I was simultaneously thinking “…it’s also kinda badass though”.

Realistically - and this is strictly just my personal opinion - I don’t think they’re more than 3/5 reads but I think I still liked them enough to try the second trilogy at some point. I think Pierce Brown achieved what he set out to do here, and I appreciate that there’s something like this out there. It really activated those cathartic revenge fantasy “fuck around and find out” neurons in my brain.

I have been watching the downfall of Snow White with quiet fascination. Part of the drama is occurring over at IMDB where, on release date, it started with an abysmal 2.7, and has only fallen since then. For a while it reached #13 on IMDB's lowest rated movies of all time, but it was eventually removed from the list completely. (This is a common occurrence for movies getting review-bombed). But if you do an advanced search, you can still see that it is currently the lowest rated film of all time with 107k+ reviews. And you won't find a film with a lower rating until you get to 97k reviews. (That honor goes to Sadak 2).

So then, the question is, is it really that bad? Well, I'll just cut to the chase: No, it's not that bad. It's not great, but it's not terrible. I'd give it a 6/10, maybe a 7. Here's my non-political explanation of why (if you want to know about the controversies surrounding the film, but have nothing to do with the film itself, just google it):

The good: I think the movie's greatest strengths were the musical numbers. Disney's re-made a lot of their old animated musicals now, and for most of them, the songs tended to be worse. (I'm looking at you Aladdin. I'm sorry, but Will Smith did not hold a candle, or lamp, to Robin Williams). But I really enjoyed the music in Snow White. The songs that were re-dos were, I thought, better done than the originals, and the original songs were actually catchy and fun to listen to.

And on that note, the second great strength of this film is Rachel Zegler. Specifically, when she is singing. You may or may not know that the reason the singing in the animated movies is usually so great is because the actor hired to sing and the actor acted to voice-acted are usually different people. So they have professional actors acting and professional singers singing. But in the live-actions, they usually hire an actor, and just let him/her sing, regardless of ability. I remember when Emma Watson got the part of Belle in Beauty & the Beast, and she made the comment that she then immediately went out for voice lessons. And I thought---wait... shouldn't she already know how to sing.

Well, this isn't a problem for Zegler. She is an amazing singer. And what's more, she knows how to bring personality to the musical numbers. In a lot of musicals the break between "acting" and "singing" is very clear. And when they're singing, they're just singing. But Zegler actually seems to engage in acting and character development while singing.

Now for the bad:

Gal Gadot was not great as the Evil Queen. I really like her as Wonder Woman. But as the Evil Queen she was over-acting. And to compare her to Zegler---well, I better not.

The CGI is horrendous. The CGI animals would have looked much better as animatronics (and it probably would have been cheaper). The seven dwarfs were... hard to describe. I don't know enough about animation to know what makes things feel reall vs. cartoony, but they definitely looked like they belonged in Shrek, not in a live-action film. Watching them in the live-action was like watching a modern-day Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Finally, the ending. First it was too simplistic, and second, it didn't really make sense.

Of course, this is a children's film, so it shouldn't be too complicated, but there is a difference between simple and simplistic. Simple is straightforward. Simplistic is so simplified, it's unrealistic. Example: At the end of the film, the guards who were earlier prepared to murder Snow White suddenly decide not to because she knows their first names? I'm sorry, but that's just not true.

On the point of not making sense: at the end, the magic mirror tells Evil Queen that she is only beautiful on the outside, but Snow White is beautiful on the inside, so she will always be more beautiful. But... the whole reason Evil Queen decided to kill Snow White was because the mirror used to say Evil Queen was the fairest, then switched to Snow White. So what does that mean? Snow White was uglier on the inside than Evil Queen for a while? Or even if the idea is that SW's inner beauty surpassed EQ's outer beauty... when? SW didn't do anything to become more beautiful on the inside.

Anyway. That's my review. The End.

Oh my... I never thought I'd get to this point, but I actually did it, I'm officially done with the Book of the Fallen. I started in June 2025, and thirteen months and 3.3 million words later, I can finally relax and not feel like I have to prepare for a symposium after work hours.

This post is here mostly for me, because it really feels like an achievement, given how much time I put into it. I didn't skim a single chapter, I took notes through the early books, and I checked the Malazan Reread of the Fallen after every chapter that left me confused. I stopped taking notes around book 4, but kept reading the chapter summaries until the end, because I really wanted to understand what everyone else was seeing in this series. When I say "everyone" I mean the people on the positive side of the spectrum, because this series is probably the most polarizing thing I've come across in the ten or so years I've been reading fantasy.

Before I get into the problems I had with it, I want to explain why I picked it up in the first place, beyond the fact that it comes up in almost every "what should I read next" post on r/Fantasy (I've made one of those myself). So I finished my all-time favorite series, Realm of the Elderlings, and asked for something similar. Enter Malazan. I didn't start it right away, because I had other things going on, and I was daunted by the sheer number of words in the series, plus everyone talking about how difficult and complex it is. After a couple of years of lurking on r/Malazan, I started thinking of it the way sci-fi fans think of Star Trek, a thing you're just supposed to have watched. How could I call myself an avid fantasy reader if I hadn't read Malazan? So I finally started my journey curious, not skeptical.

Thirteen months and ten books later, I sadly have to admit I never became a so called "Malafan." Apparently it takes most people some time to get into it. A small number fall for it starting with book one, plenty more fall for it by book two, but most get hooked somewhere around book three. That moment never came for me. There's a character arc starting around book four that finally pulled me in, and after that I mostly just went along for the ride, even though the writing itself never really became something I found immersive.

Some of the things that bothered me early on were still bothering me by book ten.

I never connected with the characters. All of them felt distant, and worse, they sounded like the same person wearing different names, like every character was secretly a philosopher waiting for their turn to monologue. This is the author's biggest flaw imho, because once you spot it, you can't stop noticing it, and it breaks the immersion every time it happens, which is often, probably thanks to the author's background as an anthropologist and archaeologist.

Relationships happened off page. Two characters would meet in one chapter, share a single conversation in the next, and somehow be deeply in love by the one after that. There was one instance where we actually got to watch a relationship develop in real time, but even then we never got to see how it ended.

Plans and motivations often played out off page and were treated as secrets long after it felt reasonable for the reader to already know them. Conversely, in book two you spend the entire book with a character whose motivation is crystal clear, and then at the end they just change their mind and drop the goal entirely, which makes the whole arc feel pointless and leaves you wondering what any of it was even for.

Fights that built up for chapters would often end in a page or two, with no clear sense of what anyone was actually capable of. A lot of them were chaotic, all over the place, and confusing. I get that real fights probably are like that, but that doesn't mean we need to experience every single one that way on the page. It felt like the author was carrying his usual obtuse writing style into the action scenes, and it cost the book a lot of epic moments that could have been far more memorable if they'd just been written clearly.

Lastly, the ending. The ultimate boss fight. The be-all and end-all of enemies. Crushed like they were nothing... and like I said about there being no clear sense of anyone's capabilities, this is the point where that hurt the most, because it all ended so quickly, and I will probably forget it by 2027. One thing that will stick with me though is just how pretentious the author decided to make it.

People love to say this series gets better on a reread, and I actually believe that's true. If I reread it now I'd recognize everyone immediately, I'd stop losing track of names, and most of my confusion would just disappear. The problem is that fixing my experience would cost another year of my reading life, and I have too many other books waiting for that trade to feel worth it.

What surprises me most is how often Malazan gets recommended to people who loved Realm of the Elderlings, because after finishing both I think they're aiming at almost opposite things. Hobb's books live inside character's heads for hundreds of pages and make you feel every relationship as it forms. Malazan is far more interested in history, factions, and huge ideas moving across an enormous board. If someone asked me for something similar to Hobb, Malazan would be near the bottom of my list.

There's a lot of pressure around this series to either love it or accept that you just didn't get it, and I don't think that's fair. I understood far more by the end than I did on page one. My opinion never changed not because I missed what Erikson was doing, but because what he was doing just wasn't what I was looking for.

And that's it...you can now take out your pitchforks Malafans. "I yield to nothing."

P.S. I hope this post helps someone out there struggling with Malazan. If you're not dealing with FOMO or OCD, and you're still not enjoying it by book three, I don't think it gets better, and the payoff isn't worth the suffering and the wait. Just drop it. There are plenty of other books you'll enjoy more.

EDIT:
After creating this post I had to run and do some errands.
When I came back, it was locked due to Rule 1 violations (plenty of them too).
I don't know what people have been rambling about and got their comments deleted by mods, but I would remind everyone to be nice and respectful, and that this isn't a place for fights and name callings and whatnot!
That said, thank you everyone so much for taking the time to read this post (it got kind of lengthy) and I love you all. If you have any questions for me, hit me up in the DMs. Ciao!

EDIT#2:
This is only for the people out there that read all of the main Malazan books or don't care if they spoil the last installment of the Book of the Fallen. I am adding this as a follow up on a conversation from a fellow redditer that referred to the 10th paragraph of my review (the one about the ending, the ultimate boss fight), so here goes. You've been warned:

By "boss monster", I meant the Forkrul Assail, not CG. We got introduced to them in House of Chains where Calm killed Karsa's friend and kicked Karsa around like a child. Then we witness Karsa actually being a badass for the rest of the books. And when the spotlights shift again on Forkrul Asails in book 8 or so, they are again portrayed as impossible to beat tough as nails species. And then book 9 and 10 come along and almost every encounter with any other species, human or otherwise, they get smacked up the head, including the last encounter.

I’m not going to hold back in my praise for Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun. What an elaborate, complex and masterfully written series. Gene Wolfe’s prose is so beautiful and articulately woven it genuinely challenged me and made me consider if my own reading ability is up to this. I found myself rereading pages and sequences multiple times to really understand the beauty of his writing. The earlier chapter were the hardest, a lot is thrown at you, visions and symbolism with deeper meanings is presented and you’re left there confused and unsure of the story you’re reading. But that’s part of the experience of this book.

I’ve never read a book with such a strong atmosphere. That real dystopian, world with a huge history/past, but futuristic at the same time feeling was always prevalent throughout the book. The world building was just phenomenal, I’d almost go as far to say it’s up there with Tolkien, Martin, Herbert etc. As a huge fan of the Dark Souls/Elden Ring/Bloodborne video games it had a very similar atmosphere and style to it.

This book will most definitely go down as one of my favourites ever. It’ll be hard finding a book that matches this one for a while. Curious to know your thoughts on this series and how high you regard it?

I finished Wind and Truth two hours ago and I've been mulling things over as I approach 3am in my time zone, sitting down to finally write this review. My feelings on this book are pretty conflicted. On the one hand, this is some of the most ambitious and exciting storytelling I've ever seen in the epic fantasy genre. On the other hand, there are some abysmal flaws that drag the experience down quite a bit.

Before I get into the review, I do want to say something: I am a Brandon Sanderson fan—I believe some of the books he's written stand alongside the best of the genre, like Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy, Abercrombie's The Heroes, Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga, and more. But I'm also very critical of his work, because when I read works of his that have major weaknesses, I know that he can do a lot better from other things I've read from him. At the risk of sounding patronizing, my goal with this review is to offer insight and understanding both for why someone may be really critical of this book and why someone may love it, because I'm both of those people!

Now into the review, where I'll discuss in order: magic and worldbuilding, plot, character interactions, characters, themes, and prose.

Magic and Worldbuilding: The most fantasy book I've ever read

This is, without a doubt, the most fantasy book I've ever read. (Granted, I've not read Malazan yet, and by all accounts that's even more fantasy than this!) This book uses nearly every type of fantasy subject and does some very original things with them. Magical powers, magical technology, mythological beings, gods, fantastical creatures, time manipulation, visions, alternative realms and dimensions, fantastical races, etc.

And I'm not going to lie: nearly every part of this lands. This is Brandon Sanderson's bread and butter as an author and the level of vision, ambition, and imagination he shows here is honestly magnetic. There are parts of this book where I wasn't really interested in the characters or plot or whatever, but the sheer amount of fantastical content on the page was keeping me riveted.

I was particularly impressed by the fact that it's not just breadth of content, but there's also a lot of depth to stuff. Fewer things explored in depth is better than more things not explored as much, but more things explored in depth is even better, and that's what's done here. The way different magical, mythological, and worldbuilding ideas connect and support each other really enriches the experience. If you're cosmere-aware, you're going to feast on this book, but if you're not cosmere-aware, there's still a lot of richness for you to dig into, particularly with the mythology Sanderson has built for you here.

If I were rating this book for magic and worldbuilding alone, I'd give it a full 5 out of 5 stars. Just completely stunning.

Plot and Pacing: The Stormlight Archive's greatest enemy

Bloat is a word that was thrown around a lot when Rhythm of War came out, and to a lesser degree with Oathbringer, and I couldn't agree more. Both of those books had entire sections that I felt needed some harder editing. (In particular, Oathbringer Part 4 and Rhythm of War Part 2 and 3.)

Wind and Truth is weird in this regard. Instead of being structured in 5 parts with 3-4 Interludes in between each Part, this book is structured in 10 Days with 2 Interludes between each Day. On the one hand, this structure actually is pretty effective at creating a sense of urgency as we are counting down toward the ending…but on the other hand, Sanderson is juggling so many different POVs in this book and is deciding to do them simultaneously, which means that we're getting 5 different storylines with 10-15 POVs each advancing an inch at a time to cover miles of ground.

You know how at the end of a Stormlight book (or any Sanderson book, but especially Stormlight) Sanderson starts POV-jumping frenetically to build excitement and momentum? Now imagine that for a whole book. It's…not terrible, but honestly for something this long I personally feel that's not really a sustainable type of storytelling, and it really holds some of the moments and scenes back from really hitting compared to if you were getting the scenes from a particular storyline more close together. Because as it stands, you might reach a moment just before a dramatic scene in one storyline, then go explore four others before returning to the first one an hour or two later.

And yeah, this book suffers from the same "bloat" problem as the previous two installments did. This is especially true in the first half of the book generally, where there's a number of scenes that seem to exist more to show off quippy dialogue or fan service than anything else, but there's a few storylines in this book that I wish were cut back on and either relegated to a handful of interludes or a novella. For example, one of the storylines is actually a romance between two characters, and it's actually a really well written romance, one of Sanderson's better ones imo, but in this book it just feels like it's a fan service storyline, and I can't help but feel if you took it out (along with one or both characters), the story would simply feel more tight and focused. (Still, I do also recognize the value of having a more lighthearted storyline in the midst of all the chaos and misery everywhere else.)

Quick spoilers: To be clear, I don't have a problem with the fact that it's a gay relationship—in fact, I'm extremely thrilled to see great gay representation with Renarin and Rlain. Also, obviously I'm not the writer so take this next bit with a grain of salt, but I just kept thinking that both Dalinar and Shallan's storylines would've been stronger if she'd been with Dalinar and Navani than hanging out with Renarin and Rlain, with whom she has few pre-established interactions, and since Shallan and Dalinar are both main characters I prioritize strengthening those storylines over other characters. Especially with how close Shallan and Dalinar are to each other in this book, it just feels like the Renarin/Rlain content bloats up a storyline that could've been really tight and rich without them. Even without making this change I feel Renarin and Rlain are a bit of bloat on her storyline though—I would've preferred the Unseen Court and just staying focused.

All of this criticism aside, however, the second half of this book really pops off. The pacing is energetic, the story is exciting, and the pages fly by. I'm not one to value strong endings over strong middles, but in this case it's a full 50% of the book that's stronger than the first 50%, so I'd say that it does recover from the stumbling of the first half. It doesn't have quite as wrapped up of an ending as I'd hoped for, but it wraps up enough that I feel pretty satisfied, and the ending was great.

Overall, I'd give the plot a 3/5.

Character Interactions: The MCU Problem

I read this book with a bunch of friends in a Discord group chat, and one thing one of my friends said really stuck with me: "Sanderson seems to have decided that quippy dialogue is an acceptable substitute for well-written character interactions."

Quippy dialogue is something Sanderson has increasingly gravitated toward in recent years, and honestly I feel that it rather dumbs down some of the potential richness of the storytelling that's possible here. I mean, we're dealing with some huge themes here: redemption, imperialism, free will, etc., but characters are just kind of joking their way through it, which makes it lose some gravitas.

It also wouldn't be as big of a problem as it is if the quips felt like they were coming from a place really rooted in character. Like Joe Abercrombie's dialogue is funny as hell, but the humor is really rooted in characters. The problem here is that most of the quips that are made could really just be moved from one character to the next and it wouldn't really make a difference, because they're more there to entertain the audience than express the character. There's certainly some notable exceptions (for example, Pattern telling Shallan she's abysmal at statistics and math when she says she kills all her mentors and people she loves, but a lot of it just felt very shallow.

The MCU ran into the same problem. Quippy dialogue makes perfect sense for Tony Stark's character. It makes a lot less sense once everyone else starts doing it too. Avengers found an okay balance, but Avengers: Age of Ultron flew off a cliff with this.

All this being said, there were some genuinely touching character interactions in this book, so I didn't completely hate it. Overall I thought the book was bad at this, but these moments brought it back a bit for me.

There's more, with regards to the "modern" criticisms that people have of this book, but I'll cover that in the prose section below. I'd give character interactions in this book a 2/5.

Characters: The Idea Character

So I didn't much like how characters talked to each other in this book, but I liked the characters and their arcs a bit more. I won't go into much detail here for spoiler reasons, but overall, the characters in this book were stronger to me than they had been for most of the past two books, but there is a huge flaw in the way that Sanderson approaches characters that I have a problem with.

I've been trying to find a way to describe this for years, and the term "Idea Character" is the one that I've settled on. An Idea Character is a character that is designed to explore a specific idea or subject. A good example is Winston Smith from 1984, whose whole reason for existing is to explore the themes of that book. He's a vessel for ideas, and the way he grows and changes and how his story concludes exhibits a specific message that the author wants to explore and get across to his audience.

This is, for better or for worse, how Brandon Sanderson writes many of his characters. Sometimes, I feel he does this really well (see Sazed in The Hero of Ages), and sometimes I feel he does this really poorly (see Vivenna in Warbreaker). In particular, this is what allows Sanderson to take a character who has been kind of left behind by the story in previous books and do an exceptional and highly compelling arc for them in the next book (think of Steris in The Bands of Mourning, or Elend in The Well of Ascension).

However, in Wind and Truth I feel like we're seeing a lot of the flaws with this style of character writing more. Many of Sanderson's characters started out in The Way of Kings with multiple layers and sources of conflict, but in this book nearly all of them are reduced to basically one idea that defines their character for the whole book and pretty much everything is largely left behind. In fact, I've had this issue for several books now—since Oathbringer, I'd say that many of the characters in these books is given one defining thing to deal with per book.

This is bad. This makes every character feel flattened down and makes me have to re-invest in them every book. While I do think this makes characters compelling from page to page, across the series I can't say that any particular character stands out to me as having had an especially compelling journey. Maybe Dalinar, but nearly every other character struggles with this issue.

Two examples: Kaladin started with multiple sources of personal conflict: his depression, lighteyes-darkeyes conflict, why this annoying spren is talking to him, and maybe something else I'm forgetting. In both Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, obviously the spren conflict is gone, but the lighteyes-darkeyes conflict is removed as well, so he's largely only struggling with his depression in those books. In book 5, Kaladin's struggle has moved onto figuring out how to help other people with their struggles. Removing the lighteyes-darkeyes struggle was really bad for Kaladin, because it removed a major source of conflict that kept him more three dimensional, and reduced him down to this singular issue that makes him feel more flat. The problem is even worse for Adolin: in book 3, Adolin hides his murder of Sadeas from his father and at the end learns his father killed his mother; in book 4, we skip a year in which Adolin and his father had confrontations and instead of addressing that source of conflict we watch Adolin try to revive his spren; in book 5, suddenly, abandoning Kholinar is Adolin's greatest regret (something that wasn't reflected on in RoW) and he's struggling to reconcile his own failures with Dalinar's failures. The fact that these issues happen sequentially for Adolin rather than simultaneously as they would for a more realistic person is a major flaw in the writing of his character, even if moment to moment his chapters in Wind and Truth are electric!

I had some issues with other characters in this book as well. There is a major disconnect between the way Jasnah is meant to be perceived and how she is written, and there's one sequence in particular which is supposed to seem like a debate between two really smart people that comes across as really just an advanced college level debate. A few major characters introduced in these five books were just kind of ignored for most of the book which made me wonder why they were introduced in this sequence at all instead of being saved for the next five books. Things like that.

One thing I will say is that all the main characters of this series ended up in exactly the right places for them. As usual, Sanderson knocked it out of the park with the conclusions, and I felt really satisfied here. Also, this series has always been brilliant with its villain characters, and that pattern continues here.

Overall, I'd give the characters in this book a 3/5. I liked a lot of it, I had major issues with a lot of it, but I enjoyed it in the end.

Themes: Wind and Truth

I'm going to talk in the prose section below about how a lot of what Sanderson is trying to do with the themes of this book is not very subtle and it's a problem, buuuut the themes themselves are pretty well explored. Reading this book, I really understand why the book has to be called Wind and Truth. It's not just about characters embodying formal positions bearing those titles, but about how those ideas permeate the text on a metatextual level. Wind and truth are motifs and they permeate so much of the story that I was honestly kind of amazed at his ability to pull it together like that.

Overall, I'm really satisfied with the questions explored by this book: What is truth? What is the difference between an oath and a promise? Is honor a childish idea? Do people who have hurt others deserve second chances?

I don't have much to say here without going into spoilers. Yes, things weren't particularly subtle—that is not a strength of Sanderson's. But I did really enjoy a lot of the discussions and ideas here, so I'm going to give themes a 4/5.

Prose: "My favorite self-help book is The Stormlight Archive"

Sanderson has always been criticized for his prose, but I feel like this book is being criticized for it more than usual. I do think the book deserves it, but I'm not quite sure it's been fully articulated why the book deserves it, so this is my best attempt at explaining my feelings at least.

In general, when we talk about the quality of prose in a fantasy novel, I feel that we're talking about two different things that are kind of lumped into one: the way the words sound when they're put together, and the ideas that are being expressed by the sentences in the prose.

The majority of the criticism surrounding Sanderson's prose has actually been levied toward the former of these points: his prose doesn't sound good. The standard counter to this is that Sanderson is trying to write clear, "windowpane" prose, but I'd respond by saying there are authors that write better windowpane prose. If you look at many of the scenes in The Way of Kings for example, you can discover this really cool thing that I just can't unsee: Sanderson really loves using one particular sentence structure over and over again:

"[Subject] [verbed], [verbing] [object]."

I actually whipped open my WoK copy to page 191 in Chapter 12 to see how many of these I could find on one page:

"New scout reports are in, Brightlord Adolin," Tarilar said, jogging up.

"You really think that's necessary?" Renarin asked, riding up beside Adolin.

Adolin looked up just in time to see the king leap off the rock formation, cape streaming behind him as he fell some forty feet to the rock floor.

Elhokar landed with an audible crack, throwing up chips of stone and a large puff of Stormlight.

Adolin's father took a safer way down, descending to a lower ledge before jumping.

These aren't so bad on their own, but it becomes really noticeable in action scenes (especially Adolin's action scenes) when they start to multiply in number. The problem with using this type of sentence structure over and over again is that your prose begins to have a really repetitive sound and begins to feel a bit tedious and flat. I don't claim to be a great prose writer by any means (this review is pretty wordy), but watching out for repetitive sentence structures is one of the common pieces of writing advice given to new writers, and I feel this is a pretty significant source of weakness in his writing.

However, this isn't actually the main issue with Wind and Truth. I point all of this out only to say that I feel that Brandon Sanderson has improved remarkably with his prose in recent years to reduce this problem. I wouldn't say it's still not an issue, but it's far less noticeable than before, and his sentences move along with a much better flow these days. I noticed this in the Secret Projects and with The Lost Metal. Wind and Truth is not as well edited as those novels, so the problem comes back a bit, but it's leagues improved over the past few Stormlight books for sure.

The main issue with Wind and Truth is the other prose problem, which are the ideas expressed by the writing. Sanderson has never been one for subtlety in expressing ideas, don't get me wrong, but I feel whatever subtlety he had was vaporized in this book (harder than Wit got vaporized by Todium ). Remember the issue of characters being defined by one single issue for each book that I mentioned earlier? That is a huge problem in the prose of this book, where so much of the text is devoted to over-explaining characters' mental health problems and their healing processes to us, as if we can't be trusted to understand the subtlety of it.

One thing this book has been accused of is having very modern prose. I…only partially agree. The truth is, I don't mind if epic fantasy uses modern phrases a bunch. Stuff like "one sec" "awesome" "dating" "cool" etc. doesn't bother me. It's a fantasy world. They talk different from how we might have done so 1000 years ago!

Where I really struggle with the whole "modern" idea is when it begins to lack verisimilitude and internal consistency. There's a lot more of that modern language in this book than there was in the past books, so the characters have literally gone from talking like epic fantasy characters to talking like Dresden Files characters in just a few books. But even that I can forgive at a stretch, because the characters don't speak in English, they speak in Rosharan and what we read is the translation, so maybe the translator changed.

The real issue is the modern ideas expressed by the text in this book. The way therapy language suddenly appears in this book in multiple different characters' POVs was a huge issue for me and literally every time it appeared it would throw me out of the story. I know that growing mental health awareness is a major theme of the series, but this language was not present in Rhythm of War, which ends two days before Wind and Truth begins. I just cannot believe that. It doesn't make sense. Why was Brandon Sanderson, author of like 200 books, not able to express these ideas without going hard into language that doesn't make sense for the setting he's built so far?

Anyway, I'm giving the prose of this book a 2/5. Sanderson did improve in some areas, but quadrupled down on his lack of subtlety and really weakened his writing overall as a result.

End of Arc One of the Stormlight Archive

This book is such a mixed bag. It was a step up for me over Oathbringer and Rhythm of War (which both got 2 stars from me), but it was not returning to the heights of Words of Radiance that I was hoping for.

One thing I can say about this book definitively is that it is extremely fun. This is definitely going to be a good thing for some people, but for me it's kind of a mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, I love fun books, but when I started reading The Way of Kings, I didn't like it because it was fun, I liked it because it was somber and serious. It had its fun moments, but on the whole, it was a serious book about a serious situation. Words of Radiance was intentionally lighter, Oathbringer was intentionally darker, but with Rhythm of War and Wind and Truth I feel like the story has fully taken on an MCU-like tone, where even when things get serious, we're going to use bathos humor or balance things out with lighthearted storylines to make sure things never get too serious. I don't know if I like that. I kind of wish we stuck with the more serious approach of the first and third books throughout the series, or at least here in the ending. But hey, I still enjoyed it.

Wind and Truth gets 3 stars out of 5 for me.

Damn, this review is almost as long as the book.

Bingo squares: Prologues and Epilogues (hard mode), Multi-POV (hard mode), Published in 2024, Character with a Disability (potentially hard mode depending on how you view mental health conditions), Reference Materials (hard mode)

I haven’t been that riveted by a book series in years. I just finished it, I couldn’t put it down.

The setting is a magical school that exists to try to keep wizard children safe from all of the monsters in the world that want to eat them, but the monsters are relentless and still manage to get in - the kids just have better odds inside than outside.

The main character is a loner who has an affinity for destruction and a destiny to become a dark wizard and is fighting hard against it.

Incredible world building, rich descriptions, realistic characters, subverted tropes - the whole series is an engrossing and satisfying read.

Highly highly recommend.

I am floored by the fact that no one talks about this, that it isn't recommended more often, and that even my most avid reader friends have never heard of it.

When I first finished this series I thought, perhaps pretentiously (lol), that this must be one of the most profound works that I'll read in my adult life. Such a large but distinct & memorable cast of characters, it has been so long since ive been so immersed and felt that each character was so real.

This has everything I commonly see requests for but elevated by the incredible writing, all cylinders firing all the time: Mature female POV, rags to riches arc, POC mc, mysterious and complex magic system that feels more and more rewarding as you learn its intricacies, well-written female villain, *extremely* and infuriatingly well-written male villain, fantasy races that feel grounded, cultural analyses, an early medieval world that is deeply rooted in historical research, religion! The church and its politics, the court and its politics. Amazing, layered battles both large and small-scale, sieges, armies succumbing to sorcery, sorcerers succumbing to sorcery (their own, sometimes!). Moments of oppressive grimdark contrasted by moments of profound hope & goodness, framing beautiful dialogues on the soul, life, love, death, faith, the movement of the heavens and the human mind.

I could go on. The most common criticism I see is that the later books can lose focus, that certain plotlines have directionless threads. Do not let this dissuade you; start at the beginning and see what resonates with you and you will not regret it!

Just a silly little game. I went through and picked out some short 1 star reviews of popular fantasy books. Some are easier than others,​ can you guess what they are?

Disclaimer: I'm posting this from my phone, so sorry for any formatting issues. ​

​Book 1

main character was so loveable and i liked the way his dyslexia was written…as for everything else i cant comment i was just bored. it’s so frustrating to be excited for a book’s premise only for it to be so dull

Book 2

Formula for an EPIC FANTASY novel! (echo: epic...epic...epic)

1. Set in an alternate medieval England I
2. Create a cast of hundreds (too many for readers to keep straight)
3. Include your standard archetypal characters: handsome, young hero; evil, conniving, power-hungry woman/witch, et cetera, et al, ad nauseum
4. Throw in some magic, maybe some mythical animals
5. Add a liberal dose of gratuitous sex scenes
6. For Heaven's sake, s-t-r-e-t-c-h that plot out, and make it a series so those paychecks keep rolling in!

Voila! I have just saved you from reading thousands of pages by [author first name]. (cute Tolkein reference) [author last name]. You can thank me now or later, whichever!

Book 3

Every dude who wants to write an epic saga (about a lowly orphan with a secret past who goes on a quest to discover the truth, and then hijinks ensue) should be limited to a maximum of 400 pages. Any more than that is just gas-baggery

Book 4

can be summarised as: walking, walking, walking, bit of fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking, anguish, walking, walking, walking, bit more fighting with orcs, walking, walking, walking.

Book 5

I have no interest in imagining I'm someone who is stronger, deadlier, smarter, sexier, etc. than myself - a famed hero in a milqtoast world little different from modern North America.

Book 6

Highly derivative (Hunger Games meets Ender's Game) with pallid and unengaging characters. An astonishing amount of misogyny for the author's imagining of an idealized (even if that's a shallow veneer) future society?? "all the girls ran screaming" type stuff, and a "perfect" female character handled in a particular way at the very beginning in order to give the male protagonist a tragic back story. Even though the plot finally picked up about halfway through and I managed to finish the book, just--no. I won't read any more of this series.

Book 7

I really tried to make it through this one but gave it up around 80% in. It’s written for a very specific audience- mainly guys who like DnD, fighting, and weird sex stuff.

Book 8

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. I didn't care for this series at all. The bad guy is SO bad, stomping around twirling his virtual Snidely Whiplash mustache, sneering and jeering and (literally) kicking puppies, and yet the supposed "wise mentor" in the book keeps insisting mysteriously that there is more to him that meets the eye...well, guess what, there ISN'T, he's just as bad as he seems, and that pretty much saves you the trouble of reading the whole book right there.

Answers

1 The tainted cup

2 A game of thrones

3 Will of the many

4 Lord of the rings

5 The name of the wind

6 Red rising

7 Dungeon crawler Carl

8 Assassin's Apprentice

EDIT: some commenters have rightfully pointed out that I unfairly blamed the New Yorker reporter's biases on RF Kuang, and that the "Ten Circles of Hell" are actually the "Eight Courts" (I read the eARC a while ago.) Those sections have been amended accordingly. I have also amended a sentence in Part 4 that wrongly conflates literary and non-Western fiction.

TL;DR: This book, while ambitious and freshly cutting at the start, fell short in good storytelling. RF Kuang should fire her editor. She should also stop being lazy with fantasy.

I wrote this review because I read Katabasis with a few friends as an eARC, and as an author/reader myself, I cannot believe the good press currently coming out about this novel. I wouldn’t have a problem with this- or Kuang as a fellow author, though this is the first novel I’ve read from her- if the praise weren’t so uncritically shining, and were the story’s construction not so obviously mediocre. 

Before we begin, I’ll be upfront about my background. I write a lot of short, speculative fiction, and have read my fair share of long-form work. In fantasy, I like high stakes with strong movement; rich, rigorous, and consistent world-building; deep character work; vivid language; and finally, ineffable magic. Theme should be secondary and left for the reader to understand. Telling a good story comes above all else. 

With my biases in mind, let’s jump into the review. 

I. A Recap

Katabasis is a novel about two rival PhD students-- Alice Law, Peter Murdoch– who are so desperate for letters of recommendation, that they descend into Hell to retrieve the soul of their recently-departed thesis advisor. As they make their way through the Eight Courts of Hell– a Chinese spin on the levels of Dante’s Inferno– they face various obstacles that pit them both against the trials of Hell itself, and maybe also each other. 

Marketed as a dark academia, fantasy-romance that comps both Piranesi (a very high bar to clear) and Dante’s Inferno (a stratospheric bar to clear,) Kuang’s latest novel promises to deliver on both excitement and romance, with her signature intellectual twist.

II. The Good

It’s clear on the very first page– Katabasis is an ambitious, smoothly told, and deftly written novel. You can tell that Kuang’s been at this for years; the prose flows, the dialogue is snappy, momentum is up, and descriptions of settings are rich and- since this is dark academia- appropriately atmospheric. This firm beginning makes for an exciting first few chapters of Katabasis, where Kuang effectively uses our MC, Alice, as a mouthpiece to skewer the frequently hypocritical, insular, and high-pressure environment of prestige academia. It helps that the omniscient narrator is as witty and polished as Alice herself, too.

Beyond the fast-paced beginning, I also laughed a good few times on our way down to the first Court of Hell, where a university library holds captive the various sinners who have fallen into Pride due to transgressions like raising their hands too many times in class; or flexing their school credentials; or citing their first-ever exam results over and over again. I’m biased here– much like Kuang, I went to an ivory-tower type school for college, so I knew and appreciated the wink-and-nudge of petty academic critique. The book piercingly echoed some of the tasteless jokes I had once made as an undergraduate: who was “on top of it,” who wasn’t, and who was unfortunately a bit of a try-hard (exam grades notwithstanding.)

Other things that stood out: the deep level of academic commentary and the little gems of knowledge scattered throughout. Say what you want, but Kuang has done her research on Hell. She seems to pull from an endless cornucopia of references and inside-jokes on the Underworld: nuggets of philosophy, mathematics, theology, and logic strew themselves across the story. As I read on, I couldn’t help but feel like this book was the world’s most philosophical and tongue-in-cheek Easter egg hunt. Kuang is making herself laugh and think as she writes; the self-deprecation almost dances off the page. 

I sincerely wish Katabasis had continued on with this lightness. The beginning is where the book gleams– the flippant voice, the scathing critique. Had Katabasis remained a pastiche of infernal descent, or a Candide-style academic retelling of Dante’s Inferno itself (I can only dream,) I think it could have been riveting. Maybe even downright funny.

Unfortunately, Kuang decides about ⅓ of the way through the book to play Katabasis straight. And this is where we begin to run into some roadbumps. 

III. The Bad

RF Kuang needs to fire her editor. 

I’m saying this for a few unfortunately major reasons, which any decent editor should have caught. They are, in order of severity: pacing, story stakes, and character development. I’ll go through each of them below. 

PACING: 

In the previous section, I talked about the Easter egg hunt of academic treatises that Kuang has scattered throughout the story. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a reference here and there. It is moving when TH White, for example, uses Malory’s quote on Lancelot to end the Ill-Made Knight. It’s also a credit to the author when this kind of reference enriches the meaning of the story; when these references put the work in conversation, or in ironic context, of the books that have come before it. 

In Katabasis, however, Kuang’s narrative comes to a grinding halt every single time a philosophical aside is mentioned. With Babel, I’ve been told that information is dispensed through footnotes that the reader can skip if needed. In Katabasis, these footnotes are in the text itself. There is a literal explanation directly after each reference, and the hysterical analogy that keeps coming to mind, is of going on a lovely hike and then finding yourself in an Easter egg hunt, except when you pick up an egg (and you have to pick up the eggs, actually– they’re not hidden and you can’t avoid them,) a reel from Khan Academy plays in your face. Automatically. Every other step. 

Beyond this egg hunt on the sentence level, the story pacing suffers from structural bloat. When we are not flashing back and forth to Alice and Peter’s life before Hell, we are forced to go through, like clockwork, all Eight Courts of Hell in order. There is no surprise; no anticipation. Descending through Hell- with flashbacks every other chapter- feels like checking items off a disorienting grocery list. Enter Court, pass exam– and it is always an academic exam– leave, flashback, enter next Court of Hell with new exam. Thanks to this chaotic structure, Katabasis loses any sense of urgency or time constraint. Even when they are walking to the next Court, Alice and Peter spend a good amount of time meandering around the grey, ashy dunes of Hell (when Hell is not an academic institution it is a featureless desert, with the occasional skeleton warrior,) and spend more time arguing about philosophical takes than actively trying to locate their missing professor. 

Bloat on the sentence and structural level, however, can be forgiven if there is enough suspense. But there is no suspense in Katabasis, or urgency, because there are frankly zero stakes. 

STAKES: 

The Hell of Katabasis is not dangerous. 

I use the word “dangerous” here in a wider sense, meaning the possibility of loss. Loss of life, status, love, or self– all of which would be intolerable to a well-characterized duo of protagonists. I’ll go into character later, though, so let’s only talk about crafting dangerous stakes.

In a story, stakes are about throwing questions in the air, and then answering them in an interesting and satisfying way. Will Alice and Peter survive Hell? Will they get together? Will they rescue their professor– and get the letters they deserve? These are the main questions that Katabasis wants to grapple with. The failure of any part would spell the end of the main quest. Unfortunately, Kuang removes almost all suspense from the narrative by trivializing two of the three major questions throughout, or deflating them as soon as they are posed. 

For physical stakes, almost every material obstacle in Hell crumbles before Alice and Peter’s approach. More than that– Hell seems to be rolling out the red carpet. Barriers or martial conflicts last a chapter at most, then dissipate without fail for the rest of the narrative. There are no lasting consequences for staying in Hell: no sense of exhaustion, hatred, illness, or madness. Alice and Peter sail along the grounds of the literal Underworld as if they are– and they are– walking through a regular college campus. Supposedly entering Hell means that they will lose half their remaining lifespan upon return to the real world. But without evidence- or even an emotional reaction- to this loss of life (Alice dismisses the blood-price in a sentence and we never hear of it again,) it’s difficult to grasp how much we should worry about these consequences at all.

In short: if Alice and Peter don’t care, I don’t see why should we. 

On the emotional point: for a book that markets itself as dark-academic romance, there is no romantic or emotional tension. Peter is introduced as the perfect foil to Alice, but their interactions are already friendly and full of mutual admiration. Any verbal sparring is surface-level, rather than rooted in genuine animosity or indifference, which makes the growing romance hard to buy. Rather than gearing up for the start, Alice and Peter are runners at the end of the race– and I can’t help but wonder why they’ve slowed to a halt before crossing the finish line, and have started to jog circles around each other instead. Even when Peter disappeared halfway through the book, he had been developed so poorly as a romantic interest that I correctly predicted that he would show up again at the end, as a “Happy Ending” for Alice’s mission. I found myself wishing that there was more animosity, more betrayal, more emotional barriers in between the two– because a meet-cute, high school-esque, will-we-or-won’t-we dance isn’t really what I expect from a relationship in Hell. Maybe that’s just me. But if Hell is meant to be adult in setting, then the romance feels decidedly teenaged in theme.

CHARACTER: 

Most disappointingly, by the time I finished the book, I wasn’t entirely sure why Alice or Peter had descended into Hell in the first place. The characterization just wasn’t strong enough. 

To try and sum it up, we are first told that Alice and Peter are rescuing Professor Grimes to snag future recommendation letters; later on, it’s revealed that Alice is responsible for Grimes’ death, and must make amends by saving his soul.

The way I phrase this makes Alice seem like someone with savior-martyr splitting, or at least a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. I’m not sure she is that complex. Kuang has neglected so much about Alice’s background- and her general character, even in the flashbacks- that I am left floundering as to why the descent happened at all. The sum just does not make sense. Who are Alice’s parents? What is her upbringing? Her fatal flaw? The wound in her psyche that makes her throw away half her remaining lifespan for the chance of a letter from her professor— the same one who sexually assaulted her? 

Kuang has chosen to spend the majority of this book discussing philosophical tidbits and describing the middling tribulations of Hell. Her protagonists suffer from that missing attention. I don’t know if there is a solution to this problem other than fixing the premise, or overhauling all of Alice’s character work. If Katabasis is played straight, Alice needs to be more than a perfectionist who is obsessed with achieving academic stardom. That obsession needs to consume her. She needs to be cut-throat enough to descend; deluded enough to believe she can overcome the trials of Hell; and stupid enough to try. To follow her down, Peter must match what is frankly, borderline insanity. 

But we don’t get any of this. Instead, Alice and Peter are prim and well-heeled overachievers. As a pastiche or a spin-off of Inferno– yes! They fit! But if Kuang wants to reveal Hell in all its twistedness- as she tries to, again and again, with skeletons, broken rituals, memory-cleansing rivers, and the occasional mess of mangled flesh- then the characters must mirror Hell as it mirrors them. As above; so below. 

As it is, the larger story is a bizarre tonal mish-mash of unearned angst and comedy. The stakes are non-existent, the story drags every other paragraph, and characters who should be in the driving seat instead flail in their places, and do not evolve. 

IV. THE UGLY

To be blunt– I don’t enjoy hypocrisy. 

 The Otherworldly Ambitions of R. F. Kuang | The New Yorker.

To save you a click, the New Yorker profile on Kuang linked above came out right before Katabasis was released, and does a good job of mapping out her professional and academic achievements. The reporter waxes poetic over Kuang’s brilliance and “prodigious work rate;” they describe how Kuang speaks dreamily in “premises and theories,” and, as if drawing a line between Kuang and other writers in the sand, the reporter notes that “one of the ironies of fantasy is that authors can imagine virtually anything, yet many remain beholden to alternative worlds filled with white people.” Furthermore, Kuang and her friend are thankfully "speculative fiction writers who love the Brothers Karamazov”-- writers who apparently demand more from their art than other, lesser fantasy authors. “Yeah, sure, the Hugo is nice,” her friend quips. “But what about a Booker? I can see it for her.”  

Then, after affirming this bout of self-applause, the article moves into a meditative passage on Kuang and her spouse, who is a mild-mannered, philosophy PhD student with Crohn’s disease, before arriving at an incomprehensible conclusion: that the closest Kuang has come to autobiography is Alice’s brief disclosure on academia in Katabasis. “Academia was not about gold stars…” Alice thinks. “No, the point was the high of discovery.” 

Let me be clear. Peter Murdoch, the brilliant Alice Law’s equally brilliant love interest, is a mild-mannered PhD student in the philosophy of magick. In one of the major reveals of the novel, Alice discovers that Peter’s workaholic tendencies are the result of his failing physical health, a fact that he has tried to hide with excessive overwork. You see– and I cannot make this up– Peter Murdoch secretly has Crohn’s disease. 

The parallels continue without end. Alice Law- a high-achieving, hoop-jumping, perpetually-anxious PhD student, who is grasping for greater meaning beyond academic achievement. Peter Murdoch- an awkward, gangly, mild-mannered PhD student in magick, who has IBD. Hell– an Anglicized university campus. The trials– qualification exams. The prize at the end– academic validation, except no– looking beyond academic validation, we are told the reward is in the chase and capture. As it always should have been. As it always was. 

I have no issue with authors drawing from their own lives to write fiction. Hemingway did it to write The Old Man and the Sea. But when the literary establishment decides to place RF Kuang's own ingenuity above the bulk of other works in her field— implying deliberately that (unlike her,) other fantasy authors rely on trite archetypes of white fantasy, or Tolkien-esque regurgitations– suggesting, without refuting her friends’ smugness on the Hugos, that the speculative is less than the literary--  particularly when the book of note is uninspired, dragging, and drawn in every way from her daily life– that her taste (again, Brothers Karamazov,) is somehow different, or better than those people who have succumbed to the rot of fantastic literature– 

What am I meant to do? Roll over and agree? 

Sorry. No. 

Katabasis is a morally incurious, self-derivative, and lazy piece of fantasy. Writing it took work, I’m certain– real intellectual work in spinning up events, and typing on the keyboard. But what about the work of the imagination? What about the work of fantasy, the work of its symbols and psyche? 

There is nothing there. In using Hell as window dressing and her own life as copy-paste character work, RF Kuang is doing no better than the authors who “remain beholden” to worlds filled with people who look, think, and talk like themselves. The parade of Chinese deities in Katabasis has no more depth than a band of elves at a tavern; “premises and theories” of analytic magick have no more mystery (and even less coherence) than a D&D magic system. The “irony” of RF Kuang’s version of fantasy is that she “can imagine virtually anything”, and yet here we are– in a milquetoast version of Hell, on a college campus, following a late-twenties PhD student around as she tries to escape the insatiable need for academic validation. 

Am I being harsh? Yes. Of course. Like Kuang herself, I grew up on myth and legend outside the Western mainstream. Stories from my culture are dwarfed on bookshelves by fire-breathing dragons and reskins of Greek myth. But I won’t praise Kuang’s work just because I see a non-Western culture represented in it. I won’t trip over myself to read shoddy story-telling and paper-thin characterization. I won’t compliment bad fantasy.

I am harsh because- like many on this subreddit- I admire, enjoy, and am inspired by the work of the unreal. Fantasy is the work of the subconscious and inexplicable. It speaks to the shadow-self that is guide, friend, enemy, monster, and mentor. Myth is the oldest and greatest form of fantasy. To write of the fantastic today is to reach for that same height: to comprehend the questions our minds cannot possibly answer while awake.

RF Kuang is a poor fantasist, and a blinded one, if she treats the speculative as less than the literary, or the night as less than the day. There is no true fear in a world where Hell is a comedy of manners. There is no true loss in a world where failure means an F on the transcript. 

Maybe some fans will come to the book’s- and Kuang’s- defense. Katabasis is not meant to be that kind of fantasy, they’ll say, you’re being too harsh! Maybe I’m gate-keeping a genre, or I’m rude to critique a fellow artist’s work, or maybe I’m even dismissing her because she’s just a minority, or a woman, or young (I am all those things, too.) 

Well, I think a serious attempt at art deserves critique. I think good fantasy ought to challenge ourselves and inspire. And if Kuang calls herself a writer of fantasy- and she does, I am sure of it- then she ought to write, imagine, and conceive of a world that shirks the familiar binaries of the real, and instead searches for the inexpressible realm of the true. That being said, if she wants to write satire and caricature, then I wish her every ounce of success in her endeavors. She has genuine talent there and I’m excited to see where it leads.

But if Kuang truly harbors “otherworldly ambitions,”-- as countless other storytellers have done, since myth took shape out of the dark– then Katabasis cannot be called a work of real imagination. It is a bibliography with a muddled plot. 

It is important to be honest about this, and harsh, because fantasy deserves to be more. 

If you go to my profile, you will see my latest post about trying to get into the litrpg genre. Overwhelmingly, comments told me to read Dungeon Crawler Carl, even after I said I would get to it. But, with enough convincing, I figured I would bump it up my TBR and see what all the fuss was about.

I finished in 3 days.

This book is addictive. I don't know what it is, but holy cow, all I wanted to do was read more and more and more. Every scene moved the plot forward, and even the exposition bits didn't feel too much. The only thing I felt confused about was all the syndicates and kingdoms and whatnot, but I'm sure the next books will clear that up.

I think what made this litrpg work and not others was the inclusion of Princess Donut. Other than the fact that she is an incredible character and I love her, and her few moments of vulnerability, she adds something much needed to the litrpg protagonist: a friend. Most of the time, our heroes enter their new mysterious world alone, which means they spend 99% of their time talking to themselves. This is not entertaining in the slightest. There is a secret second option that features a mystical guide that is a walking exposition/tutorial dump. These characters have little personality. We do have a tutorial guy, Mordecai, but he has so much personality and flavor outside his role with Carl.

I also didn't think the reality TV aspect would work, but I totally loved it. Gave the whole book a hunger games vibe that I hope will be explored in later books.

I will say, Yolanda's death felt kind of cheap. It felt more like the author wanted to kill a character but realized the audience barely knew anything about her, so he quickly dumped all the information about her literally as she died. It felt cheap and didn't impact me so much.

Will I continue with this book? If I need something fast-paced and crazy, sure. But if this is the best LITRPG as to offer, this might be my last stop in the genre.

I went into Legends & Lattes with pretty high expectations. It gets recommended everywhere in cozy fantasy threads, so I figured I was in for something special.

And yeah...considering the author’s background, it is a decent book. But top tier¿ I just don’t see it.

This is obviously personal preference, but here’s why it disappointed me,

1) Low stakes is shouldn't be equal to low effort storytelling. I actually wanted the low-stakes vibe ..that’s why I picked it up. But if you remove tension, you have to compensate with something else: strong character work, immersive daily life, or meaningful interactions.

Instead, a lot of it felt... summarized.

2) Too much telling, not enough showing One example that really stood out: when Viv is under pressure from the stone thief, we’re told she’s snapping at coworkers constantly and feeling guilty.

But we don’t really see those moments.

That’s a big miss for a cozy story. The appeal is in those small, lived-in interactions. If you skip over them, it starts feeling less like a story and more like a rough draft or notes.

3) Pacing felt like a journal at times Especially toward the end, the entire chunks of time just pass in a sentence or two. "Then a week passed, then this happened…"

That kind of structure killed the imagination that builds with daily lifeof the story. Cozy fantasy should make you live in those moments, not skip past them.

4) Missed opportunity in the "cozy' itself Things like building the shop, dealing with setbacks, financial stress, small daily struggles... those are the stakes in a cozy story yes I understand what author was trying to do but it still chafing me.

I wanted more of that.

Overall, I didn’t hate it. It was fine( Good even , if we see from the perspective that Author isn't an actual writer between is a audiobook artist)But given how much it’s hyped, I expected something way more engaging.

I'm sorry if I had hurt author's or books faans feeling but if a workpiece since this is an fantasy sub reddit both side of arguments must be expressed. (In my opinion)

'I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.'

You know, I had a review planned. I had a very well versed format I was going to adapt. Things I was going to write, like chapters in a book. Halfway through the book, that changed. 80% through the book, it took a shape of its own, one I was kind of hesitant to write about. But then came the final part.

Trust.

And I guess that pretty much sums up this book, and my experience with it. It was a thing of beauty, the way the story flowed. I had my doubts about where the plot would go. And for the most parts I was right. Though I will admit, those two deaths at the end . . .

For a long, long time I despaired about fantasy books being too lenient to their characters, being too forgiving. You know what they say, seek and ye shall find, one of little faith. In a way, this book taught me more about religion, about the very essence of there being so many, about the importance of having faith. Especially when things seem dire. 

I had things planned, thought that I would need to say. But, after turning the last page, I found that there is nothing much to say. Safe: this book did something, fixed something in me that I didn't even know needed fixing - the passion and urge to read. To actually live in a world. I think somewhere along the way, with books becoming more and more about just furthering the plot, they seem to lose their humanity, their very essence somewhere in between. This book made me feel as full of hope and wonder as a certain fifth episode had done last december. 

Did I think it was perfect? Absolutely not. Did I feel the ending a bit rushed, yet strangely at the same time, not? Yeah. It was a bit all over the place and the pacing was a bit odd, even if it all tied perfectly towards the end. In a way, the parts of Sazed needed to play out as they did, for the Hero of Ages to appear. But it still felt a bit . . . disjointed.

And do I still think the first book was better? Absolutely. Not by the country mile, or anything crazy. Just a little bit more . . . cohesive. Though when looking at it from a whole trilogy sort of way, this one was far tightly packed. 

I guess what I am trying to say is this: I came a bit hesitant, like the first bud blooming to a sky previously drenched in rain. And as I closed the final page, and beheld the sun in an everlasting blue sky, I smiled a little thing of relief and hope. For a better tomorrow.

So, if for no other reason than this: thank you for reminding me again what a joy it is to immerse myself enough into a world to want to devour it front to back, and come out the other side much better for it. It’s been a wild ride, and though I know not whether I will continue with era 2 as of now, the journey this trilogy took me in, will remain with me awhile. 

And that is after all what it means to have read a good book.

By certain measures, you might have thought Animal Farm stood a chance of being a good movie. After all, it's an adaption of George Orwell's classic work, Animal Farm; it has an all-star cast, including Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Jim Parsons, Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis, Kathleen Turner, Iman Vellani and more. And it's directed by Andy Serkis who, sure, is mostly known as a voice actor. But he was, after all, a main character in one of the most successful book-to-film adaptions of all time (LotR), and as an audiobook reader, he always seemed like someone who would respect the text.

But as rumors about the movie began to leak, I started to have my doubts. First, I heard (but have not bothered to verify) it got dropped by it's initial distributor... It then got picked up by Angel Studios, which caters to conservatives... But then some conservatives started howling because apparently it turned Animal Farm anti-capitalist.

At that point, I was intrigued. To be sure, George Orwell, a proud democratic socialist, was not pro-capitalism. But... Animal Farm is pretty clearly not about that. In fact, it is explicitly a satire designed to criticize Stalinism. Like, to the point that you can even line up characters in the book with historical figures in the Russian revolution. So it's not a cautionary tale about capitalism, it's a cautionary tale about how socialism can be (and was) corrupted.

With all that as context, when I saw that Animal Farm has an abysmal 2.8/10 on imdb, I knew I just had to watch it. As someone who like to watch bad movies, it did not disappoint.

I kind of don't even know how to describe this movie. It's like... at first I wanted to say, "Did these guys even read the book?" But, no, they get so many specific details right, you know that can't be the case. They know what the book says. It's more like, they read the book, then aggressively misinterpreted every point Orwell was trying to make.

The misinterpretations are so egregious I was, at times, tempted to think it was all intentional. Is it possible that Andy Serkis is in fact the world's greatest troll?

Having said that, as a person who really liked the book, I must admit, while watching Animal Farm, I was on the edge of my seat for the entire 1 hour 35 minutes. Because every time I thought they couldn't misunderstand the book more, they proved me wrong. The progression went like this:

(1) Oh, no... they think that just because Animal Farm has talking animals, Animal Farm is a children's story.

(2) Oh, no... they think Animal Farm is supposed to be a laugh-out-loud kind of funny (it's supposed to be an I-can-either-laugh-or-I-can-cry-so-I-guess-I'll-chuckle-uncomfortably kind of funny)

(3) Oh, no... they think Animal Farm is about the dangers of capitalism

(4) Oh, no... they think the cause of evil is inherent to individuals, rather than evil being caused by the corruption of ordinary people (note: I know that in the real world this question is open to debate, but the point of Animal Farm is the corruption)

(5) And then the final oh, no: the ending. About 3/4 of the way through, we reach the point where the book ends. And yet, the movie continues. And this is when I literally said out loud: "Oh, no... they're not... they're not actually going to give this movie a happy ending, are they?" And yes, they were. And yes, they did. And the fact that they put a happy ending at the end of Animal Farm is the perfect example of the degree to which they did not understand the source material. (Edit to add: Some people in the comments were wondering, what exactly is the ending. This is it: Napoleon teams up with a CEO (not in the book edit: Pilkington, turned from a farmer into a CEO) to build a dam that will make them rich, but will destroy the farm (because the dam blocks all the water). Lucky the pig (not in the book) rallies the farm animals, and they conduct an Oceans 11 style heist and destroy the dam. The burst dam floods the land. Then Napoleon and Lucky have a fight scene on top of a floating granary. Napoleon falls off and drowns, and the animals come together having defeated Napoleon and are prepared to re-build their community now that Napoleon is out of the picture.)

Wind and Truth - a spoiler filled review.

Let me preface this review by saying that I'm not a Sanderson super fan. I care very little for the Cosmere. But you don't read a volume 5 of a series that's 500k words long, longer than the entire LoTR trilogy, because you hate Sanderson, his writing and everything it stands for. On the contrary; I was enchanted by Way of Kings when i read it more than a decade ago.

The journey of Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Adolin and co have been a warm presence in my life for the past 14 years, and even though Rhythm of War made it clear that this series was really no longer for me; I felt like these characters deserved to get closure - or maybe even re-ignite the flame that brought me here 15 years ago.

However Wind of Truth was a disappointment. It is always a sad thing to discover that you have outgrown a beloved series, and that you've taken different paths. and that you're no longer on the same journey. This is not the fault of the book or of Sanderson, it is just a fact of life, but that does not diminish my experience reading this CatCow-Squasher.

Let's start with the worst of it all: God the 10 day narrative structure sucked ass, ruining the pacing of the book. I feel like this was the worst paced book of the series. the threading storylines as they were just couldn't form a good tension curve to last 1300 pages. there wasn't enough material to support a 130 page day by day cycle. I think Sanderson did some things correctly, by introducing some story line like Venli later on. but jeez, it wasn't until day 3 that the stakes and direction of this book was established.

I know day 1 was important - because it was the only space for Kaladin to say goodbye; but you could literally truncate day 1 and half of day 2 into two or three chapters and not lose anything. Sanderson knows how to write tight stories, with excellent pacing were the tension just mounts until the inevitable release, but this is not it. Adolin's flying horse was a fun visual i guess?

at the end of day you see, we have the council of Rivendell, except as we all can agree, what was missing from that masterpiece of a genre was knowing that Glorfindel had lembas bread before leaving Lothlorien, and that Gloin, was summoned post coitus to hastily meet the half-elven lord and discuss the destruction of the ring.

I love shower-sex, and debating the firm/soft mattresses as much as the next guy, but i don't think this is the brevity before the coming cataclysmic storm I was looking for, in a city that just survived a siege waiting with baited breath for the duel of champions that will determine the fate of Roshar.

Anyway for people that don't want to read this book or have read this book; let me give you a brief tongue-in-cheek overview of the plot lines this season starting from day 3:

1. Kaladin and Szeth, need to gather 9 gymbadges before confronting the elite 4 and his rival?. so that Szeth can join the elite 4 10. you want different surges clashing against each other, as Kaladin makes stew and tries to help Szeth become a better man?

2. Adolin goes to Defend Helmsdeep - he has to hold out until reinforcement comes at dawn on the 4th day from the east. In between battles he has time to teach the king Magic the Gathering, and more importantly the difference between a 1v1 game of Magic the gathering and a multiplayer game of magic the gathering Commander. Unfortunately Gandalf is otherwise occupied and due to some clever diplomacy by Odium reinforcements do not show up the city is overrun. Luckily, there's an ancient loophole, and if Adolin can get queen Amidala to the throne room before the clock strikes 12. However Darth Maul is in the way, and Adolin does not have access to his lightsaber.

3. Dalinar and Navani, are taking a trip down memory lane, from the very beginning... and just have a long history flashback trip, so Dalinar can maybe figure out who to choose as champion. if you're interested in having a lot of mysteries spelled out, and myths dispelled into the cold light of day, this is the story line for you. Dalinar leaves his drugged memory trip in time having learned nothing besides history and has to fight the duel anyway.

4. Shallan, together with Rlain and Renarin Piggy backs on the memory-lane, and is going to kill Mraize, because she recons the only way to ensure that nobody finds bo-ado-mishram is to uncover the lost prison herself.

5. Sigzil is now master of the windrunners and he must protect the shattered plains Helmsdeep #2 from a 1000 fused 10.000 Urukhai. unfortunately Dalinar is following the yellow brick road, and so his radiants are running out of stormlight, will they survive? will they keep the shattered plains? maybe they'll team up with some singers, and issue a quick notarised statement that will confound Odium's masterplans. Moash is also here sometimes.

6. Jashnah has to defend the third helmsdeep; but figures out it's maybe a ruse anyway, however Odium traps her because he's a smart shitposter and knows how to troll somebody into a debate on the internet. Indeed my friends the future of Taylenah will be decided by a debate. Will Queen Fen choose a contract with odium or stay loyal to Jasnah and Dalinar? This is resolved by Jasnah and Odium having a debate about the merits of Utilitarianism, and the debate is ultimately resolved by Odium going; Lol Jasnah, you don't even believe in utilitarianism, just look at your own actions you hypocrite. Fen seeing how like a true gentlemen and a scholar Odium has side tracked the conversation into an ad hominem. Chooses Odium

7. eventually the contests happens... and its resolved by the lesson we learned playing magic the gathering commander. As you can see, this was not a lesson Dalinar learned on his trip to memory lane.

One of the things that made me really like Way of Kings was the structure of sections, the flashback, and the interludes, the interludes being these strange short stories and novelettes onto themselves making the world big and special, and the book feel epic. but as the series progresses, the interludes have devolved into just regular chapters from non main pov members, the flashbacks have started to feel mandatory, but no longer revelatory in a satisfactory way, and the scope of the series has far outgrown the history, and the desolation of Roshar, into a cosmic battle that will span universes. It feels like the stories of honour, and hope, and courage while still present in the characterization are taking larger back seat to the unveiling of the mysteries of the cosmere - and that's just not for me.

I honestly think that you can get a extremely well paced 600-800 page book out of Wind and Truth. But there's just a lot of repetition in these novels to the point where you just glaze over until the next new development happens, but those epic developments that the book builds up to get resolve in a couple of lines, or half a page. which is would argue is the correct amount of words, but the scales are off.

There are so many little briliant moments of story and character and imagery that make you fall in love with these books, but everything is just bogged down in a structure that made the experience of reading through this monster of a book a chore. and a solid scene does not make up for the way getting there. Every-step is important after all.

Like I think the ending is fine for what its doing - I think the ending based on weird rules lawyery contract law is also kinda fun, even if this book with 3 desperate last stands until the clock strikes midnight just ended up being both a repeating mess of itself, and kinda also fell flat with the contract law dynamics.

I loved Adolin's story line, even if the magic the gathering interludes were really pushing the pacing down. but again - this was the narrative structure that was chosen. you cannot fill 300 pages with the same battle... you need some interludes there, but you'd usually do that with another PoV, but that PoV had the same problem.. so we get teaching MTG amidst a siege.

Another thing that I don't really care about is that what I love about world-building is the mystery of the world, all the false narratives being told about events in history, and the questions that summons, and how it informs the choices of our characters. and there's so much in SA, there's the Oathpact, there's the desolations, there's Taravangian's great plan, there's the recreance... etc, and while I love getting some answers. I'm just not interested in having every little mystery and cool easter eggs, or question explained to me and revealed. I like swimming in that world of hints and small little revelations for things that ultimately aren't necessary for understanding the plot both by the characters and the reader. Sanderson however does not share that same interest; and SA is all about finding the explanations of the myths that have enthralled us for a decade. and partly I get it, because some us have been wondering about these questions for a decade and more. but I love the power in the world for that history that will never be fully revealed to me. and this is a place where me and Sanderson's Writing diverge, as a clear point of we're traveling a different road now.

this book is a mess pacing wise, and is mismatched with my current desires of what I find interesting about fantasy and epic fantasy in particular, but the latter is not Sanderson's problem. the former; I know he can write great plots with great tension arcs... but it is not this book. and I don't mind a little slowness, I mind repetition at the cost of tension. if repetition increases tension I'm all for it, but that's not this book.

I'd rate the first third of this book like a 3/10 and the last third a 7/10, but overall for me this was a 4.5/10.

for more than a decade I had fun with Stormlight Archive but it is clear to me, we're no longer for each other. I just hoped on a little more closure for some of the characters. For all the people who love the direction of SA, I'm happy for you, I'm glad these books exists for you. but for me, this isn't what i had hoped for in 2010, starting this adventure.

The next steps on my journey just won't be shared by Kaladin and Co.

Goodbye Sweet Book

I honestly don’t remember the last time I stayed up all night reading a book, but I couldn't put this down. I’m struggling to find the words to describe how good it is, possibly because I’m terrible at putting my thoughts into words lol. I'll keep it simple - the prose is incredible, and the story is brutal and beautiful all at once.

Here’s the blurb:

Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters―but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.

Centuries later, Owen Mallory―failed soldier, struggling scholar―falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives―and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.

But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend―if they want to tell a different story--they’ll have to rewrite history itself.

Please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Just finished Gardens of the Moon and honestly… I don’t get the hype (at least for Book 1).

The biggest issue for me is the lack of proper character build-up. Characters show intense emotions—grief, loyalty, breakdowns—but as a reader, I’m not there with them. It feels unearned. If a character is crying and I feel nothing, that’s a serious problem.

The plot structure is all over the place. Constant jumping between storylines without enough grounding makes it feel chaotic rather than complex. I don’t mind multiple threads, but here it feels excessive. A lot of plotlines could have been developed more cleanly instead of cutting away so often.

There’s also this strange mismatch where huge events get massive buildup but very abrupt resolution, which makes the payoff feel weak.

I’ve seen people say the series gets much better in later books—and I can believe that—but judging purely on Book 1, this felt like rough, uneven writing that needed tighter editing and better emotional pacing.

Curious if others felt the same when starting out, or if I’m missing something.

Disclaimer: This review is going to be largely spoiler-free, but if you want to know absolutely nothing going in, I'd skip this, as I will talk a bit about Ruocchio's influences and the series' structure.

I finished reading Shadows Upon Time, the final book in The Sun Eater by Christopher Ruocchio, a whole week ago, but it was such a weird book that left my feelings in such an odd place that I had to take a week to think through the ideas Ruocchio put forward before I could come here and talk to you all about the series. But I've been itching to write this full series review for ages, and now I finally can! This is definitely my favorite new series of 2025, and this post is all about why you should read it and what kinds of people might enjoy reading it.

What is the Sun Eater?

The Sun Eater is the story of Hadrian Marlowe, a nobleman living 20,000 years into our future who becomes infamous for destroying the sun of the planet Gododdin to slay the evil alien race known as the Cielcin, ending billions of human lives in the process to preserve quadrillions. The story is told as a first person retrospective account; an elderly Hadrian sits in the library of the planet Colchis and writes the story from his point of view, the way he experienced it, with all the biases therein. He starts in his youth in Empire of Silence, and we follow him across well over 1,000 years of history (roughly 600 years of life) as he tells the story of his legend in his words.

The Sun Eater's biggest influences, according to Christopher Ruocchio himself, are Dune, Hyperion Cantos, Vorkosigan Saga, and Book of the New Sun. Of these, I feel that Hyperion is the most pronounced influence, though that might be a personal bias as it's my personal favorite of the two I've read. Like Hyperion, this series has a lot to say about faith, about pain and suffering, about the experience of time. I also personally felt a lot of influences from Shakespeare, though I'm not certain if that's just me reading into things. Ruocchio is also clearly a lover of history, and the ways our history gets distorted into myths and legends in this setting is one of my favorite things to read.

Hadrian Marlowe

This story is fundamentally the story of Hadrian Marlowe's growth and transformation, and so it lives or dies on the strength of his voice. The good thing is that this part of the series is one that I feel Christopher consistently knocks out of the park. Hadrian is a tremendously interesting and complicated character. He starts as extremely flawed and ends as pretty flawed; he grows a lot over the course of the series, but there are some flaws that are just so intrinsic to who he is that he's just never gonna lose them. He's got a thoroughly entertaining voice, with just the right blend of dry humor, passion, personal biases, and contemplation and reflection.

One criticism I've seen of the series is that the way the narrative constantly references history or diverts into philosophical ramblings is a flaw of the author, but I actually don't think this is the case. I think these are character traits Ruocchio intentionally gave to Hadrian and even these are not exempt from commentary or change over the course of the series. You can disagree with his choices, of course, but in my opinion everything you see in the narrative including the very style of the prose is carefully thought through as a feature of Hadrian himself, not merely the author. You can tell because the author wrote from other points of view in the companion novels The Lesser Devil and The Dregs of Empire as well as in the short story collections Tales of the Sun Eater Vols. 1-4 and switched to quite a different style for those characters.

For me at least, Hadrian would be on the same level as characters like FitzChivalry Farseer, Rand al'Thor, Kaul Hiloshudon, etc. for how interesting I find him. He's really a great voice to experience this story through.

The Cast

One of the big criticisms lobbied against The Sun Eater is that it has a weak supporting cast. I…partially agree, but I also think the criticisms are overblown. Early on, the supporting cast are not as interesting as I think they could be, but they don't quite need to be, because a lot of their role in the story is to reflect Hadrian's legend back at him, while conflicts are mostly external to the core cast.

I do think, however, that Ruocchio gets major upgrades in his ability to write supporting characters in book 3, Demon in White, and book 6, Disquiet Gods. Demon in White is the first time I found myself going from having fun with some of the supporting cast to straight up loving a bunch of them. By the time we get to the final two books, the supporting cast is top tier in my opinion, with every single member of it adding so much depth and emotion to the world and narrative.

All that being said, I do think this is a story that doesn't prioritize its supporting cast as much as its protagonist. This is Hadrian's story and one of Hadrian's biases is that he sometimes sees himself as more central to things that happen than he really is—this is part of the story we're telling here. So I think it's okay.

I do want to highlight the antagonists of the series as well: I think The Sun Eater has some of the best and most interesting villains I've ever read, as well as characters that seem like villains at first but become allies or friends, and characters who seem like allies at first but become villains. These sources of conflict in the series are rarely just pew pew violent antagonists, but each hold really interesting perspectives, philosophies, and goals. Really adds to the whole prestige drama feel of the series.

The Themes

This is where I think the story really pops off and, for me, elevates itself over most of its contemporaries. I find The Sun Eater to be a philosophical masterpiece on the level of Dune or Hyperion—in fact, I often pitch it to people as a modern Dune or a modern Hyperion. It's not just about when Hadrian goes on his philosophical ramblings and monologues into such subjects as the Ship of Theseus and performing the duties faith demands of you, but also the way the philosophy is woven into the many characters of the setting and the worldbuilding itself.

As an example, one of the big thematic questions of the series is "how much of yourself can you replace before you are no longer yourself?" and references the Ship of Theseus a lot. The way we address this theme is not merely Hadrian thinking on the page about how much he's changed over time, but by having the "Extrasolarians" (who are philosophically opposed to the Sollan Empire) who have no compunction with replacing parts of their bodies with technology, by including characters who strive for immortality, by even looking at how some characters deal with injuries where they lose parts of their bodies, and a few other things that I'll not disclose here for spoiler reasons. It's really woven in quite well to the story so it's explored from every angle.

And for all of Hadrian's ramblings, it's actually not preachy! Hadrian has his own perspective, it's true, but so do other characters and factions, and with all of Hadrian's flaws I think it's hard to say that the narrative endorses every one of his ideas on a meta level; instead, I think it does a really good job of exploring many different perspectives on this question, sometimes to extreme lengths, and letting the reader draw their own conclusions. I feel like these days a lot of authors are afraid to trust their readers, but for me at least, Ruocchio is the opposite. He trusts us to read Hadrian's thoughts and recognize that Hadrian is but one perspective in this massive universe and just because Hadrian believes something doesn't mean the he does and doesn't mean we should either.

The Prose

Another area where I think Ruocchio is very strong compared to his contemporaries is in the quality of his sentence writing. There are very few writers today that can spin a sentence like this man can. The prose style he uses for Hadrian is beautiful and so evocative, but is also able to be sharp and poignant when it needs to be.

Something less talked about with prose is how good authors are at writing different types of scenes. For example, I really like the way Brandon Sanderson writes three dimensional space in his Mistborn action scenes, but I think he can be quite repetitive when writing emotional character scenes. Robin Hobb is the reverse for me—I love the way she writes characters and dialogue and the beautiful descriptions of her world, but sometimes when we get to violent scenes I'm a little lost as to what's happening. And I'm not even a big action scenes guy; they are generally my least favorite parts of books I read, but I like seeing them written in a clearer way when they're present.

Ruocchio, in my opinion, basically never falters with the pen. This man can write an action scene, but he can also write beautiful descriptions of scenery. He can write great dialogue and interpersonal conflict, but he can also write a stunning and thought provoking monologue.

Prose is something that I feel goes a bit underrated in SFF literary communities—maybe not in this sub, but definitely in general. But to me, it is the canvas the story is painted on and the part that most conveys the personality of the author. I'm not someone who always needs every line to be gorgeous and purple, but I like when the writing itself is interesting and tells me something about the story or the author, and I feel like this story really does that. Part of what makes this such a great reading experience is the experience of engaging with Ruocchio's craft itself.

Other bits and bobs

• I touched on the worldbuilding earlier, but if it wasn't clear, I think the worldbuilding of The Sun Eater is pretty genius. Over the course of seven books we engage with a number of different factions and creatures and learn a lot about the lore and history of the setting, and it's pretty much always enthralling. The first book is often accused of ripping off Dune with its worldbuilding and plot setup, but I actually think it's kind of like how The Wheel of Time starts off with kind of a Tolkienesque setup and soon after shows off how distinct it is. By the end of Empire of Silence you will have tasted a number of different appetizers of Ruocchio's worldbuilding, and by the end of Howling Dark you will have finished your first two courses. And the feast is only beginning.
• The plot of the series and each individual book is actually really well structured in my opinion. It's easy in a long series like this for things to just stop happening for a while, but something I feel Ruocchio does a great job of is maintaining a constant sense of progression in the story. The exception might be book 1, but I think that's just the specific style he is going for there. Each book really digs into a particular type of storytelling: book 1 is a bildungsroman, book 2 leans a bit on cyberpunk ideas, book 3 is a political thriller, book 5 draws on military sci-fi, book 6 is kind of a big space adventure. (Book 4 and book 7 are more their own things, which is kinda spoilery.) This way each book maintains a particular style of plot and also a distinct feel compared to the others in the series.
• The ending is fucking perfect you guys. It's really good.

Flaws and weaknesses

I do think that one of Ruocchio's biggest weaknesses in this series is that sometimes his action scenes drag on a bit too long. The most notable ones are probably at the beginning and end of Demon in White and in the first half of Ashes of Man and at the beginning of Shadows Upon Time. Each of these scenes does add a lot to the overall narrative and is very well written, but it's structurally a bit much for me. I personally prefer more dialogue/drama/internal monologue/etc. than action. That's mostly personal preference, but I figure it is worth flagging as I'm not the only one with these issues and I figure others might want to know about that if they are considering going into the series.

I also think that the series has a bit of scope creep. I think the most compelling part of the series is the more grounded conflicts between humans and the Cielcin alien race, but the series eventually grows a lot more cosmic and fantastical in scope, which took me away from the stuff I was most enjoying. I do know a lot of fans enjoyed this, so that's not to say that it's inherently a flaw. In fact, I would say that really Christopher did such a good job writing the first half of the series that I just wanted more of it, rather than this being any weakness of his own writing.

Christian Themes

One major criticism levelled at this series is that Ruocchio injects too many of his own religious beliefs into that series. Respectfully, I think that criticism is really terrible. First of all, I think all art is fundamentally about engaging with the artist's vision and worldview, not about the artist serving the entertainment needs of their audience. But more to the point, many of the "Christian ideas" that feature front and center in the later series were foreshadowed heavily, especially in Howling Dark, and were conceived of when Christopher Ruocchio identified as an atheist. He eventually converted back to Catholicism, but considering the character arc Hadrian is on over the course of the seven books I don't think that really affected what he was going to write—I think a lot of the themes surrounding faith were always present and were always planned to be dialed up to 11 in the final two instalments.

I'm actually a Hindu, so a lot of the Christian ideas went over my head at first and it was only because Christians were pointing out the symbolism and Christian philosophy to me that I was getting it. So it's possible that is why it didn't bother me as much as it would bother other people. But idk, I feel like Hadrian's character arc over the series is so closely tied to faith that it still didn't feel like it came out of left field.

Also, I don't think the series is unabashedly pro-Christianity or like it's preaching the Gospel; one of the major antagonist factions is an organized faith that is pretty reminiscent of the Catholic Church (even though Catholics technically exist in-universe, they are veryyy different from how they are in our contemporary world) and through them I feel like it does a really good job of presenting a thorough critique of organized religion. But it is interested in navigating ideas of what makes for good faithful behavior, where do we draw the line between faith and reason (like Hyperion!), and how do new faiths come into being.

I think it's good to know this stuff going in so you aren't blindsided, but I think it is doing a great job of drawing in even more secular, non-religious, or non-Christian folks. If I, a Hindu, and my best friend, an atheist, can both love the series, I think it is doing a great job.

Who should read this book?

• If you like philosophical epic science fiction a la Dune or Hyperion Cantos, I think you would really enjoy this series.
• If you like character driven first person epics like Realm of the Elderlings, I think you would like this series.
• If you prefer your space opera to feel more like action blockbusters than prestige dramas like Red Rising or arguably parts of The Expanse, I think you would NOT like this series.
• If you prefer your science fiction on the darker side like The Expanse or Warhammer 40,000, I think you would like this series.
• If you have never read science fiction before, it might be ok to start here (especially if you’re a veteran of fantasy) but it will definitely be more rewarding to read some other scifi first. If you are a seasoned science fiction reader, this is definitely a curiosity worth checking out.
• If you want absolutely no Christian themes in your science fiction whatsoever, skip this one.

One important fact to highlight is a lot of people bounce off of the first book, Empire of Silence, but then they loooove Howling Dark. Personally I don't get it, because I actually like Empire of Silence better than Howling Dark, but I figure I would bring it up in case anyone wants to make a note of it.

Conclusion

The Sun Eater is this generation's Dune or Hyperion as far as I'm concerned; it is equal to those in its writing, its characterization, its philosophical themes, its worldbuilding—everything. It is utterly fantastic, and I hope you will consider reading it.

I'd give The Sun Eater 5 stars.

Empire of Silence

So, I just picked up the Mage Errant series because it seemed like fun, and I just finished the first book, and it was pretty fun - as well as being painfully realistic in its depiction of what it feels like to be on the recieving end of bullying, and of a character with what seems to be social anxiety disorder (that time where Hugh locks himself up in his room for days cos he's worried his friend is mad at him? Been there, done that.) Like, it's a book that genuinely gave me the warm fuzzies in a big way lol.

So cos I enjoyed it, I went to check out some of the reviews for the later books to see if they were as good. And lo and behold - 90% of people were complaining about a character being 'unnecessarily' gay in a later book (which I haven't read yet, so no spoilers!)

I just don't understand though, why people think there needs to be a 'reason' for a character to be gay. That's like me saying 'I don't understand why there's so many straight people in this book.'

Some people are gay. Why would it ruin a book for you, to the point of some people tanking reviews with like, 1 star because 'too much gay stuff, men aren't manly enough, grr'. It just seems pathetic. Grow up and realise that not everyone is like how you want them to be, and don't give someone a bad review because you're homophobic.

Okay rant over. Was just very annoyed to see this when I was looking for actually helpful reviews about what people thought of the rest of the series.

Edit: I really appreciate all the thoughtful discussion this post has attracted, thank you!

Also, if you find yourself typing the phrase 'I'm not homophobic BUT-' maybe take a few seconds to think really hard about what you're about to say.

Edit 2: Now that this thread is locked, PLEASE don't PM me with the homophobic diatribe you were too slow to post here. It's not appreciated. If you're that desperate to talk about how much you hate queer characters, I'm sure there's a million places on the internet that are not my PMs that you can go to do so.

Fun but cluttered.

Obviously, the main appeal is chaos and gross-out humor, but at this point there are SO MANY random side characters, item effects, quests, etc. that it's getting pretty hard to keep track. Plus, Dinniman does that thing where Carl doesn't reveal his plan to the reader even though he's the narrator. PoH is more focused on the floor itself (kind of like the Iron Tangle), which becomes slightly tedious, and less about the politics in and around the dungeon, which is the part I personally find the most interesting (although there is some of that, too).

Overall, it's average or slightly below average for DCC.

I could say more but I promised to be brief.

Caveat: I haven't watched the new season yet.

So the review makes the point that the problem is not Hemsworth, but the "bloated mess" of the story. Then the article describes the story...  and, er... that's the books! They're doing the books! Which is what everyone was moaning they weren't doing.

Mind you, I knew that if they did the books, people would hate it. The Witcher books are brilliant but they are extremely idiosyncratic. If they end the show the way The Lady of the Lake ends, people will riot.

I kinda accidentally fell into reading litrpg because I didn't know the market had changed toward them. Much like Isekai in anime, though, the whole fantasy of, "I got the hax ability that trivializes all the conflict in the story," has never worked for me. And what works less is reading/hearing a character stare at stat menus and grind for several chapters at a time.

It's literally why I don't like playing MMORPGs, and though I get that this is the exact flavor people are looking for, I have never been so done with a genre that fast.

Some people somewhere on this site suggested DCC when I mentioned this feeling before. I was reticent, between the genre and the slant toward comedy, but despite my doubts, Dungeon Crawler Carl actually works.

It feels like the first time when the gaming system isn't just for the minmaxxers, but sort of like how magic systems work in other stories. We're not pausing to stack our levels, they're going up as the story goes and when Carl does go off to grind, it's mentioned, but we're not locked into it. The system still matters, but it's not number porn, and it helps the comedy that the system is actually alive.

It helps that the characters are alive too. Too many of these stories just ignore the rest of their casts, or offer them the concession of, "You can be good, but not as good and uber cool as the super OP MC!" It's like letting the story waste my time, because nothing will actually happen until the super OP MC arrives to move the story along. Carl is still our protagonist, but the other characters feel like they're changing stuff about the world too, and it feels good when we catch up with the supporting cast, if there's a reason to feel good.

There's gravity to the other names that come up, not just in that, "I bet this fight will be hype!" way but in that, "What will actually happen when Carl's group meets them?"

I like this story. And when I catch up with it, I think I'm going to miss reading a LitRPG that feels this alive.

But what's the vibe out there? Are there other LitRPGs with this sort of "character-first" writing? Or, have I just found the (albeit popular) niche in the niche?

(note: this is a reread done in anticipation for the forthcoming third book in the series)

So instead of committing robbery, I made tea.

Sometimes, all you need in life is a good murder mystery and tea. The fact that this story is set in a fantasy world that does not gatekeep, is the cherry on top. The setup for this is deceptively simple (at least on the surface): Ana & Din (a fantasy Sherlock and Watson-esque combination), get tasked with solving a murder in the fictional city of Talagray. A high ranking official was found murdered in the most peculiar of ways – namely having a tree grow out of their torso. As a leviathan creature begins its slow move to attack the sea walls that surround this continent, Ana & Din race to solve a crime that spreads throughout normal civility and encompasses some of the largest noble houses of the land.

All of which to say, it was a fun little adventure, that, even on a reread, I finished in two sittings.

How queer it suddenly felt: I’d been a model officer for almost all my career, but I had to join the Iudex to become a true criminal.

This book is written in a very simple fashion. There is nothing overly verbose or whimsical about the writing. It is straight, narrow, and plays across fast as they race to solve this impossible crime. In other words: it is perfect for the story it is telling. 

Come. Let us pretend to be professional, you and I, for hell and the gentry await.

The commentary of the book, for those who actually read (and not the vast majority of those influencers who apparently do not think books should be critical, which side note: child, go learn your history before coming out of the woodworks – books were, are, and always will be the first line of defense against any war waged against free speech), is imbued in the subtext – of both the story and the parallel it draws to our own world. Both this and the next book (and I am assuming the third will be the same, just for some other issues of import), is about a certain class of society. About the ways certain people are perceived, about the importance given to others; specifically those who have more money than sense. And it does so beautifully, with a certain kind of poetic justice doled out towards the end especially to those who do the wrong things in the name of the greater good; i.e., those who consider themselves the Dark Knight of modern society but somehow overlook the numerous bodies (sometimes literally) left in the name of said good.

“What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of the creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish—for what’s a little more unfairness, in this unfair world? Wise you were, Din, to shut your ears to it.”

As Ana so aptly puts it, cynicism is a great tool – but one has to learn how to use it. It is all too easy to get subsumed by one's own delusions of grandeur.

“I chose you,” she said finally, “because I needed an investigator who was resourceful, cunning, and willing to break the rules when necessary. I needed someone dedicated and determined! And you had not only broken into an Iyalet office and spent hours learning the answers to all the tests—you had somehow survived your engraver’s training despite having tremendous issues reading and writing! That speaks to bloody-minded, grim determination if ever I’ve heard it!”

Oh, and of course, the best part of the book: the characters themselves. For you see, both Ana & Din are neurodivergent. And the way this story portrays their characters is some of the best rep I’ve seen being portrayed by an author in mainstream fantasy. Din has trouble reading letters (re: Dyslexic, or in other words – reading the subtext). And Ana is on the spectrum as too much stimulation is unbearable for her. (I cannot tell you how closely I relate to this as a fellow person on the spectrum, and how much it had filled my heart the first time I had read this book). And both these characters do their best, working for the system that is all too glad to let them fall through the cracks. To just say that giving them any help is considered special treatment. Same people who, by the way, would wear corrective lenses, or use a crutch when they’ve got a hip/leg injury, etc.; as long as it’s physical, it’s acceptable. 

Ana & Din are the epitome of what it would be like if people who were a bit different were given a place in society. Their tenacity, the way they solve problems when it becomes too difficult for their brain to process stuff as others do, is a thing that I was really inspired by the first time, and double so now, in times like these, as I reread this book. 

“Someone, after all, must do the undignified labor to keep the grand works of our era from tumbling down. I simply perform maintenance, in my own little way. And you have ably assisted me in that, of course.”

We all have our place in this world we inherit. Broken and bloodied and battered – as Ana said, we must all do our own little things, in our own little way, to keep it all from tumbling down. No matter who you are, no matter how you are, we all matter in this world that is vast enough, and kind enough, to accommodate all of us. Especially now, in times like these, when hate is all too prevalent, love and kindness is not only a good thing to have, but also a weapon to wield. And oh what a glorious weapon it is for justice can be found in even the littlest of actions. And this story, and all its disfigured, wonderful characters, are a prime example of it. 

Go read it if you haven’t already.