It's an Exciting World

I read three novellas, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ by George R. R. Martin, ‘Perfect State’ by Sanderson, and ‘Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell’ by Sanderson.

A Knight of the seven Kingdoms was really nice, with a bit of a lighter side to the seven kingdoms, and a good look at their recent history for the primary series of Song and Ice and Fire.  The characters were delightfully odd, and not homicidal maniacs like most of the characters in Song of Ice and Fire.

Perfect State had a wonderful premise, and amazing execution, as is expected from Sanderson.  I really enjoyed the interplay of the characters with the world around them.  I also liked the philosophical questions of whether the AI should be considered human.  There is also the natural born to natural born interaction part of that philosophical bent, with class systems for them.  The final philosophical piece that is interesting is the futility and fatalism of the premade worlds each person is put into.  I hope he does something else in this universe.

Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell was a great universe, but not as likable as many of his other universes.  The limitations were great, the characters identifiable, but the world was too bleak.  The twist at the end was fantastic.

This was a great ending to the series.  Since it has been a while since I listened to the previous two books I re-listened to those, then got into this.  It flowed really nicely, and I really liked how the overpowered characters from the previous books got nerfed.  The epicness being distributed among many characters made it a lot more real, and identifiable when there were problems.  I was a little upset that all three empires didn’t get involved, but that also seemed more real.  The great foe was defeated a little too easily for my taste, and he was a little too evil to be identifiable, which is hard to do with villains, but the best have it.

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The story in this was good, but there were a number of plot devices I didn’t like.  The first was the trope of the ‘Woman in the Refrigerator’.  This happens all over the series, with the female characters depowered to move the story arcs.  This was particularly bad when the old bard was able to choose how he died, while the woman of interest was hunted down and killed to get to him.  The book also had the unimportant characters die by the thousands, with the important characters miraculously living over and over again.  Many of the important characters were supernaturally powerful, so it isn’t that surprising, but it is still one of my pet peeves when going through these kinds of books.  Towards the end some major characters die, and it does even out in a way.  The magic system in the book was also somewhat underdeveloped.  There are small explanations of how it works, but I was hoping for something a bit more in depth.  I might be spoiled by some of Sanderson’s universes.

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This series was pretty good.  I really liked the magic system, and most of the characters.  At some points the magic system got a little mixed up to be convenient for the plot, but most of the time it was straightforward.  There was the common issue of things that are learned and used to great effect in previous books aren’t always used again when the situation calls for it.  This book was better than most about that, but still had it in a few places, mainly when dealing with the fairy.  The were two other big issues I had with the book.  First the main character lives were valued so much more highly than the common man, despite them valuing the ‘old law’ which should have had everyone more or less equal.  Second, there was what seemed to be a false dichotomy of evil people and good people, where the good people could do no wrong, and the evil people could do no good.  The only somewhat in between character had his evil doing explained away with grief, so it was really evil, just misguided.

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I really enjoyed this book.  It had a lot of suspense in how he deals with the environment, and he is really funny in what he does.  I like the way he treats mission control, since he has nobody to really take things out on.  The epicness of his ingenuity and the scrapes he gets through are fantastic.  I can’t wait to see the movie.

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This was an amusing, but silly series of books.  The plot was very predictable most of the time, with the heroes being immune to anything serious.  The amount by which they were overpowered by the end of the series was a little funny.  I also was amused by how they made all the people and gods of greek myths silly personifications of their attributes.  The split personalities was also amusing.  I’d recommend it as a light read when you want something amusing and easy to read.

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This was a fantastic book, with a very different view of time travel.  I understand the guy’s first and second replays, as I would have done much the same.  I don’t understand the later lives, as I would have seen what I could learn, and then progressed the world at a faster rate, made bigger changes, and been a powerful figure.  I also found it interesting that the original timeline was the one they returned to, instead of any of the alternates they had created.  I have to admit that I didn’t expect the way it ended.

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I really liked the story in this book, and really disliked the magic system.  The magic system was so core to the concept, and so contrived feeling that I really couldn’t take it seriously.  I especially thought the immunity was contrived, and in the end not all that important.  Normally when there are powers like this in a book I think about what I’d do with them, but the system was contrived enough that I couldn’t think about it.

This was a great book, and the development of the characters was really nice.  I did find the resentment between the two good Drow to be a bit too fabricated.  I also thought that they weren’t very careful on their making up, which led to their downfall.  The fixation on Drizzt by the faceless master was also odd, since it was more of an issue with the family and not with him in particular.  Him stoping with knowing what family it was that did the deed struck me as odd, as I expected him to want the details and throw those in the face of the ones involved.  I guess it did take him 15 years to find out which family had taken him out.  It might be worth reading further in this series, and I’ll try out the next one.