The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Please keep all discussion to the events and speculation from this section.

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Please do not discuss events from later chapters. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

Section 6 is Kindle loc 5843-End

First sentence "The high priest - Basraship or possibly the Basrahip, it was hard to tell - leaned back on his leather and iron stool."

For the audible version narrated by Pete Bradbury:

Section 6 starts at 13:53:35

Wow, talk about getting all the players lined up like chess pieces at the end.

I'm not sure how things are going to play out for Cithrin, except that I suppose that she figures having that much extra time to prove herself will give her what she needs to keep her permanently in place.

Having Aster placed as Geder's ward well...this is the type of thing that keeps happening to Geder, isn't it? It will be interesting to see how that develops.

Justine wrote: "Having Aster placed as Geder's ward well...this is the type of thing that keeps happening to Geder, isn't it? It will be interesting to see how that develops."

Well, Geder is still a pawn, it's just his player has changed. A priest of a mad goddess with direct access to the next heir of the throne? I don't give the poor kid much of a survival rating.

No, me neither. Or, if he does, he definitely won't be the same person.

I thought the world building was a bit light, but enough not to bother me. Many things weren't fully explained yet I expect they will come to light and be expanded on further in the series.

I thought where the book really shined was character development. Abrahams created some great characters that were pretty reprehensible yet not too hard to like (Alex may disagree :)) Perhaps this is because they were presented sympathetically before they were revealed to be not as nice as you thought? I am just comparing this to say Glokter from First Law or Jorge from Broken Empire, where the characters truly are pretty bad and you know it from the first page.

Glad to see that people are liking this one. It really ended up being one of my favorite series I read last year. Hope we keep everyone going for when the 5th book comes out

I also found Glotka a hell of a lot more interesting than any of the characters in this book. He had depth and substance and all the characters in The Dragon's Path were flat to me. Glotka has more personality than all the characters in TDP combined (IMO of course).

I love Glotka, so I wouldn't want to detract from him or the Abercrombie series at all, but I felt like by book 3 our main group of characters in this series is at least as complex. However I know you don't like Abraham Dara :).

I'm glad you guys are enjoying him though!

Yeah its cool we don't all like and dislike the same things. Makes discussions much more interesting.

You guys should read the Long Prince quartet after Dagger & Coin.

Dara wrote: "You guys should read the Long Prince quartet after Dagger & Coin."

I need to read the rest of that series, have only read the first so far.

I plan to read it at some point.

I really wanted more explanation re: the races and some of the myths of their making. I don't mind waiting for the 'real story' as that's clearly part of the larger plot, but it annoyed me to not have that part of the world more clearly spelled out. I think in general the characters are not as fully real as either Erikson's or Abercrombie's, but it didn't really change my enjoyment of the books - they're just different.

Also in for The Long Prince Quartet, whenever people are up for it.

I think you guys misunderstood my statement above. I love Jorg and Glokta. More than any characters in this book. The point I was trying (and failing :)) to make was that Jorg and Glokta immediately come off as reprehensible characters, and slowly you learn to love them (and love them you do!) whereas in this book, Geder and Dawson come off as immediately likable but slowly start to do things that maybe don't quite jive with your first impressions of them.

Yeah, I agree with you there Robyn. Maybe all 12 (13?) races will factor in more in the larger city, but in this one book they are all just kind of thrown at you and besides adding a little flavor of cow-like and insect-like races, the fact that they were non-human didn't play much of a role besides confusing me when I tried to keep which race was which straight.

Sky wrote: "Also in for The Long Prince Quartet, whenever people are up for it."

Me too.

haha...i knew you'd say that alex ;)

I think the Abraham's best quality in this novel was his focus on banking and politics. While his character development wasn't the best he did put some different spins on them. I think I liked Gedar the best. Gedar was a complete pawn the whole time but was able to act unexpectedly towards those trying to use him.

I liked Marcus/Cithrin part of the story best, and am most curious about who is this immortal spider Goddess supposedly older than dragons. I'm sure we'll find out, eventually. I liked how Clara, Dawson's wife, was introduced into the list of characters getting her own chapters, and especially I enjoyed what she thinks about her husband. She loves him, yes, but also sees his faults. And he thinks she's so simple-minded, that was funny. Overall I enjoyed the book but I'd really want to see more of the worldbuilding in the next installments.

I also am kind of sad there's no Glokta, Jorg or Tyrion - like character here, I don't think Geder will rise up to the challenge.

The addition of Clara as a POV was a good choice. She's one of my favorites.

I enjoyed Clara also but I really hope Vincen kissing her doesn't lead to a love triangle storyline.

I am also curious what the 'lie' is about the spider goddess religion that forced The Adept (Kit?) to run. Something is not as it seems, but we don't know yet.

Clara is one of my favourites as well.

Teanka wrote: "And he thinks she's so simple-minded, that was funny."

That seems to be one of Dawson's major flaws generally though...he seems to feel that only he sees things the right way and that everyone else is too simple minded to understand the enormity of the issues.

You mean Frank/Claire from Outlander? It's been a long time since I read the books, but I suppose I could see elements of it. What I get more from them is the classic smart but quiet wife/arrogant & rich but secretly loving man duo, who truly love each other but also share a set of misbeliefs about their partners that help them stay together. Dawson knows his wife is capable but doesn't see the full value of what she does because he doesn't rate things done in the women's sphere; Clara conveniently overlooks his more piggish attitudes and gets things done. Their banter and attitudes towards each other remind me of lots of my friends and family who have been married for 20 + years, which is the part where Frank/Claire don't quite match up for me. (At least not from the early books; I stopped reading in book 4 so god knows what happens.)

I assume he meant the Underwoods from house of cards. Personally I don't think they ate that ambitious/ruthless.

Ooh. That would probably make more sense.

Clara seems a nice woman, no comparison to Claire Underwood for me. And Dawson isn't nearly as smart as Frank, his schemes fail all the time.

Alex wrote: "

Hey Claire is a nice woman!"

To me she's just the opposite to 'nice', LOL

Finally done with the book, but I think the characters are a bit uncooked because geder going on to become super villain was too much for me, although I liked cithrin's story.all in all it looks to a good series but the world building is really lacking.