Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Spirits of Vengeance by Rob J. Hayes starting on June 10, 2024.


Happy Reading!

I am dragging my feet with this one.....I may suck it up and start after the book I am listening to now, likely tomorrow. I am fully expecting to love 95% of the book then be majorly disappointed by the ending.....

I'm similarly dragging my feet on starting... this is a long one... it's nearly 50% of the omnibus...

Timelord Iain wrote: "I'm similarly dragging my feet on starting... this is a long one... it's nearly 50% of the omnibus..."

There is that too....

Started this after work... almost 50% through already... chapter 25 of 64...

This just feels like more of the same... similar to book 1... I think book 2 was my favorite...

I was looking into what Rob J Hayes is up to these days, and it's pretty wild...

He did a kickstarter last month for 3 simultaneous trilogies releasing later this summer (in ebook/physical formats, at least)...

It's called the God Eater Saga, and he's releasing the first book in each trilogy at the same time, and plans to do the same thing with books 2-3...

The main book/trilogy is Herald (Age of the God Eater), and is a tomey trilogy at the farthest point in the timeline...

Then there's Deathless (Annals of the God Eater) set 1000 years in the past, and Demon (Archive of the God Eater) set 3000 years in the past...

They are all set in a world where people can gain power/immortality by eating angels, and some people killed God 1000 years ago, but there's some way to bring God back...

That's about all I got, skimming around: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

The more I look into it, it's like if Michael J Sullivan released Riyria, Legends of the First Empire, and The Rise & The Fall simultaneously...

You have a tomey, Wheel of Time - esque trilogy, and then a prequel novella trilogy like Dragonsteel that shows how the Godless Kings killed God and consumed angels for power, and then another prequel series about the "First Age" when demons roamed the land and kept human thralls, like the Age of Legend in Wheel of Time's past or the 3k years ago in Stormlight Archives... and how time has warped the facts in Legends of the First Empire... very interesting, but also something I want to wait for all 3/9 books before trying... looks like Kickstarter hit the audiobook stretch goal...

I started Cinnamon Bun before this one.....

I backed that kickstarter...

I started this, through chapter 8, decent fighting and engaging characters just like the first 2 books, I hope it doesn't have a disappointing ending like the first 2 had.....

Fingers crossed... I'm hoping to be here today or tomorrow...

I feel like I went into this already biased towards #2... I'm near the end, now, and it's reminding me of Streets of Rage, an old Sega Genesis game, where (view spoiler)[you get to the end, and the final boss dialogue creates a scenario where it's possible to turn the game into PVP between player 1 & 2... (hide spoiler)]

Started... oh gods... the narrator's horrible pronunciation is killing me... Stop saying "onmeeyohgee. It's Ohn-myoh-gee. There's no letter or syllable between the m & y!!

Up through Chapter 18. I like the little interspersed stories--reminds me of the first one--and I love that Guang uses vegetables as expletives. Turnip! Cabbage! I think it's the granny. I still don't have people straight. I think it's Guang, not Yanmei, but honestly they both sound like old women...

But oh my gods the narrator's pronunciation of Asian--especially Japanese--inspired words is just awful... it's kicking me out of the story every other sentence and leaving me with a permanent grimace on my face. Steven Pacey-style grimACE.

Up to chapter 55 and man (view spoiler)[this has taken a dark turn! Poor Kira! And poor me because this is shaping up to be another ending that I will hate thus ruining a book that I loved to this point..... (hide spoiler)]

So I finished.....This is a complete series? Right? Because (view spoiler)[WTAF there is a cliffhanger ending!!!! I was prepared for Haruto to die, it made sense in the context of the story! But nooooo, then along comes the epilogue and would you look at that? He is ALIVE! And not only that, he is recruited by the chick from the last book to help her in the upcoming war! Are one of the 92 books related to his Kickstarter a spin-off to this series? I am so annoyed by this lol These would have been so good if I didn't hate the endings..... (hide spoiler)]

So much like the first 2 in the series I loved the world-building, loved the characters, loved the stories, hated the endings. Of all 3 books. Like for real hated them.

I liked #2 the most... I just kinda rode the wave on the books, and didn't pay as much attention to the plot of book 3 for some reason...

I don't know that this is a complete series... it's not even 100% considered a series, it's just 3 loosely connected standalones... I think the omnibus exists to boost sales and garner extra interest... I feel like this world will be revisited in the future, probably after he writes the 3 trilogies he's currently writing in the God Eater Saga kickstarter I mentioned...

Started looking into Rob Hayes news on reddit, and found a Q&A from the release of Spirits of Vengeance:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comm...

searching through, I found him talking about how he's the living embodiment of starting too many series... and how the First Earth setting had 2 more trilogies planned out, to be written someday (there's 1 trilogy so far, The Ties That Bind)... so I'm sure he has more Mortal Techniques plans...

That is so dumb. Did you finish? You can skip the epilogue if you want, it is stupid.

Yea I finished, yesterday or the day before... took me forever to finish, cause I listened to the last 33-50% in whatever time was left before bed, after finishing my work book each day over the weekend...

For real, were you satisfied with the ending? I recognize that I am super picky about endings but these were particularly bad in my opinion!

It was about what I expected, from the previous endings... (view spoiler)[the full-on cliffhanger, like you mentioned, for as-yet-unpublished future books/war was a surprise, tho... (hide spoiler)]

Up to Chapter 47 (view spoiler)[And hey, it's our old friend, the new God of War! I think she and Yanmai should get along well... they met in the 2nd book, didn't they? Sucks for Kira though... and man, what a horrid revelation about her death... Was Kira Yanmai's actual daughter? And killed by her uncle... because of his feelings for her? That is... ambiguous in the worst way... (hide spoiler)]

Nirkatze wrote: "Up to Chapter 47 [spoilers removed]"

Regarding book 2 cameo (view spoiler)[Yanmei saved the God of War at one point. Kira's past was awful! (hide spoiler)]

Ah, glad I wasn't imagining that! Hm. (view spoiler)[Does that make Yanmai the only one to appear in all three books? (hide spoiler)]

Finished! I didn't hate the ending, or love it this time... (view spoiler)[I feel like it didn't have a gut-punch twist like the others... I like the idea Kira has, to be a spirit helping other spirits get what they need (ie: vengeance) and move on... kind of taking Haruto's place.

Was glad to learn that Haruto still wasn't dead... and would like to see him at the side of the new God of War... I definitely would like to see another book that ties all of these stories together... (hide spoiler)]

Rob Hayes's website calls the series "An ongoing series of standalone novels set in a world inspired by Asian cinema and mythology."

So I'm hopeful.

Don't pull a cliffhanger like that with no resolution in sight lol

Some authors like a hook... every Children of Time book ends with the alien races and humans off to deal with a new crisis or distress beacon or discovered alien planet... even tho it's basically an open-ended series of episodic standalones kinda...