SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

This is the buddy read for The Strength of the Few, starting on November 13th. Please use spoiler tags and tell us which chapter/page/percentage you're talking about.

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Who will be joining us?

Awesome, thank you Melanie!

thanks Melanie for the thread. See y'all tomorrow!

I believe we are officially starting on the 13th to give people time to get a hold of a copy of the book.

Got my copy and I'll start listening tomorrow!

I too picked up my copy today! Haven’t started just yet but this weekend for sure!

I've just started. About 50 pages in.

Halfway! I think I enjoyed (view spoiler)[Res storyline the best. Maybe because I just want to know what happened with Vis after he chose Governance. That chariot race was insane. Glad they gave Aequa the Quintus title so Vis had to work harder. He was such a capable, fast learning lad despite losing his arm so I liked that he got some hurdles. (hide spoiler)]

I did start this weekend! Wanted to reread the first book first and it took me a little longer to get through than expected.

Not very far in but I like that it picked up pretty much exactly where book 1 left off. Already some early reveals about (view spoiler)[some of the other worlds that I think are cool. Wondering if Gleaners are those flying things on the cover. (hide spoiler)]

Sarah wrote: "I did start this weekend! Wanted to reread the first book first and it took me a little longer to get through than expected.

Not very far in but I like that it picked up pretty much exactly where ..."

Yep, those are them indeed. If you did not point it out, i would not take a look at the cover lol

I finished last night

copy pasting my review:
(view spoiler)[I thought this would be a five-star read. The worldbuilding got expanded significantly by the end of Book 1 and I have high expectation that the plot would be as tense and the characters would be as engaging in the sequel. But it was not the case.

This is an ambitious book to write but with splitting into three POVs, all of them must be equally attractive enough for my attention. Unfortunately, all I really cared about was Res-Vis. The tension is still there, if not heightened and with higher stakes, and everytime we switched to the others, I silently groaned. Luceum reads like a typical fantasy story set in ancient Scotland or wherever, with some training, a cliched love interest, and forgettable friends or mentors dying at high speed, plus a boring villain. Meanwhile, Obiteum reads like I'm entering a video game with mazes (well, more labyrinth) and obstacles in it, with Vis entering and exiting places, jumping or getting out of something, lots of suffering ofc but he's like have 1,000 lives so OMG so tiring and repetitive. There are some interesting lore and revelation in Obiteum but at that point I was already gasping for air, I mean Res storyline.

Speaking of Res, it is not without weaknesses. The action parts awe awesome (especially at the end of Part I), the characters were fascinating and it was lovely to read about Vis interacting with his friends who he grew to love and trust more. But then chapter 71 happened and I still don't know whether that served a narrative purpose, if not to shock the readers. I think some other reviewers also pointed that out. And then right at the end, I wonder if the author decided to have that last part as a consolation (because it is not, the previous plot in book 1 already done and done). Also, some actually interesting parts after the end of Part II happened off-page, which made the storyline a bit rushed in Part III. I really would trade 100 pages of Luceum and 50 pages of Obiteum for those events.

Ok I know I complained a lot but this is still one helluva book with so many layers of mystery and that kept me awake for six nights straight so four stars would suffice (or in Storygraph I would give it 4.25). (hide spoiler)]

Yeah, I would definietly say if the ending of book 1 is not fresh, you may want to review because this picks right up and doesn't back fill the knowledge.

This is a long one, so I may take me a while to get through it all. Because I am doing the audio, I have to be careful each chapter to figure which version of Vis the chapter is following.

Chapter VIII

It’ll probably take me awhile as well. This is a busy week for me and it’s a long book.

I will say, first impressions, I’m finding this one a bit harder to follow then the first one. I like that it has a different feel and some different lore being introduced but it’s just not really clicking. Like the who is doing the what and why? lol

That's what I meant. I need to calibrate every time we switch Vis-es.

Sarah wrote: "It’ll probably take me awhile as well. This is a busy week for me and it’s a long book.

I will say, first impressions, I’m finding this one a bit harder to follow then the first one. I like that i..."

You're not the only one. I am glad I am using my Kindle, easier to search who is who and stuff....

Yeah you are braver than I am Mel to go the audiobook route!

I have the hard copy Silvana but yeah I’ve definitely flipped back to the glossary and index a couple times already.