Dan > Recent Status Updates

Hadrian is just aura farming constantly this book

Lorian should have been the main character

This has been a pretty rough section, not because it is groan worthy like the worst part of the series, but because it is just awkward. The framing device is not necessary and detracts from the drama. I read this portion was supposed to be the end of Disquiet Gods, so the way CR approaches it makes sense, but it doesn’t make it good.

Hadrians sudden faith is really out of nowhere. Whatever.

Why couldn’t CR just frame this story more normally. I swear so many of my gripes are because of the framing.

The way I’m going to have to embarrassingly admit I liked this series for the most part when it gets picked up by Ben Shapiro for their flagship sci fi epic

Oh man

Peak still

I’ve read reviews talking about how genius this series is, but legitimately until now it’s never been realized.

But this book has been amazing from the jump.

Wow this is actually peak

Selene is like the potential character. She always seems to suggest something interesting and then CR immediately removes her from the narrative.

Dare I say, the best sun eater book thus far? A lot of time to fuck this up of course.

Lmfao Hadrian is such a repulsive chauvinist it is beyond belief.

Hadrian demonstrates the patronizing chauvinism of many 19th century abolitionists who ultimately were still white supremacists

Ugh I’m so disappointed one reunion I had been hoping for will never happen.

I wish Lorain was the main character of sun eater god damn

Dune on Ice. Come on Chris….

CR renders a detestable man with a surprising amount of grace and complexity, showing that he can write something nuanced, which makes book 4 even worse!

I think this book already asks a very interesting question that I feel like is not explored as much as I’d like: how do the logistics of the Sollan Empire work? Like space travel takes decades, but most communication is largely instantaneous. In book 3 Hadrian is dispatched to confront a problem, and somehow the problem is still there like 15 years later. Feels weird.

There was a pretty strong novel, probably the best in the series, between Kingdoms of Death and Ashes of Man. Whoever made the call to split the book in two made a pretty bad one.

You’re right Hadrian. The slave empire whose centralized power is maintained by a fanatical religious organization built on a lie is in fact the light of humanity. I am your liberal goth gf and I concede to your based paleo-con world view.

Hadrian truly never misses a chance to be a pedant

Valka just is not a character anymore. She could be replaced with literally anyone that is comforting Hadrian any the story would be the same. I remember reading early on that this series’ women characters are really terrible and being confused in book 2 because I felt they were alright, but oh my god.

Wow curious that Hadrian is not waxing poetic about the governing principles of the empire now that he has learned its De Jure reason for existing is not what it seemed! Seems like here is a point to examine Hadrians extreme biases that we had to be subjected to last book at length for the first 33% of the novel. Curious there’s no such examination here!

Frankly, very boring thus far. The pacing is abysmal.

Honestly the issues are piling up. The whole time skip because of how space travel works is insanely difficult to keep straight in my head, and it undercuts some of the urgency IMO. I mean we hear there’s this big attack on some planet, and they muster to deploy it, but they literally get to the planet 100 real years later.

Jesus

Jesus