Stijn Bun > Recent Status Updates

Okay, now that I'm truly sitting down for this book after putting it down after 10 pages half a year ago, It has gripped me....

It's non-fiction, but it reads like a page-turner-thriller.

This book picked up pace so quickly it seems like a whole different book now...

Things are starting to make sense though, as "this" is what people pitched this book as! Apparently I was just impatient.

THE GANG IS TOGETHER!!!!
That was one of the most satisfying reunions I've read.
Having a first book of JUST buildup was 100% worth it.

Wow! Okay this book is really picking up now.
After going a little Tolkien-esque on the descriptions of praeries it lost me for a bit. But now that we're actually getting character moments and the plot is moving again, I AM HOOKED

It might just be setting the vibe, but so far this book has mostly been: Walking through a desert - GORE - walking through a desert - GORE - repeat.

Maybe it'll vary things up more in the future?

Wow!
This suddenly took a REALLY politics & intrigue heavy turn I did not expect, but absolutely LOVE.

I went into this book expecting something completely different, but this is great!

Interesting start....
Why does every chapter spoil itsself with a summary at the start though???

After 2 books of action-packed short stories and 1 novel with a constantly high-paced plot, I didn't expect 250+ pages of slow training, cooking and dealing with food-poisoning....

But I'm all for this.
This rocks.

Forgot to update for a while as this book has had me by the throat... This is going into dark places I did NOT expect to see in fantasy....

Every chapter it feels more like: "Im Westen nichts neues, fantasy edition".

I love how (mostly) everything they've been dealing with so far is either highly personal drama, or feeding an army, making sure no one gets sick and keeping morale in check.

It adds to the "real" feeling this "account" has!
Great stuff!

Notes the story so far:
Priest's: FUCKED UP
Soldier's: Cool!
Poet's: Intriguing
Scholar's:
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WRITE THIS.
IT'LL TAKE WEEKS TO EMOTIONALLY RECOVER.
WHAT THE HELL?!

What an interesting take on young Geralt so far...
Love to see a young protagonist that fails not because they're incompetent, but incredibly gullable and not used to social customs yet.

(Which makes sense if you spent the first 18 years of your life in fantasy bootcamp, never seeing the outside world)

Although it's entirely just buildup so far, every page burns with tension...
You just know these people will go through hell....
Oh god...
I wish them the best...
But it probably won't save any of them...

Wow!
Great to see Howard coming out of his earlier flaws. Conan is accompanied by two interesting characters who aren't bad stereotypes (as was previously often the case).

It's also great to see these other characters shine for once, and having them rely on each other in interesting ways.

These stories were written back when there wasn't a consensus on how to write fantasy, so it's nice to see Howard discovering.

It took a bit, but the book has truly kicked into that 11th gear that the first one was in from the start.

On the one hand, that has made this book harder to stick to so far.

On the other, with the extra build-up I'm extra excited how this'll turn out now!

The whole Sham plotline really didn't catch my attention.
It all felt INCREDIBLY predictable, something this series usually is not.

But then we got introduced to the warden.
WHAT THE HELL IS HIS DEAL?!
WHAT IS GOING ON!?

I'm hooked again!

This is everything I wanted from mercy of the gods
(the first book in the captive's war series).

We finally get payoff!
We finally get stakes!
We finally get tension!

The characters are still bland compared to their other works.
But that can be excused in a novella that's this compact.

No one (that I've encountered at least) writes warfare and sieges like Abercrombie. It might be a fantasy book, but it feels gutteral in a way only matched by actual historical accounts.

(What probably helps in this book is the fact that magic is barely even present, but still.)

A resistance?
A counter-resistance?!?!

Now we're getting somewhere!

Slowly but surely the pace is picking up....
It's growing on me!

Except for *THAT ONE* fight in Matthew Colville's "THIEF" I've never seen a fight that was THIS built up and also still managed to exceed all expectations.... Damn!

I'm quite worried about the political plot however...
I feel a plot twist coming....
And I still can't tell exactly where it will happen...

PART 1 ABSOLUTELY RUUUUULED!!!
I've been putting this off for way too long. This is exactly the type of stuff you want to see from the final book in a trilogy, page after page of plotlines closing in ways that are either amazingly satisfying, or so unsatisfactory that you feel the characters' hate boiling up as your own frustration.... Amazing!

It's truly getting somewhere now!
Slowly but surely I'm warming up to the characters, even if the world or plot haven't fully captured my interest just yet.

It might just be the weird names and large cast that all goy introduced at once, but so far I still find them all quite hard to distinguish, and visualize in my head.

The plot is also not as interesting as the first expanse books so far? But I trust the author, and have been told it gets waaaaay better over time.

So I'm just going to force through it, since I trust that there'll be a satisfying ending!

Everything is absolutely going to shit, and this book was already a page-turner when stuff was going well!

Completely forgot to update anything while reading this book.
I haven't read the martian, I just watched the movie.
But it's giving that exact same feeling of someone trying to work through a HORRIBLE situation with real-world science.

Only this time he has an alien buddy...
But after 8 whole chapters of just trying to learn an alien "yes" and "no", it definitely feels earned.

It may be the 2 books of characters fumbling around and messing stuff up. But now having some ACTUALLY SATISFYING scenes is such a glorious breath of fresh air it's indescribable.

I'm scared...
For the first time in three books things are going well for these characters...
This is not the kind of world where things go well for people...

Help...

Although we've had some of the best scenes in the whole book, it's also getting vague in that "oohhh, look how trippy I can write" way...

we'll have to see where this goes....

3/5 chapters done.
The narrator is becoming more and more untrustworthy.
The scary bit? She knows it too...

This is great stuff hahaha