Kelvin > Recent Status Updates

Well... things are happening at least lol.

Beautifully (albeit densely) written. Subtly and subtext are definitely not in the room here lol. But it’s interesting so far. Lots of juicy things happening, pretty clean read too, not a lot of graphic scenes of violence or torture like some modern high fantasy tend to have.

MAN! By far easily one of the best action-packed epic fantasy I've read in a good while.

The action scenes in this thing are by far the gold standard. I don't think I've read fighting on this scale in a long time.

It's not so much "it's almost like what's happening today" and more like a study of the human condition, in which ambivalence and hyperindividualism are the biggest reasons why dictatorships thrive. You can see a microcosm of this happen in everyday situations. There are ppl who tend to only react when it directly affects them and then there are those with a bleeding heart. The "IDK lolz" make up the majority.

Man, this is beginning to feel like "Days of Lives: Urithiru" directed by Tyler Perry lol.

Waaay too attention is being directed toward side characters, and this soap opera feel isn't doing me any favors. I feel like a month-long time jump and some light exposition could have easily accomplished the same job these last 300 pages have done.

This is one of those novels where you're painfully aware of the fact that you're reading a book and not EXPERIENCING the events happening in the book. They're well written, but the character work is a bit lacking. This is definitely a slow burn political mystery which I dig a lot. But all these characters practically have the same physical description lol. They're all tall, good looking and in super shape.

Jesus Christ. Did we need 25 pages of bipolar hippies living on a Lion Turtle from Avatar The Last Airbender? No, no we did not. Interesting setting but bruh, I was just impatient for
this interlude to end lol.

Some of this I have to strongly suspend my belief on. Like preteen children, I'm talking ages 10-13, being assigned military missions and even orders to lead their own units, by grown-ass adults who are still very much alive and well enough to do the tasks themselves.

The bad guys' motives make 0 sense. Why repeatedly destroy the towns you're actively exploiting for resources??

*whew* the pacing of this book is molasses. Vis is a robot. This dude has 0 emotional depth and the clinical writing does not help. Even tense action sequences this dude’s pulse doesn’t jump above 65 beats per second.

Hmmm... this got MEGA YA real quick. Not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the first 30% was like an adult spy thriller set in Fantasy inspired Rome but then in Part II the narrative switches to some generic magic school narrative takes some adjusting. I guess the plus in that is that Vis is behaving like a typical 17-year-old and not a 40-year-old scholar/spy.

Took this book a looooonng ahh time to finally get interesting…

It's been a long time since I've stumbled upon a protagonist who gets on my nerves to no end... I can deal with the tstl protagonist. They're unintentionally funny to watch. But Iskat... man, this mfer is by far the most whinest, entitled mfer I've read about in a long ass time lol. No wonder she wound up being an Inquisitor...

So far, the best Middle Grade geared High Republic work I've read. I was skeptical about Jose Older helming this one. His writing style is an acquired taste for me, but it looks like he's found his footing in this one. It's multi-POV like other HR works and ties directly into other HR titles,

Okay...the Nihil are LITERALLY growing to be more of a galactic-level threat...