Proud moment for me:
I made it through the second of 8 absolutely delightful, engaging, and extremely PLEASURABLE novels in a series about a topic I love.
But the first book ended POORLY... because they knew that fans like me would be the second. It’s like it LITERALLY had zero ending. Meaning there was this absurd violation of novelistic structure.
And the second cemented my creeping suspicion that this all... all all all... was trifling crap. It’s like porn for people who like fast talking smart alecks, snide, sarcastic, and battle after battle after battle.
One amazingly engaging battle after another. So enjoyable. Exactly what I love.
Except that there's zero heart, soul, message... oh... it takes a head nod in the direction of what is noble and how should people behave...
But at the end of the day...
Lovely useless battles of stupid.
So... I did not buy the third.
I'm done.
Victory.
I’m not going to mention the name of the series because I don’t want to get into it with fans who are fine reading the same book 8 times:
Hero and partner in exotic setting fight stuff until they live or die.
That’s the book.
Sirens of Titan made me weep for three hours. This is what I expect a novel to do. Moby Dick changed the way I examine culture and society. Emma taught me to be expect the unexpected. Valuable books do valuable work. Entertaining books entertain. I get it. I consider the elevation of my human experience more valuable than being entertained for five hours. Thoughts?
Deathstalker. OMG. This can't be the series you're talking about, but my god were those books a series of neverending escalations with the exact same resolution every single time. If you want to know how many times a hero can get into an impossible situation and get out of it by simply overcoming the impossible situation be becoming impossibly stronger, which is something apparently any other character is also potentially capable of if they are given the right drugs, that is the series for you.
Unfortunately, unlike you, i was determined to ride it out through spite instead of self respect.
Lol, this is just about every teenager fiction ever. I used to laugh when my family watched dragonball z, because it just seemed like the way two kids 'play/fight' when they're in kindergarten: "I win because I'm super saiyan!" "No, I win because I'm super sayain x2!!!!!" Just try harder (scream louder) and you win.
I had this exact realization as a teenager while undescribably stoned and haven't been able to watch shows like this since.
Capt. Silence and Investigator Frost kept me going in that series far longer than common sense dictates.
I'd still love to see a B movie adaptation of a couple of the plot lines. Gimme an ironclad Sigourney Weaver positively eating the scenery as Empress Lionstone XIV.
Oh… if I’m being honest… I’m probably just postponing the inevitable with the series that made me gobble two like candy. But… if I abstain for 6 months and I forget about it, I have saved over two hundred dollars… unless someone has links to the audio version…
I read a giant number of books, and I'm not rich. I use the Libby app with my library card. I usually get the Kindle versions, but they have audiobooks, too. All free.
Like the Wolf Brother books by Michelle Paver. Boy gets into trouble. Weird gruesome magic happens. Boy is saved by someone else because he'll never learn to save himself.
I love all Paver's books apart from these.