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 Flinty wrote:
I went back to Dragons of Autumn Twilight. So much deus ex machina! And the female characters seem to swing wildly between properly competent, and swooning damsels in distress. It’s a bit jarring.

They were written by two people: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

If you read their separate works they are quite different.

It doesn't help that its as game they were running transcribed as they went. Some of the characters entered late, some took a while to settle on personalities and at one point they got a TPK from a random Dragon in a well and had to rewrite it with a much younger dragon to keep them alive, where they just agreed it didnt happen in game, while keping the buildup the same.

I dont mind people being inspired by their games (The deed of paksenarrion is great!), or writing them up well, once at a distance (the all guardsmen party is good) but it does need a certain touch to get right.

Dragonlance is a potentially interesting setting, but the books are not the authors best.

I just finished Iron Gold, the 4th book of the Red Rising series. I think my most succinct thought of the first trilogy is that it's a competently executed space opera. I thought the ending was 'safe.' Not terrible by any means, but I wasn't served any surprises. Good, not great.

Iron Gold, however, almost reads like a completely different author. The change to multi-POV, a favourite of mine ever since I read Game of Thrones many years ago, was a great idea and really hooked me into the new characters. Darrow's perspective was the least interesting to read. From the opening chapters I thought Lyria was going to be my favourite story to follow, but Lysander really stole the show IMO. I was happy to see Romulus again, as he was probably my favourite part of Morning Star, and he managed to be even more interesting here.

I've already got Dark Age loaded up on my kindle. Excited to see where this goes now.

Finished Nowhere: A Novel by Allison Gunn.

A fun, pretty dark and grim Appalachian horror tale. I definitely get the “It’s like The Outsider and Mare of Easttown had a baby” comparison that one reviewer made.

8/10