I’ve got an audible credit to burn. Trying to decide what to pick. Looking at: Japanese Gothic Wolf Worm Empire of the Vampire or Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (I’ve never read anything of his but he gets good reviews)
Nevernight is really, really good, but his style might put people off. I think it's genuinely well done, great writing, personally. But I know people who haven't enjoyed it, that's all.
I just had an ad pop up for a new book by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. called The Last of the First. He's an author I have been aware of for decades but I've never read any of his work. It's from a series called Saga of Recluce, but when I went to learn a little more I found out that the series is 20+ books, apparently this is book #26, and I immediately lost any and all desire to check it out. Part of me feels bad about doing this, because I know that represents a tremendous amount of work on the author's part, and it's a monumental achievement in an of itself, but the thought of tackling a 26-book (at least!) series could not possibly be less enticing to me. I am looking for good standalones right now. I've even been leaning away from long trilogies, which admittedly is hard and counterproductive when I like to read fantasy and science fiction, but there it is.
My understanding is that Recluce is mostly subseries over a long timespan in the world, with lots of technological and political changes and a varied cast of characters. But I’m in a similar boat. I’ve had the first of his Spellsong books on my shelf forever, but… there are only so many huge SFF series I can tackle, you know? I’ve read all of Shannara and David Eddings, most of Pratchett and Sanderson, the main Sword of Truth books… I’m 1.25 books into Malazan, I need to eventually finish the Wheel of Time, there’s a bunch of Dragonlance on my TBR still, I’m only one trilogy into Valdemar, I’ve got more McKiernan and Gemmell and Feist and Tad Williams and Salvatore to read… I’d love to try both Janny Wurts and Michelle West… and those are all just the 10+ book series, to say nothing of all the good 5/6/7 etc. Anyway. I feel you. As much as I want to read all of these and more, I’m no longer 12 years old with 8+ hours to read a day, haha
just finished The Ferryman. I absolutely flew thru the first 400 or so pages, basically in one day, and absolutely loved it up until around that point. major plot developments happen, and I definitely did not enjoy the rest of the book nearly as much, although I cannot really put my finger on why. as of right now (and I just finished it last night so), I think he is a very good writer, and he brings up some very heavy, important & topical themes, but his resolution to these themes is either nonexistent or not up to the level of his writing, if that makes any sense. the main character (and a few of the others) really seem to get off easy for some things that are very difficult to convey the gravity of here, and the main character's wife gets robbed of or cheated out of any type of catharsis, unless I misunderstood / misread some things - I did have a little bit of trouble following the ins and outs of the last part of the book, not because it is overly confusing but moreso because I had really checked out of the story mentally at that point and was only finishing the book because it would bug me not to know how it ends, so there is a chance that some of this stuff is in there and I missed it. Also, a few of the logistical elements of the real-world science at the end felt like they were wrong or were a cheat on Cronin's part, but that stuff wasn't a huge deal. I would definitely reread this book down the road though to see if my feelings on it or understanding of it change a bit going into it knowing the overall shape of what is going on, but not any time soon.
I finished The Faith of Beasts, and thought it never picked up. Ill probably still finish out the trilogy, but so far my favorite part was the Livesuit novella. Currently listening to The Knight and The Moth, reading There Is No Antimemetics Division, and trying to knock out at least a chapter of the Odyssey every day.
I'm in the terrible place where I just finished an audiobook and the wait on Libby for the sequel is 6 weeks. I've been turning to the Penric novellas by Lois McMaster Bujold in these moments and they've been great palate cleansers