ethancf's reviews
1293 reviews

3.5.

The first half is pretty dire, even if does serve as evidence that with the ever-expanding Star Wars universe, there's room for other types of stories. And it's telling that one of the stronger new canon Star Wars novels was never intended to be a novel- this is an adaptation of episodes that were written but never filmed for the mostly excellent Clone Wars series. The first half of this novel is all set-up and poorly written character development, taking two fierce and disciplined warriors and turning them into star-crossed, high school lovers, which is a disservice to both the book, the universe, and the characters.

But once the novel gets past that hump, and into the second half, it shines. The subterfuge and political action is fantastic, and it's really a shame that this part of Ventress's story never made it to TV, since her arc is left unfinished in the series. I'm not thrilled about her ending here, as it plays right into the fridging females aspect of Star Wars, but at least we get closure.

Audio.

As my fourth Sanderson audiobook, I'm starting to question whether it's Sanderson or narrator Michael Kramer that I like. Kramer has a knack for bringing Sanderson's characters to life, infusing them with more characterization than there actually is in the text. It makes the books a total joy to listen to, but I realize now I've never actually 'read' one of Sanderson's books.

Anyways - the hype behind Mistborn is legit. The world is totally unique and features a very well developed magic system (even if the rest of the details of society are somewhat glossed over in this first book). It takes a while to start - things are happening right away, but Mistborn drops you right into the center of the narrative and world and you have to struggle to orient yourself to its novelties. Sanderson is an immensely talented worldbuilder but the downside is that the start of his series are disorienting until you can piece enough together to get invested in the narrative.

And this is one of his better ones. It twists a lot of fantasy tropes: not only does this take place in a world where the 'chosen hero' trope failed and the evil ruler actually succeeded, but it turns the narrative to take him down into a contemporary heist. This is an absolute blast and should be a breath of fresh air for veteran fantasy readers and a fun diversion for readers who just like heists. The thieving crew has a fantastic cast of characters that have great chemistry together (Sazed, Ham, Docks...easily some of the most enjoyable characters I've read from Sanderson). There's also a lot of detail about the heist, too - where a typical heist film uses a montage to go over a lot of the planning, The Final Empire takes advantage of being a fantasy-length novel and you get a lot of the intricate planning stages.

Sanderson also proves remarkably adept at writing romance yet again, as he takes my two least favorite characters in the series and suddenly gets me invested in their relationship. Between this and Words of Radiance, I honestly would be pretty cool with Sanderson writing a straightforward romance. The romance here isn't quite as good as it was in WoR (they don't talk about poop, for one), but I'm sure that it's continuation in the series will help with that.

Original, clever, and most importantly, fun. Looking forward to book 2!

Certainly the best SW comic I've read in a while. Terex is a spectacular villain, Poe is a fun hero with a great jacket, and there's dogfights, political intrigue, and criminal dens aplenty. Feels fresh but also like core Star Wars. More Terex, please.

Gets pretty weird but is consistently entertaining and pretty. Some really fascinating one-shot characters/species and fills in some of the IV-V gap nicely.

Fluffy, pulpy fun. Still Rat Queens lite, but we get a little more character development in this volume as relationships become more clear.

Despite a pretty severe misfire on the Order 66 sequence (it should have had so much more emotional impact), there's some pretty engaging Clone Wars era detail in here. Kanan is pretty far from a top tier character for me but it's good to fill in his backstory in more detail (even if his "real" name is lame).

Took me longer to finish this one since it wasn't on audio like the other three, but it's just as good as the others. It feels like an ending, we come full circle with some characters from the first book. There's also a spectacular action setpiece towards the end that blows anything from the previous three out of the water.

There's no ART, so it doesn't displace that one as my favorite.

This was a nice surprise - a science fantasy with a well-implemented magic system, a rollicking plot, and some great characters. I think it's probably about 100-150 pages longer than it really needs to be, but somehow instead of feeling bloated or dragging with that extra space, it just feels exhaustingly fast paced; we move from action set-piece to chase sequence to half a beat of downtime back to another action scene. Looking forward to the sequels - looks like White is publishing them rather quickly too, another bonus surprise.

More Peter than Spider-Man, more emotion than action. This one is interesting, but I really love the Peter teaching arc.

Every time I read one of these classic King books for the first time my reaction is "dammit, why has it taken me THIS long?" This sucked me in right away, which is saying something because my hold on the audio came in unexpectedly and I really wasn't in the mood for it. Between King's writing and Michael C Hall's outstanding narration, I couldn't put it down.

Seriously, the narration is outstanding. His Jud is so good I thought they had gone full cast and gotten Lithgow from the recent adaptation (which, despite negative reviews, I have to admit has absolutely pitch perfect casting across the board).

This isn't quite as good as The Shining, not as instantly bracing and addictive, and mostly because it's primarily a family drama with horror thrown in nearly as an afterthought. Most of the scary stuff only happens in the last ~2 hours of audio. But that's King.

King's philosophy of horror is that it's not the monster or supernatural phenomenon that's scary, but that something bad is happening to your protagonists. The root of horror for King is actually Empathy, not base flight-or-fight reactions like you get from cheap jump scares. To this end he loves creating stories where you would be just as happy reading a traditional drama following these protagonists, which means when the horror comes later it's tinged with tragedy, and the buildup there is even more soaked in dread. By now, this is standard and others mimic it ad nauseum. But the real nasty twist King puts in this one is that once the horror does start proper, he gives you a glimpse at a what if. What if it didn't. He gives you a glimpse at what this book would have been like if it wasn't a horror novel. And while this story might be one of King's most tragic already, this takes that to the next level. It's a kick in the teeth when you're already down on the floor.

In a foreword from the author he says he views this as his scariest work, like maybe this time he went too far. I was wondering too. It's not his scariest - The Shining is perhaps more constant in its tension, it starts scarier and doesn't really let up. But it might be his most disturbing. Even if you removed the horror aspects of this, it would be just a gut punching read.

I loved this. Louis is maybe an asshole but he's such a real person, one of the most realized protagonists I've ever read. I was dreading how this story would move and while the narrative is sad, it's only because I grew so attached to these characters (mostly Jud).