@amerikranian your in luck as regards Harry Potter and the cursed child, The fantasybookreview.co.uk site posted my review up the other day and you can find it here Though I also discussed it in the topic about harry potter on this forum.
I read Rick Riordens five Percey Jackson books a while ago. They were okay and had some fun moments, I especially liked the takes on modern griek gods like crusty's bed emporium or seeing Hephaestus as a new York mechanic. However the plot was too similar to harry potter, ---- magical half god summer camp, prophecy involving the main character, ending with an examination of the villain's childhood, the characters a little too thin like the way Anabeth is only ever shown to be intelligent because we're told she talks about architecture, and also I disliked the final book basically for having the structure of noooo! the badguys are attacking but wait! more reinforcements from friends you met earlier, but noooo! the badguys attack more but wait! more friends turn up, but nooo! it got quite repetitive and lacked a lot of tention, speaking of which, celestial bronze that makes monsters magically disappear? Really! how blatantly "this is not a pg rated book" can you get!
I did enjoy the series, they were fun, but probably not something i'd specifically read again, and since I imagine the norse god ones are basically the same thing with norse rather than griek gods I don't know if they're on the lsit.
Is blood of the fold the sword of truth book 3 by Terry goodkind?
Again, not a bad series but after the first I felt they kept trying to repeat, more torture, bigger moral speeches etc, indeed I didn't like the way that goodkind had such blatant "Look at my awesome right wing preaching!" in all of his books, even when inappropriate. Oh, and times when the good guys behaved pretty much as badly as the bad guys?
I read up to confessor, book eleven but more out of duty than anything else, and while I do feel a nurve to see where goodkind takes the series since there was a lot I liked, the monsters, the land, characters I did enjoy moments with, and yes, very awesome combat on occasion there are other authors who can give me that without goodkind's huge glaring flaws.
@mirage, glad your liking The passage, as I said in the books thread it's an awesome series and one i really like, also glad to hear about the job, I remember how pleased you were when you got it.
As for me, I'm continuing with hero of ages which is proving rather better than well of assention since we're finally seeing more of the world, albeit I do wish Sanderson had created more of the world than yet more grim cities. Still compared to well of assention where eveyrone just sat in one city worrying about the armies outside for two thirds of the book it is a refreshing change since at least people are proactive.
I also sent off a review for Dragonsmilk by susan fletcher which was fun.
Well I had a great weekend since the the tabletop rp session was amazing, and Mrs. Dark loved it, even if due to the rules of 7th sea her knife throwing assassin was far less affective than by rights she should've been.
I was also lacking in combat and my magic wa slimited in some ways, though i did manage to get someone eaten by vampires which was good and I wasn't trying to play a combat character anyway.
Actually playing a sweet, ditsy ifteen year old girl who basically just had a tendency to be mysteriously lucky, had very little idea about the world but always managed to be lucky and meet nice people, but was surprisingly bubbly and likeable with it was great. Indeed to say the vodacci in 7th sea are the cunning manipulative Italian style courtiers, playing one who was blatantly naive and very sheltered and caused general trouble was hilarious! though i do wish the system had let me do a little more in combat in terms of what my luck based magic would let me, indeed it was rather annoying that the game was highly combat heavy and everyone who wasn't directly a duelest, ---- namely myself and mrs. dark's characters was really less effective than everyone who was (I would've recommended Mrs. Dark give her assassin character a duelest school if I'd known how ineffective she was against most things other than standard moocs).
Then again the social bits of rp were great, acting in character, indeed I got to be sweet, ditsy and naive (which I hope is moderately out of character), as well as fifteen and female, where mrs. Dark got to be a very dry, laconic assassin, which is definitely not! her (she! actually manages sweet extremely well, and perhaps a little ditsy on occasion, particularly after wine).
The only sad thing is that as the gm has a baby of two, we probably won't get another game in for a while, albeit the gm's wife (who played one of the duelist characters), is really eager for another game sooner.
So that's what I've been up to recently. Hope everyone else is having fun.
Btw, given the amount of book discussing in this thread, and how long! this post is perhaps we could revive Grryf's topic from a few posts back just to discuss what we're reading currently? since otherwise this will get to be a very long thread, since as you gather I get quite effusive whilst talking about books (one reason i write book reviews).
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)