Kevin's Watch

This particular book is frustrating and compelling. Frustrating in the sense that it's an extremely slow read. Compeeling in the sense that I'm darn sure SOMETHING is going to happen. I'm half way through it so somebody please reassure me that I won't want to burn it after I've finished reading it

Keep reading...

~MsMary~ who is halfway through This Day All Gods Die

Edit: I am becoming convinced that SRD specializes in writing books that are torture to read, but which are so compelling you can't stop reading them. ~MM~

MsMaryMalone wrote: ~MsMary~ who is halfway through This Day All Gods Must Die

Edit: I am becoming convinced that SRD specializes in writing books that are torture to read, but which are so compelling you can't stop reading them. :p :lol ~MM~

Yep, keep reading...

Off-topic confession- The very first time I gave SRD a try was LFB and had given up. Then as I picked up another book written by another author, a voice in my head kept compelling me to back to LFB. Reminding me that the new book was nothing but an unoriginal hackjob of a typical cookie-cutter lot and that SRD's book was written far more passionately and his world was far too fascinating. Boy, am I glad I listened to this innervoice. Very rewarding.

I'll say this much - those informative interludes only serve to aggravate the situation

I completely agree, Vain. The interludes can interrupt things. I enjoy the ones about the Amnion, but some of them just annoy me - Warden's speech to the graduates is a bit melodramatic, and embarassing. Anyway, the last hundred pages of a Dark and Hungry God arises is fantastic - well worth the wait.

Yep, the build-up is slower than the rest but it ends with a bang just like all the other books except the first one.

Whew !! That definitely did end with a bang and a hint of the mysterious.

Now it's Chaos and Order and I note it's even longer than all the others

I can only imagine that This Day All Gods Die must be a monster

The Tme Out critic said it very well:

Intrigue, deception, betrayal...dizzyingly complex

Vain...It's been nearly two months, one must assume you have finished, "This Day All Gods Die" - What did you think of the series as a whole? Since you've recently read the series, I'm just curious about anothers point of view.

Vain wrote:I'll say this much - those informative interludes only serve to aggravate the situation

They're pretty bad cases of infodump, yeah. And the name SRD gives to them to set them off from the actual chapters -- Ancillary Documentation, forsooth! One of the rare moments in The Gap where SRD succumbed to his taste for pretentious verbosity.

At least it wasn't Roynishly Crepuscular Tintinnabulations from the Ebon Grimoire of the Viridian Catafalque.

I actually quite liked the Ancillary Documentation, it was a good way to inform the reader of how the technology of the series worked without the generic sci-fi device of haveing a character who knows absolutely nothing and has to have every aspect of the technology explained to them by someone.

As for A Dark and Hungry God Arises, it was probably my favourite book of the five. Billingate was a fantastic concept, and tremendously well thought out. The self-mutilation show still makes me wince just to think about it. The book also introduces Sorus, and we begin to see what the cyborg Angus is capable of, and witness the start of his bizarre transformation, as well as the beginning of Nick's downfall.

I've got to agree with Navarino, I too enjoyed the Ancillary Documention in the later Gap books. I particularly enjoyed the narrative on "Chaos vs. Order" as well as the technical aspects of the Gap Drone. Quite well thought out in my opinion

DirectorDios wrote:I've got to agree with Navarino, I too enjoyed the Ancillary Documention in the later Gap books. I particularly enjoyed the narrative on "Chaos vs. Order" as well as the technical aspects of the Gap Drone. Quite well thought out in my opinion

The docs got a bit wordy for me, and dragged on a little, but I don't think I'd prefer them removed.

Yeah, agreed.

The second time I read the series it seems so much faster and better (since I skipped ALL of the documentation)

I liked the Ancillary Documentation. They provided a nice insight into the technical and social background SRD had imagined without interrupting the main storyline with lengthy descriptions and unnecessary explanations by the characters themselves. This way they could just refer to things as they were natural for them.
The speech of Dios was a bit tedious, yes, but I think SRD needed it to demonstrate Dios' character.

I not saying that it shouldn't be in the book because it was very informative, but during my second and third reading....no way was I going to reread that.

Every time I read through the series I find the Ancillary documentations provide me with well-timed rests so that I can absorb everything I've just read. They also provide valuable information about the world we're in, which couldn't be done through stroy-telling in the same way as Mordant's need and Covenant, there was no visitor to the world, they all knew what was going on, so he had to tell us another way. I think the way he did it was excellent.

They do prevent exposition.