Avatar wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 11:37 am
LOL, to be fair, the only real reason is because of implied spoilers for RG, so it can go before, but it
has to be read before Toll the Hounds.
--A
Thanks ! That is super helpful.
So chapters 3 and 4 are finished. More history and more world building. Interesting to find out some of the characters have seen decades of war and incursions. The Bridgeburner's are an odd group of personalities. I have been a bit loathe to try to learn all the names because all too often in these stories they are just side characters that get cast off early.
Captain Paran has made his way from our first introduction to being put in charge of the 9th squad and having to find his team and introduce himself, only to hear that there have been multiple captains, all ended up dead and not always in combat. He does find the team who are not impressed (since he hasnt seen battle yet). He heads back only to be attacked by pro's and takes two life ending stab wounds. At this point I was thinking, well here we go, learn something about a character only to have him killed off early by ... "Sorry" I think, yet... another force is at work here (the Oponn?) twins who calls on death (the gatekeeper) to not take him, but to take another person in the future instead in the deal. A person who is close to Paran who would die a meaningless death. Paran tries to say no but he is dying and can do nothing.
The Bridgeburners in the meantime are trying to figure out WTH is going on and getting some info from Hairlock. Quick Ben senses something is wrong and they go out only to find Captain Paran and think him dead until he screams out. They end up taking him with them and doing some healing, although its not a complete healing.. not sure where that will go yet. They end up having to leave him with Tattersail and have to go to some other assignment.
Then we run into Black Moranth.. they seem to ride on some kind of dragon(ish) beings called Quorl, that seem like they might be intelligent (as Whiskeyjack finds when he nods at one). Whiskyjack supposes that if they Moranth had ever decided to take power, the empire would be in trouble.
I think much of this part of the book, although there is story line in it, is really just doing the world building and introducing character and ongoing plots. It almost feels like there should be a book in front of this, because you kind of get dumped off into the middle of everything. Reminds me a bit of the Black Company books by Glen Cook.
I have figured out that until I learn the world and the characters a bit more, it will be slower reading than I am used to. I am usually a fast reader, especially when the plots are simple, but this is more complex and is requiring me to slow down so I understand what I am reading. Even so, I can tell I will miss many things.