The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Chapter 1-9

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Please do not discuss events from later chapters/books.

Think I am intrigued at this point but none of the characters really grabbed me so far. The worldbuilding has been interesting in that Kaden and Valyn's sections have fleshed out their environments pretty well but I didn't really get a feel for the empire as a whole. Adare section was kind of a dissapointment just because it was so short.

Also Sanlitun's murder seemed to be so simple there just has to be more behind it. Guessing there wouldn't be much to the rest of the book if there wasn't.

Haha. I don't remember anyone's name apparently

Lol, i feel like this isn't the first time you have said that.

Nor will it be the last!

I like the Shin Koans...I assume it's based on Zen Buddhism. The names (Shin, Valyn, ...) all seem like I've heard them in other books but I guess there are only so many names out there :) Plot setup/world so far is not too original but fun nonetheless. A good yarn as it were.

Yeah feel like I have seen a lot of the names before although there were some originals. The one that caught me was Robert. I finished the sentence then my eyes shot back to it. So out of place with the rest of the names.

You have something against the name Robert?! >.<

Started reading this last night and am about 6 chapters in. Agree with what Bill said earlier, Kaden and Valyn's chapters set the scene for their parts of the world very well, but they are on the outskirts really. I'd like to see some more from the main part of the empire to really get a feel for the world. More questions than answers at this point but am intrigued enough to keep reading and I like the way it's written.

Laurel wrote: "Started reading this last night and am about 6 chapters in. Agree with what Bill said earlier, Kaden and Valyn's chapters set the scene for their parts of the world very well, but they are on the o..."

Glad you are joining in Laurel. The questions never really stop in this one.

Rob wrote: "You have something against the name Robert?! >.<"

Absolutely down with all Roberts. :)

It just jolted me from the story. It was the only common named used in the whole story.

I dont know what youre talking about, my name is super uncommon and fantastical...

I'm really intrigued by the Csestriim or however you spell it, the prologue was fantastic and there has been a couple of mentions of them. I'm hoping there's going to be more about them and what happened to them later on in the book or series.

I've owned this book for a bit and when I saw our group will be reading the second, I thought it was a good time to actually read it.
I like the two brothers' stories so far - both in harsh environments and in the case of Valyn especially seems like it could potentially kill him (even before someone starts actively trying to).
I haven't met "Robert" yet so I'll withhold judgement on that name :)

Just started this one.
First thing was the prologue - Laurel found it fantastic, I didn't: Is it the ultimate goal of prologues to utterly confuse the reader, be completely irrelevant up to the point when the reader has already forgotten it? After this one, I once again wondered if I shouldn't just skip prologues. At least, it was short.

One has to be a lover of coming-of-age, as this novel is thrice blessed with it. Kaden's Zen Buddhistic monks - or should I say the Jedi Knights? - are a bit boring in their endeavour to make everyone uncomfortable. I've read similar uprisings before.

Far more interesting is Valyn's Kettral force. As an absolute ruler, I wouldn't allow such a force offsite, recruiting murderers and bloodlusty disloyal elitist fighters. The variety in education is contrasting the more homogenous education of Kaden's monks.

Most interesting side-character is Gwen. I love artificers. Female artificers. Female artificers training for fighting.

So far, the novel is a page turner with an interesting setting, a little bit of infodump in-between, not too-boring characters and an uninteresting plot. Let's see where it develops.

It gets better.

Prologue was interesting.

Also Kaiden's story is interesting to me followed by Valyn's.

Also all the names in the book are too confusing to remember.