Spoilers for Port of Shadows (initial reaction)
S P O I L E R S for Port of Shadows S P O I L E R S S P O I L E R S for Port of Shadows S P O I L E R S Wow. FInished it a few hours ago. Wow. Okay, I shoulda seen it coming. I was asking myself all along, who/what IS this Mysterious Rain? I can't make head or tails out of it. Shoulda twigged, but didn't. Just as well, that made it all the more staggering when Laissa greeted her with "Koneko!" and my rudimentary Japanese kicked in to translate that as "Kitten". Wow, all making sense! That said. Yeah, narrative voice is off from the old-style BC books. I thought I caught a whiff of the type of narrative voice from Instrumentalities that I don't much care for (too much mysterious stuff referred to mysteriously); but I'm not clear on that. Definitely not to be read before "The White Rose"! But I think it might not be a bad thing to have it read then; gives a background explanation for Lady. In fact... The feel of ancient sorceries coming to the fore again is nice--a little bit more of what we saw in "Silver Spike". Wish there there descriptions of them. But even without them it lays the foundation for the Kina and the like, of Really Powerful Stuff having happened in what is now pre-history, as no records have been found of those times (making Travellers' Rest all the more important!). And now we know why: Sorcerious types go to great lengths to purge those records, even in living memories. So that's a good tie-up 😊 Stacey
S P O I L E R S for Port of Shadows S P O I L E R S S P O I L E R S for Port of Shadows S P O I L E R S Um, I was disappointed in this book. It was not worth 18 years, and I don’t think it adds much to a TV show. I think it started out with huge potential for story with the Senjak family and the Dominator. I was thinking like with Bomanz in "The White Rose." And the whole Senjak family Dominator story quickly went nowhere as they shuffled everyone out to the Ghost Country. We didn’t really learn to much more about the Domination. I was expecting Dorotea to become the SoulCatcher we all know and love today. Being dead and reanimated might make her a little crazy. Plus the necromancer had a little multiple personality thing going on himself. Oh well. But Credence/Bathduk/Kitten being the Lady was interesting. Shows how messed up the sisters exchanged names when they were young. And the main story with Croaker felt like a short story that was stretched way too far. It was redundant, dull page filler. The reveal of Mischievous Rain being the Lady at the end was epic. Mess with Croaker’s head. Almost as good as when she went to the Plain of Fear. Somebody needed to cut 200 pages out of the middle. And Glen has really gotten sex obsessed in his old age. Happened with the Garrett books. But in Port of Shadow he seems to have decided that he could coarsen the language for some reason. Never known Glen to use Fuck, and Pussy, and Dicks so much. Not trying to puritanical, but it was definitely a different Croaker writing. Cheers, Katherine.
Wow. FInished it a few hours ago. Wow.
Okay, I shoulda seen it coming. I was asking myself all along, who/what IS this Mysterious Rain? I can't make head or tails out of it. Shoulda twigged, but didn't. Just as well, that made it all the more staggering when Laissa greeted her with "Koneko!" and my rudimentary Japanese kicked in to translate that as "Kitten". Wow, all making sense!
That said.
Yeah, narrative voice is off from the old-style BC books. I thought I caught a whiff of the type of narrative voice from Instrumentalities that I don't much care for (too much mysterious stuff referred to mysteriously); but I'm not clear on that.
Definitely not to be read before "The White Rose"! But I think it might not be a bad thing to have it read then; gives a background explanation for Lady. In fact...
The feel of ancient sorceries coming to the fore again is nice--a little bit more of what we saw in "Silver Spike". Wish there there descriptions of them. But even without them it lays the foundation for the Kina and the like, of Really Powerful Stuff having happened in what is now pre-history, as no records have been found of those times (making Travellers' Rest all the more important!). And now we know why: Sorcerious types go to great lengths to purge those records, even in living memories.
So that's a good tie-up 😊
Stacey
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On Monday, September 24, 2018, 3:32:52 PM EDT, Katherine Herrmann <shpshftr@xmission.com> wrote: SPOILERS for Port of Shadows SPOILERS SPOILERS for Port of Shadows SPOILERS Um, I was disappointed in this book. It was not worth 18 years, and I don’t think it adds much to a TV show. I think it started out with huge potential for story with the Senjak family and the Dominator. I was thinking like with Bomanz in "The White Rose." And the whole Senjak family Dominator story quickly went nowhere as they shuffled everyone out to the Ghost Country. We didn’t really learn to much more about the Domination. I was expecting Dorotea to become the SoulCatcher we all know and love today. Being dead and reanimated might make her a little crazy. Plus the necromancer had a little multiple personality thing going on himself. Oh well. But Credence/Bathduk/Kitten being the Lady was interesting. Shows how messed up the sisters exchanged names when they were young. And the main story with Croaker felt like a short story that was stretched way too far. It was redundant, dull page filler. The reveal of Mischievous Rain being the Lady at the end was epic. Mess with Croaker’s head. Almost as good as when she went to the Plain of Fear. Somebody needed to cut 200 pages out of the middle. And Glen has really gotten sex obsessed in his old age. Happened with the Garrett books. But in Port of Shadow he seems to have decided that he could coarsen the language for some reason. Never known Glen to use Fuck, and Pussy, and Dicks so much. Not trying to puritanical, but it was definitely a different Croaker writing. Cheers, Katherine. I enjoyed the bits with the Senjak sisters more than the bits with Croaker (sad... Croaker is my favorite of all the Black Company characters). I do wish the story had delved deeper into the Dominator and his reign (and why some of the Taken would later be willing to have him back). I wasn't bothered by the coarse language. Croaker has implied in other books he glosses over the worst of his companions actions and I always assumed he also cleaned up the language. This was just less varnished. I don't see coarse language as a sign of sex-obsession. There wasn't much 'sex' - Coraker sleeps with both Rain and the children in a platonic way. The son born to the reanimated girl doesn't seem to have a sex drive. Only the Dominator and the crazy necromancer act on their sexual urges - and both twist sex into something weird and creepy. Their actions seem to fit with their characters, controlling and using sex as part of the story, not gratuitous. The reanimated Dorotea also lusts, but I'm not sure if she was sex-obsessed, or just looking for a way to be closer to life... just my opinion thoughMichele
participants (3)
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Katherine Herrmann -
Michele Riccio -
Stacey Harris