Merphy, I LOVE those landscape interludes. For a moment there in the first one I thought you were on a river kayaking rather than driving on a road. That was cool.
@@billyalarie929 okay now I'm confused 😂 I assumed the river kayaking comment was for the clip at the stream but I guess it was for the tunnel. Yes we were in the car for the tunnel video lol
@@merphynapierreviews I only saw this on my phone so now I thought you were walking and somehow blended it into a car scene. Ok, I think we are all straitened out.
I first learned of the books Paksenarrion when MMO RPG's started to become popular. I kept seeing characters named that. At the time there just were very few female leads in the standard fair DnD style fantasy genre. These books hit STRONG for a generally (but certainly not exclusively) female niche of early day gamers. Paksenarrion was inspirational and a rarity and therefore important.
I love the "Sheepfarme Daughter" trilogy, the second and third book are less military and more D&D adventure and more epic Fantasy. The subsequent pentalogy, more focused on two other characters is even better in my opinion.
Neat I read The Deed of Paksenarrion years ago appreciated it and have been meaning to reread it/check out the other books for awhile. Since a bunch of them did no exist back then. It may not make it better but, The Deed of Paksenarrion was written as one long story, but published as three separate books.
It hurts me in my soul that Merphy is not loving The Deed of Paksenarrion. No blame, to each their own; but his has been one of my favorite series for longer than she's been alive.
The first book is about Paks being a non thinking military follower and she’s forced as the book goes on to grow into a thinking decisive person instead of being a follower. The book ends with her taking her first baby steps into independence. I love the rich military/ mercenary company realism. The book is about characters. Her interactions with all the company.
I hope you give The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory a try one day. High Fantasy. Great world building. I love her prose. Hard and Soft magic systems. Interesting elves. Dragons! Demons!
I have not read those yet. Great Review. I have just started reading Justice of Kings by Richard Swan... So Far I Like it. Uh Oh... I see the Nada Tunnel there. I am going to Yahoo Falls this weekend. 😃😃😃😃😃😃 I need to start Forge of the High Mage: Path to Ascendancy, Book 4 Ian Esselmont soon.
Yeah... I was already thoroughly underwhelmed by Dead Silence. One of my least favourite books I've ever read. It's actually the book that made me realise I had standards because before that I liked everything I had read to a certain degree haha Dead Silence though... My god... A complete waste of my time and I'm angry I finished it, which isn't a state I ever found myself in before, even when considering other media like games or movies.
Since I sent you the books for Deed of Paksenarrion I feel I should comment. :) No spoilers. It was all in a single omnibus when I read this, so the flow was a little different than the separate books. I think the first book is very much what you reviewed here, as you get into books 2 and 3 you see the character develop further. I heard Elizabeth Moon, while writing it, treated it a lot like a DND campaign and after hearing that and rereading it it makes a lot of sense. The follow-on series, which I would recommend after finishing the trilogy, doesn't follow Paks and might be more your style.
First time I read Sheepfarmer's daughter I felt the same way, and didn't for some reason continue with the second book. Last year I reread and got on with all the rest Elizabeth Moon has written (fantasy and scifi). The second book gets more personal, and the third even more so. The actual deed that Paks does is right at the end of the third book. I hope that you will continue with it. Also will you go on with Michael J Sullivan? You read Theft of Swords and you liked it, but I really hope you will continue with it. Rise of Empire has the duo at the seas for quite a while, so you should like that. The books also get deeper the further on you read.
The way Paks reacts and responds to the things that happen is actually a character trait that gets explored and becomes important in the next two books. Can't say more without spoiling things, but pretty much everything you mentioned about this book changes in the next two books. That said, you're right that Moon doesn't write as close a third person POV as a lot of newer writers, but I love her stuff anyway. Someone down-thread mentioned the related but stand-alone 5 book series set in the same world as a follow-up to the Deed of Paksenarrion, and I agree - I think they're even better.
Oh, exciting. Paksenarrion was the first fantasy book I ever read I believe, while it has is issues I still enjoy it a lot. I also find it a lot fun how it grows more fantasy-magical as it goes on (in the trilogy at large) :) You might actually like it more with the other books, might as well give them a try to ;)
I actually preferred Paladin's Legacy to the Paks books. I happened to pick up the series as it was being released so between books I read the Deed of Paksenarrion from view of knowing Paks end point. So I personally feel that the Deed works better as a back story to Legacy.
Have you read Andromeda Strain? I can't remember seeing a video on it, but it's by Michael Crighton, who I know you enjoy, and it's basically the OG 'techno-thriller,' as coined by Tom Clancy.
@@merphynapierreviews I think you'd really like it, and I'm curious what you'd make of the ending. I'm not normally a sci-fi person, but after reading Andromeda, I'm tip-toe-ing into sci-fi more. Reading Project Hail Mary at the moment and really enjoying it.
@@merphynapierreviews I haven't read "Andromeda", but the Crichton that really terrified me was "Airframe". It was made scarier due to it having no fantastical elements whatsoever--an investigative thriller that would totally be possible in real life.
@@MusicBlikI loved the concept of Airframe but the pacing felt SLOW even for Crichton. I DNF’d it around like 60% when nothing had happened except the initial event. But Andromeda Strain is even slower and I managed to finish that one. I think it might have been shorter, but it’s an interesting one to read once, imo. I might just prefer Crichton’s adventure novels to his investigative ones. Maybe I’ll pick up Airframe again. It’s been 15 years and I have more patience
@@heather9130 You considered Andromeda slow paced? Granted, I wouldn't call it fast-paced by any means, until the very end, but it definitely wasn't a slog to get through for me. (And I was worried about that, because I'm not a sci-fi reader, and had no idea how much explanation was going to go into things and how much I'd get, and a whole bunch of other things.)
Love the very honest reactions! Not every book or author is gonna click, and that’s ok. Just curious, what was the book you mentioned at the end that you also started?
I know how you feel as I gave up on a series recently (Vampire Hunter D #3) & even though it was action packed, the style of the rest just wouldn't connect. It's good but not enough to read 30 of them. So I started "Gravity's Rainbow" by Pyncheon. He's one of the few writers that can get away with pages long sentences. You come away satisfied, tired, and usually laughing.
Your dislike of Ghost Station is funny because Dead Silence is one of my worst books of the year so far, and everything you're describing about the sequel seems to describe that one, too. At least in my opinion, anyway.
I’m currently reading Murder on the Orient Express and it’s fun but I’m not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed some of the other Agatha Christie books I’ve read. I’m going to tackle Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke next, wish me luck!
Everything you're saying about Ghost Station reminds me about Dead Silence. I can't say I disliked Dead Silence; more that I despised it. It relied heavily on very successful similar stories like Event Horizon, which in my opinion were much more interesting and introspective. The audiobook for Dead Silence sealed the 1 star for me, because the narrator chose to SCREAM at every scene that was a bit intense, which really grated my nerves. What I disliked most about Dead Silence is that we had this presumably unreliable narrator but it was so easy to tell when she was telling the truth or was hallucinating. Took all the tension out of the story for me
Very cool. Very based. IMO drop everything and start Toll The Hounds though. Burn all other books like the Malazans burnt their ships to symbolize that their only direction is forward
Totally different genre, but I felt the same about Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population, which I really wanted to love because it has a rebellious old woman. But the writing was too simplistic for me, and I never felt emotionally invested in the character.
Thank you! I was so intrigued by the premise, of an old lady choosing to stay behind when everyone else leaves the planet, and being the only one around for first contact situations. I adore first contact situations that aren't hostile and are all about learning new things from each other. But it felt so juvenile in the worst possible way, the characters were like cardboard, and, just like you mentioned, I couldn't care about anything that was going on. It's like she looked at Ursula Le Guin and said, 'I can do that, too!' and then ignored the depth and nuance and everything that makes Ursula Le Guin's books so fascinating [to me, at least], and then superficially copied the general tone like using tracing paper. There's very, very few books, probably less than 20, that I've read throughout my life that I've had such a visceral 'this was so disappointing' reaction to, and Remnant Population is one of them. A Light From Uncommon Stars is another, but I could rant about it all day.
@@kurathchibicrystalkitty5146 Ursala K Le Guin is one of my favorite sci-fi authors and she's a great comparison to Moon. Such complexity to her worlds, characters, and societal and political systems!
@@cherylmccutchan1282 Very well said! Which of her books do you like best? Or maybe it's hard to pick just a couple! 😆I've got the 'basics' on my shelf [Earthsea series, Western Shore trilogy, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Telling, and I'll be getting The Word For World Is Forest sometime in the next few months], and I've been thinking branching out into her more obscure stuff, like the short story collections and novellas. Any suggestions?
Not the best week reading wise - but I had a nice hike so hopefully you at least enjoy that 😂
Merphy, I LOVE those landscape interludes. For a moment there in the first one I thought you were on a river kayaking rather than driving on a road. That was cool.
we were walking! But now I wish we were kayaking 😂
@@merphynapierreviews whaddaya mean?! we can see the hood of the car! (3:29)
@@billyalarie929 okay now I'm confused 😂 I assumed the river kayaking comment was for the clip at the stream but I guess it was for the tunnel. Yes we were in the car for the tunnel video lol
@@merphynapierreviews I only saw this on my phone so now I thought you were walking and somehow blended it into a car scene. Ok, I think we are all straitened out.
Elizabeth Moon actually served in the US Marines as a computer specialist, she did the training, and it really does show in her books quite a lot.
I first learned of the books Paksenarrion when MMO RPG's started to become popular. I kept seeing characters named that. At the time there just were very few female leads in the standard fair DnD style fantasy genre. These books hit STRONG for a generally (but certainly not exclusively) female niche of early day gamers. Paksenarrion was inspirational and a rarity and therefore important.
The interludes did indeed make it worth my tme. Cyrus too!
Oh, no! The books might not have been stunning, but the nature certainly was.
I felt S.A. Barnes’s books were more like thrillers than horror too!!
The interludes DID make it worth my time!
Honestly the rest was nice as well.
I love the "Sheepfarme Daughter" trilogy, the second and third book are less military and more D&D adventure and more epic Fantasy. The subsequent pentalogy, more focused on two other characters is even better in my opinion.
I agree.
Aww, that's too bad about Ghost Station. The premise sounded like Event Horizon, so I was really looking forward to that one.
Patiently waiting for the next Dresden files review
too bad about Ghost Station, because I'm with you, I really loved most of Dead Silence!
Neat I read The Deed of Paksenarrion years ago appreciated it and have been meaning to reread it/check out the other books for awhile. Since a bunch of them did no exist back then.
It may not make it better but, The Deed of Paksenarrion was written as one long story, but published as three separate books.
Ooooh I recognize that tunnel. Gives me anxiety to drive through but worth it
Sorry the reading didn't go good for you. Thanks for taking us along on the hike!
Loved the b-roll for this vlog Merphy
It hurts me in my soul that Merphy is not loving The Deed of Paksenarrion. No blame, to each their own; but his has been one of my favorite series for longer than she's been alive.
The first book is about Paks being a non thinking military follower and she’s forced as the book goes on to grow into a thinking decisive person instead of being a follower. The book ends with her taking her first baby steps into independence.
I love the rich military/ mercenary company realism. The book is about characters. Her interactions with all the company.
I hope you give The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory a try one day. High Fantasy. Great world building. I love her prose. Hard and Soft magic systems. Interesting elves. Dragons! Demons!
I personally loved Dead Silence and though I haven't heard great things about Ghost Station, I'm still going to give it a shot. 🌌👻
I have not read those yet. Great Review. I have just started reading Justice of Kings by Richard Swan... So Far I Like it. Uh Oh... I see the Nada Tunnel there. I am going to Yahoo Falls this weekend.
😃😃😃😃😃😃 I need to start Forge of the High Mage: Path to Ascendancy, Book 4 Ian Esselmont soon.
Loved the forest ❤
Oh no!!! I have both SA Barnes books on my TBR 😢😢😢
I hope you like Ghost Station more than I did! I'm sure there are many that enjoy it
I tried three times to read The Deed of Paksenarion. I found it so tedious and couldn’t read past the first book.
Yeah... I was already thoroughly underwhelmed by Dead Silence. One of my least favourite books I've ever read. It's actually the book that made me realise I had standards because before that I liked everything I had read to a certain degree haha
Dead Silence though... My god... A complete waste of my time and I'm angry I finished it, which isn't a state I ever found myself in before, even when considering other media like games or movies.
FYI-
Tomorrow is D.E.A.R Day. Just in case you didn't know, lol ❤❤❤❤
I didn't know!
Shout out to discord mods everywhere
That sucks Ghost Station was a letdown. It was one of my most anticipated releases too after loving Dead Silence so much.
Since I sent you the books for Deed of Paksenarrion I feel I should comment. :)
No spoilers. It was all in a single omnibus when I read this, so the flow was a little different than the separate books. I think the first book is very much what you reviewed here, as you get into books 2 and 3 you see the character develop further. I heard Elizabeth Moon, while writing it, treated it a lot like a DND campaign and after hearing that and rereading it it makes a lot of sense.
The follow-on series, which I would recommend after finishing the trilogy, doesn't follow Paks and might be more your style.
First time I read Sheepfarmer's daughter I felt the same way, and didn't for some reason continue with the second book. Last year I reread and got on with all the rest Elizabeth Moon has written (fantasy and scifi).
The second book gets more personal, and the third even more so. The actual deed that Paks does is right at the end of the third book. I hope that you will continue with it.
Also will you go on with Michael J Sullivan? You read Theft of Swords and you liked it, but I really hope you will continue with it. Rise of Empire has the duo at the seas for quite a while, so you should like that. The books also get deeper the further on you read.
Love the interludes Merphy thank you...
The way Paks reacts and responds to the things that happen is actually a character trait that gets explored and becomes important in the next two books. Can't say more without spoiling things, but pretty much everything you mentioned about this book changes in the next two books. That said, you're right that Moon doesn't write as close a third person POV as a lot of newer writers, but I love her stuff anyway. Someone down-thread mentioned the related but stand-alone 5 book series set in the same world as a follow-up to the Deed of Paksenarrion, and I agree - I think they're even better.
Oh, exciting. Paksenarrion was the first fantasy book I ever read I believe, while it has is issues I still enjoy it a lot. I also find it a lot fun how it grows more fantasy-magical as it goes on (in the trilogy at large) :) You might actually like it more with the other books, might as well give them a try to ;)
Love your videos but you give a little more detail than I would like about the plots and characters of the book
I love all the nature shots 🥹
Merphy, do you still accept submissions? I'd love to send you my sci-fi novel A TYRANNY OF KINDNESS 🧬
Anybody else go "doo doo do doo doo" in their head after she said "phenomenon"? Just me? Never mind. :D
I was just watching "planet earth documentry"
I actually preferred Paladin's Legacy to the Paks books. I happened to pick up the series as it was being released so between books I read the Deed of Paksenarrion from view of knowing Paks end point. So I personally feel that the Deed works better as a back story to Legacy.
So did I.
D of P is good
Okay! Why I am watching this video
I hope more Dresden videos come soon!
Eek, I hope the third book wasn't the next Discworld book....😮
nah it was a short pirate book. Discworld will be a later in the month
@@merphynapierreviews phew, sorry you had a disappointing week, though.
@@merphynapierreviewswell that’s disappointing bc I know you love pirates!
🧡📚🧡📚🧡📚🧡
Have you read Andromeda Strain? I can't remember seeing a video on it, but it's by Michael Crighton, who I know you enjoy, and it's basically the OG 'techno-thriller,' as coined by Tom Clancy.
I haven't! I'm due for another one of his though
@@merphynapierreviews I think you'd really like it, and I'm curious what you'd make of the ending.
I'm not normally a sci-fi person, but after reading Andromeda, I'm tip-toe-ing into sci-fi more. Reading Project Hail Mary at the moment and really enjoying it.
@@merphynapierreviews I haven't read "Andromeda", but the Crichton that really terrified me was "Airframe". It was made scarier due to it having no fantastical elements whatsoever--an investigative thriller that would totally be possible in real life.
@@MusicBlikI loved the concept of Airframe but the pacing felt SLOW even for Crichton. I DNF’d it around like 60% when nothing had happened except the initial event. But Andromeda Strain is even slower and I managed to finish that one. I think it might have been shorter, but it’s an interesting one to read once, imo. I might just prefer Crichton’s adventure novels to his investigative ones. Maybe I’ll pick up Airframe again. It’s been 15 years and I have more patience
@@heather9130 You considered Andromeda slow paced? Granted, I wouldn't call it fast-paced by any means, until the very end, but it definitely wasn't a slog to get through for me. (And I was worried about that, because I'm not a sci-fi reader, and had no idea how much explanation was going to go into things and how much I'd get, and a whole bunch of other things.)
Love the very honest reactions! Not every book or author is gonna click, and that’s ok. Just curious, what was the book you mentioned at the end that you also started?
I know how you feel as I gave up on a series recently (Vampire Hunter D #3) & even though it was action packed, the style of the rest just wouldn't connect. It's good but not enough to read 30 of them. So I started "Gravity's Rainbow" by Pyncheon. He's one of the few writers that can get away with pages long sentences. You come away satisfied, tired, and usually laughing.
Your dislike of Ghost Station is funny because Dead Silence is one of my worst books of the year so far, and everything you're describing about the sequel seems to describe that one, too. At least in my opinion, anyway.
I’m currently reading Murder on the Orient Express and it’s fun but I’m not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed some of the other Agatha Christie books I’ve read. I’m going to tackle Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke next, wish me luck!
Tom Orange didn't like Ghost Station either. It happens and I do love the interludes.
I was disappointed by Ghost Station. I didn't love Dead Silence but thought the writing had potential which didn't follow through to the follow up
Everything you're saying about Ghost Station reminds me about Dead Silence. I can't say I disliked Dead Silence; more that I despised it. It relied heavily on very successful similar stories like Event Horizon, which in my opinion were much more interesting and introspective. The audiobook for Dead Silence sealed the 1 star for me, because the narrator chose to SCREAM at every scene that was a bit intense, which really grated my nerves. What I disliked most about Dead Silence is that we had this presumably unreliable narrator but it was so easy to tell when she was telling the truth or was hallucinating. Took all the tension out of the story for me
Paksenarrion I remember the beginning being kinda weak while she was with the military
The interlude was great, where is that place? It looks like a place from a fantasy novel.😊
The Deed of Paksenarrion has been sitting on my shelf for years, hah. A friend recommended it and I’ve never gotten around to it…
The scenery inspires me to read Blood Feud by Lisa Alther again. Happy reading, everyone.
Next week will be better! 💖
Very cool. Very based. IMO drop everything and start Toll The Hounds though. Burn all other books like the Malazans burnt their ships to symbolize that their only direction is forward
😂
Totally different genre, but I felt the same about Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population, which I really wanted to love because it has a rebellious old woman. But the writing was too simplistic for me, and I never felt emotionally invested in the character.
Thank you! I was so intrigued by the premise, of an old lady choosing to stay behind when everyone else leaves the planet, and being the only one around for first contact situations. I adore first contact situations that aren't hostile and are all about learning new things from each other. But it felt so juvenile in the worst possible way, the characters were like cardboard, and, just like you mentioned, I couldn't care about anything that was going on. It's like she looked at Ursula Le Guin and said, 'I can do that, too!' and then ignored the depth and nuance and everything that makes Ursula Le Guin's books so fascinating [to me, at least], and then superficially copied the general tone like using tracing paper. There's very, very few books, probably less than 20, that I've read throughout my life that I've had such a visceral 'this was so disappointing' reaction to, and Remnant Population is one of them. A Light From Uncommon Stars is another, but I could rant about it all day.
@@kurathchibicrystalkitty5146 Ursala K Le Guin is one of my favorite sci-fi authors and she's a great comparison to Moon. Such complexity to her worlds, characters, and societal and political systems!
@@cherylmccutchan1282 Very well said! Which of her books do you like best? Or maybe it's hard to pick just a couple! 😆I've got the 'basics' on my shelf [Earthsea series, Western Shore trilogy, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Telling, and I'll be getting The Word For World Is Forest sometime in the next few months], and I've been thinking branching out into her more obscure stuff, like the short story collections and novellas. Any suggestions?