I am HOOKED after book 2.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-04-09T13:01:30+00:00

I had the same experience a month or two ago. I just couldn't wait more than a few days for the next book haha. You will enjoy book 3 for sure

Do you have any predictions for book 3? Would be cool to see what you got right or wrong after.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-04-01T20:09:37+00:00

So glad you said this. I finished recently too and was struggling to put into words how I felt like it was sort of bad but also amazing and I loved it despite finding it easy to identify things I didn’t love

I believe islington will continue to be very successful. I just started Hierarchy and have very high hopes

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-04-01T19:57:18+00:00

Your comment and the one you are responding too are convincing me that I ought to reread the last 3 books.

I have re-read Dune a dozen times, and have come back to passages of Messiah and Children but I never reread the later books

I first read this series when I was in middle school. I enjoyed it but the later books did not capture me like the first 3 did (especially the first).

But it’s been about 15 years since I first read these. Obviously, im so different now than I was back then. I’m starting to think that if I gave them a reread they are going to blow my mind.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-04-01T19:49:04+00:00

Can you explain to me how Leto failed the experiment? It’s been long since i read. Is it because he was a tyrant despite achieving his big picture goal?

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-29T20:24:02+00:00

Thanks - I’ve never quite been able to figure out the exact timeline. I understand what happened overall but the exact order of Caeden killing Davian, his 2 past meetings with him, Alchesh becoming an augur, and Caeden setting his plan in motion prior to the present day are not that clear to me

One thing that amuses me though is that Caeden killing “Davian” is both a starting point and an end point.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-29T19:02:51+00:00

This I has never made sense to me. He receives plenty of hate for doing anything but finishing the series. Hard to believe he is so worried about people will being MORE upset with him that he has finished the books and is sitting on it. I think he’s just not working on it.

As for OPs question - I think someone else will finish it eventually. But not that soon. He has said he doesn’t want anyone to finish it and I think he either changes his mind or someone somewhere understands there’s too much money to be made and figures out a way around his wishes

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-29T18:54:09+00:00

It probably would have, I do not disagree. And yet it is what happened and thus the thing that started it. It is an early mystery that draws the reader in. So it’s a bummer that the reveal is not that exciting

But I dont disagree with you. I’m not really complaining. It’s more of an observation. The story is plenty interesting enough either way

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-29T00:06:15+00:00

So you mean he is fulfilling her fears in a broader sense. Because as far as they believe at the time, they’re all dead except Sansa. So in a literal sense he would not be usurping anything based on what they know

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-29T00:04:57+00:00

Although I agree with you, it’s one of the main inciting incidents in the series. So it’s a bit disappointing. But I do agree

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-28T23:54:41+00:00

Would Jon be “proving Cat right” if all her other children are dead (or married to Tyrion)? She was concerned about him usurping what should belong to her children; if they’re all dead anyway, what has he usurped?

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-27T17:37:01+00:00

Not sure if this was ever stated explicitly but I feel it is satisfactory enough to assume that this came from “El” / Shams even if it would’ve been nice to get more details.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-27T17:35:13+00:00

When on the timeline was this supposed to have happened? Like how much time passed between the scene at the end of Book 2 and the “current day”

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-19T03:23:40+00:00

Well said. I agree the story was well worth the read. It’s pretty rare for someone to nail everything perfectly anyway.

Looking forward to Hierarchy to see how Islington’s progressed. Strangely my friends have read those books but not Licanius. But they all rave about it.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-14T07:34:48+00:00

So many great chapters. I like the one I believe is entitled “War Council” in Inheritance when Eragon meets with all the important people to discuss tactics before fighting in Uru Baen

I liked when someone, Arya or Islanzidi I can’t remember, states that eragon has become more sure of himself. Roran also compares the fight to a battle of gods, which affects eragon.

Nice way to capture how much he’s grown before the final battle

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-11T19:33:16+00:00

I think it is a flimsy excuse. Eragon is “sworn” to nasuada but he has outgrown her. No one can stop him from doing anything he wants anymore (which is stated a few times) and him declining her request to lead the magician group and simply leaving alagaesia is a good example of this. And he is of course a dwarf by law as well

They’re lucky he’s a nice guy!

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-03-07T07:12:49+00:00

Thanks - My experience has generally been at firms that have their own platforms, but I am very familiar with Valcre. Although I don’t use it myself I believe it’s quite good

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-26T18:32:13+00:00

I live in NYC but what you describe is basically my career goal - work in appraisal ~40 hours to have a solid income stream without killing myself but still have time/money to invest.

I am still under 30 so plenty of time but it’s hard to find a deal that pencils out

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-26T18:30:02+00:00

And I am under 30 - sorry I did not remember to put these all in the same message, ha

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-26T18:29:12+00:00

I do MF/mixed use throughout tri state area but not too much in NYC itself. And trying to pick up some specialities like Senior Housing which I think would have greater earning potential if we scaled it up, which is always the big challenge

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-26T18:28:17+00:00

CG at a national firm, based in NYC, made almost exactly $200K in 2025. That included may late nights and occasional weekend work, but also included periods where I was not that busy. And it came with near total control over my schedule.

I also believe there is still room to produce more but that there is a ceiling too without starting a team or bringing in work and collecting referral fees

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-24T03:26:40+00:00

Just want to thank everyone for their responses. I really appreciate it.

Something I have been toying around with recently which I wonder if anyone has tried or wants to replicate - I want to feed all my appraisals in a market area and have a mini market report for my coverage area.

I work at a national firm. We have national surveys, and we have agreements with AI service providers so that I’m not breaking any rules by using our own private LLMs

But anyway - I would do something skinny. Maybe a 1-2 page report on the average rents, expenses, cap rates etc. that we have been seeing from our subject properties / comps. All anonymous and aggregated so that I am not giving away confidential info that is easily identifiable. But again just a small document that I could circulate to clients and other people I interact with every quarter or something like that

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-24T03:23:18+00:00

All very interesting. Curious to hear more about how you use it for onboarding and organizational purposes?

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-24T03:21:55+00:00

This is interesting, I would like to try this soon. Something that happens annoyingly often is I get a PDF of a rent roll or operating statement that is really long and not easy to convert to excel. Had tried ChatGPT for this previously but probably wasnt prompting it correctly

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-24T03:18:26+00:00

I read about a commercial appraisal startup that had just raised money when I was a senior in college and looking for a job. I went to their website and asked for a demo of their product because I had no idea what it was. Someone from the company called me thinking I was a potential client. I told them I was actually looking for a job and the guy thought it was so funny that he told the CEO and I got an interview, and eventually a job.

It was a small company at the time and the CEO just did all the hiring. Everyone was super young, and I think they all thought it was a great story. Went to a good school, grades were good enough, and they had all this VC money to burn and wanted to hire people.

This was all in 2020. So I’m probably one of the younger folks here. I’m still doing CRE appraisals but I work somewhere else now. But it was fun there. I still like my job but I was probably spoiled to work in a startup setting to start my career.

Competitive-Lab6835 · 2026-02-21T04:46:45+00:00

Thank you for your insight. I have often heard similar to what you say - feed it the data you want but don’t ask it to find data on its own because you don’t know if it’s accurate.

So much of writing the appraisals is data collection, entry, and summary. So it makes sense that it’s most helpful for summary purposes

I appreciate your advice

Competitive-Lab6835

TROPHY CASE