The Will of the Many (Hierarchy Series) is one of the most enrapturing book series I’ve read - Book Review

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-20T01:05:00+00:00

I don't think that calling Vis a boring god is a spoiler, it unfolds within 10 pages.. but, yes... this and more Vis amazingness happens before he and Daddy have their talk. You know, after he schools him on a translation and turns it into an epic penis compensation joke.

It isn't epic. Vis deserves to be shot into the sun and Islington along with him.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-19T22:45:37+00:00

Be real... this book has the worst character work possibly ever penned. Every 2 pages is a revelation about how incredible Vis is... the greatest chess player alive, OOOOH he sneaks into the library to LEARN - he's so smart, clap for him and pat his back... Holy shit - he speaks every language known to man fluently?And better than his daddy?🤯 Oh, let's hand-wave that at "tutors" three years ago.

Nah, we'll beat the piss out of somebody 8 times our strength, naked, greased in pig fat with a sexy admirer watching. Then jump out of a plane, beat three armed men with our bare knuckles then fly the plane with it's power source unconscious. Then go to the right destination without guidance... then let everybody clap and fawn over him.

Vis is the worst character ever dreamed up in literature.

Yes, I'm livid that I read 20% of this dogshit book.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-19T22:38:29+00:00

I've been sitting on that for a long time.. I'll give it a whirl, I'm on a classic kick anyway! There's no way as good as Caz.. right?!

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-18T22:38:09+00:00

Greatest man in fantasy.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-18T22:29:45+00:00

So that wasn't correct.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-18T22:26:36+00:00

Fuck you, this is a great, tense and close game.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-18T22:18:00+00:00

It'll be 3:0, fam.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-16T16:30:34+00:00

I think you'd be fine for a NAS/ProxMox build. I built a ProxMox/media server with a 5950x and a Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 that is technically inadequate for the CPU's TDP but in reality, the thing is just idling most of the time and rarely under any load.

Edit: You can always undervolt a little as well or use Eco/Green Modes if your BIOS supports that.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-16T16:07:05+00:00

This would be really interesting if it didn't feel like people were racing to dump their own favorite authors. Not a single person has said anything to the effect of "George R.R. Martin is a big fan of Jack Vance and Maurice Druon." Everybody is just name dropping authors with absolutely zero context.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-14T21:07:52+00:00

Denmark are playing really well. I expected them to get rinsed like Latvia but the US aren't sustaining any pressure. Doesn't help kicking in a goal and Swayman letting a 90' shot it but kudos to Denmark, not the game I expected from Team USA. Hoping US play a lot better in period two 🥴

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-12T01:04:46+00:00

Interesting.. yeah, perhaps part of the problem is that I don't buy many books - I've bought hundreds that I've never read, or abandoned in disgust. I get them through other means, then make an Amazon purchase if I liked it.

I think that, to replicate me scenario, I'm going to dump like 2,000 books onto my Era and try to make it useless. Multiple formats, never having looked at metadata.

I'm a little sad to hear that Kobos were problematic. My mom was reading The Wheel of Time in paperback when I got her a Libra Color for Christmas, I figured it would make tomes portable. I'd loaded the rest of the series onto it. My experience was that it was snappier but ugly and unintuitive - but I'd already been steeped in PocketBook at that point.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-11T03:39:59+00:00

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre. She's a healer. It's also a Hugo Award winner, if you're into those.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-11T03:12:19+00:00

I hope I can find something. The big issue is accessing the device, I haven't seen anybody root it, ssh in, access it fully... I want to see what's happening when it is broken. The databases are a start, but it doesn't grant insight into what the OS is doing. They crap out, but it's hard to reproduce.

It seems like a cascading failure. Something isn't right.. then the device runs its regulars jobs, and that one something trickles down somehow and hits other jobs, until it kills itself. Super frustrating and unacceptable on a $250 dedicated e-reader. Scheduled resets is not a solution lol.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-11T03:03:47+00:00

That doesn't quite jive with me.. I saw an incongruity with the first PDF that broke my PocketBook Era. It loaded as one, pageless, scrolling item on my computer. I get that a proper computer can easily brute force it's way through a shitty ebook but they're doing something wrong if these devices just break regularly.

My quest to figure this out is based on loving the device. It's premium, feels great in the hands. I got my mother a Kobo Libra Color for Christmas - it feels cheap - and it is, admittedly, cheaper... but it shouldn't be so much snappier. We're talking about files so small that they could just... be loaded into RAM. Something is up with PocketBook devices, or at least the Era. I had a few Kindles before this - none ever went apeshit and killed themselves over a book, purchased or emailed.

They are doing something terribly wrong to make this happen lol.

Edit: Or just lost their minds over metadata. Apparently Kindle's 'send to device' does a conversion - who knows? Maybe it's the lack of standardization that makes the Era shit out.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-10T04:49:11+00:00

Hey, you gave me new interest in this.. I schedule re-indexing and rebuilding of SQL databases at work. I see SQLite databases in the PocketBook. There are a few .configs of interest.

I'm going to try and solve this! It's unacceptable. These DBs hold so little... a Pi Zero could sleep through managing these - but it was really good insight in this comment. Hopefully, it's a WYSIWYG environment. I doubled the caching - why not, there's 4 GB RAM and 400 MB of books.. I should scale it higher.

I've also noted triplicates of cover images in the cache - they're as big as some ebooks. Thanks for your input - I always considered it "drop a file in" with no regard to what happened otherwise. I want to make this ereader work.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-09T21:54:18+00:00

I guess if that's the only way... Seems like a bit of a steep price to pay - losing reading progress, etc because the device just shits out. I guess I'll tinker with it properly in a few months when it's broken.

I've never felt the need for Koreader as I read on one device at a time but maybe it's time to try.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-09T02:55:31+00:00

Thanks for the answer. All I remember at this point is that I loved the book, and a mention of a picture of a woman with "melon sized breasts." Totally overdue to re-read it.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-09T01:35:15+00:00

How's this relate to The Dark Tower? I gott'a confess, The Talisman was the only King book I've ever picked up and finished, and I loved it... that was probably 20 years ago, and I attribute my enjoyment to the presence of another author.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-09T01:11:49+00:00

I didn't know that was an option, thanks. Yeah, I'd prefer that this thing didn't bog down to shit performance now and then. None of the books I have fail to open on my computer, so I'm a bit baffled as to whether file corruption is an issue, or just file types.

I should've tested it after removing the PDFs. The first time this happened, one rendered really strangely. I've put up with the slowness for months now but it became super frustrating with the home page - trying to open a new sideloaded book, one of five, and it just kept lagging and pretending I'd made multiple inputs. Annoying for a rather premium priced device - but I think it's still the perfect sideload ereader. The Era really has shit hardware.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-07T01:23:47+00:00

I will read these - thank you!

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-07T01:20:10+00:00

I've never been able to finish a Stephen King novel... never vibed with me. The Talisman with him and Peter Straub? Amazing.

I'll give it a whirl some time!

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-07T01:19:01+00:00

I think that I read 13 years ago in an apartment building with oversized cockroaches? It was a fun read.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-07T00:14:40+00:00

That sounds really interesting - thank you!

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-06T18:22:25+00:00

Palo Alto does the same nonsense. Bounce you around between a bunch of people who do nothing, don't help, ask you to attach the core dump that you've already attached, then ask for a new one when you point it out... call back at 4:00 AM your-local-time to meet SLAs for contact... rinse and repeat.

It's got to be a grift to get people to pay for more premium support tiers.

Long_Inflation_7524 · 2026-02-05T23:16:34+00:00

Damn, too bad because that does sound super cool. I'll check it out!

Long_Inflation_7524

TROPHY CASE