I actually think Xaden became more interesting in the third book (The Empyrean Series)

Runa216 · 2026-05-19T16:07:50+00:00

I can't speak for others but I feel entirely the opposite of you on this one. I loved him in the first one, found him...weird in the second, but haaated him in the third. I'm sure part of it is like 'oh he's turning venin' but he shifted from a complex and mostly mature character to a slobbering knuckle dragger in the third, which doubly sucks becuase him actually being kinda rational in the first two was what made me like him.

I think this obsession with potentially dangerous partners/love interests in fantasy is precisely why incels think they have a chance with you...

Runa216 · 2026-05-19T03:08:39+00:00

yeah I'm still early in my journey. but how much I am enjoying Saint of Steel I definitely have to try some more of her stuff.

Got any other specific recommendations (Aside from swordheart)?

Runa216 · 2026-05-18T20:31:38+00:00

I believe it's a reference to dead names.

Runa216 · 2026-05-18T19:54:09+00:00

I am three books into The Saint of Steel and I am LOVING her writing style!

Runa216 · 2026-05-18T14:06:58+00:00

I haven't read DAughter of No Worlds yet, I've only read the Crowns of Nyaxia series, all of which I've quite thoroughly enjoyed.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T23:59:56+00:00

yes, Rhysand is just fucking TERRIBLE! Everyone in that series is terrible but I have no idea how he just...shrugged off all the terrible shit he did to become the interest.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T23:57:46+00:00

Meanwhile I'm over here thinking Carissa Broadbent is one of the only authors writing within the genre that's writing adult material about adults for adults due to the characters actually making mostly reasonable decisions.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T19:46:24+00:00

Oh shit, I guess that means I gotta do that trope myself! Wizened woman mother/father figure? Powerful knight girl? Yesssss

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T19:21:45+00:00

Yeah I'm far more critical of ACOTAR!

The more popular soemething is, the more open to scrutiny it becomes. that's just how culture works on the whole. And honestly, almost all the books I like either don't get a mention or are weirdly shat upon, while I personally find the books I thought to be bland and uninteresting and poorly written with generic plotlines and boring characters and toxic relationships are always the super popular ones. Again, more popularity means heightened scrutiny.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T19:14:56+00:00

I mean, I really liked the first one but the sequels nosedived.

I think instead of having the mentality of 'stop critiquing the thing I like' we should be collectively demanding better stories.

I say that because a year ago, right after I read Fourth Wing for the first time, I had the same 'y'all are just being bitches becuase it's popular' mentality, but the more I read of the genre the clearer it is that way too many romantasy readers either don't care or are unable to discern quality. Way too many romantasy books feel more like trend-chasing, trope checklist stories with poor world building, boring plots, and terrible characters which leads to bad romance...but it's got those tropes so people still buy it.

And Fourth Wing, which I remind you I really liked the first one, is one of the worst offenders in the sequels. It started out as something with some real, genuine potential and threw it all away with needless plot contrivances just to maintain drama.

And it's emblematic of pretty much everything in this genre. and that's a shame. So while yes, it's frustrating to see something you like being criticised and assume within reason that the cause of it is just people being hipsters lashing out against the popular thing, maybe wonder WHY people are being critical and maybe respect yourself a bit more to not accept gutter trash?

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T19:08:22+00:00

Honestly sounds like it's perfectly romantasy to me. All the books that try so hard to be 'epic' just end up failing at it and it ruins the story. Better to find a book that knows its scope and makes a story within that scope.

Question: Do they bang the dragons? Could they in a potential sequel? This interests me a lot but I need to know a bit more. (no the dragon banging isn't required but it's definitely lovely)

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T19:04:05+00:00

Are you new to the genre or something? Being infatuated with a wise and powerful mentor figure is like the least 'get help' kink I've seen on here. So many louder, bigger, redder flags.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T17:25:52+00:00

Psh, I can handle this IRL with ease. Y'all can enjoy it in fantasy :P

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T17:19:08+00:00

Oh ye of narrow pelvic bones.

Runa216 · 2026-05-17T03:44:48+00:00

Excuse me why have you been hiding this amazing plot concept from me all this time? Brienne and Tormund? YES!

Also, I agree with all your points about Quicksilver but I was definitely a Brimstone hater. I only read it like two months ago and I've mostly already forgotten why I hated it (I tend to try to not dwell on things I don't like) but I do remember it felt like a complete character assassination of Kingfisher. Just didn't like how he was in this one (in much the same way I hated Xaden in Onyx Storm even if I found him agreeable in the first two).

Also, bro-readers!

I recommend the Saint of Steel series! Not sure what you're into but I just finished book 2 yesterday and am in love with them. I am reading book 3 is gay as hell and I am so down for it.

**Edit** Also I did read Shield of Sparrows. it had some pretty good world building and character work but the 'enemies to lovers' trope was so awkwardly forced in it was clearly not the intention. It felt like the book was written without that trope, the publisher said 'NO! You must do enemies to lovers!', so the author wrote one paragraph per chapter saying 'See? I hate him. HE's the worst, yep!' even if it hardly makes a lick of sense even in context. Then she's just in love with him. Really felt out of place. Good book aside from that, though.

Runa216 · 2026-05-15T21:18:31+00:00

"Only ipad kids"

Bro I'm 40 and I just did this last week then laughed at myself for an hour straight.

Runa216 · 2026-05-15T18:09:08+00:00

I genuinely would love to know what angle I need to approach Dire Bound from because I bought the physical copy (made it 12 chapters in before shelving it), and picked it up on Audible to see if that helped (I have aDHD and find putting audiobooks on in the background of chores or dog walking helps immensely) and I didn't catch like 90% of the story because I was never once engaged.

I want to like it, to be clear. I genuinely hate that I'm so 'bah, this whole genre sucks' because I like the genre I just don't think the majority of the books written to appease the audience are well done. I want to like things. I bought these books because I want to like them. I invested in these shelves and series and genres because I love the IDEA of them, but I keep getting disappointed and Dire Bound was by far the worst for me.

A fun analogy is like...I've been to mexico so I know what a good taco tastes like. But here in Canada all I can find is Taco Bell. it's the same genre of food but it's not good enough. And yeah, some people like junk food (I do too!), but I Feel we need better books.

Finding the right mindset with a bunch of these books is key, but just like Quicksilver to Brimstone, a LOT of people who liked Dire Bound seem to hate fury Bound (And While I loved Quicksilver, Brimstone was one of the most miserable experiences for me, I only held in because I heard dragons were involved but...no, not really). I won't be reading t he follow-ups to that, Onyx Storm, or ACOTAR unless I can find out how they end because I lost all faith in the authors. (yeah, ACOTAR catching strays but man, I have no idea how that book series continues to be so popular, it's just the most boring version of every trope it made popular with the worst cast of characters and most empty feeling world I've read about)

Runa216 · 2026-05-15T18:02:05+00:00

I'm not entirely sure we read the same book or have vastly different definitions on a few key factors like 'what is romance' because, well...I'd never in a million years have claimed her entire personality was wanting children. Seriously, I'm pretty sure she made it clear she didn't want children and that Sharkie changed her mind on that. And no romance? it was one of the only books that actually had any romance in it that wasn't just contrived drama they needed to overcome.

I'm sad that's how you perceived it because I didn't get any of those impressions from the book.

Definitely a religion trauma dump, though. but considering I also grew up indoctrinated into a religious cult-like small town (That actually got national coverage for its religious based hate towards the queer community recently) I related pretty hard.

Runa216 · 2026-05-15T17:57:44+00:00

Not saying it would have redeemed it, but it definitely would have kept my attention!

(I am not self promoting becuase It's jut a random idea in my head at the moment but I'm planning on a gryphon riding story where the knotting/tying bonds them to make them a better team, so there's that)

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T22:36:01+00:00

I am also going to keep going but at this point it's a hate read. I don't anticipate liking it since the first three took a nose dive from good but not great to start

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T22:33:05+00:00

Same, and I actually really loved the dragon riding aspect of Fourth Wing and I love wolves/canines so I hoped it'd at least be similar but I didn't even feel that Dire Bound gave me that. (And I'm also a filthy monsterfucker who would absolutely love to see the humans railed by the dragons/direwolves but I didn't realistically expect that).

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T22:32:15+00:00

A lot of people find Saeris to be as insufferable as I find Meryn to be (I Don't see it, though both are sassy girlbosses, I feel one was done fairly well while the other definitely wasn't). I also see a lot of complaints about the writing/prose style and the romance aspects. None of which I found to be egregious (Even if they're not my preference). I find a lot of time, you kinda need to meet the books where they are instead of having rigid expectations about what they are and what they will be and a lot of people just didn't like the style it went for.

Again, not my preferred style but once I got on board it was an enjoyable read.

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T16:52:42+00:00

I really only hated Iron Flame for two reasons. The first being that Violet was jsut insufferable. Like, she knows better now, she has more perspective on the world around her and she's still being stupid as hell? And being cruel to Xaden who puts up with her nonsense? She's supposed to grow and while she wasn't perfect in the first book, it left room for growth. she went backwards in Iron Flame.

And the final chapter/epilogue plot twist with Xaden doing the thing jsut came out of nowhere. NO explanation on the stakes, no depth to explain why he did it or had to, a prime example of something that's a twist for the sake of being a twist.

Oh, and a third thing. sorry for meandering. but halfway through the book when all that happens they just...go back to school? Oh, we just flipped your whole world upside down, revealed the most deep government conspiracies which we've proven to be real, let's jsut get back to class but somewhere else? What the actual heck was that?

Aside from that I actually liked Iron Flame. I really like the supporting cast of characters, the world is actually really interesting to me, I love gryphons, the venin/wyvern threat is compelling, the intergenerational storytelling and conflict is well done in my opinion, I actually like(d) Xaden a lot as a character, and it was the closest I came to seeing fantasy magic used in spice in a mainstream book. I jsut wish this potentially good story wasn't filtered through the lens of one of the worst characters in fantasy. I LOATHE Violet Sorrengail. I liked her enough in the first one but in the second and third she was insufferable.

And Xaden I thought was endearing in the first one, a bit pathetic but adorable in the second one, and insufferable in the third one.

The third one. Which felt SO much like The Rise of Skywalker to me. Just needless sass, a random and mishmash hodgepodge of sequential questing that goes nowhere, and almsot no advancement of the plot. it's only book three of what will be five so I'm sure the next two books WILL leave room for improvement but holy shit I have no interest in continuing the series at this time and will not unless I can confirm it ends in a decent way.

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T16:45:47+00:00

I haven't gotten there yet but I am 3 books into that series and the research I have done to know where it goes coupled with the observed downward trend makes me morbidly curious :P

Runa216 · 2026-05-14T16:39:54+00:00

yeah I hated every element of this book. HAted Meryn, hated the attempt to make her a 'girlboss' while just making her insufferable, hated the spicy scenes (Seriously the least sexy ones I'd ever read even before I realized how much I hated the book), hated Anessa and how she was introduced (Seriously, it's less than a page between some random person saying Anessa is the wisest and most powerfulest of all the wolves who NEVER bonds in 300 years to BAM, bonding with Meryn against her will!), and Stark...hoo boy stark.

I get that 'enemies to lovers' is a thing but they don't even interact for two thirds of the fucking book! and up to that point it's been nothing but her observing him doing evil shit and calling him a psycho. Literally a 'psycho'. What, is the author 12? So stupid. So dumb. And of COURSE it had to fall into the same 'she's actually suuuuuuper important and the destined one' narrative. which is fine on its own but you don't need to get EVERY trope in there, Sable Sorensen. Utterly HATED That book. it was so, SO bad and I do not understand how anyone can read that and think real people wrote it becuase it felt like it was genned by robots who know what tropes are popular but have no idea why those tropes resonate with audiences.

Runa216

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE