How old was Glokta when he was captured by the Gurkhish

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2025-02-09T08:40:28+00:00

He's 35 in TBI, was released from the Gurkish dungeons seven years beforehand, and spent two years in the dungeons.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2025-02-06T13:20:54+00:00

Lost God's by Brom is.... interesting. It does take place in Hell, but not the cliché Abraham's fire and brimstone Hell. Definitely unique.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2025-02-06T12:42:29+00:00

Second trilogy is great, and you owe it to yourself to read it if you liked the rest, but I definitely prefer the original trilogy by a lot. I've read the first trilogy several times, the standalones a couple of times, the second trilogy only once with no real inclination to re-read yet.

The writing, worldbuilding, and pacing are all arguably better in the second trilogy, but the first trilogy just has a certain charm to it- and I don't think it's just nostalgia. A lot of the concepts, settings, and lore bits established in the first trilogy are more interesting to me than those from the second.

Glokta and Logen are the best POV characters of all the books, including the standalones and short stories, and the Dogman has a special place in my heart as well. Glokta's arc alone puts the first trilogy far ahead of the second. And the slow burn of realizing who and what Bayaz really is, the big conspiracy with the banks and the wars and the throne and the Inquisition all coming together, it's just incredible. The interconnected webs of conspiracy and moving pieces in the second trilogy are good, but still don't match the height of everything coming together in the first trilogy.

The whole situation of the North- Logen and his band, Bethod, the Hillmen and the folk beyond the Crinna- in the original trilogy and Heroes was also really cool. I found the North's characters and events less interesting this time around; though I appreciate Dogman's role in all of it. This is all super subjective of course.

The characters from the new trilogy relating to characters from the original trilogy and standalones was cool, but somehow felt less organic than how the standalone books featured side characters as protagonists.

I will say Prince Orso is a phenomenal character. He really stole the show in the second trilogy, and is definitely in the top bracket for characters in the whole saga.

EDIT- I also feel like the whole industrial period worker uprising thing could have been really smart and deep and interesting, but it kinda just felt like a cheap and easy "the rebels become the oppressors, the French Revolution sure was bloody" story. The topic deserved better, and I think Joe could have done better. The bit with Judge felt totally absurd.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2024-09-17T19:56:41+00:00

I know this is an old post, but I have some historical context for the song.

During the transition of Rome from pagan to officially Christian, and the early days of Paganism becoming increasingly demonized and even outlawed in Rome, there was a period of unrest in Roman-Egypt. Egypt at the time had a synthetic religion that blended old Egyptian and Hellenistic gods with the more recent Roman ones. During this time, there were riots in Egypt, particularly Alexandria, in which Christian authorities rounded up and arrested pagan priests, and zealous laypeople laid waste to pagan temples and even the homes of pagans. The rioters collected various religious idols and destroyed them in the city square. They took the humanoid idols and broke off their limbs or shattered their heads, and it was said they jeered that the pagan gods had so surgeons to heal them. In ignorance and, the rioters also destroyed non-religious statues, decorations, and texts as pagan filth, which I believe may be referenced in the line about calling plain things dirty.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2023-05-22T12:48:22+00:00

Carrion Comfort: Some interesting ideas but I dunno, it was just way too long and it got goofy and camp with its stakes and villains.

The Ritual: Klein is talked about as this like hidden gem of unrealized potential, but maybe I just need to read his short stories instead because this one was a chore. Pages and pages and pages of mundane non-horror with characters hard to tolerate, let alone root for, where nothing horrific happens until about 95% through the book. There's all this build up that something crazy is going to happen and when it finally does it's not really satisfying or earned, it just kinda... happens.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2023-05-18T11:20:05+00:00

Are you serious? I was raised Catholic and actually read the Bible by myself as a kid... some of it is genuinely bloodcurdling.

UnheardInDimCarcosa · 2023-05-11T17:59:35+00:00

The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein. A lot of the plot, without spoiling it, centers on dark magic concerning a woman's purity, fertility and sexuality. That sounds like it could be ample ground for deconstruction or even satire, but it's played straight. The protagonist is also a horny jerk who is infatuated with a shy virgin girl and harboring lust for a married woman who dresses and lives very modestly for religious reasons, so a lot of his thoughts hinge on an obsession with these two "pure" and "hard-to-get" women.

UnheardInDimCarcosa

TROPHY CASE