german and english review

audible audiobook

Inhalt: Das Ende der Welt steht kurz bevor – zum allerletzten Mal.
Noch ist es Essun nicht gelungen, ihr letztes lebendes Kind zu finden – und den Mann, den sie einst geliebt hat, bevor er zum Mörder ihres Sohnes und Entführer ihrer Tochter wurde. Stattdessen wurde Essun gefunden: von ihrem ehemaligen Mentor, Alabaster Tenring, dem Zerstörer der Welt. Und er hat eine Bitte, die nur sie erfüllen kann. Doch wenn Essun tut, wonach der Mächtige verlangt, könnte dies das Schicksal der Menschheit endgültig besiegeln.
Meilen entfernt wächst derweil die Macht in Essuns Tochter unaufhaltsam. Werden ihre Entscheidungen schließlich die Welt vernichten?

Meine Bewertung: Nicht so gut wie der erste Band aber hat mir immer noch gut gefallen!!!

Der erste Band hat mich stellenweise wirklich total verwirrt, trotzdem hatte er mich total begeistert. Die Verwirrung ist in dem zweiten Band geblieben, doch ich habe ihn irgendwie schneller fertig gehört.

Die Geschichte und die Welt in der sie erzählt wird, begeistert mich noch immer total. Auch wenn bei dem Buch hier immer wieder eine Menge Informationen auf einmal auf einem abgeladen worden ist.

Die Charaktere; ich mag wie unheimlich vielschichtig sie sind.

Ich glaube sobald ich das dritte Buch anhören kann, muss ich die Serie nochmal komplett hören. Vielleicht lässt dann auch die Verwirrung nach LOL

***

Summary: This is the way the world ends... for the last time.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.

It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.

My review: Not as good as the first book but I still enjoyed it!!!

The first book confused me so many times, still I was totally into the whole things. The second book confused me just as much, somehow I managed to finish the book much quicker.

The story and the world it is set in, is still one of the greatest I have enjoyed in a while. Even though sometimes we got way too much information dumped on us.

The characters; I just really like how layered they are.

I think as soon as I get a chance to listen to the third book in the series, I have to relisten to the whole thing. Maybe this will get rid off all my confusion LOL

This was a brilliant end to an incredible series.  I don't think I can describe how much I enjoyed this.

german and english review

audible audiobook

Inhalt: Die Welt steht am Abgrund. Mitten im Herzen des größten Kontinents (genannt "The Stillness") hat sich ein flammender Spalt aufgetan, der genug Asche spuckt, um den Himmel auf Jahre hinaus zu verdunkeln. Dadurch bricht das mächtige Sanze - das weltumspannende Reich, dessen Errungenschaften seit tausend Jahren die Zivilisation bestimmen - zusammen, als der Herrscher Sanzes dem Wahnsinn verfällt, und die meisten Bürger des Reiches ermordet werden, um seiner Rache zu dienen.

Auch für Essun, eine Frau, die ein gewöhnliches Leben in einer kleinen Stadt lebt, bricht ihre Welt zusammen: als sie in ihr Haus zurückkehrt, findet sie heraus, dass ihr Mann ihren Sohn brutal ermordet und ihre Tochter entführt hat. Essun folgt den Resten ihrer Familie durch ein Land, das zur tödlichen Bedrohung wird. Ohne Sonnenlicht, sauberes Wasser oder Ackerland, und mit begrenzten Lagerbeständen, wird es Krieg geben, soviel ist ihr klar: eine Schlacht aller Völker, nicht um Macht oder Land, sondern um die grundlegenden Ressourcen, die notwendig sind, um die lange Dunkelheit zu überstehen.

Doch Essun hat in der sterbenden Welt nur ein Ziel: Sie muss ihre Tochter retten.

Meine Bewertung: So viel mehr als ich erwartet hatte!!!

Wow. Was für ein Buch. Was für eine Story.

Ich weiß nicht mit was ich gerechnet hatte, aber ich habe nicht so großartige, vielschichtige und einfach besondere Charaktere erwartet. Ich hatte auch nicht die großartige Welt erwartet, die mir hier Schritt für Schritt näher gebracht wurde.

Ich hab das Buch jetzt schon zwei Tage fertig und ich hab immer noch nicht genau meine Gedanken sortiert. Deswegen ist es wirklich nur eine "Ich liebe alles und jeden, die Story ist großartig und hat mir das Herz rausgerissen und in kleine Einzelteile zertreten und ich liebte jeden einzelnen Moment davon" Bewertung.

Den Punktabzug musste ich einfach geben für das Hörbuch an sich, denn die Sprecherin überhaupt nicht gefallen. Es war alles viel zu langsam und eintönig. Nicht mein Fall. trotzdem freue ich mich schon auf die weiteren Bücher in der Serie!!!

***

Summary: This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

My review: This was so much more than I expected!!!

Wow. What a book. What a story.

I have no idea what I even expected but it sure as hell weren't these amazing, layered and just really special characters. I also didn't expect that amazing world that we slowly got to learn about.

I finished that book two days ago and I still don't really have my thoughts straight. So this is more of a "I love everything and everyone, the story is amazing and ripped out my heart and stomped it into million little pieces AND I loved every single moment of it" review.

The fact that I took away one star is because of the audiobook and the fact that the narrator drove me crazy. She was just so slow and monotonous. Not for me. But I still can't wait to dive into the rest of the books in this series.

This is part of a series of posts reviewing categories in this year's Hugo ballot. I'll be discussing the entries, the voter packet, and my ballot. I've nominated and voted most years since 2011, when I figured out that all I had to do was join Worldcon to get to do so.

Two sequels and several set in space. The downside of this list is that Orbit tends to only include excerpts. The upside, there's only one Orbit title I didn't already own.

• The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor) - 3 Stars. Fun romp, fun narration, but did not love.

• New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit) - DNF'd early, could not get into.

• Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit) - I DNF'd this pretty early. Great writing, but not at all my style of story.

• Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris) - 4.5 Stars. An excellent book. I look forward to reading the conclusion of this trilogy.

• Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit) - 4 Stars. A solid read I enjoyed quite a bit.

• The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) - 5 Stars. One of the best books I read last year and easily the top of my ballot for this award. An excellent conclusion to a brilliant series.

So, yeah, kind of an obvious top of ballot here in The Stone Sky. I really liked both Six Wakes and Raven Stratagem. It's a hard choice, but I think Raven Stratagem will go next on my ballot. Fourth with be Collapsing Empire, and I just won't include the two novels I didn't finish. Wow, this is usually not such an easy category for me.

I knew from the heartbreak that came in the first two books in this series that I should expect this one to be similar. Honestly, though, I think this one was easier. It's hard to top the extreme amount of pain and loss that happened in book one.

Hoa finally really grew on me in this book. I was fascinated to read about his history, seeing him fleshed out. The book, really the entire series, deals so heavily with issues of slavery and prejudice, and it does not pull punches, ever.

This final book also had a theme of moving forward after devastating loss, which was really poignant.

I do think it was clear from the end of the previous book where Essun's story was going to end, given the style of narration. But even realizing that, the journey was not nearly so easy to predict, and I really fell in love the these characters. None quite as much as Alabaster, though.

This series is not easy to read, because it's so heavy, emotionally. I can't recommend it to everyone. But if you enjoy fantasy and want something different, that really delves into the ugly parts of humanity, and the ways that people survive horrific adversity, you should not pass this up.