Great to hear your thoughts on this one, Cam. I plan to start The Bound and The Broken in May, and I intend to temper my expectations for the first book to give it a fair shot.
I made a post last night in a Facebook fantasy group about editing in books. And I made it because of this very book, lol. I almost threw the book across the room when the author got the name of the character who had just been shot with an arrow mixed up. Rist was shot too pages before but suddenly it was Dann who was barely limping along and needed help from Rist to walk. As you said that kind of stuff justs takes me out of it. I had to put the book down and get online to rant about it, lol. My post has well over 200 comments now talking about the lack of editing anymore.
Well I finished the series; the main 3 and the first 2 novellas anyway, not yet read the last novella. I would not have continued after that first book if I had not already bought most of the books. The series improved over time and I actually gave book 3 a 4 star rating, The series overall is mediocre but it does have some moments of greatness. Unfortunately it is too uneven; from cringe worthy dialog to poor narrative choices there is just too much that brought me out of the story. I don't get the love this series is getting here in the BookTube community. It isn't garbage or anything but it definitely isn't all that special either.
Yeah, from everything I've heard from those that have read most/all of what is available so far is that the first book is pretty tropey and standard fantasy fair but past the first book it really becomes it's own thing and gets pretty damn epic. Not that being tropey and standard fantasy fair is a bad thing, if done well I'll read that all day long, but yeah, seems like most people complain about it, but just know that it "apparently" really moves on as it's own thing past the first book...I plan to start this in the next couple months, can't wait.
Yeah it’s pretty clear that a lot of people love this series and me loving it or not isn’t even a blip on the radar. I believe people when they say it gets a lot better but I have so much stuff to get to it’ll be a long while before I get back to it because I didn’t love it.
Great insights! Repetative words are a pet peeve of mine as well, so that's good to know going into this one. It still scored high despite that, so I have hope I'll feel the same way.
Definitely let me know when you do! It hasn’t become so popular because it’s not a good storyline haha. It also has an editor now so I assume those issues have been ironed out.
One other suggestion for letting people know what part of the video they are in is putting in timestamps! Those are super helpful and I use them as a viewer all the time.
Yeah I know I should but when I did start using timestamps I swear they were my least viewed videos % wise. You could see a few second spike with each time stamp. Not sure if that’s a good excuse not to though haha. I should start using a time stamp just for that switch from book details to my thoughts though.
@NerdBookReview I can completely understand lol. It does make people skip around. I also have a small booktube channel and I saw the same thing. I'm still not sure if user experience outweighs the reduced watch time.
Great to hear your thoughts Cam! I think I would be bothered by the same things as you. It might still be worth pushing through to Book 2. I look forward to your thoughts whenever you continue the series 😊
I’ll definitely go to book 2 at some point. There are a lot of people who say things get much better after book 1. I also see why people get hooked, if the editing issues don’t bother you then there is a ton of action and cool world building.
Glad you made this video! Seems like we have some similar thoughts but I think you might've enjoyed it more than I did. I feel like The Fall was better written on a sentence level but the pacing was downright awful. I still plan to read Of Darkness and Light, though. I hear that's when Cahill could finally afford an editor. Haha. Great video!!
Yeah, gotta give some first books a little bit of a break...especially if you are self published. Can't wait to start this myself...hopefully in a couple months.
I don’t really agree with this necessarily. There are still some great editors out there who mostly work with indie authors and most of the people I read use editors. I understand that there’s still a cost associated with this and that can be an issue. Also it’s important to note that there aren’t formatting and spelling issues but word use and repetition that messed with my enjoyment and those are the things an editor is important for in terms of polish.
@@PreppinShootinLivin I never hold self-published books to the same standard as traditionally published books. This book came off quite similarly to stuff I used to read in my intermediate fiction class in college. He just needs more education to be a really good writer. Although if he had more education, I doubt he'd gone the self-pub route. I'm excited to read book 2. The Fall was much better on a sentence level but the pacing was terrible.
Great review. I just finished and started book 2! Feel similar to you about book 1.
Great to hear your thoughts on this one, Cam. I plan to start The Bound and The Broken in May, and I intend to temper my expectations for the first book to give it a fair shot.
Yeah. I think the story and world building are great but the editing issues got to me.
I made a post last night in a Facebook fantasy group about editing in books. And I made it because of this very book, lol. I almost threw the book across the room when the author got the name of the character who had just been shot with an arrow mixed up. Rist was shot too pages before but suddenly it was Dann who was barely limping along and needed help from Rist to walk. As you said that kind of stuff justs takes me out of it.
I had to put the book down and get online to rant about it, lol. My post has well over 200 comments now talking about the lack of editing anymore.
Well I finished the series; the main 3 and the first 2 novellas anyway, not yet read the last novella. I would not have continued after that first book if I had not already bought most of the books.
The series improved over time and I actually gave book 3 a 4 star rating, The series overall is mediocre but it does have some moments of greatness. Unfortunately it is too uneven; from cringe worthy dialog to poor narrative choices there is just too much that brought me out of the story.
I don't get the love this series is getting here in the BookTube community. It isn't garbage or anything but it definitely isn't all that special either.
Yeah, from everything I've heard from those that have read most/all of what is available so far is that the first book is pretty tropey and standard fantasy fair but past the first book it really becomes it's own thing and gets pretty damn epic. Not that being tropey and standard fantasy fair is a bad thing, if done well I'll read that all day long, but yeah, seems like most people complain about it, but just know that it "apparently" really moves on as it's own thing past the first book...I plan to start this in the next couple months, can't wait.
Yeah it’s pretty clear that a lot of people love this series and me loving it or not isn’t even a blip on the radar. I believe people when they say it gets a lot better but I have so much stuff to get to it’ll be a long while before I get back to it because I didn’t love it.
Great insights! Repetative words are a pet peeve of mine as well, so that's good to know going into this one. It still scored high despite that, so I have hope I'll feel the same way.
Definitely let me know when you do! It hasn’t become so popular because it’s not a good storyline haha. It also has an editor now so I assume those issues have been ironed out.
One other suggestion for letting people know what part of the video they are in is putting in timestamps! Those are super helpful and I use them as a viewer all the time.
Yeah I know I should but when I did start using timestamps I swear they were my least viewed videos % wise. You could see a few second spike with each time stamp. Not sure if that’s a good excuse not to though haha. I should start using a time stamp just for that switch from book details to my thoughts though.
@NerdBookReview I can completely understand lol. It does make people skip around. I also have a small booktube channel and I saw the same thing. I'm still not sure if user experience outweighs the reduced watch time.
Great to hear your thoughts Cam! I think I would be bothered by the same things as you. It might still be worth pushing through to Book 2. I look forward to your thoughts whenever you continue the series 😊
I’ll definitely go to book 2 at some point. There are a lot of people who say things get much better after book 1. I also see why people get hooked, if the editing issues don’t bother you then there is a ton of action and cool world building.
Glad you made this video! Seems like we have some similar thoughts but I think you might've enjoyed it more than I did. I feel like The Fall was better written on a sentence level but the pacing was downright awful. I still plan to read Of Darkness and Light, though. I hear that's when Cahill could finally afford an editor. Haha. Great video!!
Yeah I think from a world building and storytelling perspective the book is really good but I think a re-editing would be helpful.
Yeah, gotta give some first books a little bit of a break...especially if you are self published. Can't wait to start this myself...hopefully in a couple months.
I don’t really agree with this necessarily. There are still some great editors out there who mostly work with indie authors and most of the people I read use editors. I understand that there’s still a cost associated with this and that can be an issue.
Also it’s important to note that there aren’t formatting and spelling issues but word use and repetition that messed with my enjoyment and those are the things an editor is important for in terms of polish.
@@PreppinShootinLivin I never hold self-published books to the same standard as traditionally published books. This book came off quite similarly to stuff I used to read in my intermediate fiction class in college. He just needs more education to be a really good writer. Although if he had more education, I doubt he'd gone the self-pub route. I'm excited to read book 2. The Fall was much better on a sentence level but the pacing was terrible.