Shelf Control: Night Angel Nemesis

Shelf Control is a weekly feature created by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. Since early January 2023, Shelf Control has moved base to Literary Potpourri. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile and write a post about it–what it’s about, when/where you got it, why you want to read it and such.

I have read and re-read the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks as well as his Lighbringer series. I've been a big fan. In his Lightbringer series he did introduce a rather awkward female medical issue that didn't add to the story and even he acknowledged it was a pet thing of his. I think I'm being rather nice by saying it was simply "awkward". I considered dnf'ing the series right then and there. All of that is just to say that Weeks has been known to put stuff into his books that are of interest to him and nobody else.

He began a new Night Angel trilogy about two years ago. This was a sequel series and many fans were looking forward to it, me included. Weeks had a weekly or monthly youtube channel, was very active on social media and kept his website up to date. Soon after the release of Nemesis, he went silent.

Fast-forward two years to now and I began wondering when the next book would come out. He was still dark, so I began looking into other websites to see what might have happened. I stumbled across a Reddit thread that described the book and it appears that Weeks decided to overwrite about Depression and make his main character become truly depressed. It was offputting to all of the commentors and I got the sense that it was as bad as the sex thing in the Lightbringer series.

It has made me wonder if Weeks himself was suffering from depression and couldn't handle the fact that not everybody was enthralled with the subject as himself. It would explain his extended absence as well.

As such, I think I'm going to be passing on Nemesis. I haven't got time for authors who die on me, authors who are too lazy to finish their series OR authors who are human and fail like every other human.

Shelf Control: A Subtle Agency

Shelf Control is a weekly “feature” hosted now by Mallika from Literary Potpourri. The gist seems to be to pick a book or series on your TBR shelf and write about it as a way to get you to either read it or toss it in the eternal battle of trying to trim our TBR’s.

After my last foray (Warlock Holmes) I realized that the next longest waiting series on my TBR was the Metaframe War by Graeme Rodaughan. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that last name because I have no idea. I just know it’s not Cracker, hehehehe.

Here is the blurb from the first book, A Subtle Agency:

Hunters and vampires are fighting a secret war for control of the fabric of reality. Whoever acquires mastery of the reality shifting powers of the Metaframe will become the new gods of the universe.

I have no idea why I put this series on my tbr list. I’m pretty sure I put it on in ’17 and I think the final book is supposed to come out this year (book 7). Once it comes out I will add it to my reading rotation and dive in. I am really hoping that the author does something interesting with vampires and doesn’t turn this into a goopy pnr hellhole.
(setting the bar pretty low in my opinion!)

Thankfully, I know I WILL be reading this. It is now just a matter of when 🙂

• Previous “Shelf Control” Posts

Shelf Control: Warlock Holmes

Shelf Control is a weekly “feature” (?) hosted now by Mallika from Literary Potpourri.

The gist seems to be to pick a book or series on your TBR shelf and write about it as a way to get you to either read it or toss it in the eternal battle of trying to trim our TBR’s. This month I chose the Warlock Holmes series by Gabriel Denning. Here’s the blurb from the first book, A Study in Brimstone:

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

I saw this when it came out in 2016 but I had just begun my “Don’t start a series until it is finished policy” and so I was determined to wait until the series ended. As each book came out, I made sure I had access to them and added them to my TBR pile, but never read them. I had high hopes though, as Denning was pumping them out one a year and in 2020 released the 5th book, The Finality Problem. Apparently, it ends in a massive cliffhanger and left fans drooling for more.

And here we are, three years later, with nary a word nor a peep nor even a hint from the author that he has any inclination or monetary carrot to carry on. This series has been on my TBR since 2017 when Mogsy from Bibliosanctum reviewed it.

Since this has been the first book on my Long TBR, and it has been 6 years, I have come to a decision. Either Denning gets his backside back in the game and puts out the next, and it better be the FINAL, book in 2024 or I’ll just wipe this series from my Calibre TBR Library. There are too many books for me to mess around with some author who doesn’t have his head screwed on right any more.

Now that’s Shelf Control! No messing around, no excuses, no mercy. Just Pure Sweet Bookstooge Justice, meted out with an iron fist!

~Pow~ ~Bam~ ~Biff~ ~Sock~ ~Kapow~