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gothsaurus wrote:I actually really enjoyed the first book... with only very minor complaints. (Usually reading this sort of thing, you encounter so many that's-not-cannon! events or traits, you can't enjoy them... especially with so many different timelines... movie, classic, animated, prime, armada....) Anyway, will definitely be picking this up.

The only other TF novel I really got a kick out of was the Legends book of short stories. Very fun stuff... especially the one with the obscure dinobot Paddles. I seriously recommend picking that one up. Paddles rules.

IT is a fun book to read too.

I've been digging my way through this, with mixed results.

I personally thought that the Exodus novel was pretty sloppily executed. The prose was really rough, he kept restating characters thoughts and conclusions, and there was no real sense of place or time, and a really jumpy sense of character.

Exiles so far has a much tighter plot, without the fanfictiony buildup of bromance falling into Alpha Trion talking to himself in emo fashion morphing into a ending that felt like the cutscenes of a video game tied together with string.

So far, it lacks the heart and punch of the first book though. Irvine really doesn't give anything in the realm of a truely felt emotional arc. Characters restate their own conclusions to themselves without much real emotion or feeling. And characters act out of character all the time. Jazz is especially bad about this, he seems to be whatever the plot needs him to be at that given moment. And I seriously think he's trying to drive Bumblebee to suicide with heartless teasing.

Concepts jump up at really weird times though. As if Irvine forgot to put them in earlier, then included them, but couldn't be bothered to go back and edit what he'd already written. It wasn't until way past halfway through that we're told learn that the Velocitronians arrived on Velocitron on the Ogygia. And for a while the ship is mentioned every two paragraphs, and then is seemingly forgotten again. As someone who isn't very familiar with the Unicron trilogy, THAT would be something to mention in the beginning.

And if I have to hear about how the Velocitroinans like to go fast, or how much Optimus admires the Junkions for their industriousness I'm gonna throw the fraggin' book through a fraggin' Space Bridge.

Overall, like Exodus, it reads like a first draft written as quickly as possible that no one bothered to go back and edit for better plotting, characterization, or arcs.

I especially love how after the complete Furmanistic mancentration camp of Exodus, we get Override and Solus Primewith no explanation at all.

That being said, the mythos that it seems to be setting up is interesting. If you're a continuity completist whore like I am it's defs worth a look.

Started reading Exiles last night, and so far, I'm not dazzled, but not disappointed either. I remember reading Exodus and thinking that it wasn't very well thought out, so I'm hoping this one is an improvement. So, I guess I'd better get back to reading so I can form an actual opinion...

I finished Exiles this morning and while I enjoyed it, I admit to being slightly disappointed. There were several times when I thought something epic was going to occur, only for the situation to end rather anticlimactically or veer off in some other direction. I felt like some of the introductions were done just to add those characters' names to the count rather than because they planned a real part in the plot.

I agree with the WiEGoP that some characters seem to be whatever the plot needs them to be at the moment without bothering to stick to personalities.

It's been long enough since I read Exodus that I can't really remember any key points (which might say something right there) so can't really compare the 2. Exiles wasn't a bad read and I'll stick with the series (I assume there's another one coming) but I felt like it could have been taken more seriously.

I think my gripe so far... it seems like a mix of too many universes. War for Cybertron, Movie continuity, and G1. Mixing all of them just feels odd. (Bulkhead on the Ark for example.)

Sabrblade wrote:It's a mixing of elements from these universes.

Ha ha. You got me on semantics. True there...

I can't help thinking of the old Reeses peanut butter cup commercial....

(in Ironhide voice) "Aw, Prime. Ya got movie-verse in my G1-verse!"

And you know that's gonna stain.

I don't mind the mixing the verses as long as it's done well. I think it's important to pull elements from as many previous incarnations as possible to make your continuity casserole taste fresh and interesting, even if it is just recycled bits of earlier series. It was nice to see Velocitron and Override, if only Irvine had made them interesting at all. Still I hope some of those concepts find their way into the mainstream G1/BeastWars/Furman pot that aligned seems to be dipping into for all its plot points.

I finished the book a few days ago and the last half is much better than the first, and overall it is much better plotted than Exodus. The Junkion portion is much better, and I found myself kinda liking Irvine's take on the Junkions and Wreck-Gar, when he managed to stick with his speech idioms for them. I liked the Alpha Trion bits in this book okay, despite the the 'vertiginous decent' style of meta-angst that Alpha Trion kept whining about. The Solus Prime stuff is nice, but then again I'm a sucker for them actually EXPLAINING why there are so few fembots. (Can has toy of her naow? With Hammurz?)And it's really funny to have two of the least known fembots get significant parts with nary a sight of Arcee, Elita, or a Blackarachnia.

Nexuspops up to do almost absolutely nothing except give Prime a sword that he uses for two minutes before losing, Prime goes to see Vectorwho tells him absolutely nothing for nearly three pages of dialogue. No less than three super-weapons are found, used, and then junked. And pointless space pirates were pointless!

And what kinda name is AmalgamousPrime? He sounds like something they do to a government issued food product.

Reading it now and all I have to say do far is, "What happened to Ironhide?" He was there on the ship with the rest of the Autobots at the end of Exodus and he's completely gone in Exiles. He was mistakenly mentioned on page 26, (was actually Ratchet, not Ironhide), but that's all I've seen so far.

Did Hasbro tell Alex that since he's dead in the movies now, disregard him in the books, (even though they are different continuities)?

Bleak5170 wrote:Reading it now and all I have to say do far is, "What happened to Ironhide?" He was there on the ship with the rest of the Autobots at the end of Exodus and he's completely gone in Exiles. He was mistakenly mentioned on page 26, (was actually Ratchet, not Ironhide), but that's all I've seen so far.

Did Hasbro tell Alex that since he's dead in the movies now, disregard him in the books, (even though they are different continuities)?

No, he's in there more. It's just kind of odd how the grouping works, and as was said before, some characters are just there to fill a needed role, but not necessarily representative of what we previously thought they were.

I do like that they have written Prowl as more than a logical whiner, his detective personality is a welcome change. I'm about 50 pages from done. It's okay. But I feel like I am watching/reading Armada and Cybertron, not this story that is supposed to be set... wait when is it?

I guess I should just wait for the Sabrblade cliffnotes before trying to actually understand how it all fits with the previous continuities.

I think your rating may be a bit generous.

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Bleak5170 wrote:Reading it now and all I have to say do far is, "What happened to Ironhide?" He was there on the ship with the rest of the Autobots at the end of Exodus and he's completely gone in Exiles. He was mistakenly mentioned on page 26, (was actually Ratchet, not Ironhide), but that's all I've seen so far.

Did Hasbro tell Alex that since he's dead in the movies now, disregard him in the books, (even though they are different continuities)?

No, he's in there more. It's just kind of odd how the grouping works, and as was said before, some characters are just there to fill a needed role, but not necessarily representative of what we previously thought they were.

Ah gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. It seems to me like these books are kind of along the same lines as the video games, (War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron), and use most of the characters seen in the movies, (O.P., Bumblebee, Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet), and other recent TF media such as Animated, (Bulkhead, Prowl).

Bleak5170 wrote:

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Bleak5170 wrote:Reading it now and all I have to say do far is, "What happened to Ironhide?" He was there on the ship with the rest of the Autobots at the end of Exodus and he's completely gone in Exiles. He was mistakenly mentioned on page 26, (was actually Ratchet, not Ironhide), but that's all I've seen so far.

Did Hasbro tell Alex that since he's dead in the movies now, disregard him in the books, (even though they are different continuities)?

No, he's in there more. It's just kind of odd how the grouping works, and as was said before, some characters are just there to fill a needed role, but not necessarily representative of what we previously thought they were.

Ah gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. It seems to me like these books are kind of along the same lines as the video games, (War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron), and use most of the characters seen in the movies, (O.P., Bumblebee, Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet), and other recent TF media such as Animated, (Bulkhead, Prowl).

It is true they are throwing all different kinds of characters together who were not previously together. Like we have minicons, and minicon weapons, Velocitron, Ransack and Overdrive, Axer, Wreckgar, Slipstream, and others who are now getting smooshed together with G1 characters who are not G1 characters anymore.

It's all very confusing. Even Sabrblade, who knows everything, is confused. As I hear it, all these incarnations together in EXODUS and then EXILES are supposed to be headed towards TF Prime being the future, so Bulkhead, Ratchet, the non-speaking Bbee, and Prime all make sense. We don't yet know how others will gel with them, like Arcee, and why they become such a small group in PRIME (forgive me I have only seen an episode here or there of Prime, and have not seen the beginning yet).

I'd have to read this book again to get it, but frankly, I really don't want to right now! I could barely stand it! Too much nonsense went into this book coupled with some very tedious exposition and really vapid action. I know this is a premature rating, but I'm calling this book a "C-".

And this is the essence of Transfandom. We will read, and even re-read, a book that we HATE simply because it's part of canon and is thus an artifact in need of studying, analyizing and cross referencing.

They really knew what they were doing when they made Orion Pax a librarian in the new aligned continuity.

I finished reading Exiles a few days ago (okay, maybe a week, I read it in one day... ), and I found it confusing too, but at the time I thought it was because English is not my native language. Guess I was wrong, apparently it IS confusing.

Velocitron-part was decent, and not much confusing, though it's still mystery how and when Decepticons landed. First they were in that hall or something, and few chapters later they landed again on the surface and were treated like no one had seen them before. Did I miss something or what?

Junkion-part, however... What a mess! Characters kept appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, at one point Junkion got destroyed completely, and in the next scene there's still parts of it floating in the space. I had no idea where the Ark or the Nemesis exactly were, and apparently I missed the part where Optimus got to the Requiem Blaster.

And don't get me started on those Star Seekers.

However, I kind of enjoyed Exiles, but it might be just because in its cover reads "Transformers". If not... well... I would have probably stopped reading after reading the first half.

Sabrblade wrote:

Zequem wrote:Velocitron-part was decent, and not much confusing, though it's still mystery how and when Decepticons landed. First they were in that hall or something, and few chapters later they landed again on the surface and were treated like no one had seen them before. Did I miss something or what?

I was confused about that too. Until I realized that the first landing wasn't made by the Decepticons, but by the Star Seekers. You can tell it was them later on when they arrive at Junkion and use the Universal Greeting and demand to know if there were Cybertronians there like how they did on Velocitron. The confusion comes from them being mistaken for the Decepticons by the Velocitronians.

The Decepticons show up for real later on, after the Star Seekers had left and the damage from their fight earlier is noticed by the Deceps.

Ooh, now I get it. Thanks for clearing that up! I kind of realized there was something fishy about in the "first" landing because Decepticons names weren't used, but never could I have figured it was actually the Star Seekers.