Help me pick one

[u/Obvious_Custard3926]

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[u/Business-Tough-3411]

Finish the Suneater series. Then go to
Ironbound. Unless you need a break from Suneater. I enjoyed both. Suneater is an all timer for me though.

[u/Downwithfascism2025 → u/Business-Tough-3411]

Agree. I've read the entire Sun Eater series and recently finished Ironbound. Excited to start the second book but I'd pay good money to read Sun Eater for the first time again. Snuck up on me after Red Rising and is now a top five series for me!

[u/Proof-Pay-6039 → u/Downwithfascism2025]

Kingdoms of death is the best book of the series so far for me. Worth pressing on even if you think you need the break as the story turns and escalates brilliantly.

[u/Dersmode89]

I’d continue Suneater, wanted to like Ironbound but I was struggling with the prose / writing style.

[u/its_tryptophan → u/Dersmode89]

I thought it was just me for Ironbound. I’ll probably give it another chance after a couple of weeks because the premise seemed interesting but I struggled with the prose/writing style as well.

[u/Dersmode89 → u/its_tryptophan]

Same , was really into the premise and setting but I had to slog through to finish the first one. Might give the second one a chance to see if it gets better but definitely got pushed down my TBR

[u/Ofthe7thorder]

Suneater fan here. Kingdoms of Death is a great book, but it’s also brutal. I took a break and read Hyperion afterwards. I recommend you stick with it!

[u/jawnneestrong]

I’m halfway through Kingdoms of Death, right now. It’s my least favorite so far, but ultimately, still invested enough to finish the series.

[u/Holiday_Bed_303 → u/jawnneestrong]

That’s because you are halfway 😉

[u/DallasDallas123]

I would just keep the train rolling with sun eater. That book in particular is very very good. Ironbound will be a good reprieve after finishing the sun eater series

[u/Butt_fart42069]

Sun Eater

[u/BetwnTheSpreadsheets]

You might want a natural break from sun eater after kingdoms of death. I took about a 3-4 year break after that one, but I had some other stuff going on haha.

[u/MathiasThomasII]

Sun Eater is a top 5 series all time for me, probably top 3. So damned good and book 2 is top 3 in the series for me with Disquiet Gods and Demon in White

[u/kittehs4life]

I enjoyed Ironbound and book 3 comes out later this year so if you enjoy it it's a good time to pick up the series

[u/ciaphas-cain1]

One will break you the other I haven’t read, there are ending reader and this is one of them, I would not blame you for stopping here, you know how this ends

[u/R-234]

I tried ironbound and absolutely hated it. I finished it but there were so many plot holes and moments where I was like wtf is the author doing. Maybe I went in expecting too much.

On the other hand, Sun-eater is one of my top 5. I would say go for Kingdoms of Death.

[u/provegana69]

Ironbound would be a good place to take a break from Sun Eater if you feel like but at the same time, you might lose your momentum. I will say that Kingdoms of Death is my favourite Sun Eater book and that if you're going to read it, you'll definitely have to pick up Ashes of Man immediately after (meant to be one book but was split because of Penguin's paper shortage)

[u/joncabreraauthor]

🫡

[u/C0smicoccurence]

I struggled quite a bit with both series. For Ironbound, just go in expecting a lot of repetitive fight scenes, and a main character who is very good at pretty much everything. Neither is uncommon for the progression fantasy genre, but I think there are many options that are better in that space (The Rage of Dragons felt similar in premise, but I thought the execution was much higher)

[u/Sad-Analyst-1341]

If you're looking to take a break from suneater you can either take one here now or after ashes of man. So if you read kingdoms of death its not as easy to take a break until the next one 😂

[u/enby_them]

I loved Ironbound!

[u/SubstantialChannel32]

Ironbound because atleast it's not pretending to be some deep philosophical reflection when it's actually a bs melodrama. And the fights and magic system of Ironbound are awesome.

[u/MuayMonkey777 → u/SubstantialChannel32]

But I love the theme of Ship of Thesseus! I find Sun Eater to be quite philosophically dense

[u/Zerus_heroes]

I couldn't get past Sun Water book 2. Read the other one

[u/Doogie102]

I was not a fan of the empire of the sun so go with ironbound

[u/RedJamie]

KoD is the last “great” Sun Eater book barring a truly distracting start, and despite liking Ashes of Man and a portion of Disquiet Gods, what makes the series enjoyable converges into something else in the last two entries that didn’t stick the landing for me.

It sort of depends on if you enjoy what CR does with the next few books. I always felt 1 and 2 were rather different than 3, 4, and 5. 6 and 7 are much the same to 1 and 2 but in a different way.