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40% more pages! Hot drat!!
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May 15, 2019 00:18
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| # ? May 2, 2024 22:21 |
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Maybe a repost, but I don't know. A friend of mine unironically suggested I read this because it's great:  It is the opposite of great. Where do I loving start. The protagonist, Nate, is a billionaire wizard that owns his own arcane book store in St. Louis. No one in the book can match him for magical strength. He has an eidetic memory and a memory palace. Every woman he meets is both attractive and wants his dick in a huge way. Both of his friends exist only to let Nate own them in some way (one is a jealous coward and the other is a meathead FBI agent werewolf). Oh, and Nate can't stop quoting what the author thinks is obscure literature (more on this in a minute). Nate gets into trouble trying to find a particular book for a client that turns out to be a dragon and other dragons want the book to do magic poo poo with it. Highlights include: -Nate getting arrested and then subsequently "owning" the cops by picking his cuffs, freezing their coffee with magic, and making the lights dim while he yells at them. They are definitely left dumbfounded and emasculated by Nate's power. Don't worry, reader, they let him go while quivering with fear. -Going back to Nate's bachelor pad above his bookstore and getting attacked by a naked woman using seduction magic. She turns out to be a dragon! Most dragons are sexy women that could have sex with Nate BTW. -Nate quotes Poe's "The Raven" out of nowhere, and his friends say something to the effect of "is that some of your ancient text knowledge stuff?" like this poem is not taught to every loving school child in the Western world at some point. -Nate has an employee at said bookstore that wants to gently caress Nate in a bad way, and Nate thinks it's high time to have a relationship with said employee after a she gives Nate a sensual bath post super-rad car chase. -Not an hour earlier Nate meets a lady cop that is super hot and also wants to ride on the wizard stick. She also reveals she is bi so she can rub on some girls when they go to a sexy party then a strip club within a couple chapters. -Nate mansplains to the lady cop that women wear pretty dresses and makeup to simulate sexual attraction. She digs it so much that she gets super horny during the mansplaining. It's okay though because Nate was accidentally giving her a magical roofie thanks to all the power leaking out of him. -Nate namedrops Dante's Inferno like it holds some kind of significance other than it's a classic, and it makes him seem smart. Dante's inferno comes to nothing in this book. Oh God, there's more, but I need a loving drink to get through the rest of the book.
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May 16, 2019 22:31
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The original Dresden Files isn't subtle, so why should you be when ripping it off?
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May 16, 2019 22:39
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I haven’t read any Dresdon stuff in many years, but I remember the protagonist getting his rear end kicked or being outsmarted all the time. This doesn’t make them good books, but at least Harry is an underdog in the books I read (the early ones). This loving guy... This loving guy, Nate, simply wins all his fights, outsmarts all of his opponents, and rolls with the punches with a cool head unless the author wants him to super saiyin for whatever reason.
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May 16, 2019 22:55
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Oh, no. This poo poo is much worse, but it's also cribbing plot points from Dresden pretty blatantly. Like at least one Harry Dresden books has a lady cop friend accidentally drink a love potion he has sitting around, and then he has to run away from her because it's not enthusiastic consent when someone is drugged.
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May 16, 2019 23:20
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Elpato posted:I haven’t read any Dresdon stuff in many years, but I remember the protagonist getting his rear end kicked or being outsmarted all the time. This doesn’t make them good books, but at least Harry is an underdog in the books I read (the early ones). Reminds me of the absolutely awful Sandman Slim series about a guy who gets betrayed by his magic circle and sent to Hell but he breaks out and is super cool and tough and eventually finds out that he's half angel.
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May 16, 2019 23:32
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Elpato posted:I haven’t read any Dresdon stuff in many years, but I remember the protagonist getting his rear end kicked or being outsmarted all the time. This doesn’t make them good books, but at least Harry is an underdog in the books I read (the early ones). Harry’s also as far from a billionaire as you can get. Turns out being a professional wizard in a world that doesn’t believe in magic doesn’t really get you money, so he lives in a lovely basement apartment and drives an old Beetle that’s had almost every panel replaced and is too small for him to comfortably fit in. He basically spends every book getting the poo poo beat out of him and barely winning through sheer perseverance and creativity.
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May 16, 2019 23:36
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Holy crap at the end of the book Nate and his “friends” become magical consultants (totally not PI’s). Of course everyone he knows now works for him, and the enslaved dragon lady straight up asks for sex afterwards “because Nate promised her.” What a wretched undertaking this was. I will have to dodge the question when my bud asks how i like it.
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May 16, 2019 23:53
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So is Nate short for Nathan or...
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May 17, 2019 01:29
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I'm not going back to look.
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May 17, 2019 03:41
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chitoryu12 posted:Harry’s also as far from a billionaire as you can get. Turns out being a professional wizard in a world that doesn’t believe in magic doesn’t really get you money, so he lives in a lovely basement apartment and drives an old Beetle that’s had almost every panel replaced and is too small for him to comfortably fit in. He basically spends every book getting the poo poo beat out of him and barely winning through sheer perseverance and creativity. Everyone forgets that the whole thing with Dresden Files originally was a riff on private detective stories but with magic, and thus uses similar themes of the protagonist generally barely surviving and rarely getting paid.
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May 17, 2019 09:21
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Everyone forgets that the whole thing with Dresden Files originally was a riff on private detective stories but with magic, and thus uses similar themes of the protagonist generally barely surviving and rarely getting paid. And being beaten to a pulp and tossed in the river being an important marker that you're making progress on a case.
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May 17, 2019 09:58
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PYF terrible book reader: I Read At Parties And That's Okay https://bookriot.com/2019/03/04/i-read-at-parties/
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May 18, 2019 01:07
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The Lone Badger posted:And being beaten to a pulp and tossed in the river being an important marker that you're making progress on a case. And the knock that Harry is the wizard equivalent of a dumb brute who can throw fireballs but needs massive prep to do anything remotely subtle The other Harry also twists it in that he's a student wizard who over the years of the books eventually becomes average and becomes a decent deulist through effort because he needs to if he's to survive. Basically if your protagonist becomes the best wizard at everything you're doing it even more wrong than the popular hacks.
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May 18, 2019 13:12
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grittyreboot posted:PYF terrible book reader: This lady should move to ebooks. As a compulsive reader this is definitely me, but I just put all my books on my phone and it makes it way easier! Sure, it looks like I'm a vapid social mediaite, but I get my ~6-8 hours of book reading in a day so I'm happy. Also I've gone through a good 700 in the past two years and they're all on a little tiny chip smaller than my fingernail which is hella cool. so much more transportable too.
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May 18, 2019 16:32
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Cat Army 
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And the knock that Harry is the wizard equivalent of a dumb brute who can throw fireballs but needs massive prep to do anything remotely subtle I remember laughing when it was pointed out to me that Harry Potter basically just uses Expelliarmus for everything. He learned one super basic thing when he was 12 and uses it in every single fight because it turns out that making wizards lose their wands is the most powerful game breaker. And the entire ending is based on him thinking about the implications of wand loyalty and realizing that punching a kid in the face and stealing his wand accidentally made him invincible in the final duel.
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May 18, 2019 16:37
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chitoryu12 posted:I remember laughing when it was pointed out to me that Harry Potter basically just uses Expelliarmus for everything. He learned one super basic thing when he was 12 and uses it in every single fight because it turns out that making wizards lose their wands is the most powerful game breaker. Pretty much. It's effective against things that aren't wands too! Mind you, Voldemort does the same thing with Adava Kedavra, because it turns out just flat out killing the wizard is also pretty effective.
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May 18, 2019 16:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Pretty much. It's effective against things that aren't wands too! Mind you, Voldemort does the same thing with Adava Kedavra, because it turns out just flat out killing the wizard is also pretty effective. Harry and Voldemort are just two different incarnations of that guy in PvP who finds an exploit in the metagame and spams it in every fight.
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May 18, 2019 17:08
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I bought a book at the dollar store.  Maybe this book is actually amazing, a hidden gem. There's a lot of praise for it on the back. I don't know. I mainly bought it for the map in the front of the book: 
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May 18, 2019 17:42
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RoboRodent posted:I bought a book at the dollar store. Great "hurry up and finish this dumb photoshoot, I want to go home" expression for the woman on the left
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May 18, 2019 17:48
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I think the most fantastical thing in this book might be that a guy named Rudi Mackenzie named his daughter órlaith.
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May 18, 2019 19:04
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I think someone writing as S.M. just might be going too far, but who knows. Props for choosing the Kamandi way of mapping whoever 
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May 18, 2019 21:03
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RoboRodent posted:Maybe this book is actually amazing, a hidden gem. There's a lot of praise for it on the back. I don't know. I mainly bought it for the map in the front of the book: Given “New Deseret” I’m guessing this is yet another example of why Mormons shouldn’t write genre fiction.
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May 18, 2019 22:22
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Only devout Catholics should be allowed to write genre fiction. But Anglicans will do in a pinch
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May 18, 2019 22:24
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chitoryu12 posted:Harry and Voldemort are just two different incarnations of that guy in PvP who finds an exploit in the metagame and spams it in every fight. Harry plays Kirby in SSB and jumps off the map, then spits you out and floats back up to the ledge while you fall and die.
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May 19, 2019 00:15
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I loving love that they didn't change the font of the original map.
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May 19, 2019 00:25
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Elpato posted:Nate gets into trouble trying to find a particular book for a client that turns out to be a dragon and other dragons want the book to do magic poo poo with it. I read this as the book itself turned out to be a dragon and that sounds like a more interesting story.
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May 19, 2019 00:29
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And the knock that Harry is the wizard equivalent of a dumb brute who can throw fireballs but needs massive prep to do anything remotely subtle It’s an interesting variant of this in that anyone doing really subtle magic needs lots of preparation and concentration, because Dresden magic is actually about using these rituals and props as a way to focus the mind and get the magic flowing in the right way. So everybody needs to put a ton of effort into careful thaumaturgy while just flinging fireballs from a staff is relatively easy for a trained wizard. Harry just usually faces problems that take direct solutions like guns and fire rather than day-long rituals to find a specific person in a city.
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May 19, 2019 00:40
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SHOCKING: dresden files actually good, says goon
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May 19, 2019 00:54
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Djeser posted:SHOCKING: dresden files actually good, says goon 'Good' is probably a stretch. 'Not terrible'?
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May 19, 2019 01:22
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And the knock that Harry is the wizard equivalent of a dumb brute who can throw fireballs but needs massive prep to do anything remotely subtle that's actually not true, at the start of the series harry is actually way better at the subtle stuff. like finding lost kids was his specialty (his problem is usual delicate things) but because all the bad guys know him from is him throwing fireballs they assume he's just dumb muscle (and sometimes he is) chitoryu12 posted:I remember laughing when it was pointed out to me that Harry Potter basically just uses Expelliarmus for everything. He learned one super basic thing when he was 12 and uses it in every single fight because it turns out that making wizards lose their wands is the most powerful game breaker. well wizard duels are basically described as long range sword fights (book 2 even describes a dueling grip as a sword grip) so it makes sense in a fight that harry's spells are block and disarm Voldemort and most everyone else goes for "kill"
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May 19, 2019 02:04
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Samuringa posted:I think someone writing as S.M. just might be going too far, but who knows. good_names_for_rock_bands.jpg
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May 19, 2019 02:24
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Ghost Leviathan posted:good_names_for_rock_bands.jpg "WE ARE THE SNOW WIZARDS, AND WE'RE HERE TO CHILL YOU OUT AND ENCHANT YOU WITH OUR SWEET FUKKEN BASSLINES!"
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May 19, 2019 03:05
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The Lone Badger posted:'Good' is probably a stretch. 'Not terrible'? I don't know, goons are EXTREMELY eager to talk about it every time it comes up
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May 19, 2019 05:51
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Djeser posted:I don't know, goons are EXTREMELY eager to talk about it every time it comes up Anything a lot of people have read is going to get talked about more. Ready Player One always gets a lot of discussion whenever it comes up, and that book is garbage.
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May 19, 2019 06:41
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Djeser posted:I don't know, goons are EXTREMELY eager to talk about it every time it comes up By this metric, tubgirl and goatse are high art.
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May 19, 2019 07:12
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Captain Monkey posted:By this metric, tubgirl and goatse are high art. They are. They are striking reflections of our society that only grow truer and purer as time passes.
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May 19, 2019 07:17
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Lemonparty depicts the owning class and their ideals. Also the movie "Society". Lemniscate Blue has a new favorite as of 07:30 on May 19, 2019 |
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May 19, 2019 07:27
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The Lone Badger posted:'Good' is probably a stretch. 'Not terrible'? Yeah, they're not exactly classic American novels but they're also not bad. They're good to pick up and read casually.
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May 19, 2019 16:38
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| # ? May 2, 2024 22:21 |
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This is the correct thread for the Dresden Files, yes.
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May 19, 2019 16:59
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