|
Neremworld posted:Speaking of Mouse, I never got how Butcher mistook lions for dogs. Well, a Chinese zoo passed off a dog as a lion.
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2015 03:25
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:42 |
|
|
Neremworld posted:So why aren't we talking about how cute the kittens are? Because no one other than you gives a poo poo?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
The talking cat didn't annoy me nearly as much as I thought he would. It was mostly a fun read. Nice to have when I'm running an automated deployment that didn't much attention for once.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2015 14:13
|
|
|
just_a_guy posted:Apparently Europeans get Cinder Spires one day early Nah, I'm working overnights this week doing some production changes and my kindle pre-order came in at 12:15 AM local time.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2015 00:20
|
|
|
navyjack posted:Yeah, the talking cats are way better than I thought, but the fishmalk etherialists got old quick. Doorknobs The etherialists thing is explained later in the book. Basically channeling etherial energy chews up the brain causing what I'm assuming is a type of dementia. They focus on a idiosyncrasy or behavior to kind of paper over the damage as a coping mechanism. And some of Rowl's dialog gave me a real Chiun-vibe from the movie Remo Williams, one of my guilty pleasure movies. I don't want to spoil his lines, so this is more or less the tone of Rowl: quote:Conn MacCleary: [referring to Remo] Well, Chiun? What do you think? quote:Chiun: Place your hands behind your head. quote:Remo Williams: Chiun, you're incredible! Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Sep 30, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:Maybe I just have the taste of a Hungry Dog, but I liked it. It's loads better than Furies was, I'd say. Perhaps I'm the only one to have liked Gwendolyn as well. I wanted to like her, but after some initial character beats that were never really explored, it seems she got abandoned for other, more interesting characters. She pretty much devolved into "quick-tempered, let's solve this with exasperated violence" woman. She did start to pick up towards the end interacting with Journeyman, so I have hopes she'll gain some depth in the next books. Rowl was the my favorite, followed by Grimm. And I agree, it was better than Furies. It was starting to shape up in Captain's Fury and the first half of Princep's Fury, but after, it just seemed like, "Oh poo poo, let's end this thing, now!"
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2015 07:59
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:There was no discussion oh how the Spire's stay aloft, correct? What do you mean? It's attached to the ground. They even mention the danger of the ground creatures at the base of the Spire. It's unclear if it's an enormous cone/obelisk (miles in diameter) or if it's a gigantic pyramid. Personally, the word 'spire' conjures up a cone/obelisk to me.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2015 04:07
|
|
|
navyjack posted:Yeah for some reason, I don't know why, but I had imagined them floating too. Dumb, now that I think about it. Well, there is a bit of a "Cloud City" vibe going on, so it's not that dumb. Except they specifically talk about the base of the spire in the context of dangerous creatures such as silkweavers. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2015 04:58
|
|
|
redreader posted:I finished it last night. It was decent but I suppose partially setup for the next one? I would read the poo poo out of a book dedicated to surface expiditions. We know that's gonna happen later on. I'll definitely carry on reading this series, I know it'll get better. I'm hoping they find people on the surface. And dogs. Talking dogs of course. And Rowl hates them on sight.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2015 19:20
|
|
|
RosaParksOfDip posted:There's talking cats, man. I don't think taking anything seriously was ever in the cards. It's a fun read, so if you want some "decompression" reading this is not a bad choice (if you enjoy his other stuff). The audiobook may be more your speed for commuting, but I haven't heard anything regarding the audiobook. With the right narrator, the audio book could be pretty good.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2015 06:54
|
|
|
Lemniscate Blue posted:Regarding Green and the Nightside series: I agree with the general consensus, but I did quite enjoy the single-book spinoff Drinking Midnight Wine. Less repetitive (possibly due to being just the one book) and way less up its own rear end about being so-edgy. Not great but a good read. Nah, I read it too, and agree with you. I think I've read just about every book he's had in print in the US except for the Ghost series. I'm starting to get weary of the Droods and the Nightside were pretty much all downhill after the war with Lilith. I like the world building, but the narrative is so by the numbers and I've been less and less into his books. I think I'm pretty much done with his stuff for a while. Of the stuff I like, I'm a fan of his Hawk and Fisher books, Drinking Midnight Wine and Shadows Fall, all early books of his. His Space Opera series (Deathstalker) was pretty fun too, and probably the most character driven and thematically dark stuff he's done. Which is why his later stuff is so disappointing. It's like he figured out how to make it all commercially successful and just gave up.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2015 01:36
|
|
|
Khizan posted:Deathstalker was good right up until the end of the first book, which went something like "And then the Madness Maze made them all into awesometastic superheroes and they won". Shame, really; I loved the worldbuilding. Yeah, that bothered me, but I kept reading and started to get into their struggle against slowly losing their humanity. And I always felt the Shub and the Hadenmen were some of the best representation of how loving alien hostile machine intelligences really would be to us. That and the fact they both came from humanity.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2015 01:48
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:So, I'm not sure how long we're Spoil Blocking Cinder Spires stuff so I'm just going to spoiler this whole paragraph to be safe. I think the former, but suspicions only. The Spirearch was always planning on shanghaiing Grimm. This conversation convinces me it had already been decided (before the meeting with the Spirearch): quote:
One thing that stood out to me on my first read-through was that Spirearch == Gaius Sextus, a whole lot more competent and dangerous than he first appears. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Oct 17, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2015 17:30
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:Cinder Spires Probably rate of fire and air flow due to actually flying. Or if we want to be accurate, authorial fiat.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2015 17:35
|
|
|
He also encountered a Walker in the porn star book. And I'm not sure I buy the temporal momentum having causality on past events. I think the inertia is more the past resists change. So if I go back in time to kill Hitler, there's already the inertia of an established timeline for the future that I come from. So I fire a gun at his head, he trips so the shot doesn't connect, the bullet ricochets into my skull, I die and get buried in an unmarked grave since no one knew who I was. Or even the better the gun misfires killing me and destroying the gun in a way no future tech is introduced. Or something. That's usually what comes to mind when I hear an author talk about temporal momentum/inertia (which is a common trope in time travel/alternate timeline stories) I'm in the camp of his mom carefully set things up to make sure he was a child of destiny as something to protect him since she knew she wouldn't be around after he was born. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Oct 22, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2015 23:20
|
|
|
Gygaxian posted:You know, it occurs to me while re-reading the series (I'm just finishing Cold Days at this point) that while mortals see Harry as this socially awkward loon, by the end of Cold Days Harry should be absolutely terrifying to any supernatural being, and nobody should take him for granted. I mean, just reading the books, if his enemies know even half of what he'd done, very few would mess with him. I mean, by the time he comes back in Cold Days after the events of Changes and Ghost Story, I don't think there's any supernatural threat under the level of the Fairie Queens that would possibly mess with him. He mentions time and again that the senior members of the White Council could hand him his rear end without breaking a sweat. And the Black Council probably could as well. Definitely Cowl.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2015 18:32
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:The idea is so good, but the writing is just kind of bad. It detracts from actually reading it. Yeah, I'd point to that as an example of *bad* fan-fiction. The format is poo poo for what is supposed to be an intelligence summary, there's enough little details that are flat out incorrect to annoy, and there's stuff in there's zero way the report could include as conjecture let alone state as fact. I was genuinely irritated when I read that, and I think the idea of the Wardens having an open file on Dresden a great idea.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2015 00:38
|
|
|
Oroborus posted:Sorry to derail the religion chat but I've been relistening to the audio books and while listening to Changes something stood out. I'm not sure what etiquette is for older works, so I'm spoiling just in case. I think it means they were not of a particular ruling class of the Mayan before they were turned. It's more a prejudice of their *human* sides cultural background, not the lineage of the vampire that turned them. All vampires are directly related to the Red King. And remember, it was only the vampiric part that was destroyed by the curse. It specifically mentions that most crumble to dust because of the sudden accumulation of age. There were still some that reverted to completely human after the curse because they were young enough. Plus the Eebs were last seen being swarmed by goblins. They dead. And if not, I don't think you can dodge curses by being Faerie.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2015 14:34
|
|
|
Khizan posted:All that stuff is why I don't think it's that interesting that Catholicism is the 'default fantasy Christianity'. It has the pageantry and the history and the story. What else are they going to use? Generic American Protestantism? Anglican stuff? That weird Pentecostal tongue-speaker poo poo? None of that would play half as well as Catholicism does. Plus, I'm pretty sure the Rite of Exorcism is still considered a sacramental act in the Roman Catholic Church (but not an actual sacrament itself).
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2015 23:14
|
|
|
Vicissitude posted:Right, right, and it would also foil tracking spells, but something with a more potent connection would probably leap the veil and get him anyway. Isn't blood magic the most potent there is? And that curse was a BLOODline curse. It's been pretty much established if someone can work with your blood, you're pretty hosed. They were able to track Molly to Arctis Tor using Charity's blood. So I would think a bloodline curse would be similarly powerful, especially fueled by an ancient ritual at a place of power. I mean, even Fix was concerned about his blood laying around in the last book, and he's the Summer Knight.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2015 22:39
|
|
|
Gygaxian posted:In any case, going back to the Dresden Files, I have a question, which is a bit spoilerish: Since it's strongly implied that you have to be the descendant of a king to wield the Swords of the Cross, who is Butters probably descended from? King Solomon or David? One of the Maccabees? Eh, It's not as big of deal as Butcher tries to make out. If you are of European descent, you're directly related to Charlemagne. The same way that Eurasians can link their lineage to Genghis Kahn.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2015 07:15
|
|
|
Saith posted:For the people who haven't read The Great and Secret Show (so basically everyone), it's about these two dudes who sort of stumble into godhood who eventually decide to battle via their demi-god kids. Hmm... That sounds like something I read years ago when I was in college. I wonder if it... Saith posted:-Magical snakes made of poo. Yep, it was the one with the poo poo snakes. That's when I was done with Clive Barker novels.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 05:10
|
|
|
M_Gargantua posted:If I had an unlimited budget I think Christoph Waltz as Nicodemus would nail it. Not as a rehash of a role he's already played, I just think he's got the chops to do it wonderfully. Although i'm fairly terrible with my casting thoughts so take that with a grain of salt. Holy poo poo yes. Malevolently affable one second, turning to spiteful fury the next.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2016 13:06
|
|
|
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2016 20:09
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Let me amplify the above and recommend skipping the Necroscope series. Necroscope is fun insanity. Psychomech is where he goes off the rails.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 30, 2016 04:18
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:Well it matters in the sense that saying certain things are the case when they aren't definitively so muddled the conversation. Well, Peabody definitely was, and while not a *senior* council member he was basically the senior administrative aide. And he's the one that dropped mordite bomb during the Red Court peace talks (I don't recall if mordite is an actual Outsider or just "something" from Outside the Gates).
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 19:08
|
|
|
seaborgium posted:Morgan almost took out the head Red Court vampire by himself didn't he? But asking Harry to train new warden recruits in battle magic, while it probably means they were more strained than usual isn't that much of a stretch. Dude can throw blasts of fire around like crazy. It was the fact he was teaching teenagers that really showed how hurt they were. I mean we've seen Ebenezer and Listens-to-Wind do combat magic, I'd love to see The Merlin, Ancient Mai, and The Gatekeeper throw down.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 19:11
|
|
|
Angry Lobster posted:Now that we are on it, how accurate is Butcher's portrait of Chicago in the Dresden files series? Decent enough, I mean there's nothing that's made me go "That's not where that is!". But of course, I haven't checked against Google Maps, so I'm probably not a serious reader.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
Mortanis posted:A six month push on top of everything else? Balls. That means there's nothing else I'm really looking forward to for the rest of the year now. The same happened to me. I put it back on my "to read" list and haven't felt any compelling need to get to it anytime soon.
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2016 16:31
|
|
|
420 Gank Mid posted:She was also a powerful wizard who was intimately familiar with the weirder sides of magic, if there is some kind of danger to it I hope its just a plot device to push Thomas towards some tough choices and so when they come through it all Thomas and Dresden can be dad-bros That and Maggie and Papa Raith weren't in "true love" with each other.
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2016 17:13
|
|
|
Number Ten Cocks posted:The Dresden potion nerf wasn't as dramatic as the early belt(?) that instantly replenished all his energy. That would have clearly negated a lot of the difficulty of later books. IIRC it was a belt buckle of a bear. e: FB 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2016 16:20
|
|
|
docbeard posted:his Phoenix Guards books are one big Dumas pastiche and a hell of a lot of fun. They are fantastic. The commentary and pretension peppered throughout by the narrator is perfect. And some of the chapter titles... The first book is pure gold.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 16:22
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:Agreed. The Taltos books arrive at the noir/magic combo from the fantasy side, rather than the modern day side. And the dialog. A:"Sir, pray tell me what is on your mind?" B:"What? You wish that I tell you my thoughts on the matter?" A:"Why I believe that is the very thing I just asked" B:"Then I shall elucidate upon them post haste" A:"I could ask for nothing more" You'd think it would get old, but it just keeps getting more grandiose and funnier as it goes.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2016 16:26
|
|
|
Mr Scumbag posted:Repairman Jack is pretty good, from what I remember. It's a series that ties into another arc which is pretty epic. The Adversary Cycle. There's also three young Repairman Jack novels that are their own thing. Plus the novel Black Wind is in the same universe. Funnily enough the last book in the series, Night World, was published long before the other Repairman Jack books. When he decided to create the series to tell Jack's story of what happened between The Tomb and Night World, he ended up having to highly revise Night World and re-release. I have both editions and there are significant changes. Repairman Jack is one of my favorite series.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2016 11:44
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:I've been looking this up and it looks interesting - is there a suggested reading order? The whole collection is called "The Secret History of the World". This page has the Books arranged in chronological order of events (this is F Paul Wilson's official site). http://repairmanjack.com/books/the-secret-history-of-the-world/
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2016 13:32
|
|
|
Mr.48 posted:Well, Wilson's main character doesnt murder any anti-war protesters, but he has very positive views on vigilantism, and of course hoarding gold and guns for the inevitable collapse of civilization. To be fair, this does cause him a bit of pain later and does negatively impact his relationships with people he wants to be close to in the series. Also, he's written as having (and knowing he has) some deep psychological issues due to some past (and some continuing) trauma. THere's also the later revelation that otherworldly forces have been manipulating him his entire life to get him to the point of making it very difficult to have any attachments or a normal relationship with the love of his life. They're grooming him to be the Ally's Champion Heir to fight the Adversary's Champion if the Glaekin (Ally's Champion from The Keep) gets taken out. "A spear has no branches". He actually ends up resenting the hell out of the fact he was robbed of a normal life because of it. He finds this out after his girlfriend was almost killed in hit and run and his unborn baby died in the womb. He also gets to see a lot of people important to him die as a result of these mechanicians in the lead-up to the final conflict. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Aug 18, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2016 22:07
|
|
|
Mr.48 posted:Hmm, I haven't gotten that far into the Repairman Jack series before quitting because of the aforementioned rabid libertarianism, but at the end of the Adversary series the good guys do save the day by literally holding hands and singing kumbaya (which was super cheesy and out of place) so maybe I was a bit too hasty is writing off Wilson's motivations as the author. It's a real slow burn, and it's mostly the last 4 or so in the lead up to Night World where poo poo starts to go off the rails. But even before that, he suffers real consequences due to my afore mentioned spoiler. He also rewrote a lot of Night World, but I can't remember if the Ghost Busters 2 sing along is still in there.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2016 22:14
|
|
|
WarLocke posted:I the later books she gets pretty drat powerful on her own merits (she starts mastering her undead-vampire-blood powers, making blood armor and junk, and at one point magically pulls all the blood out of someone to remove a lycanthropy infection, then puts all the blood back). Like her dad. Dude is a legit god by every definition.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2016 20:11
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Oh, just because you folks mention it - just how bad is the Pax Arcana series with regards to romance? I've heard the books are good but I don't really handle romance subplots the best; how is it compared to stuff like Dresden, Faust and the rest of the usual UF suspects? It's not really a focus at all. It stabilizes pretty quickly from "romantic sub-plot" into "relationship between two main characters" and it's never really in the driving seat as far as the plot goes.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2016 16:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:42 |
|
|
Scorchy posted:So the thread was recommending Mercy Thompson/Patricia Briggs. I'm like 120 pages into the first book. Werewolf politics are pretty central to the series, so it is laid on a little thick in the 1st book.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2016 01:39
|
|