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quote:I opened my eyes. The sphere was gone. The night sky was bright and clear, and I was lying on a pyramid, in the middle of a little forest valley, which appeared to be floating unsupported several hundred feet above rural Alabama. Oh hey, Pitt doesn't even get the tragedy of losing his 24-hour love to stick! She got healed by Thrall right before he died so everything is fine! Also yeah, the guy struggling to stand up is Machado. Somehow being thrown into the void after being hacked up with an axe by Pitt has just broken the curse on him and brought him back to life as a human, rather than doing literally anything else that makes sense. quote:I waited. Isn't he so badass guys The pocket dimension starts shaking and disintegrating. The ground disappears, sending the trees and snow falling down to Alabama below, until only the ruined pyramid is left. quote:Something clanged against the ivory, bounced a few times, and then stopped. The artifact! The pyramid jolted again and it slid toward the edge. Wait, does she speak with modern inflection and slang or overblown dramatic court English? She seems to switch every time she talks now. quote:With a groan the pyramid began its final disintegration. A seam split open between my feet. The artifact slid over the edge and disappeared. The corpses fell away. The last blocks began to plummet, hurtling toward the ground. The top tier was all that remained, and we began to fall. It was a sickening feeling. Air rushed past my ears, deafening me. This was it. get hosed pitt
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Jun 21, 2018 14:18
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Proteus Jones posted:Wouldn’t that be the 2nd assistant side-villain (in casting terms)? It's more like: Secret Main Villain = Lilith Fake Main Villain = Poor Man's Pizarro Side Villain = MILF Vampire 1st Assistant Side Villain = Nazi Vampire 2nd Assistant Side Villain who then becomes a good guy in his last scene = That Viking mercenary/tattoo guardian thing
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Jun 21, 2018 14:20
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chitoryu12 posted:It's more like: I amended my last post. Proteus Jones posted:Oh, right. I almost forgot Too many god drat villains up in here.
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Jun 21, 2018 14:22
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Proteus Jones posted:I amended my last post. See, the Dime Store Cthulhu is actually a totally different character that we won't see until the epilogue. Koriniha is outright stated to be the real Lilith and other various female gods and demons in history. Edit: Also despite being the ending of the book, I estimate we won't finish until next week at my current update schedule. You have no loving clue how long this book takes to end.
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Jun 21, 2018 14:25
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chitoryu12 posted:It's more like: I couldn't follow this. Not from lack of understanding, I just didn't care.
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Jun 21, 2018 16:30
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Yeah, I mostly tuned out after Pitt got beat up by feds in that murdered anthropologist's house. Been skimming the story since.
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Jun 21, 2018 16:37
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Actually taking into account the epilogue, the real villain list for this book is: Ultimate Foreshadowed Villain = Not-Cthulhu Secret Main Villain = Lilith Fake Main Villain = Poor Man's Pizarro Side Villain = MILF Vampire 1st Assistant Side Villain = Nazi Vampire 2nd Assistant Side Villain who then becomes a good guy in his last scene = That Viking mercenary/tattoo guardian thing There's 6 bad guys, one of whom becomes a good guy, one who doesn't reveal herself until the penultimate chapter, and one that's only in the epilogue to set up a sequel hook.
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Jun 21, 2018 17:20
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Oh I just remembered that they make a big deal about Skippy being allowed to put guns and rockets on the Hind against government orders, but this never once gets used because the helicopter stays out of the final battle and just shows up after all the villains are dead or escaped.
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Jun 21, 2018 17:22
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chitoryu12 posted:Actually taking into account the epilogue, the real villain list for this book is: Not-Cthulhu is barely even a thing later I guess it manipulates events, but I do guess everything is moving towards a super-natural battle royale though and not-cthulhu is certainly a major player but not really a character like some of the other major players become.
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Jun 21, 2018 19:34
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I like how the hero finished up the book by murdering a naked, unarmed dude after he’d been freed from a curse that we know for a fact makes you evil.
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Jun 21, 2018 20:10
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chitoryu12 posted:get hosed pitt
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Jun 21, 2018 20:11
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Okay so everybody else hates the ending but.... I thought it made sense. It was reasonably well foreshadowed that things weren't as simple as the big bad ends the world if he completes the ritual. All of it was very weighted toward the ending chapters, but it's still sort of clever.
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Jun 22, 2018 03:58
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Monocled Falcon posted:Okay so everybody else hates the ending but.... I thought it made sense. My problems with the ending: 1. Like the rest of the book, it's about 2 or 3 times longer than it probably should be. 2. The foreshadowing was so painfully obvious that it made Pitt look kinda like an idiot for not recognizing where he stood in the prophecy. 3. Pitt never actually defeats the villain or gets a chance to make any choice that isn't between "Eternity of torture" and "The world ends". You get a deus ex machina in the form of the villain (who had been apparently killed as part of a sacrifice as a plot point, so it doesn't make a ton of sense that he suddenly surges to life) actually killing the real bad guy and removing any need for Pitt to make a choice. 4. Julie's death is reversed a page or two after it happens, so the one moment that could have had emotional weight doesn't even matter.
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Jun 22, 2018 04:29
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There's something funny about writing a self-insert character who's incredibly dumb and has to have things slowly explained to him in great detail.
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Jun 22, 2018 14:05
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And then after he saves the world by watching other people do all of the work, he murders an unarmed and potentially innocent man in cold blood.
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Jun 22, 2018 14:12
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Internet Wizard posted:And then after he saves the world by watching other people do all of the work, he murders an unarmed and potentially innocent man in cold blood. It makes sense that regular dude would be okay killing monsters but it seems strange that pitt has absolutely no hesitation about killing another person. And I presume, but could be wrong, that he's never killed another person before.
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Jun 22, 2018 14:26
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Internet Wizard posted:And then after he saves the world by watching other people do all of the work, he murders an unarmed and potentially innocent man in cold blood. To be fair, he was a dick before he got cursed, too. Pitt's just doing the government a favor, avoiding the need to explain why we have a 500 year old guy running around.
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Jun 22, 2018 15:45
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quote:I had to be dreaming. Either that or I was dead. Pitt apologizes for using his cane to beat the poo poo out of Machado, but obviously Byreika no longer needs it since his soul is young (and also dead). Standing with Byreika are all of the sacrifices that were once trapped by the artifact, hunters dating back to Babylonian times. They give Pitt a nod of thanks and fade away to whatever awaits on the other side. quote:"Prison is broken, so now they go. Only one of us could break away to contact the one from prophecy. I got to be one to teach you, because mine was the best English speaker." He sighed contentedly. "Sorry I could just not tell who you were, but it was not allowed. Only some things I could see, others I could say. Rules were different. But it is all good now. For me, work is done." Mordechai patted me tenderly on the shoulder. "You probably should be waking up now." He turned and began to walk quickly through the crop, running his hands through the rain droplets clinging to the leaves. Ah yes, the mysterious rules of indeterminate origin that serve to drag out the plot longer. quote:"Wait. What do I do now? Is it over?" Pitt wakes up to Trip standing over him; as you probably guessed because he didn't get a gruesome death scene, he survived Holly's grenade with relatively minor injuries and a bump on the head knocking him out. quote:"I'm just lucky that kudzu broke my fall," he mumbled. That's the most Southern thing I've ever heard. Sam and Milo survived, though Sam was so paralyzed by wight attacks that he was resorting to biting them at the end. Milo is now being called Saint Milo for his Mormon Holy Hand Grenade. Lee lost his leg, but he'll survive. A total of 15 hunters died, including Chuck Mead. I guess he went rock. quote:"Are they all destroyed?" Pitt quickly dumps a water bottle over his face to wash off the blood and make himself kissable, and everyone is shocked to see that his body is brand new; when he received the Old Ones' power to fight Machado, the magic also completely healed him. Every scar is gone and every missing tooth has grown back. quote:"Wow . . . It's like ancient evil ultimate makeover," Holly said. Holly's going to try and find the artifact just so she can make herself look prettier, isn't she? quote:We cleared out the rest of the wounded. Between the chaos of the mighty storm and the undead-inflicted carnage across the state, most of the hospitals from here to Birmingham were working around the clock. We still had a lot of cleaning up to do, but for today, MHI was done. Priest gives the fallen hunters their last rites before they can be shipped back to the compound to have their heads removed. You'd think that if vampirism was a concern you would chop their heads off now instead of when the helicopter gets back, but.... Pitt talks to Shackleford Senior and the rest of the family to finally get the story on Harbinger. He's apparently the only lycanthrope with a PUFF exemption, placing himself on a sort of probation to keep the MCB from killing him. He mostly has control over his werewolf form when he willingly transforms, but the full moon still turns him into a monster and he has to be locked in a special cell in the MHI compound basement when that happens. The slave quarters covered in scratches at the Shackleford plantation was his former full moon prison. quote:"On holidays Milo throws a cow in the cell with him," Nate added helpfully, "kind of like a special Christmas dinner. In the morning we just hose it down." Julie also decides that it's finally time to let Pitt in on the ultimate family secret, since he's almost destroyed the universe twice in one week to save her (no really, that's the reasoning she gives): quote:"Earl isn't just a special case. He is the special case. As far as we know, he is the oldest living lycanthrope in the world. He is, quite literally, the king of werewolves. He was bitten back in the 1920s. Over the last eighty years, he has aged maybe twenty years. It took him a real long time to get the hang of it, and to keep from flipping out and killing people like a regular werewolf. That's probably why he smokes so much. When he doesn't get his cigarettes, he gets cranky. When he gets cranky, people get eaten." HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE SEEN THIS COMING quote:"So let me get this straight." I took Julie by the hand. "You hang out with your great-grandfather, who's some sort of mutant super werewolf. Your mother is a vampire. Your father was a mad genius who almost destroyed the world. Your grandfather is a half-crazed Monster Hunter with one eye and a stainless steel hook for a hand, and he's the normal one of the bunch." I took a deep breath. "Is that about it? Is there any other family weirdness that I need to know about?"
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Jun 22, 2018 15:57
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Sperglord Actual posted:Are you saying there's a use that isn't? Last page, but grammatically speaking yes. Thou is the nominative form, used for the active subject, thee is the objective/oblique form, used for the receiving object. Thou didst a thing to thee, thine own self. Although it looks like Thrall is actually correct in his usage there, "I give thee back one life". Regardless, if you see anybody unironically using thee and thou in real life outside of a Ren Faire, do feel free to punch them in the face.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:52
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You’re forgetting that thou/thee are the informal forms and Thrall would be using the formal you/ye for a man he does not know well and considers an enemy.
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Jun 22, 2018 21:47
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Two things in the 'this is a terrible book' column: One, MIlf Vampire is portrayed as being able to easily overpower pitt, but still weak enough that Pitt can at least offer some real resistance. So you have the strongest of all the monsters that only Hunters that are so much better than regular humans can fight, are a weight class at most above Pitt's heavyweight MMA level. Sure she has regeneration but put Pitt up against a bear and there won't be any of these cute almost surviving nonsense. Two, after writing at least a paragraph about each weapon the protagonists use, Larry never tells anything about RPGs or mortars. I'd imagine he gets rather angry about inaccuracies in hollywood movies but has no qualms about dropping in weapons he doesn't understand.
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Jun 23, 2018 05:58
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quote:The Blackhawks set down in the blasted valley. The Apaches circled over the area. The Feds did not speak as they fanned out into the forest to stake out the fallen blocks of ivory debris. There were only a handful of MHI staff left at the scene, as almost everybody else had packed up and left. We found the Boss arguing with Agent Myers near the original National Guard position. The Guardsmen were mostly still there, though their lieutenant had locked himself inside the APC and refused to come out. Agent Franks stood off to the side, listening intently to the radio traffic as his men scoured the forest for anything of interest. Harbinger calmly walks up to Myers butt-naked and bums a smoke. He lets Myers know that the MHI and MCB are square and forces Myers to give his team full freedom to operate and to call off all the government agencies after them for violations. quote:Myers looked like he had a foul taste in his mouth. "Fine. I'll call off the heat. You're golden for now. But when your people screw up again, your asses are mine." Before they leave, Pitt has to drag out the book longer with one more "one question": did the MCB kill Ray III? They say yes, but nobody believes them. Before returning to the compound for the decapitation and cremation funerals of the 15 fallen hunters, they give Sgt. Gregorious from the National Guard a business card and he immediately signs up for the next class. quote:We watched the news anxiously, just like everybody else in the world. Gradually the panic over the missing five minutes died down, and people, being people, moved past it. Cults were formed, wars were started, nut cases blew stuff up, books were written, theories published, and everyone came away with their own interpretation of the events. As for MHI, we just kept our big mouths shut. Okay I'm gonna call bullshit on this. You don't just gloss over time reversing and causing wars, terrorist attacks, and new cults. That's huge. Maybe you'd have had more time to write about the worldwide implications of this by cutting out all the dream sequences. Or better yet, don't make it a worldwide phenomenon so you need to figure out how the entire universe changes in response but run out of time to finish the book! quote:Milo's wedding reception had mutated into one heck of a party. The compound had been decorated and looked pretty festive for a paramilitary fortress hidden in the backwoods. It was good to have many of the MHI staff united again, this time under much happier circumstances. Make Holly the protagonist. Harbinger comes up to Pitt and lets him know that Grant has resigned and will be consulting on a Hollywood horror movie (because gently caress secrecy, am I right?). Because Sam is heading to Denver to lead a new team, Pitt is given the green monster smiley face badge and officially made a team leader in Grant's place. We time skip to a few months later. Pitt's at the Shackleford plantation and already prepared to ask Julie to marry him because he just can't stop rushing this relationship. Suddenly at 11:00 PM, there's a loud knock on the door. Grabbing their guns, Pitt and Julie breach the front door only to find nobody there. A small white envelope is lying on the porch. quote:The letter was handwritten. There were two separate messages on the single sheet of paper, with two very different writing styles. The first was almost perfect calligraphy. You know what? gently caress it. Make the entire rest of the series about Susan and Ray Shackleford III going on quirky vampire lover adventures around the world. That's the book we really need. quote:I folded the note, stuck it in the envelope and passed it back. Julie crumpled it into a ball and threw it out the door. I slammed it closed. Of course, this book can't be quiiiiite finished yet. We need an epilogue. quote:Special Agent Dwayne Myers, interim head of the Monster Control Bureau, had in fact called in his "final option" when they had discovered through the actions of MHI that the Place of Power was just outside of Childersburg, Alabama. And that's it! The first book of the Monster Hunter series is finally done after over 350 pages! What started as a wild ride quickly turned into a slog, intermittently spruced up by the protagonist and his rival both trying to gently caress their vampire mother-in-law. I'll save some terrible books for later. For now, I'd like to move on to something a little more entertaining to read. My next thread will be on the classic James Bond novels as written by Ian Fleming and all of the food, drink, and car porn within. It's been fun, y'all. Don't gently caress your in-laws.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:15
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Thanks so much for this thread and all the threads you do. They're a highlight of the forums for me. Please post a link whenever you start your next one so we can jump in.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:28
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There's a good chance I'm wrong about this, but wouldn't the Old Ones caring at all about the mortal Zitt Owen be about as characteristic of the general conception of them as Allied Mastercomputer finding him to be a likable standup guy?
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Jun 26, 2018 21:08
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Zanzibar Ham posted:There's a good chance I'm wrong about this, but wouldn't the Old Ones caring at all about the mortal Zitt Owen be about as characteristic of the general conception of them as Allied Mastercomputer finding him to be a likable standup guy? It sounds like the nuke ended up being the first thing to ever damage an Old One even slightly in its entire immortal life, which would understandably be a pretty grave insult. But without really having a way to influence the other dimension without artifacts and patsies trying to open a rift, the best it can do for revenge is to follow the scapegoat its minions provided. If it had a choice, it probably would have vaporized the entire dimension instantly.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:11
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Bond thread is live!
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Jun 26, 2018 21:31
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Didn't Grant die after being turned and staked by Julie with a pithy one-liner? What's he doing in Hollywood?
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Jun 26, 2018 21:37
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that epilogue is like the worst, laziest, terrible writing and thats saying alot
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Jun 26, 2018 21:39
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Didn't Grant die after being turned and staked by Julie with a pithy one-liner? What's he doing in Hollywood? He didn't get staked, just smacked in the face of a rifle butt. You don't turn into a vampire in this universe until your death, which means he'd better hope MHI is keeping tabs on him so he doesn't get in a car crash and turn at the morgue or something. It's also not really clear how long it takes? They decapitated their fallen on the ship at the beginning of the book, but waited to take all the corpses back to the compound after the final battle before doing a big ceremony.
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Jun 26, 2018 22:11
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I like how that one guy holds off a mighty vampire with the strength of True Christian Faith, and then later we celebrate the protagonist killing a powerless, (apparently) repentant man, like Jesus woulda done.
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Jun 26, 2018 23:56
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chitoryu12 posted:Make the entire rest of the series about Susan and Ray Shackleford III going on quirky vampire lover adventures around the world. That's the book we really need. This but unironically.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:49
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Sperglord Actual posted:This but unironically. I wasn't being ironic. The rest of the series would absolutely be better if it was just about Holly being team leader and the Shackleford Vampires.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:04
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UGHHHHHHHHH
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Jun 27, 2018 13:15
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Renegret posted:UGHHHHHHHHH
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Jun 27, 2018 14:30
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Very much enjoyed this thread, as well as Ready Player One. Looking forward to Bond. Thanks!
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Jun 27, 2018 15:39
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chitoryu12 posted:I wasn't being ironic. I know, I just wanted to say that.
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Jun 27, 2018 17:36
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The first Bond novel gets to a gun about as fast as Correia does, but in a much more interesting manner. I do know from one of the later books that he does stuff like headshot thugs through the mouth while they scream.
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Jun 27, 2018 17:40
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Up Circle posted:that epilogue is like the worst, laziest, terrible writing and thats saying alot RIGHT? I really like the idea behind it too. I could see that scenario playing out in a David Wong book and getting a good laugh out of it. But here? Renegret posted:UGHHHHHHHHH You said it, friend. Thanks for the thread, Chitoryu. Boy did it ever spiral out of control... which I think is one of the book's biggest sins. Just how many characters did this story need? Just how LONG did the story need to be?
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Jun 28, 2018 09:28
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Drunken Baker posted:Thanks for the thread, Chitoryu. Boy did it ever spiral out of control... which I think is one of the book's biggest sins. Just how many characters did this story need? Just how LONG did the story need to be? I have no idea if the rest of the series is like this, so I'll leave it up to the two or three people who actually bought the rest of the series to describe them. It feels like Correia has sort of the opposite problem some past bad authors like Ernest Cline and Lani Sarem have: they'll gloss over important events with one line and do timeskips of months in the course of a few paragraphs until the book lasts a year or more, while Correia painstakingly explains almost everything that goes on and tries to cover every base he can as much as he can (hence the finale being a parade of tying up every loose end and saying what each and every character does after the final battle), which also speeds up his protagonist's relationship so that Julie instantly switches from hating him to falling in love with him over the course of about 24 hours after her fiancee gets kidnapped.
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Jun 28, 2018 12:41
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The parade of tying up loose ends goes away for the most part because it turns into more of a series rather than a one shot. Correia continues being fairly high detail, but alot of the over the top minute like having to explain everything about a gun gets toned down. If you want to see how much he improved or didn't read the free sample of Son of the Black Sword. As far as the rest of the books, basically every book is better than the last (writing improves, action remains fairly tense, Pitts not even the protagonist of #3 and #5). On #6 the fans split up a bit because it's a book basically entirely about how Pitt hosed up (in previous books) and he is trying to fix his gently caress up but that's not the way life works and he ends up failing and unable to fix his mistake. It's basically gently caress you Pitt the book, and the book where he has the most character development. It's just a kinda different tone from the gently caress yeah!!! tone of the first 5 and it turned off some fans a bit. Also the chosen one stuff is kinda neat it's basically otherworldly forces placing bets to give you a bit of destiny that helps with stuff. There are also quite a few chosen ones just depends on what otherworldly forces are betting on you. ShinsoBEAM! fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jun 28, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 14:45
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