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Lord Bob posted:My favourite one that stays stuck in my head due to how powerfully stupid it was is near the end of book 2, when simultaneously Gideon is finding out that she's the child of the Necrolord Prime while the Necrolord Prime is finding out that he had a child; she realises who they're discussing, steps forward and says "I'm not loving dead" - huge reveal, massive emotional stakes, completely and perfectly and deliciously undercut by the author making the Emperor turn to her and say "Hi not loving dead. I'm Dad" and the chapter immediately ending. This didn't bother me as a 'meme' because it wasn't a reference to some pop culture thing that existed outside the book. It was an awkward moment between two awkward people, and for that, I thought it worked. Unfortunately, I seem to recall that it came as part of a cascade of fifty or sixty other twists (including theft of cum) so that dulled the impact for me far more than the joke.
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Jul 1, 2022 01:54
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Nae posted:This didn't bother me as a 'meme' because it wasn't a reference to some pop culture thing that existed outside the book. It was an awkward moment between two awkward people, and for that, I thought it worked. Putting whether or not they bother you aside, the memes are very much not "outside the book", they're just part of the weird, undead stagnant-since-the-world-ended-in-about-2025 culture the books are set in. Sure it's an authorial choice to include them, but it's not like they're just lol-random for the sake of it. They're just a part of culture treated the same way bible or Shakespeare references are. When you see the people outside the Nine Houses, they're not as memey, though are hosed up over old Earth culture in different ways. As I say, nobody is insisting you have to like it or anything, but the books aren't exactly subtle about the fact that the Nine Houses are a zombie society, and that extends to their use of pop culture.
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Jul 1, 2022 02:44
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oh phew the memes are diagetically justified
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Jul 1, 2022 03:18
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I mean, I feel like at this point it's on you to explain why the "memes" are bad, as opposed to "references", which are of course cool and good.
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Jul 1, 2022 04:29
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idiotsavant posted:Speaking of good fantasy, any decent reads along the lines of Kage Baker's Anvil of the World or Naomi Novik's non-Temeraire stuff? Not necessarily tip-top literature, just well-written, workaday fantasy. Spiderlight was enjoyable, and the Daevabad trilogy by SA Chakraborty was pretty fun. The Tchaikovsky trilogy with animal people started off decent but dragged pretty hard to the end. Have you read The Curse of Chalion by Bujold? Or A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar? Seems like those might be up your alley.
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Jul 1, 2022 04:48
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tiniestacorn posted:Have you read The Curse of Chalion by Bujold? Or A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar? Seems like those might be up your alley. I feel like I did, but maybe I'm thinking of all her Sharing Knife books. I'll take a look, thanks! Reading The Iron Trials by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare and it's a crappy, low-effort YA mage school ripoff so far - I might not bother finishing it. I think I remember Holly Black writing some really solid short horror stuff tho? Disappointing.
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Jul 1, 2022 05:11
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, I feel like at this point it's on you to explain why the "memes" are bad, as opposed to "references", which are of course cool and good. it's actually not, you don't have to get so defensive
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Jul 1, 2022 05:13
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Wife and I just listened to the first two Locked Tomb novels and I got a lot more out of them then I did reading them, for some reason. I had really thought the third one was already out, though, or I would never have started us on them.
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Jul 1, 2022 05:35
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Gideon the Ninth has such a big cast. I imagine it was a difficult book for the audio talent. Is there more than one narrator?
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Jul 1, 2022 06:24
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Just finished reading The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel. It was... good, I think? The best parts of it are the cyber/biopunk worldbuilding and the minor characters. My favourite was the dipshit mega-billionaire who clearly failed upwards and barely understands what's going on around him beyond "number go up". A great antidote to so many cyberpunk texts (e.g. Blade Runner 2046) that buy into the myth of the billionaire as superhuman entrepreneur. But, the plotting of the novel felt a bit flat to me. The protagonist just wanders around picking up clues until the climax, in which he finds out that everything he did was pointless at best, the turbo-capitalist bad guys get everything they wanted. Realistic? Sure. But structurally unsatisfying for a mystery novel.
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Jul 1, 2022 06:26
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With the Commonweal thread deleted, is discussion about that series going back to this thread, getting a new thread (with or without new rules), or...?
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Jul 1, 2022 06:54
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MartingaleJack posted:Gideon the Ninth has such a big cast. I imagine it was a difficult book for the audio talent. Is there more than one narrator? Nope! Moira Quirk does an exemplary job. Edit: bonus info 
Beachcomber fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jul 1, 2022 07:10
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Kestral posted:With the Commonweal thread deleted, is discussion about that series going back to this thread, getting a new thread (with or without new rules), or...? What happened?
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Jul 1, 2022 07:38
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IMO the emperor memeimg works much better in context because that's the whole tension of his character. He's the necromancer overlord of this 40k skull empire where the known universe worships him like a god. When we finally meet him and he's just some guy from our time making dadjokes and checking emails on his ipad, it shows that something is terribly wrong about the empire that this is where all the fanaticism is coming from, and that something is terribly wrong about the emperor that he doesn't even take it seriously. Wrong ethnicity but I always imagine him like this because it perfectly sums up the mood. He's just a mildly overworked guy. What the gently caress did he do to make the world into an imperial mausoleum? 
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Jul 1, 2022 07:45
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Strategic Tea posted:IMO the emperor memeimg works much better in context because that's the whole tension of his character. He's the necromancer overlord of this 40k skull empire where the known universe worships him like a god. Exactly this. The meming almost entirely comes from Gideon's irreverent defiance, and God Emperor John's awkward dad humour. I kinda wish she had a bit more restraint and had it *only* coming from those two, while everybody else is doing gothic melodrama.
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Jul 1, 2022 08:26
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Strategic Tea posted:IMO the emperor memeimg works much better in context because that's the whole tension of his character. He's the necromancer overlord of this 40k skull empire where the known universe worships him like a god. The short answer is that he saved the universe. The slightly less short answer is that he didn't save the universe so much as bring it back to life after some as yet unintroduced force murdered it. The Emperor seems like 95% of a pretty decent person who really wishes there weren't all this fuss and bother so he could hang out with his newly introduced daughter. And then 5% of somebody horrifically hosed up in ways that would make serial killers of children seem sane and compassionate by comparison.
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Jul 1, 2022 08:29
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Kestral posted:With the Commonweal thread deleted, is discussion about that series going back to this thread, getting a new thread (with or without new rules), or...? Give us a day or two to figure that out. ( Graydon got annoyed with us).
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Jul 1, 2022 09:08
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lol what prompted a thread deletion in Book Barn of all places?
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Jul 1, 2022 09:34
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No Dignity posted:lol what prompted a thread deletion in Book Barn of all places? Everyone in the thread was a Graydon Saunders sockpuppet.
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Jul 1, 2022 10:34
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Beachcomber posted:Nope! Moira Quirk does an exemplary job. I was actually just going to post this, I also listened to the audiobooks of both and they were really, really well done. I wonder if that helped with my enjoying the books quite a bit. Now that I think of it, I actually did bounce off of Harrow but came back to it with the audiobook and ended up loving it. Also I think the cover art is cool as hell.
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Jul 1, 2022 10:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Give us a day or two to figure that out. ( Graydon got annoyed with us). wait, what?
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Jul 1, 2022 11:11
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He has (I have???) a google group for fans of the series, and answers some obscure lore questions. He also asks that you don't share the answers on the wider web. People were doing that in the thread here. I assume there was an argument. I'm not a member, and hearing neat tidbits was nice, but "go sign up and read them yourself if you want to know more" sounds reasonable enough to me (Graydon Saunders).
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Jul 1, 2022 11:23
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If he's also annoyed at the sockpuppet meme then I guess I'll have to go back to making the joke baru cormorant, sorry general.
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Jul 1, 2022 11:24
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No Dignity posted:lol what prompted a thread deletion in Book Barn of all places? 90s Cringe Rock posted:He has (I have???) a google group for fans of the series, and answers some obscure lore questions. He also asks that you don't share the answers on the wider web. People were doing that in the thread here. I assume there was an argument. Yeah the author had a google group up till yesterday where people could discuss the books and their lore directly with the author. It was really informative and interesting, but he asked people not to repost spoilers from it elsewhere. Then this happened in our thread here: Larry Parrish posted:Who cares what the author thinks. If he doesn't want people to spoil his dumb Google group thing then he shouldn't have one imo The author saw that post and went "fair point" and deleted the google group. There was a little warning, so I tried deleting the threads here in hopes of placating him, because the google group was the more valuable discussion, but apparently Saunders found Larry's logic too persuasive. This is why we can't have nice things. Right now I'm not inclined to resurrect a thread that directly pissed off an author like that. Maybe down the road. For now yeah people can mention or reference Commonweal in this thread but I guess we should keep discussion of it limited. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jul 1, 2022 |
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Jul 1, 2022 11:26
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lol holy poo poo that's a lot Larry Parish/Graydon actually being aware of TBB/deleting the google groups/deleting the thread as a make good (kind of a weird decision in its own right)
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Jul 1, 2022 11:57
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fez_machine posted:lol holy poo poo that's a lot so anyway i've been slow on getting the next Book of the Month thread up, something should go up this weekend, sorry
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Jul 1, 2022 11:58
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fez_machine posted:(kind of a weird decision in its own right) Yeah, the problem was it was functionally impossible to clean out the whole thread of all mentions of stuff that might have been mentioned in the Google Group. But deep-sixing the whole thread could be done quickly and comprehensively.
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Jul 1, 2022 12:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah the author had a google group up till yesterday where people could discuss the books and their lore directly with the author. It was really informative and interesting, but he asked people not to repost spoilers from it elsewhere. So I was right all along? Is this forum still hidden behind :tenbux: and not indexed by Google? Also lol.
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Jul 1, 2022 12:16
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Cardiac posted:So I was right all along? The now-deleted thread here was the 5th or so hit in Google for "Graydon Saunders" so apparently we're indexed.
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Jul 1, 2022 12:18
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Cardiac posted:So I was right all along?
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Jul 1, 2022 13:00
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The Commonweal books sound interesting but that's kinda lame. I can get behind having secrets that only some will figure out in your fiction, but I don't support trying to enforce that secrecy on people online.
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Jul 1, 2022 13:48
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I feel like it's a small thing to respect an author's wishes. If they want to try and keep the discussion to their group or whatever, I feel like that's their prerogative. Especially if it's a niche self-pubbed work. 
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Jul 1, 2022 14:13
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:I feel like it's a small thing to respect an author's wishes. If they want to try and keep the discussion to their group or whatever, I feel like that's their prerogative. Especially if it's a niche self-pubbed work. Agreed, but that's between them and their google group. Larry is right that people will probably leak anyway. Those people are jerks and should stop.
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Jul 1, 2022 14:26
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For what it's worth, I e-mailed him yesterday and he didn't seem too put out about the thread in specific. He even said he liked the OP, which made me feel better about being caught up in it. It sounds like closing the Google Group was as much about trying to focus on the writing with limited free time as it was about the leaking.Cardiac posted:So I was right all along? That'll never be the case. FPyat posted:The Commonweal books sound interesting but that's kinda lame. I can get behind having secrets that only some will figure out in your fiction, but I don't support trying to enforce that secrecy on people online. I think the point is that he wanted to be able to answer questions for the really interested but wanted to keep some of those potential spoilers out of wider circulation. His closure wasn't petulant he just kind of went "I guess this isn't working. Nice knowing y'all." and then closed up shop.
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Jul 1, 2022 14:35
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It might leak but it doesn't have to be here.
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Jul 1, 2022 14:38
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Honestly that whole setup sounds really dumb and I can't blame anyone for talking about information the author has shared elsewhere, it's a fantasy novel series not a private support group or anything
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Jul 1, 2022 14:41
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So should he have just let everything rip after it didn't work out like he hoped? Like I said, he didn't throw a tantrum or blame anyone, just decided it wasn't working and so he stopped it.
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Jul 1, 2022 14:43
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah the author had a google group up till yesterday where people could discuss the books and their lore directly with the author. It was really informative and interesting, but he asked people not to repost spoilers from it elsewhere. I'd love to say that I'm sorry that it pissed the author off and perhaps made some extra work for you, but that's really funny to me. Anyway sorry Graydon but out of book lore/context detracts from the book, imo, although clearly some people don't think that.
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Jul 1, 2022 16:13
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The author offered a whole lot of background information, clarification on how things in the world worked, and cool stuff including spoilers for future books and asked only that it not get spread outside the group. As the author noted in one of the final posts, this was probably always going to happen, it's the nature of the world, but now that it had it was time to shut down the group.
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Jul 1, 2022 16:13
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Larry Parrish posted:I'd love to say that I'm sorry that it pissed the author off and perhaps made some extra work for you, but that's really funny to me. Anyway sorry Graydon but out of book discussion detracts from the book, imo, although clearly some people don't think that. gently caress off, you shitheel troll. One of these days a perma will stick and we will all be better off for it.
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Jul 1, 2022 16:14
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