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Whalley posted:He gets Scalzi's books because the two of them are friends, and because - like it or not - Wil Wheaton's kind of "mister internet" and getting him to read your books is a selling point to itself. I know a few people who've bought audiobooks of Scalzi's stuff, just because Wil Wheaton reads them. How did Wil Wheaton become "mister internet", exactly? His cameos on The Big Bang Theory or something?
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Aug 13, 2014 17:26
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Wade Wilson posted:How did Wil Wheaton become "mister internet", exactly? His cameos on The Big Bang Theory or something? A series of smart self marketing decisions going back to the AOL days. He got really good at handling the fans who disliked him, rolled that to offering "insider" commentary on Star Trek stuff which he expanded to interviewing and talking with other insiders on "nerd stuff", which rolled general opinions on pop culture stuff, and managed to grab each new thing on the net (livejournal, then blogging, then podcasts, then social media) a bit ahead if the curve and managed to do it fairly well. He's Mister Internet the same was Howard Stern is Mister Shock Jock or John Stewart is Mister Comedic Reporter. He got there early and did it better than the others.
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Aug 13, 2014 18:29
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Fried Chicken posted:He got really good at handling the fans who disliked him. Right next to being Mr. Internet, he's also Mr. Rollin with the Punches. It's like he invented that poo poo.
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Aug 13, 2014 20:58
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Whenever I see Space Nerd Wil Wheaton doing something I figure Chris Hardwick was busy.
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Aug 13, 2014 21:25
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Yeah, I remember as a teenager having what to me was the very strange experience of being in the same conversations as Wil Wheaton on Fark.com. Now that Twitter and other social media are around, the concept of actually having a celebrity respond to you, or comment on mundane everyday stuff online is no longer a big deal (at least, not a minor one on Wheaton's level), but back then it very much felt like Wheaton was the only celebrity who was building a fan base just by being a regular guy posting on the Internet.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:52
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Poopy Palpy posted:Whenever I see Space Nerd Wil Wheaton doing something I figure Chris Hardwick was busy. Having never watched any of the Star Treks (outside of extremely late night TV when I needed something to bore me to sleep in five minutes), I literally had no idea who he was until getting the audiobooks I'm complaining about and Googling him.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:14
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I finished the four alex versa books in about a week, they weren't as over the top awesome as the Dresden files and unlike harry alex can be a pragmatic ruthless bastard, but overall I enjoyed them. Slightly off topic but while preording the new bobby dollar book I saw the shadowmarch books on sale, are they decent?
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Aug 15, 2014 00:34
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Exmond posted:Fool Moon has the terri-bad murphy character in it where she tries to arrest Harry in it. I get what the author was trying to do but it didn't make sense after the events of Storm Front. Murphy has never been a good character, her being a bitch in Fool Moon one at least gives her some personality.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:08
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I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:23
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It's more that mundane police obviously mean nothing in the face of supernatural threats. At least, it's obvious to the reader.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:25
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Wittgen posted:It's more that mundane police obviously mean nothing in the face of supernatural threats. At least, it's obvious to the reader. That's demonstrably false though. SI has been handling supernatural threats for some time. It's their entire reason for existing. They have trouble with super-high level major dangers but even in that case it is literally their job to do whatever they can to handle it. The entire book is explicitly the result of Harry's problems and lack of trust and later books even have him admit as much. Him actually trusting people is better for everyone involved and is why we have stuff like the Paranet plotline which emphasizes that even people who are not heavy hitters are more useful when they are informed and connected. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 06:27
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Rhymenoserous posted:Murphy has never been a good character, her being a bitch in Fool Moon one at least gives her some personality. I think murphy is a great character, i only don't like her in fool moon.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:30
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I'm about halfway through Changes, and god drat I guess the title of the book is pretty appropriate.  . Also, for like five pages I thought Butcher had loving murdered Butters. 
Geisladisk fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 10:16
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ImpAtom posted:I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:13
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ImpAtom posted:I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation. ImpAtom posted:That's demonstrably false though. SI has been handling supernatural threats for some time. It's their entire reason for existing. They have trouble with super-high level major dangers but even in that case it is literally their job to do whatever they can to handle it. Yeah, I get why people are annoyed by parts of Fool Moon but it's a critical book for Harry's and Murphy's character development and it has one of the best set-piece action sequences in the early series (Loup-Garou in the prison).
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Aug 15, 2014 17:28
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ImpAtom posted:That's demonstrably false though. SI has been handling supernatural threats for some time. It's their entire reason for existing. They have trouble with super-high level major dangers but even in that case it is literally their job to do whatever they can to handle it. I don't recall SI actually HANDLING much stuff. It was just a catch-all department to toss all the 'weird stuff' to, and then they got to muddle around and try to figure it all out. They are clearly in over their heads as the thing with the other thing and Murphy's partner dying and her never getting another one hey what's up with that
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Aug 15, 2014 18:13
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WarLocke posted:dying and her never getting another one hey what's up with that Uh, Doesn't Stallings become her partner after that? And then when she's demoted and he becomes head of SI, she gets Rawlings?
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Aug 15, 2014 19:28
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Russad posted:Uh, Doesn't Stallings become her partner after that? And then when she's demoted and he becomes head of SI, she gets Rawlings? Yes, exactly this.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:33
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I guess I should go back and re-read the earlier books, then. I blame the fact that she's almost never on official police business when she gets wrapped up in whatever the current book's thing is for why I totally forgot about those guys 
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Aug 15, 2014 19:44
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ImpAtom posted:I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation. Fool Moon is the only book in which I actually like Murphy, precisely because of this; she manages to be more than just his fighter chick 'good people' backup.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:05
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ImpAtom posted:I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation. When she actually arrests Harry its for a drawing he gave his almost apprentice girl that he had no idea was related to the murders. She doesn't even give him a chance to explain how he knew the girl or what the protection circle she was trying to create did. She accuses him of lying when he's actually trying to explain, and then the loup-garou destroys the police station.
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Aug 15, 2014 22:19
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WarLocke posted:I don't recall SI actually HANDLING much stuff. It was just a catch-all department to toss all the 'weird stuff' to, and then they got to muddle around and try to figure it all out. They do handle situations. They are the catch-all department but they were the guys stuck supernatural cases. That is what they were up to before Murphy joined even. We know from various accounts that even Murphy's dad was handling supernatural threats. (Rawlings talked about how he saved him from one, in fact.) They don't handle the actual book-problems because each book problem represents a pretty exceptional situation in Harry's life. However we know they're handling trolls and vampires (from offhand mentions) and rogue sorcerers (although they had Harry along for that) among other things. Yeroc2 posted:When she actually arrests Harry its for a drawing he gave his almost apprentice girl that he had no idea was related to the murders. She doesn't even give him a chance to explain how he knew the girl or what the protection circle she was trying to create did. She accuses him of lying when he's actually trying to explain, and then the loup-garou destroys the police station. She did give him a chance to explain how he knew the girl. He lied to her and pretended he had no idea who she was and Murphy called him on it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 22:25
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Russad posted:Uh, Doesn't Stallings become her partner after that? And then when she's demoted and he becomes head of SI, she gets Rawlings? Not until White Night so several years
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Aug 15, 2014 23:03
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I'm up to Blood Rites and I just reached the part where they reveal Harry's long lost brother. There is exactly a 0% chance he will surive the end of the book. Now all laugh at how wrong I am. Or right  Or probably a few "Oh you have no idea"  posts.
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Aug 16, 2014 02:08
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I'm about halfway through Ghost Story and it's pretty dark so far. I'm not used to everyone being mean to each other and Butters not being so insecure. Butters being the grammar Nazi was pretty funny though.
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Aug 16, 2014 02:17
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I love that we have so many new readers, I love watching for posts with their reactions.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:17
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I picked up the first book in this series late May or early June, and I just finished Skin Game today. I enjoyed most of it, even if I find Harry to be a less sympathetic character the more time I spend in his head. But I noticed Butcher started to overuse some phrases. "Doggy grin" and "showed me his teeth" come to mind. But I think the thing that annoyed me the most was his excessive use of "tips of her breasts". At first I thought he just didn't know that we had a word for that already. Like maybe he was sitting around going, "I like boobies. I really like the thing in the middle of the booby. I wish there was a word for that. Oh well, I'll just have to keep plugging along talking about her boob knobs." But then he actually used the word nipple a couple of times, so now I don't know what to think. That said, I've enjoyed the series quite a bit, and now that I've powered through all of the audiobooks, I don't really know what to do with myself anymore. Edit - ^^^ I actually convinced my girlfriend to pick the series up when I got to the above spoiler in Blood Rites, just because I wanted someone to chat with it about. I'm pretty shocked at how consistent Jim's storytelling is. Having read Hearne's Iron Druid series, with it's completely random quality from book to book, it's been a very pleasant experience. Russad fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 03:21
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Renegret posted:I'm up to Blood Rites and I just reached the part where they reveal Harry's long lost brother. There is exactly a 0% chance he will surive the end of the book. looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool Russad posted:I picked up the first book in this series late May or early June, and I just finished Skin Game today. I enjoyed most of it, even if I find Harry to be a less sympathetic character the more time I spend in his head. But I noticed Butcher started to overuse some phrases. "Doggy grin" and "showed me his teeth" come to mind. But I think the thing that annoyed me the most was his excessive use of "tips of her breasts". At first I thought he just didn't know that we had a word for that already. Like maybe he was sitting around going, "I like boobies. I really like the thing in the middle of the booby. I wish there was a word for that. Oh well, I'll just have to keep plugging along talking about her boob knobs." But then he actually used the word nipple a couple of times, so now I don't know what to think. Boob knobs is my new favorite phrase. Anyway, Harry's male gaze is extensively discussed. He's supposed to be a huge goon about it. Sort of a noir trope. Anyway, it's a perfectly valid thing to be annoyed by. But I just brush it off because everything else is great!
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Aug 16, 2014 03:25
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Just finished Skin Game, thoughts dump coming (yeah I'm late, being poor and relying on the library sucks) Overall I liked it a lot. It was uneven in places, but I thought the "long con" that Butcher pulled off was executed nicely, if a bit heavy handed. Like. I didn't even understand the significance of the part where he's talking to Kringle and says he'll answer questions with the first word when addressed by Goodman Gray as "wizard"? Or something? I went back through the book and couldn't find any evidence of signals and it was just awkward. There's a lot of moments like that where Butcher feels the need to dress up something with a cool explanation that it just doesn't need, off the top of my head, in addition to the previous example; the "theater" before Nicodemus sacrifices his daughter, the light saber chat for Butters, just things like that, which otherwise ruin good plot points. I thought Nicodemus sacrificing his daughter was a brilliant bit of plotting, having the lever be a thing of the spirit world and needing a shade willing to do it is just good story telling but it was hamstrung by trying to capitalize on the drama with the fake standoff beforehand. I thought Nicodemus grew decently well as a character, and I'm curious to the "task" he's undertaking for himself and how it will save the world. I loved all of Michael Carpenter's involvement, but the Christian arm of the universe is a bit too powerful and impeccably timed. It was interesting to think about what could have happened to Uriel while his mantle was on Michael, but he was never in any danger, also so many things happen at that damned Carpenter house. It's funny how similar Harry Dresden the character is to Jim Butcher the writer. The way he writes Harry as this powerhouse of magic with a noticeable lack of finesse but a knack for pulling through when it counts. Butcher is great at throwing everything he has at you, and some plotlines and scraps of dialogue clunk hard, but he grits it out at the end. I'm definitely also sick of the rape-y inner monologue attributed to winter's mantle, the male gaze stuff. Also the first ten chapters of the book have the phrase "my stomach" about 54 times and I wanted to throw the book across the room at some point. I laughed at every instance of "parkour!" because I'm a big idiot. I missed Thomas, but was glad to see Mister and Mouse back. What was the significance of Goodman Gray working for Harry for just a dollar? Was it insinuated to us that his father was the naagloshi from the previous books and I forget did that one kill some of our heroes? END DUMP
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Aug 16, 2014 23:57
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Whalley posted:He gets Scalzi's books because the two of them are friends, and because - like it or not - Wil Wheaton's kind of "mister internet" and getting him to read your books is a selling point to itself. I know a few people who've bought audiobooks of Scalzi's stuff, just because Wil Wheaton reads them. I listened to Redshirts read by Wheaton. He was probably the worst (fiction) audiobook reader i've ever heard. He made no attempt whatsoever to differentiate the characters. Everyone, man, woman, alien, same slightly sarcastic delivery. In a novel with large chunks of snappy back and forth dialogue between multiple characters. You couldn't tell which character was supposed to be speaking half the time, it was dreadful.
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Aug 17, 2014 00:13
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On your last point/question, A big deal was made all book that Goodman Grey was loyal to a fault once hired. And he kept making references to taking the job because he has to pay rent. The fact he then asked for one dollar suggests that there's something else at play. The "rent" isn't a dollar price, and his loyalty isn't because he's on a big contract and professional. I think at the time people talked of maybe having an obligation to do good or help people or just work for payment due to his background. Hopefully we'll see more of him and get some better answers.
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Aug 17, 2014 00:17
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Masonity posted:On your last point/question, A big deal was made all book that Goodman Grey was loyal to a fault once hired. And he kept making references to taking the job because he has to pay rent. The fact he then asked for one dollar suggests that there's something else at play. The "rent" isn't a dollar price, and his loyalty isn't because he's on a big contract and professional. I think at the time people talked of maybe having an obligation to do good or help people or just work for payment due to his background. Hopefully we'll see more of him and get some better answers. I thought it was because he's actually a decent ish person. Like, as a merc you need to be known as loyal to your employer, and as someone who completes the job. His charging Harry a single dollar was sort of a funny 'follow the letter but not the spirit of the law' moment representing that he'd been working with Harry "officially".
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Aug 17, 2014 01:00
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It's also a nice mirror to kindaid who did charge Harry an absolute fortune for his help.
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Aug 17, 2014 01:05
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It seems like Butcher has been pretty good about controlling power creep in this series. Despite the fact that post-Skin Game Harry could wipe the floor with Fool Moon Harry without breaking a sweat, we still constantly get reminded that Harry is a small fish in a very big pond. We keep getting new characters introduced, which is an obvious way to avoid things getting stale, but it hasn't ever felt forced. We don't often get rematches with old foes (usually because there isn't enough left over to scrape back together), so what is the secret? Why has Butcher succeeded where so many other series (especially episodic series of this length) failed?
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Aug 17, 2014 02:12
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Grundulum posted:It seems like Butcher has been pretty good about controlling power creep in this series. Despite the fact that post-Skin Game Harry could wipe the floor with Fool Moon Harry without breaking a sweat, we still constantly get reminded that Harry is a small fish in a very big pond. We keep getting new characters introduced, which is an obvious way to avoid things getting stale, but it hasn't ever felt forced. We don't often get rematches with old foes (usually because there isn't enough left over to scrape back together), so what is the secret? Why has Butcher succeeded where so many other series (especially episodic series of this length) failed? I would say it is more than he keeps dialing it back after he gives Harry a powerup or removes stuff to make Harry weaker. There's a lot of stuff Harry could do which he doesn't because something is inaccessible to him or because it's suddenly weaker than it was before or he just forgets it exists. On paper Harry should be absurdly powerful but since he's the underdog he always ends up in underdog town. In Cold Days and Skin Game he pushes the "I could do more but I don't have my Shield Bracelet" thing a lot and also dialed back the Winter Mantle's power a lot. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 02:16
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ImpAtom posted:I would say it is more than he keeps dialing it back after he gives Harry a powerup or removes stuff to make Harry weaker. There's a lot of stuff Harry could do which he doesn't because something is inaccessible to him or because it's suddenly weaker than it was before or he just forgets it exists. On paper Harry should be absurdly powerful but since he's the underdog he always ends up in underdog town. In Ghost Story and Skin Game he pushes the "I could do more but I don't have my Shield Bracelet" thing a lot and also dialed back the Winter Mantle's power a lot. Right, like all the way back in White Night at any point he could've given in to lash and shredded the bad guys, but he wouldn't and so he was stuck as himself, with just a couple tricks from lash thay weren't story breaking.
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Aug 17, 2014 02:22
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Alls I know is, he better have a ridiculous Wizard Cave and arsenal of tools after walking away from this book with a couple million in diamonds, which makes me believe that not much time will pass between this book and the next. Imagine Butters, Bob, the new girl and Dresden all in a lab for a year concocting magical artifacts.
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Aug 17, 2014 02:33
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Ha! Like you can sell diamonds at anywhere near market value. If DeBeers isn't controlled by some supernatural group, I'd be surprised.
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Aug 17, 2014 02:56
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Harry's the Winter Knight and Molly's got a bank account with eight zeros in it; I seriously doubt that something as mundane as mortal money will be a major roadblock to Harry's getting new tools.
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Aug 17, 2014 03:00
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Butcher said somewhere that maintaining his magical tools is the equivalent of a part time job. I think time, not money, has always been the limiting factor on how many magical tools Harry has access to.
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Aug 17, 2014 03:02
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