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Vicissitude posted:I liked the first two. They're nothing special but I do check every now and again to see if the third one has been announced. The third one has been out for like...three years. Here.
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Apr 3, 2015 02:33
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So I'm trying to read Alex Verus and so far it feels like a complete Dresden ripoff, up to the protagonist's past. Except this guy's specialty seem to be having access to the script. Does it ever get interesting?
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Apr 3, 2015 13:49
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anilEhilated posted:Does it ever get interesting? That is a matter of opinion I guess. I will say that the first book is absolutely the weakest. The subsequent books are much better written. I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that its a Dresden ripoff though.
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Apr 3, 2015 14:23
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It's more of a home game of dungeons and dragons journal than a dresden ripoff.
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Apr 3, 2015 14:30
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Anias posted:It's more of a home game of dungeons and dragons journal than a dresden ripoff. I don't know about dungeons and dragons but he's definitely a fan of Ico.
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Apr 3, 2015 14:34
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Benny the Snake posted:Well, not a wizard hat anyway If this was anyone else I'd figure it was a feeble joke, but since it's you, Benny, I feel the urge to explain that he doesn't wear any kind of hat and every single book cover has been lying to us from the beginning. He makes jokes about it in the books many times.
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Apr 3, 2015 14:39
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Martello posted:If this was anyone else I'd figure it was a feeble joke, but since it's you, Benny, I feel the urge to explain that he doesn't wear any kind of hat and every single book cover has been lying to us from the beginning. He makes jokes about it in the books many times. ... poo poo. You just made me realise this.  
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Apr 3, 2015 14:51
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darth cookie posted:I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that its a Dresden ripoff though. That being said, getting to meet a giant spider living in Hampstead Heath kind of rekindled the interest so I guess I'll try to soldier on.
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Apr 3, 2015 14:52
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I just started Alex Verus also and I'm like all of three chapters in, and yeah, it feels similar. Guy has a magic business and that's a rare thing in a world of secret magic. Guy was apprenticed to an evil bad magician. There's an over-watching council and it's willing to throw people to the wolves for its own devices. Other than that, it feels like things work mechanically differently though. Urban Fantasy always feels pretty similar for the most part anyway, so the devil is in the details. For my money, I hope it gets away from "...so I looked into the future and..." every three paragraphs. It's a far bit better than Iron Druid so far, so I'm enjoying it.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:12
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It gets better. Just stick with it.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:17
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darth cookie posted:I don't know about dungeons and dragons but he's definitely a fan of Ico. If you played D&D anytime in the last 20 years, his entire suite of effects are immediately recognizable even if the names have been changed minimally. It's fun to read but it's not new material by any stretch.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:26
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Mortanis posted:For my money, I hope it gets away from "...so I looked into the future and..." every three paragraphs. It's a far bit better than Iron Druid so far, so I'm enjoying it. You know, for the longest time I didn't regret reading Iron Druid, I just regretted paying for it. Recently I've come to regret both.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:53
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Thunderfinger posted:It gets better. Just stick with it. I've finished the first two books, but they leave me pretty disinterested. Do they pick up at all or just keep following the same formula?
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Apr 3, 2015 17:05
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Spun Dog posted:I've finished the first two books, but they leave me pretty disinterested. Do they pick up at all or just keep following the same formula? I think it gets more interesting, but if its not doing anything for you then just drop it. No point in going on if you don't like it.
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Apr 3, 2015 17:07
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Spun Dog posted:I've finished the first two books, but they leave me pretty disinterested. Do they pick up at all or just keep following the same formula? I quite liked the Alex Verus-series, but the books are all pretty much the same in terms of quality and style. If you didn't like the first two, you're probably not going to like the rest any better.
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Apr 3, 2015 17:13
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Thanks for the replies, in that case I'll probably just skip the rest. Can't really give any reasons except that nothing about them really hooked me.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:58
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Martello posted:If this was anyone else I'd figure it was a feeble joke, but since it's you, Benny, I feel the urge to explain that he doesn't wear any kind of hat and every single book cover has been lying to us from the beginning. He makes jokes about it in the books many times. Not true, he wears the baseball cap he stole from the Red Cap in Cold Days.
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Apr 3, 2015 22:00
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immoral_ posted:Not true, he wears the baseball cap he stole from the Red Cap in Cold Days. gently caress, you're right.
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Apr 3, 2015 22:02
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Martello posted:If this was anyone else I'd figure it was a feeble joke, but since it's you, Benny, I feel the urge to explain that he doesn't wear any kind of hat and every single book cover has been lying to us from the beginning. He makes jokes about it in the books many times. Seriously, Skippy, which is worse, me admitting I wasn't paying attention, or you admitting you have Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 22:04
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Ornamented Death posted:The third one has been out for like...three years. Here. My bad. I guess I meant 4th one. Somehow I sort of mashed the first two books together :s
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Apr 5, 2015 01:10
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Hey, what the heck is sad puppies and why is it a big deal that Jim Butcher got nominated for a Hugo? I would think Jim would of allready been nominated for a hugo>?
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Apr 7, 2015 16:22
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Exmond posted:Hey, what the heck is sad puppies and why is it a big deal that Jim Butcher got nominated for a Hugo? I would think Jim would of allready been nominated for a hugo>? My understanding isn't that Butcher in particular is the issue but that this was a concentrated push by a group of voters to deliberately exclude women or people of color as a pushback to "SJW" and "not true fans" and other Ethics In Fantasy Writing bullshit. Butcher is one of the ones they chose but I think that's the sum total of his involvement with it.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:33
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Urban fantasy doesn't get nominated for Hugo, unless it's by Seanan loving McGuire.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:39
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Megazver posted:Urban fantasy doesn't get nominated for Hugo, unless it's by Seanan loving McGuire. Well.. I mean I like her books. I prefer Dresden Files over October daye but that's just my opinion. Its a shame that Dresden has never been nominated! I mean his books are sold world wide and they are great! ImpAtom posted:My understanding isn't that Butcher in particular is the issue but that this was a concentrated push by a group of voters to deliberately exclude women or people of color as a pushback to "SJW" and "not true fans" and other Ethics In Fantasy Writing bullshit. Butcher is one of the ones they chose but I think that's the sum total of his involvement with it. There's no way that can be true is it? That's extremely racist, how would you get people to agree to that?
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Apr 7, 2015 16:49
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Exmond posted:
They roped in gamergate.
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Apr 7, 2015 17:28
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Exmond posted:There's no way that can be true is it? That's extremely racist, how would you get people to agree to that? By coaching it in the language of "these SJWs are ruining our hobby and are not true fans, it isn't about race or gender." As I said though as far as I know (which could be off), Butcher didn't have anything to do with it except get nominated. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 17:30
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Basically a bunch of people got together and organized a five vote slate, which is a great piece of game theory.
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Apr 7, 2015 17:55
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Exmond posted:There's no way that can be true is it? That's extremely racist, how would you get people to agree to that? ImpAtom posted:By coaching it in the language of "these SJWs are ruining our hobby and are not true fans, it isn't about race or gender." On the other hand, considering Sad Puppies backs Vox Day/Theodore Beale, the only author kicked out of the SFWA for being too big a racist rear end in a top hat to tolerate, I have a hard time believing that race/gender isn't a factor.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:11
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darthbob88 posted:On the other hand, considering Sad Puppies backs Vox Day/Theodore Beale, the only author kicked out of the SFWA for being too big a racist rear end in a top hat to tolerate, I have a hard time believing that race/gender isn't a factor. Oh, I'm not saying it is. Just that is how they phrase it.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:17
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Oh, Larry Correia. There's a big loving surprise.
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Apr 7, 2015 18:41
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ImpAtom posted:My understanding isn't that Butcher in particular is the issue but that this was a concentrated push by a group of voters to deliberately exclude women or people of color as a pushback to "SJW" and "not true fans" and other Ethics In Fantasy Writing bullshit. Butcher is one of the ones they chose but I think that's the sum total of his involvement with it. Pretty much. We are talking about a group of people out to push authoritarian white supremacist ideals in science fiction and fantasy. This is being done through campaigns of intimidation, setting up net loss publishing houses to flood professional organizations with ideologically minded members, personal threats, swamping award slates, pressuring conventions, and coordinating with similar elements like gamergate to do all of the above. The two previous attempts at straight packing it with their agenda got beat, hard. So for this one they tossed in a few others in some categories so that when one of those won they could claim "victory" and push forward. This is how you get the difference between the Best Novel picks (which has so good stuff there) and Best Novella (which is packed with John C Wright). The non assholes were supposedly asked if they were ok with being on the slate or not. Butcher agreed to be on there because, per Stross, who was with him at Eastercon when this came out, he doesn't think the slate having a winner will matter that much if the winner isn't their brand of poo poo. Stross thinks Butcher is underestimating the danger of encouraging this group.
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Apr 7, 2015 19:11
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Stross is right.
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Apr 7, 2015 19:19
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Ornamented Death posted:Stross is right. Yep. To clarify, when I say "personal threats" and "campaign of intimidation" I mean threatening to shoot NK Jesmine if she goes to a convention and sending her a picture of your gun and bullets. This isn't "idiot channers", these are other authors.
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Apr 7, 2015 19:22
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That sounds like the plot of a really bad book and not something that would really happen. WTF is wrong with people?
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Apr 7, 2015 19:34
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Ika posted:That sounds like the plot of a really bad book and not something that would really happen. WTF is wrong with people? A group of nerds who previously took comfort in having a niche that catered exclusively to them and like-minded people are finding themselves increasingly marginalized as society changes around them. They lash out not realizing that while they may have short-term successes they do more damage to themselves in the long run. Age old story, new actors.
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Apr 7, 2015 19:40
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Turning down the nom would have been the noble thing to do, but is a big ask for someone who's never won or even been nominated before. The Hugo isn't a big deal in the wider world but still has an aura inside SFF, which is why the scheme was hatched in the first place. He's not going to win though, for better or worse. There's a big backlash against the puppy slates and he's going up against Ann 'won nearly every SF award with her debut novel' Leckie, a fandom favourite if there ever was one. (he can console himself with selling more than everything else on the shortlist combined outside the movie/TV categories) e: I stand corrected but think the generalities still hold. Peel fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 19:46
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Peel posted:Turning down the nom would have been the noble thing to do, but is a big ask for someone who's never won or even been nominated before. The Hugo isn't a big deal in the wider world but still has an aura inside SFF, which is why the scheme was hatched in the first place. He was nominated for a Hugo before actually, just not in this category. He got nominated for Best Graphic Novel previously.
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Apr 7, 2015 19:52
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All I heard about the entire thing before was a comment somewhere saying that books should be nominated base on the quality of the book, and not just because the author fulfills some criteria. Sendng pictures of guns to people seems like there was quite a bit of information missing. Personally I would prefer the award going to a lesser known author, I think jim butcher has sold enough books to not need the extra attention. (To paraphrase what pterry said about never winning one)
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Apr 7, 2015 20:01
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Sad Puppy or w/e is awful, just let it go at that and don't breed more angry thought germs. In the grand scheme of things, talking about them is pointless and distracts from the reformable issues at hand.Peel posted:He's not going to win though, for better or worse. There's a big backlash against the puppy slates and he's going up against Ann 'won nearly every SF award with her debut novel' Leckie, a fandom favourite if there ever was one. This is the larger part of the problem and the reason that the SP stuff worked to the extent it did. The Hugo no longer reflects a majority of the SFF readership, which has grown beyond the worldcon demographic. It should move to a non-convention ballot, establish a different funding source, and a better nomination path. Without those changes it's going to continue to be manipulated. That the particular people manipulating it this year are shitbags isn't nearly as important as the scope and vulnerability to vote attack issues which will be abused going forward. It's time to reform the Hugo, and that means detaching it from worldcon, or Retire it. SFF isn't a niche of convention goers.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:06
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It seems to be doing a pretty good job of retiring itself. I honestly doubt anyone is going to take it seriously after all the controversy this year.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:14
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