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Neremworld posted:Speaking of Mouse, I never got how Butcher mistook lions for dogs. Because english-speakers commonly refer to the statues as 'lion dogs' or 'foo dogs?' Which apparently might have originated in the Japanese calling them 'Korean dogs'? 
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Sep 28, 2015 03:32
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Tunicate posted:Because english-speakers commonly refer to the statues as 'lion dogs' or 'foo dogs?' Which apparently might have originated in the Japanese calling them 'Korean dogs'? Yeah, but if he had done even a little bit of research, he would have known that that is not what Tibetians or Chinese or anyone but Japanese call them. It's not even an obscure fact. EDIT: I mean, Lion/Guardian Lion vs Snow Lion vs Korean Dog. I would have just thought Mouse was one of those actual dog breeds known as Foo Dogs or Lion Dogs, but nope he's suppose to be an actual Chinese Guardian Lion. Neremworld fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 03:34
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Neremworld posted:Yeah, but if he had done even a little bit of research, he would have known that that is not what Tibetians or Chinese or anyone but Japanese call them. It's not even an obscure fact. Mouse isn't a full foo dog, he's a demidog.
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Sep 28, 2015 03:48
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Tunicate posted:Mouse isn't a full foo dog, he's a demidog. So why aren't we talking about how cute the kittens are?
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Sep 28, 2015 03:49
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Neremworld posted:So why aren't we talking about how cute the kittens are? Because no one other than you gives a poo poo?
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Sep 28, 2015 03:50
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flosofl posted:Because no one other than you gives a poo poo? Too bad, kittens are cuter then puppies, it's true.
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Sep 28, 2015 03:51
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Neremworld posted:So why aren't we talking about how cute the kittens are? I dunno, when zeus fucks a chick why isn't their kid a big pile of gold coins with the texture of human flesh?
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Sep 28, 2015 03:54
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Tunicate posted:I dunno, when zeus fucks a chick why isn't their kid a big pile of gold coins with the texture of human flesh? Don't be absurd. It'd be swanlings. EDIT: With the texture of human flesh.
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Sep 28, 2015 03:58
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I got Working for Bigfoot for 7 bucks on kindle last night. Scratched that Dresden itch even though I managed to burn through all three stories in one sitting.
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Sep 29, 2015 08:38
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I finished The Fuller Memorandum yesterday evening - it was pretty gripping, though it was as dark as I expected it would be. I am a bit curious how far in the future Bob's prologues are meant to be, both here and in The Apocalypse Codex, which I started this morning; he mentions that the events of The Fuller Memorandum are why his right arm doesn't work properly any more, the reason for which is pretty clear, but he also says something about how "It's the reason Mo and I aren't living together right now" - is that something that happens in a subsequent novel?
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Sep 29, 2015 09:30
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Wheat Loaf posted:
Laundry-series spoiler: Yes, it happens at the end of Rhesus Chart and goes very deep into it in Apocalypse Index. The separation is a complex story thread.
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Sep 29, 2015 09:41
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Hmm. Having avoided spoilers so far, I think I will refrain from reading that. 
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Sep 29, 2015 12:47
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The talking cat didn't annoy me nearly as much as I thought he would. It was mostly a fun read. Nice to have when I'm running an automated deployment that didn't much attention for once.
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Sep 29, 2015 14:13
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flosofl posted:The talking cat didn't annoy me nearly as much as I thought he would. The talking cat parts are more or less exactly how annoying I envision cats to be.
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Sep 29, 2015 19:26
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Apparently Europeans get Cinder Spires one day early  I will be really sleepy at work tomorrow but I will post an impression before I leave the house
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Sep 29, 2015 20:35
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RosaParksOfDip posted:That would be pretty cool. What if he gave trusting the White Council a shot early on and ended up with a much more formal set of training with proper back-up for his issues leading to him being a genuine powerhouse with fine control of his magic rather than using it like a goddamn firehose all the time. Oh my god, that would be the best thing. He ends up replacing Murphy with Morgan, and he ultimately creates a better world with far less dabbling with dark forces.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:50
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How could Harry actually trust the White Council? I'm not sure there's a time he could have gone to them without getting his head chopped off barring Eb's interference which seems like it'd have the same problem every time.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:53
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Friends and I came up with another idea for the mirror mirror thing. Harry doesn't skip school that one day, and thus doesn't interrupt dumorne while he's enthralling Elaine. I can see three outcomes that are different from the "main" one: -Harry notices something later and reports it to the council, who investigate and take care of matters themselves, and the Doom is never used. This could be a way to have Harry on the councils good side -With the help of Elaine, Harry is convinced by dumorne that black and white magic is an arbitrary distinction made by people too afraid to take action. We get a Harry who's more or less the same as ours (too stubborn to change all that much, even with the ongoing corruption from the magic) except with years of training from a powerful black magic user, so he's more careful and still on the councils good side. Dumorne was never exposed and Harry is much subtler as a result of his years of deception. -Harry is completely convinced by dumorne, goes full supervillain, eventually killing dumorne and elaine before taking an apprentice of his own (two there are, a master and an apprentice). This is probably the least likely if he went with the school choice.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:07
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Decius posted:Laundry-series spoiler: I haven't followed this thread in a few months so I'm sorry if this has been talked to death. How was Apocalypse Index? The reviews on amazon weren't great and I've been hesitant to jump into it due to some of what you have spoiled.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:38
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It's the Apocalypse Codex, and I thought it was pretty decent. Better than the Jennifer Morgue, not as good as Fuller Memorandum.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:42
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just_a_guy posted:Apparently Europeans get Cinder Spires one day early Nah, I'm working overnights this week doing some production changes and my kindle pre-order came in at 12:15 AM local time.
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Sep 30, 2015 00:20
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Oh goddammit. I forgot Cinder Spires was coming out today, and I'm a third of the way into my Alera re-read. 
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Sep 30, 2015 01:51
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:Friends and I came up with another idea for the mirror mirror thing. Harry can't go to the council because he doesn't know they exist until after they drag him out of the ashes of Justin's house and put him on trial for murder. And the other two aren't very likely since Justin wasn't planning to "convince" Harry to do anything. He was going to enslave him via black magic.
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Sep 30, 2015 04:26
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For those of you that care to come hang out with us, there's a signing in Seattle next week. It's a bit awkward to find on the University book store page, but it's there.
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Sep 30, 2015 05:58
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I'm about a third of the way into the new Aeronaut's windlass book. It's decent, reminds me of a YA Brandon Sanderson book, but maybe a bit better. Noblemen, magic crystals, weird half humans or something, talking cats, final fantasy airships. I told myself I'd read until The Event that is built up to in the first couple of chapters happens, but I'm still reading. I'd rather be reading a new Dresden but this might turn out to be just as good.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:04
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redreader posted:I'm about a third of the way into the new Aeronaut's windlass book. It's decent, reminds me of a YA Brandon Sanderson book, but maybe a bit better. Noblemen, magic crystals, weird half humans or something, talking cats, final fantasy airships. I told myself I'd read until The Event that is built up to in the first couple of chapters happens, but I'm still reading. I'd rather be reading a new Dresden but this might turn out to be just as good. I'm about 25% in, and I feel the same. Gwyn's dialogue is consistently terrible, though. She's the one everyone hated in the preview chapter, and she never gets better, at least for the first 25% of the book. I think it's her defining character trait. "Talks like a twit". See, right there, next to "scion of a powerful house" and her intelligence score of 9. Edit: I like the talking cats more than I thought I would, though. Rowl owns. ConfusedUs fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 16:08
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The actual plot of the book doesn't really start until roughly halfway through, and that doesn't actually pick up until the book is all but over. Gwen might be annoying now and then but at least she's not Captain Grimm, who is just incredibly boring for someone who's supposed to be a dashing airship captain. This actually does sound like a Brandon Sanderson universe instead of steampunk. There's none of that gritty pulpiness, and no horrifying mad science. The Aeronaut's Windlasss compared unfavorably to the Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:17
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Am I the only one bothered by all the intentionally obscure or made-up terminology in the book? I'm 5 chapters in, and I still have no idea what a loving "habble" is or what a spire looks like. If I didn't enjoy the Dresden Files so much I would have given up on the book before even finishing the first chapter...
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Sep 30, 2015 16:43
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Apoffys posted:Am I the only one bothered by all the intentionally obscure or made-up terminology in the book? I'm 5 chapters in, and I still have no idea what a loving "habble" is or what a spire looks like. If I didn't enjoy the Dresden Files so much I would have given up on the book before even finishing the first chapter... I can't say that this is bothering me too much (maybe i am just jaded from all the fantasy I read) Points to Butcher for not making me hate cats (yet) but I agree that has a very Sanderson feel to it (and all of his ancestors in the fantasy genre) The only thing that annoys me so far is the multiple POV's that generally tends to annoy me. But hey I have waited all my life to read a good steampunk story and this might be it (no much steam in it so far)
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Sep 30, 2015 17:06
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I wonder what a spire could possibly look like?
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Sep 30, 2015 17:21
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redreader posted:I wonder what a spire could possibly look like? I heard Jim describe it in a Podcast and it's essentially a fat cylinder that's a mile or two across and pretty tall. Like a tire on its side, that just happens to be big enough for gods tractor.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:13
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M_Gargantua posted:I heard Jim describe it in a Podcast and it's essentially a fat cylinder that's a mile or two across and pretty tall. I just read a passage where a spire is described by a PoV character as most of two miles across. There are definitely skylights. I dunno if it's flat-topped. I picture these more like squat cones or round pyramids than beer cans.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:16
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If only spire were a word that appears in the dictionary
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Sep 30, 2015 18:18
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ConfusedUs posted:I'm about 25% in, and I feel the same. Yeah, the talking cats are way better than I thought, but the fishmalk etherialists got old quick. Doorknobs
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Sep 30, 2015 18:46
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Apoffys posted:Am I the only one bothered by all the intentionally obscure or made-up terminology in the book? I'm 5 chapters in, and I still have no idea what a loving "habble" is or what a spire looks like. If I didn't enjoy the Dresden Files so much I would have given up on the book before even finishing the first chapter... I'm only halfway through the prologue today, and I'm already 90% sure it's short for Habitable Level. They've used it as a word replacement where either Rank , Area, and Level would have been in the sentence. I feel like butcher pretty much smacks you in the head with its inferred meaning.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:06
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Apoffys posted:Am I the only one bothered by all the intentionally obscure or made-up terminology in the book? I'm 5 chapters in, and I still have no idea what a loving "habble" is It's a space telescope.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:10
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If my cat could talk, I am pretty sure she'd sound a lot like one of his talking cats. They worked for me. The fishmalk thing bugged the poo poo out of me at first, but I didn't mind it so much later on because they're really only like that about one thing. He can't figure out doorknobs and the girl can only talk to her crystals, but they both generally make sense once you've accounted for that. They're not babbling about fish heads in the middle of a fight or whatnot. Really, this book was exactly what I expected it to be. I mean, by this point I've read something like 21 books by Jim Butcher. I knew what I was getting into. I thought it was enjoyable and I'll read the next one when it comes out.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:41
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navyjack posted:Yeah, the talking cats are way better than I thought, but the fishmalk etherialists got old quick. Doorknobs The etherialists thing is explained later in the book. Basically channeling etherial energy chews up the brain causing what I'm assuming is a type of dementia. They focus on a idiosyncrasy or behavior to kind of paper over the damage as a coping mechanism. And some of Rowl's dialog gave me a real Chiun-vibe from the movie Remo Williams, one of my guilty pleasure movies. I don't want to spoil his lines, so this is more or less the tone of Rowl: quote:Conn MacCleary: [referring to Remo] Well, Chiun? What do you think? quote:Chiun: Place your hands behind your head. quote:Remo Williams: Chiun, you're incredible! Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 21:56
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M_Gargantua posted:I feel like butcher pretty much smacks you in the head with its inferred meaning. Some folks have trouble understanding things that are explicitly spelled out; you're going to need to curb your expectations if you think they can pick up on inference.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:07
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I'm a little over a third of the way into Aeronaut's Windlass... I've avoided reading any other impressions of the book until now, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds Gwen to be loving obnoxious. I feel like punching a teenager just on general principles. The cat is nearly as bad, but I usually just start skipping pages of his chapters... "I'm a cat, I'm fantastic"... skip rest of page, miss nothing of substance. Enjoying the rest of it, though. I like the Captain, although he might be heavy on the "grizzled and mysterious" vibe. He reminds me of Vimes from Discworld some, only without starting out the books literally in a gutter. The Spirearch and Grimm's Commodore friend are too likeable to not have something horrible happen to them in the near future, I suppose.
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Oct 1, 2015 03:21
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