|
Magres posted:I always thought the star-child crap was just that he's uniquely able to gently caress up Outsiders because ~plot~ I've always had a hunch that "complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances" weren't quite so literal as being born the day he was. I don't think we're still spoilering Cold Days, but they lie ahead for any lurkers who are catching up. If you look at it wholisticly the first time Harry encounters an outsider he didn't so much win as surprise it with fire. We know that He Who Walks Behind wasn't killed by that. Dresden doesn't think He was trying to really kill him, and Lashiel states simply that Harry "Overthrew him." Next Harry is trumped by the whammy in the deep during White Night. Lash sacrifices herself to temporarily shield Harry. His second battle is with He Who Walks Before in Mac's. Harry again doesn't win, he just surprises and scares him off. Finally at Demonreach, he gets hit with the whammy hard. This time however rather then fight or try to endure its uber-depression/antilife field like he has previously he instead throws his entire soul against it. I don't think this had anything to do with soul fire either. Simply will vs will. This is the first real manifestation of Harry's fabled Power over outsiders. I figure everyone just misunderstands "Starborn." Its not literally being born under any particular alignment. I think the Gatekeeper dropped a pretty big clue, about how results have temporal momentum. Harry is "Starborn" because he's had the grave misluck of being Harry Dresden, stubborn, powerful, publicly advertising wizard at large. The momentum of the events of his life lead him to a mental state where he can successfully fight a walker because of his personality. Just because of who he is Harry would lead a very similar life in all timelines. Lash being an angelic entity has some precognicious abilty. Much like Uriel and his way of seeing possibilities. When lash refers to "complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances" she's not refering to the ones of his birth, but of his life. His battles, his associations, etc. So to me Starborn just means that Harry is so stubborn his fate is pretty much ensured by his own hand, to immortals his life is about as predictable as a steller phenomenon. Slow, destructive, and unavoidable.
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2015 23:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 11:09 |
|
|
He also encountered a Walker in the porn star book. And I'm not sure I buy the temporal momentum having causality on past events. I think the inertia is more the past resists change. So if I go back in time to kill Hitler, there's already the inertia of an established timeline for the future that I come from. So I fire a gun at his head, he trips so the shot doesn't connect, the bullet ricochets into my skull, I die and get buried in an unmarked grave since no one knew who I was. Or even the better the gun misfires killing me and destroying the gun in a way no future tech is introduced. Or something. That's usually what comes to mind when I hear an author talk about temporal momentum/inertia (which is a common trope in time travel/alternate timeline stories) I'm in the camp of his mom carefully set things up to make sure he was a child of destiny as something to protect him since she knew she wouldn't be around after he was born. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Oct 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2015 23:20
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Has anyone ever written a good story about Dracula period? Couple pages back but I really enjoyed Children of Night by Dan Simmons
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2015 04:47
|
|
|
Will Butcher's new book fill the hole in my soul that having no more Dresden books to read has left? Or should I check out one of the other numerous series that people have espoused in this thread.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 04:40
|
|
|
Cinder Spires is pretty legit, IMO. It's a very different book though. It's not noir at all, and it's an ensemble cast.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 04:49
|
|
|
I didn't care much for Cinder Spires at all. Butcher's action sequences are the weakest part of Dresden, and there are more of them on average in Cinder and on a larger scale. I also don't like steampunk, so this probably wasn't for me anyway. I want more wizards.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 05:32
|
|
|
How the gently caress do you read Dresden if you hate Butcher's action scenes?
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 05:35
|
|
|
smertrioslol posted:Will Butcher's new book fill the hole in my soul that having no more Dresden books to read has left? Or should I check out one of the other numerous series that people have espoused in this thread. Honestly I've found that generally the recommendations are better. Dresden is really fun but there are some standouts in the genre.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 06:16
|
|
|
smertrioslol posted:Will Butcher's new book fill the hole in my soul that having no more Dresden books to read has left? Or should I check out one of the other numerous series that people have espoused in this thread. I'll be buying the next one because there's promise but wasn't too impressed with this one. I found it to have a really weak start and most of the characters also start out kind of bland or outright unlikable. Things do improve, but the book ends abruptly just as it gets actually good, imo. And yea it's nothing like the Dresden books.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 08:50
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:How the gently caress do you read Dresden if you hate Butcher's action scenes? The ideas and pace there are wacky enough to be able to stand occassionally subpar writing - unlike, say, Alera, which just drags past book 4 or so. Haven't read the new one so can't comment on that but the reception seems generally positive. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Oct 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 09:30
|
|
|
Yeah his world building is pretty interesting. I just figured enough of the books would be action sequences to be off putting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 15:28
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:Yeah his world building is pretty interesting. I just figured enough of the books would be action sequences to be off putting. I listen entirely with audiobooks so I usually have to go back and get a summary to "get" everything that happens in fight scenes. I really enjoy Butcher's UF worldbuilding and the characters scratch the itch for a Buffy-verse craving.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 01:01
|
|
|
Cast Iron Brick posted:I listen entirely with audiobooks so I usually have to go back and get a summary to "get" everything that happens in fight scenes. I really enjoy Butcher's UF worldbuilding and the characters scratch the itch for a Buffy-verse craving. I like Buffy. I'm actually rewatching Buffy right now. But the worst part about buffy is its lovely mythos. You really like that stuff? Which part is your favorite? That vampires literally evaporate when they are killed (but no other monsters do)? Or maybe that every character has a checkbox "[✓] Soul" and that's the only thing keeping them from being a horrible murderous rear end in a top hat--no other explanation? Yuck. Whedon does some great stuff with shot composition, action scenes, jokes and character interaction, but his world is terribad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 14:59
|
|
|
Buffy's universe certainly has weakness, but I don't know if vampires dusting is one of them. I've seen plenty of other worlds where a vampire dying causes the postponed decomposition to catch up with them and turn them to dust. Also, there were plenty of demons that dissolved into quickly disappearing goo. Buffy's world building reminds me of Harry Potter's. There's some interesting, creative stuff. But as a whole, it suffers for being a mishmash of elements thrown in to serve as a metaphor for some struggle of teenage life. To be on topic, I don't think Dresden Files suffers from the same problem. Dresden Files feels more cohesive to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
Wittgen posted:Buffy's universe certainly has weakness, but I don't know if vampires dusting is one of them. I've seen plenty of other worlds where a vampire dying causes the postponed decomposition to catch up with them and turn them to dust. Also, there were plenty of demons that dissolved into quickly disappearing goo. Well, sure, but citing precedent doesn't make it good writing. And most of the vampires we see in Buffy are recently turned. Turning to dust takes bones hundreds of years, if they do at all. Temporal catch-up can't be the only explanation. I just gave that example as one of the more obvious ones, it's honestly the one that bugs me the least. Wittgen posted:Buffy's world building reminds me of Harry Potter's. There's some interesting, creative stuff. But as a whole, it suffers for being a mishmash of elements thrown in to serve as a metaphor for some struggle of teenage life. I completely agree with your comparison. It's the same sort of pitfall that modern Doctor Who is slipping into--making poor long-term world-building decisions to suit a specific one-off story. It's sad when it happens, but understandable given modern audiences don't seem too concerned with fridge logic and plot holes. Wittgen posted:To be on topic, I don't think Dresden Files suffers from the same problem. Dresden Files feels more cohesive to me. Absolutely. That's why it's taking Butcher longer to write the recent ones. He's spending more and more time adjusting for his own canon. He's even got a whole team of dedicated people (he calls them his beta readers, if I remember right) that pick apart everything and make sure it all makes sense, passing back their feedback. He'll sometimes go through multiple rounds of these corrections.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 16:35
|
|
|
Private authorial wikis are useful too.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 16:44
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Well, sure, but citing precedent doesn't make it good writing. And most of the vampires we see in Buffy are recently turned. Turning to dust takes bones hundreds of years, if they do at all. Temporal catch-up can't be the only explanation. I'm not sure how it makes it bad writing either. "Vampires turn into dust when they are killed" is something that can be established without having to be over-explained, especially because there is no need for explanation. It can be a part of the setting without it needing to be a critical plot point as long as it is consistent.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 16:56
|
|
|
I was under the impression that the "staked vampires turn to dust" thing in Buffy was used to get around the fact that there'd be hundreds of vampire corpses lying around Sunnydale otherwise, and explaining how the Scoobies are disposing of them would have required far more time spent than was perhaps necessary. Not as messy as the whole "staked vampires explode in a massive shower of gore" approach True Blood used, certainly. Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Oct 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 17:04
|
|
|
Speaking of consistency and plot holes, was it ever explained how Murphy got her P-90 back? I know she dropped it in the lake in Small Favor, but I can't recall it ever being explained how she got it back (or if she got a new one). I haven't read all the short stories though, maybe one of them explains it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 17:09
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:understandable given modern audiences don't seem too concerned with fridge logic and plot holes. I don't believe this. I think people care more about that sort of thing nowadays than they used to, at least with regard to TV. Older shows like Star Trek: TOS barely aspired to internal consistency, for example.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 17:40
|
|
|
I believe vampires turning to dust is from an old movie. Nosferatu? It's crazy famous, and it became part of many later vampire stories. You say precedent doesn't excuse it, but it absolutely does. Vampires are always globs of various attributes from various previous vampire stories. Buffy vampires dust. It's not that weird, and it is super convenient from a showrunner's perspective.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
Silver2195 posted:I don't believe this. I think people care more about that sort of thing nowadays than they used to, at least with regard to TV. Older shows like Star Trek: TOS barely aspired to internal consistency, for example. I would say your average person (read, not internet sperg) tends to be more forgiving of that sort of thing unless it's particularly blatant. A lot also depends on whether or not a person likes the work and whether the work takes itself seriously or not.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 17:47
|
|
|
MildShow posted:I would say your average person (read, not internet sperg) tends to be more forgiving of that sort of thing unless it's particularly blatant. A lot also depends on whether or not a person likes the work and whether the work takes itself seriously or not. The issue I have is with the reference to modern audiences, as though there were more internet spergs back in the 1960s or even earlier.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 18:31
|
|
|
Silver2195 posted:The issue I have is with the reference to modern audiences, as though there were more internet spergs back in the 1960s or even earlier. Well, it's obviously an anecdote, but my thought was that modern audiences have a massive amount of other media with which to immediately distract themselves. Past audiences would have had more time to spend on reflecting and finding plot holes.  The type of person who goes to the internet to find and discuss plot holes has always been around. They just used other means of doing it; mailing lists, libraries, collegiate after-school groups, gentleman's clubs (back before "gentleman's club" was an allusion to strip-joint) etc.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 18:38
|
|
|
Apoffys posted:Speaking of consistency and plot holes, was it ever explained how Murphy got her P-90 back? I know she dropped it in the lake in Small Favor, but I can't recall it ever being explained how she got it back (or if she got a new one). I haven't read all the short stories though, maybe one of them explains it. Nothing explains it, but it's not an impossible thing to get. She probably just bought one. 30 seconds of googling brought me to a gunbroker auction for one, so she wouldn't even necessarily have to go through Marcone for it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 19:03
|
|
|
Khizan posted:Nothing explains it, but it's not an impossible thing to get. She probably just bought one. 30 seconds of googling brought me to a gunbroker auction for one, so she wouldn't even necessarily have to go through Marcone for it. That's the semiauto, civilian-legal version, not the proper full auto P90. Which would be much more difficult to get ahold of. Especially since it came out after the full auto registry was closed. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 19:25
|
|
|
It is a bit of a plot hole left untouched, but given that kincaid gave her the first one as a gift, and she had just helped saved Ivy, doesn't seem unreasonable that he'd get her a new one.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 19:30
|
|
|
There's also the fact that she regularly trains with and is heavily involved with Odin's PMC
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 23:16
|
|
|
Getting a new gun is perfectly plausible, it's just odd that it's never mentioned. I thought there were mentions (after she dropped it in the lake) of it being the same gun Kincaid gave her originally, but I can't find anything about it searching through my Kindle editions now, so I guess it could just be a new gun. Minor quibble in any case.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2015 23:41
|
|
|
The Rat posted:That's the semiauto, civilian-legal version, not the proper full auto P90. Which would be much more difficult to get ahold of. Especially since it came out after the full auto registry was closed. That shows you how much I know about guns! (it is not much)
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2015 00:21
|
|
|
Khizan posted:That shows you how much I know about guns! (it is not much) To be clear, getting actual machine guns is a lot harder than a semi-auto version. You can get a decent AR-15 for ~$1000, but a full auto variant might run you $25,000. This is purely for political reasons though, and someone like Marcone wouldn't be paying that much.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
I finally read the Daniel Faust books (all five available) that were recommended a few weeks back. I was a bit leery at first, and my eyes rolled all the way around in my head when he actually said "not on my watch" in the first volume, but the last two were quite decent. Thanks.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2015 18:37
|
|
|
I'd like to recommend a few books that rarely get mentioned in this threads as good urban fantasy: The Linnet Ellery books, by Philippa Bornikova- A woman fostered into a vampire home joins a vampire law firm in a universe where women are not allowed to be vampires for some reason. Wolf In Shadow, by John Lambshead- A woman with a cursed wolf amulet, a man with a crazy vampire girlfriend, and some problems in London.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2015 20:32
|
|
|
Just started Changes, that is indeed one way to start a book.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 04:25
|
|
|
bowmore posted:Just started Changes, that is indeed one way to start a book. Oh please post your thoughts when you've finished.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 05:44
|
|
|
Oroborus posted:Oh please post your thoughts when you've finished. Yes pleaaaaaase
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 07:42
|
|
|
The Library on Mount Char is $2,99 on Amazon. You should buy it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 07:50
|
|
|
Megazver posted:The Library on Mount Char is $2,99 on Amazon. One-star review: "one of the weirdest books I've read in 60 years" That plus the description sold me on it. And it's only three bucks!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 07:53
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:One-star review: "one of the weirdest books I've read in 60 years" And this quote just sold me. I snagged a used hardcover, though. Love hardcovers.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 14:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 11:09 |
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:One-star review: "one of the weirdest books I've read in 60 years" I'm a little skeptical of the review that calls it "What American Gods should have been". That's a really loving high bar to set.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:12
|
|
