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biracial bear for uncut posted:Don't forget about Butters on his first mission. Is this in Shadowed Souls too? I closed the kindle tab after I finished Cold Case hah
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Nov 2, 2016 15:39
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Rygar201 posted:Is this in Shadowed Souls too? I closed the kindle tab after I finished Cold Case hah No, "Day One" will be in Unfettered II, to be released on 8 December.
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Nov 2, 2016 18:33
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Dresden files rpg is in the new humble rpg book bundle, along with a bunch of other fiction including the laundry files
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Nov 2, 2016 21:52
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Khizan posted:Harry and Murphy and the werewolves and basically everybody in the series have this running inner monologue of "rar rar terrible criminal scum rabble rabble" every time they deal with Marcone, but Marcone is nothing but helpful to them and he's never really ever painted in a bad light at all. He's bailed Harry out of trouble multiple times. He stayed to fight Outsider fueled superzombies just to help Harry save lives. He's funding the Chicago war effort against the Fomor. He's been a great ally, and yet every time they meet Dresden is doing this "One day, Marcone!" crap. In Even Hand is that Marcone basically carries on a similar "One day, Dresden!" monologue inside his head, again for no good drat reason at all. Yes, one of my pet peeves. Rygar201 posted:Y'all should read Cold Case. It sheds light on a lot of this. I don't really recall Cold Case shedding much light on the whole naming thing (and I just reread it not long ago). Can you expound?
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Nov 2, 2016 22:05
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It doesn't. It sheds light on the Winter Court. Should have quoted.
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Nov 2, 2016 23:38
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Khizan posted:I thought that Even Hand was mediocre at best, honestly. Harry soul-gazed Marcone. He knows him better than he knows almost anyone. Marcone is a horrifying sociopathic monster whose goals happen to coincide with Harry's for his own reasons. He is the human version of Mab except even less justified because his primary goals are A) More money and B) gently caress you. They continually are on the same side because they both want Chicago to be relatively safe and the other one has things they need. If Chicago wasn't a near-constant nexus of poo poo going down then Marcone would be a serious problem for Harry and vice-versa. Edit: Like any character in Dresden, Marcone has a Good Part Inside Him because that's a running theme, but it doesn't mean he's not a poo poo. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Nov 2, 2016 |
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Nov 2, 2016 23:41
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Dresden often says Marcone is criminal scum bla bla bla, but Butcher often ends up making Marcone look like some kind of gangster with a heart of gold who only murdered all his competition in Chicago because of a tragic accident in his past and now he's expanding his role into a wacky supernatural mafia also because of his tragic past?
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Nov 3, 2016 00:44
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Mindspace Investigations has an overarching big bad who is Basically Marcone, except he's Marcone without Marcone's one sort of redeeming feature (i.e. refusing to harm children).
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Nov 3, 2016 00:57
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ImpAtom posted:Harry soul-gazed Marcone. He knows him better than he knows almost anyone. Marcone is a horrifying sociopathic monster whose goals happen to coincide with Harry's for his own reasons. He is the human version of Mab except even less justified because his primary goals are A) More money and B) gently caress you. To add to this, Marcone's empire-building. You don't do that by treating people who might be potential allies in a manner that will cause them to band together and take you out. ("It's not good business," to borrow from him.) He's introduced into the need for supernatural security in Fool Moon, and pretty much every interaction he's had with Dresden and the supernatural world simultaneously has only reinforced that need. Of the non-Dresden POV stories we've been given, only two (so far) have been from a pure-mortal perspective ("Aftermath" and "Even Hand"), so we don't know how the ordinary mortals feel about Marcone. For that matter, we haven't yet had a Marcone-POV short, so we don't know what he gets up to when he's not dealing with Dresden or other supers (and for this sentence I'm lumping Justine in with the supers by association).
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Nov 3, 2016 03:26
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ImpAtom posted:Harry soul-gazed Marcone. He knows him better than he knows almost anyone. Marcone is a horrifying sociopathic monster whose goals happen to coincide with Harry's for his own reasons. He is the human version of Mab except even less justified because his primary goals are A) More money and B) gently caress you. That soulgaze was in the first book. We're currently on the fifteenth book, and most of those intermediary books have him shown in the light of "gangster with a heart of gold", like a sort of modern-day Vlad Taltos. So that explanation doesn't work for me. You can't just tell me how the character is once at the start, you have to actually show the character acting that way. Aerdan posted:Of the non-Dresden POV stories we've been given, only two (so far) have been from a pure-mortal perspective ("Aftermath" and "Even Hand"), so we don't know how the ordinary mortals feel about Marcone. For that matter, we haven't yet had a Marcone-POV short, so we don't know what he gets up to when he's not dealing with Dresden or other supers (and for this sentence I'm lumping Justine in with the supers by association). Even Hand is a Marcone-POV story. Khizan fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 04:41
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I dunno. Murphy hates Marcone for an obvious reason: she's very law and order. She was following in her father's footsteps, and believed in what she did the same way Harry believes in magic. She was quite reluctant to go against those rules for a long time, even when it made things harder for her. Harry... eh. I think Harry kind of hates Marcone because he's projecting a bit. It is the only thing that makes sense to me.
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Nov 3, 2016 05:00
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Aerdan posted:Of the non-Dresden POV stories we've been given, only two (so far) have been from a pure-mortal perspective ("Aftermath" and "Even Hand"), so we don't know how the ordinary mortals feel about Marcone. For that matter, we haven't yet had a Marcone-POV short, so we don't know what he gets up to when he's not dealing with Dresden or other supers (and for this sentence I'm lumping Justine in with the supers by association). I'm willing to bet that the average joe on the street thinks of Marcone, if/when they even do in the first place, as a local businessman with some shady dealings. I doubt they realize the full extent of this enterprises. Hell, he's probably got a small PR team to keep things out of the press and pump up some fluff pieces in the papers about all the good he does for the city, the local leaders he backs for the improvement of the city, etc. And oh, those rumors? Of course there are rumors. Every successful businessman has skeletons in their closet and competitors trying to undermine them. Nobody knows that the skeletons are literal, or how many rivals are probably buried under concrete beneath Marcone's properties...
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Nov 3, 2016 08:08
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Up Circle posted:Dresden often says Marcone is criminal scum bla bla bla, but Butcher often ends up making Marcone look like some kind of gangster with a heart of gold who only murdered all his competition in Chicago because of a tragic accident in his past and now he's expanding his role into a wacky supernatural mafia also because of his tragic past? Khizan posted:That soulgaze was in the first book. We're currently on the fifteenth book, and most of those intermediary books have him shown in the light of "gangster with a heart of gold", like a sort of modern-day Vlad Taltos. Based on the world of the books, Dresdens soul-gaze is as close to an absolute truth as we will probably get.
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Nov 3, 2016 09:09
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Dresden was right; the Billy Goat curse couldn't last forever. Go Cubs.
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Nov 3, 2016 11:08
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FRINGE posted:Intelligent sociopaths dont act like movie monsters. They strive to be likable and trustable. They want to achieve things. Unless that scene from one of the worst books in the series ends up getting ignored retconned or forgotten. Marcone has really become a weird person after all these appearances. Half of his role in any given book is to be a plot device to get Dresden across the finish line. But I guess he still hates Dresden and has like, some secret plot to bring him down one day? Obviously Harry hates him despite all the help. Up Circle fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 18:50
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Is Cold Case short story or novella length? Worth buying the collection?
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Nov 3, 2016 19:07
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Up Circle posted:Unless that scene from one of the worst books in the series ends up getting ignored retconned or forgotten. Marcone is a ruthless murderer. Even if literally nothing else in his life was true that alone would be enough for Harry to hate him. The fact that Harry himself has murdered people is a constant ongoing problem in Harry's personal life while Marcone literally does it for money and power. Marcone is arguably a worse person than Lara and Lara is a literal mass murdering succubus monster. (Who, likewise, has offered Harry an uncommon amount of help and who also is on Harry's poo poo list.) Harry has an uncommon number of 'allies' who are people he'd really rather not associate with but has to due to circumstances. Almost all of them have a good element inside of them which is far overwhelmed by them being ruthless, remorseless and power-hungry. All of them use this power for a theoretically good thing (Marcone controls the criminal element, Lara is part of the Oblivion War, and Mab guards the outer gates) but Harry Dresden isn't exactly one to go "Well, you're doing something good in addition to all the evil so I *guess* I don't hate you." Unless it is for his brother Thomas, of course. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 19:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is Cold Case short story or novella length? Worth buying the collection? Short story. Depends on how much you like learning about the setting. I thought it was.
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Nov 3, 2016 19:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is Cold Case short story or novella length? Worth buying the collection? Short story and "No".
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Nov 3, 2016 19:27
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ImpAtom posted:Marcone is a ruthless murderer. Even if literally nothing else in his life was true that alone would be enough for Harry to hate him. The fact that Harry himself has murdered people is a constant ongoing problem in Harry's personal life while Marcone literally does it for money and power. Marcone is arguably a worse person than Lara and Lara is a literal mass murdering succubus monster. (Who, likewise, has offered Harry an uncommon amount of help and who also is on Harry's poo poo list.) I think there's a lot of telling and not showing in terms of Marcone's villainy, which seems like a problem to me. We only ever tend to hear Harry or Murphy thinking about what a scumbag he is but we don't often seem to him masterminding crimes. Even in Fool Moon, where his criminal activities are a major part of the plot, the ostensible bad guys are FBI agents who were driven to desperation trying to take him down and resorted to using the hexenwulf belts, and Harry ends up having to team up with Marcone to stop them. Other than that, the only big example of Marcone being a criminal that we see firsthand (off the top of my head) is the bit in "Even Hand" where he personally attends to the execution of one of his drug pushers who'd been dealing to kids, which is his one red line. He's wrong to kill him, but when it's a drug dealer who sells his product to children, that probably makes Marcone a hero in the eyes of some of the more, shall we say, "hardline" members of the audience.
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Nov 3, 2016 21:51
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Right. Butcher is having his cake and eating it too with Marcone. Keeping all of Marcone's truly reprehensible actions off screen so to speak lets Butcher use Marcone as an amoral ends justify the means anti-hero. The repetition of "the stakes are so high even super bad guy Marcone has to team up with Dresden & co" has placed Marcone solidly in the good camp and makes the pearl clutching about how bad and evil he is meaningless. At this point the text is presenting him as a super ruthless businessman who does the right thing in a difficult situation. Him being a gangster is Butcher's love letter to mafia movies. He might as well be corporate executive.
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Nov 3, 2016 22:18
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Wheat Loaf posted:Other than that, the only big example of Marcone being a criminal that we see firsthand (off the top of my head) is the bit in "Even Hand" where he personally attends to the execution of one of his drug pushers who'd been dealing to kids, which is his one red line. He's wrong to kill him, but when it's a drug dealer who sells his product to children, that probably makes Marcone a hero in the eyes of some of the more, shall we say, "hardline" members of the audience. I file that under the general "live by the sword" thing. When a criminal in Chicago starts breaking Marcone's rules and going after children in some fashion, that dude is gonna come down with a bad case of dead. They know the risks they're taking.
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Nov 3, 2016 22:31
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Paragon8 posted:Right. Butcher is having his cake and eating it too with Marcone. Butcher does that with a lot of villains though, for the simple reason of "if you did something utterly unforgivable in front of Harry Dresden and are not literally a god or otherwise absurdly powerful being Harry will probably flip the gently caress out." See again Lara who mostly does her evil poo poo offscreen or to bad people because otherwise it's pretty much impossible for Harry to justify not putting a fireball through her face. Saying someone is in the 'good' camp because they teamed up with Harry ignores how often Harry ends up teamed up with pretty awful people. (Which is part of the joke with that White Council Report On Dresden thing.)
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Nov 3, 2016 22:36
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The Hanging Tree is actually out in UK, it seems.
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Nov 4, 2016 00:00
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Yeah. More moronic release date hijinx. Guess I should move to Downing street temporarily.
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Nov 4, 2016 01:04
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Yeah, I went ahead and ordered a copy from Waterstone's. I'll report back if there's a short story.
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Nov 4, 2016 01:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, I went ahead and ordered a copy from Waterstone's. I'll report back if there's a short story. There is. It's not particularly interesting, this time. Edit: But Hanging tree was good-ish. I liked that we got more international stuff, but I felt the new female Heirs of Newton might have been a good idea, but they turned out a bit uninteresting cultureulterior fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 4, 2016 |
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Nov 4, 2016 01:17
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Ben Aaronovitch is doing an AMA over at /r/fantasy. He'll start answering questions in a couple of hours, I believe.
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Nov 4, 2016 14:07
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cultureulterior posted:There is. It's not particularly interesting, this time. The spoiler stuff was all setup I think - this book resolved a major overhanging plot Who the hanging man was - he's now on the run with at the least what he thinks is an avatar of Punch, and pretty much all his support network gone. The "extra Waterstones story" did really feel like the first 1/3 of an actual short story he didn't finish writing though. All it does is give you a few pages (about 8) about a character who will probably never show up again before ending right before Peter meets the not-a-goddess of the Grand Union Canel for the first time (she's mentioned as an aside during the novel but hasn't appeared on the page yet) ookiimarukochan fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Nov 4, 2016 |
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Nov 4, 2016 21:54
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Megazver posted:Ben Aaronovitch is doing an AMA over at /r/fantasy. He'll start answering questions in a couple of hours, I believe. I like his books, but wow, that was one of the poorer /r/fantasy AMAs in a while. He basically popped in, answered less than half of the questions, and updated his OP with "sorry, I have to go do stuff, find me at an in-person Q&A."
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Nov 5, 2016 02:24
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Jesus Christ, that was a terrible AMA. Like, what lovely no-effort responses. Eff that dude.
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Nov 5, 2016 03:59
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Just finished Sandman Slim #1 on a cross country flight. I liked it, are the sequels the same quality as thr first?
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Nov 5, 2016 05:06
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smertrioslol posted:Just finished Sandman Slim #1 on a cross country flight. I liked it, are the sequels the same quality as thr first? I didn't like Sandman Slim, but I'd say yes, the quality remains mostly the same. I do think the general world was pretty interesting, though. The Sandman Slim series escalates pretty hilariously, in my opinion. It's definitely neat.
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Nov 5, 2016 05:33
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smertrioslol posted:Just finished Sandman Slim #1 on a cross country flight. I liked it, are the sequels the same quality as thr first? Quality? They stayed dumb but fun for the 4 or so I read in a row. Haven't checked back to see if there are more now.
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Nov 5, 2016 06:07
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Dumb but fun was what I was referring to 
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Nov 5, 2016 07:21
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smertrioslol posted:Just finished Sandman Slim #1 on a cross country flight. I liked it, are the sequels the same quality as thr first? No. I liked one, thought two was ok, then didn't finish three.
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Nov 5, 2016 15:55
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I read them all just to see what lucifier would say he is best character in the series. The first few books are the most enjoyable.
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Nov 5, 2016 16:14
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smertrioslol posted:Just finished Sandman Slim #1 on a cross country flight. I liked it, are the sequels the same quality as thr first? Sandman slim is a super fun series the whole way through. 2 and 3 dip a little, maybe, but it's all fun in a "what can possibly top this?" way. He always does, though.
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Nov 7, 2016 14:57
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EVGA Longoria posted:Sandman slim is a super fun series the whole way through. 2 and 3 dip a little, maybe, but it's all fun in a "what can possibly top this?" way. He always does, though. Nah, book 2 keeps building on what was established in book 1. Book 3, however, loving nosedives in quality and Kadrey spends the next few books digging himself out of that hole (he does, though!).
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Nov 7, 2016 18:18
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Having reread "Even Hand" (and clearly I needed to if I spaced out and forgot it was a Marcone-POV story), it's pretty much exactly an example of how Marcone is a Bad Guy™ despite teaming up with Dresden (or at least not opposing him) in the full-length stories. He has rules, but this is a bit like saying Dexter has rules: they're both still dirtbags.
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Nov 7, 2016 18:57
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