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I've just skimmed some Mercy books, but from that and what I've seen online I think I'd favor Kate Daniels just because she has female friends instead of being victim of a mean girls clique for sleeping with the resident alpha dude.
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Dec 7, 2016 04:42
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First novel Mercy...really, don't feel bad for just skipping the internal dialogue. It's really unnecessary. The romance plays into the story nicely enough for the genre, but her thoughts, oh god her thoughts.Mars4523 posted:I've just skimmed some Mercy books, but from that and what I've seen online I think I'd favor Kate Daniels just because she has female friends instead of being victim of a mean girls clique for sleeping with the resident alpha dude. That's not a completely unfair criticism, but it is a series, and that changes as the books improve, the series widens its scope. torgeaux fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Dec 7, 2016 |
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Dec 7, 2016 11:39
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mistaya posted:... Evil Hat is releasing Dresden Files: Accelerated soon as well, (no eta yet but the beta's been around for over a year) and it's both excellent and way easier to get into than the old DFRPG game. Wish we'd get an update on when that's coming out though... An email this morning: Fred Hicks / Evil Hat posted:Hello, and good news! It's backers only, I believe, but that does answer the question of why we haven't heard anything for a bit--they were readying another release. Additionally: Fred Hicks / Evil Hat posted:We'll only be able to act on feedback received before December 31st, though, so sooner is better than later. So it's likely to be released soon'ish.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:25
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tithin posted:Finished The Hanging Tree, what an absolutely great book. Late to the party, but what the gently caress, there are 6 of these now? Time to get readin'
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Dec 9, 2016 20:25
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I also just finished The Hanging Tree. Knocked it out in a couple of days and I loved every minute of it. I guess I'll start the Mercy Thompson books since I'm caught up on everything else.
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Dec 10, 2016 03:03
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I haven't been following for a while, but did Butcher hit a wall on the Dresden Files? I hope he hasn't lost interest in finishing it.
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Dec 10, 2016 20:50
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Subvisual Haze posted:I haven't been following for a while, but did Butcher hit a wall on the Dresden Files? I hope he hasn't lost interest in finishing it. Only a wall in the sense of the books becoming longer and more complex. As far as I've heard he's still working on them fine.
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Dec 10, 2016 21:17
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Subvisual Haze posted:I haven't been following for a while, but did Butcher hit a wall on the Dresden Files? I hope he hasn't lost interest in finishing it. Well, we've had a Molly-POV short ('Cold Case', in Shadowed Souls) get published on 1 November and the Butters-POV short 'Day One' was just published in Unfettered II. No word yet on the Luccio-POV short 'A Fistful of Warlocks' (to be published in Straight Outta Tombstone), though. I'm kind of peeved by how low-key Waldo's first day is compared to Molly's, though.
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Dec 10, 2016 21:57
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I've been poking through the feedback copy of Dresden Accelerated and it's good. It's way more accessible and playable than the legacy Dresden Files RPG. It remains a very narrative-focused game while also having a much more structured ruleset. It also as new Fey Knight mantles, the Erlking's Huntmaster and Kringle's Senechal. Kringle's Senechal gets an optional ability where it can borrow Kringle's sleigh. There's also rules for playing a Valkyrie, a full-blooded Fae, and a Red Court Vampire. There's also very fun-looking rules for playing various specialized kinds of mortals like Criminals, Law Enforcement, Supernatural Experts, and others. It's really, really good.
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Dec 10, 2016 22:24
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-Fish- posted:I've been poking through the feedback copy of Dresden Accelerated and it's good. It's way more accessible and playable than the legacy Dresden Files RPG. It remains a very narrative-focused game while also having a much more structured ruleset. It also as new Fey Knight mantles, the Erlking's Huntmaster and Kringle's Senechal. Kringle's Senechal gets an optional ability where it can borrow Kringle's sleigh. There's also rules for playing a Valkyrie, a full-blooded Fae, and a Red Court Vampire. There's also very fun-looking rules for playing various specialized kinds of mortals like Criminals, Law Enforcement, Supernatural Experts, and others. New mantles? I feel like I have to track down a copy to keep up with the lore.
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Dec 10, 2016 22:33
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A. Beaverhausen posted:New mantles? I feel like I have to track down a copy to keep up with the lore. Kringle's Senechal may be the best new lore addition to the series I've ever seen.
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Dec 10, 2016 22:37
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-Fish- posted:Kringle's Senechal may be the best new lore addition to the series I've ever seen. Care to elaborate? behind spoilers if you're concerned
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Dec 11, 2016 02:14
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tithin posted:Care to elaborate? behind spoilers if you're concerned The purpose of Kringle's Senechal is to foster and grow mortal belief in Santa Claus and his various incarnations. It has access to the Naughty and Nice list and can use that to determine what the greatest desire of an NPC is, and if it's not already in a scene it can abruptly declare that it was in disguise as one of the NPCs the entire time. You can opt into abilities that give you access to the sack of toys, Santa's sleigh, illusion magic, the ability to sense failed attempts to summon Santa and show up in a nearly perfect Santa disguise, and a stunt that gives you just a flat bonus to actions committed in the name of strengthening mortal belief in Santa.
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Dec 11, 2016 04:38
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that owns
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Dec 11, 2016 04:41
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Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century?
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Dec 11, 2016 22:04
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? I enjoyed The Golem and the Jinni - it's set in turn-of-the-20th-century New York, and features, sure enough, a Golem and a Jinni.
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Dec 11, 2016 22:09
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Wizchine posted:I enjoyed The Golem and the Jinni - it's set in turn-of-the-20th-century New York, and features, sure enough, a Golem and a Jinni. I was coming here to link that- lovely book. It's definitely a sort of urban fantasy, and it's just a very fun book with interesting characters.
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Dec 11, 2016 22:12
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I will certainly add that one to the list. Still, I'm surprised nobody's really a done much like that already. You could do, say, a Buffy crossed with a Pygmalion or a Trilby with Count Dracula as the big bad and it'd be a natural fit. You know, like the young adult version of Penny Dreadful or something; just get the sets from that, cast a CW type as the lead, get a posh-sounding British guy as the enigmatic mentor and your're all set. I reckon something like that would do well on television. I should like to write something like that if I had the ability, but since I don't, I would settle for reading it.  I read Kim Newman's Angels of Music when it came out a couple of months ago; it's not urban fantasy but it's tons of fun. Many of the references are even more oblique than Anno Dracula, but it's Charlie's Angels if the Angels were the heroines of late Victorian / Edwardian literature and Charlie was the Phantom of the Opera. There's a story which is 50% Mission Impossible and 50% James Bond where the villain is Charles Foster Kane trying to foment a war between the British Empire and France using a council of second-rate pulp bad guys. What's not to like?
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Dec 11, 2016 23:12
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Bonnono posted:I just noticed this on my Amazon recommended items list Next April, you mean? He's been pretty good amount getting a book done every year, though
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Dec 12, 2016 02:10
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? Maybe Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books. They're YA and silly, but reasonably fun. The Anno Dracula books by Kim Newman might scratch that itch (decidedly NOT YA). The Bartimeus (sp?) books by Johnathan Stroud (also YA and silly) If you can handle Orson Scott Card and "non-Mormonism-seriously-you-guys", read the Alvin Maker, but, much like Dune, stop when you don't like them anymore.
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Dec 12, 2016 03:24
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell?
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Dec 12, 2016 08:13
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navyjack posted:Maybe Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books. They're YA and silly, but reasonably fun. The Anno Dracula books by Kim Newman might scratch that itch (decidedly NOT YA). The Bartimeus (sp?) books by Johnathan Stroud (also YA and silly) Oh, yeah, I love Anno Dracula. There's a new one coming out early next year (another short story collection) then book five's out some time in the autumn. I'm a bit disappointed there weren't any author's notes or annotations for Johnny Alucard. Those are always fun.
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Dec 12, 2016 14:47
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What a good book. Anyone know if the BBC adaptation is any good?
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Dec 12, 2016 15:19
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flosofl posted:What a good book. I enjoyed it.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:24
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flosofl posted:What a good book. Very good, even if you haven't read the book. Costumes and sets are chosen excellently well. Very faithful to the book overall but changes the ending a bit.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:29
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? e: drat, there's a new Kim Newman out? Need to get that asap. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 18:56
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navyjack posted:The Bartimeus (sp?) books by Johnathan Stroud (also YA and silly) I liked those books. Goofy magi-punk with the snarkiest demon I've read about in a while.
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Dec 13, 2016 00:53
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers?
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Dec 13, 2016 01:50
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Robot Wendigo posted:The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers? This is a good suggestion.
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Dec 13, 2016 02:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Very good, even if you haven't read the book. Costumes and sets are chosen excellently well. Very faithful to the book overall but changes the ending a bit. The only thing I disliked about the BBC adaptation is that the Man with the Thistle Down Hair was a lot more menacing than I pictured. I always thought he was scary because he was genial and friendly even when doing horrible things but the BBC version is basically nasty 24/7 Also I recommend giving Anno Dracula a shot. It's a bit weird but at very least is amazing for how many references it can fit in per second.
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Dec 13, 2016 02:28
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Great book, yeah. flosofl posted:What a good book. If that's the miniseries on Netflix, yeah, it's amazing. ImpAtom posted:The only thing I disliked about the BBC adaptation is that the Man with the Thistle Down Hair was a lot more menacing than I pictured. I always thought he was scary because he was genial and friendly even when doing horrible things but the BBC version is basically nasty 24/7 I loved his perpetual menace. Being able to be sinister when standing completely properly is a real art. I can see what you're saying, though.
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Dec 13, 2016 21:02
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is there anything good / noteworthy in UF that's set in the 19th / early-20th century? In addition to some of the others already mentioned (particularly anything by Kim Newman or Tim Powers), Freedom and Necessity by Stephen Brust and Emma Bull. Territory by Bull is also extremely good, though it's a straight-up fantasy western (set around the events leading up to the OK Corral shootout).
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Dec 13, 2016 22:20
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navyjack posted:Maybe Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books. A warning - they're very much twee stick-some-gears-on-brown-clothes 2nd generation steampunk (i.e. no consideration of the politics, all the nobility are kind wonderful chaps, etc)
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Dec 14, 2016 00:26
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ookiimarukochan posted:A warning - they're very much twee stick-some-gears-on-brown-clothes 2nd generation steampunk (i.e. no consideration of the politics, all the nobility are kind wonderful chaps, etc) This is absolutely accurate.
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Dec 14, 2016 10:11
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I don't tend to be especially keen on steampunk, or most things ending in "-punk".
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Dec 14, 2016 12:22
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Wheat Loaf posted:I don't tend to be especially keen on steampunk, or most things ending in "-punk". The word's been overused to the point of meaninglessness. Early cyberpunk was called that because it actually had a punk-rock ethos; somehow it became a catch-all phrase for "sci-fi what has cyberspace and cyborg arms in it." Same for steampunk (Victorian filth and squalor, fighting the corrupt aristocracy? Nah, just glue some gears on your hat and wear goggles.) I'm not sure if it was a deliberate watering down (publishers wanting to jump on a bandwagon and use the -punk thing for marketing), or people just not getting why the genres were coined that in the first place.
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Dec 14, 2016 13:30
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StonecutterJoe posted:The word's been overused to the point of meaninglessness. Early cyberpunk was called that because it actually had a punk-rock ethos; somehow it became a catch-all phrase for "sci-fi what has cyberspace and cyborg arms in it." Same for steampunk (Victorian filth and squalor, fighting the corrupt aristocracy? Nah, just glue some gears on your hat and wear goggles.) I'm not sure if it was a deliberate watering down (publishers wanting to jump on a bandwagon and use the -punk thing for marketing), or people just not getting why the genres were coined that in the first place. It's always business marketing, and also the co-opting authors themselves basically writing only the cool bits of the genre that they liked without an understanding of the finer politics.
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Dec 14, 2016 23:19
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Good steampunk is universally militantly political, usually militantly Marxist, or at least Dickensian--mieville, or Iron Dragons Daughter. The trick everyone misses about writing about the Victorian era is you can't romanticize it. you need the work houses and poverty and class war and exploitation and opium dens and black lung, or its just playing dress up.
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Dec 15, 2016 00:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Good steampunk is universally militantly political, usually militantly Marxist, or at least Dickensian--mieville, or Iron Dragons Daughter. People like to forget that in the Victorian time less than 20 % were "Middle Class" (ie still have to work, but overall rather well-off, owned more than the clothes on their backs, could buy useless poo poo), 5 % who didn't need to work for their income, 1 % was super rich and the other 75 % lived somewhere between a slum dweller/garbage collector in India, a subsistence farmer in Bangladesh and a migrant worker in a Chinese sweat shop. If your time traveling heroine stranded there she would be a lot more likely to pick dog poo poo out of the horse manure on the street to sell it to a tanner than host fancy tea parties for Queen Victoria on her airship.
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Dec 15, 2016 07:53
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I finally managed to get a copy of Unfettered 2 just for Day One. The WoW references were a bit forced in my opinion, but seeing Butters actually go through the experience and narrate it firsthand was great. Especially how the Almighty spoke through him without actually using him as a puppet like some powers would. Just a gentle nudge, more or less, but it was Butters own voice. The pep talk was fantastic, too.
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Jan 1, 2017 00:28
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