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Blasphemeral posted:I just finished The Library at Mount Char on this thread's recommendation. I picked up the audiobook on the strength of this recommendation. Since I'm flying across country in a few days I though a 16 hour listen would be perfect for the plane ride there and back. Sadly, I made the mistake of playing the book a little bit just to make sure I wasn't setting myself up for a miserable flight. This in turn led to me finishing the book in 3 days of near non stop listening. Really engrossing, interesting prose, and though the ending was weaker than the narrative preceding it I thought the story came to a thoughtful and earned conclusion. Hell of debut for Scott Hawkins. I'll definitely be checking out his future work. Can anyone recommend something vaguely similar? I do still have to take those long flights. VVV Yup. It has been a decade though, so maybe it's worth a reread. The Puppy Bowl fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 01:48
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The Puppy Bowl posted:I picked up the audiobook on the strength of this recommendation. Since I'm flying across country in a few days I though a 16 hour listen would be perfect for the plane ride there and back. Sadly, I made the mistake of playing the book a little bit just to make sure I wasn't setting myself up for a miserable flight. This in turn led to me finishing the book in 3 days of near non stop listening. Really engrossing, interesting prose, and though the ending was weaker than the narrative preceding it I thought the story came to a thoughtful and earned conclusion. Hell of debut for Scott Hawkins. I'll definitely be checking out his future work. American gods, but you've probably already read it
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Jun 21, 2017 01:50
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Finished Charming. I dig the prose. It isn't as well-written as Rivers, or as breathless as Dresden gets, but it's solid, especially for the first book in a series. Funny. Good voice, fun dialogue. The fights are weird in that they're interesting and well-described, but a little too specific sometimes, a little too complicated. There's arcs, character development, lots of mythology, neat supernatural stuff- but I'm somewhat unsatisfied by the end of it. I can't put my finger on why, either. At a guess, there were a lot of things going on, maybe too many, and some didn't get enough attention. Kept turning pages though.  Handled the werewolf stuff much better than I thought it would. Better than Grave Peril, not as good as Summer Knight. Read it if you like your UF on the sardonic and stabby side of things.
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Jun 21, 2017 05:22
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Yeah, I enjoyed the Pax Arcana books a good deal. Also I'm on book 2 of October Daye, and it's real good. I honestly think Verus is just about even with Dresden as my favorite UF, though.
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Jun 21, 2017 13:44
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Book 1 of Alex Verus is today's Audible sale. Would recommend it to any UF fan that doesn't have it.
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Jun 22, 2017 23:47
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Book 1 of Alex Verus is today's Audible sale. Would recommend it to any UF fan that doesn't have it. With the caveat that book 1 contains very little of what makes the franchise distinctive and is pretty generic Urban Fantasy that mostly sets up stuff that gets rethought later.
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Jun 23, 2017 01:28
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The library at Mount Char was good. Hope the author keeps on writing, I'm excited to see how they grow as a writer.
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Jun 23, 2017 07:22
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I don't have any other place to vent, but I'll try to make it tangentially on topic to this thread. I was reading the latest Alex Verus book at a Starbucks on my Kobo Glo HD (a FANTASTIC and simple ereader) and when I got home I saw my ereader had a broken screen and was nonresponsive. Now I find that the Glo HD is freaking discontinued.  I don't know what to do or which new non-kindle ereader to buy. Waterproofing is a complete non-selling point to me and 6" (for a screen) was more than fine. Eff Kobo, man.  Should I just get a Nook Glowlight Plus for 70 bucks until prices come down on other ereaders in a year? And I'm going to have to finish reading the book on my desktop through Calibre.  Those of you who haven't read the Verus series absolutely should, and I guess be careful with putting ereaders in pants pockets.
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Jun 23, 2017 23:25
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Why non-Kindle?
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Jun 23, 2017 23:38
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Khizan posted:Why non-Kindle? Presumably they prefer their ebooks in EPUB format, which I completely understand given that Amazon DRMs their ebooks. (And also, Amazon's hardware feels cheap as gently caress.)
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Jun 23, 2017 23:43
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Aerdan posted:Presumably they prefer their ebooks in EPUB format, which I completely understand given that Amazon DRMs their ebooks. (And also, Amazon's hardware feels cheap as gently caress.) Nooks are absolute dogshit compared to Kindles tho
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Jun 24, 2017 00:13
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Aerdan posted:Presumably they prefer their ebooks in EPUB format, which I completely understand given that Amazon DRMs their ebooks. (And also, Amazon's hardware feels cheap as gently caress.) Well, they also use Calibre, which converts that poo poo to EPUB on the fly. I wish Amazon released a cheap Kindle with proper scroll-buttons like K4 had, whatever the current E-Ink screen model is and a backlight. That's all I want.
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Jun 24, 2017 00:14
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Megazver posted:Well, they also use Calibre, which converts that poo poo to EPUB on the fly. Calibre can also strip DRM from kindle ebooks fairly efficiently. I'm still using a Kindle Touch and I gnash my teeth over the lack of actual buttons every single day.
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Jun 24, 2017 00:42
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Slanderer posted:Nooks are absolute dogshit compared to Kindles tho I actually really liked my Nook. Sits good in the hand, was easy to read... but the store wasn't as good as Amazon's. I have a Kindle Fire that's two or three years old though, and I enjoy it. My biggest complaint is that the axis-rotation poo poo is sometimes really wonky in annoying sort of ways, and there's no good way to sort your books. I want to categorize those suckers like a Steam list. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Calibre can also strip DRM from kindle ebooks fairly efficiently. The buttons on the Nook were those very responsive, click-clack sort of buttons that were absolutely wonderful. The button equivalent of bubble wrap.
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Jun 24, 2017 00:55
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Drifter posted:I don't have any other place to vent, but I'll try to make it tangentially on topic to this thread. You could look at the Icarus Illumina E654BK (Amazon) / Boyue T63 (Banggood) which is a 6" reader running android with a backlight, physical buttons, touchscreen, 8GB internal storage + SD Card. The only real bad thing about it is the large bezels.
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Jun 24, 2017 11:57
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Oh hey the new Faust novel is out. .
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Jun 28, 2017 04:23
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vulturesrow posted:Oh hey the new Faust novel is out. . One of the few book series on Kindle Unlimited worth reading if anyone uses that, too.
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Jun 28, 2017 11:58
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Drifter posted:Kate Daniels' series, written by Ilona Andrews is really fuckin' neato. Like it a lot. Don't judge it by its covers, please. Those are terrible. Oh yes, those are terrible covers. When I went to the bookstore last month to get the latest Kate Daniel's book, the store clerk and I had a good laugh about how those covers make an urban fantasy story full of horrible monsters and action look like a romance novel. Libluini fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Jun 28, 2017 |
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Jun 28, 2017 14:07
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It really does blow my mind that all his stuff is on Kindle Unlimited.
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Jun 28, 2017 14:09
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vulturesrow posted:Oh hey the new Faust novel is out. . Oh nice. Just in time to fill my lull in summer reading. Anyone have a brief synopsis of where we are to date. I've read all these books, but I forget the nuanced character developments that change from book to book. Castle Doctrine ended with him dealing with the Necromancer and saving his other magician lady friend who becomes a quasi-crime boss? At the end, is he actually part of a Vegas syndicate and he and his demon girlfriend are broken up?
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Jun 28, 2017 15:40
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hatelull posted:Oh nice. Just in time to fill my lull in summer reading. Quick synopsis leading up to the new book: Nicky, the old crime boss of Vegas, is still on the run from the feds, so Jennifer rallied the various parts of the city's underworld to form a new syndicate with her at the top. Daniel stepped up to be her right-hand man. The Chicago mob tried to move in, Daniel and company killed the gently caress out of them and then drove to Chicago to kill even more of them, making it clear who runs the city now. Meanwhile there's this mystical sideplot with the First Story, a story repeating itself over and over through time, and the characters in it are doomed to endlessly reincarnate on different parallel worlds. The Enemy, the ongoing big bad and the Story's villain, is trying to hunt Daniel down. At the end of the last book it turned out that Naavarasi, the Rakshasi queen, has been manipulating everybody and might be a lot smarter than she always looked. Daniel and Caitlin are still together, but Nadine tried to give Daniel proof that Caitlin's manipulating him. He's ignoring her because jesus, it's Nadine talking. I'm about halfway through the new one and yeah, this is the good stuff. Action, squicky body horror, and some really funny bits. Also, unless it came up earlier in the series and I forgot, we have confirmation that vampires do not exist in the Faust universe. And there's another Revanche Cycle nod in the first chapter, the only crossover thing I've spotted so far. Well, that and Faust finds out what happened to his hemicuda.
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Jun 28, 2017 15:59
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Re: the new Faust book, the retired architect at the bar who gives him romantic advice is probably the missing Lucifer. No idea why, though.
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Jun 29, 2017 01:40
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Stonecutter Joe, everyone knows vampires don't exist.  (I hope you've read Stross' Laundry books)
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Jun 29, 2017 03:31
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Re: the new Faust book, the retired architect at the bar who gives him romantic advice is probably the missing Lucifer. No idea why, though. It's absolutely Lucifer. Schaeffer practically hits you over the head the with it considering the story he tells Faust. Now, if you're saying you have no idea why Lucifer is "missing", I don't think anyone knows yet (at least I don't recall it). I imagine it's probably something similar to Gaiman's Lucifer. Just got fed up with the job and walked away. Or maybe he's playing a deeper game working behind the scenes against The Enemy.
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Jun 29, 2017 04:36
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At a panel with Jim Butcher. Anything y'all want me to ask him?
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Jul 1, 2017 00:00
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What's the deal with Mac? Also when is the next book coming out?!
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Jul 1, 2017 00:06
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wheatpuppy posted:What's the deal with Mac? Also when is the next book coming out?! Next book is TBA still. Turns out he's been having a LOT of problems with getting his new home built; and hasn't had a stable workspace for close to a year.
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Jul 1, 2017 00:07
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"Toward the end of the books, Harry will leave Chicago, and there will be Kaiju"
jivjov fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 1, 2017 |
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Jul 1, 2017 00:09
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Ask him about that YA about Harry's daughter going to the school for magic community's children that he mentioned once in an interview.
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Jul 1, 2017 00:10
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Getting a bunch of random facts about the YA series he wants to write post Dresden, with dresden's daughter going off to St Marks, with a whole bunch of supernatural entities that only deal with Children, and you forget them when you grow up.
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Jul 1, 2017 00:11
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Maggie Dresden has straight up PTSD and agoraphobia
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Jul 1, 2017 00:12
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Jim hates writing short stories. Thinks they're a LOT harder than novels, due to the space compression. His supposed last short story will Harry's first day with Maggie going to the Zoo, told first from Harry's POV, then Maggie's, then Mouse's POV. That'll be the last one to go into Brief Cases
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Jul 1, 2017 00:17
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He considers the graphic novel stories to be canonical, more or less. He views them as "stories Harry tells Maggie", so the bones of the tale are accurate, but told through a slightly unreliable narrator
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Jul 1, 2017 00:18
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jivjov posted:At a panel with Jim Butcher. Anything y'all want me to ask him? How embarrassed does he think Patrick Rothfuss's few remaining fans should be at this point?
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Jul 1, 2017 00:19
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Butcher's dream casting for a film Harry Dresden would be Hiddleston, or a younger Fassbender.
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Jul 1, 2017 00:20
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What other urban fantasy series have come out since Dresden started that he's most enjoyed?
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Jul 1, 2017 00:22
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Didn't get to ask him that one; apologies!
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Jul 1, 2017 01:20
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jivjov posted:Jim hates writing short stories. Thinks they're a LOT harder than novels, due to the space compression. This just made me realize that I want a fully mouse pov story now
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Jul 1, 2017 01:38
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I got a chance to chat a little bit more at the autograph table. He wouldn't say anything further about Mac, claiming he's "too important", but still maintains that he's revealed a lot about Mac already that we just haven't all picked up on yet. The Blackstaff is going to become more important later, its "much more" than the speculation on it being Mother Winter's walking stick, and it's based off a staff from Celtic mythology. And for all the Codex Alera fans, he gave me a whole infodump about the early history of Alera. When the Romans showed up, the initially had befriended the Children of the Sun, and made an alliance with them. (And the Children of the Sun are photosynthetic plant beings, who used Alera's Earth and Water and Wood furies much like the Icemen used the water ones). "Something" happened, and that's when the Romans basically had to go "full Spartan, Kali-death cult" for "around a thousand years" where they only lived to fight. The original Gaius Primus busted enough heads to get people to listen to reason on how they could be so much more, and that's how the Aleran Empire was founded. I joked that I'd read that prequel novel, but he said it would be just too bleak for him to want to write a whole book about it. Oh, and his plan for the Maggie YA series would be for it to be released concurrently with latter Dresden novels. And he's "about 10 chapters in" to Peace Talks, due to his living situation having him down to "around 5%" of his normal output speed.
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Jul 1, 2017 02:50
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Re-read Skin Game. I totally forgot Michael and Charity being uh... way too cool to Harry while under the impression he slept with Molly. I feel like that maybe should have caused a little friction there during the denouement. Also I really want to read a spin-off starring Harry's two daughters getting in wacky hijinx with Mouse at boarding school.
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Jul 1, 2017 05:00
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