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Anderida isn't doing a numbered edition (edit: of False Value) and that makes me sad.
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Feb 20, 2020 02:36
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Verus news: Still trying to figure how Anne followed Verus on a Council mission that one time after it was established that's expressly against protocol
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Feb 20, 2020 04:21
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biracial bear for uncut posted:The Daniel Faust, Revanche Cycle and Wisdom's Grave series. I didn't like Faust as much as Harmony Black, which is why I didn't mention it, sorry. I haven't read Revanche or Wisdom's Grave. Also how the gently caress does he write so much
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Feb 20, 2020 04:38
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tentacles posted:Still trying to figure how Anne followed Verus on a Council mission that one time after it was established that's expressly against protocol She was there as a council assistant, not a healer assignment? Since she never gets any healer assignments.
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Feb 20, 2020 05:27
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Chiming in to say The Rook is a fun read, and it's sequel (sorta) Stiletto is also good. I actually kinda like Stiletto better because it gets more pants-on-head crazy. e: also welsh is amusing to me, Myfanwy Vanadium Dame fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 09:15
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I also liked the rook TV series, it was good.
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Feb 20, 2020 12:00
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Is Harmony Black the one where I should skip the first novel?
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Feb 20, 2020 13:52
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Dawgstar posted:Is Harmony Black the one where I should skip the first novel?
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Feb 20, 2020 13:54
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anilEhilated posted:Nah. The weakest Harmony is the third one and that's just underwhelming, not offensive. It’s worth noting that the author is insistent that a big part of the failure of harmony black was his old publisher forcing things into the story. I’m not sure I buy that, but I’m giving it another chance with the new books.
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Feb 20, 2020 14:37
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Drone Jett posted:She was there as a council assistant, not a healer assignment? Since she never gets any healer assignments. Well, technically I guess, but she assisted by healing 
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Feb 20, 2020 15:05
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tentacles posted:Well, technically I guess, but she assisted by healing That rule is to prevent healers from being killed in the field. They don’t care about Ann.
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Feb 20, 2020 15:08
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xsf421 posted:It’s worth noting that the author is insistent that a big part of the failure of harmony black was his old publisher forcing things into the story. I’m not sure I buy that, but I’m giving it another chance with the new books.
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Feb 20, 2020 15:29
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Erisian Automata posted:Chiming in to say The Rook is a fun read, and it's sequel (sorta) Stiletto is also good. I actually kinda like Stiletto better because it gets more pants-on-head crazy. I enjoyed The Rook more, in large part because I like the epistolary interludes of Myfanwy's notes from her previous self. I was really disappointed those didn't make a return in Stiletto. My biggest complaint about the book is and always will be that if you name your secret base "The Rookery", your ranks should be named after loving corvidae, not chess pieces! Argh!
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Feb 20, 2020 16:55
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ToxicFrog posted:I enjoyed The Rook more, in large part because I like the epistolary interludes of Myfanwy's notes from her previous self. I was really disappointed those didn't make a return in Stiletto. That's just silly.
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Feb 20, 2020 17:02
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ToxicFrog posted:I enjoyed The Rook more, in large part because I like the epistolary interludes of Myfanwy's notes from her previous self. I was really disappointed those didn't make a return in Stiletto. There's a whole segment in one of the books about the breakdown of the chess metaphor. It's a perfect microcosm of how much Dumb poo poo happens in and around the Chequay. Also, I felt that Stiletto lacked a lot of the absurdist humor from The Rook. Some of it was still there, but the book was missing poo poo like Orbital Strike On A Dragon and the duck. The duck chapter is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
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Feb 20, 2020 17:37
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ConfusedUs posted:There's a whole segment in one of the books about the breakdown of the chess metaphor. It's a perfect microcosm of how much Dumb poo poo happens in and around the Chequay. If memory serves, it even explains why King and Queen are not Chequay ranks (the actual royal family gets real un-cool about other folks calling themselves king/queen on british soil)
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Feb 20, 2020 20:37
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I think that was the turning point in The Rook for me. Before that bit it seemed like it was trying to keep a serious tone, then I realized oh this is going to be an insane farce.
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Feb 21, 2020 04:33
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ConfusedUs posted:There's a whole segment in one of the books about the breakdown of the chess metaphor. It's a perfect microcosm of how much Dumb poo poo happens in and around the Chequay. The duck chapter is amazing. I was able to re-listen to The Rook this summer and I had successfully forgotten most of the book so I was able to enjoy it again. BabyFur Denny posted:I also liked the rook TV series, it was good. I think you're the first poster in this thread to like it honestly
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Feb 21, 2020 05:11
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Turned on the Kindle about 11pm last night and oh poo poo new Rivers book. Six hours later... Not bad overall, could probably have used less baby bump oiling. Although as mentioned by Peter himself the whole industrial scale magic thing does kind of invalidate all of the ridiculous build a tower block to capture magic shenanigans of the faceless man. I wonder if Ben has been reading the Laundry Files lately.
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Feb 23, 2020 16:21
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RockyB posted:Turned on the Kindle about 11pm last night and oh poo poo new Rivers book. Six hours later... He and Stross are friends and considered a crossover at one point but apparently there is a fundamental conflict.in the magic systems. Overall I liked the new one but it was a little rough structurally and could've used a little more polishing time, but then we would've had to wait longer for it. Seems like he's setting up the next big arc. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Feb 23, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 19:18
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Yeah, I don't see Nightingale reacting well at all to the existence of computational demonology as presented in the Laundry Files. Also The New Management would've probably destroyed The Folly and everyone in it because it offended Him.
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Feb 23, 2020 20:11
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In other news I chewed through the Kings Watch series recently. Having a middle aged ex-RAF chopper pilot as the main character and, gasp, recognising that there's more to England than London made them a pretty good read. Also nice to find some urban fantasy without ridiculous power creep or creepy werewolf alpha poo poo. Interesting take on dwarves too. E: Still waiting on the Slough / Milton Keynes based urban fantasy of my dreams though. Come friendly bombs and all that. EE: I'd even take a good Scouser. RockyB fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Feb 24, 2020 |
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Feb 24, 2020 00:53
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Milton Keynes is weird enough, that’s true.
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Feb 24, 2020 15:34
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RockyB posted:Turned on the Kindle about 11pm last night and oh poo poo new Rivers book. Six hours later... Not necessarily. I haven't read the book (and intend to avoid this thread for the next few days until I have read it) but I suppose it depends on how you define "industrial." For me it's Henry Ford and the assembly line. Instead of one or a few talented people putting together a car, Ford had shitloads of people, each doing one fairly simple task in sequence and as a result he could produce a whole lot more cars than other manufactures. Plus, his vehicles were identical - and as such had interchangeable parts which made them much easier to repair. The Faceless Man was one guy (with a few "helpers" only one of which (Lesley) could do much real magic). He was a skilled, highly capable one guy, but still one guy. One of the things in the "Riververse" is that there's a pretty hard limit in terms of magic in that if you channel too much, you fry your own brain. But if you could apply some kind of industrial process that "spread the load" among several (perhaps hundreds) of people, you could channel enough power to do some really terrifying poo poo. Aside from all that, we've already seen "industrial magic" at work in Whispers Underground. The Quiet People have been making poo poo-tons of unbreakable plates for generations.
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Feb 26, 2020 02:20
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Nice little 40k reference in False Value. I smiled when I caught that.
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Feb 26, 2020 13:12
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If I hadn't read Hitchhiker's I would have no idea what I was reading the first few chapters of False Value.
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Feb 26, 2020 17:38
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I wonder what the Venn diagram between rivers of London fans and HHGttG fans is. It can’t be one circle contained entirely within another circle, but it has to be pretty close.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:18
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What if you read the books and listened to the radio show (because it was free, briefly, on Audible) but don't consider yourself a "fan"? It was funny, and I usually recognize references to it, but I don't go around quoting it or anything.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:36
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He and Stross are friends and considered a crossover at one point but apparently there is a fundamental conflict.in the magic systems. I feel bad about the Laundry. The scope creep just entirely killed my enthusiasm for the setting.
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Feb 27, 2020 20:12
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False Value thoughts: It wasnt bad, but it definitely has the feel of a transitional chapter, and it was a little muddled. I came away from it without a firm grasp on who the new antagonists are, what the Mary Engine actually is/how exactly it was operated and how the re-assembled one was used on its own to magic-up the drones. Parts of it reminded me a lot more of the short stories where he wanted to present an interesting tidbit from the world, but I would have expected things to get resolved a bit more in a full novel. Maybe he wants to liven up the setting by giving a mechanism for introducing new magic, but its somewhat disappointing to lock the Mary Engine in a vault so that no one has to explain it ever again lol. Aside from that, I'm glad Leslie wasn't mentioned, or Mr Punch. It's a nice change of pace to not know what they're up to, and honestly Aaronovich probably should have introduced other long-term antagonists earlier on in the series (Foxglove Summer was like that, but having Peter be texting Leslie constantly throughout should have been dropped IMO). One weird thing that could be my imagination is that it feels like Nightingale had a significant personality change, and it's not really discussed?? I'd have to go back through the book elaborate, but he just felt different, and his status as a secondary character made that even more noticeable somehow.
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Feb 29, 2020 21:31
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I think a lot of poo poo is happening in the comic books that may explain that, but I'll be hosed if I'm going to track them down and read them. Learned my lesson there with the Dresden comics and how they made everything involving Molly infinitely creepier.
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Feb 29, 2020 23:01
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The comics are mostly monster of the week/interesting case style, they don't really push the main plot forward and all but the unpublished one take place before Lies Sleeping chronologically. There is some side character exploration but it fills out their history or side stuff outside of the books and I don't feel you need to read them to understand what is going on in the main series titles although you might miss some things. False Value is kind of a mess, seems like it should have been delayed longer. A lot of words get spent on uninteresting things that ultimately go nowhere especially in the first half and when it finally starts picking up steam its over. The returning cast doesn't really get to do anything and some of them feel off like Nightingale, I feel like most of the new characters introduced just aren't interesting. The ending doesn't really seem to resolve in a way that sets up a new antagonist in any meaningful way even though that seems to be the intention. Overall not the worst book I've ever read or anything but definitely a low point for the series Also did they really set up "Peter is suspended for real this time" as a cliffhanger at the end of the last book and then resolve it between books without even so much as an explanation?? Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Mar 1, 2020 |
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Mar 1, 2020 00:36
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I just want that book about Nightingale's adventures fighting Nazis.
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Mar 1, 2020 03:31
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Hub Cat posted:The comics are mostly monster of the week/interesting case style, they don't really push the main plot forward and all but the unpublished one take place before Lies Sleeping chronologically. There is some side character exploration but it fills out their history or side stuff outside of the books and I don't feel you need to read them to understand what is going on in the main series titles although you might miss some things. I admit that I'd been really looking forward to more/any Abigail. The [spoiler]Library stuff seemed kind of off. Figure if Nightingale was going to invite anyone over for a "friendly" chat over tea (as he did the lady and her daughter in Book 6 (and WTF happened with them? They should have shown up more) it would have been people representing a foreign but very much potentially allied organization. You just know that at some point Peter's going to have to go to New York and have to work with them on their turf Hub Cat posted:Also did they really set up "Peter is suspended for real this time" as a cliffhanger at the end of the last book and then resolve it between books without even so much as an explanation??[/spoiler] What explanation did you need? It's pretty clear to me that while they went through the motions (some of them, anyway) ultimately everyone who mattered believed Peter's account about what happened to Chorley and in their heart of hearts they're kind of glad his rear end got whacked because Lesley was absolutely correct about the continuing danger he'd have presented as a captive. Still, the situation present this other group of cops with an opportunity to put one of the two magically trained police officers they had undercover, so they broached the idea of Peter went with it. I will say that the whole "fishy bit" with the demon traps and the "darkness" makes me wonder if we'll be getting Peter vs. the Great Old Ones at some point. He did play Call of Cthulhu when he was younger, so... experience in the field, I guess.
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Mar 2, 2020 00:23
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{*False Value Spoilers*}Everyone posted:The Library stuff seemed kind of off. Figure if Nightingale was going to invite anyone over for a "friendly" chat over tea (as he did the lady and her daughter in Book 6 (and WTF happened with them? They should have shown up more) it would have been people representing a foreign but very much potentially allied organization. You just know that at some point Peter's going to have to go to New York and have to work with them on their turf The Library(librarians?) got a similar treatment to the Virgins from Hanging Tree or Varvara before she agreed to work with them, the Folly does not appreciate practioners stomping on their ground uninvited disturbing the Queen's Peace. I think they would have gotten a reasonably friendly send-off back home had they not tried to double-cross Peter and almost blown up the building(forcing them to make things official) and at least were reasonably cooperative after they were caught. I don't think they could have safely brought them in earlier without tipping off Skinner to the investigation. I don't really see the Library working with the Folly on friendly/equal terms for a lot of reasons, whereas Caroline and Helena were happy to work together as long as Nightingale was willing to share the Third Principia(Not that they could have kept Caroline or arrested Helena with them technically not having committed any prosecutable crimes). The Mary Engine being so dangerous I don't see the Library trusting anybody else with it so there was always going to be strife if the Folly didn't agree to destroy it upfront, which seems to go against their general stance.(well Nightingale/Postmartin's, I think Peter would). Everyone posted:What explanation did you need? It's pretty clear to me that while they went through the motions (some of them, anyway) ultimately everyone who mattered believed Peter's account about what happened to Chorley and in their heart of hearts they're kind of glad his rear end got whacked because Lesley was absolutely correct about the continuing danger he'd have presented as a captive. Still, the situation present this other group of cops with an opportunity to put one of the two magically trained police officers they had undercover, so they broached the idea of Peter went with it. The "reveal" if there was one is just Peter calling Nightingale without any fanfare, so its like "Oh, I guess he got his job back" it didn't really further the plot, provide tension or anything, I just felt that Aaronovitch had a bigger plot line of "Peter is suspended and might get fired" intended when he wrote the ending of Lies Sleeping and changed his mind, or just couldn't get it to work and it just fizzled out; feels like a waste and just contributes to the feeling the story could have used another draft. Guleed pointed out that he was unsuspended, and then stumbled on Silver's case against Skinner so they teamed up and he was faux resuspended so there was a gap which is part of why I think its silly. It's entirely possible I got the wrong impression though  Not really sure I would be happy with full on Great Old ones tbh, feels like it would really blow up the scope of the universe. Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Mar 3, 2020 |
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Mar 2, 2020 05:46
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Peter's job status was resolved in the most recent comic series, the final issue of which was released a few weeks ago so that wasn't really an issue for me reading the book. The end of False Value seems to hint that Nightingale is considering leaving policing behind and is looking at Peter to take over leadership of the SAU. Coupled with the fact that Nightingale's mentioned to be working on reacquainting himself with some of the basics of magic instruction, I'm wondering if he isn't considering a career change into teaching and possibly reopening Casterbrook. I mean, why review the basics now when both Peter and Abigail are obviously well past that?
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Mar 2, 2020 05:55
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Fearless posted:Snip That's annoying, hate having to buy all the things or miss plot details. And to think I just defended the comics on that issue. I agree with you on the rest though.
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Mar 2, 2020 06:08
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Hub Cat posted:That's annoying, hate having to buy all the things or miss plot details. And to think I just defended the comics on that issue. I'm not sure if it was intentional as such. I wonder if the book's delay in publishing had something to do with it? It was originally scheduled for an October release as I recall.
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Mar 2, 2020 06:13
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Eh feeling more like I'm just getting hung up on dumb poo poo really. I was gonna get the comics anyway just didn't realize they were out already and like I said earlier we all knew Peter was gonna keep his job so I'll give False Value and at least Lies Sleeping a reread and see if I change my mind at all about it.
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Mar 2, 2020 07:23
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Hub Cat posted:Eh feeling more like I'm just getting hung up on dumb poo poo really. I was gonna get the comics anyway just didn't realize they were out already and like I said earlier we all knew Peter was gonna keep his job so I'll give False Value and at least Lies Sleeping a reread and see if I change my mind at all about it. I think the criticism of False Value being unpolished is valid-- I don't think it's you at all. I found the introduction to the book very unfocused and rushed and also found it difficult to keep the different characters that were introduced straight as there were so many thrown at us so quickly. Fearless fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Mar 2, 2020 |
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Mar 2, 2020 07:26
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