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His Divine Shadow posted:Got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow (by my standards anyway, 2 hours) so I picked up the 1st Verus book in audiobook format based on reading about it here. So far it seems interesting, lol at the Dresden callout. Verus books are not sex heavy at all, no. Also they pretty drastically begin to change tones with the third or so book so the first book isn't the best indicator of if you will like it. It's important to the plot and all but just be prepared for it to be less Savescumming Dresden and more Everything Is Awful For Alex Verus In Particular.
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Oct 15, 2020 06:37
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To be fair it never completely stops being Savescumming Dresden.
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Oct 15, 2020 07:07
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Except that Verus is decidedly less scummy than Dresden.
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Oct 15, 2020 11:52
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DreamingofRoses posted:I’m going with Maeve, because she’s waaaay too nice for Titania. But I’m now super curious about Stacey’s kids after this past book because October was going along a very concerning “this doesn’t make sense” line and then it just completely slips away! Thats also adding that between the return of the Roan and Karen and Cassandra we’re getting a big ole return of future tellers/seers to Faerie. Simon's divorce/marrying into a throuple made me laugh. I am wondering what Sylvester will do. Since I guess he is now a citizen of the Undersea now. I donno how hard charging him would be now. Also, this book made me interested in August and what will happen to her now that she has left Amandine. I'm also interested in a woken up not crazy Raseline. Working for October for year, do you think that would make her squire number 3? Toby keeps saying she is done collecting teenagers but we all know that is a lie. While Raseline isn't a teen, experience wise she kinda is. Also Luna's gonna be pissed. Anyway, as far as earlier plot things, I think April is kinda conclude since January was brought back in a short, Simon is kinda concluded with his trouple marriage. Raseline's mentle health/recovery and Luna's wrath seem to be the earliest book plots that need some closure. Also, I'm pretty sure that Jazz and May are gonna break up. 
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Oct 15, 2020 20:25
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KellHound posted:
Luna can get hosed as far as I'm concerned. I mean I get she's pissed and I even get why, but to freeze Toby out of the family after everything Toby has done and sacrificed for her and Simon... She just infuriates me right now.
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Oct 15, 2020 20:34
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Proteus Jones posted:Luna can get hosed as far as I'm concerned. I mean I get she's pissed and I even get why, but to freeze Toby out of the family after everything Toby has done and sacrificed for her and Simon... Same. Same
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Oct 15, 2020 20:58
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ImpAtom posted:Verus books are not sex heavy at all, no. Oh man, I've been going back through the books and I totally forgot how infuriating the EIAFAVIP stuff can get. The books are pretty consistently good, but holy poo poo. Like, I just finished Burned, and the fact that Richard's entire plan is to have a light mage go "Yeah, I can't tell you what this keeper auxiliary did but I think he should be sentenced to death" and get it ratified on the spot is insane. It'd be better if more of the Light dudes just kinda shrugged and went "Yeah this is hosed, but what can you do?", but the one-two punch of "Jimmy the wizard senator from Idaho said so" being sufficient grounds for an execution and frigging Caldera and Sonder being all "Harry, stop making trouble and just go along with your execution, maybe justice will be served and they'll change their minds" was really aggravating to read.
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Oct 16, 2020 00:07
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KellHound posted:Same. Same Everyone in that goddamn family needs therapy YESTERDAY.
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Oct 16, 2020 01:11
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DreamingofRoses posted:Everyone in that goddamn I keep hoping Toby comes across a fae therapist.
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Oct 16, 2020 08:34
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Omi no Kami posted:Oh man, I've been going back through the books and I totally forgot how infuriating the EIAFAVIP stuff can get. The books are pretty consistently good, but holy poo poo. Like, I just finished Burned, and the fact that Richard's entire plan is to have a light mage go "Yeah, I can't tell you what this keeper auxiliary did but I think he should be sentenced to death" and get it ratified on the spot is insane. It'd be better if more of the Light dudes just kinda shrugged and went "Yeah this is hosed, but what can you do?", but the one-two punch of "Jimmy the wizard senator from Idaho said so" being sufficient grounds for an execution and frigging Caldera and Sonder being all "Harry, stop making trouble and just go along with your execution, maybe justice will be served and they'll change their minds" was really aggravating to read. "Harry?" I assume you means Alex. Figure Harry Dresden would be considered a "Dark Wizard" in the Verus series. And by this point would most likely have nuked the Light Council already.
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Oct 17, 2020 15:35
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Everyone posted:"Harry?" I assume you means Alex. Figure Harry Dresden would be considered a "Dark Wizard" in the Verus series. And by this point would most likely have nuked the Light Council already. Whoops yeah, Alex... the Verus books are much better, but somehow in my head they're filed away as Dresden: No Weird Sex poo poo Edition.
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Oct 18, 2020 02:09
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Omi no Kami posted:Whoops yeah, Alex... the Verus books are much better, but somehow in my head they're filed away as Dresden: No Weird Sex poo poo Edition. That's understandable. You can pretty clearly see the influences of Dresden Files on the Verus series, though Jacka has also very obviously made it his own thing.
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Oct 18, 2020 02:35
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Meanwhile I finished up Fallen and had more fun than not while reading through the series, although it was a little disappointing that the big Rachel/Deleo prophecy was just "Make fun of the crazy person until she shoots a dehydration laser at you".
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Oct 18, 2020 11:20
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I like Verus but I've had enough Anne to last a lifetime.
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Oct 18, 2020 22:50
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Spider-mom and Mcdonalds Mage are the true heroes of the alex verus cinematic universe.
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Oct 19, 2020 02:18
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I restarted the Daniel Faust books last week and I've binged through the first four since then. There's a big jump in quality after the first one, once it shifts from "it's another urban fantasy book" to being about doing cons and heists and poo poo. I love it so much I'm almost hesitant to read the Harmony Black books
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Oct 19, 2020 04:17
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Omi no Kami posted:Spider-mom and Mcdonalds Mage are the true heroes of the alex verus cinematic universe. Spider-mom returned to her home planet and McDonald's Mage got hurt badly in the previous book, IIRC. Beachcomber posted:I like Verus but I've had enough Anne to last a lifetime. Good news! She's probably going to get killed in the next book or two, unless Verus does some severe bullshit with the Fate Weaver.
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Oct 19, 2020 11:55
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Spider-mom returned to her home planet and McDonald's Mage got hurt badly in the previous book, IIRC. Yeah... I think Cinder's fine though? If I recall he got banged up off-screen before the book started but didn't participate in the gib factory, so all's good-ish in the universe. But yeah, as far as Anne goes I remember the prophecy was that either Verus lives or Anne lives... and I was totally A-OK with that trade until they added that Vari would die too, and ehh- he's a pretty okay guy, even if he is an rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 19, 2020 12:14
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I don't know who Mcdonalds Mage is, despite reading all the Verus books.
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Oct 19, 2020 12:33
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Darkrenown posted:I don't know who Mcdonalds Mage is, despite reading all the Verus books. Cinder arranges meets with Verus in a McDonalds...twice? Maaaaybe three times.
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Oct 19, 2020 14:20
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Darkrenown posted:I don't know who Mcdonalds Mage is, despite reading all the Verus books. Drone Jett posted:Cinder arranges meets with Verus in a McDonalds...twice? Maaaaybe three times. It's not just any McDonald's but that specific one. Verus questions Cinder about it and doesn't get a straight answer. Cinder thinks that specific one has good fries or something.
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Oct 19, 2020 16:26
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Huh, so he does. Cinder's fun when he teams up with Alex.
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Oct 19, 2020 16:53
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As someone who drives a lot for work and ends up eating more fast food than he should, there are definitely better or worse McDonalds. I know of one McDonalds that seasons the burgers better than most but their fries are poo poo, another that does the fries right but the burger is only okay, and one that seems to either be a test bed or is owned by a very experimental franchisee and has stuff on the menu that no one else does. As far as I know, however, there's no such thing as a perfect McDonalds. 
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Oct 19, 2020 19:06
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Dumper Humper posted:I restarted the Daniel Faust books last week and I've binged through the first four since then. There's a big jump in quality after the first one, once it shifts from "it's another urban fantasy book" to being about doing cons and heists and poo poo. I love it so much I'm almost hesitant to read the Harmony Black books The Harmony Black books also get a lot better once the publisher stops meddling. And the Wisdom's Grave trilogy is better still. I keep meaning to do a proper reread actually following the reading order, I think I'll have to do it before the next one comes out.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:31
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Wisdom's Grave hits harder if you've read The Revanche Cycle first.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:45
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Everyone posted:It seems like Dresden got most of his formal combat training under Justin DuMore. McCoy seemed focused on teaching him self-control and restraint. And the rest he kind of picked up here and there on his own or with Bob's help. He's a Warden who was never actually trained as a Warden but through surviving a bunch of ridiculous stuff long enough to become kind of a badass. Harry's always going on how JDM was training him to be his personal attack wizard though, including if memory serves, in this one. You'd think he should have been trained by him in proper technique and conservation of power as a key part of JDM's training him for that role though.
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Oct 20, 2020 20:57
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To be fair, I think he mentioned he was trained more as a magical thug which is where shock and awe really shines. He's not necessarily meant to take on complex engagements, just bash someone's head in.
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Oct 20, 2020 21:32
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Deptfordx posted:Harry's always going on how JDM was training him to be his personal attack wizard though, including if memory serves, in this one. He was probably waiting until after the brainwashing was complete before he trained him in actual combat magic. Training him beforehand could have been counterproductive. Also I feel like Dresden probably picked up a lot from Eb. If you look at how they fight, it's really very similar. They block with enchanted clothing or magical barriers. They attack with either straightforward blasts of force or with long slow AOE attacks that wreck the battlefield(Dresden's gravity amplifier in Changes, Eb half-burying the fire giants.). Eb's a lot more controlled and precise than Dresden, but you can definitely see who Dresden's modeling himself after.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:08
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RosaParksOfDip posted:To be fair, I think he mentioned he was trained more as a magical thug which is where shock and awe really shines. He's not necessarily meant to take on complex engagements, just bash someone's head in. And thugs are generally meant ti be somewhat expendable. So, either Harry one-shots whatever Justin sends hi after or he fails and gets killed and Justin go finds another thug.
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Oct 20, 2020 22:17
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That analogy doesn't work though. Being a wizard requires an apparently extremely rare magical talent and years of training. An expendable thug wizard would be a colossal waste of time and resources that would be extremely hard to replace.
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Oct 20, 2020 23:07
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Is it established how much time passes between Harry's bout with He-Who-Walks-Behind and when he kills Justin? I got the impression that the two events were on the same day, and Harry had barely mastered Fuego when he used it to blow up a gas station and banish the Walker. So he was probably super early in the training at that point. We know he did some work with shields, but they probably hadn't gotten to attack spells yet.
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Oct 21, 2020 03:25
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Gnoman posted:Is it established how much time passes between Harry's bout with He-Who-Walks-Behind and when he kills Justin? I got the impression that the two events were on the same day, and Harry had barely mastered Fuego when he used it to blow up a gas station and banish the Walker. So he was probably super early in the training at that point. We know he did some work with shields, but they probably hadn't gotten to attack spells yet. I think they were right after the other, since he went back for Elaine only to find out she was already controlled.
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Oct 21, 2020 04:56
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Deptfordx posted:That analogy doesn't work though. True. On the other hand, if you're at all familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, there's a magic item called an Arrow of Slaying. Usually it's an Arrrow of "X" Slaying where X is something like Human, Elf, Giant, Dragon, etc. If one of these beings gets hit by the Arrow, it dies and the Arrow's magic is gone. If you want to kill something else that way you have to find/make another Arrow of Slaying. Maybe Harry was going to be Justin's "Arrow." Yes, it's a considerable investment of time to make an Arrow, but the Arrow is still ultimately expendable due to its nature.
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Oct 21, 2020 17:02
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is there a short story or flashback I'm missing of how Harry offed Justin (or why?) It's been forever since I've read those early books and he doesn't get mentioned as much lately.
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Oct 21, 2020 18:35
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hatelull posted:is there a short story or flashback I'm missing of how Harry offed Justin (or why?) It's been forever since I've read those early books and he doesn't get mentioned as much lately. IIRC in Ghost Story, there are flashbacks. Harry tells the story to Lea and we get to see what happened.
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Oct 21, 2020 18:43
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hatelull posted:is there a short story or flashback I'm missing of how Harry offed Justin (or why?) It's been forever since I've read those early books and he doesn't get mentioned as much lately. All of the details are gone into in the Ghost Story novel that everybody dislikes for some reason (even though it's probably the best novel in a long time in the series for world-building-related stuff).
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Oct 21, 2020 19:22
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Is that the one where it turns out one of the loser magic side characters Harry ran into early in the series is actually the greatest necromancer on Earth and commands an entire army of ghosts and they have a war in the Nevernever with Mavra? Cus there's a reason why nobody likes it and its cus that's loving stupid.
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Oct 21, 2020 20:22
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What novella are you talking about? I read through all of them (and all the mini ones on Jim's website) in the run up to Peace Talks and I don't remember that at all.
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Oct 21, 2020 21:24
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hatelull posted:is there a short story or flashback I'm missing of how Harry offed Justin (or why?) It's been forever since I've read those early books and he doesn't get mentioned as much lately. Ghost Story has the first part. Harry goes home from school early looking for Elaine, Elaine looks out of it, Justin gives Harry bad vibes and then throws a spell at him when he's trying to run away. Later Harry holds up a gas station for money, He Who Walks Behind appears and fights with Harry, Harry blows up the gas station to defeat HWWB. (At the time Harry assumed Justin sent HWWB after him and Harry defeated it. Looking back on it though he suspects HWWB wasn't connected to Justin and was just toying with him to assess his powers). That's as far as we've gotten though. We know that after this Harry has his first meeting with Lea, he makes some sort of pact with her for power and protection, then he returns home and kills Justin and burns down the house. We haven't gotten those specific scenes though.
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Oct 21, 2020 21:47
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Gologle posted:Is that the one where it turns out one of the loser magic side characters Harry ran into early in the series is actually the greatest necromancer on Earth and commands an entire army of ghosts and they have a war in the Nevernever with Mavra? Cus there's a reason why nobody likes it and its cus that's loving stupid. Yeah, this half remembered version does sound pretty stupid. Mavra isn't even in Ghost Story.
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Oct 21, 2020 22:34
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