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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The first book is a little shaky but overall yeah just dive in book one. They're very fast paced and there are a few issues here and there but it's very clearly a series where the author read Dresden and thought "Dresden has some flaws and I know how to write a series that fixes them" Follow up. Rather than reading them I've only consumed Dresden as an Audiobook since about the 6th? one, since James Marsters is so goddamn great a narrator. How's the Audible versions for these? Not a dealbreaker, I'm happy to read them. But if they're good I have several spare credits at the moment.
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Jan 3, 2022 17:03
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Deptfordx posted:I should read those Verus books.
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Jan 3, 2022 19:19
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anilEhilated posted:The first one reads a bit like Dresden fanfiction,  that's harsh.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The first book is a little shaky but overall yeah just dive in book one. They're very fast paced and there are a few issues here and there but it's very clearly a series where the author read Dresden and thought "Dresden has some flaws and I know how to write a series that fixes them" I've dealt with the author a bit on another forum, and that's not really the best description. His books were certainly inspired by Dresden, but I'm nearly certain it was a "oh, neat! I have some ideas after reading this!" not "Oh, this is broken and I can do better".
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Jan 4, 2022 12:42
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Probably fair to say that he did do a better job, though.
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Jan 4, 2022 12:48
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I wasn't too big on Verus's ending TBH. I really disliked how by the end it just devolved into "Alex is the unambiguous good guy who never suffers any real consequences for his actions while anyone critical of him at any point dies a horrible violent death." It's a super unsatisfying ending for most of the characters who died to be honest and while they were shocking deaths they didn't feel like satisfying deaths narratively. Beyond a certain point it felt like the author fell into the trap of being angry at characters who opposed Verus so they just got poo poo on 24/7 until they died. Likewise even for Verus's friends (or ex-friends) I found the outcomes unsatisfying. Variam in particular spent the entirety of the last book either possessed or offscreen. I don't think he got a single line of dialogue in the entire book that wasn't a Djinn? Anne's plot being resolved by Alex just going "NO U" instead of anything involving the character just cemented how frigging boring a character she is. The most interesting moment she had was in the ending where it became clear she was loving terrifying to be around even for a friend and that doesn't really get explored enough. Sonder and Caldera just sort of died in ways that were shocking but unsatisfying because they had almost nothing to do with the characters themselves. Luna comes out probably the best but even then her sacrifice to save Variam feels kind of rushed and amounts to "she is doing the thing Alex was already doing in the first place." I will say though that I almost liked what they did with Richard. The idea that he isn't a great scheming mastermind but basically just a con man and what Alex looks like from the outside was a really cool idea that kind of got soured when he returned and just acted like a giant evil moron for no reason. I don't mind the idea of him being undone by not understanding Alex but he fell into the trap of just feeling stupid instead of intelligent but not capable of understanding empathy/sacrifice. I was actually down with Richard's plot until the final scene where I just went "eh." It wasn't the worst ending but I think it'll be hard to reread the books knowing how many of the long-running plots just sort of fizzle without a satisfactory resolution.
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Jan 4, 2022 14:57
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I thought (Verus series spoilers) Caldera's death wasn't the most narratively satisfying, but was okay. She didn't exactly have much character growth in the first place and I can see the value in a shock death or whatever. Sonder definitely felt like Jacka was punishing him for not following Verus' orders though. I felt like he had more room to grow, and could have been a good foil for Alex (focused on the past, whereas Verus is focused on the future).
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Jan 4, 2022 15:35
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ImpAtom posted:I wasn't too big on Verus's ending TBH. Just because you disagree about whether the consequences are "real" or whether Alex suffered any consequences for his actions doesn't really mean that the consequences aren't there. Also did we read the same book at all? Alex didn't solve/resolve Anne's plot by doing anything in particular on his own. That was Arachne and the enchantment she put on Anne's dress (and the clues she left Alex in her farewell note). Alex had to figure out how to take best advantage of it, but it wasn't something he did on his own. As for Luna and taking on the Monkey's Paw contract, that outcome was telegraphed throughout the series (and yeah, it wasn't even a sacrifice so much as making a deal with it to get it out of the way at the time). If Jacka ever wants to re-visit the world Verus lived in, he has plenty of plot threads to pick up. mastajake posted:I thought (Verus series spoilers) Caldera's death wasn't the most narratively satisfying, but was okay. She didn't exactly have much character growth in the first place and I can see the value in a shock death or whatever. Sonder did a lot more than just "not follow Verus's orders" though. He was a direct enemy of Alex by the end of the series and was conspiring with other light mages to have Alex killed; he was just too chickenshit to act against Alex directly.
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Jan 4, 2022 16:27
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Probably fair to say that he did do a better job, though. In some ways. The Verus books are much more even. The lows aren't nearly as low as can happen in Dresden, but the highs aren't nearly as high, either. There's plenty of scenes in Dresden that stick in my head, good or bad. There's really not much from Verus that does.
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Jan 5, 2022 10:59
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Deptfordx posted:Follow up. Rather than reading them I've only consumed Dresden as an Audiobook since about the 6th? one, since James Marsters is so goddamn great a narrator. How's the Audible versions for these? Not a dealbreaker, I'm happy to read them. But if they're good I have several spare credits at the moment. I've done the entire Verus series via audiobook, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through Risen now. They keep the same reader, Gildart Jackson, all the way through and he gives Verus, and by extension the whole story, a kind of dry witty air that I think works well for the character. Not S tier like Marsters or Reading & Kramer doing Wheel of Time (especially the middle to late books when they really got into the groove) but solid B or A tier, I reckon.
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Jan 6, 2022 22:23
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Just because you disagree about whether the consequences are "real" or whether Alex suffered any consequences for his actions doesn't really mean that the consequences aren't there. No, I just think they weren't consequences. Everyone Alex had any reason to dislike at all ended up dead, all of his friends are alive, he managed to avoid dying with a consequence that is vague and poorly defined, and otherwise he's back to status quo. Oh no the Light Council is trying to find him and doesn't like him. That's sure different from where he was five books ago. Variam seems to have had more long-term consequences than Alex but damned if we'll ever find out because that was a character who the author clearly didn't care about in the slightest except as Luna's boyfriend. Alex basically demanded Anne get fixed and then trusted Arachne's dress to fix the consequences which they did. It wasn't anything to with Anne the character at all. jng2058 posted:I've done the entire Verus series via audiobook, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through Risen now. They keep the same reader, Gildart Jackson, all the way through and he gives Verus, and by extension the whole story, a kind of dry witty air that I think works well for the character. Not S tier like Marsters or Reading & Kramer doing Wheel of Time (especially the middle to late books when they really got into the groove) but solid B or A tier, I reckon. Yeah, he does a lot to sell the character, though he makes him feel older than I think he's supposed to be.
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Jan 6, 2022 22:33
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ImpAtom posted:
Morden is still alive and Alex hated him (even if he had a grudging respect for him). Alex loved Arachne because she was the closest thing to a mother figure for him in the magical world and she's banished across a huge stretch of time where he'll never see her again. Also Alex didn't demand that Arachne fix Anne, you really need to re-read the series. As far as consequences go, Alex lost his proficiency with precognition/path-walking/etc.; he isn't a diviner any more beyond basic warnings of immediate danger. He's alive, but he can't pull the poo poo he used to or even the stuff he did before the fateweaver consumed his body. Because his magic type is different now and he's a different person, his connection to the dream-stone and the ability to make portals through Elsewhere is also gone. He's also essentially banished from society in England (the place he thought of as home) and has to abandon everything and just about everyone he cares about. He's basically hosed if he doesn't decide to gently caress off somewhere and be like Halikaon (except for maybe having Anne around for however long the honeymoon period lasts before she gets tired of it--and she will get tired of it, the merging of her split personalities just about guarantees it). You might not think those are consequences, but the Alex that started the series would have been horrified by where he ended up. Also at the end of the last book Variam is putting in extra shifts with the Keepers and avoiding talking to Luna about what happened because he needs therapy, but that just makes him the same as every other character in the series. He'll be fine. The Light society isn't holding any grudges against him because he was taken hostage by a Marid (the ones that even know about it). Luna was basically saying goodbye to Alex and Anne before getting on with her own life in the Epilogue.
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Jan 7, 2022 16:50
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New Charles Stross Laundry Files spin-off dropped. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quantum-Nightmares-Management-world-Laundry/dp/0356516938 No trip report, because it reminded me I hadn't gotten around to reading the first one yet so I've moved that up the 'to-read' pile.
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Jan 12, 2022 11:57
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Deptfordx posted:New Charles Stross Laundry Files spin-off dropped. The first one in this series was just kind of mediocre. I’ll probably hold out for some reviews.
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Jan 12, 2022 16:02
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xsf421 posted:The first one in this series was just kind of mediocre. I’ll probably hold out for some reviews. I keep meaning to give the first one another try because I bounced hard off of the first chapter but I haven't done it yet.
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Jan 12, 2022 16:31
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It was fine - not great, not terrible, but better than the first in the sub-series. The good guys won (or did they?) and most of the named characters lived.
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Jan 13, 2022 03:52
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Ben Aaronovitch's Monday, Monday dropped a few days ago. I liked it quite a bit. It's a bit of a departure in that it focuses on different characters rather than solely on Peter Grant. The first chapter focuses on Miriam Stephanopoulos. The second on Nightingale (and includes flashbacks to "wizard school"). The third focuses on Peter. The final one has Abigail Kumara and Foxglove as the dream team I never knew I always wanted.
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Jan 13, 2022 05:07
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Everyone posted:Ben Aaronovitch's Monday, Monday dropped a few days ago. I liked it quite a bit. It's a bit of a departure in that it focuses on different characters rather than solely on Peter Grant. The first chapter focuses on Miriam Stephanopoulos. The second on Nightingale (and includes flashbacks to "wizard school"). The third focuses on Peter. The final one has Abigail Kumara and Foxglove as the dream team I never knew I always wanted. gently caress. So excited and it's just another loving graphic comic. They're well done, but I hate having the story lines split off in an expensive format separate from the books.
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Jan 13, 2022 16:23
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torgeaux posted:gently caress. So excited and it's just another loving graphic comic. They're well done, but I hate having the story lines split off in an expensive format separate from the books. I kept hoping that all the hype about Nightingale would translate into "Alfred Pennyworth, but he's a badass wizard too in addition to his military training" when the graphic novels were made but nope, that hasn't happened yet.
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Jan 13, 2022 16:58
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torgeaux posted:gently caress. So excited and it's just another loving graphic comic. They're well done, but I hate having the story lines split off in an expensive format separate from the books. I got excited too. But that post did let me know pre orders were open for the next book due out in the spring!
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Jan 13, 2022 17:24
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torgeaux posted:gently caress. So excited and it's just another loving graphic comic. They're well done, but I hate having the story lines split off in an expensive format separate from the books. They're also not written by Aaronovitch. They're credited as Aaronovitch and Cartmel which I presume means Aaronovitch is subcontracting out Cartmel to do most of the heavy lifting on the comics. Cartmel is an old Dr. Who writer also so he has chops and is presumably a friend of Aaronovitch, but I stopped preordering every one of them once I realized that. TBF I'm still buying and reading them and so far the quality is consistently good, just something to be aware of.
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Jan 13, 2022 18:36
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The prime beats are his, I’m sure.
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Jan 14, 2022 06:24
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Natty Ninefingers posted:The prime beats are his, I’m sure. He also references events that have occurred in the comics, so they are canon and part of the Peter Grant universe.
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Jan 14, 2022 14:23
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Everyone posted:He also references events that have occurred in the comics, so they are canon and part of the Peter Grant universe. This is what I hate. Events in books I read are guided by comics I don't, and don't have access to by library. I don't have any interest in the comics, I bought a couple early on, but they were tedious to collect and expensive compared to the books. At least there are no legitimate plot points driven by the comics, so it's annoying, not story killing.
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Jan 14, 2022 18:05
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Am I the only one who was irritated by the end of Risen where Jacka spent way too long insisting to the reader that Verus is dead when it was obvious he wasn't really going to kill him off?
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Jan 14, 2022 18:31
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Lucid Nonsense posted:Am I the only one who was irritated by the end of Risen where Jacka spent way too long insisting to the reader that Verus is dead when it was obvious he wasn't really going to kill him off? That's kind of a philosophical question at this point, kind of closely related to the Ship of Theseus problem. I think Verus died and the entity that woke up when the Fateweaver replaced him is just the Fateweaver with his memories, and he is just the dominant personality because he is the most recent set of memories it has absorbed. This would also explain why imbued items keyed to his magical signature won't work for him any more and why his abilities are sharply diminished from what they were when Verus was still alive. If Jacka ever wants to revisit the series there is a very easy plotline about Fateweaver-Verus becoming the monster everyone else has to deal with right there if he wants it..
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Jan 14, 2022 19:32
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biracial bear for uncut posted:That's kind of a philosophical question at this point, kind of closely related to the Ship of Theseus problem. That reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldoh71uNZmk
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Jan 15, 2022 03:10
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Lucid Nonsense posted:Am I the only one who was irritated by the end of Risen where Jacka spent way too long insisting to the reader that Verus is dead when it was obvious he wasn't really going to kill him off? It was incredibly annoying, yeah. I really just got overall annoyed with the ending the more I think about it. I get what it is going for but I just don't think it succeeds. I think I'd probably be a bit more forgiving if it wasn't the last book but it effectively ends the same as the rest of the books but without any chance of actually exploring any issue it throws out.
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Jan 15, 2022 04:33
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Jacka posted a blog update about what he's doing this year. Main points are: First book in New Urban Fantasy series supposedly finished end of this January. Also short story epilogue set after Risen for a character he forgot to address in the book. My bet is the short story will be about Cinder.
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Jan 15, 2022 13:49
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Jacka posted a blog update about what he's doing this year. Short story about Cinder followed by (possible but highly unlikely) New Urban Fantasy about Cinder? I could get into that.
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Jan 16, 2022 11:47
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Ugh, I got bored and made the mistake of getting into a discussion about my read of the end of the Alex Verus series on Reddit and I hate how Reddit breaks up a conversation. Someone that has never heard of the Ship of Theseus problem is saying I'm making poo poo up and there is no way the original Alex Verus died and was replaced by the Fateweaver+Alex+unknown numbers of previous people it has absorbed, even after pointing out which books explain the different things I'm basing that opinion on.
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Jan 25, 2022 19:40
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I'm honestly not familiar with the ship of Theseus either. But, I thought that was a pretty clear read and how I would think about it too. Verus basically acknowledges it at the end. He can't control his actions and he's sure that if he re-enters society he'll start a war because that's his nature now.
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Jan 25, 2022 19:51
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Artonos posted:I'm honestly not familiar with the ship of Theseus either. You've got a ship that used to belong to Theseus. Over time you need to replace the mast. Then you need to replace the decking, and then the hull planks, and the rudder, and etc etc etc until you've replaced every part of the entire ship with something new. Is it still the ship that Theseus once sailed?
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Jan 25, 2022 20:10
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Artonos posted:I'm honestly not familiar with the ship of Theseus either. But, I thought that was a pretty clear read and how I would think about it too. In the discussion on Reddit I basically re-capped the Ship of Theseus problem for the person I'm talking to and their response is "You're still making poo poo up!" The aggravating part is that to find that reply I have to click around to find the hidden post in response to mine, because the notification about it takes me to a blank page (but if I go to the thread itself I eventually find the post by re-sorting comments by New and then clicking through until it comes up). It's just a really bad way to format discussions.
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Jan 25, 2022 20:19
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Khizan posted:You've got a ship that used to belong to Theseus. Over time you need to replace the mast. Then you need to replace the decking, and then the hull planks, and the rudder, and etc etc etc until you've replaced every part of the entire ship with something new. Is it still the ship that Theseus once sailed? Gotcha and yeah it isn't the same ship. It's the sum of the parts equals the whole idea. It's actually kindve a good parallel to Anne who acts as various parts of herself throughout the series and eventually is definitely someone different than who she was.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:18
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Artonos posted:Gotcha and yeah it isn't the same ship. It's the sum of the parts equals the whole idea. If it's not the same ship, then there has to be a point in time where it went from Theseus' ship to something else. When was that point in time?
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Jan 25, 2022 21:29
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biracial bear for uncut posted:In the discussion on Reddit I basically re-capped the Ship of Theseus problem for the person I'm talking to and their response is "You're still making poo poo up!" There was a Greg Egan novel (Schild's Ladder, I think) that had a somewhat different take on a very similar question. It's been a long time since I've read it but I think the gist was, among post-human not-entirely-corporeal beings, how you could tell if you were still the same person after abandoning body after body. And being a Greg Egan novel the answer took the form of a complicated mathematical equation but the gist of it was that as long as you could draw some kind of line between who you were and who you are, you're probably still the same person in some sense. So you could argue that as long as Fateweaver Alex still thinks of himself as Alex, he's probably not wrong to do so, even if he's been fundamentally changed. Though I think you could also argue the opposite point too.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:30
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Happiness Commando posted:If it's not the same ship, then there has to be a point in time where it went from Theseus' ship to something else. When was that point in time? I'm completely at peace with the idea of self being a sliding scale. Jacka spends a lot of the book pushing you towards the idea of imbued items being able to override your thought processes and actions. I think is the reader is supposed to realize that Alex isn't the same anymore in the same way that Luna acknowledges Anne isn't the same anymore.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:37
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Verus is a setting where Souls exist and any SoT reading is irrelevant as long as it doesn't address that. Alex is still Alex because we're given no indication he doesn't still gave his same soul. He may be altered but you can't call him a new person just based off physical elements.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:45
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docbeard posted:There was a Greg Egan novel (Schild's Ladder, I think) that had a somewhat different take on a very similar question. It's been a long time since I've read it but I think the gist was, among post-human not-entirely-corporeal beings, how you could tell if you were still the same person after abandoning body after body. And being a Greg Egan novel the answer took the form of a complicated mathematical equation but the gist of it was that as long as you could draw some kind of line between who you were and who you are, you're probably still the same person in some sense. There's a sci-fi series with a similar question running in the background (starts with a book called "We are Legion, We Are Bob") and the conclusion there is that the only way the copied/cloned personality is the original one is if there is an unbroken chain of experiences and memories for the subjective self. If the chain is broken, the new personality that wakes up is a different--even if very similar--person. By the end of that series the subtle changes in personality accumulate to the point that the Bobs have their own factions and completely different personalities (to the point that one faction goes to war against another, even though they are supposedly from the same original source cloned brain). In that viewpoint, Fateweaver-Alex may think he's Alex, but he's wrong because his personality is different and he's significantly enough different from the original that I'm pretty sure he would horrify Actual-Alex if they encountered each other. ImpAtom posted:Verus is a setting where Souls exist and any SoT reading is irrelevant as long as it doesn't address that. Even if we want to take it for granted that souls exist in the Verus setting (and I'm not convinced they do given that every spirit entity that claims to be one turned out to be a liar/impersonator in Elsewhere/anywhere else). We literally have Alex die in the first person and a different entity with a different personality that only superficially resembles Alex wake up and take his place in the Luna point of view Epilogue.
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Jan 25, 2022 21:54
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