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There is a huge difference in expressing reasonable frustration among friends (or in a dead gay comedy forum) over an author taking a long time to release the next book in a book series and harassing said author. The former is ok while the latter is not. But a lot of people in this thread are acting like they are synonymous.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 12:13 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:13 |
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ulmont posted:Part of the commitment in buying an unfinished work is in exchange for the promise that the work will be completed. Where'd you buy your unfinished copy of Peace Talks? I'd like one for myself. jivjov fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Dec 27, 2018 |
# ? Dec 27, 2018 12:17 |
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hangedman1984 posted:There is a huge difference in expressing reasonable frustration among friends (or in a dead gay comedy forum) over an author taking a long time to release the next book in a book series and harassing said author. The former is ok while the latter is not. But a lot of people in this thread are acting like they are synonymous. Yeah but the posting on this dgcf is much closer to the later than the former
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 12:23 |
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rndmnmbr posted:But a statement from the man himself saying "Sorry, here are the delays, here is a rough timetable, all of this is subject to change, I'll keep you updated" would go a long way to restoring the goodwill a lot of us have lost. See GRRM for how this can go wrong.....
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 13:15 |
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Has it been posited that the reason for the delay with Peace Talks is that Butcher is actually trying to write a new book this time? I mean, rather than using the same basic outline and plot beats, he is changing things up and writing something new and as such is struggling to break out of the box he created.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 16:03 |
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The book probably won't be very good whenever it does appear, anyway.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 16:17 |
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hangedman1984 posted:There is a huge difference in expressing reasonable frustration among friends (or in a dead gay comedy forum) over an author taking a long time to release the next book in a book series and harassing said author. The former is ok while the latter is not. But a lot of people in this thread are acting like they are synonymous. Yeah I agree. This thread has taken a massive derail, can we go back to posting about urban fantasy? I would recommend Stacia Kane’s downside ghosts series. It’s about a junkie witch and how she fucks up her life while working for the church in a church run world. The series doesn’t end, and the author hasn’t made the final book, but what is there is good. It is a bit on the romance side, just a bit, and the main character doesn’t have an arc for her internal hatred, but it’s an entertaining light read.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 17:25 |
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I'm reading the Library at Mount Char right now and it's one of the weirdest books I've read all year. Not specifically in content, but more in its tone and voice. Half the time the book feels like a grittier, more interesting Neil Gaimen story, and the other half it reads like mega-edgelord fan fiction. Every single Erwin chapter and any time the loving president is present is just bonkers.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 17:39 |
Nemesis Of Moles posted:I'm reading the Library at Mount Char right now and it's one of the weirdest books I've read all year. Not specifically in content, but more in its tone and voice. Half the time the book feels like a grittier, more interesting Neil Gaimen story, and the other half it reads like mega-edgelord fan fiction. Every single Erwin chapter and any time the loving president is present is just bonkers. Still liked the book.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 18:32 |
Nemesis Of Moles posted:I'm reading the Library at Mount Char right now and it's one of the weirdest books I've read all year. Not specifically in content, but more in its tone and voice. Half the time the book feels like a grittier, more interesting Neil Gaimen story, and the other half it reads like mega-edgelord fan fiction. Every single Erwin chapter and any time the loving president is present is just bonkers. I really loved the first 75-80% of that book. It was this weird, engaging slow burn that came to what felt like an appropriate climax and satisfying end. Then it kept going. This denouement was also interesting, but it felt very, very rushed compared to the rest. It's almost like he tried to fit an entire second book in the last 25% of the first.
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# ? Dec 27, 2018 19:44 |
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Just finished Lies Sleeping. I think I can see why people might not have liked it but it was pretty much exactly what I want from this series. (More elaboration once I'm not on a bus with no suspension to speak of).
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 00:06 |
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Finished up Lies Sleeping last night. I thought it was pretty good! I thought I remembered somebody here implying that the ending signified the end of The Folly and I'm glad that wasn't the case. Looked back through the thread and the closest thing I could find was somebody being disappointed we didn't find out what's behind the metal door. I was a little disappointed that TFM didn't really have a chance to explain what his vision really entailed in detail. I guess we can assume it's just another golden age of Britain kind of thing with him as king. Maybe it was in one of the chapters I read while half asleep. I did think it was kind of funny how adamant Leslie was that Peter should join up and be part of their whole plan but when pressed for details she's just like, "You know, BETTER! It's going to be BETTER!" Maybe TFM didn't really tell her much or she just stopped listening after she was promised her personal goal would be fulfilled.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 01:09 |
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Inspector 34 posted:I was a little disappointed that TFM didn't really have a chance to explain what his vision really entailed in detail. I guess we can assume it's just another golden age of Britain kind of thing with him as king. Maybe it was in one of the chapters I read while half asleep. I did think it was kind of funny how adamant Leslie was that Peter should join up and be part of their whole plan but when pressed for details she's just like, "You know, BETTER! It's going to be BETTER!" Maybe TFM didn't really tell her much or she just stopped listening after she was promised her personal goal would be fulfilled. Yeah, I really got the feeling that Lesley was primarily in it for killing Mr. Punch, and everything else was in aid of her trying to arrange things so Peter would survive everything.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 01:20 |
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TFM's whole schtick seems to boil down to basic rich-o "The world was better back when people knew their place" style stuff, once you piece together what we learned from the last two books, but I do agree it feels like there's still something we don't know - maybe it'll come up in the next one when we see what Lesley is up to.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 02:30 |
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I liked Lies Sleeping okay, but Aaronovitch as a writer is getting worse at just... explaining things. I don't know if I'm suppose infer stuff between my awful pre-existing knowledge of British folklore, the comic book spinoffs I didn't read, or whatever else, but the series generally feels less than self-contained. I still don't understand what the hell happened in Foxglove Summer for example.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 03:06 |
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I'm real glad that ya'll had that same problem too cause I felt like I was just forgetting a book or two somewhere.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 05:54 |
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:TFM's whole schtick seems to boil down to basic rich-o "The world was better back when people knew their place" style stuff, once you piece together what we learned from the last two books, but I do agree it feels like there's still something we don't know - maybe it'll come up in the next one when we see what Lesley is up to. Big parts of the British aristocracy do unironically believe this in fairness, a bunch of willfully blind and arrogantly thick poshos conspiring to gently caress everything up is absolutely believable. Still I agree, there was basically no exposition on the specifics of this changed world they were trying for and hopefully it gets expanded on in the next book. I suspect Aaronovitch may be moving towards a sort of grand reveal of magic to the world, we have had hints with him expanding and formalising the 'Falcon' parts of the Met and a seeming general resurgence of both magic user and related creatures. It's possible that whatever the hell happened in WW2 had some sort of suppressive effect on magic and now it's starting to bounce back.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 12:18 |
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I'm real glad that ya'll had that same problem too cause I felt like I was just forgetting a book or two somewhere. Yeah, I definitely noticed a lot of references to things I'm pretty sure I haven't read. (I'd guess at least some of it's in the comics and that one novella). It wasn't difficult to pick things up in context. I'm not really convinced that Chorley had much of a plan beyond, broadly, "Make Britain Great Again", though you'd think someone as fond of the 'romantic' aspects of what he was doing would at least have the decency to be the sort of supervillain who gives an hour-long speech about his diabolical master plan when he's got the hero captive. (Then again, he kind of did that in broad strokes.) Saros posted:Big parts of the British aristocracy do unironically believe this in fairness, a bunch of willfully blind and arrogantly thick poshos conspiring to gently caress everything up is absolutely believable. Still I agree, there was basically no exposition on the specifics of this changed world they were trying for and hopefully it gets expanded on in the next book. I suspect Aaronovitch may be moving towards a sort of grand reveal of magic to the world, we have had hints with him expanding and formalising the 'Falcon' parts of the Met and a seeming general resurgence of both magic user and related creatures. It's possible that whatever the hell happened in WW2 had some sort of suppressive effect on magic and now it's starting to bounce back. I think we're definitely moving to a world where magic isn't a secret (even a broadly open one) any more; Peter even says at one point to Nightingale that keeping things under wraps just isn't sustainable any more. As an aside, I found it interesting that the book made a point of establishing that its timeline was pre-Trump (and thus, one presumes pre-Brexit); I'm curious to see how (or if) Aaronovich addresses these things but I can totally understand why he wouldn't choose the conclusion of the Faceless Man storyline to do so.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 12:33 |
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To be fair TFM's plan does seem more worked out than the Brexit campaign
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 12:43 |
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Faceless Man is basically just the vile Catholic Jacob Rees-Mogg. Seriously, look at a picture of Jacob Rees-Mogg; that's the Faceless Man. At least it's what I picture him looking like. Of course the irony with Rees-Mogg is that he wants Britain to be more like it was in the 18th century, a time when he, as a treacherous Catholic, would have been persecuted by the government.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 13:09 |
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Then after you look at a picture of Rees-Mogg find a video of him speaking. It's exactly like you imagined but somehow worse. To be fair to TFM he's at least more competent than Rees-Mogg, honorable member for the 18th century, failed coup plotter and silver spoon fuckup.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 13:18 |
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He's probably the worst overall MP. The only one who comes close is Gregory Campbell but he's not a Catholic so that puts him about one step above Rees-Mogg.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 13:26 |
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hangedman1984 posted:There is a huge difference in expressing reasonable frustration among friends (or in a dead gay comedy forum) over an author taking a long time to release the next book in a book series and harassing said author. The former is ok while the latter is not. But a lot of people in this thread are acting like they are synonymous. Unless Jim Butcher has an SA account and reads this thread, everyone saying complaining about delays is unreasonable can gently caress themselves. When a book author is approaching Season 7 of The Venture Brothers production times, they deserve ridicule.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 19:05 |
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Unless Jim Butcher has an SA account and reads this thread, everyone saying complaining about delays is unreasonable can gently caress themselves. Jesus Christ, shut the gently caress up and contribute something positive rather than making GBS threads up the thread (again). In other news, I read the first two Eric Carter books (Stephen Blackmoore), which I thought were pretty decent. Main character's a necromancer who, unlike Harry Dresden, is treated like the rear end in a top hat he really is.
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# ? Dec 28, 2018 19:24 |
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Aerdan posted:Jesus Christ, shut the gently caress up and contribute something positive rather than making GBS threads up the thread (again). Use the ignore function if it bothers you that much.
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# ? Dec 29, 2018 01:49 |
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Scorchy posted:I liked Lies Sleeping okay, but Aaronovitch as a writer is getting worse at just... explaining things. I don't know if I'm suppose infer stuff between my awful pre-existing knowledge of British folklore, the comic book spinoffs I didn't read, or whatever else, but the series generally feels less than self-contained. I still don't understand what the hell happened in Foxglove Summer for example. Nemesis Of Moles posted:I'm real glad that ya'll had that same problem too cause I felt like I was just forgetting a book or two somewhere. I felt that way about bits of the last one but I'm not sure if it's just because there was a pretty long gap between instalments for me (since I never get onto them until they're out in paperback). In any event, I do think it's a bad move for authors to presume that people have read the extraneous stuff when there's one thing that's functioning as the "main" series. You know, it starts as a book series, and fair enough if it branches off into comics and those are considered equal to the books, but I don't know if most people are going to go off and seek those out so presuming familiarity with them in the primary medium isn't necessarily a great idea.
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# ? Dec 29, 2018 02:18 |
Wheat Loaf posted:I felt that way about bits of the last one but I'm not sure if it's just because there was a pretty long gap between instalments for me (since I never get onto them until they're out in paperback). In any event, I do think it's a bad move for authors to presume that people have read the extraneous stuff when there's one thing that's functioning as the "main" series. You know, it starts as a book series, and fair enough if it branches off into comics and those are considered equal to the books, but I don't know if most people are going to go off and seek those out so presuming familiarity with them in the primary medium isn't necessarily a great idea. Especially since not all the comics are directly aaronovitch written now; he's parcelled them out to a second backup writer. I think Aaaronovitch is also doing the TV show thing of deliberately leaving a lot of stuff unexplained. After all, Peter doesn't understand everything either. He is sorta settling into a Vision Quest Rut though. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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# ? Dec 29, 2018 02:48 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Especially since not all the comics are directly aaronovitch written now; he's parcelled them out to a second backup writer. I think Cartmel does a lot of the comics, doesn't he? He and Aaronovitch go way back together; they were two of the young guys who'd come up through Doctor Who fandom and got jobs working on the show in its last couple of seasons in the 80s (Cartmel was script editor and Aaronovitch wrote two stories, including the last Dalek story shown before the show went away) and then in the 90s they were both heavily involved for a time in the expanded universe of Doctor Who novels.
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# ? Dec 29, 2018 02:58 |
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Aerdan posted:In other news, I read the first two Eric Carter books (Stephen Blackmoore), which I thought were pretty decent. Main character's a necromancer who, unlike Harry Dresden, is treated like the rear end in a top hat he really is. Read Blackmoore’s City of the Lost - written prior to the Carter series, takes place in the same universe, and introduces us to one of my favorite characters: The Bruja
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# ? Dec 30, 2018 08:20 |
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Wizchine posted:Read Blackmoore’s City of the Lost - written prior to the Carter series, takes place in the same universe, and introduces us to one of my favorite characters: The Bruja City of the Lost is fantastic. I'd to see more Joe Sunday stories someday.
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# ? Dec 30, 2018 14:34 |
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Finished a re-read of Sandman Slim last week, since I wanted to continue the series and couldn't remember anything about it. (I bought it when it first came out in paperback all those years ago.) I still loved it. Kadrey doesn't hide his influences, be it anime, Marvel Comics or the Parker novels at all and I love that. It's still a fun book.
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# ? Jan 1, 2019 01:45 |
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Sandman Slim is a breath of fresh loving air. I kept from reading the series for the longest time because I expected it to be way more cringy than fun, but... it's one of those books where despite a flawed execution, I sense the author's enthusiasm and voice and just go right along with. And the voice actor for audio version? Great. I wish he was a little better at set-up, pay-off, and climaxes, but anyone that can turn such a ridiculous premise into an entertaining book is a cool guy. Disappointed Skull Valley Sheep Kill isn't a real band.
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# ? Jan 1, 2019 05:25 |
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"Wow, 120+ unread comments in the Dresden Files-thread! That new short story must have been something special to spark that much debate." Jesus wept... Anyway, about "Christmas Eve": Where did that thing about medical bills come from? I don't remember anything from the last few books that would have left thousands dead, so what were they talking about? As for "Lies Sleeping": Thank gently caress that's over. I love listening to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, but I was getting really tired of the Faceless Man effortlessly dancing his way out of every single trap the Folly set for him. How many variations of "The protagonists sets up a trap/ambushes the Faceless Man, who walks right into it and still manages to escape" did we really need? Quite a disappointing ending for him, considering the story was dragged out over 8 books and the antagonists were built up to be invincible geniuses. I can't say I really saw the significance of anything that happened in that moment when they were falling off the tower at the end, was it just a thinly veiled excuse to insert an ancient battle-scene?
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 03:41 |
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Apoffys posted:"Wow, 120+ unread comments in the Dresden Files-thread! That new short story must have been something special to spark that much debate." Uh, it’s set after Peace Talks.
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 03:42 |
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Drone Jett posted:Uh, it’s set after Peace Talks. Huh, OK. I couldn't see anything stating when it was set, but that explains it. Setting it after an unreleased novel seems like a weird choice though, since it slightly spoils the novel...
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 03:54 |
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Apoffys posted:Huh, OK. I couldn't see anything stating when it was set, but that explains it. Setting it after an unreleased novel seems like a weird choice though, since it slightly spoils the novel... Spoiler alert: nothing ever goes well for Harry, why would the new book be any different?
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 04:34 |
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On the off chance someone stopped reading Sandman Slim at book 6 and is looking to jump back into the series, Killing Pretty, book 7, is on sale for two bucks this month on Amazon.
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 07:05 |
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Apoffys posted:Huh, OK. I couldn't see anything stating when it was set, but that explains it. Setting it after an unreleased novel seems like a weird choice though, since it slightly spoils the novel... There’s some mention of “after the peace talks” in the short story. It’s a meta example but it’s literally telling you it’s after peace talks.
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 07:07 |
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The line is "I didn’t want to think about the peace talks", which I took to mean the upcoming peace talks.
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 12:14 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:13 |
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If Butcher was writing at a reasonable pace he’d have already published Peace Talks years ago and none of you would have been confused. What a jerk!
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# ? Jan 2, 2019 12:59 |