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SystemLogoff posted:I'll just leave this new livejournal post from Jim Butcher here:  Professional writers and actors always bring such skill with words when speaking on severe issues. I love it. I love how he brings his morals into his story's too, characters representing a bastion of strength against the dark.
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Jan 9, 2015 06:04
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Thats a Nerf foam football. Pretty sure real ones are a few inches longer.
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Jan 29, 2015 00:31
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Mars4523 posted:Gender (and racial) politics in Jim Butcher novels. Which basically boils down to him having his own point of view and not much empathy for those who are not straight, white, male American Midwesterners. I am glad he doesn't do some sort of affirmative action thing where he puts together this multicultural collage of male and female characters who have agency and arks in his novel. Oh wait, he did, it just was a natural evolution of a long series. Honestly, I feel Jim has put forth effort to have a world where people get along well without regard to race or sexuality. That is solid ground work. He's just really bad at portraying it in a not completely awkward way. Plus Harry as POV is a complete goober.
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Jan 30, 2015 01:53
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Grognan posted:Sometimes a trashy, fan fictiony high that knows actual grammar is what you want. Sometimes reading about the Avalon rave party where King Arthur is Djing being crashed by mecha-lich hitler is pretty sweet. Even if it flies in the face of all good, non-repetitive taste. Please tell me this is a real story? I want to read it.
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Apr 1, 2015 11:03
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Mortanis posted:For my money, I hope it gets away from "...so I looked into the future and..." every three paragraphs. It's a far bit better than Iron Druid so far, so I'm enjoying it. You know, for the longest time I didn't regret reading Iron Druid, I just regretted paying for it. Recently I've come to regret both.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:53
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On the topic of bad authors i'd like to introduce anyone who hasn't had a chance to read it to this Gem:quote:"He knew that at heart, he was a rapist. And that meant he hated rapists more than any "normal" human being. They purely pissed him off. He'd spent his entire sexually adult life fighting the urge to not use his inconsiderable strength to possess and take instead of woo and cajole." Oh John Ringo No I actually got a friend to read the series if I agreed to read twilight, she ended up unironicly loving it. In more sane terms i'm finally getting into the Malzan Books of the Fallen. Just took me two false starts.
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Apr 11, 2015 05:06
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Dienes posted:I imagine the editors put the kibosh on Mirror, Rorrim. Rorrim Mirror would work though.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:20
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The White Council gives Dresden some serious lee way in everything. Its Harry's perception of their actions that paints them in a bad light. They continually give him more slack, Dresden goes and does something crazy and is once again vindicated in his actions. Just taking what the senior council alone knows its staggering. They're first introduced to him as the Son of a famous rouge wizard, who killed a renegade warden as a teen. he has an extremely powerful winter fae godmother. They must be thinking this kid is a major league warlock in the making and yet Mccoy takes up his cause and they trust him enough to let it slide. Then Dresden grows up, flaunts the rules, advertises in the yellow books! He develops an association with practically every heavy hitter, good, evil, and otherwise. The Mob, the police, Fae, Vampires, Denarians, Knights, etc. Harbors fugitives from the white council. Executes Peabody and Corpsetaker, two powerful dark magicians. Picks up Merlins legacy in becoming The Warden. Has the swords of the cross. Destroys the entire red court. Clears out the lower ranks of Fairy nobility, twice, and appoints two of his friends as the winter and summer ladys. Yet they let him be because they know as chaotic and insufferable as he is he always thinks he's doing the right thing. He's also pretty much their top diplomatic connection at this point. As for incompetence, the only time Dresden sees them is when they're being either infiltrated, incompetent, or just misinformed (Often Dresdens fault). Eg, at the end of Proven Guilty they almost kill the red king. At the end of Turn Coat the Merlin trounces a devastating terrorist attack. Archangel happens because of Peabody, They level a section of Cuba(?) in retaliation. I do think that over the next few books Harry's interactions with the Council will be a lot more civil. They'll have to treat him with more respect, he might pick up on that and return it. Half the senior council is on his side and he's slowly mending his relationship with the Merlin. Think of the improvement since the start of the series, its just been very slow in coming.
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Sep 8, 2015 16:12
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Its not that people didn't know the red court was evil. Its just their evil was hidden with bureaucracy. They had thousands of political slaves. They disappeared millions of people for food and fodder. It was just run cleanly like a proper evil organization. The magical world was bloodied by the war already ongoing with the red court. They're now recovering. Where as if the red court was still an enemy they would still be weakening across the board. The Fomor are just taking the confusion and power vacuum left by the red court to act more overtly then any previous supernatural baddie. They're deliberately striking the weak magical community to weaken the White Council as it licks its wounds.
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Sep 8, 2015 21:09
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I love me some Victorian ladies. Gives me ideas for PAX east.
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Sep 10, 2015 02:02
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Khizan posted:The way people talk about Marsters in this thread I sometimes I think that I'm the last person left who actually reads these books, as opposed to listening to them. I read them originally. Reread in many cases. Then all this talk of Marsters in the thread had me give it a whirl, and I was hooked.
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Sep 17, 2015 13:31
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Or frees Lea in proven guilty which would seriously mess with his relationship with micheal and molly. Not to mention nemesis infecting Lea
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Sep 23, 2015 05:27
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redreader posted:I wonder what a spire could possibly look like? I heard Jim describe it in a Podcast and it's essentially a fat cylinder that's a mile or two across and pretty tall. Like a tire on its side, that just happens to be big enough for gods tractor.
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Sep 30, 2015 18:13
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Apoffys posted:Am I the only one bothered by all the intentionally obscure or made-up terminology in the book? I'm 5 chapters in, and I still have no idea what a loving "habble" is or what a spire looks like. If I didn't enjoy the Dresden Files so much I would have given up on the book before even finishing the first chapter... I'm only halfway through the prologue today, and I'm already 90% sure it's short for Habitable Level. They've used it as a word replacement where either Rank , Area, and Level would have been in the sentence. I feel like butcher pretty much smacks you in the head with its inferred meaning.
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Sep 30, 2015 20:06
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Finished Aeronauts Windlass today. Enjoyed it very much. My number one surprise take away is that I would be happy with a book solely about airship engineering. Power crystals and lift crystals and asymmetric webbing. The parts with journeyman just had me grinning.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:53
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jivjov posted:Read a bit more of Aeronaut..and I picked up on something that annoys me greatly. Butcher can't decide if he wants to use "Fleet" or "the Fleet". In one passage, someone talks about "the types of maps used by the Fleet", in another someone says that "they left Fleet for a reason" or somesuch. Its just the way nautical types use the words Fleet and Squadron. "The Fleet" is used to refer to the physical ships, "Fleet" means the people in charge of said ships. Sailors are weird. You meet up with "The 7th Fleet". But you meet up with Captain so-and-so at "Fleet" HQ. Hell a perfect example is how we refer to particular buildings in Pearl Harbor. "Going over to Squadron" meant that you were going to the one building where all the commodores for all the submarine squadrons had their offices. Same with "Going to Fleet" meaning going across the street to the big admiralty compound.
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Oct 10, 2015 14:18
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Clinton1011 posted:Anyone notice that despite grim being described wearing a hat in every scene his outfit is described he does not have one on the cover. I didn't notice that. I think it might be a reverse Dresden meta joke. Dresden covers always have a hat, yet he never wears hats. So Grimm, always having a hat, doesn't have it on his head on the cover.
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Oct 12, 2015 04:12
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Magres posted:I always thought the star-child crap was just that he's uniquely able to gently caress up Outsiders because ~plot~ I've always had a hunch that "complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances" weren't quite so literal as being born the day he was. I don't think we're still spoilering Cold Days, but they lie ahead for any lurkers who are catching up. If you look at it wholisticly the first time Harry encounters an outsider he didn't so much win as surprise it with fire. We know that He Who Walks Behind wasn't killed by that. Dresden doesn't think He was trying to really kill him, and Lashiel states simply that Harry "Overthrew him." Next Harry is trumped by the whammy in the deep during White Night. Lash sacrifices herself to temporarily shield Harry. His second battle is with He Who Walks Before in Mac's. Harry again doesn't win, he just surprises and scares him off. Finally at Demonreach, he gets hit with the whammy hard. This time however rather then fight or try to endure its uber-depression/antilife field like he has previously he instead throws his entire soul against it. I don't think this had anything to do with soul fire either. Simply will vs will. This is the first real manifestation of Harry's fabled Power over outsiders. I figure everyone just misunderstands "Starborn." Its not literally being born under any particular alignment. I think the Gatekeeper dropped a pretty big clue, about how results have temporal momentum. Harry is "Starborn" because he's had the grave misluck of being Harry Dresden, stubborn, powerful, publicly advertising wizard at large. The momentum of the events of his life lead him to a mental state where he can successfully fight a walker because of his personality. Just because of who he is Harry would lead a very similar life in all timelines. Lash being an angelic entity has some precognicious abilty. Much like Uriel and his way of seeing possibilities. When lash refers to "complex confluence of events, of energies, of circumstances" she's not refering to the ones of his birth, but of his life. His battles, his associations, etc. So to me Starborn just means that Harry is so stubborn his fate is pretty much ensured by his own hand, to immortals his life is about as predictable as a steller phenomenon. Slow, destructive, and unavoidable.
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Oct 22, 2015 23:13
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Wheat Loaf posted:I liked American Gods well enough, but I preferred Neverwhere. The only other Gaiman anything I've read (I've seen the episodes of Babylon 5 and Doctor Who he wrote) is the Fragile Things short story collection, which I'm reading at the moment. Seconding the recommendation for The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I really enjoyed it. Megazver posted:The Library on Mount Char is $2,99 on Amazon. The "buy now with one click" is the greatest money vacuum Amazon ever invented. It's only $3 I say to myself. Not to mention all the major book series that I follow that I buy at the preorder $10-15. Again and again and again and now I have multiple thousands of dollars worth of Kindle content. This is now on my Iphone.
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Oct 29, 2015 04:05
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Potooweet posted:Yeah, at some point Marcone is going to have to do something actually villainous, because Butcher hasn't shown him really do anything terrible in the entire series. Telling us Marcone is bad over and over is a poor substitute. Marcone is lawful evil. A good lawful evil character is not villainous. Sure they'll kill you if you're in their way, but it's all part of their system, and very likely to be a stooge doing the killing. You shall be tallied and discarded. Marcones been shown operating a brothel. Smuggling money. Buying stolen artifacts. Funding said thieves. Hiring and using paramilitary assault squads. And general sicking thugs on people. Butchers told us he's a crime lord and figured we'd fill in the details from the sopranos or whatever our expectations are. Which I'm fine with. Butchers shown enough that we get a good feel that he's a not a good person, and told us to imagine the rest.
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Dec 9, 2015 15:52
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If you're not already read any Sanderson I'll give him a recommendation. Not urban fantasy like Dresden and only rarely modern times. Although he has a industrial age trilogy in the works now and a modern day trilogy coming after it. The best thing is he write 2 or 3 books a year. Sanderson Thread here I think I'd recommend the Emperors Soul or The Rithmatist as short stories to see if you like his style. Rithmatist is a little more YA.
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Jan 5, 2016 00:38
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Keystoned posted:Book 3 either comes out this month or February i think. February 16th is the official date as of right now. And while its a fun romp and I enjoy it I wouldn't make it my first Sanderson choice as a new reader, it comes off pretty YA.
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Jan 5, 2016 03:04
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If you're looking for simple entertaining YA fantasy the Mageborn series is probably a step above if maybe around iron druid.
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Feb 3, 2016 03:06
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Daric posted:I'm currently reading the 4th Daniel Faust book, I just finished Staked and I'm going to get the new Libriomancer book tomorrow. I'll start that next. In that case just read everything Sanderson. You've got plenty on your plate without having to dig into random things I found on amazon for $3. I'd much rather recommend you read Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone. Or The Book of the Fallen.
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Feb 3, 2016 06:24
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If I had an unlimited budget I think Christoph Waltz as Nicodemus would nail it. Not as a rehash of a role he's already played, I just think he's got the chops to do it wonderfully. Although i'm fairly terrible with my casting thoughts so take that with a grain of salt.
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Feb 9, 2016 04:59
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I like your theory and pose a follow on that: Mirror Harry (the good one) is the one who didn't get infected by Nemesis by Justin, and hence has lived a far less hectic but still fulfilling life without having to deal with the doom of damocleas, and that because of it, good Harry wasn't in the places he needed to be to properly Dresden-ify and hence that's actually a darker path for the world as a whole. And when in Harry going to start Wardening the coins rather than letting the church keep losing them every week.
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Sep 29, 2016 04:02
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So Merlin builds the universes maximum security temporal prison in the early centuries and you're saying the Christian God committed himself to the asylum out of guilt?
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Sep 29, 2016 19:55
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Dresden sort of has his thing for derailing evil in surprising ways. I'd been going through skin game again this weekend (with Marsters masterful narration as I road tripped) and the scene where Uriel confronts Nicodemus is still one of my favorite in the series. Micheal in full paladin glory is so satisfying. The small exchange where Micheal calls Uriel his friend and the affect on the Arch Angel of feeling the love of such a humble man. That exchange is one of the most beautiful of the series to me. And really, once that happened Nic should have just packed up, but he had to much hubris. Other things that occurred to me. In Harry's first dream I think all the multitude of slightly am different Harry's are him getting the first hints of what's coming for Mirror Mirror. And, purely speculation; Near the end of the series Harry, rather than loving with temporal magic like Merlin or the Gatekeeper, will find a way to use the actions of Paralell Harry's to work together to cast a spell that affects them all into being able to all simultaneously act in all the realities. In the moment of need there will be a Harry at everywhere he needs to be, and each will affect all the other worlds. And much like Merlins creation of the Well by creating a spell across great spans of time, Harry will be able to cast a much greater spell by coordinating at different locations across different dimensions.
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Oct 11, 2016 05:21
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Cythereal posted:For whatever reason, the different decision earlier, even if it seems harmless, leads him not to claim Demonreach as a sanctum. The events of the book still happen and Harry wins, but he doesn't become the Warden of Demonreach. And that puts destiny seriously askew for any number of reasons involving Demonreach, its origins, and its power. What if Demonreach's construction means it can only have one Warden throughout multiple causalities, such that either our Harry is the only one who is actually the Warden, or better, that all Harry's are technically Warden and they just don't all know it and might make some bad decisions regarding the island.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:35
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GRRM has already died before finishing writing Game of Thrones. It just hasn't happened yet.
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Apr 24, 2017 22:06
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I've been listening through the audio books again on my drives and James Marsters is really the best possible Narrator. I think it's around book four or five you can really hear a shift as he starts getting into it. And I forgot how much happens in Dead Beat. Halfway through Proven Guilty now.
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Jul 21, 2017 01:43
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I think mind magic is the only thing that will for sure mess you up. One of the reasons that the council is so worried about Dresden is that he immolated a highly capable warden, directly, with magic. He didn't Molotov the house, he didn't use a gun or a knife. Harry, with all of his power unbound by logic or morals, desired to burn Justin alive with will alone and succeeded. That's some heavy black magic. Burning the witch at the stake with your mind alone like you're Carrie. As the Merlin points out at the start of Proven Guilty using magic like that corrupts your soul. As a kid Harry had to believe the laws of physics were ok with him melting the fat off a fellow person.
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Jul 22, 2017 17:56
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Cythereal posted:I think a lot of the unanswered questions about that encounter have to do with Harry's birth and the power over Outsiders he has, which has been hinted to be because of his birth in some way. I think Harry has been a pawn of the biggest powers in the supernatural world since before his conception, and he's going to find out exactly why he was born in the final trilogy that Butcher's promised. I do stick with my hypothesis that it has actually nothing to do with being born under some arcane starsign or whatever, but some sort of self fulfilling prophecy ala gatekeeper where Harry's future decisions to oppose the outsiders and evil ripple back in time to his youth.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:20
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Cythereal posted:And all of that bothers me a little. Mortals feel like they have virtually no agency or legitimacy in the Dresden Files, Murphy can't walk down a block these days without some supernatural power offering her a job. With the Fomor kidnapping more and more mortals I wouldn't be surprised if you saw an uptick in counter-magic from the mortals
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Jul 25, 2017 05:20
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Captain_Person posted:I think Four roads cross really landed for me because it paid off so many characters story lines that had been on the back burner. And the deeper dive into the mechanics of the legal system. Still can’t wait to see where the series visits next.
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Feb 8, 2018 06:21
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Ornamented Death posted:The last Iron Druid book comes out today. Finally the nightmare is ended. I only read the first few on a lark, they were bad. Considering reading synopsis of the rest just to see how it ends. Closure and all that.
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Apr 3, 2018 15:26
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Blasphemeral posted:Maybe she was infected with Nemesis, whose notable trait is that he makes you what you're not. She was known as the most complex and plotting of the Denarians so, naturally, she becomes cliche and unable to plot/run a descent plan. I think that may have been more Asher being psycho than Lash being incompetent. Favorite moment in the series is still "my friend" and the whole scene outside the Carpenters house.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:48
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Still hoping Harry asks Uriel at some point about the metaphysical disposition of whatever constitutes Lash’s soul. Like did the cognitive shadow return to heaven after her redemption. Did she gain angelic status on death but as a new entity? Or did Lash perma-die to gave birth to the new intellect spirit, which may have a soul?
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Apr 12, 2018 20:40
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I love the Verus books for when I need something to waste a day or two reading before moving on. They flow and their fun and I don't feel like I miss anything by following it just for the what-happens-next-ism
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Jun 29, 2018 04:07
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And since we don’t know yet, Richard may be using a ton of items and one offs that his minions make.
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Jun 30, 2018 16:27
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