What books are you reading now?
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- PoliteNewb
- Duke
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The Hidden Europe, by Francis Tapon...it's about his travels in Eastern Europe. It's pretty hilarious, and has a lot of good side discussions about linguistics and things I wasn't aware of like couchsurfing.
I am judging the philosophies and decisions you have presented in this thread. The ones I have seen look bad, and also appear to be the fruit of a poisonous tree that has produced only madness and will continue to produce only madness.
--AngelFromAnotherPin
believe in one hand and shit in the other and see which ones fills up quicker. it will be the one you are full of, shit.
--Shadzar
--AngelFromAnotherPin
believe in one hand and shit in the other and see which ones fills up quicker. it will be the one you are full of, shit.
--Shadzar
- Sir Neil
- Knight-Baron
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Friends have been posting stories about the problem of rape, most recently Jezebel's "'Rape Culture' is Just Drunk College Sluts Lying, Says Major Magazine." The frustrating part is how many authors are ignorant of the law. Having sex with someone who is drunk is not rape. Not in Alabama, California, or Indiana. Ugh! I mean, they're wrong on the Internet! How am I supposed to sleep?
- Ancient History
- Serious Badass
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- Ancient History
- Serious Badass
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- RobbyPants
- King
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- Avoraciopoctules
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On topic: I'm currently reading "Let's Play Riviera: the Promissed Land" and Henry Laion Oldie "Mage in Law" (a reference to Vor in Law thing of russian history).
Off topic: Super Duper Dangan Ronpa, Battle Royale, Hugner Games... Are there any other fictional works where people/children slaughter each other for no good reason?
Off topic: Super Duper Dangan Ronpa, Battle Royale, Hugner Games... Are there any other fictional works where people/children slaughter each other for no good reason?
The Running Man by Richard Bachman/Stephen King.Longes wrote:On topic: I'm currently reading "Let's Play Riviera: the Promissed Land" and Henry Laion Oldie "Mage in Law" (a reference to Vor in Law thing of russian history).
Off topic: Super Duper Dangan Ronpa, Battle Royale, Hugner Games... Are there any other fictional works where people/children slaughter each other for no good reason?
The book, not the movie.
Game On,
fbmf
Last edited by fbmf on Fri Nov 29, 2013 2:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Stahlseele
- King
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thank you for telling me about this having been released, i have been hankering and hoping for him to continue writing discworld . . does it show that he's suffering from alzheimers?shau wrote:Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett. It's...not very good actually. Any interest in me putting up a rant review here? It's not RPG stuff, but it is fantasy.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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I picked the Song of Ice & Fire series up as of late and have gotten to A Feast for Crows by now.
"Lurker and fan of random stuff." - Icy's occupation
sabs wrote:And Yes, being Finnish makes you Evil.
virgil wrote:And has been successfully proven with Pathfinder, you can just say you improved the system from 3E without doing so and many will believe you to the bitter end.
- nockermensch
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A short comic: http://www.sassquach.com/journal/2013/1 ... night.html
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
I've been working through World's Largest Dungeon in prep to run it. It's not terrible, but it's also nothing great. I have determined that Jim Pinto hates rogues.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Yeah, World's largest dungeon's hatred of rogues was weird. Rogues excel in dungeons especially in large scale dungeons. It just seemed as though he wanted a straight out fight them to death Gygax style with shitty traps. His hatred of Druid & animal companions is also annoying. The few times i attempted to run the module, I just ignored the druid hate and let people play them. I was tempted to see what World's largest city was like but decided against it.
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I've been reading a fair amount of comics again.
Brian Wood's "Mara" seems to be vaguely influenced by "The Hunger Games" dystopian ethos but replacing battling for life with Volleyball. The story is also a coming of age story in that our hero slowly figures out that she's an unstoppable metahuman on the power of the higher levels of Superman. She also displays the same type of bored attitude present in Alan -get off my lawn- Moore & Neil Gaiman's version of Miracleman/Marvelman/McFarlane-Gaiman-tittyfight-man.
I also went through some Howard Chaykin comics like "City of Tomorrow" and the first 15-20 issues "American Flagg" which is a great example of how Judge Dredd should have actually been done. "City..." was okay. It features his sarcastic twist on the pulpy yesteryear sort of vision of the world mixed with sex and bombastic violence*.
I finally went through all Garth Ennis' "The Boys" and it really had its great moments and its downright shitty ones. I think he failed because he said he was trying to outdo "Preacher" in terms of the shock value. "Preacher" worked because the shock value was actually coupled with a coherent fast paced serious story with lots of accompanying humor. "The Boys" had shock and it had a coherent decently paced story but it failed because it placed humor above the serious aspect. This is fine when done right but when he was also going for the shock value, it didn't work as well.
I also read his more recent series for Marvel's Max imprint called "Fury: Max." Well, I read all of his "Fury" work for Max. This was an example of being a little over-the-top and having the funny highlighted more than the seirousness and how it could be done well. I've always had a fondness for his ultraviolence humor as seen in his work on "Fury", "Barracuda" and "Hitman."** I"m probably missing a few other examples.
I read James Robinson's first TPB of "Earth 2" under the new 52 stuff of DC. It was actually pretty good because its really not connected to any of the other DC New 52 confusion.
--
In books, I read a short pulpy novel called "THe Getaway" by Lisa Brackmann. It was okay. A fast beach read.
"The Familiars" by Jay Adam Epstein was a cute junior fiction book about a trio of familiars who had to travel the land to go free their kidnapped Wizards who were the propecied ones. A simple story with likeable characters and an easy to guess but fun plot twist about the history of that setting. It looks like he a wrote a couple more books in the series and I might check them out if i can get my kid to actually read the first book.
---
I've been reading a fair amount of comics again.
Brian Wood's "Mara" seems to be vaguely influenced by "The Hunger Games" dystopian ethos but replacing battling for life with Volleyball. The story is also a coming of age story in that our hero slowly figures out that she's an unstoppable metahuman on the power of the higher levels of Superman. She also displays the same type of bored attitude present in Alan -get off my lawn- Moore & Neil Gaiman's version of Miracleman/Marvelman/McFarlane-Gaiman-tittyfight-man.
I also went through some Howard Chaykin comics like "City of Tomorrow" and the first 15-20 issues "American Flagg" which is a great example of how Judge Dredd should have actually been done. "City..." was okay. It features his sarcastic twist on the pulpy yesteryear sort of vision of the world mixed with sex and bombastic violence*.
I finally went through all Garth Ennis' "The Boys" and it really had its great moments and its downright shitty ones. I think he failed because he said he was trying to outdo "Preacher" in terms of the shock value. "Preacher" worked because the shock value was actually coupled with a coherent fast paced serious story with lots of accompanying humor. "The Boys" had shock and it had a coherent decently paced story but it failed because it placed humor above the serious aspect. This is fine when done right but when he was also going for the shock value, it didn't work as well.
I also read his more recent series for Marvel's Max imprint called "Fury: Max." Well, I read all of his "Fury" work for Max. This was an example of being a little over-the-top and having the funny highlighted more than the seirousness and how it could be done well. I've always had a fondness for his ultraviolence humor as seen in his work on "Fury", "Barracuda" and "Hitman."** I"m probably missing a few other examples.
I read James Robinson's first TPB of "Earth 2" under the new 52 stuff of DC. It was actually pretty good because its really not connected to any of the other DC New 52 confusion.
--
In books, I read a short pulpy novel called "THe Getaway" by Lisa Brackmann. It was okay. A fast beach read.
"The Familiars" by Jay Adam Epstein was a cute junior fiction book about a trio of familiars who had to travel the land to go free their kidnapped Wizards who were the propecied ones. A simple story with likeable characters and an easy to guess but fun plot twist about the history of that setting. It looks like he a wrote a couple more books in the series and I might check them out if i can get my kid to actually read the first book.
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.
- Ancient History
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I'm about to start on Cathrynne Valente's Fairyland books. The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, and The Girl Who Soared Above Fairyland and Cut The Moon in Two.
These are some of the best titles.
These are some of the best titles.
Last edited by Maxus on Sat Dec 07, 2013 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
- Josh_Kablack
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Nearly finished with David Brin's Existence. It's a little heavy on Brin's usual self-importance, but the central crisis of the book perhaps the most terrifyingly plausible alien invasion of earth I have ever encountered in a work of fiction.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sun Dec 08, 2013 6:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
I have a habit of gently reading books I am buying for other people. So I just read "The Reason I Jump" tonight since I giving it as a gift. It's a very quick read, 140ish pages maybe including the foreword, and short pages to boot.
After reading I feel a bit bad getting after our eldest for repeating words/sounds over and over or using baby-talk or repeatedly doing things he knows he should not, if he truly cannot help himself. But I don't reckon I have other alternatives if I want to give him his best chances at not continuing that behavior.
After reading I feel a bit bad getting after our eldest for repeating words/sounds over and over or using baby-talk or repeatedly doing things he knows he should not, if he truly cannot help himself. But I don't reckon I have other alternatives if I want to give him his best chances at not continuing that behavior.
I just finished Newton and the Counterfeiter, a biography of Sir Isaac Newton that focuses on his time as Warden of the Royal Mint. I found it utterly fascinating - not just because of its revelations about Newton and his nemesis William Chaloner, but also its revelations about money and economics.
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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- Duke
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I finally finished Of Dice & Men, which I will also remember as "David Ewalt seeks out religion in D&D".
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
I recently read Lord of Light by Zelazny based upon rave descriptions found here. I feel like a weak person now because while I enjoyed it, the book had a strong soporific power over me. It was like in the neighborhood of 200 pages but it took me almost a week to read it (I read ~100 pgs/hr typically when engrossed) because I kept falling asleep.
I am not ruling out the possibility that my copy was coated with some sleep inducing contact poison.
I am not ruling out the possibility that my copy was coated with some sleep inducing contact poison.
I just read Digital Divide by K.B. Spangler. You might know her as the author of A Girl and Her Fed. It's a story about the first cyborg police liaison in the world. It's a great crime novel with added themes of discrimination and reassembly.
virgil wrote:Lovecraft didn't later add a love triangle between Dagon, Chtulhu, & the Colour-Out-of-Space; only to have it broken up through cyber-bullying by the King in Yellow.
FrankTrollman wrote:If your enemy is fucking Gravity, are you helping or hindering it by putting things on high shelves? I don't fucking know! That's not even a thing. Your enemy can't be Gravity, because that's stupid.
- TheNotoriousAMP
- Journeyman
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- Ancient History
- Serious Badass
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I just picked up "S" by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst.
It's as meta a work as Lost or Fringe or whatever else Abrams decides he wants to do.
It's written as a novel by a fictional author who might or might not be who he/the world says he is. Then there's two readers who correspond with each other within the margins of the book itself trying to decipher who the author was or stuff like that. A quick peruse of some reviews of the book suggest that the novel can be read without reading any of the margin notes (which are present on each and every page) but then reading the margin notes and also the tons of extra clippings (letters, news paper articles, hand drawn maps on paper napkins, code wheels) gives you an extra layer.
Apparently the margin notes are further delineated by different colors based on the first or second or fifth time the two readers read the book.
--
Normally this sort of fiction grates on my nerves at times but I'm probably going to try to read this shit first as just the novel and then with some of the notes and the other add ons.
Apparently the code wheel also has its on ARC game website. I don't think I'm going to go that crazy into the book to decipher it all the way through.
It's as meta a work as Lost or Fringe or whatever else Abrams decides he wants to do.
It's written as a novel by a fictional author who might or might not be who he/the world says he is. Then there's two readers who correspond with each other within the margins of the book itself trying to decipher who the author was or stuff like that. A quick peruse of some reviews of the book suggest that the novel can be read without reading any of the margin notes (which are present on each and every page) but then reading the margin notes and also the tons of extra clippings (letters, news paper articles, hand drawn maps on paper napkins, code wheels) gives you an extra layer.
Apparently the margin notes are further delineated by different colors based on the first or second or fifth time the two readers read the book.
--
Normally this sort of fiction grates on my nerves at times but I'm probably going to try to read this shit first as just the novel and then with some of the notes and the other add ons.
Apparently the code wheel also has its on ARC game website. I don't think I'm going to go that crazy into the book to decipher it all the way through.
Ancient History wrote:We were working on Street Magic, and Frank asked me if a houngan had run over my dog.