Comments | kali921: In short, a monkey has bested seven men. This should give you a dim view of human endeavor.

kali921

In short, a monkey has bested seven men. This should give you a dim view of human endeavor.

Feb 10, 2010 09:49

ceitfianna tagged me for an icon meme, and I succumbed, for icon memes are a dangerous weakness.

The meme is writ thusly:

Comment here and I will pick six of your icons, you then copy and paste this in your LJ along with your explanations/comments/squeeage about each one.If you comment here and want me to, I'll pick six of your icons for overly technical ( Read more... )

cable & deadpool, cable: not for beginners!, lost, hilarity, did we just retcon clinton?, film, dinosaurs, memeage, deadpool, dazzler, marvel, motivators, green lantern, video clips, meme, you tube

Comments 59

redstapler February 10 2010, 17:57:59 UTC

OMG THAT DRESDEN FILES THING IS THE GREATEST IMAGE ON THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW. I AM DED FROM AWESOME.

kali921 February 10 2010, 18:03:55 UTC

VERY MUCH AGREED. ALSO, HARRY'S LINE ABOUT HOW NO ONE WARNED HIM, ONCE HE WAS ABOARD, ABOUT HOW MUCH ASS T-REXES CAN HAUL MADE ME DROP THE BOOK IN LAUGHTER.

redstapler February 10 2010, 18:08:19 UTC

WELL SURE! THEY HAVE BIG HEADS AND TINY ARMS SO WHO THOUGHT THEY COULD MAKE LIKE A LIBRARY AND BOOK?

kali921 February 10 2010, 18:12:44 UTC

Aheheheheheheeeeeee.

Just snorted a mouthful of v. expensive Jade Cloud tea. Ow, lady.

txtriffidranch February 10 2010, 18:01:24 UTC

Concerning #5: Ahem. AHEM. Justice League America #45, front cover. Out of all of the comics I sold off during the previous decade, this is one of the only ones I actually miss, and not just for "Guy Gardner on Ice".

kali921 February 10 2010, 18:06:25 UTC

Which volume of JLA? I can't bring up an image of the cover from memory or Google!

txtriffidranch February 10 2010, 18:16:46 UTC

Keith Giffen years (circa 1990), with the front cover title "A Fool In Love". This was the one where Ice finally agreed to give Guy a second date (after he'd taken her to a cockfight "to watch two half-starved birds peck each other's eyes out"), but only if she chose the venue. She chose the Ice Capades, and the date was all over if Guy made a single nasty comment or complaint, "cross your heart and hope to die." "Then I'll die! I'll die! I'LL DIE! But I'm gonna take Beetle and Kilowog WITH ME!"

kali921 February 10 2010, 18:27:42 UTC

So this was JLI, not JLA, correct?

Thread 8

spectralbovine February 10 2010, 18:19:49 UTC

Harry riding a zombie!T-Rex through downtown Chicago will NEVER not be awesomely funny. And yes, it's pretty much like this all the time in the later Dresden books.
...Wow. People keep telling me to read those books, and I have been interested, but...wow. My interest is further piqued.

kali921 February 10 2010, 18:26:31 UTC

The early books are a tad rough in parts - there's a little too much mention of stiffening nipples and femme fatales who stiffen said nipples because of bloodlust and/or because they want Harry - but the worldbuilding is GREAT.

Harry is very genre savvy. He's the most genre savvy of any literary figure I can think of outside of comics - he constantly makes JLA references, for example. His not-at-all-blue VW bug is named, of course, the Blue Beetle.

And Harry is funny. Very much a deadpan snarker. His supporting cast is mostly great, particularly in the later books.

There are faeries obsessed with pizza. Zombie!dinosaurs. Polka-obsessed forensic technicians. Mister the cat. Mouse the dog. There's also Susan Ramirez, and I LOVE Susan.

outlawpoet February 10 2010, 18:52:00 UTC

It does have some chauvinist stuff in it, particularly the early books, but he seems to be getting over it. If I had a dime for every time Harry stupidly endangers people because he doesn't want to worry the pretty heads of Susan or Murphy in the first five books, I'd be able to buy fantasy hardcovers(more than I already do, I mean).

The worldbuilding, particularly in the later books, is incredibly ace, to the point where I almost want him to take some time off from Harry to follow some of the other races, characters and political machinations that aren't so accessible from the viewpoint of a White Council magical thug like Harry.

Which is why I'm predictably really excited about the Dresden Files RPG, which Jim Butcher is supposedly very involved with. It's coming out this year at Origins. The rule system is an extension of the very well regarded Spirit Of The Century FATE system, so I plan on using it to spend some quality time in the Dresden-verse.

kali921 February 10 2010, 20:04:40 UTC

See, I always thought of Harry's stubborn knight complex as a plot device - when he could simply tell Murphy or Susan what was going on, he doesn't so the story can go forward, and it does come back to bite him in the ass, so I think this is a deliberate machination on Jim Butcher's part - Harry's on a learning curve.

The faerie stuff intrigues me the most about the Dresden books. The books where he goes to faerie land, and the fact that he writes them as dangerous and wild and old school made me warm to the books.

Thread 11

outlawpoet February 10 2010, 18:56:57 UTC

Can I say that having Werner Herzog retell children's stories is genius on par with George Carlin playing Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station?

kali921 February 10 2010, 19:11:27 UTC

Yes. Yes, you can.

(The comment has been removed)

ceitfianna February 10 2010, 19:19:33 UTC

White Knight was the one which I stopped after, but I love Codex Alera. I think the fact that I ended up rereading two of them on a horrible vacation made me not as interested.

(The comment has been removed)

ceitfianna February 10 2010, 21:10:58 UTC

Well, Butcher is really good at world building and Codex Alera has lots of roman references and the characters are more well rounded from the start.

I think a lot of it depends on what you like, Dresden Files are good pulpy noir books with a first person narrator.

Codex Alera are more straight fantasy and he plays around with the POV a lot, I prefer Alera but it depends what you like.

Thread 18