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Messages - hamiltond

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1
DF Spoilers / Re: Mother winters names.
« on: September 14, 2018, 04:29:44 AM »
I'm sure it's been discussed at some point but she is obviously The Cailleach, amongst other things.

2
The confrontation with Shagnasty at the Raith mansion ought to be mentioned as another Turn Coat event, as Luccio was present to report on what happened.

Note that, while Harry's rings technically store "potential energy", calling it "kinetic energy" would be a much more useful phrasing for purposes of the Wardens' files.  Calling it "potential energy" makes it sound like Harry could convert its stored power into heat, light, electricity or whatever else he wants, not just kinetic force.  Better to use a term with less scientific precision than to give readers a skewed picture of what Dresden is capable of.
 

Yeah,  except that it wouldn't be skewed if you think about it.  You're absolutely right. Harry SHOULD be able to convert the stored energy into various other forms, maybe he never worked out the formulae or maybe he's never considered it (he does that alot) but a wizard like Luccio would.

3
Here's my latest take on the Power structure for the Dresdenverse.  It breaks down as Aspects of Reality.  Here, an Aspect is Reality itself, whereas an Avatar is the faith/belief manifestation of that Aspect.

EVERYTHING
In the beginning, there was EVERYTHING.
From sheer boredom, EVERYTHING then split into two:  Order, and Chaos

ORDER
(click to show/hide)

CHAOS
(click to show/hide)

ASPECTS of ORDER
(click to show/hide)

The Concept of Natural Aspects
(click to show/hide)

Applying it Loosely to The Winter Queens
(click to show/hide)

Applying it Loosely to Hecate
(click to show/hide)

Why we'll never see Hecate
(click to show/hide)
   

Epic.
So, if I understood you, the reason we won't see "Earth" is because metaphysical "weight" would have to great an effect on reality?  Like a magic black hole?

4
@Serack
As I'm ready through your, quite frankly, beautiful and elegant theory I came upon a rather interesting parallel between human beings in the DV and quantum level interactions.  Specifically the thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat.
In this scenario mortals are the cat existing in a sort of quantum state of indecision and any direct observation from the TRULY "PCPs" would irreparably damage the "experiment". (Predestination / quantum locked reality)  Thus in order to affect change it/they must act through smaller and smaller instruments (emanations) AND in a roundabout fashion, thus why so many higher beings act in "mysterious ways" and cannot take direct action, in order to make a desired outcome.  Meanwhile we lowly humans existing in a  indeterminate state afforded to us by our infinitesimally small "size" that WE perceive as "free will". Am I anywhere near the ballpark?

5
DF Reference Collection / Re: Suggest Topics Here!
« on: June 24, 2014, 02:34:13 PM »
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,41981.0.html10/22/14

This should be a no-brainer.

6
Excellent work, man. Kudos!

@ Serack: It seems, from what Uriel said about souls that the DF soul concept is based on Aristotle's "On the Soul" did you use any of this when you came up with your theory?

7
I'm so there
 :D

8
Who's got two thumbs and got JB to spill the beans about Changes in SD.  This Guy :D

9
I don't know?  How about:  " your friendly neighborhood occult shop?"   :D

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(click to show/hide)

11
Author Craft / Re: Demon Name reference guide
« on: April 24, 2008, 11:10:28 PM »
Pick up the "Dictionary of Angels" its got some great stuff.

12
That's bullet point.  I've just read this whole thing for the first time, and while I'm not going to go back and assign numerical rankings, these are the issues people have mentioned a bunch:

1. More diversity! -- We want different settings (Europe, other US cities, other parts of the world).  We want authors who sound like they actually know about non-US cultures.  We want US authors who make use of the actual diversity of the US.

You've all read the Watch books, right?  The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko?  The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.

2. More magical diversity!  --  We want less of the trendy mythologies and critters and more of the weird ones.  (Though we don't all agree on which should stay and which should go.  Personally, I could do without any more "celtic" anything ever, and East Asian stuff often sounds like an anime ripoff.)  We want real folklore monsters instead of movie Dracula.  We want folklore we haven't heard of before and monsters that aren't in every single other UF book.

3. More magical diversity! -- Some of us like science-y magic, others don't.  All of us agree that authors should be more creative about their magical systems.  They need to be internally consistent and not the same as White Wolf or every other UF book.

4. More diversity of heroes!  -- Ok, ok, no hero is going to be ordinary ordinary, but could we at least have some short, fat people in with our Xenas?  Or someone who's not a PI, half vampire, or changeling?  Or at least some plausible adults?  These stories are set in the real world; let's have some heroes from there too.

5. No more sex!  --  We're fantasy fans, not softcore porn vampire romance novel fans.  More plot and less nookie, please!  Pointless canoodling is what fanfiction is for.

6. No more series-itus!  --  Many of us are sick of long series (not me!), but we're all sick of series that go on and on for no reason.  Trilogies and stand-alone books, please!  Overall series plot, please!  No more jumping the shark Anita Blake style, for the love of god!

7. Good prose!  --  Just because we like genre fiction doesn't mean we don't like good writing.  Publishers need to stop pushing out crapfests just because they're in a trendy subgenre.  We want good books!


So, basically, we want fresh, interesting books by actually talented authors instead of Extruded Urban Fantasy Product.


Well said.

13
Author Craft / Re: question on urban fantasy literature.
« on: April 23, 2008, 06:20:36 PM »
I know this is a sore subject for many of us in the UF fandom, but LKH (Ms. Hamilton) has written some of the best work in the genre.  At least up until Narcisuss in Chains.  Try her first novel: Guilty Pleasure's. I would suggest not skipping around with her work since the tone of the books have changed greatly and she no longer writes "jumping on point" novels for the Anita Blake series.  Tanya Huff is also very good at her work and I do enjoy the Kim Harrison novels.

 What aspect of the genre do you like most?  The mystery? the magic or the relationship?  These are the three pillars of the UF landscape and most authors tend to lean on one more that the other.  (i.e.  LKH's Merry Gentry series which is ALL magic and sex and has NO mystery aspect whatsoever). 

Jim Butcher is one of the few authors out there that has been able to maintain a good balance of all three after more than a few books.So many others only use the "mystery" as a plot device to futher the magic/shipping aspects of the series, which is IMHO a rather poor and lazy effort on the part of many ape LKH's success in the field as the reigning author in the genre.   (She's the most well paid but he's probably the best he is at what he does)   But Jim's the only one I've heard of who know exactly how many books he's going to write AND has an overarcing storyline.

Ok, I'm going to stop rambling now.  Hope my stint on the soapbox helps you out.

14
Author Craft / Re: Common knowledge in fantasy
« on: April 08, 2008, 09:40:18 PM »
Well, that is guaranteed to make me not buy your book, because it says you can't be bothered to make the text work well enough on its own ground and you need to prop it up.  I hate that almost as much as I do maps.

See I rather like them, especially when the have little tidbits of information in the that the author just couldn't reasonable fit in. But then again I also buy DVDs because I like the special features so....

15
Author Craft / Re: Common knowledge in fantasy
« on: April 08, 2008, 07:51:41 PM »
Just put a glossary in the back of the book.  It worked for Jordan and Herbert.

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