I really don't see how anyone can say they start to go downhill before 7. The Fires of Heaven is filled with some of the most important events in the entire series (the doorway on the wagon still gets me choked up) and both 5 and 6 are the real final turning point for Rand's personality. And Dumai's Wells... I don't see how anyone could say the buildup to that and especially the chapter itself is anything short of amazing.
Perrin and Faile, however, make me want to gas myself. It's like watching a friend get whipped by a bad girlfriend, except instead of disappearing like usual they're always around.
I disagree. As tedious as it was to read, damn near every bit of it was essential. RJ managed to do something you rarely see in any fiction, let alone epic fantasy: he created a world with believable motivations, character psychology, and consequences. Perrin needed an army, Emond's Field wasn't exactly enough to bring to Tarmon Gaidon. With Faile's following, Perrin gets a believable army that didn't just appear around him. In fact, some of the nobles that Faile trapped while in captivity will almost certainly try to break away, and now they're going to have to fight for the army they've already gone through so much for. That's part of what I love about these books. Our heroes are fucked, just plain fucked beyond belief for nearly 10,000 pages, but he somehow keeps it tense and believable that they survive (when they do survive:( ) the whole time.
I think he went beyond three books for money, but he went beyond 6-7 because he got in over his head and created a bigger story than he had any idea. The thing is, he stayed absolutely dedicated to not letting the book become the usual fantasy cliche of God's favors falling from the sky when the chips are down and managed to actually write a great story even if it was hard to read for a few books. Who knows how far he got through 12? He might have actually pulled the whole thing off. I wouldn't be shocked if 12's story is just as amazing, even if it does lose his personal touch some at the end. I hope to God he had the climax written down in advance.
I wouldn't worry about spoilers. Nobody will remember this by the time they get through 10 books if they haven't read them already, and if they do I think they have enough un-spoiled story to work with.
Ah, I misunderstood the position of your previous post, I thought you were trying to offer that as a justification for their statement. Then you go and flip it all around on me and say yourself what I didn't want to say in order to avoid an argument I didn't want to have that I thought you'd make... bravo. And yeah, it is a lie, but I'll bet you anything that if they really get pinned down on it they'll try to call it a simplification. It's the only out for them I can see.
Oh wait, you really are a lawyer. Excuse me, I have to go teach my grandfather how to milk a cow.
Oh, the introspective morally-ambiguous self-haters I can understand, I'm an extremely introverted type myself, although I got over the moral ambiguity and self-loathing shortly after puberty was over... turns out that unless you're truly worthless, enough introspection eventually leads to answers:P I've thought of checking those out, maybe I'll do that while I wait for whatever form of book 12 comes out. Thanks!
Not disagreeing with the main point of your post, but, and I think they're the only animal I can say this about, somebody caught poaching deer should be given a fucking medal.
Deer are nowhere near even being endangered. Their population is not falling. If things continue exactly as they are, society is certainly no worse off because of this man's actions. The punishment is too stiff. It should be lightened until the deer population reaches the point when I almost hit them only as often as other highly successful species in the same area.
If you cannot explain a term to someone who does not understand that term, then you yourself don't understand that term (and all of its dependencies until you reach a level that person does understand). In this case, I'm fairly certain the judge knows both the difference between a computer and a person, and the difference between distribution and potential distribution. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that they're simplifying to make up for the judge's lack of technical understanding. That's incorrect, however. Given the ease with which the correct simplification could be made, provided that the RIAA lawyers or their technical advisors do understand the concepts of an IP address and uploading and difference between a person and computer and the meaning of the word potential, the only remaining possible purpose of their simplification is not to inform, but to mislead the judge.
That would be ideal. Personally, I'd like it most if they just released what he had written so far, with the best explanation of the ending he dictated to his wife and cousin/brother a couple days before his death without trying to mesh two authors into one book. That would be closure enough for me, and as long as he didn't introduce any more characters, it would play like a movie in my head after how well we know the rest of them. That, along with the notes (who killed Asmodean? Who? Who? (it was Lanfear, used her wishes and got killed)), would be perfect.
You seem to be unable to disconnect from your gut reactions, even when they're wrong. I've known many people with the same problem, and even dated one for more than a year, so I know what that must be like for you and I'm very sorry. I'll say this even though it will do absolutely no good: #1: Nobody who has a right to be hurt by anything we say will ever read this. #2: Laughing at a critisism commonly-repeated by people who can't appreciate the story properly, warts and all, and realize that it's still one of the best series of novels since they started being made, is far from calling their entire career a farce. At a roast, you're laughing at the jokes, not the person.
As proof of my experience in dealing with victims of your particular handicap, I'm going to e-walk away now, and I'm not coming back no matter how much you scream:P
I'm not disrespecting him in the slightest, and if I'm at all right about the type of person he was then Rigney himself would have agreed. It takes a certain amount of respect for a person to think they would be able to laugh in the face of a loss like this, and by all accounts he and everyone he surrounded himself with were those types of people. Maybe not tonight, but probably in a couple days, and I think it will be at least that long before Harriet has time to sign on to Slashdot and browse down to the 200th comment. We're just fans, we weren't close enough that we should be crying. I have a heavy heart, and God, I shouldn't feel like this over somebody I've never even met, but laugh, man. Death is lighter than a feather, he found time to put the mountain down.
It won't be better. It will be like a concert I saw a month ago. Alice in Chains without Layne Staley, even though Cantrell managed to find somebody who can sound almost exactly the same, just isn't. He really sounded almost perfect too, until you realized that all the "arharharh" type things Staley used to do were half of what made it great. And even though you could never put your finger on it, the emotion just wasn't there and thank God they didn't try singing Junkhead or Real Thing or something else like that. I mean, I loved the concert, amazing music, amazing talent... but no, not the same, not even close. Book 12, the parts that he didn't write, are going to be just like that. A lot of what made you really believe the book was him knowing what the eyes of a killer look like, and seeing them in old photographs of himself. You won't find the same blend of military, political, and interpersonal knowledge, along with the empathy for his characters and ability to somehow be completely non-pretentious while writing possibly the most epic epic fantasy ever.
You need to take the words "five or" out of that post. Book 6 was without a doubt one of the best fantasy books ever written, even if you say only because of Dumai's Wells. The end--"Kneel, or you will be knelt."--still gives me goosebumps just remembering it.
Haven't read Brooks or Martin, but as a bit of nostalgia the last four series I read were the first and second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Belgariad and the Mallorean, and Eddings definitely isn't anywhere near Tolkien, who although I personally can't fucking stand his writing style was at least a great author. Eddings... good God, if I read "oh ${ONE_DIMENSIONAL_CHARACTER}, you're a treasure!" one more God damn time I'm going at my eyes with large grit sandpaper. Maybe you're like me, and read it for the first time at 14 or so--I loved it then; looking back, I've apparently grown out of being fucking retarded. Now, you may say I haven't because I stuck with it through two whole series, but I'm going to call it 50% stubbornness, 45% incredulity, and 10%... retardation. God what a horrible writer. Zakath's entire personality changes with no inner turmoil whatsoever, Eriond is all but forgotten for the majority of the Mallorean even though he's possibly the most important character, Sadi carries around an infinite supply of a drug for any situation but mostly throws "the brown acid" powder in dogs faces... gah, I could go on for hours. I've rambled, but you need to re-evaluate your estimation there. The Elenium and whatever the other one was called was basically the same thing if I'm remembering correctly.
As for Donaldson, yeah, he's an excellent author, but halfway through his first series I spontaneously coughed up an entire thesaurus and by the end I was pouring milk over bowls of Paxil for breakfast. The second series I think was just a transcription of the hallucinations of a high fever...
No sir, as much as The Wheel of Time rambled in books 7-10.5, and as much as he allowed his taste in women to affect the characters he wrote (he could write good female characters, just didn't seem to want to), Mr. Rigney was a fantasy author of a caliber that hasn't been seen since Tolkien and won't be seen again for a long, long time. R.I.P.
And you, sir, are a walking, talking, slashdot-posting parody of yourself, who apparently learned everything he knows about the mindset and behavior of corporate officers from Jeep commercials.
Me, I learned it by interacting with them personally and professionally way more than I ever wanted to on a day-to-day basis over the majority of my career, and my experience is that the grandparent is dead-on. The whole system is some screwed-up incompetence engine fueled by narcissism bathed in the infinite oxidizer of a personality almost entirely driven by a super-ego that hasn't matured a day since puberty stopped.
Ditto. I always get into MMOs, only to leave two months later when I realize that you can't win and it'll be three years before I even become a force to be reckoned with at the rate I play. Eve looks at least a little different though, with their real-time skill upgrades. I already own a copy of the game; it was the very last one I tried before removing Windows from my house forever. I only got to play it for about two weeks before removing the micro-shaft from my butt, but it seemed cool, just not cool enough to leave that thing in there for.
Slashdot Mirror
I really don't see how anyone can say they start to go downhill before 7. The Fires of Heaven is filled with some of the most important events in the entire series (the doorway on the wagon still gets me choked up) and both 5 and 6 are the real final turning point for Rand's personality. And Dumai's Wells... I don't see how anyone could say the buildup to that and especially the chapter itself is anything short of amazing.
Perrin and Faile, however, make me want to gas myself. It's like watching a friend get whipped by a bad girlfriend, except instead of disappearing like usual they're always around.
Read it. Even if they never publish another sentence it's the most amazing story you'll ever read. It's a Magnum Opus in every sense.
I disagree. As tedious as it was to read, damn near every bit of it was essential. RJ managed to do something you rarely see in any fiction, let alone epic fantasy: he created a world with believable motivations, character psychology, and consequences. Perrin needed an army, Emond's Field wasn't exactly enough to bring to Tarmon Gaidon. With Faile's following, Perrin gets a believable army that didn't just appear around him. In fact, some of the nobles that Faile trapped while in captivity will almost certainly try to break away, and now they're going to have to fight for the army they've already gone through so much for. That's part of what I love about these books. Our heroes are fucked, just plain fucked beyond belief for nearly 10,000 pages, but he somehow keeps it tense and believable that they survive (when they do survive :( ) the whole time.
I think he went beyond three books for money, but he went beyond 6-7 because he got in over his head and created a bigger story than he had any idea. The thing is, he stayed absolutely dedicated to not letting the book become the usual fantasy cliche of God's favors falling from the sky when the chips are down and managed to actually write a great story even if it was hard to read for a few books. Who knows how far he got through 12? He might have actually pulled the whole thing off. I wouldn't be shocked if 12's story is just as amazing, even if it does lose his personal touch some at the end. I hope to God he had the climax written down in advance.
I wouldn't worry about spoilers. Nobody will remember this by the time they get through 10 books if they haven't read them already, and if they do I think they have enough un-spoiled story to work with.
Ah, I misunderstood the position of your previous post, I thought you were trying to offer that as a justification for their statement. Then you go and flip it all around on me and say yourself what I didn't want to say in order to avoid an argument I didn't want to have that I thought you'd make ... bravo. And yeah, it is a lie, but I'll bet you anything that if they really get pinned down on it they'll try to call it a simplification. It's the only out for them I can see.
Oh wait, you really are a lawyer. Excuse me, I have to go teach my grandfather how to milk a cow.
Oh, the introspective morally-ambiguous self-haters I can understand, I'm an extremely introverted type myself, although I got over the moral ambiguity and self-loathing shortly after puberty was over ... turns out that unless you're truly worthless, enough introspection eventually leads to answers :P I've thought of checking those out, maybe I'll do that while I wait for whatever form of book 12 comes out. Thanks!
Not disagreeing with the main point of your post, but, and I think they're the only animal I can say this about, somebody caught poaching deer should be given a fucking medal.
Deer are nowhere near even being endangered. Their population is not falling. If things continue exactly as they are, society is certainly no worse off because of this man's actions. The punishment is too stiff. It should be lightened until the deer population reaches the point when I almost hit them only as often as other highly successful species in the same area.
If you cannot explain a term to someone who does not understand that term, then you yourself don't understand that term (and all of its dependencies until you reach a level that person does understand). In this case, I'm fairly certain the judge knows both the difference between a computer and a person, and the difference between distribution and potential distribution. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that they're simplifying to make up for the judge's lack of technical understanding. That's incorrect, however. Given the ease with which the correct simplification could be made, provided that the RIAA lawyers or their technical advisors do understand the concepts of an IP address and uploading and difference between a person and computer and the meaning of the word potential, the only remaining possible purpose of their simplification is not to inform, but to mislead the judge.
That would be ideal. Personally, I'd like it most if they just released what he had written so far, with the best explanation of the ending he dictated to his wife and cousin/brother a couple days before his death without trying to mesh two authors into one book. That would be closure enough for me, and as long as he didn't introduce any more characters, it would play like a movie in my head after how well we know the rest of them. That, along with the notes (who killed Asmodean? Who? Who? (it was Lanfear, used her wishes and got killed)), would be perfect.
You seem to be unable to disconnect from your gut reactions, even when they're wrong. I've known many people with the same problem, and even dated one for more than a year, so I know what that must be like for you and I'm very sorry. I'll say this even though it will do absolutely no good: #1: Nobody who has a right to be hurt by anything we say will ever read this. #2: Laughing at a critisism commonly-repeated by people who can't appreciate the story properly, warts and all, and realize that it's still one of the best series of novels since they started being made, is far from calling their entire career a farce. At a roast, you're laughing at the jokes, not the person.
As proof of my experience in dealing with victims of your particular handicap, I'm going to e-walk away now, and I'm not coming back no matter how much you scream :P
Amen, brother.
I'm not disrespecting him in the slightest, and if I'm at all right about the type of person he was then Rigney himself would have agreed. It takes a certain amount of respect for a person to think they would be able to laugh in the face of a loss like this, and by all accounts he and everyone he surrounded himself with were those types of people. Maybe not tonight, but probably in a couple days, and I think it will be at least that long before Harriet has time to sign on to Slashdot and browse down to the 200th comment. We're just fans, we weren't close enough that we should be crying. I have a heavy heart, and God, I shouldn't feel like this over somebody I've never even met, but laugh, man. Death is lighter than a feather, he found time to put the mountain down.
Oh, shut up. The series is my favorite ever, and in my opinon amazing even when it lost direction, but that was funny. Go soak your head.
No, exactly the opposite. He had plans in place for his wife at first, but it seems to have moved to others now, to finish the book.
It won't be better. It will be like a concert I saw a month ago. Alice in Chains without Layne Staley, even though Cantrell managed to find somebody who can sound almost exactly the same, just isn't. He really sounded almost perfect too, until you realized that all the "arharharh" type things Staley used to do were half of what made it great. And even though you could never put your finger on it, the emotion just wasn't there and thank God they didn't try singing Junkhead or Real Thing or something else like that. I mean, I loved the concert, amazing music, amazing talent ... but no, not the same, not even close. Book 12, the parts that he didn't write, are going to be just like that. A lot of what made you really believe the book was him knowing what the eyes of a killer look like, and seeing them in old photographs of himself. You won't find the same blend of military, political, and interpersonal knowledge, along with the empathy for his characters and ability to somehow be completely non-pretentious while writing possibly the most epic epic fantasy ever.
You need to take the words "five or" out of that post. Book 6 was without a doubt one of the best fantasy books ever written, even if you say only because of Dumai's Wells. The end--"Kneel, or you will be knelt."--still gives me goosebumps just remembering it.
Haven't read Brooks or Martin, but as a bit of nostalgia the last four series I read were the first and second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Belgariad and the Mallorean, and Eddings definitely isn't anywhere near Tolkien, who although I personally can't fucking stand his writing style was at least a great author. Eddings... good God, if I read "oh ${ONE_DIMENSIONAL_CHARACTER}, you're a treasure!" one more God damn time I'm going at my eyes with large grit sandpaper. Maybe you're like me, and read it for the first time at 14 or so--I loved it then; looking back, I've apparently grown out of being fucking retarded. Now, you may say I haven't because I stuck with it through two whole series, but I'm going to call it 50% stubbornness, 45% incredulity, and 10% ... retardation. God what a horrible writer. Zakath's entire personality changes with no inner turmoil whatsoever, Eriond is all but forgotten for the majority of the Mallorean even though he's possibly the most important character, Sadi carries around an infinite supply of a drug for any situation but mostly throws "the brown acid" powder in dogs faces ... gah, I could go on for hours. I've rambled, but you need to re-evaluate your estimation there. The Elenium and whatever the other one was called was basically the same thing if I'm remembering correctly.
As for Donaldson, yeah, he's an excellent author, but halfway through his first series I spontaneously coughed up an entire thesaurus and by the end I was pouring milk over bowls of Paxil for breakfast. The second series I think was just a transcription of the hallucinations of a high fever...
No sir, as much as The Wheel of Time rambled in books 7-10.5, and as much as he allowed his taste in women to affect the characters he wrote (he could write good female characters, just didn't seem to want to), Mr. Rigney was a fantasy author of a caliber that hasn't been seen since Tolkien and won't be seen again for a long, long time. R.I.P.
And you, sir, are a walking, talking, slashdot-posting parody of yourself, who apparently learned everything he knows about the mindset and behavior of corporate officers from Jeep commercials.
Me, I learned it by interacting with them personally and professionally way more than I ever wanted to on a day-to-day basis over the majority of my career, and my experience is that the grandparent is dead-on. The whole system is some screwed-up incompetence engine fueled by narcissism bathed in the infinite oxidizer of a personality almost entirely driven by a super-ego that hasn't matured a day since puberty stopped.
P.S.
They all play golf.
Four words:
Granny
Tranny
Water
Sports
Don't count on the average person pulling this off, it takes real genius.
Ditto. I always get into MMOs, only to leave two months later when I realize that you can't win and it'll be three years before I even become a force to be reckoned with at the rate I play. Eve looks at least a little different though, with their real-time skill upgrades. I already own a copy of the game; it was the very last one I tried before removing Windows from my house forever. I only got to play it for about two weeks before removing the micro-shaft from my butt, but it seemed cool, just not cool enough to leave that thing in there for.
.*
I can read a whole book at once.
Why do I have a sudden craving for a roast beef sandwich?
At least they have good taste in laptops. Thinkpads with the IBM logo (why is that still there?) Photoshopped out.
What does your software offer over "screen -x"?
Sorry, but if you can't see the crazy here ... well, stop looking.
Some guys have all the luck. I'd be happy just planning to be laid.