messy's page

Now we will just have to do it ourselves.

i suggested this a few months ago, but no takers so far. :-(

Ran out of food yesterday, so I decided to buy dinner at the student center cafeteria. Eighteen bucks for chicken tenders, onion rings, a bag of pretzels, and a drink. And on top of thing, I got a nice case of food poisoning that put me out of commission all night and most of today.

i'll echo bitter thorn -- hang in there!

eloquently-phrased bad news.

the beauty with which your prose delivers bad tidings only makes them more painful to hear, uncle. nonetheless, i remain a grateful fan, evermore.

i just read "true grit", which was pretty good. i didn't think i liked westerns, but adventure is adventure, regardless of the setting, right?

now i'm reading "if the buddha dated".

just started tokyo vice, which is about an american reporter who investigates the yakuza. it's equally fascinating and frightening.

i tried this one a few months ago, but only made it to page 60. i found it hard to read, the language was awkward, and the story didn't interest me. oh well.

but i still love leguin's "earthsea" trilogy.

according to wikipedia:

It is difficult to work out a precise timeline for events in the series (due to some confusion with dates), but a rough chronological ordering is possible. The dates given are by Burn's Sleep, the calendar used in the Malazan Empire.

Night of Knives (1154)
Blood Follows (c. 1154)
The Lees of Laughter's End (c. 1154)
The Healthy Dead (c. 1158)
Midnight Tides (unknown but from internal evidence it occurs sometime during Gardens of the Moon and possibly up to ten years prior)
Gardens of the Moon (1163)
Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice (1163–64, these two novels occur simultaneously)
House of Chains
The Bonehunters (1164–65)
Return of the Crimson Guard (c. 1165, just after The Bonehunters)
Reaper's Gale (c. 1165 or 1166)
Toll the Hounds and Dust of Dreams (takes place simultaneously)
Stonewielder (estimated to start roughly half way through dust of dreams maybe a little later)
The Crippled God

which brings me to my question: is the recommended reading order according to "burn's sleep" chronology or real-world release order?

(i won't be starting the series until it's finished, regardless.)

just read "lord of the rings" for the first time in many years. is it the best fantasy fiction book ever written? maybe.

one thing is for sure -- it might be even better if it were cut in half. the entire first half of "return of the king" could be removed and i wouldn't miss it.

i thought we already established in a previous thread that Y is...

“Ready Player One”, by Ernest Cline, was so much fun to read, and had so many tributes to “gamer-geek” history it almost made me cry at parts. The tribute to “Tomb of Horrors” was awesome.

So why haven’t you read it yet?

it's on my reading list! :-)

on a scale from one to ten, this thread is OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!!!

After seeing the trailer of The Hobbit i am reading the book again (I´ve read 11 times already)

i just reread "the hobbit," although the movie had nothing to do with it.

will reread "lord of the rings" next.

and i'm contemplating the "malazan" series...

Celestial Healer wrote:

"IANJ"... I think I have a new favorite acronym.

It took me several weeks of lurking to figure out what that meant.

then you're way ahead of me...

i just finished reading joanne rowling's "harry potter" series, and i loved it. the books were always fun, constantly surprising, and never boring.

rowling is a great storyteller. her creativity, exposition, and dialog are fantastic. at times i found myself wanting to skip the flavor-text to get right to the next line of dialog. that's how good it was.

just as george rr martin's "a song of ice and fire" series is memorable because of the believability of his characters, so is the "harry potter" series. i found it very easy to like the good guys and very easy to dislike the bad guys. the girls are believable, being smart and emotional. the boys are also believable, being rebellious and short-tempered. the adults seem to cover all types -- kind, giving, vengeful, controlling, fearful, and always flawed.

albus dumbledore ranks right up there with merlin and gandalf as one of the great wizards of literature.

or... could he be the greatest?

the books are fantastic. i think i may have found my new favorite author.

george who?

Yeah i actually liked this one better than the original.

wow, i thought the original was easily more enjoyable. i only liked one character (the woman with the spear), the writing wasn't as good as in the original, and the comedic timing seemed off. i struggled to finish watching it.

It takes Perdido St. Station about 100 pages to really get going. Once you get into the groove, though, it's a remarkable book.

i must disagree, mr. mona. what became the primary plotline didn't interest me nearly as much as the secondary plotline.

plus, mieville overused "infinitesimal."

*I can't make this statement without talking a bit about Game of Thrones.

while your post is articulate and persuasive, i must comment on grrm. i read the first three books of "a song of ice and fire" about five years ago, and there are numerous characters, scenes, and lines of dialogue that are still fresh in my mind.

i agree that his series is very challenging to follow due to the amount of information, characters, and plotlines, but, IMO, it's worth the effort.

Rowling's Harry Potter

wow, we differ completely on our views of the harry potter series and the runestaff series.

but yeah, to each his/her own.

will you ever fill out your profile? :-)

"the hobo formerly known as jojo is nomo! from this day forward i shall be known as mooojoooo jooojoooo!"

first off, it's "tyranny."

secondly, does he have class levels? if so, what are they?

thirdly, great work. :-)

#2 I'd love to see a campaign along the lines of a Pathfinder version of something akin to the Tomb of Horrors, where the PCs walk the razor's edge for 15 levels full of traps, and undead horrors. It worked for Gygax and a generation of 1st ed players, I think it would do the same for Pathfinder.

based on your name and picture, this suggestion doesn't surprise me. ;-)

happy birthday, erik!

may your writing be great and your tummy be shrunk.

currently on book three of the harry potter series and enjoying it immensely. it deserves all the praise it gets. i wish every fantasy author wrote as well as rowling.

somewhat off-topic, but does anyone know the correct pronunciation of the author's full name?

just started the first harry potter book.

in other news, temperatures are dropping in nessus.

Finished The Dying Earth...

can i borrow your copy? ;-)

Jack Vance's The Dying Earth is great!--If you haven't read it before, put down whatever you're reading and go get yourself a copy.

i'm planning on it... as soon as i can find a copy. :-(

I've never seen a copy of And Another Thing in all my used book shopping. Does it really exist?

yep, i saw it at my local (tucson) used book store (but i'll probly skip it, since adams didn't write it).

i started reading bazil broketail, but after 200 pages it wasn't interesting me at all, so i stopped.

i started reading sailing to sarantium, but after 50 pages i was having trouble with the vocabulary, so i stopped.

i finally learned the story behind 42! the first three books were wonderfully silly, but i really enjoyed the fourth and fifth books because, well, they seemed to have a coherent plot. :-)

Also, what are we calling this new version if the Original is Rappan Athuk (RA) and the 3.5 revision was Rappan Athuk Reloaded (RARE)?

rappan athuk re-reloaded (bonus points for getting the reference without clicking the link.)

*cries* does my stuff suck so badly that no one has the heart to tell me?

Oh, and *bump*

your stuff looks good. :-)

and i'm sorry for your loss. :-(

You guys dont do anything small do you?

for both dungeons and dragons, size matters.

Bill Webb wrote:

The book contains 18 more levels even than Rappan Athuk Reloaded...

i just pooped my pants.

anybody?

never mind, i got it.

*makes mental note to be more thorough before asking*

anybody?

I asked JJ if Paizo had made any poll on "what are your favorite levels to play" here is what he answered:

James Jacobs wrote:

We haven't... because we know the answer. 7th level...

can i get a link to this thread?

What would be a realistic number of arrows an archer can have/carry/bring with him?

OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!!!

i'm sorry. i had to do it.

On to the Conan anthology next...

can i recommend this one?

i would be a 1st level human commoner with 10 in every ability score.

i would WANT to be a 20th level human wizard with 50 intelligence.

just finished the runestaff series by michael moorcock. i found nothing particularly notable about it.

on the other hand, "open," andre agassi's autobiography, was outstanding. highly recommended.

to summarize what others have said: stay active! it takes your mind off what's upsetting you, keeps you from moping, and gets things done.

there are no dumb questions.

seriously.

Holy Fart Weapon

if this site had signatures, this would be in mine. :-)

also, you make many good points.

while i'd like epic rules, i can live without them. i have no interest in psionic rules.

while my opinion of paizo couldn't be much greater, if they were to do epic or psionic rules in a great, new way, that would be awesome. but i still probably wouldn't use either one.

thanks very much for all the excellent info, folks.

i just read "arthur's final morn," by j robert king in dragon magazine #254, and it was outstanding! i might have to track down his novel "mad merlin."

a6
b5
ccavern (assuming this includes dungeons)
d1
e20
f29 days per level
g5
h2
i2
jadventure
k4
l5
m4
n4
o8

Megadungeon: This is when Paizo jumps the shark.

not sure i agree with this. if the holy trinity of mona, jacobs, and bulmahn can do a brilliant job on this, then i'm sure they can put together a great megadungeon.

it's a few years late, but i just read your article in dragon #336 called "not for the living." some real creative stuff in there. i enjoyed how you converted scary movie ideas to scary game ideas. well done, james.

taking a break from dreamsongs to go through the short stories of the 3rd edition era of dragon magazine. unfortunately, most of it isn't very good. in the 80's, we had "catacomb," "fortunes of a fool," and "at moonset blackcat comes." most of the stuff from the last hundred issues doesn't seem nearly as good.