BB003 - Are You Ready For Some Dresden?

[BigMama]

I have always recommended folks start with Storm Front, just because I always recommend the first book in a series. You are right, however. Jims books get progressively better as you move through the series, and starting with a little bit later book might be a better hook. I am loaning one of my prize omni editions to my son in law. I may loan him the second to start instead of the first. 

[Wolfie]

Edit:  I have to say, you've really improved at the solo-podcasting thing!  The music goes a long way in keeping your speechifying dynamic and interesting.  There are some weird, unsettling choppy bits where one can hear where you cut stuff out, but on the whole, your performance is miles better than where you were two episodes ago.  Bravo!

Yeah, the choppy bits are a natural consequence of me trying to loosen up.  I ad-libbed 90% of this episode (instead of my usual 10%) and that lead to a lot of screw-ups and a metric ton of 'uh... (six second pause)'.

Let's first start by saying. Well done. I can see you're improving with every show. (see, positive critisism)

...

  nah, i'm not going to burn you down. I like the show. Sometimes it's a bit hard to hear it properly. I'm not an native english speaker and when people are having a conversation in the same room, it gets a bit difficult. The're is some background noise as well I think. (could be me)

One thing of building critisism though. Can you please put a bit more time between the words when you get two pieces of soundbytes together? I think it will make the way you "speak" more controlled. (ie, less nervous)  I can understand about the *uh*'s. You should have heard my for my first presentations.  Just take a breather and try to speak slower. Just a tip I hope will help for you.

Keep up the good work. You and Jim heve become examples of the learning curve for me. (Never give up, never say die and have a lot of patience.)

[iago]

Sure thing, Wolfie.  Right now my next big goal is to get to the right level of "words spoken per second"

[Shiggy]

I'm finally getting around to listening to BB003, and I've discovered it is not productive to try to listen to Fred talk from a computer that is 3 feet away from a washing machine on spin cycle.  It just doesn't work.  *glares impatiently at washer*  *twiddles thumbs waiting for it to get to the end of it's final spin*

I'll add my comments to this post when I can get past "Jim just got back...."

Edit: Loved anything and everything mentioned about Grave Peril.  I may have to just hand that one to my friend who couldn't get through chapter 1 of Storm Front.

[Wolfie]

Sure thing, Wolfie.  Right now my next big goal is to get to the right level of "words spoken per second"

  Succes working on your wps. May it run stationary and smoothly. 

[bobtheskull]

I have always recommended folks start with Storm Front, just because I always recommend the first book in a series. You are right, however. Jims books get progressively better as you move through the series, and starting with a little bit later book might be a better hook. I am loaning one of my prize omni editions to my son in law. I may loan him the second to start instead of the first. 

Hi all,

new member here.

I started with Fool Moon because I didn't realize it was book 2.  I then read Grave Peril even though I figured out that Storm Front was first, because no bloody book store had Storm Front available.  Spent 2 weeks looking through book stores until I dug it up somewhere.  The series just blew me away.

I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the tv show so far though.   Was anyone else surprised with some of the changes the show made to the story?

I guess it might be like the harry potter books vs movies situation.  Read the books for enjoyment of the story, and watch the movies/shows for the visual candy.

[iago]

I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the tv show so far though.   Was anyone else surprised with some of the changes the show made to the story?

Nope.  We're especially not-surprised due to the interview with Jim in episode #1 of the podcast ("All About the TV"), where we go over the big list of changes between the tv series and the books.  If you haven't, give it a listen!

[bobtheskull]

I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the tv show so far though.   Was anyone else surprised with some of the changes the show made to the story?

Nope.  We're especially not-surprised due to the interview with Jim in episode #1 of the podcast ("All About the TV"), where we go over the big list of changes between the tv series and the books.  If you haven't, give it a listen!

Thanks, I'd like to.  I saw some references to the podcasts but I haven't had a chance to hunt them down yet.

[Mickey Finn]

Ok, somehow I completely missed that there was a 3rd one out.

On a side note...I usually start people with Fool Moon...but then again, that's the one I read first.

[Mickey Finn]

There's a strangely charming Max Headroom feel to the cuts.

[bobtheskull]

My 2 cents:

I read Dead Beat first.  And I enjoyed the hell out of it.  Of course, I didn't know what everything was, but it was still a fun read.  This summer, I went back to read the series, starting with Storm Front and then going through the rest, in order (unless, I guess, you count the short stories, which were sort of in order for me, sort of not I guess, err... I don't know, whatever, they were fun.)

Did you have the same problem I did, and not realize the one you started with wasn't book 1?

I don't know why I have such trouble. I've got an entire bedroom dedicated for paperbacks and I still usually pick up a new series from the middle, even if the store happens to have the first one.

I missed it with tdf because Barnes & Noble didn't happen to have the first one.  I had to hunt it down.  They weren't even restocking it.  At least Jim Butcher's books make it a bit clearer that book #3 is book #3 in the series. 

(Simon R. Green, are you bloody listening?  I hate having to open a book's cover to try to figure out if the author had other books in that series already.)

I often find myself picking up a new book and trying to figure out if the book is a sequel or not.  Sometimes it's a sequel, but the publisher doesn't print any mention that any previous books exist because it was a different publisher. 

I usually have to resort to looking the author up on amazon or google to figure it out.

Thanks to Jim Butcher for not doing these things.  He's got his books set to be clear on this.  I just went through them last week to reread the series, and was able to figure out which was book 1 without having to open the inside cover or go look it up.

Now if we could only get bookstores to bre more reliable on stocking books, and keeping them in sorted order.

[Magnus]

*shudder* I'm trying to get over the idea that one might read the books *out of order*

I feel exactly the same way but I can understand the reasoning.

I got recommended this series by some persons on another forum that promised that it was the most fantastic thing that existed.
so I read the first three books and I thought they were okay and readworthy but nothing special. (GP was the best of the first three)
And the Summer Knight came and I was hooked on the series  and I sort of read all books in just a few weeks.

Well. I'm a bit late starting listening to the podcast(about 3 years late it seems) but I must say I enjoy it so far.
I'll continue with episode 4 when I have time.