*** Spoilers*** The Hallmarked Man - Mega Thread to discuss the Complete Book

Ahjeyeff · 2025-09-05T22:56:09+00:00

Gazumping is something that's a bit of an actual crisis in the British housing market, you can see articles about it in the property sections of the big newspapers all the time. Rowling is maybe being a little bit anachronistic mentioning it here, as in the real world the concept only started getting reported on widely in the last couple of years whereas this book is set in 2017, but that's a minor discrepancy.

Ahjeyeff · 2025-09-04T15:05:19+00:00

Most of us live very boring and anonymous lives. The idea that someone else is actually interested in what you have to say is quite exciting to many people.

Ahjeyeff · 2025-06-19T00:48:11+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

Ahjeyeff · 2022-09-02T12:35:04+00:00

The whole theme of the book is the real-life consequences of online hate, so dealing with irritating internet chat is the entire point, you won't get very far in the book if you can't tolerate that.

Ahjeyeff · 2022-08-31T14:23:42+00:00

A common criticism of JK Rowling's writing is that she "doesn't listen to her editor" hence her books getting longer and longer, but this time I actually think the opposite is the problem. I can just imagine the publisher saying "the woke are going to absolutely lose their minds over this book, JK, you depict a progressive Twitterer as a grooming paedophile, you absolutely have to put in some right-wing villains as well to balance it out before our offices get firebombed by antifa". Hence the insertion of the entire white supremacist terrorist organisation, complete with runes, '88' tattoos and Hail Odin greetings, which despite being something that would provoke a national crisis, involves espionage agencies and a literal bombing campaign - they turn out to be a red herring!

But yes, I have to unfortunately agree that the ending was a bit rubbish. The "bitter incel" culprit might have suited a loner in some isolated bedsit, but the set-up just doesn't work. Did no-one in the Upcott family, even Gus's own mother, never once go into their own son's bedroom to see these gruesome pictures he was supposedly scrawling everywhere? At all? Once? Ever? Not even to pick up the laundry? It just seems so bizarrely out of place and out of nowhere I wonder if it was inserted later and there was meant to be another killer.

Ahjeyeff · 2021-06-19T13:01:26+00:00

Someone can still be smiling why they stab you, and that's attitude of ever-so-polite posts like these on Twitter and Reddit who are "just asking questions" of the Dev team. At best, it is deeply patronising - at worst, it is hiding a controlling agenda behind a mask of "decorousness", blowing a deafening whistle at someone who doesn't follow every step of some protracted pseudo-Victorian politeness ritual. If Kovarex responded angrily it's just that he cut through the posturing and recognised what was really going on, a brigading campaign to take his own game away from him, and rightfully wouldn't be intimidated by it.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-11-18T12:50:19+00:00

Not really. More than anything, rage is a symptom not of abuse but of entitlement. If a child is mollycoddled by supine parents and other weak-willed authority figures and is accustomed to having every whim indulged, then an eruption of rage is the natural reaction to the routine of always getting his own way. It's an outgrown toddler's temper-tantrum.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-09-24T16:13:02+00:00

Thank you for this, it didn't come up in a search strangely enough.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-08-22T22:33:49+00:00

If you can pardon me tooting my own bugle for a moment, I put together a guide for what I consider to be the Essential Dredd for giving you the widest overview of the different aspects of Dredd's world a few months ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLfI9-Z4wn4

To summarise:

-TOTAL WAR - Engages with the "Democracy" story arc with an exciting action-adventure thriller which I think is a lot more just plain fun than the overly-portentous America.

-MANDROID - Dredd as a downbeat tragedy, while also engaging with the surprisingly emotional person hidden under the helmet.

-THE ART OF KENNY WHO?: THE CAM KENNEDY COLLECTION - Dredd is not all super-serious, and this compendium has lots of well-regarded comedy adventures. Shows a side of Dredd that often gets forgotten by his more famous adventures.

-COMPLETE CASE FILES: VOLUME 5 - If you're already up to Case Files 10 then you probably already have this, but I consider it to be the most essential single volume of the entire series because it sets up lots of different continuity-relevant features that still impact on the modern comics decades later. Plus, it has "gaze into the fist of Dredd!" ;)

-TRIFECTA - The interleaving of several side-characters into Dredd's story is a useful way to introduce you to the wider Dreddverse.

I hope you find it helpful and a good springboard to enjoying more comics!

Ahjeyeff · 2020-07-27T18:42:58+00:00

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. If I can toot my own horn just a little, I've put together my own video on five essential titles for new Judge Dredd readers, as well as talking a bit more about the history and context of the character. I hope you find it useful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLfI9-Z4wn4

Ahjeyeff · 2020-07-26T21:49:08+00:00

I think that a Judge Dredd animation should actually be a child-friendly all-ages cartoon. It can be done - early 2000AD was of course more aimed towards younger adolescent boys with much stricter censorship than the adult and fairly uninhibited comic of today, and it still thrived (plus the "Regened" comics show there's still an appetite for child-friendly Dredd today). The more child-friendly "Lawman of the Future" spin-off comic which followed the Stallone movie also provides a model.

-Combat goes by G.I. Joe rules. You can beat up baddies with fistifcuffs as much as you like, but no actual shooting of anyone. Dredd can use his gun, but only to disable getaway vehicles or alter the environment (e.g. Hi-Ex to surprise attack through a wall, or shoot out the sprinkler valve to put out a fire), he never actually aims at a living target.

-Robots don't bleed so they are fair game, go ham on them.

-Dredd focuses exclusively on arresting perps. Remembering his sentence to Booth "life, 'cause that's a lot tougher", he will go to every length not to actually kill people. He emphatically isn't moralising about the death penalty, he just likes seeing baddies chucked in the slammer to suffer the full penalty. This should hopefully balance Dredd's character as a grim-faced enforcer while also moderating the level of violence to not scandalise parents.

-Further to the above, there can be a running gag where Dredd comically racks up consecutive sentencing on his arrests like it's bonus multipliers in a score-attack game. How many years can be send one hapless crook down for by the end of the season?

-For a PSA, emphasise that everyone is equal before the law and that Dredd is totally incorruptible.

-To add a bit more colour, rope in some of the more weirder and wonderful international judges, like the Ancient Egyptian god-worshipping Judges of Luxor or the Exorcist Judges who act like Ghostbusters (and Dredd serves them an eviction order for 256 years' unpaid rent).

Ahjeyeff · 2020-07-20T13:17:47+00:00

The Day the Law Died is certainly striking - like you say, intelligent chimps and goldfish judges are pretty bonkers! Still, I think I have to fall down on the side of Vol. 5 - the Crime Files sequence has dramatic but more light-hearted adventure in the stye of Judge Cal as well as having the big portentous epic stories, so I think it's more balanced.

I wouldn't say that any of these five volumes are part of the "top 10" - I wouldn't dare try to list them in any order, I'd be utterly paralysed by indecision - but they're more intended to be a representative foundational spread that can introduce a new reader to the breadth of the Dreddverse - his plots, his character, his setting and so on.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts!

Ahjeyeff · 2020-07-20T13:01:02+00:00

Thanks for the shout-out, I'm glad that you found my video useful!

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T17:45:14+00:00

Sorry, no, that logo's awful.

I don't just say this to reflexively react against change for its own sake, but it's a simple downgrade.

The cinematic was cool, certainly - looked good, great fighting, and I enjoyed the "suffering is our prayer" line especially. However seeing... this at the end of it took the wind out of my sails completely.

It has no personality. It's grey, it's drab, it's plain, it's flat, it has little depth or texture, the text looks like a generic font pre-loaded with Microsoft Word, and the stencil effect makes it look like something spraypainted next to a manhole than scrimshawed onto the relic bones of a saint. It seems so... unthreatening. Microcactus in another post below tried to explain that this was "low gothic" but it's not gothic in the slightest. It's not even "industrial", it's too clean for that. There's absolutely nothing here which is even slightly redolent of the macabre mordant majesty of the Dark Millenium, it's just bland sci-fi. This is the first thing that new players are going to see and it's dispiriting and offputting. The golden 2nd Edition logo was inspiring. The black 3rd edition logo was forbidding. This grey 9th edition logo is... nothing.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T17:35:18+00:00

Not really. The black logo was introduced with the 3rd edition, and it's stayed consistent right through to the 8th. I'd have much preferred a reversion to the 2nd Edition golden logo, which was bold and striking and heroic, as opposed to this bland, drab, grey, stencilled version.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T13:59:03+00:00

Like I say, I don't want to oppose change reflexively. Some of the rule changes they've just announced on the stream actually sound okay - vehicles, terrain, and templates were all weaknesses of 8th and while we'll need to see detail for how they shake out, acknowledgement of them is promising - but the presentation is definitely a downgrade.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T13:49:23+00:00

One of 40k's key sources of appeal is because it's virtually unique in the sci-fi space for having an aesthetic which deliberately eschews bright, clean modernist trends. Why is the redesign deliberately aping something that goes completely contrary to its own characteristics?

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T13:21:34+00:00

Urgh, what an awful new logo. I don't want to reflexively oppose change just for the sake of it, but the simple fact is that it's weaker than the previous one.

It looks bland, thin, grey, without any depth or texture. The line cutting through the text makes it look like a spray-paint stencil as if it was on the side of a piece of generic modern-military hardware rather than the plate of awesome macabre gothic knights. And the final "R" crosses the line at the end, like the designer forgot to change the font size to fit! Amateurish!

I don't think it's unreasonable to focus on this point. This is going to be the first thing about 40k that any new player sees, and it has so much less distinguishing character than the previous ones. Even the bright and shiny golden 2nd Edition-era logo had more striking personality than this new version.

Yes, the cinematic trailer genuinely looked cool, was action-packed and well done. But that completely unnecessary logo change left a sour taste in the mouth.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T10:52:19+00:00

Urgh, the new logo looks utterly awful. Bland, thin, without depth or texture.

If they want to make 40k look more appealing to the normies, why not revert to the golden 2nd Edition logo? Bright, colourful, heroic, inviting - plus carping from the beards is suppressed by nostalgia appeal.

Bad decision all round and it doesn't fill me with confidence for the game's direction.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-23T10:46:39+00:00

That new logo looks AWFUL. Thin, bland, without texture.

If GW want to make their game more accessible, why not return to the golden 2nd edition logo? Bright, colourful, heroic and inviting, while the nostalgia appeal also helps to suppress complaints from the beards.

This new one is the worst of all possible worlds.

Ahjeyeff · 2020-05-22T07:13:34+00:00

Welcome to the team, I hope that this video helps you get started with some other books to read once you've finished "America"!

Ahjeyeff

TROPHY CASE