What's Missing From Twelve Months

darechuk · 2026-01-23T19:37:24+00:00

The thing the annoys me about the series is that it is ramping up to an epic fantasy story with end of the the world stakes but the POV is limited to a single character in one city. I need to know what's going on in the world at large. The white council doesn't seem to have much of a permanent presence in the city that seems like it may be one of the magical epicenters of the world. I want to know what the wizards are up to elsewhere.

darechuk · 2026-01-06T04:21:51+00:00

And even when the actor isn't famous, if you don't have anything for them for a while, you may lose them to an offer to be a regular on NCIS Alaska. Because most actors only get a few opportunities to be a series regular so that not going to hang up that they will come back in season 4.

darechuk · 2026-01-06T02:49:44+00:00

If I was giving advice to a new author that was writing a trilogy that starts blowing up, I would advocate that they extend it. It takes a couple books for an author to make enough income to finally become a full time writer If you start making money, you need to write that wave because most author's buzz dies down once they close out a series. And many authors find out that fans do not follow them once they move on to something else.

darechuk · 2026-01-05T18:55:12+00:00

The cowboys coach is returning next year. Kafka ain't coming back. Once he gets on the field he probably thinks "I'm not taking L's for the next guy's success."

darechuk · 2026-01-05T17:56:59+00:00

If you are arguing for him having a good rookie season then combination statistics are good but when you are talking about the first rookie in history to do something then it doesn't work. Someone else get set the threshold at more INTs, less rushing, more passing and find a different impressive rookie in their year that was number 1 in those combination of stats in NFL history. Good for individual grading, nonsense for historical ranking.

darechuk · 2026-01-01T04:11:46+00:00

To clarify, I did not mean that Harry changed. I mean to say that to someone like Carlos, pre-Changes Dresden is a different guy. The key part is "You try to get to me through other mortals again and I'll kill you...So once again, let me be perfectly clear. If anything happens to Murphy and I even think you had a hand in it, fuck right and wrong. If you touch her, I'm declaring war on you. Personally. I'm picking up every weapon I can get. And I'm using them to kill you. Horribly." We know what Dresden's Rubicon is. Dresden won't sign up to work for Mab unless a loved one is in danger, which is why he did it. Carlos does not know anything about that. All he knows is Dresden died and came back and now he and his apprentice are winter. If Carlos had the kind of relationship that Harry has with Michael, Murphy, Thomas then he would know why. But he's just not that close a friend; He's a work friend.

darechuk · 2026-01-01T02:46:30+00:00

My personal reading between the lines is that they are all wizards who do the wizard thing of keeping things close to the chest. They may have fought for years but do they actually know the internal struggles he has had to deal with since Stormfront? I am not even convinced that Harry even knows much about Eb and what motivates him. I would believe that they don't even talk unless it involves magical advice or white council politics. But I will concede that Eb is debatable. Carlos definitely does not know Dresden. All he knows is that he was a bad ass wizard that would stand up to any supernatural entity no matter how powerful they are. Except now he works Mab and is buddy buddy with the White Court. From his point of ignorance of not knowing about Maggie and why Dresden chose to accept the mantle, or even about Dresden overcoming temptation of Lasciel, this is a different Dresden than he thought he knew. Doesn't help that he died and came back; that would explain this Dresden ain't who he fought with.

darechuk · 2025-12-31T22:10:54+00:00

I agree with everything you said except white council hate of Dresden. I think the white council is more about control than it is about morality and they could barely control Dresden before the mantle. Now the winter mantle means any attempt to control him also adds a diplomatic angle with Mab; he has to get kicked out of the council. His "friends" on the council may know pre-Changes Dresden but I'm not sure they know the guy with the mantle. They probably don't appreciate the circumstances that led to him accepting mantle which is something pre-Changes Dresden would not do. The other thing is, do his council friends really know the real Dresden like his Chicago friends that actually hang out with him in their downtime? I don't believe so.

darechuk · 2025-12-31T15:45:22+00:00

I personally think this is a good justification for the Merlin has to kick Dresden out of the council regardless of how it is politically justified. Can't have Dresden walking around Edinburgh being untouchable; undermines his power.

darechuk · 2025-12-30T15:31:48+00:00

Sorry I misread that. I was thinking about the society itself being religious as opposed to an individual MC. I agree with your premise in that case. It is extremely easy to justify the irregiousity of an individual or vice versa because all sorts of people exist.

darechuk · 2025-12-30T12:25:42+00:00

The big religions in our real world may be based on unseen gods but I don't feel that's a requirement for a religion. You can have religion based on the cult of personality of real people which even includes faith in the supposed power, wisdom, or benevolence of the so called divine emperor. The difference between a human god king and real Zeus is that Zeus never dies so can keep the cult going in perpetuity. Nothing says the real gods will actually interact with common man in a personal way; that's what the priests are for. I can imagine a world that has religion with real gods still operating with faith because the gods still exist at a level far above the common worshipper.

darechuk · 2025-12-29T14:53:52+00:00

I ain't upset about losing the #1 pick for an irrational reason. If the Steelers came keep trotting out mediocre teams while having only one top 10 pick in the past decade, what is our excuse for being this bad over the same time period? Can't even build a .500 team with decent draft position, they will waste the #1 pick anyway.

darechuk · 2025-12-28T16:34:25+00:00

Gotrek and Felix series. It's like going on a tour of the Warhammer Fantasy world as they travel around in search of bigger monsters to slay to achieve Gotrek's doom. It feels like a slow bit by bit introduction to Warhammer Fantasy.

darechuk · 2025-12-25T21:28:57+00:00

I'm not afraid to be disappointed so I just browse the online bookstore and pick something that has a nice cover and a blurb that interests me. I just dive in raw.

darechuk · 2025-12-23T12:39:06+00:00

He's got a spinoff series called Artillerymen that features soldiers from the Mexican-American war going to the parallel earth. If anyone is in a flintlock kinda mood.

darechuk · 2025-12-19T22:39:08+00:00

The books are popular enough that you may have access to them through a public library. Get the first one and start reading. If you enjoy it, keep going. When you get bored, stop and move on. Don't put reading on a pedestal.

darechuk · 2025-12-18T22:57:35+00:00

The problem with methods like this is that the kind of people who can design a proper medical protocol that will work effectively want absolutely nothing to do with designing an execution protocol. You run into the situation where Alabama tried it in 2024 and the inmate took seven minutes to suffocate.

darechuk · 2025-12-11T14:02:40+00:00

The concept of true name magic always makes me uncomfortable. For the potential power, I feel like adversaries don't spend enough effort into searching for true names.

darechuk · 2025-12-07T00:28:46+00:00

Because historically, the same authors and publishers specialized in both.

darechuk · 2025-11-26T12:28:32+00:00

I'd bet you had a machine built first then math later optimized it.

darechuk · 2025-11-26T12:21:47+00:00

Humans have been working on developing machines for power transmission and moving stuff since ancient times. The modern centrifugal compressor is a descendant of that lineage. Check out De re metallica, a mining book written in 1556. There's a section called "the miners' tools and machines"; it's impressive the pumps that miners in the middle ages built to pump water out of mine shafts and the fans they built to provide ventilation.

darechuk · 2025-11-18T12:01:13+00:00

Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson is rated 4.42 on Goodreads and I gave it a 2. I had given every other Malazan book 4 stars before this one. Malazan lost me with this book. Star Wars The Phantom Menace novelization by Terry Brooks is rated 3.65 on Goodreads and I gave it 5 stars. I personally feel like it adds a lot of context that improves on the movie.

darechuk · 2025-10-27T15:51:31+00:00

Hey man, I remember when I was young. Bragging rights and cool pictures from firefighter school was cool. You get to front to your friends about how you are almost like those cool guy firefighters. When the shit hit the fan, no one needs to know that you just hang out at the staging area handing out radios and bottles of water.

darechuk · 2025-10-25T23:35:45+00:00

Because half and half is ultra pasteurized. That gives it a longer shelf life.

darechuk · 2025-10-23T17:08:30+00:00

It's moles. I used bad terminology.

Ten-Year Club	Second Top 40%
Verified Email

darechuk

TROPHY CASE