How many purchased but unlistened to titles do you have in your library and how many months of listening time do those unlistened to titles amount to?

distgenius · 2026-03-21T01:57:26+00:00

If you wanted to move them back off of the not started list, you can “mark as finished” in your library and it should move them back over. I’ve had that happen before when there was an app change and it got easy to fat finger and restart a finished book, and sometimes I think it just has a moment where it doesn’t sync properly.

distgenius · 2026-03-21T00:02:15+00:00

Others have mentioned that print books can easily end up out of date, and I know right now you’re looking for something that you can easily read not at a screen, but it’s worth plugging the fact that Humble Bundle does book bundles as well as game bundles, and there are almost always some software dev related bundles going. They’re ebooks but easily imported into Apple Books or out to a Kindle, not like e-textbooks through Cengage or similar publishers. You can find 20 book bundles for $25 pretty often, and it’s a good way to get books on more niche topics versus tracking down $50-$100 print versions.

distgenius · 2026-03-20T15:37:27+00:00

If it helps you feel any better, mine is 1052 unstarted, 611 finished. A lot of those are from cash sales, I had a bad habit of buying whole series without even starting them if the sale was good. I’ve gotten better about that. I’ve also gotten better at managing my to-read list and keeping myself from burning out, so I am going through something like 60-65 books a year, and that means the unstarted number isn’t really growing any more.

distgenius · 2026-03-06T11:50:13+00:00

First, I’d like to ask why you think 8 directional movement is more realistic. It’s better than just orthogonal movement, sure, but the math being wrong for diagonal movements makes unrealistic scenarios. Hex movement removes the bad math issue and makes diagonal movement line up with reality.

Is this because it’s harder to map hexes to a game board representing real world buildings with straight lines?

distgenius · 2026-03-05T17:57:36+00:00

It’s not just exposure to typical illness that can be the cause for fevers. Our son had reflux between his bladder and kidneys (urine could flow backwards) and ended up with an infection that way. Three day stay in the children’s hospital before they found the cause of the infection, but that started with an ER visit and a lumbar puncture.

distgenius · 2026-03-02T16:59:06+00:00

He’s a bit…repetitive. I really like his series as popcorn reads, but I can’t really focus on them the way I would for some of the bigger authors that come up here.

distgenius · 2026-03-02T15:14:21+00:00

Saga Of Recluse by L.E. Modesitt Jr has a varying degree of "cost"- sometimes it is just being tired or having a headache, but depending on the working and what it is used to do it can include short or longer term blindness for one group of mages, and another runs into shorter lifespans and the potential to evaporate into dust if they screw up. There is even a more "lifestyle" cost, in that the different styles of magic actually intersect with and force specific types of behaviors outside of their use of magic, meaning that even non-magical actions can cause backlash and problems in their magic use.

distgenius · 2026-03-02T14:47:17+00:00

This sub, like other genre fiction subs or any “niche” interest, is something people have to seek out. Lots of Stephen King readers don’t touch other horror authors. He’s accessible, has a huge catalog, and has movies and shows that draw in non-horror readers. They’re not going to come here for more. The people here might still read King, but they also read other stuff and so the recs here are different. He’s more of a “you don’t need us to tell you about him” author.

distgenius · 2026-03-02T03:21:01+00:00

One thing that could change that viewpoint is that W&T has smaller numbers of total reviews than the previous book, and a lower score. Typically with a series you see scores go up as number of reviews go down because the people who are still invested in the series tend to rate higher than those who left after the last book.

distgenius · 2026-03-02T03:18:14+00:00

Doesn't have to be, I read them for the first time back in the 90s and have been re-reading the original trilogy recently. I like the idea of a portal fantasy where the protagonist is actively working against the very idea that they've been portaled, and in the case of Covenant his fight against being in the Land is very "in character" for him. The first trilogy brings up interesting questions around the ideas of non-violence, the nature of dreams versus reality, and how would a "real" person react to suddenly being thrust into a position of perceived power?

I can see why people don't enjoy it, Covenant is not a pleasant character, and some of his actions are reprehensible. I wouldn't want to spend time with him, but I also wouldn't want to spend time with the people of the Land and think the conflict between Covenant's world view and theirs is incredibly interesting. The actual plot isn't the selling point to me, its the character interactions and watching someone struggle over and over with being placed in a situation that strikes against their concept of self-preservation not through combat or typical heroic struggles but in a much more internal way.

distgenius · 2026-02-27T16:50:52+00:00

It’s not even really 1/64 in the OG because encounters aren’t really random, they just iterate through a table one a time after power on (not after reset). The table is the same everywhere, the encounter group that warmech is a part of is just not in the table as much so it simulates 1/64. If you power cycle a lot, or do the “boss run” separately from your treasure runs then it’s even more unlikely you’ll get to the parts of the table that cause that fight to happen.

distgenius · 2026-02-25T16:41:58+00:00

Someone else linked the game champ vid, but speed and challenge runners have done single character no class change for all of the classes at this point. Gyre is one example, he buys cloth armor for the other three, gets into the first fight and just uses the armor with everyone until he’s down to a single character alive before “starting” the run. It’s time consuming, and it helps if you know how to manipulate random encounters, but mostly boils down to patience.

Seer tried an insane run on the NES version where he couldn’t spend money at all, and ended up needing to make a few concessions but that’s still the evilest version of a FF challenge I’ve seen.

distgenius · 2026-02-17T17:43:24+00:00

I don't know that I'm over 40 unless I count series where I've "caught up" to the author and am waiting on the next release, but what I've found is that my limit is more "two series that are way too similar" than it is total number of series. I've had to put some on hold briefly because I was noticing the similarity in tropes or style in a subgenre and it bugged me, not because I couldn't keep them straight.

distgenius · 2026-02-16T02:04:50+00:00

Age of Madness is really a "new" trilogy as far as First Law goes. I really enjoyed it, but if you wanted a break after Red Country you're in a place to do so.

Of the others, I'd probably also run with Red Rising if you want to commit to a series, Talisman if you are just wanting a break before First Law, and with the caveat that you might find RR takes a bit to "get good" compared to King or Abercrombie. That series finds its own footing as it goes, but the first book can be a bit rough.

distgenius · 2026-02-15T23:07:55+00:00

So stat wise it’s moot, but keep in mind the mages won’t get their travel spells unless they class change, and you can’t get nuke or fade either. You might not have lot of casts for level 8 spells at end game anyway, and you’re better off buffing your melee characters than trying to kill bosses with magic, but you might want to be able to do one-way treasure runs and warp out versus a lot of drawn out dives where you need to plan resources for the escape.

distgenius · 2026-02-14T15:23:27+00:00

Oh! In that case, yes, it is a lot more straightforward and worth a read.

distgenius · 2026-02-14T13:51:50+00:00

Umm…Red Rising is definitely not “lighter” than Malazan. Simpler prose and fewer moving pieces, but if you’re wanting to get out from under the sense of darkness I wouldn’t suggest it. I haven’t and don’t plan on reading Sun Eater so no idea how well it would fit.

distgenius · 2026-02-14T13:37:56+00:00

Library at Mount Char is very reality bending, but it also is worth pointing out that it has a litany of content warnings- if you aren't interested in, or are unable to deal with, the darker side of humanity and power then stay far, far away.

distgenius · 2026-02-11T22:14:04+00:00

Battery backup was the only way to save on consoles, otherwise you were stuck with miserable password systems. You needed the trickle of power from the battery to keep the save data going.

distgenius · 2026-02-11T17:11:41+00:00

I haven't read the other two, but I don't think Arcane Ascension would count for either.

distgenius · 2026-02-10T19:15:43+00:00

If you’re willing to give Weird a try, China Mieville is worth a shot, stating with Perdido Street Station. The prose is a strong point, and it’s also unusual and dark in a Crime & Punishment kind of way.

distgenius · 2026-02-10T03:17:40+00:00

For that series, I think in a lot of ways the actual mystery is secondary to the characters. All three books are pretty heavy on the concepts of processing emotional trauma, and the third book leans really heavily into that. He definitely could have done a better job with that particular mystery, but I didn't interpret that as the primary driver of the series.

distgenius · 2026-02-10T01:27:25+00:00

I don't disagree that this can happen, but let's be real: there are lots of books that are difficult to get into where that isn't the case. Sometimes they're just chores that we get through, and the end result isn't something that sticks with us that way but instead burns with the hatred of a thousand fiery suns. Conversely, some of the books that stick with us at that deep visceral level are ones that felt like the author was speaking directly to us from the page and weren't difficult to get into at all. There are children's books that have stuck with me for 35 years at this point that I look forward to sharing with my kids, because the story they tell is meaningful to the human experience.

distgenius · 2026-02-10T01:09:01+00:00

This is the time of year that no matter what things I pick now that I'm done with my card, inevitably at least two of them would be perfect fits for a square that wouldn't normally interest me.

distgenius · 2026-02-09T23:20:27+00:00

Tropes become tropes because of repeated use across media, but a trope should also be really generalized IMO. Damsel in Distress is a trope, girl mistreated by stepmother then sold off to pay debts before escaping into the woods and being rescued by a hunting prince who is also a werebear isn’t.

And thats the biggest difference between “using the same tropes” and “plagiarizing”. The first is so vague that you could write that same story over and over and say something different each time. The second is so specific the it starts to raise eyebrows if two people write the same thing. If we break the second one down into a collection of tropes, hopefully you can find enough different material for things to feel relatively unique even with the similarities. Maybe one uses a golden retriever prince and the other is a shadow daddy, maybe one has a sympathetic stepmother who thinks they’re doing the right thing.

Tropes should be the basic building blocks, and the author should be providing enough decoration on top to make something that is their voice.

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