favorite dd book

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Garrett Fitzgerald:
Sorry about that. :-)

I've been in very few communities where one-liners and multiple posts have been discouraged, so it's a case of old habits dying hard.

Very hard. :-)

Snort. But look how much more legible everything is without huge avatars and mondo graphics-laden sigs! [grin].

One-liners are actually okay, if they have content (heck, DD herself posts them upon occasion)--it's basically just an extension of the old USENET "me, too" post ban. It's also the sure sign of a newbie. . The problem is that around here, most folks aren't sure what constitutes content, so simplifying the rule to "try not to post one-liners" seems to be more workable for most folks.

And, historically, of course, we had a few months there when a lot of newbies decided to push their post count by posting a TON of one-liners, the bandwidth doubled, and DD's costs for the board that month took a whopping jump upwards. (cf. this thread and this).

At least my sig isn't longer than my content....

Snort. Chortle. Yeah, pretty sure I've got a few posts like that in my past. And nice to know that age doesn't necessarily bring wisdom. [ducks].

Back to the topic at hand. Another reason I love Deep Wizardry is that it's about whales. And I love whales, and thought that DD matched personalities to species beautifully. It's why I really want to see what she'll do with raptors in Wizards on Call, given that she used to have a falconry license.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by kli6:
Back to the topic at hand. Another reason I love Deep Wizardry is that it's about whales. And I love whales, and thought that DD matched personalities to species beautifully.

It's good the way she raised the issue of noise pollution being dangerous to whales long before the Navy started dinking around with sonar that played merry hob with them. Maybe as the fans start getting into the services, they'll take her lessons to heart (or Timeheart, as the case may be...)

[singer]

my favorite will have to be either AWAl or DW. DW because well the Song of the Twelve. also, I'm not too fond of water. ( shudders at thought of ocean) It's just was different for me.

[Slash]

I liked Deep Wizardy the best! The first one was good...
third was ummm... not the best
fith (the one I am on) so far it is very good!

[Cody]

I liked the 3rd one

[Slash]

not to burst your bubble but I hated the 3rd one... but if you like it thats ok!

[Kathy Li]

Guys, a "is good/is not!" or "me, too/yup!" type of argument isn't very substance-filled. You may want to escape one-liners after stating an opinion by giving your reasons for holding that opinion--that gives folks a chance to keep the ball rolling.

I love HW almost as much as DW, but then, I was a kid sister who read X-Men comic books, wanted to be a Jedi, and played around with computers, so sympathizing with Dairine wasn't much of a stretch. And I loved the whole idea of not just a software version of the Manual, but a beta software version of the Manual.

[alla]

I didn't like HW as much when I first read it - possibly because I didn't understand many of the little culture references that are buried in it. Once I started to understand a bit more about computers (we had only got one at home about a month before that, and I was still finding new things to do on it) and all that jazz, it intrigued me a bit more. And The Man in the Bar topic in the forums is the reason I started watching Doctor Who *looks over at her ever growing collection of books, videos and DVDs*. I don't know whether thats such a good thing, but its fun .

[Kathy Li]

Yes, I do sort of wonder these days if the DOS/Apple-ness of Dairine's computer works for a younger audience, given how it was state-of-the-art at the time, and is now sadly outdated. I mean, most younger readers probably don't even see the point of a command line, any more than I saw the point of a card deck reader. Was it completely baffling or amusing for you?

[alla]

I guess it was a bit baffling to start with. I knew what a command line was, because one of the few computers that I had used was an old PC running windows 3.1.1 that my uncle had given to my grandma. You had to use MS-DOS to get any of the games to work, so I knew what a command line was, but I hadn't had much experience in using them. I assume that I've used a Apple (changed because PM said something) at some stage over the years that required a command line, but it would have been when I was about four, so I can't quite remember it .

When I read HW, it wasn't _that_ out of date. I was still using old computers at school, like ones running Windows 3.1.1, but I guess theres a bit of a difference now.

Once we started being taught what binary was, and a bit more about command line promts, HW was a much more interesting book. And now I know who The Man in The Bar is meant to be, I can't stop laughing when I read it.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Neal Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash, wrote a neat article a few years back talking about the difference between command-line OSs and GUI-based OSs. The main link is at http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html, but you can find a text-only version at http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/nealstephensonOS.html.

[singer]

my neighbors behind me liked HW the best so far.

[bluesalamanders]

The first three will probably always be my favorites. The third one holds a special place in my heart because it was the first one that I read, and I remember reading it over and over again, trying to understand exactly what was going on in some places - reading the third one without reading the first two is really very confusing, and I didn't realize it was part of a series for some time.

Like I said, I love the first and second ones too. Ed is my favorite supporting character, with Fred as a close second, and I'm also particularly fond of Hotshot and the Lotus.

Offhand, the other ones that I remember rereading the most - that being my gauge for knowing what are my favorite books, otherwise I can't choose - are A Wizard Abroad and A Wizard Alone. I tend to read AWAl when I'm depressed or feeling down already, in part I think because I can empathize with what the characters are going through.

Blue

[saash3120]

HW is also very special to me, because it was my favorite book for a long time. I think I liked it so much because I connected with Dairine more than I did with Nita and Kit, partially because I was barely older than her when I read HW and partially because I just liked her character. I also thought (and still think) that the plot is awesome. I mean, I love the other books' plots, but something about HW just blew me away. It was so... dynamic, I guess.

I love SYWTBAW because it was my introduction to the series, too, but I have to say that my current favorite (tied with HW) is W@W. I think it's cool how it tied all the characters and plots from the previous seven books. And the humor was, of course, great. I love Carmela! And a million other things that I probably can't say here because I don't want to post any spoilers.

Blue: I often listen to music where I can relate to the lyrics. There are songs that I'll listen to over and over again when I'm depressed or angry.

Hey, I know I said "like" and "love" a lot in this post, but with YW books I really can't help it.

[singer]

somebody stole HW from my local library system.