G'day from Australia

[Rane Longfox]

Howdy Welcome to the forums!

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

VB, Melbourne Bitter and Fosters? Fosters, for crying out loud! What Australian drinks Fosters? I thought we shipped all that rubbish to Britain....

Please, the only Australian beer you need is XXXX and you know it. You know it's good when Terry Pratchett names a Discworld continent after it....

Whoa, please none of that XXXX crap mate, we drink the real stuff down south!!

Where do you hang out on this forum? I haven't spotted you before my fellow aussie.

BTW did you know Terry is going to be in Melbourne next January for the first international Discworld conference? HMM.. must be all those green cans he's attracted to HE HE..

See ya..

[eccles_1960]

Originally Posted by Wandaful

Hi Eccles.... Darwin is so hot that you HAVE to drink lots of beer eh???... hehe

So is the 1960 reference the year of your birth???

Cheers mate

Oh, Yes on both counts.

We did drink rather a large amount of beer there, my favourite being Tooheys Old (hope the spellings right).
Darwin is a mental place, a real frontier mentality. Yet the people were caring enough to stop us in the street and tell us off for not wearing hats when we were out during the day.
A great pity we never made enough time to see outside the city.

[Wandaful]

Originally Posted by eccles_1960

Oh, Yes on both counts.

We did drink rather a large amount of beer there, my favourite being Tooheys Old (hope the spellings right).
Darwin is a mental place, a real frontier mentality. Yet the people were caring enough to stop us in the street and tell us off for not wearing hats when we were out during the day.
A great pity we never made enough time to see outside the city.

Ohhhh you're a Rat like me...... Aren't we the BEST??? Er not that we are prone to boasting or anything... But really, come on..... what can one say.... ahem...... OUCH.... WHO just threw something at me???.... ..

OK Culhwch .. Fosters is crap but XXXX???... *coughs and splutters*

Gollum.. I know Box Hill very well.... and Camberwell... When I was 14 (er about 30 years ago)... I actually got picked up by the cops out the front of Box Hill Plaza cause they thought I was loitering (er I was using the phone booth actually) and being a Sunday they said I shouldn't be hanging around cause I lived two suburbs away and had no valid reason to be there...

I'll never forget that.... I was like... WTF????

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh memories of days gone by................

Ahem.. OK.. so who's shout is it again????.....

Maybe I should go the Champers instead of all this crappy beer...

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Wandaful

Ohhhh you're a Rat like me...... Aren't we the BEST??? Er not that we are prone to boasting or anything... But really, come on..... what can one say.... ahem...... OUCH.... WHO just threw something at me???.... ..

OK Culhwch .. Fosters is crap but XXXX???... *coughs and splutters*

Gollum.. I know Box Hill very well.... and Camberwell... When I was 14 (er about 30 years ago)... I actually got picked up by the cops out the front of Box Hill Plaza cause they thought I was loitering (er I was using the phone booth actually) and being a Sunday they said I shouldn't be hanging around cause I lived two suburbs away and had no valid reason to be there...

I'll never forget that.... I was like... WTF????

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh memories of days gone by................

Ahem.. OK.. so who's shout is it again????.....

Maybe I should go the Champers instead of all this crappy beer...

Well the place has changed a bit by then. I remember Box Hil Plaza, it's now called Box Hill Central and has had a major upgrade as well. You may be referring to the old part of Box Hill which has recently had a face lift. The new part called Box Hill Central has a major bus loop and taxi rank and heaps of shops.

OH well times change I guess but the green can stays.. HE HE..

Bye for now!

P.S. The phones still don't work properly HMM.. maybe not everything has changed after all.

[Wandaful]

You dag....

Ok since I'm new here I don't feel TOO bad for asking....... WHAT THE HELL is this green can thingie reference thingie???... ... er please???...

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Wandaful

You dag....

Ok since I'm new here I don't feel TOO bad for asking....... WHAT THE HELL is this green can thingie reference thingie???... ... er please???...

Hoi who you calling a Dag? HE HE..

Somehow I think you already know Green Can = Victoria Bitter = Nectar of the gods.

Blue Can = Fosters Lager = Let's export this crud to our British friends so they don't all decide to invade our Golden Beahces en masse conspiracy.

See ya later and don't forget the Aeroguard cobber!

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Whoa, please none of that XXXX crap mate, we drink the real stuff down south!!

Where do you hang out on this forum? I haven't spotted you before my fellow aussie.

Hang out mostly on the Martin thread, but I make cameos elsewhere every now and then.

I'll ignore your slight on XXXX. We Queenslanders know it's the Gods own brew. After all, what would a Victorian know? Crap at making beer. Crap at winning premierships...

BTW, who drinks out of cans? Honestly. If it ain't in a stubbie, it ain't worth the effort.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Hang out mostly on the Martin thread, but I make cameos elsewhere every now and then.

I'll ignore your slight on XXXX. We Queenslanders know it's the Gods own brew. After all, what would a Victorian know? Crap at making beer. Crap at winning premierships...

BTW, who drinks out of cans? Honestly. If it ain't in a stubbie, it ain't worth the effort.

Touche on the sporting front but I still ilke VB the best.

The "can" reference is more of a generic one, I too only drink VB out of a stubbie and they're frely avaialable in this format.

OK you're a George RR Martin fan, good to see you lot have some taste HE HE.. No only joking mate.

I'm a big fan of Martin's current series, he's No 2. on my all time fantasy hit parade only behind Steven Erikson's Malazan series. I'm aware there's a number of Martin fans who don't like Erikson much but after Book 1, which is still pretty good, the level of writing, worldbuilding and magic concepts goes up a notch or three.

See you over at the Martin thread.

Bye for now.

[Culhwch]

I tried reading Erikson, got up to the walking, talking puppet, and just couldn't go on. So I'm in that Martin-lovin', Erikson-dislikin' camp, I'm afraid. For me Martin is No. 1, though he shares the rank with Neil Gaiman, who seems sadly overlooked here...

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

I tried reading Erikson, got up to the walking, talking puppet, and just couldn't go on. So I'm in that Martin-lovin', Erikson-dislikin' camp, I'm afraid. For me Martin is No. 1, though he shares the rank with Neil Gaiman, who seems sadly overlooked here...

Yep, I'd urge you to read to the end of Book 1 and Book 2 and then you could make a more informed and balanced judement.

Not trying to knock you friend but I honestly know plenty of people who thought little of Erikson until they completed the first 2-3 books in the series. Then they couldn't get enough of his books.

Give it a bit more of a go first mate

[Treikayan]

G'day wandafal

Free beer??? Ask Space Monkey

[Winters_Sorrow]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

I tried reading Erikson, got up to the walking, talking puppet, and just couldn't go on. So I'm in that Martin-lovin', Erikson-dislikin' camp, I'm afraid. For me Martin is No. 1, though he shares the rank with Neil Gaiman, who seems sadly overlooked here...

Yeah, I'm having similar problems - I'm 'stuck' on page 200 something, and trying to muster the enthusiasm to continue.
The big problem I'm finding so far is that all the characters so far are, to me, basically unlikeable at this point. I have no sympathy with any of them and so when bad things happen to them, I'm not bothered.
No character has really captured my interest yet
They're either professional soldiers, mighty magicians or stealthy assassins - with a few odd, capricious gods thrown in.

The politics side of things is a bit intriguing - the Moons Spawn Lord is starting to prick my interest

The lack of any decent prologue or build-up is a real failing for this series though. Fiest's "Magician" series was a much easier read!

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by Winters_Sorrow

Yeah, I'm having similar problems - I'm 'stuck' on page 200 something, and trying to muster the enthusiasm to continue.
The big problem I'm finding so far is that all the characters so far are, to me, basically unlikeable at this point. I have no sympathy with any of them and so when bad things happen to them, I'm not bothered.
No character has really captured my interest yet
They're either professional soldiers, mighty magicians or stealthy assassins - with a few odd, capricious gods thrown in.

The politics side of things is a bit intriguing - the Moons Spawn Lord is starting to prick my interest

The lack of any decent prologue or build-up is a real failing for this series though. Fiest's "Magician" series was a much easier read!

True, but I think Erikson is going for something a little bit more involved than Feist was... But, yeah, the problems you're having are the same as me - just no connection to the characters or story and no enthusiasm or desire to see what happens on the next page, or in the next book. I'm not saying I won't come back to it, though - it took me three or four attempts to get into Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, but once I did, I loved it. Though I did ditch the follow-up trilogy after the second book....

I don't know. It's not what I want to be reading right now. I think I have moved on from the magic side of fantasy, that kind of stuff really does nothing for me at the moment, so I'm more into Martin-esque martial and political driven stories, if I read fantasy at all.

[Rane Longfox]

You're not supposed to like the malazan characters, they're all bastards

Its not an easy read, but the book is over 700 pages long. Don't give up after 200
You have to regard malazan as an investment. You can't just read one book, you're in for the whole slog, ten books eventually. Something near 10,000 pages... you just can't give up after 200! Read the first three, then decide whether you want to give up

Gaiman is rather ignored here, he's one of the best fantasy authors around, but the problem is his volume of output is not huge If you ignore Sandman, he's probably only got 5 books out there. And one of them is a short story collection. American Gods is up there near the top of my best ever book list...