Malazan Empire: QuickTidal - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

worry, on 14 March 2025 - 03:57 PM, said:

This is a good point. I did get through one entire audiobook with little to no struggle and it was the History Of Magic book narrated by Natalie Dormer. I found it was a lot easier to consume since it's non-fiction and parcelled out in sections with clear topics and agendas.

Mark Lawrence, on 14 March 2025 - 10:30 AM, said:

I'm the same, and I've tried SO many audiobooks, different narrators, different types of books, ect. and the main through line is that I drift off as I listen and then I'm lost and have to back up....backing up to re-read things is SO much easier than trying to rewind audio to the place I missed the thing....I want so much to like Audiobooks....but I can't no matter how many times I've tried.

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Personal sidebar:


It's also annoying when one accent given to a character is off and that can irritate.

For example, in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series Stephen Maturin is Irish, but by way of a youth in Catalonia Spain and young a adulthood amongst the English...which WOULD have affected his accent, so I expect he'd sound something like a genteel English accent with turns of phrase popping out with Irish lilts....but Patrick Tull (who is the most well-known narrator of the audiobooks of the series) makes him distinctly Irish as if he'd lived in southern Ireland all his life which just sounds so off to me...while others like Simon Vance and Rice Jerrom kind of try to make him more like what his upbringing would actually produce.

And I feel like O'Brian actually would agree with me as his text leans that way.

In THE NUTMEG OF CONSELATION a character named Sowerby bashes Ireland, Irish people, and -- perhaps worst of all (for Stephen anyways) -- Irish flora and fauna before learning Stephen is Irish: "Mr Sowerby had only to say that he meant no national reflexion, was unaware that the gentleman came from Ireland,"....which would not be the case if Stephen had a discernible Irish accent...


But yeah, stuff like that REALLY grinds at me when I try to listen to even books I love (The O'Brian books are the closest I've come to being able to enjoy audiobooks, but that accent drives me mental and Tull's audios are the most prolific ones out there)

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 March 2025 - 09:30 AM, said:

Absolutely. That last scene in episode 1 was TERRIFYING...amazing work on the part of everyone involved in that. Also, the whole episode in general was just really kinetic and pacey, but everyone got a chance to shine for their reintroductions.

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 March 2025 - 09:30 AM, said:

Agree with you entirely.

Cause, on 13 March 2025 - 11:37 PM, said:

As far as I understand it (and I could certainly be wrong) if the govt shuts down, the debt ceiling would not be raised again, as it needs congress to do that, and because Congress in the past has always lifted the debt ceiling before the Treasury has run out of money, no one knows for sure what will happen if Congress isn't running to act (technically it's not like they can raise it much more they are well beyond what normal debt for the US looks like anyways, but I digress)...—what the Treasury and the Federal Reserve will do, and how financial markets will react would all be up in the air (and the markets: Nasdaq, Dow, S&P are all deeply in the shitter already). Failure to make timely interest and principal payments on U.S. Treasury securities, regarded as the safest financial asset in the world, would be an unprecedented default (especially with Canada and a few other countries calling our hundreds of billions in Bonds back)....the US defaulting on their debt would be a crisis like you've never seen before. The US dollar ceasing to be the safe global reserve currency would be the least of your worries.

So I think the Republicans are betting on the Democrats either supporting their BS, or they get to blame the democrats for not only the shutdown, but for the likely debt default that would occur from one.

Anyone feel like that's not the right of it? I'm not American obviously, but that's how I think I understand the position the democrats are in. The Republicans and their voters would all decry the Dems for it and blame them. It must be fun being a Republican where nothing is EVER your fault, even when you're in charge.

EDIT to say: I don't agree with this mind you....they should do it anyways because the gloves should be off at this point, and Chuck Schumer is a fucking clownshoe....but I feel like they know they are there bad guys either way because the R's will always be louder and will always blame them os they want to save their skin?

EDIT 2: And wait till the US can't find countries to buy their debt like they normally do....hooo boy....

I’d love to see it as Brona very much was a product of his earliest days and this was a sort of copycat dark lord without much personality, so I’d be happy to see him get one.