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Post by Dante on Mar 22, 2014 2:43:11 GMT -5
This is the official File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents discussion thread. The next volume in All the Wrong Questions is officially released today, Tuesday, April 1st. This is 667's official discussion thread. For those who have read the book, you may feel free to post about anything and everything within. Comment on events, post theories about the mysteries of the book and the remaining titles in the series, and ask questions about points of confusion. If you want to write a review of the book, you may wish to post it in the Official Review Thread (although here is fine as well). From Tuesday 8th April, spoilers can be posted freely anywhere outside this thread. Please note, however, that the book has no release date outside America. Yes, this includes the United Kingdom. Always be considerate of non-American members of 667 in discussing the solutions to the mysteries within the book when posting in threads which aren't obviously about the solutions to the mysteries within the book. If you live outside America, the only way to get File Under as a physical release at present is be to import it, which is likely to be a longer process than you'd like (though not necessarily more costly). Note that some European retailers such as Amazon.co.uk are offering the American edition at the normal price and without import costs, so ordering online is a viable option if you are willing to wait several weeks. In addition, if you have an account with an American ebook retailer, you should be able to purchase the File Under ebook so long as you use legitimate payment credentials (cases have been known of sites not offering purchase of American ebooks to accounts with non-American delivery addresses, even though ebooks require no delivery address, but adding a false American delivery address should clear this difficulty). If you do so, remember that the File Under ebook is split into two parts - Reports 1-6, and Reports 7-13. My personal recommendation is to acquire the ebooks and purchase the United Kingdom release when it eventually happens. The Amazon.com pages for these ebooks are as follows: www.amazon.com/dp/B00I30DNRQwww.amazon.com/dp/B00I30DNW6(The audiobook, though advertised as a similar split release, is in fact offered as the complete text in one purchase.) And for all who've read the book - discuss away!
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Apr 1, 2014 3:12:47 GMT -5
The Kindle version still doesn't even have pricing on either half of the book, though I suppose it's still a bit early in the day. That said, I took up Amazon's offer of a free Audible trial to listen to the audiobook version (those narrators!), and it lists a scheduled release of "in a few minutes On Apr 1, 2014" so who knows when that will actually be. Dante, how plentiful are the illustrations?
Edit: And upon a refresh, apparently "a few minutes" was no mistake, the audiobook is available! ...but only Reports 1-6, and there doesn't even seem to be a listing for 7-13. This whole splitting-up of the book is rather odd, really.
Edit again (sorry): Despite being listed as Reports 1-6, and specifically described as "The first volume in a two-part audiobook series", this is the whole book. So yeah.
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Post by Dante on Apr 1, 2014 3:41:33 GMT -5
I've discussed this in my review, but there are thirteen full-page illustrations, and considerably smaller chapter header icons. Amazon's attitude to the ebook and audiobook sounds bizarre - but so is the whole splitting approach, which I've never understood. However! For whatever reason, Amazon.co.uk has the American edition in stock. It looks like you can order it without import costs, maybe even with a several-week wait. I'll update the first post to note this shortly.
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Post by Agathological on Apr 1, 2014 8:27:53 GMT -5
I've discussed this in my review, but there are thirteen full-page illustrations, and considerably smaller chapter header icons. Amazon's attitude to the ebook and audiobook sounds bizarre - but so is the whole splitting approach, which I've never understood. However! For whatever reason, Amazon.co.uk has the American edition in stock. It looks like you can order it without import costs, maybe even with a several-week wait. I'll update the first post to note this shortly. please tell me we get an illustration of Markson! Didn't get released in UK today sadly
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Post by Dante on Apr 1, 2014 8:59:02 GMT -5
Egmont have said that they will publish the book, but haven't set a date yet, unfortunately.
As for character illustrations, I'll remark only that the illustrations in the book are predominantly, though not entirely, of new characters. With that said, most of the recurring cast of the series turn up twice or more, though with some exceptions.
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Post by Agathological on Apr 2, 2014 9:27:26 GMT -5
Egmont have said that they will publish the book, but haven't set a date yet, unfortunately. As for character illustrations, I'll remark only that the illustrations in the book are predominantly, though not entirely, of new characters. With that said, most of the recurring cast of the series turn up twice or more, though with some exceptions. I'd like to import but the shipping will be the price of the book. I'll wait I guess...odd why it's delayed.
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Post by Dante on Apr 2, 2014 10:02:41 GMT -5
I'd like to import but the shipping will be the price of the book. I'll wait I guess...odd why it's delayed. I'm sorry to hear that. Is the ebook not an option? And when I ordered my copy from Amazon.co.uk, the only reason I paid over the odds was for express delivery. I wish there was a convenient way for non-Americans to get the book, though - or even a release date. As to the reason for the delay... well, I'll write a post about that here; I don't want to derail this thread too much. File Under is a really good book and there's loads to discuss, and I hope more people will get it soon. I've only spoken to one other person who's read it so far, but it's not like there hasn't been publicity in the usual circles.
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Post by Agathological on Apr 3, 2014 16:21:19 GMT -5
Did you order for the UK Dante? Would it be cheaper getting it from Amazon or waiting for it to be in a store?
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Apr 4, 2014 4:22:21 GMT -5
Various thoughts: Presumably the movie this Mitchums watched about "zombies in the winter" is Zombies in the Snow? Or at least, presumably we're supposed to take it as a reference and not think about irreconcilable timeline issues too hard.
Wow, apparently we already have one more supplementary work for ATWQ than we thought, technically. I haven't read 29 Myths, but from the reviews it didn't seem to have any actual connections to speak of though.
I certainly wasn't expecting the Snicket File to get namedropped, but I can't for the life of me figure out who L.D. might be. Is this a new character, or do I just have a poor memory? Edit: Ah right, L.D. is the main character in that incident. Oops.
I definitely get the general feeling that the events taking place in Stain'd are at least to some extent a test engineered for Lemony by VFD.
The last chapter was quite well done, and in a way felt like a bit of a summary of ASOUE - answers hovering tantalizingly out of reach, only to disappear into the fog. I do wonder if the story will be followed up, but I don't know where it would be feasible; starting ?3 off from there would be a bit unfair to those who didn't choose to read FU13.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 4, 2014 15:38:42 GMT -5
I am a spoilerphile, so I'm commenting on this even though I haven't read the book: Various thoughts: Presumably the movie this Mitchums watched about "zombies in the winter" is Zombies in the Snow? Or at least, presumably we're supposed to take it as a reference and not think about irreconcilable timeline issues too hard. Well, arguably we already had irreconcilable timeline issues in TUA, with the suggestion that Olaf as a boy had taken part in the making of ZITS. One proposed solution was that Sebald had inserted a new, coded scene into an old film, though I'm not sure this could be made to work. Oh gosh, really? I don't recognise the initials - could you give a hint as to what context they are mentioned in? That's clear, I think, from some details in the main series, where Qwerty clearly knows more than he's letting on, and is helping L and his associates, but isn't prepared simply to do the detecting himself. That's not to say he's responsible for the villainy, of course, but he may be trying to arrange just how L confronts it. Perhaps it (whatever it is) will be followed up in the next supplementary volume. [/quote] This is very frustrating. I don't have an ebook reader, and have no intention of getting one, preferring to read books in the form in which God created them for as long as possible. I also prefer to buy them in bookshops such as God created, though I'm less absolute about that; but in this case it seems it would cost a lot to order it online anyway, and if all the fans buy it online that will reduce the incentive for Egmont to publish it. I may order the other book crono288 mentioned, if I understood their hint correctly - that, I think, isn't going to be published in the UK anyway.
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Post by bandit on Apr 4, 2014 22:24:18 GMT -5
I don't have anything substantial to add in regards to the plotty bits, but I can say that this is a really fantastic book. I think I'm enjoying it much more than the series itself.
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crono288
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 70
Likes: 45
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Post by crono288 on Apr 4, 2014 22:44:27 GMT -5
Re: Initials Basically, one of the incidents ends up being explicitly a test for Snicket and the message regarding the results (which Snicket has a chance to read) is signed L.D. But it turns out I'm just very absentminded and L.D. is a character in that very incident. Audiobooks are hard to pay attention to.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 5, 2014 12:08:19 GMT -5
Ah well. I was hoping D might stand for Denouement. By the way, it strikes me that while this book presumably won't be essential to the plot of the main series, it may well help us to understand it in some way. I think that TUA and TBL were actually rather important for understanding ASOUE, and one reason people were so puzzled by the ending may be that they had not read those books - not that they actually solve any mysteries, but they give a wider sense of what is going on.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 6, 2014 0:14:59 GMT -5
Okay, so I've finished it and these are my thoughts on and my review of the book (written for those who've read the book; I've edited my review for anyone who hasn't read it and posted it in the 667 Review thread here). The sentence "Sometimes when you encounter a new word, you begin to see it everywhere" really resonated with me because I feel the same way and told someone exactly the same thing some time ago. And I found "You didn't answer the phone." "The phone is ill." especially amusing. (There were other amusing lines too, of course, like "What kind of funny? Like a clown onstage, or like a clown hanging around the entrance of a bank?") The first two thirds of the book are quite an enjoyable read for someone familiar with the previous books, but it would make for a disappointing whole if it didn't change up for the third act or so (although "Twelve or Thirteen" before that is really good as well), so it's wise that Handler steps up his game after the "Three Suspects", a chapter that is honestly nothing but a filler (together with "Walkie Talkie" definitely the weakest of the 13 chapters, while "Bad Gang" and "Midnight Demon" are also kind of mediocre). But, man, after that it turns from merely enjoyable to a true delight, and the last chapter, which may be my favourite, makes for a very strong ending (that last sentence is beautiful; just like its "conclusion"). And after the last chapter it is still not over! In what I find is Snicket's cleverest literary gimmickry, a word which I do not intend to devalue anything with at all, since The Beatrice Letters, he offers the truly puzzling parts of this mystery book. While most of the 13 mysteries are more or less easy enough to solve/conclude on your own (I solved maybe 9 or 10), I don't think I've quite grasped this subplot with its out-of-context conclusions; how about anyone else? But it indicated enough for me to have been really intrigued by it. Oh, and what about that "Last Word", what do you think do the blanks stand for? I came up with "Ellington," but I'm not entirely sure if that's really it. Apart from that, I really appreciate the references (which I've tried listing here), especially to other Snicket works. So Smogface Wiley is supposed to be a young Sir from The Miserable Mill? Nice. And Dr. Sebald's "Zombies in the Snow" is indirectly mentioned as well. Who would've expected? And, yes, the Swinster Pharmacy appears! I predicted that it would be connected to the Averse, even though I thought it would be the ex-home of the Snicket family (due to Lemony's official bio saying that his home was turned into a pharmacy). Whatever, I'd still like to proclaim "I knew it!"
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emf3rd
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 40
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Post by emf3rd on Apr 7, 2014 7:21:02 GMT -5
I'm curious as to whether everyone is just speculating that Smogface Wiley is Sir at a younger age, or if this is stated as cannon? Obviously the first character I thought of was Sir as well, but it seems strange that after having 'such a hard to pronounce name' that his last name is, simply, Wiley. But, I guess we shall find out eventually, won't we? I also caught the reference to the Paltryville optometrist, which indicates that Dr. Orwell has been a villainess for years previous to meeting the children in Book the Fourth. Her character is one I would love to dive deeper into, as she is one of the few random villains that appear separate from Olaf's troupe and I'd of loved to learn more about her past.
I wasn't quite sure how to go about reading this book either, so I went and read it twice to see if it would be any clearer. The first time I read the book cover to cover and was thoroughly confused once I got to the conclusions. I am still working on matching them up best I can, but the fact that some of these have nothing to do with any of the stories just leaves me wanting so many more answers to my questions than before. But, Lemony Snicket has a knack for that I suppose. The second time I read each individual story before checking the back for answers, and that seemed to help quite a lot. If I was to take a crack at the fill in the blank, it would be 'Pollution'. Anyone else had a similar thought? I really enjoyed this book and think it deserves to go right up there with The Beatrice Letters and The Unauthorized Autobiography. Can't wait to get my hands on The Swinster Pharmacy, I was happy they officially added that into the Averse as well!
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