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RosaParksOfDip posted:I hope that guy is never described as wearing a scarf. Or having a beard.
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Mar 4, 2015 03:53
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Oh hey, white male brown haired guy aged 20-45. How original. Unless he's actually blond or redheaded in the text, just for variety's sake. Whoever picked the preview passage that was posted on io9 should probably have done a better job, as without context it's less than compelling. Of course, I'm comparing that to the preview chapter of Abercrombie's Half the World, which begins with the heroine hitting some dude in the balls really hard and ends with her stabbing another dude in the throat and getting charged with murder. My standard might currently be set a little high. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Mar 4, 2015 |
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Mar 4, 2015 04:23
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Benny the Snake posted:I got a new copy of "Broken Homes" from the Rivers of London series and I've noticed quite a few pages between 170 and 200 have smeared printing. Is that consistent with all copies or should I get a new copy? I'd take it back to the store.
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Mar 4, 2015 04:40
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I'm about halfway through "A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark" and am enjoying it.
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Mar 5, 2015 00:45
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RosaParksOfDip posted:I hope that guy is never described as wearing a scarf. I hope that guy is described as bald. Mars4523 posted:Oh hey, white male brown haired guy aged 20-45. How original. Oh hey a book I should read. Thanks for the laugh.
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Mar 5, 2015 14:05
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Anias posted:
Read half a king first. The young adult tag put me off but it is still a proper Abercrombie story just without all the overly gratuitous stuff, and a lot tighter/ more focused on the core cast. Half the world is a sequel of sorts although it's following a new protagonist. I keep meaning to pick half the world up. If you can't tell I loved half a king.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:12
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Aside from starring teenage protagonists, the series really does not feel young adult at all. What's the difference between YA fantasy and non-YA fantasy again?
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Mar 5, 2015 23:41
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Marketing.
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Mar 5, 2015 23:50
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What's the cut-off point for YA in this context? I've seen the label applied equally to, say, Percy Jackson and Twilight. Likewise, I've seen Harry Potter described as a series that began as kid lit and ended as Young Adult.
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Mar 6, 2015 01:24
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I've always understood YA as dealing with themes teens generally deal with themselves, and focusing on a teen; maybe the protagonist isn't a teen (usually is), but they are heavily emphasized in the story.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:41
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YA=Yes Angst
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Mar 6, 2015 03:48
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Marion Zimmer Bradley once said that to write for young adults you just write an adult novel and then make your protagonist sixteen years old -- but she may not be the best source to decide this question!.
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Mar 6, 2015 03:50
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In the US Half a King/Half the World is marketed as adult fantasy instead of YA fantasy, even with teenaged protagonists and coming of age themes. Same with Red Rising/Golden Son, which has the rape and violence you'd expect from Spartacus. The YA books have a certain, simpler style to them, less moral ambiguity, and more basic plots. The more generic YA books also have love triangles and thinly veiled allegories to high school popularity dynamics. That said, I'm actually seen YA Military science fiction. No, I didn't actually pick up the book to see what it was about. (Don't we have a YA thread for this topic?)
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Mar 6, 2015 03:58
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Speaking of YA, I can't recommend this twitter account more heartily https://twitter.com/DystopianYA
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Mar 6, 2015 05:21
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If there is an uptight older person who is in charge of the main character and placing restrictions on their activities for unfair or petty reasons then its probably YA fiction.
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Mar 6, 2015 08:43
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Mars4523 posted:That said, I'm actually seen YA Military science fiction. No, I didn't actually pick up the book to see what it was about. (Don't we have a YA thread for this topic?) Wouldn't something like Ender's Game fall under that category?
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Mar 6, 2015 10:20
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Loving Life Partner posted:Speaking of YA, I can't recommend this twitter account more heartily It's great.
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Mar 6, 2015 10:28
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I think half a king was YA because it was much shorter, tighter and more focused on a very small cast than Abercrombie usually is, and had the violence toned down significantly. It's not all training swords and flowers but there aren't a ton of graphic torture scenes. And yeah, coming of age story about a young adult. It still felt like an Abercrombie book though. Just a shorter, faster paced one with less gore.
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Mar 6, 2015 13:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Marion Zimmer Bradley once said that to write for young adults you just write an adult novel and then make your protagonist sixteen years old -- but she may not be the best source to decide this question!. By that definition A Song of Ice & Fire is YA. I like it. Although 16 is kinda old...
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Mar 6, 2015 14:43
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fordan posted:By that definition A Song of Ice & Fire is YA. I like it. Although 16 is kinda old... I started reading them at 16 resulting in only a small amount of major mental scarring
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Mar 6, 2015 16:36
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Masonity posted:I think half a king was YA because it was much shorter, tighter and more focused on a very small cast than Abercrombie usually is, and had the violence toned down significantly. It's not all training swords and flowers but there aren't a ton of graphic torture scenes. And yeah, coming of age story about a young adult. There was also a lot of plotting jumps and coincidences that you get away with in YA and kids fiction that don't fly with editors for adult fiction. It's a function of the length cap and the fact so many YA / kids lit have them that they are almost a trope themselves now. Given who wrote it I'm 100% confident it was intentional, but that kind of stuff is a hallmark of the genre rather than adult works.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:33
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Does anyone have the quote from pratchett on writing YA stories handy? I seem to recall him saying YA is darker. I can't find it.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:00
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Fried Chicken posted:There was also a lot of plotting jumps and coincidences that you get away with in YA and kids fiction that don't fly with editors for adult fiction. It's a function of the length cap and the fact so many YA / kids lit have them that they are almost a trope themselves now. Can you provide some examples of what you're talking about? I'm not following you.
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Mar 6, 2015 21:13
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I'm not sure on the length bit - Robert Redick's naval fantasy books are pretty YA and you can bludgeon cows with the things.
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Mar 6, 2015 21:32
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Grundulum posted:Can you provide some examples of what you're talking about? I'm not following you. In half a king he ends up being fished out of the water by the one man who can tell him who really killed daddy, then ends up on the exact same slave boat as his uncle, only to also randomly end up re captured by the only person who could provide the distraction needed for his plot. I'd guess that's what he means.
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Mar 7, 2015 00:09
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Masonity posted:In half a king he ends up being fished out of the water by the one man who can tell him who really killed daddy, then ends up on the exact same slave boat as his uncle, only to also randomly end up re captured by the only person who could provide the distraction needed for his plot. The plot-rerailing coincidence in the second book, that Sumael is not only in the Empire of the South but also is the adviser to the Empress, actually works, because the way she gets the job is reasonable, she's already established as having the necessary skills and smarts, and it shows that she's been doing her own thing while off the page. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 00:42
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I've started on Craig Schaefer's Daniel Faust series, and apart from it being way too Dresden, I was kind of enjoying it. Up until book three.Daniel Faust posted:Doc Savoy was good people Craig Schaefer, you are not good people.
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Mar 7, 2015 04:26
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Fried Chicken posted:so I'm not sure if it really counts as urban fantasy since it is set in the 1300s instead of modern times, but I want to drop a plug for Son of the Morning by Mark Alder (http://www.amazon.com/Son-of-the-Morning/dp/0575115157) I started reading this but the run-on prose and having a character literally be told "He is The One" right in the beginning killed it for me. Given either one of those things, I probably wouldn't have minded, but the both together was not something I felt like dealing with at the moment. I'll probably give it a shot again in the future when I can stand every single person's clothes being described. I really don't need to know that one dude's burgundy overcoat with rubies and emeralds and his lady's ermine coat of blah blah blah. We get it. It's a room full of nobility. They're all dressed super fancy.
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Mar 7, 2015 05:27
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DAAS Kapitalist posted:good people. Doesn't keep it from being a deliberate (or unconscious) reference, but it's not like Jim Butcher invented the phrase.
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Mar 7, 2015 05:42
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Masonity posted:In half a king he ends up being fished out of the water by the one man who can tell him who really killed daddy, then ends up on the exact same slave boat as his uncle, only to also randomly end up re captured by the only person who could provide the distraction needed for his plot. That's exactly what I meant. The protagonist winds up surrounded by the exact people he needs to resolve every plot thread in turn with minimal effort just by chance. This is a common setup in children's books, like how Ron and Hermione just happen to have the exact skills to beat Dumbledore's defenses to get to the sorcerer's stone. Or any of the Bruce Coville books where the ordinary person around town that the protagonist was nice to has exactly what is needed to resolve the plot. Contrast it with, say, the first law trilogy where the merry band of adventurers didn't all just luck together, they were all studied in depth long before things kicked off, were specifically picked and summoned, appointed, bribed, blackmailed, or manipulated to get them on that team, and all had back ups in case they said no. Or the Dresden files where the backup team is often without any useful skills for the situation at all. Or the Laundry stories where well laid out plans are disrupted by random chance and then it is a mad scrabble to see who will least lose rather than who will win. Either as a function of length and simpler plotting, or as a trope, those kinds if coincidences are a hallmark of children's lit/ YA books. You don't see them (as much) in (well written) adult books
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Mar 7, 2015 06:32
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Fried Chicken posted:Or the Dresden files where the backup team is often without any useful skills for the situation at all. I can't agree that Dresden Files doesn't feature Harry surrounded by huge coincidence that lets him get exactly what he needs when he needs it. He gets the poo poo beaten out of him a lot but that doesn't mean Harry Dresden's life doesn't run on convenient coincidence and absurd luck. This really is thin argument. A lot of fiction, including well-written fiction, relies on coincidence and the right people being in the right time at the right place. It isn't exclusive to young adult fiction in any way. You're cherrypicking a fair bit. A lot of that stuff happens in 'adult' literature as well, including all of the books you've mentioned. It may not be as excessive as Harry Potter but nothing is an excessive as Harry Potter when it comes to that sort of thing. The unlikely heroes having the right skills through chance or fate isn't really exclusive to kid's fiction, nor is unlikely encounters with unknown relations or chance meetings giving the critical hints. Dresden regularly has all of those in fact. Some of them are justified by the plot but that doesn't mean Harry still didn't discover the secret of his long-lost brother right at the point it would have become critical for him to know or whatnot. The hero turning out to be in the right place at the right time or someone having an unlikely skill that is exactly what is needed is something a lot of fiction runs on. I guess you could argue "this character is the right character through chance instead of choice" happens more often in children's fiction but if so I'd argue it is a side effect of having younger protagonists whose skillset innately needs to be based around something besides experience and training, rather than editors allowing things to fly. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 06:37
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docbeard posted:Doesn't keep it from being a deliberate (or unconscious) reference, but it's not like Jim Butcher invented the phrase. Sure, but when your readers are politely ignoring that your books are Dresden with demons rather than faeries, socking them in the face with a Dresden catchphrase isn't nice.
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Mar 7, 2015 11:27
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Your saying that like the right person being there just when they are needed isn't a literal universal rule in the dresden files.
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Mar 7, 2015 11:49
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I just re-read the first book over the past couple days, and a question occurred to me: How did Harry hang on to Bob the skull? I haven't poked through the books extensively about this question, so bear with me if I get the timeline wrong. We know that Justin picked up the skull after the final defeat of Kemmler where he kept it rather than letting it be destroyed or whatever because Justin was himself a secret warlock (or potentially infected by Nemesis? who knows). We know that Harry supposedly got it after Justin died - but I'm not sure how he could've kept it. We know he was basically possession-less after he fled Justin's home initially where he had the confrontation with He-Who-Walks-Behind in the gas station. We know that he made a deal with Lea for enough power to confront and defeat Justin. So, presumably he could have picked up the skull then, after defeating Justin. So, I suppose it's possible that he got the skull and then cached it somewhere safe immediately before the Wardens picked him up but I don't think that's a reasonable assumption really. He couldn't have left it with Lea because we know he avoided the never-never after that to avoid having to live up to his half of the agreement with Lea. So if he had it on hand when the Wardens picked him up, they would have presumably gone through all of presumed-warlock Harry's stuff to see if he was carrying anything dangerous. Being in possession of the skull makes you in control of Bob, so presumably any Warden worth his salt (especially in pre- Red Court War times) would have been able to work out what the skull was in short order and confiscate it. They also would have, presumably, gone through now-known-warlock Justin's possessions after the fact and once again realized that the skull was something magical and valuable. Then Harry spends the next 2-3 years or whatever on Ebenezer's farm in the Ozarks where he does not have access (???) to his weird rear end skull. The only thing I can guess is that Ebenezer let him keep the skull?? On purpose? Moreover, typing this out has made me wonder another thing: How did Eb lose track of Harry, and how was his paternity subsequently determined? How did Harry know or learn his mother was a wizard? These are probably just understandable narrative holes rather than like, things yet-to-be-revealed but I'd be curious what Butcher's answers would be to it.
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Mar 7, 2015 22:09
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I don't know if the Dresden Files RPG explanation is true, but if so Harry just buried Bob in a "dank hole" for the years he was with Ebenezer. It seems reasonably logical to me; I can't think the Wardens were on Harry THAT fast, they couldn't have had him under surveillance or else Justin would have gotten caught once he started the mind control and Outsider summoning. And why would they interrogate Harry about an item they figure was destroyed before he was born? Assuming Harry knew not to let Bob be found by the Wardens (which given Bob himself would know "hey, Wardens coming" after Justin died might be one of the first things Bob told Harry) and there aren't any major holes in the idea I see.
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Mar 7, 2015 23:11
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I've never read through the Dresden Files RPG but Butcher approved them so I'd imagine the explanation is tentatively canon.
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Mar 7, 2015 23:24
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Grimson posted:I've never read through the Dresden Files RPG but Butcher approved them so I'd imagine the explanation is tentatively canon. I actually brought up the RPG to Butcher himself at a signing a few years back, and he said he had "good people" on it (I swear those were his exact words  ), so I'm pretty sure this is true.
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Mar 8, 2015 01:36
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If I remember correctly they consulted him on aspects of existing characters they were adding to the RPG to make sure it met his approval.
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Mar 8, 2015 01:47
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docbeard posted:Doesn't keep it from being a deliberate (or unconscious) reference, but it's not like Jim Butcher invented the phrase. I like Schaefer's books, and I follow him on Twitter, so I just saw this post and it made me wonder who here emailed him, haha. https://twitter.com/craig_schaefer/status/574383535638757376
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Mar 8, 2015 02:46
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The internet is a wonderful thing. The Faust books are really well done, that line just jarred like hell.
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Mar 8, 2015 03:48
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