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Mars4523 posted:Suzume isn't a prostitute, although she is sexy and does have a heart of gold. She's more like risk management for prostitutes like Sin City's Miho. And still, there are no gratuitous descriptions nipples or curves or what have you despite Fort being around a race of invariably attractive women who regularly take their clothes off in public (to shapeshift). You're not really winning points here from the outside I've got to say. The reason that stuff is weird in Dresden isn't just because of descriptions of nipples. If you've got a bunch of stuff involving prostitutes and a race of women who need to strip regularly that isn't really much different sounding. I mean Miho is absolutely Frank Millar's Fetish Waifu. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 02:05
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ImpAtom posted:You're not really winning points here from the outside I've got to say. The reason that stuff is weird in Dresden isn't just because of descriptions of nipples. If you've got a bunch of stuff involving prostitutes and a race of women who need to strip regularly that isn't really much different sounding. It's not quite like Jim Butcher, who when creating an entirely new take on a vampire decides to make them a family of beautiful bisexual succubi (and their pedophile rapist father and statutory rapist brother) with a predilection for thin, filmy clothing and super high heels (in retrospect, certain climactic action scenes in later books look incredibly stupid) and an aversion to bras. Oh, and they also occasionally work in porn.
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Jul 24, 2015 02:44
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Mars4523 posted:The prostitutes are incidental. They're mentioned briefly but never shown on page. The race of shapeshifting women is something you can blame mythology for, since the author basically scrubs off the morality predispositions off of the myth of kitsune as trickster foxes who transform into beautiful women and transplants them into the U.S. The disrobing is part of of the shapeshifter package, and when a community of Norwegian descended were bears is introduced in a later book they also need to take off their clothes if they want to keep them before transforming. As much as I dislike the V book, it doesn't share the Dresden failing of endless descriptions of the sexy assassin prostitute bodyguards with a heart of gold.
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Jul 24, 2015 03:07
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Wade Wilson posted:She got mad because Jim wouldn't let her write the sex scenes in the Dresden Files any more. Wait what?
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Jul 24, 2015 03:58
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Azuth0667 posted:Wait what? His was married to Shannon K. Butcher, who is an author of romance novels. Although I'd guess she would have improved on the cringeworthy scenes a bit.
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Jul 24, 2015 05:40
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Decius posted:His was married to Shannon K. Butcher, who is an author of romance novels. Although I'd guess she would have improved on the cringeworthy scenes a bit. I knew that part but, is this just hyperbolic hilarity or is that the stated reason of their divorce?
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Jul 24, 2015 05:42
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Azuth0667 posted:I knew that part but, is this just hyperbolic hilarity or is that the stated reason of their divorce? I seriously doubt that someone with even a minimum of self-awareness would put "doesn't let me write sex scenes in his book series" as a reason for divorce. That kind of stuff is what the wonderful phrase "irreconcilable differences" exists for.
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Jul 24, 2015 07:16
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torgeaux posted:As much as I dislike the V book, it doesn't share the Dresden failing of endless descriptions of the sexy assassin prostitute bodyguards with a heart of gold. Wait, wait-- let me get this straight. The book still has assassin prostitue bodyguards, we just don't get descriptions of them? How is that better, really? It's worse, if you think about it. The people who like that sort of thing are going to be disappointed, while the people who don't like that sort of thing are also still going to be disappointed. Either go all in and describe the rear endrear endins, or be a "gentler sensitivities" author and don't put them in at all.
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Jul 24, 2015 13:54
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Blasphemeral posted:Wait, wait-- let me get this straight. The book still has assassin prostitue bodyguards, we just don't get descriptions of them? How is that better, really? There is a bodyguard, a kitsune who is brought in during the first book to keep the protagonist from dying due to his ignorance/human squishiness and sticks around as his partner as he troubleshoots for his vampire family in later books. So really after book 1 there are no bodyguards, either. As far as we know she does not moonlight as an assassin. torgeaux is just being obtuse.
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Jul 24, 2015 14:12
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While I like the Generation V series, my biggest issue is that the protagonist is kinda boring. He's a vampire cast in the role of Joe Everyguy, just a poor 20-something working minimum-wage jobs and more than a bit of a pushover, refusing any help from his family despite having to see them at least once a month because he's so intent on holding on to his human nature. I mean, you can see the path the author probably has planned in terms of development of power while fighting to hold onto humanity, but it's a slow build out of having to rely on Suzume and his family's reputation to do anything with only the first small signs of it in book 3. The world is interesting, the "vampire concept" is interesting in how they're formed, but I'll take an interesting Dresden over a mopey Fortitude any day. edit: Mars4523 posted:There is a bodyguard, a kitsune who is brought in during the first book to keep the protagonist from dying due to his ignorance/human squishiness and sticks around as his partner as he troubleshoots for his vampire family in later books. So really after book 1 there are no bodyguards, either. As far as we know she does not moonlight as an assassin. Not a bodyguard since she generally isn't getting paid (that we know of). Still acts as one since Fort is still useless except for his moderate intelligence and "do you know who my mom is?!?" fordan fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 14:32
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Although he's good at shooting things in the face, which is usually enough in the setting. Even a vampire is getting knocked on his rear end after one headshot, and after a few more he's probably not going to get back up. The trick is lining up those headshots.
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Jul 24, 2015 14:46
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Mars4523 posted:There are no assassin prostitute bodyguards in the series. There are prostitutes (really, escorts), who are kept offpage and mentioned maybe twice in the series. Well, the kitsune in question comes from a family that runs "Green Willow Escorts" and talks about the family business as if it were prostitutes. I'm only discussing book 1, so can't tell you what happens later.
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Jul 24, 2015 15:04
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Suzume's grandmother was a geisha who immigrated after her whole clan/pack/family was killed in WWII, so yes she set up an escort service because that was what she knew how to do, and was quite successful with it. The fun part about the kitsune is they are fox-spirits-who-can-be-women, not just shapeshifting women, so they're a lot more like trickster spirits than standard sexy girlfriends. If you liked Suzume probably determines if you liked the books at all though, she's the most stand out character in them. She co-leads with Fortitude. It's not like it's a long read, if you liked the jacket pitch you'll probably like the book. If you think vampires are stupid I doubt it'll change your mind.
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Jul 24, 2015 15:35
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You can make almost any UF or fantasy, including dresden, sound stupid if you analyze it too closely, it's mostly a matter of 'is it remotely well written/edited' 'does it have an interesting plot' and 'are the characters enjoyable' and it's better than most on the genre and is a good fun read that's at least worth a skim if you like UF. I don't mind him starting off as a relatively ordinary, boring pushover that gets shoved into unpleasant things and forced to grow up, since it's least it's different from the typical brooding PI/problem solver/wanderer with a ~dark past~ (not that there's anything wrong with that)
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Jul 25, 2015 15:56
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For people who've read The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - for how long does the "exposition by binder" gimmick last? I found it a serious impediment the first time I tried reading the book, and I feel like it could've been avoided in favor of New Myfanwy's personal interpretation of the reading material (which would ideally be a sentence at most). Since I was reading the thing on my phone, every time the plot stopped and I had to power through yet another wall of exposition I just got more and more tempted to go to other books.
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Jul 26, 2015 17:25
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Mars4523 posted:For people who've read The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - for how long does the "exposition by binder" gimmick last? I found it a serious impediment the first time I tried reading the book, and I feel like it could've been avoided in favor of New Myfanwy's personal interpretation of the reading material (which would ideally be a sentence at most). Since I was reading the thing on my phone, every time the plot stopped and I had to power through yet another wall of exposition I just got more and more tempted to go to other books. It's there through the whole book, though it becomes less common after about the halfway point.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:00
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Ornamented Death posted:It's there through the whole book, though it becomes less common after about the halfway point. ^ If I recall, it drops off pretty heavily after her first day back at work, then only crops up again for the occasional quick expo moments.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:09
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Some of those later binder reports are great. I like the dragon and vampire ones especially.
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Jul 26, 2015 20:46
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The binder becomes less exposition and more a vehicle for jokes later on.
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Jul 26, 2015 22:08
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I got The Rook when I was in Canada the week before last and only just now realised that the next one, when it's published here in the UK, is going to have a different cover and binding and it'll probably be a different size. This matters to me, because I'm a complete contemptible wanker about that kind of thing (I held off on getting Foxglove Summer when I was away because I think the North American printing is a slightly different trim than the British one). Same with the Stross one, actually. That's a thing I've noticed about British sci-fi/fantasy books - the local printings all seem to get really boring covers. Like, ages ago, my aunt and uncle got me The Eye of the World as a Christmas present when they were in New York, and it had this very dramatic-looking painted cover, but then the UK ones are just plain black with the title and a picture of the wheel and the ouroboros snake. Pretty dull by comparison. Speaking of Foxglove Summer, I just finished it there now. I enjoyed it a lot, but the ending was a bit abrupt. Normally, it'd finish with a bit of an after-action report, you know, "Here's what happened next," but not so much this time. Looking forward to the next one, though. The title (The Hanging Tree) leads the me assume that it's going to involve the favour Peter owes to Lady Ty. Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jul 27, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 23:55
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Earlier in this thread someone suggested Spell Blind by David B. Coe, which was a decent first start for a series about a former cop-turned-wizard PI in a world where the wizards (at least the ones we know about) are weremystes, whose powers are tied to the phases of the moon and who go crazy the 3 nights of the months when they are the most powerful. I preordered the sequel after finishing it, and Amazon let me know it would be shipping next week. However, the Kindle version came out almost 2 weeks ago: His Father's Eyes Yeah, I know this is a garbage pitch, but I just wanted to give a heads up to anyone who read the 1st book.
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Jul 27, 2015 01:12
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Wheat Loaf posted:Speaking of Foxglove Summer, I just finished it there now. I enjoyed it a lot, but the ending was a bit abrupt. Normally, it'd finish with a bit of an after-action report, you know, "Here's what happened next," but not so much this time. The other books were a lot better about that, so Foxglove's abrupt ending felt weird. There was an epilogue chapter exclusive to a certain UK bookseller or something, but I'm not sure what was in it.
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Jul 27, 2015 01:13
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Slanderer posted:The other books were a lot better about that, so Foxglove's abrupt ending felt weird. There was an epilogue chapter exclusive to a certain UK bookseller or something, but I'm not sure what was in it. It wasn't really an epilogue chapter just a short story that happened during the drive back.
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Jul 27, 2015 09:32
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Slanderer posted:Earlier in this thread someone suggested Spell Blind by David B. Coe, which was a decent first start for a series about a former cop-turned-wizard PI in a world where the wizards (at least the ones we know about) are weremystes, whose powers are tied to the phases of the moon and who go crazy the 3 nights of the months when they are the most powerful. I preordered the sequel after finishing it, and Amazon let me know it would be shipping next week. However, the Kindle version came out almost 2 weeks ago: I was the one who tossed that recommendation, didn't realize the sequel was already out, thanks for the heads up.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:16
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60% into Turn Coat... Mouse is the best.
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Jul 29, 2015 04:14
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I just finished Roadside Picnic and, drat, was that an awesome ride. Anyone who hasn't read it yet, give it a shot. I read the May 2012 rerelease (according to Amazon), in case you guys care. One thing I really loved about it was how it's divided into 4(?) chapters/sections, each a significant time apart. The authors were able to use this to really give a sense of how a society would advance under such strange circumstances. They were also able to, with each trip into the zones, show how Red has changed as a person throughout his life and how that manifests in his behavior, thoughts and assessment of situations. They also captured the otherworldliness of the Alien tech really well. I kept wanting to know more about some of the stuff they mentioned offhandedly. Really great stuff.
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Jul 29, 2015 15:13
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Wolpertinger posted:I was the one who tossed that recommendation, didn't realize the sequel was already out, thanks for the heads up. It ended up being a really quick read, but I wasn't disappointed. Without spoiling anything, I liked that the author retroactively made the narrator unreliable to an extent, which solved the fact that the ending of the first book sorta wrote the world into a corner. Everything we know about the world is what Fearsson knows, and he seems to have learned everything from magic-(not)ghost Namid. Namid claims to have never lied (I won't bother to check what he said in the first book) to him, but just deliberately didn't tell Fearsson everything right away. So, the world gets bigger, and the ending of the first book becomes a little less significant in retrospect, but it makes this series as a whole more viable.
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Jul 30, 2015 00:25
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Turn Coat spoilers. Shagnasty vs Listens-to-Wind...holy poo poo...
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Jul 30, 2015 02:41
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Sorry for the double post, but more Turn Coat spoilers, Morgan loving dies?! That sucks. So what was the point of the book? He could have died at the beginning and saved everyone some trouble. I guess Peabody was exposed. Still...drat.
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Jul 30, 2015 03:54
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thrawn527 posted:Sorry for the double post, but more Turn Coat spoilers, Morgan loving dies?! That sucks. So what was the point of the book? He could have died at the beginning and saved everyone some trouble. I guess Peabody was exposed. Still...drat. The point of Peabody being exposed is that there is proof that there are forces working against the White Council. Someone had to die, because no one would believe it was just Peabody working by himself, managing to pull something so daring against the whole Senior Council. Effectively Morgan dying and still holding the blame for everything was just the Council covering their asses.
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Jul 30, 2015 04:32
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thrawn527 posted:Sorry for the double post, but more Turn Coat spoilers, Morgan loving dies?! That sucks. So what was the point of the book? He could have died at the beginning and saved everyone some trouble. I guess Peabody was exposed. Still...drat. Turn Coat is where Harry learns that you can't win them all.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:36
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Scorchy posted:The binder becomes less exposition and more a vehicle for jokes later on. "Fortunately, this is Belgium we're talking about."
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Jul 30, 2015 07:21
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The Severed Streets  seriously, i was not expecting this to be even close to London Falling but actually it was very nearly on par.
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Jul 30, 2015 07:34
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thrawn527 posted:Sorry for the double post, but more Turn Coat spoilers, Morgan loving dies?! That sucks. So what was the point of the book? He could have died at the beginning and saved everyone some trouble. I guess Peabody was exposed. Still...drat. If he'd died at the beginning, Peabody would've gotten away with it, Luccio and the other wardens would still be mind-controlled, and all the other consequences they go over in the book itself would happen. This way Morgan saves the woman he loves and the organisation he's spent his 200 year life serving. Let us know how you enjoy Changes!
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Jul 30, 2015 11:55
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Illuyankas posted:If he'd died at the beginning, Peabody would've gotten away with it, Luccio and the other wardens would still be mind-controlled, and all the other consequences they go over in the book itself would happen. This way Morgan saves the woman he loves and the organisation he's spent his 200 year life serving. Yeah...yeah. You're all right. It still hurts. As it should. And I will!
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Jul 30, 2015 12:17
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Illuyankas posted:Let us know how you enjoy Changes! 
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Jul 30, 2015 13:26
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One bit in Turn Coat that cracked me up was Morgan describing how he managed to kill a skin-walker in the 1950s: lured it on to a nuclear test site then escaped through a portal and left it to be annihilated by an atomic bomb.  I've since read a little about real-life skin-walkers and witchcraft in Navajo culture - did Butcher ever talk about the origins of skin-walkers in the Dresdenverse? Are they supernatural creatures or were they originally human practitioners of Reading Half-Resurrection Blues at the moment. Not very far in, but it hasn't really come together yet; I never thought I'd say this, but it could maybe do with a little more exposition. Still, I will stick at it.
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Jul 30, 2015 13:52
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Wheat Loaf posted:One bit in Turn Coat that cracked me up was Morgan describing how he managed to kill a skin-walker in the 1950s: lured it on to a nuclear test site then escaped through a portal and left it to be annihilated by an atomic bomb. Wheat Loaf posted:I've since read a little about real-life skin-walkers and witchcraft in Navajo culture - did Butcher ever talk about the origins of skin-walkers in the Dresdenverse? Are they supernatural creatures or were they originally human practitioners of
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Jul 30, 2015 13:54
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Wheat Loaf posted:One bit in Turn Coat that cracked me up was Morgan describing how he managed to kill a skin-walker in the 1950s: lured it on to a nuclear test site then escaped through a portal and left it to be annihilated by an atomic bomb. Bob says they're similar to the Fallen, except they're some of the First People that stayed behind and went capital E "Evil". It should be noted that there is a difference between regular nightmare Skinwalkers and Naagloshii though. You've got the actual Naagloshii that have their own bodies and seriously major firepower and then you've got small time demon-like skinwalkers that possess people and carry around spare skins of the things they want to take the form of (the ones that show up in the Iron Druid books are the latter, there's no way Atticus would have survived the kind Dresden was running from).
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Jul 30, 2015 15:38
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Turn Coat is a book that I thought was good the first time I read it, but I found it to be great the second time. There's a lot going on in the book. The interplay between Morgan and Dresden, Molly's training, the council politics...all of these things are important to the immediate plot and the events to come. This is the a book where Harry is at the height of his pre-Changes power. Everything had come together to bring him the ability to defy the council, for the right reasons, in the right way. Turn Coat also did something I never thought would happen: it made me like Donald Morgan. And of course, the Naglioshii is probably the scariest villain in the series to date. If the events of Changes had not happened, I feel that Harry would have become a rising star in the council.
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Jul 30, 2015 17:24
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