|
Harry actually spends a lot of time determinedly not ogling Ascher, and the descriptions of her character are far less male gazey than many previous books. I re read Skin Game shortly after it came specifically due to all the criticism, and I distinctly remember being struck by how mild Skin Game is next to previous entries.
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:50 |
|
|
The wet dream sequence was terrible and could have easily been cut, I'll grant that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 21:46
|
|
|
Rygar201 posted:Harry actually spends a lot of time determinedly not ogling Ascher, and the descriptions of her character are far less male gazey than many previous books. I re read Skin Game shortly after it came specifically due to all the criticism, and I distinctly remember being struck by how mild Skin Game is next to previous entries. Yeah. Like a lot of Butcher's other issues, I think we can at least say that he's consistently attempting to improve.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
Mars4523 posted:I prefer that she was less terrible while still alive. Waaaahhh waaaaah, why are all the characters in this pulpy film noir inspired Urban Fantasy novel prettier than me? 
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 12:44
|
|
|
At least half of all women arguing on the Internet are making the case for why they personally should be considered hotter. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 14:05
|
|
|
The Slithery D posted:At least half of all women arguing on the Internet are making the case for why they personally should be considered hotter. A fitting name you have there.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 15:11
|
|
|
Pretty much all arguments on he Internet are about raising or lowering someone's status, women just do it largely through looks.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 15:13
|
|
|
What's it like to have never met a woman? That must be weird.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 16:38
|
|
|
Veiled was a bit of a letdown. Verus seems to have gotten a lot dumber and I saw the plot twist coming long before the character started acting all smug in his narrative about figuring it out. Also it's like there is no story climax, just "Oh hey, these things happened, buy the next book to find out how any of this poo poo matters."
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 16:57
|
|
|
Wade Wilson posted:Veiled was a bit of a letdown. Verus seems to have gotten a lot dumber and I saw the plot twist coming long before the character started acting all smug in his narrative about figuring it out. Not wrong, pretty weak book imo. edit: Tried the generation V series, its ok. Also tried pax arcana, not bad either, little odd in places but yeah I enjoyed it. Finally I tried the Eric Carter series, liked those too. Forewarning my standards are not very high. Currently onto Spell Blind with weremystes and Justis protagonistname, dont hate it, weremyste is a godamn stupid name for mages though. Kea fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Aug 7, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2015 19:10
|
|
|
Yeah, first time I saw someone in this thread write that I thought "What? They turn into clouds of mist under certain conditions?"
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2015 16:46
|
|
|
Kea posted:Not wrong, pretty weak book imo.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2015 17:09
|
|
|
I may have missed it, but has anyone read his new series? Aeronaut's Windlass? I'm looking for some new stuff while I wait for Sanderson and Butcher to come out with something else.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 00:09
|
|
|
seaborgium posted:I may have missed it, but has anyone read his new series? Aeronaut's Windlass? I'm looking for some new stuff while I wait for Sanderson and Butcher to come out with something else. Not out till tail end of september. Edit: I would point you to some of the work by A Lee Martinez, not ENTIRELY urban fantasy as such however "Gils all fright diner" certainly fits the bill, about two southern good old boys who happen to be a vampire and a werewolf and a haunted diner, really very good. The rest of his works arent bad but some are far more fantasy and Gils is probably the best.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 00:11
|
|
|
I love Gil's. It's his third best work tho. I think Divine Misfortune is his best work, with Automatic Detective on number two.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 01:11
|
|
|
Kea posted:Not out till tail end of september. If you like stuff in that vein, there's this really good old series of short stories called Alabaster , about an albino girl who travels the south to hunt and kill monsters at the orders of an Angel or possibly about a psychopathic albino drifter who travels the south murdering random people, the stories are really vague about that. It got made into a decent graphic novel at one point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabaster_%28book%29 http://www.amazon.com/Alabaster-Horse-Caitlin-R-Kiernan/dp/1616553006/ref=pd_bxgy_14_text_z http://www.amazon.com/Alabaster-Wolves-Caitlin-R-Kiernan/dp/1616550252 Ghetto Prince fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Aug 8, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
I just finished Foxglove Summer and now I'm out of Rivers of London audiobooks to listen to while I walk my dog.  I enjoyed it for the change of pace compared to the Dresden Files. The pace is so much slower than what I'm used to getting from Dresden and getting it in bits and pieces as an audiobook also didn't help matters. While it sure felt like all Peter does is grasp in the dark, the climaxes were almost always exciting and satisfying so it was worth the listen. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the vaguery of the magic system, but that might be because I've read too much Brandon Sanderson. Do we know how many books Aaronovitch plans on writting for this series? The stakes seem to be ramping up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 04:19
|
|
|
After reading through the second Justis Fearsson (yeah really) book I've come to the conclusion that they arent TERRIBLE but they rely incredibly heavil on deus ex machina, if you read them you will definately see what I mean.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 14:57
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:I love Gil's. It's his third best work tho. Hmmm. Hard to order A L Martinez work. Divine Misfortune is good, but I really liked too many curses more than automatic detective.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 01:27
|
|
|
torgeaux posted:Hmmm. Hard to order A L Martinez work. Divine Misfortune is good, but I really liked too many curses more than automatic detective. Noir + robots + aliens + a talking gorilla How can you not love that? The Automatic Detective is great. It is both a love letter to and a satire of half a dozen things.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 01:36
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:Noir + robots + aliens + a talking gorilla Oh, I do like it, a lot. He hasn't had a real miss for me yet, though following the moon, or whatever it was called, won't be high in the reread rotation.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 01:57
|
|
|
torgeaux posted:Oh, I do like it, a lot. He hasn't had a real miss for me yet, though following the moon, or whatever it was called, won't be high in the reread rotation. I didn't like Helen and Troy's Epic Roadtrip or Emperor Mollusk. Everything else ranges from "that was fun" to "that was really fun".
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 02:42
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:I didn't like Helen and Troy's Epic Roadtrip or Emperor Mollusk. I didn't like Helen when I started, switched to audio book and it was much better.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 02:50
|
|
|
I was looking at the stuff available in amazon's new kindle unlimited service. I don't think I had fully grasped how much hot garbage is in this genre.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 03:03
|
|
|
The Fool posted:I was looking at the stuff available in amazon's new kindle unlimited service. I don't think I had fully grasped how much hot garbage is in this genre. Yep. I usually poke around for new books on amazon, but I have to dig through so much garbage to find even mediocre trashy entertainment books, most are too painful even for that. Amazon starts recommending increasingly awful books if you even look at a few bad ones, too. God help you if you end up looking at a book that is also in the paranormal romance genre. A single look at the wrong book a month ago and you'll be getting weekly emails recommending fifty trashy werewolf/vampire romance books. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 09:50
|
|
|
You can actually go through and curate your recommend list. It should say something to the effect of "this is recommended because you bought/viewed X" and you can tell Amazon to disregard stuff off that list.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 11:14
|
|
|
Goodreads is bit better for finding new books. It's now owned by amazon too I think so it's bit more commercial than it used to be, but the ratings feel more genuine and the monthly letters are pretty good when you've rated enough stuff
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 16:39
|
|
|
I usually read Fiction Affliction on Tor.com and Bookshelf Injection on Io9 every month for books I want to investigate further on Amazon. I also subscribe to a bunch of book blogs on my Feedly and skim through those to see if anything catches my eye.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 17:01
|
|
|
Having read 8 of the kate daniels books in the past 3 days (jesus) I judge them allright. A summary of the books would be something along the lines of Kate Daniels is a legitimate badass of a female protagonist, trained practiclaly from birth to be an assassin or weapon she now makes her living fighting monsters for money. The world is much like our own except 60 years in the past magic catastrophically returned to the world, now it suffers from waves of magic being active and technology failing to waves of technology being active and magic failing, these can occur up to multiple times a day so the world has had to adapt. There are many monsters, lots of mythological stuff and despite the fact theres some short but cringey sex scenes in the later books as long as you can get past the fact its Urban Fantasy with a definite romance hit (the authors other series is a full on urban fantasy romance series) you will probably find something worth reading.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 02:53
|
|
|
Ghetto Prince posted:If you like stuff in that vein, there's this really good old series of short stories called Alabaster , about an albino girl who travels the south to hunt and kill monsters at the orders of an Angel or possibly about a psychopathic albino drifter who travels the south murdering random people, the stories are really vague about that. I didn't know these were books! I have the graphic novels and one of the pages on my wall so I'll have to check out the actually books! And @Xtansic I kinda like that the magic is left vague. But I sorta hate how much Brandon Sander details his magic system. I always feel like it bogs down the pacing. I'd rather learn as the story goes. Personally I've been plowing through the audiobooks of October Daye series. I wish there were female lead urban fantasy books like this. Gonna draw a lot of comics while listening.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 11:28
|
|
|
Kea posted:... the world, now ... suffers from waves of magic being active and technology failing to waves of technology being active and magic failing, these can occur up to multiple times a day so the world has had to adapt... Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. I can understand the root of the issue, as magic and technology can both be used as solutions to problems which allow the plot to advance, and allowing a character access to both could make them too difficult to challenge. But are the examples of books where they don't conflict? Perhaps ones where they work together in some kind of harmony, or even a positively reinforcing resonance? And, if so, are they any good? Or is this just one trope that won't be easily subverted?
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. Yeah, I really dislike it. It feels incredibly lazy and boring to me. I don't like it whenever it shows up and part of why I like the Laundry Files is that it basically goes "computers and magic? gently caress yes, those things go together well. In fact probably too well, you can goddamn make an app for occult summoning."
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 17:48
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:... part of why I like the Laundry Files is that it basically goes "computers and magic? gently caress yes... you can goddamn make an app for occult summoning." Ok, I think I have to read this, now.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:01
|
|
|
The conflict is there to isolate the wizard from regular society. It's reinforced by the passages referring to how wizards used to curdle milk, grow warts, and change the colors of flame.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:15
|
|
|
There's been some discussion about Generation V in this thread so just a heads up the author is doing an AMA at the moment over on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/3gliq0/hi_im_ml_brennan_author_of_dark_ascension_and_the/
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:16
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. Matthew Swift is partially possessed by the spirit of the internet (I don't know if this changes in later books)
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:16
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. That said The Laundry Series is great for how it makes its magic the same thing as advanced mathematics.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:26
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. But when Technology and Magic get along, you end up with books like Iron Druid. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:29
|
|
|
Blasphemeral posted:Is anyone else pretty burned out on the magic/technology mutually-exclusive dichotomy? It seems to be one of the most overused concepts in UF. My issue with the "tech doesn't work" side of this is, well, what counts as technology? What aspects of it break down? Technically, a wheel is technology. Does that suddenly stop working? Anything that's purely a mechanical device where one thing pushes on another thing should still work. So maybe it's complex systems that break down. But how? Why? Do certain chemical reactions suddenly not work. Like maybe gunpowder is no longer flammable? That's crazy. The effects of that would extend far beyond just guns. Or maybe it's electricity that stops working? But that would make no sense, because /[everyone would die]/. It's really dumb once you probe just a bit under the surface. There are narrative reasons to do this. Ostracizing your hero. Setting up conflicts. Artifical challengs. That sort of thing. But this is /[lazy]/. One of the reasons I am so enamored with the Libriomancer series is that it doesn't shy away from this. There was Yet Another Great Magical Conspiracy to keep the muggles out of mage business. But you know what? That poo poo falls apart under the pressure of today's society. The internet, social media, etc...it's impossible to keep something of that scale secret. And so it doesn't. The end of the last book is amazing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 18:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:50 |
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:My issue with the "tech doesn't work" side of this is, well, what counts as technology? What aspects of it break down? Well the thing to remember is tech doesn't work because of magic, so its not necessary for it to make perfect sense. On top of that when the crashes first happened loads of people did die, but in this series the technology generally only doesnt work for 12 hours or so then it works perfectly again, in somre universes it doesnt make much sense but in these books i'm willing to suspend disbelief, the author does make references towards it being based on belief to a certain extent, not a perfect answer but im happy to overlook it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 19:06
|
|