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Up Circle posted:The star trek scene happens in ghost story
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Mar 16, 2016 21:46
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I feel like any discussion of the potential worst book in the series excludes Fool Moon from the list because it is obviously and almost unarguably the worst book in the series.
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Mar 16, 2016 21:47
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Mars4523 posted:How is Ghost Story the worst book in a series where Fool Moon exists? Because fool moon was so over the top bad it ends up being fun like a really bad movie. ghost story is just bad
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Mar 16, 2016 21:50
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Magres posted:Ghost Story just felt really filler-y to me This is how Harry solves nearly every situation in Ghost Story as there's always a convenient magic user hanging out nearby that he can possess. The fireballs may not be as big as Harry usually throws around, but they are fireballs nonetheless. That's actually why I don't like the book. Jim went on and on about how different it was going to be and how he had to get so creative to figure out how to have Harry solve problems without the use of his magic, but that is not the book we got. I really wanted to read that book, but at the end of the day it proved to be beyond Jim's ability to write.
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Mar 16, 2016 21:53
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I don't get how anyone can call any book not about the fuckin' White Court the worst book in the series. Harry vs the Evil Porn Star Coven is saved only by the B story but they don't outstrip the lovely parts.
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Mar 16, 2016 21:56
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Up Circle posted:I didn't like it because nerd references already litter the books. When it starts to bleed into the actual storyline of the series (and in the worst book) it gets to be too much. Yeah, that might be part of it. It's a reference that becomes the story, rather than a reference that's in the story. Sort of like (warning: unfair comparison incoming) a cut-away gag in Family Guy that goes on too long.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:00
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ImpAtom posted:I don't get how anyone can call any book not about the fuckin' White Court the worst book in the series. Harry vs the Evil Porn Star Coven is saved only by the B story but they don't outstrip the lovely parts. I'm on this train. My least favorite books in the series are White Night & Blood Rites With Fool Moon as a distant third.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:00
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ConfusedUs posted:I'm on this train. My least favorite books in the series are Did one of those have the Ramirez duel in the deeps? I really liked that chapter.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:04
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Spun Dog posted:Did one of those have the Ramirez duel in the deeps? I really liked that chapter. White night did. Basically both books got better at the end when the metaplot of the series took over, but the porn studio and the coven of middle aged women struggled to keep me interested. Also white night had a flashback or two to the warden training camp in the desert that was good.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:08
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The first half of White Night was a little dry, but I actually like the Ordo Lebes. It was nice to see what life was like for people stuck in the paranormal world who don't have massive fuckoff wizard powers to protect themselves with. The porno vampires in Blood Rites were definitely a nadir of the series, though.
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Mar 16, 2016 22:14
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I enjoyed White Night, mostly because it had Elaine and Elaine needs her own series. Blood Rites was goddamn awful, however.
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Mar 17, 2016 01:22
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Blood Rites was good and did a good job depicting porn stars and crew as regular people White Night also owns because it's got a wonderful and expansive supporting cast of some of the series best side characters. The Battle in the Deeps is fantastic too. Rygar201 fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 01:27
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The Star Wars thing in Skin Game with Butters was the loving worst reference. I hate Butters by now though so...
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Mar 17, 2016 09:44
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White Night is one of my favorite books in the series. Elaine comes back, Ramirez is awesome, Harry goes crazy in the warden training camp, Harry goes all Dark Jedi and slags a storefront out of rage, the Ordos Lebes is a nice look at the minor practioners of the setting, Lash's situation gets resolved, Marcone makes an apperance, it's pretty solid all around.
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Mar 17, 2016 11:21
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Basically anything the White Court touches turns to poo poo.
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Mar 17, 2016 11:26
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Is their some reason people hate the nerd references? It's pulpy genre fiction. It's not like you're reading the Next Great American Novel.
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Mar 17, 2016 13:19
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Rygar201 posted:Is their some reason people hate the nerd references? It's pulpy genre fiction. It's not like you're reading the Next Great American Novel. I think it's less hating any one particular reference, but rather getting bogged down with too many of them
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Mar 17, 2016 13:39
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Most of the time it doesn't bug me, but occasionally Butcher lays it on a bit thick and it steals away some of the otherwise capably constructed tension. Still, it never reaches Read Player One levels of egregious, so there's that to be thankful for.
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Mar 17, 2016 13:39
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jivjov posted:I think it's less hating any one particular reference, but rather getting bogged down with too many of them I feel you. I guess reading The Iron Druid inoculated me, hah.
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Mar 17, 2016 13:53
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Skippy McPants posted:Still, it never reaches Read Player One levels of egregious, so there's that to be thankful for. Why would you complain about pop culture references in Pop Culture: The Novel?
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Mar 17, 2016 14:42
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anilEhilated posted:Basically anything the White Court touches turns to poo poo. Disagree. Lara, Marcone, Mab, Nicodemus all provide very important examples of bad guys who aren't just monsters, and each of them have their own cast of foils to highlight them. The white court books may not be to your taste, but they and the unknowable war (I can't remember the canon name without coffee) are actually really interesting. Similarly, all the white court books have very adult not-sex views on love, with a lot of nuance for butcher. Say what you will about his pulp, he handles emotion well. I get that people are dubious about sex, but even blood rites just treats sex-business workers as real people with real motives (greed, love, revenge) and it plays out accordingly. Try to set your prejudice aside and look at it as just a regular film studio if you prefer.
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Mar 17, 2016 15:26
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Anias posted:Disagree. Lara, Marcone, Mab, Nicodemus all provide very important examples of bad guys who aren't just monsters, and each of them have their own cast of foils to highlight them. The white court books may not be to your taste, but they and the unknowable war (I can't remember the canon name without coffee) are actually really interesting. Similarly, all the white court books have very adult not-sex views on love, with a lot of nuance for butcher. Say what you will about his pulp, he handles emotion well. I couldn't disagree more with the last part. Why I dislike those books is that they are cartoonishly childish views of sex and of the porn industry. Especially the latter part. They read like someone trying to be progressive who didn't do an iota of research. Characters like Trixie Vixen are loving absurd caricatures and honestly none of the characters has an iota of depth to them even by Dresden standards. You jumping forward and going "Well maybe you're just prejudice against porn stars!!" is dumb because I've never actually heard a complaint about that book that is that it features porn stars, just that they're badly and childishly written. Likewise anything Dresden focuses on sex it tends to emphasizes the most cringeworthy parts of the books and the White Court stuff is that magnified. It is not Butcher's strong suit and it shows. Edit: And honestly even if you cut out the sex stuff, the mystery plot in Blood Rites is paper thin and genuinely bad, probably the worst in the series. Even if it was set in a regular studio it would still be bad for most of the same reasons. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 16:07
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Rygar201 posted:Is their some reason people hate the nerd references? It's pulpy genre fiction. It's not like you're reading the Next Great American Novel. I don't hate the nerd references - the Star Trek one just fell flat for me.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:07
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Rygar201 posted:Is their some reason people hate the nerd references? It's pulpy genre fiction. It's not like you're reading the Next Great American Novel. Because I already realize that Jim Butcher is a nerd. Jim Butcher does not hide where he gets his inspiration from, and thats okay. I liked a lot of that stuff too. But I don't need to be reminded of it constantly, and we are rapidly reaching a point in the series where every other character has a seat at the dungeons and dragons table, and nerd references are actually becoming the story. It's pulpy genre fiction, not fan fiction.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:05
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Up Circle posted:It's pulpy genre fiction, not fan fiction. This is a good way of phrasing the issue. When you have stuff like Butters becoming a literal Jedi happening right there on the page the referential stuff has started to get a little too far up its own rear end and needs to be worked back a bit.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:13
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I didn't really get the rage over that. The Swords could adapt to their owners' personalities and Butters is a nerd, seems pretty fitting.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:45
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anilEhilated posted:I didn't really get the rage over that. The Swords could adapt to their owners' personalities and Butters is a nerd, seems pretty fitting. Sorry mate, but you can't justify this in-universe. That's on Jim Butcher, not the characters.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:55
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I really didn't like Butters becoming a Jedi, but I'm hoping that he'll be off knighting for a while and hopefully get less ridiculous before he comes back. I kinda didn't like Skin Game. I really enjoy this series, warts and all, because it's fun junk food reading where a noir pi is a wizard and the character progression is like Dragonball Z and the explosions keep getting bigger. This is great. Skin Game, though, felt really rushed and unpolished. The way the story kind of lurched from fight to fight felt really poorly paced to me. Heist stories are good fun, and gathering the team is a part of that, but it felt like two thirds of the book was just waiting for the group to stop blatantly backstabbing each other while acting like they're being clever and just do something already geeze. I also hate that Murphy's into Harry and that we got to read countless pages about their awkward advances when there's a goddamn heist waiting to happen. I dunno, I haven't read it since it came out so I might like it better on a re read. I just hope Jim isn't running out of steam on this series.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:56
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While I'll agree that Fool Moon has a ton wrong with it, most of which involves Murphy, I have to admit I kind of liked the whole "four types of werewolf all show up for a brawl with Harry in the middle" conclusion.
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Mar 17, 2016 19:01
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CainsDescendant posted:I really didn't like Butters becoming a Jedi, but I'm hoping that he'll be off knighting for a while and hopefully get less ridiculous before he comes back. I'm really hoping they reforge the sword. The lightsaber bit was cool, and kind of made sense in the story at the time. The sword was broken, and it had to protect Butters and stop Nicodemus, so a sword of, for lack of a better term, faith appeared in that instance. It did the job needed at the time in a suitably miraculous fashion, now that time is over. It really should be rebuilt.
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Mar 17, 2016 19:20
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seaborgium posted:I'm really hoping they reforge the sword. The lightsaber bit was cool, and kind of made sense in the story at the time. The sword was broken, and it had to protect Butters and stop Nicodemus, so a sword of, for lack of a better term, faith appeared in that instance. It did the job needed at the time in a suitably miraculous fashion, now that time is over. It really should be rebuilt. With appropriate LotR references about reforging mythical swords 
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Mar 17, 2016 19:31
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Magres posted:With appropriate LotR references about reforging mythical swords To be fair to Butcher, requiring a knight to find and fight a dragon isn't unprecedented in his books.
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Mar 17, 2016 19:40
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I am okay with the lightsaber? I think it works honestly. He probably will reforge the sword though. And since Butters isn't a katana guy maybe this time it gets turned into a rapier so he can still pretend to have a lightsaber when it glows.
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Mar 17, 2016 19:46
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Zore posted:I am okay with the lightsaber? I think it works honestly. Congratulations, you're not a self-hating nerd  .
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Mar 17, 2016 19:57
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I'm okay with the lightsaber primarily because the (actual metal) swords have been described more or less as blazing sword-esque pillars of light before when they're in their full Holy Weapon mode Okay also because lightsabers are awesome and you hate cool fun things if you disagree
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Mar 17, 2016 19:57
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Slight derail, does Harry ever use the cane sword mentioned in the first book? I honestly don't remember. E: As much as I hate Butters these days, that lightsaber worked I think. A. Beaverhausen fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 20:26
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How can you hate magic batman and his rocket skateboard? That whole segment was so much fun, cause creative application of magic is awesome. I'll take cool magic gizmos over slinging fireballs any time Butters owns, and I hope Harry enlists him as an artificer to help rebuild his stash of magic gizmos when he's not doing Knight stuff. Harry charges stuff for Butters, Butters helps Harry design and build new toys. Having a Knight of the Cross who is also proficient with arcane gadgetry would be a really, really potent thing. Magres fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 20:32
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Dresden Files goes so far beyond good taste right from the start that it can include anything from lightsabers to furries to most adults being cocacola-chugging manchildren or variations of Buffy the Vampire slayer if they're women, and it's just business as usual
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Mar 17, 2016 20:37
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mallamp posted:Dresden Files goes so far beyond good taste right from the start that it can include anything from lightsabers to furries to most adults being cocacola-chugging manchildren or variations of Buffy the Vampire slayer if they're women, and it's just business as usual Hey now, not every single woman in the Dresden Files is a blond woman who is uncommonly tought and usually a bit short. Just most of them. Plus sometimes their hair is silver instead of blond!
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Mar 17, 2016 20:47
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Ornamented Death posted:Congratulations, you're not a self-hating nerd Not an empty quote. I don't think the sword will be reforged while butters wields it. It would undercut Michael's whole Sword isn't the key word in Sword of Faith bit. Furthermore, Anduril isn't important because of the metal it's made of, but because of the resulting symbolism. Rygar201 fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 20:50
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