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You know, that's one thing I actually really liked about White Night. The porn industry, with its side orders of drug abuse, rampant STDs, prostitution, verbal and physical abuse culminating in a cocktail of psychological disorders with wildly increased incidences of suicide, is likely here to stay, because there will never be a shortage of girls aged 18-21 with little education working in menial jobs for whom $100 per hour for a shoot is an overwhelmingly tempting reason to jump off that slippery slope Chalking it all up to thematically appropriate supernatural monsters who fit into his mythology was a cute move on Butcher's part, and much less depressing than it all boiling down to... well, people (said the guy with a username referencing hentai)
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Mar 19, 2016 14:09
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Wadjet Eye is working on a new UF adventure game: https://twitter.com/WadjetEyeGames/status/711174661959081985
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Mar 19, 2016 14:11
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tentacles posted:On the other hand, you don't put forth pornography as a valid life choice, which means you have a functioning brain and and/or have spoken with an actual female person at least once in your life, and think of them as people 0_o
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Mar 19, 2016 16:43
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Told you, it's the White Court.
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Mar 19, 2016 17:07
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I'm listening through the audiobooks again and I realized that Little Chicago is kinda a magical version of Cerebro from X-Men 
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Mar 19, 2016 19:39
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Exmond posted:Whats everyone's favorite reference in the Dresden files? Im surprised there hasn't been any "Murphy's Law" references given Murphy being a huge character. Probably not what you meant, but my one friend who really likes Murphy to this day will say 'time to put the boots on' in any situation where someone else would say that 'poo poo is getting real' 
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Mar 19, 2016 19:50
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Vicissitude posted:I'm listening through the audiobooks again and I realized that Little Chicago is kinda a magical version of Cerebro from X-Men You know for all the effort he put into the thing he really didn't get that much use out of it before the fire wiped the whole thing out.
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Mar 19, 2016 22:09
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tentacles posted:Huh. I'm curious, are there books out there where sex isn't cringeworthily handled? I may have to admit defeat in the face of your authority in this aspect of gritty post-modern urban literature Joe Abercrombie because his sex scenes are purposefully awkward.
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Mar 19, 2016 22:23
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Subvisual Haze posted:Joe Abercrombie because his sex scenes are purposefully awkward. Cheers mate, I'll give his books a whirl when I can. Talented fantasy authors seem to multiply exponentially when I'm not looking Come to think of it, the only smut scenes I've come across that I didn't cringe through were some of Feist's later work. I get where Jim's coming from, though; my ex (an English major, no surprise there) tried her hand at the whole steamy pulp bit and I honestly couldn't even sit through a read-through to give her feedback
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Mar 20, 2016 00:35
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jng2058 posted:You know for all the effort he put into the thing he really didn't get that much use out of it before the fire wiped the whole thing out. If I recall correctly, Butcher mentioned it being one of those ideas that didn't pan out too well because it was simply too powerful. It's tough to present Dresden with a mystery to solve when he can just use his magical map to find the bad guys in the first ten pages.
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Mar 20, 2016 00:58
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My biggest disappointment with little chicago was how it was destroyed. Specifically, it's like a voodoo doll for all of chicago, right? They lead up with how it's charged with a shitload of magical energy, so much that it could kill dresden if he screwed up with it. And it's based on Chicago. Yet, somehow, burning this voodoo doll doesn't cause the next Great Chicago Fire.
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Mar 20, 2016 06:39
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Tunicate posted:My biggest disappointment with little chicago was how it was destroyed. metaphorically, ghost story is the next great chicago fire
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Mar 20, 2016 07:04
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tentacles posted:Huh. I'm curious, are there books out there where sex isn't cringeworthily handled? I may have to admit defeat in the face of your authority in this aspect of gritty post-modern urban literature Many outside of of genre fiction. Bujold for example if you ask for genre writing (genre being SF in general).
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Mar 20, 2016 07:33
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Tunicate posted:My biggest disappointment with little chicago was how it was destroyed. Well, remember the basics of thaumaturgy. At that point there was no power in the model. You need to empower the effects on the little thing to make things happen to the big thing.
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Mar 20, 2016 07:52
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Decius posted:Many outside of of genre fiction. Bujold for example if you ask for genre writing (genre being SF in general). Hmm yeah was thinking primarily of genre work. Seems to me that writing believable scenes of intimacy between fictional characters takes even more skill if you have to stay within whatever batshit conventions the genre dictates Thanks for the heads up, a Comedy of Biology and Manners sounds somewhat... novel 
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Mar 20, 2016 08:02
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Vicissitude posted:Well, remember the basics of thaumaturgy. At that point there was no power in the model. You need to empower the effects on the little thing to make things happen to the big thing. Harry makes a Big Deal about how he's been charging up the model for years.
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Mar 20, 2016 08:02
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Tunicate posted:Harry makes a Big Deal about how he's been charging up the model for years. There's a difference between charging a battery and connecting it to something
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Mar 20, 2016 09:19
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Tunicate posted:My biggest disappointment with little chicago was how it was destroyed. It's more like Chicago is a voodoo doll for little Chicago. And it has a bunch of energy stored up, but Harry was never concerned about it doing more damage than killing his neighbors if it blew up.
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Mar 20, 2016 12:11
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tentacles posted:On the other hand, you don't put forth pornography as a valid life choice, which means you have a functioning brain and and/or have spoken with an actual female person at least once in your life, and think of them as people Uhhhhhh, some women voluntarily choose to work in some aspect of the sex industry; that doesn't make them not people or working in porn not a valid life choice. Edit: and let me be very very very clear so nobody misunderstands me; some people are forced into the the sex trade; that is not okay. Some people take a sex trade job out of desperation and can't get out; this is not ideal at all, but better than being kidnapped and forced. But some people do actually enjoy the job and want to have it. And there's nothing wrong with that. jivjov fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 12:19
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jivjov posted:But some people do actually enjoy the job and want to have it. And there's nothing wrong with that. OMG U SEX NAZI Just kidding, yeah, pretty much, and thanks for touching on the subject in an intelligent way. But the number of people forced into the trade, either out of financial duress or the lovely human trafficking industry, vastly outnumbers those who aren't. Anybody who thinks it's a happy little nine to five for anybody but that 1% needs to check their privilege and get a clue. Or, you know, post anonymously on the internet like me
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Mar 20, 2016 12:35
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tentacles posted:OMG U SEX NAZI Yeah; there's a reason the amateur porn industry is on the rise and so awesome; anyone with a decent webcam can do porn on their own terms.
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Mar 20, 2016 12:37
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jivjov posted:Yeah; there's a reason the amateur porn industry is on the rise and so awesome; anyone with a decent webcam can do porn on their own terms. Jesus Christ. Is that what they're doing nowadays? I feel loving old. Also, thanks for giving me my backup plan in case this whole "legitimate work" thing doesn't work out. Hopefully there's no barriers to entry in terms of girth or attractiveness. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
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Mar 20, 2016 12:49
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tentacles posted:Jesus Christ. Is that what they're doing nowadays? I feel loving old. Yeah, amateur webcam sites are EVERYWHERE now.
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Mar 20, 2016 12:57
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tentacles posted:OMG U SEX NAZI I think that the 7 year old post on a site that sells christian faith based web filtering services that you cited as a source might have an inherent bias to promote a certain agenda. There are certainly other contrary opinions to that with cited sources such as this piece on the washington post. Sex work can be a safe and ethical industry. There's a lot of misinformation about sex work out there. There are certainly issues with human trafficking and coercion but one of the best ways of combating it is to regulate and legalise various forms of sex work. You don't have to like it or engage in the industry but there is certainly more than 1% in the industry where it is actually a happy little 9-5. It's reasonable to assume that most of the workers at The Velvet Club under Marcone are making an informed choice in their chosen occupation. That's largely the problem with how Dresden treats sex work. Butcher writes about the upper echelons of sex work to titillate his readers. That's his primary objective. Yet because Butcher is largely a social conservative he paints sex work in a pretty negative light so he doesn't give the appearance of condoning it. That's what I find uncomfortable about it. He could easily be writing about white court controlled cam farms in eastern europe harvesting lust like giant batteries but that's a really icky image and Butcher wants to write about auteur porn. Butcher isn't writing about blue collar brothels servicing hundreds of johns a day - but about elite clubs for millionaires. He could easily be writing about negative aspects of the sex industry from a justifiable moral high ground but he writes about the ones where he can co-opt titillating imagery from. This is nothing new for socially conservative media. Lifetime had a show where Jennifer Love Hewitt was a happy ending masseuse. There is a fascination of the sex industry in media that becomes hypocritical as they have to be careful to avoid supporting it. As the saying goes people are happy to jerk off with the left hand and point the right one in moral outrage. That's what is frustrating to me about how Butcher addresses sex. He loves writing about sexy ladies but he does like turning a lot of them into literal monsters that Dresden can nobly turn down. It's telling that it is only at Dresden's darkest moment - when he takes up the winter knight mantle - is when he finally has sex with one of these monsters. Butcher's socially conservative views on sex and love are often at odds with what he writes which can ring hypocritical at times. It can be uncomfortable to read a series that oscillates between Dresden describing Molly's pierced nipples under her shirt to a conversation with her father about how Dresden feels guilty for having sex with Susan out of wedlock. I don't think Butcher or The Dresden Files are bad. Just that Butcher's views on sex can be awkward and leak into the text a fair amount and need to be taken with a grain of salt.
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Mar 20, 2016 16:35
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Yeah, there's definitely a conservative slant to Butcher's writings that can't be undersold. He writes Harry as a big goony guy who can leer quite a bit, but then suddenly turns around and takes a moral high ground against a lot of casual sexuality.
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Mar 20, 2016 16:49
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Holy crap, nice effortpost mate. This thread continues to pleasantly surprise me. You bring up a lot of good points, all of which deserve consideration, but there are a couple things:Paragon8 posted:There are certainly other contrary opinions to that with cited sources such as this piece on the washington post. Fair enough, but do please note that the Post article's written by a retired call girl, which many sex workers can only dream of being, number one because retirement's a pipe dream when you got no other way to make a living, and number two, because call girls themselves are several (dozen) cuts above the typical sex worker I suppose the problem is that as a stigmatized group, there's just not much hard data on them. My own perspective doesn't come from reports or media pieces, though; I've had friends who wandered down that slippery slope long ago. To the average trannie on the corner, Maggie McNeill is as out-of-touch with reality as the media reports she calls hypocritical, because she probably never had to worry about having her skull caved in by anti-LGBT twats Paragon8 posted:You don't have to like it or engage in the industry but there is certainly more than 1% in the industry where it is actually a happy little 9-5. It's reasonable to assume that most of the workers at The Velvet Club under Marcone are making an informed choice in their chosen occupation. Did... did you just use a completely fictional gentleman's club in an urban fantasy universe where wizards ride zombie dinosaurs to prove a point about the smut industry in real life? I get that we're segueing into discussing Butcher's work, but.... dude! You were doing so well Paragon8 posted:That's what is frustrating to me about how Butcher addresses sex. He loves writing about sexy ladies but he does like turning a lot of them into literal monsters that Dresden can nobly turn down. Why do people have a problem with this? Dresden would naturally come into contact with a higher proportion of monsters, given the nature of his fictional urban fantasy work. If said monsters have any craft at all, they'll target his well-known blind side regarding women, just like they target his affinity with fire, his attachments to the people around him, and so on. I give Butcher credit for lampshading Harry's weaknesses Paragon8 posted:It can be uncomfortable to read a series that oscillates between Dresden describing Molly's pierced nipples under her shirt to a conversation with her father about how Dresden feels guilty for having sex with Susan out of wedlock. Dresden's description of Molly's pierced nipples seem to come up a lot when people whale on Butcher, which seems to me to be missing the point. Not noticing Molly's pierced nipples wouldn't have made Dresden a believable or identifiable character, it would have made him an asexual lump. It was his recognition of the impropriety of the act of noticing Molly's pierced nipples and subsequent shame that makes him, you know, not a serial rapist. I have no idea why people are fixating on Molly's pierced nipples so much With all that said I'll readily admit I don't have the most normal point of view! Thanks again mate, I honestly wasn't expecting a serious treatment of the subject and have to say I enjoyed being proven wrong
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Mar 20, 2016 17:45
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jivjov posted:He writes Harry as a big goony guy who can leer quite a bit, but then suddenly turns around and takes a moral high ground against a lot of casual sexuality. It's called being human.
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Mar 20, 2016 17:55
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Holy poo poo what is going on.
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Mar 26, 2016 06:08
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The thread was on fire... but it wasn't my fault!
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Mar 26, 2016 06:36
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Guys, I've read all the Dresden books and I need something like it to just shut my brain off and have a lot of fun reading. Any suggestions?
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Mar 28, 2016 23:30
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orange sky posted:Guys, I've read all the Dresden books and I need something like it to just shut my brain off and have a lot of fun reading. Any suggestions? If you can actually shut your brain off, try the Iron Druid Chronicles.
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Mar 28, 2016 23:37
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Rygar201 posted:If you can actually shut your brain off, try the Iron Druid Chronicles. The highest quality dresden-style UF series is probably Craig Schafer's Daniel Faust series starting with The Long Way Down. A couple of other good ones that are good fun and mostly the same style are Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus series (starts off looking dubiously like it might be a dresden ripoff and ends up going in a different direction and becoming its own interesting thing) and Elliot James' Pax Arcana.
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Mar 29, 2016 03:40
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Oh Lord, I totally forgotten about Verus. Yeah, go read it now!
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Mar 29, 2016 03:45
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orange sky posted:Guys, I've read all the Dresden books and I need something like it to just shut my brain off and have a lot of fun reading. Any suggestions? the Rivers of London series is good and cool and nice. the audio books are excellent. Alex Verus is dumb and cool The Rook is dope Daniel Faust is bad
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Mar 29, 2016 04:32
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Wolpertinger posted:The highest quality dresden-style UF series is probably Craig Schafer's Daniel Faust series starting with The Long Way Down. A couple of other good ones that are good fun and mostly the same style are Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus series (starts off looking dubiously like it might be a dresden ripoff and ends up going in a different direction and becoming its own interesting thing) and Elliot James' Pax Arcana. I think that Verus and the Pax Arcana are both better than the Daniel Faust books, by quite a bit. The Faust books are good, but I don't see how they're so loved here in comparison to the other UF series. They have a distinct tendency towards "Haha! That was my plan all along!" endings and I really dislike his succubus girlfriend. She just doesn't feel... demony enough? I'd like her to be a bit more shady, seem a bit more like a bad idea.
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Mar 29, 2016 04:33
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Khizan posted:I think that Verus and the Pax Arcana are both better than the Daniel Faust books, by quite a bit. The Faust books are good, but I don't see how they're so loved here in comparison to the other UF series. They have a distinct tendency towards "Haha! That was my plan all along!" endings and I really dislike his succubus girlfriend. She just doesn't feel... demony enough? I'd like her to be a bit more shady, seem a bit more like a bad idea. I honestly like all of them in their own way but Faust is the series the least number of people seemed to disagree with me with on (until now, apparently), so I recommended it first to be safe  . Plus, it is a really solid series that's gotten better with every book and is pumping out books rapidly.Something about Rivers of London got on my nerves after a few books and I haven't read the last two (possibly 3 by now?). The Rook is great but is just one book, unfortunately. I might as well throw out some more recommendations now that they've popped to mind - London Falling's pretty good, though the second book wasn't as good as the first it was still good. Alex Hughes' Mindscape series is practically UF under the veneer of sci-fi, though a lot of people consider it too dry or hate the fact that the main character's an addict. Twenty Palaces and Generation V were both decently enjoyable series that got canceled. James Hunter's Yancy Lazarus is pretty good but sort of bland, though it might get better with more books as it's sort of early in the series. Domino Finn's Dead Man was a pretty solid start to a series, too. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 29, 2016 05:09
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Just to offer another opinion, I listened to the first Pax Arcana book, and felt absolutely no desire to keep on with the series. I really did not like John that much as a character. The romance reminded me a lot of Correia, too, which I found extremely off putting.
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Mar 29, 2016 07:12
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Khizan posted:I think that Verus and the Pax Arcana are both better than the Daniel Faust books, by quite a bit. The Faust books are good, but I don't see how they're so loved here in comparison to the other UF series. They have a distinct tendency towards "Haha! That was my plan all along!" endings and I really dislike his succubus girlfriend. She just doesn't feel... demony enough? I'd like her to be a bit more shady, seem a bit more like a bad idea. Schaefer is like Butcher, in that you should just skip the first three books, start with the fourth where he finally finds his groove, then go back and read the originals later. The fourth is also where it gets super-obvious that the succubus girlfriend has been loving with Faust's head since book one. and poo poo's gonna hit the fan once he figures it out. He's also Sanderson's android clone, down to having his own weird Cosmere thing (like name-checking two Revanche characters in the last Faust book), and probably released a new book in the time it took me to post this.
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Mar 29, 2016 09:26
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I liked the first four Faust books, but hated the premise of the fifth. The first of the Harmony Black spinoff series wasn't bad.Khizan posted:I really dislike his succubus girlfriend. She just doesn't feel... demony enough? I'd like her to be a bit more shady, seem a bit more like a bad idea. The other demons have been telling Faust that he's a bit of an unreliable narrator when it comes to Caitlin.
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Mar 29, 2016 10:39
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It's still up in the air, but there are enough outside impartial observations to conclude that Caitlin does genuinely care about Daniel (whether or not that'll end well for him in the long run is another matter). Plus there's that whole thing with her not killing him and dragging his soul into hell before the ties between Hell and Earth were cut in book 3. Plus, the demons who suggest to Faust that Caitlin is playing with his head aren't exactly disinterested parties. The romance arc in the Pax Arcana series is basically the only relationship I've seen in a UF series that seems fairly healthy and equal, which is saying something considering how much of a mess both principals are. Plus, Sig gets to actually do things and be stronger than the protagonist, instead of just being a sidekick or worse at everything the protagonist can do. And opinions being opinions, I find Rivers of London to be bad (and the main character to be annoying) and The Rook to be utterly unreadable in the way it delivers vast expo dumps to the reader. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 29, 2016 11:18
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