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Harry Connolly says he's going to write what was supposed to be the next (final?) Twenty Palaces book as a novella after he finishes and sends out the draft of his current project.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:48
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Megazver posted:Harry Connolly says he's going to write what was supposed to be the next (final?) Twenty Palaces book as a novella after he finishes and sends out the draft of his current project.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:50
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Megazver posted:Harry Connolly says he's going to write what was supposed to be the next (final?) Twenty Palaces book as a novella after he finishes and sends out the draft of his current project. That's pretty awesome. I always got the impression he was setting up for at least another trilogy, and all the unanswered questions certainly seem to lend themselves to that kind of length, so I hope it's more "next" and less "final."
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Apr 6, 2016 19:50
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anilEhilated posted:That sounds like good news! The only other thing I read from him was A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark which I liked a lot, is his standard fantasy worth anything? It's alright, with a disappointing ending.
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Apr 6, 2016 20:53
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Huh. Listening through Ghost Story again and I'm wondering: Was Biana a tool of Cowl, or was she infected by the Nemesis? A valid argument could be made either way.
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Apr 6, 2016 22:33
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Vicissitude posted:Huh. Listening through Ghost Story again and I'm wondering: Was Biana a tool of Cowl, or was she infected by the Nemesis? A valid argument could be made either way. I could see it going any number of ways, but my gut tells me that the Black Council were egging on both sides of the Red Court/White Council war but weren't doing more than nudging either side along.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:07
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at the time that I read whichever story introduced it, i got the impression most or all of the black council was infected.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:10
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Personally, I'm leaning toward Bianca being a pawn of the Black Council. Cowl and Kamori were present and actually infected Lea, which seems to be a far better play than a Red Court noble. But of course that could have be incidental given the political power being flexed at the time.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:25
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Slow night at work, so I just bought the latest Alex Verus book on Kindle. I got an e-mail saying it will be delivered on the 7th of April, but it's already the 7th of April, and no book to be found. Do you know how long the supposed wait time is? I'm EU, if that makes a difference.
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Apr 7, 2016 00:58
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Got it just as my shift finished. 
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Apr 7, 2016 08:24
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Up Circle posted:at the time that I read whichever story introduced it, i got the impression most or all of the black council was infected. The Black Council maybe, but I'm of the opinion the Red Court was quite probably just egged on and did everything themselves with the support of their "friends" rather than a more direct connection. Think about it; why directly infiltrate somebody (and run the risk of being uncovered during the fighting, especially since the Gatekeeper might wind up involved in the war directly as part of the White Council) when you can just push them to do what they and you want to do? I tend to suspect the Fomor are similarly being manipulated. Right now the only group we've really for sure seen been infiltrated has been the Winter Court, and as the primary opponents of the Outsiders of course they're worth the risk of getting into directly, especially since they managed to snag one of the three leaders to boot. It's logical the Black Council is infected as well, but even there it might not be many if they can just manipulate most of the others to do as needed.
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Apr 8, 2016 09:52
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MadDogMike posted:The Black Council maybe, but I'm of the opinion the Red Court was quite probably just egged on and did everything themselves with the support of their "friends" rather than a more direct connection. Think about it; why directly infiltrate somebody (and run the risk of being uncovered during the fighting, especially since the Gatekeeper might wind up involved in the war directly as part of the White Council) when you can just push them to do what they and you want to do? I tend to suspect the Fomor are similarly being manipulated. Right now the only group we've really for sure seen been infiltrated has been the Winter Court, and as the primary opponents of the Outsiders of course they're worth the risk of getting into directly, especially since they managed to snag one of the three leaders to boot. It's logical the Black Council is infected as well, but even there it might not be many if they can just manipulate most of the others to do as needed. Summer too, back in White Knight, oh and one of the Denarians as well.
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Apr 8, 2016 18:44
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The latest Alex Verus book, Burned was real good. Essentially, the previous book was the straw that broke the camel's back and the mountains of people Verus has pissed off throughout the series (pretty much the entire magical government minus a small handful and every dark wizard under the sun) all put their heads together and decided they didn't want to deal with him any more and he has to die. It was practically the Changes of the series in a way in how it completely and irreversibly stomped all over the comfortable life Verus had and sent the plot and characters careening in completely different directions, if not quite as completely and utterly scorched earth as Changes. Of course, now I have to wait for the next book to see the consequences. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 08:47
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I agree with the summary and interpretation of Burned. Very changes-esque, and I feel like it's a necessary transition given the politics of the setting. We've been told for a bunch of books how bad dark mages (and especially Richard) are but only rarely shown, and it's time for that to happen.
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Apr 9, 2016 12:32
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Yeah, Burned was great. Go read it. Man, that is basically a total defeat for Verus? Anne and Verus back with the Dark Mages, and their loved ones as hostages.
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Apr 9, 2016 18:09
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drat, it feels like I read Veiled just a couple months ago and now there's another Verus book I need to go out and get...
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Apr 9, 2016 19:03
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I'm not sure. (massive spoilers for Alex Verus Burned follow) On the one hand, obviously it's not good to be forced to work for Richard again. He left because he had moral issues with the way he operated, and that won't have changed since then. Anne has a similar background and will be challenged more directly given her lethal powerset, but Verus is definitely going to make tough choices. On the other hand he is now working for people who actually want him not-dead. The end of Burned showed conclusively how worthless the council is, and how powerless even the people he trusts were when push came to shove. The overarching political stuff was interesting, too. Chalice explicitly saying she opposes Morden's ambitions, and basically operate on her own is very similar to what Alex wants. Meanwhile Morden's endgame is basically just what the council does already, but with him in charge. Richard's own goals remain unclear, but I suspect political power is not involved. What do you think the odds are that the next book has Verus forced to steal back the Jinn he stopped Morden from getting this time?
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Apr 9, 2016 19:11
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Velius posted:I'm not sure. (massive spoilers for Alex Verus Burned follow) (More spoilers for Burned here!) I would say roughly 10,000%- remember, we still saw several top diviners say that most probable futures led to Verus handing Richard the djinn- I can't imagine that'll be forgotten. But yeah, Burned was a drat fun book with a lot of poo poo happening at once. I'm still a big Schaefer/Faust fanboy, but I think Verus has easily become my runner up Not-Butcher-Urban-Fantasy series.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:25
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I think Dresden's prominence in the current UF crop is because it got there first and did it best, but what were the biggest UF books (or even series, heck, even properties regardless of medium) before Dresden came along? I have had Alex Verus on my list for a while. When I was on holiday last year, I was in a bookshop and looked for it but they didn't have the first one, but they did have the first Laundry Files book, so I ended up reading that series instead. It's taken me a while (I put the book in the bag I take to work so I could read it on the train, but forgot it was there and went off to read something else) but I'm about halfway through Midnight Taxi Tango and I'm liking it well enough. It's introduced a couple of extra viewpoint characters, but it's remained engaging enough for me. I think it has the same problem as Half-Resurrection Blues did (granted, that was the author's debut novel) in that it's a bit slow to get going. Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 19:29
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Manly Wade Wellman wrote some pretty great modern fantasy.
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Apr 9, 2016 19:37
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Just off the top of my head the anita blake books certainly predate dresden and the first several were just 'investigative magic user who helps the cops' so more than similar enough to count as "modern UF", and of course by the author's admittance weren't the first entry in the genre. Butcher's protagonist is male which helped sell the books. He also made sure not to get discouraged and when he finally caught the upswing he held on fairly well. He wasn't doing anything unique, just working constantly to figure out what the genre liked. It took him the first 3 concurrent books, then once those sold he had a firmer grip and summer knight was born. Since most of the UF genre is built on the premise of "What if X-Fantasy-Element was in Y-Gritty-Realism-Story", it's not surprising he could just plug away at it until something worked. I think it might be a result of his success that the genre prefers to embellish established fantasy and noire story elements in a formulaic fashion. But that method isn't really new. It's been the time honored tradition of good writers throughout history. We tell stories readers can identify with and the fastest way to do that is to remind readers of another story. Of course, his stuff isn't all just retreads of other ideas. He puts his mark on things he reuses, and even finds room for some ideas of his own. I think if you pressed me I'd put demonreach, the denarians, and Ivy as the most unique elements of the dresden files we see in the books. The absolute best is the oblivion war which butcher mostly talks about 'off-stage' as a background element that informs the intrigue. Anyways, Wizards/Vampires/Werewolves/Winter/Summer/Cops-and-Robbers had all been done prior to dresden. The denarians were born from actually deconstructing christian mythology as pulp-accessible myth, which I feel was rare. Similarly the take on arthur and avalon melded together as a dolstoyevsky-esque prison-in-need-of-a-warden is really interesting. We don't dwell on it much because by the time it shows up it's not treated as the wonderously strange thing it might in another author's work. Lastly, Ivy is just a remarkably human lovecraftian protagonist. Everything about her is horrific. She's this almost unimaginably traumatized orphan child, and she still manages to hold on to some sense of normalacy. It's great, and again butcher doesn't rub your face in it he just glosses past it. I can't decide if it's masterful of butcher to treat these interesting things so softly while focusing the plot elsewhere or not.
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Apr 10, 2016 01:04
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I think so. Butcher tells his stories, and he shows off some really neat side pieces and world building on the margins, because his characters just can't be bother to think about it too much right then.
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Apr 10, 2016 02:23
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Butcher wasn't first, but he was the first I'm aware of to really double down on the noir genre elements. Everyone I'm aware of writing urban fantasy before Butcher was either writing more "literary" fiction (i.e., Tim Powers with Declare), or primarily mixing some other genre in with the fantasy (romance, spy thriller, etc.) The closest thing I'm aware of the straight detective-noir / fantasy mix prior to Dresden were the Garrett P.I. books by Glen Cook, and he set them in a fantasy world, not the present day.
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Apr 10, 2016 18:37
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Butcher did copy Laurell K. Hamilton and Buffy pretty hard when he started though. Noir was his idea but the rest.. Later in series he turned it into something like epic urban fantasy with massive political/war plot, that's hisgreatest original invention imo
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Apr 10, 2016 19:56
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mallamp posted:Butcher did copy Laurell K. Hamilton and Buffy pretty hard when he started though. Noir was his idea but the rest.. Later in series he turned it into something like epic urban fantasy with massive political/war plot, that's hisgreatest original invention imo Right, he basically turned it into an RPG campaign with Dresden as the PC.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:38
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Wheat Loaf posted:I think Dresden's prominence in the current UF crop is because it got there first and did it best, but what were the biggest UF books (or even series, heck, even properties regardless of medium) before Dresden came along? Constantine is kind of similar.
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Apr 11, 2016 21:52
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Reading through the most recent Libromancer book, and I'm really amused that Small Favor made an appearance
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Apr 11, 2016 22:51
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Anyone read Borderline yet? I'm about 20% done and it's not bad, a bit rough but could be an ok series.
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Apr 12, 2016 03:32
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calandryll posted:Anyone read Borderline yet? I'm about 20% done and it's not bad, a bit rough but could be an ok series. I liked it well enough, but I don't know if I'd actively seek out the next one.
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Apr 12, 2016 05:02
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calandryll posted:Anyone read Borderline yet? I'm about 20% done and it's not bad, a bit rough but could be an ok series. The Girl with Ghost Eyes was pretty good. There are weak spots, but nothing too bad, and I enjoyed the main character and the setting. It's nice seeing UF that's not ripped out of European mythology.
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Apr 12, 2016 06:30
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Recent Reads: Harmony Black: Great, makes the character stand out on her own. Every Heart a Door: Confusing warm fuzzies and a book that feels young adult while talking about something important. Working on ~Charming~ book one, not sure on it yet.
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Apr 12, 2016 06:51
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SystemLogoff posted:Recent Reads: Charming/Pax Arcana starts off a bit awkwardly but gets a nice groove going as the series goes on.
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Apr 12, 2016 07:27
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Currently partway through Daring in the Pax Arcana series and I kind of like it. Nothing has come close to the part in Charming where John finally goes through the shift into full Werewolf to gently caress up the guy that had been giving him so much trouble through the book to that point but I figure the confrontation with Bernard ought to get close.
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Apr 12, 2016 12:10
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Mars4523 posted:The Girl with Ghost Eyes was pretty good. There are weak spots, but nothing too bad, and I enjoyed the main character and the setting. It's nice seeing UF that's not ripped out of European mythology. Also I'm super bummed the protagonist's plan of ramming the giant rampaging skeleton with a tram didn't work. I was imagining it as the slowest action chase scene ever. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 17:36
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anilEhilated posted:I liked that one a lot although I'm kinda worried the inevitable sequels are going to veer into Anita Blake teritorry the way it ended. And yeah, that would have been awesome, but at the same time I liked the image of the heroine being carried through the air by a flock of ghost seagulls.
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Apr 12, 2016 19:08
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I suspect a budding romance with the tiger spirit guy, but it might be just me being rather paranoid about these things. All in all, I'd love to see more Oriental-based fantasy, be it Asia or Arabian Nights stuff. The ye olde Chinatown setting was pretty drat fresh and interesting. My favorite bit about the seagull part is that she references the myth about two deities who only meet once a year on a bridge built by magpies and goddamnitineedtorereadbridgeofbirdsagain. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 12, 2016 |
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Apr 12, 2016 20:31
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anilEhilated posted:I suspect a budding romance with the tiger spirit guy, but it might be just me being rather paranoid about these things. All in all, I'd love to see more Oriental-based fantasy, be it Asia or Arabian Nights stuff. The ye olde Chinatown setting was pretty drat fresh and interesting. I'd like to see more of 1900s Chinatown in a sequel. One of the more interesting parts of Molly Tanzer's Vermillion was how the weird west San Francisco elements interacted with Chinatown. Of course, that book went completely off the rails and lost its plot in the last third of the book, but that's different issue. (Actually, come to think of it the premises of the two books are remarkably similar.) Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 05:44
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navyjack posted:I liked it well enough, but I don't know if I'd actively seek out the next one. Mars4523 posted:Borderline was ok, but I'm not likely to pick up a sequel unless the reviews or reception were exceptionally good. Yeah I just finished it and it was meh. Ok concept but drat enough about let me tell you about borderlines!
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Apr 14, 2016 00:12
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Just finished the first of the Black Magic Outlaw books by Domino Finn. Short as hell but it seemed pretty fun, scratched that Dresden itch. Starting book two tonight.
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Apr 14, 2016 06:24
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Girl with the ghost eyes was good. I've been making my way through the felix castor stories. They're well-written by the standards of the genre, but good grief he's a miserable bugger. He's got some weird compulsion to be a complete dick to everyone around him, even when being pleasant would cost absolutely nothing and someone has gone massively out of their way for him.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:44
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