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Finally finished the latest Alex Verus novel. I really liked it, which is pretty surprising to me. I've enjoyed the series so far, and it's clear that Jacka is getting better at weaving a story, but Burned is just such a reactive book that I shouldn't have enjoyed it. Literally 90% of the book can be described by the sentence "So I looked into the futures and saw I was about to get my rear end kicked", time after time after time. Unlike other novels, Verus doesn't really get to do anything clever. He just bounces between group after group that wants to kick his rear end. I should hate it, a protagonist that reacts instead of proacts, but I found myself really enjoying it. Maybe it's because basically everything in the series came due all at once and the status quo actually gets drastically changed for once. It doesn't hurt that the action piece revolving around his shop and home getting burned was one of the best he's done, and I did love the build up to recovering the box only to have none of the poo poo you're expecting to happen go down and it's practically a cake walk, only to find out it was all a huge set up anyway. I think the Verus novels are now firmly in second place for me in the UF pantheon, displacing Felix Castor and hovering an inch above the Peter Grant novels. I just wish Verus and Anne would gently caress already. I hate will they/won't they bullshit. Speaking of which, isn't the next Rivers of London supposed to drop in a few months?
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May 3, 2016 18:17
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Ramadu posted:Whens the next dresden book geez When League of Legends stops getting content
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May 3, 2016 18:28
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Mortanis posted:
I think it, Stiletto (sequel to the Rook), and one other book I'm forgetting all release in June. Edit: I lied, Hanging Tree is August and I can't remember what the other one I'm thinking of is 
AllTerrineVehicle fucked around with this message at 18:38 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 18:32
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I've gotten three separate e-mails from Amazon apologizing for the fact that Hanging Tree has been delayed (first to June, then July and now to August). I'm all for him taking the time he needs, but it's a bit odd to set specific deadlines and then keep pushing them back one month at a time.
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May 3, 2016 19:21
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Apoffys posted:I've gotten three separate e-mails from Amazon apologizing for the fact that Hanging Tree has been delayed (first to June, then July and now to August). I'm all for him taking the time he needs, but it's a bit odd to set specific deadlines and then keep pushing them back one month at a time. It might be an issue with the publisher. Has Gollancz announced any big releases that could push something smaller back a couple of months?
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May 3, 2016 19:28
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Amazon just makes dates up.
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May 3, 2016 19:36
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The 3rd Justis Fearsson (god, what a bad name) book came out today: http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Blade-Files-Justis-Fearsson/dp/1476781257 I didn't hate the first two, so I'll read this when I have a second.
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May 3, 2016 19:37
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Tunicate posted:Amazon just makes dates up. While true, something has been going on because I've seen specialty booksellers with fairly close ties to Gollancz pull the listing for the book for a couple of months due to the delay.
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May 3, 2016 19:39
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mallamp posted:When League of Legends stops getting content Speaking of which (sort of), the card game Sentinels of the Multiverse has a digital version and their kickstarter announced that a character from SotM is showing up in the Dresden card game.
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May 3, 2016 19:57
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ImpAtom posted:Speaking of which (sort of), the card game Sentinels of the Multiverse has a digital version and their kickstarter announced that a character from SotM is showing up in the Dresden card game. It's Ra (based off the Egyptian god), who, appropriately enough as a Dresden variant, specializes in destructive fire spells.
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May 3, 2016 20:04
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:I think it, Stiletto (sequel to the Rook), and one other book I'm forgetting all release in June. The Nightmare Stacks?
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May 3, 2016 20:35
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Tunicate posted:Amazon just makes dates up. Hence why I got an email the other day saying "good news, dresden files is coming out earlier than expected", with a date for September now instead of October.
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May 3, 2016 20:37
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I swear Amazon said the hanging tree was coming out next year. I got all excited because it was April but 2017. Eh. Latest Mercy Thompson is a bit of a let down. The last couple (three?) have been less than stellar which is a shame. The last alpha/omega was pretty harrowing so she can still write a good tale.
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May 3, 2016 21:55
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Slanderer posted:The 3rd Justis Fearsson (god, what a bad name) book came out today: The blurb is not real promising. quote:Justis Fearsson is a weremyste and a private detective. He wields potent magic, but every month, on the full moon, he loses his mind. His battles with insanity have already cost him his job as a cop; he can’t afford to let them interfere with his latest case
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May 4, 2016 00:11
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ulmont posted:The blurb is not real promising. It's decent, nothing amazing, but it's a level above the average trashy UF you find sifting through amazon, which is enough for me read it .
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May 4, 2016 01:46
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Ornamented Death posted:While true, something has been going on because I've seen specialty booksellers with fairly close ties to Gollancz pull the listing for the book for a couple of months due to the delay. My guess is he's been working on the comic instead. All his twittering seems to be comic related. To be fair the comic isn't bad at all and even answers some puzzles from the books.
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May 4, 2016 02:51
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Mortanis posted:Finally finished the latest Alex Verus novel. I really liked it, which is pretty surprising to me. I've enjoyed the series so far, and it's clear that Jacka is getting better at weaving a story, but Burned is just such a reactive book that I shouldn't have enjoyed it. Literally 90% of the book can be described by the sentence "So I looked into the futures and saw I was about to get my rear end kicked", time after time after time. Unlike other novels, Verus doesn't really get to do anything clever. He just bounces between group after group that wants to kick his rear end. I should hate it, a protagonist that reacts instead of proacts, but I found myself really enjoying it. This is one of the things that I feel has been addressed enough in the books. Everybody and their mother has been lining up to tell Alex that his current position is untenable. His friends keep pointing out that his refusal to join a side has resulted in him having no allies and being backed into a corner. The other diviners tell him his that refusal to run away entirely is keeping him in danger. I am pretty sure that literally everybody except Anne has told him that he needs to suck it up and make alliances if he doesn't want to get hosed over, and he always refuses, and he always gets hosed over. It is pretty clear that what he is doing isn't working for him, which helps mitigate a lot of the frustration with him only being reactive. That aside, it's just a truth of the genre that most protagonists are reactive, because "hero" is a pretty reactive role.
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May 4, 2016 08:36
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tessiebee posted:I swear Amazon said the hanging tree was coming out next year. I got all excited because it was April but 2017. Eh. Yeah, the alpha/omega series has surpassed the Mercy books. A bit of power creep, a bit of making her the golden one for all and sundry has hurt the book. It used to be small ball, local stuff, with some larger stuff going on, now it's gone Dresden with large, world-wide plots. Much like Dresden, I think the series suffers for it because of the lack of focus.
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May 4, 2016 14:24
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I'm just starting Dead Man, which is the necromancer thing based in Miami with a Cuban flavor. It's OK, but not grabbing me immediately. How is the Harmony Black stuff? I really liked the Faust books, and Harmony was a pretty nice foil for him at times. Does her own series entertain?
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May 4, 2016 17:59
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It's ok, but she's a less interesting character. I also find her a weird mix of goody two shoes and cold assassin for the common good. And the premise of her small, adhoc "organization" vs. the threats they face makes no sense.
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May 4, 2016 18:46
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Harmony Black does get a bit more interesting plots though. With Faust you know he's going to screw over the bad guys by the end but here there's a bit more tension. The second book also takes the plot to some very interesting places; it has easily my favorite use of protective magic in UF.
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May 4, 2016 19:28
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Eh. Harmony Black is easily his worst series. She's a less interesting character. Her crew is less interesting. Her antagonists are less interesting. Basically everything about her is bland and sort of uninteresting. The only really standout thing in her series has been the Red Knight satellite system and that's not really something specifically related to her; I'd have liked the setup more if Faust and the Vegas crew had to handle it.
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May 5, 2016 07:54
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I find Harmony's actual conflicts and confrontations to be more interesting, because she doesn't have a massive Incarnate crutch to lean on. Daniel Faust is all "few sleights of hand, I love it when a plan comes together, enter Caitlin stage left to make the sky rain red". While there wasn't much of that in this book Harmony's interactions with the demonic are much more interesting because she can't just call her boyfriend to balance the odds somewhat, or even serve as a source of knowledge/resources. Anyways, with a new Faust coming out in Q4 this year and the next Pax Arcana probably not coming out for another year, i can't really think of that much good urban fantasy that's coming out until September or so. Here's hoping the new Kate Daniels and October Daye are a step up from their respective last entries, which both felt a little like filler.
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May 5, 2016 09:43
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Mars4523 posted:Anyways, with a new Faust coming out in Q4 this year and the next Pax Arcana probably not coming out for another year, i can't really think of that much good urban fantasy that's coming out until September or so. Here's hoping the new Kate Daniels and October Daye are a step up from their respective last entries, which both felt a little like filler. Stiletto (sequel to The Rook) is coming out in June at least: https://www.amazon.com/Stiletto-Checquy-Files-Daniel-OMalley-ebook/dp/B00KHVDR1Q?ie=UTF8&ref_=pe_385040_112050110
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May 5, 2016 09:51
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Apoffys posted:Stiletto (sequel to The Rook) is coming out in June at least:
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May 5, 2016 09:56
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Mars4523 posted:Well, drat, I really need to get around to finishing The Rook. Given the context at least a sequel would be unlikely to have the same godawful exposition dumps that the first book had. I thought the exposition dumps were the best part of the first book. :shrugs:
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May 5, 2016 11:52
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cbservo posted:I thought the exposition dumps were the best part of the first book. :shrugs:
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May 5, 2016 11:57
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cbservo posted:I thought the exposition dumps were the best part of the first book. :shrugs: They worked, yes. They were a parallel narrative more than exposition. I am curious how the series will work without the first one's structural gimmick, though.
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May 5, 2016 12:21
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Mars4523 posted:I find Harmony's actual conflicts and confrontations to be more interesting, because she doesn't have a massive Incarnate crutch to lean on. Daniel Faust is all "few sleights of hand, I love it when a plan comes together, enter Caitlin stage left to make the sky rain red". While there wasn't much of that in this book Harmony's interactions with the demonic are much more interesting because she can't just call her boyfriend to balance the odds somewhat, or even serve as a source of knowledge/resources. Harmony's organization is also hilariously inept/uninformed and in no way prepared for their jobs; in the first book I wondered how they hadn't all been killed by now and was delighted in book two's briefing when they pretty much said, yeah, their teams DO get wiped out on the regular and Linder has to find new recruits to replace the dead ones. The big problem with the series is Cody: the dude is boring as poo poo, irritating, serves no purpose on the team, and the fun Harmony/Jessie buddy-cop stuff screeches to a halt every time he opens his stupid mouth. He doesn't even feel like he fits in the setting, like he's Generic Romance Dude #438 and he walked in from a different book. Considering this is the only series that Schaefer does through a publisher, I'm wondering if it was some weird "Okay, the marketing department says you have to write in a romance angle" deal. I mostly want to know what's up with the Revanche Cycle overlaps, from name-checking the Shadow In Between and that in the epilogue "Adam" gets around the exact same way the Owl does, cutting a hole in space. Loved, loved the new Pax Arcana. It was a series I was slow to warm to, but James is really winning me over and it's becoming one of my favorites. I still haven't tried Kate Daniels but I'm really hoping for good stuff from the new October Daye, because McGuire is always a fun read even on the filler books.
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May 5, 2016 12:49
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Myfanwy's letters to herself were fun to read, but it came to a point where they were taking me out of the story even as I was enjoying reading them, because there's a few of them that feel too much like flashbacks and I don't know if that fit the conceit or not. It's hard for me to explain - I liked the ones that explain the structure of the organisation, who the key players are and what they can do and so on, but when it came to these very detailed recaps of events with full dialogue, it became a bit distracting (as entertaining as the one about the duck that can tell the future may have been). Is the Rook urban fantasy? It feels more like a superhero story to me. I don't recall there being anything like magic in it - most of the supernatural elements seem to be more attributable to genetic mutation or comic book super-science than magic, which is usually how these things go.
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May 5, 2016 12:56
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Wheat Loaf posted:Is the Rook urban fantasy? It feels more like a superhero story to me. I don't recall there being anything like magic in it - most of the supernatural elements seem to be more attributable to genetic mutation or comic book super-science than magic, which is usually how these things go. It kind of straddles that line between UF and superheroes. I, myself, tend to describe it as the "What if the X-Men were a secret branch of the British government?"
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May 5, 2016 15:37
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cbservo posted:I thought the exposition dumps were the best part of the first book. :shrugs: And yeah, Pax Arcana is definitely one of my favorites right now, although I was sold from Book 1. It probably helped that I was still feeling a little frustrated from reading Skin Game at the time, but the main character is actually not obnoxious and refreshingly self aware, and his love interest actually gets to do things that affect the plot like and equal and not a sidekick. It's a nice feeling. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 17:46 on May 5, 2016 |
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May 5, 2016 17:39
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Personally I just want more supernatural police/noir set in the uk.
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May 5, 2016 21:14
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ConfusedUs posted:It kind of straddles that line between UF and superheroes. I, myself, tend to describe it as the "What if the X-Men were a secret branch of the British government?" The only real problem with the Rook is it's set in London as imagined by an American who has never been there.
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May 5, 2016 23:49
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I have heard that, but that doesn't bother me at all because I'm an American who's never been there.
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May 6, 2016 05:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The only real problem with the Rook is it's set in London as imagined by an American who has never been there. Australian, iirc
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May 6, 2016 06:33
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The only real problem with the Rook is it's set in London as imagined by an American who has never been there. I have never been to London, so I remain blissfully unaware of all the things the author screwed up!
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May 6, 2016 13:32
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Skippy McPants posted:I have never been to London, so I remain blissfully unaware of all the things the author screwed up! It's still readable but the contrast with stuff like Rivers of London, where you can track chase scenes accurately on Google maps, is palpable. Rook has other merits though. Narrated by a woman with no romance plot, for example.
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May 6, 2016 13:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's still readable but the contrast with stuff like Rivers of London, where you can track chase scenes accurately on Google maps Does anyone actually do this? Anyone sane, I mean.
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May 6, 2016 15:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's still readable but the contrast with stuff like Rivers of London, where you can track chase scenes accurately on Google maps, is palpable. Ah yes, this is exactly what holds me back from enjoying my magical man fantasies.
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May 6, 2016 15:21
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