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Now that we are on it, how accurate is Butcher's portrait of Chicago in the Dresden files series?
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May 6, 2016 15:24
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Angry Lobster posted:Now that we are on it, how accurate is Butcher's portrait of Chicago in the Dresden files series? Decent enough, I mean there's nothing that's made me go "That's not where that is!". But of course, I haven't checked against Google Maps, so I'm probably not a serious reader.
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May 6, 2016 15:26
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DF and Watch Dogs have convinced me Chicago is the most generic, boring city in the US. Whatever character it might have is in the people's attitudes and neither IP did jack poo poo with that.
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May 6, 2016 16:06
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Megazver posted:DF and Watch Dogs have convinced me Chicago is the most generic, boring city in the US. Whatever character it might have is in the people's attitudes and neither IP did jack poo poo with that. Being convinced by Watch Dogs that a city not having personality is like blaming a .50 cent microwaved frozen pizza for pizza being lovely.
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May 6, 2016 16:13
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I think i remember reading that butcher has gotten some things wrong about Chicago that nobody who actually lives there would get wrong. One that I might be making up is the description of Wrigley field when they arrive there for the duel is pretty wrong, as in the entire external area he describes to doesn't actually exist IRL or something
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May 6, 2016 16:40
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:I think i remember reading that butcher has gotten some things wrong about Chicago that nobody who actually lives there would get wrong. Yeah, he describes a big, sprawling parking lot around Wrigley, and that simply doesn't exist. There's barely any parking at all, in fact. https://www.google.com/maps/place/W...7.6553327?hl=en He first actually visited Chicago around book 7.
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May 6, 2016 16:57
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AllTerrineVehicle posted:I think i remember reading that butcher has gotten some things wrong about Chicago that nobody who actually lives there would get wrong. IIRC, he also wrote one of the more affluent parts of the city as a crime-ridden ghetto.
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May 6, 2016 16:59
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Angry Lobster posted:Now that we are on it, how accurate is Butcher's portrait of Chicago in the Dresden files series? He hadn't been to Chicago before writing the series, so he got a tourist guidebook and things went downhill from there (from one of his book signing Q&A's)
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May 6, 2016 17:09
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I'm sure that kind of thing would bother me if I actually lived in Chicago, but I much prefer the abstract downtown / suburb / neighborhood approach to the specifics given in Rivers of London. Without having a point of reference, I don't really see being specific as that much of an improvement.
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May 6, 2016 17:11
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Slanderer posted:He hadn't been to Chicago before writing the series, so he got a tourist guidebook and things went downhill from there (from one of his book signing Q&A's) I see, I'm rereading the series right now (starting white night). I know nothing about Chicago, not american and never been there, hell, when I think of Chicago what comes to my mind is prohibition-era gangster movies (I know is cliched as gently caress but I don't have any other point of reference). His descriptions of the city has been pretty vague and generic except for a few landmarks, so I suppose what you guys say explains it.
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May 6, 2016 17:29
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Apparently Butcher has gotten a lot better about such things now because we live in a world with high-speed Internet and Google maps. Years ago he relied on guide books and then Chicago area fans and photos they could take for him.
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May 6, 2016 17:52
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Yeah, as someone raised in Chicago in my early years, some things don't quite line up. Thankfully he's rarely super specific about things so its easy to just give it a pass. Sue's rad, though.
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May 6, 2016 18:01
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ConfusedUs posted:
Probably not, but I have browsed the Google map Aaronovitch posts on his blog I like the added sense of realism but I understand why others don't care and that's fine Also I fantasize about not living in America
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May 6, 2016 19:06
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MildShow posted:I'm sure that kind of thing would bother me if I actually lived in Chicago, but I much prefer the abstract downtown / suburb / neighborhood approach to the specifics given in Rivers of London. Without having a point of reference, I don't really see being specific as that much of an improvement. I like the details. Sometimes Butcher's Chicago feels more like "generic city" than an actual place; it might as well be Metropolis. Like, doesn't Chicago have more black people than just one Russian guy? But yeah this isn't a criticism so much as a matter of personal taste. I prefer my urban fantasy on the crime/ noir side and one of the absolute hallmarks of good noir is realism as to the setting -- I think Chandler even wrote an essay on exactly that point; what set Chandler and Hammett apart from pulp trash was 1) prose style and 2) they actually knew how police investigations worked, how San Francisco was laid out, etc. Aaronovitch has that police-procedural background and I really like it for that reason. Again, though, just personal preference.
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May 6, 2016 19:14
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There was that fun part where Butcher took a predominantly black neighborhood in Chicago that actually is fairly affluent and turned it into a crime ridden ghetto, to be saved only by the vigilante action of a bunch of white college students.
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May 6, 2016 19:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:But yeah this isn't a criticism so much as a matter of personal taste. I prefer my urban fantasy on the crime/ noir side and one of the absolute hallmarks of good noir is realism as to the setting -- I think Chandler even wrote an essay on exactly that point; what set Chandler and Hammett apart from pulp trash was 1) prose style and 2) they actually knew how police investigations worked, how San Francisco was laid out, etc. Have you tried the Bone Street Rhumba series by Daniel José Older? It's the one I posted about reading the first book last year and I was consistently unimpressed but ended up really liking it a lot. The second book is pretty good as well.
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May 6, 2016 21:35
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The Matthew Swift books are about 80% detailed and presumably accurate descriptions of London geography. Griffin describes the particular blend of concrete used to pave over a pothole for like two chapters.
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May 7, 2016 14:35
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Gilok posted:The Matthew Swift books are about 80% detailed and presumably accurate descriptions of London geography. Griffin describes the particular blend of concrete used to pave over a pothole for like two chapters. I stopped reading those books like fifteen pages in when she described a random wardrobe for two pages. It wasn't a very interesting wardrobe.
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May 7, 2016 14:40
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I really like the setting, characters, and magic in the books, but boy did I learn to skim a lot of words about subway stations.
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May 7, 2016 14:45
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Mars4523 posted:There was that fun part where Butcher took a predominantly black neighborhood in Chicago that actually is fairly affluent and turned it into a crime ridden ghetto, to be saved only by the vigilante action of a bunch of white college students. I think I read a blog post or a series of bloggers discussing this a few years back where they were calling him out on this.
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May 7, 2016 18:55
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Megazver posted:I stopped reading those books like fifteen pages in when she described a random wardrobe for two pages. Gilok posted:I really like the setting, characters, and magic in the books, but boy did I learn to skim a lot of words about subway stations. This is the answer. When you start to get a bit bogged down, just skip. I've found on re-read that most of those long descriptive passages are actually kinda nice. But, the magic system in those books is hands down my favorite of all the urban fantasy books.
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May 8, 2016 03:37
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Or I could go read something better. But anyway. If any of you want to play a good UF point'n'click, Kathy Rain just came out and it's very good. It's heavily influenced by Gabriel Knight and Blackwell and if either of these were your thing, you'll probably enjoy this one.
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May 8, 2016 08:27
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So I'm writing an UF book at the moment, and scoping out the UF landscape as research when I noticed that I haven't read many (adult, YA seems different) UF books where the protagonist doesn't already know about the supernatural. Anyone else had this experience? Because from my limited perspective it seems like the significant minority of adult, non-romance Urban Fantasy books focus a good chunk of the novel on a character piecing together what's going; it seems like everyone's already an occult detective / wizard / chosen one / hunter / werewolf, etc etc, or becomes one after about a single chapter. Neil Gaiman's books comes to mind as the former, though. Am I just missing a huge chunk of UF books that aren't like that? Is the already-in-the-know protagonist a specifically modern trend post-Dresden Files? EDIT: And of course as soon as I post this, I think of a few. Edited to clarify. Melusine fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 14:35
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All of the one-off, more literary British ones (Neverwhere, Kraken) that I've read are like that.
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May 10, 2016 14:42
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Daphnaie posted:So I'm writing an UF book at the moment, and scoping out the UF landscape as research when I noticed that I don't think I've read an (adult, YA seems different) UF book where the protagonist doesn't already know about the supernatural. Anyone else had this experience? Because I'm struggling to come up with an adult, non-romance Urban Fantasy book where a good chunk of the novel is a character piecing together what's going; it seems like everyone's already an occult detective / wizard / chosen one / hunter / werewolf, etc etc. The MC not knowing about ~things~ is common enough. I can only think of one off the top of my head (that's not YA), but I would swear it's a big thing. I swear to god I know of more, and better ones. I'll give it some thought and maybe run through my library later. I think Neverwhere by Gaiman is also the same, but I don't remember enough about it to say one way or another. CHarles de Lint is probably a solid example of this thing, as well. Drifter fucked around with this message at 15:06 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 15:03
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Peter Grant doesn't know anything about the supernatural until he meets a ghost in Rivers of London.
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May 10, 2016 15:10
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The main character in the Twenty Palaces series spends a pretty large portion of the prequel book being utterly clueless about the world of magic in the series.
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May 10, 2016 15:48
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Daphnaie posted:So I'm writing an UF book at the moment, and scoping out the UF landscape as research when I noticed that I haven't read many (adult, YA seems different) UF books where the protagonist doesn't already know about the supernatural. If you really think about it, a lot of novels could be in that position and you just wouldn't know.
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May 10, 2016 16:46
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I just finished The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick. It had some amazing parts, but I have to categorize it as the most disappointing novel I've ever read. There's so much setup for what seems like it is going to be an amazing payoff at the end, just to have it unwind to be utterly meaningless and flat. Maybe that's the intention? But if so, that's only marginally better than it being an accident. I'll def. be using some of the concepts and places from the book's Faerie in my Dresden Files RPG game I'm running if the players ever sortie further into that world's Faerie. Otherwise, though, I am immensely disappointed with this book. Tunicate posted:If you really think about it, a lot of novels could be in that position and you just wouldn't know. LOL 
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May 10, 2016 17:05
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I thought the beginning and end of the Iron Dragon's Daughter were amazing, it was the middle that was an awful drag. The point was that life itself is utterly meaningless and flat, even in a weird fantasy universe with intertwined fates. And it is!
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May 10, 2016 17:41
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One thing I thought of while reading burned (alex verus): The bubble realm sounds a lot like the ways from WOT. I wonder if that was just my interpretation, random chance, or a callout.
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May 10, 2016 21:59
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Little column a, little column b.
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May 10, 2016 23:56
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Blasphemeral posted:It had some amazing parts, but I have to categorize it as the most disappointing novel I've ever read. Have you read the Southern Reach trilogy?
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May 11, 2016 00:39
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MeLKoR posted:Have you read the Southern Reach trilogy? Because it's disappointing? Or because it's better? In either case, no, but the question is, "should I?"
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May 11, 2016 16:10
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Number Ten Cocks posted:All of the one-off, more literary British ones (Neverwhere, Kraken) that I've read are like that. Neverwhere was great, partially because I pictured the main character as played by Martin Freeman the whole time.
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May 11, 2016 16:52
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Blasphemeral posted:Because it's disappointing? Or because it's better? The best way I can describe it is imagine you are a Lynch fan and you are watching the typical Lynch movie, getting more and more engrossed in the mystery and then at the end it pulls a Lost on you and it all fizzles out. I'm not even sure I should call them bad books, it's just that I really got into the setting, the Roadside Picnic-esque premise is great, the second book is one of the best essays in paranoia and weird but then you don't get any real answers or otherwise satisfactory conclusion by the end of the third.
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May 11, 2016 17:40
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So, twin peaks season 2 basically?
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May 11, 2016 17:41
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Tunicate posted:So, twin peaks season 2 basically? As far as frustrating and disappointing goes, yes. But there is a lot of it that works really well, that's why it's so disappointing rather than all out bad.
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May 11, 2016 17:44
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MeLKoR posted:The best way I can describe it is imagine you are a Lynch fan and you are watching the typical Lynch movie, getting more and more engrossed in the mystery and then at the end it pulls a Lost on you and it all fizzles out. MeLKoR posted:As far as frustrating and disappointing goes, yes. But there is a lot of it that works really well, that's why it's so disappointing rather than all out bad. Wow, that sucks. Especially since I liked Roadside Picnic. The author is still alive, though. Is there anywhere to go after the trilogy? Is it possible he might give it a better ending some day?
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May 11, 2016 17:54
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Blasphemeral posted:Wow, that sucks. Especially since I liked Roadside Picnic. The author is still alive, though. Is there anywhere to go after the trilogy? Is it possible he might give it a better ending some day? MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 18:09
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