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Angry Lobster posted:
Stay away from Charlaine Harris (faux incest is rampant in one series, made me scrape my eyeballs when she started down that road), and Laurell K. Hamilton.
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Jun 17, 2016 00:47
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I want to throw a plug in for a book I just finished, Wild Card by Jamie Wyman. She's a smaller, local author, who I'd met at comicon a few times and is a pretty awesome person, but aside from that the book was great. It's Urban Fantasy, female lead, not romance (there's some dudes she likes but no more 'romance' than Dresden has,) set in Las Vegas. Catherine Sharp's soul has been wagered in a high stakes poker game by Eris the Goddess of Discord, and the other players looking to win it include Coyote, Maui, Puck, and Loki. It's pretty action focused, there's good chemistry between the characters, and I enjoyed it all the way through. So yeah, check it out if that sounds cool to you.
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Jun 22, 2016 09:30
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Been reading my way through the Daniel Faust books on Kindle Unlimited and it is kind of... well it isn't boring because I keep reading, but there never seems to be any point where Faust is ever in real danger of losing (all of the risks have to do with other people).
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Jun 23, 2016 17:58
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Early game he had less risk, later in the series it does pick up the danger. I like the books, but until the real overarching story starts, they are a little bland.
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Jun 23, 2016 18:12
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I'm on "A Plain-dealing villain" now and so far the only thing of note is the whole Does Caitlin actually love Faust or is she manipulating him? thing.
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Jun 23, 2016 19:06
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I don't think the two are mutually exclusive
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Jun 23, 2016 19:15
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You might want to try the Harmony Black books instead if you want danger. Faust novels are heist stories - of course he's going to screw everyone over in the end, that's basically a genre convention. They're comfy urban fantasy.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 19:41
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The Hanging Tree on audible's been kicked down the track to September 2017 the next book in the atrocity archives series is out in the next couple of days, and it's the first one to not focus on Bob Howard tithin fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jun 25, 2016 |
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Jun 25, 2016 04:22
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tithin posted:the next book in the atrocity archives series is out in the next couple of days, and its' the first one to not focus on Bob Howard The last one focused on Mo.
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Jun 25, 2016 04:24
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I forgot, it's that long since I listened to it. But I still remember it being ~mostly~ Bob
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Jun 25, 2016 04:26
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tithin posted:I forgot, it's that long since I listened to it. But I still remember it being ~mostly~ Bob Bob's barely in the last one about superheroes. You might be thinking of the previous vampire one with significant non-Bob POVs but still lots of Bob.
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Jun 25, 2016 04:44
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That was it yeah, the vampire one. Wait there was one about Mo? gently caress I must have missed that one!
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Jun 25, 2016 04:54
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tithin posted:That was it yeah, the vampire one. Wait there was one about Mo? gently caress I must have missed that one! Sadly it's not really his best book. Mostly because for the story to work it had to have Mo basically be at her worst mentally, which might be an interesting and realistic concept, but not an entertaining read in a series that is in itself a comedy in large parts.
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Jun 25, 2016 09:11
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The one about Mo is The Annihilation Score. It's not that good though, because Mo is terrible and she can't really carry a book all on her own.
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Jun 25, 2016 09:16
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Stiletto was good, though unevenly paced. I think if he had trimmed out some of Myfanwy's bits and a good chunk of the third act, it would have been a much better package. The new characters are good though, Felicity's awesome and Odette grew on me. It's not as good as the Rook but the signature farcical bureaucracy and ridiculous violence are still there. I really don't understand how anyone in the Checquy manages to survive past the age of 35.
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Jun 25, 2016 23:43
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As I recall a similar point was made in The Rook and it was stated that that is the reason to be scared of the folks in charge, because they did somehow survive.
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Jun 26, 2016 02:16
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Scorchy posted:Stiletto was good, though unevenly paced. I think if he had trimmed out some of Myfanwy's bits and a good chunk of the third act, it would have been a much better package. The new characters are good though, Felicity's awesome and Odette grew on me. Yeah, I think the book suffered a lot by making Myfanwy mostly a secondary character but still giving her a good chunk of being the viewpoint character. It sort of carried through some plot threads from The Rook really half-assedly (her encounter with her brother, Checquy interpersonal relations, etc.) but didnt really develop them beyond saying 'yeah this stuff is still going on I guess'. I feel like there needed to be a cleaner break and just focus on Felicity/Odette with Myfanwy in the background or actually make Myfanwy the main character again and focus on her personal and professional struggles. It just tried to juggle too many things I think. Still very enjoyable even if I thought it was stupid how hard it went on Grafter super-science and how it was totally real not like the fake magic powers of the Checquy 
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Jun 26, 2016 02:35
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I thought Stiletto was great, but still not as good as The Rook. Odette was great from the beginning, while Felicity's character felt a little generic at first, but I ended up enjoying her POV stuff. I also felt the Myfanwy bits were kinda out of place, and agree that the book would have been better if Myf was either more or less prominent. I really liked the horror that the Checquy and Grafters feel about each other. I can't see how "We were born like this and you guys do weird experiments on each other" and "We improve ourselves through science and you guys are entirely inexplicable" wouldn't cause a lot of trouble between the two groups.
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Jun 26, 2016 03:11
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After pushing through the first three books (the third one was quite a bit better than the first two but still not great), I've really gotten into TDF and I'm enjoying it way more than I expected to. Currently about halfway through "Small Favor" and the the difference in writing quality from the first novel to here is pretty huge. Already starting to get a little melancholy knowing that I'm 2/3 through the currently available books. There is one thing that irks me about the Author's style, though and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed it/feels the same way or if I'm just crazy/unreasonable. His interjections (I'm pretty sure that's what they're called, where the action/story pauses completely while Dresden explains something or how he feels, etc Edit: actually I'm probably wrong about this, I'd love to know the term, though.) are so loving long and tedious sometimes. I get that it's important that the reader understands how the protagonist feels and the possible danger he is and the consequences of his actions but sometimes it feels really ridiculous. The action completely stops and I find myself reading several pages of Dresden's monologue that feels overwrought and where he more or less repeats himself several times and by the time we get back to the action the suspense has sometimes fizzled or I've forgotten where we were altogether. It's not nearly enough to sour me on the books, but I've noticed that it happens pretty frequently (at least once or twice in each book) and it really takes me out of the story and glazes my eyes over sometimes. Much like you probably wish I did with this post, I wish the author pare some of that down a bit. Anyway, I'm really glad that I slogged through the first few books. I'm happy the author has an overall arc planned for the story and he's committed himself to a set number of books. Really looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
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Jun 26, 2016 05:44
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Mr Scumbag posted:After pushing through the first three books (the third one was quite a bit better than the first two but still not great), I've really gotten into TDF and I'm enjoying it way more than I expected to. Currently about halfway through "Small Favor" and the the difference in writing quality from the first novel to here is pretty huge. Already starting to get a little melancholy knowing that I'm 2/3 through the currently available books. The interjections didn't bother me when it was my first real experience with urban fantasy, but now that I've read many UF series I notice it a lot more when some books try too hard to imitate Dresden Files. Since Dresden pretty much kickstarted the mostly dead non-paranormal romance UF genre, a lot of books blatantly rip him off with 'snarky magical PI solves crimes with noir trappings' (though some of them become their own genuinely good thing after they get a groove going) and I see some of them take the whole 'stop in the middle of action and snark at the reader for a page or two' thing even further than Butcher did, and it can get incredibly grating. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jun 26, 2016 |
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Jun 26, 2016 09:52
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Mr Scumbag posted:After pushing through the first three books (the third one was quite a bit better than the first two but still not great), I've really gotten into TDF and I'm enjoying it way more than I expected to. Currently about halfway through "Small Favor" and the the difference in writing quality from the first novel to here is pretty huge. Already starting to get a little melancholy knowing that I'm 2/3 through the currently available books. Those fade away a little as it goes on. However "Harry Dresden repeats himself" never stops, especially if you read the books back to back where the exact same phrases will be used over and over to describe characters.
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Jun 26, 2016 10:01
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Five foot nothing good people.
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Jun 26, 2016 10:09
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Khizan posted:The one about Mo is The Annihilation Score. It's not that good though, because Mo is terrible and she can't really carry a book all on her own. I walked away from that book having a fairly profound dislike for mo.
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Jun 26, 2016 18:18
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Stiletto is digressive, but that's how I like it. The only bit I'd cut was the last action sequence in the church. Like, I have no idea why that was even there? It did nothing for the plot and it revealed nothing about the characters. We're a few chapters away from the climax, the bomb is ticking and all of a sudden we spend several chapters on this mission that turns out to be entirely unrelated to anything else previously. Myfanwy was all ominously 'oh take her with you but don't let her know we want her to come with you' but then, unless I am dumb and am missing something obvious, this didn't actually develop into anything? I thought maybe it'd turn out to be a Lady Farrier dream and they implanted a bomb into her arm while she was under or something, but nope. You could safely cut it out and nothing in the narrative would change. Come to think of it, the Chimerae squad elimination was also dumb. It's one thing if the Grafter elders didn't know who the Antagonists were, but they explicitly knew they were sending troops with Grafter-activated kill switches to kill Grafters who have already shown they probably knew how to activate them. I suspect a second reading would reveal even more inconsistencies like this, but whatever. Megazver fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 26, 2016 19:57
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Rhymenoserous posted:I walked away from that book having a fairly profound dislike for mo.
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Jun 26, 2016 20:11
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anilEhilated posted:I think most of us did. You could reason that it's her being at her worst but it's just not fun or interesting to read. Charlie Stross posted:[Q]uite a few readers seemed to absolutely hate "The Annihilation Score"; they specifically disliked Mo, accusing her of being bitchy, nasty, aggressive, self-centered ... all the epithets that get hurled at assertive, competent, strong women (and especially managers) in day to day life.
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Jun 26, 2016 22:01
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A lot of people say that - and while it's probably true to some extent in real life, it's not quite the same thing when you're writing fictional characters. I wouldn't really like an excessively bitchy, nasty, aggressive, self-centered male protagonist either. I prefer characters I can empathize with to a degree, and one of the problems that writers sometimes give to their 'assertive strong women' characters is that they make them even more hostile and aggressive and self-centered than an equivalent male character, as if to try and emphasize how 'strong' they are. A protagonist who constantly lashes out and treats everyone they know like poo poo isn't a protagonist anyone likes.
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Jun 27, 2016 00:50
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I'm the opposite, I really liked the book. I could see how someone in that situation would be really out of sorts, and rear end in a top hat violin did not help. I liked it much more than Bob's pov.
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Jun 27, 2016 01:19
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SystemLogoff posted:I'm the opposite, I really liked the book. I could see how someone in that situation would be really out of sorts, and rear end in a top hat violin did not help.  Ready for The Nightmare Stacks.
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Jun 27, 2016 01:45
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Megazver posted:Stiletto is digressive, but that's how I like it. The only bit I'd cut was the last action sequence in the church. Like, I have no idea why that was even there? It did nothing for the plot and it revealed nothing about the characters. We're a few chapters away from the climax, the bomb is ticking and all of a sudden we spend several chapters on this mission that turns out to be entirely unrelated to anything else previously. Myfanwy was all ominously 'oh take her with you but let her know we want her to come with you' but then, unless I am dumb and am missing something obvious, this didn't actually develop into anything? I thought maybe it'd turn out to be a Lady Farrier dream and they implanted a bomb into her arm while she was under or something, but nope. You could safely cut it out and nothing in the narrative would change. Completely agree about the church bit. The big terrorist attack and Felicity's Grafter fight should have fulfilled that role of the big action scene in the 3rd act, the church fight was useless. The point of it was to show the final development in Odette and Felicity's friendship, but I think it had already arrived way before that, so the whole thing seemed extraneous. Especially since it didn't even tie back into the Grafter plot.
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Jun 27, 2016 02:24
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Those are all epithets that get hurled at assertive, competent, strong women, it is true. They're also epithets that get hurled at bitchy, nasty, self-centered women, though, and I've always filed Mo under that category, especially in TAS. I think a lot of it is that Mo never got enough screen time to really be characterized before it. She's always bitchy when you see her, so it comes off as less "this is an insanely stressed Mo" and more "Mo's always bitchy".
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Jun 27, 2016 02:34
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I'm only 3 books into the Laundry, so I haven't read the Mo book yet, but my main issue with her is that she doesn't seem to fit well into the context of the books. On one hand, you've got Bob, who's afraid to even misplace a paperclip because the ensuing audit may be lethal for him. On the other hand, while understandably under a great deal of stress, Mo has straight up threatened to murder Angleton once or twice, to no apparent consequence. It just feels out of place to me.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:08
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InShaneee posted:I'm only 3 books into the Laundry, so I haven't read the Mo book yet, but my main issue with her is that she doesn't seem to fit well into the context of the books. On one hand, you've got Bob, who's afraid to even misplace a paperclip because the ensuing audit may be lethal for him. On the other hand, while understandably under a great deal of stress, Mo has straight up threatened to murder Angleton once or twice, to no apparent consequence. It just feels out of place to me. Mo, unlike Bob, isn't easily replaceable. That's basically it. She's given uncommon leeway because what she doing is both incredibly necessary and incredibly dangerous and replacing her is somewhere between difficult and impossible. Bob is talented but not the kind of talented that doesn't earn you a bullet to the head if you're compromised.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:10
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You also have to account for the fact that Mo's violin is crazy doomsday powerful. There's a reason she's one of their weapons of last resort. If you decide to drop the hammer on Mo and she decides to fight back you have a major loving incident on your hands.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:42
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Megazver posted:Five foot nothing good people. I gave this post a doggy grin that extended to the tips of my breasts.
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Jun 27, 2016 10:55
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Wolpertinger posted:A lot of people say that - and while it's probably true to some extent in real life, it's not quite the same thing when you're writing fictional characters. I wouldn't really like an excessively bitchy, nasty, aggressive, self-centered male protagonist either. I prefer characters I can empathize with to a degree, and one of the problems that writers sometimes give to their 'assertive strong women' characters is that they make them even more hostile and aggressive and self-centered than an equivalent male character, as if to try and emphasize how 'strong' they are. A protagonist who constantly lashes out and treats everyone they know like poo poo isn't a protagonist anyone likes. She doesn't appear to be remarkably hostile, self centered, or nasty and doesn't lash out to any particular degree. She is stressed, but highly competent. She lashes out a single time and then makes good, and doesn't transgress the bounds of her relationship that much farther than Bob (especially considering he was the one who moved out.)
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Jun 27, 2016 22:38
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Bob had to move out because her psychic psycho violin tried to kill him. This is not a case of 'Bob got upset after a fight and went to live with a friend and abandoned the relationship', it is "Mo's magic violin tried to murder Bob and he had to move out for his own safety."
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Jun 27, 2016 22:54
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Grimson posted:She doesn't appear to be remarkably hostile, self centered, or nasty and doesn't lash out to any particular degree. She is stressed, but highly competent. She lashes out a single time and then makes good, and doesn't transgress the bounds of her relationship that much farther than Bob (especially considering he was the one who moved out.) To be fair - I haven't actually read the book in question. I was more talking about Stross's implication that a fictional female character that people consider bitchy would be one that we would tolerate if it was a man with a similar behavior, which is an argument I've heard a few times but don't really agree with in most cases. I've seen much worse written 'tough' female characters in UF that do fit all those criteria and just come off as massive, slightly unstable assholes instead of 'tough' or 'strong'. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 23:32
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I like the Bob / Mo relationship because it goes on the rocks for believable reasons and you can legitimately cast either of them as the villain depending on how you read which passages.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:46
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So Nightmare Stacks. I grudgingly enjoyed it buuut it felt like there were so many perspectives but nothing of any real importance or interest going in most of them, same for the build up for the war and the general dull cut aways to descriptions of elves destroying many things. Also the characterisation of Alex seems to jump a bit fast about halfway with him being a lot more competent.
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Jun 28, 2016 01:34
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