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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:
I can think of a couple, but they're more into the horror side of the spectrum. Try Wolf Hunt by Jeff Strand.
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Jan 6, 2017 22:46
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Kind of wonder if you could write a werewolf UF book without all the dumber alpha stuff and the usual baggage, or if it would just bomb hardcore because the target demo won't buy anything else. Elliot James' Pax Arcana books, with the caveat that the books aren't specifically about werewolves, they're about a protagonist who happens to be a werewolf. There's werewolf packs, but the pack leaders are more of the 'respected elder' or 'visionary' type and not because they're ~*~oh so alpha~*~.
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Jan 6, 2017 23:24
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I haven't read Daniel Faust or Harmony Black yet so I had a look on Craig Schaefer's site to see what order they go in, and he has a third series called Revanche, which he describes as different from his usual style but recommends reading before the fifth Daniel Faust book. Is that part of the Faust setting?
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Jan 6, 2017 23:36
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Khizan posted:Elliot James' Pax Arcana books, with the caveat that the books aren't specifically about werewolves, they're about a protagonist who happens to be a werewolf. There's werewolf packs, but the pack leaders are more of the 'respected elder' or 'visionary' type and not because they're ~*~oh so alpha~*~. Wheat Loaf posted:I haven't read Daniel Faust or Harmony Black yet so I had a look on Craig Schaefer's site to see what order they go in, and he has a third series called Revanche, which he describes as different from his usual style but recommends reading before the fifth Daniel Faust book. Is that part of the Faust setting? Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 02:30
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Wheat Loaf posted:I haven't read Daniel Faust or Harmony Black yet so I had a look on Craig Schaefer's site to see what order they go in, and he has a third series called Revanche, which he describes as different from his usual style but recommends reading before the fifth Daniel Faust book. Is that part of the Faust setting? You won't miss anything if you skip the Revanche books (but IMHO they're pretty drat good, just different from his UF and staggeringly depressing in parts, he wrote it as an experiment to push himself/learn new writing skills), but there are a couple of "oh, huh, that's interesting" moments in Faust 5 if you've read 'em -- like, a certain new character is a kind of creature from the Revanche. I suspect it won't matter later this year/early next year because he's announced a new trilogy and it's almost certainly going to be about bringing a couple of the Revanche characters into our world, so everything's gonna get explained for new readers anyway. Schaefer is generally good about recapping stuff.
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Jan 7, 2017 02:53
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Robot Wendigo posted:Good point. As a fifty year old man, I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience for romantic urban fantasy and its attendant tropes. I still enjoy it, but there is clearly a formula here that works. Yeah. A lot of UF also seems to set its crosshairs on the PNR market, which makes sense. I can't fault an author for trying to make a buck. I'll check out the recommendations, thanks.
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Jan 7, 2017 04:37
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Perhaps this is because I've been exposed to a lot more Urban Fantasy and the vast majority of them are incredibly whitebread while the Dresden Files have a Black Atheist Russian, a Jewish recurring character, two major female characters with their own agency (and the Rulers of all Fairydom are women), and while eye-rollingly preachy I give the author credit for taking the time to step back and have the main character address that he doesn't think homophobia is cool. Which, honestly, is a great thing.
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Jan 7, 2017 22:32
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Up Circle posted:Perhaps this is because I've been exposed to a lot more Urban Fantasy and the vast majority of them are incredibly whitebread while the Dresden Files have a Black Atheist Russian, a Jewish recurring character, two major female characters with their own agency (and the Rulers of all Fairydom are women), and while eye-rollingly preachy I give the author credit for taking the time to step back and have the main character address that he doesn't think homophobia is cool. Just a nit pick, the example he used of gay love being random hookups in the park kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but I guess comparatively to urban fantasy it's not a lot to bitch about. E: and honestly that a supernatural queen who has been alive for how long now would only see that and make assumptions confused me too. A. Beaverhausen fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 22:44
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I mean Dresden Files is good and all but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that Jim Butcher is not at least a little bit misogynist, racist and homophobic.
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Jan 7, 2017 22:47
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A. Beaverhausen posted:Just a nit pick, the example he used of gay love being random hookups in the park kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but I guess comparatively to urban fantasy it's not a lot to bitch about. It felt a bit "If they choose to be gay, I will tolerate them" but I'm sure it wasn't meant to come off like that.  You should try the Bone Street Rumba series if you put down "diversity of the cast" as a pull factor.
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Jan 7, 2017 22:47
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BabyFur Denny posted:I mean Dresden Files is good and all but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that Jim Butcher is not at least a little bit misogynist, racist and homophobic. Eh. I think Jim Butcher has issues (as everyone does) but I think he also is the kind of person genuinely trying to improve himself. Stuff like the ridiculous-rear end gay commentary thing from the Queen/Dresden is embarrassing but it's also the kind of embarrassing coming from a 45 year old nerd with a religious background who's trying to improve. That isn't to say he doesn't deserve plenty of criticism for the poo poo he fucks up (like, again, that awful conversation) but he's never struck me as someone who is going 'gently caress you, I'm right" in the same way certain authors who do that stuff are. Maybe I'm giving him too much benefit of the doubt. At very least he's shown a clear path to getting better about how he handles women from the first books to the latest ones, even if it's far from perfect.
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Jan 7, 2017 22:57
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ImpAtom posted:Eh. I think Jim Butcher has issues (as everyone does) but I think he also is the kind of person genuinely trying to improve himself. Stuff like the ridiculous-rear end gay commentary thing from the Queen/Dresden is embarrassing but it's also the kind of embarrassing coming from a 45 year old nerd with a religious background who's trying to improve. Lara Raith is a character which is a poor representations for bisexual women and the "Vamp" but she's still a character who wields major authority in the setting, as does Luccio, Mab, and other women. I'm fond of the character of Elaine as well. The character of Susan Rodriguez is a character I think also deserves credit because her entire story arc is a subversion of the story arc we'd normally get from a woman like her. Despite being Harry's ex and the mother of his child, it's made very clear that her relationship with him is less important to her than the larger cause she's devoted her to. We almost never see a woman choose career over family since this is almost an exclusively male decision in fiction. We see the majority of characters are the wife, girlfriend, or mothers of others because the cast is relatively interconnected. Andi is Butter's girlfriend but she's arguably just as important a character as him. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. I don't think the books are as male and white dominated as you think. It's why readers have suggested making one (or more!) of Michael's children gay. But yes, I cringe when Jim Butcher makes "harmless" jokes like the earring bit.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:03
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ImpAtom posted:Eh. I think Jim Butcher has issues (as everyone does) but I think he also is the kind of person genuinely trying to improve himself. Stuff like the ridiculous-rear end gay commentary thing from the Queen/Dresden is embarrassing but it's also the kind of embarrassing coming from a 45 year old nerd with a religious background who's trying to improve. Yeah, he definitely comes off more as ignorant middle-class older white dude from a mostly-white mostly-christian city than actively any sort of intentional terrible. He's also probably riding the curve a bit when it comes to benefit of the doubt, because of the vocal minority of true awfulness that exists in the Fantasy and SF community.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:12
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Wheat Loaf posted:You should try the Bone Street Rumba series if you put down "diversity of the cast" as a pull factor. Everything I've heard about this series makes it sound like it's very obviously playing Diversity Bingo with the cast in a way that actually gets obnoxious.
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Jan 7, 2017 23:22
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Khizan posted:Everything I've heard about this series makes it sound like it's very obviously playing Diversity Bingo with the cast in a way that actually gets obnoxious. It might be but I don't know. I don't tend to care much one way or the other about that sort of thing, so it's usually a bit lost on me unless someone else points it out for me. I enjoy the stories, though. As I understand it, Daniel José Older lives in New York, so I assumed he was trying to write his stories set there in such a way as to be reflective of his surroundings. I don't live in New York so I'm not sure what it's like. I suppose I accept it at face value. Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 23:26
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Up Circle posted:But yes, I cringe when Jim Butcher makes "harmless" jokes like the earring bit. Why did you remind me of that. It was the literary equivalent of 'no homo'
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Jan 7, 2017 23:43
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Just caught up on this post after a couple of months where I was busy listening to all of the Dresden files books on audible. I'd like to thank everyone who praised Marster's narration for convincing me to take the plunge - after the first couple of books he really became the voice of Harry Dresden for me. Greatly enjoyed. I didn't greatly enjoy the latest Peter Grant book. I read it on kindle on release night in the U.K., and the editing was frankly awful. There must have been at least 25 real clangers (repeated words, mis-spellings, an entire repeated sentence!). Besides the bad editing, I actually found this book confusing in places, as Nightingale seems to be alternately nigh omnipotent and completely clueless about the magical world. One that I haven't seen mentioned here, but that I've actually enjoyed for what they are, are the Ellie Jordan Ghost Trapper novels. I assumed from the name that they'd be PR, but I was desperate for a read, and I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I just finished book 8, and the romance angle has virtually disappeared while the Urban Fantasy angle has grown. They're not especially deep, and each book is a bit short (225ish pages), but the action keeps moving. Given that the first book is free, and the next couple are only a pound or two, I think that they're worth picking up.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:13
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Up Circle posted:Perhaps this is because I've been exposed to a lot more Urban Fantasy and the vast majority of them are incredibly whitebread while the Dresden Files have a Black Atheist Russian, a Jewish recurring character, two major female characters with their own agency (and the Rulers of all Fairydom are women), and while eye-rollingly preachy I give the author credit for taking the time to step back and have the main character address that he doesn't think homophobia is cool. The Dresden Files isn't particularly impressive with regards to diversity. There are no major characters of color, and the few supporting characters of color show up only rarely (including that black atheist Russian). And the female characters don't really have a ton of agency, particularly as of late. See Murphy, who in the past few books has had nothing to do but be Harry's hot sidekick. And yeah, Butcher writing a condescending monologue about how gays are perhaps alright doesn't quite balance out the frantic "no homo" stuff with Thomas. Contrast it with something like the Pax Arcana series. Sure, John and Sig are both white, but Sig has a lot more agency and plot impact. Hell, the conflict in books 1 and 3 are explicitly due to her quest, not John's. And then in the supporting characters we have a lesbian ex-priest (who is the best), a black Army veteran, and an Indian tech mogul. And that's only in the core supporting cast with significant pagetime and characterization.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:34
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Also, name at least one female character from the Dresden Files universe that Jim Butcher doesn't spend at least a full paragraph on a sexualised description of her appearance.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:44
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BabyFur Denny posted:Also, name at least one female character from the Dresden Files universe that Jim Butcher doesn't spend at least a full paragraph on a sexualised description of her appearance. Nipples
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Jan 8, 2017 00:45
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BabyFur Denny posted:Also, name at least one female character from the Dresden Files universe that Jim Butcher doesn't spend at least a full paragraph on a sexualised description of her appearance. Has anybody else had the thought that maybe Harry has really low standards? He's often saying "it's been a while" and then describing every woman as stunningly beautiful. I think it would be great if we had say, a Morty Lindequist P.O.V. story where he mentioned that Murphy had really beady eyes, or Molly was just a nice, average looking girl.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:55
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BabyFur Denny posted:Also, name at least one female character from the Dresden Files universe that Jim Butcher doesn't spend at least a full paragraph on a sexualised description of her appearance. Meryl, in Summer Knight. But yeah, we know Butcher is a horny dude.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:57
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BabyFur Denny posted:Also, name at least one female character from the Dresden Files universe that Jim Butcher doesn't spend at least a full paragraph on a sexualised description of her appearance. Not that advanced age makes you completely safe from such sexualization. Take poor Warden Luccio, who spends maybe 5 minutes on page as a cool and badass old lady commander of the Wardens before being transformed into a sexy 20-something coed and depowered and weakened so that her male student replaces her. All this so that she can become Harry's love interest for a book and a half, raped, and then shuffled offscreen. There's also Martha Liberty, who perhaps has even less characterization than Ancient Mai. And I'm pretty sure one of the Ordo Lebes witches (because of course these weaker magic users would be all female) was pudgy enough to be spared Harry's Tit'o'vision.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:10
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gerg_861 posted:Has anybody else had the thought that maybe Harry has really low standards? He's often saying "it's been a while" and then describing every woman as stunningly beautiful. I think it would be great if we had say, a Morty Lindequist P.O.V. story where he mentioned that Murphy had really beady eyes, or Molly was just a nice, average looking girl. Yeah, it's hard to tell just how much is Jim Butcher trying to write Harry as the world's most important wizardly man-child and how much is Butcher just being a horny man. It's both, of course, but it's hard to tell with Dresden being the main set of eyes how much is in each pile. Does Butcher do the same thing in his other novels?
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Jan 8, 2017 01:45
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thelazyblank posted:Yeah, it's hard to tell just how much is Jim Butcher trying to write Harry as the world's most important wizardly man-child and how much is Butcher just being a horny man. I don't recall that kind of thing going on in the Codex Alera series, but I could be wrong.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:48
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Wizchine posted:I don't recall that kind of thing going on in the Codex Alera series, but I could be wrong. It doesn't happen as much in Alera (though it does happen quite a bit), and Cinder Spires is better as well.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:50
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thelazyblank posted:Yeah, it's hard to tell just how much is Jim Butcher trying to write Harry as the world's most important wizardly man-child and how much is Butcher just being a horny man. Butcher does it somewhat in other books but even in the other Dresden stuff he tones it down a little. Not enough that you can say it's entirely on Harry but enough that you can at least say he's trying to do a narrator-viewpoint thing (or retroactively justify the content in his earlier books that way.)
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Jan 8, 2017 02:29
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BabyFur Denny posted:I mean Dresden Files is good and all but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that Jim Butcher is not at least a little bit misogynist, racist and homophobic. He has his issues but he at least seems to be trying. Kinda like how Edgar Rice Burroughs always made sure to have one Good Red Alien, one Good Black Alien, etc.
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Jan 8, 2017 03:07
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Mars4523 posted:Counterpoint: In Jim Butcher's Chicago there's only one black man. Sanya, Lamar, Stallings...just off the top of my head. (You can discount Sanya if you want, since he's not a Chicago resident.) EDIT: Martha Liberty, too, if I can continue using "Characters who are in Dresden Files but not living in Chicago"
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Jan 8, 2017 04:06
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For what it's worth, it's really not that uncommon for people to not interact with people of other races enough to get to know them, particularly if they live in segregated communities (which is increasingly common these days). It would actually be more unrealistic for a white wizard-nerd to interact with a lot of people of colour that he knows well enough to know their names. (I'm also puzzled by the complaints people are having about Dresden's conversation with Titania regarding the single gay men; my interpretation was that he felt the men should be looking for romantic relationships rather than one-night stands.) Does that excuse Jim Butcher from writing mostly white characters? No, not really.
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Jan 8, 2017 04:24
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Aerdan posted:For what it's worth, it's really not that uncommon for people to not interact with people of other races enough to get to know them, particularly if they live in segregated communities (which is increasingly common these days). It would actually be more unrealistic for a white wizard-nerd to interact with a lot of people of colour that he knows well enough to know their names. The only significant depiction of gay men in one of the biggest cities in the us is gay men cruising in a park and a moral lesson in monogamy??
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Jan 8, 2017 05:08
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jivjov posted:Sanya, Lamar, Stallings...just off the top of my head. (You can discount Sanya if you want, since he's not a Chicago resident.) Lamar is a minor character in a side story. Like, that's the "I'm not racist, I have a black friend!" of characters to throw in there. Sanya is probably the closest there to a major character, and he's borderline. He's nowhere near the character that Michael is. Aerdan posted:For what it's worth, it's really not that uncommon for people to not interact with people of other races enough to get to know them, particularly if they live in segregated communities (which is increasingly common these days). It would actually be more unrealistic for a white wizard-nerd to interact with a lot of people of colour that he knows well enough to know their names. I mean, it really is pretty uncommon, though? Like, what 1940s German town do you live in? Chicago is a major city.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:14
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EVGA Longoria posted:Lamar is a minor character in a side story. Like, that's the "I'm not racist, I have a black friend!" of characters to throw in there. Lamar is recurring now. He was the EMT Harry talks to in Grave Peril, I think it is? He gets namedropped in another book, and then appears again in Butters' short story. Yeah, he's not major, but I remembered him without having to look him up like I did Liberty.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:29
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EVGA Longoria posted:I mean, it really is pretty uncommon, though? Like, what 1940s German town do you live in? Chicago is a major city. Chicago is still pretty segregated by neighborhood. http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-racial-segregation-studies/ quote:Chicago retains its dubious title as one of the nation’s most segregated cities, according to two studies released Wednesday by the Chicago Urban League and by researchers at American University in Washington, D.C. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 05:31
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See, there is definitely some stuff in Dresden Files that makes me cringe. The gay stuff... eh. It makes me suck a breath through my teeth and go, "Jim, please. No." But I wasn't offended. It never feels like Jim is being mean, just... naive. I've stumbled onto way too many outrageously offensive things in genre fiction to get too worked up over that. I guess given how Harry lives and how good looking Thomas is, I can see why some people ended up thinking him and Harry were an item. But yeah, it would be nice if every lady wasn't smokin' hot or old as dirt.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:42
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flosofl posted:Chicago is still pretty segregated by neighborhood. Yes, but people rarely stay entirely within their own neighborhood. Especially in a large city like Chicago. Segregation doesn't prevent meeting other races to the point that it'd be unrealistic to know the names of poc.
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Jan 8, 2017 05:49
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I don't know, fellow urban fantasy readers. I've been reading Howard's Conan stories off and on lately,, and I certainly read my share of stuff way back when I was an English major (hello, Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle), and I'm pretty comfortable with the sins of the handful of modern urban fantasy writers I've read - they pale in comparison to much of the stuff that forms the canon of English and American fiction. You write what you know, and I'd rather have Jim Butcher skip writing black characters, for example, than inadvertently write some awful stereotype, or write a white character and paint him black.
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Jan 8, 2017 07:50
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"Write what you know" is one of the cardinal rules of writing. It's clear that Jim only knows how to be a white straight dude. This is OK. He makes some effort to branch out. Some of those efforts are better than others. Wizchine posted:I don't know, fellow urban fantasy readers. I've been reading Howard's Conan stories off and on lately,, and I certainly read my share of stuff way back when I was an English major (hello, Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle), and I'm pretty comfortable with the sins of the handful of modern urban fantasy writers I've read - they pale in comparison to much of the stuff that forms the canon of English and American fiction. Ha someone else has basically the same thoughts that I did.
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Jan 8, 2017 08:12
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Mars4523 posted:Counterpoint: In Jim Butcher's Chicago there's only one black man. I love how this thread is a cycle. I think we have had like 3-5 discussions about this. Ill just say that I like Jim butcher's book and its a shame that No Award won out over him being placed in the hugos.
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Jan 8, 2017 08:36
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ConfusedUs posted:"Write what you know" is one of the cardinal rules of writing. It's clear that Jim only knows how to be a white straight dude. Me three, really.
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Jan 8, 2017 08:51
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