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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I am proud to have never read a Jim Butcher book. You're missing out. Dresden files gets much better than king killer or malazan
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Sep 1, 2017 17:45
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M_Gargantua posted:You're missing out. Dresden files gets much better than king killer or malazan I genuinely enjoyed the heist novel where Dresden steals something out of Hell's treasure vault. I am far less critical of books when they are read by James Marsters. I have to read everything in the fantasy genre, whether I like it or not. If a thing exists without my knowledge, it exists without my consent. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 17:48
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I read the first Harry Dresden book. That's when I started to realize that most paranormal mystery fiction is dumb trash and it will never innovate.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:00
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Reene posted:For the curious: https://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/The-Wind-Comes-Mary-Robinette-Kowal-Worldbuilders-2013.pdf What the gently caress was that? I've pretty much ignored Patrick Rothfuss when it became clear he was a misogynistic rear end in a top hat (but still follow the thread for some reason), but I clicked on that and read it and my reaction was as follows...    I wish there was a button I could push to undo my reading of that... 
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Sep 1, 2017 18:06
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HIJK posted:I read the first Harry Dresden book. That's when I started to realize that most paranormal mystery fiction is dumb trash and it will never innovate. Later Dresden gets fun because Jim Butcher is a cool guy who realizes he writes trash. The tone gets more comedic. The ideas more bombastic. When Harry rides an undead T-rex down main street in Dead Beat (the first good Dresden Files book) it is played for laughs, but also fits the story. He nails tone, if nothing else. It's not a bizarre mishmash of tone like Malazan.
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Sep 1, 2017 18:56
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BananaNutkins posted:Later Dresden gets fun because Jim Butcher is a cool guy who realizes he writes trash. The tone gets more comedic. The ideas more bombastic. When Harry rides an undead T-rex down main street in Dead Beat (the first good Dresden Files book) it is played for laughs, but also fits the story. He nails tone, if nothing else. It's not a bizarre mishmash of tone like Malazan. I've heard that a lot. I just can't bring myself to read more after the lackluster first book  I found myself really tired of the "bitchy lady cop" thing and it's just put me off.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:01
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HIJK posted:I've heard that a lot. I just can't bring myself to read more after the lackluster first book Most people I know, including me, bounced off Dresden 1 and 2 pretty hard and had to be convinced to keep reading it. Somewhere along the lines I really started to love the series, probably Dead Beat.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:47
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Most people I know, including me, bounced off Dresden 1 and 2 pretty hard and had to be convinced to keep reading it. Somewhere along the lines I really started to love the series, probably Dead Beat. Butcher himself tells people to skip the first two books.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:51
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He should tell people to skip all of his books.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:53
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So we should start with the third book. Here's a description from Amazon for the third Dresden Files book, Grave Peril.'quote:Wizard Harry Dresden stars in the third installment of the Dresden Files (following Fool Moon), a haunting, fantastical novel that begins almost as innocently as those of another famous literary wizard named Harry. In the opening scene, Dresden and his knight friend, Michael, battle the ghost of a woman who is terrorizing a local hospital's maternity ward. From there, the novel quickly evolves into an unorthodox tale spiced with sexual innuendo and subtle humor (Dresden carries his ghost-hunting gear in an old Scooby-Doo lunch box). Due to the weakened barrier between the spirit world which Butcher refers to as "the nevernever" and the actual world, obsessive and violent ghosts are on the loose in modern-day Chicago, and they seem to be targeting Dresden and Michael. Horny vampires and possessive demons join the mix as Dresden journeys into the spirit world to hunt down the villains who are terrorizing him and his friends. Butcher narrates Dresden's story in the first person, which limits the amount of detail he can inject into the lives of his secondary characters. Despite this narrow point of view, Butcher successfully lends human dimensions to vampires and spirits through his vivid descriptions and colloquial dialogue. (Sept.)Forecast: A vivid cover showing glowing barbed wire wrapped around a pair of cemetery gates is misleading as is a cover quote appealing to fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff but it will catch the browser's eye. This over-the-top tale is more likely to entertain young adult readers than fans of the aforementioned authors. lol
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Sep 1, 2017 19:55
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:So we should start with the third book. Here's a description from Amazon for the third Dresden Files book, Grave Peril.' Don't blame me I tell people to start on Summer Knight or Death Masks. The problem is starting in books 3 stuff actually starts getting setup that becomes trickier to just skip. I'm pretty sure Summer Knight is the last book where Jim Butcher gives up acting like you havn't read any of the previous books in the series so many people say to start there. ShinsoBEAM! fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 19:56
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Don't blame me I tell people to start on Summer Knight quote:Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can’t pay his rent. He’s alienating his friends. He can’t even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man. ShinsoBEAM! posted:or Death Masks. quote:Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But he also knows that whenever things are going good, the only way left for them to go is bad. Way bad. Such as:
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Sep 1, 2017 20:01
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Dresden Files I mean, on the surface, these novels seem really pulpy in a way I would not enjoy at all. I've been wrong before basing opinions of books of simple summaries like this--like Terry Prachett--but not often.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:11
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Such sharp criticism, and yet here you are posting in the Rothfuss thread? Dresden files gets really good, its like a solid B list movie that doesn't take itself to seriously.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:12
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M_Gargantua posted:Such sharp criticism, and yet here you are posting in the Rothfuss thread? Yeah, well in his defense the first of Rothfuss novels make him seem like a young author with great potential... that affect is entirely accidental. I kind of thing of the beginning of this series as a real life analog of the "given enough time monkeys banging on keyboards will write Hamlet..."
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Sep 1, 2017 20:20
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M_Gargantua posted:Such sharp criticism, and yet here you are posting in the Rothfuss thread? You seem to have misread everything I've ever said. I am mocking the idea of an adult recommending novels about a private detective wizard to other adults.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:23
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:You seem to have misread everything I've ever said. Well I'm recommending other people reading my post to give dresden files a shot. If book one doesn't do it for you jump to book four or five and roll with it. ZombieLenin posted:Yeah, well in his defense the first of Rothfuss novels make him seem like a young author with great potential... that affect is entirely accidental. Yeah, where both Butcher and Sanderson are authors whose early novels aren't great but who keep producing and keep getting better.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:26
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M_Gargantua posted:Such sharp criticism, and yet here you are posting in the Rothfuss thread? It's amazing what a difference it makes when neither the books nor the author are pretentious.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:46
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M_Gargantua posted:Well I'm recommending other people reading my post to give dresden files a shot. If book one doesn't do it for you jump to book four or five and roll with it. I actually enjoyed Sanderson's contribution to the Wheel of Time novels, but when I tried to read one of his novels I thought "this is awful." I don't think I made it past the first chapter before I gave up. I cannot even remember which novel of his I tried to read, but it was the first in a series... so maybe I'm running up against what you're talking about, where I enjoyed his Wheel of Time contribution, which is more representative of his more mature work, and whatever I tried to read of his was one of his first novels. Maybe.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:48
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I am mocking the idea of an adult recommending novels about a private detective wizard to other adults. see, it's when you say things like this that people become more inclined to just ignore everything you have to say
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Sep 1, 2017 20:51
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ChickenWing posted:see, it's when you say things like this that people become more inclined to just ignore everything you have to say Being ignored by people for mocking genre trash is like being denounced by r/incel for being a normal person.
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Sep 1, 2017 21:08
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the childfucking thread is thataway
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Sep 1, 2017 21:25
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Yea, but there's trash and then there's uppity trash. Butcher is to the point that he recognized what he's writing and what people want from it. He's excellent at filling that niche and he grew as a writer along the way. The only way you can really call something worthless trash is if you've read it, understood the market it was aimed at, and compare it to other books trying to achieve the same thing in the same or nearly the same genre. Butcher is currently the best writer of humorous paranormal urban fantasy. That's A LOT different than putting him into a category with literary greats. I mean, if you're going to just disregard things as trash based on concept rather than execution, you have no business being a real critic. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 03:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Being ignored by people for mocking genre trash is like being denounced by r/incel for being a normal person. I too make lists of things which are acceptable for adults to consume and don't appear like a pretentious idiot while doing so.
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Sep 2, 2017 05:59
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I read some of the Dresden books and they're ok, I guess. I stopped when I realized I'd just rather be reading Hellblazer.ChickenWing posted:see, it's when you say things like this that people become more inclined to just ignore everything you have to say He can make fun of people for what they read all he wants. I don't necessarily agree with him but so it goes. You know it's ok to keep reading a book that someone makes fun of right? In fact some people might argue that's the adult response
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Sep 2, 2017 08:26
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Junkozeyne posted:I too make lists of things which are acceptable for adults to consume and don't appear like a pretentious idiot while doing so. Here
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Sep 2, 2017 08:59
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Possibly your worst post Don't get me wrong a lot of the "Western Canon" is great literature but presenting it as the alpha and omega is unbridled dumbassery Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 09:00
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Not seeing any Stephen King in here, so it's a complete trash list.
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Sep 2, 2017 13:39
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BananaNutkins posted:As far as I can recall, neither series has the weird sex stuff that fantasy is know for, so that's a plus. guess again fucker
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Sep 2, 2017 16:12
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Early Sanderson isn't great, but at least he tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:17
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Elantris has its flaws but it's still written better than anything from Rothfuss.
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Sep 2, 2017 23:08
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Uhh... by it's very definition as the Orient, and the Oriental Other, nothing from India or the Near/Middle East should be included in "Western Cannon."
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Sep 3, 2017 01:30
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Being ignored by people for mocking genre trash is like being denounced by r/incel for being a normal person. Why are you even in this thread then? Go to the literature thread if you don't like people reading fantasy novels.
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Sep 3, 2017 02:51
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That's a dumb post though. I've read works of Homer, Cicero, Caesar, Aristotle, Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Rousseau etc. etc., some even in their original version. I've also read Sanderson, Martin, Butcher and Rothfuss. You don't actually get a single literature genre assigned at birth you know. Make your criticisms against genre fiction all you want and more often that not you'll wholly justified but everything else is just pretentious wankery.
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Sep 3, 2017 03:12
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Most of the books on that list have near 0 entertainment value, even if you were able to get EVERYTHING out of them. Important? Sure. But maybe stop comparing the literary genre to a genre that has an entirely different purpose. It's like trying to compare a coloring book to an army technical manual.
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Sep 3, 2017 03:30
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You can tell he was going for the traditional urban fantasy crowd at first. There's a bunch of sex vampires all through the series ,and there was a book where Dresden worked in the porn industry and fought porn star witches.
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Sep 3, 2017 04:20
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Ghetto Prince posted:You can tell he was going for the traditional urban fantasy crowd at first. There's a bunch of sex vampires all through the series ,and there was a book where Dresden worked in the porn industry and fought porn star witches. He still loves his sex crap (meaning stuff like the porn industry, or making Dresden want to rape through Winter Knight, or the entire thing with his apprentices) that just seethes shittily throughout everything. All the books are pretty trashy, but the first three are so awful that if someone would to recommend them to me I would get pretty mad. Because reading them was the worst time I ever had. I liked Rothfuss's crap better, and I'm posting in a thread about hating Rothfuss's crap. Though I do think the porn industry book really just... made me want to quit reading forever. Kchama fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Sep 3, 2017 05:42
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Evil Fluffy posted:Elantris has its flaws but it's still written better than anything from Rothfuss. It's an actual story.
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Sep 3, 2017 08:15
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Junkozeyne posted:That's a dumb post though. I've read works of Homer, Cicero, Caesar, Aristotle, Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Rousseau etc. etc., some even in their original version. I've also read Sanderson, Martin, Butcher and Rothfuss. That simply means that you do not read properly. Ccs posted:Why are you even in this thread then? Go to the literature thread if you don't like people reading fantasy novels. The inferiority complex of genre fans compels them not to think of genre novels as real "literature," as seen here.
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Sep 3, 2017 08:52
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:That simply means that you do not read properly. Did you accuse someone of having an inferiority complex about fantasy in the same post that you made fun of someone else for reading fantasy?
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Sep 3, 2017 09:19
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