StonecutterJoe posted:

With regard to that part of the spoiler, I think (also extreme ending spoilers): The Network's big flaw was being arrogant as gently caress. Adam panicked at the end because they'd just never even prepared for the concept that humans would fight back on that level, and they wanted Ezra to perfect his dimension-hopping tech because they could only do it themselves on a small scale (there's a comment at one point to the effect that they had to pretty much strip-mine entire planets for the resources to open mass-scale portals.) The FBI didn't beat them so much as the FBI beat the only forces he could round up and bring to Earth on thirty seconds' notice while everyone was screaming and flailing and poo poo was blowing up inside the Shadow in-Between. And they still would have lost if they didn't have backup from Faust, Caitlin, and the entire coven.

The Network seems to rely a lot on sending one or two skilled agents to oversee local operations on a planet they want, like Mr. Smith or the roach-necromancer-guy from the last Faust Book. They recruited roach-dude on his own world, brought him to the Faust/Black earth, and he started growing his own henchmen from there. And I really want to know what the gently caress Smith's deal is, since he's died twice now (shot in the head by Faust, neck snapped by Cross) and he just keeps showing up again. Also he's the only person the Enemy's rewrite-history magic doesn't work on, and even the Enemy doesn't know why.

And RIP, incompetent rear end in a top hat god. Welcome, competent evil god.

Stuff is definitely ramping up. Also not sure why the Enemy didn't show up at all in the trilogy. The whole interaction between him and the Network is weird, seeing as they want totally different things, but (Faust spoilers) Even Faust was like "Wait, what? That makes no sense." when he found out they were allying, so it's something we're clearly supposed to think is weird.

Hotdog In A Hallway posted:

[reads Wisdom’s Grave spoilers]

Why don’t I remember any of this happening?

[checks Amazon and sees that the 3rd book was released November 8]

Ffffffffffffuck.

StonecutterJoe posted:

Don't worry. those spoilers cover maybe half the twists and reveals in that book, there's plenty left.

smertrioslol posted:

As to Smith, Rosales comments to Adam that he should defrost another one. Maybe he’s a series of clones of the same guy and therefore has no real history? Or copied in a way that spits him out as an adult?

I’m really excited to see what Nessa and Marie do with their ascension.

Edit: What do we know about Lucifer’s whereabouts and intentions? I must’ve forgotten reading about that. Also, who the gently caress is the Lady in Red? Other than the mother of witches or whatever. Maybe a reincarnated Sophia? I forgot if they’ve ever given anything other than vague clues about her as well.

Velius posted:

This shows up in Double or Nothing, the most recent Faust book. There’s a guy at the bar Daniel talks to who mentions he and a partner were in a big architectural project


“Before I retired,” he said, “I was an architect. A damned good one, too. My best friend and I went in on a new undertaking together. It was a housing project. Enormous, you wouldn’t believe how big. Ecological, entirely self-sustaining, a landmark to end all landmarks.” “How’d that work out for you?” I asked. “Great. At first.” He gave a tiny shrug. “Soon enough, the arguments started. We disagreed on everything , from the aesthetics to the heating system. Finally, we had a mother of a fight and I stomped out. Said fine, hell with it, I’ll do my own thing and show him just how wrong he is.” The old man’s eyes went distant. He stared at his martini glass, but he was a million miles away. “I’ll cut to the punch line,” he told me. “Turned out he was right about almost everything. I was a damned fool. And not only did it cost me the contract of a lifetime, it cost me something even more dear: my best friend. And I know, to this very day, that we could be friends again. All I’d have to do is go to him and tell him I’m sorry.”

RC Cola posted:

I see you all talking about better series of the same genre. What's the top of the recommended reading list?

Also theory about original Merlin.
Is he just Harry from the future going back in time to set things up for past Harry?

I'm currently halfway through Cold Days.

Velius posted:

This shows up in Double or Nothing, the most recent Faust book. There’s a guy at the bar Daniel talks to who mentions he and a partner were in a big architectural project


“Before I retired,” he said, “I was an architect. A damned good one, too. My best friend and I went in on a new undertaking together. It was a housing project. Enormous, you wouldn’t believe how big. Ecological, entirely self-sustaining, a landmark to end all landmarks.” “How’d that work out for you?” I asked. “Great. At first.” He gave a tiny shrug. “Soon enough, the arguments started. We disagreed on everything , from the aesthetics to the heating system. Finally, we had a mother of a fight and I stomped out. Said fine, hell with it, I’ll do my own thing and show him just how wrong he is.” The old man’s eyes went distant. He stared at his martini glass, but he was a million miles away. “I’ll cut to the punch line,” he told me. “Turned out he was right about almost everything. I was a damned fool. And not only did it cost me the contract of a lifetime, it cost me something even more dear: my best friend. And I know, to this very day, that we could be friends again. All I’d have to do is go to him and tell him I’m sorry.”

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Oh just to catch up this post --

Top of the list is Rivers of London series by Aaronovitch (very british cop who is mixed-race and a wizard). Runner up is Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. Schlockfest option is Daniel Faust's stuff (sexy succubus girlfriend!).

there's lots of other stuff that's peripheral too.

Wolpertinger posted:

I feel like Dresden is much more shlockly than Faust, because somehow despite having a succubus girlfriend it's still tamer than the embarassing stuff in Dresden.

Wolpertinger posted:

I feel like Dresden is much more shlockly than Faust, because somehow despite having a succubus girlfriend it's still tamer than the embarassing stuff in Dresden.

RC Cola posted:

I dread any girl showing up. In Dresden. 'this was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. No really 10x hotter than her sister who I just described as Aphrodite but hotter '

Ornamented Death posted:

That's because Schaefer mostly misses all the usual traps UF writers fall prey to when they introduce succubi into the story. Caitlin is written as a monster first and a girlfriend second.

Scorchy posted:

Been a few years since I read the first book, but that was absolutely not the impression I got while reading it. Doesn't Faust meet her while she's enslaved by some bad men, white knights her out of there, and suddenly she falls in love with him or something? I remember eyerolling so hard at that whole thing.

Best succubus is Juliet from the Castor books, she's always an breath away from snapping everyone's neck at any given moment, and any romance stuff is played for laughs.

StonecutterJoe posted:

The first books suffer from being Babby's First Novels; Schaefer was new and it shows. He's said a few times that he hosed up the initial meeting between Faust and Caitlin, because he wanted readers to say "wait, why'd they fall in love so fast, something's wrong here" but it just came off as instaromance. It does not stay that way, and there's a reason for it later in the series. (And Caitlin is an absolute loving monster. She's just nice to people she likes.)

ImpAtom posted:

quote:

She was young, midtwenties at most. She was dressed in a long wool skirt, a turtleneck, and a cardigan sweater, all in colors of grey. She had hair of medium brown, held up into a bun with a pair of pencils, wore glasses, and had a heart-shaped face that was more attractive than beautiful, her features soft and appealing... She put a hand to her chest, breathing a little quickly. It had to be a fairly generous chest, given that I could notice the curves of her breasts even through the cardigan...

I had been right about the curves that had been hidden under her loose clothing back at Bock’s. They were awfully pleasant ones. It was an effort of will to stay focused on her face—especially when she laughed. Her laugh made all sorts of interesting little quivers run over her.

quote:

[She] was short, blond and impossibly perky even when wearing a stab vest. We’d gone through basic training at Hendon together before being transferred to Westminster for our probation. We maintained a strictly professional relationship despite my deep-seated yearning to climb into her uniform trousers.

quote:

[She] led me into a ground floor flat and I tried to keep my eyes off the long legs that emerged slender and brown below the hem of the T-shirt. It was even hotter inside the flat proper and I recognized the smell of palm oil and cassava leaf. I knew exactly the style of home I was in from the walls painted hint of peach to the kitchen full of rice and chicken and Morrisons own brand custard cream biscuits. We stopped at the threshold to the living room and [she] beckoned me down so she could murmur in my ear—“ You show some respect now.” I breathed in cooked hair and cocoa butter. It was like being sixteen again.

quote:

The girl on the right looked twenty or so, with black shoulder-length hair and odd reddish-brown eyes. We’d met only once, though I’d gotten a good feeling from her; she had a gentle manner I found appealing.

quote:

She was beautiful, any fool could see that. A pale angel with a body built for daydreams, her scarlet hair worn in a twist over one shoulder. She wore a French maid’s outfit barely a step removed from lingerie, her long legs sheathed in black fishnet, garter fastenings on display a quarter inch below the flare of her ruffled skirt. Any fool could see that.

quote:

She was blond and tall with skin like the finest satin I’d ever seen. She wore a hint of unusual scent and a smile that said she saw through everything and [I] was one big piece of crystal. She looked scared but she wasn’t spooked. “I think I’m in love,”

quote:

[She]was in her early twenties, a little bit of a thing but with hips that were amply ample and mounted on gimbels. She had breasts that would make a dead bishop jump up and howl at the moon. She had lots of long red hair. The breeze threw it around wilder than I suddenly hoped I might be doing in about five minutes.

quote:

The woman still wore the janitor’s jumpsuit they’d used to sneak into the library, but even Zeddig, who planned the delve, had to admit the limits of her disguise. The jumpsuit hid [Her] like a gemstone filter hid a flame: even covered, she shined through, sharp and glittering as ever, the whole blond, slick, otter-muscled length of her, a deadly curve bent against the room’s sole desk, waiting for an excuse to spring.

quote:

[At] that moment the first of the party guests were shepherded in by a very busty, very blonde, very beautiful woman who was obviously much too good for the likes of James Dodson. Or the likes of me, to be fair. She was wearing a white bloused top and a khaki skirt with an asymmetric hang, which probably had a designer name attached to it somewhere and cost more than I earned in six months. For all that, though, she looked a touch worn and tired.

quote:

[She]laughed. It had a chilling ring to it. ‘Who tells me that I can’t do these things?’ she asked, her voice caressing me roughly like the tongue of a cat. She has minute control over those harmonics, and she knows what she’s doing. She knew, right then, that she was bringing me to a painfully intense erection: a casual show of force intended to remind me of what else she could do to me if she had a mind to. ‘You? You’re giving me commands? I might be inclined to take that personally if your words were backed by anything besides insolence.’ She took a step towards me, those luminous eyes flashing like beacons in the dark. Another step and she was right in front of me, her head leaning in towards my throat. ‘But they’re not,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Are they?’

quote:

She was not only built like a Victoria’s Secret model, but the sun streaming through the windows lit up her smooth, flawless skin, which was white as confectioner’s sugar.

quote:

She was a mystery to me, and a beautiful one at that. Long locks of curly red hair cascaded over her shoulders, which were always covered in a tight but otherwise chaste T-shirt. She did not earn tips from her cleavage, like many barmaids do, but rather depended on her green eyes, her pouty lips, and the light dusting of freckles on her cheeks. She had pale, creamy skin and a few fine golden hairs on her arms, which led eventually to fingernails she had painted green to match her eyes... she gave off an ineffable scent that was not quite floral, more like a pinot grigio and mixed in with something that reminded me of India, like saffron and poppies.

quote:

Short and heavyset, with large eyes and dark lips, [She] didn’t look like someone who could go toe-to-toe with a pissed-off vampire and walk away without a scratch. Her skin was the rich brown of oiled oak. A single black braid hung to the middle of her back. Cutoff jeans emphasized the curves of her hips. She was barefoot, her toes curling into the dirt with each step. A pair of curved wooden swords—Japanese bokken—were thrust through her belt. If I were to pick a single word for what attracted me to [Her], it would be her passion. Not merely physical, but for everything she did. She threw herself into life with no reservations, never holding back. She possessed a fearlessness fearlessness few humans ever matched.

quote:

[She] had short, dark hair and almost black eyes. There were rose thorns tattooed around the base of her long neck. She was slim and it made her arms and legs look impossibly long. We’d been going out for three or four weeks. While we were lying around in her bed one night, out of nowhere, she said, “I can do magic. Want to see?” “Of course.” She jumped out of bed, still naked. Candles and light from the street slid over her body, shadowing the muscles working under her skin, making the tattoos over her arms, back, and chest move like dancers in some eerie ballroom. She went to her dresser and drew a curly little mustache on her upper lip with eyeliner pencil.

quote:

The covers slipped from the slope of [his] belly. He was a dirigible, huge and taut and strong. Grey hair burst from him abundantly.

[She] was hairless. Her muscles were tight under her red skin, each distinct. She was like an anatomical atlas. [He] studied her in cheerful lust. His arse itched. He scratched under the blanket, rooting as shameless as a dog. Something burst under his nail, and he withdrew his hand to examine it.

quote:

Once upon a time, she smelled wrong. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. She smelled clean, like fresh snow and air after a lightning storm and something hard to identify, something like sex and butter pecan ice cream. Honestly, I think she was the best thing I’d ever smelled. I was inferring “wrongness” from the fact that she wasn’t entirely human... Standing at least six feet tall in running shoes, she had shoulders as broad as a professional swimmer’s, sinewy arms, and well-rounded hips that were curvy and compact. All in all, she was as buxom, blonde, blue-eyed, and clear-skinned as any woman who had ever posed for a Swedish tourism ad.

Velius posted:

As a science experiment I decided to look at the descriptions of love interests in a bunch of Urban Fantasy novels and similar fiction to see who is truly the gooniest of them all. What do you all think?


Good ol’ Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

And

Ben Aaronovich, Midnight Riot. Unlike Butcher I feel like this is just a well written goony protagonist.


Benedict Jacta, Cursed. He really doesn’t go for detailed physical appearances at all.

Craig Shaefer, Long Way Down

And


Glen Cook, Garret, P.I.


Max Gladstone, Ruin of Angels


And


Mike Carey, The Devil You Know. Also known as that other urban fantasy with a succubus sidekick.


And:


Kevin Hearne, he is the worst.


Jim C. Hines, Codex Born


Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim


China Mieville, Perdido Street Station

Elliot James, Charming

My main takeaway from this is I’ve read too much Urban Fantasy. Especially the bad kind.

quote:

Of the other two in the room, one was a woman in jeans, with skin the colour of roast coffee, and a tight black jacket that bulged in odd places; she looked like she was ready to set something on fire.

quote:

She smiled again, lips shockingly pink in an otherwise dark, finely formed face. Her black curly hair was braided so close to her skull it had to hurt, and her eyes were wide and alert.

M_Gargantua posted:

Out of that list it just confirms that Max Gladstone is great and you should all read the craft sequence.

M_Gargantua posted:

Out of that list it just confirms that Max Gladstone is great and you should all read the craft sequence.

Velius posted:

As a science experiment I decided to look at the descriptions of love interests in a bunch of Urban Fantasy novels and similar fiction to see who is truly the gooniest of them all. What do you all think?

...

My main takeaway from this is I’ve read too much Urban Fantasy. Especially the bad kind.

Nemesis Of Moles posted:

I bounced pretty hard off of Two Serpents after loving the first book. Maybe I should give it another go, I just didn't really enjoy any of the characters or care a lot about what they were doing, especially after the first one throws you so hard into the wild world of Wizard-Lawyering and this one kicks off with a fairly long uh, parkour? focused arc?

M_Gargantua posted:

Yeah I can see Two Serpents Rise being the weakest of them. The second and third acts go back to more magic, just Wizard-Accounting this time instead of Wizard-Lawyering. Exploring the dangers of Over-leveraging yourself with divine margin calls in an unstable soul economy.

tithin posted:

I read the first Faust book on a whim about 18 months and kinda bounced off it hard with the introduction of the succubus is introduced as a sexual object (and make no mistake, that's what she was being used as) - who is rescued by, and who then falls for the mysterious well meaning hero.

I mean, I finished the book, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.

I finished "The White Gold Score" a few days ago and enjoyed it far more than the first book, purely because it's only ever mentioned in passing as to what her nature is, and the fact she never uses it as a weapon in the book.

Future books may not be as sparing, but I'm at least willing to give the next book a shot based on that.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Ok, that's fair, that's exactly what bothered me.

I also just reflexively don't like "they're Actual Demons, but . . . somehow ok and good folks!" characters. If you're bringing a literal demon into the story, make it a DEMON, not just Bad Girl with a Heart of Gold trope.

rndmnmbr posted:

Frankly, I've given up on Jim. If he wanted to write something, we'd have it by now. All the excuses for not writing are just that, excuses. Meanwhile, there are other authors doing better UF that deserve my attention more.

Exmond posted:

I get you, but I can also wait for more Dresden Files while giving other authors my money. Like Stacia Kane! I’m sure she will finish her downside ghosts series!

rndmnmbr posted:

Frankly, I've given up on Jim. If he wanted to write something, we'd have it by now. All the excuses for not writing are just that, excuses. Meanwhile, there are other authors doing better UF that deserve my attention more.

e. Just read the shorts story on his site. It was cute.

It was not a new full-length novel. So we're back to square one, waiting on Jim to poo poo out a new book or get off the pot and announce his retirement.

rndmnmbr posted:

I'm just frustrated, is all. Jim needs to do something, other than leave people hanging for years that is.