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Yeah I'm curious too. I just caught up with Verus with the last novel, this is the first one I've read at release. I've also been making my way through a reread of WOT and am up to the 9th book now and I haven't recognized any easter eggs or similarities. To be honest I don't usually read with that kind of thing in mind though unless I've been told to expect it so maybe it'll become obvious all the sudden now.
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Oct 8, 2019 00:50
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StrixNebulosa posted:Interesting, interesting. Mercy doesn't actually become a member of the pack in those books, I think. The third book has some pretty serious rape at the very end. Not played for sexy times, not played for anything but a brutal attack, but can be triggering.
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Oct 8, 2019 01:20
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Exmond posted:I.. freaking hate Kate Daniel's sexy lion protagonist. The whole "I'm a cat, so I'm going to sneak into your house and eat your food and watch you sleep" made me dislike him. I forget the timeline, but doesn’t she get him back for it? It’s been a while but I remember her doing something pretty elaborate and property damaging in return. Anyways my problem with Ilona Andrews, especially more recent books, is that her/their writing can get incredibly awkward and stilted at times. There’s a bit in the spinoff to Kate Daniels talking about a tactical blunder made in the penultimate Kate Daniels book that is just the most tortured way of writing “He launched a frontal assault against a prepared enemy and got slaughtered” I’ve ever seen. I didn’t notice this kind of prose in early books but I see it pop up a lot now. torgeaux posted:Back to the Mercy series for a bit. The part you hate? Part of the series is the use of this particular pack to be the role model for systemic changes going forward from hidebound systems currently in place. Female wolves have status based solely on their mate's status...until the pack at the center of the story changes that. Being upset that the initial status quo is bad is one of the points. The companion series Alpha/Omega explores the same changing dynamic (though the relatively rare sex bits are cringey for other reasons).
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Oct 8, 2019 01:36
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The latest couple books focused a lot on elsewhere. Which has a lot of similarities with the dream world of WOT. Magic is described as weaves a couple of times in the latest books. The imbued items and magic item systems are not that dissimilar. We got a much more detailed look at shields in the latest books and they were often described as individual strands and elemental types in a very similar way. I'd like to note that I probably like the Verus series better than WOT. I've only read 5 til now recently of Verus. But it does feel like Schaefer cribbed a lot from Jordan.
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Oct 8, 2019 01:48
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Mars4523 posted:it draws on completely bunk knowledge of animal social hierarchies to justify domination fantasies and regressive gender dynamics. Alpha males and females don’t work that way, as it turns out. There's a half-formed TTRPG setting in my head about the first publicly acknowledge US agency dealing with the supernatural, and a handful of bit characters/deployable backup is a pack of werewolves - the most cheerful (and devoutly Catholic) Mexican man in the world, his smoking hot wife, and their horde of kids, grumpy grandad, and Uncle Tony (who is Sicilian but they adopted him) who isn't a were-anything, just badass enough to keep up with and fight alongside the rest of the pack. Jokes provided by Pratchett (don't play with your food, etc.) rndmnmbr fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 8, 2019 |
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Oct 8, 2019 01:51
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Artonos posted:The latest couple books focused a lot on elsewhere. Which has a lot of similarities with the dream world of WOT. Magic is described as weaves a couple of times in the latest books. The imbued items and magic item systems are not that dissimilar. We got a much more detailed look at shields in the latest books and they were often described as individual strands and elemental types in a very similar way. Yeah that all makes sense. Now that you mention it I did think Elswehere seemed pretty similar to TAR when it first came up and the rules were described.
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Oct 8, 2019 01:55
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torgeaux posted:Mercy doesn't actually become a member of the pack in those books, I think. My friends did warn me about that, I'm not going into mercy 3 totally blind. They also tell me it has realistic fallout which is good, but also gulp. We'll see if I'm up for reading more of that when I get there. Mercy 2 meanwhile: the vampire at the window in the middle of the night freaked me out pretty badly. I was reading outside in the dark with just the outside light and the scene started and I had to hurry my dog up so we could get back inside, because aaaaa Mars4523 posted:I forget the timeline, but doesn’t she get him back for it? It’s been a while but I remember her doing something pretty elaborate and property damaging in return. - Kate does get back at Curran for that, multiple times - UF/PNR written by women sucks when they do that, and the prime contender for it is Nalini Singh's Branded by Fire, one of her Psy-Changeling books. The couple are a pair of werecritters, and in this universe being a werecritter means that you're either dominant or submissive. No, none of these authors have ever heard of switches. Anyways, because Singh has some intensely sexist ideas about how romance works, the woman gets to be a dominant, but she still has to submit to her dominant male partner because gently caress me. There's a whole load of bullshit about how because the dude is a wolf he's protective of his mate, and because she's a cat she's independent up until he smolders at her. When Singh's bouncing her werecritters off of her psychic emotionless people it's more fun to see her contrast "i have no emotions. why am i horny" with "my inner panther demands that I get turbo-possessive and horny around you". Stupid but fun. It's when she's got two weres bouncing off of each other it really reveals that they're not written like were-critters at all. They're just horny people who can't admit to themselves that they have temper problems. Unfortunately the author is 100% unaware of this so it comes across as really, really stupid and not in an entertaining way. So to walk over to Mercy which is clearly better written and at least a little better researched and still run headfirst into "my wolf says I need to treat you like a barefoot pregnant housewife" makes me sad. At least Kate Daniel's werekitty doesn't mean he gets stupid because of his inner lion, he's stupid because he's stupid. For once the alpha dude in the relationship has reasons to be the way he is: he's the violent leader of a violent community of monsters and he's overprotective because he knows what Kate's up against. And Kate pushes and pulls and works with him and it's an equal relationship that I enjoy a lot.
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Oct 8, 2019 02:12
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Artonos posted:The latest couple books focused a lot on elsewhere. Which has a lot of similarities with the dream world of WOT. Magic is described as weaves a couple of times in the latest books. The imbued items and magic item systems are not that dissimilar. We got a much more detailed look at shields in the latest books and they were often described as individual strands and elemental types in a very similar way. I don’t buy most of this, but Vihaela is definitely inspired by Semirhage in appearance, abilities, and torture-healer proclivities. I suppose Crystal using her super focus to make Verus do the thing wasn’t entirely unlike the male a’dam forcing Rand to do something similar.
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Oct 8, 2019 03:30
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It wasn't just a parallel though. The wording and reactions of Alex/Rand were very similar. It is definitely not a bad thing, I was personally more impacted by the Verus scene because I think it was followed up quickly by impactful narrative moving forward scenes. Instead of a bunch of people giving Rand the side eye and not really doing much. And when Arachne/Verus talk about combat in elsewhere it's very similar to WOT. I think the author has been clear about how he has been impacted by other authors throughout the series too. He has a couple Dresden references early on in the series if I remember way back then correctly. I haven't ever re-read 1-6.
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Oct 8, 2019 04:51
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Artonos posted:It wasn't just a parallel though. The wording and reactions of Alex/Rand were very similar. It is definitely not a bad thing, I was personally more impacted by the Verus scene because I think it was followed up quickly by impactful narrative moving forward scenes. Instead of a bunch of people giving Rand the side eye and not really doing much. Also, to be fair to Jacka, a lot of that stuff wasn't exactly new with WoT, WoT was just encylopedic. I mean, poo poo, Lanfear is just H. Rider Haggard's She transplanted. The missing hand stretches back to the Norse Tyr.
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Oct 8, 2019 05:28
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Artonos posted:He has a couple Dresden references early on in the series if I remember way back then correctly. I haven't ever re-read 1-6. I think in the very first chapter of the series he mentions he's the only 'real' magical shop in Britain and throws out a reference to a detective wizard in Chicago.
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Oct 8, 2019 10:35
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I read the entire InCryptid series, and enjoyed it. The gist is that Europe has a secret hereditary organization of monster hunters who think they are doing God’s will by killing all non-humans. Sometime around 1900 one family goes rogue in America, become cryptobiologists, and generally kill a lot less. Cut to modern times and the books follow 3 siblings who are descendants of the exiled family. Each book has a single POV character, and they are decently written. Also the family is venerated as gods by a tribe of intelligent mice that can talk. The books were worth reading for those bits alone.
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Oct 9, 2019 02:53
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secular woods sex posted:I read the entire InCryptid series, and enjoyed it. Seaman Maguire/Mira Grant is a pretty decent read and holy gently caress is she prolific. She has like 5 ongoing series under 2 or 3 names.
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Oct 9, 2019 07:27
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navyjack posted:Seaman Maguire/Mira Grant is a pretty decent read and holy gently caress is she prolific. She has like 5 ongoing series under 2 or 3 names. Yeah, I’m a huge fan of her October Daye series.
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Oct 9, 2019 10:02
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Proteus Jones posted:Yeah, I’m a huge fan of her October Daye series. I like them a lot too. I was a bit concerned about power creep for October, but it seems to be ok as far as I've made it. I think I started reading them based on an earlier recommendation from this thread, but I'm not 100%.
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Oct 9, 2019 20:42
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MalleusDei posted:I like them a lot too. I was a bit concerned about power creep for October, but it seems to be ok as far as I've made it. I think I started reading them based on an earlier recommendation from this thread, but I'm not 100%. I stayed away from October Daye for a long time, because female protagonist + fae spelled bad paranormal romance not good urban fantasy in my head. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
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Oct 9, 2019 21:51
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rndmnmbr posted:I stayed away from October Daye for a long time, because female protagonist + fae spelled bad paranormal romance not good urban fantasy in my head. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. But were you really, I said to my magical kittykat boyfriend
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Oct 9, 2019 22:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:But were you really, I said to my magical kittykat boyfriend wait, October Daye has a magical catboy boyfriend? I might have to hurry up and pick it up. ps I finished Mercy 2 and to my surprise it decided to become fullblown horror for basically the entire ride. Good horror at that. Which was great, I loved some of how menacing it was. I'm not ready for Mercy 3 yet so I've been reading Shadow Kin by MJ Scott and it's deliciously trashy. I'll probably rate it a 3/5 on goodreads for overall quality, but man is it a 5/5 on the indulgence scale, I love this kind of romance drama.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:But were you really, I said to my magical kittykat boyfriend I like Tybalt, so I'll give him a pass. It could be worse, the author could be Laurell K Hamilton.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:26
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rndmnmbr posted:I like Tybalt, so I'll give him a pass. October Daye is my 2nd favourite urban fantasy series. Like Dresden Files, the start is rough. The first novel has the trope where every single male character loves toby in a different way or form, and it got really tired. That says the series gets way better!
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Oct 10, 2019 00:00
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Re: Mercy Thompson, it's definitely a rough beginning. It evens out a lot later on. That said, the rape/murder-y bits are always presented as a bad thing, the people who do it are villains and end up dead. It's definitely some bullshit, but it is at least not rape fantasy poo poo. The companion series (Alpha & Omega) also has a very different tone.StrixNebulosa posted:Anyways my favorite UF series right now is the Cast in Shadow series by Michelle Sagara, as I'm up to book 4 and there's still no romance, only murders and weird magic and Kaylin, the world's least competent cop. Thanks for this recommendation, hadn't heard of it before. First book has definitely pulled me in. Hieronymous Alloy posted:But were you really, I said to my magical kittykat boyfriend October Daye is easily my favorite UF series, and Tybalt owns. EVGA Longoria fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Oct 10, 2019 |
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Oct 10, 2019 15:15
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Exmond posted:October Daye is my 2nd favourite urban fantasy series. Like Dresden Files, the start is rough. The first novel has the trope where every single male character loves toby in a different way or form, and it got really tired. I agree, the romance stuff sorted itself out in a few books (maybe longer, I don't remember exactly), but it wasn't great while it lasted. Fortunately, everything else is pretty good. I think I'm up to book 8. I binged a bunch, and then set the series aside for a bit.
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Oct 10, 2019 22:15
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MalleusDei posted:I agree, the romance stuff sorted itself out in a few books (maybe longer, I don't remember exactly), but it wasn't great while it lasted. Fortunately, everything else is pretty good. I think I'm up to book 8. I binged a bunch, and then set the series aside for a bit. Book 8 is great because it's very good, but also after reading it you can go back to the beginning and find all the hints you missed along the way. The foreword of the book is something like "I plotted this one first then figured out how to get there". There's a bunch of short stories from other character's PoVs that have been released in various places; you can find a number of them on Seanan's website. They're generally worth reading too.
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Oct 12, 2019 08:07
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In a fit of stupidity I picked up Dresden 1 yesterday and decided to just get it over with, this sexist junk has been in my room for like ten years now and if the series matures and gets good by book 3, then damnit, I have to muscle through book 1. So I conquered the first hundred pages again (I've read them at least three times before, always ending in me deciding not to continue) and now I'm meeting Dresden's vampires. Flabby black breasts. Yes. Thanks. Anyways, I find it interesting how this is basically a straight noir novel with magic/monsters. I haven't read much dude-written UF yet, but the lady-written UF tends towards... either horror, romantic drama, or other conventions (the more modern you get, the more CSI it trends with the procedural elements). But the dude-written UF is basically hardboiled noir detective novels with vampires. (Dresden, Glen Cook's UF series, Simon Green's Nightside series) Like there are similarities, but comparing those series to Mercy Thompson, Cast in Shadow or even Dante Valentine and the dynamics and plot beats are very very different.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:10
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StrixNebulosa posted:In a fit of stupidity I picked up Dresden 1 yesterday and decided to just get it over with, this sexist junk has been in my room for like ten years now and if the series matures and gets good by book 3, then damnit, I have to muscle through book 1. So I conquered the first hundred pages again (I've read them at least three times before, always ending in me deciding not to continue) and now I'm meeting Dresden's vampires. Flabby black breasts. Yes. Thanks. Yes. They do compare similarly to early LKH though. Anita&co could walk onto any given dresden novel and not be out of place in that world.
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Oct 12, 2019 14:37
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Anias posted:Yes. Interesting. I still haven't read Anita Blake despite it being a pillar of UF (well, before it descended into sex forever) and I really should fix that.
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Oct 12, 2019 17:08
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The funny thing to me is how little "urban fantasy" sticks with the noir mode. The only one that really sticks hard to the magic crime deyectuve thing is Rivers of London, everything else goes off the rails.
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Oct 12, 2019 17:46
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The funny thing to me is how little "urban fantasy" sticks with the noir mode. The only one that really sticks hard to the magic crime deyectuve thing is Rivers of London, everything else goes off the rails. I read somewhere that the role of sword & sorcery as a genre has been taken over by UF - because the hallmarks of s&s are overpowered, clever characters, surmounting obstacles, and we can't really go to exotic africa and tame it anymore, we instead have the masquerade and taming exotic vampires/werewolves/fae/etc.
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Oct 12, 2019 17:52
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Anias posted:Yes. Butcher has said before that he was directly riffing on the Anita Blake books. The Dresden Files were even going to be set in St. Louis until people told him that was taking it a little far and he should pick a different city.
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Oct 12, 2019 18:18
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I thought the only were creatures in Dresden were the FBI werewolves?
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Oct 12, 2019 18:23
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Saros posted:I thought the only were creatures in Dresden were the FBI werewolves? Fool Moon has at least 4 types of werewolves. FBI agents had the cursed belts and Billy and Co were like adepts trained to do one trick . Then you had rich dude with the curse to be the Loup-Garou traditional werewolf and his kinda girlfriend who trained the Alphas who was implied to be a reverse werewolf of some kind.
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Oct 12, 2019 18:35
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There were also the gang members that mostly changed mentally rather than physically.
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Oct 12, 2019 18:55
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well the love potion scene in Dresden 1 is easily one of the most garbage things I've read in this genre, so good job for that I guess (what the gently caress, jim butcher! what the gently caress!)
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Oct 13, 2019 01:12
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You're not wrong. It was completely gratuitous, had no lasting impact, and was resolved quickly enough that the impact was minimal at best.
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Oct 13, 2019 01:21
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meh changed my mind about making this post.
Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 01:24
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There is something very very very jarring about how Dresden is one of the most popular UF series, if not THE most popular UF series and the first book doesn't just have the love potion thing in it, it also has Harry breaking into a dead woman's house and sleeping in it what a creeper
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Oct 13, 2019 03:43
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Finished it. There were hints of good things: the entire scene where Harry confronts the mob boss, the vampire bit. But everything else in Dresden 1 was overshadowed by the sexism and the unoriginal plotting. I like cliches as much as the next person, but wowee was that unoriginal. And then you mix in the love potion and the sleeping in a dead woman's house bit and I'm a bit grossed out. Next up: keep reading and finish Dante Valentine 1, get a bunch of UF #1s in the mail monday, pronounce judgment over series as I keep breezing through them. This genre at is best is really really good, whether it be horror or high fantasy or punk. This genre at its worst is, well, see the above paragraph.
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Oct 13, 2019 04:36
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Your goal is to read a bunch of #1s before you ever get to experience the joy of the later books in the series? That sounds like a nightmare.
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Oct 13, 2019 05:16
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Lawlicaust posted:I don’t know what a satisfying conclusion to the series looks like either at this point. Richard dead? The Light Council dissolved/reformed? Levistus dead? Anne and Alex living happily ever after? I just have no concept for what a conclusion would look like for this series. Finished the new Verus and loved it. I get what ya'll mean about the pacing being quick, but I kinda don't mind it? I don't need a Sanderson avalanche but given the major plot moves being set in motion in the last few books, I don't mind the author pushing through the momentum and seeing it finished, rather than stalling and resetting like with Dresden or starting and stopping as in Rivers of London. The audiobook narrator's American accent remains not-as-funny as Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's. At the end of the series, I kinda hope Anne and Alex just gently caress off together and become withdrawn from mage society like Hellikiaon or Arachne or something.
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Oct 13, 2019 05:58
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Daric posted:Your goal is to read a bunch of #1s before you ever get to experience the joy of the later books in the series? That sounds like a nightmare. I am an extremely ADHD reader (i'm currently reading like ten books) and I like starting new things, so this isn't so much hell as a happy experience getting to know new things and deciding if I want to bother picking up the sequels. UF is nice in that I can breeze through it in a few days and use it as a counterbalance to heftier works. e: Oh and there's no rule saying I can't stop and read like, Mercy 3 before I continue on the #1 parade. This is a fun excursion, not suffering.
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Oct 13, 2019 12:52
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