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Xtanstic posted:I don't understand what conclusion we're supposed to pull from Molly looking like the Hecate statue. Is it supposed to mean that Molly's transformation to fae is happening faster than we realize? Or does it mean that Molly was always meant to become a fae because of historical incarnations? The statue represents the current winter family. The Winter Lady looks like Michael's daughter. That is it.
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Jun 14, 2014 23:19
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frogg posted:I love the action so far and the characters are very endearing also, I'm looking forward to Harry brewing more crazy potions with Bob! Sadly, I should warn you, the potion stuff pretty much vanishes after the first coupla books.
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Jun 22, 2014 02:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I have a sneaking suspicion that Binder was one of Jim's secondary City of Heroes characters (a summoner). That would explain an incredible amount about Binder. Dravs posted:Just finished the Codex Alera series after running out of other books. I enjoyed it quite a lot actually, was pretty satisfying. What are peoples issues with it? I would say my biggest problems are that it becomes formulaic and that the female cast is pretty goddamn bad, a good chunk of which is that Butcher put a lot of emphasis on romance he wasn't able to back up. Also everything involving the Earth Fury Sex Power which just crossed the line into unnecessarily sleazy way too often. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 20:20
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Sir Shion posted:What would it explain? he's shown up twice in 15 books and gotten his rear end kicked seven ways from sunday in the first book, and realistically in the second comes out even - but that's literally because he was on the protagonists side in the second one. Because a lot of his gimmicks and especially the way he is written in Skin Game would make a lot more sense as "this is the author's CoH character."
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Jun 28, 2014 07:23
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I really wish I could get into Rivers of London. My big problem with it is that I like literally everyone in it but the protagonist. If it was Leslie and Nightingale handling poo poo 24/7 I would be all over that.
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Jun 29, 2014 06:30
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Sir Shion posted:Not after the last book you won't. Yeah, I heard about that and decided not to buy the last book. Killed any interest I had in that franchise.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:48
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Tulul posted:I do think Butcher way overdoes it with the goony pseudo-chivalric stuff. It made some sense at the start of the series; Dresden was a twenty-something manchild who had a really hosed up childhood and who had never had a romantic relationship end well. Now, though, he's in his forties. He's had a whole lot of responsibility thrown at him over time and he's had to mature a lot. So the m'lady stuff just feels out of place. He's had to be a teacher, a father, and a leader; it really feels like he should have just grown the hell up about all of his weird womanfolk attitudes at some point. Dresden never really had a chance to grow up. He might be in his 40s but it's the kind of 40s where he's still in a lot of ways a manchild and not prepared for responsibility. He's gradually accepting it though even if a lot of it is unintentional. (A bulk of the big responsibilities he has now he took on by accident, avoided as long as he could, or intended to weasel out of ASAP.) They made a point in Skin Game that he isn't doing the "he hurt a WOMAN?!" thing anymore at least. It'll be kind of weird if we get to the last books and Dresden has actually goddamn matured into a functional adult. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 02:02
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Thyrork posted:Weird? I'd consider that perfectly fine as a character arc. I don't mean a bad character arc, I just mean it'll be weird to see the day Harry is able to restrain himself from talking poo poo to someone and making everything worse without the threat of instant painful death on the line.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:20
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Please dont do this Jim. 
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ConfusedUs posted:Harry's matured a lot, but I consider it something of a shame that he's regressed so much emotionally since the end of Ghost Story. Well, to be fair, in Skin Game he gets tremendously territorial any time Binder is brought up.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:23
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Thyrork posted:Winter makes you logical, This is literally the opposite of how Winter works. Harry specifically battles it with logic.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:44
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Thyrork posted:I disagree. Except that is what it is. This is stated unarguably in the book. Harry is not making logical decisions he is making primal ones. He tempers them by being logical. Like, literally, in Skin Game, he argues down the Winter Mantel by explaining to it logical reasons why he can't act on the instinctive emotional urge to kill things. The urges Harry feels are not logical in the slightest. They are irrational animal desires and that is stated to be a big part of what Winter is. This also comes with the cold clarity to do something absolutely abhorrent or cruel but that isn't the same as being logical. Mab is insanely emotional. She literally had to have someone else talk for her because she got so angry she basically was out of control. She is good at keeping it under wraps but "not emotional" is the opposite of what she is. Skin Game was literally a long drawn out and dangerous gambit to get revenge on someone who slighted her. Mab is cold but she isn't unemotional. She is incredibly emotional and that is why she is terrifying. She is more like a barely-retrained force and there are a lot of times we've seen her slip and pretty much every time they do she is borderline animal. I am Zim posted:It would help if he actually, you know, hosed a woman once in a while. I mean, it's a cliche but drat that dude needs to get laid. To be fair, literally every time Harry has sex, something disastrous comes from it or it turns out to be a plot or scheme or betrayal. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 04:54
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Fried Chicken posted:It is also explicitly stated in Cold Days at the Gates scene that Winter is the cold brutal uncaring logic and Summer is the warm gentle caring emotions. Cold Day posted:Winter's nature was beautiful violence, stark clarity, the most feral needs, and animal desires and killer instinct pitted against the season of cold and death—the will and desire to fight, to live, even when there was no shelter, no warmth, no respite, no hope, and no help. Stark Clarity is about the only thing I can see there being close to "brutal uncaring logic" and it's shoehorned between beautiful violence and "the most feral needs." Logic is the counterpart to Winter, not the natural state of Winter, and what helps temper it. It isn't the natural state of Winter, which is pure animal instinct and desire unrestrained by morality or compassion. Mab would be much less scary if she were just a super-logical being ice cold being. The fact that she's emotional-as-gently caress means she'll do things that are illogical in order to satisfy her desires or slights against her. She is effective because she can usually control herself enough to do things illogical things in a beneficial and effective way but it's not portrayed very differently from how Harry's own Winter Mantel is. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 06:13
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Fried Chicken posted:Maggie isn't that bad Maggie herself isn't that bad but pretty much everything in Changes and afterwards is a side effect of her existing, so still not very good for Harry.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:36
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How do the Laundry Files books improve, by the way? I got to the second book and I hated the stupid James Bond/Bond Girl plot so much that it kinda put me off from reading more. I really enjoyed the first one but the second was way too self-indulgent and slow-paced for me.
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Jul 1, 2014 18:45
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ConfusedUs posted:The second book is the only one with that particular conceit. I've found that people love it or hate it. Cool, I'll give the later ones a shot then. I wasn't sure if it was a case of "if you don't like the second book, don't bother because it keeps doing stuff like that."
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Jul 1, 2014 18:54
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Harry is going to soulgaze Murphy at the most insanely dramatic moment possible. It's been Gunned for way too long not to happen.
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Jul 3, 2014 04:50
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Super.Jesus posted:Skin Game is very formulaic and completely fails to advance the main plot, it's a very serviceable Dresden Files story, but it's not Changes or Cold Days. At least it wasn't published on a GRRM timeframe. Uh? What? Harry reconnects with his daughter, his second daughter is born, a new Knight of the Sword is created, one of the reoccurring series villains is killed, Harry gets access to multiple high-grade magical artifacts of incredible power, Harry and Karrin finally end up together for reals this time and Uriel kills a man in a way which is extremely likely to have long-term consequences. How can you say it fails to advance the main plot? It literally has the payoff for several major long-running plotlines and sets up several more.
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Jul 15, 2014 16:41
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Super.Jesus posted:Nearly all of this happens near the end of the book. We aren't shown what any of this amount to, yet. The rest of the book is a videogame heist level with mostly new characters. What? There are more existing characters in the book than new characters especially if you count Hannah as Lash's avatar and these things occur or are set up throughout the entire book. Are you sure you read the book and not a wikipedia summary or something? I mean if your complaint is "this isn't Changes again" then you're right but it would be really loving dumb for it to be Changes again. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 05:05
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Rygar201 posted:No, he said the Eebs wouldn't have been killed by the Spell, not that they were necessarily alive. If they weren't killed by the spell, they're alive and will be showing up again. That's way too big a gun not to fire especially considering how much damage they did to Harry.
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Jul 30, 2014 04:27
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VanSandman posted:They were left in the hands of some extremely unpleasant Fae bent on eating them, I believe. Yeah, but that doesn't mean they actually got around to finishing them off. Slanderer posted:I had to look up exactly what was said, and he didn't actually commit to them still being alive "Were" could also mean "they're not there anymore." That is, if anything, a really strong hint those guys are still around and kicking.
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Jul 30, 2014 06:32
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Masonity posted:It'd be great if they were used as a "see how much I've grown?" moment for Harry in the apocalypse trilogy. They pop out at a crucial time with a big "you thought we were dead?" only for Harry to shrug, blast them to Kingdom come then carry on dealing with the matter at hand. I mean imagine Harry against the FBI wolves now, or even the Loup Garou. Then think where he was when the Eebs were a threat to where he's likely to be when the poo poo hits the fan. If they show up again they're probably going to get some substantial power boost. "We're the last of the Red Court and so their displaced power flowed into us and now we're the Red King and Queen" or something like that. Basically there's no chance Harry is going to be up against an enemy who won't kick his rear end five ways to Sunday and require him to barely pull off a win. That isn't how Harry Dresden works.
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Jul 30, 2014 12:51
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Tunicate posted:Honestly, I liked Laundry 1, thought Laundry 2 was so-so, and found Laundry 3 pretty unreadable. Given the progression, I'm not really that interested in Laundry 4. I liked Laundry 1 and found Laundry 2 to basically be one of the worst things I've ever read. Laundry 3 was a step up merely by not being Laundry 2.
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Aug 5, 2014 03:52
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I never understood why people got upset at Murphy in Fool Moon considering basically the only thing she is doing wrong is not assuming Harry Dresden's plotcock is so gigantic he should be allowed to get away with lying and obstructing a murder investigation.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:23
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Wittgen posted:It's more that mundane police obviously mean nothing in the face of supernatural threats. At least, it's obvious to the reader. That's demonstrably false though. SI has been handling supernatural threats for some time. It's their entire reason for existing. They have trouble with super-high level major dangers but even in that case it is literally their job to do whatever they can to handle it. The entire book is explicitly the result of Harry's problems and lack of trust and later books even have him admit as much. Him actually trusting people is better for everyone involved and is why we have stuff like the Paranet plotline which emphasizes that even people who are not heavy hitters are more useful when they are informed and connected. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 06:27
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WarLocke posted:I don't recall SI actually HANDLING much stuff. It was just a catch-all department to toss all the 'weird stuff' to, and then they got to muddle around and try to figure it all out. They do handle situations. They are the catch-all department but they were the guys stuck supernatural cases. That is what they were up to before Murphy joined even. We know from various accounts that even Murphy's dad was handling supernatural threats. (Rawlings talked about how he saved him from one, in fact.) They don't handle the actual book-problems because each book problem represents a pretty exceptional situation in Harry's life. However we know they're handling trolls and vampires (from offhand mentions) and rogue sorcerers (although they had Harry along for that) among other things. Yeroc2 posted:When she actually arrests Harry its for a drawing he gave his almost apprentice girl that he had no idea was related to the murders. She doesn't even give him a chance to explain how he knew the girl or what the protection circle she was trying to create did. She accuses him of lying when he's actually trying to explain, and then the loup-garou destroys the police station. She did give him a chance to explain how he knew the girl. He lied to her and pretended he had no idea who she was and Murphy called him on it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 22:25
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Grundulum posted:It seems like Butcher has been pretty good about controlling power creep in this series. Despite the fact that post-Skin Game Harry could wipe the floor with Fool Moon Harry without breaking a sweat, we still constantly get reminded that Harry is a small fish in a very big pond. We keep getting new characters introduced, which is an obvious way to avoid things getting stale, but it hasn't ever felt forced. We don't often get rematches with old foes (usually because there isn't enough left over to scrape back together), so what is the secret? Why has Butcher succeeded where so many other series (especially episodic series of this length) failed? I would say it is more than he keeps dialing it back after he gives Harry a powerup or removes stuff to make Harry weaker. There's a lot of stuff Harry could do which he doesn't because something is inaccessible to him or because it's suddenly weaker than it was before or he just forgets it exists. On paper Harry should be absurdly powerful but since he's the underdog he always ends up in underdog town. In Cold Days and Skin Game he pushes the "I could do more but I don't have my Shield Bracelet" thing a lot and also dialed back the Winter Mantle's power a lot. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 02:16
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SpookyLizard posted:Yeah, it always struck me as kinda odd that Harry isn't friendlier to Marcone. Like, at all. Marcone is only ever vaguely implied to be a horrible bastard, and shown to be remorseful and seeking redemption for some of the horrible poo poo he did, especially when it comes to innocent bystanders. Harry looked into Marcone's soul, remember? Marcone has a shred of humanity in him but he's still a terrible person who runs a criminal enterprise that profits of the misery of others. He is less bad than some but he's still bad. Now, it would still be smart of Harry to try to stay on his good side but Harry Dresden is physically incapable of ever trying to stay on someone's good side unless they are anything less than a full-on God and he is in their domain. And sometimes not even then. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 09:53
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Azuth0667 posted:I'm in the middle of a series re-read and haven't got to it yet but, did the Knights of the Blackened Denarius sign the accords? Yes, they were a part of the accords but broke it.
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Aug 28, 2014 01:01
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Ornamented Death posted:Not a whole lot of new info from the Dragon Con panel. Two interesting things: Turns out Mac is an alien.
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Aug 30, 2014 01:56
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The protagonist in Rivers of London is seriously the worst part of the books. He's just so ineffectual, so dumb (sometimes intentionally, at least according to the author), and surrounded by people who are way more effective and interesting than he is.
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Sep 9, 2014 10:52
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What do you think he's dumb about? He's a bit spacey sometimes but he's never seemed stupid to me. He actively ignores advice from other characters (almost all of whom are smarter than he is), frequently charges on in things which people warn him against, doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut, ignores obvious hints and I never really feel like he solves many problems in a smart fashion, or if he does it isn't until it's already been kind of a disaster. This all applies to Dresden too but in Dresden's case he is explicitly kind of a lunkhead who goes for brute-force solutions to problems and while he has intelligence he'll tend to underutilize it when he's angry or upset or not really caring. In Peter's case I've never felt like Peter outmatches any of his frequent supporting cast. He's kind of got the Harry Potter problem where he is the 'hero' but the hero who basically is dragged along by his supporting cast. In comparison (and I have a lot of problems with the books so this isn't saying it is straight-up superior), Bob in The Laundry Files does feel smart to me. He has his share of dumb moments or whatever but he's not completely in the dark and his stupid moments feel like they follow naturally from his inexperience. Peter wanted to be a cop but even before he became a magician I never got the feeling he was a particularly great cop. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 14:27
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ookiimarukochan posted:Peter probably isn't Peter is straight-up an unreliable narrator, the author has said so. There's a thing in the second book where he goes on about the weird cat-girl thing which is intentionally supposed to be him being inaccurate and biased and trying to be smarter than he is. Regardless, the 'well, the character is an unreliable narrator' argument is used for basically everything and I don't find it makes me like Peter any more nor does it change the fact that I find his supporting cast both more interesting and less dumb than he is. I overall likes the Rivers of London books better than I liked the Laundry Files but it is very much in spite of Peter. (Also RoL never had a book as loving awful as the Jennifer Morgue.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 22:27
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Scorchy posted:Peter is kind of a career fuckup, but then he spends a lot of time telling the reader how clever and smart he is, and I think the juxtaposition is funny. He's certainly less competent than his supporting cast, but he's slightly more observant, and it seems to work for him. Certainly the second book was him making an long string of unfortunate decisions, though possibly under a spell. Yeah, I can see that. I think I'd probably find it funny if I liked Peter a hair more. He's not terrible or anything, I just keep having these moments of "Man, I wish I was following (x)."
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Sep 12, 2014 22:43
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I think it's possible to do, you just need to be a world that (no offense intended to any writers) is more clever than the kind of world you usuall see in urban fantasy. Instead of being bigger and more dangerous you really have to be more unusual and creative and put a lot of time and effort into a weird wild worldsetting that welcomes constant new but not necessarily increasing dangers. I think to some degree the 'structured' magic systems hurt this. Every time you introduce a magic system with a lot of hard rules you inevitably start breaking them and when you break them it leads to a gradual power creep to keep up.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:11
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Wade Wilson posted:To be fair, the same thing tends to happen with Dresden. Hey now. Dresden sometimes gets new powers from having powerful mental interaction that results in a baby. That's different.
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Sep 17, 2014 16:20
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Dresden hasn't really successfully taken on anything particular big. He's encountering them but any big thing tends to end up with Dresden getting the poo poo beaten out of him and cowering on the floor. The biggest thing he took out was the Red King and that was through a loophole set up by the King himself.
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Sep 19, 2014 03:57
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Benny the Snake posted:I was talking about The Dresden Files with another goon and it suddenly the root cause of my dislike in this series. It's because this is supposed to be an R-rated series and yet those elements are conspicuously absent or covered-up, like watching a like film on basic cable and noticing how they've obviously censored the profanity. Butcher's clearly trying to write a series with adult sensibilities but there's clearly something keeping him in first gear. Then again, I just finished Blood Rites-does it get better? Uh, Dresden Files has graphic onscreen murder, multiple sex scenes and lots of swearing. One of the major subplots is literally based around sex rape vampires and I don't think Butcher can go a book without mentioning someone's stiff nipples or whatever. Harry doesn't swear much (aside from his magical swears) but that is because it gives him extra emphasis when he says "gently caress" instead of "Stars and Stones." I mean I'm not really sure how "onscreen werewolf sex orgy" somehow goes hand-in-hand with lack of R-rated elements. If your complaint is that Dresden Files doesn't have enough sex, violence and swearing, I'm not sure what you could read that would give you more aside from one of the "Anita Blake fucks her way through the supernatural set" kind of books which is less adult and more borderline pornography. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 13:47
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Benny the Snake posted:I read Aaronavich and I appreciate how the author is an older hand at genre fiction who's protagonist is, refreshingly enough, a mature adult and who lets the story develop organically. You're not wrong that Aaronavich is a better writer but Peter is absolutely not a mature adult. He's not quite as manchild as Dresden but he's pretty manchild. He makes multiple pop culture references including to children's television shows that (by his age) he probably shouldn't be familiar with and is often less mature than other people his own age. Like if you're reading RoL and going "That Peter, he's a mature adult," you're missing actual plot threads in the books. Peter is way less straight-up manchild dork than Dresden but still on a road to maturity instead of actually being there and he's still pretty manchild dork. If there's one thing I'll say about Peter over Dresden is that (hat jokes aside), Peter is way less of a fedora-wearing type than Dresden. To give Butcher some credit, Dresden's plot is specifically that he has to become a mature adult. He's just not as good a writer. (And Neil Gaiman is infinitely better than both.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Sep 27, 2014 |
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Sep 27, 2014 00:31
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Cicero posted:Because the sign of a mature adult is hating cartoons, not stuff like living independently, or having integrity, or standing up for your friends. What's that CS Lewis quote again? Uh? Did you decide to jump on me for some particular reason or did you just completely ignore the person I was responding to and the context of the conversation?
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Sep 27, 2014 06:57
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Cicero posted:I guess I could throw in his quote too, but it seemed like you agreed with his premise of what constitutes a mature adult. I mean I agree that Dresden definitely matures over the course of the series, I just think the whole "well this character knows about [pop culture thing], ugh, what a manchild" thing is stupid. Because no matter how much you post that quote, it doens't change the fact that Dresden (and to a lesser extent Peter) are still immature manchildren no matter how much they stand up for their friends. It is in fact a central part of Dresden's story and at least part of that is his fixation on things like that. Knowing pop culture references and using them as a central bit of your mindset are two very different things. Dresden especially is bad about this. The dude lives and breathes pop culture (and happens to be in a universe where that works out for him) and uses it inappropriately and (even recognized in-story) as an escape from actual responsibility and mature reactions. Dresden lives independently, has integrity, and always stands up for his friends. He's also got a childish view of women, an inability to keep his mouth shut when it could avoid problems, a fixation on pop culture that intrudes on other parts of his life, and perhaps most importantly is not willing to accept responsibility unless he has no other choice. (Most easily seen with Maggie but also in other parts of his life.) He is gradually growing out of that but in some cases it had to be literally ripped away from him before he would do so. Dude is completely a manchild but he's growing out of it, ever-so-slowly. That doesn't mean he stops liking pop culture, just that he handles it better. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Sep 27, 2014 |
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Sep 27, 2014 07:04
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