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Khizan posted:Pax Arcana is excellent, though. One of the best in the genre, easily. Better than Dresden, even, I think. I'm still a bit surprised that this suddenly became popular on this thread, I think I was the first person to recommend the first book years ago, and I was ruthlessly mocked for liking it and resigned myself to it being a guilty pleasure read  .I'm not sure if it's the best in the genre but I would say it's definitely better as a whole than the average Dresden book, but not the best of the best of Dresden, which has honestly had some amazing moments, even if it feels like it's been on a bit of a decline the last few books, which were good but had less just flat out amazing moments as a lot of his older books. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Aug 19, 2016 |
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Aug 19, 2016 11:54
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The latest Daniel Faust book, The Castle Doctrine, came out at the beginning of the month - just finished reading it, the series is as good as ever. A whole lot of plot points that have been building up for quite a few books now all finally pay off simultaneously. I'm real interested in where he's going to go from here with both series. I haven't read the second Harmony Black book yet but it seems at this rate that the two series are going to have to collide apocalyptically despite having split off into unrelated plots because of the whole prophecy/story with the Thief and Paladin
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Oct 11, 2016 13:15
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StonecutterJoe posted:I'm not sure if it will, at least, because of that -- the Faust books seem to play heavily on "gently caress being special/called/The Chosen One," and just because the story says only the Paladin can kill the man with the Cheshire smile, doesn't necessarily make it so. That said, Schaefer's said there will be a reunion at some point, and hinted at a team-up. I'm kinda hoping there's a big setup for a showdown between Harmony and Cheshire, only for the dude to encounter Faust in a back alley somewhere. Preferably with a baseball bat. I'm mostly curious about the last-book revelation that the guy is being played by Naavarasi. Naavarasi's been a manipulator since the second she showed up, but always in an over-the-top, telegraphing every move because of her ego style. Now I'm kinda wondering if THAT was a ruse all along and she's a lot smarter than she acts. And I really want to know what Kirmira asked her just before she snapped his neck. It's possible she's been the Big Bad of the series all along. Despite the fact that the series will almost guaranteed not play the prophecy straight, Cheshire seems to have the ability to completely rewrite reality around him so honestly a role in the Story is probably the only way to avoid having him retroactively kill you off several years ago the moment you enter the same room. I wouldn't be surprised if they pull a switcharoo and find a way to move the roles around a second time so someone Cheshire completely does not expect is suddenly the Paladin and has the ability to kill him at a crucial moment.
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Oct 13, 2016 03:00
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StonecutterJoe posted:Yeah, if he gets his hands on you, you're apparently done (or you're going to wish you were done, in the worst way). Or even in the general vicinity -- there was the bit in the opening of book four or five when he changes the decor in his lobby (and his receptionist's gender) just for the gently caress of it. Just getting close is gonna take a major scam. A lot's going to depend on what Faust's new power upgrade can actually do. That, and whether the first Revanche callback in the book (of the two I spotted) is hinting at something that's gonna happen in the Faust books, or if it's a setup for a spinoff. The Owl is a powerhouse, or at least her last incarnation was, and I don't see her siding with Cheshire. Anything and anyone that gets in the way of her finding Mari is going to get annihilated.. Even if Faust is unlikely to go full necromancer/crazy cultist, the fact that he's called upon him twice means that it's a slippery slope to do it again - the King of Worms might offer something a little more potent the next time, perhaps even apocalyptic. As far as I can tell, generally he will gladly grant you gifts with no strings attached, it's just that the gifts themselves are so horrifying it's a matter of whether or not you're willing to accept the consequences of them. I wouldn't be surprised if the next gift when he needs a bit of emergency killing magic is something like a plague that would kill thousands instead of just his target, or something along those lines.
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Oct 13, 2016 22:38
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Bound was.. sure something. I'm still amazed that this started off as such a Dresden Files ripoff and then the series became.. this. That cliffhanger, though!
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Apr 8, 2017 01:27
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Druggeddwarf posted:Finally burned through The latest Alex Verus, and sweet Jesus, for a slow meandering book with no real over-arching plot, what a great ending. Yeah, it had a bit of the 'middle book of a trilogy' syndrome in that it was mostly continuing plots from previous books without wrapping very much up, but I didn't mind the slower pace - it was mildly refreshing having him not be in immediate mortal danger for 85% of the book, for once.
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Apr 10, 2017 10:46
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immoral_ posted:The Nathan Temple series that keeps showing up on my Facebook feed wasn't bad. Kind of like Dresden, except rich and an rear end in a top hat. I saw this too a couple months ago - I managed to get through about four pages before throwing in the towel. He's too douchey and immature.
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Apr 25, 2017 07:19
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torgeaux posted:[quote="Ornamented Death" post="472655747"] I thought the first book was good, but a little uneven, and it really gets into its stride after the first book sets things up. But this is actually true for most urban fantasy, really - it's always just a bit awkward at first getting people to buy into the supernatural stuff and the main characters, because if you take a step back and look at the actual premise of many of these books they're pretty silly and comic-book-y, but once they get their footing and you stop caring about the little things (just like comic books) they tend to become much more enjoyable. The number of UF books without at least an awkward first couple chapters if not entire first book is relatively small.
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May 24, 2017 04:16
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I find a lot of UF has an awkward start, even if it gets better later. Book 1, especially the first third of it, was pretty rough. Pax Arcana didn't hit that critical mass of awkwardness for me that makes me unable to finish reading it and as i got past the start I stopped caring any more. There's a lot of UF that's just too bad and never stops being cringy, though. The Vesik series, which is inexplicably popular, comes to mind as just extremely bad.
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Dec 23, 2017 10:13
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Aerdan posted:
I can't turn it off. As such, my retension for books is.. extremely bad - I'm one of those people that can read a butcher book in 3-4 hours as well. On the plus side, I can reread many books that aren't incredibly memorable years later and it's like a new book all over again!
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Mar 29, 2018 23:31
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Most speed-reading techniques actually harm comprehension and retention of the material.
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Khizan posted:I liked how that all worked out. He genuinely did not want to kill them and he went to some extreme lengths to avoid killing them. Then when it became clear that somebody was going to have to die to settle this, he very professionally set them up and took them out. Very clean, very ruthless. He's not a bad guy protagonist in the same way Faust is, though - sure, he's unusually ruthless and pragmatic for a UF protagonist, but he doesn't really cross as many lines as Faust. Faust is more of a likeable bad guy that just happens to be in a world where there are almost no 'good guys' in a supernatural sense so it's inevitable that he ends up clashing with people much worse than even him. Verus is ruthless and sometimes selfish but ultimately after he cut off ties with his master he's mostly only really 'guilty' of retaliating against poo poo other people started, and being a bad friend sometimes. He's somewhat of a bad person, but not a 'bad guy'. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Apr 16, 2018 |
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Apr 16, 2018 11:11
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LLSix posted:Just finished Fated, the first Alex Verus book. It was mediocre until the end which was pretty bad. The fateweaver and the dragon prophecy are so badly written as to be nonsensical magibabble. It's more that the moment people have to actually think about and how they're going to act and make a decision that prediction becomes extremely vague and difficult - but a lot of the time people don't actually really /think/ about what they're going to do - they just do it, it was already decided what they were going to do seconds, minutes, or hours ago, or they're acting on habit or instinct which makes predicting people in a combat situation possible, or interacting with someone who has already decided how he's going to react. Essentially, to completely foil future sight it requires conscious thought about their actions, which people tend to use less than they'd think, especially when fighting or in danger. In a fight, if he sticks his head out, someone who has been waiting for him to stick his head out with a spell or gun ready is going to shoot him 99.99% of the time. There's no thought about that. In a conversation where someone's already decided that they're going to kill you, and nothing you can reasonibly do could convince them otherwise, he can see that. Sometimes using this doesn't work, as he can still only guess the 'probably' instead of the 'definitely' when it comes to people - sometimes acting in ways they didn't expect forces them to change their mind which throws his future-sight completely off track, and having people in the equation tends to be the #1 reason he is incapable of truly long term prediction - At best, he can see people that have already left to go to a place arriving at a destination, since they already made the decision to go and are almost totally unlikely to end up not doing so, barring some sort of obstacle. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 19, 2018 |
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May 19, 2018 15:53
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I feel like in the end though this whole split personality issue wasn't even really that thoroughly resolved - just set back to the status quo, this time with an even bigger, more dangerous Chekhov's gun to be fired in a book or two, since the next time it happens it might be irreversible and all it requires is him to be thoughtless dick like usual and her to feel betrayed for it to happen. Double that onto the fact that he was specifically told that getting that much detail about the future from the dragon changed the future and he can no longer get the ending he might have picked there. I mean, he will probably figure out some loophole... probably, since his powers also involve predicting the future, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended in tragedy.
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Jul 6, 2018 01:22
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The obvious out is that *he* can't become powerful enough to save everyone, but maybe Anne can. Or, if you want to go cliche and very literal all his friends and allies, together, can - sure, he can't single handedly save everyone by himself, but he doesn't have to.
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Jul 6, 2018 03:01
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seaborgium posted:There is one catch to all of these theories about Verus though. The dragon said that if he sees the context, it's stuck. No chance to change it. Whatever out he may have had before he asked for clarification may very well be gone. Still, with that kind of thing you have to be a literal genie - there's a loophole in those words, even if not as big of one as he might like.
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Jul 8, 2018 10:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh just to catch up this post -- 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.
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Dec 21, 2018 03:22
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Exmond posted:I just finished Murder Of Mages, it reminds me a lot of the pacing in an Alex Verus book. It takes place in old 1820's, no tech, no cellphones or etc, and mages exist but they aren't the focus. Instead, it deals with two detectives trying to solve a murder. It's actually set in the same world.. and city, as his earlier series - I read the first two books in Thorn of Dentonhill and they were entertaining if a bit cheesy at times. He's apparently written a lot more books in the same setting since the last time I looked, though.
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Aug 23, 2019 12:06
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Exmond posted:Ohh, what type of book is Thorn Of Dentonhill? It looked a bit like a high fantasy novel. That's the cheesy part - it's a student in a magical academy that decides to become a vigilante. Apparently the final book in the series which I never read is a crossover with the murder of mages series.
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Aug 24, 2019 04:29
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I didn't much care for Anita Blake 1 or 2, not because they were bad, but because they read a little limp and there were more than a few anti-climaxes. It read like a draft that needed a solid punching up. Fortunately UF and paranormal romance/erotica have split pretty heavily into their own genres/niches on amazon - for the longest time I had to look at any UF book written by a female author with a house sized grain of salt, because even if it looked moderately promising at first it'd turn into suuuper creepy werewolf/vampire alphas/soulmates crap. Now there's at least some decent ones, even if they're not the top authors.
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Oct 13, 2019 23:47
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EVGA Longoria posted:This thread kinda has issues with romance in their books. And as soon as you mention a werewolf love interest, hoo boy. There's romance, and there's super-creepy borderline or not so borderline abusive/rapey magical boyfriends but it's all OK because their ~inner wolf~ said it was ok and they're ~soulmates~. Actual romance has very little to do with the kind of stuff that's popping up in the paranormal romance genre.
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Oct 15, 2019 04:01
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Wizchine posted:Is that supposed to be a reference to the Mercy Thompson series? I thought this misreading was laid to rest. I've never read Mercy Thompson but this is extremely common still - it's just the amount of other varieties of urban fantasy has exploded over the years. Mercy still seems like it's dancing around it even if it doesn't become as incredibly creepy as some, though.
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Oct 15, 2019 10:18
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