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I actually really enjoy that the books are "police procedural with supernatural elements" rather than the other way around, but I do agree that Whispers Under Ground is probably the weakest in the series.
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Jun 10, 2015 14:22
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I think that the White Court's (or Papa Raith's, at least) ties to the Outsiders alone mean they're in it for the long haul.
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Jun 11, 2015 11:01
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Is it time for the semiannual Murphy Was Completely Justified In Fool Moon rant again?
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Aug 4, 2015 23:31
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I thought Ascher was a cool and interesting character (and notably one of the few women in the entire series to offer even a token objection to Harry ogling her) right up until the Lasciel reveal. And even then, I think the problem was more with Lasciel being reduced to a WHY DON'T YOU LOVE MEEEEEEE SCORNED WOMAN SMASH caricature than with anything to do with Ascher. It didn't really fit with the way Lasciel had been described in the series up to that point, and certainly didn't square with what we saw of her as Lash. Though the reason Ascher turned warlock being that she was a rape victim because, broadly, That's What Happens To Women wasn't exactly Butcher's finest hour, I guess. And yeah, the way the narrative treated her was kind of creepy at times. But I still thought she was a good character.
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Aug 5, 2015 18:06
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I liked The Rook for the most part, but I felt like it fell completely apart toward the end. Still interested enough to read the next one whenever it's finally released.
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Aug 14, 2015 20:27
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What if Harry never decided to work for Nick Angel? Without the detective angle, he never meets Murphy, probably never meets Michael, never really forges the connections he has in the mundane world.
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Sep 24, 2015 15:51
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Rygar201 posted:Not every reader reads every series. Dresden has done it too, IIRC Besides, dude's written twenty-some books. I'd be more surprised if he didn't repeat himself occasionally.
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Oct 12, 2015 05:09
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Drifter posted:John Ford's The Last Hot Time is fuckin' fantastic, however. Ford also wrote How Much For Just The Planet, the best Star Trek novel there ever has been, or ever will be.
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Oct 16, 2015 03:23
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Drifter posted:Never having read any star trek novels, is it good standalone, or are you saying it's good like how the best Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance novel is good, but still mostly poo poo compared to real books. I'm saying it ends with a pie fight, is what I'm saying.
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Oct 16, 2015 03:38
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Dr. MonkeyThunder posted:I forget where I read it so it might be WOJ but Luccio is really interested in computers and computer theory. If she never gets adjusted enough to her new body to start making swords again, she might be in a good position to start making magical computers or interfaces. I want to say it comes up in Turn Coat, but I am not 100% positive.
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Dec 2, 2015 13:37
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flosofl posted:Plus the Eebs were last seen being swarmed by goblins. They dead. And if not, I don't think you can dodge curses by being Faerie. Counterpoint: Which is more likely, that the Eebs are one-off villains who get unceremoniously killed "offscreen", or that they show up later down the line hungry for vengeance at the worst possible moment for Harry? Of course they're still alive.
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Dec 11, 2015 15:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:At some point I hope someone writes an article about the Catholic Church in fantasy. Whenever authors need an exorcist or a Real Priest, they're always a catholic, even when the author's own background isn't. I am tangentially reminded of the wonderful scene in Paul Cornell's London Falling where the police bring in various clergy to try to get hold of some holy water, and none of the clergy in question (I believe a C of E vicar, a rabbi and an imam) are at all impressed. (No idea if that needed spoiling but I like to err on the side of caution, and also to make my posts read like a redacted CIA document.)
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Dec 11, 2015 20:07
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Apropos of nothing else, I'm reminded of Peter Grant getting on Nightingale's case in the Rivers of London books about "Dude, don't call it black magic" which I thought struck a much better balance between establishing that Nightingale was a decent person of a different time and keeping it all lighthearted. Honestly, from the few times he hasn't ignored social consciousness stuff (that conversation with Titania about gay folks being Exhibit loving A), I'm quite happy for Butcher to continue pretending that racism wouldn't be a thing at all in a gathering of centuries-old people from all over the world.
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Mar 15, 2016 18:19
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I feel like the Star Trek thing absolutely did come up before, though more as a throwaway reference than anything else. (I can't remember which book, but I remember a brief exchange of "you know you can like both Star Trek and Star Wars, right" presented as the continuation of a longstanding argument). Anyway, the first time we met Molly as an adult, she was helping organize a horror movie convention that certainly seemed to focus more on (fictionalized/thinly disguised versions of) 80s and 90s stuff than modern-day work, so her being into Trek as well doesn't feel like that huge a stretch to me. I honestly think that the fact that there are basically no references anywhere to more contemporary pop culture in the Dresden Files (while there are certainly some in-text justifications for this) is more telling than a single character being into something from before her time. It's not really a big deal, certainly not something that makes me think less of the books, but it is kind of interesting.
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Mar 16, 2016 14:03
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Controversial Opinion: Ghost Story is my second favorite book in the series.
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Mar 16, 2016 20:37
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Magres posted:At the same time I feel like Ursiel and Lasciel are staying where they are. Being trapped in Hades' vault is a pretty goddamned tough jailbreak I reckon they're in more-or-less the same situation as the Eebs. So naturally they'll show up again at the worst possible time, because that's what happens to
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Mar 18, 2016 19:47
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It's been a while since I've read Blood Rites but I think its problems mostly don't revolve around the porn studio. Most of the people working on the film were just treating it like a job, maybe a job they were a bit defensive about (which makes sense) but, with the exception of Trixie, none of them felt especially weird to me. Relatively few of those characters were fleshed out in any satisfying way though; you had Insecure Bully dude, Actress With A Kid, Cool Dude, uh, Other Actress, and then there was Trixie, who felt like she'd wandered in from a Looney Toons adaptation of Sunset Boulevard and Filmmaker Stereotype #348 (for all that we got an earful about how he was apparently the most progressive porn director on the planet, the actual character we saw was basically a one-dimensional caricature). But really, the book was just too crowded, and none of the plots really gelled together. The porn star ex-wives murder cult was certainly not enough to carry the book on its own, but as a backdrop for an exploration of the White Court's methods and power struggles, it could have worked. But then we had Let's Kill Mavra and the Kincaid stuff and the revelations about Thomas and Ebenezar, and the introduction of Mouse, and they all felt like separate (decent enough) stories colliding rather than anything that made sense as part of a unified whole. It's not the worst-plotted book of the series (since Proven Guilty exists) but it's definitely weak in that area, and, unlike Proven Guilty, none of the book's relative strengths serve to elevate it enough for that not to be a problem. White Night was like a thousand times better in every respect, but I was so sick of the White Court by then that it was hard to engage with. "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault" remains one of the great opening lines of modern Western literature, though.
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Mar 19, 2016 12:51
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I also really enjoyed the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson, though they're not without their flaws (and the last book was a bit of a mess). Also, in the 'fantasy set in a modern city' urban fantasy corner rather than 'detective fiction with vampires' urban fantasy corner, Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay. (Actually, anything by Kay, he's probably the best fantasy writer working today, but Ysabel is, I think, the only thing he's written that's set in the modern world.)
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Mar 29, 2016 18:06
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Vicissitude posted:Huh. Listening through Ghost Story again and I'm wondering: Was Biana a tool of Cowl, or was she infected by the Nemesis? A valid argument could be made either way. I could see it going any number of ways, but my gut tells me that the Black Council were egging on both sides of the Red Court/White Council war but weren't doing more than nudging either side along.
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Apr 6, 2016 23:07
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Mars4523 posted:Speaking of Dresden, Murphy gets written off as a huge bitch in the first few books when 100% of the problem actually comes from Harry. Yeah. Particularly in Fool Moon, where Murphy acts exactly like a good cop should act when her unreliable outside consultant with possible mob ties knowingly hides evidence in a murder investigation from her. Fool Moon isn't a great book, and that's not a great subplot, but it's not because Murphy is a bad character so much as because the book depends way too much on what I like to call sitcom conflict (where everything would be solved by a five minute conversation that, for absolutely no reason, the two leads don't have until the last minute).
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Jun 29, 2016 19:43
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I can also see Harry getting a lot warier of potions after the "supercoffee" one he used in Fool Moon drat near got him killed and left him nearly powerless for the climax of the book.
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Jun 30, 2016 15:51
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Mandragora posted:Off the top of my head, Tom Deitz wrote a trilogy called the Soul Smith Tales in the 90s that dealt with a family in rural Georgia who had strange powers that mutated and changed from generation to generation. Kind of strange Appalachian folk magic influenced by European hedge witches and the cunning folk tradition that immigrants brought over with them. I haven't read it since I was a young teenager and I can't promise that it's held up well at all though. Are those the books where one of the guys in the family used the first three songs he heard on the radio every day as a sort of Tarot? I loved Tom Deitz when I was in my teens, but like you, I have no idea how his stuff holds up.
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Jul 4, 2016 01:35
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anilEhilated posted:That's more of traditional fantasy, though. Swords, horses, dragons. It's a lot of fun but a bit outside the subgenre. They're kind of an explicit reversal of the subgenre. Noir/crime trappings in a fantasy world rather than fantasy trappings bolted onto a modern detective novel. Anyway, I really enjoy Brust's work (though I'm less fond of the later ones in that series than the first few). Of course if you want a complete departure from urban fantasy, his Phoenix Guards books are one big Dumas pastiche and a hell of a lot of fun.
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Aug 16, 2016 16:15
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I felt like The Rook spent way too long on exposition and kind of descended into incoherence toward the end, but I enjoyed the ride. Also, to whoever originally recommended the Last Policeman books: THANK YOU. They've not been a super-popular read around here, and they certainly aren't perfect, but I really enjoyed Kat Richardson's Greywalker series, especially the couple in the middle of the run where she isn't playing with big apocalyptic plots and just has some neat supernatural private investigator stuff going on.
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Aug 16, 2016 20:52
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:We dont' talk nearly enough about Tim Powers in this thread. Last Call, people. Man, now I have to read Declare again. Oh what a burden.
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Aug 21, 2016 03:20
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Wheat Loaf posted:Anno Dracula. I have heard good things. It's funny, if you described the premise of Anno Dracula to someone (Bram Stoker fanfiction + drat near every other classic vampire book/movie + the author's pet Warhammer Fantasy character + Jack the Ripper thrown into a blender) it would sound dire. It is actually loving fantastic. Its sequels aren't quite as good (though I rate The Bloody Red Baron quite highly) but still well worth reading. (And the third book's alternative title of Dracula Cha Cha Cha is possibly the best title a book has ever had.)
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Aug 23, 2016 17:36
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anilEhilated posted:Let's not forget all the references to period pulp. Seriously, just about every character in that originates in some other book. The one that completely floored me (in a good way) was the Kolchak The Night Stalker cameo. quote:I actually even liked the sequels, although the quality does descend a bit and the last book doesn't really have any kind of ending or climax. Here's hoping we get a book 5 - did anyone do Dracula in space yet? I hadn't actually even realized the 4th book had finally happened. Shows how much attention I'm paying! Wheat Loaf posted:A bit like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, then? League is a great comparison, and based on this, I think you'll dig Anno-Dracula.
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Aug 23, 2016 20:26
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I think the key element to a lot of what this thread talks about when we talk about urban fantasy is the specific addition of noir/crime novel elements. (Like, people call, say, Charles De Lint's and Neil Gaiman's work urban fantasy too, but it's really a different beast altogether.) But really the reason I'm posting is to bring up my favorite 'take every classic horror character and throw them into a blender' novel ever, A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, which you are all directed to go out and read at once.
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Aug 26, 2016 18:11
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anilEhilated posted:I was about to verbosely disagree with the first paragraph but this one rings so true it's all forgotten. To be clear, I don't think urban fantasy has to be Raymond Chandler + Vampires (or Stan Lee + Vampires, for that matter), just that a lot of the usual Similar To The Dresden Files suspects that are discussed in this thread are. quote:Also I finally managed to get my hands on Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather which should be the last two Tim Powers books I haven't read yet. Hooray. I haven't read Earthquake Weather but I remember enjoying Expiration Date a fair bit. I think it was the first Powers I read, actually.
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Aug 26, 2016 18:57
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Wade Wilson posted:In all honesty, a shitload of the Not-Chronicles-of-Amber stuff Zelazny wrote would be right up everyone's alley if they enjoy Dresden and some of the other books we talk about lately. I honestly need to read way more of Zelazny's stuff than I have.
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Aug 26, 2016 20:53
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Call me a contrarian if you must, but I don't really care about any Word of Jim unless those words are contained in books about the wizard Harry Dresden with titles made out of puns. Cowl is Zombie Justin and I don't care what anyone else thinks.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:40
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It just occurred to me that I'd love to see Murphy get a "power-up" of a different sort than folks have been talking about. We've been hearing since the first book about how an organized assault from mortals is the one thing the various supernatural communities fear above all else. I really want to see this particular Chekhov's Nuke go off before the end of the series, and who better to lead the charge than Supervisory Special Agent Karrin Murphy and her FBI Kicking Evil's rear end Taskforce?
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Sep 22, 2016 21:14
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The idea that's intrigued me ever since I heard about the whole Mirror Harry thing is that of a version of Harry who had fewer mortal connections and was in tighter with the White Council. I was thinking that the pivotal moment might have been something prior to the start of the series, but I think it would work well if he elected to sacrifice Susan rather than start a war with the Red Court. He cuts himself off from his friends, he retreats into the Council, and becomes a more conventional (if still outspoken...he's still Harry) wizard but without all his alliances and friendships later on. He basically becomes a member of the Establishment. Not evil, as such, but everything our Harry would hate, and I think that would make for a much more interesting conflict. E. Especially if Mirror Harry ended up as Ebenezar's successor to the Blackstaff.
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Sep 27, 2016 18:57
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ImpAtom posted:Harry Dresden is unironically the kind of dude who would think his kid needs to be homeschooled even if magic bullshit wasn't involved. He's also the kind of dude who could be talked into understanding that he's not up to this particular challenge, especially if it's veteran parents Michael and Charity Carpenter doing the talking. Though yeah, I'd bet the ink isn't exactly dry on the school's charter. It being something organized by the Paranet/whatever's left of the Fellowship of St. Giles/etc. would make a certain amount of sense.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:33
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Wade Wilson posted:Hey, whatever happened to Tera West? Her name's come up once or twice. I think Listens-To-Wind or someone said she told him to tell Harry "hi" once.
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Sep 30, 2016 18:23
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A. Beaverhausen posted:Didn't Fitz and that gang show up first in Summer Knight? About to start on that one for my repeat read through. Fitz and his gang were part of a subplot in Ghost Story, I believe. Not sure what the basis for thinking he's West and MacFinn's kid is, though (and if another loup-garou were running around Chicago, I'd think someone would have noticed by now).
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Sep 30, 2016 20:59
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If anything, Michael's 'nemesis' in Grave Peril is Mavra. He had recently destroyed a bunch of Black Court vampires and she was not too pleased about it. I'll be astonished if Ferrovax doesn't become more significant somehow before the end of the series, though.
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Oct 3, 2016 17:56
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Yeah, not like Harry could be bothered to explain why some things are a bad idea instead of being all "Me Boss, you not, do as I say". Yeah. The entire point of Fool Moon (inasmuch as it had one) is that, while Harry's right about this poo poo being dangerous, he's wrong about keeping people ignorant being the best way to keep them out of danger. (Murphy did nothing wrong)
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Oct 4, 2016 13:51
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My theory for a while has been that Malcolm's spirit works for Uriel in the same way that Murphy's dad does.
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Oct 5, 2016 10:14
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Rygar201 posted:Grave Peril shows you that Bianca explicitly cared for Rachel. Or whatever her name was.
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Oct 10, 2016 00:37
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