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Old Kentucky Shark posted:That's not as bad as the narrator for the October Daye series who, eleven loving books into the series, still hasn't learned how to pronounce "geas" correctly. I tried to read the first Daye book because the InCryptid stuff is fun, but it seemed like mostly the main character gets knocked around a lot and then falls backward onto the solution with her very convenient plot power. Does that get better?
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May 25, 2018 16:40
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Exmond posted:Hmm, the first book is the roughest in the October Daye series, the writing improves. As for "convenient plot power" it does improve, and then gets worse as they explain what exactly her power is. Her powers start to play a bit more in the series but gives her some drawbacks as well. They don't magically solve problems in the climax, (like the Kate Daniels series) but they do get mentioned and used. That kinda sells me on it right there. Not the least of why is because Amazon keeps spitting these recommendations for dreadful harem romance urban fantasy books at me.
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May 25, 2018 18:35
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:It gets better as the books go on and the weirdness factor escalates greatly (as does October's power level), but it's never what I'd call amazing, and the mystery element is always the weakest part. On the other hand, it never gets as goony and embarrassingly trashy as a lot of urban fantasy either, and the expanding circle of supporting characters are mostly pretty awesome and inventive. There's a karaoke night in one of the books with sea witches and bridge trolls that's honestly pretty great. That sounds nice. I do read the writer's InCryptid stuff, and that's never really A Thing there either. Her first two main leads settle down with a significant other pretty quick and the third is more interested in being on the run and not caught by a powerful monster hunting group, although she does have the odd hookup. However, never in them did I read about a woman getting all hot and bothered because her werelion lover shared a Quarter Pounder With Cheese with her, because that is a sign of lion love. (The woman herself is a werecheetah, and cheetahs hunt their own stuff regardless of gender but whatever.) So that's nice.
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May 26, 2018 00:03
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Robot Wendigo posted:The series or the first novel? Just the first novel. I wasn't even really that unsold, but I figured if that was the pattern for the series I'd find something else to read.
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May 28, 2018 01:48
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Molly shows up in this collection of short stories called 'Bombshells' which is focused on female leads. I swear every other page has her playing 'WWHDD?'
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Jun 12, 2018 16:15
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Waltzing Along posted:Are any of the women not hot or old? Isn't Butter's werewolf girlfriend hot? So, yeah, not that I can recall. Vateke posted:Molly playing "WWHDD" feels extremely in character to me, so I don't see the problem. See, I more wanted to read about Molly and not about Harry being the Poochie. (One can add that you can get that in the regular series, if they feel the need.)
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Jun 14, 2018 03:55
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I dived a bit into the first book of the Junkyard Druid series. I can have a fine old laugh at 'Colin McCool' but for a series that wants really hard to be progressive, the first two women we get are A) his partner a sexpot who femmes all the fatale and B) his best friend a supposedly shy fae girl with giant hooters.
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Jun 18, 2018 01:45
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I want to like the Dresden Files, but mostly I just remember that Murphy had to shimmy around without her pants on.
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Jul 27, 2018 19:55
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jivjov posted:I've found it clicks home with some people when they read some of the short stories that are from a different character's POV; especially when that character talks about Harry I might try that. The only one I read was one of Molly's, which talks about (sigh) The Rack and spends it all wondering What Would Harry Do? (Blast harder.)
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Jul 28, 2018 00:31
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Decius posted:Wondering WWHD is super in character for Molly though? Also boring to read about and with even dumber attempts at humor than usual.
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Jul 28, 2018 04:33
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I wonder now if there's a UF series about a Columbo type, who's both talented but pretty much a decent sort.
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Nov 3, 2019 17:55
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Hub Cat posted:Molly kind of falls into a fantasy cliche and its sort of hmm... it could easily turn bad depending on how Aaronovitch resolves it. There are certain perils to having two prominent characters in UF named Molly. For a second I thought people were talking about Carpenter.
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Nov 5, 2019 01:20
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Hub Cat posted:I try to avoid talking about Molly Carpenter itt because its not worth the aggravation, but I should probably make sure to note the books I'm talking about in posts. It's fine, I just didn't read closely enough. That's on me. I don't particularly blame you, either. I recently read the short story where she and her friends talk about 'The Rack' and... yeah.
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Nov 5, 2019 01:42
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Has anybody read Rachel Aaron's Minimum Wage Mage? It looked pretty good from the Amazon snippet. I'm also kinda tempted by her series about a dragon, even if 'Heartstrikers' is a goofy name.
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Nov 5, 2019 16:41
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Yak of Wrath posted:You are kinda proving Khizan's point by making a strained Stalin analogy rather than giving concrete examples of Marcone's status as a serious villian. He helps Dresden and saves children in pretty much every appearance while his crime empire is made more efficient by minimising human suffering, the guy could probably pick up and wield a Sword of the Cross in the next book and I wouldn't bat an eye. It is hard to imagine Marcone busting out somebody's business because they couldn't pay their gambling debts or beating somebody up for being late with the vig.
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Nov 8, 2019 16:37
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I'm currently on book four of the Heartstrikers series so I guess I'm enjoying it. It does sidestep a lot of my irritations with UF stuff - the leads do gain in power but in the base of the male lead it's not physical power and mostly he just blunders through things in an entertaining way by being as nice as possible in a giant family of cutthroat dragons. In like 90% of fights he's in he gets his teeth kicked in. The female protagonist is a good mage, but no world-conquerer, although she does kind of also luck into something that boosts her beyond her means. Didn't realize they were stealth Shadowrun novels, but that's hardly a bug.
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Nov 11, 2019 16:41
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Aerdan posted:I don't think I've ever encountered a "$setting but for/with adults" thing that was actually any good. They do tend to cut themselves on all The Edge they're trying to show.
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Feb 9, 2020 17:58
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Is Harmony Black the one where I should skip the first novel?
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Feb 20, 2020 13:52
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ConfusedUs posted:I can’t believe it took me this long to start InCryptid, but I’m now six books in and I love them. I feel they reach peak InCryptid when you get to Alice's books but it's a good time until then.
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May 18, 2023 06:07
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What's the power level progression like?
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May 22, 2023 23:50
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ConfusedUs posted:Incryptid has good horny straight dudes. And not straight dudes. And not dudes. Even the old people manage because of reasons to be young and hot.
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Sep 21, 2023 00:52
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Soonmot posted:Now, the Incryptid books, those had me fast forwarding through some poo poo. Amusingly one of the reasons I like the InCryptid stuff over other UF is the romance is so toned down comparatively.
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Mar 9, 2024 05:09
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Blamestorm posted:Honestly the world has also changed since he wrote the earlier books - don’t get me wrong, the creepy elements were creepy then and creepy now, but I think the skeeviness of stuff like the White Court, the Winter Knight rape fantasy stuff etc is all vastly more out of tune with the times than a couple of decades ago. It was much more common in sci fi and fantasy literature but discourse around toxic masculinity, sexual violence and consent has evolved and I think there is a wider expectation (rightly) it should be more sensitively handled these days. Basically I think a lot of Dresden has dated badly. Wasn't there a time Murphy had to lose her jeans while trying to shimmy through a narrow place?
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Apr 24, 2024 12:29
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