|
The Sword of Truth is the worst thing ever written by a human being. It's a poo poo sandwich of awful prose, rape fetish, and Ayn Rand wank.
|
#
¿
May 23, 2014 02:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:56 |
|
|
I got the impression that Cowl was playing the role of well intentioned extremist when we first met him. He was willing to use the power of the Darkhollow/necromancy to accumulate enough power to accomplish whatever his real goal was (presumably opposing the outsiders). By White Knight though he's acting like a completely different character, so I think we can assume Nemesis has taken him over. He would have been an easy target after getting blowed up by his own ritual.
|
|
#
¿
May 26, 2014 16:46
|
|
|
Potooweet posted:Why did Nic need to kill his daughter when he had an entire cult of fanatics to sacrifice? Once the sacrifice was complete, the ghost of the sacrificed person still needed to throw the magic switch. So it needed to be someone who would 100% support you even after you murder them. And left them in Hades for all eternity. There was too much risk a random goon would just give Nic the spectral finger after he offed them.
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
Sir Rabia Tirnova posted:Some thoughts : We know that Anduriel can listen in on spoken conversations. Presumably he had Harry under full time surveillance this book, overheard Harry explain the Lash-baby to Murphy, and passed the gossip onto Lasciel. Still, not very well written. Really that goes for all of Lasciel's appearance. For someone nicknamed the Temptress/Webweaver she was as subtle as a sack of bricks. "Surprise, it is I, Lasciel, hiding in this bit-role character. I am a woman scorned." /gets rear end kicked
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2014 00:02
|
|
|
ConfusedUs posted:I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Changes changed most of the patterns, although Denarians is holding strong! Nah, Harry is going to set it off. He'll fatally stab Nicodemius in his black heart only for Nic to dramatically reveal with his last breath that everything he had done in partnering with evil/sacrificing his daughter/obtaining the Holy Grail had been in a desperate ploy to avert the final attack of the Outsiders. And it would have worked too, if only Harry hadn't hosed it up! Queue the final apocalypse trilogy.
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2014 21:47
|
|
|
Khizan posted:I liked the first few books, the ones where Tavi was a magicless man in a magical world and had to get by with cleverness and trickery. Once he got his furies and became an unstoppable force of asskickery, all that kind of goes away. Yes, he has a lot of clever tricks with his furycraft that other people don't think of, but he's no longer the underdog. This was part of the reason the last couple books didn't click as well for me. It went from Tavi being the clear underdog using his tricky mind and grit in order to come out ahead, to Tavi is Goku and he will fly around and summon giant blasts of energy to destroy armies. The scope got hosed up too. It's easier to care about a single city/village fighting for survival against alien invaders than it was to care about 90% of the world getting destroyed by the zerg-borg, and all of the remaining human race packing into one city to fight an endless enemy. The romances were kind of a mixed bag. I actually enjoyed Tavi/Kitai, but Bernard/actiongirl was a weird rugged old guy+young girl romance that felt like it was cut/pasted out of a different story entirely. The tone is also all over the place. Most of the time its lighthearted fantasy, but then it'll suddenly insert mind-slavery collars, rape-slaves, Crucifixion, ritual live cannibalism etc. The whole Marat are all cannibals thing got completely swept under the rug after the first book when the Marat became friendly alien allies.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
tentacles posted:Huh. I'm curious, are there books out there where sex isn't cringeworthily handled? I may have to admit defeat in the face of your authority in this aspect of gritty post-modern urban literature Joe Abercrombie because his sex scenes are purposefully awkward.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2016 22:23
|
|
|
Russad posted:According to the wiki: The non-Raith white court vampires felt kind of tacked on to me. It's easy to imagine how a bunch of Incubi/succubi could act behind the scenes to build power and influence and also keep a bunch of willing human foodsources hanging around their castles. Less so the vampires who feed on fear.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2016 23:55
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:I thought the common practice was No. 10 Downing Street, don't tell me they stopped buying that. 221b Baker Street worked fine for me previously.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2016 22:50
|
|
|
I haven't been following for a while, but did Butcher hit a wall on the Dresden Files? I hope he hasn't lost interest in finishing it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2016 20:50
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:Does he though? Murphys special gun has been talked about at length a few times I believe.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2017 17:08
|
|
|
The Merlin, shortly after revealing the real reason he was a dick to Harry (but has always respected him) was because he cared too much and was ultimately a well intentioned extremist. This will be poignant and Harry will feel conflicted when Merlin heroically sacrifices himself.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2020 21:00
|
|
|
The weirdest thing about the White Court was when the story very briefly expanded them beyond House Raith to include other Houses that feed on different negative emotions like terror. They even had one vampire switch houses. That implies Thomas doesn’t actually need to feed on lust specifically, and could at least try to switch to a less creepy way of existing. But those other 2 families were basically wiped out one book after being introduced and now we’re back to just sex vampires.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2020 18:08
|
|
|
Daric posted:The other emotions are fear, despair, and anger though so is lust really worse than those? One of the incognito vampires was a horror movie director. Hanging around spooky movie showings seems like a less destructive way to exist.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2020 18:39
|
|
|
Proteus Jones posted:He was a hair dresser and found that worked perfectly well. Then he got tortured back into being a rape vampire again. But if you read it with any level of media criticism you realize that nobody forced Jim Butcher to contrive a very specific scenario where one our heroes rapes and murders a bunch of women for character growth but it wasn't really his fault.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2020 23:32
|
|
|
I've heard Ender's Game described as a novel to make you feel sympathetic for someone who unwittingly committed genocide, Thomas is the same idea except murder-rape.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2020 01:54
|
|
|
It's obviously Ramirez, right? In Chapter 1 he showed up to tell Harry about the plot and implies that McCoy sent him to do so. Also Ramirez drafts Harry for Warden guard duty, which he states the Senior Council has given him full control over. Yet just a couple hours later McCoy himself shows up to tell Harry some more about the plot and muse that someone is trying to keep Harry and his allies away from the important vote. It is kind of shifty that McCoy was very evasive about proving his identity to the svartalves and also didn't enter the apartment until Harry gave him permission to do so. So he could be a glamored fairie of some kind. The ectoplasm accident right before McCoy appeared seemed like the author was reminding the audience about the existence of fairie glamors. It would have to be someone pretty knowledgeable about Harry and the council though, like Lea, Molly or Mab. I'm guessing Thomas will be tempted by some evil power to betray Harry in exchange for magical protection of Justine because it will be revealed that a vampire-baby typically kills its mother when born (Harry and Thomas' mom being the rare special exception). Molly would only betray Harry if it was a convoluted fake-betrayal to free him from the Winter Knight role.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2020 23:51
|
|
|
Mab contributes almost nothing of use to Harry but still smugly acts like everything went according to her genius plan after Harry pulls through by the skin of his teeth. Pretty accurate depiction of your typical boss.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2020 14:14
|
|
|
As long as this thread is rehashing the extremely enlightening spoiler debate for the millionth time does anyone have any opinions theyd like to share regarding circumcision or restaurant tipping?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2020 19:46
|
|
|
AppropriateUser posted:Is there an established reason in universe for Dresden not just telling Thomas and Ebeneezer the truth already, or is that to set up drama and tragedy later on in the laziest way possible? Ebenezar is an incredibly knowledgeable and powerful mentor figure. In most stories he would have been killed off early to give the Protagonist room to struggle and grow. Since he wasnt killed off instead he is only allowed minimal time to speak with Harry or even be vaguely present in the story. Also Harry keeps secrets from his allies in general to keep the plot going and generate easily avoided conflict.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2020 20:29
|
|
|
Or in universe: Ebenezer has been constantly too busy with stuff to communicate with Harry.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2020 20:32
|
|
|
It was a pretty good half a story. I feel like moving forward the series would really benefit from killing off a lot of its side characters. So many cameos.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 05:11
|
|
|
Butter's sword (with the very detailed explanation of its functions) certainly seems to be the biggest setup moving forward Since the sword doesn't do anything to mortals but is extremely effective against evil, presumably Butters or Harry will just stab Thomas with it to fix his vampirism
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 13:41
|
|
|
Lara is way too friendly and helpful in this one. Never trust the beautiful woman who is being unusually kind and helpful to a noir protagonist. Ebenezer and the wardens are probably right and Harry is at least partially under her influence.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 17:48
|
|
|
30 TO 50 FERAL HOG posted:These are old so no need to spoiler. But the placard is almost certainly the 10 commandments No the decalogue was on 2 stone tablets, this is a wooden plaque. Its the INRI plaque, latin abbreviation for “jesus of nazareth king of jews”. It like all the others are historical relics related to Jesus’ death.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 21:37
|
|
|
It does seem to get worse the more you think about it. The primary conflict is resolved by Harry and Lara stepping out a side door, taking a shortcut leading them directly to their destination, disabling a single guard, then finding Thomas in a barred but unlocked cell. They then drink a potion and walk out the front door
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 21:59
|
|
|
AppropriateUser posted:The whole thing is probably going to be revealed as some kind of 12th dimensional chess by somebody. Sure, and I'm fine with that. The problem is that this story has nothing else holding it up. All the other plot hooks are unresolved by the end. The main conflict with Thomas resolving itself in a quick fashion with a minimal planning or unexpected complications heist just adds to this story feeling like a book that they split into 2 books purely to maximize revenue. Up Circle posted:The one, single thing that really bothered me the most about the entire novel isn't just the typical cheesecake male gaze poo poo. It's not the plot that just feels "close enough" (and ends by escalating the stakes of the conflict with a paradigm shifting threat that has zero build up). Or even the fact that the Fomor have literally become the same threat the red court represented except without the attachment to the rest of the supernatural world that made the red court feel like they were transgressing on protocols to achieve their mysterious goal. There were actually a lot of parts at the castle that I enjoyed, and it very much reminded me of Grave Peril. Probably on purpose. I almost always like Butcher's politicking and world-building, even if action is really what he's good at. At this point I'm seriously wondering if Butcher isn't just trolling the audience with Butters as a character. The quirky middle-aged balding guy who everyone liked because he showed real courage overcoming his cowardice and weakness to help his friend is pure author wish fufilment character now. He became Batman wielding a lightsaber, holy knight, owner of Bob the Skull, and banging the young hot werewolf lady. In this book he adds another attractive lady to his harem, and loving Michael gives a speech to Harry about what a good and faithful person Butters is (in the context that Butters is emulating Harry, but it's still nauseating).
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2020 23:58
|
|
|
Daric posted:Yeah I can see Jim talking to his publisher and saying “this is where I want to take the story but to do it right it’s going to be quite a bit longer than the other books” and the publisher saying “well just split it up and we’ll do two back to back” Presumably the fact the Butcher has delayed so long since the last one gave the publisher more sway to split this one up. However you look at it though it's a pretty naked cash grab.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2020 01:09
|
|
|
They’re just rubber band difficulty scaling items. They’ll do whatever the plot needs them to do in order to combat power creep.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2020 15:45
|
|
|
I do think it's sort of clever how this novel is handling Harry's dealing with the Winter Mantle. He constantly mentions how the mantle makes him want to fight or gently caress everything in sight. But by focusing on the more obvious emotional effects he largely ignores the degree to which it has made him close-minded and lacking in empathy to almost everyone he interacts with. When Eb points out that living "in the open" under the protection of an inscrutable 3rd party is a terrible idea for Maggie's safety, Harry focuses instead on the personal wrongs Ebenezer did to him by having him raised in foster care. Missing completely that there is a middle path of them both living in safer location such as the Carpenter house (which is probably what will happen eventually). Similarly his conflict with the Wardens could have easily been resolved by just swearing on his power that he hadn't been sleeping with Lara, and then taking their concerns of mind control to heart and later asking Molly to check his brain for signs of tampering as she has done before. All assuming he and other characters aren't just being poorly written to artificially generate conflict. It's hard to judge clever vs bad character writing, especially when you only get half a book
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2020 20:54
|
|
|
And also the book specifically mentions Notre Dame burning down, so uhh timelines.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2020 21:16
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:Not if he fucks it up and uses it as an excuse to make Sanya a literal Magical Negro to help save the day. Maybe he'll reward Sanya with inclusion in Butters' polycule.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2020 21:57
|
|
|
It kind of takes the tension out of giving a character a permanent injury if everyone just assumes the character will die soon and get a better immortal body.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 9, 2020 02:13
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:The series would be loads better if the White Court had been exterminated the same time the Red Court was removed. It is pretty comical how the White Court has been reduced to Lara, Thomas, Lord Raith (when the story occasionally remembers that plotline), and an indeterminate number of other nameless White Court vampires who stand to the side during some scenes and look pretty.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2020 03:09
|
|
|
Battle Grounds was good enough. It certainly suffered a bit from being a divided-book cash grab which messed up the pacing for a couple plot threads Lara and Justine are heavily featured in the first book, then do almost nothing for this book until a hasty conclusion is tacked on for both. Overall I appreciated the quicker nature of the narrative though, you get the impression that Butcher is making an effort to advance the story to its conclusion by closing off extraneous plotlines. Some conflicts like with the White Council feel a little rushed, but I'll take rushed if it feels like we're making progress towards concluding this series. I also appreciated the relative absence of unnecessarily long introductions every time a secondary character is re-encountered. Surprisingly little male gaze from Harry is another nice improvement. Overall I enjoyed it more than Skin Game, and I'm cautiously looking forward to the next installment. It seems like Molly's unrequited love for Harry is still a critical plot point moving forward. Pairing Harry off with Lara seems to be an attempt by Mab to combat this, doubtful it will work though. Similarly Mab's comments about love and hate being the same emotional force, with her own cold logic opposing both, seems connected to her other conversation with Harry that he should kill Molly if Mab dies and Molly is about to become the new Winter Queen. Molly's love of Harry is an emotional weakness that could have catastrophic consequences if manifested in the Queen of Winter who needs to be coldly logical etc. Again, I appreciated the lack of the usual comments from Harry that he finds Molly attractive, but remembers her as a little girl etc.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2020 20:22
|
|
|
He's exactly as strong as the plot needs him to be so that he can be the only person capable of defeating the godtier monster in the third act while simultaneously getting almost killed by a couple mooks halfway through the book. I find the rubber band power scaling becomes especially apparent when you compare his power level to that of his fellow wizards.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2020 15:47
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Wizards are still basically human. Sure if Harry has a fully charged shield bracelet, prepared wizard's staff, fully enchanted trenchcoat, etc., he can go toe to toe with literal gods. But all that stuff requires time and energy so it can't be "always on." Which means that if he's caught flat-footed, any goober with a shotgun can blow Harry's head off. Sure, indeed the story more or less tells us this every book, it just comes across to me as clunky in presentation. The Harry Dresden we have at this moment feels almost identical to the Harry Dresden we had back in Dead Beat with regards to how he interacts with the world despite multiple dramatic "power ups" since then. I think this a result of the series length, it's probably impossible to find a better solution to the power creep problem when you want your series to run 20+ stand alone books.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2020 00:28
|
|
|
hatelull posted:is there a short story or flashback I'm missing of how Harry offed Justin (or why?) It's been forever since I've read those early books and he doesn't get mentioned as much lately. Ghost Story has the first part. Harry goes home from school early looking for Elaine, Elaine looks out of it, Justin gives Harry bad vibes and then throws a spell at him when he's trying to run away. Later Harry holds up a gas station for money, He Who Walks Behind appears and fights with Harry, Harry blows up the gas station to defeat HWWB. (At the time Harry assumed Justin sent HWWB after him and Harry defeated it. Looking back on it though he suspects HWWB wasn't connected to Justin and was just toying with him to assess his powers). That's as far as we've gotten though. We know that after this Harry has his first meeting with Lea, he makes some sort of pact with her for power and protection, then he returns home and kills Justin and burns down the house. We haven't gotten those specific scenes though.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2020 21:47
|
|
|
Everyone posted:I'm not asking for justification. I'm just curious. If I don't like something, I avoid it. I'm not into basketball, so I don't watch it. I don't follow it closely and then write various screeds against it. It just seems odd to me. Maybe they're a professional book reviewer who is required to read the books. I'd just like to know, that's all. Explain yourselves screed writers!
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2020 00:51
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:56 |
|
|
Aerdan posted:Molly-POV Christmas Eve microfic, concurrent with Dresden's Christmas Eve short story and assumes you've read Battle Ground. That was really good. Butcher can hit the emotional notes like few others and he should embrace that aspect more. Sometimes the plot can feel diluted by too many side characters and the pop culture references almost feel like a joyless obligation, but the man can still do the feels really well.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2020 00:41
|
|