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Xiahou Dun posted:There are multiple on-going sequences of joke presents in the family, one specifically targeting him* so I’m hesitant to add more. Your family rules. If he hasn't discovered Effin' Birds yet, I highly recommend the coffee table book and/or the calendar.
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Dec 6, 2022 22:53
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 10:11 |
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It's some years since this thread started, and many years since I started the big Dresden Files threads that ultimately lead to this one. My tastes have changed, a lot. I think Twenty Palaces (always start with the prequel) is my favorite urban fantasy series nowadays. The two recent ones are just great. I was a bit cold on them when they came out, but the addition of the prequel and the self-published follow-ups show that this is the ultimate Series That Could Have Been a Big Deal. But not entirely. I still really like the middle Dresden novels (from Summer Knight through Changes), despite the "she boobed boobily down the stairs" crap. The Jelly Donut is probably my favorite climactic moment from the entire genre. My favorite individual book in the genre remains The Rook. I don't even know how to describe a theoretical book that would top it. The Rook is basically perfect, and its most perfect chapter is the one about the Oracular Duck.
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Jan 24, 2023 18:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I still haven't read twenty palaces -- never started since it was unfinished -- but overall my pick for best UF book is either library at mount char or the first shadow police book. I didn't like the sequels nearly as much but that first one is brilliant and you can imagine a great series following it. I still feel that Library at Mount Char falls really flat after Carol (major spoiler) wins access to the library. The extended denouement just doesn't work for me. It's not bad at all, but the rest of the book is amazing, so it feels worse in comparison than it really is? I've re-read the book twice now, and every time I have gotten partway into that section and just sigh. Also, I liked the Shadow Police but not nearly as much as the rest of the thread. It's...fine? I enjoyed it but don't have much urge to re-visit.
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Jan 24, 2023 18:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Any time you light a fire there's gonna be a pile of ashes at the end. Without the denoument explaining everything (the answers at the back of the book!) there's no story just a series of increasingly wacky events. It's structurally necessary. Oh I agree it's necessary, but also I think it could have been done better. It does too much tell and too little show. It's like an 80-page exposition dump.
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Jan 24, 2023 19:04
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DreamingofRoses posted:I just started on the InCryptid audiobooks. I’m like a third of the way into the first one and I adore the mice. I can’t believe it took me this long to start InCryptid, but I’m now six books in and I love them. They’re dumb and compelling at the same time. I can’t explain it. Why are there so many dance sequences and why do they work? Every Price family member is like three traits in a trench coat, but somehow I love them? The antagonist faction is somehow implacable and incompetent at the same time, but yet I’m always worried about them? Everyone is hot af and horny af, but somehow it’s never skeevy? Also the mice are the absolute best thing. I have no question here. They just own.
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May 5, 2023 23:13
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Soonmot posted:My one complaint is that the books are horribly straight, it gets a little better towards the end, but the only hetero relationship I was at all invested in was Sara and Artie. I actually love Dominic as a love interest because he’s low key hilarious with his super serious vibe. He’s like that paladin from the recent D&D movie
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May 6, 2023 02:14
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Mine isn’t published yet but I have high hopes
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Jul 4, 2023 23:39
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wheatpuppy posted:I am not an audio book fan; I generally read faster than a narrator would speak so I find them slow and frustrating. But awhile back someone suggested thinking of them like a radio play which piqued my interest. So I asked what their favorite book was, and they named a romance novel that they loved because of the way the reader acted out the sex scenes with moans and whimpering. Um. No, thank you. If I wanted to hear someone enthusiastically describing sex acts in between their idea of sexy porno sounds, I would time travel back to my thin-walled college dorm. Go listen to Moira Quirk's reading of Gideon the Ninth and thank me later.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:56
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Incryptid has good horny straight dudes. And not straight dudes. And not dudes. Honestly everyone in the series is young, hot, horny, and (at least in the first half dozen books) not creepy about it at all.
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Sep 20, 2023 04:39
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Yes. Grenade granny is hilarious and awesome. And also young and hot for reasons.
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Sep 21, 2023 01:20
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Liquid Communism posted:I kind of prefer Pratchett's witches, who seem to get their power through being more stubborn than reality and forcing it to conform to their belief in what it should be. That's but one method, predominantly used by Granny Weatherwax and, later, Tiffany Aching. Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, invites reality over for a cuppa, tells it fourteen inappropriate jokes for the setting, and rewrites reality while it's flustered.
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Jan 22, 2024 15:58
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The world could have continued after changes but Harry should no longer have been the main character. Follow Butters, or Murphy, or Molly. Or someone new. Or the Alphas.
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Apr 21, 2024 01:55
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 10:11 |
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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. Dresden was a (and perhaps the) catalyst that invigorated the urban fantasy space. The genre existed before, of course, but there was a heavy slant towards smutty paranormal romance. I don't want to throw out hard numbers, but I feel quite safe in saying that prior to Dresden, the vast majority of what we dub "urban fantasy" was smut fiction with supernatural beings. Butcher came in and gave us something that replaced most of the smut with superheroic action sequences and brooding angst. The books were fun, approachable, and came out at a blistering pace. They sold like hotcakes and quickly spawned a whole host of similar fiction. He proved that (mostly) non-smutty urban fantasy could sell, and sell well. That makes Dresden the bridge across the gap between smutty paranormal romance and non-smutty urban fantasy, two sub-genres that are much, much further apart now than they were when Storm Front and Fool Moon were written. Since that day, other authors have crossed that bridge, and the urban fantasy space has grown and evolved on its own. Dresden, however, is still a bridge that touches both sides of the gap. Butcher could pull up those roots but has chosen not to. Maybe it's because he's got personal hangups about women. Maybe his publisher is risk-adverse and advises him to keep pandering to that audience. Maybe the world has moved on, and he struggles understanding it for some reason. Maybe it's something else entirely. It's probably a mix of stuff. Personally, he reminds me of a lot of people I know here in Oklahoma, who were raised conservative in a rural area, who generally are live-and-let live and have little-to-no hands-on experience with circumstances they have not themselves experienced. They tend to retreat to familiar (often bigoted) stances when challenged directly because they lack the emotional intelligence to work past the initial shock that comes from being challenged on a subject they don't intuitively understand. But whatever the case, I see Dresden as a transitional series that allowed the urban fantasy genre to thrive and grow past its smutty roots. Unfortunately, that makes it a series that feels out of date compared to other urban fantasy. Because it is. Edit: Hell, the noir influences are also problematic, and there's an entire lineage there that also plays into the "Dresden has its roots in some problematic poo poo, yo" that I haven't explored at all. ConfusedUs fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 16:30
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