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So I'm getting close to the end of Dead Beat and I accidentally cracked my E-Reader oh god help me I'm having withdrawal symptoms OH GOD WHAT DO I DO I'M FREAKING OUT MAN. (Polka will never die)
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Sep 12, 2014 22:54
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Apoffys posted:The fifth book, "Foxglove Summer", is set to be released on November 13 (at least that's when I'm supposed to get the Kindle edition). Oh good. Penguin is doing their usual poo poo with British books and the US market. Jan 6 in the US.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:59
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fordan posted:Oh good. Penguin is doing their usual poo poo with British books and the US market. Jan 6 in the US. You can order it from Amazon.co.uk and they'll deliver to the US.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:19
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Renegret posted:So I'm getting close to the end of Dead Beat and I accidentally cracked my E-Reader oh god help me I'm having withdrawal symptoms OH GOD WHAT DO I DO I'M FREAKING OUT MAN. Kindle? Use the cloud reader and you can read it on any PC.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:30
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ConfusedUs posted:Kindle? It was one of those old discontinued Sony E-Readers. I've ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite to replace it and signed up for Amazon prime because why the hell not. At least my e-reader was kind enough to crack leaving the page number visible so I can continue where I left off! I have all the books backed up on my PC anyway through Calibur so once it comes I can continue where I left off.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You can order it from Amazon.co.uk and they'll deliver to the US. paper... books? And yeah, I could jump through hoops and buy the kindle book from there too, but it's £7.49 November vs $6 in January in the US store. And $6 is about the level of interest I retain in the series. Was a lot more grumpy when they did it to Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam and that was like 6 months. Just don't see why it makes sense to do that.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:40
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fordan posted:Was a lot more grumpy when they did it to Terry Pratchett's Raising Steam and that was like 6 months. Just don't see why it makes sense to do that. Why does the publishing industry do anything? On a similar note; why does amazon charge insane shipping costs from the US to Australia, when I can buy the exact same books from thebookdepository (which is OWNED BY AMAZON) and get free shipping, and often a cheaper title price?
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Sep 13, 2014 02:40
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Renegret posted:It was one of those old discontinued Sony E-Readers. I've ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite to replace it and signed up for Amazon prime because why the hell not. At least my e-reader was kind enough to crack leaving the page number visible so I can continue where I left off! I have all the books backed up on my PC anyway through Calibur so once it comes I can continue where I left off. If i remember correctly Calibre has a way to read using the program on your pc.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:11
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Oroborus posted:If i remember correctly Calibre has a way to read using the program on your pc. Oh yeah it does, I just don't like reading books on my PC because I'm a big whiny baby. The Kindle will be here soon enough anyway.
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Sep 13, 2014 05:09
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Renegret posted:It was one of those old discontinued Sony E-Readers. I've ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite to replace it and signed up for Amazon prime because why the hell not. At least my e-reader was kind enough to crack leaving the page number visible so I can continue where I left off! I have all the books backed up on my PC anyway through Calibur so once it comes I can continue where I left off. Ah yes, the Soft Calibur, the Holy Software.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:22
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darth cookie posted:Why does the publishing industry do anything? On a similar note; why does amazon charge insane shipping costs from the US to Australia, when I can buy the exact same books from thebookdepository (which is OWNED BY AMAZON) and get free shipping, and often a cheaper title price? Half the time when I order stuff from nongerman amazon due to significant price differences, it is still shipped from the german warehouses, and I am still charged international shipping.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:45
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I just got done reading Bill the Vampire. It is far from good, but it is a lot of fun. I figure I would just suggest it in here because this thread has turned into the unofficial Urban Fantasy Discussion House.
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Sep 13, 2014 21:31
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p0zer posted:I just got done reading Bill the Vampire. It is far from good, but it is a lot of fun. I so wanted to like it. But, the constant, "all vampires have to do this...except you!!!" And "no vampire can do this...except you!!!" Just killed it for me.
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Sep 13, 2014 22:46
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p0zer posted:I just got done reading Bill the Vampire. It is far from good, but it is a lot of fun. I know it's :goodreads: but uh: 
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Sep 13, 2014 22:54
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SystemLogoff posted:I know it's :goodreads: but uh:
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Sep 13, 2014 23:28
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Whoa. That part of the book read to me as if he was just having an odd train of thought that could take you down a trail that may wind up with you thinking "then maybe a horse could be the pope". I did not read it as a statement of "I think a horse can be the pope".
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Sep 14, 2014 22:01
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Outsiders talk: I'm really worried that the series will jump the shark once the focus shifts more to the fight with Nemesis. I'm sorry Jim, all-powerful existential threats to all life as we know it that converts all in it's wake aren't interesting, and will probably drag a series down. I'd think that the Vord would have told you that. Cold Days is the first book where they take center stage, and it was even weaker than Ghost Story in my opinion. I'd be completely dismayed at this point if Skin Game hadn't been pretty loving great. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see how dragging Harry into some epic cosmic war for the fate of reality, in some kind of pivotal role as a "starborn" (  ) will make for good stories.
Geisladisk fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 23:25
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Geisladisk posted:Outsiders talk: Sorry, but I think you're out of luck there. There's nowhere else for the story to go, especially considering Butcher's said on numerous occasions that the series will end with an apocalyptic trilogy. And I don't think that that's a bad thing - it all depends on the execution. And the problem with the Vord, in my opinion, isn't that they're this all-consuming threat to existence. It was more the Vord Queen doing a mix of the Pinocchio "I wanna be a real girl" thing and "What is this emotion you Humans call 'Love.'" I don't think he'll take that route with Nemesis.
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Sep 15, 2014 00:16
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Fighting nemesis has the potential to involve anyone at all as an antagonist. It's an interesting conceit.
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Sep 15, 2014 07:52
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Cold Days is really, really good. It's also an incredibly important book. Changes was the first book in a three-part trilogy that changed the nature of the series. Changes cut Harry's ties to his previous life as a professional wizard. All the physical things that made Harry who he was were gone. Harry's been held back, in many ways, by those things. His lovely apartment. His crappy car. His dusty office. His magical crutches. Bob. Harry relied on these things, depended on them, and built his life around them. Ghost Story forced him to look inward. Harry had to own up to who he was, look at the results of his actions, and move on. Ghost Story is a radical shift in tone from the previous 12 books; the conflict is mostly internal. The Corpsetaker plot is secondary in importance to the real story: Harry isn't who he used to be. At this point, Harry has nothing to fall back on. His life, as it was before, was over. All his stuff is gone. All his friends think he is dead. Harry struggles back to life to find that he is no longer the man he used to be. In Cold Days, we find Harry struggling with his new identity, or lack thereof. He's a new creature. He doesn't want to be the cold-hearted killer that Mab intends to make of him, but he's not the self-appointed magical sheriff of Chicago either. In the midst of this identity crisis, he uncovers Nemesis. This gives Harry a purpose, one that he can use to re-shape himself. This new Harry thinks bigger than Chicago. He must. Harry is now the Warden of Demonreach. He's the bane of outsiders. He's Nemesis's nemesis. This new Harry is built upon the ruins of the old. He's been rebuilt. Better. Stronger. Faster. Thew new Harry has to touch base with his old network. It wouldn't make sense to dump the existing characters. Murphy, Thomas, Michael, Butters, and Molly are all pillars of the series. Harry doesn't forget them, but he does re-forge those relationships over the course of the book (and a bit into Skin Game). Molly is no longer his apprentice. Murphy is no longer the unrequited love. Butters is no longer a scared weakling. They've grown and changed every bit as much as Harry. Same faces, new stories. Cold Days is the most important book in the series since Grave Peril. It has set a new foundation for the meta-narrative. The old stories are, with a few exceptions, done. It's a whole new ball game. I encourage you to look beyond the Nemesis plot. That aspect of the new Dresden in its infancy. We've seen naught by signs and portents. The real meat and potatoes is how Harry forges a new life amidst the ruins of the old.
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Sep 15, 2014 08:19
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ConfusedUs posted:- snipping a very very good post on why Cold Days is important -  It's also pretty evident in Skin Game that we are dealing with a different Dresden. I think that a lot of the players in said game, old faces and new, are expecting the old Dresden, one barely ahead of the game and struggling to put pieces together, instead of a more empowered, more certain Dresden. He does even more planning ahead than before, which (as he has noted himself), is the mark of any wizard worth their circles. He catches them by surprise, and he doesn't stop long to pat himself on the back. And while it all started in Changes, he would not be capable of half of it, mentally speaking, without Cold Days.
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Sep 16, 2014 03:01
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ConfusedUs posted:Cold Days is really, really good. It's also an incredibly important book. But this is all a weakness going forward not a strength. Dresden, local do gooder was what was lovable. Dresden superhero in supervillain universe may be entertaining, but it's no longer Dresden. It's not growth (as a story) it's radical change. I enjoyed cold days, but it wasn't improvement. It wasn't as bad as ghost story (Jesus, the star trek nerd crap sucked so hard), but it was a step back from the best. And sadly, I think you're right on where we're going, but I'm going to miss the urban fiction that was harry Dresden.
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Sep 16, 2014 13:20
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torgeaux posted:But this is all a weakness going forward not a strength. Dresden, local do gooder was what was lovable. Dresden superhero in supervillain universe may be entertaining, but it's no longer Dresden. It's not growth (as a story) it's radical change. I enjoyed cold days, but it wasn't improvement. It wasn't as bad as ghost story (Jesus, the star trek nerd crap sucked so hard), but it was a step back from the best. And sadly, I think you're right on where we're going, but I'm going to miss the urban fiction that was harry Dresden. Depends on what you mean by Dresden. If you mean the Dresden who is only concerned about his little bubble of Chicago and gets chumped by vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and fairies, then yeah, it's not Dresden anymore. That Dresden hasn't been around since at least Dead Beat, if not Death Masks. If you mean the Dresden who is basically wizard Peter Parker, who protects people from the things that go bump in the night, who has a moral code that gets bent, battered, and bruised but never broken, then that Dresden is still here, and has been since Storm Front. His opponents may have gotten an upgrade, but the core of who Harry Dresden is hasn't changed. Besides, for me at least, a 20+ book series with a continuous plot that didn't up the stakes would be highly disappointing.
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Sep 16, 2014 14:15
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torgeaux posted:But this is all a weakness going forward not a strength. Dresden, local do gooder was what was lovable. Dresden superhero in supervillain universe may be entertaining, but it's no longer Dresden. It's not growth (as a story) it's radical change. I enjoyed cold days, but it wasn't improvement. It wasn't as bad as ghost story (Jesus, the star trek nerd crap sucked so hard), but it was a step back from the best. And sadly, I think you're right on where we're going, but I'm going to miss the urban fiction that was harry Dresden. The books were never not going to transition out of the Supernatural P.I. temple. It's been known for a long time now that the plan from the start was to gradually ramp up the stakes, scale and power level of the plot and characters. I can understand if you don't like it, but it really shouldn't come as any kind of shock at this point. Additionally I'm not sure the the original premise of the books could have sustained the twenty or more novels planned for the series.
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Sep 16, 2014 14:33
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torgeaux posted:But this is all a weakness going forward not a strength. Dresden, local do gooder was what was lovable. Dresden superhero in supervillain universe may be entertaining, but it's no longer Dresden. It's not growth (as a story) it's radical change. I enjoyed cold days, but it wasn't improvement. It wasn't as bad as ghost story (Jesus, the star trek nerd crap sucked so hard), but it was a step back from the best. And sadly, I think you're right on where we're going, but I'm going to miss the urban fiction that was harry Dresden. Sounds like its just not for you anymore.
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Sep 16, 2014 14:36
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Skippy McPants posted:The books were never not going to transition out of the Supernatural P.I. temple. It's been known for a long time now that the plan from the start was to gradually ramp up the stakes, scale and power level of the plot and characters. I can understand if you don't like it, but it really shouldn't come as any kind of shock at this point. Additionally I'm not sure the the original premise of the books could have sustained the twenty or more novels planned for the series. Harry Dresden vs. Heironymous Bosch. Who is written by the better author? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Bosch and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dresden EDIT: Never noticed Harry Dresden's name is listed on a billing sign in The Prestige. That's pretty cool. Some Pinko Commie fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Sep 16, 2014 |
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Sep 16, 2014 17:24
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Skippy McPants posted:The books were never not going to transition out of the Supernatural P.I. temple. It's been known for a long time now that the plan from the start was to gradually ramp up the stakes, scale and power level of the plot and characters. I can understand if you don't like it, but it really shouldn't come as any kind of shock at this point. Additionally I'm not sure the the original premise of the books could have sustained the twenty or more novels planned for the series. It'd be nice if someone was writing a series that was just "noir wizard PI", similar to the early Dresden books. There are a few authors who seem to be trying it (Glen Cook's Garrett PI, Simon R Green's Nightstalker) but somehow the execution never quite comes together.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:50
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MildShow posted:And I don't think that that's a bad thing - it all depends on the execution. And the problem with the Vord, in my opinion, isn't that they're this all-consuming threat to existence. It was more the Vord Queen doing a mix of the Pinocchio "I wanna be a real girl" thing and "What is this emotion you Humans call 'Love.'" I don't think he'll take that route with Nemesis. Speaking of Codex Alera, the problem with the Vord was that they were boring as hell. The Canim and the politics surrounding the First Lordship were far more interesting but they get shunted aside in favour of generic doomsday bugs.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:01
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Scintilla posted:Speaking of Codex Alera, the problem with the Vord was that they were boring as hell. The Canim and the politics surrounding the First Lordship were far more interesting but they get shunted aside in favour of generic doomsday bugs. Eh, I'll mildly disagree there...the vord thread ended up driving a lot of those politics, and while the DBZ battle at the end of the series was a hair tonally inconsistent with the rest of the series, I think the vord worked as an escalated threat and ended up being the source of a lot of good plot points, like Invidia's whole arc.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:38
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torgeaux posted:But this is all a weakness going forward not a strength. Dresden, local do gooder was what was lovable. Dresden superhero in supervillain universe may be entertaining, but it's no longer Dresden. It's not growth (as a story) it's radical change. I enjoyed cold days, but it wasn't improvement. It wasn't as bad as ghost story (Jesus, the star trek nerd crap sucked so hard), but it was a step back from the best. And sadly, I think you're right on where we're going, but I'm going to miss the urban fiction that was harry Dresden. You should check out the comics. Some of the early ones were pretty meh, but War Cry has been good so far.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:49
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jivjov posted:Eh, I'll mildly disagree there...the vord thread ended up driving a lot of those politics, and while the DBZ battle at the end of the series was a hair tonally inconsistent with the rest of the series, I think the vord worked as an escalated threat and ended up being the source of a lot of good plot points, like Invidia's whole arc. Ha, my opinion is pretty much the complete opposite. I think Invidia massively outstayed her welcome and should have died at the end of Captain's Fury, a victim of her own methods.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:51
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Scintilla posted:Ha, my opinion is pretty much the complete opposite. I think Invidia massively outstayed her welcome and should have died at the end of Captain's Fury, a victim of her own methods. The only character worse than Invidia is Isana. I hated both of them, but at least Invidia eventually gets her comeuppance.
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Sep 16, 2014 20:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It'd be nice if someone was writing a series that was just "noir wizard PI", similar to the early Dresden books. There are a few authors who seem to be trying it (Glen Cook's Garrett PI, Simon R Green's Nightstalker) but somehow the execution never quite comes together. I think it's because that setup just doesn't work. As soon as the supernatural is introduced, things inevitably start to ramp up because reading about a perfectly static supernatural world is boring. And the more things ramp up, the more the author needs to introduce someone that's "behind it all," so to speak, otherwise they risk wrecking their readers' suspension of disbelief. A more workable approach would be to start the series much earlier in the protagonist's life so that the author allows more time to muck about with "weaker" antagonists. Aaronovitch is doing a pretty good job of this with his series so far.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:07
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I think it's possible to do, you just need to be a world that (no offense intended to any writers) is more clever than the kind of world you usuall see in urban fantasy. Instead of being bigger and more dangerous you really have to be more unusual and creative and put a lot of time and effort into a weird wild worldsetting that welcomes constant new but not necessarily increasing dangers. I think to some degree the 'structured' magic systems hurt this. Every time you introduce a magic system with a lot of hard rules you inevitably start breaking them and when you break them it leads to a gradual power creep to keep up.
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Sep 17, 2014 01:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It'd be nice if someone was writing a series that was just "noir wizard PI", similar to the early Dresden books. There are a few authors who seem to be trying it (Glen Cook's Garrett PI, Simon R Green's Nightstalker) but somehow the execution never quite comes together. The Garrett books started in 1987 and were always Raymond Chandler + Rex Stout + Vietnam. In some of them you can even tell exactly what works are being mined (Old Tin Sorrows, Book 4, is very specifically The Big Sleep). They didn't suffer from power creep so much as Cook running out of ideas along the way.
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Sep 17, 2014 02:41
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Rumda posted:Sounds like its just not for you anymore. No, they're just less good, that doesn't mean bad. And, the argument that the supernatural forces the escalation isn't correct. It's like saying the Matthew scudder books have to leave NY and stop being p.i. stories. Supernatural protagonists growing in power isn't neccesary , it's lazy. If you have a 20 book story arc planned, and it's part of it, great, not necessarily my cup of tea, but good for you. If you laurell Hamilton it, though, that's a different story. torgeaux fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Sep 17, 2014 |
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Sep 17, 2014 02:43
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I'm reading "Midnight Riot" ("The Rivers of London" if you're in England) and my gosh, Ben Aaronovitch's writing is so much better than Butcher's. Man, I'm having serious buyer's remorse right now with "The Dresden Files". Oh, and Aaronovitch looks like the gooniest grandpa  
Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Sep 17, 2014 |
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Sep 17, 2014 06:04
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Eh, it's not really a case of better, more different styles. I enjoy the River's of London books, but I find them really dull at the same time. I could drop the series and not really care about the fates of the characters, but reading them does pull me in.
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Sep 17, 2014 06:17
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torgeaux posted:No, they're just less good, that doesn't mean bad. And, the argument that the supernatural forces the escalation isn't correct. It's like saying the Matthew scudder books have to leave NY and stop being p.i. stories. Supernatural protagonists growing in power isn't neccesary , it's lazy. If you have a 20 book story arc planned, and it's part of it, great, not necessarily my cup of tea, but good for you. If you laurell Hamilton it, though, that's a different story. What does "Laurel Hamilton" mean as a verb? I'll be damned if I'm going to read her books to find out -- the covers put me off when I worked at a bookstore.
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Sep 17, 2014 07:08
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Grundulum posted:What does "Laurel Hamilton" mean as a verb? I'll be damned if I'm going to read her books to find out -- the covers put me off when I worked at a bookstore. Anita Blake (the main character of one of Laurel Hamilton's series) gets a new superpower (usually by having sex with someone).
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Sep 17, 2014 10:12
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