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ConfusedUs posted:Turn Coat is a book that I thought was good the first time I read it, but I found it to be great the second time. Yeah, that was the one I started the series with. Picked it up on a trip just to have something to read and was surprised at how it pulled me in.
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Jul 30, 2015 17:47
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Wheat Loaf posted:
I think he more or less said that some were the equivalent of (fallen) angels and taught people how to do some of their abilities. They both have the same name but the Naglioshii is the angel type.
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Jul 30, 2015 19:15
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Dienes posted:Would that make zombies the representation of gluttony?  ) Night of the Living deadThe offshoot comedy versions where people marry zombies, etc, aren't really zombie movies as much as, "hey, remember Weekend At Bernie's?! We could redo it - but BERNIE IS A ZOMBIE!!!!" Khizan posted:The vampire is a sentient obligate humanivore; unlike most other creatures/monsters/etc it doesn't get a 'non-evil' choice like "live in the remote wilderness" or "lock the herd up during the full moon". It feeds off people or it dies and, to make matters worse, it used to be human itself. To me, this kind of choice is inherently interesting and vampires are one of my favorite 'monstrous' creature types because they don't really get an option to be anything less than monstrous; a man's got to eat. Wolpertinger posted:Generation V hardly romanticises vampires, the whole gimmick is that they are the horrible, mostly sociopathic, cannibalistic monsters wearing a pretty skin suit straight out of any horror movie/novel and probably worse than some - but due to the disturbing way they're 'born', they are sort of incubated as a human and the main character is terrified of becoming a sociopathic cannibal like his family. He was raised by humans as a sort of experiment by his mother to see if he could 'get' humans and pass for them better than the rest, but when he got too attached to his parents as a kid, his sister ate them and dragged him home. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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Jul 30, 2015 21:23
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Well that's a hell of a first sentence to start off Changes.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:26
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thrawn527 posted:Well that's a hell of a first sentence to start off Changes.  This is going to be fun.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:38
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Now imagine that you've been waiting, after turn coat, for months. The the author tweets that line. And the book doesn't come out for another six months.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:56
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thrawn527 posted:Well that's a hell of a first sentence to start off Changes. I hope you cleared your schedule to finish it in one go, seems like everyone was finishing it 15min before work.
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Jul 31, 2015 02:28
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Unfortunately I'm visiting family this weekend. So very little free time. 20% in...I picked the wrong time to start this book, didn't I?
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Jul 31, 2015 04:20
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Only if your family expects to see you.
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Jul 31, 2015 04:31
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Alternatively, get the audiobook and you can hang out with them while also ignoring them.
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Jul 31, 2015 04:36
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thrawn527 posted:Unfortunately I'm visiting family this weekend. So very little free time.  you are so hosed man. Take some loooooong bathroom breaks bro. As far as the Skinwalkers go, Navajo and most of the Native American mythology is filled with extremely freaky poo poo. I grew up here in the southwest so I don't think about it but it's always interesting to see the reaction that people from other parts of the US have to the local stories. Also funny is people from the east coast having the complete inability to pronounce the tilde and their subsequent hysterical readings of street signs.
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Jul 31, 2015 11:31
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coyo7e posted:The entire thing just sounds like classic teen angst of "I don't want to grow up to be my dad/mom." Is Generation V on the shelf next to Animorphs and Goosebumps? It's definitely not giving the YA vibe you're imagining. He's a college-age adult for one, the whole vampire thing kicks in very slowly. The thing with his family is they aren't even the villains of any of the books so far, in fact, they're strangely supportive, and sometimes even likeable and sympathetic while at the same time being hella creepy. The arc of the books is less him doing some teenage rebellion against them and more him learning to accept the inevitable on his own terms and getting groomed to take his place in the family business - everyone's scared shitless of vampires so they're pretty much feudal lords divvying up the continent who everyone pays tribute to, so generally the plot of most of the books is him having to fix some problem for his family as bloodlessly as possible before they get annoyed and just kill everyone involved.
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Jul 31, 2015 12:45
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oh well that totally doesn't sound like an entitled-kid power fantasy tied up with the angst of pubescence
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Aug 1, 2015 00:45
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The existential terror of knowing you are destined to be exactly like your parents - not YA
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Aug 1, 2015 03:51
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thrawn527 posted:Unfortunately I'm visiting family this weekend. So very little free time. As tempted as you may be to cheat glances be wary. There is a point of no return in changes. From which you will no longer have the choice to put it down.
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Aug 1, 2015 12:15
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420 Gank Mid posted:As tempted as you may be to cheat glances be wary. There is a point of no return in changes. From which you will no longer have the choice to put it down. Page 2?
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Aug 1, 2015 20:23
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The slip and fall, I think.
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Aug 1, 2015 20:44
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coyo7e posted:oh well that totally doesn't sound like an entitled-kid power fantasy tied up with the angst of pubescence As much as you're bizzarely convinced they're some sort of trashy YA Animorphs-level series (possibly because of the name?), the books themselves aren't anything like what you are apparently imagining. it's just a decent UF series, better than many, including the early Dresden books. The main character isn't a teenager, isn't even particularly angsty , is only somewhat physically stronger than the average human at the start of the series and has no super amazing vampire powers, isn't amazingly attractive or smart or special, and relies on other people to do the fighting in most cases. The main plots are, in the typical UF fashion that has spun off of Dresden, a main character detectiveing some sort of supernatural murder. Some people find those kinds of books fun, presumably, considering we're reading this thread. 
Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 13:19
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..... ......... .....what?
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Aug 3, 2015 02:54
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No seriously, he's dead? What?! Oh hey. Next book is titled Ghost Story? Sure, I don't need to sleep tonight. Hello, Amazon one-click send-to-Kindle purchase. (More thoughts tomorrow. I have reading to do.) The Slithery D posted:The slip and fall, I think. This is accurate. I read just a little this afternoon...and got to the fall...and I just finished the book.
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Aug 3, 2015 03:12
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Wolpertinger posted:As much as you're bizzarely convinced they're some sort of trashy YA Animorphs-level series (possibly because of the name?), the books themselves aren't anything like what you are apparently imagining. it's just a decent UF series, better than many, including the early Dresden books. The main character isn't a teenager, isn't even particularly angsty , is only somewhat physically stronger than the average human at the start of the series and has no super amazing vampire powers, isn't amazingly attractive or smart or special, and relies on other people to do the fighting in most cases. The main plots are, in the typical UF fashion that has spun off of Dresden, a main character detectiveing some sort of supernatural murder. Some people find those kinds of books fun, presumably, considering we're reading this thread. Totally gritty urban fantasy and not YA because - the protagonist is too old for your tastes? I mean, I figured vampires aged slower than humans. He doesn't start with a bunch of powers, so obviously it's not a power fantasy? You may need to do some more reading up on Joseph Campbell.
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Aug 3, 2015 03:31
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coyo7e posted:Me-yow! I occasionally play a game I call "gently caress This Book", where you and friends exchange copies of the cover blurb and decide at what point you reach Seinfeld-nope.gif. With that in mind, I present to you the blurb for Generation V: quote:Fortitude Scott’s life is a mess. A degree in film theory has left him with zero marketable skills, his job revolves around pouring coffee, his roommate hasn’t paid rent in four months, and he’s also a vampire. Well, sort of. He’s still mostly human. I'm out on "Fortitude Scott", "still mostly human", and "dangerous and sexy shape-shifter." For comparison, here's the incredibly badly named Storm Front: quote:For Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name.
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Aug 3, 2015 03:42
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thrawn527 posted:No seriously, he's dead? What?! Just so you know, a bunch of us consider Changes-Ghost Story-Cold Days to be a 3 book arc of the same story so don't think you can stop after Ghost Story  I am glad you enjoyed Changes.
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Aug 3, 2015 03:46
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ulmont posted:I occasionally play a game I call "gently caress This Book", where you and friends exchange copies of the cover blurb and decide at what point you reach Seinfeld-nope.gif. With that in mind, I present to you the blurb for Generation V: Film Degree for me.
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Aug 3, 2015 03:58
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ulmont posted:I occasionally play a game I call "gently caress This Book", where you and friends exchange copies of the cover blurb and decide at what point you reach Seinfeld-nope.gif. With that in mind, I present to you the blurb for Generation V:
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Aug 3, 2015 03:59
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ulmont posted:I occasionally play a game I call "gently caress This Book", where you and friends exchange copies of the cover blurb and decide at what point you reach Seinfeld-nope.gif. With that in mind, I present to you the blurb for Generation V: Yep, totally not a YA novel.  Thanks for posting the summary, I knew nothing about the book except Mr. rose-tinted's opinion, and I'm not greatly caught off guard by it being exactly what I expected.
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Aug 3, 2015 05:22
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Xtanstic posted:Just so you know, a bunch of us consider Changes-Ghost Story-Cold Days to be a 3 book arc of the same story so don't think you can stop after Ghost Story I concur with this point. Once you get into Changes don't stop until you finish Cold Days. Once I got to the what the fuuuuuuck parts of Changes I couldn't stop reading and shrieking like a giddy child at my friends about the things that were happening for days on end.
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Aug 3, 2015 06:19
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coyo7e posted:Me-yow! Three books in, he still doesn't have a bunch of/practically any powers. He's a bit slightly physically stronger, I guess. Vampires don't really have powers other than 'freakishly strong and fast', which comes over the decades/centuries. He gets his rear end beat by most things tougher than a human. coyo7e posted:So we've got "the outsider", who is nearing their own personal coming of age - yet hasn't fully embraced, accepted, or learned his own powers! - takes up "a quest" which the general group he's familiar with cannot/won't take up, and which they don't feel he can overcome.. He meets a magical sidekick and goes through a small training montage to make the most of his unique powers - even if his opponents have the same powers and are more practised, he's got a secret weapon to beat the odds! Because back-cover blurbs are totally representative of the book. Hell, are they even written by the author? Because I'm pretty sure that wasn't. The 'sexy sidekick' is more of a second main character and is treated way, way, way, better than Susan was in the early dresden books (who was pretty much just a sexy sidekick) considering that suzume is considerably more competent, smart, and useful than the main character for most of the first book, and the author never goes into detailed descriptions of her tits or how amazingly hot she is (unlike dresden), and is more of a slightly irritated bodyguard hired by his family. There's no 'training montage' and he has no unique powers or secret weapon and is in fact mostly a pushover that's pretty much as close as you can be to a normal human dealing with supernatural beings that could beat the poo poo out of him, and solves things with talking in the majority of cases. Dunno why you got such a hate-on for this book, Sure it's an urban fantasy book and not high literature, but if you looked at brief summaries of Dresden (and not poorly written back cover blurbs) with the same overly cynical eye, Dresden would honestly come out poorer for many of the books. The main character of Dresden is a loner rejected by his peers, but has special powers and is the chosen one and is really the strongest wizard ever! He has many magical and/or sexy sidekicks, and beats overpowering enemies with a trick up his sleeve or a secret weapon to beat the odds!! Clearly, this means that Dresden Files is YA and belongs next to Goosebumps. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 07:56
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Fort's secret weapon is... a Colt .45? It's not particularly secret, although I suppose it is a weapon. Actually, there is a training montage, and it's pretty great. The gist of it is: gently caress the Marquess of Queensbery. gently caress, coyo7e, you'd be less of an annoying poo poo if you actually said something that indicated you'd read the book. Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Aug 3, 2015 |
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Aug 3, 2015 08:00
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coyo7e posted:So we've got "the outsider", who is nearing their own personal coming of age - yet hasn't fully embraced, accepted, or learned his own powers! - takes up "a quest" which the general group he's familiar with cannot/won't take up, and which they don't feel he can overcome.. He meets a magical sidekick and goes through a small training montage to make the most of his unique powers - even if his opponents have the same powers and are more practised, he's got a secret weapon to beat the odds! When you put it like that, it does sound a bit formulaic. On the other hand, this is a thread about Harry Dresden, a wizard PI. Also, doing something like this: Wolpertinger posted:It's just a decent UF series coyo7e posted:(referring to the above quoted Wolpertinger post) Totally gritty urban fantasy makes you look like a poo poo.
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Aug 3, 2015 08:03
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Instead of arguing about a book series I havent read and how it is obviously terrible based on a blurb and a cover image I just got the books and read 2 of them. They arent half bad, the concept is somewhat cliche but the writing isnt bad, definately early butcher levels at least, and the characters are pretty well written and the dynamic between them is pretty good. Despite looking like generic trash from a casual glance I would happily recommend these to someone.
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Aug 3, 2015 10:04
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Sounds less young adult and more the heroes journey, which is a story archetype as old as humanity itself. Just because a book is about coming of age doesn't make it young adult. One could argue that asoiaf started out so the heroes journey, and even early on it was apparent that it was not young adult.
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Aug 3, 2015 10:27
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coyo7e posted:Me-yow! Not gonna lie, you sound like a complete dipshit
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Aug 3, 2015 14:19
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Gen V is a fun series. It isn't amazing, but it is readable and has almost nothing that makes me feel embarrassed. It's better than Storm Front and Fool Moon, which can be very embarrassing in a bunch of ways, but not better than Grave Peril onward, where embarrassing is reduced to just the occasional sex scenes or descriptions of women and overall quality skyrockets.
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Aug 3, 2015 15:34
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Veiled, the next Alex Verus novel, is out now.
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Aug 4, 2015 18:23
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Using the same naming scheme as the Iron Druid series isn't really doing him any favors.
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Aug 4, 2015 18:27
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ConfusedUs posted:Veiled, the next Alex Verus novel, is out now. Fearless, which is Pax Arcana #3, is out next week.
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Aug 4, 2015 18:27
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anilEhilated posted:Using the same naming scheme as the Iron Druid series isn't really doing him any favors. I find it really hard to remember the one-word titles in both series, and it's even harder for me to remember which events happened in which book because of it.
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Aug 4, 2015 18:31
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ConfusedUs posted:Veiled, the next Alex Verus novel, is out now. Also His Father's Eyes, the second Justis Fearsson book. (Has anyone read the first?)
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Aug 4, 2015 19:19
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A day late, but yeah, Changes was fantastic. I know I'm not saying anything most of you don't already know, but the book just kept blowing me away with all the, well...changes...to the established series he kept hitting me with. First his office is destroyed. Then his car. Then his house. Then his loving back. Then Susan! Then the entire Red Court! Then himself! It was a brilliant way of playing with my expectations, since with a book titled Changes, I was expecting some crazy stuff. But all that did was set me up for the shocking end. Seriously, he basically cleared the table of any crutches he may have been leaning on, so I have no idea where the series is going to go from here. Wonderful stuff. And I'm hard pressed finding characters that are still alive who didn't show up here. Michael, and um...Elaine...that's all I can think of at the moment. It felt like a goodbye before jumping into something new. Wonderful book. Just wonderful. Can't wait to see what happens next. Also, gushing about it to people yesterday, I convinced two new people to give the series a try, one of which is now half way through the first book. Gotta pay it forward.
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Aug 4, 2015 19:28
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