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rndmnmbr posted:I like Tybalt, so I'll give him a pass. I remember loving the first three Anita Blake novels. Tough, snarky, cool female protagonist dealing with weirdness and murder. Then it went from an initial love triangle to some kind of hosed up polyamorous male harem stuff in a "Wow. That escalated quickly" way. I vaguely remember getting slapped down/banned on Charlaine Harris message board after posting how I wished Hamilton would go to Vegas, hire a bunch male hookers and have a big ol' gangbang so she could get it out of her system and out of her books. Speaking of Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse books have a lot of romance/sex in them but at least Sookie has one partner/lover at a time. I bought the first three of the Dresden Files books together, which was good. If I'd just bought the first one I probably wouldn't have bother to continue the series. The first one is kind of clumsy with a few cool bits and a few make you cringe bits. The second is okay. The third one is great and was definitely what sealed the deal for me on continuing the series. Everyone fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 15:54
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The only stuff from the first 2 books that ever really shows back up is the wife of the bad guy in the first book and questions around who was doling out wolf belts to FBI agents. Everything else after 1 & 2 is good, with Dead Beat being the best.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:I am an extremely ADHD reader (i'm currently reading like ten books) and I like starting new things, so this isn't so much hell as a happy experience getting to know new things and deciding if I want to bother picking up the sequels. UF is nice in that I can breeze through it in a few days and use it as a counterbalance to heftier works. Oh boy, Book # 1 always has problems. Bitten has, well alpha wolf mcrapey stuff, Dresden has the love potion stuff, October Daye has paranormal romance X1000 in it. If I stopped reading at book #1 I would have missed out on a lot of great series.
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Oct 13, 2019 17:30
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I didn't much care for Anita Blake 1 or 2, not because they were bad, but because they read a little limp and there were more than a few anti-climaxes. It read like a draft that needed a solid punching up. Liked Mercy, spun on my heel and threw myself out the nearest window when I heard where the next few books go. Liked Magic Bites, lost interest when I learned it was going to lean hard into the romance part. This isn't really a female author thing, so much as it is a 'romance sucks in every UF I've ever read' thing. It's boring or shallow or just too Gary/Mary Sue, or it reads like a problematic edgefest written by GRRM in Crow make-up. I say this as someone who loves Nora Roberts novels. I'd love to see more vaguely believable or compelling relationships in UF.
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Oct 13, 2019 19:15
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I didn't much care for Anita Blake 1 or 2, not because they were bad, but because they read a little limp and there were more than a few anti-climaxes. It read like a draft that needed a solid punching up. I never read any true Nora Roberts books but I used to read some of her JD Robb In Death series. Basically Eve Dallas in a police detective in a futurist procedural series. But. But this pretty cool concept and protagonist has Roarke, a romance novel cover handsome billionaire who comes off as Fabio crossed with Tony Stark. And this character is just welded awkwardly onto what is otherwise pretty decent sci-fi crime fiction.
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Oct 13, 2019 19:30
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Necrotizer F posted:I never read any true Nora Roberts books but I used to read some of her JD Robb In Death series. Basically Eve Dallas in a police detective in a futurist procedural series. But. But this pretty cool concept and protagonist has Roarke, a romance novel cover handsome billionaire who comes off as Fabio crossed with Tony Stark. And this character is just welded awkwardly onto what is otherwise pretty decent sci-fi crime fiction. I invite you to imagine how awkward it is to take a road trip to a performing gig with an older non-family couple who enjoy listening to audiobooks, and the sex scenes in this series come up. Thank god for earbuds and podcasts, is all I can say.
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Oct 13, 2019 23:04
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I invite you to imagine how awkward it is to take a road trip to a performing gig with an older non-family couple who enjoy listening to audiobooks, and the sex scenes in this series come up. Oh yeah. Before I finally just quit reading them I eventually took to the "fast-forward" reading method. During the filming of Good Morning, Vietnam, the script would be written with normal dialogue and direction until the time came for a scene with Robin William's character getting on the radio. Then whole pages would be replaced by the statement "Robin does his thing" as Williams unleashed a torrent of hilarious improvisation. I felt that something like that was needed for this series. Just pages of police procedural with occasional action scenes interspersed with pages of the book replaced by "Eve and Roarke are loving. Again."
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Oct 13, 2019 23:14
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Exmond posted:Oh boy, Book # 1 always has problems. Bitten has, well alpha wolf mcrapey stuff, Dresden has the love potion stuff, October Daye has paranormal romance X1000 in it. If I stopped reading at book #1 I would have missed out on a lot of great series. You say this, but Mercy Thompson's book 1 was pretty promising, and Cast in Shadow is perfect, and so far Dante Valentine 1 is solid. Book 1s give me a good snapshot of what to expect from an author and the characters, I find. It at least tells me if the writing is garbage (Greywalker for example, I tried that but wowie the writing was flat flat flat.)
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Oct 13, 2019 23:22
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I didn't much care for Anita Blake 1 or 2, not because they were bad, but because they read a little limp and there were more than a few anti-climaxes. It read like a draft that needed a solid punching up. Where do the next few books of Mercy go? There's like, zero romance in Mercy 2 (that I saw) Magic Bites has a romance, but it's a slow burn, doesn't become a thing until like, book 3-4 and I felt it was well-written. If you want UF with no romance, try the Cast in Shadow series by Michelle West/Sagara.
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Oct 13, 2019 23:23
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StrixNebulosa posted:Where do the next few books of Mercy go? There's like, zero romance in Mercy 2 (that I saw) While I agree that Patricia Briggs leans way too hard on rape as a plot point, one thing I like is that early in the Mercy series she flatly refused to do an Anita Blake-style love triangle. Part of the creep factor in book one is that the publisher insisted on multiple possible love interests . But once Mercy picks one, the others basically go "darn guess I will start looking elsewhere now".
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Oct 13, 2019 23:34
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:I didn't much care for Anita Blake 1 or 2, not because they were bad, but because they read a little limp and there were more than a few anti-climaxes. It read like a draft that needed a solid punching up. Fortunately UF and paranormal romance/erotica have split pretty heavily into their own genres/niches on amazon - for the longest time I had to look at any UF book written by a female author with a house sized grain of salt, because even if it looked moderately promising at first it'd turn into suuuper creepy werewolf/vampire alphas/soulmates crap. Now there's at least some decent ones, even if they're not the top authors.
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Oct 13, 2019 23:47
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wheatpuppy posted:While I agree that Patricia Briggs leans way too hard on rape as a plot point, one thing I like is that early in the Mercy series she flatly refused to do an Anita Blake-style love triangle. Part of the creep factor in book one is that the publisher insisted on multiple possible love interests . But once Mercy picks one, the others basically go "darn guess I will start looking elsewhere now". oh. Oh I'd already blocked out that rape pops up in the next book. I've been warned about it twice and my brain is determined to not know that. 
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Oct 14, 2019 00:10
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StrixNebulosa posted:Magic Bites has a romance, but it's a slow burn, doesn't become a thing until like, book 3-4 and I felt it was well-written. I tried this series out and I thought it was horrible. It felt like the kickass magic mercenary lady was constantly getting in over her head, and that she always ended up having to be saved by her Millionaire Super Alpha Pack Leader Boyfriend, even in the early books where he was just a Millionaire Super Alpha Pack Leader Obvious Love Interest. Super disappointing. StrixNebulosa posted:There is something very very very jarring about how Dresden is one of the most popular UF series, if not THE most popular UF series and the first book doesn't just have the love potion thing in it, it also has Harry breaking into a dead woman's house and sleeping in it It's worth noting that the first Dresden book was released in 2000. I didn't find the series till it was on book 4-5 or so, but I was ~18 back then and I just honestly didn't care enough about things to find things like that bothersome. Also, the Dresden books were really the first modern UF series. Nowadays there's plenty of options in the genre, but back then there wasn't really anything else like it. Sure, the Anita Blake books had been running for ~7 years at that point, but they always had a big reputation as sexy vampire romances, and by the time the Dresden Files came out they were headed straight into 'vampire erotica' territory.
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Oct 14, 2019 00:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:oh. Oh I'd already blocked out that rape pops up in the next book. I've been warned about it twice and my brain is determined to not know that. I suggest you read it anyway. Briggs version of the fae is really developed in this book (significantly better, more nuanced take than Butcher). When you get to the dinner scene with the antagonist, skip to the aftermath, which is also plot important going forward.
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Oct 14, 2019 01:26
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It's weird but by and large I find myself just not enjoying Fae plots in urban fantasy (or even regular fantasy) stories. I think the only fae I've ever really liked was The Man With The Thistledown Hair from Jonathan Strange.
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Oct 14, 2019 01:31
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ImpAtom posted:It's weird but by and large I find myself just not enjoying Fae plots in urban fantasy (or even regular fantasy) stories. I think the only fae I've ever really liked was The Man With The Thistledown Hair from Jonathan Strange. As a rule, me either. I genuinely like the fae in Briggs work.
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Oct 14, 2019 01:37
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The only good fae story was the brief mention of Mab in Romeo & Juliet.
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Oct 14, 2019 01:39
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Khizan posted:I tried this series out and I thought it was horrible. It felt like the kickass magic mercenary lady was constantly getting in over her head, and that she always ended up having to be saved by her Millionaire Super Alpha Pack Leader Boyfriend, even in the early books where he was just a Millionaire Super Alpha Pack Leader Obvious Love Interest. Super disappointing. That's... not what I got out of the series. She needs saving a few times but like, not constantly. But okay: if Kate Daniels isn't for you, it isn't for you, no biggie. Khizan posted:It's worth noting that the first Dresden book was released in 2000. I didn't find the series till it was on book 4-5 or so, but I was ~18 back then and I just honestly didn't care enough about things to find things like that bothersome. As a fellow teenager who tried Dresden, there were reasons I haven't read the entire book until now, because it's so drat sexist. I know I'm an outlier here, but christ almighty I don't like to put up with sexism in my reading. I would kill for a UF genre map/timeline because of things like War for the Oaks, Gossamer Axe, the Sonja Blue series. I want to trace the evolution of the genre leading up to its crash, and perhaps in time I'll put it together myself out of desperation. I love how it evolved out of horror and fantasy kind of at the same time. I love how it merged with paranormal romance, because a genre with women writing for women! Yes! And then of course the rebound against that - I have suspicions about its crash. And then there's the Twilight element. And the OP is kind of a reaction to that, too - it recommends mostly the dude-centric stuff, the direct Dresden Files stuff, not the Anita Blake or Mercy Thompsons or anything by Lilith Saintcrow. And I'm not asking it to rec those things, but acknowledge that there's another angle to the genre. (which yes, I suppose it does by mentioning October Daye, but that's not the only one out there) torgeaux posted:I suggest you read it anyway. Briggs version of the fae is really developed in this book (significantly better, more nuanced take than Butcher). When you get to the dinner scene with the antagonist, skip to the aftermath, which is also plot important going forward. If I'm stupid enough to read Dresden 1 and plan to read Dresden 2, I can make it through Mercy 3. Soonish. ImpAtom posted:It's weird but by and large I find myself just not enjoying Fae plots in urban fantasy (or even regular fantasy) stories. I think the only fae I've ever really liked was The Man With The Thistledown Hair from Jonathan Strange. The Fae have a distinct flavor and set of rules to them so they're kind of like vampires but not in how capricious and vicious they are, and I always get nervous when protagonists mess with them. Which means I'll get to be nervous when I read October Daye 1, haha. Apparently that series has a lot of fae in it.
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Oct 14, 2019 01:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:
It helps a lot to view Harry Dresden at the start of the series as a teenager, with book 1 and 2 as a bad phase that he grows out of.
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Oct 14, 2019 02:04
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Gnoman posted:It helps a lot to view Harry Dresden at the start of the series as a teenager, with book 1 and 2 as a bad phase that he grows out of. Butcher's own take on Harry is that he's "wizard Spider Man." Great power. Great responsibility. And the universe likes to poo poo on his life. And like Spider Man he starts out as an immature male "teenager" with all that that implies. In real life Butcher wrote Storm Front around 1996-1997 while taking a writing class, though it wasn't published until April of 2000. Fool Moon came out in January of 2001. Grave Peril came out in September of 2001 and shows a lot of improvement. There's certainly some set-up and world-building in the first two books and they introduce important characters, but you could easily start the series with Grave Peril and not miss much.
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Oct 14, 2019 03:58
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StrixNebulosa posted:I would kill for a UF genre map/timeline because of things like War for the Oaks, Gossamer Axe, the Sonja Blue series. I want to trace the evolution of the genre leading up to its crash, and perhaps in time I'll put it together myself out of desperation. I love how it evolved out of horror and fantasy kind of at the same time. I love how it merged with paranormal romance, because a genre with women writing for women! Yes! And then of course the rebound against that - I have suspicions about its crash. And then there's the Twilight element. And the OP is kind of a reaction to that, too - it recommends mostly the dude-centric stuff, the direct Dresden Files stuff, not the Anita Blake or Mercy Thompsons or anything by Lilith Saintcrow. And I'm not asking it to rec those things, but acknowledge that there's another angle to the genre. (which yes, I suppose it does by mentioning October Daye, but that's not the only one out there) What do you mean by the crash of the genre? As for the other, I feel like this thread has always been more about weeding out the stuff like Anita Blake and Mercy Thompson, because of their reputation for veering into weird rapey vampire/werewolf pseudo-erotica. I did pick up one of Saintcrow's series on a Kindle sale(Kismet? Something like that), and while I was not super impressed, that was mostly because I didn't like the characters. I'd probably give her another try on a different series, and I'd also comfortably include her in the OP along with Kate Daniels. I may not have much cared for them, but I definitely never got that "this is a thinly veiled vampire porno" feeling that I get from reading Anita Blake plot summaries. As an aside, another series from a woman author that I did like was Mindspace Investigations by Alex Hughes, but that's been on a long hiatus, no idea when and if it will ever be picked up again, and I'd be comfortable recommending that one as well, with the caveat that it may never be finished. StrixNebulosa posted:The Fae have a distinct flavor and set of rules to them so they're kind of like vampires but not in how capricious and vicious they are, and I always get nervous when protagonists mess with them. Which means I'll get to be nervous when I read October Daye 1, haha. Apparently that series has a lot of fae in it. October Daye is all fae. No vampires, no werewolves, no wizards. Just lots of various types of fae and half-fae. However, it's not about mortals interacting with the fae so much as fae interacting with other fae. Off the top of my head I can only name two recurring characters who are completely mortal, and neither of them are main characters. Khizan fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 06:20
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Necrotizer F posted:but you could easily start the series with Grave Peril and not miss much. I'll be honest, I was 100% ready to drop Dresden after Grave Peril. I decided to give it one more book, and Summer Knight finally fully clicked for me - specifically the scene where Harry finally drops the juvenile mysterious wizard act and clues Murphy in all the way. It also helps that Death Masks is by far my favorite book in the series. "Remember. God sees hearts, boy."
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Oct 14, 2019 06:50
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Khizan posted:What do you mean by the crash of the genre? I still don't understand this take on Mercy Thompson. It's like a game of telephone or something.
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Oct 14, 2019 09:30
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Wizchine posted:I still don't understand this take on Mercy Thompson. It's like a game of telephone or something. This thread kinda has issues with romance in their books. And as soon as you mention a werewolf love interest, hoo boy. Not that Mercy Thompson doesn’t have its issues. The second book is a kinda hosed up. But again, presented as horrific thing with repercussions, not a shock value or sex thing. EVGA Longoria fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 12:04
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I've just re-read the first five Dresden books in the last couple of weeks. Harry has a clear progression in them, in terms of advancing his social skills. This comes across as FAR more deliberate than I recalled from memory. He starts off as your typical goony incel shut-in, convinced of his own superiority and completely unable to deal with real life in general (and women in particular). By the end of book 4, he's starting to realize that other people can actually be competent, even women (gasp). In fact, this book beats him (sometimes literally) with the fact that Women Are Good At Stuff Too, You Idiot. He fully clues-in Murphy (who promptly wrecks some monsters), is outwitted by the Ladies, and Meryl kicks his rear end. He also learns that not all authority figures are bad, takes the Alphas out on a mission, and pulls through his guilt and baggage from his two failed relationships. Book 5 continues this trend and attacks the other side of his chauvinism by having the bad guys use his soft spot for women against him. Repeatedly. Every single villain in the book uses it against him. Nicodemus even says he's targeting this weakness, specifically. Out loud. I find Dresden's foibles bearable from book 4 on, personally. He never really grows out of being a goon, but he does make strides over time. He evolves. He's very much a two steps forward, one step back sort of character, with occasional backslides into poor behavior.
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Oct 14, 2019 15:35
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ConfusedUs posted:He starts off as your typical goony incel shut-in, convinced of his own superiority and completely unable to deal with real life in general (and women in particular). I take some issue with that characterization. Harry doesn't disdain or resent women, which seems to be the hallmarks of an incel. He's protective of them to the point of chauvinism at worst, but he never comes across as "Hey, I'm a nice guy. You should gently caress me because I'm a nice guy. Why won't you gently caress me, you bitch? I'm a nice guy!" Harry sees himself as someone who uses his strength to protect the weak. He just starts off mistakenly categorizing most women as "the weak." He learns better and very much grows as a person throughout the series
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Oct 14, 2019 16:28
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And to be honest a lot of that is trauma driven. His father was a mostly well meaning dude who died when he was very young and then he got raised by a psychopath who tried to kill him (and he thinks did subvert and kill his girlfriend) then by a man who was born in the 1700s and lives like a hermit. You could make a pretty strong argument a lot of the chauvanism is tied to Elaine specifically and how Harry feels like he failed her/that she was weaker because Justin got control of her. And a lot of his issues start being resolved once he meets her again and comes to grips with her not being dead and having built her own life.
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Oct 14, 2019 16:42
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Yeah, well, anybody that would gently caress their adopted sister is pretty hosed in the head.
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Oct 14, 2019 17:33
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rndmnmbr posted:I'll be honest, I was 100% ready to drop Dresden after Grave Peril. I decided to give it one more book, and Summer Knight finally fully clicked for me - specifically the scene where Harry finally drops the juvenile mysterious wizard act and clues Murphy in all the way. I stopped at Grave Peril because it was loving miserable and awful in every way, and so were the books before it. Gnoman posted:It helps a lot to view Harry Dresden at the start of the series as a teenager, with book 1 and 2 as a bad phase that he grows out of. Isn't Harry 25 years old in Stormfront? StrixNebulosa posted:As a fellow teenager who tried Dresden, there were reasons I haven't read the entire book until now, because it's so drat sexist. I know I'm an outlier here, but christ almighty I don't like to put up with sexism in my reading. Yeah this is the reason I couldn't keep going. I tried real hard, too. Necrotizer F posted:I take some issue with that characterization. Harry doesn't disdain or resent women, which seems to be the hallmarks of an incel. He's protective of them to the point of chauvinism at worst, but he never comes across as "Hey, I'm a nice guy. You should gently caress me because I'm a nice guy. Why won't you gently caress me, you bitch? I'm a nice guy!" No, in the first several books he just seems to not give a gently caress about women unless they're someone he wants to bone. And even then, his careometer seems firmly tuned to how hot he deems the woman to be. Like he might see himself as someone who uses his strength to protect the weak, but it's more like he uses his strength to protect whoever he wants to bone. This is only reinforced by the 'Dresden O Vision' or whatever that goes on whenever he meets a female character for the first time. He refuses to help his student at all, which gets her killed in an incredibly predictable way. "Hey I need to your help so I can properly do this magic circle to protect me in this job I'm already intending on doing." "No." because somehow refusing to help is suppose to stop her from trying anyways. I'm pretty sure he gets the girl killed in Grave Peril too because he's uninterested in her. He isn't particularly interested in saving the teenage girls at the vampire party and pretty much looks down at them. Though I guess we were intended to write them off as even Michael doesn't seem all that interested in them. Never mind that his idea of helping Murphy and Susan is to tell them as little as possible and hope they don't stumble into anything dangerous where having the advice of a 'magical geek' would come in handy. Even though Murphy's line of work is specifically dangerous supernatural stuff.
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Oct 14, 2019 17:51
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EVGA Longoria posted:This thread kinda has issues with romance in their books. The genre also tends to be really weirdly conservative. I've worked in libraries for most of my career, and I'm not sure I ever crossed paths with an urban fantasy series with a LGBT protagonist (bar the odd male author wanking about a female protagonist who boinks other women but their only actual relationships are with men).
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Oct 14, 2019 18:11
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New Schaefer out. It's Harmony Black but it's the first thing in the Faustverse since poo poo WENT DOWN in Wisdom's Grave and he claims it's a bit of a reboot for her (including a switch to third person, I think?).
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Oct 14, 2019 18:13
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Cythereal posted:The genre also tends to be really weirdly conservative. I've worked in libraries for most of my career, and I'm not sure I ever crossed paths with an urban fantasy series with a LGBT protagonist (bar the odd male author wanking about a female protagonist who boinks other women but their only actual relationships are with men). The only UF I can think of with a queer main character is Gossamer Axe and that's from the early 90s.
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Oct 14, 2019 18:18
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Kchama posted:
He is - but his attitudes are closer to that of a moody teenager - which (as mentioned by everyone above) is a pretty plausible place for a lot of his attitudes to be at given his upbringing. As for the rest of your arguments, there's so little accuracy that they aren't worth refuting, but I'll try. He refuses to help his student in Full Moon leading to her death. He does so for very good reason - the containment system she is building is needed to perform acts which are probably beyond Harry's ability, let alone hers - he doesn't realize that she's simply trying to contain something that's already present, because she refuses to tell him. He think's she's trying to summon something that should not be summoned, and assumes (quite reasonably) that she's smart enough not to do so if she can't build the necessary containment. It is no different from a physics student coming up to a professor and asking for help designing a failsafe system for nuclear reactor - that student shouldn't be building a bomb at all, and the professor is completely right to refuse to help with it. After skimming Grave Peril I can't find any female fatalities at all, but there are two women that Harry goes through hell to save - one of which is just some random woman looking for help. Either you're thinking of a different book, or (more likely), you're making things up to justify your position. Yes, he did screw up by not telling Susan and Murphy (along with almost everybody else who tries to help him or intervene in the supernatural, such as the Alphas) what was going on in an attempt to discourage them from poking their nose in. This is an acknowledged character flaw and a big part of his personal growth is overcoming it.
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Oct 14, 2019 18:25
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Dresden generally goes to stupid lengths to protect women and children its pretty trite actually. Kim seemed mostly so Butcher could have Dresden do a bunch of self-flagellation and it just came off as really self centered and annoying more than anything to me. I think a big thing that would be nice is if Dresden wouldn't leer at all women and have inner thoughts ranking how hot they are especially when they are actively trying to kill him. Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 18:42
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The conclusion I came to a long time ago about the Dresden books is that Harry has some unfortunate chauvinistic attitudes when it comes to women, that this is deliberate and deliberately presented as a character flaw by Butcher, but that Butcher is not entirely free of unexamined (one presumes) baggage himself. Kim Delaney (Harry's student) in Fool Moon is actually a great example of this. Harry chooses not to help her with the containment circle for her own good (and I don't actually think this is directly a sexist attitude on his part; I can't imagine him giving that help to a male student of his either, not at that point in his life), and it ends up directly resulting in her death, and indirectly resulting in Harry being completely on the outs with the law for most of the book (because he's also been keeping his police detective friend in the dark for her own good). To the extent that Fool Moon is about anything, it's about DON'T KEEP PEOPLE IN THE DARK FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, YOU IDIOT. This is all part of a very deliberate presentation of Harry as a fuckup. (But since he's also the narrator, and a rather unreliable one at that, he doesn't realize he's hosed up until it's much too late.) But it's also one of many examples of murdering a woman in a story specifically and solely to motivate the male protagonist in some direction. It's a very common cliché in adventure fiction, and people have (very correctly) criticized it at length before.
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Oct 14, 2019 18:56
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docbeard posted:Kim Delaney (Harry's student) in Fool Moon is actually a great example of this. Harry chooses not to help her with the containment circle for her own good (and I don't actually think this is directly a sexist attitude on his part; I can't imagine him giving that help to a male student of his either, not at that point in his life), and it ends up directly resulting in her death, and indirectly resulting in Harry being completely on the outs with the law for most of the book (because he's also been keeping his police detective friend in the dark for her own good). Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 19:32
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docbeard posted:The conclusion I came to a long time ago about the Dresden books is that Harry has some unfortunate chauvinistic attitudes when it comes to women, that this is deliberate and deliberately presented as a character flaw by Butcher, but that Butcher is not entirely free of unexamined (one presumes) baggage himself. Yeah this is basically my take also. Both Dresden and Butcher progress over time and book to book, too. Sometimes ham-handedly.
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Oct 14, 2019 19:36
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Hub Cat posted:Wasn't the circle tampered with by the FBI Hexenwolves'? So even if Dresden had helped her they would have just killed her and then messed up the circle again Murphy gets brought in yadda yadda yadda plot. Kim was literally just a plot device. It's been a while since I've read Fool Moon but that checks out, yeah. Kim was definitely a plot device, which was kind of my point.
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Oct 14, 2019 20:00
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Gnoman posted:After skimming Grave Peril I can't find any female fatalities at all, but there are two women that Harry goes through hell to save - one of which is just some random woman looking for help. Either you're thinking of a different book, or (more likely), you're making things up to justify your position. There were a lot of fatalities of mortal people both male and female, though I can't think of any specifically named non-evil characters who died. Even if we assume Harry and co. got the mortals out, Harry's action still started a war between the White Council and the Red Court and that war claimed thousands of innocent mortal lives while it raged. While you understand why he did it, you can also see how the Harry Dresden of five or even 2-3 books later would very likely have handled the situation in a much smarter way that got him what he wanted without starting a massive war. Harry learns, but often he learns from bitter, painful experience.
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Oct 14, 2019 20:25
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docbeard posted:It's been a while since I've read Fool Moon but that checks out, yeah. Sorry I'm an idiot and I skimmed your post quickly. Kchama posted:I'm pretty sure he gets the girl killed in Grave Peril too because he's uninterested in her. He isn't particularly interested in saving the teenage girls at the vampire party and pretty much looks down at them. Though I guess we were intended to write them off as even Michael doesn't seem all that interested in them. Edit:Wait do you mean Lydia? Because the wiki is saying she doesn't die, although I don't feel like checking myself. (I totally forgot about Lydia, gently caress a lot of stuff happens in that book) Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 20:32
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