Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance #2

[Richard Writhen]

Too much hope, lawl. Never too much. :ack:

[Vigilanton]

Hey! First post!

 

If i may, I thought I'd might bring the discussion back to UF some by recommending the Daniel Faust series by Craig Schaefer that someone mentioned above. Plot-wise it's as exciting as Dresden but refreshingly light on the Male Gaze Extravaganza. I'm currently 3 books in. Anyone else who have read it?

 

Daniel's got some cool gal-pals, not to mention his girlfriend. And the author has stayed away from doing any jealousy/rivalry-type story line, even though one of the protagonists friends is an ex-girlfriend.

 

The main relationship also falls in the category of the female being more powerful than the male-thing that someone brought up.

 

 

Overall I think urban fantasy can be great fun. I'm making my way through the Rachel Morgan series right now.  :)  

[Vigilanton]

Haha and i'm not Craig Schaefers sock puppet honest to god  :blush:

[Mars447]

Well I read the Daniel Faust series, but then I was the one to recommend them (e: it was another poster who picked it up from my recommendation on the fantasy debuts thread).

 

And for the rest of you, the series is on Kindle Unlimited!  And it's very good.

[Vigilanton]

[spoiler] I think book 3 ended somewhat anticlimactic though. Lauren had been set up as a villain for the whole series and then the final battle was over pretty quickly. I wish Meadow would have survived instead of the mirror magician because she was a more entertaining villain. After Daniel and Jennifer shot her I almost expected it to be a mannequin. [/spoiler]

 

 

It's dawning on me that Dresden Files is not for me anymore. I tried with Skin Game, but Harry's dudeBro-ness and the sexualisation of every female character was to much this time around. This has always been very prominent in DF, but i have tolerated it. I guess I'm in a place now where it bothers me more. The reading experience is just not joyful anymore.

 

And I spent an Audible credit on it..

[Mars447]

[spoiler] I think book 3 ended somewhat anticlimactic though. Lauren had been set up as a villain for the whole series and then the final battle was over pretty quickly. I wish Meadow would have survived instead of the mirror magician because she was a more entertaining villain. After Daniel and Jennifer shot her I almost expected it to be a mannequin. [/spoiler]
 
 
It's dawning on me that Dresden Files is not for me anymore. I tried with Skin Game, but Harry's dudeBro-ness and the sexualisation of every female character was to much this time around. This has always been very prominent in DF, but i have tolerated it. I guess I'm in a place now where it bothers me more. The reading experience is just not joyful anymore.
 
And I spent an Audible credit on it..

The thing about Lauren is that [spoiler]the mysterious faceless entities which corrupted her are still out there, and they've found a new partner.[/spoiler]

And book four expands the setting and introduced new bad guys.

Apparently the first book in the Harmony Black spinoff series is coming out next January. Faustian X Files, anyone?

[RedEyedGhost]

You haven't read the soldier son trilogy yet then. :o

 

Actually I wouldn't say any if Hobbs works are suffused with hope, those books were bleak, but I'll admit it's been a LONG time since I read them.

 

I have, and it's definitely the bleakest of Hobb's works (that I've read), but [spoiler]I still think there is a lot of hope in it.  Not necessarily for Nevare (I had to look that up), but for the world as a whole and the future relations with the Specks.  [/spoiler]

 

You've aroused my curiosity. I'm not saying I agree with you, or disagree with you, but would you say Abercrombie's First Law books are suffused throughout with hope?

 

I would not say that The First Law books have much hope in them, particularly the trilogy.  [spoiler]I think there is more hope in Best Served Cold and Red Country, and I suspect that might be leading to something in the follow up trilogy, as things might get better long term by the end of that, but I wouldn't put it passed Abercrombie to make things even worse at the end of that one.[/spoiler]

 

I think there's a dramatic difference between how Hobb's and Abercrombie's books and series track throughout them.  [spoiler]Hobb seems to end her works with hope for the world, but not necessarily for the protagonist.  Her works are typically the bleakest in the middle book or early in the third as she absolutely destroys the protagonist, and then she brings thing back around making the world whole or healthier again.

 

Abercrombie on the other hand seems to tease you with a little bit of hope, and then completely pulls the rug out from under you.  He did it with the ending of Before They Are Hanged and then out did himself with​ The Last Argument of Kings.  

 

So while Abercrombie teases hope, with Hobb I know the world will always be in a better place at the end then it was at the beginning.  (Better by her naturalist definition, as I'm not personally sure that having extremely powerful dragons rising again is strictly "better.")[/spoiler]

 

 

 

Yes. Yes she is. The Bel Dame series is bleak as hell and I loved it. I'm finding Worldbreaker slightly less so, but we still have two books to go to figure out just how fucked up it'll get. Not sure I have an opinion on Hobb's grim(dark)ness -- she's certainly grim, yes. JV Jones is another writer who doesn't stint on the misery (at least in the Sword of Shadows books I've read), but I've only read two of the five-book series, so grains of salt, etc etc.

 

I rarely (have the time to) reread books, but I'm itching to reread The Bel Dame Apocrypha.  I saw an early review for Empire Ascendent a few weeks ago, and it was extremely positive. 

[Mars447]

 

 

Abercrombie on the other hand seems to tease you with a little bit of hope, and then completely pulls the rug out from under you.  He did it with the ending of Before They Are Hanged and then out did himself with​ The Last Argument of Kings.  

 

So while Abercrombie teases hope, with Hobb I know the world will always be in a better place at the end then it was at the beginning.  (Better by her naturalist definition, as I'm not personally sure that having extremely powerful dragons rising again is strictly "better.")[/spoiler]

This is only true if you only read the first 3 out of 9 books that Abercrombie has written.

 

At any rate, neither Joe Abercrombie nor Robin Hobb write any kind of urban fantasy, so it's a moot point.

[Vigilanton]

Apparently the first book in the Harmony Black spinoff series is coming out next January. Faustian X Files, anyone?

 

Count me in on some of that!

[Maester Llama]

So M. L. Brennan posted answers to some questions on her blog a couple days ago and I didn't notice them until just now. The Generation V series is done. Roc won't contract the remaining two books. This is a great shame.

[ljkeane]

That is a shame. I wasn't a huge fan of the last book but I was still hoping for more books in the series.

[C.T. Phipps]

That is a shame. I wasn't a huge fan of the last book but I was still hoping for more books in the series.

 

Something similiar happened with Richelle Meade as I understand it. It's why her Dark Swan series ended so abruptly. I enjoyed that, even if it did kind of read like, "I want to write an old-school Anita Blake book with fairies."

Speaking of Richelle Meade, I also found the Succubus Blues series both amusing and kind of eh in places. It's "slice of life" urban fantasy. Very little actual plot, per se, but quite entertaining and funny nevertheless. Unfortunately, the series is weighed down by the fact Richelle Meade really seems to believe in the, "you have ONE love interest you're meant to be with." The concept of moving on never really works out well for her heroines, even when characters manifestly should (see Vampire Academy).

[Mars447]

So M. L. Brennan posted answers to some questions on her blog a couple days ago and I didn't notice them until just now. The Generation V series is done. Roc won't contract the remaining two books. This is a great shame.

That's really too bad. I wasn't a huge fan of the fourth book, although clearly it was being written to wrap things up. That said, I'm going to miss the characters a lot.

[Darth Richard II]

So M. L. Brennan posted answers to some questions on her blog a couple days ago and I didn't notice them until just now. The Generation V series is done. Roc won't contract the remaining two books. This is a great shame.

 

 

Thats fucked. I was under the impression those books where popualr.

[lady narcissa]

So M. L. Brennan posted answers to some questions on her blog a couple days ago and I didn't notice them until just now. The Generation V series is done. Roc won't contract the remaining two books. This is a great shame.

I posted here the other day how overall I didn't like the first book in the series. Subsequent to that I skimmed through the second one and liked it probably less and decided not to continue with the series. However, I know people here and elsewhere did enjoy the series so I think it’s unfortunate her publisher will not be continuing with it...especially since I think her publisher did a poor job supporting it and I'd put part of the blame on them for it not selling as well as they would have liked.

I've been to quite a number of conventions in the past few years which her publisher attended and at all of those they were promoting their UF series and authors by having various authors appear and giving out free first books in series and ARCs of upcoming releases. Generation V and M.L. Brennan were never there being promoted. Also, I follow Brennan’s editor on social media and while she can be very generous about promoting her authors and their books, I can think of maybe one tweet she made about this series this year and it was on the day the most recent book came out. At the same time she was tweeting about another author and book a good five times a day for a solid month.

Also, even though I’m always looking for new-to-me UF to read and read UF related blogs and the like, this series only came on my radar this summer when several of you posted here about it repeatedly and I was finally like I should check out this series. So I think it’s a shame for a publisher to not allow a series like this time to grow an audience because if I wasn’t aware of this series until now, I’m sure there are a lot of other UF readers out there who have never heard of it. And maybe, unlike me, they would enjoy it.

Something similiar happened with Richelle Meade as I understand it. It's why her Dark Swan series ended so abruptly. I enjoyed that, even if it did kind of read like, "I want to write an old-school Anita Blake book with fairies."

Speaking of Richelle Meade, I also found the Succubus Blues series both amusing and kind of eh in places. It's "slice of life" urban fantasy. Very little actual plot, per se, but quite entertaining and funny nevertheless. Unfortunately, the series is weighed down by the fact Richelle Meade really seems to believe in the, "you have ONE love interest you're meant to be with." The concept of moving on never really works out well for her heroines, even when characters manifestly should (see Vampire Academy).

Regarding Mead’s Dark Swan series, I read that series from the start and when she first started writing it she rather consistently said it was going to be 4 books. I somewhat enjoyed the first two books and then thought the last two were much weaker. But the story arc clearly ended with the fourth book and when it came out she said she was done with the series. It’s only recently that I’ve noticed Mead’s added to her FAQ that the series might continue in the distant distant future.

I did really enjoy Mead’s Succubus series. It had a great sense of place with Seattle and I thought it had a great story arc over the 6 books and really satisfactory conclusion.

[voodooqueen126]

 

Something similiar happened with Richelle Meade as I understand it. It's why her Dark Swan series ended so abruptly. I enjoyed that, even if it did kind of read like, "I want to write an old-school Anita Blake book with fairies."

Speaking of Richelle Meade, I also found the Succubus Blues series both amusing and kind of eh in places. It's "slice of life" urban fantasy. Very little actual plot, per se, but quite entertaining and funny nevertheless. Unfortunately, the series is weighed down by the fact Richelle Meade really seems to believe in the, "you have ONE love interest you're meant to be with." The concept of moving on never really works out well for her heroines, even when characters manifestly should (see Vampire Academy).

similar to single target sexuality, as found in many a Korean serial.

[Puntificator]

 

Something similiar happened with Richelle Meade as I understand it. It's why her Dark Swan series ended so abruptly. 
 

It also happened to Harry Connolly and his "Twenty Palaces" UF series.

[Richard Writhen]

I'm looking forward to reading Bloodlines series.

[Mars447]

I'm looking forward to reading Bloodlines series.

Huh. I think I'm well and tired of sexy vampire UF.

That's what I like about Pax Arcana (that and the rest of the supernatural creature diversity). Vampires are gaunt, dessicated walking corpses who only project a glamor that makes them looks sexy. Plus the charismatic, burly werewolf alpha is a mass murdering rapist villain while the actual good alpha is more of the diplomatic sort.

But then I'd probably only be down to read something called "Succubus Blues" if it starred someone like Caitlin from the Daniel Faust series.

[C.T. Phipps]

But then I'd probably only be down to read something called "Succubus Blues" if it starred someone like Caitlin from the Daniel Faust series.

 

I admit I'm inclined to check out Daniel Faust solely because I'm interested in seeing what sort of character she was. I'd love to hear more about her.

 

When I wrote Shannon for Esoterrorism, I made her a succubus for the fact it was a great way of metaphorically tackling the Femme Fatale. A monster intimately deeply associated with sex as a means of destroying a person's soul as well as corrupting them to the Dark Side--the ultimate honey pot monster. Then I wanted to examine, "Okay, but what if you don't WANT to be that person and are skilled in many-many other ways?"

 

As for Georgina Kincaid (star of Succubus Blues), the best way to describe her is basically a romantic-comedy sort of character who just so happens to be a succubus. She works in a bookstore, technically has allegiance to Hell but only rarely does any actual seduction to people for hell with the opening of the book series being a gigantic send-up of how nerds fetishize women and demons in comic books as well as mythology. The majority of the book series is her pining over a goofy author she's in love with (a no-no for succubi) and her desire to be human.