Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance #2

[Deedles]

Excellent. I wonder if I have the Ilona Andrews pre bought?

[Isabel]

Not to many spoilers please, since I am trying to save up some books to read on holiday :) and magic shifts in one of them :)

[peterbound]

Racheal Aaron's next 'Dragon' Book is out.  

 

Neat little series if you get a chance to check them out. 

[C.T. Phipps]

A cool interview with Tim Marquitz on his recent UF novels. http://fantasy-faction.com/2015/tim-marquitz-interview

[lady narcissa]

Re Older's Shadowshaper: I haven't read it I'm afraid, but I've read Older's previous novel [which is not ya] and liked a lot of things about it. The plot is loose and kind of baggy and lacking in urgency, for me, but his Brooklyn feels like a living breathing place where people live [to someone who very much does not live in Brooklyn], his characters are wonderful and his dialogue rocks. So in general terms I'm very excited about him as an author even though I haven't yet read this one. I've got Shadowshaper on hold at the library.

That is good to hear, thanks for the feedback. I am for sure going to check it out myself but its good to hear someone else's opinion on it.

[Callan S.]

 

Ah. But the author is dead.

That's advocating a certain attitude, not an actual fact.

Anything is dead if you stick your fingers in your ears hard enough.

[Richard Writhen]

You mean we're in a grimmedarke but the author is dead? Oh noes! What will we do?

 

 

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

I just picked up.Sandra Hill's XMAS IN TRANSYLVANIA - for free with the purchase of 4 other used books. Am planning on reading it outloud with the girlfriend.

[ljkeane]

Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed with Dark Ascension after enjoying all the previous Generation V books. A lot of it sort of meanders along going over stuff we already knew and while there are some significant events later in the book they fell fairly flat for me.

 

On the other hand I really enjoyed Rachel Aaron's latest book. I kind of expected the books to follow the same rough pattern as the first book for a while, which would have been fine, but it's good to see Aaron was willing to move the story along so quickly.

[Mars447]

Yeah, I found Dark Ascension to be poorly paced and structured.

I just finished Fearless by Elliiot James and The Left Hand Way by Tom Doyle. They are book 3 of Pax Arcana and book 2 of American Craftsman respectively. Both were pretty good, although I enjoyed Fearless more. Fearless is a step up for the series because it had much more Sig and company and 100% less Knight Templar fatal rape than the second book*.

That said, Tom Doyle cannot write romance at all. The one in this book was perhaps even worse than the one in the first, and that was already pretty damn sudden.

* One word, Elliott James: abortion.

[polishgenius]

There were some really good things about Dark Ascension (the Fort-Suze relationship, which I'd originally worried was going to be too annoyinly wish-fulfilly and that, has become the backbone and delivered some great moments), but yeah, it spent a little too much time essentially recapping previous stories and then wrapping it up too quickly at the end. I do hope #5 gets picked up (apparently it depends on sales of this one) because it ended just before things got really tasty...

[Mars447]

There were some really good things about Dark Ascension (the Fort-Suze relationship, which I'd originally worried was going to be too annoyinly wish-fulfilly and that, has become the backbone and delivered some great moments), but yeah, it spent a little too much time essentially recapping previous stories and then wrapping it up too quickly at the end. I do hope #5 gets picked up (apparently it depends on sales of this one) because it ended just before things got really tasty...

I find Suze to be such an interesting/entertaining character that she basically overshadows everybody else.  During one particularly overlong interval at the Scott Mansion I was flipping through the book, hoping for the sequence to end so we could get back to kitsune antics.  I'd actually like for her to get a book of her own or at least a short story/novella, but Brennan would probably be right that it would be too tonally dissonant/gangland murdery.

[Maester Llama]

The series does feel a little bit imbalanced to me because of how much of the appeal Suze shoulders, for sure -- well, Suze by herself and also Fort and Suze's double act, whether it's romantic or a best friend thing at any given moment. However, I personally find the Scott family quite compelling as well: Chivalry, the vampire who feeds on women in a way we are pretty much inevitably going to find incredibly icky, but who genuinely cares about his little brother. And Prudence, who is such a compelling, menacing villain figure -- the scene in Tainted Blood when she teaches Fort about feeding was one of the sequences that really elevated the series for me; I thought it was genuinely unsettling body horror. And I think the series is building out a nice cast of engaging side characters as well, like Lila the elf politician trying to keep her crazy homicidal people on the rails.

 

It's concerning to hear that book 5 remains without a contract. The books are great urban fantasy! Make it happen internet!

[Richard Writhen]

Wish-Fulfilly™

[C.T. Phipps]

I've got a Q&A sesssion with my publishers I think some of you might like. It talks about Esoterrorism and my upcoming book Wraith knight.

 

http://www.ragnarokpub.com/#!QA-CT-Phipps-Author-of-Esoterrorism-and-Wraith-Knight/caet/55819f020cf27a6b745383c4

It also involves Wolverine.

[Richard Writhen]

Ok.

 

 

So Urban Fantasy is like City of Bones. Fantastic world hiding behind the façade of an urban setting.

 

 

And Paranormal Romance is like Twilight. Protagonist falls for a supernatural creature.

 

 

And Grimmedarke has more of a medieval or steampunk setting with grey characters and unpredictability like IRL.

 

 

 

Correct?  :eek:

[Mars447]

I actually liked Kate Daniels 1-5 much better than 6-7. More interesting (and more diverse) character interactions and better episodic plots, for the most part. Although Kate's post-Book 7 detente with Ghastek is a lot of fun.

My opinion of The Dresden Files post Skin Game (book 15) has devolved from "It's fun in a popcorn sense that's occasionally genuinely good" to "Fuck this series", although that's a trend that has been forming since after book 12.

[kairparavel]

So I've just finished the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy and the books get stronger from beginning to end. That is to say, the first is the weakest and each gets better. I did worry about all the new stuff introduced in the final book but when it all resolved I was satisfied. Karou felt like a strong character, even with the shiny-eyed love moments. Zuzana and Mik were also decent side-characters. I do hope? that she'll continue on with the story as there is clearly more to tell. 

 

I'm now about a quarter of the way into Throne of Glass, while waiting for Uprooted and A Court of Thorn and Roses to become available in my library queue.

 

Anyways, thanks to this thread I'm reading books I'd have otherwise skipped over. Good or bad, they're something new.

[emberling]

I just got through with a re-read of several series' - The Kate Daniels series (by Ilona Andrews), rounding it out with the newest novel in the series which came out August 4th, and the Mercy Thompson series AND Alpha and Omega series (by Patricia Briggs).  I am on book 9, Pale Demon in the Rachel Morgan or The Hollows series by Kim Harrison.

 

After reading them again after several years' worth of new UF and other books (I average about 50-100 books per year), I have some new thoughts on these.  Kate Daniels books do not start out as well as I thought, and I don't think they get really good until at least book 3 or 4.  She also does the cut and paste thing with the backstory not explaining what happened before through new experiences but instead through actual paragraphs that were cut and pasted from other books.  That's a pet peeve of mine when reading books in a series, and it got VERY old.  However, the last two books in this series, including the latest, were very good in my opinion.

 

After my re-read of the Kate Daniels and Mercy Thompson books, I did notice something that I hadn't before, and that is: both Kate and Mercy were actually AFRAID of the guys they became involved with eventually.  Like... actually SCARED of physical threat.  How the HELL did I miss this the first run through?  I have a problem with this.  I do.  Psychologically, what exactly is going on with these women?  It's kind of gross, I won't lie.  I mean, I'm pretty sure I willfully chose not to digest that information the first run through with these books.  Just weird.  The same happens in Alpha and Omega, but it is made clear that since Anna is a beta wolf that nobody but an insane wolf would hurt her - however she TOO is afraid of Charles.  Christ.  What is this pattern saying?

 

However, I think Kim Harrison is very much the worst when it comes to all of this.  Since my re-read I can honestly say that I HATE Rachel.  She's an idiot.  She is judgmental of others for things that she goes and does half a book later.  She's a homophobe.  She's got exactly ZERO self esteem and is attracted to anything with two legs and a penis.  It's gross.  I still love the series because I LOVE the secondary characters and the overall plot is great, but WOW how the times have changed since last read.

 

Has anyone else had such a big change in reading a series once loved and now hated?

I think I always sort of interpreted the physical fear you're talking about as a sort of ... first-person way to communicate to the reader how imposing someone is? We see everything through the character's eyes and if they aren't feeling how imposing the alphaguy is, the reader doesn't get the requisite appreciation for his ultramasculinity. Which I think is a dumb trope, but it is what it is. I think my relative immunity to it may have something to do with the fact that I fundamentally do not understand why a woman would want to be with - really, with [i]any[/i] man, but especially a hypermasculine one - and fear is the kind of reaction that [i]I[/i] would have to being close to one I didn't trust completely. And that last bit is the key, I think - the genre's typical romantic story arc has a very strong component of [i]trust[/i], which is emphasized by a progression where the heroine gradually becomes comfortable in the presence of the terrifyingly dangerous hero because she knows he won't hurt [i]her[/i]. Which, in turn, is (accidentally, I'm sure) horrific abuse apology bullshit.

 

The worst of these isn't one you mentioned, IMO - it's Clayton Danvers, actual sociopath. Rachel's string of boyfriends are a bit off trope in that they're actually not very masculine - they're just [i]bad people[/i]. Really awful people that she shouldn't even be giving the time of day. And she never really goes through a trust arc with any of them, except Trent; she just is blind to their awfulness until she can't be anymore. And Ivy is awesome and perfect for her except BUT WE'RE BOTH GIRLS. Gah.

 

I was pretty sure A&O kept that to a bare minimum though - one of the things I really liked about it was that it just got the standard romantic arc and will-they-or-won't-they crap out of the way in about five seconds then moved on to addressing more adult relationship concerns, weird-werewolf-style - dealing with moving in together, with economic disparity, and most especially with how to love someone who is "damaged". Checking the story: From Charles' PoV in literally their first encounter, he interprets her as scared of him. From the reader perspective we know that she'd be scared of literally any werewolf. By the end of this scene she is no longer scared of him, and remains not scared of him. She remarks with wonder at how she is exceptionally unscared of him. A bunch of situations, particularly in Cry Wolf, show us that Charles often perceives her as afraid of him when she isn't really.

 

It's definitely hewing close to the trope but I think it's calculated to keep it as healthy as possible beyond the problems inherent to the characters, their situations, and the 'at-first-sight'-ness of the whole thing, To the point where her [i]lack[/i] of fear is a potential suspension of disbelief issue.

[Darth Richard II]

Ok.
 
 
So Urban Fantasy is like City of Bones. Fantastic world hiding behind the façade of an urban setting.
 
 
And Paranormal Romance is like Twilight. Protagonist falls for a supernatural creature.
 
 
And Grimmedarke has more of a medieval or steampunk setting with grey characters and unpredictability like IRL.
 
 
 
Correct?  :eek:

No, City of Bones falls under the plagiarism/fraud category. :p