prisoner_24601 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prisoner_24601) wrote2006-08-15 07:09 am
prisoner_24601) wrote2006-08-15 07:09 am
Meme time...
Stolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
noneko and cavortingmonkey...
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
I had three books piled on top of my monitor, so I picked the most entertaining quote of the three:
"I have your permission to come out?"
"Yup," I said, "For the purposes of this mission only. And don't waste time prowling around in women's locker rooms again."
Incidentally, the above quote comes from the book Grave Peril by Jim Butcher (it's the third book in the Dresden Files series). If you're a fan of the modern fantasy genre in the spirit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the first three non sucky Anita Blake books, I'd highly suggest checking the books in the Dresden Files out. It's a series about a wizard named Harry who lives in Chicago and kicks a ton of ass. It's kind of what the Anita Blake novels should have been. The main character is very entertaining, and the author does a good job integrating fantasy elements into modern day fiction.
Jim Butcher is like the anti-Laurel Hamilton. Everything that she does wrong in her books, he does right. Go read him. I'm currently re-reading the series, and it's just as good the second time through.
Also, for those of you too lazy to actually read the books, a series based on the books is coming out on the sci-fi channel in January 2007. If they do as good of a job on this series as they did on the new Battlestar Galactica, it's going to be awesome.
noneko and cavortingmonkey...1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
I had three books piled on top of my monitor, so I picked the most entertaining quote of the three:
"I have your permission to come out?"
"Yup," I said, "For the purposes of this mission only. And don't waste time prowling around in women's locker rooms again."
Incidentally, the above quote comes from the book Grave Peril by Jim Butcher (it's the third book in the Dresden Files series). If you're a fan of the modern fantasy genre in the spirit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the first three non sucky Anita Blake books, I'd highly suggest checking the books in the Dresden Files out. It's a series about a wizard named Harry who lives in Chicago and kicks a ton of ass. It's kind of what the Anita Blake novels should have been. The main character is very entertaining, and the author does a good job integrating fantasy elements into modern day fiction.
Jim Butcher is like the anti-Laurel Hamilton. Everything that she does wrong in her books, he does right. Go read him. I'm currently re-reading the series, and it's just as good the second time through.
Also, for those of you too lazy to actually read the books, a series based on the books is coming out on the sci-fi channel in January 2007. If they do as good of a job on this series as they did on the new Battlestar Galactica, it's going to be awesome.
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For example, Harry has this thing where he likes to rescue the damsel in distress, and for two books you think "Hmm... this a sue flaw, that's really a virtue masquerading as a flaw" until book three where he ends up rescuing the damsel but at a huge cost not only to himself, but to basically the entire magical community.
Sure he has has magical powers, but they come at a nasty price that takes a huge toll on his life, especially his romantic life in a rather realistic way. In the last book, he and another character that has been a possible romantic interest from the first book (Murphy) actually sit down and have an honest to goodness real discussion about what kind of obstacles stand in the way of a love affair between a wizard and a mortal. And in the series there are at least two points where most authors would have done the "Love conquers all" thing, and Jim Butcher has taken the more interesting and less traveled road of not letting love be enough to overcome everything.
Over the course of the series, Harry (and some of the other characters) actually grow and change the way that real people do. And when something really bad happens, there is a period of recovery, but the main character moves on and gets over it, which is also refreshing to see.
So to me, those kinds of elements are what separate this series from the other urban fantasies I've read. And I admit, that a lot of why I like this series comes down to personal taste (I like the style he writes in for instance).
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nearly every single urban fantasy seems to go the exact same direction:
That's starting from an awfully narrow definition of urban fantasy, though. You've got "urban fantasy" in which the city is an important part of the book, and not just stage dressing (Simon Green's "Hawk and Fisher", Glen Cook's Garret books, and a few readalikes for the high-fantasy types), and then it narrows down to "urban fantasy" as in modern-day magic with a backdrop of skyscrapers and alleys. ("War for the Oaks", Lackey's modern-elf books (not a recommendation, just an observation *grin*), the "Borribles" books (which I liked and nobody's ever heard of) and about ninety percent of anything Charles DeLint has ever put on paper.) Then there's alternate-universe stuff like the Bordertown books and "Stalking the Unicorn" (points to that one for a catgirl who's a scuzzy little scavenger and STAYS that way. "Why'd you run away from the fight?" "You were losing. Where's my cream?")
I'd say the LKH/Butcher/etc. books are a sub-sub-(sub?)-genre, and therefore necessarily restricted in their structure, much as a limerick has to follow a certain pattern to be a limerick. (Or a sonnet, for a more highbrow example.) This doesn't have to be a bad thing - I like the Dresden books, used to like LKH, and enjoyed the first few Sookie Stackhouse books. When you're writing what amounts to a Chandler homage with things that go bump in the night, you're pretty much STUCK with a cynical, hardass crimesolver. But that's far from the only kind of urban fantasy there is.
I'd also like to say that I read the first of Elaine Cunningham's "Changeling" book, and just...gaaah. That is all.
-Foxfire, who likes parenthetical statements.
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Oh yeah, that's a lot of the appeal for me too. I mean, I hate it when characters do stupid things and nothing happens (or worse, they get *rewarded* for their boneheaded behavior). That drives me crazy, so it's lovely to see stories that don't cop out like that.
I'm kind of disappointed that James Marsters isn't playing Harry in the series, but the dude they did pick looks decently close enough to the description of Harry in the novels. I really can't wait to see what they do with it.
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I mean, I hate it when characters do stupid things and nothing happens (or worse, they get *rewarded* for their boneheaded behavior).
Amen to that. It's why I stay away from most single-character series...eventually any pretense at logical consequences gets overwhelmed by the author's fondness for the character. (Or scary narcissistic identification with the character, if you're Laurell K. Hamilton.)
I'd love to see James Marsters as Harry, but that's mostly because I love his acting talent and would like to see him in just about anything. But having checked out the website, the guy they picked does look sufficiently Harry-ish for my tastes.
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I saw a promo last week where Sci Fi will start showing pro wrestling some nights. I wanted to chuck the tv out the door.
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It's about damn time they did something decent. Now if they'll just show more Dr. Who so I can catch up on the episodes that I missed, dammit.