Meme time...

[prisoner_24601]

Stolen from 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.

Comments

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I adore the Dresden books, not least because Harry frequently does Dumb Stuff and doesn't get away with it. Admittedly, it doesn't hurt that I keep picturing James Marsters as Harry, since he did the audiobook reading, but I like the character nonetheless; I haven't raised that hard a mental cheer for anybody since...I think the second Anita Blake book, where she actually saved the day with something other than sex? And I'm eternally grateful to Jim Butcher for writing a paladin character who's NOT hypocritical, sneering, doltish, or any combination of the above.

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.

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I adore the Dresden books, not least because Harry frequently does Dumb Stuff and doesn't get away with it.

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.

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

I was gonna feel bad about my delay in answering until I realized that your original entry is dated September 15th. Apparently you have time travel and can therefore skip ahead to the appropriate date, so no problems. :-)

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.