[Abyss]

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

[Grief]

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

[Baco Xtath]

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

I really wanted to listen to Carey's stuff but Micheal Kramer has a shit British accent and I just couldn't take it. Maybe I'll read it one day but my TRP is smothering in its size.


About 3 hrs into listening to Words of Radiance. Love being back in this world. Kramer does a better job narrating this one though some of his accents are atrocious.

[amphibian]

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

If you're talking about Carey's Felix Castor, Butcher's is much "bigger" in terms of scope of mythology, action scenes and topics tackled.

However, Carey is no slouch himself, having written Lucifer (one of my favorite series of all time) and the Castor series does well to build a multi-layered cast of characters surrounding the central character and his failings. The problems are a bit bigger in Carey's work with Carey's central relationship between Castor, Rafi and Basement Druid Lady never actually being presented nicely or in a way beyond "It just is that way and that's how we're going to think about it".

He invests far more time in Juliet and Castor than he ever does for Rafi and BDL. Butcher figured out how to make "before the books are being told" characters and plot points more vivid and able to be spun off into different plot points. This open-endedness built into Butcher's writing style is stronger and more developed than it is in Carey's work.

Early on, Carey is indeed meaner. However, he mostly stays on that level, while Butcher has made Harry & Co. gradually get into more and more grisly stuff without losing the epic underpinnings.

So basically, I'd give Dresden 10 Billy Goat Gruffs out of 10 and Carey gets 7.5 deadbeat, yet fatally fascinating clients out of 10.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 04 March 2014 - 07:32 PM

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 04 March 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

If you're talking about Carey's Felix Castor, Butcher's is much "bigger" in terms of scope of mythology, action scenes and topics tackled.

However, Carey is no slouch himself, having written Lucifer (one of my favorite series of all time) and the Castor series does well to build a multi-layered cast of characters surrounding the central character and his failings. The problems are a bit bigger in Carey's work with Carey's central relationship between Castor, Rafi and Basement Druid Lady never actually being presented nicely or in a way beyond "It just is that way and that's how we're going to think about it".

He invests far more time in Juliet and Castor than he ever does for Rafi and BDL. Butcher figured out how to make "before the books are being told" characters and plot points more vivid and able to be spun off into different plot points. This open-endedness built into Butcher's writing style is stronger and more developed than it is in Carey's work.

Early on, Carey is indeed meaner. However, he mostly stays on that level, while Butcher has made Harry & Co. gradually get into more and more grisly stuff without losing the epic underpinnings.

So basically, I'd give Dresden 10 Billy Goat Gruffs out of 10 and Carey gets 7.5 deadbeat, yet fatally fascinating clients out of 10.

I was gonna just call Grief a blasphemer. But I'm happy to agree with your reply instead Amph!

[Grief]

amphibian, on 04 March 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

If you're talking about Carey's Felix Castor, Butcher's is much "bigger" in terms of scope of mythology, action scenes and topics tackled.

However, Carey is no slouch himself, having written Lucifer (one of my favorite series of all time) and the Castor series does well to build a multi-layered cast of characters surrounding the central character and his failings. The problems are a bit bigger in Carey's work with Carey's central relationship between Castor, Rafi and Basement Druid Lady never actually being presented nicely or in a way beyond "It just is that way and that's how we're going to think about it".

He invests far more time in Juliet and Castor than he ever does for Rafi and BDL. Butcher figured out how to make "before the books are being told" characters and plot points more vivid and able to be spun off into different plot points. This open-endedness built into Butcher's writing style is stronger and more developed than it is in Carey's work.

Early on, Carey is indeed meaner. However, he mostly stays on that level, while Butcher has made Harry & Co. gradually get into more and more grisly stuff without losing the epic underpinnings.

So basically, I'd give Dresden 10 Billy Goat Gruffs out of 10 and Carey gets 7.5 deadbeat, yet fatally fascinating clients out of 10.

I'd disagree on he development front. While Butcher does make his characters meaner, sometimes this feels pretty dissonant, like he's just arbitrarily decided to go for a darker feel, and sometimes it feels like the character is practically the same (i.e, they're still cracking jokes or whatever) but the actions are darker which feels a little discontinuous.

Likewise on the open endedness. Carey hints at backstory and provides interesting bits and pieces. Some of the characters I'd accept are underdeveloped (this is also true of Butcher though, particularly given that he has twice as many books). Whereas with Butcher we've had this host of forces that have been around forever, and yet they've either not been trying until Dresden shows up, or somehow previously failed to screw the world up (or even really alert anyone to their presence on a significant scale). While Butcher does imply a much vaster backdrop, and one that provides very interesting situations in the story's present, I'm not sure it's a backdrop that really holds up on close inspection.

[JPK]

Starting Words of Radiance.

[amphibian]

The backdrop of Butcher's works makes sense if the Outsiders du Morne made a deal with are incredibly important to the balance of powers in the worlds and that's combined with Dresden's birth being somehow important to everyone.

That's what tipped the balance 15 years before the Dresden books take place (in my view) and the slow slide into insanity from the prior peace is thus natural.

[Abyss]

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 08:06 PM, said:

amphibian, on 04 March 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

If you're talking about Carey's Felix Castor, Butcher's is much "bigger" in terms of scope of mythology, action scenes and topics tackled.

However, Carey is no slouch himself, having written Lucifer (one of my favorite series of all time) and the Castor series does well to build a multi-layered cast of characters surrounding the central character and his failings. The problems are a bit bigger in Carey's work with Carey's central relationship between Castor, Rafi and Basement Druid Lady never actually being presented nicely or in a way beyond "It just is that way and that's how we're going to think about it".

He invests far more time in Juliet and Castor than he ever does for Rafi and BDL. Butcher figured out how to make "before the books are being told" characters and plot points more vivid and able to be spun off into different plot points. This open-endedness built into Butcher's writing style is stronger and more developed than it is in Carey's work.

Early on, Carey is indeed meaner. However, he mostly stays on that level, while Butcher has made Harry & Co. gradually get into more and more grisly stuff without losing the epic underpinnings.

So basically, I'd give Dresden 10 Billy Goat Gruffs out of 10 and Carey gets 7.5 deadbeat, yet fatally fascinating clients out of 10.

I'd disagree on he development front. While Butcher does make his characters meaner, sometimes this feels pretty dissonant, like he's just arbitrarily decided to go for a darker feel, and sometimes it feels like the character is practically the same (i.e, they're still cracking jokes or whatever) but the actions are darker which feels a little discontinuous.

Likewise on the open endedness. Carey hints at backstory and provides interesting bits and pieces. Some of the characters I'd accept are underdeveloped (this is also true of Butcher though, particularly given that he has twice as many books). Whereas with Butcher we've had this host of forces that have been around forever, and yet they've either not been trying until Dresden shows up, or somehow previously failed to screw the world up (or even really alert anyone to their presence on a significant scale). While Butcher does imply a much vaster backdrop, and one that provides very interesting situations in the story's present, I'm not sure it's a backdrop that really holds up on close inspection.

Carey is slow burn to big finish. He's subtlety and horror and suspense and mystery and the surreal lurking in the familiar.
Butcher is subtlety on the human interactions, and massive sweeping big kaboom holyfuck in all else.
Carey is HBO.
Butcher is big glorious Hollywood when it brings its A-game and everything goes exactly right.
Carey is a best friend possessed by a devil.
Butcher is the end of all existence.

I love both their works, but Butcher brings a level of epic to his stories that means i cannot put them down until i've read them twice, and THAT is why he takes first place for me.

[polishgenius]

Speaking of Mike Carey, I just yesterday finished his new book, The Girl with all the Gifts. It's well-written and well-crafted as you might expect from Carey, but at the end of the day it's a zombie novel and those don't fill me with ethusiasm- I was hoping for more from him but while there were hints, it never really got there.

Still, if the premise doesn't put you off there's enjoyment to be had here.

[Morgoth]

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I thoroughly enjoy the Dresden Files, but I'd argue that the true master of urban fantasy is Neil Gaiman.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 03 March 2014 - 09:19 PM, said:

The health care savings alone justify the expense!

Liar! OHIP calls you a liar!

Anyways, I'm also reading WoR...and yeah, she's a beast.

[End of Disc One]

Words of Radiance, of course. It's awesome so far, off to a much better start than TWoK was.

[Puck]

Serenity, on 03 March 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

Finished Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Wasn't overly enamoured with it, tbh - I couldn't warm to the characters, it was too much tell and not enough show for me.

That's pretty much how I feel about Wizard of Earthsea. It's not that I can't warm to the characters at all, but it's difficult to get familiar with the protagonist because I don't really get to see anything from the inside - there's just lots of telling about how this and this is so and so. Holy mother of infodump!

Still, I'm in that strange limbo of not really actively liking it but not disliking it either. Will have to read on and see. At least I stopped having the urge to throw the book at something after the first three chapters or so.

[Grief]

amphibian, on 05 March 2014 - 01:03 AM, said:

The backdrop of Butcher's works makes sense if the Outsiders du Morne made a deal with are incredibly important to the balance of powers in the worlds and that's combined with Dresden's birth being somehow important to everyone.

That's what tipped the balance 15 years before the Dresden books take place (in my view) and the slow slide into insanity from the prior peace is thus natural.

Personally I don't think this makes sense from what we've seen of many of the characters involved though - they're just not that stable.

[worry]

I read the Divergent trilogy. I thought the plotting was decent, but the prose was YA par at the best of times. Book 3 at least did not cop out on the dystopian stuff and was clearly the best of the three, but I don't see this series transcending YA status in the same way THG managed to do. You can kinda tell from the movie trailer that tattoos/piercings are the height of edginess here. On the other hand, it does have some effective gimmicks, a few interesting twists per book, and the violence throughout does pretty much always have consequences, so I wouldn't slap it out of a teenager's hands the way I might Twilight or whatever.

In contrast, that other YA thing I read -- The Fault In Our Stars -- was highly engaging, perfectly paced, and at least IMO deserves all the hype it got.

Finally, I'm starting Use of Weapons. I'm expecting to be blown away by this one, given that the Malazan high cadre of nerds have declared it a masterpiece.

[Grief]

Abyss, on 05 March 2014 - 05:29 AM, said:

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 08:06 PM, said:

amphibian, on 04 March 2014 - 07:31 PM, said:

Grief, on 04 March 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 March 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

Graablick, on 04 March 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Hm.. the last days I have read all the Iron Druids book and are currently doing a reread of the Blinding Knife. Just for the record, Butchers owns the modern world fantasy thing.

Heh.. s'funny... i liked (but far from loved) Hearn's IRON DRUID... i consume a fair chunk of urban fantasy lit from a variety of authors, some of them pretty awesome... but no matter how great they are, i have to agree with you... no one's on par with Butcher. Some come close, but no one else nails that brilliant combo of great characters, pacing and sense of wonder the way Butcher does it, book after book.

I think Carey does it better. His world has more of an edge to it and his pacing and narrative arc blows Butcher out of the water. Butcher kind of starts feeling like a TV show that keeps getting renewed. All the books are fun to read, but there's not that same sense of deliberate build up, just a vague sort of idea it's going somewhere.

If you're talking about Carey's Felix Castor, Butcher's is much "bigger" in terms of scope of mythology, action scenes and topics tackled.

However, Carey is no slouch himself, having written Lucifer (one of my favorite series of all time) and the Castor series does well to build a multi-layered cast of characters surrounding the central character and his failings. The problems are a bit bigger in Carey's work with Carey's central relationship between Castor, Rafi and Basement Druid Lady never actually being presented nicely or in a way beyond "It just is that way and that's how we're going to think about it".

He invests far more time in Juliet and Castor than he ever does for Rafi and BDL. Butcher figured out how to make "before the books are being told" characters and plot points more vivid and able to be spun off into different plot points. This open-endedness built into Butcher's writing style is stronger and more developed than it is in Carey's work.

Early on, Carey is indeed meaner. However, he mostly stays on that level, while Butcher has made Harry & Co. gradually get into more and more grisly stuff without losing the epic underpinnings.

So basically, I'd give Dresden 10 Billy Goat Gruffs out of 10 and Carey gets 7.5 deadbeat, yet fatally fascinating clients out of 10.

I'd disagree on he development front. While Butcher does make his characters meaner, sometimes this feels pretty dissonant, like he's just arbitrarily decided to go for a darker feel, and sometimes it feels like the character is practically the same (i.e, they're still cracking jokes or whatever) but the actions are darker which feels a little discontinuous.

Likewise on the open endedness. Carey hints at backstory and provides interesting bits and pieces. Some of the characters I'd accept are underdeveloped (this is also true of Butcher though, particularly given that he has twice as many books). Whereas with Butcher we've had this host of forces that have been around forever, and yet they've either not been trying until Dresden shows up, or somehow previously failed to screw the world up (or even really alert anyone to their presence on a significant scale). While Butcher does imply a much vaster backdrop, and one that provides very interesting situations in the story's present, I'm not sure it's a backdrop that really holds up on close inspection.

Carey is slow burn to big finish. He's subtlety and horror and suspense and mystery and the surreal lurking in the familiar.
Butcher is subtlety on the human interactions, and massive sweeping big kaboom holyfuck in all else.
Carey is HBO.
Butcher is big glorious Hollywood when it brings its A-game and everything goes exactly right.
Carey is a best friend possessed by a devil.
Butcher is the end of all existence.

I love both their works, but Butcher brings a level of epic to his stories that means i cannot put them down until i've read them twice, and THAT is why he takes first place for me.

Yeah, they're very different in style, and it's obvious why people like Butcher so much.

I just prefer Carey's subtle, personal level approach to Butcher's OMG EPICness (and the horror aspects are great, which Butcher doesn't really do). While Butcher's books are very entertaining and great fun to read (and very hard not to just read in a sitting), Carey is more affecting and stays with you (or me, anyhow) much more strongly. Also, with Butcher the epic parts are sort of expected. With Carey they it's just this gradually building pressure and when you do get the pay off it tops anything Butcher has delivered so far imo.

As well as this, there aren't many things I would consider objective flaws in Carey, where Butcher does have a few criticisms that I'd say are hard to deny, such as being formulaic, having an inconsistently paced narrative arc, pacing in general being an issue particularly in certain books (looking particularly at Changes here, which has an above average number of flaws generally imo), as well as some more arguable flaws.

[Grief]

polishgenius, on 05 March 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

Speaking of Mike Carey, I just yesterday finished his new book, The Girl with all the Gifts. It's well-written and well-crafted as you might expect from Carey, but at the end of the day it's a zombie novel and those don't fill me with ethusiasm- I was hoping for more from him but while there were hints, it never really got there.

Still, if the premise doesn't put you off there's enjoyment to be had here.

I read the amazon description and it sounded interesting; mysterious but with definite potential. Zombie book is just about the least interesting thing that it could be describing. Blah. I might pick it up at some point, but it's not a priority.

[amphibian]

I finished Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History and it is a brilliant book.

Strong, vivid characters, great look into medieval warfare without bogging down into minutiae, great look at gender roles, subversion of such and more and some genuinely excellent fantasy elements (think GRRM style only a touch of fantasy here and there instead of Erikson style though). She doesn't get too much into the actual fighting apart from two particularly important scenes - partly because her focus isn't on the fighting, it's the reasons behind the fighting and partly because she's more of a realistic warfare (in which people genuinely try to survive to the next day instead of becoming murder machines).

Also read a few more stories in the Dangerous Women anthology. Lev Grossman's The Girl in the Mirror NEEDS to be turned into a full length book. Think of a magic school full of high schoolers that's a mix of Hogwarts, the University from Rothfuss's books and a horror movie. Even better, one of the characters in the book thinks about which Hogwarts school she'd pick if it existed. There's an excerpt on Tor: http://www.tor.com/s...rossman-excerpt

This anthology seriously has some powerful, powerful stories in it. Megan Abbott's My Heart Is Either Broken will haunt you for a long time. Wrestling Jesus hit some serious buttons in me - think of actual wrestling (not the fake pro wrestling) combined with a training of a youngster and featuring a voodoo ice cold witch. Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm wrote a solid "slip into another world" story in Neighbors. Brandon Sanderson's Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell is the best thing he's ever written. Abercrombie and Butcher turn in solid stories as well.

I've only gotten to the beginning of the Gabaldon story, but this whole anthology has actually been worth the money. It's not just fluff surrounding GRRM or Butcher.

[worry]

Oh yah, I finally finished Dangerous Women last week (though I skipped Grossman and Abercrombie for now). Agree with you 100% on Abbott and Lindholm's stories and think they're in the top three along with GRRM's history. That Gabaldon story is another highlight (never heard of her before this), the Wild Cards story (another first for me) was pretty great, and "Second Arabesque" kinda surprised me with how much I liked it. Some stories weren't to my tastes (some of the royal historical fiction stories) but there was really only one in the whole thing I'd consider a failure ("Hell Hath...") so I'm right on board with you about the whole anth.