Forum Overview :: Dead Trees

The Dresden Files (AIM log) by Last 02/18/2013, 8:17am PST me: Hey buddy. A book series called Dresden Files. We should tawk aboudit It's a freelance wizard in modern-day Chicago. There's no part of that sentence I don't like! There's about a dozen books, I've only read the first one, so who knows if it turns out to be good. I kind of like the system of magic. You have a few spells, Harry Potterish (oh that's right you don't read Harry Potter, for fuck's sake my references are useless now) So the spell for telekenisis is "Vente Blahblah" and then the target, strength, and all that is just up to the caster's will. If you're just hanging out at your house then you can vente Blahblah to shut the door without getting up. But, if your car has gone off a cliff you can VENTEBLAHBLAH!! with more emphasis (and panic) and restore it to the road. Friend: continue me: Maybe this is a little bit of plot armor, or author fudge factor. The success of a spell depends on whether the plot requires it to succeed or fail (but I guess that's all books ever always) What I really like about the book is that there are about SIX plotlines going on at the same time. They all involve the main character but it's like he has his freelance cases to solve AND the police have called him in to investigate an occult murder AND the local vampire faction is causing trouble AND the mafia are asking him for favors AND he gets ambushed by a demonfrog in his home. So of course these things turn out to be interconnected but it's pretty good to have so many irons in the fire. Correction: I think it's very hard to keep all the irons in the fire when telling a story, and it's easy to make it seem too scattered, BUT this author does a good job of it. It's like there's always some stuff going on. Oh, also he's under investigation by the Wizard Council because they suspect he's behind the occult murders and so he's busy dealing with one of the other plotlines when a Wizard Bailiff shows up to interrogate him about that demonfrog and etc. Busy busy busy! All in all it was (acceptable ... pretty decent] I HOPE that the rest of the books get better ala Terry Pratchett Now for the side-splittingly terrible parts! 1.) ALL the ladies in the book are hot and they all want to bone the main character, but he's too "noble" (read: pussified) to take advantage. Ha ha, the author is such a goddamn nerd that he can't even write a romance plotline because girls belong on a pedestal. 2.) The main guy is such a sexist idiot. I mean, comedically 1930s mindset. "Why, this occult murder is so gruesome it must have been fueled by pure irrational hatred! Therefore, we know the murderess is a woman." And he describes the tough lady cop (with boobs and heart of moist gold) who hates when guys are chivalrous and the protagonist INSISTS on opening doors for her and sending flowers and putting his jacket in the mud. I mean, there's a scene where they are walking towards a door and she speeds up to open it first and he RUNS to overtake her and open the door. Because he's a gentleman and she's a lady, goddammit. But also just fighting mafia alongside cops and saying "Ma'am, if you feel you are about to faint, remember to lie down in a position that won't muss up your hair. You're WELCOME!" Just talking talking talking about how women are naturally gifted with weak wills, intuition, and an aversion to men's work. But not in a badass Brock Samson way. He does it in the 1930s doctor way. "It's well known that 90% of a females brain is devoted to periods" 3.) The author (you may want to sit down for this) is a giant fat dork with a fedora. But the character is a slender muscular square-jawed Fabio. Okay, fine, fiction is fiction. BUT The character is clearly self-insertion so he has all the bad habits and tastes that the author has. All the ladies want to bone the main character, even though his outfit is LITERALLY a t-shirt with an ironic slogan on it, SWEATPANTS, COWBOY BOOTS, and a DUSTER. I am not exaggerating one tiny detail. Motherfucker wears sweatpants tucked into his cowboy boots and all the ladies want to suck his dick (but, no thanks, ma'am, I'm a true gentleman and won't besmirch your honor). Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hoooooleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee shyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit! Friend: Yeah I'm gonna wear the duster It's pretty funny to read about the spicy buxom latina reporter soaking her drawers when the wizard walks in, and then he's like "I wipe some crumbs from my sweatpants, cross one boot over my knee, and ask her what she's doing in my apartment at 11PM." "I walked into the bank with my duster flowing behind me and my cowboy boots clack-clacking on the spotless tile floor. I fished my wallet out of my sweatpants and showed the sexy clerk my badge." Oh god my sides. Wotta crazy nerd. But I guess that's the price for decent modern wizard detective noir fiction. 4.) In the first book he makes mention of a lot of different aspects of Wizard society that I hope he explores further. He mentions vampire enclaves, the wizard council, his eldritch instructor, a new drug that allows people to enter magickal trances, his work with the police, and so on. My point is, he touches on these ideas but any one of them would be good jumping-off point for the other books. A couple weeks later... I'm on book for of Dresden Files and they are only barely incrementally improving. Still nearly unreadable but I'm so damn starved for Chicago wizard mnosterfights that I'm having to slog through it anyway. Kaiser: so what would make them better? just a less hateable protaganist? me: 1.) Less hateable protagonist. I didn't mention this before but the hero nerd's favorite swear word is "Hell's Bells!" which is fucking AWFUL. Especially when he uses it literally every five pages or so. Sometimes multiple times on one page. "Hell's Bells, that was close! Oh, Hell's Bells, why'd you have to go and do that! Hell's Bells, Sergeant!" It's fucking unforgivable. FUCK. YOU. 2.) More varied plots. They are terribly formulaic so far. Sexy woman asks PI for help, he blows her off, he gets dragged into some mnoster fights, turns out the woman was behind it all along, but she was just a pawn of a rich warlock. Final battle occurs at warlock's mansion. TERRIBLY formulaic. I ended up not finishing book four, it was just too goddamn stupid. NEGATIVE on Dresden Files. I'm still looking for some kind of decent occult/government fiction though so if someone knows of any worth reading then please let me know. Declare was pretty good but it ran too long and there wasn't enough action and it's only one book, not a series.

The Dresden Files (AIM log) by Last 02/18/2013, 8:17am PST