What book are you reading?

[BillButNotBen]

My favorite werewolf book was some random book that I got from the library that I don’t remember the name of or who wrote it. It seemed like it might have been part of a series, or maybe not.
It might also have been rubbish, because it was a long time ago.

But it was basically a British WW2 spy story, of the kind that was very common in books and movies in the 60s and 70s.
The main character was a slightly Bond-ish british guy who got sent on an undercover mission in france against the Nazis. They had some evil plot that I don’t remember, there was a beautiful french/german love interest. There were probably betrayals.

But he also happened to be a werewolf. He lived in a big country house with a pack of ‘dogs’ roaming around. He also had much more control than most werewolves, so if he was fighting a Nazi on a train/truck he could change his hand to a claw to fight back.

It was pretty formulaic, but also an unusual genre mash up. It also didn’t fall into the usual werewolf stuff of trying to keep control and full moons, which we’ve seen dozens of times at this point.

I don’t want to look it up because I’ll almost certainly find it’s terrible

[LexW]

Unsure what exactly is the issue. The novelty of modern day detective slash wizard sortof run out so the book must stands on its own.

And yet I think lack of complexities in characters, very undeveloped lore which hints on bigger world but does not give enough info to actual get interested in it.

Dresden character is also not that appealing…

The third one was also my last in the Dresden series, for similar issues. I foolishly started on the fourth, despite the issues with the third, but only got about 1/5th of the way through before deciding I was done.

I think you’ve identified the main issues there. Dresden himself is not very likeable , but the author clearly thinks he’s awesome and expects you too as well. It’s a bit like dealing with a sleazy 65-year-old who was like, “cool for 1975” or something - which is funny because the writer is much younger than that, 48! Dresden’s friends, frenemies, and enemies are not at all well-developed characters, so they don’t provide alternative things to be interested in. And what lore we get usually makes the world kind of revolve around Dresden, which makes it feel un-detective-novel-ish - that’s kind of a big issue. With normal hard-boiled detective-type stuff, the detective will be largely minding his own business, when someone will get him involved with something he doesn’t want to be involved with. But with Dresden, he acts like that’s going on, but very often he is already involved to some extent, or is in fact essentially why its happening, or happening in a certain way.

There’s also a general sense of fan-ish-ness. I get that a writer should probably like their own characters/world, but when I read the Dresden books, it felt painfully obvious that Jim Butcher really was a big fan of all his “good guy” characters, and whilst that doesn’t stop him putting them in embarrassing or unfortunate situations, it does mean there’s this certain tone, a bit like someone telling you about an “awesome” time they played a computer game or tabletop RPG, which gets wearing after a while. The books also get slightly sillier as they go on, as more and more supernatural elements are added in (without ever being given consistent/compelling lore), and the whole edgy tone of the first book is lost in favour of what can only be described as “shenanigans”.

I don’t want to look it up because I’ll almost certainly find it’s terrible

I find it’s like 50/50 at best with “books I liked a long time ago”, so yeah, not great odds. Some stand up or are even better than I remembered (A Wizard of Earthsea, for example), others… not so much…

Pretty sure this is it:

The Wolf's Hour

The cover does not inspire a great deal of confidence lol (I know, I know, never…).

[Similar]

3rd dresden book…

And I think it might be my last.

2nd one was weak from my perspective but since I dislike werewolves tropes I just thought it was the premise of the book which I dislike.

I’ve read the series some times and to me the first book is by far the weakest. It’s a bit too much like a school assignment by someone who’s read the Anita Blake books (apparently it was also written for a writer’s club, so…).
I do think it gets a lot better after that, starting from maybe book three or so and then improving, but yeh, it definitely gets cringey at times, and the main character is difficult (there are some side characters I’m, maybe oddly, fond of, though).

Which is not to say I think you should persevere. If the third book is still that much of a slog, then the rest probably won’t improve enough for them to be worth it.

Bit odd he just stopped writing them. I think they’ve been fairly popular, but the only addition to the series for years has been a collection of short stories (I think it is. I haven’t read it).

[mrpier]

Two new Dresden books came out this year, one in july and one a couple of days ago.

Also agree, the first book is the worst. They do get better or you get invested in the characters enough that you don’t care.

[BillButNotBen]

They do get better or you get invested in the characters enough that you don’t care.

If that was a thing, the last half of Wheel of Time would have been a lot more fun.
/tugs braid in irritation/

[Similar]

Two new Dresden books came out this year, one in july and one a couple of days ago.

huh. I had heard he was writing a new one, but I didn’t think anything would happen for a while. And certainly not two books.

[DominusNox]

Ordered Dune over a month ago, still waiting for it to arrive.
Kinda getting worried now.

[BillButNotBen]

At least you have until Oct 2021 to read it.

From Amazon or Book Depository? BD is always super slow for me, but I do live in an unusual place.

[Sarfrin]

I stumbled upon Ren Warom via an ebook from my local library. That was Escapology, her debut, which started slow but really ramped up to a seriously good ending. I’m now reading Coil from last year. It’s set in a far future where body modification is the norm and more developed than now, as you’d expect. The world building is seriously vivid, it’s a world I’ll remember for a long time. The plotting is also great. I’ve just reached a huge twist I didn’t see coming at all about 50 pages from the end.
I’m really surprised she’s not more well known given the quality of her writing.

[BillButNotBen]

Escapology - “Shock Pao is the best. In the virtual world the Slip there’s nothing he can’t steal for the right price. Outside the Slip, though, he’s a Fail – no degree, no job. So when his ex offers him a job, breaking into a corporate databank, he accepts—it’s either that, or find himself a nice bench to sleep under. Amiga works for psychotic crime lord Twist Calhoun so when Shock’s war comes to her, it’s her job to bring him to Twist, dead or alive.”

That sounds very William Gibson. Whether good or bad it’s hard to tell. There are a lot of attempts to emulat Gibson, but they often come up short.

(+) She seems to have blue hair
(-) She’s not called Alice.

[Sarfrin]

I avoided using the term cyberpunk but you’re right, it is the same milieu. I don’t think she’s emulating Gibson though. She has her own style which is more, well, punk than Gibson’s.

[LexW]

I’ll definitely have a look at this. She identifies her books as “horror/cyberpunk” which does seem an underexplored niche.

The way the SF/fantasy genre works though it doesn’t surprise me that she’s not well-known despite being good, because even a lot of the most successful stuff is brutally mediocre, and when an author is lesser-known, there’s at least a 70% chance they’re also not very good, which makes trying new authors feel pretty Russian-roulette-y (libraries help with this of course as there’s no money investment).

[BillButNotBen]

She has her own style which is more, well, punk than Gibson’s.

I could tell that by the hair color

[DominusNox]

@BillButNotBen, yea it’s over BD but it never was still slow before, guess all this pandemic is affecting it quite hard.

[Sarfrin]

Just finished Escape From Baghdad by Saad Z. Hossain, which was in a Storybundle I think. It starts off reminiscent of Catch 22 set in Iraq after the American invasion then gets weirder. Pretty funny and definitely worth reading, I’ll be checking out his other stuff.
I’ve also read a couple of things by Chris Beckett. Maybe it’s just the two books I read (Two Tribes and Beneath the World, a Sea) but he seems incapable of writing a decent ending. It’s like when you’re watching a movie and you think ‘They should just leave now, but that would make for a really boring movie’ and his characters do just do the sensible thing, which makes for a really boring ending to the book.

[chopper]

99p on Amazon, Yay or Nay?

Pros: the third paragraph made me laugh
Cons: the ellipsis at the end of the fourth

[Sarfrin]

Has decent reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Incidentally, RPS contributor Nate Crowley (Frog Croakley) has a book on sale for 99p at the moment.

The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack | Rebellion Publishing