The barrel of Denton’s gun looked bigger and deeper than the national debt
Harry, sometimes you need to just accept you’re not very good at metaphors, noir-style or not. (more…)
Category: Dresden Files
Dresden Files Fool Moon Ch32
“Okay,” I said, fear making my voice weak. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
“Wish I had my pistol,” Murphy said, her tone resolute. “I wish we’d had some more time to talk things out, Harry.”
I glanced over at Tera. One of the Alphas, the mouse-haired girl in her wolf-shape, was leaning against her and whimpering. “Close your eyes,” Tera said softly and covered the little wolf’s eyes with her hand.
Her amber eyes met mine, without hope, without any sparkle of life.
It’s interesting to contrast everyone here. Harry’s dialogue is bad writing and reads like a joke. Murphy’s is cliche but decent, and Tera continues to somehow exist in parallel to the rest with her own concerns and people, as if she’s an actual person and not a Harry satellite. (more…)
Dresden Files Fool Moon Ch33
Harry heads off and finds the dead spellwolves. AWKWARD GINDER got his stupid ginger face shot off! That’ll show them for running over the author’s dog on their way over to sleep with his wife or whatever they did that pissed him off so much. FAT DUDE bled out.
CRAZY BITCH? Well, she naturally transformed back into something with tits.
naked but for a business skirt soaked in blood.
Yes Harry, you only mentioned that literally every time she showed up. (more…)
Dresden Files Fool Moon Ch34
Harry then promptly wakes up to Murphy hovering over him and begins to whine about being shot. (more…)
Dresden Files Fool Moon Unfoolery + Next Time On
Okay, so.
Last book, despite its flaws, actually had one of the more coherent and workable plots I’ve seen. This book is the usual disaster, only worse because it’s a detective story so you’re supposed to have some clue what’s going on before the end.
Let’s just consider the central conceit (okay, first let’s pretend the central conceit isn’t “haha i got to call a woman a swear word! it’s a pun lol.”), which is that there’s werewolf killings but when Harry tries to investigate it there ends up being a giant pileup of all the different types of werewolf by amazing coincidence.
This actually could work if we give a connection between them.
The Paranet Papers, Part 6 REDUX (Spellcasting)
So, turns out combining paragraphs from the book the way I did turns them into a chant to summon Mary Sue into our world. Didn’t know that. It’s all good, though! Turns out she can’t survive in reality for long. Especially in December in Russia.So, without further ado, let’s do the chapter again.
The Paranet Papers, Part 7 (Goes Bump, Who’s Who) + Conclusion
OK, let’s finish it.The last two chapters update general information about the setting: new supernatural creatures, the fate of old ones, new characters, upgrades for old ones.
It’s more Farla’s domain than mine, so I’m not going to cover it in detail. It would be more fun when we get there in the readthrough (so, keep voting for DF on the poll. We need more Farla suffering to sustain us). Instead, I would mostly focus on game-related stuff here and in the end give my opinion on the book as a whole.
(more…)
The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
Welcome to the jungle / It ain’t all fun and games…
Hello again, everyone! Now that I’m close to finishing my Master’s, I’ll try to go back to posting semi-regularly. To (re)start things off, I’m going to cover something which I promised Farla quite some time ago: the “Dresden Files” comics. I won’t be looking at them as adaptations of a preexisting work, however, but rather, as original works themselves – as if they were an entirely separate franchise. I believe that will allow me to evaluate them in a fairer manner than if I analysed them as part of a book series which I already dislike. That also means I don’t have any plans of covering the comics that are straight adaptations of the novels.
So, without further ado, let me start with Welcome to the Jungle, the first “Dresden” comic book – one that is chronologically set before the first novel, Storm Front, although it was released in 2008 (which means the book series was already up to Small Favor at that point).
Oh, before I forget: there will be spoilers. (more…)
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch1
I did threaten just doing the Exalted book, but I’ve had a break either way, so might as well get back to slogging through this.
Let’s see where we’re going.
There are reasons I hate to drive fast. For one, the Blue Beetle, the mismatched Volkswagen bug that I putter around in, rattles and groans dangerously at anything above sixty miles an hour. For another, I don’t get along so well with technology. Anything manufactured after about World War II seems to be susceptible to abrupt malfunction when I get close to it. As a rule, when I drive, I drive very carefully and sensibly.
So, solid opening. We’re recapping info for new readers, something that’s particularly important when one of the defenses of this series includes telling people not to pick up the first two books. For another, this is obviously setting up for the fact he’s about to tell us he is driving fast, and by listing the reasons that’s bad, we get a double shot of tension – speeding is even more dangerous than usual, and something even worse must be going on for him to be doing so.
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch2
Last time:
I speared him into place with my most ferocious, dark-eyed smile and said, between teeth clenched
on the leather sack, “Hi. Could you tell us where the nursery is?”
Today:
We took the fire stairs.
Yup. We did just completely skip over how they managed to convince anyone to let them through after charging in like they were LARPers who’d finally lost the last vestiges of sanity. (more…)
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch3-4
It’s time for us to jump back in time! Harry decides we really need the backstory to the fun present events.
Even days that culminate in a grand battle against an insane ghost and a trip across the border between this world and the spirit realm usually start out pretty normally. This one, for example, started off with breakfast and then work at the office.
Admittedly I’m way more sick of anyone thinking they need to start the story with breakfast than usual, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to stop and hear about what Harry’s office looks like instead of him following the ghost. Even if I accept this is basically necessary, I think a better point would’ve been to resolve the ghost thing then have an exhausted Harry quip about how this wasn’t how he expected things to go today, cue flashback.
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch5
Alright. So, last time, Harry was a piece of shit. Today, back to what he was doing when the book opened, back before he made it clear that yes, this book would be horrible.
Michael and I plunged through the hole I’d torn in reality and into the Nevernever. It felt like moving from a sauna into an air-conditioned office, except that I didn’t feel the change on my skin. I felt it in my thoughts and my feelings, and in the primitive, skin-crawling part of me at the base of my brain.
The book makes a desperate attempt to make me forget about that.
The little leather sack of ghost dust in my duster pocket abruptly increased its weight, dragging me off balance and to the ground. I let out a curse. The whole point of the ghost dust was that it was something extra-real, that it was heavy and inert and locked spiritual matter into place when it touched it. Even inside its bag, it had become a sudden stress on the Nevernever. If I opened the bag here, in the world of spirit, it might tear a hole in the floor. I’d have to be careful. I grunted with effort and pulled the little pouch out of my pocket. It felt like it weighed thirty or forty pounds.
Michael frowned down at my hands. “You know, I never really thought to ask before—but what is that
dust made of?”
“Depleted uranium,” I told him. “At least, that’s the base ingredient. I had to add in a lot of other things. Cold iron, basil, dung from a—”
And it does really good job! It’s not good enough and I still hope Harry gets mauled soon, but I’m willing to let the subject drop for a moment. (more…)
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch6
Last time, a woman showed up and her appearance was only a little creepily described!
Harry gets right to the point, asking how Godmom got to him so fast. She’s all lolnope. Niceseeingyoubye? tries Harry.
She walked closer, her body moving with a lithe, sensuous grace
aaaaaaaaand so much for that. (more…)
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch7
Last time, our heroes just finished heroing it up to save a whole roomful of newborn babies – the most baby babies you can get!
Today:
Michael rested his chin in his hands and sighed. “I can’t believe we’re in jail.”
Okay yeah, but, like, noir + ignorant muggles. Of course you are. (more…)
Dresden Files Grave Peril Ch8
Last time, vampires! Now, vampires. Yay, vampires! (more…)