Skin Game (a book review post)

Am I all caught up now? I think I'm all caught up now.
Actually, I know I am, because I checked. I'm so caught up there's not even a release date for the next book. And, my goodness, there are a lot of these now!
Butcher seems to be playing quite the long game with the series at this point, each book moving the over-arching story a few inches closer to wherever it is he's going with all of this, which may be feet or may be miles away.

My biggest criticism about this book remains the issue of Dresden and his association with pop culture. I get that it's part of Butcher's schtick with Dresden, but it's gotten beyond the stage where it makes any sense, if it ever made sense. I mean, come on, Dresden has been stuck on an island in a cave for a year (at least) when this book starts but, yet, Dresden is still up to date on the latest pop culture references. And, yeah, it's funny (to an extent) but, now that I've noticed that Dresden shouldn't be aware of any of this, I can't get it out of my head as I read. Plus, in this one, the parkour joke ran on a bit far. Running jokes should be more related to sprints than to marathons.

So, yeah, that's the biggest fault I found with this book. In fact, this is the first book in a while where I felt Butcher was really hitting his stride (and we all know how long Dresden's legs are, so that's saying something), again, with Dresden, pop culture aside. Maybe it was dealing with the Nicodemus and the Denarians again or, maybe, it was having Michael back. Maybe, Butcher was just hitting the right beats. Maybe it was the absence of vampires, not that I don't like Thomas, but there have been a lot of vampires for a lot of while in these books, and there wasn't anything like that this time. No stuff with the council, either.

Oh, wait, there was one other thing:
A clever author will hide a twist in a story in plain view by giving you the pieces of the puzzle but in such a way that you don't really know what you're seeing or how to put them together. A good example of this is The Sixth Sense. When the reveal happens, you kick yourself and realize you should have seen it the whole time.
A not so clever author hide the twist by hiding the pieces so that you can't figure it out at all. Sure, I suppose you could guess the twist, but that's just guessing. A good example of this is The Illusionist, a movie which has, like, 10 minutes of flashbacks during the reveal to show you all of the things it didn't show you during the movie.
And that's what Butcher does here, stops and almost literally says, "Oh, here's what I didn't tell you about that happened earlier in the story." There are ways you can make that work but probably not in a first person narration where the narrator is the one holding stuff behind his back.

Anyway... I suppose I got over that bit fairly easily because I almost forgot to include it at all despite the fact that I was quite annoyed at that point in the book.

This book feels like it has a lot of significant events in it. Little events. Not huge things like when Dresden died or when Dresden became the Winter Knight but lots of little things, all of which would be spoilery, so I'm not going to mention them. And there's one thing that happened that the un-happening of is never mentioned, though it's kind of implied that the un-happening happened, but that also seems like it should be more significant than to mention that it happened, or un-happened, and I don't know if it's significant or not! And it's kind of niggling at me and I want to know what it means!

Damn you, Butcher!

Well, as I'm sure I've said before, if you're a fan of the Dresden books, you're almost sure to like this one. If you're not a fan, it's probably because you haven't read any of the books. Or... well, I'll just say it: There's probably something wrong with you.

Cold Days (a book review post)

Wow! It has been a long time since I read one of these! More than three years according to the date on when I reviewed Ghost Story. Looking back, I remember that I had really wanted to get started on Cold Days pretty much right away, but, well, I didn't have the book yet, and, then, I continued to not have the book for, well, three years. heh I guess that's just how it goes sometimes. Besides, I've been reading other things.

Which I finally needed a break from, evidently, because most of what I've been reading has been on the heavier side, and the Dresden books, in my mind, are still categorized as "light reading." I may have to re-think that after this one, though, and probably actually should have begun to rethink that several books ago. These books are not so "light and fun," anymore, though I suppose I still would not call them heavy.

Anyway...

Obviously, Harry didn't stay dead. Or, well, wasn't quite dead. At any rate, he's back in the land of the living. Although I would guess that we haven't seen the end of the ghost world based on the way that Butcher tends to bring things back around. This book is another example of that, bringing threads back in from all over the place from earlier in the series. It keeps it interesting. You can't ever just be done with one of the books, because it all seems to matter.

That's a good thing, by the way. At least it is in my book.
heh

Maybe it was the long break I had from the Dresden books, but I feel like I enjoyed this one more than I did the last few, though, looking back at my reviews and ratings and things, that's probably not actually true. Except for Turn Coat; that one was definitely the low point of the series so far for me.

Although I will admit that the pop culture references did begin to wear on me after awhile. I don't think there were than in previous books, but it felt like he was trying too hard with them this time. I felt myself being reminded of the Xanth novels and how the quality of the puns went down as the series progressed; the quality went down as the frequency increased. It wasn't quite that bad, here, but I do have to wonder how Harry is able to draw on all of this pop culture seeing as how he can't really watch television and movies. Sure, I get some of it's from his childhood but, really, he's way too current for an isolated wizard. And, no, this isn't a big thing, just something I noticed this time.

The last book, kind of obviously, dealt with how Harry's friends dealt with his death. This book deals with how they deal with him still being alive after thinking he was dead. Who's moved on and who hasn't, so to speak. It's good stuff. Real emotions and all of that. Mostly, it doesn't skimp. Except maybe with Thomas. That seemed a little rushed.

Overall, great addition to the series. He got me with the ending again. I'm a pretty savvy reader and am not frequently surprised at endings, but this two in a row where Butcher has managed to squeeze somethings in that I didn't anticipate. At least one of those things, I probably should have, but, then, all you of you probably should have, too, but I bet you didn't see it coming either. He did a good job of setting that up. I'm looking forward to the next book, Skin Game, and, this time, I already have it!

Furies of Calderon (a book review post)

Any of you who have been around here for a while will know that I have a fairly high tolerance for reading -- let's say -- poor books. Sometimes really poor books. Sometimes really poor series of books. It's not that I enjoy it -- the pain of reading bad books -- I just don't like not finishing something that I start. Also, I tend to hold out the hope for some of them that they'll get better.

I suppose I was hoping this would be one of those, one that gets better, because I like Jim Butcher. The Dresden Files are great, at least the first dozen or so that I've read are, so I was expecting that The Codex Alera would be at least somewhere in the same range of quality.

But no...

Let's make a sports analogy, just for fun. If The Dresden Files were a major league baseball team, Furies of Calderon would be, like, a little league team. Except it would be grown men playing at a little league level and trying to go up against a major league team. It would be something worse than the Bad News Bears.

This book was bad.

Seriously, there was nothing in it that I enjoyed. Not even a single character. The plot was a pretty cliche. And don't get me started on the magic system.

Let me give some context:

I picked up the first two books when I got Furies. See, I really did expect to like it. Jim Butcher, right? By halfway through, I'd decided that there was no way I was going to read anymore of the books, and I hate not reading a book that I've already bought. It's a waste of money. But it was so bad I knew there was no way I could do it.

But I decided that I would, at least, go ahead and finish the one I was reading. I mean, Jim Butcher! It could get better! There was a chance, right? So I forged ahead... and got to within a hundred pages of the end of the book (and it's a long book, so 100 pages was, really, close to the end) and...
Well, I decided I'd had enough. Even with just only 100 pages to go, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. It wasn't worth wasting that much more time to do.

Here's my insight into this series:
Butcher has said that he always wanted to write epic fantasy. It was what he started out trying to do when he was a kid after reading Tolkien. I think this is the story he came up with when he was a teenager, maybe a middle schooler. Once he got famous enough off Dresden, he went back to this story he dreamed up when he was a kid and began writing it without any changes. Because it reads like it was written by a kid, and I've read enough stories by middle schoolers to recognize the style.

Oh, and possibly the worst thing in the book?
He uses the word "pace" all the time! No one walks; everyone paces. And it just doesn't mean the same thing. It broke me from the story every time he used it, sometimes three or four times on a page. It was awful. That wasn't the only word he used repetitively, but it was by far the worst.

All I can really say is don't read this book. I mean, I couldn't finish it. I couldn't finish it, and that's pretty significant.

Ghost Story (a book review post)

Here's the warning right  up front:
This review will be full of spoilers. Not spoilers about this book, specifically, but about the series in general. If you even think you might want to read these at some point, you do not want to read this review. At all. Any of it. If you are reading this series but aren't this far, yet, stop reading right now. Seriously, go find something else to do. Just be satisfied with me saying that this book is good, and go away. You will only be mad if you go farther.

Is there anyone left? Just Rusty? (Because he's read them all.) Oh, well, I'll just go ahead anyway.

The end of book twelve, Changes, leaves us with a major "cliffhanger." I say "cliffhanger" because it's not really a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger is when a story ends before the climax is resolved. In Changes, the climax is resolved, but a horrible thing happens during the denouement: Harry is killed. At least, as far as we can tell, Harry is killed. I can understand why people who were reading these as they came out were really pissed by the ending. I would have been pissed, too. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait, because I had Ghost Story (and Side Jobs) sitting here waiting for me when I finished Changes.

As the story hints, Ghost Story opens with Harry's ghost. He has, evidently, been killed. Why else would his spirit be roaming free, right? And that is the $64,000 question. And it's a question the book asks almost right away, but it takes Harry some time to figure it out. Which was, all things considered, kind of surprising. I mean, when someone tells you, "There were some irregularities with your death," you ought to start thinking things.

My big issue with the book is the whole "ghost whisperer" angle, and I mean Ghost Whisperer just like the TV show. Butcher even acknowledges it within the book, but I can't help but think, "Really? That's what you had to go with?" I don't know; maybe, that whole "unfinished business" notion is so pervasive that it's the only reasonable option you can go with, but it annoyed me.

Other than that, though, the book is, as the Dresden books tend to be, a very captivating read. You want Harry to figure out what's going on, because you want Harry to figure out that there's a way back to life. And I'm not saying that there is a way back to life, but you want Harry to figure that out. You want that to be a thing. I mean, how can the series go on if the protagonist is dead, right? Except that Butcher shows us that that's also a possibility. And that could be interesting, a dead protagonist. And that's the struggle of reading this book. And, of course, finding out who killed Harry.

I have to say, I didn't see that coming as more than a "nah, that couldn't be it" possibility in my head, and I kept trying to figure it out. I was surprised when that "nah" thought was the correct one, so that was pretty well done.

Look, this is what it comes down to:
If you've gotten this far into The Dresden Files, you must like them. Why would you read 13 books into a series you don't enjoy, right? If you like Dresden, you're going to like this book. It shows us a whole new side of the Dresden world despite the ghost whisperer issue. There's not much else to be said about it.

Oh, and I didn't see the end coming. I don't mean the answer to the "who shot Harry" question; I mean what came after that. That's going to make you happy that book 14 is already out.

Side Jobs (a book review post)

This is Dresden book 12.5. At least, that's usually how it's listed. It falls in between Changes (book 12) and Ghost Story (book 13), but, as suggested by the ".5" designation, it is not a novel. It is, in fact, a collection of short stories that fall within the series as a whole with only the final story falling in between books 12 and 13.

This book is a good reason why I don't generally tend to care for short stories and why I don't generally care to like first person very much.

So let's have a writing lesson (yeah, I know it's a book review, but I can't talk about this issue without the writing lesson):

First person is seductive, especially to the beginning writer. It's easy and it feels natural. But, see, it's a trap. When you're writing in first person, the author isn't writing from his/her voice, s/he's writing from the character's voice. The problem, then, is that most authors can't differentiate between their own voice and their characters'. And, you know, that's fine as long as you only ever write the one character in first person. But that's not what usually happens, and it's not what happened here.

Butcher's been writing Dresden a long time. Dresden's voice is distinct. But, see, it's that seduction of the young writer to write in first person, and Dresden's voice is really Butcher's (which is why we get the occasional preachy episode in the Dresden books). It hadn't occurred to me nor would I have ever noticed if Butcher hadn't decided to write from some other characters' POVs in these short stories.

There's a story from the POV of Thomas and, other than that Thomas reminds us that it's him, the story reads just like it's from the POV of Harry. Sure, it's an interesting story with all of the Oblivion War stuff in it, but Butcher should have switched to third person so that it didn't feel like Harry talking.

And there's a story from the POV of Murphy which is only differentiated by the fact that she spends a lot of time talking about Harry and that there are sections describing her hand-to-hand fighting. However, those sections have the exact same feel as Harry describing how he uses magic, essentially making it the same voice. The only other thing is the reference to men speaking Martian, but it's not enough to set the piece apart from all of the Dresden pieces.

A first person character voice should be as distinctive as listening to someone speak in person. Butcher doesn't pull that off, which was more than a little disappointing.

Then, there is the issue that the stories are of vastly variable quality with only a few feeling like they actually added anything to the Dresden world. And when the heck did Georgia become Butcher's Lois Lane? Really, we had to have two different stories about her getting kidnapped? I get that Will and Georgia are the only characters that Butcher has allowed to have any kind of long term relationship and they have to be the default for that kind of story, but, sheesh, damsel in distress much?

All of that said, if you're a fan of The Dresden Files, you'll want to read the book. "Day Off" and "The Warrior" were both very good and, actually, so is "Something Borrowed" (despite the Georgia kidnapping). And, then, "Aftermath" is almost essential reading. Almost. You could get by without it, but it's worth the read to fill in some space between books 12 and 13. And, of course, you get rescue Georgia again.

Lyon's Legacy (a book review post)

To be honest, this book didn't work for me right from the start. And the sad thing there is that I really wanted it to. I just couldn't get past the premise. The idea here is that sometime late this century there will be born the great-granddaughter of a 1960s pop star. And that's okay except that, evidently, this guy was such a huge star that people still recognize her (all of the family) when she's walking down the street and come up to her all starstruck about her great-grandfather. But, see, we barely care about the kids of famous people, now, unless they become some kind of star in their own right. This book expects me to believe that at some point in the future we suddenly have some kind of holy reverence for the descendants of dead 60s and 70s music stars. You know, in the same way that we have reverence for the descendants of all those great stars of the early 20th century. You know, like... Oh, wait, we don't even remember the stars of 100 years ago, let alone their children.

So, yeah, the idea that anyone would expect Joanna Lyon to follow in the footsteps of her great-grandfather just didn't make any sense. I couldn't suspend my disbelief for that. Maybe that's my issue and no fault of the book.

Then, there was the issue of first person. I've mentioned before that I'm no real fan of 1st person writing (despite my love of The Dresden Files), and this book pushed all of my buttons on the reasons why I don't like 1st person. It (first person) offers way too many shortcuts, and Almazan took them all, frequently telling us how other characters feel and what they think without actually showing us the interactions to back those things up. But, at least, she didn't have Joanna stand in front of a mirror and describer herself to us, because that is the worst.

There was also the issue of the love story, which is of the insta-love variety, and another of things that push my dislike buttons. It's too frequent that we have a female protagonist telling us how she just can't find the right guy and she doesn't know how to act around guys and, besides, guys aren't that important, anyway, and BOOM! there's the perfect guy and she loves him and he loves her and there's never any question about what's going to develop. Then, once the characters have sex, the deal is sealed. That's it for life. Does that even happen in real life? Ever? And it's not that I expect a fantasy (in the sense that all writing is fantasy) to necessarily be true to life, but there could be some complexity to it other than the neurosis of the protagonist.

All in all, the book didn't feel fleshed out. There are too many gaps, too many things not followed through to their logical conclusion, too many things left unexplained.. Then, to top it all off, the book just stops. It's like Almazan got tired of writing and cut it off without any kind of resolution. Reading it on the Kindle made it even worse, because I was only at the 85% mark when Lyon's Legacy stopped. The rest of the book is promo stuff for her other works.

As I've said in other reviews, maybe these issues are with me. The book has generally very positive reviews, so, maybe, my standards are just too high. But, then, they are my standards for what is enjoyable reading for me. Either way, this book didn't work for me.

Changes (a book review post)

For those of you unfamiliar with The Dresden Files, you do not want to start with this book, book 12 in the series. While each book has an intact story that doesn't exactly require the previous books to understand, there is so much back story built up that, even though Butcher does a fairly decent job of quickly filling in details about past events/people, a lot of the context will be lost. Besides, it's a good series and, if you want to read them, you should just start at book one, Storm Front.

If you've been around for a while, you'll know that book 11, Turn Coat, was the first of the Dresden books that I haven't been in love with (or extreme like). And, wow, it was enough to allow me to go a whole year before picking up Changes. I thought about it several times over the past year but, every time I did, I decided to go with some other book. I suppose a streak of reading books I didn't enjoy much prompted me to go ahead with book 12.

The first thing I will note is that the editing is much better in this one. Although there are more commas than are strictly needed, there are none just stuck into the middles of clauses. At least not so many that I noticed them like in the last book.

The idea behind this book is right in the title. Butcher has decided to change Dresden's life, really shake it up. The one thing I have really liked about the Dresden books is that Dresden is not a static character. This is not one of those series where everything goes back to the status quo at the end of each book, which is why you can't pick the books up at random and read them. If you don't read them in order, you can't follow the overall story arc and the growth of the character. The truth is that change is a normal thing for Harry Dresden. Well, except for the fact that he can't ever seem to get ahead. But there are far-reaching consequences in these books that you don't always see in series fiction like this where each book has a happy ending and everything is fine again. Dresden may get the technical happy ending, but nothing is ever fine.

In this one, though, Butcher goes after Dresden hard.

In fact, it's so hard that it's like someone walking up to you on the street and just punching you in the face. Which is kind of the problem, because Butcher picks one of the most cliche ways of doing that: "They've taken our daughter." That's sentence one, and, of course, Dresden didn't know anything about having a kid. Nor should he have because it was from a singular sexual encounter. I'm just going to say, really, only teenagers expect people to believe that you can have sex once and get pregnant.

Sure, I know that it's technically possible, and teenagers, which I know from years of working with them, want adults to believe that, really, they only slipped up the one time and, oops!, pregnant. The reality, though, is that that pregnancy is the result of two humping like bunnies for months. So it's really kind of insulting for Butcher to throw the unknown kid at us from the one sexual encounter Dresden had with the mother years before.

But that's (almost) the only complaint I have about the book. Once you get past the whole "I have to go rescue my daughter" thing, it's a well constructed story. Butcher systematically goes through and dismantles Dresden's life and even managed to throw in a couple of things I didn't see coming. That doesn't happen for me very often. [In fact, the big problem I had with book 11 is that I knew who the bad guy was and what was going on by about 1/4 of the way through the book. The rest of it was just going through the motions.] I don't mind Dresden having a daughter. I don't even mind that he didn't know he had a daughter. I mind that it's the result of this one time thing that happened. Beyond that, this book is a great ride.

Oh, I did say "almost" the only complaint. The other thing is the cliffhanger that Butcher threw in on, literally, the last page. I won't say what happened, but I find just tossing that in at the end to be about as cliche as the beginning. So, yeah, take out the first page and the last page and this is an awesome book. Unfortunately, the reliance on those two gimmicks takes the book down a peg for me. It's still a great series, though, and I would highly recommend it to any fan of fantasy, especially modern fantasy.

No Respecter of (Third) Persons: Part One -- How Does That Make You Feel? (an IWM post)

Somewhat recently, I was presented with the question of... okay, I don't remember, exactly, what the question was, but I'll say it like this: Why do you believe that third person perspective is superior to first person?
That's a really good question, especially since I don't exactly shy away from first person.
So, I suppose, the real question is more along the lines of "Why do I think you shouldn't use first person?"

Well, okay, it's not that I think you, the specific you sitting here reading this post, shouldn't use first person; it's that I think the general you out there shouldn't use first person. At least not until you have figured out how to write in third person. First person, especially for the beginning writer, has too many traps and short cuts; until you know how to get around them, you should write in third. And, actually, it's writing in third that will help you to learn to avoid the snares.

So let's start with descriptions...

* * *

Do you know the drill, yet? I feel like you ought to know the drill. Unless this is your first time here, in which case, here's the drill:

His name is Bit, and he's glad to meet you.

Seriously, though, hop right over to Indie Writers Monthly to find out why you ought to be writing in third person. Or, at lease, why you shouldn't be writing in first. No, they're not the same thing.

Old Man's War (a book review post)

Disclaimer: Portions of this review are going to sound like I liked the book much less than I did. Just know from the beginning that I liked the book. I'm going to read the next one. But I'm still going to talk about the things that bothered me as I was reading. Mostly because they allow me to talk about some writing things within a context that gives an example of what I'm talking about.

Also: Although this is a traditionally published book, (if I have my facts straight) it started out as an indie book published serially on Scalzi's blog where it was "discovered," so I'm sort of looking at this from the aspect of covering an indie writer, albeit an indie writer that has made it big.

But let's get on with the review.

The first thing to note is that the book is in first person. Now, this is my own bias, but I'm beyond tired of first person stories. Unless there is some specific reason for first that can't be accomplished in third (like the tone of The Dresden Files and the fact that first person is part of the whole detective genre thing), I'd rather not see first person for a long, long time. Like I said, this is my own thing and may come from the fact that almost all I see is first person stories from the middle schoolers I work with despite how often I tell them to write in third. I only mention it at all because it does cause an internal groan from me at this point when I open a book and it's first person.

The next thing springs out of the first thing. There's this thing that frequently happens with sci-fi writers (sometimes fantasy, too, with magic systems). They come up with these brilliant sci-fi ideas, and they want to share them with you. Like, for instance, if I want to have a teleporter in my story, but I can't just have the teleporter because that's been done a lot, right, so I have to have some cool idea about how a teleporter works; that's what makes it mine. And, if I have the idea, I want to share it with you. In a third person story, this isn't such a big deal, because you can include a description in the narrative and it doesn't necessarily seem out of place. However, in a first person story, it's usually like inviting someone into your house then explaining how the TV works and the computer works and the cell phone works. The thing is, most of us don't have more than just a vague idea of how those things really work, so when a character in a book who is just a normalish guy starts explaining how high tech gadgets work, then it feels out of place.

Fortunately, Scalzi doesn't quite fall prey to that trap. Rather than have John Perry explain all that stuff to us, he has it explained to him, which makes Scalzi's desire to share his clever ideas mostly acceptable. Actually, the first clever idea is more than acceptable, because there's a political reason for the tech, and that was interesting. The second clever idea is also acceptable because it's something that's happening to Perry, but they start becoming gratuitous after that because they're things that most people wouldn't have an interest in knowing and are actually frequently accompanied by "you don't have the math" to explain why Perry doesn't and can't understand the things being explained to him, yet he persists in having the people give the explanations while maintaining that he doesn't know what they're talking about.

The other thing I had an issue with was that Perry was the cleverest guy around. Which isn't of itself an issue except that he would point something obvious that no one else had ever thought of. This is actually a major plot point in the book, that Perry notices something that decades worth of people, many who should have been much smarter than him, have completely dismissed as irrelevant or trivial. It was a thing I couldn't buy into. There wasn't even a "yeah, we noticed that, but we don't know what it means," which could have worked. Instead it was, "yeah, that's nothing. It doesn't mean anything." Which, of course, was wrong.

Beyond that, I had a difficult time having any emotional investment in the book. I was never worried about Perry or, even, really cared about him. I think it was the first person and the style he used within the first person. It had that feel of someone sitting right in front of you telling a story, but, you know, the guy is right there in front of you, so you know everything comes out okay in the end, so to speak. It made it hard for me to engage beyond a surface level.

That said, it was a great surface level book. The world (multiverse) that Scalzi has created is interesting, and I want to see where he's going with the meta-story. Perry's voice as the narrator was engaging so, even though I wasn't worried about him, I did want to know what was happening. It was engaging right from the beginning, too, so there was never any point where I thought I might not be able to get into the book. The parallel opening and ending was a nice touch.

In short, it's a quick, light read. If you like space opera, you ought to read this book.

ALSO!
The new issue of Indie Writers Monthly is out!

You should pick up a copy today! I know I will!

Turn Coat (a book review post)

Turn Coat by Jim Butcher may be the first of his Dresden novels that I am truly ambivalent about. On the one hand, I really enjoyed reading it. On the other... let's just say it has some problems. And this is going to be spoilery. Be warned.

The easy stuff:
The editor needs to go back to editing school. The comma usage was distracting. Not everywhere but enough that they frequently made me stop and say, "Why is there a comma here in the middle of this sentence?" To write that as it would probably appear in Turn Coat: "Why is there a comma, here in the middle of this sentence?" or "Why is there a comma here in the middle, of this sentence?" I shouldn't be stopped by oddly placed commas. Just sayin'.
[And, yeah, I know; most people will not be stopped or even slowed down by the commas, but I kept tripping on them, and that was annoying.]
Anyway...

As with all of the Dresden books, I found this one an enjoyable read. I mean, I found the reading of it enjoyable. I find the character of Dresden enjoyable, and I really want to see where Butcher is taking us on this meta-plot he has running. However, whenever I stopped to think about this one, I would become annoyed.

As the title may indicate, this book deals with the idea of a traitor. Specifically, there is a traitor in the White Council. Okay, fine, I can deal with that. The issue here is that for the story to have any meaning, any impact on the reader, it really needs to be a character we've already met. For it to really mean something to the reader, it needs to be a character we like, even if it's a minor character. Yes, that would mean that Butcher would have to mess up the life of one of his characters, but that's what writers do, right? Evidently, that was too much to ask of Butcher because, about 1/4 of the way through the book, we're introduced to a completely unlikable character that Dresden immediately has issues with. The astute reader knows at that moment that that is the traitor. So, yeah, at not quite 25% of the way through the book, I knew where it was going, so there was this pervasive disappoint as I read. I just kept hoping that maybe I was wrong and it would actually be someone like Ebenezer and we'd all be shocked, but I knew that it wasn't going to be anyone like that.

So, you know, great, Butcher introduced a character that we didn't like just to kill him off. No emotional payoff at all.

There are some other things that don't make a lot of sense, either:
1. Why in the heck is the skinwalker working for Peabody? The skinwalker is some ancient evil creature; why does it care at all about what Peabody wants? [Granted, this may become more clear as the scope of the Black Council is revealed, but it felt more like Butcher just needing to up his game from the previous bad guys Dresden has had to fight.]
2. Why does the skinwalker kidnap Thomas? This doesn't actually make any sense within the context of the story or the skinwalkers behavior throughout the rest of the book. He just shows up and takes Thomas and leaves. What the heck? Sure, I get that Butcher wants this traumatic event to happen to Thomas to get him to embrace his vampire ways, but none of what happened felt genuine.

Also, there's the issue of the Black Council. This is probably not an issue for other readers so much, but it reminds me too much of the Black Aes Sadai (I think that's what they were called; something like that, anyway) from Wheel of Time and the black whatever they were from Sword of Truth. I'm not saying that he copied the idea, but it just feels like the same concept going on, and I find that particular thing annoying.

On the other hand, there is the ending where Dresden actually lives up to the title of the book, a thing which I'm not going to explain, but, at least, the whole turn coat thing wasn't just about Peabody. That said, I think what I need from Butcher with these books is for them not to keep feeling like Butcher is screwing with Dresden for the sake of screwing with Dresden. The thing with Thomas just feels like one of those things where they have a good relationship and, so, you have to screw it up, because the main character isn't allowed to have good relationships, and Butcher had to contrive a way for that to happen. A way that felt contrived. The same with the stuff with Anastasia.

So... I enjoyed the read but am annoyed by the book overall. I'd say it probably comes in at a C+ for me.

How To Be... a Werewolf

You're probably thinking right about now that the way to become a werewolf is pretty simple. All you need to do is go out and find one and let it bite or scratch you.

That would be incorrect.

Sure, plenty of books and movies depict it that way now, but that has newly been tacked onto the werewolf legend, probably due to its association with vampiric legends due to Dracula. Which is kind of interesting, because Stoker drew on werewolf legends and attached them to the vampire legends. Although it had been believed in Medieval Europe that you had to burn a werewolf corpse to keep it from rising from the dead as a vampire. So if you're looking to one day be a vampire, it appears that being a werewolf is a good start.

But, okay, if you can't become a werewolf from getting bitten, how do you become one? It appears that there are many paths to werewolfdom, and many of them are surprisingly easy to accomplish.

One of the best ways, because you can control it, is to simply wear a belt (or girdle) made of wolf hide. Putting on the belt would cause the transformation to take place, instantly and painlessly. Removing it would revert the wearer to human form. However, some sources said it wasn't quite that simple. Some said the strip of wolf skin, the wolf strap, had to come from the devil. Although you could still control the transformation, because the devil gave it to you, you could never rid yourself of the wolf strap.

Some legends say that you could become any animal at all by drinking rainwater from its footprint. Wereelephant, anyone? Or, you know, maybe find one of those stone dinosaur footprints and drink from that. Weretyrannosaur. One catch, I couldn't find anything that said how long these transformations would last, just that drinking the water would trigger them. I imagine they must wear off; otherwise, no one would have ever known they'd happened to begin with.

Other sources say that you can become a werewolf by sleeping outside in the light of a full summer's moon as long as the light is shining directly on your face. I suppose this must be part of where the full moon part of the transformation legend comes from. The sources implied that transformed human would return to normal at dawn. But these weren't permanent changes; you'd have to do the same thing any time you wanted to become a werewolf.

Still other legends claim that one would need to be cursed by the devil to become a werewolf. Or enter into an allegiance with him. Evidently, there was once a group of sorcerers that craved human flesh, so they entered an agreement with Satan to have wolf forms so that they could fill their craving. They were given straps so that they could control their transformations.

And other sources say that the werewolf has been cursed by God or Angels or, even, saints for committing terrible offenses. I'm not sure what constituted a terrible offense. But, then, still other sources say that werewolves are actually the servants of God in his battle against Satan. They are known as the Hounds of God and go down into Hell to battle demons and witches.

Oh, and some people are just born that way.

There you go. If you want to be a werewolf, you have a lot of options to choose from. Personally, I'd go with the wolf hide belt. Then, again, being a weredinosaur sounds pretty cool, too.

Notes:
1. During the Middle Ages, it was thought that werewolves did not have tails (you know, because people don't have tails), which was how you could tell a real wolf from a werewolf. To keep from being found out, werewolves would run with one of their hind legs extended behind them so that, from a distance, it would look as if they had tails.

2. In his book Fool Moon, Jim Butcher features werewolves. I appreciate that he didn't just go with the modern concept of were-ism being like a contagion. He incorporates many of the various werewolf legends into The Dresden Files, which I find a nice change of pace from most modern renditions.

EDIT:
This post is related to the post, How To Be... a Vampire

Cowboys & Aliens and a Small Favor

Cowboys & Aliens

I finally saw Cowboys & Aliens. It was one of those things that, even though everyone says it's bad, I had to try anyway. Everyone was right. But I don't think it was bad for the reasons I heard. Actually, I didn't hear a lot of concrete reasons; people just didn't like it. I get that. But I think there are some very concrete reasons for how bad it is.

First, though, the good:
Harrison Ford. As I said way back in this post, any time he appears in a role that is not completely heroic, there are often bad things said. What I find most curious about that, especially from people that were old enough to have seen Star Wars: A New Hope when only Han shot (none of this "Han shot first crap), is that Harrison Ford made his name playing characters that, sort of, straddled the edge, and his character in Cowboys is exactly that kind of character. I thought he did a great job; although, it was criticisms of his role that I heard most often from people talking about the movie.

Also, Daniel Craig. However, the thing that made Craig good in the role is that he was playing the part of Harrison Ford. And he did a great Ford impersonation. It really felt to me that the producers (or whoever) wanted Ford for the lead role, but Ford is too old, so they put him in as the mentor-ish, quasi-bad guy and got Craig for the lead because Craig could do a good job of being what Ford was 20-30 years ago. They were fun to watch together; although, it was a bit like having chocolate mixed with chocolate instead of, say, chocolate and peanut butter.

The other good: Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, and Walton Goggins.
I love Sam Rockwell. He doesn't get enough credit. Go watch Moon if you really want to see what he's capable of. And, of course, there's always Galaxy Quest. He didn't do much in this one, but it was nice to see him in it.
The same with Clancy Brown. The same in that it was nice to see him in it. He's not around enough.
I hope Walton Goggins is someone that is up and coming. He's SO good in Justified, and he brought that same intensity to his part here, "I always did like you best."

The bad:
Olivia Wilde: Not that she was bad, but she was completely interchangeable. She could have been any of at least a dozen other actresses. And her character was... well, it was one of the things that made the movie bad. The "alien" that chose to look human to blend in in order to kill the other aliens. Oh, and she's the last of her race. Of course, she is. The character was only in the movie to give Craig a love interest, but it would have been better (more believable) if she'd just been human.

The aliens:
Everything to do with  the aliens is bad and wrong. When did the whole trend start with aliens just being ravening monsters? Was it Independence Day (I hate that movie)? Is it because of Alien? Whatever the reason, it doesn't make any sense. The idea that there are aliens that invented technology that give them interstellar flight but they are just beasts (with barely the intelligence to use their tech) is completely ludicrous. I'm more than a bit tired of it, at this point. I think Super 8 is the last movie that gets a pass on this from me (because in that, at least, it made sense).

Oh, and, yeah, they're just here because of... gold. Gold? Really? That's the best they could come up with? But these guys that landed, they're just scouts. If they're just scouts, why have they set up a whole mining operation? That doesn't sound like a scouting trip to me. And they're experimenting on humans to discover their weaknesses, but they view the humans as insects and, therefore, beneath notice. Those two views don't go together. Pick one and go with it, but don't try to sell me both of those.

The bracelet:
Craig's character has this nifty bracelet that he got from the aliens. It does things like shooting down the alien ships. Seemingly on its own. But... well, nothing with the bracelet makes any sense. It only responds to Craig's commands, but it acts all on its own. Okay, which is it? And Craig has this amazing hand-to-hand combat ability that you think comes from the bracelet, but, well, evidently not. So, then, the fighting style is completely out of line with the setting. It doesn't work.

But the worst part? The worst part is that, evidently, there's just one of these bracelets. Craig stole it from the aliens, but none of them have bracelets. Why in the world not? Craig blasts aliens left and right with the thing; you'd think the aliens would want to use them against the humans. Of course, then, the humans would have had no chance at all. So they don't have them or don't use them or... well, it's really just unclear. But it's dumb. DUMB!

The Indians:
I have nothing against Indians, but they were just tossed in so that they could lend a bit of mysticism to the movie, and that was... unnecessary. You have this movie with cowboys fighting aliens, such a cool idea, why do you need to add in mysticism? Just to complicate the plot a bit more? Or to fluff it up? Whatever the reason, it didn't need to be there.

The plot:
Cluttered and completely predictable. What should have been an interesting story was reduced to the mediocrity of being exactly what you expect. No, wait, it was worse than what you expect. But the story arc was completely what you'd expect. Including the fact that if they kill this scout ship then no more aliens will come. Why? If I was an alien and I sent a scout ship to a planet and it didn't come back, I'd send someone to investigate. But, no, according to the "human" alien, if the scouts are destroyed, they'll just leave the Earth alone.

Overall, it was just a huge disappointment. Mostly, because the idea had such potential. And the lead actors were, actually, really good, but the rest of the movie was a huge train wreck. Unfortunately, not in a spectacular way like the one in Super 8. Maybe, that would have been worth watching. This was the train wreck that's been out rusting for months that wasn't even worth cleaning up. The one that kids poke around in when there is absolutely nothing else to do. And, you know what, it wasn't even bad enough to get worked up over it. You can't hate it. It's sort of too bad for that. You just feel sorry for it. Like the kid that should have won the spelling bee but accidentally spelled "of" incorrectly (true story).


Small Favor

Small Favor is the 10th book in The Dresden Files series and another solid entry. In saying that it's solid, I'm saying that I liked it. All of these books are quite above average and surprisingly good considering the genre and that they are, basically, pulp fiction. As I've said before, the thing I appreciate most about the Dresden books is that they are not static. Most books of this sort resort to returning everything to the status quo at the end of the novel so that each successive novel really starts at the same point. Instead of a series of books, what you really have is what I'll call a wheel of books in which each book starts at the same point and proceeds out along a different spoke.

Not so the Dresden novels. Although you could probably just pick up any book and start reading, you really wouldn't want to. Stuff from previous books come back into play, and, honestly, I think it would just leave you feeling a little lost. Take my advice, start from the beginning.

All of that said, let me talk about where Small Favor fails:
Jim Butcher has always used Dresden as his own voice. Used him to pontificate about various topics that actually have nothing to do with the story (or only loosely) but that Butcher wanted said. Generally, this has happened in small doses and has been (mostly) easily overlooked. However, it seems with Small Favor, he got a little carried away with this or his editor/publisher didn't rein him in enough. For instance, he goes on for three pages in chapter 28 in what he sums up with, "We're ostriches and the whole world is sand." He really didn't need to say more than that, and he certainly didn't need to go on about it for three pages. Especially since he's talked about that same subject in other books. I guess he felt like he needed to remind us more strongly this time. He also goes on at one point about how dolphins are smarter than people. And it's not that I disagree, but I don't need him to quote research at me about it when the dolphins in question barely have anything to do with the story. There are more instances, but these were the worst. I found myself annoyed at these much more than usual with this book.

The other place of failure with this book was in the handling of one of the side characters. Remember how I said that Butcher has been really good at allowing growth and change with Dresden? Well, he's also been really good about it with the side characters. Bad things happen, and he allows them all to suffer the consequences. Or good things happen and they take a step forward. This time, though, he decided to lock one of the side characters into a static condition that seemed (completely) unrealistic. Given the choice to do her job better, she refused. And for the flimsiest of reasons. I see that Butcher wants to keep this character a "normal" so that we "normal" readers will have a character that we can relate to, but this time it felt really forced.

Still, I highly enjoyed the book. Just not as much as I have the ones that have gone before it. After 10 books, though, I guess it would be a little unrealistic to expect that there's not one that takes a slight dip.

The Audition Process

My oldest son is in choir in high school. Well, he's in the ArtQuest program in drama, but he takes choir along with that. He's learning a lot about auditioning by being involved in this program. To begin with, he had to audition just to get into the ArtQuest program. Even if he'd been in the district of the school, he still would have had to audition to get into ArtQuest. That particular audition wasn't a huge deal. Here's the thing: he's a boy (obviously), and they always need more guys in the drama program (the choir program, too), so he was (almost) a shoe in (something like 85% of the boys that auditioned got accepted (I don't know the exact number and am guessing based on the number of boys my son auditioned with vs the number of those same boys that ended up in his drama group)).

Being in the ArtQuest drama program means that my son has to audition for at least two community productions each school year. That's an interesting requirement. Not be in any outside performances, just audition for them. Obviously, they think knowing how to audition is important. I don't think they actually expect that any of the students will actually get cast. Or maybe they do. One of the two productions my son auditioned for last year was The Pirates of Penzance. We were surprised to find out that he was chosen, because, honestly, we just didn't expect it. Other than the (deleted) shows he was in in middle school, he hadn't done anything. Basically, no experience. But he has a lot of charisma. And he got cast.
But I digress... This is about choir, not drama.

My son didn't want to be in choir. However, my wife took high school choir and is gifted musically, and I was involved in church choir, although I wouldn't say I'm gifted musically. In fact, when people find out I can sing at all, they are often very surprised. heh (Remember that stuff about singing on the phone...) At any rate, my wife kept suggesting that he take choir, that it was one of her best memories from high school, and he kept protesting. And I would remind him that both Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman can sing and dance, but he maintained a "so what" attitude about it. Until a girl at school started telling him about how great choir is, so he dropped Spanish I and took choir. Like I said, he's a boy.

He figured out pretty quickly that he loves choir. And I don't even think it's mostly due to the high girl to boy ratio. Beginning choir is the, for no apparent reason, ACappella group. I say no apparent reason, because they do not perform a cappella. It's a mystery to me. That was last year, though, so I'm trying to pretend it doesn't exist, now.

This year... well, this year is different. But let me backtrack a moment. His debut concert for the year was last week, and that's what has me going on about all of this. This year is concert choir. They call it their advanced group, but they only have the two options for the boys: beginning and advanced. The intermediate group is girls only. But that's not precisely true. There's another group called Chamber Singers. This is the actual advanced group. The other classes are like any other high school class, you sign up for it. So, no matter how badly you may suck, if you've taken beginning choir, you can sign up for the next level, but that's not true with Chamber Singers. Chamber Singers has to be auditioned for. And it's pretty accepted that it's for juniors and seniors. You have to be serious about the whole choir thing to be in Chamber Singers. You have to be in concert choir and, then, audition for the privilege to get to come to school for 0 period and have an extra class of choir every day of the school week.

What's 0 period, you ask? That's the class that starts at the butt crack of dawn (translated as 7:00am) that they have to be there by 6:45am which causes the students to have to get up at around 5:30AM in order to be there on time. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

School started off this year with my son in concert choir as he should be, and all was well with the world. They announced auditions for Chamber Singers. Just to make this clear, my son is a sophomore this year, and Chamber Singers is almost exclusively juniors and seniors. Not that auditions are restricted to juniors and seniors, because you only need to be in concert choir to audition, but that's how it works out. These are the guys and gals that are serious about their singing (and I just have to say some of these kids are amazing). My son decided to audition. Many of his friends told him he shouldn't bother. He's a sophomore. He'd never make it. (Some of you are seeing where this is going.) He talked it over with us. Basically, our advice to him was that he should not not audition. Sure, he probably wouldn't make it, but it would be a good experience, and it wouldn't cost him anything (not even his dignity). It's one of those things where if you don't do it (ask a girl out), then you don't get to do it (go on a date with the girl), but, if you do it, although you may still not get to do it (because she might (and, in some cases, will probably) say no), it might work (she might surprise you with a yes). So what did he have to lose? If he didn't audition, he would certainly not get to be in Chamber Singers, but, by auditioning, there was the chance, however small it might be.

And he made it in. Not necessarily because he's a great singer (he's still working on that), but they (always) need boys, and he was good enough. I mean, it's not like they took every boy that auditioned, so he made the grade even if he's not as amazing as some of the other boys that have been in Chamber for multiple years.
(Yes, this means I have to get up at 5:30AfreakingM every morning to make his lunch and make sure he gets off to school okay. But it's worth it (I think).)

Which finally brings me to my point. As I was sitting and listening to the choir teacher explain what they have to go through to be in Chamber Singers and how daunting it must have been to audition, and I know he was daunted, because he came home talking about how great some of the other boys' auditions were and how he would surely not make it, because, in comparison, he sucked, I realized that this is what's it should be like to write. The audition process that is. If you want to write, you have to approach it all the same way my son did with his audition to get into Chamber Singers.

You look at it and realize, "Wow, there are a lot of talented writers there trying to get into that group. I certainly don't measure up against them."  Still, "What have I got to lose, though?" Not trying is the same as failing, after all. So you write your book, and, even as you are looking around at the other books out there (like Rowling, Mary Doria Russel, Stephen Lawhead) and feeling completely daunted, you go forward anyway. Because, sometimes, sometimes you make it. Sure, you're not the best, but you're good enough. And, in the end, that's what really matters. Being good enough. (Unless you're my daughter, in which case you do have to be the best, because she has to win at everything (and don't even think about playing board games with her, because she has uncanny luck with  them).) Then, once you're in, you continue to get better until that time someone new comes along and is looking at you the way you used to look at all the other writers there before you.

Unfortunately, the writing world isn't really like auditioning for my son's choir group. You know, a place where things are based on merit and skill. No, the writing world is more like a cattle call. Hundreds of people show up and some bored guy comes out and "randomly" (>snicker<) selects a hand full of people to join him. Sure, they keep going through that process until they have some people they can use, but most people are turned away without a chance because they failed to be wearing a white shirt with red spots on the particular day. Or didn't have a tall enough hat on. Or failed to wear a blinking, neon sign over their head saying "pick me." Or did wear the sign, but everyone else showed up with one, too.

Still... you can't let the reality of the situation keep you from trying. Reduced down, it's still like my son going out to audition for Chamber Singers. You're always going to go into these things without enough experience, skill, and clout, but you have to do it anyway. Even though you may never be the best, you don't have to be the best to be good enough. In  the end, I think "good enough" is all that's really important as long is "good enough" is your best. Because that's what my son did, his best. It wasn't the best, but it was good enough. And "good enough" is a good place to start.

And, because it feels appropriate to repeat:
Jim Butcher (of The Dresden Files) says that being published is like being chased by a grizzly bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you.
I'll leave that to you to puzzle out.
heh heh

Common Zeitgeist

I have a confession to make. Before I do, though, let me make it abundantly clear that it is only a confession because my wife makes me feel guilt over this issue. I would imagine that others of you out there like me feel no guilt whatsoever over this particular issue nor do you (probably) have anyone in your life that makes you feel guilt for this. It's a subject of interest to me, though, because it deals with the different tastes that people have in reading. The confession? I'm a fan of The Dresden Files. No, not the abysmal and ill-conceived television series, the books.

I just finished Proven Guilty, last week, and am about halfway through White Night. However, I don't think my wife even managed to finish Storm Front. There are a lot of reasons I like the series. Primarily, I like it because it's not static. Often, books of this type are so episodic that the characters never change or grow. You take the same character(s) from one book and transplant it exactly as it is into the next one. That was fine when I was a kid reading The Hardy Boys, but I'm a bit beyond that, now. I appreciate that Butcher allows for change and growth both in his main character and in his supporting characters.

Of course, my wife is not wrong when she, basically, lumps Dresden into the pulp fiction category; it is. I know pulp fiction has pretty much always been looked down upon, but I don't have a problem with that form of entertainment the way my wife does. Yes, pulp fiction can be... well, I suppose there's no other way to say it... bad... just bad, but! it's not always bad. What I mean is that I don't think there's any real significant difference in the proportion of the good/bad between pulp fiction and any other kind of fiction. For instance, I'm pretty sure that no one would lump William Gibson into any kind of pulp fiction category. He's pretty "high brow" reading by most standards. I don't find his current work at all engaging, though. My response to Pattern Recognition was so neutral that I don't have anything I can even say about it. I'm not sure why I finished it. My wife didn't, although it certainly falls within her reading tastes. I'm having the same reaction to Spook Country. I did almost put that one down, but I'm really bad about not finishing a book once I've started it no matter how bad it is (ask my wife), so here I am 20 pages from the end of it and no more engaged in it than I was after the first 20 pages. I'm not sure if my wife made it 20 pages in before she put it down. The real problem, though, is that I can't even say they're "bad" books. They're well written. They just don't engage. At the end of both of these books, my response is that nothing really happened. The plot just flatlines all the way along.

But I digress...

Dresden. Well, Butcher. Let me step back a moment.

I started planning my book in the fall of 2009. At the time, I didn't really know anything about The Dresden Files. I knew it kept popping up on my suggested viewing on Netflix and that it was based on some books, but that's about it. However, I bought the first two books in the series for my oldest son for Christmas that year since, I figured, it was the kind of thing he'd be into. [Books are included as part of Christmas for all of our kids every year. It's tradition.]

I started writing The House on the Corner in February of 2010 and picked up Storm Front to read somewhere around the same time, based on my son's approval of the book. Besides, I wanted to see what it was exactly that I'd given him to read. It became immediately apparent that Butcher and I were operating under the same zeitgeist with our books. Magic in a modern world setting. Pop culture references. But, then, he's of an age with me, so that doesn't surprise me. At any rate, the Dresden books resonate with me because of that. I like their feel.
Of course, as a writer, I also find the books somewhat frustrating for that very reason. The more of them I read, the more similarities of design I find. I finished The House on the Corner at the end of July 2010 (a few days after my van blew up while I was inside it), and I'd probably read the first four Dresden books by that time. The conflict between magic and religion, which I touch on in my book, is brought into Grave Peril. And, as I said, I just finished Proven Guilty, more than 6 months after I finished my book and 2 months after making my book publicly available, and I've found another similar theme. So, yes, it appears that Jim Butcher and I have been eating from the same table for quite a while. But, you know what? I really don't mind that. In the end, my book has no overt resemblance to his. The kid heroes in mine aren't detectives, and I have no plan on writing crime novels. I do enjoy reading his, though. Sometime or other, I'm going to have to try out his high fantasy series and see what I think about that. I'll let you know when I do.