I should never, ever go into bookstores.

[theweaselking]

Bookstores are very bad for my wallet.

I picked up:

* The rest of Kim Harrison's "Dead Witch Walking" series, which, despite the heavy Buffy The Vampire Shagger vibe you get from the cover and back, is actually worth reading.

A note: I *hate* these books. Hate 'em. The characters are luddites who have a crippling fear of tomatoes!
The supernatural-side detective agency has an open policy of murdering their own agents who try to quit!
The human-side detective agency whose *entire purpose* is to protect humanity from supernaturals doesn't employ supernaturals (they might be a threat) and, worse, doesn't employ *anyone who knows anything about supernaturals* (they know too much! They might be corrupt!) and doesn't even bother telling their *field agents* some basic publicly available knowledge like "killing a vampire makes it REALLY REALLY ANGRY. Don't use guns on vampires, for fear you might hit them."
The phenomenally powerful master vampire who runs the city's "underworld"? Runs a pizza joint. Literally. As in, he cooks there. BECAUSE HE CAN.
And the villain! The villain is an EEEEVIL drug dealer! You know, completely banned, beyond the pale, untouchable burn-you-at-the-stake drugs.... like INSULIN. He sells A CURE FOR ALZHEIMERS. Want your cancer treated? EEEEEEEVILMAN will hook your ass up! But he has to keep it a secret, because BIOLOGY IS ILLEGAL (see also: why everyone is terrified of tomatoes). They get 3/4 of the way through the first book before the author remembers that this is the BAD GUY and has him randomly murder an innocent man in front of witnesses to remind us which side we're supposed to be on.
Oh, hey, want to catch a leprechaun? The best trick is to slap some charmed handcuffs on 'em. And by "charmed" I mean you need a pink heart, a yellow moon, an orange star, and a green clover....
I hate these books so much. I bought the rest of the series and plan to have a wonderful time yelling at them as I read them, because they're like crack. They're *so absurd* that they're hilarious, and yet nobody inside them ever acknowledges just how goddamn wacky they are - they're done completely straightfaced!
And if you can't laugh at the demon's antics and his constant "oooh, I'm a dick! I'm gonna getcha! Them's GOOD EATS! And now I'm going to just be a jerk again, just because I can!" antics, you have no soul. But he will sell you one, cheap!

* The first three Dresden Files books. There was a boxed set, and everyone keeps telling me to read Jim Butcher. So now I has them.

* The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, and Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross. Because I keep meaning to get these. I like giving money to autopope.

* John Scalzi's "Agent To The Stars". Because I'd like him to win a bet about how releasing the book for free online drives up print sales. And also because I hate reading non-physical book-length documents - they're inconvenient.

* David Weber's "Storm From The Shadows". Because I loves me some space opera crack. I really don't care if you can always figure out who's unambiguously wrong by checking their opinions again Harrington's[1] or that the "oooh, scary slavers" appeared out of nowhere to attain Monster Heel status with an entirely undeserved blowjob push a couple of books back, pushing aside the bad guys we all wanted to pay to see lose - the important part is that we've got high-adventure Age Of Sail-ish books with hilarious characters. It's like Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower were given lasercannons, people. You cannot go wrong giving a lasercannon to Admiral Nelson.

But yeah. I went into the bookshop with the intention of buying just one book. And then I just kept seeing *just one more*....

(PS: Massive Twilight rack, I weep for humanity. Orson Scott Card reduced to a single copy of Ender's Game, shelved up top in a corner? That makes me a little more optimistic for the future of the species.)


[1]: Disagree with Honor Harrington = absolutely always wrong. Agreeing with Harrington doesn't mean *right*, but disagreeing is ALWAYS wrong and agreeing may mean that you're still wrong, but at least you're the least wrong possible under the circumstances.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Your "PS" is anyone else's QOTD. ;>

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

It's like you're shopping out of my bookshelves and for all the same reasons!

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

Jim Butcher for the win. Also noteworthy - Lois McMaster Bujold.. the Miles Vorkosigan series in paticular.

I haven't gone into a bookstore in ages. I would be too tempted to spend the monies. Instead I rely on the library for new books.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

So metaquotes it. I have no shame!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I love the Kim Harrison books. I am addicted to cheesy reading material. Though those holes are somewhat hard to overlook sometimes :)

But the whole tomatoes/luddites/evillllll medicine dealer I find interesting - because they're NOT implausible in the world setting. In fact, they're an interesting comment on the powers of desperation and how fear can cause such extreme paranoia, stupidity and prejudice (ditto on the police department really - it's a nice comment on how prejudice makes you do the stupid. hells, it's even reality based - look at the various armed forces blundering around the middle east who know SQUAT about the culture of the people they're oppressing and pissing off.).

And another interesting theme is how the bad guy is a bad guy because he's pushed into desperation by desperate need - he's the ultimate ends-justify-the-means villain who wants good things but has to engage in naughtiness to get them (which, I think, mixes nicely with Rachael and her continued descent into the role of black witch through repeated necessary acts)


Hmm this was long. Do you think I spend waaay too much time analysing my cheesy addiction?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've got the complete (as of ~6mo ago and DO NOT TELL ME OTHERWISE) Vorkosigan on a bookshelf upstairs.

I like Bujold. I just don't want to spend more monies before I finish the current HOARD.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Not at all!

But no spoilers, since I finished book 2 a few days ago, went to the stroe to get book 3, and bought ALL THIS CRAP so I'm going to be a while before I catch up on Rachel + MopeyNecroHuman + I'mTotallyNotOnBloodVampireChick + MooHooHaHaHaICuredCANCERAren'tIEvilDude.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's fine by me... I *heart* these books. I'd also say that while they're not Deep Literature, they're also not as bad as Mustelidae Rex is painting them (even while admitting that they're addictive)... I *like* the way that the bad guy is ambivalent... he does something really nasty, then you slowly slip back into a "okay, he's really not that bad" mode... until the next Really Shitty Move he pulls. I love him anyhow... in a sorta-hating sort of way, at times. My main complaint about him is that the Really Big Mystery about him... isn't.

As for the police and some of that stuff, remember this is coming through Rachel's perspective... I often get the feeling that they're not really as dim and incapable (even without her help) as she tends to think they are. (And from what I've gotten from the books, they don't hire Supernaturals full-time because they're not allowed.

And would you rather have the master vampire running a bordello? ;)

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Heheheh, ah, only that far? Well, no spoilers, I'm interested to see though what you have to say once you (eventually) get through the rest!

Also, if you're on an urban supernatural kick as per the Rachel and Dresden, I also highly advocate the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs. And Mike Carey's Felix Castor novels are of course cool, although they don't quite scratch the same itch for me in the same way, for some reason. Despite Carey's awesome awesomeness.

[triskelmoon.livejournal.com]

Oh, also! Jim Butcher's Furies series is fantasy modeled on Roman Empire. It is the radness.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They are REALLY FUCKING TERRIBLE in terms of sane people exhibiting remotely-sane thought. No, really. "Ah-hah-hah! We burn biologists AT THE STAKE (Literally) even though they can treat diabetes ha ha ah OH DEAR GOD IT'S A TOMATO GET IT AWAAAAAAAY"? That's fucking psycho. That's quasi-medievaloid fuckwads forming a committee to discuss outlawing fire, or everyone not raptured forgetting completely about the fact that ALL THEIR CHILDREN ARE DEAD level of fuckwittery.

And it's not "full time", it's AT ALL, to the point where the boss's son doesn't know the basic shit about "how to survive a confrontation with a living vampire" or "how to survive a confrontation with a dead vampire which was living until you just shot it in the fucking head".

Seriously.

EVERYONE IN THIS SERIES IS AN IDIOT.

They're idiots who are fun to watch, but that's the nicest thing that can be said about them.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

(1) I love you.
(2) I now feel *so much better* about my (mis)adventures in the dealer's room.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Cyl! Hi!

You have no idea how freakin' glad I was to discover I hadn't actually picked up anything he did today. :)

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

He was bet he couldn't do a combo Lost Roman Empire PLUS Pokemon. I love that series with big hugs...

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

Third Mercy Thompson book though pulls the trigger on something that the various other Modern Fantasy/Horror With Female Lead hasn't. Which is what makes me hesitant to recommend the series without a warning...

And I keep feeling like I'm missing a book when reading the last couple of Harrison ones. I think she's dropping big ongoing plot points in short collections or something...

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Part the first: I'll admit that the whole bio=teh ebil thing does go to somewhat unbelievable lengths (only somewhat though, since I'm mostly with sparkindarkness on the ability for panic to make a civilization pull some Really Stupid Shit), but then I can also pretty much forgive one (or perhaps two if you count, y'know, the supernatural shit) somewhat unbelievable premise, so long as it's not, like, *every* premise in the book.

In other words, I tend to be in the "if you can't except 'oh because of... this *handwave*' as the excuse for at least *something* in a SF book, you're probably reading the wrong genre" camp.

Part the second: While I don't think it's spelled out, I also get the feeling that at least some of the human-cops' ignorance is because the supernaturals intentionally KEEP them that way. And it's been a hard slog for them to get to the point where they can start to find out this shit despite that.

[thette.livejournal.com]

She's still working on the new Vorkosigan book, and the title is set. (Don't remember it, though. CryoBurn, apparently.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I checked first. So there.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

I went through the Dresden books like M&Ms, but I always warn discerning readers: the first three books are really disjointed. He wrote them all on spec not knowing which would sell, so you get things like "this is my buddy Michael, the guy I always call when I'm in trouble" in the third book, only Harry didn't call him in either of the previous books when he was in, y'know, really big trouble.

Get past that, though, and everything starts coming together in the 4th book. Which you'll reach in no time.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Is the master vampire making some sort of point about garlic not affecting him or something? Or is it more tomato-related evil? I'll give that bit originality points, but making pizza professionally is only slightly above movie ticket-taker in the hierarchy of high school jobs. I cannot envision some badass taking it on as a fulltime gig.

Yeah... I tried Weber's Armageddon Reef, never having read anything else from the guy, and... let's just say his protagonists seem to be of a type in that regard.

Dresden's increasingly awesome up through Dead Beat, which is still my favorite.

If after you're done with the pile, you want more urban fantasy with a minimum of shagging, I'd recommend T. A. Pratt's Marla Mason books, as the protagonist has more common sense (and *far* less angst) than any other series in recent memory.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ah *restrains self* you've got some goodness to come. I actually found this series interesting in that, for me, it's still climbing, where as a lot of series tend to start crashing quickly :)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

And if he REALLY wants something to rant about, there's always Laurell K Hamilton :)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

No, really. "Ah-hah-hah! We burn biologists AT THE STAKE (Literally) even though they can treat diabetes ha ha ah OH DEAR GOD IT'S A TOMATO GET IT AWAAAAAAAY"? That's fucking psycho.

Well yeah... but the Angel Virus killed what? A quarter the ENTIRE HUMAN POPULATION. And in the aftermath vampires, witches and all kinds of weird shit popped up. That's due a huge freak out. And that was only like 40 years ago on their time line. If a technology spread across the world and killed 1,500,000,000 people today, how long do you think we'd be freaking out for? We've burned people for printing BOOKS, let alone meddling with a science that decimated nations and risked the very future of the human race. And it'd be a damn site more than 40 years later before I chowed down on the tomatoes

I think humans have seriously overreacted with a lot LESS provocation

to the point where the boss's son doesn't know the basic shit about "how to survive a confrontation with a living vampire" or "how to survive a confrontation with a dead vampire which was living until you just shot it in the fucking head".


Well the bosses son is young and foolish - but also the FIB probably DOESN'T deal with a pissed off vampire very much - because within a couple of years of the FIB forming the IS was formed. The IS quickly beat the FIB on all Inderland stuff (naturally, how could they not?) I see it as a quick adaptation. The FIB was FORMED to police Inderlanders. And I can see it (in my apologist role) them trying for 10, 15, 20 years. And failing. Badly. Because they had guns but things you shot could get up again and rip off your face. Or didn't hgave to do anything overtly threatening to curse you into the Ever After. Or were just a really huge wolf or a psycho pixie which is DEATH and too small to hit. Pretty soon it would become official policy to let the IS deal with any Inderlanders that are being uppity or dangerous because the FIB just CAN'T possibly do it. Add in that most Inderlanders would be quiet/solve it internally anyway (hundreds of years of keeping their society secret won't die out overnight) and the FIB probably IS that ignorant.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Also, something that didn't bother me but I know bothers others that read it - apparently his research on Chicago (where the books are set) is practically nil, at least in the first few books. So if you do know Chicago well, prepare to grab a few HUGE grains of salt, to take with it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oh, please.

I read crap, not brain-destroyingly-bad hyper-incompetent-writer crap.

Might as well suggest I read Left Behind or The Sword Of Truth.

Seriously. Dude.