Finished Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Fourth book of The Dresden Files. Things keep getting worse, stakes keep getting higher, Harry keep going through hell. Same old, same old.
Currently Reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King. It was recommended on reddit for books similar to the comic Y: The Last Man. I didn’t used to like Stephen King much before, but I can understand why. Book is 700 pages long, and first 100 or so pages were pretty much just a set up. I didn’t use to have patience for such slow books in my youth, though I am enjoying it now.
What about you guys? What have you been reading?
Just finished the first book in Dresden Files. Now I’m back into Robin Hobbs assassin’s apprentice book two. I forgot the name of it because this series is nothing but a slog so far.
I remember liking the Farseer trilogy, but they aren’t cheery books. Which is probably why I still haven’t started the next trilogy after so many years.
How did you like Storm Front? Going to continue with Dresden Files?
It’s not so much the tone of Hobb books thst gets to me, it’s just the arduous pacing. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything that goes this slow before.
Yeah, I quite enjoyed Stormfront. It feels weird with the absolute need to write about the breasts and looks of every woman in the book, and it makes it feel fairly shallow. But there’s something that feels like it will become a really good series in there too, so I’m inclined to try a few more.
There are in universe and out of universe reasons for the general tendency of Harry to be the a benevolent sexist in the books. Out of universe, it’s playing on many of the tropes of classic noir stories and that was a really common one. There’s a longer story behind us that I can write out if you care, but basically this first one was written in protest by the author to include as many tropes and clichés to try and prove a point and he failed successfully. In universe, you learn a bit in this one and more over the next few books, but Dresden grew up without a female presence in his life, and really did not learn much beyond what was written in early sci-fi, and fantasy novels, and then, when he was a teenager in a extremely unhealthy relationship.
That said, it is never treated virtuously in any of the books. It gets him in trouble many times, other women in the books call him on it, and he does recognize that it is something he needs to change in himself. And it isn’t a perspective that is shared by the author, in so far as it doesn’t appear when he writes other characters.
That is very reassuring, and thanks for the big writeup! I’ll definitely continue to the next one, so thank you!