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lightreadsBooks six, seven, and eight in the urban fantasy Dresden Files, about the wizard PI in Chicago. Blood Rites takes Harry onto the set of a porn film and into a tangle with vampires and curses, Dead Beat is actually a very clever title for a book about zombies and necromancy (the necromancer has to maintain a steady, heartbeat-like pulse as part of the control ritual – rap and polka are equally effective, apparently), and Proven Guilty sees Harry drawn farther into the wizard-vampire war as a friend’s daughter is ensnared with faeries and some truly scary monsters. The arc begins to emerge as a larger struggle is set up, and Butcher is getting better with every book – he can do denouement now!
These are strong books, heavy on action and flashy, creative magic. Harry also lays the woobie on thick, as the general arc of the series sends him spinning closer and closer to some really dark forces. Though I do have to mildly complain that I’d really like it if some authors would grow more of a backbone and stop playing ‘mistake limbo.’ That is, the beloved but flawed protagonist makes mistakes, but they’re all perfectly explicable and rooted in heroism or the necessity of the moment – Harry’s first step down the dark path was a reflexive and absolutely necessary action to save a young child. While this is not unrealistic, sometimes people screw up just because they can, and I find that more narratively interesting than the eternal “I would do it again because I am a hero and I had to, but I have angst over it.”
Also, because I am cranky today, I’d also like to say that Butcher fundamentally lacks a basic, though certainly not essential, pillar of writing talent. He sketches strong, high-relief, wise-cracking characters and spins complex, engaging plots, but, well. He’s just not a very good writer on the word by word level, in the realm of beauty and felicity and grace. He’s got a great sense of rhythm on the book level, the tempo of racing plot and backbeat of emotion, but he really lacks it in the trenches with the sentences themselves. And I can absolutely live with that for books as engaging as these, but it still drives me nuts, and especially when the copyediting is so sloppy (“She looked past me, to the open floor space and the things I had sat out.” Gaaah!)
That was a lot of complaining for books that I really like. They’re a rollicking good time, and they mix sparklingly original ideas with staples of the genre. I could not put down Proven Guilty last night, and I await the next eagerly.
These are strong books, heavy on action and flashy, creative magic. Harry also lays the woobie on thick, as the general arc of the series sends him spinning closer and closer to some really dark forces. Though I do have to mildly complain that I’d really like it if some authors would grow more of a backbone and stop playing ‘mistake limbo.’ That is, the beloved but flawed protagonist makes mistakes, but they’re all perfectly explicable and rooted in heroism or the necessity of the moment – Harry’s first step down the dark path was a reflexive and absolutely necessary action to save a young child. While this is not unrealistic, sometimes people screw up just because they can, and I find that more narratively interesting than the eternal “I would do it again because I am a hero and I had to, but I have angst over it.”
Also, because I am cranky today, I’d also like to say that Butcher fundamentally lacks a basic, though certainly not essential, pillar of writing talent. He sketches strong, high-relief, wise-cracking characters and spins complex, engaging plots, but, well. He’s just not a very good writer on the word by word level, in the realm of beauty and felicity and grace. He’s got a great sense of rhythm on the book level, the tempo of racing plot and backbeat of emotion, but he really lacks it in the trenches with the sentences themselves. And I can absolutely live with that for books as engaging as these, but it still drives me nuts, and especially when the copyediting is so sloppy (“She looked past me, to the open floor space and the things I had sat out.” Gaaah!)
That was a lot of complaining for books that I really like. They’re a rollicking good time, and they mix sparklingly original ideas with staples of the genre. I could not put down Proven Guilty last night, and I await the next eagerly.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 10:07 am (UTC)It's one thing to do the Greek Tragedy and have the situation so that the character is trapped between a rock and a hard place with bad choices on each side, and another to do the waffling "Oh no! He feels so guilty! But *you* shouldn't blame him!" dance. It makes the characters look stupid for not realising the necessity of their actions, and it really doesn't contribute to the flawed character interestingness they're trying to convey. If someone's not going to give a character mistakes, fine, but then they shouldn't do the wishy washy thing.
Bujold did it right. Miles ended his intelligence career in a move caused entirely by selfishness and fear and denial, and Bothari did genuinely terrible things for no better reason than that when unmedicated he was angry, lonely, and honestly utterly nuts. And eventually, the consequences come home in a way that feels right, even if you love the characters.
Be strong, writers! Be brave! Let your characters make the mistakes natural to their personalities sometimes, and then have to live with it.
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Date: 2006-11-09 10:30 pm (UTC)*nods vigorously*