Time For A New Product

[exhpfan]

 I don't know how many ex Harry Potter Fans there are in the world caused by the extremely disappointing Deathly Hallows, but it seems clear to me that it is time for a New Product to replace Harry Potter in the Witch and Wizard fantasy genre.  I am not an author.  I don't read fanfiction, and I'm not making this post to advertize or suggest any

Comments

[nyxfixx]

Well, for wizards and magic and all that kind of cool stuff, you just can't do better than Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden novels, IMO. I see I'm not the only fan here, too.

They're written for adults from an adult sensibility, Butcher is a real craftsman about details (the magic in the Dresden-verse is consistent and actually makes sense, for example) and each book has the gratifying property of being a little bit better than the last, no matter how great you thought the last one was.

Harry Dresden himself is an appealing, diamond-in-the-rough sort of character (sort of like Phillip Marlowe with magic) that you can really root for, and when this Harry makes mistakes, there are BIG consequences, for him and for others. The action sequences are always amazing and beautifully realized, writing-wise, and Butcher has a wonderful snarky sense of humor so Harry has some marvelous, laugh-out-loud one liners. PLUS, there are not only some very interesting and likable female characters in the books for a change, but there are even some truly

[nyxfixx]

LOL! If you found you had that much antipathy to Harry at first meeting, alas, I doubt he'd grow on you if you were to give him another airing or two. I do totally agree that Storm Front has a lot of first novel problems, and the character of Dresden didn't really start to gel for me until around the 3rd novel. That being said, I sort of like noir-style gumshoes who aren't that bright and talk tough because they're scared out of their minds, anyway, so I could wait for the character to come clearer in subsequent novels w/o being too turned off from the outset. But even in his clearest incarnations, Harry is still more or less the same abrasive, somewhat dorky guy with enormously old-fashioned attitudes regarding just about everything (including gender) so he'll never be everyone's cup of tea. And maybe I'm easy to please regarding snark - but when someone asked Harry why he'd made magical hash out of some hideous demon-monster-thingy that beat the living snot out of him first, and he replied "I didn't like his hat" - I nearly laughed

[minkhollow]

Books of Magic is a comic book/graphic novel series; that may be something to keep in mind before you settle on it. (For some reason, I can never get myself past the first volume of any given comic collection.) I'm also not sure how long Gaiman actively wrote it.
In terms of straight-up reading material, Neverwhere or Anansi Boys might be closer to what you're after (also American Gods, but that's a bit of a chewy read). And to definitely feed the crime-drama/horror, Google around and track down the PDF of "A Study in Emerald." It's sort of Sherlock Holmes meets Lovecraft, but noooot exactly, and the PDF's a free download.
Also also, Good Omens; everyone needs a merry little tale about Armageddon.

(Sorry for butting in, but. XD)

[nyxfixx]

Ah, thanks for the details and opinion on Gaiman’s work, both to winterfox and minkhollow. Once you both mentioned the titles, I recalled that I actually had read Neverwhere and Good Omens, so it appears I had more of a start with Gaiman than I’d remembered. Good Omens was very enjoyable, IMO, and I’ll add a yea vote for that one, but I only have a vague recollection of Neverwhere (mainly I recall those two awful guys - Mr. Crouch and Mr. … Valdemar? Vandemar? Am I thinking of the right novel?). Maybe my vague memory serves as an illustration of winterfox’s point about bland protagonists in some of Gaiman’s works