I just take them as genre shorthand, much like "pretty girl with long hair standing forlornly in a long flowy dress in the middle of a forest" is shorthand for "young adult".
Unfortunately there's not much that would also tell you how irritating the heroine will be, though...
Your picspam is uniformly gorgeous. Beautiful shots of beautiful things. *happy sigh*
Hee in re: the leather-clad, yelling-at-everybody urban fantasy female protagonist. You put your finger on why I don't read much urban fantasy, despite liking it in concept.
Gah, yes. Thing is, I know there are exceptions, and depending on how big a chip the heroine is carrying, I can easily deal with some of them - but it's difficult if not impossible to know in advance whether the heroine will just be tough and independent or TSTL in the urban-fantasy-heroine sense of "too stubborn to live" sense...
I suspect it's one big reason why adult urban fantasy, much as I like the concept, will remain an "enjoyable brain fluff" thing for me rather than something I can truly fall in love with.
Ack I don't remember, have you read Seanan McGuire? First book is "Rosemary and Rue" which I've seen more than a few people mention is not as well-written as her newer stuff but still good. (I honestly don't remember as I've only read the recent stuff lately, haven't had time to back read.) The main character actually shows *dramatic pause* GROWTH throughout the series! And she'd never wear leather pants (jacket yes, pants no) when jeans will do.
She also wrote a zombie apocalypse, political sci-fi, horror trilogy under the name Mira Grant (first book is Feed), which is awesome. I'm not a zombie lover or an apocalypse genre lover but the store is extremely character driven and full of awesome. I even got my hubby hooked on those (although he won't try the UF books).
I can only imagine! Our autumn is pretty muted compared to what some more southern (well, not as southern as Florida!) or more temperate-climate places get, but I'm still very happy that we actually have four very definite seasons here.
I've read the first four October Daye books (and have the fifth and sixth one bought and waiting for their turn), Discount Armageddon (another one I'll be reading more of) and Feed, which I found excellent (but I'm still sort of on the fence about whether I'll want to read the second and third books there, both because of the way it ended and because I'm currently not really in the mood for something so, well, grim).
So, yeah. McGuire's good. :D I'm mostly hoping to find more new stuff before I've exhausted the currently-released Toby Daye books, which is why I haven't read them yet.
I think Val is a nice balance between the tough & independent and chip-on-her-shoulder stubborn. It shouldn't be a balance that is THAT hard for other authors and other series to achieve, surely?
Comments 13
Well, most of them ...
Reply
Unfortunately there's not much that would also tell you how irritating the heroine will be, though...
Reply
Hee in re: the leather-clad, yelling-at-everybody urban fantasy female protagonist. You put your finger on why I don't read much urban fantasy, despite liking it in concept.
Reply
Gah, yes. Thing is, I know there are exceptions, and depending on how big a chip the heroine is carrying, I can easily deal with some of them - but it's difficult if not impossible to know in advance whether the heroine will just be tough and independent or TSTL in the urban-fantasy-heroine sense of "too stubborn to live" sense...
I suspect it's one big reason why adult urban fantasy, much as I like the concept, will remain an "enjoyable brain fluff" thing for me rather than something I can truly fall in love with.
Reply
Ack I don't remember, have you read Seanan McGuire? First book is "Rosemary and Rue" which I've seen more than a few people mention is not as well-written as her newer stuff but still good. (I honestly don't remember as I've only read the recent stuff lately, haven't had time to back read.) The main character actually shows *dramatic pause* GROWTH throughout the series! And she'd never wear leather pants (jacket yes, pants no) when jeans will do.
She also wrote a zombie apocalypse, political sci-fi, horror trilogy under the name Mira Grant (first book is Feed), which is awesome. I'm not a zombie lover or an apocalypse genre lover but the store is extremely character driven and full of awesome. I even got my hubby hooked on those (although he won't try the UF books).
Reply
Reply
Reply
So, yeah. McGuire's good. :D I'm mostly hoping to find more new stuff before I've exhausted the currently-released Toby Daye books, which is why I haven't read them yet.
Reply
Hope you do find some more urban fantasy series to enjoy, that aren't too hot and heavy and/or have a raging chick with a chip on her shoulder.
Reply
I think Val is a nice balance between the tough & independent and chip-on-her-shoulder stubborn. It shouldn't be a balance that is THAT hard for other authors and other series to achieve, surely?
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
Leave a comment