Presently reading Changes, the new Dresden Files

[milkshake_b]

I would like to ask how it is possible that a book with the spoiler list I read could be boring me this hard in its opening... Oh god I'm at twenty chapters now. Twenty chapters and having to push past mental yawns. Seriously, I was prepared to be disgusted. I was prepared to roll my eyes hard enough at places to sprain them. (Well, okay, I have

Comments

[jenavira]

Damn, and I really liked the last one. *sigh*

[milkshake_b]

Well, before you go taking my review as gospel, I had serious problems with that one as well. But then, I knew who the traitor was going into it, and reading good mysteries has spoiled me with the idea that a mystery story should hold up even if you know Who Done It. That's not really a factor this time, though, although the spoilers gave me two things where I seriously cannot imagine not being pissed off when I get to them. (Must we go back to Harry who takes away the choices of the women around him? Must we?)* And I'm honestly fine with the two incredibly major ones, as it was about time for the series to start shitting or getting off the pot in several different respects--although oddly enough it's the circumstances the author used to set up both those things that I'm angry about, which says something. Also, leaving the end of the book on an unexpected development cliffhanger in order to sell his new anthology later this year is just low. Like, "Wow, suddenly I have a new appreciation for Mercedes Lackey and Laurell K Hamilton" low

[mayatawi]

He contradicts himself with disturbing frequency...

Yeah, I try to turn off my critical brain while reading TDF, but this one smacked me in the face last night: when he meets Odin (and I can't remember whatever name the dude's going by, because Doner Kebab keeps popping into my head instead), starts the paragraph by saying he wasn't particularly imposing/memorable/whatever-looking, then goes on to describe a massive dude with long gray hair and an eyepatch. Hell, I'd be imposed.

[milkshake_b]

That entire chapter made odditycollector and I headthump so hard, because he's doing something magnificently stupid with it: he's trying to take something that a first-person POV character knows and ought to be thinking about constantly, and hide it from the audience so it'll be a surprise, and the only result is it makes Harry look like a bleeding idiot because you're there going, "Uh... it's Odin. And those are his ravens. We know this. You know this. Why are you... god you're a moron." (Actually, I spent so much time going "God you're a moron" this book that it's not even funny. He was getting better! He was learning to be smarter! Why did we have to backslide so much?)

The thing is, for a while there he was doing wonderfully well at selling you on the notion that you should go into this with your critical thought suspended. I don't even like Blood Rites very much, and I still came through it sailing just fine the first time because he opens with a nice action scene that immediately pops you into gear. But even his chapter openings and endings,