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Penny Arcade - Comic - Fine Distinctions
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Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Fine Distinctions
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/04/01
I made an account just to address this... 15 books.. each one better than the last... they are /seriously/ some of my favorite books. Jim Butcher takes and applies a supernatural world to a 'real world' in such a way that is entirely believable.
Go read these books!! Give Jim all your monies!
I'm somewhat curious as to how such a distinction is made. ..."The unicorn was believable, but the zombies were a step too far into fantasy"
A lot of people love them and a lot think they're mediocre. I didn't care for them at all but I'd say the first is worth trying to see if you like it.
How do we determine if something is true? Well, one such idea is that we determine if something is true by checking "Does this fit with everything else that we think is true?". If the answer is yes, then it's not hard to accept it as truth.
Believable in fiction is the same thing, sort of, except we can definitely tell that it's not true. However, within the parameters of the book itself it could be true.
How does something become believable?
1. It follows an internally consistent set of rules. These rules should preferably be a fairly small modification of the rules you apply to real life.
2. Characters motivations are consistent with 1.
3. You can follow how things happen from point A to B.
4. It's written from a characters viewpoint. If the main character is a fairly normal 12-year-old schoolkid, then he/she probably won't know the secrets of the universe and all the exact ways of how things relate to other things, unless it's something important, specific and relevant to that character. If the main character is an obsessive sorceror with a fanatical belief in the harmonics of the universe you can bet that he knows a thing or two about said harmonics.
5. It's frequently understated and written as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It dares to believe in its own believability.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
From this, I assume that they're generally kind of pulpy? That's usually how that seems to go.
And I don't use pulpy as an insult. I love to have good fantasy books around just to read for a ripping adventure. There are times when I want to read a book that blows my mind and makes me think about it for days afterwards, and there are times when I just want to read about a werewolf bounty hunter who has a sidekick fairy robot and they always get the bad guy.
In my opinion he finds his voice around the third book, and it takes off from there with every subsequent novel becoming noticeably better.
I think the April comic was him like just starting to read them, and now two months later after he's read several he's wondering why Tycho didn't let him know about them sooner because he assumes Tycho is aware of all books ever written anywhere.
There's a significant difference between realism and verisimilitude.
They're certainly pulpy. I personally found the writing too painful but plenty of others don't. And it's definitely not the worst written series as far as quality goes.
That said, anyone who likes the Dresden Files should also try the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. A london cop, who's also a wizard!
Does the rest of the Rivers of London series improve? The first one was really good, but then I found the second to be badly in need of an editor as it felt rushed and/or sloppy, and that was when it wasn't slipping into badly written erotica.
I read the first book and thought it was kinda dumb myself.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Hrm. I like them all, personally, but there's some variation in quality. The second and third are probably the "worst," but personally I'd set either of them above, say, the second Dresden book. Overall the whole series is a bit less action-oriented than Dresden though. It's coming at things from a police-procedural genre background rather than a noir background, so it's more about the nuts and bolts of each investigation and less about burning down buildings. Still good but slightly different.
One thing that really encapsulates the difference: in Dresden, everything takes place in a generic "Chicago" and if there's a chase scene it's down "the street," past "the park," etc. In RoL, you can follow the chase scenes on google maps, and if he turns left at a Sainsbury's and you look on Google Maps, there's actually a Sainsbury's on that corner of that street in actual real world London. It's detail-oriented and "realistic" in a way Dresden usually isn't. When characters speak in slang, they don't just use random Britishisms -- they use the specific slang and dialect that characters from that specific part of London would use, to the point that when he interviews that ghost in the first book, the ghost is using period-appropriate historical London slang.
Aaronovitch said he put the sex scenes in the second book because if Peter Grant went too many books without getting laid, not getting laid would be a character trope for him, and he wanted to avoid that. I could be wrong but there might not be another explicit sex scene after that till maybe the fifth book?
I agree with this. Also, why are their heads huge on the third panel? I'm assuming Gabe is touching himself while thinking about the books.
My friend loves them but they are, by his admittance, the type of book that we like to call "brain candy." They are fun, enjoyable books and a good way to pass the time but like, they don't have amazing prose or deep statements to make using nuanced symbolism and layered themes, or whatever. They also read like a breeze and you could easily knock out one of the books in a day or two.
So really it depends what you want out of your reading. It's actually kind of hilarious how apt this comic is for my friend and I. He is Gabe, and he is currently re-reading the Dresden books for a second time. I, on the other hand, just got a kindle and the first thing I loaded on to it was a 1,100 page book on the campaigns of Napoleon. I'd say we are both doing it right, because he are both enjoying the heck out of what we are reading.
vs.
Third panel Tycho in this comic.
The first couple of books are a poor way to judge the author/series. He wrote the first couple before he even had any published novels. He really finds his voice and story starting with the fourth book.
I don't think there is much to really provoke Gabe's level of response until book seven of the series. While they are not terribly dense books, reading at least seven books in a three month span with a job, children, and a concerted effort to improve his art is a pretty reasonable pace.
It's weird.
Yeah, that's fair.
That said, I will admit that the prose isn't going to blow away literary classics and that it is 'brain candy', as someone else called it. But it's delicious brain candy, the stories and settings are awesome fun, characters are consistent and fleshed out, and the stories aren't simple things there to tie together cool scenes. The first book was rewritten several times, including after he wrote (but prior to when either were published) the second book. For me, it was the second book that drew me in because with that one, Butcher seemed to have a more defined idea of how the setting worked. Books three and four fully flesh out the setting and lay the groundwork for every book after.
Now. Somebody tell Gabe about the RPG and I'm sure we'll have another comic.