My very first Gabbing Geek column was on urban fantasy. Anyone who follows that subgenre knows who the 800 pound gorilla is for fans, the one all other urban fantasy characters will be compared to.
That would be Harry Dresden.
Tag: jim Butcher
Podcast Reaction: Vindication Edition
This week on the podcast, the guys and Jenny did battle over various things, but I don’t want to cover that.
No, I want to cover their reaction to Armada, a book Jenny didn’t finish and Watson hated. Now, I reviewed the book myself, and while I didn’t hate it, I likewise didn’t really enjoy it either. It was perfectly meh, neither here nor there. I’ve read bad books. Armada was not a bad book.
But I probably took a little heat for not enjoying Ernie Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One, as much as the others did, in part due to my nostalgia distaste. Now, I want to expand on some points that Watson made in the podcast and a minor one I made on my review after the cut.
Gabbing Geek 48: Summer Lovin’
The latest episode of your favorite weekly geek podcast has a moment that shall forever be known as…the Incident. Find out all about it, Jurassic World, Red Rising, summer movie trivia, and book recommendations by listening to the episode right now! Or jump after the break to find out more.
Geek Lit: The Living End (Daniel Faust Book 3)
My very first Gabbing Geek article was all about urban fantasy, that subgenre where protagonists are often supernatural individuals, or people with knowledge of supernatural individuals, living in the modern world.
One of the authors and book series I recommended there was Craig Schaefer’s Daniel Faust series. Faust is a magician living in Las Vegas, a former flunky to a half-demon mobster that does odd jobs. The third novel in the series, The Living End, wraps up an opening trilogy of novels where Daniel matches wits with the treacherous Lauren Carmichael. Review with some potential spoilers after the cut.
Continue reading Geek Lit: The Living End (Daniel Faust Book 3)
Sidekicks More Interesting Than Their Bosses!
The sidekick. That often annoying individual that follows the hero around, sometimes useful, sometimes not. The character is a staple of genre fiction. But sometimes the sidekick is more interesting than the hero.
After the cut are a few such sidekicks that outrank their bosses in terms of personality. Who will make the cut?
Continue reading Sidekicks More Interesting Than Their Bosses!
Urban Fantasy: Fact Or Fiction?
Picturing a fantasy setting might give a person of supposedly sound mind an image which revolves around something that came from the mind, pen, or fever dream of J.R.R. Tolkien, even if the person in question thinks that name belongs to a particularly odd Muppet. Or perhaps the idea is more of some sort of Game involving Thrones. Maybe King Arthur came off his flour bag to do his thing with Merlin or Galahad or people with names way cooler than anyone else you may know, provided you don’t know any chimps of the Link family (though, to be fair, he is a rather secretive chimp).
But fantasy usually just boils down to magic and the supernatural, and if The Ring taught us anything, and it didn’t, it is that magic and the supernatural can exist anywhere, which is where the Urban Fantasy subgenre comes in.
Gabbing Geek 