Urban Fantasy: Vampire and Witches and Weres, oh my!

[Technobuilder]

Oh, has that been announced as the title? Any tentative dates? I noticed Amazon list Cinder Spire 1 as an August release.

Butcher said on his recent Reddit AMA that it would be the title, but I haven't seen an "official" announcement yet.

It's about as "Official" as these things go. Jim's been using the "PEACE TALKS" title for Book #16 during the current Book Tour.

FYI the current title for Book #17 is MIRROR MIRROR (Which should hold firm as long as the story doesn't swap position in the current order which has happened a few times so far.)

 

[JD]

In A Fist a Fist Full of Charms, I very glad that Rachel and Jenks started talking again fairly early in the book. I was afraid that was going to be dragged out forever. Jenks is one of my favorite character in the series, and I was afraid he wasn't going to be in the book much.

 

[JD]

Does anyone know of any Urban Fantasy other than The Iron Druid Chronicles that takes place in the western US? All I could find on Goodreads was at least some of the first Dorina Basab book (NYC, San Fransisco, and Vegas), and at least the first Georgina Kinkade book (Seattle). I was mainly interested in California.

 

[intrinsical]

Now that you've mentioned it, I suddenly realize most of the urban fantasy I've read are situated in eastern USA. I'm hard pressed trying to remember any that are located in western USA. In fact, I only remember one series that's based in California.

While Richelle Mead's Vampire Series was largely set in Montana, Portland and Siberia, the followup series Bloodlines is situated in California and an occasional trip to Vegas. The reason being vampires hate sunlight, which makes California the perfect location to hide a vampire princess who many powerful factions want to kill.

 

[JD]

Yeah, it's weird.
I can't remember if I've mentioned it here, but I'm actually working on my own Urban Fantasy story, and it was originally going to be in NYC, but after seeing how little UF takes place west of the Mississipi, I'm tempted to move it to LA instead.

 

[intrinsical]

My guess is its a subconscious effort by authors to distance themselves from the two major genre-defining series that were both located in California, Buffy and Angel.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There's the Sandman Slim books.

 

[JD]

I spent a couple hours reading Magic Bleeds earlier today, and in those 40ish pages there were some huge developments for the series. I can't wait to see where this one goes.
EDIT:

Spoiler: character death

I forgot to include RIP Marigold. I'm an animal person, so it always makes me sad when a character's pet/mount/animal friend is killed.

 

[JD]

I finished Magic Bleeds last night.
My review:

Wow, this is a great book. I've been a big fan of this series since the first book, and there were several things that have been building throughout the previous entries that saw some major developments here. Luckily these have been things that I have enjoyed, so these developments made me very happy. I can't wait to see where things go from here.

Rating: 5\5

 

[hyzmarca]

Oh, has that been announced as the title? Any tentative dates? I noticed Amazon list Cinder Spire 1 as an August release.

Butcher said on his recent Reddit AMA that it would be the title, but I haven't seen an "official" announcement yet.

It's about as "Official" as these things go. Jim's been using the "PEACE TALKS" title for Book #16 during the current Book Tour.

FYI the current title for Book #17 is MIRROR MIRROR (Which should hold firm as long as the story doesn't swap position in the current order which has happened a few times so far.)

Incidentally, we know more about Mirror Mirror than we do about Peace Talks. All we know about Peace Talks is that it's going to have the White Council, and Ivy, and more supernatural violence than any previous book. And presumably some sort of talks.

Mirror Mirror, on the other hand, we know its caused by Mirrorverse Harry summoning Prime Harry in order to kill him to as part of a faking his own death scheme. And he bit off more than he could chew by grabbing the freaking Winter Knight instead of some other more vulnerable alt.

We also know that the two Harrys diverged at the end of Grave Peril. Presumably, Mirror Harry let Bianca take Susan to prevent the war. And that led to a whole lot of bad choices.

 

[intrinsical]

I finished Magic Bleeds last night.
My review:

Wow, this is a great book. I've been a big fan of this series since the first book, and there were several things that have been building throughout the previous entries that saw some major developments here. Luckily these have been things that I have enjoyed, so these developments made me very happy. I can't wait to see where things go from here.

Rating: 5\5

Me too, I like how Ilona Andrews portrayed Kate Daniels and Curran as a couple. They're fun together. I also like that she learns more and gets more powerful with each book, but still stays very grounded, real and still very vulnerable.

 

[Technobuilder]

Butcher said on his recent Reddit AMA that it would be the title, but I haven't seen an "official" announcement yet.

It's about as "Official" as these things go. Jim's been using the "PEACE TALKS" title for Book #16 during the current Book Tour.

FYI the current title for Book #17 is MIRROR MIRROR (Which should hold firm as long as the story doesn't swap position in the current order which has happened a few times so far.)

Incidentally, we know more about Mirror Mirror than we do about Peace Talks. All we know about Peace Talks is that it's going to have the White Council, and Ivy, and more supernatural violence than any previous book. And presumably some sort of talks.

Mirror Mirror, on the other hand, we know its caused by Mirrorverse Harry summoning Prime Harry in order to kill him to as part of a faking his own death scheme. And he bit off more than he could chew by grabbing the freaking Winter Knight instead of some other more vulnerable alt.

We also know that the two Harrys diverged at the end of Grave Peril. Presumably, Mirror Harry let Bianca take Susan to prevent the war. And that led to a whole lot of bad choices.

Indeed.

I'm remembering something about Molly also being around for Peace Talks thought as the whole thing involves Mab and her Unseelie Accords, which is basically why all the accorded nations/powers are coming out of the woodwork for a seat at the table in the wake of the Formor Resurgence.

 

[JD]

I just wanted to let all the Dresden Files fans on here know that Comixology and Dynamite are doing a Dresden Files comic book sale this weekend. It has all of the individual issues of all of the miniseries for only ¢99, and the Ghoul Goblin trade for $5.99. The miniseries are adaptations of Storm Front and Fool Moon, and the original stories Ghoul Goblin and the currently running War Cry. Only the first issue of War Cry is in sale. Ghoul Goblin takes place between Fool Moon and Grave Peril and sees Harry helping a cursed family in Missouri , and War Cry is between Dead Beat and Proven Guilty and is about Harry's first big mission as a Warden.
I got Ghoul Goblin and will probably read it after I finish Proven Guilty.

 

[intrinsical]

I just swept through the latest Kate Daniels book, Magic Breaks, in a day. Yes its that compelling.

Spoiler: Roland

Kate and Curran finally had a showdown with her five thousand year old father with god-like powers. And what a showdown. I had already anticipated that that everything we've been told so far about Roland is true, but its also a distorted truth.

Needless to say, I can't wait to see what happens in the next book.

 

[JD]

I have a kind of spoilery question, so I just want a yes or no here. Does it tie up the stuff with Roland?
I think I remember Ilona Andrews saying somewhere that this was the end of the Rolan arc, and that the next book would start a new one.

 

[intrinsical]

I have a kind of spoilery question, so I just want a yes or no here. Does it tie up the stuff with Roland?
I think I remember Ilona Andrews saying somewhere that this was the end of the Rolan arc, and that the next book would start a new one.

That's a tough question to answer... A lot depends on what you mean by "tie up stuff". I'll say largely no, but I strongly suspect that

Spoiler: Roland

Roland will no longer be the Kate's main antagonist.

 

[JD]

Cool, thanks.

 

[intrinsical]

I've just finished reading Richelle Mead's Age of X series book 1, Gameboard of the Gods and I liked it so much that I figured I'll write a short review here.

First off, I have to say I really like Richelle Mead's writing. She is not like most urban fantasy authors I've read. Most authors tend to write conflict stories pitting either vampire coven vs coven, werewolf clan vs clan or worse, the classic werewolves vs vampires. Instead, Richelle Mead tends to put a lot more focus in creating a unique world, unique characters and creating unique situations.

This is why I don't even know how to classify Age of X as a genre. Should I call it Science Fiction Fantasy? Futuristic Fantasy? Dystopian Fantasy? Age of X is set in a future where the Earth has gone through "The Decline", an event where a devastating disease that killed off a large proportion of the population before a cure was developed. The countries we know now no longer exist. One of the new major superpowers that have emerged is the Republic of United North America (RUNA), a high tech ultramodern, religion-less civilization which comprises Canada (Vancouver is the capital), northern parts of USA above the Mississippi River, as well as parts of Europe and Asia (excluding Russia and China).

It is in RUNA where we find our two main lead characters, Justin March and Mae Koskinen who have been tasked by the RUNA government to solve what seem like a supernatural mystery. At least for book one the two of them reminded me strongly of Mulder and Scully, which I liked a lot. That is, if Mulder was an exiled ex-Minstry of Internal Security employee in charge of stamping out illegal religion and Scully was an elite soldier injected with an implant giving her superhuman strength and reflexes.

Together, they slowly discover that gods are returning to the world, granting powers to the devout and about to turn their religon-less country of RUNA upside down.

 

[JD]

I saw that a while back looking at Richelle Meads other stuff. I was already kind of interested, but your review has definitely raised my interest quite a bit.
Anyone on here read the Toby Daye series? It's probably going to be one of the next UF series I start. I'm also planning on starting the YA mermaid series, The Syrena Legacy, and the YA fey series The Iron Fey.

 

[kirk55555]

I've been reading a few of these kinds of books recently. Within the last few weeks, I've read the first Dresden Files book (Storm Front) and the first book of The Iron Druid Chronicles (Hounded). They were both great, and I'm definitely going to read more from those series. I can't say which one I like more, they were both really good.