Thoughts?

I do think that Butcher is pretty good at writing prose and handling pacing and being creative but consistent at in using mythological stuff in his setting

He also is occasionally casually racist, very sexist, and sometimes just grossly horny

I don’t care enough to go back and count but he describes women’s nipples looking through the fabric of their clothes a lot , it is very cringe

I do not remember that. I must have blocked it out.

That sounds about right

His other series are less.....

...../gestures

But overall he’s an author I’ve kinda outgrown

deerleisure: maybe he gets better about it in later books, but in his early books he’s got this horny teenage boy energy

If anything it gets worse

He first describes that character Maeve as (paraphrasing) “looking young enough that grown men shouldn’t have lustful thoughts about her but old enough that men can’t help but have them”

you know, before he describes her sexy outfit and her nipples poking through fabric

I’m going to keep reading because I think I’m learning how to be a better writer in my own work from his, both learning what I want to do better and what I want to not do in my own work

Maeve and most of the winter court are supposed to be unsettling but like

Jim, my pal

You could have done it some other way

I mentioned the big oof “Injun Joe” character in another Plurk and people mentioned they’d forgotten about him existing and like, I think Jim did too by the time he starts into the second act of that book

It’s SO consistent that every woman Harry meets is a drop dead gorgeous sexy bombshell to the point that my half joking head canon was that he just thinks all women are beautiful no matter what they look like

Since we’re getting the story from his pov

Well except for the half troll lady

He reminds us repeatedly that she is not attractive

yeah the prose is uncomfortably horny a lot, unfortunately

I will say that characterization of Murphy improved a lot by the 4th book

I actually liked Murphy

In the first two books she is written really badly and in the third book she only shows up briefly to be psychically assaulted by Harry’s ghost doppelgänger so that Harry has another person to save

In the fourth book she actually is portrayed as being competent (instead of the book telling us she’s competent and then demonstrating the opposite to add to the stakes for Harry)

Also in the fourth book she actually gets to have a personality which is nice

I can see why my work is compared to Dresden Files beyond just the setting though, my POV character is very similar to Murphy (after Murphy gets some characterization) and my POV character’s “partner” is very similar to Harry

I like the core concept of the Dresden Files

Characters like Harry are usually supporting cast who offer information to the actual hero so seeing the “wise” mystic character take the center stage is fun

Well on the flipside, this has become a very common formula, where the main character is something weird, and they team up with a straight edge female detective and grow closer over time

Dresden Files, Castle, Lucifer (the TV version)

One’s a __! The other’s a straight edge cop! They solve murders!

On TV Tropes it’s called Female Flatfoot and Snarky Guy

Yeah, the Dresden Files is great for interesting worldbuilding and plot ideas and so so bad at anything other than Straight White Men.

I'm so sorry my condolences, I couldn't even finish the second book