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I've actually finished some books!
* Ages ago, I picked up the audiobook of Necromancer's Dance because it seemed very relevant to my interests. The narration was terrible, so I returned it. I am back on Audible for a few months and accidentally bought the book again. I just assumed that books I'd gotten refunded for in the past wouldn't show in my reccs? Anyway, I decided to power through because I didn't want to return it again. That was dumb, I should have returned it and gotten a text copy.
I am going to talk about the first two books in The Beacon Hill Sorcerer series, which Necromancer's Dance starts, and the narration separately. But, since I bought more of the books and obviously hate the audiobook narration you can probably guess my feelings on both.
Books
I enjoy them! I like the characters and the dynamic. The world building is very unique and taken seriously. There are strong connections and tensions between the characters, and not just the couple. They are actually part of the world they live in, which is weirdly something a lot of modern paranormal stuff is bad at. The world feels solid instead of like set dressing. This books has the things I've been looking for in m/m urban fantasy.
I can't really recc them because the writing is... it has some weaknesses. I feel weird criticizing the writing when so much of the queer fic I've picked up doesn't even have a strong grasp of grammar. Honestly, this reads so smoothly compared to what I picked up in that summer reading challenge. Between that and looking for good fanfic these books are a relief. I don't even really care that the sex scenes suck because I like the tension between the characters a lot. I might actually write a fanfic that is basically an improved sex scene between the main couple.
I have questions about how the world building works since the existence of vampires and stuff seems so open... but honestly as someone from New England I am actually willing to accept that Boston is just like that. And, there are 5 more books in the series and more coming out so that might all be explained.
In short: glad I finally got into this series.
Audiobook
I have several problems with how this book is narrated. I am not going to get into the weeds about the enunciation cadence being wrong, but since I am going to talk some things.
That the narration for this book was well reviewed was one of the reasons I gave up on audio books back then. Looking closer at the reviews, shenanigans become clear. Even some people who gave the book 5s across the board (you score separately for Overall, Story and Narration) actually complained about the narration in the text of their review, and others said the book was bad and they were only there for the narrator? Some of the people praising the VA talk about his amazing Boston accent and NO... NO NO
Here are some of the problems:
* He went with guttural working class accent. I think the VA went so hard he was hurting his throat. In sections where the protag talks a lot he starts to sound like he has bronchitis. Not sexy. He pulls back on the accent a bit about halfway through, but early on he sounds honestly sick.
* The protag isn't working class. He family lived on an estate before the paranormal wars. That sorcerers like him have private schooling for both regular academics and magic is a world building detail that comes up a lot. There was 0 reason for him to wreck his voice with the gravelly, harsh accent. It's not the right accent... at all
* From reading the dialogue in the book I can tell that the protag sometimes seems to talk normally, even a bit formally... consistent with his background! The accent comes out when he's in certain social situations, angry or being a little shit. Again, this is how things work. The VA has every line guttural, rather than having the accent be dynamic.
* People praising it as a perfect Boston accent of any kind confuses me because he does not drop his Rs. It's possible the protag wouldn't drop his Rs because his last name is Salvatore. They don't specify if he's Hispanic or if he has an usual accent, but it makes sense if he was speaking some Spanish at home or at least needed to pronounce Spanish family names right that he'd be used to making R sounds and it might effect his accent. But it sounds more Bronx than anything.
There is a hardness to the vowels sounds that is right, but outside of that, yeah it's giving Bronx construction worker who's been yelling all day.
But some reviewers thought that the VA got Simeon's Scottish accent perfect... (He's Irish), so it's just people giving hype reviews to support creators and I'm taking it overly seriously because A) it offends my New Englander sensibilities and B) shenanigans with reviews makes it harder to find good content.
* I DNF'd The Dark Lakes trilogy by M V Stott. The reason why I got audible again was because getting 4 months of audible was cheaper than just picking this up. It's an urban fantasy trilogy read by Dave Jones, the voice of Halsin from BG3. So, I was interested. The voice work is great, but I could not get through the story. The main character has amnesia, which means that while he's a full grown man with a job, due to lack of life experience he's very emotionally and socially immature. His basic lack of understandings of things are sometimes mistaken for an endearing joke by people around him. That premise could be interesting, but the vibes were off. It felt kinda gross actually.
It wasn't the first time I'd bought something specifically due to who the VA is and then hated the book, and it probably wont be the last.
* Ages ago, I picked up the audiobook of Necromancer's Dance because it seemed very relevant to my interests. The narration was terrible, so I returned it. I am back on Audible for a few months and accidentally bought the book again. I just assumed that books I'd gotten refunded for in the past wouldn't show in my reccs? Anyway, I decided to power through because I didn't want to return it again. That was dumb, I should have returned it and gotten a text copy.
I am going to talk about the first two books in The Beacon Hill Sorcerer series, which Necromancer's Dance starts, and the narration separately. But, since I bought more of the books and obviously hate the audiobook narration you can probably guess my feelings on both.
Books
I enjoy them! I like the characters and the dynamic. The world building is very unique and taken seriously. There are strong connections and tensions between the characters, and not just the couple. They are actually part of the world they live in, which is weirdly something a lot of modern paranormal stuff is bad at. The world feels solid instead of like set dressing. This books has the things I've been looking for in m/m urban fantasy.
I can't really recc them because the writing is... it has some weaknesses. I feel weird criticizing the writing when so much of the queer fic I've picked up doesn't even have a strong grasp of grammar. Honestly, this reads so smoothly compared to what I picked up in that summer reading challenge. Between that and looking for good fanfic these books are a relief. I don't even really care that the sex scenes suck because I like the tension between the characters a lot. I might actually write a fanfic that is basically an improved sex scene between the main couple.
I have questions about how the world building works since the existence of vampires and stuff seems so open... but honestly as someone from New England I am actually willing to accept that Boston is just like that. And, there are 5 more books in the series and more coming out so that might all be explained.
In short: glad I finally got into this series.
Audiobook
I have several problems with how this book is narrated. I am not going to get into the weeds about the enunciation cadence being wrong, but since I am going to talk some things.
That the narration for this book was well reviewed was one of the reasons I gave up on audio books back then. Looking closer at the reviews, shenanigans become clear. Even some people who gave the book 5s across the board (you score separately for Overall, Story and Narration) actually complained about the narration in the text of their review, and others said the book was bad and they were only there for the narrator? Some of the people praising the VA talk about his amazing Boston accent and NO... NO NO
Here are some of the problems:
* He went with guttural working class accent. I think the VA went so hard he was hurting his throat. In sections where the protag talks a lot he starts to sound like he has bronchitis. Not sexy. He pulls back on the accent a bit about halfway through, but early on he sounds honestly sick.
* The protag isn't working class. He family lived on an estate before the paranormal wars. That sorcerers like him have private schooling for both regular academics and magic is a world building detail that comes up a lot. There was 0 reason for him to wreck his voice with the gravelly, harsh accent. It's not the right accent... at all
* From reading the dialogue in the book I can tell that the protag sometimes seems to talk normally, even a bit formally... consistent with his background! The accent comes out when he's in certain social situations, angry or being a little shit. Again, this is how things work. The VA has every line guttural, rather than having the accent be dynamic.
* People praising it as a perfect Boston accent of any kind confuses me because he does not drop his Rs. It's possible the protag wouldn't drop his Rs because his last name is Salvatore. They don't specify if he's Hispanic or if he has an usual accent, but it makes sense if he was speaking some Spanish at home or at least needed to pronounce Spanish family names right that he'd be used to making R sounds and it might effect his accent. But it sounds more Bronx than anything.
There is a hardness to the vowels sounds that is right, but outside of that, yeah it's giving Bronx construction worker who's been yelling all day.
But some reviewers thought that the VA got Simeon's Scottish accent perfect... (He's Irish), so it's just people giving hype reviews to support creators and I'm taking it overly seriously because A) it offends my New Englander sensibilities and B) shenanigans with reviews makes it harder to find good content.
* I DNF'd The Dark Lakes trilogy by M V Stott. The reason why I got audible again was because getting 4 months of audible was cheaper than just picking this up. It's an urban fantasy trilogy read by Dave Jones, the voice of Halsin from BG3. So, I was interested. The voice work is great, but I could not get through the story. The main character has amnesia, which means that while he's a full grown man with a job, due to lack of life experience he's very emotionally and socially immature. His basic lack of understandings of things are sometimes mistaken for an endearing joke by people around him. That premise could be interesting, but the vibes were off. It felt kinda gross actually.
It wasn't the first time I'd bought something specifically due to who the VA is and then hated the book, and it probably wont be the last.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-07 10:45 pm (UTC)From:SO much can go wrong with long running series, including the author having a massive change in taste or having certain life experiences.
In a case of me putting the cart waaaaay before the horse I actually account for this in the original fic series I've got planned out. They all have certain constraints and I plan out certain things way in advance to not have those massive tone shifts. I am pissed at a few series for the massive, massive tonal shifts or retconning or... all sorts of things.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-08 04:15 am (UTC)From:There's certainly *some* amount of drift that's inevitable. With a long-running series, you will become a different creator over the course of time, and I'm not sure it's possible for the work to reflect NONE of that. But you can do work ahead of time to make sure the drift doesn't result in something that's likely to alienate your readers, or betray the initial intentions of the series. I've got a couple longer-running novel series that I enjoy, and it impresses me how obviously well thought-out some of the longer plot arcs have been. The quality of the writing has improved in a lot of cases, but it's never felt like the series betrayed itself or its audience. (To me, at least!) (On the other hand, I've also encountered those huge tonal shifts, massive retcons, and pivots toward something I no longer liked.)
Which is to say, it's a *really good idea* to have those plans in place!
no subject
Date: 2024-02-08 08:19 am (UTC)From:Reading well thought out and planned in advance arcs is so satisfying. I want to do that
no subject
Date: 2024-02-09 04:48 am (UTC)From:And ugh, yes! I LOVE long-con well-planned arcs. It's the best to watch them play out. I feel like that's not something I have a great sense of how to do yet, but it's something I really enjoy in the works I love, so is something I want to be able to do.