Two questions regarding authors
1)Every so often when it gets slow and I run out of sites that are probably okay to be looking at on desk, I remember that I keep meaning to start reading the Dresden Files. For some reason this branch can't keep Storm Front in. Whenever I check, there's like six holds on it. Meanwhile the second, fourth, and eighth books in the series are right there on the shelf ten yards away. Does it matter terribly much in which order I read them?

2) I just reread Dave Duncan's Great Game trilogy after giving up on it as a teenager. It was a decent read, but also contained a whole lot of OH JOHN RINGO NO-style treatment of women and minorities. I'm looking at an old Library Journal that has a review of a novel of his about alchemists in an alternate Renaissance Venice. They say it's pretty good and I have a secret weakness for fantasy Venice. On the other hand, I'll pass if it's full of the same creepy "Hooray white people! British colonial-style oppression of native peoples is awesome!" and "Rape bad! But interesting! But bad!" moments that those were. Anybody read much Duncan? Does he commonly throw those sort of icky scenes and attitudes into his stories?

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panthea
2009-02-09 11:29 pm UTC (link)

Seconded. Storm Front is very obviously a first novel, and it's unbearably clunky in parts; I know at least one person who I still think would enjoy the later books, but she read SF first and got completely turned off the series as a whole.

That said, I did start with SF and my only reaction was "omg more now." But I'd be leery now of using it to pimp someone else into the series.

If you want to skip a few, I'd personally start no later than the third book, Grave Peril; it introduces Michael, who ends up being a major character, and the Nevernever and all the different vampire groups, and the overarching plot of the rest of the series (thus far) pretty much starts off here.

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	priscellie 2009-02-10 12:33 am UTC (link)
	I agree. The third book is ideal place to start. The first two are certainly entertaining, but they seem laughably awkward when compared to later books, when Jim has honed his craft. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	_goblin_ 2009-02-10 02:25 am UTC (link)
	Eeeeee-nteresting. I gave up on the series after book 2, wondering what all the fuss was about. Guess I should give it another whirl. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	waltraute 2009-02-10 03:02 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, the degree to which he has improved is astronomical--enough that I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see a basic rewrite of the first one or two. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	m_butterfly 2009-02-10 05:38 am UTC (link)
	When I say I would pay money for this, I mean that in a very literal way. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	waltraute 2009-02-10 06:12 am UTC (link)
	I'd also be tickled if he fixed some of the Chicago faux pas; we all wish that the University of Chicago were in Lincoln Park... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dark_puck 2009-02-10 04:00 am UTC (link)
	I actually snared my (now ex-) boyfriend and his younger brother with Dead Beat. Three words: Zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lil_miss_stfu 2009-02-10 04:00 am UTC (link)
	What s/h/it said. While I can still enjoy the first two books (I have an amazingly high tolerance for poor writing when I adore a series), there is an obvious improvement in quality by the time Grave Peril was published. I keep hoping that some day Jim'll go back and revise the first two, but I doubt that'll ever happen :( (Reply to this)(Parent)

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