Hit me with quotes.
I finally got around to reading The Laundry Files and I'm loving it.
Book three, The Fuller Memorandum, opens up with
- “I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever – was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.”
It's super new-atheist-edgy at first, totally admitting that. However it also connects to this sub-theme of a lot of other urban fantasy taps into in different ways, the idea that there are incomprehensibly powerful, negative forces at play in the world and there is real bravery in opposing them with every possible resource. In The Dresden Files this comes across as Dresden's cheek and wise-cracking even in the face of titanic magical opposition like Faerie Queens, literal fallen angels and dark hoary old gods, as well as their literal conflict. Butcher plays this off as just a character quirk but it's a great piece of characterization (That worked really well for Spiderman) that serves to give an extra layer of meaning to the various challenges that Dresden overcomes.
Bob Howard of The Laundry Files is damn close to British Harry Dresden. There is even a scene in The Fuller Memorandum where Bob is having a contemplative moment on a train after finishing a book that is blatantly described as being about a wizard private eye in Chicago, so this whole thing is very self-aware. Charles Stross knows his audience and caters heavily to the 'geek' crowd in that way. In fact there has been a case made that a lot of urban fantasy is essentially a power fantasy for kids who grew up reading Harry Potter.
Anyways, post your quotes. If you've read Dresden or The Laundry recently I'm happy to discuss. I'm starting The Apocalypse Codex today.
Cheers
I enjoyed the first couple, but the series seems to be getting a little long in the tooth. The Apocalypse Codex was ok, but by The Rhesus Chart I was starting to get bored. I've begun re-reading (although I didn't finish last time) Steppenwolf, and the degree to which I relate to Harry Haller is a little frightening. I broke down and bought The Folio Society's edition, which uses a better translation than the one I had been reading, and of course is beautifully put together.It's a fine thing, this contentment, this painlessness, these tolerable days when you keep your head down, when neither pain nor desire dare to raise their voices, when you do everything at a whisper, stealing around on the tips of your toes. But my problem, sad to say, is that precisely this kind of contentment doesn't agree with me. After a short spell, finding it insufferably detestable and sickening, I have to seek refuge in other climes, possibly by resorting to sensual pleasures, but if necessary even opting for the path of pain. For a short time I can stand to inhale the lukewarm, insipid air of the so-called good days, free of desire and pain. But, childish soul that I am, I then get so madly sore at heart and miserable that I fling my rusty thanksgiving lyre in the smug face of the drowsy god of contentment and opt for a true, devilish pain burning inside me rather than this room temperature so easy on the stomach.
Once you lose track of Mr. Howard things do kind of go off into the weeds. The Annihilation Score had me really torn. On the one hand I really really enjoyed all the procedural stuff. The establishment of a bureaucracy devoted to the management of superheroes/magic persons was really fun and chewy to read. Dr. O'Brien's perspective is engaging, especially all the back and forth with the evil violin. On the other, it was pretty ham-handed about how readily demonic activity and stuff could get re-branded as superhero/supervillian stuff.
Yeah, I would agree with those things. The Annihilation Score was pretty good, but I got super bored by The Nightmare Stacks. I started The Delirium Brief, but couldn't really get into it.
Have you or johnnyFive read A Colder War, the novelette that seems to have started Stross down the path to the Laundry Files? I can heartily recommend checking it out; it's much darker in tone, and I frankly like it much more than the Laundry Files series (although I really did like the first couple of books.) A Colder War is definitely one of my favorite short stories. (As a side note, the version of the novelette that's in one of the yearly scifi anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois is slightly better than the one I linked to
I agree. He seems to be trying what with the Laundry becoming public and all, but I'm not sure if it's going to work out.
Just finished Jennifer Government by Max Barry last night. Not a particularly quotable book in the normal sense, but this bit struck me as interesting: The funny part was that only a month or two ago he'd been ready to kill himself. He was still walking around only because he didn't know enough about guns to locate the safety on a Colt .45. Everything since then, you could argue, was borrowed time. It goes on to use the I am a great person and Every obstacle is an opportunity bits and build around those, but this bit stuck out as being semi-quotable and also a little funny in that it's a weird world in which you call someone you know in the government to ask them how to take the safety off of a gun so you can shoot yourself in the facehole. Still working on Meditations Book 7, will come back with more when I have done some more work there, I needed to get this book finished first for book club meeting soon. ETA We both had gun related quotes and both have something to do with shooting oneself. My character wanted to but couldn't, yours seems fully capable but has some unfinished business to attend to first.Today is a great day, Buy thought.
The week this came out, we must have all been involved in some other kind of porn besides #quotesporn. The book I'm currently reading makes me choke up every chapter. Not sure it's quotable though.