Three series? I count 2... What am I missing out on?

Sorry that I cannot remember the coded references he gave. While cruising interviews of Jim on Youtube my wife found one where he talked about rotating what he writes and getting in an out of character. During the interview he talked about "another work".

BlueMax

Well, the final book of the Codex Alera series is coming out this month, and has been done for awhile. After he finishes Changes (Dresden Files) I'd assume he will work on a new series since he likes to alternate books to keep things fresh for him.

Yeah. If he does pop out a new series, I'll definitely read it. He's a hell of a writer.

You win the "Understatement of the Week" award.

No he's not, but he's a great storyteller.

Care to clarify?

Well my opinion is that his actual writing skills is average at best, but the stories that he tells are great enough that they transend his writing and stand on their own feet.

This. Apologies, I was on my blackberry, and it encourages brevity.

He's not a great writer. His stories are pretty one dimensional and predictable. He's ham-handed with the foreshadowing, and his characters aren't very fully developed.

He is, however, witty and clever and he doesn't take himself too seriously. He's a lot of fun to read.

Wow. I suddenly feel like a stupid reader.

Creel,
Read about the Dresden files. The books are meant to be everything you described. Seriously. Read the story of the first book. Though I applaud anyone who can force themselves to read books they detest.

Oh, and if anyone wants great stories in literature, see Patrick O'Brian.

BlueMax

Actually, I love his books. I've read them all including the 5 chapter preview of "First Lord's Fury". I'm aware that they're intended to be cheesy, that's what I meant when I said "he doesn't take himself too seriously". If he were trying to be Victor Hugo and failing miserably it'd be pretty sad, but he's not. He's telling fun stories in a way that is accessible to many readers and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's a far cry from being a "great writer".

on the subject of reading books you detest...I've been trying to convince myself that I need to read the twilight series just so that I can work up a good rant. I'm thinking I'll tie it in with pro-life rhetoric...something along the lines of "if Stephenie Meyer's mother believed in abortion this never would have happened and the world would be a better place".


Jhaiisiin, there's no such thing as a stupid reader. Stupid people don't read, if you do you've a leg up on the competition.

I honestly don't get the idea of claiming Butcher is ham handed in his writing, I often find things in his stories that I didn't anticipate that, while not integral to the story make me take a differant view of the characters. I think the only way to call his characters one dimensional is to ignore the reasons for their actions and just take everything at face value as individual incidents.

I like Butcher's writing style, and I like his characters and his stories.

That being said, it's possible to tell good stories and write badly. Tolkien is the classic example; his story is pretty good, but his writing is average at best.

I'd prefer to play Lara Raith or Thomas or Elaine. Murph is just too driven.

butcher's characters a pretty direct but the dialogue works really well.
for a game, he's a street mage but with a fairly high level of initiation. he's been said to be one of the most powerful wizards of his generation but he lacks subtlety. He rtates very high on summoning and ritua magic. It is hard, he spend months setting up little Chicago.

Well that's my take butwe can spend mucho server space on it, What would need more development is the never-ever, the fact he can enter astral space with companionsand exit it elsewhere in the world with all his toys.

I think you are describing Dresden about book 7. He progresses rapidly , in what comes across as a "Level per book"

BlueMax

Which, when you consider the things he has to deal with on a fairly regular basis, doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

I agree. Its very interesting to see things fall out just like a game.

New familiar.
New magic items
new powers.


BlueMax
/new demon resident...

I would go with either the Dresden Files RPG or nMage with a couple tweeks. Heck even oMage... I think if your not going to use the actual Dresden Files RPG, nWOD is a great toolkit to build the world.

That was my original assumption but honestly, my experience with my group is that there is so much in the WOD, new or original that is poorly defined or left intentionally open to interpretation that unless I run a straight-up Vampire game I spend half the night explaining my rulings.

And that is different from Fourth Edition in what way?

*EDIT*

Especially since you are going to have to make abunch of houserulings in order to get the "right feel".

Oh, I admit thats the case, I just looked at the game systems on my shelf and figured which one would take the least amount of work compared to the others, Shadowrun got the nod.

Too each their own, personally I would have figured that nWOD would have since you've already got support for most of the critters and powers. Still, there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two rulesets.

To be honest the new WOD isn't exactly something I'm a fan of, I don't use it because most of the changes I saw when going over it where either quicky name changes or total reworking of the rules I actually liked. The same could be said of SR4 but alot of the changes in there I actually like.