WoW Petopia Community

I got pulled off of working on the forums this week, but I wanted to show off what I was working on: a book review site for urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

http://www.darkurbanfantasy.com/

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one underwhelmed by the Parasol Protectorate series. I'll have to try out Ilona Andrews.

Lovely site! I'd love to see all your sites, I only know 3-5 of them now, maybe I'll email you for a list if you are shy about posting them all here ^_^

Jane, aka Bamoo, aka Brash

Was wondering where you were keeping yourself.. I pass through Mania's Arcania on my way to here when my explorer opens. Hmmm, haven't gotten into Romance books much; more of the hardcore Sci-Fi/Horror reader here. My tatses run more along the lines of Clive Barker to K E Wagner.. But glad to see you haven't dropped off the face of the worlds yet!!

Azzrazzah wrote:more of the hardcore Sci-Fi/Horror reader here

I like to read a variety of fantasy and sci-fi. I like steampunk and dark, gritty stuff. My current favorite is China Mieville.

Normally I'm pretty leery of the "urban fantasy" genre, due to so much bad porn, bad "strong" female characters and general bad writing. (Looks sideways at Anita Blake.) This is the second rec I've seen for Ilona Andrews though, need to get around to putting them on my Reader.

And yes, China Mieville is awesome. Didn't like City and the City though.

Keleri wrote:Didn't like City and the City though.

Same here. Started strong, with a lot of potential, but I found the ending depressing, if realistic.

Keleri wrote:Normally I'm pretty leery of the "urban fantasy" genre, due to so much bad porn, bad "strong" female characters and general bad writing. (Looks sideways at Anita Blake.)

Hey I quite liked the first book that one of my friends handed me. Maybe I'd set my expectations too low, but it was a nice surprise! At some point I expect I'll try to get my hands on book #2 in the series.

BrashEndeavors wrote:Lovely site! I'd love to see all your sites, I only know 3-5 of them now, maybe I'll email you for a list if you are shy about posting them all here ^_^

Jane, aka Bamoo, aka Brash

Brash!

Let's see ... There's Arcania, Warcraft Mounts, WoW Tabards, the game development blog my husband and I write, this new book site, my personal site (but all it has is my resume so it hardly counts) ... I had a few other personal blogs lying around but I can never keep them going.

The rest of the websites I'm involved with are paid work.

Azzrazzah wrote:Was wondering where you were keeping yourself.. I pass through Mania's Arcania on my way to here when my explorer opens. Hmmm, haven't gotten into Romance books much; more of the hardcore Sci-Fi/Horror reader here. My tatses run more along the lines of Clive Barker to K E Wagner.. But glad to see you haven't dropped off the face of the worlds yet!!

I've actually been working on paid projects for the past week or two. The book site only took two days to set up and I've been filling in content from my defunct book blog when I have a chance the past few days. I read a lot of horror and sci-fi/fantasy, but there's so much drek in the UF/PNR I started keeping lists for myself (where I don't need to with the other books) and it grew from there.

gormanghaste wrote:

Azzrazzah wrote:more of the hardcore Sci-Fi/Horror reader here

I like to read a variety of fantasy and sci-fi. I like steampunk and dark, gritty stuff. My current favorite is China Mieville.

I downloaded a China Mieville book for free but haven't gotten to it yet. I hear good things about the author, though.

Anyia wrote:

Keleri wrote:Normally I'm pretty leery of the "urban fantasy" genre, due to so much bad porn, bad "strong" female characters and general bad writing. (Looks sideways at Anita Blake.)

Hey I quite liked the first book that one of my friends handed me. Maybe I'd set my expectations too low, but it was a nice surprise! At some point I expect I'll try to get my hands on book #2 in the series.

Anita Blake is pretty good up to book - what, 6 or so? Obsidian Butterfly, I am thinking, although it's been a while. Unfortunately after that they turn into straight porn. Don't get me wrong - I like porn ... but not 300 pages of badly-written porn with no plot.

I don't have nearly all my strong recommendations up yet, but Andrews is high-action, high-character, low-sex. I'm re-reading both her series this week, as it happens. I'm going to be doing a lot of re-reading until I get more reviews done.

Mania wrote:Anita Blake is pretty good up to book - what, 6 or so? Obsidian Butterfly, I am thinking, although it's been a while. Unfortunately after that they turn into straight porn. Don't get me wrong - I like porn ... but not 300 pages of badly-written porn with no plot.

o_O

Thanks for the heads-up! I guess I shouldn't get too attached the series lest I end up rather disappointed. Bad pron is such a page-turner, for all the wrong reasons (i.e. skimming "is there plot yet? is there plot yet? is there plot yet?"). I like plot. Ideally epically spanning a few thousand pages.