Would you like to share your current reading list?
I just finished Never Flinch- one of Stephen King’s Holly books. Was good.
Currently reading Knife- Salman Rushdie’s book about his attack.
I think Catch-22 is next. I’ve never read it.
I tried Dungeon Crawler Carl but gave up on about page 16.
My son gave me a book called How to Live with Objects. I tend to pick it up when I want something non-scrolling. It’s pretty good.
I’m working on the most recent book of Dan Willis’ Arcane Casebook series. I stumbled onto them and got hooked.
The series is noir detective set in the 30’s, but with magic. As specific as that niche is, it has been done before, but these have been well worth reading. The way magic works is well-defined and has a lot of built-in limits. That keeps it from overshadowing the detective stories that are at the heart of the books.
These also do a good job of acknowledging the common tropes of the genre, without accepting them as limitations. For instance, cops don’t generally like private detectives, but the specific relationships between cops and detectives are varied and interesting.
The worldbuilding often goes in unexpected directions. The implications of magic affect everything. A lot of the world looks very familiar, but there are some prominent differences between our world and theirs. It’s a fun place to learn about.
I’m looking forward to the next book.
Sounds like early Dresden Files!
Yes, it is! And the Dresden Files are high on my list of favorite series.
There are a lot of differences between the worlds, but stylistically they have a lot in common. They do have somewhat different pacing. Dresden is very much an ongoing story. Arcane Casebook has some larger story arcs, but to me it feels more episodic. On the other hand, that works nicely with the noir detective genre.