u/MattBookworm8640

Some of my favorite horror novels as of late have been Bone Mother by David Demchuk which delves into Slavic folklore, Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond which delves into African folklore and The Burial Tide by Neil Sharpson which explores Irish/celtic lore

The first three have always been my favorite entries in the series by far and ever since I was in high school I’ve had this yearly ritual of binge watching them back to back on Halloween night while I’m passing out candy to trick or treaters.

They just all feel like perfect companion pieces to one another. They all share the exact same cinematography, music and overwhelming sense of atmosphere (the autumn vibes)

I’ve been on the lookout lately for more high/urban fantasy shows, being a hardcore fan of stuff like the Game of Thrones franchise, Rings of Power, Grimm, etc. I keep coming back to this show having originally been hooked on it back in the day when it was airing live. I remember binging and loving the first three seasons but not having any real interest in Season 4 because of the whole forced/cheap-feeling Frozen tie-in and the weird Disney Evil Queens follow-up plot that was advertised. Since then I had just kinda moved on from the show even though the elements of later seasons that I saw being advertised interested me a fair bit. Arthurian legend, Aladdin, the whole Dark Willow take on Emma, and the whole reboot storyline in the last season. Also the bringing back of the Wicked Witch of the West who was one of the major highlights of Season 3

I’m shocked that this movie gets as bad of a rap as it does when it’s probably my single favorite werewolf movie ever. It felt like one of those classic Hammer horror movies from the 70’s. I loved the foggy dread-filled atmosphere, rich gothic Victorian aesthetics and a take on the werewolf mythos that ties back to medieval French history/folklore and Romani folklore.

I’m looking for books that are like this, if there are any out there?

As the Halloween season approaches and I’m getting back into the horror genre, I’m wondering if we all have some good recommendations here for books that seamlessly combine horror and fantasy together? I’ve already read and love Dark Tower, Imajica, Weaveworld, Kagen The Damned and Second Apocalypse

Honestly I can’t decide which is better than the other because they’re all equally as superb to me and among the best television I’ve ever watched (alongside The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, The Crown, The Americans, etc). Seasons 4 and 5 were almost single-handedly made by Glenn Close and Forrest Whittaker respectively, they delivered the most powerhouse performances of the whole show and both Rawling and Kavanaugh as characters bounced so well off of the Barn crew (especially Rawling, I loved her whole dynamic with Claudette).

Season 7 was climatic as fuck with the whole ICE storyline and all the dominoes falling down around Vic

I’ve been binging a lot of urban fantasy series lately but I’m getting kinda burnt out (especially after how increasingly disappointing the latter half of the October Daye series became) and I want to try break up my reading routine by getting into some standalones.

I’m already a massive fan of Jonathan Strange (if you can count that as ‘historical’ urban fantasy), American Gods, War of The Flowers, War For The Oaks and De Lint’s standalone stuff

Obviously we’re all of a sudden now getting these (subtle) TWD callbacks in Dead City but it feels extremely jarring and random after two seasons of absolutely nothing and they’re still continuing to completely side-step major stuff like the Commonwealth and Alexandria. Feels almost like Seth Hoffman forced them to compromise or something as part of his new vision for the show, idk lol.

And then Daryl Dixon continually refuses to acknowledge anything or anyone from the main show. Neither Daryl nor Carol have mentioned Rick once in the three seasons we’ve had.

This all makes me think AMC is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They clearly want to have completely independent spinoff shows with as few connections to the rest of the franchise as possible so as to attract new viewers (and investors) and start the franchise over with a clean slate. At the same time though they’re stuck relying on the legacy characters for the foreseeable future because all their completely independent spinoffs have bombed, and that comes at the cost of the OGs just not feeling like themselves, creating massive continuity errors and all around just pissing off TWD fans.

I always see it being ranked the lowest, even lower than Seasons 5 and 8 which is wild. Obviously it’s nowhere near as good as the Erickson era and it had its share of awful subplots (Dwight and Sherry in 7A) but I still vastly prefer it over 5, 8 and even 4 (4B was literally unwatchable it was so slow, uninteresting and just plain badly produced). I enjoy it about as much as I enjoy Season 6 honestly. I enjoy it in part because of the cool as fuck nuclear apocalypse setting. I felt certain characters like Karen, June, John Dorie Sr, etc were a bit more bearable as well than they were in past seasons. And minimal screentime for Althea which was a huge plus lol. Alicia’s ‘legendary messiah’ arc I loved and honestly I would’ve preferred if she had never appeared again.

The biggest pro for me by far though was Strand being the center focus (he’s always been easily the best Fear character hands down) and Colman Domingo really getting the chance to show off his acting skills like never before. The whole dictatorship storyline was really fun to me despite being extremely all over the place.

714 too with it being entirely focused on the OGs (Daniel, Strand and Alicia) is legitimately one of my favorite episodes of the entire show and alongside 611 felt the most like the Erickson era.

4A. 6 and 7 are the only C&G era content I’ve gone back to rewatch.

What are your favorite fantasy books that remind you the most of Grimm in terms of the atmosphere, world-building, lore, Royal politics (probably my favorite aspect of the show), etc?

Dresden Files is probably the closest I’ve come so far, it’s ticked all those boxes and more. Most of the ensemble cast in both Dresden and Grimm feel like mirrors to each other. Harry = Nick, Murphy = Hank, Ebenezer = Aunt Marie, Michael = Monroe, Molly = Trubel, Lara Raith = Adalind, etc

I’ve been binge-reading the whole series while I’m on vacation and while I really loved the first 4-5 books in the series (save for Artificial Night which was just Crossroads of Twilight level bad) the more I’ve continued on the more I’ve gradually been falling out of love with it.

I do still love the fae world-building - this really makes it stand out amongst all other urban fantasy series - and certain supporting characters like Simon and Evening have had amazing arcs (Simon has a really well done redemption story like Spike in Buffy while Evening is such a consistently fun and unpredictable villain).

The recapping though is really starting to become grating it’s taking up an increasing amount of each book, a lot of the characters are becoming parodies of themselves (especially the Luidaeg; that Poor Unfortubate Souls karaoke scene in The Brightest Fell was such cringe), the plots and character dynamics are becoming too repetitive.

I’m kinda skimming through the last few books now while my minds been mostly occupied by Dresden Files theorycrafting

I’m just curious to see if there’s a general consensus here. Ever since the main show ended the only spinoff concept I’ve ever genuinely embraced is something similar to early Fear, a story with completely new characters, fresh locations, fresh ideas for the world-building, no connections to anything TWD, etc.

I think it’s the only way realistically to inject some new life into the franchise. No more tired-out legacy characters whose stories all ended years ago. No more CRM shit, especially after how horribly that whole storyline ended in TOWL. Just a completely clean slate for the franchise in every conceivable way.

View Poll

What do my fellow Dresden fans think of this series? I’m only up to Red Rose Chain but I’m really enjoying it so far. The fae are my favorite aspect of DF and Summer Knight is probably my favorite book in this series so I love all the fascinating fae mythology October Daye incorporates. It brings in so many different fae races and callbacks to classic literature like Shakespeare and medieval/Victorian fae folklore. Seanan McGuire has a degree in folklore and it really shows!

Does the quality keep up for anyone who’s read most or all of the series? It’s not as addicting as Dresden and doesn’t quite have quite as memorable of an ensemble cast but I do love the overarching plotting it has, just like Dresden. So many minor characters and plot threads in one or more books end up coming back into play in major ways.

Tbh it’s the only female written UF series I’ve legitimately enjoyed and which hasn’t felt like paranormal romance. I just couldn’t get into Mercy Thompson, Kate Daniel’s or The Hollows, way too romancey

Just curious to see if there’s a general consensus here. If I have limited shelf space and could have just one urban fantasy series to add my shelf which would it be? Which has the deepest world-building and lore, best long-term plotting, best cast of characters, best magic system, etc?

Molly and Thomas are easily my most anticipated, they both have such fascinating background storylines that could be really fun to watch if given more focus on the hypothetical tv show. With Molly just seeing her gradually go from being an emotionally troubled teen with an identity crisis to discovering her powers and building towards becoming an increasingly powerful morally gray sorceress while at the same time navigating a deepening rift with Michael who wants to stop the magic from corrupting her.

And then with Thomas we can get tons of vampire political intrigue, explore his tragic love story with Justine, etc.

I remember seeing a while back that one of the pitches Jim got for a Dresden show was to start with the vampire war and Harry rescuing Susan. I would have really hated this approach given how all over the place it is. I really and truly believe that they should adapt each book in order starting with Storm Front which establishes the whole world and do 2-3 books a season (which would come out to around 8 seasons and that’s perfect). For season 1 I think I would mostly adapt Storm Front and Grave Peril while maybe putting elements of Fool Moon in as a subplot since it doesn’t have the same world-building depth or iconic large ensemble cast as the rest. I would also bring certain characters in earlier like Michael and Molly, and flesh out Marcone s story a lot more from the get go

I’m a bi guy and having my first ever date with a beautiful twink in an hour. I’m freaking out over whether I should kiss him at the end though. Do most gay guys expect the guy to kiss them on the first date or will that ruin things because of how it might come off as moving too fast?

It would be embarrassing if I just asked him whether I can kiss him

Do we think characters like Madison, Alicia, Strand, Daniel, Luciana might crossover into future spinoffs (and Dead City if it’s renewed for a Season 4)? Or do you think given Fear’s horrible reputation/legacy AMC is pretty much just done with that cast?

I’m really dying for a Strand spinoff personally and I remember Colman saying years ago that he was pitching a Strand spinoff to AMC. I’m kinda doubtful it would happen even if AMC was interested given Colman’s rising Hollywood fame but still. He’s easily the best character on Fear (the only OG who remained consistent and interesting through all eight seasons) and one of the best TWDU characters ever. The morally all over the place Machiavellian political chessplayer. If Season 3 of DC ends with NYC being rebuilt by Negan and Maggie into a thriving ever-expanding community like New Babylon with a functioning government, military and everything I’d love seeing Strand come in and try to elevate himself through the political hierarchy