Bringing some thoughts together on It Gets Better

I know some people don't like it because it's a lie. It often doesn't get better. I sigh, again, because I think of young Sparky and what I would say to him

What would I say to the boy who has been ostracised from his friends, alienated from his family, who has been beaten, who has been freaking burned, who has had bones broken, who stays up half the night with nightmares and wakes up with dread and has just emptied the medicine cabinet. What would I say to him?


Would I say “there's a lot more shit to go through. You're going to be beaten a lot more. Your low self-worth is going to leave you vulnerable to some real arseholes who are going to treat you like shit and worse. You're going to lose your first 2 jobs. You're going to have to tolerate a hostile work environment. You're never going to have a happy relationship with your family, the nightmares will never go away and you won't be able to look in the mirror at all for the next 12 years and probably never comfortably because of your scars and you're going to have to take pills every day to avert a mental break down that had rapidly reduced you to an unstable wreck. You will never be able to go out your door without being afraid. You will never be able to touch another man without fear, you will never look at a stranger without wondering 'are they safe?' You will never speak without wondering who can hear, you will never walk without wondering who is watching you. You will never feel secure, you will never feel that anything you have is ever remotely safe.”

Would I tell young Sparky that? It's the truth, after all?

Or would I tell him, “you're going to fall in love with a good man who never fails to make every day a little brighter. You will have a home, a haven. You will find the courage to be you, despite fear. You will get a job, and despite everything you'll be bloody amazing at it. You will help people, you will safe lives and families and protect rights and provide other people a safe haven. You will be loved, you will have friends who know you and value you. You will have fun. You will laugh. You will enjoy life. You will survive and be strong and do well.”

It's also truth. It's heavily edited truth, but it's still truth.

Because I know which I would tell young Sparky. I know what would have helped him not reach into that medicine cabinet. And it sure isn't the hard truths or painful realities. It's the hope – however weak and erased and glossed over that hope may be. Because it's hope that will keep them going to manage another day, it's hope that will tell them someone understand and is working with them. It's hope that would have helped me.

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Review: Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Book 1 of the Harry Dresden series

Oh I like this one. And the ooooh means I mean it!
No, I really do. The main character is awkward enough, clumsy enough and generally human enough to appeal. And I like how he is both an awesomely powerful wizard capable of so much, while at the same time being several kinds of dorky and human.

I also love the little tricks of world building like electronics not working near wizards. Little things like that make a world :). Which is big and rich – but I haven't seen it all. Which is good – I'm on the first book and I shouldn't see the whole world in a several book series yet. This is how world building is done – in increments not info dumps, in lots of showing not long lecturous tellings

And I love the magic system, I love the system of imagery and symbolism that makes it up. I like it a loooot :)

But above all I like the story. And I didn't think I would. I'll be honest, the supernatural consultant to the police isn't something I dislike, but it is something that has been done a whooooole lot and it's beginning to feel just a tad tired to me. However Harry Dresden is a police advisor in a Masquerade world that is a little bit of a twist and it was done well enough that it didn't bother me :). I think it also got the right balance for a crime mystery – complicated enough that the detectives don't look like fools for not getting it right away without being so convoluted that the whole thing just didn't make any damn sense at all.

There's a wizard out there and he's killing people. Killing people in big, nasty messy ways. Harry has to find them. He also has to make rent, which is overdue, complete work for one of his few paying clients (being Chicago's only public wizard doesn't pay well – not with most people not believing in magic) and deal with saving himself from the attentions of the same murderous wizard. As an added bonus, the White Council, the wizard ruling body, thinks he's done it and is willing to execute him unless he proves otherwise. On the side he has to deal with a cynical police force that doesn't believe in magic and a curious journalist who very much does.

Read the rest at Fangs for the Fantasy