New short story

[morriswalters]

In one word. Meh.

[Yuillegan]

What did you find unappealing about it?

Anything interesting catch your eye?

[morriswalters]

This reminds me of a gourmet dinner without spices.  You can see where it could be a taste treat, but without spices it's meh.  It might be fun if he contracted this one out to someone like, maybe Larry Correia, who could run with it.

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He has an office, guess where? Intro's a knew character.  Marcone is in it.  Surprise, zero. Suspense, zero. Tension zero.  Double spoiler

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He gets hired, trades threats with Marcone.  Does job, kills all the bad guys, who are all mortal.  Saves the object of his job.  Kills more people off page, because?  Trades more threats with Marcone.  We're done.  What the hell is the sidekick suppose to represent?

[123Chikadee]

@morriswalters: So, that's the synopsis? Well that is disappointing. I really hope that turns out to be incorrect.   

[Yuillegan]

That's a shame. I thought the Goodman Grey one was out soon and this was it.

But this looks like Harry just being unreasonably difficult to work with while interacting with Marcone.

[morriswalters]

Well, maybe the problem is that Goodman Grey isn't well developed.  Everybody else had multiple books.

[toodeep]

I agree it was meh.  It was the first look into the world of Goodman Grey, and it was extremely uninformative.  It might have had to have been to keep his mystique, but it made the story very bland.  It gave no information about his past, no real additional information about his abilities or limits, and very little about his goals/methods; other than he does generally appear to try to be a "good" monster, and his price of 1 dollar with Dresden wasn't a one-off, it is what he charges all his clients.  The real question is, would he be as easy to hire on a job to go kill a school full of children, or some other "monstrous" act (since he acknowledges being a monster).  We get no idea what his ethical goals/requirements really are.  How does his apparent desire to be "good" square with the immediate feeling that he give the KotC that he is "very bad?"

[Bad Alias]

He claims to be doing good to pay the Rent,

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but his assistant says he's already paid another six months of rent. He's doing it for other reasons. He also thumbs his nose at Marcone. He could have handed the photos over to Marcone, who would have eliminated those guys on his own schedule. But he didn't. He suggests he's getting revenge for the wrong done to him.

The story was meh. One thing I noticed was that Grey referred to magazines as such instead of clips like Harry always seems to. This implies that Jim knows the difference, but Harry doesn't.

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Also, why were the guards armed with semi-auto uzis? They're not the best or cheapest for the work they were doing. I'd get if they were full auto, but they weren't.

[Mira]

So are you saying not to waste my money on the anthology?

[morriswalters]

I don't regret buying it.

[Snark Knight]

It was alright, but the lack of revealing any real backstory or lore held it back somewhat. Viti was interesting in a way - I wonder if she might have some superhuman heritage too, with that kind of shooting skill.

Was the line about Marcone's "big dumb Einherjar bodyguard" a hint that Hendricks died and signed on with Monoc to stay in the game / stay with Gard? Or has Hendricks been replaced by an Einherjar? If he was referring to Hendricks at all, it's vaguely amusing that Grey makes the same mistake of underestimating him that Harry does.

That's a shame. I thought the Goodman Grey one was out soon and this was it.
But this looks like Harry just being unreasonably difficult to work with while interacting with Marcone.

Grey's POV isn't really that Harry-like, actually. He's closer to Marcone in Even Hand, trying to bury everything under a just-business veneer, but with the same avenging streak toward child abusers.

[Bad Alias]

So are you saying not to waste my money on the anthology?

I didn't pay for it. At some point I must have gone with not two day shipping on prime, so I had a $5 credit available for a kindle purchase. It was only $4.99. It's a pretty common option, and I occasionally choose it when I need the thing by a specific date (a nibling's birthday), and two day shipping is unnecessary.

Also there are other stories because it's an anthology. I haven't read any of them. Has anyone else, and are they worth it?

[Arjan]

I read the first story and I liked it.

[Dina]

I liked this story more than some of the recent ones, probably because I really, really like Goodman Grey, but I wanted to know more about him. The problem, I feel, is that even when the story is told in first person, it is not really a point of view. He just describes the things he does, more or less like a third person narrator would do. With a few minor exceptions about his appreciation of her secretary's body (ugh) and a couple of suggestions of his fury at the thugs, we don't know any of his feelings. A little more inner monologue about what he was thinking/feeling instead of the plain description of his actions would have helped a lot. Also, I would have liked at least a moment of, I don't know, vulnerability or something like that. He seems just too perfect and accomplished, and that is not so interesting to read.
I still like the character and I want to know more about him and about the new character. I would love to see GG in PT, interacting with Harry again. I wish we could have glimpsed at what GG actually thinks about him.
Many things of the story were great, the small touches, like how he learnt Spanish long ago, how he felt that Viti was doing well and things like that, but as morris said, it was like a gourmet dish without spices.

[Snark Knight]

Also there are other stories because it's an anthology. I haven't read any of them. Has anyone else, and are they worth it?

I'm maybe 60% through the rest of it. Quality varies widely, but there are some good ones.

The problem, I feel, is that even when the story is told in first person, it is not really a point of view. He just describes the things he does, more or less like a third person narrator would do.

Yep. I wasn't expecting an explanation on The Rent or anything that significant, but a POV short without telling us anything more than we already knew about the POV character seems a bit skimpy. I understand Jim may be saving up his material for the Grey spinoff novel he's talked about in some event videos, but this would have been a good opportunity to drop something that would build a little more excitement for that.