My sister has been pressuring me to read this book for a couple of years. I think I put it off on principle. It took me a couple years to convince her to read The Lord of the Rings (when we were much younger), but it was the release of the movies that finally did it. She also rejected my suggestions of A Game of Thrones (too political), Harry Potter (not interested), Brandon Sanderson (she keeps forgetting about it) and John Scalzi (ditto).
So I was being petty. It happens to the best of us.
But I’m glad I set that aside and picked this up.
Storm Front is a cross between a good episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Phillip Marlowe. With a little Supernatural thrown in. Harry Dresden is a wizard private investigator who helps people find lost things, the police solve crimes, and women lose their underwear.
Ha. Not really on that last part. Being a wizard, he hasn’t had much luck with women. He has a cat named Mr., however, and a be-spirited skull named Bob.
A woman comes to his office pleading help in finding her husband. Soon thereafter, a police detective (Lt. Karrin Murphy) calls him to a crime scene, where two lovers have had their hearts ripped from their chests. Shenanigans ensue.
As an homage to Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, it’s fair but a little on the light side. There’s more humor here, and Dresden isn’t as hard as the characters who inhabited the world’s of Butcher’s predecessors. The writing isn’t as crisp, and the dialogue isn’t as era-specific. But when you throw in the supernatural elements, the vampires and fairies and demons, this book becomes something more. Something evocative and interesting.
There are 15 novels in the series, a role playing game, graphic novels, short stories, and a TV show, and with good reason. Even after one book, I can see that there is a rich world to be played with, here.
And I can’t wait to explore it.
I’m glad you liked Storm Front. The books get much better. The first 4 are a bit rough.
That’s what I keep hearing.
I didn’t find this one to be rough at all, though. So that bodes well for the others.
Holy crap are you in for it. I only semi-liked the first three books, and now it’s one of my favorite series of all time, so I can’t even imagine how much you are going to like it!
I’m always eager for a new series, so I’m pretty excited (given the praise these books get).
Count me in the camp who could barely get through the first three books and kept wondering if people were on crazy pills for recommending the series to me. I tend to be a bit OCD about series, always starting at the beginning and it literally took me years to get through books 1-4. By book 4 I was cautiously interested, and by book 5 I’d started getting the books in audio, read excellently by James Marsters. Didn’t take too long until I was hooked. Now I am sadly caught up with the rest of the people who raved about the series, impatiently waiting for the next installment. I even have a geeky fan t-shirt proclaiming my love.
I really liked this series. And then made the (rather controversial apparently) decision to stop after Changes (I think it was Changes). It felt like a natural stopping point to me. And as fondly as I remember these books, I really have no desire to go further. I have been told I am the craziest of crazies and I am NOT a good Dresden fan for saying that. But I just thought I’d let you know, if the books eventually wear on you (and they might-Harry is kind of misogynist (I love him, but yea…) and it did wear on me eventually) there is a good stopping point.
I don’t know that ‘misogynist’ is necessarily the best description. He doesn’t hate women, he doesn’t have any kind of inherent hostility towards them, or a drive to ‘put them in their place’. That’s the kind of intensity the term ‘misogynist’ brings to mind.
He’s definitely sexist, with some deeply ingrained preconceptions about gender roles, but he confines that to impacting HIS behavior, rather than insisting that WOMEN change their behavior to suit him. I tend to find that Murphy mostly thumps it out of him (or at least thumps him enough that he gets progressively less obvious about it) as the series goes on… although I won’t deny that it’s possible that it may rear its ugly head here and there.
Also, he starts the series with a pretty heavy case of Male Gaze when he spots attractive women, and that simmers down over the years because Butcher grows up.
Honestly, I don’t think of Changes as ‘a natural stopping point’. It’s more like the interlude of the series; the end of one Act, not the end of the narrative. If you’re willing to step out of the story before it finishes, then I wouldn’t say you’re a die hard fan… but that doesn’t make you a BAD fan. As long as Peace Talks has been taking, I wouldn’t blame you for waiting until Butcher finished the series before getting in to get to the real ending.
Changes is a good place to get out if the books are starting to wear on you. Some bananas things are starting to happen in the post-Changes stories.