My interest in Shakespeare came from watching a Duran Duran video when I was in the 8th grade. The song was Waiting for the Nightboat, and watching it led me to reading Romeo & Juliet for the first time. Who was this Queen Mab? And why was Simon LeBon so afraid of her? Junior High me needed to know.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ09HcvYQTY&w=560&h=315]
All of this came back to me while listening to my Audible boyfriend James Marsters read Summer Knight to me last week.
In the fourth installment of the Dresden Files, we find our friend Harry still struggling with the loss of Susan, who has left town. Harry is working non-stop to find a potential cure for her vampirism, and has been ignoring work, friends, housekeeping, and hygiene. He’s a disaster, and has little to show for it.
He meets a new client, who turns out to be the one and only Mab, Winter Queen of the Sidhe, and it seems that she has purchased his services from his godmother in the Never Never. She tells him that if he does three favors for her, she will release him from his debt, and she asks him to solve a murder investigation for her, of a local artist named Ronald Ruehl.
It turns out that Ruehl was the acting Summer Knight, working for the Summer Court and the Summer Queen, Titania, as well as the Summer Lady, Aurora. His mantle was stolen, leading to a potential shift in power in the Fairy universe.
And so Harry, along with a rag-tag bunch of werewolves, pixies, and changelings, travels across the Chicago of our world, as well as the Chicago of the Fairy world, to find answers.
Meanwhile, the wizard court is still pissed at Harry about what happened between him and the vampires at the end of Grave Peril, and aren’t very excited about helping him out in his quest. Most of them would rather see Harry dead or expelled from the rest of the wizards.
I really enjoyed this one, even though, at times, I had no idea what was going on. I’ve mentioned previously that Marsters’ narration is a bit hypnotic, and at times I lose myself while he’s talking and I’m driving, and that I’ll miss a minute or two of detail. I can’t help it! His voice is mesmerizing.
I love Harry hanging out with Billy and the rest of the werewolves. I enjoyed the little pizza eating pixies. I was glad to know more about Harry’s youth — about Ebenezar and Elaine and what happened to Justin. I liked the world’s created both above and below Chicago, where the Fairies ruled. I liked the new changeling characters (poor Meryl). And I was happy to see Murph back in bad-ass action.
But it wasn’t all good. I really didn’t care for Elaine. I didn’t buy how quickly Harry solved the mystery regarding the stolen mantle. There wasn’t nearly enough Bob in this book. And it drove me crazy when I was listening that I couldn’t differentiate James Marsters saying Mab or Maeve, which was a lot.
Hells bells, the bottom line is that this book was much more fun than the previous three. And I look forward to letting James tell me more about Harry and the magical world of Chicago.
I can’t wait for you to keep going!
I have them all sitting in my Audible account, and plan to switch off between these and the Dark Tower books that I’m revisiting. Again. I just started The Drawing of the Three today, so it might be a while!
I’m starting Dark Tower book four later this month and re-reading Dresden at the same time. We’re doing the exact opposite of each other.
I started the audios with book 5, and James Marsters’ excellent narration finally sold me on Harry Dresden as a character. I’m never going back to re-read books 1-3, but I will be getting the audio for Summer Knight at some point, just so I’ll have all the ones I care about in audio.
I totally want to read this. Do I have to read the first 3 to understand this one, or can I just jump in?
Also, the fact that a Duran Duran video made you interested in Shakespeare is awesome :)
I would say no, depending on how OCD you are about reading a series in order (I still wish someone had told me to start with book four – it took me 3 years to get through the first three, because I kept wanting to give up on the series). You get all the pertinent information you need towards the beginning of each book and this is the first one I would say you really need to read for the story arcs later to really make sense. Also, if you have an Audible account, I cannot recommend the audio books enough.
Excellent. I’ll be reading this one soon!
Agree with everything Malin said. These early books do a good job of reminding us what has happened so far.
The first three books almost made me quit the series (until it was saved for me by James Marsters), but at the same time, glad I read them for context. I don’t know. I’ve heard people say both ways, that they were fine starting with book four, and others say they felt lost. Maybe at least read detailed summaries of books 1-3?
An incomplete List of great things Duran Duran taught me about when I was in junior high: Shakespeare, eyeliner, New Romantics (Roxy Music and Japan especially), hair color, Sri Lanka, jazz shoes, Nile Rogers, and Japanese record imports.
I love all this^^