Short review for this re-read. I wrote a monster one last time.
As always with this series, there are little small moments where I have to stop and mentally finger wag at Jim Butcher, mostly to do with Harry’s sometimes sexist-attitudes, but overall this book really is a masterful piece of urban fantasy. It works as a standalone story, but mostly it works as the pivot point in this ongoing twenty-three book series. You don’t really know how literal the title is going in, but you soon find out. This whole book is an epic mess of Jim Butcher burning Harry’s world to the ground, and you feel it so hard because he’s spent eleven books building up your attachment to all the things (both tangible and intangible) Harry loses in this book.
It’s also a game-changer. Books after Changes in this series are fundamentally different from the books before it. I just think that is such a fun thing for an author to do, to see that long execution in action. I just hope he publishes the next couple of books soon. I worry for his productivity levels as he nears the end.
This book more than holds up on re-read. It was fun to see, now that I knew what was going to happen, how Butcher was putting it all together, lining things up for the shot, so to speak. And so much foreshadowing and hidden stuff I didn’t catch the first time. And that last scene at Chichen Itza, man. It makes me wish The Dresden Files TV show would have been made recently, rather than before fantasy on TV became something that you could take seriously and give good production values to (basically pre-Game of Thrones). I would love to see this whole book on a screen of some sort, but particularly that last battle and what it leads up to. Talk about spectacle, but it’s far from an empty one.
Ghost Story up next, and I’m excited to finally get to listen to the audio. James Marsters wasn’t available to record it when I read the series for the first time, so went the hardcover route instead of accepting a substitute narrator (no offense to John Glover, who I’m sure is a lovely human being–he’s just not Harry Dresden).
Man, the last battle in this book!
I literally felt winded after reading it.
It was even worse for me the second time, because I read it so quickly. The audiobook is slower and gives you more breathing room. I just zoomed through that ending this time, and it hit much harder.
This is most definitely my favorite of the Dresden books.
I don’t think this one is my favorite, it’s too much, I think. Probably that honor goes to Skin Game, but I guess we’ll see on re-read!