Life has been crazy lately, but I finally have some time to do a post about the second book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series!
I'm rereading all the Dresden Files books (actually listening to them in audio book form). I remembered this one as the Werewolf Book. I also remembered that Dresden gets beaten up a lot and has sex with Susan in this book.
Going through it again, I was a little disappointed to discover that I had, in fact, remembered most of the key points.
Much like the first book, Fool Moon opens with a grisly murder scene. I'm not a fan of detailed descrptions of blood and guts, but, if you are, than Jim Butcher is the author you should be reading.
Then there are a lot of werewolves. The Alphas first show up in this book, and they don't appear to do anything useful. They just get themselves stunned in the climactic moments and then develop an adoring loyalty to Harry. It's cute, but not very integral to the plot, at least not the plot of this book. They're basically just there to be a red herring for a while, and to increase the book's overall variety of werewolves. Did I mention there are a lot of werewolves in here? It is kind of cool that Butcher incorporated all this werewolf lore, and some of the wolf characters, like Tara West, are interesting. Mostly, though, it feels like the wolves are just more monsters for Harry to fight, with the exception of the aforementioned useless Alphas.
My next point is that there is a LOT of violence, gore and bodily injury in this. There is a long scene in which the loup-garou (the worst of all the werewolves) tears through the police station and rips apart prisoners and police officers alike. The monster is basically indestructible, and just kills people for a while before Harry dramatically blasts it through several walls. Sometimes the use of force in these books is just over the top. I was surprised, reading this book for the second time, at all the death and gore that was packed into this one scene. Murphy's partner Carmichael dies here and isn't really given a decent send-off either. Harry also gets injured a lot in this book. I mean, Harry has a rough life, but here it's particularly noticeable. He gets shot, beaten with clubs, bitten by wolves ... I don't know how he made it to the end of the book without bleeding out or collapsing.
Yes, Harry does have sex with Susan in this book. I don't usually like to read erotic scenesComthey make me feel kind of voyeuristic—but this one is very sweet and well-written. I appreciated it. I also appreciated Harry's conversation with the demon, which hints at the importance of mother's past. Finally, Harry gets to meet his double, his subconscious, which I absolutely loved. I'm kind of a psychology nerd and I love that concept!
Overall, Fool Moon is probably my least favorite book in the Dresden Files series. But it has a lot of action, and some well-written scenes and concepts. Despite Fool Moon, I still adore this series.
I'll start by saying that this is not a traditionally-published novel, which is why you've never heard of it. It was serialized in the online webzine Bewildering Stories . Since that very same webzine just rejected one of my own stories, I thought I'd do a review of something they published. Yes, I am vengeful and petty. So let me get to the point: The Long Dark Road to Wizardry is a cliche fantasy novel with very little character development and a plot that was interesting but ultimately unsatisfying. Harsh, I know. This novel takes place in some medieval fantasy land where people say 'twas all the time. I don't mind this so much; I like a good classic medieval fantasy. The plot is more episodic than an actual novel plot should be, with the characters having dramatic adventures seemingly one after the other. There is an overall plot, but , think it could have been fleshed out more. Again, I don't really mind this. What bothered me was the lack of character deve...
Comments
Post a Comment