After many months I am finally back to blogging! I read the entire Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (fifteen books so far) several years ago. Now I am listening to the audio book versions of every book. They are read by the amazing James Marsters. Going through the story a second time has refreshed my memory and given me a lot of new perspectives and opinions, and I will write them down here because I have no life. Just kindding, I do have a life, at least somewhat, but that doesn't stop me from being a supernerd about fantasy novels. So here are my thoughts on Storm Front, book 1 of the Dresden Files. THERE MAY BE SPOILERS!
This is the first book in the series that started a whole new genre of urban fantasy mystery novels. And it's good. I've heard that a lot of people don't think the series gets good until after the first couple of books, but I don't think that's fair. Butcher couldn't pack the entire world of Harry Dresden into the first novel; it would have ruined things. This was meant to be a fun, fast-paced mystery in fantasy form, and that's just what it is. The mystery itself is very tightly-plotted. Harry is assigned two cases for separate clients: a nervous wife with a missing husband mixed up with magic, and a grisly double murder that has stumped the police. Later in the story, we find out that the two are connected. I think this is a very clever plot point. A lot of mysteries that I've read feel dragged out unnecessarily with red herrings and long interviews with various people, but Storm Front never felt tedious like that. Harry's investigations, and the drama he goes through during them, are fresh and entertaining, because they are always just a bit unpredictable.
In terms of starting a series, this book brings in a lot of characters which will be important later, like John Marcone, Susan Rodriguez, and the vampire Bianca. It also has passing mentions of the Nevernever and Harry's troubled past. All this sets up important things later in the series. Also, the battle at the end and the failed date with Susan were suitably exciting and interesting action scenes.
My main complaint is the amount of gore in this book, and throughout the series. I'm kind of a squeamish type, and the image of the two dead bodies whose hearts were torn out during sex is umpleasantly burned into my memory. Not an ideal thing to have in the first chapter. Just my opinion.
This book made me pick up the second in the series, and that's more than good enough for me.
This one is an urban fantasy; everyone compares it to Harry Potter and Narnia. That's because it uses most of the same plot devices: an unhappy young man (Quentin Coldwater) gets into a school for magic, and he is fascinated with this Narnia-like fantasy world called Fillory. People complain about how Grossman kind of lazily combined the plots of Harry Potter and Narnia instead of coming up with his own original storyline. But I don't mind familiar plot devices as long as the author does something interesting with them, and I guess I can say that Grossman achieves this. It's certainly interesting enough. This doesn't mean that the plot doesn't have its flaws. It takes strange, unexpected turns, so that it's impossible to even make a guess at where the story is going. This can be exciting, or frustrating, depending on the reader. I think I would have appreciated a little more foreshadowing, so that things had more of a sense of coming together in the end. Like, ...
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