Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)
by Jim Butcher
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Book Reviews of Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)
Book Review: Really impressed, excited for more.
Summary: 4 Stars
Harry Dresden is the kind of character I can really identify with, minus the wizard thing. And the living-in-Chicago thing. Basically he's a contemporary wizard living in our society, like Harry Potter only with a job and he doesn't whine as much. He runs his own private investigation "firm", has trouble paying the bills, doesn't have much luck with the ladies, and mechanical stuff just breaks whenever he's around it. I feel you on that last one, Dresden.
There's so much to like about this book. It's written in first person, it reads quickly and flows very well, it's informative while telling about things that are happening, and the cast of characters is rich and varied. Harry gets a call from the Chicago PD to check out a murder in which a man and woman had their hearts blown out of their chests in the middle of the night. It could only have been done by magic, and since he's the guy to go to about that, they bring him in. At the same time, a young mother of three hires Dresden for $500 in cash to track down her recently missing husband.
The two cases aren't related...are they?
Could be. But not in the way you think.
As Dresden solves both crimes, he has to deal with new curves being thrown at him left and right, including:
1) A wizard bounty hunter from the White Council that is just aching to find a reason to have Dresden killed
2) A pushy, sexy reporter who isn't afraid to use her...ahem...resources to get a story out of him
3) A crazy air-spirit trapped inside a skull who constantly argues with Dresden and talks him into making love potions
4) And an amateur magician who draws on the terrible power of storms and uses them to kill people from afar (hence the title).
Despite dealing with the scum of the earth and the underworld, Dresden is an old-fashioned gentlemen who treats women with respect. I found that really appealing about his character. There was graphic content in the book, but not dwelt upon (both with the violence and the sex). Occasionally he'd be descriptive about one of the grotesque crime scenes. Rough language was prevalent but not overdone--probably appearing once every ten to twelve pages (300 pages in all).
In fact, with the exception of the dodgy content spattered throughout, I don't have much to say badly about Storm Front. I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.
Book Review: Strong First Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
Storm Front introduces Harry Dresden, Wizard. Dresden is essentially a magical private investigator in present-day Chicago, but a Chicago where the mystical is beginning to re-emerge. Butcher gives us bits and pieces of Dresden's backstory, the most interesting being his one-time use of dark magic to take a life. Normally such a transgression would earn him a death sentence from the White Council, but given the circumstances, Harry has been put on probation. A single misstep into the darker side of magic and he will be executed.
So naturally, Harry is flung into the middle of a case that's just dripping with dark magic. With the help of Murphy (a Chicago detective), Susan (a reporter/love interest), and Bob (a party-loving air spirit stuck in a skull), Harry must stop a new dark wizard who has been using his power to rip out people's hearts.
The book has a few first-novel problems. Some of the secondary characters are a bit flat, particularly Morgan, the White Council's enforcer. While Morgan gets a single redeeming moment near the end, he's mostly portrayed as the big, single-minded, Harry-hating magical muscle. I didn't get a strong sense of Susan's character, either. Bob the skull, while lots of fun, didn't have enough depth. At times it felt like the characters were there simply to move the plot along.
At the same time, there were aspects of Butcher's character-development that I loved. Harry and Murphy have a strong relationship, one that's broken and only partly healed over the course of the book. That relationship gives both characters depth, and draws you in as a reader. But in my opinion, the best thing Butcher did was with Dresden's love of magic. This isn't a Harry Potter "Wow, I can fly on a broomstick, isn't this cool?" sort of thing. Magic is a beautiful, sacred thing, and Dresden's love borders on religious awe. As does his horror when he sees this beautiful thing perverted by the bad guy.
Plotwise, Storm Front is a pretty quick read. There's plenty of action, some snazzy magical spells, and lots of evil demons and bad guys to fight. Harry's banter-rich first-person narration keeps things moving right along.
It's not a perfect book, but it's a strong first novel. For fans of the SciFi series, there's a lot in the book that didn't make it into the show, from fairies to scorpions to a more magically-aware Murphy. But I do miss the hockey stick.
Book Review: Average story with mild entertainment value. The TV Show was actually better.
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not all that impressed with the first entry in the Dresden Files series. All too often these days, it seems like the gimmick of "popular" fiction authors is to create a character/setting/platform on which they can write several novels and thus cash in on completest-minded fans who have to follow the whole story. Jim Butcher's attempt at this is all too plainly obvious! Based upon the fact that he's already written about a dozen Dresden novels shows that he has at least been successful in hooking readers in with this gimmick. There might be more to it that this, but..
My quick and initial impression of Butcher's creation, Harry Dresden, was that he sounded pretty cool. He's a wizard (not sure what this means yet) in a contemporary Chicago setting, with mysteries that draw comparisons to X-files mythology, occultish monsters and baddies, and a Philip Marlowe kind of attitude. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, that would be just great if the execution of all this was handled in a unique and interesting way by the author. Instead, I found the result to be a rather amateurist and obvious attempt to mimic the best of these elements and to blend them into his story. Specifically, this is what I didn't like about Storm Front: 1) while the inner dialog of Dresden tries to immitate that of Raymond Chandler's Marlowe, it comes across rather flat and as an all too obvious attempt at just that...immitation 2) several of the "fantasy" elements were too over-the-top. I'm thinking sarcastically...Yeah, like that could really happen! and 3) I never really sensed a uniqueness to the character, atmosphere and setting of the Dresden files. What I did get in the area of world building felt like it was being forced upon me just so the author could write more books in the series (Ex. The White Council, the laws of magic, the back-history of Harry, etc.) In the end, if it weren't for some of the mature elements in the story, this kind of book would be just perfect for adolescents. Oh, we already have Harry Potter for them!
So. If you're looking for a quick read with a mild entertainment value, I will admit that I wouldn't call this novel a total waste of time. Maybe the series gets better. Butcher keeps writing the books and people are evidently buying them. I'll mention as an aside that coinciding with the reading of this book, I was also watching the short lived Dresden Files TV series. And I liked it a lot better.
Book Review: LITERARY JUNK FOOD
Summary: 3 Stars
Books can be alot like food. Some books are like four course meals that stick with you long after you've read the last page. Then there are those that are like fast food--they're served up fast, taste good at first, but in the long run, don't do much for you.
For me, STORM FRONT fits in the latter category, or as I call it "Literary Junk Food". However, before I go any further, I wish to emphasis that this is the first book in a series and I think the author's first book period. With that being said, this was an excellent first novel by a new author. And I know I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but I found STORM FRONT by new author Jim Butcher far more interesting than ERAGON by new author Christopher Paolini.
If you're not familiar with the storyline by now, it's basically your noir detective story with magic tossed in and all that goes with it. I usually stick with the "doorstopper" series of fantasy and SF, like DUNE, WHEEL OF TIME, SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, but after a while I got tired of that. So this was a real nice change of pace for me. Like eating at McDonald's after eating at Chili's for a whole month.
The book read at a really good pace, which is both good and bad. Good in that it keep my attention and kept the pages flying, but at the same time, there wasn't much detail or character development, nothing to really make me want to come back and read this book again in the future. Not much in the way of philosophical musings or creative metaphors or other brain food.
Despite all that, Harry Dresden (the rightfully most developed character) was certainly interesting--especially his narrative and odd sense of humor and remarks when various things happen to him.
My next favorite character, who surprisingly was not very developed at all (in any sense of the word) was Bob, a spirit thingy that lives in a skull but apparently had one heck of a past and is all about talking-back and starting trouble.
Overall, if you're looking for some quick entertainment, you definitely can't go wrong with this book, but if you're looking for something with a more re-read value, then you may want to look elsewhere.
For extra credit, and if you're REALLY interested in the modern-day-magician sort of plot line, you might want to try DER HEXER VON SALEM from famous German author Wolfgang Hohlbein.
Book Review: Hard-bitten Wizard P.I. Nice!
Summary: 4 Stars
Interesting, with a quirky wit, the book starts very strong. It's told in first-person, from the perspective of Dresden himself. Dresden is a hardened wizard, and Chicago resident, openly advertising his services in the phone book.
At 322 pages I flew through the book. This was its one weak point. At least for me. I'm of the class of readers that enjoys reading strongly developed magic systems in my fantasy, which are therefore complicated and can be time-consuming to absorb. Yes, I loved Lord of the Rings--which has no apparent rules--but that is because of how well developed everything else is. Not because of magic. Dresden's magic is what my ill-informed mind conceives of as "typical" magic. (Feel free to correct me, my esteemed witches and wizards.) Using circles, blood, potions made of strange concoctions (including motor oil and bus tickets... Huh?), talismans, and of course force of will. I won't say that it wasn't enjoyable, in fact some of the battles rocked the cool element, but there were other times where the use of bread and honey to catch a faery was cute, but just didn't seem to catch my interest. (However the following, interplay of dialogue was fantastic.) Yes, it is a current day book, so it probably works well within that context, and for at least the first book, magic was not the driving factor...it was the murder mystery.
With some interesting characters in the form of an animated skull possessed of an air spirit and a ridiculously amusing faery by the name of Toot (short for a beautifully long rolling of syllables that, by Harry's own admission, he would not share--names are power and he wouldn't share without good reason. Yeah, I know, it's an excuse. But it WAS funny.).
Butcher really sticks it to Dresden in this first novel: he has to deal with smooth, business-minded mafia, a haunted past, juiced-up magical law enforcers, a seductive vampire, a black mage that walks in the shadows, and to top it off: Dresden gets his apartment trashed and has to fight off a demon--naked! All the while with overdue rent.
As Butcher's first published novel, this doesn't read like a first book...so something went obviously right. Go check it out.
What did you think? Have you read the book? I'm onto the 2nd one now, but it's not catching my attention as much as the 1st did. Come visit me on my blog: [...]