Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4) (edition 2002)

Book Info: Genre: Urban Fantasy
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: Fans of Urban Fantasy, Dresden Files

My Thoughts: Harry does have a way of making friends. After managing to embroil the White Council in a war with the vampire courts in Grave Peril, he proceeds to cause trouble with the sidhe. Of course, since he had already had problems with his fairy Godmother, Leanansidhe, that is just cake, you know?

One of my favorite things about this series is the humor behind everything. Harry is railroaded by Mab and the White Council, things are looking grim. “I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine should muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away.” Can’t you just see that, so perfectly?

We receive a lot of answers in this book, but are given a lot of new questions. Just the way we like it, right?

Disclosure: I purchased this book for myself, as I did all of this series. All opinions are my own.

Compilation Synopsis: Private detective/wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is suckered into tangling in the affairs of Faerie, where the fate of the entire world-and his soul-are at stake.

Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can’t pay his rent. He’s alienating his friends. He can’t even recall the last time he took a shower.

The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man.

And just when it seems things can’t get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can’t refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him—and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen’s right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen’s name.

It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case.

No pressure or anything… ( )

i listened to this book. while this story was good, it wasn't as entertaining as the past books. The author almost went a little overboard with the pizza/fairy scene. Boardered on nerve racking about 30 seconds into it. But I still enjoyed the book overall. ( )

"I was scared. Not in that half-pleasant adrenaline charged way, but quietly scared. …It's a rational sort of fear that puts a lawn chair down in the front of your thoughts and brings a cooler of drinks along with it."

There's an image to start a story.

Harry's not in good shape at the start of this book. It's interesting to see the level of continuity. Considering the end of the last book, he shouldn't be in good shape. But many authors would just give their main character some recup time and move on to the next adventure. Nope, we get Harry in the midst of crisis, obsession, assassination attempts, and generally being on everyone's bad side.

We learn even more about Harry here. His story is more complex. The trouble he's in is deeper. There's war brewing -- on two fronts. Truths are revealed. Alliances made. It's actually the biggest trouble Harry's been in. And the consequences are bigger, with potential to affect the whole mortal world.

Harry's character is summed up well towards the end when the Gatekeeper tells him he's accomplished his task, he can stop. But he doesn't, though he desperately wants to, "because I'm an idiot. And there are people in trouble." Harry puts others before himself every time. Not in a saintly, holier-than-thou way. Reluctantly, with regrets at times, with dread often. But he does it because it's the only way he can live with himself. And when he wins, it's just barely, and always at a price.

I'm getting the sense there's a larger tale going on, being revealed in small doses, with hints and insinuations at times, sometimes more overtly. We learn about his mother a little bit each book, and it's becoming clear there's more to that story than even Harry knows. There was a huge revelation in this book I won't mention to avoid spoiling anyone. But I can now see how there's over a dozen books and counting. Along with the crisis du jour, there's trouble brewing in the background, secrets threatening to rise to the surface.

I can't wait. ( )

I probably liked Summer Knight best of the Dresden Files books so far, largely for the character development that happens and the sense of a wider plot -- of it being more than just a local problem. I can see what other reviews I've read mean by finding this book weaker because of the latter. Harry spends so much time whimpering about how outclassed he is that it goes from a case of the underdog narrowly winning to holy-crap-it's-impossible-that-he-actually-did-that. And Harry spends so much time thinking he's completely outclassed and yet he always comes through okay, battered but alive. It isn't realistic at all -- and even in a fantasy narrative, you have to have some vestiges of realism, perhaps especially in an urban fantasy where you have real-world detail. Sometimes you can put the rules aside, but mostly you can't -- people still have to act like people, so readers can relate to them. It's good that Harry is relatively normal, but he can't be too normal, either, or the idea of him going up against the supposedly hugely powerful Sidhe becomes ridiculous.

Still, those flaws didn't bother me too much. I was very very glad to start seeing some development from Harry in the direction of trusting his friends -- not just trusting them with personal information or whatever, but with trusting them to look after themselves. It was awesome to see Murphy kicking ass even better than Harry, and to read about him giving her some goddamn credit for being tough, for once.

If I were Jim Butcher, I'd probably have kept the Faerie Court stuff back a little longer and focused more on the war with the vampires -- to escalate the level of power Harry's facing more evenly. At the same time, I really liked having a book where these veiled hints from the earlier books come to fruition, and I'm guessing this isn't the end of that, since Harry has two more requests to fulfil before he's free of his deal, and there are all sorts of hints about Lea and Harry's mother.

Also interesting to see the hinted at Elaine, and I was glad the topic of Susan wasn't just dropped, even though she wasn't in the book. I missed Michael, and I want to know more about Thomas already. A lot of my frustration with the books has dissipated and now I just want to read them all ASAP! ( )

3.5 stars. ( )