The Dresden Files

Last month I read through all nine of the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher, about a wizard who solves crimes and fights evil in Chicago. The books are light and entertaining and surprisingly good.

The series starts out fairly formulaic and corny, but gets better as it progresses. Background fills out, characters change and develop. The main character himself changes yet still stays the same irreverant wise-cracking smartass. The series mangaes to have real debates on right and wrong, good and evil, without ever taking itself too seriously. Every time I picked up a book it was always an effort to put it down.

So read the books and spread the word.

Thanks for the recommendation, beniowa ~ being from Chicago, and loving paranormals and mysteries, they sound right up my alley. I've put the first 3 on hold at the library and can't wait to start this series!

There's a fairly quiet group enjoying his work here

I've heard the books are very good and have an anthology waiting to be started at some point in my library. What's funny, though, is that I've heard that most people who really enjoy the books don't like the TV show at all, and I've also heard some of the reverse. Evidently, the show really changes things up, especially in terms of the relationships between Harry and the women that come into his life.

I love this series, at least the later books. Storm Front was okay, but I was a little ambivalent about picking up the rest of the series. I'm really glad I did. The series has gotten much better as it's gone on, and I would say that Butcher is now one of my favorite authors. His other series which starts with Furies of Calderon is just as good.

I mooched Storm Front after reading the Dresden short story in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding that I really enjoyed. It is near the top of my TBR pile and I hope to get to it soon.

#6 I'm impressed that you were able to mooch any Jim Butcher! They're on so many wishlists, that I just gave up and bought the first couple, which I couldn't find at the local libraries.
I'm reading the Dresden books one after another, and I've just started Book 5. I agree with Quick_Ben that the first wasn't quite as good as subsequent books have been. I didn't expect to enjoy the Dresden books so much; I don't much care for tough-guy detective stories. But Harry is also smart, funny, chivalrous, brave, and a decent man. And his friends are interesting, too.

I have the advantage of not having seen any of the TV series - sounds like that's a good thing, kawika !

>7 MaggieO: After missing out on about 5 mooches for Storm Front I checked around for different editions and found one that hadn't been mooched. It has a cover that kind of looks like a brown paper bag (I think my library reflects the cover that I actually have). It doesn't always work out but this time I was lucky.

I have a copy of Stephen King's The Gunslinger up to be mooched. The most popular edition is on several mooch lists but I didn't want anybody to get the wrong idea about it so I finally found a more obscure listing for the correct publisher and date. That might have been when I got the idea to hunt around a bit for Storm Front.

#8 that looks like a UK cover - they are all a bit drab, with sellotape effect holding them together. I've got the correct image in my catalog, which matches yours though they are not available for mooching!

My favourites, nos. 4 Summer Knight and 8 Proven Guilty. We don't have White night: out over here yet, but I've been told its as good as the rest. grr touchstones really didn't like White knight - helps if you spell it without the k!

Jim's doing very well to write a long series without a major decline in quality!

Or blips in the timeline for that matter. Star trek gets that on occasion, of course trek' is 5 seperate series in the same universe (I'd say world, except non of the primary action in any of the series actually takes place on the planet earth).

I started Storm Front today. Not too far into it but it has been interesting, not to mention amusing so far.

I've just started book 8, Proven Guilty. I can't seem to stop reading them, even if I think I should take a break between books. The character development of Harry is so interesting. And even when the story is really over the top, it's still entertaining and compelling. The bit about Sue in Dead Beat is a case in point, but I loved the cleverness of it. They continue to get darker and more disturbing, though.

I'm also trying to read Little, Big - it's hard to imagine two fantasy novels more dissimilar! I'd like to finish it before Readercon, but it requires a very different kind of reading than do the Dresdens, and it's not looking good for my chances of finishing it in time.