Storm Front

I have some very bad news. Please brace yourself.

Ready?

Okay.

James Marsters is not British.

I know. I know. I feel your pain. It's my pain, too.

The good news is, he's still totally crushable. Not as crushable, of course. But his so-called "real" voice is pretty awesome. I know, because I just listened to him read a whole book to me.

(That sounds as if I lured him over with my famous three-chocolate brownies, locked the doors, remembered that locking doors is pretty useless when the person you're trying to imprison is on the same side of the door as the unlocking mechanism, barred the doors with my lizards' tanks, told him said lizards were rabid and venomous and very very hungry, and told him that the price of leaving safely was to read show more aloud to me for several hours. I'm willing to let that impression stand.)

So: James Marsters is still worth listening to even when he's speaking in (sigh) an American accent.

Oh, and this book is pretty good, too.

And hard to classify. I want to see if my library carries it, because I want to see where they shelve it. Do you put it in the fantasy section on the grounds that the main character is a wizard, or do you put it in mystery fiction because he's a private detective who uses his magical powers to solve crimes?

I'm annoyed that I hadn't heard of this series until it was mentioned in a John Hodgman podcast, because this book is pretty much perfect. There's pretty much everything to like, and almost nothing not to.

I use those qualifiers because in this first volume, there's a teensy bit of mild-mannered sexism. Nothing to set off my really big alarms, but a couple of the little ones made some annoying noises. For instance, at the scene of a truly gruesome and obviously magically-committed crime, Harry says that he thinks the murders were committed by a woman, because they were obviously motivated by hate and "women hate better than men."

Um, yeah. When I see two people having a very separate relationship with several of the better-known internal organs, my first thought is, "Girl fight!"

That's a pretty minor incident, though; and my expert on these books swears up and down that Harry stops being this kind of hard-boiled dork in the rest of the books.

Harry Dresden is otherwise an extremely enjoyable character. He's very human. He has convincing emotional reactions to the horrors he witnesses (he's violently ill after viewing the aforementioned crime scene). He's awkward with women. He misses his mom and dad, who died when he was young. He's talented, intelligent, and very powerful, but he gets angry, impatient, and bummed out. And through it all, he has a great sense of humor.

His magical abilities are very balanced out by weaknesses, plus he's up against some seriously powerful enemies, so the story stays interesting. The world-building is awesome. And there's only one scene where the author draws things out and says, "Oh, so that's what happened. Okay. Now I get it," and then waits a page or two before telling the reader what the heck is going on. Most of the time, he shares all the information he has right away.

And every character has a skillfully tailored voice, so you can --

Oh, wait. That's only the recorded version. Which I hesitate to call the only version worth bothering with, since the book really is good enough to sit down and read on paper. Whether you're a fan of mysteries, urban fantasy, or just plain fast reads, go ahead and grab this.

Still, if you can get James Marsters to read it to you, go for that. I hear he loves chocolate. show less

The first time I heard about Harry Dresden was when someone mentioned a TV series to me called The Dresden Files and lamented that it was canceled after only one season. Networks do that sometimes, cancel shows leaving fans scratching their heads wondering what the heck happened. So I looked it up, watched the episodes that were available in a Dresden-a-thon of sorts and loved it. Then I discovered that the show is actually based on the books and you can guess what happened to my TBR list right after. This year after reading several serious books in rapid succession I was ready for some light-hearted fun and picked up an omnibus of the first three Dresden Files books at the library.
Storm Front is Butcher's debut novel and it shows. show more It's obvious that in writing it he was testing himself, flexing his writerly muscles, becoming comfortable with the characters and Chicago's clandestine underworld. It isn't perfect but it is so much fun that it's hard to care about perfection. Harry Dresden is a black duster-wearing detective in the tradition of noir mysteries, a scruffy, wise-cracking bachelor, behind on his rent and with no personal life. He is also very old-fashioned, self-deprecating and with a past so painful he would rather not know what a person who looked into his soul would see. Murphy is his only friend, hesitant to believe in the supernatural but wise enough to go in with her eyes open and hire the only guy in the city who actually can help.
In this novel, and its sequels, Butcher combines three of my favorite genres: fantasy, mystery and adventure, add in tremendous imaginativeness and a break-neck pace that doesn't let up and we have a book I couldn't put down. There's also another very important ingredient: this book has heart, most likely because all the good guys know what's worth fighting for and they'll do it every time, and also because amidst all the witty banter and spell-casting there's always a quiet attention to the people involved, understanding of their feelings, hardships and humanity.
One of my other favorite things about the world of Dresden files is how the supernatural is tightly woven into the regular crime underbelly of Chicago: there are competing drug barons who go beyond the regular unsavory means to reach their ends and there's a madam who is on a very special diet and is more two-faced than one would think. Who said that a semi-automatic is all it takes to succeed in shady business? show less

4.5 stars.

I would entitle the review "How Urban Fantasy should be written".
After reading this, I realized that this genre has been ruined by many stereotypes and the border between UF and Romance and other s**t isn't so clear.
I think that after I've read some UF series, I came up with the idea that they are all almost identical: the badass female protagonist (always first person POV) that alternates moments like "I'll kick your ass, you damn bastard" with others like "I go to the toilet, I put make up on my face thinking of that cool guy, I whine because I can't/...paranoic thoughts following". The cool and über-smartass alpha-and-so-on guy who inspires forbidden fantasies. The bad guy who always wants to kill the protagonist, because show more figured out she is special, however. The writing is a continuous sequence of "damn", "fuck", "dude" and monosyllabic sentences. I found all this so irritating. But the main critic I point to this genre is the lack of explanations. Without them, plot doesn't make sense and characters lose credibility.

After this previous "fed-up" moment, let's talk about this book.
1. I liked the writing.
2. I kind of loved Harry Dresden. He's a credible hero who isn't perfect but he's cool at the same time. He makes mistakes, he's stubborn as hell and wit.
*please Mr. Dresden, run your office also in Italy!!*
3. I loved Bob, even if he appeared only a few times. I hope we can see more Bob in the sequels.
4. Even if she's stubborn as hell and bitchy, I liked also Murphy because she is well depicted.
5. The plot: the reader is focused on following the detective story without any kind of s**t. Yes, there are vampires and fairies, but they are just pieces of the puzzle and their "personalities" are tricky and evil. ahem...they are not sex gods *giving a nasty look at Jeaniene Frost, KM Moning, maybe Ilona Andrews*

What I disliked:
- some absurd moments that left me a bit stunned, but I managed to pass over.

Eventually I really liked this first volume and I recommend it everyone. show less

Harry Dresden is asked by the Chicago Police Department to aid in their investigation of a murder of a couple who were obviously killed with magic. At the same time he's juggling a private inquiry from a woman who wants assistance in finding her missing husband. Harry must also deal with his watchdog from the White Council who is just waiting for Harry to break the rules so that he can execute Harry.

Early into my relationship with my husband, I used my librarian skills to recommend the Dresden Files series to him as something he'd like (without having read them myself). They were a huge hit and he's read/ear-read them more times than I can count. When we had a long road trip ahead, he decided it was time for me to listen to the first show more book for myself and it was a good time. James Marsters reads the novel and his narration definitely amplified my enjoyment. Butcher's urban fantasy meets noir-ish mystery is a good time and I'll definitely be exploring the rest of the series. show less

The opening entry into Butcher's juggernaut Dresden Files.

From a technical perspective: Butcher is a well-trained writer with a knack for snazzy comebacks, fun dialogue, and overall scene tenor. Think Sam from Quantum Leap written by John Mulaney, with a Sam Spade/Highlander atmospheric overlay. This book is his second weakest from a pure technical writing standpoint- he pushes a voice that's not quite what he settles into, but is close enough you only notice on a re-read. But that's expected with freshman efforts.

From a story perspective, Butcher moved into the then-new serious fantasy noire movement (it had largely been done humorously prior), and instead of the Sam Spade he intended he ended up with a magic Bruce Willis from Die show more Hard in the character of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, the only wizard who lists himself in the phone book.

Orphaned young, taken in by a renegade wizard who trained him as a weapon, finding out when he killed his master in self-defense that there was an entire magical world- and incidentally, using magic to kill is an absolute no-no that taints your very essence forever- Harry starts his series just trying to scrape by. A high school dropout with a GED who gets his PI license, Harry deals with the fringe of the magical world in Chicago- most people don't believe in magic or forget what they've seen, so most of his income comes from helping the Chicago PD.

Simultaneously, he is hired to find out what happened to a woman's husband dabbling with things outside his control, ends up in a turf war between Gentlemen Johnny Marcone (who runs the Chicago mob) and a gang purveying an actual magic potion as a drug, and consults the Chicago PD on a murder done with magic with a strength that Harry alone in Chicago, so far as he knows, possesses- while being watched by his warrant officer, who has license to terminate Harry if he kills with magic again.

Just another weekend in Chicago. But that's OK, what he lacks in trust and formal education he makes up for in mouthing off to those with power over him, so what could go wrong? show less

I'm not going to pull any punches. This book is a misogynistic piece of shit.

All I knew about it before I picked it up was the very basic premise—a wizard in modern-day Chicago, who works as a sort of detective—and that it had picked up quite a cult following. I was expecting to really like it, but before I got to the end of the first chapter, my eyebrows had risen to meet my hairline. I kept reading out of some misguided expectation that things would get better, that there could...more I'm not going to pull any punches. This book is a misogynistic piece of shit.

All I knew about it before I picked it up was the very basic premise—a wizard in modern-day Chicago, who works as a sort of detective—and that it had picked up quite a show more cult following. I was expecting to really like it, but before I got to the end of the first chapter, my eyebrows had risen to meet my hairline. I kept reading out of some misguided expectation that things would get better, that there couldn't possibly be such a sustained level of misogyny coming from both the character and the authorial voice. Oh, how wrong I was.

The main character, Harry Dresden, repeatedly tells us that he's a chauvinist, yes, and shows no signs of wanting to change that. It would have been difficult enough for me to get into a novel with such an unpalatable main character, but the level of narrative endorsement of his viewpoint nauseated me. The female characters in the book are there only to cry, seduce, and occasionally mother. Some of them are presented as having power of their own, but if you take a second glance at them, that power is always represented as secondary to male power, or a sham. Karrin Murphy is a hard-bitten homicide detective and Harry's friend, true; but she's undermined to constant references as to how "belligerent" she is, how small and lady-like her hands are, how she cries when he won't share information with her. Let me repeat that: cries. Bianca, the vampire—sorry, vampiress! must use appropriately gendered language!—is defeated because Dresden can see how she's truly ugly beneath all that fake beauty, and so she's humiliated and he can overpower her! All of them use their sexuality to get ahead—or try to, because clearly Harry is just too intelligent to fall for those silly women's wiles!

How about an explanation for the motive behind a murder:

I gestured toward the room. "Because you can't do something that bad without a whole lot of hate," I said. "Women are better at hating than men. They can focus it better, let it go better. Hell, witches are just plainmeaner than wizards. This feels like feminine vengeance of some kind to me."

Or how about one prostitute talking about another:

She shook her head. "No, no. Nothing like that. That wasn't her style. She was sweet. A lot of girls get like—They get pretty jaded, Mr. Dresden. But it never really touched her. She made people feel better about themselves somehow." She looked away. "I could never do that. All I did was get them off."

This isn't just Dresden being sexist. This isn't just showing us the thought processes of an un-reconstructed chauvinist. This isn't even just using noir tropes—because god knows there are a thousand and one ways of subverting those and reimagining them. This is holding up a clichéd, smug asshole of a main character as the kind of man every guy wants to be, and the kind of man every woman wants to fuck, as a mirror for how Butcher thinks. It's laden with sexist stereotypes that irritate me and in case you couldn't guess, it made me very, very angry.

The book also fails on pretty much every technical level I can think of: I have no idea why it's set in Chicago, or why the location was emphasised, because there's absolutely no sense of place to it. For all Butcher told us, it could all have been taking place in Seattle, or Denver, or Kansas City. The plot is silly, illogical, and by rights everyone should have been dead of Stupid within the first two chapters. The writing style displayed an absolute cloth ear for language. I'd imagine that he was trying to recreate the terse, staccato style of noir detective stories, but didn't realise that in order to do so, you need more than short, simplistic sentences. You need to be attuned to the rhythm of what you're writing, to know how to turn a handful of words to best effect, and Butcher neither knows how to do that, nor how to write realistic sounding dialogue at all.

I have not read such offensive drivel in a long, long time. Avoid show less

For all its inevitable faults I stand firmly by my opinion that it is still one of, if not The Best of the Dresden Files. It achieved exactly what it set out to do, which is be an urban-fantasy-neo-noir-comedy (what a mouthful!). It's original, witty, and well-paced. You aren't about to scale the depths of the human psyche here. Jim (whether aware of it at the time or not) is saving that journey for later. Sure, I could sit here and criticize the sexist over AND undertones, the predictability, and the "beach-read" vibe of the prose. In fact, I did just that after the first time reading through it 5 years ago. But what I didnt realize at the time is that this story (and the next 4 books, while we're at it) due to its roots in the show more historically chauvinist and utterly misogynistic noir genre shouldn't necessarily be held to a higher moral or artistic standard. It's fun! It's just plain old ass-kicking fun! Storm Front offers a story where you can revel in the unashamedly basic stock-characters and their frustratingly delightful tropes with the promise of something more, something truly innovative just around the corner. show less