Storm Front

My introduction to the character of Harry Dresden actually came from the short-lived TV series. So I had a good idea what the stories are like. But I didn't know how delightful Jim Butcher's narrative is. Harry's first-person narration is funny, warm, and engaging. His descriptions of places are evocative without disrupting the story flow. And Butcher's pacing is a wonder to experience. Were it not too late to do so, I would have gone to the bookstore tonight to get the next in the series. Ah well, there is tomorrow...

Das ist mal wieder ein Buch, das völlig zu unrecht viel zu lange ungelesen im Regal stand. Ich liebe diese spezielle Form der Urban Fantasy und freue mich jetzt schon auf die nächsten Bände. Ich mag es, wie hier Klischees aus einem bestehenden Genre (Crime noir) genommen werden und in eine Welt übertragen werden, die unserer zwar ähnlich ist, aber in der Magie funktioniert und magische Wesen existieren.

Rundum gelungene Unterhaltungsliteratur - ich werde bestimmt noch mehr Fälle von Harry Dresden miterleben, die Reihe ist ja zum Glück schon sehr lang.

I'm forgiving Butcher because this is the first in a long series and also one of his earlier efforts. Storm Front suffers from "I've played so many games of Dungeons and Dragons and/or on-line that I can't think any other way" -- rods and bracelets and staffs and other gew-gaws chock full of power and suddenly accessing from ? a whole nother layer of power. And yet, in between that sort of silliness, Harry himself and Murphy and Morgan all have an appeal. I will read on, curious to see if I can watch Butcher developing as a writer into the person writing [The Aeronaut's Windlass]. ***1/2

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

I thought this book was a hoot. It was like if Harry Potter grew up into a cynical, sarcastic (yet still good-hearted) Dick Tracy. I loved the melding of the traditional detective novel and the fantastical wizarding world — I thought it would be a great introduction for readers who are hesitant to enter the fantasy genre.

I could tell it is the first in a series; Butcher sets up his characters and world but doesn’t delve too deeply into them. I enjoyed all of the characters (Bob was hysterical) and none of them felt too cliched, which can be a problem in both detective novels and fantasy. The plot scooted right along, bringing in elements of the magical that were a lot of fun. Most of all I thought it was quite funny — Harry’s show more internal dialogue had me cracking up in the car. People probably thought I was a crazy person.

Read my full review here: http://letseatgrandpa.com/2011/10/10/book-review-87-storm-front-by-jim-butcher/ 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