© James Pyles

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When I was seven years old, I got a bad case of strep throat and was out of school for a whole week. During that time, my sisters bought me my first fantasy and sci-fi novels: the boxed set of Lord of the Rings and the boxed set of the Han Solo adventure novels by Brian Daley. I devoured them all during that week.

My first love as a fan is swords-and-horses fantasy. After Tolkien, I went after C.S. Lewis. After Lewis, it was Lloyd Alexander. After them came Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Robert Howard, John Norman, Poul Anderson, David Eddings, Weis and Hickman, Terry Brooks, Elizabeth Moon, Glen Cook, and before I knew it I was a dual citizen of the United States and Lankhmar, Narnia, Gor, Cimmeria, Krynn, Amber — you get the picture.

-Jim Butcher from the Acknowledgements section of his 2000 novel Storm Front

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve become a fan of Jim Butcher’s Cinder Spires series, having reviewed both The Aeronaut’s Windlass and The Olympian Affair.

Bestselling science fiction author Neal Asher, who I follow on social media, has recommended a number of Butcher’s books, so I thought I’d branch out into his Dresden Files series. It doesn’t disappoint.

So far, I’ve only finished the first in the series, the aforementioned Storm Front. What would happen if magic and the “real” world co-existed? What would happen if there were a publicly practicing wizard who offered his services for a fee, something like a private detective? Meet Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only practicing consulting wizard.

Harry may be a wizard, but he’s not all powerful. On top of that, he makes mistakes, sometimes almost fatal ones.

Butcher weaves a very satisfying urban fantasy in the introductory Dresden novel (which was also his first published book) complete with magical and non-magical supporting characters, gangsters, vampires, demons, other wizards, and the mysterious White Council (Harry’s on their bad side in the first book).

It reads like a hard-boiled detective novel but with magic. It’s both dramatic and humorous. I love it.

I cited the quote above as to why I think Butcher is such a good writer, not just in his style and creativity, but in his ability to connect to his readers. He’s a fan of classic science fiction and fantasy and appreciates those older works for what they are just as they are.

That’s a huge departure from so many other creators in the genre in print as well as in television, motion pictures, graphic novels…well, you name it. The modern gatekeepers of SF/F are too busy reinventing the classics “for modern audiences” to realize that most of us are pining for tales that do to us what the older stories did for our parents and grandparents (or me, since I’m a day or two shy of my 70th birthday as I write this).

I burned through “Storm Front” in a day. That’s how good it is. I don’t normally follow a series, preferring to mix in other authors and their stories, but I’m currently reading book two, “Fool Moon.”

I should say that I’ve been trying to get my fifteen-year-old grandson to read the Cinder Spires series, but I just found out that he loves the “Dresden Files.” He didn’t realize I was talking about the same author.

You can’t go wrong in reading this book and in fact, consuming the entire series (I can’t wait to consume more). Old school but it doesn’t feel old. It fits in with the modern world without pandering to so-called “modern audiences.”

I’m very happy to have found another writer who knows how to entertain.