© James Pyles
I finished Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novel Small Favor a week or more ago, but I’ve been so busy (largely with granddaughters) that I haven’t had time to write the review before now.
Just when I think everything that can happen to wizard Harry Dresden has happened, something new comes up.
© James Pyles
This morning, I finished Proven Guilty (2007), Book 8 in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novel series.
Warning! Spoiler Alert! Stop here if you don’t want to know more.
As you may recall if you’ve read my other reviews of this series, Harry Dresden is Chicago’s only advertising wizard. This is sort of like crime noir meets urban fantasy. Harry’s not quite the “hard-boiled” type of detective he wants to be, but he’s a good guy. He also gets in trouble a lot.
In the previous book, he was made a Warden by the White Council. The White Council is a group of wizards who enforce the laws of magic and are charged with keeping the “normal” world safe from the supernatural. A Warden is an enforcer of those laws, and they are brutal in their duties, the laws being pretty inflexible.
Harry is treated to just how inflexible, when, at the beginning of the book, he’s present at the execution by beheading of a young Korean guy. He was found guilty of using his magic to take control over other people’s thoughts, up to and including getting them to commit suicide.
Outside of the heinousness of these acts, Harry still feels compassion. The “Warlock” was young, inexperienced, and had no one to guide him.
Too bad.
© James Pyles
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I just finished reading Jim Butcher’s fantasy/horror novel Grave Peril, book number three in the Dresden Files series.
Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard listed in the Chicago phone book. He’s like a private detective, but the mysteries he’s called to solve always involve the supernatural and usually something very, very nasty.
While he’s on retainer with the Chicago P.D. “Special Crimes” unit, he often goes out on his own when something deadly threatens the community, or often himself and those he knows and loves.
“Grave Peril” started differently than the previous two books I’ve read. Harry was in the middle of confronting a hostile ghost with a very unlikely ally, Christian and Knight Michael Carpenter (the last name is especially cheesy given his faith).
Something has stirred up the spirit world and weakened the barrier between our reality and the Nevernever, the realm of ghosts, demons, fairies, and darkness. Ghosts are being brutally tormented by a mysterious “Nightmare,” something from Harry’s past. He and Michael confront the spirit of a maniacal nurse from Chicago’s 19th century in the maternity ward of Cook County General, and unless Harry and Michael can stop her, she will murder scores of newborn infants.
© James Pyles
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If you read my review of Jim Butcher’s novel Storm Front, you know I love not only his writing, but the beginning of his “Dresden Files” series.
Last night, I finished off book two in the series Fool Moon. As you might imagine, the primary “baddies” are werewolves, but it’s not that simple. Nothing is ever simple in the life of the world’s only openly active and investigative wizard Harry Dresden.
We pick up about six months after the first novel when once again, head of the Chicago P.D. Special Investigations unit Karrin Murphy calls Dresden in on a series of particularly gruesome murders, ones that look to have been committed by wolf-like creatures.
The victims again throw Harry in the path of the city’s most dangerous gangland boss “Gentleman” Johnny Marcone.
Murphy is in plenty of hot water with internal affairs after the events of the previous novel and to make matters worse, the FBI have an interest in the “Lobo murders.” Special Agent Phil Denton leads a team of federal investigators which includes Deborah Benn, who upon first meeting Murphy almost shoots her.
© James Pyles
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
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.
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