The Dresden Files: Storm Front
Apr. 25th, 2007 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkeyReading novels has been something of an arduous process for me in the past few years. I have so much going on that I can really only grab a page here or there. Even though I'm a fast reader, finishing the book can take forever. It took me something like six months for "A Confederacy of Dunces" (a book which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend heartily).
So, with that in mind, it was a bit of a shock when I finished "Storm Front" the day after I started it. Mind you, during that period I was suffering extreme insomnia and didn't have anything better to do for long stretches of night, but it says a hell of a lot that I chose to read a novel rather than work on my website or watch a movie.
I like Harry Dresden. He's a dick, but he's a dick with a good heart. Butcher has a nice way of summing up Dresden's past without resorting to flashbacks, although some of it does seem overly wordy (and I haven't gotten more than 20 pages into Fool Moon because it seems like he's grafting paragraphs over rather than re-explain backstory with new words, which just annoys the crap out of me).
I especially dug the mythology that Butcher has created. Urban fantasy is a tricky thing and creating a system of magic is even trickier. You inevitably have to borrow from what came before, but the trick is to do it in ways that at least seem novel. Given enough time, I could probably trace each of Butcher's influences to their source, but why bother? He's done such a neat job of creating his own thing out of common household tropes that it'd take all the fun out to dissect it.
The action went along at a good clip and there was rarely a chapter that ended without sparking my interest in the next one. The plot may have been a bit spare and hokey, but Butcher played the part of the magician, always keeping me distracted from the mechanics of the show in favor of the razzle-dazzle.
Plus, Bob the Skull is just a riot (and reminds me a lot of Murray from the Monkey Island games).
Final analysis: I liked the book quite a bit. If I can get past Butcher's incredibly lazy recapping in "Fool Moon", I suspect I'll enjoy that as well.
So, with that in mind, it was a bit of a shock when I finished "Storm Front" the day after I started it. Mind you, during that period I was suffering extreme insomnia and didn't have anything better to do for long stretches of night, but it says a hell of a lot that I chose to read a novel rather than work on my website or watch a movie.
I like Harry Dresden. He's a dick, but he's a dick with a good heart. Butcher has a nice way of summing up Dresden's past without resorting to flashbacks, although some of it does seem overly wordy (and I haven't gotten more than 20 pages into Fool Moon because it seems like he's grafting paragraphs over rather than re-explain backstory with new words, which just annoys the crap out of me).
I especially dug the mythology that Butcher has created. Urban fantasy is a tricky thing and creating a system of magic is even trickier. You inevitably have to borrow from what came before, but the trick is to do it in ways that at least seem novel. Given enough time, I could probably trace each of Butcher's influences to their source, but why bother? He's done such a neat job of creating his own thing out of common household tropes that it'd take all the fun out to dissect it.
The action went along at a good clip and there was rarely a chapter that ended without sparking my interest in the next one. The plot may have been a bit spare and hokey, but Butcher played the part of the magician, always keeping me distracted from the mechanics of the show in favor of the razzle-dazzle.
Plus, Bob the Skull is just a riot (and reminds me a lot of Murray from the Monkey Island games).
Final analysis: I liked the book quite a bit. If I can get past Butcher's incredibly lazy recapping in "Fool Moon", I suspect I'll enjoy that as well.
