What with the new Dresden Files series starting up on TV, I thought it was finally time to check out the books. I had been meaning to for a while. Recently I finished the first one and I liked it OK. Not to the point where I’m rushing out to buy all of them, but I’ll be reading the series bit by bit.
But I’m confused by something.
We’ve got the lovely Karrin Murphy as the head of the Special Investigations devision of the police department. It’s her job to work on all the supernatural cases. That’s fine. Makes sense. But her partner, Carmichael, doesn’t believe in magic.
What!? How the hell did he get this job? Isn’t that like having a Gregory House hire a Christian Scientist for his team?
I’m working my way through the series. I wouldn’t let this bother you – I don’t think Carmichael ever shows up again after book 1 or 2. But the best explanation is that SI (special investigations) is sort of a dumping ground for officers that have pissed off the brass. So it’s not so much whether he believes – he got transferred there.
The whole “normals don’t believe in magic” bit is kind of tough to understand in the Dresden Files universe because, in general, the magic isn’t of the subtle variety. It’s not clear why Harry doesn’t convert disbelievers with showy evocations. So I guess the author is sort of relying on the usual “the truth would only make them nervous” cliche.
There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense in the Dresden books. If someone could repeatedly perform the kind of tricks that Harry can do, they wouldn’t have to scrape along as a two-bit detective. Considering the sheer number of enemies (both supernatural and other) that Harry makes, he seems to wander around woefully unprepared most of the time.
I have just read the first book. I got the impression that Special Investigation handles the cases that are odd, strange and hard to solve. Not that the upper levels of the police department think there is anything supernatural going on. They dump unpopular detectives there because it is a thankless job. Murphy is just a bit more flexible than most and is willing to hear what Harry has to say about things. She is not there because she believes in spooks.
I’m in the middle of the first book, so my impression may change. I would have to agree with Trion. In fact, I thought Harry pretty much said that SI was for the supernatural cases.
Did anyone else get the impression (from Storm Front, at least) that the author was making the story up as he was going along?
(Please note I don’t have an inside line on this, these are all just my opinions.)
SI is slowly (over the course of the series) becoming more of a supernatural investigation department instead of a dumping ground (which, if not outright stated, is strongly hinted at if I recall correctly). Most of that is due to Karrin’s success rate, I believe.
Harry doesn’t show off for the normals because that would bring the Council down on his back. They’d rather mere mortals NOT know too much about what’s really going on, though I doubt this is because it would make them nervous, but rather, the sheer potential of humanity to whip up on the supernatural (this also is implied, I believe; it’s been a while since I’ve re-read the earlier works).
As for being unprepared… well, you’ve kind of got an arms race going. In Harry’s life pre-Storm Front, he hadn’t really had much to worry about except, maybe, small-time thugs associated with his clients - hence, the woefully inadequate defenses against stronger magic.
Then, as the series progresses, he is facing stupendously badass threats, without a whole lot of downtime between them. He adapts (and has been written as having a lot of ooomph, magic-wise, without as much control as he’d like) and scales up his arsenal to more closely match. By the (current) end of the series he’s a walking nuke, essentially, but you wouldn’t know it.
The author seems to have decided that Harry is better at thinking on his feet than on preparing for every eventuality. I’m not sure which I would prefer more, honestly, but I gotta admit it would lose some of my interest if Harry became the sort to whip out some esoteric gizmo every time something new came along. I prefer him as the pigheaded type who wants to believe he can get along as he always has.
I didn’t get that impression so much as I felt like the author was transcribing a role-playing game session, then going back and fleshing it out. But either way, it managed to catch my interest, which is honestly hard to do with this genre (I’ve burnt out on it over the years ).
From his website:
So you may be right.
The series has become a LOT better, though; the most recent one I’ve read (Dead Beat) is easily on my top-ten list of ‘fun’ reads. Proven Guilty is out in hardcover; I haven’t picked it up yet but as soon as it hits the paperbacks I’m going to snag it.
Side note: has anyone else noticed the dramatic change in cover art styles as of Blood Rites? I haven’t looked to see if they were by different publishers or what, but I do know it almost made me miss the new books because I was looking for that distinctive title-on-top, horizontal-line design.
Well, Jim is a gamer, both LARP and tabletop, as I recall. Our LARP is straight fantasy (well, with a nice dose of Monty Python), so the books aren’t drawn from there. He may have drawn on tabletop RPGs for inspiration, though none of the ones I can think of offhand really fit the setting. Also, most RPGs are team-based; you don’t often see someone going it alone, especially not a caster type. I guess that’s what really keeps it from giving an RPG vibe to me.
OK, I’ve just re-read Harry’s description of SI in the beginning of “Storm Front” and it’s (deliberately) vague, describing the caseload as unususal. Emphasis in the book and then going on to talk about vampire attacks and such. It could be taken either way, but to my mind it tips towards “they know!”
It does state that Karrin, as director of SI, is a “de facto appointee of the Police Commissioner”. I’m less inclined to believe that they’d turn a department set up by the Commissioner himself into a dumpting ground.
I’m starting to think it’s something Butcher hadn’t thought completely through for his first novel and is working to correct in subsequent one. As symptoms of First Novel Disease go - I’ve seen worse.
