I do like me some Dresden, and have just read his Short Story Collection “Brief Cases” in preparation of the new novels coming out this year.
But this made me realise - no, his depictions of women are not good. Yes, he tries to improve, but he simply cannot help himself when describing women, even from their own Point of view. And I am not Talking early on books, I look at the current past “Ghost Story” short stories.
Beyond that, one word of caution - Butcher loves to escalate - stakes, powers, everything. He is good and Logical About it, but I personally loved his early Detective Noir stories better than his later world shaking things. I will stay with the stories, but if his Codex Alera Fantasy Saga is any indication of where he intends to got with Dresden, I may opt out in the end.
I had issues when the series seemed to change from a Spenser-like mystery, to Dresden growing larger and casting a shadow across the magical world. I wasn’t particularly fond of the Fae, but as time went on, they became a major, if not THE major, group he dealt with. The direction it took pissed me off, but I like the characters and the world, so I kept reading. Now, through interviews with Butcher, I have a good idea where the series is going. I should add that this direction was planned all along - before the first book was halfway finished, Butcher famously had the plotted out about 20 books, then a series-ending trilogy to cap it off.
I’ve avoided talking about his plans here to avoid spoilers, but, in the roughest, general terms, as it relates to the Codex Alera:
IMO, a comparison to the Codex Alera would not be out of line.
I finally replaced my missing Paperwhite and have to do another re-read soon, in preparation for the new books.
I heard that stuff as well, and I am not begrudging him his idea - at least he has a plan and I think we can realistically expect him to stick to it. I Keep coming back as well, because a lot of similar genre like the Iron Druid or Alex Verus always seem like pale imitations.
This thread has made me reminisce about the Dresden (book) series. Even though I gave it up after a while it was quite engaging for a time. Two thumbs up the buttocks.
Just throwing out an informal poll for the folks who have read the series.
Who’s your favorite antagonist?
[ol]
[li]Vampires[/li][li]Denarians[/li][li]Sidhe[/li][li]Black Council[/li][li]Other[/li][/ol]
Clearly this isn’t fully comprehensive and several of these groups float back and forth from friend and foe and team up occasionally, but broadly speaking each book has one of these groups as the “big bad”. Who’s your favorite?
Me personally, I dig it when the Sidhe come into play. I generally enjoy these plot lines the most. Can’t figure out exactly why, but those are some of my favorite books. Maybe because they fly the closest to traditional high fantasy stuff that I grew up on. My least favorite are the Denarians, again, I can’t articulate a clear cut reason why but those are the books I tend to think back on the least.
“Black Council” isn’t really a fair choice, since we still don’t even know who they are. It’s just a placeholder name for a hypothesized conspiracy of other villain groups. And you left off Baron Marcone and Fomor (though I doubt the Fomor are anyone’s favorite).
But yeah, he really did a great job with the Sidhe. Everything about them makes sense, except it’s a completely nonhuman sort of sense.
“What? You said you wouldn’t hurt me in retribution!”
“I didn’t hurt you in retribution. I hurt you because I just felt like it.”
Favorite antagonist: The Denarians, and Nicodemus in particular. I love the Denarians. Weird, powerful, dangerous, and it’s really hard to outsmart Nicodemus.
Enemy that needs his ass kicked in a grudge match: Shagnasty the naagloshii, or skinwalker, from Turn Coat.
Favorite anti-hero: Goodman Grey. Jim has talked about giving him his own series.
Villain whose stock has faded in my mind: John Marcone. I think Dresden’s interactions with Marcone in Skin Game were the weakest part of the book.
Careful with spoilers.
I don’t view Marcone as a villain at all. Harry seems to think he is and on paper he’s “bad” but in just about every scenario after his original introduction he’s either been an ally or at least neutral.
I loved the idea of the Denarians and think they had some great storylines, especially their contrast with the Knights. I sadly feel they have faded away due to the power creep of the series.
Marcone is bad because he’s an organized crime boss. He commits illegal acts, and via his subordinates commit more illegal acts, up to and including murder. This was introduced in the very first novel.
He’s not a nice person.
What makes him a sometimes-ally and/or neutral presence is that he is both genuinely affably evil (hence his nickname “Gentleman Johnny Marcone”) and because he actually does have a code of ethics and a set of rules for conducting his business. This means that when his organization takes over crime in a region the situation can improve because rules are imposed and a code of conduct enforced. That does NOT mean that crime goes away, just the more messy aspects of it. It also means his subordinates might become very loyal and view him as a good boss because under his rule the situation is less chaotic and everyone involved is more likely to see tomorrow if they behave.
He’s still a crime boss.
The Denarians without a doubt as Nicodemus continues to demonstrate himself to be the smartest character in the series. He doesn’t rely on some overwhelming power to push his agenda…hell, I’m not even sure what his power is exactly. Instead he uses his wits to push his agenda forward and create some James Bond villianesque death traps that don’t feel too far outside the realm of possibility for the world they live in.
That being said, the Denarian’s don’t seem to have a very deep bench as everyone outside of Nicodemus seems ineffectual and replaceable.
The other thing that makes Marcone more often an ally than an enemy is that he’s smart enough to know that the world ending would be bad for business. Yeah, a Mafia don is bad, but when you’re dealing with things that want to wipe out all of existence, he’s kind of a low priority.
BeagleJesus, Nicodemus’ power is that his shadow acts independently of him, and he can spy through any shadow, anywhere in the world, except when extraordinary measures are taken to avoid that. Mab and Odin are capable of keeping conversations private from him, but they’re the only ones known to be able to do that. I think you could also do it by meeting in a room where the only source of illumination is a Sword, but that’s never been tested.
I got told by Omniscient in post #48 to watch the spoilers, and what you said about Nicodemus isn’t told to the readers until Skin Game. I’m not trying to junior mod, it’s just that I’m really unclear about the spoiler policy in this thread.
Huh, I thought that it was at least strongly implied as soon as he was introduced. But it’s been a while since I’ve read that one, so I may well be misremembering. I’ll add in spoiler tags.
Yeah, the one bit where Nicodemus & Anduriel have the ability to
hear anything from almost any living being’s shadow, almost anywhere, if he concentrates on it was only disclosed in Skin Games.
It’s sometimes difficult to keep track of what was disclosed when, with 15 books and two short-story collections to keep track of. I’m doing a reread of the series in anticipation of the two books coming this summer. Just finished Side Jobs, and I’m a chapter into Storm Front. It’s not my favorite, so I’m gonna make a special effort to concentrate on this readthrough, as Butcher says people and events in this book will remain important through the series-ending trilogy he has planned.
Maybe I’ll start an ALL SPOILERS thread for my readthrough, in case others are doing the same and would like to be free to talk and speculate about anything without fear of spoiling.
I’m going with the assorted disciples of Kemmler.Grevane and Corpsetaker are apparently gone, but I think Cowl will be back in a big way. Plus Evil Bob!
Wow. So late to this, I have been bad at reading SD since I started working from home, and I love me some Dresden Files.
I came to the books via the TV show and still see Paul Blackthorne and Valerie Cruz as Harry and Murphy, even though, he’s “only” 6’4" and she’s 5’6" and not blonde. I hear Marsters because I have listened to some of them but not all. He has done such a great job that I do warn you that Ghost Story was released with him not reading it and there was such outcry that Marsters did it later. Just FYI.
My wife and I just did a reread and it was an interesting ride. This does include all short stories and graphic novels. I will avoid spoilers.
On Jim, who I watched several interviews with when I finished my reread. He decided he wanted to write this story and took a class. He disagreed with his published professor, having done nothing himself, and decided to write the most stereotyped book he could. When he showed the professor the first three or four chapters, she (? I think) liked it and said she wanted to see the rest of it in outline. He took that to mean the rest of the series! So, he wrote up the outline for the rest of the series and came back with that, and a few more chapters. My understanding is that he has followed that but added a few books, so it will be twenty two books and a trilogy to finish it off.
As much as I adore Harry and the Dresdenverse, I sadly don’t like his Cinder Spires book and Codex Alexa was okay but not as enjoyable to me.
I think Harry is an Unreliable Narrator and anything outside of himself is subject to a lot of perspective issues. He is very inexperienced with women, so of course, all women look beautiful to him. While I wouldn’t disagree calling him a misogynist, I would more likely call him following Chivalry (the mutated code of protect women than the real one) and being blind about that. One thing I like about the series is his growth, especially during the re-read. If I have any complaints about it, I think it’s more that it is slow.
I enjoy the changes that have happened as the series has progressed and felt it made sense. I do agree I like the noir detective stuff and find it too bad we don’t get more short stories around those years. I also think his world building is great. He worked with a friend in the RPG business to write the Dresden Files RPG and he thought about things.
I even enjoyed the first couple of books but in this reread, yes, I could see why some don’t like it. It still works for me. What I found more interesting was that the seeds of later stories are there but without having read later books, there is no way to realize it. So, yes, it’s worth a re-read at some point to catch those lines.
I will say that reading Iron Druid, which I also enjoy, helped me catch symbols that Butcher does NOT explain without being steeped in the lore. If you know the lore, it’s obvious. If you don’t, it’s really weird and tough to read.
I think Iron Druid stands up to Dresden myself but for different reasons. I also enjoy Alex Verus as much as Dresden and can’t wait for more of that! I think that Dresden Files was one of my introductions to Urban Fantasy or at least the one that made me want to check out more.
I have waxed eloquently, okay babbled, long enough but do hope the OP is enjoying the series as it’s one of my favorites.
Just found a piece of “microfiction” on Butcher’s web site that brings a Severus Snape aspect to the Morgan-Dresden relationship as well as some more “Nemesis” hints (spoiler boxed because the link contains spoilers):
I’ve read, I think, all of the series. I found them less compelling the more court politics begin to dictate major plot lines. Also, if you want to know what Harry looks like, there was a Canadian TV series I’m sure you can find. I watched it when it was on Netflix some years ago. I thought it was very good, so, of course, only the one season was made. I read now that Butcher is promising a return to TV. Apparently the TV show is currently on Amazon Prime.
There was a SciFi (or Syfy) channel version of the Dresden Files, which must be what you are thinking of. While I didn’t find Paul Blackthorne objectionable, I also don’t really consider him to be the defining look of Dresden. I guess opinions will vary on that.
Yeah, Butcher’s been teasing us with a return to TV for nearly a year, but it has been quite awhile since he’s said anything else. I wonder if that boat has sailed now. There was a bit of a scramble for fantasy properties awhile back, where various networks were looking for their own Game of Thrones.