I had the precisely opposite reaction. I had to plod through the first few, but when I got to the zombie one, I fell in love with the series.
Best climactic magical shootout ever.
Totally agree.
Dresden riding into battle on the Zombie Tyrannosaur was crazy-awesome
POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!
Simon Green can’t do plots. If you read him, you read him for the settings. I happen to like the demented creepy atmosphere of the Nightside well enough to overlook the other flaws. I don’t think the characters are supposed to be believable- there are times when you want a flawed hero angsting about their weakness, and then there are times when you just want to sit back and watch your Mary Sue kick monster butt.
I recall only warming up to the series after book four. It may be like Terry Pratchett- the later books are good, but new readers are thrown off by the mediocre first few. Anyway, things start getting better by Summer Knight.
I highly recommend the series!
That’s what happened to me: I discovered the series in early '09, and spent the next month or two reading nothing else. 
I saw it for the first time in March of '09 on Hulu (it’s also now available via Netflix streaming), and immediately developed a giant crush on Paul Blackthorne. I’m not really “attracted” to the Harry in the books (too much “I can’t help it if I have a condescending, old-fashioned attitude towards women”), but I loooove the TV Harry (who also has some of that attitude, but is hot enough that I don’t mind so much).
I’m a bit loath to say so at this point in the thread because I’m not trying to knock anybody or get into an argument about it, but I hate them. I hated the first one, but I wanted to be fair, so I read the second one and hated it more. The repetition of certain phrases and ideas really wore on me and I thought the main character was just kind of a whiny, sleazy, douchebag.
The fantasy elements are cool, though.
I would recommend them, definitely. I spent the last month or two listening to the audiobooks pretty much straight through (they’re read by James Marsters - aka Spike from Buffy - who does an excellent vocalization). I enjoyed the first two books mostly for the characters. The plot seemed like it was going to be formulaic (brewing two potions seemed like it was going to become standard, for example), and I was beginning to feel it would end up like the Kingdom of Landover series. When the third book rolled around, though, the formula was broken with the introduction of Michael Carpenter and the non-detective-based storyline.
Though there’s a loose overall story arc (Butcher says he plans on writing twenty or so books in the series), it sometimes feels like are salient plot points were made up on the spot, instead of planned out. My prime example of this is for a few books, there’s evidence of a traitor. However, when it comes time to reveal who it is…
Butcher creates with a brand new, really minor character whose introduction was so jarring, it was obvious for the sole purpose of pinning the traitor tag on him, despite having implied in previous books that only one of four people could have known about certain operations.
Also, Thomas’ change from likable vampire rogue to…
Harry’s half-brother
…seemed unplanned, but I can live with that.
Since book 12, Changes, ends on a cliffhanger, I might almost recommend waiting until book 13 comes out before reading the series.
I like TV Bob a lot more then Book Bob too. Also they use the episodes to develop Dresden and Bobs back stories and make the plots relate to their pasts, rather then having each one be an epic struggle against evil to save the universe, as in the books. This makes the TV universe seem a lot bigger and more interesting then the book one, where every “big thing” that happens in the magical world happens to be centered around one random wizard in Chicago.
Also, having a drumstick as a wand and a hockey stick as a staff was kinda clever.
This is a bad thread to discuss plot points, but:[spoiler]Said minor character was created ahead of time. He gets a brief mention in Dead Beat, as he’s the one who wrote the book of summoning the Erlking (which takes on a sinister meaning when you consider that the Erlking was instrumental in calling up the Darkhallow). It’s explained in Turn Coat exactly why he’s a good spy; nobody ever thinks about the mousy little clerk, and he was able to read the Senior Council’s missives and tweak their behaviors to his liking.
Butcher does have a lot of seeming deus ex machinas, but many of them are laid out in previous books with breadcrumbs and logical reasoning.[/spoiler]And TV Bob was better than Book Bob, by far. That was a brilliant change.
There is also a Jade Court, about which Harry does not know except that he stole his dog from them.
I’m sold! Hunting for the first book in a nearby bookshop (the library has it all loaned out) first thing when I am awake.
I’m glad you’re trying them out. I was traveling recently and grabbed one, out of order, in the airport book shop (based actually on mentions here).
At first I found his writing kind of clunky, but by the time I got to the climax (look for the post on zombies above if you wanna be spoiled) I was loving it. In the last month or so I’ve read all the rest of the paperbacks, and while my opinion on his writing hasn’t changed, his plotting and characters have been amazingly fun and imaginative.
Gotta agree. It really stands out in the audiobooks. It’s like nobody taught him that “he said” is one of the most vacuous phrases possible in writing.
“So,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said.
She said, “Wanna get a beer?”
It makes more sense if you consider that Butcher is a gamer. The books are written by someone who’s not so much an author as a tabletop RPG GM, but thankfully more competently than most D&D-type novels.
HELL YES.
I’m a proud owner of all signed, hardback editions. Love the series to death.
He’s a heck of a DM, too. My character on Amber (an online game, based on Amber by Zelzany) was… hm. He was Morlys’ generation and Jenner’s, so two generations younger. I got involved in a few machinations of his and they were mindblowing. Courts of Chaos, mind you. This, by the way, explains a LOT about the political structure in his books. It’s not V:TM he’s feeding from, but Zelzany.
Is that the way it is in print? I’d just assumed they were added like that in audiobooks to prevent confusion where the attributive is implied. Otherwise, it might end up sounding like “So. Yeah. Wanna get a beer?”
Good question. I just checked my print copy and it does indeed use them.
He does change it up sometimes, but there are a lot of “he said” and “I said” just in this one conversation between Dresden and Merlin. I don’t think the audiobook changes or adds any words; it just gets more noticeable when it’s spoken at a steady pace than when you can let your eyes just skip over it.
Besides, putting it in just for the audiobook would be an insult to the reader. Marsters’ voice doesn’t vary too much, but he is capable of changing his voice just enough to distinguish different speakers.
Frankly, I blame it as an artifact of the online game as well. The default command was ‘say’, and it was a bit hard to get around it. That, and the semi-noir tone. I could swear his pokemon series is considerably better that way.
It isn’t just the dialogue, though. Every book or two a character does or says something stupid that feels contrived to move the plot along in an unavoidable direction. Sometimes it feels like watching one of those horror movies where everyone wanders off one at a time, or a mystery movie where people forget they can actually call the police.