Changes

Well, this book was action-packed as always, but this time we found out that Harry has a daughter and Susan hadn't told him about her to protect her. Now she was taken and they reunite to go and save her. Feels like so many parties had vested interest in using her for the blood curse, or stopping it from happening. In the end, dramatic culmination, and when all seems good and quiet, Harry goes on and gets himself shot before going on a date with Murphy.

Have been gradually administering doses of this series to myself for quite a while now, spacing it out so as not to blunt the empty-calorie thrills too much. This one doesn't even make a token attempt at the detective half of "magical detective" and continues the drift towards a bog-standard apocalyptic confrontation, messianic hero, etc. Even some family romance thrown in (spoilers! but really, I'm not the one spoiling the fun here). The always chauvinist representation of women gets a bit more chauvinist, but the thing that really irked me was that Murphy's Aikido expertise is once again underlined and once again Butcher has not bothered to finish reading the wikipedia entry on Aikido; he seems to think it's a kind of karate. I can suspend my disbelief for vampires, "soulfire" magic, fairies (I'm sorry, Sidhe), etc. but hands off my niche martial art. These extremely serious and probing criticisms aside, obviously, I raced through it and will be eagerly awaiting my next hit. How will Harry Dresden ever get out of his next scrape? etc.

Excellent peak in the series. This book is aptly named, because it marks a milestone in the larger plot. In my head, I tend to think about this series in terms of "pre-Changes" and "post-Changes".

Cierre de "arco" en el que cambia la vida de Dresden en todos los ámbitos.
En este libro se abraza aún más la acción, sobre todo en el tramo final, y se refuerza la manera de narrar frenética que lleva siendo seña de identidad de la saga desde el principio.

Another perfectly adequate Dresden episode. That'll do, pig. That'll do.

The book that broke a series that already had some serious issues with representation and sexism. The stupid unknown-daughter-means-instant-fatherly-love plot was contrived as heck, but that could have been saved in some way still. Harry standing on a Mayan temple in conquistador's armour and sacrificing his love to genocide a mainly mixed-race vampire species was not the way to do it, however.

And I think the whole doing-terrible-things-to-save-your-loved-ones is a valid plot - if it's written with a modicum of care. See Order of the Stick for an example that's eerily similar while still differing in matters of gender, race and real-world reactions to your horrible actions.

In short, if you had a nagging feeling from the first books that maybe the series didn't merely depict a slightly sexist guy in a realistic manner, but that maybe the author fully condones everything that made you uncomfortable about Harry, you can see this book as the culmination of all the unease you ever felt about the series. Whether that's true, I leave to the readers. Personally, I couldn't continue reading The Dresden Files after this and was more than happy that I had borrowed in stead of bought it.

Finally, a Dresden book that I loved not liked. Can't wait to find out what happens next!

Well, well, well, Jim Butcher. I would say I'm angry, but I totally saw it coming. The only thing that surprised me is that it took 12 books to get here.

I can't say much if you haven't read it yet, so do me favor and get caught up, ok? Because I totally want to talk about this book and I don't want to spoil you. Suffice to say, my favorites were all here: Mouse, Mister, Thomas, Murph, Ezekiel, Molly, and Sanya. We even get a tiny bit of Ivy and Kincaid, although I always want more of them. What we also get is Susan, who is my least favorite character. Sorry, Susan, but you totally suck. And just when I thought I couldn't hate on you more, this book comes along. You really are the worst.

Anyway, Harry is brave, reckless, bold, and dangerous. He make a whole lot of bad decisions, is a total smart-ass, as usual, gets his ass kicked, and saves the day. What you have come to expect from Dresden, in spades.

P.S. Thanks for the sucker punch, Butcher. You had better have a damn good plan to write your way out of this in book 13. And don't leave me hanging about Mister, either.

Ah, right. This book. It's the perfect continuation of fluff right up until it stabs the ever loving hell out of you. Very well done.

I think Jim Butcher was reading a little too much "Game of Thrones" when he wrote this. He's killing everybody off!

This is a four or three point five star book that I'm bumping down to three for reasons best left unspoiled. If you've followed the series this far there's no reason you should stop because of this book.

After 11 books Jim Butcher has established something of a formula for the Dresden Files books so I don't come to them looking for surprises. It's more slipping into a familiar world and visiting characters I'm fond of.

This novel is aptly named though. From the first page, Butcher tilts the table and he continues to destroy the status quo chapter after chapter. The final cliffhanger seems impossible for Harry to get out of, but no doubt there is a way.

The Harry Dresden novels are always fun to read and this was no exception. I am starting to wonder how much higher the stakes can be made though.

I am a diehard Dresden Files fan, and with each successive book, I've gone in expecting to be thoroughly entertained. This time around I was not.

I was absolutely mindblown.

Jim Butcher knew what he was doing when he titled this book. From the very first sentence, everything you think you know about Harry Dresden, all the people he knows and loves, and the world in which he operates is turned completely on its ear. The biggest of these changes was revealed on Jim's own site, so I will go so far as to say that yeah, revealing that Harry has a small daughter he never knew about? WHOA.

But that's only just the beginning. Sure, it's an earth-shattering revelation for Harry, but the fact that it's a daughter by Susan, the long-lost lover who'd left him to go to South America and fight the vampire transformation that's been enforced upon her, is only the first of a one-two punch. The other blow? The kid's been taken by the Red Court vampires. And she's going to be sacrificed.

I have to admit that I was deeply leery of the idea of setting Harry up with a kid. He's matured a lot through the course of the series, and the Harry of this book is absolutely better father material than the Harry of the initial books would have been. That said? Harry also lives an extremely dangerous life, one which is not suited under any circumstances to caring for a small child. But I needn't have worried. Jim handles everything pertaining to the kid quite believably, including what eventually happens to her. If anything, my only beef about her at all is that little Maggie is barely an actual character presence in the story; she's way more of a MacGuffin than she is a member of the cast.

And. And. And. Really, this book's way less about Harry going "ZOMG I'M A FATHER" (though don't get me wrong, it's absolutely about that) than it is about how Harry's determination to save his little girl lays unutterable waste to everything about his life. And I do mean everything. Long time fans of the series, you better be prepared to have all of the little signature details you've come to know and love about what makes Harry Harry to be blown to kingdom come.

And be prepared for a cliffhanger, because Jim Butcher is a cliffhanger-writing BASTARD. Hopefully he won't actually be making a habit of this--hopefully this'll just be a feature of the fact that this is the midpoint of the series. But I can forgive him the cliffhanger just because this is hands down the best novel he's written yet. The writing is flawless, and Butcher's got his sense of pacing down to a finely honed art by now; in the big climactic battle sequence, I had that thrilling "MUST! READ! NEXT! PARAGRAPH!" urgency that comes with truly epic adventure.

Five very, very well deserved stars.

Okay, Harry should give up on the whole romance thing. It's not working for him.

I would have given the book five stars if it wasn't for the cliffhanger ending. Grrrr.