No movies this weekend, got the new installment for the Dresden Files on Tuesday and had been reading it ever since. I finished it sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
Man what a good series, it only gets better with each new book. Don't worry about any spoilers I'm not going to give away any important information that happens in this book. I've been reading this series for the last three years, mostly to get caught up to the new books that come out. I've noticed a few thing about this series of books (book 14 and counting so far) since my dad introduced them to me and have kept me reading since I started. I don't normally like book series because as they go on they normally take on a very formulaic, cliche ridden structure where the reader is left with little surprises. I'm not saying the Dresden series hasn't got formulaic things or cliched structure because it does and it has to (and I'll explain why this is true later) but it also has a few more things that keep me reading.
The main reason it has to have these formulaic things and cliched structure is because we're dealing with a blue collar type of character in Harry Dresden and what blue collar worker who goes to work from 9-5 doesn't have formulaic things and cliched structure in their life? Every honest to God 9-5 worker has a formulaic and cliche ridden lifestyle: there are things they do at certain times of every day, the alarm goes off - early in the morning - they get up make coffee and get ready for work--Harry Dresden is just like this and Butcher writes him just like that. He really feels like he has a 9-5 job and deals with things with that kind of mentality. I think this is one of the things that makes Harry Dresden so relate able, despite all the supernatural/mystic things that happen to him or the many monsters he encounters on a daily basis. It's this grinding, blue collar, formulaic, cliched, working life that makes him so real.
Then there are the little things Butcher has done that keep me reading.
First thing, this series feels like I'm watching a television show with each new installment being a new episode that continues the over arching story line. Don't for one second think Butcher doesn't know where this story is going because for every book that's released he just adds new things to a story that just keeps getting bigger, more exciting and more detailed.
Which brings up point two: continuity. Butcher's ability to let each book affect the next book is amazing, in that everything that happens in one book effects the book(s) that follow which makes the ending of one book so damn frustrating because now I have to wait for at least a year to find out the consequences of the book I just read-that is some good storytelling. A good example of this is how as the early books kept rolling along with each episode - for lack of a better word - Dresden's body was getting older. This was making him not able to do the whole save the world in 24 hours sort of thing any more because was getting physically beat down, where as in the first few books he was younger and able to do it.
Thirdly he builds some good mythology into story and just keeps building on that created mythology, from a nerds point of view (mine) that's just another thing that fuels my fire to keep reading this series. His world building is one of the best out there and is just fascinating to watch his world expand and grow with each book.
Lastly its the characters that truly make a story and these characters that Butcher has created, keep bringing me back with a smile on my face each time I encounter them in the book. His characters seem so real with the conversations taking on a familiar, friendly atmosphere. This is one book I found myself laughing out loud the most with as his characters said or did things with in their nature that were just so funny. With Cold Days Butcher has started to weave every book before into this book so this is not a book for starters.
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