Dead Beat

I've made it to the halfway point of The Dresden Files series. I'm still a little worried about completing this in time for my book club. Especially since I am now constantly being distracted by wedding planning things. But if I buckle down, I think I can still do it.

Thankfully, the seventh book is way better than the sixth book was. This one deals with necromancers, and it returns to the style of the second book. Rather than dealing with three different plots simultaneously, Harry has to face a single problem with multiple enemies. It gives the book a nice sense of focus. Not that I'm complaining about all the plot heads butting heads in previous books; that was exciting in its own way. But it was nice to get something a little different.

Not that there was nothing else going on. This book continues with some threads from previous books that will likely show up again in the future. The war with the Vampiric Red Court is still going on off page, and we get a recap of a rather large battle that may represent a tipping point. Harry is also still dealing with the fallout of facing the Fallen Angels a few books previously. There isn't a lot to these plots in this book, but it's nice to be reminded that they're still simmering along in the background.

Meanwhile, this book focuses almost solely on necromancers, which means lots of ghosts and zombies. The climax of this book features the coolest zombie I will probably ever encounter in fiction, and it may be worth reading just for that. Once again, Dresden's inventiveness pays off in a really exciting way.

I'm glad this book was so much better than the last. I'm excited about the series again. Here's hoping for more like this, since I still have to read six more books in 2.5 weeks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Crown of Swords

Image
The seventh book of the  Wheel of Time  series is where many people agree that the series takes a dive in quality. Although I think it's less that anything changes significantly and more that people get tired of how stagnant the books are becoming. Nearly nothing happens in this book. Jordan still has serious issues writing female characters and romantic relationships. The world is continuing to be expanded on, and the rules of the magic system are slowly (so slowly) becoming more clear. But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read  A Tale of Two Cities  right before this book, and I positively flew through it. I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you hav
Read more

The People We Keep

This was a really sweet coming of age tale about finding your way and finding your family. Aprils' mother walked out when she was little and her father wasn't much more present. By the time she's sixteen, April is basically on her own, stuck in a small town where everyone looks down on her and even her father mostly pretends that she doesn't exist. And then she realizes that she can leave, too. So April heads out for life on the road, working odd jobs, writing and singing songs, making friends and fleeing before anyone can get too close. And through it all her music sustains her. My favorite part of this book, hands-down, was the soundtrack. April's love of music, and the way the author uses it to set the scene and drill right into her emotional state was fantastic. I kept having to put the book down so I could bring up songs on youtube and listen to them while I read certain passages. This was just an overall enjoyable book. I had a lot of sympathy for April being
Read more

Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel

This is one of my favorite books, so I clearly had to read the graphic novel version. It's a good story to revisit every now and then, and this edition makes that a lot easier. Since so much of the information is conveyed through images, reading it is a lot quicker. Of course, this being an adaptation, a lot of things got left out. I know the story well enough to have recognized all the omissions. The story still works well, but I'll always think the original has more depth.   Overall, it's a good adaptation of a really important novel. And if the new format helps it reach new audiences, that can only be a good thing.
Read more