Small Favor

In the tenth book of The Dresden Files, Harry agrees to do a small favor for someone and quickly finds himself in way over his head. Meanwhile the main plot of the series is just treading water while everyone gets moved into place.

I really don't expect a lot from The Dresden Files. They're like popcorn action movies. Something that's entertaining, but that I don't really think too hard about. The plots are convoluted but not necessarily complicated. There are a ton of characters - both allies and enemies of Harry. But keeping them all straight is what the internet is for. And I definitely kept my tablet close at hand so I could keep looking things up while I read this.

This book brought back a lot of characters from the past. Both faerie courts are in play, as are the Denarians and the Knights of the Cross. The Archive shows up, along with a warden, Thomas, and the ever-present Murphy. It almost felt like an attempt to reintroduce a bunch of these characters and tease out their alliances in preparation for the climax that I know is coming in the next book or two.

In the meantime, this book was fun. There was snappy dialogue and lots of action and cameos by nearly all of the characters I've come to care about over the course of the series. Exactly what I want when I pick up a book in this series. Just some light, zippy entertainment. The Dresden Files may not be the greatest series ever written, but it's not the worst either, and this installment was a fine example. It's nice knowing that even ten books in, Butcher can still churn out entertaining, action-packed stories that don't feel like retreads of everything that's come before.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shadows of Self

Let's dive right into the biggest problem I had with this book, which is Sanderson's treatment of Lessie. Wax's lady-love, in a classic case of fridging, gets killed in the prologue of The Alloy of Law , giving Wax a reason to return to the big city and mope around for a while. She turns back up in the prologue of this book, which details how she and Wax met. And at first I was excited to get a bit more backstory. I wondered if maybe all the prologues would be about her, letting her be more than the awesome woman who died to give Wax some man-pain. This turned out not to be the case. Instead, the prologue was just there to remind us that she existed. Until it's revealed at the very end of the book that she's been alive all along, having faked her own death on God's orders. (It makes slightly more sense than that.) This comes up just in time for her to die in Wax's arms again, sending him into a fresh bout of grief plus bonus loss of faith in God. That'...
Read more

Specials

I have to admit that the conclusion to this trilogy felt a little flat to me. There were definitely some good things, and I still think the series as a whole is good and tackles interesting questions with some good nuance. I even liked the actual ending of the story. But so much of this book felt like a rehash of the second one that I felt a little bored by the end of it. Once again, Tally has had her brain rewired, and once again she sets out into the wilderness where he solitude helps her figure out what she actually wants. The love triangle sort of fizzles out and the stakes are revealed to be not nearly as high as it seemed. What felt like a worldwide conspiracy is mostly confined to one city, and Tally's role shifts. She does help save the world, but it's more about preventing a war than ushering a grand revolution. Which isn't to say that the revolution doesn't happen. But it's not the complete overthrow of society that the rebels wanted. And that's pr...
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