Cold Days

By this point in The Dresden Files, a lot has changed. The war with the Red Court has ended in their annihilation. Dresden discovered a daughter. He died, spent some time as a ghost, and has now come back to life in the guise of the Winter Knight working for Mab. The first 100 or so pages of the book serve to orient us in the new world, but I had some trouble getting through them. It wasn't until Harry started to reconnect with his old friends and make amends that I became really engaged.

Alas, by then, another change had become apparent. Harry has always leered at women in a way that made me uncomfortable. I brushed it aside in favor of the excitement of his adventures. And he seemed to be getting better. As he gathered more female allies around him and forged all sorts of different relationships with women, I really thought he was becoming less misogynistic. But in this book he levels up in a way that has me wondering if Jim Butcher has ever actually interacted with a woman.

This book gets really uncomfortable a number of times as the so-called good guy starts to really muck around in the grey area. Which is supposed to make him interesting, but has me bordering on not caring. Maybe he'll pull out of it. After all, he's supposedly under some sort of spell that's making him act this way. But the implications, and his digressions on the differences between men and women, had me squirming.

If you can set that aside, the story is exciting and engaging. (Eventually.) It's the back half of the series, and the bad guys are bigger and more powerful than ever before. Allies are coming from the most unexpected corners. And there are interesting implications for the future of the series. It may just take me a while to work up to the next book. At least I'm basically caught up now. Waiting a year between books may ultimately be good for my relationship with this series. Should it continue.

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