I'll probably be torn apart by raging fans with pitchforks for this, buuuuut...
I like a lot of things about the Dresden files, but...the character and plot seem to be occasionally twisted any which way to get the author through the current scene and onto a Really Cool Confrontation or A Great Battle or A Neat Piece o' Magic. God knows I've committed that sin a number of times in fanfiction, tweaking my plot and/or characters so that I could end up with a great scene I'd envisioned even if it wasn't totally IC...Yes, I've done that myself, but I don't have the balls to make people pay for what I write, either.
The first book of the Dresden files felt awkward in plot advancement at times, but I greatly liked the premise and universe, and I told myself it was just the author getting into the swing of it. I expected the second book to be better. I found it a lot worse, IMO. I wanted to like it, really, and was all ready to suspend my disbelief like any fantasy reader worth her salt. This is what happened.
Scene One chapter One:
Perky Young Female Apprentice: Tell me what this Uber Powerful Spell on this piece of paper does!
Harry Dresden (Wizard): Will you use it?
PYFA: Of course not! Cross my heart! So tell me!
Harry: No, its way too dangerous, you're not ready yet my young paduan
PYFA stomps off in a huff, to do the Uber Powerful Spell as soon as she's out of sight like any parent or schoolteacher would have known she would, but Harry being neither, I try to keep my disbelief suspended.
Harry crumples the piece of paper and tosses it on the ground.
Me: Geez, if by some odd chain of circumstances I was handed the blueprints to a nuclear device, I think I'd find better way of disposing of it.
Karrin Murphy (cop, Harry's friend, and with dial set to Permanent Moral Outrage) arrives a few minutes later and then, to quote, 'She bent over and absently picked up the wadded scrap of paper I had tossed aside earlier, tucking it tidily into her coat pocket rather than letting it lie about as clutter on the floor'.
...Because that's what anyone would do with a paper of unknown origin lying around on the dirty floor of a dimly lit diner. Sure. I hope she never goes into a public toilet with that attitude. Will we see that piece of paper again? Will it end up playing a crucial role in the plot? Did the foreshadowing hit my poor suspension of disbelief with a metal bat? I frown and turn the page, hoping it will get better.
Scene One chapter Three:
One murder scene later, Murphy the cop friend has it out with Harry about something that happened in the previous book. She makes Harry swear to never, ever, ever tell her a lie to protect her again and thus impede her in her job, ever you hear me, EVER, and he will give her each and every scrap of information he has, or she will never trust him again! Harry is all repentant and swears he will never keep her in the dark again. One paragraph later, he's ditched her to perform some magic to track the prime suspect in the killing.
My suspension of disbelief now has whiplash to add to its list of woes.
Harry has a scene which, to be fair to the author, could not have happened with his gun-toting cop buddy in tow, so of course she had to be ditched. Then cop buddy catches him red-handed. I expected her to shoot him on the spot. She calls him a jerk and then seems to forget the whole incident. Which, considering her previous speech, seems rather...odd. I think the city of Chicago puts prozac in the donuts it serves to its Force.
Scene I Saw It Coming, Chapter Whenever:
PYFA tried the Uber Powerful Spell (gee, never saw that coming). For some reason, she performed it naked. In the two books I've read so far, Harry has never had to shed his kit to perform a spell, but I remind myself this is a male author, and thus all women must perform their spells naked and/or by dancing alluringly or having sex, it's one of the Laws of Magic. Naturally, PYFA bungled it and got ripped to shreds.
Harry: WOE IS ME! I FEEL SO GUILTY! THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!
Me:...um, you warned her quite strongly, refused to help her, and she actually promised you she wasn’t going to use it-
Harry: *continues wangsting*
Murphy drags Harry off and brandishes the piece of paper at him (gee, never saw that coming either). First, she does the whole 'You broke my trust!!' thing, which I'd expected back at Scene One Chapter Three. Then she beats him up while reading him his Miranda, which I doubt they teach you to do anywhere other than Police Academy 4. Then she blames everything on him without letting him explain anything and books him for 'conspiracy to commit murder' on the evidence of a piece of paper she found near his table in a bar last night and on the strength that he knew PYFA, though I don't believe there's any way Murphy could have actually known that. Any half-baked lawyer could go to town on that and counter-sue the Chicago PD and the city and just about everybody living near the Great Lakes for all they own if this drivel ever went near a court. This pretty much happened in the last book too, because it's more exciting when it's Poor Misunderstood Harry Against The World.
My suspension of disbelief requires a barf bag, plz.
Scene The Nail In The Coffin, Chapter Who Cares:
The Uber Bad is in the police station and about to go on a rampage in 5...4...3- Harry doesn't call Murphy, because she's angry with him and he knows 'she won't listen'. Um, excuse me...even if I wanted to arrest someone very badly, if he called me up and said that there was a bomb in the building, and I had every indication from my own investigation that he was probably right, I wouldn't let my righteous ire in regards to this person stop me from evacuating the godamn building or at least taking preventive measures. But instead of doing the rational thing, or even just wasting a minute and a dime at a phone booth trying to do the rational thing, Harry spends all evening infiltrating the PD and gets there just in time to see the Uber Bad go off with an almighty bang, catching everybody else who wasn't busy being a clever-ass wizard totally unprepared and unawares.
I have to admit, this chain of faintly unlikely events leads to a very striking scene, a scene any author would be proud of. A rather alarming amount of people, most of them cops, a few of them Harry's friends, die in a very unpleasant and graphic way. I find it hard to believe there's at least five more Dresden books after this one, because cops tend to be rather unforgiving when something of this magnitude happens to their own and anybody even loosely involved is looking at fifty without parole. Plus, you know, it bears repeating, a lot of good people are dead.
Me:...Okay, Harry, this time you're free to wangst and blame yourself all you want, you really fucked up-
Harry: OMG! What did I do??
Harry's subconscious (I'm quoting here): 'Nothing, Harry, what happened at the police station wasn't your fault. [...] Ease up on yourself, man. You can't change the past.'
...Maybe if all the victims had been naked PYFAs, he'd have been a good deal more torn up about it all.
The paramedics did what they could, but my suspension of disbelief was DOA.
I'm sure fans of the series will say I'm being totally mean. I guess I am. I love the magic and the universe of the Dresden files, I wanted to like this book, and simply had the misfortune of reading it after finishing two excellent character-and-plot-driven fantasy novels which were a total pleasure to read, and I'm sorry, Harry, but your performance was definitely sub-par by comparison. *sigh* Well, my apologies to Jim Butcher for massacring his masterpiece, and if anyone tells me the third book is better than the second, I think I'll give it a try if I find it at the library, so go easy with those pitchforks, fans...