Harry Dresden: Ghost Story
My thoughts - spoilers, natch.
It's a wonderful life - with wizards!
Well, okay, maybe not, but a pretty fine variation thereof.
If I was going to describe what this book is about in one sentence, I'd say this is the book Harry Dresden stops to catch his breath and take stock and, after the roller coaster of the last few books, I think it needed to be done. The last few books were a mad bad ride of events, in which Dresden's life went to hell in a handbasket, and he seemed to lose himself along the way. A fact that seemed to be punctated by Dresden's death at the end of Changes.
Of course, that doesn't mean Ghost Story isn't dark, because it is. Chicago without Harry Dresden in it leaves a lot of scared and scarred people behind. Murphy has retreated into a shell of mistrust and anger, Molly is teetering on the edge of madness, Thomas is faltering under a mountain of guilt, and Chicago is under siege. Other characters seemed to have come into their own, however, and have become unlikely heroes - Butters and Mort, for instance.
And this book seems to me to have pulled back from the epic reaches of the last book and focused on the more human story; where the main characters battle with their own demons as much as the very real monsters that roam the city streets - and I think this book is better because of it. Not that I think Changes was a bad book, per se - even on his worse day, Butcher stands head and shoulders above most writers in this genre - but I think the series was beginning to suffer from epic battle fatigue and I think Ghost Story gives us back something that has been slowly diminished in the last few books.
Harry Dresden's humanity.
It's a wonderful life - with wizards!
Well, okay, maybe not, but a pretty fine variation thereof.
If I was going to describe what this book is about in one sentence, I'd say this is the book Harry Dresden stops to catch his breath and take stock and, after the roller coaster of the last few books, I think it needed to be done. The last few books were a mad bad ride of events, in which Dresden's life went to hell in a handbasket, and he seemed to lose himself along the way. A fact that seemed to be punctated by Dresden's death at the end of Changes.
Of course, that doesn't mean Ghost Story isn't dark, because it is. Chicago without Harry Dresden in it leaves a lot of scared and scarred people behind. Murphy has retreated into a shell of mistrust and anger, Molly is teetering on the edge of madness, Thomas is faltering under a mountain of guilt, and Chicago is under siege. Other characters seemed to have come into their own, however, and have become unlikely heroes - Butters and Mort, for instance.
And this book seems to me to have pulled back from the epic reaches of the last book and focused on the more human story; where the main characters battle with their own demons as much as the very real monsters that roam the city streets - and I think this book is better because of it. Not that I think Changes was a bad book, per se - even on his worse day, Butcher stands head and shoulders above most writers in this genre - but I think the series was beginning to suffer from epic battle fatigue and I think Ghost Story gives us back something that has been slowly diminished in the last few books.
Harry Dresden's humanity.