Harry had to face who he was, the choices he made, and what he really wants in order to be able toSpoiler:
Harry had to face who he was, the choices he made, and what he really wants in order to be able toSpoiler:
+1 That is a good reason.Originally Posted by Arkeus
Guys, for those of you who liked this book, was it because you had read all of the other ones?
I got this one compliments of not responding to SFBC's monthly selection. And I have decided to finish reading everything in the house that i can read before dropping trousers, bending over and getting a Nook.
This book was just not for me. Maybe its because I started in the middle of the series and haven't read the other books?
I can see how Jim Butcher has potential though. And I can't say I would never pick up another one of his books. However this was just not what I expected from an urban fantasy / mystery novel.
It could have been a great mystery novel - very Guy Noir, Private 'I'. And I applaud Mr. Butcher for not taking himself too seriously. The book never really gripped me. I never fell in love with the characters.
And guys, I rarely publicly complain about an author's work. I wrote a fantasy novel about 3 years ago and it was so incredibly bad I never let a single sentence be read by a soul and destroyed every reference I had to the work. It was BAAAAD. And I came away from that unfortunate experience seeing that so many authors out there struggle and that MANY of them are GREAT writers who never get anywhere.
So even with a successful author like Mr. Butcher, I am hesitant to criticise. Fame doesn't last forever and he may or may not get enough cash from this latest venture to live off of forever. God, I wish him the best, but Ghost Story is just not for me maybe.
Now, thats not to say it wasn't well written. It was very well written. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I could have gone for more character development but I suppose that's what the earlier books are for.
Why the hell would you start a series with book 13
Starting the series by reading Ghost Story wasn't the best place to start. While many of the books are somewhat stand-alone, this one really isn't.
K. That means that I have to at least give Mr. Butcher another shot. As I said earlier, he is a good writer. This book really didn't stand on its own, I have to agree. However its a testament to his writing skills that I actually finished it anyway. I will not write off J. Butcher yet. =)
I would encourage you to start at book 1, but the general consensus is that the series gets much better around book 3 or 4. I'm not sure if you are the type of reader who is fine with reading some good books to build up for the great ones, or not.
I know that I was a little annoyed by the repeated "hell's bells" phrase in the early books, but that was corrected.
You sure about that?
Either that, or I stopped noticing it as much. But I thought the repetition decreased.
Yeah, I can imagine that Ghost Story would have been a HORRIBLE place to start reading Dresden.
Start at the beginning, by all means. Be forewarned, however, that 1 and 2 are not nearly as good as the rest. They're still as good as most UF, IMNSHO, but the series gets much better as it goes along. #3, Grave Peril, is the first one that really grabbed me.
Part of the appeal of the series, to me at least, is that it's really NOT typical UF. More and more as the series goes on, Butcher seems to be straddling the UF and epic fantasy genres. I'm very interested to see where he ends up going with all of this. Ghost Story was NOT my favorite of the series, by far -- I think my personal fave was probably Turn Coat -- but I can't wait to see what he does with Cold Days.
I didn't really like this book at all and for me this was clearly the lowest point in the series.
I read all the books practically back-to-back and really enjoyed most of the others, but I really could not connect with this one.
Give Dresden a break, it is hard to get the incorporeal-thing going.
:P
Laser, it's not about giving Dresden a break here. I didn't enjoy the story at all, but I have high hopes for the next one. Let's hope this was the odd one out.
Ah, the healthy discourse amongst SF/Fantasy/Horror fans.
I actually loved the Urban Fantasy of this work. My 1st UF work was more an urban fairy tale - The Little Country by Charles de Lint - was a treat.
And as said earlier, Mr. Butcher writes in a manner that I absolutely love so I will be picking up the 1st of the series at some point.
I know, it's all about you.
@DennisC: Have you ever read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell? That wasn't bad. Simon R. Green also has some series similar to the Dresden Files, as does Kevin Hearne.
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