Let me tell you how a wisecracking Chicago wizard-for-hire with the most rotten luck imaginable won a permanent spot in my heart, making me a devout Dresdenite.



'Twas a week before USMLE Step 1, the most important test for any medical school student as it pretty much determines which medical specialty you are supposedly smart enough to pursue. Basically, the stakes were high and the stress reached the previously unknown heights. By then my poor average-sized brain has been fully stuffed with all More...

You know, the premise of this book actually sounded good. A wizard P.I., sure why not. I like wizards and I like P.I.s, so what could be the problem. The problem was I over estimated this author's abilities.

The main character is like some kind of emotionally retarded uber-geek's idealized life. He lives in a basement and subbasement. He ALWAYS wears a black duster and cowboy boots (even when he's wearing sweats and a t-shirt). He has an abnormally large alley cat that likes to drink coke and doe More...

The Dresden Files is one of those books that's intimidating to approach. It has a hard-core fan group that will scream its praises from the top of the roof. Usually, I would approach with extreme caution. I rarely read a series when I've been assured that it gets good after six books. When people tell me that, I simply quietly encourage them to read the Fever Series and avert eye contact.

However, after a discussion regarding male readers and writers of the Urban Fantasy genre, I felt I should gi More...

Decided to try this series, as I keep hearing 'Dresden files' everywhere for some reason, and apparently it's even a tv series? I couldn't let an urban fantasy get so popular without knowing what its about!

There are many mixed reviews about this, some love it and some hate it. But I am suprised at the negative reviews, as many complaints could be raised against the genre as a whole, but if you pick up an urban fantasy book - don't you know what you're getting into? I've seen complaints about th More...

I imagine that some people will complain that Butcher's Storm Front is misogynist, and I can see where they're coming from -- to a point. There is a bad Vampiress who runs a brothel, there are a couple of prostitutes, a sexually abused woman, a sexy journalist, and a tough, rough-cut female cop. I can see these characters striking a nerve with some women, thereby stripping any enjoyment of the book for them.

And fair enough.

But these characters are classic archetypes in the fictions Jim Butcher More...

This is a revised review as of 4/14/2013. Several of the images were off Google Image detailing the graphic novel for visual impact but this is an actual review of the novel.

Tale focuses on a man, well, not just a man, but, a wizard in current day Chicago who uses his magical powers to solve mysteries. Most of them focus on the supernatural and there's a whole underbelly of mythical creatures which mortals are mostly unaware of . .. vampires, werewolves, enemy wizards, faeries, ghosts, etc.



ST More...

Earlier this year, I greatly enjoyed the first season of the Sci Fi Channel's The Dresden Files. It certainly wasn't Buffy or X-Files caliber, as far as paranormal television goes, but it was great escapism fun with some interesting characters. As I'm likely to do after discovering that something I watched and enjoyed was based on a book, I went out and got the first book in the series.

I read the 300-pages of Storm Front in less than 24 hours, and it was such a relief to read something light aft More...

I enjoyed this book immensely. If this is the "weak" start to the series, then I am really really excited for the rest of it. I was drawn into this book from the very start, and I just couldn't put it down.

I loved Harry, the wit, the humor, the magic system, the concept, Bob, Mister, all of it. I loved the frustration and the annoyance at every wrench thrown in the works.

I figured things out before Harry did, but that's OK. The details were unpredictable enough for me that even though I knew t More...

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed this book. It is not real deep, but it does not try to be. I does try to be extremely entertaining without being campy and I think it succeeds brilliantly. Excellent and highly recommended.

*Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, with his trademark long black leather duster jacket, blasting rod and staff, and pentacle necklace. Those, along with his general disheveled appearance.


★★★★½ I’m in love with a wizard. One cynical, irascible Harry Dresden, resident ‘anti-hero’ of Chicago, Illinois. People tried to tell me how wonderful he was, but I didn’t listen. He story is like reading a fantasy for the new millennium set in 1940’s film noir – but with brilliant moments of lush Technicol More...

When I was in college I had a boyfriend who wore a long black duster, was wire thin, had played too much dungeons and dragons in high school, wanted to be Cary Elwes from The Princess Bride, believed in magic and physics, and did not know anything about women (unfortunately). He would have loved this book. It's written for a nineteen year old boy who doesn't see a lot of sun and wishes he could be a chivalrous knight, acting alone, to save the day. And while being completely misunderstood, he ma More...

Isn't it great when you find a series of books that you really enjoy, and then can't wait for a new one to come out? The Harry Dresden series burst onto my bookcase last year, when I picked up book 7 at the library, on a whim, just before a business trip. 2 days into the trip, I'd finished the book (Dead Beat) and had found the local book store and bought the first in the series: Storm Front.

Ironically, in the first few pages, the book didn't really resonate for me, it took a bit to get into the More...

Hot damn, that was a fun read! I know full well the reason I've been avoiding the series was that I would get hooked, and have even more books on my to-read shelf, but I just can't help it! Dresden is a sarcastic, bitter, tongue in cheek rogue that would make Han Solo proud. The plot moves quickly, the action is imaginative, and the humor puts the perfect cherry on top. What a great character!

Okay, some who have looked at my other reviews will immediately note I gave this book 5 stars which I noted earlier I save for very special books. I plan to give the Dresden books (so far anyway) 5 stars. Why? Well while they are not Dumas or Dickens (but then again...I'm not sure I'd regularly be giving Dickens 5 stars, how much Dickens can we all really take anyway???) these are wonderful absorbing reads. Special Books.

I won't be giving a long synopsis of each book... I will say they are an or More...

It was a fun read, but I'm a bit turned off by the angst that the hero, Harry, carries around. He has his reasons, but I prefer a more upbeat character. He seems a bit too resigned to a crappy world. This might be relieved in the next book, so I plan to read it shortly. There is a LOT of potential here for a great series & so many others have told me they like it. I've seen bits of the TV series, which was good.

The setting & plot were good. It's our world with a slight twist - magic exis More...

3 stars

Due to the acquisition of GoodReads by Amazon on March 28, 2013 and my existing and continuing boycott of all things Amazon, the review I wrote after reading this book now resides, safe and secure, at my blog. You can read it by following this link: http://bit.ly/11t7QT2

Before writing my own review I browsed a few other reviews about this novel. I found it most interesting how some reviews were full of such venom (not in a humorous ranting way but a pure hate-filled way) and wondered why they felt this way. In some cases the reviewer had simply taken one single little flaw (because to be honest this is a flawed novel) and turned it into a major issue. I seriously don't get why some people do that personally. However I get where they come from and it always inte More...

I actually heard of this series by catching the short-lived tv series loosely based on these books. I thought the show was kind of fun and wanted to someday read the books. I got to close to halfway through this book and had to give up. I thought the main character was pretty interesting and the set up for his world was pretty interesting too though.

You don't get many hints about Harry Dresden's past, other than he's not on the good side of a magical authority called The White Council. He's a w More...

I have seen an episode or two of “The Dresden Files” on the SciFi Channel, so I thought I knew what to expect from “Storm Front.” I was completely wrong. The TV series didn’t even come close capturing the essence of at least the first book. It wasn’t gritty enough or dark enough or exciting enough. What’s the best way to describe Harry Dresden and “Storm Front”? Combine Ellery Queen, Clint Eastwood, Jason Bourne and Buffy Summers. Throw in an evil wizard, a vampire madam, a talking skull, the Ma More...

Wow was that fun!! So much to love about this book, but the narrator just blew me away!!! He is Harry Dresden!! Review to follow...

iyi ki almışım şu kitabı iyi ki :D geçekten çok sevdim harry coperfield blackstone dresden adamımsın. esprileriyle, diyaloglarıyla, konusuyla, kurgusuyla vs. çok iyiydi. açıkçası okumaya başlamadan önce çok birşey beklemiyordum aralara az az fantastiklik katılmış bir dedktif romanı bekliyordum ama kitap beni şaşırttı. kesinlikle tavsiye ederim. :)

This was a reread. and finally I have time to review it. I consider myself a huge Dresden Files fan so I am probably (most likely) heavily biased. Storm Front is Jim Butcher's first novel and compared to the later books in the series I think that it shows. On the other hand, Jim Butcher himself said that he only wrote it to prove that he can't write. Funny enough the writing itself isn't bad at all. Not as good as it is in the later books but not bad either. The story though hit all my right spo More...

Second update: Finally got around to looking at Butcher's website, and discovered his short story, Restoration of Faith. It's set before Storm Front, when Dresden is still an apprentice to another private detective. He meets Murphy for the first time. That he names the wealthy folks the "Astors" reminded me that he used to do cheesy obvious stuff like that. He gets better further in the series.

Update, months later: I discovered that I liked the first book enough to read the second, and have si More...

This book was recommended to me by several friends on Goodreads, though an equal number weren't impressed by it. I would have to put myself in the latter group, if I had to.

Harry Dresden is a wizard. He has a small office in Chicago and helps people find lost things and investigates ghosts, that sort of thing. He also helps the police in investigations when a crime can't rationally be explained.

It is one such case that draws him into a race against time to save his own neck: someone in the city More...

The first book in the Dresden Files series (ten books and counting so far) is a refreshing wind for the urban fantasy genre and this reader. One of the cannon examples of urban fantasy, a blending of mystery and paranormal in a modern setting often with a touch of romance, Storm Front is slanted more toward suspense than romance.

Harry isn't another supernaturally endowed, kick-ass female heroine, taking on the world of evil and the world of men at the same time. Harry is a somewhat-awkward, tech More...

The television adaptation of the novels is certainly not faithful. I'm curious as to why they changed so many inconsequential details (Murphy's first name for example) as well as some rather large ones (the nature of Bob the Skull). That being said, Jim Butcher's books are the literary equivalent of beer and pizza. They're fast, easy to get a hold of, satisfying over the short term, but really, not something that you'd want to build your entire diet around. Also, both have the potential for a ce More...

When I was a kid, I devoured Hardy Boys books. I used to love detective stories, but now (maybe because there are so many detective TV shows) I just find them kind of boring. So the detective aspects of this book were dull for me, but the rest of it was a fun read. I was kind of put off by the references to the Never-Never and others that seemed childish. But the fight scenes were all great, and overall this book was a quick read. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be that memorable, but from wh More...

4 1/2 stars. I really, really liked this one and I'm looking forward to the others of the series :-) I liked the interesting mix of magic and murder mystery, and I was always wondering just what was going to happen next. Plus, there is quite a bit of humor, which is always a plus with me :-)
I also loved how the hero was NOT the typical "hard-boiled detective." He really seemed like a decent guy and a good person--someone I could root for (and did).

There was nothing especially wrong with this book. It had an interesting premise (P.I. wizard helps cops track magical ne'er-do-wells in present-day Chicago) and a fun protagonist, but ... how do I put this? It just felt like a bunch of words about a plot. The words all accomplished their goal of relating a story, and that's about it. Still, I picked up the second book in the Dresden Files series to see if the writing gets any less utilitarian.