Brian Burt's Blog: Work in Progress - Posts Tagged "wizard"
The Dresden Files Work Their Magic
Last week, I blogged about how the book Saving Sammy: Curing the Boy Who Caught OCD led to a turning point in my oldest son's treatment for a rare, devastating illness called PANDAS. This week, I wanted to share a wonderful fiction series by Jim Butcher called the Dresden Files. If Saving Sammy was the cure for my son and our family, the Dresden Files was the pain medication that made life bearable during the darkest days.
During the times when our son's brain was literally on fire from inflammation, only one thing gave him any relief: the Dresden Files novels. My wife and I would take turns reading to him, sometimes all day long, until he finally grew exhausted enough to fall asleep. It became our ritual to keep the neuropsychiatric demons at bay. Thankfully, this is a long series (11 books at that time, I think; now 15 and counting). We would finish a book, immediately move on to the next, and wrap around to the beginning again when we finished the last book in the series. We could not have asked for a better fictional world in which to take refuge!
The protagonist, Harry Dresden, is a wizard for hire; basically, a PI with a blasting rod and staff instead of a pistol. Imagine Merlin fused with Sam Spade and you're in the ballpark. Harry is a wisecracking, irreverent guy with a dark past and unbending core principles that often make him reckless to the point of being borderline suicidal. In many ways, he was the perfect symbol of hope for our family. He was forced to battle dark forces against which he had little control and slim odds of success; he routinely got bruised, battered, and beaten to a pulp; but he never gave up and always came back for more. And, ultimately, he always found a way to defeat the evils he confronted. You gotta love a magical knight with attitude!
Jim Butcher has filled the Dresden Files with many memorable characters to complement Harry. There's Thomas Raith, Harry's half-brother, a White Court vampire who literally battles his inner demon to avoid turning to the dark side. Karrin Murphy, an indomitable sparkplug of a cop, refuses to put up with Harry's chivalrous protectiveness and fights at his side against things that would send grizzled police veterans screaming into the night. Molly Carpenter, the Goth girl turned apprentice mage, allowed her adolescent indiscretion to put her very soul at risk and now must use her growing powers to help Harry without crossing the line that will trigger her summary execution. And of course there's Bob, the disembodied spirit that lives inside a skull and serves as Harry's sidekick, providing an encyclopedic knowledge of magic delivered with a sarcastic spin and a ribald sense of humor.
That's the beauty, the brilliance of this series. It's chock-full of dark magic, dreadful supernatural foes, relentless action, memorable twists. But - at its heart - it invites the reader to become part of a vibrant, dysfunctional family of characters that makes you feel at home... and makes you care deeply about what happens to them. Each new Dresden Files novel seems to set the bar higher, which is a tall order for a series that started so strongly in the first place.
A great story can be strong medicine. It was for us, and remains so as we eagerly await each new offering from Jim Butcher's Dresden-verse. If you ever need to escape your own dark reality for a darker realm of imagination where hope stubbornly blazes on despite overwhelming odds, this is a great world to visit!
During the times when our son's brain was literally on fire from inflammation, only one thing gave him any relief: the Dresden Files novels. My wife and I would take turns reading to him, sometimes all day long, until he finally grew exhausted enough to fall asleep. It became our ritual to keep the neuropsychiatric demons at bay. Thankfully, this is a long series (11 books at that time, I think; now 15 and counting). We would finish a book, immediately move on to the next, and wrap around to the beginning again when we finished the last book in the series. We could not have asked for a better fictional world in which to take refuge!
The protagonist, Harry Dresden, is a wizard for hire; basically, a PI with a blasting rod and staff instead of a pistol. Imagine Merlin fused with Sam Spade and you're in the ballpark. Harry is a wisecracking, irreverent guy with a dark past and unbending core principles that often make him reckless to the point of being borderline suicidal. In many ways, he was the perfect symbol of hope for our family. He was forced to battle dark forces against which he had little control and slim odds of success; he routinely got bruised, battered, and beaten to a pulp; but he never gave up and always came back for more. And, ultimately, he always found a way to defeat the evils he confronted. You gotta love a magical knight with attitude!
Jim Butcher has filled the Dresden Files with many memorable characters to complement Harry. There's Thomas Raith, Harry's half-brother, a White Court vampire who literally battles his inner demon to avoid turning to the dark side. Karrin Murphy, an indomitable sparkplug of a cop, refuses to put up with Harry's chivalrous protectiveness and fights at his side against things that would send grizzled police veterans screaming into the night. Molly Carpenter, the Goth girl turned apprentice mage, allowed her adolescent indiscretion to put her very soul at risk and now must use her growing powers to help Harry without crossing the line that will trigger her summary execution. And of course there's Bob, the disembodied spirit that lives inside a skull and serves as Harry's sidekick, providing an encyclopedic knowledge of magic delivered with a sarcastic spin and a ribald sense of humor.
That's the beauty, the brilliance of this series. It's chock-full of dark magic, dreadful supernatural foes, relentless action, memorable twists. But - at its heart - it invites the reader to become part of a vibrant, dysfunctional family of characters that makes you feel at home... and makes you care deeply about what happens to them. Each new Dresden Files novel seems to set the bar higher, which is a tall order for a series that started so strongly in the first place.
A great story can be strong medicine. It was for us, and remains so as we eagerly await each new offering from Jim Butcher's Dresden-verse. If you ever need to escape your own dark reality for a darker realm of imagination where hope stubbornly blazes on despite overwhelming odds, this is a great world to visit!
Work in Progress
Random musings from a writer struggling to become an author.
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