Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series has been on my radar for years, so when the first book in the series popped up as a Kindle Daily Deal I pounced. A pandemic seemed like a great time for an overdue dive into a highly rated series that ticks so many of my boxes – fantasy, crime, humour, and many more to look forward to.
I’m sorry to say I was not impressed.
What ticked me off the most was the gender politics. Maybe it was so ironic a hat tip to noir tropes that it sailed right over my head, or maybe it was just plain sexist. Sure looked like the latter to me. While there were plenty of female characters, competent female characters even, the focus rarely budged from their hotness, even those who weren’t sex workers. And don’t get me started on the telegraphed from orbit accidental consumption of a love potion by a journalist. A hot journalist. Did I mention she was hot?
So apart from the sexism, was it entertaining? Meh. The mystery wasn’t particularly mysterious. The magical setting offered nothing new or interesting. The writing wasn’t memorable. A formulaic forgettable genre mashup.
If you’ve read these books, do they get better? Does the skill level of the execution pick up and the milieu get more interesting as you learn more about it? Do Harry Dresden and the authorial voice start to see women as fully realised people? Or do you have to love it from the start to bother reading on?
CBR12bingo: White whale – wanted to read this for a long time. Believed the hype.
Yes, they get a lot better. I originally gave up after book three. The first three were all sold as a bundle to the publisher after having been written. They are formulaic, Harry is gross a lot of the time, and not great at character stuff (Butcher didn’t quite know how to portray the women in Harry’s life, Murphy being the best example). I came back and did the audio with book four years later, because James Marsters is the narrator and I love him. The books still have their issues (the sexism of some of the characters is baked into the noir thing, and Harry is “chivalric,” but I think Butcher is aware of Harry’s bad tendencies, and the other characters are so good and not sexist and call Harry on his bullshit, I can deal with it).
Butcher’s skills also have increased tremendously as an author. It’s now one of my favorite series. The best ones are all seven and after, but I know that’s a lot to ask. I would say if you make it to book four and still don’t like it, you probably won’t ever, but if you’re at all serious about the series, you can’t really judge it until you get at least that far.
If you’re an audiobook person, I highly recommend the audio. Marsters brings a lot of life to the characters. I’ve seen people recommend to just skip to book four, but I’m skeptical of that approach. There isn’t as much background and emotional context in 1-3, but there is some, enough that just jumping into four would be jarring, I think. YMMV.
“but if you’re at all serious about the series” –> meant to type “if you’re at all serious about giving the series a chance”
ooooh James Marsters! sign me up
Thanks for the info. If I see one of the later books on sale I might try again as I really liked the concept. It’s good to know where the point of improvement is.
I tried and gave up on this series so many times, also disliking the first few books strongly. I know that saying that you need to stick with something until book 4 and then you might like it is a BIG ask, but in this case, it’s sadly true. I would also strongly recommend the audios. I think I started the audios with book 5, and James Marsters narrates with such charm and skill that I was completely won over.
I love this series a lot, and I definitely powered through the first 4 books. That said, I’m not sure I would love it as much if I had started reading it in 2020 as opposed to 2005. Butcher gets better on a lot of fronts as the series goes along. Whether you have the patience for that is a different issue.
Book four was the point wherein I think it got GOOD. My wife on the other hand hated this one so much that she chose not to read any further, for many of the reasons you mention.