CBR12 BINGO: Fresh Start
BINGO: Red, Gateway, Fresh Start, Cannonballer Says, Money
Storm Front reads like a novel created buy a guy who played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons as a teen and always dreamed about writing his own fantasy series. And if that’s true, more power to Jim Butcher for fulfilling his dream. I respect the effort and the ambition. Sadly, that doesn’t change the fact that the result is just not good.
The premise of this series is appealing enough. Harry Dresden is a private investigator working out of a dingy office that would make Sam Spade proud. He’s also a wizard, so he specializes in cases involving unexplainable, other-worldly elements. He has a friend in the Chicago P.D. named Karrin Murphy who contacts him whenever there’s a case that could use his insight, the way Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade would unofficially solicit assistance from their buddy Sherlock Holmes on difficult cases (albeit without the Black Magic and exploding body parts).
At the start of the novel, Dresden is contacted by Monica Sells, a client concerned about her missing husband Victor, who has recently developed an interest in magic. Just as Dresden is about to investigate, Murphy calls him up and summons him to a gruesome crime scene, where it appears someone of magical tendencies has caused the hearts to be ripped from the naked bodies of a man and woman mid coitus.
Could these cases be related?
The sight of the murdered lovers is so horrific that our lovable tough guy vomits his guts out to the amusement of Murphy’s skeptical partner (insert obligatory ineffectual asshole cop).
Fresh from his solid handling of the incident at Nakatomi Plaza
Other characters include a skull named Bob, the vampire Bianca, a mob boss, and a sexy reporter. All of this could add up to quite a fun read if it weren’t so. . .ugh, forgive me. . . amateurish. For example, Bob the skull won’t help Dresden cook up an escape potion unless he also lets him prepare a love potion. Do I need to give you three guesses as to what sort of crazy mix-up happens with the potions? Butcher also seems to have forgotten the first rule of creative writing: show, don’t tell. I flipped through the book at random and came up with this passage: “I stood there for a moment, stunned. Grand entrance or not, this wasn’t what I had wanted to happen. I didn’t want to kill anyone. Hell, I didn’t want anyone to die, not me and not them. I felt sick. It had been a sort of game, a macho contest of showmanship I had been determined to win. All of a sudden it wasn’t a game anymore, and I just wanted to walk away from it alive.”
Wake me when we’ve moved on.
The kicker for me, though, was a scene between Harry and Monica Sells’ daughter, in which little Jenny begs Harry to help her mother.
And now I’m the one losing the contents of my stomach.
According to a quote on Wikipedia, Butcher wrote Storm Front at the encouragement of his writing instructor. “When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I [were] some kind of formulaic, genre-writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.”
So yes, even Butcher knew it would be awful, but apparently it was publishable, and popular enough that we now have 17 books in the series. I’m going to assume that the author has honed his skills since the first book; I’ll let other readers investigate and confirm, though.
Now the big question, how do I avoid telling the person who recommended it to me that I hated it?
I never recommend Storm Front as the first Dresden Files Book. Because it’s terrible. If you read Death Masks, the 5th book, and like it, then you will probably like the series.
I’m the same, I don’t usually reccomend Storm Front to start with either. Its rough. My personal choice is Dead Beat, but Death Masks doesn’t sound like a bd place to start either.
Dead Beat is definitely one of my favorites, but Death Masks sets up so much of what happens with the Denarians, Michael, and Molly as the series goes on. I haven’t read the two books that came out this year yet.
Dead Beat is a nearly perfect urban fantasy novel, but I think it would lose some of its greatness without the context of previous books. I usually tell people to start with four but five might be good, too! I might have to start telling people that. The fairy stuff is important, though, so they’d definitely have to back track.
I tend to recommend that people start with book 4, and try the audios (because James Marsters makes even early series, idiot misogynist Harry Dresden sort of charming and likable).
The only issue I had with Marsters reading was he “smacked’ a little when reading. Otherwise, the boy could read the phone book and I’d be happy! (And he is THAT hot in real life….. :p )
Yeah, you absolutely tell the person who recommended it that you hated it. If they’re sane, they’ll accept this graciously. It’s a bit like Discworld in that the first handful of books are very rough. (Though Dresden Files never reaches the casual brilliance of Discworld.)
Oh man, I should have talked to you all before I started this one.
We should always be consulted on any book series with 15 or more books.
To be honest, I took it for what it was: a series of books that was not meant to be “Shakespeare” and just to enjoy it (or not) as you choose. Though I was a bit of a fan of the TV series. Terrence Mann as Bob was funny and Paul Blackthorne was nice eye candy! 🙂 And as said before, James Marsters as a reader wasn’t bad either.
Just chiming in to add my voice as a fan of this series, and that yes, the first three books are not good. I gave up on them for years and like Malin was brought back by siren call of James Marsters doing the audiobooks. Now it’s one of my favorite series! He still has his issues as a writer, but he’s really good now at a lot of things and I’m extremely emotionally invested.
Alright, perhaps I can try some of these as vacation reads, if I ever get to go on another vacation.