Spoiler warning! This is book 17 in a long, ongoing series. This really isn’t the place to start. In fact, this book doesn’t even work on its own, so don’t even think to read this review if you’re not caught up. Normally, I’d recommend that you start with book 1, but the first three books of The Dresden Files are pretty bad, so you’d be better off starting with book 4, Summer Knight. I highly recommend the audio books, narrated by James Marsters. They’re what finally sold me on the series.Official book description:
Harry has faced terrible odds before. He has a long history of fighting enemies above his weight class. The Red Court of vampires. The fallen angels of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. The Outsiders.
But this time it’s different. A being more powerful and dangerous on an order of magnitude beyond what the world has seen in a millennium is coming. And she’s bringing an army. The Last Titan has declared war on the city of Chicago, and has come to subjugate humanity, obliterating any who stand in her way.
Harry’s mission is simple but impossible: Save the city by killing a Titan. And the attempt will change Harry’s life, Chicago, and the mortal world forever.
In my review for Peace Talks, I mentioned that it’s been six long years since Jim Butcher last published a full Dresden Files novel. This year, we got two, but only because the original manuscript got so long that Butcher decided to split the story in two. There was clearly some rewriting done to make the parts stand a bit on their own, but mostly, this feels like one of the many YA movies that they split in two (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), where you pretty much start the second film with the very next scene and no time has passed at all. Having now read both books, I think Butcher and his editors should have done a better job of just chopping a lot of unnecessary stuff and make it all a slightly longer, cohesive story.
While Peace Talks felt like a lot of the story lagged, and far too many story strands were left hanging, this book doesn’t bother much with long-winded recapping, it throws the reader straight into a massive supernatural battle, where all of Chicago is at risk and losing might mean certain doom for all of humanity. So no pressure then, Harry. Full review here.
I have been waiting for your review! I’m not happy about it, either, but I see why he did it.
The plan was for there to be 22 case-file books, which I guess might be 23 now bc of these two? I don’t know. And then finish it off with the Big Apocalyptic Trilogy. Maybe he’ll combine some things to keep the series capped at 25.
I think a lot of people are feeling fatigue now after these two books, which really should have just been one. Which is so weird! Because everyone loved Skin Game so much. I’m hoping now he’s got his shit somewhat together we’ll only see gaps of 1-2 years between books.