STORM FRONT (DRESDEN FILES) by Jim Butcher

 

352 Pages

I was scrolling through one of my favorite author’s blog one day and came upon a list he published over his favorite fantasy books. This series was close to the top on the list, so I thought I would check it out.

As a professional wizard, Harry Dresden knows firsthand that the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most of them don’t play well with humans. And those that do enjoy playing with humans far too much. He also knows he’s the best at what he does. Technically, he’s the only at what he does. But even though Harry is the only game in town, business—to put it mildly, stinks.

So when the Chicago P.D. bring him in to consult on a double homicide committed with black magic, Harry’s seeing dollar signs. But where there’s black magic, there’s a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry’s name… (synopsis from Amazon)

I enjoy fantasy and mystery/detective fiction. But, do they work well together?

Review:

I’m going to do something that I haven’t done before and summarize this review in the first sentence: Meh.

Yup. a giant meh.

This series has a lot of followers and good things said about it, so this review probably won’t hurt its reputation much, if at all. So, I don’t feel that bad about writing it.

I’m going to go ahead and start off with the positive.

Harry Dresden, as a character, is very well written. Minus the fact that he’s a wizard, his character was extremely tangible, and he had all of the qualities that I look for in a good, witty detective. He’s funny, seems like a good guy, and definitely has some character background (not quite delved into too deeply in this book) that made him interesting.

Now, before I go into the things that I didn’t enjoy, I’m going to tell you that I didn’t hate this book (however, if you want to see a review like that, click here or here).

So, my main issue with this book was that a lot of things were solved because of magic.

Wait, wait, wait, Daniel, you know this is a fantasy, right?

Yes, let me explain.

There were several instances where Harry would be in a predicament, let’s say falling off of a cliff, and then, in the midst of falling, he’d be like Oh, wait! I forgot I have my anti-falling bracelet around my wrist! and then it would save the day.

Maybe I’m not far enough into the series or I’m missing something, but it just seemed like there was a lot of things unexplained, and that kind of irritated me. Maybe I’m just not used to magic in books unless their are strict rules. I’m not entirely sure.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself with this one. Did I think I wasted my time? No. Would I recommend this, though? Also, no. But, a lot of people seemed to have enjoyed this, and I get that – I get that there is a market for this book. But, in the end, it just didn’t keep on the edge of my seat and excited to read on to book #2.

Final Rating

Best,

Daniel

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If you would like to purchase this one, you can do so here.