I’m currently hard at work writing Astro Journal 2024 so not writing much else. But then I found this lurking in my drafts folder and thought it was time to share as it’s been a while since my last Fantasy Reading List review. The Dresden Files is an urban fantasy series by Jim Butcher that follows the antics of Harry Dresden, a hard-boiled private detective who also happens to be a wizard.

Note: this review contains minor SPOILERS!!

This is a long-running series with 17 titles so far, starting with Storm Front up to the most recent, Battle Ground. The whole series has been plotted with a huge story arc so each book builds on the next. It’s due to end with a massive apocalyptic trilogy around book 24, so there are many more still to come. The next novel will be called Twelve Monthsand is due sometime in 2024.

I haven’t read every book as I skipped a couple because they weren’t available in the local library. This didn’t matter too much as he’s pretty good at doing catch-up exposition and reminding you who everybody is, although you may struggle if you start reading too far into the series.

Having said that, the first few books aren’t great and many people recommend starting a couple of books in – perhaps with Summer Knight (book 4) or the one before that, Grave Peril, where important events happen for later in the series. The author himself says that book 6 (Blood Rites) is a good place to start, but you would miss an awful lot of the backstory if you did.

The Dresden Files is one of those interesting reading experiences where you can see the writer improving before your eyes (a bit like JK Rowling and the Harry Potter books). The story picks up pace through the series and becomes more complex and involving, with Harry doing more than just solving crimes and chasing down supernatural bad guys.

The characterisation also improves as Harry’s world becomes more complicated and he’s forced to grow up and change. Some have accused the character (and author) of chauvinism, and there’s plenty of it in the early books. But you can also argue that this is part of the character and style of the noir genre.

I really struggled with the first book, Storm Front, because I’m not a fan of noir and the characters annoyed me and felt like stereotypes. Harry’s attitude towards women was particularly irksome. They’re all glamorous and impossibly beautiful and our hero just doesn’t understand them, mysterious creatures that they are.

But once the plot got going and the action heated up, I stopped worrying about that and enjoyed the ride. It was a fun read, despite my misgivings, and I decided to trust the writer and go with it – guessing, correctly, that Harry’s chivalry issues would be part of a longer story arc.

The books are set in Chicago where Harry Dresden works as the one and only wizard on call to deal with supernatural happenings. Some of the creatures he deals with are allies and some are enemies and some are a little of both. Each type of supernatural being has their own rules of engagement which can easily get you in trouble, and I particularly enjoyed the interplay between the Summer and Winter Sidhe, or fae. I also appreciated the enormous amount of research that has gone into the books and that it never interferes with the story or slows things down.

In Storm Front we learn about how magic works and the rules that Harry has to follow to avoid falling foul of a bunch of old wizards in the White Council. It’s a complex business involving magic circles and offerings and it takes a lot of self-discipline and preparation. Harry is assisted in this by Bob, a ‘spirit of intellect’ who lives in a skull and acts as a kind of magical internet, giving him the information he needs to battle monsters and demons.

In an interview in the back of the book, Jim Butcher describes the kind of magic used by Harry:

“I wanted the magic of the Dresden Files to be simply a part of the story universe, a source of energy just like heat or electricity, and one which obeyed certain universal laws that governed its interaction with reality. I didn’t want Dresden to be a mystic, shamanistic wizard. I wanted him to be a plumber, a carpenter, an engineer. Only instead of working with water, wood or physics, he was working with magic.”

In other words, Harry is a blue-collar wizard. But why can’t you be both a mystic and a plumber?

Anyway, this practical focus on the mechanics of magic works well and helps to make it more believable. Butcher is excellent at describing demons and monsters with some vivid, highly imaginative and scary passages that provide plenty of fuel for nightmares. And this only improves as the series unfolds.

I started to enjoy the books more from Summer Knight onwards and appreciated the playful elements, like the pizza-eating pixies. In this book we meet the Summer and Winter Queens of Sidhe, the Seelie and Unseelie Faeries, and Harry learns the hard way how difficult it is to negotiate with tricksters.

“…the fae have a way of making sure that further bargains only get you in deeper, instead of into the clear. Just like credit card companies, or those student loan people. Now there’s evil for you.”

Blood Rites was the first book in the series that I literally couldn’t put down and just had to keep reading. Some interesting layers to the characters are introduced, including Harry’s half-brother, that complicates things nicely.

By the time we reach Proven Guilty (book 8) Harry has started to grow up and his attitude towards women changes. This is where the battle for Harry’s soul begins when he realises that he’s being influenced by a fallen angel called Lasciel who is trapped in a coin that Harry picked up. Is Harry a good man or not? Can he resist the temptation to use dark powers?

In Small Favour we find out more about the Fallen Ones, or Denarians, and their coins. There are 30 of them, from the 30 pieces of silver used to pay Judas, emphasising the Christian worldview that underpins the books. In fact, some of the most interesting characters are the Knights of the Cross, men who wield holy swords, one containing a nail from the crucifixion.

One of the Knights is called Sanya, a Russian of African lineage who claims to be agnostic on the idea of God, despite fighting against demons and effectively being on call for the Almighty. Harry has trouble believing that Sanya can really be agnostic, so Sanya explains:

“The blade has power, true. The beings allied with that power are…somewhat angelic. But I have met many strange and mighty things since I took up the sword. If one called them ‘aliens’ instead of ‘angels,’ it would only mean that I was working in concert with powerful beings – not necessarily the literal forces of Heaven, or a literal Creator.”

Everything changes for Harry in Changes and this was another book that I couldn’t put down. Harry discovers he has a daughter and this leads to a decision that literally transforms his being. He becomes the Winter Knight in service of Queen Mab of the Winter Sidhe. The trouble is, Mab has a tendency to drive her Winter Knights insane and turn them into monsters. But Harry has no choice and it has devastating consequences.

I found the description of the Red King, head of the Red Court of vampires, particularly unnerving because it reminded me of people I’ve encountered over the years. The Red King is incredibly old, and totally mad, so has built a lot of power over the years and Harry is overwhelmed when they meet:

“The pressure of his eyes was like nothing I had ever felt before – empty darkness that struck at me like a physical blow, that made me feel as if I had to physically lean away from him to keep from being drawn forward into that vacuum and lost to the void.”

Shudder!

In Ghost Story Harry learns more about himself and his limitations when he’s forced to confront his shadow and his past. He spends time hanging out with some ghosts and I enjoyed this joke from a ghost called Sir Stuart:

“Time has little meaning to us now, Dresden, and it’s very easy to become unattached to it. I once lost five years listening to a Pink Floyd album.”

Harry is assisted in his predicament by the archangel Uriel, who he first encounters in Small Favour. Uriel is heaven’s spymaster, a terrifying being who has taken an interest in Harry’s life:

“There was the sense of something… hideously absolute about him. Something that would not yield to change even if the universe itself was unmade. Standing in his presence, I always felt that I had somehow become so fragile that I might fly to dust if the archangel sneezed or accidentally twitched the wrong muscle.”

By Cold Days Harry has taken on the mantle of the Winter Knight and the story hinges around whether or not it will change his basic character and erode his humanity. The Winter Knight is all about animal instincts – fighting and killing things – something Dresden does a fair amount anyway. The main issue is how it affects his attitude towards women. Suddenly there’s a predator lurking in his loins and it wants out. Of course, he gets it under control, but it’s touch and go.

I enjoyed the way the Sidhe, or Fae, are compared to wild animals. They are, effectively, forces of nature and totally impersonal and inhuman, a manifestation of raw power and will. We also discover more about why things are set up the way they are between the Winter and Summer Courts, and Harry sees that reality is more complicated than he thought.

The Faeries control the parts of the Nevernever closest to the mortal world. The Nevernever is a magical world that consists of the entire realm of spirit. Outside of Faerie and beyond the Nevernever there are Outsiders – essentially chaos – who are always trying to get in. The Winter Queen has her power in order to protect the borders and stop the Outsiders getting into this world.

The Summer Queen has her power to protect the mortal world from the Winter Faeries. So the Winter Court acts as a kind of immune system to protect the world but then the world needs to be protected from them too. And now Harry has become part of the Winter Court. Will it change the nature of his soul?

To answer that question, we have Skin Game, where Harry reconnects with his daughter, Maggie, and there are some lovely passages showing their connection and love for each other. This book was an enjoyable romp with lots of fun humour and some great moments between the characters. I liked this speech by Michael, a Knight of the Cross, addressing the fallen angels and monsters:

“You think your power is what shapes the world you walk in. But that is an illusion. Your choices shape your world. You think your power will protect you from the consequences of those choices. But you are wrong. You create your own rewards. There is a Judge. There is Justice in this world. And one day you will receive what you have earned. Choose carefully.”

The most recent two books, Peace Talks and Battle Ground, were conceived as one story spread over two books. As a consequence, most of the action is packed into Battle Ground – the title is a clue! – and Peace Talks sets the scene. I enjoyed Peace Talks but it suffered, perhaps unjustly, because I read it just after finishing the Earthsea books by Ursula le Guin. The contrast between writing styles was jarring but interesting.

Ursula le Guin’s style of wizard (and writing) is more feminine and Jim Butcher’s is very masculine. They’ve each created very different worlds and it may be unfair to compare them. While I enjoy the Dresden books as entertainment, the Earthsea world felt more real somehow. The Dresden books feel like fantasy, despite the work he’s done to make the magic believable in the real world.

This problem was exacerbated in Battle Ground which pushed my incredulity to the limit. The story is basically one long battle split into a series of fights in various locations around Chicago. It becomes a bit repetitive, although I did enjoy reading it, despite a few moments of frustrated disbelief. There’s some impressive action and we get a sense of the levels of magic that exist and how little Harry knows.

We also learn more about the various beings Harry is working with and fighting against. Mab, the Winter Queen, was once mortal, and this raises interesting questions. What is it that causes you to lose your humanity? Is it temptation or is it a choice? As Mab says to Harry at the end:

“Honestly, why you children keep making such bargains with old serpents like me, I shall never understand.”

Overall this is a hugely enjoyable series with some great humour and characters that work well together. There’s plenty of differences between them so they bounce off each other well with lots of in-built conflict that keeps things cooking. However, the sheer amount of back story is now becoming overwhelming and it’s hard to see how much longer he can keep this up. Regardless, you can tell that Butcher has a blast writing these tales and has real affection for his characters. And it’s this that brings you back for more.

Here’s one final quote that feels relevant right now:

“Apocalypse isn’t an event,” Nemesis murmured. “It is a frame of mind.”

You can read extracts of the Dresden Files on Jim Butcher’s website here.

More from the Fantasy Reading List

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