Tag Archives: mystery

December 1, 2011 · 5:00 am

Review 151: Ghost Story

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

Hell’s Bells count: 27

In the acknowledgment section of the book, where Butcher very kindly thanks all the people who helped it come into existence, he clarifies something very important: the end of the last book, Changes, was not a cliffhanger. Absolutely not, no matter that it really, really looked like one, smelled like one and felt like one. After all, in that last scene, Dresden is on a boat, and then shot through the chest by a sniper of some sort. He drops into the cold waters of the lake and sinks and, as far as we know, dies.

Noooo! You've gone too far, Harry!!

In order for it to be a cliffhanger, then, Butcher would have to reveal at the beginning of this book how Dresden got out of such a terrible situation. Maybe he could call on some last reserve of magic or be saved by merpeople or something, but the strictures of the cliffhanger would demand that Dresden, once the next book began, not be dead but saved by some unexpected, yet still believable, means.

So, yes, Butcher is right – it’s not a cliffhanger. Dresden is, indeed, dead. He did not escape, he was not rescued. He is dead.

Now in most series (comic books excluded, of course), the death of the main character would be something of an impediment to continuing the series. But The Dresden Files is not most series, and Harry Dresden is not most main characters. He has done too much and is far too important to be allowed to do a silly little thing like die. Harry Dresden is necessary to a great number of plans and schemes by a great number of people. What’s more, his death wasn’t exactly fair, insofar as such a thing is possible.

And so he is brought back by the Powers That Be in order to balance the scales and set things right, which is ultimately what Harry Dresden has been doing all along. He’s to go back to Chicago and find his murderer, lest terrible things happen to those he loves.

Fortunately, while there are meddling kids, Harry wins them over, and the giant ridiculous dog is on his side.

The catch, of course, is that he has to come back as a ghost. This is a problem for many reasons, not the least of which is that doing a murder investigation is substantially easier when you have, well, substance. It’s hard to punch someone in the face when your fists just go right through them. So Dresden first has to figure out how to make himself known to the living world, in addition to coming to grips with his limitations as an untethered spiritual entity. Once he’s figured that part out, he has to not only solve his own murder, but keep a body-hopping necromancer from becoming indescribably powerful, save the only man who knows how to deal with being a ghost, try to redeem a bunch of street kids who are under the influence of a minor sorcerer, and figure out what to do with the real mess he made when he died.

You see, Harry’s death, and the events that led up to it, created a power vacuum – not only in Chicago, but all over the world. With the destruction of the Red Court of vampires, the magical rulers of the world are fighting tooth and nail over land and resources, and what has mostly resulted from that is bloodshed. Forces all over the world are converging on Red Court territory, each one determined to claim what they can.

This was the very first Google Image result for "Ragged Lady." The book is forever changed for me...

In Chicago, the news of Harry Dresden’s death invited all sorts of new power players into the city, who were previously smart enough to stay out. Harry never truly understood the reputation he had until he sees what his friends have to do to match it and keep the city safe. Now that the Great and Powerful Harry Dresden is out of the picture, a newer and more terrible protector has emerged to keep away those who would do the city and its inhabitants harm. The Ragged Lady is all that stands in the way of the Chicago that Harry knew being overrun.

Mix in the Faerie, a new group called the Formor, the mob, and a few representatives of the afterlife, and you have a confusing and volatile situation. Which is pretty much where Harry Dresden is most at home.

As with the other Dresden Files books, this is a lot of fun to read, mainly because it looks at Harry and his friends from a new point of view – the outside. In the six months that he’s been “away,” the people he loves have had to go on without him, and even in that short time they have become different. They have had to make choices that they wouldn’t have made while he was there, and they certainly don’t interact with him the same way they once did. Harry has to re-learn who these people are, with the understanding that his decisions did not change their lives for the better.

Then again, showy violence can be pretty cool sometimes. (Art by Dan Dos Santos)

In addition, we learn more about Harry’s past and what made him the way he is, and we finally see him start to think about whether being the person he is is really a good thing all the time. He excels in showy violence, hitting first and asking questions later, without taking a more nuanced view of the situation. Well, now he can’t hit, at least not in the ways that he’s used to. He has to look at his old ways in a new light and figure out how to get what he wants through other means.

Really, if you’ve read this far in the series, you’ll enjoy this one. Butcher continues to do a good job in giving us what we want, while at the same time showing us things that are truly unexpected. There are some wonderful moments in the book, a few exposition-heavy moments while Harry is filled in on the situation, and a good mystery to be solved. Enjoy.

——

Death should be a learning experience, after all, or what’s the point?
– Leanansidhe, Ghost Story

The Dresden Files on Wikipedia
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Harry Dresden on Wikipedia
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August 11, 2010 · 10:00 pm

Review 83: Crooked Little Vein


Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

The world is a weird place. This is as true now as it was fifty years ago, but there’s one big difference between us here in the twenty-first century and our primitive twentieth-century forebears: they didn’t have the internet.

With the democratization of information, what was once only whispered about is now available to anyone who wants to see it. What few people knew, they can now share with the world. This is certainly true of science and history, culture and arts, but what concerns most people on the internet is not the finer, more cerebral aspects of culture.

It’s the porn.

Have you heard of Rule 34, for example? The Rule states that, if it exists then there is porn of it somewhere on the internet. Remember your favorite childhood TV show? The one that you used to look forward to every week, and which perhaps you watched with your parents and/or siblings? You have fond memories of those times, I’m sure, and cherish the characters in your heart – characters that you grew to love and thought of as, dare I say it, family.

Well somewhere on the internet there’s a picture of them engaged in acts that would make the Baby Jesus weep. Weep, I tell you. [1]

And that’s not the worst of it. Warren Ellis is arguably one of the current superstars of the internet, with a huge online following. He produces content every day, and it’s followed by thousands of readers all over the world. Much of the time it’s talk about fiction and the industry of fiction, perhaps promoting up and coming artists or talking about the projects he’s working on. Sometimes it’ll be a commentary on the World Today, though that’s less often. His output is varied and always interesting, and occasionally comes with a link that says, simply, “Don’t look.”

You looked, didn’t you? Serves you right.

Well when Warren sends one out, the consequences are much more severe. He links to people who are doing things – usually to their bodies – that I would shudder to describe. There are graphic photographs and descriptions by people who willingly cut, mar, mark and sever things that (in my opinion) really shouldn’t be cut, marred, marked or – and I’d like to stress this – severed. Should you be so brave as to click on one of Warren’s links (these days usually reading as, “Conan! What is best in life?“), you will see something that you probably never wanted to see, and which you most certainly cannot un-see.

Keep in mind that Warren doesn’t create these people. He doesn’t find them and put them on the internet, unless he is far, far more diabolical than we give him credit for. He simply shows us where they are and lets us make up our own minds. To look, or not to look. To condemn, or not to condemn. Regardless, what he’s showing us is a side of the world that most of us never knew existed, and were probably happy to have been ignorant of. The question then becomes, what are we going to do about it?

In his book, Crooked Little Vein, the U.S. government has the answer to the rising tide of deviation that seems to have engulfed the country in the latter days. There exists a book – a Secret Constitution of the United States. It was allegedly bound in the skin of an extraterrestrial and is weighted with exotic meteorite stones. The act of opening the book creates a sonic pulse that resonates with the human eyeball and forces you to read it. In it you will find the secret Constitution and its twenty-three invisible amendments that tells Presidents what the true intent of the Founders was. For nearly two centuries this hidden document governed the country, until it was lost in the 1950s. Since then, America has slid into perversion and degradation, and the White House Chief of Staff wants private investigator Michael McGill to track it down.

For his part, McGill wants nothing to do with it. Despite the huge amount of money that he stands to earn, he knows that taking this case will refocus the Universe’s attention on him and he’ll start to draw the freaks like iron filings to a magnet. And since finding the book is all about stopping the freaks, Mike is in for all of the weirdness that America can throw at him. Before he can find the book, Mike will have to confront the twisted, kinky and perverted side of the country and decide what is to become of it.

This book works on a lot of layers. For one, it’s a fun read, and you’ll probably get through it pretty quickly. Ellis is an accomplished writer, with a vivid imagination and an excellent ear for dialogue. He also has a very good sense of written rhythm, which probably comes from his main gig as a writer of comic books. Some of the chapters are single sentences, meant to be read and absorbed in a moment, but also to be thought on. When you get to Chapter 6, which simply reads, “I wish I still had that photo,” you’re meant to take a moment to think about what that means, both to the character and to the story.

What this means is that not only does Ellis know that he’s telling us a story, he’s vividly aware of the medium through which he is doing it and exploits that very well. It shows an awareness that most authors lack, or at the very least don’t often take advantage of.

I have only one nit to pick about Ellis’ writing, though, and I’m sure he will subject me to Horrors the likes of which you cannot fathom for pointing them out, but not to do so would mean I was shirking in my duties. This is how much I love you all.

While it is set in the United States, and is something of a dirty love letter to the country, there is a distinctly British English tone to some of the writing. Not too much, just enough to make you notice, if you’re the kind of person who notices these things. His narrator uses the verb “trod” at one point, as in “I trod on her foot,” which doesn’t sound very American to my ears. Likewise, he refers to wainscot and leatherette, words which ring with a certain amount of Britishness. Maybe it’s just me, but they kind of stood out. Your experience may vary. [2]

Anyway, beyond the simple entertainment of reading the book, there are some very real things to think about in there. For example, in an age where anyone can put up a webpage, what does it mean to be “mainstream?” What’s more, what does it mean to be “underground” these days? Fifty years ago, homosexuality was something that most decent, God-fearing people didn’t even know about, much less experience. Now there are openly gay actors, athletes and politicians, and the “gay next-door neighbor” is already a character so common that it’s become a cliche. Is S&M, for example, “underground” when we’ve been making jokes about it in TV and movies for years? How about swingers? Hell even the pedophiles are mainstream, which you’d know if you were a viewer of Family Guy. How long with it be until we see saline injection fetishists, macroherpetophiles or functioning heroin addicts as being simply part of the endlessly variegated crazy quilt that is American culture?

What’s more, should we allow all these people into the cultural mainstream? Is there a kink limit for society? Is there something that people can do to themselves, or to other consenting adults, that is just so Out There that we have to draw the line and say “No further, weirdo!” For those of us who are a bit more open-minded than most, can we turn around and decry the whitebread people who like their vanilla lives and sexual predictability?

Who will make that judgment call, and how? In this book, it’s the U.S. Government that’s trying to do it, and they’ll roll the country back to the Fifties if they can. One of the wonderful and scary things about living in the Internet Age is that these cultural rules have yet to set in. We’re looking around and seeing all the strangeness that we never knew was there and deciding in the moment what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Should we appreciate these unusual practices for their creativity and for the flavor they lend our culture, or should we snuff them out in the name of some notion of “Decency?”

Ellis’ answer is pretty clear once you get through the book, and I have to agree with him. I’ve always been on the side of personal liberty, so long as you’re not hurting anyone who doesn’t want to get hurt. As for those of us who might be a little weirded out by knowing what it is that people get up to in their bedrooms, remember – you don’t have to click on the link.

Either way it’s a serious philosophical issue for the 21st century, and Ellis has done a very fine job of presenting it to us. Beyond the book, I have no doubt he will continue to do so.

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“You don’t get to keep the parts of the country you like, ignore the rest, and call what you’ve got America.”
– Mike McGill, Crooked Little Vein
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[1] Rule 35, by the way, states that the if no porn is found of it, it will be made.

[2] Warren’s eels are doubtless on their way for me now. Run! Save yourselves!!

Warren Ellis on Wikipedia
Crooked Little Vein on Wikipedia
Crooked Little Vein on Amazon.com
Warren Ellis’ homepage

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June 30, 2010 · 10:00 pm

Review 77: Identity Crisis


Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales

There are, traditionally, two modes of thought when it comes to comic book super-heroes. The first is that just as these people are stronger, faster and more powerful than we, so must they also be better than we.

This is the philosophy behind the immortal words penned by Stan Lee in the first Spider-Man story – “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s not enough to be able to see through walls, teleport, manipulate eldrich energies or talk to gods if you do not live up to the incredible burden that comes with such powers. Even if you’re a self-made hero, with nothing more than your wits, a jaunty cap and a quiver full of trick arrows, there is still the expectation that you will always do the right thing. Or at least try to.

There is a nobility to this kind of super-hero. He is not motivated by fear – he surpasses it. She does not fall prey to baser human nature – she provides a model for us all to be better. These heroes don’t do what is easy – they do what is right. They don’t ever do the wrong thing, even if it is for the right reasons. They are, in a word, heroic.

This story is not about those kinds of heroes. This story is about the other kind – the heroes who are, when you strip away the Batarangs and magic rings and masks and tights, just as human as we are. Just as fallible, just as vulnerable to anger, fear and weakness as we. Much like the traditional hero, they are us writ large – in every way, unfortunately.

Being a super-hero – either kind – has never been easy. Balancing your hero life and your private life is something that even the best heroes have trouble with, and the decision to involve someone else in your life is one that carries great danger with it. If you marry someone, if you have a father or mother or lover, they all become potential targets for those who would want to hurt you. At some point, you have to decide which one is more important to you, and the special people in your life need to be included in that.

For Ralph Dibney – The Elongated Man – the choice was simple. He loved his wife, Sue, and his heroism, so he decided to have them both and became one of the very few heroes to make his identity public. Together, they were a true celebrity couple, touring the world, solving mysteries and showing everyone what a truly happy marriage looked like. And they were so very happy. Sue became an honorary member of the Justice League (an honor that not even Lois Lane has been granted) and their love inspired everyone who knew them. The heroes’ love for Sue Dibney led them to one of their greatest mistakes – albeit one that would not come back to haunt them until the worst had already happened. Not until Sue Dibney was murdered.

The heroes of the DC Universe went into overdrive, searching every corner of the world for Sue’s killer. Whoever it was had bested the technology of four worlds and eluded the greatest detectives in history. And what’s more, this new villain was targeting others that heroes loved. It was only a matter of time before someone else died, and if they could not find the killer then the very fabric of the hero community would be torn apart.

While this is, with a few caveats, a good story, it’s not a pretty one by any means. It shows the darker side of the heroes we love. They act in morally questionable ways – something that the traditional super-hero would never do – in order to serve the greater good. By using their powers to adjust the personality of Dr. Light, turning him from a menacing villain to a laughable punching bag, they set in motion a chain of events that would have universe-wide repercussions.

All told, I liked this story. For one thing, the writing was really solid, with great care paid to pacing and visual impact. The story is not really about the heroes, at least not by themselves. It’s about the relationships they have with other people, and how those relationships affect their decisions. That’s why characters are constantly introduced in terms of their relationships to each other. You can see it on the very first page – “Lorraine Reilly and Ralph Dibney. Co-workers.” The fact that they’re both super-heroes is self-evident. The fact that they’re people, with a relationship to each other, is often taken for granted in comics.

Ray Palmer and Jean Loring go from “Divorcees” to “Lovers” in the span of two pages, while Firestorm goes from hero to atomic bomb. “Father and son,” “Husband and Wife,” “Partners” – characters are constantly being introduced by their relationships, and usually by their given names, rather than their superhero sobriquets. In fact, Green Arrow, who is one of the driving forces in this story, rarely refers to anyone by their code name. When he does, it’s an immediate signal that this is a person he doesn’t know well. To Ollie, and thus to us, these are people under those masks, and it’s important to remember that.

My favorite example of the heroes’ humanity is the scene in the issue “Father’s Day,” wherein Robin and Batman are racing to save the life of Robin’s father. Set up by the mysterious killer who murdered Sue Dibney, Jack Drake tries desperately to tell his son not to blame himself while Tim tries just as desperately to save him. In the end, even the incredible Batman is unable to save this one life, and the reader is forced to feel every moment of it. It’s a painful, beautiful sequence, both in terms of the writing and the artwork.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the villains as well. All too often they have been portrayed as madmen and megalomaniacs, driven by nothing more than nefarious purposes and misanthropy. The villains in this book are also humanized. They tell stories, have trouble making ends meet, even have hobbies outside of villainy. And, like the heroes, they have relationships with each other. They are fathers and sons, friends, employers and employees, and the tragedy being visited upon the heroes spills into their world as well. While we may not root for the bad guys, we can at least sympathize with them a little more.

There certainly are flaws to the story, though. For one, it’s been described as “tragedy porn,” and I can’t disagree. Much as regular pornography takes the sexual act and distorts it into a pleasurable fantasy, so does tragedy porn take an unfortunate event, such as rape or murder, and make it into something even more horrible than it normally would be. Whether this is entirely a bad thing, I can’t really say. Writers have always used pain and death for our entertainment – hell, look at Titus Andronicus. Not only was Lavinia raped, she was mutilated on top of it. Was Shakespeare just trying to get a rise out of the masses? Maybe. Is Meltzer doing the same here? Probably. Does it work? Hell, yes.

There have been a lot of objections raised to the use of rape as a plot device in this book – whether it was appropriate for a super-hero comic book, for one, and whether it was nothing more than a gut-punch. A story choice that’s effective, but ultimately unimaginative. All this may be true, but my take on it is this: That’s not what the story is about.

The story isn’t about rape or murder. It’s not about mind-wipes and magic. It’s about the relationships between these people, heroes and villains all. It’s about their identities, as the title implies – how they see themselves and how others see them. It’s about people, with all the flaws and defects that make them human. It’s a book of revelations, illumination and truth, none of which are ever easy to confront.

While this wasn’t the first comic book story to feature its characters as humans rather than heroes, it could be the most influential. At least in recent years. The events of this book started a chain reaction that has followed through to every universe-wide event that DC has published in the last six years, from Infinite Crisis all the way to Blackest Night. Meltzer built a story that provided a solid foundation for a new DC Universe. It’s a universe that gives us heroes more realistic than before, more human and fallible. While it may not be the kind of story that you like, you cannot deny the impact that it’s had.

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“Think about your own life, Wally – everything you’ve done to keep your secrets safe. You don’t just wear the mask for yourself. It’s for your wife, your parents, even for – one day – your children. There are animals out there, Wally. And when it comes to family, we can’t always be there to defend them. But the mask will.”
– Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) to Wally West (Flash), Identity Crisis
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Identity Crisis on Wikipedia
Brad Meltzer on Wikipedia
Rags Morales on Wikipedia
Brad Meltzer’s homepage
Rags Morales’ blog (last entry2006)
Identity Crisis at Amazon.com

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May 26, 2010 · 11:00 pm

Review 72: Turn Coat


Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count: 25

One of the problems involved in writing an ongoing series (or so I imagine) is the problem of escalation. The new stories have to be better than the old ones, or your readers will get bored and wander off to see what else is going on. Even with the hard core fans, the writer has to consistently challenge the character in order to make each story more interesting than the last. So if your hero is fighting some fairly minor-league bad guys in one book, his foes in the next book have to be greater than or equal to the previous ones.

Harry Dresden’s story started off with a pretty heavy-hitting minor leaguer: a black magician who was using thunderstorms to power magical murders. From there, we saw Harry go up against werewolves, necromancers, the Faerie, and fallen angels. He’s come out on top every time, though sometimes just barely, managing to triumph over foes that are very much out of his league. So where to go from here?

In order to avoid – or at least slow down – the escalation problem, Butcher appears to be refocusing the series story arc. Whereas before we had individual catastrophes that threatened people, cities, or worlds, we’re now looking at something more complex. Something that cannot easily be killed by a silver bullet or a well-placed ray of sunshine, or even a zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex. We’re looking at a Conspiracy now, which changes the overall shape of the story dramatically.

Of course, this is a Harry Dresden novel, not the mad ravings of some Moon Landing deniers or 9/11 Truthers or those guys who believe that the leaders of the world are actually alien reptiles. As intellectually challenging as a good conspiracy can be, it just wouldn’t be right if there wasn’t blood and fear and terror – it wouldn’t really be a Dresden Files book if the very first page didn’t make you say, “Woah!”

Which this one does, when Morgan – a Warden of the White Council and the man who probably hates Harry Dresden more than anyone else in the world – shows up on Harry’s doorstep, wounded and hounded and asking for sanctuary. From the other Wardens, no less.

A murder has been committed, deep in the heart of the White Council’s sanctum in Edinburgh, Scotland, and one of the most powerful members of the Senior Council is now dead. To all appearances, Morgan was the murderer, and the evidence is damning – bank records, for one, connecting him to the Red Court of the Vampires. What really made him look bad, though, was being found standing over the still-warm body, sword in hand. That’ll usually set off the Guilty alarm every time.

So, pursued by the entire White Council, Morgan turns to the one man he knows would be willing to help him. The fact that it’s the man he’s dedicated his life to destroying must have made it that much more of a bitter pill to swallow. All he can do is hope that Harry will be able to protect him not only from the Wardens, but from the bounty hunters and reward-seekers who are looking to profit off his return to the magical authorities – alive or dead, of course.

There’s a secondary plot as well, and as with Blood Rites, it’s one that will no doubt pay off heavily in future books. Part of what has made Harry become more connected to the world over the last eleven books was the discovery that he had a half-brother – Thomas, of the White Court of Vampires. They share a late mother, the ever-enigmatic Margaret LeFay. Having never met his mother, and having lost his father at a young age, Harry has latched onto this one family member he has. Indeed, he and Thomas get closer in every book. They look after each other and keep each other honest, as brothers are supposed to do. Thomas is one of the things that keeps Harry grounded.

When Thomas gets caught up in the hunt for Morgan and abducted by a creature of horrifying power – the Naagloshii – as a bargaining chip, Harry stands to lose the only family he has. The terms are simple: give Morgan to the Monster, or see Thomas destroyed. Harry Dresden being who he is, refuses to accept either one of these outcomes, and does his best to keep both men safe. But even this may just be a holding action, a delay against the inevitable, and what ultimately becomes of Thomas will no doubt fuel a great number of storylines to come.

Of course, the Conspiracy is at the heart of this, run by a shadowy organization that Harry has dubbed The Black Council. It is they who have been sowing discord over the last few years – giving powerful magical items to mortals, aiding minor-league sorcerers to become heavy-hitting murderers. They have infiltrated the White Council completely, and the extent of their influence is unknown. It’s up to Harry and his allies to not only prove Morgan’s innocence but to prove the existence of this dark cabal.

The principles of escalation are still in play here, but Butcher has chosen to go with an increase in scale, rather than power. Sure, the naagloshii is pretty damn powerful, a creature that Harry would have no chance of defeating on his own, but it is simply a pawn of the Black Council’s machinations. From here on out, Harry won’t just be fighting monsters – he’ll be fighting institutions. He’ll be battling secrecy, tradition, prejudice and denial, simple human traits that can be more destructive than any disgusting shape-shifting abomination.

I don’t think I really have to say, “Read this book” anymore. If you’ve gotten this far in the series, you’re going to read it whether I tell you to or not. If you haven’t been convinced to read the series by now, I don’t think I am able to convince you. All I can say is that a lot happens in this book, even aside from the action and interesting plot twists. There’s a mystery that pays homage to both the American tradition of hard-boiled realism and English intellectual investigation. There’s loss, both great and small, and a fundamental re-alignment of an entire magical community. The more I think about it, the denser the book becomes, which is a fantastic thing.

If Butcher can keep this up, I’ll gladly follow where he leads.

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“Sometimes irony is a lot like a big old kick in the balls.”
– Harry Dresden, Turn Coat
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The Dresden Files on Wikipedia
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Turn Coat on Amazon.com
Jim Butcher on Wikipedia
Harry Dresden on Wikipedia
Jim Butcher’s homepage

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April 29, 2010 · 12:00 am

Review 68: Small Favor


Small Favor by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count: 21

This is the tenth book in the series, and if Butcher’s own plan can be trusted, it marks about the halfway point for the series as a whole. Having made it this far with the series is a remarkable achievement, and if he can keep it up all the way to its projected end, I will be a very happy and impressed reader. So, a few words about the book itself, and then some thoughts on the series.

Honestly, if you’ve been following my reviews of this series, you can be pretty sure what I’m going to say about it – I devoured the book and enjoyed every minute of it. In this edition, Our Hero Harry is faced with death and danger on all sides, as usual. The everlasting Queen of the Winter Sidhe, Mab, wants Harry to rescue John Marcone, the boss of the biggest organized crime racket in the city, from the clutches of fallen angels who have immeasurable power and millennia of experience. What they want with Marcone – and other, more innocent and tragic characters – isn’t clear, but what we can be sure of is that the full extent of their plans will far exceed simple kidnapping.

Meanwhile, he’s being attacked by agents of Queen Titania, the queen of the Summer Sidhe, for reasons that are not all that clear to anyone, especially Harry. His attackers are beasts of legend – the Gruffs. You may have heard of them when you were a child – goatlike creatures with a talent for eliminating trolls. They are brothers, and if you manage to defeat one of them, you can be sure that his big brother will be along soon to take care of you. And you most certainly don’t want to get on the bad side of the eldest of the Gruffs, let me tell you that. Nice guy, but he’s clean your clock no matter who you are.

So, things aren’t so good for Harry Dresden. But, then, when are they ever? Going up against forces way over his head is pretty much a theme for Harry’s life, and while we can be reasonably certain that he will prevail (after all, there are about ten more books to go, and they’d be hard to write without him), we don’t know how much damage he will take in the doing so. Although if you guessed “a lot,” you’d be pretty well on the mark.

That goes for pretty much every book in the series. Harry is an underdog, or at least he starts out as one. By the time you get to this book, he has some measure of authority, responsibility and respect, as well as a serious reputation amongst people in this world and others. So, this makes it rather harder for him to be an underdog. Instead of simple vampires, werewolves and the occasional necromancer, we now have to deal with the Big Guns like Mab, Titania and The Fallen. Which brings me to my first prediction for the rest of the series.

Harry Laid Low. At some point, I figure all that he’s built up will have to come crashing down. Gross physical harm aside, he’s put himself in a much better position than the one he was in way back in Storm Front, and if he continues the way he has, he will cease to be the underdog and become the overdog, if there is such a thing. While it’ll be interesting to see how he handles being higher up on the food chain, I don’t think it’ll sit well with his character.

That would be unfortunate, because it’s Harry’s character that really make this book. I’ve talked to those who aren’t too keen on investing in this series because it’s not quite different enough from the other modern, urban fantasy out there. And in a way, they’re right. A lone wolf investigator with a mysterious past and unknowable potential who has a talent for making big enemies? That could either be this series or the Nightside books by Simon Green, and I’m sure there’s a few more that follow a similar pattern. Butcher isn’t breaking open new ground with this series, at least not as far as I can tell. And a main character who is a wizard named Harry with a mysterious destiny and a tragic past? Yeah, like I’m sure you haven’t thought of it already. I don’t think that’s Butcher’s fault, though. Harry seems to be the kind of character who shows up in a writer’s head long before the book gets published, and Gary Dresden or Fred Dresden doesn’t sound as good.

Though Christopher Dresden has a nice ring to it, I must say. Why aren’t there more fictional heroes named Chris, anyway? Weird.

Back on topic – what Butcher has done, and what makes me enjoy this series so much, is take the genre and populate it with really interesting people. One of the things I enjoy so much about Harry is that he seems to be someone I’d like to hang out with – he has a sense of humor that I enjoy, and seeing how many of my friends tend towards wise-assery, I think we’d get along well. Other characters, like Murphy, Michael, Molly (lots of M names), Thomas, Bob, Mouse…. They’re complex, they’re interesting and occasionally surprising. You really come to care about them, because Harry cares about them and you care about Harry.

Which reminds me: Predictions 2 and 3 – The Death of Karrin Murphy and The Corruption of Molly Carpenter. These are two people who are extremely close to Harry, and invoke his much-debated sense of male chauvinism. A few people seem to take issue with Harry’s desire to protect women, which appears hopelessly old-fashioned. Maybe it is, but Harry (and by extension Butcher) seems to be okay with that. Murphy is Harry’s best friend, the one character who’s stood by him since the first book, and has grown to be his closest ally. She has gained his trust and his faith through fire and trial, and in this book is actually able to assert her authority (in a wonderful, wonderful scene) to save Harry’s skin.

So, she has to die. It’s one of those Hero’s Journey things – the hero has to lose those things closest to him in order to come out the other side as a True Hero. He needs Murphy, he really does, and he needs to be able to stand without her. If that means that she’s taken out, well…. I don’t know if or when it’ll happen – I’d bet somewhere in the climactic final books.

As for Molly, she’s an interesting person. A young person who, after a very rocky start to her life as a magic-user, has been given a second chance by Harry. For his part, Harry’s job is to make sure she turns out right, to make sure she learns how to use her powers responsibly and wisely, for the betterment of others. As of this book, she’s doing very well – her powers are becoming more refined, and she’s got a good handle on what it means to be a responsible wizard.

But first, she has to see her dark side, look it in the eye, and face it down. So, at some point, Molly is going to slip. Whether through impatience, arrogance or circumstance, she’s going to risk both her and Harry’s lives by using her powers for Evil.

There you go, then. It’s a great series, very enjoyable, and I’ll be following it to the end. I highly recommend you do the same.

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“Let’s sum up: an unknown number of enemies with unknown capabilities, supported by a gang of madmen, packs of attack animals, and superhumanly intelligent pocket change.”
– Murphy, Small Favor
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March 24, 2010 · 8:00 pm

Review 63: White Night


White Night by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count: 12

We’re coming up to the theoretical midpoint of the series, since Butcher has suggested that he might take it to twenty books or so. Given that number, I’d say it’s time to look at the series-level story as well as the particular adventure for this book. It’s pretty clear that Butcher has a much larger story arc that he’s working on, moving us slowly away from the one-shot mysteries of the early volumes and into a larger world.

If we want, we could divide this series into thirds, and right now, I’d say we’re well into the second third. I would put the first from Storm Front to Blood Rites, with the scarring of Harry Dresden, the discoveries he makes about his mother, and the damage done to his relationship with his mentor. It’s Harry losing his lone wolf status and beginning to become a part of a larger community. He has friends now, something that was missing at the beginning, and people he truly cares about. In other words, he has much more to lose.

The second third began with Dead Beat and continues through this book. Harry becomes part of The Establishment, has something living in his head that could probably get him killed, and takes on a young apprentice, giving the former lone wolf a lot more responsibility. His decisions now have greater impact on both the mortal world and the world of the magic-users. He’s going up against far more powerful foes, and encountering moral dilemmas that prevent him from knowing when he’s actually doing the right thing.

This book is, in my opinion, a weaker sample than the ones that have come before it. Probably because it’s the one with the most convoluted and difficult to explain back-story, one that the reader has to piece together along with Harry and friends.

In simple terms: the White Court vampires – who feed on emotional energy rather than blood – are in the middle of a power struggle. Their King, of the Raith family (who feed on lust) is about to be toppled by the Malvora (who feed on fear) and Skavis (who feed on despair). The White Court despises open confrontation, and traditionally do their dirty deeds through proxies and cats-paws. This makes it nigh impossible to see any kind of action by the White Court in a straightforward and clearly understandable manner. It’s certainly more interesting than the standard vampire direct approach, but it creates additional challenges for the author and reader.

In the middle of this power struggle, someone is killing women of magical talent – not strong enough to be members of the White Council of Wizardry, but women with talent nonetheless. And there’s a guy who looks an awful lot like Harry Dresden who’s been seen sneaking about with these women. Given the rumors flying about, rumors that Harry has become darker, angrier, and considerably more powerful, well… people think the worst, as people often do.

It’s once again up to Harry to not only clear his own name, but to also clear his brother, Thomas of the White Court, who’s been very obviously keeping secrets. All the while, he has to keep from being seduced by the shadow of a Fallen angel in his head, make sure his young apprentice doesn’t stray from the straight and narrow, try to help his first love protect the women she’s sworn to help, and generally try not to get killed by any of the horrible things that want to kill him.

It’s a fun read, as they all are, with some great character moments in it – one of the true strengths of the series. Butcher’s characters behave, by and large, like real people, saying things that we could imagine saying to our real-people friends. His writing is, as usual, compelling and engaging (with the exception of some incredibly purple writing over on page 235 – “We’re all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain” – that stood out like a drag queen at a bake sale). The books are all very quick reads, but it isn’t because they’re simple – this book defies simplicity – but because they’re interesting to read, with very few wasted words and a good sense of what the reader needs to know.

As soon as it got to the White Court civil war, however, Butcher began front-loading a lot of information that probably should have been more liberally sprinkled throughout the previous books. I knew about the Raith family, and their penchant for Lust, and I knew that the White King wasn’t exactly the power on the throne. But I wasn’t prepared for the Byzantine levels of power-plays that go with White Court politics, and found it kind of rushed. It is possible that I was being a Lazy Reader, and indeed on the second read I found it easier to follow, but still – when you’re dealing with villains who disdain clear and obvious action, you need to make sure the readers can keep up with the story. It’s a fine line to walk, especially in a first-person narrative – the reader can’t know more than the protagonist does, so feeding those hints to the reader is difficult work. Putting another White Court storyline into the series before this one might have helped, but if we look at the series story arc, there may have been no good way to shoehorn that in.

There were far more interesting story points in there that I would like to have seen expanded upon: Molly Carpenter’s training, the evolution of Lash, the darkening of Harry’s reputation within the magical community…. They’re all interesting, and no doubt essential to the goings-on of the later books. And I’m pretty sure that what happened to the White Court will also be really, really important as well – I just hope Butcher remembers to make sure we have it all clear in our heads.

This is all just nitpicking, as the intrigues of the Vampires aren’t my favorite part of the series. I’m sure there are plenty of readers out there who would be perfectly happy if the rest of the series was just Harry the Vampire Slayer, and I can’t say I blame them. To each their own, right? Regardless of my preferences, I can say that the world of the Dresden Files is complex and ever-shifting, which is worth making time to read it.

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“Life’s easier when you can write off others as monsters, as demons, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared. The thing is, you can’t do that without becoming them, just a little.”
– Harry Dresden, White Night
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February 25, 2010 · 12:00 am

Review 59: Proven Guilty


Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count – 14

It’s one year later….

Many things have changed for Harry Dresden, some of it good and much of it not so much. He has family now, in the form of his half-brother Thomas (who happens to be a vampire of the White Court) and a giant dog named Mouse. His relationship with Karrin Murphy of the Chicago Police Department is as solid as it’s ever been, and making very tentative exploratory steps into becoming a different type of relationship altogether.

He has a job – a real one, as a Warden – and all the responsibility that goes with it. The job of Wardens is to be the police and foot soldiers of the White Council of Wizards. When a Wizard breaks one of the seven Laws of Magic, the Wardens can act as investigators, judges and, all too often, executioners. The irony, of course, is that the same Wardens used to watch Harry like a hawk, as he had been accused of using magic to kill, thus breaking the first law. He got off light, under a “One strike and you’re out” form of probation with the melodramatic name of The Doom of Damocles. The Council needs Wardens, though, and Harry got tapped. Like it or not, he’s part of the Establishment now.

As if all that weren’t enough, he also has the shadow of a fallen angel in his head and an ongoing war with the vampiric Red Court to contend with. And in the midst of all this, he’s given two small, seemingly unconnected jobs to do: find who’s been dabbling in black magic in Chicago and find out why the Red Court vampires have been allowed to use the lands of the Faerie to attack the White Council of Wizardry.

They should be simple, or reasonably so. But they’re not. They never are.

Someone is using black magic to create fear. That fear is allowing terrible, terrible Things into the world, creatures that feed on fear and take the forms of some of the most terrible movie monsters we know (all of whom are, of course, based upon real characters, with only the names changed to protect Butcher from Lawyers). These creatures have already killed, attacking at a crowded horror movie convention, and Harry is determined to see that the person who called them forth pays for doing so. With blood and pain, if possible.

The discovery of the Black Magician, however, puts Harry in an impossible situation where he has to test his loyalties to both his friends and the Council. Fortunately, Harry being Harry, he puts his friends first and is determined to do the right thing, whatever it takes.

Oddly enough, “whatever it takes” happens to involve storming Arctis Tor, the stronghold of the Winter Faerie Queen, to chase down the creatures that stole off Molly Carpenter – the daughter of Michael, the Knight of the Cross. With his friends by his side, Harry goes off into what is almost certainly Certain Death, knowing that even if he saves Molly, she may ultimately be doomed.

When all is said and done, we get another glimmer of insight into how Dresden’s world works. It’s not a very nice place, and although the history of Wizarding is something that Butcher has avoided thus far, we get the impression that it was, until recently, a tumultuous profession. Easy to understand, really – you get someone with Phenomenal Cosmic Power, and odds are that he’s going to abuse it. Perhaps bend someone to his will, or try to turn some hapless victim into a frog. Even such things as time travel and contacting the Things that live beyond the Outer Gates would be possible, were it not for the swift and draconian execution of the Laws of Magic.

Harry represents an institutional change here – he’s someone who’s suffered under the Laws, who has seen how the merciless application of a rigid law can do more harm than good. Now, as a Warden, an authority figure, he has a chance to change all that. But it won’t be easy for him – wizards are a conservative bunch, by and large, and many of the more powerful ones are not well inclined to the idea of changing with the times. But they will have to change – their numbers are depleted, the war is going badly, and it seems that there is a Black Council out there, well-equipped to fight and destroy their White counterpart.

And of course there’s his relationship to the world beyond the Council. As was noted in the last book, Harry has changed. He’s become famous, not so much for saving the day and foiling the plots of evil masterminds, but for bringing death and destruction wherever he goes. As much fun as that sounds, it seems that watching people flinch when you raise your voice is not something that stays fun for very long.

And still in his mind is the shadow of Lasciel, a Fallen Angel, the merest fraction of whose consciousness is enough to tempt Harry into greater and greater levels of power – for a price.

It is, as with the rest of the books, a very good read. The tone has changed somewhat – it’s more tired, more cynical than the early books, which reflects the internal struggles that Harry is going through. But it’s fast-paced and exciting, with more than a few very interesting surprises along the way.

Also, because of the movie convention setting, there are plenty of good movie references peppered throughout the book. It makes me feel closer to Harry, since quoting movies was a major form of communication with my friends and me back in college. People here in Japan just don’t do it, and I feel the loss.

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“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family.”
– Harry Dresden, Proven Guilty
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January 28, 2010 · 12:00 am

Review 55: Dead Beat


Dead Beat by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count – 13

While I was on my long commute to work (not so bad, as it affords me more reading time), I wondered what the Harry Dresden from Storm Front would have made of the Harry Dresden from this book. I imagine he probably would have been scared. And to be honest, I don’t think I would be able to blame him.

There’s necromancy afoot in Chicago, and as much as he doesn’t want to be, Harry is in the middle of all of it. He’s been charged by one of the most dangerous vampires in the world, Mavra of the Black Court, to find the missing volume of a series written by one of the most notorious necromancers in human history. When the necromancer Kemmler was alive, it took nearly the entire fighting force of the White Council of Wizards to stop him. Now his disciples are all hunting for the book, trying to be the first one to kill everyone in Chicago and become a god.

It’s a mission he can’t refuse. If he should do so, Mavra has evidence in her possession that would destroy the career of one of the people closest to Harry – Lt. Karrin Murphy of the Chicago Police Department. In the previous book, Murphy helped Harry take out a nest of Black Court vampires, killing several humans who had been enthralled to the vamps. These Renfields were human only by technicality, but a photograph of Murphy blowing one’s head off would still be damning evidence. Should Harry not do what Mavra wants, the pictures would be released, and the one thing that Murphy truly loves would be gone.

The point of this book, broadly, is Harry discovering that past actions still have present consequences, and that the choices he has to make are not always good ones. While Harry does save the day, he does so at a cost.

Harry has become legitimately scary by this book. His friends and his allies aren’t sure about him anymore, either his motives or his sanity. The people who have stood steadfastly by him now find themselves afraid of him, and what he might do. And for good reason, really. Harry’s been through a lot in the last few books. He’s lost the woman he loves to the Red Court vampires, he very nearly lost his hand fighting Mavra and he’s now absolutely terrified of using fire magic as a result. On top of all that, he’s discovered that being someone’s brother doesn’t automatically mean you get to understand them. Or like them. Or be able to live with them.

So yeah, Harry’s had it rough. With most humans, it’s hard to see change from the inside, and I’m sure Harry doesn’t think he’s changed all that much. He knows he’s gotten a little angrier, maybe a little more solitary, but from his point of view it’s a logical progression. For people who aren’t with him all the time – Billy the Werewolf, Mac the World’s Best Tavern Owner, for example, the changes are drastic. And truly frightening. Harry’s still a good guy, don’t worry about that.

He’s just not a nice guy.

This book is awash in general awesomeness, and introduces a lot of good new characters, both on the good and bad sides. My favorite is Waldo Butters, the Medical Examiner for the Chicago PD. He goes from being a slightly quirky ME who kind of believes in the weird and unusual (he spent 90 days under psychiatric evaluation when he refused to classify vampire remains as human). By the end of the book, he becomes positively heroic, and is a very good avatar for The Reader. We all like to believe that we would take the world of the supernatural, if it existed, in stride, but we probably would have reacted just like Butters did when he first saw things he was not prepared for – denial, disbelief and then abject terror. He comes around, though, as I’m sure all of us would.

We also get to meet a few of the remaining Wardens of the White Council. The war has gone very hard on their numbers, and there are very, very few available to fight a group of mad necromancers in Chicago. The Red Court has dealt them such heavy blows that it’s not unreasonable to think that there’s a mole in the White Council somewhere. Who it is, though, will have to wait for another book. Their numbers have been slashed, and they need every able-bodied magic user they can get. The deal they offer Harry for their assistance is a surprising one, but makes perfect sense. And it will play heavily into the books that follow.

There’s also one genuine “Holy Shit” moment in this book. I won’t tell you what it is, because that would just spoil the whole thing. All I can say is that it’s at the end of chapter 38. You can’t miss it.

From here on out, this is going to be a very different series. Bigger, darker, as if that were possible, building on the foundation of the previous books to make something far more elaborate and interesting. I can’t wait to see what it ends up being.

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“Polka will never die!”
– Waldo Butters, Dead Beat
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December 31, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 51: Blood Rites


Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

“Hell’s Bells” count: 19 [1]

As far as I know, The Dresden Files is an open-ended series that Butcher will continue to write until he decides to end it, which is fine with me. He’s set up a universe that has endless possibilities to it, from simple mysteries to humorous romps to soul-searing betrayal and heartache. Can’t go wrong with all that, and if Butcher wants to just keep putting out Dresden books every eighteen months or so, I’ll happily keep buying them.

One of the dangers of such a plan, however, is stagnation – you end up rehashing similar plot points, perhaps throwing in a few twists and turns, but never really advancing the plot because, well, you don’t know where the plot is going. I can imagine Butcher would get to a point where he thinks, “Ummm… Okay, Harry Dresden fights vampire werewolves…. from the future!” At which point, the shark has been well and truly jumped. As I’ve said before, I would much rather see a series end well than see it go on beyond its useful life and leave me with sad, sad memories. I’m looking at you, X-Files.

While I don’t know if Butcher knows exactly where the series will finally end (though he probably does), he does manage to avoid stagnation very nicely, mainly by putting Harry in mortal danger. Okay, that’s nothing new, but this time it’s Mortal Danger with bonus Crippling Injury! And a side order of Serious Disillusion to boot. This book really stirs things up for the world of Harry Dresden and lets the readers know that there is far, far more in store for us than we knew. So bravo to you, Jim.

In this volume, Dresden is asked by his kind-of-sort-of friend Thomas to do a favor for him. Despite being a vampire of the White Court and a soul-sucking incubus, Thomas is an okay kind of guy and has helped Harry out of a few tight spots in their time. He can’t say he trusts Thomas, but he likes him. And therefore we like him as well. The job sounds simple: a movie producer has been having weird accidents happen to people linked with his movie, and two women have already died mysterious deaths. Harry’s job would be to figure out who’s putting the bad mojo on the movie studio and stop it.

The fact that it’s an adult movie studio is not brought up until later.

In the process of trying to help out with an astoundingly powerful (and regular) Evil Eye curse, Harry runs afoul of the Black Court vampires in a side plot that really has nothing to do with the main one. This seems unusual, since most of the Dresden books that have featured multiple cases do so in the spirit of Raymond Chandler, where we find out that they were all part of the same case after all.

The B plot in this book is an attempt to put down Mavra, a truly terrifying member of the Black Court of vampires. The Black Court is the type of vampire we all think of when the word comes up – the Nosferatu, the Dracula, all black and dry and horrible. They’re also the toughest, most resilient and most vicious of the vampire clans. What’s more, Mavra is an accomplished sorceress, whose power makes even Harry Dresden think twice about crossing her. Which is why he has a Plan this time. And we all know about Harry and his Plans….

All of this, though is incidental to the things he learns in this book, both about himself and the people he trusts. Those are the things that truly shake up his world and which will shape the books that are to follow. This book is a turning point for Dresden, and not a good one. While the Black Court plot, for example, didn’t have much to do with the main plot, it sets up very important elements and concepts that are deftly exploited in later books. And Harry’s always-fragile relationship with the White Council endures what could be a crippling blow.

All this is setting up the next few books and laying the groundwork for the rest of the series. One of the things I’ve come to admire about Butcher’s writing is that nothing is wasted. I once heard that the process of writing a story is like packing for someone else’s hiking trip – you only want to put into the bag what you think that person will absolutely need. After all, if they get to the end of their hiking trip and they haven’t used that ten-pound bag of rice you thought might come in handy, they’re going to be very pissed off at you.

Butcher doesn’t do that. You can be sure that the elements he lays out in his stories will be used, sooner or later., and you’ll never be left wondering, “But what was that scene with the baseball player and the chicken farm about?” If Butcher puts a baseball player and a chicken farm into his book, there’s a very good reason for it, and you’ll find out eventually.

As with the other books in The Dresden Files series, this is great fun to read. Which makes it no surprise that the series had some measure of success outside its original format – a TV series and a comic, at last count. I look forward to following it as it goes on.

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“No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse.”
– Harry Dresden, Blood Rites
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[1] One of these was the maxi-expletive “Hell’s holy stars and freaking stones shit bells,” which I must commit to memory

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December 3, 2009 · 12:00 am

Review 47: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency


Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

I want an electric monk.

As Douglas Adams tells us in this book, every civilization creates mechanical devices designed to save us from our labor. We have dishwashers to wash our tedious dishes for us, VCRs to watch those tedious television programs so we don’t have to, and finally the Electric Monk to believe in those things we can’t be bothered to believe in.

Is that cool, or what?

As strange as it sounds, the Electric Monk is actually integral to the plot. But this plot is complex enough to deserve it. The main character, more or less, is Richard MacDuff, an up-and-coming young computer programmer who has several unique problems. The first problem is that of his couch – it’s stuck in the stairwell and, by all logic as affirmed by the best computer modeling systems, should never have gotten where it was in the first place.

The second problem is that he’s wanted for the murder of his boss. He didn’t do it, of course, but that kind of thing doesn’t really impress the police. And, of course, there’s the problem with the woman he loves, Susan, who just so happens to be the sister of the boss whom Richard is accused of murdering.

Add into all that the titular Dirk Gently, if that is his real name. Dirk is a man who, since college, has unswayingly, constantly denied having any kind of psychic powers whatsoever – which caused him some problems during his university days when he managed to correctly predict, down the the comma, the contents of a major exam.

Now older and weirder, Dirk runs his Holistic Detective Agency. His work rests on one simple principle: the Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things. Based on a common misunderstanding of quantum theory, Dirk believes that all things are fundamentally connected to all other things, no matter how tenuous those connections might appear to the unaided eye. So during the course of, say, looking for a lost cat, it is entirely possible that he may have to go down to the beach in Bermuda. Because, fundamentally, all things are connected. And billable.

Then there’s the matter of a time machine hidden in Cambridge and the temptation that can arise from having one. With what amounts to a TARDIS, one could go to any point in time and space. You could visit ancient lands, pet extinct animals or, if necessary, fix something that had gone terribly, terribly wrong. It’s tricky, but it can be done. And if you’re the ghost of an alien whose simple mistake – putting his trust in an Electric Monk, for example – consigned it to billions of years of insubstantial solitude, a time machine might be very tempting indeed.

There’s really no good way to summarize this book. As Douglas Adams is fond of doing, there seem to be several plotlines and events which, at first, seem to have no relation to each other. But as you read, you find out that the Electric Monk isn’t as funny as we thought he was, that putting a salt shaker into a piece of pottery can cause more problems than you think, and that you should always be afraid of people with nothing to lose.

As Dirk claims, all things in this book are fundamentally interconnected, even if it’s not obvious at the moment.

Yes, even the couch.

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“My mind is my center and everything that happens there is my responsibility. Other people may believe what it pleases them to believe, but I will do nothing without I know the reason why and know it clearly.”
– Dirk Gently, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
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