Dresden Files?

Because you know, I love them. They are my favourite books, and Jim Butcher is god in my eyes. Okay not really, but they're brilliant. Y/Y?

Yes! I was actually just about to start this thread...

The best bit's gotta be with the gruffs and the doughnut. Or the bit in Fool Moon where he jumps out of a car.

These are good, then? I've heard a lot about them, and I was thinking of seeking them out...

I LOVE this series! The humor is great and I always end up feeling so badly for Harry.

Has anyone finished the most recent book?

I'm trying to. I'm really not in a reading mood at the moment but I'm working my way through it -- I am enjoying it a lot (and I kind of peeked at the ending. HA! I WAS RIGHT!!! That's exactly what I thought would happen)

Does anyone follow the (apparently already infamous) Tumblr Dresden Files ask group?

I'm actually in the middle of plowing my way through the series-- just finished Proven Guilty. Really, really good books.

But as much as I like the Dresden Files, I think Butcher's Codex Alera is even better. That series gave him more of a chance to stretch his characterization and worldbuilding muscles, I think.

I have yet to read Codex Alera. It's on my (very long) list of stuff-to-be-read, though. :-)

As for the most recent Dresden Files book (no spoilers here)... I think it was the weakest in the series. The plot felt forced to me, and it took me much longer to finish than the others did. I'm still definitely a fan, though, and I hope I like the next one better.

Yeah, the latest one isn't my favourite but it still has its moments. Codex Alera is fantastic as well. Has anyone else here got into the large argument with other people you know who've read it, because you all pronounce 'Tavi' differently?

More Dresden Files, all the time!

I know the latest one wasn't as intense as the others but... if it followed the pattern and topped Changes, I don't think I would have been able to keep breathing. xD I needed the breather 'episode.' It still had me laughing and sobbing. Basically, Jim Butcher Is My Master Now.

Just read Codex Alera a few weeks back and loved it to little bits :) None of my real-life friends have read those, so I haven't had anyone to argue over Tavi's name with. >.>

I got to the ninth book, I think, before I just couldn't read any more. I don't know. I liked the early books when it was very much film-noir detective stuff with bonus supernatural shenanigans, although I never really liked Harry as a character. Mostly because he is just. so. dumb. I don't like dumb characters, and his continuous "I will be chivalrous even if it gets me killed" schtick was really annoying. :/ When Harry was down on his luck and dealing with small-scale things, though, that was cool. Once it spread out into this massive world-wide vampires vs. wizards war I just... didn't really care anymore. I don't like the wizard's council, and I really really don't care about vampires. In fact I skipped an entire book (the one with the necromancer?) because I read the back and was like "what? more vampires? screw this."

I've been spoiled via TVTropes for most of the stuff that goes down in the last couple books, especially Changes, and.... yeah, I don't think I can bring myself to continue. There's torturing a character for plot, and then there's going too far. Changes seems to me like it goes too far.

I'm not really confident in Butcher's ability to write women, or I would wish for a series of books told from Murphy's perspective, because she's awesome. The world needs more badass lady cops solving crime.

I actually think that Harry is a very well developed character. He has flaws and things that are good about him and killer one liners.

Plus, I read aftermath, which is from Murphy's POV and the Codex Alera, which has several female POV characters. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way that Butcher writes females.

And I just watched an episode of the television series. I think the reason it was a flop is because they cast Murphy and Bob all wrong. Why is Murphy a stern looking brunette and why is Bob a butler-ish old man? And where is the Beetle? :O

i love, love, love the dresden files! i started w the series & it broke my heart it was cancelled:( i didn't even know they were books till after that. now i love the books too:)

& i think the tv murphy was perfectly cast:~P & bob, but he is totally diff than the book bob, & if i had read the books first i might think differently.

Love, love, love them. Some more than others, true, but overall a great series. I want a Mouse... and maybe a Bob.

The Codex Alera was fantastic, too.

I got through about the first... six? before I just couldn't read them anymore. The mysteries were fantastic, the magic is awesome--but I hate Harry Dresden. He's not chivalrous. He's a chauvinist. And the series encourages his chauvinistic views with the responses and actions of every female character. Even Murphy encourages it--I forget what book it was, but he said women only liked motorcycles because they were... am I allowed to say it on this forum? I don't know... because it let them get it on, basically--and by the end of the book, Murphy agreed with him. Juliet, or whatever Thomas's lover's name is (I remember it started with a J) was SO sexualized and helpless it infuriated me, and just about every other female who showed up was in the same boat. Murphy was the only exception. So when she got hit with the White Court's lust-beam and shoved into that mold too, I gave up on the books.

Please, feel free to argue with me. I would love to be able to bring myself to read them again--like I said, they're fantastic mysteries, and I haven't found any paranormal mysteries to replace them. I just hate Harry Dresden.

I had the Dresden Files novels recommended to me by my writing buddy and Brain Sister. They're a phenomenon, and they have some useful stuff in them about craft. I dealt with them by marking the stuff I hated and taking notes on the epic stuff.

But yeah, sexualizing every female who steps onto stage... very problematic. It's one of the things that makes my skin crawl about reading (some) male authors, because I start wondering if every male I encounter is some kind of predator/creep/perv.

As for the alleged "chivalry", I notice that it plays out in the early books with Harry withholding information from women, some of whom end up dead as a result. That's actually quite in line with the way women have been "protected" in past: protected from getting an education, protected from equal pay in the workplace... the list goes on. Chivalry is gracious behavior toward inferiors, and totally optional. Read history to see how real knights (chevaliers) behaved in practice: either "capture of Constantinople" or "siege of Jerusalem" will put you off your feed if you have a lick of imagination. In contemporary terms, if you're a "lady" or a "good girl", you're worthy of protection and respect, but otherwise you're fair game. (See "she was a slut so she deserved to get raped.")

The other thing I find highly problematic is the portrayal of the Catholic Church, again in light of the historical record. As for the Molly Carpenter subplot, I find more than a few things problematic about this, not least the picture of an adult sexualizing the child of a friend (a virtual nephew or niece). What's really insidious about this is the way it's written as "normal male response." If I had to go through and highlight every instance of sloppy biological determinism... I would have defaced my friend's books. :)

Most books are a tangle of things that you like and things that make your skin crawl... I'd say especially if you're reading from any historically underrepresented viewpoint (e.g. female, African-American, GLBT, Native American, etc.) So it's really important to think and criticize, and that means more than the binary of "squee!" and "it sucks."

I love the books and I don't find him chauvinistic. He admits that he knows women can handle themselves fine but he can't help but want to protect them and he does the same with really anyone he cares about and after a few mistakes (yes people died because he withheld information that he thought would protect them from getting hurt). His need to protect women is a gut reaction, and quite common. Also the fact that when he sees a hot woman he immediately goes "DAAAAAAAMN" is a totally normal reaction, I mean I have it when I see a hot man or woman. There is an instant of hello and Molly Carpenter dresses to get that reaction (no I'm not saying she deserves to have violence enacted against her but she dresses in a provacative manner, especially when you first see her all growed up) so you can't get pissed when a guy has that reaction, provided they keep it to themselves and/or respects the rejection.

And Harry changes a lot through the series and I think we are going to see a very different Dresden after Ghost Story and I cannot wait.

Overall I find Butcher's portrayal of a above average intelligent, geeky but fairly typical guy excellent and I relate to most of his female characters and actually find them better balanced and more accurately portrayed than most female authors do.

I really, really like the Dresden Files. I heard of it a couple years ago, but never did any research or anything until recently, when something on the net convinced me that it was something I might be interested in. So I bought a couple of the novels, Grave Peril and Summer Knight, as it was widely recommended to start from book three because books one and two were apparently not as good, and I figured that after two books I would know whether it was any good. I read Grave Peril, and I was reading it like I read most books that don't outright thrill me, just taking in the action and the dialogue and not really paying attention to the writing or really trying to get into the story. I think it was chapter 34 that made me fall in love. I, uh, smoked, and I sat down with the book (on my Kindle, if it matters), and all of a sudden I was totally in the world while Harry was locked in that tiny laundry room with Justine, envisioning everything with crystal clarity, all his torture and fear and guilt and pain, and that was it. I bought the entire series and read it, horribly out of order, in about four or five days.

I quite like Harry, as a character. I mean, sometimes he's an idiot, but if he reacted perfectly and rationally to everything 1) he wouldn't be terribly realistic, and 2) the books would be a lot shorter and not half as interesting. He has a weakness for women, so every time he sees one you have to get a long detailed description of her relative attractiveness, because he's a man and he comes into contact with a lot of ridiculously hot women in his line of work. But at the same time he goes without sex for years, because it has to mean something to him. Occasionally his chivalry gets him into trouble, just like his inability to let someone else handle a problem, or his pathological need to save everyone and everything he possibly can. But those quirks make him more relatable to me, because I know that Harry is not perfect or even particularly well-adjusted, and as a result the stories I read of his life are going to be chaotic and emotional and sad and funny, like he is. It's genuinely good stuff.