![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book List 2010
Mar. 25th, 2010 09:11 pm#8. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
(I'm actually reading these faster than this; I'm just reviewing them slowly.)
A novel of the Dresden Files, Proven Guilty is the first one that I've read out of sequence. I picked it up, thinking it followed Blood Rites, and only found out that it was not the next one after I started reading it. The story follows Harry Dresden on a pretty standard Jim Butcher plot progression, three separate events that roll along with Harry involved in each, and that come together as one single unified plot as the denouement is reached. Harry is charged by the White Council of Wizards to investigate black magic in Chicago, and at the same time he gets called by Lieutenant Murphy to investigate an assault at a horror movie convention. Also at the same time, the eldest daughter of his friend Michael Collins, a modern-day paladin, calls him to get her boyfriend bailed out of jail. The three plots intertwine until it becomes apparent that someone is summoning demons of fear to kill people and using the convention as a focal point.
On one hand, it's a good story. Butcher has Dresden down perfectly now, and knows how his characters think and move and what motivates them. His descriptions are vivid and good fun to read. It's nice to see Michael and his family again; they are some of my favorite characters. The plot revives several hanging hints from earlier books, and it's a fun read.
On the other hand, it suffers from too much. There's too much going on. There are scenes that Butcher could have lingered upon, allowing Harry to do more than skip through, to give true emotional impact, that he glosses over, because he has action that has to happen right away. The story feels overstuffed with plot and it left me with a wish that he could have slowed things down a little. For a detective story, his characters don't do much detecting; it all seems left off screen, until Harry stumbles into the denouement (which, as I may have said before, is French for "Now we beat up the supervillain"). It's an easy read, and an enjoyable one, but not as satisfying as some of the earlier stories. However, I read it out of sequence, so I may have missed something.
(I'm actually reading these faster than this; I'm just reviewing them slowly.)
A novel of the Dresden Files, Proven Guilty is the first one that I've read out of sequence. I picked it up, thinking it followed Blood Rites, and only found out that it was not the next one after I started reading it. The story follows Harry Dresden on a pretty standard Jim Butcher plot progression, three separate events that roll along with Harry involved in each, and that come together as one single unified plot as the denouement is reached. Harry is charged by the White Council of Wizards to investigate black magic in Chicago, and at the same time he gets called by Lieutenant Murphy to investigate an assault at a horror movie convention. Also at the same time, the eldest daughter of his friend Michael Collins, a modern-day paladin, calls him to get her boyfriend bailed out of jail. The three plots intertwine until it becomes apparent that someone is summoning demons of fear to kill people and using the convention as a focal point.
On one hand, it's a good story. Butcher has Dresden down perfectly now, and knows how his characters think and move and what motivates them. His descriptions are vivid and good fun to read. It's nice to see Michael and his family again; they are some of my favorite characters. The plot revives several hanging hints from earlier books, and it's a fun read.
On the other hand, it suffers from too much. There's too much going on. There are scenes that Butcher could have lingered upon, allowing Harry to do more than skip through, to give true emotional impact, that he glosses over, because he has action that has to happen right away. The story feels overstuffed with plot and it left me with a wish that he could have slowed things down a little. For a detective story, his characters don't do much detecting; it all seems left off screen, until Harry stumbles into the denouement (which, as I may have said before, is French for "Now we beat up the supervillain"). It's an easy read, and an enjoyable one, but not as satisfying as some of the earlier stories. However, I read it out of sequence, so I may have missed something.
