Book List 2010
Jan. 27th, 2010 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebony14#2.Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
Book Six of the Dresden Files, Dead Beat is another adventure for the only wizard listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages, Harry Dresden. This book continues the events of the past two books, the war between the White Council of Wizards and the three Vampire Courts. Harry, as befitting a private investigator, is right in the middle of the shit, and he finds himself coerced into protecting a film director from an entropy curse (i.e., fatally bad luck) by Thomas Raith, a son of the White Court's King.
The "case" in this mystery novel seems to be primarily a vessel by which Butcher furthers his overarcing plot of the war and Harry's background. There's some token portrayal of the events of the entropy curse, but for the most part the story pulls Harry into some vampire intrigue and spends a lot of time dealing with his ties to the White Court and Thomas. I found the plot hook of the film director and the curse to be treated a bit poorly; Butcher could have spent more time on it if he wanted to, I think, but he wanted to add other information, and probably ran out of room. His development of the White Court intrigues was good, but if he wanted to go that direction, the whole thing with the film director seemed to be getting in the way. I suppose it would have been better to make this a longer story, giving both sections an equal amount of time, but the Dresden books are supposed to be fast reads, and to split it into two books probably would've drawn it too far out. On the whole, this felt like a filler novel, bridging the events of the past novels with the one that will come afterwards, with a few bits of drama and backstory to make things interesting. Not a bad read - Butcher has a good voice and style for Harry - but definitely not my favorite so far.
Book Six of the Dresden Files, Dead Beat is another adventure for the only wizard listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages, Harry Dresden. This book continues the events of the past two books, the war between the White Council of Wizards and the three Vampire Courts. Harry, as befitting a private investigator, is right in the middle of the shit, and he finds himself coerced into protecting a film director from an entropy curse (i.e., fatally bad luck) by Thomas Raith, a son of the White Court's King.
The "case" in this mystery novel seems to be primarily a vessel by which Butcher furthers his overarcing plot of the war and Harry's background. There's some token portrayal of the events of the entropy curse, but for the most part the story pulls Harry into some vampire intrigue and spends a lot of time dealing with his ties to the White Court and Thomas. I found the plot hook of the film director and the curse to be treated a bit poorly; Butcher could have spent more time on it if he wanted to, I think, but he wanted to add other information, and probably ran out of room. His development of the White Court intrigues was good, but if he wanted to go that direction, the whole thing with the film director seemed to be getting in the way. I suppose it would have been better to make this a longer story, giving both sections an equal amount of time, but the Dresden books are supposed to be fast reads, and to split it into two books probably would've drawn it too far out. On the whole, this felt like a filler novel, bridging the events of the past novels with the one that will come afterwards, with a few bits of drama and backstory to make things interesting. Not a bad read - Butcher has a good voice and style for Harry - but definitely not my favorite so far.
