Book Series Wednesday: The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

For my first Book Series review I was tempted to go into my preferred fantasy genre of Epic Fantasy, stuff along the lines of Wheel of Time or the Mistborn Trilogy. However I realized that it’s probably pretty daunting to read a book that’s nearly 1,000 pages long. So I went with something that I think just about anyone can get into.

Summary: The Dresden Files are cases of the Wizard Private Investigator Harry Dresden. The story is told in the first person perspective, with Harry being the one who we see the story through.  We get to see a different side of the world, where all the nasty monsters are real; everyone, meaning the general human population, is in denial and refuses to believe in the world of magic. Of course as the only publicly practicing Wizard in the United States, Harry gets a lot of prank calls and isn’t very respectable in the eyes of many of his peers.

Characters: Awesome, You get to meet some of the most varied people and creatures from myths all over the world from The Fae, to svartálfar (Dark Elves from Norse mythology). Without going into too much spoiler territory, if there is a religion or myth out there, you are most likely going to see Harry have an encounter with it.

Plot: For the first two books it isn’t that great, but with the beginning of the third book it really picks up. There is a reason for this however, and it is because Jim Butcher the author hadn’t gotten a publisher yet and the third Dresden book was what got him one. That said after the first three books you are at a serious detriment of not being able to pick up the storyline if you haven’t read the previous books. If you must choose to skip some books do so only for the first two books. That isn’t to say they aren’t good, Book one is amazing in my opinion, with Book two being the lackluster one.

In terms of must reads before you die: I rate this highly on a book series that should be read before dying, its a good way to get into fantasy.

For those who like: Snark, Harry is very snarky. Deep plot, and an Author who forgets nothing. Pop Culture references abound in this series, it even references the Evil Overlord List in one book.

Not for those who don’t like: Sex scenes, it has a few, but this isn’t erotica. Snarky characters, like I said Harry is pretty snarky. Fantasy of any kind.