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I'd made the
vampire cry. Great. |
I’ve lost track
of where I should be in the chronology of these reviews – the intertextual flow
has been interrupted by events, dear boy. In fact, I’m struggling with the
whole concept of book review blogging in light of the horrible situation in
Ukraine and — no, I can’t lie. I’m just lazy and busy.
It’s sooo hard
to maintain impetus in such dire straits, right?
Nevertheless,
once more considering gamely chipping away at the calcifying backlog, Jim
Butcher popped into my head courtesy of The Boys, Amazon Prime’s quality
reimagining of Garth Ennis’s darkly humorous (very) graphic novels, and Karl
Urban’s portrayal of Billy Butcher.
Worth both
a watch and
a read if you have the time.
Jim No Relation
Butcher is the creator of Harry Dresden, magician and private investigator,
another character re-imagined for a brief and shining moment on screen, using
the dubious American accent of English Arrow actor Paul Blackthorne.
Criminally, the series was cancelled after one season (although I understand
dedicated Dresdenverse aficionados would not agree with me) but you can judge
for yourselves by purchasing the DVD using the link below (ka-ching).
Oh yes, the
novel.
So, book 1 of
the Dresden Files is Storm Front and is written in classic
hard-boiled gumshoe style with first person narrative, wise cracks and all,
filtered through some dark urban fantasy. Over the course of some gruesome
murders where hearts seem to be missing, we’re introduced to the titular Harry,
his air spirit Bob, who lives in a skull in Harry’s hidden magic laboratory,
the Detective Murphy, a Chicago cop who uses Harry’s unique skills to solve
unsolvable crimes, and Warden Donald Morgan of the White Council, a magical
enforcement organisation with a mandate for swift and lethal justice. There’s
some police procedural stuff, the aforementioned grisly murders, some storm
energy harnessing, Harry is a suspect then he’s not, some Chicago mobsters, a
demon and some nasty scorpion-type-thingies. Turns out it was the amateur
magician all along (no, not Harry, the other one), although Morgan would rather
it was Harry so he could chop him up with extreme prejudice.
I’d say it’s a
new twist on an old favourite, but it’s now an old twist on an even older and
pretty tired favourite. It’s fun, has enough blood and mayhem for fans of the
darker stuff, but does edge into comic fantasy tropes in places. If I was super
critical I might describe it as a bit fluffy, and where Harry stands up for
sexual and gender equality made me cringe hard, though of course, with 17
novels and countless Knights of the Online Order queued up to defend them, I’m
sure Jim Butcher won’t lose any sleep (or money). And in any case, you know me
and Quixotic heroes in flawed serials, so when I can muster the enthusiasm I
will probably progress on to Fool Moon and onwards.
If I can be arsed.
(Paid link)
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