The Dresden Files

[Lost Ranger]

I havnt read any of these books, in fact I hadnt even heard about the series till the other day when I noticed the tv series on the shelf at blockbuster hehe. Anyway...

Anyone read these? I looked them up on wikipedia and they sounds really interesting and complex. I enjoy good fantasy so I am thinking about picking them up but was hoping for some reviews first.

[Faille]

I read one randomly that was somewhere down the line, not sure where exactly, and it wasn't too bad. nothing special, but decent enough book to read if you can't find anything better. Might try and track down the first one sometime, though I still need to get around to watching the series. Anyone know if the series concluded properly or was canceled unresolved?

[Vorph]

The books are decent, at the very least they're much better than the TV series since Harry can actually use serious magic often without a beancounter complaining that there's no room in the budget for any more FX shots--which is pretty much the downfall of the series.

The season finale of the show wasn't much of an ending really, but at least it wasn't a cliffhanger either. Why sci-fi would cancel this and keep garbage like Eureka around is beyond me. At least they had the sense to dump Painkiller Jane too though.

[prescient63]

I'm bummed to hear the show got canceled. I did read one of the dresden short stories. Maybe the first one? At any rate it was ok, but the writing was nothing impressive.

[Brand]

The Dresden Books are great...I refer to them as chewing gum for the mind....And I mean that in a fun way.

[Gaereth]

Good series....entertaining and fun.

[Brogarn]

I've had a great time reading all of the Dresden Files books. They're hard to put down once you've picked one up because of the fast pace. I'm bummed because the next book, White Night, isn't due out in paperback until February, I think.

[Gaereth]

His other series is decent as well. Furies of Calderan or something.

[painbringer]

It's actually one of the authors i keep an eye on, and grab everything he writes.

[Auren]

I've read all the "Dresden Files" so far and have really enjoyed them all. They're good light reading with plenty of action and a fun main character. I'd recommend them to someone that's into magic in a real world kind of setting. I only saw a couple episodes of the show but it really didn't do the books justice.

[Madrugan]

Sorry for the 6 month necro, but I just started reading this series. After I saw the tv show. Enjoying them both.

[Lenardo]

started book 1 of dresden the other day, pretty good

have read the first 3 books of the "alera" series (furies of calderon is book 1) entertaining books, a bit formulaic in design for the main character(ie i knew who tavi was within a chapter) though their magic setup is nice and how they ended up explaining Why tavi was how he was was an interesting twist i did not see forthcoming (in book 3) but how the book ended was a "good" ending.

just bought book 4 (hard cover) today and will have it done probably by saturday- have to finish book 1 of dresden .

[Agraza]

I'm unimpressed. I constantly find the character annoying. He lies to his friends, justifies his lies, apologizes for lying, lies to his friends, justifies those lies, and apologizes again. What the fuck? Can we get past this? It seems not. Book 1 was alright but 2 and 3 just keep going down the hill.

It reads way too much like some dork writing about what he wishes was really happening in modern day, and the author is the insecure wannabe-masculine main character who is anything but. Hell his little author bio in the back is "his resume includes skills that were made obsolete hundreds of years ago".

I've been reading a lot of this modern day fantasy/paranormal genre lately, and these are beginning to stand out as being among the worst. That's weird too because the first book was good enough to get me to buy a few more. Now I think that will be it. I shouldn't take the genre as seriously as this, but I've read some good stuff and some shockingly bad stuff. The bar is set real low here and the Dresden novels are below it.

Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson stuff has that Anne Rice "all men are metrosexual and bisexual" thing going on, but her characters and scenarios are a lot better.

[Lost Ranger]

Never could get into the Anne Rice stuff. Books bored me to tears.

[Jukax]

[quote=Agraza;1056453]I'm unimpressed. I constantly find the character annoying. He lies to his friends, justifies his lies, apologizes for lying, lies to his friends, justifies those lies, and apologizes again. What the fuck? Can we get past this? It seems not. Book 1 was alright but 2 and 3 just keep going down the hill.
QUOTE]

I've finished the first 8 and just started book 9 in the series. I think it's a great series; but I do agree that book 2 and 3 were the weakest. Books 4 through 8 have been much better.

The books make for great "fun" reading; they're definitely not the next Tolkien or Gibson works, but Butcher pretty uniquely blends of scifi, fantasy, witticism, camp humor and real-world pop culture references that make his books very enjoyable and hard to put down. It's like a wierd cross between Ghostbusters, the X-Files, Shadowrun, Harry Potter and Army of Darkness. I picked up the first book after watching the TV series, and haven't been disappointed.