Been reading more of 'The Dresden Files', Harry Dresden wizard books by Jim Butcher. I'm liking them enough I keep forgetting to review them because I'm busy picking up the next one. Lovely twisty plots that get a momentum going and keep me reading solidly through to the small hours to see how things work out.
iirc the first one had some of the bad noir bits in... was it the one with the annoying hookers? Ack, book blur... ANYways, the main character's attitudes to women are still a bit odd. And there's still a sex=bad thing. Women using it to get their hooks into Our Hero, and the woman he was having sex with having very bad things happen to her and stuff. But its not striking me as terrible and offensive. There's a lot of variety in the women in the books, and some of them become strong continuing characters. Its interesting.
Also theres a lot of laugh out loud moments, usually when he follows a premise through to an absolutely logical yet absurd conclusion. Like the guy who has absolute faith that god provides, and the sequence that leads up to "... You need a babysitter again." That bit was actually when I sat down and ordered the next three books.
The central character is far from perfect, frequently getting himself into trouble, usually from a sense of chivalry, and then he gets beat up all to bitses and maybe set on fire a bit. So, it is noir. Mean streets, detective, pattern.
But its magic noir, with spells in, and all kinds of magical creatures that are fleshed out and given motives as part of the detective structure. I hates it when magic creatures are just the big scary in the dark. Boring. I likes it when they're all characters, and that is how it plays in these books. And the magic combines a few old reliables - tricks we've seen him pull since the first book, and can therefore enjoy knowing he can pull out to apply to a problem, and anticipate - with new and twisty - situation specific things. Neither kind always goes right. Its a lovely balance between predictable, that you can look forward to, and twisty, that you get the roller coaster fun going round the corners with.
So, I've read the first four books and already I'm thinking there should be more. I have two more to go, and theres I think a couple more published after that, but not in the same paperback form I've been getting these in. I was buying them all the same so the coverse would match. But they changed the style on 6 anyway. Made the name bigger, which I guess is a good sign for the author, that author name sells books. It just irritates the collector in me :eyeroll:
I should go sleep now. Starting the next book already would be a bad idea if I want to sleep before Saturday night.
*eyes book sideways, trying to ignore its siren call...*
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}