Author Topic: Changes -> Ghost Story (HUGE! -> meh)  (Read 3636 times)

Offline Z054J

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Changes -> Ghost Story (HUGE! -> meh)
« on: November 30, 2018, 12:06:31 AM »
Greetings. I'm obviously a bit behind the curve on current Dresden, in spite of the fact that I started reading the series a number of years ago. I tend to take big breaks between DF novels because Harry Dresden kind of annoys me. I'm frequently relieved when these novels end, and I wander away for a while.

I made a couple of false starts with Small Favor. Got distracted by other books, forgot where I was, started over. I did that AGAIN somehow...  But I finally got a good hold of Small Favor on the third attempt and got into it enough to finish it. Kept the momentum up and went right on into Turn Coat. That one was interesting. Butcher finally started coming off some deeper details about the world of wizardry, and Dresden started picking up some serious assets, in particular
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. Good stuff!

I was so pleased with Turn Coat that I immediately began Changes. (Even if I don't read Butcher's books right away, I buy them whenever they release. Which is good news for Jim, I guess. Write ANYthing and put "Novel of the Dresden Files" on it, and I'll buy it, and won't have a thing to say about it for nearly a decade as I wait to get around to reading it.) HEY, this thing is a COOKBOOK! *Haha! Sucker!*

Anyway... CHANGES.

In my memory of the rest of the series up to Turn Coat, my feeling about the series was that, though it was serial and self-referential in nature, it wasn't a "universe" until Turn Coat started adding layers to Dresden's wider experience, both within the particular novel, and the fact that he'd had a past more significant than the DuMorne episode (not to say that's insignificant, just that it's something of a Bruce Wayne's Parents / Radioactive Spider sort of backstory element), and more than that - that there were faces behind the collective label "The White Council" Again - I haven't ever gone back to re-read from the start, so this is my memory of the series, or at least, my impression of it. The individual novels seemed more narrow in focus, even if they featured supernatural-world politics or wizard business. The details were contained within Dresden's sphere of influence.

Turn Coat was a doorway to more, and CHANGES leapt through the doorway and set off pyrotechnics. To me it's the single most massive novel of the series. Old questions answered, new and significant characters introduced, hidden details explaining TONS revealed, enormous victory alongside horrid tragedy and definitely, definitely, CHANGES in many senses of the word, and it all ended...

...badly.

(click to show/hide)


Now, I sit here with my copy of Cold Days, pondering another long break.

Anybody else give a big ol WTF to Ghost Story, or am I alone here?
« Last Edit: November 30, 2018, 12:15:22 AM by Z054J »
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Offline segaily

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Re: Changes -> Ghost Story (HUGE! -> meh)
« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2018, 06:14:29 PM »
I will admit that Ghost Story is one of my least favorite books in the series and I am fully current.  With that said I did still enjoy it.  I am not sure if Ghost Story was my absolute least favorite as it has been a while since I read the first few books and for the most part I think Jim's writing became stronger after the first few but it may be my overall least favorite. 

No way for me to know how you will feel about the remaining books but I at least think you will enjoy them more then Ghost Story.