Dead Beat reread and faves

[EBRIEN]

Rereading again. I love this book. It such a good read!

What's your Favorite scene? One of mine is Dresden infusing his mind fortress with hellfire against Corpse Taker.
What's your Favorite line? "Polka will never die!" (Hard to beat.)
Best supporting character? Butters....and Sue.
Best new character? Intro of the Erlking?! (and Sue)

Share you faves of this amazing novel!

That is all.

Cheers--Brien

[Con]

What's your Favorite scene? It's gotta be Sue
What's your Favorite line? "Polka will never die!" Agreed
Best supporting character? Butters
Best new character? Lash and Carlos

One thing to note is the mixup in the original plan of the series. Proven Guilty was supposed to be before this and it impacted the plan of the series significantly.

1. Molly was supposed to be in it as Harry's apprentice, you can see the thematic aspect of it with all the main Necromancers each having a sidekick of their own.
2. Butters was introduced as an explanation character and his character arc as a result for the rest of the series.
3. Similarly Carlos was introduced cause Dresden needed a magical sidekick.
4. Luccio was given a more prominent role and her body switch probably wasn't planned either.

[heidi_storage]

Leaving aside zombie T-rex--which, yeah, hard to top--the scene where Evil Bob nearly offs Harry is good. I also like the confrontation between Lash and Harry after Butters spoiled the illusion; the bit about how his blood would be mixing with the rain if Lash intended harm is chilling.

Butters really comes into his own in this book. You could say the same of Ghost Story, where he's learning to use his talents to confront supernatural evil, or in Skin Game, where he becomes a Knight of the Cross, but in Dead Beat Butters first understands what a scary world he lives in, is naturally terrified, and overcomes that fear enough to save Harry's guts, Sue's "heartbeat," and Luccio's life.

Honestly, that book as a whole is so entertaining and enjoyable. Lamarr's description of Kumori's necromancy is good.

I'd write more, but the baby says no...talk about scary.....

[Mira]

  Polka will never die!  My favorite is when Thomas tries to get Harry to dump Butters because he thinks he is a coward.

[EBRIEN]

One note----I believe it's also telling when Billy talks to Dresden about crazy behavior and Harry wonders if he'd actually realize he was crazy if that were the case and again when Harry is speaking to Cowl a little later and Cowl says essentially the same thing. Hmmm...

[Basil]

If I were a Studio executive, I'd make Dead Beat the first of my Harry Dresden movies.  It is definitely my favorite of the early-Dresden books.

It has a lot of the world building already mapped out, but has plenty of surprises left to reveal.  The ability to reference lots of previous events, people, etc. just make the Dresden-verse more 3D.  Think of the references to the clone wars in the original Star Wars, the references to the old Republic, etc. it just made it seem like a real world.  (This is one of the inevitable and unavoidable issues with the prequel trilogy). 

[Kindler]

If I were a Studio executive, I'd make Dead Beat the first of my Harry Dresden movies.  It is definitely my favorite of the early-Dresden books.

It has a lot of the world building already mapped out, but has plenty of surprises left to reveal.  The ability to reference lots of previous events, people, etc. just make the Dresden-verse more 3D.  Think of the references to the clone wars in the original Star Wars, the references to the old Republic, etc. it just made it seem like a real world.  (This is one of the inevitable and unavoidable issues with the prequel trilogy).

Personally, I'd adapt Dresden as a mixed format series. The more traditional noir-detective stories (Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Death Masks, Proven Guilty, White Knight, Turn Coat, Cold Days, Skin Game, and even Peace Talks) would be adapted as television series. Summer Knight, Dead Beat, Changes, and Battle Ground would be 2-2.5 hour movies, since they're the ones with the big setpiece battles and are way more action-focused.
3-ish books per season, plus mini vignettes for the short stories, with a movie following each season. Really, the series is divvied up pretty well that way, in my opinion. And I'd rather we get it like that than the way they tried to do A Song of Ice and Fire (I didn't like the show. I liked the story of the books, but find Martin's prose to be extremely dull and unnecessarily pseudo-pornographic. Like... that's not what I'm here for). The last season was awful. A movie would've been better, because that, at least, carries a different set of expectations. You know, like not resolving an entire war, start to finish, in about 70 minutes. Compare to Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields.

[Mira]

3-ish books per season, plus mini vignettes for the short stories, with a movie following each season. Really, the series is divvied up pretty well that way, in my opinion. And I'd rather we get it like that than the way they tried to do A Song of Ice and Fire (I didn't like the show. I liked the story of the books, but find Martin's prose to be extremely dull and unnecessarily pseudo-pornographic. Like... that's not what I'm here for). The last season was awful. A movie would've been better, because that, at least, carries a different set of expectations. You know, like not resolving an entire war, start to finish, in about 70 minutes. Compare to Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields.

Yes, but at least Martin was good at adapting his own books for the screen.. GOT was great until Martin stopped consulting etc on the screen plays and the series attempted to get beyond were Martin left off in the books.

[Kindler]

The only reason I continued to watch was because of Peter Dinklage. That guy carried it for me.