The World of Dresden

In 2007, the Dresden Files premiered on TV and introduced me to the world according to Jim Butcher. As with all good series, the studio muckety mucks canceled the show but it was too late for me. I was hooked.

Jim Butcher wrote the first of his Dresden series, Storm Front, in 2000. Cold Days, published last month, is book number 14.

Cold Days follows Harry Dresden from the grave back to the living as he begins learning his new role as the Winter Knight to Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness.

I could say it has plot twists that make you nearly rip the paper off as you turn the pages. I could say the surprises and mysteries make you gasp audibly. And the humor. My Sweet Babboo wondered what that the heck was going on when I’d LOL while reading the book.

Any good novel has all of that. The difference is in my reading style. I read fast. And if the storyline or writing turns blah, I mostly skip ahead. Like whole paragraphs. Then pages. Sometimes I snarl and go to the end to see who dunnit. My highest recommendation is for those books that kept me on the page, reading every word.

That is Cold Days. Jim Butcher delivered again.

**

Books I Can’t Wait For in 2013:

The end of Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson. A Memory of Light – Jan 2013

Patricia Briggs’ seventh Mercy Thompson book, Frost Burned – March 2013

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris, her last in the Sookie Stackhouse series due in May.

Mangled Manuscript Monday

It happened again. My deer-in-the-headlights reaction to *the* question.

“So what are you doing now?”

“I’m retired,” I muttered.

I could have said, “I’m a writer of fantasy with three manuscripts under my belt, a fourth started, and numerous short stories hovering in my documents.”

But as soon as the words leave my mouth, ‘I am a writer’, I know the questions that come next. And the ‘face’ of the speaker. They don’t quite roll their eyes. At least, not right away.

“Oh? You write books? Like Tom Clancy?” –raised eyebrows

“Um, no.”
“Like Louis L’Amour?”

“No.”

“Stephen King?”

“No. I write fantasy. Like Patricia Briggs.”

*silence*

“Like Jim Butcher.”

*crickets chirping* “Well, good luck with that. Hey, what about Desperate Housewives on TV, why not write that stuff instead.”

*facepalm*

Oh, my…I guess this proves my theory: Thinking about posting in my blog will not automatically transfer said thoughts into type-written words.

And I have/had so much to say.

Like:

I highly recommend the newest Jim Butcher novel, Changes. Excellent as always.

And Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs, ditto.

These series follow the lives of Harry Dresden, wizard PI and Mercy Thompson, a sometimes mechanic and all-the-time shape shifter. Both of these series have remained true to their beginnings and, unlike some fantasy, do not bog down under subplots that become cumbersome and confusing.

An example of the last is the Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan. What started so promising and fresh became laden with who-cares stuff about minor characters. The descriptions, while colorful, are the sticky-clay that causes my wheels to spin and my fingers to flip to the last page of the books.

The best series leave me in mourning when I turn the last page, wishing for more.

Wheel of Time novels make me wish they would end.