Well, if it isn’t an other round of the Book Bonfire! I hope everyone brought their barely-opened copies of Storm Front by Jim Butcher, the first Harry Dresden novel! Shitty urban fantasy abounds!

Harry Dresden lives and works in Chicago as a wizard private investigator. He handles problems related to the supernatural such as “my wife opened a portal to the sixth dimension and now pixie nymphs have invaded our crawlspace” or “Bigfoot keeps making passes at me”. Storm Front plops right into his world without much preamble, although there admittedly isn’t much to catch up on. Dresden is the only wizard in the city with as much power and experience, and he tries his best to use layman’s terms to describe how magic works in his world. Jim Butcher has obviously spent some time worldbuilding into something cohesive and understandable, I’ll give him credit for that. However, as someone who has read the first eight or so books already, Storm Front is a little rough. Very enjoyable, though, but not without its faults.

Let me start out with my favorite part of the series: Butcher is so descriptive with people and places that he effortlessly paints a rather vivid picture. Karrin Murphy, Dresden’s cop buddy, for instance, is described as, like, a 4’5″ aikido pro with blond hair. OK, not very descriptive, but it gets the job done! What I like better are his descriptions of both McAnally’s Pub and Dresden’s own apartment. Both sound downright cozy to me. McAnally’s is a no-frills basement bar with several support posts around the room, a couple of windows to let in light, and a coal grill. Wizards hang out to play chess and eat steak sandwiches. McAnally himself won’t bug you at all with talking, sounds like my kind of place! Dresden’s apartment is my dream home: a shitty one-bedroom thing with a small living room/kitchen area, a small bedroom, and a small bathroom. Comfortable couch, comfortable armchair, rugs everywhere, a fireplace, and all sorts of cool shit on the walls. I can picture the fucking wood paneling, too, and he doesn’t even mention the wood paneling. It’s totally there though. I don’t need the sub-basement with the lab, you can leave your pentagrams and talking skulls elsewhere.

What I don’t like is that Dresden, admittedly, is an old-fashioned chauvinist. I don’t know much about about noir detective fiction, but this is apparently one of its tropes. Damsel in distress stuff. At one point he calls women “weaker men with breasts”, which is insane to me. Can we blame Jim Butcher for this? Totally! Dude was a 29-year-old neckbeard when Storm Front was published and he was probably still coming out of his 20s hormonal haze while writing the book. Dresden himself wears sweatpants and a duster jacket. He’s one fedora away from throwing a “m’lady” at Murphy and complaining that the nice guys never get a chance.

As for the story itself, I’m impressed by how all the plot threads were woven together into a rather seamless series of events. Dresden always had something to do next that progressed the story while not leaving anything hanging. A client shows up at his office, then Murphy calls him to a crime scene, then local tough mafia guy Johnny Marcone pulls him in to warn him not to get involved or there will be consequences, then he works on his client’s problem, then he gets an earful from Morgan of the White Council, then he goes home and does some research, then he has a sorta-date with a local hot chick supernatural news reporter, then Murphy yells at him for not working on her case enough, blah blah blah and it sounds like a lot doesn’t it? But the pacing is comfortable, and the pages keep a-turnin’. The action scenes got a little dull, though. It’s hard to write good action scenes. I don’t fault Jim Butcher on this. Google him, he looks like a guy who likes a good action scene. He also looks like a guy who would throw his collection of 20-sided dice at you if you fucked over his Level 12 wood elf.

And with that, let’s move on.

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Did you like the way Butcher worked magic into modern day urban Chicago?
This is one of the strengths. Butcher has such a strong knowledge of how magic works in his universe, almost to a fault (the prose can get a little dry when he explains some of the details), that I have utmost faith in his ability to worldbuild. A lot of it is cheesy, though. There’s a scene where he’s mixing potions in his private lab with his wisecracking magic skull, and the concoction was basically a half-assed witch’s brew. Like, A LOCKET TO REPRESENT THE LOVE OF ONE LOST. A PAGE FROM A BOOK OF CALCULUS TO REPRESENT STRENGTH OF MIND. A FOOTBALL TO REPRESENT INTENSE SPIRIT. It was kind of dumb, but so is a horny talking skull. These books aren’t meant to be taken seriously!

Discuss Monica Sells’ behavior throughout the story. Do you find her believable? What finally prompts her to act?
Monica Sells is the woman who came into Dresden’s office at the beginning of the book. She paid him to try to find her husband, Victor Sells, who had been dabbling in the OCCULT ARTS recently. To say the least! And the most, honestly.

Her behavior is justified, and I know this because I read the story! She’s acting upon fear, you ninnies. It’s, like, one of the three main things that humans act upon! The other two are lust and hamburgers. Or lust for hamburgers. But I digress.

Since Victor Sells is hosting giant orgies and taking advantage of storms in order to smite his enemies, of course she is scared, man. Do I find her believable? Pfft. Do I find YOU believable? Quite hardly.

FINAL THOUGHTS

People say this is the worst book, but I think that the next story Fool Moon wins that prestigious award. I actually like this one a lot, and I’m glad I reread it for, like, the fourth time. Seacrest out.