Friday, November 30, 2012

Cold Days (book 14 The Dresden Files) -- Jim Butcher


HARRY DRESDEN LIVES!!! After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.
He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill.
Guess which Mab wants first? Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.
Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…His soul.

It is hard for me to give an honest review of this book as I am a bit of a fanboy about the series. I have long awaited this release with baited (insert Tim Curry voice) antici-pation.

Harry Dresden is back, now with an actual body! Not unlike HBO's True Blood, at the end of the last book I was left with more questions than answers.
  • Will Harry live?
  • Will he keep his old friends?
  • Will he fundamentally change now that he has signed on with the Queen of Darkness?
  • Will Harry's daughter show up in the story?
  • How do I get a dog like Mouse?
  • How did Mac get his bar listed as neutral territory under the Unseelie Accords?
  • Will Jim Butcher ever release a recipe for some of Macs beers?
The answers are as follows:
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes/No (HA! How do you like THAT ambivalent answer?)
  • Not yet
  • I can't (the Landlord doesn't want me to have pets)
  • Unanswered (STILL!!!!)
  • I'm waiting Jim... I'm waiting.
There isn't much I can really write about on this book without severely giving away the plot twists. The few things I can say is that Jim Butcher wrote Harry with the same nerdy/wise-ass dialogue that he always has which is to say: Kind of formulaic. 
Please don't get me wrong, the book stands on its own in the series. One of the things I love about this series are the ancillary characters. Jim is one of the few authors that I've found that invests almost as much time developing the supporting cast as the main characters.
I truly look forward to book 15. Hopefully, Jim can get better soon (he is currently suffering from gastroenteritis) so that he can get back to entertaining me!

1 comments:

Kate said...

I can't read your review, as I haven't read the book yet! I've only read the first two, so I have some catching up to do.

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