What Do you Read

Joe Kalicki said:
I was kinda hoping you wanted to handle both. . .
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Uh, dude. division of labor. You don't smoke, therefore, I HAVE to handle the cigarette smoking portion of the labor, and you should be damned grateful. I'm killing my lungs for our commercial endeavor.
 
Seldes Katne said:
Since I'm now on book six of this series, I guess I'll just have to add this to the list....

The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher, is a grown-up version of Harry Potter. (Really "grown-up" -- some of the stuff in here is a little more "adult" than I usually like my books, but I'm sure most other readers wouldn't even notice.) Harry Dresden is the only practicing wizard listed in the Chicago phone book. He also serves as a consultant for SI, the Special Investigations unit of the Chicago Police Department. Dresden really is a wizard; he's on the outs with the wizards' White Council because he's gone public, and because he's caused some problems for the council in the past.

The books feature plenty of magic, along with vampires, werewolves, the Fey, a variety of monsters, and even some demons. There are at least eight books in the series. Titles include:

Storm Front: Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things -- and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a -- well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.

Fool Moon: Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn't been able to dredge up any kind of work — magical or mundane. But just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise. A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses — and the first two don't count...

Grave Peril: In the opening scene, Dresden and his knight friend, Michael, battle the ghost of a woman who is terrorizing a local hospital's maternity ward. From there, the novel quickly evolves into an unorthodox tale spiced with sexual innuendo and subtle humor (Dresden carries his ghost-hunting gear in an old Scooby-Doo lunch box). Due to the weakened barrier between the spirit world which Butcher refers to as "the nevernever" and the actual world, obsessive and violent ghosts are on the loose in modern-day Chicago, and they seem to be targeting Dresden and Michael. (Note: my one gripe about this novel is that Michael just appears out of nowhere, is never really explained, and then isn't even mentioned in the next book. Butcher makes the abrupt appearance work, mostly, but still....)

Summer Knight: Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can't pay his rent. He's alienating his friends. He can't even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man. And just when it seems things can't get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can't refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him — and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name. It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case.

Death Masks: Harry Dresden is not having a good day. A vampire named Ortega is hunting the beleaguered wizard, intending to challenge him to a duel that, Ortega claims, will end the war between the vampires and the wizards. Harry has almost no hope of winning the duel, but soon he is preoccupied by another problem: Father Vincent, a priest, needs Harry's help in finding the Shroud of Turin, stolen by a trio of thieves. Harry traces two of the thieves to his hometown, Chicago, but when he finds them, he learns that he isn't the only one after them. A group of terrifying demons wants the shroud, and its leader is interested in Harry's soul, too. Harry must call on all of his friends, including three brave knights, his police-officer friend, and even his half-vampire ex-girlfriend, Susan.
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There has been four more books to add to this list.

Blood Rites - Harry's White Court Vampire Friend Thomas Raith needs help solving a murder case, and he needs Harry to do it. Harry investigates the mruders, which are all happening in a porn movie set, and finds it relates to goings on in the White Court. Harry discovers more about his mother's past, his present, and his future.

Dead Beat - Harry Dresden must save Chicago from black magic and necromancy -- but first, he must locate the Word of Kemmler. Just as soon as he figures out what that is. It's all in a day's work for the city's only professional wizard ... assuming he can live to see the end of the day.

Proven Guilty - Harry Dresden has spent years being watched and suspected by the White Council's Wardens. But now he is a Warden, and it sucks more than he thought... So when movie monsters start coming to life on his watch, it's officially up to him to put them back where they came from. Only this time, his client is the White Council, and his investigation cannot fail -- no matter who falls under suspicion, no matter the cost.

White Night - Someone is targeting the city's magic practitioners, the members of the supernatural underclass who don't possess enough power to become full-fledged wizards. Many have vanished. Others appear to be victims of suicide. But the murderer has left a calling card at one of the crime scenes--a message for Harry Dresden, referencing the book of Exodus and the killing of witches.

Harry sets out to find the killer before he can strike again, but his investigation turns up evidence pointing to the one suspect he cannot possibly believe guilty: his half brother, Thomas. Determined to bring the real murderer to justice and clear his brother's name, Harry attracts the attention of the White Court of vampires, becoming embroiled in a power struggle that renders him outnumbered, outclassed, and dangerously susceptible to temptation.

Harry knows that if he screws this one up, a lot of people will die--and one of them will be his brother.

And the book coming out next year most likely is going to be called Small Favor, and the tagline is Cause Harry still owes two of them. This is obviously from the Fourth Book where Mab, Queen of the Winter Court, tells Harry he has three favors to do and his contract with the fae will be null and void. He does one of them in that book, and has two left.
 
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The girlfriend turned me on to, The Tao of Pooh, and the Te of Piglette.


BTW, I LOVE The Dresden Files.
 
How am I supposed to keep up with The Dresden Files? It seems there's a new book every month. I've only read one of them. :(
 
ProjectX2 said:
How am I supposed to keep up with The Dresden Files? It seems there's a new book every month. I've only read one of them. :(
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Oh, come on, we're talking about the Dresden Files, not a Harlequin Romance series. There are, at most, two in a year.

If you keep complaining, I'll have to start sending you copies for Christmas.... :twisted:
 
I think I'm going to start reading the Dresden Files. I'm a huge Harry Potter and World of Darkness (A Horror tabletop RPG) fan, and this looks right up my alley. Thanks for the recommendation, Seldes! :D
 
Lynx said:
I think I'm going to start reading the Dresden Files. I'm a huge Harry Potter and World of Darkness (A Horror tabletop RPG) fan, and this looks right up my alley. Thanks for the recommendation, Seldes! :D
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You're welcome. And thanks to Houde for finishing up the summaries.

If you like the Dresden files, you might want to look for Glen Cook's "Garrett Files", which are similar, but set in a Middle Ages/Middle Earth-type fantasy world. The earlier books are much better than the later books, which I thought got kind of silly as the series progressed. Since the books are long out of print (I think they were written in the 1980s -- yes, I'm old...), you may have to pick up the anthologies: Garrett Files, Garrett, P.I., and Garrett Investigates. Some of the individual books you can pick up used. Sweet Silver Blues is the first of the series, and one of the best.
 
Seldes Katne said:
You're welcome. And thanks to Houde for finishing up the summaries.

If you like the Dresden files, you might want to look for Glen Cook's "Garrett Files", which are similar, but set in a Middle Ages/Middle Earth-type fantasy world. The earlier books are much better than the later books, which I thought got kind of silly as the series progressed. Since the books are long out of print (I think they were written in the 1980s -- yes, I'm old...), you may have to pick up the anthologies: Garrett Files, Garrett, P.I., and Garrett Investigates. Some of the individual books you can pick up used. Sweet Silver Blues is the first of the series, and one of the best.
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It upsets me when a series gets worse as more and more books are released.

A good example of this is the Firekeeper series by Jane Lindskold. The first book is brillant, the world she weaves is coimplex and the characters are engaging. However, the future books slowly tumble down in quality, and the latest paperback I read was horrific, and probably caused me to end the series.
 
I hate when comedy series go on for a while and they get really serious an in-depth with their characters. It's so lazy. It's like, you can't be funny anymore and it's so much easier to write this drama BS.

Robert Asprin and your Myth series, I'm looking at you.
 
It's kind of childish, but Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series is really good. The fifth book just came out and I'm halfway through. Nix is one of my favorite authors, especially KttK and the Abhorsen trilogy.
 
I will second Garth Nix's series as worth reading. I have yet to pick up Lady Friday, but the first four books (Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, and Sir Thursday) were quite good, and I'm just waiting for a library copy of Lady Friday to become available. I may take it on vacation with me in September (I'm now starting to collect books to get me through 14 days with my parents, six of which will be spent riding on AmTrak.)
 
Seldes Katne said:
I will second Garth Nix's series as worth reading. I have yet to pick up Lady Friday, but the first four books (Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, and Sir Thursday) were quite good, and I'm just waiting for a library copy of Lady Friday to become available. I may take it on vacation with me in September (I'm now starting to collect books to get me through 14 days with my parents, six of which will be spent riding on AmTrak.)
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Did you notice the seven deadly sins theme for the days? It's pretty clearly sloth for Monday, envy for Tuesday, gluttony for Wednesday, wrath for Thursday, and
lust
for Friday. I can't imagine how that could spoil the book for you, but better safe than sorry. I suppose pride will be Sunday's sin, seeing as how it's supposedly the greatest. The pieces of will seem sort of like the opposites of the sins or the sins applied in good ways, like the snake who was as vicious as Thursday but fought for justice.
 
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