Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 401 Pages (Paperback)
Release: January 2001
Review
I am really not entirely sure what to say about this book. I enjoyed Storm Front enough to want to continue. Harry was a likable and overall fun character, the mystery wasn't anything great but it was fun, and the fantasy elements were well explained. This one, however, did not improve on that for me. In fact, it tore down some of the things that I had enjoyed about the first installment.
In Storm Front I really enjoyed Harry and found him to be a lot of fun. He was odd and made some poor decisions at times, but overall I liked him. Here, not so much. From the beginning he seemed to be making stupid decisions, some of them even acknowledged in his first person narrative, that had me wondering how he has survived into adulthood or just really irritated me. He didn't work well for me as a character here, because he didn't seem to be growing.
This reads like a mystery novel, but doesn't have any elements that kept me engaged. It was fun enough while reading it, but I never found myself excited to continue or eager to get back to the story. It was kind of forgettable to me. There was nothing about it that really stood out to me in any way. The mystery was very predictable as well. Maybe not all of the how and why, but the outcome.
Mister, Harry's cat, and Murphy, Harry's police officer friend, are my favorite of the characters. Mister is an interesting addition to the story and makes me like Harry at times when I'm not sure that I want to like him. And I just really like Murphy, though I can't place my finger on exactly why.
I also wasn't a fan of the more prevalent swearing in this one. That's a personal thing that I just don't like and in the first one I really enjoyed that Harry edited out a lot of the profanities and such. Here more of that was there, so it kind of detracted from the overall enjoyment factor for me just a little bit. And that one random sex scene...I won't go into details because I want to avoid spoilers, and it's not that it was overly graphic, I just found it out of place and distracting.
There are also a lot of hints at larger worldbuilding and more character development that we never get to see here. I know this is a long series and that more of that is likely to come in later installments, but I would like a little more from the beginning. Or even a few theories from Harry about what he's thinking would be nice. But no, there is very little in that department.
So overall this wasn't great for me. I was hoping it would improve the series, but it did not. I plan to try one more novel in the series and then decide where I want to go after that. If I feel the same way about book three then this series will move to my DNF list.
In Storm Front I really enjoyed Harry and found him to be a lot of fun. He was odd and made some poor decisions at times, but overall I liked him. Here, not so much. From the beginning he seemed to be making stupid decisions, some of them even acknowledged in his first person narrative, that had me wondering how he has survived into adulthood or just really irritated me. He didn't work well for me as a character here, because he didn't seem to be growing.
This reads like a mystery novel, but doesn't have any elements that kept me engaged. It was fun enough while reading it, but I never found myself excited to continue or eager to get back to the story. It was kind of forgettable to me. There was nothing about it that really stood out to me in any way. The mystery was very predictable as well. Maybe not all of the how and why, but the outcome.
Mister, Harry's cat, and Murphy, Harry's police officer friend, are my favorite of the characters. Mister is an interesting addition to the story and makes me like Harry at times when I'm not sure that I want to like him. And I just really like Murphy, though I can't place my finger on exactly why.
I also wasn't a fan of the more prevalent swearing in this one. That's a personal thing that I just don't like and in the first one I really enjoyed that Harry edited out a lot of the profanities and such. Here more of that was there, so it kind of detracted from the overall enjoyment factor for me just a little bit. And that one random sex scene...I won't go into details because I want to avoid spoilers, and it's not that it was overly graphic, I just found it out of place and distracting.
There are also a lot of hints at larger worldbuilding and more character development that we never get to see here. I know this is a long series and that more of that is likely to come in later installments, but I would like a little more from the beginning. Or even a few theories from Harry about what he's thinking would be nice. But no, there is very little in that department.
So overall this wasn't great for me. I was hoping it would improve the series, but it did not. I plan to try one more novel in the series and then decide where I want to go after that. If I feel the same way about book three then this series will move to my DNF list.
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