The Dresden Files (Books)

Maximum Ride used to be My Favorite Book of All Time. You know that book, you have one of your own. No matter what book you read after it, your Favorite Book of All Time will stand strong. What bumped Maximum Ride off the pedestal of favorite for me?

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Aw yeah.

If Maximum Ride gave my character Crystal her teenage wit, The Dresden Files gave her everything else.

I was 20 or 21. I found it mostly by accident. My dad used to be a part of the Science Fiction Book Club, and I often got books there too. I kept reading the description of the first 3-book omnibus, wondering "Should I? Shouldn't I?" I like magic, but otherwise I knew nothine else about it. I worried it would be lame (you know, kind of like A Madness of Angels.)

I never did buy it.

One of the best things about living where I do in Idaho is I live only 20 minutes away from the self-titled "Largest Used Bookstore in Idaho." I don't know if that claim is true, but I have yet to see evidence to the contrary.

Gently whispers "I love you."

I was lucky, incredibly lucky, to find a copy of Wizard for Hire (the name of the omnibus). Used copies of any of Jim Butcher's books fly off the shelves the moment they touch them. Still, if it had been any other Jim Butcher book, even the first book, Storm Front, I would have passed it right by without a second thought. The only way it would have gotten my attention is because it was that big, blue, beautiful omnibus. I picked it up, knew I had been looking at it in the Science Fiction Book Club fliers, and decided to get it.

I was probably 3/4ths through the first book in the omnibus when I ordered the other three omnibuses from SFBC. From that point until the last sentance of White Night it was a whirlwind.

Suddenly here's this...this guy. This Harry Dresden. He's awesome. He slings magic around like it's candy. He's sarcastic. He's hilarious. He's a loser in love. He's tortured. He has these crowning moments of awesome that can't ever be topped, and he does it again and again. That picture? Up there? That actually happens.

Dresden Files, where have you been all my life?

Every story is a gem. It's never suffered from series entropy. If anything, it gets better. Funnier, action-packed, amazing.

What can I honestly say? Pick up a copy of Storm Front, the first book, and go from there. I promise you won't be disappointed.

"There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice."