Cold Days: The Dresden Files, Book 14

So I started reading Jim's work with Changes. I was on a business trip and needed something to read on the plane. I grabbed the book knowing nothing about Jim's work except it was a NY bestseller, the cover art was cool and summary seemed interesting. Best impulse purchase I've made yet to date. I just wish I'd started at the beginning of the series initially. I actually read the books in reverse order because I was sure his last book could not be on par with Changes. Wrong, so wrong but I continued to read in reverse order anyway. In retrospect I have no clue why but it didn't seem to make a difference.Onto Cold Days...as with all of Jim's books in the Dresden Files you can read them stand alone and Jim does a great job of catching the reader up on everything going on with the main character Harry Dresden. He flawlessly reintroduces characters and gives you just enough background information to not be overwhelmed by their complex history but also enough to give you a concrete understanding of where these characters have been. If you've read the books in the correct order it adds even more to the story and I highly recommend you start at the beginning.What I love most about Cold Days and Jims work in general is the blindfolded roller coaster ride he takes you on as a reader. I thought he had reached an apex in surprising his readers in earlier novels but Cold Days injects steroids into the roller coaster ride. I've read a ton of epic fantasy, hardcore Sci Fi and mystery books over the years and rarely am I surprised by what happens or can't see the plot evolving twist coming up around the corner. With Harry Dresden you really have no clue what is coming up next. Plots seem to twist on a dime and yet still make perfect sense. When reading this book you will have moments where you put down the book for a moment and say to yourself "did that really just happen...I never saw it coming" I've never read an author who has his ability to surprise the reader so much in such a short period of time. Cold Days accomplishes this feat 10 fold over most of Jim's earlier novels (which were action packed to begin with).Some people have criticized Harry's lack of character growth and the have cited limited interactions with reoccurring characters when they learn Harry is not dead. I on the flip side think that Jim has done a very good job on both fronts. As with most of Jim's books and subsequently in Cold Days Harry is always on a very sensitive time schedule. This is no more apparent than in Cold Days when Harry has 24 hours to save the world. Considering the time sensitive schedule Harry's interaction with an old lover, best friend or brother is going to be a bit limited. I think fans of the series fail to realize that Harry only has time to do so much. He can't sit and chit chat with his brother or have more than a few minutes to catch up with Murphy when the world is being invaded by some of the most powerful beings in creation. When you transcend reality in fantasy but still keep manage to keep the element of "if this was real it would happen this way" within your work it is a huge bonus for the reader and Jim accomplishes this very well in Cold DaysAs to Harry's character growth and the brevity of his role within the Winter Court not being properly explored I again remind the readers the guy has 24 hours to save the world, save his friends and save his life do you honestly think he is going to be doing a lot of life pontificating within this time frame. For what its worth I think Jim did just enough character development on Harry to remind the reader what Harry is all about. A good hearted but flawed hero with inner demons (literally)he is constantly battling and will continue to do so.Perhaps one of my favorite parts of Jim's work and one that initially locked me into this series is the mash up of the fairy tale creatures Jim's creates and his ability to make fun of these cliche creatures by calling out the cliche though humor and sarcasm. Cold Days has scenes that will make the reader laugh out loud and shock then shock them a moment later. Again you will put down the book smiling and say to yourself "did Harry Dresden really just say THAT to one of the most powerful creatures in the world?" Humor and sarcasm allow Jim as a writter to attack the cliche pitfalls present in all fantasy novels. How many fantasy books heros dark or otherwise call out the cliche nature of their work or their world. Rarely if ever. Harry Dresden does it in every novel.Harry Dresden, on the surface, is a walking cliche, a the quintessential archetype of a hero, physically strong, compassionate, tall, ruggedly handsome, inherently good natured and extremely powerful and the creatures / villains who inhabit his world are a walking cliches along the same vein. You can't get around it these days when writing fantasy or fiction at all. Wizards, vampires, angels, demons, fairies, dragons, ghosts all are present Jim's work. He involves almost every different fantasy subset and has them existing in the same time and the same place. Jim does a masterful job at weaving these conflicting worlds together aided by injecting pop culture, humor and sarcasm to address the genre's cliche nature thereby calling out the cliche to the benefit of the reader. On the outside Harry Dresden is one of the most powerful wizards in the world (very cliche for a hero) on the inside he is a sci fantasy nerd who does poor impressions of Yoda and is constantly rattling off movie quotes in between LARPing sessions. (a hero who is a secret nerd NOT CLICHE)To look further lets talk about one of Harry's free time activities. In his free time Harry Dresden is in a live action fantasy role playing group with a bunch of werewolves (LARPers). Now this is amazing on so many different levels. 1. the fact that roll playing is mentioned in a fantasy novel at all, 2. the fact the one of the most powerful wizards in the world does this in his free time and 3. the fact that he plays in this group with a bunch of werewolves. So you say to yourself "you're telling me one of the most powerful wizards in the world is a LARPer", "This is a joke right?". Of course it is a joke and Jim's novels are littered with these tongue in cheek scenarios and wise ass comments that add more reality to the world Jim creates and makes the cliche character archetypes completely un-cliche. A hedgefund manager who is a closet Twilight fan, a plumber who writes poetry, a drug dealer whose favorite movie is "Gone with the Wind", a powerful wizard who... Larps. Non of these archetypes go together but in reality these archetypal conflicts happen every day in real life. This makes Harry Dresden's character so unique, real and fascinating. Besides being a world class wizard he is a normal guy on his days off... completely un-cliche, hence original. Jim's books and characters become completely unique by his ability to call out the cliche nature of his work, his characters and the world he has created. For fantasy enthusiasts like myself this is a complete breath of fresh air for a genre that is over saturated with stereotypical dragons, epic save the world quests and long winded love stories involving vampires. Jim Butcher has created a world and characters unlike any you will see in contemporary fantasy and creating anything truly new and unique this day in age is quite an accomplishment. Read just one of his novels and you'll be addicted I promise.

I'm sad that I'm almost finished with the published books in this series. Pretty soon, I'll have to wait along with everyone else. But that didn't stop me from finishing this book in one day, even though it was a bit long (500+ pages) compared to the series average. In a way, it's good to read these fast. Harry usually only has a day or two, to solve a case or accomplish a task he's been given. So reading these quickly helps feed the sense of urgency.Anyway, as usual, this is not the place to start the series. Many, many characters and events from previous volumes are referenced; it would be overwhelming to try to sort through character identities without a proper introduction. If you're thinking about starting this series, you should go back to book #1 (Storm Front) and go from there. Sounds like a lot of reading, but all the books are fairly enjoyable (and/or downright fun), and the time will fly by. Plus, if you ever forget who anyone is, there are decent Wikipedia summaries of all these books available online, as well as a pretty comprehensive character list.I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, as far as Cold Days goes, but if you read the book description on Amazon's main page for this book, you'll see a spoiler for the previous book (Ghost Story), so I'm going to feel free to refer at least to that information. When this book starts, Harry has basically come back from the dead and is being nursed back to health in Arctis Tor, the stronghold of the Faeries' Winter Court. Mab, the Winter Queen, has some odd ideas about physical therapy, and Harry improves from some pretty serious damage in just a few months. Not only does he use his magical skills, but his physical abilities have been enhanced, as well. However, whereas he frequently used fire magic in the past, he's become more used to ice/cold magic and uses that a bit more often in this book (nice for a change, actually).One thing that's interesting when you read a series with a first-person POV is that you focus on what the POV character focuses on. You don't necessarily know how others see him, unless they say something to him about it. A little of that goes on here (Harry's friends distrust him after he's been shot, come back as a ghost, and then come back -- alive -- as Mab's servant). But Harry's reunions with some characters (for example, his half-brother Thomas) and lack of reunions with other characters (e.g., his daughter), as well as Harry's reaction to an idle thought about commitment early on serve to show you just how messed up Harry is when it comes to relationships. While this dimension was always present in the series, it is really brought to the surface in this book. And it makes sense based on Harry's background, as well. Anyway, I like seeing new things done with the character, or seeing his personality from a new perspective. It's got to be difficult to do that after so many books in this series, and I appreciate the effort.Another thing I like about this book is that you gain new insight into other characters, including a few who have been fixtures of the series but haven't really played key roles before now (Donar Vadderung of Monoc Securities, Mac from Harry's favorite bar, Rashid the Gatekeeper, etc.). In some cases, this means mysteries solved. In others, the mysteries are only beginning to unfold. In particular, I'm really interested in what happens with Mac, and figure we'll hear more about that in a future book. I trust Jim Butcher to deliver; though you might think there are loose ends in one book in this series, they do eventually get tied up (for example, you learn more about what was going on when Harry saw his godmother imprisoned in Arctis Tor a few books back). There's also a warning that Harry may be doing harm by feeding the Little Folk (i.e., Toot-toot and his friends) pizza, so I hope that gets explained in the future, as well!The writing style and story structure are similar to past books. Harry does have a mystery to solve this time; he's given a task and when he gets new information, he has to decide who's telling the truth and whether or not to complete his task or take alternative action. This part of the story comes to a conclusion by the end of the book. There are quite a few battles in this book (maybe even more than in past volumes), and the arc of the series, overall, is further explored -- including things that happened in Harry's past (childhood and adolescence) and events of the first several books in the series. I like the dual story structure -- you are satisfied that events are coming to a close, but there are still reasons to come back for more! There are, as usual, four-letter words and "adult" situations (nothing terribly graphic, though, I think, and if you've read the other books in the series, you'll be used to this stuff by now).There's a real sense of urgency in this book; Harry's task has to be completed on a certain night, and things are going wrong on Demonreach (the island in Lake Michigan that Harry has a unique bond with). Plus, we get a glimpse of a larger, supernatural conflict that's been going on for a long, long time, which is surely going to come to a head soon. This made it easy to keep reading right along without taking too many breaks.The new "paranormal" entities in this book are the Outsiders. We've actually met one before (He Who Walks Behind), and now we learn there are more, and we learn about the threat they pose. I would guess that we'll be getting a lot more information about the Outsiders in future books. We get a little more insight on the Erlking and the Wild Hunt, as well. Everything is introduced at an appropriate pace (including new characters, and there are a few of those who will almost certainly be coming back later on). And I was surprised by a couple of events, which was great (because, thinking back, the surprises were set up appropriately, but I still didn't see them coming).Overall, this was an enjoyable book for me. I appreciate the return to a more standard format (none of the ghost business!) and I'm looking forward to Skin Game.

This is probably my 3rd read through of this book. If you had asked me before, I'd have told you that this was my least favorite book in the series. Just too detached from the more grounded P.I.-side that has been traditionally the main focus of the series and the thing that sets it apart from other urban fantasy pieces.However, upon this last read-through, I've come to appreciate what it does for the series. Harry is operating on a whole other level as the Winter Knight, and that just means that his mundane problems are now compounded by it. Poor Harry is now an epic underdog, instead of a street-wise underdog.There's also a more emotional undertone to the antagonists, which feels fresh after them appearing as incapable of change and somewhat alien to mortals.All in all, I'm happy with it

La verdad es que siendo una saga tan larga, siempre esperas que llegue el libro que sea más flojo, en el que ya se haya agotado la cuerda. Pero nunca llega. Cada libro evoluciona, el personaje va siendo más complejo y la trama también, pero siempre atrapa. Recomendado 100%.

Nice and fast-paced read as always like any other Dresden book. However, felt too much repetition at times with explaining how the water disrupts magic and digital gadgets fail around the wizards. I mean, after all these reads all of us do remember the basics.Harry takes up the mantle of the Winter Knight and Mab at her scheming best makes for a nice read. Felt too much supernatural and very low on magic here, though. Just a spoiler - Molly becomes the Winter Lady in the end!!!

What do you do on your first day back among the living, save the world, again oh and wreck a tuxedo.

Quattordicesimo volume della serie.Fa effetto, ma fa ancora più effetto notare come il livello si sia mantenuto altissimo, e come adesso che i livelli di potere sono altissimi e le macrotrame cominciano a svelarsi, tutto rientra nel grande schema.Moltissime le cose che ancora non sappiamo, molti i misteri da svelare, ma i dettagli cominciano a scivolare al loro posto.E tutto quanto vissuto finora, a partire dai primi casi con i quali abbiamo conosciuto l'allora "solo e unico Mago Professionista di Chicago" fino ad arrivare ai colpi di scena che hanno cominciato a distruggere lo status quo e a far precipitare gli eventi... tutto quanto rientra in un grande progetto, nel piano orchestrato da chi sta nell'ombra.E tutto era già deciso e progettato, dall'autore, fin dal primo libro.Terrificante.Ora Harry è il Cavaliere d'Inverno. Vive nel palazzo di Mab, è il suo braccio armato, e deve fare i conti con il popolo fatato. E col suo primo incarico da parte della Regina dell'Aria e dell'Oscurità.Nel frattempo deve anche evitare la distruzione di Chicago e di Demonreach, scoprire la verità sulla "sua" isola e sul pozzo di energie che vi risiede, scoprire la verità sugli Esterni, sui suoi stessi problemi di salute.E mettere in prospettiva tutto quanto gli è accaduto finora.Oh, e ovviamente nel finale avremo ancora modifiche tremende agli status quo, colpi di scena e nuovi problemi da sommare ai precedenti.L'unico punto un po' debole della storia direi che è dovuto alla prevedibilità di chi fosse il nemico da affrontare, tra i due possibili. A parte questo, la discesa verso la mostruosità di Harry Dresden è resa splendidamente, il suo sforzo di fare la cosa giusta, la sua lotta per mantenere la propria umanità.Una serie davvero eccellente!