I only read the first and the last of these four novellas as per recommendation by the person who lent the book to me. I wasn't too keen on the first one because it was merely a chapter from a larger work, so I was completely lost throughout the whole thing. The last one, however, Noah's Orphans ...
It was really interesting reading some more short stories that fit into the books but aren't specifically a part of them. I really enjoyed the ones that were more along the lines of 'slice of life' stories because even though it's still awful stuff happening, it gives a bit more of a glimpse into...
A short episode of Dresden before he opened his own PI business. Upon finding a lost child he is told the parents have reported her kidnapped, not missing. Will Dresden be able to get out of this one or will he leave the little girl alone in the big city. This short story only takes a few minutes...
I swallowed this series whole. I fell hard for the characters - Tavi, Kitai, Bernard, Amara, Max, Ehren, Isana and so many more. It takes a mature and skilled writer to bring to life a world and characters that provoke the kind of investment that had me running to the library to get the next one ...
The chaotic events in his life may have Harry Dresden feeling Dead Beat...but his books have never been more energized!As an accountant, when I have a bad day at work, it often means I spent hours poring through various mind-numbingly dull spreadsheets trying to rectify a discrepancy. Now here's ...
This is a really fun book and a quick read, highly recommended as long as you don't think too hard about it. It's uplifting and leaves you feeling good.However I had the whole night to think about it, so here are some issues that would come up if it wasn't a fantasy (these things in no way detrac...
Reviewed by: Rabid Reads3.5 starsLover of Urban Fantasy that I am, it may come as a surprise that before now . . . I have never actually . . . read Jim Butcher . . .I KNOW. I'm such a poser.In my defense, I haven't had much luck with male authors in the genre, and come on . . . we're up to what? ...
Codex Alera 1: Furies of Calderon by Jim ButcherAs you probably have noticed by now, I am a huge fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The books are fun reads - fast-paced, gritty and realistic, while still maintaining that a tarnished patina of fantasy about them. They have a great narrativ...
Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher is the second novel in the Codex Alera sequence, featuring Tavi, a young man who has been taken under the wing of the First Lord of Alera and provided with sponsorship so that he can train as a Cursor. In the course of this book, the Alerans discover the threat of the...
Have you ever seen the famous Leeroy Jenkins youtube video? There is a group of gamers getting ready to do a quest in World of Warcraft and they are standing outside the gates and talking on their headsets, coming up with a complex gameplan on how to get in there and beat all of these monsters. B...
After two years of bitter conflict with the hordes of invading Canim, Tavi of Calderon, now Captain of the First Aleran Legion, realizes that a peril far greater than the Canim exists-the mysterious threat that drove the savage Canim to flee their homeland. Now, Tavi must find a way to overcome t...
"Hell's Bells" count: 26If you're reading this series in sequence (which you absolutely should be, or things will stop making sense very quickly), you've got a good handle on how the world of Harry Dresden operates. He's a lone wolf, so to speak, standing up to the Occult Forces of Chicago with o...
"Keep reading the series," they said. "It gets really good around book 4," they said...Well, they were right. Butcher really kicked it up a notch in this latest Harry Dresden novel. (Okay, latest for me. I realize this series is years old and I'm very late to the party. It's like I just discovere...
I mostly like this series. However, I'm certainly not a die hard "Dresdenite" from the Church of Harry. Dresden is NOT my literary BFF and, truth be told, spends far more time languishing under the heading OAA (Occasionally Annoying Acquaintance). I like the stories (so far), but that enjoyment ...
Update 03-11-11(2): So my last update was hastily written, and in anger. Now that I've had time to cool off and think clearly I'm feeling bad. So here's another, less in-your-face way of saying it:Warning: this review contains cheekiness. Please do not be offended or take this review too serio...
THE New York Times Bestseller Harry Dresden's life finally seems to be calming down -- until a shadow from the past returns. Mab, monarch of the Sidhe Winter Court, calls in an old favor from Harry -- one small favor that will trap him between a nightmarish foe and an equally deadly ally, and th...
The light flashed white and clean for maybe half a second, and then it dimmed down, as though some kind of greasy soot had coated it, until the light, though still bright, was so vague and veiled that it accomplished little more than to cast a faint glow to maybe an arm’s length from Rawlins.“Wha...
I shouted. I thrust the end of my staff into the gravel and dragged it through, drawing a line in the dust and stones. I swiftly inscribed a quick, rough circle maybe four feet across around Murphy and me, actually getting between her gun and the grey suits for a second.“Dammit, Harry, get down!”...
Sanya said a few minutes later, “normally I do not storm headquarters buildings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And in broad daylight, too.”We were parked down the block from the FBI’s Chicago office, where Toot had guided us, crouched on the dashboard and demanding to know why Sanya hadn...
“First Spear! Captain wants you!” “Where?” Marcus called back. Drums and horns continued sounding, and everywhere Canim and Alerans alike were running back toward their ships. Flags were being run up masts—the green pennants that were the signal to continue on course at full speed. Instead of ans...
Thomas said. “Are you sure?”“You felt it,” I said. “That mental whammy. It was exactly like that night in the Raith Deeps.”Thomas frowned but nodded. “Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?”Mac walked silently past us to the ruined door. He bent down and picked something up out of the general wreckage there. I...
She had always found their winces and green faces somewhat amusing.She suspected she would have more sympathy for them in the future.The light did not merely hurt her eyes—it stabbed it with rotted, rusty old swords. Her heartbeat sent pulses of pain through her skull and down her neck as if on w...
I would have thought I’d be more nervous about a personally lethal, fiery cataclysm sweeping over the world, but I wasn’t. When dawn came, it was like listening to a big truck roll by outside—dangerous if you were in front of it, but nothing but background noise if you weren’t. My grave was peace...
She was speaking through some kind of megaphone pressed directly against the side of my head, evidently while pounding my skull with the pointy end of a claw hammer. "Hey, boss, can you hear me?""Ow," I said."What happened?""Ow," I repeated, annoyed, as if it should have been explanation enough.M...
bumper sticker on the back. It is worth noting that by the standards of my life, this was not a terribly incongruous entrance. Michael regarded the slaughterhouse for a moment after he had killed the ignition and said, “This is a bad place.” “Yeah,”...
Beagle Once there was a village on an island that belonged to the Shark God. Every man in the village was a fisherman, and the women cooked their catch and mended their nets and sails, and painted their little boats. And because that island was sacred to him, the Shark God saw to it that ther...
“Coffee?”“What flavor is it?” I asked.He was in his forties, a big, solid man with bags under his calm, wary eyes, and his name tag read dean. “It’s coffee-flavored coffee.”“No mocha?”“Fuck mocha.”“Thank God,” I said. “Black.”Officer Dean gave me hot black coffee in a paper cup, and I sipped at i...
I originally put it together as a class assignment at the University of Oklahoma’s Professional Writing program, more than two years before Storm Front found a home at Roc. This one won’t win any awards, because it is, quite frankly, a novice effort. It was perhaps the third or fourth short story...