I love Supernatural. Urban Legends and ghost stories are the new fairy tales, and in keeping with old world traditions, most of them are dark and based around the death of those that weren't wise enough to respect tradition and the night. I kept up with it up until the end of the fall of the angels and that last episode with Felicia Day...Love Her! But, besides the point. The best part about the series, besides Jensen Ackles, for me at least, is the hook - man versus magic and the unknown and man steadily taking back the world of monsters and demons, and that's one of the big draws of the Dresden Files.
Published back in 2000 by Jim Butcher, my own personal writing deity when it comes to hardcore fantasy fiction, Storm Front, the first book in the series, is a hard boiled, noire-esque urban fantasy novel following Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, a private detective working in the Chicago area solving supernatural-related cases for Chicago PD. But, here's the kicker - Dresden is a wizard. Not the kind that pick pretty girls to saw in half, but rather the kind those of the old school of wizardry that wield the primal forces of wind and fire and, in a pinch, a little bit of devastating lightning.
Cursed by a past he had no control over, Dresden is one bad rumor away from getting a sword to the back of the neck, but when people in Chicago are getting murdered in very...very dark-wizard like ways, Dresden has to find a way to solve the murders and find a missing person while his worst fan is lurking in the shadows with a very sharp sword waiting for him to make one mistake.
Snarky and irreverent, Dresden brings a world of sarcasm and hilarity to the wizarding theme the Harry Potter generation has left with us, for a more adult, modern twist to the private eye genre. I recommend it to anyone who loves a good LOTR's joke here and there and wants to be pleasantly surprised by Jim Butcher's dark take on what happens when you're the only outed wizard in the world trying to make a quick buck.
No comments:
Post a Comment