Sci Friday: The Wondrous World of Harry Dresden

~post by Tommy

Noir detective stories have been a part of the American literary landscape since the 1920s and stories of magic and fantasy have been around almost as long as mankind has been writing. Thirteen years ago however, a man named Jim Butcher put the two genres in a blender and out popped one of my absolute favorite book series that I have ever read: The Dresden Files. The Dresden Files follows noir P.I. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden and his mysterious adventures in a somewhat dark, and often gritty, modern day Chicago. The catch, you ask? Harry isn’t a normal private eye, he also happens to be a wizard and his cases more often involve vampires, faeries, and werewolves than they do cheating spouses or deadbeat dads.

In the series’ first book, Storm Front, Butcher introduces us to the hero of the story, Harry Dresden, as a wisecracking and oft down on his luck P.I. who slings magic more than bullets and is more than a bit too stubborn for his own good. Needing to make rent for the month Dresden takes two cases, one from the police that may or may not involve a murderous sorcerer and one about a missing husband. Simple, right? Along the way Dresden riles up the local mafia boss, pisses off the city’s newest drug kingpin, and ends up fighting a toxic toad demon in the middle of an enormous thunderstorm while entirely naked. Storm Front also introduces several recurring characters, both friend and foe, who become important lynchpins as the series moves on. Chicago police detective Karin Murphy is Dresden’s link to local law enforcement and she doesn’t quite trust him, but who could blame her for not trusting the guy who gets paid as a psychic consultant? Susan Rodriguez is a tenacious reporter who believes in the supernatural, unlike most mortals in the Dresden universe, and will go to any lengths to get a good story. Gentleman John Marcone is Chicago’s iron fisted ruler of the criminal underworld and while he would appear to make a good nemesis for our wizard hero, he more often ends up being an uneasy ally. Storm Front ends with Harry beating the bad guys, almost ruining his reputation with the police, and wondering what to do on a date with a gorgeous reporter way out of his league. In the beginning Dresden is a loner, spending more time on cases and working on magical theory with his trusty sidekick Bob the talking skull than with any friends. He also has no allies to lean on and bears the full brunt of his investigations himself. As the series continues, however, this begins to slowly change.

Each of the next five books of the series focuses on a different supernatural group from faeries to ghosts and even fallen angels who reside in thirty certain pieces of silver, and they each also add a new ally to Dresden’s ever-growing list of friends. College werewolves, diffident succubi, and holy knights of God all join Dresden’s team and have pivotal roles moving forward. However for every friend Harry makes he also finds a way to make a new enemy. Reincarnated demon sorcerers, an entire clan of angry bat demon vampires, and even the governing body of all the wizards of the world, his own people, come down on the side of his enemies and cause trouble for him in almost every book. One of the joys of Butcher’s world is that no one you meet is ever inconsequential. A one off character that was introduced as the minion for a minor villain in book four and has about ten pages of face time can come back all the way in book  fourteen and be a major threat. Continuity is the greatest joy of the Dresden files; well, that and Butcher’s love of pop culture references. The series has built a continuity that is almost second to none.

Then in book seven everything  changes. Butcher adds almost a hundred pages to every book giving us more of Dresden’s trademark sass mouth, more spell slinging high adventure, and roughly 56% more Star Wars quotes per book. Starting with Dead Beat, Harry’s world grows considerably and his actions no longer just effect the city of Chicago but they have a large impact on the greater supernatural world. Harry joins the Wardens; the combat arm of the White Council of Wizards, attracts the attention of a sinister conspiracy attempting to throw the world into chaos, and puts his hands on more power than he has ever had before. In short the series begins  to evolve away from its roots as a noir crime series that happened to feature a wizard and starts to become a large scale, high stakes epic fantasy adventure series that happens to take place in the modern day. Harry picks up new friends: A high strung Valkyrie and a little girl who is the repository of all written information on the planet, and his old friends become more powerful. But to go along with more power and better friends, comes far more dangerous enemies and situations. For all of the dangers he has faced: death at the hands of a mad faerie queen, a millennia old demon stuck in his brain, and starting a war with half the vampires in the world, nothing quite prepares him for the dangers of politics.

So if you’re looking for a new fantasy adventure series, a mystery mixed with a little bit of magic, or if you’ve been meaning to try this out and never have go out and pick up Storm Front now, you will not be disappointed.

P.S. In book seven he rides a giant zombie T-Rex through the streets of downtown Chicago. How can it get any cooler than that?

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Sci Friday is a weekly post focusing on all things Sci Fi. Booksellers Tommy and Marie are you intrepid leaders on this journey through awesome new books; the best and worst of what’s come before; Sci Fi film adaptations and more. Check back next Friday for more!