Customer Reviews

Storm Front

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

From the first sentence this book takes off and kept me breathless to the end. Well OK, I was able to catch my breath but poor Harry hardly ever does. The Harry here is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden and the narrator seems to "get" him as much as the author does. The book starts with a pair of grisly murders and Harry has been brought in on the case by the Captain of Chicago's Special Investigations unit. There is a mob connection and a drug connection and people that seem to want Harry dead.

What James Marsters accomplishes in narration is nothing short of magical. He not only does justice to the voices of a host of characters, he makes you feel like you've traveled this journey with him and when Harry is bone weary you can feel it through Mr. Marster's voice. I know he has done the next 3 books in this series already, and I hope he does them all.

Harry Dresden voiced by James Marsters....beautiful! James Marsters breathes life into a wonderful character. Completely hooked me on the series. James Marsters skill as an actor brings this story and character to life. Prepare to obsessively listen to disk after disk as you will not want to stop even for a moment.

Harry Dresden is an inspired character. Intelligent, humorous and sexy. One liners in this series will make you laugh until you wet yourself. Guaranteed! Even when you think of them a week later you will giggle madly.

Series keeps to rules of it's own world. Book after book, adventure after adventure it stays true. Each book stands beautifully on it's own and fits into series without flaw. Extremely well written and imaginative.

Fun, fun, fun.

Also check out the book two and three in series as audio books narrated by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Summer Knight is due as audio book soon as well.

If you have seen TV show but not yet read the books BRACE YOURSELF as you are in for a treat. Books are a million times better than the show.

Ok, I really like reading the Dresden files. But the author, publishers, and all who are involved in making a quality book are ill served by typos, misplaced commas, and these strange annotation markings in the e-book versions. Amazon should NOT be charging top dollar for a poor product.

I went right through the first few in the series, the story is that good. But now on 'blood rites', I am beginning to get tired of the typos, and had to say something.

The Dresden Files is an excellent series of which "Storm Front" is the first book.

Opening one of Butcher's "Dresden" books is like turning on a favorite TV show. You know the characters, you like the characters, and you are looking for a pace that keeps your attention. You find all of those things in the "Dresden Files" and all of the volumes I have read have been entertaining.

Buy this book and start the series. As I write this, there are twelve volumes available with another book short stories just published. Do not let the number of volumes intimidate you, they go by fast because the author believes in a healthy pace.

The most common theme throughout most of the series is Harry's sense of right, wrong, and necessary. Harry is a good guy trying to do the right thing but his methods often get him in trouble. Harry's definition of "good" is not always shared by those around and above him. In much the same way, what he sometimes has to do to survive and with whom he associates are necessary and sometimes in the gray" area of right and wrong.

Despite being a wizard with some talent, Harry is really just a guy trying to get by in life whose good intentions get him into thorny situations. Each book could be read as a stand alone but it's probably better to read them in order. Each book contains it's own plot, but there are additional plot lines that are developed over several books and throughout the series.

What is Harry Dresden like? I would say a mix of Jim Rockford, MacGyver, and John Wayne. The Duke portion in Harry is probably the least visible on first blush, but that sense of duty and determination is there. Like Rockford, Harry comes out on the short end of some fights and has a convenient ability to endure physical abuse. Like MacGyver, his wits are actually his best weapon. Harry really is a guy who you would want to have your back in a bad situation. He;'s also the kind of guy you'd enjoy having a beer with and swapping pop culture references.

Try it, you'll like it.

The introduction of Harry Dresden to the Fantasy world is a mixed bag in many ways. It definitely shows Jim Butcher's infancy as an author: the mystery is not as deep, the villain more obvious, and the diction simpler than in his later work. However, even amidst that, you can catch the glimmer of the golden goose Harry would become for Butcher.

One thing that is not missing from the first Dresden Files, is the frenetic pace and killer action that is now a welcome trademark of Harry's adventures. Jim Butcher reminds me of a modern day Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E Howard; a guy who can write deeply imaginative and thrillingly fast paced adventure fantasy.

Even as you feel Butcher finding his legs in Storm Front, you are still compelled by the character of Harry and the inventive Urban Fantasy world he inhabits. While thinner and less nuanced than his later Files, the villain is still villainous, the danger just as real and puns as bad as ever;)

It is even better in retrospect. I just re-read it for the 3rd time in preparation for the latest book, Turn Coat, and it was as good as ever, and even better in some respects. Reading the series again really lays out the growth for Harry Dresden, both as a Wizard and a Person. It works so well because as you see the Author's infancy, you also see Harry's. So you can forgive a little more since Harry is not as seasoned or as powerful as he becomes. It only makes sense that as he has grown into an incredibly powerful Wizard, that Jim Butcher has grown into a very good author.

The Dresden Files has become, for my money, the best 1st Person Fantasy series out there and it all started here, with a simple but thoroughly enjoyable lightning quick ride through the Storm. Complete with an Evil Sorcerer, a Toad Demon, a Vampire Madame, a Mob Boss and an angry Wizard Cop all gunning for our Harry: Isn't his job great? :)

308 HC pages. 3.5 out of 5 stars

I didn't really have any expectations coming to Storm Front - I'd only kinda heard of The Dresden Files as a TV show, but hadn't watched it. I'd never read the book.

I got to the end of a fantasy saga, and was looking to fill the gap it left - I reached out to some friends to get some recommendations on the next thing for me to pick up and get my teeth into - several pointed me in the direction of the Dresden Files books.

I almost didn't buy it - $9.99 for a 384 page e-book? My last kindle purchase was close to 1000 pages for much less than that. Price gouging publishers who charge top dollar for bits and bytes annoy me. Of course, I *did* buy the book. 4 days later, I've finished the book and am kind of disappointed.

I never got engaged. No suspension of disbelief. The characters feel as flat as they did at the beginning of the book. Harry seemed to go from one blunder to another. His cop girlfriend was oddly hostile to him the entire time. The bad guy, who was supposed to be way more powerful and way more dangerous than our hero never posed a real threat (or seemed to shake our oddly unflappable hero, despite his constant complaining). The mysterious spiritual bodyguard / enforcer shows up in the nick of time, ever time. It felt like Harry Potter, after he flunks Hogwarts and is dumped by his friends.

The book left me wanting more. More depth, more story, more character. Not more Dresden, however. I'll take my $9.99 and buy into another e-book series.

I have read all ten of the Harry Dresden books and I have to say that they pull you in from the very beginning. They have a wonderful mix of wizardry, romance, suspense, violence, you name it. It all blends together in a way that leaves you longing for the next book in the series.

I must caution you though on the audio versions of the first 4 books that have been released. When I first saw the audio book versions, I was very excited until I heard them. James Marsters is the narrator and he is horrible. I highly enjoy watching James Marsters act (Buffy, Angle, Torchwood, Smallville) but narrate...he cannot. He just sounds bored. Only on characters that are not Harry Dresden does he seem to try...

If I would have started the series with the audio books...I probably never would have given them a chance and truly missed out on a wonderful series.

My advice. Read the books...enjoy the short lived TV show...skip the audio books.

This review is about the audiobook production, not about Butcher's text.

The GOOD: Marsters has a great voice for the character - deep enough, evocative. His reading pace is quite slow, but on a player or system that can speed it up about 33% it's fine.

The BAD: What would be an enjoyable performance is marred by the incessant mispronunciation of even simple words.

Hard or unusual words or phrases would be one thing - though if a company like Buzzy is going to all the trouble (and, no doubt, expense) of producing an audiobook, you'd think they'd spend a few extra dollars to get in a coach to teach the narrator how to pronounce Latin, or classical words like "Charybdis".

But Marsters consistently mispronounces common words. In the first 3 volumes, I think he never once pronounces "writhe" correctly (a word which, listening, I realize Butcher really likes) - he pronounces it "wreathe" (as if it were a Christmas wreath). And that's but one example of many. "Runes" gets pronounced "ruins". "Exorcise" gets pronounced "exercise" (what, are you making the evil spirit do pushups?) Heck, he even once pronounces "bow", the gesture of respect, as if it were hair "bow".

Again, it would have been a simple matter for the narrator to look over the text before hand and highlight words to check before reading, or for the publisher to have a "proof listener" to catch such errors and fix them up after each session. But, apparently, that didn't happen.

Less glaring, but still distracting, are the occasional improper pauses - breaks in the middle of sentences, inappropriate to meaning or context. Perhaps the narrator paused to swallow or something. Such little 'glitches' in performance are completely understandable - what isn't understandable is the failure to correct them: to take the extra 20 seconds to go back to the start of the sentence and reread, allowing the editor to cut out the mistake.

The upshot of all this is the audio equivalent of a poorly typeset and inadequately proofread book, where bad spellings, typos, incorrect punctuation and mis-set words all distract the reader and detract from the enjoyment. These constant audio gaffs really spoil what is, otherwise, a quite enjoyable performance by Marsters.

It's bad enough that, while I'll happily borrow a copy from the library, I won't be buying these audiobooks. I wouldn't buy a $40 hardback book filled with obvious typos and printing errors - and the same goes for the audio format.

I wish Buzzy had spent the very little bit of additional time and money that would have been required to produce a quality product.

ADDENDUM: By about the 6th book in the series, the quality of the narration improves markedly - the number of both awkward pauses and mispronounced words decreases (Marsters learned to pronounce 'writhe' yay!) sufficiently that they no longer prevent nearly the distraction that they did in the earlier volumes. Since the recordings were not produced in book-publication order, the improvements in these "middle" volumes may reflect the quality of the most recent audiobook productions. I haven't gotten to the recordings of the later volumes yet, some of which, I think, were made before the ones I'm listening to now.

This book seemed to be lacking something in the plot department. The characters, especially Harry, were likeable and interesting I thought. Harry has a good personality and is quite funny at times. I also found the writting style very enjoyable and easy to read. My gripe is, however, the plot line was very flat and kind of dull in my opinion.

We meet Harry Dresden, a wizard openly living and working in Chicago. He occassionally helps the police solve crimes and runs his own investigating business. When two people are found dead with their hearts riped from their chests in an unusual manor, Murphy calls in Harry to help the PD. During this time Harry is also hired by Monica Sells to find her missing husband. The reader learns a lot about Harry, like the fact he is always low on cash or that technology doesn't seem to work around him apparently due to his magical aura. We meet mobsters, hookers, vampires, faeries to name a few, in the quest to investigate. Harry is attacked by a toad-demon and roams the city al fresco for a while. I found it bizarre that the wizard bar is called Mc Anally's.....I hope this is just some sort of repeated typo in the kindle edition and was supposed to be Mc Nally's.

As I said the plot was kind of lack luster. However the writing style and characters are great so I am planning on checking out the second book.

If you like Harry Dresden you will enjoy this reading very much. The whole book is included, and James Marsters (Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) does an Outstanding job of reading it. I intend to get all these books (with James Marsters reading), and urge the production of ALL the Harry Dresden series using Mr. Marsters as the reader.