Ghost Story
I finished Ghost Story today! It took me what - about five months? - to bull my way through Changes and I did Ghost Story in less than five hours this morning.
It is kind of strange to be here without any more Dresden Files books at the top of my To-Read pile, I have to say.
I think I enjoyed this one more that any of the others. Possibly because I came to it almost completely unspoiled - I don't come to media completely unspoiled very often, as you might have noticed, but every so often (usually when I'm on a two-week trip when a new book comes out) I arrange it as a sort of a luxury. I am divided on how it changes the experience - I know a study recently came out that claimed that stories are more fun if you're spoiled. I suspect it has to do with how one is spoiled, and how much one would have enjoyed the story regardless - Changes wasn't really a book I would've like either way, but I think Ghost Story is now going to be the book I recommend as a starting point for DF. (Well, that or MoC.) And coming to it unspoiled was fun.
I think all I really knew was that Murphy took a few more levels in badassery and, I think it was![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jadelennox, told me that it really didn't mess up the fanfic at all.
Which was true! Man, this book was a fic writer's dream: it filled in a bunch of backstory, gave us awesome looks at minor characters, played with some world mechanics, threw up some more plot hooks, but resolved absolutely none of the long-standing mysteries and left things in pretty much the same state they were after the previous book. None of the stories I was working on are jossed! Actually some of them are more plausible now. Which is always the mark of a good installment of a serial. :P
I think the main thing, though, was that I actually liked Harry in this book. I liked him in a lot of the early books - he already had issues out the wazoo, but he was likeable anyway. I liked him on-and-off even through parts of Turncoat. I didn't much like him at any point in Changes, and I think part of the reason I bulled through the last couple of chapters is that I knew he got shot at the end. :P Butcher seems to like to take Harry through these cycles of being rage-ful and unsympathetic, and then pull him back - the first time it was fallen angels messing with his head, and it's interesting that this one seems to imply the same kind of crap was going on with him in Changes, dammit every time I decide I don't trust Butcher any more he pulls something where the narrative disagrees with the same things I hated.
Also: every so often I will come across people saying that Dresden Files lacks "strong female characters" and I just sort of go "bwuh?" Dresden Files lacks well-written female characters and has some pretty nasty misogyny written into its fabric, but strong? I mean, in Ghost Story Chicago falls into a supernatural war zone, and the city basically seems to have ended up divided between Molly, Lea, Murphy, and Lara, and a bunch of mostly-female minor practitioners through the Paranet, and the Alphas which gave the appearance of being mostly female despite the mysterious disappearance of Georgia, providing backup. And Mab and the Corpse-taker seething underground and pulling strings. With Marcone and Forthill and Butters keeping the home-fires burning and providing nursing, sandwiches, and emotional support.
I mean, it is in no way a feminist or even female-friendly text, but my god, that book, it was all women making things happen and the men just sort of bumbling around them trying to keep them from going critical. It was kind of awesome.
In other news: every bit as gay as I could have asked for! If I go onto the post-Ghost Story kinkmeme and it isn't stuffed full of Bob/Butters and Bob/Harry, there is no justice in the world. Or Bob/Butters/Harry, since it's now canon that in Dresden-files verse, threesomes solve everything. :P (I hope there is some good meaty Thomas/Justine/Mara that actually treats it as an evolving poly relationship, too.) And somehow it managed to be all about Marcone's fixation on Harry despite his being, apparently, several thousand miles away. :P I am suspecting that fandom and/or Butcher is going to latch on to where exactly Marcone was... (I am suspecting the answer is 'up to his kneecaps in trouble related to Harry's business').
I still need to figure out which of Harry's friends would play the keyboards, though. Harry is obviously guitar, Butters is on drums, one of the Carpenters is on harmonica, but I can't make up my mind about keyboards. And does anybody know of anybody who does polka/blues fusion music? It seems like it must exist but I haven't found any except this one Swedish group that doesn't quite work.
OMG I just realized - Mr. Sunshine. Harry you've got to learn to stop freaking naming creatures of unimaginable power!
***
Other thing I did: I fixed my computer cord! With my soldering iron! All by myself! Well, except those two wires that I can't figure out what they're for, but the battery's charging, so there. :P
It is kind of strange to be here without any more Dresden Files books at the top of my To-Read pile, I have to say.
I think I enjoyed this one more that any of the others. Possibly because I came to it almost completely unspoiled - I don't come to media completely unspoiled very often, as you might have noticed, but every so often (usually when I'm on a two-week trip when a new book comes out) I arrange it as a sort of a luxury. I am divided on how it changes the experience - I know a study recently came out that claimed that stories are more fun if you're spoiled. I suspect it has to do with how one is spoiled, and how much one would have enjoyed the story regardless - Changes wasn't really a book I would've like either way, but I think Ghost Story is now going to be the book I recommend as a starting point for DF. (Well, that or MoC.) And coming to it unspoiled was fun.
I think all I really knew was that Murphy took a few more levels in badassery and, I think it was
jadelennox, told me that it really didn't mess up the fanfic at all.Which was true! Man, this book was a fic writer's dream: it filled in a bunch of backstory, gave us awesome looks at minor characters, played with some world mechanics, threw up some more plot hooks, but resolved absolutely none of the long-standing mysteries and left things in pretty much the same state they were after the previous book. None of the stories I was working on are jossed! Actually some of them are more plausible now. Which is always the mark of a good installment of a serial. :P
I think the main thing, though, was that I actually liked Harry in this book. I liked him in a lot of the early books - he already had issues out the wazoo, but he was likeable anyway. I liked him on-and-off even through parts of Turncoat. I didn't much like him at any point in Changes, and I think part of the reason I bulled through the last couple of chapters is that I knew he got shot at the end. :P Butcher seems to like to take Harry through these cycles of being rage-ful and unsympathetic, and then pull him back - the first time it was fallen angels messing with his head, and it's interesting that this one seems to imply the same kind of crap was going on with him in Changes, dammit every time I decide I don't trust Butcher any more he pulls something where the narrative disagrees with the same things I hated.
Also: every so often I will come across people saying that Dresden Files lacks "strong female characters" and I just sort of go "bwuh?" Dresden Files lacks well-written female characters and has some pretty nasty misogyny written into its fabric, but strong? I mean, in Ghost Story Chicago falls into a supernatural war zone, and the city basically seems to have ended up divided between Molly, Lea, Murphy, and Lara, and a bunch of mostly-female minor practitioners through the Paranet, and the Alphas which gave the appearance of being mostly female despite the mysterious disappearance of Georgia, providing backup. And Mab and the Corpse-taker seething underground and pulling strings. With Marcone and Forthill and Butters keeping the home-fires burning and providing nursing, sandwiches, and emotional support.
I mean, it is in no way a feminist or even female-friendly text, but my god, that book, it was all women making things happen and the men just sort of bumbling around them trying to keep them from going critical. It was kind of awesome.
In other news: every bit as gay as I could have asked for! If I go onto the post-Ghost Story kinkmeme and it isn't stuffed full of Bob/Butters and Bob/Harry, there is no justice in the world. Or Bob/Butters/Harry, since it's now canon that in Dresden-files verse, threesomes solve everything. :P (I hope there is some good meaty Thomas/Justine/Mara that actually treats it as an evolving poly relationship, too.) And somehow it managed to be all about Marcone's fixation on Harry despite his being, apparently, several thousand miles away. :P I am suspecting that fandom and/or Butcher is going to latch on to where exactly Marcone was... (I am suspecting the answer is 'up to his kneecaps in trouble related to Harry's business').
I still need to figure out which of Harry's friends would play the keyboards, though. Harry is obviously guitar, Butters is on drums, one of the Carpenters is on harmonica, but I can't make up my mind about keyboards. And does anybody know of anybody who does polka/blues fusion music? It seems like it must exist but I haven't found any except this one Swedish group that doesn't quite work.
OMG I just realized - Mr. Sunshine. Harry you've got to learn to stop freaking naming creatures of unimaginable power!
***
Other thing I did: I fixed my computer cord! With my soldering iron! All by myself! Well, except those two wires that I can't figure out what they're for, but the battery's charging, so there. :P