Aside from a bit of an odd dry spell after Lestat rises and begins to recount his past—where he’s a really boring loner boy—this was better than Interview on all fronts. It is more self indulgent, too, going on tangents and digressions, sometimes in other perspectives. But those sections were all very interesting to me, as they addressed the worldbuilding questions that were fostered in the first book, and the setup for this book, pretty well begs.

Frank Muller remains one of the best narrators of a book too. Simon Vance, a staple of the vocation, sounds almost lifeless in comparison. Muller captures the sensual qualities and is excellent at differentiating the characters.

This is the second book but also has a pretty massive hook for the third one. Maybe the first one was written as though a follow up was not secured. This one does wrap up most of what is happening, but in the meta context, when we are not in the past, not much of a plot unfolds. It essentially builds to a cliffhanger and then leaves. It’s effective, I’ll give it that. But I do prefer more standalone plots, even within series. I wonder how many of these Muller got to…

Well, it doesn’t get good yet. It’s somewhat improved over the first, but still has issues with wild solipsism driving the actual narrative, synonymous with Dresden himself. He still can’t remotely write women and it’s full of all types of fan service where they are concerned. Honestly, I feel like the fantasy trash mood this book occupies is the same ven diagram of people who watch B movies. Second hand nostalgia and so-bad-it’s-fun-but-not-good.

Then again, it does again subvert some expectations of the genre with who the bad guys are and the magic system being 10% different than you’d expect. Tidbits of Dresden’s past come up. The narrative finally acknowledges that Dresden is basically Xander from Buffy grown up, with his relationship to women. White knighting, but actually just sexist and an idiot most of the time. Yet, still women get in their own way at every turn. Butcher may not know he’s got a huge blind spot for this in his writing just yet, but will soon, I think. Again, popcorn commercial fiction, foundational to contemporary urban fantasy. Mostly bad with some stuff that stuck to the culture, altering the space.

Though the pace suffers from the other improvements, this feels like the first competent book. It’s less hyper sexualized, despite a ton of fae around, Murphy feels more believable, and the world building feels more fair too, and less like Harry is influencing everyone in the story and is a red headed step child unfairly beat around by everyone but everyone somehow still wants to sleep with him.

Rather than frenetic fight after fight, a good chunk of this is how the council works and the politics at play, and generally shoring up the soft worldbuilding, which this has mostly done throughout. It feels like Harry Potter in that regard: the author has some ideas and they just are inserted, despite some internal logic and consistency that would make it suspect. Especially around the magic Harry knows. There’s plenty of Deus ex machina, where he just has the magic to deal with certain things and sometimes it’s expounded on and sometimes he just does it. It’s nice that the workings of the fae and council feel more rooted in fantasy elements you will have probably heard of, from one source or another. Gifts between fae and humans, Changlings, lots of standard stuff. And the factions function like codified things. Feels like Butcher is being reigned in, and/or is learning some craft. Though, still pulpy fun, and fairly trashy; the ACOTAR primarily catering to guys analogy I made in the previous book still good.

While the actual plotting, especially the hook, comes along nicely from the previous instalments, the laughably badly written women I think actually transgress into offensive, rather than just eye-roll worthy. I think comparing this to ACOTAR, but from guys, is really valid, too. The romance component only gets more pronounced. Literally every character is hyper sexualized and describe as to their fuckability. They collude with Dresden in the solipsistic first person, so that Harry isn’t really supposed to be unreliable, and all these women really do purport themselves like this. And he’s gallant for rebuffing the sex kittens.

Beyond all that, all of the stakes revolve around the women. The way Harry is punished is through them, despite some attempts at them being tough or not like other women. Especially Murphy, who has been kidnapped or made to look stupid in every book now, but is supposed to be self suffice t. None of them actually have agency and all of them are vehicles, even the married wife of Michael, his sudden best friend, hand-of-god, manages to get roped into the stakes, albeit as an axis for both men to be harmed.

I can see why people like this one though, because in terms of world building and backstory, this is the first one that makes a concerted effort. In a lot of ways it could be the actual first entry to the series. The comparison to ACOTAR is even more pronounced, since the fae/fairy connection is introduced and made to be a huge component that was very minor in the previous one. There’s a lot of introducing people and then their relationship feeling unearned and large because the plot stakes requires them to, such as with Thomas—a vampire who suddenly ends up aligned with them after a pretty Deus ex machina resolution to a conflict, which again ends up as stakes for all the male characters and the women being subservient. In one case, quite literally. It is 100% leaning into the male power fantasy still, and though I do remember them getting better, this one was particularly grating, rather than fun and cheesy and stupid, at times. So, I hope Butcher smartens up soon.

It seems like Butcher is getting a bit better at pacing, though not nailing it. The slower start is a lot better at cultivating meaningful stakes and showing side characters as people you can care about. The plot involves a lot more people, flows better, culminates into the first convincing action sequence (though the way it happens felt a little wild, even within the context of the universe). It was as competent as the last but the plot was much more memorable, so it’s certainly improving.

Still the same romance, still nearly the same hyper sexualization of every woman, but it’s less trashy. There’s some weird orentialism that is popping up now too, more pronounced on audio with Marsters doing truly cringe worthy performances for those characters, and the references to “oriental” are just really, really dated. I’m guessing they were at the time of publication, but perhaps not. Hopefully this is another bud that gets clipped along the way.

One last improvement is the internal consistency of magic. Harry’s abilities feel a lot more codified and not just a resolution mechanic, and new things are introduced, so it’s not just the same three spells he always does: the wind thing and fire ball or whatever, make it seem like he’s a one trick pony. There’s more going on, in general, this time around, and the effort makes for a more solid entry. 3 stars instead of 2.5 for the last one, I think.

This one was a step back, for me. There’s some more world building but again Murphy is such a good and likeable character and she again gets done dirty. This is also awkwardly paced, with a huge fight taking place an hour and a half before the conclusion and everything else, even a final conflict, feeling perfunctory. The development of Thomas also is double-edged. It does explain some earlier encounters with him, but it also isn’t very convincing. It’s a bit odd it goes from the cliffhanger in the previous one, with the coin, to an odd case. Sure, it does sprinkle in some foreshadowing with it, but it just seems odd that it elides most of that. I guess they really wanted to develop the side characters? That is the most enjoyable aspect to this instalment, but then the mediocre plot and hook don’t do that aspect any favours.

Also, it’s weird how this is going into consent issues now. Starting with the sex scene last book, now sex worker vampires without sex positivity, and vampires that transgress them completely. Vamps have always been about taking away agency, but this feels, well, man-handled, I guess. Dresden seems almost sociopathic in what actually upsets him with women. Sometimes he blows up when someone skins a knee, other times, like with people literally made slaves, he’s like well it’s no good, but oh well!

This was the first truly good Dresden novel so far, though it is still hampered with some issues that have been normalized throughout, so I wonder what someone would think if this were their first novel at all. Murphy isn’t present but, of course, our chauvinist needs an impetus, and blackmail involving her after tensions are introduced between the two is a pretty standard jump for this series. It also starts out pretty slow and snowballs, which I imagine is why it’s the longest book so far.

However, the character work finally comes into focus throughout, there’s an actual character arc for a side character, who displays agency—which is a milestone, let me tell you (sad, but true). The plot builds nicely, the conflicts are well-paced. Mouse The Dog and Butters (sp? Hard to see how they’re spelled in an audiobook) are excellent sidekicks. And Dresden, self identified as an archaic personality, especially regarding women, feels more toned down on that front. This gets put more under a lens and a long standing plot development comes to fruition nicely.

Honestly, quite solid. 3.5 rounded up because I’m positive on it. Had it not been a very slow burn at the start and the Murphy eye roll, it might have been higher.

What a step back from the excellent last novel. Butcher has no business writing women still, with the introduction of Molly as an explicitly underage girl characterized as having a great rack and behaving in a way that paints Harry in a good light, while once again, literally every woman in the story is wrong and/or fully responsible for the conflicts introduced. Honestly a bit baffling. Even Charity, Molly’s mother, ends up in a bad light, having projected her pretty legitimate negative feelings towards Harry, with a reveal. And then she only has some agency by showing some masculine traits, after Harry notices it’s no wonder Molly has a great rack, since her mom does too.

There’s such a generational gap with these. It pioneered urban fantasy formula and popularized tropes already around. The way everyone speaks and Harry’s internalized chauvinistic code reads laughably antiquated now. It’s maybe no wonder that the best written and most natural novel so far is the one with just the boys. Even if Harry has to remind the reader he’s no “pansy” every time he does something physical, or else show there’s nothing wrong with being gay, but he’s certainly not.

There is some cool stuff in this one, but it manages to get undermined with the weird sexual stuff and a really short plot stuffed into the longest offering yet. There’s some cool stuff with the fae, but the plot hook, with murders tied to Molly somehow, at a horror convention, just wasn’t all that interesting.

If you’ve made it this far in the series, you’re pretty well primed for this. Though, this is my second favourite, my first being the first one. The plot hook is interesting, Pei returns, all the characters are interesting. Events conspire to have travellers grounded for a while, and they all learn about each other during the period of confinement. It’s pretty simple but effective. The species are again very imaginative and compelling, with the subjects being confronted in a complex way due to how each of them perceives and negotiate their lives. Solid stuff. Same semi meandering, plot takes a back seat so verisimilitude can be predominate, similarly to the others, though perhaps even more lacks about it than the first two, more in line with the previous one.

Plot wise, it’s pretty simple: A really gregarious scholar, of sorts, regales someone at a bar with their story, interwoven with the history of the region. But what a tale it is! I know next to nothing of the region, so it was all quite fascinating. It’s not a book to read when you’re tired, which is why it took me so long. That’s when I do most of my reading, and the prose work and Inundation of information just isn’t conducive. Even though it’s quite a small book (literally, it’s a pocket size edition!), there’s not a word wasted on the page and the word play is cerebral and engaging, and often very funny. It is truly a fun story to consume.