Better than the last, with a more full cast of characters. Tomas being the impetus makes some sense, as there’s been some B plot stuff that makes him look suspicious enough going for maybe two full books? But her sure doesn’t mind taking his time with these things, that’s for sure. It took basically two books to get some details on what was up with that coin, too.

I also like that this feels like the first time Dresden has changed somewhat as a character, stemming from Molly, who still isn’t a very believable character, but at least has more agency than when Everything was her fault and she was even less believable and heavily sexualized, while underage. Little Chicago is a neat idea, the plot hook is slightly better, there’s better pacing, and the fight feels placed a bit better. Even if Butcher just loves his exposition at the end of the book, this winds down better. Lara also has a cameo; highlighting all the women being a bit better.

I think this does well to humanize Dresden more too, showing exactly how obstinate he is at making the morally good choice, as he sees it, while having his dogmatic rhetoric expand because of his being placed in the role of teacher with Molly. I’m glad he’s less obnoxious, and his blunders feel more real than in the past, when they’ve clearly not really been his fault and he’s just literally been white knighting. Basically, it’s less juvenile, and I hope that continues. Bob went from fun to the gross leering uncle when Molly came around too, hopefully that also is something that is moved past. We get it, Dresden is hard up and Bob is horny - it’s not funny, move on Butcher, it’s been literal years now.

Undeniably, Butcher’s writing has come a long way. Had the plot been more interesting, since I don’t care about Morgan much, or the council, I think this would have rated higher for me. There’s a really great battle scene, Butcher continues to shine in that aspect. Molly reverts to being a bit more annoying with the dynamics between her and Morgan, and I was not a fan of the plot twist involving a character I was just starting to like a lot. It again feels like Butcher can only think up ways to damage Dresden by proxy, and he just so happens to always care about every woman, literally white knighting for every single character at one point or another. It’s pretty trite at this point. But every other aspect is more complex and rich, so it’s a mixed bag.

3.5 rounded up

The plot is the most complex it’s been yet, with numerous moving parts that come together nicely. The stakes, of course, revolve around a damsel in distress again. And mostly the women get to pay the price for any conflict, so while it’s a shake-up for Dresden and the world, and it’s more “fair” as to how much Dresden has to endure to resolve the situation, I still prefer the boys’ club in Dead Beat to this. This ties the knot on a bunch of stuff that was hanging around and does make it seem more interesting for future developments.

A great concept that was really overlong, though I did love the developments for all the characters in it. especially Butters and Bob, not wholly sold on the women, who seem to have taken the brunt of the fallout (what a surprise). It also weirdly elides something that I thought would have been a much bigger deal. At the end of the last book Murphy and Dresden started hooking up, but with this weird reset it’s like almost nothing happened at all. Feels like a backpedal to try and keep the relationship similar/same.

The main plot, had it been more agile, would have really sung, I think. It becomes very plodding and dances around the idea that Dresden might continue beyond the book, as if that wasn’t a foregone conclusion even when it first came out. The ending has a nice little setup and has some onus on Dresden, a trend I’m enjoying much more than the previous go-to of just him being sad that all punishment was done to people he cares about. This was a nice digression, presumably, until it segues into a new world order for the universe.

Fantastic memoir. It is very graphic about certain things, which I hadn’t expected, but it’s earnest about gender journey and fluidity in a way I haven’t seen before, making the most earnest graphic novel I’ve consumed. It really lays it all out there in such a way that I think everyone could relate to.

This barely gets a pass for me. It’s very unnecessarily padded and has some weird fixations on consent that feel like they were put to rest in previous books. Pretty forgettable, generally, except for the stuff with Thomas. Silly things like a light Saber sword thing of Butters stretches the already soft world building to credulity. And now that Harry and Murphy are finally together I have to say, it feels pretty whatever. Had I known this was basically just part 1 of 2, I’d have been mentally prepared for the slow moving non-existent resolution. As is, I’ll read the next, but am pretty happy to be done with this series. It certainly never got amazing or anything, for me, just fun, at its very best.

Wow a heck of a lot happens this time around. The fallout from the previous with Molly is downplayed a lot more than I’d have liked, in favour of this weird heist. It mostly works but it’s less interesting than staying on a particular thread—until that resolution, which was so bombastic and fun that I got on board. The stuff with the coins and the angels and Michael have always been fairly interesting, I’m glad they resurfaced, if in a strange way.

It’s also taking forever for this whole Dresden being a winter knight but not actually thing to play out in the books. He’s the knight and has some power, but not that much, and he’s invincible but not actually, he just doesn’t feel pain. If Molly is the person he serves now, technically, why isn’t this explained a bit more. Doesn’t she know now? The whole mantle business feels very muddy.

Again, the inclusion of the secondary characters are what make it enjoyable because Dresden, though he’s grown a bit, still feels very solipsistic and a specific kind of fantasy, where he’s literally the protagonist of the world and everyone else suffers around him (usually women), and he feels bad man. I guess it’s a testament to how much better the other elements of the story are, because I certainly am reading them in spite of the titular character most of the time. He has his moments, but most of the time he reverts to being a man baby.

Emo Dresden being called out by Butters is a highlight. The plot is semi-interesting, being “forced” to kill an immortal person. If not for Butters and Maggie though, this would have struggled more. There’s enough people confronting Harry on his crap and more interesting characters to propel it, and the ending is quite the cliffhanger. Though, again, mostly the fallout falls on the women of his life.

it’s safe to Butcher just cannot devise resolutions that aren’t solipsistic to Dresden himself. The fact that he’s called on it within the fiction doesn’t mean it’s fine, I guess he just embraces that Harry is simply like that, and you either enjoy that particular male power fantasy, or can get past it to find enjoyment.

3.5 rounded up for Butters~

I think in probably something like 70% of books Murphy is done dirty, and this one’s no different—it’s just more egregious. Especially given the fallout with Marcone and Butters being a Jedi knight (I love that for him, don’t get me wrong but also wtf), the fact that Murphy just never gets a glow up in a world where literally every person Dresden meets becomes super heroic in some way, or else just becomes a foil for his internal turmoil, really, really irks me. Even the last book where Mab advises Dresden to kill Molly because she wouldn’t be able to handle the mantle if she died and it passed to her, is just a long standing tradition for this series to misconstrue what agency for women actually is. Even his daughter enters the equation, when he flies off the handle when someone dies and gets angry and powerful, but then when his daughter is threatened the opposite effect occurs, and he is almost powerless and hopeless. It’s just old school chauvinism again, where because romance is involved in one, it provokes a different reaction than literally the urge to protect your own child. It’s wildly unconvincing and stupid, to me.

Beyond that, though, this series develops a problem with stakes similar to superhero tv shows like in the DCU. Every person has to become super heroic and every stake needs to be escalated, so now there’s another battle for the entire world, just like with Susan and the red court (and we know how that ended, surprise surprise), and it’s all just devoid of the best book in the series, Dead Beats’, charm. Where things were rooted in more verisimilitude and because things were smaller they were somewhat more believable. Whereas every aspect of this was fairly deeply unconvincing. It also was very clearly padded and should have been one book. I very much doubt I’ll read the next one, but who knows.

This occupies a similar enjoyment level to reading Dune, for me. There’s certainly a wild and theoretical bent to it, embedded, that will grind against hard scifi fans. But similar to Dune, the plot is old school genre, meaning it exists to interrogate social and societal constructs—and it does so very effectively. Where it shines beyond Dune, though, is that it also manages to be very inclusive and raise more relevant, granular questions at the same time. Specifically around gender.

All while maintaining a really interesting narrative voice that changes sometimes, just as the first did, directly engaging with the reader, since the text is a faux, future historical document meant for consumption, and is up front about the documentarians bringing their own perspective and biases into it. It becomes riveting in doing so, even when large sections are dialogues and discussions, like being privy to a senate meeting. It takes exceptional skill to pull off such sections.

Similarly, directly confronting some pretty intense subject matter is handled really well. At the start of the book there is the equivalent of trigger warnings placed because the user is accessing a file. There’s a blasé approach to inclusion that I favour and find always very effective. There’s no need to defend it, it is simply normalized, immediately.

The revelations from the first are largely satisfying as well, though the moralizing about certain things feel somewhat less convincing. Especially with a character grappling with power, which felt fairly cookie-cutter. Everything else, however, is excellent. By far one of the more interesting scifi books I’ve read. Interested to see what the next two books will be focused on.