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5 primary books6 released booksProf Croft is a 6-book series with 10 primary works first released in 2016 with contributions by Brad Magnarella.
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Once you get over the heavily borrowed aspects from Jim Butchers Dresden Files it is a good story. The New York from this universe is not meant to be the New York we know while the Chicago in the Dresden Files is suppose to be our Chicago. I hope that as the series progresses that the character differentiates himself more. This is the first book and we are only getting to know the characters.
I decided to try this book as I eagerly wait for the next installment in the Dresden Files series. As the books that I had read in the urban fantasy genre largely consisted of those by Jim Butcher, I decided to give this book a try. It seemed to be a good twist on the urban fantasy genre, with a professor by day, wizard by night battling the forces of evil. Yet, for all my hopes, what I got instead was a mess of tropes, and ideas copied from better novels. Well, truth be told, one novel series in particular.
Well, there is just no denying it: this book is mostly a lighter version of the Dresden Files, which is a shame because there could be some interesting ideas here. Croft manages to come off as more of a Wizard in training than Dresden in his first book, as though we would be meeting the equivalent of a younger, less experienced Harry Dresden. Then, there is the idea of how here Croft can use modern technology, which was something that I understood, but never actually liked in the Dresden Files (I mean, at some point, you're going to run out of vintage mechanical stuff to use, right?) This made for some noticeable differences in Croft as a character.
Sadly, everything feels like a copy of the Dresden files from here on out. Croft has a female cop who will stop at nothing to see him arrested because he legitimately looks suspicious for various crimes comitted in the novel. He also has a person who is a member of the Church who believes that Croft is a wizard without Croft revealing this fact. Then, you have how Croft faces down someone who dislikes him and wants to see him gone from campus, not unlike Morgan in the Dresden Files. All this, and Croft walks around with a cane and revolver to boot.
So, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then this should be right up my alley, right? I mean, surely, I can overlook these similarities, right? Well, no. I can't. This mostly because of the writing style. It just doesn't have the punch that Butcher usually provides. The characters all perform their roles as expected, and the lines they say are nothing groundbreaking. Their personalities are what we would expect, with little variation in them at all. This can make for a boring and predictable plot with weak characters to see it through.
But what really clinches it for me is how Croft is portrayed as a professor. He just sees the job as a means to keep a roof over his head, and the way he thinks about his students and his office in general, that makes him very unlikeable. Couple this with how he rarely uses the knowledge that he teaches in the plot and this means that the one good thing about this book, the one element that separates it from the rest feels like a missed opportunity.
So it is with this in mind that I give this book a two out of five. You might enjoy this, but I did not.