Fool Moon

WHAT
Same style and plot structure as the first one, although overall weaker in all aspects. There is not many new and/or interesting characters, and the old ones haven't progressed too much. Harry continues to run into danger without his full power or a solid plan, but somehow everything turns out all right in the end.

PLOT
Harry investigates a series of murders where werewolves were involved. He struggles now involve balancing his work and his relationship with Susan, gathering information and deciding how much to share with Murphy in order to keep her safe and still on his side, proving a man innocent of the crime, dodging the FBI restrictions on his involvement with the case, helping Murphy to deal with Internal Affairs because of her involvement with him, keeping himself alive against the ire of a refused mob-boss and an angry pack of werewolves, and keeping his ass out of jail for, well, again knowing about magic when a crime apparently involving magic is committed.

CHARACTERS
OK, this definitely contains spoilers:

Werewolves types, in somewhat order of power
Werewolf #1, the classical werewolf: humans able to shapeshift into werewolves through a spell. Weak because doesn't gain the instincts of a wolf - gang known as Alphas, nerdy environmental activists teens that wants to help Harry take out the bad guysWerewolf #2, lycanthrope: the transformation occur on their minds more then their bodies, they become more aggressive, gaining healing and strength. - gang known as the Streetwolves, wants Harry dead, because they're territorial and he invaded their turfWerewolf #3, hexenwolves: someone who made a deal with a demon or sorcerer to get a enchanted item that turns them into wolves. Can turn at will, keeping most of their wits. - gang FBI corrupt agents. Wants Harry dead because he is trying to stop themWerewolf #4, shapeshifter: not clear on its nature, a wolf that turns into a human at will - Tera West: MacFinn's bride, wants Harry to help her fianceWerewolf #5, loup-garou: people cursed to become a wolf-demon, super powerful. Turn in the full moon - MacFinn: framed for the murders, wants Harry help to prove him innocent

The other characters (wouldn't call this spoiler)
Susan: wants a story. Her relationship with Dresden evolves into a love affectionMurphy: wants Harry to tell her everything he knows and then get the hell out of her way. Will beat him senseless otherwise.Marcone: wants to hire Harry for an unlimited amount of money. Harry tells him to fuck off, repeatedly

A very crud sequence of events:
- Murphy takes Dresden to crime scene- meet FBI dicks- talks about trust issues- uses blood found on scene to track down suspects- Harry finds group of teens with an older woman with them- he is attacked in the dark, meets Murphy, goes home- Harry finds Marcone awaiting him at his home. Tells him to fuck off- learns about the types of werewolves from Bob- gets a tip from an FBI assistant- meets the Streetwolves, almost gets killed (for no reason)- second murder (no time to rest)- Murphy saw Harry with the victim before, arrests him (kicks his ass)- older woman from before frees him from police, he gets shot- wakes up to find she knows the supposed killer, her fiance, who is a loup-garou. Wants help proving him innocent- finds fiance, police finds them, they escape. Fiance is arrested- Harry must bind him with a spell before he turns when its full moon- breaks into jail disguised, but it's too late. The loup-garou kills a lot of policeman- tries to follow him, gets chased by the Streewolves gang- gets caught, has no magic left, gets spanked and captured- kept alive for to be delivered to Marcone.- Marcone wants him alive, the gang wants him dead. They fight over it- the FBI is on the scene. They transform into wolves and try to kill Harry- the young Alphas werewolves come to rescue Dresden- they flee and prepare for a final showdown at Marcone's house- arriving there, Marcone has sided with the FBI to take Dresden out- Harry is captured, along with the young werewolves and Murphy- Marcone is betrayed by the FBI agents who wanted him dead all along- The rogue agents plan: put Marcone with the others, using him as bait for the loup-garou, who would then kill everyone in the way- Harry manages to escape, turns into a werewolf himself with magic and defeats the hexenwolves- Final confrontation with loup-garou: manages to pull some powerful magic and kills him

ANALYSIS
The book is pretty much the same as the first one, feeling a bit worst because the main characters had already been introduced. It keeps the same frantic level of events unfolding and Harry having no time to rest in between.

The final showdown is even more forced then in the previous book. Harry has no power, no plan (or a lousy one) and tries to take on a bunch of werewolves all by himself. Even one werewolf alone would have been able to kill him. He is facing a gang of highly trained magic enhanced FBI agents plus a mastermind criminal, and he thinks he can doit it by himself.

When captured, the book commits one of the most offending plot cliches, which is the overconfident villain. Agent Denton, the leader of the FBI agents, decides not to kill Harry, in order to let the loup-garou do it and it all would seem like the werewolf was responsible for everything. This felt too weak of an argument.

There were some hard to believe scenes, like in the beginning where an FBI agent tries to outright shoot Murphy in the face for disagreeing with her, and everybody thinks that was OK, just like spilling coffee. Also Murphy is too eager to condemn arrest Harry, even though she knows he is innocent, claiming because he has a history of lying to her (in order to save her life), he must be guilty of something.

In the end, Harry had defeated a gang of werewolves corrupt FBI agents, a powerfull monster, a gang of street thugs werewolves, gone against one of the countries mos dangerous criminals. After being knocked down to the ground, believing Murphy had shot him for resisting arrest, he says “I forgive you Murphy, you had every reason to believe me guilty”. That is a bit too much to take, but I could look past that. I understand what the author is trying to achieve, painting him as the kind of altruistic hero that always takes the high road, even though beating himself along the way for things he cannot control.

Another thing that was present in the first book but is more clear here is the black/white morality of the characters. Marcone is clearly bad, and Harry would not even speak with him if not to insult him. The FBI agents goes from vigilantes to killing innocent people without hesitation, in order to fulfill their goals.

In spite of all these problems, I still liked the book. Harry's personality follows him from the first book and sustains the story well enough. Murphy's suspicion of him still makes her a good character to hate, even though her scenes were a little poorly constructed.

Continuing my re-read of the series, I truly enjoyed this book. I had forgotten that werewolves came into the tale so early, and like the first book, my later knowledge of who the characters will develop into spiced my enjoyment of their introduction. Susan plays a much larger part in Harry's life than I had recalled, and I had forgotten much of the interplay with Marcone. Harry is such a wonderful protagonist, so complex, and this world is so intriguing, that I'm having a great time with the re-read.

Werewolves and Wizards, naturally a great combination, in any settings this should be a pulse pounding, never-ending fight, who does not love a werewolf, the natural enemy of the vampire and one of the most lethal supernatural opponent any do-gooder avoids!!! Wizards, by definition the only class or character that can actually go toe to toe with the supernatural!!!

Yet, with this book, I feel I just entered the twilight zone, the antagonists are great, what you would expect from persons afflicted with this particular curse(by reading the book, and on Mr. Dresden's universe, this curse comes in three forms and this was the only interesting part of the book for me), the protagonist or the hero of this book was a letdown, a whiner, wizards for me are supposed to be the ultimate class, in raw power nothing beats a wizard and yet we get a Dresden, someone who adheres to his version of the round table, the White Council, maybe I am used to wizards who do what they perceive as the best course and to hell with the consequences!!!! Dresden not only second guess himself most of the times, has a really really old school way of thinking and most of all, a hero who blames himself for everything, there is even a dream version wherein he talks to himself and try to defend his view............

I have never done a DNF, for me all authors have their good and bad moments, and as a fantasy book lover or enthusiast, we owe it to them to finish their works, but this one just made me WANT TO!!!!!

This book is extremely fast-paced. It's non-stop and Harry Dresden shows himself as a guy with extreme endurance. He really gets beat up on this one, but he always gets up in the end. It has the two best potion recipes of all times: the Stimulant ???Pick me up??? potion (base liquid is coffee) and the Blending potion, to make him imperceptible to a werewolf. I had fun!

The 2nd Dresden Files book features a new mystery – people are being killed by mysterious slashes that don't correspond with any weapon or animal. I preferred the first one in the series, more than this one, due to it's focus on mystery. While this one had that, I didn't feel the same A-HA! moment as before.

This book stepped it up!

As is expected with most sequels of books with a great concept, this second in the series is a massive are up over the first and gets more gory and more gritty than the first!

There's more obvious relationships being built between the characters now and the writing continues to have me smiling, whether it's because of humour or just the interesting detail and the phlamboyant nature with which Jim Butcher writes. Downloaded and started the next one already!

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—
Let's keep this short:

I didn't love this one as much as Storm Front, and I remember things as a whole being better. Still, we get the introduction of the Alphas, we get to see a little bit of every type of Werewolf in this world (I'd forgotten 1 of them), Dresden makes some smart choices re: Karrin Murphy (but man, most of what happened between the two of them in this book was annoying to a fan, and poorly constructed I think), and a (in retrospect) dumb one about Susan.

The main story was pretty good – I'd have liked to see Harry be a little quicker to figure things out, but he's not perfect. Nor is he the investigator he'll become eventually. I need to remind myself these are early days. As I recall, book 3 is a little less-good than this, which doesn't make me look forward to it. But I know I like where things go pretty quickly, so I'll keep going.

Marsters was fantastic – this would've been a 3 in just about any other narrator's hands, er, vocal cords. I can't say enough good things about him.

The 2nd Dresden Files book features a new mystery – people are being killed by mysterious slashes that don't correspond with any weapon or animal. I preferred the first one in the series, more than this one, due to it's focus on mystery. While this one had that, I didn't feel the same A-HA! moment as before.

Executive Summary: A vast improvement over [b:Storm Front 47212 Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) Jim Butcher http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345556917s/47212.jpg 1137060], though still pretty simplistic if plot and style.Audio book: Like the writing in the novel, the improvement in the audio reading by James Marsters is also evident. He still whispers too much, which can make hearing what he's saying hard, even with the volume cranked way up. I still don't find him to be an amazing reader, but he has added some voices to his repertoire, including using what I'll call his “Spike” voice for Bob.Full ReviewI was worried as I started this re-read that my previous ratings might not hold up. They still might not, as I'm a lot better read now than I was the first few times through these early books, but this book was as good as I remember it.The early books all suffer from being formulaic, and this one is no different. Mr. Butcher's writing however does show a vast improvement, and the book is a lot more fun than [b:Storm Front 47212 Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) Jim Butcher http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345556917s/47212.jpg 1137060].As you might guess from the title, this book mostly deals with werewolves. In Harry Dresden's world, there aren't just one type of werewolf, there are several. I won't list them out as that's part of the fun, but I promise you none of them would be mistaken for a character from Twilight. Well, maybe the Alphas..but I'm still going to say no.These wolves are mean. Most of them don't really fit the characters of your typical werewolf, much as vampires in this series. Violent killings are happening in Chicago, and they seem to be happening around the full moon.Animal fur and paw prints are evident at some of the scenes. The FBI is called in to help and they believe it the work of a wolf-based cult or gang, but Lt. Murphy isn't convinced and calls in the local Wizard, one Harry Dresden to help.Harry is still broke, and his relationship with Murphy and the police is strained from the events of [b:Storm Front 47212 Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) Jim Butcher http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345556917s/47212.jpg 1137060], but that won't stop him from doing whatever it takes to protect his city.I thought this book was much less predictable than the first entry, and gives a better feeling to Mr. Butcher's writing abilities. It's a quick read and one I find entertaining. I equate it to a popcorn flick. I'd say if don't enjoy this one, this series just may not be for you.

I kind of think this series (or at least the first 2 books so far) is like Percy Jackson for grown ups.
In a good way!

I enjoyed the first book immensely, but this one did even better (or maybe I was more in the mood for it).
The plot was very well woven and the character work was amazing. But the best thing about the book was the atmosphere. There's just something about it that makes me want to keep on reading. Like a pair of comfortable shoes.

What was even better about this book is the fact that we are starting to see shades of the main plot and I am so excited about it.