Storm Front

Urban fantasy just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea.

3.5/5 stars

Harry Desden is a wizard in a world where people still don't want to accept that magic is real. He uses his talent to help people. He also helps the police from time to time, whenever things seem out of the ordinary. In he same day he got two calls: a woman who was looking for her husband but didn't want to call the police for help and the police, who called him to the scene of a double murder. The murder scene really scared Harry since he knew the kind of power that would have been needed to carry out the crime. He was too scared to even try to figure out how the spell was done. The White Council was already on his case since he used magic to take a man's life. He was only alive because it was done in self defense. In any case, Morgan, who was set to watch Harry in case he broke any more laws of magic, was sure he was evil and also believe he killed the two people. Harry had to figure out how to find the wizard who did this evil thing and stop them without getting himself killed in the process.

Great action! Great story!

If you are a fan of detective novels but always wished they were magical, you will love this book.
The story reminded me of Raymond Chandler books.
Harry Dresden is impossible not to like, despite sometimes trying to be too witty, and sometimes looking at the ladies a bit sexually. None of those reduced my enjoyment of reading this great story.

I can't wait to pick the next book in the series!

“HARRY DRESDEN — WIZARD Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment”

I've got to say, Harry Dresden is a pretty hilarious guy, for someone who always seems to be about to get killed...

I advise everyone to give this book a go! It's action-packed, funny and sarcastic, with an interesting world. What else can you ask for?

I do like it.
I wasn't too fond of the somewhat forced piling of trouble on the hero, by misunderstanding etc. It would have been harder to write, but I wish Jim had taken the time to make it more believable.
I mean the relationship with the detective. 1) You know your friend knows something but isn't telling it. You are an intelligent, observant woman, a good detective. I don't find it believable that you didn't even consider the option that your friend cannot tell you for some reason, and that reason is good - or at least assume it's good before jumping into conclusion that it must be bad. 2) this same friend tells you, practically screams at you not to open a drawer of the desk. You do it anyway, because you assume he's hiding evidence. There's something dangerous, horrible, something that hurts you in the drawer. Would you assume your friend had set it there to trap you? Or would you have told him "I expect you to come here and show me what's in the drawer yourself." Especially when he told you he have to talk with you, and that he knows who the murderer is? Would he come to the office and be apparently worried about you, call the ambulance and try to save you if he really had tried to trap you with something horrible? And would you, really, arrest him after he called the ambulance, and put handcuffs on him? I don't think so, which makes me not to trust in Jim Butcher as the storyteller, which makes me not like this book as much as I could have.

This reminds me of Iron Druid.

The writing in terms of engaging the five senses is very good and enjoyable, but the character and plot aren't great. As a narrative device, the author keeps on having him don't go get all his magic stuff or abandon it somewhere just to have him on more jeopardy and that's plain stupid.

Storm Front really disappointed me. This is the first book in the Dresden Files, and it has a reputation online for being incredibly mediocre, and even still, I felt let down by it. Despite being compulsively readable, this book doesn't rally manage to tell that solid of a story due to a number of small issues compounding together to bog the book down. I'm still going to continue with the series, but as of right now, I'm going to struggle to recommend it to people, as I don't have many positive thoughts on this book.

The first major issue that I have is the characters. They're, to be quite frank, shit. By the end of the book, I couldn't point to a single character that I genuinely enjoyed reading about, as most of them fit neatly into generic archetypes and never grow past them throughout the story. This is doubly true for female characters, but I'll get into that a bit later on.

The biggest offender for this in my opinion is Dresden himself, who we spend the most time with, but has zero development throughout the story. He starts the same as he ends, which is really disappointing, because Dresden is riddled with flaws. He's a cynic, a chauvinist, and arrogant to boot (despite multiple major cock ups due to said arrogance), and only manages to make it through the story through sheer luck. He has one of the worst PoV voices that I've ever experienced, however I've been assured that this gets better, which makes a lot of sense, since it would be incredibly difficult to make him worse.

I can't really talk about Dresden without talking about how much of a sex pest he comes across like. This man can't interact with a woman without thinking in depth about her curves, the things she can do with her body, and how hot she is. It's cringe inducing. Even more so when it seems like all these women want to throw themselves at his feet. It's just tedious, and reads like a teenage boys self-insert half the time.

But the only reason the side characters aren't worse than him, is because they're barely characters. They're cripplingly simplistic, with not even their dialogue really giving a sense of their character (with one exception being Linda, but she sadly ends up playing into Dresden's constant sex pestery). This was a major for me, since characters are generally more important to my reading experience than the plot of the story.

However, the story itself is really barebones and predictable, so even if I was more of a plot reader, I don't think my rating would really change. There's a central mystery that we follow, and it starts off really interesting, making me genuinely curious how it's going to wrap up. And then the very obvious answer is given to us a quarter of the way through the book, but Harry, who again, has a massive ego about his magical skills, can't work out the incredibly obvious answer. This isn't even an answer that's obvious through knowing about story structures for generic detective stories (which this very much is one), this is just basic critical thinking that Harry seems to lack, despite repeatedly showing that he isn't dumb. I don't give the spoiler away, just in case you do read it, but it is, at least in my opinion, really obvious. This obviousness makes Dresden feel really inconsistent as a character, and I hope that gets shored up soon, because 16 more books of Dresden being conveniently moronic will get old fast I think.

I also had issue with how many really concepts and storylines are hinted throughout the book, especially considering what we actually ended up with. There's the murder of his girlfriend, the creature that lurks in his shadow, the NeverNever. All of these really interested me, and we got nothing but setup for them. It made the book feel like an extended prologue for the series, which is a real shame, because if we'd started with some of those concepts instead, I feel like the book would have flowed way better.

Something I really appreciated about the story though, was it's pacing. This would likely be a one star read for me if it didn't have the really tight pacing that it does. This book doesn't waste a page, and I love that. Everything we see is done to further the story, which is what allows this book to still be a page turner despite the flaws it does have. If this book had slowed down, I can't say I would have been able to finish it, since especially towards the end, my interest was beginning to wane, and only the pacing kept me going.

All in all, I'm really hoping that the next books in the series improve on the promise that this one shows, so I'm very likely to continue on with the series down the line. I am aware that the series doesn't pick up until around Book 3 or 4 for most people, so I'm prepared for Fool Moon to still be a bit of a problem read for me, though I'm looking forward to continuing the series despite the issues present in Storm Front.

The book sits at 2/5 rating for me, it wasn't quite bad enough to justify one star, but it wasn't that good either. I can't really recommend it, since I didn't vibe with it all that much, but if you enjoy books like James Patterson's longer form series, I think this one would click for you.

This book was 351 pages of fast paced, crime-solving, down-on-his-luck, kick-ass wizardry, and I'm his next biggest fan. Every character was dripping with nuance, every scene had a purpose, every action seemed foreshadowed, every twist felt genuine, every decision felt natural, and even the things we didn't see coming felt believable and real.

Even something that “could” feel like dues ex machine felt so natural and believable I couldn't help but sit in awe. I had a joyous sense of magic like I did when I first read Harry Potter, watched Little Witch Academia (the short film not the show), and I first saw Merlin. Every description of the Nevernever, demons, vampires, faeries, etc., get real, and the world felt so grand and magical and wonderful that I just couldn't stop reading.

It was such a joy to follow Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (conjure by it at your own risk), that I can't wait until Amazon sends the second book over (still really angry about that one). Pick up this book, you won't regret it.

Storm Front is the first book of the Dresden Files, an urban fantasy series following the adventures of Harry Dresden, wizard for hire. The book is good, combining an interesting plot with appropriate introductions to the world of the series. I will say that I sometimes found Dresden to be a tad bit unlikable, but overall this was a decent read. To me, it doesn't live up to the hype, and falls short of some other urban fantasy books I've enjoyed, but I'm willing to give this series another chance with the sequel. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was a riot. I dug this wonky story. Check it out, this is a legit, noir story. All of the boxes are checked and this could have been a Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy novel. Full-disclosure, I'm a noir snob. The great thing about this story is it brings a classic noir feel without being overly cliché. And then, in a stroke of genius, the protagonist is a wizard, with a capital “w”.

Think of all the beats you need in a great noir story, inject magical mischief, and you have a recipe for a 100% original story.

I can't recommend this highly enough and I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

While the descriptions of the female characters were questionable (and often distracting when it interjects during important conversations), the book has a decent mystery and the action was alright. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either... it's alright.

Will check out the second book eventually.

Fun read!

3.5 stars. Entertaining and makes me interested in the world. Although somewhat unrefined

Full review at http://bookwi.se/storm-front-the-dresden-files-book-1-by-jim-butcher/

Short review. This is the first book of the series that the short lived SciFi show “Dresden Files” was based on. I thought it was a good fluff read for a modern fantasy.

3.5 but not quite 4.

Great book amplified by an amazing narration. Can't wait to keep going.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first tale of Dresden. Its fun, scary, action packed and ends with a bang. It's one of those stories that keeps you hooked from chapter to chapter but does not use cliffhanger devices to do so.

I think sandman slim was better, but this was still a good book. It kinda had that tv cop show feel to it, by the end you know who did it long before it was revealed.

I'm still going to read the next one.

A solid adventure in a delightful magical world, even if the author is a little too obsessed with boobs. 

Hard to get through but everyone has said book 3 onward it's better

I raced through this book in 3 days. Super easy reading even though it doesn't really get interesting until half way through. Right when I started to get frustrated at the lack of much magic a whole heck of a lot of magic happened!
So, the magic part is awesome. I had this book described to me as a bit like adult Harry Potter living and using magic in the real (muggle) world. They have the same first name and they're both a little snarky, but that's about where my comparison ends. That's ok though, this is good for its own magic world.
I'm looking forward to continuing the series as long as the female characters are written a whole lot better here on out. Every single woman was attractive and almost everything they did revolved around their looks or sex. Except for detective Murphy. But it was hard to take her seriously because of comments made about her. You can describe someone physically pretty without reducing them to a useless simpering fool. Strong female characters are good. You can write them without reducing the strength of your main male character.
And really, I spent a good bit of the book thinking Dresden was more a-sexual than not. Turns out he isn't, just really freaking awkward. Felt like Dresden is quite a reflection of the author. Made me pretty uncomfortable most of the time. I probably wouldn't like Harry Dresden if I met him because I'd probably catch him leering at me. He's not “old fashioned”, he's just a chauvinist who thinks he's a nice guy.

Kept me interested. I love the setting. Not my cup of storyline but given the interesting world and characters I liked it.