Ghost Story by Jim Butcher Series: The Dresden Files #13
on July 26th 2011
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 608
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The eagerly awaited new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series. When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin. But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own. To save his friends-and his own soul-Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic...Watch a Video
People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them.
Well, compared to the last book, this one slowed down. Not to say that there wasn’t tons of action, you just didn’t get beat down with it like the last book.
I must say, this one has tons more description. We’re experiencing the aftermath of Changes and we’re thrown some new situations in which Harry is unfamiliar. Explaining and engrossing you in these new found settings was done thoroughly. And I think Butcher’s depth of conveying emotion and physical sensations has improved, thus beefing up those descriptions. I haven’t minded them until this book. I guess I was too curious to know what the heck was going to happen that I ended up reading over those sections a bit fast, almost to the point of skimming.
I think what this book pulled off was to show us how impactful Harry is upon Chicago, not to mention a transition from Changes to what we can expect in the next book. It’s a nice move forward book that transitions from the almost normal Harry world to this new, crazy one we’re about to step into.
When I started this series I was worried about the length of it. I mean, 24 books? First person through all of it? I had doubts I’d be able to stick with it without feeling as though I’d read the same thing over and over. I guess that’s the beauty of Butcher’s writing. Besides the descriptions of some reoccurring places and people, it doesn’t have that same ol’ same ol’ feel to it. New stuff gets introduced all the time and it makes each book feel fresh. The characters are changing and not all get happy little endings. It’s alway nice to have a fallback series, one that you know you’ll enjoy. I already want to read through the series again, which is a testament to Butcher’s skill. Re-readability is a hard thing to achieve.
About Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher read his first fantasy novel when he was seven years old–
the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. By the time he turned eight,
he’d added the rest of the Narnia books, the Prydain Chronicles, every
book about Star Wars he could find, a great many Star Trek novels and
the Lord of the Rings to his count.
So he was pretty much doomed from the start.
Love of fantasy, his personal gateway drug, drew him toward a fairly
eclectic spread of interests: horseback riding (including trick riding,
stunt riding, drill riding, and competitive stunt racing), archery,
martial arts, costuming, music and theater. He played a lot of role-
playing games, a lot of fantasy-based tactical computer games, and
eventually got into live-action roleplay where players beat each other
up with boffer weapons.
So, really, he can fly his nerd flag with pretty much anyone, and
frequently does.
He took up writing to be able to produce fantasy novels with swords and
horses in them, and determinedly wrote terrible fantasy books until,
just to prove a point to his writing teacher, he decided to take every
piece of her advice; fill out outlines and worksheets, and design
stories and characters just the way she’d been telling him to do for
about three years. He was certain that once she saw what hideous art it
produced, she would be proven wrong and repent the error of her ways.
The result was the Dresden Files, which sure showed *her*.
She has not yet admitted her mistake and recanted her philosophy on
writing.
Jim has performed in dramas, musicals, and vocal groups in front of
live audiences of thousands and on TV. He has performed exhibition
riding in multiple arenas, and fallen from running horses a truly
ridiculous number of times. He was once cursed by an Amazon witch
doctor in rural Brazil, has apparently begun writing about himself in
the third person, and is hardly ever sick at sea.
He also writes books occasionally.
Jim stands accused of writing the Dresden Files and the Codex Alera.
He’s plead insanity, but the jury is still out on that one. He lives in
Missouri with his wife, romantic suspense and paranormal romance writer
Shannon K. Butcher (who is really pretty and way out of his league),
his son, and a ferocious guard dog.
