Cold Days by Jim Butcher Series: The Dresden Files #14
on November 27th 2012
Genres: Paranormal
Pages: 640
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HARRY DRESDEN LIVES!!! After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard. He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill. Guess which Mab wants first? Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday. Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…His soul.
“Sometimes I think that’s where most of us are,” I said. “Fighting off the crazy as best we can. Trying to become something better than we were. It’s that second bit that’s important.”
I always thought it would be easier to be a person as I aged. But it just gets more and more complicated.
I reminded myself that just because someone is courteous, it does not necessarily mean that they aren’t planning to vivisect you. It just means that they’ll ask whether the ropes holding you down are comfortable before they pick up the scalpel.
Taking a beating well is not for amateurs.
You have to get started early, maybe by getting beaten up a lot as a child in school. Then you refine your raw talent by taking more beatings as you get older.
I think this book has finally settled us back into the daily grind. It was needed after Changes and Ghost Story. It took time to organize Harry’s life and set us up for how things are going to proceed from here.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not chock-full of action and the witty sarcasm that I’ve come to love and expect from Butcher. The book flies along at Butcher’s neck breaking pace, as usual. We learn a bit more about Demonreach, and boy is it a doozy.
There’s a shocker at the end that I never, ever saw coming. And it’s a big deal. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I never saw it coming!
Anyway, another great installment to the series. One more and I’m all caught up. I’m going to miss my monthly Butcher, but a friend and I are going to pick up another long series to fill the gap.
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.
