Storm Front

Jim Butcher

I used to read romance novels, until I could no longer stand the formulas. I got cynical! Or maybe just bored. I kept reading them for a few years, but with hate in my heart, because I have a need for junk food kind of reading, sometimes. And I like to punish myself, apparently.

Then, I found the paranormal genre – ever so slightly different from sci-fi or fantasy, usually mystery stories with a kickass protagonist, using magic or being magical or paranormal to beat the bad guys and Have! Exciting! Adventures! They are silly books, but they are fun, and usually a lot smarter than the romances I used to read (with the exception of Crazy Laurell K).

So I keep looking for new authors and series to read, while the authors I’ve already found get their asses in gear and write a new damn book, already. I ran into the Harry Dresden series about a year ago, but didn’t pick them up because I was into the girls kicking ass genre of paranormal books. Then the SciFi channel series showed up, and I started hearing about how the books-are-so-much-better, and I finally broke down and picked up the first book in the series.

It’s got the mystery, the magic, the ass-kicking protagonist, the absorbing, quick-reading thing I want in a junkfood book. It’s also incredibly masculine-feeling. Mr. Harry Dresden is an old-fashioned chauvinist, all the women are described, fashion-and-beauty-wise from head to toe, and it was just masculine, in its attitudes and outlook. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something that surprised me. Though I guess it shouldn’t have, seeing as the book was written by a man named “Jim Butcher.” That is a very manly name.

I liked this, and it was fun and fast and Butcher did a remarkable job of setting up an incredibly rich backstory for Harry that was never entirely explicated, which sets up a lot of material for the upcoming books. Which I think I’ll be picking up. It is exciting to have a new series to plow through.