These two books are each a group of short stories that Jim Butcher has collected.\u00a0 Side Jobs was published in 2010 and Brief Cases was published in 2018.\u00a0 In each case Butcher collected the stories that had been published in anthologies then added a new novella at the end.\u00a0 And obviously the differences in subject matter and tone in the collections match up with the where they fit in the chronology of the Dresden Files at the time they were written.\u00a0 But just as with the overall series the \u201cfeel\u201d of the stories and especially the character of Harry himself is surprisingly consistent.\u00a0 He is as always, a wise-cracking, annoying defender of the human world against the forces of the various supernatural creatures he opposes.\u00a0 He battles White, Red and Black Court vampires, ghosts, sorcerers, werewolves, faeries and other folklore creatures.\u00a0 Harry is always a little too lefty and feminist for my complete stamp of approval but Butcher writes a very good story and I have been reading these books for a very long time and even when some lefty cultural stance annoys me, I still read and enjoy the story.\u00a0 And these stories are no exception.\u00a0 Some character or some comment from Harry will annoy me but I\u2019ll still read and enjoy each story.<\/p>\n
The stories are self-sufficient and can be read alone without the need to jump into the next one.\u00a0 And because the stories were written for various anthologies some of them have oddball plots that were picked to fit in to some overarching theme.\u00a0 Like in Brief Cases there is a western story called \u201cA Fistful of Warlocks\u201d that was written for an anthology called \u201cStraight Outta Tombstone.\u201d \u00a0And likewise for other stories that had themes relating to weddings or relationships or even beer or baseball.\u00a0 But even the stories that you would think would be just a throwaway Butcher puts in the work and makes the story hang together.\u00a0 And in these short stories sometimes Harry isn\u2019t even the narrator.\u00a0 Thomas Raith, John Marcone, Karrin Murphy and even Molly Carpenter each narrate a story. \u00a0\u00a0And especially in the case of Thomas and Marcone I think these add a lot of interest to the story because of the very different point of view of these characters from Harry.<\/p>\n
Just as with the rest of the Dresden Files these books cannot be enjoyed unless you already have read the first few books about Harry.\u00a0 But it is good to know that Jim Butcher takes the time to make even his short stories worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These two books are each a group of short stories that Jim Butcher has collected.\u00a0 Side Jobs was published in 2010 and Brief Cases was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,4,242],"tags":[68,200,1485,10,38,1355,1176,375,1486,59],"class_list":["post-14352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-fantasy","tag-harry-dresden","tag-jim-butcher","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction-and-fantasy","tag-sff","tag-the-dresden-files","tag-urban-fantasy"],"yoast_head":"\n