I just finished the latest (and possibly the penultimate) Dresden Files novel; \u201cTwelve Months.\u201d\u00a0 So, what should I say about it.\u00a0 I won\u2019t do a synopsis of the plot.\u00a0 You can get that plenty of places but if you haven\u2019t read it, you don\u2019t want the spoilers.\u00a0 And since this is book 18 (or 19 or 20?) of the series you wouldn\u2019t be reading this book if you\u2019re not already caught up on the saga.<\/p>\n
So, I think I\u2019ll just give my impressions of the book as a Harry Dresden book.\u00a0 First of all, this book is a reaction to the havoc that the war in the last book \u201cBattle Ground\u201d wreaked on Harry\u2019s life.\u00a0 He lost several close friends and the love of his life so he\u2019s not doing too well.\u00a0 And so, this book chronicles Harry\u2019s recovery from physical, emotional and supernatural wounds that he sustained.<\/p>\n
And I would say that this book is much more of an emotional story than most of his earlier books.\u00a0 And that\u2019s not to say that Harry Dresden has just found his humanity in this book.\u00a0 He was always an emotional man but I think the author is trying to emphasize that this older, wiser Harry is less motivated by anger and more willing to use empathy to think his way out of a conflict.\u00a0 He\u2019s even able to reason with a Lovecraftian monster to avoid a lose-lose situation.<\/p>\n
And another observation I have is that I think I can see some of the loose ends being tied together.\u00a0 If the next book is the last chapter of the Dresden Files, then he\u2019s going to have to settle the hash of about twenty major characters and a hundred minor ones.\u00a0 And some of these major characters are tied to railroad tracks with locomotives within sight.\u00a0 And there\u2019s no off-ramp for Harry.\u00a0 He\u2019s slowly advanced over the course of the series from an almost comically overmatched novice at magic to one of the top ten powers in the supernatural world.\u00a0 He has friendships, alliances and vendettas with virtually all of the supernatural powers that exist in his crowded and lovingly detailed urban fantasy universe.\u00a0 There is the White Council of Wizards, the Summer Fey, the Winter Fey, Ghouls, Lycanthropes, a Titan, the Black Court Vampires and the White Court Vampires.\u00a0 There aren\u2019t any more Red Court Vampires because Harry killed off the whole clan in an earlier book. \u00a0How exactly Jim Butcher intends to pull the plug on Harry\u2019s adventures is a complete mystery to me.\u00a0 Killing him off doesn\u2019t seem to make any of the subplots work better and I just don\u2019t see how he \u201cretires.\u201d\u00a0 Too many enormously powerful forces want him dead.<\/p>\n
But suffice it to say, if you\u2019ve enjoyed the earlier Dresden Files installments then you will inhale the four hundred sixty odd pages of \u201cTwelve Months\u201d in a couple of days and immediately wonder why Jim Butcher is leaving you hanging waiting for the conclusion.\u00a0 So, who do I recommend this book to?\u00a0 Why, anyone who has gotten this far in the series of course.\u00a0 And for that audience I wholeheartedly recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just finished the latest (and possibly the penultimate) Dresden Files novel; \u201cTwelve Months.\u201d\u00a0 So, what should I say about it.\u00a0 I won\u2019t do a<\/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":[68,1485,10,38,1355,265,1486],"class_list":["post-37455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-harry-dresden","tag-jim-butcher","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-dresden-files"],"yoast_head":"\n