Book Review: Storm Front
My favorite genre to read and write is urban fantasy. Many people have differing definitions of what that is, meaning sometimes Harry Potter ends up on urban fantasy lists, despite it being children's fantasy. But to me, urban fantasy is fantasy and mystery genres mixed together, usually set in a big city. Example series include October Daye by Seanan McGuire, Alex Verus by Benedict Jacka, Iron Druid by Kevin Hearne, and, important for today's review, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher1.
Storm Front is the first of the now long-running series, initially published in 2000. Apparently book 18 was just published this year, and 19 is coming out next year. That's a lot of books, and it's one of the mystery genre hallmarks that set it apart from regular fantasy series'.
I can't remember when I first read Storm Front. It was probably sometime between 2007 and 2010, as that's about when I discovered and really got into the genre. The second time I read it, according to my Goodreads review, was in 2017, and at that time I rated it 4 stars.
The book itself is about Harry Dresden, a wizard living in Chicago, who gets drawn into a couple of seemingly disparate investigations--a grisly double murder and a missing person. Throughout the book, Harry is the underdog, thwarted and attacked at every turn as the two cases develop and converge, but he is smart and clever and uses everything he can to his advantage. He's also a good person, resisting the temptation to use black magic, wanting to save people, and feeling pretty intense guilt for being too slow to prevent some of the things that happen. He's principled, even when others around him expect him not to be.
While my previous review gave the book 4 stars, I think this time, now that I'm older and maybe wiser, I have to dock it half a star. It's a great book, fast paced, and I still enjoy the plot and the explosive ending, but there's just something icky about the way every single woman in the book is described and placed in either "mother" or "whore" categories. The men are allowed to be average or ugly, but not the women.
But I still enjoyed it, and I want to continue with the series. Perhaps this read-through I'll make it past book four.
3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
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There is a TV show very loosely based on the books that came out in 2007 starring Paul Blackthorn, but it deserves its own post.↩