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OR HALF BAD ...
I waited TWO YEARS for this continuation of the always excellent DRESDEN FILES.
I remember asking myself as I listened to the first half of this audio book:
I WAITED TWO YEARS FOR THIS?
I thought to myself:
"Has Jim Butcher become CHARLAINE HARRIS?"
I mean there was even a Charlaine Harris sex scene in it, written as if by someone other than Jim Butcher.
Is Jim just grinding out the remaining 5 novels to complete his contract?
The first half was difficult to "read" and depressing. Jim seemed to have lost his fire. Worse, it seemed unnatural for him as if a ghost writer were writing the chapters.
Jim's inane use of Parkour clashed with his angst of having become the Winter Knight and his grief over losing Molly, his apprentice, to Mab as the Winter Lady.
The deadly spirit of the cursed island upon which Harry lived now talked naturally not with great effort to put words into speech rather than just being as one with the land.
The longer I listened the more it seemed a ghost writer was mangling the prose of delicate scenes in clumsy fashion.
Words and phrases never used before were inserting themselves into the narrative.
Prior comments from past books were written as if new.
If I hadn't been listening to the audio book and on a long blood run, I probably would have stopped.
{And Amazon what is it with charging $13 for the Kindle book when you charge $17 for the hardcover?}
THEN ...
I reached the second half, and it seemed as if Jim had gotten his rhythm back.
The emotions and characters were taunt, tense, and back to form.
The moment when Harry stumbles upon his maimed friend, Michael was Jim at his best. You bled with Harry. Michael was as wise and strong and kind as I remembered.
The Harry I knew was back ...
But it was too good to last:
Harry's meeting with his little daughter was so badly handled and unbelievable that it took me right out of what should have been a very moving moment.
The thing about urban fantasies ...
the interpersonal exchanges have to be dead-on for you to suspend disbelief about the supernatural elements.
The cliffhangers started to become classic again, and I started to breathe a sigh of relief.
Jim has become famous for his ever-worsening cliffhangers as his tale progresses that,
with the next chapter, either become worse or become resolved with clever plot threads from earlier in the book.
In this novel, a chapter ends with a certain death, no way out trap. I truly did not know how he was going to get Harry out of this one.
The next chapter began THREE DAYS EARLIER inserting a deus ex machina in the mix!
Jim, the Way Back Machine is not a plot devise. It is a cheat ... and lazy writing.
There have been several brewing problems passed from one novel to the next, becoming worse with each novel.
Like a ticking time bomb, they grew in intensity, and the reader tensed, knowing the explosion was coming ... just not when.
TICK. TICK. TICK.
And with this novel ... you guessed it: FIZZLE.
They were resolved off camera, unsatisfactorily, and unrealistically.
It really is too bad, for in the last half of this book, Jim has done some of his best writing.
But with all the flaws and mis-fires, reading this book was like riding in a Rolls Royce with bad spark plugs and rotten shocks.
I suppose I should just be happy that the 14 books before this one were excellent, right?
HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED FORWARD TO A BOOK
ONLY TO BE DISAPPOINTED?
