Review - Blood Rites - Dresden Files - Jim Butcher

Title: Blood Rites
Author: Jim Butcher

A good friend of mine is inherently opposed to “character-driven plot.”  In his view, authors take the idea of “character-driven” to the extreme, and spend all their words describing character relationships at the expense of the ideas which are the most interesting parts of stories.  Now, let’s be clear – this friend likes science fiction, horror and fantasy.  He’s not interested in reading “Literature” – largely because Literature tends to focus so heavily on characters.  But, in his opinion fantasy, horror and sci-fi (especially sci-fi!) should center their stories on the concepts which the author has found uniquely creative enough to include in such stories- the “hook” so to speak.

I tend to agree, though I am far more willing to accept a well-written sci-fi story which shows how characters can influence, or be influence by, those “hooks.”

So, why do I mention this as the start to my review of Blood Rites, the next novel in the “Dresden Files” series?

As I mentioned in my review of the very first Dresden book, the author has created a creative, believable way to mix magic into our world, and he has set up Harry Dresden as a man with a history.  He does not lay out every facet of magic, nor of Harry, in any single book, but build both over time.  Each book has had at least one “hook” in each categrory: the magical world, and Harry’s life.  From my perspective, two of the most  enjoyable features of each of these books has been how inventive the magic hooks are, and how much we care about Harry and his life as the personal hook happens.

Well, Blood Rites does both of these, several times, and ties them together so well that this might be my favorite of the novels so far.  We learn more about vampires and specific types of magic than ever before.  We see Harry deal with some of his most basic motivations and relationships.  And they are all tied together.  They make sense, they drive the story, and the conclusions are unforeseen, but completely consistent.

Bravo!  You should not start the series with this book.  But if you happen to find that one of the preceding books is not specifically your cup of tea, I hope you won’t let that deter you from continuing on, because this book?  This book is worth reading all the others to set the stage for the story told in Blood Rites.