Author: Jim Butcher
Here where we are: eleven novels had been written Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard. Throughout those novels, we have seen Harry deal with many dangerous supernatural dangers, from vampires to demons to necromancers to fairies. As we've watched him, he has met, and we have come to know, many people -- and many non-people -- who have become the relational fabric of his life. And, as we have walked alongside Harry, a flawed but honorable man, we have become very familiar with his surroundings, his moral code, his intense desire to remain his own man, and, yes, his apartment and his car.
Well, now the twelfth book in the series appears. The title alone, Changes, tells us to expect something new. And in the first paragraph, things change. And then, throughout the remainder of the book, they keep changing.
As the changes occur, the danger grows, and Harry has to reach out to his friends; in fact, to almost every friend he has ever had, and even some enemies. You know, because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." In the first Dresden book, Harry had no family and has precious few friends, but by book twelve, he has learned a bit more about his past and he has developed relationships which bind him to others in ways both normal supernatural.
Meanwhile, the dangerous political intrigue between groups of Wizards, Vampires, Fairies and others has been building the background, and now, just when Harry doesn't need the distraction, just when Harry has to find a way to help a helpless little girl, these global dangers insert themselves into his life again, forcing Harry to decide between the needs of the many, and the needs of the few, or the one. It's a common theme in heroic stories, I realize, but it feels fresh and new and terribly personal as we follow the path Harry Dresden is forced to take.
I have stopped speculating whether each of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books could be read in a stand-alone form and enjoyed. I suspect that each of them could, but at this point it just doesn't matter. No, wait, it does! Why? Because if you have never read a Dresden novel, and you think this one sounds fun, you should not read it! Why? Because so much of the fun, so much of the emotion, so much of the tension in this book has been building through the previous eleven installments, that you simply do not want to deprive yourself of the huge payoff this book brings.
This book is a book for the lovers of the Dresden Files. I clearly count myself among them. Bravo, Mr. Butcher. Bravo!
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