Storm Front - Jim Butcher

Book info:

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Orbit (1 Sep 2005)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 1841493988
• ISBN-13: 978-1841493985

Synopsis:
Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Reasonable rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment. Harry Dresden is the best and technically the 'only' at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal capabilities, they come to him for answers. For the 'everyday' world is actually full of strange and magical things - and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a - well, whatever. The first six Dresden files novels will be published over three months - a great introduction to Harry Dresden, a modern-day wizard who manages to get into some seriously tricky situations.

Reviews:
Reviewers like the pace and grittiness of this series with the right balance of modern violence and traditional SFF structures.

The Gravel Pit points out that this is meant to be a light read and shouldn't be over critiqued for its literary greatness and contribution to SFF literature so read it with a bucket of salt. This is backed up by several reviews simply referring to it as a "page turner".

A final criticism of the series as a whole is that its yet another Wizard called Harry. Regular readers will know my feelings about that particular series.

My two cents:
Generally considered to be better than the TV series, modern urban fantasy with a clearly identifable formula and plenty of action. You need to read these in order to avoid being confused.

Butcher does for Chicago what Rankin did for Ealing - taking an existing world and building a new one within it which saves a lot of time in SFF and allows for more time to be spent on character development.

After you've read the first one, you'll be tempted to go right out and buy the next two or three but be warned that the forumla becomes more and more obvious by the third and you can easily get bored so mix them up with other authors to get further in to the series.

Graham has an overview of the series and makes a couple of interesting points, like how annoying Dresden's monologues become as the series goes on, which may just be an attempt at character development but which I agree can be tedious. Just looking at the amazon reviews you'll see that people are wetting themselves over the characters in the first book, but that there is a desire amongst readers for deeper, more developed characters, which possibly aren't compatible with the pace and style of the books?