Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) in Goodjer Recommends

Feb 10, 2011 Rebecca (LirilAB) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dresden-files, fantasy, urban-fantasy, detective

I had fun with this book. It wasn't incredibly deep, and the plot was pretty standard fare, but I enjoyed it and wanted to see how things would get resolved. I'm not sure I am fond of the first person voice, but it was very refreshing to read a book that took the perspective of a single character throughout rather than jumping around between multiple characters. I already have Dresden Files #2 on order at the library. ...more

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Sep 09, 2010 Christopher Mclean rated it liked it

The Dresden Files is the one series which always seems to come up when the conversation turns to Urban Fantasy. I haven't really dabbled in this sub-genre at all so when this came up on special on Audible I decided to take the plunge.

Storm Front introduces us to the wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden, who works in modern day Chicago as a supernatural private detective. The setting is similar to TV shows like Buffy/Angel and Supernatural, where the world is essentially identical to our own but with a ...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Todd Bollman rated it did not like it · review of another edition

*This is more a review of the first three books since I got them as a bundle and forced myself through them, hoping they would get better*
The Dresden Files is one of those series I’ve heard about for ages but just never got around to reading despite consistent urging from several friends. I was expecting something along the lines of an Americanized Laundry Files- I was sorely disappointed.
If someone had handed me one of these books telling me it was Dresden Files fanfic, I would have believed t *This is more a review of the first three books since I got them as a bundle and forced myself through them, hoping they would get better*
The Dresden Files is one of those series I’ve heard about for ages but just never got around to reading despite consistent urging from several friends. I was expecting something along the lines of an Americanized Laundry Files- I was sorely disappointed.
If someone had handed me one of these books telling me it was Dresden Files fanfic, I would have believed them. It’s poorly written, poorly plotted, and every character is a ridiculous caricature. It would be an insult to flat objects to call the characters two-dimensional; each basically has one personality trait that is the entirety of their personality, and they never stray from that. There is no growth whatsoever for anyone, even for characters that appear in multiple books, and every woman is presented as either a nymphomaniac trying to get all up on Dresden or an obstacle that Dresden must overcome or manipulate (while also sexually fantasizing about them of course, no matter how young they are). Some get to be both.
Dresden himself is THE most ridiculous Mary Sue character I’ve seen outside of Tumblr, every book requires a deus ex machina whose sole purpose is to depower or restrict Dresden so that he doesn’t immediately outsmart and overpower everything in his path. The author also clearly wants you to view Dresden as a charming old-school curmudgeon but it just comes across as teenage-level snobbery. Dresden has monologues about women and culture sprinkled throughout the books that read like they’ve been lifted directly from some 4chan neckbeard.
And the world. Is. So. Bland. Dresden exists in a universe where all mythical and spiritual entities are real, yet somehow finds the most generic and bog-standard way of portraying all these entities. The author doesn’t even try to do anything interesting with them, the moment a demon, fairy, or werewolf shows up in a scene you immediately know what will happen and how Dresden will outsmart it because it will be the first, most obvious thing that comes to mind.
I watched the short-lived Dresden Files show on SyFy, and as far as I’m concerned THAT is the original Dresden Files. Even though the books came first they’re barely more than shoddy fanfic. ...more

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