Storm Front

The Dresden Files, Book 1

By: Jim Butcher

Narrated by: James Marsters

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. I'm a wizard. I work out of an office in midtown Chicago. As far as I know, I'm the only openly practicing professional wizard in the country. You can find me in the yellow pages, under Wizards. Believe it or not, I'm the only one there.

With rent past due and a decent meal becoming an issue of some importance, Harry needs work, and soon. A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires, while he himself is under suspicion of the crimes.

©2000 Jim Butcher (P)2002 Buzzy Multimedia

Great story with less than stellar performance

The narrator makes too many clicking and smacking mouth sounds and too many awkward pauses. At several points in the recording, you can clearly hear his chair squeaking. You get used to it though as the story progresses and you can chalk it up to one of the oddities of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.

A Glorious Beginning to an Impressive Series

This book represents my first exposure to both Jim Butcher and James Marsters and I found myself thoroughly enriched by the experience.
Mr. Butchers’ writing is intelligent, complex, irreverent, entertaining, challenging and inspiring – an incredible and refreshing mixture for such an humble genre as who-dunit noir mystery. Butcher utilizes some classic literary devices to great effect; for example he quite obviously opens the book with foreshadowing setting the tone for the whole book, I enjoyed this immensely. I found the characters to be nicely complex and either truly likeable as if they might be my own friends or absolutely disagreeable reminding me of schoolyard bullies. The plot was wonderful: driven by Harry’s formidable powers of investigation it was very rich and convoluted; I just barely kept up with each twist and turn – in fact I am not too proud to admit that I missed one or two.
Mr. Marsters does a marvelous job of narration – this is truly a performance, not simply a reading. He does well with female voices by not trying too hard to force them. He is very good at establishing a unique voice for each character in the book allowing the listener to give all of their attention to content and not to juggling who’s who. His performance is award worthy.

I love Jim Butcher

Dresden is my favorite character this book is amazing probably the 3rs or 4th time listening to it and I will again someday.

Don't pass this book by because of the narrator!

You can hear the narrator breathing quite frequently. Keep in mind, however ... 1) The book is told in first person. The narrator becomes Harry Dresdren. When you hear breathing and sighing you have the sense it is Harry doing it not the narrator. 2) This is the first book of a great series. There are 14 all together. The narrator gets better and better. 3) Pretty much everyone who doesn't have a problem with the narrator loves these books. They are great fun! Don't miss out.

This Role Was Made for James Marsters!

Fantastic story line and excellent performance by James Marsters. Going to start the next one immediately!

Very entertaining. Sam Spade + magic. A fun book.

Well written. Self deprecating humor. VERY Sam Spade(ish). Not deep, but a pleasant interlude between deeper droughts. Entertaining.

I read a couple of reviews from others who seemed to have a similiar take on books and found: An unexpected pleasure.

Jim Butcher and Harry Dresden Rock

What made the experience of listening to Storm Front the most enjoyable?

The writer and the reader

What other book might you compare Storm Front to and why?

All Jim Butcher's other books. The are sensational!

Have you listened to any of James Marsters’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Marsters is great. In fact one of Jim Butcher's books is narrated by someone else and although the writing was still great, the reader was not so much.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Harry Dresden Wizards the world and beyond

great listen

Great listen: quirky character, intriguing plot, excellent voice acting. I'm glad this is the first of a series so I can get more of it.

Very good book

I first start reading/ listening to James Butcher books when I happened upon "Furies of Caldron" in a discount book store. After reading that whole series and enjoying thoroughly I found this series.

It took me a while to pick it up with the fear of it not living up to his other series. I did finally bite the proverbial billet and started right here in the beginning.

I have been pleasantly surprised by this book. It is funny, yet serious and just a fun read or listen as the case may be. I am eager to start the second book in the series.

Great work on this audiobook and thanks for a great adventure.

Narrator isn’t right

Love Jim Butcher and I read all the Dresden files ages ago. Now that I have littles I don’t really read so I decided to listen to a favorite. I’ve listened to this narrator before and been cool with him but he just doesn’t have the Harry voice right. I don’t mean the VOICE I mean the demeanor and inflection etc. Harry doesn’t take himself so seriously! One thing I love about Butcher is the comedic tone over the action. I missed the sort of smart ass snark that got played too seriously