• Small Favor

  • The Dresden Files, Book 10
  • By: Jim Butcher
  • Narrated by: James Marsters
  • Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (25,705 ratings)

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Small Favor  By  cover art

Small Favor

By: Jim Butcher
Narrated by: James Marsters
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Publisher's summary

The new novel in the New York Times best-selling Dresden Files series.

No one's tried to kill Harry Dresden for almost an entire year, and his life finally seems to be calming down. For once, the future looks fairly bright. But the past casts one hell of a long shadow.

An old bargain has placed Harry in debt to Mab, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, the Queen of Air and Darkness - and she's calling in her marker. It's a small favor he can't refuse, one that will trap Harry Dresden between a nightmarish foe and an equally deadly ally, and one that will strain his skills-and loyalties-to their very limits.

It figures. Everything was going too well to last....

Please note: A few lines of text from one section of the original book are missing from this 2008 recording. This is the best available source audio from the publisher.

©2008 Jim Butcher (P)2008 Penguin

Critic reviews

“Superlative.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“Butcher...spins an excellent noirish detective yarn in a well-crafted, supernaturally-charged setting. The supporting cast is again fantastic, and Harry’s wit continues to fly in the face of a peril-fraught plot.” (Booklist, starred review)

“A tricky plot complete with against-the-clock pacing, firefights, explosions, and plenty of magic. Longtime series fans as well as newcomers drawn by the SciFi Channel’s TV series based on the novels should find this supernatural mystery a real winner.” (Library Journal)

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What listeners say about Small Favor

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Missing 2 minutes of audio!

I thoroughly enjoy the Dresden Files and the audiobook experience that James Marsters provides, but Caveat Emptor, the Audible version had a couple minutes of audio missing during the first interaction between Dresden and one of the Denarians.

I tried everything I could as did Audible Customer Service, but they could not figure out a means to resolve this. The publisher tells us that even in the master recording, the audio just skips from the demon changing form to Dresden barking out an impudent response to what is obviously close to the end of the conversation. It's an error that was never caught.

Still worth the listen and still very enjoyable. Didn't completely spoil the fun, just resulted in a few lost hours of time working with Customer Service trying to fix the issues.

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114 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Listen to the previous books before reviewing

Some of us actually take a serious look at the reviews before purchasing. Before you give a bad review and whine about not understanding the story have enough sense to listen the the NINE previous books. Idiot.

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50 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A Good Story Badly Edited. Beware Missing Parts.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

It's an entertaining story & Marsters does his usual fine job of narrating. But there are approximately 30 lines of dialogue & text missing from chapter 13 (a smidge less than 10 minutes in) that make the section a bit hard to follow. I'm disappointed in the lack of quality control (Again! Get it together Audible!). Now that I've gone and read the missing section, I'll get back to enjoying the story and hope there aren't any more errors.

Any additional comments?

Audible, you need to hire people who can create a decent (iPhone) app. It was fine a few years ago, but now it's pretty glitchy. Less time re-designing logos, more time creating a good user interface, please!

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35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Part of Chapter 13 is missing from the audio.

Part of Chapter 13 is missing. Most of a conversation is missing. It throws off the pace of the story.

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33 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Always Worth the Money

Someone asked me if I caught the Super Bowl on television. I said no, the new multimillion dollar players don't seemed to be anything like me. When I was young, even famous athletes, like Joe Namath, seemed like people you might encounter at your neighborhood bar once in awhile, famous but one of us mugs. This is why I like the character Harry Dresden.

Jim Butcher creates a great character that you'd love to sit down with and have a beer and pizza, just to listen to what he's been up to today. You might run into Harry walking across your street and yell hello while he's out with Mouse. The humanity of the character doesn't dim his powerful, ever growing, powers as a wizard. Butcher does follow an old, 'Sam Spade,' formula, true, but the characters are so good you don't care and find yourself glad of the time it took to read it through.

I am hoping that soon all the Harry Dresden books are here at Audible. You really do need to read them from the beginning in order to not only appreciate the plot you're reading now, but to understand the subplot that flows through all the books. But you can still listen to 'Small Favors' by itself, so grab a beer (or your favorite beverage) some pizza, turn out the lights, and get on a case with Harry.

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25 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

I want more of Harry!

I absolutely love this! I kept hoping you would get Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. James Marsters has done a fantastic job! His snarky humor is spot on as Harry. Would love to see more of the Dresden Files on Audible. *pretty please* In the meantime, I will be listening to it again.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story, great narration, but missing parts

What about James Marsters’s performance did you like?

James Marsters is a fabulous narrator. I have really enjoyed the way he performs this series (though the way he pronounces some words makes me giggle now and then).

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I just heard about this series a few weeks ago and have been reading/listening to them in every spare moment since.

Any additional comments?

I was listening to Chapter 13, and right in the middle of a sentence the narration jumps about a page and a half! That's a pretty good chunk that people who don't own the book will miss.

I am really glad that I have the ebook, so I was able to pause the narration and get caught up. I have found missing lines in some of the other books, but nothing like this. It's very disappointing. Hopefully there aren't any more issues like this in the narration/editing.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great listening experience

First, let me say that I was turned on to the hard copy books initially and loved the series from the start. Then I started travelling more for work and was nervous about having them in audio format starting with this book, #8. No need to worry, it was even better than I could have hoped for. James Marsters does a GREAT job of bringing the story and people to life. His intonations, laughs and accents really help to make this an exciting listen. I have actually found myself driving around the block of my customers locations a few times just to get to the end of a chapter for a stopping point. Just like a book you can't put down. I strongly suggest you start with the books in order, now that they are available, to help understand the story development fully. It is good to watch Harry Dresden grow from the beginning and know where the other players come in at and get the background foundation. I am now up to book #11 and they just keep getting better. I rate these books as 5 stars due to the story line and the excellent narration. Well done! I have to agree with another reviewer that says that he can now picture Dresden saying "FOZARE!". I am now the same way and also when Marsters makes the difference in using a small "fuego!" in comparison to belting out a bellowing basso "FUUEEEEGGGGOOO!!!!" It really brings the story to life and sometimes I get chills just from listening to it. This particular book was a great addition to the series. I really liked the ending and Captain Luccios part in it. I just downloaded # 11 and can't wait to get started on it.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Finally, hooray!

After I had major surgery in 2005 a thoughtful friend gave me a box of books to occupy my recovery at home. Tucked in the box was the first 4 books in the Dresden Files, as the books are known. To this day I still remember my delight at discovering how much fun they were to read, and still are.

Harry Dresden is a great twist on the two-bit private eye. Like a typical P.I., he packs a gun and he works for peanuts (or sometimes pizza). He also packs a wizard's staff and gets involved with things Sam Spade never imagined.

As the series has evolved Dresden and his world have developed so well and clearly that I know his world as well as my own.

DO NOT judge the books by the Sci-Fi channel series, which did reeketh mightily. This is great!

My only complaint is that this, Audible's first offering of a Dresden story, is book 10 in the series. First time "readers" would benefit from listening to the stories in order, since each, to varying degrees, does build on the stories before.

Hey Audible, PLEASE give us the rest of the stories, unabridged. Thanks for this one.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

The Return of Nicky and The Nickleheads

The Summer and Winter Queens are having another strange game of 'cat's paw' and our favorite wizard is stuck in the middle again. Small Favor draws on plot threads from some of the previous novels and sets the table for Turn Coat which follows as book 11. Care is taken to explain plots that carry over from another book, at least briefly, so the book stands on it's own, but read the earlier installments to get the full story.

Jim Butcher seems to have few 'disposable' characters, and they become familliar and develop over the course of several of the books, most involved in over-arching plots that do not detract from the main plot of the novel, but continue to neatly build over time. He does hit the pop-culture references pretty hard in this novel, but that's one of the joys of reading modern fantasy that connects so strongly with it's reader base. I am a RPG playing child of the 80's and can't help but love this series.

This is probably one of the more action packed books, with the billy goats gruff, hobbes,not one but two showdowns with Nicodemus and the Denarians, a non-standard assortment of thugs, the Archive and her Hellhound, the captain of the White Council's Wardens, the Knights of the Cross, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and... a donut. Prithee, with frosting of white, and sprinkles 'pon it.

I came to these books as a fan of the narrator's previous work, and I have not been dissapointed. James Marsters rocks hard as Harry Dresden and the suprising array of character voices he portrays in this series. They come to life in his care and I couldn't imagine anyone else portraying them. The only vocal continuity glitch is the change from the normal "John Marcone" voice of previous installments to the one used for his brief appearances here.

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14 people found this helpful