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

Very enjoyable!

This book was a lot of fun! I thought the narrator did an excellent job, he really personified the characher. I will certainly listen to more books in this series.

great start for Dresden

really fell in love with the Dresden files when I read it. now I listen to this almost every year. also narrated by one of my favorite performers.

LOVED IT!

How am I just now discovering this series? I loved it. Fun! Fast paced! Unpredictable! I already downloaded the 2nd book in the series.

A good introduction.

Pretty good. Not sure what the hype is about but the book was enjoyable.

One thing that confuses me though. Ok, well, a few things. If power is difficult to build, but tech younger than the wizard breaks because you’re leaking magic everywhere;.. why isn’t he wearing some sort of capacitor built to capture all of that latent power? And if tech younger than the wizard is always breaking; why not build magic equivalent transport and utilities?

A tough introduction to the series

With the fifteenth volume of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series about to be released (just over a fortnight away as I write these words), I thought it was an appropriate time to reread the series. And to write a few words about it. I haven’t followed the series since its inception; I was finally persuaded to read the series a few years ago, and after reading part of Storm Front, I abandoned it and went to read something else. Two years ago, I finally sat down and read through the entire series and it’s a series I really enjoy.

Storm Front, on the other hand, is not a great introduction to the series. It isn’t actively bad, but neither did it grab me and say “This is a writer to watch!” What you have is a fairly standard mystery novel: two people have been murdered and Harry Dresden, Wizard for Hire, is brought in on the case.

The actual mystery is interesting and moderately well-handled. More interesting is the world-building on display. Harry is a pariah amongst Wizard-kind, due to something undisclosed that happened in his youth, and is watched over suspiciously by the Wizard Council. The world in general does not admit to the paranormal being real, and only two “normal” characters – a policewoman and a journalist – know that Harry is not a fraud. There are vampires, one of whom operates a brothel, and faeries.

However, these things are but lightly touched upon. The book feels moderately short – at 372 pages in the paperback edition, it isn’t really that short – but you only get glimpses of the world that Jim Butcher creates in the subsequent novels. More importantly, those glimpses are rarely engaging. For instance, the revelation of the true form of vampires feels thrown away; it’s incidental to the plot of the book. It’s just something creepy.

Perhaps most problematically, the characters didn’t engage. Harry Dresden reads as a person just getting by, lacking money and, more importantly, friends. Without those friends, there aren’t the interactions that the book really needs. Dresden will come out of his shell, but his shell makes this book a moderately tough read.

It doesn’t take that long for the series to really come alight, but Storm Front is much less than what comes later.

Solid story overall / Narrator lip smacking

Other reviews already well-document the story so I'd like to draw your attention to the narrator frequently lightly swallowing and smacking their lips a bit. It's not part of the character or an added layer of ambiance. It's distracting once noticed. I gather by the fidelity of the sound that the microphone was right on the narrator's mouth. It gives me a little pause as to whether I want to continue with the series despite it having a good overall story.

Start with book 3 and then read this when you’ve caught up

Yes, there are issues with James Marsters performance. Yes, the novel is among Jim’s weakest Dresden Files books.

But it’s the first one, man. It launched the best selling series.

I don’t recommend you start here. Start with Book 3. Then come back and read this after you’ve finished Changes.

Enjoy!

Loved it

Loved it! I can't wait to listen to the next one. I recommend it to anyone who likes magic, mystery, and more than a little sarcasm.

Great book, Great performance

The story and characters were super fun. James did a wonderful job telling the story. This is my second time through this book, and it was even better the second time. I love this series!

an awesome adventure

it was an amazing adventure. greatly written and delivered by the reading. cant wait to get the next one.