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Dresden Files


Humble Asskicker

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http://www.jim-butcher.com/

On Butcher's web page, there is a long update about how he has not been working on the new Dresden novel, but instead decided to write a series of books starring Bigfoot in a romantic role....

I would like to add that he happened to post this on April's Fools Day... pretty funny

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  • 3 months later...

I've been reading the books over the past several years, and with each one, I notice more and more that there are stock descriptions of Chicago, Harry's apartment, certain characters, etc. It bugs me a little, but I'm wondering if this is something he's doing intentionally (is this a noir thing? I know it's an epic thing). Basically, I'm looking for a way to avoid throwing a book across the room the next time I read something I swear I've read verbatim several times before. Does anyone else notice this? How do you excuse it?

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I only tend to be annoyed by that sort of thing when reading books back to back. I appreciate it much more when its been a year or two since I read a book in series and it is actually sometimes helpful. I understand the need to reorient readers who have forgotten details or orient new readers so I don't begrudge repetitive passages. If Harry starts describing Murphy I just skim through the paragraph in two seconds and move on.

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It's always a sensative line to walk and one of those things where you'll never get it "just right" for all people. In my series I will bring up important points that may be needed from previous books, but it is usually a passing mention rather than a lengthy retelling of things that existing readers already know.

A "reminder" is fine...repeating things verbatium...yeah I could see why that would be a problem.

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Started catching up on this series again, and it's really noticeable. The books are so short and fast-moving that I can't help but notice all the repetition. I am chalking it up to the purposeful pulpiness he's going for. That, and one could argue that the series' 1st person tense would allow a narrator to make the same joke or describe his home the same way every time he tells a story.

I'm still churning through them gleefully, and am excited to get up to the content I haven't read yet.

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I've been reading the books over the past several years, and with each one, I notice more and more that there are stock descriptions of Chicago, Harry's apartment, certain characters, etc. It bugs me a little, but I'm wondering if this is something he's doing intentionally (is this a noir thing? I know it's an epic thing). Basically, I'm looking for a way to avoid throwing a book across the room the next time I read something I swear I've read verbatim several times before. Does anyone else notice this? How do you excuse it?

My understanding is that the repetitions are there for people who start reading the series out of order.

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I've been reading the books over the past several years, and with each one, I notice more and more that there are stock descriptions of Chicago, Harry's apartment, certain characters, etc. It bugs me a little, but I'm wondering if this is something he's doing intentionally (is this a noir thing? I know it's an epic thing). Basically, I'm looking for a way to avoid throwing a book across the room the next time I read something I swear I've read verbatim several times before. Does anyone else notice this? How do you excuse it?

There are a couple of reasons that he does this, as I understand it. For starters, I believe his basic style when it comes to introducing characters, and then reintroducing them in later books, is to assign a set of tags to each character. The first time they enter the scene in each book (and perhaps some times after) these tags are included in the description. Examples of this are "pale" for Thomas, "tall" for Harry (and his duster), "short", "five foot nothing", and "button-nose" for Murphy. So when we see them each book, Butcher uses these in their intro.

The second reason is that I believe the books are supposed to be able to be read out of order. Not majorly out of order, more the ability to start with any book you want. Of course, following Dead Beat or thereabouts, I kinda feel like all the books start to rely upon previous entries much more so than they had before.

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I've been reading the books over the past several years, and with each one, I notice more and more that there are stock descriptions of Chicago, Harry's apartment, certain characters, etc. It bugs me a little, but I'm wondering if this is something he's doing intentionally (is this a noir thing? I know it's an epic thing). Basically, I'm looking for a way to avoid throwing a book across the room the next time I read something I swear I've read verbatim several times before. Does anyone else notice this? How do you excuse it?

My wife was really frustrated by GRRM's habit of giving everyone's last name in AGOT repeatedly -- "Jaime Lannister" rather than just "Jaime". She ended up not finishing it because of that, so everyone has their quirks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ack! I gotta hurry up! I am slowing down - rightfully so, as the books are about twice as long now as the first couple. Then again, each book has a good 20 or 30 pages worth of re-cycled character or location descriptions or jokes that I can skim/skip over to get back into new content.

The last action scene I went through was gleefully one of the most entertaining of any novel I can think of. (minor book 8ish spoilers)

Sue the T-Rex being re-animated and stomping around killing zombies. Huzzah and hilarity.

I am very much enjoying the over-arching plot reveals hidden under the silly pulpy text. I love this series. Should be caught up easily in time to reserve a library copy of the new one.

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