My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Side Jobs is perhaps not absolutely critical reading for a fan of Jim Butcher and the Dresden Files. Most of the stories herein are ones which were previously published in various other anthologies, with the shining exception of Aftermath, the novella that takes place immediately after the novel Changes–and which was the first thing I’d ever seen Mr. Butcher write from a female point of view, at least in the Dresden Files. For that alone, and for an opportunity to see Murphy react to the way that novel ended, I was myself quite happy to snap this one up.

Fortunately, I hadn’t actually read most of these stories before, so the collection was primarily new to me. And there’s definitely some good stuff in here, taking place over quite a wide range of the Dresden timeline. Aside from Aftermath, my favorites were “Last Call” and “Love Hurts”, just because of fun mileage with McAnally’s, and again with Murphy. I certainly squeed quite a bit for the “Love Hurts” story in particular. I’d already read Warrior from the Mean Streets anthology, but that one’s a good solid story as well. And if you want to go way, way back in Harry’s timeline, “Restoration of Faith” takes place before Storm Front; that one’s available to read for free on Jim’s site, but it was good to see it here, too, and good to see the collection ranging from very early Harry to (as of the time of this collection’s release) current Harry.

Critical? No. But definitely fun, and if you’re like me–a big fan of Jim’s work but not one who normally reads anthologies or collections–you should go ahead and pick this up. But for the love of all that’s holy, do not read Aftermath unless you’ve already read Changes. Because oh my yes the spoilers. Four stars.

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This isn’t a proper review post–I’m behind enough on my reviews that the proper review post will be a while–but I wanted to go ahead and get this up so that it’d be timely! So hit me with your discussion thoughts, y’all!

But if you haven’t read Ghost Story or any Dresden at all, for the love of god, stand back and stay out of the comments. For here be spoilers OH MY YES.

Oh my that was good. A much quieter and more introspective book than Changes, which was entirely appropriate, yet with the delightful Harry Dresden voice we’ve all come to know and love.

Mort was awesome, as was Sir Stuart, AND! AND! AND! Getting to see Murphy’s dad!

I quite liked that Ghost Harry, forced into helplessness by his bodily state, was also forced to confront the ramifications of the previous book. This made the pacing a little weird for me, what with interpersing flashbacks with current action, but it was still IMO very appropriate given the nature of the plot.

I went HEE at “Gandalf never had this kind of problem”, immediately followed up by “He had exactly this problem, actually, standing in front of the hidden Dwarf door to Moria”, and then Harry telling the reader, “I guessed the Corpsetaker had never read Tolkien. Tasteless bitch.” BWAHAHAHA.

WOO the backstory on He Who Walks Behind! \0/ That was one of my favorite bits of the whole story, especially how it was interwoven with Harry telling the story to the Leanansidhe.

MISTER! Mister’s okay! And he totally saw Ghost Harry and aw!

Thomas! AUGH! Poor fucked-up Thomas. :|

How awesome was Bob vs. Evil Bob? Pretty damned awesome. And especially so that Bob is currently in the hands of Butters, who appears to have picked up a huge dose of awesome himself. GO BUTTERS!

And oh oh oh Murphy. Oh god. She’s going down a darker road and I really hope she gets to see living Harry again soon.

And OHMIGOD poor Molly! WAUGH. I loved Bridge of the Enterprise as the representation of the inside of Molly’s head, and Science Molly versus Captain Molly, but I had NOT seen it coming that Harry had in fact arranged to have Kincaid come and shoot him. And that Molly had been instrumental in making it happen. OH HONEY. And double that what with Harry unwittingly echoing the last thing he’d said to her before that happened. AUGH.

It was pretty clear the first time Harry’s body was described as “unavailable” that he’d be getting it back soon enough, and it was equally clear that Mab actually had it–no way no how is Harry getting out of being the Winter Knight that easily. So there was no surprise there. But I did quite like that Uriel held his seven words until Harry woke up in Mab’s clutches. NICE.

I TOTALLY teared up when Uriel took Harry to see little Maggie at the Carpenter’s house, where she was under the protection of Mouse. Sniff. :~)

And I let out an audible happy sigh when I was done. No, not as earthshattering as Changes–but it didn’t need to be.

Turns out several of the titles on my ebook wishlist were still in their database, so I’ve nabbed ‘em. To wit:

• A Far and Deadly Cry, by Teri Holbrook. Mystery, re-buy to replace previously owned print copy.
• Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
• Measuring the World, by Daniel Kehlmann. General fiction, was recommended by janne.
• Blue Moon, by Cindy Lynn Speer. Ebook re-buy of a print copy I already own, since the print copy is large and unwieldy and I can read the ebook better.
• Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana, by Tee Morris & Lisa Lee. Another ebook re-buy of a print copy I still own, again because large and unwieldy print book I don’t want to carry around.
• Blood Engines, by T.A. Pratt. Actual purchase of a free PDF I’d gotten before from when Tor.com came online; decided to go ahead and buy this copy since the PDF is 5 MB in size.
• Mob Rules, by Cameron Haley. Urban fantasy, a recent release from Luna.
• The Mysteries, by Lisa Tuttle. Fantasy. Picked it up due to a review by Jo Walton on Tor.com.
• Spellbent, by Lucy A. Snyder. Urban fantasy. Picked up because of her participation in the CoyoteCon panels run by Drollerie Press earlier this year!
• Total Oblivion, More or Less: A Novel, by Alan DeNiro. This one got a good amount of buzz a while back so I’m finally checking it out.
• The Tomb of Zeus, by Barbara Cleverly. Re-buy of a book I’d previously owned. Mystery.
• Deadly Slipper, by Michelle Wan. Mystery.
• Black and White, by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. Because SUPERHEROES, and because I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while now!

And meanwhile, because it was Absolutely Necessary, I picked up jimbutcher‘s shiny new Dresden Files anthology, Side Jobs, from Barnes and Noble! I bought it in both ebook and hardback, actually–ebook for me, and hardback to give as a present to kathrynt, who will need it to occupy herself before her baby boy makes his arrival in the world Any Day Now, and hopefully as she’s resting after as well. So I get to count that one twice! :D

And OH OH OH I must also add this, since it showed up in my mailbox today: Writing Out the Notes, the new book by Bob Hallett, is another acquisition! That would be the Bob Hallett of my very own beloved Great Big Sea, who’s written himself a combination memoir and musical portrait of St. John’s. I’m quite looking forward to reading it, as Mr. Hallett’s always been the most thoughtful and introspective of the B’ys, based on what they’ve all posted in their various posts on their site.

Grand total for the year: 334!

I was absolutely mindblown.

ETA: Putting a cut tag in here because while I’m not revealing anything that isn’t revealed on Jim’s own site in the blurb for the novel or the preview chapter he posted, if you want to remain absolutely spoiler-free, you’ll want to skip this review post.

Jim Butcher knew what he was doing when he titled this book. From the very first sentence, everything you think you know about Harry Dresden, all the people he knows and loves, and the world in which he operates is turned completely on its ear. The biggest of these changes was revealed on Jim’s own site, so I will go so far as to say that yeah, revealing that Harry has a small daughter he never knew about? WHOA.

But that’s only just the beginning. Sure, it’s an earth-shattering revelation for Harry, but the fact that it’s a daughter by Susan, the long-lost lover who’d left him to go to South America and fight the vampire transformation that’s been enforced upon her, is only the first of a one-two punch. The other blow? The kid’s been taken by the Red Court vampires. And she’s going to be sacrificed.

I have to admit that I was deeply leery of the idea of setting Harry up with a kid. He’s matured a lot through the course of the series, and the Harry of this book is absolutely better father material than the Harry of the initial books would have been. That said? Harry also lives an extremely dangerous life, one which is not suited under any circumstances to caring for a small child. But I needn’t have worried. Jim handles everything pertaining to the kid quite believably, including what eventually happens to her. If anything, my only beef about her at all is that little Maggie is barely an actual character presence in the story; she’s way more of a MacGuffin than she is a member of the cast.

And. And. And. Really, this book’s way less about Harry going “ZOMG I’M A FATHER” (though don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely about that) than it is about how Harry’s determination to save his little girl lays unutterable waste to everything about his life. And I do mean everything. Long time fans of the series, you better be prepared to have all of the little signature details you’ve come to know and love about what makes Harry Harry to be blown to kingdom come.

And be prepared for a cliffhanger, because Jim Butcher is a cliffhanger-writing BASTARD. Hopefully he won’t actually be making a habit of this–hopefully this’ll just be a feature of the fact that this is the midpoint of the series. But I can forgive him the cliffhanger just because this is hands down the best novel he’s written yet. The writing is flawless, and Butcher’s got his sense of pacing down to a finely honed art by now; in the big climactic battle sequence, I had that thrilling “MUST! READ! NEXT! PARAGRAPH!” urgency that comes with truly epic adventure.

Five very, very well deserved stars.

jimbutcher

This here is not a proper review post; it’s a spoiler-laden discussion thread! If you’ve also read the book and you want to talk about it, drop a comment! Gush or wail or both to your heart’s content! And needless to say, if you haven’t read it yet, stay far, far, far away from the comments until you do. You’ll thank us later.

My own reactions behind the cut!

And I totally need to get me a proper book!Harry icon, although tv!Harry will do for this purpose.

Oh good gods where do I start?

AUGH #1: The systematic steamrollering of every! single! thing! that we’ve come to know and love as a detail in Harry’s life: his office. His home. The Blue Beetle. His staff.

AUGH #2: OMG POOR MISTER where are you kitty?

AUGH #3: I TOTALLY CALLED that Susan was not going to survive the book, and I was halfway suspicious that she would in fact be forced to go full vamp before everything was done. I did not however call that Harry was GOING TO HAVE TO KILL HER HIMSELF. AUGH.

AUGH #4: I also totally called that there was no real way that Harry would be able to keep the kid even if he did actually successfully rescue her. I am pleased that Jim did in fact lay it out that it would be extremely stupid for Harry to try to keep the kid around. But I didn’t call that Harry would have to bring himself to hand poor Maggie off to Murphy and beg Murphy to take her to Father Forthill and ask that she be put somewhere safe that not even he knows about. When Harry stammered delivering that request my heart just cracked for the poor guy. AUGH.

AUGH #5: Of COURSE Ebenezer is Harry’s grandpa AUGH!

AUGH #6: This is me being whomperjawed that Team Dresden actually took out the ENTIRE RED COURT with the rebound of the death curse. HOLY CRAP. I guess this is putting a good heart stop to the vampire/wizard war, ain’t it? But we’re only halfway through the series! Who the hell’s going to be rising up to top the Reds as the Bad Guys?

AUGH #7: OH GOD Harry’s working for the Winter Court now. And while he was quite right in that Mab was the least evil of his options, and while my partiality to things Faerie takes pleasure in this particular development, I am nonetheless AUGH because Jim writes him some scary fey like whoa.

AUGH #8: OH GOD poor Molly really taking several hits for the team. I guess she’s not going to be a mere apprentice wizard too much longer, huh?

AUGH #9: MOUSE! I didn’t think it was possible for Harry’s dog to be any more awesome, but Jim has proved us wrong. (heart heart heart)

AUGH #10: MURPHY WITH THE SWORD! *awedface* How amazing was that?!

AUGH #11: And speaking of Murphy: JIM YOU UTTER BASTARD TEASING US WITH HARRY GOING OUT WITH MURPHY AND THEN GETTING SHOT AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH.

AUGH #12: The title of the next novel is, if Jim’s Twitter account is to be believed, going to be Ghost Story. Any bets on whether he’s going to pull the same stunt rachelcaine did, and have Harry actually be dead, but then get better? ;) I can’t imagine that Mab’s going to actually let Harry stay dead for long.

AUGH #13: For those of you who don’t know yet, there’s going to be a post-Changes novella in the next Dresden release–not the next novel, but the anthology Side Jobs, due out in November. It is from Murphy’s point of view and I am SO TOTALLY BUYING THIS.

AUGH! AUGH! AUGH!

Plot-wise, I can say that if Jim’s stated plans for the series are holding up, we’re now at about the halfway plot of the overall plot arc–and things happen herein that very much set the stage for the second half of the series. We have some fabulous followup on Harry’s older interactions with a former foil. We have (agonizingly slow and yet absolutely correct) advancement in the relationship between Harry and Murphy. We get a look for the first time at the home base of the wizards of the world, in Edinburgh. A decently scary primary monster sets the bar very high for some creepy forefront action, while behind the scenes players maneuver events into the exact proper way to make life very, very, very difficult for Harry for several more books. The ending in particular is wrenching, and definitely takes things in a darker direction, which seems appropriate given how the stakes of the overall plot arc have now been raised.

All in all a mighty fine read, and I’ll knock off a star only because one of the bad guys was a little too obvious. Four stars.

Harry Dresden fans will first and foremost want to check out Jim Butcher’s contribution, “Warrior”–as long as you’re up to date on the series. This story is set between the novels Small Favor and Turn Coat, and there are definite spoilers for the former. Still, it’s a solid, compact Dresden adventure, distilled down to the essence of awesome that is Jim Butcher. All the involved characters are note-perfect, and in fact, the only complaint I have about the story is the lack of Murphy.

Kat Richardson’s story “The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog” is also excellent. No real spoilers for the Greywalker series, since Richardon’s heroine Harper Blaine is taken out of her usual locale and goes all the way down to Mexico to carry out the last wishes of a client. There’s a lot of nifty, spooky Day of the Dead mileage in this, so if that particular holiday is your thing, you’ll go for this.

Simon Green’s “The Difference a Day Makes” was harder for me to get into. I’m not familiar with the Nightside novels, so I didn’t have the advantage of familiarity to ground me with the protagonist, and that lack of context kept bumping up against said protagonist’s penchant for telling the reader in great detail about how Weird and Badassed the Nightside is. He’s even called on it by another character, and yet, he keeps doing it. Sorry, Mr. Green; I have to agree with your other character. ;) Plus, the OHNOEZ Big Reveal at the end of the story fell kind of flat for me. I’ll admit though that Mr. Green does have a vivid way with a description, so other readers may find this story works better for them.

Thomas Sniegoski’s “Noah’s Orphans” intrigued me, though. Again, I’m not familiar with the novels this story comes out of, but the concept of an angel who’s been masquerading as a private detective caught my interest, and Sniegoski does good things with utilizing Biblical mythos in setting up this story. Remy Chandler, a.k.a. the angel Remiel, is a poignant character as well in his struggle to cling to humanity he’s learned from a loved one he’s lost. I may have to go check out the Remiel books just to learn more about him–which, I daresay, makes this story a win.

All in all this is a solid volume and worth checking out. Four stars.