The Other Wizard Named Harry...

[Achán hiNidráne]

Hey all:

I just finished reading Storm Front, the first novel of Jim Buther's Dresden Files series of urban fantasy dectective novels. For the uninitiated, the series follows the adventures of Harry Dresden, a private investigator/wizard who specializes in cases of a supernatural nature. Like Harry Potter, there is the hum-drum mundane world, and then there is the hidden world of magic, faeries, werewolves, etc.. However, like all hard-boiled detective fiction, the Dresden Files isn't kids stuff: in the first novel, we met a vampiress who runs an escort service, there is a magically-created drug that allows junkies to see into the spirit world, people are being murdered by having their heart magically ripped out of their chests, and one of Harry's allies is a horny air spirit.

All in all, an excellent read. I'm going to pick up the second book ASAP.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I thought this would be about Houdini.

Incidentally- there's a place in Shetland called Harray and there is a potter there. He claims to be the original Harray Potter and who are we to argue?

 

[Mongrel]

They're good stuff I started reading when the second one came out and have been following the seriers since. I finished reading the eighth one (Proven Guilty) last week and it's just as good as the first one.

Oh and his father named him after Harry Houdinini

 

[Soapy Sam]

Nobody spotted the deliberate mistake (Heh-heh) . Harray is in the Orkneys.

Trouble with magical murder mysteries is how do we know what's "possible" in the magical world. The same is true in harder SF, as Asimov pointed out in his Elijah Bailey stories.

 

[Ryokan]

Nobody spotted the deliberate mistake (Heh-heh) . Harray is in the Orkneys.

Trouble with magical murder mysteries is how do we know what's "possible" in the magical world. The same is true in harder SF, as Asimov pointed out in his Elijah Bailey stories.

But Asimov went out to disprove that in his robot mysteries. And he managed brilliantly, I'd say.

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

I just finished the third novel, Grave Peril. It was pretty good, but the ending was very depressing.

 

[b33fj3rky]

I'm reading the second one right now. I liked the first one. Didn't *love* it, the way I've loved Buffy or Harry Potter or Lew Archer, but I like it so far, and am hoping the series keeps getting better and better as I go through the books.

I understand it's being made into a series by the Sci-Fi channel; I think these books are gonna be the next "big thing," the male answer to Anita Blake.

I like Harry Dresden, and the talking skull. The female characters come off as somewhat cheesy and two-dimensional, though. I'm hoping the author improves on that as the series goes on.

He's obviously spent a good deal of time doing world-building, and I like the way magic works in his created world.