Keeping It in the Family | Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6)

Way to go! | Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) | Jim Butcher

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	• Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) Jim Butcher Roc, 2004 - 372 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

No pulitzer but lotsa fun

Let's face it how much do you read that IS pulitzer winning anyway? These books, all of them so far in the series, are just good old fashioned fun! Guns, chicks, and magic, what more could you ask for?

Keeping It in the Family

I'm not sure that it is technically accurate to label this latest stanza in the 'Dresden File' series a pleasant surprise, since all of the books have been enjoyable reading. But author Jim Butcher has managed to take a series that was showing signs of being pleasantly predictable and up the level just a bit. Much of this has been accomplished by developing Harry Dresden into something more than a Chicago wizard with an overly developed sense of responsibility (and possible an overactive thyroid). He has developed more of the sense of self-awareness I would expect from a professional wizard, although I would say that Harry's judgment is still has a bit of adolescent about it.

Another part of this growth stems from the fleshing out of the basic Dresden plot, which is Harry in trouble with the wizard's White Council and hunted by the various vampire courts. That hasn't changed much. This time Harry is trying to put a stop to a new Black Court effort to end his life while keeping a deadly evil eye curse from bankrupting a porno film startup company. The latter effort puts Harry at odds with the head of the Vampire's White Court. We get to experience both the delights of the film stage and the wild action of a raid on a Black Court lair.

Butcher makes this come alive by filling in a lot of the blanks about his vampire's society and politics, while stepping up the heat on Harry's relationship with Lt. Karrin Murphy, the head of Special Investigation. Throw in the development of several other collateral characters and you have an action story with interesting characters. This works well, because Butcher seems to know when to back off from the melodramatic and let people behave like people (or vampires) in a serious conflict..

Of course, the usual spookiness and ritual magic are there as always. Magic works in Butcher's alternate reality, and it sometimes works with a vengeance. The author sometimes takes a moment to explain how such things are supposed to work, but wisely, he avoids creating a formal system that would limit story development. Instead he blends magic, supernatural, and the occult as needed to get the right effect. I'm not a purist, and Butcher manages to avoid glaring self-contradiction. Keep in mind that this genre is beginning to get crowded with Harry Dresden's and Anita Blake's. Butcher's stories maintain a distinct identity and style that is beginning to be imitated, which is the best recommendation of all.

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Way to go!

I think there's no question about it: 'Blood rites' is the best in the series so far. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the whole series and Harry Dresden is quickly becoming one of my favorite male characters. However, this latest book is finally giving some substance to characters who previously were either too good to be true, too bad to actually take seriously, or to sketchy to care. For those who are only now discovering the series: Harry is a wizard who has to make a living in a world that doesn't believe in wizards, and also to discover his past, which is clouded in mystery and violent death. As a private investigator and occasional consultant for a special division of Chicago police, Harry has already had his share of encounters and supernatural adventures in the five previous books. He had to fight a renegade practitioner of the black arts, ghosts, vampires, werewolfs, faeries, fallen angels, not to mention his very own White Council of wizards, for whom his own past (which they seem to know a lot better than Harry) is an almost certain ticket to painful execution.

In this book, Harry has to figure out who is behind an entropy curse hitting actors in a porn movie business, but also to deal with unexpected and not altogether pleasant truths about his past. The action acquires a more interesting, darker side, that promises great character development, not only for Harry, but also for Murphy, who is finally shown to be more than a slightly obsessive fighting babe with no personal life and an inflexible sense of justice. I absolutely loved the plot from the beginning to the end, despite the fact that the author seemed to have forgotten that Harry actually shared a soulgaze with Ebenezar [according to book 4 in the series], which should have prepared Harry for most revelations about his teacher in book 6 - unless I really don't understand how a soulgaze works.

I also hope that Jim won't give in to the temptation of making the series allegedly more 'appealing' by destroying the plot and adding lots of sex, as it unfortunately happened to the Anita Blake series. Although Harry is not getting any and I think the author could take some pity in the future [c'mon Jim, how would you feel if you had to spend a year with only a cat and a skull as company? :)], I really really like Harry just the way he is.

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Fast paced, fun, and very entertaining!

Halfway through reading Butcher's first Dresden novel, Storm Front, I bought the whole series. I couldn't put them down, reading the whole lot over just a couple of weeks. As with all his books, Blood Rites is fast paced, entertaining, and great fun. As Chicago's only professional wizard Harry takes on the cases that no one else can handle (nor would most want to). His juvenile wise cracks, self-depreciating humor, and overdeveloped sense of responsibility make a likeable hero out of a guy who'd be extraordinarily powerful if he could just get out of his own way.

This time the White vampire (incubus) Thomas asks our hero to put a stop to an entropy spell that is plaguing Arturo Genosa, his porn director friend before any more of his associates die from the curse. The plot has some interesting twists (e.g., revealing more about Harry's family history and blood relations) and the characterizations and dialog are up to Butcher's fabulous standards. Even the bit characters like the mercenary Kincaid are well developed and great fun. I suspect that the dog foreshadows interesting possibilities for the next book too. The relationship between Dresden and Murphy matures realistically and well in keeping with their personas.

Blood Rites is another outstanding tome in an incredible series. There are a whole lot of entries in the whole supernatural alternate reality genre thing, yet as other writers tend to become stale over time Butcher continues to crank out fresh, fascinating novels. Wholeheartedly recommended!

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Amazing and fun series.................

I've been hooked on this series from book one Storm Front and there these books just got better and better. After re-reading Death Masks and finally excepting Harry and Susan's break-up that I took really hard, because I thought they were so good together. Harry finally finds out more about his family and secrets about his mother that he never knew. Things also heat up for Karin Murphy a detective and Harry. Also he gets to fight Vampires and finds out that he has a brother who I won't tell who he is. I enjoyed the flying Monkeys and his new family member, a dog? I highly recommend this series and I'm anxious for the next book in the series called Deadbeat. I also hope that Jim plans to bring Susan back she prove to be a valuable friend and allie to Harry in the future. Read this series,but start with book one because all his books build from his previous ones.

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