Review ~ Storm Front (Book #1 Harry Dresden) Audio

TITLE: Storm Front

AUTHOR: Jim Butcher
COPYRIGHT: 2000
TYPE: fantasy/urban fantasy
PAGES: AUDIO
SERIES:  yes…

1.      Storm Front

2.     Fool Moon

3.     Grave Peril

4.     Summer Knight

5.     Death Masks

6.     Blood Rites

7.     Dead Beat

8.     Proven Guilty

9.     White Knight

10.  Small Favor

11.   Turn Coat

12.  Changes

1   12.5 Side Jobs

      13.  Ghost Story

    14.  Cold Days

     15.   Skin Games

REASON FOR READING: 

Have read this series numerous times over and was wanting to hear it in audio version

SUMMARY (from Goodreads):

Harry Dresden -- Wizard

Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or
Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he’s the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things — and most of them don’t play well with humans. That’s where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a — well, whatever.

There’s just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry’s seeing dollar signs. But where there’s black magic, there’s a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry’s name. And that’s when things start to get… interesting.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

THOUGHTS/OPINION:

This is the one that started off this 14 year obsession.  Here we meet the might Harry Dresden before he is mighty. This is when he is still discovering who he is as a wizard and where he stands. As well as who his friends are and who he should trust. Again great reading you can tell that James is still learning who he is as the character and there were some voices that weren’t the same but that was due to not knowing who or where he wants to go with the characters yet. That being said I still enjoyed it. Mr. Butcher is also finding his footing here with where he wants to go with the story and the character.  The story at times feels like it drags as Mr. Butcher finds his footing and pacing. There were times I wanted to scream SPEED IT UP!  There were other times when I was happy for more description due to knowing what he was setting up for other books down the line.

THE PROBLEMS:

Pacing was a problem for a while

Backstory is always a problem with this series Mr. Butcher has to explain everything over and over like why the blue beetle is the blue beetle and what wizards can and can’t do etc..

Harry is still finding his voice and at times it comes across as too hard when it doesn’t need to be.  Almost as if Harry is trying too hard to be hard.

Harry always gets the snot beat out of him repeatedly over and over with no chance to win

THE WINS

The world itself is nicely done

The voices and timing of reading is done very well.

I could visualize everything that Harry did the colors and descriptions. I could feel why he thought what he though and his emotions. The writing was done nicely other than pacing. The story line in general was beautiful great story about a 3^rd eye drug and other wizards. It was nice to see Harry under so much pressure to take up bad magic and still refrain.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? Library book passing on it (have determined that I only read them once so no reason to buy them)

Goodreads grade: 4 out of 5 stars

Would you recommend this book?  Love this story and series can’t help it have re-read numerous times.