Review: "Storm Front"

[megwrites]

Title: Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)
Author: Jim Butcher (jimbutcher; JimButcher.com)
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Page Count: 336 pages
Publisher: Roc



Basic Plotline: Freelance wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden finds his life turned upside down when the Chicago P.D. ask for his help on a bizarre case of murder involving a mobster and his girlfriend who died of having their hearts explode from their chest using magic. To solve the crime he must survive magic, mayhem, and the mafia and he must do it quickly before he becomes the next victim.


The Positives: This was a quick read with a plot that goes along at a very quick, dedicated pace, sparing no time for slowing down or stopping. It doesn't waste time in getting to the next fight scene, explosion, or other instance of wackiness.

As a narrator, Dresden is fairly likeable. He's witty without being so self-absorbed (as many Urban Fantasy narrators are) that he takes over the story.

This was definitely a good airplane book or beach read. It didn't require a lot of hard thinking or figuring out of things. It's pretty fun if you don't think too hard, and when you're several thousand feet in the air and there's a baby behind you screaming it's tiny lungs out? You just don't have a lot of brain power anyway.


The Negatives: I don't know if this is First Novel Syndrome or what, but I liked the TV show better, which is rare. Paul Blackthorne and Terrence Mann did a great job of injecting charm and chemistry into characters that were far less appealing to me in this book. It doesn't hurt that Paul Blackthorne melts my butter, either.

This book is not for someone looking for a thicker, more involved read. So if you're looking for something intellectually challenging, skip this. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to this book.

The book is not bad, but it is not extraordinary and doesn't stand out, even for it's publication date (first printing, according to the inside cover, was April 2000). The setting, events, and character are nothing you haven't seen before if you're even a casual reader of the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre. There's someone who does magic and a big murder mystery involving magic and the cop who is the Romantic Interest du Jour. Again, not badly done, but nothing extaordinary.

On a nitpicky note, I might not have named Harry's wizarding hangout "McAnally's" if I were him. I'm sorry, it's a bad choice and my gutter-bound brain kept going, "*snicker snicker*. Mc-Anally's. Sounds like an Irish Gay Porn Movie or something." If I had been writing this book, I would have put another 'c' in there.


CoC Score: 4. One semi-minor character of color, Susan Rodriguez, who is Latina. She does get to play a role in some of the action and is fairly well written. There are moments which skirt the boundaries of the sexually promiscuous/impetuous hot-blooded Latina trope but thankfully don't delve deeply into that territory. Though sadly, the character did annoy me in the way that most fictional reporters annoy me. Other than that, there aren't really any CoC's. And since this is set in 21st century Chicago, that's pretty inexcusable.

GLBT Score: 0. No significant GLBT characters or issues mentioned. Dresden's ever-present semi-macho heterosexuality lays heavy over everything and it's a pretty heteronormative novel, all said.

Gender Score: 4. Several female characters, but most of them are either love interests of Dresden or leered at by him. The book does not pass the Bechdel test and of the five or so women that have speaking parts, two of them die (IIRC). The others, even Murphy, need Dresden to save them by the end of the book.

There are some very grating moments when the main character's misogyny bleeds over everything. To the credit of the author if not the main character, there is at least one female character there (Murphy, who is the leading lady of this novel, and a capable cop) to tell him that he is "a chauvinistic pig". Still, the many instances of the male gaze, or of Dresden disguising his misogyny as being Old Fashioned and Chivalrous did hurt my enjoyment. A lot.

For instance:

Maybe my values are outdated, but I come from an old school of thought. I think men ought to treat women as something other than just shorter, weaker men with breasts (Butcher, 11)

This passage sort of told me what Dresden (again, given that Murphy is there to challenge him, I'm thinking that the author himself doesn't necessarily share such views) thinks of women as primarily being "shorter", "weaker" and "having breasts".

Which made me want to introduce Harry to the many women I know who are six-feet tall and/or strong enough to put a guy like him to the floor. Hard.

Then there was this passage:

Murphy set the hook a second later. She looked up at my eyes for a daring second before she turned away, her face tired and honest and proud. "I need to know everything you can tell me, Harry. Please."

Classic lady in distress. For one of those liberated, professional women, she knew exactly how to jerk my old-fashioned chains around.

*eyeroll*. Yeah, because leveling with the narrator and asking nicely in order to solve a brutal homicide is exactly like using her feminine wiles to manipulate our poor, hapless chivalrous narrator. Because he's not a grown damn man or anything. It's all those tricksy womenfolk who are jerking him around.

There was this guy in Pennsylvania who also felt like women were jerking his chain and manipulating him and not giving him a chance. Attitudes like that don't end well. Especially for the women who end up in the crosshairs of a guy like that.

I won't be revisiting the Dresden Files, not just for this but because nothing in this novel was spectacular enough to entice me to put up with it. I'm sure that the author probably doesn't share his main character's views - but life is too short to waste on book that makes me feel icky like this.

Thanks much, but if I felt some pressing desire to be told just how wrong, bad, weak, dirty and unacceptable I am because I Have A Vagina, I'd go read the Mammoth Book of Mindblowing Fail SF by Mike Ashley.

Comments

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reviewing this and panning it enough that I don't feel I have to give it a chance. I feel like everyone and their mother read these books for a reason, but it seems most of the reason is that they're there, and go down lightly.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

You're most certainly welcome. :)

Unless you're really hard up for something genre to read and I mean REALLY hard up, I wouldn't bother. It was a decent airplane read because you really, REALLY don't need any brains to read it and honestly? Turning your brain on will actually probably hurt your reading of this book.

Actually, I'd rather take a non SF/F read or even non-fiction than read this or it's sequels if I found myself desperate for reading material.

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

I tried reading this book and couldn't get through it for the reason you've mentioned; even if Dresden grows as a person and outgrows his sexism, there's not enough other stuff in the writing to keep me reading until or if he gets to that point. I couldn't figure out why it's so popular.

*curious* Have you read any of Dennis Lehane's work? He's a mystery writer, not SF/F; I'm not entirely sure why my brain has connected this post to him, other than the crime solving aspect, and having, in his Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro series, a male main character without reducing the female half in any way.

Or Dana Stabenow? Who writes one of my favourite characters of all time, Kate Shugak, an Aleut PI who lives in Alaska and greatly competent at her job. Her personal life, not so much, but she keeps trying anyway.