Review of Skin Game by Jim Butcher and a mini-review of The Dresden Files – they are classic urban fantasy books. If you ask someone to recommend you some good urban fantasy books, The Dresden Files is going to come up. There is also quick reviews of some of the other individual books in the series.
The Dresden Files series
My review of The Dresden Files series
Title: The Dresden Files
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Urban fantasy
The Dresden Files is a great series with a complex male protagonist who is a sorcerer. In the beginning of the series Dresden is very much a lone wolf, but throughout the series Dresden gathers a big cast of allies, friends and found family.
The Dresden Files borrows lots of elements from noir detective stories. In the later books the noir feel drifts in the background and the stories becomes more action oriented.
The setting of The Dresden Files is a Chicago were supernatural hides in the shadow out of sight of the humans. The series introduces three types vampires, DnD playing werewolves, scheming mages and a fay court as well as many other supernatural creatures. At one point there is a skeleton dinosaur roaming the streets of Chicago.
The bather is really funny and there are some comical elements, especially in the begining of the series. That said The Dresden Files does handle some very heavy subjects and is not a young adult series at all. Please heed the content warnings.
The first few books have some sexist and outdated tropes surrounding women, but that does get better within the first few books. Luckily they are quick reads, so that helps. Some of that might be unintentional left overs from the noir roots of the books.
The quality of Butchers writing is just wonderful. He is a master of first person narratives, of plotting and of pacing.
The whole series is well worth your time and I I have reread several of them before.
There is planed 20 books in this series – so far they are all really good and very much worth reading. As of 2023 17 has been published.
The stats: The Dresden Files
Published: 2000 → ? by Penguin Group
The author: Male, white, USA
The protagonist: Harry Dresden, white, straight, wizard, able-bodied.
Setting: Chicago, USA
My review of Cold Days by Jim Butcher
As always Butcher is darn good. That is just a fact. He gets you emotional invested into a world of pain and hell – but you already know that if you have read this fare.
A strange thing happened with this book – it took me five days to read the last 60 pages… not because they were bad, but because they were the ending and I don’t think I wanted it to end – at the same time I did want it to end so I could read the million other books I want to read.
My review of Skin Game by Jim Butcher
Skin Game ties up a lot of plot lines that has been brewing throughout the series. To me Skin Game is one of the best books of the series. It is a story filled with emotion. It had me cry and giggle.
Skin Game is jammed packed with action and plot and plots within plots. It is all about family, friends, hope and faith in the good fight. It is about fighting against all odds because that is the right thing to do.
My review from 2014 of Skin Game by Jim Butcher
Normally I read Dresden books as paper books and I brought the paper version, but when it came down to reading it I was in the middle of the exams. I wasn’t up to reading anything more trying than Anita Blake books, so last week I bought the audiobook for one of my Audible credits and that seems to have been the perfect choice. A long train ride to and back from Copenhagen (to visit my sister) made for the perfect setting to listen to the majority of the book. Once I came home I found myself finding tasks I could do while listing. I have been captivated.
As far as I know Skin Game is to be the last book in The Dresden Files series. And in my opinion it makes for a satisfying ending. It is left open enough that Butcher can do more short stories in the setting both it isn’t leaving a ton of loose ends. I hope Butcher will decide to write some of Molly’s stories because I find her endlessly fascinating.
Skin Game almost made me weep on the train ride – just before a job interview I might add – over a sword, nonetheless. It also made me smile and grin like a mad woman.
It is a story filled with emotion. Jammed packed with action and plot and plots within plots. It is all about family, friends, hope and faith in the good fight. It is about fighting against all odds because that is the right thing to do.
I found Skin Game to be a very satisfying read, one that made me want to go read Butcher’s other series Codex Alera (thought they are not on Audible *grumble*).
This review was originally posted: June 25, 2014. Updated and edited June 29, 2023
Leave a Reply