
Storm Front: 1 Inbunden – 6 November 2007
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As a professional wizard, Harry Dresden knows firsthand that the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most of them don’t play well with humans. And those that do enjoy playing with humans far too much. He also knows he’s the best at what he does. Technically, he’s the only at what he does. But even though Harry is the only game in town, business—to put it mildly—stinks.
So when the Chicago P.D. bring him in to consult on a double homicide 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...
“A great series—fast-paced, vividly realized and with a hero/narrator who’s excellent company.”—Cinescape
- Längd (tryckt bok)320 sidor
- SpråkEngelska
- UtgivareRoc
- Publiceringsdatum6 November 2007
- ISBN-100451461975
- ISBN-13978-0451461971
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Recension
“Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Philip Marlowe.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff will love this series.”—Midwest Book Review
“Superlative.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“One of the most enjoyable marriages of the fantasy and mystery genres on the shelves.”—Cinescape
“Butcher...spins an excellent noirish detective yarn in a well-crafted, supernaturally-charged setting. The supporting cast is again fantastic, and Harry’s wit continues to fly in the face of a peril-fraught plot.”—Booklist (starred review)
“What’s not to like about this series?...It takes the best elements of urban fantasy, mixes it with some good old-fashioned noir mystery, tosses in a dash of romance and a lot of high-octane action, shakes, stirs, and serves.”—SF Site
“A tricky plot complete with against-the-clock pacing, firefights, explosions, and plenty of magic. Longtime series fans as well as newcomers drawn by the SciFi Channel’s TV series based on the novels should find this supernatural mystery a real winner.”—Library Journal
“What would you get if you crossed Spenser with Merlin? Probably you would come up with someone very like Harry Dresden, wizard, tough guy and star of [the Dresden Files].”—The Washington Times
Om författaren
Utdrag. ©Omtryckt med tillstånd Alla rättigheter förbehållna
I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual. He didn’t sound right. His footsteps fell more heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. He whistled his way to my office door, then fell silent for a moment. Then he laughed.
Then he knocked.
I winced. My mail comes through the mail slot unless it’s registered. I get a really limited selection of registered mail, and it’s never good news. I got up out of my office chair and opened the door.
The new mailman, who looked like a basketball with arms and legs and a sunburned, balding head, was chuckling at the sign on the door glass. He glanced at me and hooked a thumb toward the sign. “You’re kidding, right?”
I read the sign (people change it occasionally), and shook my head. “No, I’m serious. Can I have my mail, please?”
“So, uh. Like parties, shows, stuff like that?” He looked past me, as though he expected to see a white tiger, or possibly some skimpily clad assistants prancing around my one-room office.
I sighed, not in the mood to get mocked again, and reached for the mail he held in his hand. “No, not like that. I don’t do parties.”
He held on to it, his head tilted curiously. “So what? Some kinda fortune-teller? Cards and crystal balls and things?”
“No,” I told him. “I’m not a psychic.” I tugged at the mail.
He held on to it. “What are you, then?”
“What’s the sign on the door say?”
“It says ‘Harry Dresden. Wizard.’”
“That’s me,” I confirmed.
“An actual wizard?” he asked, grinning, as though I should let him in on the joke. “Spells and potions? Demons and incantations? Subtle and quick to anger?”
“Not so subtle.” I jerked the mail out of his hand and looked pointedly at his clipboard. “Can I sign for my mail please?”
The new mailman’s grin vanished, replaced with a scowl. He passed over the clipboard to let me sign for the mail (another late notice from my landlord), and said, “You’re a nut. That’s what you are.” He took his clipboard back, and said, “You have a nice day, sir.”
I watched him go.
“Typical,” I muttered, and shut the door.
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. I’m a wizard. I work out of an office in midtown Chicago. As far as I know, I’m the only openly practicing professional wizard in the country. You can find me in the yellow pages, under “Wizards.” Believe it or not, I’m the only one there. My ad looks like this:
HARRY DRESDEN—WIZARD
LOST ITEMS FOUND. PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS.
CONSULTING. ADVICE. REASONABLE RATES.
NO LOVE POTIONS, ENDLESS PURSES, PARTIES,
OR OTHER ENTERTAINMENT.
You’d be surprised how many people call just to ask me if I’m serious. But then, if you’d seen the things I’d seen, if you knew half of what I knew, you’d wonder how anyone could not think I was serious.
The end of the twentieth century and the dawn of the new millennium had seen something of a renaissance in the public awareness of the paranormal. Psychics, haunts, vampires—you name it. People still didn’t take them seriously, but all the things Science had promised us hadn’t come to pass. Disease was still a problem. Starvation was still a problem. Violence and crime and war were still problems. In spite of the advance of technology, things just hadn’t changed the way everyone had hoped and thought they would.
Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become somewhat tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who had allowed the television to raise their children. People were looking for something—I think they just didn’t know what. And even though they were once again starting to open their eyes to the world of magic and the arcane that had been with them all the while, they still thought I must be some kind of joke.
Anyway, it had been a slow month. A slow pair of months, actually. My rent from February didn’t get paid until the tenth of March, and it was looking like it might be even longer until I got caught up for this month.
My only job had been the previous week, when I’d gone down to Branson, Missouri, to investigate a country singer’s possibly haunted house. It hadn’t been. My client hadn’t been happy with that answer, and had been even less happy when I suggested he lay off of any intoxicating substances and try to get some exercise and sleep, and see if that didn’t help things more than an exorcism. I’d gotten travel expenses plus an hour’s pay, and gone away feeling I had done the honest, righteous, and impractical thing. I heard later that he’d hired a shyster psychic to come in and perform a ceremony with a lot of incense and black lights. Some people.
I finished up my paperback and tossed it into the DONE box. There was a pile of read and discarded paperbacks in a cardboard box on one side of my desk, the spines bent and the pages mangled. I’m terribly hard on books. I was eyeing the pile of unread books, considering which to start next, given that I had no real work to do, when my phone rang.
I stared at it in a somewhat surly fashion. We wizards are terrific at brooding. After the third ring, when I thought I wouldn’t sound a little too eager, I picked up the receiver and said, “Dresden.”
“Oh. Is this, um, Harry Dresden? The, ah, wizard?” Her tone was apologetic, as though she were terribly afraid she would be insulting me.
No, I thought. It’s Harry Dresden the, ah, lizard. Harry the wizard is one door down.
It is the prerogative of wizards to be grumpy. It is not, however, the prerogative of freelance consultants who are late on their rent, so instead of saying something smart, I told the woman on the phone, “Yes, ma’am. How can I help you today?”
“I, um,” she said. “I’m not sure. I’ve lost something, and I think maybe you could help me.”
“Finding lost articles is a specialty,” I said. “What would I be looking for?”
There was a nervous pause. “My husband,” she said. She had a voice that was a little hoarse, like that of a cheerleader who’d been working a long tournament, but had enough weight of years in it to place her as an adult.
My eyebrows went up. “Ma’am, I’m not really a missing-persons specialist. Have you contacted the police or a private investigator?”
“No,” she said, quickly. “No, they can’t. That is, I haven’t. Oh dear, this is all so complicated. Not something someone can talk about on the phone. I’m sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Dresden.”
“Hold on now,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me your name.”
There was that nervous pause again, as though she were checking a sheet of written notes before answering. “Call me Monica.”
People who know diddly about wizards don’t like to give us their names. They’re convinced that if they give a wizard their name from their own lips it could be used against them. To be fair, they’re right.
I had to be as polite and harmless as I could. She was about to hang up out of pure indecision, and I needed the job. I could probably turn hubby up, if I worked at it.
“Okay, Monica,” I told her, trying to sound as melodious and friendly as I could. “If you feel your situation is of a sensitive nature, maybe you could come by my office and talk about it. If it turns out that I can help you best, I will, and if not, then I can direct you to someone I think can help you better.” I gritted my teeth and pretended I was smiling. “No charge.”
It must have been the no charge that did it. She agreed to come right out to the office, and told me that she would be there in an hour. That put her estimated arrival at about two-thirty. Plenty of time to go out and get some lunch, then get back to the office to meet her.
The phone rang again almost the instant I put it down, making me jump. I peered at it. I don’t trust electronics. Anything manufactured after the forties is suspect—and doesn’t seem to have much liking for me. You name it: cars, radios, telephones, TVs, VCRs—none of them seem to behave well for me. I don’t even like to use automatic pencils.
I answered the phone with the same false cheer I had summoned up for Monica Husband-Missing. “This is Dresden, may I help you?”
“Harry, I need you at the Madison in the next ten minutes. Can you be there?” The voice on the other end of the line was also a woman’s, cool, brisk, businesslike.
“Why, Lieutenant Murphy,” I gushed, overflowing with saccharine, “it’s good to hear from you, too. It’s been so long. Oh, they’re fine, fine. And your family?”
“Save it, Harry. I’ve got a couple of bodies here, and I need you to take a look around.”
I sobered immediately. Karrin Murphy was the director of Special Investigations out of downtown Chicago, a de facto appointee of the Police Commissioner to investigate any crimes dubbed unusual. Vampire attacks, troll maraudings, and faery abductions of children didn’t fit in very neatly on a police report—but at the same time, people got attacked, infants got stolen, property was damaged or destroyed. And someone had to look into it.
In Chicago, or pretty much anywhere in Chicagoland, that person was Karrin Murphy. I was her library of the supernatural on legs, and a paid consultant for the police department. But two bodies? Two deaths by means unknown? I hadn’t handled anything like that for her before.
“Where are you?” I asked her.
“Madison Hotel on Tenth, seventh floor.”
“That’s only a fifteen-minute walk from my office,” I said.
“So you can be here in fifteen minutes. Good.”
“Um,” I said. I looked at the clock. Monica No-Last-Name would be here in a little more than forty-five minutes. “I’ve sort of got an appointment.”
“Dresden, I’ve sort of got a pair of corpses with no leads and no suspects, and a killer walking around loose. Your appointment can wait.”
My temper flared. It does that occasionally. “It can’t, actually,” I said. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll stroll on over and take a look around, and be back here in time for it.”
“Have you had lunch yet?” she asked.
“What?”
She repeated the question.
“No,” I said.
“Don’t.” There was a pause, and when she spoke again, there was a sort of greenish tone to her words. “It’s bad.”
“How bad are we talking here, Murph?”
Her voice softened, and that scared me more than any images of gore or violent death could have. Murphy was the original tough girl, and she prided herself on never showing weakness. “It’s bad, Harry. Please don’t take too long. Special Crimes is itching to get their fingers on this one, and I know you don’t like people to touch the scene before you can look around.”
“I’m on the way,” I told her, already standing and pulling on my jacket.
“Seventh floor,” she reminded me. “See you there.”
“Okay.”
I turned off the lights to my office, went out the door, and locked up behind me, frowning. I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to investigate Murphy’s scene, and I didn’t want to miss out on speaking with Monica Ask-Me-No-Questions. So I opened the door again, got out a piece of paper and a thumbtack, and wrote:
Out briefly. Back for appointment at 2:30. Dresden
That done, I started down the stairs. I rarely use the elevator, even though I’m on the fifth floor. Like I said, I don’t trust machines. They’re always breaking down on me just when I need them.
Besides which. If I were someone in this town using magic to kill people two at a time, and I didn’t want to get caught, I’d make sure that I removed the only practicing wizard the police department kept on retainer. I liked my odds on the stairwell a lot better than I did in the cramped confines of the elevator.
Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.
Produktinformation
- Utgivare : Roc (6 November 2007)
- Språk : Engelska
- Inbunden : 320 sidor
- ISBN-10 : 0451461975
- ISBN-13 : 978-0451461971
- Rangordning för bästsäljare: #165,599 i Böcker (Visa Topp 100 i Böcker)
- #486 i Privatdeckarmysterier
- #526 i Amatördeckarmysterier
- #3,958 i Brottslighet
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Let me get this bit out of the way - this is the first book. The first published book of Butcher and it shows; the edges are a little jagged, the prose could do with a little more polish and there are a few small sections that you feel could have done with some extra re-writing.
And this book is still one of the best urban-fantasy books I have had the fortune to read.
Whilst it feels somewhat disconnected from the later books in the series (but cleverly and well shoehorned back in, in later publications), you get a real sense of what Butcher was trying to achieve, and can read safe in the knowledge that each following book gets stronger and more well written.
Storm Front sets the scene - a novel length prologue if you will - for what has become affectionately known as the Dresdenverse. The detective elements are well written and I can find few faults in the logic of the 'crimes', whilst the explanation of the magic system and its interaction with the real world.
Storm Front is highly recommended for those who like their fantasy more gritty, their urban more magical and their Noir a bit different.



That is not so say that is is a bad book. It's actually very good. It just didn't resonate quite as much as the Aaronovitch books, probably because I'm more familiar with the UK policing system and the places which are explored in those novels.
I did have a throughly good time reading this. Harry Dresden is brilliant litary creation. He is Sam Spade with a staff, Mike Hammer with a spell book, Mickey Spillane with a potion and he inhabits a world which is close to our own but where also demons are real and Vampires are sexy and run an escort agency.
The writing is not completely smooth and effortless but maybe that is not surprising as this is the authors first published novel. What he does do though is a great job of creating a world filled with possibilities, colourful characters like Bob the Skull and Morgan the vengeful watchdog who has a real hard on for Harry, and Butcher provides hints that there is back story that will be explored further in upcoming books.
I look forward to reading the next instalment.

What makes a refreshing change for this type of Urban Fantasy is having a male protagonist and a male author. Though I really liked Harry, perhaps that is also why I found it a little bit difficult to stay completely immersed in the story. And the fact that Harry was a bit hapless simultaneously added humour to the story and turned me off. Perhaps it was my own expectations that tripped me up here. Even though I like to think of myself as an open-minded reader, perhaps I'm more set in my ways than I thought.
There are some great characters in this book, Butcher has a gift for giving a real personality to his characters, all of them different, all of them with a back story. Even if he doesn't share all of it with us, the reader, you get a sense of them without him belabouring the point. That is the books real strength, along with the quality of writing.
It's flaw, for me, comes from the pacing of the story. The first half of the book felt very slow, though I understand he was world-building, while the second half was relentless. Poor Harry stumbles out of one impossible situation straight into the next. I personally enjoy the odd moment of stillness in a book, a chance for the protagonist, and me, to catch our breath. And I do like my leading men to be a bit more Alpha male. Again, though, I'm willing to concede it may well have been my own expectations that got in the way.
This was a hard one for me to rate because Harry is a contradiction. On the one hand he's accident prone, not too great with women, and seems to attract danger, while on the other he's a formidable Wizard. If I was rating it purely on how much I enjoyed the book I would have given it 3*. But if I take into account the fact that this is a well written book with great characterisation, a solid mystery and the ability to challenge my expectations at every turn, in good faith I can't give it less than 4*.