skybridge

babewiththepower.bsky.social · @babewiththepower.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Ghost Story 8/10

<b>April 14, 2021:</b><br/>Almost a decade later and reading my review from then, I think I've gotten a lot wordier and my opinion has changed a bit about the book. I actually didn't remember any of the plot other than of course things weren't as they seemed at the end of "Changes." It was still good to know how the end of that book came about and I admit the solution/method never occurred to me despite having read the book before. Amazing all we can forget. In my opinion, I think Butcher was running out of gas by the time he got to "Turn Coat" (11) and decided to use "Changes" (12) (which I did really like for its cataclysmic changes) to completely strip down the series and start over. From there, though, I don't think he had much of where to go next or like he wandered a bit with this book trying to figure it out. There's probably a reason I don't remember much of anything of books 13 through 15. The thrill was gone.<br/><br/>But to get into specifics about "Ghost Story," I think the problem I had the most was that it spent all this time wandering about helping all these other people when the premise at the start of the book was to solve the cliffhanger to "Changes." I didn't care about the street kid and the psycho gang leader using his minor powers to coerce them into crime. A whole chunk of the book was spend on them and then it got wrapped up halfway and shuffled off to Father Forthill. It was like it was the idea of a short story Butcher had and he folded it into this book. Then around all that is more of the meat of what I cared about, Harry interacting with and fighting with his usual crew. Not so much fighting with them, though, which was another disappointing aspect.<br/><br/>As I've said in previous reviews of my 2021 re-reads, the thing I love the most about The Dresden Files is Harry's relationships with his friends and how much each of them have changed over the series. There was precious little of that here. I think Harry spent more time with the ectomancer, Mortimer Lindquist, than with any of them. You might remember Mort who was first introduced back in "Grave Peril" (3) and he was quite the weasel. Well, he's still a bit of a weasel here, but at least he was filled out a bit and given a bit of courage and maturity compared to some 10+ years earlier. He claims he's no hero, but in the end he manages to save Butters and, more importantly, Molly<spoiler> from having her body taken over by the Corpsetaker and gaining it all of Molly's scary wizard mind powers. You might remember THAT villain, follower of Kemmler, from the exciting "Dead Beat" (7)</spoiler>.<br/><br/>Overall, I thought this story meandered through people I didn't really care about for most of the book and it sadly didn't get really interesting for me until Harry was back with his friends in the last 8 or so chapters of the book's 51 chapters. As I said in my first review of the book, the best part was when Harry got to pop in on Molly while she was in the middle of fighting and seeing how she was characterizing her multi-tasking mind games inside her own head. I'll leave cryptic what that looked like as I did in my previous review, but it really was the most fun part of the whole book, being a fan of that type of scenery. :) Oh, and Harry manages to remember what he'd forgotten from the end of "Changes" and figures out the mystery he'd been lead to believe from the start of "Ghost Story" that he had to solve, in a rather quick reveal after all this. As in my previous review, again! I had to go back and re-read how the final winning moment happened, so I think that must not be that well written to have confused me both times! And, yes, agreed again that the bit after that was pretty anti-climatic. Finally in the very last chapter, after all the meandering of this book, we get to the nitty gritty of Harry getting reeled back into his obligations he thought he'd be able to get out of after Chichén Itzá. And now I move on to a maybe, hopefully, more consistently engaging "Cold Days" (14).<br/><br/><b>August 12, 2011:</b><br/>Finally, got to know how Harry Dresden died. But as with any other time, his work still wasn't done. No rest for the wicked! The intention of Harry being a ghost and being unable to physically effect the world was used as I imagined its purpose to be, it's the journey not the destination. I feel like Butcher cheated on it a little here and there, but I cut him slack considering Dresden is supposed to be so bad-ass and all. ;) Also, the whole main battle scene was great. As a nerd of that particular flavor, Molly greatly amused me. For a bit I did have to go back and re-read a section because I did get confused on how the saving hail mary happened in the first place. Between that and the lead-in to Harry's ultimate fate, I was left feeling like the bit after the battle was somewhat anti-climatic. I also am not pleased with where he's ended up. Here's another fine mess he's gotten himself into. It's not going to be pretty.

#book

Published 2026-08-18 17:59 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere