‘Cold Days’ Release: A Dresden Files Recap

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The next highly anticipated installment in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series is book #14, Cold Days. November 27th is the magical release date and I’m really hoping to have finished NaNoWriMo by that day so that I can once more immerse myself in Harry’s version of Chicago and watch as he attempts to get out of the latest fine mess in which he’s gotten himself. Which mess might that be, you ask? Watch out! Blurb ahead!

HARRY DRESDEN LIVES!!!

After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.

He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill.

Guess which Mab wants first?

Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.

Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…

His soul.

In preparation for new Dresden books, I generally do a series re-read… or a re-listen rather, since I absolutely love the job that James Marsters does on the audio books. Of course, James was unavailable to read for Ghost Story, much to the chagrin of many, many fans, myself included, but he is back to read Cold Days and I for one can’t wait to hear him voicing Harry & Company again!

But I digress… so odd for me to do that, sorry! Series re-read. There, back on track! For this book release, I won’t be doing a series re-read/re-listen. Why, do you ask? Well, the point of this post is to tell you why, so sit tight!

In preparation for the release of Ghost Story last summer, I re-listened to each of the first 12 books in the series (+ Side Jobs!) and then wrote reviews for each of them once I had finished. I did this, in part, in order to share my love of the series with the handful of people who actually read this blog, but also so that I would have a handy-dandy recap for each book in case an entire re-read/re-listen before future book releases was impossible for me. Much like it is now, what with my busy season at work, NaNoWriMo approaching, and my daughter’s Senior Year of high school in full swing and tons of college stuff to be done.

To be honest, my ‘reviews’ go well beyond what a lot of book reviews are meant to do, which is give you an overview of what the book is about and a general idea of the reviewer’s thoughts and impressions of the book, which is all fine and good. Of course sometimes a reviewer will go a bit further and vaguely mention something about the events that transpired in the book, usually sans spoilers, in order to entice people to read the book.

Ha! I scoff! MY reviews are somewhat… different.

First, they’re pretty much all way too long and second, they’re almost all so chock full of info and spoilers that one might never need to re-read the books!

I say re-read because darlin’, if you haven’t read them, you’re missing out on some kind of superawesometasticspecialness. Seriously. Jim Butcher has created characters that you will love and characters that you will love to hate who all occupy such a rich and fascinating world full of magic. A world that I not only want to revisit periodically by reading or listening to his stories, but one that I would actually want to GO to… to EXPERIENCE. Hell, to LIVE in!

Okay, caps lock off, I’m just trying to get the point across that this is a wonderful series that I’m sure you’ll enjoy, because I know everything about you. EVAREETHANG! So stop doing that thing that you’re doing that you think that nobody knows about. Seriously, shame on you. *tsk*

If you haven’t read the series and want to, don’t rely on reviews here or elsewhere to show you Harry’s world. You’d be missing out on 99% of it, easily. Start with Storm Front and have at it because the books, especially the early ones, are super-quick reads… or listens, if you’re a fan of audio books, and ohmyGod either format is so worth the time.

If you have read the series and you are just looking for a recap before picking up (or downloading) Cold Days and reading about (or listening to) Harry as Mab’s Winter Knight (dun-dun-dun-DUNNN), then dive right into the links below and I hope that I recapped the books sufficiently for you, and that you enjoy!

My Dresden Files reviews:

#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 Night

#10 – Small Favor

#11 – Turn Coat

#12 – Changes

#12.5 – Side Jobs

#13 – Ghost Story

For more Dresden Files lurves, follow Jim Butcher on Twitter and Facebook, and if you do happen to listen to the audio books and think that James Marsters is teh awesome, then you can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Shop Indie for Dresden Files ebooks and print copies!

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Review: ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern (audio)

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The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Format: Audible audio book

Narrator: Jim Dale

Publisher: Random House Audio

Release Date: 9/13/2011

Length: 13 hours 39 minutes (Doubleday HC is 400 pages)

Acquired: Audible.com

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The blurb from the website:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

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My  thoughts:

The synopsis I included above pretty much sums it up all one needs to know about this story and was more than enough to pique my interest. From childhood, cCelia and Marco are pawns in a contest that’s been repeated again and again for longer than they might believe, and one that they’ve essentially been tricked into participating. Neither of these talented young magicians –real magicians not sleight-of-hand type magicians– knows that the unfortunate loser will not only lose the contest, but will lose their life.

The stage of their contest is a circus… but it’s not your ordinary circus. Oh, no. It’s a wondrous thing, full of incredible performers and truly magical attractions. It’s known as Le Cirque des Rêves, The Circus of Dreams. And it truly is a circus of dreams, for it is truly magic, though the patrons don’t quite realize it.

Some patrons are so profoundly changed by their visit that they begin to follow the circus from place to place so that they can visit again and again. Eventually, these patrons begin to call themselves rêveurs, or dreamers.

‘Word spreads quickly in such select circles, and so begins a tradition of rêveurs attending Le Cirque des Rêves decked in black or white or grey with a single shock of red: a scarf or hat, or, if the weather is warm, a red rose tucked into a lapel or behind an ear. It is also quite helpful for spotting other rêveurs, a simple signal for those who know.’

The story follows not only the dueling magicians but their respective masters and the circus performers, as well as certain patrons and rêveurs, as the circus travels the world over a period of decades. When, as adults, Celia and Marco learn about the true nature of the competition in which they are involved, they decide that they want no part of it. Unfortunately, they’re both magically bound to continue and so attempt to break the rules and outsmart their masters.

One aspect of the story that threw me off a bit was the jumping back and forth in the story’s timeline. I imagine that it would have been easier to follow had I been reading a print book, but when listening to an audio book, one can’t always ‘flip back’ to the start of a chapter to refresh their memory on when they are in the story. So that would be one definite advantage to actually reading the book, rather than listening. Another advantage, of course, is the beautiful cover art. Although.. I have to also heartily recommend the audio if only for the masterful narration of Jim Dale.

Okay, so I suppose I’m suggesting that you go buy this beautiful book in print, read it, and then download the audio book and listen to it. I’m certain that you’ll enjoy the story all the more by following my instructions and once you’ve both read and listened, you may return here and thank me for my sound advice in the comments section below.

Happy reading. And listening. .

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Fave quotes:

“It is important, someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find the treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice up of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it…” ~The man in the grey suit

‘Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her marks upon it. Whatever truth the story once has is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.’

‘Poppet: “Have you tried the cinnamon things? They’re rather new. What are they called, Widge?”
Widge: “Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?”’

“Love is fickle and fleeting. It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.” ~Tsukiko

‘And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.’

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Review: ‘Department 19’ by Will Hill

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Department 19

Author: Will Hill

Format: author-signed paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins

Original Release Date: 3/29/2011

Length: 496 pages

Acquired: won in a publisher giveaway

Department 19 Website, Facebook & Twitter

This was first posted as a guest review at Waiting For Fairies

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The blurb from the website:

Jamie Carpenter’s life will never be the same. His father is dead, his mother is missing, and he was just rescued by an enormous man named Frankenstein.

Jamie is brought to Department 19, where he is pulled into a secret organization responsible for policing the supernatural, founded more than a century ago by Abraham Van Helsing and the other survivors of Dracula.

Aided by Frankenstein’s monster, a beautiful vampire girl with her own agenda, and the members of the agency, Jamie must attempt to save his mother from a terrifyingly powerful vampire.

Department 19 takes us through history, across Europe, and beyond – from the cobbled streets of Victorian London to prohibition-era New York, from the icy wastes of Arctic Russia to the treacherous mountains of Transylvania.

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My moderately spoilery thoughts:

Considering the fact that this is a YA book, I rather enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against YA, but at times the genre can be frustrating to read, as though YA writers assume that their readers aren’t mature or intelligent enough to handle content that’s a bit more complex. Some of the writing in Department 19 definitely seemed more appropriate for a younger crowd but all in all, it was fast-paced enough to keep the pages turning and intriguing enough to keep me thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. I also found myself anxious to get back to it as soon as possible whenever I had to put it down to eat or shower or sleep or work… pesky, pesky work.

Some of my favorite sections of this book dealt with the short glimpses back in history at the protagonist’s ancestors. Jamie Carpenter’s great-grandfather worked with the fabled Abraham Van Helsing and joined his circle of Dracula-staking buddies when Department 19, aka Blacklight, was formed in 1892, 100+ years before Jamie’s story begins. His grandfather met and befriended Frankenstein’s monster, who seemed quite civilized and took on his creator’s name after he passed. Finally we learn more about his father Julian, who was also a member of Department 19 and who apparently betrayed it, and so is much hated by the time Jamie is tossed headfirst into insanity.

Before the events in this story, neither Jamie or his mother had any knowledge of the classified, vampire-killing, militant branch of the government which his father had been an honored member. He was honored before that whole betrayal thing, anyway, after which his colleagues tracked him down and summarily executed him in his driveway in front of his family. I had a hard time swallowing such fly-off-the-handle type of behavior from a highly-trained, professional organization, but I didn’t let it detract (much) from the rest of the story.

I enjoyed the fact that the author touted Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a chronicle of true events, rather than a work of fiction. As one Department 19 Operator explains to a civilian after she admits that she has read Stoker’s book, “It’s not a story; it’s a history lesson.” Though that reminded me of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, in which Dracula is essentially a How-to guide for killing vampires of the Black Court, the concept fit well and the premise opened the door for the inclusion of Frankenstein’s character, which added some spice to the story.

Jamie is torn from his life as an awkward teen when his mother is kidnapped by one of the oldest vamps in the world, after which he is rescued from the same vamp by yet another monster straight out of a horror story. A monster who happened to be pals with his dad, once upon a time (no pun intended). Of course, neither Jamie or his mother had any knowledge of the vampire-killing militant branch of the government before this story takes place so we get a lot of info-dumping to catch Jamie (us) up on the history of the organization and his family’s part in it. I feel that Hill did a great job of fleshing out Jamie’s character, from the vehement anger at his father for his betrayal and for his lies about his job to Jamie and his mother, to his stubborn insistence in ignoring what he’s told by senior members of Blacklight. I often found his behavior exceedingly annoying but it was probably pretty accurate for a teenaged boy.

Aside from a bit of choppy jumping back and forth action toward the end of the book, the only issue I had with the story was the excessive gore. Yes, I do realize that this is a Stoker-esque portrayal of vamps as blood-sucking monsters and that much blood and murder and mayhem is likely to take place, but the book is aimed at a 12+ audience and I just felt that it was a little too bloody for the pre-teen set. I got the feeling while reading the many fight scenes that the author was writing something as anti-Twilight as possible and while I approve, multiple mentions of characters being soaked in blood and then the image of a vampire covered in gore from head to toe, flinging drops of blood from her hair in the midst of battle, was just a wee bit much.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this read to anyone who wants a good ole vamp-staking story. There are cool weapons, a lot of action, and an impressively in-depth history of the Blacklight organization, as well as a dun-dun-dun-DUNNNN ending that will, hopefully, make you look forward to the next book, Department 19: The Rising, as much as I do. (teaser chapters here)