WARNING: I'm doing some serious bitching here, take it with a grain of salt.
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Going through the "Abyss finished it" thread I get the impression that people really liked the book and all the "changes" have them riled up for the next book. Personally I was really frustrated with the whole book because it... Just. Didn't. Make. Any. Sense. There was so many things that seemed out of whack. I don't know if the book was rushed or what the hell is going on.
Lets start out with the premise of the book. Kid gets kidnapped, is to be used for dark ritual and they have to get her back. This is the set-up for a great revenge story. Send Dresden into South America and get her back. This would make sense. What doesn't make sense is Dresden spending the first 300 pages just bumping from one place and one character to another all willy nilly. Being all grim and full of rage and then laughing the next moment. Then when he finally finds out where the kid is. At a place of immense dark power, surrounded by ten thousand vampires and soldiers, held captive by the Red Court who's head honcho's include 13 monsters each of which are a match for MOTHERFUCKING ODINs strength, plus the big bad Red King himself who we must assume are stronger than the Lords of Outer Night. Under them must also be hundreds of wizards at least as dangerous as Dresden. When Dresden learns this he decides that collecting a rag tag bunch of people, none of which, besides the Leanansidhe, realistically stand a chance in this situation, and try to sneak in a steal the kid is the best course of action. That's the fucking plan. Sneak in, make a distraction and get the kid.
COME THE FUCK ON HERE.
It's the fucking Red King and his entire menagerie of horrors. An army of vampires. With an auxiliary army of mercenaries. Covents of magic users coming out the wazoo. And nobody objects to the idea of just fucking walking in to the place. Look, I get that they were desperate. And they would all do anything for Dresden and the life of his kid. But come on. This plan was never going to work in a million years. It's the equivalent of trying to sneak in and steal the President of the United States shoe with out getting in trouble. While he is addressing the Congress. With every branch of Americas forces surrounding capitol hill. The President is wearing the shoe. And it's tied with a god damn double knot. It's just not going to work dammit. Logically speaking there should be magical wards for a hundred miles around the place. The mercenaries should be using a ton of technology (well away from the magical people), hell they should even be employing satellite coverage to keep an eye on all activity in the Mexican hemisphere.
I don't have so much a problem with the idiocy of the plan as I have with Butcher putting Dresden and every fucking support character available in that situation. It's like he can't help himself. Every book must end with a colossal convergence Dresden vastly outgunned and out numbered and then by chance, trickery and the help of some power he manages scrape out from under his fingernails he gets through it all. I'm not saying this is bad. It makes for a great finale in the books, but this time it was just unbelievable.
Sure is lucky that all the Red King and the 13 did during the finale was to "suppress" the team. Good thing they didn't, you know, blow them to bits, knock them unconscious or just "will" them to death. Like Odin supposedly could. Yeah. Sure was convenient. In general it surprised me how "ineffective" the magic wielders turned out to be in this. When Odin showed up and blew a thousand tons of stone away it was impressive, so was McCoy killing people in droves, but the rest were underwhelming. You'd think that even Dresden would get stronger after the Winter upgrade, but all he seemed to gain was a couple of frost spells and more Stamina.
What more. In the end the whole thing revolved around killing Old McCoy. Look, I get that he's a power player and very scary. But seriously, getting the entire Red Court mobilized just for this? Really? I mean shit. It's the Red King and his 13 Ring Wraiths. They're Demi-god level magic wielders. Shouldn't they be able to do something like this by themselves? Like. Just wishing that the moon falls on his head or something like that? Wouldn't it have made a bit more sense if the ritual had been about, I don't know, summoning Vampire Chthulu or opening a gateway into Edinburgh for the Red Court army, maybe nuking England, something like this? All this work just to kill one wizard. Good thing there wasn't any capable snipers among the hundred mercenaries at the Maya place to just put a fucking bullet in McCoy's head.
That aside what really annoyed me was that he was trying to get so much done in just one book.
Destroying the office, the house, the car, breaking his back, making the deal with Mab, in between all this he has to go to England, to faerie, to the FBI, to Marcone, to the Erlking, to Odin, etc. It's like he's all over the place. There's no real focus in the book. It's like there is the beginning, find the kid, and the ending, rescue the kid, and then just a lot of mess in between.
Lets look at his "detective work" in this book. The kid is stolen and he has no leads. Instead of going to South America to do some leg work there. They go to the conveniently located vampire place in his office building (I really don't buy the "just waiting for the right moment explosives" excuse there), they find some numbers that point to some strange place in the middle of nowhere. They find a shipping number. And that's that. Then there's the looking into Rudolph business. Why are they doing this? What were they expecting? They do a shake down and he tells them what? That some vampire hired him to be an asshole? How is this going to help getting the daughter back? There is no incentive to hunt him at all. At most he could have given them a description of, I'm guessing, the Eebs, but what would it even help finding their hideout? Capturing or killing them would not get the daughter back. It is a dead end. It doesn't need to a part of the story. It is illogical that Dresden would waste time on it when he had other sources to try out.
I would have liked this book a whole lot more if he'd split the events into two book. Maybe bring the daughter to Chicago. Let Dresden and Maggie meet, THEN kidnap her. Then you could use the first book with Harry tearing Chicago apart trying to find her, having run ins with vampires and the FBI. The whole thing escalating as the vampires destroy his life blowing up his property and maybe kill some characters. Say, Butters, Couple werewolves, Michael (an excuse for the Knights to get involved) maybe even Mister (I didn't mean that). Have the book end with Maggie taken to South America and an impotent Harry lying in a stretcher with a broken back.
Next book have Harry deal with being a cripple, having everything he owns destroyed and his daughter kidnapped. Having to watch as his friends do the leg work, hunting the daughter into South America. Then he makes the deal with Mab. Then he goes Super Sayian and descends upon the vampires like a frozen shitstorm.
I just don't think that one book did all the CHANGE justice. Everything happened waaayyy too fast for the importance of the events to sink in and let the reader savor them. Having all those attempts at his life and the attention of the FBI should have been super stressing and important, instead it seemed like a minor hassle. Breaking his back should have been something profoundly life changing, a real OH SHIT moment. Like when his hand got fucked up. In stead it became an OH Sh... never mind Harry fixed it in 10 pages. Becoming the Winter Knight should have had 50 pages dedicated to it alone. The crazy mind blowing god sex/mutating into a power of winter event should have been HUGE. Instead it's just over and done with right quick and instead of actually getting a couple of tips and tricks from Mab or Lea, he just rushes in instead of actually examining his new power.
All my bitching aside, the book was still a great read. Dresden books never fail to entertain.
A cliffhanger ending is always annoying, but I wasn't so surprised when he got shot. It was sort of fitting with everything that had happened to him. I think Dresden gets saved by Mab. But maybe not before he actually dies. Leaving him in some undead state or something. The shot certainly was fatal. It either hit the heart or severed the aorta or something.
I think that Murphy is going to be hired by the FBI and begin to work with Tilly. After what happened at the FBI HQ there might even be made an investigation leading to the establishment of a "X-files" squad with Murphy as the specialist. Which will allow for Harry to get involved later.
I think that in the future, within the next couple of books, the white council is going to tear itself apart. With the Red Court threat gone, they are going to turn on themselves. Christos vs The Merlin. It's going to get bloody and destructive.
I really hope that Mister is okay.
This post has been edited by Aptorian: 11 May 2010 - 07:10 PM