[4] I always wanna hate Harry Dresden as a character but he is just so pathetic and broke (I mean this all in the nicest way). The action/mystery was much better paced here than in the first book. We get a lot of backstory hints that are so interesting.

Another fun read following Harry Dresden on a dark "adventure".

While entertaining this was no where near as good as the first one. I know most people consider this entry to be one of the worst of the series but it wasn't bad. I am probably going to take small break before moving to the next one but I'm excited to see where this goes.

I enjoyed the first book in this series more than this one. I'm not going to rush out to get the third at this point.

Well, it doesn’t get good yet. It’s somewhat improved over the first, but still has issues with wild solipsism driving the actual narrative, synonymous with Dresden himself. He still can’t remotely write women and it’s full of all types of fan service where they are concerned. Honestly, I feel like the fantasy trash mood this book occupies is the same ven diagram of people who watch B movies. Second hand nostalgia and so-bad-it’s-fun-but-not-good.

Then again, it does again subvert some expectations of the genre with who the bad guys are and the magic system being 10% different than you’d expect. Tidbits of Dresden’s past come up. The narrative finally acknowledges that Dresden is basically Xander from Buffy grown up, with his relationship to women. White knighting, but actually just sexist and an idiot most of the time. Yet, still women get in their own way at every turn. Butcher may not know he’s got a huge blind spot for this in his writing just yet, but will soon, I think. Again, popcorn commercial fiction, foundational to contemporary urban fantasy. Mostly bad with some stuff that stuck to the culture, altering the space.