Sage Fire Reviews

Proven Guilty

Dresden Takes an Apprentice

Harry Dresden has come up in the world .... of the para normal.  He is now a Warden of the White Council, charged with stopping the spread of evil throughout Chicago.  But what is Harry going to do when he finds out the latest stalking evil has two sources, one of which is his best friend's daughter?

Synopsis: 

The war between the White Council and the Red Court is going badly.  Neither the Summer or Winter elven courts are in a position to help.  Everyone is neatly tied up facing off everyone else.

Naturally when movie monsters start to gallop out of the screen onto the street, dsimembering real people; the job just has to be given to Harry.  Maybe with a little help from his friends, he just might be able to put a stop to it. Just when he starts to dig in, there is the call for help from his best friend's daughter, Molly.

No matter how hard he digs it looks like she is the culpret behind the monsters. It will take a raid on Arctis Tor, a political defeat of THE merlin, and acceptance of Molly as his apprentice before Harry catches on ... he's being set up.

Impression: 

Dresden doesn't react to bad news, he responds to the bad news and turns the table.  He is the most unlikely alpha hero to come along in the last fifteen years.  Yet none of us can stop admiring the way he slugs through everything, and somehow out mouses Archie Goodwin during the same time he is out punching Mike Hammer. 

Dresden faces evil, most of the other fictional dectectives faced only really bad men.  Dresden learned from his uncle about being evil ... truly evil like a minion from hell. Instead he chooses to be an ordinary and human.  By doing so, he elevates himself above the common reader, and we can not help but identify with him when he slips.

This episode is no different, he is being misdirected, thrown against evil when he is least prepared, trying to save those he loves and protect man in general.  But those as just the hallmarks of Harry's character, which will be remembered long after the author's death.

Fall in love with a genuine human, a real hero sans the Lone Ranger, all over again.  Those who are avid fans of this series will jump with both feet to read this book.  If you haven't yet found Harry, pick up any of his episodes.  You can't go wrong.

RATING:  8 Campfires

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Targeted readership:

All readers over the age of 17.  Slight sexual connotations, but nothing beyond acceptable general newspaper publication.  I give it 1 candle flame.

1 Flames for sexual content.

Author's credentials:

Jim Butcher is a martial arts enthusiast with fifteen years of experience in various styles including Ryukyu Kempo, Tae Kwan Do, Gojo Shorei Ryu, and a sprinkling of Kung Fu. He is a skilled rider and has worked as a summer camp horse wrangler and performed in front of large audiences in both drill riding and stunt riding exhibitions.

Jim enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog.

Jim goes by the moniker Longshot in a number of online locales. He came by this name in the early 1990's when he decided he would become a published author. Usually only 3 in 1000 who make such an attempt actually manage to become published; of those, only 1 in 10 make enough money to call it a living. The sale of a second series was the breakthrough that let him beat the long odds against attaining a career as a novelist.

All the same, he refuses to change his nickname.

Reviewer & reviewer credentials:

MD Johnson is a mountain northwest regional -- freelance author, living in Payette, Idaho.

His writing interests include poetry, romance, westerns, science fiction, travel, and history. His work has appeared in a diverse range of publications including True Romance and Ballyhoo Stories.

In 2007 he bacme an EPIC author and he has republished the 1935 western classic historical novel, “The Bitterroot Trail” as the anthologist. http://thebitterroottrail.pencraft.biz 

Mr. Johnson also runs a book review web site, Sage Fire Reviews, http://sagefire.pencraft.biz . Mr Johnson specializes in small press editions which include multi-format e-books in the genres above. In early 2008, Mr. Johnson was nominated and accepted membership into the National Book Critics Circle.

If you have a book or an ARC, you would like Mr. Johnson to review, please address your questions to him at queries@pencraft.biz.

All work © 2008, MD Johnson, all rights reserved.