STORM FRONT

Argh! I'm STUFFED!

I woke up too late for Family Dinner tonight, so Brian and Mom brought me back a Chimmichanga from Serano's and I'm STILL hurting, lol.

Good Chimmichanga, tho'! I now have a new favorite dish at Serano's.

One of the reasons I couldn't wake up in time is that I stayed up too late listening to STORM FRONT, the first novel in The Dresden Files series!!!

IT WAS SO AMAZING!!!

One of the episodes of The Butcher Block (the Jim Butcher podcast) offers a recommended reading order for people just getting into the novels, and it is recommended that the first 2 novels be read after the third and forth one, because the first novel was an exercise for a writing course and it apparently isn't until the third novel that Butcher really finds the stride that makes his novels stand out the way they do.

As it happens, I read the forth book, SUMMER KNIGHT, first, simply because I was able to get a hold of the mp3 version free.

AND IT RULES!!!

After listening to it a second time I broke down and bought the first 3 books in the series. I had to have me some more Dresden!!!

They arrived Friday, and so I spent Saturday morning, after work, loading them onto my iPod so I could start listening to them on my way to work Saturday night.

STORM FRONT is 8+ hours long, and I listened to just over half of it at work. Then I continued listening to it on my way home, and I couldn't get to sleep until I was done with it!

IT WAS SO GOOD!!!

If you watch the TV show, then jump into the 4th book, your head just explodes, because Butcher has this amazing ability to just kick the shit out of Harry Dresden, lol! The TV show is just SO TAME compared to the novels! But the first book is actually closer in scope and pace to the TV show. It's still more complex than the TV show (because of the inherent limitations of the medium) but you totally get the feeling that the first book was the model for the TV series' format.

And there's NOTHING wrong with the TV series, in my opinion! If the novels were simply prose versions of the TV episodes, it would still be a great read!

BUT THEIR NOT!!!

Omg, Butcher created such a rich, full universe with the Dresden Files novels!!! The scope is much more like an epic movie than a TV series!

Actually, movies have a lot of limitations, too. The novels are like NOVELS, lol.

And I swear to you that Butcher makes you just almost believe that magic is possible! Like it exists in our world, and you could learn to do it if you knew where to look, lol! It's astounding!

I would (now) recommend anyone getting into the novels to just start at the beginning, and know that you've got a wild and scary ride ahead of you with each new book! Whether you know the character from the TV show, or you're just meeting him with the first read, I say STORM FRONT is the place to start.

The progression is like the Harry Potter books: The first Potter book introduces you to this whole world, and tells you a cool story. The second is kind of more of the same, but it lets you know there's going to be an overall series arc. Then the third book just blows your mind, and the series really just keeps amping up and up from there! I haven't read the second Dresden book yet, but from the impression I got from the afore mentioned podcast episode, the Dresden books seem to do something a bit similar.

I'll let you know. I'm about to start on FOOL MOON the moment I post this entry.

Throw in some hoped-for Gnomey Time and this is going to be a COOL weekend!!!

:D