In which trek reviews Ghost Story

At long last, the four-month publication delay on Jim Butcher's Ghost Story,has ended. The thirteenth volume of The Dresden Files hit the shelves on Tuesday and, most importantly, it hit my mailbox on the release date.

I heard Jim read the first few chapters down in Williamsburg and read all of the first five chapters online over the past month or so and have been salivating ever since. Jim announced the delay back in January stating that if he met the original deadline we would have had a very half-assed book. Preferring to be known as an author who delivers full-assed novels, the release date was pushed back.

I am happy to report that Ghost Story is in full possession of two very generous butt cheeks.

Due to a very hectic schedule of my own on Tuesday, I didn't quite finish the whole book on the day it landed in my hot little hands. I did finish it within twenty-four hours of its arrival and seeing as how that circuit around the sun included an adequate number of horizontal hours, I'm calling it good.

Oh, wait. Sorry. You came here for a book review not a play-by-play on my reading it? Don't you want to know how much restraint I had to exercise at poolside on Tuesday afternoon when I was trying to read my new book, dang it and Neatnik's friend's dad kept engaging me in conversation about how his wife accidentally washed his Android phonethat morning? Aren't you the least bit interested in how many haircut minutes cut into my reading time? No? Are you sure? Oh, well, if you insist...

Be on the look out for random (possibly unannounced) spoilers...

To borrow a turn of phrase from the late (spoiler alert) Harry Dresden, Ghost Story was freaking awesome. When we last saw Harry, he had just been shot, fallen off the deck of the Water Beetle into the cold, dark waters of Lake Michigan, and was about to be hit by a train.

Ghost Story opens with Harry musing on the dichotomy between how difficult it is to create a life and how easy it is to end a life. Chapter One really sets the tone for the whole book. Harry spends quite a bit of time reflecting on events of his life and how his choices and actions have affected those around him and Jim uses Harry's reflections as a vehicle for providing the reader with a huge amount of information. Now we have a clearer picture of Harry's early lessons under Justin DuMorne and his actual encounter with He Who Walks Behind when Harry was sixteen years old.

I visited the Jim Butcher forum this morning and read a bit of a thread entitled "A little disappointed maybe...". The contention of the original poster is

"this book was more of a way for Butcher to reveal some of Harry's past, show how the world goes to shit without him and get him back alive then it was to move the story overall"

Why bring up a forum thread in a review? Ah, read my reply:

"I may be sticking my hand into a fire here, but the complaints I'm reading about Ghost Story being a holding pattern sort of book sound an awful lot like the people who moaned about too little action in the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The complaint there was that it was to tedious, all they did was hop around while debating horcrux locations to death.

The complaint here seems to be that there was too much reflection and introspection, too much back story and not enough story.

In both cases, I wondered if those complaining stopped a second to think that this is exactly the visceral reaction the authors intended to convey and that is the mark of good writing: that an author can make you feel.

For teenaged Potter, he was adrift and nearly directionless (find and destroy horcruxes) after Dumbledore's death. He needed to do a job but really had (seemingly) very little concrete information on which to act. For our boy Dresden, he is adrift and nearly directionless (find your murderer) after his own death. He needed to do a job and had (seemingly) very little concrete information on which to act.

In both books, the protagonist needed to reflect on what he already knew, to sift through memories and to process data previously acquired until a rational course of action could be determined. Once the protagonist was able to bring all of the pieces together into a coherent whole (HP after viewing Snape's memories, HD after reclaiming his own), then and only then the action could really take off and hurtle towards resolution (both HP's decision to return to his body brings about Voldemort's destruction and HD's decision to return to his body allows Jim to begin Cold Days and coincidentally to continue to make enough money to send The Boy to college <wink>). I think that if one were to reread the stories, one would notice that the really important action happens after the protagonist has processed thoughts and memories and random bits of information and come to a point where he realizes certain truths about himself and his situation which he was previously incapable of handling."

Ghost Story presents us with a Harry Dresden who is beginning to see things in a different light. For much of Harry's career, he flew into the fray pretty much by the seat of his pants. It wasn't until Turn Coat that he really began to strategize very carefully and to plan both his offense and defense with many layers. We have watched Harry become incrementally stronger magically for many years; now we begin to see Harry becoming even more formidable through his understanding of events and the repercussions and ramifications of his part in them.

All in all, a fantastic read. Might even be my favorite one to date. My only negative observation is that Catholics don't read the King James version of the Bible. Just saying.

PS - Hey, Jim, I love the first line of Cold Days. Need any more beta readers?