Libraries Exist! (Book Review)

So here's a fun fact: Libraries still exist!

I know, they've never actually STOPPED existing.  There was a decade there when I really didn't have internet access at home, so the library basically became my second home.  You know what somehow slipped my mind during that time, though?  What libraries are actually meant for.  The thing we used them for as kids, when our moms would drive us and we'd have that one little lonely id in our little velcro wallets and used it for one thing; Books.  Remember library books?

Now, I love books, but I am not a good reader.  For years, I would clamor through book stores and buy all sorts of treasures, but I was not great at finishing them.  When I got my first kindle I thought it was the best thing in the world, now I was certain I would finish my books.  Yet still, aquiring books always seemed easier than finishing them.  What was the problem?  Why was I struggling with something I used to do all the time as a kid?

Oh right... a DEADLINE.

When it suddenly struck me that I was still a semi-functional member of society and I could actually get a library card and check out books it struck me like a hammer.  We made our trip to the library and rummaged through the stacks, and I left with no fewer than THREE books.  For free, because of course they are.  This shouldn't feel quite so novel, but somehow I am just dumbstruck by the fact that I had somehow forgotten about this.

So here we go, my very first review of a Library Book!

The Dresden Files are, obviously, a long-standing presense in the world of fantasy.  If you're a fan at all, you've heard of Harry Dresden.  The guy even got a short lived TV series where he was played by Paul Blackthorne of "Arrow" infamy.  It's actually a little bit embarassing that I hadn't read this YET.  Storm Front by Jim Butcher is the very first Dresden Files novel, published in 2000.  It established the world, more or less, and starts you off by getting you comfortable with the blend of fantasy and noir tropes.

If anything, that's actually where I think the book was the most enjoyable.  The idea of contemporary fantasy isn't THAT novel... it's pretty much a genre all on it's own... but this particular book stood out because it actually did some real legwork to make it feel like a classic detective novel.  I happen to be a real Raymond Chandler fanboy, but part of what makes classic detective stories so pleasurable is that the tropes are so well-trod and familiar.  It was actually kind of cool to see those exact story beats playing out in a story where the mystey might suddenly be interrupted by a mage battle.

As a character, Dresden was actually a little more accessable that I imagined.  He's such a popular character he comes across as a little monolithic so it was fun to see that he didn't read that way.  He played a lot more like a traditional detective, and just like a classic hard-boiled detective he gets the holy hell beat out of himself over the course of the story.  It uses that trope so well it actually becomes almost rediculous, but it actually fit in the heightened reality of these characters that are, for all intents and purposes, superheroes.  The world of Dresden files presents it's particular notion of magic well without requiring you to own tarot cards to understand; it's all very accessable and fun.

If I have a complaint, it would have to be the relatively limited scope of the female characters in the book, and that's really a hard complaint to make, because the women that are in here are diverse, they have what feels like their own agency and all of them drive the narrative in their own way.  Harry's relationship with Detective Harris is particularly interesting, but that's kind of the point; none of these characters really seem to exist outside the framework of their relationship with Harry, and while he treats women with respect the guy doesn't quite seem capable of seeing them as equals.  He's meant to be an old-world gentleman, but as a reader in 2017 it comes across a little belittleing.  Now it's kind of understood that in a noir detective story really needs to focus on the main character, and this is also the first book in a series that is almost twenty years old and fifteen books deep, so who knows how these characters have grown and evolved over that time.  (Don't tell me.)  I look forward to finding out.

SO!  That's my totally unnecessary review of a book everyone besides me has already read!  This is more for me.  I'm going to start an actual list of Books I've Finished, as a way to celebrate this totally awesome thing that I totally forgot existed.

 Books I've Finished:

The Dresden Files: Storm Front by Jim Butcher (2000)