Ghost Story (The Dresden Files)

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This may be the most difficult review I’ve had to write, because I love the Dresden Files, and have been consistently rating them 5 enthusiastic stars for a long time now. I am totally a fan of Jim Butcher and will continue to look forward to the next book in the series, BUT…

I have to be honest. I didn’t like this one.

Warning: If you have not read the previous books in the series, this review will contain some spoilers up through book 12, Changes. It does NOT contain spoilers for Ghost Story.

Harry comes back as a ghost to solve his own murder. Apparently, there was an irregularity with his death. Someone took him out of the game unfairly. So Ghost Harry goes back to Chicago six months later, finds the local necromancer (Morty) to help him out, and catches up with all his friends.

After that, Harry starts running around after everyone and everything except his own killer. He finds hostile ghosts attacking Morty. A gang of young criminals attacking Murphy and company. The corpse taker is back again, because, you know, it wasn’t enough for him to kill her once. (I am rarely a fan of villainous repeat performances.)

But the thing that really got me was the sheer amount of time Harry spent stewing inside his own mind, remembering things, berating himself for everything bad that has ever happened in the world, etc. I did get that a ghost is made up entirely of memories, and so I understood what he was trying to do by having us walk through so many of his, but I still found it tedious to read. I was particularly thrown off by the long recounting of his first fight with He Who Walks Behind, about halfway through. It felt like an intermission.

There was a lot of what I have to call moralizing going on throughout. Where he sits there and puts judgment values on everything he’s done, especially everything he did in the last book, like killing all the red court vampires. I get that there are consequences for that, but it still needed to happen.

This book didn’t make me laugh the way many of the others do. I’m not sure why. Dresden continued cracking jokes, but they just weren’t funny.

The ending didn’t work for me at all. I won’t do spoilers, but I will say it fell flat, and seemed to undermine the need for the entire journey leading up to it.

So, to sum up: A tedious read lacking the flair and humor of its predecessors. If you’re a Dresden fan, you pretty much have to read it anyway, but there’s my take on it. I still maintain my optimism that the next book will be good. This isn’t a case of a flagging series, IMO, just a single volume that didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

Rating: 2/5

Title: Ghost Story
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780451463791
Published: July 26, 2011

Posted in Book Reviews, Fantasy.

4 Comments

  2. I must disagree. I’d say you went in expecting this book to feel like other books in the series and were disappointed.

    Well sure, we’re dealing with a very different Harry Dresden in this one. A DEAD ONE.

    And Jim Butcher is constantly planting little literary seeds to be reaped later. I Strongly Suspect that we’ll need to know the details (to some degree) of Harry’s battle with He Who Walks Behind in some future book.

    Heck, “Stars & Stones”, “Hells Bells” and “Empty Night” are the names of the Apocalyptic Trilogy at the end of the Dresden Files. The man has some serious long term plans.

    –Faithful Fan

  3. I’m sure I expected it to be like the other books in the series and was disappointed. 🙂

    I do think it was a bit more than that, though. A big part of my problem with the book (the thing that knocked it all the way down to 2 stars for me) was the ending, and I don’t like to do spoilers in reviews. I thought it brushed right up against deus ex machina (not sure if it went over the line or not, am still contemplating).

    I hope the details in here become important later, especially He Who Walks Behind. If the rest of the series is any indication, I’m sure they will be. Like I said in my review, I do generally really, really like The Dresden Files and am hopeful about the sequels. Glad to hear you enjoyed it, and thank you for commenting.

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