After enjoying the Dresden Files books so much, I was expecting more from Butcher's more traditional fantasy series. This first one didn't deliver.
The characters are pretty shallow and cliched, and the story wasn't too good. It also suffered from a lot of plot driven by people not mentioning important things to each other and/or just happening to turn up in the right place.
The world is interesting, with some nifty magic powers and cultures. It feels like this is where the work went in, and I'd rather have seen this effort go into the characterization, which is the main strength of the Dresden Files books.
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Yeah, I wrote the first "Furies" book right after I wrote Storm Front. I mean, like a month later.
Book 2, though, didn't get written until after book 6 of the Dresden files, so there's a pretty sharp upswing, qualitywise. Book 3 was finally getting my third-person writing up to the standards of my first-person stuff (Dresden)and book 4 matches or exceeds it in most ways. :)
Ah well, we all gotta start somewhere. :)
Jim
Ah, I'll give the second book a look if I get the chance then. To be more positive, I'd still say you did better than most fantasy authors there - I'm pretty hard on the genre these days.
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