book review: Changes
Changes
by: Jim Butcher
No, Dresden does not own a cowboy hat – or any hat. Yet he’s always got one on the cover. And the “runes” on the staff apparently spell “Matrix” in katakana. Two more bits I just remembered from Butcher’s Q&A session.
Tangent: What is up with all the photo/photorealistic pictures on fantasy covers these days? It seems to be mostly on urban fantasy, but I’ve seen it creeping out elsewards. It reminds me way too much of romance covers – and I guess it should, since urban fantasy has it’s marketing roots strongly in romance (see Laurell K. Hamilton). I don’t like it. I prefer painted/drawn fantasy covers… I hate seeing a cover and knowing “Oh, that’s a real person.”
Back on track: It’s hard to do a review of this book without spoiling something, so the details will be necessarily minimal. That being said, it was a ton of fun to read – it pulled me right through. I read about half of it waiting for the signing to start, and the other half the next morning. A good chunk of the plot threads from previous books are wrapped up here – or at least progressed sufficiently. One HUGE one is resolved, another is ended, at least one supporting character’s life is shoved off in a new direction and Harry… well, things Change for Harry. Hence the title.
I was wondering how he was going to get out of the particular bind he placed himself in to secure the aid he required to deal with this volume’s menace – and the ending may just allow for that, we’ll see. Frankly, I don’t want him to get out of the bind, I’d much rather see where that goes – although I can see why an author might not want to take it there.
Yeah, so if you haven’t read the book none of that will make any sense. So read the book. After the other 11 of course. Butcher mentioned that this book is something of a halfway point in the series and it definitely is a shift of directions. I really have no idea what’s coming.
Of course I agree with you about the cover “art”, now I realize why I so strongly dislike them. . .they are like romance novel covers.
They’re walking that “romance cover” line too closely, I agree. All it needs is for him to have his shirt off and maybe a half-clothed lady draped across one of the temple steps and we’d be good to go. Eeesh.
[...] like I could wait another week to read this. Hah. Especially after the way Butcher ended Changes. [...]