I read these on the trip but couldn’t get the time to post a review.  Trying to do so before I forget much more of them (yes, I do forget books *that* fast).

I’m just going to cluster them together, since the series is basically one big, long book anyway.

In both cases Butcher continues his trend of stacking the deck against our perpetually harried protagonist, then shooting the deck up with Meth and lighting it on fire.  I always got the sense of “Wow, really?  Overkill?” but, not in a bad way surprisingly.  The majority of the building tension and additional drama seemed to flow organically from the established story – for the most part, nothing came out of nowhere.  Although… it does seem like he’s picking up the habit of just flat out starting each book with two main plots, which has the potential to be annoying.  However, everything always dovetails well and both plots are usually equally engaging so, no harm no foul – yet.

There are a metric ton of plots and potential plots running through the series now, and I’m curious if Butcher has any endgame in site (I have a vague sense of what it would involve), or is planning on making this an indefinite series.  I think, as long as he can avoid the pitfalls of formula, it could work as the latter.  Don’t get me wrong, his various formulas are visible, but not distracting or trite – yet.  Don’t know why I’m so paranoid… just hate to see a good thing ruined I guess.

Summer Knight is basically our introduction to the Fae/fairie/etc. of Butcher’s Earth.  We get a little more background on Harry’s ties to the Nevernever and his fairy godmother comes off looking not quite as horrible as she has in previous books.  She may actually be looking out for him… duh duh dah!  Based on the way the plots are shuffling about across the series so far, I’m sure that will rear it’s head in another book or three.

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS

Death Masks primarily concerns the fallout from book 3 (Grave Peril): the vampire vs. White Council war & the status of Harry’s potentially lost love, Susan the (now) almost (SPOILER), and the other two Knights of the Cross.  Plot A concerns the Knights of the Cross and a group of their ancient enemies (uber demons & their possessed hosts), Plot B concerns the vampire war, subplot A involves the theft of the Shroud of Turin (which leads back to plot A) and subplot B concerns the return of Susan and her status (which leads back to plot B) – yeah, lot’s of balls in the air.  From this book onward I think it’s going to be a trend, as Blood Rites (book 6) followed a similar pattern.  Hopefully Butcher won’t turn it into formula, but we’ll see.

Anyway, the series continues to be enjoyable page turners, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in the nascent Urban Fantasy (sub?) genre,  or just looking for a good, but not too heavy, read.  I don’t think I’ve spent more than two days on any of the books, some only a day – they run in the 300s pagecount wise, but those pages demand to be turned.

THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS