Brief Cases
Ratings69
Average rating4.4
7.5/10
Most of these stories are varying levels of mid but Zoo Day is a 10/10 so I'm going with a 7.5.
Some of the other good stories were Jury Duty, Day One, Even Hand and Bombshells.
But mainly...read Zoo Day.
Thanks to Netgalley and Ace for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Honestly, I don't think I can get enough Dresden Files. He just gets better and better. Often when you are reading a long-running serious, it gets stale and stagnates. This hasn't, it has gotten better. The characters flesh out more with each book, and in this book particularly we got a great story written from the point of view of “Gentleman” Johnny Marcone. Yes! It reads even better than it sounds. I know this is a re-release, but I haven't read the other anthologies so this is brand new to me. Plus, we have stories from Butters, which is fantastic, and Molly which are just as good and fleshed put as Dresden himself.
This was a great holdover for when the next book comes out, and I definitely suggest reading it. It isn't absolutely necessary to read the Dresden Files before picking this up, but it would help understand the characters a bit more. There. That is your excuse to get into this fantastic series. Dooooo itttttttt.
ReviewWhat I really want (like I'm sure all Dresden fans do) is for [b:Peace Talks 22249640 Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16) Jim Butcher https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 40515430] to come out. In the meantime, it was nice to get this collection. It also helped a lot that I got to meet Mr. Butcher on a tour for the book!I've really enjoyed his last few books a lot, but I've always had a bit of mixed feeling about the short stories. This book contains 11 stories that have been published since [b:Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files 7779059 Side Jobs Stories from the Dresden Files (The Dresden Files, #12.5) Jim Butcher https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1269115846s/7779059.jpg 10351697] and one brand new story. As such I'd read about half of the stories already and didn't bother to reread them now.I thought the three Bigfoot stories were the weakest of the bunch (one of the reasons I didn't reread) along with Curses. All of my favorite stories actually follow characters others than Dresden.The best of the bunch was Cold Case which follows Molly followed by Bombshells (also Molly), Even Hand which follows Marcone and Day One which follows Butters. A Fistful of Warlocks had potential for being really interesting because it's set well before the series begins and follows Luccio, but I was a bit underwhelmed with the actual plot. The new story, Zoo Day, was pretty enjoyable and is a mix of Dresden and a few others that I won't name so as not to spoil anything. If you're a fan of the series and all caught up, this is a decent way to tide you over, but I'd say only about half to the stories are really worth reading the others while not bad don't add much to the series in my opinion.If you're not caught up, avoid this one until you are. There are a bunch of spoilers not only in the stories themselves, but even in some of the introductions. He generally calls out what books the stories take place around, but it's not called out at easily as I'd have liked.Note: My rating of the book is simply the average of my ratings of all the stories and noted below.RatingsA Fistful of Warlocks - 4 StarsB is for Bigfoot - 3.5 StarsAAAA Wizardry - 3.5 StarsI Was A Teenaged Bigfoot - 3.5 StarsCurses - 3 StarsEven Hand - 4.5 StarsBigfoot on Campus - 3.5 StarsBombshells - 4.5 StarsCold Case - 5 StarsJury Duty - 4 StarsDay One - 4.5 StarsZoo Day - 4.5 Stars
Makes me wish all the more for the next installment, Peace Talks, was going to be done and out soon.