Storm Front

A bold introduction to both the Dresden Files series and Urban Fantasy as a whole. A private eye with access to magic, Dresden uses cunning, strength, and an ever present dry wit to combat the dark forces of Chicago, both mortal and supernatural. Though not the strongest entry in the series, it starts readers on a journey that will captivate them for years to come. Would've been 3.5 stars because some of the characters can come off a little one dimensional, but raised it to a 4 since they are new and quickly grow into fan favorites over the rest of the series.

The first of The Dresden Files series draws you into the world of Harry Dresden, a wizard in modern day Chicago who advertises his wizardly ways in the yellow pages and classified. What's involved with being a wizard now a days? Turns out it involves solving mysteries for the police that can't be explained by science as well as pursuing the occasional contract that walks through your door.

If this sounds a bit like Angel, the old WB show, well you'd be right. It's a whole lot like that. Funny enough, the audiobook is read by James Marsters, Spike from Buffy/Angel! Being a short one, it's worth reading a few. I'd still prefer Caves of Steel for the overall mystery side of things, but this was the first one in the series. The following ones were supposedly after Butcher got better at writing. Either way, a solid beginning.

It was fine. I didn't know anything about it (or the fanbase) going in so I didn't have any notion of what was coming. There were definitely some cool bits, but the things that put me off will keep me from reading more. I finished it, which is something more than nothing.

I ended up not like Harry Dresden very much and that will be a roadblock from moving through the rest of these.

Started off slow, but once it go rolling a fun read. Starting to be a bit long in the tooth, but an interesting read.

I found “Storm Front” to be a great beginning to Jim Butcher's series, the Dresden Files. It is a great introduction to Harry Dresden. I am hoping to read more of the series soon.

Have read twice April 2005 & December 2012

3.5 but not quite 4.

Heard it gets better as it continues. Interesting premise, good precise descriptions until you get to any female character than it's a page of sexual nonsense. Hard to tell if it's the character or author, will probably continue this series at some point

Pulpy fun.

Yes, the misogyny, hyper fixation of sex, and cringy humor does seriously dampen many aspects of this book—

*But*

I enjoyed the concept and the world building enough that I will give future installments of the series a try. I’ve heard that the series and writing matures with each book, so I’m hopeful that this is true. Otherwise…

I withdrew in silence and left her to her weeping. Perhaps it would help her start to heal.To me, it only sounded like pieces of glass falling from a shattered window.

Hell yeah!! I love this grimy urban fantasy detective novel shit. Storm Front is super silly (talking skull porn addict levels), but doesn't shy away from concepts of gruesome murder, domestic abuse, etc. Found it really stupid but charming, & now I need to read the rest of the series asap.

After seeing this series mentioned positively in a few places, I finally got around to picking it up. It went by pretty quick, has some fun magic elements without forcing you to ramp up on a whole world. I'm curious to see how it progresses.

it was good. not “knock your socks off” good but it was a fun romp in rainy chicago. pulpy in all the good ways. great break from heavy malazan for sure.

The first 3/4 are a great detective story and world building that intrigues and gives a very magical vibe.
The other 1/4 was a little disappointing with the main bad being a bit underwhelming and the revelation too.
That said, I'm hooked.

Kept me interested. I love the setting. Not my cup of storyline but given the interesting world and characters I liked it.

A solid adventure in a delightful magical world, even if the author is a little too obsessed with boobs. 

pros: feels like a very quick read, its fun, and the book doesn't take itself too seriously
cons: I don't like the way women are portrayed in this book
VIDEO REVIEW: https://youtu.be/llKOrgwEr30

The first in the Dresden Files series which has become a fan favourite for many people. What can one say about such iconic characters and the combination of magic with detective style work just is the complete package.
Some of the characters are great.  Carmichael is a detective and he is the skeptic.   He doesn't believe the main character can do Magic and that it is wasting money bringing in the psychic part to an investigation.
Murphy is the lead detective and she is a badass when it comes to anything physical.  She is not against the main character but she does ride him pretty hard about his old fashioned attitudes.  She is definitely not into the male opening doors for them or paying for dinner.  She doesn't need a man to do anything at all and she won't put up with them trying.
Harry the main character is so fun.  He is sarcastic and has no problem with fighting for what he needs or wants and he definitely doesn't fear people.  He is honest and has such a capacity for helping others 
My favourite character that was introduced is Bob the skull that houses a very powerful entity.  He is a great mentor for Harry but he also seems to have the dark side and could easily lead Harry down a wrong path.  He definitely has the lusty nature to him but he is supposed to be a spirit of intellect.  The opposites combined together just makes me laugh and makes him the best character.
I dislike one character and that is Morgan who is always after Harry trying to get him executed.  He is the biggest jerk in this book and he shows that he doesn't have a human understanding.
Early on the magic that is shown is a soulgaze.  I liked this as I thought that it was unique.  I love the thought of looking into someone's eyes and telling what is in their soul whether it be dark or light.
What also is good is that they have a magic system that is delineated by the power one must have and noone has an indefinite amount of energy both to power their magic and to direct it.
For me the magic systems that I like the best has limitations and will never be the fixall that many systems use.  I like the fact that knowledge is power and so are names.  Basically using the power words which to me makes things even more interesting.
The story itself is a lot of fun and who wouldn't want to be the hero of the tale and help to catch someone using sorcery to kill.

Hard to get through but everyone has said book 3 onward it's better

4.5/5

While the descriptions of the female characters were questionable (and often distracting when it interjects during important conversations), the book has a decent mystery and the action was alright. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either... it's alright.

Will check out the second book eventually.

Para los amantes de Hellblazer, muy recomendado, me encantó!

Perfect for the hellblazer fans. I loved it!

Storm Front really disappointed me. This is the first book in the Dresden Files, and it has a reputation online for being incredibly mediocre, and even still, I felt let down by it. Despite being compulsively readable, this book doesn't rally manage to tell that solid of a story due to a number of small issues compounding together to bog the book down. I'm still going to continue with the series, but as of right now, I'm going to struggle to recommend it to people, as I don't have many positive thoughts on this book.

The first major issue that I have is the characters. They're, to be quite frank, shit. By the end of the book, I couldn't point to a single character that I genuinely enjoyed reading about, as most of them fit neatly into generic archetypes and never grow past them throughout the story. This is doubly true for female characters, but I'll get into that a bit later on.

The biggest offender for this in my opinion is Dresden himself, who we spend the most time with, but has zero development throughout the story. He starts the same as he ends, which is really disappointing, because Dresden is riddled with flaws. He's a cynic, a chauvinist, and arrogant to boot (despite multiple major cock ups due to said arrogance), and only manages to make it through the story through sheer luck. He has one of the worst PoV voices that I've ever experienced, however I've been assured that this gets better, which makes a lot of sense, since it would be incredibly difficult to make him worse.

I can't really talk about Dresden without talking about how much of a sex pest he comes across like. This man can't interact with a woman without thinking in depth about her curves, the things she can do with her body, and how hot she is. It's cringe inducing. Even more so when it seems like all these women want to throw themselves at his feet. It's just tedious, and reads like a teenage boys self-insert half the time.

But the only reason the side characters aren't worse than him, is because they're barely characters. They're cripplingly simplistic, with not even their dialogue really giving a sense of their character (with one exception being Linda, but she sadly ends up playing into Dresden's constant sex pestery). This was a major for me, since characters are generally more important to my reading experience than the plot of the story.

However, the story itself is really barebones and predictable, so even if I was more of a plot reader, I don't think my rating would really change. There's a central mystery that we follow, and it starts off really interesting, making me genuinely curious how it's going to wrap up. And then the very obvious answer is given to us a quarter of the way through the book, but Harry, who again, has a massive ego about his magical skills, can't work out the incredibly obvious answer. This isn't even an answer that's obvious through knowing about story structures for generic detective stories (which this very much is one), this is just basic critical thinking that Harry seems to lack, despite repeatedly showing that he isn't dumb. I don't give the spoiler away, just in case you do read it, but it is, at least in my opinion, really obvious. This obviousness makes Dresden feel really inconsistent as a character, and I hope that gets shored up soon, because 16 more books of Dresden being conveniently moronic will get old fast I think.

I also had issue with how many really concepts and storylines are hinted throughout the book, especially considering what we actually ended up with. There's the murder of his girlfriend, the creature that lurks in his shadow, the NeverNever. All of these really interested me, and we got nothing but setup for them. It made the book feel like an extended prologue for the series, which is a real shame, because if we'd started with some of those concepts instead, I feel like the book would have flowed way better.

Something I really appreciated about the story though, was it's pacing. This would likely be a one star read for me if it didn't have the really tight pacing that it does. This book doesn't waste a page, and I love that. Everything we see is done to further the story, which is what allows this book to still be a page turner despite the flaws it does have. If this book had slowed down, I can't say I would have been able to finish it, since especially towards the end, my interest was beginning to wane, and only the pacing kept me going.

All in all, I'm really hoping that the next books in the series improve on the promise that this one shows, so I'm very likely to continue on with the series down the line. I am aware that the series doesn't pick up until around Book 3 or 4 for most people, so I'm prepared for Fool Moon to still be a bit of a problem read for me, though I'm looking forward to continuing the series despite the issues present in Storm Front.

The book sits at 2/5 rating for me, it wasn't quite bad enough to justify one star, but it wasn't that good either. I can't really recommend it, since I didn't vibe with it all that much, but if you enjoy books like James Patterson's longer form series, I think this one would click for you.

I picked up the first book of the Dresden Files mostly because I was tired of friends - even people I respected - who said the books were really good. I'd seen the SciFi channel adaption, and frankly, hadn't been impressed. As it turns out, for good reason, since the SciFi channel version paled in comparison to the real thing, except for some names and professions. The book was a fun, quick read. Butcher's no Tolstoy - but then, when you're reading about wizards in Chicago, do you really want a Tolstoy telling the story? I intended to read the rest of the series now, and would even go so far as to recommend it :) So thank you Dan, E, and anyone else that said I should give it a whirl.

I rarely read books three times, so the fact that this is the third time with Storm Front should be taken as a sign of its worth. It's not the best book in the series, but it certainly made me go out and buy the next book and all the others I ended up buying.

The women in this book are basically present to cry, flirt, and be moms. Even when they're given moments of strength, they're still weak compared to the men. Only reason this gets two stars is because aside from the blatant misogyny the story is quite good. I just can't give the sexism in this one a pass.