Blood Rites (The Dresden Files Series Book 6)

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and fun series.................
Review: I've been hooked on this series from book one Storm Front and there these books just got better and better. After re-reading Death Masks and finally excepting Harry and Susan's break-up that I took really hard, because I thought they were so good together. Harry finally finds out more about his family and secrets about his mother that he never knew. Things also heat up for Karin Murphy a detective and Harry. Also he gets to fight Vampires and finds out that he has a brother who I won't tell who he is. I enjoyed the flying Monkeys and his new family member, a dog? I highly recommend this series and I'm anxious for the next book in the series called Deadbeat. I also hope that Jim plans to bring Susan back she prove to be a valuable friend and allie to Harry in the future. Read this series,but start with book one because all his books build from his previous ones.

Rating:
Summary: That poor poor guy
Review: An excellent series and hopefully on going. Harry Dresden the only Wizard in the phone book cannot catch a break, vampires hate him, demons are after him, his fellow wizards would rather see him get killed then deal with his maverick (but moral) attitudes, and to top it all his only friend is a knight of god who wont shut up about all the swearing!!

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced, fun, and very entertaining!
Review: Halfway through reading Butcher's first Dresden novel, Storm Front, I bought the whole series. I couldn't put them down, reading the whole lot over just a couple of weeks. As with all his books, Blood Rites is fast paced, entertaining, and great fun. As Chicago's only professional wizard Harry takes on the cases that no one else can handle (nor would most want to). His juvenile wise cracks, self-depreciating humor, and overdeveloped sense of responsibility make a likeable hero out of a guy who'd be extraordinarily powerful if he could just get out of his own way.

This time the White vampire (incubus) Thomas asks our hero to put a stop to an entropy spell that is plaguing Arturo Genosa, his porn director friend before any more of his associates die from the curse. The plot has some interesting twists (e.g., revealing more about Harry's family history and blood relations) and the characterizations and dialog are up to Butcher's fabulous standards. Even the bit characters like the mercenary Kincaid are well developed and great fun. I suspect that the dog foreshadows interesting possibilities for the next book too. The relationship between Dresden and Murphy matures realistically and well in keeping with their personas.

Blood Rites is another outstanding tome in an incredible series. There are a whole lot of entries in the whole supernatural alternate reality genre thing, yet as other writers tend to become stale over time Butcher continues to crank out fresh, fascinating novels. Wholeheartedly recommended!


Rating:
Summary: Super installment in a super series
Review: I have to say, I really enjoy this series. I look forward to every new episode, and this one was especially rewarding. I'm very glad to report that the quality of this series has stayed consistently high, and Butcher has been able to keep things fluid and interesting in Harry's life without getting either stale or outrageous.

"Blood Rites" had all the wise-cracking and rollicking adventure that I've come to expect in the complicated life of Harry Dresden (Proffessional Wizard). The story was particularly well paced in this book, with an excellent rise and fall and rise again in action. Butcher has a rather large cast of rotating secondary characters, and sometimes they can be a little overwhelming. The balance was perfect in this book. Thomas, Murphy, Ebaneezer and the ambigous merc (who's name is a blank at the moment!) are very well chosen for their roles in this story. They complement and support Harry's journey, meshing seemlessly into both the main and personal story threads.

I was delighted to see Murphy taking a big role in this book. She had some wonderful moments, and I loved to see her working with Harry.

If you haven't read this series, there is nothing to keep you from starting with this newest book. However, there are numerous references to events in previous books, and the entire series is so wonderful, I highly recommend you start with the first book "Storm Front" and read this quality series all the way through. Enjoy!


Rating:
Summary: Way to go!
Review: I think there's no question about it: 'Blood rites' is the best in the series so far. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the whole series and Harry Dresden is quickly becoming one of my favorite male characters. However, this latest book is finally giving some substance to characters who previously were either too good to be true, too bad to actually take seriously, or to sketchy to care. For those who are only now discovering the series: Harry is a wizard who has to make a living in a world that doesn't believe in wizards, and also to discover his past, which is clouded in mystery and violent death. As a private investigator and occasional consultant for a special division of Chicago police, Harry has already had his share of encounters and supernatural adventures in the five previous books. He had to fight a renegade practitioner of the black arts, ghosts, vampires, werewolfs, faeries, fallen angels, not to mention his very own White Council of wizards, for whom his own past (which they seem to know a lot better than Harry) is an almost certain ticket to painful execution.

In this book, Harry has to figure out who is behind an entropy curse hitting actors in a porn movie business, but also to deal with unexpected and not altogether pleasant truths about his past. The action acquires a more interesting, darker side, that promises great character development, not only for Harry, but also for Murphy, who is finally shown to be more than a slightly obsessive fighting babe with no personal life and an inflexible sense of justice. I absolutely loved the plot from the beginning to the end, despite the fact that the author seemed to have forgotten that Harry actually shared a soulgaze with Ebenezar [according to book 4 in the series], which should have prepared Harry for most revelations about his teacher in book 6 - unless I really don't understand how a soulgaze works.

I also hope that Jim won't give in to the temptation of making the series allegedly more 'appealing' by destroying the plot and adding lots of sex, as it unfortunately happened to the Anita Blake series. Although Harry is not getting any and I think the author could take some pity in the future [c'mon Jim, how would you feel if you had to spend a year with only a cat and a skull as company? :)], I really really like Harry just the way he is.


Rating:
Summary: Keeping It in the Family
Review: I'm not sure that it is technically accurate to label this latest stanza in the 'Dresden File' series a pleasant surprise, since all of the books have been enjoyable reading. But author Jim Butcher has managed to take a series that was showing signs of being pleasantly predictable and up the level just a bit. Much of this has been accomplished by developing Harry Dresden into something more than a Chicago wizard with an overly developed sense of responsibility (and possible an overactive thyroid). He has developed more of the sense of self-awareness I would expect from a professional wizard, although I would say that Harry's judgment is still has a bit of adolescent about it.

Another part of this growth stems from the fleshing out of the basic Dresden plot, which is Harry in trouble with the wizard's White Council and hunted by the various vampire courts. That hasn't changed much. This time Harry is trying to put a stop to a new Black Court effort to end his life while keeping a deadly evil eye curse from bankrupting a porno film startup company. The latter effort puts Harry at odds with the head of the Vampire's White Court. We get to experience both the delights of the film stage and the wild action of a raid on a Black Court lair.

Butcher makes this come alive by filling in a lot of the blanks about his vampire's society and politics, while stepping up the heat on Harry's relationship with Lt. Karrin Murphy, the head of Special Investigation. Throw in the development of several other collateral characters and you have an action story with interesting characters. This works well, because Butcher seems to know when to back off from the melodramatic and let people behave like people (or vampires) in a serious conflict..

Of course, the usual spookiness and ritual magic are there as always. Magic works in Butcher's alternate reality, and it sometimes works with a vengeance. The author sometimes takes a moment to explain how such things are supposed to work, but wisely, he avoids creating a formal system that would limit story development. Instead he blends magic, supernatural, and the occult as needed to get the right effect. I'm not a purist, and Butcher manages to avoid glaring self-contradiction. Keep in mind that this genre is beginning to get crowded with Harry Dresden's and Anita Blake's. Butcher's stories maintain a distinct identity and style that is beginning to be imitated, which is the best recommendation of all.


Rating:
Summary: Great addition to the series
Review: In this latest book our favorite wizard finds out some astounding news about his mother. I won't spoil it for anybody, but I promise it's a doozy of a revelation. The dialogue is as snappy as ever. Jim Butcher introduces some new characters, and hopefully we'll see some of them again. Previous characters are more fully fleshed out. Butcher's portrayal of Harry and Murphy's deepening friendship is as great as ever. Personally I hope they stay nothing more than friends, but we'll see. All in all a terrific book.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably great!
Review: Jim's books have never disappointed, but BLOOD RITES raised the bar to Olympic levels ... this is a great book, full of twists, turns, hilarious dialogue, hair-raising suspense, characters you love and villains who raise the stakes to whole new levels. An absolutely first-rate read from an absolutely first-rate author. Can't recommend it highly enough. Go! Read! But be sure to budget a large block of time, because you will not want to put it down ...

Rating:
Summary: No pulitzer but lotsa fun
Review: Let's face it how much do you read that IS pulitzer winning anyway? These books, all of them so far in the series, are just good old fashioned fun! Guns, chicks, and magic, what more could you ask for?

Rating:
Summary: Great fun . . .
Review: When I first started reading this series, the first thing that came to mind was that this was an Anita Blake clone, only with a male protagonist instead of a female one. After six books, my impression hasn't yet changed much. Despite this, I have enjoyed the series very much as Butcher has managed to match (and surpass in recent books) the bar set by the excellent Laurell Hamilton.