Jim Butcher’s Changes, the 12th Dresden Files novel, came out not too long ago, and there’s been a bunch of discussion of it in various places on the Internet. I seem to have a slightly less positive take on the book than a lot of other people, so I figured I’d put up a slightly grumpy post about it, to get it out of my system.
There are good things about the book, to be sure– the ending is very eventful, to say the least, and fires a lot of the guns that have begun cluttering up the mantel. Butcher very emphatically justifies the title, ensuring that nothing will be the same after this point in the series.
But there are a bunch of smaller things that bug me about the book. Discussing them will require MASSIVE BOOK-DESTROYING SPOILERS, though, so I will put that material below the fold:
One major problem is the sheer weight of backstory involved. Harry spends most of the book traveling around calling in (or trying to call in) favors from various other characters. Every single conversation in these sections is Meaningful due to past events, requiring a short recap of said events. Which means there’s tons of Telling about the personal significance of everything Harry is doing, and not so much Showing of what’s going on. It made the middle third of the book really drag.
Second, Harry gets off a little too easy. After pages and pages of hand-wringing about having to make Difficult Choices and Endanger Friends, there is exactly one significant character death. It’s a doozy, granted, but it ends up serving the greater good, and none of the other people he brought in end up being hurt at all.
On top of that, while Harry does have to make an unpleasant bargain in order to get the power he needs to fight the Red Court, absolutely everybody who matters, up to and including God, forgives him instantly (or even pre-emptively). There’s a lot of talk about how hard it is to make the choice, but the immediate consequences of it are pretty negligible.
I’m also not entirely happy with Harry’s apparently infallible sense of character, as yet again we have an officious wizard who rubs him the wrong way turning out to be doing the work of the Red Court, and another character who appears to be a good guy but annoying is actually an enemy agent, retroactively justifying Harry’s instant dislike of him. It feels really cheap.
Again, I’m not saying the book was actively bad– it’s still an engaging read, and does tie up or cut off a bunch of dangling plot threads. But there were a bunch of little things about it that irked me, and detracted from the overall effect.
Of course, as much as some of the details bugged me, it wasn’t a patch on the abrupt ending of Steven Erikson’s Dust of Dreams, which was kind of the Malazan Empire version of the wasabi zombies episode of Samurai Champloo— lots of portentous stuff happens, and then, effectively, an asteroid strike kills everyone. What the hell was that?
Thanks for your succinct review:) I dip into the Dresden Files occasionally (I’ve always found Harry got off easy), enjoyed Turncoat and was thinking of getting Changes sooner than later – now it will be later. I will probably enjoy the middle of the book as it will help me track characters better. I was hoping for a little more depth but it *is* a Dresden file.
I tried to like the Dresden files, I really did. But I gave up after the third or fourth book. While I was perfectly willing to believe in a low rent wizard, the characters just too too much damage in the course of story to be believably functional for the next book. Of course, the characters took just as much damage in the next book and still came back for a third book. My suspension of disbelief snapped at that point.
I agree with most of that, but another character who appears to be a good guy but annoying is actually an enemy agent, retroactively justifying Harry’s instant dislike of him is backwards – he’s the one who makes it possible to cut off that particular plot thread forever.
Mostly, I think this was a book where he decided he wanted to cut off a whole lot of stuff and make it no longer relevant, and get on to more of the stuff he’s been dancing around.
Plus, pulp novel…
I still can’t quite accept that Butcher is planning this to be a 23 book series.
And speaking of long series, I fell off the Malazan wagon about 6 books ago. I liked them, but I’m long past the age where I can obsessively keep track of all the details and reference that apparently were necessary to figure out the backstory? Is it worth trying to catch up now that, I hope, it will be coming to an end soon?
Everything you say is right, and yet I do not share your overall evaluation.
Maybe it comes down to different expectations. I do not look to Jim Butcher for gritty “realistic” fantasy. In fact, if he suddenly went all George RR Martin and started killing characters off I’d probably stop reading the series. I keep reading the Dresden files specifically *because* it’s light-weight action-fantasy where the heroes battle overwhelming odds and yet manage to win through at the end without dying too much. So, _Changes_ delivers pretty much exactly what I look for in a Dresden book.
(And, to be nitpicky, wrt Harry’s bargain for gaining power, it seems likely that *somebody* didn’t forgive him for it, given the ending…)
SPOILER: WARNING… Given the way Harry seemingly got shot. I vote for Ivy/theArchive and her bodyguard having a lot to do with it. That was the way the bodyguard once said he would take Harry out if necessary. It might be necessary for the balance of power Harry a wizard and not a mere mortal as Winter’s champion?
I’m OK with pulp novels to a point, but this was a little too much. I think it was related to the backstory/pacing problem– as long as the story moves fast enough, I don’t mind the pulpier elements, but when it slows down and gives me time to think about them, I can’t help noticing the problems and being annoyed.
The consequence harry mentioned about becoming winter knight was to him not to others, he think he would be forced to kill innocents or do some other unsavory acts in the course of his work for Mab. his friends might forgiven him for now but they will kill him without blinking twice if he goes in that path. and his novels are much better than the other urban fantasy fare they have excellent character development.