annathepiper | Entries tagged with dresden files

Side Jobs is perhaps not absolutely critical reading for a fan of Jim Butcher and the Dresden Files. Most of the stories herein are ones which were previously published in various other anthologies, with the shining exception of Aftermath, the novella that takes place immediately after the novel Changes–and which was the first thing I’d ever seen Mr. Butcher write from a female point of view, at least in the Dresden Files. For that alone, and for an opportunity to see Murphy react to the way that novel ended, I was myself quite happy to snap this one up.

Fortunately, I hadn’t actually read most of these stories before, so the collection was primarily new to me. And there’s definitely some good stuff in here, taking place over quite a wide range of the Dresden timeline. Aside from Aftermath, my favorites were “Last Call” and “Love Hurts”, just because of fun mileage with McAnally’s, and again with Murphy. I certainly squeed quite a bit for the “Love Hurts” story in particular. I’d already read Warrior from the Mean Streets anthology, but that one’s a good solid story as well. And if you want to go way, way back in Harry’s timeline, “Restoration of Faith” takes place before Storm Front; that one’s available to read for free on Jim’s site, but it was good to see it here, too, and good to see the collection ranging from very early Harry to (as of the time of this collection’s release) current Harry.

Critical? No. But definitely fun, and if you’re like me–a big fan of Jim’s work but not one who normally reads anthologies or collections–you should go ahead and pick this up. But for the love of all that’s holy, do not read Aftermath unless you’ve already read Changes. Because oh my yes the spoilers. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

So if like me you were anxiously awaiting the release of jimbutcher‘s Ghost Story, and promptly devoured it the moment you got your mitts on it with its release this week, come on back behind the fold for some spoilery discussion!

This isn’t a proper review post–I’m behind enough on my reviews that the proper review post will be a while–but I wanted to go ahead and get this up so that it’d be timely! So hit me with your discussion thoughts, y’all!

But if you haven’t read Ghost Story or any Dresden at all, for the love of god, stand back and stay out of the comments. For here be spoilers OH MY YES.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

But if you haven’t read Ghost Story or any Dresden at all, for the love of god, stand back and stay out of the comments. For here be spoilers OH MY YES.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

It seems Fictionwise is still capable of grabbing my attention, even if a lot of their inventory vanished once the agency model of ebook pricing took effect this past April. This weekend, though, they’re having a big ol’ 50 percent off sale, in effect through Sunday. (Use the coupon ‘spooky2010′.)

Turns out several of the titles on my ebook wishlist were still in their database, so I’ve nabbed ‘em. To wit:

A Far and Deadly Cry, by Teri Holbrook. Mystery, re-buy to replace previously owned print copy.
Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
Measuring the World, by Daniel Kehlmann. General fiction, was recommended by janne.
Blue Moon, by Cindy Lynn Speer. Ebook re-buy of a print copy I already own, since the print copy is large and unwieldy and I can read the ebook better.
Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe and Askana, by Tee Morris & Lisa Lee. Another ebook re-buy of a print copy I still own, again because large and unwieldy print book I don’t want to carry around.
Blood Engines, by T.A. Pratt. Actual purchase of a free PDF I’d gotten before from when Tor.com came online; decided to go ahead and buy this copy since the PDF is 5 MB in size.
Mob Rules, by Cameron Haley. Urban fantasy, a recent release from Luna.
The Mysteries, by Lisa Tuttle. Fantasy. Picked it up due to a review by Jo Walton on Tor.com.
Spellbent, by Lucy A. Snyder. Urban fantasy. Picked up because of her participation in the CoyoteCon panels run by Drollerie Press earlier this year!
Total Oblivion, More or Less: A Novel, by Alan DeNiro. This one got a good amount of buzz a while back so I’m finally checking it out.
The Tomb of Zeus, by Barbara Cleverly. Re-buy of a book I’d previously owned. Mystery.
Deadly Slipper, by Michelle Wan. Mystery.
Black and White, by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. Because SUPERHEROES, and because I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while now!

And meanwhile, because it was Absolutely Necessary, I picked up jimbutcher‘s shiny new Dresden Files anthology, Side Jobs, from Barnes and Noble! I bought it in both ebook and hardback, actually–ebook for me, and hardback to give as a present to kathrynt, who will need it to occupy herself before her baby boy makes his arrival in the world Any Day Now, and hopefully as she’s resting after as well. So I get to count that one twice! :D

And OH OH OH I must also add this, since it showed up in my mailbox today: Writing Out the Notes, the new book by Bob Hallett, is another acquisition! That would be the Bob Hallett of my very own beloved Great Big Sea, who’s written himself a combination memoir and musical portrait of St. John’s. I’m quite looking forward to reading it, as Mr. Hallett’s always been the most thoughtful and introspective of the B’ys, based on what they’ve all posted in their various posts on their site.

Grand total for the year: 334!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I am a diehard Dresden Files fan, and with each successive book, I’ve gone in expecting to be thoroughly entertained. This time around I was not.

I was absolutely mindblown.

ETA: Putting a cut tag in here because while I’m not revealing anything that isn’t revealed on Jim’s own site in the blurb for the novel or the preview chapter he posted, if you want to remain absolutely spoiler-free, you’ll want to skip this review post.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

So I just finished jimbutcher’s latest Dresden Files novel, Changes, and I have one thing to say: AUGH! *^_^*;;

This here is not a proper review post; it’s a spoiler-laden discussion thread! If you’ve also read the book and you want to talk about it, drop a comment! Gush or wail or both to your heart’s content! And needless to say, if you haven’t read it yet, stay far, far, far away from the comments until you do. You’ll thank us later.

My own reactions behind the cut!

And I totally need to get me a proper book!Harry icon, although tv!Harry will do for this purpose.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

... and I just bet I know who the traitor is. Because

jimbutcher is like that AUGH.

( Possible spoilers back here! No REALLY )

ETA: Okay, so I wasn't entirely off. Har!

( Confirmed spoilers back here! )

Went and had another appointment with my endoc today and told him a number of things. One, about the BFFN. Two, that I thought that having me on the T3 as well as the T4 was a good idea. Three, I'd felt fabulous initially after going on the T3 and while in Japan, but that when we got back and the weather got colder, I started feeling more sluggish. Four, that as a result of the BFFN I was a lot stressier than usual. Five, that I'd ditched my birth control after my cancer diagnosis.

All of which amounted to his rearranging my prescriptions again. I've been bumped down to 125mcg of T4 and bumped up to 10mcg of T3. And, he wrote me the T4 prescription for the generic version this time rather than Synthroid, which I haven't ever had before. Ten bucks cheaper doesn't suck, though I don't know if there'll be any actual physiological difference taking generic T4. We'll see what happens when I start the new dosages tomorrow. If my head explodes, y'all will know what happened.

Meanwhile, I have acquired the second half of season 3 of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, thanks to a fortuitously timed 15-percent-off Barnes and Noble coupon arriving in the mail. Muahaha. I am well armed now for recovery days next week. And when I run out of Voyage, I've got the Dresden DVDs

gamera_spinning so kindly sent me, as well as some Norwegian ones from

ravyngyngvar.

Tomorrow we're probably going to go see the new Queen Elizabeth movie, and on Sunday, there will be Jam!

sutures1 will be joining us, so we'll have five people instead of four. If anybody wants to see my five and raise me, better sing out so I'll know how much pie we need. ^_^

And last but not least, I am within 3-4K of finishing Queen of Souls. I may even get it done before Surgery Day. Go me! That'll leave November for a half-Nano attempt on my part, and ideally also following up with Baen on the status of Faerie Blood and getting Lament of the Dove back out the door where it belongs.

Miles since the 22nd: 10.9
Miles out of Hobbiton: 2433.9
Miles out of Isengard: 640.9
Miles to Minas Tirith: 145.1

First of all to

gamera_spinning: I got the Amazon package. Thank you very much for sending some Harry Dresden into my mailbox. That was very, very kind of you.

Secondly, as a general PSA to the GBS fans on my Friends list who are not already listening on

greatbigsea:

turple_purtle whipped up a big shiny batch of icons featuring our B'ys, all yoinked off the concert footage and the videos from Courage & Patience & Grit. You can go ogle the Newfoundlander goodness here! As you might guess, I yoinked quite a few of them. And now I am faced with the delightful dilemma of whether to drop the axe on several of my current less-used icons, or to just say ctrl-alt-fuckit and pony up for the extra icon slots. Regardless, those icons brought a much-needed smile to my face. I thanked

turple_purtle over on the icon post, but I'll say it here, too.

Thirdly, although I've already said it to their faces, I must express some appreciation for my chiropractor and the staffers at her clinic. They sent me flowers; I came home last night to find them.

Fourth, a thank you to

aerialscribe not only for recommending The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but also being very patient with me about getting my story edited.

And last but not least, continued thanks to all of you who have been following my BFFN posts. Even if you're not commenting, it helps me just to know you guys are out there thinking of me. It's very much appreciated. Thanks to each and every one of you. <3

Now I'd better go work on that story!

Current Mood: grateful

risu is a goddess. Since she wasn't able to get prezzies for us over the holidays, and right now she can, she's been buying things for the household! I came home tonight to find a copy of the shiny new Tolkien release The Children of Hurin waiting for me, and, and!, the super-shiny deluxe 3-CD Complete Recordings edition of the Two Towers soundtrack!

I shall be enjoying these immensely. I have already hugged her and thanked her in person, but I will put out a big ol' THANK YOU here as well. With the awful events earlier this week, on which I have little to say that hasn't already been said eloquently in other venues, I needed this pick-me-up quite a bit.

Meanwhile, also in the Thankful Thursday things, some things I'm happy for in no particular order:

The weather is delightful right now.
I'm just about over the Bug From Hell--in fact, I've only got a bit of a lingering cough, and I slept better last night than I have in days.
I get to downshift from three chiro visits a week to two, and my back is feeling better than it has in literally years.
With the return of my brain, the writing is improving--or at least right now, the editing, since I'm editing the hell out of the third draft of Lament of the Dove. Closing in on the halfway point with that, so yay!
Work has been peaceful and quiet for the last couple of weeks, which has been a welcome relief from the Crazy earlier in the year. Things are about to ramp up again, but I'm enjoying the laid-back state while it lasts.
We have a new contractor who's working out well.
I haven't been posting about it the last couple of weeks, but I've really liked the last several episodes of The Dresden Files. Also, I finally got around to listening to the last Butcher Block podcast, and noted with surprise that the show's actually been rating higher than BSG! Since BSG has been renewed for a fourth season, this bodes well for our chances of a Dresden Season 2. Fingers crossed.
The last episode of Blood Ties also was quite surprising, and got to a point that I hadn't expected for a while yet. It'll be real interesting to see how that two-parter gets resolved this weekend.
There was also a new Great Big Sea podcast, continuing the vein of Séan and Bob commenting on bands who have opened for them. The highlights of this were their comments on Leahy, who I've been eying anyway since they've been showing up on my Amazon Recommendations, and their comments on La Bottine Souriante!
Robin McKinley has a new book coming out this year!

And just to get caught up on the exercise numbers, as long as I'm all a-squee about the Tolkien:

Miles since the 2nd: 42.3
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1922.7
Miles out of Isengard: 129.7
Miles to Minas Tirith: 656.3

Current Mood: grateful

Hrmmm. Picoreview: not as good as I was expecting, and yet, I find myself really curious about what the longer version of this episode was like. I was definitely hampered going through it since I'm very familiar with the book version of this plot--in fact, I'd listened to my audio copy only a few months ago, so it's still fairly fresh in my memory.

In general it came together... kind of roughly. It played for me very much like a one-hour version of a plot that really should have been allowed to have two hours. I would have really liked to see this, I think, as a season closer. This way, it felt kind of crammed.

( Spoilers building on the wind... )

Yes! A pretty decent episode here, with some good creep value and, finally, some more stuff that feels wonderfully familiar to fans of book!Harry!

( Booooo! EVIL HAND SPOILERS! )

Awright--now I begin to feel like the series is starting to get its feet under it. More characters from the books brought on camera, and the first of what will hopefully be intriguing hints of things to come with the state of politics between the High Council of wizards and the Courts of the vampires. Some more divergences from the books, but this time around, for me at least, that played out just fine.

( Spoilers in the warehouse back here... )

For the

jimbutcher fans on my Friends list, especially the local ones: Jim is going on tour to do signings for the latest Dresden novel, White Night. Local people, he's going to be at the University Bookstore on April 3rd! This may in fact warrant me buying my first Dresden hardback!

In science news, I have found myself intrigued by the reports of chimpanzees being observed using spears to hunt prey in Senegal, as well as other research pertaining to how they may have used hammers up to 4,300 years ago. Part of me finds this all incredibly cool, and wants to cheer the chimps on and welcome them to the society of tool-using mammals. The rest of me (the Elfquest fangirl part, specifically), having seen photos of the critters they've been observed hunting, wants to go, "But, but, treewees!" and sniff.

In local news, apparently Starbucks is looking for its lost soul. And all I can think is, they could always do what Spike did.

I have been entertained by reading John Scalzi's blog, accessible to LJ users via

scalzifeed, and have finally picked up a copy of his book Old Man's War. I'm not normally into military SF, but I figure what the hey, I've been reading Patrick O'Brian, not to mention

naominovik, so it's not entirely out of left feed for me. And speaking of Patrick O'Brian, I am currently in the middle of reading the seventh Aubrey-Maturin, The Surgeon's Mate; further remarks on this will be forthcoming.

Last but not least,

solarbird went downtown today on a quest to buy stuff: we got her a new backpack and new shoes at REI. We are amused that her shoes are the exact same shoes as mine, both in color and in size. We dig the Merrells, but unfortunately REI carries them in just one color. So we'll have to remember that her shoes are the ones that look newer, or else mark them with Sharpies or something.

It turned out that Seattle was a very small town today, as we ran into both my uberboss and Dara's Japanese tutor. And it must also be observed that the people opening up the new LUSH store in Westlake are tempting tantalizing bastards, as the store looks more or less ready to open but still has paper up on all its windows. But some of the paper had come down, so you could see all the LUSH-y goodness inside and how there were a couple people in there apparently doing employee training or something. And the lovely LUSH-y scents were wafting right out into the shopping area, smacking us right in the face and insisting that we come in and purchase things. Except we couldn't, because they WEREN'T OPEN YET. Dara pawed at the door and meowed piteously. It didn't help. Tempting tantalizing bastards.

Anyway, it has been a Good Day, and I hope the same has applied for you all.

Miles since the 18th: 16.7
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1790.5
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 481.5
Miles to Isengard: 2.5

Current Mood: content

Darn, it looks like the next Dresden episode that's going to air will not in fact be "Storm Front"--it'll be "Bad Blood", according to its skiffy channel page. Poking around a little, I found this bit of schedule posted up on the forums on jim-butcher.com:

Date         Time ET/PT    Episode Title
02/25/2007   09:00 PM    BAD BLOOD   
03/04/2007   09:00 PM    SOUL BENEFICIARY   
03/11/2007   09:00 PM    WALLS   
03/18/2007   09:00 PM    STORM FRONT   
03/25/2007   09:00 PM    THE OTHER DICK

There were a lot of rerun showings listed in the schedule as well--it's all over the place on the Sci-Fi channel schedule, so if you miss the actual airtime on Sunday nights, wait around a bit and it'll definitely show up again. I'm a little bummed that "Storm Front" is going to take longer to get to us, but hopefully this'll mean that that story will be used to set more of a story-arc kind of tone. We'll have to see!

Okay, now we're talking. Several good things to say about this episode, and while there were still a few nitpicks, nothing too severe. A couple of things finally happened to make me go "yes, cool, this is what Harry is supposed to be doing"--and plus, we got to see another character from the books come on camera, and the way they've implemented him promises to be cool.

Plus? Not half-bad plot either.

( Spoilers in the circle back here... )

Now that the Dresden Files TV series has started up, it was with particular glee that I dived into the latest of the Dresden Files paperbacks to be released--Proven Guilty, which is Book Eight of the series. Reading it, I was quite struck by several ideas I'd gotten into my head about how Harry is and how he does things, things that didn't actually match what's in the books--and things which, having read them in Jim's actual words, make me feel honorbound to retract some of my griping about the last TV episode.

For example--the thing with Harry and a gun, which had felt so wrong to me watching "Hair of the Dog"? Retracted. Hugely retracted. 'Cause in Proven Guilty, Harry's totally toting around a .44. I stand quite corrected. ;)

Between watching the show, reading Jim's words, and listening to the episodes of the Butcher Block podcast, I was also struck with one of the concepts brought up during the podcast episodes--which is to say that while the cosmetic details between books and show may be noticeably different, in the opinion of the podcast host at any rate the essential character of the books remains intact in the show. Now that I've had a fresh new dose of Mr. Butcher's words, I find myself solidly on board with that.

But lest this post wind up being more about the TV show than about the books, let me note that as always, the latest installment of the book series delivers a highly enjoyable read. This time around we get treated with a huge heaping helping of pop culture references (especially in regards to horror movies), Jim demonstrating that he's very familiar indeed with how fandom conventions work, some followup on several loose ends from previous novels, some advancement on the relationship front with Harry (all sorts of relationships, familial and romantic and friendship), some very interesting changes in Harry's overall status as a wizard, and some large hints dropped about Big Evil Things to Come. It didn't have the huge roll-on-the-floor-laughing beautiful moment in the big climax that the previous book did, but there was definitely a great deal to mull over, and a great deal to look forward to with the next installment!

If you haven't started the series yet, this is totally, totally not the place to start. If you have, and haven't gotten around to this one yet, read Proven Guilty as soon as possible. Lots of fun awaits! Four stars.

Current Mood: satisfied

Episode #3 of The Dresden Files brings werewolves into the picture and another pretty decent and watchable plot. But sorry, folks, this still ain't Harry Dresden we're watching here.

( And here's why... )

ETA 6:10pm: I have since rethought my position a little, thanks to several good comments on this thread as well as listening to the various episodes of the Butcher Block podcast. Thanks to all who have replied, and thanks to

gamera_spinning for the last nudge I got about the podcast!

And now, to make up for last weekend, I'd like to post about some things that don't suck.

I have once more begun to try to cut down on my soda. I am trying not to get too ambitious about the goal here or to make long-term plans, since my luck with that lately has been kind of sketchy, but for the last two days at least I've limited myself to two cans of soda a day. At the same time, I'm trying to take myself off the Trazodone since I have reason to believe it's messing with me, and I've stayed off that for the last two days too. So far I have noticed an immediate lessening of the general background noise of tension I've had in my system for a while. This is a very good thing indeed. And I need to remember this feeling for the next time I start getting way too interested in the diet Dew.

I got a surprise letter from the College of Veterinary Medicine at WSU yesterday, informing me that Ravenna Animal Hospital had made a donation to them because of Polly. And Polly has been added to the list of pet names here. That was an incredibly sweet gesture of the vet, and made me feel rather misty.

A story on our site made me feel kind of misty, too. A couple of days ago we'd run this article about how lack of dental care is leaving the poor in agony, and as part of that article a picture had been run of a guy who was sobbing in the dental office since his blood pressure was too high for them to give him anesthetic. Apparently this prompted an outpouring of offers to help from Times readers to get this guy the dental care he needs. That really made me go "awww". Sometimes, every so often, people don't suck.

As y'all have seen over the last week, I've been more aggressively reading. Which has meant that I haven't listened to stuff on my iPod as much, and that means I have yet to actually listen to the new podcast from Great Big Sea! *blush* I really must correct this little problem this weekend. I may lose my GBS fan cred if I don't. ;)

What I have been listening to, though, is Carbon Leaf. I am seriously grooving on Ether-Electrified Porch Music. I may even like it better than Echo Echo; so far every single track on it is striking me as potential repeat-play material, which puts it out ahead of Echo Echo. This will require a few more plays to give it a proper judging. And I've been slurping up the classical music compilations I've got, too; I have found that they seem to unwind me on a fundamental level. The same level that's been feeling quite good with the hard cut of caffeine over the last two days, in fact.

TV-wise, although I have not yet posted an in-depth post about it, I did like the second episode of the Dresden Files. I don't think I'll do in-depth posting about it this weekend just because I want to focus on getting some writing and editing done, but I did want to at least note that yeah, the episode was good. I liked it a little better than the premiere; it felt more like a Harry story to me.

Movie-wise, courtesy of

boxer_ferret I hear tell that Russell Crowe has been signed in a new take on the Robin Hood story--playing the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a good guy, even, investigating a string of murders for which Robin Hood is the suspect. This should be entertaining. And this weekend I hope to meet up with

mamishka and go see The Painted Veil, which promises to be full of fun socialness and English-Patient-y romantic angst with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

Last but definitely not least, I'm slowly closing in on the five-month mark with Faerie Blood in the e-slush pile at Baen. And trying to remind myself that this doesn't mean much, since their turnaround time is like 9-12 months... but still. It feels satisfying that they haven't told me no quite yet.

Miles from 1/20 up to today: 31.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1730.4
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 421.4
Miles to Isengard: 62.6

Current Mood: good

Here we go with the series I've been waiting for for months now. Picoreview: It didn't suck. Part of this reaction was very likely me having a big "buh huh WHAT wait a minute" reaction to a lot of things that were changed from the books; part of it may be because it's the first show of a shiny new series and needs to get its feet really under it. However, I did definitely like it and will be coming back for more!

And oh yes, I've scarfed this icon from

monkeyscorpion!

( Who the hell are you? I the hell am Harry... )

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Anna the Piper

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Entries tagged with dresden files

Book Log #26: Side Jobs, by Jim Butcher

Ghost Story/Dresden Files spoiler thread!

Ghost Story/Dresden Files spoiler thread!

Fictionwise ain’t quite dead to me yet

Book Log #30: Changes, by Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher is a cliffhanger-writing BASTARD

180 pages in on Turn Coat now...

A general catchup type thing

And now, some public thank yous

It must be said

Dresden Files 1.08: "Storm Front"

Dresden Files 1.07: "Walls"

Dresden Files 1.05: "Bad Blood"

Saturday update

Dresden Files PSA

Dresden Files 1.04: "Rules of Engagement"

2007 Book Log #9: Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher

Dresden Files 1.03: "Hair of the Dog"

Getting caught up on stuff

Dresden Files 1.01: "Birds of a Feather"

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May 2025

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