Heads up: I don’t tag spoilers. I often write these reviews with foreknowledge of the series, and will reference future events without warning. If you don’t want to be spoiled, turn back now.
I think my favourite part of the Dresden files is being able to empathize with Harry: constantly out of his depth in a crazy world full of wonder and danger. Grave Peril really starts pulling in the wider Butcherverse of magical entities. Up until this point we’ve dealt with “vanilla humans” using (and abusing) magic with minimal intervention from the denizens of the Nevernever. Grave Peril feels like this is our first foray into a “proper” Dresden Files novel, where we’re accompanying Harry as he battles forces way out of his depth on the wizard version of a shoestring budget.
Although it’s what I would call the first proper Dresden Files novel, its one of the weakest in the category. I learned that the first three novels were written as a sort of “pack”, and that there was a bit of a gap between Butcher writing this book and the next one (Summer Knight). I think this explains two of my major problems with this book: herrings and hormones.
My main gripe with Grave Peril is that the plot has way too many baits. I’ll start by acknowledging that a mystery novel needs some mystery by definition. I think the problems come in when Butcher applies the mystery to his particular flavour of fantasy. Future novels do a better job of weaving the investigative persona of Dresden with the wizard persona by making the fantasy elements much more straight-forward and leaving the mystery to the vanilla humans.
The reader is already trying to grapple with the metaphysics of Butcher’s fantasy, and I think it detracts from the enjoyment of the story if we’re trying to sort through the “real” fantasy facts we have from the “fake” fantasy facts. The biggest offender here is Dresden trying to figure who (or what) The Nightmare is.
I don’t know how Ghosts work.
I don’t know how Black Magic works.
I don’t know how Demons work.
Even though this was my second time through this book, and I more or less remember the gist of the twists, I still had a hard time following the current status of what the Nightmare was throughout the story. Couple this with the whole “spectral thorns” problem that Dresden was also trying to untangle, and the reader ends up totally overwhelmed with the fantasy side of the plot. If all that isn’t enough, I don’t even think that the Nightmare/spectral thorns is the main event from this book.
Bianca’s ball is.
Which I think underscores my problem with this books’ plot. You can cut all the Nightmare material out and you might have a better book: no Lydia (remember her? yeah, me neither), no Kravos, no Nightmare. Considering that, at the end of the day, there’s this implication the Mavra had somehow given Kravos some knowledge/power, in my edit you cut Kravos out and you have the Nightmare be Mavra or some other lesser member of the Black Court. At least that way you can either spend more time establishing the Black Court’s particular flavour of villainy or spend more time with the latest additions to Dresden’s Army.
Actually, let’s talk about those additions.
Michael! I find Michael such a great foil to Harry in the way they execute on a similar mission. Both parties are out to protect humanity from all the ghoulies that would otherwise waylay us, but I find it so fun to contrast their approaches. The most obvious being where they draw their power from.
Michael makes it clear pretty quick that he does not approve of Harry’s more pagan-sourced arcane abilities. What I love about this comparison is that it gives Butcher an opportunity to explore Harry’s own stance on where his magic comes from, and Harry’s take on religion. Harry has this personal relationship with “his magic”, and often talks about its power coming from “life itself”. It sets up some interesting dilemmas with Harry, in particular when it comes to killing people with magic.
One of the other contrasts between the two is how they prepare for battle. It’s more pronounced in later books, but Michael has this put-together aesthetic with his full suit of knights armour, his templar cloak, and Amoracchius. Meanwhile, Harry is performing rituals with side-walk chalk and brewing potions with Tequila. I mentioned this before, but I think a lot of the charm of Dresden is how scrappy he is. The typical “wizard” from fantasy novels is about a billion years old and has spell components like “eye of newt”, but Dresden is out there fighting the forces of evil with Coke. I love the texture it brings to the world and makes it feel so much closer to our own. As awesome as Middle-Earth is, it’s hard for me identify strongly with the setting because it’s so alien. The humour and tangibility of Dresden’s arsenal draws me into the series.
The other major player we meet this go around is Thomas. It isn’t obvious that he’s going to be important but I find his relationship with Harry is another interesting juxtaposition. Thomas is this aloof playboy with way more money than he knows what to do with. Harry meanwhile is scraping by, constantly on guard against danger and seemingly always strung out to his absolute limits. Thomas is sort of breezing through his life with no real direction (or purpose), while Harry fights for every minute, hell-bound on walking this path he has set out for himself as a defender of humanity, and it makes him seem so much richer in the important ways when put beside Thomas’ vapid existence.
Not to mention Thomas is a vampire.
To risk repeating myself too much, I love that the “bad guys” have all these material advantages. It makes Dresden’s victories so much more triumphant. It highlights Dresden’s character when we see someone with all these resources available to them (Thomas is physically formidable as well) squander their life, highlighting how heroic Dresden is using such meagre means to achieve his goals.
Some rapid fire thoughts on the other characters we meet:
Lea feels like she gets a bad rap for reasons that are not the most obvious to me. As the books go on we get a clearer picture of how malevolent the faeries can be, but in her introduction, she’s painted as this crazy villain for no real reason. In fact, considering some of the real freak-shows we end up meeting from Faerie, Lea is pretty decent by comparison.
Ferrovax is so interesting. I’m sad we don’t get more from him until Peace Talks, and even then it isn’t much. Perhaps Butcher feels like Dragons are a little hackneyed at this point and didn’t want to follow that particular thread. Oh well.
Lydia turns in to such a nothing burger. At the beginning of this book she seems to have so much going on, she can sort of see the future, is somehow tied to this Demon, gets tangled up with the Red Court and then…leaves forever. Again, knowing now that the first three novels were written in a pack, I figure Butcher re-evaluated some of his characters after this first stint and decided they were no longer interesting/necessary.
Some closing thoughts: Of the first three novels (if we consider them a pack), I think this one is the strongest, and it starts giving shape to what the series will become. At the same time, it still suffers a bit from some of the gripes I personally have problems with in the first couple Dresden Files. There’s a little too much going on most of the time, and some of the narrative can feel a little juvenile and hormonally-charged when it comes to female characters.
At the same time, it has a great instalment of the Dresden Files underneath that. We kick off the war between the Red Court and White Council, which carries us all the way to Changes and beyond with some permanent repercussions to Dresden and his loved ones. We meet Michael and Thomas, two great contrasting characters to Dresden that will show up again and again and help colour who Dresden is.
To top it off, I’ll admit I’m totally a sucker for love, and the tragic relationship between Harry and Susan is one of the highlights of the series to me.
“You are mad…You would flirt with chaos, destruction - with war. For the sake of this one wounded soul?” “For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life…The way I see it, there’s nothing else worth fighting a war for.”