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 love the Fae.
I find the stories that involve them so fun, the Fae feel unpredictable and yet wholly consistent. I find it interesting that some of the High Court Fae have tremendous power, yet are also bound by some sort of metaphysical laws that forbids them from outright subjugating mankind.
Between their inability to lie, their inability to interfere with mortals directly (though Harry makes the analogy that they could drop you in the middle of a deadly forest in the Nevernever and technically they wouldn’t have killed you, the forest would have), and their obsession with bargains, they make interesting fradversaries to Dresden. They end up being like the White Court in my mind, having a sort of gray morality/amorality that makes them difficult to classify as monsters most of the time (though I’m sure Harry would disagree).
Now, let’s talk about some of the Fae.
Mab! What an entrance. As the series goes on, she feels a lot more like the “wicked faerie godmother” we’re told Lea was. It often feels like while she will help keep Harry alive, it’s just barely most of the time, and while it’s expedient to her. She exemplifies what I meant by the amorality of the Sidhe. She isn’t protecting Harry’s life because life itself in innately valuable, she’s protecting him because he’s still useful to her. Her aesthetic is also fantastic, “The Queen of Air and Darkness” and ruler of the winter court is a great mirror to the cold ruthlessness of her character.
And then there’s her daughter, Maeve. I think the initial books in the series suffer a bit from being a little too heavy on the pulp and Maeve at her worst exemplifies this. One could argue that we’re seeing the world through Harry’s filter, and his views of women are a…mixed bag. At her best though, she does feel like a young Mab. Ruthless and manipulative to the point of near insanity, until you remember the amorality of the Fae make this behaviour entirely consistent. Which, again, in my mind makes them a great set of characters. You’re able to have characters like Maeve who are almost cartoonishly evil at times, but it’s due to her nature, which keeps the world believable while still having wild characters.
While I do dig the Fae, the rest of the characters introduced in this book are pretty meh, except for the odd one that sticks around post-Summer Knight. Most of the Summer Court we meet (who are effectively the villains of this book) are unremarkable. Aurora and her entourage (which, aside, skip past cartoonishly evil and right into “leaving the hero alone in a room and assuming he died” levels of stupid. The whole scene where a guy rooting through the dead summer knight’s personal effects is actually Grum who was actually Lord Talos feels like a stretch. Ditto to Korrick as the unicorn. Anyway…) are underwhelming. Perhaps they’re tame in contrast to Maeve and Mab so they’re overshadowed when placed alongside them. Fix and Aurora end up growing into their roles in pretty rewarding ways, so that’s nice, but in the context of this book, they’re okay.
On the other side of the board we have the White Council. It’s nice to get some exposure to the White Council beyond the thug Morgan, and also helps colour in the world of the Butcher-verse more broadly. Generally the Council feels underwhelming and toothless compared to the Fae High Courts, but it’s possible Dresden as storyteller colours this interpretation. The Merlin exemplifies this; we’re told he’s super powerful but we almost never see it, kinda like the Council itself. It seems like bureaucracy most of the time (unless they’re meting out punishments for breaking the Laws).
They do offer a good check on Dresden’s power via the Laws, though. One of the recurring themes of good heroes (in my estimation) is that they have a code. The Laws are what separate Dresden from the monsters. It also adds to his character when he follows the Laws to the point of his own death, even though he is on the outs with the Council most of the time. It gives him a great excuse to flaunt the Laws should it suit him, but his integrity will not let him do it.
The Senior Council has a couple of notable exceptions of this toothlessness, namely Ebenezar McCoy. We don’t get a ton of insight into Ebenzar’s character this book but his importance certainly ramps up as the series goes on. It also helps us as the reader understand more of Harry’s views as his relationship with his mentor unfolds before us. Specifically, Harry’s view on the source of magic being “life itself” (and all the interesting problems the Blackstaff reveal causes in that department).
I’ve been talking about the characters and their development a lot because the plot of this book is kinda meh. Which is a shame, because, as I mentioned, I love the stories about the Fae. It feels like this plot could have been more interesting, but it had some of the same problems Fool Moon did; there was a little too much going on plot-wise for anything to stick. The idea that one of the scions of a house that controls a god-damn season has decided that Mutually Assured Destruction is a good idea has a lot of potential, but for whatever reason Butcher has this bad habit of layering in a couple extra plot-lines in the initial Dresden Files that muddy up the core concept.
For instance, there’s this whole sub-plot involving “the Tigress” who is some ghoul-assassin who feels unnecessary. In my review of Grave Peril I mention that you probably have a better book if you cut out the entire Kravos character - I think similarly you can cut out Tigress (and Ace for the ~10 pages of time he gets) and have a better story. In my previous review, my criticism of an overloaded plot is a problem for me because I’m trying to keep a bunch of fantasy-magic crap straight in my head. If I’m also trying to keep straight a lot of clues on the detective angle, it gets to be too much. Even though it ends up being a “magic” sub-plot (it’s a ghoul and a changeling trying to off Harry), they’re trying to cause mortal problems i.e. killing him with guns, and it’s not obvious most of the time we’re dealing with this sub-plot that it’s a magical problem.
The plot gets near the ridiculous with the Talos/Korrick reveals near the end of the book. I have a problem with universes where you can have 100% imitation. In this book, we have this long reveal chain of this unnamed brute character who was rooting around the previous Summer Knight’s effects, who “revealed” himself to be an ogre named Grum, who then reveals himself to actually be Talos of the Summer Court. It feels Scooby-Dooesque and in my mind can ruin a universe if you have characters who can appear as a perfect copy of another character, as you can get to these chains of fleshmask reveals that are absurd. I give this a minor pass because Talos isn’t imitating an existing character in Grum, he is instead wearing a perfect disguise that Dresden can’t pick up on when he later meets the true persona of Talos.
I think the last major element of this story is the introduction of Elaine. It felt a little obvious and clichéd when Harry and Bob would bandy back and forth about Elaine’s “death” in the fire but “oh they never found the body” and then woah wow she’s actually alive who would have thought?!?
That aside, Elaine and Harry is a bright spot in this book. The easy route in my mind is to bring her back as a love interest as Susan is now out of the picture and go with the trite summer love/old flame dichotomy that ends with “oh but we’re different people now but I’ll always love you X”. Elaine feels like her own person who has grown and made choices since that fateful day, and I enjoy that the romance is basically quashed right away. It shakes up the formula enough that I don’t know where this relationship will go which is exciting (granted it hasn’t materialized into anything thus-far but in the context of this book it feels like there is opportunity there).
Oh, and I have to call this out. The whole “chlorofiend” gag is great. High mark of this book in my mind.
The plant monster - No, wait. I couldn’t possibly refer to that thing as a “plant monster.” I’d be a laughstock.
later…
“What is it?” “Chlorofiend,” I said. “A what?” “Plant monster.” “Oh, right.”