Small Favor: Book 10 of the Dresden Files - Book Review

Step aside Harry Potter, the real badarse modern day wizard is back in one of his most entertaining (and brutal) adventures yet, and things aren’t going to end well for a whole bunch of people. 

Life is going fairly typically for Chicago’s only professional Wizard, Harry Dresden; he’s broke, overworked, and being attacked by every magical creature you can think of.  Soon enough Harry, Thomas, Murphy, Michael and the rest of the gang becomes embroiled in the plots of the fey Summer and Winter Courts, as well as the machinations of Nicodemus and his evil Denarians. Inevitably Harry gets ten shades of crap beaten out of him along the way, but never stops cracking wise and kicking a bit of tail himself.

Small Favor, the tenth book in the Dresden File series, revisits quite a bit of ground that has already been covered in the series. The fey Courts are being their usual, nasty selves; the Order of the Blackened Denarius returns; and the Knights of the Cross are once again major players (as are some other reoccurring characters).  Being this far along, having all these familiar factors in play again could have made this book feel derivative, as though author Jim Butcher was just treading water and reliving past successes.

Thankfully this is nowhere near being the case; Small Favor, despite featuring numerous reoccurring characters (and even some familiar situations), is nonetheless a very strong book; the story is actually somewhat darker than the average for this noir-esque series, but the typically witty sense of humour is still present in droves (Harry’s relationship with his brother is particularly amusing in this book), as are the intense and very well conceived action scenes.

One cannot stress enough just how phenomenal the mythos that Butcher has established in the Dresden Files is.  Wizards, faeries, vampires, and other supernatural creatures all feel as though they are a real and established part of an existing world, rather than feeling tacked on like they do in many modern fantasy stories.  The Fallen, in particular, make terrific villains, and are deep and interesting enough to sustain many books as the antagonists; the combination of intelligence, supernatural power, and very human emotions make the symbiotic fallen angel-human relationship very interesting.

Small Favor continues Jim Butcher’s superb record when it comes to characters, plot, and pacing.  The dialogue and first person narration are all top notch, combining humour, sharpness, and a depth of emotion rare in this sort of book.  This is a slightly darker, perhaps more mature look into the depths of the Dresden universe, but still keeps alive all the things that made this series so unique and loved in the first place. 

One of the best in the series, and well worth your time and money.

   

I rate Small Favor: Book 10 of The Dresden Files: 5/5

     

- Tim Sweeney