Book: Changes

[nonionay]

Way back when, I started reading Changes, one of the Harry Dresden books. The first chapter reminded me of all the things that bug me about Dresden that overwhelm the good that I shoved it back on the shelf in a fit of fury. Now I've finally read it, and am over my initial fury. My point still stands about the things that bug me about Harry, but I'm not giving up on the series. I'm also reading Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, which are also about a snarky badass magic-doing Mary Sue, and I'm really seeing the contrast in how the two series are written.
One, Brust throws a whole lot of kitchen utensils into each of his books, but not the whole damned sink. In Changes, at one point, I thought Butcher was actually trying to give everyone who'd been in every single one of the last eleven book a cameo, and I started checking off who we hadn't seen yet. But maybe two or three out of a billion characters were left out, leaving me seriously disappointed.

Two, Vlad actually changes. He'll build up a life, watch as life changes through things both in and out of his control, screws up, makes hard choices and has to leave entire relationships behind. His character arc is smooth and realistic, even as he is an entertaining wish-fulfillment device. As I said in my initial rant, Harry just gets characterization in the form of roles and powers lumpily stuck onto him. He's like that crazy hoarding lady in Labyrinth. However, in Changes, it seems like Butcher may be trying to reboot the character and start over from a clean slate. I am interested to see what happens next.

Comments

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I really think Changes and Ghost Story are serving as a soft re-boot for the series. It had gotten way out of hand, and there's no way the arc it was on could have been sustainable through as many books as Butcher claimed to have planned. Or at least I hope that's what he's doing. After the end of Ghost Story, there's still a lot that's up in the air, but I think things have been shaken up enough that he's got plenty of room and hooks to get things going on a more even keel.

To my mind, at least, he did a somewhat better job managing Character Arcs in the Codex Alera, and I hope that he's going to be making use of what he learned over there to help fill out the Dresden Files.

We'll see.