Fofo’s #CBR4 Review #37: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
Target: Jim Butcher’s Ghost Story (Dresden Files #13)
Profile: Modern Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
I have to give this to Jim Butcher: he knows how to drag a series past its expiration date. Changes, book twelve in this somewhat mammoth sequence, took some major risks and really shook up the Dresden formula. And ended with a hell of a cliffhanger. It was/is such a big cliffhanger that I can’t actually talk about the plot of Ghost Story at all without spoiling everything. So where does Butcher take this embarrassment of storytelling riches? Straight back into the ground. Or do I mean grind?
Butcher had such a great opportunity to do something different with Ghost Story. The protagonist had been shoved conveniently off camera, and at just the perfect pivotal moment that his absence would actually have a major impact on the shape of the supernatural world. The status quo had been shattered, with all the nice power vacuum implications therein. And the supporting cast had really come into their own, putting up a sizable fight with the big bad at the end of Changes, even without Harry’s help. The setting, the book title, even the metaplot was begging for a one off novel that could focus on the people who are normally sidelined to Harry’s megalomaniacal hero complex. It could have been soooooo good!
