With a great sense of sanctification, I
returned Turn Coat, the 11th The Dresden Files
novel, back on my bookshelf. The series' author, Jim Butcher, is
indisputably, one of the proficient sci-fi/fantasy writers of our
time. Yet, despite Jim Butcher's quality writing, I always
thought The Dresden Files series lacks a touch of originality,
and it falls a step short from being a truly wondrous fantasy
masterpiece. After reading the first 10 novels, I digressed the
hindrance lies in Jim Butcher's use of recycled plot devices in his
books. Finally, with Turn Coat, Jim Butcher broke the mould
and is offering his readers something different and refreshing.
Synopsis:
A lot of people have enemies. This is
especially true for Chicago's professional wizard, Harry Dresden.
Harry is a wizard working as a paranormal investigator. He goes out
night after night, pouncing at supernatural baddies lurking in
Chicago's dark alleys. This also means, Harry tends to meddle in
affairs too big for him. In his short PI career, Harry collected more
than a handful of dangerous enemies. However, none of Harry's enemies
are as lethal as Donald Morgan, a warden in the society of
wizard that Harry belongs to.
For more than a decade, Donald Morgan
discriminated against Harry with extreme prejudice. The reason? Harry
has a troubled past, and most members of the wizard order consider
Harry as a wild card, someone who can turn rogue in a nick of time.
No other wizard is more suspicious about Harry's allegiance than
Morgan, who, in the past, has sought Harry's death on numerous
occasions.
Yet, life often brings unexpected
tidings. On a quiet night, when Harry sat in the comfort of his home,
someone knocked on his door. Harry opened the door, and beheld a most
strange sight; in the door way, stood Donald Morgan in a pool of his
own blood. What came next shocked Harry even more. Morgan opened his
mouth and pleaded for Harry's help. Now, that is paranormal!
Turned out, someone killed a senior
member of the wizard council and framed Morgan as the murderer. The
entire wizard order is after Morgan, and he sustained serious
injuries during his escape. Morgan needs someone to help clearing his
name, and Harry happens to be his best option. Why? Harry tends to
back underdogs.
Harry took the case and promised to
clear Morgan's name. With a solid quarterstaff in hand and a trusty
black leather duster draping across his shoulders, Harry set out to uncover the
turncoat in the wizard's council. But this time, Harry needs to be
careful. A single mistake could ruin not only Morgan's innocent name,
but also bring death upon Harry's friends and himself.
My thoughts on this book:
The Dresden Files series is
supposed to be detective fictions set an urban fantasy world.
However, as this series went on, Harry's adventures began to follow a
formulaic structure, and every installment began to resemble TV
episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Granted, Jim Butcher is
a proficient writer, but good prose does not automatically warrant a
good book. Good prose won't help alleviating the sense of boredom and
staleness, if a story is repetitive and predictable.
Thankfully, things changed in Turn Coat.
In Turn Coat, Jim Butcher is
finally letting his character, Harry Dresden, doing what he does
best. That is, being a detective. Turn Coat packs plenty of
mysteries, suspense, and detective works into its story. In doing so,
Jim Butcher not only returned the series back to its root, but he
also injected fresh air into the series. Gone are the repetitive,
predictable fight scenes that dominated the previous novels. Instead,
in Turn Coat, Jim Butcher build his story on a murder case,
then cloaking the identity of the killer behind a shadow of mystery.
A mystery that kept the readers guessing until the very end. (Having
said this, I worked out the identity of the killer about 2/3 into the
book, but this does not detract the refreshing feeling that Turncoat
introduced to the series)
In other words, Turn Coat's story
is actually interesting and fun to read. This book grips its readers
with an intriguing story. In this story, the characters sustain real
hurts, then go on to fight another day carrying the scars with them.
In this sense, the story of Turn Coat feels like it has some
real character development, i.e. things happened, and people change. I
like the character development in this novel, it is very well
written. Furthermore, for the first time since reading Dead Beat,
I am itching for the next installment of Harry's adventure.
Until the next time, happy reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment