Cold Days
5 out of 5 Winter Stars
"The fun begins when the games end, my Knight."
HARRY DRESDEN LIVES!!! And what a comeback! Cold Days is a complete game-changer in The Dresden Files series. Changes and Ghost Story may have felt like the world was turning upside down, but Cold Days takes the cake in this regard. Harry's life will literally never be the same. How can it be, when he's working for the Queen of Air and Darkness, Monarch of the Winter Court of Sidhe, Mab herself? Harry is facing some dangerous situations with even more dangerous decisions, not to mention the battle against the Winter mantle. It's quite a bumpy ride during this next installment of The Dresden Files.
"Bad things kept happening to me. It was high fucking time I started happening to them."
Plot-Line:
Cold Days picks up where Ghost Story left off: Harry's in Arctis Tor and healing from his gunshot wound. And Mab's got some very unique ideas regarding his physical therapy. Nothing like 77 attempted murders in 77 days to get you back on your feet. And boy does Mab have quite the mission for Harry once he's all healed up. Time to pull of the impossible, Harry, and kill an immortal. Yeah, you read that right. Mab wants Maeve dead, and to make matters even worse, Harry's got to deal with the dark, primal urges of the Winter mantle while also learning some seriously scary information and stop a growing threat that could take out the whole Midwest. Not to mention that the enemy is playing with some really dangerous, time-paradox weaponry. So, just an average day for our friendly, back-from-the-dead wizard.
"Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Notable Parts:
Lots of new information given out in Cold Days. Not only about the individual books in this series, in tying everything together from book-freaking-one, but also the world Harry lives in. Between Demonreach, the real purpose for the Winter and Summer Queens, and the dangerous Outsiders, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. And really, really scared for Harry and friends. Speaking of friends, Harry's got some of the best. Without the help of Thomas, Murphy, Molly and Mouse, Harry would be in real trouble. Like, apocalypse-trouble. You can never underestimate the power and effect of trustworthy, having-your-back-till-the-end help. I love Harry and Thomas's relationship—they act exactly like brothers do, and it's nice having their banter mixed in with all the doom-and-gloom-end-of-the-world situations. But even their humor cannot ease what happens at the end of this novel. Let's just say that the Courts of Faerie have some changes to adjust to. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that ending.
"No one just starts giggling and wearing black and signs up to become a villainous monster. How the hell do you think it happens? It happens to people. Just people. They make questionable choices, for what might be very good reasons. They make choice after choice, and none of them is slaughtering roomfuls of saints, or murdering hundreds of baby seals, or rubber-room irrational. But it adds up. And then one day they look around and realize that they're so far over the line that they can't remember where it was."
Overall:
Butcher, you have some of the best characters I've ever read about, and I seriously cannot understand how well you plan out your novels. We're on book 14 and you're tying information back all the way to book one! Amazing! It takes serious skill to plan, remember and pace novels so effectively. I love it. We've come so far, so much has happened and changed, and still plans set in motion all the way back to the beginning are in effect 10+ years later. Mind-blowing. Simply amazing. Cold Days is one of my favorite installments to The Dresden Files, and I can't wait to see how everything plays out in future novels. Harry's right. There's a storm coming.
"This Winter Knight thing. You're not changing. You've already changed."
No comments:
Post a Comment