Dead Beat
category: fantasy, author:Jim Butcher
book 7 of The Dresden Filesoriginal copyright 2005
read in May 2012
Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10, well worth reading
Dead Beat does have some highlights. There is, for example, the occasional good comic line: "Everyone else who lets me ride on their dinosaur calls me Carlos." Okay, you have to have read the book :-) Just take my word for it: this is a serious book with some good comic lines.
Now here's a really interesting aside...
I was browsing a site on the web, a blog for wannabe authors by a published author. A reader's comment mentioned in passing, that Harry Dresden had been in a graphic novel. And I thought, Yes, that's it: this novel is very... very... graphic!
Graphic as in graphic novel, that is.
Take, for example, a scene where Harry calls up a very powerful faerie. He can summon equally powerful beings in a suburban backyard. But for this scene, he goes to the lakeside. Stands on a very small spit of land. Just above the water level. Picture him: the wizard in black, standing tall on a small spit of land jutting over the dark and stormy lake. Calling a faerie -- who appears as a waterspout.
Excellent graphic imagery. Graphic as in graphic novel. This book is full of such set pieces. I wonder if Butcher wrote with a graphic novel in mind? Or does he just enjoy writing a book with very strong imagery...
Now, however, I must point out a weak point in the book. A serious lack of logical thinking. By the hero.
Dead Beat is about necromancy, the magic of raising or using the dead. If you master necromancy you can become immortal. So the story goes.
At one point Dresden is being tempted. Read the bad book and become an immortal, he is urged. Absorb the power of the dead and you can live forever! He seriously considers the offer.
Think how much good I could do if I had forever in which to do it, he thinks. If everyone could live forever we could stop killing each other. We would all have all of eternity in which to help make the world a better place, for everyone...
This is from the wizard who has spent, to that point, six books in the fight against supernatural baddies. Baddies who are, by and large, immortal. Has immortality made these beings into nice people? No way!
If only they had used their immortality for niceness instead of evil... But they did not.
So there's a blatant lack of logic by the hero.
No worries. As a private wizard investigator, he is best in class. And would still be best in class even if there were others in his class.
Another good book from The Dresden Files.
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