This may come as a shock to you, Harry, but I don't have an ax with me

[sovay]

Today has been marked mostly by hours of pre-holiday errands and a vision-troubling level of headache, which may somewhat foreshorten this post. The evening has been marked by reading four books starring Harry Dresden. I believe I have hurt myself.

Between the weird casual chauvinism and the general air of having been written by a yak that wanted to be Raymond Chandler (I am insulting either Chandler or yaks), I was not impressed with Storm Front (2000). There was a reason I didn't read these books at the time. rushthatspeaks had promised me a character I would love, however, and so I persevered. Fortunately, the library was missing the next three volumes and by the time of Death Masks (2003), Butcher's style had improved to the point where it was no longer actively contributing to my headache and Rush was quite right about the character; I warmed to him instantly, even though he was more of a cameo. And then there was a lot of confused vampirism and I got to Dead Beat (2005). Rush—

"If I tell you this," I said quietly, "it could be bad for you."

"Bad how?"

"It could force you to keep secrets that people would kill you for knowing. It could change the way you think and feel. It could really screw up your life."

"Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms and said, "Do your worst."

Waldo Butters is also brilliant enough that he thinks of forensic science as something anyone can pick up if they don't mind the technical terms, geeky enough to forget how terrified he is of zombies when given the chance to research them, and he has mildly mad science hair ("[it] gave him a perpetual look of surprise that stopped just short of being a perpetual look of recent electrocution"). Apparently I have some kind of type.

I don't think I will be eagerly scouring the bookstores for the rest of this series, but someone should tell me whether they're the sort of thing worth persisting with just for love of supporting characters. It is quite likely that I will keep an eye out for a secondhand copy of Dead Beat, even if the Latin is consistently ungrammatical and the mysterious book should really have been called Das Lied des Erlkönigs. The Tyrannosaur was pretty crowningly awesome.

And now I am going to shower, because I don't feel well at all.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I like that scenelet you've quoted very much, especially the last paragraph.

I read the first Dresden book a handful of years ago, found it a mildly entertaining bit of pulp distraction, sort of thought I'd get round to reading others at some point, and never did. For a one-man polka band and a Tyrannosaur, I might have to read further, after all.

Do you think the Latin is ungrammatical because it's meant to sound like bad Neo-Latin being used by ceremonial magicians, or do you think it's ungrammatical because it's being written by somebody with less-than-stellar Latin skills? (Or, of course, a combination of the two--Butcher not getting his Latin looked over because the characters aren't meant to be any better Latinists than himself?)

I'm sorry for your headache and not feeling well. I hope the shower helps, at least a little bit. I hope you've not hurt yourself too seriously with reading Dresden books, or with anything else, either.

[sovay]

For a one-man polka band and a Tyrannosaur, I might have to read further, after all.

Honestly, you could probably pick up Dead Beat and be fine. I didn't know if this was the sort of series that would need familiarity with all earlier books in order to make sense, but with the exception of some backstory from Death Masks (both Butters and the fallen angel who's taken up residence in Harry's head), at least in this case the answer really turned out to be no.

Do you think the Latin is ungrammatical because it's meant to sound like bad Neo-Latin being used by ceremonial magicians, or do you think it's ungrammatical because it's being written by somebody with less-than-stellar Latin skills?

I would have given him the benefit of the former except that the German is terrible—Der Lied der Erlking? I don't even like Goethe all that much and I'm hoping he hunts Butcher down for that one—which makes me question his language(-checking) skills as a whole. "Flickum bicus" as a firelighting spell is clearly a joke, but when you refer to someone trying to kill you in cruor gelidus, that just hurts.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The atrocious German of that title is a thing about which Harry needles the author of said book in a later volume, fwiw.

[sovay]

The atrocious German of that title is a thing about which Harry needles the author of said book in a later volume, fwiw.

Thank God. I spent the whole book expecting to find out it was some kind of ersatz twentieth-century occult forgery by someone who didn't know German from an elbow in his ear and then it worked, which made me very sad.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I spent the whole book expecting to find out it was some kind of ersatz twentieth-century occult forgery by someone who didn't know German from an elbow in his ear and then it worked, which made me very sad.

That's always frustrating.

I got the idea in reading Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun (1988) that the Scottish folk singer was actually an impostor and there for some nefarious purpose, cos why else would he think that hearing "Wild Rover", which is only maybe the number one Irish-American bar band song, would indicate that some band like the Corries were also staying in the hotel, and why else would he have a problem with somebody writing a filk on the same when a) it's not an important piece of anyone's cultural patrimony and b) most traditional singers have healthy senses of humour and enjoy parodies?

Needless to say, this was not the case.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you could probably pick up Dead Beat and be fine.

Thanks for the advice. I might do that, depending what my local library has.

Pity about the terrible German--that's always hard to take. I lost huge amounts of respect for Julian May after a scene in one of hers where a character meant to be Irish was ranting in a mixture of English and Scots Gaelic, and I don't mean the odd SG word as I'd use sometimes myself, like anybody with Northern inclinations, but full sentences in SG orthography.

but when you refer to someone trying to kill you in cruor gelidus, that just hurts.

I needed a lexicon to work that one out, but it is painful. Reminds me of late Law French, the "ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice que narrowly mist" sort of thing.