Stories told by Ghosts...

Everyone knows that one of my favorite thigs to do is the famous "What If" game. we liekd to play it as a child, sometimes as we day dream as teenagers, and yet still at othertimes, when we become older. One of the reasons writers are so lucky in my estimation is that they are payed to play this very same game all the time when they write. Anyone can do it; however not everyone can do it well. This is especially true when it comes to writing Urban Fantasy-fiction. One of my favorite series in this field has always been the Dresden Files. I love Jim Butcher's style of writing when he does. Things happen, choices are made and there are consequences. When I picked up Ghost Story I was still riding a high from Changes. It was so amazing to see how Harry's choices brought him to Chichen Itza, prepared him to make terrible decisions and take terrible action. The final moments of Changes hit hard.

And then I read Ghost Story and discovered the biggest problem: Nothing hits hard.

Butcher has always been able to juggle a large number of characters and do them justice, so adding Sir Stuart, Fitz (too close to "Fix") and the lost boys, yet another cultist style black wizard wasn't unusual. Treating major characters to brief cameo appearances and having Harry wallow in guilt for a few paragraphs then move on was extremely unusual for the series. Mort comes out of Ghost Story with some of the best page time. He was never my favorite character, but I felt a little closer to him for all the new stuff taht we learned about him. Butters actually seemed to become less of a real character with all teh page time that he gets. Even though it is explained how Butters has "grown" as well as teh why he was forced to grow in those ways and I have to say that I never really fell behind it all the way. Murphy, Will, other formerly major characters hover on the edges of the story. They do a little here, they do a little there, they provide reasons for Harry to agonize his situation and wallow in self pity, but at the end of it all, they felt more like ghosts to me than Harry was supossed to be.

Molly was the biggest problem with Ghost Story. The choices Harry made that affected her, everything about how they interacted in Ghost Story felt off. It felt like it was being forced into the story or as if it was like one of those really bad Twilight Zone episodes. The lynch-pins between Changes and Ghost Story don't pull the novels together, it feels contrived, and seems like a choice Harry never would have made even under duress.
Ghost Story is one big info dump -- flashbacks to crucial past events, Harry hovering like the Ghost of Christmas Presents to see where the people in his life have got to (and either I'm slow, or I missed something about Justine and Thomas. Or maybe it was just boredom and the chance to hint at a little girl on girl action that was responsible for that bit. This wasn't the only interlude that had me scratching my head.

I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, don't get me wrong. Harry Dresden and all his crew are still an entertaining bunch, and Butcher is too good a writer not to recoup from this bridge novel. however, that is all you should see this as... A bridge novel.