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Turn Coat by Jim Butcher | Pajiba - Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People

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#99: Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

Cannonball Read / Brian Prisco

Book Reviews | June 26, 2009 | Comments (8)

Aaaaaaaaggggh! I couldn’t wait any longer! With serious apologies to Fyodor Dosteofvsky, especially since I can never spell his fucking name right, I had to put aside Demons so that I could read the latest Harry Dresden. I’ve never been one to put off delights, and frankly this came out almost two months ago. It didn’t help matters that Lizzieborden’s been pushing me.

Butcher’s outstanding. Again, another amazing novel where he advances the entire mythos and series while still keeping a solid buttoned down story intact. And he’s got no easy task. He’s juggling about 17 flavors of supernatural, and in this one he basically says, “Throw me another flaming chainsaw, kid.” He’s doing magic, werewolves, vampires, faeries, angels and demons, with a cast of at least 12 solid characters, and he decides to center this novel around a skinwalker — so let’s add Native American folklore to the stack. I know, after the dreadful film Skinwalkers, I was nervous, but it fucking killed.

The book starts off with a motherfucking punch in the face. Morgan, Dresden’s archnemesis on the Wardens, who’s been waiting for him to screw up so he could decapitate him for crimes against wizardry, essentially shows up on his doorstep covered in blood asking for sanctuary from his own people. Essentially, Morgan’s been framed for the murder of one of the White Council, and Dresden’s gotta figure out what happened. In two days. Or Morgan, and quite possibly Harry, are dead meat.

What follows is almost boilerplate murder mystery, but it’s totally couched in the tension of the entire overarching supernatural civil war waiting to erupt. Butcher’s at the top of his game, and this was a sound and killer book this deep in the mythos. According to Butcher, he’s going into the deep twenties, and at this rate, he has established that he can pretty much go anywhere with this. It’s like a great television drama which you know can still run another three or four seasons easy. The only other book series that I feel has managed to stay as fresh is probably the Sookie Stackhouse stuff — even though I hate the living fuck out of the television series.

But this raises an interesting point. How do you make a television series based on a series that’s still in print and active? Does the television stuff start to influence the progression of the books? If the TV series craps out, does that mean the books will go the way of the buffalo as well? Thankfully, the terrible fucked-up series they made out of the Dresden Files is dead, and can possibly be revived later down the road. I’m more curious about something like “Dexter,” which diverges so strongly from Jeff Lindsay’s shitty books. Are they going to just go wherever they want and ignore the books? And even moreso with the Sookie Stackhouse books? For those of you who’ve read the novels deep in the series, do you see where this is quite possibly going to fuck junk up?

Regardless, Butcher’s still kicking ass, and Turn Coat was terrific. If you’ve been waiting to read this series, get the fuck on it. You’re missing out, kids.

This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. For more of Brian’s reviews, check his blog, The Gospel According to Prisco.


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Comments

Well, in Dresden's case, Butcher made the point of saying it was a separate continuity that wouldn't affect the books.

Still, mixing media does lead to some positive results (Harley Quinn becoming canon, for one).

Oh and damn you to hell. I got my first Dresden book (Proven Guilty, it was all they had), and now I am hooked. I even read the Wikipedia entries to get familiar with the entire mythology. When a person is enraptured by the Wikipedia entry, you have got something.

Now if only they could finally release the RPG ...

Posted by: Vermillion at June 26, 2009 9:41 AM

Vermillion, I would HIGHLY recommend going back and starting at the beginning. You get a lot more out of later books if you start from there. It becomes increasingly impressive how much Butcher has built over the course of the series. That, and I'm a pretty adamant "read the series from the beginning" type of girl.

And now I'm going to go spend the rest of the day reading the damned wiki entries on this.

Posted by: lizzieborden at June 26, 2009 10:15 AM

Read the entire series over the course of 2-3 weeks not long ago, and followed it up with codex alera (did one a day and cleaned it up in less than a week). Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Posted by: Chugga at June 26, 2009 11:02 AM

Ha! I traded my set of Sookie books with my best friends boyfriend for his set of Dresden books so we'd both have something to read for the summer without incuring ridiculous library late-fines
We both can't shut up about how good both series are and are making it so my best friend/his girlfriend can't stand to be around us. It's the strangest affair I've ever had.
But I have to say, a Dresden affair probably beats the pants off a sexin affair anyday. Lasts a lot longer too.

Posted by: hersheygirl at June 26, 2009 2:24 PM

Small world, I finished reading Turn Coat for a 2nd time last night and it was as engrossing and as enjoyable ad the first read.
Great stories with not only an interesting, complex "hero" but the secondary characters are layered enough to make you want to find out more about them.

I really enjoyed the whole DeamonReach arc and finding out more about the White Council and the senior wizards.

Posted by: Jules at June 26, 2009 3:07 PM

Butcher is a fantastic storyteller. A new volume of The Dresden Files is an event for me. They are the sort of books that I must read immediately and thoroughly, then revisit from time to time.

I like your point about boilerplate murder mystery, since it's Butcher's character work that elevates this series for me. As Dresden has grown more powerful, Butcher has continually emphasized how precarious is the wizard's position, and his constant evocation of Dresden's growing fatigue in the course of each story is a wonderful, humanizing touch.

Posted by: alone in the dark at June 26, 2009 5:45 PM

This book is excellent for two reasons: unlike a few of the mid-series books (somewhere around 6 and 7), the pacing in this one is strong. And, because Butcher establishes the (literal) deadline from page 3, it doesn't feel at all forced. Secondly, the book advanced the overarching mythos by several great strides! It finally feels like an actual plot in and of itself.

I did feel that Butcher was juggling a few too many characters for the sake of shouting out to the long-term fans (Let's bring in the Alphas! And Butters! And Toot! And the Wicca network! And Lara!), but he managed to pull it all off in the end. It was nice to see Bob given a respite from his exposition ex machina role, and Murphy's surprisingly small role in this installment was refreshingly angst-free.

Have any of you read the Thomas Raith novella Butcher released this year? Ugh. Butcher wrote fanfiction for his own universe--and it's utterly pointless. He makes the same mistake as many romance authors, turning an entertaining secondary character into a carbon copy of the previous main character. Skip it.

Posted by: joanna at June 26, 2009 8:48 PM

Brian, you are brilliant. I keep telling everyone that Butcher is fantastic and they think I'm kidding. (you know, wizard detective, vampires, fairies etc) Maybe they will listen to you.
Turn Coat was one of the best Dresdens, the pacing was spot on and the twists and turns just plain excellent story telling. It's difficult waiting for the next book so I too reread practically the whole series. Very satisfying.

Posted by: Aunt Nor at June 28, 2009 10:59 PM





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