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White Night | Rating | |
| B | |||
| Jim Butcher | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Dresden Files | Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight, Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, Proven Guilty, White Night, Small Favor | ||
It's getting kind of hard to review Jim Butcher books. And that's especially true for the Dresden Files series. This is because all these books are good — some of them very good indeed — with an interesting puzzle to solve, a mystery to unravel, interwoven with furious action-packed scenes filled with magic and bullets flying everywhere. All done by great characters, a dry wit, and each book contributing something to an enormous story arc that spans the whole series. Repercussions of one volume will resonate for many books afterwards — sometimes the remainder of the series, at least to date.
In a way, that's great. I could take the above paragraph and use it as a stock review for pretty much any book in the series and it would fit. I'd just have to add a different plot summary each time. These aspects have remained good throughout the entire Dresden Files. Which is what makes it hard to write a review. Just how many times, and in how many different ways, can I compliment plot and character and style and everything else before I resort to simply saying, "Look at my critique for the last book; same thing goes here."
But Small Favors is particularly difficult, because absolutely nothing about it stands out. It's still good, mind you — never think otherwise. There is still great action, an intriguing case, fun characters, witty dialogue, and all the rest. But it's all the same as all the previous books. There's nothing really noteworthy, here.
There's nothing really new, either. Fool Moon introduced readers to this world's versions of werewolves; Grave Peril brought in the Nevernever and the Fae. Small Favors has nothing. The Denarians are back with another plot for worldwide chaoes, and Queen Mab is calling in one of her tokens on Harry — hence the title — but other than one or two new monsters there is nothing that isn't a continuation from something previous. Nor is anything really concluded; by book's end, the Denarians are still out there, Queen Mab is still a power to fear, and Harry still knows next to nothing about the shadowy Black Council he suspects is manipulating all parties. There's not even any real change or progress regarding the war between the wizards and the vampric Red Court. For that matter, the exact reason Mab asked Harry for the favor she did remains mysterious.
No doubt these questions will be answered later in the series. But for now it leaves Small Favor feeling somewhat incomplete. The story is a placekeeper, and interlude. If it wasn't for the fact that what happened in these pages will matter somewhere down the road, it almost could be skipped. And if this wasn't a Harry Dresden novel, complete with all the excellent things that are associated with it, it would doubtless have gotten a worse grade. But Butcher is an excellent writer, and I thoroughly enjoyed this as I was reading it. It was only afterwards that I found myself somewhat at a loss as to what I just read.
Small Favors is nothing special, nothing even really memorable. Yet somehow I still think of it as a good book. Not a great one, no, but a good one. And for fans of the Dresden Files, that should be plenty good enough.
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