Just a warning on Dresden Files, although it’s one of my most favorite book series: The main character has a very old fashioned, borderline chauvanistic sense of chivalry especially early on in the series. And the books are written from the MC’s perspective, meaning some real knuckleheaded descriptions of woman through the male gaze. I’d argue that it’s intentional, but it is something I’ve seen turn people off the series.
The writing of female characters gets better over time (imo), and the MC is intended to be flawed. He suffers regularly and often for his flaws, numerous smart and dangerous ladies take advatage of his “chivalry”, and he is called out directly on it many times.
It’s best to treat the first two books as kind of one singular “prologue”, as the writing quality makes a jump for the third book, and things start coalescing into the overarching plot then (which is a minor background element in the first two books).
It plays with detective and noir themes, so that means femme fatales. It mixes in fantasy magic. There are succubi. But the series regularly introduces characters as surface level stereotypes and then builds significant depth to them. Never thought I’d be concerned about the series’s equivalent to Kingpin.
Arg. I already have a book backlog, but I think it’s time to re-read them again.
It is intentional; when Jim Butcher writes from the perspective of different men, or of the women, the misogyny is noticeably absent.
And you’re right that Harry doesn’t get a free pass, either; Butcher does show how much trouble that attitude can cause. Harry’s character development was pretty well-done over the series, I think.
Just a warning on Dresden Files, although it’s one of my most favorite book series: The main character has a very old fashioned, borderline chauvanistic sense of chivalry especially early on in the series. And the books are written from the MC’s perspective, meaning some real knuckleheaded descriptions of woman through the male gaze. I’d argue that it’s intentional, but it is something I’ve seen turn people off the series.
The writing of female characters gets better over time (imo), and the MC is intended to be flawed. He suffers regularly and often for his flaws, numerous smart and dangerous ladies take advatage of his “chivalry”, and he is called out directly on it many times.
It’s best to treat the first two books as kind of one singular “prologue”, as the writing quality makes a jump for the third book, and things start coalescing into the overarching plot then (which is a minor background element in the first two books).
It plays with detective and noir themes, so that means femme fatales. It mixes in fantasy magic. There are succubi. But the series regularly introduces characters as surface level stereotypes and then builds significant depth to them. Never thought I’d be concerned about the series’s equivalent to Kingpin.
Arg. I already have a book backlog, but I think it’s time to re-read them again.
It is intentional; when Jim Butcher writes from the perspective of different men, or of the women, the misogyny is noticeably absent.
And you’re right that Harry doesn’t get a free pass, either; Butcher does show how much trouble that attitude can cause. Harry’s character development was pretty well-done over the series, I think.