I’m going to make this short. I’m currently reading the second Harry Dresden novel by Jim Butcher. I’ll state up front that, despite the flaws that eat at me like fire, I am a fan. I like the characters, and I like much of the description. The world Butcher has created is wonderful, and I enjoy dipping into it.
Here’s the thing. When you have a freaking supernatural creature that can only be hurt by “inherited silver” and you have a protagonist whose most precious possession – the focus of his power – is a silver pentacle inherited from his mother, and you have said protagonist worry and wonder and scratch his head and get his ass kicked from here to tomorrow and it never one time occurs to him he has the perfect weapon, you are as much as considering your readers to be idiots.
The same goes for characters like Murphy on the police force. No matter how many times Dresden saves her, helps her, etc. – she reacts with the same bone-headedness. If it would be inconvenient for Dresden to explain something to her she yells at him, and he decides not to talk, despite the fact it would CLEARLY solve everything and get things rolling.
In other words, I hope in the later novels that Mr. Butcher will start finding more elegant ways around his problems. I hope he’ll start understanding that if HE can see a plot hole, so can I as a reader, and that if he patches it with a pile of fluff, it will blow away and irritate me (along with several thousand others).
I love the Harry Dresden novels, but sometimes they just irritate the crap out of me.
-End Rant.
Written by David Wilson - Visit WebsiteFollow me on Twitter
No, I agree. I love the novels, but that kind of thing always bothers me. Butcher's not the only one to get stuck in that hole, (seeing Dumbledore and Harry do it book after book bugged the shit outta me) but you'd think after seeing it from others, he'd avoid it himself.
I will say hi writing improves with every novel. But it takes some time to wear down the Murphy blockade.