Another omnibus edition, this one containing Summer Knight (book 4) and Death Masks (book 5) in The Dresden Files.

Summer Knight takes place in the land of Faerie, and there's a war about to start -- guess who is stuck in the middle of it? I got distracted in the middle of the story (my fault; life gets in the way sometimes) so somehow I wasn't paying attention when a character was introduced. It turned out that was a very important character, so when there's a reveal at the end, I felt pretty lost. I think that lead to the "meh" feeling about this one, which is probably not fair to the book.

In Death Masks, Dresden winds up in a duel to the death with those vampires that have been trying to kill him for a few books now. The subplot deals with the Shroud of Turin being stolen by supernatural bad guys. It was nice to see the Knights of the Cross with something important to do along the way. But I think I was spoiled by the short-lived TV show, where so many people were excited by the appearance of Bob the Talking Skull -- I thought he was a major character in the books, but if he appears, it's often for one small exposition, and then he's totally forgotten about.

Anyway, I read this pretty much right after the first three books, and then I read The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan, which tends to have the same frantic pace -- having the main character rush out of one problem right into another over and over again each chapter. It's a bit exhausting, but that's probably due to "overexposure" on my part. They're interesting stories, and the supplemental characters are getting a bit more time to assert themselves, but I'm not sure Dresden ever has any time to reflect on whether he's changing throughout the series. I have two more of these omnibuses (omnibi?) and I'm willing to give the next one a shot -- but I think I need a little rest first.

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LT Haiku:

Harry's complex life
gets no breaks -- still upsetting
the supernat'ral. ( )

I've reviewed these separately at FanLit: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/fantasy-author/butcherjim ( )

I finished Summer Knight on 2008-02-10. Once again, Butcher writes a compellingly readable book. Dresden is back at it, this time dealing with warring Fairy courts, Vampires, and the White Council all at the same time. Harry's fairy godmother sells his debt to a fairy queen of the summer court, and she calls him out to find out who killed the Summer Knight. Harry gets tied up between pleasing the White Council (who want him dead to stop the war with the vampires) and trying to stop a war between the Summer and Winter Fairy courts that will ultimately destroy the world. Harry gets beat up a lot, but survives in true Dresden style and comes out on top. I'm certainly going to continue reading this series! ( )

http://yoyogodreviews.blogspot.com/2007/01/wizard-by-trade-by-jim-butcher.html ( )