Review: Side Jobs
EricMesa
- 2 minutes read - 411 wordsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Restoration of Faith” - for all Butcher’s disclaimer that this is amateur hour, it still reads rather well. Enjoyable story with a sort of proto-Harry.
“Vignette” - a fun bit of flash fiction. The only thing that felt weird was Bob seeming a bit meaner than usual.
“Something Borrowed” – from My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding - Fun to see the wedding and how things were able to go awry as a consequence of the fight with the Sindhe.
“It’s My Birthday Too” – from Many Bloody Returns - leave it to Butcher to come up with the delicious idea of Harry ending up amongst LARPers pretending to be vampires. Fun short story.
“Heorot” – from My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon - Dresden teams up with an unlikely ally and they gain a new respect for each other.
“Day Off” – from Blood Lite - I was a little worried at first when I read the intro that Butcher was going a comedic story. Sure, there’s always humor in The Dresden Files (it’d be too depressing otherwise), but it’s not a comedy and comedy is hard. But this was a VERY fun story. I think Butcher had a blast putting Dresden through the ringer on this one.
“Backup” – novelette from Thomas’ point of view, originally published by Subterranean Press - A tidbit learned about the Dresden-verse - apparently gods are like in Small Gods or American Gods - belief sustains them. A lot of fun to see things from Thomas’ perspective.
“The Warrior” – novelette from Mean Streets - A great chance to see Michael and Harry work together on a shorter time scale. Also learn more about how things are working in the Dresden-verse. Love the ending, too.
“Last Call” – from Strange Brew - This was hilarious - almost as funny as Day Off. Loved it.
“Love Hurts” – from Songs of Love and Death - More bad luck for Harry and his love life. Fun story, though.
Aftermath – all-new novella from Murphy’s point of view, set forty-five minutes after the end of Changes - After the events of Changes, I wasn’t expecting this to be a romp…and it wasn’t. It was a bit hard to read, but, out of ALL the short stories here, I think this one is the most “necessary” to read before moving on with the main series.