Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

My 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.



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