Review: Cold Days

Cold Days is the latest available novel in the Dresden Files series. Like the previous couple of books in the series, you are well advised not to read this novel until you've read at least the previous 3 books in the series.

The books at this point suffer from the travails of a D&D campaign that's gone past the sweet spot of the game system. The characters are now extremely powerful and the only way for the DM/author to challenge the players is to keep throwing bigger and bigger challenges and bigger and bigger bad-asses at them.

This is not a bad thing. But as an action series, there's precious little time for reflection on the part of Harry Dresden, and there's even less motivation for him to introspect. We do get a few notices here and there on the part of the temptations he's subject to as the new Winter Knight, but by and large he brushes them off as he spends much of his time going for survival, rather than flexing his powers.

I did enjoy a number of plot twists in the book, and the expanded awareness of his urban fantasy world is a lot of fun for long time readers of the series. If you're already a follower of the series, this is a great book, and worth your time. While it's not necessary to read the entire series, it'd be worth while to at least start from Changes. Recommended.