Harry was technically fine, he didn't really need protecting. MECIEL did.

Think about it, Meciel is a fallen angel, yes a being of unsurpassed power, however, she is trapped in the void, which is described as pretty much the worst thing that could happen to anyone or anything.

Now, a dementor brings out ones worst memories, and worst experiences. Guess what? Meciel has a fuck ton of those. Frankly, I'm ecstatic to finally see limitations in her power, other than being trapped in the void. Flaws can definitely bring out the best in things, at least thats my perspective.

 

I'm not saying that having your worst memories turned against you isn't horrible to a fallen angel. I just question Dementors' ability to do that to her when Meciel has proven adept at shielding him from mental attack throughout this series. It's not that he doesn't acknowledge these efforts (mentioned struggling against glamours and the like), but why this time of all other times is she totally rendered ineffectual?

You can explain it away by saying there was an unusually large amount of Dementors, but I wish this revealing her backstory and moment of weakness was set up in another way.

Meciel realizes the greatest threat is in the confines of her own memories. It's a good moral/device, but we've seen that idea in Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

Mental attack and dementor exposure are two entirely different things.

 

That and these things are demons (in Shezza's rendition at any rate), which throws them out if the the realm of regular magical nasties (and yes I see the glaring flaw in that statement) into that of demonic soul-sucking nasties. Don't forget that they surprise Meciel, once Harry had snapped her out of the little fit she was having she blew them out of her mind and the two of them proceeded to dismantle the buggers.

 

I've only read up through Book 3 of the Dresden Files (Grave Peril), and am now in the middle of Summer Knight. I would like to read the Denarian stories, but I'm afraid I don't know enough Dresden Files canon yet to follow the Denarian stories.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

You dont really need to read the Dresden Files to understand Shezza's stories. I read Shezza's stuff and then got interested in Dresden. If you have read Grave Peril then you know who Michael is. If you want read Death Masks first but you really dont even need that.

 

Thanks. I became interested in Dresden when I saw how much it was praised here, and was very pleasantly surprised, especially with Fool Moon. Butcher's take on werewolves is light-years better than JKR's. Grave Peril started off slowly for me, but by the end I was digging it.

 

You are getting to the parts where the books become more connected. The first 2 or 3 are pretty much stand alone but they start becoming more connected after Summer Knight.

 

You liked Fool Moon?

Well, I guess there's a first for everything.

 

The first 3 books suck, in my opinion. Summer Knight was good, but not my favorite. 7-10 is where they start getting absolutely amazing.


Dead Beat, White Knight and Small favor are my favorites of the series.

 

Dead Beat, and White Knight were the best of Dresden thats for sure. Small Favor wasnt quite as good.

 

I quite liked Fool Moon/Grave Peril, but I have a slight obsession with werewolves and vampires so I suppose that's natural. The rape/molestation bit was unnerving (once I'd read it for what it was) but other than that I found no complaint.

 

Fantastic pun, especially if you didn't notice it.

I gotta say, Fool Moon wasn't my favourite, it was alright but not great. I have to admit that I don't really have a favourite at this point, just books I liked less than others (Fool Moon for instance).

It's interesting that Denarian Renegade is what got me interested in Butcher's work to begin with. I'd finished Renegade, Knight, and what there is of Lord before cracking open Storm Front.

 

Thank god. I was hoping someone would catch the humor before I got crucified for using a 70s term.

I'm hoping I didn't miss something. Are you referring to Kravos' mind-fuck of Murphy and the other cop, and maybe the vampire/sex business, or am I forgetting something else entirely?

Also, I don't want to get bitched at for continuing to talk about Dresden files canon in a Denarian series thread, but yeah, I liked Fool Moon and ended up liking Grave Peril, especially Michael the Knight of the Cross, but there were a few plot holes. And I liked Fool Moon much more than Storm Front, but truth be told, I've really liked everything so far, and if they really do get better as I move up to the later books, I'll be more than happy.

I wonder sometimes if I ought to be taking notes on the canon info so I can keep up later on. It seems there's a whole lot of info sprinkled throughout each book that will almost certainly play a part later on. Then again, I like to suss out what's happening in a book before it happens, when I should just shut the fuck up and enjoy the ride.

 

The part near the end of Grave Peril where Harry goes through the Nevernever to reach Bianca's place but ends up opening a portal into an ambush. The vampires try to turn him but end up dying from the poison he'd taken so they raped/got him extremely high on vamp toxin instead (it seems to be an interpretive thing according to those on IRC but I tend to read it as rape).

Works up to one of the most badass moments of the series in my opinion, but then again I always end up cackling and muttering the word 'burn' over and over whenever he breaks out the pyrofuegoes. Seriously, how many people can you think of that would let themselves be killed so that their ghost could come back to help defeat the super-ghost of a dead sorceror, and then eat said nightmare so that he absorbs its power and can go wreak havoc on some wholly unprepared vampires?

Fucking epic.

 

Oh good, I'm not the only one.

Spoiler

The bit at the end of Small Favor where he melts a hole through Tessa is pretty freaking fantastic as well, and he did sans blasting rod

 

You know, I hadn't thought of it quite like that, but when I think back...
Dresden has nightmares about being helpless, in the dark and surrounded by slobbering beasts, just as someone might who'd been gang-raped, so yeah, I could see that in the same "violated" mindset.

And hell yeah, when he gives Kravos' ghost a taste of his own medicine, chomping him, and then calls up the spirits of all the vampires' victims... that was cool (please read that as if I were Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney)

You know, Dresden also went kinda feral on one of the werewolf FBI agents in Fool Moon, and the only thing that kept him from eviscerating that guy was seeing Susan.

 

FUCK

I need to read Grave Peril again. Thanks for that. I skipped that on the reread, only went 6-10.

 

Anytime Dresden gets pissed and uses fire something fuckin awesome happens.

 

That is probably one of the reasons we like the Dresden Files here...
well this and that there actually is sex there and much more violence and sarcastic humor and pop-culture references...
It is like Harry Potter (Dark Lord POTTER.net, someone?), just at least a thousand times better and for mature readers.
And Shezza's work (it is his stories review thread after all) is just that, but more openly, Harry Potter x1000 +mature +sarcasms etc.