Ok J, i know you know by now..
Who shot him, im to impatient to find out myself, and im behind on my reading.
Life is like a Parachute, you cannot really live through it without a harness.
If you aren't absolutely sure, don't look.
Still sure you wanna find out this way...
OK, it's under the tag.
Kincaid
And J, I've seen some of your posts over on the website forum, but I'm still curious as to what you think of how GS turned out?
"Who built this f#(%!^g police station." -- Leon Kennedy
thank you Chamber
Life is like a Parachute, you cannot really live through it without a harness.
And J, I've seen some of your posts over on the website forum, but I'm still curious as to what you think of how GS turned out?
Well, it was an okay read. I like ghost stories, especially from the point of view of a sarcastic spectre. I like The Canterville Ghost and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir for starters.
However eight things about this novel bother me.
1. Jim Butcher has an obvious aversion and possibly even hatred of the idea of ghosts being actual souls. He clings to this ridiculous idea that when we die another entity (that happens to have all our memories and personality) is 'born' as our real soul goes elsewhere. I understand this theory in regard to residual hauntings of simple minded and repetitive ghosts but not the likes of Sir Stu who are obviously self-aware and learning and adapting to the time. It seems stupid to me that there should be two different non-corporeal beings released (one released and one created) at the time of death. This annoys me to no end. I know Harry IS Harry Dresden's soul but Jim Butcher makes ti clear that this sort of ghost is very, very rare. I loathe his ghost mythology, as someone who studies parapsychology I loathe it.
2. Sadly the book felt like filler. It seems someone could skip this and go right to Cold Days without missing much. Jim Butcher is stretching these books too thin just to milk out the series.
3. Harry doesn't ask enough questions. You have Murphy working WITH Marcone. You have all the heroes of Chicago working in a castle (that somehow only took six months to build) oh, and it has a prison! A supernatural prison should raise some red flags that someone has decided to become judge and jury for the supernatural world and it's not the council. Who is being held in Marcone's jail and why? Why doesn't Harry ask these things?!
4. We're not going to find out what happens with the sword for a long time. Jim Butcher is holding off until his apocalyptic finale but Michael didn't need an apocalypse to use his sword. His reasoning here does not make sense.
5. And finally, I'm a Thomas fan. He had TWO pages! In the whole book he had two pages in which he did his best emo / Eli from Let the Right one In impersonation. (I don't think he's going to let Justine break the love protection by the way, I think Justine did all that to get him to feed on the other girl. Justine's more clever than she lets on. She just force fed a vampire).
6. The White court vampires are not succubi and Inccubi. Since when!?
7. It took our PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR WIZARD far too long to realize that if he was destroyed as a spirit he would be destroyed utterly. I mean DUH! I thought that was a given. But we're more than half way through the book when he realizes this! Where'd he think he'd go if his soul's destroyed? Detroit?
8. It took Harry FAR too long to realize he caused his own death. First Lea tells him he shouldn't have gotten himself killed (she pretty much told him right there), then he's given several similar clues by Lea AND Molly. He was practically being hit in the head with the clue bat. And it's far fetched that no one even mentioned Thomas until near the end when Harry "died" ON HIS BOAT!
-------------------------
I did like the over-all message of the story. I liked that it emphasized the consequences and rewards of free will and choice. I like the reminder that no one can take away a human's free will (even after mostly-dead death).
I liked Harry's ghostly abilities.
I loved Butter's use of the ghost box.
Butters was great in this, trying to help Aristode and the whole fake Wardens bit.
And I do love a story from a ghost's point of view even if the author has really bizarre issues against ghosts being souls of the dead and has inane theories about two different spiritual beings with the same memories rising from a body at the time of death (but somehow one's just a copy...). That's just stupid to me, especially if both are intelligent and aware. it doesn't make sense.
share