Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, Book 7)
by Jim Butcher
List Price:
Our Price: $5.58
You Save: $4.41 (44%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.90 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Jim ButcherEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-02
ISBN: 045146091X
Number of pages: 528
Publisher: Roc
Book Reviews of Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, Book 7)
Book Review: "First the tough one. Magic is real."
Summary: 4 Stars
Impulse reading has always been one of the great joys of my life. Ghost stories were a great favorite of my childhood, and I can still tell a terrifying version of the "Woman with the Golden Arm."
Later I was entranced with the Ring trilogy and the wonderful world Tolkien created; "When they came to make their meal, they found that the Elves had filled their bottles with a clear drink, pale golden in color: it had the scent of a honey made of many flowers, and was wonderfully refreshing. Very soon they were laughing, and snapping their fingers at rain, and at Black Riders."
But as time went on and ghosts began appearing unannounced in otherwise realistic novels, my interest waned. Even Harry Potter couldn't entirely re-light the old mystical fires.
Last week I bought a copy of 13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time (Vintage) by Michael Brooks. On impulse, I grabbed a copy of "Dead Beat" at the checkout counter. It was with a sinking feeling I looked in my book bag last week and found another imaginary world populated with "Vampires. Werewolves. Faeries. Demons. Monsters. It's all real."
Brooks points out that "Scientists work with one set of ideas about how the world is. Everything they do, be it experimental or theoretical work, is informed by, and framed within, that set of ideas. There will be some evidence that doesn't fit, however. At first, that evidence will be ignored or sabotaged. Eventually, though, the anomalies will pile up so high they simply cannot be ignored or sabotaged any longer. Then comes crisis."
Vampires and werewolves normally present enough of a crisis to turn this pragmatist away. But that $8.00 investment loomed large. As Brooks would say; I shifted my paradigm and for a couple of hours believed "magic is real."
I'm so happy that I met the Wizard Harry Dresden and followed him through supernatural Chicago, a fast moving mixture of noir mystery, urban fantasy, exciting adventures and romance. Harry himself is a self effacing detective with remarkable and growing powers, a human who it would be wonderful to count among my friends.
Butcher captures a bit of Brooks's world: "You're saying that a whole world, multiple civilizations of scientific study and advancement and theory and application, all based around the notion of observing the universe and studying its laws is ... what? In error about dismissing magic as superstition?"
"Not just in error ... dead wrong. Because the truth is something that people are afraid to face. They're terrified to admit that it's a big universe and we're not."
Butcher is wonderfully adept at bringing a reader new to the series up-to-date on adventures earlier in the series. Sometimes Dresden explains the magical versions of shared events with the "mortician" - Grevane's ironic appellation - Waldo Butters. Elsewhere Butcher sets the scene for new encounters by describing past events:
'I've traded practice blows with my old master Justin DuMorre, himself at one time a Warden. I fought him in earnest, too, and won. I've tested my strength in practice duels against the mentor who succeeded him, Ebenezar McCoy. My faerie godmother, the Leanansidhe, has a seriously nasty right hook, metaphysically speaking, and I've even gone up against the least of the Queens of Faerie. Throw in a couple of demons, various magical constructs, a thirteen story fall in a runaway elevator, half a dozen spell slingers of one amount or another and I've seen more sheer mystic violence than most wizards in the business. I've beaten them all, or at least survived them, and I've got the scars to show for it."
Dresden is generous to the reader in keeping him in the flow of past adventure and equally generous to his characters in physical and psychic trouble throughout the book. I greatly enjoyed reading this adventure, and look forward to reading some of the earlier volumes as well. In fact, I'm going to do my best to find "Elementary Magic" by Ebenezer McCoy, Dresden's second and most effective mentor. Maybe some of the magic will rub off on me.
Robert C. Ross 2009
Contemporary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Contemporary Books
Spell Games (Marla Mason, Book 4)by T.A. Pratt
Spectra; Published: 2009-02-24; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.45
Price in other shops:
Swallowing Darkness (Meredith Gentry, Book 7)by Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-11-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.02
Price in other shops:
A Knight of the Word (The Word and the Void Trilogy, Book 2)by Terry Brooks
Del Rey; Published: 1999-06-28; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Demon Bound (Black London, Book 2)by Caitlin Kittredge
St. Martin's Paperbacks; Published: 2009-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.19
Price in other shops:
Mulengroby Charles de Lint
Orb Books; Published: 2003-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.74
Price in other shops:
The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinleinby Robert A. Heinlein
Tor Books; Published: 1999-11-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.95
No Mercy (Dark-Hunter)by Sherrilyn Kenyon
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2010-09-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops:
The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)by Laurell K. Hamilton
Penguin Audio; Published: 2009-08-20; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $16.94
Price in other shops:
The City of Dreaming Books (Zamonia 3)by Walter Moers
Vintage Books; Published: 2007-03-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.52
X-Rated Bloodsuckersby Mario Acevedo
Harper Voyager; Published: 2007-02-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2001-01-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.44
Price in other shops:
Changes: A Novel of the Dresden Filesby Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2011-03-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.97
Price in other shops:
Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2002-09-03; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2010-03-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2009-03-03; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.67
Price in other shops:
White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2008-02-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.70
Price in other shops:
Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2007-02-06; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.61
Price in other shops:
Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2001-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.36
Price in other shops:
Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2003-08-05; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6)by Jim Butcher
Roc; Published: 2004-08-03; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.25
Price in other shops: