3fgburner

Wow.
I have, for years, had people exclaim to me, "What? You've never read any Dresden? You HAVE to!" Never did. Since the Hugo packet only included an excerpt, I did the same as with Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Justice. I checked Skin Game out of the library. Twelve chapters in, I bought the e-book. It's that good.

Since I've never read the preceding 14 books, I had to guess at some of the backstory. The way Butcher writes, though, he keeps things integrated well enough that you can keep up.

The clash of different interests, of different worlds, of plots and subplots and ongoing story arcs, is amazing. You have Seelie and Unseelie Fae. You have Greek gods. You have angels, both Godly and Fallen. You have horrendous demons, and ordinary folk rising to the occasion to become heroes. There is sarcasm and in-jokes a-plenty, including a Monty Python and the Holy Grail joke that falls flat, in the middle of a fight for the actual Grail. There's a sociopathic Bigfoot, and bunches of other supernaturals from half-a-dozen folklores an mythologies.

Oh-- and now I know why my friends want me to name the skull that I got as a Yule giftie, "Bob".

On top of which, the writing is noir-detective, so vernacular and unpretentious. The pacing is such that I lost myself in the book, and when I HAD to put it dow, I wanted to get back into it as soon as I could. Of the three novels I've read so far, I would rate Skin Game first, Three Body Problem second, and Ancillary Sword last. If I post to Amazon, it'll be 5 stars.