The Dresden Files: Battle Ground by: Jim Butcher

 

The Dresden Files has released 17 novels and a number of short stories and as of writing this Battle Ground is the last of the novels.  While Jim Butcher clearly has plans, many of those set up by the end of Battle Ground, outside of some short stories there has not been any large plot movement after this book.  Battle Ground is also a big book in terms of scale but not necessarily in terms of plot.  Or at least that’s what some corners of the fandom like to believe but Jim Butcher perhaps excels the best here at slipping in the smallest of character moments while the battle is going on.  What’s actually surprising is that while Peace Talks was largely the calm before the storm, the points that are the most calm are at the beginning of this book.  Butcher manages to perfectly encapsulate those last few moments of serenity perfectly and the tension is palpable when the actual battle starts.  The moments in McAnally’s Pub with Harry rallying troops is perhaps the most important character moment for Harry Dresden since Changes or Cold Days, he’s a leader.  Peace Talks has Harry being threatened with expulsion from the White Council and his position as a Warder, two things that happen by the end of Battle Ground, the Council using the chaos and Harry being the leader of the forces against Ethniu and taking up the mantle of the Winter Knight.  Butcher making this decision makes The Dresden Files going forward an interesting position, the book ends with some early status quo aspects restored superficially but clearly differently that the next book is going to have to address.  Harry is taking up an active leadership role for the first time, he is the general in charge of and responsible for bringing the Last Titan down.

 

The action itself follows a fairly standard formula which is something some readers may find repetitive but Butcher puts in enough character moments as characters from throughout the series come to fight in the battle.  There are also characters exclusive to the several short stories collected in Side Jobs and Brief Cases so readers should be at least have read them as Butcher expects readers to have read everything.  The little mini battles across Chicago are also increasingly interesting as they reveal so much of how Harry has changed and Jim Butcher’s ideas of who Harry is have changed.  There is this idea that Maggie is the reason that Harry keeps going and the one thing he has to save, which is brought to the forefront with the one major misstep of the book. 

 

Karrin Murphy is shot and killed during the battle by a scared police officer, falling in battle.  This has made three love interests for Harry Dresden that have ended badly, the second to have been killed essentially due to him.  While this isn’t quite an example of fridging, it’s still an example of Butcher’s streak of killing off female characters.  Yes Murphy had a lot of development and the tragedy is great, but much of the death is just to continue Harry’s character arc and development, with Harry being the only character who’s allowed to reflect on the death and move forward.  There is a twist in the end where Mab puts Harry into an engagement with Lara Raith with an engagement period of twelve months which is what the next book is going to be.  The final thirty pages of the novel are essentially the big wrap-up and fallout from the battle with Harry trying to make something out of his life after the battle, but it’s a book that ends on a moment.  The final moments have a lot of hits, but the final scenes between Harry, Molly, and the Carpenters before “Christmas Eve” the short story included at the end set months after Battle Ground, are about finding a new stability.

 

Overall, Battle Ground needs to be read as close to Peace Talks as you can.  It’s the second half of that novel and it completes that story in such a good way, but it’s not perfect.  There is that one very big problem in the middle that is going to affect readers differently and yet another new direction is being taken with The Dresden Files putting it up to the present with Butcher now going on to work on where the series is going with several wrenches thrown in.  9/10.