A breath of fresh air

Well, I love Jim Butcher and all his works, so me being excited about this selection of short stories and novellas is hardly news, but trust me: they're great. To make things even better (spoiler alert!) Jim himself is reading the intros to each tale, which is nice. Since not all the stories are about Harry himself, there's also a range of strong narrators; which gives everyone a voice of their own; though I have to say James Marsters' take on a Russian accent for our beloved Mouse is a definite highlight!

For anyone expecting entirely new content, be warned: many of these stories have already appeared elsewhere, but it's still good to have them grouped together and chronologically arranged. It was also great, to see the Harry-verse through the eyes of different characters, and discover things about his loyal cadre he doesn't know. Molly's magic is so different to Dresden's, in style and structure; with further complications arising when she becomes the Winter Lady. "Bombshells" and "Cold Case" are told from her point of view. Waldo Butters experiencing life as an unlikely Knight of the Cross in "Day One" was another high point for me, but it was the last story of the collection, "Zoo Day" which best encompassed pretty much everything I love about the series.

Great fun, as usual. Unexpectedly moving in places, too; because Jim Butcher is sneaky that way. A very easy listen.
Highly recommended.

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Fantastic as always from butcher

I think I love brief cases as much as did side jobs. I particularly liked the story zoo days, with the 3 different POV sections. Especially mouses.

The narrator for a fistful of warlocks wasn’t also fab. Difficult job to read Dresden work and not be James Marsters.

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wonderful

A brilliant selection of short stories.
Great to see the Dresden universe from the point of view of some other characters.
I also loved the ones about River shoulders.
listening too again already

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A fun collection

A fun collection of short stories from Harry's universe told from a range of perspectives. It was interesting to hear tales from Molly, Maggie, Mouse and more! And to see Harry through others' eyes. The narrative cast did an excellent job and bring the stories to life and Jim Butcher's notes between stories were interesting and entertaining. A nice space filler in between the exciting and emotional life of Harry Dresden and also a few excellent stories around Bigfoot!

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Great stories

nice collection if short stories that add alot to to the Dresden universe all well written and narrated. Eapecially liked the insights given in to other characters through there perspective.

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Worth it for Zoo Day

I won't go into massive detail on the issues I have with some of these collections as it's rather redundant, but suffice it to say I don't like the idea of having collected groups of Dresden Novellas put together and to then have multiples of each in every one, its why I won't buy these when I know there's a double or 2 in them, I get why its done but its not my thing.

As for this, each of the Dresden Files novellas in this are decent enough, I liked A fistful of Warlocks and would like to see more from Anastasia's perspective, didn't much like Bombshells (and seeing who edited it I know why), AAAA Wizardry...eh its difficult.

But all in all it's okay, a definite C- for the series.

That's where Zoo Days comes in, the plot for it - featuring 3 different perspectives of the same day - and having each of them caring about others and each other enough to want to do things to help others and each other, that's perfection. It's worth it for that plot alone and it's why I bought this collection.

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A mix of old and new stories, worth the buy

A couple of new stories in here, and a number of stories I have read before. I ended up listening to the old ones as well, and appreciated them. The author's commentary I found really interesting.

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4 people found this helpful

another great one!

brilliantly written, flawlessly performed. I loved it, can't wait until the next in Dresden series.

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Excellent

Fantastic fantastic fantastic
just wish I had one of macs ales as I listened to these books.
Thank you Mr Butcher

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Short stories to tide us over till next novel

How highly you rate this book probably comes down to how many of the short stories you have already read elsewhere, for me the number was very low so I found this a great read, particularly with so many of them focusing on other characters than Harry, who do not always get the spotlight let alone being able to relate a tale from their perspective, particularly the last one with Maggie and Mouse.

One crucial point to make about this book, once you have it, do not buy working for bigfoot by the same author since the stories from there are reproduced in this newer edition.

As always James Marsters does a great job with this book, although for once we get to hear more than just him reading parts of it.

Overall, a great listen if you haven't heard many of them before, think more carefully about it if you have though.

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7 people found this helpful