Book Review – Working for Bigfoot

  • Author: Jim Butcher
  • Title: Working for Bigfoot
  • Pages: 163
  • Formats: Hardback, Paperback, Kindle, Audio Book
  • Availability: Amazon
  • Website: Jim Butcher

Book Blurb:

Chicago wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is used to mysterious clients with long hair and legs up to here. But when it turns out the long hair covers every square inch of his latest client’s body, and the legs contribute to a nine-foot height, even the redoubtable detective realizes he’s treading new ground. Strength of a River in His Shoulders is one of the legendary forest people, a Bigfoot, and he has a problem that only Harry can solve. His son Irwin is a scion, the child of a supernatural creature and a human. He’s a good kid, but the extraordinary strength of his magical aura has a way of attracting trouble.

In the three novellas that make up ”Working For Bigfoot,” collected together for the first time here, readers encounter Dresden at different points in his storied career, and in Irwin’s life. As a middle-schooler, in ”B is For Bigfoot,” Irwin attracts the unwelcome attention of a pair of bullying brothers who are more than they seem, and when Harry steps in, it turns out they have a mystical guardian of their own. At a fancy private high school in ”I Was a Teenage Bigfoot,” Harry is called in when Irwin grows ill for the first time, and it’s not just a case of mono. Finally, Irwin is all grown up and has a grown-up’s typical problems as a freshman in college in ”Bigfoot on Campus,” or would have if typical included vampires.

New York Times bestseller Jim Butcher explores the responsibilities of fatherhood and the difficulties of growing up with the elements Dresden Files fans crave–detection, adventure, humor, and magic.

 

 The concept:

 In “Skin Game” Professional Wizard, Harry Dresden mentioned working with “one of the forest people” and mentioned “RiverShoulders.” These novellas fill in the details and give Dresden Files fans something to whet their appetite.

The Characters:

Main Character:

Character Name: Harry Dresden

What works – What’s not to love about a wise cracking, self depreciating wizard with a very big, shaggy dog?

Least Favorite trait – He can be dense at times

Why it works/doesn’t work:

 It works because… Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.  If you’re a fan, you know why.  If you aren’t you either should be, or he’s just not your cup of tea.    The vampires in his world aren’t, for the most part, tortured beings: they are who they are.  The villains are villainous and the hero is heroic (and a tad of a smart ass).  What’s not to love?

What I liked:  

The novella tell three stories, in three different times in Harry’s life and Jim Butcher did a very good job of matching up the Harry Dresden of that period to the the period where the stories took place.

It fills in some of the gaps in Harry’s life and explains a throwaway line that could have simply stood there as a blank slate, and it gave me some new tales of Harry Dresden to keep me going until “Peace Talks” comes out.

What I didn’t like:

 136 pages… less than 4 hours of audio…  Yeah… it was too short… But… Harry!.

I really wish I could have waited for these to come out in another collection because it was so short and it was still full priced… But I have re-listened several times and the stories have seen me through some rough commutes.

November 20, 2015

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