So. Is The Dresden Files a poorly written wish-fulfillment with a Gary Stu main protagonist

You know, the premise of this book actually sounded good. A wizard P.I., sure why not. I like wizards and I like P.I.s, so what could be the problem. The problem was I over estimated this author's abilities.

The main character is like some kind of emotionally retarded uber-geek's idealized life. He lives in a basement and subbasement. He ALWAYS wears a black duster and cowboy boots (even when he's wearing sweats and a t-shirt). He has an abnormally large alley cat that likes to drink coke and doesn't get violently ill from the caffeine. He can't get anywhere with women, for no real reason at all. The first woman that broke his heart, he actually killed (but for good reasons, I mean she was evil). I could go on and on. The protagonist of this story is an immature weiner. He is a walking dorky cliche, that feels like he is some kind of Peter Parker wizard. Constantly bemoaning the weight of the world on his shoulders, even when its actually not on his shoulders. Add to this the characters inability to have basic levels of trust for his friends/allies, lack of common sense, and a very low level of intelligence for someone that relies on brains and willpower for their strengths. And you end up with a guy that is very annoying to read in most any situation.

Now throw that character into a Noir Detective style situation. This is not a confident man, nor is he a physically tough man, and he lacks much in the way of street or even book smarts. I find it highly unlikely that this guy should have survived past the first 100 pages, let alone through all the other blunders he makes through the entire book. Take a gander back to the beginnings of the Noir Detective genre, and you'd be ashamed that this man besmirches the genre's good traditions. Sam Spade has no magic what so ever, but he could quite easily have out smarted and out fought this guy with his bare fists.

Don't even get me started on how annoying magic is in this book. Not since the magic of Terry Brooks' Shanara books have I felt magic meant little to nothing. This guy is constantly like, oh shit I don't have my wand or staff or special ring, so if I do my magic now I'll kill everyone. What the fricking good is magic that can't be used unless you've got your stick of power. If magic is going to be used the way it is in this book, as basically a crutch to hold the rest of the weak aspects of the book up (as it is in most non-awesome fantasy); then at least have it around to do its job and make cool things happen.

So to close, this book is immature and not fun to read. There was a time in my life when I would have found this book awesome when I was going through that phase of life where you're 13, emotionally retarded, and just discovered AD&D 2nd edition. Which there is nothing wrong with, that's a phase that I and most other nerds went through. Then we grew out of it, because we matured into adults. But this book isn't be lauded to me as "great writing" by 13-year-old nerds and geeks, it's being held up as a "Great Book" by adults, and that's who it's marketed to. Look if you like this book and you're in Junior high then fine (though I could recommend better things for you to read that are aimed at your age group), but not adults. If you're an adult and you think this is even just "good" writing (and again I'll state that most tell me it's "great" writing) then I think you need to try reading some other stuff by much better authors. Go find and read Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, Walter Mosley, Warren Ellis, or Charles Stross. These are all writers that have written either modern fantasy/Horror or Noir and/or Crime fiction, so they are working on some similar concepts. Then if you don't find those to be far better book written by actual good writers, well then I'm just going to have to say that you and I may be from different planets or something.

This book is not fun to read. It's poorly constructed. The plot is about as complex as 6th-grade math and less original than that. The characters are 2 dimensional at best. Magic is used a focal point of the story rather than something to enhanced the flavor of original and real feeling plots and characters. At one point the author describes someone by saying he looks like Sean Connery's character from the Highlander, instead of I don't know just describing the dude as having a pony tale (since that was where those two character's physical similarities ended). Most of his other descriptions of characters are like police descriptions of people being given to me by the narrator which completely takes you out of the narrative. The author at one point even wrote "I was a wizard" when his point of view character is lamenting about going into a house or building to solve a problem and I was thinking "wait did you stop being a wizard at some point?". If you're going to write in the first person perspective then learn to write in the present. Of course one would expect a decent editor could have fixed this, but I'm going to assume that decent editors get assigned to decent writers.

>Gary Stu
I didn't find him to be that, but I've only read the first two.

>At one point the author describes someone by saying he looks like Sean Connery's character from the Highlander, instead of I don't know just describing the dude as having a pony tale
I actually remember that, having read the first book somewhat recently. He doesn't specifically mention Highlander, just Sean Connery's ponytail in "some movies".... I recall that I was trying to remember other movies besides Highlander where Connery had one. Turns out there are a few.

...

As much as I agree with you on pretty much all counts, what you found to be one of its biggest flaws was what ended up being endearing enough to stick with the books until Jim actually learns to work his characters in book 3 and forward. Dresden's in the first books is completely self centered and overestimates his prowess so thoroughly that it just ends up being really fucking funny (except when his bitching around gets people killed or my waifu in danger - something that is so obviously put in front of him yet taken for granted by his whiny self that you keep shaking your head in disbelief while knocking up the book since it's a quick simple read). So I guess that your view could be taken with a grain of salt.

It was just incredibly lacking; Harry was just an awful wizard and it wasn’t until about three-quarters of the way through that he started to even resemble a competent wizard. The big “fight” at the end was just crap, it was just a half-arsed attempt, throwing a bit of magic at each other while trying not to be burned alive. Harry was such a drippy character, even aside from his poor attempt at magic, with his constant downer attitude and weak attempt at humor at the end of every chapter, even the ones where something incredibly serious had happened. His relationships weren’t fully formed with anyone; he is friends with Murphy the police officer and they’re just friends, well maybe there’s a bit more, no no actually they are just friends, but are they? ARGHHHHHHHH! This was their entire story and it was ridiculous and frustrating. Harry never became a well-rounded character, he was very 2D and there were far too many elements thrown in to even allow him to fully form.

The storyline had such potential but it was completely wasted. The writer decided to add far too many elements in an attempt to create a clever, twisted mystery but it fell flat on its arse. The main plot line, as previously stated, was in fact really good but it was never really given a chance because the writer threw in too many events, for example, the issue with the White Council and having Morgan (another wooden 2D character who was, quite frankly, just pathetic) stalking Harry in a weak excuse to frame him. There was just no substance to this story whatsoever.

Zardoz is genuinely a more interesting film than anything that's come out this year

When do they become good?

12 novel

Wht

The second is miles better than the first, and the third the same to the second, and from third onward his writing is definitely more well-rounded, his secondary characters are livelier and Harry starts to actively see and feel in his skin and choices how much of a fucking asshole he's been with his attitude towards his friends - so you feel very vindicated, in a sense.
Since the first two are also shorter than the rest I'd honestly suggest powering through them so as to not miss some important piece-setting.

I dunno if any of you are oldfags but when lit was even slower than now (way before /sffg/ even) and Changes and Ghost Story (12th and 13th) were published we actively had a surge in movement in the whole board due to threads about them. It was really fun.