Author Jim Butcher gave us all quite the gift when the pandemic hit, even if he never intended it to go that way: two Dresden Files novels for 2020, spaced two months apart. Now me, I love these books, but it did take me a bit longer than usual to finish up the second, Battle Ground. I’ll chalk that up to the fact I typically read as many as three books at a time these days, and my job has been keeping me a little busier than usual.
But it’s all done now, so how was it?
Battle Ground picks up more or less exactly where Peace Talks ended. Harry had a special mission to Demonreach, and he’s returning to Chicago with Lara Rath to see the end of whatever it going on in Chicago. That amounts to the mad Titan Ethniu, daughter of Balor, basically declaring war with the Formor against humanity in general and the Winter Court of Queen Mab in particular. Since Harry is the Winter Knight, he is essentially required to take the field against Ethniu, but he would have done that anyway. Plus, Ethniu, already a powerful goddess-level being, has a special weapon: the Eye of Balor. This is essentially a magical WMD crafted by Ethniu’s father, and she intends to use it to level the city.
Considering she started that process in the previous book by knocking out every electronic device in the entire city of Chicago before the invasion even started, that’s saying something.
Of course, Mab and the Winter Court aren’t fighting this alone. An attack on one means an attack on all, and that means the Unseelie Accords snap into place, forcing all signatories into assisting. That means beings as diverse as the White Council of Wizards, newly minted mob boss Baron Marcone, the White Court of Vampires, ghouls, old One-Eye (Odin), a dragon, a sasquatch, and a whole host of other things. If it’s a magical power of any kind, it’ll be in Chicago doing something. And somehow, even with all that, it may not be enough since Ethnui actually kicked the scary-powerful Mab through a wall in the previous book, and that was without using the Eye all that much. It’ll be up to a whole lot of people to see to it that Chicago is still standing in any form when the sun comes up in the morning.
Now, I have generally found Butcher’s Dresden novels always work best when they combine whatever personal issues Harry is going through with something much, much bigger than himself. The problem here is, for much of this book, the personal stuff was more or less handled in Peace Talks while the big stuff happened in Battle Ground. Battle Ground, as a result, is a more action-packed book, but aside from Harry’s perpetual guilt for all the lives he simply can’t save because everything going on around him is far too big even for him (and that’s not a good excuse in his own mind), this is not a very personal book for much of its page count. If anything, it reads like a video game where Harry, and whatever allies he has with him at any given moment, go around the city, encounter enemies, fight them off and then engage in a “boss fight”. True, Harry’s own humanity, amplified by the allies he keeps closest, shines through even as others seem to not see it, but that doesn’t change the way the book goes.
And then I got to the end.
Much of the book played out with just about every friend and ally Harry had ever made somewhere popping up to help in one form or another, ranging from Murphy (obviously), to Mac the silent tavern-owner, to the Knights of the Cross, to the Alphas, and even Toot-Toot and his Little Folk (and when was the last time I saw General Toot anywhere?). The few who don’t show up, like Uriel the angel, at least get namechecked. But Butcher does a couple things to make this stand out.
First, there’s a major status quo-changing event at about the halfway point.
Second, he pulls out the sorts of surprises that his best books are known for. True, I am used to seeing them sprinkled throughout the book, but he saves the best for the last third or so, so be patient.
And third, he does circle back to close a loop with a dangling plot thread from Peace Talks that he could have easily skipped, but it goes, along with an extra-long final chapter, to set up the next phase in Harry’s life. Harry’s actions cost him some allies, and while readers working their way through these books know why Harry made the decisions he did, not everyone else does, and learning the whys can sometimes cost him friends and allies when he doesn’t want to. It’s one of those occasions I find many urban fantasy authors, even the better ones like Butcher, sometimes can’t quite close a gap on: other characters call the protagonist/narrator an asshole, but seeing inside his head, it’s a little hard to see. Harry just wants to live his life and knows his secrets will cost him whether he says anything or not. And he’s generally right.
Where is Butcher going with all this? I don’t know, but I am very much looking forward to finding out. Hopefully it won’t be another five years before he gets another of these out.
Grade: B+
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