The Dresden Files: My Favorite Series, And Why Chicago Is The Other Main Character
F'nAround Books: Starting With The One That Stuck
F'nAround is starting a books section, and there was never a question about where to start. The Dresden Files is my favorite series, full stop. Not my favorite urban fantasy series, not my favorite comfort read, my favorite series. Jim Butcher built a wizard private investigator in Chicago, gave him a first person voice that never lets up, and then spent 26 years and 18 novels turning a case of the week detective story into a war for the city, and then for the world. If you have never read it, start at Storm Front. If you have read it, you already know why this one comes first.
Light spoiler warning up front. I am going to talk about how the plot and the characters grow, which means I am going to talk about where the series goes in broad terms. I am not going to spoil the big deaths and reveals beat by beat, because part of the fun of Dresden is watching Butcher plant something in book three and pay it off in book twelve. If you want to go in cold, read Storm Front first, then come back.
What The Dresden Files Is About
Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is Chicago's only professional wizard, and the only entry under Wizards in the phone book. That is not a joke in the books, it is his actual ad. Harry Dresden, Wizard. Lost items found. Paranormal investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable rates. No love potions, endless purses, or other entertainment. He works out of an office in midtown Chicago, lives in a basement apartment in a house divided into rented rooms, drives a battered Volkswagen Beetle that is held together by spite and duct tape, and carries a staff and a blasting rod. He is a private investigator first and a wizard second, at least in the way he talks about himself, and that order matters. The books are detective stories before they are epic fantasy, and Harry solves problems the way a PI does, by asking questions, making enemies, getting beaten up, and then figuring out the one thing everybody else missed.
The world is ours, with a second world underneath it. Magic is real, vampires are real, werewolves are real, faeries are real, demons are real, and most people do not believe any of it, because the supernatural world works very hard to stay hidden and because most people would rather not know. Harry is a consultant for the Chicago Police Department's Special Investigations division, the unit that gets the cases that do not make sense. That is how the series starts, with a cop who does not believe in magic calling the one wizard in the phone book because the bodies do not fit any normal explanation.
Storm Front, published in April 2000, is book one, and it is a small story on purpose. A double murder by sorcery, a missing husband, a wizard who is being framed, and a city that does not want to admit what happened. Fool Moon, book two, is werewolves. Grave Peril, book three, is ghosts and the vampire courts. Summer Knight, book four, is the Faerie Courts. Each book is a case, and each case pulls one more thread. By the time you get to Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, and Proven Guilty, you are not reading case files anymore. You are reading a man getting pulled, book by book, into a war between the White Council of wizards, the Red Court of vampires, the Faerie Courts, and things older and worse than all of them.
Chicago Is Not A Backdrop. Chicago Is A Character
This is the part that matters to me, because I am a Chicago guy and F'nAround is a Chicago outlet. Dresden is not set in a generic city that happens to be called Chicago. It is set in Chicago, with Chicago weather, Chicago police, Chicago neighborhoods, Chicago traffic, and Chicago attitude. Harry's office is in midtown. His apartment is a basement, which in Chicago means damp, cold, and a fireplace that matters in winter. He deals with the Chicago Police Department, not a made up police force. He deals with a Chicago crime boss, John Marcone, who runs the city's underworld with a code that is almost respectable, until it is not. He deals with Lake Michigan, and with an island in the lake called Demonreach, which becomes one of the most important places in the whole series. The lake is not scenery. The lake is a prison, a fortress, and a threat, all at once.
The Chicago tie is also why the series feels grounded when the magic gets huge. Harry can be fighting a Titan in Battle Ground, book 17, and it still feels like Chicago, because the fight is for streets, for people, for a city that has already been through enough. The series starts with a wizard in an office and ends, for now, with a wizard who has lost that office, lost that apartment, and gained a fortress, because the city changed him as much as he changed the city. That is not a metaphor. That is the plot. Chicago makes Harry, and Harry keeps paying for Chicago.
The books also get Chicago right in the small ways that matter to people who live here. Winter is a character. Money is a character. Harry is broke, a lot. He takes cases because he needs rent, not because he is on a quest. He eats bad food, he fixes his car himself, he argues with cops who are tired and underfunded, and he knows which parts of the city will help him and which parts will eat him. That is why readers who have never been to Chicago feel like they have, and why readers who live here feel seen. Butcher does not use Chicago as a postcard. He uses it as a workplace.
The Characters Who Grow With Harry
Harry is the voice, but the series lives or dies on the people around him, and they do not stay still. That is the growth I keep coming back to, because most long series either freeze their supporting cast or kill them off for shock. Butcher does neither, mostly. He lets them change, and he lets Harry pay for those changes.
Karrin Murphy is the first one you meet, and she is the spine of the early books. She runs Special Investigations for the Chicago Police Department, she does not believe in magic at first, she is a martial artist and a marksman, and she is Harry's primary ally in law enforcement. Over the series she is demoted, stripped of her command, and eventually pushed out of the force altogether, not because she is bad at her job, but because she keeps choosing to help Harry when the department wants her to stop. Her arc is about what happens when a good cop realizes the system cannot handle the truth, and what she does after the badge is gone. She does not become a sidekick. She becomes a different kind of fighter, and a different kind of friend to Harry, and that evolution is one of the best long arcs in urban fantasy.
Bob is the opposite kind of character, and just as important. Bob is a spirit of intellect who lives in a skull on a shelf in Harry's secret lab, under his apartment. He has centuries of knowledge about magic, monsters, and arcane lore, he has no body, he can possess Harry's cat Mister if he needs to move, and he will die if he is exposed to significant sunlight without a host. Bob is funny, lecherous, brilliant, and dangerous, because he knows things Harry should not know and he remembers wizards Harry would rather forget. He is the library, the comic relief, and the warning, all at once. Harry talks to a skull, and it never feels silly, because Bob is the only person, or spirit, who has seen this story before.
Michael Carpenter is the moral center, and Butcher needs him to be. Michael is a carpenter and contractor, a devout Christian, a family man, and a Knight of the Cross who wields the holy sword Amoracchius, which is said to contain one of the nails from the crucifixion. His home is protected by angelic grace, which makes it one of the safest places in Chicago, and also one of the most important. Michael does not preach at Harry. He shows up, he fights beside him, he goes home to his family, and he takes Harry's daughter in later in the series when Harry cannot. That is not a side plot. That is the series saying, faith without fanaticism is a real power, and family is a real stake.
Then there is the wider cast, and this is where the series gets huge. Thomas Raith, Harry's half brother and a vampire of the White Court, who feeds on emotion and tries very hard not to be a monster. Molly Carpenter, Michael's daughter, who starts as a teenager in trouble and grows into Harry's apprentice, and then into something much harder and more dangerous. Waldo Butters, the Chicago medical examiner who starts as a nervous guy with a polka band and ends up as a Knight of the Cross himself. John Marcone, the crime boss who becomes a player in the supernatural world in his own right. Susan Rodriguez, Harry's first real love in the series, a reporter who gets pulled into the vampire world and never fully comes back. And the villains, who are not just monsters of the week. The Red Court, the Black Court, the Faerie Queens Mab and Titania, the Denarians with their fallen angel coins, the Outsiders who want to break the world itself. Each one forces Harry to grow, because each one is too big for the wizard he was in the last book.
How The Plot Grows: From Case Files To A War
The growth is the whole trick, and it is why the series is my favorite. Butcher has said the long term plan is about 22 case file novels followed by a big apocalyptic trilogy, for a total in the mid twenties. That plan explains why the books feel like they are building, not just continuing. The early books are cases. The middle books are a war. The late books are the consequences of that war.
Here is the shape, without spoiling the turns. Storm Front to Summer Knight, books one to four, establish Harry, Murphy, Bob, the White Council, and the Faerie Courts. Death Masks to White Night, books five to nine, expand the vampire war, the wizard war, and Harry's family, and they start to cost him. Small Favor to Changes, books ten to twelve, are where the series pivots. Changes, book twelve, is the book fans point to when they say, this is where Dresden stopped being a detective series and became something else. I will not spoil what changes, but the title is not a metaphor. Ghost Story, Cold Days, and Skin Game, books thirteen to fifteen, deal with what Harry becomes after that pivot, including a new job he did not want and a new power he cannot control. Peace Talks and Battle Ground, books sixteen and seventeen, are a two part battle for Chicago itself, against a Titan, with the whole city as the battlefield. Twelve Months, book eighteen, published in January 2026, covers exactly one year in Harry's life, month by month, after that battle, and it is the bridge to what comes next. Mirror Mirror, book nineteen, is confirmed as the next novel, before the long promised closing trilogy, whose rumored titles are Hell's Bells, Stars and Stones, and Empty Night.
That is 26 years of a character growing older, getting more powerful, and getting less free. Harry starts as a wizard for hire who cannot pay rent. He ends, for now, as the Winter Knight, a title that gives him power and takes away his choices, expelled from the White Council, engaged to a vampire queen against his will, and grieving losses that do not get undone. That is not a power fantasy. That is a cost fantasy, and it is why the series sticks. Every time Harry gets stronger, the price goes up, and the people around him pay part of it too.
The Sci Fi Show: 12 Episodes, A Hockey Stick, And A Show That Was Not The Books
Then there is the show, and I have to talk about it, because every Dresden fan has a show story. The Dresden Files television series premiered January 21, 2007, on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States, now Syfy, and on Space in Canada. It starred Paul Blackthorne as Harry Dresden, Valerie Cruz as Lt. Connie Murphy, Terrence Mann as Bob, Conrad Coates as Warden Donald Morgan, and Raoul Bhaneja as Detective Sid Kirmani. It ran for one season, 12 episodes, from January 21 to April 15, 2007, and Sci Fi confirmed its cancellation on August 3, 2007. No second season was picked up.
Blackthorne was actually great casting, and that is the frustrating part. He had Harry's weariness, Harry's humor, and Harry's stubbornness. But the show was not the books, and it did not try to be, not really. In the books, Harry has a staff and a blasting rod, drives a battered Beetle, and lives in a basement apartment with a separate office. In the show, Harry carries a hockey stick as a focus, drives an old Jeep, and lives and works in a combined space. Bob, who in the books is a skull on a shelf, was played by Terrence Mann as a full apparition in the show, and in a re-edited pilot he was reduced to a disembodied voice centered on the skull, which is closer to the books. Murphy's name was changed from Karrin to Connie, to avoid confusion with a real life Chicago police officer named Karyn Murphy, and show Murphy has a daughter, Anna, who does not exist in the books.
The show also aired episodes out of order. The pilot, Storm Front, did not air first. The network started with Birds of a Feather, because they thought it was a stronger introduction, and if you watch the show today in broadcast order, the continuity is a mess. The correct episode order, as fans have pieced it together, is Storm Front, Rules of Engagement, Birds of a Feather, Boone Identity, Hair of the Dog, Walls, Bad Blood, Soul Beneficiary, What About Bob, The Other Dick, Things That Go Bump, and Second City. That order makes the show work better, but it does not make it the books.
So why do I still like talking about the show? Because it proves how hard Dresden is to adapt. The books work because Harry's first person voice carries everything, his jokes, his self loathing, his explanations of magic, his asides to the reader. Take away that voice, and you have a wizard detective show that looks like a dozen other shows, even if the wizard is great. The show was not a failure because Blackthorne was wrong. It was a failure because the network wanted episodic stories, the books wanted a serialized epic, and the budget and the branding shift at Sci Fi did not leave room for the second one. In 2018, Fox21 Television Studios optioned the rights for a new Dresden Files television development, but that option did not turn into a second show on screen. As of now, the books are still the real Dresden, and the 2007 show is a curiosity, a what if, and a good way to spend a weekend if you want to see what could have been.
Where To Start, And Why This Series Stays With You
Start with Storm Front, in publication order, not in chronological short story order. The publication order is Storm Front (2000), Fool Moon (2001), Grave Peril (2001), Summer Knight (2002), Death Masks (2003), Blood Rites (2004), Dead Beat (2005), Proven Guilty (2006), White Night (2007), Small Favor (2008), Turn Coat (2009), Changes (2010), Ghost Story (2011), Cold Days (2012), Skin Game (2014), Peace Talks (2020), Battle Ground (2020), and Twelve Months (2026). The first book is the weakest, and every fan will tell you that. It is a first novel, written as a writing exercise, and it shows. Grave Peril, book three, is where most readers say the series settles into itself, and Summer Knight and Death Masks are where most long term fans say they were locked in for good. Do not skip ahead to Changes, even though everybody talks about it. Changes only hits because you have spent eleven books with these people.
The audiobooks, performed by James Marsters, are also a real way in, and for a lot of fans they are the way in. Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, does Harry's voice in a way that makes the first person narration feel like a conversation, not a lecture. The graphic novels, the roleplaying game from Evil Hat in 2010, and the short story collections Side Jobs (2010) and Brief Cases (2018) are for after you are hooked, not before.
Why is this my favorite series? Because it is about a man who keeps choosing to help, even when helping costs him everything, in a city that keeps needing help, with friends who keep changing and a world that keeps getting bigger. It is funny when it should be funny, it is brutal when it needs to be brutal, and it never lets Harry off the hook for his choices. That is rare in a long series. Most long series either get soft or get cynical. Dresden gets harder and more human at the same time, and that is why, after 18 novels, I am still waiting for book nineteen.
Next in F'nAround Books: Codex Alera, the other Jim Butcher series I found by researching Dresden, and the one that proves Butcher can build a whole world from a bet.