Review: The Dresden Files: Aftermath

New stuff from the Dresden Files is always appreciated, especially with only one book coming out every year. As a result, the release of Side Jobs is a welcome reprieve from the long and grueling 364 days that I don't have a new Dresden book.

Side Jobs is a collection of mostly-already-published short stories. If you've been a good consumer and purchased everything with Butcher's name attached, you most likely have 75% of what Side Jobs has to offer. However, despite having about half of them, being able to collect them all in one compendium is a nice addition to my collection. (Plus, it goes aestetically with the rest of the hardcovers, rather than a bunch of softback anthologies. A definite plus for all you obsessive compulsives!)

I won't say an awful much about the older content that's contained within. Suffice to say that it's Dresden and it's good and you've probably already made up your mind by this point. This review is instead going to deal with the new content that we've gotten in this book, botably, the changes to the world – and the landscape of Chicago – following Changes.

Non-Spoiler Version: If you haven't read Changes, dear GOD do not read any further until you've read it. Go, read Changes. Avoid anything and everything Dresden Files until you've completed this. I'm being careful about the spoiling but others WILL NOT BE.

As for Aftermath, Non-spoilery, I can say this – it's a short story. It's more of a character portrait of Murphy and Billy than anything else. There isn't a whole lot of new plot developments, but it's something that's fun to read.

<><><>Everything beyond this point WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. <><><>

Murphy and Billy track down a minor-talent smuggling ring. There's a fight, they win. That's basically the whole plot. There isn't an awful lot there except that Marcone is helping keep Chicago safe, Odin wants to hire Murphy, and Murph is holding the fort down for Dresden until he gets back in April. Honestly, I was a little disappointed in the advancement of the story, but I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised. After all, this isn't technically part of the story as a whole.

That said, it does give us an interesting insight into Murphy as a character. She relies on body language a whole lot more than Dresden, and the mental intrusion from way-back-when is still hitting her pretty hard. Murphy is a lot more damaged than I was giving her credit for before this book, and I think that's interesting.

Basically, we hit all the major points that I'd expect to hit in a story like this, and spun our wheels a bit, but the main plot is still hovering out there like a Ghost, and this story knows it. Dresden, as much as Murphy doesn't want to admit it, is dead as a doornail – a spooky, ghost-y doornail. He haunts this story like a lost lover (fairly close to the truth, in Murph's case), with everything reminding Murphy of all he did.

Overall, I wouldn't say this is an expecially strong Dresden story, especially right after the Great Convergence of plots that we just had in Changes, but since it's just a short story to tide us over, and not really supposed to be a part of the overarching plot structure, I can take it for what it is – a fairly enjoyable one-off.