The Dresden Files
| The Dresden Files | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jim Butcher |
| Cover artist | Lee MacLeod, Christian McGrath |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Detective Contemporary fantasy Urban Fantasy |
| Publisher | Roc Books Dabel Brothers (comics and graphic novels 2007–2009) Dynamite Entertainment (comics and graphic novels 2009–present) |
| Publication date | April 2000–present |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) Serial (comics and graphic novels) Audiobook (CD & MP3) |
The Dresden Files is a series of fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher. He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Butcher's original proposed title for the first novel was "Semiautomagic", which sums up the series' balance of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction.
In 2007, a television series based on the novels aired for one season on the American Sci-Fi Channel.
Plot
In the world of The Dresden Files, magic is real, along with vampires, demons, spirits, faeries, werewolves, and other mythical monsters. Harry Dresden works to protect the general public, who are ignorant of magic and the dark forces conspiring against them. This makes it difficult for Harry to get by as a working wizard and private eye. The Chicago PD's Special Investigation unit, when led by Karrin Murphy, regularly employs Dresden as a consultant to help solve cases of a supernatural nature.
Characters
Organizations
In The Dresden Files universe, each species (humans, faeries, vampires, etc.) has its own political and societal rules, and organizations. The human wizards depend on the White Council, while the vampires and faeries belong to various courts.
Miscellaneous groups in the series
The Seven Laws of Magic
Publishing history
Jim Butcher decided to become a professional author at the age of nineteen. Subsequently he wrote three novels within the fantasy genre and one which he has classified as paranormal—books which the author has described as being "terrible". In 1996 he enrolled in a writing class where he was encouraged to write a novel similar to the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton, rather than the more traditional high fantasy that had been his focus in the past, as Butcher had previously stated that he enjoyed the Anita Blake series. Despite initial resistance, he wrote the first book that semester, closely following the instructions of his teacher, author Deborah Chester.
The result was Semiautomagic, later to be retitled as Storm Front. His writing teacher declared it to be publishable, and Butcher started hunting around to do just that.
Butcher failed to secure a publisher for two to three years. During this period he completed the second novel, Fool Moon, and had made significant progress on the third, Grave Peril. Deciding to focus on agents and editors who had already published similar novels, Butcher targeted Ricia Mainhardt, the agent representing Laurell Hamilton, and submitted a copy of his manuscript. It was not accepted. Finally, Jim Butcher met Laurell Hamilton at a convention, and was invited to lunch along with her agent (Mainhardt) and a second agent, Jennifer Jackson. Ricia Mainhardt agreed to represent him, and six months later The Dresden Files was sold to ROC, an imprint of Penguin Books.
The first volume, Storm Front, was released in 2000 in paperback; the next two novels in the series, Fool Moon and Grave Peril, were released shortly thereafter, in January and September 2001, also in paperback. Subsequent novels in the series have been published annually since then, with the most recent novel, Changes, published April 2010. Omnibus editions have been released by the Science Fiction Book Club, with each of the four volumes reprinting two or three of the novels in the sequence.
The series' first six novels were originally only published as paperbacks, but in 2007 ROC changed its strategy and began to publish hardcover reprints of books one to six. Volume six, Blood Rites, was released in July 2007. From book seven onwards, each new book was directly published as hardcover and paperback both.
Orbit Books purchased the series for UK publication, and released the first novel, Storm Front in September 2005—five years after the initial US release. They then proceeded to publish two books per month. In November 2007, Orbit Books announced that they had purchased the rights to Changes, the twelfth novel, as well as the thirteenth Dresden novel, Ghost Story.
All 12 volumes of The Dresden Files have been released as audio books narrated by James Marsters. The cover art for the series was created by Chris McGrath.
Books in the series
All the books are published by ROC, an imprint of Penguin Books. The Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) is reissuing the series in hardcover omnibus editions. So far, all of the audio books of The Dresden Files have been read by actor James Marsters. The first four are produced by . The fifth audio book Death Masks is produced by Penguin Audio. The audio books for the remaining books of the Dresden Files will be released in 2010 from Buzzy Multimedia with James Marsters reading. Proven Guilty and White Night were released in April 2009 alongside Turn Coat. Death Masks was released November 2009, and Blood Rites and Dead Beat were released April 2010. The next book in the series will be known as Ghost Story according to the author's website, and a tweet on April 4, 2011, Butcher revealed that the book after Ghost Story will be titled Cold Days.
Butcher is currently planning for approximately twenty books in the "case files" of the series, to be capped by a further "big apocalyptic trilogy".
Novelettes
Backup: A Story of the Dresden Files is a novelette set in the "Dresdenverse", but narrated by vampire Thomas Raith. In the novelette, Harry is in danger and is unaware of it, and Thomas runs interference for Harry, trying to protect Harry without his realizing it. The novelette was published on October 31, 2008 by Subterranean Press.
Short stories
Butcher had planned to release all of his Dresden Files short stories in a single anthology, Side Jobs, released October 26, 2010, which also includes the new story: "Aftermath", a novelette told from Karrin Murphy's point of view, set "an hour or two" after the events of Changes. However, as Butcher revealed during a Q&A at an April 8, 2010 signing event at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, the stories "Even Hand" and "Curses" had to be left out of that anthology, so he is going to have to write additional short stories to fill out a second anthology in order to keep his promise to his readers that all of his shorter works will someday be available in a collected format.
Other media
Television
The Dresden Files was adapted to television in 2007 by the Sci-Fi Channel, and was canceled after one season.
Graphic novels
In October 2007, Jim Butcher announced on his website that Dabel Brothers would be producing a Dresden Files graphic novel series:
The four-issue mini-series called Welcome to the Jungle, ran as a prequel to Storm Front from early to mid 2008. A compilation of that run was released as a hardcover graphic novel in October 2008. Storm Front was announced as the next adaptation, by the same creative team. The first issue was released in November 2008. Welcome to the Jungle was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.
Midway through the production of Storm Front, the title changed hands from Dabel Brothers to Dynamite Entertainment, causing a long gap between issues #5 and #6. Artist Ardian Syaf left the project to work for DC, and Brett Booth was brought in to finish the graphic novel. Issue #6 was slated for May 2010.
List of Graphic novels
Role playing game
Jim Butcher has spoken openly about a pen and paper role-playing game released in 2010 based on the Dresden Files universe. The game has been produced by Evil Hat Productions.
In January 2008, the project went into an early alpha phase of testing, and was in various beta testing phases throughout 2009. Pre-orders were opened up on April 4, 2010, and include immediate access to the pre-print PDF, dubbed the "Early Bird" version. Evil Hat released the game between June 23–27, 2010, to coincide with Origins 2010. The RPG consists of two books, Volume One: Your Story, the core rule book, and Volume Two: Our World, a text describing the game universe. The game, which uses a modified version of the FATE system, emphasizes narrative structure over simulation of magical physics. It allows players to play a wide variety of characters, ranging from an ordinary humans such as Karrin Murphy or Gentleman Johnny Marcone to magic users like Harry Dresden or Molly Carpenter to powerful supernatural creatures along the lines of Thomas Raith, all in the same game, with all the players able to make a contribution.
References
External links
- The Dresden Files Series at Jim Butcher's website
- Buzzy Multimedia—Publishers of the audio books
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files
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