Generally, fantasy novels come in trilogies -- barely enough room for the Reading Canary to spread its wings. Fortunately, the Dresden Files' author Jim Butcher is not afraid to keep going: there are currently eleven novels about his taciturn wizard, and the canary has soared through the first ten.

Set in Chicago in, essentially, the present day, the Dresden Files is classic low fantasy. Magic is real. Wizards and many of the typical High Fantasy cast (faeries, monsters, and so on) exist alongside the everyday world, and manage to get by unnoticed simply because humanity as a whole don't believe in them and wilfully ignore magic when it appears. Harry Dresden, our eponymous hero, is a hard-bitten young detective wizard-for-hire, with the requisite shady customers, beat-up jalopy, and skeptical outlook on life.

So far, so earth-shattering. Where's the exciting new world-view? Where's the painstakingly constructed mythos? At first glance, there isn't one -- and it's a relief. The fact that Jim Butcher doesn't try desperately to break new ground means that he doesn't spend half of each novel world-building, and frees up space for plot (of which more later), and for the world to be built slowly, bit-by-bit. It's a bit ham-handed at times, and in the later novels there are plenty of irritating chunks of fill-in-the-backstory for those readers who might have joined the party late, but especially in the earlier books it is kept neatly out of the way. And, halfway through the series, it turns out that Butcher's quirky little twists on typical fantasy myth (like Bob the Skull) have come together into a reasonably coherent framework that is the Dresden Files' own.

Now, just because a world is built slowly doesn't mean it's built well, and Butcher's world is a little shaky and contains plenty of cheesy effects. (The mystical power of love, for instance, can cause burning pain to succubi. I kid you not). Religion, in particular, is terribly inconsistent -- its power is purportedly down to individuals' faith, and has nothing to do with the divine. However, churches are strangely impervious to evil. There are several Knights of the Cross, with immense and tangible mystical powers granted to them by nails from the crucifixion of Jesus. Dresden himself meets an order of fallen angels whose powers are embodied in thirty pieces of silver. Belief remains "optional" -- Harry Dresden is portrayed as an atheist (I guess it's, like, totally uncool to believe in God these days). It all reads like a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt to blend the divinities of myth and high fantasy (tangible, real, and enthusiastic participants in the physical world, though not everyone is their priest and only priests can wield their power) with the no-pressure gospel of modern Christianity (it's all about faith, man, faith brings you the power of God's love, but He loves everyone, atheists too, whatever), and seems to miss the point of both.

Another little thing that grates against me personally is the White Council of which Dresden is a member. They're explicitly described as ancient and world-girdling, and the elite Senior Council includes a mysterious Arab wizard and a Chinese spymistress (Jim Butcher saying “look, I'm aware of the outside world!”… so why is their leader ceremonially titled “Merlin”? And why do they speak Latin, rather than another, more historically widespread lingua franca? It strikes me as, once again, half-hearted -- an attempt to be international and multi-cultural, but missing the point by building on top of tired Anglo-European bases.

I mentioned plot a couple of paragraphs ago, and it's worth mentioning again, because this is really where the Dresden Files shine. Each novel has a story that drives it, and nearly everything is relevant to the story -- there aren't whole chapters of setup for whatever's going to happen in the next book. That's not to say that the Dresden Files are paragons of story-driven excellence -- quite frequently, this is done lazily. Most of the books follow a fairly standard mystery-solution-climax structure, with a liberal smattering of action scenes. There are cases of quite literal divine intervention. Some of the villains, as if taken straight from 80s B-movies, have “faint British accents” and offer the title character Faustian bargains. And, in the earlier books, it means that character-building is a bit weak and you're forced to learn quite a lot from Dresden's internal monologue. What isn't done lazily is fun factor: the books are well-paced, full of ideas and interesting plot points, and do keep you turning the pages all the way through.

So, in the end, the Dresden Files are fun. They are not ground-breaking. They do not offer any special insights into the world around us. But they are fun, and interesting, and unpretentious about it -- and that sounds like the definition of a good series to me.