Just another day at the office.
A horror/fantasy/mystery series of novels, thirteen and counting plus associated short stories and comic miniseries and the like, by
Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is a
wizard and private detective operating out of modern day
Chicago, and reluctantly hired by a special police task force as a consultant on supernatural crimes. A cross between urban gothic fantasy and
Film Noir, the
Genre Savvy main character cracks jokes about the various tropes it uses. Adapted into a
drama series on the Sci Fi Channel. There's also a
tabletop RPG, which is much more faithful to the books, as it's
written from the characters' perspective.
Harry meets a wide variety of characters in the series, including Karrin Murphy, the
Action Girl cop who's
aware of the city's supernatural underworld; Bob,
a spirit of intellect who lives in a skull — human-shaped ghost in the television series — is Harry's literal
Magical Computer; Michael Carpenter, a modern-day
paladin wielding a
holy sword; Billy the
Werewolf and his pack of Alphas (a group of young
heroic wannabes); Thomas Raith, the
Loveable Rogue incubus White Court vampire; Harry's on-and-off love interest Susan Rodriguez; and Molly Carpenter, Michael's oldest daughter and Harry's
apprentice. Like many detective stories, Harry meets a ridiculous number of
femmes fatales,
crime bosses, and
hired goons, which is frequently
lampshaded in the series.
There are currently 13 novels in the series:
- Storm Front (2000)
- Fool Moon (2001)
- Grave Peril (2001)
- Summer Knight (2002)
- Death Masks (2003)
- Blood Rites (2004)
- Dead Beat (2006)
- Proven Guilty (2007)
- White Night (2007)
- Small Favor (2008)
- Turn Coat (2009)
- Changes (2010)
- Ghost Story (2011)
- Cold Days
Novels 1 - 9 have been collected in 4 different omnibus editions
Additionally, there are 12 short stories published in various collections:
- "Restoration of Faith"
- "Publicity and Advertising"
- "Something Borrowed" (published in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding)
- "It's My Birthday, Too" (published in Many Bloody Returns)
- "Heorot" (published in My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon)
- "Day Off" (published in Blood Lite)
- "The Warrior" (published in Mean Streets)
- "Last Call" (published in Strange Brew)
- "AAAA Wizardry" (published in the Our World RPG Book)
- "Even Hand" (published in Dark and Stormy Knights)
- "Love Hurts" (published in Songs of Love and Death)
- "Curses" (published in The Naked City)
- "Bigfoot on Campus" (Published in Hex Appeal)
As well as 2 novellas:
- Backup
- Aftermath
All of the shorter material except for "AAAA Wizardry," "Even Hand," and "Curses" has been collected in an anthology called
Side Jobs released October, 2010. As for the other three, Butcher has
promised that all of the shorts would be available in collected form, so as he put it, he'll just have to write enough short stories to get another anthology.
Two comics have been released so far:
- Welcome to the Jungle: A prequel to the series.
- Storm Front: An adaptation of the first novel.
- Fool Moon: An adaptation of the second novel.
Word Of God says that the series will have at least twenty books, which will then be capped off by an apocalyptic trilogy. Because, to quote the author,
"Who doesn't love apocalyptic trilogies?"Two adaptations and spinoffs have been made so far:
- A single season TV adaptation was produced in 2007 and can be viewed here
; tropes specific to it go on its own page. - A Tabletop RPG set in the world of the series. Trope Page here
In addition to the page links at the top, there is also a
shout out page. The recap
page is under major construction, so help with it would be appreciated.
Due to length, the trope list has been split off to subpages:
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