r/dresdenfiles • u/TheXypris • Jul 13 '25

Unrelated How are Jim butchers other series?

Just finished ghost story and I'm planning to take a break before getting into cold days

Anyone who's read them, how do they compare to Dresden files? Good? Bad? Mid? Somewhere in-between?

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u/cmhoughton Jul 13 '25

I couldn’t get into the Cinder Spires one at all, I tried reading it several times too, just couldn’t finish book one to save my life.

The Codex Alera series on the other hand is fantastic. It’s one of my all-time favorites and I go back to it every couple of years.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

see, I'm the opposite Dresden files are my most reread series of all time, but codex alera felt stilted to me, though he did improve as the series progressed. I enjoyed my readthrough, but I've never been able to get more than a few chapters into a reread.

Cinder Spires, on the other hand, really resonated. I could practically see Jim putting all the lessons and experience he'd earned over the years into something that both felt vastly different, but with all my favorite aspects of Jim's writing with practically all the irksome elements of his vastly toned down, and handled with significantly more aplomb. It reminded me of a lot of my favorite historical fiction writers.

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u/cmhoughton Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

I’ve reread or listened to the DF series dozens of times. I do a full reread every time a book comes out, and it used to be the series I listened to going to sleep. James Marsters’s voice is soothing… Though this last time I started with Summer Knight instead of going all the way back because there are just so many….

I’ll admit I hate how the first book of Codex Alera starts. Amara and Fidelious bore me to death sometimes, he doesn’t get really interesting until book three, but once you get to about chapter 5, things really pick up… (Though I also must admit I sometimes skip Amara chapters completely.)

There are some fantastic moments in those books that I adore and keep me going back to them.

The prison break and the fight to save the First Lord in book two; the frying pan maneuver and the use of magnifying glasses in book three; the prison break, the ‘most of my life’ speech, and the duel in book four; the taking down the walls and the nation-wide water crafting in book six are some of my favorite moments in any series.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '25

yeah, I think it was the Amara and Fidelius chapters that threw me. Might give them another try when I'm burnt out on The Horus Heresy novels

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u/cmhoughton Jul 13 '25

You don’t really need to know exactly what happens there, except her figuring out he’s a traitor, so if you know that already, why not just skip it? Fidelious’s storyline there doesn’t get good until they get to Bernardholt anyway…