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| Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jim Butcher
Publisher: Roc Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $14.44
You Save: $9.51 (40%)
New (50) Used (20) Collectible (6) from $11.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  127 reviews
Sales Rank: 2781
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0451461894
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780451461896
ASIN: 0451461894
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new Book, ALL days Low Price !
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| Customer Reviews:
 happy with harry April 5, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Okay, so this review is nothing at all BUT spoilers and so you should skip it if you haven't read the book yet.
The Billy Goats Gruff; Ha! 'Za Lord's guard protects the cleaning brownies from the dreaded Mister beast. "Forget the doughnut!" Murph standing up to the Gruff v2.0. Gruff v2.0 being Zortched by the might of Thor! Nicodemus still a creepy mastermind of the deepest evil. Michael down for the count. Gruff v3.0- 5'4"? He's Harry's doughnut bitch. Harry with 2 swords. God Speaks Through Tolkien! Murph jelous about Anastasia? Murph want to go all-in in the fight against evil. Soulfire, baby.
Me? I liked this book.
Things are just starting to pick up. April 10, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Another great addition to the Dresden Files. As Jim Butcher really starts digging into his characters he is able to intertwine the relationships so the stories don't seem like "oh, today's guest star is [blank]". Jim Butcher also is letting each character grow with the novels and not remain a static 2-D person to play the foil-du-jour to Harry Dresden. In Small Favor, many past characters and story lines build up more steam as Dresden has what might be called a "crapstorm" dumped on him. For those of you familiar he has to deal with the Denarians, Winter (Mab), Summer (Titania), the Archive and Kincaid, no support from the C.P.D., Gentleman Johnny Marcone, and what turns to be a little more insight into the Black Council. You can almost feel Jim Butcher using 'Small Favor' to take mythos of Harry Dresden and crank things up a notch and given what has been said and done, the future is "gonna get really good!"
 Alera Ate Jim's Brain (warning: a few spoilers) May 4, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
While some Dresden is better than no Dresden, this isn't one of the strongest. White Night was so knock-out awesome that I admit it would have been hard to top it, but JB is writing this one with his head in Alera. He's using a Tolkeinesque formula (you know: Frodo gets ring, Frodo dumps ring, and in between he fights every freakin body in MiddleEarth). In Small Favor, Harry and company race from one head-knocking battle to another, with lots of disjointed details and half-finished plot lines thrown in. There's not much character development of anybody, not even Harry himself, and our favorite characters, like Bob, Mister, Thomas, the pixy Toot-Toot, Mouse and Molly, get trotted out almost as an obligation, but spend the majority of the book in the dugout. Even Murphy is sidelined for much of the book. Kincaid and Marcone are woefully under-used, and The Archive is badly used as, for some godsawful reason, Jim elects to try to humanize her, instead of capitalizing on her terrifying abilities.
There is, however, a despair-inducing abundance of Michael Carpenter, whose presence is mercifully diluted with that of the admirable Russian, Sanya, a pragmatist who, like Harry, is able to see in shades of grey. Sanya benefits from one of the few bits of available character development, and I can't help wishing there'd been more overall.
There are some really clever plot devices, like the Gruffs, but a lot of the between-battles stuff makes no sense. Like why is Mab's malk doing her speaking for her, when she can actually use her own voice? Why is the Ultimate Gruff willing to make peace with Harry, when his predecessors have been sworn to vengence? Why is Lucio putting the moves on Harry? What's happened to Lea? And we never found out what happened to the smart, helpful dolphins when Harry exploded the aquarium wall.
I wish in the next book everyone would just wake up to discover that this one had been just a "Southfork Dream".
It's Dresden, but not deeply satisfying or fulfilling May 31, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
By the time a series is in its 10th volume, you're either a fan or not a fan and it will take some pretty serious stumbling to put you off (Sue Grafton, are you listening?). Small Favor is not a stumble, but it's a placeholder in the series. Harry Dresden is more powerful, and thus has greater challenges to overcome. A minor spoiler - he has some romantic interest, which has certainly not been a regular feature for him.
Harry Dresden has been accruing minor characters like a snowball rolling down a slope. Most of them make an appearance in Small Favor. Molly Carpenter, the young woman he's been mentoring, is making progress but will never be the kick-ass fightin' wizard that Harry is. Murphy, the petite Special Investigations cop continues to be a loyal and good friend with a spark of attraction between her and Harry. Even the pizza-eating pixies make an appearance. All this interplay of Harry's friends and wary allies can't create a good story, and although there is definitely a plot, with the typical world-as-we-know-it at stake, Small Favor feels like Butcher is going through the motions. This is a real bummer, as I really like Harry as a character, the world of magic and the supernatural that Jim Butcher has developed, and Butcher's thoughts and wisecracks attributed to Harry. There's an afterward to Small Favor where Butcher introduces us to his Codex Alera series (this is reprinted from previous books), and perhaps this is where his heart is. But Jim, there are plenty of series like Codex Alera, and only one Harry Dresden!
 Butcher manages to keep it original April 8, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm a harsher critic than most, but even I have a hard time find cracks in Small Favor, the 10th book in the ongoing series of The Dresden Files. While it is necessary to have at least skimmed the previous books to not get lost in the various sub and sideplots, Butcher does a good job of keeping the story contained, and recapping prior events without wasting half the book retelling old novels.
Small Favor finds Harry ending a blissful, for him anyway, year of not having to dodge bullets or various boogins that have plagued him to date. His apprentice Molly is coming along nicely, old scars have healed, and hes managed to get his life into some semblance of order.
Then Mab appears after Harry investigates a magically triggered explosion that destroys an apparently abandoned building. Mab, Queen of the Winter Sidhe and general monster, calls in the second of three markers Harry owes her, charging him to find and save the life of Gentleman Johnny Marcone. This triggers a reaction of Summer as well as the Dark Denarians, an order of Fallen Angels who have taken a certain interest in Harrys ally/nemesis crime lord.
To complicate matters, Harry is noticing changes among his group of friends, and distrusts of the past quickly bubble to the surface. How can Harry expect to survive demons and monsters when his own allies think he may be one of the enemy?
Butchers writing style improved significantly, as White Night and Death Shroud, while definitely passable, lost much of the punch his earliest work seems to have. This is back to basics, with more of the jokes and razor-edged wit that made people love Harry from the start. He manages to hold all of his plots together, as he was on the verge of having threads run away, maanges to keep them in one place from start to finish.
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