Proven Guilty

Finished this book last night - number 8 in the Dresden Files. I'm impressed by it - largely because I have trouble thinking of another series that I've read as much of and still held up well. Back in the day, I read the Belgariad and Mallorean, enjoying both, but after the first several books things didn't feel quite as interesting. The Wheel of Time started really wearing on me at book 4 or 5 and I pretty much stopped following it after that. It feels rather remarkable to me that I'm still reading a series after so long and it still has the same sort of fun to it. The characters and their relationships have changed, but slowly enough to feel like a natural evolution.

The other oddity that strikes me is how this book felt less self-contained than I'm accustomed to. Sure, there are explanations of what has gone before, but very few of the characters are new and there are plenty of threads pulled over from previous books and even more left open for the future. Somehow I didn't sense that as much before, though perhaps it's my own perceptions. Hard to say.

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