I know people have talked about this in other threads, mainly the one on Cold Days. But I wanted to see how others ranked the DF books and why.

Best to Worst

1) Turn Coat 9.5/10, Great character, dialog, comedy, epic fight, massive reveal and where the story really ramps things up.

2) Dead Beat, 9/10, Harry again really shows his shit, great clever plot and plan, good character and some great lines.

3) Changes, 8.75/10, Character growth! Amazing fights, emotional moments through out, great reveal, Black Staff.

4) White Night, 8/10, Fights, Character, Dresdens expanding influence.

5) Cold Days, 7.5/10, Exploration of the Faerie and politics, big reveal and furthering of over all plot.

6) Blood rights, 7.5, Main plot line was kind of bland, but the shit with the Black Court was epic.

7) Death masks, 7/10 Still earlish Dresden before he gets a big name for himself, Denarians were okay.

9) Grave Peril 7/10, Piss off Harry at your own risk.

9) Small Favor 6/10, My least favorite of the recent books, high light was duel fight scenes but the rest of the book didn't grab me.

10) Proven Guilty, 5/10, solid story but with no epicness to it really. Only the final council meeting was a exciting read first time through, and Mouses big reveal.

11) Summer Night, 5/10, a very average book, fight didnt grab me although Toot Toot was epic as always.

12) Chost Story, 4/10, Really didn't like the story, Dresden with no magic and kind of depressing.

13) Fool Moon, 3.5/10, Story stretch credibility for me a lot, even for a fantasy book, also the rift between Harry and Murphy was just odd and contrived.

14) Storm Front, 3/10, meh, when ever I decide to re read the series this book is a chore, even the last fight scene doesnt do it for me.


Over all what I really enjoy in these books is the expansion of the world of magic, so any time we see more of the never never, or new magics, I'm happy. Also I like to see Dresdens expanding influence, one of the reasons I liked Turn Cloak is the scene on the shore line where 5 veteran wardens are scared to take him on, and he realises its his reputation they are afraid of.

 

1) Turn Coat
2) Changes
3) Small Favor
4) Proven Guilty
5) Dead Beat
6) White Night
7) Cold Days/Summer Knight
9) Ghost story
10) Grave Peril/Death Masks/Blood Rights
13) Fool Moon
14) Storm Front

 

Wow, really? I love Small Favor, Proven Guilty, and Summer Knight, and I don't much care for Turn Coat or Changes, though I don't really know why.

 

I guess the reason I don't like those three is because they hold the most other worldly crap. I read DF for urban fantasy, not Gruffs, phobophagus and trolls.

 

I don't really want to rank them all, but I think my favorite is Dead Beat, followed by Changes. Honestly, my least favorite so far might be Cold Days. I didn't hate it, but certain things introduced/revealed there rub me the wrong way.

 

1) Turn Coat - The best book in the series thus far. Morgan was excellent. Dresden showed his first signs of thinking ahead and planning out his battles like a proper Wizard. The humour had me laughing a bunch of times. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about this book.

2) Dead Beat - The only reason this isn't top is because Turn Coat is just that good. A bit more relational drama and this would have easily topped the list.

3) White Night - Poor Lash. Props to Carlos for the funniest scene in the series.

4) Small Favor - Gruffs. Denarians. Ivy. Luccio. Das Truck. By these powers combined I am... SMALL FAVOR!

5) Cold Days - The least awesome of the top five awesome books. A lot of the appeal of the four above was in the awesome relationship reveals and the emotional drama. That was kinda missing in this book, though the action was fantastic enough to boost this up to top five territory.

6) Grave Peril - This used to be a lot lower on my list, but I've read it again since Cold Days came out and the sheer amount of foreshadowing has made it an even better read than it was before.

7) Blood Rites - Guided. Frozen. Turkey. Missile. Also has the funniest starting and finishing lines of any book I've read. "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault." and "Hey. Why did you get large breed Puppy Chow?"

7+1) Summer Knight - Faeries are awesome. The foreshadowing of Nemesis was good. The story was good but not as good as the ones above.

9) Changes - The biggest change (no pun intended) for the series. While it was well written and the plot was cool, some of the character interactions were a bit off. This will probably move higher up the list (like Grave Peril has) once the fallout from everything is revealed in later books.

10) Ghost Story - A definite change of pace for the series, and it was well written. I don't particularly like the style it was written in though. I'm not one for introspective pieces in the first place.

11) Proven Guilty - The phages were cool, the insight into Summer/Winter battles was decent, but the story never really gripped me like the others did.

12) Fool Moon - The only reason this is above Death Masks is because I liked Butcher's take on werewolves.

13) Death Masks - As much as I like the Denarians, this book didn't do it for me.

14) Storm Front - The weakest of the series where Harry's character isn't as well hashed out as it could have been.

 

I've still been unable to get through Grave Peril. I've tried at least three times and I just can't do it. It's not that it's bad, it's just... meh.

 

You are missing out my friend.

Anyway, I really recommend listening to the audio book. I can't stand reading early Dresden, but James Masters narration makes the books far more enjoyable.

 

You sorta need to get to the party in the middle of the book. After that, it's smooth rolling down awesome street.

As for the rankings...

1. Changes. So much awesome action. Highest stakes, for Dresden anyways, in the series.

2. Turn Coat. Morgan for the win.

3. Small Favor. No secret that I love Nicodemus and Mab, so... Yeah.

4. Proven Guilty. Molly's trial. :'(

5. White Night. The flashback scene in this one is probably among the most awesome in series and it isn't even all that large in scale.

6. Dead Beat. SUE!

7. Cold Days. Some of the most awesome scenes in the series, but everything in between is so fucking meh. Speaking of swearing, WHY DO ALL THE CHARACTERS SWEAR CONSTANTLY NOW!? Seriously, why?

8. Summer Knight.

I'm beginning to realize I've missed books, but never mind. The others end up clumped together somewhere at the bottom.

 

Heh, interesting. My ranking is quite different to a lot of yours, in that I feel that the "middle section" of the series was the best. The beginning was the worst, as Butcher was still finding his writing feet, but the latest books haven't been as good as the middle ones, I think. There's been a lot of fan service, I think Dresden's character has wandered into a Butcher self-insert (suddenly he is extraordinarily nerdy), and a lot of the plotlines have taken a turn for the over-epic. I mean, we're now at the point where essentially the entire universe is at stake. That's just a resounding "meh".



So:

1. Dead Beat
2. Proven Guilty
3. Turn Coat
4. White Night
5. Small Favor
6. Summer Knight
7. Death Masks
8. Cold Days
9. Changes
10. Ghost Story
11. Blood Rites
12. Grave Peril
13. Storm Front
14. Fool Moon.



Basically:

Wizards > Denarians > White Court > Faeries > Red Court > Werewolves > Cops

 

I really don't understand the choice of Cold Days above Changes, though. I mean, all the way through Changes, we had the emotional resonsance of his utter desperation. We really felt how he was out of his league and would do whatever the hell it took to pull it off.

The fact that so few of his allies died was a bit meh, but in the end, we can chalk that up to "divine intervention" if we want to. Cold Days felt me completely, well, cold.

Dresden just went "Fuck it, I've done this before, let's see how it goes."

The entire finale dragged oooon and I just didn't give a shit up until they actually fought on the island. As for the nerdy jokes... I never really felt they were awkward until Cold Days. Some of them were REALLY awkward there. Particularly Bob's joke about the special hell.

I love me some Firefly too, but that could've been done better.

 

Cold Days explored the Winter Court more, which was interesting.

Changes featured a conversation wherein the characters compared themselves to characters of Lord of the Rings. That conversation alone was cringe-worthy enough to drop the book several spaces.

 

Ah yes, true. That was pretty stupid and really screwed up the pacing to boot. Still, the battle at the end of Changes was miles better than Murphy and Harry on the Harley.

 

I might actually try this. Everyone raves about these books - especially here - so maybe I just need something to help me get into the meat of them.

 

The audio books are only so-so at first. The third isn't bad, per say, but they put LOTS more effort into the later ones. I'd say the fifth onwards.

The ones I have still have weird shit in them. In Summer Knight, for instance, there's a part where James goes "Oh, that was wrong. Fuck."

Anyways. They really do rock.

 

I just laughed and moved on. It's the bit where Meryl grabs Harry by the back of the neck, I think it was at a crematorium.

 

In a back alley, behind the funeral home, where Reuel's service was held to be exact.

 

I liked them too, Storm Front more than Fool Moon... Still, they were measureably weaker.

 

I don't really have a clear ranking in my head, since I've only read all the books once, but generally speaking, they got better and better as the series kept going on. The one exception being Ghost Story - it and Storm Front are the worst books by far, followed by Fool Moon.

Following Taure's example, I think my preferences were Fae > Denarians > Vampires > Wizards >>>>>>>> mundane bullshit. White Council stuff was generally really tense and awesome, though.