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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN num: 9780451458926
ISBN number: 0451458923
Label: Roc
Manufacturer: Roc
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 371
Printing Date: September 03, 2002
Publishing house: Roc
Release Date: September 03, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 6160
Studio: Roc
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Product Description:
Private detective/wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is suckered into tangling in the affairs of Faerie, where the fate of the entire world-and his soul-are at stake.
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Rated by buyers 
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After three books of battling evil wizards, ghosts, vampires and werewolves, Harry Dresden has a brand-new threat to the world on his plate -- warring faeries.
But worry not -- "Summer Knight" does not descend to drooling over benevolent Tolkienian elves or airy Victorian sprites. Instead, Jim Butcher crafts his fourth Dresden Files adventure-fantasy with plenty of solid action, intriguing characters, wizardly backstabbing, and a brewing supernatural war with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. It's clear that Butcher has hit his stride in this book, turning a merely solid urban fantasy series into one of the best.
It's been nine months since Harry's girlfriend was half-vampirized, and he's spent all that time trying to find a cure. Even worse, the White Council wizards are getting their butts kicked by the Red Court. Oh yes, and it's raining frogs.
The Council is hoping to hand him over to the Red Court in hopes of stopping the war, but he just accepted a case from Queen Mab -- find out who killed the Summer Knight, and stole his power. If he can solve the case, then the Council won't have him killed for peace. And as Harry prepares to do some major-league detective work, he finds an old friend is also involved -- Elaine, his very first lover whom he thought he had killed as a teenager.
But Elaine isn't the most surprising thing about his new case -- he finds himself dealing with a little gang of half-fey, hostile wyldfae, pizza-loving sprites, and the various Sidhe royalty from the Summer and Winter Courts. And Harry and his friends are assaulted by some of the nastier creatures from the Nevernever, as he comes closer to finding who murdered the Summer Knight -- and who is trying to destabilize the entire world into eternal summer or winter.
Not many authors can handle the whole "faerie" thing. Most of them come across as twee, drippy, absurd, or just longing for an ethereally beautiful Legolas clone. No thank you.
Fortunately Jim Butcher is not one of those authors, and "Summer Knight" is what faerie-oriented urban fantasy should always be. He handles the world of the fey as adroitly as he previously handled werewolves and various kinds of vampires. Even better, he gives us a deeper look into the heretofore shadowy world of the wizards, by taking us straight into the White Council and introducing readers to its colorful -- and sometimes bizarre -- members.
Even better, this is where Butcher's series transformed from a solid fantasy-noir series to a brilliant fantasy-noir series. The seemingly straightforward mystery story blossoms out into a complex weave of conspiracies, lies, subplots and various potential enemies, all of which are neatly tied together at the end. He builds up a sense of suspense all the way to the grand finale, without losing his sense of humour -- it's pretty terrifying and bloodspattered, but Harry still has enough presence of mind to shriek, "I don't believe in faeries!"
Even Butcher's writing has grown more mature, adding in ethereal details and haunting atmosphere, and even a tinge of horror in some of the scenes. But he hasn't lost his knack for wacky humour ("Generous" TootToot and his little pizza-loving army, including the Star Jump, Loo Tender, Corpse Oral...). And it's dotted with some solid action scenes, where Harry gets beaten up by an ogre, and Murphy defends a Wal-mart from a plant fey... with a chainsaw. You gotta love that part.
Oh yes, and Butcher gets extra points for the Tolkien homage -- a kindly old man named Ronald Reuel, who is described as a "creator of worlds of imagination." Gotta love that, especially in a book with elves.
Harry is wracked with guilt and obsession when the story very first begins, and the fact that his fellow wizards seem to hate him doesn't help. So it's nice to see him pulling himself out of his little misery hole, and struggling to overcome some of the nastier hands that fate has dealt him with the help of his werewolf and fey friends. Not to mention Murphy, who still has some nasty psychic scars of her own to deal with, and her own unspoken sorrows to overcome, and a gang of outcast half-fey who struggle to decide whether to be human or faerie.
"Summer Knight" is an intricate little mystery that delves into the beautiful, dark world of the fey, which has been ruined by many lesser urban fantasy authors. But Jim Butcher was just hitting his stride with the fourth Dresden Files novel -- and it only gets better after this.
Rated by buyers -
As this book opens, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only wizard, is deeply depressed. For months, he has struggled to find a cure for his girlfriend Susan, bitten by a vampire at the end of book 3 of the Dresden Files. He's let everything else go, including paying the rent and taking a shower, but he's no closer to finding a solution. Little does he know that life is about to get worse. It starts with a rain of toads in Lake Meadow Park south of the Loop and then, to cap off a really crummy day, the new client in Harry's office is Mab, the Winter Queen of Faerie.
She wears a really hot power suit and moderately high heels.
Jim Butcher's the real wizard. From the White Council of Wizards meeting in the McCormick Convention Center to a deadly battle with a foul chlorofiend (plant monster) in the chain link enclosure at Walmart, Butcher enchants with the magical adventures of a wizard who, when the chips are down, taunts his foes with Roadrunner "beep, beep" noises.
Other than that, this is your typical noir, wise-cracking-detective-with-attitude murder mystery set in Chicago. Lots of violence and the occasional werewolf or changling assistant. This book is WICKED good fun.
Rated by buyers 
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Summer Knight is by far the best novel of the Dresden Files. Not only does it continue the overall plot of the series, but it has a fascinating and interesting plot within the novel. The war between the two fairy realms is interesting. I think this is the most creative work I have read by Jim Butcher. Gone are the hard to believe, out of nowhere scenarios. In this novel the actions are believable within the concepts of the novel. Bravo! I really enjoyed this novel. If you are a fan of the very first three novels then I encourage you to read Summer Knight.
There has been a murder and a transfer of power is at hand. Whether the Winter or Summer fairies emerge victorious will determine if there is endless winter or endless summer on earth. It is my favorite novel of the series.
Rated by buyers -
This book was full of suspense & humorous as well - very hard to put down. This is a modern fantasy for adults with knights, wizards, fairies, trolls, etc.
Rated by buyers -
With the Dresden Files, Jim Butcher is doing the impossible--writing a series that gets more entertaining with every book. Easily the best fantasy series on the market today, I'd even go so far as to say that the Dresden Files novels are as good as, if not better than another series of books with a guy name Harry in them.
The fourth book in the series "Summer Knight" is one that will not disappoint readers. Picking up a few months after the events of "Grave Peril" in which Harry lost a girlfriend, made a deal with his faerie godmother to save himself and his friend and precipiated a war between the White Council and the Red Council, Harry starts the novel in a bad place. He's obsessed with finding a cure for his lost love Susan, he's barely been in the office in months, he's aliennating his friends and he's got a price on his head by the Red Council. And that's even before he finds out that his faerie godmother sold the favors he owed her to another and the White Council is coming to town.
The story unfolds at a natural but rewarding pace. Butcher has a natural ability to have events build on each other and he pays off hints from previous novels as well as dropping in hints of things to come. And this book feels like just a snapshot of a few of the big events in Harry's life over the course of a couple of days from the grander scheme of things. The strength in these stories is they're rewarding to read just as stand-alone novels, but taken within the greater context of the series, they add even greater layers. And while I will recommend reading them in order, Butcher does enough to bring in new readers that you can drop in on Harry at this point and not feel hopelessly lost. All the while, he doesn't aliennate long-term readers with pages of recap.
A great series of books that only gets better. This is the best I've read in the series and I can't wait to start the subsequent one.
Oh one word of warning: Don't start any of the Dresden books if you've got things to do like sleep, go to work, spend time with the family. These are the types of books that will consume you, demanding your attention to savor every page and anticipating what will come on the next.
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