Title: Curses
Author: Jim Butcher
Series: The Dresden Files #10.7
In: Naked City (Ellen Datlow)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Crime, Paranormal fantasy, Urban fantasy, Wizards
Dates read: 28th June 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: What stories are you interested in, specifically?
Harry Dresden investigates how to lift a curse laid by the Fair Folk on the Chicago Cubs.
Baseball isn’t really my thing. Nor is it something that I’ve ever understood. Probably has something to do with being Australian and not really having many baseball players in the vicinity. But I still know that the Cubs are quite famous for not winning and having a loyal fan base. It seems to come up a lot in American TV, movies and books…
I love that this short story takes something that is so large in popular culture and gives it a beautiful, supernatural spin. It’s a great start to a collection of urban fantasy stories which I’m sure are going to get darker, grittier and far more fun as the tales unfold. It certainly started this book off with a great bang. One that made it kind of hard to put these stories down and get back to working like a real adult.
I was expecting a story in which Harry swings in and saves the day again. In this case, helps to unravel the curse on the Cubs and help them finally win the finals (or whatever they’re called). It didn’t quite work out like that, and I loved the change from routine that this indicates. The slight change from the typical trope. Which is probably why I love the Dresden series in the first place.
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