I in no way hide that I am a massive fan of The Dresden Files series of books (and the sadly-canceled TV show as well). I’ve read the entire series numerous times and have triple dipped on many of the books (first hard copies, then e-books, then audio books) and have become intimately familiar with the OTHER wizard named Harry, Harry Dresden. At the end of the previous book, Changes, Harry’s world — the world we’ve come to know through twelve books — lay in ruin for a variety of reasons (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here). The thirteenth book in the series, Ghost Story, addresses what happened at the end of Changes, for better and for worse, and I just finished reading it a day or so ago, so I figured I’d give y’all my thoughts. Please know, this review will be spoilery as hell, so if you’ve not read Ghost Story, stop right now.

Still with me? Excellent. Now, if you recall, at the end of Changes, Harry was shot and killed off the side of his brother’s boat. We left him staring at the light in a tunnel…coming from a train. This is where the new book picks up. Harry is pulled out of the way by Carmichael, Murphy’s partner that was killed in book two, Fool Moon. After that surprising meetup, Carmichael takes Dresden to see the Captain…Captain Jack. No, not Harkness, I’ll get to that in a minute. We come to find out that Harry is neither in heaven nor hell, and because of an “irregularity” with his death, he has to go back and solve his own murder, but as a spirit, because his body is “unavailable”. We find out as Dresden is leaving for Chicago again that Captain Jack is actually Jack Murphy…Karrin Murphy’s DAD! OMG! That was a nifty thing.

Anyway, this sets off a chain of events that lead to some shocking revelations. Harry reunites with old friends — who are still reeling from his apparent death — and makes new ones. Of course, even though Harry’s been given one task, many others spring up that threaten both the spirit and mortal planes, so obviously Harry throws himself into the middle of it. An interesting notion is that spirits get their abilities and strength from memories, so in order for Harry to gain these, he has to go back into his own relevant memories, and we get to go back there with him. The book has a good deal of flashbacks, which I’ll discuss in a but, but they were mostly fun to read.

Along the way, Harry realizes the consequences of his actions in Changes, both big and small. From the power vacuum left by the demise of the red court to the brutal way his apprentice, Molly Carpenter — who was shot and bleeding at the end of Changes — has had to deal with her own power vacuum, the loss of her mentor and friend. Like most Dresden books, most of what needs attending too gets the attention it deserves, while leaving other avenues open for exploration later, so this book doesn’t give us everything we might have wanted, but that’s okay, as Butcher plans at least ten more books in the series.

In saving himself, his friends, Chicago, and the world, Harry realizes how many lines he’s crossed, and that he can likely never go back to the way things were, but that’s okay. Changes set up the ground work for an entirely new chapter, as it were, in the series as a whole, and Ghost Story is something of a breather, a transition I think, before getting on with the big show.

To keep this review simple and not overtly wordy and to not give EVERYTHING away, I’ll focus on what I did and didn’t like.

First, what I did like:

• How well Harry adapted to being a spirit/soul. His abilities were very limited, but he made the best of them.
• Sir Stuart. I loved this character. LOVED. He was awesome, and even though he’s gone off to work for Uriel (yay Uriel!) and we’ll likely not see him again, I really enjoyed the time we got to spend with him.
• The state of the world following the demise of the Red Court and Dresden’s death. I thought the power vacuums left behind in this case were well thought out and that they made sense.
• Butters. Oooohh Butters, you get better in every damned book. One of your lines made me laugh the loudest out of all of them in the entire book.
• Mort. At first I thought you were just a hukster Mort, like Harry did, but you totally came around in my book.
• Molly. Even though Molly was pretty much broken, she totally kicked ass in many ways. Her Star Trek moment was amazing.
• I liked how the addressed Harry’s deal as the Winter Knight, because I was quite curious about that, especially through the entire book since they dealt with it at the damned end.
• As crazy and evil as she is, I enjoyed Corpsetaker as a bad guy, and was happy to see her return.
• Flashbacks. I did and didn’t like this. I liked them because it gave us more insight into Harry’s background, such as his battle with He Who Walks Behind.
• Awesome Bob moments. I especially loved Bob’s apartment.
• The twist about who REALLY killed Harry. TOTALLY loved that and didn’t see it coming at all, but after it was revealed, it totally made sense.

Now, what I didn’t like:

• No Marcone. At all! Boo!!
• No Michael. With all the Carpenters running around, I was hoping to see our old friend.
• Murphy. I understand why Murphy was behaving the way she was, but I didn’t like it, as it seemed too harsh and too extreme.
• Thomas. I didn’t like this because it made me damned sad. I love Thomas, and it hurt to see him like that.
• Someone hurt Father Forthill. NO ONE should ever hurt Father Forthill!
• Flashbacks. While I did enjoy these, I kinda started to think that they went on a bit long, and that they were filling out the book more than anything else.

Overall, Ghost Story is an excellent book that had me hooked from cover to cover. It totally answers most of our questions as to “WTF?!?!” from the end of Changes, yet leaves us totally wanting more. I just hope the next book doesn’t get pushed back to July like this one did, but it’ll be a long wait regardless.

Cut to ten years ago, wherein we meet Dave, a typical ten year old kid living in New York City who is, again, typically just starting to like girls. The one girl in question is Becky, a pretty blond who actually seems to dig Dave. When Dave writes her a note, which gets blown away into an odd looking shop, he meets up with Balthazar, who gives him the ring to try out, as he’s done with children for a thousand years. The ring latches onto Dave, pegging him as the Prime Merlinian. Sadly, Horvath escapes his prison and, in the ensuing fight with Balthazar, they both get trapped for ten years.

Ten years later, the real fun begins when both Balthazar and Horvath finally escape their prison. Balthazar has to locate Dave once again and teach him to be a sorcerer. Without giving away the rest of the story — as much of what I’ve just said can be gleaned from the previews — I will say that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a fun, light, funny movie that’s full of action, heart and adventure.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a very fun film, with a lot of humor. Say what you want about Nicholas Cage, but he did a fantastic job as the old, sarcastic, lovelorn Balthazar. Alfred Molina, one could tell, had a fantastic time playing the pimped out Horvath. The real star of the show, however, is Jay Baruchel as David. I don’t recall seeing him in anything before, but he was fantastic in this role. His comic timing is great, and he and Cage really worked well off of each other.

If there was a downside, it’s that the “love story” portion of the film, well, both of them, really. I’ve nothing against Teresa Palmer (Adult Becky) or Monica Bellucci (except that her voice grates me a bit), but these portions of the film felt a bit forced. I mean, David and Becky don’t kiss until the last 2-3 minutes of the film. What’s up with THAT?

Overall, though, if you’re looking for a fun, light, funny and adventerous action film, you can do a lot worse than The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It’s got great acting, a fun story that doesn’t weigh down the film or get in its way, a lot of humor and fantastic action. It won’t win any awards, sure, and I’m not sure it’ll do well enough for a proposed sequel (stay until the end of the credits), but it’ll definitely be something I buy, day one, on Blu-ray.

In my own case, I’m suffering from multiple levels of burnout at the moment. The first one is social networking, such as Twitter and Facebook. For a while, I was on these services non-stop, chatting with my friends and wasting time. I’d get SMS updates when friends made new posts and reply to nearly every one. Nowadays, I only dip my toe in the water every so often, and the SMS alerts have been turned off, because it became overwhelming.

I’m also burned out with other things, like reading, sadly. I’m usually a pretty voracious reader, constantly reading books at home or in my iPhone using various apps. Sadly in the last few months, the idea of reading a book has filled me with some dread, so I’ve taken a break from reading, for the most part (at least until the next Dresden Files book comes out next month). Heck, a couple of years ago, I was so burnt out on video games I didn’t play any for nearly two years, but thankfully I slowly got back into them.

What about you? Is there anything you’re burnt out on, geek-wise? I’d love to hear your comments on what you’re currently or previously have been burnt out on, and how you managed to get through it, if at all. With so many forms of entertainment vying for our attention, I’m sure we all have plenty of burnout stories to share, and I look forward to reading yours. Thanks for reading.

Favorite TV Show:

That would have to be Supernatural. For many years, Firefly was my favorite show, and with good reason. In my opinion, it’s the pinnacle of Joss Whedon’s writing, and since it has spaceships, that makes me love it all the more (I’ll check out anything with spaceships in it).

However, the more I watched Supernatural, the more it’s infected my very soul. No show has grabbed me emotionally and intellectually like Supernatural has.  I’m not even that much of a horror fan, honestly. However, the combination of drama, humor, amazing acting and tight storytelling (most of the time) has totally won me over.

Favorite Book or Book Series:

It’s funny, as much as I love sci-fi, my favorite book series — like my favorite TV series — also skirts the fantasy realm. The Dresden Files are a book series by Jim Butcher, and chronicles the life of a wizard living in present-day Chicago. Harry Dresden, the protagonist, is a sarcastic, funny, no-nonsense kind of guy that tries his best to help people and get the job done, usually getting his ass whollopped in the process.

The twelth book in the series, “Changes,” is going to be released this April, and the series has a planned run of twenty-three books. It’s hard to describe in a short space how awesome these books are, at least to me, but I just absolutely adore them.

Favorite Movies:

I love movies, so these were hard to choose. In the realm of geekiness, my favorite movies are probably Serenity, the Alien series, Blade Runner, Time Bandits, the original Star Wars trilogy and probably more I can’t think of. When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy, I am all over the damned map.

Favorite Video Games:

As primarily a PC gamer, my favorite games are on that platform, and there are three of them. Starflight, Freespace 2 and Tie Fighter. If you’re unaware, these are all games involving spaceships. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

So yeah, those are some of my geektastic favorites. What about you? I look forward to discussing your favorite this and that in our comments section, and thank you for visiting.