Sci-Fi Channel show! Look for the series to really take off with the debut of a two-hour pilot on the Sci-Fi Channel this summer produced by Nicholas Cage. SCI FI Channel has cast Paul Blackthorne (24, Presidio Med) to star as Chicago-based wizard and detective Harry Dresden in The Dresden Files. Director David Carson (Star Trek Generations) has been tapped to helm the project. Production on the two-hour backdoor pilot film is set for a Summer 2006 premiere.
According to Cage, "Norm and I feel that Paul's passion for the part and talent will translate into a charismatic performance."
The first book is Storm Front. It introduces Harry Dresden as the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things -- and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a -- well, whatever.
There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry is seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.
Magic. It can get a guy killed.
Second: Fool Moon. Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn't been able to dredge up any kind of work — magical or mundane.
But just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.
A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses — and the first two don't count...
Third: Grave Peril. Harry Dresden's faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you're the only professional wizard in the Chicago area phone book.
But in all Harry's years of supernatural sleuthing, he's never faced anything like this: the spirit world's gone postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble — and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone — or something — is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc.
But why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn't figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself....
Fourth: Summer Knight. Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can't pay his rent. He's alienating his friends. He can't even recall the last time he took a shower.
The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man.
And just when it seems things can't get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can't refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him — and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name.
It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case. No pressure or anything...
Fifth: Death Masks. Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But now he's getting more than he bargained for.
A duel with the Red Court of Vampires' champion, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards...
Professional hit men using Harry for target practice...
The missing Shroud of Turin...
A handless and headless corpse the Chicago police need identified...
Not to mention the return of Harry's ex-girlfriend Susan, who's still struggling with her semivampiric nature. And who seems to have a new man in her life.
Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. No matter how much you're charging.
Sixth: Blood Rites. Per usual, wizard-detective extraordinaire Harry Dresden is in trouble. He barely escapes an assassination attempt, courtesy of the Black Council of vampires, when Thomas, a vampire who has helped Harry out on occasion, asks him to take a case. It seems someone doesn't want porno film director Arturo Genosa's latest effort to get off the ground. An entropy spell has killed two of Arturo's assistants, and Thomas wants Harry to find the culprit. With suspects abounding--Arturo has no fewer than three ex-wives--Harry decides to pose as a production assistant at the studio. Though he isn't able to stop another sabotage attempt, this one threatening an actress' life, he does save the young woman. With danger closing in, the last thing Harry needs is a sexy succubus and a surprising revelation about his heritage. Filled with sizzling magic and intrigue as well as important developments for Harry.
Seventh: Dead Beat. This adventure finds Chicago's preeminent wizard coping with his new roommate--vampire half-brother Thomas. Harry soon has problems bigger than Thomas' clutter to deal with. Marva, one of Harry's vampire foes, summons him with a threat to his police-lieutenant friend, Karrin Murphy. Marva demands Harry get the Word of Kemmler for her, or she'll frame Murphy for murder. Harry doesn't even know what the Word is, but while he's trying to find out, and also what damage Marva will be able to do with it, several necromancers descend on Chicago. When Harry learns that the newcomers are students of Kemmler, an evil wizard who mastered ancient spirits in a way no one has since, he discovers that they are seeking the Word, too, in hopes of seizing the powerful knowledge within it and calling forth a powerful creature known as the Erlking. Butcher's latest maintains the momentum of previous Dresden outings and builds the suspense right up to a rousing conclusion.
Eighth: Proven Guilty. Harry Dresden, Chicago's only consulting wizard, takes on phobophages, creatures that feed on fear who attack a horror film convention, in the diverting eighth installment of Butcher's increasingly complicated Dresden Files series (Dead Beat, etc.). Harry finds that fighting monsters is only the prelude to maneuvers amid the warring wizards of the White Council and the vampire Red Court. Less and less V.I. Warshawski with witchcraft, Harry aims his deductive powers at political intrigues rather than crime solving. The body count from the magical melees, however, would do any hard-boiled gumshoe proud. Butcher's believable, likable set of characters goes for the jocular much more than the jugular. Deeper fears do run through the book, and Harry, taking on an apprentice, has to face up to the consequences of his all-too-human failings.
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