title: Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files
author:  Jim Butcher 
description: Fans of Butcher's long-running and bestselling urban fantasy series featuring Chicago wizard PI Harry Dresden were stunned by the concluding events of the 2010 novel Changes. They'll probably want to skip ahead to the last of this collection's 11 stories, "Aftermath," set just hours after the end of that book. With Dresden's fate uncertain, it's his longtime ally, Sgt. Karrin Murphy, who must help find a kidnapped werewolf. This entry is the collection's strongest, full of powerful emotion. The rest of the book is a mixed bag, ranging from Butcher's first attempt at short fiction--"a novice effort" that "wasn't up to par for professional publication"--to more recent tales set around and between the novels. First-timers will be lost, and this uneven volume mostly makes the case that Butcher's talent is best displayed in longer form. (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ![Cover](images/front.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Dark and Stormy Knights
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Ilona Andrews
  
  
  ### Jim Butcher
  
  
  ### Shannon K. Butcher
  
  
  ### Rachel Caine
  
  
  ### P.N. Elrod
  
  
  ### Deidre Knight
  
  
  ### Vicki Pettersson
  
  
  ### Lilith Saintcrow
  
  
  ### Carrie Vaughn
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Elrod's second urban fantasy anthology is not quite as good as 2009's _Mean
  Streets_ , though the one author both volumes share, Jim Butcher, does his
  usual top-notch job with the Dresden Files tie-in "Even Hand," a dramatic
  character study of Chicago crime boss John Marcone and his little-known but
  powerful drive to protect small children at any cost. Equally as good is
  Carrie Vaughn's taut and suspenseful "God's Creatures," in which a hunter
  searches for a werewolf among the residents of a Catholic reform school.
  Rachel Caine's "Even a Rabbit Will Bite," in which a dragon slayer is rendered
  redundant by the near extinction of her quarry, is unexpectedly poignant. Six
  less memorable stories round out the v