I was intrigued by the commercials for the Dresden Files that they pushed on us watching the SciFi ch leading up top the series but it was not a calling for me. I finally saw it one night and was not blown away, sadly. I just lacked... something. I did love Murphy's hair though... yowza! My lord, that woman is lovely.
A year or so later, I was in the library nearby and I saw a dresden files book on the new releases shelf called, "Proven Guilty."
I piked it up and made my way through it but, as you can imagine, with no back-story, parts of it were very hard to follow but... I'll be damned if I was not hooked like a pickerel from the start. I slowly made my way through all the books at one point plunking down money for five or the novels in the series at one time at a local borders. My girlfriend though I was nuts but I laughed and told her that Butcher was simply that damned good.
After me raving about it all she finally picked up Storm Front... then Fool Moon.... then, over a long weekend, she killed all the boos in the series. I could not get her away from them. My 11 year old son has read them and he loves it all. I even went out and he and I have bought and read the Codex Alera series which is terrific on its own though my Lady could not adapt to it.
All in all, while the TV show seemed doomed to failure from the start for a lot of reasons from casting to bland scripting... I am grateful for it as it proved to be the bait that hooked my shaggy ass into the Dresden world. Butcher is one of the most incredible authors I can thin of and he has my respect and love. I hope I get to share a lot more time with HArry unraveling the mysteries of his universe.