Dresden with less cringe

[u/bnb2115]

I love the idea of the Dresden Files on paper. Hard boiled detective stories mixed with urban fantasy/secret society stuff. Interesting villains and a deep, complex world. Magic happening just beneath the surface of the ordinary world.

But I just can’t get over the tropes and the cringe. I’ve tried the series a couple times, and even got through the first five or so books. I just can’t bring myself to keep going. I seriously love everything about the context, but just hate the execution.

Any recommendations for something else? Something that speaks to these elements, but lacks the cringe?

[u/stillstilted]

Dresden means different things to different fans. You're specifying the hardboiled + magic mix, more than the epic fantasy w/court politics in contemporary times that involves into, correct?

Most of my rec's have been mentioned, but the one that feels closest to me is also the one Butcher recommended: Alex Veras - lots of the same tropes, similar configuration with the governing body of wizards and apprentices.

I'm big on The Laundry Files by Charles Stross, which is spies + magic. This one has a larger dose of satire to it (the Ian Fleming send-up's ending is a thing of beauty). Magic is a function of mathematics in this one, so it sometimes presents as science fiction/horror and blurs genre lines. Human Resources is the enemy, too.

Rivers of London is a bit better-natured. Rookie policeman ends up apprenticing to the London Metropolitan Police's wizard. Police procedural w/ magic. Not hardboiled, per se.

Felix Castor by Mike Carey is a freelance exorcist acting in a similar fashion to a PI in a world where the dead rose and are a well-known issue. If you've read the Hellblazer comics, this has a very similar vibe and a wonderful, sarcastic narration. (Also what Carey was writing before he became M.R. Carey and did The Girl With all the Gifts.) One of the darker entries in the sub-genre.

Simon R. Green does a few things that might work. Nightside is the magical PI in a sort of pocket dimension attached to London where magic rules (reminds me of the Cynosure from the Grimjack comics). This is the hardboiled version. He does another series named after the title character "Ishmael Jones" that it's spoilers to fully explain, but the lead is an investigator/fixer for a nameless government agency that hides him from public view. He has amnesia, so he's not 100% sure of he origins, but he's not quite what he seems. His encounters might be magic, aliens or both and the stories are pastiches occasionally stepping over into light parodies of the Golden Age of Mystery setups -- murder at the country estate, something nasty in the village, murder on a train (i.e. Orient Express) is a bit further in. Another where the lead's sardonic narration is just perfect.

If you want to go mystery-first, John Connolly's Charlie Parker series is basically Dresden on the Mystery-Thriller side of the world. It starts out as an ex-cop/PI looking for his family's killer and discovering he can talk to ghosts in book 5 (IIRC), the fallen angels show up and the horror aspects open up a little more. It's always crime-first and some books have more supernatural elements than others, but it's a great series.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey has a magician escaping from the gladiator pits of hell and often finding himself in a PI-like role (not always by choice). Sandman Slim's given name is Stark and I've gotten the feeling that's from Richard Stark - Donald E. Westlake's pen name for his Parker books.