Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series is the literary equivalent of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Like that blend of chocolate and peanut butter, the mix of hard-boiled detective fiction with traditional fantasy elements adds up to “two great tastes that taste great together.” Protagonist Harry Dresden, a Chicago-based P.I./professional wizard, has been the subject of 12 books, numerous short stories, a television series and a role-playing game. And he’s helped make his creator Butcher a frequent resident on the New York Times bestseller list.

Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files gathers together all but two of the Dresden universe tales. It also features a new story—the novelette “Aftermath,” which takes place, as the title suggests, immediately following the explosive finale to Butcher’s 12th and most recent Dresden novel, Changes.

Though someone new to the Dresden Files could pick up Side Jobs without too much confusion—Butcher is careful to refresh character descriptions and over-arching plot details—I wouldn’t recommend it. Over the course of 12 books, Harry Dresden’s life has experienced more than its fair share of plot thickening and denouements. It would be easy to spoil more than a few of them by reading this collection first.

But Side Jobs is not aimed at the unchristened—it’s meant for the hordes of fans hungry for everything Dresden. As such, each story is prefaced with a few words, or a few paragraphs, from Butcher explaining the genesis of the story, where it first appeared, and where in the overall publishing timeline it fits.

As a supplement for the hardcore Dresden-phile, Side Jobs hits the mark. This is especially the case with “Backup” and “Aftermath,” two stories that deviate from the traditional “first-person Harry” approach. The former is told from the perspective of Thomas, Dresden’s half-brother and a vampire of the White Court, while the latter is seen through the eyes of Karrin Murphy, an officer of the Chicago police department and one of the series’ principle characters. After so many adventures told by Dresden, it’s refreshing to get into the minds of some of the other characters.

Of course, the biggest drop of honey in Side Jobs is “Aftermath” itself. The end of Changes—equal parts barn-burner and cliffhanger—left readers with some pressing fears for both Harry and the series, and until the next book, Ghost Story, hits the stands in April 2011, “Aftermath” is the only glimpse of the post-Changes universe fans are likely to get.

This glimpse alone is likely to make the reading of Side Jobs a full-time preoccupation.

What kind of magic can make a nearly 800-page novel seem too short? Whatever it is, debut author Susanna Clarke is possessed by it, and her astonished readers will surely hope she never recovers. Her epic history of an alternative, magical England is so beautifully realized that not one of the many enchantments Clarke chronicles in the book could ever be as potent or as quickening as her own magnificent narrative.

It is 1806, and Gilbert Norrell is the only true magician in England. He sets out to restore the practice of magic to a nation that has not seen it for more than 300 years. But there is an odd and fateful twist to Norrell's character: he is as scholarly and insufferably pedantic as he is gifted. In short, Norrell is the most boring and unmagical person imaginable. This is Clarke's masterstroke, the necessary touch of ordinary candleshine in the midst of all the uncanny fairy light she dispenses.

Enter Jonathan Strange, the intuitive magician the natural who can improvise in a flash what Norrell has gleaned from long study. Strange becomes Norrell's pupil, but soon the tension between their styles mounts to a breaking point. The two men realize that they have a fundamental disagreement about how to approach the mysterious and terrifying sources of English magic, in the face of which even Albus Dumbledore might find himself unnerved.

Just as Norrell and Strange apprentice themselves to a Golden Age of medieval magicians, Clarke tethers her craft to the great 19th-century English masters of the novel, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The book offers not only an Austen-like inquiry into the fine human line between ridiculous flaw and serious consequence, but also a Dickensian flow of language in which a comical surplus of detail rings at last with certain and inevitable significance. This elixir of literary influences gives the story its delightful texture. But there is so much more to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell—an energy buckling and straining at the edges of the book in sheer imaginative overflow, just as the realm of Faerie buckles and strains beyond the edges of England's green fields, beckoning us down the overgrown path and through the dark wood. Thus it happens that a novel of nearly 800 pages seems far too short. This is the strangest and, as we gratefully come to understand, the norrellest magic a book lover could wish for.

Michael Alec Rose is an associate professor at Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music.

In the alternate universe of Welsh author Jasper Fforde (1985 England), cloning pets is commonplace, time is flexible, literature is sacred, the Crimean War lasted nearly 150 years and a multinational conglomerate called Goliath controls the world. When we last saw Special Operations agent Thursday Next in Fforde's popular debut novel, The Eyre Affair, she had successfully saved (not to mention improved) the classic novel Jane Eyre and managed to end up with the man of her dreams, Landen Park-Laine. But when you're a literary detective with as many enemies as Thursday, tranquility can't last. No sooner has Thursday discovered she's pregnant than the Goliath Corporation eradicates her husband, making her the only person who remembers him. They promise his safe return if she will enter Poe's poem "The Raven" to release the villainous Jack Schitt, whom she imprisoned there at the end of the previous book. To make matters worse, a set of bizarre coincidences leads Thursday to believe that someone related to her old enemy, Acheron Hades, may be out to get her.

Thursday's immediate concern is her husband, but how to jump into a book without the help of her Uncle Mycroft's invention, the Prose Portal? Under the tutelage of a consummate book-jumper, Dickens' Miss Havisham, of course!

If all this sounds confusing, don't worry. Fforde's ability to handle a seemingly infinite number of subplots joined with his unique brand of humor somehow allow this wacky world to make sense. Thursday is a particularly effective and realistic first-person narrator; even the romantic scenes in the book are portrayed in a way that suits her slightly hard-boiled, independent character.

Lost in a Good Book abounds with even more literary references than The Eyre Affair, and developing characters outside of their original authors' plot lines is something Fforde clearly relishes. His Miss Havisham is a former bodyguard and a reckless driver as well as Dickens' acerbic old maid, and the Cheshire Cat, cast here as a librarian, is as adept at nonsensical non sequiturs as he is in Carroll's work.

Classifying this book poses a dilemma. Is it Science Fiction? Literature? Romance? It doesn't matter. Lost in a Good Book is, simply, a good book that will appeal to readers of these and other genres.

Second in L. Jagi Lamplighter’s series tracing the convoluted relationships of the Family Prospero, their magical allies, enemies and servants, Prospero in Hell centers on the continued efforts of the magician’s daughter Miranda to find her father. A chain of clues implicates at least one member of her essentially immortal family. Suspects also include an Elven lord who fathered the spirits of air presently under Miranda’s command, as well as other more overtly sinister forces. As the title implies, indications point to Prospero being held captive in hell.

Eldest of a dozen siblings, Miranda is in charge of the family business, Prospero, Inc. Caught between dealing with company, personal and global crises, Miranda balances rescuing Prospero while ascending her spiritual path as devotee of a goddess. To reach that pinnacle she may need to relinquish one of her most prized magical possessions and abilities—and place the world at risk. Suspicion engulfs her; treachery surrounds her. By novel’s end, Miranda must reunite her shattered family, and cope with some of the greatest losses she has ever feared.

Miranda lives on an Earth where all mythical realities, divinities and creatures coexist. Beings as diverse as angels, demons, elementals and elves assist or hinder her on her interconnected quests. Gods and goddesses from many pantheons, fairies, Santa Claus, familiars and flying carpets, even relics of Christian significance, each have parts to play. Lamplighter’s writing is intricate and full of lovely (or terrifying) descriptions of landscapes, interiors and characters. The action moves briskly, suspenseful whether Miranda is soaring above a frozen landscape, facing a perversely seductive incubus or battling an evil djinn or genie—and even deadlier creatures. As she learns more about the provenance of her beloved flute and Prospero’s disturbing secret history, the story’s tension ratchets higher.

Lamplighter creates a daring pastiche of Shakespeare, giving Miranda a courageous attitude toward physical, mystical or sexual perils. At the same time, the character’s knowledge of magic and use of arcane tools like her staff-flute, metaphysical texts and ancient, esoteric weaponry make her five centuries of life believable. Readers who favor series saturated with sophistication and interlocking mythologies will eagerly consume this newest lap on Miranda’s race to save Prospero and the world.