Dresden Files Catch-All (possible spoilers)

Ooh. Do I tease myself or wait?

Stele wrote:

Ooh. Do I tease myself or wait?

Please do and tell me if I should wait.

I am finally up to Skin Game for my reread. Will hopefully be able to finish it and Peace Talks before Battle Ground comes out.

The first 3 preview chapters are up for Battlegrounds... seems like they will be the only ones.

Chapter 3 hit me in the feels.

Battle Ground shipping notice from Amazon!

Forgot it was tomorrow. Maybe I can read it with a napping newborn on my chest.

Stele wrote:

Battle Ground shipping notice from Amazon!

Forgot it was tomorrow. Maybe I can read it with a napping newborn on my chest.

lol same...

Highly spoilery thoughts about the plot of Battle Ground:

Spoiler:

I really feel that Murphy's death is a straight fridging. I think from a plot jigsaw pov it's to let Harry get involved with Lara next book, but it wasn't what the character deserved after 17 books, and not in such a crap way either. I haven't been this angry about an author's treatment of a major female character since Perdido Street Station.

I think the rest of it delivered the big sustained finale we were promised after the PT build up. Some big reveals and all that.

I'm halfway through and not getting any work done so far today... WFH has some sneaky benefits....

Hell, I did all the time at the office too.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Hell, I did all the time at the office too.

Same... and done... little exhausted... so much happened...

@Dudley

Spoiler:

I understand what you're saying but disagree. Murphy's death has basically been foreshadowed since there was a twinkling of a relationship. Dresden would have outlived her by centuries even in they got a happily ever after. She is a vanilla mortal fighting above her weight class. Plot armor can only go so far, and many people have complained about it already in the series.

I think the way it happened makes it a lot harder for Dresden to deal with (per standard Jim treatment of the character) it as it was a stupid mistake by an idiot character. If it was a supernatural baddy there would have been justified revenge... it being a random mortal makes more literary sense to me. The world sucks sometimes and it doesn't matter how big and bad you are... sometimes you lose, and you can't fix it later...

I don't like her being dead, and really don't like that she didn't get turned into a Valkyrie and then do the happily ever after stuff, but I understand.

I need alike a book and a half of fallout... Not even follow up to the various things... just describing things as they are and basic aftermath.

Spoiler:

Mavra and Drakul better get it soon... I'm sick of the rotten Female Doggo.

I'm fighting lack of sleep with newborn, only got 6 or 7 chapters in last night. Hopefully can chip away today and finish tomorrow, while maintaining my sanity.

My goodness this book. Think I'm at Ch 35 or 36 now. Feels like it finished but I still got a lot of pages.

Manta's unspoilered comment is right on though. Holy crap a lot of stuff happened. And a body count. My goodness...

Stele wrote:

My goodness this book. Think I'm at Ch 35 or 36 now. Feels like it finished but I still got a lot of pages.

Manta's unspoilered comment is right on though. Holy crap a lot of stuff happened. And a body count. My goodness...

A few of those pages are the short story “A Christmas Story” though.

Re: The fallout from Battle Ground:

Spoiler:

The funny part is that Harry literally can't have any kind of relations with Lara right now, because he's still protected from his time with Karren. He'd have to go out and have some fun with someone else first, and although that's a very Winter thing to do, it's not a very Harry thing to do. Especially while he's still feeling this pain, and I imagine that's going to last a very long time, since now he has two deaths of this nature on his conscience. Mab will probably try to arrange something, and Harry will probably protest - strenuously.

Also, Senior Wizard McCoy was pissed off enough at his friendship with Thomas. He finds out about this thing with Lara? Oh boy... And McCoy already has a license to just straight-up nuke Harry if the Council finds him doing anything untoward. This isn't going to help that situation out any. Carlos, Luccio, and the others won't like it much, either, since they were already worried he'd been compromised by the White Court.

TL;DR: I'm very sad that it's going to be more than three months to the next book.

I don't know why, but I ignored the Dresden Files short story books. Now that I've read them, I realize how much they fill in the blanks between novels. Several of the stories set up the plot for Peace Talks and Battle Grounds, fleshing out

Spoiler:

the Fomor

which become pretty important to the story.

That said.

Dresden Files is so horny. Every hot woman hits on Dresden, he's constantly fighting his Winter mantle horniness, and there's so much horny in the short stories too. Just dial it back a bit, Jim!

Maybe now he'll be in mourning and settle down next book?

Or with no emotional ties it will get even worse. Yikes.

Stele wrote:

Maybe now he'll be in mourning and settle down next book?

Considering Mab's final order to Harry in the last book... I kind of doubt it.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Stele wrote:

Maybe now he'll be in mourning and settle down next book?

Considering Mab's final order to Harry in the last book... I kind of doubt it.

Go forth and multiply?

Mixolyde wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
Stele wrote:

Maybe now he'll be in mourning and settle down next book?

Considering Mab's final order to Harry in the last book... I kind of doubt it.

Go forth and multiply?

Spoiler:

Marry the queen of the succubi... Although she can't currently touch him... as last time he had fun was with someone he loved i.e. Murphy

On an unrelated note... Am I a horrible person for wanting Jim to get his personal life in order so I can get more books?

Poor dude has had a rough few years and he went from slightly more than a book a year to multiple years between books. I just keep rereading. So far haven't found anything else that scratches that itch. Working my way through other authors... but no one seems to want hope or happiness to be in any books these days. Despite Dresden getting beat down a lot, there is always hope or at least snarky comments in defiance of the big bad.

Sanderson isn't bad, just no hope or joy in the books of his I have read, and his books are a commitment. (Mistborn trilogy)

Not for me, I think Sanderson is a bit of a believer in Eucatastrophes like Tolkien. His characters get put through the wringer but stuff works out in the end. I guess you might consider the Act 2s hopeless since things look really bad, but there's real euphoria for me when things turn around come the avalanche.

Yeah at one point I tried a few other urban fantasy series but none of them really clicked like this one.

Couple of Kate Daniels books were ok. But a bit of a weird apocalyptic setting.

Think I tried a Felix Castor and a couple of Jane Yellowrock that were cheap on Kindle sale sometime. Maybe I read the first Peter Grant one too? It's been a while.

Feels like I looked around in 2015 or so after I was all caught up on Dresden and waiting for a new book and haven't found anything else since

The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne is fun, though not as good as Dresden. We named one of our dogs after the dog in the books.

Butcher's Codex Alera is something I go back to every year or so. I love it.

DudleySmith wrote:

Not for me, I think Sanderson is a bit of a believer in Eucatastrophes like Tolkien. His characters get put through the wringer but stuff works out in the end. I guess you might consider the Act 2s hopeless since things look really bad, but there's real euphoria for me when things turn around come the avalanche.

Sanderson's Wax and Wayne books are fun with more humor than the original Mistborn books in that world.

I like the recommend Kitty Norville and Alex Verus books to people that like the Dresden stuff (also the previously mentioned Kevin Hearne).

The Kitty Norville series is about a werewolf talk radio host named Kitty, and the Alex Verus book is about a British mage with the power of probability. Although like Dresden, this one gets darker and less witty as things go along.

Nevin73 wrote:

The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne is fun, though not as good as Dresden. We named one of our dogs after the dog in the books.

I will second The Iron Druid Chronicles. I always thought of them as Dresden Light, and had fun throughout the whole series. And Oberon was a great character, so good choice, Nevin!

Looks like I had Alex Versus on my Amazon list. So maybe someday...

Iron Druid book 1 is on sale for $3 so I'll try it

Rula Bula, the Irish pub in the series, is a real place in Old Town Tempe. The fish and chips are quite good.

I dearly love the Rivers of London books too. They have the mystery element of Dresden, but they're meant to be police procedurals and not action films.

I really like Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels books. Up until Butchers last 2 books I'd been finding his characters too flat and borderline stereotypes, and Kate Daniels has excellent representation and more rounded characters.