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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Overall it feels a lot like book 3, a season opener for the second main arc of the series. I enjoyed the read as a popcorn book but I felt the same way. This feels like a reset of just about everything that would be interesting 10 books ago. Or an interesting place to start a series. This is just really far in to press the reset button like this. There are also other books that have come out in the interim that do these exact arcs so much better too. Alex Verus does a much better “ok I need to get my own power to save the ones I love” arc. Honest, Verus just does every beat here better. The book as a whole feels like Butcher had writers block, read all of Jacka and Schaefer’s books, and tried to make a darker Dresden by borrowing heavily from them. Murphy very much felt fridged to me through both books though. Harry and Murphy finally get together but that’s not interesting or fun to write anymore because she’s a human which will keep aging and gets hurt easily. So let’s kill her off so Harry can be with the sexy vampire lady that isn’t technically incest but is close enough to feel very wrong. Sure, Harry will object at first but we all know we will get a super uncomfortable sex scene in a future book. They made normal nerdy Butters a ridiculous badass swordsman with a harem of werewolves but Murphy has to die to Harry’s poison dick. If Butcher wanted to write her out, having her pick up the other sword and gently caress off being a Knight elsewhere would have been much better. Maybe I’m just hate reading at this point and shouldn’t even get the next one. Maybe I’d like it more if this was actually the last book or way earlier in the series. Even while writing this post I found more and more things that I disliked about the story.
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Sep 30, 2020 00:18
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I'm about to buy battle ground, just to be complete, but I feel I only read peace talks because I was hard up for a new dresden book. I'm kinda meh on the series now if he just gave up trying to right anything coherent or edited well I did enjoy the other series he wrote, maybe it's better when the author actually likes his job?
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Sep 30, 2020 01:07
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I don’t know. Like someone else said it sets up the second main arc of “what the gently caress is up with the outsiders” which is something I’ve been wanting answers to for years at this point.
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Sep 30, 2020 01:23
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30 TO 50 FERAL HOG posted:I don’t know. Like someone else said it sets up the second main arc of “what the gently caress is up with the outsiders” which is something I’ve been wanting answers to for years at this point. The "setup" is extremely lame and presented in an off-handed, "oh yeah, I need to take care of this before I wrap this book up" kind of way. There was also a "Everything that's happened is part of our Master Plan, mwahahahaha!" vibe going on, which made me roll my eyes as opposed to being intrigued on what should be a lead in to starting the resolution of the meta-narrative across the series.
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Sep 30, 2020 01:26
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I had a thought rereading Peace Talks. Spirits of intellect are supposed to be incredibly powerful, right? This is probably the first with a big sister.
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Sep 30, 2020 02:02
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Read battle grounds, definitely just the second half of peace talks and yea the pacing with nonstop action was a bit off but i loved it, it had everything I read dresden for...Beachcomber posted:Spirits of intellect are supposed to be incredibly powerful, right? ...expect for this yea, really wondering what Butcher is planning with Harry's other daughter, she didn't even get a mention in this one (unless I missed it) which felt like a strange omission.
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Sep 30, 2020 09:22
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Avalerion posted:Read battle grounds, definitely just the second half of peace talks and yea the pacing with nonstop action was a bit off but i loved it, it had everything I read dresden for... No surprise there, given Butcher forgets about her at every opportunity. Also Michael having a swearing fit over something the White Council did? Really? Like he would honestly give a poo poo?
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Sep 30, 2020 11:38
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biracial bear for uncut posted:No surprise there, given Butcher forgets about her at every opportunity. I finished last night. I enjoyed it, but admit it has flaws. Butcher is good at relying on tropes to make lots of minor characters that are very easy to care about. It doesn't work on all of them, but excited to see a future book go after Chandler.
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Sep 30, 2020 14:27
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Fritzler posted:IDK doesn't seem that wild to me. This is an agency that is supposed to protect its own members, that his best friend and daughter are both part of. Michael has saved the white council before, and he has seen Harry save them multiple times. Michael gets a nice "retirement package" from the church, along with a lot of protection. He has seen that they refuse to protect a lot of people, and stopped protecting both his daughter and best friend as soon as it became convenient. I would be annoyed by that too. Molly was never part of the White Council, she was only ever a warlock they were trying to kill, who then became the Winter Lady, also Michael has had plenty of reasons to swear throughout the series and never has, it's a huge break from character and for no good reason.
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Sep 30, 2020 14:37
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biracial bear for uncut posted:Molly was never part of the White Council, she was only ever a warlock they were trying to kill, who then became the Winter Lady, also Michael has had plenty of reasons to swear throughout the series and never has, it's a huge break from character and for no good reason. Molly was, for a time, Harry's official apprentice. She wasn't a full ranking member, but she was under their authority and part of the organization as a whole
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Sep 30, 2020 14:56
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I wonder if the whole Murphy dying, time to shack up with sex-vampire plot has anything to do with Butcher's real life? Laurell K Hamilton did something similar.
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Sep 30, 2020 15:24
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ookiimarukochan posted:I wonder if the whole Murphy dying, time to shack up with sex-vampire plot has anything to do with Butcher's real life? Laurell K Hamilton did something similar. I think there will be some payoff / drama when he runs into alt-murphy in Mirror Mirror.
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Sep 30, 2020 15:33
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biracial bear for uncut posted:
Butcher's one consistent authorial rule is "if it sounds cool, it happens , even if it doesn't make too much sense."
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Sep 30, 2020 15:43
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ookiimarukochan posted:I wonder if the whole Murphy dying, time to shack up with sex-vampire plot has anything to do with Butcher's real life? Laurell K Hamilton did something similar. I've been wondering that myself. I hope not, but I find myself increasingly running out of good will and benefit of doubt.
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Sep 30, 2020 15:58
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ookiimarukochan posted:I wonder if the whole Murphy dying, time to shack up with sex-vampire plot has anything to do with Butcher's real life? Laurell K Hamilton did something similar.
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Sep 30, 2020 16:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Butcher's one consistent authorial rule is "if it sounds cool, it happens , even if it doesn't make too much sense." The problem there is that it doesn't even sound cool. It takes a character that is essentially the one pure-hearted paladin in the series, the only person capable of standing against the Denarians while wielding the power loaned to him by Uriel so he could walk and fight again, risking the Fall of Uriel if he abuses that power and turns him into the lamest bullshit since Butters getting a Holy Lightsaber.
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Sep 30, 2020 16:50
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This book sets ups some very interesting future Marcone developments. Thorned Namshiel was one of those who led the raid on Arctis Tor and who Mab has a grudge against. She's unlikely to look favorably on Marcone when she realizes who he's partnered with. I think he was also part of Tessa's rival group against Nicodemus, which makes Marcone's actions in Skin Game even more intersting. I'd presumed Hell's Bells leading off the apocalyptic trilogy would have the final resolution of the Nicodemus arc, but now I wonder if Marcone won't be equally important to how that plays out as the surprise usurper of that faction. Plus Harry seems to be setting himself up as an organizational builder in Chicago to rival Marcone, so.
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Sep 30, 2020 17:23
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Re: Marcone, I expect Marcone will eventually also ditch the coin.
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Sep 30, 2020 17:27
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Future Dresden title guess that made me laugh: Shotgun Wedding
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Sep 30, 2020 18:19
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I honestly think he will find a way out of the marriage, or Lara will get killed before it happens, as the two of them getting married has to be about the dumbest plotline of all time.
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Sep 30, 2020 18:50
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Harry and Lara learning how to live with their political marriage sounds like very interesting to me, I'm curious as to why so many people recoil from the notion
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Sep 30, 2020 19:08
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Rygar201 posted:Harry and Lara learning how to live with their political marriage sounds like very interesting to me, I'm curious as to why so many people recoil from the notion Because no one expects Butcher to handle it well at all
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Sep 30, 2020 20:02
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Proteus Jones posted:Because no one expects Butcher to handle it well at all He's just gonna never have another relationship and be poison to Lara, Butcher loves having Harry be lusty but never do anything about it.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:13
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Re: the Eye of Balor. I guess when it shows up again Dresden will be using it with the Power of Love, not hate, which was the real point of Mab's speech at the end about love/hate being the same emotion pointed in different directions.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:49
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Anyone else find it a little weird that The Spear of Destiny kind of did nothing? Harry mostly just fails to stab Ethinu with it, then just uses it to prop himself up while he binds her. For all the buildup and secrecy it was a pretty wet fart compared to most of the other divine artifacts featured.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:53
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Zore posted:Anyone else find it a little weird that I thought he used the blood on it to bind her, since the Spear is centered around the blood of Christ.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:54
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Zore posted:Anyone else find it a little weird that To be fair, the placard was completely wasted, too.
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Sep 30, 2020 21:11
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biracial bear for uncut posted:To be fair, the placard was completely wasted, too. The placard at least served a narrative purpose and gave some background on Mac. Like there is a scene that features it prominently and it at least theoretically provides protection to a group of people off screen who end up surviving the night. I'm fairly sure you could literally delete the lines that mention the athame/spearhead/Spear of Destiny and literally no one would notice.
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Sep 30, 2020 21:18
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Zore posted:The placard at least served a narrative purpose and gave some background on Mac. Like there is a scene that features it prominently and it at least theoretically provides protection to a group of people off screen who end up surviving the night. Yeah, he kept treating it like it was going to take him over or something. Like not even thinking about it because it would read his thoughts and force him to start killing. It was foreshadowed super hard that it would do something crazy once he started using it, and then it just kind of was.
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Sep 30, 2020 21:25
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Zore posted:Anyone else find it a little weird that THRUM THRUM THRUM THRUM THRUM THRUM
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Sep 30, 2020 21:51
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Being reminded about how differently many of the posters here see things after reading through the discussions of the latest Butcher: Michael's response seemed entirely appropriate to me. He loves Harry deeply, knows just how much saving Chicago cost him, and as reward the White Council ditches him entirely? Plus, Harry loses one of the thin threads holding him to his own humanity. If you're the guy on the end of one of those threads, you can't be happy that the White Council just decided to let know of one of the others. Harry wasn't thinking about the spear point out of fear someone would mind-read him, on the one hand, and on the other hand, out of fear it would provide him support and power too soon. Recall that the huge magic battery had gotten grounded by the time Harry had to bind the Titan. That had to take some juice, and the Spear was providing it. It sounds like the Spear may have been channeling all of Chicago in the process. I suspect that Harry not using it to stab someone was also deliberate; we don't know yet what it will do. So we've been told that the rules prohibit Murphy from returning until she's forgotten. I wonder if this is one of those rules nobody can get around? I admit that I expected Murphy's ghost to be around to help out, so I'm surprised at what actually happened. I don't even know where to start on "the placard was wasted" when it was used to protect all the ParaNet practitioners. You know, the wizardly equivalent of the Za Guards? I assume some readers think Butcher wasted our time by having Dresden save folks living in his neighborhood, because what's the lives of 400 people we don't even know? They matter because of what they tell us about Harry, if nothing else. In other news, it's unclear how Marcone is using Namshiel. But there were some very strong indications in the past that either the previous bearer or the devil himself had been gotten to by Nemesis. He was definitely one of the traitors amongst the Denarians. I'd have listed Marcone with Nicodemus as "least likely to be Nemesis'ed" but that becomes less certain now. Although I do find myself wondering about Marcone's date of birth. Because what if he's one of the starborn, too? We're certainly seeing a ramp-up of their importance in the series, and I wonder if the "hey, Drakul/that spy guy is a starborn" reveals aren't meant to distract us from another obvious candidate? Drone Jett posted:Re: the Eye of Balor. That's just brilliant. I wonder if it can create as well as destroy? We've just seen that Chaos can be unpredictable, but provides raw power that can be used for multiple purposes.
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Sep 30, 2020 21:55
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It's been years since I read the series but I vaguely recall that after Harry had become a Warden a lot of the younger generation of wizards started idolizing him, and part of the justification for the white council hating his rear end in later books was political pressure from the Merlin to keep his position in the face of increasing pressure to intervene in the world more and lean into Harry's save-the-innocents thing. When did that turn into Ramirez and everyone hates Harry again, white council is all assholes, all the time? Am I just totally mis-remembering there being a point where the council was mostly-okay except for the leadership?
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Sep 30, 2020 21:57
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Omi no Kami posted:It's been years since I read the series but I vaguely recall that after Harry had become a Warden a lot of the younger generation of wizards started idolizing him, and part of the justification for the white council hating his rear end in later books was political pressure from the Merlin to keep his position in the face of increasing pressure to intervene in the world more and lean into Harry's save-the-innocents thing. When did that turn into Ramirez and everyone hates Harry again, white council is all assholes, all the time? Am I just totally mis-remembering there being a point where the council was mostly-okay except for the leadership? Changes mostly. One of the reasons Harry got popular during the War with the Red Court is because he actually started interacting a lot with other Wizards. He went to a lot of the meetings, traveled in his duties as a Warden and generally seemed like a cool guy. Then he's involved in the destruction of the Red Court after very publicly embracing the role of the Winter Knight before he's assassinated and spends the next ~2 years presumed dead while Ghost Story and Cold Days happen. Once he does pop back up there was always going to be tension because he was seemingly embracing his role as Winter's muscle and accumulating a bunch of other power that looked dodgy as hell (Demonreach). Add on to that he's no longer really active as a Warden and did some really hosed up stuff to Carlos specifically in Peace Talks, then rejected the final olive branch offered and yeah. Like I imagine any given Wizard isn't going to hate him on sight, but Harry absolutely deserved how Carlos treated him after the poo poo he pulled in Peace Talks and Battle Grounds.
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Sep 30, 2020 22:11
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I liked it better than Peace Talks, but there was really just too much going on. A 400-page action sequence gets exhausting to read. Predictions: Murphy comes back in a book called Loop Hole
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Sep 30, 2020 22:25
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Ramirez is also starting to lose faith in Harry clear back in White Night after clearly seeing him almost torture a ghoul to death, blatantly swing hellfire around, and perfectly comprehend Etrusican out of nowhere. Yeah, none of that outlasts the book, but Carlos doesn't know that. And he does give Harry an ever-increasing amount of side-eye going forwards.
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Sep 30, 2020 22:41
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I'm not sure what it is about the white council in particular, because all the examples you guys cited are totally reasonable reasons to look at Harry kinda funny, but for some reason "The white council hate Harry and are also dicks" feels really played out at this point, to the extent that I thought their role in PT/BG felt like a big regression even though it was justified.
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Sep 30, 2020 22:46
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Sorry to derail from Dresden chat but I have a dumb question: am I the only one who feels like Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth fill the urban fantasy niche but in a weird way? (Sorry, I just finished them and now they’re stuck in my head). They aren’t really traditional fantasy, and they aren’t sci-fi except in the “speculative fiction” sense, and it’s basically a lot of magic within a quasi-modern quasi-futuristic setting with a couple of great big mysteries that the protagonists have to solve.
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Sep 30, 2020 23:12
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Its like you didn't read the book. The Placard was wasted because everyone decided to leave Mac's and fight the Fomor. There was an entire page about Harry and Murphy arguing about it when they showed up to help him out.
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Sep 30, 2020 23:28
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The Council kicking Harry out doesn't really make sense from their own perspective. Okay, he's dangerous and unstable and connected to dangerous people. Either keep him in the council to keep an eye on him, kill him, or keep him in the council specifically to pick a convenient moment to kill him. Why kick him out openly and piss him off? It's bad politics from characters who are supposed to be canny super treacherous political operatives with centuries of experience and patience. They still need him to do whatever the starborn poo poo is, so why throw him out of the tent?
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Sep 30, 2020 23:29
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Narsham posted:Being reminded about how differently many of the posters here see things after reading through the discussions of the latest Butcher: Yeah, when he was talking to Gard at the end she straight up says that it's one of "Rules" that no one can mess with, not even Odin. That's part of why she was commiserating with Harry, she lost Hendricks and has no chance to see him again. Assuming she's immortal, Hendricks got all the honor of becoming an Einherjar, but can never, ever return. Even if she's not, she has to die for him to come back.
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Sep 30, 2020 23:42
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