If the delay had happened after Ghost Story or Cold Days, I'd probably be more likely to drop the series, but Skin Game is one of my favourites - and I binged on the second lot of short stories recently, so it's a bit fresher in my head.

 

Been a while since Skin Game entered my mind. It was pretty good, iirc, and then it ended, that entire Butters scene happened, and I facepalmed really really hard. If the quality of pop culture references drops below that Butters scene I might just give up the series on principle.

 

Welp, looks like it's actually happening.



Seven years ago I remember thinking that I'd be 30 before the series finished, if it continued at it's current one book per year pattern. Being 30 seemed incomprehensible to me at the time, as did waiting that long till I was able to read the finale to the series. Yet here we are 5 years after Book 15, with book 16 seemingly actually almost complete.

I have so many positive memories of Dresden while growing up. It had a big influence on both my life, and who I was as a person. I'm almost apprehensive as to how this will play out. The last few books haven't had the reread value of the previous. I think he was burning out as he wrote them. It'll be interesting to see if the 5 year break he's taken is enough to get Jim Butcher back on track. Or whether pop culture references are all he has anymore.

 

That bit at the bottom caught my attention.

 

22:00 in. "Yeah, we're doing a new TV series."

Recent appearance by Butcher at WesterCon, confirming that a new Dresden TV show in in pre-production, and hopefully will end up on a streaming service.

 

Not sure how they plan to handle it, but if they decide to mostly adapt the books, instead of mixing things up like the last time, and it proves itself popular to have multiple seasons, there is no way Butcher doesn't get GRRMed. I doubt it will happen though because I'm giving it two seasons before cancellation, no matter how good it actually will be.

 

Police procedural. Calling it now.

 

I actually think the first season starting as a police procedural would work quite well for this. Get through the first 3 books in the first season perhaps.

 

"In the criminal justice system, supernatural offences are considered mere delusion. In the city of Chicago, the dedicated detectives who investigate these unseen felonies are members of an elite squad known as 'Special Investigations.' These are their stories."

I would watch it.

 

On reflection, I think that Dresden is one of those series you actually don’t want to follow the books, but the actual series plot.

The way the books are written would make the show far too long imo.

 

Not really. The books are already a pretty decent outline for a "monster of the week" style show, each one covering the most exciting 12-30 hours of Dresden's year with a different bad guy than the previous. You could translate all of the books into 1-3 episodes apiece and it'd be a pretty good show, on the whole, with a solid one and a half to two seasons of content.

On an unrelated note, I've gotta admit, if Marsters isn't playing Dresden for this, I'm gonna be more than a little disappointed. He's definitely a bit old for the role at this point, but his voice is the iconic Dresden in my mind and he's entirely too good at playing the smartass. I'm really hoping they hire him on for it and just age him down in post.

 

Read a transcription for this posed by a member of a private Facebook group. The transcript is related to the series and casting:

 

I really, really hope they don't lean too heavily into police procedural, cos that's one of the many reasons (I'm looking at you, you stupid fucking hockey stick) that the first attempt was a buncha bullshit. In my head this is going to be awesome, though, and I am so fucking ready. And if we also get spellslinging roman legionaires in ala Codex Alera... Well, holy shit.

 

I feel the industry and Public are more prepared for quasi magical TV stuff as well. So over all the TV show will find a more receptive audience.

 

This was actually my point haha. I think I’m this version they should do 1-3 episodes per book to start with, maybe the first 6-7. Say 2-3 seasons. Then pivot into a much more in depth or serious story when shit starts getting really real.

I think the way the books are written make it really hard for TV. What other serialised novels became tv series?

 

Really? There was one that just finished not too long ago, maybe you've heard of it.

 

Yeah, maybe you can think of how my example was pretty much directly contrasting GoT implicitly? This is not a one season per book kind of series. And high fantasy is extremely different to urban fantasy.

Same approach would lead to a disaster.

 

I’ve always felt that Dresden Files and Supernatural had a lot of similar story elements so we know an episodic fantasy tv show with an overarching storyline can work. Supernatural went on for like 14 seasons with a lot of Monster of the Week episodes and I think Dresden Files could be just as successful.

 

Course it would; Martin's work has each book covering weeks to months and has a shitload of raw content because of that, while Butcher's are all shit going down over a weekend.

Like I said though, the Dresden books are phenomenally well laid out for an episodic, monster-of-the-week style show rather than Game of Thrones' sprawling plot lines. In an ideal world, the Dresden show would be an episodic thing along the same lines as Buffy or Supernatural, where each episode (or handful of episodes, depending on how much gets cut) is a new case. First you've got the cops hiring Dresden to look into literally explosive climaxes, then some FBI werewolves roll up and start abusing their authority, then Dresden has to go make nice at a vampire's tea party, etc, etc. Each bit would be its own self-contained thing that has some subtle hints about a larger storyline, see some small connections between Sells' lair and Bianca's dungeon, hear a name mentioned at the party that the FBI dudes mention, etc.

And then each season would end with an episode or series of episodes dedicated toward the larger plot (in my head, the perfect points in the books for that are Dead Beat, where the Black Council is first established conclusively, and Turn Coat, where the White Council is "cleansed" of Black Council infiltrators). You get to build out the plot and lay the groundwork through the monster-of-the-week style regular episodes, and then season finales that bring that all together and lead to a climax for the season, alongside its own self-contained plot, and then move on to the next season.

I'm honestly not seeing why you're saying it can't work; Dresden Files as a series is written almost perfectly for a long-running serialized show. The only thing it's missing is raw volume of content, but they could most definitely come up with original content for the show to flesh that out if required.