Hm, as I recall the noose was still around his neck when he got thrown overboard and then Nicodemeus was pulled out of the water fairly quickly by Deidre (sp?) About what Sree said, even though Anuriel (again sp?) is still out there because Dresden didn't get the coin, one of the scariest things about Nicodemeus was that he had been around and killing for a couple thousand years.

Edit: @anlun I think that a lot of the stuff with the Winter and Summer courts is going to be covered in a lot more detail in further books (remember there's supposed to be 20 of them total.) I definitely agree that the Summer subplot here was on the weak side but again I wonder if we might see the reasoning behind their actions in later books.

On Michael, at the very end it did say that he was awake and talking so *shrugs* we'll see.

I personally would not count Lash out totally. Remember it took what 2, or 3 books after he picked up the coin for her to really make an appearance, so I'm hoping that she might be slowly recovering in Harry's subconscious.

 

@fuubar: Anduriel

I didn't get that vibe, more like major life points are covered and he's getting little details in, but to each his own I suppose.

I'm of the opion that you can't go wrong adding in Thomas but that's beside the point. You say he is more then capable of fighting Denarians. Which I have to agree with seeing as he did. He even killed one of thier hosts and stole his coin. The only reason he stopped was because the Hunger was getting too great and he didn't want to hurt someone with it.

Not lame per say but I was expecting something more epic.

So you'd rather kill of the Carpenter's Dad then have him live?

Bouncing bullets? Pretty awesome. But I believe his luck of God was no longer working because he felt his time was coming to an end. Kind of like Shiro.

Unresolved fate is normally called a cliffhanger but yes don't expect the crippled Michael to be very mobile anytime soon.

I assume Lea is still frozen in the fountain, and her athame dagger is in the possesion of Mab. Mab losing the ability to vocally make sounds is a sign to me of the increasing control the Black Council has of her, which Grimaulkin might be a part of. As for the Summer Fae they wee going after Harry because, for an as of yet unspecified reason, he has been identified as a member of the Winter Court, which could either be Mab's or Titania's influence on events.

While I have to agree Murphy wasn't given enough screentime I wouldn't say she was under-developed. As for her seeing Kincaid as something of a father figure you're right. That is crap. Cause you're thinking of Ivy. As for their fling in Hawaii, Kincaid didn't want to commit to anything, which is what Murphy's looking for in a relationship.

We assume she's gone. She may simply be too weak to communicate.

I didn't really find it that cliche. To Harry God is a supremely powerful guy but since when has Harry been afraid to let someone know what he thinks?

Too much surveillance to be the BatCave


Well I hope that cleared things up for you anlun.

 

I just devoured this book in one day. There were so many things in Small Favors, it became ridiculous. I even enjoyed the Dresden/Luccio interaction. All I have are a few questions:

-Does Karrin Murphy have a sword?
-Did Dresden get anything other than relief from Uriel?
-Is the Merlin involved in the Black Council?

 

-No, she didn't accept it.
-I'm not sure what you mean.
-We don't know. Harry has suspicions about someone on the White Council working for the Black Council, but he doesn't know who.

 

I think Mab's voice is changing from sex-goddess Queen of Air and Darkness to decrepit Mother Winter, and unlike a pubescent mortal boy, has a servitor to prevent loss of face. If the role of the Winter Knight in Vash's fic (Go Quietly Into That Winter's Night) becomes DF canon, Mab may just be pulling the ultimate Nodoka Saotome Maneuver and convincing Harry to become the father of her grandbabies.

 

I forget in which book but didn't Harry and Ebenezar narrow down who could be the high-up Black Council spy to be Ancient Mai, Merlin or the Gatekeeper. I recall them deciding between a couple and they eliminate those they trust.
Personally I think it's Ancient Mai because I seriously doubt the Merlin would betray them after single handedly holding back the Red Court in the NeverNever and the Gatekeeper is just too cool , though it would make sense if it was him because an Outsider was summoned and he guards the gate to the Outside right?

I still think Lash is still in Harry's head just healing because I think when Nicedemus told the shadow to take Harry out he sensed something (they can do that right) but it was too weak/didn't want to hurt Harry. Combining Hellfire and Soulfire will be cool.

This is just an idea I had since Mab asked Harry to become the Winter Knight; Harry finds out who the Black Council member in the White Council is but the high ranking traitor finds out and Harry gets implicated to being a traitor for the Red Court by the traitor in the White Council and has no choice but to accept the mantle to not be beheaded, by basically saying killing him (the Winter Knight) would start a war against Winter that the White Council couldn't afford to have. It might make basically the entire Council turn against him but since when does Harry care what they think?

~Perfect

 

The traitor has been narrowed down to who knew of the Warden Boot Camp. That would be Morgan, Listens-to-Winds, the Merlin and Ancient Mai.

As for Lash, it's not outright said if anyone has destroyed a Denarian Shadow before, but Harry is without a doubt the first one to convince it to act on its own, something no one could possibly foresee.

And combining Hellfire and Soulfire is like combining Antimatter and Matter. It doesn't work.

 

@Kalas: Harry and Ebenezar eliminated Listens to Wind and Morgan from the list.

I don't mean combining Hellfire and Soulfire in the same spells, just the ability to use both, if Lash comes back he will probably have Hellfire again unless the knowledge of Hellfire went away when Lash sacrificed herself
or something like that.

 

About Lash, I just reread White Night and at the end she says that she will tell Harry all that she knows about his mother and the Outsiders. I doubt that she would have said that she would tell him everything if she was reasonably sure that she was not going to be around to tell him. Of course it could be one of those things where it didn't quite go as planned.

 

@Perfection: They vouched for them, which is completely different.

As for using both Hellfire and Soulfire... Uriel gave Harry the ability to use Soulfire because Harry had garnered some respect for resisting the Fallen for so long. If he gave in enough to regularly use Hellfire I imagine that ability would be taken away.

 

I rather enjoyed the book, it was nice to finally see Harry take care of his lack of female companionship, though it looks like things with Luccio are going to be difficult since he'll have to hide Bob and other secrets from her. Murphy and Thomas were a little underdeveloped in the book, but both of them had plenty of attention in other books so I wasn't too bothered by it. Having the Denarians show up as the villains again was a nice move, since they are quite possibly my favorite bad guys in the Dresden Books. I was disappointed by the fact that Lash didn't put in an appearance, I was curious to see what would happen to her after her apparanet death at the end of White Night and once it was clear Nicodemus and his crew would be playing a major role in the book I really expected we would hear from Lash before the end of it.

That does remind me of a rather interesting pet theory a friend and I came up with about what happened to Lash though: since once Harry gave Lash free will she chose to sacrifice herself for him, to what degree is she really still a Fallen? After all, once Lash obtained free will she used it to perform a truly selfless act, so it seems odd that she would still be considered evil. I was kind of hoping Lash might come back and be on the opposite team from her Denarian counterpart; if nothing else it would have been interesting to see Harry's reaction to a redeemed Lash.

 

Things like this, are the reason he's so awesome. There are so many laugh out loud moments it's not funny.

 

Thomas in his SUV 'presumably looking for little Sedans to run over' would have to be my favorite.

 

I'm making my way through it, about the halfway point and there's just way too much of the book that's filler at this point. He needs to spread his action throughout the whole book, there's just too much needless bullshit.

 

Midknight you know the 'steps of a story' they drilled into your head in High School? Well you've just made your way through steps 1-3. Step 4 , the Climax, will be the entire next half of the book.

 

I liked Small Favor. My first thought when I saw Soulfire was: OMG Butcher has been reading Shezza's work. Harry Dresden getting hellfire and then soulfire sorta like Potter gets hellfire and the sword.

 

I liked the reference to the effects of a Fallen, on a mere child...^.^

Out of anything in the book, that would be from Shezza's stuff.

 

Awesome book, but yeah I still feel he missed elaborating on things he mentioned in previous books, and then you still find out next to nothing about the Black Council other then one of the Fallen were involved in the attack.

quoted for truth and agreement

 

I thought the whole idea with Murphy as the 3rd Knight was complete garbage, and a five year old could have predicted that that's what would have happened. Whenever Dresden breaks out his Sight and Murphy is in the room, she is always just her normal self with a sword and some angelic light surrounding her. He says this multiple times. I really enjoyed the book, but Butcher's writing style is just getting a bit repetitive and predictable right now.

 

She's not the third knight.