I'll pick out the key points I have somewhat decent explanations for.

You're getting it wrong here. The Mothers and Uriel are an order of magnitude above Mab in terms of power. If knowledge is power then the Archangels and the Mothers are the most powerful in the universe, because they have full Intellectus. Mab doesn't, simple as that.

While I have some reticence about the Christian values thing that's going on, it's pretty heavily implied that the forces of Good in the Dresdenverse don't favour any particular morality, just that humans are able to use their Free Will to the best extent possible. Jim has stated that Good = Free Will, Evil = No Free Will, even. Could be that battles like this are playing out all over the universe, with one species per planet having Free Will against a host of other supernatural nasties.

Who is Harry's go-to guy when ghost business comes his way? The majority of his experience with ghosts before the latest book was basically just fighting them. He didn't need to know more than how to tackle them, so he didn't really bother with it.

That athame is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the series. It apparently fucked Lea up enough that she tried to make a play on Mab herself, which led to her becoming a Sidhesicle.

Think of it this way. Mab was on the very edge of acquiring the Knight she's wanted for years. One she's been practically salivating over since she took his debt from Lea. Then Uriel steps in and Harry reasserts his free will, right when she looks about ready to win. She's upset about it, and while I agree it came off as juvenile, I get the feeling Mab doesn't often experience loss at the last minute like that often, so she reacts petulantly since she can't do anything else.

Demonreach is badass. I've known that since it stonewalled the Naagloshi in Turn Coat. If its name is anything to go by too it's either the jailor to something really powerful (which is possibly the source of the dark energy ley line that spring up there) or is something extremely powerful in its own right. I'm interested to see where Jim takes that.

Also, Inez wasn't the proxy for Mab. She was the proxy for the Parasite. So probably Lash.

 

Not sure if it's been addressed by Butcher, but if I had to guess I would think that Summer/Winter in the Northern Hemisphere might be much more important to the balance of power, since the Northern Hemisphere has about 90% of the Earth's human population.

 

That. I really really like that. Now I'll go finish the rest of your post.

 

The only thing I really didn't like about GS was the constant shout-outs (fucking everywhere) to things like Star Trek. It really kept breaking the flow of the story and my immersion in it.

 

May I suggest (as others have already alluded to) that one of the things missing is closure?

In a normal Dresden book, Dresden has a case or a problem to be solved. After getting his ass kicked for most of the book, eventually he gets to the heart of the problem, and "solves" it, usually violently. So then, in the typical book, you've got Harry helping people, and in the process, learning something about himself or about how the world works.

Ghost Story is different. Ghost Story is about Harry Dresden, period. Though he technically was able to help some friends, it was merely incidental. In Ghost Story, Dresden's problem was himself.

Getting back to closure: well, let's see.

*Dresden had the Winter Knight thing looming over him at the end of Changes, and he still does at the end of GS.
*Murphy, along with Harry's other friends, are stressed / involved in matters over their pay grade at the beginning of GS, and it's still true at the end of GS, with no relief in sight.
*Molly was messed up at the beginning of GS, and she was really only beginning to unfuck herself by the end of GS - and we haven't even gotten into the potential future problems with her and the White Council. And so it goes.

Ultimately, Ghost Story wasn't my favorite book in the series either. But I think it'll be easier to deal with once the next book or two comes out. Harry needs to be restored to the real world again before we can put his Ghost Story adventures in their proper perspective.

 

I'd have to agree about the lack of closure. Every previous Dresden book, even Changes, had a clear central conflict which was resolved by the end of the story. Evil sorcerer killing people, Denarians running around starting trouble, Vampires kidnapped his daughter, etc. Ghost Story doesn't have that clear central conflict; yeah, there's the fight against Corpsetaker, but that's really almost incidental to the main plot. The book would probably still work more-or-less work if you just cut Corpsetaker's return out entirely; it's really all about the consequences of Harry's actions in Changes.

 

I've heard it said that Changes-Ghost Story-Cold Days are like a mini-trilogy within the series, in that they all tell a part of the same story. I've also heard these two stories compared to The Two Towers in that a whole bunch of stuff happens but nothing gets resolved, so it doesn't really feel like anything but filler. That's the problem with trilogies (which you can think of the two story arcs so far as being a part of), the middle book just can't compare to the first and last.

I imagine that when Cold Days comes out we'll see a lot of the plot points introduced in Changes/Ghost Story get resolved, with the ending story arc beginning to make its appearance.

 

Y'know, I've always thought of the Dresden Files as a series of trilogies: SF-FM-GP introduced us to most of the major heroes and villians - Marcone, SI, Lea, the Denarians and the Knights of the Cross; SK-DM-BR upped the ante on the established baddies, Harry got his longest lasting injury (his hand) and we moved away from the 'mystery of the week' plot device; PG-WN-TC is what I think of as the 'Harry-the-Warden and Lash-the-Deputy' trilogy, where he starts getting involved in politics and manuvering; and now, Ch-GS-CD, which will be all about Harry growing as a person.

The only abheration is Dead Beat, but I let that go 'cause it's awesome. (see my avatar)

But the point is, seen this way, I suddenly note that Fool Moon, Death Masks, White Night, and now Ghost Story are my least favourite of the series.

 

Not true. The analogy doesn't hold. Not only because its falt out said Mab is the most powerful being in Winter's dugout. Going on what Portus said about the white god bullshit, you can see that still in Winter and Summer.

Lady, Queen, Mother. Son, Father, Holy Ghost. Its an arc. Crawl, walk, cane. What would make Mother more powerful is the wisdom of age.

The scary part? Maeve's gonna take that spot one day and everyone is fucked.

 

WoJ is that the Mothers are an order of magnitude more powerful than the Queens, who are an order of magnitude greater than the Ladies. Uriel ranks with the Mothers, meaning he's more powerful than Mab. For all practical purposes, Mab is the biggest hitter Winter has, but that's only because the Mothers do not involve themselves. I haven't seen anything to explain why they don't involve themselves, but the fact is they're basically recluses in their cabin.

 

This thread just got a billion times better.

 

Wisdom. Cause Mother fuck politics. :awesome

 

In lieu of contrary evidence, I've always thought of it like this:

The Queens are the "generals" for their respective sides. They're the ones who actually direct the forces of Summer and Winter against their adversaries, which helps drive the cycle of seasons, of life and death, etc. By being equal yet opposed, they maintain the balance between those forces.

The Mothers basically are Summer and Winter. That's in a grand sense, since in the Dresdenverse those words mean more than just the seasons. They are life/growth (Summer) and death/decay (Winter). So yes, they would embody far more power than the Queens do. It's just that they can't wield their power as directly as their underlings.

Just as with the white god's archangels, the additional power comes with checks and balances. In the Dresdenverse, the more power you have, the less freedom you have to use the power. At the bottom are mortals, with nearly unfettered free will. Near the top you've got things like archangels, who have the power to destroy planets but don't actually have the free will to do so. And I expect that the Mothers, too, have the power to end the world(s) as we know it, but don't have the free will to do so.

Queens and Ladies are somewhere in the middle on this scale. Queens have operational control over Summer and Winter, but their power is limited by the opposing side's queen. Ladies have less power, but more freedom - we've seen Lily going behind the back of her Queen to help Harry, and even conspiring with Maeve a bit.

 

To be fair, in Grave Peril, Mort had no talent that he hadn't let go to waste. He was a glorified con man with a smidge of forgotten talent then.

 

So yeah, I could barely understand what the OP was saying and he didn't say it in a really good way. That said, I agree to a point. I don't mind Ghost Story but it wasn't my favourite and I really didn't enjoy it. I didn't like the direction of the character development, the characterisation of certain characters, the time-skip (which I think has always been a cheap plot device), the direction of some parts of the story and... it just didn't seem like good writing to me.

The only thing that made up for it was the epilogue and even then most of that was probably due to my imagination wondering what's happening in the next booy.

 

This is where I'm at, yeah.

Perhaps with hindsight after the next book, it'll look better.

 

I agree with those who have said that GS was very different to other DF books in structure, and I think this was why I found it more difficult to read and less interesting to re-read. Previous DF books have always had one plot/concept per book even if Harry doesn't realise it until the climax (or just after the climax).

Changes had a simple driving question: what will Harry have to do to save his daughter? And we saw what he did: he sacrificed his ethics to gain enough power, and he died as a result of that decision. Driving question answered in a satisfactory way (for me at least).

By contrast GS felt scattershot and splintered. Actually, not just by contrast: it was scattershot and splintered. The driving question appears to be 'who killed Harry' but of course that's not it: the question is 'what did Harry actually sacrifice to save Maggie' (a whole lot more than he realised at the time). But the narrative doesn't stick to this question, it swerves around to focus on new characters when the old are crucial to the book.

Part of my problem with the book was simply the number of characters. The preponderance of villains and good guys meant that I didn't know them as well, and so the big action scenes meant less to me. The subplot with the street kid (I can't even remember his name), gang and sorcerer-boss seemed entirely pointless.

I did like how different ghostly Chicago was, and how little power Harry had at first. The flashbacks were annoying though: in White Night the flashback was a whole chapter, presented just after Harry lost consciousness, and showed scenes that were integrated into the characterisation and plot of the book. In GS the flashbacks show us bits of Harry's development into a quixotic badass, which are interesting but not integral to the book.

The ending moral was very interesting, though: that Harry arranged his death because he was afraid of being changed, and made the wrong call. Harry even turns service to Mab into a form of rebellion against power: he will serve on his terms, because ultimately everyone with free will serves on their own terms. And Mab can't change that.

 

Not quite, Vash. Not only did Jim Butcher state that the Mother's were more powerful, but Harry did as well. If you look at the scenes with the Mothers, it goes something like this:

Harry stands out side and feels a chill of winter's power. For a moment, he compares it to Mab's power, which he felt when he was in the same room as her. But then he has an 'Oh, shit' moment when he realizes how much more powerful than Mab the mother would have to be, since he felt it across the yard and through Stone Walls.

A bit later, when they give him his quest, he also asks why they don't just stop the entire war themselves, knowing how powerful they are.

Also, Jim stated in his interviews that literally everyone in Fearie, regardless of affiliation, would do what the Mother's told them to do, because they're so powerful and have so much influence, everyone must obey them (including guys like the Erlking). He compared obeying the Mothers to obeying gravity.

When giving a list of who could beat Mab in a fight, Jim stated Titania would have 50/50 odds, but either of the mothers could do it for sure.

Add Intellectus and...

Well, yeah. Mothers>>>>>>>>>Queens.

 

What did y'all not like about the timeskip? It didn't really bother me that much, especially since as CheddarTrek said they happen between every book.

I agree that the new status quo Harry finds would've been jarring, but luckily isn't thanks to Aftermath, which I think did a great job of setting the stage for the six (?) months he's out of commission; the Fomor are introduced, Marcone and Murphy's coming alliance is hinted at, and the beginning of Murphy's denial about Harry, along with her resolve to protect Chicago, is shown.