My last post appears to have been eaten, so I'll try again.

I think Butcher was perhaps a bit heavy-handed, but I get where he was going with Butters.

Butters lost faith in Harry and Murphy. He lost faith in Molly two books ago, on Ghost Story. Michael was on the sidelines, and the surviving Alphas are having their own issues if Will and Georgia ended up hospitalized.

Butcher layed it on a bit thick at the beginning, but I think that was what he was trying to get across. And what happens to Butters in this book? He finds his faith again: not in religion, but in his friends, and in the "mission", so to speak.

The Swords don't require you to be Christian, or even to believe. Sanya, after all, is proof of that. I'll be interested to see if Butters can sustain being a Knight, but, at the end there, I can see how he got the invitation in the first place.

 

I still would have liked to see him being beaten up a bit more... and I miss bob sooo much, I truly hope butcher reunites him and Harry on a more permanent basis again, especially now that Harry's 'daughter' needs a guide.... but i do understand what you are saying SirThoreth.

 

Well that was a thingy. Pretty much all I would say was mentioned already, Butters, Hades, Molly, Michael, Uriel and so on. This book certainly had a lot of awesome scenes but also had some pretty bad/annoying parts too so I think it would be on the bottom half of the series.

And now to go to sleep as morning tomorrow(also known as 'an hour from now') I get my physical copy which I will read the book again.

EDIT: Oh also, after finishing this book and seeing how many more ties between different mythologies were added plus Jim mentioning that the actual beings themselves don't change in an interview I am considering the idea that in Dresden Files there isn't really different mythological beings. What happens is that the beings exist and we mortals interpret them in different ways though the ages and locations which influences the ways they can interact with the world.

It gets more complicated than that due to the sheer number of different beliefs and how even one that isn't really believed in anymore still remains to some extent but the basic idea is there.

Not really sure of it since it came to me a few minutes ago but I think it interesting notion.

 

Fuuuuuuuuck just realized we never got info on the prisoner in Demonreach with the British accent. I should've known better to expect an answer.

I originally was thinking Dresden might call his new kid Athena. But since Butcher likes M names. Then maybe Minerva.

 

I really look forward to the first fic with Babiel as a wacky sidekick.

 

Fuck I hate that name.

Ninja edit:

Just picked up a cool tidbit on the Jimforums I never noticed.

Uriel, heavens spook, is contained with in the name Anduriel Nics fallen angel, who we learn is a master of shadows and spys... Brothers?

 

You aren't alone. I wasn't really excited for the book before it came out though actually reading it managed to restart some of my enthusiasm for the series. But now though I'm curious about the next one, it's not even nearly on the level after reading previous ones. Maybe it's natural weariness after many years of reading it that will go away sometime later.

 

I think this may be because only a few things happened that were not filler/setup. There is little overall plot progression.

A List of everything that I remember off the top of my head.
(SPOILERS)

-Nick is down, but not out yet.
-Dresden and Murphy hook-up (probably).
-The sword is broken, and then it's back.
-Butters becomes annoying, then he becomes a jedi.
-Mab and Marcone get revenge on Nick.
-An Archangel becomes human, nothing happens.
-Dresden has four new toys.
-Michael comes out of retirement, and then goes back into retirement.
-Harry had a new spirit kid, actually had a conversation with his first kid.

I think there were a lot of places to go with most of these plots, but it feels like Butcher didn't really get the best usage out of them...

(How do you use that invisible spoiler thing?)

 

[Spoiler.] Blablabla [/Spoiler.]

Remove the dots. There really hasn't been much in the ways of Dresden Files fanfiction for a while now. Some of us have been trying to keep it active, but I don't think there is a single active long story going.

 

Not my favorite book in the series. I did enjoy it though. Only things that really annoyed me was Butters.

 

Might be because nothing big was at risk? Nothing big changed? Well, something big did change but who wants to write fics about that?

All the interesting stuff from the last book just...stopped. Where is the fallout? What is Molly doing? It's as if her actress was pregnant so they could only show her top half on the screens or something.

 

If Molly had been there, she could've helped harry with his little problem. Mab kept her away for that very reason. I think Butcher said she'd featured way more in Peace Talks.

 

Just been rereading some bits. In light of the Lasciel reveal, Hannah's talk with Dresden before he goes into the vault gains a whole new meaning.

 

I understand the plot dynamic and why Butcher did it .Doesn't change the fact that we're now waiting another year to get a reaction to some earth-shattering shit that happened a year ago.

 

Not to mention a slight chance of the OTP happening. But yeah, I would've liked to see Harry sit down with Molly after Ghost Story or after Cold Days and just talk.

Alas...

 

The Mothers being Hecate doesn't make much sense from a more mythological standpoint. Hecate has always been a triple goddess. There are only two mothers.

And Butchers comments don't make any sense. They are both Mortal Sisters. Titania is not older than Mab. He probably changed his mind.

And they can easily also be Hecate. Perhaps her Mantle was Split. Jim has said that having both Summer and winter Knights powers together would be reuniting what had been split together.

 

The Mothers, Queens and Ladies are each one aspect of the triple goddess that was split into two halves(Summer and Winter) there isn't really any other way to read it.

Also that is not the comment Agayek seems to have inverted it, here is the question and what Jim answered:
Q- The mothers - how does a queen become a mother? like after a thousand yrs, old winter dies and mab becomes the new mother?
A- Essentially abdication. The previous mother wearies of her duty and moves along. There's been one new Mother Summer during recorded human history. Mother Winter has never retired.


That the Mothers, Queens and Ladies got their original power through a ritual seems to imply that Hecate was one of those who lost their powers thus even if they inherited the mantle of Hecate before ascending they still had to gather power through other means since the mantle didn't give much if any. Or possibly that Hecate herself did it though I am not sure of the timeframe there.

 

Also anybody else I missed, but these are the ones I caught on my first run. Anyways;

Basically what we're meant to read the rather heavy-handedness as is that Christianity is top dog in the religion world - for now. Hinduism and Islam compete with it, although Islam is technically not much of a competitor because at the end of the day Christians and Muslims revere the same dude - Christians just have a Jewish carpenter thrown into the mix.

Dresden out and out tells us that the relative power level of a God and/or being of godly stature is intrinsically related to the number of people who currently worship them. As I recall, in one of the earlier books he mentions that he has the juice to summon and hold an Australian Aboriginal God in a circle, but doesn't really want to mess with a being that powerful.

Basically, while I'm fairly confident that Vadderung/Hades/(insert dead religion's god of your choice here) could still whip some serious ass, I doubt they could handle Uriel, much less capital G God. And that's the biggest issue. Christianity is a dominant and literal force in Dresden Files, because of the amount of people who believe it. It's not going away, either, so essentially we're just along for the ride. And unfortunately, all I'm getting from all of this Christianity shit is flashbacks to Supernatural.

I don't want God to be a weeny little dude writing in a shithole house. I don't want angels to throw away their Grace over little shit. I don't want Uriel to amount to an asshole with too much metaphysical juice.

But it's happening. God is more or less implied to be absent - or at the very least, disinterested. If you're enough of a jerk to read things that way, you could honestly say that every single capital M Miracle we've had in the books was pure luck.

Uriel basically threw his Grace at Michael for one last hurrah, consequences be damned.

And Christianity is getting the "we're fucking awesome" ball, and every single other religion with arguably cooler and/or more interesting shit happening is getting sidelined.

You know what I want to happen? I want for Vadderung's schtick with Kringle to be legitimate for every single pantheon. Hades is also Anubis, and so forth. But it isn't going to happen. Because Christianity is fucking awesome, and everybody else isn't.

This rant is probably me coming off of reading the first Dresden Files book I've actually been disappointed in since re-reading Storm Front and Fool Moon, but whatever. Murphy felt like a self-righteous cunt, and Butters took several levels in badass as a character who got literally no ramp up for this, aside from the faith thing that was already discussed. Which, by the way, is a cop out. Sanya is awesome. Michael is awesome. Shiro was awesome.

Butters plays D & D, frequently paraphrases Leonard McCoy, and had an entire section of a book devoted to "Polka Will Never Die". Also, the whole Jewish Knight of the Cross thing has already been addressed with Sanya's agnosticism.

/rant

 

This is basically what I got, save that I have the impression that it's less "can't" and more "views mortal Free Will as absolutely sacred and so won't". The difference is academic though. /shrug