You know, the 96% thing didn't really make me that excited, but the fact that it is now completely done is awesome. How long does it generally take to go from finished to published? For some reason I have 2 months in my mind.

 

Ghost Story felt like pop culture references that happened to have a story attached. Hell, it was almost pandering at points. That and the overall story was just such a letdown after Changes. Oh well; opinionates gonna opine. I'm hyped for Cold Days, mostly because Ghost Story ended up being fillery and this promises not to be

 

I figured the references were due to Harry being a ghost. Something about more of his thoughts or habits or whimsy bleeding into his words, thoughts, and actions.

 

The references have never really bothered me. I didn't even really notice that they increased until people here started bitching.

Enlighten us more about how you've read the book that hasn't even been published yet.

And assuming you meant Ghost Story, you're greatly exaggerating.

 

This. I checked out the discussion thread after finally reading the book, kept seeing these complaints and was like, "Yeah? So what?"

 

On a re-read, the PCRs seemed less prominent.

And I always saw Harry using them as a defense mechanism, like humor, to help cope with crazy shit. As the shit he deals with seems to get progressively crazier in each book, the humour and PCRs get bigger commesurate with that.

 

Out of curiosity how far into the book does everyone think it will take for Harry to announce to his vanilla friends that he's still alive. That's a large part of what I'm looking forward to after all the fleshing out we saw in Ghost Story, but I think it will be a while before it happens. I presume Harry will be going straight to the Fae courts, and will probably need sometime to recover his strength etc. Then I suspect that he will be immersed in some Winter/Summer problem. I could honestly see Harry not revealing he was alive to his friends until the end of the book.

Really can't wait, and glad that he's finished all the revisions.

 

I think it will not even happen in this book. Butcher can be mean like that sometimes.

 

The first couple of books were understandably bad to average, Jim was writing in a creative writing class as a part time project for whatever reason, I can't think of many people who've written solid gold at times like that. He did his job either way, he got us hooked into a series that's still going, at least partially planned out with regards to how it'll end and length, alongside improving as a writer.

PCR's are fine by me, I felt that the situation with Molly's mind in Ghost Stories was a tad much but outside of that, they've always made me chuckle and as was previously mentioned, they seem to be Dresden's way of analysing the situation, calming down and letting himself think, bar his mouth shooting off before his brain fires as has done several times.

 

Really, so long as we don't get a training montage in the course of this book, it'll be solid gold. The premise is awesome, in my opinion, and having Harry work for Mab is much preferable to Titania. At least we know, to some extent, what Mab is capable of and what her motivations are.

Also, what do you guys think about the Winter Knight powerup? You think he could kill a Senior Council member just with it, or do you think Mab would have to throw a little bit more of her weight behind him? Let's go with a neutral location as well, because putting the fight on Demonreach wouldn't be fair.

 

I reckon that it's either gonna happen in the first few chapters, or not at all. I'm expecting the former.

Dresden books typically have a time skip, even Ghost story did, when you consider the real world. I expect that this will be no different. We'll get a nice summary of Dresden recovering from being deadish, then move onto the good shit.

That's only my prediction though.

 

Then convince Big D to continue Baby Mama Drama.

 

I hope to hear more about/see some interaction with the Grey Council. Right now all I know is that they there are a bunch of wizards who in general give a shit.

 

Supposedly there is some Blackstaff content in the book, which is always great.

Also i think there will be time skip but just enough for Dresden to recover and begin his duties as Mab's bitch..erm Knight

 

It might be a small timeskip, but time runs differently in the Nevernever than on earth. Even if Dresden did somehow break free from the Winter Court in a week, months or even years could go by for most of the characters we're familiar with.

 

Note that it can easily be applied the other way as well. Dresden could spend a year in 'physical therapy', then come say hi to all those who think him dead 2 days later.

What I'm not sure of is the limits of this. How much time could go by in the Nevernever in a day on earth?

 

AFAIK, there's no defined limit for it. If memory serves, the only thing we really know about it is that Mab and Titania have at least some degree of control over the time-lapse within their respective domains.

That's the only thing I remember ever being said about it that's even vaguely close to definitive/quantitative.

 

Well, we know that Maeve slowed the passage of time in Winter just after Dresden poured Summer Fire into the Winter Wellspring. It kept Winter's army trapped while Summer went to the White Councils rescue.

So control is definitely confirmed. Limits are unknown I guess?

 

Two things:

Harry specifically tells us that the tales of people partying with the fae for one wild night and coming home years later are more or less true, and;

Butcher maintains multiple Twitter feeds for his characters. According to Harry Dresden's Twitter feed - wow, that was weird to write - the first chapter of Cold Days will be in the back of the new paperback release of Ghost Story - next week:

http://t.co/14lk3z2F