Now that I consider this it probably suggests that even Archangels don't have a singular existence across timelines. How do you choose which Michael to help if the same situation repeats in different universes at the same time?

Well, I suppose we should read how it works in six years when Mirror Mirror is published.

 

Remember that Knights of the Cross and Wizards are mortals too. Once Stoker published the manual on How To Kill The Black Court and everyone knew their major weaknesses it was just a matter of time until they were wiped out. Ebenezar McCoy was already the Blackstaff by this point and the Arthur Langtry was still a relatively young man (for a Wizard). So it's not as though it was just an angry mob doing the work.

 

Then how are the Sidhe courts worth anything ?

Just get iron.

 

I suspect that Sidhe have it easier because there are a lot more of them, tens of millions compared to maybe few thousands of the Black Court vampires. The biggest problem that vampires from all Courts have is the constant need for humans to survive and just preventing them from getting food takes majority of their powers away as presented with the White King.

 

The Sidhe are a lot less constrained by iron than the Black Court are by garlic and holy water. Remember in Grave Peril when Mavra had a chunk of garlic thrown at her? She dodged out of the way right quick. You can fairly easily kill a Black Court Vampire with holy water as well, while you need to do a lot of damage with iron weapons to kill a Sidhe. It's a weakness, but it's not to the same level as vampires. There's also the point that most people are less willing to entangle themselves with the Fae because it opens you up to being involved in more Faerie based problems in the future. Not to mention that they're a lot less of a problem for a city than your typical vampire. Faeries are dangerous, but can be worked around. BCV are like a plague that can grow out of control if you don't stop it.

This largely stems from how Black Court Vampires acquire power compared to other supernatural races. A newborn Vampire is effectively as strong and tough as a ghoul and far more intelligent. A Master Vampire is strong enough to put up a decent fight against a Warden or a group of them depending on who they're up against, and some of them are Wizards in their own right. An Elder of the Black Court was a supernatural powerhouse likely on the same level individually as the Lords of the Outer Night and the Red King were in Changes.

The Sidhe grow into their power over time. Without a mantle to mould them, the Sidhe need to make bargains or take power directly from others. They need to learn to use their magic and train for years upon years to reach the level of the Leanansidhe. Toot Toot is a good example; he's hitched his wagon to Harry's star and is becoming more powerful because of it. Whereas a newborn Black Court could wipe the floor with your average faerie and thank them for the meal afterwards.

Also relevant point to this discussion is that once you get to the upper echelons like the Elders the 'power' that puts them on par with Mab is less about the physical and more about Will. The Lords of the Outer Night were able to shackle people through applied willpower. Mother Winter shackled Harry to the floor. During Summer Knight we saw Mab and Titania battling through influence and willpower over the battlegrounds at the Stone Table.

That's where mortals get their advantage. We may not be that powerful magically or physically, but our free will allows us to defy anything out there. We saw it in Changes. We saw it in Cold Days. Mortals are able to fight on an equal footing with beings that are objectively superior to them in every other way, all because of free will. If you've got enough people in your mob that can fight back against the Elders' Wills (also note that they didn't tend to fight Elder Vampires in groups; it was largely mob vs 1 + thralls) then a large part of their supernatural might is just negated, at which point they are 'just' super strong, super fast and dangerous creatures, but mortals are well used to dealing with those.

 

Anyone got the book earlier like some people did?

Since Peace Talks and Battle Ground are one book, we can assume that current Butcher's speed is 3 years for one book. Even if it improves to 2 years for one book of a normal length, we get something like:

2022: 18) Mirror Mirror
2024: 19) wrestling
2026: 20) Denarians
2028: 21) dragons?
2030: 22) ?
2034: 23) BAT 1
2038: 24) BAT 2
2042: 25) BAT 3

Butcher will be 71 when he will be finishing. Just as old as GRRM is right now.

 

He's proven to be more reliable than GRRM, even with this hiatus.

 

I was under the impression that he was going through a lot of things in his personal life that kept him from writing for a while.

He was previously writing at a pace of one Dresden book a year for almost a decade and a half. For much of that time, he was concurrently writing a Codex Alera book a year. I see no reason to be pessimistic that this last hiatus is a new normal, until we see evidence otherwise.

 

An important thing we have to consider in this scenario is whether or not people would actually want to kill them.

If all humans learned of the existence of the Black Court, the general consensus across humanity would be to exterminate them because we are literally food to the Black Court. There's not really any wiggle room.

If all humans learned of the Sidhe Courts, that becomes a much more complicated problem. Most Sidhe aren't interested in eating people, they want to make deals. You're gonna get people who do want to wipe out the Sidhe, but there's also going to be greedy people who want to make deals with them to get cool stuff, and there's going to be people who just want to fuck them because as we all know Sidhe men and women are really hot (and attractive people can get away with a lot). Some people might not even care since the Sidhe live in another dimension and aren't stealing human land. Revealing the existence of Sidhe to humanity at large would probably cause more conflicts between humans than pose any serious danger to the more powerful faeries.

 

He was going through a pretty ugly divorce up until recently. Good chance he was sitting on the Peace Talks manuscript to avoid paying more then half of the advance he got for it, to his wife. This way she couldn't touch the royalties it generates.

 

Well I finished. I enjoyed it, but it definitely felt like half a book.

 

Butcher tweeted that he wanted the books published back to back, with like a 4 week gap, like a tv show cliff hanger two parter.

But the publisher said that was logistically impossible.

I am hoping that when read as a single book it feels better. Cause everyone is commenting on how it feels very empty and incomplete.

 

Yeah, I think I will wait till the next book drops and see what the reactions are before I buy the books myself because what I have seen so far (including the spoiler thread) just doesn't seem all that interesting or good to me.

 

Seems more than a bit greedy to split what was obviously 1 book into 2. It's essentially those last HP movies and Hunger Games movies all over again but in book form. Did he fall behind on alimony payments or something?

 

He addresses the split at the 2:30 mark.

 

I don't think as a professional author, the inability to write a single cohesive novel is any excuse at all.

 

Neither do I. It was entirely possible for him to write Peace Talks as its own beast - with a kind of concluding segue into Battle Ground. My guess is that there was material he didn't want to cut that ended up being prioritized in Peace Talks, material that maybe should've been sacrificed for other things. Also, all the "best" stuff might be hauled over onto Battle Ground, but yeah, still, no excuse.