The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here
Blampira:
I'm still working on mine: 2007 Cinemafreaks interview of JB and Fred Hicks Audio (interview starts at 31:45)
It's 80% completed...but since I've had 3 big holidays, 2 family deaths, and emergency gallbladder removal surgery, it's safe to say that real life has been kicking my ass lately. I kinda feel like Harry does, rummy punch drunk and ears ringing. :)
It'll be up in a few days, I'm thinking. *crosses fingers*
Dina:
Oh, I am so sorry for your losses. Two in a short time are hard.
tubbyk:
Thank you so much for typing out these transcripts. Much appreciated for all the work and sore typing fingers involved.
derek:
Dictation by Derek
2010 SFBC interview @ NYCC
Interviewer: Hi, this is Rome Quezada and I'm here talking with Jim Butcher, author of Changes and Side Jobs. Changes is the latest Dresden File is one hell of a book. And readers and me, we want to know...why, Jim Butcher? Why? What did Harry Dresden ever do to you?
Jim Butcher: Oh, oh, yeah, well...poor Harry. Uh, basically I make a living on him suffering, so.... It was alot of fun to write Changes. It's the twelfth book of the series, and I feel like the guy who spent twelve years building up the model city of Tokyo and then finally you get to strap on the Godzilla suit and knock it all down, and that's what Changes was for me. It was nice, big story events. We had a good time.
Interviewer: As the title says, it is a book full of changes and they come at a really fast pace. And it's rare that urban fantasy reaches epic heights, and I think changes really does that. But what does this do to Harry's five year plan? Does he have a five year plan?
Jim Butcher: Oh my gosh, Harry...a five year plan? No, no. Harry's lucky if he's got five hours planned out in front of him. He's like me that way. But, yeah, it's definitely changed where he's going to be -- how he's going to be operating, at least in the immediate future, so.... We'll see a bit more of that in Ghost Story, which is the thirteenth book to the series.
Interviewer: Well, I'm glad to hear that there is a next book in the series.
Jim Butcher: Oh, yeah, well, you know, when you kill the character at the end, yeah, it makes people wonder. But, yeah, the series is still going, so....
Interviewer: Could you share a little bit of what's in store for Dresden in Ghost Story?
Jim Butcher: In Ghost Story, uh, it's the thirteenth book of the series. Harry gets sent back to Chicago as a ghost. He's got to solve his own murder, and if he doesn't, there's going to be horrible consequences to the people he loves. So, we get to, we get to see Chicago through a slightly different lens as Dresden's coming back as a ghost. Of course, the real problem is is that, you know, with twelve books going before him of various bad guys coming to mess around in Chicago, Harry's left a few ghosts himself around the city and, you know, they're looking for some payback.
Interviewer: He's not the most popular ghost is what you're saying?
Jim Butcher: No, no, no, no, no. It's kind of like, you know, what happens when a cop gets sent to jail. It's something of the same situation for him. So, we're having a good time.
Interviewer: Side Jobs is the collected Dresden short stories?
Jim Butcher: Yes. It's coming out October Twenty Sixth. I wanted to get all the short stories that had been scattered around several anthologies, and to get them together in one book. Alot of the readers couldn't afford to go out and be buying eight different anthologies for it, so I wanted to get them all in one book. I actually missed a couple, and so the only way I can fix it is I've got to write some more short stories and then put them all together in a second anthology. Maybe I'll call it More Jobs.
Interviewer: I don't think anyone will be complaining for that, about that.
Jim Butcher: Yeah, that's been the reaction from everybody. Short stories are hard to write, man. It's like writing a novel, except in a little space. It's like trying to have a knife fight in a phone booth.
Interviewer: Right. And there's actually an original novella in Side Jobs that takes place right after the events of Changes?
Jim Butcher: Yeah, it starts about forty five minutes after the end of Changes. It's from Murphy's point of view. The story's called "Aftermath". And it was really interesting to get into that character's head space because normally everything is from Dresden's point of view, so when I get to meet one of the other characters like that, it's really interesting.
Interviewer: How much of yourself do you put into Harry? Some people say that everything you do is a self portrait. Do you feel that that's the case with you and Harry?
Jim Butcher: Oh, gosh, I hope not. I hope I'm not that narcissistic. I think in a lot of ways, Dresden's the guy I would like to be if I was in his situation. Actually, I think if somebody walked up to me and handed me wizard powers at this point, I'd turn into one of those cackling bad guys. I'm fairly confident about that. But, yeah, he's the guy, he's the guy I would like to think I would be but, you know, who knows.
Interviewer: So, you're a martial arts enthusiast?
Jim Butcher: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you, in the course of your writing, do you ever try out those moves yourself before putting them on the page?
Jim Butcher: Yeah, occasionally until I realized that I'd gotten to the age where you've got to kind of limber up for that sort of things first.
Interviewer: Right.
Jim Butcher: But, yeah, I mean, I can't do a lot of the stuff that people in my books do. But it is important to note "martial arts enthusiast." That denotes that I like it without actually saying I'm good at it.
Interviewer: Okay. Are there any specific forms that you're partial to?
Jim Butcher: I've studied Gojo Shorei Ryu. I've studied Ryukyu Kempo. A little bit of a Tae Kwon Do, some Kung Fu, some Aikido. Basically, whenever we move to a new place, I find a school, go in and learn, you know, take lessons and learn there until it's time to go.
Interviewer: So let's move on to other topics.
Jim Butcher: Okay.
Interviewer: You are sporting a new look. Gone are the long flowing tresses.
Jim Butcher: Yeah, I had the hair down to about there.
Interviewer: Is this a parallel development to the changes in the Dresdenverse?
Jim Butcher: Yeah, it was sort of thematic. I wanted to go on the tour and look totally different, and frankly I wanted to shock my wife. I've had hair down to past my shoulders since I was about twenty.
Interviewer: Right.
Jim Butcher: And I walked out with the hair and the long beard, and I walked back in with the crew cut and shaved. And we had one of those conversations where she never looks up from her book for fifteen minutes.
Interviewer: Oh, boy. I hope she was appropriately shocked.
Jim Butcher: When she finally does, she's like, "Oh my gosh!" She said, "If I hadn't been talking to you, I'd have run for my gun. A total stranger walked into my house."
Interviewer: Well, what books do you read?
Jim Butcher: Oh, probably my favorite author is Robert B. Parker, writes the Spencer novels. I really enjoy the mysteries. I read all kinds of fantasy and science fiction. I'll name some names -- I'll forget somebody, but I'll name some names like Naomi Novik, I love her books. I've been reading Brandon Sanderson lately. There's a new author, Harry Connolly, who is -- I went and read his book and went, 'I've got to up my game,' which is, I think, is part of what made Changes come out as well as it did.
Interviewer: Thanks so much, Jim Butcher.
Jim Butcher: Oh, no problem. Thank you.
Interviewer: You're welcome.
Jim Butcher: Hi, I'm Jim Butcher and you can find my books at sfbc.com
derek:
Dictation by Derek
2010 NovelsAlive interview
Dayna Linton: Hi, this is Dayna Linton from NovelsAlive.tv and today I have Jim Butcher with me. How are you?
Jim Butcher: I'm good, thank you.
Dayna Linton: New York Times Best Selling Author...
Jim Butcher: Yeah.
Dayna Linton: And as your wife says, you're a pretty big deal.
Jim Butcher: Well, that's what my wife says.
Dayna Linton: (laughter) Your line said you're a pretty big deal.
Jim Butcher: Oh, well. Maybe.
Dayna Linton: No, I think you are. So, tell us what you write.
Jim Butcher: I write fantasy and urban fantasy. I'm best known for a series of urban fantasy novels called The Dresden Files, which was a television show on the SciFi Channel for about thirty seconds.
Dayna Linton: Oh, it didn't last?
Jim Butcher: It didn't -- it lasted one season and then they went with something else. I think they went with Painkiller Jane instead.
Dayna Linton: Because I do remember that title.
Jim Butcher: Yes.
Dayna Linton: I do, so.... I'm talking to the man who did that. That's pretty cool.
Jim Butcher: No, I just sold them that.
Dayna Linton: You sold it? Okay.
Jim Butcher: I didn't actually have too much to do with it after that. I got to appear in an episode and that was about it.
Dayna Linton: Did you? What were you?
Jim Butcher: I was one of Butter's -- the medical examiner -- I was one of his minions. I got to stand around in the background with a Blackberry looking professional.
Dayna Linton: (laughter) How fun was that?
Jim Butcher: It was neat. It was neat. I'm there on the set, and there's Dresden, and Murphy and Butters are there -- only everybody else could see them too, and that was new for me.
Dayna Linton: Did they really match up the actors to your characters pretty well?
Jim Butcher: Uh, their acting all matched up pretty well. The actual actors, the way they appeared, didn't necessarily look like they did in my head, but the way they acted, they did a fairly good job.
Dayna Linton: Oh, that's good. Had to be a proud moment.
Jim Butcher: Oh, sure. And it's amazing how many people are involved in shooting a TV episode. There's like seventy or eighty people on the crew, and that's completely irrespective of actors, directors and interfering authors.
Dayna Linton: (laughter) Interfering authors...I bet you didn't interfere much.
Jim Butcher: Oh, only a little, when it seemed helpful.
Dayna Linton: Yeah, well, there you go. So tell me, there's people who ask, 'What's the difference between fantasy and urban fantasy?'
Jim Butcher: It's the same difference between The Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Dayna Linton: Well, there you go.
Jim Butcher: Lord of the Rings fantasy, your standard fantasy, is generally in another world, in another land and there's all kinds of magic and everything, and there's a quest.
Dayna Linton: Right.
Jim Butcher: Buffy is more -- if you've got that setting, urban fantasy is that setting of here, and now and today. And all the supernatural stuff sort of slides in the back door somewhere to exist alongside all the normal stuff.
Dayna Linton: It's edgier.
Jim Butcher: I would say so, yeah.
Dayna Linton: Yeah, much, much edgier. So, your latest book is?
Jim Butcher: My latest book was, is a book called Changes. It's the twelfth book of The Dresden Files. And a whole bunch of really cool things get to happen in Changes, in the storyline. It closes out a lot of story lines that have been going since Book One. We get some fairly cool confrontations and epic battles, and it was a great deal of fun to write.
Dayna Linton: Is this the last one?
Jim Butcher: Oh, no. No, no, should be many more, but this was a good one. It was a real milestone book in the story. It's fun. I kind of feel like the guy who spent the past ten years building a model city for a Godzilla movie and then I got to strap on the Godzilla suit and kick it all apart.
Dayna Linton: How fun!
Jim Butcher: Which was fun. It was a great deal of fun.
Dayna Linton: So, is there anything about your characters that you wish you could be like?
Jim Butcher: Oh, yeah. I think the character I'm best known for is Harry Dresden, and I would like to think that that's the kind of person I would be if I was in his shoes. I think I'd actually be one of the giggling villains if somebody actually handed me as much power as Dresden runs around with on a regular basis, but he's the guy I would like to think I'd be.
Dayna Linton: Okay. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you being with us today. I know you're beat. It's the last day of RT and we're all just dragging.
Jim Butcher: Yes, yes. There's so much fun, now we've got to go get some rest, so....
Dayna Linton: Yes, definitely. Well, thank you very much.
Jim Butcher: Certainly.
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