The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here
derek:
Dictation by Derek
Jim Butcher "Changes" Q&A - Powell's Books 4/08/2010 Part 4 of 6
Jim Butcher: Yeah.
Audience: I'm trying to set this city up for the RPG because I want to run it.
Jim Butcher: Okay.
Audience: In your opinion, who'd be the seat of power here?
Jim Butcher: Okay, you're trying to set up Portland as a setting for the RPG game. Hrm. Who would be the what of power?
Audience: Who holds the power here?
Jim Butcher: Who holds the power? Mm...
Audience: [inaudible] (laughter)
Jim Butcher: It should. If it was here, I would probably do something with where water met land, is what I would probably...
Audience: That's all the city. (laughter)
Jim Butcher: Yeah. But, I mean, I would have something specifically that -- I would go look for some sort of supernatural person who was specifically a shore type entity, for instance, the Leanansidhe is specifically a shore type entity, only she's in Germany, but, you know. I would hit the libraries and look in the local Native American lore and see what you can find about water creatures. So, that would just be me, though. You can do it your own way. (laughter) Back here, with the beard.
Audience: I was going to ask you, what exactly are Outsiders? Are they the fae or are they something else entirely?
Jim Butcher: Exactly what are Outsiders? They are something else entirely. No, fae are all -- all the fae are part mortal. There is some bit of mortal in every single one of the fae. So, the Outsiders are something that comes from way beyond that. So, you know, they're more the generic Hellboy fangs and tentacles crowd. Yeah?
Audience: Are there things man should not know? (laughter)
Jim Butcher: Are there things man should not know? Not only should not, but never seem to. (laughter) Although, it's mostly my wife who tells me about those things. (laughter) Yeah, in the Dresden universe, there are all kinds of things for the really dark secrets of magic that Harry has absolutely no clue about which, hopefully as he learns about them later in this series, you'll be able to look back at stuff he was doing earlier and then be going, 'Oh, my God, I can't believe what a maniacal serial killer you-...Oh, wait a minute. Now, I sound just like the Wardens and the rest of the Senior Council.'
Audience: Um, can you that [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: /Shee/ (Pronunciation of the word 'Sidhe')
Audience: 'She?'
Jim Butcher: /Shee/. (laughter)
Audience: [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: It's Gaelic, man, it doesn't have to make any sense. (laughter) Let's go over here.
Audience: Have you ever written something that made your editor go, 'Oh, no, that's too crazy. You can't do that.'
Jim Butcher: Have I ever written something that made my editor go, 'Oh, no, that's too crazy. You can't do that.' Um, yeah, that last chapter of Changes kinda got to her. (laughter) So, I had to write the first two chapters of book thirteen and say, 'No, look. See, this is where it fits in.' 'Oh! That's cool!' Yeah, but nobody ever gone, 'Aw, that's just too wild.' I have had the -- the first editor of the books, Jen Heddle, she did kind of give me a nightmare assignment once where she said, 'Oo, I love these four story lines you've got going here in Grave Peril and I want you to expand on them.' Because normally editors go, 'You need to get rid of this, you need to get rid of that.' She's like, 'No, I want you to expand on these four subplots and give us some more on them, and make the book fifty pages shorter.' (laughter) 'So, you want it bigger and smaller...' She says, 'Uh huh, and hurry.' That's professional writing, people. Right there, that's a good example. Back here.
Audience: I also read Charlene Harris, and just in my my little universe, I would dearly love for you and her to combine on a story where Harry [inaudible]. (laughter)
Jim Butcher: I -- Charlaine is nicest person in the whole world. I would not wish working in tandem with me upon Charlaine.
Audience: [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: What's that?
Audience: At a book signing for her, I was mentioning what you said about her. She said, 'Oh, I've got him fooled.' (laughter)
Jim Butcher: No, she's just sweet. I mean, she is just the nicest person. And if there was anybody in the world I could feel bitter and jealous about, it would be Charlaine. She's just too nice, so I can't even do that. All I can really do is, you know, DVR True Blood and have a good time. Let's see. Right here.
Audience: Your books crack me up pretty much consistently, all the time. What's the funniest you think you've written so far?
Jim Butcher: What's the funniest thing, to me, that I've written so far? I don't know. I just try to be funny, everybody else decides whether or not I succeed. I know the most satisfying things I've written were with the dinosaur. I really like that. (cheers) I really loved having Harry show up to the vampire ball dressed as a cheesy vampire. [inaudible] I love how completely overly serious I made the bad guys in "Day Off", the short story "Day Off". The bad guys there are kind of like the Scooby-Doo crowd if they were goth and thought they were lead in Scanners. There was somebody else over here, too. Yes.
Audience: There's a bunch of people, actually, over there.
Jim Butcher: I keep getting there, there, there. Right here. Young lady.
Audience: What inspired you to write the book Changes?
Jim Butcher: What inspired me to write the book Changes? Well, I had signed this contract and (laughter) I want to stay in my house. But, really, this was kinda the big middle point. Changes was the mid-point of this first part of the series. This is where we got to -- I finally got to pull the trigger on all these cool things that I'd been wanting to do for a long time. Boom, boom, boom. I felt like the special effects explosives guy in Tropic Thunder while I was doing that. (laughter) But, yeah, it was just the set up, and I wanted to put Dresden into what would be, for him, the ultimate rough situation, you know, the ultimate moral bind. Now, you've had all these offers, you could have assembled all this power if you wanted it. Now, we're gonna put you in a situation where you're gonna have to help the one person you would most want to help in the world, Harry. Poor guy. You're right. I do hate him. Wow. Yeah?
Audience: In one of your previous books, you describe Portland as being a middle of nowhere city --
Jim Butcher: Wait. Did I? Really?
Audience: Yes. As a Portlander, myself, I would like to know what you meant by that. (laughter)
Jim Butcher: Which book did I put that in? Because, seriously, 'cause I don't know.
Audience: I don't remember which one, but like Michael left his truck here.
Jim Butcher: Oh, oh yeah. Michael had a mission somewhere up here and dropped his truck off in the country somewhere.
Audience: Does this have anything to do with your last visit up here? (laughter)
Jim Butcher: Do you work for some kind of news blog or something? (laughter) Are you one of those investigative interviewers where I don't get to answering the question? "You need, you need to shut up. You need to be quiet now."
Audience: [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: (laughs) No, I've had nothing but a good time when I'm up here.
Audience: We didn't hear the question.
Jim Butcher: Oh, the question was 'In one of your books, you referred to Portland as the middle of nowhere. And was that the result of...please answer the question, Senator. Was that a result of...was that the result of your reception here?' I said, 'Nah, I've never had anything but a good time here.' But, yeah, mid-, you know, you're up by Portland. You're in the country within fifty miles of town here. You're from Chicago and you've got to drive to Oregon to pick up your truck. Do you know what you have to drive across to get to Oregon from Chicago? Yeah. Man, there is some long miles on there.
Audience: 2200.
Jim Butcher: There you go. Okay, let's see. Back here, sir.
Audience: I just read through the beta pdf for the RPG. Are the anecdotes, the notes from Harry and Bob, did you write those or did they?
Jim Butcher: In the RPG, did I write the comments and notes from Harry and Bob that appear in the margins of the rule book? No, I didn't write those, they did. I went through and approved them, and said, 'Yeah, why not.'
Audience: Was it Harry and Bob that wrote them, or...
Jim Butcher: No, it would have been Fred and Chad, I believe. Fred Hicks and Chad Underkoffler are all over that game. Really obsessive guys, I don't see how they do it.
Audience: My little brother [inaudible] texting me all day. But, he wants to know what your favorite tabletop RPG is.
Jim Butcher: What my favorite tabletop RPG is? It's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The original from Games Workshop, not the reprint from Green Ronin. Which I was I kinda happily saying that last night and the guy who works at Green Ronin and wrote it was in the audience...(moans) 'Oh, I fail.'
derek:
Dictation by Derek
Jim Butcher "Changes" Q&A - Powell's Books 4/08/2010 Part 5 of 6
Jim Butcher: Um, over here sir.
Audience: Me?
Jim Butcher: Yeah.
Audience: Do you have any regrets about the TV series at all or --?
Jim Butcher: Do I have any regrets about the TV series?
Audience: And would you do it all over again if you had the opportunity?
Jim Butcher: If I could do it -- well, that's just it. When you're a writer -- I'm just the writer of the book. I don't matter anything in Hollywood. The TV series, really, I figure that came in top 2% in terms of writer/fun experience with Hollywood. I figure that's in the top couple of percentiles. It could have come out a whole lot worse than it did. You guys didn't see, like, the second treatment that it was getting when they were planning it. That was the one where his name got changed to Eric and other things...I was looking at that, just going (bangs head on microphone) (laughter). But really, I mean, it turned out almost as well as I could have expected it for anybody that wasn't going to dump a whole huge budget onto making it. Yeah, it could have been worse. That's my view on the whole thing. It could have been worse. Let's see, right back here, blue shirt.
Audience: In the books you have a lot of pretty technical knowledge, forensics, police procedures. How much research do you do on these? Do you read books or -- ?
Jim Butcher: For forensics, police procedures? Yeah, I have -- well, you know, then I go out and kill people and photograph....just so I can make sure that I'm doing it just like real police work. (laughter) Actually, a lot of my stuff originally came from a series of books called "The How Done It Series" that was produced by Writer's Digest. It's just a number of books that are -- police procedure, and you get to learn all about police procedure, you know, how to find people who are missing, that sort of thing. So, that's where my initial stuff came from and after I just kind of talk to cops and forensics folks once in a while, who I will meet, and grab it from there. Yep?
Audience: I was wondering if you intended to do anything more with the Alera series along the lines of a graphic novel or --?
Jim Butcher: Do I intend to do anything more with the Alera series, i.e. like a graphic novel or something like that? That's one of those things that you kind of -- I mean, unless you want to go out and actively sell it, that's one of those things that you really don't get to pick whether or not you do it. If somebody comes to me and says, 'I would like to do an Alera movie,' I'll be like, 'Okay.' That's kind of how it works. I would be happy to see something else happen with it. It would really be a great cartoon. If they made a movie out of it now, it would probably wind up looking alot like 'The Last Airbender' is gonna look, because that's looking quite cool. I mean, okay, we're gonna have some action and some cool special effects with the elements. Way to go M. Night...don't try and put any red door knobs in this one. (laughter) You know, give this a solid movie. Right back there.
Audience: [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: Where did I get the idea for an undead T-Rex? When I was watching and I found out that they actually have the bones of Sue, I mean the actual real bones or the fossils of them, are actually there in Chicago. They're not the ones that are hanging up, but you know, for the purposes of having fun, I decided they were. I saw a show on the History Channel about digging up Sue, when they found her and so on, and how she ended up there and why. And then when they were doing the zombie thing, I was writing down the rules of what was going to happen when we had the necromancers running around. It's, like, okay, the older the corpses are, the more power you can put in them. And you don't use animals, you use people because they can hold more magical energy proportionately, [inaudible] infinitely more. And then I thought, "But, you know, on the other hand...sure, maybe the human corpses are, you know, you get ten points per year in the human and only one point per year in the animal corpse, but sixty five million years...you can get yourself a pretty good zombie out of that.' (laughter) And once I'd figured out that, it's like, okay, and there's no way I'm letting the bad guy have it, either. (laughter)
Audience: So when does Big Al show up?
Jim Butcher: When does what?
Audience: Big Al.
Jim Butcher: Big Al?
Audience: 'Walking With Dinosaurs'
Jim Butcher: Oh, okay. I don't know, I'm not a 'Walking With Dinosaurs' person. I'm not certain. Right here in green.
Audience: Are you going back to the naming scheme or has that been tossed out the window?
Jim Butcher: Am I going back to the naming scheme or has it been tossed out the window? I wanted to toss it out the window. I wanted to call the next book Dead. But they said, 'We can't do that.' I said, 'Why not? It's a great name.' It's like, 'No, you can't do that. It sounds like the name of a graphic novel or something.' It's like, 'That's the best objection you can come up with?' So I said, 'Okay, how about we call it Ghost Story?' And they said, 'Fine.' So, right now it's Ghost Story and we'll have to see how that turns out. Yes?
Audience: [inaudible] why Japanese on his staff?
Jim Butcher: You'll have to ask Chris. There's Japanese haiku on Harry's, er, not haiku but kanji on Harry's staff, which spells out matrix, apparently. What I suspect was that at the time, Chris who was I think 21 or 22, had a Japanese girlfriend and liked watching 'The Matrix'. That's my guess. I've got no idea if that's true or not. We can ask Chris and find out.
Audience: How much do I have to pay to get your Netflix queue so that I have that sense of mind that I know what you're watching [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: Oh, how much do you have to pay to get my Netflix queue? Really, it's not hard to find out what I'm watching. I've got Dish Network and I've just got the movie channels, the whole spread of them, and basically find the dopiest science fiction movie that's on, and that's what I'm watching.
Audience: So, SyFy Channel.
Jim Butcher: No, no. Movies. Movies. Not the SyFy Channel, the Syphilis Channel. S-Y-F-Y...what the? Because that's what the fans want, that and more wrestling. (laughter) Back here with the blonde hair and glasses.
Audience: So, now that you have an army of flying monkeys, what do you want us to do?
Jim Butcher: Oh, you're an army of flying monkeys? Really? Because nobody's been throwing any projectiles at all and, really, I'm somewhat disappointed, I think.
Audience: Well, that can change.
Jim Butcher: No, for you guys, listen, your job is to -- okay, I'll go all Miyagi on you here. Okay, we make deal. My part, write book, that what I do. Your part, read book and have fun, that what you do. That's it. Read the books, have a good time. That's sort of the point. Right here.
Audience: Who are your favorite authors?
Jim Butcher: Okay, this will be a list that is not exhaustive, because I always wind up forgetting somebody and I usually only thank the people whoever I've read most recently. I just read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I thought that was extremely fine, so now I've got another guy I've got to read all his books. I actually liked him because I thought his style was so much like Louise Bujold, who is, professionally speaking, I want to have her babies. I really like the Jill Kismet books by Lili, yeah, because they're good. Yeah, she's tough, I like her. Let me think. Robert, the late and much lamented Robert B. Parker. I love his work. Let me think. I go back and read the Belgariad at least once a year and I pretend that Mr. Eddings never wrote anything else. I really like it. I also, every couple of years I try and go back and ready the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Yeah, it's surprising how good those books are still, even though I'm a grownup now. But there's some of them, there's more.
Audience: There's five. That sequence has five books.
Jim Butcher: Yeah, The Prydain. There's other authors. I'm not thinking of them right now, but there's a few. I'm sorry, was there a followup there? Over here.
Audience: Okay, so, in your about the author excerpt on every single one of your books, you mention these four skills that were obsolete at least two hundred years ago. What are some of those?
Jim Butcher: Okay, my resume of obsolete skills?
Audience: Yes.
Audience: Pretty please.
Jim Butcher: Okay. I know how to do trick and stunt riding on horseback, including stuff like hanging off the horse and using it for a shield, and doing vaults so that you can get from one side of the horse to the other so that you can shield yourself on the horse from multiple guys while you ride through them. I can also ride a horse at a full gallop, standing up in the saddle. And none of those are skills which really I've ever had to put on a resume. (laughter) At one point I was fairly good at archery. At one point I could put an arrow in a one inch bullseye at sixty yards and do it ten or twelve times in forty five seconds. Yeah, I really had too much time on my hands at that point.
Audience: Underwater basket weaving?
Jim Butcher: No, didn't learn that one. No underwater basket weaving.
derek:
Dictation by Derek
Jim Butcher "Changes" Q&A - Powell's Books 4/08/2010 Part 6 of 6
Jim Butcher: But there's all the fencing and stuff. Again, it's hard to make money as a professional fencer these days. But there's a bunch skills and stuff like that. Now I'm getting into leather working and making armor, because you have to wear armor when you're playing the LARP game that me and my kid play. Also, surprisingly, not really a lot of work for armorers. But I've got a bunch of skills. I've got a great skill set if we ever have some kind of EMP driven apocalypse that also gets rid of guns. (laughter) Although, I've actually gotten into guns now. I'm doing a little bit of research. I decided that I knew enough old weapons that I went and found the finest killing technology that 1860 had to offer. So, now I've got a Henry rifle and I take that up to the range and shoot it. It's a lot of fun. You know, Shannon's got her Sig because for times when I'm tour and so on and she's home by herself, just in case the twenty pound Bichon-Frise is not enough, she went out and got herself a gun that's got twenty bullets in it or something like that. It's incredible. It glows in the dark, and it's radioactive, and does some other stuff I don't even know about nor do I want to know about. But, boy, I've got the repeating rifle. I'm good. I've got the Henry. Yeah.
Audience: So are you trying to get a sponsorship from Coke and Burger King, or --?
Jim Butcher: I am trying and they will not talk to me. (laughter) Yeah, they handed out prizes at the place in Houston, they had a trivia contest and for prizes they handed out two LARP swords to first and second place, and then third through seventh place got Burger King coupons. So, and they had an actual Burger King coupon so I got it and went to Burger King that night. Let's go right here, first.
Audience: I haven't been able to come up with the author's name, but I was pleasantly surprised to be reading another author's book and he refers to Harry and he visits the bar in Chicago. Are there any other treats like that out and about?
Jim Butcher: If there are, they didn't talk to me about them. But the thing you're -- Okay, she says she's reading a book and she found an indirect reference in Harry Dresden and to people stopping at McAnally's bar in Chicago. That was in one of the books by Justin Gustainis who was -- he and I were in the Del Ray Online Writers Workshop together. So, when there were these long howling discussions about the nature of writing craft, Justin and I often found ourselves on the same side, so we thought very similarly. And I was one of the first alumni of that. The first book in that series, Black Magic Woman, Justin sent it to me and said, 'Well, what do you think?' And I read it and I said, 'I think this is going to break you in. What you need to do is turn this into a series and you can use this kind of basis for it.' And he was like, 'Oh my gosh, you're right.' And he went got himself a series sold. It's like, 'Woohoo, I helped Justin!' That was fun. That's one of the moments where it's like, 'Oh, I love having the power of a writer.'
Audience: Is there any books that are popular, like, well known that you've read and you've just --
Jim Butcher: I'm sorry. Can you start again at the beginning?
Audience: Is there any books that are popular, well known, that you've read and you've just winced in pain from reading them.
Jim Butcher: Popular, well known books that I've read that I winced in pain from reading? Well, I'm gonna tell you what I told Patrick Nielsen Hayden at the very first con I was ever at, before I actually had anything actually published. It was only sold. But I was on a panel called 'Books that Needed Better Editors' and I was on it with Patrick Nielsen Hayden who's the most awarded editor in fantasy and Glen Cook, who is also a veteran fantasy writer. And they were talking about their stuff and said, 'What do you think, Jim?' And I said, 'Well, I'm just getting started here. I don't really know a whole lot. I don't want to say anything too over the top.' And he's like, 'No, go ahead. I want to hear what you have say.' And I said, 'Alright. I think the Lord of the Rings could have used a lot of work, and here's why.' (laughter) And mostly what it amounted to was the first couple -- until you get to like page 204 when Aragorn first shows up, really there's -- it's really a whole lot of talk about people moving. And, man, I am just not that interested in reading two hundred pages of somebody moving, if it was me who was moving, I'm not even interested enough to do that. I wouldn't want to be there for that, much less somebody else. And I launched this discussion and Pat argued with me, and he was much better at it than I was so he won. But that was one of them. As far as books that have come out lately that I've just winced at...I don't know. I really had problems, I tried to pick up The Relic and read it, and I really had problems with that. People kept getting lost in all the rooms underneath the museum I seem to remember, and admittedly it's supposed to be a real maze down there, but I finally just went, 'Okay, you know what? I'm tired about reading about people who are lost and trying to find their way out. Okay, you got lost. You go eaten by the Kothoga. Get over it. We don't have to draw it out this much.' There's been a lot of Stephen King books that I didn't like. I didn't like The Gunslinger. I really didn't, I'm sorry. I'm not sure it made me wince, but I just didn't care. That's really what a books got to have. You've got to make me care about somebody or something that's in it if I'm going to go all the way to the end. We're gonna go with, like, one more question, then we're gonna get some stuff signed. Oh, and you're jumping up and down. He's obviously expending the most effort back here. (laughter) Yeah.
Audience: Alright, I have one question and it's very important. I've thought over this for many sleepless nights. If you took DNA from a wizard and was somehow able to take that and clone it and grew, would that wizard clone be able to use magic like a full wizard? [inaudible] magic is hereditary.
Jim Butcher: Well, it's hereditary but not consistent. He would have the same chance of being able to use magic as any other child of the wizard.
Audience: So, [inaudible]
Jim Butcher: Something like that. It's not like you've got a gene for wizard and a gene for hedge mage. There's all kinds of things that go into it that make you a heavyweight magic user or not. But, yeah, you'd probably have about the same chance as the child of two wizards. I'm not sure you really can, they really can make the whole complete copy. Or I think you have some other weird issues -- well, maybe not if you're a wizard, though. If your DNA replicates clearly.
Audience: Think about it. (laughter)
Jim Butcher: Yeah, they don't have to [inaudible]. You're right. Could be, I don't know. I question whether the DNA would survive the highly technical process of being cloned if it was from a wizard, so.
Audience: Ah, good save.
Jim Butcher: *Woosh* See that? Lightning fast dodge. Alright, we're going to do some signing books now.
Serack:
Woot, TYVM for all your contributions derek!
derek:
My pleasure. Doing these is a lot more fun than most of the stuff I end up doing. 8)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version