What if its not Thomas

[Grifter]

I do wish Butcher had made this more of a case file.  With a little more, Harry could have investigated things better.  He could have reviewed the footage, interviewed the survivors, and done the things that will now likely be impossible in the second half (interviews and reviewing footage seems unlikely in ongoing battle and power loss across the city).

That way it would have felt like a story, with Harry coming to some conclusions (that may have been wrong) and ultimately deciding to rescue Thomas as a conclusion to that arc.  Then the second book would be about the battle, with some additional info dropping for the case.

[Mira]

I do wish Butcher had made this more of a case file.  With a little more, Harry could have investigated things better.  He could have reviewed the footage, interviewed the survivors, and done the things that will now likely be impossible in the second half (interviews and reviewing footage seems unlikely in ongoing battle and power loss across the city).

That way it would have felt like a story, with Harry coming to some conclusions (that may have been wrong) and ultimately deciding to rescue Thomas as a conclusion to that arc.  Then the second book would be about the battle, with some additional info dropping for the case.

Yeah, there were parts that were really good, the writing we'd expect from Butcher, however it seemed overly "sketchy" if that is the right word to me.  It jumped around, everyone seems to be pissed at Harry, so what else is new? However we've no why for any of it.  Out of the blue Thomas decides to assassinate a head of state, seemingly no connection made to anything as to why. Even the rescue jumps around a lot.. So Peace Talks, what are they after?  Why wasn't the Merlin there? Where is Ancient Mai?  Why all of a sudden with the exception maybe of Cristos the Senior Council look and act like nursing home runaways..

[Second Aristh]

I agree.  Explosions are not Thomas's style, and it's hard to believe that Thomas decided to assassinate Etri at the center of his power without an escape strategy.

I think it's more plausible that Thomas was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If Thomas is in the room with Etri at the same time that an "assassination attempt" happened and if the real attacker disappeared, the svartalves would assume they caught the assassin.  (Also, I can't find the on-camera part.  Was the attempt caught on camera?)

Overall, it put this one at the BC's feet instead of Lara or Mab (if they don't know the family relationship, it's easy enough to assume Harry would help a frequent ally).  It's an easy distraction setup for Harry so they can get him indirectly.

[Grifter]

Yeah, there were parts that were really good, the writing we'd expect from Butcher, however it seemed overly "sketchy" if that is the right word to me.  It jumped around, everyone seems to be pissed at Harry, so what else is new? However we've no why for any of it.  Out of the blue Thomas decides to assassinate a head of state, seemingly no connection made to anything as to why. Even the rescue jumps around a lot.. So Peace Talks, what are they after?  Why wasn't the Merlin there? Where is Ancient Mai?  Why all of a sudden with the exception maybe of Cristos the Senior Council look and act like nursing home runaways..

I totally get that he didn't intend for this to be two books, so all of those things are unanswered in the first half. But I wish there'd been an opportunity to adjust accordingly once the decision was made to split it.

[Mira]

I totally get that he didn't intend for this to be two books, so all of those things are unanswered in the first half. But I wish there'd been an opportunity to adjust accordingly once the decision was made to split it.

Yes,  what is sad, depending on how the battle goes down in the next, these questions won't be answered.  It almost seems like Jim couldn't decide if the book was going to be about rescuing Thomas, without any attention to his motivations, which is usually the point of the mystery, one leading to the other.  The title of the book is Peace Talks, yet the theme seems secondary to rescuing Thomas, until the climax when the Fomor show up, but until that point no sense of what was on the line as far as the Accords go.  Just what were Marcone, Mab, and company expecting?
Or why suddenly Harry has become a pariah, and if he was considered such why in the hell would he be on the Warden Security team?  One step further I wish Jim had done a chapter on the meeting the Wardens had before the first party..  He dismisses it in the first line of the chapter dealing with the first get together as boring... However if they went into just what the problem is with Harry and why they are still allowing him to be on the team, I think it would have been very interesting.

[morriswalters]

The first book had to be Peace Talks, they had already announced it, six years ago, and they released the first chapter.

There are too many characters in the book to this point, which makes the book thin in terms of the time spent with them. Normally Harry would be calling on his allies and bringing them together. He's got Murphy, he's lost Thomas and he's pissed off Lara. Rashid is at the gate.  He wasted time on the debacle that is Butter's elevation to Knight by making him more buff and giving him a ménage à trois in an attempt to lend him weight he hasn't earned in the text. Not to mention nerfing the sword. 

[KurtinStGeorge]

I agree.  Explosions are not Thomas's style, and it's hard to believe that Thomas decided to assassinate Etri at the center of his power without an escape strategy.

I think it's more plausible that Thomas was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If Thomas is in the room with Etri at the same time that an "assassination attempt" happened and if the real attacker disappeared, the svartalves would assume they caught the assassin.  (Also, I can't find the on-camera part.  Was the attempt caught on camera?)

Overall, it put this one at the BC's feet instead of Lara or Mab (if they don't know the family relationship, it's easy enough to assume Harry would help a frequent ally).  It's an easy distraction setup for Harry so they can get him indirectly.

Lara told Harry that Thomas was caught on camera making the assassination attempt.  So either it was Thomas, an impostor or perhaps someone under a veil and Thomas's reaction was misinterpreted as the attack.  I think an impostor is more likely, but we have so little to go on, it's difficult to do more than guess. 

The first book had to be Peace Talks, they had already announced it, six years ago, and they released the first chapter.

There are too many characters in the book to this point, which makes the book thin in terms of the time spent with them. Normally Harry would be calling on his allies and bringing them together. He's got Murphy, he's lost Thomas and he's pissed off Lara. Rashid is at the gate.  He wasted time on the debacle that is Butter's elevation to Knight by making him more buff and giving him a ménage à trois in an attempt to lend him weight he hasn't earned in the text. Not to mention nerfing the sword.

It's almost as if Bob was changing Butter's personality rather than the other way around; and yes, it does feel forced rather than being a natural progression of events.  Also, this may come off as sexist, but if your girlfriend is the one who wants a three way; and I believe Andi and Marcie were an item before Andi was with Kirby, then things aren't really improving; that's just a temporary illusion, because you are about to be written out of the script.  That aside, wasn't Andi supposed to be an emotional wreck?  That's the way Butters description of her came off in Skin Game.  Now she's not just back to normal, she's boldly experimenting with her personal and sexual relationships.  The whole thing feels off.

The sword being nerfed wasn't a surprise to me because I heard Jim talk about that very thing.  It was either in an interview Jim did on someone's YouTube channel or it was at a Con that he did at least a year ago.  In fact, it might have been at the Con I saw Jim at last July.  (What a difference a year makes.)

I sense a pattern is forming:

The young wardens who were once Harry's closest friends and supporters on the White Council no longer trust him.  (And not for anything Harry has done.  A least in Summer Knight you can understand how some wizards would be P.O.'d that Harry's actions dragged them into a war with the Red Court.)
Thomas' attempt to assassinate the king of the Swarthalves; if it was Thomas, makes no sense.
Lara doesn't seem to care that whatever carefully laid plan she was going to use Harry to make happen was derailed by Thomas; and she has to use the two favors Harry (Winter) owed her to rescue Thomas rather than execute whatever her original plan was.   
Butters is having a ménage à trois with Andi and Marcie.
Ebenezer tries to save Harry from the machinations of the White Court of vampires by killing him.

I've figured it out and now I know what's going on.  Everyone except Harry, Murphy and Winter are acting against their nature and are all Nemfected.

Actually, even Mab got sucker punched because didn't see the Fomor betrayal and power play coming, so her too.
   

[morriswalters]

I think the whole point of the book was to get Thomas in that cell.  Maybe the idea was to kill Thomas and break Maggie's curse?  This plays to Proven Guilty where the main action looks to be doing one thing when in fact it is doing something else.  That is, making it look like the idea is to kill Etri when the idea was to have Thomas end up dead.

[Hagbard Celine]

My theory:  It definitely *was* Thomas.  Some combination of Mab, Lara, and Marcone are involved.  When Lara and Mab appear in the back of Harry's car, Mab informs Harry that Lara had earned THREE favors.  One of them is already paid.  (Thomas' attack and/or allowing Thomas to be framed for the attack).  That leaves TWO favors for Harry to fulfill.  (Which both Lara and Mab now will result in Thomas being rescued).  I think (as others do) that Marcone *had* to be involved because the transfer to the BFS basement (which happens to be Harry's old lab) is too much of a coincidence.

Ultimately, it may be this whole thing was done for Thomas' own good.  If Butcher's version of the Hounds of Tindalos are also attracted to time travel, that opens up a whole different can of worms as to why they were outside Justine's building. 

[Mira]

The first book had to be Peace Talks, they had already announced it, six years ago, and they released the first chapter.

There are too many characters in the book to this point, which makes the book thin in terms of the time spent with them. Normally Harry would be calling on his allies and bringing them together. He's got Murphy, he's lost Thomas and he's pissed off Lara. Rashid is at the gate.  He wasted time on the debacle that is Butter's elevation to Knight by making him more buff and giving him a ménage à trois in an attempt to lend him weight he hasn't earned in the text. Not to mention nerfing the sword.

Not to mention ectoplasmic sneezes that wasted a few paragraphs along with the very active sex life of Waldo Butters...

I think the whole point of the book was to get Thomas in that cell.  Maybe the idea was to kill Thomas and break Maggie's curse?  This plays to Proven Guilty where the main action looks to be doing one thing when in fact it is doing something else.  That is, making it look like the idea is to kill Etri when the idea was to have Thomas end up dead.

However why that is was never gotten across... 

The young wardens who were once Harry's closest friends and supporters on the White Council no longer trust him.  (And not for anything Harry has done.  A least in Summer Knight you can understand how some wizards would be P.O.'d that Harry's actions dragged them into a war with the Red Court.)
Thomas' attempt to assassinate the king of the Swarthalves; if it was Thomas, makes no sense.
Lara doesn't seem to care that whatever carefully laid plan she was going to use Harry to make happen was derailed by Thomas; and she has to use the two favors Harry (Winter) owed her to rescue Thomas rather than execute whatever her original plan was.   
Butters is having a ménage à trois with Andi and Marcie.
Ebenezer tries to save Harry from the machinations of the White Court of vampires by killing him.

I've figured it out and now I know what's going on.  Everyone except Harry, Murphy and Winter are acting against their nature and are all Nemfected.

Actually, even Mab got sucker punched because didn't see the Fomor betrayal and power play coming, so her too.
   

Yeah, I saw that pattern as well, I see it more like there is this three hundred and forty page pudding stirring in a pot.  One or more of the ingredients is off, either the amount  put in or somehow you miss took baking soda for corn starch, so no matter how hard you stir it will never thicken or taste right.

[KurtinStGeorge]

My theory:  It definitely *was* Thomas.  Some combination of Mab, Lara, and Marcone are involved.  When Lara and Mab appear in the back of Harry's car, Mab informs Harry that Lara had earned THREE favors.  One of them is already paid.  (Thomas' attack and/or allowing Thomas to be framed for the attack).  That leaves TWO favors for Harry to fulfill.  (Which both Lara and Mab now will result in Thomas being rescued).  I think (as others do) that Marcone *had* to be involved because the transfer to the BFS basement (which happens to be Harry's old lab) is too much of a coincidence.

My joking aside, I agree with what you've said here.  I forgot about Marcone, but if only from the trailer, we know that the crime boss and Mab are still working together.  However, it's difficult for me to figure out exactly how Lara benefits from all this.  She puts herself and Thomas at considerable risk to pull off this stunt, so the potential payoff should be commensurately large to justify the risk.  Whatever Lara may get out of this, I'm guessing Harry won't like it. 

Ultimately, it may be this whole thing was done for Thomas' own good. 

Someone said (I don't remember if it was in this thread.) this is Thomas' redemption arc.  If Thomas is ever going to carry the Sword of Faith, feeling all the pain he has caused and being forced to contemplate his past actions will be the thing that helps to truly redeem him.  Anyway, it make sense to me.

If Butcher's version of the Hounds of Tindalos are also attracted to time travel, that opens up a whole different can of worms as to why they were outside Justine's building.

Wait, what?  Did I skip a page in the book or is this from a short story?  Oh, you mean the corner hounds.  Never mind.  Now that think about it, whose been time traveling?  That's who the Hounds of Tindalos would be after.  Never mind again.  I see what you mean by a can of worms. 

I just had an odd thought.  I've can recall discussions on this forum (the original forum really) from several years ago about the possibility of Harry having to time travel back to events of Proven Guilty; not to change the past, to prevent someone else; who went back first, from changing the past.  I think the general idea was Cowl or some other known enemy of Harry would be the person Harry would be chasing.  Maybe Ebenezer McCoy is the person Harry will have to chase.  I guess that's a WAG for another novel.

Not to mention ectoplasmic sneezes that wasted a few paragraphs...

That did seem lame, didn't it?

However why that is was never gotten across... 
Yeah, I saw that pattern as well, I see it more like there is this three hundred and forty page pudding stirring in a pot.  One or more of the ingredients is off, either the amount  put in or somehow you miss took baking soda for corn starch, so no matter how hard you stir it will never thicken or taste right.

I think this points to the weakness of splitting the story into two books.  If we had the whole thing; we (hopefully) would be impressed how Jim misdirected us in the early going only to later cleverly reveal what actually happened and why.  As we stand now, after finishing Peace Talks, I have a very similar feeling to the one I got after seeing the second Matrix movie.  If you don't remember; and I wouldn't blame you for forgetting because it was such a letdown of a movie, that movie ended on a not very interesting cliffhanger, with the personality of Agent Smith stuck inside someone's (I don't even remember which character) comatose mind; and you knew he was going to do bad things when he woke up.  I remember the general feeling was, "Really, you're going to make us wait until the third movie to see how this plays out?"

We only have to wait a little more than two months, but it's like watching a magician performing half of a trick and then stopping.  So there's no satisfying payoff and we are given a lot of time; way more than we need or want, to dissect and comment on the misdirection.  If Jim did succeed in tying up everything nicely in Battle Ground, by the time we get to it, we may have run down what we have already read to the point that we won't appreciate it as much as would have in a straight forward read through.

[Hagbard Celine]

Maybe Ebenezer McCoy is the person Harry will have to chase.

That's a frightening thought.  If the Blackstaff can break the laws of magic, it's entirely possible that the ban on time travel may be right up there.  If Eb is as irrational as he seems, it's entirely possible.  I think someone had a WAG years ago that Harry would break all of the laws of magic at one point or another. 

Also, is Mirror Mirror definitely the next Dresden book?  If that's the case, is it possible that some of the characters in this book have been replaced by alternate versions? 

[Bad Alias]

He could have reviewed the footage, interviewed the survivors, and done the things that will now likely be impossible in the second half (interviews and reviewing footage seems unlikely in ongoing battle and power loss across the city).

I wonder if the power is even out at the Svartalf embassy. They set the place up to withstand a wizard's tech wrecking effect. I doubt it will come up at all. Grifter's quoted sentence just made me think of it.

I think someone had a WAG years ago that Harry would break all of the laws of magic at one point or another.

Yeah. His name was Jim Butcher. 

Also, is Mirror Mirror definitely the next Dresden book?  If that's the case, is it possible that some of the characters in this book have been replaced by alternate versions? 

That'd be an interesting tie into the "next" book. I'd prefer Jim give Harry some time to do some stuff like find a home, rebuild his gear, and maybe train with River Shoulders.

[Second Aristh]

We already know in Mirror Mirror that Harry is going to get summoned by Nega-Harry as a scape-goat.  I don't think there are alt!universe people running around at the moment.

[Grifter]

I wonder if the power is even out at the Svartalf embassy. They set the place up to withstand a wizard's tech wrecking effect. I doubt it will come up at all.

We may or may not find out, but we shouldn't have had to wait.  Even if Harry doesn't doubt that it was Thomas there, he should have wanted to see the event to see if there was something being missed. Something to suggest that he was going for someone else, or moving to help.