I had a different take on the soulgaze between Harry and Lara. After long consideration, I think two things happened and neither of them is a continuity error. This isn’t a defense of Jim’s writing in Twelve Months, just my subjective analysis of it.
First and most obvious, I think Lara never having soulgazed Carlos Ramirez or any other wizard is just one more example of the Dresden Files taking place in a multiverse. Just like we have read about the Better Future Society and the Brighter Future Society and Bianca having a girlfriend / vampire saliva addicted slave with different names.
The idea of a multiverse is hardly new. According to whatever A.I. I was using, the first use of a multiverse in fiction goes all the way back to a short story published in Astounding Fiction in 1934. Unfortunately for Jim, Marvel has made some truly half-assed use of the multiverse concept in their movies and TV shows in the past decade, making the idea of a multiverse seem rather lame for many people. I’m hoping that Mirror Mirror will put Jim’s use of the multiverse to bed so we don’t have to see Jim use it again.
This brings me to the second thing I believe I have detected. However, this is completely subjective on my part. I admit I could be wrong about this. About eight or nine years ago, I saw Jim at a Con; I’ve seen him a couple of times, and he said something about wanting to make his writing more compact and being to tell stories in a more efficient manner. Clearly this didn’t happen in Peace Talks and Battle Ground, seeing as Jim originally wanted the entire story he told there to be a single novel. He has been far more successful in Twelve Months. If we ignore Peace Talks and Battle Ground, because originally they were supposed to make up a single novel, the word count for Twelve Months is the lowest Jim has used since Turn Coat was released and Turn Count is only about 6,700 words shorter than Twelve Months.
To make his writing more compact I think Jim is; sometimes, becoming more sparse or Spartan with his use of dialogue, trying to convey what he wants with as few words as possible. There are times when he simply can’t do this. For example, if Harry and Mab are having a conversation / debate about something, the nature of the relationship Jim has set up with those two characters and the complex counter-arguments Mab may use to support her case, sparse use of language may be difficult to impossible to achieve, but is more achievable with other characters.
So in Twelve Months, when Harry asks Lara, “Do you know what a soulgaze is? Lara replies, “What little you’ve said. I’ve…I’ve read descriptions of them.” That is an example of sparse language to make a point. It’s enough to tell me we are in one universe of the multiverse where Lara never had a soulgaze with Ramirez, but at the same time, as dialogue between these two specific characters it feels a bit weak to me. Worse, it makes Lara seem ignorant and weaker than she should be. When I say Lara’s seems weaker, I mean less like the intelligent and competent leader of the White Court Lara is supposed to be.
As I said above, this is just my interpretation of what Jim is doing as a writer today compared to how he wrote the older novels in the series. I strongly suspect that if this conversation had taken place in Blood Rites or White Night; prior to Carlos and Lara’s soulgaze, I think Lara’s answer would have been more complete. Maybe something like this: “Of course Dresden, the White Court keeps extensive intelligence files on wizard capabilities. However, while I’ve read descriptions of what a soulgaze is, I’ve never experienced one and to my knowledge no one else in the White Court has either. I suppose this is one area where my knowledge may be less than adequate.”
This way Lara would have continued to be the highly competent character we met in the earlier novels and less the; damsel in distress is an exaggeration, watered down version of Lara we got here. I think there is no way; even in a part of the multiverse were she didn’t have a soulgaze with Carlos Ramirez, that Lara didn’t read an intel report about wizard soulgazing ability. It should have been explicitly stated.
