A long time ago I posted there was another reason Maeve may have been willing to help Lily with her plan.  It's possible Maeve didn't expect Harry to survive his second encounter with Eldest Fetch.  She may have felt that that working with Lily was enough to start gaining Lily's trust even if Harry died in the attempt.  After all, Lily knew she was gambling with Harry and his companions lives when she gave him access to Summer Fire without telling him about it.  Plus, we have no way of knowing if Lily told Maeve she was giving Harry access to Summer Fire.  If Maeve wasn't given that information she might not have given Harry much of a chance to succeed.  However, when Harry did win through Maeve was forced to carry out the rest plan and slow the flow of time around Arctis Tor, otherwise her plan to subvert Lily would have died right then and there. 

One of them was British, I believe.

Venatori Umbrorum are fighting the Oblivion war aren't they?  Fighting the Old Gods?  If the Thule Society is in deed the opposite, wouldn't it stand to reason that they are the ones working for them?  Just seems weird to think that the Thule Society is on the opposite side of the Venatori, but are no longer relevant.  The name drop by Jim seems important.  If it doesn't move the story forward why even mention them?

Not exactly.  There is a smaller more covert organization within the Venatori Umbrorum that is fighting the Oblivion War.  Most members within the larger organization don't even know it exists, let alone its true purpose.  Thomas and Lara Raith are members of that smaller group, though I can't remember it's name.  (I don't have my copy of Side Jobs with me.)  Anyway, that is why the average member of the Venatori Umbrorum wouldn't see the Thule Society as its exact opposite.   

Looked at the official notice about Brief Cases and it stated that aside from the various short stories it will include an original novella.  Does anyone know about this story?  Has Jim said anything? 

The thing about Cowl that I find underwhelming is we haven't seen Harry particularly interested in Cowl's actual identity and it's never been suggested that Cowl could be someone Harry knows.  My guess is Cowl is Simon Pietrovich. 

   

He answered both questions already so you will just get a variant of his previous answers.
It's funny because people generally ask the same questions every single time, wasting time for those of us who want new info.  Originally, I thought they were doing it because it's just a common question, but it happens way too often to be mere coincidence. Rather, I think that  there are some fans who just want to hear the same story in person.

I don't blame them. I'd kill to have Jim tell me his witch doctor story in person.

Not everyone has been reading these stories since 200_ (fill in the blank).  For example, I loaned someone at work Storm Front about a year and a half ago, she started buying the books and just finished Changes a couple months back and is now reading Side Jobs.  People in that situation don't know why the stories are set in Chicago, usually don't know about this forum and haven't watched YouTube videos of Jim answering questions at other Cons. 

There was a time if you went to a Science Fiction or Fantasy convention you were pretty much considered to be an expert and or fanatic about certain movies, TV series, books or comics.  This assumption was usually true.  Today these Cons have become a big business and promotional tool and there are so many of them they allow many more casual fans to see their favorite actors, directors, authors and other creative talents.  So yes, while it has and will continue to be tedious to listen to some (maybe many) questions that everyone here knows the answers to, know that most people who attend the Q&A's with Jim aren't as knowledgeable about the Dresden Files as you are.

The real reason we are currently going over a finite number of topics is a factor of the time between books and to a lesser degree where we are in the overall story.  If Peace Talks had come out January of this year we would certainly have new topics to discuss.  Also, I think the structure of the last two books has contributed to the lack of new topics.  Cold Days was a disarm the bomb in X amount of time story.  I think I could compare CD to the movie Speed.  We didn't learn about Keanu Reeves childhood, he didn't bond with the bad guy like in Point Break and he didn't start dating anyone.  It's was just non-stop action and fun.  Being a novel Cold Days did give us some personal drama, but it's was as if the rest of the outside world had been put on hold.  Lara was getting more dangerous but we didn't see her, Marcone was off somewhere; no that was Ghost Story, but he's not in CD and the White Council had their own problems and weren't in Chicago.  Even the new bad guys; the Fomor, weren't a factor in this story.  We did get a big new development at the end with Molly becoming the new Winter Lady and Harry was forced to stay on the island, but we were left wondering what it meant as well as what would happen next.  Skin Game continued the same pattern as Cold Days.  Harry was handed this seemingly impossible task and only through clever negotiating was he able to bring along one person to help him with it.  Fortunately, we got some knew interesting characters and old favorites to interact with Harry, but until the scene with Marcone and Mab, once again the rest of the world was put on hold.  One more thing to note about both CD and SG; as far interpersonal relationships go, they both featured continuing tension in the relationship between Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing; though many might disagree with me, but it's not really something new and different.  People have been talking about Murphy and the Harry/Murphy ship for a long time. 

I think once the story arc rejoins the rest of the Dresden verse it will open up many new avenues of discussion.  Plus, I suspect there will be more reveals about issues that have been simmering for a long time.  This isn't a knock against Cold Days or Skin Game, it's just the way things have played out.   

He answered both questions already so you will just get a variant of his previous answers.

What we need is for someone to ask Jim some original questions.  Of course the hard part is to ask Jim questions that could yield interesting and useful answers without being so direct and obvious that Jim would automatically reply, "I'm not going to tell you."  It just amazes me when I see someone ask, "Jim, who fixed Little Chicago?"  When I see someone asking an author to reveal a big secret like that it makes me want to smack that person over the head.

The people who ask questions like, "Why did you set the series in Chicago?" are much more forgivable, IMO.  For example, if someone just started reading the books a year ago they obviously haven't seen videos of Jim answering questions at other Cons and probably don't know about this forum, so everything is new to them.  Their ignorance is understandable and their willingness to delve into the details of the creation of the series is commendable, even if some of their questions are tedious to listen to.           

They were in protected never never space.

From everything except their hosts.  I suppose the question we might ask is would the Earl King allow the destruction of the last two members of another supernatural species?  Then again, if he viewed them as parasites; as Nicodemus did, the Earl King might have been happy to eliminate the Eebs.  The only other way they could have survived is if an nemfected member of the Goblin Court freed them.  I remember a long time ago someone suggested Rafferout; the goblin who seemed to be a close adviser to the Earl King, as a good choice for being a nemfected agent.

Honestly, I'm just glad that we have a timeframe for getting more TDF.

Agreed.