It's the first time, I think, that Jim has been partnered in his life with another published author.  I suspect she'll have more experience of what an author actually needs, and be more-able to support him.  OTOH -- being a working author herself -- there's also some potential for her to draw off some of Jim's "writing mind" to support her.

I suspect we won't actually know how the time-and-attention flow works for Jim until we see several novels' output & timing (it may take that long for them to settle into their "new normal"): will he be on-pace for his prior best production rate?

I don't think we can hope for "novel-per-year," because these latest volumes are chonkier than the ones he was writing at that place (not counting first 3;(SF/FM/GP all published 2001, presumably because he was grinding away at writing while the first one was moving slowly through the agent/editor queue (as per an unproven author) rather than being given "nearly guaranteed NYT besteller" treatment/priority)... but the next ELEVEN novels were one per year(!) ... then blipping up to 1.5 years for SG; so 18 months per novel is my hope; but (alternating with Cinder Spires) that would be THREE years between DF novels   :_(

In fact it is not. I feel like we should avoid speculating on how JB’s personal relationships affect his writing timeline, beyond specific comments from the man himself.

 Also for a while JB was releasing two books, a Dresden Files and a Codex Alera, every year.


Regardless, I’m incredibly excited both for Twelve Months and Mirror Mirror. I can’t even remember when Jim started talking about Mirror Mirror at this point. Was it before Changes?

I think if Mab is setting up Lara as a replacement for anyone it’s for herself, not Molly. She’s on record saying she doesn’t think Molly could handle her job.

You are correct, Mirror Mirror is no longer the next book. Jim has mentioned it in a couple interviews I believe.

To piggyback off this, we can also draw similarities between the last fight with Eb, and Harry's fight with Cat Sith from Cold Days. In Cold Days, when Cat Sith is himself he isn't seen. He takes down the enemy and drags them off to die horribly and silently. When he's been Nemfected, he's a drama queen.He puts up a post-it saying "look behind you" so he can make a dramatic entrance. We see similar from Eb in Peace Talks. Instead of the "KABOOM YOU'RE DEAD!" style of Blackstaffery, we see him confront Dresden from atop a floating rock. Granted, confronting Harry instead of killing him is something I could understand, given the levels of protectiveness we've seen from him. But... a floating rock? Really? Maybe it was faster than running? I don't know. But, why not eliminate the horrible monster vampires before confronting Harry and asking for answers? That seems more his style from what we've seen. And, speaking from a meta perspective, it would have driven a wedge between the two of them harder than anything that will come out of what we were given.What was in the book comes off - to me, at least - as the same vein of drama queen-hood we see from Cat Sith.

 But than, I'm a paranoid lunatic who's been wondering when Murphy would turn on Harry ever since that dream in Skin Game. I could be seeing connections where there aren't any.

I think the discrepancy here is as simple as Eb not wanting to kill Harry, or even hurt him too badly. There’s a big difference between executing vampires and their goons, and fighting his own grandson (and really, more like fighting to get by his grandson while setting his sights on a different target).

I watched that interview too, Daniel was specifically asking about Harry in terms of D&D Wizards. In D&D Wizards get their magic by studying, Sorcerers are just born with it (mostly). Jim clarified that in the Dresden Files Wizards are a bit of a combination of the two- a wizard has to be born with the potential to use magic on a certain level, as well as learn how to use magic etc.

He also mentioned that in D&D terms Harry would be a Warlock because of his deal with Mab. D&D Warlocks get their powers by making a deal with some powerful entity- they’re not just dark magic users like in the Dresden Files.

While I don’t necessarily disagree that Harry might have some powerful or exotic ancestry, I don’t think this quote is the evidence of it.

Isn't that the part where they turn the ships into ice sleds and shoot across the Wall? I don't think they bring the ice barges then- pretty sure those were for all the extra Canim they brought back to Alera. But it's been a while since my last Alera reread.

The person who posted this q&a confirms in the comments that this was recorded I 2017, it just took them a while to edit it or something.