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Messages - KurtinStGeorge

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DF Spoilers / Re: What's Up With Marcone?
« on: March 29, 2018, 04:56:02 PM »
What's different about Marcone?

Aside from the fact Marcone learned the supernatural world was real and that he might find ways to mitigate its dangers and co-opt its abilities there might not be much difference between Marcone and some other smart, tough and ambitious leaders.  There have been many capable leaders in world history but only a few are remembered like a Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great.  People like that often have timing on their side that they as individuals have no control over. 

Even if I look at a non-despot like Abraham Lincoln, look at some of the elements that had to line up for him to come into power.  An old established political party; the Whigs, that Lincoln was a member of, self destructed in a manner that is too complex to describe here, but it allowed someone who was at most a local Whig leader in his home state to join a new more radical party (the Republicans) and leap frog to the top partially because there was no established hierarchy in the new party to keep him down.  Plus, the opposition Democratic party split in two in 1860; again in a manner too complex to go into.  Today in the U.S. when a presidential election comes near there is often talk of the possibility of a third party candidate.  Could one of the minor parties make a dent or could some charismatic person chose the third party route and screw things for one of the major parties?  Abraham Lincoln had the benefit of running in a four-way election in 1860, where every candidate took a significant portion of the vote.  This is a situation Lincoln had absolutely no power to create, but he soon realized it was a situation he could exploit.  You can read about the campaign of 1860 to learn the details of that time.

Now look at Marcone as a comparison.  He had no way of knowing that a war in the supernatural world was brewing that would upend the established order.  He couldn't have known that by establishing a stable criminal empire in Chicago he was interfering in the plans of the Black Council.  He couldn't have known that there would be other supernatural powers who might want to help him.  He was smart, energetic and determined enough to put clues together and learn what was happening around him and take advantage of the opportunities that were presented to him.  However, remember that Marcone had to learn and make mistakes to consolidate his position.  He first tried to recruit Harry to help him in Fool Moon.  If Marcone had been fully clued in he should have gone straight to Vaderrung.  I think this early groping for a solution to his supernatural problems is a strong indication that Marcone is a vanilla mortal.


632
DF Spoilers / Re: Dog Men Release Q&A Suggestions
« on: March 29, 2018, 06:43:53 AM »
Jim, could you give us a preview by reading the first 2 (or 3) chapters of Peace Talks?

Ok, I know you can't ask him to do that but he's done things like that in the past, so it would be really cool if he did it now.

633
DF Spoilers / Re: What's Up With Marcone?
« on: March 29, 2018, 06:37:21 AM »
I think marcone could have supernatural lineage but he chose to be vanilla mortal.  He likely was a changeling/scion that gave up his other side to be a professional monster.  He did in fact say he chose to be a professional monster.  That can be taken one of two ways: free willed choice, or  something akin to a changeling choosing their mortal half then going the monster route.

OK that's possible but what would the point be?  I mean from the standpoint of overall story, if Marcone's a mortal now, with no special powers or the chance to make a different choice, then it really doesn't matter if one of his parents was fae or some other supernatural creature.  It might explain how he got clued-in on the supernatural world, but little else. 

634
I think the obvious choice is Ebenezer.  At some point the hero has to lose his mentor, and in this case Eb was not only Harry's role model, he's the guy who gave Harry political cover from the Merlin and gave Harry insight into the workings of the Senior Council.  Any knowledge Harry has picked up from Luccio, Ramirez, the Gatekeeper and others has been in passing, it's not been in depth.  If Harry's status as the Winter Knight; make that Mab's chosen Knight, now gives him a measure of protection from the machinations of some members of the Senior Council; because no one with a brain wants to cross Mab, then Eb's plot armor; if such a thing exists or existed, is gone.

On the other hand Jim might want to surprise us and kill off someone totally unexpected.  Their death might even be what Harry has to investigate. 

An alternative is the leader of a major supernatural power dies and threatens to unbalance the supernatural world just when peace talks are getting started, whether Harry has to investigate that death or not.  So I can see Lord Raith taking the dirt nap in this book.  Could Lara and House Raith maintain their hold on power?  What would this mean for Thomas and Justine?  The answer to the first question is yes.  Lara would probably let someone from one of the other Houses kill her father just so she could show everyone she has learned Lord Raith's kiss of death trick. 

So let me state that in Mirror Mirror there were no peace talks so whoever dies at that time is alive in the Alt-Harry's world.  Maybe Lord Raith is still the actual ruler of House Raith and not a figurehead, but more interesting would be Harry getting to talk to Ebenezer one last time.  Well, after Eb stops trying to kill Harry or bring him before the Council.

635
DF Spoilers / Re: Baddies - Past, Present, and Future
« on: March 29, 2018, 12:06:48 AM »
Ill have to give the series a look.  I think that kind of character is someone with whom Dresden would struggle.  Someone who is unwilling or smart enough to avoid head to head conflict with Dresden.  It would frustrate him to no end.  Being close then having the person slip away.  Just the kind of thing Jim would love doing to Dresden.

I'll third the recommendation for the Alex Verus series.  It does feel similar to the Dresden Files because both Alex and Harry have problems with higher authorities, with Dresden you get descriptions of different parts of Chicago and with Verus you get descriptions of different parts of London and they both eventually find allies to help them.  However, there are a number of key differences which keep the Alex Verus series from feeling like a British Clone of the Dresden Files.  Alex has a darker past than Harry.  The magical authorities (the British Light Council) are far better organized, yet far more politically divided, far more cynical, and filled with far more devious characters than the White Council.  Not all of the Dark magic users are necessarily totally evil; or maybe it's better to classify them as lawfully evil, but the ones who are genuinely, totally evil, can be like Nicodemus, Charles Manson and Ted Bundy rolled into one.  On the other hand, some of the boss bad guys are good employers who offer good benefits, if they don't plan to discard you after you perform one mission for them.  They need to see you as a long-term asset.

A couple of other points about the Alex Verus series are worth noting.  One, like the Dresden Files it has some very funny moments, but I don't want to give any of those moments away.  Two, unlike the Dresden Files, the other characters are more diverse; both ethnically and physically, than in the Dresden Files.  London is a cosmopolitan city and Alex's world is too.  One memorable character is Keeper Caldera.  (Keepers are like Wardens, but their organization is run very much like a mundane police department.)  She's a heavy set woman, a beer connoisseur, and a powerful mage.  It's refreshing that not every female character has to be better looking than a playboy centerfold model.         

636
DF Spoilers / Re: Will Harry get back to basics?
« on: March 24, 2018, 08:09:33 AM »
While I have thoroughly enjoyed the non-mystery genre stories, especially the Heist tale of Skin Game, I do agree that this para-political pressure cooker would be a great opportunity for a High-stakes Who-Dunnit, which is my current theory-hope for it.   Either that or a full-on prison break of the Well.  Maybe...both?

I didn't mean to imply that Skin Game was a bad story because I think it had some really fun moments in it.  Perhaps the only thing I really, really disliked; and this has nothing to do with the storytelling itself, is it was the third novel in a row where Harry is performing or trying to perform a very specific mission that feels like a stand alone story.  I know there were some important elements in Skin Game that add to the greater story arc and character arcs for both Harry and Nicodemus, but Harry feels somewhat isolated from the rest of world as he did in both Cold Days and Ghost Story. 

Consider that from Summer Knight right through to Changes, Harry was aware that whatever task or tasks he was engaged in, there was a larger struggle going on that often intruded into his world while he was trying to deal with more immediate local issues.  I think that is why I am looking forward to Peace Talks so much, and why I'm a little more impatient waiting for this book than in the past; aside from the extra long wait we had this time around.  Let's say that Peace Talks involves some kind of murder mystery that Harry will have to solve.  He will also have to deal with the White Council, balance relationships with friends and frenemies, while dealing with outside threats from; well, who knows.  It could be the Fomer, Cowl or Mavra or someone we haven't met before like Drakul, but whoever or whatever the big bad is, the overall story should have a much more open ended feel to it.

637
I'm with you on that.  I'll get through it one day, but I've tried and tried.

I have to admit I really didn't like Cinder Spires that much until I was fairly deep into the book.  I felt it took a while for some of the characters to develop and for the story to draw me in.  That's one of the risks with origin story novels with a large cast of characters who all look like they may have important roles to play.  For example, it took a long time for me to care about the crazy Folly, but by the end of the story she was becoming interesting and I could start to see that she will be more important as the story moves forward.  I also found the Captain Grimm character a little underwhelming at times.  The potential is there but other characters often seemed to grab the spotlight away from him.  Grimm doesn't have to be Captain Kirk but I thought he should stand out more than he does.  Again, I think it's that origin story situation where so many characters have to be introduced and given space to grow.   

638
DF Spoilers / Re: Will Harry get back to basics?
« on: March 22, 2018, 06:34:15 AM »
The ideas of what kind of magical foci might come up with for Peace Talks or down the line is a worthy discussion, but I really hope the basic thing Harry is forced to do in Peace Talks is be a detective again.  Aside from political maneuvering and fighting people and things that want to take him out, I'm hoping something happens that creates mystery and Harry has to sleuth it out, or else. 

I don't think we've had a good mystery for Harry to unravel since Turn Coat.  Changes had some detective work in it, but the focus of the story was Harry putting a team together to go kick some Red Court vampire ass and get his daughter back.  In Ghost Story Harry didn't really solve the mystery of how he died, he sort of backed into the answer.  In Cold Days there was the mystery of why Mab wanted Harry to kill Maeve, but it was secondary to Harry keeping Demonreach from going boom.  Also, for me, and I bet for most other readers, why Mab wanted Harry to kill Maeve was less important than seeing Harry reconnect with friends and family.  Finally, in Skin Game there were the mysteries of what Nicodemus wanted and how Nicodemus would try to double-cross Harry, but in the end we found out Harry had his own ringer in Nic's crew, so Harry didn't have to solve anything, he had his own countermeasure already in place.  I think the Dresden Files as a whole needs a good mystery to revitalize it; to get the main character doing the thing he does best, and reenergize the fans too.   

639
Of course, different authors and different publishers have their own methods and general timeline in getting a book published, but Benedict Jacka has several pages on his website on the process, in general terms, of getting one of his novels from the idea stage to final publication.  Here's an average timeline which Mr. Jacka says applies to most of his novels, and while it doesn't fit Jim Butcher; probably because of the way he uses his Beta readers to do a lot of self-editing, it gives us a good indication of the overall process for most authors.

So what does the full timeline look like?

1. Idea (? months)
2. Planning (1-2 months)
3. First Draft (5-7 months)
4. Waiting for Edits (1-2 months)
5. Edits (1-4 months)
6. Waiting for Copy-Edits (1-2 months)
7. Copy-Edits (<1 month)
8. Waiting for Proofs (1-2 months)
9. Proofs and AQs (minimal time)
10. Pre-Publication (4-6 months)

We can probably cut out the idea and planning stages, as they’re mostly done in the background while I work on other things.  So that leaves the writing stage (step 3) and then the road to publication (steps 4 to 10).  Adding it all up, we get the following time spans:

First Draft:  5-7 months
Road to Publication:  9-17 months

In practice, the time for the first drafts for the last few books has come in at a consistent 6 months, largely because that’s the deadline I set myself.  The time for the road to publication stage has been more variable.  Chosen took 11 months, Hidden took 14, and the new book is looking like it’ll be 13.  Added together they average to close to a year.  So 6 months to write the book, and 12 months to edit it and get it published.

If this seems like a long time, that’s because it is.


You can check out Benedict Jackas website for more detailed descriptions of each step in the process.

640
DF Spoilers / Re: Projections: Time Travel Moving Forward
« on: March 21, 2018, 04:31:19 PM »
A lot depends on the specific story being told.  For example; and I'm just making this up on the fly, it's not an idea or scenario that merits serious discussion, if at the end of the series we find that Harry = the original Merlin, and we find that Harry has learned new complex kinds of magic that Bob isn't familiar with, and he goes back in time to build Demonreach and do the other stuff Merlin did like start the White Council, then nothing has really changed except our perception of Harry, plus it's also how the story ends and how Harry leaves the stage.   

If Harry travels back to a previous story like Proven Guilty and nothing changes, or perhaps Harry prevents another time traveller from making changes to the timeline, there could still be a major impact on the rest of the series from what Harry learns from his time travel adventure.  It doesn't matter if Mab = Murphy or Molly, it could be something else of major import.

There is also a third possibility.  There's an episode of the old Twilight Zone where through some unexplained process a character goes back in time to the night when Abraham Lincoln was killed and he tries to prevent the assassination from occurring.  He fails of course, but does change one small detail in the timeline.  A police officer who believes the time traveller tries to warn his superiors that the President needs protection and even though he fails his diligence is remembered which leads to his promotion and eventually, we are told, he became Chief of Police and with his higher salary and probably with some advice from upper class contacts, he made some investments which made him a millionaire.  At the end of the story we see a character who was just a waiter serving a bunch of wealthy men discussing time travel at the beginning of the story, is now one of the wealthy men telling them how his family came into its fortune.  So Jim could do something similar.  He could send Harry back in time and have all the major events of the original story happen just the way they did before, but TT Harry has a conversation with someone, and through that conversation he alters the future in some subtle but important way.   

641
DF Spoilers / Re: Will Harry get back to basics?
« on: March 18, 2018, 06:37:10 AM »
What happened to Harry's shield bracelet and his force rings?  I don't remember the bracelet getting used up (burned up) in Changes.  I don't remember him losing his force rings either.  At the end of Changes Harry takes a shower, gets dressed and then has a conversation with Murphy.  He then goes back inside the boat, gets tired of waiting inside for Murphy, and goes back outside and gets shot.  We don't know if he put the rings or bracelet back on.  If Harry didn't put them back on then Murphy or perhaps Thomas has them.  Harry had his amulet returned to him in Cold Days, so Mab should have returned the other items too.  The only explanation for not returning them is if there is some iron in either the bracelet or rings.  Perhaps that might interfere with the Winter Knights mantel or Mab considered anything with iron in it too risky for the Winter Knight to ware.

Another alternative; though not very likely, is that Thomas has Harry's rings and bracelet and he didn't have time to retrieve them in Cold Days.  If these items are ever returned  perhaps Harry will find his old tools just aren't powerful enough to deal with the new threats he will face.  That would be a good reason for Harry to build another lab.  Plus, he has to find a way to use Bonnie's knowledge and teach her at the same time.  That should be interesting for us and frustrating for Harry.  I believe Jim has said that Bonnie has all of Harry and Lash's knowledge but no context to understand it.   

 

642
I believe Jim has said or at least implied that trying to use Harry's name against him can backfire to the person or entity who does so.  Also, along time ago Jim said there will be a time when Harry will be summoned (by name) the same way Harry has called upon Lea, Mab and others.  That won't end well for whoever does that.  There is also something Harry says at the end of Storm Front, "My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.  Conjure by it at your own risk..."  Even if Jim hadn't full planned out what the risk of using Harry's name against him would be when he wrote that first book, he obviously had something in mind.  In fact I believe there is a WoJ to that effect.

So aside from Harry using his will as a mental weapon against the Outsiders and immortals in general, and his ability to name things and alter their essential character, Harry's name is a weapon and or booby trap from anyone who thinks they can use Harry's true name against him. 

643
That is still very, very encouraging. Six weeks of work left on an editable draft isn't all that bad.

Six weeks has a way of becoming nine weeks or longer.  Six weeks is roughly the length of time from the Con Jim did this past weekend to the next public appearance he's scheduled to make near the end of April.  Hopefully he can pull it off in that time frame, but; well, I've heard something like this before so I remain somewhat skeptical.  I'll believe it when I see an official announcement and not before. 

644
DF Spoilers / Re: New (I hope) Elaine Theory
« on: March 07, 2018, 10:40:02 PM »
Maybe she didn't need to.  She probably has plenty of contacts among the Fae.

Plus, Harry was incommunicado for more than a year when he was stuck on Demonreach and he had only been in town for one day before that when settled matters with Maeve.  So it's not like Elaine could have dropped in on Harry any time before the end of Skin Game.  The most she could have done is contact Murphy or Butters through the paranet and asked them if it was true that Harry was back from the dead.  This is one of the reasons why it might be a good time for Elaine to make an appearance.   

645
DF Spoilers / Re: If Jim handed off the series to someone else...
« on: March 07, 2018, 04:54:04 AM »
Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus series is already heavily similar to the DF. It might be fun to see them write a short story in each other's universe or something.

Sometimes I wish we had a thumbs up button to show appreciation for comments we like, like this one.

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