I do.

Let's just be happy that he didn't go the way of David Weber with his Safehold series... <brainbleach>

Anyway, albeit I really liked the book, demoting Gwen to a secondary character until the very end of the book annoyed me to no end. And Rowl didn't really do very much in this book, either, which also read a bit strange, given how active he was in the first book.

I assume getting his spine bent into directions it shouldn't go by Molly in an act of treachery (which it has to be from his viewpoint, despite us knowing that Molly had no control over her actions) just may have colored Carlos's viewpoint.

Or he is merely giving himself an option..

Given that he had the entire arc of his Dresden books planned out since the first one got published, I doubt that.

Since a lot of the cultures of the spires are clearly coded to old time Europe, I wouldn't worry too much about where exactly the spires are located in the current US. Albion pretty clearly is victorian England, Aurora corresponds to conquistador Spain, the Pikers seem to be an analogue to the Caribbean pirates (I constantly had the main theme of Pirates of the Caribbean playing in my head whenever there were scenes with Ravenna). Not sure what exactly I'd attribute Atlantea (Atlantis?) and Olympia (Classic Greeks?) to, but the coding of the first three seemed pretty clear.

As for the story, it was very good. I was about to only say it was 85% as good as The Aeronauts Windlass, due to an important plot thread from the first book not manifesting itself, but then it did in the last quarter and that brought it up to being 95% as good as the first novel. I am very cross that Gwen didn't get her own viewpoint, though. She was the lead character in the first book until she got bonked on the head. Relegating her to a side character, so that a another character very much like her can take over her place in the narrative, didn't sit right with me. I hope (and think, given where she is at the end) that she'll be a main viewpoint character again in the third book.

As for the new viewpoint character, Abigail, I understand why she took over from Gwen, given that Gwen just isn't quite there yet in terms of position of power and proficiency, but due to Abigail having a pretty similar personality structure than her, just with more experience, it just felt to me that she was more of an interloper than a true protagonist. I appreciated the focus on Bayard, though, who is a badass. I also really liked Captain Ravenna (she must be the best Piker I've ever seen ^^) and I hope she stays around as a more prominent character. Bridget's side story felt a bit like filler, although it rounded out the worldbuilding. Really too bad that she couldn't interact more with the others, especially Folly, with whom she had made a good connection in the first book. The cats kinda felt unimportant and just there to give color commentary, which is a shame. Rowl had an important, active, role to play in book one and now he was reduced to trading barbs with a sassy kitten. I also had hoped to see Mirl again, but what can you do.

I do wonder what the population numbers of warriorborn are to normal humans. Given their physical superiority, they can't be very numerous, otherwise they'd have taken over power everywhere.

Also very interesting to see that at least one Archangel is still alive. Given Cavendish rant about what the real background of the world is, one wonders if they truly are as beneficient as portrayed here or rather more sinister. Of course her viewpoint is colored by being controlled by the Tyranima and being mad. And, damn, some chilling scenes with her, I gotta say. Especially where she giggled about eating people via the Mistmaw. I was honestly surprised at the effort to humanize her at the end of the novel. We'll have to see where that goes (my first impression is "redemption arc with self-sacrifice at the end to atone for the many monstrous things she's done").

We'll have to see what happens in book three, which already was said to take place on the surface a lot (small wonder with how things ended) by Jim in a recent Q&A. I hope it takes a lot less time to write than this one did, though.

If this were a series with an unlimited number of books coming, it's not impossible that Jim would be working towards a new significant relationship for Harry. However, we are at book 17 of what either will be 22 + 3 books or 25 + 3 books (depending if I heard correctly that the number of books has grown to the latter. I might simply have misunderstood Jim there, too). That means, to me, unless the endgame for Harry is Molly, which I don't believe it is, it will very probably still be Murphy as his significant other. I don't see a new serious romantic interest popping up just a few books before things get really hairy with the BAT. Therefore, as soon as Murphy comes back, she'll probably stay for good.

I call it a cosmic rule because quoting Gard, "That is the limit not even the Allfather can cross." Not made up, but a real limit.  If Odin cannot go past that limit, it sounds like a cosmic rule to me, set down by someone more powerful, the Creator perhaps? 

You are comparing apples to oranges, yes, Harry might break all Seven Laws of Magic before he is done, but those are still laws set up by mortal wizards, even Merlin himself was a mortal. The limit that the Allfather cannot cross, isn't a limit set by mortals.  At the end of the day, Murphy is still dead, she may be  Einherjar with limited Intellectus, which hasn't been defined yet, but she is still dead.

Eh, dead is relative here. The Einherjar we've seen are walking around just fine. And, yeah, I believe Harry can break "cosmic laws" if he puts his mind to it. Also, to be honest, I find it all too suspicious how suddenly that "you totally can't see each other" plopped out of nowhere with Murphy dying and then getting revived. Seems like a placeholder to me, to keep Harry miserable for a while, just like putting a magic chastity belt on Molly to prevent a relationship developing there.

Oh, that's another interesting possibility! Considering that Murph is the type of person who might want to subvert the rules as Jim himself said, and that we still don't know for a fact how Valkyries come to be. Heorot hints at them not being the "virgin daughters" (as some myths say, and not even all of them say the same thing), and in Aftermath, Gard suggests that Odin might be interested in offering Murph a position for which she even has the hair for, it wouldn't be outlandish to think that there is a chance that Valkyrie is a "position" one isn't born into but one can access to, so who knows, if it's a promotion from the Einherjar position, Murph would be the kind of person to aspire to it.

That is pretty much exactly how I theorize how it will go. We'll see.