I had the privilege of attending the Saturday Q&A with Jim at Fantasyfestival 2023 in Denmark today and even got to talk to him a few minutes afterwards about some roleplaying stuff.
Jim doing the Q&A:
https://imgur.com/4RoK45rhttps://imgur.com/j353ixqMe looking dopey next to to Jim:
https://imgur.com/urGr6sQI got two ask my two prepared questions and also another impromptu question about the order of the books to be published. Some other interesting stuff came up as well. I got a pretty detailed write-up out of it, so I thought I'd share it with you guys. Some new info included.
My first question was: "Since Murphy has recently become a just mostly dead Einherjar, how likely do you see it that she, given her personality and love for Harry, would be content to abide by the „until she has passed out of living memory“ rule and not try to subvert it in some way?"
His answer: Does Murphy strike you as someone to just follow along with such a rule? Of course she will try to subvert it somehow.
My second question: Will Harry not calling Ivy since his return from being also mostly dead come to bite him in the ass, since he is a father figure to her and seems to simply have forgotten to contact her for about three years?
His answer: Ivy sees Harry more as a friend. She is more concerned about him, her anger is directed at Kincaid. Ivy could pick up the telephone at any time, but as the Archive she does have a different scale of time than normal people. She basically can read everybodies mail, anyway. She's a pretty creepy kid. <much laughter from the audience>
Questions from the audience:
Q: How many more books are planned before the BAT?
A: The number of books has grown, it may be 25 in total now, plus the BAT.
Q: What do you listen to while writing?
A: Metal covers for action scenes, country music for emotional scenes, Weird Al Yankovicz for humor. Lindsey Stirling while writing the Cinder Spires books (that got a big cheer from me, as a fellow fan of Lindsey Stirling).
Q: Would Harry, if he could, shill cold beer at McAnally's?
A: Jim doesn't know if he would dare to, Mac is pretty serious about his beer.
Q: Could we get a short story about how Harry's parents met?
A: Probably not, because Harry wasn't there and these are his case files. Margaret was charmed by Malcolm, because he was not treating her like a wizard but rather like a normal human being.
Jim then went on for a few minutes talking about the planned Goodman Grey series, maybe he wanted to imply that the story could show up there? I'm not sure.
Q: How is your process of writing?
A: It's very different for Cinder Spires, because Jim has to make up everything he writes there. For Dresden it is a bit more simple. For research, Jim looks up profiles of people who resemble the characters he writes about, for example John Marcone.
If he is ever stuck on a story beat, he just can have someone start shooting at Harry, that moves the scene forward.
Q: Does he plan on a spin-off / sequel for Codex Alera?
A: Jim has enough new ideas to write until he is 128 years old. If he ever goes back to Codex Alera, it would be to write about the equivalent of the Protoss invasion, with the former characters showing up as teachers for the new generation.
Q: Which parts of real life mythology do you use?
A: Jim has read a lot during his life. He started when he was little with greek mythology, then went to norse, keltic and finnish mythology... and then he got into D&D, which is a big mash-up of all mythologies. Since he lived the fun part of fundamental christianity (instead of the mental part), he incorporated it a lot into the Dresden Files as well. He also has Wiccan friends. He got mail by both a Christian cardinal and a Wiccan priest both thanking him separately with how much respect he had treated their faiths, so he seems to be doing well enough in that regard.
Q: Can you clear up for us if Father Forthill is secretly evil? He seems to be losing those coins all the time...
A: He won't answer that question, of course. Jim jokingly then goes on a spiel how we must think he's a terrible person to being suspected of writing something like that and of course he likes to torture his audience... but since nobody will allow that, he has to torture the characters instead!
Q: Do you wish you hadn't written something in the past because now it proves to be an obstacle for the rest of the storyline?
A: Jim is pretty happy how things have turned out so far from his original storyline. While he of course looks back at his prior self from a decade ago and thinks that person was kind of an idiot (don't we all...), that guy seems to have done something right, given the continued success of the series. "That guy knew some stuff". Jim then talks about the importance of keeping in touch with your inner child. Also a bit about LARP'ing and how he can't wait to get back to it and big styrofoam swords in a few weeks. Jim feels he definitely needs some input from his younger self.
Q: Have other norse gods followed Odin in giving up some of their power?
A: Thor is chasing storms in geek mobiles (i.e. like those guys from Twister) and also playing college football under ever new identities. Loki is a movie producer in Hollywood. A lot of gods are wrestlers, since now they have more fans than they did have worshippers.
Q: I then got to ask Jim about the schedule of planned books for the future.
A: Next book is
Twelve Months.
- Harry must pick himself up after being knocked down.
- Ghouls seem to be pretty involved in the story of the book.
- Dates with Lara.
- Mobs with pitchforks, after the big battle of Chicago. The government is trying to keep the spread
of information about the supernatural battle confined to Chicago.
- Dresden will try to pull the city back together after getting hit by the equivalent of a magic EMP.
The book after that is
Mirror Mirror.
- An evil Dresden from an alternate universe will try to kill Harry, because evil Dresden needs to
leave Harrys body as evidence for something.
The wrestling gods murder mystery book is somewhen later after that.
The last book before the BAT will be the time travel book, to "plug any continuity holes".
Also, the third Cinder Spires books will happen on the surface (which is a big yikes, given how the fauna there is).
Then Jim managed to get into his usual spiel about how he got into writing the Dresden Files, which ate up six minutes of the Q&A.
Q: What was the writing process for a cat society which used tools?
A: Jim wasn't a cat owner when he wrote book 1 of the Cinder Spires, but knew a lot of people who loved cats. He now also is a cat owner. The secret to cat society working in Cinder Spires is that every cat thinks it is the most awesome cat in the universe and every other cat is not as competent as itself. Also the most important cats will make a show of caring less about the opinions of other cats than those other cats. Aside from that their society revolves a lot about honor and is a society of hunters.
Q: Is Mister just a normal cat?
A: He is a cat, that is magical by itself. Jim then talks a bit about coping with the loss of an animal friend and letting a new pet into your life.
Jim then tells the story about his dog saved his sons life from a bear, which I won't repeat here, it can be found in recorded interviews on Youtube. I would have preferred another retelling of how Jim got cursed by a Brazilian witch doctor, but what can you do? ^^
Q: If you could invite five characters from your books for dinner who would you invite and what would you cook for them?
A: Ambassador Varg from Codex Alera, to see how he reacts to modern society. Harry, because Jim owes a lot to him. Mab, to see how she interacts with Ambassador Varg. Jim then says, to much laughter, he wouldn't use his own house. Lara Raith, for obvious reasons. And lastly Nicodemus Archleone, because that would be fun. Also not to his own house. Jim then would cook steak and potatoes for them, because that is basically all the can cook. And open the dinner with "You are surely asking yourselves why I invited you here..." <much laughter again from the audience>
Q: When will we learn who is Cowl and is it Justin?
A: Yeah, Jim is not going to answer that. Cowl is still alive, of course. Also, it is more interesting to Jim when Lasciel will come back for Harry, because she won't let something like being buried under tons of rock in Hades stop her.
Q: Will we learn more about Margaret in the future?
A: Bits and pieces, but she is of the last generation of characters and hence there won't be too many details about their lifes in future books.
Q: Any news on a TV series?
A: Some people are looking into trying to make the Dresden Files into the "True Detective" of urban fantasy. However Jim would prefer an animated series with James Marsters as the voice of Harry.
That concluded the Q&A. I got to ask him afterwards if the Maggie boarding school books with his sister were still on the schedule and he said that they probably won't happen, because of "industry concerns". I didn't pursue the matter any further, because I got my photo with him taken, my copy of Skin Game signed as well as a spanish copy of Changes for my best friend in Paraguay.
Later I managed to walk a few minutes with Jim and talk about the Pathfinder RPG, but that is not of interest to the people here. I soon after said my goodbyes and took the train back to Germany. All in all it was a very nice afternoon and it really was a bit overwhelming, but very joyful, to meet my favorite writer after reading his books for so many years.
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