Which one?

The time travel one.

Let's face it. Chandler showing up back in his original reality saying he accidentally ended up in a parallel universe and was stuck there for a year until he hitched a ride back with Harry... That's not going to go over well.

Quote from: Second Aristh on September 18, 2021, 12:21:26 AM

WoJ says there are three others, but they're little more than mosquitoes.

Thanks!

I still like the idea that the seven vampire courts are from the seven continents.

• Red Court - North America
• White Court - Europe
• Jade Court - Asia
• Black Court - Possibly Africa via Ancient Egypt and Sekhmet
• Yara-ma-yha-who? - Australia
• Asema? - South America
• White Walker?  - Antarctica

I hope that estimate is accurate, but it didn't make sense to me.  Jim said he was 40% finished with the Cinders Spires book and he hopes to be finished by his birthday on October 27th.  The first Cinder Spires book's word count was just over 188,000.  Let's say the next book a bit longer and I round that up to 200,000 words to simplify the math.  That would mean Jim has written about 80,000 words and has about another 120,000 to go.  If he got home from DragonCon on Monday Sept. 13, give him a day or two to recover so that takes us to Sept 15 before he starts writing again.  There would be sixteen days left in September and twenty-seven days until his birthday, so a total of 43 days.  However, I doubt that Jim writes seven days a week.  Even if I only knock off three rest days that comes out to 40 days to write another 120,000 words for a pace of 3,000 words a day.

Jim has said that when he is really going strong he can write about 4,000 words a day, but I bet that high word rate is rare for him and doesn't last very long.  Maybe a week at most.  I think that for Jim to finish by this October 27th he would have prepared a major outline for this novel and already know how every remaining plot element will play out and end.  This is something Jim hasn't done in the past, though he's talked about creating better outlines for future projects.  I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't feel very realistic to me.

Then Jim hopes to finish Twelve Months; or the alternate tile of Twelve Dates, by the end of January.  That's only three months writing time.  Unless Jim already has a huge chunk of that novel already written, I don't see how he can do it.  What feels far more realistic to me is Jim wants to finish the next Cinder Spires book before the end of January 2022 and the next Dresden book by his birthday on October 27 2022.  That seems a more believable timetable to me.

Kevin Hearne regularly aims to write 1k words per hour. Sometimes he hits it, sometimes he doesn't. But even half that is 6 hours of writing for 3k per day.

Back when I was writing fanfic, I could knock out well over 3k in an evening after work. And some of my fanfics were 100k+. So I don't doubt Butcher could do the same, but better.

I think the confirmation that our Chandler got sent to the Mirror Mirror reality was interesting (though there could be a few other ways of interpreting the answer to that question). 

Well we knew his specialty was time magic, so him being the talking head in MM to explain things makes sense.

What baffles me is just how easily Drakul opened a Way to an alternate timeline. Like, he just flicked a wrist. I didn't expect him to have THAT kind of power. Opening a Way between two specific places in one reality took a retired god.

And Drakul was like, bye.

Unless he just tossed Chandler into the great big empty, and Chandler's own time magic resulted in his own Way taking him elsewhen.

Anyone seen a video yet to confirm the comments over on Reddit? There's some interesting stuff, but I'd like to know the context of the "Starborn is the endgame of the series" bit.

I'm wondering if that's the last title of the case files, STAR BORN, before the BAT, or if he just means the Starborn are collectively the important part of the series.
Source
https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/phee1h/butcher_at_dragoncon_2021/

Here's the other synopsis of another panel.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/piopig/butcher_dragon_con_weaponized_magic/

I think the easiest hand wave for the Dresdenverse will be for time to be a woven cord or tapestry. Butcher can relate it to the Fates, and introduce the idea of a time traveler making a loop of their thread into a point earlier in the cord/tapestry.

There's only so much time that can pass before the weave becomes too tight to be manipulated, so Harry can't just leap centuries into the past. Maybe a quick jaunt back a few years at most.

And Merlin doing his Demonreach thing would take Major Power to enable him to effectively cut a small segment of his thread, leaving a thin stand at the original time and then taking four pieces and inserting them into other times. Possibly all in the future of his own time, just floating out there until the time comes for them to be inserted.

But that's predominantly a method to explain a singular timeline, and not one with common branches.

   There are thirteen stools at the bar and thirteen
tables in the room. Thirteen windows, set up high
in the wall in order to be above ground level, let
some light from the street into the place. Thirteen
mirrors on the walls cast back reflections of the
patrons in dim detail, and give the illusion of more
space. Thirteen wooden columns, carved with
likenesses from folktales and legends of the Old
World, make it difficult to walk around the place
without weaving a circuitous route—they also quite
intentionally break up the flow of random energies,
dispelling to one degree or another the auras that
gather around broody, grumpy wizards and
keeping them from manifesting in unintentional
and colorful ways.

   I looked around the room for a moment, with its
annoying combination of low ceilings and lazily
spinning fans, its thirteen carved wooden columns
and its thirteen windows, plus thirteen tables
arranged haphazardly to defray and scatter the
residual magical effects that sometimes
surrounded hungry (in other words, angry)
wizards.

   The bar has thirteen stools at it. There were
thirteen columns of dark wood, each one hand-
carved with swirling leaves and images of beings
of tale and fantasy. Thirteen tables had been
spaced out around the room in an irregular pattern,
and like the columns and bar stools, they had been
intentionally placed that way in order to deflect
and scatter random magical energies.