Last two segments from MarsCon

Segment 6:

Audience member: [comment cut off]….ants along the side?

Jim: How much was I involved with the back and forth, uh, kinda, the banter between the characters that are in the margins of the role-playing game book. Uh, I went over it, I went over the dialogue to approve it after it was already all done. Uh, and…and basically said, ‘Yeah, this is good.’ You know, so, that was the work of them, uh, and I think it speaks to, uh, their dedication and commitment as to, uh, how well they actually did do that dialogue. (Applause) Yrah, I swear, I mean, some of these researchers that Fred managed to get to put on the books, I mean, they are just spooky. Uh, you know, they had written all these things into…into the rule book that I was like, ‘You can’t…you can’t put that, that, you can’t put that there!’ And they’re, ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, because it’s not going to be out ‘til Book 18!’ (Laughter) But they had put together the pieces and inferred the existence of, uh, certain things, and uh, you know, they were just kind of, you know, throwing them in, and I’m like, ‘Don’t do that, don’t do that!’ (Laughter)

Interviewer: On, on the flip side though, was there anything in there that you looked at and said ‘Oh, I could use that!’?

Jim: Um, not so far, not so far. Uh, there are some things that I’ve looked at and gone, ‘Ooh, interesting!’ uh, and so it’s gone into the cooker, but, uh, I’ll probably…I’ll probably think it’s original. (Laughter) And then at some point I’ll be going back through the rule book and go, ‘Oh!  Okay, I got it there, I…I really should send a letter to Fred.’ (Laughter)

Audience member: Um, that was a leading question because there’s a back and forth between Harry and Billy about the werewolves being able to talk to animals, uh, dogs specifically. So….

Jim: Where? Which book?

Audience member: I just got them for Christmas; I don’t have them memorized yet.

Various: [Unparseable comments about what book and section the information might be found in from various audience members]

Audience member: Um, it’s basically, ‘Billy says “Woof”’. (Laughter)

Jim: Right, yeah, yeah, the wolves can’t…I mean, they…just because you can turn into a wolf doesn’t mean you can talk to a dog. It does give you a little bit more insight and perspective into being a dog. Uh, which almost counts as communication. Um, you know, for me, uh, I think I understand my dog pretty well, although I had to subtitle him for a long time in order to do it. So, I had my dog voice when I do my dog’s dialogue back to me when I talk to him. So, you know, ‘What’s going on Fros (sp?), whatcha doing?’ (In a high voice) ‘Oh nothing, I’m not trying to jump up on this chair to get what’s left of your sandwich.’ (Laughter) You know, that kind of thing.

Interviewer: Now that, uh, the SyFy series has ended, uh, what’re…what…what is the state of the rights for the Dresden Files?

Jim: Uh, the rights to the Dresden Files have…I got them back early, so they’re all mineminemine again. (Applause) And we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what happens with them.

Audience member: Uh, considering the experience with the series and how that kind of well, (other audience member: tanked), that happened, uh, what kind of involvement would you insist upon, if anything else were to ever happen again, I mean, would it be similar to the involvement you had with the comic? Final say? I mean, what would you like to have?

Jim: Oh, um, if…the question is: if we do…if there’s another, uh, shot at a TV show or movie, et cetera, what kind of role would I want to have, would I want to play in it.  Um, I think it would depend a lot upon, uh, how much I already had on my plate, uh, because I’m kind of at a point in my life right now where there’s enough to do that if I add anything else to it, I’m going to be letting down someone that I care about a lot, and that’s not acceptable to me. Um, so, uh, I think it would depend on what my schedule was looking like and so on for how much I would want to be involved. And, I mean, if you want to get involved in Hollywood, there’s a number of levels to which you can get involved, and some of them I kind of don’t like, I kinda don’t like the, uh, you know, the executive producer level of involvement, where they put your name on it, and they do things in your name but you’re not actually doing things. Although there is an additional paycheck that goes along with it, I understand. Uh, but, uh, you know, as far as that goes, uh, I would…I would either like to be up to…in it up to my neck with, with uh, veto authority over it, or, you know, not involved, you know, except as the, ‘And oh here…and by the way, there’s the author.’ Although I think I would say, ‘I get to appear in the background somewhere, and that’s all there is to it!’ (Laughter)

Interviewer: Everyone caught his cameo in the series?

Audience: Yup.

Jim: Yeah, I got to do the cameo for the…for the TV series, uh, which was fun and cool. And, uh, I got to meet people and so on.

Interviewer: (Pointing) Yeah.

Audience member: At what point in the series are we going to find out about Harry and the island of Demonreach?

Jim: At what point in the series are we going to find out about the connection between Harry and the island of Demonreach? In the last chapter of Ghost Story. (Audience gasps, applauds) Yeah, that came as a shock to the betas who are reading it in progress right now, they’re like, ‘Really? Really?’

Audience member: Is there any plans….Side Jobs was an enjoyable book, do you have any plans to do any other novellas like that or collections…?

Jim: Ok, um, do I have any plans for any more novellas or collections? The answer to that is I originally wrote Side Jobs because I…I wanted to do the anthology because I wanted to get all the short stories in one place; there are people who can’t afford to go buy, you know, a dozen different anthologies, uh, and so I wanted to be able to have them all in one spot for the readers to be able to get them.  Um, and, as it turned out, when Side Jobs came out, there was…there was issues at other publishers and I had two stories out that did not make Side Jobs. Um, so, now, the only thing I can do if I wanted to stick to my original goal is to do another anthology, uh, of short stories, because…(Applause), so that’s kind of the idea now, as…I’m writing several more short stories, uh, early next year…early this year…Oh my gosh, I’ve got to…I’ve got to get those written! (Laughter)

Interviewer: Good night, everyone, Jim’s got to go!

Jim: And, uh, and then I’ll also be writing another novella, and, uh, you know, to include, uh, so I’m going to do another few short stories so that I can do another anthology, probably not next year, but maybe the year after.

Interviewer: (Pointing) Yes?

Audience member: What did Margaret LeFay have on Leanansidhe in order to convince her to be Harry’s godmother?

Jim: What did Margaret LeFay have on the Leanansidhe in order to convince her to be Harry’s godmother.  Uh, (singsong) I’m not gonna tell you! (Laughter) (Jim nods.) uh, but…but you’ll see.

Audience member: When?

Jim: At some point. (Laughter) At some point. I’m not sure…I’m not sure if that’ll be late in the series or early in the capstone, so….

Interviewer: (Pointing) Yeah.

Audience member: The Alphas have started demonstrating a little bit more than just turning into a wolf, how far are you planning on going with that?

Jim: I’m sorry, what was the first part of the question?

Audience member: The Alphas have started demonstrating…

Jim: Oh, the Alphas have started, uh, to develop, uh, into something more than just turning into a wolf, and how far will I be running with that. Um, a bit. (Laughter) But, uh, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so, uh...yeah, they’re…Okay, the Alphas are…the Alphas are us, they’re the gamers who look at this thing…who look…the gamers…the people who show up at the conventions and cosplay and who suddenly get handed this stuff, this cool stuff they can do.  Of course they’re not just going to leave it at…at what they’re handed, ‘Look, here’s how you can become a wolf, that’s amazing,’ ‘Oh, that IS amazing!  But what else can we do?’  (Laughter) ‘Wouldn’t it be even more amazing if…?’ And uh, yeah, so far nobody’s managed to melt themselves into a puddle of grey goo, that’s sort of the…that’s sort of the ultimate FAIL as a shapeshifter, uh (Laughter) you know, if you get the mega-fail that’s what happens to you, but we’ll see.

Audience member: Will we get to see Ivy grow up a bit?

Jim: Will we get to see Ivy grow up a bit? Oh yes.

Audience member: [Unintelligible]


Jim: Uh, who do I think would play a good Harry. Besides Will Smith, because I’ve always said Will Smith. Uh, this guy in the back (points, to laughter), for one. I really don’t know him but he’s quite tall and he was pointing to himself, so, uh…(Laughter) (suggestions from the audience—“the dude with the hand”) yeah, well, Matt, yeah, he might do it pretty well, actually, he’s got the right look, um, uh, let’s see, Alexis Denisov, uh, I think, could do it, or could have done it, I don’t know what he’s like lately.  Marsters could have done it, I don’t know if he could do it lately, he’s getting kind of…you know, he’s getting a little weathered, we might have to cast him as uh, as somebody else. Um….(to somebody in the audience) what? Oh, uh, I would…I would accept Hugh Jackman, (Laughter)…I would tolerate him, I would tolerate Mr. Jackman.  Uh, uh, really, it’s not something that I really think about so much, because in my head, he’s never somebody who’s in the movies, he’s the guy in my head who, uh, is the guy in the uh, in the prequel cartoon, that Ardien drew. Uh, in the prequel comic, the, uh, Welcome to the Jungle, that’s Dresden as he looks in my head, that’s very, very close to what he is because they worked so closely with me putting the images together.

Segment 7:


Audience member: Uh, could Ivy…does the Archive read digital?  Or is it only print?

Jim: Does the archive read digital, or is it only print?  No, she gets it all. Uh, and…yeah, and nobody ever planned for the amount of information that has actually shown up in the past 20 years or so. Uh, so yeah, that’s not a good thing to be throwing on the…the little girl, don’t-have-any-insulation-against-everything-Archive. (Jim chuckles evilly) Like, totally bad timing for that, haha. Uh, I think Ivy would punch me in the nose too. (Laughter) 

(audience gets loud)

Interviewer: Could you start again, please?

Audience member: You’ve got all this written down on indestructible scrolls somewhere, [unintelligible]…we still get the end of the story, right?

Jim: Oh, heck no. (Laughter) So it’s in your best interest to see that I am all right. (Laughter)

Interviewer: (Pointing) Uh, way in the back.

Audience member: Any…give us any teasers on the upcoming shorts?

Jim: On the upcoming short stories?  Huh. Man, I might have to do a Mister and Mouse one…(Applause) [unintelligible]…although it might really wind up being more Mister, Mouse and Bob (more applause), because that would be really cool. Uh, uh, let me think who else…um…no, I was…I was thinking I’ll probably do another…another Murphy one at some point, and…because, I mean,  it was so hard to do, the first one, it was like, okay, I did a lot of work on that I need to get some more mileage out of that one. Uh, and then, I will probably actually do one from the point of view of the private eye…

Audience: Vince?

Jim: Yeah, Vince (Applause). Uh, just because, uh, he’s really…I mean, he is so much my tribute to the late Robert Parker character, uh, it’s really…it was my intention to write…to write somebody who’s totally in that Spencer vein. And uh, Vince….Vince is good for that.  Uh, he’d be…he’d be hilarious as a…as a point of view character, but….

Interviewer: Do you have a title for the book after Ghost Story?

Jim: Uh, no not yet.

Interviewer: All right, we’ve got time for one last question.

Jim: Wait! I do. I’ve…I put in email somewhere. (Laughter) I can’t remember right now, though, but it’s digital. (Someone comes up onto the stage and says something to Jim). Oh! Right! Okay, duh. Winter Knight. Yeah, Winter Knight. I mean,  come on, obviously.  All right, look. Being dead does not get you out of a contract with the Queen of Air and Darkness. It does not.

Audience: …[unintelligible] until he died?

Jim:  He cheated. What if he cheated? Somebody must’ve.

Interviewer: So, I guess that kind of answers your other question about being hit by a bus, if being dead doesn’t get you out of a contract. (Laughter)

Jim: Yeah, it doesn’t get you out of a contract with Penguin, either.

Interviewer: All right, we’re coming to the end of the hour, we’ve got time for one last question. (Points)

Audience member: With the Dresden Files is chugging along, and Codex Alera done, are we going to see you doing any other series or are you going to focus solely on doing Dresden?

Jim: Uh, I’m only doing the Dresden, uh, for the next year or so, uh, just because my wife says, ‘Jim, you have got to take some time off or I will kill you.’ (Laughter) Uh, and…and she’s probably right. Um, but I am gong to be starting…I mean, I’m going to be doing another project…I don’t want to be doing just the Dresden Files, I want to be doing other stuff, too.  I think, in the future, uh, I think the way I’ll do it next is that I’ll…I’ll write the book and have it written and then sell it. Because that seems to be so much of a less, uh, deadline, stressy, uh, time-crunchy way to get things done.

Audience member: Any change you’ll be going back to Alera?

Jim: Any chance of going back to Alera?  Maybe.

Interviewer:  Did you come in late? (Laughter)

Jim: Yeah, I kinda talked about that earlier, um, oh, that question doesn’t count, we’ll go one more.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Audience member: Any books coming out on audio?

Jim: Any…?

Interviewer: Any books coming out on audio?

Jim: Oh, the Dresden books on audio? They’re all on audio.

Audience member: Are they?

Jim: Yes. Yeah, James Marsters read them all.  Okay, one more, that one didn’t…

Interviewer: Yeah that one doesn’t count either. Sorry Lunacy!

Audience member: If the faerie queen dies, do you get out of the contract?

Jim: If the faerie queen dies do you get out of the contract? No. You just have a different faerie queen show up to…I mean, the faerie queen is an office, it’s not a person, uh, so, I mean, Lily found that out the hard way, you know, so…

More from MarsCon:

Segment 3:
Interviewer: All right, let’s uh, let’s go to the audience because I…we’re going to be flooded here. First one up.

Audience Member: Uh, how did you come up with your characters? Why did you choose Chicago?

Jim: Okay, how did I come  up with my characters, and why did I choose Chicago. Um, for Harry Dresden himself, uh, I put him together following a checklist that a, that my writing teacher had on a worksheet that was for one of her lectures, and the lecture was entitled, “How to Construct a Protagonist” And, uh, basically, I wanted to prove to her how wrong she was about everything. So, one semester I said, “Okay, this semester, I’m just going to be your good little writing monkey, I’m going to fill out all your worksheets, and doo all the things, and you’re going to see what terrible, awful, cookie-cutter, pablum crap comes out of that kind of writing process. Uh, which is when I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files. (Laughter)

Interviewer: So have you noticed that Jim’s whole writing career is basically him saying f^$% you to everyone else out there? (Laughter)

Jim: YEAH! Yeah, I’ve…uh, that’s why I try not to be the guy who takes myself too seriously because, you know, I’m basically this idiot that’s just stumbled into things, and uh, gotten a little bit lucky and then…at least, I like to think that I’d recognized that I’d gotten lucky and worked really hard to make it happen. But, but Harry Dresden, the name itself, I was watching TV one night and there were, uh…I had just watched a videotape of one of my favorite movies at the time, which was Cast a Deadly Spell, (applause), yeah, which is a fun movie, and uh, the tape had started skipping, or not skipping but it had gotten, it would stop, and I would rewind it and try to play past it and it wouldn’t go past, but at this part where, in that movie where the guy goes, uh, the main character, Fred Ward’s character, uh, H. Philip Lovecraft shows up to uh, to the gangster bar, and the gangster, the gangster’s henchman comes walking up to him and says, ‘(sneering voice) Harry wants to see you.’ And Fred Ward goes, ‘Oh. Harry wants to see me.’ ‘Harry wants to see you now.’ And what I got to hear about six times as I tried to fast forward past the stuck part of the tape was ‘Harry wants to see me. Harry wants to see me. Harry wants to see’ like that.  And then I said, ‘Okay, the heck with that, I’m going to try and find something on normal television, which I hate, because there’s commercials. And, uh, so I’m skipping through channels, it’s like eleven thirty on a Friday night in Kansas City, and I actually find a channel that’s showing reruns of Babylon 5. So it’s like, ‘Okay, acceptable.’ (Laughter) And, uh, I’m watching the episode of Amazon 5 (sic), and, with this ‘Harry wants to see…’ stuck in my head, and then Box Lightner (sp?) is on there playing his character with (deep voice) the gravelly Box Lightner voice, and he’s there talking about various military attacks that have happened throughout history, and one of the attacks that he mentions as he’s going through this monologue is (deep voice) Dresden. ‘Harry wants to’ Dresden, it’s just stuck in my head. ‘Harry wants’ Dresden, okay fine, Harry Dresden, character name, get out of my head. (Laughter) And that’s where the name came from. Um, when I put the character together, I said, ‘Okay, this guy is a wizard detective.’ Uh, so I said, ‘Okay, let’s take a wizard. Gandalf. Let’s take a detective. Sherlock.’ I mean, come on, I could not get any more obvious in terms of picking archetypical choices, and I started pulling attributes from each of them. So I made him tall and skinny like Sherlock, and grumpy like Gandalf, you know, smart and grumpy like Gandalf, and uh, that was pretty much where the character came from. Um, Murphy, I needed somebody who was gonna be sort of an ally-slash-antagonist in the first book, uh, and I’d been really impressed at an aikido demonstration at OU that year, that I’d seem maybe two weeks before where this little, 5 foot tall woman, 5 foot tall, she was 5’ tall, maybe 45, called three of the defensive linemen from OU up onto the stage as part of the demonstration, and said, like, ‘Okay, tackle me.’ And she just dumped these guys everywhere. I mean, it was just flying arms and legs, and she’d like, she’d throw them all on the floor and then like, ‘And now I run away. Okay, get up and do it again.’  Whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp. ‘And now I run away.’ Whomp whomp whomp whomp whomp, ‘And now I run away.’ Like that. And I was like, ‘Wow, that is so cool!’ so Murphy was born there. Um, Bob the Skull was an inside joke between me and my writing teacher. Uh, I was working on Chapter Two or Three, and she’s like, ‘Okay, you’re going to have to be explaining how some of this magic works.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this character, this assistant character who I think is going to be working with Harry who’s going to help him. And Harry’s going to consult with him and so we’ll be able to get…you know, I’ll be able to use the joy of idiocy principle to get, uh, information dispersed there.’ And she was like, ‘Well, okay, fine, do that, as long as you don’t make him a talking head.’  (Laughter) Which is writing craft for a character who shows up and spews information but otherwise has no other role. Uh, so, I uh, made him a literal talking head named Bob, and when I showed up with that chapter and she read it she looks at me and says, ‘You think you’re very clever, don’t you?’ (Laughter) Um, and it…almost all of them come from stuff like that. Um, some characters are…I only needed for a minute, some characters that I only needed for a minute were actually too cool and I had to keep them. Uh, Butters. (Applause) And, uh, there’s still…there are characters who surprise me with how memorable or how difficult or how surly they are in terms of trying to get them to do what I need them to do. Uh, but…again…now I kind of grab characters when they…when the mood strikes me and I try to recycle a lot, uh, because, you  know, I went to a lot of work to try to create these people and so by God, I’m going to get my mileage out of them.  Plus, it’s more fun when you get to see folks show up again. Morty the ectomancer who was originally a throw away character, but know you, at the same time, I’m sitting here thinking you know, I’m going to be having Dresden running around as a ghost, I think I’ve got to get that ectomancer back in here. I mean, I went to all the trouble of making him, so you know, he’ll be, uh, he’ll be playing a role in the upcoming book.

Interviewer: All right, uh, saw a hand over here

Audience member: Um, could you explain free will to us from Bob’s perspective?

Jim: Free will from Bob’s perspective? Bob thinks free will is a complete illusion, uh, since he doesn’t really have it. Um, it’s a conceit that mortals have to make themselves feel like they can be in control of things. Uh, but really, it doesn’t actually exist, that’s Bob’s take on it.  But then again, Bob doesn’t really have free will, he’s sort of…

Audience member: He said that Lash got it.

Jim: What?

Audience member: He said that Lash got it.

Jim: Lash isn’t Bob.

Audience member: Well, no, but he [Bob] said that Lash got, obtained free will.

Jim: Yeah, Bob doesn’t have to tell the truth to Dresden! (Laughter) I mean, come on! Bob offered it as a possible explanation, but you know, Bob’s essentially…he’s a theoretician. That’s what he does… ‘Explain this’ , ‘Okay, maybe it was this, I don’t know.’ But yeah, he tries to stay out of the whole, anything like, anything that verges on morality, Bob tries to avoid uh, you know, speaking with any authority on because he doesn’t have any compass himself. It all depends on who actually happens to be in possession of the skull at the time.

Interviewer: Let’s go over this way. Anyone over…yeah.

Audience member: When you play City of Heroes as Dresden, does he have a hat?

Jim: He does not. (Laughter) And the number one question I get asked when I play City of Heroes as Dresden is, “Where’s his hat?” (Thumps his head with the microphone)

Interviewer: (pointing), Uh, blue shirt

Audience member: Yes, what happens when Bob gets let out of his skull?

Jim: Uh, when Bob gets let out of his skull? Um, whatever he can get away with, basically. That’s why Dresden’s usually careful to throw some terms on there. Although, uh, depending on who lets him out and what gets done…we’re going to have some more fun with that next book, I’m not going to say anything else.

Interviewer: (Pointing) Yeah

Audience member: Why does Toot-toot keep getting bigger?

Jim: Why does Toot-toot keep getting bigger?

(Different) audience member: Pizza! (Laughter)

Jim: Yeah, okay, that’s a good answer. (Laughter) Because I’m not going to tell you.  Um, I will tell you, however, that the Sidhe don’t start out as Sidhe, and leave it at that.

Segment 4:


Q&A, Segment 4

Audience Member: Can you talk at all about the importance of Harry’s penchant for giving names [Names?] to characters and objects in the story that didn’t have a name [Name?] before he took care of that?

Jim: Um, can I talk about the importance…how important it is to Dresden to give things names [Names?] when he doesn’t have one. So if he doesn’t have a name for something or it’s just too difficult to pronounce he can just call it Shagnasty and leave it at that. (Laughter) Um. Dresden…well, in terms of him doing it himself, I think it’s part of human nature. Really, if we ran into something that didn’t have a name, we come up with a name for it right quick. You know, I mean, it’s not…you can see, I think you see this mostly demonstrated ably online a lot.  It’s not just enough to say that you got beaten by the other team. It’s like you got beaten by them while they were rolling on the floor laughing. You were ROFL-stomped. (Laughter) And…we come up with these names for things, especially in English because English is such a thug language, we’ll just, we’ll just take from anybody. I think there’s some sort of academy in France where their like, ‘Okay, we have to approve or not approve the new possible words that we’re going to have.’ English, no, we will make them up left and right, and I’ve made up some occasionally, and you know, I think every family has a little bit of their own language that you know, that they’ll have some word that they made up that has significance to them, uh, and not necessarily anybody else. As far as…we need to name things, we need to understand what their role is. Dresden in particular is somebody who grew up without any solidity, without any concrete foundation underneath him.  And I think that is….probably a reflection of that in his character in that he really does need to have things ordered in his own head, because they never are in the real world, and naming things helps with that.

Interviewer: I always saw that as another one of the travis-mcgee ()  traits that you borrowed.

Jim: Uh, possibly. I don’t know, did he do that a lot?

Interviewer: Maybe not consciously.

Jim: Oh, I steal things left and right, unconsciously, all the time. Bob the Skull is like my own subconscious, in some ways. And uh, he would merrily steal things left and right, with no compunction whatsoever. Yeah, every time I think I’ve come up with something bright and new and original, uh, I find out I haven’t. It’s like, Bob the Skull, I thought that was great, great and new and (laughing) you know, and then I watched the opening sequence to Scooby-Doo and went, ‘Oh.’ (Laughter) Like, the very first thing in Scooby-Doo.

Audience member: Do you have any plans to, uh, make a sequel or make another ZOMG Zombie Apocalypse for City of Heroes?

Jim: Oh, do I have any plans to make another uh, module for City of Heroes? Uh, I wrote a City of Heroes module, it’s called ZOMG Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse Now, is what it’s called, and…uh, where you have to go out and fight zombies. Uh, and it’s…there’s a lot of zombie fighting involved, and it’s intricate. You’ll just have to believe me, you’ll just have to trust me, if you don’t play City of Heroes. Uh, I wold like to write some more, except that I’ve got this editor, uh, who, while being a perfectly sweet person and just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, really does want to have her book in. So I’ll try to focus on it, I’ve got a…it’ll have to be after this next project gets done.

Interviewer: Yeah, you’re upset enough about July. Don’t make him push it back further. (Laughter)

Jim: I KNOW, RIGHT?!

Audience member: Not now, but ever?

Jim: Yeah, at some point I’d like to.

Audience member: You’re not making Codex Alera any more……(Laughter)

Interviewer: [something unintelligible, to Jim]

Jim: Yes, yes I do.

Interviewer: (Pointing) Greg!

Greg: Yo, I just wanted to thank you (?) I was on a plane when I read the line, “Harry, you stole a Warden’s cloak?” and I’m, I cracked up laughing, and I was unable to explain to everyone that you had been building up to that joke for about four books. (Laughter) [Untelligible] because of you, I have met an Air Marshal. (Laughter and applause)

Jim: I’ve got my own TSA story to go along with that. Um, I was going…well, I do a lot of travelling when they send me on the tour, and I was on the tour last year and I was coming back from San Diego, and I’d been get…occasionally folks will come up and give me gifts, and if they’re small enough, I can accept them ‘cuz then I can fit them into my stuff, and somebody had given me a hand carved, intricately hand carved oak wand, apparently on the assumption that I was a Wiccan, but I thanked them very kindly for it.  It’s on my Harry Dresden swag shelf at home. But it had a pointy end, and the TSA they stopped and they opened my bag and they held up the wand and the agent, very serious and dour agent, holds up the wand, looks at me and says, ‘What’s this?’ And I said, ‘(Disbelievingly) It’s a magic wand. Obviously.’ (Laughter) And the guy kept, the guy kinda looks at me, and I look back at him (nods, innocently and with a serious face) (Laughter). And apparent, I don’t know, I don’t know, because he couldn’t give me really a hard time, uh, maybe he also assumed I was a Wiccan and didn’t want to infringe upon my rights, because he just goes, like, ‘Okay’ and puts it back in the bag. (Laughter)

Audience Member: [something unintelligible possibly a compliment to do with Murphy] (Applause)

Jim: Ok, thank you.

Audience member: …now I know that they’re talking Martian.

Jim: Yes, yes, and actually, Shannon helped me with that one, she’s been learning Martian for many years. And occasionally I can say, ‘How you doing, honey?’ and she’ll go, ‘Unh,’ which means, ‘Not so good, leave me alone.’ And I know that, and she knows that, that’s ‘cuz she’s cool, she’s learned that.

Audience Member: So, have any of your kids shown interest in writing?

Jim: Um, I’ve got the boy, and, uh, has he shown an interest in writing? Um, his…we did our first…Shannon and I did our first, like, tandem interview over the phone one day, and he came home from school and the dog made a lot of noise and I had to stop the  interview while that was happening and they’re like, ‘What’s going on’ ‘Oh, my son just came home from school.’ ‘Do you mind if I ask him a question?’ ‘No, go ahead’ and he’s like, they’re like,  ‘What do you think about your mom and your dad, you know, they’re both authors, I mean, that’s really a remarkable thing…’ and J kinda smiles and says, ‘You know, if these two could do it I’m…I really don’t know how remarkable it could be.” (Laughter) Cruises right on out of the room, I mean, he didn’t even blink coming up with that answer. We’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s the boy.’ And uh, he’s getting ready for school, he’s originally thinking he wants to go into medicine, I think it’s just because he wants to hear, you know, he wanted to be a trauma surgeon, originally, it was just because he wanted to hear, ‘Dr. Butcher to Emergency, Dr. Butcher” I think that’s what he wanted, and then he got a taste of exactly what pre-med students have to go through and med students and interns and so on and so at the moment I think he’s working on computers and he says, ‘You know, I’m going to go to school and…’ one night he sits down with me and he says, ‘Dad, you know, I’m going to go to school and I’m going to get this degree, and, uh, then I’m going to decide that I just want to be a writer!’ and I’m like ‘Well, the hours are good, uh, and you get to wear great clothes.’ As a writer that’s the best part of the job is that I can do it in my PJs.  So, who knows, he might be writing himself one day, I told him he has to read books if he wants to do it though and he’s like, ‘Aww!’ (slumps backwards in his chair) (Laughter)

Interviewer: Does he read your books?

Jim: Um, oh, oh no. He read Alera, he read Alera, because he was smart enough to understand that when I was writing about Tavi I was writing about him, but uh, other than that, no.  He does…he likes the, uh, gaming books, anything that’s written up on you know, Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer, he snaps those up, but other than that….

Interviewer: (Pointing) In the back.

Audience member: Of all the cities you could pick, why Chicago?

Jim: Why Chicago. Ok, why Chicago? Um, because, when I turned the first chapter into my teacher she said, ‘Jim, I know that I told you to do something similar to what Laura Hamilton was doing befacuse that was what you’d been suggesting, that was what you kept holding up as what you liked’, ‘cause I really loved the first five or six Anita books, and uh, she says, ‘But, uh, you know, really, you’re close enough to what she’s doing without also setting the story in Missouri.’ She says, ‘You can’t use Kansas City. Find somewhere else.’ And, uh, on the globe on her desk there were four cities, uh, in the United States that were on the globe. Uh, er, no there were three cities. Uh, one, no, excuse me, there were four. One was Washington, D.C., which I didn’t want to write, because if you write Washington D.C. you have to write politics, and if you write politics you alienate half your audience at least. (Laughter) One was New York; I didn’t want to write New York because the Fantastic Four and Spiderman have got that all sewn up pretty good.  One of them was Los Angeles, which I didn’t want to write because, uh, I just didn’t want to learn about Los Angeles. And uh, the other city…the remaining city was Chicago, and I said, ‘Okay, can I use Chicago?  I know it’s on the river and all, the same river as St. Louis, but can I use Chicago?’ She’s like, ‘Yes, Chicago will be fine.’  That was why I chose Chicago, because otherwise she would not have let me have a good grade.

Harry probably does laundry-- either it got done by his Summer Court cleaning service, or Harry uses a laundromat.  Washing machines are not, in general, complex and overly reliant on delicate electronics. Or, rather, they don't have to be, and those at a laundromat probably wouldn't be.  Another alternative is that he could do his washing by hand. Yes, by hand-- they still sell mechanical 'washing machines' for use in a sink.

....though thankfully, Carna is hardly a world without sin.

...He'll forever be Homer Hickam to me (from October Sky).
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing-- he was cute as a geek-- but I wouldn't tackle him on the street.

Regarding Justins potential Death Curse...


"From here on you shall ALWAYS take cold showers!"

unending guilt & self-recrimination?

Except that there had to be. The ice -never- reached the tropics.....and the polar regions never became vacation spots for Floridians.

I beg to differ.  The poles have been nearly tropical (climatically) in the past, and there's quite a bit of research that suggests that the tropics have been, at the very least, quite cold (some say icebound, some say open water during the summer) at various points during the Earth's past. (Granted, it's been moderate for the last million years or so, but the Eocene was quite warm. Think crocodiles in the Arctic ocean.)

Mab is powerful on par with some lesser deities and the archangels.
Ms. Duck kindly threw a monkey wrench into the gears of reality by suggesting (in a thread, called, IIRC, "DISPROVE THIS" (caps included)) that Mab was, originally, Molly Carpenter.  (Molly would have to have been thrown quite a ways backward in time, then done a some sort of ascension rite to become one of the Queens.)

So.
That's how we got to Molly being a demigod.
Crazy. But, well, try to conclusively disprove it!