Jump to content

Dresden Files (most recent thread is archived) Peace Talks is finished


Ser Scot A Ellison

Recommended Posts

11 hours ago, Werthead said:

I suspect they talked him around by noting that two novels at half the size would result in more money than one novel at the larger size.

That is unquestionably the case.  But, you know, if you are a member of this board I'm prepared to bet you would pay a significant fraction of your monthly disposable income in return for a chapter of Winds of Winter every month.  Is that the standard authors should be adopting towards their fans? I know this was your implicit point Wert but I can't resist expressing my irritation and disappointment.  

A shoddily edited, uneven book that took six years divided into two for mercenary reasons? Fuck Penguin and shame on Jim.  He's a smart guy and I'm sure he realized that fans would be disappointed which is why he tried to get Battle Grounds released at the same time. 

But he failed at that too, and frankly tweeting out a fan petition is a lame attempt to compensate for at least standing up for simultaneous release of his novels.  Does anyone know who his editor is at Penguin?

P.S. checked reviews on Amazon.  Not surprised the hive mind has come to the same conclusion.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Spaßvogel said:

Well, I think this is a massive overreaction.  Noticing is not automatically "perving" and it would be less realistic if he didn't notice.  Hips are another obvious form of maturity.  Noticing that she's started growing up does not automatically mean he's picturing it as something sexual.  "Time flies" is the whole point of that mention. 

You keep saying "another obvious form of maturity". But it's the only one Harry notices. And while you're keeping the discussing firmly on Ivy, do you want to tell me how his noticing a teenage Molly's breasts books ago, and noticing how good Hope looks in this book, is also just about noticing their maturity?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

In an interview a few months back Butcher said that it was his publishers who balked when he presented them with a 300,000-word manuscript and they said that an urban fantasy novel couldn't be that long.

Given Butcher's sales (at least 6 million, and that seems to be on the low end), his long tail and the money he's made for his publishers, I extremely doubt this is the case and he could have forced them to accept 300,000 words. I suspect they talked him around by noting that two novels at half the size would result in more money than one novel at the larger size.

Yeah indeed, I don't buy the excuse, Butcher is definitely no lightweight. Though honestly I don't know if this decision will make them more money in the long term. I honestly wasn't prepared for how intensely Peace Talks has soured on me. I said earlier that the more I think about this book the less I like it and that's still and ongoing process. As an indication of how down on Peace Talks I am at this point I'm very much in to having physical copies and I really like having complete sets of things but... I'm really feeling like it's just a waste of money to go out and buy the hardback; I mean it is partly poverty and covid, but it's mostly just how shitty I feel about the book. Also there's no reason to think Battle Ground won't be of similar (disappointing) quality and equally a mess since both are equally a product of the original Peace Talks manuscript and subsequent hack-job + rewrite, and that leaves me wondering about the future of the series. Is this what we're gonna see more of? Are Butcher and his publishers gonna pull this shit out again in a few years? Just because I'm 16 books deep doesn't mean I won't bail out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/16/2020 at 11:34 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

Yes, for me Ghost Story, Skin Game, and Cold Days are fairly low on my totem pole. In the end, they're keeping Harry from his supporting cast and actually being a part of the Chicago nightlife. Here, he's got an actual place in the city and once more involved with the power blocks as well as people in the place. Peace Talks feels like Harry is once more a part of events going on and doesn't end with an enormous dungeon crawl in another dimension.

 

  Hide contents

Mind you, Battle Grounds may destroy the Masquerade but we'll have to see.

 

 

On 7/17/2020 at 6:46 AM, Eric Cartman said:

It's surprising to me that Cold Days is rated that highly. For me the top 3 are

1. Changes - Probably the best of all finale's. And the book which shifts the series altogether. Blends the epicness and human side brilliantly.

2. Turn Coat - That intro and lots of game changing events, a demon of a book ;-/

3. Dead Beat - Can't beat a book with a t-Rex in it! 

I'll probably have Proven Guilty and Summer Knight to complete Top 5. 

 

On 7/17/2020 at 9:09 AM, fionwe1987 said:

But while Dresden is back in the city, the book doesn't really feel like he dwells there. Molly's apartment could be an expensive hotel, for all the lived-in feel it has (none). 

And it really passes belief that the White Council just let things be for the few months since Skin Game when Harry has been living openly in Chicago. They knew he was alive all the way back in Cold Days, from the Gatekeeper. 

Why wait this long to confront the fact that a senior Warden is now the Winter Knight, and the Warden of Demonreach? Discussions for these Peace Talks must have been going on for a while, right? Why not confront the Dresden problem before that, rather than let him potentially destroy the Peace Talks with his typical irresponsible behavior (as his enemies in the Council see it)?

I can go on and on. The whole thing feels like someone with only a passing understanding of the previous events in the series wrote it. Like someone read the plot summaries for those novels and then wrote this one. 

Yeah, agree with Fionwe. I didn't get the at-home sense from this book - nor did I get it in SG, CD, or GS. I don't think that's disqualifying for a book; I like Cold Days because we learn *so much* in that book - about the concept of mantles, about the nature of immortals, about the Fae, about Vadderung, about Demonreach and the nature of it, about the nature and role of the Winter Knight, about Outsiders and the Outer Gates and the Enemy and the larger forces moving the world and driving the plot... that's the stuff I love in fantasy, so it rates highly for me. I will say that while those top 3 are pretty clear (Dead Beat, Turn Coat, Cold Days), and Ghost Story, Storm Front, and Fool Moon are a clear bottom three (with Grave Peril close), I have a reasonably high opinion of the other 8 books - they generally sit closer to the top 3 than the bottom 4. But I suspect I'm an outlier, when it comes to fantasy, I'd rather read a history book than a character study in many ways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Poobah said:

Yeah indeed, I don't buy the excuse, Butcher is definitely no lightweight. Though honestly I don't know if this decision will make them more money in the long term. I honestly wasn't prepared for how intensely Peace Talks has soured on me. I said earlier that the more I think about this book the less I like it and that's still and ongoing process. As an indication of how down on Peace Talks I am at this point I'm very much in to having physical copies and I really like having complete sets of things but... I'm really feeling like it's just a waste of money to go out and buy the hardback; I mean it is partly poverty and covid, but it's mostly just how shitty I feel about the book. Also there's no reason to think Battle Ground won't be of similar (disappointing) quality and equally a mess since both are equally a product of the original Peace Talks manuscript and subsequent hack-job + rewrite, and that leaves me wondering about the future of the series. Is this what we're gonna see more of? Are Butcher and his publishers gonna pull this shit out again in a few years? Just because I'm 16 books deep doesn't mean I won't bail out.

I think once authors hit such a delay and release a book years late and it still sells gangbusters, they realise their publishers (who were often guilting them into writing a book a year by saying they can't lose momentum without losing sales etc) were full of it and it's very hard to go back to that mode again, especially if you are many years older and have other stuff going on in your life, as Butcher clearly has (Robert Jordan had the same thing, and GRRM if of a different type). It'd be interesting to see if he gets back to a book a year but I'd be surprised if he did. Sometimes authors lose focus with a book written over a long period of time rather than one they've written in a white heat in a few months.

I have no particular skin in that game though. I bailed on the series after seven books because Butcher was just rearranging plot coupons in different formations from book to book and his prose was profoundly mediocre. There's much better urban fantasy series out there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Such as? genuinely curious.  

Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series and Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift series both immediately come to mind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Better? Perhaps but I don't always want "better" I just want a book that is comfortable, fun, and can be re-read. Peace Talks is a nice pair of slippers I've enjoyed and am glad about it. Am I upset about the fact it's clearly just part 1 of a two part book? A little but it's a couple of months until Battle Ground so I'm not letting it rub me the wrong way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Werthead said:

In an interview a few months back Butcher said that it was his publishers who balked when he presented them with a 300,000-word manuscript and they said that an urban fantasy novel couldn't be that long.

Given Butcher's sales (at least 6 million, and that seems to be on the low end), his long tail and the money he's made for his publishers, I extremely doubt this is the case and he could have forced them to accept 300,000 words. I suspect they talked him around by noting that two novels at half the size would result in more money than one novel at the larger size.

In fact, Jim Butcher forced them to release Battle Grounds two months after Peace Talks. They originally wanted to release it the next year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

In fact, Jim Butcher forced them to release Battle Grounds two months after Peace Talks. They originally wanted to release it the next year.

That's insane.  Was his editor high?  I would love to know what exactly went down between publisher and author.  It's fair to hold them jointly and severally responsible though. 

And CT, I get that your reaction to the book was very different.  But I suspect you are in a minority at least based on public reactions.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/20/2020 at 12:00 AM, Gaston de Foix said:

That's insane.  Was his editor high?  I would love to know what exactly went down between publisher and author.  It's fair to hold them jointly and severally responsible though. 

And CT, I get that your reaction to the book was very different.  But I suspect you are in a minority at least based on public reactions.  

1. Jim at least says that he wanted the books released simultaneously but his publishers said that they would only release them months apart as a compromise.

It makes sense because they wanted a new Dresden Files book 100% guaranteed in the pipes.

2. Eh, I get people wanted the whole story at once myself. I just am so glad to have Harry back. It's like the return of a long lost friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/21/2020 at 4:41 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

1. Jim at least says that he wanted the books released simultaneously but his publishers said that they would only release them months apart as a compromise.

It makes sense because they wanted a new Dresden Files book 100% guaranteed in the pipes.

2. Eh, I get people wanted the whole story at once myself. I just am so glad to have Harry back. It's like the return of a long lost friend.

I finished the book yesterday.  The “threesome” stuff was really gratuitous and unnecessary.  The book does seem unfinished and missing something.  I hope the conclusion will be satisfactory.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur with most of the criticismss. Book way too short and unresolved for the price.

The peace talks were a big let down. The threesome-stuff was eye-rolling.

In fairness, at least Butcher hasn’t gone down the route urban fantasy writers often do and turn it into porn.

Battle Ground had better deliver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, this was quick popcorn fun. Yea, there are all those hanging plot hooks, etc., but at this point I don't really expect the over-arching plot to be terribly coherent and satisfying. Among other things because I fear that
 

Spoiler

 

Mab and Murphy are for the chop, so that Harry and Molly can be together forever. I'd find it skeevy, but also really meh from the world-building perspective.

I am still annoyed that Murphy was denied knighthood so that Butters could become a wish-fulfillment insert and now, after a couple of months of training also a great swordsman, somehow.  All while still keeping his regular job too, IIRC. What is that TV-trope called again?  

Oh, and if Mab is really Nimue, are _all_ Fae Queens actually former humans? Is it how it works, that no true Fae can apply? Odd how the rule of sorcerous abilities becoming more powerful and refined with age doesn't come into play for them. And I just had a thought - is the one prisoner of Demonreach who is just sleeping the original Merlin? Is this how "trapped in a tree" happened in this world?

BTW, the book does explain why Harry didn't ask Thomas any of the appropriate questions - Thomas was first so battered that he couldn't talk and then too consumed by his Hunger. Not that it excuses other issues.

 

 

As to the "plot-of-the-book", I feel that the excuses for why Harry can't ever have decent backing for anything and has to constantly enlist his small circle of friends and frenemies have worn thin long time ago. And the higher the stakes, the more incongrous it gets. But I am prepared to roll with it - I just can't take the books particularly seriously anymore, so I am fine with them, as long as they are snappy enough. To be fair, most (all?) urban fantasy series and a lot of SF in general tends to suffer from this contrivance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

What do you mean?

Exactly what I said. Both Ladies of the Fae Courts are young(ish) even by human standards, leave alone Fae ones, yet it is not seen as a detriment power-wise. And apparently no proper Fae were in consideration for the mantle(s) for some reason. And now we know that

Spoiler

even Mab is relatively young as far as Fae ages go and must have become a Queen at a much younger age still. I guess that Harry's rhapsodising about how powerful old men become indeed only applies to _men_ and plays no role for powerful  women, because they have to remain pretty enough for Harry (and the male reader) to salivate over them. Or something. Note that Luccio's experience didn't translate into power in the new body either, despite what Harry says here.

Anyway, I have read the free story "Christmas Eve" that takes place after the events of Peace Talks/Battle Ground and spoilers:

Spoiler

Murphy is totally toast, even though it is not spelled out explicitely. Sigh. That would be the second fridging of Harry's female love interest and we are getting into unpleasant trope territory hard. Mab is yet alive, but if Molly is the end game, then according to that other short story from Brief Cases, she has to either replace her eventually or divest the Winter Lady mantle somehow. If she does the latter, it will be the third straight de-powering of a woman before she can get together with Harry in a row - after Luccio's transmigration of souls  and Murphy's maiming and loss of the Sword, which is equally problematic. If the former, either Mab or Granny Winter will have to bite it, and we'll have to engage in massive suspension of disbelief re: Molly's ability to carry the role with so little preparation. Sigh. Hopefully, Butters is one of the many friends who died too and that's why he was given all the sops in PT.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Maia said:

Exactly what I said. Both Ladies of the Fae Courts are young(ish) even by human standards, leave alone Fae ones, yet it is not seen as a detriment power-wise. And apparently no proper Fae were in consideration for the mantle(s) for some reason. And now we know that

  Hide contents

even Mab is relatively young as far as Fae ages go and must have become a Queen at a much younger age still. I guess that Harry's rhapsodising about how powerful old men become indeed only applies to _men_ and plays no role for powerful  women, because they have to remain pretty enough for Harry (and the male reader) to salivate over them. Or something. Note that Luccio's experience didn't translate into power in the new body either, despite what Harry says here.

 

I don't really remember the particular time Harry thinks about this that you're talking about but I think power coming from experience is a human wizard thing. With the Fae queens/ladies the power is the mantle so it doesn't matter how old they are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I don't really remember the particular time Harry thinks about this that you're talking about but I think power coming from experience is a human wizard thing. With the Fae queens/ladies the power is the mantle so it doesn't matter how old they are.

Also, the mantle alters their personality over time; we see that with Harry and the Winter mantle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/26/2020 at 5:19 AM, Maia said:

Exactly what I said. Both Ladies of the Fae Courts are young(ish) even by human standards, leave alone Fae ones, yet it is not seen as a detriment power-wise. And apparently no proper Fae were in consideration for the mantle(s) for some reason. And now we know that

  Reveal hidden contents

even Mab is relatively young as far as Fae ages go and must have become a Queen at a much younger age still. I guess that Harry's rhapsodising about how powerful old men become indeed only applies to _men_ and plays no role for powerful  women, because they have to remain pretty enough for Harry (and the male reader) to salivate over them. Or something. Note that Luccio's experience didn't translate into power in the new body either, despite what Harry says here.

Anyway, I have read the free story "Christmas Eve" that takes place after the events of Peace Talks/Battle Ground and spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

Murphy is totally toast, even though it is not spelled out explicitely. Sigh. That would be the second fridging of Harry's female love interest and we are getting into unpleasant trope territory hard. Mab is yet alive, but if Molly is the end game, then according to that other short story from Brief Cases, she has to either replace her eventually or divest the Winter Lady mantle somehow. If she does the latter, it will be the third straight de-powering of a woman before she can get together with Harry in a row - after Luccio's transmigration of souls  and Murphy's maiming and loss of the Sword, which is equally problematic. If the former, either Mab or Granny Winter will have to bite it, and we'll have to engage in massive suspension of disbelief re: Molly's ability to carry the role with so little preparation. Sigh. Hopefully, Butters is one of the many friends who died too and that's why he was given all the sops in PT.

 

I actually think you're 100% wrong is why I brought it up.

Mab is at least 1000+ Years old and far more powerful than the White Council.

Ethniu is at least 2000+ years old and thus far more powerful than Mab.

The White Council is about 200+ or so and thus far more powerful than Harry.

So what am I missing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...