Just finished the book (a little over 8 straight hours since I started) and I am tired as shit. Overall, I liked it. One thing that bothered me though was how drastically and suddenly the stakes were raised in the overarching plotline. Yes, it was gratifying to learn so much more about what's really going on, but for me a big part of the series' draw was the mystery, and Harry's struggle through each book that ultimately only let him see a tiny piece of the puzzle.

We still have, what? Eight books left before the apocalyptic trilogy? Unless J.B. can come up with something even worse than an insidious, Xanatos-esque, startlingly successful existential threat to reality itself as a big bad, then a lot of awesome potential for interesting, gradual discovery and escalation just went out the window. Basically, he shined a giant spotlight on the monster lurking in the corner. Yeah, we definitely didn't see everything it's got, but it's suddenly a whole hell of a lot less frightening (and thus, less interesting). Ultimately I think J.B. may have revealed way too much for one book, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see where he takes the rest of the series.

While I loved almost all of the character interaction (especially the Harry/Thomas, Harry/Molly, and Harry/Cat Sith stuff), the Harry/Murphy angst-fluff is getting ol- no, scratch that, it has been old for a couple of books now. I used to ship Harry/Murphy, but at this point I'm just sick of seeing it go absolutlely nowhere, while simultaneously getting reassurances that it's most definitely not going anywhere else (i.e. Harry/Molly or Harry/Luccio). It could be my annoyance and tiredness talking, but now I'd honestly rather see Harry wind up with just about anyone but Murphy.

[/complaints]

Using the name Nemesis though did make me wonder if there was any connection to the Greek goddess or the concept she embodied (Retribution in the old sense of the word: divine punishment/reward). I wish I could remember off hand if some outsiders being exiled gods is Shezza!canon, LittleChicago!canon or Actual!canon...

Anyway, that's my two cents, and now I'm going to pass the fuck out.

 

I'll have to check once I get off work, but I could've sworn the entire chase he was using nothing but the Winchester. Especially since Forzare on its own isn't terribly lethal.

 

He did use Forzare, however it wasn't a direct kill - he only tripped the hound form and the sheer impact was enough to break the neck of the poor guy.

edit:
On a sidenote, it's interesting that four of the previous Winter Knights were serial killers.

 

Jim said that DF will be about twenty books, maybe a little more. Then he said that it would be cool to see Harry break every Law of Magic, one for every book before the Trilogy. Assuming he started doing it in this book that mean there are six more books.

And while I can see how it seems that we learned too much in his book, I think it will be like that from now on. Harry needs to learn these thing before the Apocalypse starts, so he can actually prepare himself for it.

I also think that Jim plans to diminish the Outsiders as a threat. Make them more familiar to us (and Harry), so we think that we know what we should expect from them. And then he will start the Apocalypse and show how much worse they are.

I think it counts as a direct killing or at least the White Council would see it as that. I mean, he used the spell on the guy and the result was his death.

Actually, I think that Butcher was talking about something similar when explaining the Laws of Magic. Something about using a spell to make a person to fall off a building, I think. But I don't remember if he said it counts as breaking the Law or not.

 

On the other hand, what he was aiming at was, as far as Dresden could tell at the time, a supernatural threat - it could have been a fae, a white court vampire or some other predator who joined the hunt... I guess the only problem resulting from this will be due to Dresden's conscience.

 

Yea, in the situation described there, it would definitely count as a violation of the First Law. It was an example Butcher used, where you throw someone off a building with magic, to say that indirect killing is just as damaging as direct. I just can't remember him actually doing it.

Edit: Bukay, that's entirely dependent on whether or not Black Magic Corruption (tm) is a distinct entity, or if it's psychological. I want to say Butcher has said it's the former, and that the killer's perception has nothing to do with whether or not it's actually Black Magic (especially in the eyes of the Council), but I can't be sure.

 

Seems like a bit of a difficult situation in regards to the first law, but some of the Council would probably still jump at the chance to try him for it regardless considering his past. Then again, I'm still not sure what his status is with the Council is considering he is the Winter Knight. Rashid said he'd get him back into the Council, but somehow I don't think they'd be really eager to get on Mab's bad side. Then again, they've proven somewhat zealous about that stuff in the past.

Also on the Laws of Magic note - I figure Harry's reintroduction to the Council is going to go very poorly. Winter Knight thing aside, he could probably get into some trouble over the fifth law (Thou shalt not reach beyond the Borders of Life) and make them absolutely freak out the Senior Council if it got back to them that he was seen at the Outer Gates, assuming they know about them. Guess it goes back to what his legal status with them is again.

 

I don't think it matters what his legal status is with the White Council. His diplomatic status overrides it. The White Council wouldn't take him out unless they felt like they could do so without repercussions from Mab.

Still eagerly anticipating seeing the "average wizard" point of view of Harry after the Red Court affair, becoming Winter Knight and now, having been associated with the death of ANOTHER two Faerie Queens.

 

I haven't read the posts in this thread yet, but I'm just going to type my first thoughts, having just finished it.

The shit with Sarrisa was stupid. It was obvious that her purpose was for something, but she just seems like a throw in, especially being the twin of Maeve.

Sooooo many goddamn pop culture references, at least as many as there were pages in the book. A couple dozen star wars refences, and that fucking line 'rumors of my death..." And the one that Dresden didn't catch from bob 'the special kind of hell' - is that a reference to Firefly? Shephard Book says that in the episode 'Our Mrs. Reynolds'. Or perhaps that is referencing the original source as well. Seriously though, it was tedious, and sometimes there'd be a dozen on one page. Hell, he even mentioned tweeting. Enough is enough already, it doesn't make the book more popular with the 'in' crowd and it's a terrible fan service.

Other than that, the book was pretty fucking epic.

Stuff with Kringle was Awesome. Him being revealed as Odin??? at the end was a huge mindfuck, but awesome. The scene in the very beginning with Kringle, Gruff, and Erlking was pretty sweet.

And Harry taking the reins of the wild hunt. Probably the most epic shit in the series so far, even more so than riding a t-rex.

Stuff with Cat Sith was Awesome as well, especially the fight in the garden. Name is just a huge setup for a billion star wars jokes though. I don't think Sith is even pronounced the same way.

Stuff with the Gatekeeper was great. I'm not a huge fan of most of the faerie stuff in the stories, but the explanations behind some of the roles was quite interesting. I think I'm finally starting to like the Demonreach stuff now. Before, it was just bleh, but the whole thing with the prison and the original Warden is neat. I'm still not sure how the whole complicated thing about not being to comprehend what sort of attack was going on, the whole time/4th dimension thing that Harry had to combat... I'm not really sure how that meant anything in the end when the actual fight was happening. It was a normal fight.

Stuff I don't get. The 'parasite' within Dresden, I'm not so sure that that parasite and the parasite 'nemesis' are the same thing. The one in Dresden is the remnants of the Fallen, isn't it? That's how the whole thing in the previous book got setup, him making a decision that really wasn't his, and the headache is Lasciel in his brain doing stuff. Or am i completely wrong about that? I could see the whole Nemesis thing (stupid name) being tied to the Angel stuff though, but it seems weird that some invisible foe has been behind everything so far. I'm not sure what that means for the Black Council yet.

Mac. Some of his nicknames would seem to indicate that he is an angel of sort, or used to be.

Also, here's what I don't get, at the end. How did Molly get Maeves mantle? Since when is she a Sidhe? yes, I get the pun since Sidhe and She are pronounced the same, but it doesn't make sense with everything I've read previously, and last I remember (I reread all the books about 3 months ago) I don't remember her being a faerie or changling, and merely being trained by Lea shouldn't change that. I remember when aurora was killed, it was explained that the mantle will go to the closest vessel of winter/summer, and even Maeve says 'nearest vessel filled'. Either way, it was fairly obvious what was going to happen.

Lastly, I'm not terribly interested in Dresden's daughter at all. I think the whole thing is pretty contrived, and a lot of his actions pretty much are all instinctual now especially with the Mantle. Perhaps I'm even less interested in the potential Harry/Murphy stuff. I did noticed that she was pretty much referred by her first name for the entirety of the story, which is a sign. But seriously though, she's literally the only girl in the whole series, mortal or not, that is not described is super hot. Seriously, I get the whole thing about supernatural predators, but how effective is being hotter than a supermodel really, when everyone is like that. There's very little frame of reference, other than the direct ratio of power = hotness.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I lost like 10 hours of productivity at work this week to read it. When I first started reading it, I thought is was pretty much a parody of itself, but it got fairly awesome. It's far better than Ghost Stories, which seemed like barely more than fanfiction to me (Seriously, the whole story was pretty much Harry killed himself, except he didn't. Continue on with some additional enemies in play). It was better than any of the past 3 stories at least.

 

Not sure if the parasite bursting from Dresden's skull is literal or metaphorical.

Anarchy's post reminded me of something: that we had the whole "humans can't even begin to comprehend some things with this puny mind/language" stuff repeated at us at least 3 times in this book.

There were a few other things that had repeated explanations too.

 

Since I can sometimes take a fuckton of time to write anything... If Jon or someone else doesn't get to it first....Done.

On Topic: I loved it.

Some thoughts, in no particular order.

-References don't bother me. Nor did I ever see nearly as many as people are bitching about.
-Oh God I am SO TIRED of Murphy's Shit. I totally want Dresden to fuck her a couple times then kick her to the curb romance wise. Course he'll never do that. Damnit.
-I didn't like the Titania scene. Meeting a character of that kind of importance, with that kind of grudge against Dresden should have been a Much. Bigger. Thing. As it was the whole part was handled in a few pages with no consequences at all for Dresden besides pissing his pants a little Meh.
-I love the whole part of Dresden having to fight the Mantle. I know some people didn't like the sexualized urges part of it, but a couple of the times it was just so fucking out there and vicious that it really struck me how primal the Mantle is.
-Toot Toot being stupid for some badass Little Folk Butch Lesbian really pisses me the fuck off. I hate the whole 'men like women who are abusive towards them' shtick. Fuuuck I hate it so much.
-Cat Sith was awesome, and I let out a genuine 'awwwwww' when it was revealed that he had been Taken by Nemisis. I would love to see him given some more screen time and saved from the corruption.
-Still no Mister The Cat! WTF. Tell us what happend.


All in all... I think Butcher just didn't have the room to address every character and every side plot and every question people wanted answered. Did he handle some things sub optimally? Yeah. But not enough that I dislike the book.

I have no problem with Demonreach being The Jail for all the Dark Baddies. It kind of explains why Humanity thrived more and moreso despite the presence of Dark Powers wanting to end them. For centuries and centuries, people have been hunting those Dark Powers down and locking them away where they couldn't cause trouble again.

I actually thought it was quite awesome. And honestly think that having made it a jail for one, or just a few Big Bads would have made it much cheaper. Dresden now has direct responsibility for what would, for all intents and purposes, be The Apocalypse should Demonreach ever fail or be breached. That's a shitload of responsibility.

I really want the Parasite to be Lash. I really, really, really want it to be lash. I love it when things fuck with Dresden's head. I seriously loved Subconcious!Dresden/Lash interactions. That shit was awesome beyond belief. I would love to see Dresden modeled more like that dude.

In fact, that just gave me plot bunny for how Winter Knight Dresden/Winter Lady Molly is going to play out.

Hmmm. Lets see.

Butters: You Go Bro. Hot Curvy Redhead that is no doubt an animal(pun intended) in bed? Yes! Fuck yes!

I loved the Mother Winter bit. Where she acts like she's two words away from separating Harry's flesh from bones, and Mother Summer just basically accuses her of being 'cranky' cause she's 'lonely'. And putting up a big front. LOL.

Odin = Santa... Eh. I'm having trouble melding the two in my mind. It just makes me twitch too hard.

Anyway, yeah. Maybe more to come later.

 

The "parasite" in Ghost Story is Lash (and the Shadow is Lasciel). It's all but confirmed by Butcher in one of the Q&As that he did. He says explicitly that both show up in the book, and there's no other possible places for them to be.

My best guess for the headaches is that Lash is "regenerating" for lack of a better term. It's not unreasonable that a new, distinct entity forming in his mind would be sufficient to cause migraines and eventual death. It also makes sense that Demonreach would send him to Molly for treatment, since her first foray into magic was essentially excising parts of someone's mind.

 

Man, why is Murphy still a huge troll >.>. I thought I was getting okay with her existence, but I've regained my dislike of her character.

I felt the book was good, but not insane. I really enjoyed a lot of the humor, laughing out loud quite a few times throughout the book. Some of the plot twists seemed fairly contrived (Wild Hunt just happens to be willing to accept Dresden as the leader o.o instead of the standard join, hide, die), but in general it was interesting. Though I personally feel that Molly has basically been screwed by being forced to be the Winter Lady, this has a lot of future potential. The new characters are excellent, but freaking Murphy is making me really annoyed.

 

What if Harry is already infected by Nemesis and Lash is the parasite desperately trying to keep it contained?

 

It is, unless Demonreach started using the same word in the same context to refer to something completely different. She'll be back.

Eh, that ties into the original mythos behind Santa Claus. The short version is that when the pagan Germanic peoples were being converted to Christianity, they adopted Sinterklaas as a replacement for Odin/Wodan. It's very similar to how Christian holidays (Easter, Christmas, etc) were shifted to be on pagan Roman holy days: it makes adopting the new culture and belief system much easier for the people being converted.

 

It is corruptive in the objective sense and consequences matter more than intentions, which is the reason Molly was in so much trouble for breaking the Fourth Law. The most often cited example is pushing a guy off a building with wind or force. That is stated to be a First Law violation, so Harry using a force spell to trip up the hound-guy and break his neck is a violation.

 

That doesn't make any sense. What if you summon a gust of wind for some benign purpose, some dumbass steps in the way, gets pushed over, and breaks his neck?

Magic warping your mind retroactively just based on the consequences of your actions is ridiculous. And why is it even human-exclusive? It's not like humans hold some great moral claim to life that other species don't have (unless they actually do, wherein having a soul makes you special).

Ugh.

 

Seems like magic simply assumes you're guilty of negligent homicide and doesn't care if you could or couldn't prevent it.

And it's pretty obvious that in DF universe humans are special.

 

This, basically. That's pretty dumb. When it comes to tool usage the addage has always been the Intention of The User matters. A hammer can build a house, or it can crack a man's skull, but that doesn't make the hammer itself evil or good.

 

Unless you swing a hammer and somebody ends up dead, that's generally considered pretty evil. And that's what we're talking about here.

That said, I do agree that it would be "better" if it was more of a psychological thing, where you have to deliberately and intentionally kill someone in order to suffer any sort of backlash.

Edit: @T3t: Humans are special. The books make a very special point to emphasize that. That's what souls and free will and all that fancy shit means.