Wow thats very fast from him handing it over to being printed. I would have though 6 months minimum.

 

Well, I was actually under the impression that it had already been finished and was due for release last week...imagine my disappointment when I went into my local Waterstones and discovered just how wrong I was. According to their database it's down for release in June or July.

However, they did inform me that they already had customer copies ordered, and that if it wasn't coming out until the summer, they wouldn't be able to order it yet, so it's presumably coming out sooner than that. Amazon gives the 16th of January.

 

After rummaging through his twitter a bit, I found this...

nice.

 

Yeah... I'm pretty sure Butcher checks out fanfiction for the lulz sometimes.

 

For lulz is fine, but what if you're an author and read something with more brilliant concepts than yours. To steal or not to steal, that is the question.

 

I am not sure how serious you are being, but that can actually get a writer into a lot of trouble. I remember reading about how an episode of Babylon 5 nearly did not happen until the writer could prove that he did not get the idea from a message board and that it was just coincidence.

I believe some authors have a policy against reading any fanfiction submitted to them, to avoid that headache.

 

Jim has publicly stated that he doesn't read fanfiction because of just this issue. Someone probably just mentioned it to him over Twitter or something.

 

That fic has an enormous entry at TVTropes, so he might have caught it through there.

 

That's rather absurd because it means you can't read any discussion about your fiction, not just fanfics.

 

Plausible deniability, guys.

 

Dresden Files Fandom probably isn't big enough for this to be an issue to Jim.

 

Just reread all of DF.

On the topic of the Summer/Winter Mothers. In cold days when Harry is interacting with the Mothers, there are several sly comments made by/about them, that seemed to imply there is only 1. Summer and Winter Mother are the same entity.

From reading all the WoG and having just read the books back to back over about 10 weeks, I thought I'd try to flesh out that idea here.

I think an important factor is that Harry is an unreliable narrator.

It was said there has only ever been one Mother Winter, but Two Mother Summers.

Now if there is only one Mother, she is either choosing to appear as two to Harry, or thats how he sees her. It would also explain why the Winter Fae are so differential to Mother Summer at the Gate.

Now either there has always and only ever been one, and she rules over all, but keeps several facets of her personality (Summer/Winter)

Or, as said, there was a Mother Summer who is no more. This goes in with Fae not lying.

One situation I could see is originally there was only the two Mothers, no Queens, No Ladies. They were powerful, but seeing the Oblivion war, and the war with the outsiders, and the rise of Mortals, they thought their power needed to be diffused a bit more (Or someone thought this for them)

So Mother Summer was taken to the Stone table, killed and had her power split between, the Mantles of the Queens, Ladies and Knights. Allowing for beings of lesser power to be able to interact with the mortal world, safe guarding the power of the Fae and helping to prevent their own oblivion and the loss of the Outer Gates.

So Mother Winter is left, making the persona of Mother Summer and the Fae courts get increased power in the Mortal world.

This plan might of been made with or with out Mother Summers consent.

We know if you're to powerful, you just cant interact with the Mortal world, so by diffusing your power, you, in ways, increase it.

 

I do agree that Mother Summer and Mother Winter are probably one entity in two bodies, but I suspect that these two bodies are of the previous Queens. Well, at least on of them because Mother Winter could be the Mother from the beginning and never was called a Winter Queen.

As for what one entity, it's probably Mother Nature/Mother Earth.

 

I thought the Fae were just Aliens who took the mantles Summer/Winter. I'd guess Earth is a different being.

 

No Fae and humans are both of earth, outsiders are the aliens.

 

Outsiders are from outside the Universe. Aliens are from other planets, still in this Universe.

 

I think its been established that Fae actually WERE humans. Even Mab directly states that she was mortal once. I think there is also a WoG that states that the Fae ascended to become what they are through somekind of sacrificial ritual on the stone table.

So the very first Fae basically became what they are through a ritual similar (but presumably weaker) to Darkhallow in book 7.

 

I like the idea of Summer and Winter being the same entity at their core...life is born from death and decay of previous life, and death comes to all living things. They follow each other and thematically it would be very appropriate.

 

https://twitter.com/longshotauthor/status/413713870789038080


May 27th confirmed as Skin Game's release date.

Day after my birthday. Damn good present, I think.

 

Eighteen months between books. Much better than GRRM, much worse than old school Butcher.