Oh, fuck, I forgot about that book. Or tried to...

 

Fixed that for you, RS.

I agree with your points though on the time skips and the lack of major Fomor presence.

 

It occurs to me that anyone who doesn't buy and read all the sidestories in there various anthologies like I do may well have not even seen the Fomor yet.

Those who have, meanwhile, have seen the faces of this new threat die three times, in embarassing ways.

Really not the best showing, given how major a threat they're constantly said to be.

 

That's another good point. I've only read one sidestory that featured the Fomor, and to be honest I don't remember much about it aside from (I think) it being from Murphy's POV and them muscling into Chicago in the wake of Changes?

 

The Fomor have appeared three times--in Even Hand, Aftermath, and Bombshells, the side stories of Marcone, Murphy, and Molly, respectively. In the first, Justine robbed them and one chased her, whereupon she asked for Marcone's protection and they clashed. The Fomor clearly had the power to crush Marcone at any time, but basically allowed himself to be killed by gloating every step of the way, making a pointless production of things instead of doing anything smart, and falling into Marcone's convoluted trap for Harry. In the second, we saw basically nothing, because Murphy snipped him. In the third, the guy was another idiot, betraying their allies for literally no reason and against orders, killing his own men for insults, choking the life out of women for the lulz, and then didn't even have the power or skill to really seem threatening. The only thing he had going for him was that he made the poison bomb the Red Court used and was prepared to unleash another one in Chicago, which is...daring, I guess. But after his cover was blown, he proved to have no way to survive the people he pissed off and ruined the entire thing.

They've been interesting in concept so far, but also lackluster.

 

I'm thinking the missing info with Carlos is in Cold Case, a short story that hasn't been published in an anthology yet.

A copy paste from the website:
“Cold Case” — short story from Shadowed Souls, edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie Hughes.
In Molly’s first job as the Winter Lady, she teams up with Ramirez to take on a Lovecraft-esque cult.
Takes place shortly after Cold Days.
Released November 1st, 2016.

 

I feel like Ivy should show up in this book since its a gathering of all the signatories of the Accords. Is time still progressing in a 1 year per book fashion? Because if so that would put Ivy right around 18 years old. It is going to be weird to see her as an adult whenever she does reappear.

 

No. Last I heard, Peace Talks is set something like 3 months after Skin Game.

 

I got that impression as well.

I don't know if Harry considers a fetus the same as a child, or just that the White Council does, but in Proven Guilty Harry says that Molly's Warlock actions protected a pregnant addict and her child, two lives that were saved by her actions. I don't know if that's how he sees it, or the Council, or even just Morgan who was holding the sword.

Source: just reread the series again <3

 

Different situation, in my opinion. Either way, I guess we'll see how that one pans out.

If Molly is out hunting Lovecraft-esque cults, it does seem to hint towards her job being some sort of outsider-hunting operative in the mortal world. I wonder if that somehow connects the Winter Lady and the Venetori Umbrorum in any way.

 

Okay, c'mon people. I know for a fact exactly how many of you have read the chapter. And I know for an additional fact that a sad, sad number of you have had nothing to say. This gives me a frowny face IRL:

Thoughts? Feelings? Gut reactions, theories, fears, hopes, dreams? Anything?

 

I thought you had a team of beta readers or something for this sort of thing.

 

As sad as it is, I have not been able to get it.

 

I'm fairly open minded. I feel like Skin Game will be a tough act to follow and like others have concerns over the Fomor. I've read probably 80% of the short stories / novella's - the exceptions being anything to do with Big Foot & the most recent Anthology entry, whichever that may be.

The Fomor just seemed to have appeared and somehow pose a threat just because they've been buying up all kinds of information ... and not really doing a lot with it. I don't get it.

As for the chapter itself, well. Hmm. I'm not really getting the big deal over the Justine situation, I mean I guess it's another random development for the sake of drama later on down the line - I feel like it's inevitable Justine kicks the bucket, either this book or certainly within the next 2 - something to further alienate Thomas because lord knows him & Harry haven't been doing enough of that lately (that is to say, separating themselves, most of which was Harry being as Michael eloquently put it 'pigheadedly arrogant' or words to that effect). Or maybe we'll get some more Lara, who knows.

If not, someone's certainly dying. We got Kirby killed off in Turn Coat and since then only really Susan and I can't find many Dresden fans who actively liked her character so it was hard to care short of her being a way to destroy the Red Court & obviously give Dresden Maggie to worry over.

I'm not hooked yet, but it's Dresden so I'll read it regardless. With all of that said and not much actually said in it, I'm curious as to who'll turn up to these talks. I'm rather interested to see if characters like Ferovax show up given the name-drop throughout the series but no sighting since Grave Peril, or we could just get more Kringle/Odin. I'd be happy with that.

Certainly feel like the book will be a rather large setup.

TLDR; Not hooked, cautiously optimistic, believe will have a hard time beating Skin Game.

 

I can't really substantiate this feeling, but I think this book will be kind of make or break for Dresden. We saw a lot of shit go down in Changes, but since then it feels like we dodging the consequences, or adding new problems to the mix without resolving what happened previously.

I'm apparently one of the rare people who enjoyed what happened in Cold Days, I thought the book was well done, but I feel that what's been happening recently has only been asking new questions, as opposed to giving us answers for the previous ones. (e.g. fomor) Skin Game was pure filler for all intents and purposes, it was a good book, but it did very little in addressing the overall plot, which apparently is coming to a close soon.

Chapter 1 of Peace Talks is hard to analyse in this respect, as it's setting the scene. As I mentioned before, it feels like a rough draft to me. My gut feeling is that Jim is very far behind in the writing process for this (because of his life problems which is fair enough) and felt like he had to get something out to appease the masses before they starting howling for blood. I'm not taking anything in it too seriously, and am prepared not to have this book before the end of the year. Mostly because I want him to take the time to get this book right, if this flops, it could ruin Dresden I feel.

 

My biggest concern is with how Butcher addresses all of the little subplots and groups that have been off-stage for a while. I mean, between Harry being dead and isolated in both Arctis Tor and Demonreach, it's been well over two and a half years (by my count, after cribbing from here) since he's had normal interactions with a lot of his former associates or antagonists. We know what certain major characters think of him, but how has others' opinions of him changed? If Butcher skims over this, I'm going to be very disappointed.

The other thing I'm anxious about is the love interests. As a fan of the OTP, I hope that the thing with Molly and the cell phone is overblown and they interact closely this book. He's the Knight to her Lady, damn it, let's see what that looks like in action! Maybe something grows out of that, too. I also hope that the Murphy pairing is finally axed this book, but I doubt that story line is going to go far enough to be able to end to Butcher's satisfaction. Given the pace of Harry's past romances (not including those he's ritually murdered), I'd be shocked if this advances any further than a hot and heavy scene of Harry getting to second base with Murphy.

 

Whoa! Spoilers much?!

Seriously though, I like everything except for some reason the footprints, I guess it feels sort of shoehorned into a chapter that's already a relentless barrage of setup in the back half. Speaking of which, Los' appearance feels hinky from a writing/framing standpoint. It's just clumsy/awkward/sudden in a bad (or at least mildly unpleasant) way.

 

What? Why wouldn't you like Susan? She was a total bad-ass who made a single stupid choice and one unlucky one. Not like Dresden hasn't fucked up worse and more frequently.

But yeah... It feels like some stuff, especially with Molly, has been shunted to the side. It's been in Mab's best interest to keep the two apart and so that's fair enough, I guess, but damn it, I want OTP!

As for plot... The premise of the book sounds awesome, though this first chapter doesn't really do anything with that.

I just hope the pop culture references are dialed back down a little bit farther. Changes had some bad moments, Cold Days had several obnoxious ones, and Skin Game was back to tolerable levels except for that one thing at the end about which we shall not speak.

So I'm hopeful. Don't fuck it up, Jim! xD

 

Ghost story had the worst pop culture moment with the star trek bridge inside Molly's mind imo.

 

This is a thread about the sixteenth book in a series, during which we've been talking about developments in the first fifteen without any spoiler tags. So no, not spoilers much.

Honestly, the pop culture references seem more and more forced to me with every book. It feels like he has Harry doing them more now than in the beginning.