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#101
11-29-2012, 06:38 AM
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Question for those who have read the book.
SPOILER:
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#103
11-29-2012, 08:55 AM
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Spoilers!!!
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Mr. Accident: No, I didn't and I'm sorry I didn't. But good thinking! vislor
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#104
11-29-2012, 09:46 AM
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Audible spoils the hell out of us by giving us most books for $15.
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#105
11-29-2012, 10:21 AM
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I got it on Tueday and finished it last night. I'll go back and re-read it later since I was rushing through it. I really liked this one. It didn't feel as grim as the last two books were.
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#106
11-30-2012, 04:34 AM
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It takes some getting used to when an author takes a series in a direction you hadn't expected, or wanted. Up until Changes, it was just Harry puttering around and getting caught up in big things. There was foreshadowing, but it was easy to ignore and believe it wasn't going to go all post-apocalyptic. I was enjoying my magical version of Spenser, but that was never destined to continue.
Having read the Codex Alera series, I should have seen this coming. Those books started small as well, and the protagonist's actions grew by the book until he had world-spanning effect. This is the third (or fourth) book where it's obvious that this isn't the same old private investigator/wizard tale anymore, and I'm still coming to terms with it. What REALLY irritates me is that the books that heavily featured the Fae were my least favorite books. I liked Dead Beat, Death Masks, etc. So, in Changes Harry became entangled with Winter pretty firmly. By the end of Ghost Story, he was just STARTING his job as the Winter Knight. Now. . . wait, the thread title says it contains spoilers. . .let me just warn everyone anyway. SPOILERS FOR COLD DAYS AHEAD (what were you expecting at this point?) Now at the end of Cold Days, he's STILL the freakin' Winter Knight, and Molly's the damned Winter Lady! DAMMITDAMMITDAMMIT! I just have to accept I'm not going to see a return to the days when whole books would go by where the Fae were in the background. At least Butcher tells a good tale. I'm gonna need to sit on this awhile, then re-read it to really decide what I think. What follows are my first impressions: It SEEMED long. I checked, and it's 80 pages shorter than Ghost Story. There was a lot of exposition, which is a bit unusual. A lot of talking and explaining, and since a lot of it was with the Fae or Demonreach, it involved dancing around subjects or monosyllabic answers. The whole kidnapping/warehouse blowing up and sliding into the water sub-plot probably, from my viewpoint, could have been cut entirely. I wonder if it was shoehorned in to pad out the book. Granted, I read it fast and might have missed something, but I just felt like it added little to the book. It made Mac looks a little more suspicious, and Harry got shot with that dart there, but either could have been done in previous scenes. I'm kind of curious what Lacunae's plot will be, and why she hates pizza so much. She was obviously added for a future purpose. Murphy & Harry are getting worse than friggin' Dave & Maddie from Moonlighting. Seriously, he DIED. DEE. EYE. EEE. DEE. I understand that Harry's a little on the ultraviolent side since coming back, but people don't get a second chance like that. If a lost love comes back from the dead and you still have reservations, maybe you're just not that into him. Finally, it's beginning to seem like Harry can't freaking tie his shoelaces without it having some dark undertones, bad consequences, and ulterior motives behind it. Mab said Harry recruited Molly and indoctrinated her in a manner similar as his mentor, Justin DeMorne. I'm not buying it. I suppose we weren't necessarily meant to - maybe Mab was shining her own jaundiced view on events, or she was screwing with Harry's mind. Either way, Harry's tried to do his best for Molly, and I think we'll see how his focus on basics and the how and why of things, and how he steered her away from her darker impulses will pay off, now that she has a great deal of power. Winter's power seems to have a real talent for corruption, too. Kind of a dangerous thing to give to Molly. Oh wait, one more thing: What was that thing where Santa Claus looked like Odin for a minute? Was that showing that other powers are manipulating him, or what? Didn't hate it. Can't say I loved it. Big things happened, and as has been the norm in recent books, big things are on the horizon. Need to sit with it awhile and re-read it to really come to an opinion on it. Last edited by Face Intentionally Left Blank; 11-30-2012 at 04:35 AM.
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#107
11-30-2012, 07:02 AM
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#108
11-30-2012, 11:16 AM
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I went against my better judgement (after Changes and Ghost Story, which I didn't like at all) and bought this on Kindle and just finished reading it.
It had its good moments, but Butcher has lost me. Yeah, yeah, he's taking a huge risk, changing the game, all that shit...but he's changing a series I did like quite a bit into one I am simply not interested in anymore. I don't CARE about fairy. I don't LIKE reading about the goings-on in the Never-Never. When he used to set parts of books there, I found myself just scanning those sections from boredom. Now the Never-Never is the CENTER of the plot and there's some huge alien battle that's going on out on the far edges of the Never-Never that I find even LESS interesting. And to top all that off, right after Karrin Murphy admits that she's going to grow old and die and Harry will still be around, they then decide to waste MORE of her mortal life hemming and hawing and "waiting for the right time." What utter bullshit. Neither of them has been written as being that fucking stupid. Sorry Jim, I am going with my initial instinct and not reading any more books in this series. Good luck with your career.
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#109
11-30-2012, 07:02 PM
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The Outsiders battle thing - it COULD go in the direction of his Codex Alera, involving epic battles with mountain-destroying power tossed about. I hope not. Not EVERY book series needs to have epic, apocalyptic invasions in them. If I had to bet money though, that would be my guess. I will differ, in that yes, they HAVE been written that stupid. Karrin's had bad relationship after bad relationship, and everyone Harry gets involved in ends up killed by him for a few years then hiding who they are from the White Council, gets mind-whammyed into liking him, or turns into a vampire whom he then has to kill. They are bad at relationships and/or have bad luck with relationships, that much has been established. I do agree that the Sam & Diane, will they or won't they BS is starting to get REALLLLY old 15 books in.
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#110
11-30-2012, 07:55 PM
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Damn, I guess you're right about that, but I was hoping that after all this time, there had been some, you know, character GROWTH and they would have been ready to say "fuck that shit, let's enjoy the time we have starting now." Instead, they said "one day, we'll do that." Yeah, one day when the fucking moon turns to green cheese or Butcher gets tired of writing this series. That was an assholish and unoriginal thing to do, Jim. (He has posted on SDMB in the past, not sure if he reads posts about his books or not.)
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#111
11-30-2012, 10:10 PM
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I loved the series all the way through Changes. When the Ghost Story audiobook released with a jarringly different narrator - after 12 books with James Marsters, I read & watched some Jim Butcher interviews trying to find out why. He was rude when someone at a signing asked what I wanted to know. Some of his minion went on his bulletin board, and some other forums to make sure everyone knew nothing about it was not Butcher's fault - also rather rudely. It might not have been his decision, but his attitude about it sucked. I just get the impression he's kinda bored with Dresden and screwing with diehard fans is the fun he gets. He's evidently planning on a total of 23 DF books. I hope he can find something better to do with Murphy. She's been "putting on the boots" and working as Harry's connection to his humanity and deserves a decent storyline. In Ghost Story, I honestly believe he ended Harry/Murphy the way he did, with the Titanic comparison, just so he could use the line, "We're people, not some fucking ship" - as a petty "flipping of the bird" to the "shipping" meme. <Rant over> Last edited by debtep; 11-30-2012 at 10:12 PM. Reason: correct quote format/missed word
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#112
11-30-2012, 10:16 PM
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Downloaded it onto my Kindle and it promptly hooked me through both lips.
Way to go, Butcher. Great book.
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#113
11-30-2012, 11:54 PM
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Can anyone explain the conversation about gays? Why was that in there?
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#114
12-01-2012, 03:49 AM
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#115
12-01-2012, 04:25 AM
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#116
12-01-2012, 04:31 AM
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#117
12-01-2012, 06:15 AM
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SPOILER:
Last edited by Crowbar of Irony +3; 12-01-2012 at 06:15 AM.
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#118
12-01-2012, 06:18 AM
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#119
12-08-2012, 11:50 AM
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Then book 4 was entirely about the Winter/Summer war. Book 7, Harry tries to call Lea and gets Mab instead to talk about the Darkhallow. Book 8, again entirely about Winter. Book 10, Mab shows up again and sends Harry on the quest to find Marcone, with Summer in pursuit. Book 12, Winter Knighthood. Book 13, Lea is training Molly. Book 14, here we are. Fully half of the books to date have had the Fae either as the main story or a prominent plot point. Harry has always noticed things happening to Mab and Lea even when they weren't fully involved in the story (the athame, Lea's imprisonment, Mab's anger). That doesn't even account for the simple presence of the Nevernever and the frequent use of the Ways after book 4. If you guys hate the Fae's involvement, you're probably better off stopping now. This series is about Harry digging out and stopping the Powers trying to attack the world (and I guarantee you the Outsiders are simply the attack dogs), which every book has been focused on, and Mab is a significant factor in the fight. It's entirely possible and probable that future books will not be focused so much on the Fae (after all, Harry still needs to return to face the Council, and the Circle is still a mystery), but like it or not they are an integral part of the story. Personally I thought it was a great book, and a return to form from the questionable Ghost Story. The only thing I'd really call contrived was Sarissa's sudden appearance, but I can accept that Mab would have certain secrets that wouldn't have been revealed to Harry before he took the Knight job. Beyond that, while it didn't exactly follow the wizard-private-eye formula the first half of the series had, it's still very much a sensible and enjoyable continuation of the story. Last edited by Bosstone; 12-08-2012 at 11:52 AM.
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#120
12-09-2012, 01:19 AM
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I notice you did not mention books 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11. Seven books, out of a series of fourteen books that is CLEARLY all about the Fae. Why is that? Further, book seven included only a conversation with Mab and one scene in the Erlking's hall when trying to make an escape from the vampire hitters. Book 13 included even less pages about the Fae. Those two weren't ALL about the Fae, more like a "sprinkling" of Fae. It's easy to think up until book 12 or so that the Fae are just another element in the series. For example, as much as the Red Court were involved with the series, as of book 13, they're gone, because Harry killed them all.
I reread Cold Days, and while I liked it better the second time, I actually prefer Ghost Story. I still like the series, I just regret that Butcher is now choosing to spend so much time on my least favorite aspect of it. Thanks for your unsolicited advice about my reading material, but you'll just have to understand if I ignore it. I'm allowed to have my opinion about whether or not I like the direction a long series of books have taken, and I understand that it's Butcher's prerogative to take elsewhere. If everyone just gushed about everything they read or saw or listened to, how boring would Cafe Society be? Last edited by Face Intentionally Left Blank; 12-09-2012 at 01:24 AM.
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#121
12-09-2012, 02:32 AM
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That's the thing. You say the direction the books "have taken," but it was always headed in that direction from book 3 at the latest, and quite possibly from the very beginning.
And of course I didn't say anything about those books. I rather thought that was implicit in the way I said "fully half." I acknowledge not all the books dealt with the Fae. All of them have, however, dealt with the Black Council/Circle/Outsiders/whatever else has yet to be revealed. And as we saw in Cold Days, the Winter Fae are intimately bound with protecting this reality from the Outsiders. That is the story being told.
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#122
01-04-2013, 02:27 PM
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I finally read the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It felt almost like the beginning of a series within a series--which I suppose makes sense, because Butcher is planning to write so many books for the series.
Harry is now fully "grown up," so to speak. The conversation he had with the Gatekeeper about needing help/being the help I think kind of gently slammed the point home to him that he will always have to face very tough things. Harry himself mused about how frighteningly ignorant he used to be about some things. Obviously, there are still several questions about who and what exactly is the Black Council. I think that Butcher did a good job of both tying up some loose ends and setting the stage for further adventures on an epic scale. It will be VERY interesting to see how much Harry is able to help Molly with her new job, and how much both of them get changed. I'm not certain that she's stable enough for that kind of power.
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#123
01-07-2013, 08:15 PM
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*Something of a theme in the book; Mothers Winter and Summer are shown to have had more than one name/identity, including a powerful one Harry hasn't guessed yet. Quote:
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Speaking of subtle hints; I've heard people speculating elsewhere that Mother Winter's lost walking stick is in fact the Blackstaff. Butcher mentioned at one point it was stolen from a powerful being who wants it back, so that seems plausible.
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