Molly is already wanted by the council because she is no longer under Harry’s protection. And Harry is…a bit beyond their reach.
[spoiler]Well, Harry is alive, though I don’t know that they’d want to take him on once he recovers. Technically, he is still a member of the Council and Molly’s probation officer, so the “warrant” for Molly may be invalid. My understanding of what she’s been doing is that she has not (directly, at least) killed anyone with magic herself, and her use of mind-magic on Harry is both unknown to the Council and possibly allowable under their loosened mind-magic restrictions. A new violation of one of the Laws–especially the First Law–could result in a more active hunt for her and/or for the Council to try to cut Harry off from any remaining contact or support, even if they don’t want to go after him themselves.
On the other hand, Harry has already been “executed” by order of a Warden, so maybe he’s got one on credit. :D[/spoiler]
You have a disturbed mind, mister.
I was going to post “You say that like it’s a bad thing”.
Then I thought about it for a bit, and realized you probably didn’t.
There were two oddities in the book:
The scene where Harry lights He Who Walks Behind on fire at the gas station has an oddity in it. Harry is facing the gas station and viewing HWWB in the reflection of the window. Yet, when the station explodes Harry is knocked on his butt and his eyebrows are singed. Shouldn’t he have been knocked on his face?
Why does Father Forthill (Catholic) have a King Jame Bible on his nightstand? So far as I know, Catholics in the United States use the New American Bible. I know you can easily fanwank a reason but it seems like an error to me.
Odesio
I liked it alot. Part of my problem with Changes was that Harry was just too powerful. Part of the appeal for me was that Harry reminded me of Rockford. He could handle himself, was street wise, but often got his ass handed to him. He had to outthink the Big Bad. Harry needed to be nerfed big time and with Ghost Story we saw that. It was nice to see Harry forced to rely on his wily cunning instead of steamrollering over everyone. The book allowed us to get to know Harry better than any of the previous ones.
Butcher also did a good job with Molly. It showed her growth as a wizard, not by simply making her more powerful on the whole, but by allowing her to jack up her strengths in new creative ways. I like how fragile she’s become as well. Greater power without the inner strength to really handle it will make her an interesting problem for Harry down the line.
I found myself hating what Murphy has become. Bitter, angry and almost psychotic. Her true inner strength was what appealed to me and seems like Butcher wants her to crack. There might be a good story in there, but it was nice thatMurphy was the one constant anchor through the series.
One thing that annoyed me was the pop culture referance carpet bombing. After the 10th X-Men reference I was annoyed.
Looking forward to Harry v. Mab. Also, I’m pretty sure Justin is the Big Bad behind the whole series. Harry’s flashbacks in GS just screamed forshadowing.
I’ve finished it. I liked this one as much as most of the others and am already dreading the wait for the next one. Ghost Story was the first one for which I had to wait and that was lousy… I’m not sure how many more books there are in the series, but I seem to remember reading somewhere there’ll be over twenty, which means I’ll be in my forties by the time the series is finally done. I can’t even imagine that.
As to the book itself, Harry was Harry, which is always good, although I’m a bit sick of his needlessly blaming himself for everything under the sun. Sometimes there are only bad options and you do pick the least bad one. Sometimes the unforeseen consequences of actions are actually unforeseeable. It was fun to see Harry’s coming to grips with his new ghostly experience and the X-Men references didn’t bother me. I was actually a bit disappointed by the flashbacks. They didn’t actually tell us anything about Harry we didn’t already know and distracted a bit from the novel’s plot.
Most everybody else was handled well, with a couple of caveats.
Murphy wasn’t ever perfect and I remember feeling very annoyed with her in the beginning of the series, when she refused to accept that trust was a two-ways street and that she couldn’t demand it from Harry while giving none herself. She had become a sort of anchor in the series and she is a tremendously strong person, but nothing I read in Ghost Story went against how I saw her character.
[spoiler] I don’t think Justin is the big bad and I do think he died. Even if he didn’t die he appeared to have been played by the guys who sent He Who Walks Behind as much as Harry was by Justin and right now I’m guessing those guys are the Big Bads. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Justin back but I’d expect him to be working against the same guys as Harry. Maybe there’s even the potential for another marriage of necessity thing there, as Harry has with Marcone.
A problem I see with the series now is that the cast seems to have grown too much. The whole book I was waiting for a mention of Thomas or to see Michael or Mouse or Marcone or Ebenezer. The White Council was also very conspicuous in its absence, even if it was explained. Butcher has to choose the cast of every book lately so it doesn’t get too cluttered and he doesn’t explain the reasons the rest are missing smoothly enough for me. Also, that one scene with Thomas near the end of the book was just ridiculous and by far the worst thing in the novel. I honestly don’t know how to describe how juvenile and amateurish it appeared to me.
On a more positive note, I loved how it was Harry who was behind his own assassination. It seemed to me just as courageous and stupid a thing as Harry usually likes to do. I was also curious why Kincaid didn’t go for the head shot, as it seems pretty clear he wouldn’t have any trouble hitting it. I’m guessing this will become a plot point later.[/spoiler]
Just a little bit into “Changes” and since I accidentally read in this thread that Harry gets shot, and that there is speculation on it, my current guess is going to be Martin, assuming he survives the book…
-Joe
Well, I had the shooter right, if not the motivation (or motivator).
Overall, probably the worst Dresden novel.
I did like how Molly was scary, and I liked Mort a lot (especially at the end).
Other than that, this was pretty much a let down as it really was nothing other than a lead-in for the next book, IMO.
That’s all I got for now; maybe I’ll come back later and be a bit more thoughtful after some reflection.
ETA:
Yep, that’s about how I felt too.
You know, I can see that, but I saw it as more Changes part 2. Both Changes and Ghost Story covered the complete upheaval of Harry’s world. Obviously the consequences of his actions are going to keep coming up in later books, but Ghost Story handled the most immediate ones, and after this he can start pulling the threads of his old life back together.
Yeah. I guess. Maybe.
You know what my first thought was when I finished the book?
“Well, I see why he had to delay release in order to not publish a completely shitty book.”
Seriously, the book was absolutely no fun at all until about halfway through. It was tedious and boring. The 6 month time gap, where all kinds of things have happened to the characters other than Harry, was so jarring as to kind of piss me off. Over the course of 12 books he had a good story arc with interesting relationships between interesting characters, and with this book, he just said “fuck all that” and pretty much wiped not only the slate of events but the slate of characters clean.
Every character is radically different now.
Butters is a man of action, going unarmed into a lion’s den.
Mort is a brave and resourceful man, able to withstand torture.
Lea is a somewhat benevolent ally.
Murphy is a psycho ex-cop.
Father Forthill is braver than Butters, also going unarmed into a lion’s den (to try and reason with a killer).
Molly is a crazed super-powerful wizard, transformed in half a year from a competent, socially-aware apprentice.
Thomas is a despondent drunk.
Etc.
I just didn’t find a lot of those character changes to be believable or reasonable, especially knowing that it can’t or won’t go backwards. For Butcher to throw all that out with the explanation “you don’t know what it’s been like these past 6 months” was just too pat, too easy, too much of a shortcut.
If he didn’t want to write about the characters he created anymore, he might have thought about creating a whole new series, not just chopping up his first creation and running it through a blender, only to Frankenstein it back together again over the course of another 10 or 12 or whatever books.
I also thought it sucked ass to have to watch Harry not have any of his wizarding skills, skills we’ve watched him grow into and become better at gradually over the course of 12 books.
Yeah, yeah. Changes. I get it. It’s oh-so-meta clever. :rolleyes:
The book isn’t wholly terrible; don’t get me wrong. I laughed a couple of times, and I did finish it. I’ll probably even read it again at some point (like maybe right before the next one comes out). But it had nowhere near the drama or the humor of the previous books. Even Changes managed to nail it: Harry’s righteous anger, his motivation to “do the right thing”, his friend’s loyalty to him, his reciprocal loyalty, good humor, a good puzzle with a good solution at the heart of the book, etc. Ghost Story, IMO, didn’t have any of that in even nearly the right amount or combination, and to just have to chalk it up to “6 months have gone by and now everything is different” just seems to be cheap, shitty reasoning.
ETA: And I agree with others that the continuous pop culture references, and his long explanation for how he saw lots of movies at a drive-in, seemed really forced and stupid. Probably part of the reason is that Butcher really only focused on 3 things: Star Trek, Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings. It came across as feeble pandering, not sly referential humor.
I thought there was going to be a reset button hit at the end of “Ghost Story” because the characterization changes were so jarring. I find it hard to believe that people would changes that much in 6 months.
Yeah, I think maybe Butcher would have been better off endingf the series with Changes.
Just as I thought, this was just transitional/filler materiel. For fans only.
I was thinking the same thing. You could probably skip this book and go to the next one without missing anything.
God forbid. :dubious:
Undoubtedly so, since basically you don’t find out too much new other than that Harry survived the assassination attempt.
I was also fairly disappointed.
Can someone remind me where we’ve seen/heard of He Who Walks Behind before? Is it still around?
Off the top of my head, Storm Front (the very first book of the series), and Blood Rites (book 6, with the cult of porn star sorceresses). It is still around and would dearly like its revenge on Harry.
Great, now I’m going to have to start reading this since the show has been kaput. 
Thanks for the info you guys!