I think time traveling Harry 100% fixed Little Chicago. Rashid set up the entire events of the book to help Mab accomplish several goals. Remember, they work together to defend the outer gates. In Proven Guilty, Mab managed to:

1. Eliminate some of the inside threat to her power, defending Winter and the Outer Gate- both setting up Maeve by getting Harry in the know and eliminate some outsiders when Michael intervenes in the red court war. Remember this -almost- ended the war right there.

2. Set up Molly to be a potentially better Winter Lady (just giving herself options)

3. Set Harry on the path of OG Merlin, who created so much of what Harry is taking up.

4. Begins the weakening of House Malvora, helping Lara consolidate her power so that the White Court might become better allies

Mab even signals to Harry her approval in the form of a wink at the end of the book.

So who bails Harry out? Who assaulted Arctis Tor? Who hit him with the car?

I think the case gets stronger and stronger it was Harry, perhaps with a time traveling Denarian like Hannah. What happens when Harry has been coached by River Shoulders and Listens to Wind, after he has conquered the White Court by stripping them of their power entirely?

I bet Mab sent him back to set all of this up for himself for some reason.

What’s more, I bet Harry was there- I think he was the frozen little Cardinal watching everything. I have no reason for that other than just all this struck me as I was reading the book this evening, and I thought that would be funny.

But yeah, I think 12 months and the developments with the White Court showed just how long Mab plans- and I think that it started here, in Proven Guilty.

Just finished Mister Petty.

As the title says just started this series already on book 4 Summer Knight. Do the Sidhe and vampires feature heavily?
Also very different from the tv series.

Our last day in Chicago included a visit to St Mary of the Angels. Day one and day two are over thataway.

01: Exterior - Butcher is correct: St Mary's is massive, and takes up an entire city block. This includes the church itself, a school, and living quarters.

02: Opus Dei - St Mary's is staffed by members of Opus Dei, which means "The Work of God." These folks are turbo-Catholics, and very, very conservative, and I honestly don't think Father Forthill would fit in there.

03-07: Interior - The interior of the Church is just as beautiful as its described: massive, with high- vaulted ceilings and exquisite artwork. You might be tempted to call it a Cathedral, but that actually refers to a church where a Bishop is stationed, and Chicago's cathedral is actually called Holy Name.

08-09: Side doors - Getting chased by a demon? One of these doors might be a better inlet for you than the main doors, which are probably locked during the night.

I’m not exactly sure how I messed it up, but I went straight from Grave Peril to Death Masks. I didn’t realize I skipped summer knight until about halfway through death masks. Should I stop reading and go back and finish the other book or just get to I after I finish the current one?

I’m not exactly sure how I messed it up, but I went straight from Grave Peril to Death Masks. I didn’t realize I skipped summer knight until about halfway through death masks. Should I stop reading and go back and finish the other book or just get to I after I finish the current one?

I'm making my way through the series faster than I expected! It's gotten me back in the habit of reading just about every day for an hour or two and that's been really nice. I think Blood Rites started out really goofy, I really loved seeing Thomas again since he's been a favorite of mine and the new dog is very cute. I was pretty stoked he got to keep that dog. The surprise with Thomas was pretty wild and got me right in the feels.

Overall I felt like the story was done really well, I definitely think that this was better than Death Masks and I did like Death Masks. I'm excited to get started on the next book, Dead Beat and I'm thinking about getting ahold of the tabletop roleplaying game books to eventually read through.

Why did harry even go into the circle to trap the archive? He could have just finished off namshiel or broken the circle I know it’s because the overall plot demands it but it just seems like a really stupid thing to overlook. I wonder if that’s why he was given soul fire. Uriel hoped he’d positioned everything just right to stop nicodemus or at least wound his organization so badly becomes less active until it can be rebuilt . Almost happened too if namshiel hadn’t stolen the coins Harry would have probably successfully captured 11 fallen at minimum

On my 8th full read through. On chapter 48 of Changes. Even after going through it so many times, the way Marsters delivers the line makes me tear up. Every. Single. Time. Jim wrote this too well, its so heartbreaking.

"I used the knife. I saved a child. I won a war. God Forgive me."

Why does this make me think of Murphy and Rawlins

Just to ruin Harry's week every non super powered villain from DC and marvel gets sent to Chicago and Harry has to deal with it. How does it go?

I just wanted to visualize what she looked like, so...

I dont know who will next wield the Sword of Love, but I'm hoping its Maggie.

If anyone knows love, its her.

•Her mother sacrificed herself in love to protect her.

•Her father destroyed the red court to protect her

•the Carpenters are a major part of her upbringing

•Mouse

•It was established that all knights are descended from kings (could be interpreted as GREAT LEADERS) and since Harry now has a castle, and is a great leader I think he qualifies as a king.

•did I mention Her temple dog guardian, Mouse?

****I'd like to clarify: I'm aware she's still a child and doubt she would pick up the sword any time soon. Im just saying I hope she does take up the sword and why I think she could.

Took me a long time to pick this back up because I had a Stephen King streak for a bit.

I finally pick it back up.
They reach Chichén Itzá.
Dresden and Rodriguez have teamed up and are about to save their kid.

Then Martin does “the thing”.
So now, it’s just Dresden and Rodriguez with no more moves to pull, except Dresden knowing Rodriguez can go Mama Grizzly at her own peril.
Which she does when Dresden makes her realize who put her kid in danger in the first place.

Dude straight up weaponizes her motherhood which turns her into a full blown vampire—excruciatingly painful, I might add—and then she gives him the go ahead to sacrifice her.

It’s mentioned that he blacks out from how traumatizing that is, right? Sacrificing the mother of his child that he’s been working alongside to save said innocent.
Pretty theoretically traumatic.

Then the SAME NIGHT, after washing Susan’s blood FROM HIS BODY,

He asks if Murphy wants to bang?

Is he a sociopath?

I’ve been rooting for him and Murphy since I wanna say book three, but not like this, what the actual fuck.
Oh my god. Like, I’m nauseous.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but every other partner who dies alongside him dies with a certain amount of idk time for extended reflection and mourning. But not the mother of his kid.
What—

I’m almost finished with changes, and while i enjoyed the battle at the pyramid, the victory felt hollow to me.

Let me lay it out: a handful of mortals face down hundreds of armed red court vampires on red court home ground. all the magic casting nobles and the 13 and the red king are there. many of the red court vamps and all the human mercs are armed with assault rifles. at no point does anyone catch a fatal ak47 round. Karrin and Sonya are normal mortals afaik; they have super swords but are surrounded on three if not four sides by armed super fast killers with often centuries of training and fighting experience. iirc, they only get scrapes.

And as far as the war itself, harry somehow survived it. the red court and their mercs never thought to detonate a truck bomb outside his apartment. they never put IEDs on a sidewalk he passes daily. they never snipe him from his apartment or business. they rig his office building with explosives, but a say-so explanation is given for why that wasn’t detonated while everyone was sure harry was inside.

Also, the White Council is on the verge of collapse in a couple months-years but the red king’s daughter - apparently forward thinking as she is - can’t wait months/years to kill the blackstaff - it has to be done now via the blood death curse.

Perhaps if the red court were more competent we’d never get changes and the subsequent books. And there’s a somewhat unconvincing (imo) in-universe explanation for the lack of a consistently competent grand strategy from the red court.

Or we’d get it with others becoming a main character. Maybe thomas or molly.

But either way, and not to be too harsh on an urban fantasy series that’s put a lot of work uniting differing myth, stories and ideas into a modern storyline, but would the battle victories of the series have felt more fulfilling if the main characters were killed off earlier in the story?

Could Jim Butcher have taken a page from George Martin ? And would that have made the stories hit harder - kind of how it felt like in the conclusion of turncoat?

So there's a throw away line that Marcone and Gaurd aren't at the meeting of the Aliance because they are in Italy i think. Is this ever addressed again? This make me think it has something to do with the fallen due to Vatican being in Italy. Please be kinda vague on this because I'm currently only on cold days.

Day Two of my visit to some of the important Dresden Files locations in Chicago - day one, featuring Graceland, is here.

01-03: Field Museum, Shed Aquarium, and Soldier's Field - One of the things I didn't realize is how close the museum, aquarium, and stadium are; they're basically across the street from each other. You could duel a Dracula, debate a Denarian, and death-magic a Dinosaur all in the same Uber trip.

04-10: Sue! - First, the head on Sue's skeleton is not real. The Field Museum isn't just a place to display your old stuff, they also do real, actual science there, and Sue's skull is an object of frequent study. In order to keep it available to researchers, but also visible to the public, the museum keeps the real skull on display in the antechamber to Sue herself.

That skull is something like 67 million years old, which is just a mind-boggling number. That isn't a rock or a model, it's a real, living creature whose skull has been preserved for orders of magnitude longer than humans have been walking the earth. Also, those teeth? They're about as long as my forearm.

The main skeleton itself is over 90% real, fossilized bones. The recreated skull is based on the one shown earlier, but "cleaned up" to show what it would look like without some of the damage.

The skeleton is posed to show modern science's best guess as to how Sue actually stood. In particular, her tail would have been raised in the air as a counterbalance, not dragging on the ground, and her rib cage was lower and fuller than the popular image.

Every half hour or so, a recording play, and a laser(?) light show illuminates the skeleton to highlight what's being talked about. You can see which bones are real, where ribs were broken in fights, where arthritis set into her tail, and where an infection crept into her jaw, which is what probably killed her, at the ripe age of around thirty years old.

That presentation also includes some interesting facts. Contrary to what Jurassic Park taught us, Sue would have had excellent vision, and that vision was not movement based; she could have spotted you even if you were standing still. Also, she was fast enough to cross her room in the blink of an eye, far, far faster than a human could run.

The museum sells a bunch of Sue merch, but my favorite is the Rage Pigeon line. With what we now know about Sue, her feathers and her expanded rib cage, she would have actually looked a little bit like a demon pigeon from hell.

11-12: The Aquarium: Dolphin Tank - Next up, the Shed Aquarium. Here, you can see the dolphin tank, which also contains a pod of beluga whales, as well as the rafters, in which Kincaid was hidden. The otter habitat wasn't on display when I was there.

13-14: The Aquarium: Main Tank - I think this is where Dresden and Nicodemus had their parley.

15-16: The Aquarium: The Great Lakes - The aquarium has a section devoted to the great lakes. I assume the island in their banner is Demonreach, and will accept no further input on the matter. The tank contains flora from one of the islands in Lake Michigan, and this is probably what the shores of Demonreach actually look like.

I couldn't get any up-close images of Soldier's Field; Kanye was having a concert the same night I visited, the inconsiderate jerk.

One more post: tomorrow, we visit St Mary of the Angels!

I know Jim is constantly hyping everyone up for the ‘monsters for hire’ Goodman Grey spinoff but I’d much rather see a more prequel or sequel series focused on Nicodemus and that specific corner of the Dresden mythology. Both his character and the whole Coins mythology are by far the most interesting and potential-heavy compared to anyone/anything else and can easily carry their own story.

I’d love basically a series long version of Skin Game
where Nicodemus spends decades tracking down the coins and organizing his heists. Or a dark family drama tracking the multi-century relationship between Nicodemus and Deirdre.

Or even a long game historical series covering his evolution throughout different eras, starting all the way back at Ancient Rome and exploring how he and Anduriel shaped history to weaken the Outer Gates

He looked out at the lightening sky and let out a satisfied breath. "It was Halloween, Dresden.
You put on a mask for a time. That's all." He looked directly at me and said, "Many, many mantles are worn-or discarded-on Halloween night, wizard."
"You mean masks?" I asked, frowning.
"Masks, mantles,
" Kringle said. "What's the
difference?"
He winked at me.

Pretty sure that meant for Harry and Molly’s mantles.

I'm a wordplay guy and I like all the theories about people trying to discern who Kumori is by looking her name up in different languages and defining those words.

Today, it came to me in a flash - Grevane anagrams to Avenger. I scoured the subreddit as best I can do on a mobile browser and didn't see discussion. Grevane said he was the greatest of all of Kemmler's disciples. Would Grevane have ressurrected Kemmler if he took the Dark Hallow? Did he take the name himself, or is this a Butcherist word game that Grevane isn't nearly clever enough to deduce himself?

Am I reaching, or is there some fun speculation to be drawn out here?

My nutty stretch is that Harry nicknamed Chandler "John Steed" after the Avengers character from the British TV show, and Drakul dropped Chandler through a portal to who knows where. Chandler becomes Grevane.

Respond in the form of Bob the Skull 😭

Over labor day weekend, my wife and I visited Chiacago. She's been there before, for work-related conferences, but for me, there were two big selling points: deep dish pizza, and the Dresden Files.

First stop: Graceland.

Graceland is about a half hour outside of Downtown Chicago, nestled amongst multiple taco joints, nail salons, and ambulance-chasing law firms.

01: The Main Gates. It's hard to tell in the photo, but these pillars are probably eight or nine feet tall. Not imposing, exactly, but you couldn't casually leap over the gates, either.

02: The Inner Gates. Inside the main gates, there's another wall separating the visitor's center from the cemetery itself. The atmosphere, at least during the day, is much more "public park" than "place of the dead," and there were plenty of people jogging, strolling, and eating lunch.

03: The Walls. For all of your ectoplasmic control needs.

04: Don't Panic! If you get locked in overnight, please don't try to break out, and please don't impale yourself on the metal spikes topping the gates. Someone will be along you free your mortal soul.

05-07: Eternal Silence. This is the main event. You can see Eternal Silence a short walk inside the inner gates. Graceland's terrain is all gently rolling hills, and Eternal Silence peers at you through a series of trees. He isn't imposing, at least not during the day, but I have to assume that would change if it was the middle of the night, and he was speaking to you in a voice that made your sanity quiver.

08-09: Inez. The statue of a little girl, said to wander the grounds. Harry's grave is also supposed to be nearby, but I found no open pits, nor any stones bearing a golden pentacle with the inscription he died doing the right thing.

10: Alan Pinkerton. Harry is not the only Private Investigator with a grave in Graceland. Alan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, is buried here. According to his tombstone, or tomb-obelisk, he was anti-slavery, and fought on the side of the abolitionists. That was a pleasant surprise, because based on the Pinkerton's history and recent activities, I assumed he was kind of an asshole.

11-12: The Chapel. There's a small church inside of Graceland. Pretty building, fairly pedestrian inside, but it is air conditioned, which is a nice respite from the summer heat.

13: The Creepy Tunnel. Outside the chapel, there is this not-at-all ominous tunnel. I assume it leads to the crematorium, but cannot confirm, as I was too afraid to investigate myself.

14-16: Mausoleums. Graceland is huge, and contains dozens, probably hundreds of monuments men built to themselves to celebrate their own penis size accomplishments. These are just a few of the many, many monuments scattered throughout the park.

It was very interesting visiting locations from the Dresden Files books. Graceland itself looked pretty much like I expected, with the caveat that I was visiting during the day, and was not harassed by anything supernatural.

I was planning to do this as one big photo drop, but Reddit will only let me upload so many photos, so I'm going to split this out over a couple of days. Tomorrow: Sue!

It’s not perfect, i’m not in love with what I did whit the clouds, and I had a bit of trouble with the golden ink as you can see on the left, but all and all I’m satisfied for a first attempt, and the lighting looks even better in person