Paper: Bucks County Courier Times (Levittown, PA)
Title: By LAURIE MASON
Date: September 27, 2007
Section: LIFE LOCAL
Page: E1
COURIER TIMES
Jim Butcher is the New York Times best-selling author of "The Dresden Files," a fantasy-horror-mystery series about a wizard named Harry (No, not that Harry,) that was the basis for the popular, though short-lived SciFi channel TV show. The Courier Times caught up with Butcher last week as he prepared for his upcoming appearance at Phauxcon in Philadelphia.
CT: I know that the SciFi channel has said that "The Dresden Files" isn't coming back, but the Internet is full of rumors that it is. What's the latest?
JB: I am exactly the worst person in the world to ask.
I mean, I'm just the writer. No one tells me anything. I think I've spent all of five minutes talking to anyone at Lion's Gate in the entire process of the show, start to finish. I've talked a little more to folks at SciFi, but only because of the face-to-face meetings at the New York ComicCon.
There are rumors that the show is coming back? Man, I haven't heard that one. See what I mean? I'm just the writer. Not even the fans tell me anything! That said, though, the sets have been struck, the crews let go, the actors' contract options expired. I think it's safe to call it a done deal, at this point.
CT: I'm sure that the television show brought new attention to your "Dresden Files" books. Since there are significant differences between the books and the television show, have fans of the books been able to adjust?
JB: With varying degrees of success (smiles). There has been lively controversy on the subject, with viewpoints ranging from "the show is SO much better" to "someone really ought to burn down the sets and hire ninjas to kill the producers." In general, most of the fans took the changes made to the story world with a grain of salt, and seemed to have a good time watching the show. Some didn't, and that's fine.
The two were never meant to be taken as identical twins, and it would be unfair in the extreme to expect everyone who liked the books to like the show, or vice versa.
CT: Harry Dresden is a chronic wisecracker. How much of that is your personality coming through on the page?
JB: Zero. Zip. None. Nada. In person, I am staid.
Stolid. Square. Upright. Boring, even. I look like that guy with the pitchfork in that "American Gothic" painting, only less cheerful, and I only laugh twice a week: once when I'm reading the Sunday funnies, and once during a sitcom. Oh, and sometimes on official holidays, I'll indulge. I try to avoid overt laughter, though, or too much smiling, which could lead to laughter. I don't want to expose my teeth to UV.
CT: You're writing at a time when, thanks to the Web, authors are able to interact with their fans like never before. Is that a good or bad thing?
JB: It is a good and a bad thing. Good because I get to hear what the fans have to say, respond to them, swap jokes and stories, answer questions, and in general treat my readers as if they were, you know, real people. That's a majorly good thing! Bad because it also means that I have historically unparalleled access to all the negative feedback, too, and thanks to the magic of the Internet, people feel far more comfortable with being, frankly, acidic, snotty, vile-spewing jerks, safe behind their anonymous Yahoo account. That kind of thing can really suck. I'm still building up my immune system against that sort of response, but I've got this condition where I care, and it makes it an ongoing problem.
CT: Authors are always asked to give some good advice to new writers just starting out. Instead, tell me about some really bad advice you got when you first began writing.
JB: I would, but if I told you all the bad advice I got, it would take me four years and you'd have a bachelor's degree in English lit, just like me.
CT: I've read that you're a video game addict. How does a busy writer find time to play with toys?
JB: Easy. You just skip sleep (smiles).
CT: Tell me a little about your "Codex Alera" series.
JB: It's sort of a negative mirror image of the "Dresden Files." Instead of being set in our world, it's in a totally different fantasy universe. Magic is everywhere, and in fact it has more or less replaced technology. The protagonist of the story, a young man named Tavi, is in fact the only person in his society who has absolutely no skill with their form of magic, which is known as furycrafting, and uses a bond with various elemental spirits of the land to accomplish various cool supernatural feats. Tavi's had to survive in a really rough part of the world purely on his wits, speed, and toughness, and as a result he's become ideally suited, in many ways, to deal with a lot of the problems which are about to beset the realm of Alera, the land he lives in. There are legions and spies and treachery and barbarians and monsters and slavers and duels and plots and treason and giant bugs and zombies and horses and swords and fortresses and battles and werewolves and everything.
Alera is an enormously entertaining place for me to go, after I've spent several months in Harry's Chicago.
CT: Any other Jim Butcher projects that new fans should check out?
JB: I've done a Spider-Man novel for Marvel! It's titled "The Darkest Hours," and is available from Pocket Books. There are also Dresden short stories in two anthologies: "My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding," and "Many Bloody Returns," with a third Dresden story coming up in the anthology entitled, "My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon."
CT: What can fans who come out to Phauxcon next week to hear you speak expect?
JB: Pop culture references, most likely. And for me to put my foot in my mouth at least once. If I get desperate, I can drag out the story about the witch doctor and the poisonous spider, or maybe the one about how my Bichon Frise saved my kid from a bear.
Those are both good ones - though they aren't even fiction, so it always feels a little like I'm cheating. I will likely do a reading from one of my upcoming books, either "Captain's Fury" or "Small Favor"- not sure which yet, we'll have to see.
Copyright 2007 Bucks County Courier Times
