*starts midway through a story about Brutus and Fenris*
...He'll just sneak up on him and jump on his tail, just jump on his tail, all the claws on his tail. Bru jumps up and runs away, Fenris takes his spot by the fire. That's just how it works around here, Fenris is the boss.
That's true love.
Alrighty, you want me to get started with all the spoilers and stuff?
Do it.
I'm on the official "we've got a script" today, so look at us, we've got our big podcast pants on so...Nice.
So we are talking to the source of all knowledge about the Dresden Files, so if you are watching this and don't want to get spoiled, probably avert your eyes. We're also going to swear and shit because we're adults here so I hope that's okay with everybody.
We will be disappointed when we get told no.
So jumping in we've got a list of questions, we expect he's gonna answer about half of them but we wanted to get some of the bookkeeping stuff out of the way so the next project that we understand you're probably working on is The Olympian Affair, have you been making progress on it?Yeah I'm working on it, it's one of those things where it's a very different kind of writing than the Dresden Files, there's a much different voice for the characters and they kind of have a non-standard dialect and so on that I'm trying to maintain and... It's a very different process than writing a Dresden Files book, writing a Dresden Files book is just like "okay what am I going to do to Harry today?", it breaks down to that simple, it's how do I make Harry's day worse today. When I'm doing stuff in multiple viewpoint books I've got lots of characters to juggle I've got lots of decisions to make about how I present things. Writing in third person is a very different process than writing in first person because you've got so many more choices to make. Another way of saying that is that you've got much more rope with which to hang yourself. But I ultimately I think third person books have more potential for- there's more ways, varying ways you can present your story. First person book, Dresden pretty much has to walk into the room and get punched in the nose in order to get anything done but when you're going third person you can show things so many more ways, it's both more fun and much more stressful.
You mentioned previously that there might be a novella between the Cinder Spires book we already have and The Olympian Affair, do you have a title for that yet?No I don't really have a title yet I'm working on it. It's Benedict on a mission, Benedict gets sent out to go do cool Warriorborn stuff with a team of Warriorborn suicide squad guys and so off they go to manage things. But it's really just kind of a setup for the opening of a book but I kind of want to get the story going I had a great idea for how to get more cats into the story so I had to do a novella at that point.
Are you still sticking with the pattern for the Cinder Spires books where it's either three or six or nine?Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to do three of them or six of them or nine of them. We'll kind of see how the second one does. Hopefully I'll be able to do something cool whichever way it turns out, I think if I can do six it'll be pretty great it'll be about how long Codex Alera was, if I can do nine it should come home to a pretty thundering epic end, that would be good.
So in terms of-we talked before we went live here you were thinking twenty two books plus the big trilogy, do you have a rough idea for the titles of the books between Battle Ground and the trilogy?Not really. I know some of the titles, I know the next one's coming up-I'm not writing Mirror Mirror next I'm writing a different book next in the Dresden Files because I decided that after Battle Ground if we just jumped forward into an alternate reality rather than actually seeing what happened to this one that I really think it would undermine a lot of cool story stuff. As it is I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a little bit of time and I'm gonna write something different than the normal Dresden. Normally Dresden is I write a book that's about his worst weekend of the year and that's what the Dresden Files is really about, Harry Dresden's worst weekend of the year. But the next one I think I'm gonna write is gonna take place over the course of a year and it's going to kind of show what it's like-
We'll follow him for a whole year?Yeah, yeah. Essentially what I'm gonna do is write once a month I'm gonna be writing a book and it's like "this is how you recover when your world gets blown up" and that's what happened to Dresden whether you like it or not. That's what happened in the last book and you don't just take that and move along, just keep moving along with the themes you've got to stop and look at things once in a while, you've gotta stop and look at yourself once in a while. So I think that's what we're going to do in this next book there's g- I mean we will have the normal Dresden Files nonsense *Brutus comes in with a toy* here's Brutus everybody in case you wondered if you would get to see Brutus today. We'll be doing a lot of the normal Dresden Files nonsense but it'll be a little bit more spread out and he's got to survive twelve dates with Lara Raith and a bunch of stuff like that so it's gonna be busy.
Damn, that's a lot of dates with Lara Raith.If the other book titles are still open to negotiation I still want to throw my two cents in to have Heel Turn be the wrestling book.Heel Turn? Yeah not bad. I don't know I'm kind of going for more a pro wrestling vibe. I would probably-if I didn't already have the title structure going I would have called it Turnbuckle because that's such a great wrestling word and you don't really hear it anywhere else. But I think the wrestling book will probably be called Body Slam so.
Okay, I have to think about that. I liked Heel Turn for a really long time but-
It's just because EG advocates it every episode.
It's got the double meaning it's got people just instantly becoming a bad guy that you didn't realise were gonna be it's got that you know-
It's not bad.
I have methods to my madness.*Brutus walks in again* Go on, go settle down. I gotta work, we'll play later.
So I think you said previously that the time travel book is probably going to be book number twenty two.Yeah it should be the last one, I think.
So is that when we learn who fixed Little Chicago?I mean gosh I just planned the time travel book to just go through and fix all the inconsistencies that are in the series that- I know there's some there and there'll probably be more. Honestly the whole reason to do a time travel story is just to do that. And then you get to play around with time travel.
Protip for any author out there, just make sure to say that's going to be time travel, any mistakes you make just fix up there.Right. Gimme just one second I'm gonna let Bru out to chase the squirrels so he's not in here with us.
Squirrel chasing is important.
I mean if there's a squirrel moving in on his territory it's got to be put in it's place right?
Clearly the cat is more dangerous to it anyway.Alright what's next?
So I'm assuming partial answer is going to be this next book that kinda manifested where we kind of follow Harry through the year but you added so much of the extra story stuff in Battle Ground is that kind of the intention where-I can't imagine you're kind of going to give us the answers to everything in this one book right we've got stuff with McCoy, we've got Lara, we've got the castle, Justine, Listens To Wind, we've got like River Shoulders-where's this all gonna-where do we get answers?Oh eventually. *laughter* I'm not gonna tell you where you get the answers my gosh then you can skip all the other books and just buy the one with the good stuff.
Oh yeah, we would skip books. *laughs*
Because those would be the books with more questions.We're gonna get some answers in the next book we'll get some more answers in the one after that although fewer. I mean Mirror Mirror is basically we're gonna jump over into the next universe and see how things are going. And we'll sort of be able to see-that universe will be a few years ahead of where Harry's universe is now so you'll sort of be able to see the direction things are going and that should be a lot of fun. Things got worse faster in the mirror universe that we're going to-there's actually an entire spectrum of parallel realities that are existing in the Dresden Files universe and this is just going to be the nearest parallel reality that you can get to that's significantly different. Because there's always a cloud of parallel realities that are almost exactly the same but not quite.
Yeah it's kind of like, I don't know if you've ever seen Stargate or those other sci-fi shows where one new choice basically means one new reality. Wherever there's a fork they split in a row and there's a new reality.Yeah which is interesting because if you look at that from you know, Uriel's point of view then suddenly the battle of good and evil is all about choices because every choice starts creating more and more different realities, more and more universes eternally branching universes and are they going to be places where good things happen or places where bad things happen? That's kind of an epic struggle if looked at that way.
That's actually interesting because we've talked about that on the podcast several times. I think we all agreed on that even if there's a lot of realities there's one Uriel above all realities, is that how you see it?Sort of. Yeah I mean Uriel's an archangel so he's like-he's kinda omnipresent in the universe in many ways. He's one of God's deputies he kind of has enormous amounts of power, all the archangels do. But yeah that would be the case, is that when you get to the really high levels of power, beings like Uriel are the same everywhere they go. So poor Uriel has to deal with millions and millions of Harry Dresdens because they're always causing problems and they're always making choices and they're always creating new branches for the universe so poor Uriel just has to deal with so many copies of this guy.
There are actually multiple Uriels but they're all kind of copies of the same guy.No, no. There's one Uriel and he's everywhere. He just exists through all of the bits of time, but for example if you go to an alternate reality there would be a parallel Mab and the two Mabs would be parallel and they probably would be able to like know about each other and talk to each other if they wanted to but they're just really fucking busy they've got a lot to do. But Mab next door would be like "you work for me next door? Well now you work for me, while you're here you work for me".
Why not take advantage?Yeah exactly, I mean it's Mab, what other way could she react you know. But she's-Mab is tremendously powerful but she's not powerful on a scale like Uriel is where he's in the parallel realities next door and spreading out and so on.
How do the Mothers compare to Uriel? Are they in all realities or are they in parallel?They're much closer to Uriel because-well I don't want to talk about that yet I'll put it in the books. But the Mothers are much closer to being Uriel they're essentially nigh-unto being gods on the level with you know like Zeus or the Native American gods or the Hindu gods or something like that, they're kind of on that same scale.
So all the big things that stayed immortal and godly and powerful and have to-And kind of had to take a step back from all the mortal affairs that were going on as a result. Most of the gods did that they were just sort of "okay we're gonna take a step back, we're not really gonna be involved, we're gonna become professional wrestlers" you know that sort of thing.
As for a question that will get a "I'm not gonna tell you", when do we get Thomas back?When do we get Thomas back? Bold of you to assume we do.
You can't say that.Maybe Thomas is just stuck there forever. I don't know, I don't know exactly, that's one of those things where it might be a while before we get an answer to that question, I don't know the answer myself.
We'll see him in Mirror Mirror.It's gonna be weird because Thomas has been one of the most consistent characters as of appearing in each book so we're gonna miss him.Well you could say he's consistent or you could say that he just hasn't grown very much, I'm not sure which is the case. I suppose you'd have to date him to find out. *unintelligible*
He's probably the character who's been in most books since he was introduced I think he was-he's shown up in one way or another in every book, there was one he wasn't in and I don't remember which one but besides that he's been in every book so it's gonna be a little weird not having him.He's the muscle, you know. He's Harry's go-to thug you know so..."I might need somebody beat up, better call Thomas".
So one of Mab's thugs, Cat Sith, when do we get to see him again?Oh, I don't know if he survived that.
Because no one survives falling into Lake Michigan.Well yeah, not everyone. Not everyone has queen Mab there to save them the way Dresden did. Lemme think, yeah I don't know if we'll see Cat Sith again or not, we'll have to see.
We miss the murder kitty.*unintelligible*
I will say he was a great character.Great because he treated Harry the way a cat ought to treat Harry, and that was really the only reason people liked him, because he's a cat, he's giving Dresden no respect, this is great. You know, so.
Well we already had a cat for that it's just that this one can articulate it.Yeah exactly.
So on the other seasonal side of the spectrum, Eldest Gruff, who seems like he would have been a handy kind of guy to have around in a giant titanic battle, was he maybe off doing something with Lea, Summer helping in that respect at the gates a little more or?Anybody who wasn't-the reason you didn't see Lea around was because she was doing stuff that Mab would normally be doing. Mab had to be in Chicago overseeing that so Lea was at the gates overseeing the defence of the outer gates. And basically anybody that didn't-most of the folks you that didn't see that are involved in the faerie courts, if they weren't involved in that fight they were at the outer gates fighting.
So Eldest Gruff, is it fair to say he's kind of like the counterpart to Lea for Titania even if their roles are a little different in terms of power and responsibility?No, nowhere close. Eldest Gruff is- I guess he's-I guess it's /close/, he's an advisor to Titania the way that Lea is to Mab. Neither Mab nor Titania take advice very well I'll tell you that much.
Great job to have.Yeah well I mean when you're grotesquely powerful and people are afraid of you the advice comes in a little tepid anyway.
Well it's saved Harry's life enough.Yeah. But uh-anyway I'm sorry.
When you wander like this that's when we're getting the real information so please-Oh I know, I know, that's why I'm shutting my mouth.
We've just got to send him out on a tangent and we'll get there.Right, it's why you've got to ask these open ended questions. Let the faeries just talk, so. So speaking of which, just keeping up with the character theme have you squared if Maggie Dresden is going to have powers yet and if so when do we get a taste of that?I don't know yet and it depends on when I do anymore stories with her. I've got several ideas for what I could do with her and I'm not sure which one I'm gonna go with yet. I don't think she's just gonna be daddy's little girl and just be a duplicate of Dresden I don't think that works at all.
That would be too easy for him too.It would be simple but I think I would have more fun doing something else so we'll see which way I go. None of the plans that I have have her being wizard Maggie but we'll see what happens.
So what about our boy Kincaid? Is he gonna come back and are we gonna-is he looking for a job right now I guess?Well I mean if you're good at killing people you can pretty much always get work unfortunately in this world. But that said, he's out doing low profile stuff which is to say working for mortals. He hasn't been doing much in the supernatural world lately he's all depressed.
Aww.Well I mean he shot her only friend, she booted him.
Her best friend shot her other best friend right, so.Well Kincaid wasn't her friend he was hired.
Poor Kincaid.So in the battle with Drakul and the vampire nobles and everything we see several other high profile wardens, you know at least wardens we're used to seeing around that aren't usually pains in Harry's backside get vanished one way or another. When are we going to see what happens to Wild Bill and Yoshimo for example? They're presumably turned or going to be so.
Yeah we'll see a little bit of that in the next book I think.
Well that's rough.As to follow up on that, where did Chandler go?Right? *laughter* Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know yet. I wish I could tell you, I don't know yet.
I bet you wish you could tell us.Well now I don't wish I could tell you, but I wish I knew.
You wish you could withhold willingly.Yeah I wish I could willingly withhold it, as it is it's involuntary and not as much fun.
Exactly.It just looked really cool so we went with that so yeah. So other characters that were notably missing from Peace Talks and Battle Ground were the likes of Cowl and Kumori and obvious people working for the Circle or the Black Council that we're aware of. What were they busy doing?Not being around Ethniu that's for sure.
They didn't want to get stepped on?Yeah exactly. What point is there in showing up to that? The Black Council is not a go out in their masses and do battle sort of organisation.
Probably wouldn't last very long if they were.Yeah exactly. The White Council smashes people like that.
Was there anyone significant that was at the battle of the bean that you didn't get to namedrop?Probably. I mean, essentially if you lived in Chicago you were involved in it somewhere. I was tempted for a while to do a bunch of short stories about just like the little things that were happening along the way. You know, what happened at Mac's during the battle for example, what happened elsewhere? You know what was Morty doing during that fight? That sort of thing. There's plenty of people who were involved and just, you know, Dresden didn't see them or he never ran across them or they stayed at home. But essentially the city just went crazy for a night and any of the supernatural folks who were doing stuff were probably doing something-were probably scrambling. And you know I'm gonna be honest with you Battle Ground was a really great place for me to just kill a bunch of people so I didn't have to remember them anymore (surprisingly low number of characters permanently removed here unless Cristos really did die) you know, so.
Good reason.Yeah, yeah, I mean every once in a while you've gotta kinda sweep through with some kind of apocalypse and clean out the cast a little on these long books or else you're just gonna lose track of everyone.
Well speaking of sweeping through people, so... Ethniu has this superweapon, the Eye of Balor, now that Harry has it is that the kind of weapon that someone even of the level of Mother Winter would appreciate or would she just kind of find that thing quaint and be like "aw that's cute but"?Oh no, no, that was a weapon of Balor, he was a titan. He was one of the big bads of-he was the big bad of Celtic mythology. But yeah Balor's weapon is something that was so formidable that /the gods/ had to be afraid of it, it was something that-there were multiple stories about it, yeah I mean they're all gonna be impressed. You know at the end of the day when somebody puts a .44 magnum in your face he's got a .44 magnum in your face and that's what Dresden has, the Eye of Balor is a .44 magnum to anybody, it's dangerous.
Is it even like dangerous to Uriel? Or his boss?If Uriel just stood there in it, yeah, I mean he wouldn't, it could kill him I mean it's- again it's one of those- I mean Uriel is... he's so powerful that he's not even on the scale with everybody else. I mean yeah maybe the Eye of Balor could disintegrate Uriel if Uriel couldn't just immediately teleport anywhere or make the energy go somewhere else or basically do anything at all to defend himself. If he just stood there like a dummy, sure somebody could kill him with the Eye of Balor. He's not going to, freaking archangel.
Well as a quick follow-up then, is that-cause we know um the faerie courts and the queens and stuff they were kind of- they had to come into being for a reason, was that part of Mab's mantle's creation-to be able to stand up to kinds of things like that as like a failsafe?I don't want to tell you too much about it just yet, but yeah I mean essentially you know Mab has a role and a purpose. So for her to be where she is, yeah is was kind of her duty to be able to stand up to threats like that. She wasn't really anticipated to /have to/ stand up to a titan because everybody was pretty sure they were all taken care of but you know Ethniu's been laying low, biding her time. But at the same time, they did what was appropriate they got everybody together to take on the threat, or at least everybody they could.
So I know I was speaking about- you're probably just gonna hit me with a- you're not gonna tell me now, but somewhere down the line will we know who Mab was?Yeah, I guess. That'll be something that comes in a little bit more towards the end but she's- you know she's one of these people who- we don't really know what's gonna happen to humans when we start living a really long time. We don't really know what's gonna happen to us and so to create Mab I just sort of extrapolated what happens to people as they- kind of the psychology of people as they get older while subtracting everything that goes along with degenerating, she doesn't degenerate. And the way I look at it she's just become more and more and more and more just sort of rational and grounded in this function of what she's doing to where every part of her psychology, every part of who she is as a person has become subsumed by needing to pursue this necessary function which is defending the mortal world.
So as long as she's doing that I mean that is all she can think about that's all she does and something that she's been doing for so long that it's just routine at this point. I mean, for her it's like "alright yeah, get up, do exercises, have breakfast, kill some enemies, go over here- torment some enemies, threaten some enemies, alright good, work day done." And it never really stops to occur to her- she never really stops to think "should I really be doing this?" because that's never a part of her calculation, her calculation is always "what I'm doing is necessary for the survival of the world, so I could worry about whether this is good or evil, right or wrong, but you know what I think I'll just do my job and move along to the next step" you know. Yeah I don't know what's gonna happen to humans when we start living a really long time but I don't know if it's gonna be very good for us, we'll have to see.
So speaking of Mab and her defending the mortal world and the Eye of Balor, does Mab have any other famous weapons stashed away magically speaking?Or in famous monuments.Yeah, weapons, monuments, that sort of thing. Well I mean she's got- sort of? Mab is kind of- she's sort of an absolute value in many ways. Mab doesn't go and collect stuff, Mab makes herself more awesome. That's really kind of more of her philosophy it's like "go out and get things? Yeah you can go out and pick up, you know, the spear of destiny and sure that would be a handy thing but you know what would be even better? If I made myself that much cooler, as much cooler as if I had the spear of destiny", that would be more Mab's tactic. She's not very material, she's not attached to things.
I misread the question actually, like with the battle of the bean, the weapons stashes, does she have similar stashes?OH, yeah, Mab is big on being prepared, that's kind of one of her things and sort of what she does I mean, when you're a professional guardian it's kind of your job to be prepared. So yeah she has stuff like that all over the place.
Statue of Liberty filled with guns?I don't know if the Statue of Liberty is, I mean how are you going to get everybody out there to get the guns? You'd have to use some other statues that's in a park in Manhattan somewhere.
The bull on Wall Street or something?Yeah, bull on Wall Street that'd be a good place.
Oh so that's why the guy who cut off the balls of the bull he just- we never heard from him again. Mab was like "not showing my stash to people, okay?"Right.
Besides, everybody knows that the Statue of Liberty is a giant mech waiting to happen, come on now, so.Yeah.
So switching gears off of Mab for just a little bit at least, so with the White Council and everything like that we've gotten some words of Jim and we've seen it play out in the books that each of the wizards have more of a specialty, right, so Ramirez seems to be entropy magic and water, Listens To Wind is water for healing, Yoshimo's an air mage, what does Cristos do?Oh Cristos is an earth mage.
Okay.You got to see him in Battle Ground I mean that's kind of what he does, he does earthmoving stuff. Cristos can... he can moderate earthquakes, if you've got like a stone or ground based problem Cristos is the guy on the White Council you go talk to.
Is he better than McCoy?Yeah I mean, he's better at his specialty than McCoy is. You know, McCoy is the one who is good at /everything/ and if you go and fight him in a duel it doesn't matter if you are awesome at earth because because McCoy is going to be better at air than you are- he's going to counter you. It doesn't matter if you're awesome with water he's gonna be good with fire and he's gonna counter you. McCoy is the guy who has been in so many fights and has done- has gone up against so many other wizards he just ain't gonna- he's just not gonna have a bad day is what it really amounts to, and when you're fighting a professional the guy who never has a bad day is really dangerous.
I was actually going to ask if it was like where he was compared to Morgan because I feel like Morgan was definitely very specialised in earth magic and was very good at it. But I guess Cristos is pretty far past him.Um, Morgan is a guy who you want to have earth magic on when there's a fight happening because Morgan's the guy who can just go boom *pumps fist* like that and just bury somebody. Cristos can manage stuff like that too but Morgan was a tactical combat specialist, that's what he did. Cristos is not as good at tactical combat as Morgan was, he might not win in a fight against somebody like Morgan even though he's more powerful but Cristos has a much longer reach and can do more stuff from back at home and doing his research, do contact with earth elementals and other creatures of earth and stuff like that. I mean, he's got a great big talent stack that he can use and it's all- it's mostly involved with earth stuff. But he's not a fighter, he's a politician. He can go out and do big things and help in big ways but um he's not a "go screw up a bunch of people in a fight" sort of thing, he's gotta coordinate with other guys to get stuff done. So when you see him doing stuff in a fight and he's doing something impressive in Battle Ground it's because he's working together with Ebenezar.
So in the same vein of enforcers and fighters like that we've seen on the faerie side malks and fetches and the gruffs, are there any other races like that that have like a patriarch, like an eldest mantle and someone at the top?Probably yeah, I mean, there's probably an eldest goblin- there's definitely an eldest goblin that's the Erlking, that's kind of what he amounts to. Basically of anything there's gonna be an eldest mantle somewhere because that's really important to the fae, they respect things that have been around a while. And things that go by quickly, like most mortals, they're fairly meh.
So as a quick follow-up, is it- *Bru is upset about squirrels stealing birdseed*There are squirrels that are trying to steal bird food from the bird feeder and-
How dare they.And sheriff Bru gets very upset about this violation of the law. Because only the birds are supposed to have that.
He's a just and honourable sheriff.Yes, yes. So he feels the need to run out onto the deck and chase the squirrels away whenever we see a squirrel out there so. As a mammal he needs to uphold the mammal law.
If he doesn't who will?Exactly.
So was Cat Sith, would he have been considered the eldest malk? Or was that Grimalkin?Yes. And Grimalkin is doing it now.
So if someone like for example the eldest fetch gets defeated someone next in line kind of gets that eldest mantle?Yeah the mantle goes to the next eldest yeah.
So same as the queens basically, it's the same general idea.Yep, the next one in line.
Well now we know the knight mantles don't work quite that way they're a little more hands-on so-There's more discretion there.
And as far as discretion goes who was the last knight that Mother Winter picked? What would be her kind of standard?Oh that Mother Winter picked. You mean Mother Winter and not Mab, right?
Yeah.Mother Winter would have picked somebody like- I mean if she was going for historical figures she'd go for people like Vlad Țepeș except Vlad was actually somebody else, he was actually doing other stuff. But yeah I mean that's the kind of- she picks people who are completely relentless about whatever it is they're trying to get done and that's the only thing Mother Winter cares about so Joseph Stalin, she'd pick him yeah.
Genghis Khan.Oh yeah, excellent, good choice. Real achiever there, he really works hard, that's a bright young boy.
He's a go-getter.
He's got potential.He is, he is. That's who we need, right there.
So on the historical figures end, are there any particularly noteworthy or famous magical wizard types out there, someone like Aleister Crowley was he actually something or was he just a fraud?Crowley was... Crowley in the Dresden Files universe was kind of a con man who was this wizard who- he specialised in illusion magic and putting on great shows and stuff like that. He was kind of running his own cult and everybody was like "what are you /doing/?" All the White Council was just like "you are just ruining everything what is going on here, we /just/ got through the burning times and here you are doing this?" But yeah folks like that, like doctor John Dee, for example, he was actually on the White Council. He was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth, he was well known for being a wizard historically speaking. And there were several folks like that who actually were on the council but mostly the White Council's kind of stayed... they've tried to stay low-key for the most part. Instead you'll find most of the historical figures are connected to like fraternal organisations that are connected to the supernatural world like the Thule Society or the Venatori Umbrorum. So mostly the historical figures get connected to stuff like that.
If you're a king or a queen it's different because there's actual magical stuff associated with being a king or a queen. For example Mab does not disrespect Elizabeth in England, period. She just does not. Because the queen of England is the /queen of England/ and she can do things. And we'll get to see more of that as we go.
But she doesn't care if she's like in Australia or Canada or any of those.If it's in part of her realm, yeah, that's a big deal. You don't screw with her in her realm but if she comes to America she doesn't necessarily have access to all that stuff. She's not walking on the ground that her family's been ruling for hundreds of years so.
So what is Mab's perspective on democracy?Mab looks at democracy and goes "democracy, oh" and that's really about as much as she thinks of it, okay the humans are doing this.
Just trying new things again.She was more impressed with the humans when they killed each other with swords.
It's a fun little lie they like to tell themselves.They've got more destruction now but she really feels like they've gone soft, you know. It's Disney, Disney is the problem as far as Mab is concerned. Disney's making things too soft, the fairy tales were there to get you ready for the real world.
She should have bought it when she had the chance.Yeah.
So when do we get to see Lea again?Probably next book is what I would anticipate. Yeah I mean she's gonna have to check in on Dresden, he's got wrecked and she's still his godmother and all... Actually yeah actually she might be the one who shows up and slaps him in the face to, you know "get up, get moving," that sort of thing.
How soon will we learn the details of her bargain with Margaret? You've said before that it would probably cause them to throw down but when do they actually fight?When did they fight?
When do Harry and Lea fight over the bargain Lea had with Margaret?Oh. I don't know if they will. At this point I don't know if they will, Dresden keeps growing up on me and lots of things that I've wanted to do and I didn't necessarily get to do them while I was going along, I'll have to see.
You're saying Harry's gonna be too mature to pick that fight? Damn, never thought I'd see the day. Harry not taking a fight.
I so want to know what that bargain fully was, what did Margaret pay?Oh we will get to do the details of that before the end. That's necessary, you're right. That's a good question, thank you, I'll have to show that now.
Yay. I contributed.
We helped.So um, her- slight tangent based on her role which is to be kind of like at the gates when Mab's busy and all that stuff, as far as the guardianship of the gates over time, has it kind of been a cycle where one pantheon falls, the next one picks it up because the other one lost worship and this one got stronger? Or has there always been kind of like a coalition of whichever was top dog at the time was the one in charge?It's almost always been a bit of a coalition. The fae have always kind of been the foot-soldiers of what was going on, but it's been more recently that they've been given autonomy, which is to say Mab and Titania. And when I say recently I mean like within the past few thousand years. As far as the immortal things are concerned, recent events are, you know, human history.
And were they kind of- to circumvent that whole problem of a continual transition because it seems like if you're losing power based on faith you'd want something a little more permanent like a mantle that goes and stays empowered at all times.It was less about that... less about the whole thing running on faith and more about the fact that occasionally things got bad and the fae needed backup and that would be when "okay we've got to cover this one, who's got this one? Uhh how about Asgard? Yeah Asgard gets this one, go guys" you know like that. And that was how it went for a long time, pre-history that was pretty much how it went. But as things have gone on, the past couple of thousand years has been mostly the fae in charge. Because essentially they got a sponsor and then they were able to get some actual leadership put in place so.
They got a sponsor?Yeah I've actually told everybody about it already, it's in the books, you'll have to come up with it yourselves.
Reread!
I know right? That's the next year of our life.I'll give you a hint, reread Skin Game.
Could you tell us a little bit about the Librarians?No, I will tell you nothing about the Librarians, you can learn about them later.
In Twelve Months?Uhhh.... will they start getting there by the end? Yeah they'll be there by the end of the next book.
I'm sure they're harmless.
Men in black. You can't just tell us about them, so.Well no, no.
They can't even just tell us about them.
Is Tilly in the Librarians? I think I've read that somewhere but that might just be a rumour.No he's straight FBI.
Can you confirm if... I'm just gonna get an I'm not gonna tell you... is Elaine a starborn?I'm not going to confirm or deny.
I figured.
You had to try.Yeah we get some more information in Battle Ground so the question then became... we've had for a while that she was born in the right time frame I think is as close as we got and so we're like "is there /a/ starborn or not?" and obviously in Battle Ground there are multiple now and they're concurrently operating so it opens up some more of those questions.Yeah there were forty or fifty thousand at first.
What.Starborn.
Since the beginning of time or right now?No there were forty or fifty thousand starborn in this cycle at first.
And then they get whittled down.
Yeah it's been about close to forty years there ain't so many of them left.
So is being starborn a pre... do you have to have been mortal to be a starborn?You just have to have been in the right place. Really you just have to have been unlucky.
Okay, I was just thinking of if Drakul, that's how you say it right? If he was a mortal once, it was like a side thought I just had.Ooh I mean, you'll have to see as we go along we'll get more stuff as we get to the grand climactic bits and it'll be fun.
Even if he had been mortal I had a feeling it would be a "you'll have to see".Yeah.
Well you mentioned before once that he was something unhuman and got put mortal so I guess we're not going to get to find out what he was once yet?Well not today.
So at least on his more historical timeframe um, I was wondering, there seems to be a slight discrepancy at least on how old the Black Court is because, is that just because Drakul and Drakula (go away book bot) I assume they're older than their historical personas?Yes, Drakul especially. Drakul has been somebody that popped up in various places in history. I mean history's full of little monsters that aren't really particularly remembered and he's been several of them.
So kind of like Odin with his Beowulf and all that.Yeah exactly. Once you're immortal and you're interacting with mortals and you know they're just a pain unless you deal with them Memento style, you know, by vanishing from their memory. It just makes life simpler for you when you're an immortal. Oh my gosh, the humans and their issues.
is his son old enough, how old essentially is the Black Court? Are they the oldest court or are they just...Okay the Black Court itself is not too much older than Drakula cause has the one who really kind of went crazy making more vampires. His father didn't he just wanted a small handpicked crew of people who were awesome and that was his way of making supersoldiers, was Black Court vampires. But Drakula wanted more of that and sort of let it loose into the world and his father was very displeased.
So it was Drakul who made the Black Court vampires?Yeah.
We were a little confused, we weren't sure if it was Drakula and Drakul was like "that's a neat thing you made there son, I'm taking it".Drakul made them, Drakula was the one who made them popular I suppose is the way to think of it. But you've actually seen how Drakul operates, that's just how he's gone through his whole career. Is with this tight group of enforcers and then himself being awesome.
When we saw that scene in the graveyard and I saw that Mavra was the drummer I was like "who are these other guys if she's drumming?"The old guard, the ones who are still alive, the ones who lived.
Kind of random question, in Peace Talks and Battle Ground Harry still talks like he's poor, what happened to his diamonds?Oh he still has them he's just not spending them. Two million in diamonds is not nearly as much diamonds as you'd think it is (we need somebody to sit down and get the details on the size and quality of the diamonds to explain how twenty pounds of diamonds becomes two million). Especially when you've got to go trade, when you've got to go pawn so you can't drop too many of them in one place at one time.
That's when the police comes knocking.
Yeah, yeah. So his diamond wealth is sort of trickle wealth he's got to use a little bit carefully.
So we've now seen essentially all the accorded nations basically in one big fight. And you've put that in the books that the accords are something fairly recent and it seems like they stem from the kind of throwaway mention of the Unseelie Incursion in 1994 that comes up in Storm Front and is never talked about again.That's right.
Are there any particular details or reasons for that event we could get?I will tell you that it originated in a clash between the Summer and the Winter Knight and it just got out of hand and then things just got completely crazy and I kind of know the story of it in my head, I keep thinking that maybe I should write it up a bit eventually.
That would be cool. Was the Summer Knight the one from Summer Knight, the guy who dies in that book?Yeah, Roland Reuel vs Lloyd Slate. It started with those two.
If you write it I'll give you a dollar, that's how this works right?Awesome.
If you write it I will buy it, that's generally how it goes.Okay.
That's more than one dollar.I'm willing to do that contract.
In Cold Days Harry asked for help from Vadderung in exchange for a favour. When is Vadderung gonna call in his favour?
Ooh, when is he gonna call in his favour? *thinks to himself* The worst possible time, that's when. Okay yeah, that's the right answer. When will be the worst possible time? Oh god, okay.
*laughter*
You sent him down a path you shouldn't have sent him down.I'd actually forgotten about that favour, geez.
He went down the path where Chandler went, we don't know yet.
Okay director you helped earlier, now stop helping. Now you're helping too much.*laughter*
If at some point Harry can blame me for some of his problems I'm okay with this.So I feel like I've read that you've already confirmed this but to be sure, Bob stays with Harry now?Well Bob is with Harry now.
Will he stay with Harry now?I'm not gonna tell you the future of the books, he's with Harry now.
I was gonna say "maybe Bob can be a good mentor to Bonnie" but then I thought about it for two more seconds.
No.
That's not a good idea.Probably not.
Well now he's got a whole castle he can keep them apart in.So you teased us with this in your last reddit AMA, you've said that you've already introduced Bob's parents so who exactly are Bob's parents?I'm not telling you that you guys can figure it out.
So there are enough hints that we could figure it out already?I have no idea. I've stopped trying to figure out what readers can figure out because there's some things that I drop that I think are just the most obvious thing ever and then people "oh my god I didn't see it coming" and then there's the other thing where I drop one freaking word in one book and somebody cross-references it and then goes to reddit and gets everybody on it and then they crowdsource whatever it is and come up with an answer for something that I was not gonna write for another two or three books and now you've already determined it and now you've ruined it for everyone, I hope you're happy with yourselves (people who manage that usually are).
Exceedingly.That's who you guys are, these guys on the panel here, these guys are the fans who ruin things for other fans by thinking about it too hard.
Listen, the only fair thing is you just write the list of the things that were ruined and you set it out.Okay, I'll do that.
That would actually be cool like, a Dresden compendium."This could have happened but some fan worked it out so I had to stop".
Here's the Mirror Mirror version of the series.
Nice.When did Bob learn how to kill an immortal?It's one of those things that he's known for a long time. I mean Bob was born knowing a lot of things based upon his parentage.
Mmm-hm.Well speaking of the parentage I think you've mentioned once before something that... based on the way Athena was born she's basically a spirit of intellect but she also seemed to have had a body is there some- is that a godly thing or is there a mechanic by which a spirit could get a physical form more permanently?Well let's just say that if Molly hadn't been around then Harry would be a much different person now and leave it at that. And when the spirit gets born of somebody like Zeus (and your mom is a titan/oceanid) he can do something about it more than Harry can. Zeus is able to go "yeah okay, you know what? Here's a body for you, there you go."
That takes care of that headache.Yeah.
What equipment, if any, of Harry's survived the fire and will he ever get it back?Very little. In fact, nothing really was magically useful after the fire at his place and there was very little left. Alcohol-based fires burn really hot and it's kind of an issue. As far as getting it back he has to build back and that'll be part of what he's doing, I mean that's part of why we're taking Twelve Months here Dresden hasn't had time to make good equipment I mean he's been making schlocky equipment for the past three books.
Yeah we were talking about it before.Yeah he's just been- really he's just been throwing stuff together because he hasn't really had a base of operation or really much in the way of resources, that's gonna change now.
Well combined with Mab's training it has forced him to become a lot better without equipment so I'm looking forward to seeing how he will be with equipment again.Well equipment is- generally speaking the White Council thinks of equipment as a crutch (not that it stops Eb, Langtry or Klaus). They're willing to allow that you can take a staff with you because it's so useful you can use it for so many things so a staff is considered fine but everybody else using equipment they must be a kid because that's kid stuff. Kids make toys because they can't really control their own power, they haven't learned how yet. Dresden makes toys to help him control his power because he hasn't learned how yet, he's gonna be looked at as kind of less than a full adult wizard until he starts doing things without using varous goo-gahs.
Like simply willing a shield into existence.Yeah it's like you don't have a shield bracelet you just make a shield happen, that's what you're supposed to do as a wizard.
That castle that Marcone flew in to take place that clear has it's own history, it already has it's own spells, where was it from and what was it's name?It's from Scotland.
And what was it's name?I'm not telling you the name of the historical castle. I can't do that because then people show up places and again, I can't do that because it's guys like you that have ruined it, you know.
*laughter*
Does it have mythological significance? Could it have been something people would have thought "oh maybe this was Camelot once?"No no it was just a little castle but there happened to be somebody there who wanted to make it nice and impregnable.
Someone whose name begins with M?I'm not gonna tell you who.
Come on, that's like half the characters of the Dresden Files.You're right, I should have just said M.
Because we know from Peace Talks that it was the Tuatha right? They at least enchanted it so.They were the craftsmen who built it but anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGgyJNMA4q8