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u/TheCuriousFan
2 years ago
Mike's Book Reviews Q&A with Jim Transcript
Spoilers All
Back to doing most of a regular interview instead of posting snippets from three different q&as that seem relevant.
What do you prefer Star Wars or Star Trek? For me it's funny because you answered this in one of your books.
For me it's Star Wars especially since The Mandalorian came out. Trek, I don't mind Trek but it's not like my spiritual home, I need swords and space wizards.
I'm right there with you and Mandalorian really almost feel like... people who grew up with the original trilogy it almost feels like coming home home a little bit don't it.
Oh I know, I know, I'm loving the heck out of it.
If you had to pick three favourite Dresden books which would they be?
Probably Changes, Peace Talks and Battle Ground, I mean I kind of see Peace Talks and Battle Ground as the same book because originally they were but it was just too big and clunky.
What is your favourite food and drink combo? And if it's not pizza and coke I'm gonna feel cheated.
Well you're gonna feel cheated then because it's burgers and fries.
Okay, I'm just saying when I read Dresden Files books every five minutes when Harry's getting a coke I'm like "good lord I can feel my teeth cracking".
Yeah.
Which character point of view would change our view on Dresden's world the most if we got a chapter or a novella from that point of view?
Ooooooh, the Merlin probably.
Oh nice.
Yeah the Merlin... he just has bottles of Pepto that Dresden causes him to drink, but he's the one who knows the whole story and exactly how dangerous Dresden is right now, so.
If you could collaborate with one author in any genre, living or dead, who would it be?
Robert B Parker.
What does Robert B Parker write?
He is the author of the Spenser private eye series, so all of the Spenser movies, all the tv shows, they all come from his books. He's kind of my hero as a writer, he didn't even start until he was in his 40s and then he just started writing and turning out these books on a regular basis, he actually died at the keyboard like a man, that I how I want to go out you know, doing something cool like that. But yeah he was my favourite writer and he passed five or six years ago.
So besides Robert B Parker if you had a chance to write any other author's universe, play in that sandbox, which one would it be and why?
his answer is still Honor Harrington cat scout and Monster Hunter International's denarians vs monster hunters
Now I've heard this story a lot in the comments of the videos I've made for your books, the story about the professor that basically inspired you to write the Dresden Files, did you stay in touch with this gentleman?
With her, Debbie Chester, we trade emails occasionally still. Most recently she published her book which is called "The Fantasy Fiction Formula" and it's- she's the one who taught me everything I needed to know to write so for you wannabe writers out there check out "The Fantasy Fiction Formula" by Debora Chester. But yeah she was the one who inspired me to do the Dresden Files. I'd been writing swords and horses fantasy in her class for years and she was like "when you're talking to me about story structure you're always talking Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you're always talking about Babylon 5, maybe you should try writing something that's kind of in that same kind of genre, maybe you would enjoy that". And I was like "I am a /fantasy/ author" excuse me so I resisted what she was trying to tell me to do for a very long time. Storm Front origin story from here
Do you ever think about writing a hard space science fiction series?
Oh I already have, or at least I started writing one. It's called US Marshals which I decided- I set it 200 years in the future and the Earth has colonies on the moon and Io and Mars and stations at the Lagrange Points and asteroid mining going on and the entire system got tired of dealing with all the people on Earth who have no idea what their problems are like when their problems are like "we need air". That's the kind of problem Earthers are not going to understand so eventually they took a power collection satellite, they wrote "don't tread on me" across the Gobi Desert in letters thirty feet high and they declared independence from the Earth and declared themselves the United System and I did that just so I could have US Marshals as the protagonists.
So they're the United System Marshals and they're the only ones who know about the aliens. Earth is sort of on the receiving end of the Prime Directive but instead of being in a nature preserve it's more like a hunting preserve because when contact is outlawed only the outlaws make contact so the only aliens who show up are guys doing illegal stuff, religious fanatics, political refugees, weird scientists doing weird experiments that are unauthorised by the Federation you know, that sort of thing. Those are the only aliens we see and the marshals are the ones that have to deal with them.
This is a book that I can get and read?
No no, the first one is like three quarters written, I stopped writing it to start the Alera series (the only polite thing I can say is thank fuck this never got off the ground). I left my protagonist floating in a decaying orbit over the moon with his ship about to go critical behind him and a solar flare coming on and he's been there for like ten years.
Wow, well I'd be interested in hearing if he gets out of that situation. What beer in our reality is most similar to Mac's ale?
I'm not a beer guy I don't know, I go to friends for research for beer.
Your favourite Metallica album?
S&M the one they did with the symphony.
Who is your favourite villain to write in the Dresden Files and why is it Nicodemus?
Nicodemus is a load of fun because he's the guy that will do anything, that's kind of his schtick so it's always fun to have him there because I'll sit down and brainstorm just the worst things he could possibly do that day and try and figure out how to work that into the book then after I do that, he's a lot of fun. Mab is a whole ton of fun I regard her as a villain. Marcone is probably the most fun to write because he's the guy who is- he has the limited resources and the naked will against all these creatures of incredible power everywhere.
You know Death Masks was the one where I really was like all in the series because I felt like Nicodemus could have been the big bad on a season of Buffy, I stick by that. Now Marcone is just like the coolest cat in the world, we all kind of want to be him.
I have so much fun with that character man, writing the end of Battle Ground was such a blast.
Yes that was a trip, at first I was like "god damn it no" and then it was like "oh yes...?" so what music do you listen to while writing and would you consider putting out a playlist on Spotify like Brandon Sanderson does?
I guess if I could figure out how. Depends what I'm writing, Dresden gets lots of heavy metal and the heavy metal that I like is often covers of other songs that are very not heavy metal songs but somebody did a heavy metal cover and that's something I enjoy, when I'm writing the steampunk I write almost exclusively to Lindsay Stirling, the violinist. I don't know if you've heard her albums but they're fun.
Who is your favourite not-Harry character you've created and how did you envision this character while you were creating them? Please be Marcone.
Marcone was an accident. He started off as kind of a throwaway gangster guy and then I decided well his opening was too cool to leave him like because we opened with a soulgaze on Marcone, it's like "okay no if I'm gonna make this guy a human predator then he's going to be a tiger and you will always have to be afraid of him, period. And that meant that he was going to have to grow in proportion to Dresden otherwise he would not be someone who is scary so Marcone as he's been going he's been gathering resources and various abilities to influence the world around him even though he can't do it Dresden's way, he has the advantage of he has no limits, or at least very few limits so off he goes to get things done. That's always terribly fun, writing Marcone because I can stop and think "okay if I was going up against this wizard how would I manage it?, alright now let me stop and think." I'll go and contact some of my sneaky friends and say "alright sneaky guys how do I do this?" and they tell me to have him operate this way.
As a comic book guy I always- the comparison I always make to those two is some of the best issues of Superman him and Lex Luthor had to work together so you've got Harry and Marcone having to work together, and they work really good together it just puts a smile on my face I love it.
Yeah that's a lot of fun to write, frenemies is the best.
Favourite season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
It's season 2
Angel or Spike? And I know that you've got James Marsters doing your audiobooks and you feel like you've got to answer this one way.
It's Spike even without James Marsters
Any advice for new writers based on your experiences is there anything you would advise new writers not to do, or avoid?
Avoid anything that keeps you from getting new writing done. I mean, no matter what you're doing you should be getting new material published so if you start getting into a place where you are continually revising and editing old stuff you're not learning anything new and you need to stop doing that and start writing new stuff as well. So always be generating new material that's how you learn and grow as a writer. Don't let anything get in the way of you making new stuff.
This is kind of a long one, let me make sure I'm reading this right, what have you found to be both and advantage and a disadvantage of telling a story the size of the Dresden Files from the first person point of view of Harry?
Well the great advantage is is that Dresden's point of view is so limited and kind of ignorant that I can sort of adjust things on the fly because things are happening behind the scenes that I know are happening but Dresden doesn't know are happening and if necessary I can look back on it and go "oh wait let me just pick this bad guy up and put him over here and that one over here because the audience can't see it yet anyway and this will be a nicer setup for later on in the story" so that's kind of the good part is that Dresden is so... he's kind of so blinkered that there's all kinds of things happening that he doesn't know about that I know about as a writer. So it's convenient for me so I can rearrange things along the way.
The problem of course is that Dresden is a character who is so limited and blinkered that I can only show the things that are right in front of him and I'm very limited in what I can present to the audience in terms of the various overstory that's going on because basically the only way for the audience to find out is for Dresden to wander into the middle of it and step on a landmine, that's how the audience finds out about it.
I know in Side Jobs you wrote some stories from some different characters' points of views, have you ever thought about writing one from like third person omniscient or anything like that? Just to see what it felt like?
For the Dresden Files? No I couldn't. I mean Dresden Files is very much, I mean it's funny because I have a different experience of it than everybody else because in my head I can see all these other characters and their stories and their viewpoints and their view of Dresden and the White Council and everything and it's all so different than Dresden's attitudes about things. And people are /afraid/ of Dresden it's not like they casually go up and challenge what he thinks about the world on a regular basis. I mean he's the guy who can melt you if he gets really upset, do you really want to go talk politics with him? No probably not, you can probably skip that and be just as happy.
Well yeah there's only one guy who can soulgaze with a kraken and the kraken's scared of him, right.
Well essentially yeah. That was more a starborn thing but anyway. There you go free one for the audience.
If you could finish ASOIAF for GRRM what would be the last sentence?
I don't know I haven't read it. The last sentence will be a lot better than D&D anyway, right?
I've got some- the real D&D which is Dungeons and Dragons I've got some of those questions here in a minute.
Nice.
What advice would you give to a new and struggling Dungeons and Dragons player who only knows how to be a Barbarian because he just wants to punch everyone in the face, what would be your advice to someone to get better at Dungeons and Dragons?
Play lots of characters, I'm the sort of person who gets bored and switches characters every month or so in a weekly D&D game chuckles. GMs just roll their eyes at me all the time but yeah play more characters and enjoy it, think your way through the character that you're playing you know, figure out if he's gonna be a dummy. Don't try and be the cool guy in the party, try and be the loser in the party it's so much fun. If you're the guy who's so dumb you're causing problems for everyone then that is a much more interesting game than if you're playing Captain White Bread.
I was told not to ask you about the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I think they said you believed it was like the new coke?
usual summary of grievances with 4E and some talk about D&D movie
I watched a panel a while back right when I'd first gotten into Dresden Files, I also like the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown a lot and you two were doing a panel together I think somewhere in like Arizona this was like back in 2016 I think and I noticed in that panel that you kept- when people would ask you about Dresden you'd be like "yeahyeahyeah" and you'd answer it and then they'd ask you a question about Dungeons and Dragons and you were real enthusiastic about it and it's like "I think this guy really wants to play some Dungeons and Dragons" so it got me thinking, what is your favourite D&D class and what class to you gravitate towards the most? I know you say you like to change it up a lot but which one do you find yourself falling back into easily?
I almost always play spellcasters. I like playing characters that can cause chaos and rearrange the battlefield a lot, lot of crowd control type characters are what I enjoy playing because the tactical effect is much larger with that character. So I enjoy playing anybody who's a spellcaster I enjoy playing clerics because I like playing characters with a southern accent and preaching to the monsters and stuff like that, that's always fun.
See I was new to it and I felt like right when I was starting to get the hang of it I went out and bought me some nice metal dice and a nice metal character and all that stuff and then covid happened and now we can't get together and play anymore so.
Yeah makes it much more difficult, lots of Zoom D&D.
Would you ever consider visiting the Codex Alera universe again?
the usual answer about potentially going back when the Protoss equivalents arrive a few centuries later or going back to a cursor academy right after the series ended and showing how the world changed
Will you be writing a redemption arc for officer Rudolph?
Writing a redemption arc for officer Rudol-starts laughing I don't know yet, we'll see what happens to Rudy. I could see Rudy winding up on a Stone Table at some point.
I don't think anybody would be mad about that really.
Yeah, yeah.
Why is the Furies of Calderon hardcover so goshdarned expensive?
I do not know. It's hardest to find because they printed fewer copies of that than any other hardback that I've ever had come out so that's probably why. Technically that was my very first hardback book was Furies of Calderon I think they only printed six or eight thousand of that first one so it's sort of hard to find.
Leaning onto that one, will there ever be a hardcover re-release or first release for some of the earlier books in the Dresden Files series?
Oh I'm sure there will be you know how corporations are, I mean Penguin's a corporation like everybody else I'm sure they'll want to do some kind of special release when we get to the end. Maybe I can talk them into doing some kind of release where they'll release two or three novels in a hardback omnibus edition, that might be kind of nice.
After I buckled and bought all the trade paperbacks I'm sure now they'll probably just go ahead and do that.
Yeah exactly "here all new hardbacks, matching covers, if you line them up they all- the art makes new art", like that.
As a book collector I can't say no to things like that.
Exactly, exactly. Preying on all the poor OCD kids.
Alright, do you find it hard to kill of your characters or do you really get joy out of making your readers cry? For example in Battle Ground, why Jim why?
Look, I torture my characters because I'm not legally allowed to torture any readers. So the only way I can get to them is through the characters, as long as I have the characters and do mean things to them I can get to you guys too and that's really what this is all about for me.
Well hearing how you described your favourite season of Buffy I think I got the answer to that, yeah I think he likes ripping your soul out just a little bit.
I do, that's what you're all paying me for.
Indifference I think, as a writer- the worst thing would be indifference if you killed a big character and everybody was kind of like shrugs
Oh yeah, I don't mind when people get upset about character deaths, that's the best thing ever. That's heroin for writers.
Battle Ground was kind of rough for me, got the advance reader copy and I was like- this sounds like complaining about having too much money to some people but I was like- you know how much it sucked having to be quiet about that for a month and not being able to react to this you guys.
Oh my god I had to wait a year after I wrote it before I finally started getting audience response from it.
And hatemail?
Well you know, some of that but it's to be expected.
What are some of the best books that you've read in the last five years?
Temeraire, Alex Verus, Larry Correia, Robert Parker, Zelazny, Prydain Chronicles, Lois McMaster Bujold.
What is your favourite candy?
Andy's Fruit snacks whatever those are
Will we be seeing more of Elaine in the future I think that's a very easy question.
Oh yeah obviously.
Is Pizza Express based on any specific pizza place?
Oh my gosh it is and I forgot the name of it but I had three or four friends of mine who were LARPers along with me back in the day- back in college and they all worked at the pizza place and the way travel would work out is we'd be traveling to a LARP, we'd be traveling from Oklahoma City to Dallas for three or four hours down there but we wouldn't be able to leave until like three thirty in the morning where everybody got off their shift and I would be like the one guy who was awake and we'd pile into a car and head somewhere. But man I can't remember the name of it, it was pizza something.
So it wasn't anywhere in Chicago?
No, no it wasn't, it was in Norman Oklahoma but they had a Street Fighter game there that if you won enough rounds of it you would get a free small pizza and so it was on my regular rotation of- you know when I was a young father, going around and getting our pizza dinner for less than a dollar because I could win the Street Fighter game and get a small pizza, then I could go to the next place and play a Simon game and get a free movie then go to the next place and play another Simon game and get a two liter and some breadsticks. Then I had the pizza, the two liter, the breadsticks and the movie, take it home and it only cost me a dollar and- it was a quarter to win each game.
And now I'm hungry. You talked about rereading some stuff, something I've been doing is- I read a lot of Steven King when I was a teenager and I've started rereading a lot of his stuff a couple years ago and I was amazed at how much it has different things that'll hit you from when you were a teenager and obviously kids and stuff like that. So my viewers know me and they would love to hear you answer this, do you have a favourite Steven King book?
For Steven King I'll probably take The Stand as far as that one goes, I mean it's a little long but and it sort of ends a little bit goofy but the character work is really enjoyable and once you read it you're a hypochondriac for like six weeks afterward, that's all there is to it.
Yeah I did my review for The Stand back in April right when lockdown happened and I was like "I did not plan this guys I swear to god".
Oh yeah, I watched it, I watched it.
Another Steven King one, was the name He Who Walks Behind influenced by Steven King's He Who Walks Behind The Rows from Children of the Corn?
No I actually stole that from Fritz Lieber in a book from the 50s or 60s, I forget the name of it but it was about a guy whose wife was an actual witch and that was her familiar demon, He Who Walks Behind. It was just such a cool thing that it was like "okay, I'm gonna borrow that."
Recommend a science fiction or fantasy series that not a lot of people talk about.
First two seasons of Andromeda and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga
Harry's mechanic is named Mike, did you get this name from the rock group Mike and the Mechanics?
Maybe? I wouldn't put it past me. I mean at the time I just needed a mechanic and I've got to name him something, Mike, okay.
Mike's a good strong name, I'm a fan of that one. Let's talk about adaptation because I know this one's got to come up quite a bit for you, now we obviously had that one version that came out so, I know that the rights- I think Fox has said they were gonna do something and then I don't know if that was just because they didn't want to lose the rights, so basically is there ever gonna be a new version that's gonna happen and if it did would you prefer it to be animated?
We'll see. There may be a new version, we'll see what happens, it's one of those things that's in development and you know what that means in Hollywood.
It means they're holding on to it?
It means they're holding on to it. Hollywood is a place where nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens and then everything happens all at the same time. And that's why the folks who work in the business kind of have a reputation for being a little crazy because they /live/ in everything happening at the same time all the time. It's a tough way to live I don't know if I could do that business but it's in development now, we'll see if anything comes of it. I'm actually kind of on the development team at this point so I'm able to provide direct input to the scripts and being able to say "okay we need a joke here, we need something to lighten up the scene here" and that's been a lot of fun. I don't know if it's going to develop into anything because covid, otherwise something might have happened already I don't know but things have been shut down in California so hard that nothing new is getting done.
I'm thinking about that same panel I saw where you were with Pierce Brown and you said you had like zero contribution to the sci-fy series at all, right?
Yeah that's correct, they didn't even cop me a copy of the DVDs.
laughs
Wow I wonder why it failed. As far as animation I don't know if you ever watch any of the Netflix animation like Dragon Prince or something like that... Maybe I've been influenced so much by the very famous fanart for Dresden but that's just kind of what I picture in my head is just animation, and then maybe you can have James Marsters-
Oh it would be so good I would /love/ an animated Dresden Files show because in an animated show you can burn down the city or not burn down the city and it costs you just as much either way. So I would be able to write just the most ridiculous nonsense though in an animated series that you couldn't do on a live action and that would be a lot of fun.
So what is your current favourite tv show that is still airing and streaming counts?
Mandalorian. I really love the Orville? and I think they're clearly having a great time on that show and that usually sells a show for me.
Best Star Trek show on tv right now.
It really is it's the second best Star Trek show of all time but I'm not sure which one is number one but the Orville? is number two.
How do you find your beta readers and how do I become one? That wasn't me that was a viewer that asked that.
Well I've got a waiting list now that is like really long and usually there's only one or two new people a year although probably in the next few years people on the list are gonna start dying so that should make it go through faster.
Have you ever had a character that you planned to kill off but you changed your mind as you were writing?
No I don't think I've chickened out on killing anybody I needed to kill. I have killed some extra people I didn't need to kill only because I get tired of having so many characters, Battle Ground was basically an excuse to go "you know what let me just move a couple of these people aside and I won't have to deal with them anymore, this cast is too big".
Because I won't lie when I was reading Turn Coat I think it was with Michael I thought you'd done it and I was like "god damn it killed my favourite" so I thought you'd done it there and I was wondering if he'd actually intended to do it and just couldn't pull the trigger completely.
No no, that was always his retirement, that was his ticket out.
Do you intentionally write Buffy references in your books to troll James Marsters?
Not to troll Marsters, I write Buffy references 'cause I love Buffy. I don't mind trolling Marsters, that said. And now that I know he has issues saying the word "little" I'm gonna have to work it into like the worst possible times (this is the price he pays for the supposed Toot and Mister story not having the word little in it).
I heard him do the interview where you put like little on a page like twenty five times or something.
Yeah yeah, well I can be like that occasionally.
Not to be when does the next book come out guy, but do you have any plans on when Cinder Spires will continue?
the usual Olympian Affair summary, other spires are choosing teams
I only have one question about the cover art for your books here, obviously we know the joke by now about Harry always wearing a hat. Is it true that this character here points to Aeronaut's Windlass cover wears a hat and the artist intentionally didn't put a hat in?
Yeah he's a British naval captain for all practical purposes he won't be caught dead without his hat and so we get him drawn- I at least got him to add the hat in on the side eventually. That was a joke between- Chris was playing around with me a little and I appreciate that.
I don't know if this is a typo, like I said I haven't read Codex or Cinder Spires yet but it says "who would win in a fight of indifference? Cat Sith or Rowl?"
Oh Cat Sith or Rowl, I don't know Cat Sith has that magical advantage on his side where he's immortal and he doesn't have to eat or sleep or blink or anything like that so he could probably cheat by being immortal and Rowl would protest his cheating, probably walk away.
When Harry asked Cat Sith where his red lightsaber was I just thought I'd let you know that I laughed so loud that I woke my wife up and she didn't appreciate it but I had a good laugh out of it.
Well please apologise to her from me.
Well that's the thing I think that I've really endeared myself to this series because obviously we grew up in similar situations and similar pop culture references and I love that you put those pop culture reference in almost as like a Farscape kind of thing where John Crichton was always making these pop culture references and everybody's like "what are you talking about?" but I think it's- Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are the ones you do the most and that's two of my favourite things so please keep doing more of that because I enjoy them.
I have to, apparently I can't not do it so.
Yeah if you don't have at least one Star Wars reference per book, right?
Oh yeah definitely.
Did you have an outline for the series with a beginning, middle and end or did you wing it?
the usual story about coming up with a whole series outline instead of a Storm Front outline
Well here's the thing, one of the other questions was "it seems like we always get like a mixed answer, is it a twenty book series, is it a twenty three book series- it's a twenty book series with an apocalyptic trilogy at the end so is it twenty three counting the trilogy as three individual books?"
The original plan was for twenty case books and a three book trilogy at the end, a big doorstop trilogy like the big books.
And you're sticking to that?
Well no, because now there's going to be at least twenty two books and then the trilogy.
Twenty five is a great number.
Twenty five is a good solid number and it gets us more Denarians.
I'm always on board for that one.
Exactly, they show up for every five books they're pretty regular.
How do you feel about people seeing Harry and Molly's relationship as a potential romance?
It is a potential romance, they probably should see it that way. It's also potentially a disaster and also potentially a number of other things but at the moment it's one of those things that is not clearly defined.
I kind of think you answered this one already but one of Brandon Sanderson's lectures in his sci-fi and fantasy writing course he mentioned a challenge you received to come up with a story mixing Pokemon and Roman legions, I assume that that story was Codex Alera.
same story about ideas vs execution argument leading to bet
-Well I'd argue that his assignment was a little flawed because he said a second bad idea was Pokemon and judging by how I still see people outside on their cellphones looking for fucking Pokemon that it was probably a pretty good idea.
I know, that was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen because I'd been watching it with my kid in the morning and my kid was just /fascinated/.
Mine too.
And it was like "okay I need to jump on this Pokemon train".
Can white court vampires get sexually transmitted diseases? I'm asking for a friend.
They don't ever suffer from them, they can carry them.
When will we see Cowl again?
When it's time.
Well you kind of already answered this one I'll kind of add to it a little bit. Three of my five favourite books in the series are Death Masks, Turn Coat and Skin Game if you can't see what I'm doing here obviously I love the Denarians I love Nicodemus it's my favourite part of the whole series so I'm guessing that book twenty is going to be Nicodemus and the Denarians again, that's a pretty safe bet at this point right?
Well unintelligible Nicodemus anyway.
Okay. That's not an accident obviously, you didn't not plan to do this every five books right.
Oh exactly yeah, it's there for a reason.
Do you have any new series plans for your post-Dresden Files writing career?
Yeah, there's a Dresden Files spinoff series that I want to do, I'm calling it Monster LLC. It's centered around Goodman Grey because there are times when you need a hero to help you but some problems require a monster to solve and that's kind of what Grey's- what his schtick is. He's going to be kind of a darker character a little more vengeancey-based character but at the same time he's older and a little bit more sophisticated than Dresden and he interacts with the supernatural world in ways that Dresden just can't. So I think it'll be a lot of fun seeing the supernatural world from a different perspective.
segues to talking about GI Joe and about the power of nostalgia
-You'll like the next one, the next one's gonna be a little- we're not gonna do the frantic action thing on the next book.
I figure you've got to kind of take a breath after the last one.
Oh my gosh after Battle Ground I reread that and kind of went through all the emotional fallout of it that I was going to need to be writing in the next book and I was like "oh my god I'm gonna need a /book/ to do this" so you know. We're gonna see Dresden- I think the next one is gonna be called Twelve Months and we're gonna see Dresden have to survive a bunch of dates with Lara and kind of put his- he's putting his castle together and sort of building his life back up after Battle Ground knocked it all down.
So he's not wiggling out of this whole deal that Mab's made for him, this arranged marriage?
We're gonna have to look at it and see but I mean Dresden, it's basically- the next one is going to have to be a book about how do you put your life back together when it just gets blown up around you? And so I think that's what we'll be doing and instead of just being in the Dresden Files universe for two or three days like we usually are in a story, we're gonna be there over the course of a year. And so you'll be able to see what Dresden's life is like in the not frantically-worst-weekend-of-his-year period of story.
It's a good idea, so Mirror Mirror, is that off the table? It's no longer called Mirror Mirror or-
We're just delaying it because I've got to do some other stuff first. I mean if we went to Battle Ground and then the first thing we did was jump away to another universe I think that would be really disorienting and bad for the story. Jumping away to a parallel universe I don't think we want to do that right away but we're definitely gonna do it but I think I can set things up to be a lot more menacing if I have one more book to work with and I'm gonna do that.
I mean what more can Harry go through? I can't wait.
Exactly.
the rest is a story about Changes' editor reaction and the Ghost Story audio book drama, one of the three people who were available was Ray Romano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-nYvuRDxpE