So I have a question. Given the stated power and purpose of angels...  Why aren't they guarding the outer gate?

If the outsiders get in, will the whole world be destroyed except one house with a very nice yard and white picket fence?

Of all the internal thoughts of a fictional character have been observing.... possible judgment on someone in a threesome doesn't even through a blip on the radar for me.

I mean we've seen Harry mull over sexual assault on multiple occasions. If we wanted to send the thought police after him, intolerance for multi-partner relationships would not be top on my list of concerns.....

Though I still find the whole thing as rather random and out of place personally, so perhaps I'm just sympathetic to Harry's not knowing what to think about it.

If I'm being completely honest..... Peace Talks is the new contender for my least favorite book of the series thus far.

It did not seem to flow as well as most of the others. There was something a bit off about the whole plot progression. It was difficult to tell where the story was going, but not in a good way. Things seemed to be needlessly complicated at times, or just not really add up, but again not in a good way.

Example, why would they capture Thomas, but then beat him to death, which is essentially what they did. With so many questions surrounding why Thomas did what he did, why did they not try to question him? Or at least leave him with the ability to answer questions in the future.

It was one of those times in a plot where I got the impression "I bet if they could just talk to him right now half this story would be over".

Then enter the Titan. This has me more confused than anything. If the plan was "war on mortals" why now? If Titan lady is so powerful why have her Fomar pets been in hiding until a few years ago, and then why start abducting people for a few years before flipping the table and sitting in Mabs eye? It is hard to make sense of it, and the book doesn't spend ny time trying to.

I'm hopeful that Battle Grounds pulls everything together, but honestly if you old me this book was written by a different author I'd have believed it.

Last bit.... did the whole "gathering of the accorded folks" thing seem a bit off in scale to anyone else? I thought there were sorta a lot of groups and things signed on to those. What about the Black Court? The Erlking? I feel like the books have mentioned plenty of groups and things that were on the accords throughout the series, and those ar just what have come up as of hand mentions during Drsdens shenanigans. I always had the impression the the accords signature page looked but like the UN charter. I had assumed all these years the 'Peace Talks' were going to use a venue like saw when nose of the White Council showed up to Chicago way back when, Not a 3 story boarding house sized stone building. Did these rest of the accords not RSVP? Or was the full meeting going to be taking place elsewhere and I missed it?

I don't think so, because the WoJ says it's the decision "at the end" of the book.

I expect your chain of logical and emotional consequences is pretty close to spot-on, though; whichever the actual choice-point is.

I believe he says 'Towards the end'. I'd count this as towards the end.

So what's the deal with Molly and her new job? Is she still human? Does she still have a soul? Is she going to turn into a full fledged fairy?

I have some theories to address some of this.  I do not believe the spires were built for comfortable living, but more as stationaryassive shelters to ride out some sort of calamity.  Perhaps whatever it is that killed off the builders (if they weren't human) or kicked off the dark age that had them lose most of their knoldge and technology.

As to how they can know how to make power crystals but not things like stainless steel, I think mostly that knoldge was lost and the knoldge of how to make and use the crystals hasn't so much been retained as it has been relearned/figured out.  I bet these crystals are capable of doing much more than how they are being employed presently. 

They don't have stainless steel and nickle alloys yet because despite having energy weapons and energy shields they are at a 15th or 16th century technology level.  Maybe not even that high, because we don't know how dependent on pre made builder facilities their industrial base is.  For all we know they can only even make iron weapons because they have builder made kilns some where in the spire that are set up for smelting casting and forging metals.  Maybe they even have facilities capable of more complicated materials processing that they dont even jnderstand, or that they simple don't have the raw materials to feed.  One of the habbles could have a filiment winder for pumping out high strength synthetic fibers thats being used as a cotton gin for all we know.

And perhaps a lot of wizards don't like cities?