Below are the 2013 and 2014 fan generated transcripts I have available to archive:

2013 Geek Hard interview

Partial Transcript by TheCuriousFan

We were talking about the series and the books and we’ve talked earlier about Grave Peril and there’s a reoccurring location, that takes place in the universe of Harry Dresden. And it was first brought up in Grave Peril uh, when Bianca uh, gives Harry a gift.

Jim: Yes.

Green: Of his own personal tombstone and open grave.

Jim: And an open grave waiting for him at Graceland Cemetary.

Green: That’s there to this day in the storyline.

Jim: Yes.

Green: Harry’s tombstone says “Harry Dresden: He died-” uh, sorry, I got it all wrong now.

Green: He died doing the right thing.

Jim: He died doing the right thing.

Green: Um, so if it says “Harry Dresden: He died doing the right thing”, Jim Butcher?

Jim: Oh, Jim Butcher: He died doing the wright thing, with a w.

*laughter*

Jim: I’m going to pitch over with a keyboard one day, so you know, “he died doing the wright thing”.

Green: You’d be happy with just that?

Jim: Oh sure, why not? I’d put it there and it’ll be a joke and it’ll be funny. I don’t know, I suppose for the sake of the rest of my family it might have to say something more than that. Although, as far as my son is concerned he’d dig that. He’d be like “yeah, that’s dad”.

Green: That’s awesome. Because you always think about that, it was one of the things that was always happening in the story, he’s gone back to it so many times, he’s hung out in the grave, he’s called the Mothers, he’s done all that stuff and it was just sitting there, and that’s a looming thing to have over you in that character.

Jim: On the other hand, though, that’s not really *unintelligible* for him at this point, it’s not really a thing of fear and trepidation at this point, it’s a place of power. It’s not a particularly pleasant kind of power but uh, that’s somewhere that he can go where he’ll have access to things that he wouldn’t have elsewhere. And Harry’s been dead, done that. Not as scary as everybody makes it out to be, you know, so he’s got a slightly different attitude about now. He’s not in a hurry to check out or anything but neither is he terrified of it. So having his own grave it’s like, well, “it’ll be nice to have a nice place someday”.

*laughter*

Green: It’s like a cottage house.

Jim: Well we’re all going to check out some time, might as well have a nice place to retire, there it is.

Green: With the Dresden Files, you know, you’re fourteen books in, you’ve got 6ish-

Jim: Yeah 6ish. Half a dozen or so.

Green: -Plus the climactic trilogy we’ll call it. What can you tell us? Because you’ve got Skin Game is apparently the title of the next book.

Jim: The title of the next book is Skin Game.

Green: Skinwalkers?

Jim: At least one.

Green: Nice!

Jim: And, yeah, in this one it turns out that Mab owes favours to people which she’s incurred over the centuries. And at this point one of the people Mab owes a favour shows up to collect so Mab loans him Harry for a bank job. So Harry is going to wind up helping Nicodemus Archleone knock over the vault of Hades, lord of the underworld. So we’re going to play Ocean’s Eleven for keeps, definitely for keepsies, only with Hades and the underworld. So Harry and crew are going to go up against one of the Greek gods and see if they can come out on top.

Of course, he’s going to be there with Nicodemus, uh who’s not a nice guy.

Green: He’s going to love that.

Jim: Yeah, he’s gonna love that, and all of the crew that Nicodemus is recruiting are just a bunch of hideous bastards, I mean, for the most part.

Green: I thought they’d be so nice.

Jim: Yeah, maybe he’ll grab a bunch of nice guys. And Dresden knows that Nicodemus is going to screw him over, and he knows that Nicodemus knows that Dresden is going to screw him over as soon as they can figure out how to make it happen. But at the same time they need each other to get in there. It’s going to be one of those contests to see who can out-clever who. Plus we’ve got all these other things to handle because Harry is going to have to be confronting the Carpenters about what happened to Molly.

Green: That’s not going to be a fun conversation.

Jim: No it isn’t, and he’s got issues of his own, what with the thing in his head trying to kill him. So, it’s going to be a busy book, there’s a lot to do.

Green: It seems like that’s been happening a lot in the books recently, they’ve been getting busier.

Jim: Yes, more problems. More magic, more problems.

*laughter*

Green: You should have him say that in the books some time. Well Jim, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to speak with us, it’s been awesome. I’m also looking forward to talking cats and the Cinder Spires.

Jim: Excellent.

Green: I’m also looking forward to Skin game and the Ocean’s Eleven inhale. Because that sounds awesome. I love heists.

Jim: Exactly this is going to be a slight departure from the normal Dresden to because this is gonna be a heist and those are always fun. But uh, we’ll see what happens.

Green: Excellent, well thanks again Jim I really appreciate it.

Jim: Certainly, thanks for having me on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le9skX_7Y8U

First piece of the transcript done. Personally, I feel that the bit about Harry’s grave being a place of power where Harry can do things he normally can’t is the most interesting bit.

2013 Cold Days Kansas City release party Q&A

Transcript by TheCuriousFan and KrelianZG

Rasins: The first one has to do with Harry’s amulet.

Jim:Okay, yes, Harry’s amulet, right.

Rasins: We saw it at the birthday party and never again….did it survive the circle on Demonreach?

Jim:Oh yes.

Rasins: It wasn’t in his pocket (this one’s pretty much impossible to hear but I think this is the gist of it)

Jim: I believe it was, it was with his gear right, he took it off and handed it to Michael and didn’t I specifically mention it?

Rasins: No. (something else was said but can’t understand but this should give you the gist of it)

Jim: Okay yeah, no but it had to have gone with the coat, although although if that wasn’t written, that was an oversight during the editing process, which was a little rushed. I think the post-production on that was, from start to finish, I think it was 15 days, so there was a lot of back and forth and a lot of me not sleeping during the process.

*Audience laughter*

Rasins: The other question I had is *unintelligible* when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?

Jim: Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is “sort of”. Um, it’s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their mantle for free, but all the other fae who were there, including the Erl and several others, who were at one point humans….So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That’s going to be a big deal. I’m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, ‘cause I’m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what’s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: But on the other hand, she’s kinda cool with that. She’s used to that role. So anyway, we’ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there’s a lot of choice involved *unintelligible* as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it’s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it’s just gone, and I don’t think souls work that way, I think that there’s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don’t think this is kinda trying to figure “did you lose your soul?”, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you’ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don’t think that’s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that’s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I’m probably not smart enough to answer it. But uh, probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road, just pure power is madness, it’s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that’s going to do for them in the long run. And it’s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you’re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don’t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience and so on.

Jim: Who else? Over here on the left.

Audience member: So when Harry is battling the Outsider at the end, he yells out his name, is that all going on in his head or does everybody hear what his full Name is?

Jim: Ok, so when Harry is battling Sharkface in the end, is that all in his head, or did everybody there hear? And the answer to that is yes. It’s all going on in his head, and everybody there heard. Which, if you’ll remember the closing to book 1, because book 1 was written from the perspective of a guy who has already finished his story, um, all the books are really, they’re him looking back, you get to the end book 1, and Harry says “My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, but conjure by it at your own risk” which, you know, there’s a reason for that. Figured I’d just throw that in there. Really, Harry’s one of those guys whose name is more dangerous to other people than it is to him, in a lot of ways, a lot of people would be vulnerable by doing that, he’s not. We’ll get to see that in the future.

Jim: But anyway, right here *gestures*.

*Question unintelligible*

Oh, um, I didn’t come up with that.

*Audience laughter*

I just know that from somewhere else, but thank you.

*Question unintelligible*

Um, I went out and went to the metaphysical section of the bookstore, and started picking up books. A lot of people who incorporate magic into their material look to religion. Basically, I went through a whole lot of reading, I took the bits that I liked and left the rest, sort of like your salad bar.

*Audience laughter*

Ok, those people that laughed, you’re extreme geeks and you’re, uh, giving out your age a little, if you recognize that reference. Um, but that was basically it, I went out and I looked at things, and what people who have really thought about this a lot think, and I said OK, let’s apply some principles to it, and let’s make sure that magic is something that actually has rules, to where people will be able to read it and go “Oh wait a minute, if I’d been paying attention, I’d have picked up these pieces from earlier on and recognize that yeah, something is going to happen further down the line.” I’ve actually had people have come up to me and say “Is this what’s going to happen in the future because of these three elements that have came before?” and I’m like, “Shhh, shhh, c’mon man, I’ve got to make a living.”

*Audience laughter*

But yeah, there are ones out there who have put it together. A lot of things that are happening, are based on the rules of magic that have happened before, and that makes me feel a little proud that at least I’ve done it in some intelligent fashion. Or maybe that I play too much D&D. I want to have a comprehensiveness that makes sense. Yeah, this was from the old D&D, which was, you know, the opposite of “makes sense”. It was kind of the definition of arcane. Where do we find information on assassins? Is that in the Players Handbook? Hells no it’s not in the Players Handbook, it’s in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Oh, right, ok, I’ll find it there.

Jim: Okay, what else, um right here *gestures*.

Jim: And uh, yeah, and I was like uh, that was fun cuz we got to put that up for sale (something about city signing) totally sidewise, and just the fact that there were enough people out there who immediately got that, and it was like, “oh, yeah, these are my people, whatever.”

*Audience laughter*

Jim: Uh, okay, I’m feeling too formal here, Um, so, we’ll do, like, questions and answers with someone. Um, before we have any questions at all, I will say that I do not write cliffhangers.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: And I don’t care what anybody says, cliffhangers happen when er, when you’re in the middle of the story and they stop you until next week. And at the end of all my books I like to make sure that that story is done and there’s going to be another story on account of I want to keep paying for my house.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: So it’s cool, It’s not like you’re never going to find out, you know, but yeah, there’s a technical distinction of what a cliffhanger is, a cliffhanger is you don’t know the outcome of a story until you get to the next part. And I don’t, every story that you have there gets finished by the time you get to the end. And then they shot it in the end, that’s fair.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: Okay, that being said, if you’re willing to do some questions and answers we could do that now, cause that’d be fun. I never really have anything particular to say so I’ll just answer questions and make things easy. Although, for this to work someone has to ask a question. Okay thank you sir, great, thank you.

Rasins: First I wanted to say, um, I very much enjoy your work, thank you very much.

Jim: You’re welcome. Thank you for your money.

*Audience laughter*

Rasins: The Weirdlings wanted to say thank you, and we’re very happy that you’re well now.

Jim: Oh, thank you very much, yeah wellish anyway, there’s considerably less of me but yes.

Rasins: I’ve got a couple of questions, the first one has to do with Harry’s amulet.

Jim: Okay, yes, Harry’s amulet, right.

Rasins: We saw it at the birthday party and never again….did it survive the circle on Demonreach?

Jim:Oh yes.

Rasins: Was it taken off and in his pocket?

Jim: I believe it was, it was with his gear right, he took it off and handed it to Michael and didn’t I specifically mention it?

Rasins: You mentioned that he took his coat off but not the amulet.

*Audience laughter*

Rasins: The other question I had is *clears throat*, I’m trying to phrase this to not give too much away, when a human takes on the mantle of a Fae, do they automatically become Fae? Do they lose their soul?

Jim: Ok, do they automatically become Fae, do they lose their soul? The answer to that question is “sort of”. Um, it’s automatic, but not necessarily instant. Mab herself was human once, and she eventually became the, uh, the fun-loving Mab that we all know. So, a lot of it has to do with who you are when you go into it, because most of the Fae were human once. A lot were born as half-bloods and decided to become Fae and sort of automatically got their mantle for free, but all the other fae who were there, including the Erlking and several others, who were at one point humans….So, a lot of this is going to depend on who they might end up being, a lot of it depends on who they are going into it and what kind of will they have to maintain who they are. That’s going to be a big deal. I’m really looking forward to writing the next books so I can see what happens with Molly, ‘cause I’m really not sure yet, I have a vague idea of what’s gonna happen, because basically she just got handed the largest, unruliest crowd of little brothers and sisters to deal with ever.

*Audience laughter*

Jim: But on the other hand, she’s kinda cool with that. She’s used to that role. So anyway, we’ll have to see what happens to her, but, uh, there’s a lot of choice involved *unintelligible* as far as soul goes. Everybody always talks about souls as if it’s something you can have a receipt for, that if you lose it, then it’s just gone, and I don’t think souls work that way, I think that there’s too much attached to them, I think that there are too many things that consist of what your soul is, so I don’t think this is kinda trying to figure “did you lose your soul?”, because I think you can lose your soul without bothering to stop by any kind of supernatural beings whatsoever. You know, if you watch the news, you’ll see people who do that all the time. But yeah, as far as The Dresden Files goes, as far as eternal damnation, etc., goes, no I don’t think that’s as much an issue for Molly as yet, it could sometime though. Whether Mab has some kind of spark of a soul left or not, that’s one of those questions that would be very difficult to answer, and I’m probably not smart enough to answer it. But uh, probably, when you’ve gone so far down the road to pure power as Mab has, it’s hard to hang on to your soul. And it depends on how people who have been handed all this extra stuff deal with it, and what that’s going to do for them in the long run. And it’s one of those long run kind of things, meaning you’re going to be stuck like that for 2,000 years, you don’t really have to go bad tomorrow, you have plenty of time yet to start growing mold on your conscience and so on.

Jim: Who else? Over here on the left.

Audience member: So when Harry is battling the Outsider at the end, he yells out his name, is that all going on in his head or does everybody hear what his full Name is?

Jim: But anyway, right here *gestures*.

*Question unintelligible*

Oh, um, I didn’t come up with that.

**Audience laughter**

I stole that from somewhere else, but thank you.

**Question unintelligible but I heard “manuals” and “how did you envision it all”**

**Audience laughter**

But yeah, there are ones out there who have put it together. A lot of things that are happening, are based on the rules of magic that have happened before, and that makes me feel a little proud that at least I’ve done it in some intelligible fashion. Or maybe that I play too much D&D. I want to have a comprehensive system that makes sense. Yeah, this was from the old D&D, which was, you know, the opposite of “makes sense”, it was kind of the definition of arcane. Where do we find information on assassins? Is that in the Players Handbook? No it’s not in the Players Handbook, it’s in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Oh, right, ok, I’ll find it there.

On the left.

Audience member: Along those lines then, I believe I’m capable of saying that I know what you’re talking about. I think I heard you say on a podcast that you were running a steampunk campaign and that it might end up being a book at some point?

Uh yeah, I said on a podcast that I was running a steampunk campaign that that might end up being a book and that’s not entirely true. I’m not running the campaign anymore, and it is a book. It’s about 70% written because once I started-. I really think writing a campaign for people is one of the great things you can do as a writer, because it doesn’t matter how well you plan it, they’ll screw things up for you.

*audience laughter*

Players do that, you know, it’s like no I started writing this story for this *unintelligible* game, and I had this huge intricate plot that *video failure* ceremony that he was planning in the beginning to try to redeem his honor, and it was like “No, the gaijin was not supposed to stand in the pit and hurl pigs through the Savaku ceremony and ruin it. !”. And makes everything have to start all over for another year, and I have to put all this extra world in and I’m sort of….I feel like I’m a workman, frantically laying plants out in front of these people who are just wandering along. It’s a very good creative exercise, it really kinda forces you to stop and think, “OK, wait, so I’ve got to build this whole thing so it makes sense, how do I do that, and how do I take what I know about how the actual world works and make this fantasy world work that way? Which I love to do, and which drives me crazy, it’s one of those things.

So right now, the game I’m running is, I’m running it for my son and his friends, and the next generation people can’t do it right. So I’m kinda running that in my head, as a fantasy world, that’s going to be an epic fantasy one day. Truly epic. If I ever sit down and write it, I’ll try and be all George Martin about it.

**Audience laughter**

We agree?

Yeah, exactly, just like George.

By the way, I heard yesterday that the story for Dangerous Women anthology finally went in, so there’s a Dresden Files story in that, it’s a Molly-centered story, called Bombshells, it happens between Ghost Story and Cold Days, and it’s about how she gets her apartment. But anyway, it was supposed to come out before Cold days came out, it was supposed to be a warm-up, and I didn’t know that George Martin was going to be in the anthology, so…

**Audience laughter**

It’ll be out in a few more months now that it finally got done.

Audience member: What’s next?

Oh, steampunk series, right now it’s called The Cinder Spires, the first book is called The Aeronauts Windlass, for the time being, because, well, I like aeronauts and windlasses. It’s got airships and goggles, and it’s got talking cats who are perfect little monsters… Every time I write a point-of-view chapter from the point of view of one of these cats, I’m like, “Oh my god, someone needs to just field-goal kick this guy, just out through the wall”, because they are just so perfectly sure that they’re in control of everything that’s happening around them, and that all is proceeding according to their plans, if these humans would just stop messing it up. It’s a lot of fun as a writer. And they actually end up being much like the Mafia in our society, because, you know, they can talk, and they can use matches, you know.

**Audience laughter**

They can enforce their demands. “I noticed that you have no rodents in your warehouse. Perhaps you’d like to keep it that you have no rodents in your warehouse? Perhaps, there will be cream left outside for my associates and I…”. They’re that kind of attitude, only you know, they’re far more arrogant.

**Unintelligible question, regarding the next DF novel**

Ok, the next novel in the Dresden Files is called Skin Game, it’s a heist. Mab goes to Harry and says, “You have to help this guy steal something”. And the person they’re ripping it off from is the lord of the underworld, Hades, who has repurposed Daedalus’ labyrinth as his, kind of as his personal safe. So Harry and Nicodemus are off to rip off the lord of hell. We’ll see how that goes.

Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fun. It’s going to be one of those things where everybody knows everybody else is getting ready to screw one another, and they’re just trying to figure out how to get it done first and best. We’ll also be recycling some characters we’ve seen before. You know, um, they’re going to be doing a break-in, so Harry’s going to have to go look up the last of the Churchmice and get her on the team, there’s going to be several other characters like that. And we want Michael off the bench on this one.

Anyways, so yeah, yeah, you can Tweet about that, mull it over for a while.

**Audience laughter**

Because if it was me, I would.

Audience Member: I was originally from Chicago so I was always curious as why you set it in Chicago.

Why set it in Chicago? When I started writing the Dresden Files, there wasn’t a Google. ‘Cause that was in, ’93, when I started writing. And really Search engines had not gotten big at that time. I mean, you could go to one, but you could never find anything, because it just wasn’t hooked up to enough stuff yet. I set it in Chicago because my writing teacher told me I couldn’t set it in Kansas City. Originally it was set in Kansas City, and my writing teacher said, “No, no, you can’t do that, you’re already walking close enough to Laurell Hamilton’s shoes that you don’t need to be writing a book set in Missouri. Pick another city.”

There was a globe on her desk, and there were 4 American cities. And I didn’t want to do New York because, you know, the superheroes all had that, and the editors all live there and fact-check you.

**Audience laughter**

I didn’t want to do DC because if you write anything in DC, you have to write politics into it and you lose half the audience that way. I didn’t want to do anything in Los Angeles, because, it’s Los Angeles, and I didn’t want to go out there. There’s already movies and TV all about Los Angeles, **unintelligible**. And that left Chicago. So I said, “How about Chicago?” And she said, “that’s fine, that’s perfect, it’s not Kansas City.” And so I set it in Chicago, and it turned out to be a fortuitous choice in terms of how many nifty things can happen there, and how much history is there. Not that their history is particularly more or better than what’s around here, but it is interesting. And, I started slowly cultivating a database of people who lived there, who I could say, “Hey, what does the East wall of Graceland Cemetary look like?” “Oh, they’re refurbishing it right now, actually, it looks like this:”

And of course now, I’ve got my Google Maps, and I can zoom in on the building and say, “Well, someone is going to be in front of this building, and wanted to be seen, or wanted not to be seen going in, he’d have to take out this streetlight right here, this street light would have to be out if no one was to see him going in.”

And actually, a cop would come up to me and say, “Who did you talk to to get that done? Because we had some one break into that building….”

**Audience laughter**

And I’m like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you, I think I just have **unintelligible** instincts, because I just looked it up on Google Maps”.

And he’s like “Wow, yeah, yeah, we’ll let you know when he comes down here.”

**Audience laughter**

I think he was joking, any person in Chicago. Right here *gestures*

*unintelligible question but you should be able to work out what it was*

Oh, am I going to explore where the mantles came from? Um, we’ll have to as we go on, in terms of, to a certain degree, some of them have always been there. If we’re talking about mantles in There’s all kinds of them. It’s not just Faerie, they’re all over the place. There are still mantles hanging around from Greek times. Greco-Roman mythology, **unintelligible** mythology. The gods are also around, in one form or another, most of them are around. Some of them got themselves killed. Because lets face it, some of those guys were idiots.

And I mean, you go back there and read, and it’s like, how could you possibly have survived that? The answer in the Dresden Files is that they didn’t. They *unintelligible* up til they died. Sorry, Hercules, you can only go slamming your head into walls for so long. And if your mantle passed on to The Hulk, it sort of exists in people’s minds and imaginations now.

*question about Pratchett reference*

Reference to Pratchett? I mean, how could you not reference Pratchett? I mean, especially if you’re just going to steal such an awesome quote? I mean, it’s a great quote. He’s got lots of them, but that one is particularly fine. You gotta give credit to the guy that came up with it. Pratchett is one of those guys who’s just genuinely a genius. **unintelligible** It very strongly influenced the Dresden Files. **Unintelligible reference to one of Pratchett’s works** It’s really really interesting, it’s a really great point. Because Pratchett is, himself, one of those guys that **unintelligible**
He makes a very great point about why we have these things that we tell children to believe in, and he says, well, that’s so they can believe the bigger lies later, that are more important, things like love, justice, honor…. Those are the things you cannot measure and quantify. You can break down the universe into the smallest particles you like and you’ll never find the particle of truth. That’s something you have to learn, that’s something you have to create, and it’s important for kids to learn. It’s important to learn to believe in some things that don’t exist, so that the real important things that don’t exists later have someone around to support them. That was incredibly insightful….his writing is just full of stuff like that. I mean, I don’t agree with a lot of the things he says and believes, but you gotta pay attention to what he says, he’s extremely wise in a lot of ways about the nature of life. You should definitely….he’s hilarious, he’s freaking hilarious.

Audience Member: Is Kringle Fae?

Is Kringle Fae? His mantle, yes, is part of the Winter Court. Which does not necessarily mean that he himself is Fae as much as the fact that his mantle is. While he’s there, he’s got to pay deference to Mab. If Mab throws him a command, he has to obey it. Mab’s too smart to throw him many commands, it’s much smarter to just let him do his thing. Because it’s this mysterious Christmas-y stuff anyway, cheer and goodwill, whatever. She supposes it’s good to have somebody like that for PR. That at times could be useful. It’s like, oh, so, Winter Court, cold season of death, evil, but then it’s like, yeah, Christmas! Oh, wow, yeah, you’re right. It’s like the schools sponsored by the tobacco company. **unintelligible** It’s something of the same thing. And besides which, if she doesn’t give him a bunch of orders and stuff, then basically, when she does go to him and say, “I need to know something”, that really, what can you do, this is our game of give-and-take. So, in a way, it’s not really a subservient relationship, Mab’s too smart for it to be that.

Audience Member: You said the Winter, rather, Knights’ mantles change fairly often? How often do the Ladies’, Queens’ and Mothers’ mantles change?

Uh, the Ladies, Queens and Mothers, their mantles change very, very, very rarely in general. I mean, Mab’s been there for better than 1,000 years. And Maeve’s been there….there was a Winter Lady before Maeve, uh, in Mab’s time. And she didn’t fare so well the last time a Starborn was running around. And so Mab had Maeve, um, but in any case, I leave things here, don’t miss ‘em. I love to drop teases and hints and walk away smiling, but anyway. They don’t change very often at all. The Knights’ mantles change, like, constantly. Most Knights are Knights who pick up a sword for a night. And then they’re done. It’s just some random Joe, who happens to be a decent guy, and it’s like, “Look, magical sword, horrible danger! Do something!”. A lot of those guys don’t go very far (I think that’s what was said) Just because you’re a great guy doesn’t mean you’re smart enough to survive an encounter with demons, for example. And we’ll see a bit more of that in the next book, too.

**Unintelligible, was about future of the Swords**

Yeah, we’ll get a new wielder for at least one of the swords by the end of this next book. So, there ya go.

**Unintelligible question, multiple parts to it**

Ok, first of all, are we going to see more background stuff from Merlin and King Arthur and so on. And the answer to that is yeah, obviously. I can’t stop now. I mean, I’m compulsive enough that I’d need to get this done even if there wasn’t anyone buying, at this point.

And for the question, where do I get my inspiration from? Anything that makes me really happy, anything that makes me really sad, anything that makes me scared or makes me cry….stuff that has really powerful effect on you, that’s where inspiration comes from, you gotta draw from there. So, it’s all over the place. Um, usually I’ll find, come across something, while in the middle of watching something fairly recent, and I’ll go, “Oh, this is really interesting!” You know, I’ll do all these references to the Camelot stuff, some of the things they’re doing on Babylon 5 Crusade, which died an early death, tragically. I can’t believe that. SyFy channel could’ve picked up Crusade, instead, they got Lexx. Okay, if there are fans of Lexx out there, I’m sorry, but Crusade had one of the coolest wizard figures that’s been around in TV, short of Dr. Who, one of the coolest wizards in TV. And Dr. Who’s a wizard, don’t let anyone tell you differently. Ok, he’s got a sonic screwdriver instead of a wand, that’s the only difference.

Anyway, so if I find anything I find intriguing there, then I’ll start digging into where it came from. And, so, I’ll run across the Taliesin books, and I’ll go back even further than that, and be digging into Malory, and eventually I’ll run out of trail, and say, “but I wanted to know THIS”, and then I’ll just make it up, because that’s what these guys did. And then I go “Oh yeah, okay cool, I’ll do that”.

So, you know, I’ll take Excalibur, and say, Excalibur was actually part of a Superfriends team of sorts, because that sounds like fun, I like Superfriends. And, so, we meet in the Hall of Justice, and I’ll grab an archangel instead of the, what was the guy that talked to the Power Rangers?

(It’s Zordon)

Yes, so, we’ll have that, but we’ll call him Michael, and, anyway. So I take things that I like, that I thing is nifty, and I put it together with other things that are nifty and that seem to fit together, and I stick it in a story, introduce some characters, and then they go off and do something I hadn’t had planned with it. ‘Cause the characters from the books, they aren’t any different from the players. They go do things. And it’s like, “What is wrong with you people?”

**Audience laughter**

And, I think that’s a good sign, that you’re doing it right, if your characters are always trying to charge off in some non-progressive direction. Gotta kick them back into line. Because I can’t do that to my players., they wouldn’t put up with that.

Audience member: *unintelligible but seems to be asking about the Nevernever*

Uh yeah we’ll keep heading into the Nevernever as the series goes on because it gets increasingly important. What with bad guys coming in through there trying to tear up reality (I think this is what is being said at 31:20) The way that it works is, the Fae, they’ve been established as sort of the auto-immune system of reality, they’re busy trying to keep it from coming apart, from things from the Outside, which, I guess, that makes Harry a big old version of a white blood cell now. *Unintelligible but I heard “combat things”* But, we’ll be running into, we’ll be playing with some different pantheons and stuff from mythology, we’re going to have to be careful. Because some of these religions still have a lot of people who still follow them. So, it takes a considerable amount of research on my part, so I can figure out well enough, so I can use stuff, and not run over stuff that people actually believe in. That’s kinda tough. I like to avoid, you know, spontaneously insulting someone’s religion whenever I can. It seems like one of those things that will get me through life with fewer black eyes.

*Audience laughter*

Audience member: Bob’s apparent personality change, is that merely a reflection of Harry’s personality change, or is it a big old cluebat that something happened offscreen?

It’s funny you should mention that. Is it merely a reflection of Harry’s personality change, or is it a big clue to something that happened offscreen. Bob’s personality change is linked to whoever owns him. If Bob is somewhat different, if he’s a little more…candid and “I just don’t care if you know about bad things” lately, that’s a reflection of Harry. When he’s back in Butters’ possession, he’s got a slightly different personality, when Harry owns him or when anybody else is carrying him around *something unintelligible but I think I heard “writing about it so far”* well plus the evil psychopath Cowl. But yeah, Bob is very much, he exists as a, essentially he’s a wizard’s assistant so he’s something of a looking glass, he adjusts to fit whoever he’s working with. Which makes him a perfect assistant, a great tool, but also a really really dangerous one. Because depending on who you are, Bob’s the guy that can help you make things happen, and that’s not always a good thing.

Audience member: When the Fae mantles shift, what happens to the Mothers?

Jim: When the Fae mantles shift, what happens to the Mothers? For the most part, nothing much. They’re huge. They’re mountains, and, you know, all these mantles are…pebbles. So, if enough of them shift, in a way it will affect the Mothers.

Audience member: *Impossible to hear even at max volume question but you can probably work out what it was from Jim’s response*

Jim: Oh, yeah, so like if the Ladies become the Queen, what happens to the Mothers at that point? The thing is that the Mothers are kind of the foundation. So, it’s not so much what happens to them because the little mantles changed. It’s what happens to the little mantles if the big mantles change. So, if someone whacks the being that is, for all intents and purposes, Baba Yaga, and then Mab succeeds, then Mab becomes the new Baba Yaga, and Molly gets drawn up to Mab, and they have to find someone else to become the new Lady. But on the other hand, the Mothers are extremely powerful beings, I mean, they’re really really well, you can tell because they hardly ever show up on the real world. In the Dresden Files universe if you don’t show up on the real world, it’s because you’re too big to walk around there. For instance, I think in the third book, when the Dragon is talking about how the Earth couldn’t bear his weight, it’s not that the Earth itself would literally crack, it’s that reality would have issues trying to contain him, because every time he coughs, it would bend around like Neo in the Matrix. So, they spend most of their time NOT on the real world, they spend it hanging around in the Nevernever, all the really heavyweight guys do that. If you’re in the real world, well, the problem is that you’re in the world, and you’re kind of mortal, and something could come along and try and whack you, if they’re fast enough, or good enough, or lucky enough. Which makes Odin a kind of special guy, because he doesn’t mind it, he thinks it’s awesome. But anyway, you can always tell. If there’s folks who don’t show up in the real world, it’s because they’re super big. So, like, an angel shows up, and it’s just sort of a whispered presence that one person is aware of, that’s because he’s just too big to show up here, it’s a giant sandbox, and he’s got to be very very careful to not squash the sandbox. So, he just shows up for that one bit.

Audience Member: Since Molly comes from such a close-knit family, how is Harry going to be able to explain what happens to her? And since that same family is taking care of Harry’s daughter, how is he going to be able to explore his relation with Little Maggie?

Ok, so her question is, since Molly comes from such a close-knit family, how is Harry going to explain what happens to her? **Evil Jim laughter** And since that same family is taking care of Harry’s daughter, how is he going to be able to explore his relationship with little Maggie? **Evil Jim laughter**

Yeah, that might…that might just be a small part of the next book…what’s going on with that. Yeah, Harry has to go up to Michael and say, “Yeah, about your daughter, ummm….she’s sort of the….she’s sort of the…..the trampy queen of Faerie these days…that’s kind of the job she inherited, so, you know, if she shows up looking weird……er, try not to hold it too hard against her?” Uh, we’ll have to see how that pans out, because Michael is, you know, he has a great heart, great soul, but he’s not a saint. He’s definitely going to have his limits. Somebody’s going to get Charity with her nail-gun at the rate things are going. We’ll have to see what’s going on, that’s what it’s shaping up like though. It’s going to be fun to see that happen.

Yes, back there.

**Unintelligible** …do you have a master plan for the next 5, 6, 7 books, or do you just start writing and say “this is how it is.”?

Um, when I set out to write the novels, I kind of planned out the big events, like the kind of events you’d learn about in history class, and I have those planned out. And those are kind of like my Milestones, where I know “these things are going to be happening”. Then, I have some of the character things planned out, some of the big milestones for main characters, and I know kind of generally where they’re going. And then they start running around and changing plans on me. I never planned out Harry’s love life, because I wanted that to be something that kind of grew up naturally over the course of the series. And, it turns out, the person you’re in love with can have some small effect on the rest of your life… Who knew? I wasn’t all that bright, when I started writing these. I’m still not all that bright, but at least I’m becoming more aware of how bright I’m not. But yeah, as a writer, it’s a terrible plan to not plan the romance, but as a storyteller it’s fun, because there’s all these things happening that I have to stop and take into account, and new people come up and ask me questions and I’ll go, “Oh my gosh, they’re right. Hmm….”

**Audience laughter**

“How am I going to change everything? Because that’s actually a very good point…”

So I know generally what’s going to happen. I know when I start a story…ok, so, what I told you about the next book? That’s pretty much everything that I know about it. I know a few things that are going to happen, I know some of the set pieces that I want to put in there. I generally know a couple of one-liners I’m going to be sure to use. And then other than that, once I get things started, it’s like, “Ok, let’s go!” At this point in my writing process, that’s enough for me to write a Dresden story.

If I was doing something else, for instance, if I was doing the steampunk, which is kinda what I’m working on right now, that’s something where I want to have considerably more story laid out in advance, and I have to stop as I go along and write out different parts of the world so I can establish them and know what they are. You know, look up “What about this giant hole, uh, in reality? Oh, well, this giant hole can be explained by…” And then I’ll figure out how to explain the giant hole. And it kind of builds out into the world.

The Dresden Files universe, fortunately it’s got enough grounding behind that, ok, well, fortunately and unfortunately. Fortunately it’s got enough grounding behind it that I’ve figured out enough of how it works that I know how the rest of it works. And so going through is just a matter of me grabbing the right levers and pulling and seeing which *unintelligible* and that’s a lot of fun, for me, I love doing that. Unfortunately, for me, everyone else has seen my how it *unintelligible*, and there are people out there who are better than me, better than ME, at going, “shouldn’t this lever open THAT door?” Oh, what do you know, it did. Shut up.

**Audience laughter**

Just stop giving me a hard time. Uh, which is great, because as soon as somebody makes a comment like that, I can go up and grab them and say, “You’re going to help me write these books, and you get to read them early, and have bragging rights. “ And they go, “Okay!”, because most of the time, people are excited when I say that. And then they’re trapped. Because then they’re stuck in the beta-fu asylum with the rest of the inmates, and, you know, occasionally getting one chapter a month, and occasionally three in a day, however many I’m feeling at the time.

Right here.

Audience Member: What are you going to tell us about who stole Mother Winter’s walking stick and the person who has it now?

What are you going to tell us about who stole Mother Winter’s walking stick and the person who has it now? Uh, we’ll get there at some point. You should be able to figure it out, because it’s in the book. That’s stuff that I, uh, I don’t like to throw lots of new stuff in when there’s old stuff that I haven’t used yet, I’m fundamentally lazy as a writer, I like to make things connect. There’s already been a half dozen people who said, “Hey wait, it must be this!” and I’m like, yeah. But yeah, that was, uh, I’m kind of tempted to write, I keep being tempted to write the French-Indian War in the Dresden Files universe. Because it’s really interesting, there were a lot of things going on at that point in time. Except, to do that, I’ll have to learn about the French-Indian War.

**Audience laughter**

But there was all sorts of cool stuff happening, because that’s when Ebenezer was a young hot-head, and the current Merlin was his opposing hot-head, and they were best friends, and, you know, that was when Listens-to-Winds was a young man as well, kind of the earlier generation of wizards when they were punks Harry’s age. Because they were such monumental screw-ups. Because that’s the way life is. You find out, oh my gosh, my parents were, they were fumbling along just the way I am now, at this point in their lives. It’s one of those great lessons that humbles you as you go on. But anyway, that’ll be fun to write at some point, some day. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get to do it, but it was a very interesting period of time for wizards.

Audience Member: Uh, two questions. First, would you ever consider doing another Spider-Man novel again? And, what would you say to someone who’s looking to get into the business of writing books?

Ok, first question, would I consider writing another Spider-Man novel? Uh, sure, I would consider it. I love writing Spider-Man. That was so much fun. I don’t know if, at this point, uh, you don’t get paid a lot for writing Spider-Man novels. And that would be kind of a serious hit in my income to write for Spider-Man again. If they were willing to pay me even half of what I would make on an original novel, I’d be willing to. But if they were like, “Here’s your 10k, thank you Jim”, maybe not. When I’ve got some stories of my own that I’m excited to get out. But, generally speaking, Spider-Man, yes, more Spider-Man. I actually got offered, they offered me the chance to do DC content, they said “Hey, if you would like to do a guest stint for Superman or Batman, you know, we would love to have you there. And I’m like, oh my god, that is so flattering. But…I’m just not a fan of Superman or Batman, and I could not write it well enough to make the people who are fans of Superman and Batman happy, like I could with something like Spider-Man. Um, so that didn’t work out so well. I had to turn it down. It was a great offer.

And then, now, I get vengeance because, the original writers of the Dresden Files graphic novels *unintelligible* they saw his work on the Dresden Files stuff and said “hey come and draw Batman!” and he said “whoo!” and I’m like “I’ve lost Artie, that’s like noooooo, what have you done to me Batman, I will have my vengeance!”.

As far as what I would say to someone who was *unintelligible* to writing books. Uh, tough biz, it took me about 9 years for me to break in, if you’re gonna do it, you have to commit to it and say to yourself “I’m gonna do this, even if it takes me 9 years like that lunkhead Jim” and then you go do it. The thing is, no one’s gonna help you, you’re not going to have anybody who’s standing there with you everyday going “you need to sit down and write today, you can do it!” it has to be you going “I need to sit down and write today, I can do it”. And whatever you need to do to motivate you to do that. Writing anything, even if you only write a sentence you’re still closer to the end of the book than you were before. Write what you love, people say “write the things you know”, like I know wizards and faeries and stuff, no, write what you love. Something that is going to keep you back and doing it over and over, write the things that make you happy and keep your interest on the book. If you find yourself writing something that’s boring and that you’re not enjoying, you’re doing anything wrong. Write something that you like, and then when you’re sitting down and writing and you go “oh yeah, someone’s going to scream at me if they don’t get to read the next part…if I can get anybody to read this part”. And eventually, if you hand in there long enough, breaking into writing is mostly about not quitting. If you’re too dumb to quit, you’re off to a good start, which explains me. Because you’d think that after 8 years of no one wanting any of my stuff that I would probably go “Well, maybe I should go find something else to do” instead of “No, I just need to keep going for a little while longer, maybe go to some conventions”. And uh, I was too dumb to know that it was never going to happen so it happened. And that’s kind of what you have to do, you have to believe in it until there it is. Use the internet, the internet is awesome, for networking, meeting people, for getting advice, for getting writing advice. Go *unintelligible* livejournal (I think that’s what’s being said), there’s writing lessons there. But anyway, that’s mostly what it is, you have to believe in it until it works. If you can delude yourself into thinking it long enough you’ll be able to do it.

Over here *gestures*

Audience member: *Unintelligible but something about whether it was a conscious choice to have Harry giving out the advice that “there’s no substitute for being in your child’s life” and then needing to be told that in Cold Days.*

Jim: It was not a conscious decision in Cold Days but If I’d thought about it I would have done it. Harry’s great for saying one thing and doing something else. It’s really easy to give other people advice on how to do life and then life walks up to you and you go “oh that’s how people make that mistake”. You know, Harry going on and on to River Shoulders and how “you’ve gotta be involved in your son’s life, there’s just no substitute for you being there” and now he’s got this daughter who’s living in a house in Chicago and he’s just sort of peering at it through one of those doctor *unintelligible* telescopes. And ignoring his own advice that he’s given out regularly, which is very human, and it’s very like Harry. Unfortunately, being just sort of a lunkhead who’s trying to figure things out as he goes along. We’re just going to do a few more questions then we’re going onto the signing.

*points at someone in a red shirt*

Red Shirt, you know you’re not going to survive the *unintelligible*, you know that?

Red Shirt: Are we going to learn more about Mac? His background?

Are we going to learn more about Mac and his background? Yeah, of course, I’m going to keep throwing little bits and things out there. There’s already been somebody who worked it out. I’ve been contacted by one person who successfully worked it out, and said “Hey, is Mac THIS”, and I have to write back, “I’m not saying he is, and I’m not saying he isn’t.” So, if you want to dig into the clues that are there and figure it out, have fun.

Audience Member: *unintelligible*

Jim: Not that you aren’t good, are you kidding? I was clueless when I got started. The biggest problem with The Dresden Files is that people have to start with the book I wrote when I *unintelligible*.

Audience Member: How do you look back on your past works as you move forward as a writer?

Jim: Do I look back on my past works as I move forward as a writer? Gosh, growing as a writer is mostly about trying to do things you’re not sure you can do. So, when I wrote Changes, it’s like, okay, you’re going to completely alter every bit of your story, every major character, basically every major prop, every major set and turn it into something completely different. And do this in such a way that is germane to the story that’s happening and keeping with the plot that’s going on around it. And you’re going to tie up a bunch of plots that have been going for a long time and give birth to a bunch of new ones….go. And I kinda wrote out out my goal and I looked at it and I went “am I crazy? Couldn’t I just write the last book again and change the names around?” cuz that would make a lot of readers happy. But, that wouldn’t have been… that was the whole point of Changes, we’re going to do a major life changer right here. So growing as a writer is really about…if you’re writing a book and you absolutely know that you can do everything that you’ve got planned for it and do it well, you haven’t aimed high enough. You need to keep trying to write something that you’re not sure that you can pull off, and sometimes you’ll pull it off and it’ll work like in Changes and sometimes it’ll only sorta work like in Ghost Story. But, you have to keep going as a writer, *unintelligible* to say okay, what I’m going to do is that I’m going to take an action hero and I’m going to put him in a positions where he can’t really take any actions. What a genius move that was. But it was a good time for Harry in terms of seeing some other people take over some stuff in the story have a more leading role and Dresden got to be a little more thoughtful about his life. Not that he’ll really stop and take it in and do a lot of good things with it, I don’t think, but neither do the rest of us so I suppose that works out.

But you really have to try something about your beginning, so you know I’m going to drop Dresden in and have him play hob-cob with Nicodemus. Cuz how well’s that going to work out? I mean it’s one thing, it’s one thing when it’s Clooney and Pitt, they’re friends obviously, planning their scheme, their heist. This is going to be a semi-different situation. So I have to write I heist book and a backstabby/twisty/politicky book at the same time. And I don’t know if I can do that, it might be an awful disaster, I don’t know. But I’ve gotta try, because if we’re just doing another adventure book *unintelligible*. Oh, and by the way while doing all that, I also have to do this intricate setup between Harry and one of his oldest friends, and mutual children that are at stake. No pressure there.

And I don’t know if I can do that, but that’s what I’m setting myself up for and the book’s *unintelligible*.

You’re taking bits of your soul and you’re forging them into something and then show them to people and say “isn’t that pretty?” and then you’ll hope they say “yeah, yeah, this is great”, You guys say it’s great, thank you, I appreciate that. Seriously, I mean, occasionally I get out and people say “Jim, you write stuff that makes us happy” It’ll be like *unintelligible*, I gotta keep reminding myself of that. Because, really if you’re going into writing for the money, don’t do that, don’t ever do that. I got my first book published in 2001 and it took me until 2009 to broker minimum wage over the course of when I started writing to where I was. And now *unintelligible* I’m doing so well that they *unintelligible* complain now, but it’s not something you could- Don’t clamp up and do it for the money. Occasionally you’ll have somebody who says “yeah I just quit my job so that I could become a writer” and I’ll be like “Oh my god! no, do some research before you quit your job”, it’s gotta be something *unintelligible* your passion. As far as growing as a write, just write something that you’re not sure you can accomplish. When you get started, maybe don’t do that when you get started because even if you think it’s going to be easy writing even the simplest kind of story, not easy, it’s like lifting the engine lock out of a car, it’s simple, but it’s not easy. You do it wrong and you’ll kill yourself or someone else, and your first stories will be that bad that you’ll make whoever you make read them wish you’d killed him. I wouldn’t have made Osama Bin Laden read my first five manuscripts, they were that bad.

Anyway, thank you very much guys, for your questions, for your interest and for your continued support as readers and we’ll get some books signed.

Booktalk Nation Interview WoJ Transcript 5-15-14

Transcript by Second Aristh

Hello everyone, here’s a transcript from yesterday’s interview. You can watch the video here. Questions start coming in around 23 minutes into the video.

Are we going to ever see any stories from Morgan’s point of view? Obviously this will be set in the past, but it would be interesting.
It would be interesting. Huh. Yeah maybe. I hadn’t even considered that before. It might make for an interesting story. Especially in retrospect.

Are Georgia and the baby okay? We last saw her in Aftermath, 8 ½ month pregnant and not well off. Then we just see Will by himself and angry.
Yeah they’re fine. Will’s just kinda angry generally speaking. It’s mostly because he’s not sleeping very much. He’s got a baby werewolf to deal with. That’s gotta be tough on him. Just regular parenting is hard enough.

How has Mouse been? Will you incorporate him into further adventures or has his character been placed on the shelf?
Mouse has been very busy taking care of Maggie. You’ll get to see a bit more of that in the upcoming book. … Mouse has been actually doing his own children series in the back of my head with Maggie.

Will we see Faith again, and if so did she learn to be a wizard?
You will indeed see her. Faith will be the client that sets off the big apocalyptic trilogy. She was the first Dresden client in the very first Dresden short story that I wrote, so I want to use her again to kick off the big ending.

Does Harry have an incorrect understanding of the Dark Hollow and other parts of the world?
Oh god yes. I won’t say Harry is clueless, but his understanding of lots of things including the way that magic works is incomplete in many ways. If only because he hasn’t been trusted by a lot of the wizarding community by a lot of the people who could have taught him better. And a lot of the people who do know better aren’t correcting him because they think it’s important to learn these things on your own. Harry’s going to be stumbling across things where he goes “Oh, well I didn’t understand this exactly right.” Like for example the literal Outer Gates. That was something he did not know actually existed. He thought that was a metaphor for a long time.

How did Ebenezar’s instant death spell in Changes work?
That had to do with Ebenezar’s stick. That was all to do with the Blackstaff.
Any more to elaborate?
Well, there are folks who have speculated on where the Blackstaff came from, and that should explain it for those who piece it together.

Are Mother Summer and Mother Winter two of three Fates? If so what is the third?
No, they’re… read Skin Game.

Fix looks like he had a rather impressive Summer Knight’s sword. Was that part of the standard kit or something he had managed to get on his own?
That was a blade that Titania had made for him.
Is there even a Sword of Winter, and if Harry doesn’t get it, who has it?
No, not as such. The Knight himself is considered more important. Summer likes to externalize things about violence because they’re not quite as attuned to that sort of savagery. In Winter it’s much more important for you to be the weapon than it is for you to have the weapon. Harry is expected to be the sword.

Do other planets except Earth have a Never Never, and if yes, what causes them to have a Never Never?
I’ve got enough to deal with with just the one planet, much less other planets!! There’s one planet, and they’re multiple realities of the one planet running around side by side into infinity and now you want more planets too?! Aaahhhh
Let me think about that one, and I’ll get back to you.

How many people died because of the events of Dead Beat?
There were several dozen casualties in Dead Beat, and the wardens who acted there managed to prevent more than that. The town got kinda crazy, but in Dresden’s Chicago people are very very good at putting their heads down when things get completely weird and then pretending nothing happened afterward.

Will there ever be a story with baby Drac or his daddy?
There might be. The Impaler is one of those people I’m saving for later.

Will we see the Jade Court?
Probably not. You might see one of their agents. You’ll probably never see them because they’re very isolationist, and they like to stay isolated.

Why doesn’t Harry get a sword? Everyone else gets a sword. I thought for sure he was going to get one.
What’s he gonna do with a sword? He’ll cut himself. Honestly, if he had a sword he’d fall on it, you know he would. Somebody would take it away from him and hit him with it. That’s the kind of thing that happens.

In the next short story compilation will we be seeing more of Sigrun Gard?
I think she appears in one… maybe. The only one that actually featured her was Hereot (sp?) She actually appears in Even Hand. It’s the story from Marcone’s point of view.

What does Murphy do for a living now that she’s not a paid officer?
She’s got her half retirement, and she gets a small stipend from the Brighter Future Society. She’s got some money she had put by as well. Basically Murphy is scraping.

When will we learn about the original Merlin?
It’s gonna be a few more books.
How many more? Is it gonna be a lot more?
I don’t know. A few more. I’ve got another five or six books until we get to the end of the case books, and I think the original Merlin stuff will start coming out towards the very end.

You’ve said before that you’d like to see an animated series made from these books. Do you have anything to comment on that?
That would be awesome.
Any ideas on who you would want the voices to be?
If it’s gonna be an animated series, we’ve got to get Marsters to do Dresden. If he could be talked into such a thing.

Will Harry drive around in that hearse for the rest of the series?
Haha no. He’s got the Munstermobile for now, but no.

Will Maggie play a big part in later books?
Wait and see.

Will we see Lash again?
I’m not gonna tell you!! (sing-song; insert Jim’s happy dance)

How did Michael know about Elaine in Grave Peril?
At that point Michael and Harry had had enough bonding time for Harry to share some things with Michael that he hadn’t shared with anybody else. He’d actually known Michael for about a year by the time Grave Peril got started.

Will there be a short story from Kincaid’s perspective?
Probably not, although if I ever get around to writing the short story about Hawaii then there will be one where he’s at least in it, but it will be from Murphy’s point of view.

How did Harry and Michael Carpenter originally meet?
It was on a case that Harry was working that he crossed trails with Michael. I don’t want to say much more than that in case I want to go back and write it at some point, but it’s in my notes back there somewhere. They wound up fighting the same bad guy.

Who is your favorite character that has only appeared in the Dresden books?
I really like one of the guys from Skin Game. He’s a character named Goodman Gray from Skin Game. I really liked him. He was fun to write. Bob the Skull is right up there. I have all kinds of fun writing Vadderung. Unfortunately it’s all from Harry’s point of view, so I don’t get to write Vadderung’s perspective on everything. He’s incredibly funny in my head, but I don’t always get to put it into the story.
As a follow up, do you base these characters off of people in real life that you know?
Oh god no. No, I wouldn’t do that to anybody that I knew. The one character I did do that with was Shiro, and Shiro is a compilation of a couple of martial arts teachers I had as a teenager.

Geek and Sundry Skin Games interview

Transcript by TheCuriousFan

TM: Hey everybody, Tigermonkey here, I am honoured to be interviewing Jim Butcher, the author of the latest Dresden Files novel, Skin Game. Jim, thank you for being here, Skin Game is the fifteenth book in the series of The Dresden Files, if someone was thinking about jumping into the series, what would you tell a new reader that they are getting into?

Jim: If you’re jumping into Skin Game, I guess you’re getting into the Ocean’s Eleven episode of The Dresden Files. It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Phillip Marlowe. That’s been my favourite description of it so far.

TM: What made you decide to get into the heist genre with Harry Dresden?

Jim: Oh you’ve gotta write a heist novel at some point, I wanted to write the League of Doom episode of The Dresden Files where it’s like “we’ve gotta put Harry in a black hat and put him with all the bad guys doing bad things and see what happens.”

TM: What would you say is your favourite aspect or part of the book?

Jim: This is one of the first times in the series that we’re getting into ah sorta the major league kinda the heavyweight power group that Dresden hasn’t been in before he’s actually had bad guys come up to him before and thrash him and then say “ah, I just kinda wondered if you were ready for the big time yet”. He’s playing with the famous people now so people like Hades are showing up, you know, I’m finally getting to do this sort of thing where it’s like “ooh, I get to grab cool stuff from mythology and so on and start bringing that into the story” and so that’s been a great deal of fun.

TM: So James Marsters has been the reader for the audiobooks um, most of the audiobooks since the very first one. I am a massive fan of the audiobooks, I get them every single time, do you ever hear his voice when you’re writing for Harry now or has it always been the same voice that’s in your head ever since the very first novel?

Jim: No, Harry just sorta sprung full being into place in my head when I started writing him, I sat down and the very first line I ever wrote for Harry Dresden was “My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, conjure by it at your own risk”. And then I just started writing and like the first two chapters sort of flew off the same night, he’s sort of grown into it I think, as he’s been reading, but it hasn’t really changed the way that I think of it in my head, so much, although he does a fantastic job of the reading of it though. I was actually very pleased to hear with Skin Game to hear he was recording it and then it took him like an extra hour or something to record one scene because it was the scene where Harry actually meets his daughter for the first time because he kept breaking down crying. I’m like “yes! I made Spike the vampire cry”.

TM: Nice! We know there’s an endgame in sight with The Dresden Files, there are only so many books left and you know it’s all kind of leading towards something. When this series ends, do you think you’ll ever actually be able to let go of Harry and just stop writing for him as a character?

Jim: I kind of can because I know where he’s going. The thing about stories is that they’ve gotta have an ending, if they don’t have an ending that’s when stories start to get stale because they just circle and do the same stuff over and over again.

TM: Harry practices a good amount of parkour in this novel, what kind of other special skills do you think you’d wanna throw at his way in the next couple of books?

Jim: Oh gosh, he should probably learn how to keep his mouth shut but I don’t see that happening probably because that never really happened for me either. I got beat up a lot when I was a kid and I had the bad taste to be the smallest kid in class and and one of the smarter kids in class and I might not have been able to keep my mouth shut. Let’s see, as far as learning other stuff goes, I wanna see him start to learn shapeshifting because that will be hilarious.

TM: Random regular question, what books are you celebrating right now?

Jim: Let’s see I just got caught up with both the most recent book in Benedict Jacka’s series, the Alex Verus novels, which if you haven’t read you should check them out they’re really very good. I also just finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. I hate that guy, but yeah, you get to the end of Words of Radiance and you’re like “oh my god! oh my god! this is epic! This is what epic fantasy should look like because this is epic!”. But yeah, I’ve got to get together, maybe get Pat Rothfuss and we can go find Brandon and break his fingers because he’s writing entirely too fast.

TM: Damn healthy competition!

Jim: I know!

But at the same time, I wanna write him to say “write faster”, you know, one of those things you always love and hate to hear as a writer because you know, you love it because you want people to love your stuff, you hate it because it’s like “oh my god I’m already working so hard you don’t even know. It took me nine months and you finished my book in eight hours aaah.”

TM: Well how do you deal with that kind of pressure?

Jim: I blow up a lot of people virtually. So yeah whenever things are too tough I’ve gotta log onto Battlefield 4 and start killing.

TM: So Harry’s subconscious ID shows up again in Skin Game, are there any plans for Harry’s subconscious to shave his goatee anytime soon?

Jim: Well no because c’mon we all know that our evil mirror wears a goatee, I mean if Star Trek taught us anything is was that.

TM: For my own personal I-just-want-to-knowness (should have just said curiosity), how long did it take for you to come up with the name Octo-Kongs?

Jim: *laughs*

That was one of those on the fly moments, I actually had to stop and consider a minute because I thought I might do something with Pong instead of Kong.

TM: So, this is not the last book for Harry Dresden, what is going to be up next for him? What other stuff are you going to be writing in the near future?

Jim: We’ll call the Mirror universe story in the future, I’ve still gotta do the professional wrestling story which I’m looking forward to. The next one though is going to be, there’s going to be a peace summit in Chicago between the various supernatural nations that is going to go horribly wrong because, you know, we can’t just have a peace summit show up and for everybody to be happy, that just doesn’t happen in Harry Dresden’s day.

TM: Thank you, Jim Butcher, for being here and letting me ask you a couple of questions, this was tons of fun, thanks for being here.

Jim: Thank you very much, I’ll try and get an actual camera to use at some point in the future.

Seattle WA 5/30/2014 Q&A

In Book 5 when Harry gets hit with the Barabbas Curse and Shiro takes it for him so he doesn’t die, what stops Nicodemus from just doing the Barabbas Curse on Harry again?
It takes a while to set it up and get going. You can’t just whip it out and say here’s a curse. There’s got to be blood sacrifice and ritual and all this other stuff that goes along with it. Otherwise he’d just use it every day, for fun. That guy cut me off in traffic. Barabbas Curse. Because he totally would.

You’ve introduced a couple characters that wear different faces and show up, and it’s not always easy to tell that they’re the same person such as Odin/Vadderung/Kringle. Are there other characters that you haven’t yet revealed that are wearing multiple faces that we have already seen multiple times?
I’m shocked that you would suspect such a thing of me sir! *I’m not gonna tell you*
Those are pretty much scattered all over the Dresden Files cosmos. You’ll see more as we go. There are a lot of characters that are there right now that aren’t who you think they are. We’ll have to see how it turns out, though.

When a wizard uses cold magic, where does the excess heat go?
Engineering or physics? In this case it would be going over to the NN. If it’s not actual fire happening, the NN is my go to for anything that doesn’t quite fit.

What would happen if Harry wore an iron earring?
It would do horrible things to the mantle around him and put him in terrible pain.
In several books he’s been pierced with iron and it seems as if the mantle goes away but doesn’t actually. He’s in incredible pain because he’s been beaten up, but with long term exposure would his back go back to being normal?
Well, somebody asked something similar a couple of nights ago. They pointed out that when Harry crossed Mab and Mab took the mantle away from him when he broke Winter Law that his back collapsed too, but his back didn’t collapse when he got pierced by iron. And I looked at him, and I said, “You’re right. That seems like an inconsistency. Like someone is lying or doesn’t understand the exact
situation of things or something like that.” Then I said to him what I said to you, next question.

Why did Harry shout his entire Name to an Outsider, especially when he knows all the Outsiders act as one? Now this Outsider has his Name.
Yeah, why would he do that? Harry was shouting a challenge to it, and basically he has to respond in kind so he could find out who this thing was. It was worth it to him to make that effort. It does seem a little crazy, but on the other hand he doesn’t always make the best decisions.
Consequences of stupidity?
Well yeah. On the other hand nobody broke into his brain and tried to make him do things either. Huh, that seems like an inconsistency doesn’t it?

We’ve seen specialists in earth magic, water magic, fire magic, spirit, ectomancy, necromancy, etc. But we’ve never seen an air magic specialist. Is there a reason for that or is there someone I’m not thinking of and what would that look like?
Luccio kind of is, but she lost most of her awesome mojo when she got switched into a new body. Basically the air magic folks, depending on how much magical muscle they have, they can do a lot of things with wind. They’re also really good at communication type stuff. The Merlin is a fantastic air mage. That’s the basis of his “I can communicate with everybody at the speed of thought. Now everyone shut up, and let’s get this plan together.” That’s kind of where that comes from for him.

Back in Dead Beat when we see Quintus Cassius pop up again where he’s aged to an old man because he gave up his coin. Why did he never summon it back?
He tried. The knights got the Coin secured before he could do it. They wrap it up and take it back to the basilica. They’ve got special holy lunchboxes for them.

I was wondering if it was intentional that Butters’s catch phrase “Polka will never die” is P.W.N.D. which really seems to fit Butters.
I’m shocked you would think that of me… I’m doubly shocked that somebody noticed.

Uriel gets very upset when Harry tries to change his name. Is Harry’s ability to name things something that every mortal possesses or is something giving Harry naming rights?
No giving things names is something anybody can do. It sticks a little harder coming from Harry because he has so much more power relative to the rest of the world. Naming things is a way of having power over them. That’s in almost every magical tradition. That’s something that other people can do as well, but a lot of them don’t. The problem is when you Name something you create a link to it. By doing that you’re leaving yourself open to it in some ways. Dresden just runs around naming things willy nilly because he’s such a careful guy.

What sets the cadence of your Name? How does that work?
When somebody uses your Name against you, it’s all about the way you perceive yourself in some ways. The True Name that they need is the Name that you say when you say your Name. Nobody else can give them your True Name unless they’ve gotten it from you.

From Summer Knight, there’s a wizard sitting under the polar ice caps. What’s he doing and is he still there?
Yes he’s still there… oh yes he is still there! I’m doing something… I’m sorry it’s a short story thing. I don’t want to say anything else about it.

Why the Winter Court for the ones who are protecting against the Outsiders?
What determines the realm of Faerie is it’s all the NN that’s actually bordering on the mortal world. Anywhere you can get to in the NN from the mortal world is Faerie somewhere because that’s the border territory. Faeries themselves are beings that essentially have a tie to the mortal world. They’re part mortal, all of them. The world needed protection. Over the years it’s changed who that’s provided that protection. Thousands of years ago when there were a bunch of other gods and pantheons in operation, it was different people who were in charge of making sure the world stays secure. Then over the past thousand years or so, it’s fallen upon the Queens of Faerie who are the only beings with enough power to pull it off. Of them, the ones that you want fighting all the time absolutely ruthlessly absolutely without mercy, those are the ones who have to stand up against the Outsiders, that’s the Winter Court. When the Faerie queens were established, they were established with a safeguard built in. That’s the Summer Court so that Winter never turned inward.

Will we see Mrs. Murphy again?
Maybe? Maybe. We’ll have to see. That might work out.

You came up with a plan for all 20+ books before you even started writing the first one. Is that correct?
That’s not true. I had written two chapters.
How much of that has changed since you wrote the first book?
Not a word, I’m scared to change it.
But Mouse came in out of nowhere.
Sure. New characters have to come in all the time. Plus Harry needed a better security system at home anyway.

Why is Harry such a dick to Marcone?
Marcone is a paternalistic authority figure, and Harry can’t help it.

Toot Toot seems to be getting more powerful as of late. Is pizza some kind of spiritual nutrient that we’re not aware of? What makes him keep getting bigger and bigger?
He keeps getting bigger and bigger. You’ll notice his Name keeps getting longer.

Harry had to promise Bob a new skull, and the Fallen are bound to 30 silver coins. Is there any resemblance between the skull Bob sits in and the coins? Is there anything shenanigan-wise might ever happen with the Fallen and their vessels being separated?
Well, there’s never been a peer-reviewed study to prove that. When I’m building magic in the Dresden Files, I wanted magic to make sense. I didn’t want magic that was randomly weird and be known by randomly weird people. I wanted it to have actual rules that it had to follow. You’re looking at parallel structures. In as much as that goes, you’re on track.

For the different Courts, we’ve got Summer and Winter. Was there ever or will there ever be Autumn and Spring?
No, those don’t exist as such. There’s groups of beings that are sort of like that in Wyldfae. The Wyld is the largest part of Faerie by far. So there are groups that can assemble that. Certainly I want there to be the freedom for people to do stuff like that for their games because everybody should get to have fun. That’s the whole point of these stories for people to have fun. There’s not a structure as such in cannon. Those are just transitional states between two extremes.

For the different big bads that you’ve introduced and what not, which one would you find the most terrifying out of all of them?
They’re all creepy as hell. The one I’d least like to deal with is Marcone. He’s one of those smart ruthless don’t let anything stop them types. He’s not too proud to just kill you. He’s never going to make an evil overlord mistake because it would never occur to him to make an evil overlord mistake.

If you know a child’s Name, can you use it on them as an adult?
Probably not. Not unless they haven’t changed since then. People are screwy like that. Unfortunately that works in real life too. I don’t respond nearly as well when people walk up to me and say, hey Jimmy Dan. That’s not a Name that I really respond to any more unless it’s Julie saying it.

How did Harry’s dad get Harry’s mom?
At the end of the day, he was a good man. She needed somebody she could depend on. Big things get changed because there happened to be the right person in the right place at the right time.

How much does Ebenezer know about Thomas?
Ebenezer knows way too much about Thomas.
Do you ever see a sort of multi-generational family reunion showing up in any of the books?
Sure why not? I’m sure there will be a nice cookout. Everybody will get along, and they’ll sing some songs. They can have it during Peace Talks so that’ll be perfect.

The Word of Jim

Collecting Important Words of Jim Butcher From Outside the Books

2013 & 2014 transcripts from audio/video WoJ sources

Below are the 2013 and 2014 fan generated transcripts I have available to archive:

2013 Geek Hard interview