Below is the archive of fan provided transcripts from 2015 and 2016<\/p>\n
The Aeronauts Windlass signing at Stokie IL<\/strong><\/p>\n Video 1<\/a>, Video 2<\/a><\/p>\n Transcript by forum member cass,<\/p>\n Part one: So, new book\u2019s out, I hope you guys like it.\u00a0 It\u2019s ridiculous, the entire thing\u2026it\u2019s the longest book I\u2019ve ever written.\u00a0 The entire thing got started because I was trying to figure out, I was trying to answer a question of myself of \u201cwhy goggles?\u201d and it just got completely out of hand.\u00a0 This is the first book in the series, I\u2019ve got a contract for three of them.\u00a0 I can end it there, or I can end at six or end it at nine depending on how people are liking it.\u00a0 I hope I can do all of it, I\u2019m pretty sure I will, but you gotta take reality into account while you\u2019re planning this kind of stuff, so we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n Just out of curiosity: Dresden obviously has a hat on the books, whereas this one doesn\u2019t have a hat on the book, but has one in the book.\u00a0 Is there a certain symmetry to that? It makes sense to have Dresden on the cover all the time because he\u2019s the star of the series and so on.\u00a0 In this book we\u2019ve got several viewpoint characters throughout the book and many of them are female so what\u2019s the deal with having one guy on the cover.<\/p>\n I actually anticipate that they\u2019ll probably put a different viewpoint character as the star of each cover but I don\u2019t do that\u2026my take on it is, I don\u2019t do the covers. Really, they just say, \u201cHere\u2019s the art, what do you think?\u00a0 You like it right?\u201d \u201cY-yes, it\u2019s great.\u201d \u201cOk, good, I\u2019m glad you think that.\u201d Y\u2019know, so. But I imagine that we\u2019ll have different characters on the covers in the future books. Or at least that would be my hope, because some of them will look way more cool.<\/p>\n Am I still planning on doing the young adult book with Maggie and Mouse when Maggie goes off to school?<\/strong> How is Nemesis passed from person to person?<\/strong> Are there any Cinder Spires short stories?<\/strong> What about Codex Alera short stories?<\/strong> How many hours a day do you write?\u00a0 Are you mostly focused on one series or another series or do you jump between them or do you get so focused on Dresden Files or that, or Cinder Spires\u2026?<\/strong> Is Harry going to allow Bob any role in raising the new spirit baby?<\/strong> You had Harry run off the road in Proven Guilty and you never went back to who did it\u2026?<\/strong> Could you tell us about the conspiracy theory about the show [the SciFi\/Syfy Dresden Files TV show from the mid-\u201800s]?<\/strong> I\u2019ve noticed you\u2019ve written some short stories with other authors are you interesting in writing anything with [indistinct, presumably author names] or Simon R. Green (sp.?)\u00a0<\/strong> Codex Alera question.\u00a0 Why did it take so long for women\u2019s suffrage to occur when you have all this furycrafting that different females had; why did it take so long when you didn\u2019t have an Industrial Revolution to fuel it [fuel what?]?<\/strong> Was the pokemon bet story real?<\/strong> Annnd part 2:<\/p>\n The difference between Wizards and Muggles in the Dresden Files:<\/strong> As far as how the thorn manacles work:<\/strong> So if a Muggle were to [indistinct, I think it was \u2018put on a pair of thorn manacles would it hurt them\u2019]?<\/strong> Other that getting paid, why do you write?<\/strong> How does Tavi subdue Garados at the end [of First Lord\u2019s Fury]?<\/strong> Why did you base the Dresden books in Chicago?<\/strong> Mac\u2019s ale.\u00a0 I\u2019m a homebrewer, and I\u2019ve been trying to figure out what kind of beer this is. And I really need to know what you based this off of so I can try to make it for myself.<\/strong> Are we actually going to see Mac do something other than what he\u2019s actually done so far.<\/strong> How on Earth does anyone get anywhere in Chicago in 20 minutes? The traffic lights\u2026<\/strong> Speaking of Molly and Ramirez, going into this short story, what is the status of their technical or not technical virginities?<\/strong> When are we going to see more of Ivy and Kincaid, and does Ivy know if Kincaid\u2019s the one who shot Harry?<\/strong> What exactly is a habble?<\/strong><\/p>\n A habble is one level, one floor of the Spire. Since the Spires are these giant squares about two miles across, it\u2019s two-by-two, four square miles\u2026it\u2019s the size of a small town, actually even a not so small town. It\u2019s a significant portion of Manhattan, four square miles. The habbles are those, each level, it\u2019s got about fifty feet of space [vertically], go you down the ramp, there\u2019s another habble, like that.<\/p>\n [Inaudible, but apparently funny]<\/strong> Is there any word yet on the children\u2019s series about Maggie and Mouse?<\/strong> [Inaudible]<\/strong> <\/p>\n Transcript provided by redditor\u00a0blue_shadow_<\/a><\/p>\n 2015 Stockholm Q&A<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Q: Can you tell us something about your new upcoming series, the steampunk series? Seattle Q&A October 2015 from this\u00a0<\/strong>video<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Transcript by\u00a0Second Aristh\u00a0<\/a>Here’s some new WoJ and a couple for the Cinder Spires as well.<\/p>\n Are there supernatural people who can do spaceflight?\u00a0<\/strong> Why doesn\u2019t Harry open a Way to block bullets\/spells\/etc?\u00a0<\/strong> On silkweaver silk and harvesting it\u00a0<\/strong> Why doorknobs?\u00a0<\/strong> On White Court vampires and soulgazes with a bit on the Oblivion War\u00a0<\/strong> Hi everyone.\u00a0 Here’s several more of the quotable WoJ from the 2015 interviews.\u00a0 There are a couple WoJ on Dresden along with some nice ones for Cinder Spires that I hadn’t heard before.\u00a0 I didn’t transcribe most of the writing craft talk or the stories Jim tends to tell for frequently asked questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n Serack, I think the Salt Lake ComicCon video is gone, but this should be all of the 2015 sources except the itunes and the two sources with asterisks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the White Council On contrasting the White Council and Black Council <\/p>\n On Rowl Did you get any new favorite villain from the Cinder Spires series? How do they get steam if they need to go to the surface to get coal and going to the surface means fighting a war? Is Cinder Spires geared more towards younger readers than the Dresden Files? <\/p>\n \u2026 it did mean that you could bring Sue into the books.\u00a0 (tail end of Why Chicago? story) <\/p>\n You describe Albion as a black spire.\u00a0 Why isn\u2019t Albion white? <\/p>\n <\/p>\n .<\/strong><\/p>\n The Once and Future Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Transcript by TheCuriousFan<\/p>\n Anton: I always wanted to know how he came up with Harry’s three exclamations, Empty Night, Hell’s Bells and Stars and Stones?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: I’ll just say this, they’re not an accident, they’re actually the titles to the last three novels, the big trilogy at the end. So the first one is Stars and Stones, the second one is Hell’s Bells and the last one is Empty Night.<\/p>\n Anton: That will blow someone’s mind I am sure. Let’s see, will he be working on the codex, continuing more series or is he killing us all and making us wait for the next Dresden Files for the time being?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: I just got finished with the first steampunk book so that will be coming out in relatively short order I would imagine some time in spring. But I don’t have a date for that yet, obviously. And then I’ll get to work on Dresden and I’ll see if I can have that done before the end of the year.<\/p>\n Anton: Next question, is Lea Harry’s grandmother?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: No.<\/p>\n Anton: This one, and I will give this person a punch for you, why isn’t he writing faster? Someone needs to duck tape him to his keyboard then do the same to George R.R. Martin.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Right.<\/p>\n Anton: I’m sure they meant that with love, because they were using duck tape.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: And that’s kind, yeah.<\/p>\n Anton: Next question, will we ever get a Furies of Calderon RPG?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Don’t know. I am not opposed to it.<\/p>\n Anton: Was the island’s resident that had a conversation with Harry the same one as Goodman Grey?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: No.<\/p>\n Anton: Could you please thank him from me, all the way from Karachi, Pakistan, for portraying a positive Muslim character, at least yet, and tell him I love him very very much. May he live a happy, healthy, long and uber-productive life, amen.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Well from your lips to God’s ears.<\/p>\n Anton: I would love it if you let us know if he has any plans to show anything of the Jade Court of vampires in the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: The thing about them is that they’re isolationists, they’re isolationists to such a degree that they think this whole “Chin<\/a>” concept is still pretty new and we’re gonna have to stay and see if it still works out. You know this whole “China” thing, hmm…<\/p>\n But they’re old school, they’re really, really old school and they mostly stay within the Yangtze River valley and they don’t want anything to do with the outside world or to have the outside world have anything to do with them. So it’s not like they’re gonna go traipsing around and I’m not sure Dresden could survive a visit there so we might see some of their agents at some point in the future.<\/p>\n Anton: Next, I love his humour and found it a missing element of the TV series, if he hasn’t commented on this before I’d like to hear his thoughts. They put out the TV series and I seem to recall you saying something along the lines of “your books are your books and no matter what someone else did with a property out there it doesn’t change what you’ve done”. What were your feelings on the series? Assuming you at least watched part of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: No I watched it. The show could have been a whole lot worse, I know it could have been a whole lot worse because I saw the first couple of treatments. I was very very lucky that the folks who did get on board with it were guys who actually read my books and came and talked to me about how we’re going to do things for the show and actually communicated with me and so on. It could have been a whole lot worse than it was. Now the things that did get changed on the show, they got changed for a variety of reasons and one of the things you learn about doing TV is that there’s all these other people and they all have brains and want to do things as well and they don’t just want to do things exactly like you tell them they should be. They call it “collaboration” and I am so against it.<\/p>\n Anton: *laughs*<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Oh my gosh I can’t collaborate at all. But really, things could have gone a whole lot worse. I’m sort of of two minds about the TV show. On the one hand, they could have made it better if they’d gotten more time to work with it. On the other, it got cancelled before they could really totally ruin anything either. So we’ll see.<\/p>\n Anton: I took several film classes when I was going to (Hostra?) and we would watch different edit cuts of different films depending on editors, depending on costuming, depending on all these million elements. The fact that we get \/any\/ series that remotely resembles anything near the core material out there is astounding.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Exactly.<\/p>\n Anton: All things considered, it certainly didn’t hurt the books, I mean. I remember we did the tie-in covers with the little sci-fi logo and the sci-fi logo actually looked like it was about science fiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Right.<\/p>\n Anton: And the books are doing great anyway but there was this huge bump where people who might not have picked those books up were like “oh it’s a detective series, it’s got paranormal stuff in it but I guess I can read this detective series”.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Right.<\/p>\n Anton: Seeing as most people love the parts with Maggie and Mouse, does he have any thoughts about writing their own short story?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: No but they might have their own YA story at some point.<\/p>\n Anton: Does Ebenezar know Harry and Thomas are siblings?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Sort of, he’s kind of in denial about it. We’ll get to see some of that in the next book.<\/p>\n Anton: Here’s one, this person clearly thought it out and I’ll butcher the name of this. Why doesn’t Harry use his forzare spell to fly? He could enchant his duster to make him lighter and then jump and glide over short distances. I know he’s built a lot into stories and Harry running to get away to from point a to b but I have always wondered why he didn’t just jump 40 feet in the air to get out of tight spots.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: Harry’s actually done some of that before the series got started. There’s actually a mention in one of the books of Harry trying an enchanted broomstick and being lucky to survive the experience. The problem with learning to- I think the exact quote was “we never did get all the mud out of your eyebrows”. The problem with learning to fly is the same problem human beings had, it’s really dangerous and if you fail you don’t get to try again. If you fail to fly you don’t really get another shot at it. And wizards are the same way because everybody’s magic is uniquely individual so basically every wizard has to be his own Wright Brother if he wants to learn how to fly with magic. Some of them have, but it’s one of the best ways for a wizard to get himself killed.<\/p>\n Anton: It reminds me of the Bugs Bunny\/Daffy Duck talent show cartoon where they’re going back and forth as to who can do what and at the end Daffy Duck eats this thing of dynamite and gunpowder and lights a match and blows himself up and Bugs is like “you win! that’s great, that’s great!” and he’s just like “yeah but I can only do it once!” Same thing as with flying.<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the deal with Harry and his dad? Is Malcolm an agent of Uriel’s? Why do we keep seeing him?<\/p>\n Jim: No comment.<\/p>\n Anton: I at least wanted to get one “no comment” out of these questions cuz I knew someone was going to ask something and they were gonna be like “so what’s the end of the series? Just tell us the end, tell me now.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Ask for an example of the elements of creation that Dragons used to be in charge of, pretty please? It’s been killing me for years and shouldn’t tread on any spoiler ground.<\/p>\n Jim: Dragons are the kinds of forces that you put in charge of things like “it’s time for another ice age, you, go handle that” and that’s the kind of thing that Dragons would be doing. “You know what? We really need this continent to be split by a giant river, arrange it” that’s the kind of thing Dragons are doing.<\/p>\n Anton: Last fan question here, was reading Even Hand last night and was wondering if Marcone’s real name is pertinent and will factor in later?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim: *nervous laughter*<\/p>\n It won’t factor in later because nobody’s getting it. Marcone is, as far as this series is concernd he is the most magic-savvy mortal that is running around these days and he is covering his bases and is very good at it. Marcone is the guy who has read the Evil Overlord List and would roll his eyes at why anybody would do such a thing.<\/p>\n DF Reddit podcast episode 17<\/strong><\/p>\n I only transcribed the particularly juicy bits that I intended to later put in my “compilation.”\u00a0Second Aristh\u00a0<\/a>actually did a better transcription, but it didn’t get archived properly unfortunately.\u00a0 -Serack<\/p>\n @ beginning, a line about a short story with Luccio in in 1883. I’m doing a Wild Wild West short story set in Dodge City in 1883 staring Luccio.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nJim preempts the questions with an answer:
\n\u201cThe next book of the Dresden Files is\u2026I\u2019m working on it (audience laughter), and I\u2019m supposed to turn it in this Christmas and if that happens on time then I reckon you\u2019ll see it sometime probably early next Spring, so there, now you know that. \u2018Cuz everybody always asks me that like first thing, so I just thought I\u2019m just going to beat you to the punch today.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>
\nPoor Chris. I\u2019ve been giving such a hard time all this time for Dresden\u2019s hat that this cover came in and the character did not have the hat and I was just like, \u201cWell played. I have been truly trolled and that was masterful.\u201d\u00a0 I at least got him to draw in having him hold the hat under his arm, so we at least got that much. So that\u2019s what\u2019s up with that.<\/p>\n
\nYeah.
\n
\nIs there an HBO show still in the works?<\/strong>
\nNo, there\u2019s a possible show in the works; it doesn\u2019t necessarily belong to HBO or anybody else.\u00a0 In my dream world it goes to Netflix, but we\u2019ll see what happens, or if it happens.
\n
\nWhen are we going to get some mermaids in Dresden?<\/strong>
\nProbably not until the big trilogy at the end because wizards don\u2019t like to go on the ocean and they don\u2019t do it unless they\u2019re desperate.<\/p>\n
\n[singsong]\u00a0 I\u2019m not gonna tell you! That would make it way too easy! [normal voice]\u00a0 but, anyway, I will tell you that it got to Lea through the dagger, so, there, now you know that much.\u00a0 Oh, you already knew that, so I didn\u2019t actually tell you anything?\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, I was a tease, wow. I\u2019m awful, I shouldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
\nNo, at this time, not yet.\u00a0 I\u2019ve still got way too much world to build before I can get to start spinning off little stories about the place.\u00a0 And there\u2019s all kinds of work to do on this book [Peace Talks], which I\u2019m very much looking forward to.\u00a0 I\u2019m almost like, \u201cC\u2019mon, Dresden, get out of the way, I wanna go to this new place where I haven\u2019t seen it before.\u201d And Dresden\u2019s over here, \u201cbut we still have to do awesome!\u201d \u201cYeah, you\u2019re right. We do still have to do awesome.\u00a0 Yeah, I\u2019m so sorry about the city, but, um, just stay out of town on Midsummer and you\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nI guess I could.\u00a0 Nobody\u2019s ever really asked for \u2018em.\u00a0 They call me and say, \u201cCould you contribute a Dresden story to this anthology\u201d and I\u2019ll be like, \u201cYeah, ok, whatever.\u201d So as far as that goes, I\u2019d probably need an invitation to say \u201cWe need a fantasy short story.\u201d\u00a0 I kind of already told the story I wanted to tell with Alera; there\u2019s some places I can go back there in the future if I want to, and maybe I\u2019ll have to pay off my gambling debts or something and that\u2019ll make it necessary.\u00a0 But for the time being I\u2019ve got so many stories I want to tell I\u2019m going to have to live to be like, 128, to tell them all. So all you biomed people out there, get on that biological immortality thing, it\u2019s got a lot of promise. We can all live like elves then, which would be really interesting.<\/p>\n
\nThat was a cloud of questions.\u00a0 Not so much a question as a kind of a shelling\u2026.I usually start some time between 11[pm] and 1[am] and write until the sun comes up because that\u2019s when the magic is over. And then I\u2019ll sleep until noonish, and so on.\u00a0 Yeah, PM, because I\u2019ve got to work when I know no one is going to interrupt me because that just drives me insane.\u00a0 I like to work on one project at a time, because I\u2019m terrible with the multitracking thing.
\nRight now, I\u2019ve been forced to be sidetracked because I\u2019ve got a short story that I forgot to write, so I\u2019m writing the short story which is Butters\u2019 first mission as a Knight.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of awesome; he\u2019s out training with Michael and they\u2019re doing cardio training and he kinda pulls up and stops and Michael\u2019s like, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d and he says, \u201cThere\u2019s this guy over there\u2026\u201d, \u201cWhat guy?\u201d, \u201cThat guy, the bum sleeping on the bench.\u201d \u201cWhat about him?\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s a giant yellow exclamation point floating over his head. What, you don\u2019t see that?\u201d and it kind of starts from there. Butters, Knight of WoW.
\nSo I\u2019ve got to finish that up, and I\u2019ve got to send off outlines to a couple of graphic novels to Dynamite, so we\u2019re gonna have fun.\u00a0 One of them\u2019s basically going to be Harry Dresden vs. the Joker, more or less, although in this case, he\u2019s called Puck. \u2018Cuz Puck is an awful person, he really is, in the Dresden Files. He doesn\u2019t run around being cool; he\u2019s terrible. And fun.
\nAnd there\u2019s another where we\u2019re gonna catch up with all the folks that went off to form their Feng Shui out in California after Blood Rites [the crew from Arturo\u2019s film]. There\u2019s a problem, and so Lara\u2019s hiring Harry to fix the problem for her so she doesn\u2019t lose her grip on the White Court and that\u2019s the other graphic novel, so we\u2019ll see what happens with that. And then, once I get those two little projects knocked off, for the rest of this year, it\u2019s back to Peace Talks, and it\u2019s Peace Talks, Peace Talks, Peace Talks, which is really winding up looking like a royal rumble of \u2018who would win this fight?\u2019 So that\u2019s good fun.
\nBut that\u2019s how I work, I try to get just one project at a time, and tear into it until it\u2019s over, and then I\u2019m done.\u00a0 Also, I only have to write a certain number of words per day; it might be 4K, then I might stop and let myself go play video games.\u00a0 But writing is very much a marathon kind of thing for me; there are other people who do it as a sprint.\u00a0 Oh my gosh, Ringo [it was indistinct\u2026], he\u2019ll do like, 35K words a day until a book is done and hardly ever sleep or eat or do anything else; all he does is do that until he passes out and then he gets up and keeps doing it. He\u2019s a madman, which, don\u2019t get me wrong, that\u2019s a complement, but wow, I wish I could do that, that would be so cool.<\/p>\n
\nNo. Harry\u2019s gonna have that \u2018Dad with shotgun talk\u2019 with Bob about it, really, is what it amounts to. But anyway, you\u2019ll see more about that in the book. We start off early with Bonnie.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, that\u2019s weird, right? Yeah.<\/p>\n
\nOk, you\u2019ve gotta understand that I\u2019ve got no proof behind this, ok, because if you have proof, it\u2019s not a conspiracy theory, and in fact it makes it a worse conspiracy theory if there\u2019s any proof.\u00a0 What you need for a conspiracy theory is pictures and yarn and thumbtacks, that\u2019s what you need for a conspiracy theory.
\nAlright, so this is my conspiracy theory. Set the Wayback Machine for 2007, and Bonnie Hammer (sp?) is the president of the science fiction channel. Bonnie Hammer who does not like science fiction, and they put her in charge of it after she had beefed up I think it was USA [popular basic cable network in the US; mainly does syndication of other shows, movies and some original programming] and beefed up the USA channel to something that was way, way more watched than it had ever been before and then they put her in charge of the science fiction channel, which I can only assume was some kind of corporate exile to Siberia.\u00a0 I kind of assume that she made enemies and that was the result. So she\u2019s in charge of the science fiction channel, and she\u2019s given the science fiction channel \u2018ghost hunters\u2019 and extreme wrestling. Which, don\u2019t get me wrong, I like wrestling, I watch it for the writing, but maybe not on the science fiction channel, okay?
\nAnd so meanwhile, her vice president comes along, this guy named David How(e? sp?) and he was the one who was behind bringing the science fiction channel \u2018Battlestar Galactica\u2019 to immediate critical and popular acclaim.\u00a0 So when you\u2019re the president of a company, that works for somebody else, and your subordinate comes up and does something awesome, that does not necessarily reflect well on you and certainly not in Hollywood, where the motto is, \u201cit\u2019s not good enough to succeed; you also have to make sure your friends failed\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of a truism out there. So he gets behind the next project, and his next project is \u2018The Dresden Files\u2019.\u00a0 So just about two weeks before\u2014and it was coming together pretty well\u2014and two weeks before the show started shooting all of a sudden all these changes got made to the internal structure of the show. I suspect that it was Bonnie Hammer that was behind it, but I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a conspiracy theory.
\nOriginally, the show was going to be a serial; it was going to cover the events of Storm Front and Fool Moon in the first season and kind of interweave the plots and then have the big showdown\u2026it would have been extremely crazy because it would have been wizard, loup garou, shadowman all at once, it would have been insane.\u00a0 But two weeks before they said \u201coh, we\u2019re gonna get this producer from \u2018Charmed\u2019 on, and he\u2019s gonna be in charge now.\u201d And everybody was like, \u201cyeah, okay\u201d and the guy from \u2018Charmed\u2019 got on two weeks before they started shooting and said, \u201cAlright, we\u2019re not going to do a serial, we\u2019re going to do episodes. Nobody likes a serial.\u201d And I was going, \u201care you using the same word?\u00a0 Are you talking about breakfast cereal, maybe? Because people dig serials, man.\u201d But we\u2019re going to do episodes.\u00a0 And they told him, \u201cbut, we don\u2019t have time to rewrite all these episodes, they\u2019re built to be one building after another.\u00a0 That\u2019s where they get their punch from.\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cAh, it\u2019s not a big deal, we\u2019ll just change the names of characters and disconnect all the episodes and we\u2019ll do them out of order and it\u2019ll be fine.\u201d And\u2026.uh, okay, I guess you\u2019re the boss.\u00a0 So they had to do what the boss said, and I think that was kind of what wound up happening.\u00a0 There were several things that happened. Plus he was the boss from Los Angeles when they were filming in Toronto, so, you can imagine how well that worked out. So the guy who had actually done all the work and had been on the ground doing everything, Robert Wolf (sp?) who was the guy that I was backing and who I think really threw himself into the project as hard as he could, basically they took away his authority and gave it to somebody else, and that guy said, \u201cDo ridiculous stuff!\u201d and Robert Wolf had to be like: *deep breath\/heavy sigh* and then go do it.
\nBut yeah, lots of bad things happened, like little things, that sandbagged the show. For example, by the time the guy out in California would write changes to a script, he\u2019d turn them in, and he\u2019d turn them in by nine, and that\u2019s considered standard in California.\u00a0 But 9 in California is midnight in Toronto, so by the time changes came in at midnight and by the time everybody got called it was 1am , and then by the time scripts got printed out and were being taken around by exhausted production assistants to people who needed them, it would be 2 in the morning and suddenly the guy who went to bed at ten o\u2019clock would get a call at 2 and he\u2019d hear, \u201cSorry, Terry, I know you haven\u2019t seen your family in 3 weeks, and you were going to go home for two days tomorrow, but we need you on set at 5am instead.\u201d It was that kind of thing that happened over and over and there were lots of little things that just sandbagged it.
\nSo that\u2019s where I say, \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d.\u00a0 So, kind of political infighting is what did that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s true or not, because I have no proof.\u00a0 I do have a bunch of facts and a good theory that hooks them up together of why they would happen that way, but there was a lot of stupid from out in California, and the people in Toronto were laboring mightily to try to make a good show anyway.
\n
\nWith Harry being a nerd who loves movies and sci-fi (Harry\u2019s a nerd?) How has he managed to go this far without having making a Zuul\/Vince Clortho (sp?) reference to Rashid the Gatekeeper?<\/strong>
\nPartly, it\u2019s the Gatekeeper, and the Gatekeeper is really scary.\u00a0 Harry doesn\u2019t write that kind of thing in there, but that\u2019s part of it.\u00a0 Also, I don\u2019t know, I haven\u2019t gotten there yet; it hasn\u2019t been right.\u00a0 I gotta feel the nerd come on or it doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 You must feel the nerd-dom around you.
\n
\nAre we going to revisit the inmates in Harry\u2019s prison and see who some of them are?\u00a0<\/strong>
\n[righteous voice]Most people there are there to be locked up for ever and ever and ever and the only way you\u2019d ever see who any of them were is if [singsong] something horrible went wrong. [scandalized voice]\u00a0 So no, no, \u2018cuz that would be awful.<\/p>\n
\nActually I\u2019ve never written a short story with anybody.\u00a0The books that have short stories [anthologies].<\/strong>
\nOh, yeah. I actually edited a book this year, I wanted to try something new so I tried on my editor hat and I edited a series called \u2018Shadowed Souls\u2019 which has the first\u2026it\u2019s a short story of Molly on her first mission as Winter Lady so you get to see what her job is and what her position is within the Court and why it\u2019s so important that she does what she does.\u00a0 And it\u2019s also her team up with Ramirez, so, for those \u2018shippers, *toots like a steam whistle*.\u00a0 But I also got to edit all these other people which was really amazing and I would sit down and get to work and I remember at one point I was editing and I finished up with my critique and sent it off and then I connected an alias to the person it belonged to and was like, \u201cI just told Nora Roberts (sp?) to cut ten pages from this short story. Oh my gosh.\u00a0 Oh my gosh. \u201d\u00a0 Then Kerry Hughes (sp?) who I was working with to do this one saw that and just laughed and laughed at me.\u00a0 Just laughed.\u00a0 It was a very good story, though. It just didn\u2019t start \u2018til page 10. It was only after I\u2019d hit send that I was like, \u2018J.D. Rob- that\u2019s Nora Roberts, oh no.\u201d\u00a0 But as far as doing stuff with other people, not so much, I mean, I agreed to write a short story for Correia (sp?) in his Monster Hunter International universe, because I think the janitor at MHI would have a really interesting job. So I want to write that story.\u00a0 \u00a0And then there are also several of us who are putting together a story about a bad guy-slash-problem that goes through multiple realities so everybody\u2019s characters are interacting with him for a bit.\u00a0 Basically, each of the authors gets 10K words of the story to handle. So Harry Dresden will be a part of some of it and then wash his hands of it and walk away shaking his head at the end.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s going to happen\u2014he\u2019ll probably be in the middle, I\u2019m not even going to figure out how this ends, darn.
\nAs for actually writing with somebody else, I would do that to anyone I respected as a professional. I\u2019m awful. I am pouty and childish and controlling and completely immature, so it\u2019d be like trying to write music with five year old Mozart.\u00a0 Because they\u2019re doing stuff that doesn\u2019t make any sense and ignoring everybody\u2019s advice and why not have a purple elephant in the margin of this? There\u2019s no rule that says we can\u2019t do that for music. And that\u2019s kind of the way I work with folks.<\/p>\n
\nPart of it was that Aleran culture for a long time before the books started was\u2026After the Romans got there, they looked around and saw a world full of various forms of sentient life and so they did what Romans did and started conquering it, and in this case, more or less killing it.\u00a0 And after a while, it got to the point where the only thing that was keeping them alive was their fury crafting and they were basically…their colony was one giant colony death cult. Slash city of Sparta. And if you were a woman in that culture, your job was to make more soldiers, and more women who could make soldiers, and that was what they had to have to survive. They had an evolutionary drive that was going on in that sort of situation because they had life or death all the time and that\u2019s all they did. So basically, it was Deathworld for a long time and they brought it on themselves, but, Rome kinda did that.\u00a0 And then for a while things sort of settled out but the gender roles were still very, very specific, and still very, very strong and holding on very strongly and the powerful furycrafting was really not present in a whole ton of people.\u00a0 It was there in some people, but not a whole lot.\u00a0 And even if you were a woman who had a certain amount of earthcrafting it would be frowned upon for people to be teaching you, \u201chere, here\u2019s how to go be super-strong,\u201d you would be using other aspects of earthcrafting to do things wherever you were.\u00a0 So there\u2019s a huge cultural reinforcement for that, and the way the magic of the world worked also biased how that was received and used. And that went on for a long, long time because they had a very static society because they *weren\u2019t* developing technology and they *weren\u2019t* making a lot of innovations in furycraft, so it was much like medieval Europe where things just didn\u2019t advance very quickly and so societies as a whole looked very similar from one century to the next in many ways. And it started happening in these books because I\u2019d gotten things set up at first and I realized that, wait a minute, it shouldn\u2019t be working like that when I\u2019ve got all these powerful female crafters that are actually doing things. So that was when it started to change.\u00a0 But even then, the ones who were talking about suffrage were all the lords and ladies who had all this power and they could make you pay attention to them.\u00a0 You could tell Aria Placida to go to the kitchen and make you a sandwich, and after you woke up in the burn ward\u2026she could enforce whatever she wanted on just about anyone and she wasn\u2019t afraid of anybody.\u00a0 But not everybody with Aria\u2019s personality was also born with Aria\u2019s power and that makes it a completely different thing. That\u2019s really what would have held the Roman Empire together, if power could have resided with people with the right bloodlines, that would have held Rome together a lot better. So in Alera, it was all intricately bound up; powerful people had powerful crafting; that\u2019s what makes you a noble.\u00a0 That\u2019s a real good place to stay static, a real good way to keep things exactly the way they are.<\/p>\n
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
\nFirst of all, you\u2019ve gotta be born with a certain amount of talent to be able to touch magic at all. Sometimes that talent is greater and sometimes it\u2019s lesser, but you\u2019ve got to have one particular gene flips the switch that says, \u201cYeah, weird\u201d.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve got that, then you\u2019ve got to be in a position where you can develop that talent, and in a position where you\u2019ve got the intelligence and focus and drive to make something of it, just like any other talent, actually.\u00a0 Some people are born with a really great genetic setup to play basketball; that doesn\u2019t necessarily make them Michael Jordan because not only do they have to have the gift, they have to be in the situation.\u00a0 If you were born with the awesome basketball gene spread and you happened to be born Inuit, probably you\u2019re not going to get a chance to express that, a chance to work on it. I always built magic in the Dresden Files as something that was a talent like any other. You can be born with a certain amount of it but that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re a wizard without a lot of hard work as well. Conversely, you can be born without a really spread of talent, and yet if you work hard enough and really dedicate yourself to it, you can really make something of yourself. So that\u2019s kind of the difference. Most people can use at least a little magic.\u00a0 Most people could probably be dangerous in the Dresden Files world, if they had enough training and worked on it for years and years and years.\u00a0 But there\u2019s only a few who are really born ready to go to the NBA draft.\u00a0 And of those people, that\u2019s who you see who\u2019s on the White council is those people who are born with that and then who develop it as well.<\/p>\n
\nDo I explain that to you? Yeah, it won\u2019t hurt anything, why not. Essentially what it does is when a wizard\u2019s drawing the magic in, the thorn manacles divert it to somewhere else. Wizards have to give a little bit of energy from inside themselves, but mostly that\u2019s to pull it in from the outside.\u00a0 And the thorn manacles take that and go, \u201cNope, ok, we\u2019re shunting it out into the Nevernever and you don\u2019t get to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nNot a whole lot.\u00a0 It would, hurt, because they\u2019re like, nails, it would hurt.\u00a0 But they couldn\u2019t really bring a lot of magic in.\u00a0 The pain is just a result of the energy that is going by and going elsewhere, it\u2019s inefficiency of transfer, if you want to put it in engineering terms. That\u2019s really nerdy, so I won\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
\nBecause I never have to wear a tie. And I can go to work in my pajamas. I\u2019m basically my own boss, and there\u2019s like, zero security in the job because you guys could decide tomorrow, \u201cno, we\u2019re not going to read your stuff anymore, you suck.\u201d\u00a0 And then, what do I do?\u00a0 Nothing. But all that said, the freedom of it is more important than anything else.\u00a0 I can do this job and I can go anywhere.\u00a0 I got engaged.\u00a0 I can move, go up to live in the same state as my fianc\u00e9e and that doesn\u2019t affect my job at all, \u2018cuz I just take my laptop with me and keep going.\u00a0 Also I would probably lose my mind if I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Most writers that I know don\u2019t go: \u201cyou know how I want to make a living?\u00a0 I want to make [indistinct] ten things, and tell giant complicated lies and then get people to pay me money for it.\u201d\u00a0 Most of them don\u2019t.\u00a0 Most of them are just like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to write this story or I\u2019m going to lose my mind.\u201d And then they\u2019re like, \u201cWell, as long as I\u2019m staying sane anyway, might as well be more sane and make a living at this because Ikind of enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHe doesn\u2019t. Kitai does. She\u2019s been training with Alera the same as Tavi has the entire time. Garados is big and mighty, but Alera is the whole continent.\u00a0 She really knows what\u2019s going on better than anything else out there. Any of the High Lords could probably have squared off against Garados and made him go back to his corner. In this case, it was Kitai handling it while Tavi finished off the war.<\/p>\n
\nBecause my writing teacher would not allow me to set them in Kansas City. They started off as a school project and they were originally set in Kansas City and she read them and was like, \u201cWell, you\u2019re going to sell this.\u201d\u00a0 And I was like, \u201cWhat?\u201d\u00a0 And she was like, \u201cYeah, you\u2019ll sell this.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the first thing you\u2019ll sell, but this is of professional quality and you will eventually sell it.\u00a0 But one thing, you can\u2019t set it in Kansas City.\u201d\u00a0 And I\u2019m like, \u201cWell, why not?\u201d\u00a0 And she\u2019s like, \u201cYou\u2019re already walking close enough to Laurel Hamilton\u2019s toes that you don\u2019t need to set this book in Missouri. So set it somewhere else.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m like, \u201cWhere?\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cAnywhere, doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s a globe in her office; on the globe in America there\u2019s four cities.\u00a0 One is New York City, which I don\u2019t want to use because superheroes have that place all sewn up, and my editors live there and would catch every city mistake I made and sneer at me. D.C. was one of the other cities, and I didn\u2019t want to write D.C., because if you write D.C you have to write politics, and you\u2019re gonna piss off somebody, that\u2019s how it works. L.A. was there and I didn\u2019t want to use L.A. because it\u2019s Los Angeles, what can I say, I didn\u2019t want to write in Los Angeles.\u00a0 And that left Chicago, so I said, \u201cHow about Chicago?\u201d and she was like, \u201cGreat, fine, Chicago, whatever, use that.\u201d\u00a0 So that\u2019s why Chicago.\u00a0 I wish I had a much more sophisticated, intellectual, philosophical-slash-literary answer for you, but the fact of the matter is that I wanted an A.
\nDid you get it? Yeah, I did, actually.\u00a0 \u00a0In her class I did, and then in the other\u2026I actually wound up getting thrown out of the writing program there, \u2018cuz I ticked off\u00a0 a professor in another class, and so he arranged things so that I did not get to come back to finish my masters\u2019 degree in professional writing.\u00a0 So I considered panning the professional writing program there in my author biography and everything: \u201cCast out of the University of Oklahoma\u2019s professional writing program, author Jim Butcher has nonetheless somehow managed to blahdiblahblahblahdiblah.\u201d But my writing teacher, Debbie Chester, who taught me everything I know about writing, kindof came up to be and was like, \u201cJim, I\u2019m not saying you got treated fairly because you didn\u2019t.\u00a0 But, I\u2019m not saying that you need to say anything nice about the writing program, because I know you don\u2019t like it right now, but you\u2019re gonna be really good so please don\u2019t pan us.\u201d \u201cOk, fine, I won\u2019t.\u201d
\n[Indistinct] He was the dean of the school, I was in his class, and when he checked with the professional writing program about who to send to represent them at the big yearly alumni dinner, Debbie said, \u201cSend Jim.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d and he says, \u201cI just want you to say a few words about the professional writing program and how it\u2019s going.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m like, \u201cOk, well, what do I say?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cSpeak honestly about what you think.\u201d\u00a0 And I thought he meant it.\u00a0 So I showed up and said, \u201cWell, parts of it are really, really great and awesome but there are all these other parts that are really frustrating for professional writing students because we\u2019re taking all these journalism classes that have nothing to do with writing a novel and getting it done, yet we\u2019re being required to do it.\u00a0 And this is a master\u2019s program, you\u2019re supposed to be focusing on a specialization at this point, and not the survey-undergrad stuff at this point.\u201d\u00a0 And so I said that, and so on my last paper for his class that year, he marked off exactly enough points\u2014on comma placement in the paper\u2014to make sure I got a C+ in his class so that they\u2019d kick me out.\u00a0 And then they lost my application to get back in. Eleven times.\u00a0 Yeah, they made it really clear. No, I\u2019m not the kind of person who stops after the first failure, which is the only reason I got published at all.<\/p>\n
\nMac\u2019s ale is based off of my imagination and my brain.\u00a0 I\u2019m not actually a beer drinker; I don\u2019t like beer a whole lot.\u00a0 I don\u2019t!\u00a0 I\u2019m more a cider kind of person.\u00a0 I went to Sweden last year\u2014oh my gosh the cider they have Sweden. Oh!\u00a0 It\u2019s like drinking a really, really, really good, like premium draft soft drink.\u00a0 I had this pear cider that was amazing, except it would also leave you unconscious if you had more than two or three bottles of it.\u00a0 It mostly came from my imagination, from my beer-drinking friends, and their descriptions.<\/p>\n
\nMmmmmmaybe. [Thoughtful, not gleefully teasing intonation.] You will get to find out more about him, at any rate. Whether you will actually get to see him doing stuff is still a really serious question, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to figure that out as we go.<\/p>\n
\nHow do you come up with the names for people\/places\/things?<\/strong>
\nMostly, I look at the meanings of the names.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a giant book of just names and their meanings.\u00a0 And I generally try to find something that is either appropriate to the character for the name, or completely inappropriate to the character for the name.\u00a0 One of the two, and then use that one.\u00a0 So I have the guy who is the professional traitor, and name him Fidelias, which means faithful, and so on.<\/p>\n
\nWhen you\u2019re on a T-Rex, you don\u2019t have to wait for lights.\u00a0 That was just, boom boom boom boom, get outta my way.\u00a0 And as we all know [british accent] we clocked the t-rex at 35 miles per hour.\u00a0 So if you can drive 35 down that street without stopping, you can get there that quickly.
\n
\nWhen are we going to see dragons [Dragons? Not sure] again?<\/strong>
\nDude, I can\u2019t possibly do a dragon thing unless it\u2019s a whole book. So that would be book\u2026.20 or 21, something like that. Probably 21. Yeah, that seems about right. [Note that this is currently scheduled at or near the beginning of the BAT]<\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s awfully personal, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0 Molly\u2019s is still technically intact.\u00a0 Ramirez\u2019 we don\u2019t really know, and I don\u2019t think it becomes clear during the course of this story. Well, it kinda does, but, well, you\u2019ll have to read it. But yeah: real personal question, dude, seriously.
\n
\nWill we ever get into who\u2019s the mole (hole?) in the Vatican\/who keeps letting the Coins loose?<\/strong>
\nYes, kind of, but at the same time the Coins\u2026 it\u2019s sort of necessary for them to be out in the world.\u00a0 They\u2019re not designed to be kept in a vault somewhere and locked up. So it\u2019s very, very difficult for anyone to guard them, for example, because the Coins do the One Ring thing to them until they get loose. But, yeah, they\u2019ve been spread out in all kinds of different places and really the best you can do is to pick a guy who you hope is as close to incorruptible as humanly possible and leave him in charge.
\n
\nHow much of Hannah [Ascher]\u2019s magic, her precision stuff, was her as opposed to Lasciel?<\/strong>
\nMuch of it was Lasciel.\u00a0 Hannah was providing the muscle, Lasciel was providing the direction, so she was WAY better than she would have been otherwise without Lasciel there advising her.\u00a0 As far as how much will Bonnie know, well, you\u2019ll have to see. The problem with Bonnie is not that she knows a lot, it\u2019s that she doesn\u2019t know how to apply anything.\u00a0 Like, she can tell you all about green and how many nanometers the wave length of light that the color green is and so on, but she doesn\u2019t understand that grass is green, yet, because she hasn\u2019t seen it.\u00a0\u00a0In the first couple of chapters of Skin Game [ed: I think he means Peace Talks] Bonnie and Maggie are in the kitchen making pancakes because Bonnie has informed her that she knows 317 recipes for pancakes and the ingredients that they have make 17 of them possible, so they\u2019re trying to make pancakes from this, but they don\u2019t really know how to tell when it\u2019s time to flip the pancake over. You wait \u2018til it\u2019s golden brown. Well, how do you know it\u2019s golden brown; it\u2019s on the pan.\u00a0 It looks white from here!\u00a0 So Harry gets to walk in and Bonnie gets to say, \u201cPancakes are inanimate!\u201d very excitedly because she just figured out that they\u2019re inanimate objects.\u00a0\u00a0Bonnie\u2019s got a long way to go before she\u2019ll be anything, but she\u2019s where Bob started.<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019ll see more of them next book, and I won\u2019t tell you that.
\n
\n[Indistinct, something about someone (Justine?) and Murphy smelling the same]<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s because they use the same shampoo.\u00a0 It\u2019s the green Suave, and that\u2019s why.\u00a0 It\u2019s really good shampoo if you want to grow your hair long, it\u2019s excellent, it\u2019s got no silicates in it, so it doesn\u2019t abrade the hair. Don\u2019t ask me how I know that.\u00a0 Anyway.<\/p>\n
\nWell, the first place I do my research these days is, well, these days I can actually afford to Chicago and look.\u00a0 So, I do that, to a degree.\u00a0 Originally, I couldn\u2019t; I had a couple of guide books to Chicago and that was all I had to go on.\u00a0 And then after a couple of books came out, I had a couple of readers who lived in here, and then I could talk to them about it. And now I have google maps, and more importantly, google street view.\u00a0 That\u2019s useful to the point where I actually had a member of CPD SWAT approach me and say, \u201cListen, this scene that you set up in the short story the Warrior, where you had the guy on the roof and you said specifically which lights were out, to have the approach and so on, so that the sniper would have the best point of view, I checked that out and you were right and I need to know who you consulted about that kind of information because we sort of like to keep track of people with that kind of information.\u201d\u00a0 And I was like, \u201cI just play Call of Duty and looked at google maps and google street view, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d And he was like, \u201cOhhh. Gah. *forehead smacking*\u201d Oh, yeah, it\u2019s like, \u201cYeah I have a scale model of the city in my basement, I just used that!\u201d\u00a0 As far as the driving, I get a lot of requests for, \u201cCould you please destroy this for Chicago?\u201d so the what, the McHenry\u00a0[indistinct audience input]<\/strong>, yeah, he\u2019s busy being a dad. Plus, I think he worries about showing up to a move and having a hit squad show up to handle him.<\/p>\n
\nNo, because I\u2019ve gotta have enough time to write it, and I\u2019m still getting caught up.\u00a0 This year, personally, was like this really intense amazing-slash-awful rollercoaster for me, so I\u2019m a little bit behind where I need to be, but I\u2019m getting caught up now. As far as when I\u2019ll do that one, it\u2019ll be eventually, hopefully before too much longer, though, because that\u2019ll be fun.\u00a0 Plus, I\u2019m planning on writing that one with my sister, and so I would only have to do half of it, so that\u2019s only, like, three or four short stories worth of writing, so I can really rip that out in a couple of weeks, and get that done. So that would be very cool, extremely fun.\u00a0 Maggie is a great character because she\u2019s been though a lot and she has a lot of social anxiety issues. She genuinely needs mouse as a service dog next to her to help her stay cool and deal with people.\u00a0 She has trouble in enclosed spaces and trouble in open spaces and she\u2019s really\u2026she\u2019s got a lot on her mind.\u00a0 Except when everything is totally going to hell and on fire, at which point she\u2019s completely normal, because she\u2019s Harry Dresden\u2019s daughter. It\u2019s, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m comfortable here, I know what to do.\u2019<\/p>\n
\nYou\u2019ve gotten all the answer you\u2019re going to get, as far as which Fallen said that. I\u2019m not saying that Lasciel lied about everything, or anything, because she could\u2019ve, it could\u2019ve been one of the others, but Lasciel is the one with an axe to grind, so.<\/p>\n
\n
\nA: The new series is a steampunk series. I wanted to call it a steam opera, but my editor told me, “No Jim, you’re not allowed to make up brand new genres.” I’m like, “OK, fine, whatever, it can be steampunk.” But it’ll be coming out this fall; it’s called The Cinder Spires. The first book is called The Aeronaut’s Windlass. The setting is a world where the surface of the world is a very dangerous place to live and so most of humanity lives in these enormous nearly indestructible black towers called “the Spires”. All trade and travel and commerce and diplomacy is accomplished by airship between the spires, and two of the more powerful ones are beginning to position themselves to go to war with each other.
\nAnd the monarch of one of the spires, the Spirearch, has decided that he needs to assemble a mission team to get jobs done for him in order to get his spire positioned as advantageously as possible. So the story is kind of…I like to say it’s X-Men meets Hornblower, but that didn’t sound very steampunky, so now I say it’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Hornblower. I would like to tell you that you’ll like it because there are good characters that I really enjoyed making or that you’ll like it because it’s really tightly paced, because even though I’m writing something that is a little bit more like Codex Alera, I tried to pace it like a Dresden Files book – kinda compress all the action into a small area. And I’d like to tell you that you’ll think it’s a cool story world, but really, what’s going to sell the books is that there are talking cats.
\nAnd the cats, they don’t speak human languages, of course – they speak “Cat”. They understand human languages, except when they don’t. But they sort of exist alongside humanity, they don’t like to mix too much with humanity because humans keep trying to feed kittens, and then kittens become dependant on humans and don’t learn to kill things for themselves – and that’s BAD. And humans – you kinda have to get along with humans though, because they have opposable thumbs…and matches! So the cats wind up being kinda like this little fuzzy mafia. “I notice your warehouse is rodent free. Perhaps you would like it to continue being rodent free. Perhaps there will be cream waiting every Thursday at three p.m.”
\nOne of the cats has a pet human, so the Spirarch recruits her to be part of his team because somebody who can understand cats and who knows how to approach them and talk to them is very handy, because cats see and hear everything and they get everywhere, and they’re completely silent, and so they’re a fantastic source of information.
\nAnother one of the members of the team is a down-on-his-luck privateer, a captain, who was successful enough in his privateering at the end of the Spires that they actually sent a battlecruiser out to kill him. He manages to survive, and get away and come home. But his ship’s all busted up, and though he doesn’t really care for the Spirearch at all, the Spirearch is willing to fix his ship, and he can’t say “no” to that.
\nThere’s basically a princess of the Spire, a daughter of the most powerful house there. One of the warriorborn – about 3% of the population in this world is born slightly different than the rest of humanity, with a much higher metabolism, and much stronger and much faster. If you get in a fight and your side has warriorborn, and their side doesn’t…you win. So you gotta have a warriorborn along so another one doesn’t come tromp you. There’s an etherialist which is – there’s crystal technology that does a lot of the airship stuff, along with the more primitive steam technology, and there’s etheric engineers that run all of the machines that are based on the crystal technology, and there’s etherealists who sorta do everything the engineers do, only without that troublesome “machine” part in the middle. You know, they just sorta “get to it” at the end. As a result, they’re a little bit off…an etherialist who’s walking around and bumping into walls and talking to people who aren’t there – he’s probably safe. He’s probably okay. It’s the etherealist that’s looking at you calmly and inviting you to tea that you have to worry about – there’s something definitely, deeply wrong with that one. You definitely want the guy that’s a little bit weird on your team and not the calm one.
\nI had a great time writing it; I had a stronger response from my beta readers for this book than I have for anything else I’ve done. It’s the longest book I’ve ever written. It checks in at almost 200,000 words. It’s a nice, big, thick read, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m so sick of it now because I’ve been editing it over and over for the past several weeks, but eventually the characters will be like “Jim, we have to do another story” and I’ll be like “Shut up! I’m trying to write Harry Dresden!” But that’ll be out late September, early October.
\nQ: Cool, I think a lot of us will be excited to read that then. What, if any, tease can you give us for Peace Talks?
\nA: Peace Talks is all about the various signatories of the Unseelie Accords are having a convocation in Chicago to try and work out a way to settle down all the discord that’s been happening due to the Fomor seizing power in the vacuum left behind by the Red Court. So, I believe what’s going to happen is they’re all going to get together, they’ll have a nice dinner, they’ll hash things out, and then have a coupla beers and sing some songs, and everything will be FINE. Cause, you know, I want to surprise everybody. Everybody’s just looking for it to explode, and so on. This book is only set a couple of months after the end of the previous one [Skin Game], so, you know, Murphy’s still undergoing surgeries and so on to get fixed because when you get hurt like that, it takes a long time to get better. When you’re not some kind of superhuman, “I work for Queen Mab”, living punching bag… Let’s see, we’ll get to see a lot of, more of Harry and Maggie; Mouse will be in this one, we’ll get to see the White Council getting involved with things again, so we’ll have them on stage.
\nAnd I’m going to get to do a bunch of fights I’ve been longing to write since i first started writing this series, so that’s going to be fun. And we will have a good time with that book as well – as soon as it’s written, which, I have to stop doing things like going to Sweden and stay home and write books. It’s really a good thing I’m kind of a hobbit at heart because, you know, bad things can happen to you when you go on adventures…there can be trolls and dragons and things like that. Stay home on the couch, that’s not going to happen! And earlier I’d said that, and Kitty said “Yeah, but if you stay home on the couch, nothing good happens either!” And I’m like, “Speak for yourself! I’ve got a series to do! That’s important stuff to me.”
\nI’ve also got to do a few more Dresden short stories. I’m going to have to do “Harry Dresden does jury duty”, and I gotta assume that the lawyers ran out of people they could strike, and that Harry was left. I got called to jury duty myself, and I had a book due, so I really hated wasting the time. So I’m sitting here like this the entire time [arms crossed, leaned back, serious look on face], the lawyer takes one look at me, and goes, “Huh-huh – no.” Like that. I’m like, “That’s right, judgmental long hair – you don’t know which way that guy’s going to break.”
\nBut let’s see, we’ll do the story of Molly’s first job as Winter Lady, and you’ll actually get to see what her job is, what the Winter Lady’s supposed to do, and what Maeve was not doing. Molly’s got, like, 150 years of backlog to clear before she can even catch up. Let’s see, I think I’m finally going to write the Hawaii story, where Murphy and Kincaid go to Hawaii. And there’s volcanoes and shark gods and everything, so that’ll be fun. What else? Oh, sometime probably next year, I’m going to be writing a series, at least a few books, that are going to be young adult books when Maggie Dresden goes to school. Maggie is…she’s going to be going to St. Mark’s Academy for the Gifted and Talented, which has been mentioned in some of the short stories. Dresden walks in and says “It’s too bad you’re not St. Mark’s Academy for the Resourceful and Talented, because then you’d be “SMART”. And as it is, you’re just “SMAGT.” ” So, that’s the school where all the scions, the offspring of supernatural beings who live around Chicago – that’s where they go to class, because it’s kind of been declared neutral territory. And the law is, the kids have to sort out their own problems. So Maggie’s going to be winding up going there, she’s got terrible social anxiety issues because she’s had [sing-song voice] some trauma. Unless she has Mouse along, and Mouse is kind of her “people-person”, he’s the face man. Unless, of course, things are on fire, and people are bleeding and screaming, at which point, she’s completely normal…because she’s Harry Dresden’s daughter. But that’ll be really fun to write, and we’re going to end that at middle school, so we’ll see how that works out.
\nBut okay, so that’s my work for the near future, so now you guys know what I’m doing – I’ll be on my couch.<\/p>\n
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\nIt would not be beyond the realm of possibility for a wizard to open a Way that gets them to the moon eventually.\u00a0 On the other hand, there\u2019s not a whole lot of reason to go to space when you can get pretty much anything you want here.\u00a0 Space is just mostly just space.\u00a0 If they want some of that they can always go into the NN and make whatever they want.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of those things that the old powerful wizards have.\u00a0 \u00a0Most of them have a demesne in the NN where they can retreat to when they feel like.<\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019s done that when he\u2019s had some rock falling on him before.\u00a0 The problem with doing that is one it\u2019s hard and takes a lot of energy.\u00a0 So there\u2019s usually a more efficient way to do something about it.\u00a0 The other is that whatever\u2019s charging through could always potentially get back out again.\u00a0 The other problem is what if he opens it to a part of the NN that\u2019s filled with chlorine gas?\u00a0 You don\u2019t really know what\u2019s on the other side until you open the door and look.\u00a0 Sometimes surprise Narnia.\u00a0 Other times it\u2019ll be Boom your Jokey Smurf moment.\u00a0 That\u2019s the main reason.\u00a0 It\u2019s so unpredictable that he\u2019ll rely on fundamentals more than anything else.\u00a0 That\u2019s something he would try if he was really desperate and just didn\u2019t have another option.\u00a0 Of course if you\u2019re in the NN you\u2019ll be turning the thing loose who knows where in the real world.\u00a0 That\u2019s also another issue.\u00a0 If it were that easy, it would be too simple of a solution, and that\u2019s no fun.<\/p>\n
\nThe silkweavers, they sort of weave these giant interwoven sails out of silk.\u00a0 They\u2019re actually airborne most of the time flying around.\u00a0 As you get closer to the edges of the sails, the silk gets older and staler.\u00a0 That\u2019s where you can go in and harvest it because it\u2019s not still alive.\u00a0 The silkweavers generally don\u2019t care if you go and snip off the parts of the web that are dead and carry it away to use for sails and whatnot.\u00a0 On the other hand if they\u2019re (a) hungry or (b) you choose the wrong part of the web to come after, they\u2019ll come at you to kill you.\u00a0 It\u2019s why ethersilk is so expensive because people keep dying when they try to go get some.\u00a0 You can\u2019t domesticate them.\u00a0 The only place to get them is out in the wild where there\u2019s giant silkweaver colonies floating around and harvesting it there.<\/p>\n
\nThe first house we rented, the front door had a doorknob that was tricky.\u00a0 It was clever, crafty.\u00a0 For some reason, I was the only one in the family that had issues opening the doorknob.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if I was turning it the wrong direction compared to everybody else or what, but sometimes the door would open and sometimes it wouldn\u2019t, but usually I would not be slowing down.\u00a0 So I would occasionally get bruises on my cheek or cuts on myself because I hadn\u2019t handled the new doorknob technology sufficiently well.\u00a0 As I was thinking of stuff for the etherialists, that was the first thing I thought of for Ferrus.\u00a0 What if all doorknobs were that evil?\u00a0 That would make life so uncertain.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s not that Thomas is not human that the Forgotten Ones are not coming back, it\u2019s because so few people are aware of them the connection is very tenuous.\u00a0 And also because the people fighting in the Oblivion War go to great lengths to make sure they stay ignorant.\u00a0 The lengths that Thomas goes to stay ignorant are he never does his homework, and he likes to not think about it.
\nAs far as the soulgaze goes, it\u2019s going to be different from one white court vampire to another because they have differing levels of humanity going on.\u00a0 Thomas is very very human.\u00a0 He\u2019s connected to the most fundamental human trait which is love.\u00a0 When Mab said that if Harry died she would have gone to Thomas to talk to him about being the knight, Harry says he\u2019s not even human.\u00a0 Mab says he\u2019s in love.\u00a0 He\u2019s human enough for me.\u00a0 So that would have been a possibility.\u00a0 If you get over to some of the more psychotic white court people some of the more jaded ones like Lord Raith, he doesn\u2019t come off as very human.\u00a0 He would look very different under a soulgaze.\u00a0 Thomas is also someone who is continually struggling against his base nature.\u00a0 He\u2019s struggling against the Hunger.\u00a0 That\u2019s why he was presented in this moment of strength for the soulgaze.\u00a0 Other vampires are perfectly content with that.\u00a0 Lara has no problems with her Hunger at all.\u00a0 She\u2019s integrated with it much the same way Nicodemus is integrated with Anduriel.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be different from vampire to vampire.<\/p>\n
\nSecond Aristh<\/a>:<\/h4>\n
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\nInterview with the guys who created the Dresden Files LARP game published June 5
\nLocation:\u00a0\u00a0Source<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThe White Council has long been my example of good intentions run amok.\u00a0 They were meant to be something that was good and positive and a force for enlightenment, but instead, they wind up being a bunch of thugs who end up killing a bunch of kids.\u00a0 They\u2019re badly playing catch up because they can\u2019t keep pace with the world that has accelerated around them.<\/p>\n
\nThe White Council is this force of restraint and keeping things buttoned down and under control.\u00a0 The Black Council is much more along the lines of \u201cWell if you\u2019ve got the power you should use it however you want to.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve got the power, that\u2019s what it\u2019s for.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019ve caused all kinds of havoc that even Dresden hasn\u2019t realized yet and still more bad stuff that is coming in the future.<\/p>\n
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\nRoad to EuroSteamCon Portugal \/ Internet Video Chat Interview (interviewer is based in Portugal)
\nLocation:\u00a0Source<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nRowl is the prince of his local tribe.\u00a0 His father is the king of the local tribe, and Rowl will be king as soon as his father proves himself incompetent.<\/p>\n
\nMadame Cavendish is an etherealist, and not a nice one.\u00a0 She is kind of the driving evil behind everything that\u2019s happening.\u00a0 Although she doesn\u2019t really think of it as evil, she thinks of it as building a better world.\u00a0 You have to build it on something, and in this case it\u2019s going to be on Spire Albion.\u00a0 She\u2019s very strongly backing up Spire Aurora.\u00a0 The Aurorans are the more expansive aggressive Spire around.\u00a0 Her job is to basically wreck everything, and she likes her job a little too much.
\nShe\u2019s obsessed with politeness and manners.\u00a0 Partly that\u2019s a reflection of the damage that\u2019s been inflicted on her by her etherealism.\u00a0 She has a very difficult time being able to do things that are not polite and mannerly unless you violate manners first.\u00a0 As long as your manners are impeccable, you\u2019re almost invincible to her.\u00a0 If you drop anything or say something that can be the least bit construed in the least bit as rude, then she can start ripping into you.\u00a0 It\u2019s like twitter.<\/p>\n
\nThey don\u2019t have to go to the surface to get coal because they don\u2019t burn a lot of coal.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got a kind of biofuel that they use because if your whole existence is being lived in these huge towers, and they\u2019ve lived there for a long time, you\u2019ve got to have an extremely sustainable existence.\u00a0 Burning coal inside a building does not give you that.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got a biofuel that they grow for part of it.\u00a0 They also have the heat provided by electricity that\u2019s provided by these big crystals.
\nThere are very few vatteries on the planet that are capable of growing crystals that are big enough and complex enough.\u00a0 It takes generations to grow them, so they\u2019re extremely valuable.\u00a0 When I say extremely valuable, it\u2019s more like priceless because you can\u2019t just make new ones.\u00a0 It takes a long time to get them.\u00a0 They\u2019re mostly used to drive these ships which drive trade and diplomacy and everything else.\u00a0 There\u2019s a limited amount of that technology that can be employed inside the Spires.\u00a0 The ships get more of it, and they\u2019re going to be developing more of it as the series goes on.\u00a0 I never want to write a series where everything stays as it always has.\u00a0 I want to write a series where things get started then because of what characters do, things start to change.\u00a0 That\u2019s how the world works.\u00a0 People take action, and the world changes.<\/p>\n
\nSome of the characters are.\u00a0 The two female viewpoint characters are seventeen.\u00a0 They\u2019re both getting started in life.\u00a0 That\u2019s the age you sign on to join the Spirearch\u2019s Guard, sort of a cross between the peace corps and a police force.\u00a0 The nobles work for the Spirearch for a year, and it\u2019s their badge of \u201cLook I Contributed to Society\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s where these two are.\u00a0 Gwen\u2019s cousin Benadict is only a couple years older than she is, so he\u2019s the\u00a0experienced<\/em>\u00a0one at nineteen.\u00a0 Captain Grimm is an older character in his mid-thirties.\u00a0 There are lots of other characters that are older like that.\u00a0 Part of this is we\u2019re taking these newbies and throwing them into these horrible events, but there\u2019s older characters around.
\nIt\u2019s not necessarily written for a young adult audience.\u00a0 Like I do with story worlds, I like to take characters and make sure they\u2019re not the same when they start the story as they are when they finish it.\u00a0 That\u2019s always got to be a part of your writing.\u00a0 How does the story change this person?\u00a0 How does this person get to be different?\u00a0 I think that age of human beings, that\u2019s when human beings start really changing, figuring out who they are, and becoming different as they go into their late teens.\u00a0 We\u2019re sort of looking around trying to grasp the world that\u2019s around us.\u00a0 As we make our choices, we start shaping who we\u2019re going to be.\u00a0 For these characters, that\u2019s where I wanted them to see how they grow.\u00a0 They\u2019re all coming from fairly similar places, and I want to explore how their choices will make their lives different.\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s always a critical part of writing.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not writing where your character\u2019s choices aren\u2019t what\u2019s driving the story and what\u2019s creating your world, then you\u2019re not doing it right.<\/p>\n
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\nWonkyCast 17:\u00a0 Jim Butcher (June 2015)
\nLocation:\u00a0Source<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThat wasn\u2019t until later, though.\u00a0 That was after I had already written the books and was watching a History Channel show about Sue.\u00a0 I just watched it with my mouth open.\u00a0 I was currently writing Storm Front when I was watching that show.\u00a0 I was like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to use this!\u00a0 I\u2019ve got to use this!\u201d\u00a0 For five years, I waited to write that scene, and when I finally got to write it, I was like\u00a0AAAHHH DELAYED GRATIFICATION FULFILLED!\u00a0 SO AWESOME!<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nSlippery Words
\nLocation:\u00a0Source<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nYou\u2019ll find out more about that later.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good question that I can\u2019t answer without being very spoilery.\u00a0 That\u2019s no fun for anybody..<\/p>\n
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\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=43<\/a><\/p>\n