Ghost story - Dresden Files [spoilers]

[Schizm]

Post your reactions here.

I enjoyed the action of it, and but was thoroughly meh at the ending discourse between uriel and harry. The overall gist of the thing was "hi, no I am super powerful and refuse to tell you the truth, and because I like playing mysterious games. "

The fact that he didn't die isn't surprising to anyone, but not is the outcome of harry being the winter knight. The

Overall, the this felt like boiler plate, like filler, and a way to progress molly more than a way to make harry grow up at all.

[Dacke]

I liked it. I thought it was fairly likely that Harry was still kept alive by Mab - like she said, he did fall into the cold water, and cold is her domain. I didn't see the Demonreach link, though.

Kincaid as the shooter was the prime suspect of course, which is why I thought it ought to be someone else. I didn't see the mindwipe thing coming - I'm gonna have to reread that part of Changes to see if I can spot any clues.

And Starship Mollyprise was fun as hell despite the tension :)

[Schizm]

I liked it. I thought it was fairly likely that Harry was still kept alive by Mab - like she said, he did fall into the cold water, and cold is her domain. I didn't see the Demonreach link, though.

Kincaid as the shooter was the prime suspect of course, which is why I thought it ought to be someone else. I didn't see the mindwipe thing coming - I'm gonna have to reread that part of Changes to see if I can spot any clues.

yup. Maab was a given, and since he fell into the same lake as Demonreach, I thought collusion was a likely outcome. Plus, the whole winter-in-summer thing going on in Chicago during this book made Maab's presence known from the get-go.

And Starship Mollyprise was fun as hell despite the tension :)

That part really was amusing - very typically butcher-like geekery.


I guess mostly I'm just getting tired of Harry being written as an "oh shucks, I don't get any part of what's going on until the very end, because things are happening too fast for me to get a handle on, so I just react." I'm ready for Dresden to move on to pro-activity, and start chewing ass and kicking bubble gum.

[Ergeheilalt]

I read it once through, fairly rapidly, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll make a second pass this weekend. We didn't see Harry develop too much in this book, and I think that was sort of the point. This was like those first few episodes of Buffy season 5 or whatever, when the Scoobies picked up the slaying duties while their hero was on the down and out.

I like the idea of "artificer" Butters. I think Butters being confident, take-charge, and savvy was just as important as Molly getting on the ball with her wizarding (both magically and "mysterious and mercurial" vibe).

As for the reveal at the end, I think that was a less than subtle vibe throughout the entire book. I knew for sure when Lea starting rambling about her responsibility to see Molly trained. I did sort of feel that Charity would have had something to say about Molly continuing to train herself without Dresden there to master her apprenticeship.

[Radu]

I like the Dresdenverse a lot, but I may have reached the end of my road with this book. I appreciate how the other characters have stepped up to fill the gap, but I'm starting to get a little tired of the feeling that without Harry to personally oversee... well, EVERYTHING, the world goes to shit. Like Schizm, I'm ready for Harry to grow the fuck up and stop being the last one to know everything. It was cool at first, doing a ride-along with Harry as a middleweight fish in a heavyweight pond. He'd had power to throw around, but never so much you couldn't relate to how hardscrabble some of his encounters were. Those early books were the best.

Then, somewhere along the line, it suddenly seemed like everything in the whole Dresdenverse was bigger, badder, meaner, older, and better than Harry in pretty much every measurable way. Look at the allies Harry gathers: He went from Sgt. Murphy, a tough, smart, no-nonsense karate chick, to Demonreach (whatever the fuck it is) and Queen Mab. He went from thinking a wan- I mean, blasting rod- was the tits to cavorting with the Fallen. He went from having Gentleman Johnnie Marcone as one of his primary adversaries to Baron Marcone as... frenemy? Kinkaid. The Archive..... where are all the "vanilla" contacts he once had? Sure, they're still around, but all the problems he faces now are on such a Phenomenal Cosmic Level that I feel like I'm reading Silver Surfer or Green Lantern and not Moonknight or Daredevil. Hell, I'd even take Luke Cage: Hero for Hire.

That's what Harry is to me at the root level, and why I enjoyed his first stories so much. Now that everything is Too Much To Handle and every problem is Earthshatteringly Big it just doesn't seem... are believable and realistic applicable to an urban magic series? It's still fun... and I still finished Ghost Story in a day... but I'm getting well and thoroughly fed up with how everyone plays Harry for a fool. It's starting to get really fucking annoying how, on the one hand, you lay out the claim that Harry is a BFD and everyone fears/respects him... and on the other hand he's the world's biggest fucking chump. Even the good guys can't be bothered to fill him in on the details, and at some point the whole, "because your mind can't handle it" is no longer interesting or satisfying. That's great the first few times you read it. It gets less so when every. single. entity/power/faction/god/whatever is POWER OVERWHELMING~!!!!!one1!!!! and they must deal through catspaws/agents/riddles/dickery/increasingly thinly veiled Deus Ex Machina to get their point across.

On another point, interesting character development from Morty- I'd love to see him featured more prominently. Also cool to see Butters developing, but honestly he'd already gone through a lot of that in Dead Beat and this is just an extension.

You know who I miss most? Michael.

Michael was always the Watson to Harry's Holmes (or was it the other way?) and I really miss his presence now. That his children continue to make an impact is nice, and I have developed a real liking for Father Forthill through the books....

but the "75 thousand guardian angels protecting the fallen hero" is a little strong for me. Sure, the guy and his family deserve them... but it's also a handy way to make sure that Michael Carpenter becomes a non-factor in any future books, and that makes me sad. I even miss Charity. Though given where Maggie ended up, I think we'll probably see more of her next book. Especially since Harry's, you know, Not Dead After All (TM) and has perhaps Learned A Valuable Lesson about the True Meaning Of Free Will and is prepared to Stick It To The Man again.

I like Harry. He's a good character and fun to read about. But for gods sake, it's time to stop being such a fucking tool and time to start really getting at the bottom of some of these mysteries/conspiracies/power grabs that seem to constantly be happening, and time to start making me actually BELIEVE that he's a powerful guy and an up and comer in the Big Leagues... because so far everything he's ever done on that scale has ended up being subverted somehow as part of Something Bigger, and that fuckery has to stop or my interest in the series is going to go the way of the Wheel of Time.

[Xavier Lang]

I didn't read Ghost Story until recently. I enjoyed quite a bit but I do share some of Radu's frustrations. I thought the ending was a bit silly in so far as the interaction with Mab. Harry is still doomed. Its like when he owed Mab 3 favors. Except now its infinite favors. There is no end to the number of attempts to move Harry over to her side willingly and with the direct connection she can interact with him and his friends at will. She's immortal and patient.

I do miss Michael quite a bit and I really wish all the swords would come back into play. I like the knights and the perspective they bring. Having 2 of Michael and Charity's kids in the mix but not even a phone call from Charity or Michael seems off. Especially when Daniel, is wearing some serious body armor made by Charity. His parents would know what the armor was for and would sure as heck take notice when he had to have it repaired. Even maimed, I can't imagine Michael being able to sit back and do nothing after the abuse Father Forthill took.

I am curious if anyone buy Harry is in the next book. In the end it sounded like Mab is taking Harry deep into Neverwinter that is controlled by Faerie for some internal issues.

[Cat's Paw Nebula]

I really wish Harry could have owned the terrible decisions instead of it being "Oops, evil presence whispering in your ear. Well, that explains that." I know he does take responsibility for it, but that just seemed like a cheap blame shifting method on the author's part.

[Harry]

nt

[Cat's Paw Nebula]

I've never been one to walk away from taking responsibility for my misdeeds, but unfortunately, I'm also as likely to get blamed for things where I have NO idea what the accuser is talking about. Makes me wonder if I've got an authentically split personality.

At any rate, my most sincere apologies.
HARRY Y U NO TRAIN MOLLY BETTER?

:D