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Cold Days is here. (SPOILERS Maybe)

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  • #31
    I'm fairly certain that while a part of the Hunt, the term "human" doesn't really apply, so much.

    ^-.-^
    Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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    • #32
      oh no I get that but it just shows another change with Harry because he would have agonized about that pre winter knight. I'm not saying it may be the winter's mantle but it definitely shows the stakes are higher now when that has so little effect.
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      • #33
        ok...i need to stop coming back to this thread.....I'm in the final stretch of the book...should have it done by tomorrow....
        It is by snark alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire 'tude, the lips acquire mouthiness, the glares become a warning.

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        • #34
          Finally finished the book, got it this weekend as a late Christmas present.

          HOLY SNAPATONIES.


          Seriously, loved this one a heckuva lot more than the last one. The last book was just....not Dresden. This one, though? Dresden through and through. And mein gott the plot twists. I seriously didn't see half of those coming. Dang.
          By popular request....I am now officially the Enemy of Normalcy.

          "What is unobtainium? To Seraph, it's a normal client. :P" -- Observant Friend

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          • #35
            My aunt was over for the holidays. She finished it in two days. Around cooking and shopping, and watching movies.

            And, yes, the last book was mostly a bridge. This one, however, is pure Dresden awesomeness.

            ^-.-^
            Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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            • #36
              Took me about two days to read... I put off buying it until my time off at Christmas....

              It was... okay. I liked it better than Ghost Story, but not as much as some of the earlier books. I think I preferred when the problems Harry had to deal with were smaller -- "closer to home" sorts of stories. The more recent great-big sweeping save-the-planet plots just don't pull me in the same way. And I'm a bit tired of virtually every main character ending up basically being possessed in some way.
              There's no such thing as a stupid question... just stupid people.

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              • #37
                It's a power creep issue. Harry's getting stronger and more powerful. Sure, he still takes care of things at home, but that's easy. Would you really want to read about him taking care of the evil sorcerer in Storm Front as he is in Cold Days?

                No. Because he'd beat that sorcerer's ass within an inch of his life without sweating it.

                Harry simply has too much power at this point to be limited to dealing with only a local scale. Well, he could, but then he wouldn't be Harry, you know?
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                • #38
                  Hmmm... maybe. I'll have to think on that more... to be honest, I found the same thing with the other Harry, Harry Potter. The first book was fairly small in scale happening mostly at a personal scale, but by the time book 7 showed up everything was super-sized. Maybe I'll need to stick to short-stories for a while...

                  Regardless, I did buy the hardcover version of Ghost Story.... there are very few authors on whom I'll deliberately spend more than I have to, and Jim Butcher is one of them.
                  There's no such thing as a stupid question... just stupid people.

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                  • #39
                    Okay, so I avoided this thread like the plague until I got around to getting my copy, which I did, last weekend. I just finished reading it.

                    God DAMN, Butcher.

                    The series just keeps escalating with each passing book. Granted, part of that is because of the power creep that Harry's been under going, but ... jeeze.

                    And this was probably the longest, hardest, mind-whammiest day of Harry's life.

                    Consider:

                    1. He woke up in Arctis Tor, basically the Capital of Winter, where Mab tries to blow his face off with an automatic shotgun.
                    2. He goes to a party (his birthday party) where pretty much everyone in attendance (except maybe Sarissa) wants to kill him.

                    Granted #2 ended with Harry getting to count coup on the Redcap, then blow an ogre to frozen chunky salsa before quoting Ash T. Williams on the entire Winter Court, but still.

                    3. Mab orders him to kill Maeve, who is a psychotic immortal.
                    4. He meets Molly, and finds out that Demonreach is basically like a powder keg ready to explode, and if it does, it'll take out about half the continent.
                    5. He goes to Demonreach to find out what's going on, and finds out that the island is a prison, of which he is now The Warden. A prison containing entities so evil that half a dozen nagloshii-- sibs to Shagnasty from "Turn Coat"-- are in minimum security.
                    6. Oh, by the way, he's got a parasite in his brain that's going to eventually re-enact Scanners with his head.
                    7. Speaking of parasites, there's a mental infection called Nemesis that can subvert the wills of basically anything it infects, turning them to the cause of the Outsiders, and it's dangerous enough that it can infect Faerie Queens, like Mab, who has been infected and that's why she's sicced him on Maeve, who isn't infected.
                    8. While we're on the subject of Mab, here's what her duties entail: she has to protect the whole of reality from the Outsiders, who are constantly waging war and trying to invade, and if they succeed, it's basically the end of the world.
                    9. Just as he's coming to grips with all of that, here comes the Erlking and the Wyld Hunt.
                    10. Harry being Harry, he manages to take control of the Hunt and uses it as an army to stop the assault on Demonreach.
                    11. That Outsider that he dubbed 'Sharkface,' yeah, he's brother to He-Who-Walks-Behind, whom Harry kinda blew up that one time.
                    12. The whole attack by the Outsiders on the island was just a distraction so the Faerie Ladies can try to crack open Demonreach, because surprise, Mab's not the one who's infected, Maeve is.
                    13. Harry manages to guile his way through everything and stops Maeve cold (ha) by summoning Mab, but Maeve gets revenge by killing Lily, forcing Sarissa (Mab's other daughter) to become the new Summer Lady, and when she tries to do the same to the Winter Knight, gets shot and killed in return, causing the mantle of Winter Lady to pass to Molly.

                    Even after the day is done, Harry is now responsible for containing an island which is quite literally the Island of Sealed Evil In A Can. He's become aware of a dangerous, insidious psychic enemy which can infect anyone and turn them against him with no way to tell if someone's been caught. He's become aware of the war which is constantly being fought at the boundaries of reality against the Outsiders, one which will end the world as we know it if the forces of Winter ever lose. It's implied that Lara Raith is ramping up to take over the world by getting political. And the mantles of Knight, Lady, and Queen inevitably shape their bearer into becoming their roles-- meaning that Maeve had no choice but to become a psychopathic hosebeast, Mab had no choice but to become a coldly logical force of nature, and Lloyd Slate became the monster that invoked such fear into people, meaning Harry may end up succumbing to the mantle's effects, even if he's aware of what it's trying to do to him.

                    Goddamn, Butcher, can Harry Dresden ever catch a break? [Answer: No, he can't.]
                    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

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                    • #40
                      Quoth Jay 2K Winger View Post
                      2. He goes to a party (his birthday party) where pretty much everyone in attendance (except maybe Sarissa) wants to kill him.
                      Dude. It wasn't his birthday. It was his birthday, as the Winter Knight. At least, that's what I assumed they were trying to get across. Nobody else said happy birthday to him except the fae...as far as I remember.
                      By popular request....I am now officially the Enemy of Normalcy.

                      "What is unobtainium? To Seraph, it's a normal client. :P" -- Observant Friend

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                      • #41
                        Quoth Seraph View Post
                        Dude. It wasn't his birthday. It was his birthday, as the Winter Knight. At least, that's what I assumed they were trying to get across. Nobody else said happy birthday to him except the fae...as far as I remember.
                        It was Halloween. Harry Dresden was BORN on Halloween.

                        So, yes. Birthday both traditionally and his birth into the role of Winter Knight.

                        Also--

                        I'm convinced now that Lord Raith-- you know, Lara and Thomas' dad, the White King?-- has Outsider protection. It was established I think in "Blood Rites" that Lord Raith is essentially immune to magic. That there's some kind of protection on him that nullifies most kinds of magical assault on him. In "Blood Rites," he orchestrates a plot to ruin a porn director's career by having a bunch of his (the porn director's) ex-wives form a little coven and perform the bad-luck spell to kill off his stars, and when Harry gets involved, one of them specifically performs a rite to summon He-Who-Walks-Behind. (The rite ... sort of fails, but the Walker does possess the dead body of one of the spellcasters to taunt Harry before vanishing.) Harry mentions in "Cold Days" that magic doesn't work properly on Outsiders, though he's got an edge due to the circumstances of his birth, apparently, which is how he's able to shake off the whammy put on him by He-Who-Walks-Before (aka Sharkface).

                        I'm guessing that Lord Raith is protected by another Walker, maybe He-Who-Walks-Beside?

                        More to the point, this now raises questions about what Cowl (seen previously in Dead Beat and White Night) really is. Harry flipped a car on top of him, and Cowl shrugged it off like it was nothing.
                        Last edited by Jay 2K Winger; 01-14-2013, 08:48 PM.
                        PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

                        There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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                        • #42
                          Quoth Seraph View Post
                          Dude. It wasn't his birthday. It was his birthday, as the Winter Knight. At least, that's what I assumed they were trying to get across. Nobody else said happy birthday to him except the fae...as far as I remember.
                          As Jay said, it totally was his actual birthday. And the fact nobody else said happy b-day, well...

                          Would you be remembering it's your friend's b-day if you find out he's walking around and doing shit after disappearing while everybody thought he was dead?
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                          • #43
                            actually I found very few of the reactions to his return to be realistic. After nearly crying a couple times in ghost story I found this book to be a little underwhelming emotionally. I still love it though.
                            Interviewer: What is your greatest weakness?
                            Me: I expect competence from my coworkers.

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                            • #44
                              I dunno...

                              Molly's on the mend from mentally snapping, Murphs is at the end of her rope, Thomas is trying not to get involved in his sister's politics, they've all rather effectively had to deal with his death twice....

                              I can completely understand the sort of disconnect they were having there.
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                              • #45
                                Something else that struck me that has some uncomfortable implications...

                                Mab knew that Maeve had been infected by the adversary, making her capable of lying-- an extremely dangerous thing for Fae to be able to do. Mab's fury at this realization was so great that, for quite some time she was incapable of directly speaking to anyone without making them bleed from the ears. This, we now know, is because the only recourse for Mab is to kill her.

                                But, because Maeve is her daughter, Mab can't bring herself to do it. She is her mother, after all. Thus, the task would instead fall to someone else, namely the Winter Knight, since no one else in the Winter Court is a match for Maeve. But by the time Mab realizes what has happened to her daughter, Lloyd Slate is imprisoned in Arctis Tor and being tortured for his betrayal, and can't be used for this purpose. And the only apparent replacement that Mab will accept for the role is Harry, who puts off accepting that mantle for probably about eight years.

                                That's at least eight years in which Maeve is capable of lying, in which she stirs up all kinds of trouble, and in which the adversary can potentially infect virtually the entire Winter Court, and God knows how many other entities she had contact with.

                                Goddamn, Butcher, you really know how to make people cringe with fear.
                                PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

                                There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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