View original postView original postHarry's new daughter seems like a retcon, like Butcher had realized his whole fan base had figured out the headache was due to Lasciel and rather than have it be an emerging enemy he made it a kid for surprise value. Story wise it's kinda silly since we hadn't gotten any facetime with his original kid till this book and not much there and kid #2 at this point sort of diminishes that thus far unexplored storyline
View original postI don't think it was a retcon, so to speak- he tends to plan stuff out pretty far in advance. That said, I DO think it's weird, storywise. I mean, the last couple of books has been Harry coming to grips with the fact that he's a father, how should he act, will his daughter even want him as a father, the mother is dead, etc etc.
View original postThen we get ANOTHER daughter, where the problems are almost the same. It was interesting how quickly he went from "get this parasite out of me" to "Oh, it's like I have a kid, I guess I love it now."
It is possible it wasn't a retcon but if so it sort of blows the entire Maggy arc since it would imply Daughter 2.0 was in the works since book 9 at the latest, whereas we never get a hint of Maggy before #12. It is, to me, pretty implausible a writer would decide to create an offspring for their protagonist without unveiling them till 6 books later, but halfway in between produce another offspring of the same gender. I'm pretty convinced it was a retcon, writers do it all the time, there's nothing wrong with it but they tend not to advertise it. You take Thomas, I seriously doubt his first appearance in Book 3 already had him as Harry's Sib, ditto Ebenezar in 4. Writers just don't work that way, if it is already in the works they at least drop a hint that makes sense in retrospect. There'd be a throwaway comment, or even a red herring like Harry thinking to himself about how Michael was the older brother he never had while Thomas was standing at hand. "Michael I trusted, he was like the older brother I never had, Thomas was an unknown, a vampire, someone I could never trust" etc etc.
View original postView original postDeirdre. You'd think Nicodemius would have brought along his most loyal servant to give that one a run first before sacking his daughter or tried something nasty like bringing along someone whose family was hostage.
View original postYeah, it was strange. A little note about how it had to be a sacrifice of someone you loved would have ironed that out.
That wouldn't have helped too much since he wans't the only person there nor implied to in anyway be specially recognized as the head of the group by the gates. Deirdre had no special care for anyone else there. If a component required one of them be cared about then drag along a man and his daughter, gun to head of girl, and precede.
View original postView original postSo when Harry got his winter mantle depowered repeatedly I noted he wasn't paralyzed, has his spine healed already? Because last book when he forsook the mantle it wasn't.
It kept getting drained to near nothing and remarked on, pain overload, etc.
View original postView original postButters. Just a weird arc there. Note to writers: Character growth and progression does not necessarily need to include 'took a level in badass' particularly when the guy was supposed to be vanilla mortal with a brain. This also means we need another new character to serve as the 'smart but normal, not clued in' guy on the other half of exposition dialogue. And there's already a huge cast.
View original postYeah, his Batman/Benny Hill routine was a little strange. I guess it kind of makes sense- as much as we liked the clued-in medical examiner, it doesn't make much sense, plotwise, for him to stay that way. I mean, the dude is basically a D&D Munchkin who got his hands on a Real Life Players Handbook. Even if he's not a wizard, it's obvious he's been trying to learn as much as he can about what he CAN do.
It is one route to go but it could have been heralded better. His job already justifies a vigilante leaning. One of my friends, retired now, was Coroner of our county for more years than I've lived, and one definitely gets the impression that some of the horrors he saw left him with an occasional urge to "do something", magnify that by those horrors being more numerous, supernaturally vile, and the police being handcuffed by disbelief and it becomes believable. Add hanging out routinely with a lot of vigilantes. So yeah it is believable but it wasn't built up well and comes off as cheezy attempted fanservice that came off more as unintended fan insult, it could have been done better.
View original postView original postHuge cast not seen: Admittedly I hate when authors shoehorn in cameos, and we did get a fair amount of that anyway, but it doesn't require a thin plot excuse to have someone like Harry's badass grandfather show up on the island for a visit, for instance. A throwaway paragraph of him coming by months before or a quick memory bit would have done it.
View original postYeah... it wasn't as much of an issue in previous books, but the last couple books have made it very obvious that we are seeing a couple of days per year in the life of Harry Dresden.
But he does callbacks so he could have done one there, witness all the canon-mess callbacks to him and Thomas building on the isle and having fraternal funtime in between Turncoat (when Harry gets the island) and Changes, during which time it is at least strongly implied he and Thomas have barely spoken and Thomas is being an inhuman asshole.
