I am a fan of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series. I could sit here all day and nitpick the problems I have with Butcher’s prose and characters, but at the end of the day I still really like this 16-book urban fantasy. There are few series that have this much content to sink your teeth into, and while there are a few duds in the series, the average quality of the books is pretty great. There is something about Butcher’s world and its mash-up of lores that is just delightfully fun to step into. Yet, it has been over six years since readers got their last fix. The previous book, Skin Game, came out in May of 2014 and was one of the strongest books in the series. Skin Game was about a crack team trying to rob the god of the underworld, Hades, of the holy grail. What an exciting and thrilling book it was. Now we have Peace Talks, which is about Dresden… talking… a lot?

I am going to get this out right up front: Peace Talks was a simultaneously nostalgic and disappointing experience. There is very little going on in this book - there aren’t many new plot elements, there is very little character growth, and it kinda felt like reading an anime filler arc. The majority of the story focuses on Dresden’s relationships with his half-brother and grandfather, but even in that dimension, there is very little growth and progress. The first 80% of the book focuses on Dresden’s brother committing a crime for which his motivations are never explained, and we follow Dresden trying to keep him out of a metaphorical noose. It’s a whole lot of Dresden saying “we shouldn’t murder my brother” and a whole lot of everyone else saying “please stop inexplicably defending a war criminal that committed a lot of war crimes on video.” The back 20% of the book has some climactic and exciting developments, but they are just set up for the next book with no exploration in Peace Talks itself. Given the fact that the sequel, Battle Ground, comes out in a few months - I think it is safe to say that Butcher wrote one long book that he decided to split in half and Peace Talks got all the setup. This isn’t a good book.

Despite being fairly empty of substance, it's still fun to be back in the world of Harry Dresden. I was actually curious as a lot has changed in the fantasy landscape since these books were still regularly coming out. Butcher’s treatment of female characters has always been a little problematic, and I was excited to see that he seems to have fixed some of these issues. Female characters have more agency and depth, and while they do still talk about sex A LOT it isn’t the only thing they talk about anymore. At the same time, Dresden’s stance on the opposite gender has not aged well, and I do not think the earlier books in this series would survive a time capsule unscathed. Also, I never really noticed this before but every description that Butcher makes of character seems to comprise two features from a pool of four options. People are either over 6’5” or under 5’, and they are either jacked as a brick wall or so lean you could cut yourself on their bones.

I had fun reading Peace Talks, I enjoy being in this world. However, this was not Butcher’s best work and I enjoyed it in the way one enjoys a trashy romance novel. I am glad Dresden is back, but this belongs at the bottom of the series’ rankings. Hopefully, the follow-up novel in a few months will deliver where Peace Talks fumbled, otherwise I might need to reassess my love for Chicago’s only openly-practicing wizard.

Rating: Peace Talks - 4.0/10
-Andrew

Harry's back! After many years, this books picks up shortly after the last one finished. It is a fast-paced, fun read that unfortunately ends on a cliffhanger. Really want to know where it goes from here.

This was a long-awaited addition to this series, and it serves as the first half of a duology! To clarify, the author originally wrote this and the next work in the series together, but split them up to be published separately. Harry remains as snarky as ever, but there’s more on the line this time, so fogive him for being a littler more serious in some situations. The fate of the peace talks, Harry’s family, and the realm of Chicago all hang in the balance of the beings who play using those who are pawns. This is essentially, while not literally, the “room where it happens,” except even those who aren’t in the game may find unexpected consequences.

Also, without spoling too much, #TeamPolka!

While the first Dresden novel in five years is a fun journey checking in with all the characters we've missed since his last adventure (or before), this book felt more like table setting for the next rather than its own narrative arc.

Here it is at last! The opener for the final part of Jim Butcher's epic Harry Dresden cycle. I thought it was worth the wait.

This is very much a set-up book. It brings together the Fomorian storyline and that conflict takes center stage. Thomas, Harry's White Court vampire brother, is in trouble and he drives the story here. There's also a rather unfortunate arc between Harry and Ebeneezer McCoy, Blackstaff of the high wizard council and Harry's grandfather. McCoy hates all vampires and doesn't know that Thomas is Harry's brother, so he just doesn't get why Harry wants to protect Thomas. This misunderstanding leads to deadly conflict and was one of those things where I just wanted there to be one reasonable conversation so secrets could be revealed- the longterm misunderstanding tragedy is not one of my favorite plots.

Anyway, Harry is under time pressue and there's a heist to be done. I feel like some questions about all this really needed to be asked, but because of the lack of time things were done that are likely to have some consequences later. A new Big Bad is introduced.

All in all, a solid book that was trying to do a LOT. I think Harry got manipulated into doing some things that normally he would have looked twice at, but part of the point was to keep the breakneck momentum going. It's not my favorite, but a lot of necessary things happened for the plot.

It feels unfinished. 3/5stars

Compared to the other Dresden Files books, this one is a bit of a letdown. It’s pacing seems off, characters seem like they’re doing things completely out of, pardon the pun, character for them: choices they make don’t make sense and things don’t seem to add up in the end. People who were patient are now short tempered, kind people are mean, and wise people are making incredibly poor decisions, for example.

Now, this may be like other Butcher novels where everything falls into place at the last minute giving you that eureka moment, but with this book ending on a cliff hanger, it just seems unfinished. I know the next novel is coming out later this year and will probably bring everything into line and give us that sweet, sweet resolution, but as a stand alone book, it’s meh. One of the lower rated books as a Dresden novel, but still a good read.

Peace talks was a solid entry for the Dresden files and will certainly push any readers to pick up the next book to see what happens next. Full Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Sa5RU39o8&t=688s

There is an orchestra that plays a very minor role in Jim Butcher’s PEACE TALKS, so maybe you won’t mind a tiny little digression at the start of this review about orchestra music. Okay, so if you’ve ever gone to an orchestra in concert, one of the things that happens is that all the musicians have to tune their instruments. (Maybe not the triangle, okay, but you know what I mean, right? Course you do.) So it’s not enough to just to tune your instrument before you go to work, you have to fine-tune it to a common standard—and in an orchestra, that’s one note from one instrument. And for reasons that are simply too tedious to go into in a short review of a book about wizards and fairies and stuff, that one instrument is the oboe.

That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know if you go to see orchestras in concert. (I am writing this in summer 2020, nobody’s going to any orchestra concerts now anyway.) But let’s say that you do. Are you going because of the oboe section? Kinda doubt it. I mean, maybe you’re are, maybe you’re cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs about the oboe section, and if you are, I apologize, but it’s kind of weird that the oboe is the instrument that sets the standard for the orchestra. But maybe it isn’t that weird when you think about it; a lot of times life works that way. Herman Wouk once said that THE CAINE MUTINY was told from the perspective of a relatively minor character because “because the event turned on his personality as the massive door of a vault turns on a small jewel bearing,” and maybe it’s like that.

No one who has read The Dresden Files would ever say that Harry Dresden was any kind of minor character, but he keeps referring to himself that way throughout PEACE TALKS, and it’s easy to see why. PEACE TALKS features nearly every bad guy that Harry Dresden has ever faced off against (well, not the ones that he’s already vaporized or incinerated or genocided, you understand) all in one place, in the castle that’s been reconstructed over his old boardinghouse. And on that particular stage, he feels like a newbie, a pipsqueak. But he isn’t. He’s the oboist. He’s the jeweled bearing on which the whole thing turns.

I am using the oboist metaphor here, really, not because it’s cool or weird but because there is a good bit of the prologue about PEACE TALKS. It’s the newest of the Dresden Files books, written after a long break (SKIN GAME came out in the long-ago and far-away year of 2015), and its follow-up comes out this fall. SKIN GAME, to borrow the television metaphor, was kind of a bottle episode—focusing on one adversary and one heist. PEACE TALKS is more like the first episode of the second season, introducing the reader to all of the characters who will play a role in the upcoming episodes—potential allies, potential enemies (some of these are the same people; The Dresden Files operates on the ancient Klingon principle that you have to betray your friends, as you can’t very well betray your enemies, can you), and a brand-new Big Bad who is Bigger and Badder than anything that Harry has ever faced.

Very few people are going to be wholly satisfied by PEACE TALKS. Readers who are new to The Dresden Files are going to be utterly mystified (and even avid readers who aren’t Butcher completists are perhaps going to wonder what’s going on with all the Bigfoot talk). And PEACE TALKS breaks off just as things are really getting interesting—not just because supernatural forces are battling in Chicago, but because it looks as though Butcher hasn’t left himself an out for things to return to status quo ante once the next book is over.

Honestly, the best advice for readers at this point is to wait—and waiting is hard, especially after five years—but to wait until September 29, when BATTLE GROUND, the next book in The Dresden Files comes out, and read them both consecutively. Because everything in this book looks as though it’s pointing to that one. Because you don’t go to the orchestra to hear them tune up, and BATTLE GROUND is looking as though it’s going to be one hell of a crescendo.

This review was originally posted on <a href="https://booksofmyheart.net/2020/07/14/audio-peace-talks-by-jim-butcher/" target="_blank"> Books of My Heart</a>
&nbsp;

<i>Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.</i>

I have listened to most of the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/40346-the-dresden-files" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em><strong>Dresden Files</strong></em></a> series on audio from the library and then went straight to Audible to buy them.  I have <strong>Peace Talks</strong> (and <strong>Battle Ground</strong>) both pre-ordered but am delighted to have had the chance to read them a bit early for review. I would read this series in order and not miss a single book. They continue to improve as you read the series.

Urban Fantasy is my favorite genre and this series is definitely in my top 5 series ever.  Harry has all the things I love in UF. He has collected a group of allies of all types. He shows compassion for others and some intelligent strategy.  He puts others before himself, often risking his life, pushing himself to his limits.  And I love the humor.

I LOVE this world and its characters.  I was particularly happy to see Harry interact with his daughter Maggie, his brother Thomas, his grandfather, and his long-time partner, Karen Murphy.  I was especially glad to see him work well with Karen because they have had a rough road.

The plot is not what I expected from the title. Yes, the supernatural world sets up peace talks, and of course, they will be in Chicago. There are some efforts to take Harry down and remove him from the White Council while he is working in security at the talks. Mab sets him to work doing favors for Lara Wraith, which is dangerous and uncomfortable.  His brother, Thomas, ends up in trouble.

As usual, Harry is juggling multiple issues, loyalties and trying to save everyone from any hurt or pain.  This isn't possible most of the time and it certainly goes sideways here in spectacular fashion.  I loved the clever strategy, the edge of danger, and the battles here. It's another amazing tale from a master storyteller.

I suspected since the next title is <strong>Battle Ground</strong> that perhaps the talks didn't go well.  That's an understatement and you will be thrilled <strong>Battle Ground</strong> is only a couple months away with the ending here. I know I am ready and incredibly excited.

It's always a little crazy when I think about it and realize that it has been 15 years since I first stumbled across the Dresden Files at the tiny little independent bookstore just down the street from my house. You would think that after the first 10 books or so that I would stop being surprised by how Butcher somehow manages to make every book better than the previous ones in the series. I'm happy that I can say that while it has been a long 6 years since the release of Skin Game that it has been well worth the wait. Peace Talks is a fantastic addition to the Dresden Files that is full of as much intrigue, action, snark, and ridiculousness as you would expect from a book following someone like Harry Dresden.

I will say that I was honestly a little bit worried when I first started reading this because as amazing as I thought Skin Game was, it left a lot of questions and loose ends that I wanted to see answered. Luckily Peace Talks does a surprisingly good job of not only answering most of the questions I had about characters like Bonnie, Maggie, and Butters, but it also answers couple questions I've had and gives us couple scenes that I've been waiting for since the first time I read Storm Front. So not only do we get all the action and magic that we expected from the Dresden Files, we get a lot of new lore, worldbuilding, and answers as well!

One of the big things that I  (and a lot of other people I'm sure!) was worried about with this book is that it would feel like half a book since it ended up having to be split into two separate books. Honestly, though, it doesn't feel like that at all too me. I may be noticeably shorter than the last few books in the series and end on a cliffhanger that helps set the stage for Battle Ground, but it still feels like its own story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. I don't know that I would realize it was one half of a book that was split into two if Jim wasn't so open with us about it.

Peace Talks met all my expectations and I enjoyed it as much as I expected to if not more so and I still wouldn't hesitate to recommend this entire series to everyone I know. Normally this is where I would lament about how long it was going to be until the next book in the series releases and talk about how I don't know how I'll manage to get through the wait, but Battle Ground comes out in just over 2 months! We get two Dresden Files books this year and I think that is just fucking amazing.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 / 5 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2020/07/14/peace-talks-by-jim-butcher-review/

Beware spoilers unless you're all caught up on the Dresden Files through Skin Game!

In the aftermath of the events of Skin Game—the daring heist that both created a new Knight of the Cross and further damaged Harry’s relationship with a few of his not-quite-enemies—Peace Talks begins.

Peace Talks features what you may expect; the supernatural nations have agreed to meet and discuss the path forward, and wouldn’t you know it, they’re coming to Chicago. As Chicago’s biggest beat-wizard, Harry Dresden has been assigned to the White Council’s security detail, to make sure the negotiations run smoothly. Furthermore, Mab—Queen of the Winter Court of Fae—is acting as host, forcing Dresden to pull double-duty.

Featured players include the White Council, both Fae Courts, the White Vampires, Vadderung, Marcone, Ferrovax, the Forest People, the Fomor, and a number of others. But with the sheer amount of heavy hitters in town for the summit, tensions are sure to be high. And Harry must ensure that no tempers boil over during the talks. Not even his own.

Yet this is easier said than done. And with mistrust flying around the Council, Harry is on thinner ice than ever before. The fate of the White Council, of the supernatural world, the fate of Chicago, even of the world itself—may hang in the balance. And of course Harry Dresden’s right in the middle of it.

Okay, so by Book 16, we’ve picked up quite a few characters. It’d been a while since I immersed myself in any Dresden book, so I had some trouble remembering who was who. Thus I would definitely suggest, if not a reread, then a quick read of a character cheat-sheet would be helpful. Additionally, if you’ve not read the ‘Working for Bigfoot’ stories (I believe they’re also included in the 2nd story anthology), this would be the time to do it, as otherwise you’ll have more than one “who dis?” moment.

I loved the opportunity to re-immerse myself in the universe, and my love-affair with Harry picked up just where it left off. It’s been six long years, but it was as if no time had passed at all. The story, the setting, the… nostalgia were all superb—with but one caveat. I only had one real issue with the book, but otherwise totally adored it. The world-building and lore by this point are incredibly deep and drawn out, and not only does Peace Talks add to a packed library, it expands what we knew about so many bit characters, enemies, allies, and companions.

The largest caveat in the story is actually a pretty big piece of it. Or, it SHOULD HAVE BEEN a big piece of it. Due to spoilers, I can’t say what it is, just that it’s fairly noticeable. If this book had come earlier in the series, this mystery would’ve been central to the plot. But coming after a six-year hiatus, Butcher has simply brushed it to the side. It’s not so much that the author’s priorities have changed—it’s that Harry’s have. And so I’m going to give this a bit of a pass. A BIT of one. Because this mystery still should’ve enjoyed a decent amount of screen time. But it didn’t. And it didn’t for no particular reason. Harry dismisses it early on, touches on it only briefly later, and then the book ends without it being resolved. Now, while he may’ve had larger, arguably more important things on his mind, this still feels like something an earlier-Harry Dresden would’ve obsessed about. Though apparently not a later-one. Or maybe Butcher just missed one here. Or this may yet be resolved in Battle Ground. In fact, I certainly hope it is. But as of now, I can’t promise anything.

Otherwise… Harry no longer shouts “parkour” intermittently, which is a big downer.

And that’s it.

TL;DR

An amazing return to the Dresden Files universe, Peace Talks should impress and overjoy new and old fans alike. But for one caveat, the book was incredible, and one that shouldn’t stay unread on your shelf for very long. I ran through it in about three days, but could’ve read it in two. Butcher waited six years to bring us another Dresden adventure, but delivered in the end. While I had trouble remembering some characters and events due to the length of the series, those can be solved with one of a few cheat-sheets you can find online. I also had a bit of trouble connecting the current Harry Dresden with the Detective one in early books, but people do change. Even wizards. Even, it seems, Harry Dresden.

The fully appreciate this novel I think it is necessary to read the entire series. I enjoyed this but the ending was a little abrupt. I was glad the next in the series came out so quickly.

Peace Talks is the latest and long awaited volume in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. It is also borderline impenetrable to anyone not familiar with did the series, and the last few volumes in particular. Harry Dresden once again finds himself in the middle of a large variety of problems, not the least of which is a set of complicated family issues intruding upon a series of geopolitical alliances which are the only hopes they have of preventing catastrophe.

While at the start of the book Harry is in a fairly good situation, his daughter and he are in a protective dwelling with supernatural beings whom have a certain degree of respect for him, only to get a visit from Ebeneezer McCoy, Blackstaff of the White Council of wizards, former mentor of Harry Dresden as well as the man's own grandfather. It is a meeting with a stubborn but well intentioned old man that quickly reminds Harry of how different they are. He has a mad burung hatred for vampires that even lends to those whom do minimal harm, and makes clear his desire to kill Thomas (he a secret half brother of Harry's) early on. He also makes clear that he wanrs to kidnap and hide away Maggie, Harries daughter, ostensibly for her own safety. 

McCoy had come to tell Harry about the problems that were coming his way. The White Council is going to hold a vote to have him ejected from their ranks. The fact that only a few short monutes before another member of the council had informed Harry he would be a major element in the security detail for peace talks with the various powers of the supernatural world. Harry quickly realizes that at-best he is being set up to fail.

All of these issues come into play long befire there is even a hint of the real complications to the plot, though they do weave in and out of the other problems with remarkable regularity. The question of what Harry can do when his loved ones are at one another's throats would be interesting enough, but the question of what he can do when one of them appears to have committed an astonishingly horrific crime is much the same.

This is definitely not a book that will be friendly to the uninitiated. Among other things, a reader will need to be intimately familiar with the differences between the White Court and the Ehite Council, each of which plays a major role in the story and members of which serve as major characters. Many of Harry's friends and allies come into play, with some such as Butters learning more about their abilities and others such as Michael trying to remind the man of his own.

The theme of family, and of not repeating the mistakes of ones forebears, is strong in this book. Three men in it are currently or soon to become fathers, each terrified by the possibility of something happening to the people they love while at the same time not always able to see the many risks that lie ahead and drive themselves to a kind of,madness with concern. This is even more true as the family connections appear, with the recently severely injured Karrin having lost much including very likely her ability to ever operate in a combat capacity again a reminder to Harry that he has so much to lose.

Family, and the possibility of doing a great deal of damage in one's effort to protect family, have long been a theme of the Dresden Files series. A major development of Harry's comes from the fact he can now see just how reckless the actions of others might be.  It is a fascinating and disturbing moments, particularly in light of the fact that taking over the top action would normally be something the audience cheered for. Yet in this instance both the reader and Harry are rather horrified by what happens, to excellent effect. Indeed, given the breakdown involve something of an authority figure, and deals with the bigotry and inflexibility of a loved one, Peace Talks has a surprising relevance in the current political climate. While Jim Butcher is no stranger to putting a certain amount of Progressive thoughts into his volumes, the little details in this book make that hard to deny. The Chicago police are depicted as corrupt and a threat, and while Karrin, a former active duty police officer herself, acknowledges that they are largely doing their job, this does not change the fact that every opportunity in which the heroes managed to put one over on officers investigating them is treated as an unambiguous victory. It is a stark difference from the first couple of books in the series where the police were treated as perhaps unequipped to handle the problem have the supernatural but overall a positive force.

This is one of Jim Butcher's volumes, and from the point of view of Harry Dresden. As a result The narrator has a habit of keeping secrets by violating what would have been considered fairly important rules by the Detection Club back in the day. Harry keep secrets from the reader, and hides certain salient facts that could make his plans clear much earlier in the story. This has become a recurring element in the series, and as a result will be nothing new to an experienced reader. The personality Harry shows as narrator goes a very long way to justifying this, as he is a man with a certain degree of showmanship, or his own definition thereof.

Peace Talks will be borderline in comprehensible to new readers. While the series does a decent job of planting quick reminders as two important facts, it does not in any way signal the book as new reader friendly. Character relationships, even when he mentioned, we'll be confusing to new readers, and the number of organizations with similar names will only add to the issue. The Summer and Winter fey and their respective hierarchies are truly the simplest of them, and in fact the winter portions cannot be seen as anything except vital given that by this point in the series Harry is linked very tightly with the organization.

More than most books in the series Peace Talks ends with something of a cliffhanger. The chances seemed high that this was deliberate, given that Battle Ground is do out in only a matter of months. The likely direction that book will take is outlined in the final chapter of this one, or at least enough of it to wet the readers appetite. It is a difficult balance to reach, however Butcher has managed to make this volume more than satisfying, even as it clearly leads into the next.

Peace Talks is an excellent addition to Jim butcher's most famous series. The Dresden Files is a well loved urban fantasy series that has continually expanded outward from relatively humble beginnings. Returning characters remain themselves, likeable and with just enough growth to feel believable, or enjoyably hateable in the case of many antagonists. There remain a number of the over the top entertaining action beats the series has become known for, and the stakes have once again been raised. Easy to recommend to fans of urban fantasy, although definitely not the best place to start reading The Dresden Files.


(Ace 2020)

**This review will go live on 7/14 and will not be posted before the embargo date. I will update with Goodreads links.**

This is going to get involved, so if you want the brief version, and the 2 stars above didn’t make it clear: I didn’t like Peace Talks at all, it only got a second star because I finished it (I reserve 1 star for DNF), I don’t think it was a good addition to the Dresden Files series, and I’m done reading these books. Some of this is because of Peace Talks, some of it is because of the Dresden Files in general, and some of this is because I’m no longer willing to put money into the pocket of Jim Butcher. Please note, that I did get my copy of Peace Talks as a review copy from Netgalley. It will be very clear that this review is honest.

My weird history with the Dresden Files

I started reading the Dresden Files series somewhere around the release of Changes. It was a period when my kids were small and reading time was scarce, and the Dresden Files books out at that time were generally well written, and were also something you could pick up and put down as needed without losing the thread of the story. Straightforward detective stories with a wizard. I liked it.

At the same time, I was going through a significant bout of insomnia, so I’d started listening to audiobooks at night to give me something to do while not sleeping. Because I heard that James Marsters read the audiobooks, I decided to buy one. I started listening to it...and ten minutes in, I was asleep. The next night, sure it had been a fluke, I tried again — and slept like a baby. Not like my babies, but the dream baby who goes to bed after dinner and never wakes up before dawn.

Rather than mess with a good thing, this became routine. I added the new books as they came out (although I held out on Ghost Story until it was re-recorded with James Marsters, because that's Harry's Voice goddamnit), but I’ve listened to the Dresden Files series, in order, for about half an hour a night since roughly 2012. With a quick-and-dirty estimate, that means I’ve read listened to the series about 17 times, and read each book in some text format before that. My familiarity with the series isn't up there with my "Oh yeah Vince Gilligan wrote that episode" of X-Files, but it's up there.

Thing is, not too many series will stand up to that level of rereading. The repetition emphasized the glaring sexism, racism, and overall Nice Guy™ behavior of Harry Dresden. I’m not sure if I’m more baffled and infuriated at how thoughtlessly anyone who is not a straight white guy is treated in these books, or at my failure to see that on my first read through. I read Peace Talks because I got that free copy, and because I hoped that, after five years, maybe Jim Butcher had learned a few things about storytelling, representation, and overall human behavior. Yeah, no.

Heads up: this is book 16 in a series. I can’t explain every reference and character because we’ll be here for years; it would be like explaining Endgame to someone who has never seen a Marvel movie. Which is an appropriate analogy, because this book is a lot more like Infinity War than you'd think.

If you haven’t read the Dresden Files before, you absolutely can’t start with Peace Talks; at the bare minimum, you would need to go back to Dead Beat and read from there. That said, at the end of the post I’m going to have a whole mess of books that you should read instead, most of them written by women of color.

Peace Talks - A series of unfortunate and wholly preventable production events

Peace Talks opens with getting its own mythology wrong. Harry’s half brother, Thomas, is concerned because his girlfriend, Justine, is pregnant. This is a problem because the baby will inherit his vampire traits and its Hunger will drain Justine as she’s pregnant, which kills about 50% of the mothers. Thomas is understandably concerned.

Except in Blood Rites, the first book that deals with the White Court in detail, the children of these vampires don’t begin to experience their Hunger until they are adults, and if they fall in love before their first feeding, they remain fully human. This is what happens with Inari, the youngest Raith; after she falls in love with her boyfriend, she stays human and is never heard from again, even with Lara Raith mentions her sisters, despite Inari being a critical plot point on which an entire book hinges.

In a more minor but much more infuriating screw-up, remember the whole donut thing that Harry uses to get Elder Gruff off his back? Yeah, Mab is referred to as having given him that favor. Excuse the fuck out of me, but that’s from Summer, AND Morgan got one too because that’s what he traded for a few days of untrackability from the White Council when they were tracking him — and then they used it to track him, because the Fae will screw you over every chance they get.

Now you have a general sense of the tone, the je ne sais quoi, of the kind of mistakes going on here. Ones that Stephen King avoided in his long-running fantasy epic by hiring someone to be his own personal research assistant on the things he wrote, and Star Trek managed by keeping tech babble consultants on staff, and that Jim Butcher could well have done if he'd chosen to. But the baby is a continuity issue, not, strictly speaking, a narrative one. That's a whole other problem.

I have tried several times to write out the plot of Peace Talks, but Infinity War isn't a movie without Endgame, and Peace Talks isn't a book without Battle Ground. Things do happen; Harry has a nice breakfast with Maggie (and seeing the two of them together is really sweet). Harry fights with Ebenezer, his grandfather. Thomas attempts to assassinate Etri, the leader of the Svartalf nation. Mab makes Harry do favors for Lara, and Lara demands that Harry help her save Thomas. Harry drops Maggie off with the Carpenters, where she promptly stops existing for all the effect she has on either Harry’s character or the story, because Jim Butcher wrote a character who would have a deep, trauma-based need to be a loving, doting father who spent all his time with his daughter but needed him to be an action hero, which is part of why this book took five years and a potential spinoff series to come out.

(Sidenote, Butcher finally delves into the trauma of Harry’s backstory in the foster care system, AND finally has some damn words to say about why Ebenezer never rescued him from it. That was a tough scene.)

After this point, it's all setup. Fight scenes, political scenes, romance scenes with Karrin that are messed up in a variety of ways, don't worry, I'll get to it. Karrin and Harry's relationship has gotten progressively more twisted and toxic as the books have gone on, and the trauma and abuse inflicted on her borders on cruelty for the sake of cruelty. I get bringing a character to their lowest point, but this isn't that. It's just unpleasant to read. There’s a bunch of trying to rescue Thomas, which provides nothing particularly fresh but in some ways that's okay, because Jim Butcher is a very effective writer within the scope of bringing you to the next page. Then, out of nowhere, an actual villain shows up in the last 20% of the book, which is its whole own thing I'll get to in a minute, because misogyny first, meta-narrative failings second.

I have to start with the Winter Mantle. There is some debate as to whether it's bringing forth subconscious desires or actively forcing more primal, animalistic, amoral thoughts. Harry talks about how hard he has to fight off the Winter Mantle whenever it’s convenient for him to want to be violent or to fuck anything that moves. Here's the thing: as a reader, the Winter Mantle is like 4chan whispering in your ear at all times, and some rando screaming "RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE" does not make for a compelling man vs. self narrative.

According to Butcher, primal thoughts are that, as a man, he should fuck every nearby female, willingness optional. The Winter Mantle wasn't introduced in this book, and it's not portrayed any differently than it has been since Changes, with the exception of Skin Game, where there's actually a really interesting conversation between Harry and Michael Carpenter about whether or not Harry is changing, and Michael has an interesting speech about how monsters don’t worry about whether or not they’re monsters. Skin Game also had fewer disgustingly explicit sections about the rapeability, a word I should never have to use, of the women around Harry. Oh yeah, speaking of Skin Game: Nazis!

I read this awesome twitter thread a few days back about a guy who’d gone out drinking. The guy was sitting down, having his drink, and someone sat down next to him. The bartender took one look at the guy and told him to get out. He explained to the narrator that the guy was a Nazi, and if you let the one Nazi stay because he was a nice guy, he’d bring his Nazi friends, who also seemed to be halfway decent, and then after a while you were a Nazi bar. So when we got even less than a "no comment" when a bunch of Nazis hijacked the Hugo Awards and got Skin Games up for Best Novel, I became concerned about the mindset the author and series have as a whole. In the early books of the Dresden Files, much is made of Harry’s “chivalry,” how all his difficulties come from how he can’t say no to a girl in trouble (I strongly believe that Butcher fought to suppress the urge to say “dame”), he likes to open doors for women and treat them well. So having a character whose chivalry has been rejected (explicitly, in several occasions, by Karrin Murphy who calls him a pig) move into being “forced” to think about raping all nearby women at all times is... In a vacuum, it reads as a fucked up way to view people. But with that event in mind, and a serious denial of science (check out that COVID-19 mess over here), I smell some red pill MRA bullshit going on. When you look at how the primary female characters, Karrin Murphy and Molly Carpenter, are discussed, it just gets worse.

Karrin is treated like shit from beginning of the books, and I can’t manage to detail all the gross ways she’s been described since she stopped being described as looking like 'everyone's favorite aunt', so we’re going to focus on what’s going on in Peace Talks. Karrin is recovering from her injuries in Skin Game, and based on what she says in her handful of scenes in this book (because once a woman is getting plowed, she’s no longer a useful character, amirite?) they’re much more extensive than what Butters suspected. We’re told that she’s almost ready for her second round of surgeries. One thing leads to another, and they get all hot and heavy. I wish Jim Butcher would stop writing these sex scenes because he’s bad at it, but sure, okay, fine.

Except then the most ableist shit happens regarding sex. Karrin’s in casts and whatever, and she’s in a decent amount of pain, and when they move in some way, she winces in pain. Harry basically flies across the room afraid that he’s hurt her, and Karrin has to demand that he get himself back over there and screw her already. Okay, so these two have theoretically been together months at this point, and sex is a lot more than tab A into slot B, so what the hell have they been doing since then? . The focus on her injuries and the hero saying that she’s too much of a wounded little flower for sex absolutely put my teeth on edge. But then, after he decided to punish this character for acting on her emotions instead of letting her wield a weapon of power, I didn’t expect much more.

Since we're here already, let’s discuss the fucked up, ableist moment when Karrin removes her casts herself, weeks before they should come off, meant to prepare her for surgery so she can walk again, in order to be helpful to Harry — by using her busted up legs to drive the getaway car. I mean. Smart money says she's not going to be punished for that, because throwing off a disability in an attempt to be useful to Harry is probably going to be written as noble.

And now, Molly Carpenter. Jim Butcher is apparently horrendously grossed out by the idea of Harry and Molly ever being together, which is weird given how he wrote Molly as being hot as hell for Harry since day one. She is repeatedly written as a sexual figure, with other characters all hot for her and Harry being indignant, to the scene in Turn Coat where she got her nipples pointy with a beer bottle and then used the power of her boobs, the focus of great lingering narration, to get a business card. And there was also that gross scene in Cold Days where she basically suggests that Harry can do whatever he wants to her since she wants it anyway. So we've got two women here willing to subjugate themselves to potential maiming or crippling to be useful to Harry, since if you’re not useful to Harry you don’t matter, which is the most fucked up thing — except the next bit, which it ties into anyway.

Let’s talk about how Jim Butcher murdered Molly Carpenter.

In Cold Days, for some bullshit reason, Molly becomes the Winter Lady. In case you need a refresher, that makes her an immortal being, the lesser Queen of Faerie. While Harry is still mortal, and can bend the Winter Mantle to his will to some degree, Molly can’t. We haven’t seen too much of good ole Molls since then; she gets a story in Brief Cases where her sexuality is punished and looked down upon to the point that it maims her potential partner rather than allow any kind of sex, and I can’t even discuss that without screaming about Virgin-Whore dichotomies, and she has that brief mention at the end of Skin Game. In this book, Harry straight up summons her in a circle, and she notes that she could force her way out of it, but we have no indication that this is true based on anything we've ever seen. She’s bound in the circle like any other supernatural being. Harry even notes how she and Sarissa, the Summer Lady, are beginning to look more and more alike, just like Titania and Mab do.

Jim Butcher killed Molly Carpenter to perpetually trap her in a state of sexual desirability and virginity. Prove me wrong.

Peace Talks, as previously stated, isn't really a book. It's half of a book, because there is no conclusion to this story. I had noticed from the page count that it was slightly more than half the size of Skin Game, but I wasn’t specifically put off by this; the books had been getting progressively longer, and I thought that meant he'd found a way to create a tighter narrative. But I swear to God if Ebenezer had turned to Harry and said in his movie trailer voice, "We're in the endgame now," I would have respected the narrative construction a little more because that would be owning this one-for-the-price-of-two cashgrab. I've worked with publishers before, and I'd bet money they wanted two hardcovers out of one book because he took forever to write this one. And if he forewent all medium conventions and just decided to say "See you in two and a half months," that's even more infuriating because I have seen him write better "Someone stepped out of the shadows…" post-ending hooks for the next book, in this exact series!

The Dresden Files doesn’t deserve the attention it gets

When I first read the Dresden Files, they were fine. I like the Humphrey Bogart feel, and I’m a sucker for brooding detective types of all genders. I enjoyed that the books didn’t immediately devolve into erotica (I’m looking at you, Anita Blake). Don’t misunderstand me, I like erotica, and I have written plenty of it, but I’m fine with urban fantasy that also does not involve pages and pages of sex.

But the first book came out in 2000, and in the Year of our Lord 2020, I would have thought something in his style or attitudes would have changed. I'm not saying that the actual writing necessarily needed major course correction, but an evolution is to be expected from any author and he...hasn’t. His books have gotten longer and more complicated, Harry has gotten straight up anime upgrades, but every fantasy series gets longer when given enough time, like a gas which will expand to take all available space. But the books themselves, the attitudes towards women, race, sexuality, everything, have not shown changes from the mistakes a young author would make. Only 45% of Chicago's reported population is white, and there are no non-white primary characters. Non-heterosexuality is made a joke or brushed off as a non-issue, and is completely absent in its primary cast - there is one tertiary character, I think, who is noted as being a lesbian but I honestly couldn't tell you.

The books are reflective of its author, but not reflective of the times. The books are not, inherently, reflective upon themselves. "Listens-to-Wind," also known by a racist as hell slur that I am not repeating here because the joke is quite literally 'grandpa is racist' and it's not funny, is a Native character who exists to talk about animals as “little brother” and fight a white-washed naagloshii. I would be more specific as to his tribe, but he comes from the mythical land of Chakotay from Voyager, a land created by and existing solely in the minds of white people. This land is populated by a tradition of vague collections of outdated and offensive stereotypes, fragments of real tribes after 400 years of telephone with only white people talking. When I first read the book where this character was introduced, I didn’t understand that referring to someone as “Native American” was inappropriate, and that you should be specific with their tribal identity whenever possible. But guess what, it’s been 8 years, and I learned some things. Jim Butcher didn’t.

Then we have Carlos Ramirez and Susan Rodriguez. Susan is Harry’s girlfriend in the first couple books; she’s described in the way I once heard as “reads as Latina on the page but can totally be played by a white girl in the movie,” and she uses sex to get what she wants from Harry. She is punished for being smart and sexy by being used as a tool to hurt Harry; there’s an uncomfortable scene in a later book where he chains her to the ceiling and then has questionably consensual sex while she’s trying to vamp out on him. Carlos Ramirez, meanwhile, is a wizard of the White Council whose entire personality is a “Latin Lover” who is eventually a long-play joke about how he’s a virgin. Ha. Oh, and remember that story where I was pissed about Molly and the Virgin-Whore dichotomy? Yeah, Carlos is on the receiving end of Winter’s power literally because he decides he wants to have sex with someone who has been begging him for sex throughout the entire story. And the story is necessary reading if you want to understand why Carlos is suddenly badly injured in the beginning of Peace Talks. Jim Butcher, requiring me to keep reading about the twisted way you seem to view sex is not good storytelling.

Sonya, a Black man who is Russian, is a surprisingly well-rounded character with a great personality who I would not think twice about if not for the lack of black characters in a city with a whole lot of black people in it. And don't give me that "Well there's no parking lot at Wrigley Field and this Chicago is an alternate reality" nonsense, the entire racial makeup of a city is different than the author forgetting to give a peep at Google Maps. If you want to talk about racism in the world, you can start a lot closer to home than the Black guy in Russia getting stared at a lot.

There's a very specific reason I'm discussing these four tertiary characters - they are the entirety of the obviously non-white cast with any discernable personality. (Since all I know about Ancient Mai is that she is called Ancient Mai…) I'm not saying that you have to get every detail right about every ethnicity or experience that's not yours to be a good author, but I promise you, if you write one gay character, one black character, one non-white/non-cis/non-hetereosexual character in your series and absolutely nothing more, the way you write that character will stand out and stand up less to scrutiny, because they are representative of the entirety of how you look at this group of people simply by being the only ones there. White writers like to fuss about “we can’t win either way” and I won’t have it. Writing is hard, and if you’re not willing to put in the same effort on character research that you would on that shockingly deep cut Wile E. Coyote reference, then get your life together.

I get that Jim Butcher was young when he started this series, but people do, or should, grow. If for no other reason than to reflect the reality of a mundane world with magic in its underpinnings, this is an area where he should have grown as an author. Publishing, hell, the country, has been full of conversations about racial inclusion, diversity, ownvoices, structural racism, and so much more that the only way to have missed it is to be willfully ignorant The books, by virtue of their tokenism and exclusivity, exhibit the casual racism of apathy. And an apathetic, incurious author will eventually fail to make a story that stands not simply to time, but from the very moment it is consumed. That eventuality has come, and books which a more ignorant, less curious version of myself would have been comfortable reading in 2000 do not stand a test of scrutiny.

I can’t deal with it. I won’t. I’m just tapped.

Reading should not be homework

I was in the middle of writing a section about how the short story collections, specifically Brief Cases, are vital parts to understanding this book in particular. These stories aren't really anthologies so much as short stories Butcher wrote that he eventually compiled into a book rather than have readers track down whatever other collection they were originally published in. While he made the process of reading them less annoying, this still frustrates me. A short story is very different from a novel, both as a reader and as a writer. As a reader, if you skip the short story collections, you are missing out on absolutely critical pieces of the story. Not just character bits, but genuinely important pieces of the story of Harry Dresden, and a way to better understand the universe he inhabits which you are in some way expected to know as background knowledge. It's also an art form with which he has inconsistent success. The longer short stories are really good, proving that when Butcher forces himself into a tight plot, he is a good writer who can craft a high quality story. The shorter pieces are...well, less good, I’m sticking with that. The long short stories get you incredibly well crafted pieces that explains how John Marcone thinks about Harry, or where Karrin describes Harry in terms of autism, and where we find out about the entire life Thomas lives that Harry knows nothing about, hunting his own supernatural monsters.

But then, when on Jim Butcher's site to do a little fact-checking, I found this:
*microfiction* https://www.jim-butcher.com/posts/2020/morgan-microfiction-rpg-art-and-more

Buried within his site is a piece of microfiction that takes Morgan's character and dramatically rewrites his motivations for every single choice, every single appearance, for the first eleven books. And it only stopped there because that's the book where the character died.

Son of a bitch I am tired of this. I had to read two anthologies to get some very plot-critical information for this book, and we're not even getting in to the comics, and now on some fucking random part of a site I never go to, oops, I get the motivation that would have been perfect to reveal during Morgan's death scene because it makes him a sympathetic character I'm sad to see die because he is suddenly, very wholly, human, capping off an entire book meant to show him as a person instead of a generic implaccable boogeyman.

Books should not require me to do homework. Movies should not require me to do homework. Did you know that key elements of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker were included in various novels, art books, and a fucking event on Fortnite? We're talking serious stuff about characters here, like how Rose and Finn broke up, or what the Emperor's transmission was. Because I sure didn’t, not before I saw the movie. I was this-year years old when I found out that crucial information regarding the second and third Matrix movies were presented in The Animatrix and a video game called Enter The Matrix, and that’s a huge part of why the movies make no fucking sense.

Marvel did a lot of bullshit things between Iron Man and Endgame (such as Joss Whedon introducing Thanos without a plan), but one thing they never did was demand that I watch something other than the movies for me to enjoy the movies. I could watch the Netflix stuff or Agents of SHIELD, but if I hadn't, I would have been just as happy watching the movies as I would without.

I like my mysteries fair play, and I don’t want to hear that a writer has completely changed everything about a character and the perception of their role in a story on a blog post eleven years after the fact. I am going to be angry about this for weeks. As a writer, this is everything I try to avoid. As a reader, this is everything that I hate.

What did I need Peace Talks to be?

True story: I had zero plans to buy Peace Talks. The last three books had strayed so far from what I needed to enjoy the series that I was comfortable letting Changes be a very curious endpoint if I had to. My boyfriend pre-ordered it, but he was going to buy it in hardcover, and my sensory issues mean that I have a very difficult time touching the paper stock that is most often used for fiction. I sure as hell wasn’t paying $15 for a second household copy on my Kindle. I figured I’d borrow his copy on a good sensory day and see if I thought the book was worth it.

When an ARC was made available, I thought hard about it before I requested it. If I was going to actually, on purpose, read another Dresden Files book, I had to give myself reasonable expectations for what the series had to do to win me over. If I couldn't give it a fair chance, I had no need to review it, let alone read it.

I did have expectations. I wanted a book that showed Harry actually trying to extract himself from Winter. I wanted to see how being a father had changed Harry, beyond the extensive insurance plan he’d built to take care of Maggie if something went wrong for him. I wanted to see what was happening with the little spirit that was the brain child (I made a funny) of him and Lash. I wanted to see Murphy as a full person again. I wanted to see a book written by a man who had grown over the past five years, ten, twenty years, who had worked to find the kind of creativity that led to Marcone's story "Even Hand," and had worked to create a world that better reflected the characters, reality, and the sort of bright fancy that led to sunshine in a handkerchief as a way to fight vampires.

I wanted a book that would bring back the quiet fun of the mailman arguing about what a “wizard” was when Harry was behind on his rent, even if the mailman had unknowing brought him a package that whisked him halfway across the country to a new adventure.

Peace Talks wasn't that book. And if the creeping need for epic fantasy to overtake urban fantasy continues as it has in this book, and I'm damn sure it will, I'm never going to get that book.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

There’s a logical fallacy called the “sunk cost fallacy.” Gamblers use it all the time: they've put so much in to this game that they can't stop now, they have to get their money back. In the age of Netflix, where watching the next episode requires inaction rather than action, it’s easy to believe that if you’ve gotten this far, there’s no point in quitting.

There's a reason it's a fallacy, and it's because you may have heard it as a different aphorism: "Throwing good money after bad." Yes, the physical cost of the book to be sure, but I'm talking about the cost of my time and energy. It's worth more than this racist, ableist, misogynistic game of "Wait, there's a prophecy?" horse shit. Fiction is meant to be enjoyable, or cathartic, or both. Reading this book wasn't enjoyable, outside of getting me to the end. Reading it wasn't cathartic, and neither was writing this review, it just leaves me with a sad little hole where something I loved used to be. And fiction is learning about the human condition, building empathy, and discovering what it’s like to be in your world instead of mine.

Despite Harry’s regular claims that he is a mentor, I have nothing left to learn from him.

Instead of reading Peace Talks, I recommend:

Marjorie Liu
L.L. McKinney
Daniel Jose Older
N.K. Jemisen
Rebecca Roanhorse

Peace Talks Review

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this title thru NetGalley.

MINOR SPOILER INCLUDED. If you’ve seen the book trailer or visited any official Jim Butcher social media sites (and probably some un-official ones) you already know the spoiler, but you have been officially warned…


There are several long series in various genres which I enjoy enough to collect and re-read: action adventure, fantasy, mystery, science fiction. Unfortunately, they all suffer from a decrease in enjoyment the longer they continue, usually around book 10. I still read the new titles, but I usually don’t collect them, or if I do, I don’t re-read them as often as I do the first ones in the series. And more than one of these series has a book that I actively avoid and try to pretend doesn’t exist.

Except…

Except for The Dresden Files. Don’t get me wrong: this series has its bumps, but far fewer than other series, with no titles on my avoidance list. And this series is still going strong with book 16, Peace Talks. I’ve seen a lot of internet grumbling and whining about how long the interval was between the last book and this one but if the quality is going to remain this high, I’m not going to complain! Of course, now we know that the time was spent writing not one, but two! books. And we get both within a couple of months of each other! Mahalo nui loa, Jim Butcher! At least 2020 won’t be a complete suckfest.

All the Dresden books have plenty of snark and tons of heart, continual intricate world-building, dozens of lines that I want to memorize (“Home … It’s where the books are.”) at least one scene that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it, even if it’s the third or eighth or thirteenth time (Tyranosaurs don’t corner well), and at least one scene that makes my eyes get misty, if not downright teary. Peace Talks upholds all these traditions well.

And I have faith in Jim Butcher that Battle Ground will be just as excellent – he shows no signs of losing the magical gift that I am so grateful he chooses to share with the world.

If you haven’t seen the booktrailer, you really should – I’ve watched it at least a half dozen times and each time my breath catches when I see the words “Followed by” on the screen. Do yourself another favor and watch the April 1st version – the subtlety in both videos (Marcone’s ear damage in the first and the slowly increasing obviousness of the {redacted so as not to spoil the surprise} in the second) is another indicator of Dresden Files Quality.

I’d also like to note that the audiobook versions add extra value to an already fantastic experience. For some reason when Ghost Story (book 13) first came out it had a different narrator and although I like John Glover and listened to his version twice I couldn’t bring myself to purchase it, to add it to the collection alongside the others narrated by James Marsters. Fortunately, Marsters was able to perform GS later. The moment Audible listed him as the narrator for Peace Talks, I pre-ordered. Because The Dresden Files is still going strong with Book 16 and I’m still a fervent devotee and admirer. And as soon as he is listed as the performer for Battle Ground, I’ll click pre-order again. Because like Butcher, Marsters still has his magic touch as well. Mahalo nui loa, James!

Dear Jim Butcher and James Marsters: Live Long and Prosper! (I know that’s a different franchise. It’s a mashup. Deal with it.)

** spoiler alert ** It's been, what, 6 years? A looonnnngggg time to wait but getting back into this world felt like slipping on a comfy old shirt. There were some dull moments, but also plenty to make me smile and the last 25% or so flew by with plenty of action (although, how many times do we need a description of Lara's sexiness? She's a succubus, enough said). I had to hold back a star, though, because this is clearly only setup for the next book. There was NO resolution to the conflict set up at the beginning, and then when there were fewer than 50 pages left a MAJOR spanner is thrown into the works and even as I devoured those last 50 pages I knew there was no way we weren't going to be left hanging over a cliff...
I will still buy the audio when it comes out later this year, though, so Jim Butcher, maybe you are some kind of wizard, yourself.
Please tell me you're nearly finished with the next one.
So much thanks to NetGalley for the arc.

Peace Talks, Jim Butcher’s newest installment in the Dresden Files universe is the culmination of all of Harry’s experiences, pain, and victories blending into one great explosion that resonates with, “I am enough.”

It has been a long, long time since I have read any new snark coming from the mouth of Harry Dresden. There is a giant hole in my TBR stack that only a Dresden book can fill. This series is books that make you smile and not take life so seriously; they are the best parts of Urban Fantasy as a genre. The series taken as a whole is half Sam Spade (trench coat and all) and half the tv show Supernatural. It is wizarding with an attitude. It is a take no bullshit, going to do what is right, Dresden is going to smite the bad guy kind of fun. It is heart and soul and so many things. Although there have been a few short stories since Butcher’s last book, it has been six years since the previous full Harry novel.

But let me tell you folks; this book is worth the wait.

We return to Dresden’s world very near where Skin Game left off. You can read Peace Talks singularly. However, I think readers should read Skin Game. There are many plot points that Butcher touches on that might be lost on readers if you aren’t vaguely familiar with them. Harry is still a member of the council and is the Winter Knight for Queen Mab. All of these twist and turn and pull Harry’s loyalty in many directions.
Complicating things is a situation with Thomas. Thomas, for some reason, does something very uncharacteristic for himself and gets in trouble.

In Peace Talks, Harry, an “every situation can be solved with a tornado” kind of wizard, is faced with something he is not known for talking and subtleties. Peace Talks is just that; it is the gathering of most of the world’s significant magical forces to talk. The idea is not to jump all over each other, whip fire around, or see who is wielding the biggest magical staff. Instead, it is talking in peace amongst your peers and hammering things out. Also, Peace Talks touches on familial issues: Dresden’s relationship with his brother and Grandfather play a large part in the Narrative. We are blessed with moments of Harry interacting with reoccurring characters. Butters, Karrin, Molly, and Mouse all have standout moments. Especially Mouse, that dog has single-handedly made me want a Foo dog so that I may name him Mouse. Don’t tell me Foo dogs aren’t real.

“Okay,” Butters said. “So… that just happened.” He regarded the ectoplasm and then me and shook his head. “Your life, Harry. What the hell?”
-Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

Dresden seems more at peace with who he is in this book more than any book or short story written. He has great interactions with Karrin that exude hard-fought-for calmness and familiarity. It is lovely to read as Harry deserves some peace in his romantic life for once. There are also moments later in the book where, while battling a foe, Harry realizes that he is his own man and does not need to explain or defend it. Even to his most trusted advisors, friends, and lovers. You would think that by book 16, he would have figured this out by now. But there is a difference in knowing something and internalizing it. I believe that Harry has finally internalized that he is enough; he always been enough, and given his history and experiences, people should start believing in him.

This book is also a love letter to the idea of found family.

“Yeah, one second.” I finally found the folded-up piece of paper with the weekly passphrases on it in the depths of the gym bag. I unfolded it, shook sand off it, consulted it, and read, “All of my base are belong to me. What does that even mean?”
Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

A little back story on Harry’s character. He is an orphan, both of his parents have passed away, and his grandfather had raised him. He has few people to turn to that are blood-related. So instead, he finds his people, his family. They become as dear to his heart as much as anyone who shares his blood. It is part of what makes Harry such a fun character to read. He has a certain authenticity; he genuinely loves the people he adopts as family members. Sometimes this is used to hurt him as we have seen in previous books, with his daughter used against him as leverage.

“Yer a wizard, Harry.”
Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

Pacing wise, this book feels different than previous Dresden stories. I know that this is marketed as having a small procedural arc like most of the Dresden file books do, this arc then sits inside a massive ongoing series arc. But although the end of the book does come to some conclusions as expected, it does not feel whole to me. Instead, it feels like it was written as 1/2 of a story to be concluded with Butcher’s next book Battleground. This might be why they are being released close together as Battleground is due to be released on September 29th of 2020. This is pure speculation; Battleground might feel very much like its own book. But I think that we are going to get a more solid feeling of closure for Peace Talks when Battleground has concluded. Either way, Butcher is blessing us readers with two Dresden stories this year.

If you take on the Dresden Files, 16+ books, it might seem overwhelming. A lot is going on. But trust that even if you haven’t read the previous books, you will enjoy this one. It is full of snark and quips, great plot, pacing, and standout moments. And, if you have read the previous books, you will fully appreciate it as it almost feels like he wrote it with the fans in mind. Butcher needed to remind longtime fans why this series is so much fun, and he does that in spades. As we have Battleground set to be released this fall, it is a banner year for Dresden Fans. If Battlegrounds is anything like this one, I don’t think fans will be disappointed.

Hell’s bells. I have waited for years for this book. And now it is here and I loved it! If I could hope for anything more, it would be more book. And Battle Ground is coming in September so woo-hoo!

Peace Talks takes place about a month after Skin Game does (which really was a peace of mind for me). It starts with an absolutely riveting sentence that I never expected to hear, and it just took it from there. This book had absolutely everything that I have been waiting six years to read. It had Dresden being himself, only he has somehow actually matured a bit. It had Murphy being an absolute badass. There was Molly in her new role, doing her actual duties. It even had Maggie being adorable, with Mouse and Mister, too!

It also had danger at every turn, of course. There are going to be Peace Talks between the players in the supernatural world that we have come to know and hate, and the Fomorians who have grown like a wildfire up to no good in the wake of the utter destruction of the Red Court Vampires. Despite being unsure of both his welcome in the ranks of the White Council and his duties with them after becoming the Winter Knight, Dresden is invited to act as Warden during the Peace Talks.

All while the White Council is voting to strip Dresden of his inclusion in the council entirely. And with all of his allies on the Council being in Chicago for the Peace Talks, this could turn out badly for Dresden. Also, his brother, Thomas, has been credibly accused of killing a svartalf in their embassy. Where Dresden just happens to live. And the svartalves are baying for blood (and justice, but mostly blood).

I debated with myself about how much I could say in this review, and it isn’t really much. Because this feels like half a book. And it is. Which is why I say my one complaint is that I wanted more. When I first learned that Peace Talks was in July and Battle Ground was in September, I feared that they were one book that had to be split into two due to length. And those fears were realized because that is exactly what Peace Talks feels like.

This is still an outstanding book. I loved it to pieces, every single moment of it. Even when it was breaking my heart. It hits all the parts a book needs to hit, including a sort of climax. But this is still only half the story, and you can tell. Because there is going to be pain, and anger, and just danger on an epic scale. In the next book. And it is only set up in Peace Talks. This isn’t going to happen in the distant future like it does in previous books setting things up for events far in advance, but it is going to happen soon. There is a date and everything.

And I can’t wait.

Very big thanks to Ace Books and Edelweiss for providing this copy for review.

This was a fantastic continuation of the Dresden Files. The writing felt effortless. Lots of action and Butcher expands the universe that much more. Highly recommend that all libraries purchase this title and the entire Dresden Files series.

My favorite resident magician of Chicago, Wizard of the White Council, Warden of Demonreach, Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness and general all-around wiseass, Harry Dresden is back! Action-packed with a cliff hanger ending, can hardly wait for the next book, BATTLE GROUND due out in September 2020. :-)