Dresden Files & General Jim Butcher News

[Bob The Skutter]

I've been waiting for news on Cold Days for a while, but not too much has been forthcoming. Though there's been a recent update on Jim's website with what he's been up to lately. Sounds like he's a busy bloke, besides his LARPing here's what he's been up to...

I've done a trilogy of short stories with linked characters in which Bigfoot is Dresden's client. They take place spread out over the length of the series so far. The Bigfoot stories were about 40 percent of a novel in total page length. Then I sat down and wrote out the foundation for two more series: the first was a Black Company-inspired fantasy series which would be a prelude trilogy to my epic epic fantasy epic. The second is a steampunk fantasy series, with lots of airships, crystals, goggles, manners, and Hornblowerism. The steampunk stuff seems to be ringing the beta readers' bells, so I think that will be the next project I go to town on.

But that will probably have to wait. I have at least one more short story to get in before the year is up. It's for the "Dangerous Women" anthology, and I'm leaning toward writing it from Molly's point of view, in the time between Ghost Story and Cold Days. Come the new year, I'll start Cold Days. With any luck, there will be snow on the ground when it happens, and I can write the first few chapters with the only light in the room being reflected from the snow outside. That would be perfect.

Someone have a word with the people who schedule the weather, will you?

I'm just about done writing short stories. I've got two more next year and maybe one more novelette for the second short story anthology, and then I'm done with them. I need to focus on writing, you know, novels.

All three Bigfoot stories are already available for preorder:
“B is for Bigfoot,” set between Fool Moon and Grave Peril, will be included in the Paranormal Y.A. anthology Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron by Jonathan Strahan, due out August 28th, 2012. It contains a jaw-droppingly impressive list of contributing authors, including Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, Peter S. Beagle, Garth Nix, Charles de Lint, and Delia Sherman!
“I Was A Teenage Bigfoot,” set around the time of Dead Beat, will be included in Kevin J. Anderson’s Blood Lite 3: Aftertaste, due for release May 29, 2012.
“Bigfoot on Campus,” set between Turn Coat and Changes, will be included in P.N. Elrod’s Hex Appeal, slated for June 5th, 2012.
The Molly story will be published in Dangerous Women, a cross-genre anthology featuring stories about women warriors, co-edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. It is not yet available for preorder.

 

[Mike Farley]

Hasn't even started he next Dresden? Nooo!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

That was also my reaction.

 

[Lindley]

My Dresden reading hit a wall when I couldn't find Small Favor in MMPB, just the bizarre new format that doesn't match the rest of my bookshelf. Not going to buy that.

I finally got ahold of a hardcover version of Small Favor secondhand. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the rest.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

They changed the format totally in the UK. The cover art style, the size, everything. Gave up trying to find matching and just bought whatever was easiest to get hold of.

 

[Mike Farley]

Funny, my ebooks all look exactly like my iPad.

 

[timothy]

I've read the first book and loved it plan to get to the other's as soon as possible.
also plan to watch the dresden files on netflix as well.

 

[Lindley]

I've read the first book and loved it plan to get to the other's as soon as possible.
also plan to watch the dresden files on netflix as well.

The TV show is okay but it didn't even complete the first book.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

The TV show wasn't done like True Blood in that it tells the story of the book. They did do an episode based on the first book, but they cut it down to a single episode from a feature length episode. But I believe the feature length version was shown in Canada at some point.

 

[Christopher]

The TV show wasn't done like True Blood in that it tells the story of the book.

Right. It was more just doing a variation on the general concept and characters of the series (but adapted for a basic cable show with far too low a budget for the kind of large-scale magic of the books) and telling original stories in that milieu.

They did do an episode based on the first book, but they cut it down to a single episode from a feature length episode.

Yes, and the hourlong version was aired as, I believe, episode 8 of the series, by the producers' own choice. There was some rethinking done between the pilot and the series; for instance, in the series, Murphy wasn't initially as much in the loop about magic as she was in the pilot. So they decided to slot in the one-hour "Storm Front" at a later point in the weekly series. Although I didn't feel it fit there very well, since it still felt like a pilot episode and was our first time hearing a fair amount of exposition that would've worked better at the beginning of the series, and there were some continuity glitches due to the changes in approach between pilot and series.

However...

But I believe the feature length version was shown in Canada at some point.

It did get aired once on SciFi in the US, in early March 2008, but it was in the middle of the night. The 2-hour version didn't really work any better than the hourlong version; it was too cluttered with subplots and flashbacks and was confusing to follow. Spreading out the subplots more gradually over the weekly series worked better. Also, going with Bob as just a motionless CG-flaming skull with a voiceover wasn't as visually interesting as having him project an illusory human form as in the series.