Recorded Neutral Territory - A Dresden Files Podcast

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:00)
Brian, you know what occurred to me yesterday? I'm sitting here reading through these first two chapters of Grave Peril and I'm thinking about how Michael is the best friend that Harry could ever have.

Brian (00:08)
Yeah, totally.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:09)
And Harry's getting married, which means he'll need a best man.

Brian (00:14)
⁓ my god. So what you're saying is the Knight of Love is going to be standing at the altar next to the Knight of Winter and his bride, the Succubus Queen.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:26)
Well, when you put it like that, it makes the next book sound a bit ridiculous, doesn't it?

Brian (00:31)
I don't think it's gonna be a Catholic ceremony. Let's put it that way.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (00:42)
Welcome one, welcome all. Welcome to recorded neutral territory where the spoilers go all the way through battleground. I'm Adam Ruzzo and with me as always is a rage-filled motorist, it's Brian O'Reilly. Welcome, Brian.

Brian (00:54)
It was an old VW bug officer, cut right in front of me, not one foot from my bumper. I swear, the guy must've been blind. What color was it?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (01:05)
it takes some time to think about it. I'm sure we'll figure it So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our first episode in October. fun to be podcasting about Dresden Files here in October, but

Quick reminder upfront. Here's the way our show is structured. We put out...

three episodes on the public feed every month, or we try to, and then one bonus episode for the Patreon in months that have a total of five Fridays, we tend to take one week off. And that

Next week the 24th we will not have any posts on the Patreon feed or the public feed, but we will be back for our second grave peril episode on Halloween!

Brian (01:46)
man, so cool. I mean, it's great to be just doing the Dresden Files and people have Halloween decorations up. It just adds a little bit of something special to rereading every chapter when it's spooky season. But I also want to remind people that next month, as we head into the holiday season, will probably only put out

two episodes because we'll take some time for Thanksgiving. Adam and I need to hibernate a little bit for the blitz that's gonna happen around the 12 months release. So just let us bank a couple weeks off and we'll, promise we'll pay it forward with some awesome 12 months.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (02:23)
All right, moving forward, let's talk about the beginning of Grave Peril. Brian, I was so excited to start this book. I was actually losing a little steam for the show going through Fool Moon. And when I read the first two chapters of Grave Peril and started putting this together,

It was like I got a second wind. was so, I was just all over it. I was loving it. I loved thinking about it, et Now, before we jump straight into Grave Peril, there are a few things that occur between the end of Fool Moon and the beginning of Grave Peril. Why don't you walk us through those?

Brian (03:00)
Yeah, so the same year as Stormfront, Ghoul Goblin, a graphic novel, takes place. Small town family is tormented by creatures of the Never Never. You'll never guess which ones. In the year after Stormfront, the year we're talking about now, sets up his arrangement with the cobs at Shugasm.

the little shoe fixing elves who hate it when you destroy high heels. that's established in It's My Birthday 2. He set up that arrangement seven years before those events, which places it in this year. This is also the year of Thomas's last job for the Oblivion War before backup, eight years before backup, which is nine years after Stormfront. And...

It's the year of B is for Bigfoot where we meet little Irwin Pounder who's only eight or nine in that book.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (03:56)
Yeah, a lot of people like B is for Bigfoot. So three of those are inside jobs or briefcases and those ones will be talked about on the Patreon. So check that out if you're interested. Link in the description. Moving on, let's get into Grave Peril itself. It starts in early October. I don't think we're ever told explicitly when it is, but it's right around early October and we start in the Blue Beetle rushing to the hospital.

and we're meeting Michael Carpenter for the first time.

Brian (04:22)
Man, in medias res You hear that? Do know that term, Adam? You hear that one before?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (04:26)
Yes,

beginning in the middle of the action. This is a perfect example of it.

Brian (04:30)
Absolutely.

It really is. And it's so incredibly well executed because not only are we in the middle of action, but we're in the middle of action that's gonna set the scene for the events of the rest of the story. So this is not just, you know, a prologue that's, you know, exciting and has elements that are cool. This is a prologue that is important in establishing what it's gonna be about, but by...

using this device of starting us in the trip to the Cook County Hospital, Jim flashes back to the actual slower earlier setup of the book in the later chapters. So it's just really, really cool that he chose to do this here. It's something that is different from both of the first two books and it works extremely well in Grave Peril. I think it's part of the reason why, as you said, it's so gripping from the jump.

He just drops you in the middle of a save the children time is running out. the bomb's gonna explode scene.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (05:34)
That's actually a really good point that you made about how this in Media Res is directly related to everything happening here. The other one that came immediately to mind is Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? He's going through the jungle and going in and he finds the treasure and he gets out but his friend is hurt and he just barely gets away on the plane, et cetera, et But then the thing he was stealing from that tomb,

doesn't matter at all for the rest of the story. It was just an introduction to the character. It wasn't a bad introduction. It just didn't tie into the rest of the story. Whereas Jim has managed to do both at the same time and that is quite impressive. Now, I will point out, we talk about our favorite lines from each of the book when we go through the assessments at the end of the book and I've already established two that I added to the list just in the first chapter. And that is Michael and Harry in the car. Michael says,

Can we go any faster? Michael drawled. It wasn't a complaint. It was just a question, calmly voiced. Only if the wind gets behind us or we start going down a hill, I said, unquote. I just laugh out loud every time I read that line for the first time. It's so good. It's so smart. And it just, it establishes these characters so well. Michael's not complaining. He's just asking. And it's so clear in his voice that Harry can just state that to us. He doesn't have to,

into it or guess, he just knows.

Brian (06:55)
And it's great because it just shows, gonna talk about this later, but it shows us some of the differences between these characters where, you know, Michael is trying to calmly imply here, you know, you might be attempting to respect the safety of the cars around us, but I do believe in this situation. If possible, going faster might in fact be the best. And Harry's like, I'm going as fast as I can, you know?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (07:16)
Yeah.

The blue beetle is gamely making its way forward. He even- he anthropomorphizes the blue beetle in this scene a bunch, and he talks about how he could feel the beetle, like, hanging in there because it wanted us to succeed. It's just- it's fun when Dresden does that. I like it.

Brian (07:34)
And Michael actually says when Harry's protesting that, you know, maybe we're not going to make it. I hope we're not too late. is really, really worried that we're not going to get there in time. And Michael just says, if God wills it, we'll be there in time, which I find to be just such an interesting expression.

because if God wills it, it's something that you'll hear in English, but you hear it all the time in another language, Arabic, inshallah, which is a just common saying in Muslim countries, if God wills it, know, yeah, it'll happen. And it establishes Michael as a particular kind of Catholic, a particular kind of theist, in that he believes in an interventionist God. And like a lot of American Protestants believe in that.

But it's a little bit weird as somebody who was raised Catholic to see Michael being so confident that, the Lord helps those who helps themselves, but literally, no, he's like controlling this situation. It is just in his hands. It's a kind of faith that is already evidence to just being so incredibly deep. really colors how you think of the character.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (08:49)
And if there was a Catholic in the Dresden Files that would be a more interventionalist Catholic, it would be the guy carrying an angel around on his hip that helps him slay monsters, right? Yes, exactly. keep heading towards this place and they have a conversation, rather, I should say,

Brian (09:00)
Yeah, that's true. For the Night of the Cross, it's not really theoretical, definitely.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:12)
Michael has a conversation, Harry doesn't want to have this conversation, where Michael is interrogating him about, when are you going to marry that girl Susan? And then, you know, he turns into like, well, do you love her?

Brian (09:25)
Well, wait,

Adam, to be clear, he asks, I wanted to know when you were going to marry Ms. Rodriguez, because first of all, he can't be that formal. It's another man's wife, you know, to be. And second, you know, it's not if, like Harry, you know, you're shacking up. Of course you're gonna make this right and get married.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (09:30)
When? Yes. Sorry, you're right.

Mmm.

Yes, definitely. And he's a little more stiff in this chapter with Harry in particular than we see him in the future. And I don't know if that's because Michael changes or he just realizes Harry's limitations and stops trying to change him in that sense. Or maybe he realizes his own limitations and how much influence he has on But one thing I wanted to bring up about this particular conversation is it accomplishes four things.

Brian (09:56)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (10:16)
in an incredibly short period of time. And it is a perfect example of incredibly efficient writing. So the four things it does, it reintroduces Susan as a and her relationship to Harry, which has progressed since the last book, because now he's admitting that he loves her and we didn't see that happen in the last book. It also demonstrates Harry's reluctance to voice his emotions well, as well as his resistance to change, right?

is happy with the way that things are with Susan, he doesn't want to get married, that will change things, and he's stuck in his rut. He likes being the way that he is. The third thing it does is it establishes Harry and Michael's relationship as well as Michael's values, and that is also very valuable to have because they're gonna work together for the rest of this book, so setting the stage for that is very, useful. And the last thing it does is it acts as exposition about the current

And that's done through two very quick pieces where Michael asks the question and Harry, in an attempt to deflect, says, and I have been chasing ghosts all over town for two weeks, going up against every ghost and spirit that has all of sudden reared its ugly head. We still don't know what's causing the spirit world to go postal. I know that, Harry, but at the moment, we're going after a nasty old biddy at Cook County who could kill us if we aren't focused. And you're asking me about my love You're sleeping with her, aren't you?

Unquote. Like that right there is perfect because it does exactly what Dresden would do. He would try to deflect that question. He wouldn't want to talk about it. And it re-explains the situation to us without it sounding too much like, you know, Bob, which is a trope that sometimes bad writing does, where a character will explain something for the purpose of the audience to a character who should already know that thing.

Brian (11:40)
Just amazing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:06)
And so Harry re-explaining it here is used as him deflecting, and I think it works brilliantly. I love it.

Brian (12:13)
Yeah, I think Grave Peril really shows Jim trying to write at a higher level. attempting to communicate the ideas, the scenes he wants in a way that has better flow, structure, and just is more efficient and effective. I think that part of Grave Peril's charm is how much he succeeds in that endeavor.

But I also think that compared to some of later books, there are moments where he fails. So your mileage may vary on whether that sticks out like a sore thumb to you. as well integrated.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (12:51)
It did, yes, did stick

out a little bit, and it is obvious what he's doing there to a reader, but I don't remember noticing it and being particularly bothered by it in the past. It's maybe not the perfect way to do that exposition, but the fact that he's doing all four of those things at once, to me, is still pretty impressive.

Brian (13:08)
It is, and I was about to say, in media arrest scene, you have to do things like that. If it's going to work, if you're going to make a plot relevant, begin in the middle story, then you have to figure out a way to fill them in on the beginning. And I think that's a pretty elegant way to do it. It's a difficult task as a writer and it's pretty well handled. And I do think to answer the question you asked earlier about whether Michael changes, I think he definitely does. And I think it's clear that...

it's because of Harry and his eldest daughter. make him relax and realize that, you know, I do have to, not everybody who's different than me is necessarily doing it wrong. You know, it's not just that I am living the one enlightened way. There's other ways to be good and those ways are just as valid. You know, the Michael of battlegrounds who drops a bunch of F bombs on the white council.

is a guy who's learned a thing or two from Harry. And it's great to see them in the beginning where Michael knows that what he's doing is good and he wishes Harry was more like him in certain ways. But then later becomes a character who realizes that, you know, some of the things that Dresden does that I don't, good, they're fine, you know? They're something I can be okay with. And it's cool to see that evolution.

Because in Grave Peril Man, he is a little bit more of a wet blanket than you remember him being later on.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (14:34)
Exactly.

Now one other line here just works on so many levels. So Michael says, Harry, do you love the girl or don't you? It isn't a difficult question. And Harry says, speaks the expert and he's grumbling. I love that because A, yes, he's an expert because at this time he basically has.

what is literally like the perfect family life, right? He and his wife love each other very much. They've got kids that are great, that they love so much and they spend so much time with. They've got a picket fence crying out loud. So that's one level. But on the other level, the guy carries the sword of love. So like, yes, for him, it's not a difficult question. And so I just love that Harry's really just grumbling like.

Brian (15:15)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (15:23)
in the way that would normally brush it off, but like, dude, he literally is an expert. He carries the sword that proclaims him so.

Brian (15:29)
Well, the other thing I love about this is that, you know, Michael and Harry know each other already. And yeah, we've been talking about it. They're going to be best friends. And at least Michael is going to be Harry's best friend, the person that he has a non-familiar relationship with, who he goes to for advice and counsel and who he trusts with his life on multiple occasions. But they don't know each other as well as they will in 10 years.

And Michael's also subtly trying to figure out, are you the kind of person who, you know, starts dating an attractive woman and doesn't necessarily have intentions of taking that relationship somewhere? Or are you the kind of idiot who just can't tell a girl, I love you? And it's real clear which one of those two people Dresden is during this conversation. But I think Michael's also asking in part,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:16)
right.

Brian (16:25)
an honest question where he's not going to like scorn Harry and get out of the car if Harry answers the wrong way, but you know, he does want to earnestly know the answer. And it's great that when he asks these questions, he's patient and he smiles and he's assuring and he's calm, but at the same time, he's not letting it go because it's important to him that Harry treats Susan right. And it's also important to Michael that

Harry tries to be a good person. doesn't really want to work with Harry as much if he doesn't.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (16:58)
talked about in the past what we thought Michael might have seen in Harry when he soul gazed him. That is brought up later in this chapter or the next one, I can't remember. And that may be what drives him to try to push Harry to be a slightly better person here, a slightly better person there, because...

Brian (17:04)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (17:16)
Maybe that leads to the better path that he saw in that soul gaze as opposed to the worst path, assuming he saw something similar to what Harry saw when he looked at Molly. thing I wanted to bring up to you, Brian, is he does eventually convince Harry to admit that he loves her. But before he does that, there's this set of lines where Michael you haven't told her, have you? You've never said it.

I glared at him. So what if I She knows. What's the big deal? Harry Dresden, you of all people should know the power of words." Unquote. And man, that doesn't hit quite as hard as I'm not the carpenter that set the standard, but he has a lot of statements like that that are just when you read them, you're like, wow, yes, absolutely that's true. And in that moment, that one hit me.

Brian (18:06)
Yeah, I mean, we're going to talk about it a lot, obviously, in this book, but Michael is an awesome character for a couple of reasons. First of all, he's just a cool guy, right? He carries around a big sword and he's an awesome dude who gives good advice and is wise and is patient. And, you know, he's really like a good man who you can really like. But he's also got this really cool blend of being a person of very strong and deep.

religious convictions and being zealous about those convictions, but also of not really having a superiority complex. And it means that when he says things like this, when he gives you the, should know better, or the, when he says stuff like that, it really lands because you instantly buy him as somebody who doesn't just go around criticizing people.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (18:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

and it's also just such a perfect turnaround on Dresden because it's such a cop out. Like he's, ⁓ she knows, I don't have to say it. Like he knows that's a cop out, right? And so Michael's just turning it around on him in a way that makes it super obvious that he can't hide from, that he can't pretend is not real. And then of course Harry says, ⁓ I got her a card, she knows. What do you mean a card? A hallmark? Okay, come on, Harry, come on.

Brian (19:03)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:27)
So he then gets him to say, I love her. And I have to ask you, Brian, is there another character at any point in the series that could have taken that, gotten that out of Harry in this moment?

Brian (19:42)
I think there are actually a couple, but not with their relationships with Harry at this moment. I think, you know, Thomas totally could have, it probably would have involved more fisticuffs, but yep, they totally... And I actually think that, and we're gonna mention this in a second, but I actually think Elaine could have, because something we'll find about Harry's relationship with Elaine is there's like no bullshit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (19:48)
right.

Thomas was the one that I thought of.

Hmm.

Brian (20:11)
Like, there's just so much water under the bridge that Harry doesn't really lie about how he feels or thinks about things. Like, he levels with Elaine.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:20)
Yeah, because his defenses

are down around her because they already know each other, quote unquote, as much as you can.

Brian (20:29)
Right, so it's not even that they see each other that much, it's just if he loved Susan and Elaine asked him like he might not want to say it, but he's just not gonna lie.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (20:38)
Right. Yeah, he has no reason to hide anything from her. And that's one of the things that is appealing about her as a person. And that's what a lot of people have with like exes. And that's why sometimes they fall back into relationships with exes that they probably shouldn't because there is that intimacy that doesn't require any effort. You already have it established. And so that does make sense for Elaine to have that with Harry as well.

Brian (20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

One thing I just want to note here is that after Harry says, love her, there, how's that? You he's throwing it back at him. Michael beamed. just so great. Like he's, he doesn't rise to the bait and he's not like super silliest about it. He's just actually happy. ⁓ you do. ⁓ good. Okay. Excellent. I can stop talking about this now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:07)
Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah!

Exactly. Yeah,

and I think he had a hunch that this is exactly the situation, that Harry was just being a man-child about it, and he just wanted to confirm it with himself and prove it to Harry in the conversation.

Brian (21:33)
Yes.

And that makes him genuinely happy. I mean, Adam, when you have to pry something out of someone and they give it to you in that, like, fine, if that's what'll make you, like, you know, how many people actually, when somebody says, if that's what'll make you happy, are actually happy?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (21:41)
Yes!

Mm-hmm.

Right, because usually

they're upset that they have created that tension in the relationship after you get to that point. But no, that's all he really wanted. He's more happy that he the real answer out of Dresden and got Dresden to admit that to himself. It doesn't matter if Dresden's being grumpy about it. Like that is so far below his concern when it comes to the rest of the conversation.

Brian (22:20)
And that's why Michael works so well as a foil to, and as the best friend of, Harry Dresden. Harry's whole scowling giant man barely talks and when he does it's always about weird hoodoo stuff. Michael's just sitting there patiently watching and when he gets what he needs, he's happy about it. It's just, he's one of the few people where Dresden's whole schtick doesn't work on him at all.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (22:47)
And it's just so refreshing to see after books of people, letting Dresden get away with his stuff, but of not treating Harry like a normal person because he's got wizard next to his name in the phone.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:03)
Absolutely. Now, Elaine is also briefly mentioned by Michael, which means that Harry has talked about her to him in the past. I don't think maybe he saw something about her in the soul gaze and asked about it and Harry might have opened up at least somewhat or described, his old girlfriend, you know, and clearly there was some trauma there. So that's what Michael is intuiting in this situation. that is an interesting thing to put in the book because

Brian (23:15)
Yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (23:32)
We don't meet Elaine until Summer Knight. there's nothing, she never mentioned again in this book. But the fact that Harry has a traumatic history with an ex is still important to this book, and that's why Jim puts it here. And it acts like a little mystery, a little tease, a little Easter egg of a future story that we will eventually learn.

Brian (23:54)
Yeah, the way that Jim lays the Elaine breadcrumbs, know, the full moon, shadow Harry chapter we talked about last book, it's really wonderful because he drip feeds it to you. And by the time you get it, you're so hungry that it just, it's so, ⁓ so satisfying. I'm gonna finally find out what the hell this has all been. And the fact that it's good and he pays that off. I mean, that's why I think.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (24:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah!

Brian (24:22)
Grave Parallel and Summer Night really are cut above because you're starting to see Jin pay off the seeds he lays, including some from Stormfront that we're gonna get to later in this book. But one other great thing about ⁓ setting that up is that this is Michael's tie into, I didn't just want you to admit that you loved her, I also want you to marry her. And this is one of those things where Michael comes across as such a

died in the wool Catholic. You can't just love someone and be in a loving relationship with them and not to be married. The idea of that is something that Michael can't conceive of. So here's where his his thing starts to fall apart. You know, he doesn't give the same good argumentation. He resorts to telling Harry that he's grumpy and he's tense and, you know, reverting to cliche a little bit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:04)
least not yet.

Brian (25:18)
because this is one of those times where Michael actually have reason on his side necessarily in making this art.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (25:27)
Yeah, and another piece, another small line here that I thought was great is Harry says, I'm a wizard, I don't have time to be married. And this is a small echo back to when he tells Rudolph in full moon during the fight with the Lugaru in the precinct, I can't be under arrest now, I don't have the time. And that was like a cool.

cool guy one-liner moment, but here it's just a whiny excuse. I can't get married, I'm a wizard, I have to fight monsters and so I can't be, and then Michael of course shuts him down again. I'm a knight and I have the time. Now, Michael has the advantage of the Lord helping out with his scheduling that Harry will not necessarily have, so there's that to consider.

Brian (25:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

But also talking about how Jim is layering the exposition into this, the I'm a wizard, I'm a knight sentences, right? Like like really, okay, I just picked up these books and all right, I guess that's who these guys are.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (26:24)
Hahaha!

You know what? I didn't even think about that. We're gonna be talking about what makes whether Grave Parallel is a good entry point to the series for someone who may be skeptical about it. And that is a good point. That might be the very first time that it's introduced in this book that Harry is a wizard and that this guy is a knight, whatever that means. So we're gonna talk about more about that later. Now this goes on and we get to a part where Harry says to Michael, Michael.

I don't need a lecture. I don't need the conversion speech again. I don't need the cast aside your evil powers before they consume you speech again. What I need is for you to back me up while I go take care of this thing." Harry also references that Michael has attempted to get him to go to mass multiple times. So Brian, my question for you, what does this say to you about their relationship up to this point? Is this Harry just making hyperbole here?

Maybe he's taking a few small statements or nudges from Michael and making mountains out of molehills. Or has Michael actually tried to convince him, like, lay down your power because it's evil, like witches are bad kind of thing.

Brian (27:40)
I actually think that he probably has, and I want to separate this into two different categories, the conversion speech, the go to mass thing, that's probably something that Harry's making a mountain out of a Michael's not saying, hey, you need to become a Catholic. He's saying, you know, Harry, what are you doing on Sunday? You know, my family's going to mass and afterwards we're going to have a brunch. Would you like, you know, that's, it's that kind of thing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:03)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (28:09)
But I actually bet, and I would love to see Jim write this, that when Michael and Harry met, Michael probably was involved in a situation where Harry's powers came in handy. But afterwards, being the helpful guy he is, he was saying to Harry, hey, listen, I know they helped there, but I have some experience with these things, and if you don't put those powers aside, they will lead you down a dark path. Because Michael has met sorcerers. He saved his wife from one.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (28:39)
That's true actually, yeah. And maybe that means he has a misconception about wizards in general. Maybe Harry's the first wizard of the White Council that he's met before. That's entirely possible. They don't necessarily run in the same circles, right? The senior council's aware of them in proven guilty. They know who he is, but I don't think they've met Michael before proven guilty at all.

Brian (28:49)
Exactly.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:05)
That's an interesting observation. The other thing that I was thinking about is what if this is a reaction to what Michael saw when he soul gazed Harry, right? He saw a good person with the potential to do great good or great evil. And so he might have been trying to say, hey, put these powers aside because maybe it's better to be safe than sorry. And rather than try to do like great good and come up short and fall to the dark side,

Brian (29:15)
Sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:34)
Maybe if you just don't try to be great, then that'll be better rather than take the risk, right? That's what he's thinking in his mind. That's kind of where I interpret it.

Brian (29:41)
But

I bet this is also a way that Harry's also already begun to change Michael. Because Michael thinks that the higher power that you should listen to is God and why would you need any others? And Harry has this faith in magic, this belief in the essential goodness of magic that is very similar to a religious ethic.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (29:48)
Hmm

Brian (30:07)
And asking him to lay that aside, think Michael realizes pretty quickly, is not going to make him a better person. Now he's gonna change his tune when Harry touches a coin, obviously, because that's got a whole other thing involved with it. But I bet at this point, Michael has already begun to wonder, are the powers evil? Is this whole White Council thing, if they're all like you,

maybe this is another way to truth. Because I think it's important to realize that Michael is someone who is very much grappling with, as a character, as like a literary device, he's very much grappling with the changes to the Catholic Church that happened, you know, sort of right before Harry was born in Vatican II, where before that, the Catholic Church maintained that the only way to go to heaven was to be a Christian.

and you know better safe than sorry a Catholic and after Vatican II the church was conceptually a lot more open to the idea that hey we don't know everything and there's a lot of people who were raised by very traditional Catholics in that time period who either thought that that made a lot of sense and adjusted to it very easily or who were completely intransigent about it and who thought it was wrong for the church to say that or who were caught somewhere in the middle.

where they thought, this is kind of the best way. I should try to get everybody to follow the best way, but, well, maybe there are, you know, other roads that lead to Rome, so to speak.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (31:42)
Yeah, that's actually a really good point too. Now, what happens right after this is they arrive at the hospital, Michael dons his sword and his cloak, and Harry retrieves his new staff and blasting rod, like newly carved is the way that he describes them, along with the leather bag of ghost dust. Now, Brian, why do you think he's got a new staff and a new rod? Because I don't think we remember him losing them in Fool Moon, and it's been a whole year anyway, so that means he's...

probably been using his old staff and rod until the last couple of weeks, maybe when he got the brand new ones. Why did he build new ones?

Brian (32:18)
Well, he might have lost them in full moon. I don't know that we can be sure that he didn't because of course the FBI disarmed him before they throw him into the pit. being said, I didn't review the short stories to see if, know, oh, a ghoul goblin. Yeah, don't you remember? They snap his staff. You know, I don't think that happens, but I didn't check any of that stuff. But I wonder if this is a situation where he's already sort of prearranged with Ebenezer.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (32:25)
Yeah.

Brian (32:46)
Hey, every few years you're gonna go back to the farm. You're gonna carve a new staff and a new rod. You're gonna do it better. I'm gonna get you better materials. At one point, I think it's described as Ebenezer. The staff he has at a certain book is from a tree that was struck by lightning. ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:04)
Yes, and

Ebenezer gives him a loner until he can get quote unquote a new blank from that specific tree.

Brian (33:14)
Right, so I wonder if Ebenezer has already sort of pre-arranged with him, hey yeah, you're gonna do your first one and that one's gonna be fine, but if you really wanna be able to do evocations on the fly for defensive magic, you need a staff that's, and if you really wanna be able to control your fire very precisely, you're gonna need a blasting rod that, and this is sort of a thing that, as a young wizard, he's expected to do semi-regular.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (33:36)
Yeah, and we know it takes like several weeks, I think, to do a blasting rod and probably longer to do a staff. So it is actually maybe theoretically possible that he's been spending the last several months rebuilding these tools. And it also might be a good explanation for why he can maybe do more and better stuff in this book than he did before. Because like you said, he's learned to make better equipment. He's a better enchanter at this point. He's learned from the last time he made them.

Brian (33:42)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:06)
Alright, the other thing that happens here is that Harry criticizes Michael for having this crazy cloak that makes him look kind of ridiculous, and then Michael says, it's no worse than your duster, essentially, and then Harry's like, what's wrong with my duster? And Michael uses the exact same phrasing that Murphy used in the first book, it belongs on the set of El Dorado, unquote. And...

To me, this sounds a lot more natural coming out of a 45 year old Michael than a 28 year old Murphy considering the John Wayne movie he's referencing is from 1966. I mean, okay, younger people can like old movies, but it still feels more natural here.

Brian (34:44)
Michael is definitely the person who appreciates a good Western clear good guy clear bad guy morality play, you know Murphy It's a little bit more, you know, she wants the gritty cop drama. She really likes De Niro in heat wonder if Michael saying, you know, the cloak is as much of a part of what I do is the sword is is For two reasons significant because first, of course, that's got the obvious cross on it

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (34:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (35:11)
You know, that's

why he's saying that. But the other thing is that if you're just a dude walking around with a sword, you're clearly a dangerous maniac and I need to, you know, hey, can we ask you a couple of questions? What seems to be the problem, officer? You know, but if you're walking around with a sword and you've got your like obvious night's cloak on from like an obvious fantasy thing, like this is giving the white God a little bit more opportunity to make people go, ⁓

crazy cosplay convention we might be seeing shortly in this chapter.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (35:48)
Yeah, the other way that I took that to mean is it gives him a bit more obvious authority in a crisis situation. If the guy with a sword that's just wearing flannel and work boots is shouting out orders for you to get away or go down that hallway or whatever, you're probably less likely to believe him than the guy with like, that looks like he's dressed as a hero of legend.

Brian (35:56)
Sure.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:16)
who is fighting like a ghost or a monster in front of you. Like, hey, I wouldn't have believed this guy in a normal circumstance, but looking at the monster next to him and he appears to be a hero of legend, maybe I should listen to that guy. He just might get more authority from it in that sense, more trust.

Brian (36:34)
I think that's actually

completely right because we see that right. mean, the scene with the Hobbs in ⁓ small favor in the train station where the ticket agent is looking at Michael and Harry's just like, yeah, he's for real. That's the real, you just, it does make him seem like, my God, is he an angel? You know, but it's also.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (36:43)
Mmm.

right.

Brian (36:59)
It's literally a red cross, right? mean, subconsciously.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:02)
that's true, it's going into a

hospital with a red cross on it. I mean, it's not the red cross you're probably familiar with, it's a cruciform cross. Is that the right way to describe it or am I thinking, yeah.

Brian (37:06)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, exactly.

It has one, the top to bottom leg is longer than the sides. The red cross is just, ⁓ they're both equally ⁓ long. But the point is that that symbol of a red cross on white is something that we associate with sort of ⁓ peace and authority and people who are here to help. it sort of works on two levels, I guess.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (37:37)
So Harry and Michael get out of the car. the hospital. And it goes thusly, quote, And we broke into a run, knight and wizard, through the emergency entrance of Cook County Hospital. We drew no small amount of stares as we entered, my duster billowing out in a black cloud behind me, Michael's white cloak spreading like the wind of an avenging angel whose namesake he was.

We pelted inside and slid to a halt at the first intersection of cool, sterile, bustling hallways. I grabbed the arm of the first orderly I saw. He blinked, and he gawked at me. From the tips of my western boots to the dark hair atop my head, he glanced at my staff and rod rather nervously, and at the silver pentacle amulet dangling at my breast and gulped. Then he looked at Michael.

tall and broad, his expression utterly serene, at odds with the white cloak and broadsword at his hip, he took a nervous step back. May I help you? I speared him into place with my most ferocious, dark-eyed smile and said between teeth clenched on the leather sack, could you tell us where the nursery is? Unquote. Now, there's something, Brian, that I read into this that is not there on the page.

but it is October and he's asking where the nursery is dressed up in costume. To me, this might make the entire room just have a sudden sigh of relaxation. Like, ⁓ okay, that's what's going on. Clearly these guys were at a party and one of them has a wife who just went into labor and they rushed over here. Now I have a clear explanation of what's going on. And I just imagine the rest of, of course, everything's fine now.

Brian (39:17)
Yeah, and I never thought of that and it's so, so good. I mean, it's truly Fridge Brilliance because you you might say, well, yeah, but it's a hospital. That's not gonna fly. You know, they're gonna tell them, hey, you gotta take the prop off and leave it in the waiting room, buddy. But of course, if you have God on your side, then you know, maybe everybody just forgets to mention it and just says, it's...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (39:37)
Yeah.

Brian (39:48)
The other thing I also find so funny about this is that Harry spirited him into the place with a smile, still holding the leather sack in his mouth.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:02)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (40:03)
they can't actually be crazy. You it plays to that Halloween costume thing of, you know, they just look so ridiculously out of place. Even a crazy person wouldn't look this out of place.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (40:07)
Exactly.

Yeah, so that takes us to the end of the chapter, and I have a couple of questions for you regarding this chapter, Do you find Michael's characterization in this chapter effective at introducing his character, and is it consistent with the character later in the series?

Brian (40:30)
So effective. I mean, we've talked about it. It's all over the chapter. Jim does so many things to give you tidbits about Michael and it's wonderfully executed. But I will say, I think that it is in certain ways inconsistent with his later character, who is a little bit less proscriptive when it comes to how other people should live their lives and sort of the details. And I think that's just, you know, him getting older, raising children, you know, he just, he calms down a little bit.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:00)
Yeah, I think that's definitely clearly laid out slowly over time. I don't feel like it's just suddenly he's more relaxed about all this stuff. I think it is something that happens over time. So it may very well have been something that Jim planned for him to start as a little bit more stodgy and stiff about these, gotta marry that girl, make an honest woman out of her or whatever.

Brian (41:00)
So I don't think it's bad.

Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:25)
And he's now, you when we get to, you know, small favor and changes, et cetera, he's much more relaxed about those kinds of So that, I think I definitely agree. The characterization is beautiful. He's one of people's favorite characters for a reason, and he's brilliant right from the start. And that's one of the reasons that I think Grave Peril is an excellent starting point, which is what he's talking about very shortly. The last question I had for you for this first chapter here.

Brian (41:38)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (41:50)
why did Jim choose to use the word knight instead of paladin? Because we do know that he was a big D &D nerd and we talked about how he rolled up Harry as a wizard with 18 constitution when he was putting together the idea for the character. And so it makes sense to me Jim of all people, has put the concept of sorcerers and warlocks, not exactly the same D &D analogs, but he's used those words.

So why not Paladin? Why Knight?

Brian (42:22)
Yeah, I mean, you know, from one perspective, it seems like a crazy omission because he's literally carrying a plus three Holy Avenger, right? I mean, it's just.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (42:31)
And

paladins are known to cast faith magic, whereas general, like the word knight isn't necessarily associated with magic, right? Knights in the medieval era were just men at arms with extra training and station.

Brian (42:45)
And I think that the answer to this is complicated because I think there's a few different reasons. of them might be what the words literally mean. So paladin from like the palatinate. It's from Latin terms that refer to the Imperial Palace. And in French, it came to mean the king's knights because they're

of the palace. are the paladin. They are the knights who the king Charlemagne has around him and brings from place to place. The 12 Paladin of France are where the term originates. So Michael is not of the palace. He is a, time landowner, which is literally what, you know, knights were futilely to a certain extent, right? But he's not a highfalutin person.

He is just guy with a sword who's got his code of honor and his code of chivalry and does what he he's gonna do. I also think though that it's a nod to a couple other things. First, that Knights of the Cross literally predate...

the word paladin in old French because we know that King Arthur was one and that's like the fifth century AD Charlemagne is hundreds of years later so literally they had to be something before there were paladin and whatever name they have now is a translation of whatever that term was and the closest approximation is knight

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (44:21)
So yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I think another piece of it might be because he's changed the definition of what a warlock is in his world, right? A warlock is just the term they use for people with magic who aren't abiding by the laws, more or less.

and he's also changed the meaning of what sorcerer means in his world. In the D &D universe, sorcerers and wizards are different things. The way they access magic is different. That's not the case in the Dresden files. And the paladin in the D &D is almost identical to the way Michael actually is in this. And it might be a little too on the nose of like, yeah, he's a paladin from D &D. Even Harry as a wizard.

isn't a wizard in exactly the same way that D &D wizards are. He doesn't have spell slots or levels or anything like that. that might be something he wanted to get away from the fact that, yes, I've made Michael just like the D &D Paladin, but I might want to change him in the future. And I don't want that to be a description that gets stuck on him to the point where I have no flexibility in my own universe.

Brian (45:31)
You know, that's a really good point because like Harry will refer to him as a paladin, but if he was literally a paladin of the cross, that would feel like a D and D thing. And I actually think that you're onto something about how on the nose it is because we're going to see Amarachius in the next chapter and we're going to talk about something we see about it. But one sort of important thing to note is that Jim has almost certainly read the song of Roland.

which is the old French epic that is the most famous one featuring the 12 Paladin of Charlemagne. And I can say this for a couple reasons. First, because I believe we actually know either from another book or from a word of Jim that one of the swords of the cross, I think, asperacius was one of the swords in that poem. I'm pretty sure Roland, the title character sword, Durandal, was asperacius.

So we know that was the Night of the Cross. Like he's read it and he knows about that legend. it's just Charlemagne sword, Joyeuse, literally has a piece of the spear of destiny forged into its pommel. So in the story of the song of Rome, the legend says, the French romances say, so.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (46:46)
In our history you're talking, or is it just particularly in the story? The legend says. Yeah.

Brian (46:54)
like jim i think has clearly read these french romances translations of them presumably but he's read them and if he literally called him a paladin it's it's almost just so hanging a lampshade on it that you can't get over it it's just like okay buddy like get the i get it he's rolling from the song of roland like shut up

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (47:16)
So that takes us to the end of chapter one. Now Brian, we were gonna do two chapters in this episode, but we have a pretty long question for Bob, and I don't think we have time to get to chapter two. This'll be the second episode where we only do one chapter, and the first one was the very first episode where we talked about chapter one of Stormfront, which was a big, long discussion about how it introduced Harry Dresden as a character, et cetera, et cetera, and Michael as such a big character introduced right here at the beginning of Grave Peril.

It's a nice bit of symmetry that he gets his own chapter, his own episode dedicated to him.

Brian (47:50)
And moreover, it's not just introducing the character of Michael and his relationship with Harry and talking about Susan, and Elaine it's also because this is where the white god becomes a part of the Dresden Files. And that is a huge important part of the background mythology. So explaining how he's acting through his sort of his favorite guy, Michael Carpenter, is

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:05)
Yes.

Brian (48:17)
so important to understand where Jim is taking the lore of the book. But Adam, you say, we've got a question for Bob.

Well, you lived through these case You know Harry's stories as well as anyone. would you recommend a new reader start?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (48:39)
Well, Bob can't make it this week as usual. This week he says he's stuck in the radio. He offered to join us via AM channel or something, but I don't literally have any equipment that'll let me record that or transcribe it into our software.

thought this was an interesting question, but let's turn it on its head and start with what might be more obvious. What are some bad places to start reading the Dresden Files? To me, the most obvious one is Fool Moon because it is widely described to be one of the weaker books. And if you're gonna start there, why not start at Stormfront? So that's my top contender for worst place to start.

probably tied with like peace talks and battlegrounds, which are the Avengers of this series.

Brian (49:26)
Okay, okay.

Time out, Adam, because you said most obvious place and not to start. And like, I will give you that full moon would be a silly place to start. And I will give you that peace talks and battlegrounds would be, I mean, why are you picking up book 16? But come on, it's changes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (49:44)
Yeah, that's okay. That is another one. That's like that's like the first Avengers where it's like Why are you watching this if you haven't watched the build-up movies and then we have peace talks and battleground is like, you know Age of Ultron where it's the same thing You should have they expect you to have watched the the build-up movies to it. So those are definitely bad places to start

Brian (50:03)
Well, but changes also has, it's like if you started, you know, the Star Wars prequel series at Revenge of the Sith, like...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:11)
Or you started

with the scene where Darth Vader revealed that he was Luke Skywalker's father. That's starting at changes right there. Lots and lots of spoilers in changes for things that came before. So definitely not a good place to start. But what about some of the other ones that come before changes?

Brian (50:17)
Exactly. Exactly. Yes.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (50:34)
got a lot of answers here. Nobody suggested, for example, White Knight, Small Favor, or Turn Coat Why do you think that is?

Brian (50:41)
Well, I think that all three of them suffer from the same thing and it's why they're some of my favorite books in the series. They are pulling from every corner of the lore all the time. I mean, you want to take them in turn? I'll do White Knight. So in White Knight, we've got, of course, White Court vampires. We've got ghouls. We've got Elaine. We've got the Ordo Lebes, so there's kitchen witches. Harry's got a brother, but it's secret? What's the deal with that?

Is Lara actually his sister? And Chicago PD has an investigations division for magic crimes? But in addition to that, there's this whole the Black Council and cowl appearing in ghostly visions and a parturiming super ghouls into the final battle scene. I mean, even if you could deal with everything else happening in the plot, I feel like reading White Knight and not

knowing who Cowl was from Dead Beat would just be an absolutely absurd experience. It's just like the ending of book has this random opposite of a Deus ex machina.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (51:47)
Yeah, 100%. And I think Small Favor has all the same problems you just described, but with different sets of groups. Small Favor is, you got Marcon and all of his history with Dresden and his whole Baron of Chicago thing. Then you've got both courts of Faerie, the summer and the winter fae, with the gruffs and all of the things that lead up to the donut. You've also got the White Council and...

then that's not even mentioning the Denarians, who are the huge villains of the piece, that they really need their own buildup from the previous Deathmasks. And the archive is also there, which is a callback, because he met her And gave her a name in Deathmasks? That to me, all of those, very, very important, the Knights of the Cross, they all

reused to smaller or greater degrees there. Also a bad place to start.

Brian (52:40)
Yeah, totally. And Turncoat, I think if you don't understand the history between Harry and Morgan when you read Turncoat, it's just not going to land anywhere near as well. Also, Mordight, like that whole climax scene now makes no sense to you because you didn't read Death Masks. Peabody doesn't seem to be that much of a, okay, so you're signing documents, you you don't realize it's like these people have their jobs for hundreds of years. So that's a whole big part of it. You have no idea who the wardens are.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (52:54)
right?

Brian (53:09)
And you mentioned to me when I was saying, it doesn't really sound that bad. Okay, just think of the scene in Zero where Harry and his brother go to meet his brother's girlfriend, who's in like a latex cat suit for as far as you're concerned, no reason. And then like his cousin like does like a ⁓ lesbian, like, you know, assault of her. Like what the hell is going on? It's...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:26)
Yeah.

Right, you have

to have read White Night to understand the politics of the white court for that to make sense at all.

Brian (53:42)
Or it's just

you feel like this is the most nihilistic and horrifying book series I've ever opened. And not to mention the freaking Nagloshi Which obviously is introduced in that book, but that's what we're saying. It's not a book that's not doing anything on its own as well.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (53:45)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Right, the fact that the Negloschi kills Kirby hits so much harder if you know who Kirby and the Alphas are and you can see the pain that Georgia and Billy and the rest feel for Kirby's death and how hard that hits Harry. That's all so much worse if you've actually seen those earlier stories. So those ones leading up to changes, like you said, widely considered to be some of the-

Brian (54:01)
Hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:21)
best runs in the entire book. Like specifically the small favor turncoat changes, that sort of acts almost like a trilogy that leads up to changes. And it is clearly like just one after another raising the stakes and like landing, sticking the landing in every time. But now let's talk about some of the stuff after changes. Ghost story also seems like a silly place to start, right?

Brian (54:41)
I almost, I was deciding what I would mention after you brought up full moon peace talks and battlegrounds, I almost went for the swerve and said, Ghost Story because I mean, let's be honest, like if you started to changes, you'd have no idea what was going on, but it would be cool, right? If you started a ghost story, you would just put it down. I mean, you just like, okay, he's dead. So why, like, why am I reading the book? Right? ⁓

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (54:59)
You would be so incomprehensible. am I supposed to know this Jack guy and this Carmichael

guy? He seems to know him, but he doesn't really explain who he is.

Brian (55:10)
So the protagonist hasn't been dead long, but he's dead. But like, it's just, it would be so bizarre. It's got nothing to do with the rest of the series if you haven't already read the rest of the series, gotten through changes and understood where Harry is. Even the villain, like who Corpse Taker is, I don't think is sufficiently explained in Ghost Story for it to really land.

So it's probably the actual worst place to start. mean, it'd be like starting, you know, I don't know, Star Trek or something with an episode where they all got turned into dogs or, you know, something like that. Like, it's just completely incomprehensible. then I think, you know, nobody suggested Skin Game as a place to start either, but I mean, as cool of a book as it is, Adam, you can think of why that'd be a bad place to begin.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (55:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, the entire book is a revenge story for Mab against Nicodemus for something that happened and proven guilty amongst other things. there's so much history in that between Harry and Nicodemus, between Mab and Nicodemus, and between Hades and Nicodemus and Marcon and Nicodemus, like all of that is happening. And that is the motivation behind everything. That's what the big reveal is at the end, that Harry, this has all been to get-

Brian (56:16)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:27)
back at Nicodemus amongst other things. But like that's what's going on here. He wonders why the hell is Mab making me do this? And that's the reveal at the end. without that, that one would not hit nearly as well. And I think it would be very confusing.

Brian (56:40)
And of course

the reveal works so well because the Odin scene is dropped in there in the beginning and when that's your callback point because you know Odin's reputation, you're like, ⁓ but there's two other examples of that. The Deirdre thing just doesn't work. And the Michael getting Uriel's grace thing, if you've read the series, it is a crowning moment of awesome.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (56:51)
Right.

yeah.

you

Yes!

Brian (57:08)
like the champ coming back for like one last fight and getting to walk off the field with the victory parade and if you haven't you know it's just like you just don't you don't like it's that's like a tear up thing and you're not going to tear up if you don't know who is.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (57:21)
No,

no. All right, so let's answer the actual question. What book would you recommend to the skeptical new reader? Because the answer that many people would give regardless is Stormfront, but if it was somebody who was already interested in the series, then you'd say, I started Stormfront. But I've read people that were like, well, I was concerned that my friend wouldn't like it enough to get to the books that I know that they would like.

So that's kind of the question. What if you have a reader that's on the fence or you think wouldn't be willing to keep going? Maybe they're just a casual reader. They don't read a lot of books and you want to get them hooked. What book do you use? Now had a couple of really good answers for this. Weekly host 2754 says, I start with the thickest hardcover in my collection and smack them with it until they start reading. Yes.

Brian (58:12)
Absolutely very effective, know do

recommend do it to all your friends precisely Le Silver Kitsune says the comic books and you know what this I appreciate this answer because I would completely never even think of this but they say They're usually faster to get through it helps with immediate immersion and to visualize characters and situations more easily

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:14)
The beatings will continue until morale improves or until the books have been read.

Brian (58:37)
Visual plus a little bit of written plus length makes it the perfect introduction. Can't argue with that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (58:42)
Yeah, a hundred

percent. I think I can't argue with that either. Then you have a green tea 4078 that says, the tabletop RPG is how I hooked two of my friends into reading. I ran a one shot. They liked the characters. So to help them understand the system better, I did two flashback chapters, one for the brothers and one for the best friend. And well, they loved it. And they didn't believe me when I said I technically was going super easy on them.

Now two out of the three players are reading the books all because I made them fall in love with the world." Unquote. That is a great, another one that I would not have thought of, but it's definitely another angle. And I know a few people have come in via the TV show, but that's not the question that we asked. The tabletop RPG is the closest we're gonna allow to go outside of book in this situation.

Brian (59:28)
You know,

I really like that because you know, like you said I'm a bit of a lore nerd who I'm gonna try to read the lore before I start playing the tt RPG But I realized that I don't handle it that way for everything Sometimes I have played a game like did you ever play Dragon Age? Yeah, yeah, yeah the

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:46)
I did not. Well, the computer game, mean. I think

I played the first one, yeah.

Brian (59:51)
So the first game is great and there's companion novels to them because Bioware used to be run by serious writers back in the day. like it really, the lore is very compelling. You want to know more. And I realized that kind of happened to me with D &D 2 where when I played 5e, I actually wanted to be like, ⁓ let me figure out how they change how the planes work. Let me figure out how all that stuff works. I got really interested in reading the background lore.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (59:57)
Hahaha.

Brian (1:00:20)
after I had already mastered the mechanics. So I actually think that's kind of smart. If you got TGRPG player friends, bring them in via the RPG. I bet it would work.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:00:28)
Yeah, all right, so let's talk about the actual books and start with the most popular answer by far was Stormfront. I would say probably 70, 80 % of the answers were Stormfront and very forceful too, to the point where they were like, you should never start a series anywhere other than the beginning. But is that really true, Brian? Aren't there examples of things that we would not necessarily recommend people start at the beginning?

Brian (1:00:55)
I mean, absolutely. So first, you've got things like Lord of the Rings, where there's two beginnings, and for the most part, you wouldn't recommend either of them to an adult looking to read the series for the first time. The Silmarillion did come out as a collected text after the series, but it's, for all intents and purposes, a prequel. So that's where people could start the Lord of the Rings if they wanted to start in the beginning.

That's not really in the spirit of the question because it wasn't the first book written. But I would never recommend somebody who's interested in The Lord of the Rings. Well, you have to read The Hobbit before you start Fellowship of the Ring. I mean, it's got a completely different feel and the trilogy works together extremely well. It was written for the purposes of being a trilogy. It is totally, probably preferable to start with The Fellowship of the Ring.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:01:51)
Yeah, 100%. Now, another example, if you are a Star Wars fan, you may have heard of something called the Machete Order. This is trying to square the circle of, you watch, this is back when the only movies out were the six, the prequels and the main trilogy. I don't even know what you try to recommend to people now, but don't worry about it. So

Brian (1:02:12)
What are there other movies now?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:15)
you have a problem because if you watch them in release order, then you kind of spoil some things about the first prequels. But if you watch them in chronological order from episode one, two, three, four, five, which is how Lucas says you should watch them, you absolutely spoil the huge reveal that Vader is Luke's father, right? So somebody tried to come up with a way that, yeah, spoilers for the, God, God, really? Is it 50 years old now? No!

Brian (1:02:37)
Spoilers, Adam, spoilers.

50 years old, yeah.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:02:46)
That can't be! That's impossible! Alright, so... So anyway, the point is, the Machete Order was an attempt to fix that. And the Machete Order says you watch a new Hope, number four, then Empire Strikes Back, five, then you watch two, three, and then finally you go to the Return of the Jedi. Now you notice, it did chop out number one, which is why they called it the Machete Order. But...

Brian (1:02:49)
44 I think.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:13)
In that example, you don't start with one, you don't even watch one, you start with four and then eventually go back to two and watching them in that order helps preserve most of the big reveals and gives you the backstory necessary and helps frame the story as Luke's story and not Anakin's story, which was what the author of the machete cut was trying to do. So that's.

Brian (1:03:37)
And it's great

because it shows the reveal, obviously, the bad guy is the hero's relative, okay. But the redemption arc in the finale works a lot better if you see the two movies of the corruption arc. So I do actually think it, when there was only the six movies, was a superior way to watch them. And like you said, it's in neither chronological order nor in a temporal order.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:03:47)
Yes.

Brian (1:04:06)
Which by the way, nobody ever recommends temporal order for Dresden. Nobody says start with a fistful of warlocks. So we're just talking about release order here. And one thing where that holds true is other Case Files books. Yes, in progression fantasy, traditionally you start at the beginning, but in a Case Files series, Spencer, Butcher has been.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:13)
Hmm

Brian (1:04:29)
⁓ openly influenced by or like Sherlock Holmes. You don't start somebody with Sherlock Holmes. Well, you got to hear the first one about how he meets Watson when they're both looking for roommates. It's like, ⁓ you want to see the Hound of the Baskervilles? You've never seen that, huh? Well, OK, here's you know, here's the novella. Go read that.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:04:46)
Right. so that's some examples. But the other thing is just, you should always start at the beginning, is just sort of a thought terminating cliche. Because it sounds like a wisdom. It sounds like something you would just naturally agree with until you think about it for a little bit. As we pointed out, there are several examples where we might not recommend that you start at the beginning for various reasons.

I think that there's not a, that's not a great reason to say, well, you should start at Stormfront just because. Now there are other arguments.

Brian (1:05:16)
Yeah, but Adam,

there were some other people who admitted, I mean, you know, look, it's got some warts, but just, it's not as bad as people think.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:05:27)
Isn't it though? No, honestly, I might have said that, but we spent quite a bit of time going over Stormfront and Fool Moon. And by the time we got to the end of Fool Moon, I had a better appreciation for Stormfront. I think it holds up a little bit better as a book overall. And while Fool Moon might have some higher highs, like the fight in the precinct,

probably beats anything in Stormfront in terms of like raw cool factor. I think Stormfront is on average a better book that is more easy to, more comprehensible and easy to follow essentially. So I think I agree that it's not as bad as people think.

Brian (1:06:06)
You know, I,

I'm gonna take the other side of that though because I think that there's one important caveat When we were picking people who were gonna be our new readers, part of the reason why we ended up using the people we did is because they were people who I thought could appreciate some of the influences in Stormfront, specifically the noir influence. If you've got a skeptical reader and they're not someone who has read noir,

and they're not gonna get the callbacks to those films or those books. A lot of stuff is gonna seem really like old fashioned and just hackneyed. Like if you've got somebody who appreciates noir and you wanna say, start at Stormfront, it's the most like noir detective of them and then the series changes, but it's a cool, fine. But if that person hasn't consumed any noir and doesn't like any modern noir films and...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:06:41)
Hmm.

Brian (1:07:07)
Don't start them at Stormfront. They will hate it. It's the most noir of them and the rest of the series is less like them.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:07:13)
Right, I 100 % agree. Now, Hospitable Fox suggests that Stormfront works well as a litmus test. If the reader likes it well enough to keep going, then it's very likely that they will like the series. But if they don't like it enough to keep going, they probably won't like the series. Do you think that's true, Brian?

Brian (1:07:31)
actually am kind of persuaded by this one because I feel like the warts in Stormfront Do typify some issues that butcher will have later and if you get through through Stormfront and you're like, that was a pretty good book You know, it definitely has some first book syndrome issues, but I liked it. I enjoyed it I'd be interested in more then definitely you're gonna be up for the rest of the series if there's parts of other books You don't like just keep reading because you will like it

And if you don't like Stormfront, the things that are issues in it really ruin it for you, you're probably not going to get through Fool Moon And there's some other books that have moments that you're probably really not going to like either.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:10)
Hmm.

So I can agree on the elements that you just discussed, but my main concern is what we talked about before, Stormfront and Fool Moon are the least like the other books that come later. And so I feel like if you dislike Stormfront because it's a little too noir-y, it's a little too self-contained and with too few characters and like Fool Moon adds a few more characters, but like...

Brian (1:08:27)
Mm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:08:41)
Compared to Summer Night and On that just like blast the world open into this much bigger place with so many other aspects, I think it's entirely possible that there's somebody who could start at Grave Peril and really appreciate that wider fantasy world where the fantasy is more heavily emphasized part of urban fantasy, whereas Stormfront and Fool Moon feel like the urban is doing a lot more work there.

Brian (1:09:10)
Yeah, it definitely seems like those were the ones that were influenced more by that like Anita Blake kind of thing and high fantasy influenced ⁓ more of them. But you specifically said there, Adam, that you grave peril doesn't have those flaws. So we had 12 people actually recommend grave peril, including Redna, who says,

Book 3 starts with a wizard and a man wielding a large sword entering a hospital to fight a ghost. Perfect beginning. This is the first time we meet sword guy. Everyone else who we already knew gets reintroduced thoroughly. Once you finish book 12, go back and read 1 and 2. I can't tell you how many people stopped at one a lot it's often complained about in this sub. I don't mind it. Lots of people do.

Also, a major character is written to be very unlikable in those books getting off on the wrong foot. You can always read one and two later and nothing in it is required for when the books start to get in full swing. I might quibble with that because of the Chauncey thing, but I'll just leave that quibble. What do you think about that?

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:22)
I'm full agreement. Grave peril is actually my pick. If you were to ask me this question, I would say Grave Peril is an excellent starting point. As we just described, that first chapter is such a fun introduction of Michael's character. It catches you up on Harry's relationship with Susan. as S Thurenda says,

Brian (1:10:27)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:10:43)
the other characters and anything that you need to know from those previous books is sort of explained to you in grave peril. I think we're gonna see more of that as we go. It's just, and it starts in medias res, right? It's in the middle of the action. You don't even get any kind of like, well, he's sitting in his office and somebody comes in and we don't know who that is and we have to slowly figure out what's going on with this case. No, you're just like right into it. And then you flash back to the noir element of.

is in his office and somebody comes in and that's gonna tie into the story later. So I think it's just such a great way to get you hooked. There's so many little things about just the first chapter that we talked about that are just mysteries. Like what is this knight guy? What's going on? What is his sword about? The second chapter has you fighting ghosts. It's so clear, right? These two chapters lay it out. These guys are going to stop a ghost who's doing some bad stuff in a hospital.

and they have some special tools that they use to deal with it, and then they have to go into the other dimension to chase the ghost into its home and then fight it over there. That is just such a great encapsulation of a very simple story. There's no MacGuffins to really worry about. There's no complicated like, ⁓ these people, ⁓ the White Council and this and that and the relationship with such and such.

The beginning of this book is so dead simple. You can get right into the world and the story. That's my pitch for it, really.

Brian (1:12:05)
Yeah, mean Gott Medieval says, I've introduced many people to the Dresden Files over the years, and the ones who start at Book 3 are much more likely to stick around and keep reading in my experience. I think that's a perfect encapsulation of why, because it's so gripping that it's hard to put the series down after you've read Grave Peril.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:12:25)
Now I will say, out of all the other recommendations, Dead Beat got the next highest. So it was definitely Stormfront, Grave Peril, and a very close third, maybe tied for second, is Dead Beat. And we do know that Jim has recommended Dead Beat as a jumping on point. Butters is basically written as a POV character for the audience to learn about this magic stuff for the first time. In fact, I believe it was his very first hardcover, right? That's one of the reasons that he wrote it that

Brian (1:12:53)
Yeah.

In fact, it wasn't going to be Book 7. Dead Beat was going to be Book 8. And essentially, the plot of Proven Guilty was swapped with Dead Beat. That's part of the reason why Proven Guilty is actually a bit lower magic than Dead Beat, because Jim thought that, you know, Zombie Dinosaur was going to be a great thing to put in a hardcover, whereas Splattercon wouldn't necessarily land as well. And

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:19)
Hmm

Brian (1:13:21)
That's actually why it's my choice for the skeptical reader starting point because it was written to be an alternative place to get into the series. It's got an awesome climax. The plot is really good and compelling. There's a lot going on, but the plot elements that are from earlier books are sort of folded in in a way that's really cool. The stuff with Thomas in Dead Beat

is great because it's, yes, we are introduced to his brother, but it's a recent thing that's causing problems, you know? And Murphy's just not there. Like, we don't even have to meet her for another book. We're gonna leave that whole thing aside. So it's a little bit simplified. It shows you like a crucial development in Harry's character in becoming a warden. And it's where I started my wife for one of the reasons that Enthalpy01 says.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:13:57)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:14:20)
If they are listening on the audiobooks, recommend Dead Beat. The audio problems clear up right after Summer Knight but death masks and blood rights would be bad places to start. Dead Beat was designed to be a potential entry point, so it's not a bad one to start, and you can always go back. We started by listening to the audiobooks on a drive down to out of state. So we were in the car for hours, and I was like, if I put on Stormfront or Grave Peril and

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:14:45)
Hmm.

Brian (1:14:49)
she doesn't like the vampire costume scene or one of the scenes in those early books, then we're not gonna be able to listen to these for the ride and it's just not gonna go well. But Dead Beat is fun, it's really fun and it's super gripping and if you like that book, you'll listen to the rest of them and it's something that if you have to have it on for the whole damn car ride, you're probably gonna be fine with it.

even if it's not the kind of thing you regularly listen wife literally just poked her head into say dinosaurs are cool. But I'll also note that it's got a little bit of that thing about Stormfront where if you don't like this, you know you won't like the books. Because if you don't like, for example, the Sheila thing.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:24)
Ha

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Brian (1:15:40)
or

if you don't like the Cassius torturing Harry thing. Like, if there's parts in the book that squick you out, the kind of stuff that is gonna be present in the rest of the series, so turn in the other direction.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:15:55)
Yeah, that makes plenty of sense. And I would agree that Dead Beat can be a good onboarding location. The reason I would pick Grave Peril instead is there are a couple of really cool reveals and things that build that get into Dead Beat. Like you said, the fact that Thomas is his brother.

That's one of the most interesting pieces of blood rites is you finally figure out what Thomas's motivation is and whether you can trust him for real or this is all some kind of a long con. So that is an important piece of blood rites that it's not quite to the level of I am your father, but it's close. And then you have the

Brian (1:16:17)
Mm-hmm.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:16:37)
It also has Lash in it as like this main important character. And without the context of what is a Denarion? What is this fallen angel? I know he does reintroduce it there, but I feel like losing the Death Mask's understanding of seeing the Denarions in action doesn't give

Harry does a good job explaining why this is a bad thing, I should try to avoid temptation stuff, but I feel like the impact is not quite as strong as if you've read Death Masks. So that's my main thought, is Dead Beat has one or two really valuable things that I wouldn't want to have spoiled for someone, even though otherwise it is an excellent onboarding location. We meet Butters for the first time and...

the story is mostly self-contained. You don't need to know much about what happened before because the Necromancers are a new threat.

Brian (1:17:28)
And I specifically say for a skeptical reader, because I agree with you, if my wife was just picking up the books to like read on the beach in the summer, I might not have started it there. It because I wanted to listen to it for the entire car ride for 10 hours. I needed her to really like it.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:17:43)
Yeah, I did the same thing for Dungeon Crawler

Carl and actually worked on getting my wife in, but I did start that one in book one.

Brian (1:17:49)
I see, okay. But that's why I did that, I was sort of, know, like she doesn't listen to a lot of audio books. I would not recommend Dead Beat for my brother, who you guys heard on the New Reader Reaction series, who reads a ton of fantasy, you know, stuff that like I won't even necessarily buy the series of. He's like, yeah, sure, I'll read six Warhammer fantasy books. I love fantasy. That kind of reader, I'd say either start at Grave Peril or Storm Front

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:18:18)
All right, so moving on, number four here, the fourth most recommended the Redditors. Summer Night had four or five people recommending it. ⁓ SitnQuiet said, quote, werewolves and a big dash of fairy, the gumshoe routine and a subterfuge with a truly satisfying big battle at the end.

After that, you can decide whether you wanna dive into the rest of the series. So far, three have done so, unquote. I do agree that Summer Night is one of the best early sort of examples of where the series is going. That big climactic fight at the end of Summer Night. Grave Peril does have a big sort of fight at the end with him burning down the whole thing or releasing the ghost, et cetera, but it doesn't quite con-

to the epic scale of Summer Night or some of the other big fights that we have at the end.

Brian (1:19:10)
Yeah, I have been coming around to this argument more and more when I talk to people because it really is a very good book. It starts the main story of the series, which is not the vampire war, but the White Council is under attack arc. And that has been absolutely carried through to where we are now. And I really do think that as freshly stabbed says,

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:19:30)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:19:39)
The first three books aren't even in the same genre as what comes later. They may as well be prequels, establishing Harry's detective creds, but he very quickly isn't about that life much at all. Really good detective who happens to be a wizard has precious little in common with chosen one who must unite members from rival factions and pantheons to save all of reality. I think that that is a really good point and that starts in book four.

And honestly, the introduction to Mab in that book is like a great place to start the series all on its own. It's just so fabulous.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:09)
Mm-hmm. It is

also probably the last one that really rides the line between gumshoe detective PI and wizard slash chosen one. After that, there's not a lot that really have that detective be at the same weight and level. I mean, maybe White Knight. Yeah.

Brian (1:20:32)
I argue White Night. Yeah,

that's actually my pick for that, but I agree that Summer Night is one of my favorite books for the exact same reason. But one thing I'll say about Summer Night that I don't love about starting there is, we were just talking about the drip feeding of Dresden's backstory making you so hungry to meet Elaine. I just can't imagine that lands nearly as well if it's just, and my old flame was back in town.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:20:57)
and we just start from there. Somebody who started there has to tell me if that works for them in Summer Knight because that's the one thing I have trouble wrapping my brain around. If it's literally never come up, if no hints have been dropped, then it's just, I thought you were dead. Like, does that read well? I don't know.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:20:59)
Hmm.

That's a good question. Now we did have a smattering of other recommendations for other books as starting places. Those are the big four though, Stormfront, Grave Peril, Dead Beat, and Summer Night. But we did have one for Death Masks. Lowercase Punishment says quote,

We meet a ton of huge characters, the Denarians, Kincaid, the Archives, Sonya and Shiro, Molly, Butters, Ortega. You get a taste of what the Nicodemus is up to. You get some lore about the beginning of the war with the Reds. Susan comes back as a half vampire. The whole mystery with the Shroud of Turin and the scene at the hotel, the duel at Wrigley, the airport, and a train chase. There's a lot to love about this book. You even get the cliffhanger where Harry picks up the coin. The only major missing piece is the Fae." Honestly, I think he just made a great argument for why it's not a good starting point.

Brian (1:21:58)
had...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:21:58)
Now,

I think he made a great argument for why it's an amazing book and is one of my favorites, I do think that the reasons that he stated are reasons why it's not a great starting place.

Brian (1:22:08)
Yeah, you know, I think that the actual problem with Deathmasks is it's so damn good that yes, the skeptical reader will pick up the next one, but I actually don't know if they'll stick with the series. Because the Denarians aren't coming back for five more books. Susan isn't coming back for seven more books. Marcon isn't a big part It's really a cool book that's kind of a one-off. I mean, Ortega's dead, you know? So it's...

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:22)
Hmm. Ooh, that's true.

Brian (1:22:35)
It just, it's very self-contained. I agree. It would definitely be something I could get somebody to read if they wanted to know what the Dresden files were, but it's not something I think would get them hooked because they then go to blood rights and it's like, this is completely, you you just got rid of all the stuff I thought was cool.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:22:55)
Yeah, now Blood Rites is another one that someone recommended. Death of a Wanderer says, Blood Rites, if only for the opening, it also gets away from the issue of overly horny descriptions of women, which has caused friends to avoid reading in the past by having more similarly horny descriptions of the male characters. It's also hard to beat the narrative opening hook, unquote. For those that don't remember,

Blood Rites is where we get the building was on fire and it wasn't my fault, and it's where we first meet Mouse, which of course is an adorable addition to Team Dresden. ⁓ Your mileage may vary on whether just having horny descriptions of male characters makes it okay to also have horny descriptions of female characters. The balance is better, don't get me wrong, but some people, still it makes them uncomfortable.

Brian (1:23:32)
Yeah.

I was gonna say, it gets away from? I don't say it gets away from horny descriptions of women. In fact, it pretty leans into, you know, we meet Lara in that book. Literally, you know, it's a book about porn star witches. I don't, it's not as like male gazey as that premise sounds, but it's definitely not avoiding staring at the girls.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:23:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I could see why somebody might say that that opening hook with Thomas and the dogs and fighting the gorillas, the flaming gorilla poo ⁓ is an interesting hook to get people to actually read that book. Of all the openings, we talked about Grave Parallel in this one, I think that's a great opening that would get you hooked to keep reading. Blood Rites does have a good opening. I'm not certain that makes it a great candidate in this case. What about Cold Days, Brian?

That seems like an odd choice, doesn't it?

Brian (1:24:36)
I actually really like this one. Okay, if you're gonna start after changes, and Adam, you shouldn't start after changes, but if you're gonna start after changes, mean, literally coming back to life, so it has to reintroduce everyone. It does so very efficiently. It's kind of a time lapse of where they are now.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:24:42)
Yes.

No.

Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:25:01)
and it brings

in all these new characters. Harry's got all new dynamics to his relationships with all of them, so pre-existing knowledge of those relationships isn't as important. It introduces what we assume is going to be the major threat of the series, which is the Walkers, right? We haven't really confronted one before now. mean, Cold Days definitely does a great job setting up peace talks and battlegrounds, in my opinion.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:18)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (1:25:28)
The Fomor are even mentioned in the book, right? Because when Harry's talking to Molly and the other characters, that comes up just like a didn't go story, I'm pretty sure. So I really think it does a good job of reintroducing the entire world from this new perspective of not the Wizard of Chicago, but the Wizard of Demonreach.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:25:50)
Yeah, 100%. I think Cold Day is the fact that it's reintroducing Harry as the winter night in a new world that he hasn't really been in before, right? He hasn't been in the winter court. He's worked with them, had communications with them, et cetera, but this is a whole new thing for him and therefore it's a new thing for the reader as well, does make it possible to read such a late book without too much complication. That I can agree with.

Brian (1:26:19)
And I love Telemagic recommending this because he says, started here simply because I had heard about the series and that with few exceptions, each book is self-contained and Cold Day's had the best reviews. wow, what an opening, what an introduction to the universe. It's fast paced, the worlds are beautifully imagined, inhabitants simultaneously familiar and strange and the story arc is excellent. It's a masterpiece of the genre. I mean, if you're gonna try to hook a skeptical new reader,

Start them with the one with the best reviews. That's honestly not a bad argument.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:26:53)
Now, we have one more thing to share with you because we went basically over every book for the most part and said why they should or shouldn't be your first starting point. But I think my favorite response from this is dhds83 who says, quote, for what it's worth, I have had multiple people I expected to love the series bounce off the first book, but they got hooked when I had them try three instead. My go-to order now for most people new to the series is three,

3, 4, 1, 2, 5. I think Grave Peril and especially Summer Night are so much better written that the new readers can easily get sucked into the world by starting there. Having gotten addicted to the world and the characters, the first two books' flaws are more easily overlooked, and while certain things are spoiled in this order, there are none nearly so large to be spoiled starting with book 7, and the first two books wind up acting almost as prequels, giving backstory and fleshing out certain characters." Unquote.

Brian, that sounds an awful lot like the reasoning and almost the same order as the machete order. And I love it. This is my new favorite suggestion.

Brian (1:27:59)
Yeah, I think this is pretty good. And you know what? I think he actually makes a compelling point that they would work well as prequels because like I said, you'd never recommend someone start with Fistful of Warlocks, which okay, of course not. But, you know, nobody ever recommends, well, you should read a Restoration of Faith. And then you read. So it does work to kind of flash back to Stormfront and Fool Moon.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:15)
Right.

Brian (1:28:21)
after you've met a Murphy and a Harry who have a different relationship to show how they... I really do think that that's a good suggestion. again, for somebody like my brother who is going to just chew through fantasy and loves it, yeah, they can start a book one and just plow through. But for somebody who's not a big fantasy reader or a big noir reader, yeah, I think I agree that that might be the best way to start.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:28:25)
Exactly.

Yeah, dhdas83 continues, quote, Murphy and the alphas in particular feel very different to me in the first two books and I find it fairly natural to meet the different versions of these characters within a jump into the past. Having already met what I would consider to more familiar versions of them, the jump back to the future is more like exploring, sorry, the jump back is more like exploring how these versions came about than experiencing a fairly large personality shift, which is when you read it in the main order.

And I kind of agree with that too, seeing a flashback to how they used to be, it feels more natural for them to be different because say if you're starting in 2005 and you're flashing back to the beginning of the series in 2000, yes, of course they're gonna be different. But if you're going from 2003 to 2004, you don't expect them to be that different or well, more like 2001 to 2002. You don't expect them to be that.

and yet they kind of are. Murphy in Grave Peril is not quite the Murphy that we see in Fool Moon, and it feels like more than a year has passed. But flashing back, yes, you're jumping over like four or five years. It does feel like they should be different. And I don't know, that to me, that also sells it really well.

Brian (1:29:59)
You know what really makes this order work for me mentally? Is the first time I heard it I was like, okay, but the problem with starting three-four is you have the thing happen with Susan at the end of Great Peril and you really need to understand how depressed Harry is in Summer Night, why he's so upset about this. So isn't it better to see their relationship build over the first two books? But then I realized...

No, not really. Grave Peril starts with their relationship being the subject. He loves her. It's a perfectly fine place to get in.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:30:35)
And we don't see much of their relationship building in one and two. We see their first date, which is a disaster basically, and then in the second one we see her not certain if she wants to fall in love with him. Like it's kind of on the rocks at that point because he's taking too many risks more or less. And so, I don't know, it doesn't feel like a natural building because there's like a year that goes from full moon to grave peril where clearly,

Brian (1:30:39)
and

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:02)
They've fallen in love during that time. We didn't even see it. It happened off off screen.

Brian (1:31:07)
And I actually love on second thought what that creates, right? Because, okay, he's so gutted in Summer Night. He's so depressed about what happened to Susan. It's consuming him. And then you read one and two and you're reading them through a different light because your heart aches now at those scenes. And then after you finish your prequels, what do you pick up with? Susan's back, it's book five.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:27)
Yeah!

Yes.

Brian (1:31:35)
you're

in death masks, and that I think even sets up the eventual reveal of Maggie better than a publication order. Because it really heightens the stakes of their relationships and makes the first five books, like how Star Wars is the story of Luke, it makes the first five books the story of Dresden and Soos.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:31:45)
Yeah, yeah, I 100 % can see that.

Yeah, yeah, 100 % could agree. All right, we have gone on way too long for one chapter this episode. So we are gonna call it here. Remember, we don't have that episode next week. The week after that, we'll do, well, at least chapter two of Grave Peril, but hopefully a little bit more than that. I expect we'll do chapter two, three, and four to get through the Lydia chapters minimum. Now, I don't know what the question for Bob will be for that chapter yet. We haven't figured that out, but we'll get there. We'll post it on the subreddit like we normally do.

Brian (1:32:04)
my god.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:32:29)
And you know what? Maybe I'll post it on the Patreon for people that don't go to Reddit. So if you're interested in signing up there, you can certainly do that. Patreon.com slash RNT pod is the way that you can sign up for that. You don't need to pay either just to be a member quote unquote of our Patreon. A free member gets all the same public updates and we might put out polls and questions for Bob and things there where you can answer. So if you don't like Reddit, if you don't use but you do use Patreon, that's another way to stay with us.

Brian (1:32:57)
So join us on Halloween night for Grave Peril Part 2. Can't wait.

Adam “Bridger” Ruzzo (1:33:05)
Me neither. See you then!