Happy Tewe’s Day, Everybody! Guess what? We’re another week closer to the release of the long-awaited and greatly anticipated Peace Talks, Book 16 of the Dresden Files series! Yep, only seven more weeks to go, and my doesn’t the time just fly by? Yeah. Like a kid waiting for Christmas morning! Tick …….. tock.   Tick …….. tock. You get the idea. BUT, we are closer, so for that I’m going to be grateful. And I’m going to share some things with you that interested me. Hope you’ll enjoy them, too.

First, I thought maybe it would be appropriate to talk about the man who created Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, Wizard Extraordinaire. That would be Jim Butcher, of course. I will admit that over the last six years, I’ve given serious thought to tracking Jim Butcher down and smacking him with a pizza so old and stale, even Toot-Toot the fairy wouldn’t touch it. However, I am too much in awe of his prodigious writing talent to do such a thing. Instead, I gnashed my teeth and bit my nails in silence, waiting, waiting, waiting for the day he would send forth the 16th installment of my favorite series of all time.  And finally, that day is drawing near!

For those of you who haven’t read his work, or followed his blog,
or seen him at a signing, this is what Jim Butcher looks like:

Or  maybe it’s more like this?

Unless, of course, it’s really more along these lines?

Hmmm. A man of many faces.
Well, one thing for sure,
Harry Dresden is obviously his alter-ego.
They could be twins separated at birth! See?
Here, he poses with a wizardly weapon,
and his genuine Foo Dog, Mouse!

INTERESTING STUFF

Butcher wrote the first book in The Dresden Files—about a professional wizard, named Harry Dresden, in modern-day Chicago—as an exercise for a writing course in 1996 at the age of 25. Storm Front, the first novel in The Dresden Files, was picked up by Roc/Penguin Books for publishing. It was released as a paperback in April  2000. Fool Moon followed nine months later on January 1, 2001, and the third book, Grave Peril, was published in September 2001. Thereafter, the release schedule slowed, with Summer Knight appearing on September 3, 2002. The fifth and sixth books, Death Masks and Blood Rites, appeared in August 2003 and 2004, respectively.  

For several years, you could pretty much count on a new Dresden Files book every year or so, until Skin Game (#15) was released in 2014. Then the drought began. Yes, I know there were graphic novels being written, and short stories (most of which are absolutely fantastic) appearing in various anthologies, and loads of other things going on in his life. (He is also the author of the Codex Alera series, a fantasy I quite enjoyed, and The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Book 1 of a new fantasy series that I hope will be continued.)

And those are all great things. BUT.  Harry disappeared for a very long time. I thought perhaps–unbeknownst to his fans–my favorite wizard had been yanked into the Nevernever and left there to wander lost and lonely as a cloud until the end of days! Happily, as we now know, he’s back! Thus my series of posts wherein the countdown of the weeks continues and I dance around all excited, while generally acting like a looney tunes.

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On that note, I’m moving along to share a new meme I made this week. Hope you enjoy it. It’s one of my favorite pictures and quotes, out of many!

AND  HERE ARE A FEW MORE MEMES
FOUND FLOATING AROUND THE INTERNET.

Welp, that’s it for today, folks! I’ll be back next Tuesday with a brand new countdown update, more images and characters, and anything else I can think of you might enjoy! Hope to see you then!  

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