I'm like 25% of the way through at the moment, and, at this point, I can't really tell where it's going.
Ok, that book honestly annoyed me. As soon as something happened it ended. It seems to me like the publisher split a 600 ish page book into two 300 ish page books.
Came in here looking for Battle Ground talk but this works haha. Isn't that exactly what Jim Butcher said happened? He wrote Peace Talks/Battle Ground as one book and his publisher told him it would be such a huge book they'd have to charge $50 for it, so rather than do that he split it into two books that could be released super close together. IIRC. I didn't really have any strong feelings about Peace Talks, which makes sense if it's only the first half of things and building up to all the action in the second half. I'll save my Battle Ground thoughts for later.
I thought I read on his blog that there was an issue with the publishing schedule. He was off it for quite some time (divorce, building a house, needed calm working conditions?) so by the time he finished the book, it was too late to go on the schedule for the year. So he took 2 spots closer together, and wrote Battle Ground after Peace Talks in the normal cycle of time -- the publishing was just much closer due to the schedule.
Weird! It was his Comic Con panel where I heard him say the thing about splitting the book because it would have been too expensive. If Peace Talks was legit supposed to be a single book, I'm not sure it worked well at all.
I just finished both of them and, whatever the case may be, as they are written, I would have been very miffed if there had been a substantial amount of time between their publishing dates. Of course, it didn’t affect me this time, since I waited for both of them to be out because I knew people were upset about the abrupt ending of Peace Talks. My framework for thoughts: Battle Ground could have been a fitting ending for this series. But, as Jim Butcher is wont to do, he provided more strings to tie up down the line in future books. I’m not mad about that, as I enjoy his writing. Just one of my thoughts. I also thoroughly enjoyed the short story at the end of Battle Ground. I thought it was funny and sweet.
