I’m rounding third and headed for home with The Dresden Files, with only one more published book in the series to read. There were about 6 years in between book 15 and this book and if I had waited that long, I would have been disappointed, and a little mad. Here’s a one-sentence summary of books 14, 15, and 16 for explanation
Book 14 – Everything happens. Maybe too many things?
Book 15 – Heist and Hijinks! A moderate amount of stuff happens.
Book 16 – Barely anything happens, but wow, book 17 is going to be a doozy.
Here I present my very basic very non-spoilery review of book 16.
- A central character does a bad thing! We don’t know why, but we know that someone else made them do it. We don’t know who. It’s very bad and they are in big trouble.
- There is planning for a big fancy meeting of all the people (aka, the titular Peace Talks).
- The big fancy meeting of all the people begins.
- Really REALLY bad people show up and they are definitely going to do VERY BAD THINGS.
- But not until the next book.
Overall, this book felt like a whole lot of nothing, other than setting the stage for the next book, which he published shortly after this one, so at least there’s that. The pacing dragged from start to finish. I get that he was going for a “part 1 of 2” vibe but this cliffhanger situation is such a departure from his standard format to be a distraction. I am glad at this point that I only have one more to read to be caught up. It remains to be seen if I’m going to go ahead with 17, or wait until 18 comes out which hasn’t even been announced but is rumored to be slated for 2024.