New York Comic Con 2023: Jim Butcher Interview

I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Jim Butcher, and his son James J. Butcher, at New York Comic Con this past weekend (October 14, 2023). Here’s what we discussed…

How is NYCC so far this year for you? Also, happy early birthday, hope it is a good one for you!

Busy, but good. Thanks!

We’re on the precipice of The Olympian Affair being released, congratulations! This being the second book in the series, what can you share about it?

More talking cats. We see the surface of the world and we see some Kaiju! I get to flex my spooky writing muscles.

This one focuses on a different part of the world, Spire Olympia. There’s a trade summit which essentially sets up sides for the upcoming war and everybody wants to know whose side Olympia will be on.

There’s also an assassin, because they tend to get involved in these kinds of summits.

I almost gave up on it, I wasn’t sure of the audience. At DragonCon, at least a dozen fans – separately – approached me and asked about the series. I didn’t want to leave The Aeronaut’s Windlass all by itself. Maybe I was guilted into it, but it was a lot of fun to write.

There’s a new cat – Fenli – based on my cat Fenris. Sort of a foil for Rowl. There’s also a new viewpoint character named Abigail.

What is the seed of The Cinder Spires?

I was traveling home from a weekend long LARP which started on a Friday and ended 4:30 AM on a Sunday with a bunch of boys in the minivan. I just kind of stacked them up. I was blasting Nine Inch Nails’s The Downward Spiral and out west over the plains a big storm appeared and was walking towards me. I was trying to stay ahead of the storm and get over to one of the major highways.

The first couple of chapters of The Aeronaut’s Windlass played out right there in my head.

When I got home, I wrote that. I showed those chapters and a couple of other new novel/series drafts (including a “Fantasy Incredibles”) to my beta-readers and by far what became The Aeronaut’s Windlass was the most popular.

To that end, some fans (including this one right here!) have speculated that you might be pulling a Terry Brooks. I get you don’t want to spoil anything, but what do you say to Cinder Spires being a potential future of either the world of Codex Alera or Dresden Files or if it has any connection to those series?

If was a smarter writer, maybe I would have put something in there to tie them together, but Cinder Spires is its own world.

Would you ever revisit Codex Alera? You really captured something fun with those books. Then again, all your books are fun.

Sure, it has the convenience of being an already built story-world so I wouldn’t have to create something entirely new.

Every book is different for every writer, but this is the 3^rd second book in a series you’ve finished. How did the process and challenges for The Olympian Affair compare to Fool Moon and Academ’s Fury?

I know much more about writing now than I did when I wrote the second Dresden and the second Alera book, which were my 6^th and 9^th book respectively. I know what a second book needs to do, what I can get away with in a second book. But really, I’m a better writer.

Art by Dan Dos Santos. Harry Dresden riding a zombie dinosaur, cover of the Science Fiction Book Club’s third **DRESDEN FILES** omnibus – “Wizard at Large”

We’re coming up on 25 years of Harry Dresden, anything special in the works to celebrate the birthday of everybody’s favorite Chicagoan wizard?

Nothing special, Harry has been a friend for years. He was in my head for 5 years before Storm Front was published. I was supposed to have a big celebration in 2020, it was supposed to be the Summer of Jim…but we saw what happened.

What’s next for Harry Dresden?

The next book is Twelve Months. I always say each book of The Dresden Files takes place during the worst weekend of Harry’s year. Well, this book is an entire bad year for Harry. The last book knocked him down and this one deals with the repercussions. I should (stressing SHOULD) be done with it by the end of the year. Then Mirror, Mirror which is a parallel universe. You know, an evil universe where everybody wears an eyepatch and Harry actually wears a hat. There are also rumors… just rumors of maybe another adaptation.

When Jim discussed future Dresden Files books during his spotlight hour with a large crowd and Q&A, he mentioned a Goodman Grey spinoff called Monster, LLC, a monster for hire kind of series.

Any chance a small craft brewery has approached you about making a beer as an ode to Mac?

Surprisingly, no! (Jim laughed at this one)

You’ve played in the sandbox of other creator’s work – Spider-Man & Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International. Would you ever open up the Dresden files to other writers, in the same way Larry Correia did with his Monster Hunter Files anthology?

Probably not. (He said this with a smirk)

Your son has joined the “family business,” how has it been to see him become a published writer?

Great! He’s better than I am, actually, he’s my retirement package!

James, his son, was with us for the interview, so I asked, him what his books are about?

The high concept of The Unorthodox Chronicles is Men in Black, but magic instead of aliens. Book 1 is Dead Man’s Hand, book 2 is Long Past Dues.

(That sounds very cool to me!)