Butcher has always played with Harry's POV being a POV and him getting things wrong.
The Law Specifics:
So let's examine the initial Winter Winter confrontation. Harry completely misunderstood how serious a fight he was picking there but was he really out of his weight class? Sure, Harry wasn't expecting a demigod on the other end but we know at least partly gods like that are powered by belief/awe of mortals and not having a name is a huge PR hit. Harry wasn't packing all his tools but if he was, if he'd prepped Demonreach and had a relic or two on him, if he actually took this fight seriously...do you really think Nameless wasn't going to sweat it?
I'd actually love to see that scene from the opposite POV. Even if WW thought he could win the immediate fight he has got to be worried about consequences for him from Mab, Marcone, and just like half the supernatural world who inexplicably like Harry.
POV switching would be fun in general.
A running thing with Harry's POV is outwardly portraying himself as an inflappable hardass while his inner dialogue is basically "oh crap oh crap oh crap must not show weakness around this scary scary person" and it has me wondering what percentage of the rest of the supernatural community is also doing that all the time.
Just picturing half the Accords population being Ciaphas Cain in their own heads.
I got the audiobook version of The Law, which was probably a mistake.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't worth $26.
I think you can read it for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, though.
I'm glad I picked it up on Audible, but I really missed Marster's presentation of Dresden. Butcher kind of reads him like he's Clint Eastwood.
Yeah, I don't know how often Butcher does readings like that, but I got the impression he was reading in a very deliberate manner so as to not flub any lines. The result being a bit of over-enunciation and a slow-down of what I would consider a more natural speaking rhythm.
She's living with the Carpenters. Somewhat because it's an actual stable home life, partly because it is literally guarded 24/7 by archangels against supernatural threats. Harry is active in her life but day to day she's there.
Edit: Oh yeah, and the unseelie hit squads watching the house 24/7 who are completely allowed to absolutely fuck up any mortals stupid enough to start something.
If I were to guess and it was plot-relevant I'd assume she was at the Carpenters' while Chicago put out the literal and metaphorical fires. Given the weird household/fostering situation I'm assuming that she'll split her time growing up between Harry and the Carpenters' anyway. Heaven knows Harry himself practically does that.
I forget if she was living at the castle prior to the battle or just visiting, which is probably a sign that I should re-read the last few books.
If I were to guess and it was plot-relevant I'd assume she was at the Carpenters' while Chicago put out the literal and metaphorical fires. Given the weird household/fostering situation I'm assuming that she'll split her time growing up between Harry and the Carpenters' anyway. Heaven knows Harry himself practically does that.
I forget if she was living at the castle prior to the battle or just visiting, which is probably a sign that I should re-read the last few books.
Prior to the battle the Castle wasn't Harry's. I think that Peace Talks opens with Harry/Maggie being at Molly's apartment with the weird dark elf folks. That gets quickly trashed and Harry pisses the elves off so that is not going to be an option anymore.
I'm a huge Dresden fan and I've been tracking down all the hardcover versions of every book so I don't miss anything and even I have to say that the series has gotten just way too big. There's just too much going on to the point that the big reveal in Battle Ground hit me like a soggy trash bag.
Like, I'll read the rest but I wish we had wrapped things up a while ago.
I am in the business of saving lives.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
What was the big reveal? Its been awhile since I've read it.
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
The more I think about it and check the dates, the more I'm sure about it. He (Butcher) started writing what would eventually become book 1 in 1996, which would put him at 25 and that just so happens to be Harry's age in the book. It doesn't get actually published until 2000, and while he was super prolific for the start of his career the last 3 books slipped from his once a year release to 2 and 5 between them. So this makes Harry's age start out the same as Butcher's but stand relatively still as he got over his writer's block. So canonically Dresden is in his early 40's but is written as his early 50's.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
Ninja Snarl P on
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
I think that's the running joke, because
as of the most recent books, a lot of other cultures have adapted. It's the stuffy wizards who haven't. Like he's just such a luddite because bad shit happened to him as a yout, and that's where he stayed, media wise
are YOU on the beer list?
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
I think that's the running joke, because
as of the most recent books, a lot of other cultures have adapted. It's the stuffy wizards who haven't. Like he's just such a luddite because bad shit happened to him as a yout, and that's where he stayed, media wise
He isn't really of that mindset, though. He's repeatedly been the standout as the wizard with unconventional, sometimes even technological, solutions to magic problems. He's got people in his in-crowd with the technical knowledge to work this stuff out, too. I'm not even an electronics guy and it would be dead easy to figure out, say, the effective range of Dresden's passive "bad luck" that breaks electronics. All you need is a long array of horizontal LED light strips perpendicular to wherever Dresden is standing, point a camera at them from a distance, and record when and where they fail. Boom. Easy-peasy quantitative method to figure out a safe distance for electronics, and it would be pretty cheap to do.
Regardless, it's long past the point where at least Dresden's companions started modernizing things around Dresden.
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
I think that's the running joke, because
as of the most recent books, a lot of other cultures have adapted. It's the stuffy wizards who haven't. Like he's just such a luddite because bad shit happened to him as a yout, and that's where he stayed, media wise
He isn't really of that mindset, though. He's repeatedly been the standout as the wizard with unconventional, sometimes even technological, solutions to magic problems. He's got people in his in-crowd with the technical knowledge to work this stuff out, too. I'm not even an electronics guy and it would be dead easy to figure out, say, the effective range of Dresden's passive "bad luck" that breaks electronics. All you need is a long array of horizontal LED light strips perpendicular to wherever Dresden is standing, point a camera at them from a distance, and record when and where they fail. Boom. Easy-peasy quantitative method to figure out a safe distance for electronics, and it would be pretty cheap to do.
Regardless, it's long past the point where at least Dresden's companions started modernizing things around Dresden.
The Rivers of London series has similar "magic and tech don't mix" rules for its magic system, though in the form of turning integrated circuits to sand rather than just "it randomly explodes". The protagonist there takes exactly that tack on it: quantify the effect, build simple technical workarounds. Working cellphones die when near magic? Put a physical switch on your phone to disconnect the battery and press the button when you might be around magic soon. Though in that case it's active spellcraft, not just "being a wizard" that does it.
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
I think that's the running joke, because
as of the most recent books, a lot of other cultures have adapted. It's the stuffy wizards who haven't. Like he's just such a luddite because bad shit happened to him as a yout, and that's where he stayed, media wise
He isn't really of that mindset, though. He's repeatedly been the standout as the wizard with unconventional, sometimes even technological, solutions to magic problems. He's got people in his in-crowd with the technical knowledge to work this stuff out, too. I'm not even an electronics guy and it would be dead easy to figure out, say, the effective range of Dresden's passive "bad luck" that breaks electronics. All you need is a long array of horizontal LED light strips perpendicular to wherever Dresden is standing, point a camera at them from a distance, and record when and where they fail. Boom. Easy-peasy quantitative method to figure out a safe distance for electronics, and it would be pretty cheap to do.
Regardless, it's long past the point where at least Dresden's companions started modernizing things around Dresden.
I suspect Butters has a to-do list about that sort of thing, both because Harry seems to be interested in the magitech solutions he comes up with and also because Butters going to Butters implacably when he gets an idea in his head. It might have fallen down the priority pole since Chicago got trashed and Dresden started distancing himself from people, though.
The part of the modernizing thing that surprises me isn't Dresden as much as Luccio. She's considerably more set in her ways, sure, but she also studies computer science recreationally despite not being able to function around computers. Those two probably aren't on speaking terms given how Battle Ground wrapped up, but it is getting a bit harder to imagine the White Council not at least toying with an R&D division at this point, especially given the cracks in the masquerade.
(Sure, it's the Doyleist reasonings that matter rather than the Watsonian at this point, but still..)
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Cap I didn't know you were a Dresden. They are such garbage books but I love them.
Wife is STILL (after like four years) not up to Changes yet, and I'm like "I've fucking reread these annually (I read a lot, and reread a lot), get your shit together!"
are YOU on the beer list?
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Peace Talks/Battle Ground left me pretty cold, but up until that Dresden has been a great ride. It also has some great RPG books too!
Peace Talks/Battle Ground left me pretty cold, but up until that Dresden has been a great ride. It also has some great RPG books too!
The short stories since have been much better. Peace Talks/Battle Ground definitely should have been a single book and was clearly something he struggled with writing to a tremendous degree. I'm hoping he's gotten over that particular hurdle.
What was the big reveal? Its been awhile since I've read it.
Wasn't the big reveal at the end of Battle Ground that
Justine is Nemesis and Marcone is host to Thorned Namshiel?
also, the book is called 12 months (the new one)
he's now in an arranged marriage to Laura Wraith, which some hardcore mary sue shit
I wouldn't call that Mary Sue-y, since neither of them want it to happen.
Term is overused but kind of see what they're intending.
Of course, I think the other speculation is off base.
Laura being a monster isn't really how she's been played for books now. She and Harry of this thing where there is some mutual respect going on and have for almost their entire run, until recently they both had strong reasons to avoid letting it become more. I feel like it's going to be an inverse of the "Horrible soul sucking partner" trope reflected from his real life.
I love the idea of the Dresden Files. The setting is second to none and the magic system is brilliant! Power is will and experience, but subjected to physics - that's a great hook.
Then the whole 'everything is real' and 'power is commensurate to mortal belief in said power ' leads to some real interesting setups.
Twenty years of power creep starts to fuck up a lot of the character dynamics.
And we still haven't gotten my personal prophecies
Marcone becomes a Knight of the Cross. Justin DuMorne is Cowl.
Part of me wants to think it's some kind of fake-out, but even in a world of wizards and faeries it's pretty clear that dead is dead in the Dresdenverse.
Harry'd never stoop to Necromancy and Time-Travel would probably introduce too many problems just to save one life.
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POV switching would be fun in general.
A running thing with Harry's POV is outwardly portraying himself as an inflappable hardass while his inner dialogue is basically "oh crap oh crap oh crap must not show weakness around this scary scary person" and it has me wondering what percentage of the rest of the supernatural community is also doing that all the time.
Just picturing half the Accords population being Ciaphas Cain in their own heads.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Yeah, I don't know how often Butcher does readings like that, but I got the impression he was reading in a very deliberate manner so as to not flub any lines. The result being a bit of over-enunciation and a slow-down of what I would consider a more natural speaking rhythm.
Unless something radically changed:
Edit: Oh yeah, and the unseelie hit squads watching the house 24/7 who are completely allowed to absolutely fuck up any mortals stupid enough to start something.
I forget if she was living at the castle prior to the battle or just visiting, which is probably a sign that I should re-read the last few books.
So at least for me, yay!
I liked Cinder Spires and honestly want that more than I want new Dresden.
I am looking forward to more of the best written cat in history.
Like, I'll read the rest but I wish we had wrapped things up a while ago.
But more Cinder Spires is almost as good!
I'm just not sure how old Dresden is supposed to be at this point.
He's been detectiving for... 15-16 years by now?
Assuming he started when he was 20, I guess that makes him 35-36.
Which in wizard years makes him like... 11?
According to the man himself he's currently about 40-41, but I think he reads closer to Butcher's actual age of 50-51. His cultural touchstones are Star Trek TOS, Highlander the movie, the Original Trilogy, and a bunch of 70's and 80's era TV.
IIRC when he started in book 1 he was over 30, I think he's over 40 now, but yeah he's a wizard Harry
Also a lot of stuff was drive ins because wizards make tech go boom.
The more I think about it and check the dates, the more I'm sure about it. He (Butcher) started writing what would eventually become book 1 in 1996, which would put him at 25 and that just so happens to be Harry's age in the book. It doesn't get actually published until 2000, and while he was super prolific for the start of his career the last 3 books slipped from his once a year release to 2 and 5 between them. So this makes Harry's age start out the same as Butcher's but stand relatively still as he got over his writer's block. So canonically Dresden is in his early 40's but is written as his early 50's.
Yeah, I'd say those reference points would actually be really normal for somebody who is now 40 and who hit magic in their teens and then tech things after that blew up. That means his pop culture experience ends in about the 90s and, at that point in time, all of those reference points would been the same as mine. I'm 40 and saw plenty of 70s/80s reruns as a kid, saw pretty much everything Star Trek ToS, and obviously the original Star Wars trilogy was a big deal because it would be years before there was even a rumor of new Star Wars films.
Though at this point, I feel like somebody should've figured out some way for Dresden to use modern tech, particularly given that he's done a bunch of work with rings that deaden magic power. Run a signal to a good wireless router thoroughly ringed-in, do the same for a monitor with a nice big TV screen and have a protected little control spot for a keyboard and mouse. Boom. As long as he stays outside the ring, it all stays protected from him and even the control stuff is at reduced risk because he's mostly outside the ring.
I think that's the running joke, because
He isn't really of that mindset, though. He's repeatedly been the standout as the wizard with unconventional, sometimes even technological, solutions to magic problems. He's got people in his in-crowd with the technical knowledge to work this stuff out, too. I'm not even an electronics guy and it would be dead easy to figure out, say, the effective range of Dresden's passive "bad luck" that breaks electronics. All you need is a long array of horizontal LED light strips perpendicular to wherever Dresden is standing, point a camera at them from a distance, and record when and where they fail. Boom. Easy-peasy quantitative method to figure out a safe distance for electronics, and it would be pretty cheap to do.
Regardless, it's long past the point where at least Dresden's companions started modernizing things around Dresden.
The Rivers of London series has similar "magic and tech don't mix" rules for its magic system, though in the form of turning integrated circuits to sand rather than just "it randomly explodes". The protagonist there takes exactly that tack on it: quantify the effect, build simple technical workarounds. Working cellphones die when near magic? Put a physical switch on your phone to disconnect the battery and press the button when you might be around magic soon. Though in that case it's active spellcraft, not just "being a wizard" that does it.
I suspect Butters has a to-do list about that sort of thing, both because Harry seems to be interested in the magitech solutions he comes up with and also because Butters going to Butters implacably when he gets an idea in his head. It might have fallen down the priority pole since Chicago got trashed and Dresden started distancing himself from people, though.
The part of the modernizing thing that surprises me isn't Dresden as much as Luccio. She's considerably more set in her ways, sure, but she also studies computer science recreationally despite not being able to function around computers. Those two probably aren't on speaking terms given how Battle Ground wrapped up, but it is getting a bit harder to imagine the White Council not at least toying with an R&D division at this point, especially given the cracks in the masquerade.
(Sure, it's the Doyleist reasonings that matter rather than the Watsonian at this point, but still..)
Wasn't the big reveal at the end of Battle Ground that
also, the book is called 12 months (the new one)
It could not be more on the nose
Jim remarried to a younger woman, that isn't going away!
Wife is STILL (after like four years) not up to Changes yet, and I'm like "I've fucking reread these annually (I read a lot, and reread a lot), get your shit together!"
Yeah, I know.
I can hold onto a tiny glimmer of hope though, right?
The short stories since have been much better. Peace Talks/Battle Ground definitely should have been a single book and was clearly something he struggled with writing to a tremendous degree. I'm hoping he's gotten over that particular hurdle.
I wouldn't call that Mary Sue-y, since neither of them want it to happen.
Term is overused but kind of see what they're intending.
Of course, I think the other speculation is off base.
Then the whole 'everything is real' and 'power is commensurate to mortal belief in said power ' leads to some real interesting setups.
Twenty years of power creep starts to fuck up a lot of the character dynamics.
And we still haven't gotten my personal prophecies
Battle Grounds
Part of me wants to think it's some kind of fake-out, but even in a world of wizards and faeries it's pretty clear that dead is dead in the Dresdenverse.
Harry'd never stoop to Necromancy and Time-Travel would probably introduce too many problems just to save one life.
After 16 novels it just feels so... arbitrary.