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Jake Bishop

https://www.goodreads.com/truthless_of_shinovar

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Jake is Currently Reading

Jake Bishop is currently reading

Twelve Months (The Dresden Files, #18)

by Jim Butcher (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2026

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Jake Bishop said: " Bravo Jim Butcher.

Twelve Months is the least Dresden like Dresden novel. Passing Ghost Story as the most different. I love Ghost Story, but I think Ghost Story has distinct flaws in execution. It is hard for me to come up with any criticism in the ex Bravo Jim Butcher.

Twelve Months is the least Dresden like Dresden novel. Passing Ghost Story as the most different. I love Ghost Story, but I think Ghost Story has distinct flaws in execution. It is hard for me to come up with any criticism in the execution of this novel. This feels like a book that lifts me up, but without being overly sentimental. It was a book that feels like it made me not just understand Harry better, but understand people better, and understand myself better. It follows a Harry Dresden who is in the worst state he has ever been in, and he needs time, he just needs time. He gets twelve months.

Jim is just better than he has ever been. And he was already one of my favorite authors. As a result-and this feels crazy because in some ways but I will say it.

I think Twelve Months is a better novel than Changes. I think it's better Skin Game, I think it's better than Battle Ground. Whatever you think the best Dresden novel is, I personally think this one is better.

I think somehow Jim has continued to get better at his craft. This has been a thing his entire career, and I kinda thought at some point it would level out, but I think he is just better than he has ever been.

This is one of those books that has so many scenes, or lines that made me pause due to emotional resonance, that I couldn't write them all down. So many that I cannot possibly remember them all, so a lot will be able to surprise me on multiple rereads.

It also manages to do other just like really fucking cool things. Crazy lore drops, yup. Jim taking long term plotlines in incredibly interesting directions. Yup. Amazing worldbuilding, yup! It gave me everything I want from a Dresden novel, just in a completely different form. And it just does so many little things well, and they add up.

I'm going to reread this book so many times. Will probably start it on audio on Tuesday and read it again. The last time a new release came out and I instantly reread it after finishing was like......never?

I compare this series to Vorkosigan a lot. And Jim is a huge Bujold fan. If Changes was his Mirror Dance, This is his Memory.

If you don't think this book is good, we fundamentally disagree on what makes books good.

9.8/10 ...more "

progress:

(page 181 of 480)
"I don't know if this will be the fan favorite Dresden book, because it is so different. But so far I feel very very strongly that the writer who wrote this is a better writer than the guy who wrote all previous Dresden novels." — Jan 17, 2026 07:15PM

Jan 18, 2026 12:30AM · see review

Jake Bishop is currently reading

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

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Dec 17, 2025 03:37PM

Jake’s Quotes

“You speak of destiny, yet what is destiny but accumulated chance made into a story in retrospect?”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

4 likes

“Some people charged toward the goal, running for all they had. Others stumbled. But it wasn't the speed that mattered. It was the direction they were going.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

126 likes

“They were like a bright golden coin, those two, two sides, different images on each, one value.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan

tags: differences, differences-between-people

2 likes

“I Hate Death. I Hate … Death. I Hate Death. I Hate when thinking beings end and are no more. I think it is sane to hate Death. I Love you and I Hate it when you die. I try to understand when you say there are causes worth killing and dying for, but I do not understand. I Hate Death.” [...]
“War is the thesis that there is a special time when causing death is normal, legal, heroic, accepted, right; I Hate this thesis and I cannot call it justice.” [...]
“Billions have just acted on this thesis, killing as if killing were normal now because we named this five hundred and four days ‘war’ and this naming alone suspended ethics and made a blood-carnival time when death was not an evil. No. I do not accept war’s thesis. We do not need to accept war’s thesis. War’s thesis is not of this era [...]
“This is terra ignota. We get to make new laws of war for this new age. We do not have to make our laws of war exempt the soldier from the truth that we should not kill when we do not have to. I say killing is a crime. If it is war and there is such a thing as war crime, then I say killing should be a war crime, every killing, exempting only those we would exempt in peacetime, too. [...]
“This is terra ignota. We get to make new laws of war for this new age. We do not have to make our laws of war exempt the soldier from the truth that we should not kill when we do not have to. I say killing is a crime. If it is war and there is such a thing as war crime, then I say killing should be a war crime, every killing, exempting only those we would exempt in peacetime, too. [...]”
― Ada Palmer, Perhaps the Stars

2 likes

“Who do you think is stronger?” Adolin asked. “The man who has walked easily his entire life, or the man with no legs? The man who must pull himself by his arms?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

91 likes

More of Jake’s quotes…