2010 novel by Jim Butcher
Changes is the 12th book in The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher's continuing series about wizard detective Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Changes was released on April 6, 2010,[1] and debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardcover Fiction,[2] dropping to #3 in its second week on the list.[3]
Plot summary
Susan Rodriguez contacts Dresden to tell him they have a daughter, Margaret Angelica ("Maggie" for short), who has been kidnapped by the Duchess Arianna, the widow of a Red Court duke that Ebenezar McCoy thought he had killed several years earlier. Dresden goes to Edinburgh to seek help from the council. However, upon his arrival, he discovers Arianna is there, hosting a peace conference with the rest of the council. Dresden openly challenges Arianna to a duel to the death over his daughter's kidnapping, but is prevented from carrying it through by the other members of the council. Infuriated, Dresden returns home.
After an explosion destroys his office building, Dresden learns from Karrin Murphy he is under investigation by the FBI. After being released and having a talk with his fairy godmother, Dresden is eventually directed to the Norse God Odin, who tells him that the Red Court is going to use Maggie for a powerful blood curse that will kill everyone related to her, including Dresden. Dresden decides to investigate Rudolph, the Chicago police detective who implicated him in the office explosion, reasoning that he must have implicated Dresden because of pressure coming from the Red Court. During this investigation, he encounters the 'Eebs', a husband and wife team of Red Court vampires who have been sent to both assassinate Rudolph and to dissuade Dresden from going after Arianna. After a close call with them, Dresden returns home, only to have his apartment firebombed. During his subsequent attempts to rescue the other residents in his building, Dresden's back is broken, and Sanya shows up just in the nick of time. With no other options open to him, Harry turns to Queen Mab; accepting her offer of the Winter Knighthood in exchange for her healing his broken spine and granting him the power he needs to save his daughter.
The Leanansidhe, who has been assigned to aid in this quest by Mab, joins in the planning. With help from his godmother, Sanya, Karrin, Thomas, Molly, Susan and Martin, they set out on the first leg of the journey to where his daughter is being held. Along the way, Harry uses a sending stone to communicate with Ebenezar, informing him that Maggie is his daughter. Upon learning this, Ebenezar changes his mind, encourages Dresden to do what he needs to do.
Confronting the Red Court, the Red King grants Harry an audience. The Red King agrees to allow Dresden to duel Arianna in exchange for Maggie's life. After Dresden finally kills her, the Red King refuses to honor their agreement. The group then engages in a seemingly hopeless battle against the Vampires, only to be joined at the height by the Grey Council -including Odin and Ebenezar – and an army of kenku, birdlike creatures from the Nevernever. After a seeming betrayal by Martin that causes Susan to lose control and drink his blood, Dresden learns that all of Martin's actions have been to put someone in a position to destroy the entire Red Court in one blow, namely Susan. The curse had originally been aimed at Ebenezar McCoy, revealed to be Harry's maternal grandfather, through Harry and his daughter. Dresden instead carries Susan to the altar and cuts her throat with her permission, unleashing the Bloodline Curse upon the Red Court and killing every last one, now that Susan had become the youngest vampire of the Red Court. The few half vampires who are not killed by the removal of their vampire halves, as well as the Red King's Mortal followers, are almost all destroyed by the angered captives of the Red Court.
In the aftermath, Dresden realizes he can never provide the sort of home for Maggie he wants her to have. He entrusts her to the care of Father Forthill with a request that she be put in the safest possible place. Later, while recuperating on Thomas' boat, Dresden is shot and falls over the deck rail into Lake Michigan.
Aftermath, Ghost Story and beyond
The story continues in Aftermath, told from Karrin Murphy's point of view and running from roughly forty five minutes after the end of Changes. The story was released as part of Side Jobs, an October 2010 anthology of Dresden short stories and focuses on Murphy's efforts following Dresden's apparent death.
The next novel in the series, the thirteenth Dresden novel, is titled Ghost Story. Author Jim Butcher's publishers wouldn't let him call it the more prosaic Dead.[citation needed] He has also confirmed that Changes marks the midpoint of Harry's story and there will be at least 7 more books, possibly 10, to finish Harry's story. In addition, despite the previous books playing out in more or less real time, with the elapsed time between books approximately equaling the time between their release dates, Ghost Story has been confirmed as taking place immediately after the conclusion of Changes, though Butcher has also equated the immediate jump to Ghost Story as being akin to the Back to the Future series: time jumps, implying that what seems to be happening within moments of the end of Changes may actually be happening over a much longer timespan.
