In this, the fourth book of The Dresden Files, Harry encounters faerie intrigue, an old flame, and the hostile internal politics of the White Council. And counters it with Looney Tunes references and literary quips as much as magic.
- Harry investigates the death of one Ronald Reuel for the Winter Queen of the Fae. Ronald Reuel is what the 'R. R.' in J. R. R. Tolkien stands for. Reuel is also described as a "creator of worlds"/fantasy illustrator.
- Ebenezar calls Harry 'Hoss'. It's a reference to Hoss Cartwright of Bonanza, an ugly, gentle giant, overly strong and not too bright.
- Meeting Mab makes Harry feel "sort of like Tokyo when Godzilla comes up on the beach." He also compares his own situation alternately to Tweetie Bird confronting Sylvester, or Wile E. Coyote realizing he'd just run off a cliff.
- Mab recounts the classic fable of "The Scorpion and the Fox".
- The Western movie cliche about Native Americans saying "How" is parodied and lampshaded. Knowing Harry, it could be a reference to when The Brady Bunch parodied the same thing, rather than to actual vintage cowboy flicks.
- Bob calls Harry Captain Ahab because of his self-destructive obsession with curing Susan.
- Harry denies having read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
- Harry's famous battle cry, "I don't believe in faeries!", is a shoutout to Peter Pan. Really funny because the source material says that every time someone says that, a fairy drops dead somewhere. Perfect war-cry!
- Later in that same scene, when Harry first steals the Unraveling from Aurora and runs like hell, he makes sure to give her a hearty "Meep, meep!"
- He called Elidee "Tinkerbell" earlier, also a Peter Pan reference.
- Elaine calls Harry "Peter Pan" when he suggests she project happy thoughts to distract the unicorn.
- Averted for much of the book, lampshaded on the last page and finally invoked in the last line of the book. Billy the werewolf comments that "All of those faeries and duels and mad queens and so on, and no one quoted old Billy Shakespeare. Not even once." Harry laughs and his inner monologue thinks, "Lord, what fools these mortals be." (A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 115)
- Double points for the battle taking place at Midsummer. At Night. On Clouds.
- Harry muses that Spenser's The Faerie Queene never mentioned that said Queen had a great ass.
- Billy chides Harry for taking on too much responsibility alone, saying he's not Superman.
- Harry thinks "Holy vigilantes, Batman" while discussing the Alphas, and mentally compares their do-gooding to that of The Lone Ranger.
- This is also a (possibly unintentional) Call-Back to Fool Moon when he thinks "Holy I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Batman" when he first saw the Alphas.
- He makes a Lassie crack when one of them arrives in wolf form and indicates Harry should follow.
- Harry thinks "Holy vigilantes, Batman" while discussing the Alphas, and mentally compares their do-gooding to that of The Lone Ranger.
- Harry calls Maeve "Coldilocks". When she and Jenny Greenteeth come on to him, he starts composing a letter to Penthouse aloud.
- The door of the Mothers' cottage opens with a Hammer Horror creak.
- Mother Winter herself references Albert Einstein.
- Before learning his name, Harry nicknames Grum "Kong" in his own thoughts.
- He also reasons that Grum is smarter than the average bear for a hired ogre, and thinks he dresses like an extra from The Untouchables.
- The "Jabberwocky" reference "snicker-snack" is used when Murphy cuts loose with a chainsaw.
- At Reuel's funeral, Harry opts not to bring his staff because it would be arriving armed for bear, John Wayne war-movie style.
- Spotting nobody lurking with a knife or twirling a mustache, he gives up on the Dudley Do-Right means of villain identification.
- Slate snidely calls Harry "the great Kreskin", after the Real Life mentalist.
- A botched reference to Sherlock Holmes crops up when Harry describes Reuel's apartment as imported from 429-B Baker Street.
- A straight one also, when Harry calls the landscape around the Mothers' cottage "very Baskerville".
- The Stone Table is probably a reference to the object/place of the same name in The Chronicles of Narnia.
- Although Harry, being Harry, calls it a table.
- "Hell, for all I knew, the Mole Men used the changing rooms as a place to discuss plans for world domination with the Psychic Jellyfish from Planet X and the Disembodied Brains-In-A-Jar from the Klaatu Nebula."
- Elaine tries — vainly — to head off Harry's inevitable Poe quip, when a raven flies past them.
- Or... ra-vainly?
- Another beer-advertising reference, when Harry compares the unicorn to a Budweiser Clydesdale.
- "Phenomenal cosmic powers be damned. I had a lease."
- The Blue Beetle's name has been a superhero reference throughout The Dresden Files, but in this book, Elaine pinpoints where Harry actually got the idea: not the Long Runner comic book/radio franchise, but the bumbling wannabe whose misadventures aired on The Electric Company (1971).
- Billy makes an Olympic Games reference, saying Harry gave Maeve's magic a rating from the Russian judge.
- The sight of Chicago-over-Chicago as a battlefield is so spectacular that it gets Harry thinking about Wagner.
- Harry sums up Elaine's explanation for her helping Justin as "the devil made me do it". This could be a reference to Geraldine Jones's Catchphrase in comedy routines from The Flip Wilson Show, but given Harry's age and love of cartoons, is more likely a Shout-Out to Yosemite Sam's own Shout-Out to that line.
- Murphy calls Harry's marbles-on-the-floor plan a Looney Tune.
- Shaking hands, Ebenezar's grip could crush a can of spinach. All in all, this is the book that proves Harry watched too many cartoons as a kid.
- Graymalkin's manifestation as a feline with only one facial feature visible is reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat's.
- Maeve's "Off with his head" T-shirt is a complementary reference.
- The obligatory Star Wars reference: Harry pegs Morgan's 3-D map at the Council meeting as having been ripped off from Return of the Jedi.
