So Jonathan finally released the Chapter 1 excerpt for the Empty Grave here:

http://www.jonathanstroud.com/the_empty ... pter_1.pdf

I was so hyped while reading this!! Except that bit at the beginning scares me in terms of who might end up dead and how the whole thing is going to play out. Any thoughts??

HYPE. Man. I'm so excited, but I also kinda don't want it to end.

I can't decide what I think the casualty rate is likely to be. There's definitely a lot of foreshadowing of Lockwood kicking the bucket, and clearly Lucy doesn't, but I kinda feel like he's not going to repeat the ending of Barti...

I know, right? As much as there seems to be a lot of foreshadowing and hinting that Lockwood is going to die, as well as the fears of the fanbase that he'll die, I really feel like Jonathan's not going to do the whole "main character death thing" again after the way Bartimaeus ended.

On the other hand, 'Anthony Lockwood Gallery' sounds very ominous.

"What of the milk jug that poured blood; or the empty bath from which choking gurgles sounded after dark?"

This always happens in the first chapters of the books. Lucy or the other characters bring up past cases, but with no further insight. It's a little frustrating there are so many interesting ones, like that milk jug, or Mrs.Barret's tomb. Hey what about that time Lockwood wore that "blond wig and wimple" while on the Cobb Street Nunnery bathhouse case. Oh and this might be my favorite- that time he enraged three Cockney footmen and it resulted with a chase into a boat lake. They're all so funny and interesting.

"My name is Lucy Joan Carlyle. I talk with the living and the dead, and it sometimes gets so's I can't tell the difference any more."

I don't know why but that line makes me worried about Lucy. . .how she can't tell the "difference any more."

Yeah, Stroud always alludes to so many other little side stories which draw my curiosity. I'd guess that there are like a hundred in the Bartimaeus books, like the death of Genghis Kahn and stuff.
Speaking of death, I'd say the odds of Lockwood making it through are 2 to 1 against, and there's at least a 30% percent chance everyone but Lucy dies.

[+] Spoiler

Also the whole 'Fitts house in a pile of steaming, ghost ridden rubble' is pretty dang ominous.
I think that Ms. Fitts probably either possesses the body of her granddaughter or she channels the energy of the sources to keep her alive and young. perhaps there's a ghost with special powers who she forces to give her life. Maybe it's got something to do with how ghosts are in and out of time...

To be honest, the whole tone overall sounds ominous. I don't think Lucy or any of the other characters will die, although I keep having a feeling Kipps will be 'cut off ' heroically. . .but instead something like Lockwood or Lucy loosing their talents or the skull being freed. I just don't see how a writer like Stroud would repeat something like that. It's just so predictable.

Funny enough, that's what I've been thinking too. I feel like Kipps might be the one who ends up dying somehow, and that death for the team might not happen, but rather, some other consequence or problem they have to deal with as a result of taking down the Fittes Agency. (Kinda like what you said, coffee cup, like if someone loses their Talent or the Skull gets freed, or something like that) It's certainly going to be interesting when we all find out what happens... ^o)

"They represent a
typical month's work for Lockwood & Co. during that
long and desperate summer."

Do you think, maybe Penelope Fittes was trying to squeeze Lockwood & Co , after that whole thing in Aldbury Castle? Maybe that's why it was such a "desperate summer", scrambling for cases? I guess it's possible.

I assumed she was referring to the Problem getting worse, so caseload getting higher for that reason.

theory dump time!

[+] Spoiler

Lockwood's SO gonna die :'( I mean I get that he's been hinting at it the whole time...
Also I kinda like how Lucy's really become this calm, collected agent? Like in TCS, we saw that her Talent had really improved but people-wise she still lost her temper now and then. But now it's like, skull annoys her? Tune it out. No more long descriptions of Holly or Lockwood (I can't have been the only one who was expecting a long description of Holly when she appears, right?) I know this is technically her narrating after she's gone through a lot so of course it'll be serious, but I couldn't help but notice that.
Also, why did it take 5 months for them to decide to verify the skull's claim? After finishing TCS it looked like they were going to get down to business right then and there. But why wait 5 months? Did the skull stop talking for all that time or something?
I can't help but notice a looooot of Ptolemy's Gate similarities too: Lucy's hair turning white, cutting her bob shorter, and this part "The city was already full of it on that last cruel morning, with the rubble of Fittes House still steaming around the bodies of the lost. " also sounds a lot like how I imagined London at the end of PG.

I'm afraid you might be right. . .but then again his death would be too predictable. :unsure: