Closing Thoughts and Podcast Support

Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness, long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Thrapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more, more support support, more clarity, more tools. Gro connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Gro. Gro accepts over one hundred twenty five insurance plans. Sessions average twenty one dollarars with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan Visit growthapy dot com slash ACast today to get started. That's growtherraapy dot com slash Acast growrtherraapy. com slash ACast Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance pl Have you ever considered surrounding your house with a moat to keep it safe Would you hire a professional wrestler as a bodyguard for your car Okay, maybe you wouldn't go that far But if you'd go to great lengths to avoid dealing with your insurance company You might have insoranoia And if you have insuranoia, you should have NJM insurance They go to great lengths to do what's best for their policyholders Start relieving your insure anoia today injM. com It was the dawn of the podcast age twelve years before the Earth pandemic A dream was given form, a place where science fiction and fantasy readers could work out their differences peacefully our last best hope for a good read The name of the podcast is Sord and Laser Go to patreon. com slash sword and laser to pledge support Hey everyone, weelcome to The Sord and Lazer. I'm Vonica Belmont. and I'm Tom Mr. Sword and Lazer is a book club but it's so much more. We bring you author interviews, news from the world of science fiction and fantasy, and awesome discussions from fans just like you We do. We do that. sometimes I say just like you. I get hung up on just like you sometimes where I'm just like Well, does that imply they're all the same? We can change the copy. we have that power We've had the same coffee for seventeen thousand years. There is no way we could change it. It's against the law We're trying to be inclusive. We're trying to say you out there, you have friends here. You have people who know share your interests in your's what I h up on is like but if all of the fans are just like each other, then What are we saying? they're not And that's why I like exactly.actly. you're liable to find someone who you can relate to in our audience on our show. You're libeling the audience. Is that the wrong word? No, liable is right. liel Lable, liable, libel wrong I just pretended to hear it. Now I'm never going to be able to say it right ever again. It's gonna to be li forever liel All right, Tom, what do you nominon We add a little tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner. It's all ry, you know? Yeah, you're hing another atmospheric river, huh Yeah Yeah. Don't love the mudslide potential. Not gonna lie, but do love the rain So yeah, you know, it's a bit a little bit of a mixed bag. We need the rain. Dperately need the rain. Maybe they could have spread it out over a few more days instead of having it all come on Thursday. But you know, that's the way it's happening. So Well stay safe out there. I know when when The ground becomes hydrophobic and there's lots of recent fires and stuff it can get pretty yucky with It won't bother It won't bother me in my neighborhood or anywhere I'm going to be going really. But yeah, up in the up in the hills it can be can be dicey For sure I am Like a child pretending to be a grown up with disposable income drinking baileys just on the rocks. Nothing wrong with that Adults drink Baileies, right Well, it feels neither seasonally appropriate or like Oh because it's not it's Christmas time, you think Yeah. I guess, it's still winter. It's still winter. Yeah, you can you can have a nice nice delicious baileies in the winter. Do you heat your bailies ever I got cocoa I don't know if that's a thing anyone does. I just thought of it just now Oh, I forgot to tell you, it is hot chock. We haven't had a podcast since Hot chocolate Festival. I saw your Instagram post about it th So for those of you who don't know last year, whilst unemployed. I participated in the Squama Hot chocolate Festival. Inso far that I drag all of them All of the hot chocolate, all of the hot chocolate and all of the g Basically. Yeahah. was it was delicious too much I did a little like Look into the data later that I post on Instagram as well. Well, it is that time of year again I'm definitely not going to do most of them or even a lot of them. I think I've only had two so far in the past week Um And yeah, it's tough. it's tricky because I want to pick the best ones I want to be thoughtoughtful about it, you know How do you do that without tasting them? Well, I know who probably my favorites will be based on last year Yeah, well, already one of them did fall from favor. Yeah. The first one I safe and responsible thing is to try them That's true Well, when you put it that way, it's too late. There's five more than last year. Oh my gosh. I'm already a week behind, so there's no way. Yikes. But it is fun. It's good and bring a small budtle of baile' with Yeah, just. Well, what I usually do is I make it my morning coffee and I go out and I add espresso to it Yeah. Like I ask them for an espresso or a double in the hot chocolate. Yeah Which changes the taste a little bit, but I still get like sounds delicious experience. Yeah Uh Anyho, let's jump into the quQick Burns Ladies and gentlemen, it is March. you know what that means It is time Go mad That's right. the Sord and Lazer March tournament, which is Mad is on. Rob has posted the link in good reads. E year, if you're new to this, we take nominations from our members for sci fi and fantasy books that they think be it pitted against each other in a battle. We narrow down those nominations to six. It's the Nomachia of books. It is the Nomachia of books, exactly. We create two brackets years ago, we decided to start doing a sword bracket and a laser bracket. So we'll do eight in one bracket, eight in the other. then Starting in week one will pitch two of those books against each other in a vote on goodreads The winner of the vote goes on to the next round to face another winner and we do that for three rounds until we've got two final books. O that's a sword, one that's a laser, and then they go head to head for the final vote and the winner of that becomes our April pick Often the loser becomes our may pick. That's not guarantee And then some people in brackets become later picks. It's a feeder. It's a feeder system basically. Yeah, but the only guarantee is that the winner of the March tournament becomes the April pick So the nominations are open until february twentieth. You can make one Nomination Only one We will get acc countount of how many books got, how many nominations from Rob. And then We will decide what goes into the brackets based on that. It is not as simple as with most picks gets into the bracket because we're trying to balance things out and make good fun tournament. But honestly, the more nominations a book gets, the more likely it is to end up in the tournament and the round of sixteen The first round voting will begin on february twenty third. And then from that point on, it's just around per week. So there'll be sixteen books. So you'll have eight votes to make, eight different matchups to vote on the first week. The next week they'll only be eight books. So they'll be four Round, you know, four votes that you'll have to vote on round of fours the next week and then the finale, like I said will be the week of march sixteenth through the twenty second. So That is when you will know who is winning the the tournament is at the very end of March. march twenty second is when that vote finale will come. You do not see who is going to who is ahead during the voting? We We hide the votes until the end. So You won't know what the April pick is until march twenty second. but get those nominations in because Every year, I'll be honest, there's a wide number of single vote nominations and Having two nominations even really makes a book stand out to us because of that because we'll get, you know, we'll get list of like literally forty or fifty books that got a single nomination. and we'll look through it. We'll do our best. It'll take a while for us to actually, you know wade through all that. Whereas those books that get like eight nominations, well, that's almost a lock, right? If it gets eight or nine. The books that get between two and seven nominations. We're going to look at those more closely because they're at the top of the list. So all I'm saying is u makeake your nomination because even if it just becomes the second nomination for a book that lifts it up and gives it a little more visibility. Yeah. than you for that excellent rundown. Thank you. Yeah No one knows that you had to run out of the room,? How did you talk for that? What's what I do for a living, Va thought you were just gonna talk and then be like, oh, I got to stop now because Veronica left the room But no, he just kept going. That's amazing. You are a consummate professional. You should have just waited outside the door to see how long I would go. How long you could have gone? I was like listening to you in my airPods my son woke up and was crying, so I had to go upstairs and grab him again at some point in this episode. No wores, find out. You start to hear me tell a long story Very long winded tale, taking questions from the audience. You know, that's how you know. But anyway, I gu what he does. Make it all that up. All of that is true about the nominations and the number of books and everything. So get those nominations in. The link to all the information and the nomination thread and everything will be in our show notes. or just go to our Goodreads group. you'll find it there too Crochet Chrissie is calling you filibuster Tom now, which I think is perfect. I'm available when needed. When needed. I'm very excited about this and the fact that it's the tenth annual March Bad is like a big deal That is Insane. I love it. I love it. I of it as that idea we came up with of like, you know, it would be fun. Let's do that this year. You know And Rob, huge kudos to Rob as always. He has been running this thing for ages. W a Pro. He's got his system down Perfect. He makes it easier every year, I'll be honest. Oh yeah For sure. And the best part is too, like, oh, well, not the best part for you guys 'cause you're on discord, like you gotta go to Good read, sorry it's all It's going to be on good roots. G to dust off that old goodoodreads slog in and yeah. we will over there make it happen. I haven't, you know, I only visit this site once a year, but I can't even remember what it's called. The thing that that we do for the Not's a dp hole brackets. we use an external site for the for the brackets. Um Wow is it not even Challenge Challenge. Challenge. Thankk you so much. Thank youob. Oh, Rob's in the chat. Rob We're in the chat. Hey, Rob Nice, there he is supporting us again, knowing all the answers just in real time now. Yes. Oh my gosh, I have to log in to Challenge. It's been a year literallyans. So yeah, you'll be able to make predictions about the brackets once they're picked and everything on challenge All right. I had to cheat was still around before I promised that Good plan, good thinking All right, well let's moving on from the madness at his March, Seth says. In a move that I assume most authors will applaud, Simon and Schuster will no longer require, or it looks like even encourage, authors to find blurbs for their books The new editor, writing a piece for Publishers Weekly says, among other things, I don't want my favorite writers writing blurbs. I want them writing more books so I can read them And more pointedly, this kind of favor trading creates an incestuous and unmmerit Unmmeritocratic, unmmeritocratic, unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent on so merit That's name. M Meritratic. M Mer on Marat. Merritratic Unmeritocratic Meritocratic Thank you. That's me. It's the Bileys I've certainly given a book a second look because of who blurbed it, Seth says, but probably this is a positive change C Does this mean blurs don't work anymore maybe. I mean, I that guy that's like, I'm sure what you're saying is true, but I bet there's also another reason You know what I mean? Like like a money reason, like a pocket hitting reason. Like like hey, these social media is a way better promotional tool for our books than blurbs. Let's do that from now on. So they're like, you don't need to write a blurb, but we do need you to make five hundred Instagram posts Exactly, Eactly. Yeah. I think just the model is changing And that's okay. And I'm sure authors, as much as they love supporting their friends, probably better things to do than have to read a bunch of books that or not read a bunch of books. Yeah. because when I ever ask not every a book. I always want to do it for the person who is asking And I always dread having to come up with the words 'cause it's not even just the time You know, you want to read the book, right? But you also have the pressure of like, you know, I want to be honest. So I hope I like it, which I usually do. That's usually not a problem. But then how do you say that you like it in a way that sounds genuine, but also is good book jacket copy because that's what the blurb's about All that kind of thing Totally. Yeah. I know I've blurbed some in the past. I didn't blur any of yours. But I did blurb, I blurbed for the oatmeal And I blurbed for A few others I can't remember now, Jeez, it's a long time ago. Anyway, so I think it's a good it's probably a good change. Yeah. Tryke notes that Travis Baldry's new book, Briggands and Bread Nimives available for preordder releases november eleventh. so preordder. And don't forget you ordered it November eleventh No, but it's fun because sometimes it just gets sent to you. Yeah. No, it is fun. And suddenly there's a book in your mailbox or on your journal or whatever. I bought Bria Grant and Malori Oara's journal book, the book journal that they just came out with. in like November, I think preorddered it and it I'd Not forgotten, but I'd forgotten what day it came out because they moved the day. They changed the release date. and then suddenly I get a note from my sister like, This just arrived like happy president D, I guess. I nailed it last Christmas because I got Was it this past Christmas or the one before? I think it was not this one, but the one before reordered the IanM Banks culture like art book. 'cause we talked about it on the show. Right. And was like And I was like, that's that would like Ryan, my husband loves the culture series. talking about it on the show. Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah. And I was like, and I remember like the delivery date was like november like twenty twenty three or something. And I was like, ooh And so I ordered it Lately forgot Suddenly this book shows up and I was like Christmas Shopping Ba! I didn't even have to think about it. It was amazing. Sound like than. you passed Veronica? Oh, totally, totally. You nailed it. You nailed it Mark says a Silver and Lead, the nineteenth October Day novel by Sword and Laser Mieval effffect author Shenna MagGuire is coming the thirtieth of september twenty twenty five If the Kindle dition is a bargget at only fourteenars ninety nineents, forty eight percent off the price of the hardcover edition. Nice I love that Bvill effect has like within two weeks Right up there with Lemming a book now in the Sword laser Lexicon hundred percent, we'll talk more about that a little bit later in the show Paul wrote that Locust magazine has released its recommended reading list, where they recommend their favorite genre books from twenty twenty four. Paul says I listened to a podcast where they talked about how they whittittle down the list, and I find it fascinating since the list contains over two hundred books. It makes me wonder how long the original list was before the whittling down.. He says it might seem a bit daunting, but personally I like to keep this tab open and work through the list a little bit at a time I save it for when I'm stuck in front of a computer and don't feel like facing real life and would rather just add things to my TBR. That might be an odd form of self care, but I'm sure I have kindred spirits here. You absolutely do Oh yeah Yeah I'm so grateful for this group for giving me so many wonderful lists that I can go back to in these times of need. In fact, it hit me recently and where I finished a book called Quicksilver, which was good. And then I was like, I need something new to read. And then I was like, oh I have some Martha Wells that I need to catch up on. Yeah. I rememember that from the podcast. so jumped in there enjoying that already, of course. But yeah, it's always It's great to have have a lot of ideas and It's just fun and comforting, I think, to look at a list and think of all the things you might want to read in the future I mean Because of the show, I am never ever at a loss for what to read. I mean, there's the built in book every month. But even when I get done with that, I'm always like, I've always got something. So yes, you are a good company All right, and speacious Reasons says the Seattle area Sword and Lazer wants to meet you. We're in the early stage of planning a Seattle Tacoma meetup in or around WorldCon. and I'm extending this offer to any fans or hosts, Nudge nudge. Please contact me either in the Seattle channel or by direct message so I can search for venues of the right size. I'm cross posting this in QickBurn so it gets on the podcast M it thirteenth through the seventeenth is when World Con Seattle is Um No idea what my schedule's going to be then So neither. I need to figure that out, but you're you have no excuse not to go. You're like right there You can mean, it's stillour drive. But yeah, I can't really I can't really argue with three hours. Oh wait, there's like a twenty five percent tariff on Veronica, never mind. Yeah. You know, they might T send me back at the border you never know. You never know. Yeah. It like Anyway, Woron. Yes. I would like to go to World Con. yeah. I would like to go, for sure. And you should definitely contact specious Reasons in the Discord if you are able to go as well Um, Lickorish wrote that Vadra Chandra Saka, author of the Saint of Bright Doors, which won a Nebula Aard, talks about his POV on genre and literary categories in Locust magazine. He is clearly of the it just depends on how they think they can sell you camp and doesn't attribute a lot of importance to it. He grew up in Colombo Sri Lanka, and it is interesting to hear his POV on how non Western readers React to Most modern sci fi. Here's a quote. We grew up watching disaster movies or alien invasion movies or whatever, and the alien ship was always above London or New York. They were never above Colombo and then he nudges us to interview him Not what interview, Rogra I think actually that is a really great point. And I think we've seen really good examples of when His example of New York or London doesn't happen with like district nine or things like that. you know, like like it always is more interesting when you get different perspectives, I think Or does it just make you feel safer when you live in Colomo and you're like, Well, the aliens are't coming. N never gonna mess with me. Larly He'll be attracted to New York and London Well, there is there is a I guess, a real world or real galaxy prerogative to focus on M Well, you know, I guess I was going to say the high density population zones. Yeah. L I don't know what the density of Cb Colombo is, you know, likeike there I don't actually know how many people live there Um, but there I'm sure there's places, you know, like Bombay or any major city in China. Like there's tons of other places that have huge Mexico cities of China, which are basically other cities million cities ye people in a single city. Colombo is seven hundred fifty two thousand nine hundred and ninety three people So just under the size of San Francisco, still pretty big. Yeah, but the metro area. Okaykay that's the actual city. The metro area is five point six million Oh, liquor says two point three million people in the Greater Columbo area. Urban the urban area is two point three million and the metro area is five point six million Ns, That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. They deserve an alien invasion is what I'm saying. No one deserves it, okay? They're allowed to be as dense or not dense as they want. All right, thank you everybody for submitting stories to Quick Burns. You can do that over on Goodreads or in our channel on Discord And now it's time for Barrier Sword, which is our feedback from the audience. Clyde wrote I do not consider fifteen dollars to be a reasonable price for an ebook And Stephen replied Personally, I have a five dollar ninety nine cents max limit on Novellus. and if the ebook is eight dollars ninety nine cents to eleven do ninety nine cents, it is sure buuy or preordder. Wind and truth I did buy for nineteen ninety nine, but they did have the previous book on sale for three hundred ninety nineents a month before, so I feel better about biting the ball. Did we talk about that on the last show? No, they were talking in the quick burns thread about the price of ebooks. I think this came out of the bookshop thing and then people started thinking about ebooks and talking about ebook prices. but I found it interesting because Certainly I don't like the idea of paying more for a book And I know a lot of this comes from the reaction of like, that big company is trying to, you know, charge me more than than it's worth But The author also makes less Right If you pay less I know the company takes more than the author, but there's there's percentages involved here and paying for the paper ' it's like I fifteen dollars is a reasonable price for a book Right And I get I totally get the idea of like, oh, fifteen dollars for an ebook. That's not the same as a paperbook, but I'm not paying for the for the actual paper. So why should I care that it's fifteen dollars for the paperbook and fifteen dollars for the eBook? I mean, I do care. I'm not trying to like argue with Clyde. But why do I care? Because what's important is the writing. The author gets paid writing. What's the value of the work Exactly. So Yes, theoretically, there's more cost to printing a book, so it should be somewhat more expensive, but not not a lot Otherw, most of the cost of any book isn't the cost of the printing of it. it's the value of the writing That kind of goes against I was having a conversation with someone this week where we were talking about I get frustrated with Whisper sync Because I listen to a lot of audio books and I read a lot of ebooks and I want to be able to do that concurrently But I get mad that I have to pay for both. And then I'm like, well Should I be mad? Yeah, right. No, the same thing, right? I I want the narrator to perceived. I was the author to get paid. Yeah. ye, yeah yeah So that that's u That's an interesting interesting point.. Larish brings up a good point. part of the value of a paperbook is you can put it on your shelf and sort it by color. So true. There is more of a persistent aspect of it Um There's also the argument that there's resale value to the book John Nevittz says that, I would argue that resale value means you should pay more for the original book Yeah because the author doesn't get a cut the resale. So if you're getting resale value for the for the print book, It should be even. But I guess that's the same as saying that ebook should be less. So, you know, that's a good point Um Next up, Mark says Veronica was dismayed that the Wiki' video show page only had three episodes so dot dot dot. He did it Oh. Links go to the interternet archive because the Geek and Center YouTube channel no longer offers access to sword and Laser videos WTF, except for a trailer and a George R. Martin interview, Wait, really? Yeah, they know. everything? Felicia actually emailed us a very nice email like ten years ago telling us like you guys, they won't let us keep these up anymore. the channel operators. So I'm making sure you have the rights to them. You can repost them. And then I did a whole thing where I reposted upload to archive. org every week the entire run again so that people had access No, that's fine. I'm just confused why they left up the trailer and the George R. Martin inter. I don't know why the trailer would be up there. I get why they kept the George R. Rartin I guess because it's Gor Rm. K kind of sad that we don't get any money from that. Yeah We got rights though. We got we got we got the rights. We get the rights to do that to put that George R. Martin video on our own pages and channels and stuff like that. So there's a sord and laser YouTube channel that has that George R. Martin interview too Oh, that's good Okay. I he do I was thinking that that crossed my mind. but I wouldn't I wouldn't do that. No. It just I'm just saying it popped into my head. o That into my head. Same here Anyho All right, your next one is also Mark. Oh, thank you, Mark.. Based on comments here and on the discord, these are some of the authors with the Merville effect which has convinced most of us that we've read them as Sord and Laser picks. So if you missed last episode, the Mievill effect is us realizing that we had in fact, never read China Mievil as an official pick for sword and laser but instead had talked about it enough We always say at least I always say, didnn't we read Sha McGuire because we interviewed Shaanna MagGuire, but no, we have never picked or a Shaana McGuire or A Mira Grant book yet. Also on this list, Jim Butcher I can't, how is that possible? We never read any of the We never read Dresdeniles. definitely read one of the Dresden files out of order because and the reason I remember is because you were so shocked that I was just reading it, even though I had not read the previous Books Timothy Zon. I believe that I believe that because we interviewed him, but I don't Esay Chakraborti I really thought we read City of Brass I had City of Breast like sitting on my shelf here for the longest time. I read the whole series. I loved it. And B someone someone one of you out there called SsA shocker Bardy Orated the other day and I got so mad. And you wrote lies is what it was Is that real Y That's why you wrote in response to that. I think it was Ruth. I feel like it was one of the Ruths. Yeah. that could have been. I't. I can't I don't have remember you wrote lies. They're probably like, wait, this is not objective. No, it was not. Tically how this works ye So anyway, yeah, so these are our next six book picks, I guess. I don't remember saying that I thought we read Dracula. People keep saying that I this is the one that I don't have in my head either I don't have read my we read it. but other people think we read it. Yeah. But all the others Chocker booarding was in some of these are because they're in the March tournament. So I think we're just used to seeing those names. And some of them are because we interviewed them, like Seana McGuire. But yeah. We've also interviewed SA Chocker Borty. And Timothy's on, right And and Bram Stroker J and Broon Stker Bam Gam. Bram. Bram Stocker A Dude guy, what the heck, B? Aamula blama U so that's funny Anyway, thank you for that. That made me laugh really hard Mark. That was good. It cracked me up. It did. It tickled my brain because I had to think about every single one of those and be like, what? Oh Oh get. I actually had visceral reactions to a couple of them. Like even though I know we didn't at this point, I'm like, we didn't. I guess we didn't. Jim Butcher was the one that really got All right, well, let's hop over to our Book of the mononth discussion. We are just checking in notot wrapping up on The Will of the Many by James Islington. or is it Islington? Is it Islington or Islington? You know, I don't know I've been saying Islington in my head It's probably is LinkedtIn. If it's if it's like the city, then it's is Linkedtn or the suburb or village or o. Okay. U So I am I've got three hours left of the audiob book U so I'm I'm at the u What's the gosh. Now I'm not gonna to be remm able to remember any of the any of theas No, the Nomachia is the u Isn't that the sea battle? It's the um No no. I can't remember Is visceral reaction? to this No. The final test. Yeah, I'm at the t. I don't remember it's called either F Wheeze that chatatterack. wasizz a chatterack The Ascarium? No, it's the uh you left you've left A, that yeah. tryrying to know not to be spoilery I can only think of the word nomakia. That's like the only word that's expl in my head right now there was swimming Yes, Yes. I've left the after this It's after that. Yeah U So anyway, I'm really enjoying it. I think it's very interesting that people a number of people, including Rue decided not to read this because because it felt too much like Name of the Wind, which they also didn't like because a lot of people are relating the two which I like I love Name of the Winds. so maybe If you don't like N of the Wind, I don't know what to do with with that. I got I got That's fair. I got again. No. No, of course, it's totally fair. Eective. I just I just like that is When we read it We re is it right? We did read it. We definitely did read it We read it. everyveryone loved it back then. It was a different time though. It was a more loving time Maybe it a pre Ruth era, you know, It could have been reh T Ruthian or T Ruthian It' truthy we can't do it we've already done one Ruth title for a show, I'm pretty sure. so we can't do it. can't Unless I'milling that. I'm pretty sure we need power. Too much power, too much power But yeah, I don't that said Set that aside I don't find this to be simimilar to the name of the wind I think it's well, let's talk about that. This is actually exactly what Paul gets into. Okay. So we have a thread from Paul called My love Hate relelationship with Polymath prrotagonists It's a long post, but I think I can get through it. within the reason for the You to read the whole thing I was gonna Let's see how we do. Just get comfy Paul says I just finished chapter five and I'm very entertained by this book and in particular, by this, he is undeniably cool, a very appealing character. But here's the thing, I know what makes him so appealing and that I'm kind of falling for a classic trope And I feel like I shouldn't like this trope, but I just do. I feel like I'm being played, but I'm okay with that He's super smart, he's witty, he's tough. and he's got an unbreakable determination, his one flaw, his pride. He knows he should just let people walk over him or just stop trying so hard or being so smart because people will find him out, but he can't help himself. He's too willful And despite his many talents and abilities, he's an underdog My first thought when I reflected on Viz was that he was giving off huge quoth vibes from the name of the Wind And my one big critique of that book was that Goth was just too good at everything, but I still gave it five stars because I didn't care. He's awesome What's so bad about being awesome and super cool and smart and strong? It makes for a good story And sure enough, when I thought back How many classic and much loved stories surround super cool, super talented, super smart male protagonists? Not just bothoth. There's hero protagonists from Snow Crash, tons of mystery thrillers dating back to Sherlock Holmes. I guess you could go all the way back to Odysseus and the Odyssey. And then he goes on to talk about that lots of reviews mention that connection, that name of the win connection Um And a lot of people saying, Best book I've read since Name of the Wind. It's also getting a lot of love from white dudes. And Paul says, as a fellow white dude, I get it Um But yeah, I am not a white dude. I am a white lady. I don't feel like that's my reason why I like it I mean, maybe I'm just having a hard time examining my own biases in this moment Also, there's nothing wrong with if that's why you look I do I do um I think that He is a, well Tom, white guy, how do you feel about it? I'm not very good at representing white guys. That's true. That's true. I really liked it at the beginning I thought it was full of action and it was moving And I loved that Then we get to the school. That's book jacket spoiler. stuff They tell you there's a school right there on the book jacket U we get to the school and I'm like Okay, we're slowing down a bit, but maybe that's okay You know, maybe that's good. We're just taking a little bit of a pause, taking a breath But I can tell like He's trying to also continue the momentum and throwing new things but I wasn't feeling pold through as much Um And the farther into the book I get, the less momentum I feel Really And at the beginning of the book, I was looking for reasons. I was like, when can I sit down and read this? C I'm going to go to bed a little early and I'm just gonna listen to my book And now I feel like I'm really not I'm not quite to making myself read it, but it's more like, yeah, okay when I go to bed, I'll listen to a little bit before I fall asleep. And I'm still enjoying it, but not nearly as much the beginning I don't have the Like he's good at everything. problem I totally see it. And if that's the kind of thing that bothers you, you only want books where characters are much more flawed than this then yeah, I get why you're not going to like him because I've thought that too like yeah, he's pretty dalent a guy, but it's not like he's invincible, right? He It's not like he always wins. So to me, he's not a Mary Stue, Gary Stew, whatever. He's He's got adversity. It's just that he's really talented and there's nothing to be, that's That's a perfectly valid valid character type that you may not like, but it's perfectly valid Let's bear, I mean,', I'm sorry, keep going And no, no, it's fine. G what are we going to say I was just going to say like he he is, yes, he is very talented, but he's also I mean, he comes from very privileged upbringing, right? Like this is a lot of remind that regularly. Yeah he's like you good at this. Yeah 'm good at this because this is exactly what I was trained to be. Like it's not like he's a Gary Stuew just because he's a magical dude who like happens to be really good at things. He's like, no, I'm a veryer particular privileged person who's been put in weird circumstances the very yeah.. I to use these very particular abilities and skills to serve a different cause and yeah it it's u That's kind of the twist, I guess, in a way Um compared to other people who are just so good at things because they are You know Yeah I feel like people just start to try to throw the Mary Sue thing around because they don't like and so they try to make it fit to me The origin of that term is a character that never loses, right? A character that just does everything well. They come against the evil and they beat it, right? They never get defeated, they never have to regroup. And that's definitely not what's going on in this book So I I'm just surprised you're feeling you're slowing down now because I'm like towards the end and I'm like Tottally pumped still. I still like the mystery of it I really like the world building the idea that the south is the cooler place and the north is warmer and, you know, like the flip flop of things. the you know, really leaning into not just the Roman emmpireness of the of the tenants the oppressive coning spirit of the Romans that the Katanans have. And I think that comes through really well. A lot of times when you fictionalize Roman Empire, it glamorizes them a lot more. And this is really more true to what actually was going on in the Roman Empire, which I find fascinating as well. So I don't know I think the reason it's slowing down is I just liked all the action and the sort of you just never knew what was going on. and it's such a long book I'm like, okay, there's a couple mysteries I've been living with for a while I can't wait to find out what they are Things are definitely have there's already been some really good like Oh my god That's that's a shocking twist. Yeah tw Getting a lot of pretty good shocking twists, which I always really like. The word I was trying to think of, thank you Licorice was the uticeum That's the the the the dri Maazr Yeah thing A's actually more mazerner I guess than Mm mhm mhm I'm very curious because like Licorice posted that word in the chat and I don't think I ever would have been able to pronounce it correctly had I not been listening to the audio book. Oh same. I was like A you just see me A you D mum Thank you very much, Jim The u yeah, so that's that's that's this has been helpful to get to listen to the audiobook in this case for me U But thank you, thank you Paul for that perspective. I think Yeah it wass good stuff Yeah the title for this episode I figured out a few days ago And so I wantanna make sure I say it out loud now. and it's the Roman Empire is my Roman emmpire Because you think of the Roman Empire every time you read this book, like ye, prettyty much. Yeah. Okay And than someone else made that joke, the Roman Empire joke, Crochet Chry, said, what am I going to have to think about the Roman Empire? Wait am I going to have to think about the Roman Empire? That reminded me that I had thought of that title The Roman Empire is my Roman Empire So that's the episode title, folks. You' it here for.ot it here A couple more emails again still non spoilery. Tassie Dave wrote Multi level marketing. I try to wrap my brain around the pyramid scheme that is the will seating in the will of the many. Each level has an increasing number of people seeding half their will to the level above them. At the top is the prinps, who is receiving will from two Domidious. Each Domidius receives will from three tertius. Each tertius receives will from four quartus. Each quartus receives will from five quQuintus. Each quQuintus receives will from six sextus. Each sextus receives will from seven septimus. Each Spttimus receives will from eight Octavius. Each Octavus concedes half their will to the Spttimus, so only have half of a will to use themselves A septtimus has five will. Half from each of the eight Octavus seating will to them and one of their own. They haveavV. To in OctavV That's the plural ofct of Octaviaus. I wasing it the way Tassie Dave wrote it. That's fair. That's fair And they have to seed two and a half will up to the sextus above them and keep two and a half will to use. I made a table to show the amount of will each level has and can use. If you thought we were going to a point, that's the point is that this is incredibly complex and requires a table and math. If you really want to understand how much will the Pinceps has which is four hundred and thirty point two five Yeah, I like the number of like, it's funny because it actually does look like a pyramid when when you look at the table. Yeah from Octavus to Princeps U Yeah, so forty forty thousand three hundred and twenty Octavi powerower one princes upps I guess. Is that how it works? forty thousand That be more than that. twenty octavi. And that is this I guess you could consider this a little spoilery, but at one point they talk about that. They talk about just how many people are activV versus anything else Yeah You know, and how math does not math. The math is not mathhing in the book. so you'll get to that a little bit later if you're not already there Licorice brings up a thread on fantasy school fatigue or is it For me, the Will of the Many being, quote, another fantasy story taking place in another magical school, didn't set it up for success That isn't just a trope that has been overused, it is one that has been malused. Malused is no real world word, but instead of used inappropriately, I mean in the sense that people abuse the trope badly Earth sees magical college is great. Ender's game is another good use of the trope with devastating consequences. Yes, you're a wizard, Harry. And while I wasn't blown away by Akada Witch, that wasn't because, oh, magical school. I liked how the school reflected the setting and culture And then we get to what I think of as artificially dangerous fantasy school settings. Thank you. I think about this a lot, licorice Scholomances, let's send our kids to a magical school where everything and anything there is out to kill them. We love them so much, but it's all we can do Fth wing Let's make our freshman students run a narrowstone bridge in the rain, have dragons eat a few at the end, and then encourage them to kill one another if the mood strikes them. No deerit points applied Even the Back song, with its the only proper way to create real soldiers is a school to beat them within an inch of their life each day every day, because we all know how traumatic Musculoskeletal damage isn't debilitating, it's what makes you stronger Imagine then my surprise at reading The Will of the Money, a school in a fantasy setting that doesn't maluse the trope. I enjoyed it Sure, there is conflict between students. Some of the teachers are supportive and some aren't. There is danger in the background, but the adults sending their kids there don't really know about it because the school hides it There is competition, there are loyalties and betrayals, but it isn't overdone It is high school and college social interactions played out in a fantasy setting with much higher stakes. Did I mention I enjoyed it Anyone else find this a breath of fresh air in trope that has become very stale He I don't know. I feel like I say this every episode, but One man's stale trope is another person's breath of fresh air I look at fourth wing and Skolomance and I think before them People were complaining that all of this particular trope, and by the way, I don't use trope as a bad thing. Trope is just a category. If you don't have tropes, you don't have stories. That's just the way the human brain works. The reason we have tropes is because we like these kinds of stories, and they can either be told well or not, which is a great point that Licorice is making. I think we got the Skolomance and fourth wing versions Because everyone was like, all these school things are pretty much the same, you know, Everybody goes to school and it's really not that dangerous. And so they ued the stakes and said, what if you had to cross this crazy bridge or what if there was this danger and that danger? And again, that can be done poorly or it can be done well. And I think you have examples of both in your example, Licorish then everybody's doing that and that starts to become stale because you're like, that's what everybody does now. And then you get the willill of the manyoney and you're like, ooh breath fresh air, it's different. So I don't think it's intrinsic to the writing. I think it's the trend and where you come into it I am a little tired of schools that want to murder all their students I do feel like that's I'm not say And actuallyly that' bad. I'm just saying I know' because there' been so many of them. This is for me. this is for me. And I think it was very funny actually in Um, Iiron Flame where they kind of like joke about another school setting that they encounter. I'm not gonna to spoil. And they're like, wait, your students don't all die all the time. And they're like, No yours do and they're like, u awkward. Yeah. But And that maybe laugh time anyone wrote the school setting the danger, you weren't tired of it then, right Hogwords is pretty freaking' dangerous, to be honest I mean, it got more dangerous towards the head, but the older they got, Yeah. yeah Um, well This book does get dangerous. There's a lot of dangerous moments in store for those of you who are all of that said, I think L Rishation makes a great point that the danger is well constructed in the Will of the M, where it's not just like, let's just beat up our students Yeah. Like the second like basically there's a scene very early in the story where one student punches another one and I'm like, well, here we go Sool, school beat downs, constant school beat downs. And I wass like, okay, this is more of a random Not super random, but like the N the trend. exactly. It was an unusual occurrence Yeah. Um, so that kind of that kind of wraps it up. That was that's u That's that's all we've got so far on this one. Like I said, I'm really enjoying it. I am making time to listen It is I I don't know if it's supposed to be a series or not. I didn't look into that or if it's standalone, Do you remember There he goes to the computer They forwarded They book brief Okay. was it in the that part was in the book brif face. that part's always in the book Oh geez, okay, it's a series. Okay, al right everybody. Just pile on Veronica, that old trope huh. Just make fun of Veronica for you know I was gonna sing the single mom who works two jobs, but I'm not a single mom and I only have one and a half jobs