The City and the City Discussion

From GaICOubconscious News, I'm Tammy Racing Thoughts. Tonight, you just left for work and had a nons specific feeling that something was happening to your place and it wasn't good. Dam? Exactly, Tammy. It could be smoke, damage, theft, or just too much caffeine, but you can't stop thinking about it. But with renters insurance through GICO, your stuff is covered, so you don't have to worry. And that's great because the weekend is coming up and it's chuck full of social obligations that are ready to fill that void Oh boy, will they dad? It feels good to worry less. It feels good to Gaio ACAS powers the world's best podcasts Here's a show that we recommend Hello American podcast listeners.' Max Russton here from the Guardian Football Wek, which I think you should give a listen. It is good. It comes out three times a week and the podcast delivers you analysis, news, both the good and the bad from the beautiful game, and maybe even the occasional laugh He's angry about everything. He doesn't have a great poker face, does he? I would like to play cards with Runo Fernando. You can listen to the Guardian Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts, Hopefully see you soon ACAast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACast. com. Our name is Sord and Laser, whether it's red sober or ripped, podcast goodoodreads, Discord patreon. com slash Sord and Laser. Subbscribe. Hey everyone. weelcome to Theword and Lazer. I'm Vonica Belmont, and I'm Tom Merrittt. Sword and Lazer is a book club, but it's so much more. We bring you news from the world of science fiction and fantasy and awesome discussions from fans just like you. Yes, exactly like you, because gu our entire audience are clones. We've discovered this since the last episode Well That's how we keep the numbers up. You know we just keep making new ones. Audience declining? Just make more Just make more. I don't see what the problem is I am you and you are me we It's all good. It's box all the way down What What are you noming this week, Tom? Okay, so for dinner tonight, we had breakfast Egg frittata and fried potatoes littleittle cheeseice, you know, that was very good. And then Eileen got the moochi cake from Trader Joe's the box, you know, the mix and made mochi cake and we had that for dessert. It was Divine Oh, snap. My mother in law iss I'm going to Utah on Monday, no, on Friday and for spring break to visit my mother in law with the family. She was like, do you want anything from Trador Joe's ' she's driving from southern California. and they don't have one in the town she lives in Utah And I was like, No, I can't really think of anything I need. And I'm like, moochi, Mchi. Get it. You have to bake it That's how hard to bake do I can manage that. Super easy It took less than an hour to bake too. like it's pretty fast. so Julianne, my son, is on a Japanese food kick So he is he is really into we eat veggie sushi And I make him Oi Giddy. he's like fried seaweed strips all day and he's just like, I'm like, this is great, you know, this is You eat all this stuff. I'm happy to make it for you. Have you tried making him gib up No. Basically the same thing, right? It's just like a like a veggie roll You know, Yeah, but characer. Yeah. I bet he'd love it. Yeah. I bet he would. loves he loves things like that. I had Vevegetarian cottage pie today, which I learned from Elizabeth, our resident English food expert. She's probably like, please don't call me that a cottage pie is shepherd's pie without lamb. Yeah, if you don't have lamb in the shhepherd's pie, you don't have any sheep. so you can't call it a shepherd. It makes sense. Thank you, Elizabeth. She also would like to clarify that she's Australian. Yeah, but she's be fair. E To be fair, she did say that she is this is her moment in English culinary history. So I feel like that's fair Thank you carefully didn't call her English. just said I think so too. She was an English food expert. so it was vague whether you were saying she or the food was English. But of course it was food That's good. That's what I meant. That's all I meant. Yeah. But yeah, so that was that was that was cool. I didn't didn't know cottage pie a Sepherd's pie without the lamb, but what is what is a shepherd's pie What are they shepherding, if not Lammy lambs. So So if it's beef, it's a cow herd's pie. U ye, if it's What did you have soy? It was like ye soy protein. No, not tempee. justust like a soy protein. So it's a soy herds pie. Soy herd for all those soybean herders There you go. There you go fields All right, well let us jump right into the show with the Qick burns. Is March mad Nes Pause protects us from the NCAA suing. Sure. That's what I tend to be And we are already into round three. We only have four books left And the voting for those will carry on until march fifteenth. And then the last round will determine our April pick that will run from march sixteenth through march twenty second The final four in our tournament this year in the swword finale The Art of prorophecy by Wesley Chu versus Everybody's favorite. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinnaman. O. And the winner of that will go on to face the winner of the laser final, which is the surprise entry Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell outperforming most people's predictions againainst the Juggernaut. It has a movie out in support of it Mickey Seven by Edward Ashton. Movies Mikei seventeen, by the way Oh, I don't know that one. Yeah, there's a movie with Rob Pattinson called Mickey seventeen Oh Hey. at home. Fustrating Yeah. Fascinating. That's exciting. We almost had to do a tiebreaking vote for for one of the previous did Yes. What was the that was the Embersid we have to do it the board of light came down to a two vote margin Embers of W just squeaking by. So we had to we almost had to step in, we did not. We consulted on what we would do. We cannot ever reveal it unless we actually do it. But yeah, we had our plan, our contingency plans ready, which was to evacuate. We were just gonna ditch. We were gonna We'rely ye just dro b the whole thing.ust couldn't handle the pressure handle that le of decision making No it's it never ends well when when People leave us to our advices, yeah So so yeah, y'all like white guys. Cratulations Wesley Ch is not white? Oh yeah, but he was up against a woman in his last. so of course he won. Yeah. I see. I see.. He didn't have much of a choice there All right. Well, thank you everybody for sh we've ppted a big a big amount of numbers. likeike this has been a highly trafficked year. so I feel compared to Yeah it's not's it's in line with Yeah, we got good good votes out there For year ten, I feel like you guys are contributing quite a bit. So thank you for that. It's always fun to have more and more people jumping in on those votes. Yeah And I'll be honest There is not a book in the final four I wouldn't read Uh, and I'm Pretty excited to read Well, I don't know enough about Embers of War to say one way or another, but it looks good. But I actually had the other three of these on my list. so I'll be happy with whatever Jason Reeds asks, Is Veronica still mad at Wesley Chew? I was mad at him about something. wasas I mad at him about? Yes she is. No she does not remember why. I am a grudge holder, so I know like the feeling is still there, but I don't remember what it was about. I know I was mad about, o, Barbie, it was about Barbie. I was mad at him about Barbie. I've also been mad at him about the Dodgers, I'm pretty sure in the past Really? So I think he's just well, you know, Wesley's problem and I'll say this in public. He doesn't live very far from me, so I'll just run over and tell him. Wesley's problem is that he just posts a lot on Facebook So he's opening himself up to like me reading that and being like, I have opinions about something on the internet. Me, That's me, that's my voice. Right.. So really, that's just he's doing this to himself by calmly stating his own opinions on the internet and expecting me to not get furious. He says like, I don't like cottage pie. and Veronica just goes crazy. pretty much so Um, But I'd be well I mean there we go. We've got our next four bookpicks sorted out. And we didn't read anyone of had this whole it's funny you say that because we had this whole anguish about like, should we get in the pattern? Oh, I did anyway. Should we get in the pattern of always choosing the loser as the next pick? 'cause you know, we want it to feel like the winner gets gets to win. But yeah, we could just be like, well, let's pick all four of them Is it really a pattern? like how many times have we done that? She says hoping that last read Cy Dave actually looks into it and counts the exact number of times we've picked the runner up as the next book read. We kind of always do it I don't know if it' rec In the early in the ear first few tournaments, we didn't, but the last three or four we have And I say that because that's it's my pick after you after the because it's your pick for April. So you very graciously seed your April pick Ah, yes. So it does always come back around to me. even on Matte leave if it didn't like switch around, did it? No. We didn't change the order s. We just did the we just did the u the al I kept picking For mine and then I would have guests pick for yours That's why their order stayed. Yeah. And The year keeps having even numbers of months That's true. How did that happen I know What are the other are like, we're not having these leap months. One of those leap months finally coming. All right, let let's move on. Turp Kristen says Amal El Mutar and her sister played music that will be used in the audiob book. of her new book, The River has Rots. I Not sure this is really worthy of quick burns, but I thought it was cool. That is cool. No, I think that is cool. and I could not get this to play now suddenly on Instagram. It's making me want to log in Oh, no, there we go. Yeah. no, this is really cool. I enjoyed this and the link should work for everybody, especially if you're on mobile Mark wrote, whoa in all caps. So I had to read it like that. Justin Lynn will direct Kiano Reeves Berserker Berserker sorry Berserker just once. Berserker is the story of a violent half go who stomps around doing a lot of violence. Kana Reeves co writes the comics featuring Berserker with Matt Kint, Reeves and this month's author, China Mieville co wrote a novel The Book of Esewhere set in the world of the Berserker comic book For half second, I thought about picking that one for the China Mievill pick instead of the city in the city I think it's funnier to do the city in the city, though. Anyway, because like, Nevermind, I won't get into that now. but We've covered this in the past. I'm not sure why Berker tends to make it past the we don't talk about graphic novels news wall we've constructed for ourselves. Be for some reasonook of elsewhere. Because of China Miev Be because of China Mieville. Yeah, China Mieville escorts it through the guards Elizabeth says it's because it canoeve and I can't argue what it. It could also be that. Yeah. I'm extremely pro cananu. not wrong But ye, Justin Lyn fast and furious. If everybody's like, who's Justin Ln He did the Tokyo Dift. He did Tokyo Dift, which is, I mean, objectively the best fast and furious And he did film? The ones after that too. so He's done a lot of great Yeah. I love Do people know that I love those movies I don't know You you know two of those movies? Did you know I love those movies? I don't think I did know that. Yeah. Eileen and I discovered them in twenty twenty, when we were casting around for something to watch when. We're like, well let's just watch fast and Furious. And we went through the whole shebang up to where they were at that point U and yeah, they I've seen all they got better. The first one were like, okay, that was kind of fun. and then they just get better and better But you know what else? I think it also can't remember if it was which direction it went. But there was a period where I started watching all of those movies and then I also started watching all of Jason Statham's movies.. And I'm not sure which begot whichit. Yeah, but I'm's an Oboris of Jason Statham.es . All right, Seth says that Terry Brooks announces that at age eighty one, he's ready for semi retirement He is handing head writer duties for his fifty year old Shinara series to Delilah Dawson. Yay Amazing Instead of feeling like Sanderson finishing the wheel of time, this seems to me, as Seth says, more like what's happened recently with some suspense authors becoming brands, like Lee Child turning over his character to his brother or How. Clive Cussler or Robert Ludlam's characters just keep going despite their authors's deaths. This is I think this is cool that the author actually gets to pass the reins another author. It's kind of like what happened in TV, right? Like Gene Roddenberry passed away, but he' sort of at least, you know, towards the end of his career, you know, handed the torch off. Now you can argue whether that that has continued now that he's gone to be respected and whether he would have or would not have approved of different things. But in TV Franchises often are carried on that way And sometometimes they're not though, right? Sometimes it's just like The IP got sold, you don't have a say anymore. So I like this. I like that Terry Brooks is saying, you know what? before I get too old to have a say on it, let me give it to somebody I trust and he couldn't have picked anybody better loveved Llaha Daws's work She's amazing. Yeah. And she's just a great person too. I'm happy for her. Yan pointed out the winners of the twenty twenty five Liby Awards chosen by librarians and library workers across North America have been announced Winners of genre interest are science fiction and debut author of the Year winner Sord and Laser pick The Ministry of Time by Cllian Bradley bestest fantasy is The Spell Shop by Sarah Berth Beth Durst. a romantic cozy fantasy about stolen spell books, unexpected friendships, and sweet jams He I haven't even heard of that one. I'm gonna have to add j It notike put in a jam. Like it. Best Romantasy is Totally unexpected House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Moss. Super, super weird. Who Sarah Jay? Oh, Sarah Jay Mas, my apologies. Best young adult fiction, air by Saba Tahir. It's a romantic fantasy following an orphan, an outcast, and a prince in a world on the brink of chaos. And best middle grade book Impossible Creatures by Catherine Rundell, a race to save the world's last magical place Okay.. Thankk you for all the descriptions on these. That was super helpful. I appreciate you doing that. That was really nice. Yeah. And I want to read I'm hearing good things now from Chat about the spell shop. So I want to check that out. Very cool Seth says publishers weekly reports that the book Jobber Yeah, that is a name for somebody who distributes books Okay, because I was gonna I almost said gobbler for some reason. hs books.ouble com. The book jobber who distributes to mass retailers, bookstores, and big boxes is going to cease working with books in mass market paperback size. I have many memories of combing used bookstore shelves for mass market sci fi titles as a kid, reading lots of Star Wars and Star Trek paperbacks Me too, Seth someome until they fell apart Recently, I figured it was mostly for the romance genre, so I was surprised to learn that last year's best selling mass markets were nineteen eighty four, an animal farm Yeah. so It doesn't mean that mass market paperbacks are going away. This just means that the biggest distributor of them will no longer distribute them. So you will likely see fewer of them on bookstore shelves because it's going to be harder for them to order them. And they're not distributing them because they don't sell as well. So bookshops have been ordering fewer of them But they're still making them. and the reason nineteen eighty four and animal fararm are the big sellers is one of the reasons they keep making them are for college for, you know places like you know, college textbook stores, Barnes and Noble carries a lot of them for exactly that reason. So it is interesting to learn that What you probably think of as John Grisham and romance is now literary classics and like that is dominating the space. Keeping prices down for college students, you have to buy them for their lit classes U All right, so now the chat room is saying book gobler or book gooblin. I take it a book gobbler. bookobbbler is turning into book goblin. And so I feel like that's a title potential. this episode. A maker of books is a book cobbler Oh Uhu, Uhh Mhhuh more, this is a fun game. Now I to eat peach cobbler A cobbler U All right, you're up next. I thought I just read that one, but I guess I did. Did't just read not because I said book Gobler remember? That's right. you did. How can I forget? Trike pointed out that Analog, Aimov's and Fantasy in science fiction FNSF are under new ownership. All three magazines were bought by the same outfit Al previously purchased Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellie Queen Mystery Magazine. So I guess it's good news in that they're going to be continued to be made. The new owner of the magazines is Stephven Salpeter and a group of investors. Salpeter is the president of L literary and IP deevelopment at Assemble Media and previously worked as a literary agent for Curtis Brown Very nice. Good to know. He's just sounds like he he's a dude. He's just a guy I want to over the ee you know Just a guy wants to own some IP, maybe wants to make some stuff Who knows? Fascinating All right, well thank you so much everybody. Now it is time for bear Y sword, which is our feedback from the audience Stehven says I really wanted the Murderbot series to be done in the animated style of some of the episodes in Love Death and Robots, which is on Netflix. Oh well I would say abandon hope. Not ye. Not ye. Yeah, ye band band No U I forgot words synt tax orders. I think that if this murderbot series does well U What we have seen is that people like to take series and do more of them So for example, on Netflix with Um, Geralt They Geralt. Yeah. Yeah, they they they did animated spinoffs of that. There's also an animated Imperan saga right from from Rebecca Yaros coming. Now granted D someome of my Exples are Netflix and this is Apple TV plus and Apple TV pllus has not done a ton of animated, although they've done a little bit. Um But yeah, I would say don't give up and the more successful the live action is, the better chance of getting some animated versions of this, I think we have That would be that would be super exciting. I would love that I'm excited for the show regardless, so yeah, I'll take all the murderbot I can get. Tryke says Veronica can't get to the book briefing because she's a working mother Like she said in this episode, she had to drink a nap until the kid got home cuts into your reading time. Yeah. You know? How did you feel when Trk wrote that on your behalf I felt singing. You felt sing. That's good. I felt s to be honest That's me Sometimes Mommy needs drink and a nap. o. Okay. It might just be tea. Aint.' say what kind of drink? you don't know ay your Tud me No No job Out of my space. Yeah. Get out of there. Just leave. Just leave Mommy alone to Nat. Leave My alone. U Yeah, no, I totally accept that Uhm Oh thanks I accept strike's excuse for you. Okay Thank for your support time. white he's white striking And she takes a big drink and laughs It is whiskey. Yeah. It is It is It is and there's nothing wrong with that Mhm Draake up Do it for the show. Do it for the pod. it for the pod As the guysy say All right, well is let' us jump into some of the Book of the Month discussion. It is still early in this here month. We are still on the the earlier side of the half of March Um, So no spoilers, no spoilers But man, this has been a weird experience. I am getting like I know we didn't talk about this. So we arere reading the City in the City by China Mayvill, which we in the past have discussed We have Matal affected inso far that we Tom and I at least and some members of the audience as well could not remember that we had not actually read this Fenook club. had assumed we had went on living our lives thinking the city in the city had been a book pck for ten years, whatever. didid not. We read it. I've read it on my own. I'm listening again to the audiob book, which was cool because I had already bought it. It was still in my library. I just had to play it again And yeah, it's I don't remember what happened I am I'm feeling like I am experiencing the mystery again for the very first time. Some things I remember, but not not plot. I had read Rily And so I was laboring under the impression that we had read RailC for Sword and Laser which we had not. Yeah. So I had never read the city in the city before. and I was laboring under a misimpression of exactly how this world worked, and we are not going to be spoilery on this episode especially when we get to the end. I'm like, oh, this is Definitely different than how I thought all of this worked Yeah. Chats being funny. Tomahome said Miiaville was unseen Sveray says read and unread Maybe we did read it when we were in a different city with the podcast and that's why we can't remember it U So it's been it's been interesting. It's been really cool actually I am not a frequent rereader. Like I do not I' I know a lot of people who reread the same comfort reads regularly. I think it's just because I I'm in I'm in two book clubs. I do this podcast. I like to read it on my own. so it's challenging sometimes because I want to read the next the next great thing, you know? Yeah But this has been fun actually getting to experience this book again, especially because this book is so complex And I feel like I'm picking up on nuances this time that obviously in my first read, I wasn't noticing as much Yeah, I can absolutely believe that. this being my first time through felt Even though I was taking my time, you know, I was listening to the audio book, but I was listening to it. I wasn't, you know, doing a bunch of other stuff and I wasn't listening it at high speed. I was listening to it at normal speed. I still felt like every once in a while, I had to go back and go like, wait, what How did that happen? And so I imagine there'ss lots that you pick up on beinging one of your few repeat reads, this is a good choice I think it's interesting too, because now, I mean, the primary conceit of the book, at least in the first half is learning about the be The what's what's the what's the word I'm looking for? U Not the fact that you're seeing and unseeing things, but almost that it's like polite There's like a method to it that is kind of ingrained in you for The mechanism of do the mechanism Is etiquette Eetiqute That's word I was going for. Yeah,' that's exactly it. So the etiquette of living on the city and The the way that Mayville starts to make us aware that something is very different in this place, you know, as the story goes on And at first you're It's it's it's light enough, it's kind of casual enough that you don't really pick on the words he's using or the way he's describing things until you start learning more Um and then it becomes like, oh, like, oh, that's what o, what do you talking? What do you mean you unsaw someone? What does that mean? Being aware now of what it is, I think I'm noticing those tiny deliveries of plot device to you as the book begins think this is spoilery to say But I apologize to anyone who disagrees with me. And I know somebody just paused right now because they're like,, I don't want to risk it. but I really don't think this is a spoiler because it's not about the plot It's not about the characters. It's just about the mechanism that you're talking about. And I feel like we know what that is, you know from from the beginning, even on the book jacket do think that the entire story is kind of surprisingly a commentary on our everyday lives. You know, if you look at this and you're like, wait, two cities that occupy the same space, but they're two separate cities, how does that work? Well, you learn how it works throughout And you start to learn it works in a different way than you would have expected. That's the part that, you know, I guess that's my own personal opinion. So you may or may not agree. You For me, I started to realize, oh, we do this everyday life, you know. I don't know if you read Scott's post, but that's exactly what he gets into. And so I'm going I'm going to read some of it because I think you are you are both spot on So Scott says without spoiling any of the plot of the novel, I want to explore unseeing more deeply Mvel is pulling on some pretty deep threads about how we work as human beings in constructing his police procedural It's not merely an artifice or a gimmick, He is taking something we all do through varying degrees and often without direct conscious intent and pushing it in an unexpected direction I realized as I started reading the book that something about the way our main character was performing the act of unseeing, the ways that skill was instilled and grew over the course of a child's development, and the many different ways unseeeing was described in active use in different situations, that something about it felt unsettling to me. I had a strong, almost visceral reaction, but at first I wasn't sure why then there was a moment when the threads came together and everything fell in place. It wasn't anything about the novel story or characters. This was my realization An adult or child in abusive relationship almost always engages in some degree of unseeing It's an almost essential element in ongoing close abusive relationships And he goes on to kind of describe like how this becomes more of like there's other broader social examples of the unseing dynamic. And he describes more about that abusive relationship. and I agree that that's really true, especially for children as he says. you kind of learn to to accept the positive qualities of an abuser versus the negative qualities. When I read this book, again, newly and recently It made me think a lot of San Francisco, honestly It made me think of the duality of that type of city. Vancouver is very similar to, where you have extreme wealth paired very closely with extreme poverty, poverty, right? and suffering And the people who live there, especially the affluent or the middle class you develop this ility I mean, it feels weird to call it ability because I feels positive. Habit habit of unseeing the things around you that don't don't align with your prescribed image of what the place you live is all about, right and that And I think especially between Okoma and Beiel, like having Bjil, is it Beijel? Now I'm starting to think of Star Trek. Bajor. Bajoran, Bajorin I Jor And they even mention it in one of the chapters where I think he's think he's talking about being in Beijel and seeing O Coman homeless people and like how they just blind like you just unsee them and step around them carefully. and that to me, that triggered like, oh my Godd, like this actually You know, I mean, it's not that deep, right? Like it's very obvious. like this is how we deal as a society with things that we don't want to deal with, right And so I think that's there's part of that in there as well Yeah. and I think that's That's right. And I think a lot of people make that connection. and in fact, I think it was in this thread that Oaken pointed out that China Milleville is a socialist. and so you know be trying to bring out the socioeconomic side of it. I don't think his writing necessarily focused on the socioeconomic side of it Um because you're right and it's not wrong to make those comparisons to unseing things that are uncomfortable or that we don't like or that we don't want to be confronted with We do it for all kinds of things We unsee good things too How many times have you realized like, wait, there's a park in my neighborhood? Oh, wait, that restaurant looks really good. I' never noticed that before. Is that new? No, it's not. It's been there for years. We unsee all kinds of things. So I try to resist the temptation to think, o, unseeing, it's the world keeping us from confronting the truth, right? I don't think that's it. Uh, I think It's that we Oh in the amount of information around us And we have to be selective So we all live in different neighborhoods. Some of that is socioeconomic, but not all of it That is just one aspect of it. And think I think it would limit the message that Mvil's trying to make to limit it to the socioeconomics. So I'm not trying to discount that, but I'm saying it's more than just that. It's that we all notice and put importance on different things for many different reasons. And so we all kind of live in a different neighborhood. This especially comes becomes evident when you go back to a place where you used to live And you see it with fresh eyes and you see things that you're like, oh, I never really noticed that or o, I remember that that building being so much nicer and it looks kind of shabby and it's not because it's old, it's always looked that way. I just never thought of it because I have a different context. We all come to things with different context. So I think it's an even broader analogy that he's making I do want to note that Oaken did use the same kind of like reference that I made around the homeless and the privileged I didn't read that far down the No, it's a good book. making very good. I will maintain that my thoughts were my own. Just means that are you are both geniusess right Maybe I read it and I had to unsee it. I don't know did. Yeah. But it's possible. But yeah, I You know, I think plenty of people don't unsee those things, but unsee other things So yeah. It's a good one. Thank you Scott for the thought provoking post as well. As always, yeah We also got a post from John Taly M Mval has got to be messing with us with some of these references Uh, First up, as I said on Discord, he makes a sly NWA reference I screen capped on Discord, but we'll put in text here harmed amjik was what the murderers of Avid Avid would also term an Ebrew. These days, the term was used mainly by the old fashioned, the racist or and a turnabout provocation by the Epitheth's targets. One of the best known beige hip hop groups was named Ebrew W A Yeah. I caught that as well. Yeah. No it's pretty good It's pretty obvious if you if you know NWA, you're going to be like, o So it's an NWA for this. Next up, slly reference to Boolean logic I wanted to quote this exactly, but I didn't mark it and can't find the reference now, but there was a reference to a Bu La that could not have been coincidental. Edit, I found it page sixty two. Mahala Giri was affiliated with a long term dig at Bolan in Western Ulkoma, a site as important as Tenottitlan and Sutonhu. Bolon Bullllon It's in the in the audio book, It's bully Okay. Boon, yep I remembered Olkoma from the audiobook, but not Bullyatt. Thankk you. Yeah He big I'm sorry. Well, I thought you'd listen to it again. I did. So I figured you would know how to say all these things. I don't. I mean, who are you me And then he also the biggest is the forty two people at a government meeting. Oh yes, just a chance pick, of course, couldouldn't possibly be a reference to a famous British author's most famous bit. I guess forty two is exactly the right number of people to govern life, the universe and everything within the borders of Beijel and Okoma U So what else did you see? Am I crazy in seeing things The forty two stuck out to me as well did it. I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think I'm there yet because I haven't gotten Well maybe Is that one is that before he goes to he goes to, um Oca when they're trying to Oh, is this a sp goes to Il coma I can't remember the main character's name. Well, I was trying to keep you from saying who it was. Nobody, noody. Nobody does Oh yeah, Professor Rochambeau Well that so yeah, they pronounced his name like that in the audio books. I was like, that's a weird name. I didn't realize it was spelled differently then Yeahah, that's pretty funny That didn't yeah, it didn't it triggered in my mind, but for the wrong reason. I didn't realize it was supposed to be like a play on the spelling because he actually pronounced it exactly that way Um, yeah And then finally, I had been listening and been like, I wonder if there's any artistic depictions of what this looks like be in Beijel and be onseeing Olcoma. And so I Googled things and then I realized I had forgotten I had Apparently unseen this bit is getting old. I'm sorry. I can't keep doing this. I had forgotten that there was a TV series, the city and the city back in twenty eighteen And the funniest thing is the narrator in the movie clip sounds exactly like the narrator in the audiob book the same guy. No, that part I didn't I found this right before the show started, so I didn't dig into it too much I don't even know If it's I don't think it's David Morrisy who's doing the narration, but I'm not sure I'm definitely Interested in watching this and I'm glad you brought it back up because I Id to jump into it. or're low That's the that's Blo Inspector's name. Borlo Berlo Um And the visuals, like they showed only a few visuals of like crosshatched areas or like unseeing things. So' but it does does kind of do the same vibe John Lee is a narrator Tomahome? Yeah. Okay The accent is exactly the same. It's so weird. Maybe they took it mayaybe David Morrisy studied the audiob book, who knows or Vice But some some of the pronunciations of the names like Mahalia or Mahelia were different. so I just not you never know Um I'm gonna I might check it out. Yeah. was it didn't seem like it was on. It was only on for one season. so But maybe that's how long it took to tell the story I don't know Maybe it was a one off No I think they've finished I think they did finish the story kind of like, didn't the roook do that too or was the rooook supposed to be another The rooook was was Uh was canceled was canceled before it was finished. It finished its season story, but you know, the roook goes on in other books too and they did' job with the other books U well Well, I think I'm going to watch this at some point. I need to I have a love. Yeah, this was just a four episodes miniseries. so Oh nice. Okay. So it tells the whole story. It is on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, at least. It might be on Amazon Prime Vide in other places depending on licenses Mark says several significant changes for the characters in the TV show. Yes, I already picked up on one from the trailer alone which is Borlao like something else he's seeking as well, it seems But yeah, check out the trailer. I think it's interesting It's cool to see the way they framed things and did the visuals Anyway thought it was weird that they said it in California though Now is a big change Kidding, That's not what they did It's San Francisco overlaid with Los Angeles L Angeles try constantly try to h each other doesn't bother us seeing San Francisco, but San Francisco does They just don't care. like ye Los Angeles, We didn't even notice you were here. Sorry you were very busy. Very important. Hurtful, hurtful. I've lived in both, so I know it's true. I'm just saying. Yeah. ye