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Hello and welcome to another episode of Is This Just Fantasy?

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If a podcast were every other week, two nerds get together to rate, read and review a fantasy

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novel.

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I'm your host, Geordie Bailey.

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And I'm the man that murdered the king.

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Vive la révolution.

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Duncan Nicoll.

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Duncan, I've gotten so good at that new intro.

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I used to have to do so many takes to not stumble over it completely.

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Don't praise yourself too much.

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I did have to correct you and remind you to do it.

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You wanted to tell the audience that.

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Okay, that's true.

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Hello everyone.

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Welcome to this week's episode of Is This Just Fantasy?

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We're talking about Brian McClellan's The Promise of Blood, the first in the Powder Mage

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Trilogy.

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Speaking of errors, Duncan and I were saying to each other back and forth for maybe a full

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30 seconds, McClellan, McClellan, not McClellan as we said in a previous episode.

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I feel very much shame about that.

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I just can't get Ian out of my head.

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But yes.

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Yeah, Brian, Ian, even the first names are similar.

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There's conspiracy theory in that.

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But Geordie, before we get into this book, let's just go over, as usual, have you read

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or watched or experienced anything else you want to talk about?

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Funnily enough, yes.

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It hasn't actually been that long since we recorded our previous episode, not the full

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two weeks as normal.

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However, I have actually started reading something new and interesting.

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I've recently been doing a lot more and this is quite unusual for me.

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I've been reading more nonfiction.

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Sacre bleu.

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Sacre bleu indeed, yeah.

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Not like me at all.

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But I've been listening to, and this has been a long, long reading experience.

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It's like three times the length of Dune.

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by, oh fuck, someone.

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I'll edit that in.

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William L. Schreier.

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And the book Mindhunter, which is the inspiration for the TV show.

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A TV show that I love, it's great.

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And the book is quite different, but it's really interesting nonetheless.

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That is very different.

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I suppose it, just to be clear, it takes a very much anti-it-was-a-bad-thing stance.

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The Third Reich?

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Yes, Duncan.

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It's very opposed to the Third Reich.

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Good, good.

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Just gotta check on these things.

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Yeah.

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Actually, the funny thing I noticed about it is that when I was reading the early part

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of the book, I was like, holy shit, this is the source for everything I was reading during

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like Year 10 history.

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Like I recognize these sources almost verbatim.

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Well, that's always fun, is you find like the key text, everyone's like, okay, we're

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gonna reference this.

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Yeah, it's a really significant text because the guy himself who wrote it, and again, I'm

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sorry I don't remember his name.

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Here it is again.

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William L. Schreier.

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He was an active journalist living in Berlin during like the rise of Hitler in the Second

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World War.

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So not only does it contain like his memories of hearing actual speeches like at the Reichstag,

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but like his personal diary entries that he can go back through and remember what he was

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thinking, like in the lead up to Kristallnacht.

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That is very intense, but I do think it's actually can be very good to read about real

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world history, particularly when we enjoy so much fantasy literature that is either

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inspired by real events or set to certain backdrops, sometimes to seek sort of the real

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world implications of certain ideologies and what can actually happen.

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So many times, you know, there's a rhetoric about, you know, that's fantastical or that's

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ridiculous and you're like, I think you'll find some truly insane stuff has actually

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happened in real life.

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That, I mean, there's no question of that.

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And the best thing about it is that like this author is really focused on the boring stuff.

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Like there are lengthy, lengthy sections where he just talks about what different German

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and Russian and British diplomats are doing, like in the lead up to World War Two.

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Like this material is like extremely dry.

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It's all about people setting up meetings and like the minutes taken from meetings and

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what people claim happened later when they talk about it at Nuremberg.

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And they say, I never actually went to that meeting.

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That's nonsense.

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But this guy is clearly so invested in making sure that this is recorded and that it's commented

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on that it's really fascinating.

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I mean, I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

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Take it you recommend it.

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It's hard to say recommended.

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Again, so I'm listening to this as an audiobook and I think that's the only way I could possibly

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read this.

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There's no way.

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I mean, I could probably scarcely lift the book.

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The audiobook is 52 hours long and Dune was 24 hours long to give you an example of comparison.

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I mean, I think my longest audiobook I have on Audible is The Way of Kings and I think

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that comes in at like 40 something 46, 48.

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That's not a surprise.

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So that is incredible.

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Geordie, I feel really kind of awkward right now because I've now got to segue over to

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what I've been reading and it's totally quite different.

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Oh, because yours was, hey, Nazism was great actually.

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No, no, no.

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It's more that yours is very serious and mine is very ridiculous.

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Geordie, have you ever heard of the character Groo the Wanderer?

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I have not heard of Groo the Wanderer.

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It's a comic book character by a Spanish Mexican comic book writer and artist, Sergio Aragonis.

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I'm so sorry.

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I probably definitely pronounced that wrong.

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And I guess you can describe it as a Conan parody at some point, but it's a larger parody

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for life and it's about a very stupid character who's like a barbarian figure, fights with

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like dual swords.

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He has a little dog companion called Roberto and it's just stupid adventure parody, parodying

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fantasy, parodying real world politics, parodying religion.

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So it has like really clever commentary at some point and it also has some really just

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stupid bits of our main character who is in the search for the world's greatest cheese

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dip.

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And at one point to stop him causing a ruckus, the priests, what they do, they write a sign

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pointing the greatest cheese dip in the world and they just put them around a lake and he

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just walks in circles for multiple days.

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Well that does sound a little silly, I have to admit.

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It's genuinely, it's like if I guess Asterix and Obelisk met, I don't know, the Beano.

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I did get a slightly Asterisk feel, Asterisk, Asterix feel to that story, especially the

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cheese dip thing because when I was a little boy, my dad would, like this is before I even

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learned to read, but he would prop me up next to him and he would read me the Asterix stories

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and one of my most favourites was like Asterix in Switzerland and it's a bit in that where

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there's a very lengthy callback joke to these Romans doing an absolutely ginormous cheese

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fondue like in a huge cauldron that could contain a person.

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I mean yes, that is exactly at home in these comics and his dog companion is just like

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Nasher if Nasher had an eternal voice from Dennis the Menace and I don't know why I'm

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like, I love them so much, but there was a crossover with Conan once and the way the artist

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decided to do it is that the comic was framed with the meta narrative of him trying to pitch

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the idea to like the comic, the board of governors at Dark Horse and then being like that's so

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stupid and him going no wait, wait, wait and then all the artwork is done so that the Conan

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sections are done super like realistic and invoking that early like first 50 issues of

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the Dark Horse era which are amazing written by Kurt Baziuk and Carrie Nord.

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I'm so sorry for saying your names wrong.

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I'm pretty sure it's Baziuk isn't it?

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Probably.

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Maybe.

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Apologies again.

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Anyway, they're really stupid and if you love like the Beano or Conan and just want to see

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that sort of take on like a fighting character, go have fun, there are loads of them on Kindle.

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It's really actually hard to find the older stuff, I will say, it's like not available

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digitally.

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What is the older stuff?

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Like the 80s?

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I believe the character debut in the early 90s.

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I think the biggest run was in like the mid 90s with Marvel for like 120 issues, then

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he sort of went dead throughout the noughties and then since the tens there's been sort

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of a consistent Dark Horse have the license and they're kind of putting out instead of

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like a continuous comic book series, they'll do like four issues a year and then they'll

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get collected in a trade for that year and that'll be like one complete story arc.

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I don't recommend, just stupid fun.

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What isn't just stupid fun though, it has some genuinely smart ideas.

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It's a promise of blood.

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Hooray!

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We're on to it.

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Okay so this is a book series that is a classic genre, not of book, but of the narrative around

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books, which is that Geordie Bailey hears about it on Reddit a lot and yet doesn't know

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anything about it except that people seem to like it and he knows what books it tends

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to get compared to.

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Interesting, I don't think I'm as aware of that.

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I assume it's in a very similar space to the Joe Abercrombie, the Mark Lawrence, I would

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say Brandon Sanderson but everyone just seems to recommend it.

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I've seen genuine posts where people are like, I really enjoyed the Wizard of Ersi, what

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do you recommend?

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And people go Brandon Sanderson.

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I'm like, that's not what?

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It's like One Piece among manga fans.

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If someone likes One Piece they will let you know.

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That and Jojo.

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But yeah, I assume, am I right then?

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You're dead on the money.

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That's what they compare it to.

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And also anytime someone's like, I want a slightly different take on magic and technology,

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they go straight to the Powder Mage.

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And I found out why.

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Right from the start.

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I don't really know why, but just knowing that it was about wizards and gunpowder, I

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think something about that, some part of me was just a meegee like, I don't know about

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this, even not really knowing what it entailed, I just was set up at once to be a bit anti-it.

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So the book had to clear a bit of a hurdle right away.

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Because I was like, I don't know if I like these ideas, I don't know if I think they're

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gonna mesh.

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And also, and also I think it goes to a slightly industrial punk, like Victorian energy, which

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I'm very wary of.

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I feel like so many people go to that well, as a sort of plentiful aesthetic, thinking

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of Dishonored and the Gutter Prayer especially.

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And I've been burnt by those so many times, especially by something like the Gutter Prayer.

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So I was really worried it was gonna be like that.

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Here's a little bit of a dark stain.

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I love Dishonored and I do really enjoy this aesthetic, personally.

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And I told you, we read the Gutter Prayer, I was like, I'm prepared to forgive it a lot

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because I kind of like the vibe.

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I think my only reservation, my fear, is that it almost seemed too, I don't know, is it

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edgy?

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Is it too much like, because I'm a big fan talking about like musketry.

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I love the Sharks book by Bernard Cornwell.

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Yeah.

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Dore them.

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But they were very much my teenage years.

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And I think that's just given a slight colouration to anything else set in that entire era.

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I know, it's unfair and a bit silly of me, but that's kind of where I was also coming

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from.

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This sat on my to read list.

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I've owned this book, Geordie, for like three years.

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I've just never quite gotten around to it.

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I knew I wanted to buy it because I knew I wanted to read it.

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But never quite-

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Yeah, Command 2012.

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It's not a new book.

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Yeah.

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It never quite got to the top of my list.

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There was always something that I was just a little bit more interested in or I was like,

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oh, yeah, I'll read that later.

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Let's try this out instead.

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But I've got the podcast.

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I wanted to get around to it.

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I wanted to share it with you, experience it together.

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Geordie, before we kind of explain the actual premise of the book and what's going on, what

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did you think?

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Come on.

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You had the premonitions.

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You were a bit worried.

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Did it manage it?

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Did it win you over?

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For the most part, I really like this book.

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There's a lot of stuff in here that's a winner for me.

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It's not a slam dunk.

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It's not a home run, but it's a really good book and I enjoyed it a great deal.

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I couldn't agree more.

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This book, I really enjoyed because I loved so many elements of it.

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And I'm going to throw this phrase out there like immediately because this was generally

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my first thought when I finished the book.

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And by the way, I appreciate this is part of a trilogy.

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We are just judging the first book as it stands in the first book because one, that's all

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we've read.

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And also I do think it's fair enough to judge a book as a complete package because that's

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what you paid for.

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For sure.

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You choose whether to continue the series or not based on where the first one was good.

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I would, Jimmy, my golden phrase for this book is that it wasn't quite greater than

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the sum of its parts, but the sum of its parts is still really high.

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That makes sense.

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I kind of see what you're going for there.

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I would say I would describe it as a book with so many really great elements that is

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let down by a couple of disappointments.

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Stuff that I expect sort of similar stuff to what weighed down something like Malice by

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John Gwyn, but less so, much less so, like in a much smaller amounts than Malice.

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So for example, it's a long book, maybe longer than it needs to be.

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I kind of like some of the parts which are like really long.

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Maybe there are too many characters, just like in Malice by John Gwyn.

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Maybe it's a little bit misogynistic in parts, not maliciously, but just sort of by default.

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Similar issues to something like Malice by John Gwyn.

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It certainly sits, and I know this is very wide scale, but it definitely sits above my

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enjoyment for Malice, but I couldn't let go of the fact that it wasn't quite hitting

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best serve cold.

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I was like, it's not, it's just not quite clinching it, and it's not only in the moment

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to moment, but also how it all came together.

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So Malice by John Gwyn, I think was second to last in all of the books we read in our

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top 50, and best serve cold was between like three and five.

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So that's a pretty big range.

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And it falls definitely somewhere in between, but let me explain to the readers who may,

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listeners, sorry, who maybe have not read this book.

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The Powder Maze trilogy is the story of a magical land where a god has left thousands

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of years ago, and before he left he established nine dynasties to rule over the nine realms.

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Kingship, magic, and goodness.

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This is the story of where the land has got to that kind of industrial revolution.

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Gunpowder has become a thing, and all the power no longer sits in the hands of kings

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and their circle of magicians.

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This story opens where one man has had enough, and with his powder mages, who were different

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to magicians, we'll talk about that more later, like traditional magic users, him and

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his guards of musket men storm the palace, kill all the wizards, capture the king, and

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form a republic.

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Riva la revolution.

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That's right.

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So you say in industrial age, and we should be very precise, this is pre-industrial, it's

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very very much drawn on the era of French revolution.

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Like that's when we are, we're in the 1770s.

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So like the industrial age is like 40, 50 years from now, it's coming up fast.

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It's not quite here yet.

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And this is the kickoff, this is the opening chapter, and then from there we kind of follow

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three principal POV characters.

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My personal favourite, the character of Tamas, who is the man who led the revolution, who

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now sits at the top.

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He controls the powder mages, he controls the military in this land.

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We follow the character of Adamat, who is a detective hired by Tamas to unravel some

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of the last mysteries of the wizards.

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Why are they caught in this?

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The royal cabal is what the groups are.

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The privileged.

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Great bit on the nose.

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Yes, a bit on the nose, that's the first problem I had with this book.

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Three hungry games, but we'll come back to that later.

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We got Adamat, as you say, he's the detective, there's a mystery in this book and he's the

294
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main perspective character for that.

295
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And the final one, Taniel?

296
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Yes, Taniel, like Daniel of a T.

297
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And he is Tamas' son.

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And he, I'm not going to lie, for the opening bits of this story, doesn't quite know what

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he's doing, but eventually he is sent off on a faraway quest to hunt down the last of

300
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the privileged in the kingdom, a man who unfortunately is also Taniel's best childhood chum.

301
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And he gets on a, his story is probably the most twisty-windy, he goes on the most traditional

302
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quest.

303
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Yes, he goes on a quest and he's very, very action focused.

304
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And actually, now there are more perspective characters, like there's this one lady who's

305
00:18:04,220 --> 00:18:09,960
like a maid and she bears witness and she provides an important perspective for some

306
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of the book as a representative of the royalists as opposed to the revolutionaries.

307
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But it's not, it's noteworthy as we are telling this story.

308
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I'm like, okay, this is a lot of perspective characters.

309
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All of them are men so far.

310
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I wonder if you're going to get a feminine perspective.

311
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Okay, here's our one female character.

312
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She has far, far fewer chapters than the men.

313
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Alright, but she doesn't really have that much to do in the story.

314
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,280
She's kind of a minor player.

315
00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:44,280
Oh yes, and now she's vanished for a really big portion of the book.

316
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:45,600
Oh, and she's back.

317
00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:46,760
Yes, she's back at the end.

318
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Oh, and now her story is getting exciting.

319
00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:52,720
She's really going to make a decisive decision within the plot.

320
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:54,760
And oh, I guess it didn't really actually matter.

321
00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:57,400
Like she didn't really have any agency in the end.

322
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And she vanishes.

323
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:00,800
And her fate is uncertain by the end of the book.

324
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:02,880
Okay, well that was a bit weird, wasn't it?

325
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:07,360
Summed up beautifully, it's one of those little plot elements which, on the one hand, I'm

326
00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:12,040
like, you could have cut this, but I know it's in here because this probably is going

327
00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:15,960
to be a bigger thing in the sequel, if I had to guess.

328
00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:16,960
Probably.

329
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:18,080
A lot of set up.

330
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:21,160
Not a lot of really interesting stuff going with her.

331
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,760
Such to the point, I do not remember her name.

332
00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:24,760
It's Neela.

333
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:25,960
Neela, thank you Duncan.

334
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:31,720
So yes, we have these different point of view characters to provide us not only different

335
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:37,320
perspectives on what's going on, on the unfolding of this revolution, but actually each character

336
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:41,320
kind of provides a different type of drama.

337
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,160
So Tamas is a field marshal.

338
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So previously he was a really important figure within the country's military, and now he's

339
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:51,200
a revolutionary.

340
00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:53,920
And now he's doing politics.

341
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:56,600
He is still doing field marshal stuff.

342
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:58,880
He's leading troops, he's directing stuff.

343
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:03,080
But actually, most of the stuff that comes across his desk tends to be just like, oh

344
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man, I can't piss off this faction, and I have to deal with these threats from outside,

345
00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:13,000
and I need to make these big decisions, and I have to balance my moral code against what

346
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:14,840
I have to do for the greater good.

347
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:16,760
So that's a lot of interesting drama.

348
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:20,160
Again, like you, I think Tamas was my favourite character in this book.

349
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:22,280
He's very well written.

350
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:27,320
And then you get a different experience where you say Adamat is going to be this detective

351
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:28,320
character.

352
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There's a mystery, and he is the one who's going to go out and puzzle around.

353
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:32,680
Okay, great.

354
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:40,840
So settings like this, like fantasy and historical books, they gel really well with mysteries,

355
00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:44,560
because mysteries are evergreen stories.

356
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:50,080
In any time period, the past, the present, the future, in the fantastical and the strange

357
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:56,680
and the nonsensical, so much of actual just regular storytelling is about mysteries.

358
00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:00,260
You can ask J.J. Abrams about that in his mystery boxes.

359
00:21:00,260 --> 00:21:04,160
So a detective is a great character to follow wherever you are.

360
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:05,160
Just makes sense.

361
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:06,160
It does.

362
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:10,080
And it also gives you the opportunity, because he's interviewing all these different characters,

363
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,640
you can then get loads and loads of perspectives in.

364
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:13,640
That's true.

365
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:18,240
And different insights to a huge cross-section of people that are living in this society.

366
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:19,240
So that's amazing.

367
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,240
And then you have Tanil.

368
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:23,240
Taniel.

369
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,240
And I really want to say it like, what?

370
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:27,240
Tanil?

371
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:28,240
Taniel.

372
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:29,240
Taniel.

373
00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:30,240
Taniel.

374
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:31,240
So it's not what I said.

375
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:32,240
Taniel.

376
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:33,240
Taniel.

377
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:34,240
Taniel.

378
00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:35,240
Taniel.

379
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:36,240
Taniel.

380
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,360
And I really want to see like kind of off the cusp, because here's one.

381
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:41,360
God he was not my favourite.

382
00:21:41,360 --> 00:21:43,500
By a long shot.

383
00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:46,600
Yeah, I enjoyed a lot of his chapters.

384
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:49,060
I liked the fight scenes he was in.

385
00:21:49,060 --> 00:21:52,100
But, it was a bit repetitive.

386
00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:57,680
Like I could only see that guy snort gunpowder so many times, and we'll get into how fucking

387
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:03,040
cool it is that you have these people who just eat and smoke a gunpowder to get their magic.

388
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:11,680
But yeah, I feel like that character goes the most in circles, and I like the fact that he's

389
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:19,040
actually a part of a sustained war campaign and not just doing one-off adventures. He's actually

390
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:24,880
holding the line somewhere and he has a lot of places to go. That's all good stuff.

391
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:29,920
But nonetheless, as you say, definitely not quite as interesting as the other two.

392
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:36,640
Geordie, sometimes I feel like when you have a book that's very mixed or very good with some minor

393
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:41,360
faults, that's actually the hardest one for me to sit here and critique because I don't want to

394
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:46,480
oversell it and be like, this is why it's awful. But also so much of what I maybe didn't enjoy in

395
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:52,880
this book is very subtle. It can be a little sense of like, well, that scene, just the pacing in that

396
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:57,440
scene was just a bit awful. That character was a bit extraneous or elements where it's like, oh,

397
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:01,600
well, that didn't quite gel together. All these plot threads, just too many plots as for left

398
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:07,520
hanging that I didn't really feel that this book worked on its own. And it's really challenging

399
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:12,560
to now recount to someone listening why I didn't love it while at the same time wanting to be like,

400
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:14,960
oh no, I still enjoyed it. You should give it a go.

401
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:21,680
Yeah, it is difficult because I want to give this book its fair shake down, both in terms of the

402
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:25,760
stuff I really liked and the stuff that I felt like it could have improved upon. I really want

403
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:33,280
to make clear way more good stuff than bad. It can be really easy in doing a critique to focus

404
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:38,080
in on the bad stuff because that's what you can get energized about. So I really want to start,

405
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:43,120
I think, before we're mean to this book and we talk about some of the stuff in it, that's a bit

406
00:23:43,120 --> 00:23:49,120
of a letdown, we should hone in on some of the cool shit first and really give it the enthusiasm

407
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:55,120
it deserves. So Duncan, could you just talk to me about what is a Powder Mage and why is it very,

408
00:23:55,120 --> 00:24:02,000
very cool? Powder Mages are a subset of magic users in this world. What makes them firstly,

409
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:07,440
this book outright says no one really knows how why Powder Mages work, that we don't understand

410
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:15,200
their magic. It's different to traditional magic. They just can. And what they do is they enter the

411
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:23,280
Powder Trance when they either digest or snort gunpowder, they go into this hyper state where

412
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:29,040
they can move quicker, their reflexes are faster, their healing is improved. Well, what's more is

413
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:35,040
that they can ignite sources of gunpowder that they can sense in their surroundings. And not only

414
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:42,320
can they ignite it, but they can take the blast power from gunpowder and redirect it. Yeah,

415
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:50,560
they control kinetic energy so they can reshape explosions, they can take the energy that is

416
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:59,360
expressed by igniting gunpowder and just redirect it, push it elsewhere. This is first demonstrated

417
00:24:59,360 --> 00:25:08,240
when the king tries to just shoot Tamas with a gun and Tamas just senses the explosion in the gun

418
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:14,560
and he takes the energy from behind the bullet and just moves it over to a floor tile. The floor

419
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:20,880
tile explodes and the bullet just rolls out of the barrel. And this is used in so many creative ways

420
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:26,240
that is a very sense of, I don't know, this is a great film to be referencing. You ever seen Wanted?

421
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:33,360
No. Is that the one about curving bullets? Yeah. Yes, there's a lot of curving bullets in this.

422
00:25:33,360 --> 00:25:40,240
And what I do like about this, I like this a lot, even though the actual repertoire of Power

423
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:47,040
to Mages is pretty limited, they have like basically two powers. They go into a super state

424
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:52,080
where they're just better at being a human fighter than other people and they can control

425
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:58,240
kinetic energy from explosions. But all of the characters we see and whose perspective we see,

426
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:08,560
so Tamas and Taniel and Gloria? Glora? Isn't it V? Isn't it Vlora? Vlora? I listen to the audiobook.

427
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:17,280
All right, so whatever her name is, Vlora, Gloria. So all three of them have like different ways of

428
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:23,840
fighting with gunpowder. Tamas's deal is that he's really good at like controlling a lot of objects.

429
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:28,400
So I think there's a bit where he basically just like, he throws a bunch of bullets into the air,

430
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:33,840
ignites a ton of gunpowder and just like redirects all the bullets. So they scatter out and hit a bunch of people.

431
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:41,200
But Taniel's deal is that like he's basically a sniper and his deal is he's so good at controlling

432
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:48,080
bullets in their flight that he can turn them through multiple people by wobbling them in the air.

433
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:55,120
And Vlora or Gloria or whatever her name is can ignite gunpowder from like really like triple the

434
00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:59,920
range that she should be able to. So she can cause massive explosions far away.

435
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:05,200
One of the things I really like about Taniel's power is they make it really clear that when it

436
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:09,680
comes to going up against like traditional magic users, the privileged, well they can summon huge

437
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:16,560
balls of fire and fling them through the air. But the thing is, they have nothing to just be hit by

438
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:21,680
a bullet at long range. They don't know it's coming. And I love this idea of this guy like,

439
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:28,080
yeah, I just snipe them. The most dangerous, most powerful people in the world. And they have no idea

440
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,400
that death's even coming for them. Exactly, because they have powers at close range that can make walls

441
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:38,640
of stone and they can harden the air. So when they know you're coming, if you're just like showing up

442
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:44,480
with them with like a flintlock pistol, you're in trouble. But if they don't know it's coming,

443
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:50,240
there's a bit later where like, he sort of almost accidentally kills like the most powerful wizard

444
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:56,080
in like, in the land of Kez. And he doesn't know because he's so far away, he can barely see him.

445
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:00,400
He just bam, he blasts him. And they're like, dude, do you know who you just fucking shot?

446
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:08,720
And anyone who's a fan of Benard Cornwells Sharpe novels will appreciate a good rifleman. And I love the

447
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:13,200
fact that although they have these magical powers, they're still using some of those terminology,

448
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:17,120
you know, they're still getting guys to form up in lines occasionally, they're still fixing

449
00:28:17,120 --> 00:28:25,360
bayonets and going in. Yeah, so I actually don't have as much experience with like musketry in

450
00:28:25,360 --> 00:28:32,880
books. I haven't read the Sharpe novels. I have failed completely to read the Master and Commander

451
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:40,320
books. I just can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't read about knots for so long. Yeah, I just haven't

452
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:46,960
really developed that same appreciation. Okay, a few quick shots at some amazing historical fiction.

453
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:52,560
Master and Commander books, they're amazing series. They are very different to the Sharpes.

454
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:58,080
Sharpes, it's more kind of feels like James Bond at points, like Bernard Cornwell knows how to

455
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:02,640
write good action. You've got a hero, he's going on very over the top adventures quite a lot of

456
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:07,120
the time, but still a really good appreciation of history. Master and Commander, that's the

457
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:12,240
name of the first book, I can't remember the name of the whole series. That is like Jane Austen at

458
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:19,040
point. It's like, I'm going to show you everything this naval officer does from get his promotion

459
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:26,800
and wonder who he needs to go and like, write a letter to first, his aunt or his uncle, and like

460
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:32,880
all the way through to hiring the doctor, picking up supplies, doing knots, and like, actually

461
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:38,640
running a ship. And then we'll have brief moments of genuine combat. And it's like amazing action.

462
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:44,640
And characters that you've literally seen at like dinner parties die. And then it goes back to like

463
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:50,240
normal. It's incredibly like, it's like an unedited, this is the life of like a naval seaman.

464
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:56,560
The book series is called the Aubrey and the basis is mature and martyren novels.

465
00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:05,200
Yes, that's the captain, the commander, and the ship surgeon. They're like, it's that classic

466
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:11,920
captain and doctor relationship. In fact, it might be one of the best actually, in fiction of like

467
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:16,800
the one guy who will talk back to the captain when he thinks he's doing too much. And their talks on

468
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:22,880
like philosophy. Hey, we have one of those in this book. Oh, anyone got to get from somewhere. So

469
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:28,000
tamas and his bodyguard. I'm realizing how much of his these characters names have forgotten. I did

470
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:32,720
enjoy this book. But I also read this, like a couple of weeks back was hiking through Sweden.

471
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:38,720
So maybe my my brain got a bit frazzled. Oh, them. Oh, them. Yes. Their relationship. Very

472
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,840
enjoyable. So Oh, them is so we've got to split another cool magic thing. So it's like three tiers

473
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,560
of magic users in this world. Got the powder majors, they're like mid tier, then you have top

474
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:53,040
tiers are privileged, they're the traditional wizards. And the lowest level other than that.

475
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:59,040
These are people that just have one special ability. And in here, we see a couple of characters

476
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:05,360
with them. We see Oh, them who just doesn't need to sleep. Very useful when you're a bodyguard.

477
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:11,280
I also see other characters that have like, I didn't like perfect memories. I'm trying to

478
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,920
think about you. What's another one off my head, one person is implied to be able to tell truth

479
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:21,520
from lies. But then he's lied to and he doesn't realize it. So I don't know what the hell is

480
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,520
going on there. And I think the idea is that these people some of the next to like, kind of just

481
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:32,800
useless. But yeah, if you got a really handy one, you can be as, I guess, proficient as like a full

482
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:37,840
pound of age, it just depends on what your neck is. But yes, Oh, them love this relationship.

483
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:42,240
Because the idea is Tamas he's commander the military, he's just executed all the upper

484
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:47,360
castes. And I think a lot of people do get the vibe of like, he might just execute us.

485
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:53,280
Like he put he doesn't we know he won't. Well, we know who Tamas. So the thing about the character

486
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,760
of Tamas, we've talked about him in the abstract and the role he plays in the story and what is

487
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:03,840
like the decisions he has to make are we actually talked about his character. And what makes Tamas

488
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:10,800
enjoyable is that one, he does play the role of grizzled experience commander. But he's also

489
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:20,400
deep down kind of brash and immature. He's a grizzled, angry man, and he's completely ruled

490
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:26,160
by his passions a huge amount of the time. So most of the conflicts he faces is internal.

491
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:31,840
It's him vying with what he wants to do, which is often to lose his shit and kick a table with

492
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:36,560
what he has to do, which is be responsible and give commands when lives are on the line.

493
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:44,480
This is actually shown to us really sufficiently… sufficiently? Succinctly in the very first chapter,

494
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:50,080
I believe, where someone's like, are you just doing this because your wife got executed?

495
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:55,120
And it's literally his like in his thoughts, it just goes, yes. And then he says, no, I am

496
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:59,280
doing this for the rights of the people and the revolution. And that just tells you, I think,

497
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:04,400
like he is actually doing this for very personal reasons. He got pissed off. He was wrong personally.

498
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:09,360
So he's going to kill the people responsible. If that means saving the nation, that is obviously

499
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:15,440
amazing. And that's what he wants to do. But at the start of this book, he is saving the nation

500
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:21,280
while fulfilling his own personal goals. And a lot of this book is him trying to reconcile when those

501
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:26,320
two things start to diverge. What's he going to do? Yeah. And what we get behind here is that book

502
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:31,840
is about social change. Fundamentally, you know, we have these characters who provide a perspective

503
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,480
on like the different factions at play and they have their little adventures and they're fighting

504
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:41,040
people and they're shooting their guns, pew pew, pew pew pew. But really what this book is about

505
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:47,840
is from transition away from the power of royalty. And it does this in a fantasy novel. So there are

506
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:54,080
plenty of historical novels you can read and not even historical. Lots of sci-fi novels and

507
00:33:54,080 --> 00:34:00,320
dystopian novels are about overthrowing a corrupt system. And sometimes you get those in fantasy as

508
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:06,240
well, but they tend to be about the wrong person's on the throne. Let's put the right person on the

509
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:11,920
throne, the rightful heir or maybe a more worthy heir. That's what, you know, children of blood and

510
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:18,560
bone ended up being, right? In many respects, this book gets to the best idea of blood and bone

511
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:25,520
immediately, which is once you overthrow the tyrant, what now? And it's really fun to see a book

512
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:33,440
which is just going to focus on that. It's just going to go, we killed the king. Crap. What do you

513
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:38,320
do? What do you replace it with? Because it's not, you know, the world isn't as simple as, oh, well,

514
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:43,440
you've got two choices, complete dictatorship or, you know, traditional modern democracy. Not like

515
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:49,200
there's only one form of that. There's so many ways this can fall out. And exactly, it's really

516
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:54,400
nice to see them struggle with it and that it's hard. And that marries really well with the

517
00:34:54,400 --> 00:35:01,040
character of Adamat. So, Tamas has the struggle of, I'm responsible for what's happened. I led

518
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:07,840
the revolution, which means everything that falls subsequently is on me. So, when there's a royalist

519
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:14,640
civil war brewing within the city, he has to be responsible for putting it down. But the complexity

520
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:20,240
of, there are all these different factions which supported Tamas and his powder mages in their coup,

521
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:27,200
and now they're the new power. You have like a group of mercenaries, you have the unions. This is,

522
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:32,640
it's really weird to read a fantasy novel where so much of a book is about unions.

523
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:37,360
No, I loved it. The workers unions and like what powers they're going to have and what role they're

524
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:42,400
going to play. And that Tamas promised a lot of people, I don't think it's he personally,

525
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,680
but like they all kind of had these ideas of what they were going to get. That's right. Once they

526
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:51,920
took power. Yeah, Tamas's second chapter is like the previous, I think Mare or something similar

527
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:57,040
to Mare is like, okay, now about all those powers you're going to give me, Tamas is like, okay,

528
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,960
well, I'm giving you like a third of the money I said I was going to give you. And he's like,

529
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,320
what? But that's not what we agreed. I'm like, yeah, but the church just said I have to pay them

530
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:09,120
more. So what do you want? It's really nice. Okay, I'm going to reference something now, which seems

531
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:14,080
a bit stupid. This was a very bad example of trying to do this. Geordi, did you ever play

532
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:21,280
Fable 3 when you were a kid? I've never played a single Fable game. Fable 3 is a video game, came

533
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:26,320
out on the Xbox 360, probably the PC as well. And the whole first part of the game is that you're

534
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:31,600
leading a revolution. And then the whole second part of the game, I say second part, latter fifth,

535
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:39,920
is the fact that then you're king. And you're like, okay, oh, no, there's like an external threat.

536
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:46,640
And I need to like build up a super military to combat it. Well, I might not be able to fulfill

537
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:53,520
all my promises while maintaining a giant army. Yeah, absolutely. What do I do? The horror of

538
00:36:53,520 --> 00:37:02,160
leadership. And what's the great thing about it is that Tomas, in his words, says, I led the revolution,

539
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:08,080
but I'm not actually interested in leading. That's up to the council, you know, the council that he

540
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:14,240
appointed and he put together, and where all of them look to him for guidance, and who he takes

541
00:37:14,240 --> 00:37:22,400
unilateral decisions away from. And this is not the book being like unaware that the main character

542
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:27,200
is like the most important person, he gets to make all the big decisions. No, this is obviously a

543
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:36,000
really deliberate choice. Tomas is really, really close to just being a dictator. Like, he's the one

544
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:43,200
with the power. No one else in the country in Adopest has an army to compete with him. The only

545
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:50,240
person who can is the church because they have like the most sway over the people. And there's also a

546
00:37:50,240 --> 00:37:55,040
mercenary army, but I don't think it's ever actually presented as like a proper like actual threat,

547
00:37:55,040 --> 00:38:01,120
like there's a genuine chance of them like fighting against Adopest at this juncture, at least.

548
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:06,960
I think the general vibe is he knows that if he gets drawn into that sort of civil war,

549
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:12,000
it will just leave him, he'll probably win it, but he'll leave him too open to basically anyone else

550
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:18,400
to rock up. Forget that, that's not what's important. What's important is that that choice

551
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:23,760
puts him in a position of just being the new king. Okay, the king is dead. Well, guess what you got

552
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:28,560
now? You have a Napoleon Bonaparte. And it's interesting that he's actually still very likeable.

553
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:34,160
He sure is. He likes his dogs, he's good to his men, and he has a great relationship with his

554
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:39,840
bodyguard. Like, he's very entertaining to read about. And it's really fun to read about his

555
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,560
frustrations because when he's dealing with the politicking and trying to balance things, then

556
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:50,000
it's both cathartic when he sometimes snaps and it's like, I'm just doing this. Yeah, I'm cutting

557
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:55,840
through the bullshit. But then also at the same time, you're like, oh, that's another step on like

558
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,120
that dark path. Absolutely. This is about... Because I wouldn't put it past.

559
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:06,720
This is so many heroes are promised by like the evil sorceress or the bad,

560
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:16,720
the Darth Vader, you know, I can give you power if only you would join me. And it just doesn't sell

561
00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:24,240
because it's really hard to just abstractly say, yes, my character wants power. People want power

562
00:39:24,240 --> 00:39:30,400
to do things. They want to change the world in some significant way. And often when those offers

563
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:38,000
are given, it feels like the character is never going to accept this bargain because they don't

564
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:44,160
want power that much. They don't want to compromise themselves just to get power. No one just wants

565
00:39:44,720 --> 00:39:51,280
power. But what Tamas wants isn't power. Tamas wants to get the job done. He wants to get things

566
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,880
set straight. He wants to get the people fed and the roads built and to get the trains to run on

567
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:08,560
time and oh no, oh no. This is a fantastic part of the novel. And I'll be really honest with you,

568
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:15,440
Geordie, there is not an insignificant part of me that kind of wishes this was just the third,

569
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:19,920
you know, one third the length book I was reading. I think it's really strong.

570
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:25,520
I do hear what you're saying. I do, I do, I do. Because it is the strongest part and it's the

571
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,520
part that's most enjoyable. And I'm really relieved when I get back to a Tamas chapter.

572
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:35,600
And I'm not against the Adamat chapters. I think they are engaging enough mysteries,

573
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:40,080
which I don't think stand by themselves. So it's good that they're connected to another one.

574
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:46,240
And I like Taniel's gunplay adventures. They're cool and exciting. And, you know,

575
00:40:46,240 --> 00:40:52,720
they feel like something out of like, well, just a straightforward action heroic sword and sorcery

576
00:40:52,720 --> 00:40:58,640
story more than anything, or maybe like a pulp sci-fi story with ray guns. His deal, if he's

577
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:03,360
fighting essentially like you said there were three types of wizards, there's actually four,

578
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:07,520
maybe five, depending on how you stretch it, because there is a group called the...

579
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:18,160
The... Praedi? Praedi, yes, the Praedi. And the Praedi are super privileged. We didn't actually

580
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:22,800
talk about how stupid the name privileged is. The wizards in the world are called privileged.

581
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,760
And I guess he chose this because he was like, I really want you to just get the message. And I

582
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:32,320
don't want to come up with a silly fantasy word which means privileged, blessed by the gods.

583
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:39,280
But also it's just a bit stupid, isn't it? It feels like cringey YA stuff.

584
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:48,640
I would have been equally as happy with like, mage eye, magician, sorcerers, wizards, I thought

585
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:54,480
what probably would sound a little dopey, but the same vibe would have come across. Or just go for

586
00:41:54,480 --> 00:42:03,200
another come off of the Praedi name, be like the Praedi or the... Or the Scions. I'll just call them

587
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:09,520
the wizards. That's what they are. You all know it. Yeah, so the wizard, the wizard nobility,

588
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:15,840
what was I just saying? Yeah, so there's a super wizard nobility, the Praedi who existed before the

589
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:23,120
main privileged, and they are very mortal, and they're crazy powerful, and there's two of them

590
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:29,280
this book that is just stomping the shit out of each other. Yeah, and they're good action scenes,

591
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:35,040
and there's a lot of, you know, big magic going off, and there's a great scene, a university where

592
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:41,920
a tower gets blown up. Not blown up, it's sliced in two. I mean it falls down and Tamas is like,

593
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:48,640
ah, and jump out. Yeah, and they go smashing through the roof of another building. It's really hard

594
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:53,280
because this is genuinely fun action we're describing. I love how he jumps out of Adamat,

595
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,600
but we're on Tamas, so we're going to talk about him. He has these cool action scenes, and he also

596
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:01,200
has some genuinely good character stuff. There's so many elements in this book that it's hard to

597
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:06,560
kind of keep up with. He's got an ex-wife who he came back from war and found in the bed of another

598
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:12,960
man, but oh no, his dad really likes her, and she's a member of the Powder Mages as well. That's

599
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:19,120
right. So his dad's like, come on, can't you just get back together? And he's like, how could I?

600
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:25,120
And I'm like, yeah, fair do. And then also he has this new friend who we think is like 14. Yeah,

601
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:30,000
a couple. And then just when he starts to get romantic interest, they turn to him and go,

602
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:35,200
actually I'm 18, and you go, thank god for that. Yes, yes. That was creepy and unnecessary. Yeah,

603
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:42,080
that was okay. So now we're on to maybe, so this is a part of the book which is just so annoying

604
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:52,560
annoyingly bad. From first and foremost, it's just, just why? Just why? Like it's so, it feels like

605
00:43:52,560 --> 00:44:00,000
such an obvious blunder. Don't make your, your, one of your main heroes, who I believe is 24 years

606
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:06,640
old, and he's rocking around with his new assistant. That he met her on like a war campaign,

607
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:13,280
and she's his spotter. So it's her job to help mark targets so he can shoot them. And like she's,

608
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,280
she's useful to him because she's like a great tracker, and it turns out she has like weird

609
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:24,800
magical powers, which are like not like the other privileged. And as we go along, you know, like,

610
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:31,200
people start to make sort of jests about the two of them. And it's weird because you're like,

611
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:35,200
okay, but you instead of going to start, she's mute, so she can't explain herself.

612
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:41,040
Uh, it's said from the start that she's 15 years old. So it feels uncomfortable. People are making

613
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:47,440
these jabs like, so what's the two of you's relationship? A, wink, wink, and it's like she's

614
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:51,920
literally a child. And Taniel will say, “she's a child. Don't do that. That's gross.” And you're

615
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:56,080
like, yeah, good for you, Taniel. Good for you for pointing that out. And then Taniel's like,

616
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:01,840
now that Vlora's not here, what will I do? Maybe I'll marry Ka-Poel. And I'm like, you think she's

617
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:08,800
15. Why are you saying that? That's weird. This is really weird, both like minor and like major

618
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:14,160
part of the story. Because Ka-Poel's relationship with Taniel is like quite a big bit of his plot.

619
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:19,200
It might not take up that much actual page space, but it took up a lot of mind space when I was

620
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:23,600
reading it. You know, I was thinking about this going, why are we doing it like this? It made me

621
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:30,800
not like Taniel like as much like really go, Oh God, this guy again. And that's weird. We even

622
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:36,320
got to that point. I was never like, Oh fuck, it's Taniel. I was always like, okay, let's see

623
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:41,520
what Taniel is up to. I bet he's on a cool adventure. See, I wasn't there. I was enjoying

624
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:48,560
the adventure, but I could actually be myself to like love the adventurer. Taniel, I kind of got

625
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:55,840
to the point where I'm like, oh, Taniel, dude, you're perving on a young person. You're dissing

626
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,920
your dad a lot. And I know he's not been a great dad, but he's got a lot. I like Tammaz. I'm on

627
00:45:59,920 --> 00:46:10,640
his side. Here's daddy issues. The problem I really have is that up until that point, like that one

628
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:16,560
point where she says she didn't get to her hands. I'm 19. She's mute. She communicates with sign

629
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:24,000
language up to that point. I really liked their relationship. It's nothing groundbreaking, but

630
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:28,640
it's just enjoyable. You know, you have these characters who despite one of them having a

631
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:36,000
disability, they're able to communicate. You have it where like she clearly cares about him a lot,

632
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:41,840
but it feels like in like a way that he doesn't reciprocate because she's a kid and she looks up

633
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:48,880
to him because like he's like a heroic person who saved her life. And now they've been, they're like,

634
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:54,560
you know, they're comrades who've been in a foxhole together. And that's all really cool,

635
00:46:54,560 --> 00:47:01,520
interesting stuff. And then she goes, I'm 19. And the moment she communicates that just a little

636
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:07,920
switch flicks in, it just suddenly flicks in Taniel's head. Who is like, okay, well, she's legal

637
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:15,200
now. So now I can be interested in her sexually. And it feels weird. It does particularly because

638
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:21,200
I really felt like they were building this really good platonic, maybe I'm not gonna say master

639
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:27,600
student, maybe father, almost wolf and cub, not really quite that way. Just pals, they're just

640
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:31,920
friends. Just plus they're just poor pals. Like they've been through some really established that

641
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:37,200
they went through some really hard shit together. And they've got each other's back to a ridiculous

642
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:42,400
degree. And also that they're both really capable, but in drastically different ways. I really enjoyed

643
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:47,520
that aspect as well. Like one would not be as good without the other. That's true. They're a great

644
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:54,960
team. She's the tracker. He's the sniper. Nick, she's literally his spotter. So I didn't like that.

645
00:47:54,960 --> 00:48:01,280
It was a bit of a wet flannel over whatever kind of spark I was trying to get up with Taniel.

646
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:07,680
And it just made me, the fact that he as a character has this kind of flicks, like he as a

647
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:12,480
character has that moment. He just suddenly goes, Oh, maybe I am interested in you in a different way.

648
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:19,760
I was like, dude, just go, go on. I know your role in this, but I don't actually like you.

649
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:25,360
I wouldn't want to go and have a drink with you. Just move along. Shall we hit at some of the

650
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:31,360
elements of the story, which I don't think we've done their due diligence. I mean, I think there's

651
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:35,440
actually quite a lot. There's a lot of plot going on. It's a big book. And I actually really like

652
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:40,880
the fact that it's quite a meandering story. When it first begins, you think it's going to be about,

653
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:46,160
it's about picking up the pieces after revolution. And it is that for a bit. And now it's about a

654
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:52,320
brewing civil war between Royalists and Republicans. And you're like, Oh man, I guess this is the rest

655
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:57,840
of the book. But actually that's only like another quarter of the book. And then that's dealt with.

656
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:02,000
And then it's about an upcoming invasion with Kez. And you're like, is this the rest of the book?

657
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:09,120
Well, kinda, but actually that's just like the lead into what's really going on, which is the

658
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:17,680
revenge of the gods. The divine right of Kings is real. Or a great concept. I actually love it. I

659
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:25,040
love the fact that you're really using your fantasy world to empower the real world Kings

660
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:31,440
propaganda. Like they've been real world revolution. Absolutely. Yeah. You play with, yeah. What,

661
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:36,880
yeah, what if the divine right of Kings is real is essentially the main basis. You could take out

662
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:42,160
all the other magical elements and that would be the core one you keep. And it would be super

663
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:47,440
interesting still. Cause now there's this big question and, you know, Tamas puts it very bluntly

664
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:51,680
at point, so I think all of them actually feel quite bluntly, but they're just like, well,

665
00:49:52,240 --> 00:50:01,280
any God that was pro that crap system. Fuck them. Please bleep that out. Fuck them. Fuck them.

666
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:09,600
Fuck them. Fuck them. Yeah. And you, you, you go from this kind of standard, you know, it's about

667
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:16,160
people fighting people and then it's about normal people fighting wizards and the escalation of

668
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:23,200
there's now a God out there and you're going to have to fight him. It feels really daunting. Like

669
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:28,880
you generally, I'm like, how the hell are these guys going to win? This feels impossible. Tamas,

670
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:34,560
have you damned your whole nation? There's two more books. So probably not, but maybe.

671
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:42,320
Close. It's a really fun concept. I love, I really enjoyed earlier this year. I spoke about it on the

672
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:48,800
podcast briefly reading Unruly by David Mitchell, the British comedian, kind of going over the

673
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:54,080
medieval Kings of England. I loved in that book, how ideas of like the divine writings on the

674
00:50:54,080 --> 00:51:00,400
holy aspects of ceremonies, you can really track through English Kings. And it's so interesting how

675
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:07,440
in the real world, we literally know which people made up certain shit about the divine rights.

676
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:12,320
And then like you flash forward five generations later and they're all kind of spying their own

677
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:19,600
con. So to then take them and be like, okay, what then is the moral implication? If the King,

678
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:26,880
it has a divine right. Does that mean that they can do no wrong? Are you now doing wrong by opposing

679
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:32,080
them? And then we get into fighting God. Yeah. You've done an act of sacrilege by liberating

680
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:37,200
your people. I love fighting God. I like playing Final Fantasy games and they all end in the same

681
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:44,720
way. It's all at the end, you kill God. It's just how it's got to be done. I also love climbing the

682
00:51:44,720 --> 00:51:51,600
steps of heaven and strangling God in his bed. It's my favourite thing to do in fact. I'm sorry,

683
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:59,760
I don't know how to respond to that one. That's our first t-shirt. That it is. It's crazy and I

684
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:04,880
love the escalation to get there. Again, I really like the big picture stuff and I think Tamas deals

685
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,800
with a lot more of the big picture stuff. We've sort of missed something that did fall through

686
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:12,400
the cracks there. So we talked about Tamas, talked about Tannil. They do have a father-son

687
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,640
relationship which just doesn't get enough page time for me to really become super interesting.

688
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:21,840
Yeah, they're not really together much at all. Tannil gets sent off very early on. I like the

689
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:26,640
fact you did step on the fact that this is very much an evolving plot. I talked about Tannil gets

690
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:33,040
sent off to find the last wizard. That's actually his third mission. He goes on two quests beforehand,

691
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:37,600
hunting a Praedi and all of these other things. But let's talk about the other character,

692
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:43,600
Adamat. Ah, the detective. Geordi, have you ever read Lowtown? I know you haven't actually,

693
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:48,560
so I don't know why I'm asking. Lowtown and the Straight Trilogy by Daniel Polanski, Straight

694
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:54,000
Razor Cure is the first one. We will read it one day. God, this gave me such good Lowtown vibes.

695
00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:01,520
That is a detective in a very similar vibing setting and I love it. I love the fact that when

696
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:07,200
you've got a world with all the wizards and magic going on at that higher level, I love the fact

697
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:13,040
that when you get down to like your day to day people, doesn't matter. It's kind of the same.

698
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:18,320
Like that stuff, even for Tamas and like the power demages, they're not the privilege,

699
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:23,680
but they're still the elites. Like they hold a special place in society. They have special

700
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:29,520
powers. They have taken power. They are now the ones at the top and yet to the absolute bottom

701
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:36,240
rung, very little difference. I love the fact in Inna's book, like you have these revolutions

702
00:53:36,240 --> 00:53:44,000
going on. You have civil war brewing and actual international war brewing and people are talking

703
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:49,840
about unions. People are talking about getting bread. You know, there's a real strong implication

704
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:56,960
of the world does not stop for any of this. People need to keep living their lives and that stands

705
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:02,640
out the starkest in Adamat section because he's down with the people. He's not up in the castle

706
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:08,560
for the most part. He's in the streets. He's attending boxing matches and he's like visiting

707
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:14,160
businesses and going to the library. Yes, Adamat. So good detective. I really enjoy him. I really

708
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:20,640
enjoy the fact that we get his family very early on. Is he a good detective? He is. Okay, is he a

709
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:27,040
good one? He's a good guy who is a detective. Because we've talked. Yeah, he's a fun perspective

710
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:34,960
character. He's a good detective. And is it a good mystery? Oh, that is a very good question.

711
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:40,160
What's the mystery Duncan? Like what is the act? There's two mysteries in this book. The first one

712
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:47,200
is like, it's not a mystery at all, period. Like it's a mystery box like JJ Abrams would say.

713
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:52,880
You know, there's nothing you can do to like solve it. You just have to wait for the plot to provide

714
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:57,760
it. I like the parts where it's like, you're finding all these books where it's a race. That's

715
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:02,720
cool. That feels like a conspiracy. I like that a lot. That feels like a game of Delta Green, in fact.

716
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:10,960
But you have, but then the actual mystery is at a certain point, Tamas is alone in a room that only

717
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:18,880
he knows about and he's attacked by an enemy super soldier basically. And he says, Adamat,

718
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:25,840
only five people in the world, aside from me, know about this room. One of them plotted to kill me,

719
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:31,040
and you'd find out who it is. And that leads Adamat to interview all of the main people on

720
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:37,120
the council to try and determine their guilt and culpability. And this is kind of interesting

721
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,800
because I mentioned this earlier, like we get him going around interviewing all these different

722
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:45,120
people. He talks to the leader of the mercenaries. He talks to the leader of the church, the leader of

723
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:51,680
the unions. But you're right. Is he a good detective? Because Adamat in this book doesn't

724
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:56,240
really solve a single mystery. The first mystery, which is that kind of lore mystery, we find out

725
00:55:56,240 --> 00:56:01,280
that there's a mystery. They're like, oh, Kresimir, the God's promise has been broken. And literally

726
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:05,040
he reads some books, goes, someone's trying to hide it. And then he literally just goes and asks

727
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:08,960
the guy and the guy's like, oh, this is the answer, mate. You can go back and tell Tamas.

728
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:13,920
There's nothing we, the reader, can do. This bit is like a more traditional mystery. It's that

729
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:20,240
Poirot. This is a Hercule Poirot style mystery. Locked room. You have to interview everyone and

730
00:56:20,240 --> 00:56:26,080
you have to identify who's telling lies. The difference is that when Poirot interviews people,

731
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:31,920
he always discovers that they have secrets of their own and he has to deduct each one. Okay,

732
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:37,760
what are you hiding? And then reveal like, oh, well, this is actually going on. That kind of

733
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:45,520
happens a bit. He finds out that one of them, the Mercer media is having an affair, but that doesn't

734
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:52,160
actually impinge on any reason that she would want to overthrow Tamas. And the union leader guy,

735
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:57,680
he wants to expand unions worldwide. And that means he wants to do business with the enemy

736
00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:08,080
nation of Kez. But I really just don't think, like, he doesn't intuit that. He's told that by other

737
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:13,760
people. Even the affair, I think he literally gets told by one of the other blokes when he's

738
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:18,480
like leaving the thing. Some guys are like, yeah, it's a real, real, real affair. I seriously mean,

739
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:23,920
he doesn't solve any of those mysteries. Like he doesn't notice like, oh, I happen to notice that

740
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:29,360
you're wearing, you have the same perfume on. Perhaps you've been spending a lot of time together.

741
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:33,760
It's nothing like that. He goes to other members accounts and you say, it's not me. It must be her.

742
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:39,200
She's having an affair. Oh, it can't be me. It must be him. He's talking to Kez. And not only that,

743
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:45,840
but his impact then on the Leboide plot gets greatly diminished because he, if he didn't solve

744
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:51,520
this, like there's a bit where he discovers that there's going to be an attempt on Tamas,

745
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:54,720
which he only kind of discovers, I think, because someone attacks him. But anyway,

746
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:59,360
and then he's like, I must rush to tell him. And then he's just too late. So it's like,

747
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:06,400
what he actually did Duncan was he found out who the conspirator was. He mixed things up a bit.

748
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:11,440
And the reason he makes things up is that we've kind of left a really important thing till last

749
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:17,120
after this. He discovers that the, what are they called? The Black Street butchers, the

750
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:24,960
butchers, the barbers, the black street barbers are going to assassinate the chef.

751
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:31,760
Street gang, by the way, they're going to assassinate this cook because religion reasons.

752
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:38,800
And because he's claiming to be a God and the church has hired assassins to kill him. And so

753
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:44,640
what actually happens is Adamat rushes to the scene. And yes, he does arrive too late, but it's

754
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:53,040
fine. And he tells Tamas, I know who did this. It was the church. I have proof. And that's a good

755
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:57,440
bit of that's the one bit of detective work he does, which is that he remembers by a description

756
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:04,560
someone gives who an emissary of a church. There we go. It's the church who did it. Tamas goes

757
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:11,760
rushing off to arrest the guy. And then Adamat discovers that it's a trap. The fact that he has

758
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:19,280
exposed the mystery is leading Tamas to his death. The thing he's too late for is to arrive to warn

759
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:25,760
Tamas that he's leading into a trap. He arrives after it's been sprung. And one black character

760
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:31,360
in the book has been killed. I mean, okay, yes. And I know that if he doesn't rush to the trap,

761
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:37,840
you know, he's very important in the climax to take down one of the villains. But is he?

762
00:59:37,840 --> 00:59:47,600
He helps a little bit, but he does feel like other than letting him know, ah, it was the church that

763
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:53,200
tried to murder the guy calling himself a god. And you wouldn't have worked that out with it

764
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:59,520
without me. Well, so he like, he doesn't cheat much. We learn a lot about the world because of

765
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:04,720
what he does and what people tell him. And that's brilliant. Useful perspective character, and he's

766
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:09,760
fun. But a story. And that's why I really, weirdly, I prefer him to Tannin's sections,

767
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:16,480
because I find him more fun to be with. You know, he has a family. He's a family man. They're

768
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:22,800
threatened throughout quite a large section of this book. And, you know, I felt for him. I was

769
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,520
there with him, even if he wasn't actually competent. Yeah, for sure. The indecision between I don't

770
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:32,560
want to betray someone who's been good to me and also I need to protect my family. I think his most

771
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:36,880
interesting aspect is the fact that he needs to protect his family. Adamat has this great kind of

772
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:43,920
dynamic in this book where his family are being threatened by this shadowy organization for most

773
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:49,360
of the book. And this shadowy organization go, right, here’s your son's finger in a box,

774
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:56,880
you're going to be a spy on time mass for us. Anything you learn from him or anything you

775
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:01,440
learn investigations, you'll tell us and we won't hurt your family. And actually, this gives Adamat

776
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:07,360
a fairly decent amount of moral conflict. What's he going to do? I say that he actually decides

777
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:11,200
quite quickly, but then he feels bad about it. I'm going to protect my family, but there's still

778
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:16,240
conflict there and he feels bad about it. And then he tries to help to mass at the end.

779
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:24,080
So I mentioned that there was a dude who was claiming to be a god. This little plot is wrung

780
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:30,480
out so slowly and so delicately that I was like, from the moment he shows up, I know he's not

781
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:33,760
bullshitting. I know this guy is for real. He definitely is a god because there's no other

782
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:39,280
reason that has seemed to be written like this. But it still happened so slowly. The fact that

783
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:44,560
this guy is just a divinity who's emerged into the world and is wandering around and all he wants to

784
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:52,480
do is cook for people that is so amusing and like just a little bit fun. I just really liked his

785
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:59,280
presence. This is a lovely little vignette, which I think what really works about this kind of story

786
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:06,640
arc that's weaved throughout the rest of the novel is that it's not seemingly impacting anything else.

787
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:11,280
Apart from it's making the church very angry and it's building up that friction between the

788
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:15,200
church and Tamas. And it's only when you get right near the end that you realise, oh,

789
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:22,480
oh, god's returning, one, is a thing. And two, is the main driving factor going forward. At least

790
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:26,880
that's how this book leaves off. Like, oh no, this is actually what's happening. This is the main plot.

791
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,640
I really like this character. Oh my god, now I'm struggling to remember a name.

792
01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:35,920
I'm saying it's not Kresimir. That's the god that establishes all the kings.

793
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:42,320
I don't know. I don't know what it is, Duncan. And I put my phone away so I can't look it up.

794
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:49,040
I know. I want to say it begins with an M. We're doing so bad today.

795
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:51,040
Mahali.

796
01:02:51,040 --> 01:02:59,840
Mahali. Right, yes. Mahali is like the god of good times, baby. He's like the Dionysus of this world.

797
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:07,040
He likes to cook. He likes to sleep around. He had like 800 wives. And he was a real dude.

798
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:13,840
Like, that's something that is expressed in the story by one of the Praedi. He's just a fella.

799
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:24,000
He's out there. He was real. And Kresimir as well. He was a very powerful being. He came from another world.

800
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:33,440
But he was tangible. And he walked around. And then one day, he left. And now that Kresimir's promise has been broken,

801
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:38,640
that one of the lines for the first time in history has been severed. Some of the Praedi

802
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:45,760
are summoning him back. And they're working with the enemy nation of Kez to bring about his return.

803
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:52,800
And that's Taniel's story. For most of this book, Taniel is perched on a mountainside,

804
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:59,360
fighting an enemy army by just like shooting down the hill. His is like a prolonged war section.

805
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:08,080
It's not an action scene. It's a series of, a series of shoved back like charges that he has to

806
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:17,360
like hold back. But it culminates his section in like another mission where he has to scale a mountain.

807
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:22,880
He's discovered that they've crept past their line by digging under it. And he has to rush to the top

808
01:04:22,880 --> 01:04:30,880
of the mountain with his squad and take down the bad guys. And this section of the book just goes on for way too long.

809
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:42,960
Way too long. Now I do love the chase up the mountain, the snow coming down, the monastery that's been blown up like the monks at the top of that mountain in Skyrim.

810
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:48,560
Also, I could not get the scale of this mountain down right. Because when they get to the top, they like find an entire city.

811
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:55,040
In like a cold area at the top. I'm like, how big was this thing? And how high that no one had come up here?

812
01:04:55,040 --> 01:05:06,960
Can you not see the top? Is this Olympus? Well, think about this. It's like the late 1700s. We really hadn't started climbing like stuff like Everest back then.

813
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:13,360
I suppose you're right. But Everest doesn't have a city. Mountaineering is fairly modern as a hobby.

814
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:19,600
I'm sorry. We've jumped about so much. We're on a rally for a second. Right. Yes. You say it goes on too long. I agree.

815
01:05:19,600 --> 01:05:28,000
I think we have some really cool action scenes early on with Taniel. But this scene, now I actually feel like the scene at the fort where he's trying to defend and drive back the enemy.

816
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:32,880
You could almost write like a legend style novel just set here.

817
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:39,600
And that's exactly what I was thinking of. And I really, those scenes, they scratched the same itch as legend.

818
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:46,400
It just didn't have quite as many characters. You know, there were some fun characters around that is enjoyable to see and spend time with.

819
01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:57,280
But yeah, again, this is just another whole novel, which would be enjoyable to read. And it's just a part of this this omnibus that's been forced together like a magnet.

820
01:05:57,280 --> 01:06:04,960
A good example of this is the fact with the characters of Bo and Gavril, two people who are members of the Watch.

821
01:06:04,960 --> 01:06:10,000
Bo is the wizard that Taniel gets sent to deal with and they don't. Anyway, that's for later.

822
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:25,280
And like Bo has like a couple of girlfriends and I don't know, I just wanted a scene where they were all, you know, after pushing the enemy back, they all went back to the tavern together and sat around the mess room drinking ale and having a chat.

823
01:06:25,280 --> 01:06:34,960
But we just. Yeah, there's a scene that's almost that. Like there's a scene where they're sharing a bottle. And that's a really good chapter. I love that chapter.

824
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:40,640
But you're right, there could have been more scenes like that. They were just about the relationships of the people on the wall.

825
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:50,400
But then you just you're asking for legend again, but with guns. So I guess like the fantasy version of Zulu.

826
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:57,280
I would read that maybe in a shot. No, I'm actually saying that Zulu has. Yeah, let's not go into that.

827
01:06:57,280 --> 01:07:05,920
Then Duncan and Geordie spoke about Zulu for several minutes before deciding it was not worth putting in the podcast. The end.

828
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:09,440
OK, back to the fantasy novel. I just think it could have breathed more.

829
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:12,240
And there's so many elements in this book that I really enjoyed.

830
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:17,760
But then sometimes, you know, so well, to make this section better, maybe it needs a bit more time.

831
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:20,720
But I don't want it to take away from this other section, which I love even more.

832
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:24,960
Likewise, this is a long book and I don't want more pages.

833
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:28,320
So it's quite challenging. And like I said, this chase up the end.

834
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:30,960
Like this is the time of the model with Taniel where we get a lot.

835
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:35,680
We get the Ka-Poel age thing comes out at this point.

836
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:40,800
And genuinely, I was mostly like, OK, you're going to run up the mountain and you're going to fight the big bad.

837
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:44,160
Cool. Get on with it.

838
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:47,760
I was getting really scared. I was getting really fed up and not going over Taniel at this point.

839
01:07:47,760 --> 01:07:50,720
And exactly. And that was the real problem.

840
01:07:50,720 --> 01:07:58,480
Like everything involving like the race up the mountain. Here's how much how's how here's how I thought it was going to go and how it felt it should go.

841
01:07:58,480 --> 01:08:04,080
They say we have to get up that mountain and there would be one chapter about racing on the mountain, how difficult it is.

842
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:09,280
And maybe someone falls off a crevasse and it's sad, but they have to keep going because it's so important.

843
01:08:09,280 --> 01:08:12,960
And then they arrive at the top. They manoeuvre through the city.

844
01:08:12,960 --> 01:08:16,880
And that's one chapter. And then one more chapter is the big confrontation.

845
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:20,080
We find the bad guys. Bang, bang, bang, bang. They have a big fight.

846
01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:25,360
There's a big showdown. There's a critical moment at the end. Boom. End of the story.

847
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:35,840
The problem is, is that that has to weave between Tamas chapters and Adamat chapters, all of which span like have their own action scenes.

848
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:48,560
And so because of the pacing of the story and you want or he wants all of the climax to happen at once, Taniel's climax, which sort of gets kicked off first, is stretched out.

849
01:08:48,560 --> 01:08:54,480
There's all of these scenes of them pacing around and being scared about like, oh, no, the mountain cats are about.

850
01:08:54,480 --> 01:09:00,000
And then there's another chapter which is like, oh, no, we're being chased by the mountain cats. Oh, no, let's run.

851
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:06,560
And there's a scene where they're like getting lost in the big building. And then there's the big confrontation.

852
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:18,480
It's it really stretched out and I don't want to harp on it for too long, but it could have been so much briefer and more exciting if they had just cut out some of those Taniel chapters.

853
01:09:18,480 --> 01:09:31,920
And I'm not saying I'd like to talk about the final moment of the story. Oh, oh, what? When Taniel is recovering in the tent and he speaks to his father, the penultimate part of the story, because we haven't actually said what happens.

854
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,520
Oh, you mean the bit when they kill God? Yes.

855
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:40,160
So the the bad guys are trying to resurrect.

856
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:51,200
We're not resurrecting, he's not dead. They're trying to bring back Kresimir. And this is bits where they, you know, the stakes of the scene is they need like a ton of privilege to be able to do it.

857
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:58,320
And we can't possibly kill her, the Praedi, because she's so powerful. But we can kill the privileged.

858
01:09:58,320 --> 01:10:06,480
And the more of them we kill, like the more of a chance that we can just like prevent the ritual from occurring.

859
01:10:06,480 --> 01:10:14,400
And I like that. I really like the fact that it was like not direct confrontation. It was like we have to fight around the problem.

860
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:26,640
But that ultimately fails. They do manage to resurrect Kresimir. And as he's like descending from the heavens, Taniel, like from I think, what is it, three miles away?

861
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:37,280
They have said before, this is not that super crazy, because Taniel has shot people who were literally a mile away in like, it's mentioned in the lead up to the book.

862
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:42,720
This is like something he's famous for. But it's a ridiculous distance, even for a powder mage.

863
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:48,880
And for context, three miles away at sea level is over the horizon.

864
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:53,200
Yep. But he's elevated. So that's fine.

865
01:10:53,200 --> 01:11:01,520
Yeah, you yeah. So with his supervision, he can see this tiny speck of a god descending from heavens, and he lines up his shot.

866
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:08,480
And despite the fact that it's an impossible shot, and he can't possibly do it with the last of his power, he fires two bullets.

867
01:11:08,480 --> 01:11:20,320
And he shoots a god in the chest. And he's like, I did it, Karpo. I killed a god. And then the roof falls on them or something.

868
01:11:20,320 --> 01:11:31,200
And it very abruptly cuts to the epilogue. And it's such a jarring, we were just talking about the passage of time in it.

869
01:11:31,200 --> 01:11:48,000
The fact that it just suddenly ends and it's over. And then it's we were in the epilogue, and Taniel and Karpo are like in a coma, which is such a standard, like, easy way to get your heroes out of danger, to just knock them out.

870
01:11:48,000 --> 01:11:52,720
But like, really knock them out. Not dead, almost, you know.

871
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:56,480
I'm never a fan of this. The idea that they're like-

872
01:11:56,480 --> 01:11:57,360
Me neither.

873
01:11:57,360 --> 01:12:04,960
Right in the heart of danger. And then they fall unconscious. And it's just like, yep, we got them back. They're in the safety tent.

874
01:12:04,960 --> 01:12:11,760
And they say, oh, you know, was it Bo? Bo carrying them down the mountainside. And you're like, fucking hell, that's an adventure on itself.

875
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:22,480
What, as the volcano was erupting and the god was thrashing about and they were inside a collapsed building, not dead? You just got them back. Well done.

876
01:12:22,480 --> 01:12:31,280
A bit silly. Yeah, and Bo was like really messed up at the time. Like he was not doing well. But yes, he gets down through magic or whatever.

877
01:12:31,280 --> 01:12:44,960
And I don't- Here's the thing. Why did he have Taniel shoot Cresimir? Because you never buy it for a second that it means anything.

878
01:12:44,960 --> 01:12:52,720
Like, it's not a surprise when Bo's like, you can't kill a god. Like, we're like, yeah, obviously.

879
01:12:52,720 --> 01:13:05,680
Like, did he, did the author really get us, were we supposed to be hyped up to think like, yes, Taniel, you can do it. You're the best. Around. No, of course not.

880
01:13:05,680 --> 01:13:12,080
In many respects, I think it would have given me a greater sense or more trepidation or excitement going into the next novel.

881
01:13:12,080 --> 01:13:18,880
If it was like that scene in- Got a reference in anime now. You ever watch Bleach?

882
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:23,680
Have I watched Bleach, motherfucker? I've seen so much Bleach.

883
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:35,120
OK, well, you know, episode 58, I think, roughly. There's this great scene where the main character's anime, a guy called Ishikawa, he's beating the big bad of like that story arc.

884
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:43,280
And he's the biggest bad there's ever been. But then this new guy rocks up and our main character, all souped up on his power, rushes towards him.

885
01:13:43,280 --> 01:13:56,160
The music is hyping us up and then it does that great classic, the music just cuts out as the new big bad actually picks up his index finger and just catches his sword and then just slits our villain away.

886
01:13:56,160 --> 01:14:01,200
That's what I think I personally would have quite enjoyed in this sort of scene.

887
01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:06,160
If we'd seen our main character, he'd run up the stairs, he'd taken on all those privilege.

888
01:14:06,160 --> 01:14:18,240
You know, privilege we'd had been set up are a major threat in this world. And then like if he had that scene where he's like, right, I'm going to take down a god and then the god could just like put up one hand and just catch the bullets.

889
01:14:18,240 --> 01:14:23,360
Something like that, I think I would have found like a bit more, oh, here we go.

890
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:38,480
If, yeah, maybe the scene would be like he does this incredible shot and then he visually confirms it didn't work and he can say to Carpal, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I thought I could kill a god and then it collapses.

891
01:14:38,480 --> 01:14:41,680
I think that would have been more dramatic and that would have been more fatalistic.

892
01:14:41,680 --> 01:14:51,280
Instead, it's this moment of, it feels like he's trying to imply that it's triumphant or maybe it's just like a really advanced version of dramatic irony.

893
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:57,040
I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't last long because the next chapter they reveal it didn't work. It's the last line of the book, I think.

894
01:14:57,040 --> 01:15:08,080
And the last epilogue is really Tamas has gone back to his son's side and he's like, you've got a war that's still continuing with Kresimir, with Kez, the opposing nation.

895
01:15:08,080 --> 01:15:12,640
It's not going to get any better. You need to prepare for the mother of all wars coming your way.

896
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:22,640
And the gods are returning and they want to destroy the entire nation, not just you, the entire nation to be destroyed.

897
01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:25,440
So now you're fighting for the survival of your people.

898
01:15:25,440 --> 01:15:31,440
Intense. Do you want to know what happens next? I don't want to undersell that fact.

899
01:15:31,440 --> 01:15:44,000
I really want to know. We've said some nasty stuff and I really don't want people to forget all the nice things we said as well, because on the whole, I really enjoy this book. Seven out of ten.

900
01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:53,680
This is really solid. Like we say seven out of ten. This is seven out of ten for me in the way that parts of this book are ten out of ten.

901
01:15:53,680 --> 01:16:01,680
Parts of this book are five out of ten. And the way it all meshes together is six or seven out of ten.

902
01:16:01,680 --> 01:16:09,680
Yeah, there's a couple of fours in there like carpool and that that drags it down. But it's nothing that it can't recover from.

903
01:16:09,680 --> 01:16:15,680
I really think like I'm definitely going to read the next book. There's no question about it in my mind.

904
01:16:15,680 --> 01:16:18,880
Probably not on the podcast. We have so many books we need to read.

905
01:16:18,880 --> 01:16:27,680
I think Duncan that in terms of reading it for the podcast, we have given our opinion. We'll check back in at the start of an episode, maybe later down the line.

906
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:33,680
But there's so many things that we have to do that I don't think we can afford time.

907
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:42,480
It was your pick to do this. I'm telling you now, I really doubt that I'm going to pick the Something Republic to be the next book we do.

908
01:16:42,480 --> 01:16:50,480
Geordie, I completely understand. If to be pretty honest, I'm a little bit relieved. I think this is something where I'm going to be happy to take a break.

909
01:16:50,480 --> 01:16:54,880
And the day I come and read the next book in the series, I will probably enjoy it.

910
01:16:54,880 --> 01:17:02,480
Hell, maybe it will change all around and I'll be like Geordie, Geordie, come back, come back. We've got to do it. You've got to experience this.

911
01:17:02,480 --> 01:17:10,880
But when I'm sitting here and there are such great series that we haven't continued, see Scholomance, see all of Joe Abercrombie's work.

912
01:17:10,880 --> 01:17:13,280
I can't see this hitting the top of the pile.

913
01:17:13,280 --> 01:17:19,680
Well, then the question remains, what is next? And it's my decision, Duncan.

914
01:17:19,680 --> 01:17:28,880
Oh, that is Geordie. This is this is kind of this is interesting. I feel, you know, this is nice and open. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do?

915
01:17:28,880 --> 01:17:37,680
Now, unfortunately, Duncan, you see, I've been at work for about two and a half weeks now and I feel like it's time for me to go on another holiday.

916
01:17:37,680 --> 01:17:41,780
I've you know what? It's I'm just not feeling it. I'm going off again.

917
01:17:41,780 --> 01:17:46,280
I relate so hard. That's not a joke.

918
01:17:46,280 --> 01:17:49,180
It was framed as one, but no, I'm going off on a second holiday.

919
01:17:49,180 --> 01:17:55,980
I had a big summer holiday with a little a little break, a little gap of doing work in the middle of it.

920
01:17:55,980 --> 01:18:01,880
I am back in the UK for two and a half weeks and now I'm off to France, not for the Olympics.

921
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:08,080
That's done. I'm skipping that completely, but I am going to do some cool historical stuff.

922
01:18:08,080 --> 01:18:12,780
My girlfriend and I are going to Versailles and we're also going to this amazing site called Guédelon.

923
01:18:12,780 --> 01:18:19,280
Have you heard of this Duncan? I have not heard of Guédelon. Guédelon is a French historical construction project.

924
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:29,180
It was begun in the 1990s where French medievalists are building using entirely medieval methods an actual medieval castle.

925
01:18:29,180 --> 01:18:32,280
That is so cool. It has been about 30 years.

926
01:18:32,280 --> 01:18:37,780
They've been building it. They built it next to a quarry and they dig out all the stone themselves.

927
01:18:37,780 --> 01:18:39,880
They split the stone with historical methods.

928
01:18:39,880 --> 01:18:42,280
They chisel it with historical methods.

929
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:43,980
They lift the stones.

930
01:18:43,980 --> 01:18:52,280
They even like lay levels using like a pendulum instead of like a level with a bubble in it.

931
01:18:52,280 --> 01:18:58,480
I think the one thing they are that they do is they wear hard hats because they still live.

932
01:18:58,480 --> 01:19:05,880
They still live, you know, in an actual real life modern democracy where we don't make workers wear jerkins.

933
01:19:05,880 --> 01:19:12,080
See, Geordie, you could actually just leave at the fray because they still live.

934
01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:17,180
And one more thing is that they do where they still live is that they only build it during the spring and summer.

935
01:19:17,180 --> 01:19:19,380
In the winter, they just close it down.

936
01:19:19,380 --> 01:19:24,480
Like the peasants are going home because you do not build castles in the winter.

937
01:19:24,480 --> 01:19:26,580
Obviously, obviously, Geordie.

938
01:19:26,580 --> 01:19:30,080
I mean, we all know that. Well, I hope you really enjoy your trip, Geordie.

939
01:19:30,080 --> 01:19:34,980
You can really get in touch with those themes of revolution that were kicked off.

940
01:19:34,980 --> 01:19:37,580
Exactly. Yes. I'm going to buy one of those red hats.

941
01:19:37,580 --> 01:19:39,880
They've been showing so many times at the Olympics.

942
01:19:39,880 --> 01:19:44,080
Also, also, I'm going to a place called and I'm going to pronounce this because my girlfriend,

943
01:19:44,080 --> 01:19:45,980
I can't figure out how it's actually pronounced.

944
01:19:45,980 --> 01:19:49,680
It's either Peux de Feu or Puy de Feu.

945
01:19:49,680 --> 01:19:56,280
It's a French medieval theme park but has like chariot racing and jousting.

946
01:19:56,280 --> 01:20:01,280
And apparently, there's going to be a part in the jousting where the French knights are jousting.

947
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:06,480
It's all good fun. And then the English show up and everyone booze and I'm going to cheer for them.

948
01:20:06,480 --> 01:20:10,980
Hooray! We lost the euros, but we're going to win the joust.

949
01:20:10,980 --> 01:20:15,480
I absolutely love that. Honestly, medieval reenactments are such good fun.

950
01:20:15,480 --> 01:20:16,480
Jousting reenactments.

951
01:20:16,480 --> 01:20:20,680
Like I think if they were to bring jousting back as a bit of a sport, I would watch that.

952
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:22,780
Each second. Oh, hell yes.

953
01:20:22,780 --> 01:20:25,080
Well, that's me. That's my plan.

954
01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:30,280
I'm just working. In the meantime, what I meant to say is whilst I'm out there,

955
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:36,480
I'm going to be reading and so are you Duncan, The Priory of the Orange Tree.

956
01:20:36,480 --> 01:20:40,580
Oh, this has been on my to read list for a very long time.

957
01:20:40,580 --> 01:20:43,980
Mine too. It is a very big book and I think that's why it's never,

958
01:20:43,980 --> 01:20:48,980
I've never had enough time between podcast reads to sort of fit it in.

959
01:20:48,980 --> 01:20:53,480
So I'm very happy you've picked it because it needs that level of dedication.

960
01:20:53,480 --> 01:20:55,580
I don't really know what it's about.

961
01:20:55,580 --> 01:20:59,780
I bought it as part of a two-for-one deal with Kierke.

962
01:20:59,780 --> 01:21:01,980
I know that it's about dragons.

963
01:21:01,980 --> 01:21:05,880
I know it has beautiful cover art. It has Eastern and Western dragons.

964
01:21:05,880 --> 01:21:08,880
And I think there are lesbians in it, but that's all I know.

965
01:21:08,880 --> 01:21:10,380
I think I know a little bit more.

966
01:21:10,380 --> 01:21:13,580
I believe and I might be completely wrong here.

967
01:21:13,580 --> 01:21:21,480
It's a fantasization of the period in Japanese history

968
01:21:21,480 --> 01:21:29,780
where they pursued isolationism as a concept to save off Western influence.

969
01:21:29,780 --> 01:21:31,480
Like three, I can't remember what it's called again.

970
01:21:31,480 --> 01:21:34,480
It's like a 300-year period, but it just closed the country.

971
01:21:34,480 --> 01:21:36,480
I'm glad they opened their borders.

972
01:21:36,480 --> 01:21:38,880
It seems like a very nice place to visit.

973
01:21:38,880 --> 01:21:40,280
I want to go skiing now.

974
01:21:40,280 --> 01:21:42,380
So, is that another holiday you're just dropping in on me?

975
01:21:42,380 --> 01:21:44,580
That's just, you know, I'll be off after that.

976
01:21:44,580 --> 01:21:45,380
I'll be back for one week.

977
01:21:45,380 --> 01:21:50,180
We can record an episode and then I'm off again.

978
01:21:50,180 --> 01:21:53,680
The only holiday I actually have planned out is in two years time,

979
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:57,280
which is that I want to go hiking in Spain during the total solar eclipse.

980
01:21:57,280 --> 01:21:59,780
Well, that sounds like immense fun.

981
01:21:59,780 --> 01:22:01,680
But back to the podcast.

982
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:04,780
I look very much forward to reading the Priory of the Orange Tree with you,

983
01:22:04,780 --> 01:22:08,980
Geordie, and discussing it in two weeks.

984
01:22:08,980 --> 01:22:10,280
So has this been a pleasure?

985
01:22:10,280 --> 01:22:13,280
If you have read the Priory of the Orange Tree or Promise of Blood

986
01:22:13,280 --> 01:22:16,180
or any of the other books we have read or yet to read on this podcast,

987
01:22:16,180 --> 01:22:17,280
please reach out to us.

988
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:18,680
Let us know your thoughts.

989
01:22:18,680 --> 01:22:21,980
You can reach out to us at our Instagram, it's @isthisjustfantasypodcasts,

990
01:22:21,980 --> 01:22:23,380
or you can email us on Gmail.

991
01:22:23,380 --> 01:22:25,580
Isthisjustfantasypodcasts@gmail.com.

992
01:22:25,580 --> 01:22:26,580
Always great to have questions.

993
01:22:26,580 --> 01:22:28,080
We do respond to everyone.

994
01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:33,280
We had a great question on our Gmail the other day that we really look forward to answering in a future episode.

995
01:22:33,280 --> 01:22:36,080
Maybe even a full-blown bonus because I'm not going to lie.

996
01:22:36,080 --> 01:22:36,980
I read this question.

997
01:22:36,980 --> 01:22:41,780
I was like, this speaks to my like special interest.

998
01:22:41,780 --> 01:22:45,980
I can nerd out for ages over this.

999
01:22:45,980 --> 01:22:50,980
So look forward to another bonus episode coming eventually, hopefully this year.

1000
01:22:50,980 --> 01:22:51,480
That's a promise.

1001
01:22:51,480 --> 01:22:53,580
This year, I can promise that.

1002
01:22:53,580 --> 01:22:54,880
I've been your host Geordie Bailey.

1003
01:22:54,880 --> 01:22:57,280
And I've been your other host Duncan Nicoll.

1004
01:22:57,280 --> 01:22:57,780
So long.

1005
01:22:57,780 --> 01:23:19,780
Bye.