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Hi, greetings. Welcome to my home for another week of Wednesday Night Book Club. I'm your

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host Andy Rice and this week we're going to discuss the book The Destroyer of Worlds 2023

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by Matt Rupp. This is the sequel to a book that I covered a couple weeks ago called Lovecraft

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Country. It's actually called The Destroyer of Worlds, A Return to Lovecraft Country.

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This is a direct sequel starring the same characters as before. You're following the

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Turner family along with the Barry family and the... I don't know if Letitia is part

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of the Barry family or if that's just a friend, but you also follow Letitia and Ruby who are

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also part of the first book. So this is again sort of an episodic. Each chapter feels like

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an episode of a TV show. I think in the first book, I don't know if he intentionally did

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it that way. He sort of just did like maybe Twilight Zone, but the chapters did seem to

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blend together into a more cohesive story. This one does feel more like you're reading

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a TV show, if that makes any sense. It's like it has almost like commercial breaks in it.

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Not commercial breaks, but it has like these perfect segues of... Like for instance, when

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it opens, you're following Atticus' slave ancestor and you're following his escape along

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with another woman, another woman slave that he picks up along the way sort of, and they

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escape and you're following... And Atticus is celebrating the centennial of their escape

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from slavery. So him and Montrose, his father, Montrose and him, they were on their way to

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where they were going to follow the road or sort of the path in which the two slaves left

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the plantation and got to safety. But of course, it being the South in the 50s, they are confronted

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by racism and because this is a Lovecraft book, they're also confronted by mystical

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shit as well. So their journey is not easy. They end up actually following the same road

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that the slaves took in a less vacationy sort of celebratory way and more of a just to get

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out of the way or just to safely get away from these people trying to kill them. So

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they ended up following the path for the same reasons that their ancestors did, which is

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kind of cool. I'm not cool like it's happening, but it was like a cool... I like that it sort

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of shadowed the other one. You also have George and I'm assuming that if you're listening

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to I guess a review or if you came to the book club for Lovecraft Country number two,

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then I'm assuming you've read the first one or at least you've seen the TV show. So I

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guess if you haven't, the basic of it is that George Berry has a guide called the Safe Negro

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Travel Guide, him and his family and along with Atticus and Monkro. They go out and they

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scout America finding the safe places for Negroes to travel in that time era. And so

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they go on all these like expeditions and one of the expeditions takes... and that was

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a lot in the first book. That's how we kind of got around places or why we went places

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and like why the characters went places in the first book. And it's sort of the reason

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why they go places here. So George finds out that he has cancer and so he makes a deal

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with the ghost of the Winthrop House to get that cancer, you know, he makes a deal with

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him, bring Winthrop back from the dead and he will cure George's cancer. So George gets

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his Mason buddies together, the ones that helped him go into that cool anti-gravity

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trap chamber at the museum in the last book. He gets them together again to go get a body

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out of a morgue, bring it to, you know, Winthrop's house or wherever and have the... and do the

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like the ceremony to bring him back from the dead, which they accomplish, but you know,

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that ends up being awful because they bring back Winthrop and Winthrop's a powerful sorcerer.

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On the other hand, you have Hippolyta, who is George's wife and she's not telling him

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what's going on. He's not telling her what's going on. They do end up getting into an argument

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about that later, but it's sort of one of those, hey, you fucked up, I fucked up. So

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we can't be really too mad at each other kind of deals. So Hippolyta, working with Winthrop's

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ghost herself, she is going on errands for him. She's kind of doing work for him. And

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if you remember in the last book, one of my favorite parts is that she discovers a interdimensional

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portal, like machine that lets her go to an infinite number of universes. That one was

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in an observatory where you could see where you're going before you cross the threshold.

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So she types in the prime, like the one that's sort of the Winthrop's planet, I guess. And

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she goes there and she meets the maid Winthrop's maid who got punished and sent there. So Hippolyta

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was never able to go back to that observatory. But in this book, she finds through Winthrop's

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help, she finds a portable portal gun sort of thing like a little machine that like lets

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her go to any of the dimensions at will. The problem is that this one doesn't have a little

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projector. This one has just a green light and three red lights. And if you get to the

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third red light, you're basically going into like the center of a sun, you're not going

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to make it a green light means it's safe ish. One red light is, you know, you can look around,

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you probably get out without injuring yourself with a machine, but it's it's risky. And number

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two would be like, you're going into space. So you could probably survive about 10 seconds

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before having to come back, which she does use as a weapon later, which is fucking awesome.

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Some guys attacking her. So she holds she hugs him, lets out her breath. So it doesn't

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expand, you know, doesn't like killer when she goes into space, and then takes this dude

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out and outer space. Let's go of him. He takes in a deep breath, which I guess is the worst

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thing you're supposed to do when you're dropped into, you know, in the zero gravity space

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or whatever. So don't do that if you're ever launched out of a ship, I guess. But yeah,

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he tries to grab her at the last minute, she kicks off of them, comes back super cool.

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What it like she's one of the dopest characters for being like a woman in her 40s. Not typically

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your standard, like quick thinking action hero in a book or a movie. And I love it.

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I love that she's so like, smart and she like knows what she's doing. Like she's, she's

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cool. She's probably my favorite character in the book. So she's doing that. Ruby, which

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is a Letitia sister and like Letitia is with Hippolyta and so is Horace, her son, and they're

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off you know, doing that. Ruby, on the other hand, who if you remember from the last one

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got a potion that gave her the ability to turn into a white woman who she named Hillary

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Hyde. She is now down to her last hundred hundred and fifty doses. And it's getting

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bad on top of that. Her boss decided to hit on her, which is another woman and Ruby, who

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the timing of it wasn't even that like, I don't even think she had the opportunity to

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really think is this something I, you know, I'm into because it was one of those Cinderella

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situations where her outfit was tearing apart, which by the way, in Cinderella, let's just

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be real for a moment. You have Prince Charming, whoever I think that's his name, Prince Charming.

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He sees this beautiful woman in this great gown, glass slippers and all that. They have

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a wonderful time together. They're dancing. Are you to tell me that like if some hot chick

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in a fancy outfit were to then, I don't know, turn into like a poor chick in a not so elegant

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outfit that that somehow changes her body and face and personality to the point where

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you're like disgusted with her? No. And I understand that that's like Cinderella and

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she was sort of gaslit by the godmother. Like the godmother should have been like, hey,

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yeah, my magic only lasts till midnight. So make a good impression, you know, and maybe

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get that dress off before midnight. And that way, if you turn into like, you know what

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I mean? Like if she hooked up with the prince, then he would have eventually gotten her out

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of that dress at some point. And so he would have seen her just as so it just doesn't make

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any sense. Plus, what a cool flex to be like, yeah, you see my pumpkin carriage over there

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when I don't need it anymore. Watch this, it's going to turn into a couple of rats.

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And then it just boom. And it's walks around with that, like puts the mice in her pocket

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and leaves would be awesome. I'd be like really cool. The prince would probably be totally

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into it anyway. So Ruby gets kissed right as her body is breaking out of its white shell

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from the from the the potion. By the way, in the show, Ruby is played by the same actress

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who is in Loki as the the guard from Loki, the one that is well, I guess in the first

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season, I haven't started the second season yet. But in the first season, she's sort of

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like a antagonist to Loki. But that doesn't necessarily make her a bad person. I think

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most people who are antagonists to antagonistic to Loki are good guys. So but she's also a

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TVA agent. So she's sort of gaslit and brainwashed into doing a job that maybe she wouldn't do

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on her own. So I don't know. But she's amazing. And she's amazing as Ruby. And so I it's one

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of the few times that when I'm reading a book that has a video adaptation component to it,

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that I picture that character instead of the one that I created in my own head, like Harry

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Potter is pretty much ruined. I don't think I could read the Harry Potter books again

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and not picture Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson or Rupert Grint. But I think with this one,

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my Atticus was a little bit different. Like I don't remember what George looked like from

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the show. So my George was different and Montrose was different. And Horace was different. I

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think Atticus I thought of Jonathan Majors. But but for Ruby, man, I could not ever get

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that chick out of my head when it comes she did such a good job. And she does such a good

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job and Loki. So anyway, she's running out of serum, she gets tricked by her brother

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who shows up. And she realizes that her like, as she's it's so she comes home and her brothers

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out on her doorstep. He's like, Hey, sis, I need your help. Things have been falling

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on hard times. I need your help. She's like, Yeah, great. I got this house. You can absolutely

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stay here. So he does. And then one day and I like the way that Matt Ruff, the author

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describes like the epiphany moment that she has when she's walking. And it hits her like

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a ton of bricks where she's just like, Wait a minute. How the hell did my brother know

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where I lived? I've never given him this address. Like I haven't given most people this address

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or anybody really other than my work. So like, how do you know where I was? And so she was

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leaving the grocery store and she has this epiphany like she goes back in the grocery

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store and gets one more item and we as the reader don't know what that is. But she gets

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home. She has a brother and she's talking to him and she goes, Oh, yeah, hey, by the

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way, this peanut butter that I bought is on sale. It's a different brand. And she takes

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like a lick of it. She goes, I think it's a little sweeter than normal. What do you

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think? And he grabs the peanut butter, puts his finger in, you know, takes a dollop. He

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goes, Yeah, it's a little bit sweet. And then he starts to have an anaphylactic shock because

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he the brother the physical body of the brother is allergic to peanut butter, which is something

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that you would not forget if you were allergic to peanut butter, you wouldn't be in the same

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room as an open can of peanut butter. So he starts to die. And then to save himself, Kayla

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Braithwaite, the main villain from the first book, who was the one that gave Ruby her potions,

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the one that gave her that house, the one that caused unending grief for the Turner

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family. He ends up breaking out of her out of her brother's skin. And they have a spat,

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I guess you could call it like a bit of a fight and Ruby leaves. Which that was one

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of the coolest deductions from a character I think I've seen in a book where she like

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it was a cool it was a cool twist. I didn't when she pulled out the peanut butter, I started

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to think, oh, wait a minute. You know, like this could be like he might be allergic to

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peanut butter or whatever, like it was just a good, good setup. I really liked it. So

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Montrose and Atticus are being chased by the cop that they ran into on the way to Arkham,

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the Caleb Braithwaite's father's manor in the first book in which they burned to the

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ground by the end of it. But one of the things that Caleb did was make it so that the cop

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that they pissed off on the town right outside of that manor area would forget about them.

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But unfortunately, Atticus and Montrose on their way to the to go see the centennial

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sort of the route that their ancestors took, they get into a car accident with that cop

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right in front of a prison line of black men working, you know, in the like digging hole

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digging ditch or whatever, and a highway patrolman guy or a cop guy with a with a shotgun,

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they see the crash and the cop immediately gets out the one that gets into the head on

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collision with them. He gets out and just once he recognizes Atticus, he starts shooting

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the gun and the other cop just seeing a white guy shooting at black people just joins in

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and so Atticus and Montrose leave and end up following that path. They end up getting

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on a train and escaping but not without the help of the spirit of the woman who helped

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Atticus's ancestor Nat Turner get across or get it you know, escape. She died in the swamp,

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but you know, she helped Atticus's ancestor escape. Now, I didn't know who Nat Turner

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was. I wasn't taught that in school, just another thing that they kind of gloss over

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and I realized it was a slave who led a like a four-day rebellion against the owners of

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plantation and killed a bunch of people, which is fucking awesome. So Atticus's ancestor

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who is escaping, young man, he tells the woman who's with him, he says, he goes, I want to

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when she asks, what's your name going to be? He says Nat Turner. She says, well, that's

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some big shoes to fill. He's like, why intend to? And so he leaves. He ends up meeting some

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people in the swamp. They end up taking care of him and then we get Horace who is dealing

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with the death of this girl that he knew who just got shot because some cop was chasing

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someone and started firing. Just he didn't mean to kill her, but you know, he ended up

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killing her and that's messing with Horace and it's making him angry, especially with

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authority. And there's a moment where they get pulled over on the like Hippolyta, Leticia

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and Horace get pulled over on their way to the pawn shop in which Hippolyta picks up

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her portal gun and they're pulled over by two cops and they have a trailer that they're

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carrying like a jet stream kind of trailer and the cop pulls him over and when he all

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he wants to do is ask her, ask Hippolyta about the, about the thing, about like what the,

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how much the jet stream, you know, how much the trailer costs, what's the, what's it like,

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you know, he just was a curious guy, but Horace like mean like mugs him, you know, it gives

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him a, like a mean look because he's upset with authority and the cop pulls him out and

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because he's rational, he goes, Hey, listen, kid, this isn't the kind of thing you want

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to do and it could have been a lot worse for you, but it's fine. You know, I'm not going

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to do anything. His partner almost like if it was his partner that pulled them over and

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not him, it would have been bad. Like it would have been, you know, a situation where maybe

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they got hurt or at the very least arrested, but you know, it could have been a lot worse.

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And so they, so he's going through that, but he does end up learning how to keep that rage

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in check and use it, I think a little bit more, just use it more wisely. And basically

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they all end up banning together, you know, at the end again to stop Caleb and with the

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scopes this time, you find out that George, you find out that Caleb was behind a lot more

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of this than you, than we initially thought, including, oh, actually, I don't know if it

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was Caleb that made George think his cancer was fake or if it was a Winthrop, but one

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of the two lied to George about the cancer to get him to do what he was doing. And Caleb

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ends up killing Winthrop. There's a whole, the ending, I think was just a little bit,

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a little bit convoluted, a little bit cluttered. I do like the individual story through lines

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that they were doing throughout it. I like the lodge members that George was with. They're

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kind of like a, they're funny, like they're funny and they're helpful and they're loyal

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and they're, you know, they have their objections over things. They, you know, which I like,

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I like that they don't just blindly go along with it. It takes a lot to get them to go

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along with this insane plan to go steal a body. I like Ruby getting deceived. I like

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her, the double life that she leads. I like that it's, it's morally complicated for her,

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but it's, but still, you know, she enjoys it. But at the same time, she knows that it's

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wrong, I guess, to be someone that you're not. She does end up confiding this finally

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to her family as opposed to, in the first book she didn't. So she was just living this

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whole time without anyone knowing. I like that Atticus and Montrose, I like their relationship

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in this one. Overall, I thought this was a great follow-up to Lovecraft Country. I wanted

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more Lovecraft, this delivered on it. I hope we get a third one. I would love to see more

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adventures of the Turner family go and do, you know, go and do these like cool horror.

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I know it says Lovecraftian a lot, and again, I haven't read any, any Lovecraft. So I will.

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I bought the 50 something hour long audio book of the entire HB Lovecraft collection

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and I will read that at some point, I will cover it and I will reference these books

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and I'll go back and take a better look at these once I'm, once I have to see all the

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kind of cool references that they were making to Lovecraft that Matt Ruff was making. By

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the way, I don't know if this is relevant or anything, but Matt Ruff is a white guy

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and he's writing a very engaging, thought provoking, emotional ride, a book about a

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family of black people in the 50s during Jim Crow era laws. And I think it's like, it's

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like, I don't know how he empathizes in the way that he does, but it comes out like, you

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know, it surprised me when I found out that he was a white author, not, not an African

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American author who was writing from, you know, like a place of being someone who would

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be an ancestor of something like that, or could be, you know, like I thought maybe that's,

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it was like a love project, maybe started off as like a love project to the idea of

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making, you know, black people back then instead of victims all the time, make them heroes

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in which this definitely does this every, every person in this book, all the main characters

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are smart and capable and they, you know, they're bad ass in their own way, which I

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love and they're not, they are victims of circumstance and they are victims of racism.

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They are victims of, of these, I mean, these horrific old magical things, you know, but

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they're confident and they hold their own and they end up getting the better of it often.

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So out of five, let's see, we did Cthulhu arms last time. Let's see out of five, oh,

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out of five possible dimensions that you could jump into. I give this a solid, I'm going

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to say four, maybe three and a half, four. I'm going to go with four because I didn't

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want to put it down, you know, like I really was engaged the entire time. There wasn't

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a boring part. There wasn't anything that I, that was too slow or, or that didn't need

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to be in there. I, for some reason though, it didn't hold the same, it didn't grip me

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the same way as the first one did, but that's fine. I'm excited to see if there's a third

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one. So thanks for joining us, joining me, Wednesday Night Book Club. Next week we will

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be talking about the brand new Stephen King short story collection, You Like It Darker

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Stories by Stephen King. I am about halfway through right now. I'm loving it. It's a bunch

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of little short stories, so it's going to be interesting to review, talk about. I might

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just highlight a few that I liked. There's quite a few in there. So far it's great. Can't

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wait to talk about it. And then the week after that, we have a very special book club with

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special guests, Austin and Sean. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're all going to read

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the same book. We're going to talk about it, which will be great. It doesn't just have

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to be me. So thanks so much for joining me, you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

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And please go to friedricepodcast.com, go to the bottom, send me a message. Let me know

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what book you want me to read next. And I will. All right. Have a good night, guys.

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Bye.