Sorry, we're late. But we're here. Hello. Hello. Canada allergies, whatever. It's fine. Yeah. Lunch clocks being behind cats. So hello. Hello. Gushing about thymara. Is that, is that what you plan to do? Um, I don't know. I am planning to gush about the series though. I know I'm excited to talk about it with you because I think you'll balance out because I don't, I mean, you have said now on my channel every time it's like a wrap up or a reason to talk about Rainwild. I'm like, people are really down on this series. And I feel like that's unfair, but it is my least favorite. Like that's true. But I just don't think that it's like people act like it's like, oh, Hobbes here, then Rainwild is here to me. It's like Hobbes here and Rainwild is like here. It's like, whereas I think maybe as like an over correction for what I frankly think is like misogynistic reasons, people don't like the series. Um, I have over corrected and I would now say this is my second favorite Hobbes series, which also doesn't surprise me because like you like, uh, live the live ship traders like side of things more than I do. I'm more of the far seer side of things.  So it like makes sense that like that's where you're well, and in my mind, it's like really live ship and Rainwild to me are just like one, like exactly what you're saying to me. It's almost like instead of there being five series within realm of the elderlings, there's really two. One is the far seer side of things. One is the like Bingtown side of things. And I just love the Bingtown side of things so much more and not that I don't like the far seer. It's just like in terms of that X factor of it connecting with me, I connect with live ship and Rainwild's in a way that I don't as much on the far seer side, which I think is an unpopular opinion, but which I also think I mean, like for both of us, like I like far seer better, you like Bingtown better, but that by no means means we dislike the other one. Exactly. It's just like between the two. Yeah, like I'm sitting here thinking like I do need to start over again at Assassin's Apprentice at some point once we're done because like.  Well, I've heard so many people say that when you get to the end of that series, it's like an OMG Wow moment and that it makes you want to go back to the beginning to like see stuff that like is apparently paid off there that like changes how you're going to interpret everything that happened up to that point. So I'm just like, I'm trying not to have like my expectations too high for that, but I'm just like, okay, what does that mean? Because like I already feel that way. So if that happens even more so in the next series, that's going to be. Also, I did promise to start this live. So technically I didn't by telling you that within my Patreon, there is a Mara fan club. I'm pretty sure they're just patrons of mine to get to you. Oh my God. And they wish to be known to you. So I promised to tell you during this live. Well, I am delighted to hear that. I am hoping that they're going to come up with some sort of like name for themselves. And if they do, then I will happily refer to them as such, but they'll have to agree on a name and then I'll give them a shout out to that name. All right guys, you heard it here. You have to come up with a name for yourselves. Yeah. Anyway, so back to. We're not just here to talk about how great you are.  Self esteem is a roller coaster and I'm not going to be mad anytime somebody's literally this morning. I was like, you know, reminder live today for this and it was just, does she know how much we love her? I was like, do you want me to tell her? You guys, I love you too. I don't even know who all you are yet, but I love you too. I just do. And thank you. I needed that today. Well, there you go. But yeah, Rainwild Chronicles. So yeah, I think, I don't think you're wrong that like there's probably a, I don't think everyone who thinks Rainwild is the weakest is for misogynist reasons. Correct. But some for sure.  And I wish you would just say that. Yeah. Like, you know, it's not even been five minutes yet, but in Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness trilogy. A little hatred.  Hopefully it's after six where you are. Or having brunch, have a mimosa. Yeah, exactly.  So he's like, I want to like purposely like consciously try to like put females in the story and center them. And that's like the only difference. Like otherwise it's like first slide, it's grim dark, it's cynical, it's gross, it's like all those things, but a lot more of the POV characters are females and like badly and being like, what happened in first law, no, it's just YA.  Yes, the only reason, so we had heard that it read YA. So that was kind of my expectations. Which is what they say about a little hatred and what is the common thread between those two? That there are female characters and that there is some kind of relationship element happening. Not just relationship. I actually, okay, I really didn't plan to talk about like Joe Abercrombie so there's like a coming of age love story component, but both Rainwild Chronicles and A Little Hatred in the Age of Madness due to the POV that it has, it talks about like administration and about pregnancy and about like Exactly, women's reproductive health make some people lose their mind. Apparently, because to me, let me just give my pitch of why I love Rainwild Chronicles.  I love that to me, thematically, this is a series about women's reproductive health and choices. Like, I will also, I will say one thing in the YA category, I do also think this is an easier read. Like the writing is less complicated than in some of the other books I think. I don't know, for whatever reason this one I thought read quicker than some of our other books. So maybe that's where it's coming from.   So yes, it is younger people who have had no future. Like they don't have a future. All of a sudden they have the possibility to have a future which includes the possibility to actually like have a next generation or set up like a future society for themselves. So like all of the teen angst.  It's like they're finally able to have that because they have some context where they might have a future and it's about the girls in that equation bearing the costs of that exploration. Like the girls are the ones who are going to have to have the consequences of the sexual exploration that's happening. And to me, that scene in the second book where what's her face is it GERD, GERD, whatever kind of like it's GERD when she is having that horrific miscarriage and older lady what's her face makes the other girls come in and watch it and say like this is what happens if you choose to have a baby. It's not just a burden on you. It's not just a threat to you. It's a threat to this entire community. So like the choices you are making about this are deadly serious. And to me like that is such a purposeful juxtaposition of like everybody knows what it's like to be an angsty teen and like the whole whatever but it's doing it in the context of having incredibly high stakes that they are just learning to like really appreciate and to me I just was like I don't see how you can say like this is just a bunch of stupid relationships like to me that was so clearly the intent that I just I don't know for me I was like this this to me is just like a beautiful continuation of life ship which to me was about women like having different roles in a patriarchal structure this was like okay here's this very specific society that is being created and how are these women who have like and I've seen some people say about like the disability themes I think that's totally there as well like these women making just like really serious health choices for themselves I don't know to me I found that so compelling and so interesting and especially sorry I'm just like going full on right here especially once we see what happens with Malta and with Rain and like what happens with their kid right like to me it's happening in every layer of the story we see the like you know gerrymandering for marriage and reproduction in with the chousins whatever that dude is like you know jockeying I guess that's where I was looking for I'm Jerry manager which I guess is kind of what that guy is doing but um I don't have something to say about this but to me it's just so clearly like that's such a huge theme in every storyline that to me it seems like it can't be incidental so I get it if people just don't like reading about relationships but some of the critiques about like nothing nothing happening and like it being lighter weight than some for other series I'm like I don't think you're actually reading the subtext or like the full important implications of what can happen to these women thus end the rant and Urza says um I like that it was the Spartans that had the they were the only ones that um died honorably as men in combat or women in childbirth that there can be bloody scenes in books they don't always need to include a sword and this like um you know my other favorite thing to bring up nowadays is House of the Dragon um so it's just like right there next to her for grounding we need to get like your official bingo card and um we can follow along and I think the bingo card has like three squares it's like well it's very easy to get bingo we got um House of the Dragon we've got Joe Abercrombie we got Gaiman we've got um those were the three squares I was thinking of we've got negative towards Sanderson we've got negative towards uh the new Lord of the Rings series and kissy books also kissy um yeah I think we can get at least we can get we can get nine which would be like a very small bingo square okay okay but um but so House of the Dragon which I don't you don't you haven't watched it right no because um I like in my weekly reviews um I like actually I don't I don't think I called it out as much as I wanted to but I was like I really want to say something about this because I haven't been um that like it was showing giving equal screen time to like women giving birth and childbirth and like women stuff as it did to like battle and it was showing it just as violently and bloodily as it was showing battle and it wasn't like oh and babies are born but here's battle scenes and like for people who were like do we need another childbirth scene like we've already had so many and it's like do you say that about battle scenes do you say that oh we've already had two battle scenes do we need another one no so like yeah exactly I mean I think this also comes into maybe like if it's a primarily American based readership like health slash sex education in this country is an absolute joke and so I think a lot of people are just not aware of the full realities of what reproductive health does to women's bodies there's literally a girl on tiktok who has like a running list of reasons not to have kids and it's like two hundred something reasons of like the horrific things that people post about happening to their bodies after they've had a child including getting like lactation in your armpits like all kinds of crazy stuff um so I think maybe we're just sort of like divorced from the realities of it. I think it's a miracle that every woman should experience it to like truly be a woman that you can't be really uh you can't have the full female experience if you never become a parent which is why trans women are not women you should give birth to 10 babies all naturally and then you'll truly flourish as a woman well I will say that was like a deep theological root in the 17 and 1800s and a good old queen vicki taking morphine for her births was like normalizing you don't have to suffer in childbirth to be like holy this is nothing new like it always comes back around but anyway that's like my my passion argument hey don't even I would definitely like come up with a way to link this to leo career don't even play with me right now that's that'll be a future video like have a think about it come back and have like your uh murder wall with like we're on stream well actually okay I wasn't going to bring this up but now that you've made me think about it I was like how can I connect it in I kind of asked him about this um because in the under the northern sky trilogy in the anaconda society those of the neanderthals um when he like explains kind of how their society works in like he'll as he has he goes he'll be like this is how this works or whatever and that like um women become like full citizens of like their kingdom um not when they get married but when they have given birth and now are a mother and so like but at the same time women are the majority property owners because the men always die at war and the women just keep living so like the ones that actually govern trade and own property are all women oh interesting yeah I'm going to read that at some point I think me and Jess are going to do a buddy read if you hate it please never tell me no I'm going to tell you so you can feel the pain I feel when you hate books I love it's usually that you've made me read them though uh I did not make you read babble yeah that's true yeah and I okay but babble was like I've never watched your video because I was like this will hurt my this will hurt my feelings and I just don't want to watch it every time I've talked about babble I've been like it hurts me that I hate this because like it's very you and what it wants to do is something I want to support but like we're not here to talk about babble anyway um yes multi-giving birth while getting kidnapped exactly like what a oh yeah we swear on the channel what a fucking badass like she is just such a I love that and then the whole thing childbirth also happens a lot more in history than battles yeah for real um childbirth is a battle from what I can tell well so and then like I mean what Urza just said like we always make a big deal about battles and how men die and war and whatever and like well a lot of men did go to battle a lot of men did have to like go and fight battles and stuff um almost every single woman did have to go through childbirth so like the amount of women that have battled is like a greater percentage of women than men I mean keep in mind like well again in the US like our maternal healthcare is slowly declining and becoming awesome it was so great to begin with yeah it was already let's say fantastic but I mean like literally in the um again 17 and 1800s women would literally write a letter to their husband before they gave birth basically saying like thank you for being a great husband I love you and it was supposed to be given to them in case they died like like before yeah exactly it was like literally like I am going into the battle of this birthing bed and I very well may die and yeah urza says people tell me I don't know my feelings because I don't want kids I can't imagine how much worse it is for women yeah oh my gosh yeah like you'll change your mind yeah I forget who it was that said it but they were like can you imagine it was the other way around and people said they want kids and it was like you'll change your mind I mean I do yeah I mean this could be a whole other discussion but yeah I mean I know I have friends who've been handed with me about like especially because I grew up in a very religious culture where people are encouraged to marry and have kids very young and I know people who had they had time to really think about what they wanted for their life probably would not have chosen to have kids which is part of my to do it young so that they don't think about it too much the only pressure to have kids that I've had in my life is because I grew up in the Latvian diaspora and so like the way that it's just like at all times that like you need to marry a Latvian and have Latvian children so that Latvia doesn't die it's like like literally I thought we were over that a bit but then this last Christmas we had like some Latvian friends over like you know they're like they were at my parents wedding like old like very old family friends but I hadn't seen them in a while and they were just kind of like catching up on some like other like Latvian young people that are like my brother's age and about like oh did you hear like they got engaged or did you hear they they're dating someone and about like yeah it's not a Latvian girl he didn't marry a Latvian girl and they're like we were really surprised by that we really would have thought and they're like oh and this other boy like you hardly came to the Latvian center but you know he got engaged to a Latvian girl who would have thought and it's just like my brother and I were looking at each other like oh the shame calamity it's like you go to dinner next time and like they're sitting there with like this nice Latvian girl and boy for you and your brother like I mean I legit don't go to the Latvian center anymore like for a lot of reasons but like partly it's because every time I go there there's two kinds of pressure one hey you haven't like why aren't you in choir why aren't you in folk dancing why aren't you like coming to teach at the Latvian school and I'm like this is why I don't come here because like as soon as they show up they're like do stuff and the other part of pressure is like why aren't you in folk dancing that's my question but other people like come up to me and be like you know my grandson he plays the piano my grandson he's like getting his doctorate and I'm just like that's really great for you or like if someone gives me a baby to hold which is never something I volunteer for but they're like hold her and then I do and then Latvians come up to me and they're like they're like so good holding a baby and I'm just like take it back yeah it's like I feel like fresh meat right now leave me alone luckily I'm getting to the point in my life where my ovaries are open dying so hopefully people will leave me locally they'll still come out to you on the off chance like hey you know clock's ticking oh I mean like well because like especially in the south everybody gets well less so now but people have gotten married very young so I was like treated as if I was a spencer by the time I was 24 and it's like okay well let me go back to DC where nobody even thinks about getting married until they're in their 30s okay thanks bye so yeah it's because you know millennials don't want to have sex and don't want to have children they're just panda bears basically yeah which is real cute I'm okay being that cute cute and sexless yeah just rolling around eating bamboo sounds like me um wild chronicles I understand why this series may not be for everyone but I will just say that the certain critique of it that has and it's hard to like nail down exactly but there is a certain like tone or sort of the way some of the critiques are discussed that I'm like I don't think you really picked up what Robin Hopp was doing here well there's also like and this is where it becomes really hard to determine what is someone's taste because that's their taste and what is someone's taste because of like how they're conditioned by society 100% because like there's the whole like oh you know Dickens's literature that everyone can read but little women is not because it's like women's problems and it's like if you're telling me they're like oh like I get what it's doing it's a great book rain wild chronicles but it's just like I can't relate to it and it's not my cup of tea I don't really like reading about that kind of stuff it's like maybe truly you don't or maybe you don't because like you were never taught that it's important to read stories about this like you were like oh a man seeking himself on the open road that's literature but like a woman wondering like if having a baby is gonna like hurt herself and her community and and change the course of her life you're like well why do I need to read about that I need to read about a man on the open road you know it's like yeah maybe you would never have liked that story no matter how you grew up or maybe you were just like never conditioned to like give that story time to give it like to really feel it I felt like this was such an emotional story like I cried several times in this just about the I don't know the precarity of life was sort of how I felt a lot of this was and I mean also what's his face when he was enslaved like that was a lot yeah I don't that was an interesting it was just that was just hob being hob to me I didn't really read it like a love triangle it was more like well these are some like messy human interactions that are happening right now and she's just letting the implications of it just go she's not trying to like corral this back into a neat package it's just sort of like this is a lot this is very messy so for me like the reason I think that Rainwild is weaker like why it's my least favorite is because mainly of like pacing issues because like I feel like a lot of the themes the we're talking about like that's great that she's entering that and there's like a lot of like meat to that but it's like I don't think it needed to be four books like I think it could have been three like all the rest I think that's probably true but originally apparently it was a duology and they split them up into two each book into two I think that's still too long it's not that you'd like how you divide it up like you need to like yeah I think I was so into the characters that I was okay with it but like I don't dispute that like it was very my least favorite by far was is it Dragon Haven the second one that I actually like really liked a lot more than apparently anyone else but that's the one where it's like we're in the same place that all the POVs are in one place like the story isn't actually progressing in like a plot sense and it's like you need to have like both happening like if because I'm all for character development but like if there's like no progression and there's no variety and like where what we're part of the world we're seeing it's just like it's a lot yeah I mean I I can't dispute that Evie hey Evie is with me on Team Marine Wild yeah yeah I can't dispute that I I just like it but I on a like you know like I think that's legitimate critique and I can see why people felt like it was slow I think first two books were one book I think that one book needed to be combined and shrunk I think of the first two books were one book yeah I think probably pacing wise overall the series would work a little better yeah and like that's like what Evie says Dragon Haven is the best filler book I've ever read that is exactly how I felt I mean even for me I'm like out of the series I'm like this is the weak point of like the entire realm of the elderlings and certainly Rainwell Chronicles is like that book because it just feels like a stand still but that being said this is Hobb and so like Dragon Haven is still like better than like 90% of books that I read so like for like it's always like relative it's like if I read a game and book that I give three stars to a three star game and book is better than a lot of five star books I read just because like when I read a game and I'm like I know you can do better exactly because I always put three stars as meets my expectations and Hobb I just have very high expectations for so it you know and for me Dragon Haven was still a four because I was just so into it but I objectively however insofar as you can be objective about these things I get why people felt like that was weaker and that's yeah Evie that's exactly how I feel me and Evie I think are pretty much on the same page about this entire series I'm like I'm not here for the Rainwild Blander it is so good come on and for me to I felt like while if the books were like only about one of them it wouldn't bother me but because they're both in the same story Thymara and oh my god what's her name uh oh the dragon red haired um the one that like her husband is evil and she's like having a fling with the ghost captain Arliss yeah I'm a terrible fantasy reader because I cannot remember anyone's names they're like their situations are extremely different which kept things interesting but I feel like their personalities were like really really similar to me to where like I didn't feel like they were like I obviously they're two different characters and they're in completely different situations but I was like if like if Arliss had been born in the rainwilds disfigured like Thymara had been born to a traitor family and Mary what's his name they would be exactly the same stories yeah yeah um that's very fair and I yeah sorry we've only talked about like thematically what I love about this but other things that I enjoy in this are I really like Elise's storyline a lot more so than I actually liked Thymara's honestly I really like because I think I liked her interaction with Cedric I liked the kind of love triangle cheating triangle whatever they were in with Hest Hest I think that was his name um so I really liked all of that and I also really liked her finding you know love with captain dude and you know her getting to live her or her his story her captain was a lot nicer than um yes it starts with a B right um are you thinking wait wait are you talking about that or are you talking about the the one that Althea ends up with yeah I don't know that sure maybe very bad there's so many characters and I don't there are so many characters um yeah so I think like her getting a like this like in a romantic relationship with this captain as like um brashen yes brashen thank you chat you're just gonna have to supply us all the names because I am not good at it I had a first letter I think I get credit for you do you 100% I was just like that dude the the dude with the ship I'm literally everyone in the comments like got me uh Elise got me brashen just like everyone knows more than we do I don't even know where we're here you should be better at this because you're much you're like a branded fantasy reader I'm more usually pretty good at remembering names but I think especially like live ships is like two series ago so yeah there's just so many characters at this point it's hard it is um so what we've talked about before I don't actually read fantasy names phonetically usually I treat them almost like a symbol because I'm not worried about pronouncing them I'm just like that one the one that has the name that looks like that yeah so I call you meet that was so satisfying oh my god one of the best endings for a villain because Hest is like he's not on like a Kyle fucking Haven level he's like Kyle if Kyle was like rich and pampered exactly like he's not quite as hateable but okay but see is he by I guess he is gay because he had no interest in any females yeah I guess that's true okay um but he I yeah his ending was so satisfying and like that entire progression I found extremely yeah I just like that entire storyline I think Elise and left turner maybe the only couple in the entire realm of the elderly so far that I have no complicated feelings about like I think they're good together they make sense together to me like I like their dynamic well I think Malta and oh that's true you know what Malta and Rain and then also our pigeon keepers finding love I also love that be a letter I thought that was really cute yeah yeah I did wonder because she has a habit of doing this you know we're like um someone who seems irredeemable could get like not a redemption arc but like where you start to feel like oh I still hate you but like like with Kenneth you know where you're like you're the worst but like you're making like see where he's coming from so I was waiting for something like that to happen with Hest maybe no pretty bad he was just spoiled I think he was just sort of like rotten yeah have you watched the white lotus no because there's a character in the white lotus in the first season that's like literally Hest I um I may need to watch it it's gotten so much buzz but you know I'm terrible at watching TV so oh yeah Cedric and Carson I do like them together I think Carson was really good for Cedric which also then like Hest being like ew but that is like there's no way he's gonna choose that over me it's like go fuck yourself Hest you are not all that and you treated everyone terribly and I loved Cedric and Elise coming together and like having a new like having a new relationship of friendship developed between them or like going on that journey well they're like shared like deconstructing trauma over Hest exactly I loved that I thought that that was really beautifully done so yeah Cedric like becomes like has true character growth which is you know only hob man can do it in a way that feels so earned and satisfying which is why I think I was it's again where like any other um especially because in fantasy like women characters are often so often get shafted um which is why hob has proven time and again that she's great at characters and I have a higher expectation so any other fantasy series that has thymara and Elise I'd be like wow great fantastic because it's hob I'm like they're kind of samey I don't know well and I would say like things that I liked least in this book are thymara and whatever her dragons names dynamic is I found a just grading the great no no no not tentaglia we fuck with tentaglia um it's what what is dimara's dragons name you're right chat help us we're we've already said we don't know the names help us with but anyway I found that grading tentaglia also gets on my nerves less though less tentaglia especially in this series like where she ends up but the way that like but she like abandons what's his name rain separate or um sell one sold then sell something that one the way she like abandons him and they're still like centara yeah thank you again everyone just like yes coming in clutch we're doing this live so that we have people supplying this to us live and we don't have to get this live this chat we were like recording it without chat it'd be like that one character who did that thing that one dragon who was this one with the hat and the mutton chops that guy like I was going to like tell me the name of an actress who's in forbidden planet and he was like um you know that the one with the mole I was like oh yeah that narrows it down but one actress that has a mole yeah he was she did some television I was like the one actress who has a mole and did some television which is great yeah um yeah I relate to this though because I feel like that's me half the time it's like even worse when you're like oh that actress um you know she was in that one movie that I also can't know the name of that one movie that did the thing that also had this other person I can see them in my mind and but like I don't have the vocabulary to describe them like off the cuff so I'm like I can see them in my head Sintara is store-bought yes oh my god I totally agree with that because Tintaglia it feels earned more so to me Sintara isn't even store-bought Tintaglia Sintara is like in cell I'm owed a life like Tintaglia's where she's like thinks her hero's journey is Tintaglia no she thinks she thinks she's the main character and she is not but Tintaglia actually is a main character and I love all the times that like other dragons tell Sintara to like cut the fuck out of here yeah yeah I found that pretty satisfying like she obviously like dismisses anything that humans say so it's not satisfying but when other dragons are like no for real though and she tries to dismiss that but that's harder um also we probably should have just had Evie on here because she actually remembers everyone's names but she's right she was talking about the journey of Cedric with Relta his dragon and like how he was gonna kill her and then like where they end up going I agree I felt like that was so emotional and beautiful and a metaphor I think in general I know that this series tends to be talked about as like a disability rights themed thing but it's a lot about climate change I feel like or like our or maybe like our relationship with the environment yeah I think more the latter because it's not like yeah yeah you're right I don't think it's making the case the environment more just that like yeah I think like because the dragons are so imperious with us like I think it's a reflection on the way humans treat beings that are lower in the food chain um slash like the environment is being purely instrumental for us so I felt that was like a real theme but anyway watching I think Cedric for example like his relationship with Relta is an example of like our interconnection with the environment if you like the dragons think of us the way that humans historically have thought of like mules and horses they're just like a means to like make the land better or to travel or whatever it is that we need and then like sometimes nice humans have nice relationships with horses in which you're still the owner and you're still the master but you like love them and like pet them and give them treats masters that like beat their horses so then we have you know like the dragons that are like well I like my pet human versus the dragons that are like serve me human yeah exactly um which is uncomfortable and I get why people don't like the dragons in that sense but it's very it's clearly intentional I don't even feel like I mean I feel like if you really object to that I feel like you're telling on yourself because when I read that I'm like yeah I hate a human that beats a horse too I like this dragon the same way that I don't like humans like I mean I think that this is very this is playing to your I was reading it I was like yeah mother fucker how does it feel I say as I sit here eating my chicken um but yeah you can personally abuse the chicken I did not I do and I try my very best to buy from local farms where I have enjoyed the like I obviously like follow like uh you know like accounts that you know share like vegan recipes vegan food vegan news so I'm like oh a new food that I want to go try anyway but so with the egg shortage there's been a lot of vegan posts that have been like ha ha suck it try some tofu scramble well uh you know as an autoimmune disease haver um not all of us can eat just anything some of us have to eat animal products because our bodies will not accept it otherwise um but no it is yeah but I thought that's not the case for most people that is not the case for most people that's true um but yeah I agree with EV2 that the dragons and their keepers are feeding off each other and their immaturity and self-absorption and pettiness but I don't think that thymara is like a human equivalent of of centaura no no no no no I just mean like we're at large I think that it's a dynamic where like the serpents are teenager or like the dragons are kind of like teenagers like they're learning how to be dragons in the same way that these yeah although like the way centaura texts thymara out to her like how she'd like her to look is like humans like with their pets like grooming them into like what you're putting them like in a little bag and like putting a sweater on them or something like dying their fur and and and like ripping their claws out and like just doing stuff to them and it's like well that's how I want you to look in your mind so I didn't ask you how you felt about it because it doesn't matter no and people are saying grelp does not set right it's not that I think they're like one to one like you're like your dragon I just mean like the overall dynamic in the group rather than mastery as a horse girl exactly it's like the overall group dynamic not necessarily like one to one dragon and keeper so who's going to bring the dragons back to our realm is my question oh my god well do we want them to come back I mean some people deserve dragons coming back well yes true true true true we'll just bring some dragons to Congress see what happens yeah my god that would be very satisfying as long as it's tall these are the times when like even though I hate the end of Game of Thrones Daenerys showing up on a dragon and just burning all of King's Landing you're like I know what I get it now because you don't like this as much as I do so like pacing is a thing what else do you think like makes this a lesser hub series again I think it's pacing and the fact that like Phymara and Elise are like so similar because like if we are basically just doing character stuff for a large portion of this where there is no like plot progression then like then all of my attention is on the characters now because there's nothing else that I'm paying attention to and they aren't different enough to like keep things at least like because if it's like stagnant but spicy within that because like I um Joe Abercrombie in um you read only the Blade itself right now before they're hanging it this is not spoiled yeah and before they are hanged for one of the plot lines um it's like several of the POVs are like all together they're not in different places they're all like having the same plot line happen to them together and so like anytime you go to one of their POVs like there's not a lot of variety because they're all in the same place they're all doing the same thing um but to me I love those scenes because like it's kind of like when I always compared to like a going to see a play where the play happens in one room in one day and it's all just like people talking yeah I love it because like if it's done well then like that can be interesting by itself so that's where I'm like yeah and that's where like Dragon Haven like if I think because it's weird to criticize characters for Robin Hobbit it's like the characters aren't different enough to me to where Dragon Haven can like stay still and are you still super like engaged and interested in all the character stuff because like in before they are hanged I do feel that way the characters are different enough from the dynamics are fascinating enough they're all like such wildly different people that like having them all clustered like that doesn't bother me but in Dragon Haven for that to not bother me I need more variety well and I I think at the time when we were chatting about it you what you said which I think was right is that it probably would have been more effective if there had been more storylines happening not in that group like if some of the yeah take it or if some of the like other threads that we get more of in the last two books had come into that book it may have been a little bit more variety that's why I immediately like City of Dragons Butter because now we got Hast's POV and it was like oh we've got like eyes on somewhere else now and we got like Malta and like we had like other stuff going on yeah Dragon Haven was just the one place and no one's like they're not even like making a lot of progress in their own project in Dragon Haven like yeah there well yeah they're kind of like stuck yeah yeah now and it's possible that I'm just stupid actually probable I'm just stupid but am I correct that did I just just correctly connect that the Duke of Chalced is one of the Six Duchies you mean that Chalced is one of the Six Duchies yeah like he's one of the Dukes under I think so because doesn't chain like that what I made I finally made that connection I was like did I know this already I probably just missed this what does that change because the Chalced are such pieces of shit and like their whole society fucking sucks and like the fact that that's a part of the far seer world I guess I just hadn't made that connection you know what actually I don't know if it is because like Six Duchies has always talked about a separate okay okay Chalced is its own country that was okay that makes me feel a little better I just totally missed this because there was some some way that it was said I was like wait wait wait are you saying that this is one of the Six Duchies because if so that really changes my perspective okay thank you thank you chat for clarifying okay and I feel better then because I was like whoa that like really casts fits his world in a different I feel like the Six Duchies is like the United Nations it doesn't mean every nation is in the United Nations every Duchy isn't in the Six Duchies well yeah I guess yeah yeah I'm sure that's true but anyway I'm relieved to find that out because I was like oh man this is really far seers in a different light here at the same time though like there's a lot of stuff going on in like the Six Duchies that's also like not great I'm trying to find oh by the way this is a addition from Harper Voyager I do want to mention that the Harper Collins Union is still on strike so go support them it's been 50 days I've been asking for a 10% raise in New York City how dare yeah do they have a map in this one no okay anyway sorry I was going to look at the map and see if I could figure out like where they all are they don't all have maps in it mine doesn't I don't really think about it because I never look at maps and I just assume that they're there even if I'm not looking at them I take the point that the Six Duchies are great but like Chalcid's like a whole other level of not great indeed it's not great but there's levels of not great the dragons are all a little bit imperious but there's levels yeah exactly it could always get worse like where are we on the spectrum here now do you have okay I would love some nice souped up editions of these a la what they did for the original trilogy yeah well I mean like before they get to rain wild like they owe us live ships they owe us tawny man yes they need to all get their turn get on it guys which like the folio did farzier but only farzier oh also I don't like the folio editions of farzier oh really I mean like they're I don't hate them but they're like so underwhelming next to like other folio editions I was just like that's it really especially when you look at what they're doing for a song of ice and fire you're like you did not put your pussy under this one guys like a song of ice and fire books each book gets two books because there's so much like art and like stuff happening with it it's like a plain red cloth bound with some like insignia on it and it's like I mean it's nice it's classy looking but it's like yeah yeah I'm waiting I really would like some very luxe editions of the live ship traders in particular but like I feel like they need to give them give us all of them right like please illustrated farseers didn't sell that well and that's why they haven't because I think if they had sold well we would have heard buzz about it already well everyone get on that please I also heard someone say that they were going to be like 10th anniversary editions or something or like 20th anniversary editions so maybe that we've just not like hit the 20th anniversary yet I don't know for live ships yeah I don't remember what the public dates on those are yeah it could be that like they specifically did farseer at its anniversary and that's why they haven't done live ship yet it's possible but seems unlikely well I would very much appreciate it who's the US who's the US publisher for farseer I mean for well from the older things let's let's do a little little research here because I'm just thinking too that like because orbit just did all the hard covers for Witcher so I feel like they kind of like put their attention on like kind of like one thing at a time and I think that there's buzz about orbit after they're done with Witcher tackling broken earth oh yeah this is Voyager it looks like is the original publisher and I guess maybe somebody was saying it was the 30th anniversary was the live ship or was the farseer and ship of magic didn't come out until 1999 it looks like so it may we may have to wait a few more years if that's what they're doing yeah so if it was the 30th anniversary we've got six more years until the first one would come out for live doesn't change the folio shaft them yeah maybe maybe 25 maybe it was the 25th anniversary so maybe we're going to get another maybe we're going to get it next year come on let's just manifest this let's I want some nice illustrated editions please of live ship and all illustrated some nice hard covers I'll take that yeah exactly exactly so what do you think is sorry I'm transitioning to the next series what what do you think is going to happen in this last series that like blows everyone's mind because everybody keeps me up for these and I'm a little worried it's going to be like tawny man where people got my expectations so high even though I love the golden fool I was very let down by the ending of that trilogy same we like totally agreed about the end of that even though like I was already down about the first one and you liked it better but like by the third one we totally agreed yeah yeah but I think because like the thing that I kept hearing when I finished farceer was at the ending of farceer I would change my mind about or I would change feel differently about the ending of farceer once I had read on and like part of that happened right in the tawny man trilogy but I my understanding is that like the true payoff of like whatever is going to blow my mind about how farceer ends is in the end of fits in the pool so something to do with that well I've also heard often that the last trilogy is like as close to grim dark as the realm of the elderlings ever gets oh well I had not heard that I do you ready I mean she loves a torture fit so I'm surprising I mean this is honestly her hobby so I unlike you my least favorite book in the entire trilogy so or in the entire series so far is whatever it was the third book in the farceer assassins oh assassins quest quest yeah that's my least I gave it three and a half stars it's not that I didn't like it so you liked fools fate more than assassin's quest yes yeah because the middle wonder like I really like the ending of assassin's quest again I feel like I'm a weirdo here I really like the ending but I didn't like but I didn't like the middle of it really at all the opposite well not not at all but just like for a hob I liked it a lot less so I had pacing issues for sure yeah um yeah I'm curious what's going to happen in this last trilogy well also because tawny men ended on such a like epilogue they lived happily ever after I know more so like well and apparently originally what that was the ending and I don't think I would have liked it if that was the ending thank god she was like just kidding yeah but I'm okay well I'll be curious to see what happens for some reason I have like a feeling that I'm not gonna like this as much as everyone else does I feel like I just feel like no matter how people hype it like I doubt I will feel that way about it but I'm hopeful that I will like it a lot yeah especially because it's grim dark so let's go well that's true it's playing right into your will though I mean let's be honest if you think about what's been happening in these books it's not like any of them have been like yeah no lights well I feel like and I don't know this is why people say it because like people other people's definition of what this is different from mine aka the correct definition but like we've talked before about how hob books like they are just as grim dark as anything that like you know Joe Abercrombie right it's just a matter of like the perspective telling the story yeah so like Joe Abercrombie would be telling it from Regal's perspective whereas Hobb tells it from Fitz's perspective and that's why it's not grim dark yeah cynical so I wonder if like because like Fitz has been through it and I feel like Fitz has like come into his full gloctinous by Fitz in the fool and is like quite cynical and that's what makes it grim dark I would be like kind of super here for that yeah I yeah I mean I'm open to it um so wait so what if you don't think you're gonna love it either um what do you think what what is your favorite book so far it's still um royal assassin really okay yeah the series piqued a book too it's been downhill ever since I was gonna say I feel like oh god no I mean I still gave um I think I think I gave all the life ship books five stars maybe I gave ship of destiny four so like I mean I've still loved the books but like royal assassin has my whole heart I mean the ending of royal yeah I mean it's one of the most memorable endings of a book I've ever read this is what I keep hearing Fitz in the fool is what because when I finished assassin's quest and I was like this ending though everyone was like wait till you read all 16 books yeah this is what uh yeah I'm I do want to reread already so I'm very curious to see what this last series is gonna do though I don't know when I'm gonna do it because this is a it's a project reading these books and you signed up for first law so it's true yeah not gonna happen this year for sure yeah I don't know it'll be interesting to see how things evolve I definitely liked golden fool more than fool's errand um I did too but I really liked I liked fool's errand more than you did so what's your favorite in all of the realm of the elderlings matchup unquestionably I was guessing it's one of the live ships and I was like probably well to me that's like one of the best books I've ever read about real assassin yeah no I mean yeah I can see that um I will say I think blood of I will say that I think that this is the best ending to a series she's done so far yeah because so far it's been like no matter how we feel about them the endings are always like yeah this is the first time I was like this was a great like you stuck the landing on this one so yeah they love fits in the pool for spoiler reasons I mean I feel like that's what everyone is like well fits in the pool guys fits in the pool I have a secret I have a secret I'm like what is the secret all okay so what I do love though that we got from Tony man is cat perspectives oh my gosh the best cat perspectives I have ever could ever envision well the only person that can write like animal perspectives at all that I don't hate is Robin Hobb because like most most books that try to give you an animal perspective it's like so well I will say I read a book last year that my that people voted on me to read called the traveling cat chronicles which was really good but I'd read it shortly after Tony man and I just kept thinking like this is a good cat POV but Hobb is like the cat POV I am yeah because that's the thing that like she doesn't just make her animals like talk and be sentient she also like imbues them with like the animals to characteristics that they would have yeah or that we at least that we believe they would have obviously we don't know but like when you read it you're like yes this is what a cat would be thinking yes this is what a dog would be thinking pick up the cats because like I feel like so many other like you will feel yeah so many other animal perspective like movies and books it's just homework bound like it's just like yeah though I do love that movie but it's it's not like oh that's what a cat would be thinking it's just like oh this cat talks yeah when I was growing up my best friend got a cat that looked like the one in homework bound we have traveling cat chronicles fan that it made me weep it made me weep so I mean I also I mean I think the it's nothing like Hobb but um was it the last house on needless street is that what it's called by catcher on award that had a pretty good cat perspective it did you're right it did um maybe it's cats in her name exactly she just channel it favorite trilogy is far seer and least favorite was fits in the full controversy I'm in trouble because far seer is my favorite I know I'm going to be a little disappointed if you in this in far seer is your favorite because I'm going to feel like well then why did you read I mean I don't actually feel that way but like I'm sad for you like that was like I mean but it's like we've been saying it's like even if like the first is your favorite and you like the ones that follow less they still I like them more than almost everything else I'm reading so it's always like a matter of degrees yeah it's like quote-unquote bad hob is still better than like 98% of what I read so so even if like the best hob was the first like I'm officially ready because you know that I'm a Tolkien girlie I'm officially ready to say I think that Robin Hobb is a better writer than Tolkien I crossed that Rubicon at the end of last year I feel like there's like certain things that like Tolkien like does that almost no one could ever beat you know like a language the language stuff like who is doing it like I'm like inventing a history for your entire world ie the Silmarillion like that stuff that's like it's nigh unbeatable yeah so like you know okay you stand on the top of that hill ain't nobody kind of come to meet you but yeah for just like a story well in a page to page I think for me I always love the way that Tolkien like the way he unspools his plot and the way he does character development really works for me but I think I'm to the point where I say I like the way Hobb does both of those things better and they both have all the themes that I love so plus Hobb isn't so Catholic yeah that's true so one sent me a tiktok which like I didn't actually know this that like it's like I knew parts of this but not it hadn't been put together for me where like the the dwarves are like not just accidentally they're intentionally coded as Jewish in like the Hobbit and like earlier and that they're totally different in Lord of the Rings because it's not that like he never meant them to be he definitely did mean them to be coded as Jewish and he thought it was like kind of a compliment and then like Nazis told him that they really liked his depiction of like Jews in the Hobbit and he was like fuck he was like no I do not like completely change I was portraying Gimli in Lord of the Rings yeah I took a whole I did a whole seminar in grad school about Tolkien's theology um and yeah it's there there's I mean I have different feelings about it now but at the same time like I think like I like Tolkien and like I think he has the right idea where like you shouldn't be as much as you can not be explicit about your messaging like it's not an allegory no no he like did not like allegory at all so like which is why I'm like allegory but you can't help but bring your values to any book you're writing but making a conscious effort to not use your book to be like a preaching platform to be a soapbox is something that I very much value and I'm like you can be very religious i.e. Tolkien and like manage to not soapbox so other authors who are soapboxing about whatever they want to be soapboxing about I'm like stop I don't care if I agree with you stop yeah I mean like to me it's a sign of metaphorical richness of your the way you set up your themes in your world if it can be read so many different ways like the ring can be read in dozens of different ways of like what does it represent and like is it a you know mapping on to his contemporary events versus like whatever so like to me that's a sign that you're doing it right like even if you had an intention in your mind I love that he like claps back at people who are like the the ring is supposed to be the nuclear bomb and he's like if it had been supposed to be the nuclear bomb they would have used it it's clearly not a nuclear bomb sorry I took a big bite right then um yeah so but anyway I've just come to the point where I personally think Hobb is even better yeah it's like it's always hard to like categorically say something other than like your own just feelings about something because like if you look at you know like some kind of a objective checklist rubric you know it's like by even choosing what metrics are on the rubric you're already showing telling on yourself um which is why like I did really enjoy talking to Jimmy about Hobb versus Abercrombie versus Jordan R. Martin and not versus in a competitive sense but in like a why do all three of these feel the same but different um and like how it's possible to like truly love what and despise the other two like that's not impossible it's just like highly unlikely um but it is interesting to see like authors that like they end up with a different product but like they have a very similar approach and mindset the things they value about storytelling the things that they prioritize in their storytelling um and that's where someone like Tolkien also it's like if we talk about like the literal structure of the prose if we talk about like the world building that he like spends time developing a language for like these are things that he likes but like when people read Lord of the Rings whether getting out of it and then what they go on to seek from other books can be the same or better or whatever like if they what they're getting out of it and what Tolkien wants your impression of it to be yeah yeah and I mean like it's I mean everybody's list of the best of things would be different but like I don't know I think you could come up with like a list of the 10 best in fantasy and I see I can't see how you would not include Hobb in that list that's I guess I can if you have a Y chromosome not everyone with a Y chromosome not not all of them but it's like it's a magnet like she's like I feel like the great fantasy and the one that like on like fantasy books too like she's included but it's like it's like a Ant-Hob Robert Jordan, Tolkien George R. R. Martin, Ant-Hob no I mean like yeah no I don't see that I don't see how that's possible I mean and again I don't want to offend anyone it's just my opinion my opinion does not reflect the opinions of Leanna necessarily though I think she would fucking hate this book um how people can say Robert Jordan is a good writer and not read Hobb um yeah um uh I am my I do not understand like Jordan is a writer to read in my opinion so like how can you think of him as a great writer and then what blows my mind more is that like the people who are like oh Rainel and Chronicles is YA for girls or like the Robin Hobb is like you know oh it's just about like feelings and like girl problems whatever the fact that Robin Hobb and George R. R. Martin are such close friends and that like of that little trifecta I just named like Joe Abercrombie is just like not actually involved and then he just like tends to have a similar interest in his writing and Martin are of like similar generation for when they're writing and similar interest in what they're writing about and anyone who's like George R. R. Martin is like so great and Hobb like it's like they're like writing the same thing like like if you think one is great like if you think the other like you could prefer George R. R. Martin like certainly they're not the exact same but like if you yeah like well I mean like so I didn't I've read um first book in Song of Ice and Fire I did not continue because um oh my god the eye of the world oof have you you've not read that yet right Liana you would Hobb there's the floor I have the world I read it I read the full thing when I was in college and hated it but at the time I thought I hated it because I just was like this is a Tolkien ripoff and I just love Tolkien but when I tried to reread it a couple years ago I was like oh no this is just like horribly written in my opinion yeah like I can get or what was I saying oh yeah yeah George R. R. Martin I read the first one but I'm not continuing because I'm like I'm not going to read a series that I don't believe will ever be finished period so but even if I didn't like I liked it but I didn't love it but I can appreciate it do you know what I mean like I can say like oh man like yeah I totally get why people love this and I can appreciate the craft I don't see how people can read Hobb and not feel at least that um yeah I just don't see how but I'm sure there are people out there like that and you know it's okay just be wrong yes Jordan has written books that fans refer to as the slog oh my god yeah and I feel like people try to make like rain wild chronicles the slog and it's like it's like not though yeah stop trying to make the slog happen it's not going to happen for Robin um yeah when people people say like oh you have to keep yeah exactly you have to keep going uh wheel of time because like it takes to like the fourth or fifth book for it to get good and I'm like okay it gets good and then apparently it gets bad for like books and books and books what are you talking about who want like I'm well like if someone says like the first book in a series is not good but it gets better from there I'll be like okay fair especially if it's like a debut and I'm like one book of not goodness is like not that much to suffer through if you're telling me like it gets better after that like okay I will go with you but if you tell four books before it gets good I'm just like ain't nobody got time for that absolutely not not for me but since you uh your reason for not wanting to read it is because it's not finished what about like fire and blood because that's finished oh I didn't even know that that was a thing that's the that's what House of the Dragon is based on it's the oh hundreds of years ago okay yeah that I would read I liked his writing I like the story but I was just like I'm not setting myself up to be waiting for a book that I don't think will ever come I'm uh I'm I keep saying this because like I really do plan to do this but like I'm lazy um to do a video on this topic but like the reason House of the Dragon one of the reasons House of the Dragon works so well is because like as a prequel it in no way relies on you knowing Game of Thrones like you could have never heard of Game of Thrones and watch House of the Dragon and be fully invested in what's happening in the story and not miss anything other than like some funny Easter eggs for fans so like yeah it doesn't you don't have to have read a song of ice and fire the main series well I know what happened well at least know what happens in the HBO show of a song of ice and fire but I don't I not clear how much that does or doesn't follow the books I mean it follows the books up until it stops having books well exactly um so yeah I I know vaguely what happens in that but yeah I would totally mean I have to well I'm trying to get I'm trying to reduce the number of series I'm in flight on part of why we're gonna read first law later this year um but yeah I'll put it on the Abercrombie has finished his he also um he like writes his trilogy is in one draft so like whenever he starts a series you know that it's gonna be finished because he's already written in good for him I mean I mean Brandon Sanderson I'm not a huge like you know he's gonna finish I'll give it to this he's at least like here is my roadmap to finish he's not just gonna he's not just gonna finish his own series he'll finish yours for you too yeah after you die he'll come in and finish yours for you as well okay I can respect that the people who are like quote unquote speculating about who will and should finish a song of ice and fire when George R. R. Martin dies one that is so ghoulish and so awful he's alive and he's still writing so like fuck yeah and also he has said no one is ever finishing my series if I die that's it like no this is never happening and so the people continue to be like so who should finish it it's just like no one no one's gonna finish it well I really hope he has worked with his lawyers to make sure that doesn't happen at least until the copyright expires because you know people are gonna be I mean I feel like that happen trying to make that happen what could happen is that like no one would finish the series but that like there would be some kind of like a publication of his notes so that you would see what he had intended to happen or something but not actually like someone taking over and creatively like writing the scenes so like maybe they release the Wikipedia article of the plot summary here's what was gonna happen at a high level well like if he had finished you know like if let's say like because he keeps saying he's working on Winds of Winter and is like making substantial progress so let's say he does finish Winds of Winter before he dies so we get Winds of Winter and let's say he's written like a solid draft of the first because he edits as he goes so like if he's finished like a half of a dream of spring and dies there would be notes for where he meant this to go so if they published like the incomplete dream of spring where it's like the first half which he did write and then just like a summary of like what he intended to have happen later or something like that hmm yeah it could be I mean like I think about you know I'm reading the in-depth series from Nora Roberts Homegirl is like in her 70s now so I do wonder sometimes I'm like we're in the 50s of this series and like I would really love to know that you've got an off-ramp oh it's not like an episodic series it's got like an ongoing it is but like it would feel unsatisfying if one came out because like I don't know the time moves very slowly in that series it's 50 books and only like three years have happened in world so um I would like there to be like a Eve is here's where Eve ends up do you know what I mean like it would feel abrupt if the last one was just the last one like the way that Tawny Man ends where they're like and they lived happily yeah exactly like I basically just want to like hey eventually she decided to take the promotion that they've been trying to give her for the last like 30 books like just like some small like yay it's done so I hope that happens but for all these but I would not but all that to say I would not expect her to have like given somebody permission to keep writing because I wouldn't like that that would not like it's her writing that makes it I feel like the the Wheel of Time thing is just like it's an exception and the people that like now expect it it's like no this is like a weird one-off thing yeah that the author was okay with yeah I had spent a long time talking to Brandon Sanderson before this yeah yeah but um to this yeah House of the Dragon the book is quite different from I mean it's like I mean I always compare it to the Silmarillion it is the Silmarillion of Westeros because like it's history but it's also the complete opposite of the Silmarillion because like the Silmarillion is like reading like Norse mythology of like the world of Lord of the Rings whereas House of the Dragon is like reading a history book on the tutors but it's like a fake world and so like I personally like I just like obsess over how much he has like made it like a history book where he'll be like so like no one was in the room where this happened so we actually don't know what happened no one can tell us what happened in this room what we do know is that like after this they went to war or like they'll be like there was this letter that he burned after reading it so only the king knows what it said none of our historians like know what that letter said um but like here's what this happened where they'll be like there's three different accounts of what happened at this meeting one is very salacious and nonsense one is very like monastic and probably also nonsense and the third is like half destroyed so like you'd work out which thing which you think is the most true like which pieces of this are true for what happened in this meeting so like the whole thing it has like tons of stuff like that yeah I would like that I but see I like the Silmarillion because I you know I grew up super religious so I was used to reading the Bible and like the he got the guy I knew it so I was like yeah I'm riding with this in the fairy the fairy version of the baguettes love this fairy Genesis yeah exactly it's like elven Genesis and I don't know dwarfish Deuteronomy and I was mixed with some Norse mythology yeah exactly exactly so I could get into it but I get why people don't like it yeah well actually like I went into Fire and Blood thinking like I expect to respect this and not enjoy it because everyone was like it's a history book though and I was like amazed by how entertained I was by Fire and Blood I was like I am having a great time reading history anyway so I would love reading because it is because like the the book makes it like it'll tell you some like really spicy out their versions of things but it'll tell you like this is what this is a very spicy salacious nonsense version of what happened but this is like all we've got to go on we don't have any other account of this so like this is what we've got this probably didn't happen and so it's like very funny and dark and violent and mysterious and like there's again there's like tons of mysteries because you're like we don't have a record of what happened here like no one was in the room where it happened so you're like what what did happen I would love to know and it's like reading real history where you're like we will never know yeah I think I would like that but I could see that not being a vibe for everyone he does also because like George R. R. Martin does dabble in horror writing and there are some parts of fire and blood that are like full-on horror even though it's written like a history book and it's like damn they have a cock really dark what is the line between fantasy and horror yeah for real George R. R. Martin finished won't be waiting in line yeah they'll they'll stick them in yeah for sure yeah you tell us when you're ready we will have it we will make it happen basically I feel like the day that George R. R. Martin calls them and says that he's finished the draft it'll be like that gift from the office it's like it's happening everybody stay calm it's like they have one guy who works at the printer who literally his only job is to be on call for when he has one phone and that phone is the direct line with George R. R. Martin finally rings and he's like he hits a button and it's like yeah amazing for that and I think Patrick Rothes might share that line yeah that's another one that I'm not starting because I don't believe it will at least that one only has one book to go but allegedly yeah I don't know I've heard that it's like a prequel series well I mean the killer chronicle meeting both telling his own story there's only one book left but then he has said that like when co-finish is telling you his story that's when we start the present day and like what's going on now in the world but like his story it's only one more book yeah well you can let me know when it comes out and I'll decide if I'm going to read it I doubt you'll need me to tell you I think it will be no whether I want to know it or not I will find out I'm sure yeah exactly well like I think that it's just like literally they'll just like you know whatever the type set is of whatever book is currently in production they can be in the middle of it and they'll yank it it's kind of crazy there was a 16-year wait for dance with dragons so like wow so sorry there's a car alarm going off I don't know if you can hear that I can but it's okay it's part of living in this city so rainwalled chronicles oh yeah anyway I loved it I get why it's not everyone's favorite I do not think it's a slog I don't think it's like a bad part of hob I don't think that's a good characterization of it I can see why it might not be for everyone I think it's not everyone's favorite I think setting expectations for people reading realm of the elderlings to be like the rainwalled is like a little smaller a little slower don't expect what you got out of like live ships to happen in rainwalled because that's when you will be maybe that's why everyone is so down on it is because everyone comes off of those series and is expecting this level of epic and it's not really epic the way those are yeah it doesn't have it's a different flavor of hob so I can see that but I don't think it's like it's not bad which to like immediately circle back to George R. R. Martin like the first time I read that series what we have of it I read the partial manuscripts that we have I'll allow that history book we have most of the songwriters how many books are there? is there two books? unless they split them again that's what happened where Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons were all like one book and then he split them it's simultaneous for when Feast for Crows is happening but with different character perspectives and then it goes a little bit past where Feast ends but also a little further but because he did that instead of splitting it like Rainwild is split presumably just chronologically Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons he was like I'll take half the perspectives and tell it in Feast and the other half of the perspectives concurrently will go in dance and so then a lot of people think Feast for Crows is a slog because it's like much fewer perspectives now we're only progressing the plot for like these POVs and then you have to go back to the beginning chronologically of where that was and catch up on the other perspectives in dance and the first time I read Feast for Crows Storm of Swords is such so much happens in Storm of Swords is that the red wedding one? yes but there's obviously more than the red wedding there's so much crazy stuff that happens in Storm of Swords and you're riding that high and then you read Feast for Crows and it's just this partial perspectives it doesn't have these big, big, big moments and I remembered thanking it that much and like I for years referred to it as like when a series like doesn't has lost its way and you get a Feast for Crows and now when I reread the book last year I think it was last year I was like, oh Feast for Crows like we're at that one and I picked it up and I was like I love this book but that's because like I had been riding that high and I feel like people riding the high of the previous Realm of the Elderlings series with no warning reach Rainwild oh but like if you know that then like me rereading Feast for Crows knowing oh this is the slaggy one I was like actually no this is fantastic well yeah I mean like I guess I don't want people to I want people to have low enough expectations they won't be disappointed but not so low that they skip it because I think it's really good and actually when I always like when I finish these series I go and watch everybody's like reviews and a few people this was their first hob and they loved it like they didn't have the expectation so I think I made them like it better because believe it or not when this was being published Booktube was a thing so it was like oh this is the new series from Robin Hobb so I'm trying to imagine reading Rainwild first and then going back to read Farseer where you're like the dragons coming back is like well have you just read a series that's like all dragons yeah all dragons all the time yeah so it's like I'm glad people have low expectations so that maybe when they read it they like it more but don't skip it it's worth reading it's still Hobb and it's my second favorite series in the realm of the Elderlings so suck on that people which like yeah I think like knowing that it's like it's slower and tamer and less epic and also that like it is the live ship part of things so if like that's where your heart is and you don't mind in slower more character centric story then it's gonna be great but if you're like expecting huge epic world altering plot reveals and you prefer the Farseers then you will definitely not like Rainwild as well when in when in Rainwild or in realm of the Elderlings is it like I don't think like it's ever like the plot things that happen are big but they're never played as being big so I feel like Farseer it feels bigger because it's like ongoing war with the the forged ones and like he's actively like fits as being called on to like basically go to war often yeah that's true but I mean I think part of what I like about this series is the understated way the plot unfolds like in other series those moments would be much more bombastic in like the way they're communicated and this one feels almost just like throw away lines kind of like almost like in the Hobbit when told well again this is probably why I like the way Hobbit tells stories but in the Hobbit when it's like oh yeah then Bilbo got knocked out and when he woke up this battle was over do you know what I mean like at the same time that's when like because Farseer is so much that way that then when she does spend like extended portions of time with like a violent altercation that fits as a part of and like tells you about all of the violence that's happening that's when it's kind of like oh like this is actually quite dark yeah yeah so I like the understated that happens but that being said even like things do happen in the Rainwild Chronicles there are plot moments but there's not as many as in the other series I think that is fair to say well I think also because like this isn't totally true but it's more just like a vibe I feel like there's just a more of a core of mystery with the previous three series yeah I think that's true because dragons are being built up as a thing that is an unknown in Farseer it's truly like not even an option and then like and even in Tawny Man there's like a deep mystery going on that we're trying to resolve and in in Rainwild's like there's some mystery as to like the city that they're trying to get into but like not really like we've already know about this like flowing of like Silver or whatever because like Fitz did that in Farseer and like it's a lot of the mysteries like you know what we've seen this yeah I like seeing that connect back sorry yeah but that's what it feels it's not like oh new mind-blowing thing it's like oh that's that thing yeah I know what this is it's not like oh what is this new information that totally changes this world this is brand new information yeah it's like I mean even before like like live ship traders the they were serpents and then we're like and that we have this like wizard would and then they're like oh that's how you get a dragon yeah rainwild's it's like okay but we have dragons now and like we know that they like telepathically connect and we know that there's this like magic as Fitz did that and we know that like elderlings like because he connected elderlings before and like kind of like saw what they were doing so like when they start doing that in this you're like yeah this is more but like we've seen this yeah but you know I think you're probably hitting on a key part of it um because I think that makes a lot of sense and I think there's also just the difference of like what are the dragons like and then when we actually meet the dragons and they're all kind of assholes because like that's just what it is to be a dragon I can see that that is just like a different it's one thing to be expecting the dragons it's another thing to live with the dragons and the dragons are a little honestly rainwild chronicles is like the other name for the series is never meet heroes because it's like we've been building up we the return of dragons were dragons real dragons are coming back and then rainwild's like okay dragons fucking suck yeah just kidding I yeah no I but I like I like the way that they fucking suck so I'm like hey okay but it's not the like oh mysterious magical Rachel yeah it sucks yeah definitely but anyway I'm excited I loved it I hope people will read it and I'm excited for us to come to the end Kelsey goes hard though I do like really quickly um in with some exceptions I like the names like the naming of things in the realm of the elderlings yeah well I don't like heebie no I don't like that heebie was like um the what's that yellow car that talks what the yellow car that talks from like and they made a movie of it too but it was like an old TV show it's like I think it's like I have no idea what you're talking about a VW bug I think oh herbie the love bug herbie I was just herbie as a dragon um yeah heebie I don't like there's a couple of names and I'm like really but Tintaglia Tintaglia is such a good name and Kelsingra I think is a good name Kelsingra is a good one herbie yeah herbie heebie fully loaded is the dragon loaded is the dragon version um and what wait who's the one who's on heebie uh come on chat come on chat help us out here the one that goes weird the one that goes bad which was really sad that was really sad when that happened I felt bad but anyway um but most of the names in this are pretty great Leftrin and I mean like the names of yeah Kelsingra is what made me think of it like I like the names of places as well Repscal there we go yeah like Rascal has what we call him in the south heebie did get named by him so yeah yeah it's his fault um I mean Centaura is a good name even though we hate Centaura yeah Thymara is a pretty good name yeah there's lots of good Yee fantasy naming in this although again I kind of miss the ridiculous names from Farseer where they're named after like character traits yeah like it was weird punctuality timeliness yeah lady patience is just like a great name patience is a real uh is a real lady's name like patience temperance chastity all the virtues could be lady's names which is why they're reading it you're like some more yeah I then I think about like if your name if that was like an accepted name but nowadays like people were still naming their kids chivalry people would just call them shiv for sure shivvy like shivvy yeah or Val Val yeah yeah yeah pretty ridiculous names well everyone should read hub everyone should refrain wild and strap yourselves in because we've got the fits in the full final showdown which like those are the coolest covers of the whole series oh my god the covers are so beautiful I cannot wait it is kind of though like looking at my hub shelf the way that far seer and fits in the full are the only ones that have a different like color like background where like they stand out on the shelves yeah because the far seer ones have this like very like parchmenty brown color and the rest are like paler looking and then you get fits in the full where it's like an explosion of color yeah um yeah I don't know but I am very excited for the beautiful brightness of those especially the last one it's all teal oh my gosh like I better like that book it's like foiled and beautiful yeah these are really chunky again I'm gonna have to make sure I allocate enough time you know how she likes to have us like marinate in fits is misery does she ever oh my god boy does she ever she just is like let's let this please leave fits alone justice for fits um she's if her somebody has made her so much money she seems to hate him a little bit I guess a lot of character growth that way I guess I guess we'll find out haha can they notice the cover sub looks at maybe yeah I like the eye yeah I like I like this whole line of design yeah I mean they all look good together but the ones that stand out are far seer and fits in the fool yeah yeah it's nice to have a matching series all together it's true and I do like that UK paperbacks they all generally are the same size like the Joe Abercrombie paperbacks from the UK are the exact same size as the hob ones even though they're different publishers they actually have some uniformity yeah I'm gonna just look again like red rising again a different publisher from the UK but same size as first law same size as hob so well done UK it's like the way they're regulating to make all the phone chargers have the same end like this is feel like they've got some sort of law in their publishing of like let's have them all be the same size I wouldn't that be easier for everyone including the publisher you would think but it's the worst when it's like off by like just much well I like I just got a I pre-ordered a novella from Margaret Rodgerson that's a sequel to her sorcery of thorns yes I hated which I loved and it's like 100% a different size it's like the little half size and I'm like why would you do this why indeed there was something else I got recently that did that and I was like horrified and shocked because like I had fully expected it to be the same size oh no it wasn't from the UK I got the hard cover of Malibu Rising and it's like that pretty like sure birdie color and then like I said they did another like sure birdie kind of like color scheme for Carrie Soto was back and the UK hard cover and I got it and it's a completely different size than Malibu Rising how dare they how dare they how could you anyway um yeah that's the realm of the elderlings so far plus you know the usual vengeance yes hopefully everyone's nice and drunk from their play in a bingo card but when you and I get to furrow slaw then I'm allowed to talk about it and it'll be like dry summer then I'll make it my goal to bring up hob whenever I can I would be fully on board with that because like I the people because I want yeah like it brings attention to hob I think to be like you know what if you like George R Martin and Joe Abercrombie hob is interested in the same things they are that's dark with a different tone and like very character driven yeah yeah yeah because I feel like maybe with George R Martin because he does like him some like war and battle and all that stuff and has like so many POVs where as far as the Earth's like just fits so like if you were like I like George R Martin because it's just like stuff all over the place happening all the time and like reading just fits you're like okay that's like a lot but like you better not tell me you like Joe Abercrombie because like it appears to have no plot until the end of the first thought trilogy and you're like oh that was a point tall this whole time but until that point it's equally like so we're just doing some character stuff yeah I really liked Galactica I mean I liked the blade itself quite bit I just had I've had too many series going so but like you better not tell me that oh Hobbes is just boring character stuff but I love first law it's like yeah but I'm excited that'll be I think we're starting that what in May or June I think your whole fan club in my Patreon are also Abercrombie fans so oh okay well I better like it then kind of want to lose their favor no pressure I just am not especially because I feel like people if someone has to be convinced to read Abercrombie it's because like they've read itself and they're like it was fine and they're like no no but like it really like blows you away by the end whereas if you like already like the blade itself you're like well great then you'll just be like extra amazed when you get to last argument of kings well and I've started well I was just telling you this in a different chat we're in today but I've started sewing all of my costumes for our different book club ones so I'm using that as my audiobook time I've decided to also cosplay as Glockta for you know I mean I'm not the most beautiful woman but I'd like to think that I could not easily I just feel like that would be the only one that she could like actually recognize the cosplay because everyone else was just like wearing old timey thing whereas Glockta you'd be like dentures hat pale face we know who you are well my yeah I just I don't normally have a lot of audiobook time anymore since I work from home so that's my new like designated audiobook time and I really enjoyed the blade itself as audiobook so I want to experience the full serious oh no this is a hair claw this is my new pet tarantula just you know throwing her around well I got a split but uh well I'll be back here next weekend yeah for what in the mist and everyone you heard it here Mara will have a homemade DIY costume when I tell you that I have made the shirt it's like a pirate shirt and I am so proud of it so Seinfeld uh oh yeah no not that not that but not unlike that I guess not not that I look forward to it yes and I have a crown and I'm making my little like over lacy thing so all right yes I'm expecting some eyeshadow work to be amazing oh I didn't even think about what kind of makeup I feel like I'm going to do a lot of glitter that feels right for fair real yeah yeah like very glossy like I feel like I'm gonna be shiny that feels right shiny and pastel yeah yeah so all right yay so yeah that's that's that they're all that there is to be said about rain well chronicles was said here for now and uh we're starting next month on um yeah that's been the fool yeah all right well thanks for for joining me joining us everyone thanks for joining us everyone thanks for being here thank you humans and have a good weekend bye