All right, welcome back to my channel today, guys. Today. We have, we have been, dang it, Leanna, I gotta hold on.  So I gotta move it to where when I lean into my microphone, I'm not leaning out of frame. Am I, am I leaning? There we go, Leanna. We have been talking without filming for an hour and 15 minutes. Yeah, maybe this is why it took four months to actually talk about the books that I chose for you in July. You know, this doesn't happen every time like I don't see my friends for a while. And then we get together like for a purpose. And then we don't ever do the thing we're supposed to do because we end up catching up because it's been forever since we've seen each other. That's what happened. We haven't talked before. So what you're saying is that you got all of your yelling and fighting and insulting out of your system. And yell or insult you. And now you'll be civil to me. I didn't yell at or insult you and since we're not filming. It's like you're yelling. And since we're not filming the one where we talk about the books that you read right now, I will have recharged all of my wrath. Wrothed by the time. I mean, the thing is, though, that the last time you yelled at me, it was about the books I picked for you. Oh, was it? It's about Ember and the Ashes. Oh my gosh, you cannot give that five stars and give gargoyles three. You can't, it says. I mean, in fairness, if I read Ember and the Ashes now, maybe I give it four. I don't know what I'd give it. I don't think it'd be five. When did you give it five stars? When I read it. Were you a 15-year-old girl? No, but it was like three years ago. Three years ago. Who are you? All right, what are we doing? What are we doing? Well, so today, guys, today, I'm talking to Alan, my good nemesis from the Library of Alan's Andrea.  Back in July, we chose each other's TBRs and I read the books that were assigned to me because I am the Hermione. And you didn't. Sort of, I did. I read all of them. Not in July, though. That's correct. In July, I read one of them. Two of them. I read two of them in July. You only read one of them in July, though, because you had also double-dipped and made it the shelf space book books that you had to read in July. So, how does that make it? I didn't read two of them in July. I definitely read two of them in July. You did. I did. Then it took you an additional three months to read the other two. That's correct. That's correct. But I did read them all. So, we're gonna talk about them today. Full spoilers. So, FYI, I will try to mark spoilers as best I can, but they'll be chaotically placed, no doubt. So, I can't just put a giant black screen to warn you about this every time Alan decides to give you a spoiler. I'm talking spoilers. I will say, hey, I'm about to talk spoilers. And then that will mark it for you. And then everyone will know. Okay. Then that's the plan and we will stick to it. Yeah. You wanna talk about them in the order in which you read them and the order in which that you liked them in the order in which alphabetical... How are you gonna do it when we do the other one? However you wish me to. No, you can pick. Just pick the format and then we can both follow that one. I mean, when I do mine, it'll probably be in the order in which I remember them best because it's been like three to four months. If you can't remember books, then you have bad book retention and you should stop listening to audio books on three times speed. You're just jelly. I mean, I am, I am, I can read more books. Like I've read, guys, I have read not two books this month. I have read like 20.  Like just, just, I need you to come here and I need you to come and teach these children whatever you know. I don't know Latin. It doesn't matter. They don't care. They don't know Latin either. Can I just read Ember in the ashes to them? No, just teach them something you know. I don't know what you know. I know. What is your job? Wait, no, you, okay. This is related to Latin because when I would tell people when I was a kid that I'm Latvian, they would say you're Latin. So I can just teach them Latvian because that's the same thing is what I learned. I guarantee you my children do not know that Latvia is even a country and if they did, they would not know where it is. These people don't. I got, you understand, Leanna, every year we translate a sentence beginning of the year, it's an opening passage. It says est greikia in Europa and they're like, I mean, they're like, is Greece in Europe? I'm like, yes. Now, raise your hand if you think that question, that if you think the answer to that question is yes, is Greece in Europe? About half every year, 50%. Only 50% can say confidently that Greece is in Europe. Greece. I mean, in fairness to them, a lot of teachers ask trick questions so they might be cautiously thinking it might be correct. That is 100% correct. In fact, I have discovered the best way, and I do this all the time, the best way to get a bright, like a smart, you know, gets all A's kid, the best way to get a smart kid to change his answer or her answer is to say, are you sure after they give a response? Like, everyone is right. I just straight faced. They give me a correct answer and I say, are you sure? And they're like, no. And they switch it. I'm like, you're right.  Move on. That's cruel, Alan. That's cruel. My class, they know my class is an exercise in psychological and psychological trauma and fear. I just, I can't wait for you to read first law and identify with Glock to the torturer. I feed the results of the anxiety-inducing experiments that I create in my classroom to top scientists. What do they do with this information? Run Instagram ads based on this? Publish it in a study. And I don't know. What do you do? What do you do for your job? Like, what are the things that you know about? What are you doing? The things that I know about. Accounting and HR. Oh my gosh. So how to lie in a job interview? You can teach them that. That's probably a more useful skill when I'm teaching them, right? You should never lie in a job interview. No, you absolutely. Job interviews are meant to be lied in. I always like to say that FAY rules apply. Everything you say should always be technically true. They want you to lie. When they say, what's your greatest weakness? They do not want you to say, well, I procrastinate a lot and I'm sometimes easily overwhelmed. No, but what you say should be technically true. But that is, what if that is your greatest weakness? What are your greatest weakness according to who? That's not a hard and fast thing. There's no official what is your greatest weakness. So I just had care too much. I worked too hard. According to some metrics, that might be. I mean, after our like five hour long catch-up session, I do think that you care too much and that is your greatest weakness. Yeah, but you can never actually say that because it sounds, it's so fake. It's so fake. Leanna, why are we here? Congratulations. You've come to, this is a tavern. You've come to... You said you wanted to just do a fireside chat like 10 hours ago when we started. You're like, well, we'll just record this. So we're doing it. Leanna's apothecary where you can come in and you can grab a cold drink. Or the cold drink is LaCroix. And I know Alan's favorite. You can also get coffee for two copper. You can also get a lot of coffee here. It's just, I tend to drink coffee in the AM. This is decaf Leanna. Oh, you do that too. Okay, I do have a bunch of decaf that I drink in the evening. Like I just like the taste of coffee. Same. Same. Right on. Okay, we have an accord for something. That being said, let's go talk, let's talk about fine in the order which I remember them. Let's just go in the order I read them. The wolf was first. Well, it wasn't Emory and the Ashes first? No, I read. Yes.  You're right. I don't remember anything. Emory and the Ashes. Emory and the Ashes, tell me why it's absolutely the worst book ever. It wasn't the worst. I gave it, I don't think I gave it two stars. I gave it three. I didn't give anything two stars that you made me read. Unlike you. Three should I pick better books? Get out of here with that nonsense. If I had read, if I had not already chosen them, I would have made you read Folding Knife. Anyway. That's my Parker. Adrian Tchaikovsky? KJ Parker. It's the one that is literally about politics and economics. I would probably like that. And it has a so much power. I would probably like that. And it has a super cynical worldview. Yeah, I would absolutely like that. Parker is like, I don't know. Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes his humor is like a more, sometimes it's not it's not meant to be as funny as like Pratchett is. But sometimes the humor that is in it feels like a mean, spirited Pratchett. Well, I mean, even because I've read Prosper's Demon and I started reading 16 Ways to Defend a Wild City. And even the beginning of 16 Ways to Defend a Wild City, there's a lot of moments where like it feels like it's cynically, sarcastically poking fun at sort of the way like in Dickens, you have like the office of circumlocution and how like that never goes anywhere. And the whole point of it is that it doesn't and the bureaucracy of it. And it feels like he's poking fun at all. Literally, both Parker books I've read have been exactly like that. Yeah, they're good. 16 Ways is his most accessible. It's his most popular by far. It's also the name of it is appealing. Yeah, 16 Ways to Defend a Wild City. Anyway. And we're in the ashes. I give it three stars. So I like the premise of Member in the Ashes. That's what I thought you'd like about it. And I think it's well written. I do think it's well written. I think Tahir is a good writer.  You know why, like things that I like about it. It is very, very brisk. I read it very quickly. Like super fast. Super fast. Yeah, it was, but I mean, some why I get bogged down because it's so dumb. Like it wasn't dumb.  It was just super predictable for me. Like every time I'm like, oh, come on, come on, make the different choice. Make the bold choice Tahir. No, she went with the YA choice. The got them out. There's some pretty dark turns in the later books. Oh, okay. Well, in this one, again, I'll give you some stuff I didn't like in a minute. But I did like the, I do like the world. That's kind of like. It's the first book in a series. So you kind of an opinion until you read all of them.  It's like, you know, it's like West. Which it's meant to be kind of taking its inspiration from that vibe. Yeah. Because, you know, there's lots of kind of East Middle Eastern mythology stuff going on while the empires, clearly the Romans or whatever, and they, you know, punch out the scholars, which, which felt to me. So it felt to me like the Romans going down into like Syria, Judea. And like the scholars to me felt like the, felt kind of like the Jews, to me. Just, it just gave me that vibe from, from, from. I mean, I don't think they're meant to be like a one-to-one, any specific, but just sort of like the general type of people that got invaded and the general type of people that were doing the invading. Correct. And the stuff that's going on in that time period with the Romans and everything with like, you know, stopping them from doing the stuff that they used to do and things like that. So that's the kind of vibe I've got. So I really did like that. And I did like the, the Dijin that appeared in it somewhere.  It's just a bad way of choosing a ruler. Though, I mean, the Romans weren't any better. They're like- And in history, like there was a, we're still kind of trying to figure it. We're testing on democracy right now. See how that goes. We're still haven't quite figured it out. Each two freaking men in their seventies is the best we have to offer. Like that's the best of all America. Maybe we should try the ember and the ashes way. See how that goes.  You're right. I withdraw my previous statement. Y'all know that people can be president at 35, right? Are we aware as a country that 35 is the minimum age? Right? In a country of 350 million people, we can probably do better, right? Like, what? Let me not. So that got political. I wonder which political people I made man. Everybody. I was gonna say all. I really try to do that. I really try to, if I'm gonna talk politically, try to take everybody off. But I don't, I think most people would agree that we could probably have done better. Like, anyway. So yeah, ember and the ashes would get better way. Like decide by combat or some weird stuff. I mean, at least it would be different. It would spice things up. Who's the main characters? Lya? I mean, Lya and Elias. Lya and Elias and... Which is very confusing when you say it out loud. Like on paper, their names don't look the same. But when you say Lya and Elias, it sounds the same. Is it Helene? Is that her name? Yeah, Helene. Helene. Okay, so Helene was my favorite character. And Helene gets around POV. Yeah, in the next book. I heard that as well. So I like Helene, I like the kind of, I like the love interest between her and Elias kind of thing. I didn't like it between, it was insta-love. It was just my problem with YA and, you know, people like... Wait, again, tell the good people who you think the romance was between. The romance between Elias and Lya. I'm saying that Helene clearly also liked Elias. Yeah, but you were all up in arms about Lya and Kieran. And I'm like, who cares about Kieran? Oh, Kieran. No one cares about Kieran. Kieran. Kieran's Keegan. It's not Keegan. I promise it's Keegan because I teach a child named Keegan. It's Keegan. That doesn't mean that's the name of the book. It's Kieran. I remember it. No. That's just mispronounced. Keenan. It's Keenan. It might be Keenan. But it's not Keegan. Sorry. It's Keenan. That's right. It's Keenan. Hold on. I'm typing this in all caps. So I accidentally hit capital. But so is your student's name actually Keenan and not Keegan? Oh, his name, it is Keenan. His name is Keegan. And I remember thinking I'm like, did I read that name and remember in the ashes? No, it's named Keenan. Keenan. Yeah. That's a love, that's a love interest too.    It's so dumb. So. Have you met teenagers?  Why is like 16? Doesn't mean I don't like it. Like that's the thing. Like I can't really be mad at YA for being YA. When people trash YA as a whole, like that's rude. What we don't like about YA, what I personally don't like about YA are the tropes that tend to be really heavily used. We're not even necessarily tropes, but like the type of life decisions that you're facing in the emotional situations that you're in as a 16 year old aren't the same as when you're 30. So. Yeah, so young protagonists already don't appeal to me, but then stuff like insta love and love triangles and the way these things are handled. Let them specifically, but the way they tend to be handled in YA novels. Like I just, it's just not for me. Like I just don't care. Like I don't like. So I think it's kind of refreshing that it's like when it's sleepless in Seattle where she doesn't actually meet him until the very end of the movie, which is kind of unusual for a rom-com that Elias and Lya don't really meet really until the end of the book. That part's fine. And you know what? That would have even been okay. What ruined this book for me are the cartoonish villains. I didn't like the cartoon.  I think tropes literally has a trope called kicking the puppy where they do something that's so evil just so you know how evil they are. And I'm usually more fine with mustache twirling villains than most people. I don't want a villain that's gonna be evil just for evil's sake. Why? Like that's interesting. Like someone who literally, I am actually, and this comes from playing a ton of video games and reading, I've read fantasy for forever. Like most people. But like I'm kind of tired of the here's why you should be sympathetic to the villain. No, I don't care. I don't care. I can't wait for you to read Abercrombie. That's what I'm saying. It's like, I don't care. I don't wanna know he had a bad childhood. Guess what? People have bad childhoods and turn out not to be douchebags all the time. Like I don't care. I don't care. Just make him bad. Like it's fine. He doesn't have to have been bad because something happened to him. He can just be bad. So I'm more okay with that than most people. Most people want some really complex, like morally gray villain. No, make him be like.  People throw that around a lot. Say, oh, it's morally gray. No, it's not morally gray. It's the author wanting you to still root for this character. So they're throwing you a bone for like, oh, but they're not all bad. That's not morally gray. That's cheating. Whereas like a truly morally gray villain is what you get in like an Abercrombie book where you're like, no, they're not redeemable. They're absolutely not. But like I do identify with what they're going through. I can't deny that. And I feel like I just want to hate them because they're obviously a bad person, but they're also like thinking things that I would think they're doing things that like, they're like, I don't not condone that. And again, I'm totally fine with the black and white stuff. So where the guy's like, you know what? That town's filled with starving children. You know what? That's poison. Totally fine. Like Kefka from Final Fantasy six, anybody play video games? You know Kefka, there's nothing nuanced about him. He's an insane clown. He poisons an entire city because he can. That's it. Bad guy. Nothing that made him that way. Just a bad dude. So I liked that. But this was kind of like any more like Adreus and Red Rising. Yes. The Jackal who, I mean, we understand that he's bad because, you know. It's again, it's more of like a Joker type character. But the ones that are villains that seem to, where it's not just like, I want to watch the world burn where it's like, they have a villainous plan. They have a plan and a goal. And the goal is to be evil.  Yes. That's why I love the Jackal. He's in my top of villains because he's that way. So, but these were so like, it's like she strapped a ham to her fist. And then just like, bludgeoned me to death with it. Because the Commandant does stuff that isn't even in her best interest. Like the Jackal, let's compare her to the Jackal. The Jackal is very evil. And again, I think this is a good comparison because everyone keeps telling me like, oh, will you just wait? The Commandant has a reason she's like that. Okay. So does the Jackal. But the Jackal doesn't do anything that forces his own, like his own power. Like he doesn't, he doesn't do anything to hinder himself. The Commandant does repeatedly just so she can show how evil she is. And that's frustrating. But then even worse is Marcus, who like, I already... I mean, I think Marcus is much more of a cartoonish villain than the Commandant. Yes, 100%. The Commandant just does things that make no sense. It's insane, but I don't understand why you did that way. Marcus is just like literally snidey with Lash as a child.  And this is the most murderous of all murderous bullies. I mean, Joffrey. Joffrey, Joffrey isn't really a murderous bully because he's not really...  Yes, but he's a bully once he's king. So he has the power to do stuff. He's not like... Well, he's a bully before then. He just doesn't have the power to do as much as he'd like to. I barely remember anything happening before Joffrey's king. What is he not king in Game of Thrones? Is it just the first book? Yeah.  That's true. That's true. Yeah, so I don't like him either, but he's just not, I don't know. I remember Joffrey way more as king and then at that point, you're transcendent bully.  But Marcus, and I mean this without exaggeration, without, like I am prone to hyperbole, I will admit. This is not horrible. I know, right? Every time Marcus is on the page, if he is talking to a guy, he is threatening to murder them.  And this is 100% accurate. What else do you say to men and women? It's what? What else do you say to men and women?  I'm not gonna say that, but I mean, yeah, I know. My students watch these sometimes, it's horrible. I almost spill coffee everywhere. So Marcus is just dumb. This is spoilers for Ember and the Ashes, the stuff that happens at the end, just letting you know.   If Caligula had been like that as a child, he never would have been emperor. They never would have put that kid as emperor. The problem is, is most of these murderous and sane people weren't like this as children or before they became emperor. Caligula was, everyone loved Caligula as a kid. Like he was a handsome kid, everybody liked him.  Oh yes, blame the mother. Agrippina the younger is an insane person.  Like she is crazy, you know, and then Nero had her killed. So Nero, again, Nero Seneca did everything he could. He's Nero's tutor to try to like make sure this guy stayed on the straight and narrow and Nero did some pretty good things to start with.   Broke the seal on the crazy and he had just... Yeah, and there was no one, there was no one to hold it back. There was no like... No check on his... Yeah, no check, thank you. So, but yeah, so I liked it.   And I liked that Helene and him are at odds. That is really the most interesting thing to me to keep going is to see what Helene's doing. Well, Helene's in it a whole month? Yeah, there you go. That's my thought on that. That took 22 minutes. I mean, in fairness, he didn't spend the whole 22 minutes talking about Ember and the Ashes. It took us 10 minutes to even get to the part where we're talking about books. That's true. Ember and the Ashes. So then we talked about the wolf for quite a long time, but you can tell me again why it's not perfect. I'll take it. I like the wolf. I'm way more excited to read the spider though, because I love the character that it's the spider. Like, I just like, like the whole time you're reading it. I mean, even though I've read the wolf five times, the spider is better. Like the whole time I'm reading it, I'm just like, do not make a deal with that guy. Do not make it. It's not worth it. It's not worth the cost. Like it's not gonna be worth it. Everyone around him tells him that too. I know. And it's just like, it is not gonna be worth it. But I love, but he asked to. I mean, at least he feels like he asked. And his kind of attitude is also like, well, what else was I supposed to do? I'll deal with that tomorrow. I had to make this deal to save us today. I'll figure that out. Yes. And you know what? Like I can't fault him for that. So that's one of the things I do really like about the wolf is like the political and military decisions that have to be made by what's the man's name? What? Roper. Roper. And then the other one is what? Belichick. Belichick. Belichick. Belichick. Thank you. It's not Bill Belichick. Yes. So I love, I really do like the general versus general like mine versus mine. And I liked the fact that. Military chess game. Yeah. And that Roper had a, an enemy, you know, within his own camp that he was also trying to outmaneuver while also trying to outmaneuver Bellimus. And that's who? Like Rick, who's Rick or whatever? What's the guy's name? Uvoren. Beauregard. There you go. Uvoren. Are you sure it's not Beauregard? I'm pretty sure. Hold on. I also love Katora and her father. Yes. Yes. Katora's father is one of my favorite characters. Yes, cause he's like, you know, he supports Roper, but it's like, don't get my daughter hurt. Like, don't. Well, even the first time that Roper goes to see him, he's like, so why should I support you? He just like laughs at him immediately. And he's like here, married, married, was it, is it married this one? Like no one likes her. She's mean to everybody or something. She's like, she'll give me to you. Yeah. I like Katora. She's nice. Or not. Katora's not very nice. She's not nice. I mean, she, you know. She's smart.  What's else? I mean, it's very much like a partnership and it takes a while for Roper to really appreciate that. But she's like, hey, you do the battle thing. And I figure out the home front because we both got to get in this game. Let me do my part. Yeah. Yeah. So I did like that. And I like the, I like the fact that it's, you know, the frickin, I like that they have like bone plates in there. Yeah. Well, they're Neanderthals. Yeah. Yeah. Neanderthals and then the, you know, the Brits expanding upwards. And I liked it even more. I appreciate it even more after just finishing the Warlord Chronicles of, you know, the Saxons and stuff taking over Britain and stuff like that. You know, the Brits Hans trying to fight off the Saxons and just the whole native peoples of those disparate tribes coming and fighting. And so that added, that added to my context of the wolf. Some things I didn't, I did, it's up, it feels very much like a first novel. Like I think I need Karrou to trust me as a reader that I remember the trick that the huge like, you know, words that was pulled. He doesn't need to remind me in the next scene. Like, no, that's pretty good. I mean, I also want to be like, maybe he does trust you to remember. Maybe he just wants you, wants to be like, hey, remember when I did that clever thing? You know who did that? Cicero. And everyone found him a twerp. But there's a lot of that. And that's the most annoying thing about it is he constantly repeats things that I already know which is weird. I don't really know why.  I'm just like, please stop. And it got better toward the end, at the beginning especially. And the fact that like there were a bunch of like elite groups of these people, the Northerners, what do they call, what do the Northerners call? You mean the Neanderthals? Yeah. Anakim. The Anakim, thank you. The ones, the other ones are the Southerners. Like there's always these all, these are all elite groups of Anakim. And it's always like, these were the best ones. And these, and it's like, well, they can't all be the best. Which one was the actual best? And it took me forever to figure out which one's the actual best. Cause they were all elite. I'm like, yeah. And it's like, if you have different warrior sects, they're all going to want to be known for being the best at something.  So I did like the wolf. I'm much more excited to read the spider. The spider is really really good. Because where it left off, oh man, I'm so excited. I'm so excited for the chaos that the spider's going to wreak, it's going to be exciting. So I did like, I did like that one. Did you ever, after the Shelf Space Live, did you ever go and read his blog about like the origin of a species? I think I read some of it. I don't remember. It kind of goes into all of the ways and the ideas that went into forming what the Anakim ended up becoming. It was in July, I don't remember. See, and I said, I've forgotten the books that I read in July and you're like, well, you need to read smarter. I did say that, I just said that, but you read too much. And so, Oh, but you can't remember even though you've only read two things. Yes. What I'm saying is that like, if I can't remember, and I only read a couple of things, then you certainly can't remember having read 20 things. So now I'm getting a password for getting? No, I'm saying that you should read better. And so that you remember things instead of pretending to read, which is what you do. You're like, I've read 20 things, but you don't remember anything about them. So it's as if you didn't read them. I read your books in July. Yeah. But you haven't told me anything about them. Right, because we were going to do this and then we're still not going to do that part of it.  What is happening? Why do we talk for so long before we start this video? It's not my fault. We're going to talk forever. And talk forever. Yes. All right. But you should read the blog if you're interested at all. Cause like, I feel like a lot of the appreciation that I have for the Wolf, I think it's a good story. And I like the characters and everything, but like a lot of me being like, but it's amazing is because of like, his like developing the Neanderthal into like its own cultural. I do agree with Klaus a little bit that the Queen of the Southerners is a little bit like Great Value brand, Cersei. Like it is like the Sam's Choice version. It's the Dr. Thunder version. Well, she's going to a bit more like distinctively in The Spider. Okay. What's next? What'd you read next? The Diabolik. The Diabolik. Man, Leanna, I was shocked by how much I liked the first book. I was shocked by how much you liked it. I thought there was a good chance you'd like it, but... Like, I didn't just like, I loved the first half of that book.  I was in my Discord. Like... Well, even with your dissatisfaction with the end, like I would think you'd still agree that it does stand out from the pack, even as a whole. I agree, I definitely agree with that. Like in my Discord, I was like, guys, I'm reading The Diabolik and I love this book. And then it hit the halfway point. And it's at that, okay guys. So, well, I'll talk about the spoiler in a second. And then what I liked, like, it was just... It was just, it was different. Like, I like the world building. I like that it is, you know, that... It's in our world, but in the far future.  And then it also, all the knowledge was like, stored on hard drives. And so... Floppy disks. Yeah, and so the solar flare wiped it all out. And so there's only, like, only the senatorial class has access to the knowledge of technology, but they are literally letting it die out. They're, you know, the Solaris or whatever, they're in the cult of the sun. They're controlling the populace by not giving anybody the tech to, you know... What's kind of a almost dune-like in that sense where they don't trust... It's almost what, like? Like dune. I've never read dune. Well, like, that's, I mean, that's why they have mentats and people using the spice because like they have basically human computers instead because they don't trust computer computers. Keep talking about that while I talk. Don't tell me what to do. Okay, well, then you can sit there with dead air. Okay, well, everyone is here for my expert opinion on dune because everyone knows I'm a big fan of dune and everything I say about dune is true. How do you feel about other things? I think dune was among the first to... Or not, I'm maybe not among the first, but it kind of set that trend of having a far future. Yes, like interesting new tech and we could travel in space. Yes, but also weirdly, we don't do tech. We don't do computers. We don't have AIs because we don't trust that. So... Yeah, and the diabolics, you know, being these like kind of Android cyborg constructs that are... I mean, they're just genetically altered humans. Yeah. I mean, they're kind of like golds except golds that are enslaved. I thought they had like parts of them were like machine. Are you sure? Yeah. They're just engineered to be insanely strong and insanely... They have machines. I will go get it and look in the first chapter. I think it says something about that, regardless. Regardless, they imprint, you know, they imprinted this first protect one person and that was super cool.  Which they would do if they had diabolics. What is completely far-fetched is the fact that when the emperor outlaws diabolics, that like... Dona's family is the only one that pretends like they got rid of the diabolic but didn't. When you don't have contact, like when you're far... But I mean, how do you know that they're the only ones that pretended that? You don't, they just pretend. And there was nothing... They're the ones that you're around seeing. And everybody who was like in the Capitol, like you would be very hard to hide them. Like they would get... That's true. But the problem is, it's like the emperor seems to think... Like it doesn't make sense that the emperor isn't more suspicious because it... Because there's literally no reason for them to follow your directive when you're that far away. Like there's no way you can check up... But there's also no reason for him to really think that it's possible to have disguised your diabolic. That's true.  So like, and he doesn't maybe necessarily, like it doesn't really affect him if they did get rid of their diabolics out there because the problem with diabolics was here where they were using them to assassinate people. You're right, you're right, you're right. It's just a weird, like, border. It's like, how are you gonna enforce that, bro? And then also I really liked... Why can't Tyrus? Tyrus, I'm bad with remembering names. I can remember the plots of books, but names, I'm bad at remembering them afterwards. Tyrus, I really liked Tyrus early on. The I-Claudius character. Who I thought was Caligula. So, if you guys don't know the story of Claudius and Caligula, then you're fine. If you do, well, it's too late, we already spoiled it. But yeah, I thought he was Caligula. He's definitely Claudius. And so I thought he was more interesting in that first half, and then it became, he was still interesting. He was still interesting enough to save it, which was good, but not as interesting as I wanted him to be. Not as interesting as he was before. Like, I, spoilers. We're gonna talk spoilers about the dialogue now. There you go. I liked Tyrus when he was crazy. Better than when I liked him, than afterwards. This is like a similar problem. Not exactly the same, but kind of the problem you have when you take a character like Jack Sparrow, or you take a character. I know you haven't read the Grisha books, but like Nikolai Lansop, who's sort of this like wild card who shows up, is enigmatic. And you don't kind of don't know which side they're on. You kind of don't know what their deal is. And that's what makes them fun and interesting. And then if you make the story about them and you see inside their own heads and they have to carry the story, they can't be that anymore because they have to carry the plot. You have to know what they're doing. And what made them fun was that you didn't know. Correct, correct. And so when he becomes, when the plot changed. So the big thing that shocked me was freaking Emperor blows up, blows up Dona and her family, which I was not expecting.   There goes Nemesis's raison d'etre. I know. Like, I'm like, she went there. I'm like, that is freaking awesome. And I was so impressed because remember, the other YA I read was freaking Amber and the Ashes, which did everything I predicted. I did not predict that. I thought it was cool when she was there, you know, pretending to be Dona. You also didn't predict that Tyrus was Claudius. I did not. So, you know, she's there pretending to be Dona. I thought it was awesome. And then it becomes, then the freaking, it's like, oh, can I love as a human, as a robot? Am I a robot or a monster or a human? Can I love? Does he like me? I think he likes me. Oh, I have, can I have feelings and I'm just like. It's an important part of the human experience. So it would be entirely new for Nemesis to have love independent of being brainwashed into it. Can you trust your own emotions? Can you trust love? The only love you've ever known was what it was programmed in you to feel. It's not the same kind of love, though apparently Dona has the same kind of love. But that was weird. Dona's showing back up. She died? Didn't she sacrifice herself for Nemesis? Dona? Oh, yeah. Oh, she got poisoned by the queen mother, the Tyrus' grandma. Oh, that sucked. Yeah, I mean, I get the part where like, you know, learning to feel that is like, but the love part's dumb. Like, I understand it. I just don't care. Like, that's the problem. Like, I- I mean, if you're gonna have a story where it's like, a lot of it is to do with like Nemesis dealing or grappling with what it is to be human before romance becomes part of it. So like, romance isn't necessary. Yeah. You can also explore with that. I would rather her, I'd rather her deal with any, any other human response other than romance. Because the problem is, it's just like, it's just, just gets in the way. Like it messes up. But also, again, so I was originally a standalone and I love that the end is ambiguous. I agree. It doesn't, it's not a neat, when they lived happily ever after, it's very like, but did you have a try? I 100% think that Tyrus is lying. I think Tyrus is lying. I think Tyrus definitely knew what was gonna go on, what was going on. And that's, that's what I think. But again, like as a, in terms of like, what do you predict? Like it's a bold choice for a standalone YA book to leave it in a sort of like- I agree. Part of my problem though is because like, it didn't feel super YA earlier on, but then it started doing, it just started doing the thing where like stuff is resolved really fast. Like- Well, cause it was gonna mean that too. Like, if I think if she had known that she wouldn't make this a series, then things, the problems would have carried over into other books, but as a standalone. So all of that has to get wrapped up and YA books can't be a thousand pages long. So like, you gotta wrap it up. Let's take it in. Do you know how long this book right here is? Yeah, but every, okay. Unless you're Sarah J Maas. And the thing is that Sarah J Maas, she actually doesn't have thousand pages worth of plot. So like- The thing that I like could actually tell you a plot for a thousand pages. The thing that I like the least is literally at the end where freaking Nemesis is standing there monologuing and no one is killing her.  And there are literally people standing there who could kill her.  Wait till you're done.  Come on, come on. Like that's, that's whatever.  It was excellent for a YA book. But also quite grim dark for a YA book because it went to dark places. I just didn't like, I don't know. I just didn't like the romance part and I thought it was too much of it. And I understand why it was there. I just didn't love it. So I gave the second half three stars. I'm so curious what you will think of the second one. Well, I gave it four stars overall.  One principle without ever even reading a single word of it. But if you don't hate YA, then you should read this because the first section is exceptional. And the second half isn't terrible. No, no, I just didn't like it as much. Blackling is next. Blackling, I think it's both. I mean, okay, the wolf I'm unreasonably fond of, but I think both of our favorites of the four as well. Blackling is fantastic. It was so good. I had no idea what to expect. I heard people say it was good, but I hadn't heard anybody talking about it really other than it was good. Because you don't watch my videos. When did you talk about blackling? Not recently. Not so we've been friends. No, not recently, that's true. And yeah, I loved it. I loved blackling, like hands down my favorite one. I would have been shocked if you'd hated it. I didn't know if you would love it, but I thought. No, I definitely loved it.  All the names in it, I really like. And I liked that they have more of that sort of Eastern. It's not that Western European so much sound to like the names. Oh yeah, but I like, I mean, I just like the aesthetic. Like it's like, it's like Victorian England after the nukes go off. Like it's Victorian England in the far future because you know, like I just love the aesthetic. It's like steampunk. It's like post apocalyptic steampunk because I got the light. There's this very industrial, yeah. Yeah, the industrial feel. Thank you. They got the, you know, they got the bulbs. Like I love the- The Foss? Yes, I don't know what they're called. The Foss, the casters, the ones that they use, they use the light. Spinners? Sure. Yeah, they use the light magic.  I just, to me, when it bursts, it's like, when they use it up, it's like one of those old timey flash bulbs that like, hey, smile for the dicky bird thing. And I just love that whole industrial feel and the fact that there's this super weapon that no one knows if it works. The day weapon. Yeah, and it just keeps, it keeps back the drowned ones or whatever they are. The deep kings. The deep kings. Thank you. Thank you for knowing the names of things. I've read Blackwing like three times.  The nameless ones? Nameless ones. Four gods left, except they have names. Well, I mean, they've given them sort of nicknames, but they don't have their own names, yeah. So like Crowfoot and then, you know, you have the deep kings who, and you have the one that blew up everything. What's the one that built the weapon? What's his name? Nol. Nol, thank you. I just love it. It feels like so many things that I like. Like the name. Well, it's also, it has that sort of like government conspiracy Jean Le Carré kind of plot. Cause like Gal Harrow isn't just like on a quest. Like he's investigating something being not right with the government. And someone's not doing what they're supposed to be doing.  And then he's trying to figure out what's going on with her and keep track of her while also evaluating the government. Ed McDonnell does a good job of sprinkling in Gal Harrow's backstory. I agree. I said that in my review. I said that in my review. I agree. He does a great job of sprinkling in it because from the beginning, from the beginning you know that he knows her. But you don't really know from where or why. And also that he's like clearly more than the job he has right now. Yeah. And I like her brother. I liked her brother too. He was a good character. And I loved Crowfoot. How Crowfoot's like, what are you bothering me for? Like, what do you want? What do you want? Okay. Fine.  Leave me alone. I just, I love the imagery of the Crow tattoo like piloting the car. Bloodily exploding. Like yes it's magic and yes it'll heal up but it will not be pleasant. It will feel exactly like an actual bird exploded out of your arm.  Cause they're fighting. Killing? Killing? Yeah. It's just. The darlings are so creepy. Oh, the darlings. Yeah. Like. Did you listen to it on audio at all? I did not. Cause like the voice he does for the darlings. Oh really?  That's how then they smell mild. And you're like, oh. I couldn't have listened to it on audio. There's too many words that I needed to see. I would listen to it. If I re-read it, I would listen to it on audio. I really like the narrator. He's really good. He did. He did Shadow of the Gods. John Glenn's Shadow of the Gods book. And I really loved it. I think I saw that. And it was like almost made me want to pick it up just because like that narrator a lot. But then I was like, ah. He's good. And so yeah. I really liked it. Like I love the characters. I love what happens. I love like the mystery. Like I really like books that have a mystery at their heart. Cause I never figured out which is good because I'm always surprised. Always surprised. Well also, I mean like it kind of makes it, it was believable enough that it was like actual like math and equations and them trying to figure out like the machine and how it works. And like her brother being like kind of a math genius and like trying to figure all that out.  Oh yeah. I love it when a book has its own physical physics principle that they name after a character from the book. Yeah, yeah. It was just really good. I loved the world. Like the world was excellent. It means not one that you're like, like Harry Potter like, oh, I wish I could be in the world. Like absolutely not. Yeah.  A little bit deep kings. Yeah. Like it was, it was good. I'm excited. I hope to read.  So I've read Blackwing three times. I've read Raven and Cry twice and I've read Crowfall once. And I definitely need to reread Crowfall because I am not confident that I know what happened. Cause it gets so insanely lovecraftian by the end. I heard from other people also that they liked Crowfall the least. Most people say- I don't even know if I like it the least because I don't know that I know what happened. Well, again, if I can actually freaking read something, I'm hoping that's priority series to finish. Cause I, I enjoyed that. Raven, Cry is just as good of not better than Blackwing. That's awesome. It was so good. And it does, cause like a lot of, I guess with series that, cause this is one of those where it's not, okay, I started the sentence like three times. You know, like there's trilogies that are like the first law trilogy where I know you haven't read it, but it's more sort of like one story in three parts or like Lord of the Rings. It's like one story in three parts versus other series where they each kind of more, like there's an overarching story but they have more episodically their own arc individually. And so Blackwing very much like has its own arc. And so like, yes, there's threads for, you know, there's the overarching kind of question of the situation they're in without spoilers. There's a time jump between them, right? Isn't there? There is a time jump. But so I think that it does a good job of not just being like, well, this next installment will be the same thing, but with a new mystery. Like it is very much, it's a different book while still doing, you know, the good character work. And it will be really hard to do that that way with what happened in this book. It would be really hard to be like. So I mean, yeah, I think Brave and Card is a good job of like now expanding and like, okay, so what does make sense for what these characters have done and what's happened and where we've gone with this and what new information we have. That's cool. And like, I'm excited to read it because a lot of times when that happens, I'm just like, why you do this weird thing? Just go back and do the thing that I liked in the first book. Like that, for example, right now in We're Reading Blood of the Mantis, book three of Shadows of the Apt. And several people did not enjoy this as much as they did like the first two books. And me and the boxer chat I have with it, we're talking about, it feels very different. And it's like, is that a bad thing? Like, but it's just like, this is so different than the last book, which was literally like, you know, 400 pages of siege warfare and stuff. It's so very different than what was happening in the last book that it just feels, it just feels like a completely different kind of thing. And, you know, some people was just like, I just want more of that. Can I have more of the siege warfare or whatever? That's usually me, but I'm enjoying that. So I'm making a comparison. If Ravencry does what this particular book has done where it is different, but, you know, it's just- I mean, it's the same in that you have the, a lot of the same characters again, the ones that are alive and then the world, the status quo change that happens by black wing, like this is the world and that's still the world. And then like it is the same in so far as like, there is a new question to be answered, you know, a new mystery, but it doesn't feel like mystery at the week. Like it feels very earned. Like it's also many years on and there's like, he's in a very different position than he was in black wing and he's got a different support network than he had in black wing. And so- Marshall, you see the Marshall in Ravencry? Um, he's- I bet he's Marshall. No. I mean, he's, I forget the title of his position. Does the Marshall die at the end of black wing? Yes. Who kills him? Did he die in the siege? I think. Or does the other woman, why can't I remember these details? The one guy with the thing and then the that happened. I have to, I have my notebook somewhere. That's not close. I don't remember the answer to that, but I think so. Black- I feel like I remember that. Black wing, Marshall. I'm pretty sure he died. Spoilers. No, not Marshall. Hold on, black wing. Marsha Brady also dies in black wing. Who is the flippin' Marshall? They never know anything.  Like, I hate that every frickin' thing, like, if you need to know anything about anything that happened in any Brandon Sanderson book, find a hundred frickin' clicks. Books, no one's read. I can't frickin' find any- Oh, hold on. Black wing, Ed McDonald. Characters, that'll help. Characters. Boom. Who is it? First of all, would you like to know who Grimdark Magazine casts in their dream cast for black wing? Why? They have, I don't know, I'm gonna tell you anyway. So they have, who does he have as Gal Harrow? He has, oh, there's three picks. There are three choices. Is one of them Carl Urban? No, one of them is Nicolage Coaster Waldo. Oh, I do not picture him as Gal Harrow. Okay, here are the other two choices. Do you? My, I mean, no, I picture- As I feel like Gal Harrow is like a handsome reversion of the hound in Vibe. I picture most people looking like Hugh Laurie. What? That's so random.  Oh, he is big. He is big. He's a detective. That's why I always picture them just like- Like he's like Haggard from Being in the Misery. He looks like the hound. Maybe. Not like Pretty Prince Lannister. Okay, how about Mike Coulter? That's Luke Cage. Do you know Luke Cage? Scarlet Luke Cage. I saw like the thumbnail on Netflix. But he, so he plays Luke Cage? Yeah. How about Joel Kinnaman from Altered Carbon? No, like he's like too wiry. Like I really like Joel Kinnaman as an actor. He could be someone in it, but not Gal Harrow. He looks like a buff dude in this picture. I mean, he's fit, but he's like really lanky. He looks buff in these pictures. That's fine. I picture someone like Carl Urban or the guy who plays Sandwork in the game. As a bit, they have, they, it looks like they agree. All three agree that they want, apparently they really just like Altered Carbon. Martha Higurida from Altered Carbon. Was she like the detective that? I have never seen Altered Carbon. I don't watch Netflix original shows, except Money Heist. Principal? No, I just, I don't watch a lot of TV. And so if it's not super interesting, I don't. Look up, look up Martha Higurida. Don't tell me what to do. Please, I do not, I cannot show you her through the TV. Through the TV?  What's the name? What's the name? I got you. Martha Higurida. Martha Higurida. Yeah, she is the detective. Wait, no, was she? This lady, this is who she has it. This is who they have as, as a Beth. Do you picture that as, as a Beth? No, I picture, I picture, I picture Rachel Vice. I just picture someone very like fragile looking. All-Hero is Brendan Frazier and as a Beth is Rachel Vice. Oh, no. Just like the mummy. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Yes, that's what I picture.  I do. My cousin Rachel. I do. That's all I can picture every time she's like. I feel like. Lessons and not values. Yeah, as a Beth is just very like kind of delicate and fragile, like not that her character is, but in how like she looks and, and put bodily. Here a nightly then, that's going to play it. She's too tall. I want someone like very small, petite, in all ways, delicate. Well, how do you feel about Nen being played by Gal Gadot? Gal Gadot, I guess.  I mean, I guess. I just, yeah, she's too pretty to play none. Who's, who's Tanota? Is he the navigator? Yeah, he's not. Oh, yeah. Tanota, he's that. Dang, they have been, they've been Kingsley as Tanota. Oh, I, I, yeah, I like that. I can get behind that one. I can get behind that one. Who do they have as the psycho wizard, dude? I forget his name. Who's Dan, oh, Dan, she's the brother. Dan, she's the brother. Dan, freaking Zac Efron. Wait, so they won't listen to that. I mean, I guess I keep looking at him as 18 years old. Zac Efron or Zachary Quinto. Those are the two choices. Zachary Quinto, because he's like a mathematician, blah, blah, blah. Herano. Oh, Herano's. Okay.  Like she's a woman. That's just the title of the title. It's just always weird when it's like.  It means like you're noble. Yeah. So they have two choices, Helen Mirren or Maggie Smith. Helen Mirren. I think, I think Maggie Smith is, she is too megonical and too lady violet for that role. And just too old. Yeah. But Helen Mirren, the picture they have right here, Helen Mirren. Yeah, Helen Mirren. She would kill it. Well, cause have you ever seen the section of the tempest where Helen Mirren plays Prospero? That's literally that, that's gotta be this picture. She's holding a staff. She's holding a staff. I'm like, this picture looks like I would picture Prince Herano. Yeah. That was fun. Wait, but who do they have as the psycho wizard? That's who? I forgot his name, but that like evil magic doer that Gal Harrow makes a deal with. The one they're tracking, the one he's tracking, like the whole book. I mean. The one who's been deep, deep king. Yeah. The one that he like is like save Nen. I don't care what it costs. I make a deal with you. Oh, the fricking, the, the, the surgeon guy. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea. With all of his like puppet children. What was his name? That guy is terrifying. I don't know. So terrifying. It's, it's hard to find anything on Blackwing. Why is the series not more popular? Because we haven't talked about it enough. So we need to remedy that today. We need to buddy read McDonald's, the first book in his new series at sometime next year. Yes. Between now and then I want to reread Raven crying Crowfall. So I will let you know when I get to them. So I will, I will reread them. I mean, I will read them because I very much want to read them. And we can chat about it. Maybe like three months after you read it. Cut up. Yeah. But daughter of Redwinter comes out next June. That is going to be his, his next book. It already has a 7.5 out of 10 out of rating. Are there arcs? No, it comes out in June, but people have already rated it on, no, they even haven't. So how's it 7.5 out of 10? It's dumb. And I know he was talking for a while about, I don't know if that ever got funded, but to publish a bestiary for the black wingers. He should definitely special edition that from like sub press or something. I think it was like him gauging interest to see if there would be enough interest to like make it monetarily worth it. And I didn't hear about it after. That makes me sad because I would definitely do that. It was excellent. Like it was just really good. So I am glad.  It was definitely on my list. Also Raven cry to this day has like a scene that I don't want to like oversell it. But for me, it is like the one of the most chilling and like haunts me every time I think about it. Cause it's not one of those where like, if I'm not thinking about it, you know, if I just like think about it existing, like, oh yeah, that scene. But if I remember exactly what happened in that scene and why it bothered me, I get disturbed all over again. That's awesome. Well, we're in an hour, we're gonna wrap this up. We're at 57 minutes, sir. Arbiter of truth. Anyway, black wing, I was definitely gonna read it. And it was definitely my favorite of the bunch. So again, I'm gonna continue all these series.  And then the spider and then not a diabolical.  I may read the Empress before I read spider. Oh yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah. So yeah, so this was fun. We just have to read the spider before the cuckoo comes out. Yeah, I will. We should do this again, but with one book. Not maybe two? Maybe, if it's a month, I don't have a ton of comments. I'm just thinking of like high stakes quizzes that I used to have, but was one question past fail. Yeah. For two. All right, I could probably do two. We could do, it would need to be over two months. So for two months, you give me one book. Seriously, like sometimes I can't. The deal is the deal. Well, I agree to this. Okay, cool. Cause it was fun. Like it really was cool reading stuff that I would not. You say that now, which you won't say that after we do the other chat, where we talk about the books that you picked for me. Then you're like, just kidding. This is not fun. We should never do this again. I mean, that, yes. Look, you and Klaus, whether you admit to it or not, because that's what truth is like in 2021. So whether you admit to it or not, you and Klaus like, you dislike things more on purpose than you normally would in the comfort of your home without a platform because you want to roll somebody out. Absolutely not. It is whether you admit to it or not in your heart.  Even people say they do. Oh, I don't like the game Monopoly. I know. He likes Monopoly. Many people say they do. They don't. In their heart of hearts, they know that it's trash. Just like in your heart of hearts, you and Klaus know that you are purposely mean because you feel like you have to be some kind of like Thanos force, balancing out all the people who love everything.  I think you're projecting. What do you mean? I like everything. Except for when you don't. That's true. But I like most of the things I do. It's amazing how frequently you appear to be ranting given how frequently you like books. Like, what are you ranting about? You like what you're reading. Well, because I have a, because, because, and I think we can learn from this as a nation, you can both love something and be critical of it. So I very much rant about many things. I rant about fricking how Xenophon and the Greeks ended up in the middle of Persia.  They didn't have to fight their way out in the Armenian winter. Yeah, I think that's what they've been chatting about on the old Twitter lately. That's been the hot topic. No, it hasn't. For me, it's realized like, really? I'm like, I'm missing a discussion about Xenophon and the 10,000. Where? There was a discussion about it. You would have started it. I did, I did talk about that very thing on Twitter like two days ago. That's why I was like, Have you been talking? No one responded. Like two people responded. Two people responded. Anyway, this was fun. Next time, I'm definitely gonna have you read Folding Knife. And if you have- Spoilers. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna have- What if I read it between now and whenever this future event happens? I'll give you a different part. I need to hear now to commit to specific months in which this will take place. I don't know. Great. But take that to the bank. But I got for you. I don't know. Yeah, I'll figure it out. I got to, I have to get through my backlog, which I am currently on. Is part of your backlog, the spider and the empress and Raven cry and crow fall and Ember and the ashes two, three and four? No, that's not my new, but that's not my, that's not, no, no. And first law all 10. No, it's not. It's not on my backlog. My backlog. We're doing a read-along for first law next year. You should- You've, you read it this year, Leanna. There's no reason to do a read-along. This is how Bethany convinced me to join her podcast. She lured me in with the carrot of Abercrombie. Like, we can do a first law read-along. I was like, okay. And then have you talk about it like you've read it a hundred times? Like what would it be? What do I, what could I possibly say that you already haven't said about it? You could tell me that you hate it. That's something I've never said. Well, then I'd have to hate it. I'm sure you would have a new fresh take on- Leanna, we were having a pleasant wrap up and you're riling me up.  How am I making you angry by suggesting that you participate in a fun project where you could like a book that I like and then we could agree about it. What do you books in the month, Leanna? Are you having a case of the vapors? Lie down. Kaz, bring my smelling salts.  She's in an ill humor. I feel such tinglings up and down my spine. That's because we've read Daphne de Moria. That's just how it happens in those books. I think my womb is wandering. Oh my gosh, that's creepy and weird. All right, so on that note, on that weird, weird note, this is fun. We're going to very soon. If I have time, I'm gonna hit her up this weekend and film, finish the other one. If not, it'll be up soon. Cause really, let's be honest, that's the one you wanna watch cause you want me to yell at her. And I know I'm gonna try so hard. Actually, take bets down below. If you watch this, take bets down below. How long, in the video, before I start yelling at Liana, will I make it through one book? Two books. It depends on what order we're talking about them. Are we start with guns of the dawn? No, we're gonna end with guns of the dawn the way we ended with blackwing here.  So, well, I'm definitely, can I get through the entire shadow and summer discussion without losing my cool? Liana, I've heard some of your objections and they're dumb. So... Thanks for saying so. You're welcome. Would you like me to say so in a condescending tone of voice in your comments? I mean, I would prefer that. That's usually how I take it. That's what I'm saying. That's usually how you receive feedback, right? About your opinions. People, guys, if you're gonna be mean to someone in a comment section, like seriously, they'll find something else to do. Like, seriously, there's... I mean, if you open my part essay with I know you're not gonna read this, but I mean, just ask yourself who you're doing this for. Guys, find something to do. You're not constructive to anybody. And I feel bad, like, go, just go. Go touch some grass. Go, yeah, just go walk your dog. Walk the dog, take a dog and walk. Look at the cloud. Liana, I'm sick and I'm tired. So I'm looking. Well, I'm sick and tired as well. Sick and tired of your terrible opinion. All right, well, we'll see. This was fun! The next one in which I will be viciously attacked. That's probably true. Probably true. But until then, check out Alan's channel if you have not, because even if all of his opinions are wrong, he's very amusing when he shares them. So it's worth watching anyway. That's true. Come join me. You should definitely, in fact, leave Liana's channel and come join mine. Unsubscribe to Liana and come subscribe to me instead. This is a zero-sum game. You can only watch one YouTube channel. So check out Alan's channel. That message is great. That message is really just for Klaus. Klaus, Klaus. Klaus, you can do whatever you want. Klaus. Be an independent human being.  I mean, not here because butter is not vegan, so. Oh my gosh. Close the water. In broadcast. Ended.


Software developers will always be in sales. Listen to me again. Software developers will always be in sales. Before you attack me, let me explain why. And also, we want to prevent you guys from getting what you want out of life because of this problem. That being said, if you don't know who I am, my name is Rod, the IT guy. I helped take software developers career in their life to the next level, and I really put things in perspective for you. So, I want to help you guys out. That being said, guys, we are software developers. I'm including myself in this because I experienced this earlier on in my life, and I made the change to really put myself in a position so that I can get out of life what I want, relationships, money. I have fun with my kids and all that good stuff, and I expect you guys to do the same. I know you're in a dark place right now and you feel like, hey, life is getting to me. I don't have access to what I want. I'm not getting out of life, and things are not that good. You can change it, guys. I used to feel this exact same way, especially after college. It's like after college, you didn't get the job you want. You don't get the ladies you want.  You're not getting any of that.  And guys, yes, it's hard, but we can change this. That being said, before I get started, I wanna plug a few things for you guys. I have links in the description box where you can get access to my free community so that we can help you with this. And also, I have a seven-step guide that's gonna take you through your software development career and help you not only with software development, but anything outside of software development that could affect your career too. And if you already signed up for my seven-step guide in my community, I have premium courses below, guys, so let's support the channel so that we can reach more people and we can help you guys really take your life to the next level and don't be an in-sale. But, guys, I'm gonna tell you this first of all. I used to be an in-sale. And I'm gonna tell you why. I always leaned on technology, technology, technology. I don't have to communicate with nobody because I provide value and I can be a nerd and all that stuff, which is okay. That's not the issue. The issue is you're not willing to improve the other areas of your life and really put yourself in the position so that you can be more sociable. I went to this work event early on, guys, and it wasn't until later on I really kinda realized and started to really kinda see how to navigate life and business and technology. Cause when I used to go to work functions, I used to be in a corner by myself, didn't talk to nobody. I didn't wanna be here as a work function. They paid me from nine to five, not after, so I'm gonna just not do anything. Which, if that's what you wanna do, that's okay. That's have consequences and you're willing to take those consequences that good.  Just do the standard things and everything to be good. So I met the company function guys and I used to be awkward sitting in the corner and people in other departments and even the ladies, they think IT guys are just weird because we don't talk, we're looking down and then when we talk, it's all about something that they don't know anything about. So they automatically put us over here in this box, which we love to talk about technology, software and all that stuff, but guys, there's a time and a place in a context for it. You're not talking to other software developers.  The way I treat this as is first of all, you treat is situational. There's a time where we, also with the guys, with the nerds, we're gonna do our nerdy stuff, but there's a time where you have to be professional and speak to your audience or whoever's in that vicinity and that situation, guys.    So why would you treat your coworkers like technology professionals? No, don't do that guys. This is why you come across as being awkward because we gotta get our social skills. This is what ladies do so much naturally than us. They just naturally more sociable. I'm not asking you to be the best social person in the world. I'm just telling you not to be bad at it. And it's easy not to be bad at it. You just gotta just do some basics that 20% that's gonna give you 80% of the results. That's all I'm asking. If you do that in the areas that you need to improve in your life, oh man, you get what how I am now to where things are just happening for you guys. And I'm just gonna tell you my personal experience. Now I go to a company event, so I'm kinda in an in crowd now, even though as an IT guy, people feel comfortable talking to me. The ladies feel comfortable talking to me. I can wholly engage in conversation. Am I the best social person in the world? No, will I ever be the best social person in the world? No, will I be the best dresser in the world? No, but I'm not awkward. I'm not bad and people feel comfortable around me and that's the key. You wanna make people feel comfortable around you. You don't wanna be weird, come across as being creepy and this helps in all areas of your career guys. In an interview, same thing. When you're trying to buy something, convince somebody on a project, same thing. When you're in front of the ladies, on a date, the exact same thing guys. So this applies throughout your life. So if you get this, this is the foundation of you not staying in sale and really putting yourself in a position to be successful. And this is the kind of stuff that I've been working on for years. It took me probably five or six years to really understand it and probably another three to implement it to the point that I am now and that I get what I want. I'm happy. All areas of my life is good. I'm good interview at the job with the ladies. If I'm trying to convince people or something, this actually helps across the board. And the good thing about it is guys it's not hard to do to implement. You just got to identify your weakness and plug the plug in the gaps so that you can be a well-balanced person and you check off a lot of boxes for a lot of people. You don't come across as being creepy guys. We are software developers. The benefit about us being software developers, we did the hard part. Most people don't have a skill that's gonna allow them to make the type of money we make. So from a financial money perspective, you manage it right, we're golden. That's the hardest part. Most people can't get that. So you got that checked off. Now you got to take that and start plugging in the other gaps that we're missing and then you're gonna come across as being that idea person, that person that people want to be around, the people that liked and they just see you as a really good guy or a girl if you're a software developer. So we got to get that guys. We have to be that. And I'll probably do some premium stuff later on where I kinda, it's not gonna be as PC as I'm making it on camera because this is a YouTube edition guys. I can't go into the nitty gritty details of it. So I'll sign up for the community so that whenever I decide to do the premium content, I'll let you guys know. But till now we're gonna keep it PG.  I want to help us really kinda plug in those other gaps and improve our life so that we not only we have success in our career, we have success in our life, we have success with our relationships and across the board guys. And there's some just a few easy things that we can do to really take things up a notch. And a lot of guys think that, hey, I gotta be great at social skills. I gotta be great at careerism. I have to be great at this. And that's just not the case guys. This just takes a little bit of work to get that 20% of the result or do that 20% of the work that's gonna give you 80% of the results. And that'll put you either average or above average. That's what we're going for guys. We're not going for great, but we don't wanna be bad. That's what we're going for. And that's gonna really take things up a notch for you guys. So I made some notes here for how to make sure I don't miss anything. So number one, you have no social skills in presence. We gotta work on that guys. We can't be awkward. We can't be creepy. All that stuff. We gotta work on that number one. Number two, I'm not asking you for the world. I'm just asking you to be average guys. Not great. Cause we're good at software development. Don't get me wrong. If you can be great, be great. But I'm not asking for great right now. I'm just asking for average. But I don't want that. You have to work. You have to just completely not do anything to be bad. I just need average guys. So number two and number three, let's just fix our weak points. You have to identify this guys. You have to look yourself in the mirror and say, Hey, I need to improve in this area, this area, this area. And I guarantee you most of us software developers, we look at it from a career perspective. I made the right choice for my career as far as just skills, projects and all that. But I need to work on my social skills and I need to work on my presence. Those are the two that we really need to work on as software developers.  We want to keep it really, really, really easy and straightforward. That means that guys, your social skills is really going to help take your software development career and your life to the next level. So let's go ahead and do that. If you haven't already, go ahead and sign up for our seven step guide, get access to our free community by signing up for that guide. And also if you have already signed up for that guide, check out our premium courses guys, our premium courses, you're going to help support the channel and it's going to really take things up and not for you guys in a really focused way. So if you agree with me, comment below, tell me how things been working for you. If you disagree with me, comment below and tell me why you disagreeing with me. Like, subscribe to the content. I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.


What I want to do is to present this project, but I'm not alone. As Tavi mentioned, we are collaborating with people from the labs, from Paris, Nokia the labs officially right now. So this is the team that right now we are working on this project. Federico and Carla, as myself, from here and Roberto Di Pietro and Matteo Signorini from Paris. He is an alumni here at the UPF. He was with us six months ago defending his disease. So and I would like also to mention these two other people that also are from here from Pompeo Fabra. Rafael, as we probably will need to deal with machine learning staff, he's going to help us a little bit on that, especially because we already are collaborating in a project on a doctorate PhD with Alberto, that is the person on the top. So okay, this is the agenda for the next, for the talk. After introducing a little bit on Internet of Things, not that much, but I will try to emphasize if it's possible even more the security and privacy risk that it has. Elisa put me in a nice way to skip somehow this part. And then I will explain a little bit what blockchain technology is, explain a little some details, some building blocks. It is quite an involved protocol, so what I'm going to try to do is to give the main ideas that we need to understand our proposal. Our proposal is this AutoDapps project, but it comes from this, from a word, multi-layered blockchain for the IoT. So I will explain a little bit on that and then I will move on to the project. The project began two weeks, two months ago, so it's just the starting. So one big part would be to explain future work and what is what we are planning to do in the next few years. So nowadays everything is interconnected. Refrigerators, washing machines, everything is wired and interconnected. And the idea is that they make our lives a little bit easier. But because of that they deal with private data, and personal data, not only bank account numbers, but also health information, as Elisa mentioned. So it's something that we should take care about. Just to give you a few information, a few numbers, by 2020 it is expected that 26 billion of devices are connected forming this Internet of Things. This has data from some recent report from Gardner. And the revenue is expected to exceed 300 billion of dollars. So it's quite a bit about money. And to get an idea of how it is increasing, it is doubling what is expected in two years, so in 2018. And of course there will be a lot of devices, a lot of interconnections, and the risk of security issues increase a lot. These are some data to get an idea of the risk. This is some collected information for a recent report, where it's mentioned that 90% of devices collect private information, which is a lot, a big rate. 70% use kind of not properly, not good enough password votes, or not a good way to authenticate to the network. 70% of the devices use unencrypted data, and we should take in mind that 90% of them use personal data. Some other, like these 6 out of 10 devices are the user interface that uses, has some kind of vulnerability. So with that in mind, I would like to just use this nice written report by OWASP, a quite well-reputed open organization, where in 2014 listed the top 10 security risks. And if you have a look at it, it mentions a lot of scenarios where there might be some kind of risk, and they not only describe the scenario, but the potential risk that it's behind the Internet of Things. And some of them are quite well-known attacks. I'm not sure how familiar are you with security and attacks, but this I would say is one of the top 10 popular attacks, like SQL injection, hurt-lit, or cross-site scripting. So with that brief introduction to the Internet of Things, I would like to go into detail what blockchain technology is, but before that, please have a look at these pictures. Because somehow blockchain is behind it. On the left side, we have the Britannica and the Encyclopedia Britannica, with basically how it generates information. So they hire some people, and these people create content, they put all the content together, they sell and people that buy got the information. How it is done in Wikipedia? So in Wikipedia, content is created in a very distributed way. There is nobody managing how the information is created. So everything, there are like more than 20,000 people that are actively collaborating and creating the content on the Wikipedia. Not only that, but also I think it's 20,000, maybe I'm slightly wrong, but it's like a very number. The point is that not only that, so they create the content in a very distributed way, and also it's much more efficient. Here, there is really a surprise how if there is any change, here it's suddenly updated, whereas on the other hand, it's quite difficult to update. So with that in mind, basically I would say that Internet has allowed to use this kind of way to create content in a very distributed way using Wikipedia, and I would say that blockchain can do quite a lot of things for some other scenarios. What is a blockchain? Again, trying to skip a lot of details not to give the main ideas of what it is. In a blockchain, we have an action that we have to, that you want to perform, and we will manage to do it interacting once with, I mean interacting between different peers in a network, and in a network that potentially is unreliable and is not a trusted network. Somehow it can be seen as a huge document where the people can access and can guarantee some properties as integrity, authenticity, and special notes that will be called minors. I will go into details exactly what does it mean in a few minutes. We'll work together without having any idea of who we are, each other. Somehow this idea reminds again, I mean, it's quite similar to the Wikipedia case. I'm not sure how many people are familiar with blockchain, but I'm pretty sure that if I say Bitcoin, probably a lot of you know what Bitcoin is, this new cryptocurrency and this new way of payment that was invented a few years ago in 2008. And what it does behind the Bitcoin, behind the Bitcoin, there is the blockchain. Somehow the importance of the whole thing is the blockchain, especially designed for the Bitcoin. But this is what it's really behind this new currency. So before entering into the details, I would like to explain you a little bit on some building blocks on crypto, just because you get an idea exactly of what it is, the protocol by itself. So I'm trying to be, again, quite not entering into the deep detail, but just a little bit so to get an idea of what's the key issues of the blockchain. So the first thing is the cryptographic hash function. What is a cryptographic hash function? Basically it's a mathematical function that gets as inputs, can get any input of any size and produce an input of a fixed size. One of the important things is that this output is completely random. Or at least it looks like random. Of course it's not going to be random. And take in mind that we can have an input of any size and we are producing some input of maybe 256 bytes. So it's going to be like random, it's completely impossible. But it should be somehow, it should give you some kind of randomness. Another special, two other special properties. The first one is that should be one way. Meaning that it's easy to compute, but it's very difficult to invert. And the second one is this collision resistant. There are a lot of hash functions, a lot of them with different properties. But especially this property, this collision resistant property is especially interesting for us. What does it mean? It means for us in this context. It means that it is invisible to find two different outputs that give you the same output. So it is possible to find x1 and x2. In such a way that the hash function of x1 is equal to the hash function of x2. This is basically what we need to understand about the cryptographic hash function. Two things. Reminder that the output is going to be fixed length and especially it's going to be random, or looks like random at least. And this collision resistant property. We are not only going to deal with that. We are also going to deal with a lot of hashes. A lot of hashes put it in a tree as a tree extractor. This is what is called the Merkle tree. And it's a basic extractor just to check if any of the leaves are or not in a given extractor. Another thing that I would like to talk, just to know that everybody is familiar with this concept of digital signature is a mathematical protocol to produce a signature. What is called a digital signature. In such a way that it cannot be unforgeable. So this is really the signature that usually simulates this handwriting signature that you use on papers. So basically it has three protocols like the key generation protocol that produce two keys. One that is public and the other one that is the view cap. You should get secret. And then this signing and verification protocol. With the signing protocol what you do is you take your document, you produce a hash. This is for efficiency reasons. And then you use some mathematical protocol using your private key. So you produce this signature. Forget about what is inside this thing. The important thing is that you are able to produce a signature which is going to be a bunch of numbers that nobody else is going to be able to reproduce unless this person has the private key. Your private key. Then you attach this to your document and this is your signature. What can do people to check if this is a signature or not? Then these people can use your public key. It is public so anybody knows it and everybody can have and check if computing document, the hash. And then on the other hand the document, sorry, the signature. And then using the public key can check if both hashes are not the same. So basically there is a way to verify if this guy has signed this or not. That's important thing. On top of that what is used on blockchains is not... This is one of the most standards on digital signatures. And what is used on that is the an elliptic corp version of it. Meaning, what does it mean? It means that here when we usually, so if we skip this EC usually where we are adding numbers or we are multiplying, we are multiplying numbers. When we add this EC it means that we are not dealing with numbers anymore in the sense that we are not adding numbers, we are adding points of an elliptic corp. So anytime you want to add p and q that are numbers of an elliptic corp that we have some geometrical procedure to get the sum which is over here. Why am I explaining this? Because probably if some of you know a little bit about crypto then probably you would say, but come on, you need 1024 bits to create this long key so this is not possible for my device. The thing is that if we use elliptic curves the security just to be broadly speaking I would say that if you use elliptic curves then you get the same security but with a very, very, very small key. So even though instead of adding numbers we have to do a little bit more, this a little bit more is not that much but on the other hand we can use very nice size of keys and size of messages and size of habits so that everything fits much better than with the other things. So after this point let me explain you how the protocol goes. So to explain this I will use the Bitcoin even though again what I'm doing is trying to emphasize the use of the blockchain's block chain works but we need to put something to a change so money would be one of the options. Imagine that Alice wants to pay some money to Bob. What she should do in this blockchain with this new blockchain approach? First of all there is no Alice and Bob. There is a bunch of numbers. Actors, these numbers are deduced from these points of the elliptic curves but at the end of the day this is a bunch of numbers. Alice knows that she wants to pay something to this person. This is going to be the public key. The first thing she's going to do is to create a transaction record meaning that given some kind of format she's going to create some information saying that she's Alice, she has three Bitcoins and she wants to pay to Bob. Maybe some other technical stuff and put a digital signature on that say I'm Alice and I'm saying that I want to do this for Bob. That's the first step. On the second step this information is brought to all the network. So all the network receives this information and there will be some special notes, the miners, that will perform some operation on that. Up to now let's say they perform some operation. Then I will explain to you somehow what they had to do. So the idea is that they perform this operation and at some point there will be one of them that succeeds on the operation. So I will explain to you in the next slide what this operation means but it's something that is going to be really, really tough. So they are computing all the time. Actually they are usually computing because they get some rewards, some nice rewards from doing this work the whole day. So non-stop. Okay. So once every ten minutes, actually everything is somehow calibrated to have once every ten minutes, these notes collect not only the money from Alice but also the money from other peers that have tried to pay something in the last period of time, the last ten minutes. And they do these calculations, they do these calculations and mention that I got the solution so the rest of the peers check that the solution is there. And what they do is to agree on that. So they send some kind of confirmation that yes, I saw it and I think it is correct. So once this is done, what they do is create this transaction record that Alice has sent at the very beginning is added to what is called a block. And this block, which should be over here, is added to a blockchain meaning that is a chain of blocks that are related once after the others and that nobody can change. Once Bob has seen that there is quite a lot of people that confirm so that he accepts the money and gets this money as something that is correct. So zooming at some points that probably are a little bit confusing, this could be a block, this could be kind of a block. A block, remember, that is the information, so Alice sent some kind of transaction record that it would be like this, Alice, Bob, the address and some other information. And the nodes collect all the ones that have been sent in the last ten minutes and compute some extra information. And this timestamp, some kind of idea to have where everything has been, so some numbers that will allow us to say when this thing has happened and a block hash that will point to the previous block. So this allows us to create this blockchain and some nonce number. This nonce number is a random number that is, sorry, before this transaction route that would allow us to remember there are four transactions. So we have here these four transactions. So this is kind of the miracle tree that will allow us to check if this transaction is included or not in the block. With all this information, the block hash at the very beginning is computed, how it is computed, so this is what is called a proof of work and for me it's the key issue for the whole blockchain. The thing I just told you that the block hash is a hash of the nonce, the previous block hash, the transaction route and the timestamp. The point, remember that at some point in the protocol we have the sender, Alice, and we have Bob and in the middle one this information has been broadcast to the rest of the nodes. The rest of the nodes have to do some calculations and they have to do a lot of work on that calculation. Once every 10 minutes is supposed to have one is going to have the solution. What is just this calculation? The only thing that they have to do is to compute hashes, but a lot of hashes. A lot of hashes meaning that they have to compute this block hash and try to have, they have to put different random numbers, these different nodes, in such a way that the result that they want to have, this hash of the block header, should be that small, so it should have a lot of zeros and then some number. Depending on the number, usually 40 is like a 40 zeros and then something else, you get more, somehow the way the difficulty is established is playing with these zeros. Remember, and that's the reason I explained you before about the hash, I told you that hash was a way to put any input in a fixed number that looked random. So the point is that there is no way that the nodes, the minor nodes, know what should be the good nodes to produce such an output. So what they have to do is just brute force, there is nothing else. So they have to do, unfortunately there is nothing else. If there is something, then there is a way to cheat. So the nice thing is that the only thing that they can do, is the hash function is good enough, is brute force. And then with this brute force, once in a while, like once in every 10 minutes, there will be one, so this is kind of a statistic, so it can be computed and looked at the numbers, just to see that once every 10 minutes, assuming there is a lot of number, a lot of people, a lot of nodes computing these calculations, will get with the solution. So remember that there was the only thing that they had to go with the solution and say, hey, I have the solution, don't try to compute anything more, because this is the solution and the other thing that they have to do is just to check if it's correct or not. I don't know if, does anybody of you check the blockchain so how all this currency goes? So let me show you something that was the first time, it was a little bit, I thought that how, and this is kind of a life thing, so probably it's not going to change, it's going to work, but if you look at the, okay, I'm finishing, I saw it. So just to show you the picture of how are the transactions right now, so apparently it would be like, okay, I know this is Bitcoin, but for me, the first time I saw it was like, okay, maybe some people is using, I know there is some withdrawal here at Pompeo, but really there is a lot of information going around with this thing. And trying to be quick, let me, there is a lot of applications on these techniques, going from voting solutions that are something that was especially tricky for several things, Internet of Things also for health care, and let me go into the details of our proposal. We proposed to use a multi-layer blockchain to manage somehow the Internet of Things. So the idea was that you don't need to authenticate the case every time you try to do something, but you just go directly to the device that is using, that has used just this information. So I think it's really difficult to explain in five minutes, but in two, it's even more difficult. So I will go directly to saying that this information is probably Federico, so I agree with me that this somehow can be translated to a graph, and it is possible to study quite a lot of information on that. I would like also to say that this is the origin of the idea of the project. This is not Autodavs, but this is the very beginning of everything. This idea was presented to the CISCO IOT's grand security challenge, and it got awarded. And right now we are working on a paper or I would say the academic version of that. And again, this is the proposal. It is based on that with the idea of using this blockchain technology to detect malware. So not only malware, but also any anomaly that might happen in the Internet of Things. So for any kind of anomaly and using the graph, so there will be like this topology analysis for this graph, we will try to extract information and see if there is some malware or not between different layers that should be divided, and I'm not going to enter into the details. Right now, as it is the project, as I mentioned before, Federico just started two months ago trying to implement. First thing was to collect this data and put it in a graph, which should be a tool that we will be using through the rest of the project to skip smart contracts and everything. He's using this open platform called Coins. And this is the idea to continue. So the idea is basically this would be the steps that we plan to perform in immediate steps, I mean time, and these somehow like these midterm steps. Federico is joining us doing the PhD at PhD, and this would be like the first two things to look at it. And a part of this, there is like blockchain technology is something really new and applied to different contexts is not going to be an easy way, especially because this proof of work that I mentioned that the miners do is something that is not, it cannot be directly translated to other scenarios, so we should think about it a little bit more. Behind that there will be problems with privacy probably because everything is public, a part of the pseudonyms. Scaling is something to take care about. And then this thing as I mentioned, so for the point with the I mentioned at some point that the miners get some reward to doing these calculations all the time. So what should we do for other applications when there is no money behind? It's something that there should be, there is research to do it on that and actually there is, I know that Game Theory works working on that. So as I mentioned, this is the people that is behind this. Right now Mateo is helping to develop this tool to Federico and he is going to do his PhD under the supervision of Roberto and myself. Rafael is going to help us with machine learning and this proof of work and these photocryptographic techniques, probably Carla is going to help us as she is an expert on zero knowledge proof that somehow has some relation with what is going on behind that. We are planning also to ask for a joint PhD European industrial PhD in the next, I think the next call is going to be in January so that's the idea that we have in mind. And sorry for taking more time.