Author Interview: Beyond the Gates Infernal by Bryan S. Glosemeyer
- Fiction Fans
- May 15, 2024
- 44 min read
Updated: May 23, 2024
Episode 140
Release Date: May 15, 2024
Your hosts are joined by Bryan S. Glosemeyer to talk about Beyond the Gates Infernal, volume 2 in his Shattered Gates series, but Sara and Lilly can’t resist asking a few questions about volume 1 anyway. They discuss SciFi slang, cute alien creatures, and the unsettling familiarity of the slavery system our main character grew up in. They also bring up character agency, heartbreaking romances, and the effect our subconscious has on decisions.
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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.
Lilly: 0:03
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.
Sara: 0:09
And I'm Sarah, and I'm so delighted to welcome on Brian Glosmeyer to talk about Beyond the Gates Infernal. Welcome.
Bryan: 0:16
I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me on. I'm super excited for it.
Lilly: 0:20
Oh my gosh, I am bursting with questions, but the most important one first. What's something great that happened recently?
Bryan: 0:28
Well, the first great thing is that I'm on the podcast, so thank you again very much for that. That is actually a huge deal for me. I'm very grateful for it. Second great thing, like we were talking about before, I have a birthday trip planned coming up, so it's not a great thing yet, but it's a great thing to be, where I'll be up visiting Vancouver for the first time and Seattle for the second time for my big 5 0.
Lilly: 0:54
Congratulations, yeah.
Bryan: 0:56
Thank you.
Lilly: 0:57
And hopefully the Pacific Northwest treats you well, but it will, it always does.
Bryan: 1:01
love it up there, so I'm not worried at all.
Lilly: 1:03
Sarah, how about you?
Sara: 1:04
My good thing is that I have a couple of buds on one of my rose plants that the deer did not eat and so they've started blooming and they're very pretty.
Lilly: 1:15
Amazing.
Sara: 1:16
Bambi gets quite a lot of my roses so it's always exciting when you see a bud start to open and then you come out the next day and it's still there.
Lilly: 1:29
Oh, congratulations to you as well.
Sara: 1:32
Thank you!
Lilly: 1:33
What color are the roses?
Sara: 1:34
So it is the Lady Emma Hamilton rose, and it's kind of like this really pretty peach ish color.
Lilly: 1:41
Oh, I love orange flowers. We have some orange tulips right now. They're the best.
Bryan: 1:44
Nice. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Lilly: 1:51
too early. It rained all day. But I was like, no, we're still doing this. God damn it. Everyone humored me, and by the time food was done cooking, I was like, okay, we can go inside. But it was a lot of fun. So that was nice.
Sara: 2:07
That sounds delightful.
Bryan: 2:09
Yes. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Lilly: 2:14
the barbecue sangria that I made that I thought would be more popular with people who aren't me so I made way too much.
Sara: 2:22
That was just taking care of, you know, yourself in a couple of days time.
Lilly: 2:27
Exactly. Planning ahead.
Sara: 2:29
Indeed. I have box wine.
Lilly: 2:32
Secretly, that is also what I am drinking, yes.
Bryan: 2:36
And I live in Northern California, so I'm drinking an IPA, because that's what we
Lilly: 2:40
It is required. Yeah.
Bryan: 2:42
Binds of Death is the name of it. It's from Altamont Ghost Town. It's a West Coast IPA and it's delicious. And they do like the cool, uh, the people at home won't see, but you can see they have, like, cool skulls and stuff on the can. So,
Sara: 2:57
I do like the can.
Bryan: 2:59
I'm a sucker for skulls. What can I say? And it's quite, quite tasty.
Lilly: 3:03
see, that's why they kicked me out of Northern California because they were like, you don't drink IPAs, you can't stay here.
Bryan: 3:08
You know, I just got into them, like, I never drank them before, but then, like, a couple years ago, I had one at a concert and it just Hit the right way, at the right time, and that's pretty much what I've been drinking since then.
Lilly: 3:23
There you go. So this is actually a book podcast! Surprise!
Bryan: 3:27
Woohoo, books!
Lilly: 3:29
Has anyone read anything good lately, extracurricular, other than what we will be discussing at length in a moment? I haven't.
Sara: 3:37
I read a short story called Gods of Dust by Brian Glowes Meyer and really enjoyed it. I, uh, finished Beyond the Gates Infernal yesterday and was like, I need more. And luckily there was more. So I read that and it was a delightful little treat.
Bryan: 3:52
I am about halfway through a book called Furious Heaven. It's the second book in a space opera trilogy that's not finished yet by Kate Elliott. It doesn't get a whole lot of buzz and talk, but it's kind of crazy that it's not because it's really good. Really good. The quick pitch for it is gender swapped Alexander the Great in space.
Lilly: 4:16
shit.
Bryan: 4:17
So it's very deep, world building, very big, cast. Both books do start off kind of slow, like it takes about a hundred pages for them to get going, but once they get going, it's like boom, it's on, and we're just racing through. They're a lot of fun. I really, uh, highly recommend this series. Not enough people are talking about it, and I will definitely be posting about it once I finish it.
Sara: 4:42
I have heard the title and that pitch too. And it like, I really want to read it, but I just need to have more hours in the day.
Lilly: 4:50
Well, we always say we need to put more sci fi on our list, so maybe we should just make it a podcast book and then we have no excuse.
Sara: 4:57
I'll add it to our list of podcast books.
Bryan: 4:59
It's fun. It's an interesting blend. It's got a lot of court intrigue mixed in with, like, military sci fi and adventure, and then just also a lot of, like, Cultural world building and mythological world building. It's actually a book that I feel like could use an appendices, like a dramatis personae and some stuff like that. And it doesn't have it because of cast is so big. I'm like, wait, who's this person again? But she's pretty good at like making sure that with this big cast, you catch on who and what you're reading about pretty quickly. If you're lost for a second. Oh,
Lilly: 5:36
The Shattered Gates of Heaven and Beyond the Gates Infernal. Thank you for the perfect segue. So I know that this episode is technically about the second book, but this comment applies to both. How fun the slang that you invented, like, drilling instead of fucking and that kind of stuff, it fits so perfectly into the world and was so well integrated into the dialogue and prose that it was, like, so easy to pick up. I was like, I know exactly what this character means.
Bryan: 6:06
great. I'm glad to hear that. Cause I, uh, I definitely. I put a lot of time trying to craft that just right, because it's a culture that, you know, that's very separated from our place and time in our history, but still has, you know, antecedents to our own place and time in history. So just trying to think like, well, this character wouldn't say, okay, here, and they wouldn't say what in the world is going on, you know, what would they say in place of that? And just trying to like Immerse myself into the world and be like, well, what would be the natural thing someone would say in these kind of situations?
Sara: 6:42
Did you start, like, keeping a dictionary of phrases, or was it all basically just in your head, like you had thought about it so you knew?
Bryan: 6:50
Oh, yeah, I keep copious notes. I have a terrible memory. I keep copious notes of, like, terms and, you know, the different planets and worlds and what characters look like and what their backgrounds are. There's a really common writing software called Scrivener. That I use. That's great. So you can have all of your writing and your drafts and your notes just all in one location. So you can just click back and forth between a note and your draft that you're working on and look something up real quick and go right back to it. It's very convenient for people who do a lot of world building.
Lilly: 7:25
You do a hell of a lot of world building. So That was about the slang which appears in the book as English, although of course they're not speaking English because this is a different time and place. But we also get quite a lot of alien language in these books. How did you develop those words and phrases?
Bryan: 7:45
So, you know, one thing that kind of always bothers me with a lot of, like, space opera sci fi is, there's just, it's a little bit too easy to have everybody speaking English. And, you know, there's always, like, the babblefish or some kind of, like, neural implant or something. And those kind of things do exist for some people in my world. But, you know, I live in San Francisco, and it's so easy to ride the bus here. and hear, like, five languages being spoken at once, you know, in just a very small, confined space. If you pay attention as you're going about the city, you can just hear dozens of languages being spoken. So, it was hard to imagine why Within the same culture, much less all these different cultures and aliens and people from different planets, wouldn't have a wide variety of languages too. So I really wanted to bring that, you know, to the writing. And then from there, I was really trying to think about what the influences were on the different alien species and how that would reflect in the words. So, like, with the VLEES, Sabira describes it as kind of a droning speech. So, I thought it was important to have a lot of words with, like, long vowels. So, you'll see there's a lot of, like, double E's and double U's. Double U's as in two U's, not a, not a W. And things like that, and there are words and consonant combinations that we don't necessarily get in English flowing into each other in ways. And then, you know, for the language of the unity, I wanted it to be something where, because like the construction of their mouths, it would be very hard for humans to speak it. So it would come across very kind of guttural and resonant sounding. And I took a lot of original inspiration in my world building as just like a stepping off point from like the Bronze Age and like the Fertile Crescent. So I wanted to have a language that would kind of trigger ideas of like, you know, Ur and Babylon and Persepolis and like kind of like Old Testament kind of sounding names and words to really resonate off of where I started with the world building on that.
Sara: 10:05
And the language really does such a good job at grounding the reader in these different cultures, so I think you did an excellent job there. Talking a little bit about unity in particular, this is something that Lily and I discussed in our episode on the first volume. Because it opens from Sabira's perspective, and at that point she's still, we'll say, totally brainwashed by this culture that she's grown up in, and she doesn't recognize some of the many ways that it's bad, actually. Can you talk a little bit about the challenges of writing from the perspective of someone who believes entirely in the righteousness of what they're doing without alienating the audience who is looking at it going, Wait, but that's, that's not a good thing that you're doing right now.
Bryan: 10:55
Right. Well, you know, I remember on that podcast you were talking about that and you said that you felt like you had to have like faith. I had to have faith in the author that this kind of world building was going some place, and on the other side of the coin, I had to have faith in the reader, that, you know, readers would understand that this kind of world building is going some place and is serving a purpose. isn't supposed to be, you know, theocratic propaganda that we're just supposed to buy into. So, especially the first book, it's very much, as much as it is an external story, like her external adventure, it's also a very internal story. So, I knew where I wanted to go to with Sabira's big revelations in the middle of the book. That was always key to me for the first book. So I knew that I had to have a contrast to that. I knew where I wanted it to end up, so I had to get her in the exact opposite place, or very far from it at least, in the beginning, and build that out. And then make it very, very internal, very, very much from her personal point of view, and really try to avoid writing it in a way that made it too It didn't seem like there was a third person narrative or like a god like voice saying this. So the reader would understand pretty early on that this is, you know, Sabira's point of view and how Sabira is seeing things. And then also surround her with all the things that makes it clear that she really had very little choice but to think and feel this way. And we, you know, early on in the book see what happens to people who dare not to think that way, you know. They don't get much of a chance. So it was very much like wanting to establish that as the basis, you know, have faith in the reader, hope it wasn't too weird, you know, as a first time author, you know, it was just, you know, you know, any creative is always plagued with doubts. But there was just, yeah, there was a lot of of doubts. I'm like, is this too weird? Is this too far out? Is this too dark? Most typical space operas have that, you know, that Flash Gordon thing, you know, that Star Lord thing where it's the human from our time and place who gets thrown out into the galaxy, and so they're the fish out of water there. And then they encounter people who think weird and, and strange things by their point of view, and then to try to establish, like, no, this is a person who's already really far out, and we're gonna see how they think and, and work and have to survive. And then just hope that people buy into it.
Lilly: 13:33
It's such a fascinating world. It really pulls you in and helps you along on that journey for sure. In the foreword for book two, you say that, you know, someone could start here, which kind of blows my mind. Like, how do you think a reader's experience would change if they start with book two and then go back to book one?
Bryan: 13:57
Well, I don't think it's the ideal place to start. Like I would prefer readers start with book one. It is definitely a continuation, but I think we've all had times in our lives, especially, I think if we were readers as kids, where you just kind of grab whatever book is around and that may be book two or three or, you know, 10, you know, in a series, and it's just what's there, and that's what you want to read, so you pick it up and read it. So I did really try to establish as much right from the very beginning to give readers a sense when they pick up book two of what's happened to get to our characters here, and then, you know, moving forward, and then also to tell a story that is, you know, It's the story of book two. It doesn't end with a, you know, a huge cliffhanger. I didn't want it to feel like it was just one step in a longer story. Even though it is a story within a larger story, I wanted to make sure that each book felt like if you picked it up and read that, you would have a complete story from beginning to end. And also, you know, there's just that kind of idea in storytelling that stories don't really have beginnings. You know, unless you're going back to, like, Silmarillion, where we're starting with the beginning of the world. Everything picks up in some way or form in MediaRes. So, I wanted to let readers know, if somehow this book came into your life and you picked it up, yes, it would be better to read book 1, verse 2, but I think if you start here, you'll have an idea of what's going on soon enough and be able to still enjoy it.
Lilly: 15:26
And it felt almost like mirroring Book One, because this book starts with Dagira, who, you know, over the course of Book One, we meet and learn as Sabira's rival slash eventual lover. But it sort of introduces us and starts us off in unity, where they both came from, which I really appreciated, even having read Book One, to sort of reorient myself to this world, because it has been about a year, I think. Sarah, is that right?
Sara: 15:55
Uh, it is almost right. We recorded our episode on Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven on June 22nd.
Lilly: 16:01
And so having that sort of callback to starting in, you know, Unity, the culture that is so very, very different from our own, and more than a little bit fucked up, rather than starting with Sabira, who has, you know, started deconstructing, and in this still different from our own world, but maybe more familiar, I think was a really nice, not callback exactly, but kind of.
Bryan: 16:25
Yes, that was actually, I did want to You explore Daguerre's storyline in book two as kind of the dark mirror of Sabira's storyline in book one. After the, like, the failed invasion of Llamacus that they were part of in first book, you know, that was a big life changing event for both of them. And so I feel like that's the kind of event where, like, their lives are going like this, and then they kind of cross paths, like, they kind of take on to a certain extent, each other's roles, like Daguerre wasn't as much of a true believer, and those events, you know, reaffirmed her faith, just as much as they questioned and eventually wrecked the faith of Sabira. And then I wanted to kind of establish that, and I also wanted to establish at the beginning of book two that there's a lot of things that happen that's outside of their volition, you know, outside of their agency, but I wanted both storylines to begin with a choice. I felt it was really important that they each have a choice in the beginning that shapes all the things that happen after, whether or not it's within their agency or not. So that's why I I needed to backtrack a little bit in time to pick up with Daguerre's story. Because even though we see that choice that she makes at the end of book one from Sabira's point of view, you know, I wanted to retell it from Daguerre's point of view because that's the choice that she makes in this book that sets her on the path of things to come.
Sara: 18:00
So when you started the series, like when you started book one, did you have a clear idea in mind for how you wanted to continue it in subsequent books? Like were the events in book two always where you were going?
Bryan: 18:13
To a certain extent, my sense of what was happening in book two grew as I developed and edited book one. So when I was first writing the very first draft of Volume 1, I did not know if Tagera was going to live or die.
Lilly: 18:29
We didn't either.
Bryan: 18:31
I had to really, like, sit and think about it, and I, I almost killed her off, and I felt like, No, I feel like I still need a foil for Sabira here. I feel like she still has a role. And then, as the revision process continued for Book 1, and as I started to think more about what was going to happen in Book 2, Daguerre just became more and more demanding that she have a story told. So I'm really glad I didn't kill her off, because she, she had something that she needed to go through and something she needed to say.
Sara: 19:03
We were looking over our notes for our episode on book one. in preparation for this interview with you. And there's a note here, and I'm pretty sure that it's my note, but I, we don't say who writes which note in our episode outlines. And it says, the bulk of my notes go, oh no, Daguerre is dead. Oh wait, she's not dead after all. Oh no, she's dead. Fooled again. So yeah, there were a lot of points where I was like, is she, is she dead? But I'm glad that she wasn't because I really, really enjoyed seeing how her journey is kind of like the dark mirror to Sabira's in this book. And it's, it's really like you're saying, kind of what Sabira could have been.
Bryan: 19:43
It's funny, I also, just going back a little bit to the earlier question, I almost ended book one on a cliffhanger. Like, I knew that once Daguerre lived, I knew that she was going to be sent back to stop their ship before they got to the gates. And then I knew Basically, what was going to happen with the Loshan Bastion, and I know we're trying to avoid spoilers a little bit too much for book two right now, but a certain character's father was going to be involved, and I was really debating as I was writing book one how many seeds I wanted to plant about that character's father in the first book and I decided not to do any at the time. I, I just really wanted to focus on the story that was book one and let book two evolve on its own and I didn't want to constrain myself with what was going to happen later. Because I'll have ideas, but they definitely develop and change over time and through revisions. And then I also was just like, yeah, I just don't want to end on a cliffhanger. So it was always my intention that, like, the beginning of Sabira's story in Book 2 was gonna happen that way, but I decided to wait and let that happen in Book 2 instead of ending on a cliffhanger and then being kinda constricted into telling the story and having it start exactly that way to see if maybe I wanted to switch things up when I'm actually in Book 2. I just didn't want to get too ahead of myself. Heh
Lilly: 21:10
there's only one last thing we can talk about before we have to move to the spoiler section, because I'm dying. But Unity is the civilization where we start. It's the civilization that Sabira and Dagira were raised in, that they, you know, sort of struggle with in different ways, and it has so many, like, cult coded aspects to it. Like, just, the way they weaponized personhood against people, like, not even dating to give them a name, and the, the control of information and misinformation was such a mindfuck to me. I can't even imagine someone living there.
Bryan: 21:52
heh heh. Well, it does seem like it's very, you know, different, but in so many ways, I mean, it was really inspired by our own history. You know, a lot of the initial, like, springboard inspiration came out of history, especially, like, the Bronze Age. So there was a lot of ideas about, you know, like, kind of god kings and, you know, high priests and rulers and pyramids of power. The whole idea of individual human beings, especially those who aren't directly related to whatever the political or religious institution of that culture is, having very limited personhood, you know, up until very, very recent times in most of human history. So there was a lot of that to draw on, you know, obviously slavery has been a huge part of human history until very, very recently. So there was, you know, those Historical things that I drew on, you know, I was very much, you know, drawing on what we did in our world to establish this alien world. You know, when we think about, you know, the African American experience, you know, obviously me, middle aged, white. Man in America can't say much about the African American experience, but we all know what happened, you know, with the slave trade over centuries, you know, and how their culture and history was violently ripped from them. You know, their names were changed, their music was taken away, their religions were taken away, but there was just these little, little seeds of things that remained within. And so I did plant some of those as well. As awful and alien as it is. It's not really that alien if you look at our own past. You know, everything that they did, we've done.
Lilly: 23:39
Maybe that's what makes it so compelling. It's so familiar in such an unsettling way.
Bryan: 23:45
Yeah, you just add in, you know, giant three eyed aliens and, uh, biomechanical tank beasts and a few spaceships.
Lilly: 23:52
Just a couple spaceships. One or two.
Bryan: 23:55
Gotta have spaceships. I think that's why I didn't become a fantasy author. I, like, I needed my spaceships.
Sara: 24:00
You know, I think that's very valid.
Lilly: 24:02
Yeah. are about to move on to the spoilers section, where we can really talk about some of the crazy stuff that happens in this book. But before we do, we usually talk about who should read this book. And, I mean, the answer is obviously go read the first book first. It's kind of incredible how well they both stand on their own. I really appreciate the lack of cliffhanger. I didn't need it to want to read the next one. I wanted to read the next one because the world was good, and I wanted to know what happened to the characters. But Sarah, who should start reading this incredible science fiction series?
Sara: 24:38
You should read this book if you want a dark story. I mean, okay, it's quite dark. I mean,
Lilly: 24:46
It's not hopeless,
Sara: 24:47
not hopeless. I tend to veer more towards the cozy side of books, and this is definitely not that. But it has such a compelling cast of characters, and the journey that they all go on is so there's a word that I'm looking for, because I don't want to use compelling again, but um, basically compelling. You are drawn into their struggles, so if you want to be just immersed. in a science fiction novel, you should read this series.
Lilly: 25:18
and then it's not without its coziness. Brian, you somehow create the most charming and adorable tiny little sci fi critters for me to latch on to. In the first book we had the Eshel, who is, I'm gonna say basically a cat, but with tentacles.
Bryan: 25:37
I've actually, I actually have something that I think will make you very happy. A big part of the inspiration for the Eshel is Pugs and Frenchies.
Sara: 25:47
My heart! My heart!
Bryan: 25:51
I don't know if you, if you remember, like, I, I described them as having very thick, wrinkly skin that they could kinda like, like, Pull themselves into the folds of their skin and there was kind of like, and it had kind of a big round head and like stubby legs. So it has some very cat like behaviors, but there's a lot of inspiration from those tiny little pugs and Frenchies, little stubby legged. Round dogs. Heh
Sara: 26:15
so, new headcanon, my pugs are actually Eshel.
Lilly: 26:19
Yeah, there you go. I didn't know I could love them more. And then in this book, we got the vaidu who were, I mean, they're technically combat critters, but every time they got attacked, I was just like, no, what are you doing? Why would you send them into battle? Send them home where they can curl up by the fire. It was very distressing,
Bryan: 26:42
They're, with their limb sivering legs, and
Lilly: 26:44
but they were cute.
Sara: 26:45
That's cute!
Lilly: 26:48
I don't know if that was intentional, but you killed me.
Bryan: 26:52
Uh, no, that wasn't intentional! I did not think that they would come across as cute. So that's actually pretty fun to hear. I know, like, Daguerre's character is one who grew up with animals. She grew up in the Aggie caverns. So Doing some of the agricultural work of the Holy Unity, you know, where Sabira grew up with the diggers. You know, doing the mining and kind of the maintenance of the underground labyrinths. So, she has a certain affinity with animals that a lot of the other characters doesn't have, just by nature of her character. And so, since we see a lot of the Vaidyu through her perception, I think just her connection with it maybe is, uh, hopefully coming across.
Sara: 27:35
I think, I think it does shine through.
Lilly: 27:41
Our Patreon shoutout for this episode is for Sean. Thank you, Sean, for all of your support. If you sign up for our Patreon, you can get access to bonus content. Our most recent post was from reading one star reviews of The Hobbit and disagreeing with them vehemently. A huge thanks to all of our patrons for supporting us in making this podcast possible. And the remainder of this episode contains spoilers. So, okay, Brian.
Bryan: 28:15
So, everybody dies. I'm so sorry.
Lilly: 28:20
a good job of working all of the meaning behind the different alien titles that I didn't rely on the glossary as much as I realize I probably should have. I was lulled into a false sense of security. Because I got to the point in this book, I would say a little over halfway in, when we discover what was happening behind the gods fell, this super weapon. Who had created it, what they had created it for, and it's told to me in very plain language, and I was like, oh no. I've suddenly realized I did not understand what was happening with this hierarchy and history as well as I thought I did. Would you help me? Would you explain to me like I'm an idiot who didn't read the glossary like she should have? There's, there's like a lot of masters.
Bryan: 29:10
Yes. Yes. Well, there's two kinds of masters. There's the divine masters and the old masters. And for those of you who are following along at home, Sabira actually tells this story right at the beginning of her section of the book. So, in the deep history of the Holy Unity, or at least the deep mythology, what they tell people is that their civilization was originally This alien world that was ruled by a species who now is referred to as the Old Masters, and they were very technologically oriented. They were machine makers. And there was this ancient species called the Gates Builders, who, according to myth, are the ones who created the Shattered Gates that grace the title of the book, before they were shattered. And they would come through every few thousand years. Bringing new gifts, kind of helping civilizations around the gates kind of advance a little bit further and then come back. And so they were expecting the gate builders to come through at this point a few thousand years ago, but instead of coming through bringing gifts, they come through bringing war. And we get, from the different stories and histories that we glean from the books, we realize that something happened in their civilization where a weird, for lack of a better term, death cult, that thinks of themselves more as a life cult, kind of took over that society. And when they came through, they came through demanding to be worshipped as gods. And they demanded that everyone follow a biological order. technology, putting aside machines. These old masters did not want to do that, and went to war with these gods beyond the gates. The old masters were wiped out, according to the stories, all but nine of them, who the gods saved, and then, you know, died. Remade into the Divine Masters, and then the Divine Masters created a holy unity society out of the rubble of the world. If we go back to the first book, you might remember there's some talk about the planet surfaces. an inhospitable, uh, lifeless wasteland, and that's why everybody lives underground, and the divine masters live on these domed palaces on the surface. They're domed because they can't live outside of the dome on this world, so it's kind of the leftover wasteland of the ancient war with the old masters and the gods. So when we get to the center of Loshan Bastion, we realize that this was actually a mining colony originally set up by the old masters, to mine what we call god bones, or different people call it different things, but it's a made up element that allows for faster than light space travel, artificial gravity, you know, sci fi stuff. That cool sci fi shit that we all love. So they retreated there. And started working on a weapon to take back their homeworld and defeat the gods. This weapon called Godsfell. But while they were working on it, the gates were shattered, causing a huge catastrophe, which Sealed them off from the rest of the galaxy, and also severely injured and killed some of them. So what was left of them completed the weapon, God's Fall, but the mind of the machine was made up of their own bodies and minds, and since not all of them remained, The full mind of the Godsfell machine couldn't be brought online. So they basically went into a kind of almost mummified hibernation of just staying at the edge of life, waiting for their chance to get some kind of sentient being to fill in this space at the mind of Godsfell so that the weapon could be completed. Did that make sense?
Lilly: 33:12
It did, and I think I actually did follow more of it. I just wasn't confident, uh, that I understood.
Bryan: 33:19
know, there's lots of, like, myths and legends and people seeing things a certain way, or being told about things a certain way, you know, through mythology, and then some people have done some studies and put together some, what they found out from the Vlees, and trying to put the pieces together of what happened thousands of years ago.
Lilly: 33:35
absolutely. And I, I love the doubt in myself, honestly. Because it made me feel that much more immersed in the world. Because it wasn't cut and dry exactly what happened. They were trying to figure it out, and I was right along there with the characters in that experience.
Sara: 33:53
gears just a little bit, one of the things that I really enjoyed was the different take on the found family trope in both the first book and the second book. I think the first book is much more of a kind of straightforward found family, like Sabira finds these people in the Freebrood.
Bryan: 34:09
They kind of find her.
Sara: 34:11
They kind of find her, yeah, and they all kind of come together as a unit. and support each other. And then in book two, you explore, well, what happens afterwards? Like, things aren't always easy, and sometimes the adversity that brought a group of people together also pulls them apart. And so it doesn't, necessarily end well, in the sense that after Zanti is killed, Sabira's kind of ostracized. The people who are around her are like, you promised to protect him and you didn't fulfill that promise. We don't know how to deal, so we're just not going to deal with you. And even at the very end, Playa, Zanti's lover, is like, Sorry, you're out. You clearly didn't care about us enough. And so I thought that was just fascinating because it's something that we don't see a lot with that trope.
Bryan: 35:04
Well, yeah, you know, one of the things I really wanted to make important is, you know, there's a lot of characters who die in my books, a lot of, there's a lot of death, and I didn't want any of these deaths to just be, oh, well, they're dead, we move on, you know, story continues, I think, I wanted, you know, when somebody you care about dies, it changes you for the rest of your life, you know, and I wanted to reflect that, and all of these characters have died, deep, like, lifelong traumas, you know? And they're all at a point in their lives where they're just starting to heal. I think at one point, Playa tells just a little bit of her story to Sabira, like, when she's just, like, right on the edge, and, like, what Zante, you know, meant to her, and to have that taken from her, you know? There's no consoling her. There's nothing Sabira can do To justify or console or do, do anything that will heal what Playa is going through, you know, and they are this found family, you know, they're all kind of forced together, you know, in a spaceship, in a sanctuary later on in the book, and just having to deal with the, this tremendous loss and trauma, and then every day waking up and looking at a person that you think is directly responsible for your trauma. You know, and what that's gonna do. So I just, I just felt it was really, really important to not have, you know, character deaths just, you know, Oh, they're dead. Move on. You know, I, I feel like I wanted each death to actually mean something, not only to the main character, but to the side characters as well. You know, I wanted to try to establish, even if we don't necessarily follow every step, I want you to see that the other characters, you know, in this story, the other people in Subaru's life are also going on their own journey and going through their own ups and downs and revelations and discoveries about who they are and what they want and their own healing or not healing process.
Lilly: 37:05
It feels a little silly to say this after we mentioned how in the first book with Dagira, we were constantly like, Oh, she's dead. Wait, she's not dead. Oh, she's dead. Wait, she's not dead. But when a character dies, They're done. There's no, like, hand wavy, wand waving sci fi answer to, Oh, no, it's fine, they're back. Which made it feel that much more, I mean, well, realistic, but also impactful to the reader, who, you know, sometimes readers get used to having everything get wrapped up all neatly, and everyone lives and everything's fine at the end.
Sara: 37:37
I mean, I wouldn't have minded if Santi hadn't died. I was so sad.
Lilly: 37:44
It was very sad.
Sara: 37:45
But I do think that for the purposes of the book, it made much more sense and it made for a better story, but I was sad.
Bryan: 37:53
I was sad too, after, after I wrote that, like I had to, I had to take some time. That was a hard one to write, and then to write, you know, the grief of the characters and the grief of Playa. That was hard. That one took a lot, took a lot out of me too, to be honest with you.
Lilly: 38:10
Was that always your intention? That Zante would die in this book?
Bryan: 38:15
No. It was always my intention that somebody was going to die. It was originally going to be someone else. And as I was writing, I was like, This, this doesn't feel quite right. This isn't the one who needs to die. It needs to be Zante.
Lilly: 38:32
Was it Spear?
Bryan: 38:33
It was Kal. I was gonna kill off Kal.
Lilly: 38:35
Oh, shit!
Bryan: 38:37
That was my original intention. But then I was like, No, I still have a story for Kal. There's gonna still be things for him. Not that there wouldn't still be a story for Zante, but It made more sense for the story for Zante to be where he was when he died, you know, to be in that situation than it would be for Cal. And so I would have to force, I didn't want to ever have to force things in order to fit a, you know, an agenda. You know, I have an idea of where I want the story to go, but I feel it's very important for the story to unfold organically. And we can all feel when a, uh, Author is forcing something to happen. We all go, it happened because, you know, because reasons, you know, because we need it to happen. And I didn't want that. I wanted everything to feel, you know, surprising yet inevitable.
Sara: 39:23
also have to say that I'm really glad that it was not Cal who died, because we get to see, and this is really a very background thing, but as Cal works through his grief over Zante's death, like, he's initially very angry with Sabira, and then we get to see him kind of have a reconciliation of sorts, and they come back together, and that felt very rewarding, particularly when you contrast it with Playa's reaction. And it just really helped show the variety of responses that a group of people can have to the death of someone close to them.
Bryan: 40:00
Yeah, you know, we all handle grief in different ways, and you know, Playa had a very unique relationship with Zante, you know, they were deeply, deeply in love from a culture where love isn't really a thing that's allowed to happen, and also, Kal just kind of became, you know, in this found family, like Sabira's little brother. And she has a real hard time, you know, she's very gruff, she's a warrior, you know. She has a lot of emotions, but she's not one to just like open up about her emotions. But there's something about Kal, where she can sit and talk with him in a more vulnerable way. For whatever reason, you know, they just have that rapport. If they were in our world, they would be, you know, sitting on the dorm room floor together at one in the morning, you know, telling each other their, you know, their life story. They just have that rapport. And so, you know, he is the one that she can have. that kind of connection to. Which is good, because you, in a book, we're going on for hundreds of pages to just have like, you know, a grim, taciturn hero who only, you know, who's like Clint Eastwood and always says, you know, one or two lines and then moves on. It's fun for a two hour movie, but when you're spending hundreds of pages with the character and you're going through all this stuff, you want to be able to have someone that they can open up and talk to and make some connections with.
Lilly: 41:22
Speaking about love in Unity, where it's not exactly encouraged, you have written the most incredible love story between Sabira and Dagira that does not at all fit the stereotypical romance arc. I even hesitated. I, like, I asked Sarah, can I even call it a love story? I think you can. I think it, I think it counts.
Bryan: 41:46
think it counts. I wouldn't, yeah, it doesn't follow romance art because, you know, I don't. Romance, capital R genre Romance, has very specific milestones that you need to hit. And I'm not trying to work on those milestones per se. There's probably, probably a few that I hit along the way. Just because they're the natural progression of a love story. And You know, like I was saying, like, Daguerre was just one of those characters that just kept saying, No, I'm in this story. I have something to do here. Like, she just kept surprising me at every turn. And so a lot of that was just the, the characters organically, you know, Going through their stories together, you know, and what they mean to each other, what their own flaws and needs and wants and revulsions are, and how that turns out, and how, you know, like I said earlier, how, you know, the failed invasion of Dlamacus just sent them both in exact opposite directions, you know, but There was still so much unreconciled there as well. And, well, you know, one thing I really wanted to explore a lot in the themes of this book, of book two, is, honestly, the nature of consciousness and the waking conscious versus the unconscious and how our unconscious drives us in ways that, for many of us, we're completely unaware of. And Daguerre is especially that character. Like, Sabira has started to do the work, you know, through the Aeon Ceremonies, and everything of becoming more in touch with, you know, her inner self. Where Daguerre has absolutely not done that work. And what drives her and moves her is a stranger to herself, and that's also very much reflected in just how the God's Fall works. They needed somebody to be on top to be like the conscious experience of God's Fall, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they would be the one who is in charge of God's Fall, as we kind of explore there. So Daguerre, both She loves Sabira, and by the time we get, you know, deep into this book, is deeply ashamed of her love for Sabira, and has a hard time facing both of those facts about herself.
Lilly: 44:08
Oh, every moment when she gets corrected because she refers to Sabira by her name, even though Unity has decreed her an apostate and no longer gets a name, I just, like, my heart throbbed for her. Just like, oh my god. It was very sweet. It was very sweet and sad.
Sara: 44:27
I felt so bad for Daguerre, and the way that her will is constantly being taken from her in this book. Like, she's constantly being subjected to the whims of other people and loses her own, like, ability to make choices. And I, like, I was just, I felt sad for her.
Lilly: 44:47
She's always like trying to have agency and then just having it ripped
Sara: 44:51
Yeah, exactly.
Bryan: 44:53
Which kind of goes back to what I was talking about earlier, which was why I realized it was so important to begin her story with her making a choice. Like, if she had chosen to kill Sabira when the Zolari was falling apart around them, or if she had chosen to go You know, as Sabira was begging her to do. She would have had a very, very different life trajectory. But, you know, she made this choice at this very key pivotal point in her life, and it changed everything afterward for both of them. And I think, uh, it was, you know, Just really important to establish that, knowing that there would be so much taken out of her hands later.
Sara: 45:31
That one decision has repercussions.
Lilly: 45:34
Is that the tagline for the books? That one decision you made, it's got repercussions.
Bryan: 45:41
And you know, we're all in that, in that situation all the time. It's like, we all don't know what one decision we make will change. Everything. A lot of times we kind of feel it, like, you know, am I going to go to this college or that college, you know. Am I going to marry this person or not marry this person, you know, we all make those choices. But sometimes there's just little choices that we make to turn left instead of right that could change everything, and we have just absolutely no idea at the time. And may never even know looking back on it, but it was there.
Lilly: 46:09
You mentioned Dagira sort of acting as a foil for Sabira across this book. But another character that really stood out to me in a similar but different role was Grandfather Spear. We meet him in book one, he's sort of a mentor figure, kind of, as much as you can get in their society. And then in this book we see him not fall from grace exactly, but he goes through his own trauma and reconciliation from the events of book one and deals with them very differently from either of our two, Dagura and Sabira.
Bryan: 46:45
Yeah, absolutely. You know, Grandfather Spear was someone that I kind of always knew I wanted to keep going through the story as the books go on. And he is a mentor, and he is given, you know, the quite literal privilege of being a mentor in ways that most people in their world are not. And an ability to establish at least some kind of family ties in ways that other people are not. You know, his daughter became the handmaiden, you know, like, the highest ranking of all the humans in the Holy Unity, you know. And they're very much kind of grooming Sabira to potentially Take that place, or at least eventually become, you know, very, very high ranking in some way herself. And he's also a man of deep, deep faith, like much of the faith that Sabira has. Yes, it's forced on her by society, but it's also, you know, taught to her by example from her grandfather. And the way that most people who grew up in a religious family is, you know, you learn by example. We often, like, pick up faith from the elders in our family. And What happened to him didn't necessarily break his faith, but it did break him.
Lilly: 48:07
That blew my mind when we got to that part of the book. I'm sorry, I
Bryan: 48:11
Oh, no, please, go, please, yeah.
Lilly: 48:14
Because he asks, basically, to be deconstructed. In not so many words. But, you know, he's undergone this physical and mental augmentation that sort of takes away some of his self, his sense of self. And I thought for sure when he was like, Please undo this. Obviously, that meant that he was mad at the people who did this to him. But no. He was still completely faithful, and it was interesting reading that. It felt right for him, but I was still like, Okay, I misread this, this, uh, vibe.
Bryan: 48:48
Right, you know, I think, you know, when people leave a religion, it's usually in their teens or twenties, you know, it's not in their sixties. I don't know if someone can really change. a deeply held faith by that age. I don't want to say it's impossible because, you know, the human mind is capable of so much, but it's pretty unlikely, you know. His faith is deeply ingrown, and it also comes back to choice. I think for himself and his interior world, you know, he saw his faith As his choice. He chose to take this path to become originally a pit fighter and then a servant and work his way up to the servants. And he chose to give his faith and his devotion, you know, to the gods. And when they undergo that transfiguration at the beginning of book two, you know, his ability to give his faith to his leaders and to his gods. has been taken from him, you know, now it's a force thing. For him it's the one thing that he has always had a choice in, and it was his choice to give himself over to a greater cause. And now he didn't even have that. You know, now that, even that was taken from him. And that, and then seeing What happened, you know, with his granddaughter, with Sabira, you know, whom he, in his own very dark and twisted way, you know, deeply, deeply loved. He was broken, and he again, I think, wasn't aware of what he would do in that situation until he was suddenly in it. You know, I don't think he went into that pursuit of, uh, Sabira and the other free brood with the intentions to, you know, betray the war seer, Nika, and ask to go over to their side. But when it came to this point where it became like, you know, Nika's life or Sabira's life, and everything that had happened to him, his choice was made from that deep, unconscious part of himself that he probably wasn't fully aware of. And then afterwards, we see that he doesn't necessarily say the words, but we can, I think we can see that he has a lot of, like, guilt and question about what he did, you know, and he's ready for, like, Sabira to flush him out the airlock. You know, going forward, he has to figure out what it means to, to live now in this new way, in this new context, but still be true to who he felt he always has been. I also felt it was really important. For him not to be a foil necessarily to Sabira, but for him to be a foil to Gabriel. Like, Gabriel was definitely trying to teach Sabira a new kind of ethics and a new kind of way of seeing the world and being in the world. And, uh, You know, her grandfather was still very much the voice on the other part and on her left shoulder saying this isn't who you are. You know, this isn't how you were raised. This isn't what look what they're doing to you. Like, where's your weapons? You've earned those weapons. Why are they doing this to you? You know, they're trying to keep you from being a warrior. You're a warrior. You know, you're not someone who's just gonna, you know, accept the way things are. You're going to go out and change it. You're going to, you know, make things happen for yourself because that's what the gods taught us. I got some feedback from like a beta reader that Spear should have been killed off. And I'm like, no, I need him to be. to be that voice, that foil to what Gabriel has to say, so that, you know, Sabira has her own choices about how to resolve things at the end of the book.
Lilly: 52:11
Absolutely. Oh my
Sara: 52:13
Yeah, I think that his presence is really important to Sabira figuring out what she wants to do and who she wants to be. Like, you can't, you can't kill him off.
Lilly: 52:24
And then there are some really tender moments between them in this book, where it really feels like he's the only person in this sanctuary where they all end up for a period of time that understands what Sabira is going through. And even if he doesn't agree with her choices, he still at least gets where she's coming from in a way that it feels like no one else around her does.
Bryan: 52:47
Yeah, that's exactly right, and I think that there's a lot of, you know, there's a few moments where they just, like, look at each other and they can just kind of have an unspoken communication and understanding, and it also serves to, like, drive the wedge even deeper with Playa, you know. Because not only does she have to wake up every day and see the face of Sabira, who she, you know, blames at least in part for Zante's death, but she has to wake up and see the face of the man who's directly responsible for Maya's death, you know? From the first book, who they all deeply loved and admired, and who helped set them, not only their bodies free, but helped set their minds free as well.
Lilly: 53:27
Changing gears a little bit, I have a very stupid question.
Bryan: 53:31
I'll try to give you my stupidest answer.
Lilly: 53:33
What was up with Warseer, Zika, and the lizard pimples? Was that just world building? It was so visceral
Bryan: 53:42
Oh, like her little amphibian thing? Yeah!
Lilly: 53:45
Her snack! It was a snack!
Bryan: 53:47
So, their technology is all biologically based. Especially with using lifeforms for their own means, like exploiting lifeforms. So, it was actually a drug.
Sara: 54:01
I definitely got the feeling she was addicted to it, or like, she was doing it for some physiological reason to, to control something,
Bryan: 54:10
Yeah, it was kind of a, it was a kind of a combat drug for her. It was a kind of a stimulant.
Lilly: 54:17
See, that's a perfect example of, I was sitting there reading it going, I know there's something happening here. I don't know what it is, but I know for a fact there's a reason.
Bryan: 54:29
it's one of those things where I was like, doing a little bit of, of showing and not telling. Cause there was no reason to tell, like, Zika wouldn't just stop what she was doing and explaining her, you know, amphibian boiled drugs that she's taking before stressful situations. But I, I did try to portray that she had like, sort of a physiological reaction, like her eyes would kind of roll back and she'd close her eyes and tilt her head back a little bit. But it, and it was also just not necessary. for the reader to know what it was, just that it was happening and it was in the world, you know. I feel like not every little thing needs to be explained. You know, sometimes things are just there and you can kind of get the vibe of what's going on. But if you don't pick up on the exact idea that this is like a, you know, a stimulant combat drug for her, that's fine. It doesn't, doesn't change anything.
Lilly: 55:18
I agree completely, but I have you here. So I was like, well, I have you, I'm
Bryan: 55:22
Oh, and I'm happy to, Dig into it, because like, like I was saying earlier, I've never had a chance to really go into a spoiler discussion yet about book two. So I'm happy to just be able to like, say things no holds barred. Big thing that I've been really itching to share with the world, honestly, was the fact that the theme of this book was really, or one of the themes, there were multiple themes, was The idea of consciousness and the unconscious and the things that motivate us that might make us, you know, strangers to ourselves, you know, and some of the great work that we can do in life is, is to try to unify that conscious and unconscious part of ourselves to at least make a little bit more sense of why we are these weird beings that we are. So that was a big part of it. I also Don't know if I necessarily want to say it if you guys didn't get it, but there's also a mythological motif that I use to structure a lot of book two that I kind of wove through a lot of different things in different ways and I was just wondering if that got picked up on at all or not.
Lilly: 56:28
Now I'm trying to think.
Bryan: 56:29
I'm gonna guess not. That's fine. It's, it's, it's not explicit. It's just one of those things that I kind of put into the structure of things and kind of like little moments that were there. And it's not like you have to know it, but it's just like a common mythological trope or mythological story that I used to just add a little structure to both the physical story and the metaphorical story that was happening.
Lilly: 56:51
Well, now I'm gonna have to reread it.
Sara: 56:53
I think this means we have to reread, but also I think it means that we need to read more mythology.
Lilly: 56:57
Yeah.
Bryan: 56:58
It's probably one you would be familiar with. It's actually, I'm not a mythology expert by any means. So it's, it's a pretty common Greek myth.
Lilly: 57:06
Listen, now I'm embarrassed because I read so many Greek myths as a kid. Maybe that's the problem. I just know the, like, sanitized kid versions. I'll, I'll have this existential crisis off screen.
Bryan: 57:17
And again, it's not too deep. It was just, you know, a structuring idea that I used, that I was just kind of peppering in here and there. And I was just wondering, cause you guys are very close and attentive readers. I was really moved by your podcast about book one, like how much you were, you were pulling from it. I was like, they get it. Yes, they get it. You know, cause some, you know, as a writer, you know, you're alone in your room, just like putting all these words on the page that we talked about before. You know, the readers. To a certain extent have to trust the writer, and a writer to a certain extent has to trust the reader. That I'm not just gonna hold your hand for every little thing and over explain it like it was, you know, like a CW episode that you can have on in the background.
Lilly: 58:01
Yeah, that you don't have to pay attention to. Yeah. Well, I absolutely loved these books and it sounds like there might be more. So there, I do have a short story that I get to look forward to and it sounds like there might be some more also coming. In this world.
Bryan: 58:17
Yes, so the short story is Gods of Dust. It's set in the Shattergate universe. It's not required reading, but it does add a little bit more context to what happens at the end and some of the things that are mentioned. But it's a very separate story in kind of place and time.
Sara: 58:37
would say that it's basically a standalone. Like, you don't need to have any context for the first two books to read it and enjoy it. But, if you have read those books, then you recognize that some of the things that happen in this short story, and it's like, I think on Kindle it's like 25 pages, like, they are referenced in two.
Bryan: 58:57
Yes, yes. quite a bit. There's some key things that are referenced in Happen in Book 2 that this short story adds a little bit of. So if anybody out there wants to get their hands on Gods of Dust, you can get it for free by going to my website bryansglosmeyer. com. And if you sign up for my monthly newsletter, I will send you that short story for free. I'll also send you Send you the beginning of Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven for free so you can get a little sample of that and see if this is something you want to continue on with. So yeah, once you finish Gods of Dust, you'll have to reach out to me and let me know what you thought of it.
Sara: 59:37
Well, I for one can say that I loved it. Can you tell us a little bit about what your next projects are? Like the end of Beyond the Gates Infernal, there is definitely a very satisfying conclusion, right? But I would say that it's also left a little open ended. Do you intend on leaving it up to the reader to imagine what Sabira and everyone else does next? Or do you plan on writing more in the universe?
Bryan: 1:00:02
Yeah, I do, and am working on writing more. I'm not far enough along in the project to say too much about it yet. Yeah, so each book is intended to be its own story, to give you a satisfying ending that's also open ended for stories to continue. And there's definitely more story that I would like to tell. You know, we finally got Sabira, To the constellation and we just got a little glimpse of what the constellation is. So I do intend to start telling more stories set in the constellation and what's going on there. The tensions between the constellation and the Republic, the. Tensions between the Second Diaspora and the Third Diaspora. The fallout of the God's Fall incursion that happens at the end of Book Two. What Sabira plans to do with her freedom. I give a little hint of what she might decide at the end of Book Two, but I did kind of leave that open because she is still figuring things out for herself. So yeah, I'm still working on things. I do intend to write more books, not only telling Sabira's story, but I do intend to write just other stories in this universe. Because I try to set up, like, there's a lot of the universe that I've worked on and set up that hasn't shown up really in the two books yet that I want to explore and just be able to tell a lot of different kind of stories in this universe that aren't necessarily, you know, the stories of these characters, but I do tend more for Sabira and friends. And at this point now, it's actually, it's been a little daunting because these two books have been very focused on getting Sabira from A to B, and now that she's to B, like, the story kind of like starts splitting off in lots of different directions, and I don't want to George Martin myself. So, um, I'm working on getting that all wrangled and together and trying to figure out how that's all gonna fit, so. No set things about what's next or when yet, but it's a work in progress.
Lilly: 1:02:11
Well, I'm just glad I have more to look forward to. Brian, before we let you go and get back to your evening, where can our listeners find more information about these books and hear news about when the next one might be cooking?
Bryan: 1:02:25
Oh, yes, so like I said, bryansglowsmire. com is my website. You can sign up for my newsletter there. That is often the most kind of direct line into my brain and what's going on with me. What I'm enjoying, what I'm creating, and just recommendations that I have. It's very low key, just a monthly little chat of a newsletter that I put out. Also, I am on social media. I'm mostly on Instagram. My Instagram handle is It's Doombunny Brian, but if you look up Brian S. Glosemeyer, that will also get you to me. There I talk about the books that I'm reading and music I'm listening to, travels that I'm doing, life around San Francisco. So always feel free to reach out to me there. I'm very, very approachable. I'm also on Facebook under Brian S. Glosemeyer and I'm technically on Blue Sky, but honestly I haven't, I haven't been on there in a long time. I'm pretty sure it's Brian S. Glosemeyer on Blue Sky as well.
Lilly: 1:03:23
just remembered another dumb question I have.
Bryan: 1:03:25
Have at it.
Lilly: 1:03:26
New SF. Is that New San Francisco SF? I
Bryan: 1:03:34
is.
Lilly: 1:03:35
had an inkling.
Bryan: 1:03:37
I don't think anybody, anybody, at least if anybody's caught it, they haven't pointed it out to me that they caught it. Yes.
Lilly: 1:03:42
Oh, I'm glad I asked then.
Sara: 1:03:49
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Lilly: 1:03:53
Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter, BlueSky, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.
Sara: 1:04:04
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Lilly: 1:04:11
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Sara: 1:04:18
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!
