Ethera Grave by Essa Hansen (Graven Trilogy #3)

Episode 120

Release Date: December 27, 2023

In this episode, your hosts return to the Graven Trilogy by Essa Hansen to discuss Ethera Grave, the third and final book of the series. They lament the 18 month reading gap, debate what qualifies something to be “cthulu-esque,” and talk about how terrifying true belief is in a villain. They also debate minute details in the definitions of “science fiction” and “main character.” Some minds get blown by timeline shenanigans. Your hosts also delve into the myriad ways that Words can be Weird.

Find us on discord: https://discord.gg/dpNHTWVu6b or support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fictionfanspod

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

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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: 0:10

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly: 0:10

and tonight we'll be discussing Aethera Grave by Essa Hansen. Much, much awaited.

Sara: 0:16

The final book in the Graven Trilogy.

Lilly: 0:19

Awaited by us, I should say.

Sara: 0:21

Yes, I think it's been out since, like, July or something.

Lilly: 0:24

No, and that's how long I've been waiting to read it. But we made it, we're here. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara: 0:31

Something great that happened recently Well, it's only been a couple of days since we last recorded, so Kind of hard to figure out or to choose a new good thing when, like, two days have passed. But I'm going to say that my good thing for this episode is that Jen Donahue sent us an advanced copy of Learn to Howl, which is her upcoming werewolf book. I think she's planning on publishing that in March or so. And I'm excited to read it.

Lilly: 1:02

Very nice, that's wonderful.

Sara: 1:04

What's your good thing?

Lilly: 1:05

I finally got a new suitcase. The cats tore holes in all of our old ones.

Sara: 1:11

That's a very good thing, and very necessary.

Lilly: 1:14

Yeah, so, finally did that. Been putting it off for a little while, but it's time.

Sara: 1:19

It was time.

Lilly: 1:20

What are you drinking tonight?

Sara: 1:22

I am drinking box wine. I still have some box wine left over from when you visited, so that's what I'm drinking.

Lilly: 1:30

It's like my calling card. That's how you know I've been to a place.

Sara: 1:33

I mean, technically, I think it's your mother's calling card in this case. She was the one who acquired it.

Lilly: 1:38

She was the one who purchased it, that's true. Well, I'm also drinking boxed wine.

Sara: 1:43

White or red?

Lilly: 1:44

Oh, red. It's solidly fall up here now. The season for roséand white wine is over.

Sara: 1:50

It's true. Except that I still have a box of white wine, so that's what I'm drinking.

Lilly: 1:55

For some reason, drinking white wine in the winter does not feel antithesis to me the way that rosédoes.

Sara: 2:03

Hmm. Rosé? I think rosédefinitely has a summertime feel. Just, like, wine culturally.

Lilly: 2:11

Yeah, it's probably just like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Sara: 2:15

Yeah. Probably. You also, I mean, you can have mulled white wine, and I don't think there is mulled roséwine.

Lilly: 2:22

Not yet.

Sara: 2:23

Not yet. Anyway.

Lilly: 2:26

Well, have you read anything good lately?

Sara: 2:28

I've read a lot of Ethera Grave in a short period of time because we went from recording to recording. And that's about it.

Lilly: 2:36

Yeah, this book is fat.

Sara: 2:38

I think it's 500 pages. Not counting all of the extra, like, dictionary appendices stuff at the end.

Lilly: 2:45

Yeah, I really wish I had known that that was there. Did the other one have that? Maybe.

Sara: 2:49

I think it might've.

Lilly: 2:51

Yeah.

Sara: 2:51

I don't remember, but I think it might've.

Lilly: 2:53

What I needed was less, like, the definition of what this alien species is. Because, like, I could catch that from context clues or just kind of steamroll over it. What I needed was, like,

Sara: 3:04

The story so far.

Lilly: 3:05

What was the plot of the book and what they are trying to accomplish?

Sara: 3:10

Yeah, I did kind of wish that there had been a story so far for this. We read the first two books in pretty close succession. I think we read the first one in like late December and the second one in February when it came out. And between the second book and this book, we had a good 18 months. So I did not remember a lot of the first two books.

Lilly: 3:34

Some things I was able to remember and catch on as we were going. But really the main one that was rough. The big quest is that they need to, like, Caden, the main, or I guess the main character from the first book. I would argue he's not really the main character anymore. Needs to combine the Trinity in order to confront the bad guys. And I was extremely unclear on what the Trinity was. First, I assumed, oh, You know, there's the three big ghost monsters, Aethera, Azura, and Vaith. To obviously, uh, him attaining the Trili Trilogy? Trinity, is absorbing all three of them and making them work together or something to that effect. Uh, but Aethera wasn't involved at all. So I was like, I don't understand what's happening.

Sara: 4:23

I

Lilly: 4:23

I don't know what the third part of the Trinity is.

Sara: 4:26

I think you're on the right track. And okay, to be fair, like, I don't really remember a lot either. But I think it's not so much he has to, like, combine the three actual, like, beings, as it is that there's some bits of their genetics that has to be combined.

Lilly: 4:43

But his genetics were very explicitly from Vaith.

Sara: 4:46

Right, but I think, I think that they get a little bit from Etheria too at some point in the second book, maybe.

Lilly: 4:53

So you're saying he and Trey banged offscreen.

Sara: 4:56

Yes. I'm pretty sure they banged it like at the end of book one, in between book one and book two. That's my headcanon, I'm sticking to it.

Lilly: 5:05

I was gonna say, I enjoy that headcanon, but I think we should clarify that that's not actually what we think happened

Sara: 5:10

No. No. I do not actually think that they do have sex. But there's a lot of sexual tension between them in the first book specifically. And the beginning of the second book.

Lilly: 5:21

Yeah, Threya's great. We need to wait for the spoilers to talk about him thoroughly, but if that was the case, I really would have liked this book to just give me a throwaway line or something about just what the trinity was. Like, you don't need to walk me through every step of how they figured it out, just like a Oh, hey, you know, the trinity, that thing. And then the other character can go, Yeah, wasn't that nuts? And then we can move on, and I will just have some understanding of what's happening.

Sara: 5:51

I think this is why it's important for stories to have some kind of summary of what happened in the previous books. Just for when there are large gaps in between reading. You know, it happens because of people's schedules or because of production times or whatever. And it just, it helps. It does.

Lilly: 6:11

Yeah, I don't know. A summary at the beginning, just like a paragraph or two, right? Like, again, don't rehash everything.

Sara: 6:17

Yeah, just like one small page.

Lilly: 6:20

Or just, you know, a small, clarifying, not even a whole sentence, just a clause. In a couple of the early chapters. I don't need you to reintroduce every main character. Like, those I will pick up

Sara: 6:33

Pretty fast.

Lilly: 6:34

reading the book again, yeah. Or reading this book. But some of the nitty gritty stuff. Just that because it was so important.

Sara: 6:42

Yeah, and also I think this book and this series introduces a lot of really complex, like, world building stuff, that it's easy to forget what is plot important and what is a cool, neat detail.

Lilly: 6:58

So that was hard. This book was hard for me to get into overall. I did, I would say, at about the 300 page point I was on board. But that was a lot of book that I was just like, I remember really liking the first one and we have a podcast to record so I'm just gonna keep going.

Sara: 7:15

You know, I agree that I thought the first half was a little slow. I still really enjoyed it, but it was a little harder to get into. But we had this problem with books one and two as well, if you'll recall.

Lilly: 7:27

Yeah. But I would say at the end of the first book, the first half felt worth it.

Sara: 7:33

I thought the first half felt worth it for this.

Lilly: 7:37

This series also has been dealing with increasingly esoteric events, which I think is pretty hard in general, especially because this is a sci fi world. So there is almost nothing concrete for me to compare anything to. And Hansen really avoided any, like, common metaphors or anything, because obviously that would be weird, because it's not our world. But then we're dealing with very esoteric things and nothing familiar to compare it to.

Sara: 8:08

Yeah.

Lilly: 8:08

That was rough.

Sara: 8:10

Yeah, it's, it's difficult. I like it because it does enhance the alien feeling of this world. Like, the setting of the series is so strange and imaginative, but it can make it difficult to actually grasp the logistics of some of the descriptions and things like that.

Lilly: 8:33

Maybe. I mean, the idea of the universes having, like, being bubbles that are all, like, physically next to each other, and then the separating membrane being called a rind, and how those different universes have different environments and effects and all of that. That, maybe it was just because I know what a bubble is. I was like, this is great. I'm on board. I remember all of this very clearly because it caught in my brain. As soon as swirly ghosts were swirling through the air, I was like, I'm out. Unfortunately, that's a lot of this book.

Sara: 9:08

Yeah, that didn't, I didn't have any trouble with that.

Lilly: 9:11

I did have one question. So, again, this series has set up that certain characters have gravitas, which is a supernatural ability to influence others. And there are some very interesting conversations around the concept of consent, and is it even possible to use this power for good, and then some characters use it very definitely for evil, or at least do evil things with it, I would say. But at no point in any of these books do any of these characters, who are agonizing. over the thought that no one could genuinely have affection for them. They've never actually tested it. Like, we hear a little bit that some species are more resistant. We know that.

Sara: 9:51

It's true.

Lilly: 9:51

And then, in some cases, video chatting means that people are less affected by it. But then also, sometimes, a character will do a video broadcast and influence everyone seeing

Sara: 10:04

when does video chatting mean that they're less affected?

Lilly: 10:07

Thre's partner. The whole thing is that they met. The first ten years, they didn't actually.

Sara: 10:13

no, but that's, so my understanding for that was that they didn't have any video component. It was just voice.

Lilly: 10:18

So, there, that's my whole point! So, if it's just voice, it does not affect someone. But if there's video, then it does? Like, what about writing a letter? Does writing a letter affect the person on the other side? Caden cuts out one of his very good friends entirely because he's too worried about influencing her. They could have been pen pals! Like, how is this not something he even attempted to look into if he's so upset about it?

Sara: 10:45

It's because Caden is a traumatized boy who has no sense. Just trauma.

Lilly: 10:50

But all three of them, it just, and also no one suggested it to him either though.

Sara: 10:55

I bet, I bet that N tried, or Ponka tried, and he just didn't listen.

Lilly: 11:00

This book needed to tell me that, because that was like one of my very, I wondered like, Oh, we're going to find out like the limits of this and they're going to start exploring that. Never really does. It's just some characters get more powerful and can do it more. But we never actually learn the limits, which is so weird compared to how detailed this book gets into for all of the astral projection stuff.

Sara: 11:23

Yeah, I mean, I feel like Abris, who has the strongest gravitas at the beginning of the book, I feel like because she's grown up with it, she wouldn't have thought to test it in that way because Like, that's just all she's known. Like, she doesn't know how much she can trust at all.

Lilly: 11:42

But she absolutely does, because when her minions astral project into proxy bodies, then she can't control them with gravitas. So she knows that.

Sara: 11:52

Well, that's true. She has specifically built their proxies to Although I have a vague recollection that in book two the proxies were able to withstand her gravitas and she very specifically at the end of book two rebuilds them so that they can't or something, because

Lilly: 12:09

Because they turn on her, and then it turns out that she didn't actually want people to disagree with

Sara: 12:14

Yeah.

Lilly: 12:14

She just angsts about it, and then when someone does disagree with her, she murders them.

Sara: 12:20

Well, to be fair, they were trying to kill her.

Lilly: 12:22

Yeah, but that's because when they said, hey, maybe don't, she didn't take it very well.

Sara: 12:26

Yeah.

Lilly: 12:27

It just, what started as interesting conversations around, like, the implications of this power turned into me going, I don't believe you care that much. Why are you still talking about this?

Sara: 12:38

I mean, I think that one can care and not realize how to, like, actually test.

Lilly: 12:44

refuse to do anything about it? Yeah, probably. That's still frustrating, though.

Sara: 12:48

That's fair.

Lilly: 12:49

Eh.

Sara: 12:50

On a completely different subject, we've talked a little bit about the graven and how there are three of them and they're, they're these big ghosty things.

Lilly: 12:58

Ancient, specifically.

Sara: 13:00

yes. These, these big ancient ghosty things. Which I think does it, does them a disservice to describe them that way, but that's my description and I'm sticking to

Lilly: 13:08

But it's also not wrong.

Sara: 13:10

Yeah. And at points we get descriptions of how they are projecting themselves, and there's a lot of tentacles, and they're kind of like cosmic horror in the way that they can affect the world, and I definitely picture them as kind of Cthulhu esque. I

Lilly: 13:26

torn, because part of me agrees with you. The concept that there is a being who has this much power over the universe and does not give a shit about you would be, I would call that cosmic horror.

Sara: 13:40

so.

Lilly: 13:40

that you're so insignificant to them. But the, like, Cthulhu driving people mad by looking at him, like, he also has a horrifying appearance. And the graven are always described as being absolutely stunningly gorgeous. And so I feel like them having tentacles and them being cosmic horror, in my mind, are two completely separate things. And so Cthulhu feels wrong.

Sara: 14:05

I don't think they're described all the time as being gorgeous physically, just like, the people who are viewing them have very strong feelings of affection for them. For example, Athira, I think, is described as, like, I don't know, very geometric. And that's the only description that I remember, besides the tentacles, that's the only description that I really remember about Athira. I don't remember anyone calling him beautiful.

Lilly: 14:29

Azura is always described as beautiful.

Sara: 14:31

Yeah, but that's, I don't think of Azura as Cthulhu esque.

Lilly: 14:34

And she's the one who had tentacles. She was the one that was always like, Are there leaves? Are there petals? Is it wind? Who knows?

Sara: 14:41

Yeah, but that's not tentacles.

Lilly: 14:43

Neither is geometric.

Sara: 14:44

No, that's true. I don't know, I just, I don't have a page number for this, but there was, there was one description of, and I'm pretty sure it was Athera, that made me think Cthulhu. Oh, I did! Page 274.

Lilly: 14:58

Alright.

Sara: 14:59

It's quite possible that I'm going to show off the fact that I have never read Lovecraft before in my life.

Lilly: 15:04

I mean, I'm down with conflating tentacles with Cthulhu.

Sara: 15:07

So, Aberys is calling for Aethyra. Pressure rolled in the air like thunder slowed. Electricity effervesced through the orrery as Aethyra poured into physical space. The projected stars bent and rays crumpled, space bulged and contracted, huge folds of unnameable mass, coils and waves and scales and arms and roots. The light of heaven slicked over strange curves, helping to find the graven for her mortal vision.

Lilly: 15:32

That kinda sounds like swirly ghost stuff to me, but, I mean, sure, tentacles. They said roots. Roots are basically tentacles for trees, right?

Sara: 15:40

Yeah, basically. I think it was also partially the use of the word slicked. Slicked over strange curves. That's very cosmic horror y.

Lilly: 15:50

Alright. I got, I got nothing. Vaith is described as looking like Kaiden, so he's just a dude.

Sara: 15:59

Well, I'm pretty sure they all started out as looking normal before they Spoilers. But yeah, I don't, I don't have a grand thought there. This is just my word vomit note.

Lilly: 16:10

Yeah, I'm okay with the two halves of that concept, but I feel like I don't like them being thrown together. But that doesn't mean the two halves are wrong. So we have the conflict of our, our big three big mean ghosties. They're not all mean, but big and bad. Big bad ghosties. But then of course we have the people trying to save the universe. Maybe a little bit working together to their own chagrin.

Sara: 16:36

Yeah, so Caden and Thray, they start off the series as very definitely antagonists. In our first podcast episode on No Fet Gloss, we talked a whole lot, I talked a whole lot about how Thray was a trash villain and how much I loved him because he was a trash villain. And as the series progresses, he becomes less trash villain to the point where in this book he and Caden are working together. And we'll talk more about him in the spoiler section, because I have a lot of very spoilery thoughts. But something that really struck me is so much of their conflict comes down to their different methods of communication. And this is true, I think, throughout the series and not just this book. But it is very evident in this book as well. In that Caden is very clear that he values active language, right? Saying things. And Thray has a comment at one point about his language is action, doing things, and they don't know how to make those two methods of communication mesh in a way that allows them to work effectively together.

Lilly: 17:44

I think I remember the exact line you're talking about. Because I remember reading it and going, Caden, could you stop being a little shit for one second? Affectionately, affectionately, in this case. Because like, Thray just phrases something poorly. And Caden starts like, literary analyzing his sentence for how that means he's actually being sneaky and planning something else. And Thray is like, dude. What? And clearly Kaden was just, like, looking for something to needle thray about, which also perfectly encapsulates their relationship.

Sara: 18:19

Yeah, and you know, I can't blame Caden for having a lot of trauma around Thray, given that Thray is behind a lot of bad stuff in his life.

Lilly: 18:29

Yeah, no, I mean, Kaden has decided he's going to work with him and needs to get some of his, uh, emotions out. I think that's perfectly reasonable. It's, uh, I'll work with you, but I'm not going to be happy about it.

Sara: 18:42

And they do actually, for the most part, work pretty effectively together.

Lilly: 18:45

Oh yeah, they like, they're not trying to sabotage each other or anything. I hate that. They're like, yeah, I'll work together with you, and then don't actually collaborate, and then everything goes to shit, and say, see? It's like, no, you did that. You know that awful plot point? Yeah,

Sara: 18:59

Yes, I totally know. And to be fair, things do go to shit, but not because they refuse to work together effectively.

Lilly: 19:05

Oh yeah, yeah, no. This book doesn't go into that at all. They genuinely try to help each other, even though they don't like each other at this point. And Caden's just being a little shit. And I get that. He's working with who was once his sworn nemesis. You've earned some barbs in that scenario. But also, oh man, you can't nitpick someone's language if it's just, like, chatting.

Sara: 19:29

I mean, I think you can call it out for mistakes, but in this case that's not what he was doing.

Lilly: 19:33

No, what was it? Okay, I do wanna, I wanna see if this is the line I was thinking of. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the best pilot! I have the best pilot in the whole empire. And Caden's like, you can't own people. Meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh. And it's like, oh my god, that is just a phrase. Caden. Is that what you were talking

Sara: 19:56

That, that was, yeah. I mean, specifically their conversation afterwards where they talk about, like, essentially their communication values, but yes, that was the start of that, of that conversation.

Lilly: 20:07

And, I mean, Caden's also right. Like, language choices does tell you a lot about a person. But you also have to kind of use some judgment.

Sara: 20:16

Yeah, language, language choice matters, but also there are nuances, and Kaden is not looking at those in this particular scene.

Lilly: 20:24

No. Well, we're about to get to the spoilers section. I mean, obviously, this is the third book in a series. So, who should read this book is kind of a silly question.

Sara: 20:35

Yep. It is kind of a silly question. If you enjoyed books one and two, yes, you should absolutely read this book. I thought it was a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. A little slow to get into, like we've talked about, but still worthwhile.

Lilly: 20:47

Yeah, so maybe talking about the series as a whole.

Sara: 20:51

Like, who should read the series?

Lilly: 20:52

Yeah, now that we've read the whole thing.

Sara: 20:55

Mmm.

Lilly: 20:56

It does get a lot less sci fi. I would not call a drop of this book science at all.

Sara: 21:04

Yeah, but you have really weird definitions of science fiction.

Lilly: 21:07

There's no science. It's just magic in space. This is, oh, I do have weird definitions of

Sara: 21:12

definitions of sci

Lilly: 21:14

so far away.

Sara: 21:16

I still think it fits in the broad category of science fiction.

Lilly: 21:20

It is the softest of soft sci fi. This is pudding science fiction.

Sara: 21:25

I won't argue there, but I think it is still science fiction.

Lilly: 21:29

This is as science fiction as Doctor Who is.

Sara: 21:31

I think Doctor Who is science fiction. I think you just have very, very narrow genre definitions here that do not match the rest of the world at all.

Lilly: 21:41

Well, but if we just said, Oh, it's science fiction. If you like science fiction, you'll like this book. That's not true, because science fiction has so many different things in it.

Sara: 21:49

Right, which is why we're not just saying that, but it is science fiction still.

Lilly: 21:53

Okay. If you're alright with very, very soft sci fi. If you're interested in very esoteric conversations and a very long series.

Sara: 22:03

It's not a long series, but the individual books are long.

Lilly: 22:07

The page, the overall page count, I would call pretty long.

Sara: 22:10

The page count is long, I think that's about 1, 500 pages. But it's only three books, it's a trilogy. It's not Wheel of Time, it's not fourteen books.

Lilly: 22:18

No, but that can't be our definition of long. It can be long before it gets there.

Sara: 22:23

Right, but my definition of long is like seven books.

Lilly: 22:26

I think overall page count matters more, because it could be seven short books.

Sara: 22:30

Uh, I don't know. I think I would still not call this long. I would say the books themselves are long, but the series is not long.

Lilly: 22:38

Just purely going by number of books?

Sara: 22:40

Yeah, going by number of books, I don't think it's long.

Lilly: 22:43

Well, no, there's three. But that's just so meaningless.

Sara: 22:47

Well, so is page count, to be fair.

Lilly: 22:49

I'm looking up word

Sara: 22:50

Word count is more useful, yeah.

Lilly: 22:52

the only thing that means anything, and I wish that was used more often. Because, like, yeah, it's 500 pages. This is a big book, not just fat. It's tall. Like, these pages are bigger than a trade paperback. So even 500 pages is shootin low.

Sara: 23:08

I do wish word count was used more often, because it's, I think it's a more useful metric.

Lilly: 23:13

It's so much more useful.

Sara: 23:15

But in the meantime, I think you should read this if you want really satisfying character arcs. Because, like, Thray's arc, for example, fantastic. Absolutely perfect. And a lot of the character development and character growth feels very rewarding.

Lilly: 23:33

To avoid spoilers, skip to 4745. So one thing I noticed as I was reading this book is that I have gotten extremely desensitized to the violence in this series.

Sara: 23:51

There is kind of a lot of it. And a lot of the times, it's true, they get patched up and keep on going, and it doesn't seem like it has any hugely lasting consequences. And that would normally kind of frustrate me, but I think it really works in this book in particular, because, spoiler alert, but we're in the spoiler section, Thray dies, and Thray dies for good. And I'm not happy about this, because I love Thray. He is one of my favorite characters. I love his character arc, the arc that he experiences over the course of the series, from firmly trash villain in the first book, to kind of villainous anti hero. In book two, and then definitely hero, or redeemed villain, maybe, in book three. Where he's, like, actively working towards the good of the universe and trying to improve himself and recognizing his flaws and all of that. And he dies. And because so much of the violence and death in the series has been not lasting, the fact that he actually dies for good kind of makes it all worth it to me.

Lilly: 24:59

I wouldn't go that far. It definitely changed the vibe of his death scene, because I spent most of it going, Okay, yeah, sure, he's in agony. Oh, bones were poking out of his skin? That's nice.

Sara: 25:11

I, yeah, I mean, I did go into the scene thinking he's not gonna die for good. He's not gonna die for good, but he actually does die for good.

Lilly: 25:19

I did think if there was one character that might actually get killed, it was him. Because we also saw with Leta, she went into a suicide mission. And I, well, I struggled with her as a character a lot, and a lot because of that moment. Because the book was getting so dramatic about it, and I was like, I don't believe for a second that this is actually gonna have any consequences.

Sara: 25:43

Well, I mean, it does have consequences. She does lose her physical body.

Lilly: 25:48

And she loves it. She's only made more powerful.

Sara: 25:51

That is her happy ending, it's true, because she had a lot of body dysmorphia.

Lilly: 25:56

And so all of the angst before it was like, I don't believe this.

Sara: 26:00

Well, she wasn't angsting over dying. She was angsting over leaving people behind, which I think makes a lot of sense. Like, she doesn't know for sure if she does survive as a ghost, basically, as a presence, disembodied presence.

Lilly: 26:16

That's a ghost.

Sara: 26:17

She doesn't know how much she'll be able to interact with the people she loves. Like, that's hard.

Lilly: 26:22

No, I believe that she would be sad about it. I don't know why I had to read about it for so long.

Sara: 26:28

That's just because you're grumpy, and you didn't like her.

Lilly: 26:31

I really did not like Lita at all. She gets a lot of leeway because she's traumatized and has gone through some shit. I get that, but I don't know. She, at one point, this was my, my first, like, I don't think I can deal with her anymore. They're in a conflict with her now mind controlled friends. And the whole thing was that, like, they're trying to rescue some of them, but oh no, the really powerful ones came back. They can't rescue them. That's a bad description of the scene, but, meh. And so, they're, like, about to escape because the super powerful proxies are going off on doing something else. And she runs to them! And they capture her! And I was like, what? What are you doing?

Sara: 27:13

They weren't about to escape. Like, they were gonna go after Thray and whoever else they had, Ismay or whatever, if she didn't try to stop them. So, like, she was trying to stop them.

Lilly: 27:26

But we, it's been very clear that the proxies are super powerful fighting machines, and she is in her very fragile human body. What was she gonna do?

Sara: 27:35

She was just trying to buy Thray time. Like, what else was she supposed to do? Otherwise, Thray was gonna get it. Like, she didn't have a choice.

Lilly: 27:43

But she didn't actually stop them. Like, that, what she should have done was literally anything else. The fact that they didn't actually capture her was just because they weren't supposed to at that point. Because then they go, oh, we're actually going to do something else, so you just stay here and, like, set her back down.

Sara: 27:58

Well, I don't remember it happening quite like that, but, like, literally, there was nothing else she could do. She was doing what she could.

Lilly: 28:05

No, okay. Every, which one, grave, are graves the ones that can project themselves? Or grave in are the Ancient ones, and graves are the current ones. Okay. Like, at this point, the book has set up that whoever has the most graves has the most power. Like, the two sides are trying so hard to just have more graves than the other one. And she just gives herself to the other side. Like, completely tipping the scales. Except they don't actually take her for I'm entirely unclear on why.

Sara: 28:35

If this is the scene that I'm thinking about, then I'm pretty sure they do try to take her.

Lilly: 28:39

Ismay grabs her.

Sara: 28:40

No, no, no, no, oh, so, so what it is, is she's in someone else's proxy, and they grab her, and when Thray gets far enough away, because her body is still in

Lilly: 28:51

This is after that. This is when she's trying to go rescue their human forms because they expect the proxies to be with a bris.

Sara: 28:58

Okay, so she is with Caden then. Yeah.

Lilly: 29:03

And the proxies, they end up going and bursting some more universe bubbles. But like, she runs up to them because they think they're gonna go to Thray. She does think that. The fact that that's not what's happening is not the point.

Sara: 29:13

No, but I was trying to argue for a completely different scenario. You're right.

Lilly: 29:17

I don't remember, Caden is either incapacitated or I think they had gotten separated at this point. Anyway, they grab her and then let her go. And, why did you run up to them? What was she gonna do? Slap their impervious metal forms?

Sara: 29:31

I mean, she couldn't really do anything else.

Lilly: 29:33

She could have not delivered herself to them. Like, possession of her and her supernatural abilities has, at this point of the book, been so driven home that it's like the only edge they have.

Sara: 29:46

It's true, she did get very lucky in that scene.

Lilly: 29:50

And I don't know, that is one example of me just really wanting to shake her. And that never really goes away. For different reasons. But Lita is in this book a lot and that was very difficult for me.

Sara: 30:02

Leta is in this book a lot. I liked her perspective. I liked seeing how she related to both Abris and Caden and Thray and the relationships that she formed with all of them and how she navigated her feelings for Abris versus her recognition of the fact that what Abris was doing was, like, horrible.

Lilly: 30:24

Yeah, that part was fine.

Sara: 30:26

I, I liked her perspective and I didn't have an issue with some of the dumb decisions she makes because people make dumb decisions. And she's, like, she's trying to save her family.

Lilly: 30:35

That's nice. I did not like her. The parts that you described were the good parts. Those were not all of them.

Sara: 30:42

Well, the, the part about her trying to save her family is specifically, like, that relates to what you're talking about, her running up to the graves, because they're, they are her family.

Lilly: 30:52

How does that save them? That's, no. Her interpersonal relationships are fine. This book does those very well. The tension between liking a Briss as a person and disliking what she has become, great, fine. Ksenia does that too, cool. I just didn't like her, like, as a person.

Sara: 31:11

I mean, that's valid, but also that's a personal problem. Can't help you there.

Lilly: 31:15

No, you can't.

Sara: 31:16

And I don't think that's a problem that every reader is going to have.

Lilly: 31:19

No, but I can't be the only one.

Sara: 31:21

of them, sure.

Lilly: 31:22

Earlier books had a lot more Caden in them.

Sara: 31:25

This was actually surprisingly very Caden lite.

Lilly: 31:27

Yeah, I would, I guess he has his very dramatic, like, sacrifice himself for the universe scene. And you kind of have to be a main character to sacrifice yourself for the universe.

Sara: 31:37

It's true.

Lilly: 31:38

But other than that, I would argue he's not.

Sara: 31:40

Yeah, I mean, I think that in the first two books, he is definitely the main point of view character. And in this book, it's split pretty evenly between him, Trey, Abras, and Leta. So he gets, like, one fourth of the page time that he was getting in the first two.

Lilly: 31:58

Well, it's interesting, so I'm not defining this by, well, it's all third person. So, you just mean like who the camera is following, basically.

Sara: 32:06

I mean, who the camera is following.

Lilly: 32:08

But when I think of main character, I'm thinking of, like, who is driving the plot forward and who is going through change.

Sara: 32:14

See, I think of those things too, but I think primarily of who the reader stays with the most.

Lilly: 32:21

But you wouldn't call Watson the main character of Sherlock Holmes.

Sara: 32:25

That's true. I wouldn't call Watson the main character of Sherlock Holmes, but even though it's Watson's perspective, we stay with Sherlock.

Lilly: 32:31

Yeah, but because it's about Sherlock. I don't know. I think we're using slightly different definitions of main character.

Sara: 32:38

I think we are using slightly different definitions.

Lilly: 32:40

It amounts to the same thing, though, which is not Caden. I would say it's pretty split between the other three.

Sara: 32:45

I put Leta on the same level as Caden in terms of, like, main character energy for main character of this

Lilly: 32:52

I disagree. She does a lot more. Caden spends a lot of this book, well, a lot of the main action anyway, trying to absorb the graven.

Sara: 33:00

See, I think that comes back down to our different definitions of main character. But I would agree that I think Abrys and Thray feel more central to, like, the plot and the action of the book, and how all of that is driven.

Lilly: 33:15

Yeah. I mean, the book, whoever the main character is, I'd say this book focuses on Aberys's sort of descent and then emergence from Ethera's control. I'd call that the central, like, plot.

Sara: 33:29

Yes. Yeah, I think I would agree with that. And Abris under Aetheria's control, and we don't really recognize, or at least, speaking for myself, like, I didn't really understand emotionally that that was what was going on for a good bit of the book. And Abris in the beginning is absolutely chilling as a villain. So what she is trying to do, what Unity is trying to do, she's the head honcho of Unity. is they're trying to expand their universe because science is understandable in their universe, like, everything is better in their universe.

Lilly: 34:02

And it objectively is, which I think is a fascinating point. It makes it much more interesting.

Sara: 34:07

Yeah, it objectively is, like, there's no question about that. But, unfortunately, the cost of expanding unity means that they are Disrupting these other universes that are on the fringes of unity, and not all species in these universes are compatible with unity. So there's this huge, huge life toll, and Abras is looking at this and saying, Yes, I know we're killing a bunch of people, but it's worth it because life in Unity is better. And everyone outside of Unity is going, Uh, I don't think so. I don't think that's how that works. But I found her absolutely chilling because she is so certain that she is doing this for the good of everyone.

Lilly: 34:58

And I don't think the characters in the book realize that she's under Ethera's control, or Gravitas, I would say. Not like, specific control, but extreme influence. Because in early books, we get Leta having thought processes about how Aberys needs people around her to keep her from like, Getting too obsessed with her work, and that's sort of what the conversations are around. Like, oh, she's just gonna get too single minded. She'll forget to take care of herself. But zooming back, knowing what we know now, what Leta was seeing was her getting more and more influenced by Ethera. So I think it's been set up for a while, and that was very well done.

Sara: 35:38

I think you're exactly right. Like, I think it's been set up before this book. This is just the culmination of all of that. So we're, we're seeing it actually play out now. And you're right, I think it's, it's incredibly well done. But boy, Abris, I mean, she's like, she was, she was genuinely terrifying in a way that I don't find a lot of villains. Because of just how wholeheartedly she thought she was doing good.

Lilly: 36:03

The true believer, you might say. I really appreciated How the book didn't pull its punches with unity actually being pretty great.

Sara: 36:13

Mm hmm.

Lilly: 36:15

much more complex than just, I mean, she's killing a bunch of people, of course she's a bad guy. Because she was genuinely improving people's lives. And then you, you get to that equation, it's the trolley cart problem, right? That really simplistic version. Do you choose to kill two people or ten people? And she's choosing to kill two people in order to make ten people's lives amazing. Except we never actually find out what the ratios are, do we?

Sara: 36:43

We don't, but they're pretty bad is my understanding.

Lilly: 36:46

Well, any is pretty bad. So the argument that I had been formulating in my head was, Why does Unity have to expand to do this? If Unity is great, just invite everyone who could survive into Unity.

Sara: 37:01

I mean,

Lilly: 37:02

Like Why do you have to expand your borders to absorb these planets? Just, like, have people immigrate. What the fuck? And then, of course, we find out it's because Ethera is trying to rewrite history and set the universe back to how it was when she was, I'll say, alive, which is not quite right, but

Sara: 37:19

I think it's, it's right enough. And I really enjoy what we get of that plotline culminates in us learning that Etheria tried to create unity in the past.

Lilly: 37:31

To unify the universe under her orchestration. Yeah.

Sara: 37:36

to make everything deathless and all of that, because she feels what they are doing in the future to stop her, like, that time loop is so cool.

Lilly: 37:47

I really enjoyed that as well. The idea that she was trying to unify the universe, but then she got obsessed with it because she started to feel her own

Sara: 37:56

And also that, like, if they hadn't had this conflict in the book present, like, Athira and Vaeth and Azura might still have been friends in the past, like, this might never have happened.

Lilly: 38:12

I didn't think it was that time loopy. I didn't get the impression that, like, they could have actually changed.

Sara: 38:18

I definitely did. I should say, I didn't get the impression that they could have changed things per se, but I did feel like if they hadn't had the conflict in the present, the conflict in the past wouldn't have started.

Lilly: 38:32

Except we see the conflict in the past before the first death.

Sara: 38:36

we see that point in the past that we see is already, like, after the first death, even though the first death in the book hasn't happened yet.

Lilly: 38:46

Azura has already said, you are trying to boring ify the universe, I want no part in this.

Sara: 38:53

I got the sense that the first argument that we see between them is actually after a shard of aethera has already died.

Lilly: 39:02

But we see when the first shard of Athira dies. And she's already working on the unification of the universe at that point, isn't she?

Sara: 39:08

Right, but not to the extent of, I need to solve this death issue so that I don't die.

Lilly: 39:15

I didn't think there was quite that much cause and effect. She wanted to unify things and make everything controlled. She reminded me quite a lot of the auditors in Discworld.

Sara: 39:25

Actually, yes, I could see that.

Lilly: 39:27

She wanted everything to be predictable and controlled, and I doubt it's possible that she just wanted her little bubble to be predictable and controlled. Well, actually, no, the universe wasn't bubbles yet.

Sara: 39:40

Yeah, the universe wasn't bubbles

Lilly: 39:41

If she wanted the universe to be predictable and controlled, that's everything. So in order for her to exist in harmony with Azura, they had to split the universe up into different parts. So she could have her boring little section, and Azura could have all her wild stuff. I think that conflict was going to happen no matter what.

Sara: 39:59

I think maybe a lesser degree of that conflict would have happened, but I do think that the conflict was exacerbated because of what happens in the future. If Aethyra hadn't started dying in the future, I don't think Aethyra in the past would have gone to the extremes of creating unity.

Lilly: 40:16

I think that Her idea was going to end up extreme no matter what. You can't have just a little bit of order, right? Like, either her world is controlled or it's not. I kind of got the feeling that their two ideologies were going to clash eventually anyway. But, who knows?

Sara: 40:36

My sense was that they were good enough friends that it might have clashed, but not in an extreme way.

Lilly: 40:42

Ah, but that's the problem with immortality. Their first clash might not have been extreme, but I bet they would have gotten there.

Sara: 40:48

Maybe. But either way, things were exacerbated by future events in a way that was very neat for me as a reader.

Lilly: 40:56

I loved it too. It does make me wonder, if they had known, of course they had no way of knowing, that Caden was gonna basically go back in time and like, experience Vaeth's life as it happened, but could he have gone and tried to convince Aethyra to never make unity in the first place? But that, I think, is going too far into the time shit. Which, as much fun as I had with it, I don't think was the point of the book.

Sara: 41:18

No, I don't, I don't think that was the point of the book. But I liked the little bit of time shit that we got.

Lilly: 41:25

I know that it's not really relevant, but C,

Sara: 41:28

C.

Lilly: 41:30

the No Fec, which is basically a big warg with some magic in his forehead, that he doesn't use. We just get to see it in this because of all the crazy universe stuff.

Sara: 41:38

Yeah, he has some kind of interesting gloss in his head, which is a magic rock, basically.

Lilly: 41:46

They were harvesting the gloss in the first book. It's been a little while since we read it. Anyway, uh, C is Caden's animal companion, and he's so sweet in this book. He's always so sweet, but, you know, extra a lot.

Sara: 42:03

I love C. I was really glad that nothing happened to C.

Lilly: 42:06

I was pretty distressed. I think he's fighting with Thray, or a bris. And C gets pretty beat up.

Sara: 42:13

I don't think he's actually fighting Thray.

Lilly: 42:15

no, sorry, on, on,

Sara: 42:17

Oh, on Thray's side.

Lilly: 42:19

yes.

Sara: 42:19

yes. Okay, I see. Yes.

Lilly: 42:21

Sorry, with as in on the half of, that's not quite the right word, but.

Sara: 42:26

In companionship with?

Lilly: 42:28

I think it's Thray because he doesn't fight with a bris, he tries to help her find Kayden at the end. But he definitely teams up with both of them throughout the book, because Caden's just not there. And I was pretty distressed when C was getting beat up. I'm the kind of person who, in D& D, I was playing a halfling, and I've saved up for, like, so many sessions to get a riding dog, and then immediately got a boarding room for my riding dog, because I didn't want to take it into any battles at all. And spent the rest of the campaign just sending money to the boarding house for my riding dog. My big war dog. So, I was definitely reading that going, Why is he there? Why isn't he at home and safe?

Sara: 43:11

See, it was really cute.

Lilly: 43:12

Yeah.

Sara: 43:13

So was the little Whipkin. There are a lot of really cute animals in this book. And by a lot, I mean two. That's a lot.

Lilly: 43:21

It is. They get a lot of page time, for sure. The whip came in was great because I was never stressed out.

Sara: 43:26

Whipkin is not in stressful situations, generally.

Lilly: 43:30

No. Just being sweet and healing people by being cute.

Sara: 43:34

And cuddling and laps. C wants to cuddle in laps, but he's too big, so he just puts his head in their lap.

Lilly: 43:41

And people can cuddle on him.

Sara: 43:43

And people do. I think Leda falls asleep on him.

Lilly: 43:46

Quite a bit, yeah. That was nice. I'm glad that they reconciled. I understood why she was afraid of him. That was not something I had a problem

Sara: 43:53

Yeah.

Lilly: 43:54

But yeah. And then the book ends with Kaden on the planet where they brought all the No Fec puppies.

Sara: 43:59

That was cute.

Lilly: 44:00

They're just running around.

Sara: 44:02

There's a coda to this book. It's like a page at the end of the book. I guess a coda to the story. And I was hoping it would be more about the Nofax and Caden, and it was not.

Lilly: 44:14

Did I miss that? Wait.

Sara: 44:16

It's like one page where Athira and Vaith and Azura are having a conversation.

Lilly: 44:22

Okay, I do remember that, yeah. Just kidding. I thought that was, like, horrified for a second. I hadn't actually finished the book.

Sara: 44:29

No. But, but like, I had, so I had, I had flipped to the end of the book to see how many pages I had left to read, and I saw just the title, like, Coda. So when I got there, I was expecting it would be something about, like, C and the Nofex, or something cute like that, and instead it was plot related.

Lilly: 44:48

Still, I mean, bittersweet, right? Because that was their friendship. That was before they were stressed out. Yeah.

Sara: 44:54

Yeah, I mean, it was bittersweet and it was great. Like, I'm not saying it was a bad coda or anything. It was a, it was a good coda. But I wanted to see more C. And the Nofax and Caden.

Lilly: 45:04

Yeah.

Sara: 45:05

I want, like, a bonus short story that's just that.

Lilly: 45:08

Caden starts a nofic, uh,

Sara: 45:11

Sanctuary. Mhm.

Lilly: 45:14

I was thinking he trains support nofics. Because they're also pretty good assistance animals, right? Because people use C to help walk all the time. Because they keep getting beat up.

Sara: 45:28

And C's pretty big, so he can easily help with that. Caden rides him a lot.

Lilly: 45:35

for some definition of a lot. Caden rides him a lot, yes. In this book, not as much as I would like.

Sara: 45:41

We get a couple of scenes.

Lilly: 45:42

Yeah. Oh, we didn't even talk about Thray's relationship, which is, like, barely introduced in the second book. And we get to see a lot more of it in this book. It just makes his death more sad.

Sara: 45:53

Yeah, Hansen expands on his relationship with the scientist who was basically keeping him company while he was imprisoned and they don't have a lot of time together because the world is ending and so they're just stealing moments and then Trey dies and it's very sad.

Lilly: 46:09

Yeah, it's very sad.

Sara: 46:11

But they do have a really sweet relationship.

Lilly: 46:13

That's it. I don't know why I brought that up to end it on a downer. It was a cute relationship, though.

Sara: 46:19

Well, while Ther is alive, they have a very cute relationship.

Lilly: 46:23

Did you get the feeling that, uh, there could maybe be something between Caden and Ibris in the future?

Sara: 46:29

I think, yes, I think there could be. Because I think that they have both had similar experiences of having this graven power, and the gravitas, and not knowing whether a relationship is real or not. So I think that they could sympathize with each other a lot. And that can form the basis of a relationship.

Lilly: 46:47

I mean, I'm immediately second guessing myself. Because if the entire basis of a relationship is, you're the only person in the world who can say yes to me genuinely. Not a lot of options there. But it feels like they had moments, not romantic at all in this book, but of, you know, trusting and liking each other.

Sara: 47:08

I mean, they definitely have heart to hearts, or maybe not necessarily heart to hearts, but like,

Lilly: 47:13

Trust and understanding

Sara: 47:15

yeah, moments of trust and understanding in the last, like, 200 pages.

Lilly: 47:20

Yeah, I would like to clarify that. I don't think there's anything between them in this book, but I could totally see, you know, in the future, them getting together.

Sara: 47:29

could see someone writing a fanfiction based on this series that has them getting together in the future using this book as its basis.

Lilly: 47:37

It wouldn't feel out of character if that happened. How's that?

Sara: 47:40

Yes.

Lilly: 47:46

So I have a, words are weird. I had to look this up'cause I was like, am I the wrong one?

Sara: 47:51

What is your words are weird?

Lilly: 47:53

Myriad is a weird word. Not in and of itself, but I had only ever heard, you know, a myriad of cats, or there are a myriad of options. That sentence structure. And then, in a couple of the books we've read recently, including this one, it's being used as just the word myriad, all on its own. So, I'm running out of options. Myriad books, or myriad pugs. And that just sounds so truncated and wrong in my head. I'm like, no, there's a myriad of books. There aren't just myriad books. Like, what the fuck? So I looked it up. It is equally correct as a noun or an adjective. Technically, it means exactly 10, 000 things, which is pretty funny.

Sara: 48:40

Which, which way does it mean exactly 10, 000 things?

Lilly: 48:43

The noun is 10, 000. Myriad is 10, 000. It

Sara: 48:48

is a lot of pugs.

Lilly: 48:49

is a lot of pugs. Colloquially, it's used as a heck of a lot.

Sara: 48:55

That's some pretty, pretty high vet bills you have if you have 10, 000 bugs.

Lilly: 48:59

I understand why authors don't just use heck of a lot instead. But technically they could, and I was fully prepared to be wrong, honestly, because I could totally see a myriad of podcasts, for example, being, what am I trying to say, how some, how things get bastardized over time, you know? It's been a noun slightly longer, just in that it's based on ancient Greek, and so that's been around for a while, but as far as the English language goes, they're both, as far as I can tell,

Sara: 49:26

Equally valid?

Lilly: 49:27

well, definitely equally valid, but I'm also curious about which one came first, usually in that, this kind of situation. Because while both are valid, which one is the root, right?

Sara: 49:37

Right, but they've been around almost as long.

Lilly: 49:40

I didn't do a lot of research, that's what it sounded like. Which one are you, are you more familiar with one or the other?

Sara: 49:46

Uh, I'm definitely more familiar with a myriad of X, but I have, I have heard both.

Lilly: 49:51

Yeah. I guess I didn't hear just myriad on its own for so long that it, like, my brain doesn't like it.

Sara: 49:59

It doesn't feel as real as a myriad of.

Lilly: 50:03

Yeah.

Sara: 50:03

I agree with you.

Lilly: 50:05

I'm trying to think of another word where that's the same and I can't. A dozen ponies? A dozen of ponies? No.

Sara: 50:12

No, you don't say that.

Lilly: 50:13

No. I have no justification for this.

Sara: 50:18

I think it's just which one is more common. And I do think a myriad of is more common.

Lilly: 50:23

Is it? I'd like to think that. That justifies me, at least. Me being weirded out by the alternative.

Sara: 50:29

Maybe I'm just justifying myself. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly: 50:40

Come disagree with us. We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Sara: 50:52

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly: 50:59

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.

Sara: 51:06

Thanks again for listening and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!