Fool by K.R. Lockhaven
Episode 245
Release Date: September 23, 2026
Your hosts read Fool by KR Lockhaven, and discuss the merits of monarchy. They are stone cold bitches about what our main characters go through, and also talk about love, friendships, and morally grey characters.
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 generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly 0:04
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 today we will be discussing Fool by K.R. Lockhaven, and I'm still sad that he's missing that second R
Lilly 0:18
Well, before we get into that conversation, we have our quick five-minute introduction, starting with something great that happened recently
Sara 0:27
So my good thing is that my very good friend moved to my neighborhood last week.
Lilly 0:33
Oh my gosh, that's awesome
Sara 0:34
Yeah. So she is now like a seven-minute walk from my house instead of an hour plus by public transit. And it's fantastic
Lilly 0:43
Dude, you told me she was moving. I didn't realize she was becoming your next door neighbor.
Sara 0:47
Yeah, yeah. She is very, very close now and I love it. It's the first time that she... I mean, we have not lived so close together since we were roommates in college
Lilly 1:02
Exciting
Sara 1:03
Which was a long time ago by this point
Lilly 1:06
Have you already had late night sleepovers or is she like, "Let me move in first and then we can be
Sara 1:11
she wants to move in first, yes. But I, I did help her move which was much easier than helping her move the last time because the last time I had to go into San Francisco, and this time I just had to, you know, walk over.
Lilly 1:24
Yeah.
Sara 1:25
Much nicer But we have plans to go to, like, an exercise class next Tuesday after work and all, all sorts of plans to have dinner together and do stuff, and it's gonna be really nice
Lilly 1:40
Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. My good thing is a little bit undercut because Riverside, the technology we use to record, is being a jerk. But I have started de-Googling. Chrome is no longer my default browser on any of my devices. I have installed MapQuest on my phone because apparently they have an app. And I don't think I've used MapQuest since I printed out directions.
Sara 2:10
It's a very nostalgic name, that's for sure
Lilly 2:14
And just kind of, you know, moving away from Google products as my default, which they have been for eons.
Sara 2:22
A long time
Lilly 2:24
Yeah. And there's some growing pains. Like I said Riverside apparently is like, "No, sorry, you're only allowed to use a browser created by an evil mega corporation." and I was like, "Fine." so I, I'm not, you know, 100% moved off, but just having like... It's not my default setting. It, it's not like what I reach for first, has been very freeing
Sara 2:48
That is
Lilly 2:48
know. Inertia is hard
Sara 2:50
Yes,
Lilly 2:50
to break out
Sara 2:51
inertia is hard to overcome
Lilly 2:53
You know? but the, the search thing was like too far. It was too much. And I was like
Sara 3:01
still use Google products as my default for a lot of things, but I did search-- I did switch to DuckDuckGo for my search.
Lilly 3:12
Yeah, that's the, the browser I'm using. I don't love it. It's fine.
Sara 3:17
I, I experimented with using their browser and I didn't like it, so I did switch back
Lilly 3:23
Oh, the browser is fine. I actually meant, funny enough, I meant their search is what I'm like, "Eh, whatever."
Sara 3:28
their, yeah, their search is fine, but I do still use the search and I don't still use the browser
Lilly 3:33
Yeah. That's why I didn't name drop them because I was like, "Eh, they don't, they don't really get this credit." They are just not Google at this point.
Sara 3:41
Fair
Lilly 3:42
but it's familiar enough. There's no learning curve,
Sara 3:45
Yeah
Lilly 3:47
What are you drinking?
Sara 3:48
This is definitely a wine book
Lilly 3:51
It's such a wine book. I wish I had red wine because that's obviously the type of wine I should be drinking. And then my husband was like, "We got food coloring." And I was like, "That's a, a little too much." We're not even recording video, so I could lie and say it's red wine, but it's not.
Sara 4:08
You could lie and say it's red wine. I'm not drinking red wine. I agree with you that this is specifically a red wine book. But the bottle I had was white, so that's what I'm drinking.
Lilly 4:19
Same, except it was my birthday box of rosé that I'm finishing. Have you read anything good lately?
Sara 4:26
I am still really struggling with a reading slump. So I have not read any published books. I've, I've read a lot of fan fiction. my brain can do fan fiction right now in a way that it can't do books. so I've, I've read a lot of fan fiction
Lilly 4:44
Fair. I have actually been rereading lately, which I think is kind of that same, like, it's less intense
Sara 4:53
less work, yeah
Lilly 4:55
Plus, I'm gonna start by saying I've been doing audiobooks of books I've already read while I fall asleep. So it doesn't matter if I fall asleep 'cause then I don't really miss anything. I've already read the book. Except that's a lie. It's-- I make my husband read them out loud to me.
Sara 5:11
That's, that's darling though. That is so sweet
Lilly 5:15
It's been our like, you know, me and, and our baby and they're books that I've wanted him to read for forever, so it's actually my way of getting him to read them. And it's been working out quite nicely.
Sara 5:27
And exposing baby fiction fan to books very early is a good thing
Lilly 5:32
Yes, we just did Hazel Hearth Hires Heroes by,
Sara 5:38
D.H.
Lilly 5:39
say D.H. Lawrence, but that's the person who wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Sara 5:44
Wilson
Lilly 5:45
Wilson. Okay, thank you. Those are two very different books
Sara 5:49
Willison, my bad
Lilly 5:51
Thank you. Which is a, a book that we read for the podcast a little while ago and everyone should go check out that conversation. I loved the book, clearly, if I have reread it.
Sara 6:02
It was a, it was a good book. I liked that book
Lilly 6:05
He also sent us another book in the series that I am very excited for, but it's not following the same characters, so I-- we'll see. We'll see how, what that's about. I suspect I'll be listening to that soon. Well, we have read several books by Lockhaven at this point. He's a good friend of the show. We actually just re-released our very first episode about "The Conjuring of Zoth Avarax" from a couple of years ago. And I have remembered that I was going to start a social media campaign to harass him into writing a zombie book
Sara 6:44
I saw that in the transcript when I was posting the blog post about the,
Lilly 6:48
Yeah.
Sara 6:50
episode.
Lilly 6:51
I forgot to harass him, but that is still a good idea
Sara 6:55
I think that he would do a really good job at writing a zombie apocalypse book
Lilly 6:59
Yes. For all of the reasons I stated in that original episode, and also because every time we read a new book by Lockhaven, I think my very first comment is approach to interpersonal relationships between characters is so good.
Sara 7:20
it is definitely a strength of his, for sure
Lilly 7:23
I think that's always the first thing that I latch onto in one of his novels. It's tends to be Well, I also am a character reader so maybe I'm a little bit biased towards towards this in general. But i- in this book, we get the relationship between our main character and his wife, Kyrian and Acali, and it's just so thoughtful and complex and Well done. It, it's really all I'm gonna say in the non-spoiler section.
Sara 8:01
I, I like... This is going to sound a little odd but I like how they struggle with their relationship with each other
Lilly 8:09
Oh yeah, this book starts and they are not in a good place
Sara 8:12
Yeah. And I think that Lockhaven, as you say, has a really good skill in bringing that complexity and emotional depth to the relationship. And you totally understand the feelings of both of the characters. It's not like one makes more sense or one is being unreasonable. And it, it made for a very compelling emotional conflict in the book
Lilly 8:39
You're not on one of their sides, I think is something that we're going to not word for word say about every single character relationship in this book. But I Complexity is the name of the game here. I think Kyrion, our main character, is such a flawed hero in such a compelling, sympathetic way, and that's reflected in every interpersonal relationship he has
Sara 9:09
Yeah, absolutely
Lilly 9:12
But we start with the, these two, and Acali is, I almost call them our two main characters. She's alm- well, she's a main character. I'd say it's, the book almost covers them equally
Sara 9:24
Yeah, I definitely think that Kyrion gets more page time, but Akali gets point of view chapters. Like, she is, she is a main character You see a lot of things, like, through her as well
Lilly 9:40
Part of this book sets up as kind of your standard fantasy. There's a, there's a king, there's a mystery. we're gonna leave that there for now for this part of the conversation. or maybe I should say there's a lot of, like, classical fantasy set dressing here And something that always is disappointing about those is that you s- get set up with an interesting female character that then just does absolutely nothing for the rest of the book. And Akali is immediately involved with the plot. She has agency. So the book starts with their son getting kidnapped. Pavi is, I wanna maybe say about seven?
Sara 10:25
Somewhere in that range. I was
Lilly 10:26
So
Sara 10:27
I was gonna say 10 maybe, but like seven to 10
Lilly 10:30
yeah. Yeah, young, not a baby, but definitely
Sara 10:32
Young, yeah
Lilly 10:34
And so we have-- we see these two characters who are currently not on good terms with each other, but still so strongly on the same team as parents. Just the fact that that was never in question, like they were obvious... I mean, they're, they're parents who needed to get their kid back. I, that, that sounds like a dumb thing to say, like yeah, of course they both did but
Sara 11:04
But I mean, there's, there's also... Yes of, yes, of course they did, but there's also conflict in the sense that Kyrion has been a shit parent.
Lilly 11:14
Well, yes
Sara 11:15
and he recognizes that in himself, but he also doesn't know how to deal with it, so he deals with it by continuing to be a shit parent.
Lilly 11:25
Well
Sara 11:26
And, and so I think to, to have them both so clearly on the same team, even if they're kind of at odds with each other, does work towards sh- showing who he is as a person, like re- redeeming himself as a parent
Lilly 11:45
Speaking of being a parent my baby had an opinion that's probably gonna be in the audio. Yeah. Okay. And that's what baby Fiction Fan has to say about that. But there, it's the complexity of they don't necessarily like each other in that moment. They don't rely on each other, but they do trust that they both do, like, genuinely are trying to get Povi back. And so, like, there's that interesting to trust the intentions but not the actions is such a fascinating place to be in
Sara 12:27
Ja
Lilly 12:27
A- and part of their conflict is they have very different approaches to trying to get Pavi back. Kyrion wants to do what the kidnappers are telling him to do, whereas Akali is saying, "No, let's just go after the kidnappers." And that creates more conflict between them because they have very different approaches. But then we also get to see them both approaching the problem from their two different angles. And just having both of those I'm gonna say it's one plot line, but having those two sides of it I thought brought a really nice balance to the book as a whole
Sara 13:09
Yeah, I agree. And I, I think that we as a reader, we need to see them both take their different approaches because they are in such conflict with each other. And so it like, it's a really great... I don't necessarily think that you always have to show, not tell, but this is a really great way of showing that conflict too between them.
Lilly 13:32
Well, because they are at such odds with each other in so many ways, I think If we hadn't gotten as much from A- Akali's perspective as we did, I think it would've been really easy for her to be villainized. Not that Kyrion sees her as a villain, but because they are at odds with each other, it's hard not to sympathize with the person that you get all of the perspective from
Sara 13:59
Yeah, I think that's very true
Lilly 14:02
And so it, it keeps them a lot more balanced in that way This also, speaking of baby fiction fan, this is the first book I've read centered around parenthood since I've become a parent, and there was definitely that kind of running thought process in the back of my head about how differently I am interacting with the text because of that
Sara 14:30
I mean, I, I do think that our life experiences affect how we interact with books in general. Like, not this book specifically. Obviously this book as well, but just as a general statement where you are in life, what you've experienced, like yes, that, that changes how you view what happens in a book
Lilly 14:52
Oh, completely. I think this is just a, like a, a particularly perfect example of it. It makes me want to, like, reread books now, A, as an adult, because me in my 30s just, I have different life experiences than I did when I was in my 20s, right? And so how differently am I going to approach books and storylines and characters, and are my sympathies going to change? And also, you know, the big shift of being a parent myself and like not necessarily the, "Well, what would I do in this situation?" But kind of noticing that it does hit different
Sara 15:35
Well, and we've seen that a little bit in our nostalgia book club series with On Wednesdays We Read,
Lilly 15:40
Yes,
Sara 15:41
which is where we go back to, to books that we loved as kids and read them as adults. And sometimes our perspectives are very different now than they were when we were children
Lilly 15:55
Absolutely. I think there's something so obvious with like, was child then, am adult now. Whereas just the idea of like I've had to pay rent for a decade instead of like, you know, just being out of college and on my own, and I'm an adult. You know, the, the more subtle differences are almost more interesting in that way
Sara 16:20
Yeah. Well, and I don't have experience with parenthood obviously, but I do feel it now in my 30s when I read books that are about people in their, like, early 20s, which a lot of fantasy books are. And I'm like, "Mm, this is, this is very clearly a young person." And I recognize that in a way that I wouldn't have recognized when I myself was in my 20s.
Lilly 16:51
Yeah, exactly. And it's just fascinating. And I think that that also kind of ties into the reason why we always recommend who would like this book, not should you, listener I don't know personally or at least don't know specifically, 'cause I might know you personally. I don't know if you would like this book. I don't know if you would like this book today. You know? It's, it's kind of mood reading in that sense, but more on a, a larger scale it's just where are you at mentally and emotionally and, and does it click for you in that way?
Sara 17:26
Yeah. Taste is so personal and life experiences are, are so personal that there's no one book that suits every single reader.
Lilly 17:37
Yeah
Sara 17:38
So I, I think should you read this book is not a helpful question unless you a- add caveats like we do. Who should read this book?
Lilly 17:48
And so, yeah, a lot of the, a lot of Kyrion's struggles with being an involved parent was definitely... I mean, my kid is four months old. I haven't had a lot of time to screw up yet.
Sara 18:03
But you felt those worries as a parent in a way that you wouldn't have
Lilly 18:07
Yeah. More of future anxiety than past regret, but six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?
Sara 18:14
Ja
Lilly 18:15
This was, I did call it sort of classical fantasy setting, which it, it is in a way. There's a, there's a king, there's a castle. The, the court and nobility and, and social hierarchy does feel very classic, the setting is not vaguely European fantasy in a way that I appreciate. I mean, like I said
Sara 18:41
I kind of felt that it was vaguely European fantasy. Not, not in a bad way necessarily but it, it did have very classic fantasy vibes
Lilly 18:55
When you get like the king in the castle, I'm talking purely like physical setting. It's, it didn't
Sara 19:03
It's, it, this physical setting still felt like vaguely European-esque to me. It didn't, it didn't feel
Lilly 19:10
in Europe.
Sara 19:12
Okay. It had capybaras. That's not, that's not enough for it to not feel vaguely European given everything else.
Lilly 19:20
And a lot of the, like the foliage and the fauna and the foods and things were not European. This wasn't like wild boar and pota- and s- I almost said potato stew. Hey, potatoes aren't European either.
Sara 19:32
No, but, but potato stew is a very classic European fantasy setting thing
Lilly 19:38
We had more like, you know, fish and mango and things like that
Sara 19:42
That is very true
Lilly 19:44
The flavor, if you will, of the, of the setting. But you're right, with the... I'm just gonna keep saying the king and the castle 'cause that's, I mean, at its core
Sara 19:54
Ja.
Lilly 19:55
fantasy I was very interested in... So The Fool, the, the title of this book, Fool, refers to Kyrian's profession. He is the, the fool for King Verain. Did I get his name right?
Sara 20:12
You
Lilly 20:12
did. And kind of parsing out the fool's place in our vaguely European fantasy social hierarchy was very interesting And in, I don't remember if it was the forewords or the afterwords, Lockhaven mentions some of the research he did, and I am very interested to talk to him about that because it was inter-- Well, okay, this is... I'll be specific. The fact that the king was like, "Kyrian, why aren't you sleeping with more hot noble ladies?" made me go, how can this random commoner, not random commoner, but zero nobility at all pull a noble lady? Like, that's a crazy, to me,
Sara 20:59
Well, I, I think the title, I mean, Fool makes you think court jester in this setting, but he's not the court jester. He's... I mean, he is the court jester on, in one sense because he, you know, does...
Lilly 21:14
enough fart jokes.
Sara 21:15
Yeah. Like, like he, he does, he does jests, you know. But he is also a very high-ranked advisor to King Varrain. Like, the position is, is a high-ranked advisor you know, on par with the high priest. And he's very trusted by the king, and so he does have a lot of political clout
Lilly 21:39
And I think that dynamic is what took me a little while to, like, figure out while I was reading.
Sara 21:47
Hmm.
Lilly 21:48
tells you,
Sara 21:48
The book does tell you
Lilly 21:50
the energy of it was like, really though? And I think it was because there were still those Jester moments, it took me a minute to buy into, okay, no, he i- he is genuinely like a, like the the head of theater for the kingdom, basically.
Sara 22:09
Yeah, and his theater is not just any theater. I mean, it's, it's specifically political. Like yes, he has a lot of fart jokes, but all of the skits that he does are aimed at making some kind of point about someone in court, and it's not always He, he doesn't... Kyrion doesn't always have the freedom to make the pointed jokes that he wants. Like he, he doesn't always want to target the people that he targets but he feels compelled to because King Varian has so much power, and he is afraid of losing his position and losing his prominence. And so he goes along with what Varian says a lot of the time
Lilly 22:58
Yeah, political satire as directed by the head politician is something.
Sara 23:06
Which, to be fair, I think is a point that Lockhaven is making in this book
Lilly 23:10
Oh, absolutely. Yes. And that's something that Kyrion struggles with. And it does, I think, m- as Kyrion complains about, negatively affect the humor. And you get like the idea of punching down and how that's not funny.
Sara 23:26
Yeah. And I think it also is a really good illustration, or Kyrion's character is a really good illustration of how power corrupts and how once you get into a position of power, you start doing anything to keep your spot
Lilly 23:41
Yes. He's also very disconnected from the common man, which he, I, I mean, kind of by rote complains about at the beginning 'cause he's like, "Ah, I'd be better at jokes if I knew what the common man was going through," which is very funny if you think about it. But then by the end, he much more sincerely is like, "Ah, shit, I've become very disconnected from our society," which I don't think is a spoiler
Sara 24:08
I don't think that's a spoiler.
Lilly 24:10
No. Okay.
Sara 24:11
But, but it is, it is a, an emotional journey that he needs to go on in order for the reader to find him compelling in my opinion. So I was, I was glad that he did that
Lilly 24:24
And that's kind of all wrapped up in... There is quite a bit of contemporary social commentary happening in this novel. A lot of it is pretty blunt just in conversation between Kyrion and the king, for example, talking about how the, "Hey, the the slums of the city are starving and we could feed them. What is wrong with you?" And also, I mean, it goes m- beyond that obviously It's funny that we just re-released our conversation about "The Conjuring of Zoth Avarax," because one of the things we said in that book was Lockhaven don't telegraph... In, in that case it was cultural references. Trust the reader to get the reference. And a part of me was thinking the social commentary was a little blunt. Trust the reader to get what you're saying. But with social media discourse in the state that it is now, I also understand the instinct to phrase things a little bit more straightforward.
Sara 25:41
I get it. I do think that we should still trust the reader a little bit more just because if you're always so blunt, readers are going to lose the skill to discern that, that nuance
Lilly 25:55
It's a snake eating its own
Sara 25:57
Yeah. Yeah. It's a vicious cycle. So ultimately, I, I think that the novel would've been stronger if some of the commentary had been That said, I s- like, it was still good and very relevant to things that are happening today
Lilly 26:16
Absolutely. And then of course, I'm never gonna complain about, "Hey, maybe rich people should feed starving people." And I'm, I'm using that as an example 'cause it's not spoilery at all. It gets It's more thoughtful than that in this novel. It's not, like, just that surface level.
Sara 26:33
Ja
Lilly 26:34
but it is also just nice to go like, "Hey, yeah."
Sara 26:38
I will say that although I, I did really enjoy Fool I kind of think that I'm going to make your usual complaint about a book and say that it should've been shorter. I think it, it would've been tighter as a novella
Lilly 26:54
I don't know about an actual novella, 'cause that's like one third of the length it is or something, right? That, that might be a, a lot
Sara 27:04
May- maybe not an actual novella,
Lilly 27:06
But it, I, I think I agree with you, it could've been tighter. I think some of the scenes could've done double duty and instead of-- and, you know, kind of moved things forward a little bit faster in that way. I was definitely more engaged in the back half of the book.
Sara 27:24
Yeah, same
Lilly 27:26
but then also some of the, the things I'm gonna talk about in the spoiler section, I'm about to say I wish I had had more of something which I always feel like undercuts my argument that it should've been shorter. But maybe I'm-- it's just, like I said, there should've been a little bit more double duty, and I think that's part of the, the surface level social commentary thing that we noted earlier, is that a lot of this book does what it's doing, which is maybe a useless phrase, but I think if there had been more I'm trying to think of a way to not just say double duty again I think that more could have been packed into each scene, cut some pages, but also given us more of... It, it's gonna be character relationships. Th- spoiler, I'm gonna say I wanted more character relationships because partially I loved them and they were great and I could always use more of them on the page, especially Lockhaven's I, I
Sara 28:37
Yeah, I, so I think for me, there were a couple of scenes where Kyrion is trying to investigate this mystery at the orders of, you know, the, the people who stole his son. And it, it does serve... Like, those scenes serve a point in the sense that they show Kyrion is trying to do what the kidnappers wanted and he's having troubles and he's, you know, struggling, but they don't do much more than that.
Lilly 29:16
Exactly. There's o- there's only one thing happening.
Sara 29:19
Yeah, so, so they feel like, you know, you didn't need all of those. They, they kind of belabor the point
Lilly 29:29
Yeah. And I, that might be that I was personally, again, more invested in the, the character relationships than the actual mystery itself. And so the scenes that were just about the mystery, I was like, But what about their marriage?"
Sara 29:47
I liked the mystery. Like, I was invested in the mystery, so I don't think it was just that. But but I do think that there were enough of that kind of scene that it was... I felt a little oversaturated sometimes. It was-- It felt kind of like an action scene for the sake of having an action scene
Lilly 30:07
It, they should have been doing double duty. Like
Sara 30:10
Which, and again, I still really enjoyed the book.
Lilly 30:13
But it was when all of those threads came together that I was like locked in.
Sara 30:18
Yes
Lilly 30:19
And so I think we could've had those threads more together from the beginning. I-- Really we're just talking around the spoiler section because there's-- This is a mystery book. I'm not gonna spoil the mystery for you. But
Sara 30:36
It's hard to talk about a mystery book
Lilly 30:38
He really is. So I think let's jump on over there Who should read this book?
Sara 30:46
I think that if you want a novel with complex characters, kind of everyone's kind of morally gray. There's,
Lilly 30:58
Morally gray feels like a soundbite cop-out for how truly human all of these
Sara 31:04
Yes. Yes. There's not... I mean, yes, there are, there are people who are more wrong than others, but it's, there's always some kind of, like, gray area nuance, and Lockhaven is really, really good at that kind of character work and character development. So if that's something you enjoy, I think you will enjoy this book
Lilly 31:27
Yeah, this is not a good guy defeats the bad guy, like And I, I'm gonna circle back to Look at me using meeting jargon. Ugh, that means I've been doing too much work and not enough podcasting. And we can continue this conversation offline. But when we were talking about how it does have a lot of the, the ethos of the, the classic fantasy, but it does so much more with the characters, with the relationships. The, the, I mean, frankly, it's a kid getting kidnapped and not a woman. Amazing. It could have very easily been Akali as the damsel in distress
Sara 32:19
Yes, it could have
Lilly 32:21
But instead we get, like, really thoughtful characters, really deep interpersonal relationships. It And then none of the lazy stereotypes that I think you can get in some older classic fantasy. So if, if you remember those fondly but are maybe tired of sexist and racist tropes, I think this book does a really good job of staying very sincere and human and thoughtful
Sara 33:06
this episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Solstitia
Lilly 33:10
That's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way
Sara 33:17
PDF and EPUB versions can be purchased on our website, and Patreon supporters of all levels get free digital copies
Lilly 33:24
You can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fictionfanspod. Thank you for your support
Sara 33:31
The remainder of this episode contains spoilers
Lilly 33:38
Speaking of our personal experiences affecting the way we interact with fiction, this probably says a lot about me as a person, but I was so ready for the king to be the bad guy. Of course the king is the bad guy. Of course the rebellion are the good guys. That's just how it works.
Sara 34:00
Yeah, I was, I was very prepared to be more supportive of the rebellion, but also it's hard to support a rebellion that kidnaps children
Lilly 34:11
Right. Well, I was like, yes, there's gray areas, and that's what it's setting us up for is, you know, the There is no good and bad, but also sometimes you need to, to rebel to change the status quo, and that is, I would say, ultimately where the book landed. I I don't think the book was like, "Yay, royalty, monarchy, woo."
Sara 34:35
No, no, no. The book was very much not doing that. And to be fair, the rebellion does treat Pavi very well. Like they don't, they don't abuse him. They don't mistreat him. He l- he likes the people he's with even if he's been put through this very, like, traumatic experience because they kidnapped him. And it's not just Stockholm syndrome. Like they are, they are genuinely nice to him, yeah.
Lilly 34:58
The book does do the, the thing where like, hey, the rebellion probably has a point. But I expected, and I mean, and this is just part- partly me bringing my, my shit to the book, and partly I think typical structure where, oh, the king is set up as being kind of a good guy, but then we're gonna find out he's actually awful. And oh, the rebellion is set up as kind of gray, but then we're gonna find out but that they're actually really great. Like, they both are truly, truly complicated sides to this conflict. I, I don't think you end up going Well, it's so hard. The king is... Not the king. Actually, maybe this is what I'm trying to say. Hmm, I figured it out. It's not King Varene, it's the system that's the problem. And then the other side of that problem is that, but there are real human consequences to changing that system
Sara 36:03
Yes. I, I do think that that is part of it. King Varrin also, like, genuinely believes that he needs to uphold the system and keep himself in power, and that's the best thing
Lilly 36:17
Yeah, but like Kyrion says, it's really easy to say, "No, no, but it's better for everyone if I'm the best."
Sara 36:24
Yeah. I mean, but, but that, that goes back to the point that we were talking about in the non-spoiler section about the corruption of power, right? And, and how when you're at the top, you start to think that everything you do to keep yourself at the top is for the, you know, the betterment of mankind or society or whatever. Like, you are doing the
Lilly 36:45
easy to justify the suffering of others for the greater good
Sara 36:49
Yes. And the thing that I really a- appreciated about Verrin, I hated him, but what I really appreciated was that he's genuinely a good father. Like, he wants, he wants his daughter Sabi to be happy and successful and not have to live the life that he has lived. And he genuinely wants the best for Kyrion. Like, like he's genuinely Kyrion's friend, albeit a kind of heavy-handed one. But I was... I went through the whole book expecting there to be some twist in their friendship, and there wasn't, and that was great.
Lilly 37:32
Mm, okay. I'm right there with you The king kidnaps Kyrion's childhood friends and scoops out their eyeballs.
Sara 37:41
I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that he is a good friend or a, or not a self-serving friend or a good person.
Lilly 37:51
Right. But he, he sincerely likes Kyrion. The-- Okay,
Sara 37:54
likes Kyrion and he sincerely views Kyrion as a friend. He just has some, you know, weird stuff going on
Lilly 38:05
I, this is Wow, stone cold bitch. To me it's more about the lie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Scoop out their eyes, whatever. But the fact that he lied to Kyrion about it is what to me reads as like kind of tarnishes the friendship. That's a crazy thing that just came out of my mouth. Hear me out. It's He's all about like, "I thought I could trust you," while, just straight up going back on a deal he made with Kyrion. And wh- which was, "If you come and work for me, your friends can go and live their lives, uh, unmolested back, you know, back at home." And this was in a flashback. This was, is long before the events of the book And the fact that that has then built their entire relationship on this fundamental lie that theoretically Kyrion is only there because it means his friends went unharmed while they were all prisoners of war kind of poisons the whole thing. And I think I would be less mad about it, again, crazy thing to say If Kyrion actually confronted the king about it at all.
Sara 39:29
I don't disagree with you. I do think that, and this is also going to be stone cold bitch crazy statement I do think that Varrain gets a little leeway because he made s- this decision years ago before, before they were really friends. And it's hard to come clean to your friend and say, "Hey so you know that deal we made that you think that I've been honoring this entire time? Actually, your friends had their eyeballs scooped out and they're shoveling dragon shit."
Lilly 40:04
It, I it's great because it shows how othered both Verraine and Kirion have become. Like, they clearly see themselves as more important people than the rest of everybody, because otherwise this would not be such a trivial thing.
Sara 40:27
Ja
Lilly 40:28
I think that is why us talking about it from their perspective makes us sound absolutely bonkers.
Sara 40:34
Yeah. I like... It is, it should not be a trivial thing. it, it is a terrible, terrible thing. But I do also genuinely think that Varrin, because of his position and because of, of how he views himself, I do think that he's like, "Oh, this is no big deal. We're s- we can be friends even though I'm lying to you about this very fundamental thing." And, and think that genuinely
Lilly 41:06
Yes, he is sincere. I agree with you It's also interesting, Kyrion struggles with, at some point he chooses to save his own life instead of their lives, during the sort of climactic I'm still gonna be a little This, this episode is coming out so close to the book's release. This is the spoiler section, but also there are big chaotic events, and he knows that if he goes back to save them, like he probably A, wouldn't be able to, and B, would just get killed. So he chooses to go find his family instead. And that gets struggled with and thought about and considered in a way that the king's betrayal does not. And I just wanted to shake Kyrion and go, "Dude." it, when I think it's just they have this confrontation about like, "I thought I could trust you," and Kyrion chooses to not throw that in his face. He's just like, "That D- dude, you should."
Sara 42:12
I, I do, I w- I would have liked to see Kyrion bring that up a little more.
Lilly 42:18
Bring it up a little bit. Speaking of, of me being who I am the second you hear about a witch in the mountains stealing and sacrificing children, I was like, "Queen! I love her. I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure she's in the right."
Sara 42:38
I would've liked to see more of her. It wouldn't have furthered the plot, but there was clearly something interesting going on there.
Lilly 42:44
Well, if the source of magic is dragon's blood, how does she have magic?
Sara 42:49
Yes
Lilly 42:50
I have a lot of questions. Also big spoiler there, but we're in the spoiler section. We already warned you
Sara 42:58
We did
Lilly 42:59
I was right. Well, you don't, we don't really see enough of her to know that I was right all along, but I'm choosing to believe I was right all along.
Sara 43:08
Right all along about what?
Lilly 43:10
The queen the queen, psh, the witch actually being the best
Sara 43:14
Yeah. I mean, I... She does have a bad end
Lilly 43:20
Yeah. Well, yeah, but that's tragic. She's a tragic hero. It-- I just wanted to make fun of myself for going, "Oh, a woman on the edge of society who is rumored to be stealing children? Probably a good guy."
Sara 43:36
She probably was a good guy though, to be, to be fair
Lilly 43:39
All we know about her is that the king uses her for propaganda. We don't know how much is real, and I am fully just assuming that everything bad is a lie. I'm sure it's not,
Sara 43:55
they say that one child went missing around her? Like, that's not a lie, but whether or not it had anything to do with her is kind of up in the air.
Lilly 44:05
Right. That, like,
Sara 44:06
Yeah. And the king, like you said, uses her as propaganda and kind of fans the flames of those rumors
Lilly 44:13
Yeah And so even then, like, is that true? Or did he just choose to not investigate further to find out the real truth because it's convenient if she's blamed?
Sara 44:23
Ja
Lilly 44:24
But similarly any rebelli- rebellion is obviously the good guys. Any witch is obviously the good guy. And Lockhaven does mess with me a little bit in that way, but we don't learn enough about the witch to know either way, so I'm assuming I'm right
Sara 44:42
it's true. Speaking of badass ladies, I did wanna know more about both the queen and Lady Bontial, who are again kind of in that, that gray area of antagonist.
Lilly 44:57
I think Bontial is probably the only character who's actually not?
Sara 45:03
We, we think for a long time that she is because she
Lilly 45:06
She is working with the queen, who is probably the closest to a bad guy that we have
Sara 45:12
Yes. We, we learn that it's the queen who had Pavi kidnapped and has been pulling the strings this entire time because she wants to overthrow King Varrayn because she thinks that he's terrible for the country. He's a despot and doing bad things, which to be fair, I mean, he kind of is
Lilly 45:31
Yeah, and, you know, also torturing a sentient creature for powers.
Sara 45:36
Which his entire line has done for a long time
Lilly 45:40
And that, like, that's the thing, right? Like, the system is bad. He's not necessarily the worst king, but he is the current king in a bad system, and so must be... If you're gonna overthrow the system, he is going to have consequences. At one point a whole neighborhood gets crushed and it doesn't get gone into farther than that, and I'm like, "Ooh, I feel like, hmm, you set me up to really notice this and care about it, and are making me do all of the work." See, there we go. That's... He didn't put it right on the page and now I'm like, "But maybe you should have." So that's probably on me.
Sara 46:15
That might be on you just a little bit right there
Lilly 46:18
He, I, like, in this conversation I was like, "Oh, the whole point of this book is, is the human consequences and so you've set me up to notice it, so thanks."
Sara 46:29
But we do mostly get the queen and Lady Bontial as kind of secondary characters, as, as tangential to what's going on because we don't learn until the end of the novel that the queen was the one pulling the strings. And we don't learn until after that, that Lady Bontial didn't realize that the queen was going to go back on her agreement about Pavi. So I would've liked to see them developed a little bit more just because they were really interesting characters.
Lilly 47:01
Does, does Bonteel even say she didn't know about the kidnapping at all? I mean, she found out about it after the fact, I thought. Like, she didn't know it was the plan.
Sara 47:10
knew about the kidnapping, but she didn't know that the plan was once Kyrion had figured out what the source of the king's magic was that the queen would go back on her word to give Pavi back
Lilly 47:25
Yeah. The queen's motivations are fine with me. Yes, always overthrow the monarchy. Like, what are you waiting for? Oh no, a whole neighborhood gets crushed. Sucks to be a poor person in a fantasy novel But the way she goes about it feels very circuitous. I'm not totally like Well, it's not how I would've done it anyway
Sara 47:55
I'm not convinced it's effective
Lilly 47:57
Except for how it is.
Sara 47:59
except for how it is, but that's kind of circumstantial. And it wouldn't... The fact that, that it's not effective, I think would've been fine if we had seen more of the queen, because
Lilly 48:10
Mm-hmm
Sara 48:10
people are flawed and they can make flawed plans. But we don't see enough of her to kind of get that
Lilly 48:20
Yeah. It I have to say, it feels like her entire evil scheme is all about Kyrion's character development more than it is about attaining her end.
Sara 48:34
A, a little bit. And again, I...
Lilly 48:38
A little bit
Sara 48:39
Yeah, a little bit. And again, I think that that would've been, Nah, what's the word I'm looking for? I, I think that would've been less of an issue if her character had been developed a little bit more
Lilly 48:52
Like with Acolyte, it's very easy to write off a character that you don't get their interior like thought processes and
Sara 49:03
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, the queen gets so little screen time that I- it's... She's kind of a black box in terms of motivation. I mean, we know her motivations, but her f- her feelings and her thought process and all of that is, is very much not evident
Lilly 49:22
So very close to the end of this book, we get the dragon. Not that Lockhaven is obligated to put a dragon in every book, except that he legally is
Sara 49:35
I will not lie, I did kind of want the dragon to be the Xoth Avorex just so this was part of like the Xoth Avorex's extended multiverse. But then the dragon dies, so I was glad that it wasn't Xoth Avorex.
Lilly 49:50
That was so sad. Oh, you get the, like, triumphant dragon breaking free from its shackles just to pass away was, mm. It, it was emotional
Sara 50:03
It was emotional. Yeah. It was, that was a good scene
Lilly 50:08
It was. The reveal that the king gets his magical powers by sedating and torturing a dragon was really dark. That was also part of the Kyrian's childhood friends have had their eyeballs scooped out and been enslaved. Like that, that all kind of came out at once, and did feel tonally like a huge shift
Sara 50:35
I don't know if it felt tonally like that big of a shift for me because the whole book has been pretty... It's not grim dark necessarily, but it's... From the beginning, it was obvious that it was a pretty shitty world,
Lilly 50:50
I, I guess there's talk about like, "Oh, is he, is he sacrificing children?" But I think that was so conceptual versus seeing the misery on the page
Sara 51:05
I see what you're saying. I still think that it felt, for me, in line with the tone of the, of the rest of the book
Lilly 51:13
That's fair. It might be that I read the first roughly half of the book and then had a bit of a break and then read the second half
Sara 51:22
Mmm
Lilly 51:24
And that might have affected the way I approached that. And all right, not mother of the year. Not even in the running. Kidnapping a kid is fine. That's not that bad. Not as an action, but as, you know, like a, a plot line in the novel. That's not that dark.
Sara 51:45
It, the, it's not that dark. It actually was not the, the child kidnapping that I was referring to
Lilly 51:52
So you agree with me? That's
Sara 51:54
Yeah, that's fine. But no, just for, for me tonally, the, the system and the, the ways in which society are described in the book and like the city and all of that, it, it didn't feel like a huge shift to go from any of that to there is this poor dragon that has been kept drugged and sedated and tortured in a cave for the last however many decades or
Lilly 52:30
Hundreds of years, I
Sara 52:31
Yeah. it, it just, it felt like an extension of the darkness of the world rather than, something outside of it.
Lilly 52:41
Fair enough. And we did have the night flower scenes, which was a, mm, what, what you call it? Oh, heroin-type drug, and we get some opium den, opium den-esque locations
Sara 53:01
And there have been drug overdose deaths and things like that, so
Lilly 53:05
Yeah. So it like, maybe something about that just felt so real world, and then you get the sort of high fantasy, I'm just gonna say it again, eyeballs scooped out of it all that is much less not that no one on Earth has ever had their eyeballs scooped out, but, dr- struggles with drug addiction and overdose feels much more grounded And so that almost felt like not fantasy at all, even though night flower's not a real thing
Sara 53:39
That's fair. I, like, I, I see what you're saying. I still think that even, even though the struggles were different and, you know, that drug addiction is something that you come up against way more often in the real world than eyeballs getting scooped out,
Lilly 53:58
Maybe that's just my desensitization to it
Sara 54:01
yeah, it, it didn't feel like, a, a huge leap or, or a huge progression for me. It just felt like, oh yeah, this is yet another way in which this world is very fucked up or this society is fucked up.
Lilly 54:15
And that sort of stomach drop that I felt when confronted with the, the concrete examples of how fucked up the world is, is just, you know, a good reveal.
Sara 54:28
Yeah. It was a good reveal
Lilly 54:31
But the, the dragons and the fact that there was a dragon did not feel out of left field because we, we had heard the legends of dragons and unicorns, et cetera, and they do still have lesser dragons who sound adorable
Sara 54:48
They do still have lesser dragons. The lesser dragons, the entire time I was reading about the lesser dragons, I was thinking about Anne McCaffrey's Pern specifically the YA, uh, Harper Hall trilogy, which follows Menolly. And she, I'm gonna say domesticates. It's not the right word, but it's a stand-in for shorthand for what she does. She domesticates these th- they're fire lizards, which are basically little miniature dragons or dragonets, and they reminded me of the lesser dragons so much. And that was all I could think about when when Lockhaven was describing, describing the lesser dragons.
Lilly 55:29
W- is McCaffrey the psycho one?
Sara 55:32
What do you mean by the psycho one?
Lilly 55:35
Should have been in jail?
Sara 55:36
No.
Lilly 55:37
Okay.
Sara 55:38
No. No. McCaffrey's Pern series, specifically the origin- like the first couple, have some very fucked up sexual dynamics. But she as a, as a person, to the best of my knowledge, was not a predator in the way that some of the authors of that era were.
Lilly 56:00
Okay, cool. Just checking.
Sara 56:02
Yes
Lilly 56:04
but the lesser dragons in Fool were very fun. We see them from the very beginning. They're just kind of part of the whimsical world. It-- the world's not that whimsical. They're, they're a piece of whimsy that I needed when dealing with how fucked up power systems are in today's government and also a fake government. We're not talking about today
Sara 56:30
Yes
Lilly 56:32
And they, they get woven into the story very well. It's not really addressed if they have magic. I kind of wonder if that's where the witch got her magic from
Sara 56:42
Woof Yeah. I don't know. It's, it's not addressed. That is an interesting question.
Lilly 56:48
But they're little cuties, and they help Well, they don't help Acali. They're animals. But Acali uses them to help escape from the kidnappers at one point. It was, it was good. I liked the dragons. All of the dragon was great. He was a red dragon, like Xoth Avorex is. Just throwing that out there.
Sara 57:08
I definitely felt that there were references to Xoth Avorex that you could pick up on if you had read his earlier work. Not, again, that this dragon was Xoth Avorex necessarily and I don't want him
Lilly 57:21
that he should be. That tone shift, like the tragic death scene that's also emotionally gratifying, is not what Zoth Averex ending should be.
Sara 57:34
Yeah, no, like I didn't, I didn't want him to be Zath Avex because he, he dies.
Lilly 57:39
But now all dragons in a Lockhaven novel, I'm gonna ask the question,
Sara 57:45
Averax. Yeah. I, I was kind of thinking, "Are we gonna get Arzoth Averax cameo?"
Lilly 57:50
I- it would not have been right.
Sara 57:53
It would not have been right. It absolutely would not have been right. But that was where my mind went
Lilly 57:58
Definitely. But overall, really solid classic fantasy, fascinating mystery. I loved all of the red herrings and then finding out that they were all like The, the, the use of propaganda by the king I thought was really well done
Sara 58:18
Yeah. And again, like we've talked about all of the character relationships were excellent. Like it's a, it's a good solid book
Lilly 58:27
Kyrion and Acali's marriage and their relationship, I-- to me was definitely the highlight. But I think I'm a little predisposed to that as a reader, and it, it is just one of Lockhaven's core strengths
Sara 58:41
Yeah. I wouldn't call it a highlight for me, but I just, I care about romantic relationships less. Yeah I did like the way that their relationship developed, so it l- it was handled very, very well
Lilly 58:52
I mean, it is romantic, but it didn't-- it wasn't like they were falling in love, which to me is what romance means
Sara 58:59
It, it wasn't a romance story, I
Lilly 59:02
It was more of a partnership than a romance. I mean, they, they are in love.
Sara 59:05
They rekindle, they rekindle their, their relationship.
Lilly 59:10
Oh, yeah. Because...
Sara 59:11
romance.
Lilly 59:12
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.
Sara 59:19
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans
Lilly 59:23
Come disagree with us. We are on Blue Sky and Instagram at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube
Sara 59:34
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live
Lilly 59:42
We also have a Patreon where you can usually support us and find exclusive episodes and other nonsense, although we are currently on a brief hiatus
Sara 59:53
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.
Lilly 59:57
Bye.
