No One to Hold the Distant Dead by K.L. Schroeder
- Fiction Fans
- 5 hours ago
- 23 min read
Episode 219
Release Date: Dec 17, 2025
Your hosts read No One to Hold the Distant Dead by K.L. Schroeder. They discuss the somber nature of the novella, the use of “likes animals” as a shorthand for “good character,” and debate if it has an optimistic ending.
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: 0:03
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,
Sara: 0:09
And I'm Sarah, and today we will be talking about no one to hold the distant dead by KL Schroeder.
Lilly: 0:17
but first we have our quick five minute introduction. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently? I.
Sara: 0:23
I went out to a fancy dinner with some friends on Wednesday, and it was lovely.
Lilly: 0:29
Oh, nice. What kind of fancy dinner?
Sara: 0:31
So it was Chez Panis?
Lilly: 0:33
Oh, you did? You
Sara: 0:34
Yeah. Yeah,
Lilly: 0:36
it awesome?
Sara: 0:37
it was awesome. It was really worth going to. Not something that I would do very often
Lilly: 0:43
Fair.
Sara: 0:44
it is expensive. I have a friend who really enjoys going out to fancy restaurants and he's got like a list of all of the restaurants in the area that he wants to go to, and Chez Panis was on it. So, he invited me and a couple of other people to. To go with them. And it was, yeah, it was, it was great. The food was fantastic. The service was really nice. It was not fussy. Like it didn't, it didn't feel pretentious. It felt cozy.
Lilly: 1:15
That was before you saw the price tag, I'm sure.
Sara: 1:17
Well, no, I mean, I, I knew what the price tag was in advance because it's a set menu. So I knew what I was getting into. But it still didn't feel pretentious.
Lilly: 1:27
My good thing is on a very different vibe as yours. We're just gonna do it anyway. It's more of a funny story in retrospect. My cat pooped so smelly that it woke us up on the other side of the house.
Sara: 1:45
Oh, wow.
Lilly: 1:47
At the time, I was very annoyed. So that's not really like a good, good thing. But then by the time I, it was like the, actually, the next day, I was like, wait, this is hilarious.
Sara: 1:56
That is actually hilarious. Yes.
Lilly: 2:00
like both got out of bed and we're looking around like, did a cat poop in our bedroom. it was so strong, but no. And well, Sarah, you know, the cat litter box is on the opposite end of the house.
Sara: 2:13
It
Lilly: 2:14
it is not near the bedroom.
Sara: 2:16
No,
Lilly: 2:17
So we hunted down our two air purifiers and turned them both on full blast, one near the litter box and one in our bedroom, and eventually made it back to sleep, but it was just impressive.
Sara: 2:31
that is quite astonishing.
Lilly: 2:33
Yeah, we're blaming it on Bard. I'm like 99% sure that was the culprit or he, he was the cat who was the culprit. So anyway. Being not slandered, but uh, embarrassed publicly online for everyone to hear.
Sara: 2:49
public shaming.
Lilly: 2:50
Yeah. So yeah, maybe I'm stretching the definition of something good, but like I said, by the next day I was like, this was really funny.
Sara: 2:59
Yes,
Lilly: 3:00
in the moment, no, not so much. What are you drinking tonight?
Sara: 3:04
I am going to be hosting the family holiday party. And in preparation for that, I am investigating non-alcoholic options because we have a couple of family members who don't drink and it's also good to have for drivers, et cetera, et cetera. So I am drinking a non-alcoholic sparkling rose, which is, I don't know if I would say that it really tastes that much like sparkling rose, but it's not bad.
Lilly: 3:32
A resounding compliment.
Sara: 3:36
I mean,
Lilly: 3:37
I hear you talk about these non-alcoholic wines, like why would anyone choose that over just the delightful punch you're going to make?
Sara: 3:44
well, because you, so, the punch requires or doesn't require, but like you add something bubbly to it, and this would be a great option to add for, for the non-drinkers.
Lilly: 3:56
Alright. I am drinking Sleepy Time Herbal tea because this is an herbal tea book. I know you're not a big herbal tea fan, but like it's the right, it's the right tone.
Sara: 4:11
Yeah, I think it probably is. I mean, they, they do drink some non-specified hard alcohol hard liquor at one point
Lilly: 4:21
It sounded like Fett because it was also very herbal. I think they even used the word licorice to describe it. yes, that's true. But like, I don't know, this didn't feel like a sip on alcohol drink. This was like, I want something warm and comforting.
Sara: 4:36
I mean, you kind of need it to get through the story, which is not particularly warm and comforting.
Lilly: 4:42
No, I almost, yeah. Made a, a mixed soda type thing, but I was like, I can't, that is the incorrect beverage. it's not sad. Exactly. But somber not in a give me a glass of whiskey way, but in a, I need a warm hug kind of way.
Sara: 5:01
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Lilly: 5:04
Have you read anything extracurricular lately?
Sara: 5:07
I haven't actually started it, but a bunch of friends are currently reading for whom The bell tolls by and Bell as in B-E-L-L-E by Jia Lynn, I think is the last name. And so I'm gonna start that. They seem to be having a great time so far. I don't know what it's, I'm not going in entirely blind, but I'm basically going in blind. All I know is it's a book they really like.
Lilly: 5:36
All right. I have been reading fan fiction. I read one recently that I'm not going to name because I'm going to complain about it. The fan fiction author, gender bent characters, which is fine. Well, it can be done very poorly, but was done quite well in this case, I thought as far as characterization went,
Sara: 5:59
Mm-hmm.
Lilly: 5:59
however, the author could not keep pronouns straight, so it was already confusing enough
Sara: 6:06
Oh no.
Lilly: 6:07
instead of two male characters, it was a male and a female character. But then also like half of the time. The female character who was originally written as male, got referred to as he and then a couple of times, the male character, who was always a male character, was referred to as she, so basically at any point, in the story, I had to use context clues for now. Which one of these characters do I think would do that here?
Sara: 6:34
That does sound very frustrating and somewhat difficult.
Lilly: 6:39
I mean, I will admit that my standards are lower for fan fiction and that really worked in this author's favor.
Sara: 6:46
I mean, did you, did you continue reading the story?
Lilly: 6:49
Oh yeah, I, I read everything that has been written at this point. And like I said, the characterization was quite well done, which just made it even worse in a way.
Sara: 7:00
Yeah, because when the characterization is that good, you also kind of want the, I'm gonna say writing quality, which is not really the right word, but
Lilly: 7:09
needed a proofreader, like really bad.
Sara: 7:12
yeah.
Lilly: 7:13
And that's exactly the kind of thing that I'm not gonna quibble on fan fiction. Like I'm not gonna quibble over when it comes to fan fiction, but damn, did it affect my reading experience?
Sara: 7:25
Yeah.
Lilly: 7:26
Alright, well of course this is the time that our intro took more than five minutes. It usually doesn't. It averages out to about five minutes overall. But anyway, no one to hold the distant dead.
Sara: 7:38
this book was good. It's a novella, it's short. And I was glad of that because it, like, I don't know if I was just in the wrong head space for it, but it was not for me.
Lilly: 7:50
I think this is definitely a book like Vibe Readers beware if you're not, yeah, it's heavy.
Sara: 7:58
it's, yeah, it's, it's very heavy.
Lilly: 8:01
My very first note was fun version of space travel, and then I cross it out and wrote, not fun. Nothing about this book is quote unquote fun.
Sara: 8:12
No, it's a cool version of space travel.
Lilly: 8:15
that, there we go. That's the thing. So it starts with the main character, Inga, waking up on this distant planet that she has traveled to, but the way very distant space travel. Well, it sounds like there are also arc ships or whatever,
Sara: 8:31
Yes, there, there definitely are arc ships, but you can essentially beam your consciousness into a new body. It, it's new technology. I think she's only the eighth or 11th person who's undergone this kind of transfer. And it's a permanent thing. You can only be beamed once, so you can't be zipping back and forth. It's not for tourism.
Lilly: 8:53
Right. which was very cool, and I was like, awesome. Like already engaged from page one. But this book is very somber. I think really that's like the right word for this, for the tone for this book.
Sara: 9:07
It deals with a lot of heavy themes.
Lilly: 9:09
Yeah, the new body that has been printed for Inga is defective, and we find out that there were issues in the transfer of her brain as well. So she has to deal with a lot of mental and physical side effects of that, that, she was not expecting, that she was not, I mean, technically we're a possibility, but no one expects to have the worst case scenario happen to them. Right.
Sara: 9:34
Especially because none of the previous transfers had these problems.
Lilly: 9:39
Yeah. Although one outta 12 ain't bad or is bad, I don't know.
Sara: 9:44
it's still very, very new technology. So, they are doing pretty good, but even when you know that something is a possibility, if all of the subjects before you have been fine, you kind of expect that you'll be fine too.
Lilly: 9:58
She also has to deal with, I mean, it's not her body, right? And it wasn't printed correctly'cause it's supposed to look similar to her original self. But she has to deal with that as well, like not identifying with her own person and. That's, I wouldn't say as like a major theme through the novel, but that's definitely sort of how her situation is introduced is, is having to come to terms with this.
Sara: 10:26
she does grapple with it the entire time.
Lilly: 10:29
that's true. I, it kind of turns from, this doesn't feel right and isn't me to. Oh God, I'm dying. Which is, yeah, from the same from the same reason, but kind of a different scale of
Sara: 10:45
The, the worry morphs a little bit as she learns more about what exactly has happened to her. I.
Lilly: 10:50
Yeah. There's also quite a bit of. Not post apocalypse, it's not an apocalypse, but climate collapse on both earth and this planet. Oh, what is the norden mark?
Sara: 11:02
Yes.
Lilly: 11:03
And that is sort of more of the central theme, I would say, just the kind of overall decay. It almost feels like the fall of the house of Usher, but for the whole human race.
Sara: 11:14
I've not read the fall of the House of Usher, so I can't speak to that comparison.
Lilly: 11:19
Really,
Sara: 11:20
Mm-hmm.
Lilly: 11:21
I don't think you'd like it, but it's a short story, so it's like might as well.
Sara: 11:25
Yeah, I mean, I, I just haven't read it.
Lilly: 11:29
It's just the, the vibes of decay, really. That's it. I already said decay, and then I pulled a literary reference out of my ass to sound fancy, but I was just saying the same thing twice.
Sara: 11:40
Well, it probably is an apt comparison because there is, there is a whole heck of a lot of decay in this book.
Lilly: 11:46
Yeah. She's originally was supposed to come to Norden Mark to help establish the animal ecosystem of this terraformed planet, but during the year that she was in transit, the entire ecosystem collapsed and everything is going extinct. Hooray.
Sara: 12:06
Well, I, I thought that, she was like, she knew that they were having problems, but in the year that she was in transit, the problems got a whole heck of a lot worse.
Lilly: 12:17
Yeah, she, she was a biologist and when she left it was to fix the problem, and by the time she got there, it was just to document the remainder, the remaining,
Sara: 12:27
Yeah. The, the problem was not at that point, not really fixable.
Lilly: 12:32
yeah. So she, she's from Canada on Earth and she keeps talking about the cold deserts there. And for a second I did think, is there a desert in Canada that I don't know about? No, that, that's the point. Climate change.
Sara: 12:47
that's just Schroeder Bing making a point.
Lilly: 12:51
Yeah. Not being an expert on Canada. I was not tricked exactly, but it didn't take me a second to go. Hold on. I was like, wait, is that the east coast or the west coast? What the, what? No.
Sara: 13:04
No, it's the, it's the middle of Canada.
Lilly: 13:07
Well, you mean the whole rest of the country? Anyway, no, that, that was just to illustrate the dramatic climate change that is happening on earth.
Sara: 13:17
Which we don't hear much of, but I, I did like the way that those kind of nuggets were just dropped in.
Lilly: 13:23
oh yeah, absolutely. And it, also sets up why Norden Mark was important, right? It's, it's one of two, that we hear about,
Sara: 13:32
there are at least two, there might have been a third one.
Lilly: 13:35
but certainly not hundreds, like as far as the scale goes.
Sara: 13:38
Yeah, and obviously, I mean, Norden Mark is having severe problems, so not necessarily all super successful. I think the other main one that we've, that we hear about, I do get the impression or I did get the impression that it was pretty stable and doing quite well.
Lilly: 13:57
That's what the characters thought anyway, but I also kind of felt like that could have been misinformation.
Sara: 14:04
It could have been, but there is still communication between Earth and Norden Mark and presumably between Norden Mark and this other planet, which started with an R, but I can't remember the name.
Lilly: 14:17
Isha, I think
Sara: 14:18
Some something like that.
Lilly: 14:20
but these human, not outposts, there's a word.
Sara: 14:26
Terraformed Planets. I, they are terraformed, but they are planets.
Lilly: 14:32
Satellites, it's not quite right. It, it is set up that these are very important because earth itself is also dying. I say also Earth was dying and now nor did Mark is kind of failing to thrive. But overall, I thought the pacing of information was very well handled.
Sara: 14:50
Yeah, I, I think that the pacing was pretty good. I did feel like, I don't know, it didn't necessarily always keep my interest, but again, that might've just been because it's a really heavy novella and I just was not in the right head space for it.
Lilly: 15:11
Yeah, I definitely meandered my way through this book. I think it took me, three or four times longer to read it than you said it took you. But that's just because I was picking it up, reading a couple pages and putting it back down, which is not my usual reading style. But worked quite well. I think. I didn't get overwhelmed with all of the sad that way. So it like worked for, in this case at least. But I definitely had questions. like I said, Inga transmits herself to this new planet. Of course, your first question is, well, what happened to her on earth? Right? You do eventually find that out. And why was her transmission messed up? And, very important questions. Why are all of the animals on Northern Mark dying? These, like I'd say, critical pieces of world building almost felt like mysteries. Just by the way, Schroeder dropped hints and nuggets of information. Throughout the novella, so whenever I encountered a new one, it felt fun instead of frustrating.
Sara: 16:18
Yeah, I mean, I, I do like, and I, I think that Schroeder did this very well. The way that we do get answers for the questions, there's nothing left hanging in that sense. I mean, there are a couple of questions that I had at the end of the book that didn't get answered, but they weren't supposed to.
Lilly: 16:38
Yeah.
Sara: 16:39
Whereas all of these really pertinent questions about what was going on, we do learn over the course of the story what's going on.
Lilly: 16:49
I even made a note that at the time I felt petty riding, which for me is a, is a high bar, but Inga finds a lizard that had like crept into and been living in the apartment that she gets and names it Hete, which was great. Fantastic. I loved Hete so much. Like, oh my goodness. Favorite character. But then later she stumbles across an onk symbol and has to ask what that is. And I was like, how the hell do you know Heti, but not what an onk is? Like, you don't even recognize the symbol. And then on the same page, the other character asks the same question, and I was like, oh. I think that was the point where I, I thought to myself, okay, I can, note my questions'cause I'm gonna talk to a podcast on this novela later, but I can calm down.
Sara: 17:45
Yeah,
Lilly: 17:45
The answers will come
Sara: 17:47
it was a good sign that Schroeder was not gonna leave you hanging.
Lilly: 17:51
because that kind of thing. Is not critical and could be explained with, yes, this character is very, very deep in Greek mythology, but knows not even the most basic of pop culture for Egypt, Egypt. Like technically possible, unlikely, but you know, that could have been the answer and it wasn't, and that, felt really, really satisfying.
Sara: 18:16
Yeah, there was no easy answer. Like none of the answers were the easy way out.
Lilly: 18:22
Right. I really loved hee tea though. I don't know why. Just this like lizard hanging out in her apartment charmed me so immediately,
Sara: 18:32
I did like Hacket tea. Hacket Tea was cute. I mean, who doesn't love an animal companion?
Lilly: 18:37
Right. And like she's just, she's a lizard. She's a regular ass lizard. She's just hanging out. But Inga talks to her the way everyone talks to their pets. Right. Which was also very charming.
Sara: 18:50
and Inga also really needs the company at that point. So.
Lilly: 18:54
Oh, very much so. It's also a very convenient shorthand for this character is a nice dude. Gender neutral. Because. He tea find, sorry. Inga finds hee tea. You can tell who I was most invested in very early on in the n novella. And so that's part of your introduction to her is how she finds this lizard and is immediately like, you need water, you're dehydrated. Let me take care of you. Like not even just kindly scooting the lizard outside like I would do with a spider or something, but. I have found this lizard and I will defend her with my life. It was great.
Sara: 19:32
Very actively trying to care for the lizard. And it does, we do see a couple of characters or one character who is very much not nice to animals, so it, it does. Really get used as a shorthand for who you should root for in this story.
Lilly: 19:49
Amit is the planet's veterinarian, or I guess there's probably more than one on the whole planet. Maybe not. Colony is the word I was looking for earlier,
Sara: 19:59
Yes, colony.
Lilly: 20:01
and his introduction is Inga stumbles into the laboratory and he goes, let me help you with that lizard. And I was like, great. I love you too.
Sara: 20:11
He was great. I really liked him. I think he was probably my favorite character.
Lilly: 20:15
Well, Ty,
Sara: 20:17
Well, but human character,
Lilly: 20:19
fine character with dialogue. Yeah, I think me too, probably. But it also didn't feel cheesy because like their professional careers are about stabilizing the, the ecosystem on this planet. So them wanting to care for the animals that they find was like, well, of course. Of course they do. That's their whole point.
Sara: 20:42
I mean, you would've kind of wondered why they were in that career or profession if they didn't like animals.
Lilly: 20:49
Well, yeah, I was, I meant the other direction of characters whose all of their character development is. You should like them because they're nice to animals can get cheesy, but because that was also related to the plot, I was like, okay, this is fine. There is a ton of mythology, like across various cultures, mostly surrounding death in the afterlife, but it was all, if not all, the 99% of it was also explained on the page. Like you didn't need to be familiar with any of it.
Sara: 21:23
No, you, you don't need to have any kind of mythological knowledge. I think, because essentially like Inga and Ahmed are just going through a book picking and choosing like death rights that they like, or death gods. Yeah,
Lilly: 21:39
It's, it's their way of coping with the sort of awful death spin that this planet is in.
Sara: 21:47
yeah. With all of the devastation that they're saying. Which must be just really, truly horrendously hard to to deal with, especially when you want to fix it, but you can't.
Lilly: 22:01
And when you are the one in a position who could fix it, right? It's not just they were walking down the street and saw a sad lizard. It's like it was literally their job to fix it. And it was a struggle, guys. I mean, as much as I liked Amit, pretty much all of the characters in this were quite likable.
Sara: 22:22
There was one character I very much did not care for.
Lilly: 22:26
Well, there's one who I would call a borderline villain. Not that he's on the page very long, but.
Sara: 22:32
No, I didn't like him either, but I didn't much enjoy the bartender.
Lilly: 22:38
No, we are gonna talk about her more in the spoiler section, I think.'cause I agree with you. I guess really, I'm just thinking of Eva, who was the doctor kind of managing Inga after her transfer. When she finds out that earth botched the transmission, she, her reaction just felt very sincere and I appreciated it.
Sara: 23:00
Yeah, I, I liked Eva. She seemed like a very genuine, kind, and compassionate person.
Lilly: 23:08
yeah. Overall, it's not like this book is stressful necessarily, and it's not. We'll have to talk about if we think it's optimistic or pessimistic in the spoiler section. I think it rides that line.
Sara: 23:22
Yeah.
Lilly: 23:24
It's somber. It's, that's the word, I think.
Sara: 23:27
Yeah, it's just heavy. It's heavy.
Lilly: 23:30
Mm-hmm. Sober, not in the alcohol sense. So before we get to the spoiler section, then Sarah, who should read this book?
Sara: 23:40
You should read this book. If you are in the mood for a thoughtful sci-fi novella that deals with essentially the end of all things.
Lilly: 23:51
Yep.
Sara: 23:52
I mean, I guess it's not the end of the universe, it's just the kind of the decline of the, of the planet, but
Lilly: 23:59
Mm-hmm.
Sara: 24:00
end of all things on the planet.
Lilly: 24:02
On, on both a personal and massive scale at the same time,
Sara: 24:08
Yeah,
Lilly: 24:13
this episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by fiction fans.
Sara: 24:16
That's us. We really appreciate our patrons because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.
Lilly: 24:23
Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and they have free access to our biannual zine, Tia.
Sara: 24:32
You can find all of that and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.
Lilly: 24:39
The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.
Sara: 24:46
So Callie,
Lilly: 24:48
Yeah, I could not stand her.
Sara: 24:51
no, and I, I also didn't think that she did anything for the story. Like it would be one thing if I didn't like her, but she had a point. But she doesn't do, she doesn't do anything story-wise.
Lilly: 25:05
I think she provides a viewpoint that death is not a negative, right? She's the death is the natural state that all living things go towards. And so. It is not like you're struggling against mass extinction on a planet that you terraformed like the living beings aren't supposed to be here in the first place. I, I thought that that was a valuable counterpoint. I'm glad that it wasn't on the page too much, but I do think it needed to be addressed. I just found her mannerisms, so grating.
Sara: 25:44
Yeah, I mean, I, I suppose that viewpoint was valuable. And it is a good counterpoint and I think it, it does, you're right that it does set the stage for. Kind of the turn at the very end of the story where they essentially say, yeah, we can't do anything, but we'll try to, you know, have, have these artificial animals who will hold things at bay, basically. she
Lilly: 26:10
was the kind of like the, why are you fighting so hard for a losing fight? Someone had to ask the question.
Sara: 26:18
I suppose that's fair. But she just. Yeah. grating. I just couldn't stand her.
Lilly: 26:25
It like, she almost gave me manic, pixie dream girl, but goth, edgy, manic, pixie, dream girl.
Sara: 26:34
Yeah.
Lilly: 26:34
Every time she was described as having dark fire in her eyes, I was like, gag me.
Sara: 26:40
I just, she didn't, she didn't need to be so, um. I dunno. Out there.
Lilly: 26:45
Her energy did not fit with the rest of the novel, I
Sara: 26:48
Yeah. Yeah.
Lilly: 26:50
and. Yeah, it felt like she was supposed to be charming, like offbeat and quirky, and it did not land that way for me.
Sara: 26:57
No. Nor for me.
Lilly: 26:59
Where versus the scientist who was poisoning animals to quote, put them out of their misery. He was just a bad guy
Sara: 27:08
Oh, he was terrible. Yeah.
Lilly: 27:09
that. That was like the book said, hate him. And I was like, I, I captain. That was fine.
Sara: 27:15
Yeah.
Lilly: 27:15
I mean, not fine, but you know.
Sara: 27:17
I mean, I hated him, but I was supposed to hate him.
Lilly: 27:21
Kali. I do not know. I genuinely don't know. It felt like we were supposed to like her
Sara: 27:27
I think we were supposed to like her. Yeah, I absolutely felt like I was supposed to like her and I just did not.
Lilly: 27:32
Luckily she's not in the book very much so
Sara: 27:35
No, but it's a short novel. Well, it's a short novella,
Lilly: 27:40
true.
Sara: 27:41
so, proportionally.
Lilly: 27:43
So do you think Inga is the God of death on nor Nord Haven? Time
Sara: 27:51
Nor
Lilly: 27:51
Mark, I feel like I turn into the Swedish chef from the Muppets every time I try to remember the name of that planet.
Sara: 27:58
it's Norway and Denmark smooshed together.
Lilly: 28:01
Is that it? Am
Sara: 28:02
mean, that's that's how I was. Viewing it.
Lilly: 28:08
Yeah. See Mark as a suffix to me, made me go Riter mark from Lord of the Rings. So I was like, all right, we're just smashing prefixes in suffixes together. No, you're probably right.
Sara: 28:23
Yeah. I, I, that, I mean, that, that was how I interpreted it.
Lilly: 28:28
Yeah. Alright, well now I'll remember. Thank you.
Sara: 28:32
You're welcome
Lilly: 28:33
my question is more important than me being bad at names. Inga kind of becomes the god of, of death or the afterlife in a way.
Sara: 28:44
a little bit. I mean, she, she has this odd. Talent, where when she dies, because her body is not really set up correctly and she has to, essentially die periodically very briefly, she comes back obviously, but she kind of collects the souls of all of the dead animals that she's met. And they huddle around her for warmth. She, she gathers them close.
Lilly: 29:14
They do a big snuggle in the afterlife and it sounds quite nice, and that I thought was, was fun. The novella treated it not like this is definitely just a. Vision hallucination. This is definitely a hallucination that she's having, and it's also not, she's definitely in the afterlife like it, it walked a good ambiguous line there I thought.
Sara: 29:40
It didn't necessarily work for me. I think because the rest of the I novella is so hard, sci-fi, and this is a little more. hand, wavy. Yeah.
Lilly: 29:54
a little more. Completely not.
Sara: 29:55
Yeah. A little more. Completely not. And with this book in particular, that was quite jarring for me especially because there was not a lot of setup for it. So yeah. it's a cute image. And I like it in a vacuum, but I didn't necessarily like it in this.
Lilly: 30:18
I think you're probably right, but hear me out.
Sara: 30:23
Well, I mean, that's just, that's just my personal opinion.
Lilly: 30:25
No As, no, I think you're right. As far as like the structure of the story, it does stick out a little bit. But hee, he dies and that's really sad. And so it's nice that they got to hug afterwards.
Sara: 30:37
It was nice that she got to hug he t afterwards, she needs the consolation.
Lilly: 30:43
Like I personally needed or not needed, but having those scenes added an element of almost coziness it, it was the warm cup of tea to make the rest of it feel not quite so bleak.
Sara: 30:58
Yeah, I, I get that. And I can see where you're coming from and how it felt like that. But for me it was just too too much of a contrast with the rest of the story.
Lilly: 31:10
Yeah, that's fair. I mean,
Sara: 31:11
Yeah.
Lilly: 31:12
you're not wrong. I mean, Amit favorite character, his arc. With being very against the robotic animals to, Hey, it's better. It's better than nothing. I found very emotionally satisfying. it's sad in a way. Everything is sad in a way. Nothing is fully sweet and happy. In this book, Amit is kind of giving up
Sara: 31:37
He is definitely giving up. Yeah, he, he is absolutely giving up.
Lilly: 31:42
But it's a, it's coping, it's basically saying. You can't necessarily attain your goal, but you can make things less miserable in the meantime, and sometimes that's enough.
Sara: 31:55
Yeah, I mean, like it's, it's sad that that's what they have to do. But it's good that they will have some kind of, yeah, coping mechanism. Some kind of consolation while they try to work towards being able to. Have animals. Again,
Lilly: 32:15
And they are still trying to move. Like that is still the ultimate goal, right? This is just a, a temporary maybe a couple centuries temporary on, you know, the geographical scale.
Sara: 32:27
this is holding an ecological space for the animals to go back to.
Lilly: 32:33
Instead of everything collapsing and everyone dying and the planet going back to an empty husk, which Kali would say, why are you upset about that? It's what the planet was supposed to be. And she's not totally wrong, but like, let the man have a bunny.
Sara: 32:49
She's not totally wrong, but also like
Lilly: 32:52
But you can still try.
Sara: 32:54
yeah, you can still try. They, they still have to like eke out a, a living somehow.
Lilly: 32:59
Yeah. And so that for me is what pushes this book out of pessimistic ending.
Sara: 33:06
I do think it has an optimistic ending. I wouldn't say the book itself is optimistic, but I think the ending is optimistic because they do have this solution
Lilly: 33:17
Bandaid solution.
Sara: 33:19
solution. It's not a great solution, but it's a solution. And. It looks like it will work. So they go from not having any idea of how to stop this collapse to, well, we can't stop the collapse, but we can find some way of moving forward anyway. And I think that's optimistic.
Lilly: 33:41
Yeah, the purpose of these mechanical animals is to find an equilibrium in the ecosystem so that they have time to come up with a, a long-term solution to actually have animals live and thrive. It wasn't, yeah, we'll just have robots instead and it'll be great. And I think that's also a key point and what ultimately got Amit on their side,
Sara: 34:06
They're not giving up entirely. They're just recognizing that what they're doing currently isn't working. And if they don't do something like this, then they're not going to be able to, to have any, wildlife or livestock in the long term either.
Lilly: 34:23
Yeah. And because of that, the, the plants were getting out of control, right? It, it, it's all connected. It feels in a way, like this book is the embodiment of. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Sara: 34:38
Yes. Yeah, I definitely can see that.
Lilly: 34:42
And I, I am glad that Schroeder put in enough moments of not total misery. Now, again, I, I took a lot of breaks while I was reading this, which I think helped me. Just not totally sink into the, we are destroying the planet and everything does suck.
Sara: 35:01
I mean, that wasn't even like what got me. I don't know. It just, it's the, the pervasive sense of hopelessness through most of the story. That's,
Lilly: 35:10
Yeah.
Sara: 35:11
that's hard. Not necessarily the specifics about climate change, although of course
Lilly: 35:17
Well that's part of it. Yeah.
Sara: 35:18
Well, that is part of it, but, and that is directly applicable to, you know, our life here on earth, et cetera, et cetera. But.
Lilly: 35:27
I mean, Norden, mark dying. Inga dying. Heti dead. You gotta give us something to make. Reading the novella, not the worst. I think it, it did find. If not a balance, like I had a lifeline that I was able to pull myself out with.
Sara: 35:47
Yeah, and like I said, I think it's a very good story. And a, a good novella. I just wasn't feeling it for, for whatever reason.
Lilly: 35:56
You really have to be ready to dive into something heavy.
Sara: 36:00
Yeah.
Lilly: 36:04
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara: 36:08
Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at Fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube or,
Lilly: 36:19
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Sara: 36:26
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly: 36:32
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye.