Servant of the Underworld

Episode 7

Release Date: 4/28/2021

Your hosts discuss "Servant of the Underworld" by Aliette de Bodard and answer the question "what are you a sucker for?" in this episode of Fiction Fans. They also share some of their favorite cookbooks and have a brief visit to the Pet Peeve Corner. Other topics include: Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, books (mostly) 9 -- 11 and some more National Poetry Month.

Music provided by Audio Library Plus: “Travel With Us” by Vendredi and “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” by Amarià

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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Episode Transcript*

*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.

Lilly 00:04

Hello, and welcome to fiction fans, a podcast where we talk about books. And other words, too. I just realized that we read the books and other words, too, but I guess we also talk about them. So I'm not wrong.

Sara 00:17

We do still talk about them. I thought you were just, you know, changing things up.

Lilly 00:21

I would never do that without asking you first. It's too late now. All right. Well, other than that, how are we little accident?

Sara 00:32

Are we are we not going to introduce ourselves?

Lilly 00:34

Oh, I guess we could do that. I'm Lily.

Sara 00:38

And I'm Sarah. And we have just completely changed our introduction today.

Lilly 00:42

Well, we can at least get back on track a little bit. With starting off on a positive note, Sarah, what's something good that happened this week? I actually

Sara 00:50

have had a lot of good things happen this week. But two of the good things were one I got my first shot of the vaccine this afternoon, which is very exciting. But even more exciting than that. I bought 1000 bricks off of Craigslist. No, that's not a joke.

Lilly 01:04

A literal ton, except, I guess a ton refers to the weight and not the count.

Sara 01:10

Yes, literally. 1000 bricks, actually a little bit more because the person from whom I bought them gave me some extra. That's sweet. Yeah, it was lovely. So I have a lot of bricks in my driveway right now.

Lilly 01:21

What are you doing with all of those bricks?

Sara 01:23

I am breaking off my backyard because lawns suck. I don't like lawns.

Lilly 01:29

I do like that. I asked what you're doing with all those bricks. And at first I thought your answer was bricking.

Sara 01:36

I did consider it. I did consider it good things that have happened to you this week.

Lilly 01:43

Mine is a little bit silly. And it's also a little bit of a preview for something we're going to talk about later in the episode. But this week, I made pan fried knucklehead trout that we ate during a d&d session, which is not a non sequitur I promise because pan fried knucklehead trout is a delicacy of the Icewind Dale region in I'm just gonna call it d&d land. Yes, there's an actual word for it. But I don't expect people to know that off the top of their heads. And it was just really fun eating Icewind Dale food while we were adventuring in Icewind Dale, that sounds delightful. And it was delicious. It sounds delicious to delightful and delicious. Yeah. I got to brag to all of our friends who were playing d&d with that. Oh, that you know, that paragraph long description the DM just read for the tavern food. Yeah. Eaten that right now.

Sara 02:44

Very nice. And what are you drinking tonight?

Lilly 02:47

Tonight, I am drinking a vodka soda with just a splash of cranberry and lime.

Sara 02:54

That sounds good.

Lilly 02:55

It is how about you?

Sara 02:57

I'm drinking blind with cider. I think I've mentioned blind wood before in one of our earlier episodes. But they're this lovely small little cider maker that's local to me and they hand deliver. And they're just the nicest people and I love them so much. And their cider is good. I know that you have a lot of cider because you're inside or land. But someday, I'm going to ship you some of their cider because it's it's very nice. And I want to support them.

Lilly 03:19

Well, they probably won't hand deliver it to me, but I'm sure it will still taste just as good.

Sara 03:24

It will still be delicious. Even if it's not delivered by through or Aaron or Kathy. Those are the three people who run the company.

Lilly 03:33

That's adorable.

Sara 03:34

It's so cute. I love them so much. I really do.

Lilly 03:38

Well on to the topic of books, which is theoretically what we're talking about today. Have you read anything good lately?

Sara 03:46

Yeah. So I finally finished children by Bjorn Larsen, which I mentioned in the last podcast. And it was very good, very dark, as I said, but very good. I am eagerly awaiting the second one, which is not going to be out for a while I don't think but I will read it when it does come out. And I read some poetry. My mother, I've discovered my mother's writing poetry. And so I finally convinced her to give me some of her poems and I read those. And I also read another collection of poetry that I discovered via Twitter and bear with me for the title because it's kinda long. The title is dear Gloria dear Madeline dear Shavon dear Ethel, your Eloise dear Wendy, dear Becky, Dear Lisa, dear Liza, dear Michelle, dear Tamika, you're Tanya tonight. And one of the poems in their porch light is maybe my favorite poem ever. It's real good.

Lilly 04:38

Can you explain why that is the title because I feel like that. You owe me an explanation now.

Sara 04:46

My understanding is that it's a collection of poetry written to a bunch of imaginary girlfriends. Okay. Yeah. And the names the names do show up in the poems. Okay, I just Yeah, yeah.

Lilly 04:58

With a name like that. They're happy To be so kind to reason, right? Actually, if there wasn't, that would be even better. But I would also like to know, yes,

Sara 05:07

there is a reason. What have you read recently?

Lilly 05:11

I also read a collection of poetry. We are still in National Poetry Month. So we are well

Sara 05:18

on topic. Yeah.

Lilly 05:21

But I read a script on nights by Brian De Dietrich, which is a collection of poetry written around the idea of Superman. There, it's in sections. The first section of poems is from Superman's perspective. And then the next section is from his father, the alien Jarell, not his Farmout this human mother. And then there's a section from the perspective of Lois Lane, and then it ends with I did want to call him Jesse Eisenhower. But Lex Luthor. I don't know if that's even the actor who plays him. They all look the same.

Sara 06:00

I have no idea who plays him? Well,

Lilly 06:03

the last section is from the perspective of Lex Luthor. It's very good, extremely thoughtful, and not super optimistic. You know, how, how can the concept of Superman be when you start thinking about it? I was a little bummed that all of Lois Lane's poems were about Superman's junk. Like, she wasn't given a single one that was about something else was written by

Sara 06:29

a man. Yes, presumably, yes.

Lilly 06:35

And I mean, alone, they were all very good. And probably some of my favorite lines from the collection were from her poems. But there could have been a little variety,

Sara 06:45

she could have been given a little more subject matter,

Lilly 06:49

just just a little bit. But this book was also a gift. And, you know, gifted books always have that sort of extra emotional value. So Right. You know, while I was reading this, I was remembering my poetry professor from college who gave this to me when I graduated, and it was very, it was an emotional trip in a lot of different ways.

Sara 07:14

Yeah, there's that extra context that adds to what you take away from the poetry. Absolutely. So before we get any further in this podcast, I have a slight correction, but I need to make in our last episode, in the journey to the center of the Discworld segment, I said it very definitively, that the librarian gets turned into an orangutan in the color of magic. And actually, it's the light, fantastic, the second book, but it's within the first eight pages, it's on page eight. So I feel like somewhat vindicated? Well, I think,

Lilly 07:46

really, what that means is that I was correct, and that they are basically the same book and distinguishing between the two of them is pointless. And now you have to agree with me because it makes you look good.

Sara 07:57

Yes, you're correct. I do have to disagree with you all that heavily.

Lilly 08:02

No, but I still like hearing it again.

Sara 08:05

Yes, really? You are right. You are right. They are basically just one long Bosque. Thank you. Now,

Lilly 08:15

I assume you have read some we'll have time since last we spoke.

Sara 08:19

Yes, I did not mention it in the in my earlier answer, because I had other things to talk about. But I did in fact, finish book 11 of Wheel of Time, which is The Knife of Dreams. And on the whole, I really enjoyed it. I have this book in hardcover. And I have to say that these books are so big that reading it in hardcover is just not fun.

Lilly 08:40

It's like an arm workout at the same time.

Sara 08:43

Yeah, it's just heavy, it hurts my hand. So it's not very often I say that I tend to prefer hardbound books over paperback. But this is an exception to that. And one of the things that I noticed was that there's a lot more spanking references in this book. So I think that you're right. I think Robert Jordan just had a thing for spanking.

Lilly 09:03

If there's no other, if there's no inworld justification for it. What else could there possibly be?

Sara 09:10

The inworld justification for at least one of these is that Rand was doing something dumb, and an ICER die uses her magic to spank him because he's doing something dumb.

Lilly 09:22

That's not an enrolled justification for two adults to be doing this outside of sexual relations. Yeah.

Sara 09:31

Yeah. And there was more talk about like thinking about spanking and so I yeah, he just he just says a spanking can

Lilly 09:38

you know, a writer will have their their core beliefs bleed through in their work. How could you not, you know, you're the one creating this world. And so now I have to assume that his core belief is that spanking is good and everyone should do it. You might be right is absurd that that comes up so much. He comes up a lot since such a strange context. It's like blows my mind.

Sara 10:03

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you. But moving moving on to other thoughts not to dwell too much on spanking. Another thing that I wanted to bring up is that there's a lot of implications of lesbian relationships in we'll have time specifically, it was mentioned in this book that there were pillow friends between ice to die, pillow friends being like, and then they were roommates, except that they're actually sleeping together. And I really would have liked to see that explored more like how do these former relationships shape politics and the type of tower being like the where all of the Isolite the women magic users go to learn magic and to train their skills, and it's the only place where they can learn magic. So I really would have liked to see how that affects politics in the tower. Like I want it to have more impact than just a passing mention. But on the other hand, I don't really think that Jordan would have been able to handle it in a way that I as 21st century reader would have appreciated like I don't I don't think that he would have done particularly well,

Lilly 11:11

well, there probably would have been a lot of spanking. Yesterday probably would have been kind of just from your discussion of it. It sounds to me, like that idea that relationships between women are not legitimate relationships.

Sara 11:29

I don't know. There's that implication because pillow friends is not specifically a term used to describe lesbian relationships.

Lilly 11:37

Are there any other lesbian relationships that aren't described as pillow? Friends? I think it's going in that direction. Like the author said, Oh, they're just pillow friends. It's not a real relationship.

Sara 11:48

Oh, I see what you're saying

Lilly 11:50

instead of the other way. Yeah, here's what I'm saying.

Sara 11:54

Yeah, I mean, are there any other lesbian, there are none that I can think of off the top of my head. There is one forsaken the Forsaken being, you know, some of the villains of the story, as I'm sure that you could gather from the name, who I think just does it with everyone. But that's not specifically a lesbian relationship. Maybe I'm wrong. And someone who has read the series more often, or who is a deeper fan of wheel of time could tell you definitively, I can't. But I also just think and this kind of brings us to the other thing that I wanted to discuss, and we need to put a content warning here.

Lilly 12:39

To avoid spoilers for the Wheel of Time. Skip to 1640. Okay, I got you covered.

Sara 12:48

Yes, so not who is one of the main male characters has this relationship with Tuan, who eventually becomes his wife. So it's prophesized that the daughter of the nine moons will be his wife. And in book nine, he discovers that that is to on to on being the heir apparent to this large nation across the sea, who was coming and invaded random land. And

Lilly 13:18

now that's not actually what it's called, right? Random lands. That's a meta thing.

Sara 13:25

I'm not I mean, no, it's not what it's actually called. Okay. I'm not sure if obviously, all of the countries are given names, but I'm not sure if the continent is ever named.

Lilly 13:36

I just wanted to clarify, I did not want to cast aspersions on Robert Jordan, implying that he named something random land.

Sara 13:44

He did not actually make this. This is I believe, a fan thing he did actually move to France. Thank you for clarifying. You're welcome. Anyway, so in in this book, he finally marries at the very end, he finally marries too on. And on the one hand, I really liked the relationship, I think that their relationship is the most realistic of all of the relationships between the main characters and their, their significant others, Jordan writes relationships, like he knows where he wants the relationship to go. So you start you have a point A, and you have a point c, and you don't really see the progression through point B. It doesn't feel like there's a realistic relationship developing. It's sort of like these characters are one minute, they're not love and then the next they are in love, or in the case of men, she knows that she's going to fall in love with Rand because she has visions and has seen it. So she just one day decides she is in love with Rand, and then she's in love with rams.

Lilly 14:50

See, but that could be an interesting exploration of self fulfilling prophecies. But it sounds like that's not where that went.

Sara 14:57

That is not where that went. All right. Man Man is a character could be so good. She has so much potential to explore, like you say self fulfilling prophecies and what happens if she tries to work against her visions? And that's just not ever. It's not a thing. It doesn't happen. But so with Tuan and Matt, I really like how their relationship progresses it feels like they have a genuine progression, and Tuan being the heir to this large throne. She when she says the she'll marry him, she does it not because she's in love with him, but because she thinks that there's the possibility for love, and she's seen it prophesized. So it feels more realistic.

Lilly 15:44

Why not? Yeah. And they've also

Sara 15:47

spent a good number of months, like traveling together. So she doesn't do it just immediately upon meeting him, right. But on the other hand, to on is the head of this invading country that enslaves women and kills a lot of people. And she's very unapologetic about enslaving magic users, and does not think that she's wrong about that. And so I can't really like her.

Lilly 16:12

That is a very complicated character. Yeah.

Sara 16:17

Yeah. Like we're, I'm, I'm not sure how sympathetic we're supposed to find her. Like, I think we're supposed to find her fairly sympathetic. But on the other hand, she unabashedly talks about enslaving these women. So yeah,

Lilly 16:34

yeah, that's a little non ideal. Yeah.

Sara 16:37

Yeah. It just complicated feelings.

Lilly 16:42

Although we try our best, repeat our pronunciations at your own risk. We both read a very fun book for this week, the servant of the underworld by Aliette de Bodard. Now, I had read this once before, but this was your first time reading it, I believe.

Sara 17:03

Yes, it was my first time reading it. And I have to say, I enjoyed it. But my first thought upon opening the book, and getting to that first page was that this book is written in the first person. And as you have stated multiple times, that's not your fav. So I was very surprised to see that because this was a book that you had suggested.

Lilly 17:23

Yeah, I hated that the whole time. Don't worry.

Sara 17:26

Okay. All right, with the world. You know, any book that

Lilly 17:32

you read, there's going to be something about it that you don't love. You just got to get over that. Otherwise, I wouldn't read anything. Because what if there's one thing I don't like about it? Yeah, the narration bugged the shit out of me the whole time. I was eventually able to sort of filter it out as background noise. And not really like notice that, but Yup,

Sara 17:54

yeah, I didn't mind it. That particular thing. The pros of

Lilly 17:58

this book was sort of like tortilla chips, where I only eat tortilla chips so I can get salsa in my face. And I really love the story and the mystery, and the exploring this pantheon that I was not super familiar with going into it. And so you know, I just dealt with the tortilla chips. Okay. I got over it. Because it turns out if you eat salsa with a spoon people look at you like you're crazy.

Sara 18:28

Part of the part of the joy of eating salsa is like the crunch and the salt that you get from the chip. I'll take that is a you disagree with?

Lilly 18:39

I just admitted to eating salsa with a spoon. Anyway, back on topic, this book takes place in the Aztec Empire, which was fascinating, not an era that I'm super familiar with. And I probably only knew one god from the Pantheon quit Sokoto, which I feel like it's the only one anyone has any name recognition for.

Sara 19:03

Yes, that was the only one that I knew, too. And

Lilly 19:07

this book was just such a great introduction. I'm not saying I mean, it's clearly not a textbook. I don't want to say it's like learn about the Aztec empire by reading this book. But it definitely was a setting that I was unfamiliar with and really enjoyed experiencing.

Sara 19:27

One of the things and this is unrelated to the book, plot or anything. But one of the things I really liked about it was that de Bodard has some notes at the back of the book, where she discusses the historical setting and what particular elements she changed and fudged. And she also has an entire bibliography. And I really loved that. I thought that was not something you see very often in a book that's inspired by a particular era, but I would like to see more often, right? Yeah, it

Lilly 19:59

hit me gave me really appreciate the details on another level. Yeah, agreed. The title character, the main character, the first person perspective is from the servant of the underworld, because he is the high priest of the temple of the dead. And I bring that up because a it is very important to the plot and fee. It did give me some Amerson by Garth mix vibes. Really the only overlap but something I liked about both of them is the idea that there is necromancy for the power of good. You know, Deaf magic necromancy is almost always a bad thing.

Sara 20:45

Yeah, it's neutral. In this case, Riley. Yeah,

Lilly 20:49

the main character uses it for I would say Good. Yeah, he uses it to solve mysteries, and then also to keep the balance between the living world and the dead world, the the underworld, which is more of the Darth mix series. And as you might have been able to tell the gods in this book are real, which is also something that I really enjoy that interaction between the physical world magic, and then the gods who are not untouchable concepts, but have restrictions and personalities as just something I really enjoy.

Sara 21:32

I agree with you, I've really enjoyed like you, I really enjoyed that the gods were more than just a concept. But they were actually characters in their own right, who had an effect on the outcome of the plot. And I felt that the way that the magic system worked was unique. And immediately like you see that from page one, you see an example of the magic system. And I loved the combination of poetry and ritual and sacrifice that was involved. It felt fresh and like something that I had never seen before.

Lilly 22:06

I did like it conceptually. It was a little brutal. I mean, the characters are sacrificing. It's pretty gory. It's not graphic. But there is a lot of cute small animal murder in this book that is dealt with on a very matter of fact level, which I had to get desensitized to. It definitely took me a little bit to not cringe every time that happened. That's fair.

Sara 22:33

I feel like I'm already a little desensitized to that because of a place that I worked that dealt with deaths on a fairly of small animals on a fairly regular basis. But

Lilly 22:44

I mean tax attorney. Know what you're talking about? Yeah. Doesn't it already happened but like the actual murder of a thing?

Sara 22:54

Okay, so we weren't we weren't murdering animals, but we were skinning them real. Okay. I

Lilly 23:00

didn't realize you were that involved with the process. Yeah.

Sara 23:03

I mean, I wasn't the one who did any of the skinning. But skinning and like Dermestid beetles eating the flesh. Yeah, I thought we did that.

Lilly 23:11

Okay, well, it's, for me, what really got to me in this book are the descriptions of the little weasels cowering in the back of their case? No weasels are cute.

Sara 23:25

It was brutal. I'm not arguing they're

Lilly 23:28

like that emotional. They know what's coming. Hard. This might say something about me. But the other method of blood magic bothered me much less, which is essentially self harm. magic users would cause themselves to bleed to use their own blood sacrifice. There's something about it being their choice, instead of being inflicted on this poor, defenseless animal bothered me much less.

Sara 23:58

It also didn't involve death. I mean, like, there is one scene where the main character uses the bleeding and eventual death of another character, a slave to do magic. And I don't think the slave really consents to that. But

Lilly 24:17

no, but he also wasn't the one who like that. It was incidental. It wasn't

Sara 24:21

he wasn't inflicting the wounds. Yeah.

Lilly 24:23

I do think the concept of slavery was very, it's definitely not what I as an American think of when I hear the word slave. It definitely felt more like what I would think of as indentured servitude. But maybe I'm just splitting hairs.

Sara 24:42

I think that's just splitting hairs. Yeah. Well, I

Lilly 24:44

thought it was interesting that in this world as I understood it, if you were bought out of slavery, there was no stigma attached to having once been a slave. It wasn't like That is who you are forever,

Sara 25:01

you didn't necessarily remain a lower class of a person because you had been a slave.

Lilly 25:07

Right? That's just not the concepts that I'm used to. Now, since this was the second time I read the book, I have the comment that some of the foreshadowing in it was very fun. And this This wasn't foreshadowing in the way that some mystery novels are, where the author is leaving bread crumbs that you could figure it out,

Sara 25:31

that you're expected to figure out, right. Yeah, this was

Lilly 25:35

a throwaway piece of dialogue at the very beginning, that has nothing to do with anything. But knowing knowing how the book ends, is a direct reference to that. So it's just like foreshadowing doesn't even feel like the right thing to call it. It's just a, it was just really like, I thought it was neat. It definitely added value to the reread. Because I was able to notice those things.

Sara 26:07

I think that still counts as foreshadowing. Obviously, that's not something because this is the first time I read it. That's not something I picked up. But I can see that it does add more depth and dimension to the book on rereading.

Lilly 26:22

Maybe this is where we transition into spoiler talk, because there is some foreshadowing that I think was very, not very obviously foreshadowing, but more of a Chekhov's Gun situation where this thing is mentioned. And as the reader you go, oh, there, they must be going somewhere with that. To avoid spoilers for servant of the underworld, skip to 4212. The main character, a coddle, the high priest of the temple of the dead, constantly mentions how much he does not want to run into the spirit of his dead father, because he is dealing with the underworld. And so he that's actually something that he might accidentally do. And several points in this book, he says, God, I really hope I don't run into him while he is doing something in the underworld. And surprise, surprise, at the end of the book, in the climax of the book, the bad guy does use this vision, the spirit of his dead father to try to get into his head, which that is foreshadowing that I think that you can see that and go, yeah, they're, they're going somewhere with this.

Sara 27:39

I agree, except that I kind of was surprised that they didn't go. They didn't actually do very much with that. Like, I thought that there would be that the Father would be used more than just kind of a prop. For that scene. I thought that there would be dialogue, and it would be more emotionally taxing on a Caudill than it was I mean, not to say that it wasn't, there wasn't an emotional component. I just thought that it would go further. Given how much he had talked about not wanting to have this conversation with his father. There was was no conversation.

Lilly 28:14

Well, this is kind of going in two directions. One, I don't think that discounts the foreshadowing, then it's still an example of foreshadowing that the reader is expected or is intended to pick up on. Yeah, it

Sara 28:26

doesn't discount the foreshadowing at all. I'm not saying that it does.

Lilly 28:30

But versus now word spoiler time, so I can say it in like, one of the first couple pages, some random character just mentioned, like, Sure would suck if the gods like had a big old war and we were stuck in the middle of it, which then ends up being the main thrust of the book, it is it is uncovered that that is the root of the mystery that the main character is trying to solve. So to the scene with his dead father, though, because of the way that that is resolved, in that a Caudill is realizing that he was assigning all of this to his family dynamic all of his he has, he has a lot of baggage. He has family issues. He has huge family issues, but they're kind of self created. And at the end, he's he admits that he chose the career he did because he wanted to, and that was like a big deal for him. And so I think the spirit of his father, having such a minor role can be connected back to the medically Yeah, his family issues were an excuse. They weren't actually like holding him back in any way. He was using it as an excuse to not be his own person. Yeah,

Sara 29:51

I mean, I don't again, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just was still expecting more from

Lilly 29:56

it. Yeah, for sure. It really does pick up in the SEC. Can TAF

Sara 30:00

This is Devo darts first novel, and I think that that's evident in the way some of the pacing is shaky. And some of the characterization is a little shaky. Like to me anyway. Yeah.

Lilly 30:14

I don't think I get too invested in any of the characters until quite near the end. Well, there's

Sara 30:19

all of this backstory to the characters that is discussed in passing, like a Caudill has a previous apprentice who died. And he can feel the wind of knives, which is this arbiter of justice for the lord of death, I guess.

Lilly 30:39

Yeah, the the wind of knives is a I'm gonna use the word monster. But that's not quite right. Former human, former human but is now made out of shards of obsidian, so I wouldn't say very human anymore. Yeah, no, not very human, who punishes people who misuse necromancy.

Sara 30:58

And a Caudill can feel the wind of knives presence whenever the wind of knives is in the human realm. And that's not like there's there's mention of he had some previous episode, which caused him to have this connection. But that's never really further explored. And then it feels like there's there are more layers to a cuddles relationship with his brother's wife. And I just I wish that that had been covered more, I feel like I came into this feeling like I was reading book two in a series, and that these characters had already been established, and I was missing information that I should know,

Lilly 31:37

I get that. I actually think one of the ways that could have been fixed was to give less information.

Sara 31:44

Certainly, I mean, that would have that would have worked too. Because,

Lilly 31:49

you know, you're allowed to have a character that has a life before the book. But if we had been given more hints, and less, here's some exposition to explain, you know, this connection between me and the wind of knives, then I think it would have not stuck out as much. Yeah, like,

Sara 32:07

my my issue is that it felt like I was supposed to know this stuff. And I didn't. Whereas if there had been more, I would have gotten the explanation that I wanted, or if there had been less, I wouldn't have felt like I was supposed to know this already.

Lilly 32:20

Yeah, I definitely thought some of the exposition was a little on the nose. And like, like I said, I really love the mystery in this book. The prose is not why I enjoyed it. I actually made a note that I wanted to bring up the comparison between Wu A, the main characters sister in law, his his brother's wife, and the goddess, I'm just gonna say the Jade skirt, because that is her epithet and much easier to pronounce. And then on the next page, the book just says, the similarities between Wu A and the Jade skirt were striking. I was like, Oh, all right. I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. But okay.

Sara 33:06

I'll get to Bodard has a new novella, I think it's a novella out called Fireheart. Tiger that came out in February. And I really would like to read. I was interested in reading it previously. But I think it would be interesting to read it now to see how her writing has evolved or not. I mean, maybe, maybe I'm wrong.

Lilly 33:26

But I just want to read the next because this is the first book in a trilogy. I just want to read the rest of the trilogy, because I really want to know what else is going on. And turnips Gitlin,

Sara 33:36

I enjoyed this book. But I am not sure that I would read the rest of the series. Because I like I was expecting it. The mystery was good. I liked the mystery. And I liked the magic a lot. But the back of the book promised me political intrigue. And I felt that the political intrigue was not very great. It was very basic. And maybe that's just because I'm coming off of Wheel of Time, which has some great intrigue. But I felt like there was depth lacking.

Lilly 34:06

I loved that because then it got me back to the good parts faster. I have never found politics to be particularly intriguing. So it's kind of a misnomer, in my opinion. And so I didn't mind that at all.

Sara 34:20

I just like I enjoy maneuvering between individuals for power and how that plays out. Yeah,

Lilly 34:27

I think the what you're getting in this book is that a Caudill wants absolutely nothing to do with that. One of his driving motivations is to avoid the politics between the different temples completely. And so as readers, we are only seeing the effects of the political machinations we are actually seeing them happen because he avoids it so much. Right? Right. But

Sara 34:52

like there's there's a plot point where so his brother is on trial for murder and misuse of Jaguar magic essentially. And a Caudill is trying to get into the trial to defend his brother Auntie talks to this one magistrate. And this one magistrate is just really helpful. Like, why is this guy so nice? I'm not expecting there to be someone who does things out of the goodness of his heart in a book that promise me political intrigue. So they

Lilly 35:22

do actually explain that at the end after the Caudill does when

Sara 35:26

that case why he was why he was being so nice. Yeah, the

Lilly 35:31

the priest, who was leading the prosecution was a huge dick. And the magistrate wanted to see someone beat him. Which is not a super in depth reason, but they do give a reason.

Sara 35:45

I just I mean, I didn't. I didn't find that to be particularly compelling or reason.

Lilly 35:53

Well, that character is a jerk. So I believed it.

Sara 35:57

Yes, yes, the character isn't sure. But she also

Lilly 36:01

felt like that pulled on the sort of class tensions that show up in this book over and over again, how the politicians are sort of aloof, and then the Warriors treat the priests like garbage. And then almost everyone treats the peasants like garbage. And so because we see so much conflict around that structure, I totally believe that someone would want to just, I think they even use a phrase take him down a pig. Like I found that believable, it just seemed convenient.

Sara 36:36

Yeah, convenient, more basic than I was expecting. Like, again, I keep saying that I wanted more depth. And I think like it was just it was very surface level.

Lilly 36:48

Well, to me, the, the mystery in the intrigue of this book is definitely rooted in as we find out the gods, the old gods who have been sort of forgotten and are worshipped less are trying, a couple of them are trying to take power back become in control again. And I think that's where most of the maneuvering is. But again, I

Sara 37:17

would have liked to see more of it. Like we get told that that's what they're doing. But we don't actually see much of it.

Lilly 37:25

Because we are stuck in the first person perspective of this one guy. It's almost like first person perspective is never the right idea.

Sara 37:34

Yeah, I've, I'm not gonna disagree with you in this particular case.

Lilly 37:39

But how would Caudill have known any of that? You know, we only find out as he goes, it's it's true. We aren't seeing it happen. We are discovering it after the fact. It's a mystery, not an action.

Sara 37:53

Yeah, I just I mean, I guess the thrust of it is that I wanted more out of the mystery in the in the background

Lilly 38:01

while you wanted to see it happening. You didn't like just finding out about it after the fact. Yeah, it's like,

Sara 38:06

which is not to say again, it's not to say that I didn't enjoy this book. I did. Like I happily read it. But I'm not sure that I would continue on with the series.

Lilly 38:15

Well, I'm really interested to see how a Caudill at the end of the book is much more willing to participate in temple life. And he was a very reluctant leader for 99% of the book. And so seeing how his relationship with his second in command who has been stuck doing all of his work for him up until this point, and is rightfully disgruntled by that.

Sara 38:40

Yes. I had a lot of sympathy for a second, man. Oh, yeah, he was great. And

Lilly 38:47

I should look up his name. Okay. IQ, itch. I'm gonna say each taka, you can say IQ taka will split the difference.

Sara 38:56

I'm just gonna say a second man.

Lilly 38:59

I know. Okay, that is something I normally get very annoyed by. epithets, or not nicknames. But titles being overused in a book. But I greatly appreciated it here. Because oh man, would I not have been able to keep all of the characters and gods with very long names I could not pronounce organized in my head. If I didn't also have, I'm going to I'm going to try to say her name. I'm gonna try to say it. For example, one of the main Gods we end up seeing is shell shoot liquid. I'm not saying that right. But her epithet was the Jade skirt. And that is much easier.

Sara 39:45

I don't have any issue with the names when reading them.

Lilly 39:50

There were a couple of times where I had to flip back to the previous page to see are those the same person or so his apprentice worships the southern hummingbird. And has a mother whose names both start with H UI tz, and then have a lot of letters after that. But my brain kind of only could grab on the first half. And so when the first time he says his mother's name, I thought, is that a grand reveal? Is your parent, the southern? Oh, no, those are different names. All right.

Sara 40:30

Let's see, I feel like that has less to do. Well, maybe it has something to do with how complicated the names are. But it also, if they were names more familiar to us, but just differed by a couple of letters from each other. Like, I'd have trouble with that. Keeping them straight anyway. Right.

Lilly 40:46

So they're complicated because they were extremely similar. Yeah. And then the added dimension of names that I'm not familiar with, it was just a lot to keep track of, and having that additional sort of tagline helps me quite a bit.

Sara 41:00

Yeah, definitely. So

Lilly 41:04

if you've gotten this far, this is a mystery novel. Why should you read this book? We've kind of told you some spoilers. But I think you still should, as someone who has now read it, knowing how it ends. Seeing how we got there was absolutely a fun trip. I would also say, we gave away some of the more supernatural things going on in the background, there's still quite a bit of mystery to uncover in the physical world of this book that we didn't delve into at all. So even if you did listen to the spoiler section, I would say that there's a we didn't even say what the original mystery that a Caudill is investigating is. So I would say we spoiled some of the supernatural stuff, but not the mystery itself, and definitely not how you get there. So if you like mysteries, if you'd like supernatural stories, if the setting intrigues you, if a petit Pantheon is your stick, definitely read this book.

Sara 42:14

So our next topic of discussion is one that I feel you probably aren't expecting from a literature podcast. Can I call? Can we call ourselves a literature? Podcast? No.

Lilly 42:29

A fiction podcast? Oh. We very carefully crafted the subtitle and other words to on purpose.

Sara 42:43

Yes, but so well, what we're getting at is that we're going to be discussing cookbooks because we thought why not?

Lilly 42:48

Well, we both immediately had ideas for which cookbook to talk about too. We did. So it's not like we had to dig too deep.

Sara 42:56

We did except that I changed my mind.

Lilly 42:59

Well, that means you had two that you wanted to talk about. That's even better.

Sara 43:03

So you can't do that your cookbook in our opening. Do you want to tell us more about it?

Lilly 43:10

Yes. For Christmas, except the spoiled child and requested it in October when it came out?

Sara 43:20

Did you get it in October? Yeah.

Lilly 43:26

I got Hero's Feast, the official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook. This is a book a cookbook that is completely in. In character. Let's say it is written as if all of these places and species are real, which is very, very fun. It is divided by culture. So you have your Cuban cuisine and your elven cuisine and your uncommon cuisine. And as far as you know, some other ones. This may surprise you. But halfling cuisine is my favorite.

Sara 44:03

What about halfling cuisine makes it your favorite?

Lilly 44:06

Well, there's a lot of stews, and they have an oatmeal cookie recipe. That's really good. I've actually done for recipes from every section. And I think every recipe that I've done I have done more than once. I've been very impressed with the practicality. They are still definitely project meals. I wouldn't do the one of these on a busy work night. Even those dues Yeah, yeah. Because it's one of those fry things first and put the times which is not how like not crockpots do. Yeah. But that being said, they're not as over the top as I sort of expected them to be. Before each section there is a discussion of, you know, the the type of food that elves eat or dwarves eat and a little bit of their culture and each recipe He has a little introduction talking about maybe how the recipe was developed in world entirely like in character, and it's just so much fun.

Sara 45:11

It sounds from what you've described to me it sounds like a really fun cookbook.

Lilly 45:15

The orc recipe is just a bunch of bacon and a mug. They give you you know, a recipe for a glaze to put on the bacon, but it is it is just a fistful of bacon

Sara 45:29

sounds. I mean, I want a fistful of bacon.

Lilly 45:32

And then there is Arkin, the Cruz flame roasted halfling chili, which is not a recipe from halflings. It is a recipe of halfling. The humor is just spot on. I've it's the first cookbook I've actually read cover to cover up says

Sara 45:52

something because cookbooks generally aren't made to be read cover from cover to cover. No. Actually, so the cookbook that I was going to talk about was one that I really enjoyed reading as well. It's fresh India by Minnesota, and the writing like normally I don't like the description in front of the recipe because I find it extraneous and unnecessary. But I really I found like you did, I found her descriptions charming. And I also really enjoyed how she organized the table of contents like there was there were two different table of contents, there is one that's by type of recipe, and then also won by how long it took to prepare. Oh, that's

Lilly 46:35

awesome. That's very use.

Sara 46:36

I really, I really liked that. But that's not actually the book that I'm going to be talking about in this in this podcast. Because when I was going to look at my cookbook shelf to grab that out for this discussion, I found or I saw on the shelf, a peak. Yes, the Roman cookery book, translated by Barbara flour and Elizabeth Rosenbaum. And I thought that would make for an interesting subject. So this book is a cookbook, ostensibly by a PKS, who was a Roman culinary dude in who lived in the first century. But in the introduction, the authors, translators, and authors of the book say that this book was actually probably compiled in the fourth or fifth century and involves a lot of recipes that were invented after a peak. Yes. And I just found it interesting. I got this book kind of on a whim from my father, he sells books. And this was a book that I saw in his stack and took basically

Lilly 47:42

mysteriously acquired mysteriously Well, I

Sara 47:45

did tell him that I was acquiring it. And it has such gems as patent a of fish, green vegetables and fruit. And as far as I can tell, a patent is some sort of like egg custody thing. This one in particular is an everyday Patna. Pound boil the brands with pepper make into a mixture with Kumon asked for Tina liquid when Karen M milk and eggs cook over a low fire. Yo, um, yes, I have not read the entire book, actually, until we decided we're going to talk about cookbooks on this podcast, I had not read any of this book, it was just sitting on my shelf.

Lilly 48:27

Well, it does sound interesting, but maybe less practical. I feel like I'm less likely to make a recipe with brains in it.

Sara 48:35

I'm not sure that I would actually cook anything from this recipe from this recipe book. I like that it has the Latin on one side and the English on another. Not that I can read the Latin. But if I ever decided that I wanted to pick up Latin. I liked that I could look at this and try to make something useful out of it. Yeah. So that's my cookbook.

Lilly 48:57

Is there a single recipe in there that you think you might want to try sometime?

Sara 49:01

I've read about a grand total of three recipes, and they were all Patna. And they all involve brands.

Lilly 49:09

Fair enough. I agree with you that I normally do not like I think this is more of a thing that you see in food blogs. But it's a trope, right that there's the entire life story before the actual recipe. Yes. The one website where I appreciate that though. Is the kitchen. The Kitt car. Yeah, I have looked up maybe because I'm looking up less recipes necessarily, but also strategies. A lot of the times

Sara 49:47

the pre recipe content deals with issues that may come up when making the recipe.

Lilly 49:55

Exactly. Yeah, I use their articles for making sauerkraut and kimchi Eat. And the information before the recipe itself gets into, you know, tips and tricks. And if I tried this and that happened, so it was actually, like you said relevant information. Yeah. It's not helping and the kids loved

Sara 50:16

it. Yeah, it's it's not you know, I was at the farmers market one day and I saw this cabbage and it was the most beautiful cabbage. And it took me back to my days as a cabbage farmer on my grandparents farm. And then I made this recipe.

Lilly 50:32

Yep. Also, there's not actually any cabbage in it.

Sara 50:37

I just making things up. I mean, no, but

Lilly 50:39

that I've definitely read recipes. I have found recipes that start one way. And then that literally has nothing to do. Yeah. Recipes are wild and finding a source that will house the recipes that you actually like and is written in a way that is does not make you want to pull your own teeth out. This special thing

Sara 51:03

is, I really liked the kitchen. I think I was the one who turned you on to it for it. So two weeks on Twitter. Well, the three if you're going by when this episode is released, and not when we're recording, which makes that probably for actually a number of weeks ago on Twitter, Bender, that's at Jack Klaver tagged us to answer this question. But I thought it would be more fun to have a discussion together rather than just give my own response on Twitter, since I'm the person who does Twitter. And this was a challenge or question started by at blog spells, which is spells and spaceships.com a blog. And the question is, what are you a sucker for? So Lily, what are you a sucker for?

Lilly 51:52

I think I might have mentioned this before. But I have such a soft spot for amnesia, storylines in a romance or the amnesia trope in a romance story. I think a perfect example is in the Southern Vampire mystery novels by Charlene Harris, maybe better known as the Trueblood series. In I think it's book four, Eric Northman gets amnesia and doesn't realize that he's not on good terms with the main character and so decides that they're best friends. And then, you know, they fall madly in love, but it's not actually.

Sara 52:33

I was gonna say, Don't they have a lot of sex do?

Lilly 52:35

Yes, of course. I already covered the romance part. And then he gets his memories back. And it's a whole thing. And I don't know why I think because it is such a I mean, okay, I know, amnesia is a real thing, but not really not in the way that this trope handles it. So it is such a like, absurd scenario that I don't have to bring any critical thinking to the table. It's just fun. And that, that tension between two characters, where one of them has more context than the other, and then them trying to work through that I well, when it's done. Well, I really, really like it. And when it's not done well. I usually like that. How about you?

Sara 53:25

So I think I if I had to choose something, I would probably say that I'm a sucker for hot but evil. And I'm there's two parts to that answer. There's the one part where you have a villain of dubious morality, who often has some sort of will they won't they relationship with the main character, I guess, enemies to lovers except it's never resolved. Right.

Lilly 53:52

So what you're saying is Eric Northman from Trueblood, basically, you could have answered this by just tweeting a GIF of Alexander Skarsgard. And it would have been correct for both of us. Yes,

Sara 54:04

maybe Maybe you're right. A really good example of this would be Servalan and Avon and Blake seven, which is an old I think it's 19 Seven News, but don't quote me on that British sci fi show. Let me actually Google that. Yeah, so Blake seven was a show that aired between 1978 1981 and I definitely want to talk more about Blake seven when we do our February Doctor Who episode because I love like 767 is is an older love for me than even Doctor Who, which is saying something because I'm a huge Doctor Who fan. Where was I going with us? Avon an Avon and several those are the ones Yeah. But so they have so Avon is ostensibly a good guy, but he's a really morally dubious good guy. And that in and of itself I love and then you have server land who is unabashedly like a The Supreme Commander of the Federation or something, she's she's very definitely the bad guy. But there's such tension between her and Avon that I just love it and surf land herself is fantastic. She being a, like a military commander, you would expect that she would be very masculine. And she has super, super short hair. Right? Her hair is is like a pixie cut. But she wears these amazing, gorgeous gowns the entire time good for them. Yeah, no, I love her. She played by Jacqueline Pierce, rip, who had a lot of issues herself, but seem to be a really interesting person. And so I love that dynamic. It's interesting

Lilly 55:52

that both of our answers have an aspect of enemies to lovers.

Sara 55:58

Yeah, I mean, maybe that's the underlying trope that we're both suckers for.

Lilly 56:02

Maybe But like, we're particular suckers for this specific way of doing it. Yeah. I because I should clarify. Like I said, Any amnesia, but where it's two people who don't get along and then one of them forgets that and then decides they're into the other one is like, my favorite way that it plays out. Specifically, Eric and Sookie and I don't even want to say Trueblood because the show is not what I'm talking about. At all. Stackhouse mysteries. Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, right? Yeah, they are the Southern Vampire Mysteries. So you're right, maybe a way of summarizing it is just enemies to lovers.

Sara 56:43

Yeah. Except that I also enjoy it when they don't actually get to that lover part. Just the tension. Yeah, just the tension, where there's the implication that maybe if the story went another way they could. Like there's there's this avenue left open for all the fanfiction.

Lilly 57:03

See you like having that potential? Yes, there is a fan fiction tag, which is dumb asses to lovers. Which is not the same thing, but also very good.

Sara 57:20

Yeah, I like that, too. I do like that, too.

Lilly 57:29

Sara, you sent me the most disgruntled text the other day.

Sara 57:36

I am so Gruntal I am so old. I have an addition for the pet peeve corner. I think this might be my first time adding something to the pet peeve corner

Lilly 57:50

to these hallowed halls of being very annoyed at things that don't matter.

Sara 57:55

I'm very grateful to the particular person who misuses this word for allowing me the opportunity to complain about it. I mean, not that he knows that I'm complaining about it. But my DM for one of the d&d games that I play actually, technically as Pathfinder, whatever. Same thing

Lilly 58:13

also Dungeon Master? Yes, yeah.

Sara 58:17

My dungeon master for the Pathfinder game that I play uses the word graciously in place of thankfully, or luckily, like I have some examples pulled directly from conversation with them. One of them is graciously my career path is such that they do actually tend to pay you enough to live where you work. And the other is from a pathfinder session. None of the pirates from the previous night are here graciously. And that is not what the word

Lilly 58:45

means. Imagining these very gracious pirates choosing to not come back. Because there are so consider it graciously means

Sara 58:56

and he uses. It's not like he uses it infrequently. Like if he used it maybe once a week. I could. I could deal with it. But he uses it multiple times in a conversation. Oh, no,

Lilly 59:09

it's a lot.

Sara 59:10

It is a lot. And I just it's like nails on a chalkboard. I haven't. I haven't found it in myself to tell him that that's not what the word means. Because I don't like when someone misuses like, How can I do that?

Lilly 59:25

I also don't feel like we're good enough friends to do that. So not a word that is worth correcting. That's more of a verbal Quirk.

Sara 59:32

Yeah, it's it's a it's a quirk. But oh my god.

Lilly 59:36

It's not like they mixed up circumvent and circumspect. Yeah, that would be something worth correcting. Like, hey, those are actually different. Yeah.

Sara 59:45

I mean, graciously, and thankfully are two different words, but Right. It's not at the level of difference. I agree with you.

Lilly 59:52

Oh, that's so well, I think disgruntled really is the only way to say it.

Sara 59:58

Yeah, I I just Oh my god. It's all the time. It's all the time.

Lilly 1:00:07

I had a professor who used ostensibly as a filler word. Which everyone has filler words. God knows we have filler words. I'm sure our listeners are very familiar with, we definitely have filler words, but ostensibly is such a $5 word that you can't get away with that. English was like her third language, so you can't actually complain about it. Yeah, it just was very noticeable because of that.

Sara 1:00:39

I'm willing to let that slide, which is this person's only language. It is his first language. It is he doesn't know any other like, like, he gets no.

1:00:52

Credit. No.

Sara 1:00:55

graciously.

Lilly 1:00:57

Yikes.

Sara 1:00:59

That's about all we can say. Yikes.

Lilly 1:01:02

Yikes. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of fiction fans.

Sara 1:01:12

Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter and Instagram at fiction fans pod and you can also email us at shikshan fans pod@gmail.com

Lilly 1:01:23

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

Sara 1:01:30

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