Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
Episode 52
Release Date: July 27, 2022
Your hosts have finally reached the first Discworld novel to feature Susan (Death's granddaughter), and they are (understandably) thrilled. They spend a lot of time talking about how thrilled they are, in fact. They also discuss Pratchett's call out of all Saras who spell their name without an "h", music references, and how all of the Death books kind of repeat the same plot points over and over, actually. This episode also has a brief Pet Peeve Corner in.
(...see what we did there?)
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.
Lilly 00:04
Hello, and welcome to fiction, a podcast where we read books. And other words, too.
Sara 00:12
I'm Lily. And I'm Sarah.
Lilly 00:14
And before we begin our topic of conversation for this evening, which is soul music by Terry Pratchett. Sara, why don't you kick us off with something great that happened recently.
Sara 00:25
So this isn't necessarily specific to this week, but my tomato plants have ripe tomatoes on them finally, and they are fantastic. These might be the best tomatoes that I've grown. In the last three years that I've been growing tomatoes.
Lilly 00:42
Can I tell you a secret? Every time we go out into our garden and look at our tomato plants, my husband compares them to yours. how well they're doing compared to how happy your tomato plants were when we visited you a few weeks ago. I'm really
Sara 00:58
sad that you missed the tomatoes being right, though.
Lilly 01:01
Yeah, but you could tell they were so big and happy. Yeah, I think
Sara 01:05
they were very big and happy. They continue to be big and happy. But like the flavor on these tomatoes. Excellent. You're killing me. Like they're, they're just they're so like, crisp, and flavorful. And like not bitter, or, you know, like they're perfect. They're so good.
Lilly 01:27
That sounds fantastic. I love tomatoes.
Sara 01:30
So that's my good thing.
Lilly 01:32
That's a very good thing. Mine is also food related. It's a multipronged adventure, enabled by the fact that I now have a chest freezer. Which means I can have more than just one carton of ice cream and then nothing else in my freezer.
Sara 01:52
This is progress.
Lilly 01:53
It is I made soup stock and soup with the stock although I haven't tried that yet. So we're just going to pretend that it's very good. That is going to be the dinner I eat when we're done recording. I promise I won't rush the episode. But yeah, I've had it sitting in the crock pot for like two and a half days now. So should be good as hell out of things that have been waiting to be turned into stock in the bottom of my freezer that I could never get to because it was so tiny and full.
Sara 02:23
There's nothing like homemade stock.
Lilly 02:25
I'm very excited. Yeah,
Sara 02:27
I love it. And it's so simple and easy to do.
Lilly 02:31
It's a little messy. But well,
Sara 02:33
it depends on how you're doing it, I guess.
Lilly 02:38
As the number of dishes is more than just soup.
Sara 02:43
I mean, okay, so you you have something like you have to wash the dishes that allow you to strain the stuff out of the soup. Yeah, that's really what I'm complaining about. But I'd still say that it's very simple, because basically all you do is you know, boil it for a long time. Oh, simple. I
Lilly 02:59
agree. Yes. It's simple and easy, but there is some cleanup. That's the worst part. I shouldn't complain. My parents are visiting right now. So I don't have to do any dishes. I'm an adult.
Sara 03:15
It's like when I had COVID and my parents walked my dogs for
Lilly 03:18
me. Hell yeah. I'm an adult within that only child lives. Yes. I will note that Absolutely. As long as I can. Art now I'm sad. My other good thing was that I made Merengues for the very first time and they turned out amazing. Oh, not very pretty, because I don't actually have like a frosting bag to squirt the low Merengues out with so I just used a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off. They do look like poop emojis. But they're like the perfect amount of crunchy and delicious. And again, simple low. beating egg whites for like 30 minutes was not exactly fun.
Sara 04:00
Yeah, I feel like that you need some kind of electric mixer.
Lilly 04:03
Oh, I did. Yeah. No, my arm got tired holding the electric mixer. Oh, long.
Sara 04:08
Okay, so you need a stand mixer. Yeah,
Lilly 04:11
this is the very first time I've ever thought Oh, I understand the point of standard exercise.
Sara 04:19
Yeah, I've never seen the use before now, but that that I can see.
Lilly 04:23
I mean, people take shifts with me. I was like, My hand hurts someone else hold this. But I'm still claiming all the credit for making them array.
Sara 04:34
Well, it's your podcast, so you get the credit for for the Merengues Thank you. Well, Sara,
Lilly 04:43
what are you drinking this evening?
Sara 04:45
I am drinking a Farwest cider company cider.
Lilly 04:49
Fantastic. Yeah,
Sara 04:51
it's quite good. There. Again, local to Northern California.
Lilly 04:56
You gotta you gotta be I just drink red wine.
Sara 05:01
Also nice, good, solid.
Lilly 05:03
I have that soup waiting for me. That is the sausage base. So I thought red wine would be a good pairing. See? I'm being thoughtful and being a foodie doing wine pairings. Did you know that box? franzia is actually the recommended pairing for any food? It's true.
Sara 05:22
I'm sure that all of the foods to grammars the food influencers, agree.
Lilly 05:29
They can fight me. All right. This is actually a book podcast and not a food podcast.
Sara 05:37
Sara, have
Lilly 05:38
you read anything good lately,
Sara 05:39
I have been reading Sherwood Smith's Rise of the Alliance Book Three, I think it's called the hunter and the hunted. Although I could be getting the name wrong. I'm quite enjoying it. Although there is one character whose chapters I find very unappealing. I just don't like her character at all right now. I think she does eventually grow up and becomes a little more tolerable. But right now I find her very frustrating. But the book itself is fantastic. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, I
Lilly 06:10
mean, yep. Yeah.
Sara 06:13
Have you read anything good lately? You could talk about Piranesi.
Lilly 06:19
Oh, yeah. I didn't even think about that. Because in my brain, that's a podcast book. But isn't it? Well, I pronounced it Piranesi. Everyone on the collab that I recently did with friends talking fantasy and our pod. Everyone go listen, it's been out for probably forever by now. I don't know when this episode is coming out.
Sara 06:40
It will definitely be out by the time you were listening to this episode.
Lilly 06:44
Yes. Well, everyone pronounced it differently. But I say Piranesi.
Sara 06:49
I've always read the title is pure DC. I have no idea if that's correct or not? It's probably not.
Lilly 06:55
I know that's wrong. But like, I think one of the other options was pure niZi. Hmm. I think it's just how well can you do a bad Italian at how well can you do a bad Italian? The character is not this at all. But the man Piranesi was an Italian architect. And he also drew a series of like, absolutely bonkers labyrinth, wood carvings.
Sara 07:18
I have not read the book at all. So I have no context for it. Except the title.
Lilly 07:23
Well, the title does not have anything to do with Piranesi. Really, it's just a very good reference. It's a fantastic book. I loved it. Though. Listen to me, have a very different interpretation of it than everyone else on the podcast over the collab on friends talking fantasy.
Sara 07:42
I'm excited to listen to that episode.
Lilly 07:45
There are a lot of themes of isolation. And I was like, that sounds great. Anyway, we're not talking about Piranesi this evening.
Sara 07:58
We are not. We are once again talking about a Discworld novel.
Lilly 08:02
That means it's time to take another step on our journey to the center of
Sara 08:08
the disc world where we really need to get some kind of like special effects that you can insert there. You mean,
Lilly 08:17
you want me to learn how to do real editing
Sara 08:21
before?
Lilly 08:22
Absolutely not.
Sara 08:24
wouldn't wouldn't it be worth it just for this one? One spot though. Yeah. See? I just got a course
Lilly 08:33
my cousin who knows how to do actual, like, actual sound mixing and shit to do me a solid and make us a little bit? Yes. Anyway, we're back for another death book. Soul music. I was gonna say, as you might guess, features death but because it has the word soul in it. So I'm not wrong. Mostly because the cover is bones.
Sara 08:58
Yeah, I mean, I don't think the title specifically makes one think it's a death book. Unless you already know Discworld but,
Lilly 09:06
ya know.
Sara 09:08
It also happens to be our first Susan book.
Lilly 09:12
Suzanne. I love Susan so much.
Sara 09:15
I like Susan a lot. I did forget how long it takes in this book for her to accept that the supernatural exists and that she's part of it. And I did find it. It went on for a little longer than I personally enjoyed.
Lilly 09:32
Okay, first of all, for context, Susan is death's granddaughter, and that's why she's part of the supernatural world. But her parents sort of separated her. She knew him growing up. We get some flashbacks. But her parents sort of removed her from that world.
Sara 09:49
I mean, you say growing up but I think she stopped seeing him when she was like five or so. Yeah. Okay. In her
Lilly 09:56
very young youths, but I was going to say is that she's still pretty young. In this book, she's like a teenager. Right?
Sara 10:03
I think she's 17.
Lilly 10:06
I wasn't aware that it was that specific. But maybe that's from something else that I haven't note.
Sara 10:11
I should. I should also, again, I should say that we rescheduled this recording a couple of times. So I haven't read this book in like three weeks or four weeks, because I read it for our original date, and did not reread it for now, because I already read it. I have a note that talks about 17 year ago death, so she is at most 17.
Lilly 10:32
Yeah, I was baffled by that note, I have no idea where that
Sara 10:37
I think that they very specifically say something about him being 17 years in the past or like this thing. 17 years ago. Oh, okay.
Lilly 10:44
If that's the case, then yeah, Susan would be. Well, she could be younger than 17.
Sara 10:49
But yeah, I think she's somewhere between 15 and 17.
Lilly 10:53
I agree with that. All this was a very long meandering offshoot to say that I thought it was just very funny. She even has a line when the Raven, because the death of rats seeks her out, because death is missing. And the death of rats employs a raven to communicate between it and people. And she says, This isn't real, this isn't happening. And the Raven says, but you can see this tiny rat skeleton with a black robe and decide the right in front of you. And Susan has a line. Just because I can see it doesn't mean that's reason to believe it. Like so absurd.
Sara 11:35
It was it was funny. It just sometimes I was like, come on, Susan, you've seen enough things by now. Like you've had this conversation about 18 times. Yeah, like, by now you should accept.
Lilly 11:48
She was young enough. And I love her so much that I was able to just go it's funny. It's fine. I agree, though. I mean, it's absurd. Alright, at some point, you have to think maybe my understanding of the world is not correct.
Sara 12:02
Yeah, it's that's that's just the kind of thing that I have a low tolerance for in books
Lilly 12:08
I do when it is detrimental to the character. I mean, like in horror stories, when people are like, I don't think that's real, and then immediately get stabbed by the monster or whatever. But I think like Susan never wants to pick up like deaths occupation. So her denying its existence is helpful for that.
Sara 12:30
She very definitely wants to be normal. I just personally find that kind of plotline frustrating after a certain point.
Lilly 12:39
I mean, yeah, it probably trailed on too long. And so for me,
Sara 12:43
yeah, like it just, it was fine in the beginning. I mean, it's still fine because I really enjoy Susan like as a character. I think she had great growth in this book. I like her other books. I was just like, come on, Susan. You're better than this. Yeah. Enough is enough.
Lilly 12:59
But then we got to see the death of rats and the raisin has banter for a long time. Wasn't that worth it?
Sara 13:05
Their banter was excellent. I did like their banter. I guess the
Lilly 13:09
Raven does most of the heavy lifting because the death of rats can only say squeak. But it was still a wonderful.
Sara 13:16
I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast, but Mr. Squeak is named after the death of rats.
Lilly 13:21
You might have said that, but it's a very important piece of information. And then Mr. Squeak being your pug.
Sara 13:28
Yes, Mr. Mystery squeak being my pug one half of your pugs. Not a rat, but named after the death of
Lilly 13:36
if you ever hear weird snoring in the background of our podcast, that's Mr. Squeak.
Sara 13:41
Yes, Mr. Squeak? Who is the girl is the culprit?
Lilly 13:46
What the heck is names page? 135?
Sara 13:49
Ah, that's a good question. This is a note that I wrote down.
Lilly 13:55
Oh, lol. Sarah was my note for page 135. And it's making fun of Sarah without an H which is your name?
Sara 14:04
Oh, I bet that is.
Lilly 14:06
That's also that's got to be your note. Yeah.
Sara 14:09
Yeah. I'm sure that was my note.
Lilly 14:12
What is the quote?
Sara 14:14
So there's a whole section on names. Susan stared at herself critically. Susan. It wasn't a good name was it? It wasn't a truly bad name. It wasn't like poor iodine and the fourth form or Nigella a name, which meant oops, we wanted a boy, but it was a dull Susan Sue, good old Sue. It was a name that made sandwiches kept his head in difficult circumstances and could reliably look after other people's children. It was a name used by no queens or goddesses anywhere. And you couldn't do much even with the spelling. You could turn it into Susie. And it sounded as though you danced on tables for living
Lilly 14:52
spelled su zi. Yes.
Sara 14:55
Thank you for that important clarification. You can put in a Z and a cup Have ends and an E, but it still looks like a name with extensions built on. It was as bad as serif a name that cried out for prosthetic. Ah, funny because legally My name does have an H and I dropped it.
Lilly 15:13
Just the prosthetic H is so very good. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's the end of that point was yeah, I should call you out. He calls me out later, but I think that's a spoiler comment.
Sara 15:26
He does call me out later, too. I don't think I've ever been so called out by Pratchett book.
Lilly 15:33
This book. Okay. I really love the death books. A large part because of Susan. To be frank. She's absolutely the best supporting character for death, at least compared to her mother, his adopted daughter or her father, his apprentice.
Sara 15:50
She's definitely better than them. I don't know. I think death of rats is on a level with her.
Lilly 15:55
Oh, yeah. But Desert Rats is not the counterpoint to death in a like, plot structure way.
Sara 16:02
This is true. Yeah.
Lilly 16:04
I just feel like this is the third. I don't feel like this is the third best book. This is the third test book in Discworld. And all three of the books that we've read so far, has been about death leaving his post usually for a midlife crisis reason. And then someone will
Sara 16:24
not usually I mean, two out of three Reaper man is not a midlife crisis. Why does the auditors retire? The auditors kick
Lilly 16:31
them out? Okay, well, you could still call retirement midlife crisis, midlife. Wouldn't that be nice? Okay, so death leaves this post for some reason or another how's that someone either takes his place or in Reaper man does not. And it's bad for some reason or another. Either they do a bad job like mort. Or no one takes his place. And someone really, really needs to, which is why death of rats goes to find Susan, because when death leaves in this book, death of rats doesn't want the same kind of implosion to happen again. But even though this book is kind of just retelling the exact same story, in that way, death keeps going through the same process. And there's something interesting in how cyclical his storyline is. I'm not quite there yet, but there's something there.
Sara 17:24
By the time we've read all 42 Discworld books, or however many there are 40 something, maybe we will have clarified,
Lilly 17:33
and I have a lot of opinions with Hogfather as well, but we're not going to talk about that I will restrain myself, but in soul music. Okay, so it's the third book that leaves his post. Again, there's problems with filling his role again, however, it does not feel like just a repetition. I think the Deaf books have sort of been building on themselves. Mort was obviously the prototype repairman was an improvement for many reasons. And then here in Seoul Music We get this same progression. However, the B plotline is so much more I don't even want to call it the B plotline. The name of the book is soul music, so the Rock and Roll storyline is very important.
Sara 18:18
It's almost like that's the a plotline and death leaving whose posts was the be plotline
Lilly 18:23
like that. I think that is what I was trying to say this whole time
Sara 18:26
Yeah, whereas in Reaper man it's very definitely the a plotline is definitely because post and the the plotline is the wizards. But here it feels like that's, you know, inverted.
Lilly 18:37
Yes. I agree completely. And I think that's why it doesn't feel stale. Or maybe that's just because I really love death.
Sara 18:47
No, but I think there's something to that that even though we see a lot of the same. I don't necessarily want to say tropes or plot points, but we do see some of the same you know, points between all of these books.
Lilly 19:02
Would those points be plati by any chance?
Sara 19:07
I've tried to avoid saying plot more than I have to the word is starting to lose all meaning Have you lost
Lilly 19:13
the plot?
Sara 19:15
Will if you keep Yeah, no, I completely forgot what I was saying.
Lilly 19:21
I'm sorry you were saying that even though it shares a lot of the Death himself shares a lot of plot points with his previous books. However, that has now taken sort of a backseat to Susan yeah is much more important. And then the the rock and roll music plotline, which we haven't even started talking about yet.
Sara 19:42
I think the book still feels fresh because death leaving his post while still central to the storyline is not the major thread that we're following.
Lilly 19:53
And it's different enough. Yeah, like in more when more takes the place of death. He's been a part And to sing. He has been practicing. He knows. Theoretically he knows what he's supposed to do. Susan had forgotten her entire childhood with death because her mind right human minds just block out weird stuff. That's a common thing in this world.
Sara 20:15
And also, she was like five. Yeah, but
Lilly 20:17
he would remember a skeleton, I think,
Sara 20:21
I don't know. I don't really remember anything from when I was five or younger. Really? Not really.
Lilly 20:28
I have some, like, really vivid memories of, like, I could picture where I went to school and stuff.
Sara 20:33
I mean, I could picture that too. It helps that, like I walked by there every day, but like, you don't remember like the insides of classrooms? I mean, I guess I guess I do. Yeah, I guess I do. The only
Lilly 20:47
reason why you don't think remembering our grandparents house is because it was exactly the same forever. And so it doesn't feel like it counts as recovering from when we were young.
Sara 20:58
Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. But
Lilly 21:02
so she's thrown into this with absolutely no context and just the death of rats to try to like show her the ropes. Her the death of rats and the Raven are one of the best dynamics in all of Discworld. I think. The Raven is so sassy. The death of rats is so sweet. And Susan becomes a badass eventually, and we get to see her grow into that. And by badass, I mean, assertive. But isn't that the same thing?
Sara 21:31
It is nice seeing Susan learn to stand up for herself a little more than she does at the beginning of the book.
Lilly 21:37
I mean, in this book, it's a pretty small step. Okay, here we go. The name of the book does indeed suggest that there is a strong music plotline. That is correct. Yes, there are so many classic rock musicae etc references.
Sara 21:56
I'm sure that there are way more references than either of us actually caught to
Lilly 22:01
start with. The other main character imp is basically possessed by the soul of rock and roll to greatly oversimplify
Sara 22:12
it, and be Selwyn, I'm mispronouncing it horribly, I'm sure. Which does translate I believe that as well. She does translate to but of the Holly,
Lilly 22:21
are you saying that he's a reference to Buddy Holly?
Sara 22:23
I mean, you know?
Lilly 22:27
Yeah, so anyway, buddy Holly's one of the big ones. I'm just going to run through a list of the really obvious ones to give a vibe. And then I'm going to share the quote of my favorite one we had born Tarun what a wizard inscribes on his jacket, Rebel without a pause, and Felonious Monk. The day the music died, one of the songs is called My balls are on fire. And there's another song called Don't step on my shoes, or something to that effect. The song titles are less charming to me, because that's kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in my opinion, but rebel without a pause and Felonious Monk. We're both seamlessly worked into the pros of the book in a way that is so much more delightful. And I'm going to read you the section to prove that I'm right. Who's the greatest horn player there ever was? Brother Chanel, the door for Clyde. Everyone knows that. He stole the altered gold from the temple of ostler and had it made into a horn and played magical music until the gods caught up with him and pulled his right, said, buddy, but if you went out there now and asked who the most famous horn player is, would they remember some Felonious Monk? Or would they shout for you? That's good.
Sara 23:58
I mean, as expected, Terry Pratchett is very witty.
Lilly 24:02
Yeah, working it into the story like that instead of the other references, which are just like, isn't it funny that the song name is kind of similar to a real song? It's, it's a level above? Yeah, I won't, I won't argue there. There's another thing that Pratchett does extremely well in this book, which he does not actually have a great track record with. So good job, honey. Growth. Yes, there is a joke concerning the topic of racism, but it's making fun of the racists instead of being racist, and good, good job. That's, that's how you're supposed to do it. I actually thought the passage itself was hilarious.
Sara 24:49
It's nice to see the wizards get their comeuppance for trying to be assholes.
Lilly 24:56
They're pretty snotty a lot even to each other. So Having someone out clever them just because someone knows they're racist and uses it back against them. It's very satisfying. Well, Sarah, before we dive deeper into the spoiler rific conversation about soul music by Terry Pratchett. When Should someone read this book?
Sara 25:19
Because this is the first Susan book, you do get some world building and explanations that mean, you can follow along. If you haven't read any Discworld books prior to this. So you could start with this as your first Discworld book. I'm not thrilled with it as the first book. I think there are better places to start. But I think that you could start with us
Lilly 25:42
to quibble a little bit. This is a death book that Susan appears in. Rightly, Susan does not have her own series of Discworld books. She just appears in the death series at this point.
Sara 25:55
I mean, I think you could say that she has her sub series. Okay, cuz she has more than two. Fair enough, but qualifies this sub series for me. All
Lilly 26:04
right. Yeah, I agree. There are probably better places to start. But it's a good book, if you like music, classic rock, etc. And puns, and bad references. You'd really enjoy this book. And it does a pretty good job of holding your hand since Susan has to be introduced to everything. Not everything. But enough of it that I feel like you could catch on if you wanted to start here. To avoid spoilers skip to 3655. I think one of my big lightbulb moments, it wasn't that deep. But there are two bands that get the most page time in this book. And one is music with Roxanne which is the main character that's an ensemble, we get all of the characters in this band. But imp who's the one possessed by the spirit of rock and roll is in this band. And it's all about the music, they don't get paid at all relief, which we'll touch on later. And it's not really good, because it isn't even really a person by the end of the book. All he can say is we just need to play music. And then he goes and lies down and is basically comatose in between performances.
Sara 27:31
He should also be dead at that point. And it's only the spirit of rock'n'roll that's keeping him alive,
Lilly 27:37
right? But still not great. No, still not
Sara 27:42
going there.
Lilly 27:43
But there's another band we see, which goes through like five or six different names, which adds to the hilarity. But they're all about the image. They spend all of their time working on their costumes, and their like Power Poses. And it's very explicit in the book that they don't know how to play their instruments at all, which neither does imp but he's possessed by the spirit of rock and roll. So it doesn't matter. They
Sara 28:08
kind of remind me this is just a I mean, this this parallel was solely because of the name changes. They did kind of remind me of the other four horsemen of the apocalypse and good omens, and how there's the one of them who changes his name all the time.
Lilly 28:22
I thought you were gonna say, mouse rat from Parks and Recreation.
Sara 28:26
I have not watched parks, parks and recreation.
Lilly 28:29
Well, that's abandoned that show and mouse rat is the most commonly returned to name but they go through a lot of different names. Ah,
Sara 28:38
that does sound similar. Yes, not a reference. Okay. Making, that's all right.
Lilly 28:43
And everyone hates, I'm gonna call them the insanity because I think that's the name that we hear the most on the page. But everyone hates their music and booze them off stage constantly. Whereas everyone loves music with rocks in. And so you get that like, very strong comparison between doing good music and having great costumes. Maybe they should have gone into fashion. I don't know.
Sara 29:09
On the other hand, they do still get gigs. So
Lilly 29:12
that's true.
Sara 29:12
We mentioned in the non spoiler section that Terry Pratchett calls me out specifically by name, while he does call me out specifically by name, but we said that there were two things. First was the name and the second is Dibbler has a comment. Dibbler becomes the manager for music with Roxanne which we'll talk about in a minute. But Dibbler has a comment about how he's buying shirts, concert T shirts, essentially. And people wanted clothes just because they had writing on and boy do I resemble that remark.
Lilly 29:51
I'm in this picture and I don't like
Sara 29:54
the way that I like if I go to a place and they have like, you know a brand shirt. I'm like, I want that T shirt. Well, there are
Lilly 30:06
a lot of, I won't even call them parallels. They're not even subtle. Pratchett is just lamb besting the way, the music industry is treated, not on a particularly deep level, just with the really obvious, you know, merchandise commercialism, and also, managers. Dibbler is a character who has showed up, maybe in every Discworld book, as a scummy con artist, basically, he does sell things, but like the food is all poison, because it's so low quality. He's someone that we are very familiar with, at this point, as being someone with no morals, he's
Sara 30:49
not a low life in the way that I think your description makes it sound. But he's not. He's a he's a businessman who doesn't think of the implications sometimes.
Lilly 31:02
And I think that's a little too kind. So he is somewhere in the middle. And he becomes the manager for the band music with rocks in. And that's just so perfect. That is just such a not subtle at all, but maybe sub textual, will say absolutely savage burn on how managers treat their bands. He pays them like
Sara 31:30
pennies, basically.
Lilly 31:32
Yeah, I was trying to do very quick math, point 1% of their IT revenue,
Sara 31:39
pockets, all of the profit, all of it, because these poor naive musicians don't know what they're worth. And so they're asking for like 10 gold to split between them. And they're taking in 10 gold per ticket, you know, and selling out all these these big venues.
Lilly 31:58
To be fair, GLAAD does figure it out pretty quickly.
Sara 32:02
A lot is also a very bad negotiator. Oh, yeah.
Lilly 32:06
But he knows he's being taken advantage of at least you can be a bad negotiator but not naive. That's true. Yeah. Because the second he sees the ticket price, he does like, Wait, hold on.
Sara 32:18
But then then he asks for like, 17 gold per person. Yeah. Which is still not great, given how much they're bringing
Lilly 32:27
in. Okay. I mean, yeah, nibblers absolutely taking advantage of them. 100%. But that's just another way that this book so closely mirrors reality, isn't it? True.
Sara 32:39
One thing, and I don't have a lot to say about this, because it hasn't been like three weeks. But I really like at the at the very end where if is more buddy than amp? Terry Pratchett does a really good job at distinguishing, like the very subtle differences. So you know, when it's amp talking, and being, you know, the bard who wants to make his way in the world. And when it's buddy talking, which is this rock star who's basically subsumed by the spirit of rock'n'roll. And I liked seeing the transition from imp to buddy and back to him throughout the book, and how you can tell by like speech patterns, and just these small little things that aren't explicitly spelled out, but you pick up on, I thought, that was a really nice, subtle way to distinguish between the spirit of rock'n'roll and the original character.
Lilly 33:34
I also experienced that, but I read half of this book, when we were first supposed to record and then the second half today. So when I got to the part where it was more himself again, I was like, why are there typos in my book? There's not that many ELLs in the world at all. I'm so confused. And it took me maybe a little bit longer to catch on to oh, that's because this is him again. And buddy, which is his stage name, but he has sort of fallen back. Yes. And I think if I had read the book in closer to one go, might have figured that out quicker. Yes, I
Sara 34:15
think I think that's probably a little more obvious when you don't have a big gap in between, you know, reading the first half of the book and the second
Lilly 34:24
Yeah. I didn't notice that though. And I didn't like it once I figured out what was going on. I also really enjoyed basically every moment with the wizards. I don't always love the wizards in Discworld. I don't dislike them but they're not usually my favorite part. But they are gold every moment of this book that they're in the
Sara 34:49
wizard books are usually my favorite books. So I really obviously really enjoyed their their part in this book.
Lilly 34:57
Oh, just the image the mental image. Rock'n'roll music infects everyone who listens to it, and so everyone starts turning into an angsty teen. So you have this group of octogenarians, half of which are acting like angsty teens.
Sara 35:15
It's great.
Lilly 35:16
It's so funny. It's not particularly deep humor, but it's really funny.
Sara 35:24
I do really want kind of a jean jacket that says born to ruin on it. A Dean
Lilly 35:29
jacket and Dean jacket. Yeah. Oh, and there's an argument at one point about how rock'n'roll music is changing people. And it just devolves into this room is a mess, you have to clean your room, and you can't tell me what to do. It's so out of character. It's great.
Sara 35:48
It's really funny seeing red Kelly, the arch Chancellor who's not affected by the music in quite the same way. Like he's, he's not devolving into the teenager, but he does turn into the parent. So seeing that contrast, is very funny.
Lilly 36:04
But we also get some really good moments that are less soul music specific, we got to see red Collie interacting with students.
Sara 36:15
Actually, I think, I think, well, Stevens at this point is faculty. But the rest of them are grad students. That's true.
Lilly 36:23
Okay, but it's his absolute disdain and bafflement for the fact that there are students at this school is also hilarious to me.
Sara 36:33
I think that's a really good, like, running joke throughout all of the wizard books, or whatever the wizard show up, is how horrified they are by the concept of students at this university. Place of learning.
Lilly 36:44
It's just so good. It's again, very simple, but very funny.
Sara 36:52
Effective.
Lilly 36:54
That's true. So I'm not sure if this counts as a pet peeve, or I words are weird. Or maybe this is my pet peeve, because there are weird words. But I notice it. Mostly in Pratchett. I'm sure it's not. I'm pretty sure it's just a British English thing. But when you end a phrase on a preposition, it always sounds so awkward to me.
Sara 37:29
Like music with Roxanne Yeah, exactly. Or dribblers. Quote, people want to close just because they had writing on. Yeah. on them.
Lilly 37:40
I know. It's just a British English thing. But it's sounds so awkward. It's like nails on a chalkboard.
Sara 37:47
It definitely gives me pause whenever I see it. I don't think it's it's not at that level for me of nails on the chalkboard, but, and I do associated mostly with Terry Pratchett, I have to say, I think he
Lilly 37:58
uses it in a much more titular way, not as the titles of his book, obviously. But when it shows up, he's using it to emphasize a point. And so it sticks out a lot. I think it almost feels like he's in on the joke like, yeah, isn't this awful? Now you have to pay attention to it. Yeah, I guess that's grammar is weird. More Than Words are weird. Yeah,
Sara 38:25
it's not a specific word. Right? Sentence Construction. English is weird.
Lilly 38:32
We'll leave it as a pet peeve, then yeah, we'll call it a pet peeve. Because I know that I'm probably not the only person in the world. You even admitted that you agree with me. So that actually probably means that most people feel this way. Since if we overlap.
Sara 38:48
I don't know if I would go that far. But you are not alone in the world and this particular pet peeve, I think,
Lilly 38:55
no way. There's no way. It's again, it's one of those things where I completely understand where it's coming from. And I have no problem with it intellectually, but it's what I encountered it in the wild. It's like it's just jarring. But then I get over it and keep reading because turns out not everyone speaks like me. I just have to get over that. Unfortunately. It's true. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of fiction fans.
Sara 39:30
Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter and Instagram at fiction fans pod. You can also email us at fiction fans pod@gmail.com.
Lilly 39:38
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara 39:46
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly 39:52
Thanks again for listening. And may Your villains always be defeated by