The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

Episode 117

Release Date: December 6, 2023

Your hosts discuss the first Young Adult novel on the Discworld, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. They takes a trip down memory lane to a brand new place, and talk about the various YA tropes that Pratchett plays with. Sara also takes us to the pet peeve corner where they try to come up with better alternatives to "male" and "female" as used in A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas.

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

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” - Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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Episode Transcript*

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

Lilly: 0:03

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily,

Sara: 0:10

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly: 0:11

and today we'll be discussing the amazing Morris and his educated rodents. I did not say Maurice, and that is going to be a very conscious effort on my part for the next hour or so, so apologies in advance for fucking that up.

Sara: 0:25

I mean, you know, we're American. I think if we say Maurice, it's understandable.

Lilly: 0:33

I know a Maurice is the thing.

Sara: 0:35

That makes it more difficult.

Lilly: 0:37

Yeah, so saying The Amazing Morris just feels like I'm pronouncing his name wrong and that feels bad. Anyway, we're not talking about that book quite yet though. Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara: 0:50

Something great that's happened recently is I rearranged my guest bedroom and repainted the accent wall in there, and this is something that I've been wanting to do for a while, and it looks a lot better, I'm very pleased with it, it was great.

Lilly: 1:05

Nice, you did show me pictures today and it was very good.

Sara: 1:08

Yes. And you're a good thing?

Lilly: 1:11

You know, I think my good thing is that I broke out my nail polish this week.

Sara: 1:15

Oh, that's exciting!

Lilly: 1:16

I haven't painted my nails in a long time and it's nice, yeah. I don't know if you can tell, but the shine doesn't really come oh, it kind of

Sara: 1:23

yeah, it kinda does. Yeah, very pretty color.

Lilly: 1:27

Thank you.

Sara: 1:27

I haven't painted my nails in ages. Makes me sad.

Lilly: 1:31

Right? It was too much of a hassle, and then I was like, oh, this is a hassle, but it's nice.

Sara: 1:37

For me, it was just that I was doing so much gardening that it didn't last.

Lilly: 1:41

Yeah, I feel that. But it's winter now, or at least for me. I do not want to garden when the ground is frozen.

Sara: 1:49

This is actually good gardening time for me because my ground is soft because of the rain, unlike in the summer where it's clay and you cannot do anything.

Lilly: 1:57

Well, sounds like you won't be painting your nails anytime soon then.

Sara: 2:00

Possibly not.

Lilly: 2:02

What are we drinking tonight?

Sara: 2:03

I am drinking white wine.

Lilly: 2:06

Very nice. Is it out of a box?

Sara: 2:08

It's not out of a box, it's out of a bottle, but don't ask me for any details because I couldn't tell you, tell them to you.

Lilly: 2:17

You could have lied.

Sara: 2:18

I could've, but

Lilly: 2:19

You could have just told me it was out of a box.

Sara: 2:22

That's too much effort.

Lilly: 2:23

Yeah, fine. I finally got a bubbly water creation machine.

Sara: 2:29

Oh,

Lilly: 2:30

So I've been making my own bubbly water. So I'm drinking homemade bubbly water.

Sara: 2:35

that's exciting.

Lilly: 2:37

We've been playing around with the different flavor squeezies that you can get. I guess they don't actually squeeze out, but, you know, the plastic flavor y bottles. I don't love them. I think just a splash of regular juice is going to be the real answer. But it does feel like you're mixing potions when you're like, A little lemonade, a little strawberry. Extract. Essence of ginger ale.

Sara: 3:00

Yeah, I think it would be more fun to, I mean, to me, the whole point of a bubbly water maker would be to, well, A, have less cans.

Lilly: 3:09

Yeah. It's a lot cheaper.

Sara: 3:11

Yeah, but B also so that I can add good things to my water and not, you know, chemical y things. So I'd rather add, like, my own, I don't know, shrub or juice.

Lilly: 3:25

drink so much bubbly water, trying to add anything homemade to it just means I would run out. I cannot mass produce shrub in enough quantities.

Sara: 3:33

That's fair enough.

Lilly: 3:35

Have you read anything good lately?

Sara: 3:37

I've been reading a lot of Sarah J. Maas, actually. I started reading A Court of Thorns and Roses because I have been suffering from a terrible, terrible reading slump. And I have a bunch of friends who are huge fans. So I was like, well, at least their enthusiasm will get me through the books. And it turns out that I'm actually having a great time with them. Except for one minor pet peeve, which we will discuss in the pet peeve corner at the end of this episode. But, I'm pleasantly surprised. To be honest, I didn't have that high hopes for the books, but they're actually fun. They're decently well written. The plot is engaging. There's less smut than I was expecting, though.

Lilly: 4:22

Interesting, yeah, I thought that was a very high heat series.

Sara: 4:26

mean, there's definitely explicit sex, but there's not There's maybe like two scenes or three scenes per book. And they're not that graphic. Like, I've definitely read much hotter fan fiction.

Lilly: 4:40

That's almost always

Sara: 4:41

That is almost always true, but, oh, I didn't, I didn't start my, stop my clock. Oops. I'll be right back. But from the way that my friends have talked about the series, I was expecting the sex scenes to be a little better. Not going to lie.

Lilly: 4:58

Well, I have not really done any, uh, extracurricular reading lately.

Sara: 5:04

Big surprise.

Lilly: 5:06

Oh my God, though. So I had not read The Amazing Morris and his educated rodents before. Had you?

Sara: 5:12

I've read it once. I don't think I've read it more than that, though, before now.

Lilly: 5:16

I loved it.

Sara: 5:18

I'm not surprised, given your love of rats.

Lilly: 5:21

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I ha it. It's weird having a book I've never read before. Give me nostalgia. But this book, I mean, I had pet rats as a kid, so reading this book and all of the cute little rats running around and they had such good names. My rats, or at least my charismatic rats, were named Mappy and Snowball and Cinnamon.

Sara: 5:45

names would fit right in with Dangerous Beans and Dark and Tan.

Lilly: 5:50

Dangerous Beans was really good.

Sara: 5:52

Dangerous Beans, if I was to have a rat, I would, I would name him Dangerous Beans. If I have another pug, I might name him Dangerous Beans.

Lilly: 6:01

I was going to say, it actually might be a better cat name, because cats have those toe beans. I guess pugs do too, but it's not the same.

Sara: 6:08

I mean, it definitely would be a better cat name, but I'm not likely to have a cat. One never knows.

Lilly: 6:14

I'm just saying, philosophically.

Sara: 6:16

yes, I agree with you.

Lilly: 6:18

Because we tell our cats that they have sharp beans, which is basically the same thing as dangerous beans.

Sara: 6:24

It's quite close.

Lilly: 6:26

Do they understand and internalize the way we're describing their beans? No. Anyway, yeah, just reading about all these little rats. This was definitely the kind of thing that I assumed was going through their heads, especially because, like, I read, oh, I also read The Rats of Nym as a kid, which is very much about,

Sara: 6:45

I don't think I ever read that.

Lilly: 6:47

really? Oh. It's very much like rats building a society, right? Becoming super intelligent and creating a society. And so that might have been part of the nostalgia too. And also reading that book while I had rats, I definitely projected it onto them.

Sara: 7:04

Obviously.

Lilly: 7:06

This book fulfilled all of my, like, sweet emotions towards those little, weird, scaly tailed friends.

Sara: 7:14

Well, I don't have that kind of rat nostalgia, but I did enjoy this book. Fun fact, there is a Mr. Squeaky mentioned on page 109, at least 109 of my copy. It's a squeaky rubber rat toy. And Mr. Squeak, even though she is named after the death of rats, she's not named after Mr. Squeaky, but I thought it was fun to find something so close to her name in this book.

Lilly: 7:39

Yeah. as I implied, this book is about, well, a lot of things. But the main plot is a group of hyper intelligent rats who are running around I mean, trying to survive, but trying to figure out how to be intelligent creatures, right, after being regular rats for so long.

Sara: 7:58

Well, they, they want to find a place where they can form their own society. And in order to do that, they've teamed up with an intelligent cat named Morris, who has them running the Pied Piper Con, basically, on all the towns in Discworld, because they intend to use the money they get from that to, like, charter a boat and go to an island and build their own rat kingdom paradise.

Lilly: 8:24

And, of course, they have Keith, the dopey kid who has to be the piper in this situation, even though Morris is definitely the ringleader.

Sara: 8:31

Morris is the brains of the operation. Or, he thinks so.

Lilly: 8:38

at the beginning of this book they get to a new city and things immediately start going awry. But they meet Militia, the mayor's daughter, and she is an absolute character. I kind of loved and hated her at the same time. Like, I loved her with my entire heart, but I would not want to actually, like, be in a room with her, you know?

Sara: 8:59

I think that I would have had a lot more patience for Militia as a character if I was reading this as a younger person. As a 33 year old, I'm kinda like, oh god, just settle down, Militia.

Lilly: 9:14

I think that's the point, though. Like, that's how all the characters in the book

Sara: 9:17

It, it is the point, but it's also because, because this is a young adult novel, we're also supposed to, like, empathize with Militia at least a little bit. And I think that is easier to do when you're younger. Her characteristics are a little less grating.

Lilly: 9:35

I have a sinking suspicion. Sinking? Sneaking?

Sara: 9:40

Sinking, I think.

Lilly: 9:42

It is sinking,

Sara: 9:43

Yeah.

Lilly: 9:43

Okay. I have some kind of suspicion

Sara: 9:47

You have a suspicion.

Lilly: 9:49

that I might have been Militia when I was her age. So I have to be sympathetic because I hope that people were sympathetic to me back then.

Sara: 10:01

Yeah, I mean, so, Militia, essentially she thinks that everything should be like a story, and she thinks that everything goes the way that they do in stories, and she's very outspoken about that. I mean, to an over exaggerated degree, right, because it's poking fun at that aspect of, I think, characters in young adult novels. So I suspect that you were not quite as annoying as she was, because I be hard to be that level in real life.

Lilly: 10:33

She's kind of like the young adult novel version of Terminally Online. Terminally book reading. Which is exactly how I would describe my middle school self.

Sara: 10:45

Yeah, except I think the difference with Militia is that she expects everything to be like a story, and people in the real world, even if you're terminally book reading, people don't necessarily have that expectation. Ha

Lilly: 11:03

that I just invented.

Sara: 11:04

ha. Fair enough.

Lilly: 11:07

Terminal reader. No, she would like argue with people and say that they're

Sara: 11:12

They're not doing it right.

Lilly: 11:13

Lives are wrong, yeah, if they don't align with her expectations. So, you know, she's a little shit, but Oh god, Sarah, was I militia? But my thing is, like, she's the butt of that joke, though.

Sara: 11:29

she absolutely is.

Lilly: 11:30

That's Pratchett kind of walking the line between a younger reader is going to really like her, whereas an older reader is going to realize that we're making fun of her. Which is kind of mean.

Sara: 11:43

I mean, I think that Pratchett is definitely leaving space for the adult reader who is reading this with their kids to be in on the joke.

Lilly: 11:57

well, I don't know, actually. I take that back. She's so over the top. Like, let's give kids some credit. They can tell. Really, I think the characters that are designed to be sympathetic and are the most Relatable, are the rats, Dangerous Beans, and Peaches. They're the two, like, most thoughtful, I would say. Not necessarily most intelligent, but most thoughtful of the smart rats.

Sara: 12:23

Yes, so I don't think that the child reader of this book is supposed to think, Militia, yes, that's me. That's my character in, in

Lilly: 12:33

She's so cool! Yeah,

Sara: 12:35

Like, I don't think that was, that was what Pratchett was going for at all. No, but I, I do think that younger reader has probably at least just, just going by how I remember myself as a younger reader. It has more tolerance for that, and yes, you know, you can tell that it's, characteristics are exaggerated, but you're not necessarily getting the full scope of the joke the way that you do as an adult.

Lilly: 13:02

Oh yeah, sure.

Sara: 13:03

Yeah. But I, I agree with you that I think that the, the rats are the most sympathetic characters in the novel.

Lilly: 13:10

And really, they're the main characters by basically every metric. Dark and Tan is the trap expert, and I would say he's the one who goes through the most character growth. Well, Dangerous Beans does too, but that's maybe a spoiler conversation.

Sara: 13:24

Yeah, I think Dark and Tan goes through Dark and Tan ends up in a more different position at the end of the book than where he started.

Lilly: 13:33

Yes. So, from that definition of protagonist, the one who undergoes change, you got Dark and Tan.

Sara: 13:40

Yes.

Lilly: 13:41

He also does, like, cause a lot of action in the book, right? He is making decisions and taking action, so he's not just an observer. Or anything. Where as Dangerous Beans is more of the, the moral compass for the rats. He's the one who's like thinking about ethics and the idea that there ought to be a written language and that sort of thing.

Sara: 14:04

And what it means for them that they were normal rats that didn't have a sense of self, and now they have a sense of self and community, and conscious thought that involves, like, interaction with the outside world, as peers, not just as, like, objects.

Lilly: 14:23

He's a philosopher, really.

Sara: 14:26

He kinda is, though.

Lilly: 14:27

Of course Morris was excellent. I'm always going to say that about a cat, but.

Sara: 14:33

Morris was my favorite.

Lilly: 14:35

He's so sassy. He's a cat. Doing cat stuff. I was kind of surprised how this book handled the quote unquote inherent nature of cats.

Sara: 14:47

How so?

Lilly: 14:48

It very much focuses on, like, I mean, Morris is an intelligent cat who chooses to not eat intelligent creatures, but at his core, he is A vicious predator. And there's a lot of comments about, like, you can always trust a cat to be a cat, and that sort of thing, and I don't know. Maybe it's just because I have indoor cats. So, while they definitely like to, quote unquote, hunt things, I've never experienced them as, I'm, as if might have killed a spider once. Like, I don't know. The idea that they're inherently

Sara: 15:28

I mean, my father had mostly indoor cats, and they definitely brought him a couple of gifts of, you know, dead birds.

Lilly: 15:37

Yeah, that's the thing, right? Like, I know that cats, like, they do hunt, they do have those instincts, but the idea that, like, there's always a force lurking inside them, that that's all they would do, like, no, I don't know.

Sara: 15:51

But I think, I think that in the wider world, that is accurate, though.

Lilly: 15:56

I think it is. No, sorry, that's why I brought up me having indoor cats, because I think it's just, I don't see that.

Sara: 16:01

Yeah.

Lilly: 16:02

And so I'm like, really? Are you sure? But no, it is definitely a thing. And that's one of the reasons why we keep our cats inside, so they don't kill all the birds. No, it was just very interesting reading those sections. Knowing that this book was written by a cat lover, and that was still how they were depicted.

Sara: 16:21

mean, I think that for all that Pratchett likes cats, he's a realist. He knows, he knows how cats act.

Lilly: 16:28

Like, that makes, gives it an interesting spin,

Sara: 16:31

Yeah.

Lilly: 16:31

I guess my view of cats is much less evil mastermind and much more doofus y.

Sara: 16:38

I mean, your, your cats are silly goofballs, it's true. Or Bard is a silly goofball. I think, I think Sif is a predator.

Lilly: 16:47

I mean, Bard's the one who can catch bugs. He catches beetles. He doesn't kill them, but he, you know, catches them. And then there's stink bugs, so I rush in and take them away from him. It was just interesting, having my perception of cats challenged. Also, this is a fictional book, and Morris can talk, so I don't know if he's, like, a good example of all cats. This is what all cats truly are like, and I'm the one who's wrong.

Sara: 17:13

I certainly wouldn't take Morris some kind of hard guideline. I did kind of want to watch, there was an animated film that came out, I think this year, based on this book that I wanted to watch and I just never got around to seeing how to watch it.

Lilly: 17:32

I would love to. That sounds fun. I really liked this

Sara: 17:35

I think it won a BAFTA. It came out in 2022. means it probably did win a BAFTA this year. It's got a star studded cast. Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, David Tennant. It is available in the U. S. It was released by Viva Pictures in the U. S.

Lilly: 17:55

You sound like a movie poster.

Sara: 17:57

I'm reading the Wikipedia page.

Lilly: 18:00

studded cast! Two thumbs up!

Sara: 18:04

Kevin Maher of the Times gave the film 2 out of 5 stars. Criticizing what he called its creaky gags about post structural textual analysis, and adding, this might not have mattered so much if the characters around Militia were lively, witty, or even, yes, animated. Wow.

Lilly: 18:23

Around Militia. Wait, is Militia the main character in the movie? Weird.

Sara: 18:27

I don't know. I

Lilly: 18:29

Or did that guy think she was, which would also be weird.

Sara: 18:34

I don't know.

Lilly: 18:36

Alright, well we gotta watch this thing

Sara: 18:37

We do, we do have to watch it.

Lilly: 18:40

I'm so curious.

Sara: 18:41

The Wikipedia page is not telling me about what awards it's won. Or not won, but I'm pretty sure that it won something.

Lilly: 18:49

Well, I'm glad I read this book. Like you were saying earlier, as far as a reading slump palate cleanser goes, this was excellent. It was some fun, sweet hijinks. Still a little hardcore. I mean, there, there were, uh, there was some cannibalism in it.

Sara: 19:07

I mean, and it's, it's Pratchett.

Lilly: 19:09

Yeah, it definitely felt like, yeah, just a Discworld novel for a slightly younger audience.

Sara: 19:16

This is the first YA Discord novel that we've podcast, I think, right? Yeah. Because we haven't read any of the, um, Tiffany Aching books yet.

Lilly: 19:27

The Wee Free Men. Oh, are those the same thing?

Sara: 19:30

Yeah, that's the first Tiffany Aching book.

Lilly: 19:32

Okay. Well, it was cute. There were rats, there were hijinks, there were evil plots, there were spoiler things that we'll talk about later. I think there was plenty in it for an adult to enjoy. Like, it was just nice. It was a, it was a relaxing book.

Sara: 19:49

I think so. I mean,

Lilly: 19:50

I was able to just, like, sit down and plow through

Sara: 19:53

yeah, and it's, it's not long. Because it's a young adult novel, it's, it's not long at all.

Lilly: 19:57

I mean, it's the same length as any other Discworld novel, unless the font is secretly huge.

Sara: 20:02

It's a little shorter. It's only like 250 pages. Okay, 200 and 270 pages. But that is a little shorter than most Discworld novels.

Lilly: 20:11

Mine is 340.

Sara: 20:12

Really? Mine is definitely only 270.

Lilly: 20:17

That's what I'm saying. Like, are the margins, maybe the margins are huge.

Sara: 20:20

Do you have a physical copy? Huh.

Lilly: 20:23

Oh, yours is much taller than

Sara: 20:25

Is

Lilly: 20:25

Yours is not the same size as a Discworld novel.

Sara: 20:28

is No, it's not

Lilly: 20:30

hold it up to the camera as if that's gonna mean anything.

Sara: 20:34

Do you have a Discworld book to compare it to?

Lilly: 20:37

Discworld novel. Okay.

Sara: 20:40

Hmm. Yeah, I think that this is about the same size as a Discworld novel.

Lilly: 20:47

Okay, that would make sense. Height and, height and width wise. Dimensions wise.

Sara: 20:51

Yeah. Not depth wise. I mean, it's probably about the same length as Eric, but Eric doesn't necessarily count, because Eric is odd.

Lilly: 20:59

I do think mine does have bigger margins as well than my, well, the random Discworld novel I pulled off my bookshelf.

Sara: 21:07

make sense.

Lilly: 21:08

So it's a little shorter.

Sara: 21:09

Yeah, I mean,

Lilly: 21:10

This is why page counts are meaningless and everyone should use word count.

Sara: 21:14

Word count does make it easier, it's true. But, like, yeah, this isn't the first novel I would recommend to an adult, necessarily, but I definitely think that you can read it as an adult and enjoy it. Like, it's not like it's kid specific.

Lilly: 21:29

It's also not that Discworld y. I mean, so the rats become intelligent because they eat the trash of the Wizard University. And so if you know about The Unseen University, you'd be like, Oh, yeah, except you don't need to know that to understand that concept.

Sara: 21:46

So when you say it's not that Discworld y, you mean you don't need to have any knowledge of Discworld because it doesn't involve a lot of, like, Discworld concepts or characters.

Lilly: 21:56

I think this book fully stands alone, yes.

Sara: 21:59

Yeah, I, I would

Lilly: 22:00

very Discworld y from, like, a thematic standpoint.

Sara: 22:04

Yeah, I would agree, because when you first said that I was like, but actually I think it's quite Discworld y. But, no, with your explanation, I would agree with you. I do think it stands alone, and you don't need to have any Discworld context to read it. It helps a little bit when they talk about the death of rats, because they never, like, say the death of rats.

Lilly: 22:22

But you also don't need to know, like, Which one was that? It has the one with the hourglasses on it. Reaperman. Reaperman's the one where the death of rats becomes a thing, right? I think so.

Sara: 22:34

Yeah, I believe so.

Lilly: 22:35

Like, you don't need to know that story to think, oh yeah, as the rats are forming their own society, they would invent their own Grim Reaper. Like, that logic follows perfectly.

Sara: 22:47

Yeah, it's true.

Lilly: 22:49

I don't think you need to know that backstory to get that, like, there's a rat Grim Reaper.

Sara: 22:53

No, I mean, but that's what I'm saying, like, you don't need it. Yes, I mean, if you do know that, you, you can make the connection, Oh, the figure they're talking about is the death of rats that we know and love. And that adds a little bit of, you know, fun to it, sure. But, absolutely, you don't need to know that to still enjoy it.

Lilly: 23:16

Yeah, it feels more like an easter egg than like a, Well, if you googled it and found out the background, it would help, but you don't need to. Like, no, you don't even have to do that. Who would love this book? Any young reader who likes fantasy and or storytelling?

Sara: 23:33

Any young reader who likes rats?

Lilly: 23:34

Or rats? Yeah. It's sweet. It had a happy ending. Of course, I mean, all Pratchett books do, really.

Sara: 23:42

Most, most Discworld books do, yeah. Yeah.

Lilly: 23:48

endings, but they're not like tragedies.

Sara: 23:52

Maybe that's one of the reasons why I like Discworld so much. But yeah, I think that any young reader who likes humorous fantasy is gonna enjoy this. If you're a Discworld fan as an adult, I think you'll probably like this.

Lilly: 24:05

Yeah, if you just want, like, a nice rest.

Sara: 24:09

A nice easy read.

Lilly: 24:11

If you're tired of grimdark, come read this book.

24:14

To avoid spoilers, skip to 35 30.

Sara: 24:26

So one of the things that I enjoyed about this book is the way that it kind of turns, or it plays with a lot of young adult novel tropes. And some of those, like we've talked about with Militia, it exaggerates for comedic effect. And some of those it turns on its head, like specifically the rat catchers. Because in a lot of young adult novels, Or like, Scooby Doo, for example, which is not, obviously not a young adult novel, but I think is comparable, in, in this sense.

Lilly: 24:59

But we're, we're talking about storytelling in general, right? Obviously, with a focus on books, but Any medium in which stories are told for young people.

Sara: 25:08

Yes, exactly. A lot of the times, the villains are incompetent, and they get caught because they're incompetent, and the rat catchers, when we first see them, we think that that's what's happening. Like, Morris notices that some of the rat tails they're bringing are actually shoelaces, for example. And we think, oh, these guys are just dumb. They're villainous, they don't have much to them, and then we find out that actually, no, that's just how they portray themselves. They're actually quite smart, and I've really enjoyed that contradiction and that reveal.

Lilly: 25:44

They're smart enough to know they don't want people to know

Sara: 25:47

Yes. Like, rat catchers shouldn't be stupid, so they're gonna play stupid.

Lilly: 25:53

You hit on two of the things that make this book very Discworld y. And I realize now that you're right, I did a terrible word choice earlier by saying that. Because I literally have a bullet point. Very Discworld y.

Sara: 26:06

Yes.

Lilly: 26:08

I had meant not lore heavy. Anyway. So, some of the recurring themes that Pratchett talks about in his main Discworld series, one of them is the importance of theatricality, we'll say. The Ratcatchers know that if they play to this role, things will be easier for them. Like, people aren't going to question them, and they'll be able to get away with their schemes. We also see that in the Pied Piper at the end, the, I'd say quote unquote, real pied Piper, but he is also still running a scam. Well, no.'cause he, he has a flute that plays, it's basically a dog whistle, right? But for rats, a rat whistle,

Sara: 26:50

But his scam is not that he can't get rid of the rats because he does have this thing that actually works, but it's he, he plays up his exploits and his theatricality. Like he acts like a jerk because that's what people expect and that's what gets him the most money.

Lilly: 27:07

right? He leans into the role. And then we also have like the nature of stories that this book goes a lot into, like people want. The Pied Piper to play this role and do these things so they have a story to tell later. And so, if the Piper doesn't do those things, people will, you know, be mad and not pay him and all that stuff. It reminds me a lot of Witches Abroad. Especially with all of Militia's lines about, like, This is what's supposed to happen next, and

Sara: 27:36

Yeah. I mean, I, I think Witches Abroad is more about the. Narrative weight of stories, and this is more about our expectations because of stories. But there is some overlap there, I agree.

Lilly: 27:50

And, like, the idea that people, what is it, does art reflect reality or does reality reflect art? People will play out the stories because that's what they're familiar with. I mean, it's not the same as Witches Abroad, it just reminded me of it.

Sara: 28:02

I think Wishes Abroad was very much, the story pushes the art, and this is, the art pushes the story. If that makes sense. Yeah.

Lilly: 28:12

Abroad, yeah, yeah. But it's part of the same

Sara: 28:15

part of the same conversation. I just, I think that this is like the other side of the coin.

Lilly: 28:21

And then, of course, this is kind of a story retelling, right? Well, not exactly, because the Pied Piper is a story in this book. It's just rats all the way down. But there's, yeah, there are a lot of elements that I see in this that we've gotten from the main disc world series that it's like, aw, what a fun, like, new combination. It's almost like a little, like, intro to all of these ideas.

Sara: 28:47

I think it would be a great introduction to Discworld for, like, a young reader, for sure.

Lilly: 28:52

Or an adult reader who wants something very low key and easy.

Sara: 28:56

Assuming you haven't actually read any Discworld, yeah.

Lilly: 28:59

Yeah, I think it would still be a good intro, just with the understanding that this is the YA one.

Sara: 29:04

Yeah.

Lilly: 29:06

kinda reminds me of Carrot. Keith is the kid who is following around, working with Morris and the rats. He plays the part of the piper.

Sara: 29:15

Yeah, I can, I can see that.

Lilly: 29:17

Again, he's not the same character in the way that this book is not, which is abroad. But, through the whole book, people are making fun of him, saying He looks stupid, and he just kind of stays quiet and follows along with other people's plans. But then, near the middle, towards the end of the book, he starts to reveal that he understands quite well what's going on. He just knows that staying quiet is an easier way of existing. But he speaks up when he needs to.

Sara: 29:46

Yeah, I mean, I can, like Carrot, he doesn't really deviate from what he thinks is the right thing to do. I mean, yes, he's, he's quiet for a lot of the time, but when he has Opinions about things, you know, he, he follows his own opinion.

Lilly: 30:01

He's very quiet and straightforward, and that gets him underestimated. Which he does, well, to play the piper, he uses to his advantage. And I feel like that's a sort of a similar vibe to what Carrot does.

Sara: 30:15

I think it's, it's much more explicit in this book than it is with Carrot.

Lilly: 30:20

Yeah. Well, that's part of what makes this book feel younger, right? A lot more is spelled out. And for Pratchett, that's saying something, because he spells out a lot.

Sara: 30:31

Yeah, I, I do, I do think that that's a very specific like, genre choice? Age level choice?

Lilly: 30:37

Audience.

Sara: 30:38

Audience choice, yeah. Because with Carrot, a lot of that context, or that subtext, you get by reading between the lines. And here, like, Keith has very specific dialogue that makes it clear.

Lilly: 30:55

I guess the last comment I have for this book is Morris and Dangerous Beans go through hell. Well, a lot of them do. Dark and tan, almost literally.

Sara: 31:06

Darkatan does get caught in a trap and almost dies.

Lilly: 31:11

He sees the light. Okay, I have to say, when it was written on the page, and then Morris died, I was like, the fuck?

Sara: 31:23

I kind of was too.

Lilly: 31:25

And then I was like, oh, it's a nine lives thing, but I was like supremely upset for a second there. I didn't really believe it. I was like, what do you mean? He was dead tired? Like, what? But no, Morris really did die for, you know, a minute.

Sara: 31:42

I mean, but it was, it was a genuine death. It just so happens that he has a lot of lives because he's a cat.

Lilly: 31:47

a cat with nine lives, and I was like, okay, I accept this.

Sara: 31:51

Well, he only had five left at that point.

Lilly: 31:54

Well, remaining, yes, but to start with. The trope. The Nine Lives trope. And he gave one to Dangerous Beans.

Sara: 32:03

I loved that. I loved that so much.

Lilly: 32:07

Heartbreaking. Oh! Another reason why this feels nostalgic to me, even though I've read it for the first time at 30 fuckin years old. The, the storybook that the rats carry around.

Sara: 32:19

Mr. Bunsie.

Lilly: 32:21

It's Peter Ra Peter Rabbit? Mr. Cottontail. Which one Are those two different things?

Sara: 32:26

I think Peter Rabbit, but that might be the same thing, I don't know.

Lilly: 32:30

I think Mr. Cottontail is a character in Peter Rabbit. Anyway, it's clearly Peter Rabbit, right, Mr. Bunsy?

Sara: 32:37

Yes. And you can actually buy Mr. Bunsie Has an Adventure.

Lilly: 32:43

Really? They, they, that's cute.

Sara: 32:45

Apparently it was created to celebrate the release of the film adaptation.

Lilly: 32:50

That's sweet. But yes, before The Rats of Nym, when I was even younger, I did read Peter Rabbit quite a bit, so. This book had a lot of things in it for people my age. Despite being for people younger than me.

Sara: 33:07

I'm not sure I actually read a lot of Peter Rabbit when I was a kid, yeah.

Lilly: 33:13

Oh man, we had, I think we had a record. An actual record of, like, I'm gonna call it a book on tape, but it was a book on record. Hmm.

Sara: 33:24

not remembering. Uh, apparently, for example, like, I was a huge fan of The Little Mermaid when I was a kid, and I don't really remember that, but I don't remember reading Peter Rabbit a lot.

Lilly: 33:35

Aw, with Mr. McGregor? It terrified me. Those books were intense!

Sara: 33:41

I'm sure that I read them, I'm just not sure that I read them enough to make an impression.

Lilly: 33:47

Well, I think the combination of those things is why this book felt so familiar and new at the same time. Which was honestly a really fun experience.

Sara: 33:56

Yeah, that makes sense.

Lilly: 33:57

I was like, I'm getting a new story, but also feeling like I'm steeped in nostalgia and like, wrapped in a warm blanket. I was literally wrapped in a warm blanket, because it's cold as hell, but like, it was just really cozy and nice. Even when the rats were debating whether it's okay to eat themselves.

Sara: 34:16

That sounds like a lovely reading experience, honestly. Like it just, it sounds pleasant.

Lilly: 34:23

It was nice. Even when Dark and Tan was debating burning everyone alive.

Sara: 34:31

It's like how you always want to be able to go back and read a favorite story for the first time, right? And this kind of sounds like doing that.

Lilly: 34:42

It did. That's exactly what it felt like. It was fantastic. Yeah. I really enjoyed this book. I think, for a lot of personal reasons, but I also think the book did that on purpose.

Sara: 34:53

Yeah, it's a good book. It's doing a lot of things on purpose, but it also sounds like there was a nice concentration of events that led that particular feeling to be very strong for you.

Lilly: 35:05

Absolutely. Oh, man. And. This is just the fuzzy feelings corner. I bought the book over Thanksgiving, so my parents were in town and my mom came with me to the bookstore. It was a football day. So we were like, fuck, we need something to do. Yeah, I went to get the book with my mom. It was good. Mm hmm.

Sara: 35:32

So, I mentioned in the introduction that I'm really enjoying A Court of Thorns and Roses. Except for one thing. And this is a very deliberate choice that Moss has made. And I respect that she has made this choice. But, it still frustrates me every time I see it. To give a little bit of context for listeners who don't know the books, or for Lily, because I don't think that you know much of the books at all.

Lilly: 35:58

Indeed. Are there both thorns and roses involved?

Sara: 36:02

Uh, maybe.

Lilly: 36:04

That's all I got.

Sara: 36:05

I guess the first one, the first one, she talks a lot about, about rose bushes, but anyway, so the book basically has two different species of humanoid creatures. There's humans and there's fae. And when talking about humans, moss uses as a noun, like the male or the female, no, the woman or the man. But when talking about the fae. She uses the male or the female. And I get that it's because they are not human. Woman and man does not make sense, linguistically, but I still hate it.

Lilly: 36:40

Yeah, the logic is sound, but the execution is terrible. She could have picked different words. I get not using, like, man and woman. She could have gone, okay, I don't know anything about the vibe of this book, so, I'm just gonna throw out some examples, but it could have been like lord and lady, right? Like lords and ladies are fae things?

Sara: 37:00

she can't use lord and lady because the high lord is a position in society, basically.

Lilly: 37:08

Okay, sure, so not that exactly, but she could have come up with a different pair of gendered words.

Sara: 37:13

Yeah, she, she probably could have, and I just, every time I read it, it makes me think of a bad fanfiction. Not a specific bad fanfiction, but just, like, bad fanfiction in general, because I think that bad fanfic tends to use those terms a lot more than they should.

Lilly: 37:30

I will say, it bothers me most when whoever is writing whatever it is uses men and females.

Sara: 37:41

Okay, to her credit, she does not do that.

Lilly: 37:44

So like, at least when it's consistent, you're like, okay, okay. And like you said, there's a clear reason this was a purposeful choice.

Sara: 37:52

Yeah, she has clearly made a decision and I respect that. I just think it was the wrong decision.

Lilly: 37:59

heh heh. And I think I'm inclined to agree with you. Petal

Sara: 38:03

The books, I'm having a lot of fun with them otherwise. I've read the first three, book three. I don't really know where you can go from there. Cause it's a pretty series ending finale battle, but there are still two more books, so clearly you can go somewhere, but I'm enjoying the books except every time the male and the female comes up in a sentence and it comes up fairly frequently, I'm like. Nails on a chalkboard.

Lilly: 38:27

stamen. That's my suggestion. I'm gonna tweet at her.

Sara: 38:38

Would that be better or worse? I don't know.

Lilly: 38:41

It would be more distracting, but better.

Sara: 38:45

But does it work? So there are different, like, kinds of fae, and some of, some of them that we're, like, most involved with have bat wings. I don't really think it petal and stamen works for bat fae.

Lilly: 39:02

That's fine. It can work.

Sara: 39:04

Okay,

Lilly: 39:04

Yeah. Bull and cow? No, that's worse.

Sara: 39:07

that's definitely worse.

Lilly: 39:09

She could have just made up words. Oh my god, it's a fantasy series. Throw a couple of apostrophes in there. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara: 39:23

Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter, although we're only posting updates there, so if you tweet at us, I'm probably not going to respond. Instagram and TikTok and BlueSky at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Lilly: 39:39

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. Bye!