The Light Fantastic & Cycles of the Phoenix

Episode 4

Release Date: 3/17/2021

In this episode of Fiction Fans, your hosts discuss The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett and continue their Journey to the Center of the Discworld. Lilly also reviews Cycles of the Phoenix by C.A. Nicholas. Other topics include: The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, and a brief visit to the Pet Peeve Corner.

Music provided by Audio Library Plus: “Travel With Us” by Vendredi; “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris” by Amarià; and "Call to Adventure" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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, I'm Lily.

Sara 00:10

I'm Sarah. Well, Hi, Sarah,

Lilly 00:12

how have you been? Anything great happened this week?

Sara 00:15

I've been good. Um, this is going to be very California answer. I'm sorry. But it rained yesterday and today. And it was, it wasn't very exciting. We need the rain. So yes, that's my good thing for the week. What about you?

Lilly 00:31

My gaming group started to do Dungeons and Dragons campaign. We're doing descent into a furnace. And the reason why this is great, instead of just normal or good, is that this is one of the first campaigns or maybe not first, but one of the longest campaigns that we're embarking on that my husband is not the Dungeon Master for. So he actually gets to play. That's very exciting. Yeah, so maybe I'm kind of stealing his great thing for this week. But that's okay. He's not here to talk about it. So it gets to be mine.

Sara 01:07

I mean, it counts like you get to play with your husband. That's, I think that qualifies as a genuinely good thing.

Lilly 01:14

I can't make jokes about sleeping with the DM. That's like half of my comedy repertoire.

Sara 01:19

Oh, darn.

Lilly 01:22

What are you drinking? Tonight?

Sara 01:23

I am drinking a very quality California Rosae out of the box.

Lilly 01:31

I am drinking a very quality red blend from Washington out of a box.

Sara 01:38

What a coincidence.

Lilly 01:42

You made a joke about us drinking the same thing. And I didn't realize how accurate it was going to be.

Sara 01:45

I made I made that joke because I knew what kind of wine you drink was drinking. So yes. Have you read anything good lately?

Lilly 01:55

I have you kind of let the cat out of the bag when you to read it about it.

Sara 02:01

Are you not sorry?

Lilly 02:03

No, it was fun. I stumbled upon an article from The Verge about people binding fanfiction into like gorgeous books with like pretty covers and stuff. Which was, I mean, mostly just fun. Because like it's really cool that people are doing that. So yeah, it was it was fun to read about that's, yeah,

Sara 02:27

no, I like I read that article too. You sent it to me. And I read it. And it was really neat. If I had the time and the patience to actually like print out an organized fanfiction pages, I would quite possibly consider doing that. But I have neither of those things. So I leave it to the more talented people in the fandom.

Lilly 02:54

How about have you read anything good lately?

Sara 02:55

I have actually, I did quite a lot of reading these past two weeks, none of which was Well, little of which was the Wheel of Time which I'm supposed to be reading.

Lilly 03:08

I'm a bad influence. Sorry.

Sara 03:10

It's all your podcast, this podcast fault. But yeah, so some of the things that I read. I read a book called Afro puffs are the antenna of the universe by zigzag Claiborne's, which was just a delightful romp. I also read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. No idea if I'm pronouncing her name correctly, where this one I wasn't intending to read this. There's there's a TV show coming out on Netflix based on this. And I wanted to read it eventually. Yeah, the show looks good. But I wanted to read it eventually. But I wasn't planning on doing it now. But I was just in a mood like you know, where you just want to read something that you don't have to think about. It's gonna be fun. And like not deep. I just wanted comfort reading. Only this is not a book that I'd read before. So I don't really know if I consider it comfort reading, but so it was good. Like I really liked the concept in the world building. The characters felt a little bit flat, and the romance just did not interest me at all. But on the other hand, if I had been, like 10 or 15 years younger, the darkling would have been completely my type like black haired, handsome, dubiously evil like 15 year old Sarah would have been all over that.

Lilly 04:24

I think everyone had a villain phase

Sara 04:27

Quite possibly. And he seems like a good villain. So I'm there's two more books to this particular trilogy. I think the expanded universe might have more, I'll probably just stick with this trilogy and not actually read any of the other books but so that was that was fun. And then I talked about legacy of the bright wash by Crystal matar in our last episode very briefly, but I finished that book last night. I was not intending to finish it. I had like 150 pages left.

Lilly 04:56

The best feeling when you throw risk sponsibility to the wind and say, I don't care if I'm a grown up, I'm gonna read this book at 2am. Well, like

Sara 05:06

I went, I went to bed. And I was like, oh, it's not very late, I still have 150 pages left, I've just read a chapter two. And then, oops, I only have 11 pages left. So it ends on a horrible cliffhanger, horrible, horrible cliffhanger. I really want the next book to come out. This will probably end up being one of my top books for the year, it was very good. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it a bit of a disservice and just focus on the tension between Tasha and Stella, who are Tasha is like the main character and Stella says love interest, but the tension between the two of them like oh my god, I basically was yelling at the book. 60 to 70% of the time I was reading like, just kiss already, Please, God, just

Lilly 05:52

guess. And you aren't a big romance per Yeah,

Sara 05:55

like, which is something that really surprised me because I'm not a big romance person. But the tension. Oh, my God,

Lilly 06:02

what genre is that book other than romance?

Sara 06:05

I mean, it's not actually romance. It's like Gaslamp fantasy. Sort of.

Lilly 06:12

Okay, now I admit that I have no idea what that means. Does it just mean that there's lanterns that are gas powered in it? I mean,

Sara 06:19

I don't I don't really understand what that means either. But it like, Victorian era, England ish. With that the kind of like aesthetic of carriages and gas lamps, only fantasy.

Lilly 06:32

It's a sub genre of fantasy and historical fiction. It employs either the Victorian or Edwardian setting. Yeah, she, it is not to be confused with steampunk, which is in the same historical area. But Steampunk is obviously the science version of it. Okay. Yeah, I was paraphrasing that a little bit. I have a lot of feelings about steampunk. We're not going to get into it right now. This is not the episode. No. Okay.

Sara 06:58

Cool. Yeah, but very, very good.

Lilly 07:02

Why is Dirac EULA? The like picture they chose for the Wikipedia article?

Sara 07:07

Ghastly fantasy. That's a That's a choice.

Lilly 07:13

I guess. I just, I don't consider something written in the period. It takes place. Historical fiction.

Sara 07:20

Yeah, no, I mean, I wouldn't either.

Lilly 07:23

Dracula isn't historical fiction because it was written then. Pride and Prejudice isn't historical fiction, because like it was contemporary anyway. We're also not gonna get into that. Sorry. That sounds really good. How long was the book? Like, give or take?

Sara 07:39

It's, it's quite long. It's like 730 pages or so. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's a commitment. I was actually expecting to go through it a lot slower than I did, because I was reading it on in ebook format. And I don't dedicate the time for ebook reading the way I do for like, actual physical books, but the characters and the plot like draw you in so you don't notice the time passing?

Lilly 08:06

Well, it sounds very good.

Sara 08:08

It is you should read that. I'm on a campaign to get Lily to read this.

Lilly 08:13

All right. I'm not saying no, I'm just saying that my time is a little booked right now.

Sara 08:19

I see what you did there.

Lilly 08:21

I realized that halfway through the sentence and decided to commit.

Sara 08:25

Good for you. I mean, that was that was a pun worth making.

Lilly 08:34

Another book that you said you were supposed to be reading, but have not been is whatever number 24 of the Wheel of Time series that you're on book 10

Sara 08:44

of Wheel of Time. I mean, I did read it. Actually, I did finish it, which I guess I finished it over this two week period, too. And I know I keep flip flopping on it. Because the first time I talked about it, I said it didn't sound like a slog. It seemed like a slog. And last time I talked about it, I said, No, I changed my mind. It really is a slog. And this time, I'm going to say, well, the last 400 pages were not very much a slog. So if only a quarter of the book is a slog, does it really count as like slog with a capital S? I'm not sure.

Lilly 09:19

Like, that's a whole other book that you could have written?

Sara 09:22

Yeah, I mean, like, like, that's very true. Book. That's very true. But it's not the majority of the book, like, not even close. So a lot of the book was really interesting and enjoyable. It was just these 200 pages in the middle that were horrible.

Lilly 09:37

Well, but you started book 11. Now,

Sara 09:41

I did start book 11. I'm only about 30 pages in so I can't actually speak to it.

Lilly 09:45

Careful, you're gonna say it's not a slog. And then the part that is

Sara 09:50

maybe I'm supposed to be exiting the slog, though, so I think that all of the books from here on out, I could well I could be wrong about whether or not 11 is considered part of the slog. But books 12 through 14 are definitely not or supposed to not be. I mean, we'll see what how I feel about them. Switching gears from Wheel of Time, how are you progressing with your Witcher adventures?

Lilly 10:18

I? Well, I was gonna say I've made it out of Act One. I have no idea if that's true. I don't actually know how long this game is. I did find Yennefer though. So like, that's plot moving forward. I have to say, the game itself is hard for me, because I haven't gotten to the part where you're doing the fun fantasy stuff yet. And I'm mostly just like, murdering puppies. I mean, I mean, they're wild dogs and they're trying to kill me, but they sound like puppies. Would you fight them? And that's not fun. Yeah,

Sara 10:50

no, that's not like I'm all for murdering people in games. Obviously, obviously, not in real life. I'm not. I'm not pro murderer. But But puppies.

Lilly 11:02

It's, it's just hard. And at one point, it wanted me to fight a bear. And I was like, those are endangered. I'm running away instead. I am under the impression that eventually I will get to start fighting monsters. I mean, I have fought some you know drowners, which are creatures that live in the water and try to drown you. They're kind of ever would have guessed. I know. They're kind of like a fish lookin zombie. Zombies. They're not undead, but whatever. not the point. I have fought you know, ghouls and rapes and stuff. But most of what I'm fighting is wolves. percentage wise, it's maybe 10% monsters right now. Oh, that's that's quite low. Yeah, there's also a lot of oh, people who ran away so they won't get drafted into the invading armies. Army. And you have to fight them too. Well, if you run into them, they attack you. So if I want their loot, yes.

Sara 12:03

I mean, if if they're attacking me first, I feel less bad about killing them. Yeah, but it's still not like,

Lilly 12:12

I get why in this world. They are villains. They're considered bandits deserters or whatever. Right. But it still is. Kind of sucks to have to fight them.

Sara 12:21

Yeah, there's still a little bit of ambiguity there. Yeah, it's not the guilt free murder that you can enjoy.

Lilly 12:27

And a lot of them don't even have weapons. That's like, Stop touching me. I'm gonna be head you.

Sara 12:35

Yeah, that's just not a fair fight.

Lilly 12:36

No, I mean, they have killed me a couple of times. So maybe it's a little fair. Or maybe I'm just bad at video games. plot wise, though. Like I said, I did finally find Jennifer, who is, you know, probably my favorite character from the show. It's very interesting to see how different she is in the game. How so? Well, I haven't seen very much of her. And the game takes place, maybe 20 years after the show, like a period of time. So all of the differences can definitely be attributed to that. But she's, she's much cooler, cooler, her demeanor is much cooler. But I think that's just because in the show, we're seeing her moments of passion. Yeah. Whereas this is the face I imagine she's showing to courts, because that's where you run into her as if, as a court, you know,

Sara 13:33

she's still a romantic interest.

Lilly 13:35

She's your x, which is the exact relationship that you see progressing the show. So that makes a lot of sense. Actually, yes, that

Sara 13:43

does make a lot of sense.

Lilly 13:45

And I do know that I'm eventually going to have to pick a love interest in the game and how to choose.

Sara 13:54

Is there an option to just like not pick anyone?

Lilly 13:57

There might be? That sounds like no fun, though. That sounds like what I would want to do. I don't want to pick a love interest. All right. Do you do you? You've seen the show. Do you ship anyone in the show?

Sara 14:11

Not really, I mean? Like I liked Geralt and Yennefer. But I wouldn't say that I liked them to the extent of actively shipping them.

Lilly 14:22

It's funny I read quite a bit of Witcher fanfiction, but it's mostly just because I love the characters. And I do love reading about the relationships between them. But I wouldn't say I actually have a preference. One way or the other. There was quite a bit of Geralt last year.

Sara 14:43

That doesn't surprise me.

Lilly 14:45

Just say everyone's shock. And if there's a lot of something that means you can find good versions of it, right? You know, just the more options there are, the more chance it is you'll find something quality so there is that benefit But when I was watching the show, I didn't I mean, their platonic relationship was complicated enough that I didn't feel like I need needed them to be together. Right. And there is part of me that dislikes, the tendency for all male friends to be paired together in fandom. Because there is value in, you know, men having platonic relationships with each other, and letting that be normalized.

Sara 15:32

For sure. I mean, I think that that tendency comes more from the lack of representation otherwise, Oh, yeah. So if we just if we just had more diverse TV, then it wouldn't be an issue.

Lilly 15:46

Absolutely. And I'm like, I'm not saying that. You shouldn't ship friends together, because that would be silly, and also incredibly hypocritical. But it's not. You just like the relationship as friends. Yeah, that's not to say I'm not gonna read a steamy romance between them. That's just because if there's some good writing involved, I don't really care who it is.

Sara 16:11

Which is another difference between you and I, which I find really interesting. Like, it doesn't matter how good the writing is, if I'm not invested in a relationship, I'm not gonna want to read a steamy romance between these two characters.

Lilly 16:25

You're talking specifically about fanfiction where you have opinions already about the characters, I assume?

Sara 16:33

Yeah, I mean, mostly fanfiction, because I don't go out of my way to read steamy romances in non fanfiction work.

Lilly 16:43

Because my prerequisite to that was if it's a good, well written, I don't care. And that's because I think part of it is part of something being well written is creating a good dynamic between leads.

Sara 16:58

Yeah, but like, I mean, I agree with you there. But also, if I don't care for the character relationship, I mean, I guess you're right, in that I'm talking specifically about having

Lilly 17:10

you don't like them in the source material. So yeah, I've read fanfiction about them. Exactly. And there are definitely pairings that just make me cringe, and I can't do it. So I'm not gonna say that I'll read anything. But maybe it's just for The Witcher, because I like the world. And I like all of the characters. I don't really have a preference with the romance plotlines that I'm reading, because maybe they're all interesting. Maybe they all have different dynamics. But like,

Sara 17:39

I mean, I'm saying I like the Witcher, and I like the characters. But I wouldn't want to read a romance between Geralt and the ASCII or just because that does not interest me whatsoever, no matter how good how well, it's written.

Lilly 17:52

Fair enough. Yeah, you don't have to?

Sara 17:55

I don't. But I was just bringing it up, because it's interesting to see the differences between you and I as readers.

Lilly 18:01

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Sara 18:03

Yeah. So a couple of weeks ago, someone reached out to us on Instagram, and asked if we were interested in reading his book. And I said that I didn't have the time because I was planning on reading the Wheel of Time books with varying levels of success. But literally, you read it, right?

Lilly 18:29

I did. Yes. This week I read cycles of the Phoenix the whole interlaced Soul series by see a Nicholas,

Sara 18:37

thank you car, Nicholas for providing us with a copy to review.

Lilly 18:42

Yeah, that was really fun to get.

Sara 18:44

It was It was exciting.

Lilly 18:49

So this book, I think it was about 500 pages long. And something I noticed I added it to our our good reads like planning to read list or something. And I noticed that it was listed or noted somehow as being sort of inter genre. And I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind. If you want to read this book. It is absolutely a mix of prose and poetry. Which if you're coming into this expecting just sort of a concrete fantasy novel with the basic three act structure. It's not that's not what it's gonna be. It is first of all, a collection of short stories. And they're, you know, there's definitely a poetry influences. I want to say that's not how so there's a lot of figurative language. And these works are definitely more focused on the reader experiencing an emotion versus Following a story. And when I sort of let go, and you know, approached it like poetry, you're not always going to, like know exactly where the setting is, or exactly where the characters are involved. You know, it's a little bit more of a gray area. And when I sort of let go of my novel assumptions, if you will, and approached it more, more like poetry more of a journey of, I'm just going to go with it. And it's okay, if I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I'll probably figure it out eventually. It was it was really fun.

Sara 20:40

What would you say your favorite thing about this was,

Lilly 20:43

Nicolas was very good at starting each short story, each section in media stress, there was no narrative fluff, there was absolutely no filler, you jumped in and you were immediately immersed in what was going on? Like, you know, everything was was happening lately, right there to you. And the sort of withholding of information, right? It's not cinematically the establishing shot, and then it zooms in on the house. And then you see the living room, like, No, it just starts in where it's happening. Which was very, very good. But it happened a lot.

Sara 21:24

Do you think it was like too much?

Lilly 21:28

It? You know, that joke, where you go to a job interview, and they ask you what your faults are. And you say, I work too hard. I'm too dedicated at my job. I'm, you know, the, all of my weaknesses are actually strengths, that it sort of feels like cycles of the Phoenix was that in book form, because all of these things, Nicolas did really, really well. But did them so much that I wasn't able to appreciate them when they happen, right? It was just kind of overwhelming. Exactly. Especially with, you know, starting a scene immediate stress. Like I said, at the beginning, I often had no idea where I was. And that can be very cool. Because in every scene is that way, it gets a little overwhelming, right? And then sometimes just in a story, the scene would shift. And there was not really an indication of that it would sometimes be mid paragraph, and I was like, Oh, apparently, we're outside now. Okay. That being said, the way he pastes information, made for some incredible twists, I was actually texting you. While

Sara 22:50

I remember. I remember a text that you sent.

Lilly 22:53

There's just like a lot of oh, shit and all caps. Like, it was really exciting and compelling. I think that's really actually

Sara 23:02

I mean, for whatever other faults this book may have. I think that's a huge endorsement.

Lilly 23:08

Absolutely. And it definitely sucked to me in. Like I said, there were no boring moments, which is good. I do like poetry. So I said this up top, I'm gonna say it again. This is a novel for poetry readers, or, you know, I'm not saying don't read it if you don't like poetry, but there is an awful lot of poetic language before warned before warrant, but also, you have to just kind of ride with it. Just let it let it let it take you in go with it. Similar to the information pacing, billing, which did get a little bit too much for me at times. But in the similar way of too much of a good thing. I wasn't able to stop and appreciate some of these sentences, just because they kept coming at me. There was just no pause. Like, there were maybe some moments where it got a little out of hand. I personally wouldn't use the word countenance in the place of the word face. Like that just feels a little too far. But I also tend to favor plain language.

Sara 24:21

Yeah, I mean, I can see a time and a place for using countenance instead.

Lilly 24:27

Yeah, you know, it's just that uh, it's a stylistic choice, right. And it's the type of style that I just enjoy more when it's sparing

Sara 24:40

a little bit goes a long way. Yeah,

Lilly 24:42

and reading 500 pages of this is like incredibly over the top rows just kind of got got a lot.

Sara 24:53

I think it would have been easier to read a few and spread it out more like if you read one short story and then something in between And, and then another short story.

Lilly 25:02

That's actually a really good point, because this is a collection of short stories. And I think that might be the best way to experience it. Because then you can sort of get it in chunks and you know, sit with it and internalize it a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And sort of have, like you're doing with we'll have time palletizers in between. Yes. Just just to shake up the tone, I think, because it does have a very strong style that I think if I had not read it in a week, I probably would have appreciated more.

Sara 25:35

Yeah, that makes sense. And 500 pages in a week is a lot to react to, in my opinion, anyway. People might disagree with me, but

Lilly 25:46

no, it was definitely a sprint. And this was not a book that you should sprint through. Yeah. But that being said, I definitely enjoyed it. So I was I was just something that I noticed happening while I read it,

Sara 25:59

right. I mean, overall, it sounds like an enjoyable read, as long as you know what you're getting into?

Lilly 26:07

Yeah, exactly. Buckle up. And let ca Nicholas be your tour tour guide through this world that he has patched together and just sort of let go of the reins and let him take you. And I would say just sort of to wrap up, read, you know, why should you read this book, read this book? We tried to do that. Right? If you have Kindle Unlimited, it's free. Heck, just read the first one and see if like, you can jump into the style and if that works for you. Otherwise, I think it's like $3 for an e book, which I mean, that's the kind of price range that I don't mind taking a risk, you know, for sure with it. If it seems like something that's interesting, I say go for it. We returned to you again, on this our second step of our journey to the center of the Discworld. Book Two is called the light fantastic. And of course, you know, for those of you not in the know, Discworld is a series of books written by Terry Pratchett

Sara 27:06

late and great. The late and great Sir Terry Pratchett.

Lilly 27:10

Excuse me. Yes. It was pointed out to me that we never actually explained what the fuck Discworld is

Sara 27:18

when needs that kind of information anyway. You know, put Shaw

Lilly 27:24

basic setting details.

Sara 27:28

That's not important. That's not important. Well,

Lilly 27:31

other than an ambiguously fantasy setting, what is a Discworld serif?

Sara 27:38

So the Discworld is a disc that is carried on the back of four turtles. No, it's

27:48

completely, like I know,

Sara 27:49

I know, you know how, when someone asks you a question and you're not expecting it, you just like your your brain clams up, even though you completely know the answer, like,

Lilly 27:58

well, it's like we didn't explain it last time because asking what a Discworld is, is like asking, What, uh, I can't even come up with a simile now.

Sara 28:08

What an Earth is?

Lilly 28:11

Yeah, like, what's a? What is a cat? How do you explain what a cat is? It's, it's a cat just is.

Sara 28:17

Yeah, I mean, so in this case, the Discworld is well, a disc that is carried on the backs of four elephants, not turtles. But the elephants are standing on a turtle who is swimming through space.

Lilly 28:29

And a disc specifically, we mean a flat planet.

Sara 28:32

Yes, with water streaming off of its sides.

Lilly 28:36

So that I mean, that is relevant, right? Because at the end of the color of magic, we leave, rinse wind and to flower, the main characters of these books plummeted over the side of the disk. Yes, they were they were launched into space. And that is almost exactly where this book picks

Sara 28:56

up. Yeah, I mean, this, there's very little time in between the end of the color of magic and the start of the light. Fantastic.

Lilly 29:04

I don't remember how much this comes up in the color of magic. But our main critique of the color of magic and by consequence, the light fantastic, is that these feel more like a series of punch lines, then a true narrative with a beginning, middle and end. Would you say that's fair?

Sara 29:26

I'd say that's fair of the first one. I mean, the color of magic definitely has a lie would say four distinct arcs to it. But this one was much more coherence.

Lilly 29:38

I was gonna say this one introduced a through line, but yeah, followed through all of the different hyperlinks that run Swindon to flower get into there's the sort of be plot of the Wizards of the unseen University trying to unravel a mystery that is sort of tangentially related to rinse wind until it is much more so Why should you read this book? Sara? Is it is it obvious because Discworld was good. And it's part of it.

Sara 30:06

I mean, there's there's that like it, it has Terry practice characteristic wit and humor, even if it's not quite as refined as you get in later books, and it also has some really interesting social commentary. But in general, I think they're just, they're fun books. And this one is no different. It's it's fun.

Lilly 30:24

It is. And definitely, if you're going to read the color of magic, you should read this one too. Yeah, I don't think you have to necessarily read one for the other.

Sara 30:34

I mean, I would, I would almost say if you're only going to read one of the two, I would almost say read the light. Fantastic. Oh, yeah.

Lilly 30:40

Because he catches you up at the beginning of the book, not with the plot of the color of magic, but he reintroduces all of the characters to Yeah, although we still aren't recommending that you start Discworld with this book.

Sara 30:54

This is not the book to start just wild west. No. So

Lilly 30:58

if you already know Discworld don't worry about spoilers. If you don't already know Discworld go read a different one first and then come back. And don't worry about spoilers. That sound fair.

Sara 31:10

I think that about sums it up. Yeah. All right.

Lilly 31:15

To avoid spoilers for the light, fantastic. Skip forward to 4835. One of the things we did love about the color of magic, I phrased that weird. We loved the whole book, just you know, one of the parts that stands on its own merit, and not our obsessive fan girling is the way he subverts classic fantasy tropes. In this book, the light fantastic has a few new ones for us to enjoy,

Sara 31:46

although they're not quite as I mean, the source material that he is using in the first is much more segregated in the first book. Like it's it's not a through line, the way that it is here.

Lilly 32:02

He he sort of integrates the different references together instead of having each one standard its own part.

Sara 32:08

Yeah, I think I think the integration is much better. Oh, yeah, definitely. Not that it's not very clear that riffing on Conan the Barbarian. I mean, the barbarian is called Cohen. Like, I love it, though. What happens when Conan gets old? It's wonderful. It's a great question. It is a really good question, loses all his teeth. And it's really sad. He has a really good quote about it on about how he never gets any royalties. That's the saga of my life. 80 years in the business and what have I got to show for it? Bacchic piles, bad digestion and 100 different recipes for soup. Because and I'm not doing the accent, believe you me you would be thanking me for that. Because he's lost all his teeth. Helen has lost all his teeth. Yeah. But he gets dentures by the end. So

Lilly 32:59

you know, that's a successful character. It all works out. Yeah. Okay, so he does end up with the sexy young virgin sacrifice that they rescue. And I have to remind myself that this book is hilarious. And that is supposed to be hilarious. Because if you remind yourself or at least I had to remind myself that that's a joke. And not because you just see that so often, that it's hard to remember that. Pratchett means it is to be funny.

Sara 33:27

Yeah, I mean, he's he's very definitely not taking that as I mean, yes, it's a joke. It's a joke.

Lilly 33:34

Yeah, you get it like in real life. actors in Hollywood. A woman will play an actor's wife in one movie, and then a year later play his mother. So like that age disparity between the genders is maybe just a sore point for me. But it's a joke. It's okay.

Sara 34:01

Yeah, he does not mean for it to be taken seriously as any sort of like actual relationship between the two. Right. And like Bethan is a great character. She is the sacrifice that they rescue. But she was very unhappy about being rescued to she wanted to be sacrificed.

Lilly 34:20

I love like, You're so good. This book is so funny. There is another gender issue that Pratchett riffs on and I want to say riffs instead of touches on it, because it's really, it is like I said, it's a joke. It's supposed to be funny. It's okay. And he does do such a good job of the characters are being ridiculous, but you can clearly tell that he is making fun of them. You know, Pratchett isn't saying that this is okay. He's just saying this is how they think the wizarding school the unseen University is all men. All wizards in this world are men

Sara 34:53

and the senior officials or administrators who we see who are genuinely Jeff And really the only wizards that we see, especially at this point in the series are old, all old men.

Lilly 35:08

I mean he's he's clearly riffing off of academia right? Probably, yeah. The old professors who do nothing but smoke and pontificate

Sara 35:18

old Fuddy duddies.

Lilly 35:20

So at one point, rinse wind is needs the help of a spirit woman, not a spirit woman of a chieftains grandmother, she doesn't even really have a title, just some lady who can do magic.

Sara 35:35

I mean shaman would really be the closest, but there

Lilly 35:38

is a shaman that we see. And in a different area is the only reason why I don't want to use that phrase. It doesn't matter. She she's a practitioner of magic. And she reads his tarot cards. And he's like, I don't even believe in those. Those are women's work. And it's hilarious. Trust me you had to be there was actual line. So he's confronted with meeting this woman to help him. He still had his pride and wizards don't like to see women perform even simple magic. Unseen University had never admitted women muttering something about problems with the plumbing. But the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic, they would probably be embarrassingly good at it. One of the other very poignant jokes that he makes is about classism that you you know that this one actually

Sara 36:31

Oh, yeah. So there is a section in the book where rinseless who is talking about it?

Lilly 36:40

He's really talking about to flower.

Sara 36:44

Yes, yes. He was talking about to flower actually

Lilly 36:47

just reading the quote, I could tell.

Sara 36:49

Yes. So we're in Swindon to flower know, Richmond and Cohen are talking about to flower. And Rincewind is saying that, essentially, two flowers vision of what has just happened is a lot more idealistic and rose colored than what actually just happened. And so Cohen asks, he's mad, sort of mad, but mad with lots of money? Ah, then you can't be mad. I've been around if a man has lots of money. He's just eccentric, which I think really neatly points out the double standards by which the wealthy and poor are judged, like, by any metric, you would be judged as not right, except that you have money. So of course, you're right.

Lilly 37:36

I mean, I think a really obvious example of that is hoarding. Yeah. You know, you can have the same amount of stuff. But if it's, if you have a professional cleaner come in and dust it all the time, then suddenly, you're not a hoarder.

Sara 37:48

If it's on shelves, then yeah, that makes it all okay.

Lilly 37:52

There. This is jumping ahead a little bit. But I think I mean, we've kind of been jumping around little time. I mean, I'm not even talking about this book anymore. But on the same note, something that I probably, well, maybe this is just the corner of the internet that I inhabit. But probably the most quoted passage from Terry Pratchett is Sam Vimes economic theory of

Sara 38:20

boots bootstraps. Yeah, or

Lilly 38:24

that's not exactly what it is. But

Sara 38:26

it's just economic theory of it might just be boots, or boot soles, because he's talking, right, specifically about boot soles and wearing out,

Lilly 38:37

we'll get into that when we get to those books. But I just think that's a very an oft repeated quote of Pratchett's and just kind of reinforces his, his really pithy way of just sort of exposing and digging into the soft points in a society that maybe people get comfortable with not looking at. That's a quote

Sara 39:00

from Men at Arms, by the way, okay, his his theory of economic inequality or whatever.

Lilly 39:08

I thought it had a sillier name than that. That's just a very serious name.

Sara 39:12

The Sam finds boots theory of economic injustice. There you go. But it comes from the book Men at Arms.

Lilly 39:19

Well, we'll get there someday.

Sara 39:21

We will get there eventually.

Lilly 39:23

And we'll talk about it again.

Sara 39:25

We will. But yeah, I mean, a theme that runs through his books are these, he he points out some of the more unpleasant realities of our world through means of humor in this fantasy world, and he doesn't really, really well.

Lilly 39:43

He gets away with being a lot more pointed and explicit, because he's talking about well, because he's ostensibly talking about the Discworld Right, right. So he like he is criticizing the Discworld. But of course, when you're reading it, you're like, well, obviously that is also true about our, you know, our society when it's couched in jokes and talking about this flat planet. On the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle swimming through space, it just softens it.

Sara 40:16

A spoonful of sugar.

Lilly 40:19

Exactly. Yeah, exactly a spoonful of Discworld

Sara 40:24

one thing not really related to the social commentary at all, but that I get a big kick out of is that he paints the druids as sort of the equivalent of software engineers, and they're talking about like, oh, you know, our computer programming can't be wrong. These these giant stones that we have can't be wrong. It's actually the song that's wrong. And I just I mean, that's, that's my field and I just I love it. It makes me so happy. I laugh every time I see it.

Lilly 41:00

I had actually completely forgotten about that. And when I got to that part I almost did a spit take it's so good. It's so charming.

Sara 41:08

It is I charming is a really good way to describe this book and his writing in general. I think

Lilly 41:15

you know who else was very charming death.

Sara 41:21

We see here we see a much more familiar death I feel if you have he's, he's much closer to the death that appears in the later books.

Lilly 41:34

In this book to flower is trying to teach the four writers of the apocalypse. I got the impression it was bridge. Yes, I, I think it's bridge. And it's some goofy Discworld version of bridge. Well, there's

Sara 41:48

a running joke throughout the first book in this book that a lot of two flowers language doesn't really translate well, like it's modern language, and that he would use terms like insurance and dentures and things like that. And that doesn't translate well to the uncle more pork dialect. And so there's a lot of miscommunication around the characters. Trying to explain in outlandish ways, like making making the mouth sounds for dentures or insurance or whatever, in sewer ants. Now,

Lilly 42:23

there's one other note that we have to get to just because it involves you texting me, is a jack Hewlett masculine.

Sara 42:35

I was asking because I did very specifically want to call wizardry ejaculatory because I first at one point rinse wind is doing magic, which is not something that he's used to doing, as I think we've said before, he's a very bad wizard, the text says that he's possibly the worst wizard on the desk, but he has the spell in his head. And this spell is essentially doing magic through rinse went. And he says that it was. So he talks about how it was better than orgasming. And I made a note because I think actually this is one of the only times in the series that Pratchett actually talks about like orgasms, at least using that term. But that's not something that I could Google on my computer because I use my work computer for everything. That's not a phrase you want in your work computer history.

Lilly 43:35

One of our clients was a sex toy chain, so I could Google whatever I want. Aren't you lucky? Well, not the exact same thing and probably comes up more often just because of the trope of virginity in human culture,

Sara 43:51

I think. I mean, I think that he talks about it, but not in so blunt terms.

Lilly 43:57

Right? Well, I like when Bethany is introduced, one of the reasons why she's so mad Beth, sorry, not Bethany Bethan, who is the sacrifice that they rescued from being sacrificed her the reason she gives for being so mad, is that all of those Saturday nights where I just did nothing down the drain. I mean, you know, can you know how hard it is to stay to stay?

Sara 44:24

Can you blame her like Not at all? A little piece too?

Lilly 44:28

Yeah, that's a commitment. But that that's an example of Pratchett being a little bit more coy. Like, yeah, they he doesn't even use the word virgin until like three pages later. But you know, oh, a sacrifice, saying that she gave like for went something in order to be to qualify as a sacrifice. We all know what she was talking about.

Sara 44:50

Yeah. I would argue that one knows even earlier because I feel like Drew is and Virgin sacrifices are something that's ingrained in Popular Culture, if not actual, like, historical realism homegirl was dressed in

Lilly 45:05

all white, I think, yeah. But Pratchett communicates exactly the situation without actually saying it outright, right. Whereas when RINs wind is talking later about magic, it feels a lot more to the point. Yeah. And I've explicit but then I'm not saying that, like the word orgasm is explicit, but

Sara 45:28

I mean, it's, it's comparatively explicit.

Lilly 45:32

In a figurative language sense. Not in a dirty language sense.

Sara 45:38

Yeah. But yeah, so I, because wizardry, is very much a boys club, as we've said before, like, the unseen University only accepts men. It's all old men at the top of it. So my note was, wizardry, is ejaculatory. And, and that's backed

Lilly 46:01

up in later books, and it does feel bad. Pulling, it doesn't feel bad, it feels like cheating, pulling in stuff that I know happens later, because it hasn't happened yet. But we do eventually meet, which is, we do later see a society of magic users that are women. And it is very, completely not wizardry. And I do think a lot of that is Pratchett pulling from our culture, right?

Sara 46:32

I mean, there's the there, you know, the maiden mother and crone trope and the WISEWOMAN trope that he is playing on. Yeah,

Lilly 46:41

female magic users in stories tend to be othered. You know, they're the witches in the swamp. They're not the wizard at court helping the kitten,

Sara 46:50

they also tend to not have as academic, a kind of magic, like wizardry tends to be very rule based, whereas witchcraft is more emotion based. I mean,

Lilly 47:04

well, that almost harkens back to ancient Greek philosophers saying women are more similar to animals than people, because there's not even anything going on in their head. Like, yeah, people have been saying that about ladies for a very long time. Yeah. And in practice, it is just sort of Yeah, I mean, he's playing on that is running with that. Yeah. So I just wanted to back him up. And like, he didn't make all of the wizards dudes and all of the witches ladies, because that was his decision. Like he was no I mean, literally has a basis in his cultural right.

Sara 47:40

Yeah, he's he's very clearly like, playing it's, it's just another trope.

Lilly 47:45

Well, let's leave our listeners off with a short excerpt from the light fantastic by Terry Pratchett.

Sara 47:53

Okay, this is a quote from kind of the end of the book and I really like it because I think it's a good reminder that know you might not do any good or be any use in a situation but that's not necessarily a reason to not try and it is to flower talking to rinse wind. Hold on, he said as cheerfully as he could manage this sort of thing is a job for the likes of Cohen not you know, offense. That's France wind by the way. Would he do any good Rincewind looked up at the actinic light that lamps down through the distant hole at the top of the staircase. No, he admitted the night be as good as him wouldn't I said to flower flourishing because looted soared.

Lilly 48:39

Got a great or maybe an excellent series of texts from you the other day,

Sara 48:43

a very annoyed series of texts anyway. I don't know about great or excellent. But yeah, I was reading a fanfiction. And the main character, one of the main characters has a very strong cockney accent. And so the author wrote that out like, and I can't I can't even I mean, I don't really want to make you suffer through hearing me try to approximate it.

Lilly 49:11

But that's what reading it was like, I assume? Yes.

Sara 49:14

Yes. It was a very phonetic dialogue, where there were lots of you know, missing consonants and, like, ooze, and it was just it was awful. Like, it was painful to read. I had, you know, blood streaming out the side of my years. Like, it was just it was so bad. And I think accents, strong accents like that. Like, I don't mind a hint of an accent here and there, you know, but like strong accents that are. Well, it's,

Lilly 49:52

it's okay, if a character has an accent. It's how they write it. Yeah, I

Sara 49:56

certainly don't mind if a character has an accent and I don't even mind And if it's written into the dialogue a little bit, but when it's a really strong accent, it just, it's so jarring to see it in the dial like phonetically in the dialogue, like it completely takes me out of the story if I'm trying to decipher what they're saying, because they're missing, you know, they're they're missing letters all over the place.

Lilly 50:22

I think accents are one situation, or I would rather you tell and not sure, yes,

Sara 50:27

yes, definitely like, Okay, so maybe, for example, if they're French, and they have some z's in there, like, that I can deal with, but anything stronger, harder than that. I'm like, please just just tell me don't show me.

Lilly 50:45

I kind of like and I, I know that this can be done very poorly. I think maybe more in movies and TV shows. It's not okay. But in writing. Just like give me one or two words in the other language. I know that that can be done very ham fisted. Yeah. But it's also a possibility that, although that's not always terrible, it's not

Sara 51:13

really something you can do when it's for example, a dialect of English. That's Yeah, true.

Lilly 51:18

Yeah, that's a good point. That only works for an accent from a different language. Yeah,

Sara 51:24

but so that's my pet peeve for the for the episode.

Lilly 51:28

That sure it was a horrible.

Sara 51:30

The thick is otherwise very good. So I'm gonna continue to read it. And I hope that the accent just goes away at some point, like, elocution training or something. But

Lilly 51:41

maybe that'll be a whole plot arc. This character goes through speech therapy.

Sara 51:46

I hope so. I mean, I don't know how much more of that I can, I can take.

Lilly 51:51

Well, fingers crossed for you.

Sara 51:53

Thanks. I appreciate it.

Lilly 52:01

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of fiction fans. You can get in touch

Sara 52:06

with us on Instagram and Twitter at fiction fans pod or shoot us an email at fiction fans pod@gmail.com

Lilly 52:15

If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate review and subscribe. Have

Sara 52:21

a great 24 hours. Bye bye