Episode: 3897
Title: HPR3897: HPR AudioBook Club 22 - Murder at Avedon Hill
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3897/hpr3897.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 07:45:33

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3897 for Tuesday 11 July 2023.
Today's show is entitled HPR Audio Book Club 22 Murder at Ave Don Hill.
It is part of the series Hacker Public Radio Audio Book Club.
It is hosted by Hacker Public Radio Audio Book Club and is about 102 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is in this episode the HPR Audio Book Club opens the freezer and discusses
the audio book murder at Ave Don Hill by P.G. Holify.
Hello and welcome to the HPR Audio Book Club.
I am X-1-1 and I am joined tonight by Pokey.
Hello everyone and also with us tonight is Taj.
What's good everybody?
Tonight we will be discussing murder at Ave Don Hill by P.G. Holify.
Hey that circular intro thing works better when there's more than three people.
It's not like I was just trying to jump in for attention.
I wasn't sorry.
It's a new thing. We're working on it.
He says that but it's a lie.
I didn't take long.
Anyway for those of you not familiar with the book club what we usually do is we'll
kind of get going and discuss our general thoughts.
Kind of the general setting of the book, the audio quality, the reader quality,
any kind of nuts and boltsy things and then we'll take without any spoilers and we'll take
a break, review something, typically a beverage though with occasionally devolved from that
tradition. After that we'll come back and really dig in and spoil the book and talk about
all the crazy plot twists and turns that it may or may not have taken.
So the book without spoilers, what'd you guys think?
Well I'll start.
I am traditionally not a gigantic fan of mysteries.
I read, you know, you kind of go through the phase where you're just reading a bunch of stuff
and so like I read the Sherlock Holmes stories and Agatha Christie and I appreciated them but
I never really got into them. You are dead to me.
I know it's my way to the same way. You don't like Sherlock Holmes, you're dead to me.
Yeah, it's just not my thing but I really enjoyed this and I think that there's it is helped
by the fact that it is wrapped in fantasy like I'm not too proud to admit that that that draws me
in even more. It kind of I'm gonna go ahead and get our first reference out of the way first.
It reminds me a lot of I think it was Kevin Feige from Marvel Studios that was talking about how
they couldn't keep making superhero movies because people would get sick of it.
So they just decided we're going to make other movies with superheroes in them.
So you wind up with like Captain America too which is like a 70 spy thriller and Ant Man which
is a heist movie and Guardians of the Galaxy which is you know kind of like Star Wars with
comic book heroes. So it's kind of like this is a mystery with fantasy and that worked for me.
I dug it. Well I liked the book as well as evidence by the fact that I selected this one and
recommended it to the book club and I forgot this is the third time I've listened to it and I
forgot a second time how much I liked this book and how much I enjoyed. Mostly like the middle
third of the book was was really intriguing to me. The beginning had a had a very specific feel to
me which I think I'll wait to hear what X-1-1-1 thinks about it before I get into and then the end
was good but it felt fairly standard for a mystery. So which was good. There's nothing wrong with
that. It just thought that the middle portion of the book was was very unique and uniquely enjoyable.
That middle third where you really start where the author really starts to develop all of the
lore of the universe that you're in. I can understand that being the most enjoyable part now.
Yeah through that whole in fact this time listening to it the first two times I listened to it the
author was still alive. He has since passed away. He had a sudden illness and passed away very
sadly and the middle parts of this book really really made me mourn his passing because there was
so much more there was so much more in his head that never never got onto paper out into an audio
book and I didn't know him personally so I missed him for that if nothing else.
That was absolutely crushing for me when I'm going the whole way through this book and loving it
and can't wait to find what else is out there in the series and then the last episode we find out
that he passed away right not long after finishing it and I'm like what a loss that the
comments suffered from the loss of such a talented individual.
Well and I like like that middle third that you guys are talking about that's probably my favorite
part two but I liked the fact that all the exposition made sense to explain what was going on.
It wasn't just like hey here's an info dump like a source book for my world that I created for D&D
like everything he was explaining in some way kind of tied back into the mystery that was going on
and it was something you kind of had to know to figure out what was going on so that was that was
done handled a lot better than a lot of other offered authors I've seen have done that so it was
just a well written source book I love well written source books I guess I'm not probably not the
best judge of that. So it sounds like you were on the same page as I was that this really did just
feel like a D&D adventure that you got to listen to. Yeah but like a good D&D adventure like because
it wasn't like you know it wasn't like a role R O L L playing game where it's just like
dungeon diving like hit the monster hit the monster like there was plot and character development and
you know there were you know fights and it was nice and it was good and it was action packed and
it was well narrated but that wasn't the meat like that's not the parts that I'm going back and
remembering of the book even though they were really cool that's not the first thing that jumps out
there was more going on than that. This was more of a collaborative storytelling type of role play
you're saying like a burning wheel type of thing. R O L R O L E not R O L L. Yeah very good.
That's what I call good role playing. Yeah I need to find some people to do that. It's hard.
Usually the people I role play with mostly just eat food, drink beer and make fun of each other
which is a lot of fun but it's neither of the other two. There's a place for that. It's kind of like
I've consistently had like multiple groups going so like I have one group that is like the
good role players and then I have my other group where we usually play like Star Wars and just
go around slaughtering wookies because we can't. I still never did role playing but I play two more
good board games. What'd you play? Carcassone which is really good. We've only played with the
introductory role so far but I really like how easy this to wrap my head around the strategy of
the game and I think the strategy is going to get manageably deeper once we start playing with
the full rule set. It's a really really good game. I really like Carcassone and it looks so
simple and goofy that I don't always want to take it out and say hey let's play Carcassone. Once
we're playing it's really really fun once you're into it and it's like almost zero setup time. It's
perfect and then we played a two player card game version of Catan and it's more like a Catan
themed card game but that was also fun. We've only played it once so I don't know if it's going to
hold up but it was fun the one time we played it. Yeah I have that one. Yeah Carcassone is what
I tell people who like play Catan and they're like oh this is a cool game. Usually the next game
I mentioned is like you need to check out Carcassone. One of you will have to send me the spelling of
that because we've played Catan to the point where we're suffering Catan burnout. C-A-R-C-A-S-S-O-N-N-E.
There's actually an Android version of it which is pretty good that you can play solo so if
you like wanted to check it out before you buy the whole thing even though I think it's a pretty
cheap game that would be a good route to go. There's an Android version of Catan that you can play solo
but the game itself the computer has like no strategy whatsoever. It's completely beatable and
you can figure out how to maximize every trade too because the computer is pretty consistent in
the way it lets you screw it. Yeah it's it wouldn't I mean in a pinch it would make me feel better
you know if I wanted to play it but yeah usually I'm not as satisfied with the
Android versions of board games and a lot of board games I guess I know I got a bunch of them in
a humble bundle at one point. A bunch of board games have put out like Android versions but none of
them are as good but it's a nice quick fix when nobody's around you want to play. Yeah and
I'm happy to say that space team is holding up pretty well. Space team will never die. I played
it with a friend the other night who wasn't as into it so it wasn't as fun when you when you get
you know it's like just people who like fun and we'll do fun no matter what they're doing
that's a great way to channel fun. Anyways that book though. Oh yeah that um yeah so x111 what did
you think about it before I say my specific thing? I really enjoyed it. I I was going on vacation
I just got back and I was concerned I wasn't going to have time to listen to the book and then I
started it and as usual ended up binge listening until I finished it. Yeah it was in a similar
situation this book was long I did not remember this book I didn't realize how long this book was
this book took a long time and I listened to probably half of it yesterday on my ride the last
half and like the last two chapters this morning while having my coffee and yeah this book was long
so for anyone trying to keep up sorry about that. It was long but it wasn't like I didn't have to
slog through it like I actually enjoyed listening to it being long I didn't I knew that it was
long just because it took I I had to cram a little bit to get it all in but I didn't mind
cramming to get it all in if that makes any sense. Oh no I didn't mind it either I would just
up against the deadline and I hated that. No this book could have gone on and on and on like I said
that the world building that was the majority of this book was very enjoyable and could have gone on
for you know many more chapters and many more hours I don't mind when media goes long especially
books and stuff too which is I came up against the deadline I had very little opportunity to
listen to it throughout the month and you know any of our other books I would have been done with
two weeks ago or maybe a week ago but this book just being so long it I was up against it
and I had to forego other listening to do this so it affected my motorcycle ride yesterday.
So what did everybody think about the just the production end of it I thought as far as voice
recording and sound effects and stuff I thought it was done really well. Yeah sound recording was
excellent with only a couple of exceptions where people you know we're using noticeably different
microphones than everybody else to do their their character voices easy enough to overlook that
especially when you know it's it's that kind of a production where people are physically very far
away from one another or potentially so but one thing that that you know if I ever were to do
something like this or if anybody listening to us we're considering doing a an audio presentation
with the full cast one thing I think we could learn from this book is to send each of your actors
of pronunciation guide for their lines because many of the actors pronounced names very differently
even while supposedly in a conversation with one another and hearing a name for the first time
from the other person it and then they would just pronounce it differently so that was a little
through through through me off a little I really liked the fact that the author would chime in
every once in a while and like there was even a point in in the book where he's just like hey look
a bunch of people have emailed me and said that this is an issue so I'm going to change it based on
that feedback I didn't like the change necessarily I didn't think the actor doing the part that
was changed was as good as the author was doing it originally but at least like he was listening
to feedback and he was making changes actively to the story to help the listeners yeah I agree and
I didn't think it was that bad of a change um again the the people who he had come in and do the
story so far they they you know should have had a pronunciation guide okay so next thing what did
everybody think about the music well hold on let me let me say one thing before that uh now I said
talk about the music okay so the music was pretty cool but there was too much of it I was just
I was just going to go back to your original point I was just going to say that the the first chapter
to the the beginning part of the book where he was you know setting everything up and getting into it
to me that felt like watching someone play a role playing game like a computer role playing game like
um oh is that one day VH used to talk about all the time I I tried to play that and it felt like
one of those adventure games where you okay task A must be complete to move on to task B and
task B to task C where there's a very um you know linear plan uh in the game that you have to figure
out and go along it felt like he was doing that we kind of on rails a little bit yeah which any book
obviously is but this I don't know why it it felt like watching someone play a video game that
is on rails well this story also didn't really have sort of the the character who's who was
our point of view I mean Aaron kind of was because he was new and he was kind of learning things but
really I think that character already had that base knowledge that we as readers didn't so I can
see where there had to be some exposition to get people caught up well no I didn't mean the
exposition I just meant the the plot itself the tasks um you know that he had to you know
used item tobacco to get through the front gate and you know find item moth to get introductory
letter you know what I mean like that that part of it I don't say I didn't even I didn't even
really think that about that I guess it's just that's so much a part of the genre I guess that
it just kind of washed over me and I didn't notice yeah that's fair enough and I think I think
I'm making a fair point because I'm pretty sure I felt that way about it the first time I listen to
it as well I don't think this is something that because of repetition I hope it's not if it is
that's very unfair of me so anyways I'm gonna go back to the music I totally think about half the
music just does not fit the story at all just does not fit and I know why I think that into total
like I went to music school thing that's why I feel that way but I'm just wondering if anybody else
felt that like the music was almost too modern at times oh no I didn't feel that at all I I felt like
he could have you know played the long version of the music in the first episode in the last
episode and just kind of truncated it and faded it out for the rest of them um but no I didn't think
it didn't fit for me it was all about the piano because like if you're thinking because pianos kind
of a more recent invention and so it was kind of like and the piano lines were a little jazzy
kind of sounding every once in a while and it's just like if it would just stuck with the strings
like the the beginning song is great I think it fits perfect it's just sort of like that feeling
it just felt like some of the music was too modern I actually really dig the music I just don't
think it fits the story too too much or at least the setting of the story you would prefer
harpsichord I never prefer harpsichord ever oh I completely disagree harpsichord is badass
have you ever played one oh god no I'm not a musician yeah that's if you would try to play one
you would understand why I never harpsichord my sorry good my sister's part of a musical
chorus that does a lot of classical work and they did a production with part of an orchestra
musicians with instruments and one of them was was a harpsichord trying to remember who it was
Bach Mozart somebody anyway beef of it no no definitely not that yeah that would have been piano
touch you know which one of them played the harpsichord there was Bach or Mozart of those it could
have been Mozart or Bach probably leaving more towards Bach I would assume okay well they did
a whole concert on this one composer and there was one piece that was very heavily leveraging
the harpsichord and the guy who played it like nowadays the the speed and the intricacy the only
thing I think I would be like dude you'd be rocking some thrash metal if this weren't like made out
of tin and it was still pretty metal yeah we have a group in the area called bourbon baroque and the
harpsichord player is somebody that I used to work with and I mean he makes me want to cut my
fingers off when I look at him because I'm just like I'll never be able to do what you do but I still
just like one experience of playing the harpsichord and I'm like I'm out I just don't I have no time
for that so what's it like a banjo with keys what what is it it's a metal piano no no I'm sorry I
didn't mean what is a harpsichord I know what a harpsichord is it's it's similar to piano except it
plucks the strings instead of hammering them I meant what is it about the harpsichord that's so
overwhelming to try to play it for me and it could just be me and it could just be that I've played
really crappy harpsichords it's the difference between like driving a car with power steering
without power steering like the harpsichord has no power steering so it's kind of a bear to get
around like I said mileage may vary that's been my experience with it where I would rather set
down to the piano that's really nice and have a lot of control over it oh okay see now I don't seem
to I don't know anything about how difficult instruments are to play and I don't think they're
difficulty has any sway on how much I like them because I also really like pipe organs and
I really like bagpipes but I don't play any instruments at all but I have to concur that the length
of the music was just excessive I ended up when the story was over the music started I would
usually you know and skip that in the next episode oh yeah yep yep I actually did exactly
the same thing um even when I was on my motorcycle with my heavy gloves I was able to find that
skip key I had to or it still be listening to it we'd have to postpone the show just just because
the music yeah yeah because it would have been not much longer to listen so yeah sound quality I
thought was excellent um consistent uh it was a little difficult at times to tell Aaron from
Aramis um that's really my only you know it's not even really a complaint but the only difficulty
I had with the audio at all was that I didn't hear any double reads throughout the whole thing
which was really impressive yeah I think this maybe the first look I haven't noticed any double
reads in I thought the acting was pretty decent um you know a couple of the reads were little over
acted but if you know those particular people and and their audio books and the way that they read
is to be expected out of them and he would have known that before handing them their scripts because
that's just the way those couple of folks are specifically T Morris uh did some reading in there
and so did Scott sigler yeah it still blows my mind how like close like and and I don't even think
it's that way anymore but like back in that like I don't know 2007 2008 2009 like that time period how
close like patio books people were like everybody was in each other stuff and they were constantly trying
to like help each other and push each other forward and it was a really good community and I
kind of wonder what happened I think a lot of those people got kind of popular and made deals elsewhere
but um I kind of missed that I don't feel like that's as tight as it used to be I think some did
some got burnt out um I think patio books is probably still like that and you know at the time a lot
of those people were going to conventions and stuff they were really close net people um like
the time that I went to Scott sigler reading and and get my book signed um uh Christian Ellis was
there you know and just having a bump endure and that was awesome so you know like they they knew
each other they were friends and there was somebody else there too that they both knew because they had
the conventions with them so I mean I don't know if maybe it's just that I don't know people people
change people's lives change so we can you say that's life yeah yeah but and then there are other
people you know other people in the um audio book community you know who are readers and stuff
and and authors who have gone on to do other things and make other deals um and there are other people
there's one or two I can think of who my impression is it seemed like they wanted
patio books to be a gateway into something more profitable and and when it didn't pan out the way
they wanted it to they kind of quit um with with making audio books or or making any media that
was uh freely available well that's just dumb well yeah you can say so but then uh at the same time
you know people gotta eat and people have families that they can't you know take so much time away
yeah I guess I don't know I get it's weird I always equate right into like the music business
and so obviously because I'm a teacher that didn't work out so I mean whenever I do music of any kind
it's kind of at this point free because I just enjoyed doing it so I don't know if I think I
wouldn't go into it thinking it was a business proposition so maybe that's just my viewpoint
kind of skewing it that book though yeah so we've gone over audio quality reading quality
overall world do you guys have anything else pre beverage or other review yeah I can I think
without spoiling anything I can say that the the character development in this book was really
really good you really got to know a couple of people pretty well and it might in part be because
of the different voices that read them but I think it's also because he spent time with each of
these people like interviewing them oh I just thought it was cool it's a cool way to get to know
different characters yeah that's just another reason why it's heartbreaking that we will never get
anything set in this world again because there's so many good characters that obviously he he had
plans for I mean there are a couple characters you can point directly to and say oh he had an idea
that was probably gonna come from this that just now will never happen and it all has to happen
in headganen yep and that's too bad yeah it really is it really is heartbreaking I mean like
there's so many books on pottyofbooks.com where you go man I wish there was more from this author I
wish I could get a little more of this and the author's still alive so there's always that chance
or is this one it's it's devastating that there's closure but the wrong kind of closure you know
I think you just described my relationship with Nathan Lowell like come on write a book
I was actually just at his website while when you showed up and he is back to writing ishmael tale
stories oh that's cool see I was thinking of John Lennon specifically his his stuff is so incredible
and so much fun to listen to and he just never recorded the third book in his series even though
he wrote it and I bought a paper copper copy of it but I really love his reading of his books
I agree with that and I did this I bought the Kindle version but I listened to the first two and
I'm like oh I want this other one and then oh it's not there okay well I'm just gonna go spend some
money on it then yeah there's another thing I put a bounty out on so since I don't know this
somebody's gonna have to recommend this for the book club at some point because I have no idea
what you guys are talking about oh it was done long ago damn it wasn't it like the first or
second book yeah I think it was it was it was the reason that book was the reason that that
integral suggested do he came up with the idea of an audio book club just to talk about that book
and we only didn't do it as the very first book because we didn't want it to be so wealthy yes
so what was the name of the book so I can write it down shadow magic give me a check and I'll
throw you the link thank you kind sir it's a pretty badass name for a book though yeah especially
when he says shadow magic over and over and over again yeah but every time it sends chills it is a
super super badass book as we have said here on the show already you know many many moons ago but
not not because of the way that you think it is it's it's as funny as it is badass and it's very
young adult but in a really fun way yeah for sure this sounds right up my alley it is it is right
up your alley good thing I've already listened to what I'm going to recommend for next time you have
a chill off the power through for the refresher to talk about it all right you guys want to get
into reviews and spoilage yes I have to run upstairs and go get give me some Kentucky isn't yeah
due to I drank mine so I think we'll get a second all right so who wants to start this show
doing a start on a high note or a low note hmm let's get the low out of the way I feel like
that's probably a good idea all right then I'm first so my wife bought me it's had really good
intentions I was complaining that there wasn't much variety in the grocery store lately for a beer
so she bought me something I hadn't tried before hang on one second sorry about that I just
sloshed some of the surround while I was trying to read the name uh so she bought me a sampler pack
of uh lining kugles is the the name of this one and there were four different varieties in there
with you know three beers each um they had a pumpkin ale a an October fest um one that was I don't
know what kind it is but they said it was oaked uh maybe in like old casks and then I think this one
is called the hellis or helis or something uh x-1101 could probably help with the pronunciation of that
uh the pronunciation guide that I was asking for before um they call this one helis yeah or helis
yeah x-1101 do you know how to pronounce that nope balls okay so I do have to say really
fall beers it's too hot for fall beers why are they out already and that's what I said my first
thought was you know when I saw these fall beers my first thought was are these leftover from last
year how come these are out you know so I had really low expectations to start and then my wife said no
all of the fall beers are out all the summer beers are are pretty much gone yeah I was in a supermarket
you know uh you know how I was doing my parents and I saw pumpkin head which is shipyard which
is a little local local brewery up here it's there their pumpkin beer it's one of their more
popular ones because of the art yeah but and it was out already like why why are you selling this now
and why are people buying it now it's the beginning of august it's hot as hell I want something light
and refreshing not something you know nice and dark and spicy yeah and I'll say that all for these
are fairly spicy they're not real dark these are these are a weird combination of light and spicy
they I mean you could tell they really put effort into making these things good they're high
quality you can tell that but they just leave me feeling like they taste mass produced unfortunately
um the except that they're all pretty unique I mean the hell the hell yeah or hell's yeah
um it's what I'm drinking right now it's it's fairly unique in its spiciness um and it's um I
mean it's not bad it just for some reason something about it taste masters maybe it's the amount
of like suds and foam in this beer I opened one before the show started here and I took a sip out
of it and I put it down and the thing foamed over in the bottle um which which is kind of weird I
never had that happen before and they all taste a little sudsy and foamy uh the oak one was really
oaky and I will say the pumpkin one was pretty good as far as pumpkin beers go that was the
pumpkiniest pumpkin beer I've ever tasted it's they used a lot of pumpkin flavoring in that one
whatever I don't know if it's real pumpkin it it may be and they used a good deal of cinnamon
I think it tastes like there was a lot of spice in there um it it definitely beat the shipyard
pumpkin head I'll tell you that so you drank a pumpkin pie yeah it really was drinking a pumpkin pie
it tasted like a pie interesting yeah I mean it's not bad I'm not complaining and if she brought
them home a second time I would not complain either and I would you know drink another 12 of them
um not in the same night of course but uh you know I'm not complaining it just something
something in these beers is lost in the translation and I wish I could tell you what
and maybe x1 101 maybe you hit the nail on the head maybe it is the season is not right for these
you know perhaps if it was October these things would be the greatest beer I've ever tasted because
you can taste the quality in the menu you can taste the effort that was put forth into making
these beers uh they're definitely unique and there's nothing offensive about any of them other than
the you know a pumpkin pie if you're not in the mood for a pumpkin pie or or an oak cast if you're
not in the mood for an oak cast or spiciness if you're not in the mood for spice so maybe
maybe you hit it exactly so shame on the entire beer industry for putting stuff out
in the wrong season how's that I'll buy that a box on the oh yeah and their twist off bottles
I twist off caps I really don't like twist off caps you don't know why I should like them they
should be fantastic they're more convenient you don't need to run in the house and get a bottle
opener if you're out by the fire uh you know but I have a bottle opener on the wall so they don't
bother me and I just I don't know something about twisting the cap off a beer always gives me a
weird feeling that I don't like see I thought that way about canned beer for a very long time
but a lot of local places around here are starting to put all their stuff in cans
yeah I'm really starting to change my mind about it yes I think it was now I don't know
but back in the day uh when I was drinking cheap beers that that there was a difference in taste
between you know an aluminum can and a glass bottle and you could almost taste the aluminum
in the aluminum can beers but I don't think that's what it was now in hindsight
I think it's because those beers they're so light on flavor you're just smelling the aluminum
because you're drinking straight out of the can but if you have a good beer in the can and pour it out
it's it's definitely right up there um with with beer on tap I mean because those are all aluminum
you know uh egg is an aluminum so what should be the difference a lot of times I want to
even pour it I've had you know good IPA right out of the can is delicious huh I don't know if I've
had one right out of the can one I did but I didn't like it but Sam Adams in the can
was great the day I had it like they took them down on the river and went inner tubing and uh
they had a six pack of those and cans those were excellent that day so how about you uh
well who's who's got the higher note to finish with if we're gonna go this way mine was pretty good
but I will seed the floor to the to the gentleman with with with the with the beer I don't know
any beer what oh wait a minute I know I will see to the gentleman with a fine Kentucky bourbon
yes tonight I am drinking Barton's 1792 uh Kentucky bourbon this is from Bardstown which I hear
is not too far away from Taj there and it's this is the second or third glass of this I've had since
I brought the bottle home with me this this bottle has traveled a long long way to to come with me
looking at it it's you know you can tell it's been nice oak aged it's got a good carmoly color
it's got a very spicy rye heavy notes on the nose now for now for a good taste
it is it's a very spicy rye sharp on the front but it finishes very smoothly and I've had this
this is the second or third time I've had it and I'm having to get neat this time and it's
just even better just wow me what I was gonna say that if we were if we were the kind of show
that did uh uh you know a little audio clips we call them soundboard stuff um that you were saying
I don't have any beer would would definitely have made it to our soundboard but yeah but you
you just talked to it so happy birthday to me well I'm only happy joking because people ask me what
I wanted for my birthday I'm like I want money to buy bourbon and that's what I got oh it sounded
good I just meant that those are two very good audiobook club sound clips if we ever want to do
such a thing see now I'm I'm threatening to make this happen because I have the raw audio files so
I could do this well you don't have to make a soundboard because I don't know if that's the kind of
show but you can do what I did the first couple shows um I took all the the funny sound bits like
that and and took them out of context and made a promo for the audiobook club with them that is
also not a bad idea if we're doing that I actually have something that edited edited out a lot
better than it sounded when we did it that was pretty funny too yeah yeah I love when stuff edits
out better than it sounds originally and you surprised the people who said it oh it's you
Pokey so I'm sure you'll laugh at it I love to laugh at me so do we it lets me feel like one of
the gang the one we make fun of that's usually my job so you said it had a real rye kind of taste
up front um so not like a sour mash then um well really there I just one of the things I learned
is there are basically two kinds of bourbon and that's a bourbon that the the rest of it is first
off for those of you don't know bourbon has to contain 51% corn in its mash bill so you really
you have 49% of the composition of the grains to get your different flavors there is a specific
proof that it can be distilled to and then it is put into a barrel and aged I think at least two
years most places don't sell it until it's been aged at least four I don't know how old this one
is off the top of my head uh one of the older ones I know of is like 23 years but that stuff's
ridiculous expensive um but so in that other 49% the two typical grains of choice are either rye
or wheat this one's a rye and it or something about it is it's very sharp on the tongue in a very
pleasant way all right so I guess I'll go ahead um mine is gone because if you could have a time
sensitive beverage I did have a time sensitive beverage so I had to consume it about an hour ago
actually a little a little earlier than an hour ago ice cream floats those are wicked time sensitive
close you're you're you're almost there so the uh the backstory is that my wife uh had an accident
she's fine um she fell down she broke her shoulder and so she had surgery and so we've kind of
been at home a lot in the last week while she kind of rehabs so tonight she's doing well
enough to where she's able to take care of herself so I took my daughter out for dinner tonight
and we went to the local ice cream shop the comfy cow and I got myself a regular chocolate
malt which is delicious and I devoured it it is definitely the season for chocolate
malt uh if not fall beers and local ice cream shops yeah this one's nice it's about five minutes
for my house so uh and it just recently opened last year so that it's a nice thing to just be able
to go five minutes and have ice cream whenever I wanted it's also a very dangerous thing when you're
trying to lose weight but I'll deal with that later well I just discovered two new great flavors of
ice cream at one of the local shop's up here one had caramel cookie dough which is caramel ice cream
with cookie dough chunks in it um and the other one what did they call it uh something
moose something but it had chunks of brownies in it and that was awesome too. Moose tracks?
uh no they didn't call it moose tracks they called it uh oh caramel caramel caribou is what
it was because it was caramel uh like cups like little caramel I think it was caramel cups
in it as well as the little chunks of uh of brownie whatever the hell it was it was awesome.
The thing I tend to get at the local shop here it's like 10 minutes away
is they have real whipped cream not like the ready whip in the can or anything but real whipped
cream and they make it a killer hot fudge sundae with cookies and cream ice cream it's having on
them having in a bowl oh that's awesome hey and since we're speaking of ice cream and local shops
let me ask you guys something because all of the local shops here in New Hampshire and there's
a lot of them they're all over the place they all seem to have the same gimmick which is a gimmick
that I'm not unhappy with is where you ask for like a small or a kitty cone and a kitty cone's
like three scoops it's you can't even balance the thing and a small is ridiculous they put it in
a cup and just put a cone on top of it um like you can't even handle a large by yourself it's a
whole gallon of ice cream uh but somebody I was getting ice cream with my wife and some people
like oh my gosh look at the size of those things can you believe it and we're like deep in New Hampshire
so I figured maybe this is just a New Hampshire thing and these are tourists who you know haven't
had ice cream in New Hampshire you don't get it is this just a New Hampshire thing do your local
ice cream shops do that too like give you way too much ice cream first of all there is absolutely
no such thing as too much ice cream but I can speak from both Ohio and Maine and I can say
varies a lot I've been to places where a small is the size of my arm and I've been in the place
where a large is like half a scoop now now oh sorry now I will confirm your uh your ice cream
sizes like eight kid sizes more than I can typically handle so I get the small just because
I'm dumb there you go see we've been to gelato recently because there's a little place around
here that does gelato and it's so rich that their serving sizes are like half and it's still
more than enough I've never had gelato I want to try some so bad I've not seen a gelato place
anywhere though it's super rich and they do a lot of the gimmicky flavors but I tend to go with
simple ones I usually get something like a dark chocolate noir and uh madagascar vanilla bean
yeah those sound simple well it's chocolate and it's vanilla it's just good chocolate and good
vanilla yeah yeah I think that's probably a good plan to go with a simple flavor first do you guys
have um cold stone creamery in your area that place because it's a chain I'm pretty sure it is
we did they closed it for and switched it out with an orange leaf which is a frozen yogurt chain
oh no and that's when we switched to gelato because because it's better yeah we had cold stones and
then they all dried up and some of them became frozen yogurt places and then some of them became
sub-zero so which I don't know if anybody if sub-zero is outside of the area or what it is this
the place where you go and they make ice cream with nitrogen it's awesome you mean it's not the
mortal combat character no that would be even more cool but no it's not like ice cream um is it
anything like dots no it's um well kind like the textures kind of like that because I think that's
how they make those but basically you walk in and they have like you can get different kinds of
like base liquids so like you can get yogurt you can get custard you can get ice cream you can get
like soy whatever whatever kind of base you want and then they put it in a bowl and then you
get your flavor and they put the flavor in the bowl and so like if you get like a fruit flavor
they just throw fruit in it like it's not like some syrup out of a thing they just put fruit in it
which is awesome um and then you get like whatever other things you want to have in there so like
for me it's usually chocolate cookie dough because I'm a fatty so they take it over to these to these
like stations with these giant tanks of liquid nitrogen and they just dump nitrogen in it and it
just like the nitrogen gas just starts evaporating and it's all sciency and awesome and then they
just kind of work it until it's frozen then don't let them cut and it's it's actually pretty good
I would like a half soy half soil and green with cookie dough please
no I usually go what is the most unhealthy can I have that please I don't know if it's made it
outside of your area but it has not made it up here yet can I have the lard flavor please
do some bacon ice cream let's let's make that happen just like dump some bacon in it
chocolate covered bacon ice cream dude chocolate covered bacon is so good
I like it's such a joke but it's so good oh god speaking of bacon um right before my vacation
I spent the weekend before that with my buddy and I totally learned how to weave bacon as part of
what we made do you weave to bacon I did indeed I will send you pictures later but I took like a
pound and a half of bacon and we've did this giant bacon sheet that we then wrapped around we
wrapped around this breakfasty meatloaf thing and then smoked it for two hours that is this
single handedly the most badass thing I've heard all day that is great they can't be that difficult
to weave bacon is it like you learned to do it you said yeah I took my Chromebook I opened it
up I went to YouTube and I'm like how do I weave bacon and I watched it oh you YouTube learned
all right I'm sorry I thought maybe like you took a class yeah it's called YouTube and a glass
of bourbon that's how I learned how to weave bacon I'm totally looking at how we've
bacon if it's on YouTube this is awesome it's no different than any other weaving you just go
in and out and up and down one goes over one goes under it's and you can accept you have to do
it quickly because otherwise the fat starts to melt a little bit and then it gets all slimy and
really hard to work with you got to solve that by making machine gun bacon oh that's that's so
disappointing I saw him do that I was just like I don't even want to clean your car after you do
that that's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen my life what a loser and I have to agree with
Adam Curry on this one it's not a machine gun stupid that's a good fair point I mean this guy
is trying to pander to gun advocates and he does the worst thing you can possibly do he calls a
semi-automatic rifle a machine gun sorry for that derail I just we're talking about bacon I had to
throw it in there it's timely it's it is timely it's funny yeah and I'm sorry to derail I was
talking about ice cream and stuff and he said rich ice cream and maybe to get cold stone cream
right that book though did anything about the book make you think of Star Wars or Batman that's
the real question we need to ask well they were in caves no and I'm wearing a Batman shirt
do either of those count I call that two drinks oh then take another one for the Batman mask I'm
wearing but no the book didn't make me do that okay just trying to get our our checks in for this
one oh and by the way if we're if we're you know doing audiobook club drinking game then at least
on the days that Taj is on bacon is a drink excellent if I brought the bacon before is this just
we're instituting it after this conversation no I think you've brought it up in every show I do
let me some bacon so that's not uncommon I guess how does that work living with a vegetarian do you
just like talk with bacon look at this delicious bacon that you're not eating I just like hide it
in my bedroom and just eat it behind the scenes where she doesn't see it like a addict I don't
actually we uh I'm the cook in the house so if if I really want it I'll just make it and make
you know them something separate I mean she doesn't mind that I eat it as long as I eat it all
so there's not like pieces of dead animal laying around the house all right here goes another
rat hole so I met up with one of my sisters um a couple weeks ago and she kind of we've been
estranged we haven't talked to each other in a while and not for any good reason um and we were
both very fond of each other so it was great to see each other even though the circumstances weren't
so great and somehow you know food came up as a conversation and she mentioned that her that she
and her daughter are vegetarians and I said oh have you tried something that I only tried for the
first time recently maybe Swiss shard that we tried that recently was I really liked that I said
if you tried Swiss charred and she says oh no no I really don't like vegetables that's totally my wife
you like you just described it she's vegetarian but she doesn't eat vegetables it's like
cheese and bread and yeah it's you completely just described my wife's diet so she's like the
anti vegan well no it was well she won't she doesn't want to eat animals because she likes animals
and feels bad for them but she doesn't like vegetables I said what does that leave you with and she
goes well you know Italian foods forget pizza and stuff except the best thing on pizza is the bacon
no sausage like the sausage that's the beside the bacon I that that that is that's a winner right there
I'm not a big fan of bacon I'm sorry but sausage and black olives and onions and mushrooms
and extra cheese is the best pizza you can have if you take off the olives and the mushrooms I'm
down but I can't I don't do fungus really now I can see you know I want to eat black olives
because they are kind of unique but how are mushrooms anything but good especially because
you are definitely a fun guy Tosh wop wop oh yeah yep it's that time again the bad ponds time
mushrooms are so good they do things to food that no other substance is able to do except for
MSG and I guess that's really bad for you it's not really bad for you that
MSG is in unless you're sensitive to it it's completely fine it's just a seasoning like they put
MSG and like Kentucky fried chicken like it's just another type of like seasoning oh all right
I'm gonna start using it then because I really like umami no you can totally like if you go to
the Asian grocery store you can buy like MSG is like like salt that you can put in things so yeah
you I use it all the time because nobody in my house is sensitive to it and we eat a lot of Asian food
so yeah you just put it on it makes everything better all right I guess you don't need mushrooms if
you have the crack of umami so wait is it like Siracha then it just makes everything better no it
it has uh there's a flavor called umami but it's just as much um a mouth feel that it gives you
as it is a flavor and very few things do it mushrooms do it and MSG does it and I don't know what else
and mushrooms the the effect is very slight compared to MSG yeah basically you just described
most of my stir fries like noodles vegetables um Siracha it's always awesome some MSG um maybe some
fake chicken and uh cook it up and eat it that I'd get fat you mean squirrels the fake chicken
no actual fake chicken which is a thing I don't know it's it's actually pretty tasty it's um
well it's it's weird because like I always feel that's because it's made of soy actually it's made
from wheat gluten which is hilarious and like gluten-free world um man it's just like I'm going to eat
a giant chunk of wheat gluten but um it's it's weird because like a lot of times we eat Asian because
it's kind of the culture that we fit in here um just because of our religion and so like we'll
go to the monastery and they'll make something it's everything has to be vegetarian to even go
through the door because they're like really strict about it and you'll eat something you're like
there's no way this isn't ham like how do you and it's some magic that they have that I cannot
reproduce um I I just need to like hang out in the kitchen and figure out what they do because it's
like it's just MSG and salt no it's more than that because I mean there are chunks of like meat
in there and it's not the fake meat that I go by it's not the same thing it is I'm just like
you've some somebody slaughtered a pig it just didn't tell anybody like so so they're fake meat
is better than your fake meat it is like if if I can have fake meat like that all the time I'd be
vegetarian too because it's easy because basically you're not giving anything up it's really easy to
boycott something you're working to buy anyway that's true I love it when stuff says um you know gluten-free
like when it says that on stuff that you would expect to be gluten-free anyway like no duh I
love that like like water yeah spring water sure I've seen it in some really silly places like uh
I didn't like a beef jerky or something get another thing that everybody's like gluten-free gluten-free
it's like unless you have silly x disease don't worry about it like you're fine yeah exactly exactly
it's it's so much better for you than like people will go out of their way to buy gluten-free
high fructose corn syrup so you can so you can take the poison out of the poison
so you'll have one poison well the gluten is not poison unless you have a specific allergy to it
I'm pretty sure like 90% what I eat on a daily basis is gluten so I'm I feel like I'm okay
yeah it's like that would be like calling peanuts poison I mean unless you're allergic to peanuts no
they're not they're really super healthy yeah unfortunately my daughter is allergic to peanuts
now I'm pretty it's a bummer being a teacher yeah pretty much they are poisoned in the school like
I'm pretty sure I could be fired if I brought peanuts into the building and that makes me sad
like when we found out our little one was allergic to peanuts I just wanted to I'm sad because
there's all this delicious food that I can never share with her like peanut butter people are noodles
are fantastic yeah so it was a vacation that I took my wife and my sister and my daughter left
like two weeks before me because they're both teachers and she is a toddler so none of them have
anything better due to during the summer than go on vacation and well they have better things to do
but they could go on vacation so they did and so I'm at my buddy's house and I his wife's
making a smoothie to go to work and she puts in peanut butter and I'm like oh my god could I
have some peanut butter it's what just sat there with a spoon and hate peanut butter and I'm like
I don't care that this makes me look like a fat kid it's peanut butter oh my god it's so good was
it real peanut butter that was made with only peanuts and nothing else or was it like the stuff with
you know like the jiffy skippy whatever the stuff with the it was delicious and peanutty and crunchy
that's all I know that's cool have you guys had the inarren white tails stew at the end
nicely done sir nicely that slow clap for you for that one I had to get it in before you said
that book though it wouldn't have worked as well I'm glad you sensed that it was coming on
because that was going to be my next word so good I'm training you yeah I felt it I I want to
know radar loved it no telepathy to I know what is what is air misuse is mind-reaching thing
magic plot movement that is veiled in magic wait wait wait would that be the plot bullets
well they don't really have bullets it's more like plot firecracker I don't know something really
you thought his magic was just to move the plot along took to get him out of a sticky plot
situation no I mean it was helpful but I don't think it was like it was by far not abused like
we've seen abused it wasn't even close to being abused I thought it was pretty tasteful it was
just we had to get a plot bullets reference in somewhere oh okay all right yeah all right then then
no it was not a plot bullet I mean it moved the plot along just like any other event in the book
did I I specifically did not notice any plot bullets in this book and I was happy about that which
could be why it was so long could be why it was 47 chapters of of 20 to 30 minutes a piece instead
of the normal maybe 27 chapters yeah to go the long way around so didn't take any plot bullets
and I appreciate that yeah that wasn't bad how about plot holes did you guys notice the plot holes
there were two of them I didn't think I noticed anything but I may once you say it be like oh
yeah go ahead and enlighten us okay so the first one because there's no one I can remember right now
is they spent so much time working on looking for Greta's diary because they felt like it was the
the codex that would explain the the bookkeeping but the the plot hole there is that Greta had only
been there for you know some number of years 20 years or so probably not even that much probably not
more than five or 10 considering her age and the books that Aramis was looking at he said went back
at least 400 years so her personal diary that had been a gift from to her from the librarian could
not be the key to unlock all of those past ledgers unless she had destroyed all the past ledgers
which I don't believe she would have done and I don't believe that her mother would not have had a
copy of the same the same you know decryption keys but that didn't really matter that much as far
as the story went well sure it did for for like several chapters it was the primary concern was
finding that book but they were as concerned about the book to try and figure out who she was
meeting with as they were about trying to figure out what was going on figuring out what was going
on for them was simply to figure out why or who or how well yeah I mean there were so many
layers of secrecy that kept coming about like there were you know two or three chapters each
dedicated to different secrets and this is one of the secrets and for two or three chapters it was
you know it was of primary concern it was it was pivotal and finding out what those payments were
and being able to decrypt that was the key to getting Lord Avinon back on his feet as well as
discovering some motive so you know him being so paralyzed it was kind of key to this story and
you know Aaron and Aaron discovered that the reason he was so paralyzed by her loss was because
of the bookkeeping and it just that part of the bookkeeping didn't fit for me okay what was the
other one I can't think of it off top of my head there might have been two other ones there there
was the the circus werewolves who were communicating with Talik Boer the inkeeper because he had a
secret tunnel going from the end to some place outside the city but why you know and he was
trying to get them into the city legitimately but why didn't they just sneak into the tunnel
and slaughter everybody there were well stick it on that well they weren't really trying to get
into the city they were trying to to buy the explosives yeah they were trying to do that too but
that was secondary well I don't know maybe that was primary they gave up on that and just started
killing yeah well when you can't achieve your primary objective that what where wills do yeah
and then and then the last one that I thought was was I didn't notice it it was only right at the
end uh when Aaron and Aaron miss we're in front of Lord Avinon in the final chapter and they were
what did he say six archers or something that were like standing above him and and all aimed on
him and everything how can we never met those people how can we need to interview them he interviewed
everybody in town where did these archers all of a sudden come from they were only you know
X number of guards and and they weren't in that initial accounting so they just kind of showed up
day I think we're a plot bullet to bring about the the final conflict well I mean there's not
really any threat if it's just like hey everybody who used to protect me is dead now so we're just
gonna keep you here by making a convincing argument right right we brought in these six new guys
four with bows and two with crossbows there's oddly specific as well we gotta know how many
how many dice you have to roll to hit people so I mean that you need that specific specific
I can't say that word I think that uh fruit smoothies going right to your head touch
so what did you guys think about the the the town guard just like at the lab I mean that seemed like
totally a trope of mystery like the last scene everybody in the room it's like oh I'm not who I
said I was the whole time like I struggled I I appreciated that it was that but it was kind of like
of course of course that happened it's a who done it somebody's gotta do that and at least it
didn't come out of the blue it was hinted at every couple of chapters just so you didn't forget
it was in no way subtle no it wasn't and I kind of thought that like it was on purpose because I
thought maybe that character kind of at the end that came out would be his cousin because they
they mentioned him a lot at the beginning they drop him and then they keep kind of pointing at
at the guard how you know he's not what he seems he's a little there's more to him than what's
it going on um and I thought oh that's a red herring they're gonna you know do something else they
will with it so it was it was it was kind of like I was trying to outthink him but then they just
got me what doing what they should have done it was like a triple blind or something it was probably
just a touch I tried to think too much about it isn't that smart to begin with okay but I mean
you thought that they would bluff but they knew that you would think that they would bluff
and so they didn't bluff and I'm now confused now too yes that and to think all along the poison
was in your own cup excellent reference or excellent reference thanks I think I got it wrong
though I think the line was and to think all along the poison was your own cup that was poisoned
I think that's how it goes it was close enough I knew what it was so we're good all right that's
good that's fine we're the glow rocks plot bullets I didn't think so I well it was kind of like the
glow rocks and the werewolves were this subplot that all kind of led to that big battle and I
I think it's okay if that's what the climax of that subplot is and it just kind of fades away
because that's really the only tying together that any of that does it just kind of pushes you
towards that big fight scene and then it's over so look but the glow rocks are part of the explosives
right but how does that really impact anything well that that's where all the money comes from
right because the whole thing about the the story right from the start was that
avidon wanted a remiss and errand to solve the mystery but he wanted them to do it without
discovering secrets and this whole time they keep thinking that the mystery is integral to
or that the secrets are integral to solving the mystery so he keeps uncovering all these other
secrets everywhere and they all turn out to be red herrings and then this was the actual secret
that he wasn't trying to get them that that avidon didn't want him to discover which also
was a red herring it also had nothing to do with her death right it's just sort of like a mcguffin
that really didn't pan out to be anything I mean it does explain a lot about the culture but
really it had nothing to do with the the main plot of we're solving this murder other than it was
just sort of a thing that was going on that they didn't recognize till the very end well yes and no
again avidon didn't want him discovering this all the people in the town everyone had a secret
and they weren't completely helpful to him they weren't forthcoming because they were trying to
hide their secret had all the secrets been known right out in the beginning he would have been
able to solve the mystery much further but there was buried under all these things and this was
the big thing that was in the way and once he realized that that's all it was was just in the way
he was able to get you know more to the bottom of the actual mystery which which in the end was
fairly simple all throughout the book you know he kept saying um and I think he only said it
at the beginning once he said it was either a uh done by a vampire or someone who really wanted
it to look like it was a vampire and through the rest of the book he never said or someone who
wants it to look like a vampire but he always left that statement hanging did you guys notice that
no I hadn't caught that I mean I guess I just automatically filled it in in my head
yeah I'm with Taj on that I don't remember hearing it a lot but I remember like it was kind of
part of the texture of the conversation right and I thought that was kind of interesting in the
effect that it had because had and again this is after reading or listening to this book two times
previously um had he kept saying or someone who wants it to look like a vampire killing and he
said that every time it would have been really obvious there's only one person who wanted to look
like a vampire killing it would have been super super obvious because every clue was it was either
this or someone who wanted it to look like a vampire so it it you know it would have been pretty
obvious he said that loud and he only said it once I think and it was way at the beginning
but he did keep saying that they weren't making assumptions yeah exactly which was I think the
purpose of that was to lead you to that statement hanging out in your brain that he didn't say I think
he didn't want to have to say it or he didn't want to say didn't want to make it that obvious
but it was there you both just said it was there for you which if that's the case that's
damn good writing it really is that's yeah it really really is that's kind of what I was getting
now getting your readers to understand and think something without actually saying it yeah over and
over again too so did you guys have a favorite character I love the blacksmith just because he was so
I don't know he was just kind of a strange character he was just fun I actually the indeed a character
kind of half sort of similar to him it was a similar backstory except I was a paladin instead
of a blacksmith he was cool I really liked the librarian yeah it would have been cool if there was
more of her I mean it was just like they kept going to her when they needed something and it seemed
like they're they wanted more of her to be in that like the characters wanted to visit or at least
uh air miss wanted to visit her more because it was gonna enter her but um it just seemed like
it kept happening and then it was all of a sudden it was over with her she just turned and
everything was she was just over that just evaporated really quickly for me yeah well even when
like the first time you realize oh she's a vampire it's like well maybe they can still make it
work somehow yeah you're like he's he's pretty he seems like a pretty tolerant dude I mean you
know maybe maybe he can make this work you know do they do they believe in uh capital punishment maybe
she could just be that for her job from now on I only eat bad people well I mean I don't know if
it I don't remember this specifically they were feeding um the the one the king son I can't
remember his name that what it was turned they were feeding him just like raw meat and that seemed
to be okay probably not what he wanted but okay enough to to get him through I wonder if that
would still work for somebody who was like full of the empire or not no I think they specifically
said it only worked it had to be um heart split so that the heart of a buck um and I think they
said it only worked until he had turned you know officially or thoroughly whatever into a vampire
vampire master or whatever else I it was kind of implied that it was only temporary see I didn't
get that at all because if that had been the case they wouldn't have been concerned about whether
or not he'd had human blood I mean if they'd have known that it would only sustain him if he hadn't
had human blood and it was sustaining him they would know he hadn't had human blood and they didn't
know oh good point I didn't think of that oh once again it's probably one of those I mean
tofu bacon instead of bacon but it's better than nothing it's a tall person
sorry so I like green isn't people I can't believe there's no people and she's another one of
those characters that like I feel like there was an obvious she was set up to do something later
in another book like she's a character that they were going to go back and explain or you know
she got out and she's out and you know have another adventure with her and it's just gone drop
there will nothing be nothing done with that which is that the books being lost was tragic even I
felt that yeah and the fact that like air miss is like trying to help her save what she can initially
like he's in there he's like I don't I don't care that you're a vampire and now we we actually
need to get this done so we don't lose everything well I mean you got a priorities you know yeah so
what she's the living dead books it sounded like those books were all you know hand copied so
big deal well at the time all books were hand copied in the setting of the story there was no
printing press yet everything they talked about was at least it seemed to be the main I think it
was implied yeah maybe I just assumed it that's what I got to yeah but there were like steam
punky kind of elements to it that that happened like when he website append and starts writing
and people are like what is that how are you writing without like inkwell like he invented ballpoint
pins apparently you know like I thought that was cool that he was he was smart enough to have like
cool stuff like that that was kind of advanced for what they were um is so it's just one of those
things were a couple things were a little more advanced than I think they probably should have been
oh no no I didn't see that that way at all I all throughout real history there's always been
examples of stuff that like um well this existed you know hundreds of years before it should have
and there's only one or two of them and the fact that he's a person who owned one of these things
I thought that that just helped to demonstrate how much more into the written word he was then
then most other people and you know the only example that's coming to mind from the real world
is the anti-kithroid device yeah yeah I get what you're saying or um Connor McLeod sword
another fine reference there hope I got that right was it Connor was he the one from the movie
I can never remember who was in the movie who was in the tv show yeah I was getting confused
although like if you want to go on a rant about like sword technology that was way ahead of
its time I could go down that rabbit hole for like hours in this book no like in the real world
oh okay I thought maybe in this book like because the size were a little out of place yeah
but I dug it it was cool it was nice to see like you know obviously either like fantasy comes in
two flavors kind of it's either like medieval Europe setting or like Tolkien setting which is
still kind of medieval Europe so it's nice to see like you know this is obviously a different place
so development could have happened a little different I kind of liked it right but they still come
up with the same thing sword spear bow crossbow sigh yeah but every I mean look at every culture
that's kind of we all come up with the same weapons eventually I would argue that the
size is a pretty specific item I don't think that was ever parallel league invented in in
another culture other than in China well I would say Asia proper not just China but yeah sure sure
in the side correctly from wrong that was like a peasant weapon that was not a weapon that the
high-born trained on is that right it was that it depends on what version of history you want to
go with because there's kind of two theories some some people think it was developed as a weapon
there were farming tools that were used that were very similar so like in Okinawa and stuff when
there was a ban on weapons they were using the farming implement because that's what they had but
um yeah I there are examples of that weapon as a weapon in China way way before that point were
they sharp I was always under the impression that the sigh was not a sharp instrument it was more
of a bludgeoning instrument not a slicing one it was it was meant for disarming someone with a sword
and and striking but not for slicing there were both there were some that were the doll centers
bike and there were some that were bladed in the center oh okay I didn't realize that they were
they had them that blades all right then I guess I can forgive that part I thought the fact that
he had them hit up his sleeves and was all subtle about it was pretty cool oh yeah absolutely yep
well he was like the cross he was like a cross between like a monk a Jedi and like a little ninja
thrown in just in case he was Bozlianardo and Michelangelo so in other words a monk yes the most
badass kind you know that's weird imagine like you know we're saying this is like medieval Europe
what if it wasn't what if these were all Asians and the sigh was like completely normal and we're
just thinking of it from the wrong perspective oh calling out them cultural biases I like it
they don't know just occurred to me so what if the sword is what was the weird thing well no
swords weren't weird even in Asia um and certainly explosives were more familiar to them than the
word of the rest of us granted they didn't make them them from glowing rocks but well no but they
didn't make those explosives from glowing rocks either they said they had an explosive that they
were using and the when they discovered the glowing rocks that's how they discovered them they made
the explosion uh they amplified the explosion they made the explosion more better right more better
more bad displays I'm trying to think of what else besides the size and the explosion that the
explosives had kind of a more eastern feel to it neither the werewolves nor the vampires seem to
follow traditional like European myths quite strictly all right I meant to bring that up too
how I kind of liked how we had a totally different take on both of those things so they too felt
I don't want to say mysterious but at least unfamiliar the whole setting of this thing was
meant to be unfamiliar I think it was just different enough to keep you on your toes about like oh
can they do this or like um like having vampire masters that you know could hide themselves a lot
better it was a good thing because even though he's very perceptive he still couldn't pick up on
that which which was a nice way of doing it yeah the vampire master you know in the um the
shifter as opposed to the moonbeats that those to me felt a spatially role-playing
English like oh here's a here's a level up of a regular not just regular vampires of every master
this a you know level level four enemy not a level two well also let me sticking with that more
from the the monk slash the the priest who was the undead hunter the fact that his you know sense
evil didn't work on her was kind of cool oh but in the end it may not have had anything to do with
her yeah that's true oh yeah I totally forgot about the old witch hunter guy he was awesome he was
like your cookie uncle every time we showed up who actually wound up being missing by the end
your cookie uncle that happens to kill people yeah and and again well read if that's what you're
going for team or it's just a guy to deliver it the cookie uncle who kills people well I just love
that they play him I like they kind of even even air miss who seems like he's pretty pretty
perceptive to everything that's going on their parts where they're just like I just blow him off
he's crazy like they just walk away for him and just be like they're like yeah yeah yeah well
we'll totally meet you tonight you just just gone with me Jenner but well he was like mumbling
under his breath and generally seeming crazy so what do you really expect yeah and every time they
came upon him he always seemed to be in his own little world before he noticed them or he he was
like attacking them with his evil sensing magic which apparently was needing some calibration
no I again I don't think so I think I think that was part of the trickery well I mean this leads to
like one of my big one of the bigger complaints I had about just the format of the book
the the nice little intros that tell you about the history and stuff I think I would have
got that more seeing it on paper like seeing the different aspects of all these avatars and
stuff that are that are there and because when we get to the end it becomes kind of important
who some of these people are and although I understood who those people were it was kind of it
took me a while and I think if I would have seen their names and and seen kind of those stories I
don't know it's something maybe I'm just more of a visual learner like it took me I think a lot
longer than it should have the the piece together who was who and how they related and things like
that I very much got pardon me I very much got that this is that weird text at the top of the book
in italics at the beginning of every chapter that you may or pardon me may or may not pay any
attention to and the fact that they read it at all was kind of interesting and important well there's
two things is this the weird texts that's in italics in the beginning that you're not supposed to
understand until you're done with the chapter and then you can flip back and see it but the other
thing is about what Taj was saying a pantheon you know a visual representation you know these
these children of age in their places in the pantheon drawn in like a depiction or diagram would
have been very very helpful and at the same time what you were saying as far as you know
audibly not being able to pick up on it I think what also would have been helpful in that respect
would have been if some of the names didn't sound so similar and because they're so foreign and
they're all made up and stuff you know that the fact that they all had similar sounds Arjun
artist Aj they all kind of began with the same sounds it was very very easy to confuse them
yeah that definitely would help there's lots of a's and eyes it seemed like and even in our main
characters like Aaron Artemis it was just like I don't know if that's a thing where everybody's
names with like and like a A or I sound to do things but it seemed like they kept popping up a lot
and if they weren't characters in the story that I was constantly referencing I just had a hard
time keep a track of them yeah like when when the the you know the meeting with H a he had no
idea what that meant but then when he realized that it was you know Arjun that he was talking about
not artists then it fell into place like no how could that not fall into place they both started
with A how could that be the thing that made it work for you that doesn't make sense or maybe I
just misunderstood it there was there's one thing I will say about this book even though I've
listened to it twice before I still there was so much to it it was so deep that they were
entire swaths of this book huge sections that I just did not remember that was still a surprise
to me or at least a mystery to me even you know the third time through which I appreciated it was a
dense and it had complexity but it still went down smooth like this wasn't going back to a couple
books ago the terrible business of Sam and a dusk that was difficult to read because of its density
and complexity this was complex and dense and just like went down easy like I could listen to it
and and still catch what was going on and not have to strain to understand I mean there were some
things like that but really overall I can I could set back and relax and listen to this one this was
the bourbon that X 1101 reviewed and Sam and a dusk was Jim Beam yeah I was trying to use Guinness
but I couldn't think of one that that you know complex beer that goes down hard and Guinness
isn't actually all that complex but it's dense and smooth isn't Guinness like liquid bread
yeah sort of it's it's kind of creamy and multi more than bready maybe not even creamy that's
just a mouth feel you get from the nitrogen bubbles it's it's the flavor is more multi speaking
of nitrogen I had I may have talked with this last time now I'm starting to talk about it but
an iced coffee pulled with nitrogen and it was odd oh no not even just iced it was a cold brew
iced coffee pulled with nitrogen and it was that it was just odd and wonderful and you know what
that means pulled with nitrogen yeah I was gonna ask the same thing I'm not quite sure what that
means well the same way that you would pull a pint of Guinness it uses nitro to pump it instead
of the standard stuff that you would use for a regular beer so you get the the stout kind of
mouth feel but on iced coffee oh so they use nitrogen to push the water through the coffee grounds
instead of using like steam and heat like you normally would do something like that yeah I think
all I know is it felt like drinking a stout while tasting like and being coffee that is really
cool I had to look for that sometime yeah I didn't know that they were using nitrogen for that
that's interesting I swam in a little waterfall yesterday on purpose yeah yeah that sounds like
fun yeah it's just as off topic I think that's no different than any other show no I know like I
it was as smooth as I could try to bring us back I'm sorry it was the anti smooth to try to
bring us back wait the same in a dust kit thanks I think so has anybody got anything else dad
yeah I was just wondering I was actually trying to think I was going to ask you guys if um
if there were any characters in the book you would have liked to have seen more I've seen fleshed
out a little better gone to know better and and I can't really think of any myself only one maybe
but you know not just see more of but but got to know them a little better because they might be
interesting but there's only one I can think of can you guys think of any the one girl that like
everybody was in love with that she had a backstory and they explained her backstory I don't know
if I would want to necessarily see more of that backstory because it kind of summed it up but um I
kind of feel like the author really liked that character um because she just especially through
the beginning of the book he just keeps mentioning her so um that would be something that I would if
it was written I would probably read it yeah he did really like we did keep keep pointing towards her
and even if the author didn't the narrator certainly did x-101 any candidates for uh characters
you you would have liked to have gotten to know a little better the blacksmith I think yeah he was
cool though I think we got to know him just fine just more story would have been there yeah yeah I
guess that's just more of him yeah he was fun sorry I just he seemed like he had an interesting
backstory and would have been interesting to interact with he had a cool voice too but I'd feel
really bad for the reader if he had to do much more that just destroys your voice I wouldn't mind
like the medieval version of like a short story buddy cop movie between air miss and his cousin
just like going out getting into trouble that'd be fun oh are like yeah they're they're origin
story when they're kids yeah that would that would be something I would be interested in just like
uh air miss not be so air miss not be so wise that would be funny I I was thinking of the um
and I don't remember his name now but the the younger avidon son who was really into horses I thought
that his character was interesting in in a way that the others weren't he's not magical or
or specifically special um but but I just thought he was kind of neat I think I would have
like to have heard a little more about him it might be cool to just like look at you know avidon hill
like later uh and see like where it goes from here because obviously they said hey we're not
interested in like dethroning you guys even though this is kind of shady um just see where that
goes from there because obviously it's getting ready for a huge change because it's kind of
getting opened up to the rest of the world for the first time so that that would be an interesting
story to see I don't know if you could milk a whole novel out of it but it would be um definitely
something to look at no but you know what might be interesting uh if you ever can get your your
role playing game system together some of the characters in this might be interesting characters
to throw together into a campaign I'm suddenly interested in this well I mean because you have
your classic types right I mean you you have your um you're your fighter your warrior who was
who was Aaron uh you have your enchantress you know what I mean you have your your halfbreed vampire
and you've got your halfbreed troll you know the fighter type things and enchanters and then you've
got your um you know erimus who is what would you call him not a mage but like a uh what do you call
he's a monk he's yeah he's a monk or maybe a cleric but cleric that's what it was and oh sorry
I mean if we're roleplaying I there's going to be one class and it's fighter and everybody's
character is going to be named Phi Tor that's a joke by the way yeah I chuckled I just didn't push
to chuckle or I I didn't get it sorry roleplaying joke I'm roleplayed yet we are going to fix that
Pokey we have to get you on board here so many of the books that we've read would make good settings
you know we should do it'd be cool to throw some of the characters from one book into the settings
of another and see how the hell they cope with that like like these guys at the Albion
that'd be messed up I still I mean I'm at some point in my life I am running a traveler game that's
set in uh Nathan Lowell's universe because it has to happen that game is perfectly designed for
that setting oh yeah and then have to play as the characters from Cory doctoros from down on
the magic kingdom that would be fun oh and your experience points could be woofy it would be awesome
but if you spend too many of them your level goes down dude somebody's to hit up Cory and be like
hey let's make a roleplaying game out of this book oh I guarantee you hundreds of people have
said that to him and just nobody's executed yet making games is hard I'm told I never tried but I'm
told it's really really hard to do it well no it's stupid hard that's why I just deal rules from
other games and bolt them together but even getting a balanced rules that doing that is hard I see
roleplaying games like Unix just you know take this mechanic pipe to the next mechanic and then
come up with some monster I'm sitting no no no no no it's like Linux we saw what Unix did
and fixed all their mistakes it took a lot of people a long time to do that though
yeah I agree completely um in in the environment at work we've got like three variants of commercial
Unix and then Linux and some of the things that Linux system can do the Unix guys are like
what you can do that you don't have to like go through some really hard process to do that
that's crazy finally oh we were trying to find something one day at work and we have all
windows computers at work we were trying to find something that was in one of our like work orders
that we put together and we didn't know when it happened we just knew where it was and we kind
of sort everything by date you know by year and month and we didn't know where to look for it
but we knew it was in there somewhere and you can't just search for a word in a word document at
least we didn't know that you could so I the hoops that had to be jumped through and the time
that it took to install some jank windows version like wind grab I think it was called that was
able to search through you know word files and excel spreadsheets for the occurrence of this
specific word was unbelievable it took at the better part of a day to complete that search
but it can actually grab inside of word documents yeah which actually the windows file browser can do
now I don't know if it ever could before but it can now anyway that's kind of cool yeah it's
grip that's why you should do everything in plain text all the time right man that's why you should
do everything with Linux all the time that too I'll be honest I'm like I actually have thought about
doing a hacker public radio about this about like up until like two years ago I did not understand
the power of plain text and I wish somebody would have just sat down and said here is why you should
use plain text for everything because I would have switched a whole lot sooner and been more efficient
all the time plain text no spaces in your file names I was just gonna say now that you understand
the power of plain text let us explain no spaces in your file names now see I always understood
the no spaces in file names thing I can get that but like I'm just like I don't know once I
discovered e-max I was just like where have you been all my life and where are the extra thumbs I
need to make this work and see that's how I feel about them every time I use it see when I came
which is every day when he came to picking a text editor for me I literally was like okay everybody
says e-max is like the hardest thing in the world so if I learn that everything else is gonna be
easy so I just jumped into e-max and now when I pick up them I'm just like but e-max it does
everything yeah I honestly believe that really which side of that debate you come down on really
mostly depends on which one you learned first and I happen to learn vim first which is why I love
vim I am sure that if I had picked up e-max first I would love it just as passionately so it's not
an actual quality thing as it's the thing I've spent the most time on I don't know I know a
couple people who used to be vim people who now use e-max in evil mode so they didn't have to
learn e-max they just get all the benefits of e-max they get to use their vim keep bindings
oh but it's not the bindings it's the right in the custom RC file to do custom bindings for
specific file types and all the plugins and weird stuff you can do yeah that's what you have
modes for two modes is hard enough for a lot of people I don't need 40 of them
there's a switch between like 12 of them whether you fall on the side of e-max for the win
or vim for the win I think we all can agree nano for the participation ribbon and that's why I
use it yes nano for participation man that's pretty ballin though I mean in a pinch if I got to
get I mean if I just have to like edit a config file and this could be like one line I'll do it
nano I just you know it's easier to do it that way and that's the real power of plain text is
that you can do it with something like nano see that's why the other reason that vi is so popular
is at the time when e-max was just freaking huge and vi wasn't vi was what was installed everywhere
so it's ubiquitous so when you go edit a file you edit it with vi and you're done and you know
wait 45 minutes for your e-max session to load let's put it this way if I go to a website and
I'm gonna copy a paste some code into my terminal which you should never do but everybody does it
anyways and it's like pseudo nano and then the file that you're gonna edit I'm not gonna change
that I'm just gonna leave it I'm too lazy to type in e-max I also really like G edit well yeah if
you want to use a mouse and buttons and stuff yeah exactly I don't know like I I think it's G
edit I don't know I could be like completely messing this up I think that like it was recently
upgraded and now it's just like not like yeah yeah yeah it hurts my G edit since gnome 3 has
is just gross which sucks because I love everything about gnome 3 except G edit normally still
use an xfce so if if I ever install G edit it seems to be the same as the old version that's
funny even on my xfce installations I get the gdk3 version of G edit and it's it's bad is it really
I guess I haven't edited text in a while except for on nano if I have to use a GUI file GUI
text editor editor thing I go with genie oh god I hate genie really really he's lying he actually
doesn't have no pad in windows no pad plus plus that I would use but notepad I'd rather cut off
one of my hands than use that book though all the text editors we can just keep going damn
I was gonna say they cut joris's hand off nicely done no I wasn't I missed it this time you got
to it first we can fix it in post that's dishonest I was a little slow that's all and that's why
they call me pokey so the battle scene with with joris that was a little drawn out right yes well
well there was the battle with joris and then there was the like psychic battle with the
child dobbin dobbin yes the trickster god thing so it was almost two battles kind of back to back
yeah that wasn't a battle that was the the sequel foundation layer yes that we're never gonna see
and I thought that was really well done how how how well it was baked and weaved into the story
to to be like thank you you're all week try the bacon woven thing um it like the fact that dobbin was
behind this the whole time and he's the trickster god so nothing could you you can you can say that
it's possible that nothing was what it seemed it was all the trick right from the start which is
what I meant when I said that you know maybe she wasn't a lane wasn't any good at hiding from
joris maybe just dobbin didn't let him see her because he was trying to draw that that episode
in joris's life out until you know air miss and and air and showed up there's lots and lots of
stories and lots and lots of of pantheons of gods even in real life that always include a trickster
god and so I've thought about the trickster god before and I think like if you were if your
job was to be a god and be the trickster god I think you almost would have to be able to see
the possible futures much more clearly than anyone else around you um because you're the one
tricking and manipulating and to be any good at that you'd you'd have to see the possible outcomes
and you'd have to see them more clearly I think and so I think that's how to me it feels like
that's how a trickster god would manipulate people better so he to me he would have seen or
foreseen air miss and air and coming in this playing out this way he didn't seem disappointed with
the outcome at all she how can I make a mess of this you have it that didn't seem to be what he was
doing he didn't seem to be trying to make a mess he seemed to be trying to really he seemed to be
just screwing with Aaron and everybody else was the piece that he didn't mind messing about well
I guess by making a mess I really mean shake things up in general yeah yeah see I think if the story
were to continue my prediction for it would go would be that Aaron is one of the the gods and
Doppin is setting him up for uh how much fun it will be when he exposes that fact to him really
I thought it was aromas that was gonna be but other than that I agreed well up until the end when
he's like oh yeah totally two people in your family were gods like you know and that's just what
we know of so I mean after that I was like yeah it's gotta be Aaron well that could have been
the twist at the end to that could have been the way out to where whoever was really the god that
Doppin was gonna have fun exposing you know maybe like killed Aaron thinking that he was the god
you know what I mean that he was thought there's something and then expose it to the other person
because it's gotta be some kind of tragic thing if it if it was gonna happen if only it was not
licensed no derivatives somebody could go in there and write it oh what a good point
was it no derivatives yeah I think so yes it was oh that's really sad oh man so I can't even make
a a George in his hand cut off joke that's a derivative work isn't it I think technically this
is a derivative work balls no this is a review he said feel free to review the book specifically
on iTunes and audio books but still he said review the book well then because your joke is part
of the review it's not it is also okay that's okay I can go through and edit out everything we
talked about that had to do with the book and we're still gonna have like an hour and a half vlog
episode and it would just be ridiculously funny welcome to the hacker public radio redhole book club
that's how we do all right I think that's all the things I can think of to say or to attempt to
make interesting about it it was really really good super good enjoy the whole thing yeah it's a
definite check out if if you haven't read it you should it's it's good enough that I would give
it blanket recommendation I think that once I convinced my mom that potty of books calm was so
cool I think this was the second book I recommended to her I don't remember what the first one was
but I think this was the second one it's funny when I was a kid it's my mom who got me into audio
books and then I didn't listen to him for probably a decade and then we started I started
coming to the book club and it's like wait a minute I remember these yeah the first one would have
been either shadow magic I mean shadow magic or or quarter share but I don't remember what
it was but this was this I'm pretty sure was the second you've cursed me to when I let find
listen to the shadow magic book every time he says that I'm gonna lose it shadow magic I I thought
for a minute you were gonna say every time he says that you're gonna hear him saying it like I
just did and I would say oh that's okay because he does yeah right this is fun to be awesome what's
funny is listening to the first two books and then going and reading the third one because you are
quite literally hearing all of it as narrated in your head oh yeah absolutely you hear the voices
when you read that book it's really interesting it's it's it's cool way to that though that doesn't
carry on so much I just reread uh sons of maca a couple months ago I actually know I think I reread
it after we did quarter share because I needed something light to mellow me out then I remembered
almost the way and the way through it wasn't quite so light and um I didn't hear them quite so much
because it had been like a year since I listened to the books oh yeah I get it so Taj what are you
gonna command from on high to be our next audio book shadow magic we already did it I was banned
from picking that so I'm actually going to pick something else I was gonna say well president
company excluded we already did it yeah everybody except for me so um well I wasn't here for that I
actually had been thinking about suggesting it and then Poke mentioned that they're already done
and I'm like damn I was gonna suggest that because it's really good book we'll have to do like a
just Taj and x1101 recap that the so just be like hey we're going back and doing the old ones
because we were here oh I could do that I could I could definitely listen to that episode on my
motorcycle so anyways um I think the last time I picked or no maybe two times ago I picked
try planetary because I've been on this big kick of just like classic sci-fi that I've not read
and I feel like I've always wanted to read and um not got around to it so I caught a few months ago
a movie of the book that I'm gonna recommend at least a part of it and I remember hearing people
say they didn't like the movie or the movie was terrible and I watched it and I was like this is
actually pretty good I kind of like it so I decided this is a classic uh it is on Libravox
and so I wanted to read a Princess of Mars uh by Edgar Rice Burrows I've never heard of it
but classic has me intrigued yeah I've been ripping through classic sci-fi so this is right
of my alley I mean I've read recently I just read um I robot Starship Troopers and I'm currently
reading Duandroid Stream of Electric Sheep so I know um now I robot and Starship Troopers I had
already seen the movies of and of course the books blew them away and now I have not seen Blade Runner
I'm uh forgive me for I have sinned I have not seen Blade Runner man but I'm gonna read the book
but I'm gonna read the book first and then I'm gonna go watch it yeah I get it it was groundbreaking
but if if you see it now after seeing every other piece of pop culture sci-fi it's kind of
myth and you just have to know going into Blade Runner that the original book is just sort of
the idea that spawn Blade Runner there there's very little um narratively that's in common
with the original novel and the movie so it's kind of well I mean the same is true with
iRobot and Starship Troopers I was gonna say we'd be remiss if if you said that about about Blade
Runner not about iRobot iRobot has nothing in common except for the three rules and the fact
that the title is iRobot and and the robot seemed kind of high potish I never noticed that do
you say that the yes it does so anyways my book recommendation um so there are actually several
versions of Liebervox of this and so I decided to go with version two I listened to the beginning
of all of them and I picked the person that I liked the most and that person's name is
Mark Nelson and actually the whole this is a whole series of books and there are I think four
or five of the books on Liebervox and he narrates all of them that are there and I don't know why it's
just those books um I think there's like eight or nine books in the series I don't know if they're
not in public domain yet or not um but at least those first few if if you like this one which I did
I mainline this book in like a day and a half and so I'm already into the second part so that'll
leave me plenty of time to reach out on magic well you listen fast so how many chapters are there
and on average how long do they last is is uh I'm curious so the first book is 28 chapters but they
break that into 13 episodes and your average episode is like 25 30 minutes and some of them are
even shorter so it's it's a really short book like you can get through it pretty quick um like I
said I did it in a day and a half now that was me mowing the grass which takes about three hours so
uh it was it was easy for me to read and I a little spoilers it was really good okay I was
gonna say that is really short that's I'm gonna have a hard time if it's as good as you're saying
that it is I'm gonna have hard time not listening to the second one we can add more books like I said
there's the five books if we want to do like the series or whatever that might be a little too long
I don't know apparently the first three are like a sinner around the main character of the first
three and then after that they kind of branch off like um if you ever read any of the Oz books
it's kind of that way so at least the first three would be a cohesive thing are they all about that
long 13 chapters and 20 minutes of peace the next one I think they do each chapter as uh it's own
like audio file and I think it may be just a little longer not much like it may be like 18 chapters
or like 17 chapters but it's um they seem to be fairly similar and and like
well it's your book you do tell us you tell me I'm indecisive x1 1 0 and you're the deciding
vote do we do multiple books or would you just do the first one I'm also a speed listener so like
why don't we do the first three the first three it is um and I think for the other ones uh for
princess of bars it's version two I think for the other books it's actually version three that is
the same narrator so just check the narrator and you'll be okay how's about you send us links to
the one that you want us to listen to so that this month I can try to remember send a email out to
everybody I will and if you look at the mumble chat I've already posted the first one but I'll
get the other two real quick all right cool you have been listening to Hacker Public Radio
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