Transcript
Speaker: My goodness, there's some there's there's a lot loaded into that name.
Speaker: There's a lot of pop stroke drink.
Speaker: Good place.
Speaker: I feel like that's that's going to be that's going to be something they say about me after I die.
Speaker: They're like, what happened to your dad?
Speaker: Pop stroke pop up in the attic, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: You know what else is pop pop in the attic?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always as Phil and on today's show we are starting a brand new book, Halo Empty Throne by Jeremy Patnod.
Speaker: Is that the pronunciation of the last name?
Speaker: I can't recall.
Speaker: I'm going to be perfectly bravely honest with you.
Speaker: And ladies and gents, I think we've already mentioned this, this not letting Cat out of bed.
Speaker: We got to interview.
Speaker: I've been saying Pat Node in my head, Jeremy Pat Node.
Speaker: We got to interview him, and I very deliberately avoided saying his last name.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: During the interview.
Speaker: Jeremy, if you listen, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I just, again, anxiety.
Speaker: We're professionals.
Speaker: We're very professional.
Speaker: We are very good at avoiding things.
Speaker: We're professionals at avoidance.
Speaker: It would have been the easiest thing in the world, way easier than what I ended up doing to just say,
Speaker: How do you pronounce that name?
Speaker: Before we even got started.
Speaker: What's the, how does, okay.
Speaker: Okay, great, great.
Speaker: Could have done that.
Speaker: Didn't do it.
Speaker: Didn't do it.
Speaker: Didn't do it.
Speaker: Chose not to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we chose not to, but I'm excited about it though.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Phil, who is Jeremy and what are we talking about here?
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: Well, Jeremy Patnot is a is a he's been he was the lead writer for the Halo franchise for like a while.
Speaker: And but now what's funny about that, though, is this is his first novel.
Speaker: He has written a ton for the world, for the Bible that that encompasses its history and goings on.
Speaker: He might be one of the most important writers involved in Halo and its history at this point.
Speaker: just because of how much of his thumbprint he left on the world.
Speaker: And so that's why we got Halo Empty Throne.
Speaker: We're going to full disclosure, we got this from Gallery Books.
Speaker: They sent these to us as review copies.
Speaker: It's never really been an issue because Halo books tend to be kind of universally
Speaker: High quality, especially the ones we're reading lately.
Speaker: So but but in to be perfectly open and honest that this is this is based on review copies we got.
Speaker: It just came out last month.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: On top of all of that, this is another one of the books that takes place in the Infinity or infinite universe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'd like the yeah.
Speaker: Around the events of Halo Infinite.
Speaker: This will be the third or fourth book that we've read.
Speaker: I think fourth book that takes place around Halo Infinite.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is another one of them.
Speaker: And and this is also if you guys can see possibly the longest tale of books we've ever read.
Speaker: This is a beefy boy.
Speaker: This is look at all these pages.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pages in this thing.
Speaker: It's about 500 pages long, which puts it up there for one of the longer books we've read, period.
Speaker: So we have the pleasure of introducing a very special four episode book for you guys.
Speaker: A four episode book.
Speaker: It took a Halo book to make it a four episode book.
Speaker: But it's worth it.
Speaker: And then we're going to we're going to wrap this one up with an interview with with Jeremy.
Speaker: So next month, the next month is pretty much booked out for this book alone.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: So we get a lot of attention for the Halo one, so I don't see this as an issue.
Speaker: But if I want to apologize in advance, if if Halo is not your bag, I'm really sorry.
Speaker: We'll be returning to non Halo things immediately after.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I mean, the book we have after this is deeply non-Halo.
Speaker: It's about as big of a turnaround as you can do.
Speaker: Deeply non-Halo.
Speaker: What is the book after?
Speaker: I believe it's The Dig.
Speaker: Aren't we reading The Dig?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Another LucasArts piece.
Speaker: The Dig, yes.
Speaker: I got to muck around with our schedule given that this is a four-parter now.
Speaker: But yeah, we're doing things different now.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that in particular.
Speaker: I think that would be a lot of fun.
Speaker: And I'm and I will and I and I've made sure to buy the game to play that one as well, because when you get to play old school point and click adventure games for research, it really is no no no hardship.
Speaker: So but yeah, so Kevin, what do you say?
Speaker: Well, first and foremost, you want to talk about a website or anything like that?
Speaker: Uh, yeah, I want to talk about a website called patreon.com slash pixelitpod where you can become a follower free.
Speaker: You can become a free follower.
Speaker: Free follower.
Speaker: Just like that.
Speaker: Or you could pay us some money.
Speaker: There's $1, $5, $10.
Speaker: $1 gets you in the door.
Speaker: $5 gets you the bonus episode that we record before every episode.
Speaker: $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode.
Speaker: And to that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, the patron known as my dad nuts and me.
Speaker: I want to be very specific about that.
Speaker: I don't think you have any choice.
Speaker: You've got to.
Speaker: You've got to be as clear as possible.
Speaker: You've got to be specific.
Speaker: Chatbeaksdumathic, Langelier, and Friendly Friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixelitePod.
Speaker: You can go there and you can hop into our Discord.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: We've got good people in there.
Speaker: I love how steadily that last group of names has been growing over the past year.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's good.
Speaker: It's a nice feeling.
Speaker: We love you very much.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not going to talk about the game that this is based on because I've done it before.
Speaker: a lot.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We've covered this one a lot.
Speaker: Whether the series Halo Infinite or whatever, I don't think we need to get into the fact that this is another Halo Infinite story.
Speaker: It's Halo.
Speaker: You know it.
Speaker: You love it.
Speaker: It's Halo specifically the last Halo game that was released.
Speaker: It's another book in that in that.
Speaker: It's more of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You remember that?
Speaker: It's it's that it's before Rubicon Protocol, right?
Speaker: The infinite is not at Halo yet, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think this is before all of them.
Speaker: Before all of them.
Speaker: I'd have to check, but I think this one might be for all of them.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we'll get more context.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is this is the modern age of Halo where Cortana's a baddie and all that.
Speaker: Yes, Cortana.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: To catch people up, Cortana villain now.
Speaker: Covenant gone in their place called the group called the Banished, which is just like the covenant.
Speaker: But like, I don't know, they kind of suck a little bit more.
Speaker: They're not as organized, not as big, but they like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like, I like, I like, and we're going to get into it, but I think one of the cooler things about this part of the world, this part in the world of Halo is that it's such a great thing because it's like when a war, when a war happens and the side, one side gets defeated, they don't just blink out of existence.
Speaker: Yeah, you got all splinter factions.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The banished is basically that, you know, right there.
Speaker: You got all kinds of little internecine like civil wars and shit like that.
Speaker: And that's right.
Speaker: And that's what we're dealing with this with this stuff.
Speaker: And that's pretty cool, especially with how huge the covenant was and how all powerful they seem to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that we're going to put this body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Let's marsh the body.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
Speaker: Chapter one, we start with Master Chief crash landing on Halo, basically, and using Cortana to get his bearings.
Speaker: Basically, we are getting a little preamble that is events from the first game slash second book, actually.
Speaker: Then we cut to seven years later, Octavio Morales is watching this footage.
Speaker: We get some exposition on the stuff.
Speaker: Me and Kevin just talked about Cortana and the new Cortana that's working with Master Chief.
Speaker: We learn Master Chief has a new
Speaker: version of Cortana, basically.
Speaker: The idea is that, you know, the A.I.
Speaker: that they work with has like it has a seven year shelf life, essentially.
Speaker: And after seven years, they have a chance of completely losing it.
Speaker: And and they're not meant to last that long.
Speaker: And Cortana did.
Speaker: And then, yeah, a bunch of other shit happened.
Speaker: A bunch of bad shit happened because there is like so they specify in the Halo universe.
Speaker: There's two types of AI, right?
Speaker: There's the ones that Cortana is, which is more of like it's almost like a like a ghost in the machine type of AI where it's like the AI is basically a person.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then there's another type of AI, which is closer in flavor to your chat GPT.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But more accurate.
Speaker: It's like, but more accurate.
Speaker: And you would trust it with your life.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Whereas chat GPT just kind of sucks a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: It's like the Google like AI results, but you would never actually take the Google AI results.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's it's it's basically the the original AI, the Cortana AI.
Speaker: It's just too advanced for it to exist for too long without having an existential meltdown, essentially.
Speaker: And so the secondary AI, they they.
Speaker: This is like the same AI, but it has like a small lobotomy.
Speaker: Let's just look at it that way.
Speaker: They're just a little more mild, let's say.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Octavia Morales is overlooking something called the accession, which is basically it's ancient forerunner tech.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We find that they're going to be extracting something from the surface.
Speaker: Captain Richards lets us know it's going to be Jeremiah Cole's brash daughter who is going to lead the charge down there to pick up the asset.
Speaker: Abigail Cole.
Speaker: They very much.
Speaker: It's very much a she's a live wire.
Speaker: She's she's she's hot to try.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: She plays by her own game.
Speaker: You know, it's a very 80s cop lethal weapon kind of shit.
Speaker: And yeah, she is.
Speaker: So and yeah, she's the daughter of Jeremiah Cole.
Speaker: And people will know Jeremiah Cole as the guy who created the
Speaker: Cole Protocol, which was just called it the protocol.
Speaker: I can't believe they missed the protocol.
Speaker: They missed the protocol.
Speaker: I can't believe they missed the Cole Protocol, which was like a basically the long short of it was you never jump directly to Earth.
Speaker: Like, yes, yes, that's it's just a mistake because because it just there's too many opportunities for the enemy to fall.
Speaker: You can never jump directly, leave where you are and go straight to Earth.
Speaker: You got to figure out your shit.
Speaker: Go someplace else first.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So the the plan is they're going there is a subroutine on the surface, basically an AI of some kind that has a subroutine that can take over the didact domain, which you might remember from the last book we read, the domain, which is like.
Speaker: Covenant slash robot heaven.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like a heaven type thing.
Speaker: Type thing.
Speaker: And this subroutine will be able to remove Cortana's presence from that, which would basically, you know, kneecap her.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For all intents and purposes.
Speaker: So that's that's what they're they're going to do.
Speaker: Chapter two, we meet Lord Terrence Hood.
Speaker: He wakes up and starts working out immediately.
Speaker: We get to know him.
Speaker: He is he is one of three people who are in hiding on an uncharted world.
Speaker: It's him and and a Spartan.
Speaker: And let's see, Admiral Osmond.
Speaker: They are all there.
Speaker: They were all basically.
Speaker: evacuated when a Guardian came out to Sydney.
Speaker: And it's pretty horrifying.
Speaker: It's Sydney, Australia.
Speaker: The Guardian came out there and a ship, a great big battleship, went in to intercept them.
Speaker: The Guardian used an EMT that just...
Speaker: Shut it down.
Speaker: Shut it down.
Speaker: It crashes into Sydney.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And it's it's nuclear reactor explodes and destroys Sydney.
Speaker: Destroys the city.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just completely obliterates it.
Speaker: And you can almost imagine the Guardian going, I didn't do that.
Speaker: That wasn't you guys here.
Speaker: You're the ones playing with fucking fusion cores.
Speaker: Like, come on.
Speaker: That wasn't my if you had a nice gasoline powered spaceship, I'm guessing it wouldn't be very effective.
Speaker: But still, so these works use in 40 K to power their spaceships.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Hope and belief.
Speaker: It's faith.
Speaker: That's the gasoline that goes in the ships is faith is what it is.
Speaker: Just like putting putting like a gas hose into the ship and it's just pumping, but it's not pumping into anywhere, really.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just coming out and like leaking out the bottom of the ship.
Speaker: Like all all fueled up.
Speaker: Come now.
Speaker: I think it's Prometheum.
Speaker: I think that's it.
Speaker: You need something combustible in the 40K universe.
Speaker: It's always Prometheum.
Speaker: Prometheum.
Speaker: Prometheum.
Speaker: It's got, we got more Prometheum.
Speaker: The red Prometheum makes it go faster.
Speaker: So anyway, anyway, so they are.
Speaker: Sidney's dead.
Speaker: Sidney's gone.
Speaker: These people do not know about that, though.
Speaker: They they have.
Speaker: They were evacuated before all this shit went down and they are very important people and they are in hiding on this planet.
Speaker: And they're kind of they're basically going stir crazy.
Speaker: They're just like just driving each other nuts.
Speaker: Where's that reality show?
Speaker: I want to watch that one.
Speaker: Yeah, that would be a fun actually side book like just the lowest stakes ever.
Speaker: These three, they're three wacky military retirees on a planet together.
Speaker: So they've been there for about a year.
Speaker: And then out of nowhere, a guardian shows up just coming in over the horizon.
Speaker: And then so Hood, Osmond and the Spartan or Zell get ready for some shit because it's like, you know, it's like it's just the three of us.
Speaker: It's basically using a nuclear bomb to kill three ants, not even an anthill.
Speaker: It's the old nuclear bomb versus coffee, coughing baby.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: classic classic it's that's exactly what it is and uh so the guardian doesn't do anything at first and then as if in response as if these two things are connected a razorback full of spartans arrive uh we've got uh i think it's high double oh six
Speaker: Adriana, 111 and Michael, 120.
Speaker: And these are old friends of Orzel.
Speaker: And they're there.
Speaker: It's very much a my name is Luke Skywalker.
Speaker: I'm here to I'm here to rescue you.
Speaker: I'm here to rescue you.
Speaker: And what's funny is the admiral is a former Spartan.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, that's right.
Speaker: That is a good point.
Speaker: Which is really cool.
Speaker: And we get into this a little bit more because the Spartans were very specifically built for the war against the covenant.
Speaker: And now their usages are so varied.
Speaker: Well, they were built for the war against the rebels.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, yes, you're right.
Speaker: You're absolutely right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But their war, their original intent is over now.
Speaker: So the it's fun to watch them kind of evolve.
Speaker: It's a very interesting.
Speaker: And just having like having this Spartan character who's like, I'm not like I am a literal admiral of the Navy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm not a Spartan like that.
Speaker: I'm not a grunt anymore.
Speaker: You know, right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love that shit.
Speaker: We cut to chapter three.
Speaker: This is two years previous.
Speaker: Abigail Cole is guiding the Oximandius ship through a battle with the banished.
Speaker: She the ship gets hit.
Speaker: She hits her head, blacks out and wakes up being saved by a Spartan.
Speaker: And in that moment, remembers lines from the Percy Shelley poem, Oxymandias.
Speaker: which has got to be the most overused poem in maybe science fiction history, maybe fiction in general.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, you got it's a real power couple, though.
Speaker: You got Frankenstein and that poem, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that we cut back to the present.
Speaker: Cole is on the drop ship with the three Spartans.
Speaker: Their mission is to secure the asset.
Speaker: Collecting the three individuals on the planet is secondary.
Speaker: They say, look, like we would we it should be a simple enough thing to collect them and rescue them.
Speaker: But that is not why you are here.
Speaker: So your job is to get this asset and and.
Speaker: But not at the expense.
Speaker: You know, you save these people.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: But not at the expense of the asset.
Speaker: And it's actually it's actually interesting.
Speaker: We see the same.
Speaker: We see this happen a few times where we have a scene play out multiple times from different points of view.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the first we have the Admiral.
Speaker: What's her?
Speaker: What's her name?
Speaker: Osmond.
Speaker: And then it's like, and then up to where she, the Spartans arrive, right?
Speaker: And then it's like, we rewind back to the Spartans getting their briefing to go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's pretty good.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's, and it's frustrating because I know Jeremy has been writing for this universe for a very long time.
Speaker: The dude has, and it's frustrating that this is his first book.
Speaker: It's frustrating that this is his first book because this is just, it's just damn well written and it's frustrating.
Speaker: This, this is great, Jeremy.
Speaker: So no notes.
Speaker: So we, yeah, we come back to the present.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Guardian shows up, which is forcing them to kind of, well, hurry.
Speaker: So the Spartans make it clear they need the AI.
Speaker: It's called Black Box.
Speaker: That's the name of the AI that has the subroutine.
Speaker: They need it or shit's going to get violent.
Speaker: And Osmond, when they when they are collecting them, Osmond is really super protective.
Speaker: of this AI.
Speaker: And it's makes a lot of sense when you know that Osman is a former Spartan because their relationships with their eyes, you know, you think of Cortana and Master Chief.
Speaker: It is a personal thing.
Speaker: So Osman has got this kind of a literal box that has the AI in it and is very not suspicious, just not thrilled at
Speaker: no husband knows why they're there, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, uh, they collect the asset and the, what, sorry.
Speaker: Oh, I'm just going to, I was just like, I didn't say she's, it's, it's just funny how like, she's like, what?
Speaker: No, you can't have it.
Speaker: I can carry it.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, right.
Speaker: And it's like the response by one of the Spartans, this is a Spartan she came up with, by the way, these are Spartan twos.
Speaker: These aren't the Spartan fours.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: These are they were kidnapped along with her as babies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: All that good stuff.
Speaker: They are bonded through that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And the response of one of the fellow Spartans when she hesitates giving him the thing is like you like his the description is like his gun shifts upwards imperceptibly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's that's how.
Speaker: You know, that's that's what these people are.
Speaker: That's what the Spartans are.
Speaker: It is the mission.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: You know, it's it's really fascinating stuff.
Speaker: It's it's kind of sad.
Speaker: This is the life they have.
Speaker: So let's see.
Speaker: OK, yeah, they collect the asset.
Speaker: They collect the trio of of of prisoners.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: They're refugees, rescue rescue ease, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they start running from a bunch of armagers in the Razorback, trying to get back to the drop ship.
Speaker: And they're not really sure why the Guardian that is there, that is absolutely there, has not toasted them completely.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We get they reenact the scene of the bus jumping the broken bridge and speed.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: To get back into the contour.
Speaker: It's pretty great.
Speaker: The Razorback just.
Speaker: flies into and it doesn't have a lot of room and it just because they're Spartans it is perfectly every time I see that scene in speed I'm like I don't think that bus would have made that jump no I got a crazy feeling that this is not that maybe speed isn't above water when it comes to physics what yeah I know I know a bus that couldn't slow down yeah
Speaker: I need to know.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Look, I realize now that that speed is a much older movie than maybe me and Kevin see it as.
Speaker: So for any of you who have not who have not seen speed or not, what we know, what we're talking about is Keanu Reeves and basically the discovery of Sandra Bullock.
Speaker: And Dennis Hopper is a crazy terrorist who has put a bomb on a bus.
Speaker: And if the bus drops below 55 miles per hour for like
Speaker: five seconds or more, the bomb goes off.
Speaker: And Keanu Reeves is this cop and he's got to guide them through it.
Speaker: And it's about the most 90s thing you've ever heard.
Speaker: It's so 90s.
Speaker: Yeah, super 90s.
Speaker: It's the most like, what?
Speaker: Like, where the fuck
Speaker: did you come up with this plan where did where did this where did this come from this is insane yeah yeah so it's it's a whole thing uh and and it has a famous scene where this the bridge is out but they can't stop because it'll blow up they can't stop because otherwise they would blow up the bus can't slow down and my line uh to fully uh put this in the dirt uh body in the marsh so to speak is the
Speaker: that's from the Simpsons is where Homer is trying to remember the name of the movie.
Speaker: And he goes something like, uh, uh, the bus that couldn't slow down.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: What was the name of that movie where the bus had to maintain a current speed?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The bus that couldn't slow down.
Speaker: The bus.
Speaker: There's a great Eddie Izzard joke where he's talking about speed.
Speaker: And he says, he says, because he speaks French.
Speaker: And he says, if it was proper, the French version of it would have called La Vitesse.
Speaker: But because it's an American movie, they just called it Speed Speed.
Speaker: Speed.
Speaker: So we got that scene, that scene, you know, that scene, we get it.
Speaker: But with a razorback into a condor, you know, when you think about that, just the animal kingdom terms, it's a far more interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A razorback into a condor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Arkansas right into the.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Right into a Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Speaker: No, that was an albatross.
Speaker: Damn it.
Speaker: I'm getting my literary references.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You did fine with yours.
Speaker: I fucked mine up.
Speaker: You did fine with yours.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So they boom, they get in there and immediately hit the slipstream and slide right out of there.
Speaker: And Osmond says, what basically what the fuck is going on?
Speaker: What is what is happening here?
Speaker: Chapter four, we meet Severin, who is a banished leader.
Speaker: One of the elites, Jiralhanay, I think is the name of the alien.
Speaker: But if you only ever played the first couple of Halos like me, they're the elites.
Speaker: They're the ones with it.
Speaker: guys um right tougher than the grunts um so uh he's a leader with the banished and it's approaching uh warchief atriox to provide intel atriox is the head poobah uh of the banished um we get some exposition on who they are we learn about the civil war that happened there and and i say this usually but i'm going to say it again read the book
Speaker: We aren't going to go into every little detail or we would be here for a very long time.
Speaker: And this book is totally worth reading.
Speaker: So we're not going to get into all of it.
Speaker: But we do learn more about who the Banished are, about the Civil War that happened with them, that created them.
Speaker: Severin, his news is that he has found a human vessel.
Speaker: He brought it was one of the O&I leaders, and he brought him aboard after a game of tossers.
Speaker: And I'm sure that what you're wondering right now is what is tossers?
Speaker: What's tossers?
Speaker: That sounds like a fun game.
Speaker: Sounds like a fun game.
Speaker: game, right?
Speaker: It sounds like a fun game.
Speaker: So Tossers is a game where they rip limbs off of your friends slash coworkers and toss them around to each other in order to demoralize and frighten you so that you will talk.
Speaker: That's...
Speaker: That's I'm sure.
Speaker: Honestly, I'm sure that the that they blow off some steam in the meantime.
Speaker: So everybody wins, really.
Speaker: It's a very effective thing.
Speaker: So he delight.
Speaker: He's delighted to let you know that this game of tossers totally worked and he gave up some information and the fact that the humans intend to attack Cortana with the infinity in a couple of weeks, basically.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So with that news, a trucks says that he wants something on the ring in Cortana's possession.
Speaker: Cortana has hold up on one of the old rings, one of the old halos there.
Speaker: Zeta halo to be Zeta halo.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And and there's something there that a truck thinks would be useful to defeat Cortana and therefore the humans possibly a weapon.
Speaker: It's implied that it's a weapon to help neutralize the guardians, which are basically the God killers.
Speaker: They are they are the big, big guns.
Speaker: Severin suggests using some sort of mystery item called the a tricola to take the humans and Cortana out at the same time.
Speaker: We don't get into what a tricola is.
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: And I think Severin, I think they say even Severin isn't sure what it is, but he has heard rumors.
Speaker: It's kind of playing his hand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This section, I was like, there's a lot of vague stuff happening in this part of the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a whole lot of dramatic irony where we don't, well, no, sorry, opposite, basically.
Speaker: We don't really know what the specifics are.
Speaker: And Severn doesn't seem to either.
Speaker: Again, Severn seems to have heard some rumors about this thing, and it's just trying something out.
Speaker: And whatever it is, it works.
Speaker: Aatrox is impressed and tells Severn that he isn't going to be coming with them to go out to this ring to find this thing, but it's going to stay behind to command the remaining forces and stop any human incursions.
Speaker: And this is a big deal because Severn is not well liked within the Banished.
Speaker: Yeah, they were like...
Speaker: So when Aatrox was like talking about that, he was like, well, you're not coming with us.
Speaker: And one of the guys who hates Severn was like, ah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he goes, yeah, because we have a greater honor in store for you.
Speaker: You're going to protect.
Speaker: You're going to control the rest of the military.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's.
Speaker: Yeah, they don't like him.
Speaker: They don't like his dad.
Speaker: His dad was one of the covenant, one of the big leaders for the covenant and was kind of a religious fanatic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot.
Speaker: There's a lot there.
Speaker: There's a lot.
Speaker: There's a lot of baggage.
Speaker: There's a lot there.
Speaker: Severin's got a lot of baggage, a lot of daddy issues, let's say.
Speaker: We cut to chapter five.
Speaker: This is my favorite chapter of the one we read.
Speaker: This is fun.
Speaker: Spartan James Solomon on the planet Terseria, I want to say, Tersera.
Speaker: James Solomon is tracking slaver ships.
Speaker: Basically, what happened is after the covenant was defeated, corporations came in, they swept in and filled the vacuum that was left after Earth's defense of the area.
Speaker: And right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just and and.
Speaker: started enslaving people like i just i just love the fact that it was like it's like there's a power vacuum and then suddenly it's like um you know how um i'm trying to think there's a homestar runner um uh teen girl squad animation it wasn't the wave of babies it was something else like where it would keep creeping in on the side of the frame oh oh um
Speaker: I can't remember what it is, but it's like, I just, I just remember.
Speaker: I just think capitalism.
Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It's like, you just a wave of capitalism sliding into the picture.
Speaker: And that's what it is.
Speaker: And it's basically Johnson and Johnson came in and said, we own you now.
Speaker: That's, that's really what it is.
Speaker: He's working.
Speaker: He's he's a private Merc.
Speaker: We find out that he's working for pay now, which is crazy because he while he's considering his plan, because basically what he's going to do is he and his A.I.
Speaker: are going to stealthily leapfrog.
Speaker: There are like six or seven ships and he's going to leapfrog from one ship to another, planting explosives as they go and just set them all off and, you know, watch the watch the fun.
Speaker: Watch the fireworks.
Speaker: And and he gets noticed, of course, because this isn't going to go smoothly.
Speaker: He has to fight.
Speaker: And she was kind of anticipating anyway.
Speaker: And this is this is where he kind of he has this moment where he says, well, I can die as long as the mission goes over well.
Speaker: And then he goes, oh, wait, no, that's totally not who I am anymore.
Speaker: I'm doing this for money.
Speaker: I don't want to die doing this, which is crazy.
Speaker: crazy about face from what we've seen with the Spartans.
Speaker: It's very interesting.
Speaker: It's super interesting.
Speaker: I find this character to be pretty fascinating, really.
Speaker: He's fun.
Speaker: He's a fun character.
Speaker: I really, yeah.
Speaker: To circle back around, it is Teen Girl Squad number three.
Speaker: It's it's the what's her face or the ugly one.
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: And it's possums.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: Okay, I do remember that.
Speaker: Possums.
Speaker: I love home stars so much.
Speaker: That's capitalism.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: That's what is.
Speaker: Yeah, you got a vacuum.
Speaker: If you got a vacuum, capitalism is going to fill it.
Speaker: That's what they're very good at.
Speaker: Or possums.
Speaker: That's also a thing.
Speaker: I'd rather have possums.
Speaker: I'd rather have possums.
Speaker: They're pretty cool.
Speaker: We got a big fight.
Speaker: You know they can't get rabies.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They've got all their body temperature is too low.
Speaker: To get rabies.
Speaker: So don't worry.
Speaker: It's just so pet every possum you see, guys.
Speaker: There's no consequence to it.
Speaker: There's no consequence to chasing after a possum.
Speaker: They are really cute when they're until they're not.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: I've never seen an animal that was able to go from adorable to a hideous demon from hell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Like just like that.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Um, I love them.
Speaker: So we get a big, uh, uh, fight scene.
Speaker: We get the classic, uh, one of the slavers shoots a rocket at him and he's on, he's on his little space.
Speaker: He's got, it's like a, some sort of speeder or something.
Speaker: And, and, uh, and he does the thing where he's running from the missile and he pulls a big loop and comes around and then guides the missile right back to the people who shot it at him and blows them all up.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, blows them all.
Speaker: He muses on the armor, which has a fail safe that would destroy him and everybody in the vicinity if someone would try to remove it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just this kind of thing.
Speaker: It kind of feels like the Mickey Mouse meme was like, this is something we'll use later.
Speaker: This is this is information for later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it detonates the explosives.
Speaker: Slavers go boom.
Speaker: It's a it's a really fun chapter.
Speaker: It's it's just a very tight action scene.
Speaker: It's very, very good stuff.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm looking forward to more James Solomon.
Speaker: Chapter six, Tool Jaron is sneaking aboard a ship that's filled with forerunner war sphinxes.
Speaker: It's it's held by a bunch of covenant fanatics, like former covenant people who are still.
Speaker: considering themselves covenant and they're just, you know, the covenant was a bunch.
Speaker: It was like a big religious movement.
Speaker: Covenant started out as like a shitty megachurch, like, you know, and now all that's left of the snake handlers and Pentecostals.
Speaker: So when you're on is getting onto the ship, it's basically like just imagine Joel Osteen's floating megachurch out in space.
Speaker: He has taken all the gold with him.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker: Well, yes, yes.
Speaker: So that's yeah, that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker: All that's left is this is kind of sad fanatics.
Speaker: And she's got a team there.
Speaker: They are there to steal the vessel so that they can have the the weapons aboard.
Speaker: She's she's got she's armed with an energy blade.
Speaker: And it's described as like kind of like I might not actually have to use it, which means you're totally going to use it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Same kind of thing.
Speaker: And so they've got their team and they've got the one young, dumb and full of cum member of the team, a member of the team who sets off an alarm.
Speaker: Fucking idiot.
Speaker: And so we get it.
Speaker: It's kind of the same thing as the last seed.
Speaker: It's like it's supposed to go smoothly.
Speaker: And then, of course, they've got it's not going to go smoothly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's too full of cum.
Speaker: He's too full of cum.
Speaker: He's going to get to use it because this motherfucker's dying.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: Too much cum.
Speaker: It warps the brain.
Speaker: I think we all know that.
Speaker: We all know that.
Speaker: We all know that.
Speaker: So he gets that guy gets fatally wounded and they start looking for because as long as they're on there, they want to find this commander.
Speaker: It's not part of their mission necessarily, but there is a commander called Cafodine, I want to say, who's on the ship that betrayed their people during the Covenant War.
Speaker: And they're like, well, as long as we're here,
Speaker: We're going to try to get this guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shit's gone pear shaped.
Speaker: So let's just go ahead and try to take this guy out while we're here.
Speaker: Unfortunately, the leadership and the crew have escaped.
Speaker: They're heading towards this moon.
Speaker: And well, just the I'll say just the leadership escaped.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Left.
Speaker: They they said they they they set the the the ship to self-destruct, but turned off the alarms and then went and got into the pods.
Speaker: It's so shitty.
Speaker: It's so shitty.
Speaker: They are just the classic piece of shit leaders.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: Real Joel Osteen movement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we got we got.
Speaker: And I think that's the message.
Speaker: We got Joel Osteen's on either side of the aisle.
Speaker: And that's always going to be the case.
Speaker: That's always going to be the case.
Speaker: Always going to be the case.
Speaker: So they.
Speaker: So so this team of stealth assassins all climb into war sphinxes and go after these motherfuckers.
Speaker: Like it's it's it's great.
Speaker: But you're essentially like giant battle suits for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: So they are chasing them.
Speaker: And while they're chasing them, the guy they're trying to kill, Dean, he he like appears and tries to negotiate with them.
Speaker: Basically tell them it's like, you know, what can we do to make you not follow us?
Speaker: Offers them money.
Speaker: He's like, right.
Speaker: How much money does this do I need to pay you to go away?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, fuck you.
Speaker: And just totally ignore him.
Speaker: And so the rest of his fleet ends up chasing them and attacking them.
Speaker: Juran manages to destroy the leader ships before they reach the moon, but not before her own vehicle is totally compromised.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: She in the final moments of the chapter wonders how she's going to die.
Speaker: Like, am I going to die when this thing explodes?
Speaker: Am I going to float out into space?
Speaker: How is this going to work?
Speaker: But ultimately has no regrets.
Speaker: She's just happy she got to take this Dean guy down with her.
Speaker: Another really good action scene.
Speaker: It's good stuff.
Speaker: Both of these chapters can be read by themselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They were like little vignettes.
Speaker: They're like, here's a former Spartan turned bounty hunter.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Give me that.
Speaker: I want to read that.
Speaker: They're there and they're very self-contained.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: And I'm I know we're going to meet these characters more as we go.
Speaker: And I'm excited about it.
Speaker: But that's a great way to meet some characters.
Speaker: You get them.
Speaker: You get them saving the cat.
Speaker: That's what you get them doing.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: Save the cat.
Speaker: Not that I ascribe wholly to save the cat as the writing methodology.
Speaker: I'm just saying, you know, you put it works.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: You put them in the thing.
Speaker: You'd like they're doing a thing like you introduce this one guy.
Speaker: He you have him being paid to hunt down slavers.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, you know, and suddenly, OK, got it.
Speaker: I'm there.
Speaker: And I'm in.
Speaker: I'm in.
Speaker: Yeah, it's excellent.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: No, they did a good job.
Speaker: Uh, chapter seven, uh, Abigail Cole, uh, has made it back to the ship, uh, with all three of the officers that she saved and the black box.
Speaker: Um, we have this moment where we find out that she's been up for 36 hours.
Speaker: She says, all right, we're going to debrief them.
Speaker: Uh, I'll beat you guys here.
Speaker: And they're like, uh, you've been awake for a day and a half, maybe take a nap.
Speaker: She's like, I'm going to get a coffee.
Speaker: Uh, that's exactly what she does.
Speaker: She goes to get a coffee.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then we they discuss the plan and we learn more about what Black Box capable of.
Speaker: Basically, there is a clone of Dr. Halsey.
Speaker: You guys remember Dr. Halsey?
Speaker: She's still here.
Speaker: There is a clone of her, the original inventor of the Spartans, that nut job.
Speaker: And they can use the black box to find a clone of her that will be able to let them into the domain and thus be able to kick out Cortana.
Speaker: And they can oust her and have some actual leverage.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're excited about this prospect.
Speaker: And Osmond, who has been very upset about the idea of having to give up Black Box for this, basically explains why that Black Box is past his seven year mark.
Speaker: And the moment they turn him on, he will die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So using him or go rampant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: Or yeah, that's the best case scenario.
Speaker: That's basically A.I.
Speaker: rabies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: And we don't and we don't have we don't have an Atticus Finch to shoot him down.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Or maybe we do.
Speaker: We have a few.
Speaker: We probably have a few.
Speaker: But yeah, so so we find out why.
Speaker: Well, one of the reasons that Osmond is so protective of black box, because this is it.
Speaker: His days are numbered.
Speaker: Chapter eight, we cut back to Severin, who is on Werial, which is basically the location of the Jiralhanes.
Speaker: Well, his clan's last big settlement.
Speaker: It's where...
Speaker: you know, the children, women and children, you know, and it's like, it's right.
Speaker: It's like future generations, like ensuring the future of his clan.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Means protecting this place.
Speaker: And he is about to leave behind 900 of his best soldiers to protect this settlement.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: while he goes off to do his job and take care of all the other all the other fleets.
Speaker: Nothing could go wrong, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: He does anticipate betrayal because, as we mentioned before, his father and his clan are are not well liked.
Speaker: They're seen as a reason the Civil War happened within the Covenant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We are introduced very briefly to a big ass Arxis, which I will refer to him as big ass Arxis from here on out.
Speaker: He is three meters tall.
Speaker: He they like his some rival of his family tried to cut his throat and succeeded, but didn't succeed in killing him.
Speaker: And as a result, he cannot speak.
Speaker: But he crushes heads and apparently wiped out the family of the guy who tried to kill him.
Speaker: As one does, you know?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And we learn a little bit about how he was used by the Covenant.
Speaker: You know, if you ever watch like Lord of the Rings or another fantasy thing or something, and they bring out like, or 300 or something, they bring out like a troll, this huge uncontrollable thing in a chain.
Speaker: And they're like, ah!
Speaker: You know, we got him and they let him loose and he kills some of their own people.
Speaker: That's essentially how Arxis was used by the covenant.
Speaker: I imagine him a little bit like I was imagining him like Luca Brasi.
Speaker: Luca Brasi?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Go on.
Speaker: Go on.
Speaker: So if you read, if you just saw the movie, The Godfather, right?
Speaker: You would see Luca Brazzi as this guy who's like, oh, yeah, it's the dad's button man.
Speaker: You know, he's not to be trifled with.
Speaker: But then they wharf him, right?
Speaker: They do the old wharf and he gets killed.
Speaker: He's like, oh, he's the biggest bad guy.
Speaker: And then the other family kills him before he gets to do anything.
Speaker: But in the book, they actually...
Speaker: have the stories of why Luca is terrible.
Speaker: Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Covering up, uh, covering up illegitimate babies.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: By doing things.
Speaker: Uh, yeah, it's like some of this, this, like the one story that Michael tells, uh, what's her name?
Speaker: Um, Diane Keaton, Diane Keaton.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The story that Michael tells Diane Keaton is pretty horrific.
Speaker: And I'm not going to like actually say what he does.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: On the show, but he does some bad stuff.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, Luca Brasi, he's he'll he'll fuck you up.
Speaker: So in my head, when it's like a mostly mute like character.
Speaker: I mean, he talks a little bit, but he's not good at talking.
Speaker: He's good at right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's a really good point.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's essentially who this is.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is such a murder machine that Severin is even kind of uncomfortable in his presence.
Speaker: And when when the Covenant was dissolved, Severin freed him because they literally take him out in a cage and let him out of the cage.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Severin released him from that.
Speaker: And and and and so basically,
Speaker: Arxis commits a blood oath to him, basically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's going to serve him.
Speaker: So he's one of their big muscle guys, literally.
Speaker: So while this is all going on, while he's trying to figure all this out, Cortana destroys a moon.
Speaker: No, not a moon.
Speaker: Is it a moon?
Speaker: I thought they are on a moon.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: Cortana destroys the home planet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Of the Jeral Hane.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She, she, yeah.
Speaker: Uh, dose, uh, which is referred to as the heart of the Jeral Hane people.
Speaker: Uh, and she, she basically an announcement pops up on everyone's radio.
Speaker: And she says, uh, we find out later that basically, uh, uh,
Speaker: Atriox didn't bend the knee to her and to show him how serious she is.
Speaker: She blows up their goddamn planet.
Speaker: Straight up Alderaan, you know, just blows it the fuck up.
Speaker: And so another commander is explaining all of this.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Severin goes straight into leadership mode, evacuates, you know, because everyone's going to die on this planet because now that the planet's gone, the gravitational pull is released.
Speaker: So there's two moons around the Jairulhane planet, which also have their own settlements on them.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they're like, he's like, all right, well, we don't have a lot of time.
Speaker: We're the A, the moon is going to get hit by the leftover remnants of the of the planet.
Speaker: And there's no gravity well holding us anymore.
Speaker: So it's going to just spin off.
Speaker: We're just going to skid off into the galaxy somewhere.
Speaker: So everyone's going to die.
Speaker: unless we get the hell out of here.
Speaker: So that's, he goes straight into that while he's doing this, this commander orders Severin to attack the humans basically mercilessly, not just as payment for creating Cortana, which is what they really hate the humans for, but also as a distraction so that while he's
Speaker: They are fighting the humans over here.
Speaker: It'll draw the attention of the humans and Cortana.
Speaker: And while they're doing that, everybody else on the other side with a trucks will be able to slip in, hopefully unseen and attack Cortana's home base at Halo Zeta.
Speaker: And that's that's chapter eight.
Speaker: And that is how far we are going today.
Speaker: I loved like ending on chapter eight was was was neat.
Speaker: It was a good call because it's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That fucking moment of the of Cortana just like, hey, your butt, your guy didn't bend the knee.
Speaker: So here's a couple billion Jaro Hane people just killed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've been warned.
Speaker: I told you.
Speaker: You've been warned.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's brutal.
Speaker: Uh-uh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it's brutal and i think what's what's great about this in terms of just writing is how our enemy has a level this might not be the right word but a level of humanity uh where this guy just and he even says uh uh uh severin even says like i i will i will get to mourn this i will be sad and angry later i've just got to get but i've got to get my people off this planet right now um he hasn't even processed
Speaker: And that's a lot.
Speaker: That's a lot to deal with.
Speaker: And this guy is our villain.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Theoretically, he's one of them anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that is a horrifying thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To see happen to him.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good writing.
Speaker: Good choice.
Speaker: Kevin, what do you think so far?
Speaker: Oh, I love it so far.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: You texted me at one point in the week.
Speaker: You're like, it's it's crazy that this is his first book.
Speaker: It's so frustrating.
Speaker: It's it's it's such a good story so far.
Speaker: I'm liking where it's going.
Speaker: I like all the different points of view that we're kind of getting as we go through.
Speaker: Um, cause obviously we're going to, you know, the bounty hunter dude is the, or mercenary, whatever he is, uh, is going to come back around and we have all the admirals and we have the daughter of the legendary, uh, uh, Cole Admiral Cole is, is, uh, is involved.
Speaker: Um, so I think it's, it's good stuff.
Speaker: Uh, I'm, I'm really enjoying the action sequences are great.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: really cinematic, I'll say, in some of their there's at one point where the what's his name, the mercenary guy?
Speaker: Solomon Solomon, where it's like he just like lands on somebody with his armor and it's like, I don't have to do anything else because they're just dead.
Speaker: You know, dude's dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it just reminded me of like of Warhammer 40K bolt gun.
Speaker: There's like a moment where when you start the game because you're playing as a space marine and they weigh like a metric shit ton in their power armor.
Speaker: There's a moment where you start the game and you just jump drop through a grate into the space and you land on a guy.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Vaporize him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fan.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm with you a hundred percent.
Speaker: This is, this is it.
Speaker: This is dense, but it, it doesn't feel that way.
Speaker: This, this is, it's, it's always nice.
Speaker: The irony of course, and we've talked about this on the show before, but the irony of course is that, um,
Speaker: Sometimes the shorter books are so much harder to read because they're not as well written.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's a drag.
Speaker: It's Einstein's relativity theory in action.
Speaker: I blew through the first 120 pages of this book in a couple hours this afternoon.
Speaker: I just sat down and I read it.
Speaker: And I got to tell you, Seventh Guest is...
Speaker: like 180 pages in total or whatever it is.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I just had the hardest goddamn time, like really making my way through seventh guest because I don't know.
Speaker: There's a whole lot of issue.
Speaker: Like there's a whole lot of things with the book that I was not a, not a particular fan of, but this, this is like, it's, it's breezy.
Speaker: You just, you just, it's, it's breezy.
Speaker: Like the wind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're just going short.
Speaker: from word to word sentences the sentences all flow it's poppy it's snappy it it all makes sense it's a lot of fun and it feels good it's exciting it's it's great this is a really very good book so far so yeah i'm with you 100 i can't wait to uh lose most of these characters to really sad deaths
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we've got we got even more time to get to know them before they are before they untimely die in a very sad way, as is the case with like most non Master Chief Halo books is like, yeah, get ready to be sad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Rubicon protocol.
Speaker: Like, holy shit.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So many people died in Rubicon protocol.
Speaker: So bleak.
Speaker: So bleak.
Speaker: So bleak.
Speaker: So yeah, this is a lot of fun so far.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, now that we're done with that, Kevin, I only have one question left for you.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So the thing that's new that I'm playing this week is, uh, is it's a game called Eldorand, um, which is a, it's, it's a side scrolling, uh, Metroidvania.
Speaker: Um, and you know what?
Speaker: It's, it's fine.
Speaker: It's like the, it came out in 2023, not a lot of reviews for it.
Speaker: Only 451 reviews.
Speaker: So, you know,
Speaker: Check it out if you're interested in a Metroidvania that clearly, I feel like, has a little bit of blasphemous aesthetic.
Speaker: It's like blasphemous meets dead cells in a way.
Speaker: And there's something about the vibe that feels very particularly Dead Cells, and I can't really explain what it is because Dead Cells is more of a roguelite, is a roguelite Metroidvania kind of combo, whereas this is just straight up Metroidvania.
Speaker: And it's also got what's interesting about it is it doesn't have any auto saves.
Speaker: It's all manual saves.
Speaker: So you just got to be wary of how
Speaker: deep you go in without like saving because I've had I had instances where I was like I saved and it's like I'm going I'm going to go and then and like I died and I was like oh I just wiped out like an hour of progress so it's it's it's like that
Speaker: But it's it's for a relatively, you know, small company, I guess it's and, you know, it doesn't have a ton of reviews.
Speaker: Seventy seven percent on four hundred fifty one.
Speaker: I don't know if it's on sale or whatever.
Speaker: It's it would be worth, you know, checking out.
Speaker: I know I wonder if you have a theory on this.
Speaker: What is it about Metroidvanias in the stand?
Speaker: Why are they always the most gorgeous games, even ones you never heard of?
Speaker: Like there?
Speaker: Yeah, there will be ones that you never heard of and they'll just be pop up with just amazing artwork.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't know.
Speaker: I think it's I think because there might be a lot of inspiration from the genre is it's weird because the genre, although Metroid is where it mostly starts, right?
Speaker: You get Metroid.
Speaker: Uh, the vania is where the genre really draws a lot of inspiration from artistically and, and all that.
Speaker: Um, true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, in a lot of ways, not all the ways, but in terms of aesthetics, like, I feel like seven out of 10 times you're getting a gothic or, or some sort of style side scroller.
Speaker: You know, it might even be just that this is my kind of like they tend to go in the direction of aesthetic for games that I just really like personally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like the I like the the gruesome Gothic car vibes, man.
Speaker: I mean, it really ties the room together.
Speaker: This looks good.
Speaker: This looks really good.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker: I like it so far.
Speaker: I put a couple hours into it.
Speaker: It's like it's 100% Steam Deck game for me.
Speaker: Like we're watching, you know, it's at night.
Speaker: We're sitting in bed watching TV.
Speaker: I got the Steam Deck going while, you know, some sitcom that we've watched before is playing on the TV as we wind down or what have you.
Speaker: It's that, you know, it's in between like
Speaker: Normally that game is Power Washer Simulator, right?
Speaker: Normally that's when I play that power washing.
Speaker: Occasionally a Metroidvania or some such slots into that spot and then I beat it and then I'm back to Power Washer Simulator.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Speaking of that, Power Wash Simulator, I've been playing the Wallace and Gromit pack.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very cute.
Speaker: Very cute.
Speaker: Very Wallace and Gromit.
Speaker: I'm enjoying that a lot.
Speaker: I've been playing another game called Monomyth.
Speaker: I've only put in like... I feel like I've heard of this one.
Speaker: Our yeah, it's in early access.
Speaker: It's a immersive sim slash souls like game.
Speaker: If you look at it, you're like, OK, this is like, you know, this is very King's Field first person hack and slash type stuff.
Speaker: except it also has immersive sim elements.
Speaker: And what does that mean?
Speaker: That means the simplest definition of immersive sims comes from James Hot Cider.
Speaker: Can you stack a couple of barrels on top of each other to reach something that you normally can't get to?
Speaker: The answer is yes.
Speaker: That's a really good, I didn't know, that's great.
Speaker: Good job, Hot Slayer.
Speaker: That's a good definition.
Speaker: The answer is, yeah, you can.
Speaker: There will be a chest and you're like, I don't know how to get up there to get that chest.
Speaker: And be like, oh, barrel.
Speaker: Barrel.
Speaker: This here was developed by a single person.
Speaker: Yes, that's the wild thing about it.
Speaker: Wow, okay.
Speaker: It's in early access.
Speaker: It's neat.
Speaker: I like it so far.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker: I mean, the developers still working out the kinks and things like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's got a really interesting what's really fascinating is how it handles weapon degradation.
Speaker: So you're fighting and fighting, fighting, fighting weapon breaks.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, how do you fix it?
Speaker: Well, you go to you try to find a fire, right?
Speaker: And because you're in this dungeon and it's not necessarily there's going to be a blacksmith down there.
Speaker: You're trying to get out of this dungeon that you've been taken to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you find a blacksmith's hammer and you put your weapon into either like a coal pit or a fire or whatever, and you heat it up.
Speaker: And then you put it down onto an iron and you attack it with the blacksmith's hammer.
Speaker: Oh, that's funny.
Speaker: OK, OK, cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: And that brings the weapon durability back up.
Speaker: I'm surprised I see that more often.
Speaker: That's really funny.
Speaker: It's really it's got some clever stuff in it.
Speaker: So, you know, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: I mean, I'm almost finished with Dead Island 2.
Speaker: I think I only have like one quest left in the main storyline.
Speaker: And yeah, that's pretty much it.
Speaker: That's what I've been playing.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Phil, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I'll start with the demo I played.
Speaker: I played a demo called Blood Typers.
Speaker: I don't know why I have always been drawn to, you know, typing games.
Speaker: Maybe it's maybe it's enjoying them as a kid.
Speaker: And it was like a game you were allowed to play in school.
Speaker: But blood typers, however, is not like your standard like House of the Dead one where all you're doing when you type is shoot everything you do.
Speaker: It's very much more related to like Resident Evil in the sense that you've got puzzles, you got keys, you got all this stuff and you have to type to do everything, basically.
Speaker: which is a very cool idea and I enjoyed certain aspects of it.
Speaker: Unfortunately, I the demo that I played was just I felt like I was walking around in circles after a certain point.
Speaker: Yeah, I just I got lost.
Speaker: I wasn't it's not a terribly pretty game, but I don't care about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If if it's engaging and it just wasn't, unfortunately, I feel like
Speaker: a lot could be done with this and I hope you're working on it.
Speaker: But it's it's just not for me at this point.
Speaker: I went back to Foundation, too.
Speaker: OK, which I played the demo of that earlier this year and I liked it.
Speaker: I liked it.
Speaker: But there was something I remember you talking about playing it and I kept
Speaker: coming back to it in my mind.
Speaker: And I finally said it was the spring sale.
Speaker: They had it on sale.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a sale.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm really digging on it.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: It's just a solid city builder with a lot of
Speaker: There's a lot more freedom to it than there are in a lot of those.
Speaker: You can just do free play or you can have different quests you go for.
Speaker: It's very engaging.
Speaker: It's charming and it's well designed right down to the thing that I thought was going to annoy me the most is one of my favorite things now is that with certain buildings,
Speaker: you can you don't just construct the building, you can construct little add ons to the building.
Speaker: So if you're building like the tax office or something like that, you can put a belfry on it.
Speaker: You can put, you know, a certain type of door on it, that sort of thing, and that increases certain scores.
Speaker: And with a city builder that's
Speaker: this big, it gets really big after a certain point and it feels kind of like a waste of time at first.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I really super got into it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought that was kind of neat where it is like these big, bigger buildings.
Speaker: It is like a little bit,
Speaker: Um, it can feel a little ticky tacky, but it's like, no, there's this door does this, this door does this.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And also you need the door.
Speaker: You need to put a door on there.
Speaker: You have to have it or it's not going to work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's charming.
Speaker: I like the I like I like the aesthetic to it.
Speaker: I think it's very pretty and well done.
Speaker: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: I'm going to keep at it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And finally, I started playing the root trees are dead.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I need to get back to that.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's really good, isn't it?
Speaker: I finished the first half of it, I want to say.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So, The Root Trees Are Dead was an Itch.io game.
Speaker: Yeah, an Itch.io browser game or whatever.
Speaker: And the game that you buy on Steam now is that, and then there's a second half of the game now.
Speaker: is called root tree mania which is the that's original to the steam version which expands upon like the the family tree and and whatever i beat white i so i have it beaten up to like the itchio original issue version of like the the family tree um and i need to get back because it's like a breaking it was like a breaking point you know what i mean it's like yeah it was a stopping point you know like okay well i finished the first half
Speaker: I'm sure I'll come back to it.
Speaker: I'm sure I'll come back to it.
Speaker: I haven't come back to it yet, but I should because I really loved while I was playing it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's for those of you who don't know, it's it's it's a genealogy puzzle game, basically, where you this this famous opulently rich family, a bunch of them have died tragically, and it is your job to connect the family tree just right so that all of the money that's that's going to get passed down goes to the right people.
Speaker: And as you uncover it, you of course find out all kinds of little darknesses underneath it.
Speaker: And it's one of those games.
Speaker: It's another one of those games where I am constantly taking notes on it.
Speaker: And I love that in a game.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: The game does a pretty decent job of like keeping notes for you, but it's good to have your own notes.
Speaker: Yes, it does.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: And I'm trying really hard to not use any walkthroughs or anything like that because it is so well, it's tight.
Speaker: It feels tight.
Speaker: It feels like really well designed.
Speaker: And any time I get stuck and I go back through the old evidence, I find that usually when I go through enough, I go,
Speaker: Oh, fuck, that's a thing.
Speaker: And, you know, so you you're reading a bio on one of the characters and you want it.
Speaker: You're trying to figure out who that character's dad is, let's say.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so you you do a search engine search for the person.
Speaker: OK, well, not not not coming up with anything, but someone wrote a book about that family.
Speaker: Let me look up that in the periodical section.
Speaker: You don't do that.
Speaker: And you find out that that's not the real name.
Speaker: The real name is this.
Speaker: So, oh, so I search that name and boom, there it is.
Speaker: I.
Speaker: I love this shit.
Speaker: I really, I get a kick out of these kinds of games and this is a really well done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a, it's a, it's, and it does the Obra Dinn style.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's not as tough as Obra Dinn, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Get three, get three for a lock in, you know?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which, which I really appreciate.
Speaker: Um, not just because it gives you that, ah, it keeps you going.
Speaker: It really does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But also because,
Speaker: It'll show you it's like, oh, I thought I had that guy.
Speaker: I didn't have that guy.
Speaker: OK, something's wrong here.
Speaker: And so that it really helps you move along.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: I was it was kind of funny.
Speaker: I was concerned at first with the art style because I thought maybe it was a I.
Speaker: Um, cause it has that very, so yeah, it was in the original itch.io version.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's what I found out.
Speaker: And then you look at the itch.io and you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I really respect, um, the designer for doing that for, um, uh,
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: If you're making a free game or something like that, a browser game or some damn thing where people can just play it and you're not trying to make money off it or something, it's harder for me to be pissed off about some judicious use of A.I., that kind of thing.
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: I still do it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's harder.
Speaker: And but then when you get some attention and a little money and and and some support and you turn around and go, I'm going to pay an artist now to actually create pictures for this original stuff.
Speaker: Good on you.
Speaker: That is that is that's good stuff.
Speaker: That's exactly what you hope for when it comes to an indie game like that.
Speaker: It's it's good.
Speaker: It's classy.
Speaker: It's just classy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Classy stuff.
Speaker: Classy stuff.
Speaker: So that's me.
Speaker: That's what I've been playing.
Speaker: Oh, fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah, really love The Root Trees Are Dead.
Speaker: Hoping to get back into it.
Speaker: And also, if anyone out there has more suggestions for games that are like that, because I would like to just like...
Speaker: Very much in the Obra Dinn, root trees are dead, like, like vain of just like, it's a mystery and you feel like you're really solving that mystery.
Speaker: I mean, I, there's, there's a, what's it, it, the, um, curse of the golden idol is, is, or, and the rise of the golden idols that is out now, like came out at the end of last year.
Speaker: I didn't get a whole lot, very far into it, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I have a taste for those mystery games sometimes.
Speaker: So, yeah, feel free to mention them in the Discord or wherever.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much, everybody, for listening.
Speaker: We love you all.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Let's make it a good end of March, right?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: So, Phil, I was not ready for the Ides of March.
Speaker: How screwed am I?
Speaker: Well, all right.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: You've got to just make sure that...
