Transcript
Speaker: Yeah, maybe we should.
Speaker: John Carpenter, if anybody's going to score the theme of humanity's existence, it should be John Carpenter.
Speaker: It better be John Carpenter.
Speaker: You are yawning up a storm.
Speaker: Is it the Pinot?
Speaker: Is it the Pinot?
Speaker: It must be the Pinot is knocking me out.
Speaker: Knock me right out.
Speaker: It's definitely not this book.
Speaker: No, certainly not this fucking boring ass book.
Speaker: You know what else is a boring ass book?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixelate.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And on today's show, boring-ass book.
Speaker: boring ass book.
Speaker: To quote a less prestigious channel, we read it so you don't have to.
Speaker: This is not one to pick up.
Speaker: I have been thrilled over the years to be in the Discord and to see the things people have said about reading and getting into these books and how frequently some of them will go, you know what, just listening to you guys talk about it, I had to go and pick a copy of it myself.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I really, the old teacher in me thrills at stuff like that.
Speaker: And I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there.
Speaker: Now you can skip this one for a lot of reasons, which we'll get into as we go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, that's just, we're going to top load this episode and let you know, skippable.
Speaker: Skippable.
Speaker: It's very skippable.
Speaker: Inessential, you might say.
Speaker: It's inessential.
Speaker: It is non-essential personnel.
Speaker: It would not have been demanded to go back to work during COVID.
Speaker: Not even a little bit.
Speaker: The fable edge of the world could stay home and it's jimmy jammies and slippers on because you know what?
Speaker: Non-essential.
Speaker: This book was watching old reruns of British Bake Off and learning how to make sourdough.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Got really into Columbo, worked on its Peter Falk impression, trots it out when it's not really appropriate.
Speaker: Every now and then.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Because it's kind of tough to fully realize when the right time for Peter Falk is.
Speaker: Because you're like, you're sitting there and it's like, all right.
Speaker: And one more thing.
Speaker: One more thing.
Speaker: Just one more thing.
Speaker: Can you tell me when the last time you saw Mr. Jameson and then, you know, the wife gets mad because Mr. Jameson's in the casket.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That was the whole point.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: I thought I'd lighten the mood.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That's a fresh bit that you can get right now.
Speaker: Right now.
Speaker: Right now.
Speaker: It just happened.
Speaker: But that's just an example of the bits you get when you support us on Patreon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, you're getting it for free anyway, but also you wouldn't not get it if you support us on Patreon.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: We got three tiers.
Speaker: We got $1, $5 and $10, $1 gets you access.
Speaker: to the Patreon posts where Phil reviews books, $5, gets you access to the ad-free episodes, $10, gets your name shouted out in the episode.
Speaker: And to that end, I would like to thank Ruthless Mudder, Kyle Seaman, Jesus Loves You, and Friendly Friend for being a friend.
Speaker: Friendly Friend.
Speaker: patreon.com slash pixel at pod.
Speaker: You know, you don't even have to pay anything.
Speaker: You can just follow us for free on there, uh, and get access to the goodies.
Speaker: Go in there, find our discord, click on the discord link, uh, join up.
Speaker: If you're a bot, if you're a bot though, I'll be very upset.
Speaker: Do not join.
Speaker: If you're a bot, no bots.
Speaker: If we find out that you are an imaginary, uh, uh, creation of artificial intelligence, um,
Speaker: It worked.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: We're going to say no.
Speaker: And if I find out that you're a band member of the band Imagine Dragons, I will be even angrier.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: Imagine Dragons, not even once.
Speaker: Imagine getting kicked out of the Discord.
Speaker: Imagine.
Speaker: You won't need to.
Speaker: Because it'll happen.
Speaker: You're going to feel the thunder.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: There's something so distinctly dad about saying something like you're going to feel the thunder.
Speaker: My mic fell down.
Speaker: That was, yeah.
Speaker: It's the lyrics to one of their songs, too.
Speaker: Oh, is it?
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I didn't see.
Speaker: That's how old I am.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Thunder.
Speaker: Feel the thunder.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: See, I know I don't like Imagine Dragons, but I don't listen to the radio, so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that what kids still do?
Speaker: They listen to the radio?
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: Doesn't matter.
Speaker: They listen to the radio.
Speaker: They haven't listened to the radio in a while.
Speaker: They would dial into 95.
Speaker: Seven.
Speaker: The 95.
Speaker: Seven K rock rock.
Speaker: All the rock servicing the greater Dayton area area area.
Speaker: And now Imagine Dragons for three hours in a row.
Speaker: A three hour rock block of Imagine Dragons.
Speaker: And that other band that I can't remember the name of.
Speaker: What the fuck was their name?
Speaker: The world's tiniest violin band.
Speaker: World's smallest violin.
Speaker: This is content right here.
Speaker: This is what the people, this is what they sign up for on Patreon to get early.
Speaker: Yeah, by AJR.
Speaker: AJR, see I got nothing there.
Speaker: That one's... Yeah.
Speaker: They are like a less interesting version of the format.
Speaker: I don't know what that is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the format was an indie rock band in the early 2000s.
Speaker: It's better known as the guy who left the format and the lead singer and started the band Fun.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I remember Fun.
Speaker: I remember Fun.
Speaker: The format was his previous band.
Speaker: I remember the best criticism slash just observation about them that I ever heard just based on how accurate it was, as they said, the they've turned auto tune into the new guitar solo.
Speaker: And I was like, holy shit, that's exactly what they've done now.
Speaker: I now I can put my finger on why I don't listen to this band.
Speaker: Yeah, it all makes more sense now.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Fun with a period at the end.
Speaker: If I run period, lowercase f period at the end.
Speaker: Yes, that's right.
Speaker: That's from 2008 to 2014.
Speaker: We are deeply relevant because that still sounds like new music to me.
Speaker: And the band, the song we are young.
Speaker: Not anymore.
Speaker: You're not anymore, motherfucker.
Speaker: You are 42.
Speaker: You're in the middle of us.
Speaker: You are our age and we are not young.
Speaker: I'll be 42 this year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So let's, sorry, we're off on a tangent and it's not looking like we're getting to the book.
Speaker: So what are you playing?
Speaker: Let's skip right to the part people want to hear.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, we'll put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: I don't even remember.
Speaker: I think I said this last episode.
Speaker: I don't remember what happened.
Speaker: I'm not going to remember what happened at the end of the book until you actually tell me.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: You've been very proud of me.
Speaker: I stopped taking notes about 75% all the way through, so it's going to get real loosey-goosey here soon.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's something to do with bad and boring books is that you just feel, you're like, this book does not respect my note-taking process.
Speaker: Because the process of reading and taking notes is shockingly tedious for anyone who's never done it.
Speaker: It just takes a while and you have to find kind of a flow and a rhythm.
Speaker: I basically read the book twice when I'm taking notes.
Speaker: Right, exactly, exactly.
Speaker: And so it's one of those things where,
Speaker: You know, it's a whole process.
Speaker: And when it's bad or boring or what have you, it gets real hard.
Speaker: Oh, gosh, help me again.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: And he's down.
Speaker: So follow us on Twitter.
Speaker: We're X. And remember to give us five stars if we're.
Speaker: Oh, he's back.
Speaker: I'm back.
Speaker: He's back.
Speaker: I'm going to give the people what they want.
Speaker: Slaps to the face.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: This bulb has to be changed.
Speaker: I do not look good.
Speaker: Your face is just like you got some sort of pancake makeup on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Every piece of my Pictish heritage is coming through in glorious whiteness.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I can put my hand over here a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, just need a dimmer for that bulb.
Speaker: Yeah, this is the I saw daylight on the on the box and I thought that they meant like a nice day.
Speaker: They meant like dying under the sun like Vince Vaughn at the end of the second season of True Detective.
Speaker: Just spoilers for the worst season of True Detective.
Speaker: I'm not going to act like I pulled that out of my hat.
Speaker: My wife and I just finished watching that yesterday.
Speaker: And God, after watching season one, you're like, oh, this is bad.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Season one was a revelation.
Speaker: Season one was like, holy shit, this is what TV can be.
Speaker: And then season two was like, what the fuck?
Speaker: Season two was like a parody of it.
Speaker: It was like, like if you and I watched true detective and didn't enjoy it and wanted to like mock it mercilessly, we would have written season two.
Speaker: That's what it would have been.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's awful.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Where the fuck are we in this book?
Speaker: Body in the marsh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The body, the body's in the marsh.
Speaker: It's sinking in the dog is on its way.
Speaker: We got to hurry.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Police have
Speaker: the man found dead in the Fenway marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy Delahunt, an undercover policeman for the city of Boston.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Uh, where chapter 14, uh, the, the army arrives at the cave of a thousand guardians, somewhat less impressive than they expected.
Speaker: Um, uh,
Speaker: the Sean has been expecting like a big golden door and all that stuff, all this, uh, and it's like a boulder hiding the cave mouth.
Speaker: It's a Jesus boulder.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Uh, they get in there and there are a lot of carvings and it's very, you know, in there,
Speaker: Sean is very nervous because if this place doesn't turn out, he can't help but remember how much everyone hated him before when they assumed that he did not have their best interest at heart.
Speaker: And if this place goes...
Speaker: Jesus Christ, this place goes like the last place went.
Speaker: He could totally see them perhaps looking for some retribution on him.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: They end up in a room with a pool.
Speaker: And that's great.
Speaker: Everyone loves a pool.
Speaker: Yeah, the pools, the pools filled with black liquid, which, of course, turns out to be the darkness.
Speaker: Uh, it animates empty suits of armor and all hell breaks loose giant fight.
Speaker: Uh, I do, there was one bit of writing in this fight scene that I enjoyed, uh, where Christie golden points out that they really fought, uh,
Speaker: with abandon during this fight because it's one of their first fights where the thing that they're fighting is not like a sentient being, but like just pure evil.
Speaker: Uh, and so they just, they really let loose and get their, their Yahya's out, uh, while fighting the darkness here.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: They, um, they really open fire.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm just looking up darkness songs.
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: After the fight's over, a big old obelisk kind of rises from the sand.
Speaker: It's covered in runes, and the king realizes it's there to talk to him.
Speaker: It's offering him something, and he gets this disembodied voice that says, choose a form for me, and I will help you.
Speaker: Choose the form of the destructor.
Speaker: Fucking it's just, he's just Ray.
Speaker: This is just Ray and Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Because what happens is he starts to think it over and he goes, oh, okay, I got to make a form for it.
Speaker: And he kind of goes, oh man, what about dragons?
Speaker: Dragons are cool, right?
Speaker: And they go, the form has been chosen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The choice is made.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he goes, wait, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then he thinks of dragon has come.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: I didn't choose anything.
Speaker: It's very, all I'm saying is the King in fable was about four or 500 years away from having the stay puff marshmallow man fight at his side.
Speaker: which would have been a way more interesting book.
Speaker: So much more interesting.
Speaker: And we can't have that.
Speaker: You know what would have been so much more interesting?
Speaker: We talk about his, like, what if he's just like at that time, like, oh, I miss my dog.
Speaker: And it's just a giant form of his dog.
Speaker: That would be pretty excellent.
Speaker: Just a massive pupper.
Speaker: That would be now that would be awesome.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: Big old excited puppy into war.
Speaker: Oh, I love it.
Speaker: Of course, I'd be extra nervous that it was like nothing could happen to the dog.
Speaker: Nothing could happen to my sweet.
Speaker: So I might end up losing the war because I'm just that nervous.
Speaker: Then you ask the dog what its name and it says Atreyu.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Our text.
Speaker: So chapter 15, where it just picks back up.
Speaker: The dragon is made entirely out of sand.
Speaker: It speaks with Jasper, the servant's voice, and it clearly has a
Speaker: the memories and thoughts and interpretations of his old mentor, because that's who he was thinking about at the time as well.
Speaker: The dragon is a smart ass and it's kind of really back talky to the king, which I think, you know what?
Speaker: I think it's about time someone was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This king is busting my balls.
Speaker: It won't explain.
Speaker: He's killing me, Smalls.
Speaker: He's killing me.
Speaker: I'm Smalls.
Speaker: No, he is Smalls and I'm killing him.
Speaker: Wait.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He is Smalls and he is killing me.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You want a s'more?
Speaker: How can I have a s'more?
Speaker: If I haven't had it.
Speaker: I haven't had it.
Speaker: I haven't seen that movie in years.
Speaker: So it's the dragon is not a dragon.
Speaker: He's just this form he's taking.
Speaker: He will not explain what he is exactly.
Speaker: Just that he works in the Guardians cave and they work with heroes a lot.
Speaker: We get a lot of heroes through here.
Speaker: That kind of shit.
Speaker: Please elaborate.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, he won't.
Speaker: He won't.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: He does tell him, though, I'll tell you, we're going to go get some help from another hero.
Speaker: And it turns out it's going to be the legendary hero Garth, who was one of the great magic users.
Speaker: And I know what you're thinking, because I thought it, too.
Speaker: That sounds like a hockey player.
Speaker: That's not like a great.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's that is that is you say grand wizard.
Speaker: Did I say that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not like great wizards, great wizards.
Speaker: Great wizards.
Speaker: Honestly, Garth does sound more like a grand wizard than a great wizard.
Speaker: It does sound more like a Garth, Garth, Garth Algar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Live from Wayne's mom's basement.
Speaker: It's like, we're going to, don't worry guys.
Speaker: We're going to get the help of a great hero.
Speaker: He's a, he's an, he's an invincible warrior.
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: Troy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, you know, Garth is like, oh, hello.
Speaker: If you're going to spew, spew in this.
Speaker: I was thinking about that the other day.
Speaker: Someone on a movie we were watching said, take me.
Speaker: And I said, where?
Speaker: I'm low on gas and you need a jacket.
Speaker: Man, I don't know if that's one.
Speaker: I'm glad that the Addams Family movies from the 90s have found this new generation so well.
Speaker: And because I worship those movies.
Speaker: But those movies kind of went hand in hand with the Wayne's World movies to me.
Speaker: And I feel like the Wayne's World movies are way more of a you had to be there kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I doubt very much those would ever have the same legs.
Speaker: Those really have the same.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, the Gen X, you know, Gen X burnout, burnouts of the early 90s are just not something you see really anymore.
Speaker: No, not really.
Speaker: Not that's a very that's a thing of its time.
Speaker: OK, see how little we want to talk about this book.
Speaker: Garth.
Speaker: Garth.
Speaker: Yeah, Garth.
Speaker: And he wants to.
Speaker: But he wants you to the dragon for the record.
Speaker: would love for you to call him Percival or Percy, if you'd prefer.
Speaker: And that's treated very much like, and I kind of took that in stride.
Speaker: I was like, yeah, that's like a knight's name.
Speaker: They're like Percival.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, oh, okay.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Like that's the name we're getting hung up on is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: The king doesn't even have a real fucking name.
Speaker: He's just the king.
Speaker: He's just king.
Speaker: So I don't want to hear it from you people.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Layla and her council are fighting amongst themselves.
Speaker: Page and Timmons are doing everything they can to shout down Reaver, no matter how vaguely appropriate his ideas might be.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Reaver's also just being a twat.
Speaker: So Layla's not thrilled with any of them.
Speaker: She gets a note in the middle of the night from Reaver that basically says he wants to speak to her in private.
Speaker: He knows that somebody is betraying her.
Speaker: And when they when she meets with him, he presents her with letters that, quote unquote, prove that Paige and Timids have betrayed her or are planning on betraying her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and she goes, oh, no.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And I totally believe you.
Speaker: Yeah, she totally believes him.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: This guy who came out of nowhere, who she barely knows, and these people who she's known for years and years.
Speaker: But she.
Speaker: All right, fine.
Speaker: Guy with the top hat.
Speaker: Sick.
Speaker: Hey, don't don't dance with dandies.
Speaker: No, absolutely not.
Speaker: We have a remember.
Speaker: Triple D. Don't dance with dandies.
Speaker: We have a strict anti dandy dancing policy here at Pixel.
Speaker: It's our ADD PL.
Speaker: The anti dandy dancing Pixel.
Speaker: It law.
Speaker: Put that coffee down.
Speaker: Coffee is for dandies.
Speaker: Oh, coffee's for dandies.
Speaker: Coffee's for dandies only, pal.
Speaker: Chapter 16.
Speaker: Timmons is assisting a group of villagers out.
Speaker: Basically, they're creating this cache of weapons and food and whatever in case shit goes sideways.
Speaker: Basically, he wants to make sure that the common man is armed.
Speaker: He's a big Second Amendment dude.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a big Second Amendment dude.
Speaker: You know, if Timmons was a YouTube, he would be like, he would be doing ads on his YouTube channel for like the Four Patriots.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the emergency food rations kit.
Speaker: Have you ever seen ads for these things?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like you can, this guy, and these ads are all the same where like these strange right wing ads where they talk about like,
Speaker: Like, oh, and it's it's it comes in this this basket and it's and it comes in a container and it's it's high quality, very quality made.
Speaker: And it comes in a pouch that is high quality as well.
Speaker: And when the world fucking ends, you're going to love this.
Speaker: This is three months worth of worth of supplies.
Speaker: It's however many thousands of calories for three months and you can hide it.
Speaker: It's easily stackable.
Speaker: And they're like, it's like, it's almost like the Christie golden method of describing everything on a fucking table is what these ads are.
Speaker: It's just talking about at length what the thing is that they're showing me.
Speaker: It's like show and tell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's we're going to we're going to show you, but we're also going to give you a 1500 words about it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's pretty bad.
Speaker: So he's helping him out.
Speaker: Reaver comes in to arrest him under command of the queen, basically using the secret cash.
Speaker: This is this is him like he's basically accusing him like this is you're putting this this stuff away to overthrow her later.
Speaker: And, you know, that that kind of thing.
Speaker: Paige also gets arrested.
Speaker: She's brought to the jail where they're keeping Timmons, which is always brilliant.
Speaker: Very smart of them.
Speaker: They're confused.
Speaker: They have not betrayed the queen.
Speaker: And and they start to realize that they're set up.
Speaker: Queen Layla confronts them in the jail with the letters.
Speaker: Paige points out that these are forgeries and posits her theory on how this all happened.
Speaker: And Layla just gets more frustrated with her.
Speaker: Shut up.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very much a like when you were a kid and you got in trouble and you tried to explain why you did the thing you did and your parents went, I don't want any excuses.
Speaker: And it's just like, that's not I was explaining.
Speaker: I was like, there's a narrative here, man, that you deserve to hear.
Speaker: You might not be privy to.
Speaker: You might not be privy to all the information here.
Speaker: Man.
Speaker: Man.
Speaker: In the parlance of our times.
Speaker: Yeah, it's, it's, it's very frustrating.
Speaker: Layla is, is a child about the whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, but they're all children.
Speaker: They all kind of suck.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: There's no, they all suck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Weaver at least is pretty straightforward about being a dick, but he's a real dick.
Speaker: Uh, so it's tough.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Layla gets angry and she starts to leave before she can.
Speaker: Uh, page knocks her out.
Speaker: Uh, and then, uh, she and Timmons free themselves basically.
Speaker: Um, chapter 17, uh, we get a shot of the King riding on the back of a dragon.
Speaker: And he says, you know, I've seen a lot of things.
Speaker: I've been married.
Speaker: I've fallen in love and I've, and I've, I've conquered whatever.
Speaker: And this is the best moment of my life.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's if, you know, everyone were like, yeah, when I first saw my wife or when I, when my baby was born or something, but if you've, if you've ridden on the back of a dragon, fucking dragon.
Speaker: You're allowed to say that that's the one.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: We, he, he gives him this.
Speaker: I hated this part so much.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of an innocuous moment, but it pissed me off.
Speaker: The dragon and the king are talking and the king basically asks, ask him like, what is the darkness?
Speaker: And the dragon gives him the most generic.
Speaker: Fantasy 101 middle school fantasy level explanation.
Speaker: I don't even remember this happening.
Speaker: So the darkness is this thing that feeds on fear and hatred.
Speaker: And it's just it's Stephen King's it.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's Stephen King's it.
Speaker: And a thousand times less interesting.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It's like the... Because the thing about it, this manifestation of fear and hatred and all that stuff, but at least it is interesting in the way it manifests.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The darkness is just...
Speaker: darkness and it's going in people and the people are like, it's just the early forms of who is the bad guy in Fern Gully that Tim Curry played.
Speaker: It's basically just the early form of that, but also less interesting because Tim Curry is not involved and he doesn't sing a badass song.
Speaker: It's Tim Curry.
Speaker: So it's always Tim Curry is what you're saying.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's what I'm going to add.
Speaker: I didn't even think about the fact that that was the second Tim Curry reference.
Speaker: Tim Curry.
Speaker: It's his birthday today.
Speaker: It's his birthday today.
Speaker: It's his birthday today.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: It's Tim Curry's birthday.
Speaker: And he is one of the greatest character actors who ever lived.
Speaker: So, yes, he deserves two shout outs.
Speaker: Did you get a chance to watch Clue?
Speaker: You said you were going to watch Clue the other day, I think.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's one of those.
Speaker: That's one of those movies that stays funny.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: It's one of those movies that got terrible reviews when it came out.
Speaker: And then, you know, years later, you're like, what the fuck are people like?
Speaker: People are full of it.
Speaker: It just might.
Speaker: I don't get it.
Speaker: So the king and the dragon are riding above Samarkand and they're basically mapping out strategic positions for the fight ahead and on the way to this village where Garth is supposed to be.
Speaker: And they and they stop there and basically they find that he's this warrior monk who
Speaker: who is training all of these people in the use of will.
Speaker: You know, he, the belief was that only heroes can use will, but he's, he's pulling a full fucking Yoda and being like, I'm everyone deserves to learn.
Speaker: Will, uh, well for the people.
Speaker: And so he, he gets in there.
Speaker: Will they won't they?
Speaker: Oh, well, this has been a great podcast while it lasted.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, hasn't it?
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: He says he's going to have to do, you know, he doesn't know if he's going with how much involvement he wants in all of this.
Speaker: So he's going to have a sit down and with our hero, the king and have some dinner.
Speaker: And they do.
Speaker: And he says he's going to instruct him in powerful magic.
Speaker: He's too old.
Speaker: Too old to begin the training.
Speaker: Yeah, he does point that out.
Speaker: This normally would take a lot longer, but we can give you the slapdash, you know,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, they were training montage version.
Speaker: Well, and this is over dinner while they're eating food in the food and the table and everything gets very well described.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah, we get we get lots of descriptions.
Speaker: And Kevin pointed this out.
Speaker: There's like all of these descriptions, like the tablecloth and and all that shit.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: It put me in the mind of because my wife and I are reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to our son right now.
Speaker: And C.S.
Speaker: Lewis, there's this big thing that's happening with a lot of writing nowadays called like cozy fantasy or cozy or horror even.
Speaker: And it's and it's exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker: They just try to make it.
Speaker: It has all of the same trappings as its genre, but it's cozier.
Speaker: There's this kind of like.
Speaker: warm, no one's the night, the impression I get, cause I'm not gonna act like I've read a lot of this, but it's just like, no one's ever really in any real danger and or anything like that.
Speaker: It's cozy.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's just hobbits, hobbits as far as the eye can see.
Speaker: It's just hobbits and they're talking about, you know, second breakfast.
Speaker: Pretty much, pretty much.
Speaker: And the thing that I've noticed about C.S.
Speaker: Lewis, I've never read these books before, and now I'm reading them out loud.
Speaker: And the thing I've noticed is that is C.S.
Speaker: Lewis's bailiwick, man.
Speaker: Every chapter has a section where he's like, and then they brought out tea.
Speaker: And it wasn't just enough to have tea.
Speaker: They had orange marmalade with toast and fresh roasted duck.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: And Mr. Beaver was having a beer as tall as his fucking head.
Speaker: And it just like, it just, it just goes on and on.
Speaker: It's this long run on sentence of Turkish delights.
Speaker: And there was more Turkish delights.
Speaker: And there's enough for you to choke on it.
Speaker: It just, it just, it, and that's the thing.
Speaker: And it's, it,
Speaker: At first it kind of annoyed me, but the more we, more you're like, oh, this is part of his style.
Speaker: This is, this is what he's doing.
Speaker: And so it's funny because Kevin points this out.
Speaker: He's like the fucking like tablecloths and everything.
Speaker: And I said, this is, this is basically what I'm reading with CS Lewis, except Christie golden has not earned it at all.
Speaker: It's just this book.
Speaker: No, this is where I started to think, oh, OK, this is a slim book.
Speaker: I've pointed it out.
Speaker: Slim book.
Speaker: I think this publisher wanted a 50,000, 60,000 word book from her.
Speaker: And she still struggled to hit those numbers because there's so much like window dressing in that it sometimes literally.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That stuff like that where you're like, what the fucking get on with it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is the so like there's this online discourse about, you know, you know, media literacy and and people are people who are just like, oh, yeah, sometimes the curtains are just blue.
Speaker: And that's it's like, oh, because they're trying to, like, argue against ever reading into anything.
Speaker: Problem is books like this.
Speaker: are the problem where it's like, no, there's nothing fucking there.
Speaker: It's just a laundry list of description.
Speaker: It's like the ASMR version of a book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's just, it's just the long, it's the, it's the shopping list.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just, so anyway, Garth, I still can't get over that name.
Speaker: Garth, our great hero decides he's going to instruct this guy in powerful magic, but he hasn't decided if he'll actually join him in the fight.
Speaker: Ultimately we all know he will.
Speaker: Uh, chapter 18, uh, page and timid are now escaped convicts.
Speaker: Uh, they're trying to figure out what their next step is.
Speaker: They end up in, uh, uh, black home, um, where the villagers are being attacked slash transformed into Hobbs and also attacked by evil nymphs.
Speaker: Um, I'd almost, Hobbs are really neat, weird ass goblin halfling kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, they're, they're, they're pretty great.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Fight these these fights are actually pretty brutal.
Speaker: It was like basically are they like kind of kind of like red caps?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like imagine like a foot wide, a foot tall, big teeth, very food motivated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Red caps would be a very good interpretation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, Layla wakes up after having been conked on the head.
Speaker: Uh, Reaver, uh, tries to suggest that what they need to do is execute Timmons and page, uh, for treason.
Speaker: Uh, and she's not having that.
Speaker: She's like, no, these are still, they're still my friends.
Speaker: We'll still figure it out.
Speaker: Uh, and then Reaver starts to kind of threaten her.
Speaker: Not kind of absolutely threatens her.
Speaker: tells her he is the one ruling the, uh, look at me.
Speaker: I am the captain now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get that moment, uh, and threatens her with a gun and demands that she takes him to the hero's sanctuary.
Speaker: And that's chapter 18, uh, chapter 19, Jasper, who we haven't seen in a minute.
Speaker: He's sitting in the sanctuary contemplating, uh, peach cobbler, his favorite dessert of all time.
Speaker: We get two paragraphs of peach cobbler, which honestly didn't mind.
Speaker: Didn't mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Found that actually kind of charming.
Speaker: See that I found charming.
Speaker: Like after like, we, we know this guy's in grave danger.
Speaker: We just found that so many of these chapters end.
Speaker: And I'm not one of those people that's like, you have to end every chapter with a cliffhanger.
Speaker: That's bullshit.
Speaker: But, but so many chapters end and then just pick right back up where they left off.
Speaker: There's no, there's no poetry to it.
Speaker: There's no rhythm to it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just like, Oh, there's been, it's been 10 pages.
Speaker: It's time for a new chapter.
Speaker: And I hate that this actually works.
Speaker: It's just like, oh, take me to the heroes.
Speaker: You can see it.
Speaker: It's very cinematic.
Speaker: Jasper, and he's doing his best, like Tim Heidecker talking about pies.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Let me talk.
Speaker: It's summer.
Speaker: Time for that blueberry pie.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Get that fall.
Speaker: You got pumpkin.
Speaker: You got to get that.
Speaker: Pumpkin.
Speaker: Pumpkin.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And that's, and that I actually, I actually found that very charming.
Speaker: I thought that was great.
Speaker: That is my favorite Tim Heidecker bit, by the way.
Speaker: And it's not even, it was just backstage.
Speaker: It wasn't even just get, it was such a, we've talked about this before, but I think it's just like, it's this, it's such a fascinating, like look into it's like, Oh, that's how these people came up with these sketches.
Speaker: Like this is, this is just how that shit works.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They just start riffing.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So he gets a message from the queen, like, you know, basically telling him, I'm coming.
Speaker: I'm on the way.
Speaker: And he's like, what is she?
Speaker: She can just go.
Speaker: And he starts to pick up what she's putting down, which is things are not great.
Speaker: So he grabs some artifacts and some of his shit, and he gets the hell out of Dodge because he would be in danger if he stayed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Reaver really quickly realizes that the only real that a hero basically is all you need to be able to use the seal.
Speaker: So he's practically a hero.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he is a hero.
Speaker: And so they teleport into the sanctuary despite Layla trying to delay him, basically.
Speaker: Uh, reverse, uh, says that he has, she basically is going to have to prove, uh, her loyalty essentially.
Speaker: Uh, so you're gonna have to pick one of the servants around here, uh, for me to kill, uh, to prove that.
Speaker: This is a funny, this is a good, this chapter is not bad.
Speaker: There's a servant that had betrayed her to Reaver.
Speaker: And he was the one behind all the, he was the one that was behind the forgeries and stuff like that.
Speaker: And he, and Reaver's like, you're going to have to pick one of your servants to kill.
Speaker: And she's like, the one that betrayed me.
Speaker: And he's, and Reaver's like,
Speaker: well, and the servant's like, what the fuck?
Speaker: And Reaver's like, but it's the letter of what I, it's what I laid out, buddy.
Speaker: So Reaver shoots the guy in the head.
Speaker: basically says fair is fair.
Speaker: He's impressed.
Speaker: He's impressed.
Speaker: He's like, he's like, you know what?
Speaker: You got me on that one.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: You got me.
Speaker: Like it's, it's a good section.
Speaker: It's, it's genuinely funny.
Speaker: It's announced in Albion that her majesty will be making a big, important speech.
Speaker: BIS as they're called.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: They she grudgingly tells the people about Timmons and page and, you know, basically backing up Reaver's plan of like these two need to be outlaws now and that sort of thing.
Speaker: And she also talks up a lot on Reaver and how he's going to help them and basically promises all kinds of shit.
Speaker: including like new equipment and new weapons and stuff like that, that Reaver's going to have to deliver on.
Speaker: And, and he's kind of like, oh, well, that's more than I expected, but you know what?
Speaker: The people seem happy about it.
Speaker: So fuck it.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: So she, he basically escorts her back to her place and she says, I'm going to let the dog out.
Speaker: And he's kind of,
Speaker: And she goes, well, you got to let the dog out, man.
Speaker: That's how dogs work.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: So he lets her, uh, lets, uh, the dog out and predictably has attached a note, uh, to Rex, uh, who runs away.
Speaker: And probably my favorite chapter in the whole book.
Speaker: Uh, cause just, they, they did a good job.
Speaker: I, I, I met what I said last time we talked about.
Speaker: It was like, I think that the back home business is the most interesting stuff.
Speaker: It is by far the most interesting part of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, and even then it's not that great, but it's, but, but that was, I, that was, it was just some good writing in there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Chapter 20.
Speaker: We get your standard issue training montage with the king, learning how to meditate, how to be quiet and concentrate his thoughts and feel the flow of energy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They teach him how to fight with rakes and shovels and shit.
Speaker: It's very karate, you know, like all the weapons are reappropriated tools and stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's he's he he he and of course we get the moment where he's he's terrible at meditating, all that stuff.
Speaker: And finally, he he manages to focus in the right way to go.
Speaker: I did it.
Speaker: And of course, fucks everything up.
Speaker: You know, that that whole 1987 montage we love so much.
Speaker: It's all it's all there.
Speaker: It's all there.
Speaker: It's all there.
Speaker: The whole thing allows him to be able to reach greater pinnacles with his will and his magic power, I guess.
Speaker: It's I don't know how long this took.
Speaker: I'm thinking a few hours.
Speaker: It's not implied that it's, you know.
Speaker: It's a day.
Speaker: It's a nice afternoon.
Speaker: It's a nice afternoon.
Speaker: He levels up.
Speaker: And he was already probably at a pretty high level, you know.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: He unlocks some new abilities.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they start making plans for the battle ahead.
Speaker: It becomes clear that Garth will be joining them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cut to page and Timmons have come to a town and it's basically it's at first they think it's basically abandoned, but then they find a pie shop.
Speaker: We get a lot of love of pie.
Speaker: Miss Golden was hungry when she wrote these chapters.
Speaker: We get cobbler one chapter and pie.
Speaker: You got that.
Speaker: Pumpkin.
Speaker: Get that apple pie.
Speaker: Get that crisp on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Apparently it's the best pie shop ever.
Speaker: But while they're there, they start hearing about the rumors.
Speaker: They hear everyone talking about them without realizing they're talking about them.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And everything's interrupted by a fight with some Balverines outside.
Speaker: Um, the fight lasts like half a page.
Speaker: Uh, it's over.
Speaker: And then Rex, uh, approaches them and shows them the letter that the queen gave him, which basically says, sorry, screwed up.
Speaker: I miss you guys.
Speaker: Can we get coffee and make up and maybe hook up again?
Speaker: Uh, and not so many words, but that's the implication.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, and so they're, they're, they're basically happy to know that, uh, they're at least, uh,
Speaker: not going to be executed if she finds them first.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At this point, I looked at the page count and we've got 20 pages left.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: 25.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And I thought, how
Speaker: How the f- what?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And then I remembered, as you pointed out in the first episode, this is considered a prequel to- I went, okay.
Speaker: And then I started to get a cold feeling in my gutty wutz, and I realized where we were going with this.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Uh, so I stopped taking notes at that point because I just didn't care.
Speaker: You just wanted to read.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just want to get through it.
Speaker: Um, so this is going to be, uh, abbreviated and Kevin, feel free to, to, to interrupt and throw in anything you think is necessary.
Speaker: Basically, the battle begins.
Speaker: They're going.
Speaker: They're fighting the Empress's people.
Speaker: We get a whole shtick with the king leading this group of people across a river.
Speaker: They're nude hot, I guess.
Speaker: And they make their way across.
Speaker: Everything's going to hell.
Speaker: And let's see.
Speaker: We've got they keep doing that.
Speaker: They keep doing the we have a Hulk comment like they keep it.
Speaker: We've got a dragon.
Speaker: Yeah, that keeps happening.
Speaker: And the dragon helps, I guess.
Speaker: The king finds himself behind the walls.
Speaker: A siege has begun the outside.
Speaker: The king and his little group of.
Speaker: you know elite are on the inside and it doesn't take long for the king to be taken out by the empress basically who's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life he's yeah he ends up like talking to the empress he's like in a jail cell and the empress like rouses him from his sleep brings him up to talk to and you know we get a lot of
Speaker: We get a lot of horny posting about how hot the Empress is.
Speaker: It's like that's that's the whole that that's all chapter 22.
Speaker: It's like yeah, bosom was barely contained by the fabric and I'm not making this up.
Speaker: Oh, this is correct.
Speaker: Her clothes were too tight.
Speaker: she's so goddamn hot, but doesn't even know it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's, it's the, and the King is like, damn.
Speaker: And it's like the King feels like an adolescent, which is code for teenage boy, which is code for horny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's, he's like, he's like so impressed by how hot she is.
Speaker: And it is decent writing at least where it's like, she's flirting with him.
Speaker: And so he's like in his head going, oh,
Speaker: Oh, so she thinks I'm cute too.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it just, it gets really stupid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's in a fun way.
Speaker: It's well written stupid, but it's stupid.
Speaker: Yeah, it's stupid.
Speaker: And then he snaps out of it and he's like, but my wife is hot, too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But that ass, though.
Speaker: But that ass, though.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she's pissed at him because not his wife, his maybe kind of lover here.
Speaker: The Empress is pissed because her abilities weren't working.
Speaker: And he tells her, you know, he basically says, you're not you're not the last line of defense with the darkness, are you?
Speaker: You're not the guy in charge.
Speaker: You're not the big bad evil guy.
Speaker: You're just taking orders.
Speaker: And she's like, and she's like, look at these things like your friends are dead.
Speaker: And he's like, check these out.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: She tells him all of his friends are dead and the ones who aren't dead left like Garth and the dragon.
Speaker: They all just left you there.
Speaker: And he buys that for some reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He does give her a there will be others speech, which is always I haven't heard one of those in a long time.
Speaker: That used to be a classic.
Speaker: There will be others that will take my place.
Speaker: That whole thing.
Speaker: And that's chapter 22 in a nutshell.
Speaker: Chapter 23, the battle continues between the army and the Empress's army and the darkness swirls in and starts fucking shit up and kills poor Sean, which to me felt
Speaker: mean-spirited yeah sean gets killed ben well no sean gets infected by the darkness ben kills him yeah yeah uh yeah it's just like she so what's funny is like the queen is the empress is like oh your friends left you and he's like no that can't be true and the reader's like no that can't be true and it's like oh no it actually happens exactly the way the queen says it happened it just like yeah
Speaker: They were more heroic about it as they fled.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It wasn't it wasn't like, let's get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Sean gets killed.
Speaker: Percival saves Ben.
Speaker: Ben drops his rifle as Percival is flying off.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And these and the dropped rifle and the body of Sean and everything are used as evidence that they have friends have betrayed you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, he goes for it.
Speaker: Ben is furious.
Speaker: He wants to go right back in and save the king.
Speaker: And his, you know, everyone on the team reminds him, like, look, like if we do that, we're going to die.
Speaker: We're all going to die.
Speaker: And then Albion is fucked.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so we have to we have to he would not want us to just come running in and, you know, guns ablaze and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, we get the final moments in this chapter are the king.
Speaker: Basically, uh, he's, it's, it's, it's gone forward in time.
Speaker: I suppose.
Speaker: Uh, he has not seen, you know, anybody in forever.
Speaker: It's he's, he's in his cell.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, let's see.
Speaker: Yeah, he's just he's just dreaming of the fact that one day there will be others and another hero will come and take his place.
Speaker: And it ends with there were still heroes in Albion.
Speaker: Kind of a bummer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then it has a little thing about Gabriel dreaming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This this Gabriel.
Speaker: It's basically the end of one of the new start.
Speaker: Which which one was it with the little kids are playing outside?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's basically the same idea.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's these, these kids playing and that's, it's this guy, Gabriel dreaming about being a hero.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's, and that's the end.
Speaker: So basically if you're looking for any closure on the story that is told in the book,
Speaker: you're getting zero because the game that this is the prequel to does not finish this story.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: It is set.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I just looked it up.
Speaker: It's set 40 years later.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And you're in control of this character, Gabriel.
Speaker: So this seems like a big setup for a story involving...
Speaker: You're like the character that like the king and his queen and all that.
Speaker: Nope, not at all.
Speaker: Nope, nope.
Speaker: And they never appear in Fable the Journey.
Speaker: And even if they did, no one played that game because no one bought Kinects and it wasn't a good game to begin with.
Speaker: Like it was just, it was, it's so, this is, to call this a prequel to Fable the Journey is,
Speaker: Completely incorrect.
Speaker: It is a it is it is a sequel to Fable three.
Speaker: And it's like it's like, hey, everything falls apart.
Speaker: Every character makes a dumb decision.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And nothing about it would be one thing kind of a.
Speaker: With like Halo Infinite, we were, you know, reading, we've read a book that took place between Halo Infinite and the previous one in that little empty space.
Speaker: And you can find out what happened to those characters in the game through little Easter eggs you can pick up.
Speaker: So none of that exists in Fable the Journey.
Speaker: It's not even that.
Speaker: This is the most pointless book.
Speaker: It is pointless on so many different levels.
Speaker: It's, it is, it is boring.
Speaker: It's, it barely ties into the,
Speaker: the book, the game it's supposed to tie into.
Speaker: It doesn't really.
Speaker: It ties more into Fable 3 than it does into Fable the Journey.
Speaker: It's, it's, I will say Christy Golden did a decent enough job interpreting the source material.
Speaker: Like it felt like Fable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It had, it had a lot of Fable.
Speaker: Fable's shocking because Fable, one minute Fable is, um,
Speaker: uh, uh, silly and juvenile and dirty jokes, hardy, har, har.
Speaker: And then the next moment people are dying horribly.
Speaker: And I mean, horribly, uh, it can be, it can be real, uh, uh, you know, uh, whiplash, uh, emotionally with, with that.
Speaker: And, and, and, and there's, there's some of that there when she allowed them to fight, uh,
Speaker: There were some decent fight scenes, but there was a lot of tell and not show.
Speaker: I think probably because she, you know, had a page count she had to stick to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's not fun to read.
Speaker: It's not fun.
Speaker: It doesn't offer any new insights into anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We don't even get like...
Speaker: Layla's goddamn conclusion.
Speaker: Like that whole storyline ends with her being like, I fucked up.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: And none of this will ever be.
Speaker: Resolved.
Speaker: It's ever resolved.
Speaker: What are the other books?
Speaker: Those ones.
Speaker: Let me pull it up.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The Balvarine order takes place.
Speaker: After it takes place between fable two and fable three.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And that one is just an independent story, you know, set in that world.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they're not trying to tie it in with any of the other shit, which is fine.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I got to find it.
Speaker: But yeah, these, these ones, they're both by, I think Peter Brooks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: is the name of the author, but Peter David, sorry.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And these ones are not based on, I know that these ones are not based on, you know, the, the, the world, except in the sense that it's,
Speaker: you know, set in that place.
Speaker: It's not, it's not, you're not trying to like, you're not following the king around because the whole point of those games is that's you, you get to, it is, it is meant to be played as a pure power fantasy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Where you're just like, you're the one making the decision.
Speaker: That was the whole point for better, for worse, whether or not Peter Molyneux pulled it off, that was always the point.
Speaker: So taking that character and making them a third person kind of situation,
Speaker: is jarring and silly and nothing about this book worked.
Speaker: It had some charming moments.
Speaker: I don't understand the purpose of this book on any level.
Speaker: No, it just seems like a weird...
Speaker: Every possible choice for this book is just really friggin weird.
Speaker: And I don't understand its existence.
Speaker: I mean, we're talking about it 12 years after the fact, and maybe there was more plans.
Speaker: You know, I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker: Maybe that's what it was.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Blood ties, fable blood ties.
Speaker: That was that was the other.
Speaker: There's also other ones.
Speaker: There's like, there's a book about Reaver.
Speaker: Oh, that's fun.
Speaker: I didn't know that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, Balvarine order, blood ties, edge of the world, blood of heroes, Teresa, Jack of blades and Reaver.
Speaker: Most of them are by Peter David.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we're going to have to read one of Peter David's ones.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now this is interesting because blood ties.
Speaker: It has a Ben Finn in it as the protagonist.
Speaker: So we might actually even have like,
Speaker: what do you call it?
Speaker: Dissonant canon here.
Speaker: Which one is true?
Speaker: Which one isn't?
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: But I just, if he's written multiple books in this universe, I have to feel like it was more of a passion project for that kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know that that might be naive because we work with a lot of
Speaker: for higher writers here.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, gosh, this book just felt completely, I phoned in doesn't even do it justice.
Speaker: Um, I was, I'm just very disappointed in this book.
Speaker: This was not good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I'm looking at like, I'm on the Fable subreddit talk like people talking about the this book.
Speaker: And it's like it and people are just like, it's it's like a crime how this book ends the series ends the Fable three timeline.
Speaker: Because it's like Reaver just gets to do his shit again and he never gets punished.
Speaker: And he's all the characters die basically and nobody gets saved.
Speaker: And what the top comment is, Edge of the World basically represents everything Fable started doing wrong as a franchise.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just just terrible.
Speaker: Absolutely terrible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm glad it's not just and there's no there's it's like it's more of the fact that we will never have a proper ending for hero of Brightwall, Garth, Reaver, etc.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, it's like, it's just such a weird choice to be like, here's and here's.
Speaker: And so another person on the thread points out, like, it says it's going to be continued in the next game.
Speaker: And it never was.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah, that's just it.
Speaker: It's the game has nothing to do.
Speaker: In fact, this epilogue, if you can even call it an epilogue, this epilogue.
Speaker: How many how many fucking sentences is it?
Speaker: This is the epilogue.
Speaker: So you can see.
Speaker: Oh, look, it looks like the about the author thing.
Speaker: They're about the same length.
Speaker: In fact, the about the author might be longer.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it does not.
Speaker: That's the only tie in it has with this game.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It is atrocious.
Speaker: It's so it's so disappointing because the characters in Fable three were pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it talks so much about them and like,
Speaker: God, what the fuck is this book?
Speaker: It's so disappointing.
Speaker: It's so frustrating.
Speaker: It's like on multiple levels, and I don't want to pile on too long on the book.
Speaker: We've said our things, but just like the fact that it's boring is one thing, but the fact that it's like...
Speaker: It's like an official published book about these characters.
Speaker: And it's not even like, it's not even like, okay, somebody wrote a fan fiction and it's like, you know, it's not good, but whatever.
Speaker: It's just a fan fiction.
Speaker: It's up there.
Speaker: People can write what they want to write, but this is like an official, the fable people are like, yes, this is,
Speaker: is what we want to say about the ending of fable at post.
Speaker: This is the, this is the postscript.
Speaker: This is the postscript to fable three.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Absolutely crazy.
Speaker: That's absolutely crazy.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So that was, that was fable edge of the world.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad that that's done.
Speaker: Kevin, that leaves just one question.
Speaker: burning in my mind, Greg.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Ooh, what am I playing?
Speaker: Okay, so I've talked about the Thaumaturge a few times.
Speaker: I'm still playing that, still going through it.
Speaker: You know what's funny is like there's not a whole lot
Speaker: The game itself is not very complex.
Speaker: Like you just walk around searching for clues and you find the clues and you get experience and you level up your dude and then you get into fights occasionally.
Speaker: The turn-based combat can be kind of fun because it's you and your Salu Tor, which is the name of the spirit, fighting against any number of enemies.
Speaker: And like...
Speaker: the sal you have four salutors that you can rotate in and out um and they each have their own abilities and you like certain enemies are weak to certain salutors so like your main guy is like a little floating skeleton dude with a top hat and a cane
Speaker: and a sword hidden in the cane.
Speaker: And then one of the other ones is like a demon dog from Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Another is like a really sexy half man, half snake guy.
Speaker: And the third is basically an ostrich.
Speaker: or the fourth is basically an ostrich.
Speaker: And then there's like four more that you can get later on in the game.
Speaker: But like each enemy is kind of is weak to certain ones and you have to like attack them with a certain salutor to like to break their defense first and then you can go in on them.
Speaker: Um, otherwise, yeah, I'm having fun with Amateurge.
Speaker: Uh, not a whole lot more to say about it until, uh, probably until I beat it.
Speaker: Um, otherwise I started playing Shadows of Doubt again.
Speaker: Um, because it's been, you know, it's been about a year since I fired it up and I figured why not?
Speaker: It's been getting updates in the past year or so.
Speaker: I'm gonna, and it's just, it's just the silliest game.
Speaker: So for those of you who don't know what Shadows Doubted is, basically it's a procedurally generated detective IMSIM where you play a private investigator in a city and cities are basically like these little small islands at this point.
Speaker: Just to, so it's like the city, it's like a city of 500 people.
Speaker: And you get hired to investigate crimes or like some of the jobs that you can take on are like, I need you to go and throw food in this person's face.
Speaker: You know, whatever, whatever you want to take on.
Speaker: And so, yeah, there's a lot of...
Speaker: It's such a fascinating game.
Speaker: It can be a little daunting for people who need more structure.
Speaker: There is a tutorial version, like there's a tutorial mission in the game that is super structured, like that the creator made that's like,
Speaker: you're investigating a homicide.
Speaker: So you'd have to go, you have to get fingerprints, et cetera, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: But then after that, you know, the missions are procedurally generated.
Speaker: So you'll get, you'll just get a call for like, investigate this person at this apartment building.
Speaker: And, you know, you'll have to Columbo your way through it.
Speaker: But yeah, so Shadows of Doubt is what I've been playing.
Speaker: And big news, Balotro, I beat Gold Steak.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: I beat a Gold Steak.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I mean, after, you know, a lot of my other friends have already beaten Gold Steak, but I don't care.
Speaker: I'm not one of them.
Speaker: Shit.
Speaker: My problem was the deck that I had all the way up at Gold Stake was probably one of the worst decks to do Gold Stake on because it doesn't really give you anything.
Speaker: It was the blue deck, which is just an extra hand, which is nice, but it's not like any of the fancier decks.
Speaker: It's not like it's plasma or something like that.
Speaker: It's just the blue deck.
Speaker: So it took me a while, but I finally beat the gold stake on Ballotro.
Speaker: So I have won Ballotro.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: Now it is time to do the challenges.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you done any of the challenge?
Speaker: Have you done any challenges?
Speaker: No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: That's just, that's just not happening for, for old Phil.
Speaker: If I could, if I could, um, if I could, you know,
Speaker: get past I think I'm on black then yeah maybe sure think about it okay but uh I'm yeah I am having serious troubles uh with these with these games yeah uh but I can't stop playing it at the same time yeah yeah yeah
Speaker: So what are you playing, Phil?
Speaker: What's going on over there?
Speaker: I am playing.
Speaker: I just got done playing.
Speaker: I just got done.
Speaker: I played a few hours of a demo for News Tower.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Uh, Sim tower type thing or kind of it's, it's, uh, you you're, it's a journalism based kind of thing where you've got, uh, a newspaper, uh, you get to name the newspaper.
Speaker: Uh, it's back in the, uh, back in the old days, uh, you know, uh,
Speaker: 20s and 30s kind of shit.
Speaker: And you hire on writers and you build new desks for them and you send them off on assignments to make stories and you determine
Speaker: what order you want to put the stories in based on their content, based on who you're trying to impress the most of you're trying to get some sales in this one neighborhood and they want to read all about crime and sports.
Speaker: And so you make sure that you've got at least one crime and one sports article in there, and you're probably pretty good for that.
Speaker: And the mob getting some gets involved.
Speaker: It is it is super fun and kind of frantic
Speaker: Um, it gets to a point with the sim aspect of it that annoys me though, where it says like, I think it's because I've worked as a journalist and I, and I like that world and everything.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it's super fun to like go, okay, all right, I'm going to send the, there's a scandal.
Speaker: I can, I can send my writer out to go cover this political scandal or I can send them out to cover this economic whatever.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: you know, the place we're trying to impress, we're trying to get more sales in really goes for economic story.
Speaker: So I'm going to send it.
Speaker: I like that stuff.
Speaker: That's fun.
Speaker: It gets to a point though, where it's just like, well, I'm going to have to buy a whole new Florida install more toilets because we need, it's like that.
Speaker: That's a level of modular that I'm like, Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I've enjoyed the demo.
Speaker: I've played several hours in it, but I don't know if that's going to translate into me actually thrown down.
Speaker: But it's not expensive.
Speaker: And if anybody's listening and they enjoy that sort of thing, I'd at least play the demo.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It's got a lot of charm to it.
Speaker: The team that's working on it has just done so much work.
Speaker: fun shit with it it's got a very cool feeling and you know my newspaper the daily butt uh did pretty well i think for a little while and i got to see the daily butt up there uh in lights and that was a good feeling uh but daily but the game i've been playing that yeah it's i can't i kept every time i would try like playing a new game of it i want to name it something else and i'd always come back to the daily butt um
Speaker: The game that I've been playing, though, that really surprised the hell out of me and I've been enjoying the shit out of is Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, which is the sequel to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, which I never played.
Speaker: I love these titles.
Speaker: But have you heard of these?
Speaker: I have heard of them, yeah.
Speaker: I just...
Speaker: I never played the original, but I did buy it because after play, because it's, it's the world is so absurd.
Speaker: You play Turnip Boy and in tax evasion, you are literally trying to get him to commit tax evasion.
Speaker: And somehow that translates into a, from what I can tell, a 16 bit style action RPG Zelda kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going all over the place and fighting people and that kind of thing.
Speaker: This game is very much more like Enter the Gungeon.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's very cool, and you play Turnip Boy, and it's the sequel to this game, and...
Speaker: I'm not going to get into it because the ending of the first game, some really dramatic shit happens.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And you're living in the aftermath of that.
Speaker: And you're basically living in a late stage capitalism hell hole.
Speaker: Who would have thunk it?
Speaker: And so you and your friends are going to rob...
Speaker: this bank, the problem is the bank is about the size of a small city.
Speaker: And so you have to, it's a, so there's a roguelike element to it where you go in, you have to literally shake people down for money.
Speaker: You can pick them up, shake them and collect their cash.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: It's really cute because the art style is very cartoony.
Speaker: Everybody is a food product of some kind.
Speaker: But it has a serious level of darkness to it and a political axe to grind, which I love when people slide that shit under.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fuck, fuck, the curtains are actually blue, are just blue.
Speaker: I know, and that is not what this game is.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And so you slowly build up your strength, you slowly build up your arsenal and take out bosses, and it's very fast paced.
Speaker: And it feels good to play in the same way that Enter the Gungeon felt very fast paced and just feels good.
Speaker: And when a run finishes, whether it went in your because you only have a limited amount of time every time you go in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you can extend your timer and stuff like that over time.
Speaker: But regardless, you have a limited amount of time to be in there.
Speaker: So you have to leave at a certain point or you die.
Speaker: And whether whether the run goes the way you wanted it to or not, it's so easy just to fly right back into it.
Speaker: The guns are really weird.
Speaker: There's a there are melee weapons and guns.
Speaker: I'm a sucker for the melee weapons you can get.
Speaker: And they're all very punny and cute.
Speaker: There's a katana blade, which is very fast called the blade of grass, and it's a big green blade of grass katana.
Speaker: And it's cute, but it also has a very
Speaker: sarcastic kind of caustic side to it, which I'm really enjoying unwrapping.
Speaker: The bad guys that you're up against, a lot of different kind of bad guys, but the cops are called the fuzz, and you find out that they're all peaches.
Speaker: All the cops are peaches.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Like, what the fuck am I supposed to do?
Speaker: You've sold me.
Speaker: I've bought them.
Speaker: I bought the two pack of the games.
Speaker: Yeah, I think they're both on sale right now.
Speaker: They are, yeah.
Speaker: So it's just like, fuck it.
Speaker: I'm getting the two pack.
Speaker: It feels good to play.
Speaker: And it's like, because that's the thing.
Speaker: A weird ass theme.
Speaker: or and or sense of humor will get me to play a game a lot longer than maybe I would have normally.
Speaker: Yeah, this game feels good to play.
Speaker: The the the the gameplay mechanics of it are smooth.
Speaker: It's solidly designed.
Speaker: It's not trying to get by just on its warped sense of humor, which is also good.
Speaker: I didn't know what to expect, to be honest, and I started playing it and I freaking love it.
Speaker: It's really fun.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying myself.
Speaker: I think you're going to like it, too.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: That's me.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can give us a five star review on Apple and Spotify and wherever you go for your podcasts.
Speaker: Otherwise, follow us on Twitter, Instagram.
Speaker: Facebook, LinkedIn, our Lowe's.
Speaker: We have a Lowe's page on the Lowe's website.
Speaker: Yeah, not Home Depot because those are Trumpers.
Speaker: No, no, not Home Depot.
Speaker: You're going to go to Lowe's.
Speaker: You're going to go to Garden Tools and then... There will be pictures of us.
Speaker: There will be pictures of us.
Speaker: Just look, you'll find it.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Anyway, good night.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Oh, I'm so glad that book's over.
