you Hello and welcome to Book Reviews Kill, a podcast about fantasy, sci-fi, and horror novels. I'm Nick. And I'm Evan. And you're listening to the Monday Morning Minute. On Wednesday, everybody. Thank you so much for your patience. Nick and I have both been really busy the last couple of...
days and uh we're we're still bringing you a cool episode here and i'm stoked to see you nick it's been it's been over a week it's yeah it's been too long yeah i was getting a little uh a little uneasy even though it was my fault mostly
We have fictional news here. Okay, so this week in fictional news, Terry Brooks, the author of the Shannara trilogy and all the other books after it, I should say the Shannara series, has announced that he's retiring from writing the Shannara books. And I think maybe...
from writing and publishing altogether, which is really interesting. I don't think we see it very often that a a really big fantasy author kind of just says all right that's enough for me i'm done it says semi-retirement in the article that i'm looking at which i think yeah i would imagine that at some point he might put something else out or
He's just going to focus on fan fiction from here on out. I don't have his own fan fiction. Or other people's fan fiction, yeah, I guess. But he's handing the reins to author Delilah S. Dawson, who, funny enough, was born like... six months after the first shannara book came out i think in 1997 or 1977 i should say that's so cool yeah uh but yeah i think it's a very cool thing to do i mean like
uh he's he's written i don't know like 30 of these things and uh i know that a lot of people are huge fans of the series and to have put so much time and effort into a series like that and then to kind of say all right I'm going to hand the reins over to another person who I'm confident will
carry on the consistent quality of these stories like while i'm still alive you know like not to be morbid or anything but usually it happens after someone dies uh if it's going to happen at all and um to just kind of be like all right like I'm excited. I think he said something like, I'm excited to see what Delilah is going to do with this. That's super cool. Being around to see what someone else is going to do with this thing that you've been working on for almost 40 years. That's so cool.
did you see stephen king doing something like that like i want to re alive the dark tower world and like but have someone else kind of continue on with it i don't know i don't think you'll be into it or would you i think he's i think stephen king is going to
pass away with a pen in his hand. You know what I mean? I feel like he's going to be one of those authors. Like he's going to, he's probably going to have 10 or 15 books come out posthumously. You know, he's probably got so many just kicking around. Yeah. Ready to go. Yeah, I'm sure that's a thing. We've not seen the last.
no king even he will be writing from the grave i'm okay with that yeah he'll be haunting us with his writing uh but yeah like if anybody has is curious uh i've read the first like the main uh shanara trilogy, and it's great. It's old. It's from the 70s. But I mean, it's classic fantasy. It's one of those kind of like pillars of the genre that I would at least recommend reading the first one. I think that they actually do get a little bit better like writing wise.
But those are the only three that I've read. But there are a ton of Shannara books. And I've heard that the TV show is decent, but not great. But if you want more of a fix...
I feel stupid. I've never even heard of this. You've never heard of Shannara? Oh, that's so interesting. I've never heard of it. So I don't know if I totally agree with this. I think... there's some other titles that you could kind of attribute this to, but I've seen a take or two saying that Shannara kind of re-kickstarted the popular fantasy.
books kind of thing you know like there was like a dry period between like lord of the rings and then like you know uh when put out yeah like well dude yeah dunes like sci-fi i guess and i guess it's like kind of fantasy too i mean uh but mervyn peak had put out uh gormungast and ursula leguin had put out like earth sea and there was some other stuff i'm sure like kicking around that i'm not
remembering right now but then shanara came out of the scene and it was like oh yeah we can do like big epic secondary world fantasy and it'll sell so That's why I say it's a pillar. I don't want to say a renaissance or a resurgence or anything.
Because there's so much other stuff that was coming out around that time. To lay it all at the feet of Shannara, in my opinion, is kind of disingenuous. Because there's just a ton of fantasy books that have always been coming out since Lord of the Rings and even before that, too. It's a big deal trilogy and a pretty big deal series to a lot of people. So like I said, to see a person just kind of be like, all right, I've kind of tapped out.
I'm going to see what somebody else can do with this thing that I created is really impressive. And I just really respect it a lot. Cool, man. I'll check it out. Read the first one. It's good. I'll add it to my CBR and get to it in like 2029. There you go. Yeah. Sweet. The first one is a very classic kind of like. uh you know there's there's there's evil in the i think it's the north there's like evil in the north we gotta this unassuming uh small person from the forest has to go like
deal with it. He meets a plucky group of adventurers along the way. Oh, that's all I want. There's scary flying monsters chasing after him. It's pretty derivative of Lord of the Rings. but it's got its own charm to it too which is why I think it's sold so well you know like I mean it really does have its own thing for sure are there this is probably a dumb question are there any like shows or movies that have
There's a show that was on, I think it was on like the sci-fi network or something. I could be so wrong about that. But like the show, I heard like pretty mixed things about, it's like a live action show. that came out like i want to say like 10 years ago or something um i never watched it it wasn't one of those things where it was like you have to watch it's so good it went a little under the radar i kind of i kind of group it in with like
that show The Magicians, which I still haven't watched that either, but it's based on the Lev Grossman books, which I've heard pretty mixed things about. I don't know. I think with show adaptations of books... I feel like it's kind of a coin flip. Totally. Yeah. Wheel of Time show I heard is like kind of not so good or wasn't so good to start off, but I'm hearing from people that this new season.
Yeah, I've heard the same thing. Yeah, I've heard that it's... Yeah, I've heard the exact same thing, that the Wheel of Time show has kind of settled into a groove, and people are getting pretty into it. I mean, it kind of makes sense, because... As the books go on, up until around, in my opinion, the eighth one, it gets steadily better. So it kind of makes sense that the show would get steadily better, even though I'm sure they're changing all kinds of stuff. Yeah.
But I don't know. I might give it a shot. I thought the first season was okay. I wasn't super motivated to watch the second one, but maybe I'll... I don't know. If it's not getting mountains of hate internet-wise, that usually means it's actually pretty good. I would love to read The Wheel of Time just to say that I've read it. I feel like the bragging rights there are just almost as good as it gets. How many books is it? 12?
15? 15, technically. It's 14, but then there's a prequel. Oh, that's a prequel. Was the prequel by Jordan? Yeah, it was Robert Jordan. Oh, okay. I think he put it out between, I want to say books...
eight and nine or something like that. I don't know if I'm right about that. It's called New Spring and it's about uh for anybody who has watched the show or is reading the books and hasn't read new spring it's about uh moraine and like the blue aja and stuff and i know you don't know what that is nick but like it's it's uh it's kind of just like Moraine is kind of like the catalyst to a lot of what's going on in at least the early parts of the series and her reasoning behind
going to this place where the main characters are. It's more fleshed out. in that prequel it's like pretty interesting but it's also like kind of boring i don't know uh but that's kind of what you could say about like the entire series it's like pretty interesting but it's kind of boring yeah i mean a lot of conversation or what what makes it kind of slow or boring um
wheel of time or is it just i think it's just it's just one of those series it's just like it really just takes its time and there's a lot of there's a lot of povs a lot of storylines there's a lot of there's just a lot going on i mean it's like stormlight archive where honestly like probably more povs than stormlight archive is each chapter a different character yeah oh cool i'm trying to remember if there's any page breaks where it switches
within a chapter i don't think it does and if it does it doesn't do it very i guess it kind of does like in the last book it jumps around i'm rambling um but yeah like uh there are a lot of povs and uh i mean i think that it's just it's boring sometimes because Wheel of Time, there will be a big spike in action, and then there's a lot of fallout. There's a lot of dealing with this big thing that just happened for hundreds of pages.
And then like another really like bananas thing happens and it's like, Whoa, Oh my God. uh and i do like that i like when it's split up like that it helps keep my brain a lot more organized i appreciate it especially when there are so many characters and different storylines going on right and i will tell you uh as as far as real time goes I have rarely, if ever, been so... I don't know if I even really want to use the word excited, but just happy to dive back into a world.
You know what I mean? It's like I'm five, six books deep, but it's like I'm happy to start the seventh one. I'm happy to stay with these characters and see what's going on. I think Robert Jordan did a terrific job. He creates some mysteries and he sews up some plot points before the end of the series. There's whole arcs and... It just meanders and goes all over the place. It's epic fantasy at its very most epic and its very most long.
It's really long, man. I really can't stress enough. It took me a year to read. What's the longest fantasy series out there? It depends on how you like. I did a video on that and a bunch of people got mad at me because I didn't do it apparently. I didn't consider some because I mean, it depends on. So like, I mean, like the Driss books, there's like 38 of them or something. Yeah. Discworld, I guess you could call it a series, but it's not quite like.
concurrent, you know what I mean? Like it's insane. But there's like 44 Discworld books or something like that. Wow. I know that Feist's Rift War is pretty long, I think, and L.A. Madaset's Saga of the Recluse is really long. I think it's like 20-something books.
Um, but then those aren't even concurrent, I don't think, or at least they're like published out of order. I know that the wheel of time is definitely like one of the longest ones. Yeah. Like, but then there's like the horse heresy books. It was like the Warhammer books and stuff. And I mean, if you really wanted to get super granular about it, I mean, like there's like the...
There's like all the Star Wars canon. And if you combine both canons. Let's get on to some news that matters here. Yeah, mine didn't matter. Yours is going to matter a lot. Because are you a Starship Troopers fan by any shot? I'm a fan of the movie, not really a fan of Heinlein in general, personally. But I'll keep that to myself. Okay, deadline.
has confirmed that a new Starship Troopers movie is happening at Sony with Neil Blomkamp writing and directing. That's the District 9 guy, right? District 9 guy, that's right. Chappy. Yeah, Chappie. Yeah. With D. Edward in the movie. That's right. Yeah, oh my gosh. Which was kind of weird. That was very bizarre. They were everywhere for a minute after that movie. Oh man, Neil Blomkamp.
Great job with that. I think he will too. The new movie will go back to the 1959 source material by Robert A. Heimlin. And not be based on the 1997 Paul Verhoeven movie, which I know. I mean, not much about the plot has been announced, but it's going to involve army astronauts and giant bugs. So at least we've got that going for it. I love that.
1997 movie so so much so I was like a little eh to see that they're kind of steering away from that specifically but you know I'm interested to see what they do with it because like
I read Starship Troopers a while ago. I don't remember a ton about the book, but I do know that there has been since some pretty fair critique about it. It seems like a little, if not... pro-fascism like fascism apologetic uh in like in like some ways and in some opinions uh i'd have to read it again to really like form my own like solid opinion about it but from what i understand like the
1997 movie was kind of like a tongue in cheek, like leaning into that. Oh my gosh. It was so tongue in cheek. That's what I love so much about it. Yeah. It's all the way leaning into it. Yeah. Yeah. We want to live forever. I mean, yeah.
think it'd be cool to see what neil blomkett would do with the source material because i don't think that he would be like rah rah pro-fascist with it i like i like to believe scream yeah yeah right exactly um have some ties into like current uh well i won't get into it but you know um yeah but maybe i'll just leave it at that what are you talking about I'm looking out my window right now. Everything's fine. Shut up.
Thumbs up. Everybody's good. We're breathing slowly. It's fine. I actually had, sorry to move on from Starship so fast. Move on. I heard another piece of directing news that does have to do with... a Stephen King book. I was very excited about it. Someone sent me this. Netflix is making a new Cujo movie right now. I saw that. Yeah, they announced the director as Darren Aronofsky.
really yeah which is at least why i don't know if it's an official announcement but he's like in the lead to direct netflix's new cujo movie which blew my mind because i i mean the wrestler black swan Requiem for a Dream. I always say Requiem for a Dream. Some of my favorite movies. He did The Whale too, didn't he? Oh, The Fountain. The Fountain. Mother with...
Jayloff. I still haven't seen that one. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm excited. If he does end up doing it, I would be so excited. Yeah, how cool, eh? Interesting. It's a weird one, but I was excited nonetheless. Not to spoil... I don't want to spoil Cujo, but there's... It's a minor spoiler, but there's an infidelity arc.
To the book. Okay. That's not what I thought you were going to say. Sure. The dog is a robot the whole time. But I hope that it, I'd be interested to see what Aronofsky does with that. Like maybe lean into like the family dynamic. a little bit more than yeah you know because like the the the rabbit dog obviously is scary but there's like more to the book than that
Yes. There's quite a bit going on in that book. It's a great book. I'm surprised. I thought it was going to be way more corny than it was. I thought it was great. I really liked it. Actually, I might reread that. There is a good... four or five page chunk where he's talking about making cereal or I was kind of like, all right, man, like maybe wrap it up.
Maybe put the little baggie down, Steven. You can tell that he has no recollection of writing this book. He was going through it, but it still worked. I hope that they do some sort of Cujo P.O. or like really show the transition of Cujo from like happy sweet dog to what he becomes because I thought that was the most interesting well not the most interesting but an interesting part of the book I had always thought that Cujo was just this psycho dog
from the get-go i was surprised to see that no he's like a super sweet puff yeah i know i i didn't know that there was a progression in there so um that would be well and st bernard's are like yeah that's the kind of dog it is right i think so yeah Yeah, sweetie pies. I wish I could get one, but my apartment complex won't let me have 150-pound, 200-pound dogs. It would take up half your room there.
Yeah, it's fun. It's total sidetrack here, way off the beaten path. But I remember the first time I ever saw a Newfoundland dog. Is that, sorry, hold on. No, they're from your neck of the woods.
I know that's why I'm embarrassed I don't know what you're talking about oh these guys oh my gosh they're massive yeah yeah so like I I was I was at a friend's house and you know we're all just hanging out in the living room and my friend's girlfriend had come in through the back door of the house and i heard a dog but i didn't really like process it and i was just like whatever and
The dog had like stayed in the kitchen and she had come out to say hey to everybody. And then I went into the kitchen and I forgot that there was a dog in the house. And I thought, I literally thought it was a person in a dog costume.
They're not big. I just didn't look real. Like I was just like, I can't believe this dog is actually this big. There's no way. He was so sweet. I fell in love with him like immediately. Yeah, they're obviously. They've got the sweetest faces. Have you seen that graph? That's like it's like a. perfect like diagonal line going uh bottom left to bottom to top right and it just shows like on the on the y-axis it's uh it says like um
Sorry, I'm trying to do this without a visual aid. It goes from the top left to the bottom right, the line, and the y-axis is... like the pitch of voice i use and then the x-axis is size of the dog and so so like the pitch of voice you use gets lower the bigger the dog is It's so true. Oh, it's so annoyingly true. I've got a big, big boy in my house. I got two dogs. One specifically is a German King Shepherd. He's...
King. He's a big, big, big, big, big boy. And yeah, it's true. Every time I talk to him, I'm talking to him like, oh, so yeah. And then we've got our other dogs, uh, older and smaller and yeah, it's, it's definitely a, uh, sweeter voice directed towards her. Um, I think, I think there's a King shepherd here in my, in my building.
because it looks exactly they're like really fluffy right they can be fluffy yeah ours ours has some uh german mixed in them too so he's kind of got the more of like a german like i don't actually i don't know how that works because some german shepherds are pretty fluffy All I know is I want one and I can't have one because my cat wouldn't approve. Branson's pretty cool. I bought a plant.
That was my first plant, my first house plant. I put it on a really high shelf, and he slithered his way up there and ate the entire thing. I checked at the plant store if it was okay if cats eat them, just in case. they said it was fine. But yeah, like, I feel like, you know, he just, he just went to town on it while I was sleeping. He waited until I was asleep and he crawled up there and then ate the entire plant.
That's what I love about cats. They're always thinking. They're thinking ahead. He had a whole game plan. He's a good boy. He's cool. He sits with me while I'm writing. Speaking of cats, what did you read this week? Great transition there. Seamless. Pet Sematary. reading this nonfiction book called say nothing. Oh yeah. That's about the mostly about the IRA really. And I finished that one up. It was really, really good.
Thought that it was mostly going to take place in the late 60s, early 70s, Bloody Sunday and all that stuff, which there is a lot of that, but it really actually goes all the way through to almost like current times, you know, like mid 2000s. I think it came out in 2016, and it goes pretty much right up until that point. So it was interesting to see that the IRA and the main key players really have been active forever.
And there's this one guy specifically, I don't know if I should even mention his name on the internet because I'm like scared, but he's... yeah he's definitely a snake and if you read this book you'll not be too fond of him he was kind of like the big major player in the ira and i left and then i'm gonna leave it at that but say nothing is really really good uh very informative it is a bit
of a dense book because there's so much information but i was been so interested in this topic that it really hit yeah every note for me i really uh quite liked it and i've since moved on to in cold blood by um and i'm just starting that one i'm really really liking that one it's um it's pretty fantastic i it's gruesome it's gruesome yeah but i have to say i'm not that far in yet
I had been reading before I started this book that there are some complaints or just conversation about how Truman Capote might have embellished some things or just kind of added some stuff in that was more just him. saying it and not something that actually happened and I feel like there are some conversations that are mentioned between characters in this book and it's like how would anyone really know what these people were actually saying but
I think that I'm really liking the book still. Like it's not throwing me out of it. And I feel like it's almost kind of adding to the. Yeah, totally. The story for me. So I'm kind of like. I get it. I can see that maybe some stuff was kind of thrown in here more, you know, from Truman Capote's mind. But I don't know. It kind of works for me. I would recommend after you're finished reading the book.
Watch the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie because it's not just about him. It's about him writing in cold blood. Oh, cool. I've seen it. I just can't remember it. I forgot you had seen it. Watch it again through the lens of having read the book. Yeah, absolutely. Because it kind of digs into his mindset.
around all of it and like like how he approached writing it and how he approached like doing his research for it okay cool and like what kind of person he was it's just it's an amazing movie and it really sheds some light on on the book that you're reading okay sweet yeah uh i really Really, really like that movie. And I like that book a lot. It's like one of those books that I don't really want to read again, though. This is kind of like, what a horrible situation to write about.
yeah the way i'm not quite there yet and we're kind of just learning about the family and um and and all that so it's you know i can i can feel it coming and it's gonna be yeah i gotta gotta build it up before you bring it all down i guess yeah right thanks good buddy What are you reading right now? Oh, man. You're mostly writing. I've mostly been writing. I haven't really been sleeping very much the last few days because I crushed out the first draft.
of the second book in the rising tide trilogy is out to my editor uh we we did it i took a like i don't know how this thing got done i took a gigantic break on it where i wrote a totally different novella I had to step away from the project for a second. And I just buckled down and I... got it done. It's sitting right now at about 125,000 words or something like around there. And I'm probably going to add like another 20 or 30,000 words to it in the revision process, I think.
I want to make it long. It's going to be long. I'm pretty proud of it. It's sloppy. There's whole pages that... i'm probably going to need to like totally rewrite and like whole scenes that aren't going to work that i need to replace and stuff and things that just aren't very refined that you know i just didn't want to get lost in the sauce with it and i just wanted to get i got the plot down i got you know
where I want everything to go and where I want everything to settle and then get set up for the third and final book. This is my first time ever writing a trilogy. The second book I've heard, even my editor was like, the second book's going to be rough like everybody struggles with a second book in a trilogy um so just
take your time. It's going to take some more heavy edits and revisions and stuff, but I am really proud of it. Over the last week, I really haven't been reading too much. I've just been sitting at my computer either at home. or at coffee shops or even like bars i like went to a bar and had a couple drinks and was just like all right let's hammer this out let's go um yeah i've really like it's funny too because like i've been keeping track of all my word counts over the last month
And some days it's pretty good. But some days it's like 500 words. But some days it's like 2,500, 3,000, 4,000. And I'm like really rolling. But it's like I'm spending the same amount of time. every day but it's just sometimes i really am just like staring into space for like 45 minutes that feeling when you get going now when you do write those three four thousand words
It's so good. Yeah. So I'm really excited about that. I did, you know, I'm still reading Well of Ascension. I think I should probably, I'll probably finish it up this week, I think. Nice. Like I said, I feel like such a fool for... putting these books down because it just really goes to show, man. Sometimes you read something and it's just not the right time.
It really just isn't. That's not when you're supposed to be reading it. And I'm really happy that I saved Mistborn for now because it's a great world to dip back into. That's awesome, man. Maybe I should retry the Bible or something. Maybe. Who knows? It's never been the right time. Maybe now. Maybe now. It's the time. I'm glad you like Moe of Ascension. I really enjoy that book quite a bit. Yeah, it's great. What else am I doing? Oh, I'm reading Vagabond, the manga series based on Musashi.
I just finished the second volume last night, so I'm moving through it, actually, and it's great. I really like it a lot. People kept recommending it to me after I had gone through my Berserk phase. i'm gonna i will say uh it's i can see the comparisons obviously but like berserk is In my opinion, like a thousand times better than Vagabond. That's just my personal opinion. I know that a lot of people really like Vagabond, and I think Vagabond is great.
Berserk is just that good. Yeah, Berserk is that good. And I think the art is that good. Berserk is just like a one in a million kind of like everybody should read it. But also look up the content warnings, please. Fair point. Have you ever read Death Note? Yeah, I can't get into Death Note. I've tried so many times. I've tried the manga. I've tried the show like three times. It's just not for me. Yeah, fair enough. I've got a few people recommending that one specifically. I just wasn't sure.
I don't know a lot about manga other than I really like Akira. Oh, yeah. I'm going to get into Berserk right now. I've got the first one ready to go. Yeah, I would go for Berserk. Berserk is a great... manga, just make sure to please check the content warnings. I can't stress that enough. Please check the content warnings. It's a lot. But Death Note, I don't know. It was just... Okay, I'm going to put on my cynical pants for a second for Death Note.
without spoiling too much i hope but for me i just didn't like it how it was just kind of like well if i do this then he's gonna know that i did this but then he doesn't know that i know that he knows that i'm gonna do this so and it's like that so often and it's like i kind of get maybe i'm just like not smart enough for it and it's just like i get kind of lost in like what exactly the plan is and like what's going on um without
I don't want to say the entire plot to everybody. But also, I think that one of the reasons I didn't like the manga is because I read it right after I finished up with Berserk. And I think that... It's a really harsh transition from berserk to death note because death note is like a lot of like office buildings and like the inside of his bedroom and like schools and regular looking streets and stuff. It's like, it's very different.
than berserk um going from berserk to anything is probably a pretty yeah probably maybe anything at all but um and then But as far as manga goes, I haven't read a ton of them. I really liked Vinland Saga. It's very good. That's another one that gets thrown out there quite a bit. Yeah, that one's really good. I liked it a lot. What's that really big one right now? everywhere. There's a bunch of them. Was it called One Piece or something?
one piece yeah one piece is really popular yeah do i sound like an idiot is that like you sound like you don't watch anime or read manga yeah well yeah one piece is still ongoing there's like 1100 plus episodes or something like that whoa oh my gosh it's really long it's really really long oh so that's just a show that's not like no it's a manga too yeah okay um and then like i think bleach is also really long
um but like the other the big mangas are like uh you know there's like uh like hunter hunter um uh death note's a big one uh berserk is a big one obviously um i really liked uh claymore
It's not as popular, but Claymore is really cool. It's about these warrior women who kill these... like demon creatures uh they're like the only ones that can do it and there's like some like there's like some inner politicking like in this like order of warrior women uh it's a really really good manga uh but yeah i mean like there's some i feel like with
With anime and manga, you just got to give it a shot. It's just like with anything else. It's like with fantasy books where someone's like, well, I don't really like fantasy. It's like, well, you might have just not found the series that... you really like and i feel like it's the same thing with manga and anime too where it's like you know maybe somebody tried
uh jujutsu kaisen or something and they were like ah i don't like manga and it's like whoa hang on hang on you didn't like that manga like maybe we should try like a couple different ones yeah try one piece uh have you read any junji ito the horror uh mangaka no no yeah that's uh check out uzamaki uzamaki okay yeah that's really if you're if you're trying to read something gross
Heavy emphasis on the word gross. They're pictures, okay? It's not just words. They're very detailed pictures. So just keep that in mind. Man, some of the art in Akira, I just can't stop looking at it. It's so...
Cool. I read the first volume, but I haven't kept up with the rest of it. Have you read all of Akira? I just finished three. Okay, so you're moving through it. Yeah, I'm going a little slower. I powered through the first two, and then... bought that really cool box set because i was so into it and then read the third one and then kind of slowed down but um totally yeah it's it's uh it's just really pretty to look at just makes me feel cool you know reading akira yeah
put on like a slow dive shirt walk around with your akira and your americano you know it's funny i've got a slow dive record hanging on my wall right now right above my akira box hey look at me really weird that you just said that yeah man i read you to filth. All right. Hell yeah. But yeah, that's all I'm really reading right now. I kind of took a pause on Lonesome Dove. I took a pause on
Uh, even like house of Frank, which I really, really love. I'm like two thirds of the way through that book and I just haven't finished it. I've just been not much of a, yeah, I'm not in much of a reading mood. I have been watching, uh, I've been watching that show shrinking.
with Harrison Ford and Jason Siegel. Keep hearing how good that is. It's awesome. It's really good. Yeah, I like it a lot. It's like exactly the kind of show that I needed. Like, I mean, if you're listening right now and you find yourself like in kind of like a rut and you kind of want like a...
a good like comfort show that's a it's fantastic i really like it um i've got a few nitpicks about it like some of the moments in the show are really heartwarming and really wholesome and they stand on their own but then some of them it's like
Do you have to throw a joke in? Can we just have this moment? Do we have to have this emotionally insecure kind of... spot where you did hit the emotional high point and then you got to kind of like knock it back down with a cheap joke but that's just like a very nitpicky
like writing critique i have for it so it's kind of like how marvel movies do that sometimes too kind of quippy like it's yeah oh it's so quippy yeah that does kind of bother me sometimes i can't like it's almost like gilmore girls quippy
I do love Gilmore Girls, so maybe... I think you'll like it, yeah. But for anybody listening who hasn't watched it and you're curious, Shrinking, the main three characters are... therapists um who live in southern california and um one of the therapists jason siegel he kind of goes off the beaten path and just kind of starts
doing therapy in a more like unconventional way that like seems to be working, but also comes with its own issues as well. And then like, he's got like kind of an estranged daughter. He's got like a kind of broken relationship with, and like, it's just kind of like this ensemble.
who are all like really close but they've all got like their kind of their own mental things going on and kind of how it's like this big friend group and everybody's like pretty vulnerable with each other and it's just like a really fresh like new kind of take on um like friendship and relationship dynamics and stuff um and the music is really good the score like whoever the music supervisor was for shrinking did a great job
like really good stuff. Speaking of relationship dynamics, I'm watching the show called temptation Island. on Netflix. You're in reality shows, man. I don't know if you've seen this show, Temptation Island. Oh my gosh.
Okay, let me give you the rundown here. Can I ask? Sorry, I don't want to ruin your spiel. I'm just curious if I'm right about this. Throw a guess at me. Is this the one where like... uh they just throw a bunch of hot people onto an island and they're like not they're like supposed to not sleep with each other
Is that what it is? That is a different show. Oh my God. Yeah, that's a different show. This is season one of Temptation Island. That show you're talking about, oh my God, what is that one called? Is that called Love Island? Is it Love Island? I just remember there's a robot and the robot's like, so-and-so made out with so-and-so. You lost $10,000 or whatever. I just looked it up. There's a show called Too Hot to Handle.
which is a group of attractive singles is brought to a tropical resort thinking they're in for a while time but there's a twist they can't engage in any sexual activity including kissing touching or hugging up if they break the rules money is deducted yeah oh it's supposed to Encourage emotional connections over physical attraction. I love that. It's a fabulous show. And there's an AI assistant named Lana.
That's it. I swear this is a book podcast, everybody, but I need to hear about this Temptation Island thing. Okay, so Temptation Island. I'm going to be super quick here. This is season one.
four couples show up to an island basically and they are there to basically test the strength of their relationship and so when they get there the guys go off to this their own house their own kind of vacation area the girls go to their own vacation area but along with the guys go 10 women that are there to basically tempt them out of their You know, to be like...
You know, are they all aware of this? They're all aware of this. There are also 10 guys that go to the girls spot and the guys are there too. And you know, there's like weird. Oh my gosh. It's so crazy. I love it. And so, um, You love the tea, Nick. Dude, I love it. I don't really watch shows unless it's shows like this. I don't watch Breaking Bad. I don't watch anything. This is such a fun thing to learn about my new friend. Temptation Island is great. So there's this thing.
this tent okay and each side has a tent and there are no cameras allowed in the tent so the tent is thought to be this kind of like if you're going into the tent bad things are happening. Right. And so what happens is if a guy goes into the tent with like one of those, one of the 10 temptation girls at the girl, I'd like their partner's house.
it starts flashing red lights. So the girls know that one of the guys have gone into the tent, but they don't know which one. So and vice versa. If one of the girls goes into the tent, with the temptation guy the red lights flash at the guy's place and they just know that someone has done something bad but they don't know who oh it's so good i think that you uh i think you might really like
You might really like the tea. So much so, in fact, that I think maybe it'd be a good idea for you to read some romance books. I think you might be right. Maybe quite a few. I'm not saying that romance books are the equivalent of Temptation Island. saying that. There's probably a lot of romance books that are way better than Temptation Island. I don't know if it gets much better than Temptation Island. Maybe that's the peak. We've peaked as a society with Temptation Island.
that seems kind of mean it seems like cruel almost it's so mean it's so mean two of the guys specifically are the worst um people i've ever they cast that on purpose right and i imagine that like like if things just if everybody's being too faithful what do they do they just like come on one of you guys has got to do it like we need to make a tv show here come on yeah maybe i should get into some romance i don't know i got i got a couple on the lineup uh
You know, my wife would love me to get more into it for sure. Do it. Yeah. There's some really good stuff out there. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Absolutely. I'm going to Google books like temptation Island later and I'll, we'll see what I do right now. Yeah. Okay. We're on a book podcast. Let's do it. What do we got? Yeah, we are. What are we doing here? Books like temptation Island.
Or I'll say Love is Blind, just to switch it up. I'll do Temptation Island, you do Love is Blind. Okay. The first one I got here... Okay, so we got... Facing Reality by Sienna Atwell? Okay. I've never heard of that. We have a reality show and social experiment romance. We have The Love Hypothesis by Allie Hazelwood. Ooh, I actually have that.
Yeah, it's a fake dating romance with academic tension. Fake dating. Okay, so I'm learning about all these tropes and stuff like that when it comes to the romance novels. I'm trying to figure out which one. I think forced proximity might be. Yep, that's a fun one. I personally really like the enemies to lovers. It's almost like a cliche at this point to like it, but I really do dig it a lot. It's popular for a reason.
is just so great man like the tension like it's it's like i know deep down inside i know that these two are going to hook up but i just love how annoyed they are with each other or how annoyed one of them sometimes is with the other one and it's just like it's really not looking like it's going to happen uh but then
like despite it all it's that's pretty fun you know you know which one i really like too is the fake relationship or like the fake dating i don't think i've ever read one of those before I just like the idea of it. It seems fun. I want to say people you meet on vacation is a fake dating one that's quite popular. I think. I think, I think, I think. So I'll give that one a try. I don't know.
Are you and I just going to start reading romance books? Welcome to Book Reviews Kill, the podcast about romance books. I read one recently, or like last year, called The Undertaking of Heart and Mercy by Megan Bannon, which was a little bit enemies to lovers, but it was a totally secondary world. It was about a woman who runs a, like an undertaker, like a mortician shop. I don't know what the right term is for that. Crazy. Like my girl style? Huh?
Kind of like My Girl? I've never seen that or heard of What is My Girl? Am I thinking of the right movie? I don't know. With Macaulay Culkin? He can't see without his glasses. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. You know what I'm talking about right now? Dude, oh my gosh. The 1991 smash hit My Girl? No, I don't think that this is like that at all. Maybe? I don't know. No, no, no. I just, I just mean to say like she, her dad is a undertaker. I think of the right movie.
I don't know. I mean, you said Macaulay Culkin and he's in it. So you're some, you're circling some kind of right answer. Yeah. But I haven't seen that movie in like 30 years. It is a very old movie.
but yeah like uh i would recommend that to anybody listening who um kind of wants to dip their toe into romance but still wants like that fantasy um like spectacle would be the undertaking of heart and mercy and then the uh the sequel just came out something twyla and frank i can't remember what the other word is for that uh but
That one's really good. And then, obviously, I would totally recommend Fourth Wing to anybody that's trying to get into romance but still wants to scratch the fantasy itch. I still haven't read Iron Flame or Onyx Storm, but I thought Fourth Wing was like...
pretty well pulled off and uh like the enemies to lovers thing in that one is definitely really cool too uh but there's so much man like the like there's a there's two series by carissa broadbent that i've still been meaning to read that i've heard are really really good um There's a lot. There's so much.
There's so much to get into. There's one called The Dragon's Bride by Katie Robert. Oh, it's Katie Robert. Yeah, I've read that one. Oh, have you read that one? It's great. It's really good. She recommends that one to me quite often. Apparently, The Dragon's got like two things. hey you know yeah i mean that's how she described it to me she's like you'll love this one um yeah so maybe and it's not even that long really it's like she's got it no i read it in like two days or something
Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. A lot of fun. Yep. Yep. Uh, I mean, I've read a few Ruby Dixon books. Um, I mean, there's the classic like ice planet barbarians. right oh yeah right which was super popular on book talk for a while and i thought it was just like so much fun um and then i read like i read another one called fire in his blood which was like
Well, it's like a dragon like shapeshifter book, but it's like post apocalyptic too, which I thought was super cool. I would say like if you're looking for like more erotic, I would. kind of leaned into like the Katie Robert or the Ruby Dixon area. But then, yeah, if you want to stick with more secondary world fantasy stuff... Yeah, give Fourth Ring a read. I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff that I haven't read that's also really, really good. Yeah.
My wife just finished a W like a, not a WWE romance book, but like the guy is a professional wrestler. And I want to read your wife. She's the best. It's called wild side. I just messaged her wild side. Check it out, everybody, if you're into wrestlers. It's by Elsie Silver. Elsie Silver is really popular, too. We need to get Lindsay on here at some point because I need to pick her brain about. I'm so curious. It's like you guys' kids got into wrestling.
And then did she pick up the wrestling romance? Yeah. She just finished it like a few days ago. Yeah. She's like, I gotta get, I gotta dig deeper into this. Motivated somehow. I didn't even know that was a thing. Oh, a new Hunger Games book came out today, I believe. Oh, yeah. That's the one about Hamish. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I might go pick that up, actually.
Yeah, I wonder if that's any good. I still haven't read Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the one about President Snow. Sure. I think this one's a prequel, so you could probably just jump into it. Yeah, the Hamish one is, yeah. I think the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes one is also a prequel, I think. Oh, fair enough. Okay. Yeah. Cause I don't know if they're going to like, I don't think you can really like keep it going. Like everything's fine for like, for like 400 pages.
But no, yeah, I forgot. We should do that on the podcast is like update people on books that have come out, actually. That would be a great idea. That's probably a book news people actually want to hear about. Instead of the Starship Troopers movie. The niche Shannara news. Everybody's like, what's Shannara? No, I'm just kidding. It's only me. Yeah, no, it's literally just you.
Everybody in my entire audience has read all of Shannara. Yes, I know they have. I always get scared when I'm in your Discord. I'm like, oh, hey, cat. That's not what I say when I'm in your Discord. Hey, Branson. He doesn't like it when I talk when there's not another person in the room. Yeah. So if I'm on the phone or if I'm doing like an interview or something.
And I'm just talking into my microphone, but I've got headphones in. He thinks that I'm talking to him. So cute. He just wants to be part of the conversation. Branson. I'm going to write a book about Branson. Please, please write a book about Branson. Cozy adventure novel. Just him. Just the adventures of Branson in an apartment with a sad post-breakup man in his 30s.
With a tattoo addiction. He's on the couch again. He's eating raisin bran over the sink. He's so pathetic. Two scoops of granulated sugar. He literally never brings anybody over here. Come on, man. It's his brother again. It's been months, dude. Aren't you going to bring someone over? Oh, look, he came home alone again. My honor is such a loser. Poor Branson. Or I could do like portal fantasy. That would be cool. Like a portal fantasy for a cat.
That'd be kind of rad, actually. I actually just posted on my Threads account that I wanted to write a book about a dragon who wants to be a firefighter. i was stoked about it because i was like that's such a great idea and then like three comments were like oh that's been done with like this book series or like with this tv show or like
Oh, shit. It makes sense. Like, it's a pretty, yeah, like, it's, it's like right there. It's pretty low. I think that's a good idea. I had never heard of it. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. No, I am working on another fantasy series right now. um in addition to the rising tide stuff um which is like a little more on the cozy side so i want you to write a um forced proximity romance novel i think that's your next move
I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could do romance. Like I really, I don't know if I got the hands for it, man. I don't know if I, I don't know if I could get a heart skull tattoo and you'll be right there.
you know yeah i could right on my neck yes i don't know man i just don't know if i got the like writing i feel like romance and comedy are really hard to write like I have so much respect for people that write so many good romance books because it's like, man, that's a vibe and you're just using words. You really got to craft that and it's probably really difficult to do it well. I know it's really difficult to do comedy well.
I don't even know if I've done it well, but I've talked to a lot of authors, and most of them are like, yeah, humor. Humor is so rough. It's just so difficult. It's hard to make everybody laugh at the same time, for sure. Or even I make myself laugh sometimes, but yeah, but then I read it again. Just write a book that makes you laugh and hopefully people will follow. I think it'd be cool to write like a buddy cop, like fantasy book, you know?
um like take like a that's sort of what ng uh no like it's not really that no it's more like a the dynamic is more like the last of us or like god of war Okay. Where it's like a much older person and a much younger person. But I always thought it'd be kind of fun to do like a Yeah, like a kind of Starsky and Hutch type situation, but make it like fantasy.
Or like a Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon kind of thing. Sure. But like fantasy, you know. But they call them love. Yeah. Okay. That'd be fun too. They can't stand each other. I don't like your methods, but damn, you get results. And also, we should make out. Wildly handsome. So handsome.
Oh, we should go. We need to leave. We're way back. Yeah, I got a piece, buddy. I'm sorry. You got to leave. You got, you got stuff to do. You got responsibilities. You got responsibles. Hey, you know, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. You're all awesome. And we've got more news and more ramblings ahead. But until then, I hope you all have an amazing rest of your day. And of course, happy reading. See you, buddies.