 Okay, we are alive. Yeah. Alright. I am terrible at hosting lives because I almost never have to do it, but I have to do the introduction. So hello. Welcome. We are here today to talk about world building specifically about historical accuracy when it applies and when historical accuracy does not apply, i.e. if it's speculative fiction, how things like historical accuracy do still come into play. So we're calling that similitude. And this is going to be very pedantic and very nitpicky. But it should be fun. So if you'd like to introduce yourself. Yeah, my name is Hilary. I'm from the channel Book Born, and I talk about adult fantasy just like Liana. And I also like to get pendantic. So that's why I'm perfect for this. Now this kind of all started because I recently read a book called Half Sick of Shadows and mentioned in my stories on Instagram that I hate it. And then Hilary was like, I also got that from Book of the Month. Oh, no. And so then I just started telling her everything that was wrong with it. And then we just got to talking about how just this generally frustrates us these kinds of problems. And here we are, we're going to discuss generally how we feel about these kinds of problems. So I mean, we don't have any particular order that we need to talk about these things. But I kind of we've kind of already been between the two of us and also in prepping for this have been kind of chatting about when we do and do not dock things for having historical accuracy type of mistakes, when we forgive it, when we zero in on it, when it breaks immersion, when it is intentional, like all this, there's there is no like one size fits all like it has always has to be done this way kind of thing. So I don't know if you want to start positive or negative like when we hate it the most or like when we do forgive it. I think I mean, the sad thing is I think a lot of forgiveness can come from how emotional the piece of work makes you feel. We were just talking about Merlin before, which I know you haven't watched, but like Merlin clearly has some historical inaccuracies, but the characterization works so well that I think it's more forgivable. And they feel more intentional for me, intention is a lot. I can usually tell when I'm reading a book, if somebody knows their stuff and are purposely breaking something versus they have no idea what's going on. And like I read Half Sick of Shadows for this live, and it was so clear reading that she had no idea to read it. I told you I did and it was terrible. And it was fine. I made it through. It was actually worse than you said it was, in my opinion, but I have to tell you it was worse than Ariadne and you didn't believe me. I did it, but it was it was worse. And I think, you know, Ariadne has the same issue in a different way, not necessarily historically, but I wasn't convinced that either of these authors actually knew their source material very well. And I feel like if you were going to write a retelling, you need to be so immersed in that source material so you know when and why you are breaking rules. Like I think you brought up in your video about how like the whole point of Arthur is like, because Europe wasn't together yet. So if you're setting this outside of the fifth century, then you need a good reason that Arthur is still needed, you know? Yeah. And like, I think, I mean, I also said in that video that like if you want to zero in on a different like character from the Arthur myth and kind of divorce it from the Arthur myth and just kind of focus on that character, take it out of that setting, put it in a different setting and just kind of use what is part of that character as your inspiration. It's kind of a jumping off point like you DNF the Red Rising series. But I only read two of the books. I read two of the books that well, like, and I can never explain why because it's spoilery, but like Pierce Brown was reading or rereading Antigone because he's a big fan of Greek classics. And it was while he was rereading Antigone that he started thinking about like the situation that's in Antigone and that thinking resulted in Red Rising. So like Red Rising is in no way a retelling of Antigone. And if any time I tell somebody that that is familiar with Antigone, they're like, but it Antigone. And they're like, no, it's not a retelling of that. He just some like things that happen in Antigone. He was like, oh, this situation. Oh, like forget the rest of this story. But like this specific situation that happens in Antigone. It's got me thinking about like what that does to characters and how that affects them and how that would make you feel. And then just like, then we ended up with a space opera. Yeah. So if Arthur, like if you weren't really that interested in retelling Arthur and or even any part of Arthur in the context of Arthur, but like maybe you were reading like some retelling of Arthur. Maybe extra lot. Right. I think that's what she really was obsessed with. Yeah. And so if you wanted to, you're like just something about this character situation is interesting to you and not. You're not really interested in Arthur at all. So just remove the whole Arthur thing. Just use this as jumping off point and tell your own story. You can set it wherever you want. You just have to make it make sense internally in this world that you are now creating. Completely. I mean, it's like Lion King is Hamlet. You know, no one thinks the Lion King is actually Hamlet. Like I'm much more forgiving when it's inspired by that when they're trying to do these retellings. And I think it's also like they're set in our world. Like Greek myths and Arthur legends are the ones that I read most commonly. Like those exist in our real world. So you can't you can't remove it. It's fine if you're Game of Thrones and you're in Westeros. Like there's way easier to mix and match historical settings because I can't claim that Westeros followed the same historical pattern that we were you. I mean, I haven't read these, but or you very consciously divorce it from its time, i.e. Percy Jackson, where like you're taking Greek myth and you're like very actively like no one is like Rick Rayord and it clearly is not aware that Greek myth is like he definitely knows like this is a different project and it's explicitly a different project that the authors very clear about what they're doing with that. Yeah. And again, like you said, no one thinks Rick Rayord and thought the Greek myths were happening in modern day. Like no one. I feel like no one's talking about this. I just discovered it. And I feel like I should write a middle grade book about it. Yeah. So I think that's I mean what you nailed is like it can't be too similar. Like you either have to divorce it so much that you understand it's purposeful. And I think purpose is for me what the biggest deal is. Like I told you already, we talked about this a lot about half sick of shadows. Like if I had had a single statement from the author that she was setting that in a different time period, I would literally forgive so much of it. But because it literally just always is a straight Arthurian retelling any time she talks about it from the Lady of Shilat's perspective. I'm like, you didn't even know. You like didn't even know you were doing it. Well, what's also problematic about that is that if you're now going to choose to be kind and read half sick of shadows and interpret it as this being an intentional relocating it in like Bridgerton times, except that doesn't work either because it's not accurate to that time either because it does have sort of medieval-ish elements in it that you're like, well, then it's not accurate for Bridgerton times because like it wasn't accurate for any era. It was just kind of like the past. It does feel like people have some very specific references or not people like authors like 1920s, 1950s, and then past. Sometimes I feel like authors get caught up in that where like anything before 1950s is core sets are bad. And like, you know, it's just a very weird thing that happens a lot and it matters because it takes me out of the story personally. And I feel like even like, I don't know as much as you do. So like, I wouldn't have caught all the little things. Like I could tell it was wrong, but I don't think I would have known. But that's my point. I think that like if an author like Ken Follett had been writing this, there are things that I wouldn't have questioned. I'd have been like, oh, I didn't know they had that in that time period. OK, but because this lady was wrong 90 percent of the time. Any time there was something that I was surprised by them having in that time period, I was like, I bet they didn't. But it's even like the cocoa scene. I don't know why that's the scene that really bothered me so much. Like I don't need to be some scholar to be like, really, authoritarian times, go get some hot cocoa. Like it just takes you so out. And I had talked to we were talking about a book, The Future of Another Timeline, which I know nobody has read. So whatever, it's about time traveling women, cool concept. But like they'd be really in the past and they'd be swearing in ways that just like didn't exist in those tide periods. I googled it to check. I was pretty sure. And that kind of modern language always really takes me out. Like these women were trying to blend in. But then talking so modern, like it just it takes me out of a story. Like that's just not how it would be. Yeah. And so, like, I mean, you're kind of going into it now. Like I was going to say four people who are like, OK, well, so what if this isn't accurate to the time? Why does that matter? And there's obviously a lot of people that think that it doesn't matter. I have been told this that it doesn't matter. So, I mean, I can ask you why you think it matters. And I guess I want to qualify that question with like, I don't mean this in like you should learn history because I don't mean like, why does history matter? I mean, like, why does it mean like that, at least in our opinion, this makes the quality of a book suffer? For me, and I mean, this might sound rude, but I find that if an author is not willing to put in the research or legwork for things that are very easy to find answers to, like, do crystal goblets exist in the fifth century? They don't, I think that they become lazy in other aspects of their storytelling. And I don't want to crap on half stick of shadows, because for sure it is not the only book that has done this. It's just the most recent, but it's like their character work was sloppy. They're plotting with sloppy. Everything about it was basic. And I feel like because that followed through on the kind of effort she was willing to put into this book in general. And I I know that sounds harsh. But when I think of retellings that I love like Searsay, so clearly the research and legwork was done. And I think that just kind of bespoke to the author as a whole. I don't know. What do you think? So I mean, I think that's part of it. I mean, yeah, I think that's an indicator of a lack of willingness to put effort in. But for me, it's more just to do with the fact that I read books kind of holistically. And there are things that are my favorite things like character, like I'm a character driven reader. So the thing that I care most about being done well is that but if any piece of it isn't done well, then like, I mean, it's like your body, like the heart and and mind are really important organs. But like it's a whole body and if anything's going wrong, it's going to affect the whole thing. So for me, a lot of it has to do with it. Your world no longer supports the story you're telling if it is not internally consistent. And if it's a historical time period, then a lot of it has to do with historical accuracy. And if it's fantasy, which will like we can talk about more later, but like it comes into it. We're like the way that people are your characters, the way that they react to things, the way that they plan, the way that they strategize, the way that they view the world is affected by what they have access to, affected by what they are, what they are wearing possibly, like if corsets are a thing that certainly affects you. So it's important to know whether they are a thing, just like what are the social customs? What are the like cultural mores of the time? Or what are the invented cultural mores of your fantasy world? Because these are all things that affect your character's decisions. They affect the world that you're building. And if OK, like you can set Arthur in as we talked about in Bridgers and Times, but internally, like this is going to affect everything about how the characters view each other, how they treat each other, what isn't isn't acceptable for them to be doing. And if you just like have this complete hodgepodge, I no longer have a sense of what this character should or shouldn't do, would or wouldn't do. What is possible? What isn't possible? What is likely? What is unlikely? It is just a mess. It's it's so true. I love what you said, like you don't have any basis for the characters. And that's why I'm saying, like, I think the lack of research does affect characters because now they are unmoored in time or place or culture or societal rules or whatever it is. And I saw that so much in their on Avalon versus being in Camelot. Like they'd be like, well, on Avalon, this is going to not have a lot of blood from Percy Jackson, which I never read, but it's how I imagine either. It was like, well, we can have sex whenever we want on Avalon. But now that we're back in Camelot, like we don't do that stuff. And I'm like, well, why? Like, what have you given me as a character to explain why you would be rooted in Camelot's Bridgerton rules if you have lived for 15 years in an an Avalon world? You know, anyway, I think that all kind of goes together. And yeah, it does unmoor characters. And I think anything that takes you out of the story ultimately hurts the story in the long run. If you can't like stay immersed. Exactly. And like that's when I think and we've talked about this too, like when we do forgive it, because obviously there are times when and usually, which we've also said already, it's if it's done intentionally. There's a reason why the authors chosen to do this, why they've put in something that is either completely historically and I hear it if it is historical fiction or again, if it's speculative fiction that seems unlikely for this scenario to be there. And if there's a really, I mean, I guess it's up to the reader to decide if it's a good idea to have done that. But like it was consciously done on the part of the author. It wasn't like, I don't know, maybe historical times dresses as opposed to like very because I almost, I guess a good comparison or what comes to mind to me is the way that Shakespeare is often like Shakespeare productions because it's kind of rare that they're actually like Elizabethan in aesthetic. People love to play around with setting a Shakespeare play. And who knows what time period on a spaceship or on a pirate ship or all the ships, apparently, I've seen all of the renaissance to the 1940s. Like, and you have to make it make sense for the story you're telling. And there's some forgiveness from the audience because we understand that this Shakespeare, but even then there's some avant-garde things where like this is not any place or time. It's something that is, it's, you know, like a bare bones set where like it's, it's out outside of place and time. And these are all very active choices, usually on the part of a director versus if you watched a production that is supposed to be Elizabethan, but then has some like very not Elizabethan costumes. And you're like, is that all you could find? That that doesn't look like the others. So I mean, there can be very like creative choices made with like, for example, Shakespeare. So like if you made the choice, say if you were putting on Midsummer Night's Dream, and Midsummer Night's Dream is the one with all the fairies. So if you had it where like, if everything is Elizabethan looking and then the parts with the fairies, they're all dressed in like jeans and t-shirts or whatever, because like the fairies are outside of place and time. So like they're dressed to modern, like I've never actually seen a production and now I want someone to do that. But like that would be like, OK, like we're not saying Elizabethan times had jeans and t-shirts, but this author is using that imagery to like make them other. So like if something super like bonkers was done with Avalon, I would have forgiven a lot about Avalon in Have Sick of Shadows. If this was the place where like all rules are off because this is a magical place. So like it's bananas and so it might be modern or it might be wild or it might whatever. So like it was actively like I want to make this different from. And so I'm actively choosing to change things about what this time period would be like, you know, something like that. It just needs to be pushed further. Yeah, I need to be pushed further when it's all about intent. You kept saying like, well, if an intentional choice by the director was to set Shakespeare, it's intentional. And when you read some of these books, you're like, this isn't intentional. You just didn't know. And I can be forgiving other times. Like, have you ever seen Ever After the movie? Yeah, I love it. Do you like that movie? OK, I love that movie too. I love it. One of my favorite movies of all time. Like technically Utopia wasn't written yet when she was a little girl in that movie, like the time period they sent. Like it was written like five years after she claimed to have gotten it. And like, unlike other insurries later when Utopia is mentioned in Have Sick of Shadows. In Have Sick of Shadows. So when it's like four years apart, if you're like within the decade, I'm like very forgiving of that. It's like the general time period. Who cares, you know, when it's, yeah, 500 years later, then it's like, I mean, again, but that's like she didn't know the term Utopia. Was dated by that. That's really what I think. Like she just thought Utopia was a general word. It's even like when she, what word did she use? Um, was it pansexual? Polyamorous, I think she was polyamorous. I think she used polyamorous and a character said that word. But I was just thinking when you brought it up, I was like, well, they got chocolate, right? They got chocolate, right? I literally said that to you, Liana. I was like, even did she ever watch Ever After? They know that chocolate's not in the, you know, I feel like, like it took me out being like, OK, why would Elaine say the word polyamorous? That's such a modern term. If she wants to convey that message, that's obviously fine. But like, I mean, that word, I mean, I don't really know when polyamorous came around. It definitely wasn't the fifth century. Like that's not a word. And again, like if we want to be completely ridiculously pedantic, then she would have had to write it in old English. So yeah, I mean, obviously there's a scale and like, it's like, you know, where, how far you're willing to go to forgive. So like, of course, they're going to talk by any standard. If it's not written in old English, they're talking too modern. Technically. But it's, I guess, part of what we're getting at is like intentionality and effort. And if you've made a good, like good faith effort to make this somewhat, you know, somewhat accurate, or at least like internally consistent, if not accurate, where like these characters aren't whipping out a cell phone now because you're like, that's just like not a technology that's available. Like you're like, OK, maybe I'm wrong about when this was invented. Maybe that was a hundred years later. But like in my world, that's invented. Everyone has access to this and that's part of this world now. And it's internally consistent. It's cohesive in on its own. It makes sense. Yeah. And I think, what was I just going to say? It left. I'm sorry. It left. When you're reading up like, I was reading this, I was going to say, oh, there's always that adage, like you have to know the rules to break the rules. And I feel like that is a super good thing, especially with retellings. Like, you know, in the original author tales, Merlin isn't some young kid. OK, when we watch the Merlin show, he's been turned into a young kid. But it's they make that an intentional choice. There's never a point where like they didn't know that Merlin wasn't young. And I think that's when it becomes like you said, like, OK, if you're going to give your world technology, it's fantasy fine. But you have to know where it comes from to be able to make it make sense. Yeah, I mean, the comparison that I kept making to other people when I was watching about this and generally when I ran about this kind of thing is like if you look at artists like Picasso, they learned how to do a straight up still life, how to do like normal non avant garde art. And now that you like know how to do the thing, well, now you can mess with it. Now you can play with it. Now you can experiment with it. But you don't skip right to like, I think that's how you draw a face. That's a cue. They're very intentionally subverting traditional art styles and not just just winging in with no. I remember it always surprised me in school to find out that all those very famous surrealists or impressionists or whatever really did start with very classic proportions, landscapes, everything. They knew their stuff and because they knew their stuff, they could break it. And you find I mean, similar things with literature as well. I mean, you learn proper, proper grammar, proper story structure so that then now that you know how this is supposed to go, you can subvert that intentionally and you find, you know, authors with who are famous for the fact that they broke those rules and pioneered a new style. But it's not because they were like, I don't need to learn grammar, grammars for pussies and just like started writing whatever. Like they knew how to do it correctly. And we're like, I'm going to try doing it this other way, but purposely. Yeah, I yeah, I mean, I completely agree. And it was think if we're moving on to fantasy, Alan, is that you're the arbiter of truth. So I'm just going to take your word for that. You're correct. I watched your mystery video, so you must be right. And, you know, and there are times I know I brought up the swearing in future of another timeline, but then you have a book like, let's say first law since we're both first and first law. And he uses our language in a clearly fake setting. But for me, like it makes sense because it's really difficult to kind of like introduce fake swear words. Oh, it's okay. I'd have better things to just have normal. Yeah, like you conveys the message. Now, I understand realistically, if we were really on another planet, they would have different swear words. But there are choices like that to make something more accessible and emotional to a reader that makes sense. Language wise, which I think is what you said. Like I don't expect old English, but I expect characters to act in a way that makes sense. And then I can forgive the modern language when I understand that it's serving a purpose. I think that's all it is. Obviously, I think first law is better, but a similar intention was present when they made the movie A Night's Tale, where obviously they did not have rock music in the era of jousting, but the intention and it's, you know, up to the viewer to decide whether or not that was a good idea, but the intention was to convey to the audience the experience that these nights were jousting would have been kind of the rock stars of their day. And so by using rock music and sort of a rock aesthetic, then the audience could kind of feel that. Because if you just show straight jousting, our modern audience doesn't regard jousting as like, wow, but that would happen. So like, I don't know if they quite succeeded in like making it. I don't know, but I love that movie anyway. And I know that that was like, they weren't just like, it wasn't done just for no reason. Like there was an intention behind it. And that's what they were going for, whether they were successful or not. It's a different question, but they were, there was a purpose to doing it this way. Yeah. And I mean, I love that movie too. And, you know, we know Jeffery Chaucer probably wasn't walking naked down the road. They made these intentional. Well, that's more likely than singing. We will rock you. I mean, it for sure is. But yeah, I think, again, it's all about intention. And I mean, I love that movie. So I'm going to always forgive stuff. Again, how good something is, like emotionally will let you forgive a lot, I think, in a novel. And other good things to compensate. Yeah, exactly. I mean, because we were talking before, like, what books do you think do this? Well, like obviously the first one that comes to my mind is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norwell, which literally reads like a history book in some cases. It's a history. It's fun, guys. Don't let that make you know when to read it. But they're like the war scenes in that book are just so fantastic because obviously they are edited. Magic didn't exist. I'm guessing the Winter King does this well. I think that's what all caps means. What's the Winter King by Bernard Ornel? Oh, this is a book that does it well. Hey, what time period is it in, Allen? He'll let us know in a minute, I'm sure. We were also I was talking to Allen about Song of Achilles, which I didn't like as much as Searsay because I'm not a romantic person, so obviously. But again, another book that knew her stuff when she was writing it and purposely, you know, it's his Arthur trilogy. Oh, Arthur trilogy. It can't be worse than Half-Sick of Shadows. I mean, partly. The bar is so hot. So that's what I think of. What are the ones you think of when you think of something that does it really well, particularly in fantasy? I don't. I mean, Jonathan Strange or Mr. Norwell. I mean, I think when it comes to fantasy, I'm looking more for it internally making sense, which is when like if you are fantasy does sometimes very obviously pull from a particular historical time period. And other times it just off roads and invents its own world. So in times when it is very obviously pulling from historical time period, then that's the standard by which you measure it and then decide whether or not divergence from that historical period was intentional or was warranted or was a good idea or whatever. But I mean, I think the. There's some amorphous European fantasy, like the just general. It's a very interesting, it's an interesting. And then I prefer it to like if you're I think the not that any of this is easy, but I think it is somewhat easier to just root it in a historical time period that people would recognize and be like, OK, you're going for Renaissance and picturing Renaissance, as opposed to it is more difficult, both for the writer and for the reader to entirely invent your own aesthetic and world, which has its own like style, own history, own cultural and social mores, which I respect the heck out of when somebody does it. But then that person reading it also doesn't have like an ongoing Pinterest board in their head that they can pull from to be like, yes, I am picturing Arthur. Like they have to invent this image in their mind. Now, just like the author had to invent how all this is going to look and work, which is when it also is important for that author to consider how modern or how technologically advanced this world is going to be. And so that's when also like I love for first law, the fact that Robert Cromby is pushing his world into an industrial age. And so you see the world change. And it's not like his earlier books were just like, do they have guns? Do they have swords? Like you have a very distinct sense of like what they do and do not have access to the level of advancement of technology, like how people are dressing like it feels very cohesive. And you also have watched it progress so that by the time you get to the new trilogy and you have more industry and you have therefore slightly more advanced technology, this feels natural and earned and has affected the world and has affected society, has affected commerce and has affected politics as it would. And so that's when because these things affect each other. It's holistic. So the having or not having of guns has massive ramifications for a world. So you can't just like pop that in there and then like that not affect your military strategy, your political strategy, your your customs, like dueling with guns are different from dueling with swords. So this would just affect everybody. I mean, that's when you can tell he's clearly done research about it because I don't think you can't know exactly how an industrial revolution is going to affect a society unless you understand how it affected a real society. And it doesn't mean you have to follow that. It is a fantasy world. But if you're really going to have that holistic idea of it, one person can't know all of that just on their own. It takes an understanding of real rooted history and you could pull from many different cultures, perhaps. But like, yeah, you can tell that he's thought about the effect on the world. Sorry, give me a second. I was like, he also, I mean, I think predominantly now reads history, not other fantasy, which shows. And it doesn't like you said, no, I haven't gone to the Second Trilogy yet. But I didn't even notice and best served cold. Like that time had passed because now magic is even less a part of this world and how that has affected how everybody acts. Like, yeah, it takes a lot of different locations. So like the society there is different and people are mark upon it, the people who were not like native to there. Yeah. And I think there is a way that am I caught up on Age of Madness? No, I'm not. I'm far away from that. Yeah, it's been recommended by Alan, I think. Oh, the folding that's also being historically good. I haven't read it yet. Um, I think that that can also be a sign of a good author. Sometimes when you read a book and I don't fault them, I probably do the same thing if I was writing, you can get very used to like cultures being they write them as like these separate things like these blocks. And it's like, this culture does this and this culture does that without that ability of like, hey, in real life, it's not that easy. Like things are if you have any trade with some sort of place, like it's going to flow back and forth and things are going to be muddied and not everyone's going to think the same. Like when you have these sites, like we hate all orcs. And it's like, well, that that's just not how life works. Like real societies don't work that way. And anyway, that's something Abercrombie does well, I think. Yeah. And I also think in the Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin, that's one of the things that I praise that series for so much is the fact that she has taken into consideration how ecological factors shape society, society shapes people, people shape ecology. And like this is all a never ending feedback loop in every direction. And they all affect each other. And so when you read her books, like it's it becomes also more glaringly obvious how few other books actually bother with that when you see it done correctly, because the the one thing that is often most frustrating to me is when a setting like the the physical setting where something is taking place, the way that the people operate within that setting doesn't make sense. You know, like if this is taking place in a desert, the way that people live and dress and the way that they eat is affected by the fact that they live in a desert. So wherever this is going on, like it's affected by that. So that's the kind of internal consistency that I'm looking for. So again, even if it's a historical time period, OK, we can quibble about whether or not this was invented. You're saying they did invent it. But if the reason this wasn't invented was because this is not a natural resource that is occurring there and you would have to get it from elsewhere. Are you saying that we have global trade now? Are you saying that we've reached that point? Like if the if the reason for it was like that no one had thought of this yet, but you totally had the resources to do it. OK, maybe you want to say like this guy in this village was like he thought of it and like didn't get credit for it historically. You want to say Merlin did it because he's Merlin and everyone was like, wow, it must be magic when actually it was technology. But no one knew that. They're just no, it's magic like you can mess with it. But or again, you have to decide like, am I setting this elsewhere? Or have I decided that they do have access to this? Or how did they get access to this? So if you don't bother thinking about those things, then I'm going to be very frustrated. Yeah. And first of all, Alan, D&D fixed it. They took away the race, the race. It's a non-benefit or whatever it was. Yeah, I think that is something that like, again, I made a video a long time ago about suspension of disbelief. And I do think like, even if you are in a fantasy world, like you're saying, we know things about deserts or jungles or swamp lands or whatever it is. And so if your fantasy world doesn't give me and a good enough reason to discard any of my real knowledge about how the real world works, I am not going to be able to buy into this. And magic can only explain so much. And it better makes sense what magic is explaining about your world. There is a dumb Pixar movie. What was it called? It's like a D&D Pixar movie. How do you everything Pixar does is gold. I mean, I love Pixar. I actually really like this movie. Darn it. It was like about the brothers and it was like a D&D adventure. Onward. Onward. That is what I'm thinking. OK. I'm a D&D fan, so onward was fun. Onward, I love their little scene because basically there used to be magic and then they discovered electricity and they're like, wow, this is way easier than magic. And so the whole thing is like magic left because they were like, wow, electricity is easier and like cars are easier and like then it goes. And I always thought that was funny because I've always had that little quibble about Harry Potter, that the wizards like don't use cell phones or Wi-Fi. Because I feel like it's easier than some of the stuff they do. Like, are you trying to tell me that sending a patroness as a message is easier than a cell phone? And I mean, I love Harry Potter and it's so much more fun. And that's why I'm totally willing to forgive it. But it's also kid fantasy, which I think should really be put at a different level because it's supposed to empower children and, you know, whatever. But I see some of those things in adult fantasy where you're like, you haven't even put enough reason. When you said there's only so much that magic can explain, I mean, in my mind, automatically went to kind of the opposite problem, which is when the author hasn't considered the butterfly effect of having this magic. And people are operating like they've decided. So we've made it like Victorian era, but there's this magic. And everything else is the exact same as Victorian era, except the having of this magic necessarily changes the rules and people would behave differently if they have access to this. And it doesn't make sense. And I can't follow the story. I can't take it seriously. I can't take these characters seriously or these stakes seriously. If they're all behaving as though this magic that would absolutely change like your life strategy because you have access to this. Like if, for example, like they had teleporting abilities, like kind of like a Harry Potter thing, but they're all still riding in carriages. I'd be like, but for why this no longer makes sense. It makes sense when people had to ride in carriages, when that was pretty much the fastest way to get around. But if it's clearly not the fastest way to get around, you either need to build into your magic system or reason why no one is doing this or they need to just be doing that. And there's no more horses in here. Just like, but that's like a simpler example. But there's a lot of times in a magic system, like introducing this element, like the ramifications of that are many fold. It would affect perhaps the economy because like if it's giving you the like, for example, let's say for transportation. So if you are now teleporting, that means there's probably not a lot of money in transportation services, and that's a whole sector of the economy that no longer exists or wouldn't be necessary. It would be much smaller. And what's it replaced by? What, you know, was like, what's it replaced by? You need to think about like what took its place, you know, transporting pads or whatever. Oh, man, I know it's in the 90s and you're like, but why does this still exist when magic could have displaced this? Yeah, Matt, I know it's in the 90s. I like to just use that as a silly example because I feel like the stories that take place after always, always do that. Like I'm just still not convinced a quill in ink is better than a pen. Even in the 90s, do you know what I mean? But I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so I'm not trashing on that. I think it's my life always doing things in the most archaic and inconvenient way possible because it's aesthetic. So I support this lifestyle. I mean, it's true. Aesthetics are everything. Why use a lamp when I could use a candle? Obviously. Yeah, it's when I read fantasy, I say that economy and I do. I do think in fantasy, I'm much more willing to forgive it. Alex, oh, wait, sorry. I saw this funny thing that Alex just said, that he learned who my husband was and he feels embarrassed. Sorry, I got distracted by his comment. Don't be embarrassed, Alex. It's OK. Not a lot of people know. It's not just you. And I think I am more willing to forgive it in fantasy personally because I'm willing to buy into their world in general. But it's it's just comes down to I. OK, let me back up. I think it's hard for any author to really create their completely own thing. I think like you mentioned that, oh, well, they can complete their whole world. I think it's always going to be rooted in a mixture of our own history. I think it's very difficult to come up with completely new fashion, completely new, you know, technology, completely new, whatever, housing. Most of the fantasy I read does pull on various historical things. They might blend it in a new way, but it is very difficult to take it out completely, I feel like, of our own world. And that's where, like you said, it becomes important to just like, does your world make sense within its own self? Yeah. And I mean, absolutely. I mean, the that's why I also hesitate to say one is easier than the other, because if you're writing something that is historical fiction and with the intention of being historically accurate, that is difficult because it involves a great deal of research and that is time consuming. But if you're building your own world, like if I get this, I guess I feel more frustrated with fantasy when I'm dissatisfied, because if I feel like an author sat down and was like, oh, well, I'm writing fantasy, so I don't have to bother about things like that. This is the easy way. And I'm like, no, it is equally, arguably more difficult to invent your own world, because at least in the real world, we know this is how it worked because that's how it did work. So you don't have to have thought about how this is going to work because we already the experiment was done. We saw how that worked versus in a complete fantasy world where you've new rules, new place, new landscape, new everything. You have to do this butterfly effect thought exercise of how every little piece that you put in this world, what effect that has on your world. And if you're like, it's fantasy, so it doesn't matter. But then I'm like, no, it does. I like what Alex just said, too. I noticed that a lot actually in fantasy that they'll have idioms or like famous phrases that they have not realized are rooted in something very specific that happened in Earth history. You know, something like to be or not to be, you know, if it's too far away from its original source and then you see it in a fantasy, you're like, so they had Shakespeare in this fictional world. Like, so that's also interesting. Shakespeare is timeless. Shakespeare is timeless. But I do think that's funny, like language is a big one. I think that I notice in fantasy. And like I said, there's obviously forgivable stuff like swearing. I completely understand the necessity to just like, we can't have a new word for everything. I can't read a book and there's a new word for house and chair and table. I need to be able to consume this book. It would be it would be like reading Arthur in Old English. Like, no, thank you. Yeah, it's just like, OK, I get it. We need to be rooted in something we understand. But also you have to understand the language enough to when you know that like this is historical and cannot be just like placed in this world. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, most recently or not mostly recently, but quite recently, I was reading something that was a fantasy book taking place in a completely different world. It's not historical fantasy other world. And there were like biblical type phrases like the prodigal son where I'm like, you like the word prodigal means something and the word son means something. So separately, individually, not as an idiomatic expression, you can use these words. But the expression, their return of the prodigal son, this is do you are you telling me that the Bible exists in this world? If so, great, then that's how your world works. But you need to build that into your world. I know why you can make that be a thing. But you need to make it be a thing. What about words like Spartan? I mean, I don't think you should use them. I concur. It's specific to Sparta, the police. Yeah, in history. And I think, again, it all just comes down to like how much effort did the author really put in to writing their stuff? And like, I get salty, but I just am like, people like, I won't have an idea and I want to write a book. And I'm like, yeah, but that's work. Like it takes a lot of work to do that stuff. And I mean, there's a reason, Clark. Wasn't she working on Jonathan Strange for like 10 years or something crazy? Like it took her years to write. I'm saying with Madeline Miller, it took her like eight years for each of her books. And I'm not saying you need that. I'm just saying it shows like, like you can tell when you read it. And Clark is really interesting to me because then she has Piranesi, which is like such a different thought process. Have you read Piranesi? OK, I was kind of upset when I heard that there was a new book coming up by Susanna Clark and I was like, finally, the follow up to know what is what is this? Why is my child being listed? I love Piranesi as well. I love them both and they're so different. And they were and it's so interesting because, like, again, Piranesi is set in the modern world and but has this element that's very fantastical and. You know, it functions very different. I doubt it needed as much research as Jonathan's. Yeah, but that's where, again, like is it is shorter and it is a very contained story that isn't like expansive. As soon as you start expanding it and we're seeing like multiple countries interacting, multiple like forms of leadership colliding. That's when your world has to money. You're telling a very small story with on a small scale. You can get away with just not doing anything about your world because the only thing that needs to be described is the room these characters are in, basically. But as soon as you're telling a more expansive story, you're going to need to do all that. Yeah. And I think that's a huge part of it. And I do wonder. Oh, I mean, I like Searsay better than song personally. But I think from this perspective, they were perfect. I think, I don't know. I think Miller did an amazing job adapting the Greek myths. I like them both equally. Yeah. I'm not a romance person. That's the only reason Son of Achilles is less for me is because it was like a legit romance. But it was also to me less. I mean, yeah, there's more romance in it, but it's also more action packed than Searsay is. I just feel like Searsay is a more contemplative, kind of slow paced kind of. Well, I mean, I like I just think they're very different types of book for that reason, so I can't really choose one or the other because one is marinating in the life of this woman and the other is like war and battle and this epic love story. It's just like a lot. So like, they're just so different. You know, it was one thing I will say, I think Son of Achilles is the perfect example. This is a little off topic, but of a good retelling because everyone knows what happens to Achilles. We all it's not a mystery. We all know what happens. So the fact that she spoilers. Yes, I'm sorry if it's always. But that's another thing that you made me think of that if I saw in a fantasy book, somebody talking about an Achilles heel, I'd be like, do you have Achilles? No, Achilles didn't exist. OK, maybe I shouldn't say everyone. Anyone who went to a basic Greek myth course in school knows Achilles Hill, how Achilles dies. OK, so the interesting thing about her retelling is that the point of the retelling is to make us invested in the characters in a new way. And she's so good at that. Because I mean, even if I don't love romance, I was so fricking invested in their story. I couldn't help it. It was tragic. It was tragic. And that's where I think also again, it shows in things like Ariadne and Half Sick of Shadows, we're like, I already knew all these events. You're not really telling me anything new about that, which I think is kind of an important thing. I'm not a fan of Song of Achilles. I'm a fan of seeing somebody wax poetic about Song of Achilles. I get it. I'm into Madame and Miller too. I can't wait till she puts something else out. But yeah, let me go look at what were the other things we were going to talk about? I mean, we're trying very hard not to just rant about Half Sick of Shadows. I'm trying really hard not to. How making things in accurate on purpose can work. I think we already talked about that with Night's Tale. I'm trying to think of it like it's harder for me to think of these examples in books. Like I feel like I have more movie references because I feel like in fantasy, it's often so separated from what we do. But I do think it's interesting that we have so much European fantasy. And I think it's because that is what white authors who are white male authors who are the biggest authors historically in the fantasy genre. I did not know this. I'm very excited. I did not know that at all. She's going off a Greek myth. I'm more of a Shakespeare fan than Greek myth fan, so this delights me. I'm more of a Greek myth fan, but I have a lot of love for Shakespeare, so I'm not sad about it. You know, what do you think it is about Shakespeare that makes his play so easily adaptable? We have so many clueless, 10 things I hate about you, very easy ways to. She's the man. She's the man. I think clueless was, isn't that Emma? Clueless is Emma. And 10 things I hate about you I think is the tame another shrew. Yeah, and she's the man is 12th night. And she's the man 12th night. Hamlet is Lion King, or Lion King is Hamlet. You know the other Lion King movies are also Shakespeare. The second Lion King is supposed to be Romeo and Juliet. And Lion King, one and a half is inspired by Rosencrantz and Gildenson are dead. The Tom Stoppard play that is about Hamlet. I refuse to see Lion King one and a half because it was called one and a half and that made me angry for some reason, just in general. Let's take you guys during the events of Lion King. Don't care. Don't care. Oh yeah, Monty Python and the Holy Grail of course. Again, another movie where clearly, clearly purposeful. Like again, you can always tell. You're watching Monty Python and you're not like, oh, they didn't know. I think that like you've hit on something that I think there's a reason for that. And I think that it's easier to convey intentionally stylistic choices on film than in a book. Not to say it's possible, but it's harder in a book to convey that you are intentionally like doing something wild with the aesthetic than it is in a film. With the lighting, with the music, with the costumes, you can convey this very intentional avant-garde choice. That's actually a good point. Yeah, it's very difficult in books to express that without it becoming bogged down, just even in general by description. Yeah, or then I mean, I feel like it's easier to pull off than if it is in some way like a comedy, something kind of campy. I didn't like this book, I hated it a lot, but a book like Kings of the Wild where it's trying to do this like, what if like band of mercenary was like a rock band? And I just, my problem with that book wasn't the concept, it was the execution. So the concept I think still could be done in a way that was campy and fun and conveyed to the audience that this is like a fun idea where don't look for any kind of historical accuracy, it would be kind of a night's tale-ish, it would be kind of like that. No, Alex, no it is not, it's terrible. I think also most of the examples we use as good push it very modern and you know that they know it's modern, I think that's also why things like Half Sick of Shadows and other books do it too, again, but when you're not sure because it's not far enough, again, a lot of times people just think like, well, the past is the past and it's all together. We can agree with that, we agree on that. But honestly, when bringing up Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that felt more accurately Arthurian than Half Sick of Shadows. And when Monty Python is the bar and you're not meeting it. Ooh. Gosh. I mean, okay, I don't want to crap on that book, but it was really terrible though, if it was. But I wonder, something that we touched on is modern language. I'm always, I never know how to accurately describe, it feels like I know it when I see it, when language is too modern and when it's acceptable. I think- I think that's where again, like it comes into it where if the world feels co-heat, that's why it works in Abercrombie that they swear. Because it feels like just in general, he's written a world where no one is talking, I guess the casualness of the speech is more in line with a lack of education for these rougher characters. And so they would be speaking more roughly and we consider speaking roughly using swear words. So that's built in. But there's a kind of casualness in speech when the modernity of it is more in reference to modern things, if that makes sense. And so when the speech is casual. So like for example, when the style of banter between a man and a woman, this has changed, there's always been coy courting banter between men and women. But the style of that is very much defined by what are the social and cultural mores of the time? What is acceptable? What is elude? What is permissible? And so if you have your characters talking in a way that we would banter now, then you're suggesting to me that the social and cultural mores of the time are the same as now. And they would not be versus a more subtle form of banter which involves a lot more sort of double entendres where you can get away with plausible deniability because it is considered elude to overtly discuss these things. So you always use kind of nods and kind of symbols and metaphors that you can be like, what? No, I literally meant a horse. That didn't mean. So it's conveying a lot about what this culture is like. And if you've not thought about that and what that conveys about it, then it shows that either this is too modern or you just don't, you haven't thought about this and you don't care. Yeah, and I think a very important thing to be careful of which we touched on earlier is slang. I think slang is the thing you have to be careful about utilizing in your books because slang is a very dated thing. And that's where it feels more modern in my opinion rather than like swearing, which has been around long enough that it's not really like dated to some specific thing. And someone said, who wants to listen to old English? And I agree. I think something that Abercrombie also hits on is giving characters unique voices. Also, I think helps dissuade that. If every character talks uniquely, then it doesn't really matter that it's modern. We understand that again, it's a character choice. And I'm not expecting everyone to be Abercrombie in that respect, but you can make choices so that characters at least talk differently that are appropriate for your setting. Well, I think, and I mean, this might be more of my taste than anything, so I don't know if I can defend this. But a lot of the time when I regard dialogue as being too modern, a lot of what it boils down to is it just being quite unintelligent. So a lot of the times we think of more formal speech as being, oh, that's more historical. That's more, even in a fantasy world, that's more appropriate than modern slangy speech. But you can, I mean, Abercrombie's banter well is kind of lewd and kind of casual. It never comes across as like teenagers that have like a five word vocabulary and laugh at farts, you know what I mean? Where there is a lot of intelligence to the word play. And so that's what makes it feel appropriate for the time, which I suppose is suggesting that you imagine that only modern people are dumb and back then they were smart enough to have intelligent conversations. But a lot of times that's kind of how it feels to me. We're like, when I listened to Arthur in Have Safe Shadows talking, I was like, you can't be king. Like you could barely be like the captain of your football team. Like I don't believe that you're intelligent. I mean, that was what actually my big gripes of that book was like, why would Arthur be king? You have shown me no reason that Arthur should be king. But anyway, Bessarpo has some of the best banter. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I do think in Bessarpo cold, what's his face? Moro? No, no. Who's the poison, poison guy? Oh, Mor, Morveer. Morveer. You know, I love the way he talked. Like you, he had a really good- Yeah, a very elaborate, wordy way of speaking. Yes, like that's the kind of way you could convey a very certain character in a fantasy world. Well, by contrast, Casca is quite casual, but I don't really feel like it's modern. And I don't feel like- It's a modern casual. But it is casual. And it conveys that Casca is a more casual lewd kind of guy. Yeah, and it's, I mean, there's a reason I'm not an author. I wouldn't know how to do it. Sometimes it's one of those things that you know when you see it. Like I can read this and feel like it doesn't feel modern. What was my go-to phrase in the chat when we were talking about Have Sick of Shadows? I was like, Abercrombie does it right. Do it like he does. She said all times, that's the response. I mean, if anyone's like just looked at the first five videos on your channel, I don't, I think that's, they know that's your motto. Just look at Abercrombie. Just look at him. He did what I wanted to do. He laughed at class and just how to write like. Now that's interesting. Think of Abercrombie doing a historical retelling. What would he write about? That could be very interesting. I'd like to see him do it. What we've seen him do, then you would automatically leap to like similar historical time. Because his YA series is viking inspired. What's his YA, is that the Half a King? Yeah. Yeah, I read the first book and didn't really like it. Same. Oh good. That was my first Abercrombie I ever read. And I was like, this is dumb. Why do people like him? And then I read the first law. And then I got it. Yeah, I feel like him pulling his punches for YA is not, it doesn't work. But also I've heard that the second and third books in that series are way better and they don't follow the same character. They follow different characters. So I've been meaning to read the others, but I was not, it wasn't bad, but I was just like very underwhelmed with Half a King. That's exactly how I felt. Anyway, that's not what this is about. But yeah, I just think it's an interesting thing. And one thing I find interesting is that almost all well-regarded fantasies do it well. So whether or not people recognize it actively, they are recognizing it somewhere internally. Right? Like that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like most people, wait, I shouldn't say most people, but I feel like there is that je ne sais quoi when you read dialogue and you're like, this is modern. I can't exactly tell you why. It's not like they talked about cell phones, but this feels too modern. And it just, nope. Yeah, and I think that can also happen with bad dialogue where it doesn't sound like people are talking, which can also make it kind of come out of time or place. It probably reads aloud all of his dialogue to make sure that it sounds like people talking. People talking, that was my big thing. I wish more people had read Future of Another Timeline just so I could complain about it. Like I have no one to complain about this book too because literally nobody read it. But that was the same sort of thing where like, yeah, their talk, they just, it felt modern. Like she went back to the 1800s and all of the 1800 characters were talking like the main character. And it's like, I couldn't pinpoint why, but part of it was like maybe the lewdness of what they were talking. I'm like, in the 1800s, again, that would have been much more coy. It would have been, you know, under the scenes. And anyway, yeah. I just think it would be interesting. I had a similar problem with the second all-cell trilogy book, which like was, I was hopeful that that would be better than the first one and it was so much worse. But in the second book, she travels in time to the Elizabethan era. That's what I was excited about. I was like, well, the first one was, but like I'm excited to see the Elizabethan era. That'll be fun. And then it's both made better and worse by the fact that it calls itself out or calls out this thing that it should be doing because the, I mean, the character and also the author are history professors. So she's genuinely quite aware of what's that era is like. And so when this American history professor in the story travels to the Elizabethan era, it's remarked upon like internally by the thoughts that the way they speak is almost incomprehensible because it would have been, if you actually traveled in time and you're not watching like a star's show on about like historical times, like it would be very difficult to understand what they were saying. And so it's remarked upon. And then thereafter, there's conversations between like Christopher Marlowe and whoever else is there. And it sounds very modern and very casual. And I'm like, is this like Dr. Who where she's mentally translating into modern speak for us? Because you've, it's not even like, if this was like half certificate of shadows, I'd be like, why are they speaking modern? They shouldn't be speaking modern. This author points out that they're not speaking modern, that it's difficult to understand what they're saying, but then proceeds to write all of their dialogue incredibly modern. And I'm like, what? She needs to explain it or something because the probably the answer is she didn't want to write Old English. She knew she shouldn't have done London. Yeah, but I'm like, why draw attention to this thing that you're not going to actually bother to make accurate? Cause she didn't want people to get her in trouble. That wasn't accurate. Cause then people who may not have noticed it are now noticing it. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I mean, I believe it because like, I can go to London. We both speak English, but America already, like even just American and UK English. Sometimes I'm like, what did you just say? And I don't even think you knew what I said. So imagining how English was even a hundred years ago over, I mean, yeah, incomprehensible, but it is like, that's a tough thing because how is she writing that book? Like how are you going to write a comprehensible story that doesn't get bogged down by the fact that the main character wouldn't be able to understand? Like that's something you have to consider. And I don't know what the answer is to that. It just has to be considered. Be better. Be better. I don't know. I don't have any answers, but be better anyway. I mean, that's why with speculative fiction, again, you both have the trouble of now having to consider the ramifications of this element you've introduced because you have to figure out how that's going to work because no history can tell you how that would work because it doesn't exist. But you also then have the ability to build in things that can make this work. So like in a story where someone's traveling in time, obviously you're messing with what is possible. I mean, she's a witch. The character is a witch. So like, I mean, this is cheesy and this is not what I would do. But like, even if it was like some charm that she like put over herself so that she could understand everything that they were saying as if it was modern or that she would be speaking in a way that was the same as, something like that. Like you have, I mean, it's a brand to be like, as long as I can see that you've made a good faith attempt to kind of work out the kinks and make this all make sense. Even if it is like magic fixed it, like at least magic fixed it instead of just like nothing fixed it and it just is apparently. I mean, yeah. And I think in the end readers are very forgiving. Like with Dr. Who as the example you used, his magic screwdriver, whatever. We're forgiving. I mean, it's a very campy show where no one is expecting any kind of, I mean, there's no science accuracy. There is no history accuracy. There is nothing. That's true. The expectations I think are set can be set. And I think that once those expectations are set, I do think, I think as readers or consumers we generally are willing to go there with somebody as long as some effort has been put in or some mission statement has been given. I'm usually really willing. Someone brought up Romeo and Julie, the Boslerman one. And we also just talked about earlier Shakespeare set in different places in different times. And that is a situation where, I mean, be it in that movie or in any time when you're adapting Shakespeare and like let's say you place it in the modern day and it's not a retelling like 10 things I hate about you. It's Shakespeare's language but everyone's in jeans and tank tops. Okay, well your audience has decided to take this leap with you where we're just gonna suspend disbelief and apparently people in jeans and T-shirts talk like that in Shakespearean dialogue. And that's a very specific like situation where this is a very, everyone is aware of the project. Everyone is aware of what's going on here. This is not randomly an author deciding to write a story about a girl in high school and she just talks Shakespeare EE. Like, you know, it's very, this is a very specific thing you aren't doing in which case the rules might be different but you have to understand what it is you're doing the medium you're working in and if this is something that hasn't been done before how to convey to your audience what you're attempting to accomplish here so that they can maybe think that's a bad idea but as long as it's clear that this is what you're trying to do here. Yeah, and do you think you have gotten pickier about this as you've gotten older because I feel like I have. I'm pickier about everything as I've gotten older. I mean, true. For me too. I was thinking like. I'm not even being older, it's just like the older you get the more just you accumulate trivial pursuit types of knowledge in your head that you start to know things that because you've watched enough PBS to where now you can recognize that this is historically inaccurate which you would never, it might have bothered you when you were 12 but you didn't know about this. Well, and not even that but also just like how you talked earlier about holistically stories need to consider political and economic ramifications something that I don't think I thought of as much in my childhood bubble of, you know. I mean, rewatching like old Disney movies or just animated movies in general. I remember the first time I watched Thumbelina as like, you know, like when I was like 18 years old I mean, I was like an adult-ish adult enough to like watch adult stories and I watched it. And I was like, I don't remember that they fell in love during a song. They started the song having met and they ended the song being in love. I was like, I don't remember them being that fast. And like, okay, I guess that's fine. I mean, that's about everything. I mean, all the Disney movies, like it's fine. Cause I was thinking of Half Sick of Shadows and how I think if I had read that as like a 13 or 14 year old I probably would have been really into it. Yeah, I actually went and Googled that cause I was like, maybe this is why I, maybe, no. It's an adult book. She did write this before. This is her first adult book. It's not, it's inaccurate. But I, hey, if I had read it, you know I don't think I would have noticed that sort of stuff. So it is interesting. I think you can get, I don't, I hate to say that but I want to pretend like all teenagers are dumb or they don't know about history. Like that's not true at all. But I do think you can get more away with that stuff for younger audiences because they don't have the experience accumulated to really always understand all of that stuff. But it's giving me an adult novel. It's not exactly camp, but it's kind of a form of camp where everything's kind of just like a simplified version. And of course, things are not really gone into and because like you said, it's for kids in which case, again, that's built into the project of it. Like similarly to Shakespeare and jeans. Yeah, it's weird that people in jeans talk like this but we're going with it in a kid's story. Like we're not going to go into the political ramifications of this because it's just like, that's not what kids are here for. So yeah. So I think, yeah. I think I can be lenient with that sort of thing. It is just interesting though. Like yeah, one of the things that I think separates adult fantasy is that inclusion of that sort of stuff. Like I think a lot of people mistakenly think that like graphic sex scenes or things like that or is what separates an adult book from a non-adult book. But no, it's the consideration of the wider world. It's the consideration. And also usually older characters dealing with more adult situations and adult situations not meaning sex but just like adult concerns. Like anxiety and depression and like dealing with like mortality and global warming and like, I mean even in fantasy worlds, whatever those issues are, like that you're not dealing with as a kid. Because as a kid, yeah, it's mostly about yourself. And as an adult, you would hope that your adult characters are like now stressing out about the world. Well, I mean, and since you brought up the book that must not be named, Terry Potter. I know, I shouldn't have brought it up. But I mean, I think it's a good also sort of case study that why this does work when you're reading for kids the first few books because it says very, very much middle grade. And it's okay. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that there's a magical school where they write with quills and like, wouldn't wizards have, don't ask questions. Yeah, don't ask questions. My big thing as a kid, even as a kid, I was upset, like, why don't they still study math? Like wizards still need math. Like I was always so concerned that they didn't have a math lesson. But anyway. Right, but it's for kids. It's a fun little fantasy like escapism. Like, what if I went to a school where like I had magic jelly beans and I learned how to levitate things instead of about like where, you know, how bugs procreate, like, what wouldn't that be cool? But there's also, there's all these questions that an adult would begin to ask again about like, okay, but like wizards have these powers. So like historically, like wouldn't wizards have like, where were they when like things were happening? Or like, you'd have all these questions that kids wouldn't ask. And when you read the middle grade book that's for the kids, you're like, well, I get why this book isn't addressing that. And that's not the point. But then you have something like Fantastic Beasts where we're bringing in the Holocaust and wizards are now we're not just gonna say, let's not ask historical questions. No, we're setting it in historical time. And now we're gonna watch what wizards feel like they do or do not need to be doing about the Holocaust. And you're like, do we wanna go there? Is there a way to help me get this through? You're breaking my rule, which is like, I like to pretend that the Fantastic Beasts franchise does not exist. So I need to pretend that it was a fever dream that happened to me and I, no one else knows about it. So we can't talk about it. That's an example of like, you need to think through if you are gonna bring this like, if it's magic into the real world or into historical time period or magic in your own, whatever, but like, you need to think through that butterfly effect. And so having magic. And it gets dicey too. It gets really dicey when you start bringing that stuff into wars that really affected people. I feel like it has to be done in the correct way. It's different than historical fiction. I mean, I barely read any historical fiction, but I did read a codename Verity a while ago, which is about World War II, but it's about a small story set within that war in a historical setting. So I feel like it's easier to do that. Once you bring magic in, you have to now address the entire war, which becomes an issue. I feel like- And the problem with Harry Potter and the universe, so Fantastic Beasts, is that it never set itself up as an alternate universe where things go differently. So a lot of historical fiction fantasy does that, where it's an alternate history where like the having of magic made things different. This did go down differently. It wasn't a thing that didn't affect it. Whereas now with Fantastic Beasts, no, we've agreed that the world we know, the one that's in our history books, is the one that also wizards have been present for it all of this time. And so if you're not gonna build in a reason why they are not able to interact with or affect the events of history, it's super-duper gikes that they were just like, that's not our problem. Whatever. And that's why, like you said, books like Harry Potter, books one through seven can work as a small- It's a- Like we said before, like when you tell more contained small-scale story that's focusing in on this kind of one little place in time with these characters. And we're not gonna talk about global politics. We're not gonna talk about global economical ramifications. It's just like kind of these characters with this little magical castle. Just striking. And you know, I was a huge fan of, what was her name? Who wrote, Oh, Gail Carson Levine. Did you read Gail Carson Levine as a character- Ellen chanted, I read like 17 times. Yeah. Ellen chanted and the two princes of barmaire were like my favorites. Those are not the same examples. Oh yeah, always. Yeah, that was like the first book to make me cry. There you go guys. That's my little trivia. I was like, I won't cry this time and then I did. The princes of barmaire. First book that made me cry was really young. But like, again, that also had very like historical reference points, but it was such a contained little story that it can work in those ways. But again, when you're talking about writing adult fiction, that's when you have to start considering that stuff, assuming that your adult audience is also dealing and considering- Or you're very conscious of always keeping your story isolated to like kind of like Piranesi, where like this is very narrow in focus. And like it's not that we have encountered the larger world and we've just chosen not to address it. We have no idea. It's just, it's never a part. And Piranesi's magic that it introduces is not something that would necessarily be world breaking. Like it is something akin to the matrix that technically could exist perfectly fine with the world as we know it in general. Which I think, again, a lot more leniency if you just kind of keep that together. I think Colton's question is interesting about what about weapon names? I think, well, again, like, because we've talked about history, sorry, fantasies that very obviously and intentionally root themselves in a specific time and place that obviously this is a fantasy version of it, but it is nevertheless overtly specific. So like I think of the Poppy War series where this is very actively and intentionally kind of a magical retelling of a specific time and place in history and our real history. So if you're drawing on that directly and in that, for that reason now you're gonna be using words that come from the language that you're gonna be using those words to describe their dress, their arm or whatever because it's very intentionally meant to be evoking that time and place, then sure. But if this is a fantasy world that you've just invented that is not meant to be actively referencing a specific time and place and you just decided to have them having both Katanas and Gladiases in the same like Army Academy, I would be like, uh, no. Yeah, that's funny. I thought of Sword of Kaigen. Sword of Kaigen is set in a completely fictional place. So technically it's not part of our world at all. Have you read Sword of Kaigen? You've read Sword of Kaigen. It's on my TBR this month. Oh, okay, no. Oh, so good. Okay, anyway, it's not set in our world but it is clearly, clearly influenced by specific cultural, you know, points within our real world. Then I'm like, I understand why they're talking about Katanas. It makes sense. Sword of Kaigen is meant to be unlike a lot of our fantasy, which is European based fantasy. This is very clearly on the Asian continent, like even if it's fake. So I think that's when it's okay. Otherwise I feel like you're right. Like it doesn't make sense except for basic words, like table and chair or sword, bow, things that can be kind of like across all cultures. Yeah, I think it does take me out of it. It's like, why would you say that? Unless it's- I just think, I mean, like I don't have read a lot of Flintlock fantasy but if the name of the weapon is like, what is the, a coal, a coal- Oh my gosh, you are- 45, is that a name of the- Wrong person. I think it is. Anyway, like if that was the name of a gun in your Flintlock fantasy, I'd be like, why? Like the fact that someone in this alternate universe, this alternate fantasy world, arrived a gunpowder and invented a gun, okay, sure. But like you wouldn't name all of the different models the same as like- Yeah. I don't really- I mean honestly- I can't think of ever having read a fantasy book that's like a fantasy a la first law where it takes place in a different universe where they have cars. But let's say they did and they were like called Honda and Mitsubishi. I'd be like, what they thought? Like, wouldn't they have different names? No, that's the only car names there can ever be for all the time. That is interesting. I don't think I've read any car fantasy either. I guess as soon as cars are like, this is sci-fi, you're like, but there's- Oh, that's true. I don't, yeah, that's a whole nother discussion when does the sci-fi versus- It's all just speculative fiction. Speculative fiction in general. But yeah, that's an interesting question. And I think a lot of that too, some of that small stuff can go by too. Like with Hasak of Shadows, for example, I wouldn't have noticed the crystal thing like that. I wouldn't have had a reference point for that. But the gowns and cocoa and all that stuff I had a reference point to. Cocoa. I mean the gowns too and the ankle thing and all that stuff I would have for sure known about. And so I think some of that small stuff, again, if it's every once in a while, I can look past it. It'll take me out for a second. I think you even mentioned that in your review. Like if the cocoa scene was the only scene, you could be like- Okay, honestly, if the cocoa scene was the only scene, I'd still be mad about that because that would be ridiculous. Because it was also one of the most modern feeling things because the idea of getting a kid who's kind of upset, a cup of coke, I mean for one, the idea of a child being a sentient human whose mental health you should be concerned about is such a modern idea. So like forget, okay, you have access to chocolate because it's magic or whatever, but like just that whole scene was just like, is she wearing like footy pajamas? And were you gonna put on the TV for her too so that she can like de-stress with Paw Patrol? Like- I do think that's a good point though. Maybe that's another thing about language, even if it doesn't feel modern, just the way characters interact with each other. We do have very strong reference points for how certain time periods are treated children, treated women, treated all of these things. I guess so. No, at me, it's not. No, anyway, can't talk about Grand Theft Auto. I think that is there. I don't, it also, this is actually a video idea I've been thinking about. It goes into a little bit else, but there are also problems though, like how far do we need to be accurate to historical times in fantasy, let me give an example, to things like sexism or homophobia. Because sometimes I do feel like if we're in a fantasy world, wouldn't it be nice to take a break from racism and homophobia and sexism? And a lot of the criticism against that as well, if it's set in a time period, that's very likely that that stuff exists. And so I think there also is like this push and pull about being able to explore fantasy things and also being historically accurate that I struggle with sometimes because if most of our fantasy is set in medieval Europe, then yes, every book I read is gonna have all of that stuff in it. And sometimes that's really tiring. Well then, and then also you bring up a point that like, I often find it difficult to articulate in a way that I feel like won't enrage people. But so here we go, but I feel like because queer people of every description have existed since the beginning of time. It's just the vernacular for it did not exist. So the representation of queer identities and historical time periods be it a fantasy that is inspired by history or historical fiction or historical fantasy, sure, like absolutely. It's just when you bring in the really modern vernacular that now I begin to take issue. And that's the nuance that I've like tried to zero in on. Like I don't, I'm not objecting to the representation of this identity. I'm objecting to the use of the word for this identity that in this time period wouldn't exist. And it breaks my immersion. I can't, I no longer believing that this is the American West because they didn't have the words for that. Well, and I think that the good example actually is in Half-Sick of Shadows where I thought I love the idea of Gwen very clearly being bisexual or pansexual, one of those. It wasn't very clear. But when they use the word polyamorous to describe the relationship then it was like, now no longer makes sense. Gwen as a character made total sense of that identity telling me it's polyamorous. But I also, I mean, I also don't always feel like sexism has to exist in the exact same way exists in our world if you're in a completely fantasy world. Oh, it's fantastic, yeah. I mean, you can make the world really wild. Do you know what I mean? Like that's what I'm saying. If you're taking medieval Europe as your idea for fantasy setting, but it is not set there, sometimes it's exhausting for me that we can never imagine a world where like strict homophobia or strict sexism or all this stuff. We can teleport, but girl's having rights. So that's just unbelievable. That's too much. And recently two books I read which I thought was kind of interesting. One being like Ken Liu, Grace of Kings, which... No, that's on my shelf. I have not read it. Fantastic book, fantastic book. But I was curious because they talk very openly about being totally accepting of like a gay man, things like that, which was great. But then there was a lot of sexism in the world. And it was like, well, how come I, like how come you can't just like both of those things go? Like I felt happy. Like I felt happy because like, yeah, sometimes I'm sure people who are, you know, LGBTQ plus get tired of having to deal with that in every fantasy. Like that's gotta be exhausting. That's if it's mentioned at all. If it's mentioned at all, but then if it is and it's played for negative, that's gotta be exhausting. And that's how I feel also about sexism a lot. Like it just ends up feeling exhausting. And so it is interesting. Cause I think there are ways to put it. And also it's more frustrating to me if I feel like it is just lazy. If it's just like, this world is a lazy, cut and paste, paint by number, medieval, sexist, swords, fantasy. Whereas Abercrombie, crazy, I feel like he has written us a fairly sexist, you know, patriarchal society, but he hasn't used that as a sort of excuse to just not bother with females. You know, like he has intricate three dimensional female characters that display different forms of agency and power within the constraints that society has around them. Some rebel against it. Some play with it. Some, you know, like work within the system. Some butt against the system. Like he's not just been like, well, it's a sexist society. So they'll just kind of, you know, like just because, okay, you've made the choice to have a world that has homophobia or sexism or racism that doesn't now give you a pass to just like not bother with characters that have those identities, not bother with fleshing them out, not bother with showing how those people do, in fact, affect the world. It's not like, well, in patriarchal societies and times, women just had no power and didn't do anything. I mean, that's obviously not true. Like if you look at history, women found a way to be influential and it was more difficult, but they did. And so if you've decided to write your world that way, that is not a pass to just not deal with those things. Yeah, and I don't want to start something. This may start something, but oh well. Abercrombie is one of the only male authors I think does it very well. When I think of worlds that do it very well, it's like 99% female worlds that I think of. So I think he's very rare in that he does it so, so well. It's just so special. I hope it stays. I get nervous because the four books I've read so far have done an excellent job of not using women's suffering as a backdrop to a grim world, but rather as a intentional part of the plot. But I think women tend to do it better just because we have to deal with the reality every day in our lives, so. So in the new, this isn't really a spoiler, but there is a character in the newest Abercrombie, well, not the one it's about to come out, but the trouble with peace that is pregnant. And like the way that this is described by a male author, like I feel like he knows more about pregnancy than I do. And I feel ashamed then. Okay, well, when I read it, I'll have to tell you what I think because I feel like he must have asked his wife for like nitty gritty details about like what it's like and how it feels and what hurts and et cetera. Cause I was like, I'm usually pretty critical about that stuff since I have been pregnant. So it'll be interesting. Characters in books are just, they just, they just are pregnant. And it's never really like affecting anything. And like, and it's definitely. And they get birth way too fast. Just anytime woman gives birth, it's too fast. Like that's something I even said in my husband's book when I was like, you've got to make this longer. Like you lived through two births. Like, uh-uh, I'm not having your book have this dumb fast birth scene. I refuse. Anyway, yeah. So what Eric is saying, I agree. Like I agree in that. But when we're studying a completely fantasy world, I always question why in our greatest imaginations when there is magic and all sorts of crazy rate, like new creatures and races, that it's too hard for us to also imagine a world that didn't grow up with sexism or what have you. And that's when I get critical of it. Obviously, if we're doing like more historical fictional fantasy, that stuff has to be a reality of the world because it was. And I also, I tend to question if it is fantasy that also has sexism. If the magic itself would in some way affect this, we're like, let's say women have access to magical powers that would in some way balance the power dynamic that would necessarily affect gender dynamics and gender power structures or whatever. And when the author has not bothered to consider that, I'm like, well, then this feels less real and complete. What book is it? I haven't read it. Is it Rage of Dragons that like men and women are born with different magic? Is that Rage of Dragons or? Is it? I don't remember. I don't know. There was some sort of book like that. And then I could like understand like that's gonna be a big part of your world. If it truly is that like men and women are born with different magic, then yeah, that's gonna affect your world and depending on the power dynamic. But I just, I do think it's interesting that, oh yeah, Eric was saying his point is that patriarch group is not always absolute everywhere at all times, exactly. And I think we default to that a lot in our fantasy, which I always find very interesting. When in doubt women have no rights. Yeah, yeah. And that's where I'm just like, yeah, obviously that's been a big part of history. So I'm not gonna like big Rage that it is used a lot in fantasy, but I do question sometimes. Like when we're imagining everything else, like again, I think it can come from laziness. But then I mean to play devil's advocate, I have seen where they've decided to be super feminist in a way that is also incredibly immersion-ranking. It's also worse. You're like, okay, well this is not, I mean, I wanted women to have rights, but not like this. So like- It just becomes unrealistic. I talked to you about this already. I always say it's like that. Seeing an end game when all the women come out and look girl power, like that's just as bad. Like it's just as bad. Like that's the future of another timeline was written as a feminist book and it's a total failure. Like as someone who is definitely a feminist, like I can admit like a lot of those books fail for the very same reason because they're not considering like- Well, I mean- Again, both sides. It all kind of comes back to when we perceive laziness on the part of the author. And I feel like a lot of feminism that gets shoehorned into books is the laziest form of feminism. And I would just rather not have it at all than to see that like when that's one of the main reasons- Like Morgana doesn't wear corset, feminism. That's what I was gonna say. Like in half think of shadows, like I was annoyed that they had corsets because they didn't exist in the time period, but even more so because they, it was just used as the most lazy shorthand for feminism to be like, corsets shouldn't confine me, I'm free. And I'm like, well, they didn't even freaking have corsets in this time period. So you're gonna have to find another way, a more creative way for them to be overtly feminist. You can't just have them burn their bras. I'm sorry, you have to do better. But even if it was the correct time period, again, it's just the laziest form of, you know, what that is. And yeah, Matt, I completely agree. It was pandering and it was stupid. No thought was really given to it. And, you know, yeah, I think it's all wrapped up. Like you said, it's all about intention and laziness and it just comes out to me. I feel like I can just read a book and really tell. Tell when it happens. I don't know. With half a second of shadows, I was like, could you not have Googled anything? Well, oh, did you hear about that story? I have no idea what book it was, but some guy was writing historical fiction and Googled how to make red dye and then wrote in a legend of Zelda recipe into his very serious historical fiction novel. Did you ever hear about this? No. So I was thinking about that when we talked about researching, yeah. I forget, he was writing some very, like serious historical fiction novel. It was published and someone realized he used a berry from the legend of Zelda game because he had Googled how to do red dye. And yeah, that's kind of the lazy thing. Yeah, that is lazy. But again, that's where I'm like, if you are writing fantasy, then if you want them to have something that the general historical time period that you're kind of going for with this fantasy world, they didn't have this thing you want them to have, you can invent a way for them to have it. Don't just have it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think, you know, modesty and dress are things that are, you know, makes sense to address. I was thinking, I know you don't like the Stormlight archive, but one thing I like about, well not hate the hamburger, but no. But one thing I like about the sexism that's displayed in there is that it doesn't always completely focus on women. In that novel, women can read and men can't. And later a very important male character learns to read and a lot of it centers around the prejudice he receives like in a toxic masculinity kind of way, which I felt like at least was a new way to look at it. And it's not always about women being discarded, but there's also masculinity that's kind of silly and wrapped up in these feminist things. And I do appreciate when authors at least can look at it from a different way, whether or not you like Stormlight or not, I did appreciate. That was one of the things that I disliked about Stormlight because it's a patriarchal society in which only women can read. And I'm like, so they hold all the power and the knowledge, but men are in charge? That would fall apart immediately. Like they wouldn't. Yeah, maybe. It was, I appreciate it just cause it was different. I can understand from a historical perspective, you not liking that. Again, we've talked about probably my science background is why I like Stormlight. Honestly, I mean, women were prevented from reading because access to knowledge is power. And so a patriarchal society denying themselves access to knowledge and handing it to women who are the second class citizens. I'm just like, what? But I mean, it's, I think I would argue that they're saying that any knowledge that can be written down isn't important. It can be read to them. I don't know. I just enjoy that it was different, I guess. I sometimes get tired. I would have been fine with it if then it was a matriarchal society. Yeah, I mean, I can see that. Being your issue. I still, well, I guess the, it plays, I can't say anything without giving away major spoils. It plays with the patriarchly versus matriarchy later in the series where it does flip a little bit. But yeah, I think it's just still an interesting thing mostly because I get tired of women being the brunt of all of that constantly. Like we are in a fantasy world. So exploring something different is something I just always appreciate about that sort of stuff. Yeah, it's true. No, I know. I never want to bring it up in public because I know people are so weird about that. You guys, anyone who's listening and just unset to Liana, you've got to get over yourselves. People don't like the same books and you need to get over it. I mean, as Alex has said, I should read it smarter. Oh, is that what you should do? Yeah. But I'll like it. My husband DNFed one of my favorite books of 2019 and said it was boring and we're still married. So how's the divorce going? Finally, I don't even care. Someone was like, oh, my gosh, how did you break attorneys? Like I just told her and she was like, okay. Like I guess I'm just like my favorite book. You have chosen death. It's just like, it's fine. Like I don't, I don't care. I love Stormlight. I don't care that you don't like it. I don't know if this is a quote from something or you just, you came up with this, but yep, that's in a nutshell. Why you didn't like it? Why you didn't like it? Yeah, I liked it because it was different. I'm just, but I mean, that's not why I like Stormlight. Any of those issues, it's all about the magic systems for me with Stormlight, which is I think a huge factor in why you did not like it. So I think that's kind of interesting. But yeah, I guess I just don't get bugged when people don't like stuff that I like. I just. It's crazy that you can just be cool with it. I don't know. Would you still be my friend if I didn't like first law? I mean, I would consider an acquaintance ship. I mean, I hope we're not loving best served cold. So one of my biggest struggles when I read, when I read Way of Kings and disliked it was that I really wanted to talk to somebody that did like it, that'd be willing to just talk to me about it because I was genuinely so curious to know what it is that people are getting out of it that I'm clearly not getting out of it. And so to have the response just be entirely like you must die, you're stupid for not liking it. I'm like, then the only people that I can talk to are people who also hated it. But I want to talk to somebody who liked it because I want to understand because clearly a lot of people like this and I want to get it. Even if I'll never agree. Can I armchair tell you why I think you don't like it? Can I lay down on the couch while you. Absolutely, if you want to say it. All the books I feel like you like don't have the sort of classic hopeful hero saves the day at the end. And that's something sort of truth. I hated the sort of truth. I like both books. Those are like that. Sort of, but the sort of truth again, much darker. I think that Sanderson's, I mean the first sort of truth, I just hated that book anyway, that's fine. They hated it and we're still friends. We're still friends. The, Sanderson is like the thing he does is the bombastic leveled up sort of magic system with the classic like good guy hero. And if you want something that's a little bit more nuanced, character driven and grim, like you're just not going to find that. That's not Sanderson's worst. Cause it was more like that. And Ms. Morn is a little bit more like that. Did you like Ms. Morn? I can never keep it track. I just didn't like how the trilogy, the conclusion of the trilogy, like the answers to kind of what's been going on. I really disliked that, but everything like the second book was my favorite. I liked the first one very much. The second one's five stars loved it. And the third one is when we start getting those answers that I was like. You just didn't like how it wrapped up. So I feel like six of Crow's kind of stuff, first law. All that stuff has a similar energy and it is not the energy that Sanderson has. And I think that I can understand that. And I will say like, Sanderson's still my number one. I just love him so much, the way he makes me feel. But as I read more, you know, Sanderson was one of my first adult fantasies. So there's a lot of nostalgia there. And I'm like, I mean, I can recognize like after I read Abercrombie, yes, did it make it stand out to me more that Sanderson's prose is, you know, simplistic? Yes, I can still enjoy his stories for a different reason, but I do think the more you read, the easier it becomes to accept people's different opinions, if that makes sense. Like the more I've read, the more I've understood the different skills that authors have and why one lack of skill may make it hard for somebody to read a book that I love. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's when like, obviously this life has been predominantly about historical accuracy and then weaving into that just sort of general world building. But I mean, the things that somebody will zero in on will differ depending on what they're interested in what their background is. So like for science type things, like I was able to pick apart, have a sick of shadows because partly because I knew more about medieval times. And I guess apparently most people, I didn't think that would, I didn't think that was the case, but apparently, versus if it's like a sci-fi thing, there's a few things that I might know, but for the most part, I wouldn't occur to me that this isn't possible or that that's not how that works. I would just go with it. So I would never pick up on it. So I suppose my mileage on sci-fi that is scientifically inaccurate is higher than something that is historically inaccurate because I just happen to know more about it. So I'll notice it. I always claim that everybody is annoying about something. Like everyone has some niche interest that makes you become insufferable about something. And so yours might be historical accuracy. Mine is like a certain physics things. I'm like so obnoxious to watch an action movie with because I just get so caught up in it. And yeah, that's where I think a lot of that differences will, yeah. Anyway, I can tell that I'm in the minority for loving Sanderson's characterization, but that's fine. I think his characters are just different. He doesn't have a good character voice, but he has good characters. I don't know if that makes any sense in my opinion. I mean, I suppose you could argue that his characterization comes through in what they do and not in what they say. Yes, that's more what it is. But yeah, my only problem if you don't like Sanderson is if you don't like it just because it's popular. That's the only time I won't like it. If you have a real reason to not like it, then I don't care. To this point, I mean, I have previously, I just avoid talking about Sanderson for the most part now, but like I did previously say that like, I do think he's got some creative imaginative ideas. Again, I have issues with like actual world, building things in Stormlight, but in general, because I do like good characterization and prose that is like Rothfuss and Abercrombie and whatnot, then like, I almost feel like, and obviously this is never gonna happen and it wouldn't be fair to ask that of him, but I would want Sanderson to just kind of like pitch his setup, like build the world and then just hand it off to a writer to now write the thing. Because like the inventive like magic system is cool, but like I would rather hear Rothfuss describe how it looks. The appeal I think for a lot of people of his writing though is that he does not do that. I think that's appeal for a lot of people that it's fast and also that he can write quicker and get his grand story out, you know, faster than 10 years. Like waiting for Winds of Winter? Winds of Winter, Doors of Stone, you know, all of those. But yeah, I think talking about that for similitude and historical accuracy, again, there's gonna be different triggers for everybody and that sort of thing. Like, you know, the joke that I have on Instagram. History and in sci-fi tends to be science and like those are like forms of pedantry that rear their heads. But even like I made a joke about how Abercrombie's pechant for throwing people off cliffs and having them survive with no injuries literally drives me insane. Have you ever fallen off a cliff, Hilary? You don't know what it's like. I know it's not falling off and getting a bruised rib. Logan had nine fingers. No, I was talking about Logan. That's what happened to Logan. Well, you know, like, anyway, there's a whole mythbusters about it. But I- How about Abercrombie's characters falling off of him? No, no, no, no, no. About how people falling into water, it still injures you a lot. Like, cause that's Logan fell into water and it's like, he's fine. And I'm like, that's not how any of this works. That's why belly flopping hurts so much. Cause like, it's like a solid option. There's tension. Anyway, yeah, Colton Monza did have injuries but and I made me happy. Cause you're evil. Not because I'm evil, but because he had her fall off a cliff. Although again, very dubious because in that scene, it says her brother's body saved her life. And I was also dubious that his body was soft enough. But anyway, it's fine. I liked the books. Well, that's so cool. It was fine. There's a different way of a body saving a life in the Six of Crows duology. And that one makes sense. In a terrible, terrible, terrible way. But it makes sense. Yeah. And you know, Ketterdam is an interesting one actually because you have guns and magic. And I want to think- Oh, I need to tell Alan that it's flintlock fantasy. That's why he needs to read it. That's why he needs to read it. I will say, I very rarely like magic and guns together. I do actually think Bardugo does a decent job. And one of the things she does is that like, people get killed by guns who have magic. Like there's that great scene in the TV show where like Grisha are getting murdered by guns. And you're like, yep, cause that's how it would happen. Like- They bring that up, which the books don't. I think that's why they did. That they're worried about the obsolescence. That's a word, right? Of the Second Army because of the advancement of things like tanks and guns. And they're like, no one's going to care about Grisha power when you've got that thing. So the real fear of technology displacing you almost kind of like the modern day, like factory workers being displaced by robots. The Grisha Second Army is going to be displaced by tanks and machine guns. And I appreciate when authors think of that stuff because there's like Potter pals, not to bring a parry Potter again, but Potter pals. Did you ever watch that? Yeah, okay. There's one where they just take out machine guns and kill Voldemort. And I will never not laugh at that. I mean, obviously again, we've already talked about why it's fine. But when you're going to have guns in your fantasy world, very specifically, I always appreciate when they bring in that reality. Again, it's something else that I think it's important to often. Again, like John Fitzgerald is during the Napoleonic Wars when they did have like cannons and like gunpowder and they also have magic. And as we've talked, that book is, that's how to do it. Perfection, actually perfection. And yeah, I just think, you know, if you're going to write a book with that stuff in it, you've just got to do the legwork. And if that doesn't sound fun to you, then just put your book somewhere else. I mean, I guess what I also find frustrating is when I complain to people about a book that I disliked for various reasons. And when the response that I get is, well, like they, that's not really their area. They don't tend to like, that's not their focus. They don't write about them. Like, well, they chose to write a book like this. Now it is their focus. Like no one accepted this challenge. Now this is your problem. You've made it your problem. So like when people were talking about from blood and ash by Jennifer Alarmontraut about how, I guess she was previously writing in the urban fantasy. And I was complaining about how stupidly modern this like fantasy world with like corsets and daggers and dresses is, but everything feels like urban fantasy. Like, oh, but you know, what she was previously writing with urban fantasy, like that's more her thing. And I'm like, yes, but she's chosen to make this not be that. So now you've accepted the challenge of no longer writing urban fantasy. You can't be like, well, that's just, okay, that was true for those books. This is now this book. And in this book, that is not acceptable. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think, but I mean, a lot of the audience, I don't know, I've never read blood and ash. So maybe I shouldn't make judgments about it. No, don't recommend. I would, it's not something I would read ever. Just my own personal style. But I do tend to think a lot of times there's an audience, some of the audience for that is just people who don't care. Like- Yeah, and then I'm told that I'm not allowed to care hence this entire life. Yeah. And I think like I'm just not going to read the stuff where that stuff doesn't matter. And so here we are, except apparently Stormlight Archive. We each have our asterisks. We're like, except for that one is actually like, I did like- It's not one I'm fine with, it's fine. I mean, this was like way the beginning I thought of this when you were talking about like, again, it's more like a general sense of like, you've put the effort in to generally make this, like you might make mistakes. And if you make some mistakes, you know, fair play if someone wants to point that out. But like there was an attempt was made when, for example, I don't know if you ever saw the movie Tristan and his old with a- But I know exactly the movie you're talking about. Yeah, that's very medieval-ish times. Like that's more kind of Arthurian. So she should have watched that movie to get more a sense of the vibe. But- There are so many references. This is what I can't understand about Hopsake of Shadows. There are so many very popular references. She only watched Bridgerton. That's exactly what it was. But so like in that movie, like it is generally like, there's between like the fact that there's only so much you know about those time periods because the written record isn't like super silent. So there's a lot of like guesswork that's done by archaeologists. So as far as what we know, it did a fairly decent job of trying to at least evoke that vibe and not be too wild and including things that wouldn't have been accurate for the time and how they dress, how they live. Like she wasn't wearing a corset. Like no, like that wasn't a thing. That wasn't a thing. But there's the part where she's, it's never said who or what she's reading aloud, but she's reading aloud a poem by John Dunn who like that poem would have been written in like the 1800s, I wanna say. So like it's meant to be just kind of this like romantic moment where like he remembers the like beautiful poem because like she read it to him or she recited it to him. And it's a good poem that like fits what's going on and it fits like their relationship or whatever. So like I get why they picked it. And I also get that like if we wanna be accurate about this, that poem would not have been written for hundreds and hundreds of years. And if the rest of that movie had been with corsets and crystal and cocoa, I'd have been like, and also this poem wasn't written until 1800s but because for the most part, it's trying to do a decent job in made mistakes. Some things aren't totally accurate like that poem, but overall it's trying, then I'll be a lot more lenient. And yeah, I understand that not all movies wanna be perfectly accurate. The two I think of is I'm obsessed with the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. They're like six episode mini series with Colin Firth. Yes, I just love it. I read a behind, do you hate that? It's fine. I just don't get why people think Colin Firth is very attractive as Darcy. I just don't see it. I just like his mannerisms with Darcy. Like I just like how he did the character. But the point being is I've read a behind the scenes book on that and they were insane on historical accuracy. They like dug up flowers that wouldn't have been in that time period or in that season, in front of the manor buildings and like super historically accurate. And then you have something like the Kieran Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. Which is going for vibes. It's going for vibes mostly. Like so much inaccurate about like what they wear and like the situations like the dancing in that, the first dancing and that like drives me crazy cause that's just not what it was. But I understand that it was a vibe they were going for. And even though that was not my favorite movie. My favorite Pride and Prejudice is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. So. But now you got Zombies, it's all bets are all off. Who cares what dresses they're wearing? But I do think that. I mean, I was very excited when I learned that the costumes in Emma, the new Emma were for a lot of them were actually reproductions of actual historical dresses. Like they remade that exact dress. And cause like the costumes in that movie I thought were gorgeous. And I just assumed they were just like beautiful inventions of the like, you know, CM stress, whatever. But it turns out like they are all entirely period accurate. And I was like, oh, I think about a movie that actually had a scene that annoyed me, that Emma where she gets the nosebleed. Oh my gosh. It took me right out of that. I friggin hated that scene. It felt like a very modern scene. Emma's that I was just delightfully surprised that this scene didn't go the way that I thought it would. I was just like, and then she says, and then he was like, oh, I did not see this coming. It's different. Yeah, but I do, I think like, again, this is another thing where movies, it's so much easier for us to talk about movies because movies can represent a vibe. And books have such a harder time doing that. So I feel like books, you get less leniency. And I feel like readers tend to give less leniency. If you are a big reader, you probably have some sort of context through just years of reading to understand differences. You built the book in front of the board. You built, I mean, I don't visualize almost anything when I read, so, but I built up a list of facts that are running in my head, just like list of facts, a list of words in my head. You're just, there's a little guy in there just fact-checking things. Yeah, exactly. Also Eric correct, like absolutely correct. So much better than the 2005. I don't really like either. I like the old black and white one with Florence Olivier that is also wildly inaccurate. Yeah, so I think it's just harder. Books just don't necessarily give vibes as much unless it's like a very ethereal book. A book I can think of is, it's a sci-fi, but this is how you lose the time war. Which I've not read yet, but I want to. Great novella. That was a book that had time travel in it, had all this stuff, sometimes went back in time, but was very vibe. It was one of the books I could read that was this like about a vibe. And I think you can do that in shorter novels and then you know, I wasn't part of it. The way that I feel like it can be conveyed in a novel form is when the style of the prose is very kind of avant-garde and flowery and the way that things are described is the opposite of the Waste Henderson writes when you have something that's very, yeah, where the prose itself is kind of bizarre. And like you described. Yeah, and that is how to lose the time war. I wouldn't say it's bizarre, but it's definitely very ethereal and not necessarily always be taken so literally. And I feel like, yeah, and I don't feel like that's always the kind of fantasy that's going to appeal to a ton of readers necessarily, which I think why it's maybe not as quite as common. So I guess kind of, I mean, I guess it's more through, I don't necessarily agree with that, but kind of agreeing with that. There's a lot more things that you have to take into consideration on screen that are in the shot, if that makes sense. Whereas like in a book, you can choose to describe her dress and you can choose to describe what they're eating or you could just not mention it. Versus on screen, there's nothing that is not seen. So like in this room, then if the tapestries are inaccurate, if the paintings are inaccurate, if the carpet's inaccurate, if the clothes are inaccurate, if the food is inaccurate, it's all on screen. So you can't just like, I'm not going to talk about what they're eating because I'm not sure what they would have been eating, but it's on screen. So you have to, they have to be more careful about, but then also you have the benefit of an entire production team as opposed to one author. So yeah, and I think also, I mean, I don't know how historical accurate it is, but you also have, again, humor, like Good Omens is a very humorous book. And so I'm not going to quibble about stuff in that book that's off because it's just so over the top and silly that who cares? I mean, I love that book to death, but, and so I think, yeah, I think sometimes vibes matters, but in most fantasy, that's I feel like on the extreme ends. I don't feel like most fantasy goes for that sort of vibe in general. Yeah, and then when it does, it's usually, I don't even think of those books as being historical. I think of them as just being magical. And then I have to remember like, I was just thinking of Deathless by Katharine Alente, and that is so, like her style of writing is very much like your mileage may vary, like you hate it or you love it, but it's definitely that kind of whimsical, magical realism, folkloric. You're not sure when it's magic and when it's real, but it is taking place during like the Russian Revolution. So you have like real world events going on, but also magic things going on, kind of parallel and simultaneously and affecting each other. And they're blurred so much at all times that none of it feels real and all of it's equally unreal, including the historical parts. So it's just kind of, you have to be okay with this hazy kind of acid trip and there's crying style. But actually an example that I think is a really good example of historical fiction with a now speculative element is the Deathless, not Deathless, I just said that. The second one is called Deathless Divide, Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, which is Civil War Zombies, where she did a really good job of kind of exploring how the introduction of zombies would it affect, it affected, how slavery would have been affected by that and how racism would tie into how zombies are now being like handled. And so she didn't just say, well, the zombies showed up, but then otherwise the events of the Civil War are the same. No, it affects like the social structure, it affects how people are interacting, it affects the economy, it affects, and it's why. So she did an excellent job of just kind of going through how that might go down and how that would affect everything. Yeah, that's actually impressive. That almost makes me want to read a zombie story, but not quite. I hate zombies like more than anything, and I would not have read that book if I hadn't heard it praised so much and it was really good. Okay, maybe I'll think about it because I also hate zombies and, and I don't know, I'm not really into everything. I hate zombies, vampires. Zombies are cool, I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get any enjoyment out of any of that classic. They don't call them zombies in universe, they call them shamblers. Okay, I can even get down with that a little bit better. Yeah, I think the only zombie novel I've ever read is I Am Legend and it was like a novella. Oh yeah, I just read that last month. That's vampires, so never mind. They're kind of like halfway between zombies and vampires. I feel like it is vampires, but like the way the style of it is more the style of nowadays how people write zombie stories. Yeah, I agree. Oh, Temerain by Novik. Oh, I haven't read that one by her. That's the one I always get told about when people, when I bring up John the Stranger, Mr. Norrell, they're like, well, what about Temerair? I'm like, she wrote a brooded, so I don't trust her. Oh my gosh, yeah, right? Because a brooded isn't very good. That spinning silver was pretty good, so. I love spinning silver. Okay, good, look at that. See, we do have stuff we agree on. Nope. It makes sense. Anyway, I feel like it's a gamble. One of us should take the risk and read it first and then tell the other person whether or not they should read it. I feel like I'm more likely to hate it though. Is that true? I mean, I don't know. For that kind of stuff, I feel like we actually tend to agree. I guess, yeah. You hated like Ariane and I think it's maybe just on like our hard fantasy, but even I like First Law, right? So. I was thinking more because like, I guess the, maybe I'd be more likely to like it just because mainly what I've heard people say is that the appeal of it is how adorable Temerair the dragon is. And I just, every time I hear about it, I feel like that would irritate me so much because it is very rare that something that is meant to be cute that I actually think is cute. So. I am not as in love with animal companions as other people are. So I don't want to say that. I like Stitch. I like Gollum. I don't can necessarily consider those cute. Animal companions. What was someone saying here? Oh yeah, create their own slang curse words. Like mall is on wheel time. I think those tend to be very divisive among readers. I know like some people. Like the Starlight Archive when they stay storming. Yeah, everyone, like a lot of people, a big criticism of that is they hate the fake swearing. But I think that like slang can actually work pretty well. Like, you know, pinks, right? There's slang like that that makes sense within, in words, I'm actually personally neutral about the swearing thing. It neither means anything to me or bothers me. So like, I don't care. I suppose it kind of depends on how well the author is able to just generally write dialogue in a way that feels organic. Because if it does feel like organic dialogue, you can organically build in some in universe slang and some in universe idioms and even in universe swears. But if you're already not super great at writing dialogue, it already sounds kind of fake and stilted and then you throw in some like aggressively fake swears. It's just like, ugh. You know a book I think does fake swearing well is Artemis Fowle. Have you ever read Artemis Fowle? I've never read it. I love those as a kid. And they have a fake swear word in there that I think is actually pretty funny and used to comedic effect pretty well. So yeah, I think, yeah, I'm either, I'm just neutral about it. It doesn't bother me. I understand why it would bother people. It's not really related, but in the, in Margaret Atwood's retelling of The Tempest called Hagseed, in this retelling, this like theater director is now got, he's got this job putting on plays at a penitentiary. So it's like prison inmates that are putting on Shakespeare plays. And his rule with the inmates when they put on a show is that there's no swearing. The only swearing they can do is the swearing that is in the Shakespeare play that they're doing because Shakespeare had a lot of insults but it wasn't like our four letter words now. So they would come through the play and find like the words that they considered like to be fun insults. So they'd create an official list of words that are allowed to use as swears. And so then all these like inmates are using like words like Hagseed, which is the name of the book from the Shakespeare plays to insult each other. And I think, yeah, I mean, that's, that would be funny. Again, played for laughs, I think it can work. And I do like what someone said, like made up jargon can feel shoved in. I think the books that have a lot of jargon that feel the best is books that don't hold your hand explaining it to you. Do you know what I mean? Like if there are words- Everything is best when it's not holding your hand or explaining to you. That's true. Like if I have to figure out what the word means it's probably gonna sound more natural than a character explaining to me somehow in universe what that word means. Yeah, I feel like I like to learn things about a world through immersion, not through someone like a tour guide explaining it to me the author input thing. Yeah. And you can, you can give enough context clues hopefully for, you know, you know, No one had to explain Pharaoh calling them pinks. No one had to explain it. It was so clearly an insult. And it was just like, It was pretty clear where that probably came from. And yeah, exactly. And, and I, and there's also, you've got to just do it, right? Cause I'm reading The Grey Bastards right now by Jonathan French, which was an SPFBO winner. And I do think like his jargon is getting a little bit like heavy handed in terms of like, I forget like I'm reading a sentence and I'm like, shoot, I don't remember what these words mean. So I think there's a fine line, but yeah, it can be done well. As I mentioned before, broken earth and everything that N.K. Jemisin writes. I mean, other than Abercrombie N.K. Jemisin is like the master of that's how you do it right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I have actually mixed feelings about her broken earth trilogy, but as far as her pro's itself. This live show is over now. That's all right. As far as her pros in writing, there's no denying that she does a really good job of that world building for sure. I think it's my opinions aren't that bad about it. We can still be friends, Liana. I'll be the judge of that. Well, I loved the first book. I loved it. I thought it was so amazing. I just didn't identify as much with the other books in that series. I mean, I think I would say the first one is my favorite, but I did, I was still pretty like blown away by the whole thing. There were some things that didn't come together in the end for me as well as I would have liked. I wonder if I reread it, if I would feel differently, but that was my big problem with it, not necessarily anything about her pros or anything like that. So I would still agree that she does that sort of stuff really well, the immersion stuff. Yeah. And again, like where there's in-universe language that's used that doesn't feel like, oh, here's a Thanksgiving. But again, like nothing that Jemisin right could ever be considered cheesy. Even the stuff I didn't like about the books, it's nothing's cheesy. And again, I think there's a certain level of pros that can make things cheesy or not cheesy. Or then you can also just go on, lean into the campy cheesy, in which case, that's an active choice and I'm okay with it. Which I think is what they did in Artemis Fowl, which I think is why it works in Artemis Fowl. And I mean, I'm a huge Sanderson fan. So like this isn't said, but like, yes, Sanderson's pros can come off cheesy at times. I'm as the biggest Sanderson fan, I will admit that. And so I think that's why people tend to focus more on his fake swearing more than others because there is a certain level of pros that's gonna make it more natural and more cheesy. Well, it's also, it feels to me because everything's kind of so like clean and disnified in Sanderson, that when you have a fake swear, it feels less like a world-building element and more of like, I'm gonna say, oh fudge, because we don't swear in these books. And I think that, when I think that is, I think that's actually accurate. I think he likes to make fantasy that's pretty clean. Which case then don't have fake swears either. Just know that. Yeah, and I think that's what most people feel. I, like I said, I'm neutral about it. I appreciate that he has clean, well, I appreciate that he has clean fantasy for me. Sometimes I just need some clean fantasy, but I think that's why probably it does feel that way because it was a choice to be clean maybe versus a choice to be in world. And I do think that can matter. It just reminds me of like in the Simpsons when Lisa and Bart go to the Flanders' to stay because I forget why, but their parents are like, they're taken away from their parents. And then Flanders comes in, he's like, it's nacho time. And Lisa and Bart are super excited. And they say, yay. And then he says, Flanders style. Cucumbers with cottage cheese. And they're like, oh no. That's what the swearing feels like. You're like, those aren't real swears. That's cucumbers with cottage cheese. So yeah, I think I, even though I don't, like it doesn't bother me personally, I can understand like, there is a difference there. Like, you know, when we're talking about persimilitude and stuff, I can understand why, why that feels that way. Life of Brian, two, about what? I don't know. I don't know what's going on in the chat. I'm trying to keep up with it. We've been going for two hours. Yeah, I'm sorry. This has been great. But yeah, I mean, in summation, don't read Half-Sake of Shadows. Do read Don't Interest in Mystery Normal. That's all you got out of this. That would be an okay thing. Were there any other books like that you wanted to, like that you thought you were going to be mentioning that we haven't naturally, that haven't come up? No, I think we mentioned all of the ones that I was, the big ones I was thinking about. I was just going to say, yeah, I think it all came down. I feel like everything we said was all came down to effort. And you can tell when the effort is put in and when it's not put in. Yeah, I feel like we're almost like grading like teachers when you're like, okay, the kid tried though. Like it's not the best essay I ever read, but they tried and that's a parent versus this kid did not care. Yeah, I'm going to give it an effort grade and Half-Sake of Shadows fails on effort and historical accuracy. Yeah, we need to have a parent-teacher conference with that one. Your kid was not even paying attention in class at all. Okay, well, thank you to everyone who came and hung out with us. And thank you to Hillary for coming and being pedantic with me and for listening to my pedantry when I was reading Half-Sake of Shadows. Well, the ironic thing is you did blow up my inbox and then you went to Disneyland and I blew up your inbox while you did not want to read them constantly with how much more I hated this book. I told you not to read it and I told you it was worth an area at me. You should have just believed me. No, I'm glad I did. Because it made this, it actually was a book I think that put it into stark contrast. I don't know if I really thought too much about how I felt about historical fantasy until reading this terrible one when I actually got to consider other books that I had read. So it was worth it for that. Honestly, this is not what this conversation is about, but when people say, why don't you just DNF books? I think there is a lot to be gleaned from reading bad books. You learn a lot about writing craft, about your own taste as a reader, about world-building if it's speculative. There's, even though I can't say I enjoy it, I feel like I do get something beyond content out of reading bad books. I agree. I mean, that's why I never DNF. Like in the last like... I also never DNF. Yeah, I never DNF. I've DNFed two books, I think in the last like 15 years or something and it was for very specific content reasons. But other than that, I say I learned a lot from forcing, finishing a book. I feel like I have better attention span because I know how to read through difficult passages, you know? And like you said, I've learned so much about what I like and dislike and what's good about writing and bad about writing from reading bad books. And it makes you appreciate when someone's doing, because when something's written well, you're not thinking about the craft of it. You're just like, well, this is great. But then when you read something bad, now you have an appreciation for when it's done well and how difficult that is. It's almost like watching Olympians and then watching an amateur and you're like, oh, now I get, because they just make it look easy, but that's actually really difficult to do. Yeah, and I totally agree. And I think that's what Half Six Shows really did for me. Like because I was thinking about it constantly about how bad it was and there was a reason for that. Anyway. No part of it was good. The cover is nice. That's the one positive thing I can say about Half Six of Shadows. I don't even like the cover. So. It is the nicest part of the book. That's true. I could agree with that. Welp. All right then. So thank you to you and to everybody. Thanks guys. Yeah. Have a good night. Have a good night.