 I know my hair looks stupid, but that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about Borderlands Prelude, so let's do that. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So this one was also a Patreon request, which is weird, because I don't really get these very often, but now I've gotten two in one month, which is unusual, but whatever. It's requested by Charles Gull, who also wrote it, so thanks Charles. And it is really meant to be the prologue to another book, which is out called Borderlands. And while I haven't read that one, I will say that Borderlands Prelude doesn't work all that great as the first part in a series, and honestly it doesn't work that great as a prologue either. So the setup for this is really very simple. There is the civilized lands that people live in, and then there's this area called the realm, which the book doesn't explain all that well, but the summary for the book gives you a pretty good idea. It's basically just this magical land of pure chaos, which sends out creatures called spawn, which go out and attack and kill people. And so there are soldiers that go on patrols into the Borderlands and clear out a bunch of spawn now and again to keep them from coming in and ravaging everything. So very simple setup, and this prologue, which is really more of a novella. It's about 120-something pages, so it's not like it's a full-length book where all this is happening. But it's basically just a group of soldiers led by a woman named Captain Gans, who this story is told from her perspective, and they go out and things go wrong. There's a lot more spawn than they're used to dealing with, and a lot of other people die, and so on and so forth. And I think it starts off decent. It goes into it way too quick. The realm and everything isn't very well explained, and this might sound strange, but honestly I wish this book had been a lot less action heavy and had a lot more exposition, because I know that sounds weird, but if you're going to use this as an intro to this universe and an intro to a bigger story, then well, you need to use that time wisely. And so just having a bunch of action scenes, which is what this book really is. It's kind of just one action scene after another, other than the very beginning and the very end. Once you do that, it doesn't work that well as an introduction. Like I said though, the very, very beginning does have a little bit of exposition, because it's like right as they're about to go out into the Borderlands, and it works okay, because they go out and something goes wrong with their horses and they start turning to stone, and you realize, oh okay, this is like a threat of the Borderlands. And so they have to try and escape that and get their horses back to normal without letting them get killed. And that's pretty cool. But then after that they just get attacked by spawn and they fight them off. And then they get attacked by spawn and they fight them off and attack by spawn and fight them off. And that's kind of just the whole book up until the end. And while I will say that the action is decently written, like I very rarely had trouble figuring out what was going on, there just wasn't enough time for me to learn about these characters to care about them or what they were doing. You know, like, because like I said, this is just them going in, they're going to kill a bunch of spawn and then they're going to leave, and so they don't have any bigger goal that they're trying to accomplish. So okay, I wasn't really that invested in them trying to accomplish that, but at the same time you could save that if you made these like really likeable good characters and they didn't really do that. Like, other than Captain Gans, I don't remember any of their names even, and I just read this last night. And as for Captain Gans, she doesn't have much personality either. She's just the eyes through which we view the story. And I mean sure, she cares about her men, but that's, you know, that's it. And I will say at the very end, she does get a little bit of backstory and everything, so that's, you know, better than nothing, but it's still not great. And these action scenes also could have been saved had the spawn been described a little bit better, but they don't really give that much description for them. In fact, they all have really, really bizarre names. Like I wrote one down. It's Seraphilp, or Seraphilp, Seraphilp, something like that. And they all have names kind of like that, where it's just really bizarre and takes me a bit, it took me a minute to even figure out what is that. And that could work in kind of a Lovecraftian sense, where the bizarre names make the creatures themselves seem more bizarre and make them seem more alien and a little bit scarier, but they also don't really describe what they look like very well. It's mostly like these ones are kind of like birds, except they're big, and these ones have six legs and, you know, things like that. So, yeah, that doesn't really make them seem intimidating or anything, which could have helped save the action scenes a little bit, but it doesn't. And honestly, because this book is so short, all the action scenes are pretty short, and I think this would have been better served if it had one or two bigger ones, rather than a bunch of small ones. The one thing I will say about this book that I just unequivocally liked was the dialogue, because all the soldiers talking to one another, they, well, they talk like actual people. You know, they talk like real soldiers, they swear when things go wrong, they feel like they've been working together for a while and that they like each other and want to protect each other, and all that comes through just in the dialogue. So even though individual characters don't have that much personality, as a whole there is a sense of camaraderie, I guess, and I would have liked to see a lot more of that. But, well, no. I'm just going to say, yeah, I unequivocally liked the dialogue in this. It's much better than most of what I read. So, yeah, that's about all I have to say, unfortunately. I wish I had more, but even though this is longer than On the Isle of the Grotesque, that one was like a full story. It just had a bunch of stuff happen really fast, whereas this one is, it doesn't have that many events worth noting, or that many characters or anything worth noting. It's like a world which sounds kind of neat, and if that appeals to you, then, you know, maybe you should check out the Borderlands books. But other than that, there wasn't a whole lot here that really stood out to me. And, well, I see potential. You know, I'll say that. I see a lot of potential for this, and Charles, I think your prose and everything is pretty good. If you're bored in quarantine and you really have nothing else to do and the idea of this, you know, magical land full of deadly creatures that people have to try and defend from, because it's like just, you know, it's pure chaos. It's not just regular evil magic. Then if that appeals to you, I guess, you know, download this on Kindle, check it out, but if that doesn't appeal to you, then I don't know if anything else in the story is going to change your mind. Huge thanks to all my patrons, especially my 10-dollar-n-up guys, Oppo Savalainen, Brother Santotis, Charles Gill, Christopher Hawkins, Christopher Quinton, Joseph Pendergraft, Taylor Briggs, and Tobacco Crow. And thanks to Charles Gill, especially, because he's the one that sent in the money and requested this review. So all the other names as well. You guys are cool. And I'm just kind of stretching this out so I have time to put all the names on screen. But, you know, you guys are great. Thanks for watching. Subscribe and all that if you haven't already. And I'll see you later. Goodbye.