 Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here today with my dad because we buddy read Gardens of the Moon because I made us buddy read Gardens of the Moon. But I enjoyed it. I think he enjoyed it more than I did so he's the real winner here. Yeah so if you've never heard Gardens of the Moon it's quite a fantasy thing. I feel like everyone else has already read it and already knows about it. I'm late to the game so just looking up. In fairness it's really difficult to say what this book is about so I'm not sure I could even tell you if I wanted to try. Is that fair to say? That was one of my comments about the book that it's it reads a little bit like a history book from a from a personal perspective. A personal perspective? Well multiple personal perspectives. I know you don't I maybe do you don't use good reads right? No. So if you were like using good reads and if you were to star rate it like one to five how many stars would you have given it? I'd give it at least four because I really enjoyed how how the characters were really all fleshed out. Their their character arcs were enjoyable to follow. The one thing that I was disappointed in at the end it seemed like well it just stopped and there wasn't an overall story arc that the book brought to an end. In fairness it didn't really start out by having promising you one. But you sort of expect that. Well you kind of expect for an author to explain things. Oh it fell over. It's happened a day. So like if you didn't if I hadn't been like hey dad this is like one of those books that like fantasy readers like this is like one of those books that you got to like really pay attention to that it's really confusing but like you know that's just like one of those books like would you have given it the time of day and the patience to like wade through this or would you have like read a chapter at Barnes and Noble and been like what I don't know what's happening goodbye? Well if I have seen like one of those reviews like they do at Romans you know where they say this is a good book you know they recommend them because the people that work there are like right right I mean I probably would have picked it up and read enough of it to get some feel for it. I mean that's how I originally picked up the Abercrombie trilogy there. Okay but so like if there wasn't anything telling you that if it was just like a random book you picked up and you tried a chapter to see like if you want to read this. I'd be a little dubious but I I took your word for that there were many fans and I decided that I was going to give it a chance in the sense of reading it carefully to pick up the nuance and I was rewarded the author very richly describes both the world and the characters in it not in an expository sense but but you're a observer there and you're and you're sharing the perspective of someone and you learn relatively quickly about that world. Do you think the book would be less good if it was told in a more straight forward manner? That's hard to say I mean that is I guess his style. But I mean like would you like I asked because like if uh if there was a weird choice made you know with a book or the narrative structure with the way to paste it with telling it non-linearly like if by the end of the book I'm like okay but I see why the author chose to do it this way because ultimately by structuring it this way it's served the purpose of emphasizing this or illustrating this or whatever at no point like by the end of the book I was like at no point did I go like okay but that's why he did it so confusingly at the end I was just like you just did it confusingly for no reason that I can discern. I wouldn't want to say he did it confusingly he he did jump to multiple perspectives and and you had to learn the sort of the back story of each each one of those as you went along. Like I said the the one frustrating aspect I had was that it didn't have that story art that you expect from a book that is you know a start to a finish and there are things somewhat wrapped up I mean you might leave open ends to where there could be continuing things happening to some of the characters you know if you want to do a sequel but uh this was much more open-ended it's it's almost like okay we covered European history through the 1700s uh next is going to be the 1800s and you know go ahead and pick up the next history book type of the thing. Well I'm given to understand that the next book Dead House Gates follows completely different characters in a different part of the world however we circled back to some of these people in the third book and then again we go somewhere else again I think in the fourth book and then we circle back to these characters in like the fifth or sixth book so like they're it's not over with them but we're not going to see their thing in the next book. Well if if you have enough confidence in the author at this point I think I do I have been disappointed uh I'd be willing to follow along and see how it all comes together. Well like obviously I agree enough that I'm like okay I do I mean people love it I want to see where this goes so like we're reading Dead House Gates and I want to say May is that good for you? If that's what you choose uh I'll probably have read it sooner than that. Oh you better retain your thoughts for a video. Okay but like so I just was like thinking about this most recent because I mean then obviously that frustrated me the not seeing any purpose other than to be like needlessly to obfuscate things needlessly like it doesn't serve any purpose beyond just being like well I'm just not going to tell you I'm just not gonna and you're like okay but is there a reason you're not going to tell me? Nah just not gonna and um it remind I was watching some videos and they were discussing why Tenet fails and like I actually really like the movie Tenet I think you liked Tenet. I did. But like the consensus among a lot of viewers and critics you know was that like Tenet was confusing or that Tenet didn't make sense or that Tenet fallible like people there was like a pretty large consensus that Tenet was weird and confusing and like I never really thought of comparing them before until I saw a video specifically talking about how the way Tenet opened and how Tenet's opening like kind of fails according to some general principles of storytelling and like the reason it's a poor and a weak opening isn't because it starts in the middle of the action because a lot of movies do that um and they can still you know sweep you along and you can still get invested in it but in the beginning of Tenet you don't know what anyone is doing or why they are doing it or why it's important or who anyone is and so you don't feel any investment in what's going on and you just feel very alienated by it and so that's your launch point that's when you're the movie supposed to be grabbing you and pulling you in to be like and now we're on on the road on this story but Tenet makes you feel so alienated from the story and so confused and so bewildered in the opening of it that you're like I'm confused and now I'm still and I'm more confused and I continue to be confused every scene you're just showing me characters doing stuff but you've never like I don't know who they are I don't know where they came from I don't know why they're here I know that they're here right now and I know that they're talking about this right here right now but I have no context for this I have no emotional stake in this because I don't know who they are and that's really one of the main things that people had an issue with with Tenet because they were like I guess the plot's kind of weird and like messy but you've done that before with things like Inception with Tenet we don't know any of these characters or who they are or where they came from so we can't like buy into this and that's why I felt with Gardens of the Moon like I felt excited that two thirds of the book uh through the book I was like recognizing characters when they were in a scene without being named and I was like I know who this character is and I'm like I shouldn't feel excited for it's like the bare minimum of comprehension of a book I'm two thirds through yeah well to be fair about Tenet I I think it was intended for the big theater and is intended to grab you with this odd shock with the opening and then slowly you you kind of get more into it and on a smaller screen you don't quite get that effect but but I want to bring up another film uh since you were brought Tenet up I think a better one might be Arrival where you do have the time aspect as well but you have to see it two or three times to really then recognize how how her memory works for she's remembering the future and and what the spoilers are Arrival by the way I guess for Tenet I don't know I don't think I really spoiled Tenet I was just like it's confusing yeah well Arrival is up long enough I don't I don't think that'd be too much of a disappointment yeah but I feel like again like if you can tell stories in a way where you've given the audience enough of like a firm foothold at least in some part of it to where something else about it can remain confusing and they're like okay I'm with you on this this remains confusing and this is remains the mystery and this remains like something that I'm assuming and I'm trusting you're going to explain this at some point but Gardens of the Moon you don't have a foothold you're like tossed into the deep end and you've got nothing to hang on to nothing you recognize nothing is explained to you and then you're just like being punished for not already knowing who everybody is and how magic works and you're like what I did take a quick look in Wikipedia and it said that the author had created or spent time creating the world for some number of years before he decided to create a book that had people in it and and we're doing various things but but the world was more of a Dungeons and Dragons type of a book I mean the world is and so a lot of the what the characters do if you think about it could be translated to two characters that you see in that realm or that well sure but even then like the rules that you've made up and the limitations and how they're connected to each other it's still like it's whatever you made up but we don't know sir what you made up but if you enjoyed enough your patient to to see it develop I guess I mean like Tolkien spent years and years developing his world and only later than decided to tell some stories in it and no point anymore the rings are you just like I'm just not going to tell you any of this works like Tolkien explains things as we go you're not just like confused for no reason not as much but yeah I mean the author chose to do it that way and and I guess each author is going to be unique that way but so like I guess uh since the resounding like consensus when like when I said I was going to read this book then when I was reading it and vlogging it and then like when I wrapped up for the month and said I had read it and that I was quite confused the like 1000% of people who read it liked or hated it people who re-read it multiple times or stopped at the once every single person said it is normal and it is like the expected outcome that you will be confused the first time that you read it and like for me I'm like well then this person has failed in their like the first part of their mission as a storyteller and that is to tell a story that your audience understands if the guaranteed outcome of every single person it's not just like oh it's kind of hard to understand so a lot of people finding confusing if it's 100% of people find it confusing that's not good although I was reading it slowly enough to where I had absorbed that I really didn't have to go back and reread portions of it I was able to follow along as I was reading the book no I mean but when I say people rereading I mean like rereading all the way through to where you've seen where all of this ends up and only then to go back and like understand what all of this was supposed to mean and there would be a richer rereading and and I I mean I I enjoyed more that the rings far better the second time through as well but again there's the difference between a movie that rewards a rewatch versus can only be understood on a rewatch I I wouldn't say it was as bad as all that but like I mean like so at what point did you check Wikipedia after you had finished it uh yeah okay I don't say like if you're checking Wikipedia as you got a chance well you you had told me a couple of things that that it was a very well developed world and and he doesn't do much explaining but but it has a lot a very very large fan base and people enjoy it so I took it on faith that it was worthwhile putting the effort into to read it more slowly and to enjoy enjoy the trip so to speak yeah I mean well I did go into it myself that way I felt like I went into it knowing that I should expect to feel confused but I was hoping to find that I could suss out some like some reasoning for it that I could like once having read it I could be like putting myself in the author's shoes be like I mean I see why he told it this way like I get like how that alters the experience that is a net positive and that in some way colors the world or colors like the point he's making about how we understand world there's because so like and I kind of plan to do a video on this so like stay tuned but I plan to talk about more in depth about comparing how malison how steven erickson like confuses the reader or bewilders the reader versus how nk jemisin does it in the broken earth in the broken earth it feels extremely intentional and it feels like I know while I like having read those books like I see why this was done it wasn't like just done it wasn't just like well it just it just is a confusing book and that's just the author decided to do it that way now I feel like I know why the author decided to do it that way and I see how that is a feature of the story and how it helps like the experience that the reader is meant to have it has an effect on it it's not just like well I'm just not going to tell you which is how I felt about gardens of the moon I was like if there's a reason for this I can a thousand percent get behind that and be like you have to be confused at first for then the way that it you know comes out in the end you're like ah I see I did need for it I needed to be confused in the beginning for it to work this way and I get why you did it but at no point did I feel that way I would say it's more like visiting a foreign country and you know that it's going to be a struggle to really really know what's going on around you and and the the traditions and the way people do things but you know that given some time you'll absorb it by osmosis but I guess that I regard the author as my sherpa in that foreign land like land and they're a bad sherpa if I'm that lost like what am I paying you for sherpa you're supposed to be guiding me through this world but really were you that lost I'm saying I was more lost than I should be like I shouldn't have to work that hard to understand your story if you're telling it well no it's not my job it's your job to explain I thought that the book would be at least four stars perhaps more than that uh am I getting a feeling that you're close to that or you're a little less than that I gave it three ooh according to goodreads three means you liked it okay four means you loved it and five means that it was like perfect well and on that scale like if lord of the rings would be five stars for you for me okay I think I'm trying I'm pretty sure I gave fellowship four stars I usually only give books five stars I'm like I would never change anything about this uh well what would you change about a Michelangelo you you regarded as a work of art and uh anything you change would probably be to the detriment of the artist's intent so if it was more expository or built you in more about the world I'm we're talking about Lord of the Rings now no I'm talking gardens of the moon uh it it would be a different style and I did grow to like like uh some of how how he was uh leading us along showing us where things happened he wasn't leading us well that was the problem well he was telling we were going through events as they happened and I mean there were surprises in terms of the power struggles between characters that evolved in the book but that's the kind of surprises you want to get I mean so again first to me like it felt a little bit almost like the author didn't trust us to be interested just in the story as it is so we had to contrive to make it more confusing so that we're so busy chasing our tales just trying to figure out what is the story that we don't have time to think about whether or not that story is actually interesting or not and I do think the story is interesting which is why I'm like just trust that your story is a good one that these characters are interesting because they are and this world is cool you don't have to like add this gimmick of making us confused they have so that we're so busy being like but what is happening and then so proud of ourselves for figuring out what's happening that you're like oh wow I'm did I like it though I didn't have time to think about that well I I found that he didn't throw in any unneeded macguffins there were there were a lot of macguffins but uh you get the sense that uh that okay at some point you will get the follow-on of whatever was meant by that or was happening with that and now at the at the end of the book I realize that it may not be in the next book where you have done the one after that but I'm sure that in whatever it was it's 10 it's 10 books that that helped pretty much have closed closed many of the of the interesting lines that he's opened up here so like one of the things that actually I found the most interesting from more from like a narrative perspective unless as like my reading experience being a little bit more just like the back of my mind be like I kind of like the this recurring theme and then I found out from someone who's read the whole series that this never comes into it again and I was like well just kidding I guess I'm not interested in this anymore but that was the the god of chance and the spinning coin and that motif recurring almost like in a poetic like refrain throughout like multiple scenes and I was like that's so interesting to me as this through line through this whole book where we keep seeing this motif recur and it kind of if there's anything unifying this this crazy unexplained nonsense it's that and then I found out I got a chance and the coin just like stops being a thing after the first book and we're just like never addressed it again it was like okay I never thought that he would be like a prime mover I don't even need to be a prime mover but I mean like I thought that we were doing something with this that like we're really developing like the significance of this motif and that perhaps this is kind of almost the thesis of what's going on here is like maybe a chance element and how this is like the coin is emblematic of the role that chance plays in everything and that things are not planned and that things are always or like something like that and I was like I'm liking that and I was like is this going to be kind of the thesis maybe of the entire series because we're just kind of getting it teased here and there as like dropping it in here and dropping it in there and I'm like I'm noticing it and I'm wanting it to be something and it turns out like that so something like the fickleness of gods but in this case represented by the spinning coin but other gods would have different ways of showing how fickle they are with respect to their their worshipers or humanity I mean it doesn't have to be specific to the gods it can just be that like they're representative of the element of chance in life or in the universe or something like that again like I didn't have an answer for what where that he was going with this but it seemed that he was going somewhere with this that it was a recurring motif that I should take note of and then it turns out well I can try to derive meaning from it in gardens of the moon but it's never going to be a thing again that was just that particular gods thing so I feel kind of let down by that because I'm like okay well then I well let's all these things that will be revealed alright I'll go with you but the one that I was interested in it was apparently that thing yeah no I didn't quite take that as a promise I just thought well that was an interesting aspect of it and and I fear everybody had about this particular god and the involvement of him meaning that that things could turn on a dime as we saw that was just that particular god I guess I was I was like all right I have to search since the author is not going to hold my hand I have to find the meaning I have to find the thesis I have to find what's going on and don't pick the wrong thing because that's not going to be a thing now we're down to Monty Python's a meaning of life right good because a lot of things are searches for meaning and and many people find their own meaning but I mean that's a philosophy of always being explored so since you said you really liked the characters and the character arcs and felt that they were fleshed out and like fully realized was there any standouts like particular characters that you like latched on to or like you were really hoping there you're going to see them again there were several of them I mean I peran for one I mean obviously he he's plays a large role that the the female of mage of right no what was her uh tatter sale tatter sale yeah I mean she was she was interesting and obviously well it seemed to me obviously it'll come into play since there was some prophecies or whatever I guess that's a spoiler alert so to speak what fantasy does not have a prophecy right right so there there were interesting interesting characters and that's not the the some of them the bridge the bridge crew obviously whiskey jack whiskey jack he named after Jack Daniels you think no unconsciously in the part of the author who knows me is like taking Hemingway's advice writing drunk editing sober and was like I'll just name him whiskey jack I mean the whole opening the the characters and the young lad in the opening was like well obviously they're being introduced and I'm sure they're going to play play a larger role as we go along so let's just pay attention to them yeah but again it's kind of hard to know which things to pay attention to it's kind of a sort of like reminds me of um like a study tactic that is taught in school but that cannot be applied here um because of how confusingly if told is that like the teachers would often say that when you're taking a test like the kind of test that has like a passage that you're meant to read and then multiple choice questions about the passage every teacher for every test prep was like read the questions first then read the passage because then you can zero in on the things that you need to be looking forward to answer those questions and like that's kind of like when you're reading a book you're kind of like you don't you can't read the questions first because there are no questions but that's what kind of what you're mentally doing you're kind of figuring out like which are the things that are going to be things that I need to be paying attention to that aren't just like a random you know like okay you told me there's a window in this room but I probably don't need to super retain that there was a window in this room so like but what are the things that I need to be retaining and like this book is just so all over the place they're like I can't possibly retain everything so like ah so on a second read now that you've seen all of it you're like well now I finally know now I've read the questions now I finally know what I'm supposed to be paying attention to well I I did find that I had retained enough of the things I needed to retain to to where it wasn't a surprise that that was important so but I guess I mean that that goes back to where I had faith that the author wasn't going to be throwing in a lot of unnecessary stuff that if he says something think about it oh that's part of that character there's something going on with that let's see what that means later on type of thing I don't look because you knew this is the type of book it would be I was you would casually picked it up and you're like five chapters deep and you're like what is going on what was any effect very good point and and like I said I I took you at that at your word where you saw that people really enjoyed so if they do that means that that those kinds of things you aren't you aren't going to be led down this merry path and then disappointed kind of thing good but I just feel like a book that has to be like you need a disclaimer first before you read it I'm like oh then that's a flaw it also leads to a slow development of a fan base it doesn't really quite catch you that quickly well then that's some part of me like the cynical part of me is like are people fans of this just because they're just like so GD proud that they figured it out and they're just like oh the first time you read it you're confused you're not like us who like no because we read it like 10 times and we actually know it now and we're like you have to be like in the club because the first time you read it you don't know anything I know you've got some mixed thoughts about the stormlight archive by mixed you mean I hate it then yes why don't there were aspects you liked about it but but whatever I liked the interlude where that guy is in some place where they walk around in like an inch of water and I was like this is interesting and it's never revisited again and has nothing to do with what's going on in Way of Kings well I'll contraire it actually does get revisited not in Way of Kings I guess I've read further than you obviously you know why bring it up in Way of Kings if it has nothing to do with Way of Kings it was it was just something that you have to have some faith in the author I don't have as much faith in Sanderson the author that that a lot of those things will have as much meaning as when I read if I read subsequent books as I do in this particular I'm curious so I mean I obviously well I also just liked this book better than I liked Way of Kings but like since you also you liked Way of Kings unlike me so why is it that you have greater faith in Erickson on one book than Sanderson after having read like five or six of his books wow that's uh that's interesting I mean it's like like the having seen the series lost and and knowing that you were being led down this merry path and everything was going to be left unknowable versus the high quality writing in a series like Dark but I mean I would almost argue like I mean based on what I heard that is that Malazan you know is expansive is bewildering and confusing all over the place but you know a lot of things do circle back and get answered but in your own experience and in my own experience Brandon Sanderson in the Mistborn trilogy he answered everything he set up so like why wouldn't you have faith in Brandon Sanderson why would you have more faith in Stephen Erickson I feel like I'm playing devil's advocate because I like the Brandon Sanderson hater and maybe I will develop more faith in that particular series of books I I don't know why it's just a feeling and feelings are based on something intuitive that you've sensed there is it because of things like the interlude but of nothing to do with the book and you're like well I don't know why that was there but I'm losing faith in some ways I get the feeling that there were things developed in those books and I'm not sure how much the author really wants to develop that more later so is it really worthwhile paying that much attention that's kind of the impression I'm getting but I don't know if if that's going to be true or not another spinning coin situation right right I mean unlike you I probably will at some point read more of the of that series Stormlight archive there but let's see how much I'm let down the path because it's gonna be 10 books just like Maliband the parallels yeah well it's it's you know winter is coming I mean George R. R. Martin I don't know if it's the combination of the TV show doing other storylines and creating other kinds of things and to me the the the whole TV series ended up not not in any kind of a satisfying way based on the the opening of it the those ice ice walkers the white walkers white walkers excuse me how the how they came out and now that should have been the ultimate kind of the the bogeyman but but yet there was other histories and other things mixed in we can't blame George R. Martin for that necessarily because that's not part of that's not canon yeah but I mean it got mixed in with what the TV needed and and so so I I I definitely don't have faith that things will be wrapped up nicely if and when he does finish because of how the TV series went you think the books won't be yeah I I think that if the heavy doesn't incorporate so many of the elements of the of what the TV series brought up in the books there'll be a lot of disappointment and and the the the TV series just opened up too many other possibilities I think so it's there's a lot of things that are in the books that's why this video is still about Malazan we'll get back to that what I'm like there's a lot of plot lines that the TV show TV show closed which is why like they literally couldn't have the ending that George R. Martin had potentially planned and written because there's plot lines that they didn't ever have like Lady Stoneheart where she at like we don't know how that plays into it at all there's like multiple characters that got condensed into one character like so there's multiple things like that where like that might have been a big part of how this is actually meant to be resolved and since that wasn't in the show ever they couldn't do that but the books would have those things obviously yeah and maybe it's it's almost like Star Wars where the it is such a shit show that that takes the fan base or a very good director to to bring some honesty back to the to the universe well again and that's another thing that actually like a lot of people make which is an excellent point is that like through the course of the show just because of how the the the nuance of the actors brought to the characters by the end of the series the characters were different from how they are in the book and not because it wasn't being true to the books just because like they had developed personalities that were kind of unique to the show like even like Tyrion became a much more sympathetic character because like Peter Dinklage's performance is much more sympathetic than how Tyrion is in the books Tyrion's kind of little monster and so like you know like the endings that are written for these characters in the books might very well fit the characters in the books but these really aren't those characters anymore so like forcing them into these endings that the show was like well that's the end point so we just gotta move them there you're like but that's they're not those people anymore so like the story George R R Martin is telling in his books is necessarily different because his characters are different from how the show right the other dimension the actors brought right or not even like it makes it sound like they don't have dimension in the books but they're just they're just different like even the ages like johnson was like 14 years old kid Harrington is very much not 14 years old even though he acts like a little bitch okay but yeah so Malazan you have apparently great faith and Stephen Erickson like nailing the landing I guess it's because I know that he did spend all that time developing the world and now now that he has had various characters and he has a history in mind for the world those characters are are going to be players in that history so I do have faith that he really has worked it out and and like to go back to the Stormlight archive I'm not sure that Sanderson has as fleshed out his world as well as Malazan is you mean because like it's not to your knowledge being independently crafted without a story in mind like onto itself yeah that's part of it yeah do you think then it's necessary for a fantasy author to have done that to have a successful fantasy story not necessarily but if it is really complex maybe it is necessary I know some others like to create a the story arc for multiple books and and then it's a matter of filling in the details others it's organic they they have the characters do things and they're even surprised by how the characters develop and what they do I mean there are different approaches flotters versus panzers yeah well again because then the ones that like plan out where this is going to go then they end up with that problem that we just had with what we said with game of thrones we're like if you can plan where this character is going to end up you end up having the character may not behave in an organic way because suddenly they have to make decisions that make them go they veer off course you know where this is supposed to end up so you have to force them to end up and if it's artificial it feels artificial in terms of where they choose to go then then it's unsatisfying too so how well crafted and and how devious and intuitive is the author in terms of being able to bring it all together I feel like Steven Erickson is pretty devious in the whole not telling us anything I'm not gonna argue that I just feel like it's rude honestly like that's I think what bothers me girls I'm just like it's rude your expectations are what they are I did I be I did like the characters I did like the royal building I again like that's why I was mad at it mostly because I was like this is really good why are you making it so hard for me to like get to a point where I know what's going on like why did it have to be so hard like this wasn't going on is interesting by itself and if you had just explained it from the beginning without me being like huh I could have just been enjoying this story from page one instead of taking two-thirds of the book to finally be like okay I finally am with you well I like I said before I don't think it was as bad as all that and I know your your schedule of reading books forces you to be a little more aggressive about pushing through a book so I might have taken a little more time going through this one than you did maybe but again like I just feel like there's a difference between something being difficult to understand and being impossible to understand and that's not again like as you went along you picked it up but I mean like from the get go like it's something you're going to have to figure out and like at some point you start to be able to but it's not like from the beginning of the book like if you really pay attention it's just complex but it's very much there and very much not there it's just later you're gonna I think that there there are things laid out there that that do sort of make sense I mean uh you you do get the sense that you're dealing with very powerful beings at the from the onset and and it isn't that far along to where you discover that some of them actually are gods but I mean that's like one of the biggest frustrations that I have then is because like what makes you invested in a story what makes you able to like put yourself in this story understand the stakes of the story is having a point of reference for the stakes having a point of reference for power levels and so like if you tell me that this being has such and such power that you have not explained and I've no point of reference for what other powers there are like I don't I don't know relative to this world how bad is this how good is this how much is this like when you tell me you know like I have like 10 000 shrewt bucks I'm like well what is the rate of exchange like are you a millionaire or is a shrewt buck worth nothing so like when you tell me you want to know how much is a pack of gum yeah so like when you say random words and random power levels with no point of reference in this world that I don't I don't know how to react to that like I'm like okay so you have this thing and you are this thing I don't know what that means I don't I don't does that mean you like basically rule the universe because you're mega superpower or is that just kind of like average for like well the thing you are like what is a warren why do y'all have warrants I what is happening with that you have many warrants is that a lot is that unusual and even in the pantheon of gods that I mean there were at least a half a dozen I don't I didn't specifically count them but at least if not more especially if you consider that there were supposed to be the eldest gods again it's relative now is there one super god above them all I don't know it's not clear yet I mean the relativity of things like it's something that is only way later in the book you can kind of begin to suss it out because you've seen enough examples of what things people are getting up to that you're like I guess that seems worse or than this other thing that's what it's like if you're talking like if your fantasy world is a very sort of realistic fantasy world and like it's all mainly swords dagger shields cannons tributaries like and then once in a while we have some magic show up I know what a sword can do I know what a tributary can do so when you're telling me that you're laying siege like I have a very good point of reference for the level of damage we're talking about the level of power you tell me that you have an army of a hundred thousand human soldiers like I know what that can do but when you have magical words that are whatever you mean them to mean and this is my only explanation for how much is going on and I'm like but what what does that mean I don't know what that means yeah I mean we're going to talk about modern war if you talk about a nuclear weapon of 20 kilotons that's one thing that's that's a Hiroshima type of a weapon versus what destroyed the Bikini Atoll which is the multi-megaton which has obviously never been used I used to sound like Stephen Erickson because like for most of that I was like I don't know what any of that is I would know what Hiroshima is okay there's there's peaks and aerospace engineer who has some background there yeah one that assumes his audience either needs to already be on the same page with him or he'll pick it up as I go just rude maybe that's why I reacted to Stephen Erickson like this because like he wanted to be with you never explaining shit well you're a smart person you'll pick it up oh why do you have to make it so hard all I needed was help on my long division now I know about imaginary numbers that's right I do remember that you're Stephen Erickson that's why you have faith in him never answer questions directly now yes this is making so much sense yes this is how you approach life ask you a simple question you're like what if I just don't answer if that or I tell you a different answer that you didn't ask for cheerio that is how I've always learned things were where I will inundate myself with with lots of facts and things that have happened until I see a pattern emerge I mean that is my way of learning things yeah but the thing is if your professor is teaching his class that way he's a bad professor no I'll have faith that he's telling me all these things because they are important to learn and at some point they will fall together and make sense but what if he's a bad professor and you should be a bad professor then my faith in the university okay but that's like you've already invested so much of your brain space learning all this stuff like well it's gonna pay off and then you find out you're like oh just kidding like one of these things is relevant to my degree and all the rest of that was just just nonsense great yeah well it sucks to be you then you shouldn't have to take it on faith but you do there's so many things I mean we have faith in our parents that they're looking out for our best interests and some of the most screwed up kids are the ones that find out that their parents didn't have their best interest in the way Stephen Erickson is a bad parent no I don't think so okay just a bad parent to his reader children if you are worried about that I guess that's a concern just left his kids so confused what's going on why won't you just tell me well magic and imaginary numbers there you go nope now completely switching gears I'm like the name a lot but the character left me underwhelmed but I'm told that it's a fan favorite and Amanda rake ah the lord of the moon like that name as soon as I heard it what sounds like a name from dune and like I just like that's a cool name but then every time you popped up I was like you're super boring though like your name is super cool and that's the coolest part of you hi well he's he is very dark he is non-human so developing him is is going to be developing a a person that doesn't have human characteristics so it'll be interesting I agree who are you agreeing with the others not me well I I agree that that is an interesting character and and okay you said that you didn't quite like him that the get go and I mean like you makes it sound like I don't have to like a character I just was like I feel like well the way it was written I just kept feeling like I feel like you think he's enigmatic and cool but I don't feel like he's enigmatic enigmatic cool all I get is the sense that he is a player I could be said for all of them well there there's players and there's bit roles and there's players who really do things and change things and he's obviously he's a player that gets like a character poster by himself for the movie oh surely and then there's good old creppa whose name you can't probably forget because he says it himself and the third person a lot and he turned out to be more than than I thought he initially would be but that's another choice where I'm like but why does creppa refer to creppa as creppa why was this choice made author why maybe we'll find more about that character about why why he is doing I hope though because it's a weird super weird and off-putting yeah no I didn't I thought that was clownish initially and then the character actually in terms of motives and things that he was doing obviously was very serious and some of his buffoonishness was to to dispel attention that he's a serious player well it's a lot of Logan 9 fingers it's always wise to appear like or appear or to seem less than you are right and the ones that are so important for them to be really big well yep they're a big target all right I think that's I know you didn't finish it but that's the thing that Lachlan Moore always says that like with the luxury of being constantly underestimated yeah I have to say so like I feel like again like I did like the plot and the characters in the world and I'm mainly frustrated with how like needlessly obfuscated everything was but I even so the execution I think was uh like made up for the cliche of it but I did find it to be very cliche that all of this kind of converges on some fancy party where all of the parties are now going to converge and like you know and reminded me of there's so many plots in that freaking CW show where everything just it's like oh this like contrived event where we have the event where conveniently people are going to have masks and now where everybody is going to converge and it just it feels so contrived to me to have this be the like end meet-up goal and I'm like for the originality of everything else that's going on I'm like really it's all going to converge up like the party scene like really well I take the perspective that the god of chance was actually putting out a lot of threads that he was kind of ishi whatever between gods of chance we're forcing to to really come together at that point since much of much of the plot does revolve around what this god of chance has kind of set out there okay but again it's Stephen Eriks in the room so like he decided to make it all converge at a party scene right and I could argue that the god of chance played a role in that things that seemingly were really random really look obviously turned out not to be random and it was less and less random as it went along and and like you said I converged in that party scene yeah that's the thing that I find cliche I'm like it was there was interesting things about how it was executed and things that went down in that party but just the fact of this is where things come down to feels like the most trite thing that I've ever seen because like the amount of like oceans 11 type movies where like well we all have to get this thing done before the grand fall wherever that's where she's gonna be it's our one chance to get her like this is the plot of like so many bad movies so many fantasies so many like stories have that be the thing that this all like the client like the climactic like moment well and and I said earlier that the story arc didn't feel like it was finished perhaps in Erikson's mind having that big party and the culmination of a lot of those threats coming together maybe you thought that would be enough to to be the finish of a story arc for this one particular book to me it didn't quite feel like it but I guess that's just one way of approaching it certainly is and we saw that with his way yeah it has to be by definition a way to approach it yeah hopefully there's no climactic party scene in dead house gates it will be something else because if there is I will judge it right and and then you would have real difficulty in going on to possibly a third book or whatever oh I just thought the thing that it most reminded me of having a convergence party scene is like every season of of vampire diaries on the cw because this small town in where they live that has this historical society this town like because it's a long season so there's always like a two arc season and every arc there was like a founder's ball or like the town council's party or like the historical parade where we celebrate this event some big gala thing where this is where everybody's gonna be at when this social calendar that everybody partakes of means something but yeah it's just it was always that where we're all gonna be in our get-ups we're all gonna have our masks and everyone's gonna be in the same fancy place and like this is that episode so when we got to the party episode of gardens of the moon I was like this is vampire diaries and I'm a big fan of the vampire diaries so I can't quite connect there but that's what I said like it feels like for as original and bold and innovative and complex and intricate this whole thing was and I was like we have like the party scene like really well I didn't quite take as much of a trope as you are obviously I mean there was a convergence that that was used there were a lot of plot lines obviously coming together but I didn't think it was the overused cliche I guess I was disappointed in it because this whole book seems to be so like well I'm just too complicated to be understood and I won't bother explaining myself to you because this is unlike anything you've ever seen before and you just have to trust me and then we have a vampire diaries style climatic party scene and I was like but we couldn't be a little more original about that one well you're saying that you felt a certain level of condescension on the part of the author yeah very annoying I didn't feel it but so it is what at least he's to a degree able to walk the walk that he's so boldly talks and kudos to him for that I mean like if not for that I'd be like oh screw you but I was like I mean you can write well sir I just kind of wish you wouldn't be so like I'm not gonna explain it to the plebs like why not you'll catch on but yeah if you couldn't also write well then I'd be like okay you just get out well there are many authors where I read a little bit of stuff and it's like this this seems so warmed over in terms of what the people are and what the goings on that doesn't seem worthwhile to explore where this particular author is going to take it because is it really going to add to my enjoyment another rehashing of this this kind of a story probably not why don't you feel like you've seen this all before and done better yeah exactly whereas there was certainly a freshness to Ericsson's world I've rarely read things that are that confusing I mean I did uh on a more positive I feel like I've mainly just been very harsh and been like it was fine but I will say I did very much like the style of the prose being kind of more this like kind of more archaic and formal style as it I it's not that I think that there's objectively anything wrong with a simpler more modern style but my personal preference leans towards fantasy having more of that formal style of writing because the like my immersion as a reader like is uh like I'm able to immerse myself more and take many more like leaps for a fantasy world if this is kind of the nature of the storytelling because it's more in keeping with the it just makes it all feel kind of old and magical and unknowable because you're talking about it you know in this way that's kind of you know it sounds like some ancient unknowable prophecy but if you're just talking in a very cut and dry and modern slangy short speech and but you're also talking about epic prophecies and magic then it sounds stupid to me so like I my personal preference uh is for the type of prose that he uses in this book where it is kind of flowery and old-timey sounding you know the slangy uh yeah like smart healthy like you're saying not even smart I mean like to shit on sanderson again because like may as well we've already started what's it gonna hurt like that's one of the main things I shouldn't say one of the main things it is among the variety of things that irk me when I read sanderson because like that very unadorned straightforward like very basic prose I'm like it's not incorrect it's not there's nothing like objectively wrong about doing it that way but it's much more difficult for me to take seriously this majestic fantasy world if you're describing it in a very like mechanical and rote and unpoetic way well yeah that I didn't ever said it but ericsson is very poetic in many of the descriptions right so that's what I'm saying like I for all of the like me sitting there being like can you just fucking explain this like there was also in the middle of being confused about what is generally going on just the individual phrases individual sentences individual things moments of dialogue or a character philosophizing about something or again that's why I found the like spinning coin motif to be so fascinating because it did it the whole book had this kind of like poetic and feeling where you can feel like the book itself has this like the way that a poem will keep having a rhyming motif and it refrain because that's part of the poetic structure of it whereas like a regular old book wouldn't have that so like that made me take it more seriously well yeah and that's the confidence that the author does know how to weave all of his threats but it's not I mean weaving of the threads it's just being able to write well well yeah being able to write well is certainly what you hope of your authors but again it's not incorrect to write in a way that's not flowery like sanderson like grammatically it's correct like that is a purely taste preference thing because a lot of people don't like flowery writing and that's why they like sanderson it's because his prose is very just straightforward it's an unadorned you like you explain to the thing and exactly the number of words you needed to explain it and I know what this looks like now as opposed to being more fanciful about how you go about telling it and I like the more fanciful bordering on Shakespeare kind of thing yeah well that's part of why I really enjoyed a version of the audiobook of the Lord of the Rings too I love the the narrator and how it brought so much of the of the speech to life in ways that I hadn't seen as I was reading it but then that's part of the narrator not to the Tolkien word choice true but perhaps if I was to spend more time thinking about that I could come up with that and now I have done poetic readings to where I've done that because that's an interpretation of it whereas like the prose by itself is either adorned and poetical or it's straightforward no matter how beautifully you read it for sanderson's prose is very straightforward and ericson's prose you could read it flatly but it's still very adorned right right poetical and it deserves the attention and a treatment that it is poetry even in prose but then like on the flip side even though that's the thing about it that I probably enjoyed the most like part of me is also like but that is what also makes it like slightly more difficult to understand because you already didn't explain anything and then you wrote it in this flowery way so we're like a person could be totally lost in the purple miasma of these prose like what's going on where you have to learn how to read Shakespeare after while you get used to how how we approach these things and what is language is like but at first it's it's like it is confusing but to me like I love seeing an author like on like aside from whether or not I like what they're doing with the story or characters I like them demonstrating a command of the language in a way to where they are like just being a wordsmith where like there's a difference between just telling a story you know like appropriately correctly you know clearly versus like playing with the language with like multifaceted meanings double meanings like and you know double entendres like that kind of thing where I'm like regardless of the story you're telling I just like to see you play with words and Stephen Erickson for all my irritation with how confusingly he told it I did like watching him play with words very much so so I can praise it for that good without qualification I suppose so let's see how much we enjoy that second book that house game yeah well whole new characters we got to learn about so we thought we had some training wheels on now but nope just toss them out we're doing something else now put on your walker right right look forward to it so any other thoughts about current to the man uh not at the moment uh other than that I did enjoy it and and I do intend to read more more of what he's written there yeah I got you the book so you better yeah I better all right well I guess that check in again later you know month or so talk about dead house game yeah it's been a pleasure let us know in the comments down below if you agree or disagree uh I'm guessing agree and disagree fans of these books for whatever you want to let me know slash us know I don't know if you're gonna look at the comments or if you're gonna rely on me to tell you what they say I'll uh put an eyeball there okay so he's watching be careful below it all the things I post videos on Saturdays other random times a little deadly Saturdays and sometimes other random people so like and subscribe and I slash sometimes we will see you when we see you out of frame well I have a short torso we have to compromise I need to slouch a little bit well whatever you don't think that's right but you're sitting so straight that you're well I was out of frame I didn't want to be creepy by having my hand up here I thought well the only options to sit up like this or to be like not quite but I was just trying to find my find my spot here okay