Friday Conversation | EP 97: Navigating the World of Book Reviews w/ Mikes Book Reviews, Carl D. Albert, Chris Mohan, Jarrod & Varsha

Ever wondered what goes into crafting a detailed, constructive book review, or how star ratings can be a double-edged sword in the literary world? Meet our guest, Mike from Mike's Book Reviews, as we deep dive into the complex terrain of book reviews, and the puzzling phenomena of book series fandoms, from the Malazan devotees to the intriguing responses towards authors like Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin. Join our lively discourse as we traverse through the trials of reviewing, the power of positive feedback, and the impact of digital consumption on our relationship with books and media.

We're also cracking open the covers on non-fiction and historical fiction, sharing our top picks and insights on how history often intertwines with fantasy narratives. From the trenches of our experiences with self-published authors to the juxtaposition of various fantasy series, we stir the pot on all things books. We'll even let you peek behind the curtain into our interactions with authors, and share our strategies for combating reading burnout.

Of course, it isn't all literary musings. As usual, we have some unexpected detours as we weigh in on our favorite New Kids on the Block members, play movie critics for DC and Marvel films, and even lay bare our views on the Star Wars franchise. This episode is a meandering journey through our shared love of books, dappled with candid thoughts, hearty laughs, and the occasional sharp critique. Whether you're a keen reader scouting for your next page-turner, or an aspiring reviewer seeking insights on the craft, this conversation is bound to leave you with a few nuggets of wisdom.

Find our guests

Mike: https://www.youtube.com/@mikesbookreviews

Chris Mohan: https://www.youtube.com/@chrismohan

Carl D. Albert: https://carldalbert.wpcomstaging.com/

Jarrod: https://www.youtube.com/@thefantasythinker

Varsha: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadingByTheRainyMountain

Chapters

• 0:01 Book Reviews and Rethinking Star Ratings
• 7:29 Exploring the Challenges of Book Reviews
• 13:58 Reviewing Books and Rating Systems
• 18:52 Authors and Book Reviews
• 29:28 Book Reviews and Negative Feedback
• 37:08 Authors' Interactions and Book Reviewing
• 42:17 Reading Burnout and Book Hangovers
• 49:59 Malazan Fans and Unexpected Author Surprises
• 1:02:34 Historical Fiction and Nonfiction Book Discussion
• 1:11:48 Discussion on Books and TV Shows
• 1:17:19 Discussion on Book Preferences and Recommendations
• 1:27:30 Discussion About Books and Authors
• 1:30:49 Stephen King's Writing and Adaptations
• 1:42:14 Movie Reviews and Superhero Films
• 1:47:38 Star Wars Reviews and Favorite Books
• 2:03:29 Review Styles and Disappointing Books
• 2:07:29 The Shift From Reviews to Discussions
• 2:13:36 Positive and Negative Feedback Impact
• 2:24:36 Reviewing Books and Expressing Disappointments

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello friends and welcome to the Friday conversation, episode 97. I always get the numbers wrong. Every week I go back and listen. That's not the wrong, so anyway, 97. So we're here, some friends. Today We'll be talking about reviews and a figure who better to invite to talk about reviews than Mike's book reviews? Mike, how you doing.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Oh great, 97. That's the year I graduated high school. That tells you guys how old I am. Oh, young pop, that's the year I was born. Oh, this is great. People are telling me hey, you know, it's like the 20th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring. They're like, yeah, I was like six when I saw that. I was like I was older, you know. So good times. Hey, thanks for the invite, steve. I appreciate it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I appreciate your time and I'm 98. So we're close.

Speaker 4: 0:44

I'm 98 as well.

Speaker 5: 0:45

This is sick Rather not saying Uncanny yeah, as long as I'm not the oldest nor the youngest. I feel like it's a good time. Yeah, and Chris.

Speaker 4: 1:00

Flying under the radar, that's me.

Speaker 2: 1:01

That's it.

Speaker 4: 1:03

Names Chris Moulin, sometimes YouTuber. Sometimes appeared on other people's channels talking stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:08

Stuff. That's it, and Carl. My name is Carl D Albert. I am the author of Truth of Crowns, which came out earlier this year, and a very happy member of the Page 2ing Forum and frequenter of this podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Glad you can make it.

Speaker 5: 1:26

And Jared, I'm Jared, I run the fantasy. Thank you YouTube channel and also a frequent page chewing Hunter.

Speaker 1: 1:36

I've been known to visit once in a while. So just I should probably mention I always forget to plug the forum, but if you'd like to join us on a Friday conversation, check the forums. We post all the links there and you can just jump, jump in and join us. And we have lots of other nonsense going on. So love to have you. I love nonsense. Yeah, lots of nonsense. So, mike, I know reviews it's a wide. I mean there's a lot we can break. There's lots of facets to reviews. But how do you approach reviews? What is your, what is generally your thoughts on reviews, on content and on just the work that goes into them?

Speaker 2: 2:14

Wow, I gotta go first. Well, I always like to. I don't like to review books that I don't like, because I feel like I don't want to be blamed for like torpedoing someone's career, like if they're just getting started or something. So I always said, like I'm always going to find something nice to say. Even in books like I've despised, I found a way to say something good about them.

Speaker 2: 2:36

So I think I just keep things constructive is the way that I do it. I just do a very simple method what's the book about? Then I talk about what I liked, what I didn't like, or not necessarily, maybe not what I didn't like, but you know something that you might want to look out for. If this is kind of something you don't really care for, you know, hey, that is there, let people know that. And it's kind of like my final thoughts kind of thing about you know where it ranks. I avoid star ratings because people look so much in the star ratings and out of 10 and all that stuff, I'm either you know, hey, read it, or maybe you'd rather mow your lawn or something, maybe. You know, that's kind of the way that I look at it.

Speaker 2: 3:10

But yeah just keep it positive. That's kind of my whole message. Just keep things positive.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Chris find a kindred spirit. Star ratings.

Speaker 4: 3:21

I'll reiterate what I said in the video in general. But it's like if my own star ratings aren't consistent from day to day, like why the hell should everybody else watch them or look at them? Like three star, one day is a four star, another day is a five star, like what like doesn't really make make much sense for me to put them on. So in theory, we read books with lots of words in them. We should be using words as a better metric to describe books and kind of get books, but I think in general people don't really read them or watch them as a case, maybe in the same way as much as people say that they value them and they want them, but nobody really uses it, other than it makes a number tick up, one to say there is one more review using last time.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Yeah, TicToc Nation wants you to do, you know, really, really quick reviews and then say you do a 60 second TicToc review and they'll say you didn't say anything.

Speaker 5: 4:15

So it's like what do you want?

Speaker 2: 4:16

All my videos average 20 minutes and you guys tell me I talked too long. But then you tell me my reviews are lacking if I don't do that. So it's a losing battle. So it's gotten worse, but I just feel like you know, attention spans are just getting shorter and shorter and shorter. So I'm surprised anybody listens to what I say at all, because I can't say anything short like.

Speaker 3: 4:37

I feel that it's. I definitely find that star ratings are like the worst part of, I feel, like present day, reviewing landscapes. And I mean it started certainly, you know, in newspapers and magazines going back decades and decades. But it's just such a facile way of like trying to interpret or explain how good or how bad a book or anything is, and yet they carry a lot of weight just because of the power of things like Goodreads. I don't even know why I still use Goodreads. It's a horrible website.

Speaker 2: 5:14

I did a 20 minute video about Goodreads the other day, so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:19

So that, yeah, yeah, the star thing that's the thing you put a five star review on something people think it's amazing. You put one star. They think it's the worst thing ever. But with me I got a lot of people that would compare. Oh well, you gave this Brandon Sanderson book a three, but you gave this other author's book a four. Does that mean you think you like it better than Brandon Sanderson? What that's what? No, I didn't say that. No, it's. It's just. I just stopped putting star ratings on Goodreads. That's always a problem with those.

Speaker 5: 5:45

I always finished like I would if I. Whenever I first started, I was like, oh, should I do star ratings? And I'm like it took. I was thinking longer about the star rating than I was about the book and I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 2: 5:59

And then I don't. I say I don't give five stars unless I think it's something like all time you know an all time great and people get mad about it. Well, that brings the ratings. That's not my problem, that's a good reason problem. You know that's their rating scale. So I know people love to give out five stars like they're giving away candy. That's just not me.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Yeah, I hate Goodreads.

Speaker 2: 6:21

It's like people who say they don't like Twitter. But I was like, but there isn't very many. You know better alternatives because of the number of users. That's the biggest thing for me. It's like there might be better alternatives to Twitter or to Goodreads, but it's got such a massive user base. It's tough. It's like the Netflix of streaming services. You know. There's just so many more people who haven't. It's rough.

Speaker 4: 6:42

I hate the problem.

Speaker 5: 6:44

You are doing any book reviews prior to starting the YouTube channel.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, I've just every once in a while, I would just, you know, do one on Goodreads. But I mean, I also think that, like I wasn't really using Goodreads consistently until like about 2017 or so, but I'm much more of a speaking guy than I am a writing guy, so I'm afraid I might have just go through the red pen and talk about you know how awful my writing is and how I use nothing but like fragmented sentences and stuff, and I'm like, yeah, that's why I talk, you know, instead of because you can't. You can criticize the way I talk, I guess, but you know, yeah, I mean, if I did, they were one paragraph, you know.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Go ahead, Chris.

Speaker 4: 7:29

No, I was just going to say, like the prompt that comes when you, when you're reading Kindle, you must read that book immediately, like it's all part of that ecosystem. You're not only deciding it, not only think about it, kind of put it away before you go on the next one. It's kind of that propulsion of chewing up content, spitting out reviews, kind of feeding the system, feeding the machine, all that kind of stuff. And just sometimes I like to read books, I like to watch movies, without just kind of going, oh, I must, I must have an opinion on this. I just want to pass, sometimes enjoy content and kind of put it down and go okay, that's good, that's a different and share the word, Even, even that word, like people don't even think about it anymore.

Speaker 3: 8:12

But the oh, here comes Varsha hey.

Speaker 6: 8:16

Varsha.

Speaker 3: 8:18

I was just going to say the word content. I feel like undercuts a lot of the art in a lot of this stuff and I feel like is and I use it like this is not a judgment or anything, it's just it's like how we talk about things now but it leads, or I think it just like is so clearly a product of you know, no pun intended you know the corporate Aspect of how, how corporate everything has become. You know you're talking about like that churn, you know, and trying to keep you in the ecosystem, and certainly we're talking about Goodreads and Amazon and Kindle and all that right now. But you know it goes beyond that, whether it's in, you know, hollywood or wherever.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Welcome, varsha.

Speaker 6: 9:08

Hello Steve and everyone else Hi.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Great, you can make it.

Speaker 6: 9:13

Yeah, sorry I was late, I had to jump a few things, but here I am excited to be here. No, it's never late, that's right.

Speaker 2: 9:24

It might be overused, but I mean it's perfect. I mean my supervisor didn't like it when I use it at work one time.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Well, reviews do help me, because I did pick up Red Rising from your review.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Yeah, like when I started my channel, like they still, I mean, those were my most popular videos. Now it's like crickets, whatever I do in it, and I know that sounds like people are like, wow, I'm going to have 2000 views on a video. I'm like, well, yeah, but you, when you're looking at your audience size and you know less than 1% of your audience is watching it, they may not be interested in that content, you know. So that's why I still I'll still do them. Like I said, I got the word book reviews in the channel name. It'd be kind of hard to not ever do them again and I do enjoy doing them.

Speaker 2: 10:09

But I think it was you, steve, who actually told me. You know, hey, but they're evergreen. You know, no one's going to watch your TVR video two years from now, you know, but they might watch your, your. You review this book. You know, hey, I might actually pick it up and check it out later. They ain't going to be interested in watching. You know, your book haul from September of 2020. You know, that makes sense. It makes sense, but it is frustrating as a creator on the front end, you know, because that's when you get the first 48 hours, when you get the most views on a video, you know. So it sucks when you really spend a lot of time on one, and that's my cricket sound. I'm not very good at this.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Sound effects are my thing. They will speak up, that sweet, I mean is it?

Speaker 3: 10:45

do you have any theories about why reviews aren't doing as well as they used to? Is it like take out the attention spans? People?

Speaker 2: 10:53

were just I mean, they love them one minute videos. Now they get right to the point. Like the biggest complaint I ever get is oh, it took you two and a half minutes to actually start talking about the book. That's just kind of my style, you know, is I introduced what the book's about first, you know. But again, like I said, you do a short review like that and people say, oh, you didn't say anything.

Speaker 5: 11:15

Wow, it's a double edged sword. Are those complaints on actual channel, the comments, or?

Speaker 2: 11:21

Oh, like all the time the actual review starts at two, 48 and shit like that.

Speaker 4: 11:25

Like all the time All the time, all the time, I've timed, stumped it for you so you don't have to wait, you know yeah.

Speaker 5: 11:33

I mean even though I put the timestamps in there.

Speaker 2: 11:38

People still do that. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 11:47

There's no. Do we mean hits reviews in the same way as like a top 10, but it was do great, because every couple of minutes you're going to get the nine, the eight. You're going to get that woken up, you know, kind of refresh again to say, look, pay attention again, whereas you know reviews are usually longer form thoughts rambling and you can break them up in the sections, try lots of things, but ultimately it comes down to here is a random lot of thoughts and you're in for the journey or you're not.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Most of the time they're not, and people who haven't read the book were like oh, I want to wait till I read the book for you. That's spoiler free and people who have read are like, well, I don't really care, because you know it doesn't have spoilers. So there's no happy medium anywhere in any of reviews and I said that's why I'm down to like one a month now.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, what's, what's your approach? Farsha on reviews.

Speaker 6: 12:36

So I call I don't really do them anymore, but I do want to start again. But when I was doing review type videos on my channel I call them thoughts and impressions because one I wanted to ramble and maybe feel free to do spoilers at some point during the video and also I didn't feel qualified to say I'm reviewing a book. So, yeah, I just ramble about everything and I try to bunch the spoilers together towards the end of the video. But now and it's usually because there's so much if I only did them for books that I really liked, and if I because I don't go and say I didn't like this book for these reasons, I only did those videos for books I really liked, and so it always, even when I made 20 minute videos, I didn't say enough. So now that I've started doing this, right threads instead, which is where I get to do all the spoilery stuff I can now do. I want to try what doing a spoiler free discussion looks like. I've been thinking about it and when I have the time I'll start again.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Just having the time.

Speaker 3: 13:58

It's so tricky, right? I mean like Mike you were saying, just like there is no happy balance, right? Like if you go spoiler free, like it's hard to get you know really in depth or very specific, but at the same time, like half your audience or more is going to like dip if you go into spoilers, yeah, try to do it a while where I'd be like, OK, the first half is going to be supported for you.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Then go to spoilers. You just watch your engagement, go right off the cliff and you know that makes the good old lore algorithm decide oh, your video isn't holding your viewers attention, so it's not important. Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 4: 14:30

It's pretty sad because, like a lot of us, I like to interviews but, like you were saying, mike, I really like getting in the nuts and bolts and getting in the weeds and something. And some of my favorite videos are views, but it's like you say, put them at the time and effort that goes into not just recording the video, the edit, but they actually thinking about what I want to say here. It is not a quick to do what I think is just to sort of really enjoy it. It's not a quick process at all.

Speaker 6: 14:58

And I assume if you're really keeping your audience in mind which I categorically wasn't, because I had like 20 subscribers at the time it must be hard to figure out a good medium between giving people who haven't read the book the information they need and people who have read the book enough to give them the age that we have to say oh, what is this person, think about it, I hate it or love this book, and I want to know to give them enough thoughts to it. It must be a lot of effort, I'm sure.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Yeah, I tried to do the what I was called rapid reviews, which I basically keep it under like five, six minutes, and I can't talk about this coffee mug in under five or six minutes. No way I could tell you everything I liked about a book. Like I'll try to do shorts, you know, and I'm like that is the hardest thing in the world Tell you why I liked it. I didn't like a book in 60 seconds. I'm sorry, I'm not sales pitch guy, at least not shortly, you know. So it's, it's raw.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Yeah there's also a good.

Speaker 5: 16:02

Oh, no Sorry.

Speaker 1: 16:07

We should be better by now, but go ahead.

Speaker 3: 16:08

I know it's like a skill we should. We've trained, we practice. But alas, all I was going to say was, like you know that when you get those 60 second reviews, they're so like there's nothing to them, they're vapid like they're. It's impossible, like you said, mike, like you can't say anything about. So you get, you know, the Goodreads phenomenon of just like all caps screaming like OMG, this is the best book of all time, like maybe you're like three tropes in it and you know, go buy it, it's the latest big blah, blah, blah and it just doesn't mean anything. And it's impossible to tell you know really anything about a book, except like, like you could read the blurb in that time and that would be more useful.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Let's have a start. Sound like the Micro Machines guy. I was talking about the best book in this society. It's not going to work.

Speaker 1: 16:59

It's not going to work. The Micro Machines guy yeah, that's a callback.

Speaker 2: 17:04

So the I don't like to say the Scatman, because that usually goes over for.

Speaker 4: 17:10

Yep.

Speaker 2: 17:14

My kids like this song, by the way, and I'm trying not to laugh.

Speaker 4: 17:18

Scatman Mike. Come and make a return from Scatman John, you know.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Yeah, the whole like Gus review. When every review is a Gus review, I just don't. Really it doesn't mean anything. When, and when everything is great, then it's like another book is the best book you've read all year, like okay, so it's hard to find reviewers that you can. I think we all have reviewers that we go to and kind of match our tastes, but when it's just Gus, after Gus, after Gus, and this is the best thing ever, it's like. Is it, though, when a week ago is the best book you've read in your life?

Speaker 2: 17:53

They throw the five stars out so much. I'm just like you tell me that's one of the greatest books you've ever read in your life. I'm like, well, no, I just really enjoyed it. I'm like, so it gets a perfect rating because you enjoyed it. I know everybody has their own grading scale, but I just don't get that. I mean, you're talking like I got to be like token or something for me to get five stars to it, something that I feel like people will be reading a hundred years from now, which means you get a perfect rating for something. I guess we're just built differently.

Speaker 5: 18:22

That's probably something that they're not considering it. Will the book stand to test the time? You know it will have that kind of staying power to deserve something rating like that and thus why I quit star rating.

Speaker 2: 18:35

I can't believe you gave that book because obviously with this generation it seems like three out of five, seven out of ten, that's a bad score. Now I'm like, yeah, bad means it was good. Yeah right, anything less than four stars, anything less than a nine out of ten, is apparently bad. Wow, yeah, I remember the.

Speaker 3: 18:52

I'll tell my teachers, the one, one, one and two stars you only give to stuff that like is personally makes you mad. You know, like something that like I think I was one star.

Speaker 2: 19:03

Like one book and it was a Brent Weeks book that pissed me off so bad that. I like literally was throwing it. That's like the only time I've ever given anything else. The worst is just going to get to, you know, but yeah.

Speaker 6: 19:15

I think it was on Robin Hobbs Goodread. She has an explanation of how she reads books and she says two stars is not bad rating, because I finished your book.

Speaker 2: 19:30

Because I saw hers and so I tried putting that explanation in my bio. Didn't change anything. Yeah, no, it's almost like nobody reads that. Okay.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Yeah, speaking of five star reviews, I love and I'm sure there's an author code out there and, carl, I'm sure I don't know. Let us know if this is true but it seems like there's a code or like a something that just that just authors do for one another is they give each other glowing five star reviews all the time, like every author review is like a. It's never a four star, hardly ever. There are some who do it, but very Mark Lawrence.

Speaker 2: 20:00

He's like yeah, it's a three, yeah, he's Mark Lawrence.

Speaker 1: 20:06

So I think it's like a, it's almost like a help me out, I'll help you out, kind of thing, and yeah so that's why, when I see authors review other authors books, it's like okay.

Speaker 2: 20:15

That's why I saw that thing today. I figured who was talking about. It was saying that someone was like paying to give like five star reviews. I was like I've been doing this for five years. Guys. Ain't nobody ever asked me to offer me money for review. They offer me money for sponsors. They offer me money for to sling their ridiculous products to have nothing to do whatsoever with books. But I was like I've never had anyone be like yo. I'll pay you if you give me a five star review.

Speaker 3: 20:40

Yeah, I've had a couple people reach out and be like do you want to pay me? Like it's always some stupid amount of money to it's. I don't know. I guess people may. I mean, I imagine it's not their day job but it works for them, I guess or maybe it doesn't, because I have never heard of someone actually taking it. You know, I feel like part of being an author and putting your stuff out there is like I feel like it takes a lot of like pride in a sense. You know, so you're like I don't want someone to just like say whatever because I paid them like that almost like undercuts your own work, although some people do. I mean, apparently there's I saw the latest people will do surprising things just in the pursuit of advancing their careers. I guess I don't know if you guys saw the latest Twitter book.

Speaker 2: 21:28

I tell people all the time man, I got no problems. If you want to make some money, man, go make some money. But I just I don't know. Yeah, I've always said I'm not going to lie to anybody about this stuff and you know that's a lady enough for selling that regard. But I've also seen I've never gotten that offer before. So you're actually approached Carl.

Speaker 1: 21:48

One second I was going to ask him that we want names.

Speaker 2: 21:55

He said too much. He said too much.

Speaker 4: 21:57

They're all on to me oh God, the alarm is going off.

Speaker 2: 22:02

I think the most I did was I talked 60 seconds for someone about this chair because it was a really nice chair and I said, sure, I can tie that into reading. You know sorry.

Speaker 3: 22:11

You scared me off, Steve.

Speaker 2: 22:12

We were getting a little too many names.

Speaker 3: 22:14

There was someone behind you, I have to be really careful about what I say, you guys get that really close. There's a red dot right here. No, yeah, I did. It was just like on Instagram.

Speaker 6: 22:30

I don't even know how they found me.

Speaker 3: 22:33

Maybe I did a hashtag or something and they were like scrolling through. Certainly my book hasn't been like big enough that it's going to ping anyone's like anyone's significance radar. I don't know. They reached out. They were like I will pay or you will pay me to advertise the book and I was like no bye, and yeah, it's such a strange thing.

Speaker 3: 22:57

On the author code idea, you know, I mean, yeah, it's a real thing. I think it's sort of unspoken. I mean sometimes people talk about it, but I think the idea is you just don't want to like, you know, like I've heard anyone's career, you know, like Mike even said, you know, just trying to be positive. You know it extends the same way and I guess, for some reason, authors reviewing other authors is like thought of as being more personal, although it doesn't. I think there's nuances because, like, I don't feel bad about like giving a Brandon Sanderson book like three stars or two stars, even because he's going to be okay. Yeah, he's like, whatever you know we're in if an author is dead, like Bram Stoker is not going to be upset if I don't give Dracula five stars. So I think you know it just really comes down to the individual circumstances, particularly with, like, new authors or self published authors, you know, who maybe aren't fully established, of which I am both, so I mean I haven't.

Speaker 3: 23:58

I've wondered if I should just delete my Goodreads page, but I'm sorry, I don't know if you guys can hear my dog sparking. That's like part of what I. Okay, good, they're awesome. Yeah, it's a. You just don't want to seem like a, you know, a jerk. I guess is the bottom line, Although it's weird because everyone's taste is different and like, so long as you're not going on being like this is the worst book ever, you know, or just being like really passive, aggressive and just like leaving a one star and just like leaving not saying anything I've seen other reviewers who would just completely shred someone's book and then tag them on Twitter.

Speaker 2: 24:32

I'm like what a bully.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Yeah, I was like my gosh. I had to do a negative view one time because I had planned out a whole lot of stuff. I was going all these horror books and I plan my schedule ahead of time and I really did not like a book and I felt sick having to review that book. I was so scared she would like see it. I felt I still feel sick about, like to the point where I eventually just I just marked that video to private. Now I feel awful for hers because I just I don't like to do that. You know it is awesome and also that was, you know, established enough that, like I said, you know they're gonna be okay, but I just I hate doing it. He put a spotlight on something that I really didn't like.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Yeah, I wish the reviewers that tagged authors realized that a lot of authors are masochists, so they're going to look it up anyway.

Speaker 6: 25:16

You don't have to worry.

Speaker 2: 25:21

I say it a lot sometimes like I'm good friends with Christopher Rockio and he was like saying I just, he's like, I just don't even go to Goodreads and read anything. He's like because I'm trying to keep a you know a positive feeling about what I'm doing. So I was like I don't know, I would never search my own name because I know that you know, people are always going to be saying nasty stuff about you. So, yeah, I think that's a good policy. Maybe maybe that's why I couldn't be an author, because, well, besides the fact that I can't write but yeah, that you know it would it would drive me crazy seeing all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Like on Patreon. They have a thing where, when people leave, they can explain why they'll leave, and I won't even read that.

Speaker 4: 26:00

I guess that's like breaking up with your girlfriend. That's like, honestly, I just don't want to say anything. Come on, let's just leave this. This was a transaction.

Speaker 5: 26:07

This wasn't even I had a deep thought about my change of life.

Speaker 4: 26:13

Oh my, God, I was just right. It's not you, it's me. You know something like that. That's the way to do it. I've heard that plenty of times in my life. I'll accept that.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Which means it is you, but you know it's okay.

Speaker 1: 26:31

What about you, Varsha? Do you do bad reviews? Do you feel bad being critical?

Speaker 6: 26:36

I think. So I don't make videos on my channel. I barely am able to keep up with the books that I do want to review but the ones that I don't like as much. I do rate all the books that I read With three stars and two stars and whatnot, but if I really don't like it. But lately what I've started to do is if the book does not have a lot of ratings already, I try not to bring the average down if I don't like it, because it could be for someone and I don't want them to look at the average rating and say, oh so I don't trade books that have just one or two or I don't know, less than 100.

Speaker 6: 27:19

Let's say I don't rate them unless I like them a lot, which I don't know. I guess skews it poorly the other way. But also I did this analysis a while ago. I looked up all the less than three star books on Goodreads and most of them are just really problematic books that deserve that rating. So most books have a three star or greater average. That means there is a greater number of people who like a book than not. So it just makes sense to me to it's fine if I skew the average the positive way, unless it has really problematic things, in which case I probably do a one star.

Speaker 2: 28:03

I think a lot of it. I'm trying to help someone else. You know someone who's like like Mike Shackle. I mean those books are picking up for him now the last four books. But when I did it I was just trying to help the guy out, to get more people to it, and I put a four star and I got people mad that I only gave four stars and Mike he actually like mentioned me. He's like man, thanks so much. Four stars, wow, thank you. I was like what the hell man? So yeah, it's a losing battle.

Speaker 3: 28:29

Yeah, it is another aspect of that. You know, everything has to be the greatest book ever, even four stars. People are like oh, so it's, it's not that good Like, oh, I thought you really liked it.

Speaker 2: 28:40

Well, it's four stars. I mean I didn't yeah.

Speaker 3: 28:45

Like, even if you try to translate that, to like it like a school grade, which is not an accurate translation. But if you were to do that, that's an 80%. Like a, b, that's you're doing well. Like you're. What is this? Like? You don't have to get in 100% to be, you know, a good student.

Speaker 2: 29:00

I go on social blade and it grades your channel or your YouTube channel and mine has a B minus and I was like, hmm, hell yeah.

Speaker 5: 29:08

Even the stars beside. I remember your Mike, I remember your review for the will of the many Um, uh, oh, and a book I really like, I really like and I and that.

Speaker 2: 29:19

I just didn't think it was one of the greatest books I've ever read and I remember all the comments you got. Yeah, and I was like Jey was actually like let's just be like dude, thanks so much. I thought it was a great review.

Speaker 5: 29:29

Yeah, I was like you guys did not listen to this review. No, I didn't.

Speaker 4: 29:35

But that's the most likely reason why I review.

Speaker 2: 29:37

When I name a video, because first you know we're talking about reviews, I guess people turned off right away. So I just tried to like a a one sentence blurb if I was reviewing something. That's why I could try to do the title of my videos and I try never to do the like click baity thing. But with that one I think I did say you know it's being so well received but doesn't deserve that, you know. So I think maybe that's why people just assumed I was taking a crap on it because I said I didn't think it was the best book I'd ever read. It was a really damn good book. I can't please everybody.

Speaker 6: 30:11

And also, like Steve said earlier, if you write everything five stars, that starts to lose meaning to what you cried wolf right.

Speaker 3: 30:19

Absolutely no. I don't even take like those like ultra glowing, like this is the best book ever review like unless it's by someone I know, like who I've trusted. You know I've seen Over a long period of time and like seen their reviews and seen how they handle things like in general, particularly obviously on good reads. Like it's just it, that's just a white noise. You know it means nothing. It's really you want to like find those, those like four star reviews. You know that like.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Starts off the three four star reviews. Yeah right.

Speaker 3: 30:54

You know that that are that are more nuanced and like actually talk about the book as opposed to being like this is the best book ever. You know for the sixth time that year, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:05

Then bad reviews sell books to me. There's lots of times when I'll find a one star review like this book was too violent and it may be depressed for a week. I'm like, okay, I'll buy.

Speaker 2: 31:16

They're great, thank you. Yeah, they sell, you know, look bad reviews sell books to.

Speaker 1: 31:19

I think I bought those Peter Mac. The war for the rose Throne, is it?

Speaker 2: 31:23

is it Peter McLean? He seriously, like people were like oh, I noped out in this book like the first like 10 pages because it was just too dark. I was like bye, yeah, yeah, this book is too grim, dark, give me, you're right.

Speaker 6: 31:42

So that's a good question what are some negative things that people can say about books that are actually positives for you guys?

Speaker 2: 31:50

I'm a delinquent. The best one for me is this book had too many bad words in it. That's why I picked up Jay Kristoff, because people were complaining about his bad language. I'm like sure, do evercraft, but give me some bad language.

Speaker 3: 32:04

I'm the same way if anyone's like oh, you know, this book is like hedonistic which I have seen people describe books as hedonistic or like yeah, there's, there's too much bad language.

Speaker 2: 32:14

Or like there's too much violence drives me crazy is it's adult fantasy and people are upset that has it has to work, fucking, and I'm like really it's adult fantasy. Do you say that word? Yeah, so you don't think these people fighting dragons would be saying it?

Speaker 5: 32:30

Oops, what about you?

Speaker 1: 32:33

Jared. What's all, what's so? What's a negative thing that will be?

Speaker 5: 32:38

usually, if somebody would say it's too flowery prose or complicated, then I'll usually look right into that, just to see for myself.

Speaker 3: 32:50

That's another one of the big ones for me is like this didn't make any sense or like you know anything like that, where I was like OK, like I'm intrigued, like you know we're probably working with anyway.

Speaker 2: 33:04

I'm going to stop before I get myself in trouble, but I'll say is I'm not a prose now, but if I'm talking about the prose, they're pretty damn good, I think. So, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:16

What were you, Chris?

Speaker 4: 33:18

I mean, you're assuming that I read reviews at all, but if I did anything that that is to something is going to bring a reaction. So if it will, there's too much political stuff in this book. Well, if you like political fantasy, you're going to say this might be the greatest book of all time for me. In some ways this is too much character work and bill of character work. It might be the greatest book of all time for you, even somewhere. So I don't think that's two, one way or the other ones always going to engender some sort of reaction on you for sure.

Speaker 2: 33:44

I don't think I saw Joe Abercrombie on Twitter, but he was. He posted one star reviews sometimes and one basically said like the character shit themselves too much.

Speaker 5: 33:54

Because it's true.

Speaker 3: 34:01

He's my favorite author to follow on Twitter. He's so funny he's a sense of humor translates like he just, he just is like that, like you read his books and you're like I bet I know what this guy's like and you meet him or you see interviews with him. Rather, how can?

Speaker 2: 34:12

that guy write books where so many bad things happen and I laugh so much. Yeah, he's a talent. I gotta read those.

Speaker 5: 34:24

Oh yeah.

Speaker 6: 34:26

For sounds good For me, I think. Yeah, jared's answer a little bit if they think the process to flowery. The other thing that someone might say is always too complicated. I did not understand. I want to understand it, especially for sci-fi books. I think I like that, but there are also some reviewers that I've come to realize. If they don't like a book, I will.

Speaker 2: 34:50

No, I have those oh yeah, oh, this one person didn't like that. I'm checking it out.

Speaker 5: 34:57

Yeah, I pretty much read what I've filled. Chase told me to read.

Speaker 1: 35:07

I have a small channel compared to over 100k, but so I've had weird experiences with authors not Carl, I'm not referring to you. You can name me, it's okay, no, I have a dot on my head in a minute. I've had some strange interactions. Mike, I'm sure you've had some really weird interactions with people offering you arcs and things.

Speaker 2: 35:37

Yes, I bet people actually get angry if you say I always tell them look, I can't promise you anything. You realize how many offers I get a week. I'm like I can't promise anything, but I can show your book off in a book haul. Try to get a link there where people can check it out if they want to. It's really all I can promise you is because I do have a full-time job. I do have two young kids. I can't promise you I'm going to read your book. I don't know. It's like okay, well, I could show you book off but, now I can get nothing.

Speaker 2: 36:08

So okay, bye. Most are really thankful, most are really great, though I mean you do let those. I've said that like before. I did books, I talked about sports and I talked about movies and you know that's going to get the most negative comments you could ever get. It's just like a completely positive community by comparison. Where it was like 1% positive over there, it's like 99% positive here. So that's why I think those really negative interactions Sports is really Stick with you a little bit more Sports is tough, that's a really.

Speaker 2: 36:44

Oh yeah, Every time you talk about a team that is not yours, you are just a hater and you hate their team. It's just Right. That's great stuff.

Speaker 3: 36:53

Steve, I'm curious, are there particular, without naming names? Obviously, like weird is an interesting word to use. Like was it just negative or like did it get weird? Like was there something like off about the way that they approached you? I'm just curious.

Speaker 1: 37:08

Well, I've had a couple that I do the same thing. I'll tell them like look, I'd rather buy it myself because I'd rather support you, and if that way, if I don't get to it, then it's on me and you don't waste your money sending me a physical copy. Like, if you want to send me an ebook, I'll try to get to it. I can't promise anything. I'm months and months and months behind. But there's been a couple who were like I sent you my ebook like three months ago. I don't see review. Oh yeah, I get that.

Speaker 2: 37:36

I get that. I haven't gotten to it. You know I'm very upfront with them about my process. They will still do that. Have you read it yet?

Speaker 1: 37:43

Yeah, and I had one person send me messages like I really want to send you my book. And I said I would feel bad you spending money sending it to me and me not getting to it in time, so I'd rather you all just buy it, I'll buy it myself. And he said no, I really want to send it to you. And I said thank you, but I'm gonna thank you and he's like I insist I want to send it to you. I said okay, okay, you can send it to me. And then I didn't hear from him for like a day and then he came back like oh, never mind, I'm like okay.

Speaker 2: 38:10

I've had that with the cover reveals or just like people just completely flaked out on it. I was like, all right, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not doing the cover reel thing anymore. You want to send a book to me and I'll show it off. I'll do that. I was like the cover reel thing. I was like I had no idea that was like such a big. Oh, this person had like rights or this person I didn't take a day would say yes and I was just like, forget this, it's just like junior high, what is this?

Speaker 5: 38:31

So yeah, I just said I'm not doing it anymore, but you said, most of the interaction has been positive and good.

Speaker 6: 38:39

It was like what's the percentage of?

Speaker 5: 38:40

negative interaction that both of you guys have had With with with just authors.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Yeah, oh, I mean it's. I can count on one hand Less than 1% problem right here. Yeah, yeah, definitely. This is definitely. It's mostly been great, you know, and most of them are just thankful. You know that I would even like anything that was going to respond to the email. I'm just a dude, you know. It's like I'm not some celebrity or something. Of course I'm going to respond to the email. So I don't know, Most are just thankful, you know.

Speaker 1: 39:08

No, are you crazy? About any weird ones.

Speaker 4: 39:11

No, no, the only, the only interactions I generally have was people from the Friday conversation or otherwise, and I definitely did, I'd say, fall into the trap. But it's not that you kind of get chatting to somebody and you get invested in the telling of the story of the book and you go I want to read that person's book, you know that kind of thing. And someone will go I'll send it and I pretty much the same. I'm like I know I'm buying it. I mean you sold me on the book. You're saying you did your sales bets right, so I'll ban the book. No, let me send it to you. No, this is honestly please not, because then it creates this weird interaction then of I always feel like if I accept the book, in that case when I'm what did the bad, I'm predetermined to give it a positive review, when I'd rather just kind of enjoy the experience and make me own of it that way, rather than more than have any value.

Speaker 4: 39:56

And this weaponizing of reviews it flags every kind of couple of months or so, just people going like you know why would you read a book and not review it? As if that's some sort of like contract you signed. Even as you buy a book up on that you must review it once you're finished it. Like I mean, I kind of not just pay the money and read the book.

Speaker 2: 40:18

I see those takes and put you all the time.

Speaker 4: 40:22

Yeah, so yeah, but most of them I don't. I've definitely not big enough to be approached at random by people. But you know, and all the people could kind of say like yeah, do you want a copy of it? I usually say no because I don't read that much. You know, I only get through a couple of books a month. You know, the chances of me ever getting to a random book is almost no.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me, Tris, you have a YouTube channel. You don't read 40 books a month. I mean, what is going on?

Speaker 2: 40:50

Yeah, I get told all the time. How do you read so fast Like dude? I read like three to four books a month. That's so fast and people are like oh, I read 54 books, I'm 54. Wow, okay, I'm looking. If I do that, I'd lose my mind. I don't audio, so maybe that is what they're doing.

Speaker 4: 41:07

That seems to be a big difference.

Speaker 5: 41:09

Yeah, buddy, yeah, is that much faster than the audio stuff?

Speaker 4: 41:14

Well, a lot of people crank up the two times speed.

Speaker 2: 41:17

Oh, okay, a lot of people have jobs where they can listen to headphones. Work.

Speaker 5: 41:21

Sure, I think so they'll do that.

Speaker 2: 41:23

And I was like wow, so you're like I was getting like through a book a day. That's impressive. You know, I wouldn't retain anything. I'm bad at audio booking, I don't. I don't. It's in one ear and out the other. I don't retain any of it. That's why I don't do it. So here's the reason I'm just walking out my kids.

Speaker 4: 41:36

Yeah, you know. See, if you read 40 books a month, right, how do you review any of those? Like if you're burning through a book, or more than a book a day, or even 30, how could you?

Speaker 2: 41:47

possibly review it. I don't know. He could retain it much less.

Speaker 4: 41:51

Exactly that just boggles my mind Sometimes.

Speaker 2: 41:55

I'll read a book in like two or three days. I'm like man, I should have slowed down. I didn't have time to, like you, think about it at all.

Speaker 5: 42:00

I could never do that I could. I'm sitting, I'm reading a book, I'm taking notes. I'm like stopping and going back and looking at another sentence that I went over and I'm like I don't know how you can do that many. It's just crazy.

Speaker 2: 42:17

Yeah, that's where I said recently that I feel like someone told me they didn't think that reading burnout was real and I was like oh, reading burnout is real. It's like the people who say they've read the entire little time in a month. It's fake, that's not real. There's no way, so that's just me. Except for Paramedic.

Speaker 4: 42:34

Paramedic and did that's me, that's me. And that's me as well. She's another one. She can do it. There are a couple of people. They're very select crowd.

Speaker 1: 42:43

Yeah, they're both Paramedic and it's been both awesome, so yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:48

Yeah, for sure, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 42:49

I've been reading Malibu for three years, so that's impressive, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6: 42:56

I just finished the Gryffindor last night oh you did, I did, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:01

I've been on Toe the Hounds for like almost two years now.

Speaker 6: 43:05

I was just eight months to read Toe the Hounds.

Speaker 5: 43:08

Yeah, just finished my reread.

Speaker 2: 43:10

I saw people like oh, alan, alan told me that's going to be your favorite one. I'm like really Okay.

Speaker 3: 43:15

Alan didn't even like it.

Speaker 5: 43:17

No, he did. That's another one of those reviews where he did like it, even though he's had a lot of problems with it, but he did like it, probably. Oh really.

Speaker 3: 43:26

Yeah, I don't know if I watched his review, I just remember seeing it some conversation with like maybe it was like him and Jimmy Nuts or something, but like him talking and he I mean he also like becomes. I love seeing him take on that character of like just going off. Oh, I love Toe the Hounds, so that's my favorite His crop impression.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Alan's crop impression is amazing. I have to do it every time I ever talk to him, I'll have him do it like a freaking monkey. I'm like, hey, do that, do it, do the voice.

Speaker 5: 43:55

Yeah, I can't run here Put in a coin.

Speaker 3: 43:58

Get to the last.

Speaker 5: 44:00

Get to the last hundred pages. Mike you go, you'll fly.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Did you like it though the ending.

Speaker 6: 44:06

Yeah, I did, I did, it was great. Yeah, I don't know if I missed something, but there was something. Yeah, I know that look.

Speaker 2: 44:15

I made it. Yeah, how did I miss something? It's how much did I miss?

Speaker 6: 44:21

That's true. So, yeah, I think it was very satisfying. I really enjoyed it and, yeah, I love the ending. I don't think it has really sunk in that it's over yet, so I'll give it a few days and I finished the uh the expanse this week and I'm so you know,

Speaker 2: 44:40

like you know, that feeling of you've been in a long series for so long and you don't always have that. Oh, I got the next book and you can't say that anymore. So this is the first time since I think like will of time, I've really felt like that because this is the longest, and I'm finishing realm of the elderly next month, so it's probably gonna feel like that with that too, so yeah, that's gonna give you a long series.

Speaker 3: 44:57

I think that's gonna give you a book hangover from the elderly and stuff. Definitely.

Speaker 2: 45:01

That's what I've heard. You know a really good friend of mine. The reason I amped up really reading that was she was messaging me when she finished the last book and she's like sending a picture of her, like eyes are all puffy. I want to feel like that again I was like I want to feel that way about a series. That's why I really like kicked it into high gear reading that one. So, yeah, everybody tells me if you finish the satin spate, you're gonna need a couple of days.

Speaker 4: 45:25

Steve has some fresh tips on the expanse. He's the mom of the fresh tips.

Speaker 2: 45:30

You did or did not like.

Speaker 1: 45:31

So I liked it up until when the TV show stopped. And without getting too spoilery, I think it was when I watched the show first and then I read it with Chris and Robin and Layla and Susanna. But I was disappointed. The show stopped. I was like why did they stop? They need to come back. And then, after I wrote the books, I'm like okay, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2: 45:54

See, I'm like upset that the show stopped on Babylon's ashes now, because that's probably my least favorite book out of the whole series.

Speaker 1: 46:01

I don't want to say too, much. It does get a little. It's yeah, it does things, so I get why they stopped when they did. I'll put it that way, but it was fun, I liked it he said it was four books too long as well.

Speaker 4: 46:19

He said.

Speaker 2: 46:23

That's what I felt like during the Rain, wild Chronicles or probably all things I'll live. What have I got myself into? But then I got back to business for like, all right, here we go. This is the stuff again. I think all series are like that, but that's what makes for good discussions.

Speaker 4: 46:41

Somebody has a different view to you, because then the videos would be about 10 minutes long.

Speaker 2: 46:47

I go back to all my old Willa time reviews. People are like oh, I'm still not convinced you liked that series. What Because? Because I was critical of it. Oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 46:59

Oh my.

Speaker 4: 47:00

God.

Speaker 1: 47:01

So, varsha, was it, was it worth it Was? Are you happy with it? Are you? Are you a book hangover?

Speaker 6: 47:07

Yes, I don't think I have a book hangover, because what happened after I finished a Malazan book is I can go finish the other things that I've not been reading, or like start a book and tear through it, instead of spending seven months on it. So, because there's I mean you, we've talked about this before I had 10 books in progress, and a large part of the reason why I wasn't finishing them is because, also, there's this long book that I keep coming back to. So, yeah, I think I'm going to close out a bunch of books, and that that's what I tend to do after a Malazan book.

Speaker 2: 47:41

See, after I read an Ericsson book it was like my mind was like on a higher plane of existence because I'd pick up my next book and I blow through it like a day and a half. I was like it's so easy to read yeah.

Speaker 6: 47:54

And I think we're getting sort of. But I was getting a double dose of that because Johnny Woods's books are also kind of like that. So any normal books are so easy to read lately. So yeah, but yeah. But the problem is I even books that I have been picking up lately with the intention to tear through them, like I'm not going to spend time analyzing everything. I can't, I can't stop. So I have to like, stop and think about how this is going, what I like and dislike and so on. It all your.

Speaker 6: 48:30

It used to be because I might make a video about it if I like enough, but I haven't been doing that either is just I can't turn my brain off anymore. I think Malazan and Wars of Light and Shadow did that. But anyway, yes, I think it's worth it. I will probably feel the hangover because I stayed up until five reading it. So you know I'm a bit sleep deprived and so on, so it hasn't really sunk it that I finished it. But yeah, I think mostly I'm really glad we're doing the reread. I think that's what's keeping me happy. If we didn't have that coming, I probably didn't do the best when you hit 100,000 subscribers.

Speaker 2: 49:09

I feel like you should get a plaque from when you finish Malazan Book of the Fall. Really, it's like if you look at, like, the tap out rate for that series, it's got to be in the 90% Easy. It has to be, because I've never met a handful of people that have finished it. That's amazing.

Speaker 5: 49:23

What do I get from my reread? Oh, gold plaque.

Speaker 6: 49:30

That's funny. There was a Reddit thread on the subreddit for Malazan in which someone said have you met a Malazan reader in the wild, and not just virtually or online in these sub threads? And someone just pointed saying what do you mean? You haven't been able to find anyone. There are literally dozens of us.

Speaker 2: 49:51

I think every month that goes by I have someone in my comment just like so Tol the Hounds question mark. I'm just like I know.

Speaker 3: 49:59

That's a book. Yeah, Malazan fans are zealots. They definitely they go for it. They want everyone in it. I mean, I get it because it is a series that you want to talk about with people.

Speaker 2: 50:11

I don't feel like they've been bullies or something, though I mean they want me to finish it. But I got this idea that they were super elitists and they were just going to be like oh, gatekeeping, that's one of the best fan interactions I've had was for Malazan. They were just happy that people were putting extra eyes on them and stuff. So that's one of the great things to say about that Very helpful, very helpful.

Speaker 5: 50:31

fan base yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:33

Yes, although it is annoying that every time we talk to them we're like. Well, after I read Malazan, it ruined every other book series. Sorry that your life's over.

Speaker 5: 50:42

I definitely disagree with that one.

Speaker 2: 50:45

I think it's enhanced my reading experience all around, yeah, it makes me feel like I've leveled up and I'm a better reader now because I got through Dead House Gates.

Speaker 4: 50:55

On the plus side, if you ever do smell as on, you could make a thumbnail with the phrase the end. Once you finish malazan, the end of makes book reviews and you look very sad and tearful about the whole thing. And then have the double block.

Speaker 2: 51:08

I would do one time I've been doing April Holt video of why I quit Malazan.

Speaker 3: 51:15

I was like, oh, I'm going to a nice fan base.

Speaker 2: 51:21

Because, as we pointed out, a lot of people will not even watch the video.

Speaker 4: 51:24

On the day yeah. So there you go. But on the plus side, Mike, you could do it. That could be evergreen content and people could leave. They could just have life forever and ever. It's not going to hurt your interaction and you could just do it for a joke. Actually, it actually would work out very, very well.

Speaker 2: 51:47

I knew everything we said. Basically, I was taking a break from Alizon. I was going to finish it later. Yeah, that's past the major screen comments. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:55

I'm going to say you'll just it's evergreen to just make people mad yeah, they'll keep coming back. They'll find that. They'll be like they'll finish the series. They'll be looking it up. They'll be like where's the malazan review, where's the?

Speaker 2: 52:05

oh my God, you know and just, I think the you know I try not to make, like I said, rant videos or just angry videos or just negative videos overall, and it's kind of funny. It's just this channel was very, very young when I did it. I had some extra time. I was like what can I talk about without having to like, think about it? Oh, talk about why I didn't like the name of the wind, and that's still one of my most popular videos, because I put on popular opinion.

Speaker 2: 52:29

You know, on name of the wind and because I was like I know it's a me thing and that's why I did an actual full length review for it this year. You got people like I liked a lot about this book. You know, it's not that I just absolutely hated it. It was really about, like I said, it's a me thing. I don't understand why everybody loves it so much. That's all. But yeah, still, it's one of my most popular videos on the channel. You know the audio barely matches my lips. I'm recording on a webcam early in the channel but that's still like one of the most popular videos. I still get so many comments on that video. It's weird.

Speaker 3: 52:59

That's one of those that I do think will be I mean not evergreen, forever, but for certainly a good long time, Just because it's so divisive, not only just like as a book, but I feel like as long as he's taking to finish it, the more people are starting to turn on it. Yeah, exactly, so people will continue to get mad. And then, when I first started channel.

Speaker 2: 53:21

If you said anything bad about Patrick Rothfuss or Scott Lynch, man, watch out buddy. Now people are like how these guys you?

Speaker 4: 53:28

know, yeah, those guys.

Speaker 1: 53:32

A lot of one-star reviews on Goodreads for that new novella was like I need to finish book three. One star, yeah, everybody's just turned on him.

Speaker 2: 53:40

I mean because I feel like, even though you know, like with George, with, with, with Song of Ice and Fire, I feel like he's still super nice to everybody, whereas Patrick can kind of rub people the wrong way and I think that's kind of affected it a little bit the legacy of those books. I feel like, because he's pretty nasty to people Like you basically, be like asking about book three, he's like fuck off, you know. I mean yeah, so he's not making a lot of friends these days. And then I think that he did that thing where he was going to do something for charity and then he just took the money and didn't do it.

Speaker 1: 54:07

Oh no, that's when people really turned on him.

Speaker 3: 54:10

Yeah. Oh, that's okay, it's like two years out now and he hasn't and he in fact didn't do his charity last year because he was so stressed about it. I think it's like dude it was a chapter.

Speaker 2: 54:20

It's not like you were. You were giving away like the first 100 pages. You're doing that chapter. You could have made a two-page chapter.

Speaker 4: 54:26

And it is your job, like a certain point. If it's your day job, it's different from like being making a video or something in your hobby and you can kind of go off and take it or leave it. But I don't know, there's a professionalism kind of side of it you kind of think would kick in.

Speaker 2: 54:40

I mean I want to be on his side because I'm, like I said, I'm a huge George Orton fan and I mean I will sometimes still defend the guy.

Speaker 4: 54:46

but I'm just like like I said, at least George is nice.

Speaker 1: 54:50

You know, so, mike, what? What author has reached out to you to review a book that surprised you, that you never thought you would hear from?

Speaker 2: 55:00

He didn't actually really ask me. It was something that was like recommended a lot. And then when he found out I was going to do it, he sent me all his hard covers and that was the bound on the broken by Ryan Cahill Such a nice dude, I mean just like beyond ice dude and it blew me away that his books are so goddamn good I mean like ridiculously good because I did have that stigma a little bit of oh well, if you're a self published author, you're probably just not good enough to get a book deal. I did. I did admit that I was wrong about that, and Ryan's the reason why he's the reason why I'm trying so much self up now, because I mean, there's so many things I didn't know about the publishing game, about how this backstabby it is.

Speaker 2: 55:36

I had no idea how they hold some of these people like prisoner. Basically, you know they'll buy their three books and then they'll release one. They'll never release another one. You can't go do anything else with it, you're stuck and I just I never do these things, and so that was a big eye opening thing for me. And then, like I said, his books are so dang good that that just like was just a cherry on top, you know. So I love one and authors really nice and then their books are actually really good to yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have had authors where, you know, I'm excited because they're nice people and I'll try it, you know, like, it wasn't really for me?

Speaker 2: 56:12

you know, but how do you approach that? You know, but they've all been nice. What about you?

Speaker 1: 56:21

Anybody surprises you, no, no, it's a car car car.

Speaker 4: 56:27

We don't have one on the car.

Speaker 3: 56:31

It's so horrible he like it's it's hard to even talk about it.

Speaker 1: 56:36

It was. It was pretty rough yeah. I'm trying to recover somebody.

Speaker 2: 56:40

and it has somebody like oh so you didn't like Phillips book because you haven't read two and three. I was like I got a lot of shit to do. Yeah, yeah, phillips, my guy man.

Speaker 3: 56:54

I'm the same way. I'm like I'm going to read them eventually, but like there's a lot to read.

Speaker 2: 56:58

They're huge. It's like, it's not like I can just like fit that one in you know it's nice.

Speaker 5: 57:05

No worries, they were good.

Speaker 1: 57:06

But yeah, you finished a very good.

Speaker 5: 57:12

And the third book is the strongest of the three. So it just gets better. That's what I've been told.

Speaker 3: 57:18

That's what I've heard. I'm excited, I definitely. I mean, I think that's not an uncommon story and a lot of fantasy stories where you kind of have to like set the table, you know, and then you really get a dig in. But I've heard you know particularly that it gets like more complex and, you know, really fleshes everything out and goes in unexpected directions, something I always appreciate.

Speaker 5: 57:38

No, I appreciate it a lot. I liked the second one a lot. A lot of action. I like the second one a lot and it was definitely his. It seemed like he really found his drive and it's really really well, really well done.

Speaker 2: 57:55

Hey, sticking reviews, you guys ever get the. Oh, I can't take your opinion seriously anymore. You guys got that one.

Speaker 1: 58:02

Yet I've gotten the. What was it? Dumb people shouldn't talk about smart books. I got that.

Speaker 5: 58:12

You should make a bit of a story.

Speaker 4: 58:13

that's great, that's a piece of it. Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 3: 58:18

I never could be smart.

Speaker 2: 58:21

I got my first troll like yeah, I think when I get a comment like that, I pen it. I pen it on the video when I comment.

Speaker 5: 58:30

It said your interpretation is bad. That's all it said, okay.

Speaker 2: 58:36

Oh, and I said like I read for Mark Lawrence book sees it really clicking for me. That's all. I just can't take your opinion seriously anymore. Really, I wasn't mean about it, no, I thought it was just very.

Speaker 4: 58:45

You know I've tried it, you know I've done this. I thought by it for trying another one of my dick.

Speaker 2: 58:49

I thought it was like that was really far About you got someone like Andrew's channel and Andrew's like, yeah, I read 10 pages and I DNF did mean shit. The Andrew was at the Ben and all he just goes. Andrew's just so jolly Nothing good that singer, though dumb people shouldn't talk about smart books All right.

Speaker 1: 59:08

I was like, wow, it's pretty good, I'll just get that get that the t-shirt in the front and I see dead people in the back.

Speaker 2: 59:16

You know, and you're on a weather on your channel page you can put the banner. I would just, I would just make that my. It's not a bad idea. I saw the screen.

Speaker 1: 59:24

I was saved. I was like that's, that's going to go in the record books. I have to save that.

Speaker 6: 59:31

Which book was it about?

Speaker 1: 59:34

It was negative space by B R Yeager.

Speaker 6: 59:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:39

Sounds smart.

Speaker 2: 59:42

That's what's chasing me off of Gene Wolf is because I have a book of the new song and two things one oh, you're not going to understand anything that's going on. That's not a very good self-critic, guys. And two, it's more complex, it's even more dense than Malzahn. Oh shit, really. Yeah. So I was like I'm finishing Malzahn before I even try that I'm not. If I, if I start that, I'll never finish either of them. But yeah, tell me, you're not going to understand anything about it. That's, that's worse than saying, oh yeah, will of Time is a great series, but book seven through ten are really slow. Like I don't know if the word sells pitch ever, you know. So wow.

Speaker 1: 1:00:18

So I like Malzahn and we're going to be rereading it. Varshah is our guide in a few months, whenever she's ready, but the pitch for that isn't the strongest either, because I hear a lot. When you get to the end, it'll all make sense, okay. So, like 15,000 pages later, it'll all make sense, okay, cool.

Speaker 2: 1:00:33

Yeah, so many people. Oh, when you get to book six it'll actually kick in the night. Six, book six Okay, all right, they were right. Book six was excellent. It's my favorite one in the series so far.

Speaker 4: 1:00:45

But people can use that to describe book series that are good to wait, like that's the common thing people set up at Dresden as well. You know about seven or eight. You know it gets really good, twelve's amazing, but they're enjoyable the whole way through as well.

Speaker 6: 1:00:57

I enjoy it all the way through.

Speaker 4: 1:00:58

Yeah, it's not. They're doing to get better towards the end, for no doubt, but they become blockbuster at the end like it's not Well.

Speaker 2: 1:01:05

I think it's like a hindsight thing, like if you look back at books one and two at Dresden now you'd be like, yeah, not very much what's going on. It's like you know the first season of like a Star Trek show or something where it just got bigger and bigger and you got better. You see, in hindsight I think it could feel like that I enjoyed those first two books when I read them the first time.

Speaker 1: 1:01:21

So what about you, varsha, any trolls?

Speaker 6: 1:01:26

I haven't had trolls. No, I had one person ask me if I was Indian and I I mean, I was fine with that question, but other than that, I think yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:37

Can't say I've ever gotten that one either. It's coming.

Speaker 6: 1:01:44

Are you Indian?

Speaker 2: 1:01:45

I think I've had someone ask me if I was Jewish one time. I was like, what does that have to do with the Stormlight Arcade? I have no idea, but okay.

Speaker 1: 1:01:58

Strange interactions out there for sure. And another consideration, I guess, of the algorithm is that I don't know if this is on your mind ever, mike that a book that you read and you want to review it may not fit into the same genres that you normally review. Is that ever a consideration for the ones that you make a video for?

Speaker 2: 1:02:17

I mean I very much. I'm a SFF, I like some thrillers. You know big Michael Crichton fans so I'll try some thrillers that people all the time want me to read, like these police detectives. I was like that is not my brand man like at all is real big one. Why don't you ever talk about any nonfiction stuff? Because I don't read very much nonfiction what? Do you want me to talk about this JFK assassination book I read. I mean, what do you want me to talk about?

Speaker 3: 1:02:43

you know, and you know, if you did do it, no one would watch the video.

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

Hey, that's it I talked about the Dave Grohl autobiography and it was like my like. It was so bad I had to delete the video because it was bringing my channel around Wow. So, yeah, yeah, so you're right.

Speaker 6: 1:03:04

I'm curious, what would you even say about a nonfiction book? Steve, I haven't listened to your mushroom book yet, but how did that go, talking about a nonfiction book?

Speaker 1: 1:03:16

So I had to. Yeah, so I recorded a chapter, every chapter, recorded a, like a kind of a, but I just found myself talking about what the book was about, like there's no story, those characters, it's just about facts, like, and I felt like I was just reciting the book, like it was not interesting. It was like it was almost like listen to this, to this hour of podcast, and then you don't have to read the book anymore, and it felt like that's kind of a shitty thing to do, like I want people to read the book because it was interesting, but I just didn't know how to, how to talk about it. Make it because I'm so used to looking for characters and themes and story, and then it's like okay, algae and fungi, it was a whole different thing. It was a whole different experience. Way out of my element.

Speaker 3: 1:03:59

With stuff like history, at least like you can still make like a real story out of it, you know, and it's a lot harder if you're it's just a book about yeah, facts, yeah yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:04:08

I'm trying to get more into historical fiction, you know, because I like, like Ken Follett, I like Bernard Cornwell, you know, but I was like that's two of the best ever, apparently, at that genre. So maybe I've set the bar a little high, because everything else I've ever come back like.

Speaker 3: 1:04:21

I just read have any of you read Essex Dogs by Dan Jones? He's like a real historian who's like wrote historical books, like books on medieval history, but he started writing fiction and historical fiction and Essex Dogs is the first. It's about the Hundred Years War, the first campaign, and leads up essentially to the Battle of Cressy, and it's it's quite good. It kind of reminded me of Joe Abercrombie. It's it's not quite there like it's not quite as funny or quite as like the characters aren't quite as compelling, but it's like it's good. It actually reminds me of Bernard Cornwell a lot. I recommend it. It's it's a good time, but I also, admittedly, I'm a fan of the period, so that that helped. But I like the characters too.

Speaker 2: 1:05:08

I feel like reading.

Speaker 4: 1:05:09

Like Pierce Brown, I've learned much more about Cicero than I ever thought I'd need to know the problem I have with a lot of historical fiction like that. I can't help with thinking this would be improved by just a tiny bit of magic, if it's just a tiny bit of magic in this world. This would make us about ten times better, even if I finally see, falls into that kind of thing. You know, you just gotta get this a bit more, a bit more.

Speaker 2: 1:05:32

Well, pillars of the Earth. I was like I think that any fantasy family like Pillars of the Earth because it has maybe magic in, you know, kind of like Bernard Cornwell deal with the World War Chronicles like it could have been magic, could have just been a hell of a coincidence, you never know. I think that's the way that they do it. But yeah, history is what most of these fantasy books are based off of. Guys for sure, like most of George R R Martin stuff is based off of history.

Speaker 1: 1:05:56

So, carl, I have a question for you because of your knowledge of the Crusades, would you, would you call so far the Prince of Nothing? Historical fiction.

Speaker 3: 1:06:05

No, oh, okay. No, it's not even close to being historical fiction. It in some ways it's closer actually than a song of ice and fire, just in that, like George takes a lot of inspiration. But veers and George is probably the best next comparison, but he kind of like throws a lot in, you know, like it's like mixing from a lot of different time, which is actually something I like to do too, while Baker at least, like he is following the first crusade in like a very broad sense, but it's, the characters are so different that I wouldn't be able to call it and also, you know, I mean those are magic and it's so beyond.

Speaker 3: 1:06:53

Yeah, although there I don't know, the first crusade is interesting because there are like magic items, you know, like holy relics, that play a big role. So like if you were to tell the story you would have to like crazy things happen, and that's one of the reason I really like the first crusade in particular is like there are like crazy events that of course people like gave meaning to and it's very interesting. There's definitely room for I'm sure someone has written historical fiction about it, but no, I don't think. I mean I'm only one book in. I don't know, maybe, maybe are you liking it, because that's one.

Speaker 2: 1:07:27

I've said that he gets a lot of mallets in comparisons to where I said I've finished mallets before I finally tried. I've had prints of nothing on my shelf for years now, but it's a mayor. You liking it though. Oh yeah, people tell me as a big dune fan that I would like it because he was greatly inspired by dune you can tell you will, you'll read it.

Speaker 3: 1:07:45

You'll be like, oh, I see, I see it right here, like it's. To me that's the clearest influence of anything by far.

Speaker 2: 1:07:51

That's why I like guards the moon because I felt like it felt like doing this to me. I think, and where everybody has just such a negative reaction to guards the moon, where I was like to me that was the most Frank Herbert yeah of his books that I've read so far. So I was kind of okay with, yeah, the jump right in aspect of it. Yeah, that's a good way to get me interested in some tell me it's like what do you think, varsha, how you liking it?

Speaker 6: 1:08:13

oh, I like it a lot. Um I I'm trying to see the mallets in comparisons, maybe in terms of complexity, but writing style, I feel like this has been vastly simpler to read. I can get through a hundred one fifty pages in one thing, you understand what's going on at all times.

Speaker 6: 1:08:31

I mean, there are a lot of terms that are thrown in, but I think that's sort of typical for many fantasy books. I don't think it's doing much more than it would have. But yeah, maybe it's in terms of, like, the complexity of plot and the scale of the world and things like that. But in terms of just how easy it is to read, I find that it's a lot simpler to read than Melasin yeah, he doesn't obfuscate like Erickson does a lot like I.

Speaker 3: 1:09:03

I love Melasin, but there are times, like I remember there's this one scene in Toll the Hounds actually, where uh, there are two characters and it's just they just refer them as he and she and barely describe them and you're just supposed to intuit who they are and you have to go like two pages before you get the names and it's like why, why, why just give us the name Steve, what are you doing? And and that's you know, that's just part of Melasin, like you, just you. You you're on board with that or you're not? But Baker, I never feel like that with it. Actually, his writing style reminds me a lot more of Tolkien, like his voice is more Tolkien-esque, just very dark, very, very dark.

Speaker 2: 1:09:45

Tolkien yeah, I've heard those books are pretty grim. My, my, my thing with Melasin is where I'm like I don't know if this is actually happening. Right, is this a vision? Is someone having like a fever dream? Is this a flash forward? Is the flash back? I don't know if this is actually happening, and I know that's a lot of what Gene Wolf does as well too. Apparently, yes.

Speaker 3: 1:10:01

I know that a lot of big time science fictionists.

Speaker 2: 1:10:04

They love that. They love not knowing what's going on. We're almost like I have to understand what's happening, man, or else I'm just like what is happening, you know, so it just drives me crazy.

Speaker 3: 1:10:14

So maybe it's just a freer than I am. Gene Wolf, I think, is a much closer comparison to Erickson in terms of like. Sometimes you have to interpret what's going on, while Baker that very rarely. It's more straightforward.

Speaker 2: 1:10:25

I think now they love the uh well, second apocalypse, I guess it's called they. They love that. They're reading like all seven books of that on my discord.

Speaker 3: 1:10:32

They love it that people can't stop talking about it over there, so we just finished reading it now so.

Speaker 6: 1:10:37

I love it so much oh, I guess the other reason why it gets, but I don't know if I really answered your question. So I do really enjoy, enjoy the trilogy. But I guess the other Malazan comparison is the philosophizing that characters tend to do, which is my favorite bit about Malazan. I don't think we've seen a lot of it yet, but I've given to understand it's to come, so maybe that's why yeah, I like God in perfume, so I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2: 1:11:07

Some little bit of naval gazing once in a while, if it's done right, you know that's, that's Baker, you'll, you'll like Baker.

Speaker 3: 1:11:13

Then I think again, I think, actually do it's like Dune and Lord of the Rings, like thrown together and then with like more atrocities you can make me change my whole TBR, slow down, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:11:27

I do showgun next year. Man, I ain't got no way off those, I still got to reach again, oh my god.

Speaker 3: 1:11:32

Well, the.

Speaker 2: 1:11:33

FX series is coming out. I want to finish it before that comes out, and that's sure at the end of February. So I'm starting January. Hopefully I can finish by then. So that's a big old boy show looks good though it does really good, really good it's good, it's not late, miss.

Speaker 1: 1:11:47

You're not too late, mike. We just finished the first book and we're starting in the second one. Is it Tuesday?

Speaker 2: 1:11:52

of what the Asian side yeah oh no uh, prince of nothing, oh no, big deal yeah finish Nick's bounce.

Speaker 4: 1:12:03

Finish and remly a lens. Sounds like you got a lot of free time.

Speaker 2: 1:12:12

I will not submit to this peer pressure that's what somebody wouldn't say just before they gave I didn't plan to read down the broken last year and then I read like all four of them or all three of them. They were so long it was like reading four of them, but yeah these books are shorter, I think at least.

Speaker 2: 1:12:32

I mean they're still like big books, but like I understand they're old like you just say, the prince of nothing trilogy is shorter than a born ruin by Cahill. So yeah, it's like. I think they're like in the hundred fifty two hundred.

Speaker 3: 1:12:45

It's terrifying yeah it's encouraging.

Speaker 2: 1:12:47

Steve thanks there's not that many tabs yeah, I was doing that with malls on. That was, like the books already hard to close.

Speaker 4: 1:12:56

I'm just gonna know yeah, this is just what a group read with Varsha looks like just yeah, yeah yeah, path, of course yeah you don't want to turn up unprepared and say did you not see?

Speaker 2: 1:13:15

that whenever I talked to Philip, whenever I talked to Philip about something like, did we read the same book? As I didn't get that. I just assumed Philip's smarter than me and it was there. You know so. And I'm talking with him about Lord of the Rings tomorrow and I was like I know a lot about Tolkien, but I'll talk to him AP tomorrow and feel like a complete doll or I can't wait be great.

Speaker 6: 1:13:34

I've got a really lot of the rings. At some point I read it what 13 years ago now? And I feel like I will read it very differently now than I did. Sure, I've got to do that.

Speaker 4: 1:13:48

I sort of don't want to read Lord of the Rings again because it has like this kind of like special, kind corner of my brain that I don't want to mess with. You know, it's fine, just the way it is.

Speaker 6: 1:14:02

I'm kind of like that with Harry Potter. I have a special place. It's a lot of.

Speaker 2: 1:14:08

TV shows I like to the kid, I'll go back and watch them out by like man this is terrible. I'm just gonna leave them in that nice memory bank right over there, yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:14:16

I can't. I can't get over the fact that I rewatched the A team and I absolutely terrible. The A team is no, it's absolutely unbelievable. That's what I call it.

Speaker 2: 1:14:24

I call it the A team rule because I was so excited I love the A team as a kid. When they came out in DVD. I was all excited, ordered some pizzas. We're gonna watch the first episode like this is awful. Hey, sometimes pilot episodes are just bad. And I watched the second episode like wow, is this show actually terrible.

Speaker 5: 1:14:41

I call it the A team rule now where I leave those shows that I love when I was a kid, I would know that when they redid Battlestar Galactica, I was like no, I love the original Battlestar and then I went back and watched it. I was like okay, yeah, redo that.

Speaker 2: 1:14:58

I heard people were like against that, the Ronald DeMore remake of Battlestar Galactica. And it's just so fun to go back to now because you know it's a lot of people that's like the best sci-fi show ever made now and so it's just, it's wild because I was like I remember watching that original Galactica when I was a kid. I was like this ain't Star Wars. They didn't have a talking dog on there.

Speaker 1: 1:15:21

So so, after the experience with Cahill, are you're more likely now to read a self-pub, mike?

Speaker 2: 1:15:29

yeah, yeah, I've done tons. I said I probably never would have read Rob J Hayes, I never would have read Emma Wong, I probably never would have read Michael or Miller's his ascendance book that I read. I heard tons of them. I'm gonna read. I ordered the Threadlight by Zach Argyle when that over that Kickstarter shows up, I'm gonna read it. So, yeah, it definitely maybe be like. You've been very stupid about this, mike.

Speaker 3: 1:15:51

I can always admit I'm excited to get to Rob J Hayes. I haven't read any really stuff every night is a really fun book.

Speaker 2: 1:15:57

Yeah, it's like a reverse suicide squad very cool. You'll see what that means in the prologue. So that's not a sport.

Speaker 4: 1:16:05

I finished war eternal this year by him as well. It's also great that has that. I have a main character that I actually really dislike but can't stop reading.

Speaker 3: 1:16:15

You know that that kind of one yeah is it like a he's like such a bad person, or is it like just like anointing, or she is bit both.

Speaker 4: 1:16:25

So it's it's a female character and she's quite young at the start of it and she's just raging rage all the time. So she's just like the worst emo 13, 14 year old kid you've ever seen your life. But she can just destroy everything in her path and waiting, she makes like really right decisions and all that kind of stuff and you wish you could have some sort of you know manner of just think about something for two seconds, but she can't. But it also is really compelling to read and goes over five books of her.

Speaker 2: 1:16:48

Like that's how much it sustains that sounds like a body war, except the compelling part, yeah really different totally unlikable character and she just wrecks everything. But I'm not compelled to keep going yeah, no, esca is for sure yeah, yeah, that's, that's rough.

Speaker 1: 1:17:12

Um, the poppy war is such a strange trilogy. It's yeah, I don't know if he did you finish it.

Speaker 2: 1:17:19

You didn't like book one and book two. I really was not. I mean, I had to force myself to finish it. People like you don't want to read book three.

Speaker 1: 1:17:27

Then all right book cheese book three is rough interesting.

Speaker 3: 1:17:32

I've. I haven't gone to two and three yet. I'm curious to try. I like I actually I'm someone who I know a lot of people felt like and the big change that happens in book one they like check out. It's like too much for them, but I thought the book got way more interesting after that no, no, I liked it.

Speaker 2: 1:17:47

Yeah, I liked it. I was like you don't have to like your protagonist, so like your book really honestly, uh. But then book two happened. I'm interesting now I'm curious.

Speaker 3: 1:17:59

I'm like. I want to know like what, what goes on in the. I hope you like it for real.

Speaker 2: 1:18:03

I I always help you. I want people to like things, so don't take my word for it. I always help people make up your own mind.

Speaker 1: 1:18:10

I liked book two. I mean, well, I like some of it, some of the parts I did like I really liked. But book three was really rough, really hard yeah, a big change in tone. It went from being serious to being like let's just do stuff it'll work out like okay interesting yeah, I'm not getting too specific.

Speaker 4: 1:18:35

I actually bought the last last Christmas. I bought her just the first book for exactly the reason these are all talk about, because I haven't read them and I think I've never been a writer or whatever. And a week after Christmas there was the box that she re-bought the first book in the series of three because it was obviously better to do that way, and she ripped through it like days like absolutely started it.

Speaker 3: 1:18:53

Definitely they have their audience, like they're popular, they've sold really well and I mean people really like them. I I've definitely found Kwong is she's super nice. By the way, I met her. She is like incredibly nice, but yeah her books, I know, are so divisive. I have babble and I've just been holding off on reading it. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:19:23

I'm nervous you guys read Greenbone by fondly.

Speaker 3: 1:19:26

Yep, I haven't. I have not finished Jade Legacy. It's her books. I find Jade's city I blew through, and then Jade War I like for like the first half the book I was just like it was like pulling teeth and then something clicked and I loved the back half. And Jade Legacy I'm still in, like the first half. I expect it's gonna happen again, but I think it's a writing style. I don't know what it is, but like I actually like I could, I could guess, but I don't want to like she's good and crippling nice.

Speaker 2: 1:19:53

I mean just like so stupid nice. It was just like gosh. I feel like I could. I could never say anything negative about your books after how nice you yeah but I really didn't like that trilogy a lot.

Speaker 1: 1:20:04

I really did so how do you approach that? Mike, let's let's say that you didn't like Phillips book. Let's say you hated it, you could, you couldn't finish it. How would you approach that? Because you know people are gonna be asking you did you read the book? Tell us what you thought.

Speaker 2: 1:20:19

I would say hey, I always tell people to read it themselves. I'm not gonna try it.

Speaker 2: 1:20:24

And especially when it comes to, you know, a self-pub off, or I'm always gonna try to keep it as nice as I can, as positive as I can, for their sake, even if it didn't really work for me. But I mean, I don't feel like it's a criticism say it. I think they're a talented author that the story just didn't grab me the way I did someone else, and I don't think that's a lie either, you know, because I mean, in the end your story isn't grabbed me. I don't care how great your prose is, I'm not digging your characters, I'm not into your plot.

Speaker 2: 1:20:57

You're probably not gonna keep me around for sure so that's why a lot of these oh, I could listen to this author describe grass growing. Well, that's great, guys, because that's what name of the wind did you know? So if you're into that, sure go for it, man, you're gonna love it, you know. But it's it's just not for me. I need more than just you're a beautiful writer. I was like because, if so, I've got Christopher Rock, you, who's as beautiful writer as as Rothfuss, and historian characters are really great too, you know so name of the wind is one I love, that first book, the second book I struggled with.

Speaker 3: 1:21:29

There are parts I really liked in the second book but there are parts I really thought were just like oh, this is so drawn out, like, but man, I I mean immediately. That was one of the books that got me back into reading fantasy, so that may also be part of it. But name of the wind has a special place in my heart.

Speaker 2: 1:21:46

And I would never try to take that. I don't like to be a wet blanket. I mean for real, I don't like to be a wet blanket. People, everyone's joining something. That's why I say it's clearly a me thing, you know, and I'll say that's cool. I think it's great. In the end, I want everybody to enjoy what they're reading. I really do. I want to feel like they've got to read something, or it's a chore or something I feel like they've got to check off the list. I don't want that. Who wants to do that? Are you supposed to be fun, steve?

Speaker 3: 1:22:09

have you read Wheel of Time?

Speaker 5: 1:22:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:22:14

Me oh yeah, steve. No, no. I was told by Yolene that I won't like it. She's like don't, don't bother, you won't like it.

Speaker 3: 1:22:21

I feel like you won't like it. I agree with that, but I was curious. Um, yeah, I don't think I like it, don't bother.

Speaker 4: 1:22:27

Wow.

Speaker 1: 1:22:28

Yeah, she. She hated it and she made a video about it that, I'm sure, is like, probably one of her most viewed videos.

Speaker 2: 1:22:33

Yeah, now she's like retired, isn't she See, she can't go up against the wheelies, man there's something else, the end.

Speaker 1: 1:22:45

Yeah, there's certain people who will tell me like like uh, Taylor, from Maybe Between the Pages will be like you won't like this, Don't bother, Like okay.

Speaker 2: 1:22:54

Cool, see, sometimes that just makes me be like, oh, what the hell with you.

Speaker 4: 1:22:58

I'm going to read it anyway, I am a unique individual. I will surprise you, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:23:05

Yeah, it's too much of a time investment to prove someone wrong Like I'm good because me and Patrick usually align on a lot of things, but sometimes I'll be like, oh, this is like one of the best books in the last like decade. I'm like, really, this, this was this, was it? Huh? Or you know, he'll tell me that you ain't going to like it. Ah, come on, I think I will. No, he was, he was right, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:23:24

So. I think you have some people you make as much content as I have People. I think they know your likes and your dislikes enough that they can make good recommendations. But then there are other people who cheat and say, mike, it's like the first law, you'll love it and you read it. It's nothing like the first law like at all. I was like, did you just say that to get me to read it? So that's why I have to be careful. People are like, oh, it's like dude, because they just say, oh, I'll get Mike to read it. You know, gotta be careful. It's the bingo card filled, you know, you know so, but it happens.

Speaker 4: 1:23:53

Expectations play so much into your experience of reading. Anyway, you know, if you go in like overhyped about something, that can sort of only let you down, and similarly if you go the other way as well.

Speaker 2: 1:24:04

And I said that might have played into my feelings about name of the wind. It's been hyped up as like the most important fantasy books in Tolkien. I'm like holy shit really, you know. So I went to it maybe expecting something too much. Well, I really don't let that bother me. But I said that I would reread it when book three has a release date and I feel good now that I never have to reread it.

Speaker 3: 1:24:23

One book that did not. I mean I'm sure there are others, but that didn't disappoint. When I got to it was Golden Sun. I heard so much Red Rising. I was like I bounced off twice and I finally powered through. And yeah, mike, you were one of the reviewers that like really talked it up and I was like, ok, I'm going to go in, we'll see. That's book is paced like no book I've ever read. I didn't get through.

Speaker 2: 1:24:45

Just if you read Golden Sun, you're not digging. It's not the series for you. Yeah, and I was like book one. You go back to that old ass video I have where I trash Red Rising, like why is this book so popular, you know? And then I read Golden Sun. I was like holy crap, this is what I want to book one to be. So, yeah, so I tell everybody, read the first two books. I'm glad that worked out for you and they were still good. They're still going, they're still good. Yeah, one left.

Speaker 3: 1:25:10

Like actually Lightbringer might be my least favorite of the books so far. I'm a weirdo who really liked Iron Gold. I know that one's divisive.

Speaker 2: 1:25:19

Although.

Speaker 3: 1:25:20

I'm mad.

Speaker 2: 1:25:21

I'm mad at him about Lightbringer, so I'm glad that I talked. I talked to him before, before I read Lightbringer. I might just been too mad at him, so I leave it that.

Speaker 3: 1:25:30

I liked it. Okay, red Rising is definitely my least favorite. I liked Lightbringer, but there were a couple things which we'll see. Maybe they'll be sort of massaged and explained in the next book but a couple of things where I was like this, felt like this character got away with something they should not have and in this series that we're like, the consequences are insane and they're very real, particularly around that and why Steve hates the expanse months.

Speaker 2: 1:25:55

Yeah, yeah, why. Steve is wrong about this.

Speaker 3: 1:26:02

It's so funny I mean I don't know everything that happens, but what I have heard about the last trilogy of books I'm like so excited to get to them and it's so interesting, steve that like what by my under? I mean I don't know, I don't know, but what by what? I understand that that was the turnoff point for you I'm curious about. Is it? Is it the space opera? How do you do with the space opera genre in general?

Speaker 1: 1:26:27

I'm okay with space opera. For me to really just like we talked to Chris and Robin and Layla about kind of what changed that kind of threw me off that series. But I enjoyed it. There was some hit and miss. There were some books that I really liked and then there was some periods where I think there's a lot of red shirt moments, like there's a new character that gets introduced and like this person's going to die in like no time, like they're not going to be around very much longer and of course, like they they're just there to move the plot along and then to die and to move the rest of the characters along, like they're just there to serve a purpose and though they're dead and then everyone moves on and forgets about them.

Speaker 2: 1:27:04

So you know, it's fine, it is, but it was not perfect, but for me it was like I thought it was the series was good, not great. Where I said I actually got the TV show was better until I got to book five, and then book five was like holy shit. So I've been waiting for, and then it just never, really, ever really led up again for me after that. So maybe I just wanted to be bigger, I wanted to go bigger and it did.

Speaker 1: 1:27:27

TV show is so good and yeah it was so good. Just want to say that Millie was right. Just want to give Miller his props because he was right.

Speaker 5: 1:27:38

Miller.

Speaker 4: 1:27:39

Well, look man, I'm not an older lady.

Speaker 2: 1:27:41

But Abbas Rallah. I'd marry her right now. I'd marry her right now. Oh my God. Yes, she's awesome. I didn't care that her voice sounds like she's never missed a day of smokes in her life, that matter. I'd marry her right now.

Speaker 4: 1:27:53

It is astounding that she reads maybe even better than she's portrayed in the TV series, because she is a legend during the TV series, but she reads.

Speaker 2: 1:28:03

I mean, I've never read a book to pull that roll off the way she did.

Speaker 1: 1:28:07

Yeah, really good casting. Yeah, great casting. Great great casting for sure. But yeah, the so. So Mike, speaking of well, and then also James, they live here and very close to me and I was trying to trying to massage that. I'm like, oh, hello from you. Know I'm gonna tell the street from you, but it didn't work. I tried. I tried Brandon Sanderson and he's like if you don't get it 100,000 downloads of your podcast, we're not interested, Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:28:36

See, that's me. Why have you not had Brandon Sanderson on? I'm like, I mean I haven't told any, but you know I can't like. It's not like a movie where you can like kidnap the guy and make them come on your channel, right. I mean that's the case. Yeah, I mean I'm like I'm not even king on. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4: 1:28:51

It's like that would make a great video. Mike, just just just going out there.

Speaker 1: 1:28:56

You got a lot of hits. Just put it up there you can review the rope and the tape and the duct tape use.

Speaker 2: 1:29:03

No, I tell you why. Oh why haven't you had this all the way? I can't make anyone come on the channel, guys, you know it's. I don't know Just got a minute. I was like whoa, my own brain is here since radar because he did send me that box set of Colonel C. He didn't send me other ones, though, so I'm assuming that was just a publisher thing.

Speaker 1: 1:29:22

You got in trouble for that right. You got some grief for that.

Speaker 2: 1:29:25

I think it's I got. Some people were upset. They thought I was flexing about it. It's like really, I was just saying thank you, you know, because apparently I didn't, I didn't back the Kickstarter.

Speaker 2: 1:29:34

What I said with Kickstarter is I like to help out some authors that are smaller, might not get their goal. Brandon Sanders was going to be fine without my support you know, the most successful Kickstarter ever. I was like I think he's going to be okay, you know. So I was like I I I donated what to Emma Long for the for sort of Keigan and Zach Argyle for for Threadlight. So I said I want to always you know about two a year I'd like to try to help out, you know, some smaller authors. So when I got sent that and people who actually donated the Kickstarter had not gotten theirs yet, they got really upset and in hindsight I realized why, why they felt that way. But I was again. That wasn't a humble brag, that was me just saying thank you, because I just never expected it, that's all. But yeah, you monster, it's hard to show what people are upset Monster.

Speaker 1: 1:30:19

So Chris, Chris and I were talking, or in Jared, we're talking about Stephen King, because I just finished revival and I wanted to ask you because you said you, you don't enjoy.

Speaker 2: 1:30:28

Please tell me you like revival. Please tell me you liked it.

Speaker 1: 1:30:31

It was. It was a. It was hit and miss. There's some parts that I really like, but there's a lot of the book that doesn't need. Don't need business.

Speaker 2: 1:30:38

Oh, I'm not kidding, I'm kidding. I love revival, but I, that's just you know.

Speaker 1: 1:30:43

But this is what this is what King does, though, like you you talked about. Like you, you don't want to like read a book about grass growing, but this was. Stephen King does Lots. Yeah, he's good at it. He's good at it. He's good at the price of life.

Speaker 2: 1:30:54

You know, I think he does. He just writes characters in a way that just connects with you know, because they feel like real people. You know he just will write them so damaged and realistic stuff that you can think of. That's just really happened to somebody. And I and I I get that because I remember like people were like I like to love it 2263, except for like that middle part where they just like weren't doing nothing. I was like, oh, you mean my favorite part of the book, you know, but he's just so good at it Him and Robin Hobber really damn good at that. Like you can go back and be like nothing's happened for 300 pages, or alone some dove Nothing's happened in a hundred pages and I can't stop reading. It's so good. So some authors are just really good at it. But I get if that's, you know you're hanging out with this character and revival through their whole life and you're like what's happening right now? I can get, I can get how that doesn't work, but I think he's just great at it. Yeah, I enjoyed that.

Speaker 3: 1:31:43

That was an aspect I really liked, tracking the whole the life story. I just I just wanted to hang out with that character.

Speaker 2: 1:31:48

You know I love the way he does that.

Speaker 1: 1:31:51

Not to give too much away. But holy shit that ending it's one of his most messed up.

Speaker 2: 1:31:56

Oh, stephen King can't write it ending and I'm like re-revival. Yeah, damn, that's a dark ending. I think it was like you know Mike Flanagan, who was a big time concert reader. He was going to be doing an adaptation of it and the studio had told him well, you have to change the ending. We can't have an ending that that dour put that way. He was like no.

Speaker 6: 1:32:16

I'm not going to change the ending. He walked away.

Speaker 2: 1:32:19

He walked away because he said he would not change the ending. So, yeah, I'm excited for his dark tower. Dark tower should be great though. Yeah, if that actually happened. I mean, this is over the last 20 years. There's been so many false starts for dark tower and I was like, that's like my holy grail is Mike Flanagan doing the dark tower, because I feel like he'll fix all that shit I didn't like and he'll just do all the stuff I did like you know. So, oh man, I have to be a dream come true, I think.

Speaker 1: 1:32:46

Can it be adapted, though, by anyone? Can anyone adapt the dark?

Speaker 2: 1:32:49

tower. I said there's no way. There's no way they could adapt your old game. And Mike Flanagan like hit a grand slam where I was like I trust this guy, you know, and he even made dark. I thought he made Dr Sleep better than the book. So I think Flanagan is just he's one of those directors gets what makes Stephen King tick. So I think he could pull it off, I think. But Amazon's going to have to donate some money to do it right, because it won't be cheap and you got to trust them. You got to just let him go all in on the crazy. You know we're talking about like a boarding babies with pistols and shit. Like it doesn't that first book which is like what am I reading right now? Yeah, you've got to let him just go for it. I just don't. I just don't know they will. I'm so worried.

Speaker 3: 1:33:30

That's because the the movie that shall not be named like white, washed it so much like we're just so bland compared to the books, which are so weird and so cool and so freaky.

Speaker 4: 1:33:42

But Flanagan signed a new contract to move from Netflix to Amazon, so you've got to think he's if he's ever going to do it. I mean given the space to do it. No, he's the time now he's going to get it.

Speaker 2: 1:33:52

Yeah, I just I. What I think Mike Flanagan is, he's his integrity is like I'm not going to make it bad. So I mean I'd rather just not make it than make it bad. So I think that's just where he's at. So he's not going to half acid. So if they don't let him go all in, they don't let him have creative control, we just not going to do it. You know, in prime video is shown with fantasy adaptations. They don't have the best track record with that, especially apparently with sticking their fingers in those pies all the time.

Speaker 5: 1:34:18

They do have the money though.

Speaker 2: 1:34:20

I mean, you had the guy doing House of the Dragon that was going to do a Conan show for you and you fired him for reasons. Let's just leave it at that. And then you have these people make rings of power, which gets completely bodied by House of the Dragon, which has been made by the guy that you fired. Weird, weird. I have opinions about it, in case you can't. House of the Dragon is awesome, though. I hope you guys liked it. Yeah, she took up YouTube. Dude, I love House of the Dragon.

Speaker 5: 1:34:52

I should start a YouTube channel.

Speaker 4: 1:34:54

What is an opinion if you can't broadcast it, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:34:59

I just I've been waiting for a big Robert E Howard fan and just the idea of a faithful Conan series is sounding because they've never done it. I mean, look, I love Arnold, I love that movie, I grew up with it, but I was like it's like a mashup of, like several Robert E Howard stories. So I'm going to get a faithful Conan series. I was so excited for it. A series he was thinking about, a series Like a, oh wow, yeah, the guy that I was I'm forgetting his name at the moment he's doing House of the Dragon now but he was wanting to do a completely faithful story of Conan and they changed bosses at Prime Video and she said let's go with Willa Time instead. Ryan Condol is the name of the guy. Ryan Condol, thank you, yeah, him and the Gelsen project you just hit a home run with. You know, if you've read Fire and Blood, you can just see what a home run they're hitting with that.

Speaker 1: 1:35:46

Carl works in the entertainment industry, so he's always given us insider information.

Speaker 2: 1:35:50

You try the baseball.

Speaker 3: 1:35:51

Yeah, pretty interesting. No, I mean what Mike just said about. You know, bosses change, that's Tails oldest time. You have some switcheroo going on and then everyone wants of course to clean the slate and start over with their own ideas, their own ideas. Of course you know them sticking their fingers in the creative pie. It's a messy industry.

Speaker 5: 1:36:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:36:18

Leave it at that.

Speaker 3: 1:36:21

There definitely are things that I have dealt with that I cannot talk about. It's the industry is a mess. A lot of wonderful people actually the majority of the people, I mean, it's like you know, going on booktube or wherever majority of people are amazing, but the problem is a lot of the less amazing people have a lot of power, which is you could say, that's true everywhere.

Speaker 4: 1:36:43

That's intact. Like Martin Scorsese, can't get films funded. So like what chance has a TV creative? You know that people's creatives don't have money.

Speaker 3: 1:36:51

To be fair, he got Killers of the Flower Moon funded, which is $200 million, which I could not believe when I found out. Yeah Well, I mean, Ridley Scott seemed to get it figured out.

Speaker 2: 1:37:00

No one watches historical biopics anymore, apparently, except me, you know. But those aren't, those aren't. You know. Historical ethics aren't really popular with general audience. They keep giving Ridley Scott $200 billion and they make 10 bucks, you know. So it's crazy. Keep on doing it.

Speaker 4: 1:37:13

I'm glad somebody's doing it because I still like those kinds of movies. Ridley Scott should be giving all the money he needs all the time.

Speaker 2: 1:37:21

After the Martian it was like, OK, he's back to blank check, he can do whatever he wants to do now.

Speaker 1: 1:37:27

So what movies are popular?

Speaker 2: 1:37:28

I'm actually more excited to watch the directors. They tell you there's gonna be like a four hour director's cut, that's the one Because. That's the one I'm going to watch because, like that guy had one of the most amazing life ever and you're telling me you're going to get that down to two hours. No way, no way. I'm holding off too for the four hours. I'm going to wait for the four hour director's cut and see what he wanted to make.

Speaker 1: 1:37:52

So what movies are popular now? What is a sure thing now?

Speaker 2: 1:37:56

Not Marvel movies anymore, Barbenheimer. You know, I said I haven't watched Barbenheimer. We got it. I haven't watched it yet. It's pretty good. Both good. I liked them both. My wife watched Barbie. She said it was weird. That's all it is weird.

Speaker 3: 1:38:10

It's true, I liked it. What else I liked it? Mario made a lot of money.

Speaker 4: 1:38:19

Will Mario Landed? What's that? Will Mario 2 make a lot of money? That's the big question. You know once you do that box of tricks once. Can you do it again the same with Barbie 2. Like I will have exactly the same problem.

Speaker 2: 1:38:34

I think you know that that first weekend will be big and if the movie is good it will be big. So it's kind of like like a Masonic 2. I mean, my kids freaking, adored it. I think that's their target audience. So if the kids are liking it, yeah, they're going to be taking their parents to it Going. So I think with all sequels it's just going to pin. Okay, yeah, the first week going to be big. How big is that drop off? You said it for the next tune. Oh, yeah, it's a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:38:59

It's so funny about that is after I saw a rival I was like, oh man, denny V is just like if this guy can make doing it be amazing, and literally the next day he was announced he was doing it. If a million dollars can fall out of this guy, it didn't work I had to try it. You know, that was just like a dream.

Speaker 2: 1:39:20

Literally my favorite movie is I know how much love that book, so good, what I can say that you have these things where you could like break down. It's like a dichotomy of a scene. I think it was called. It was doing the you know the hand, the box scene and he was saying when they was doing this scene, he kept on saying what would Frank do? And I was like no, the director does Sounds like that. What would the, what would the actual author do? He just got like the paper back in his back pocket the whole time they're filming this movie. I was like this is the guy, this is the guy that's going to make just an amazing movie.

Speaker 3: 1:39:47

I cannot say a lot, but I can say the second movie is going to be really good. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 2: 1:39:52

I know some people got a screen in the first 10 minutes.

Speaker 3: 1:39:54

I got that first one.

Speaker 2: 1:39:55

They didn't call me this time though, yeah, I'm so excited.

Speaker 4: 1:40:00

I can't wait. I've told this story before, but I went with my wife and two kids that movie and it was quite obvious after Bernard that I was the only one really digging it. I could see them. I could see them on my like. Well, it's fun.

Speaker 2: 1:40:14

He like almost made me cry Because he was like, yeah, can I watch Dune? You know, because I want to know why it's so important to you. I'm, like you know, sure, sure, you know, trying to hold him back. I mean I had to hold his hand and like explain a lot of stuff to him, but he's excited enough to want to see part two. But he was like that's a win. It's okay if we watch part one again.

Speaker 6: 1:40:32

Yes, yes, it is.

Speaker 2: 1:40:34

You know before we see it you know, because he watched a trailer that just came with like a final trailer, and he was like I don't know who this is. And I was like, well, you haven't seen Fade Routhy yet. You haven't seen, you know, some of these characters and stuff. So he wants to watch it again. I'm like it's fine, I'll watch it for the 14th time, Chris, I went by myself for that very reason.

Speaker 5: 1:40:52

I knew that was going to happen. I'm like nope, this is mine.

Speaker 4: 1:40:57

I actually have to give my eldest daughter quite a lot of credit, because she was vehemently angry over the fact that it had no ending. You know that it was just done.

Speaker 2: 1:41:08

I remember when I saw it the opening night, the first credits and it says part one. There were people in the audience like what I can actually say hello.

Speaker 4: 1:41:16

So I was like hey, pull one over on you there Pretty good, but I'm glad he did because it meant that we got a bit of a tear in the right.

Speaker 2: 1:41:24

I hope people go because I feel like it's done well enough on home video streaming and blue right now that I know people are interested. I just I hope people pay to go see it. Because I got to see this guy keep making these movies because I was like, if they ever get to the point to where they can actually make God Emperor of Dune, I cannot imagine modern audiences trying to wrap their head around that movie. So that'd be a trip, it'd be amazing. I think he just wants to go through Messiah.

Speaker 1: 1:41:50

Are you a fan of Dune Varsha?

Speaker 6: 1:41:54

Yes, I read it a couple of years ago I think, maybe three or four years ago. I wanted to read it before the movie came out but I couldn't. But I will, probably before the next movie comes out. I think God Emperor of Dune is my favorite. So, yeah, I'd love for the movies to go that far.

Speaker 2: 1:42:14

I read that when I was 18 and I was just like what, yeah, I don't think it'd be any different now. So the 90s say that's good stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:42:29

So, mike, I know that you're up against it. I know you have to hit about 15 minutes.

Speaker 2: 1:42:34

I'm not going on my door yet. Ask me anything.

Speaker 4: 1:42:39

Oh right.

Speaker 2: 1:42:42

My favorite new kid on the block. You know I got.

Speaker 5: 1:42:45

Oh, I mean that's an easy one, sure, yeah, no brainer.

Speaker 1: 1:42:50

Do you plot your reviews or do you just wing it?

Speaker 2: 1:42:55

I mean, I feel like the approach that I've always wanted to go for is like like when, like you're at a coffee house, you're at a bar with your friend and they say, hey, would you think about this? You're just like, you're talking. I've always said I want to talk to my audience, not at them, and I think that's just something that's resonated with a lot of people and I'm glad because I just feel like that's the best way. I know, like anything where I can, like I can tell someone's reading off, I can see their eyes like they're reading off of a page, and if that's what you can do, you can't. Just, you know, I podcasted for 10 years before I did this, so I feel like I've I got pretty good at that. I understand that everybody can do that, but no, I will make some bullet points, just so I remember to talk about it, because I will get to the end of a video after I recorded it.

Speaker 2: 1:43:36

Oh, you don't want to mess it up, so I'll make some bullet points, but that's that's. That's really it. It's really just. Let's turn the camera on and see what happens.

Speaker 5: 1:43:44

I resemble that remark because I I gotta write everything down first. I get it, I get it.

Speaker 2: 1:43:52

I mean, I think it's like we got first started. I was, I was writing it all down. I was like why just treat it like you do a podcast? You know people don't like it. They don't like it, you know. So you know, I made Carl leave.

Speaker 1: 1:44:05

It's Carl. They came to get him. He said too much.

Speaker 2: 1:44:11

You're talking about industry insiders. Yeah, it was a June two comment, wasn't it? Oh yeah, no.

Speaker 4: 1:44:19

Water brothers on. No, you know, I've got one copyright strike on my channel.

Speaker 2: 1:44:26

It was my Dune trailer reaction, which I don't do very often. But I'm like how do these other channels do trailer reactions and they get nothing? It's like all they do. I don't understand why I got hit with one so so weird.

Speaker 1: 1:44:40

It's the weirdest thing.

Speaker 2: 1:44:40

I have ideas and you would think with water brothers, like you're getting people excited for your movie, why are you against that? Warner Brothers is idiots. They're idiots. They completely ruined all my favorite DC suit Superheroes. I'm so pissed at Warner Brothers forever.

Speaker 5: 1:44:58

They're idiots. But they took Cal away from us.

Speaker 4: 1:45:03

See, the only thing about DC things is like. I do agree that I don't think many of them are group movies, but they're way more interesting than retrospect and watching a lot of me watching a lot of Marvel movies for the same reason that they are. I'm honest, I will stand a hell. It might be the best superhero movie of them all.

Speaker 2: 1:45:21

And I hear.

Speaker 4: 1:45:21

It's the first time I've seen monosteen. Brilliant, don't tell me.

Speaker 2: 1:45:28

I was watching what God's the Love vs Kong with my kids again because they got so excited when they saw the new trailer so we watched it again. I was like, damn, this movie did not handle the fight in the subsequent team out, team up the exact same way that I wanted them to handle Batman v Superman. Have a certain winner and then have them team up for the greater good. It made so much more sense than what we got and I was like, really so Godzilla and King Kong did it better than you did. Come on, zach, come on, I love Watchmen. I'm excited for Rebel Moon, so I don't trash that Snyder. But I was like that was a big ass letdown. I was so excited for that movie. Man, yeah, what are we watching?

Speaker 2: 1:46:07

Trashing MCU movies for a while now. Everyone treated me like a leper, until Ant-Man 3 came out and they're like wow maybe this isn't so good.

Speaker 6: 1:46:16

It's a truck. Oh yeah, First of all, it's a third Ant-Man movie.

Speaker 2: 1:46:20

I don't know what you were expecting out of a character like that. And yeah, it just it's. Their movies are just you can go, it doesn't matter when you go pee, you know what happened, you know I mean it's besides Spider-Man and Guardians. I haven't watched anything after in-game. I was like this is very clearly the jumping off point, guys. But I get it. You know, it's like you know. Nobody wanted the part of the end. I get it. You know a lot of people grew up with this. This was like her Star Wars, I get it. I was like I'm out, guys. And then all the Disney plus stuff.

Speaker 6: 1:46:53

I like what?

Speaker 4: 1:46:53

the first one?

Speaker 6: 1:46:53

was. I'm not a Star Wars fan.

Speaker 4: 1:46:54

I hate what they've done to Star Wars, oh yeah, Probably the wrong person to ask, so I like the first one about this quite a lot, but I like Samurai Me. Maybe that's just that thing, but Kodamee is an absolute core. I remember sitting in the cinema and normally the time passes watching Marvel movies, but remember I've been about 45 minutes. I just kept on looking at what's going. There's at least another 45 minutes left of this movie. I cannot. This is terrible.

Speaker 2: 1:47:22

I heard some people on my discord that were like still all bored and they were excited for that, or like that might be the worst three hours of my life, wow.

Speaker 5: 1:47:30

Okay, it's really bad. It's really bad.

Speaker 4: 1:47:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:47:38

Do you plot your reviews first?

Speaker 6: 1:47:42

I used to. I mean, I, like Mike mentioned and maybe Jared did, I also used to write everything down, but then it took so long. I barely make these videos so I started just talking whatever came to my mind and yeah, there were things I forgot, but I didn't have the patience to go back and insert later on. But yeah, I do the bullet point and I think bright threads episodes are the closest thing I'm doing to reviews lately. For those I do plan what to say, but also I've started filming small chunks, so if I make mistakes I only have to redo parts of it. So that's what I do. I do high level points that I want to talk about and, yeah, I talk through whatever and redo things later.

Speaker 1: 1:48:37

So so, Mike, you mentioned about star. What do you, what do you not like? What they've done? What? What about what they've done to Star Wars? Do you not like? You ain't got no time, you said 15 minutes by the score.

Speaker 2: 1:48:51

Pretty much everything since Luke threw his lightsaber over his shoulder. Ever since then it's just been a wow. How do they just keep piling all this shit on top of shit? How do they keep doing this? So I don't really have a lot to say. I still was like I'm going to you know, keep my guys. I want my kids to enjoy where they enjoy. I don't want to influence them that way. I want them to make their own minds about the stuff, and I think it was when we got to the point where we had watched Kenobi and even my, my, my 11 year old, was like this is so dumb. I was like God, I ain't got to watch this shit anymore. So we had a little orian for a while, and third season, even it went to kind of crap and we're just like oh well, you know, we can never take those original movies from me, no matter how many times.

Speaker 5: 1:49:38

George changes them.

Speaker 2: 1:49:40

You know at least I still got their originals on my shelf and you can't take those away and that's fine. That's how I feel about, you know, book adaptation. You know they're not coming to my office and ripping those books off my shelf. I've liked to have seen like Will Time and rings of power go better, Of course, of course, but yeah, yeah, I've always got those books. No one's taken them away from me.

Speaker 1: 1:50:00

Yeah, I liked Andorra. I thought Andorra was pretty good I liked that a lot.

Speaker 5: 1:50:03

That's what I hear.

Speaker 4: 1:50:03

That's what I hear.

Speaker 2: 1:50:04

Andorra's pretty good.

Speaker 2: 1:50:06

The problem is like there's like a point, guys, where it's like I'm Disney's run out of continues with me. You know, I'm just, I'm like I'm not done, I can't. I just every time I hear oh, it's because people were telling me, oh, the book is so great, and then like wait another week and like actually it wasn't that good, and I was like I mean, people are just excited and I get that, but I've heard Andorra's really good, and now I heard that like season two is coming out to like 2026 or something. No, so sorry for you, guys, I can win. Once my kids said they didn't want to watch Mandalorian anymore. We canceled the Disney plus subscription with the quickness there you go, don't need that yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:50:43

But you found the books right. I'm sorry, chris.

Speaker 4: 1:50:46

I'm sorry, the problem I have with a lot of Star Wars TV series of others. You're not more than about 20 minutes away from some sort of fan service, the unnecessary moment. You know they have to squeeze in a sighting of a of a well-known character or some reference and you're like we're losing our audience. Quick put Luke in it. I don't need that. Like I knew you.

Speaker 2: 1:51:05

We were not liking the Boba that series like at all. And then they put that one scene with Cad Bane and I was like, yeah, I get up. And I was like, but outside of that I was like there's nothing really I like. So I was like, was it really just like the member barriers? I was like that's how they keep you guys hanging around. Like I heard with Ahsoka, they put Anakin in it and people were just like shitting themselves over it and I was like, oh so you guys, you guys like Hayden Christensen now, because I was there, you guys didn't like Hayden Christensen when it was going on.

Speaker 2: 1:51:33

So weird, weird, how that works.

Speaker 1: 1:51:35

Didn't he go into hiding?

Speaker 5: 1:51:37

He was like put in some cabin in the middle of the night For a while Geez Filled pretty people.

Speaker 1: 1:51:44

Would you?

Speaker 4: 1:51:45

recommend the box, though, mike.

Speaker 1: 1:51:46

You're a fan of the Throne Box, right.

Speaker 2: 1:51:48

Oh, the legend, what they call legends. Now, yeah, that's to me, that'll always be the official, that this stuff, disney stuff, is fan fiction. That's the actual Canon for me and then always, because it was, it was called Canon by George Lucas and that's the creator. So that's what I'm going with. You know, and I think if you could get George in a room, get him a couple of drinks in. He's going to be honest with it. He's going to say he absolutely regrets selling the Disney. I think he would tell you that without a doubt, that he regrets it.

Speaker 4: 1:52:16

No, not money. Four billion wasn't enough. I've said this before I would kill for a Darth Bane Making of the, of the, those original picks. They were spectacular, or spectacular Should I say, and a lot of that if I think about the closest the Star Wars ever gotten a grimdark.

Speaker 2: 1:52:35

Yeah, yeah, that's a really star by star in the in the New Jedi order? I think maybe yet.

Speaker 6: 1:52:39

I order big career as well.

Speaker 2: 1:52:40

Yeah, new Jedi order. So good, so good. I will always champion new order. So many of my friends tapped out during New Jedi order Because they were like, oh, I don't want to watch all my favorite characters die. Well, you know, they're like in their fifties.

Speaker 4: 1:52:55

It's amazing they did this far that a good run in a world where there's no life expectancy. You know that somewhere. Yeah, I.

Speaker 2: 1:53:03

Was like to me. It felt like it was growing up. We didn't still have stormtroopers being a foot away from you and missing you. You know, we grew up. You had intimidating villains that were actually killing people and I was like it was. It was real. That's what I appreciated about it blasts.

Speaker 1: 1:53:20

So we talked early about thinking you know, like the 18, that it didn't hold up, something that just doesn't hold up for me as the predator movies at all.

Speaker 2: 1:53:30

Just kind of consider those campy fun already. So it's like the running man or a lot of those old Arnold babies where it's just like no, I knew that they weren't a good, but I know big trouble. Little China's not a great movie.

Speaker 5: 1:53:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:53:46

There's some things like that. And then there was other things like when I was younger I thought the wizard was a great movie. Oh, and I watched it. You know it was terrible you know, I'm not like most Gen Xers who everything that was nostalgia is still great. I can look at me like it was great when it happened. Yeah, but time hasn't been kind on some of these things.

Speaker 5: 1:54:10

Did you like the newest predator movie, the prey?

Speaker 2: 1:54:15

I.

Speaker 5: 1:54:15

Good.

Speaker 4: 1:54:19

It's on Disney plus, but it's console.

Speaker 2: 1:54:24

I think we have, we have, we have Hulu and I have the hulu with ads. I was like I mean, look, we're only paying a dollar a month for this. But you know, I watch ads during a TV show, but during a movie it's like nah, it's just breaking my immersion to have a minute and a half ad every 20 minutes. So it's.

Speaker 5: 1:54:45

It's the best predator movie. It really is. It's really, it's really outstanding. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:54:50

Wow, it's better than predator to. Yes, you're going off of a total of one good predator movie that I've seen. You gotta have you just get a high bar here. Hey, stay before I go. What are you reading now is like to ask people with a reading.

Speaker 1: 1:55:10

Oh, I'm reading Carl's book, and even though he's murdered in a shallow grave somewhere, other good wrong. Reading the truth of crowns by Carl D Albert, and I'm also reading the warrior profit, profit.

Speaker 2: 1:55:28

That's the second series in the second second series. Yeah, a lot of people and you've written, like I said on my this people have been begging me to read this. It's like first said I like to John Gwynn books, so I'm glad I'm finally doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:55:43

That's your failure to watch. What about you, varsha? Now? You've done that, crippled God.

Speaker 6: 1:55:49

Yes, I'm reading the same things that Steve is. Actually, I'm also working my way through truth of crowns, and I was the other book, yeah, the warrior profit. I haven't started it yet, but I will this weekend, and I have voyage of the basilisk to finish, which is the third book of.

Speaker 4: 1:56:12

Memo as a play.

Speaker 2: 1:56:13

It's like me I can remember all the words of the Humpty Danes, but I can't remember what I did yesterday. Yeah, what are you reading right now? Could put so much pressure on me.

Speaker 1: 1:56:24

Oh, I'm berserk and berserk.

Speaker 6: 1:56:27

Yeah reading with volume 29 for Sunday.

Speaker 2: 1:56:30

Yeah, thanks, through Docum Lindy Empire, and so I pretty much almost read everything that Mura wrote. But you know, now I'm on the one piece which is a billion issues long. I was like that's the only series. I can say, hey, I'm on volume 20 and I'm not even a third through the series. Yes, it's fun. Though it is a lot of fun, I was very, very wrong about one piece. It's it's goofy, but it's a lot more deep than I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 1: 1:57:02

Will be a chart. What are you reading? I?

Speaker 5: 1:57:04

will finish tombs of a two-in up tonight, leguine. So that's I've never read this is.

Speaker 2: 1:57:12

This is actually Great.

Speaker 5: 1:57:14

I have her see but, I actually like the second one even better. So then the first book yeah, mine's that whole.

Speaker 2: 1:57:22

It's like some one volume edition of all the books of her fees. And.

Speaker 5: 1:57:25

I'm also reading a bold ascension von reichhaft.

Speaker 2: 1:57:30

Yeah, I think I might be the only booktuber the night gets sent this guy's book. What the hell I could put it? I mean I can that one and Tori Tori didn't send me knew her new book. I'm like what the hell, tori?

Speaker 4: 1:57:40

That's it. Oh, that's a war start For Tori wasn't so cool.

Speaker 5: 1:57:50

I don't know, and I think Chris is reading this to the stars, my stars, just stars, where that's what I'm reading at the moment where sci-fi six on our SF master works.

Speaker 4: 1:58:00

Read along 15 year friendship as a 183 books in the series.

Speaker 2: 1:58:11

Well, steve, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I complain all the time that you know you would not believe people think I get invites, all that. I do not get very many invites. I get people that ask me to do like their little 45, 60 second cameos where they collect all these opinions. I'm good to others but like hardly anyone ever invites me on as a guest. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:58:30

Well, join our forums Like and you can join anytime if they're always there.

Speaker 2: 1:58:33

Yeah, all right. Well, I got to go show the kids Christmas lights now, because apparently you know they never get tired of them.

Speaker 4: 1:58:40

Enjoy your time.

Speaker 5: 1:58:43

Night.

Speaker 1: 1:58:54

So yeah, so any other any of the things you guys want to talk, talk about concerning reviews or thoughts and reviews, reviewing.

Speaker 5: 1:59:02

Yeah, I've only been do, Was that Chris?

Speaker 6: 1:59:09

Yeah.

Speaker 5: 1:59:10

I've only been doing this for a year. My one-year anniversary is actually Sunday, so Nice, and I don't know what to do. If I'm gonna do anything, but, I don't know, probably not.

Speaker 5: 1:59:26

I'm not big on celebrations, but but so I've only yeah, I've only been doing it that long and I haven't really had much as far as I mean, I get some nice comments on my Channel, but a lot of them are from Varsha or Chris or, or or from some of the authors that I've done, you know, like von Roycroft and Philip Jason, what have you, and so I really don't know how it's going Overall. You know, as far as whether people like my review style Per se you know I I don't do ratings, I tend to talk about themes and, and I talk about Some you know things that the author might be trying to say. I don't delve too deeply into plot when I do reviews, you know so. So I'm not gonna say you know the Stuff that I guess those those hyper keywords that people love. You know I Don't get into that kind of stuff. So I'm not really sure if that's ever gonna get me A thousand subscribers or not, but I really don't care, that's fine.

Speaker 4: 2:00:56

That's subscribers equals more trolls.

Speaker 5: 2:00:58

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 2:01:01

What I can say for your jar is I stopped doing the SF masterworks kind of stuff content because Every time I watch one of your videos your reviews of the SF masterworks I was go Really really god damn good. Like you put in the in the what I think about a lot of those books, even if I don't totally agree with every point you make. You kind of put in the review and exactly what I would have wanted said and oh wow, you do it in about six or seven minutes, which is which is terrific, like I think they're really really good, I appreciate that.

Speaker 5: 2:01:32

Yeah, I, yeah, and I do try to keep them short. I don't like Generally that the reviews that go on for 30 minutes, I, yeah, I Generally I'm like I don't need all that to know whether I'm gonna like a book or not. You know, I give. I just try to give them nuts and bolts of what it's about, rather than breaking down the characters and breaking down the plot and and all that stuff. So I appreciate that, chris, that's, it's always nice to hear you know. But yeah, and you know, and because I like to keep him short, I, I like doing him, because I don't have to Spend all this time doing editing and doing, you know, doing all this stuff to him. I can just, I can just, I write it out real quick and then it's never more than a page.

Speaker 5: 2:02:25

When you go and then and I, I just I read it and then I usually add lib on what I'm reading and so hopefully that is enough for people to get out of it what they want. You know, I Mean I guess I'm doing okay because I get. I have very little subscribers, but my view count is always Near where my subscriber count is, so I guess that kind of means something.

Speaker 1: 2:02:55

That's more important than subscribers, because if you have it, if you have like a thousand subscribers, but you're getting like 20 views and you're, then it's actually not good, it just it's a detriment. So no, it's really good You're doing that.

Speaker 6: 2:03:17

Yeah, no, like Chris, at your, your reviews have been a bit of an inspiration for me. I like how short they are and I think now that I don't, I guess the. It was difficult to decide what I'd be making reviews for. At the beginning it was just I want to talk about this book, so I needed to go on about it for 20 minutes. But if you decide that your target audience is people that maybe you're trying to Just give them information if they're considering reading the book, or just give them information about hey, this is a new book I read then and that is absolutely the style that I would choose and that's the style that works for me as someone who wants recommendations too.

Speaker 6: 2:04:00

So, yeah, and that's one of the reasons why I don't tend to watch 20 minute Reviews, because even though they're spoiler free, what people consider spoilers is different and Like some blurb spoil books by saying things that happen three-fourths of the way in. Steve knows I complained about a book recently. I did that. So 20 minutes you're talking about a book and not going to not do spoilers, or at least like talk about things that might Change how you experience some of the books. Seven, eight minutes seems apt and that probably also, hopefully, gets you a lot of views on the reviews.

Speaker 5: 2:04:39

And I told you not to read a third book. In cities of flight I said that flat out I listened and you didn't listen. I.

Speaker 6: 2:04:48

Did not, and I still haven't listened to you guys. I'm still walking my way through that book and it's my, it's my nighttime read, so I work myself up to major angle.

Speaker 4: 2:05:02

Where to put yourself asleep. I have to say, I can't think of no more effective book than making just sleepy.

Speaker 6: 2:05:11

Oh, my god it's. I have something. Okay, maybe we can talk about it. No, for a couple of minutes. I was going to tag you guys in a long post about it. But you know, jared, during your book think episode I think you and AP were talking about the forever war for a bit and he talked about how the forever war shows how societies change and that's sort of one of the big points it makes, like how things change. And this one I feel like the point it's making and I don't know if it's intentional Is that nothing ever changes, even if you live for thousands of years and or even if the world goes on for thousands of years, everybody's the same, even though they are pretending to be different. In the fourth book it, it just did not work for me that premise.

Speaker 4: 2:05:58

I Would argue that that is A product of it just not being very well written. Well then it being a point that he that he was trying to make. I just think he didn't have the imagination that Joe Solomon did, for instance, and trying to set up a lot of those constructs, which is what makes that book so credible in one way is and because things don't change, especially over four books- yeah you wouldn't have needed four books to make the point things don't change. You wouldn't need to do a thousand years, etc.

Speaker 4: 2:06:26

I just think I don't know it's the one book this year that I've read that I Didn't like a lot of it. Like that's nearly the one book it's, it's it, it.

Speaker 6: 2:06:38

The characters don't change, the societies don't change, nothing changes very much. And I'm like that, yeah, and that's exactly my problem that if that is the point You're trying to make, you haven't done a very good job and it seems that you've incidentally made that point, in which case you know, I don't agree with you and I don't like anything as you've done in the process. So anyway, that that was my most Last page is pretty good yeah.

Speaker 5: 2:07:06

Three. The last page is pretty cool yeah.

Speaker 4: 2:07:10

Sense. I'll even make sense, I promise you.

Speaker 5: 2:07:15

The last page. He does the right thing.

Speaker 6: 2:07:21

I'm as he blows up in a thousand pieces.

Speaker 5: 2:07:23

He does the right thing.

Speaker 4: 2:07:29

The one point I was gonna make about about reviews was I sort of feel, like even in booktube spaces, that discussions have replaced reviews in a lot of ways.

Speaker 4: 2:07:37

It's much more interesting discuss between people the good and the bad, the things that you didn't like, conversely with another person, than watch a review, because that one perspective is so hard to get across in one sitting. Some people do it amazingly well, but I think it's very hard to do in general in any kind of engaging way where there's at least a discussion. Certainly, for me anyway, I can come off those discussions as opposed to video and feel energized and refreshed by the experience of doing it, whereas you know the review sitting there sometimes they do review and go well, that wasn't very good, but I've recorded it, so I'll put it out or otherwise. You know that kind of thing. I've made content and it's taken me quite a bit of planning, time and effort to do so may as well put it out, and you know someone reviews them. Very, very happy with the great your own, but sometimes just kind of go Much rather just on a conversation about that and bounce the ideas of people and done that with it.

Speaker 5: 2:08:32

So I think that's changed the review in space and I have no bones about Having my mind changed after I put out my own review, because the forever war I wasn't huge on when I did my review. But having that discussion with you guys Up to my opinion of the book more you know and and you know I'm not gonna go back and retract anything but, but I know I didn't say it was a bad book at all. I liked, I still liked it, you know, but but but that was the beauty. That's the beauty of some of the discussions is you talk things out and you start, you learn more and you you pick up things that people caught, that you didn't catch in, and that's that makes it a good experience.

Speaker 1: 2:09:21

Yeah, I think for me they have to. I think discussions are much more interesting and different perspectives and you get to bounce off each other and You'll pick up. You know we all have different, we all bring our own experiences and and everything to the discussion. I think with reviews, I would record reviews and then just say what am I saying that someone else hasn't said already what I mean, other than, like I, like I liked it, read it. And I think there's this whole this whole thing about around reviews that some people think you have to have.

Speaker 1: 2:09:50

You have to do certain things to be a reviewer, quote-unquote reviewer and at some point it just gets exhausting. Like I don't, I don't want to bother with this, like I, you know. So I think that's why discussions are much more casual and just kind of open and For me anyway it was. It's less, it's almost less work. Then then prescript in a review, then Recording it, editing it, all that takes time and it's just easier and more. It's more enjoyable to come and have a discussion about it and and hear different and you always come away, like Chris mentioned this before, you'd like you like a natural high and you learn something along the way and the reviews that They'll just repeat what happened in the book.

Speaker 5: 2:10:31

I just the book is about this person that does this and this and this, and then they run into this person and they do this together, it's like, yeah, those are the worst because they're not telling.

Speaker 5: 2:10:42

They're not giving you a review of the book. There they're telling you the plot and it's like no, no, you want to read the book to find out the plot. You don't want to be told the plot. The review is supposed to give you insight into what might make this book good for you. And that's not to say there aren't some people that are incredible reviews like I mean people you turn on to and then just go.

Speaker 4: 2:11:04

They can crystallize, whether in 25 minutes or in two minutes. They can do a really good job of crystallizing why this book's interesting or should be worth reading, or what it did to them or otherwise. Like there's something like just look at sometimes, go Bravo, like that's. That's a skill in its own right. Whether you absolutely appreciated or not, you know, so that's cool. Yeah, the John is really good about that she.

Speaker 1: 2:11:32

I think she does really good. I like Philip Chase's reviews and I like your honest.

Speaker 5: 2:11:39

Those, those two people in AP, are basically what got me into book to Jimmy.

Speaker 4: 2:11:45

Jimmy's mind. I think Jimmy's exceptionally good, even his wrap up. What's the best thing you can do? I think Jimmy's exceptionally good, even his wrap up. What he can do in three or four minutes on his wrap up is like and then it's longer, for I just think three or four minutes when you can just encapsulate a book so perfectly. Jimmy just blows my mind about how good he is about that. And the economy Makes. When I'm sitting down, or when I, when I was sitting down to the review, going a bit like you're saying Steve, like what am I saying? That it really hasn't set far better, like you're sort of trying to imitate the wrong word, but you're trying to get something out of what he gets into using your own, and it's a hard space to be in, you know.

Speaker 5: 2:12:23

I'd never read, watch reviews of books that I'm reading or that I'm going to review eventually, you know, because I never. I don't want to be influenced at all in my opinion about what I put out there.

Speaker 4: 2:12:36

But conversely, like when you come to a chat, a bit like you're saying about the forever war, even you come up to do one of those chats, you're kind of going like I thought this a bit, this book, but you're kind of encouraging to be challenged, you know, on it so that somebody's seen something else. Like that is like there'd be nothing worse than actually sitting that room, going everybody felt exactly the same way about every page, like that would be a really boring chat, whereas somebody goes oh my God, that page you're here and I loved it and this is why and they go oh my God, I never thought about it like that. Oh, that's really interesting.

Speaker 5: 2:13:08

Yeah, but it's also good To have that we're all like very open people and that we're not coming in.

Speaker 1: 2:13:15

No, jared, just cut it out. Exactly, you're wrong.

Speaker 5: 2:13:20

Exactly. We're not coming in saying, no, this is why we started. You guys are all wrong, you know. Yeah, so it's that's what makes it fun. I'm wrong, I'm just gonna go now. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:13:36

No, you're right. I think it has to do with the people that you discuss with too. It all matters, right? It's people who are open to discussion, open to new ideas, and that's a rigid in their own thoughts and takeaways.

Speaker 4: 2:13:48

But that's also why, like all of us have read multiple books together now, because you get that from certain group of people that you're like. Okay, this is a fun group. This is a really fun group. See things even slightly different than I do, which is.

Speaker 5: 2:14:03

This is Then. You throw Jenny words in the mix and you get all kinds of new ideas. Throw it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:14:13

Yeah, I think too. I think with our group, I think you can come in and say you know what I really didn't like this book and someone else can say this is my favorite book ever and no one's gonna be personally offended. It's not like a personal, it's just like tell me why you loved it and I'll tell you why I didn't like it, and we'll just talk about it. And maybe at the end of the conversation Chris, you've mentioned this like you walk away with a better appreciation and instead of maybe you didn't like it, maybe you come away. There's things I didn't think of and I kind of like it now, like you know some of my favorite, but I appreciate it for what it is. So I think being open to you know, not to either these personal not yeah.

Speaker 5: 2:14:48

I think, steve, I think you and I talk Chris off the ledge a couple of times.

Speaker 4: 2:14:52

Yeah, just definitely yeah. But it is that idea that we all have different life experiences and different perspectives and things and actually being so diverse geographically actually lends itself to a much greater experience in that regard. Because of that, because my cultural biases or otherwise are very different from somebody else's and my prejudices can play into my reading experience as well, like you can be open enough and say that and kind of take it for what it is, but also like I kind of say, okay, I could be wrong, you know, which is what makes reading fun. It's why you want to pick up the next book, isn't it? Like it's literally I want to have the next either fun discussion or the next fun experience of whatever it is.

Speaker 4: 2:15:41

I'm wrong a lot, so I can't appreciate you Like dumb people shouldn't read smart books is probably the greatest expression I've ever heard from somebody else to another human being, because in some ways it kind of says so much more about the person saying that the thing in the first place, rather than actually an objective appreciation of what is happening.

Speaker 1: 2:16:06

I did get a funny email a while back. It's been a couple of years but I got a really aggressive email but I haven't shared. Maybe I'll share it. Maybe it's enough time to pass, I'll share it. But it was someone who's upset that I wasn't a fan of the Faithful and the Fallen. Okay, it's something serious. They're really upset that I didn't like that book. They're really mad. So I guess it's a big deal. But battle scenes I'm just not the biggest fan of.

Speaker 4: 2:16:30

So it's a bit like Jose and his take on Wheel of Time, like that'll be an evergreen video for him, insofar as he just put out his opinion. Haven't invested a lot of time in the series to kind of say like this didn't work for me, which should be in the big picture. And often people say like, oh well, you give it a go, that's far enough. But no what, you've deeply offended my personal being and the Wheel of Time should not be smirched in any way.

Speaker 1: 2:17:05

So I guess, is there ever concern for any of you that you do you ever shy? So, like you just said, chris, that video for Posey will be. I think it's a few thousand views already, but it'll probably it'll go on forever, is it? I think some people and I'm not criticizing, but I think some people embrace those moments because they can make a negative video and it'll give views, they'll get subscribers, they'll get interaction and they'll go up the algorithm and it'll always be there. Or do you avoid it because you just don't want to make that kind of content? I think there's that kind of back and forth of I want my channel to grow, I want to, because no one wants to make a video and nobody watch it, right. So I think there's that middle range to find where you don't want to be. How negative do you go and how much does the attention it will get play into that decision? It's a good question For.

Speaker 1: 2:18:04

I guess the negative attention is for me, and maybe this comes with experience.

Speaker 4: 2:18:07

if I was a younger man I would definitely have a different view on this. Without doubt, if I was in my twenties I had a very different view. But when you like Jared was talking about it on, when he's reading the book, he's making notes, whatever else, that's an awful lot of time to revel in negative emotions and as I get older I kind of try and avoid those situations as best I can because it is very easy to fall into function life, negative emotions and we're taking everything else that happens Negative experiences, kind of pattern, top of each other. If I found that I was using that in a creative capacity, that's potentially extremely unhealthy for me. That's just for myself speaking. But if I'm using negative emotions in a creative capacity, that I'll go down a very dark path myself.

Speaker 4: 2:18:51

So if I'm going to do a creative endeavor, I want there to be something positive out of it. So you're looking for that natural high that we're talking about from the discussions. Like that's the reason you come back and do those. That's always a positive and enriching experience, whereas a negative review is not. It's not doing me any good. If you're only getting views out of it, maybe you get your dopamine hit another way, but I don't have enough years for that, so it would really be a folly to even think about that and even think about that. Maybe I should try it. Maybe that is the future. Be miserable, grumpy old Chris. He'll change the channel name grumpy Chris or something. Be something like that. It's a new direction.

Speaker 1: 2:19:31

That might be amusing. What about you, Jared? Does it play into your decisions at all?

Speaker 5: 2:19:35

Yeah, I don't like conflict, so I don't like emotional conflict. I don't like. I'm not a debater. I can't debate you on a stage. I lose every time. So, yeah, I go for the positive all the time. I wouldn't if I read a book that I really don't like. I don't know why I would finish if I didn't like it that much, Like if I just liked it.

Speaker 6: 2:20:08

I feel called out for reading cities.

Speaker 5: 2:20:13

You know as bad as cities of flight is, it was still interesting to me. In a weird sort of way. It wasn't that bad that it actually pissed me off. So but if there was a book that I'm reading that actually gets me that mad, I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna. It's not my nature to be combative in that kind of a way.

Speaker 1: 2:20:42

So have you always been like that, Jared?

Speaker 5: 2:20:45

I've always been like that.

Speaker 1: 2:20:46

I've always been like that. Yeah, okay, when I was younger I used to love debating and just like get into, like not fight, just debate and kind of bring facts and be prepared. And now that I'm older it's like I don't care, like I don't wanna, like it's not, I don't feel like, are you just leave me alone. So I think it's kind of, I think you know, like there's, I think just in general, like there's things that happen. You're just like I don't, it doesn't matter, like I don't, I'm not gonna let it bother me, kind of thing. But yeah, I just can't.

Speaker 5: 2:21:14

I would rather you physically hit me than getting an argument with me.

Speaker 1: 2:21:21

I agree, yeah, yeah, I agree. What about you, Varsha?

Speaker 6: 2:21:29

What about negative content? I think, yeah, I don't think I would spend energy on it. I do occasionally run to my husband about something a book or story did, but that's just, you know, getting it out of my system. But also, usually it's about problematic things in a book that that bother me. What I don't understand is people being angry at a book because they did not like it, like it doesn't do anything wrong, it just didn't work for them and they're being angry about it. I don't understand that emotion. But yeah, I wouldn't spend energy on it. Like even the time I spend running to my husband when I occasionally do, I'm like I can do something better. I'd rather use this time to I don't know watch an episode of Frasier together or something.

Speaker 4: 2:22:23

So I can't imagine this Varsha at all, you going off and I just I think your husband should film it just even the 15 seconds short or something. Just I just think it's a repass on it you just seem like the most positive person all the time.

Speaker 6: 2:22:40

I try, but yeah, some things make me angry and I don't talk about them on a public forum. But yeah, with friends I think we're friends. I'll talk when we're not recording, but yeah, yeah, it's yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:22:59

To all the listeners. You should hear Varsha when the recording stops and just like. F bombs and chairs are being thrown. It's insane. I would love that.

Speaker 4: 2:23:09

The Christmas party is gonna be wider this year, right?

Speaker 5: 2:23:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:23:20

I think it's interesting because now towards the end of the year, a lot of people will make the whole best of the year worst of the year and just like trash, trash books and like things I didn't like and it's like just not interesting, like to just go out a bunch of books and talk. I mean, I guess it'll have to do with your approach and kind of how you present it. Like if you just say I didn't like this because of X, y and Z, or if you're like this book is just like complete trash and I hate it every minute of it and they should have never written this book, I think it's all in your approach. But if you just get nasty, you put out that kind of content, I think people that are looking for those kind of emotions and are craving those kind of negative emotions and feelings they'll gravitate towards you and then that's what you'll get back. It's like a, it's a cycle, it's a cycle.

Speaker 5: 2:24:06

It's a circle, right, you'll get back what you put out, yeah.

Speaker 6: 2:24:10

Yeah, and I think it really bothers me that the titles of those videos, the negative ones, are five most disappointing books. The word disappointing seems strange to use, but I guess I kind of understand it. But also, how can a story disappoint and you just like it or you don't?

Speaker 4: 2:24:34

So I was actually going to make this point or not. A lot of reviews that are say three stars or take a star off end up being I didn't like the decisions that the author made in their own story. You know, I wanted the book to end this way, but it ended this other way and I sort of feel like that's not really a review of the book, that's a review of. I wish I had written the book and I had written it this way.

Speaker 5: 2:24:57

you know that's a review of your feelings, it's not. It's a review of your feelings, not actually of the book. Yet yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4: 2:25:03

And I think that's a very problematic review, in some ways the right Relative to kind of reviewing the thing that you were given.

Speaker 6: 2:25:14

That's almost like saying, oh, I don't like this person because they didn't do these things that I would have done in their place. Not exactly, but it feels similar and, sorry, steve, you were saying oh no, I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt you.

Speaker 1: 2:25:27

No, I was just thinking because I heard an author tell me that a while back that they had a review that was like I didn't like this decision that was made and it's like, well, just write your own book then. But how do you, as a reviewer, how do you express in a review or to someone that you didn't like I guess where the story went Like, how would you say like I didn't like that the plot went this direction, without saying I didn't like this, like I could have done it better, or presented in that way?

Speaker 4: 2:26:01

So that falls into two categories for me.

Speaker 4: 2:26:03

So one's either a plot decision or a thematic decision and an thematic measure.

Speaker 4: 2:26:08

So if a book went in a different thematic direction than I thought they set up, for instance I'm trying to think of a good example but I can't, obviously off the top of my head but you know that made it a thematic choice to say this book is going to be a big this thing rather than this.

Speaker 4: 2:26:23

I think that's something you could talk about from a thematic sense, the plot thing or an ending or something like that. You can just say the ending disappointed me, without saying, you know, going into any detail on it. I think that's fair enough to say, because I think if you say an end disappointed you, another person can read it and say, well, actually, quite like the end of like pretty much every end in the history of the world apart from Game of Thrones, season eight is 50-50. And in some way that people will like or dislike, but you know kind of talking about that terms rather than you know this book fell apart or something you know. There's something like that and it's another way to express maybe the same thing in what I would say is a slight unfair connotation of, if you just say that yeah, but it's.

Speaker 5: 2:27:16

There's a difference between you're not liking, because if they, usually if they're changing the theme of what they're talking about, then they're not doing themselves a service, because you know that means they're doing something wrong. I think if they're changing what the book is about halfway through the book or in the last chapter of the book or something like that, because there's, you know, writers who know what they're doing, know how to wrap up a theme within the context of their story. I mean, because if, most of the time, if you don't like how a book may end, it's not because they're off theme or whatever they're off, it's just because they made a decision and you say you could say it was well done, but it wasn't the ending I was hoping for, you know. But you could still talk about what was good about the writing and what was good about how they presented the theme and all that stuff, and that's. You know, that's fine. I can't think of any examples. I mean Game of Thrones, the TV show. I think they just totally went off topic.

Speaker 4: 2:28:42

It was thematically inconsistent. It felt rushed. When everything was drawn out, there were actual reasons why that didn't work, rather than that it was just a bad ending.

Speaker 5: 2:28:52

But that's why we didn't like the end, because they went off topic, not because they just chose an ending that was related to what the whole rest of the series was about, you know, and we just didn't like it. It was they just went off kilter, yeah.

Speaker 4: 2:29:12

I think I might have a decent example, especially if anybody here plays video games, because some video games give you the choice of ending at the end, and Basie says you can end this either way you want.

Speaker 4: 2:29:21

And the classic example for me maybe nobody's player here is Far Cry 3, right, far Cry 3 at the end of Far Cry 3 gives you a very clear idea of you deciding as the player whether you wanted this game to be realistic or be wish fulfillment, and you got to choose your ending at the end of that, to kind of say.

Speaker 4: 2:29:44

I think this it was very like as somebody played the game for you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 hours or whatever it was, it's very clear to the person playing it what way they approached it, so they choose the appropriate ending, whereas, you know, books obviously have to pick a binary. You know it's our singular choice rather than a binary choice that the video games allow you and sometimes different forms of storytelling allow that versus other ones in this, where they kind of have power. Such a great game, oh my God, the end of that game blew my mind, blew my mind for that choice, and it's alright because it is it. It was the not me choice, but it was what, thematically, I play where I played the game. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 1: 2:30:25

The game was called infamous and really is PS3. Yeah, such a fun game.

Speaker 4: 2:30:31

Yeah, again, all of it. Whether you want to play as a dark character or a light character, you choose your own path of how you portray and use your powers and still sort of play the same game. I think that's a really interesting concept in terms of storytelling and have a plan, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:30:47

And everyone reacts differently to you, depending on the choices you make. And yeah, good stuff, good stuff. I know it's getting late for you, Chris.

Speaker 4: 2:30:57

We're only just starting. I might just start reading 10 chapters or something when we finish. You know, that's very cool.

Speaker 5: 2:31:04

Right, right Sure.

Speaker 1: 2:31:08

But. But in the meantime, Chris, where can people find you?

Speaker 4: 2:31:12

So people can find me on my YouTube channel, probably talking about movies at the moment. That's the kind of headspace that I'm in, aside from the chats that we were talking about there with Farsha and Jared etc on there. So you can find me on my YouTube channel, Chris Mono. You can find me on the page to inform.

Speaker 1: 2:31:30

And Jared, where can people find you and troll you Mercilessly?

Speaker 5: 2:31:37

Oh boy, I'm going to go now. No, you can find me at the Fennesey thinker YouTube channel and you can, and I'll hunt the page chewing forms and write a blog there and let me know how that's going.

Speaker 1: 2:31:58

Nice, good, very, very well. Love your, love your blog posts. Thank you, thank you Creative Crossroads.

Speaker 6: 2:32:06

And Barsha you can find me on my YouTube channel reading by the rainy mountain, and the about page has other ways to reach me and, of course, you can find me all the time on the page chewing form.

Speaker 1: 2:32:20

And I guess it goes without saying. I can also be found on the page to inform if you want to get in touch. And, of course, mike you know I'll leave his link below if you don't know who he is or not familiar with this channel, which I think pretty much everyone is, but if for some reason you haven't, I will add it down below. Thanks again to Mike for making time to come and chat with us and you know, have a good, have a fun Friday evening.

Speaker 1: 2:32:42

Yeah so, yeah. So if you'd like to join us for a Friday conversation, join our forums and find all the invites there and come and say hello. We'll talk to everyone soon. Have a great weekend.