Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Book 2) – Brandon Sanderson – Episode 31

The Buddies take down another Mistborn book as they continue onto book 2 The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. The Buddies are talking chemistry (actual and romantic), dogs (actual and people), and the medical maladies/misunderstood of Koloss. They sprinkle in some Star Wars, Aladdin, and beach book talk as well. Flare your metals or pull from your metalminds and join us on this ride.

Intro: (0:00-1:29)
Stock Up/Down (1:30-30:07)
Favorite Scene/Character (30:08-36:55)
Love/Hate (36:56-47:41)
Reader Email (47:42-53:15)
Beach Book Blog (53:16-57:40)
Conclusion (57:41-59:45)

Next Book: THE TERMINAL LIST by: JACK CARR

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome to Buddy Book Club. I’m God here with Keith and telling the murder everyone. What’s up, buddy? How are you doing? How are you doing? This is God murder. Everything you have got in your head tips. Just me, I thought I actually do hear God. Well, we have to get into that because I didn’t really understand it. But either way, we’re breaking down the best sellers. And this week we’ll be discussing the well of Ascension, the second book of the Miss Born trilogy. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about past episodes, visit our website buddybook.com. Sign to our DMs on Twitter on Instagram buddy. Book Club podcast. You can listen to us on itunes and spotify. So please download and subscribe. Keith well of Ascension. Brandon center. Crazy to think. And I keep forgetting this when we read Miss Born. And then this one that this was like his first book, definitely his first series because he somehow didn’t get this greenlit and got another one greenlit before this. And then this trilogy came out right after. So technically, this is like what he wrote first, but pretty wild to kind of have this giant story in your head. Very Tolkien esque. Although obviously Ll OTR has its own place in my heart. But yeah, phenomenal. So well of Ascension, we’re going to get into it. I think we’ll probably just dive right into it with some stock up. Stock down, right? Yeah, let’s do it live. Well, in that case, let’s jump in with some stock up. What do you have for stock up? First stock up for me is Metalworkers Chemists. Stock up. Okay. So I think this is maybe the most underrated aspect of the whole universe here, of the whole university bills is that the Al Man series and Miss Borns constantly need metals in order to basically do their magic, right? And if they don’t have the perfect metals, they’re going to get poisoned basically by it. So we have this kind of need for this person that’s able to provide pure metals to them, but they don’t have them just ready to go. They don’t have guys like that just like on the side. They’re just baking this stuff up with them. This whole book. The most important thing, or one of the most important things that occurs in this book is that Vin benefits from or discovers derivative dural mine. And like, she’s the only one that knows this, but it’s really not Vin that discovered it. It’s this chemist that’s, like, randomly that’s on here. This is the most important guy in the book almost, right? We don’t even know they’re working together. She was sending him ideas. He was doing it. It’s a little Wozniaki jobs kind of situation, right. But that should be her right hand man. He’s traveling around with him all the time. Yeah. Why isn’t he part of the entourage? And also Ellen’s dad had a brothel, and one of the girls in it is like, yes, I’m good at chemistry. So he just hires her off the street. In reality, she’s just poisoning him the whole time. But he’s like, how are we not investing in chemists and metal workers? And these are the most important things in this society. What are we doing? Yes, Stress Ventures Loaded can do pretty much anything, and instead he has Jesse from Breaking Bad as his chemist. But yeah, it is interesting, especially because a lot of them are alloys and stuff, so they have to have certain percentages. She even says it’s not pure metals. Like, they need X amount of percentage of all these different things. But yeah, these people are not given the credence that they deserve, and they should probably unionize, right? We need the metal or just union to come out and be like, we’re not making any more metals for your missings your elementors until you guys help. Although then probably the terrorists might just take it over. You don’t want that kind of situation. Well, all the unions actually in this book are kind of suck. Yes, they are pretty terrible. But the Contra formed a union. They’re like, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll be slaves. I’m like, Wait, what? That’s the union’s goal. What are you doing here? Yeah, I’m going to have more on that myself. So I guess I’ll get into that too, because my first stock up is contracts. Normally you hate contracts. You hate them. If someone hands you a contract, it’s terrible. You don’t want to read the fine print. More often than not, you just don’t, and it’s just super long. Plus, then contracts are so easy to slip in and out of. With getting lawyers involved, it’s all terrible. But with a contract, there’s no need for the fine print, there’s no need for lawyers. Those things are ironclad, and they’re extremely simple. It’s like, I have to listen to everything you do or else I got to go jump off a bridge. Like, what? That’s the deal. That’s what we agreed upon. That’s what we’re going to do. So contracts in this universe, I’m into it. If all the contracts were conduct type contracts, it’d be great. You would never have a problem with Best Buy. You could bring Best Buy back into your life. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, buy a TV, they’d say, do you want extended warranty? Yeah, sure. When you call them for a warranty, boom, new TV comes. It’s not evading. If they’re like, oh, we’re not going to send you the TV. You say, okay, well, Brian is the guy that gave me the contract. I’m going to go shoot him. And they’re going to say, okay, fine. That’s totally cool. He did not uphold his end of the contract. Yeah, that’s the rules. Yeah, them’s the rules. The rules. So, yeah, we need more contract contracts in our life, although I still don’t really understand how they came about. It was like they built them for themselves to kind of preserve them. Right. So the Lord ruler can’t just kill us all off because we have these contracts. I didn’t really get it. I think they’re like genies from Aladdin where someone needs to grant them the third wish to set them free. That’s what I was getting the vibe up. I was like, oh, this is genie? Yeah, well, it’s just like a term limit. So you have the contract for a certain amount of time and then it’s over. Well, then I thought I was going to do was take the contract and say, your contract now is that you have to be free. Yes. I kind of thought that thing, too. I thought it was going to be like, I wish you to be free, Jeannie. Although didn’t he use the three wishes? How did that end up working? I forget. In Aladdin, first one is becoming a prince. The second one was to save him from drowning. And then the third one I can’t remember the third one was to free him. Right? That was what it was. Because the first one was to get out of the cave at the beginning, and he was like, all right, use your first wish. But he didn’t actually wish it. He just said, like, I bet you couldn’t get me out of this cave. I don’t know, go rewatch Aladdin or play the Super Nintendo video game, which is great. What else do you have for stock up? Stock up the ultimate way to win an argument. Wait, what? This was dropped in the book, and I want to test it out on you because I think it was Osir talking with Vin. And Ocean says, Why do you hate me so much? And Ben’s like, well, because you use Kelsey’s body. And then the argument that comes after that is the best argument I’ve ever heard. So let’s test this out. You say something that I think is wrong, I’m going to correct you and win the argument automatically the way Osiris won it. Okay. Jesus is our Lord and savior.

 

Participant #1:

Listen, you’re too smart to think that that can’t be right. You know that? You’re too smart for that. See what it does there? It’s like a backhanded compliment. No, I like 480, or I don’t know what it is, but it’s basically saying you’re really smart and therefore your argument is stupid. So you can’t possibly think that because that’s a stupid argument. It’s such a good way to argue that it’s really good. It’s so condescending, and I love it. So check this out with your GF tonight. See how that works? Let me know. Yeah. So we’re actually planning on finishing she’s never seen Star Wars, so we’re finishing Return of the Jedi tonight. Wow. So she might say something along the lines of, like, I think Phantom menace was better. And then I’ll be like, well, after you break up, what do you do then? You can’t break up with me. You’re smarter than that. She’ll use it on you. Okay, all right. But it’s a great argument, right? It is a great argument. I’m a huge fan. Yeah, because if you disagree, continue to disagree. You’re just dumb. You’re like, well, now you’re dumb. You’re proving to me. Now you’re just admitting you’re dumb. Yeah. So my second stock up can’t top that. I don’t think. Oh, actually, this one might. Speaking of or sir is dogs. Stock up for dogs and dog stock super high, as we all know. We both have Freddie. You got Freddie, I got Bear over here. We both love our dogs, actually. We both love our girlfriend’s dogs. Which is even better. Or sir or Tensoon. He’s a conjurer, so he has to adhere to the conjurer contract, but then gives him a dog’s body, which one? Genius move. Like, absolute genius move by Vin. And the fact that this hasn’t been experienced before, or sir tensoon is at first he’s like, I’m not going to do that. But that kind of blows me away that they wouldn’t have tried taking animal bodies, because mistrace take on anything they find. They’re, like, kind of related to misread. Why wouldn’t they have tested out? Why wouldn’t you get the most exotic predator and have that be your conjurer? It would be amazing. Talk about aladdin. It’d be like having Raja at your side. Who would want a tiger? Great job. We couldn’t remember the three wishes, but you can. Jesus. That was all that I’m a big fan of the Disney animals, but the second she gets him the dog’s body, not only does he, like, start to help her out more and has these cool ideas. I’ll just put these vials inside of me and speak the secret password, and I’ll open up my shoulder blades and you can take it out. But the loyalty aspect, I think that because he was a dog, he took on some dog abilities. Not only the scent and sight and all those other things agility that dogs have, but also the more important one, which is loyalty, because in the end, he kind of fudges the contract a bit to save in when she’s fighting my boy Zane. There Zane’s talking to God and the conjurer is like, no, you know what? If you kind of hints at her if you do this, then try that thing. Remember what I told you. Boom. Loyalty. At the end of the day, even though we had an ironclad contract in which he would die, he took on that dog loyalty, and he stood up for Bin. I respected it. But what did you think about the condre as a whole? You know, we saw, obviously, Or Sir at the end when he took on Kelsey’s body, and we figured out that whole thing. But were you a fan of them, were you not? Because we get pretty much two new beings in this book, being the condra and the cows. We got the co loss. Everything else, we’re pretty familiar with. What do we think about Contract? I didn’t get how Zane knew that they were using a conjurer. And then the Contract allows him to not kill humans, but they can kill a condra. You know, I’m saying how they basically like, oh, the condor is impossible to find. They’re impossible to find. Nobody knows what a conduit is. And then all of a sudden, they’re like, yeah, this person is a contra. We knew that. It was like, Wait, isn’t that against the whole premise of the book? Yeah, it’s interesting. And then they were like, oh, we can just kill it, too. It’s like, oh, and Zane didn’t know how to kill the condo. Right. So I don’t get no or sir did it, right? No, I mean Tensor. So tension is allowed to kill his own kind, I think. So you just can’t kill humans. Why would that be? Well, you can’t kill humans because that’s, like, the rule that they said in their contracts. Kenton wouldn’t tell Vin any of the secrets or anything like that, and she had openly been like, Help me find it. And he’s like, Nah, I guess it was itself. Yeah, it was himself. What’s he going to do? It’s me came over. This book is now only 100 pages. He just killed himself. Yeah, I kind of liked that aspect. I thought Tensoun was, like, a really good character I’m actually interested to see, because he leaves pretty much after the whole thing within and goes back to his people to kind of get their judgment on the whole situation. And it seems like he’s going to have to tell them, like, everything that went down. So I guess I’m kind of interested in that. And also, just like, how it works in general, he gets a contract from the group, and then you have to go out as a slave and be a slave to people. And then once your contract is done, you go back home. Maybe they get the money. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I thought the relationship, too, between him and Van was one of the more enjoyable dialogue aspects of this, because the first half or two thirds of the book is not a ton is going down. Very dialogue heavy, which I enjoyed. I thought it was good stuff, but I thought the conversations between them are really good and the way they kind of, like, played off each other. And they also had the most humor, I think, between them in the book with their not so hidden vitriol for each other, even though they end up becoming like biffles. Did you have any other stock up? Well, to tie it back to the Star Wars reference you made earlier, stock up, anakin skywalker’s. Turn. Like, turn to the Dark side. Turn to the dark side. Yeah. So I always thought the turn from Anakin was pretty crazy. 1 second he’s just, like, following the Jedi code, the next second he’s murdering little kids off. But then we go to this book and we have two of these turns. We first have Ellen, who is never fighting. Everyone doesn’t believe in fighting. He could have assassinated these leaders, had been go in there and just kill them, and the war would have ended. I was like, why don’t we just do this? You kill two people instead of killing thousands. Yeah. Going to Mustafar and killing the whole Truth Federation. It’s like, what are you doing? We have Ellen, who has this principal, like, that just walks into the colossal camp stupid. And then attacks Jasties for no reason, somehow survives that. And I’m like, holy shit, that was stupid. What a dumb move. Then he attacks a co op. He never fought before. He fights a co op. So the death kills a Colossal, which I was like, wow, okay, that was pretty crazy. Then a second later, Ben, who’s been like, oh, I could just go kill these leaders, but Ellen doesn’t want me to decide. I’m going to go kill 300 foot soldiers. Mostly Scott probably just go murder them. And then I’m going to get to a leader and then not kill that. I’m like, what are we doing here? This doesn’t make any sense. Both those turns were just, like, so abrupt. And this is after Too that she’s been sitting on Kelsey this whole time, which I fucking hated. Don’t you talk about my boy Kelsey like that. He’s dead, sir. All right, Pete. That’s the savior. Yeah. And so? I don’t know. Those turns were just out of nowhere. Well, Ellen was somewhat foretold that Tindwell was trying to get him to train more, and he was, like, training a lot more with the sword. He said he was filling out that suit more. I like how he went from being, like, disheveled dress philosopher to looking like the prince in Little Mermaid like big white suit or the king from Cinderella, whatever. You pick them. Pick your Disney movie. But the big white parade suit kind of thing, I was like, okay, okay, Alan, you do you. But then he started training. I was like, okay, something’s going to go down, and he’s going to actually fight someone for real. Because we get a little bit of that in missborne. But he just stood there with his sword, whacking it around like a little boy just found his penis. Now he’s actually going in and having a mission with that thing. But when he killed that Co loss, I was thinking about it because the coal, they grow really fast or whatever. He’s like, yeah, I picked one out that was, like, a little bit bigger than me. He really just killed a Co lost baby. Like, that’s all he did. He just murdered a co lost baby and picked the fight. And then the other colossal is like, he stole my horse, or something like that. Or he killed my horse. Okay, I guess they just yes, that they’re just like, yeah, that checks out. Cows and don’t get enough love in this. I’m going to get into it. Yeah, co ops are great. Colos are really treated not in a good way. I didn’t like that. His turn, I felt like, was more akin to what was going on. But yeah, Vin is spilling gallons and gallons of blood and then gets to my boy in the wheelchair and just like, pushes him down off his wheelchairs, like, fight me. He’s like, I’m crippled. And she’s like all of a sudden she’s like, oh, damn. Yeah. Stockup, handicap rights. You got to treat them equally. That’s why you got to kill that guy. That’s kind of bullshit in my mind. Yeah. I don’t know what Ben was thinking there. She should have just killed the guy. But hey, at the end of the day, he ended up pretty much turning the tide for them in the war. So she made the right move. They would have been led by the daughter had you just killed him and the hare, the daughter would have came in and took over the army and helped fight. That’s true. Yeah, maybe. But she kind of did like her dad. Actually. This conversation is kind of reminding me. Did you ever see the deleted scenes in the original Austin Powers movie? I’m sure I have. So one of them is the henchman’s family. So the guy who gets run over by the steamroller, do you remember him? For the first time by the steamroller? It’s a very interesting and I think hilarious take that they go for because there’s all this killing and all these movies and whatnot and books. And they just take a henchman who is just kind of doing his job and gets killed by the head, the lead Austin Powers in this situation, but it could have been Vin and goes back to his family. He’s like, Where’s dad? Dad’s not going to be home today. And I was actually thinking about that when she was killing all these hens. Like, they got families. Vin, what are you doing, girl? That was actually a good part of the book. I felt like the whole idea that she’s just like a weapon for Allen and it’s not this, like, mutual relationship. It’s just like she’s the tip of the sword. And you can kind of dictate where she goes and what she does. And that’s how she decides to do it, be like, okay, well, if you don’t want me to kill all these people, I’m going to go and kill 300 people. Now you’re kind of just feeding into that, which then it turns later when she starts killing all the Colos, she’s like, oh, I feel really good now because I like killing these other things and not humans. Granted. I’m Team Colos over here. My next stock up was being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Okay, normally that’s not a good sign, but Zayn here my boy zayn absolutely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I know we’re talking cereal. You’re talking about being crazy. I’m being crazy. I was talking about Cocoa Krispies. That’s what I fuck with. Is that the chocolate chip cookie one? That’s like the Rice Krispies but with chocolate. Got you. No, I’m talking like actually Zane being cookie. Okay. So Zayn really has no relationship with Vin besides the fact that they fight at night. They just kind of spar to check their powers. One time he saved her wasn’t really clear, but they haven’t had any interesting conversations outside of him just telling her that Alan is using him. And he’s really not macking any good. He’s not spitting any good game out there, but he’s crazy as you can get. And Vin is actually thinking about leaving Ellen to go off with Zane even though she’s had this huge relationship with Ellen. They’re like potentially going to get married. They spent countless nights together. But she’s like, no, this guy’s giving me the crazy eyes so I might leave to go with him. Make very little sense to me. But I just realized, like, oh, chicks just love the guy’s a little crazy. And Ellen is just a nice guy. It’s not surprising that the girl that fell in love with Ellen in 2 seconds is also falling in love with some other dude. Wow, she’s 17. We’ve all been there. Yeah, you fall in love when you’re that young. I get it. Yeah. Also it seemed like the relationship I’ll get into it later, but did you have any other stock ups? One quick one was early bird catching the worm stock up. Shane and Van are just fighting dueling and just tossing coins everywhere, like across the whole city. Just leaving coins on the ground. And the sky don’t go out during the mist at night. But when they wake up early, whoever gets up early is just making a fortune. Vin even mentions she’s like, I’m carrying around a bag of coins that if I had this when I was a SCA, would be like, set me up for a couple of years. But I’m just tossing on the fucking ground. Like I don’t give a shit about them. I’m like, oh wow, it must be nice. Yeah, you’d have to be in a very specific spot. But yeah, I can dig that. I can take some early bird getting the worm stock up. My last one also quick and it’s going to tie into my stock down, but autocracies. So this whole book is a lot of it is political drama, political intrigue, what have you. And it’s all because Ellen set up this very intricate government where there’s balances of power and checks of power, all those kind of things that you’re expecting from a developed government, a developed governmental system. But at the end, Vince like, oh, I made you emperor. And Alan’s like, yeah, that probably makes a lot of sense. He spent years writing up his ideas on what the perfect government is going to be. And then at the end it’s like, no, just give me all the power and I’ll figure it out. I’m a nice enough guy. So stock up to autocracies because we might need one of those from the right person. What did you have for stock down? Stock down? Military tactics. We’ve had this as a stock up in past episodes, but now I’m selling. I think that the stock is a little bit too high. So, I mean, I get that the SCA aren’t fighters, right? They’re not used to being in wars or fighting, but they do manual labor. They’re normal people. They’re like, well, we can’t use them. The alternative is them just to sit at home and get killed, soldered. Why aren’t we not having them build defenses and train them and build trenches? Yes, make them do stuff. They’re just literally sitting there doing absolutely nothing. And they’re like watching why they fight. I’m like, pick up a fucking sword or maybe build a bow and arrow. Take that. Like in Ellen. At one point, I was like, oh, this is when they’re going to start. I was going to start figuring out and being a leader. He was like, we’re going to go in all these houses. We’re taking down the firewood. And I was like, oh, shit. This is the Montage in the movie where they’re like training and then they’re building defenses and they’re like, we’re going to actually defend the city because we got a leader to look to now. But he does that one thing and then we don’t hear from them again the next time we see them. They’re all just watching. It’s a great point, and I had the same thought because it made me think of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, one of the greatest movies ever made. There’s a point where he goes out and he basically rallies all of the peasants to build this treehouse city in the middle of Nottingham Woods or whatever. And the Montage is them building this treehouse city and then also him training all of these peasants on how to shoot bows and arrows. And obviously it starts off with everyone missing and whatever. But then towards the end of the Montage, they’re honing in and they’re shooting these things straight at the dummies or whatever they made up. Why can’t you do that with the sky? I don’t understand. You’re able to empower them. You have soothers. Don’t just use Southern for the battle time with your soldiers. Use them to get Scott, like the confidence they need to actually do things. They’re like, ewoks. Kids star wars. They’re like, ewocks. Yeah, who cares if they’re physically less superior or haven’t been trained. You can still use them. Yeah, we can get the two logs that cross that chicken walker or whatever. Use the two logs on a colossal they’re also colos. Like yes, they’re beings that don’t have a ton of intelligence, so you might as well dig pits and all sorts of traps. Yeah, right. Take a page out of the Viet Cong book and have some crazy Bouncing Betty all over the place. Do whatever you need to do to keep these colos out of your city. Instead, it’s like, no, let’s put them in their house and just see if they die. Makes no sense. I’m with you there. My first stock down is being king. Yeah, it sounds good. You get the crown upon your head. But Ellen is terrible being king. He’s got a terrible time. One, people are trying to I mean, probably the most important is people are trying to kill, dethrone you left and right. Ellen just like, is getting all these assassins coming after him from different parties, and people inside and outside are trying to dethrone him. On top of that, you think, okay, you’re king. You get respect. At least you’re the top of the pecking order. You can just lop heads off when you want. Now people are going around calling him Kid, calling him Elle. Hey, Elle, what’s going on? I’m your fucking king. Show me some respect. But now people don’t even treat him with respect. He’s got his girlfriend who won’t even marry him. She won’t even marry him. He can’t go out and get anything else if he wants to, even though he could, but he’s just this soft king. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Oh, I was just going to say that. Wow. Ellen’s head is dragging on the floor. Which one? Oh, you got them. Maybe his balls, considering it’s probably quite pent up. What else do you have? A stock down. Not stepping on throats. Stock down. I guess that’s a double negative, but I had too many stock ups. But we have Strath who has like a chemist, right? The girl that he just brings into. Yeah, I think she’s one of his women slaves, where he’s a disgusting creature, by the way. Strap venture. Yeah, he’s not a good dude. Good evil guy. But she gets to the point where he’s basically about to die from not having the medicine or the drug or whatever. Right. He’s basically ready to die and she doesn’t step on throats. You got to just continue to keep the role until he’s literally dead. She just feel like, start bragging. This is like a very similar to the Game of Thrones duel where the guy has him down over in Martell or whatever, has him down ready to die, and he’s like just bragging. Cross the finish line, finish the game, step on throats. Literally in this instance, You should have stepped on throats and finished them and not fucking bragged. Be better. Yeah. Some of my favorite YouTube or Reddit clips are people in bike races or marathons that pulled their hands up and start celebrating and then someone passes them. I just love that stuff. Makes me so happy. My next and last stock down is pituitary gland issues. Not enough light is given to pituitary. I know what that is, but what is it? What’s the word? Pituitary. Yeah, I have very layman’s understanding, but it’s a gland you have that it has a lot of regulates hormones and whatnot. Sometimes kids have issues with pituitary glands and either they’re not producing enough growth hormone and they can be like stunted, or in other cases, like the movie Jack featuring Robin Williams, they’re producing too much growth hormone and they can age a lot faster. Those kind of things. Granted, that’s not exactly what happened in the movie, Jack, so please don’t send me any listener email telling me that that’s not exactly what happened. I know. Okay. I hear you. Fritz Ford coppola. Good for you. Can’t believe you directed that movie. But get back to my point. Pituitary gland issues. Not enough talk about pituitary gland issues. And in this one, they actually victimized the victim because all the colossal there’s no sympathy for them. It says that they increase in size and it’s until their hearts can’t take it anymore and pretty much explode. Or like, that’s how the colossal life. So they have some seriously overactive pituitary glands. They just need some help. They just need some medicine instead. People are like, no, these things are animals. They need to be killed. There’s no understanding for the plight of these people. Yes, they may be a little warmongery. Okay? I understand that. They’re not the brightest lot. They accept wooden coins because they’re that dumb, but they don’t know any better. Teach them. No, instead Vince, like, I’ve never felt so good killing, massacre and all these coal. I felt so great now that I’m not killing people instead of genocide in all of these co ops, it’s like, holy shit. These are Tusk and Raiders. They’re people, too. They got families. What are you doing? I thought they were about to be zombies and that’s why they were like, they look like humans, but their skin is peeled back. And then every time they kill someone else, they may get bigger and the skin pulls back more. Yeah, well, it’s also like they’re just shaming stretch marks to this whole bunch. If someone’s got some stretch marks, it’s like, EW, gross. Your COLOSS terrible. You haven’t had, like, skin that’s dry and cracked and bleeding all the time. My hands in the winter, I felt heard. I felt seen like, look at this disgusting humans. Like, Jesus Christ. All right. Yeah, exactly. All calls have is just a bunch of medical maladies and no one’s taking care of that. Instead of just murdering them. It’s terrible. What’s going to favorite scene here. What do you have for your favorite scene? Well, I think you pointed to it earlier. It was kind of a slow grind, which was fine because I think we had the stage set in the first book. But it was interesting kind of to get the background. I do think there are some probably areas that could have been cut a little bit. There’s like a scene where they just go get dresses and I’m like, what are we doing here? I’m like, all right, enough of this. But it did build up to the big war, which I think would be amazing if it was portrayed on a TV or movie where you have the co ops attacking and then you have the other group attacking and then you have kind of like four different armies coming together. You’ve been running back, you got Season going all Hulk on the Colosse. It was kind of like a Game of Thrones where you have four episodes that are like building backstory and then you have a big war and it makes the war way better than if you had a war every episode, right? For sure. I did appreciate that. Obviously, that final climax was pretty good. Yeah, the first book was really a heist book set in this world, so built the world up. But it was really about this heist. So you were introduced to the characters a little bit, but it didn’t get a ton of character development, really outside of Vin. So I thought this was a good especially because it’s the middle book, it’s a good character development book. They kept it going with some interspersing battles with Vinfinding assassins and whatnot. I like all the political stuff, so I thought that was fine. But I did think that I agree with you that the build up to that battle was sweet. If you saw it on a big screen or whatever, it would be cool. Battle Helms Deep kind of thing with Vin being Legolas and just taken down Urkai, aka COLOSS, left and right. Also, maybe they’re understood. Not understood either. Yeah, maybe that’s another thing we have to dig into specifically within that battle. I loved when say that, like you said, go and all Hulk on everyone and then starts losing it and he’s like, about to die. And then it’s like, Wait, is that Vin’s music? Like Season? The background is all these lights glittering and realize they’re coins. It’s like flying through the air, shooting coins at colossal left and right. It’s great. I also liked Vin crushing the assassins at the assembly. I thought that was a good fight. I mean, even alone. Then just talk about fighting video games using that Mortal Kombat style finishing move on the guy and just head butting him until his head explodes. Yeah, let’s see more of that. What about your character? Do you have a favorite character in this one. Tinuewell obviously really tiny. Oh, yeah. Loved her. I mean, what this book is, if we don’t have Tinuel, is a Ya book. That where a leader and his girlfriend just don’t talk to each other and argue and think like, does she like me? Does he like me? That’s what the book is. And Tyler comes in. He’s like, hey, Alan, stop being a huge bitch. And he just starts calling him out and everything. I was like, yes, this is what we need. This is what every Ya book needs is someone to come in and just say, the world doesn’t revolve around you. You’re the main character in this book for a reason. Start acting like it. And I’m like, Holy shit. This is fucking awesome. Yeah, she starts calling everyone out. And I do like that she’s like, certain people need to be shit on because they haven’t had a hard life. And certain people have had a hard life. They don’t probably need to be shit on anymore. I’m like, yeah, that makes sense. Yes. She was like the best coach, right? She was your Bobby Knight or whatever and doesn’t shit on just everyone. But she’s like a bobby knight. But Bobby Knight, some people. That is like a father figure to other people. Exactly. She was doing it because Allen even says it’s a boy. Like, why didn’t you say that to her? And it’s like, well, one, she’s not king. Like, she’s not the Michael Jordan of this group. So you need it a little harder than everyone else. And also, she’s seen some shit. So you haven’t seen no shit. So I’m going to do whatever I need to get you ready. I appreciate Tinderal. I was very surprised that she died. Very surprised. I also was 100% felt sad. If I’m sad that I’m done unless I have no faith, I’m gone with everything. Because everything he believed in and the only person he’s never loved or just done or gone. Yes, it’s going to be a fascinating move in the next one for Season. Because I think Ham asked him, you know, all these religions, which one do you believe in? He was like, I believe in all of them. And then at the end, he’s just like, I believe in none of them. He’s thinking like, maybe I never did. What would be amazing turn would be if he’s the bad guy. That would be the best making of a bad guy ever, where you’re like, use your favorite character, book one and book two and then book three. He’s like, everything’s dead to me. I’m going to kill everyone. He did tell Vin, like, give her a fake map or whatever. He’s doing some shisty shit on his own. But you forget that we didn’t have any say that POVs in Final Empire because he was such a great character in that. But it was just his interactions with Vin, really. So it was great to get his point of view in this book because it was very different, very interesting. I liked most of the stuff, except for when he was in farming villages. At the beginning, I was like, okay, get the fuck out of there. Go back home. Yeah, right. Yeah, I’d say that was up there with me. Definitely a not for me. Not my character was l. Excuse me, Your Highness. King Venture. Definitely not. He was scared of Vin. When she smashed that guy’s head in, he was like, oh, shocked. And he was like, I can’t believe that she did that for me. It was gruesome or whatever. It’s like, Dude, this is your girlfriend and also your bodyguard. That would be awesome. Talk about sending a message to the entire League. Smashing someone’s face in front of an assembly with your own head as being a little girl. Like, no one’s going to mess with you. That’s when you get excited. Maybe sexually, not backed in horror. I hate that. And also, he’s too nice. He could have easily stayed king. He wrote the rules for this government, and then no one reads the rules. And then he’s like, okay, now it’s actually in the rules that I can’t be king. So you guys can change your view. Yeah, but no one read it. That’s their fault for not reading the fine print. Talk about contracts. It’s their fault when they turn to them and like, what’s the rule here? It’s like, hey, listen, buddy, go read your fucking self. I’m not telling you this is a political we’re about to do a vote here. I’m not telling you everything that needs to be done within this thing. That’s not your job. Your job is to write the rules. Everyone else can use them as they want. If you’re looking at me to answer your question, then obviously I should be king. Very simple, right? Exactly. Yeah. If you don’t know the rules he doesn’t know the rules, then I should be king. Simple as that. Good night. Now you’re going to the gulag. Let’s get into the blood. Hate what we love about the well of ascension. Did you fart? Love? Yes. Farts. It’s being a breeze. You did that on purpose. Nice. Anyways, breeze. I didn’t realize, I think, in the last book how powerful or how much he was suing and how kind of a good guy was in terms of what he was sushing. Oh, yeah. And they were even said at one point, they were like, he’s the most powerful missing in the known world, or something like that. I’m hiring this dude out for weddings and for events. All he was doing is bringing good vibes to everyone. He’d be in our room, and he’d just be like, Good vibes, good vibes, good vibes. I’m like, Shit, let’s get this dude. At, like, events that I’m hosting or being a part of. In the last book, it almost made it seem like he was being manipulative. In this book, they show like, oh, no, he’s just doing it to make everyone feel good. He wants everyone to have a good time around him. I was like, that’s fucking awesome. So I love that. Yeah. Imagine him in a bar mitzvah. I mean, people will be throwing people up on that chair. No, that’s just a wedding. Wedding. No, I think it’s bar mitzvahs, too. No, I’m almost positive they do it at Barnes. I mean, it’d be the most epic. Havana. Gila that’s for sure. Yeah, I was a big brief fan, too, and I liked his character development throughout this. Once again, just like all the characters for the most part. Actually, that’s going to get me into my next section. But yeah, for the most part, all the character development I thought was really good, whether it be Brand, I mean, clubs, my boy, clubs. Rip. Indeed. Clubs, I feel like, was great in this book, considering he was like nobody really in the last one. He was just like the guy who they did their shop. But then when seasons talking to him about his religion and how it would be like this part of this artisan religion and kind of broke into clubs is tough exterior there. Got into that warm, squishy interior. I like that. One of the things I loved, though, was I already talked about it, but the political intrigue, there’s a lot of, at least from what I understand about the reactions to this book, is there’s a lot of like it’s a little political, it’s a little slow, but it’s a good middle book for the series. I totally disagree. It’s just a different vibe. If you wanted to read Miss Born all over again just after you’re done with the first one, pick it up and read it again or go somewhere else. But it’s a world building, character driven story. So you’d want to get more out of these characters specifically, because the first book wasn’t any of that. It was just mostly, here’s Vin, here’s Kelsey, or here’s some crazy Heist thing that’s going on. So you get this more of how this world works. Who are the power players involved? What it’s like to try to build a government from nothing, or at least like different weird pieces that then you have to use. I thought that stuff was really good. And how it also tied in with the assassination attempts and the power struggle. I thought that was really good. Ellen growing into a full fledged character, not just this bookish loser like us and the whole Tin dwell versus Ellen thing and helping him grow like we talked about. I thought that was really fun. So people go in there saying, like, oh, if you don’t like politics, don’t go into it. It’s not like a politic book. It’s a character book that has politics involved. So I like that. What else, Jill? I did like the condor stuff, even though I think we talked to that already. But I just like that being nice paid off. It’s cool to have kind of some of the double crosses you, but at the end of the day, because you’re a good person. Oh, I guess we don’t really want to double cross this person. Yeah, I mean, the part of the book is just how relationships matter. And, like, building relationships is super important, whether it’s with a condo or coal OS. God damn it, I want a co lost guy. I also thought for sure that Spook was the one that I was like, oh, it has to be him. Nobody loves this. I was like, it’s got to be Spook. Spooked is not going to love the first one he tries to hit on Vin. She’s like, now pass. I’m going for this bookish, loser. And then he’s like, did you see, too, the comment from in the book where she’s like, Ollarine comes in and Spooks, like, looking her up and down, and Ben’s like, Spook would do that? That piece of shit. Yeah, that’s a poll. Look at it. I’m like, what the fuck? This dude was just, like, proposed to you last time, and now you’re like, what a piece of shit this guy is. Yeah, I’m sorry that an attractive person came in and he looked at her. I’m sorry, Vin. He tried to be super nice to you and, like, wing your hand, and you turned him down. When he goes out with Vin and Ellen, and he’s like, I’m a coward. I left the city, or whatever, they’re not really like, hey, man, it’s tough. It’s tough to be human. Like, things happen. They’re just like, sometimes people are cowards. All right, what’s up next? Like what? There was something that I forgot to put a note, but there was just something where it was like, yeah, that sucks. And then they don’t. Other loves that I had was Vin just being a superhero in this one. I thought that was important. It was a great part of it. They didn’t really explain how she had gotten so much better or assumed her powers so much more. And a lot of it, I think, is probably just comes to her naturally. But I did like the idea of just like, she’s completely unbeatable, and no one’s, like, blown away by the stuff she’s doing, which is like, not only the 300 people that she kills in what’s his name, the guy’s household, but when she’s just killing the colossal left and right, it’s just like, holy smokes. Those superhero scenes were super badass, especially considering it kind of opened up with her against those assassins. And it showed it was a good stage center to show how much more powerful she’s become since we last left her. But it wasn’t just outright murdering, which I would love to see on the screen, her just flying around doing some crazy misborn stuff. And I think with the lower moments, where it’s more conversational, to have those superhero moments was really good. I loved it. I loved every second of it. All right, what do you get for hate? Calling an outfit a costume was one thing. I don’t know why, but they kept on being like, Ellen is putting on his costume. I’m like, Bro, you’re never going to think that your king if you call your king outfit, like the outfit you’re wearing as a king, a costume that just shows that word literally means it’s your make believe. It’s like dressing up. It’s not a real thing for you. So I just thought that was kind of interesting. They kept on calling a costume in there. Well, interesting because my mom, who’s a flight attendant or retired now, and my step dad, who is a pilot, they both referred to their uniforms as costumes. You just said uniform. You should have said they both refer to their costumes as costumes, right? No, but it’s not on me. I went with the pilot. Yes, I went with the pilot on a plane. I’m flying to be like, oh, this is my costume. All right, where about tickoff? Yeah, that was a quick one. The other thing, I thought once they found out there’s a condra amongst their missed, this should be the most important thing. Like, you literally have someone that’s secretly giving away everything you’re planning in your mist. Right? When you find out that there are certain people that are doing Alamancy, that you should loop them in. Hey, we’re looking for a condra. Keep your eyes open, things like that. Where they’re just, like, kept it hidden. And they’re like, I guess we have been too busy to focus on that. I’m like, what does that fucking even mean? Yeah, it should be focus. No one is getting the sky and everyone ready for defending the cities. Book number two is finding this condra. That’s it. You shouldn’t be going to get dresses. Honda’s in the group. Okay, well, there’s five listings, so it can’t be one of them, but we don’t know if they’re going to use their powers. So you just get those five missing, you say, okay, everyone use your powers. Okay, got them. Next up. That’s it. I’m like, Why are we making this some sort of secret boy? The guy who they thought it was, you just grab his childhood friend from first grade and you’re like, who is that? And be like, I don’t know. It’s like, well, then you’re a contract. Yeah, right. They do such extensive research. Like they’re the guy from Lincoln, daniel Day Lewis. They’re DDL. He’s just like, he knows everything that this person has ever done. Like, no, it’s just not how it works. They can’t do that much research for my hates. I hated the Dachshund storyline. It could have all been taken out. It made no sense whatsoever. I thought he hates the whole situation right now. He was like a Kelseier purist. But I was, like, not how happy Kelsey died. And he’s such a good guy in the first one. And, like, Kelsey’s right hand man. You think he’d have more of a role in this new empire, but he doesn’t. And then he just dies being like, Was it all worth it? Wait, is he the one that’s doing the books for them the whole time? Yeah. And then the other thing I hated was Vin and Allen’s relationship. I just thought he says early on that he like, ask her to marry him, and she said no. And I know that she’s still young and they don’t really know each other that well in the sense, so he knew her as valet. I get there. Still getting to know each other, and I’m not, like, dying to get some, like, 50 Shades of Gray action in the pages, but I would like some level of intimacy between them where I knew they were actually cared about each other on more of just this. Like, we know each other. We’ve kind of had this thing for each other level. I wanted it to be more not necessarily physical, but if they had some physical aspects in there, I’d be like, okay, cool. These people are actually attracted to each other and want to be together. Not like her slipping in. And I’d be like, oh, you’re still reading books? He’s like, yeah. I’d be like, Cool. I’m going out to the mist. It’s like the dad who goes out to the bar that comes home from work. It’s like, I’m going out to the bar, so the meatloaf’s in the oven when you get back. I’ll be in bed watching my stories, so yeah, nothing wrong with that. So yeah, I just thought that there at least it wasn’t, like, super great. The last one. I already brought it up. But the Kelseier hate that just angered me every time they’re like, well, Kelsey went out and killed people. Like, hey, Kelsey Freed, you yeah. None of you would be here trying to think of someone that was a revolution. It would be like George Washington moses. Or Moses. Yeah. Anymore like one of these dudes that was solely responsible for bringing the independence and then criticizing them because that freedom has allowed you to criticize them. You see what I’m saying? Yeah, I know. It’s feeding somebody an omelet and then crying over the cracked eggs. Let’s jump into listener mail. We got Murphy from Twitter. You got mail. Thanks, Murphy. I’m not sure male or female, but either way, thanks for writing in. Would you rather be a Miss Born or a Pharaoh chemist? So, like a keeper, like season. Would you rather be, like, a Missborn or Keith or anything? Here’s the thing. We’re already kind of a terracement, right? How so? You want to be less tired. You store up sleep. You sleep longer. You take more naps? Yes. Okay. Anyways, let me go. You want to be more knowledgeable. You read more, you do more research. You try to gain knowledge in that specific area. You want knowledge. You want to have more endurance. You want to be able to lift things more. You have to struggle. You have to literally hurt yourself by lifting weights and running and doing all these things in order to get all those things right. That’s what he’s doing. He’s reducing his like, he’s doing the opposite in order to gain more stuff. Yeah. So I think that’s the part you missed is that he’s doing the opposite. But okay, go on with your story. But the opposite of being able to run fast is being able to run slow. The reason you’re running slow is because you’re basically hurting yourself in order to be able to run fast later. Okay, yeah, I see what you’re saying. You’re training, so that’s what you’re doing. And you’re, like, reading a ton so that you can have knowledge that you can just pull from later. You’re storing stuff up like that anyway, so that’s where you are. That’s humans. I want that. I’d rather just drink some metal and deal with superpowers. That’s an easy answer. It’s super easy. Yeah. So I disagree. What they do is like, the opposite, which is why it’s exciting. If you’re a Miss Born let’s just go with this. If you’re a Miss Born, everyone is hunting you are trying to use you to their advantage. So there’s very few of you. They know who you are. It’s like being super famous. It’s a paparazzi all over you, but instead they’re actually trying to kill you or use you to advance themself in some way. Yeah, you can push and pull metals. You can use superhuman strength and all that jazz, but how practical is that for our daily life? Okay, you can carry all the groceries in one trip and open the door with a little push pull action and maybe impress your life. But I’m going to go with ferrochemist, because you need to cram for a test. Just read the material, save it into a copper mind. You can pretty much forget it, because that’s always the problem, is you cram and then you forget it, and you got nothing left. But no, just save and do a copper mine. No need to memorize that. You still just study. Yeah. You’re allowed notes and things, and this is only for, like, access. Okay, fine. And also, we’re not in high school, college anymore, so what’s the benefit? You’re like saying groceries if we’re using the same analogy, I’d be in the NFL right now, right? Like, in college, I’d be, like, the best running barrier. Okay, sure, we’ll give you that one. But let’s say you’re underage. Here’s the thing, d man. You’re too smart to think that we’re back. All right? You’re underage, but you want to go to the bar to watch those NFL games that you’re talking about on a Sunday. So you store some boyish good looks in your gold mine and all of a sudden you look older and you get to go to the bar. Oh, now you have to go into the men’s room where the drunk heathens have pissed on the floor and upper decked all the toilets. So put some extra smell in your tin mine so you can’t smell anymore. And you have olfactory intrusion right there. You don’t have to have it. Not only that, but then you get better smell later from when you’re doing something that you would want to smell more. You’re eating that hot dog afterwards and not a real one. Or hey, what about this? What about this? I’m going to that bar, I’m pulling the lever of the metal of the beer tap, filling up a beer for myself, pulling over to me, drinking that and it’s easy to and then I’m listening in on people’s conversation and going over and talking to them, knowing what they’ve been saying and then I’m shaping their emotions while I do that, I’m killing the bars. You’re pissing while at the bar. What about this? You’re headed to the beach for a day of spike ball. You use some of that pewter mind to get jacked at the beach for the day. You got your beach bod for the day. You’re ready to go and dominate spike. Because normally in your everyday life, you don’t want to work out, you don’t want to do this. So instead you get jacked for the beach. Get that beach by going people are pulling the sun, the glasses down, having a peek, oh my God, look at that guy. But then the best part is the next day you can sit around watching movies all day and the wife can’t give you shit because you’re like, hey baby, sorry, I used to bump my pewter yesterday. I got arrest and restore my pewter mind. All of these things are wonderful if you want to get strong, you don’t have to go and work out like you were saying earlier, you just sit there and do nothing and that gets you strong. It’s almost perfect. You have to do the opposite, kids. I’d rather take a performance enhancer and be able to be strong. Whatever I want though. Yeah, but then the problem is you always need those metals. You always need you always need this. That’s why I have my right hand man who’s a chemist that just walks around with me. You get the worldwide peace to your LeBron. I don’t want worldwide on me all day. I want to be my own man. I got a couple of medals on me and I’m just living my life. Oh, I don’t want to run today, but I want to run tomorrow. So don’t run today is you do already have all those earrings in that navel piercing where. You can store all that stuff. So that’s good.

 

Participant #1:

I don’t think I knew what Prince Auto was until it was podcast, and you’ve mentioned it like six times, so I had to bring it back. Okay, well, before we get into recommend this book, I’d like to take a quick moment to talk about the recent blog post you had about summer book reads. So on Buddybucklub.com, you can go there. We have a bunch of different blog posts out. They’re all quite enjoyable. They’re quick reads. They’re great toilet reads, as I like to tell my friends, and in a good way, like stuff you want to read on the toilet, not like their trashy toilet things. That’s all right. But you had the most recent one was about summer book reads, and you did your best to point it in the direction of books we had read, which I think is appreciative to not only me, but to Buddy Book Club listeners out there everywhere. Unfortunately, you had some I have some qualms. You had books like Station Eleven on there. I knew you’re going to not like that. But first off, you didn’t add any. I couldn’t have, like, three other books on there that list. I had to add more in there so it looked like I read all yeah, that book was terrible. It’s not a bad beach. Let’s first define what a beach book is. That’s the most important thing here. Okay, sure. So I think I summed it up well in saying that the elements need to have is easily digestible. Meaning, like, I don’t need to reread it ten times to figure out what sentence that was. Yes, fast paced. I can’t be sitting there zoning out. It needs to be fast paced, light hearted. It cannot be dark. I’ve read some dark books on the beach and they’re not with the room. That’s hilarious. And then entertaining is kind of encompasses all those things. Obviously, if it’s fast paced, I just light hearted. It should be entertaining, but that sums it up. So Station Eleven is none of those. Station Eleven, though. It might not be fast paced, but I think it’s easily digestible and it’s like, entertaining. I think it fits at least two of those. Well, it also fits one of the other qualifiers didn’t make. Some people like to nap at the beach, and so that’d be a good book to read and then want to immediately take a nap because it’s so boring. All right, whatever. You haven’t brought anything. You’re allowed to criticize mine, but then you have to actually bring some. I feel like you forgot about the number one book read. What is my opinion? I’ll add it right now, which is the DaVinci Code. I didn’t actually like the DaVinci code. What I’m adding, it. Dan Brown books in general are beach reads, I feel like, because they’re not. I don’t think the DaVinci Code is by any means like a stellar whoa book. But it’s super fast paced. It’s extremely easy to read. It’s really easy to follow. You also mentioned, like, Harry Potter on there, which is, of course, Harry Potter is good in any setting. But for Harry Potter, for me, I want to be like Sequestered in a room. If someone’s like, hey, you want to go play spike ball? Which is one of my favorite activities, I would say no, I have to reach this Harry Potter chapter. Like, I’m not participating. That book is too good for the beach. Okay, here’s the thing. Any list that I make is going to Harry Potter. It doesn’t matter what it is unless it’s bad books. It’s like, what’s a great book to recover from a funeral. I’ll be like Harry Potter. I don’t know. I’m just trying to think of what Lisa wouldn’t have. I like the idea of recovering from a funeral. I thought you were going to say some sort of surgery or something, like recovering from a funeral. Okay. No, I thought it was a good blog. I really appreciate it. I like other people’s feedback. I do find it kind of funny that when you go to the beach and I live in a beach community, I’ve been to the beach a few times this summer. Everyone’s reading the same book. It’s actually quite interesting. They’re reading the same five books or something like that. And usually it’s like every summer or something different. And I think maybe those Dan Brown books plugged into my head because I was on vacations that summer and everyone was reading it. There’s a reason people bring magazines to the beach, right? Yeah. It’s supposed to be like social media stimulus, brain stimulus in a book form. I thought your list was good, though, overall. Overall, I thought it was very good. Thank you. Yeah, I’d like to hear other people bring in some recommendations. Well Of Ascension would be a decent beach book for nothing else to hold down the corner of your blanket, because it’s like, 750 pages. So if it’s a high wind day, granted, I think it’s a good book, but not a really beach read. All right, well, let’s get back to welfare sentencing. Keith, would you recommend Well Of Ascension to friends, listeners, good reads, whatever you go for? Yes. I liked it. I think in the context of the last book is definitely good to continue the adventure and journey. I think if I had just started on book two, I don’t know if I would have been like, oh, this is good. The context of the first book kind of made this one better. So I don’t think it was nearly as good as first book. But I still liked it. I still enjoyed it. I think if it didn’t have that climax at the end, I would have been like, all right, what are we doing here? But I think it ended up being pretty solid. I’m pretty sure your girlfriend does the same thing. Well, I don’t know if she’s ever experienced last part. If you got issues, I know guys I would recommend it to. I think all the points you said were great. It’s a good middle book for a series. It didn’t blow me away. It set a good scene for the next book. I think it did a good job summarizing the last book at the beginning. So if you are one of those people who doesn’t want to read backtoback 800 page books, which I totally understand, then this would be a good book to kind of get you back. You don’t have to reread, miss Born to now fall into Wellscension. They did a good job of kind of guiding you the way through the first part, tying back in Missborne, if I’m saying that with any sort of understanding. And then I thought, in general, it was just a good character development book that’s hopefully setting up for something really special in Bureau of Ages. I think we’ll probably do that at some point, considering we’ve done the first two. This would be our first trilogy, right? We haven’t even read Mitch Rap trilogy. That’s embarrassing. We’re reading something similar to that next, which is Terminalist, correct? Yes. By Jack Carr. Yeah. Terminalist by Jack Car. Just came out on Amazon Prime for the miniseries with Chris Pratt. Come give us a listen and then watch that miniseries on Amazon Prime. Get your beach reads. And if you have any other ideas for beach reads, definitely send us a message. Cool. Well, that’s it, keith, as always, it’s been great. I’ll catch you for Terminalist in a week or so and we’ll talk after that. Alright. Bye.