The Buddies are back for their sixth rodeo with Pierce Brown’s “Light Bringer,” the final book in the second Red Rising trilogy (before the 7th book). The Buddies needed some cliff notes to remember what happened in this one (it was a lot). The gang discusses Mission Impossible/Scooby-Doo mask reveals, and how Atlas has been playing 4D chess while everyone else was playing checkers. There’s also talk of self-help books, Darrow having an identity crisis, and Virginia actually getting to do cool Mustang things instead of just being stuck in meetings. So grab your 35-hour audiobook stamina, practice remembering approximately 847 character names, and join the Buddies as we contemplate life until Red God comes out.

Intro/Book Summary (0:00-5:37)

Stock Up/Down (5:38-32:12)

Favorite Scene/Character (32:13-36:25)

Love/Hate (36:26-50:45)

Conclusion (50:46-55:36)

NEXT BOOK: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome to the book club. I’m Dylan here with my pixie co-host Keith. What’s up buddy?

Dylan. It’s been too long, my good man. I think I’ve used that last time, but.

I feel like I’ve used pixie before too. This is our sixth. This is our sixth time doing these books. Either way, here at the book club, we’re breaking down some bestsellers. And this week we’re discussing 2023 Lightbringer by Pierce Brown, the sixth book, which is the last of the two trilogies. If you’re following along and if you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to past episodes, you can visit our website, audible Club.com slide into our DMs on X or Instagram Audible.com podcasts. You can listen us iTunes, Spotify, wherever your podcasts. Please download, subscribe. Five star reviews are really appreciated. Fuck Me Running Keith 4.76 on Goodreads. This book is.

Uh, yeah. Fuck you running all right. Yeah. Have you ever done that? Have you ever participated in that?

No. It’s a line from blow the movie.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s when they, like, snort it and it’s like really, uh, good quality or whatever.

They’re testing it, they test it and it’s like 161 7180. And he’s like, fuck me.

Oh, Black Betty bam bam comes on. Yeah, I know that movie. Yeah.

Lightbringer. That’s why we’re here. Okay. To be clear to all the listeners out there, one key finish this a lot longer ago than I did. I finished it earlier this week or maybe last week. It is a very long book and there’s so many moving parts in it. So that’s why he’s going to give us a summary, which I’m really going to appreciate as well. But also after looking online, um, at some of the reviews and whatnot, there’s a huge following to these books and we know that, but I didn’t realize that so many people felt that this series was their favorite series. Their favorite book was one of these books. They’ve read them 30 times, that kind of thing. I didn’t realize it went that deep. And I apologize for one not realizing that and two, for us being the people. If you’re listening and you’re one of those people that you’re coming to to to hear our thoughts and takes because I honestly don’t know how people remember everything and all the characters from all these books because so much is going on. This isn’t like a Harry Potter series where you’re just with we got our core three, there’s a couple ancillary characters, and there’s pretty much one throughline that happens through the whole series. Within each book has its own standalone bad guy or whatever the case is. That always turns out to be Voldemort. But, you know, this is 10 billion things going on. So if we screw up a name or we forget something that you think was one of your favorite parts and we didn’t mention it, I’m sorry. Each one of these last three books was 35 hours long, so I just I just wanted that disclaimer. But with that, would you like to give us a little bit of summary about Lightbringer?

Let me try to buzz through this start. Darrow and Cassius are chilling on an abandoned station. They hear several our boys being captured, and they go to rescue them. Little did I know, Apollonius is just waiting for them. Dominates Darrow in a duel. But Sevro comes to the rescue. Them! Lysander, your boy, rebuilds the Morning Star into the Light bringer. He turns into Lanya and says he’ll have his vengeance in this life or the next. They drop into Mars. The bad guys, as that is Mars, kind of gets dominated. Virginia makes a deal with Lysander, though, to to give back and safe passage for the rest of their army. Lysander gets poisoned by his own crew. After the big victory. We head to where Lyria is. Lyra finds Quicksilver, gets figment removed. So much for being a superhero for Lyria. Darrow and Sevro meet up with her and Quicksilver. Quicksilver is like, I’m Jeff Bezos, Elon, I’m getting the fuck out of here. See you later. I don’t give a shit. I’m a billionaire. I don’t need to be on this world anymore. And he’s gone. Lysander and the rim Lysander heads back with the rim squad to defend the rim from.

Sounds sexual.

Yeah, yeah. That’s right. The rim squad. Balsam force attacking the rim. Atlas steps onto his ship, pretends he’s Helios, takes control of the ships, fucks everything up, fucks the ram up. Diomedes escapes, barely in a pod that Darrow and the gang eventually collect. Lysander is captured and says he’ll work with Atlas after he gets captured by them. Darrow and the gang meet up with the daughters. They don’t really like him, but they like Sevro. We get introduced to another character, Athena, who’s another a name for some reason, and we can’t get rid of these names. And who puts Darrow in Diomedes on trial? Lyria goes to Volga, who’s been brainwashed, tries to turn her, but she’s like, nah. And then, um, she’s about to kill Lyria. She decides not to. Darrow emerges, challenges him to a duel, embarrasses up and down. It’s kind of like. Reminds me of the, uh, uh, Green Eggs and Ham book where they’re just, like, jumping around. He’s like, not here, not here, here. He’s just, like, attacking him in every single place while he’s doing that. Okay, anyways, Volga is put in charge. Darrow and Diomedes make a pact with Lysander. Cassius meets up with Lysander, though, and he’s like, let’s fuck up Atlas instead. He agrees. They do it. Atlas comes back, gets fucked up. He brings back this weapon, though. Artemis. Artemis. I forgot the name of it, but that’s basically a weapon that can genocide any color. Cassius is like, all right, let’s destroy it. And he’s like, nah. And kills him instead.

Yeah. Little one ring kind of situation.

Yeah. Unbeknownst to Diomedes and Darrow, they think they’re all in the Allied ship. And then Lysander pulls a fast one, says, oh, you attacked me all this stuff, and then starts bombing the shit out of the rim again, and we leave off there. Does that summarize everything?

It ends with Lysander turning around, realizing he’s not going to fight everyone and deciding to go back to the core, and they’re chasing him back to the core or whatever the case is. They’re returning to the core. They meaning Darrow and crew.

Ten minute intro from us.

Yeah. Holy smokes. You didn’t even necessarily cover, like, so much.

Let’s go into some stock up. Stock down. I guess I’ll start my first stock up is cliff notes. Stock up. I feel like I’ve stocked this up before. Yeah, yeah. And probably for one of these books honestly. But I’m talking about cliff notes for what they’re actually intended for, which I think is all right. I read Pride and Prejudice, but I don’t remember all of it. I’m talking back in the day before the internet, so I’m going to get the cliff notes so I can kind of jog my memory as opposed to how we use them, which was don’t read the book and instead just read the cliff notes. Because even after I read this book, I needed a ten page summary on it, and I appreciate what you just provided. But instead I went to the internet and found some guy who did like a two hour YouTube video where he pretty much went chapter by chapter. And although I appreciate the video, it was quite monotone and it was a tough.

Jokes in.

There. It was a tough listen. No, no cracks, just it.

Was double entendres like we’re known for.

This is why they hire professional voice actors to read books, because this was a tough listen. But it did remind me of some stuff like Virginia was in this book. I totally forgot the entire first part. I remembered the Darrow Apollonius battle with and then Sevro getting freed or freeing himself, whatever the case is. But I forgot that middle portion where Virginia is fighting. I think it was Phobos. I don’t know if it was Mars, but it’s, you know, Phobos is a moon of Mars. So there was that was the initial battle. And she’s fighting Lysander and his army. And Lysander does that cool move where he’s, you know, firing missiles from Earth or whatever the case is pretty cool. But then even at that point, Virginia was in the depths of the moon, releasing Obsidians from the brig and using them. And she’s fighting Apollonius and all this crazy stuff happened. I honestly forgot all of it until I listened to this guy’s thing. Because for me, this book was the story of Darrow kind of losing his powers, so to speak, and then finding them?

Retraining? Yeah.

Yeah. There’s a couple Darrow montages in the movie that would happen. Then it was the story of the rim once again, where just on the rim and the obsidians and the eskamani. But yeah. So to me, it was really that story. But a lot of the people online that I was looking at were saying how it was such a great Virginia book, and I was like, the sovereign wasn’t really in it.

I mean, she had a bounce back book for sure. She actually did stuff and not got got dominated.

She did stuff and battled. You know, she brought back her, her Stang, you know, she had more Mustang action going on in this than just being the sovereign themself. But I mean, I’ll probably get in into it for some love hates, but I really did need some cliff notes for this one because there’s just so many moving parts. So stuck up to them. What else do you have for stuck up?

Mission impossible facelift. Stock up. Pardon me. You know the Mission Impossible, when they, like, molds the face to look like the other person. You know, the classic Mission Impossible thing?

Oh, yeah. Of course, of course.

That’s big in this. I mean, let’s let’s think of, like, two of the biggest swings are balsam for who is using the facelift thing essentially. Right. Like, he’s like a normal person that’s looking and looking like an obsidian. Yeah. And then also.

Is he a normal person or is he an obsidian?

I don’t.

He’s an obsidian.

But he’s like a, like a sophisticated, well trained. I mean, like, they’re like, clearly he’s not an obsidian.

Because he is.

Ragnar’s dad and he is Stef’s dad, and he is, uh.

But.

Maybe he was.

Raised, I don’t know.

But I think his backstory is more that he was he was brought back at some point to Mars to kind of out to be a stud, you know, to raise more of these obsidians. And then he was turned into this character by Atlas Volsung far, so he’s really Wagner Kefka. But he was turned into this character.

Classically trained. And he’s like.

Well, you know, he’s like not the typical.

Yeah, exactly. For sure he’s not. But he is.

It is weird that he’s also like, I’m super into the arts and I can’t wait to go vacation and drink wine. And then he’s like, oh, so I’m gonna go eat this person’s heart after this. Like, that’s like that. He’s just a really good actor. I think.

He’s he’s.

Like a Daniel Day-Lewis.

Exactly right. Which, you know, oddly enough, Last of Mohicans. That’s the first time I ever saw a heart get pulled out. I don’t know if he eats it, though.

Does he know there’s no eating of the heart?

No, wait.

You didn’t see a temple of doom, Indiana Jones?

Oh, right. Yeah. Of course. Well, that.

One.

Was. That one was pretty rugged for a PG movie too. But The Last Mohicans one was a little bit more horrific.

Yeah, for sure, but I’m just saying in terms of firsts, if we’re talking about.

Firsts.

You’re.

Right, you’re right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Everyone remembers their first. My bad. Back to that. So then we also have Atlas who’s pretending to be Helios and he steps up. And so like the two of the biggest movements in the whole war are from people just face lifting and changing who they are and then tricking people. So this should be a common practice. There should be way more regimented things to prevent people and like passwords and codes and other things to stop this. I don’t know, it seems like it’d be a a bigger a bigger issue.

Yeah, it’s actually my only stock down. So I don’t want to I don’t want to necessarily burn it. But I’m gonna have to hear my stock down was Scooby Doo because that’s.

That’s pretty.

Much what, what.

Volsung for.

Yeah, exactly. It’s pretty much what Volsung thought is, you know, and and I and it just stuck down because I don’t like it. I’m not a huge fan of that idea. Volsung for is such an awesome bad guy. He’s so good in this and just in what we think is who he is. Then for them to just Scooby Doo it and you know, he literally takes his mask off. Granted, it’s really just like a voice modulator that he’s using to be scarier, but it turns out he’s a guy who just likes the opera and wears silk kimonos and sips expensive cognac, and would rather have his toes in the sand than be.

King.

For a day.

It’s.

It was like. What? He just wants to retire in peace. He doesn’t want to rule. It’s like this guy’s such a badass. Just why couldn’t he continue to be that badass? And that’s just who he was. And somehow Atlas turned him, so I don’t like it on that level. And additionally, more with the Helios thing, which I wasn’t really following, to be honest with you, but just the idea of the mask thing or you’re. Aha. No, I’m actually this person. It seems a little cheap to me. You know, I’m just. I’m just going to say it. It seems a little a little cheap, granted. I did like the fact that it turns out Atlas was kind of the brains behind this whole bad guy operation, and he’s way more dangerous and way more interwoven into what’s been happening than we ever really knew. All we knew of him was he was a kind of a brutal commander on Mercury. He was very smart, obviously, but he was a brutal commander who put people on spikes and tortured the shit out of people. That was his. That was his thing. But him having control of the original film of Darrow destroying the dockyards, um, is massive. You know, that’s kind of what spurned the whole rim situation to begin with.

Yeah.

And him poisoning Lysander through someone else so that later he would have that leech on him or whatnot so that he wouldn’t end up being fully poisoned. It was. There’s a lot of. He’s just so many steps ahead and having a worthy adversary against Darrow, who always, it seems like in these books, is two steps ahead of everyone. So when Darrow comes in, he’s like, Darrow knows exactly. He’s going to have some crazy plan that’s going to work out, and to have it be Uno reverse card on him. Where now, part of the reason why Darrow is lost is because Atlas is so far ahead of him in this game, and I think Darrow feels like he’s, you know, Austin Powers losing his mojo kind of thing because of it.

Well, it also shows the original brother like Brotherhood or Red rising people. They had been planning this for 50 years, you know, and so they had all this. And then Darrow comes along and leads the movement. So like, they had to reset. And that’s what Atlas did. He’s like, all right, 12 years from now, I’m gonna put this plan in motion. So that’s the Darrow is like, he’s going off the the cuff now instead of having like, a kind of a foundation that he can rely on.

Oh.

Interesting. So it’s like the the NFL quarterback who’s is good for the first 15 scripted plays, but then afterwards, just.

We’re in football.

Season, folks. There’s going to be a lot of football analogies. Let’s get used to it.

I say.

Parlay.

I think there was a couple of parlays.

Yeah.

Victoria or Victoria. Virginia had a had a parlay with Lysander.

Mhm.

Um, well I just burned my stock down. So do you have other stock ups.

Yeah. Self-Help books. Stock up. Oh Daryl gets handed a book in the beginning of the.

Yeah.

There’s a lot of this.

Book and he’s kind of like quoting it all the time and referencing it. We always, we always know that he references death begets death begets death, which is a great, great line. He always.

Referencing.

That’s a Lorna. Our coastline.

Yeah.

So that’s a different. Yeah. That was just one. He had been referenced forever in this book series. But then he gets his new book and he’s kind of like all about it and he’s like quoting it and stuff like that. It was kind of weird. Maybe I just I feel like once you’re plus 30, you can’t really just adopt a new philosophy or book, unless you’re kind of like in one to get into cults. You know what I mean? Unless I’m mistaken. Is there any, like, book that you’re, like, referencing all the time? I mean, we read a lot of books here. Is there any book that you’re, like, going back to the. Well, I mean, obviously Harry Potter for us, that’s not like some self-help book we’re referencing. Is there anything that you use?

Self-Help book?

I don’t know, doesn’t need self-help, just like where you’re like, oh, yeah, that’s my this is like, you know, something I believe in because of, you know, I don’t know, some alchemist.

No, I’m just kidding.

Um.

Atomic habits is the only book that I actually like think about when it’s, uh, you know, for for my daily. And I don’t think about it on the daily. But if someone was to say like, oh, I can’t seem to wake up at the same time in the morning, I’m like, well, fucking figure it out.

What does.

That say to, like, prevent the nuclear bomb and just figure it out or what’s what is.

That?

It’ll tell you just just to do it, you know? Like, what do you mean? Just just create a habit and do it or get some sort.

Of self-help book is pretty much.

Uh, no. I usually reference it more for like habit stacking, which is a great one, which is basically, if you need to do something, combine it with something that you’re already doing. So if you feel like, hey, I don’t work out at all, I should do ten push ups. Then you brush your teeth in the morning, after you brush your teeth, do ten push ups every single time. Okay, so when you brush your teeth, it’s like, oh, there we go. Brush my teeth, do ten push ups.

I thought it was going to be more of like combining a positive with a negative. Oh, I don’t want to do dishes, but I’m gonna be able to eat ice cream while I do them. Bang! You know what I mean?

Like, well, that could be a two. You don’t want to do the dishes. So some people like to let the ice cream sit for a couple minutes, which is sacrilege. I like my ice cream. Ice ice cold. But some people like to let it sit. So it’s like, hey, I don’t want to do the dishes. When I take the ice cream out of the fridge, put it on the counter, do the dishes when I’m done, then I get to eat the ice cream.

Mm.

Okay. Yeah, it could be like that. You know.

You throw a little.

Sprinkles on there or what? Because I’m a big sprinkle guy.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Big sprinkle.

Guy. Okay I love that.

Well the chocolate ones right.

Jimmy’s Jimi?

Yeah. Of course. The path is the name of the book, and I akinde it to more of something like reading, like a Alexander the Great, reading the Art of War, or something along those lines.

Or.

Or Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It’s actually quite similar to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, as is how I I feel about it.

Okay.

And I also think Lauren Arcos is probably more of a Marcus Aurelius type character, but like a general one, you know? So he was super badass at war, but also very pensive and had big ideas. I tried to read it once. It’s it’s like Mitch Hedberg, you know, Mitch Hedberg.

Yeah.

It’s like Mitch Hedberg for philosophy, which is why it’s enjoyable.

Non-sequiturs constantly.

Yeah. And it’s more of just a sentence that’s. Wow, that’s very thoughtful. But it’s only a sentence. I don’t have to read a hundred pages.

To.

Figure out what the philosophy is. philosophy is, and there’s lots of them. So you can just kind of keep keep going. It’s like a Mitch Hedberg skit. So yeah, the path is what I was reading. But you don’t support men in their 30s reading books. Okay, cool.

Well, yeah.

It’s.

Just weird to, like.

Adopt a new. I mean, it’s kind of like, oh, I just started CrossFit, and you have to tell everyone about it, you know? You know, I mean, I don’t really understand the whole, you know, developing a whole new personality based off of something.

So the woman on jeopardy! Last night who during when they asked the contestants, she goes, oh, I’m an Olympic lifter now. I just picked up Olympic lifting.

And.

Picked it up, pun intended, or.

I don’t get it.

And it was like, all right, cool. And she was like, Ken, you should try it. He’s like, yeah, definitely.

Was she.

Massive?

No. Well, maybe, but not in the way you’d think. I definitely didn’t look like an Olympic lifter, but hey, you know what? I ain’t gonna yuck anyone’s yum. Good for her. Good for her. She probably can guaranteed lift more weights than I can. So I respect her. Uh, stock up for me a flow state. Stock up. People say it a lot. Ooh! Enter. I entered a flow state. Or even in sports, a little flow state thing going on. Never really understood. It never happened to me. We’ve been talking before. We got on about how I picked up golf. I’d love to be in a flow state. All I am is in a consistent, angry state of how bad I am, so there’s never any flow going on. But when Darrow eventually gets his mojo back in this, he goes. He goes like full neo in From the Matrix against Volsung. It’s like he’s getting his ass beat neo in the hallway. Of course, at the end of the original matrix, he’s getting his ass beat. Cannot figure this out, but somehow. Because because Volsung is all about knows his will away. Bullshit. He’s like, I’ve seen this will away. I’m not worried about it. And Darrow just enters this mind space where he realizes, Kassius said, you know, use the circle, don’t use your boots, this, that and the other thing. But he realized he can kind of stay inside. Volsung fasgadh, but be moving and never get hit. And just kind of a little bit of a rope a dope aspect to. And then in that moment is able to create.

He did to the rope a dope good comment.

His.

Own fighting style. So he tires Volsung far out and then he’s just slowly starts taking piece after piece, you know, first it’s a spike and then it’s another one, and then it’s a finger, and then he’s slicing his leg and it’s this is one of the scenes that would be super cool to see especially I mean, if you look up any of the and I encourage other people to do it the the renderings from fans or whatnot of Volsung for he’s so badass, like so badass. And to see them in a ring together doing, you know, this dance would be phenomenal. It’s almost like a Rocky movie is what it was. But in this world that we’ve grown to love so much, it’s, you know, like Rocky movie meets Star Wars meets Middle-Earth kind of thing. So I’m all for it. I love that, and I’m big on the flow state. I gotta figure out how to get into one.

I also liked that he. This is a big thing. When I was growing up, my dad had always brought up is like when you’re nervous or whatever you’re or you’re in a pressure situation, you just revert back to what you’re been practicing. So that’s why it’s so important to always be practicing the right way. Otherwise, when you get nervous, you’ll just go back right to it. What are you the bad habits?

Okay.

And he he went right to the well his way, even though he knew not to. And he was like, oh shit, I forgot, you know, because he was just so used to it that, uh, it took him a little while to, like, snap out of that.

Yeah, he had to lose himself in it and just refind himself. And it was a culmination of what had been happening. The whole book with him and Atlas and him also not being able to fight beforehand and not doing super well, so it was great. Big fan. My last one was George Washington. Stock up. Familiar with him?

Um.

I’m familiar across the river at some point or something.

Right?

His teeth were made of wool. Big daddy? Yeah. So, uh, he crossed the river. Delaware. George Washington notoriously refused to be king of this country. They were clamoring for him to be the king. And he said no. That’s the whole point of this whole thing was we didn’t want any kings. So no thank you. And he served two terms. They wanted to him to continue serving. And he said, no, I’m I’m stepping down. This was the whole point of this whole thing was no, no kings. So I respect the shit out of that. And I also respect the shit out of Darrow, who after this whole Volsung battle, everyone saying the shamans and whatnot are like, are you killed him? So by our ways, you are now the king of the obsidian because he was the king of obsidian. And now you’re the king. And Daryl’s like, ah, nah, I don’t think so. And basically uses an idea that Volsung was a fake king. So because of that, he wasn’t actually king. So Daryl killing him couldn’t make Darrow King. So now they have to vote on who’s going to rule them, which is some next level thinking especially. I couldn’t imagine after just having that battle how your brain would even be intact.

But it’s kind of like the Harry Potter Elder wand.

Oh yeah.

This guy kills this guy, and this guy.

Is like, yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly. And so they just, uh, they go they go to a vote and and Volga takes it, even though Daryl pulls another United States trick of basically putting up who he wants to be the leader of the people.

Yeah. That’s right.

He puts all the pressure in the right places to ensure that Volga is the leader. But yeah, either way, George Washington, good for you. Stock up. Thanks. Thanks for creating that. And unfortunately what it’s created. But yes appreciate you. Uh stock down. What do you.

Got?

Stock down the ice bucket challenge. Um, not the charity part. That was great. But after reading roughly 85 hours of red rising Straight and just being in a different world and just going to my car and just, you know, getting in that warm blanket of the Red rising world, just having having that there. I mean, that’s literally three days of just.

Yeah, that’s.

Three days of driving. That’s when you’re listening to it. When you.

Drive.

I drive, I like, well, like take breaks from work and just lie in my bed and listen to.

And oh yeah, play.

Tower games.

Yeah.

So it’s just it’s just a nice, relaxing thing to do to go from that to the juxtaposition between that 85 hours to these 11 hours of our next book. Spoiler alert is, my friends, it is quite the ice bucket to the face it is. Oh, we’re back to the real world. Everything sucks. In the real world. Everything’s terrible. You should depressed. I was like, what the hell? What is.

This? Yeah.

So that was not what I thought this was gonna be. Because the problem, I mean, I’m kind of spoiling the next book, but the problem with when we read Frederick Bachman, it was like, really, like, kind of uplifting story the first time we read it.

Yeah. Anxious people.

Yeah. And you were like, oh, anxious people is a misnomer. I thought it was going to be super depressing. It is not. And this one is.

Like.

Rallying behind a bank robber.

Or something like that. This is called Dog Day Afternoon.

And I thought it was gonna be like the most positive. Yeah. Remember the good old days? And. No, this is the worst thing ever. So anyways, terrible transition for us. We’re gonna have to get back into something after this one. This is, uh. I already miss Red rising, so.

Yeah, it’s funny how we’ve done back to back to back Red risings, and this is probably out of our however many episodes. This is one of our longer hiatuses, I’d say, as a whole between the three books, just because I think we did the three books all summer and there’s just super long books. But because of that, we’ve been in there and I read these in much shorter bursts, which is why it took me so long. You know, I’d be listening to a half hour here, and then I’d say, oh, wait, what was that? So I’d go back the last five minutes or so. But I’ve been in this world for so long that I almost forgot there were other books that weren’t. Pierce Brown. Sci fi epics. And so we like two pages into this new book. I was like, wait, what?

Okay, wait. What? What’s happening?

Yeah, we’re.

We’re on the real world. What the hell?

We’re not in space, and people aren’t putting each.

Other on spikes and, yeah.

Stab the person with it. Why? Why would he not do that? Yeah.

Yeah, it was definitely some cold water. If you want a real funny ice bucket challenge, you’ve seen the 50 cent.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I read one page.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. One page of Harry Potter book.

Is.

Uh, amazing. It really is. But we had to read 50 hours of just this book, so there we go. And we didn’t have to. We loved it. Uh, like I said, I don’t have any other shutdowns because I did my Scooby Doo one. and honestly, I didn’t. I couldn’t really think of another one. So that’s where we are. Did you have another one?

My last one is, uh, more of a shot against the bow. Here is, uh.

Against her across.

Across. I don’t know, how do you say that phrase? Yeah. Demons. Clairvoyancy, uh, stock down. And, uh, to reference my dad again, I always thought that word was clear buoyancy. Because he’s a Boston accent. Because he’s a clear buoyancy.

Buoyancy?

Yeah. And I was like, he’s like, what are you, clairvoyant? And I’m like, I don’t know what that means, but I assume it means. But it’s Claire. Apparently. So anyways, but last episode, while I was editing it, I got a few quotes from Demon Witch such as Lysander is like Luke Skywalker.

Quote unquote.

He’s a good person, quote unquote. I’m rooting for him, quote unquote. I will take your apology now, because I’ve been on the Lysander is a huge bitch from day one. And I want I want the apology. Where is.

It?

Well, Lysander although kills Cassius. I mean, he doesn’t directly do it.

He kind of uses it.

Well. Oh, sorry. He does, but I meant he does. But also Cassius, he does it in a in a fake way. It’s not like he goes and they have a razor battle and he he kills.

He waits.

Until he’s pretty much.

Dead.

Yeah, exactly. And then pulls out a gun.

And shoots him. Talk about.

Indiana Jones. He does the Indiana Jones movie. I did think that was really interesting writing there, too, when he kills him because he’s he’s like, I didn’t know if Cassius was actually going to kill me or not. Like, because Cassius gets an, you know, an inch away from killing Lysander before he is able to, like, shoot him six times to kill him. And he’s like, I don’t know if he did and if he, like, fell on me or if he hugged me like a brother, like, I don’t even know. It’s going to mess Lysander up for sure. A lot of therapy. But I was not happy there for sure. Not because when Lysander came back into the fold, when Darrow and Diomedes and Cassius came to him, I was like, this is what I’m talking about. Lysander’s been under the heel of Atalanta or whatever the the that woman’s name is and Atlas, and now he’s found a way out. He’s seen the light, so he’s found a way out. And for him to turn heel in that moment, it definitely felt like a WWE type situation. Yeah. But at the same time, the book is light bringer. And they did say in there that Atlas said, or someone said to him, you know, you’re going to bring the light. There is more to come from this story. We’re not sure what his final place is going to be. Do you think he’s going to be the ultimate bad guy?

Wasn’t he like, I’m gonna genocide the Reds or the gold? Just a matter of which one I decide.

But he’s a.

Gold.

Yeah, but he’s going to do it on a planet that he’s not on.

Yeah.

And also, would Darrow’s kids die?

Oh.

I don’t know how they mix, breed.

Or would they? Definitely not.

Because the.

Other, you know, several. Well. Several himself.

Be like.

Uh. Yeah.

What’s that? Uh, ya book? Uh, divergent. It could be that they’re.

Like, divergent.

They can’t be killed. Oh, well, that’s the whole thing is.

Like, divergent.

Divergence can’t be controlled because they’re like mixes of, like, different houses, essentially.

Anyways, all.

I’m saying is, we don’t know Lysander has a part to play in this. He could be Gollum, you know, and his part could be that he helps Darrow bring the ring, which is this bomb, to a place that it’s not supposed to be, and Darrow gets rid of it. You know, he has a part to play, though, so? So I’m not 100% sure which it could get me to a stock down that I didn’t even think of, which is stock down having six books, including the final trilogy, which is 90 hours, and we’re still nowhere near understanding what is happening with this story. It’s it’s evolved so many times. It started off as a extreme y, A school type thing, then went into a rebellion, then a civil war, and now more war. That’s definitely not civil, and I have no idea where we’re going here, I really don’t. It could go any which way, which is maybe a positive, but in my mind kind of a negative, just because there’s so many plot lines to tie up. It’s like a George R.R. Martin type of thing where there’s just so many plot lines going on. How are you going to tie these all up nicely? And who is it? One more book. Is it three more books? I have no idea.

Hmm.

Yeah, well, hey, listen, the best series of all time is seven books, so I’m okay with the seventh. As long as we, uh, get some closure, you know?

Yeah, it was a lot less pages, though.

Not that I mind. Not that I mind, I don’t mind pages I don’t.

Mind, I don’t mind pages.

Did you have a favorite part or favorite.

Storyline in this one?

Yeah, I think it’s got to go to I think both character and uh, part for me is going to be Darrow. I think this is his finally his, like, coming of age coming back to the fold book, because we talked about the first two books where he’s kind of like reacting. He’s not really ahead of the game anymore. He’s he’s at quarterback after.

The.

First 15.

Plays.

Bill Belichick changes the defense on him. And he thinks he’s running the running cover two. And they’re not.

Anymore. Jared Goff.

In the Super.

Bowl.

Yeah exactly. That’s a great analogy right there. We’re back. We’re completely back. But I thought he had a much better book. He had a lot of surprises. And then the classic Darrow fashion was when Lyria is about to get killed or like considering getting killed and they’re like, oh, what’s coming out of this? Like, I don’t even know what it was. It was like a sea creature, right?

The Leviathan.

Yeah, yeah. What’s coming out of this? And I was like, no way, no way they did it. And then they came out and I was I started clapping. I was like, yeah. So that’s the that’s the classic Darrow of like. It reminded me again of the, the first book when they’re like hiding in the.

Mud.

Or something.

Like that, hiding in the horse’s belly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s just beautiful.

Yeah.

So that brought me back, and I appreciated it. What about you?

Yeah, it was a Darrell.

Book for me. For sure. For the. For the same reasons. I mean, he had he was once again our main character. And it wasn’t the Darrow that we’ve known. It was a Darrow that’s questioning himself. He once again did the right thing and didn’t think about his son one time, uh, but instead thought about the people. Yeah. Yeah. I think his arc was the best of the arcs. I think that obviously you could say it’s a Volsung book because he was such an important character. Or Atlas, perhaps, but they were more drivers of the other characters. I feel like Lysander had a turn, but I wouldn’t say this was his book because he was. It felt like he was under the heel the whole time. He was almost a prisoner. And then you’re realizing, oh, maybe he’s not, you know, maybe he’s more than than we imagined. I guess you could potentially make a case for Cassius. Granted, that’s almost tied to Lysander like that relationship. And there is that great line that whoever the pink is that ends up with Diomedes, I can’t remember what her name is, Rona or something. She says to Darrow about Cassius, which was when he was asking like, oh, did you ever think you could have got, you know, you and Cassius could have been an item or something like that after he died? And she said something along the lines of like, oh, he didn’t he didn’t need the love of a partner. He needed the love of a brother. And Darrow and Cassius, his relationship was really cemented in this one. And I, I really, I really, really liked that aspect of this book because Cassius is such an interesting character. I feel like because he has so many turns and he’s such a good person at heart, but he was brought up in this society, and it seems like the entire time since he killed Aries, the whole thing has really been him trying to. What’s the word I’m looking for? Like recompense or something like that? He’s trying. He’s trying to reconcile that to some degree, and it’s best that he knows how. And he found Lysander and felt, oh, if I can take this loon and make him a good person or, you know, show him love that I can do it. And it didn’t work out the way he wanted to. And he was looking for that brother, and he had it the whole time in Dara. So yeah, I think Darrow, but I think there’s a case to be made for, for a couple other ones too.

Yeah.

I would throw in Diomedes in there too. Honorable, honorable, honorable gentleman.

Yeah.

Diomedes is just. Yeah. He just seems like one of those British lords that true to his word kind of guy.

I’d say Irish lords. How about.

That.

Irish? Oh, yeah. Sure.

Sure. Yeah. British.

Come on.

Bro.

Well, I just, you know, like a night, like a, you know, a kick ass duke.

Okay, I see what you’re saying. Like knights of the round table type type thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. One of those guys.

Uh, what about love? What did you love about, like.

Yeah, love. I mean, it’s going to be some of the same as before, but the twists and turns, really, they just keep on coming at you. You never know what’s going to happen. You never know where it’s going. If he wanted to, he could get a whole book on Darrow’s son at the new academy and what that’s like compared to the first book, and how they’re training him and how his growth is going to change. We see him for three pages. You know, he was a main character last book, and now we don’t even hear from him. We I don’t think we heard at all from, uh, was it Elektra? What’s her what’s, uh, the daughter of.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I don’t think we’ve seen her one time, which.

Is all.

We get about Pax is what we get about Vader in A new Hope before we actually see Vader. Or we even know it’s just. It’s Luke’s dad. All we hear about Luke’s dad is like, he’s a great star pilot.

Like, that’s.

All you hear about packs. Like, yeah, he is his own ship now. It’s like, oh, okay.

Yeah. No, I appreciated that. Uh, the other thing I loved, uh, I didn’t have a ton just because I think there I just liked a lot of it. Cui bono gets referenced, aka the departed. Who benefits? Who gives a shit?

You know, it’s. Yeah, it’s.

Got a bow on it.

Anytime the departed reference.

Comes up.

I’m gonna love.

It.

Uh, we were scrolling through some some movies. You know, when you’re in that right before September started, there’s no new TV or anything on. Football hasn’t started yet. I’m talking to the wife. I’m like, hey, what do you want to watch a movie? She’s like, yeah, maybe. I scroll across The Departed. I was like, oh, done, let’s watch departed. She’s like, I don’t think so. She said, I don’t think so. I was like, you don’t think so? I got up, I started making the guest bed, said, all right, fine.

You don’t think so? That’s that’s funny because it’s going on.

Yeah, yeah, that’s the.

Fact of the matter. Uh, no. What is a big pet peeve of mine, though, is that when clips on YouTube come up and you watch them and you’re like, Holy shit, that movie is money. And then you realize it’s just like three clips from the movie that are good. That’s not the part of the part.

It’s amazing.

But like, um, show me the money movie. I’ve watched that a few times, and every time I’m like.

Oh, this.

Movie kind of sucks outside of like three clips of.

It.

You’re watching Jerry.

Maguire. I watched it recently.

Wow. I always think it’s better than it is. That’s one of those ones that tricks you. But there’s like a bunch of those movies that trick you that have, like, really good 1 or 2 really good scenes that you’ll see on YouTube that pop up and you’re like, oh, I gotta rewatch that. And then you watch it and you’re like, oh, this movie sucks. Other than this one clip.

I guess you do love rom coms, so it’s like rom coms and sports.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, hitch doesn’t have one. Not one single frame is bad in hitch. Every single frame is perfect.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

If you say so.

We did a review.

On that, sir. Everyone agree with.

Me.

My loves. I think sevro. Learning about Ulysses was pretty heartbreaking. I didn’t love that aspect, but I just zefrose a character we haven’t really talked about. And I’m not exactly sure because there was some alluding to that he was in the chair. Whatever that chair is that fucks with your brain that the abomination Agius had him in that chair in like Manchurian Candidate brainwashed him, but it didn’t come up at all. And it seemed like, I don’t know if it’s going to, but maybe in the next book it’ll be something will trigger him and it’s going to be Darrow versus Sevro or something. He’s going to have to kill Sevro, I have no idea. But they insinuated that Sevro was affected by that chair. Either way, we get a weird a weird sevro in this one because he doesn’t want he doesn’t want to really be with Darrow, but he is. Him and Darrow have some issues from the jump, and Darrow’s more into Cassius than he is into Sevro, but then he ends up taking up the helm again for the daughters of Aries. Uh, yeah. I don’t I honestly don’t know how I really felt about Sevro on this. And he feels.

It.

Seems like he feels like he’s only the goblin and he’s not the man.

Well, you gotta.

Think the whole relationship with Sevro and Darrow has never really been that buddy buddy. It’s always been there, like, bonded by war, almost. You know what I mean? We might have missed the ten years when they were fighting together, but like the first book, he doesn’t even recognize Sevro until he sees him out in, like, the wild with a cloak on. And he’s like, all right, I’ll join up with you type of thing. And then the second book, they’re not even together anymore. And then the third book, right. He saves him. So it’s just like there’s not really like this, like, bonding moment ever. Him and Cassius had way more of a bond, I feel like.

Yeah I agree. It just seems like since the academy or the institute or whatever, Sevro has been his toy. Like something he uses, like a tool. Maybe not a toy, but a tool. Whereas they worked together and made decisions together to some degree. And then once Sevro started leading the rebellion as Aries and Darrow comes back and has all these problems with it, he’s like, dude, this ain’t an easy job. Like, I’ve been trying to hold it up for you, so give me a break. And since then, it’s just nothing necessarily seems right. And I just wanted to chill out and be a good dad to his daughters. And Darrow was like, no, you’re coming to war with me. So, yeah, I don’t know. I just I feel like there’s going to be something there and I don’t know what, but I didn’t really necessarily, like, love the situation. Uh, even though this is in the love section. Cassie is being betrayed by Lysander. That one was tough. Like I said, there were a few. There are a few of these that actually hit you in the heartstrings. And those two were were one of them. Uh, like I also said, I loved Atlas being the bad guy, you know, real strategist. I like that, you know, kind of better than Darrow. But then them still being able to to figure to figure that one out. Yeah. Diomedes big fan I’m fan. I’m not a huge fan of the rim in general, although I do do like they’re kind of like Russian World War Two attitude of just like, all right, we’re eating canned goods if we can. You know, no one eats better than anybody else. We all do it together. We wear rags. You know, they’re not the pompous golds of the core. They wear dented and dirty armor, but they don’t even care. They’re just gritty. So I like that. That’s about it. What about hates?

Uh, hate wise, I didn’t understand why Lysander doesn’t like Darrow. It seems like it should be a one way street. Seems like Darrow should be the only one that, like that hates Lysander. But Lysander is like, oh, I hate. It’s like, why? Like he killed your grandmother. But you don’t like your grandmother. You found that out, that she’s evil. And he probably was a good thing. He spared your life. I guess he’s upset that there’s a war going on, but.

Well.

Darrow fucked up the whole society.

Lysander knows the society wasn’t good. I mean, he he’s trying to restore it to his image of what society should be. But like, I don’t understand that I shouldn’t really draw hate from you. It should just be like you think that way. I think that where is like the hate should come from. Like I said, like Lysander is waging war against his people. He’s killed Cassius, he’s killed his protege. He’s sabotaged him. When he took him in, he threw a razor through his chest. Like there’s a lot more things that that Darryl should be upset about with him. And Lysander is like, I’m not meeting with him. I’m like, what? Why do you care? Like, Darryl should be the one that’s pissed, so I didn’t understand that.

Yeah, I think they also have philosophical differences in the sense of Lysander sees what Darrow’s doing with the society as unneeded slaughter and death and destruction because. Okay, yeah, you want to change things, but all you’ve done in the last ten years is disrupt something. Where? Yeah, okay, maybe it wasn’t perfect, but we didn’t have blood and guts in the streets. Maybe he blames them for that as well. But I get your point? I get your point. Just trying to play devil’s advocate here.

Yeah. Okay.

My hate and this is going to go. This goes so deep. But there’s just there’s too many threads. Honestly I can’t not only can I not wrap my head around them, but I feel like Pierce Brown couldn’t necessarily either. The abomination Agius who we don’t we like hear from very shortly in the last book and.

Then.

He’s not addressed.

I don’t mind him not being in it at all, to be fair.

But I don’t think he should have.

Been in it for the first place. We talked about this in the last one. I don’t you know, I don’t I’m not a big fan of the of the clone situation, but it also just doesn’t make a ton of sense. They have several the abomination and the Bone Riders. They have Sevro who is their number one enemy. It’s not Darrow the the Bone Riders. Number one enemy is Sevro and they decide to auction him off. What? Why would you auction him off? Why wouldn’t you hold on to him? So maybe. Okay. They had him in the chair. They’re auctioning him off so that he can eventually get freed or something. Uh, okay. But after they auction them off, they they’re not heard from again. They don’t seem to have any ploy or anything going on. Yes, I can guarantee you it will be a thing in the next one, but it just seems weird to have an entire book where he’s not in it. And then Apollonius puts Sevro in a maximum security prison, but Sevro just somehow escapes, and they don’t really say how he escapes, but he has all these bombs and whatnot. It’s like I’m playing GoldenEye. All of a sudden it’s just pass key card and open prison door.

That sounds like a love. I don’t know what.

The issue is. What do you say?

Lyria and the whole figment plot? I had some interesting ideas about it. Obviously, they were way off base, and I just don’t understand it. It wasn’t necessary. It was. The only thing it served was a way for everyone to get to Quicksilver. But why have this whole figment thing and explaining that, oh, this thing that’s in her brain, there’s like 14 of them and they were able to you could wage war from light years away. It’s like, well, what did you just took it out of her head. And that was that wiped your hands of it. So it didn’t make any sense. You know, it leads us to like, oh, that’s not a moon is a space station. Uh, Star Wars with the, uh, Oculus where Quicksilver is hiding out. He’s got these tabula rasa, this homo sapien children that he birthed or something, and he’s going to take them on this space station far away and just create a new civilization. Yes, I’m sure that’s going to be in next books or whatnot, but what what are we doing here? Uh, what purpose did Athena and the daughter of Ares serve? You know, it’s the whole thing was like, okay, there’s Darrow’s, like, there’s these daughters of Ares, and they have bodies and they have ships. We’re going to go, Virginia. We’re going to go to the rim to get them and then come back. It’s like, okay, cool. But Darrow, just like we talked about, he just has a speech and then they’re like, all right, we’ll decide what your fate is after this whole thing’s over. Well. All right. It’s just there’s there’s so many things that didn’t seem to make a ton of sense. And even the docs video that I talked about before it was, oh, Atlas had done it, but then someone else said that someone else did it. That was confusing also. Even in smaller detail, the Volsung for being Ragnar’s dad, which he is. But Ragnar’s said he never saw his dad and or he did see his dad once and they did something and he’s like, oh yeah, we went fishing with him or something along those lines. But Atlas is like, they never saw him. So these are all in different books, but they.

Confusing.

The shit out of.

Me. So exactly.

They contradict each other. There’s just too many contradictions where I feel like he has so many threads going on that he’s trying to, like, weave them together. And sometimes there’s a miss. And because we’re also a little confused. We don’t. You can’t call him out for it. It’s almost like a political debate or something where they just start talking nonsense and everyone’s confused. So then they get off scot free because no one understood. Which is basically the entire thing that I just said. So there we go.

All right.

Well, I don’t disagree, but I also don’t know if I can agree. I don’t.

I’m confused. That’s the point.

That’s the point.

Yeah.

Listen, we can all agree that getting off scot free is, what, the name of the game. We all want to do that.

Yeah, just just too many threads. That was really my only hate. And it’s a fun story. It’s just I’m. When you. Then we read the next book and they’re talking about, you know, the abomination Adrius and this plan that he has, I’m going to say that was 40 hours ago. That was 40 hours of reading books ago. Do I have to now reread the second book so that I can remember what happened? So just not a huge, huge fan of that. I’m an idiot. Sorry, can’t remember that.

Far.

I also read it a lot quicker, so I felt like I started getting a much bigger, better grasp of things in this book. But like, it’s the same thing as as Game of Thrones. If you watch one episode and then wait a week and then one episode and then they’re like, remember this guy from season two? And it’s like, who and what family is that from? And what’s their, you know, like. But if you watched it all together, it’s like, yeah, I remember that guy.

So that’s a great analogy.

It really is because I watch Game of Thrones when it came out. Granted, I was a huge fan of the books and I would read, you know, the articles and whatnot during the week between episodes. And so I had a very good grasp of what was happening in that series. But, you know, before every episode, we’d have to pause it a bunch of times, like when the episodes were on or after an episode and explain to people in the room what what was going on when you binge it, it goes a lot. It’s a lot easier to understand. But even even then, you know, the wife is asking me like, hey, who’s that character? I’m like, oh, you remember four episodes ago.

You have to watch the previously on which most, most shows. I skipped those, but it’s like, well, we gotta watch this to see what happens.

That’s what we need for this book.

Yeah.

But for each section.

Yeah, exactly. Before each like mini book within the book, they need a previously on and.

Just.

Kind of lead us in the direction. The thing I like about the previously on it leads you into what’s going to happen in that episode.

You know, and I.

Will say I loved it in the The Mitch Rapp series when they’re like, and Mitch Rapp walks into the room, let me tell you about Mitch Rapp. He’s the most attractive person ever. He paid the cross for it. I’m like, yes, give me all. Feed me this. You know what I mean? Like, I want to get amped up again. So give me the backstories again. I don’t I don’t hate it.

Yeah. He went to the Potomac and swam for miles.

He won the race, but he didn’t. He didn’t put his name.

In, so nobody.

Knows it was.

Him.

He did an Ironman at 5 a.m., finished before nine, got on the computer. No one knew it was him. Classic Mitch Rapp.

Okay, Keith, would you recommend this book? How many bodies have you given it and who’s it for?

Yeah, I mean, I think I like this way more than you did. I thought it was a 4.5 five buddies before I started reading the next book. And then now I’m like, it’s 4.75. That’s how much it bumped up. Got a full a quarter score bump up. I mean, like I told you, I got done with it. And I was like, I don’t know what to do anymore. It really was a long part of, uh, a couple weeks for me. And, you know, those books that you’ll remember what you’re doing when you’re reading them or.

Listening to them? Yeah.

Like when I was in Australia, we did, um, Shogun. And so anytime I think of Shogun, I think of Australia. It’s like the tied to that. It’s like kind of like this book where, like, you know.

What.

Were you doing during this book?

What do you.

Remember? But I’ll remember it when I when it comes back. I really appreciate it. I think it’s you got to you got to get to this book. If you’ve read the first five, obviously, I just recommended it to someone I spoke with over the weekend where I was at like a get together. They had read the first three and they’re like, oh, they’re a little too too young for me. Like because he’s like into big fantasy. And I was like, no, get get into this. Like, you’ll, you’ll like this way more characters. He’s like, oh, perfect. That’s what I like. I’m like, yeah.

So yeah, that’s the person.

I was talking to, a buddy who’s a big Brandon Sanderson fan. And I was like, I think the second trilogy might be on that level, you know. So I gave it four, four, two, five buddies. I love I liked it a lot. You know, I think my qualms are more of, you know, we’re having a conversation here and, uh, if we’re just going to sit here and jo each other about it, that’s not really that interesting. But, um, at the same time, you know, I do have some issues, which is why it’s not a five. I think my big honestly, my biggest issue is with the fan base that they all hate Red rising and love all the other books because I fucking loved Red rising.

Yeah, I don’t get that. It makes me feel like I’m the biggest idiot.

That they say, oh, that was a dumb book about one little thing, and now there’s so many more.

Things going on. Great.

That’s why Star Wars is great.

So maybe I was just a little spurned because everyone was saying, and I’d say everyone, but a lot of people were saying this was the best of all the books. And I thought, Morning Star, if you’re going to be on those lines like Morning Star was better in my mind. But, um, yeah, that’s just that’s just how I feel. But that’s the best part about all this stuff is we get to sit here, we get to debate about it, we get to hear from people and hear what they got to say. So yeah, 4.5 I mean, there’s no real reason to say who it’s for. If, you know, no one’s picking this book up that hasn’t picked up, the other.

Ones would.

Be psychopath. So, uh, imagine. Jesus. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So that’s that’s what it’s for. And unfortunately, that’s the end of the saga for now. I don’t know when read God, I think that’s the next one. I don’t know when that’s even coming out. But this was 2023. So yeah, maybe maybe next year he’s he’s going to be working on it. But if that isn’t the culmination then what are we going to have to wait another. We’re going to be like 80. It’s going to be another George R.R. Martin situation.

Don’t say that.

Don’t you dare.

So, uh, Keith, that was Lightbringer. What do we got coming up next?

I already referenced it a little bit earlier, but we got my friends by Frederick Bachman coming up. Strap in for the real world.

So I.

I don’t know how we’ve somehow fallen into, like, seven books about art in the last year.

I don’t. How does this happen to us?

I mean, this is going to be a spoiler for the next book. Can you name one famous artist currently that’s alive other than Banksy?

Uh.

Just one that’s like. No. So it doesn’t make any sense that they’re famous artists unless they’re a teenager in a Ninja Turtle. I don’t fucking want to hear about it.

Okay.

Uh, that’s very well said. Yeah, it’s just funny when this art, when it started with this art stuff, I was like, wait, this is another art book. We we are meat and potatoes kind of guys. And we somehow are falling into our seventh book about art. Yeah, only one of them was on purpose, I think, and that was more about an art heist than art itself.

Right, right.

That’s Good call.

Which, thinking about it, that was. I was reading that when my daughter was born, so that’s, uh. Well. And I was well, and I was reading Harry Potter. How is that possible? Oh, maybe I was at the hospital. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. I was reading Harry Potter definitely when she was born, that’s for sure. But. Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, Lightbringer, that was it. We’ll see you for my friends. My friends, my friends. Yeah. I’m not hating it by by any means. So let’s not, uh, say that it sucks. I think it’s it’s enjoyable. The only the good part is I. It’s making me fall asleep, that’s for sure. I listen to it at night. Oh, my God. Puts me right out. But. All right. Good to hear your dulcet tones and I’ll catch you. Uh, probably like next week or the week after for, uh, my friends.

Alrighty. All right.

Sounds good.

Bye now. Bye now.

The Buddies are back to continue their “summer saga series” (say that 10 times fast) with Pierce Brown’s “Dark Age,” the fifth book in the Red Rising universe and second in the Iron Gold trilogy. This new trilogy is basically Game of Thrones in space, but with more creative ways to die. The Buddies got to discussing summer camps, habituation, the Black Knight from Mondy Python, and how this book made the battle of Helm’s deep blush. That and much more. So grab your anti-radiation meds, practice your habituation techniques (you’ll need them), and join the Buddies as they navigate a book where Mercury finally gets some respect and literally everyone you like probably dies!

Intro/Book Summary (0:00-4:29)

Stock Up/Down (4:30-44:23)

Favorite Scene/Character (44:24-50:23)

Love/Hate (50:24-58:59)

Conclusion (59:00-1:02:02)

NEXT BOOK: Light Bringer (Red Rising Book 6) by Pierce Brown 

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Alright. Welcome to Book Club. I’m Dylan, here with the man who howls my name, Keith. What’s up, buddy? Welcome to the light age, kid.

Oh. I see what you did there. Little flippity doo dot. Here at the Moneybulk Club, we’re gonna have some best sellers, and this week we’ll be discussing twenty nineteen’s Dark Age by Pierce Brown. It’s a continuation of the second trilogy of Red Rising if you’re following along.

If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to any past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybookhub.com or slide into our DMs on, X or Instagram, buddybookhub podcast. You can listen to us iTunes, Spotify. Please download and subscribe. Give us a five star review. Please and thank you.

Yeah. So we’re continuing our our summer saga series. Say that 10 times fast. Of the second trilogy, Red Rising. We love the first trilogy.

We’re back at it. We read Iron Gold. If you have listened to that episode, hit the pause button. Go back. Check that one out.

Spend thirty hours reading that book. And then spend thirty hours reading this book. We list the audiobooks. I don’t even know how I would find the time to crack open a a physical book and and finish this. I don’t know how many pages it is I should check.

But I think when we did Iron Gold, I was I started to talk about, like, Taungeless’s death, and you were like, hold on. That happens in dark age, because I just started reading that. And it all kind of is now blending together. So I think before we get into our typical categories, if you could kind of give me a general synopsis of what’s going on with our characters and kinda what happened in the book because I need a little bit of a refresher before we dive into it, and so do our listeners, I’m sure. Yeah.

It feels like we’re, like, season four, season five of a TV show right now. We’re like, what happened in season two? You know? And that was this book. Alright.

So I’m gonna try to run through this as quick as possible. So Darrow’s side, Iron Rain on Mercury. Darrow uses the Storm God machine to fuck everyone up. Mhmm. Puts Orion in charge of it, who promptly causes a mass tidal waves and kills a bunch of civilians.

He has to override the system and kill her. She’s done. Orion, RIP. Ephraim is with Severo and Daryl’s kids hanging out with Sefu, picked them up, you know, training and doing whatever they need to do there. Mustang and I’m doing this in sequential order of the book, so I’ll get to them Okay.

Going as we go. Mustang is playing politics. Looks like she pulled some, you know, house of cards backdoor dealings. Probably, everyone in the Republic, Senate basically gets poisoned, delves into chaos, led by a clone, Abomination, aka The Jackals back, Adrias. Jackal.

Yeah. She ends up escaping believing several clown and pebble behind. Lysandre experiences war for the first time, realizes it sucks, but uses the mind eyes to escape, Goes through all these different trials and tribulations, finally becomes a prisoner of Atlas. He and Atlas devise a plan to escape and infiltrate Darrow’s crew. Lyria and Volga are being tortured, held hostage by Viktra.

She lets them go but Volsung Fa, a new mysterious obsidian comes into play and run runs their ship from the ground. They crash land. Lear gets a couple cool pieces of tech out of her head. They eventually run into the Red Hand who captures Vikture, kills her baby, and Lear starts a mini revolution, fucks them all up. Mhmm.

Back to Volsung Fa. He comes to Mars, which Ephraim and the Obsidians have taken over. He kills Sephi, gets all the Obsidians And Volsung Fa is, like, her grandfather, are they? Last couple of ones. Lysandre infiltrates Darrow, gets the Master Maker to make, like, the MP fuck up everything.

All the lights go down. Darrow and his crew are screwed. Lysandre throws a sling bait through his heart. Cassius comes to the rescue, saves them. And lastly, Lysandre bows down to Atlania at at Atlan what’s her name?

Atlania? Yeah. Now now I’m all screwed up. But yes, we got it. Marries her and although he knows she killed her, his parents and, he and Apollonius got some scheming behind behind their backs going.

That’s does that summarize everything? Did I miss anything? I feel like there’s a lot going on now. And Apollonius is the guy that they free that Daryl freed in the last book. Right?

Correct. The Minotaur Yeah. Of hers. I’m thinking for most books, it’ll be shorter than this, the the the summary. So we can do this, but this one has so much going on.

Yeah. I’m So that’s the story. Still bungled. It was helpful for sure, but my brain my brain is to Atalantia. Atalantia.

Yeah. That’s a lot of syllables. Never name your kid with too many syllables. It gets confusing. Let’s dive into some standard categories, stock up, stock down, for those that are not familiar.

Stock up? Things that are good? Stock down? I don’t know. We don’t even know.

What do you have for stock up? Perspective stock up. Oh. This book gives a really great view on perspective. Few examples of this is how people perceive Darrow.

So on Mercury, he’s basically committing genocide. Everyone there is, like, this guy is the worst. Like, he just literally flooded everyone, killed a ton of civilians, even though he’s, like, trying to give medicine and things to them after the fact. Yeah. He’s, like, passing out anti rats and, they’re, like, alright.

Fuck you, dude. And from his perspective, we see yeah. He’s doing that. He he’s the one that had to kill his like, one of his best friends, Orion, and to stop the genocide. I have to do something I don’t wanna do in order to because it’s the for the best thing.

And it all in all honesty, Orion’s probably right. Like, if they just flood the whole thing, probably better for the Republic for everyone, but he doesn’t do that. Perspective there. Then we have, like, the Vox perspective and getting manipulated. And And then we also have, like, the Viktor versus Lyria perspective where I was kinda always on Lyria’s side and then Viktor is like, you brought a bomb into the ship we told you.

Like, you’ve been told thousands of times never to take something in there and that you don’t know of where it came from. Like, you’re you’re pretty dumb. You’re you’re the one that’s actually responsible. And I was like, oh, I didn’t think about that. So I kinda switched my perspective once I heard hers.

But my favorite by far perspective is we get early on in the book. Daryl meets Lysandre for the first time in battle. I’m like, oh shit, here we go. Like, he’s gonna recognize him. He’s gonna do all this stuff.

Nope. Just chaos. Daryl runs through him so quickly. Just fucks up his whole squad. Everything gets dismantled.

And from and from we’re seeing Lysander’s perspective of it, and it’s, like, the most gruesome, like, intense battle. And then the next chapter is Darrow’s perspective, and he’s, like, so, yeah, it was pretty easy. We went through, like, a quick skirmish. That was all he says about it. Yeah.

It’s, like, yeah, we walked by him. No big deal. Other than that, everything’s been pretty easy. I was like, holy shit. So pretty hilarious, but I just love the perspective.

Yeah. I thought that one was funny because of well, maybe not funny. But just how crazy vicious and I know they say berserkers with the obsidian stuff, but how Darryl almost goes berserker when he’s in these battles. And Lysander is not definitely not ready for seeing what this actually looks like. Because Lysandre is he’s never been in a big battle like, he’s been in fights, but never a a battle.

So having this be his first experience and I did like that when he’s coming down in the iron rain, and he’s pretty much shitting his pants, which even though he’s, you know, Octavia Alloon’s grandson, he’s got all of the training necessary. He’s not peerless. He hasn’t been in a fight. So to see that happen, and then the first thing is Darrow’s men, like, basically just crush him immediately and loses an eye and burns all this terrible stuff. He’s, like, Anakin on Mustafar.

It it was, that would that was cool to see. And and Yeah. I do agree with you with the perspectives of two because the the people of Mercury, they’re thinking, yeah. We were enslaved before, but we were alive. Our our hair and teeth weren’t falling out from radiation poisoning.

We weren’t starving and stuck in the crossfires of this battle that’s had been raging. We were, you know, yeah, we were subjugated, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world now that we think about it compared to this. Yeah. It is funny because there are some Reddit threads about this whole decision Darrow to not just let Orion blow up Mercury, and people are pretty torn on it. It’s funny.

It’s like, this philosophy book I’ve got on Audible, you know, when they offer these two for ones. It’s basically like the short history of philosophy or something, and it goes through a bunch of different philosophizers and their ideas. And they talk about that thought experiment of a train’s going down the tracks. It’s about to kill three people. Do you pull the lever?

And so it only kills one. And how that’s seemingly so simple, but everyone will fight for one side or the other. If you pull the lever, you’re now killing that individual person while if you just kind of let it go and kill the three people, that’s not on you. But it feels like Darrows has that choice at every turn he makes. Like, power is tough to wield.

I don’t I wouldn’t even know how you mentally deal with it at the end of the day, especially because a lot of times you’re sacrificing your own men. You know, he pretty much sends Alexander on a suicide mission, and he he loves Alexander. You know, he’s the first person whenever anyone comes back to find their bodies or pretty much like weep over them or try to help them, whatever the case is. He’s so loyal to his people, but he knows that throughout this whole, initially a rebellion, but now trying to hold the republic together, all of his friends are gonna die, which is crazy. He has a nice moment in Sevro’s little his sacred space or whatever, his fortress of solitude in in the ship when he goes into Sevro’s place then.

I thought that was nice. Do you remember that part? Oh, when there’s, like, all these booby mines and stuff. Booby traps and yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That was cool. Yeah. For sure. Speaking about Mercury, that’s that’s my first stock up.

Underrated planet, you know, just in general. I feel like it gets the short end of the Sling Blade, if you know what I’m talking about, when it comes to our discussion outside of this book of the planets. If I was to ask you, Hey, name me another planet in our solar system, I wonder how many you would go through before you got to Mercury. I would guess four or five. And I appreciate that Pierce Brown decided to make it the focal point of dark age.

Do I know anything about Mercury itself? Absolutely not. If someone was to ask me a science question or something like that, I’d be like, Heliopolis is a main city in Mercury. That’s all I really know. But you know, I just thought it was cool how this book is pretty much focused I mean, obviously, there’s a lot going on.

But it’s primarily focused on Mercury and what’s happening there with, you know, the battle of the Ladon and eventually, like, the battle on Heliopolis. And it’s kind of the straw that stirs the drink of the whole story where maybe all of our characters aren’t on Mercury, but it like, what’s happening on Mercury is rippling through everyone else’s story. So I liked it. And before, you know, when we were reading Red Rising or like that, it it wasn’t even addressed. Like, the idea that Mercury it was just Mars and Luna, and now we have an entire thirty hour book that is focused on this battle that’s happening on Mercury.

So I dug it. Yeah. It’s gone wild too because most books are mostly sci fi would be like, oh, yeah. The the main places are is Earth and we’ll give you put points of intersection that you know and we’ll, like, you know, launch from Earth and do all these things from Earth and then we’ll we’ll have side missions maybe on these places. But this is like no Earth is the Earth is a side mission.

If we ever go to Earth, we’ll we’ll talk about it briefly but it’s really more like, whatever. Yeah. They reference Earth like here and there but it’s not That was where the escape was. Right? The person that escaped was on Earth?

Yeah. And then they also launched the the anti rad medication and stuff from Earth. There’s a couple Oh, yeah. Earth mentions in here. Yeah.

It’s, like, but in passing, essentially. Essentially. Yeah. It’s not there’s not big things that are happening on Earth at the moment, at least. And I’m not sure there will be because it seems like the next one’s setting up for Mars.

We’re going back to Mars. Mhmm. So we’ll see how that plays out. What else do you have for stock up? Lyria, stock up.

Oh, you were talking trash last last pod. This is a big book for her. Obviously, these were already written, but I’m pretty sure our boy Pierce Brown saw the notes I gave and immediately implemented them. Literally, the first couple sentences, Lyria says, she’s like, I’m tired of having other people decide my fate and dictate my life. I’m gonna take control.

I’m like, yes. Alright. Alright, Lyria. Let’s go. So she listened to me.

I mean, it also helped that she got, like, the, the implant midway and she became kind of a superhero, which was always nice. You love to see that. Figment. How she got it is pretty much in my mind. They said it’s like an octopus thing with tentacles that bend her body, but it seemed a lot like the matrix.

Right. The matrix. The little thing from the matrix that crawls into his belly button. Yeah. That’s exactly right.

We’re used to the the Red Rising series, Darrow being the smartest one in the room where he gets kinda tricked a couple times but he’s always has something up his sleeve or he always has a plan to outwit people. That’s not the case anymore, you know, where this is the one time Lyrio is like actually kind of fighting back and being the hero. Because we don’t really get much of a hero’s view in these two first two books. So it was really good to see. I also love that, like, red hand kind of revolution or she got her kind of her revenge, like, which is in essence, this book is about always been about the Red Rising series.

It’s just a big revenge book. I like the Red Hand stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a ton of how Harmony was I know she was in Red Rising and whatnot, and she was part of the group that you’d when Mickey carved Darrow initially, she was part of that group. I know she had her own falling out, and that’d be an interesting perspective to hear because she seems like maybe one of the worst people in the book. Like, what she’s doing with the red hand is terrible.

But I did love that storyline, and it kinda came out of nowhere. Like, all of a sudden I mean, I’m gonna talk about it later, but all of a sudden, we got our our three girls together, and they’re kidnapped, and then and then Lyria’s leading this Mission Impossible. It’s her, Tom Cruise, Ana de Armas, leading a Mission Impossible, and it was it was great. It was great. Really enjoyed it.

The right hand kinda gave me vibes of, you know, like, Blood Diamond or there’s another movie of, like like, the African, like, tribes that, like, will take people when they’re young and manipulate them and give them drugs. That was kind of what the vibe I was getting. That or, like, the Taken vibe. Is that what happens in Blood Diamond? There’s another movie too with Idris Elba who does that.

Oh, yeah. African leader. Yeah. That one’s real. That one was a tough one to watch.

That was messed up. That’s like a Netflix movie, and he’s like a war he’s a warlord. I mean, those are two African Yeah. African war movies I’ve seen. That one is more in line with, I feel like, what you’re talking about because that’s, like, child soldiers, and he gets them pretty much addicted to drugs.

Well, that’s what happens at Blood Diamond. They said, I don’t remember. Blood Diamond? I got a rebuttal. Son?

Remember his son is, captured, and they put him into the gang, get him hooked on drugs. He, like, doesn’t recognize his own dad by the end of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I do kinda remember that. Gotta rewatch him. Good movie. My next stock up is the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Quest of the Holy Grail. Sparely a scratch or what is it?

‘Tis but a scratch. Yeah. I feel like he must be distantly related to Darrow. You know, Darrow gets a razor shoved through his body, and he’s like, nah. Tis about a scratch.

He just continues on like he doesn’t have a razor going from his chest to his back. And, you know, he goes back to their base or whatever on Mercury, and he’s walking around talking to people, doing stuff, and, like, he doesn’t have a razor that’s straight through him. He’s checking in on on people that, oh, Alexander’s dead. That sucks. Like, boss, you have a razor sticking through your entire body.

What it what are you doing? It wasn’t clear that he was alive. He’s definitely alive. Chest, and I’m like, that could be where part what part of the chest can you get something through you that won’t kill you? Because if it hits your heart, you’re dead.

If it hits your other side what’s in your other side? This is a biology class now. Keith. Is that your lung? Right?

It’s merely a flesh wound. Alright. Yeah. I’ll bite your legs off. Exactly.

That’s what it doesn’t make sense. Like, Cassius comes, which, by the way, told you Cassius was not dead. I told you. I told you he’d be coming back. Yeah.

And Cassius comes in in the last minute and saves the day. And Lysander says that Darrow, you know, evaded the trap again or whatever the case is, flew the coop. But that’s all we hear about Darrow and and or Cassius for the rest of the book. And granted, it’s, like, towards the end of the book. But what what?

Like, then we hear that he’s Darrow’s dead from his family, but they must not know what happened with him and Cassius. So I’m interested to see what happens. I don’t think they would just kill Darrow without it being more pomp and circumstance. But you you don’t know with Pierce Brown because, a couple of the deaths were like Seraphina, Lysander Land. It’s like, oh, Seraphina just got her head blown off.

So, woah. What? Seraphina was a big character in Iron Gold. Yeah. Yeah.

This book has fully become Game of Thrones at this point Yeah. Where don’t have a favorite character. Don’t get attached to anyone because they they’re very, very good chance they’re dying if their name’s not Darrow. Yeah. I have a I have a note on that, later on.

But, yeah. So Black Knight for Monty Python stock up. What else you got? Last one quick one on summer camps stock up. Oh, did you do summer camp as a kid?

I did briefly. I used to Overnight or daytime? Overnight. Yeah. That was for, like, a week.

A couple buddies really liked it. But I my summer camp was just I made a swim and tennis club. I just my parents dropped me off there every single day, and that that was my summer. Wow. Every single day.

How well did you swim in tennis club? Well, you you’ve seen me before. I’m super stoked. Yeah. You are the whitest person I know and stuff.

No. I mean, it was like a playground. I mean, it’s it’s awesome. Yeah. But anyways, Paxton and Elektra, they’re kind of held as wards or as hostages, but they’re kinda just having a good time.

Right? It sounds pretty fun. They’re, like Great. Practicing against other Obsidian, just dominating the shit out of them fighting. They’re, like, teaching them, which is imagine being, like, 12 years old being, like, these grown adult men, they need your help.

It’s like because they’re not really smart enough. And you’re, like, I can walk them through some shit. And they’re just held in super high regards. They’re basically talking direct. Imagine, like, being 12 and talking to the president of another country and being like, I’ll show you what to do.

I’ll tell you how to work things. So, yeah, it’s a great summer camp for them, elect and I like their dynamic. Like, PAX is Pax is really more, Mustang than than Darrow at this point. Mhmm. But I really like him.

And then Electra is, like, a perfect combination. I mean, both Darrow and Victor are psychos, but she’s you already see that coming through. So I I just I like their dynamics. And You mean Sevro in Victor. What did I say?

You said him. Sorry. But yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Sevro in Victor. Spitting image of her parents, and Pax seems a little more thoughtful. He’s definitely like, I agree.

He’s definitely more Mustang. But Well, also, Daryl hasn’t been around, so Yeah. He’s an absentee father. Pax has a little smart guy to him, the the TV show. He’s seemingly a genius, right, in terms of mechanical understanding, I mean, along with lots of other stuff.

But he just, like, builds bikes or builds crazy stuff that can be done. And he has also has some Anakin Skywalker in him at the end with Ephraim. He’s the pilot and flying this plane and telling everyone else, like, all the other all the other ships in their fleet what to do, and he takes down some spaceship that’s impossible to take down. He does it on his own. It’s, yeah.

He’s like a little Anakin, a little smart guy. I don’t know what’s going on. Woods. He’s Yeah. I guess Fernando Tatis junior, Ken Griffey junior.

I mean, he’s got he’s there. He’s just a child of a prodigy. I mean, that’s I mean, he is a prodigy of because his parents were prodigy. Yeah. Like, is it nepotism if he’s so good?

It it’s not. Right? It’s not like he they’re just being gifted this thing. No. Yeah.

Nepotism is for when you’re, like, given something that you don’t deserve. Like, sports and, fighting and smarts are all things that can’t be just given to you. You have to, like, you have to win them, you know. Yeah. So I mean, he also probably, you know, studied with the best teachers and and whatnot.

Yeah. That’s just more, like, advantages in life, which He’s got that. Can’t really do a lot about that. My next stock up is Helm’s Deep. So I’ll never forget seeing this Two Towers that is.

Lord of the Rings. For those that don’t know what Helm’s Deep is, shame on you. But I’ll never forget seeing it in theaters. My jaw just dropped because the movie itself is very long. And you watch the entire movie, and it gets to Helm’s Deep.

And you’re like, okay. Cool. Like, this is gonna be amazing. Gonna be a little battle, and then something’s gonna happen, but I don’t know yet. Well, it turns into a forty minute battle.

That Helms Deep movie, our Two Towers movie, Helms Deep, forty minute battle, holds the Guinness World Records for the longest cinematic battle. It was insane. So many great moments in that. And that’s pretty much what dark age is. It’s just an entire book of battles.

I mean, obviously, we talked about Mercury. Mercury is just one super long battle. The entire part one of the story is the battle of the Ladan, which isn’t even the entire battle that’s happening on Mercury. It’s just that battle of the Ladan. That’s the entire part one.

You think, oh, we get to a senate chamber. That’s gonna be nothing. Nope. Turns into this everyone’s poisoned, and there’s a battle, and Daxo gets his head ripped off or whatever the case is. I mean, hell, even Lyria is involved in two battles.

She gets a crazy space battle against wild obsidians and then one in a mine against the red hand. She herself takes part in two of them. I think the only place where there isn’t a battle is the spaceship time that it takes to get to a battle. That’s the only time there’s not a battle and the brief time when they’re on Mars with the Obsidians before that ends up turning into a battle. So, yeah, it was, if you like fighting and battle sequences, then this is the book for you because it’s pretty much just one long one.

And usually they wait until I was gonna say they wait until the the third installment before they bring that out, but Lord of the Rings, they did it in the second one. I guess they also did it in the third one, but they did it in the second one. So, yeah, maybe it’s a special with the second book in the series. It’s pretty crazy because if you think back to the original trilogy, there’s not many battles, but most of it was like strategy and manipulation. There’s like one battle, I feel like, in March.

Yeah. Well, they’re like the first book, the, like, Red Rising, they’re like, there’s a ton of skirmishes Yeah. Like battles Yeah. But the best parts of those are not like the battles themselves. It’s like, okay, here’s the strategy of why we’re gonna attack this way is because we need to get into their fort and steal the flat or whatever it may it was like this whole kind of strategy.

This is just like, alright. We gotta get to this point a to point b. Let’s run through some people to do that. Kind of so it is a little different. The only thing that I have a tough time with these kind of battles, and I’ve talked about this before, probably ad nauseam to anyone that listens, but it’s the being able to conceptualize them.

They’re talking like, the numbers they throw out for who’s involved, how many people are involved in these battles is crazy. They say, oh, we have a million legion out there. It’s like, you have a million people fighting? What? We lost a 100,000 in this battle.

How does that even especially with all this advanced technology. It was hard to kinda get. One of the things I did really like is that Lysander pod racing series when they’re trying to escape after after Atlas kinda lets him out and they’re trying to escape. So far. Yeah.

Well, I watched Andor season two. Crushed it. Loved it. So good. And then So good.

I’ve Alright. You you jumped on because you were worried, weren’t you? Yeah. I was worried. It’s so good.

And then over the last three nights when Caroline goes to sleep, I watch Rogue One in pieces. You had to watch Rogue One right away after it. Right away. Yeah. You had to.

Yeah. Caroline’s like, I’m super tired. I think I’m gonna go to bed. I’m like, no. Don’t.

Don’t. That sleepy time tea I slipped you. That was weird. I don’t know why you’re so tired. Yeah.

Rogue on it. It’s so good. It’s all to, like, an end start New Hope, obviously. Whatever. Not either or.

Anywhere. The Lysander Podres you seen, I thought, was super cool because they’re going on these bikes trying to get out of there, trying to get to Darrow’s men or whatever the case is. And there’s these, like, space guns are shooting down at them. You know? It’s like they’re not only getting shot from rail guns by people and snipers and whatnot.

But these space guns that are basically turning the sand to glass right in front of them, them, it was it’d be so cool to see. It’d be so cool to see on a big screen. It’d be so cool. Yeah. Stock up is being captured.

We watched, Man on Fire recently, Denzel. You seen that? Dakota Fanning. Mhmm. Yeah.

It’s about kidnappings in Mexico, Tony Scott movie. The Scott brothers, just love them both. But Great train movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. Unstoppable. Your favorite. But it’s talking about all these kidnappings. And these kids, it says I think it says in the opening credits, like 70% of the kids kidnapped die.

I was like, wow. That’s fucked up. You know, it kinda sets the scene for the whole movie. Not in this world that Pierce Brown has created. I’m pretty sure every main character got captured at some point during this book, and no one no one died out of their being captured as far as I understand.

We got Sevro being captured, Viktra, Lyria, Ephraim, The the list goes on. Obviously, Pax and Electra, no one dies. It’s like no one saw Austin Powers and did the did the Scott evil. Just just shoot them. Person that does it is Lysandre, which I was, like, no class.

Just no honor at all. Wait. When does Lysander do it? He shoots Alexander in the face. Oh, right.

Yeah. Just zero honor. Just none. Don’t You hate to say not necessarily a capture, though. Well, I mean, he also that was, like, the definition of, like, kinda shooting someone in the face by their back type.

I thought I thought it was more to me, it was more of Indiana Jones vibe of I I gotta get out of here. I don’t have the time to fight this guy. I’m gonna pull a gun out and shoot him. He was holding his, girl hostage. Yeah.

And he was like, alright. Like, fight me like a man. He’s like, okay. And he shoots him in the face. Yeah.

Indiana Jones. He’s got the guy coming at him, you know, trying to Well, you could’ve you could’ve been, like, put your weapon down. I’m gonna let you go, but you you’re letting me leave type of thing, but he did. Well, at least he didn’t kill Verona. Right?

Yeah. I guess he could’ve done that. He could’ve just Anyways He just broke a gun. Honor. Yep.

Okay. But, yeah, being captured, it’s not a big deal. You know? You’re you’re not a big deal. It’s a good point.

Yeah. Yeah. Let’s jump into stock down. What do you got for stock down? Being a battle worn vet, stock down, Darrow has been fighting wars for ten plus years now.

He’s we’ve already talked about he’s the ultimate strategist, strategist, whatever the word is. Mhmm. He’s pretty much seen every battle. He’s fought in every single type of one on one situation. He he he knows everything.

He’s rugged. He’s he has also, he’s, like, on the side training and, like, getting better. He’s constantly trying to, like, improve. I might be from book three. Sorry.

However, we see Lysandre. He gets dropped in the iron rain. He’s shitting himself. He’s terrible at fighting. Then he kinda goes in the mind eye mind’s eye, and then the next thing we know, he’s unbelievable.

But he’s beaten Darrow one on one. Riding a giant horse? Yeah. He’s, like, kinda become the superhero overnight. And I was like, what did he he has he been putting the time in or putting any sort of like, the thing with, like, a lot of these guys like Cassius, they they’re bred to be warriors.

They grew up, dueling. They grew up thinking about strategy. Even Pax is that’s happening too. They go to the academy. They fucking murder someone with their bare hands when they’re 16.

They’re they’re bread. Yeah. What the fuck has Lysandre done? He’s been a little bitch boy. I feel like Lysandre almost has a a little Jedi to him.

He’s got some some Mark Hamill aspects in that he has done his training. Right? Cassius has done all of his training, so in terms of one on one sword fighting. He’s also had talk about the trauma that he had growing up with his grandmother. You know, he tells this story about she walks up the stair, like, 250 stairs, and she blindfolded him and said, okay.

Go walk back down. He’s like, wait. What? And and then she threw a bunch of bird seed and totally messed just all this actual trauma to get him the right mind’s eye. What are you doing?

But I think the mind’s eye is almost like a Jedi superpower where he’s able to see things in a different way. And because of that, it makes him better. He just really hadn’t exercised that muscle enough in the moment that he needed it. You know? And so he does it in this book, and he’s a fast learner.

So he’s gonna quickly get on top of it. I do agree that, yeah, Darrow’s a badass and is maybe underrepresented, but at the same time, Darrow has this small force where Lysander’s at the end commanding a massive force. So it’s also that factor. So no matter how good you’re gonna be, when you go up for against, you know, 10 to one, it’s like Thermopylae. Yeah.

Those Spartans were good, but they still all died. Yeah. Alright. I I I just I would have been fine with Darrow fighting someone that’s like well nutritioned, hasn’t been out in the sun. Because like Lysandre’s had just as bad of a time in this war.

His whole voyage to get out of the desert was just as bad as Darrow’s, if not worse, where his whole whole face is torn off. Yeah. He stops on a landmine. He gets captured in a net. He’s, like, sitting out there, then he’s starved in prison for a bunch of days.

He it didn’t seem like he got enough medical attention for all the things that were going on to him. Right? Yeah. Well, I think the whole point is, like, when you see people get wounded, casualties in these wars is not a big deal if you’re a gold because, like, they’re expected and they have such good medical stuff now that they’ll just treat you up real quick. Whereas, like, probably if you’re a foot soldier, yeah, you know, not good.

Okay. My first stock down is habituation. Are you familiar with that word? Habitual means often. So habituation must mean oftenly at chewing.

Are you just pulling habituation from being a habitual line stepper? Yes. That’s right. I love that. So it’s a psychological human condition.

Right? It the the diminishing of a psychological or emotional response to a frequently repeated stimulus. So an example would be if you live in the city like New York City and there’s always a lot of sounds going on beeping horns, ambulances, all that stuff you eventually get used to it where you can clearly hear something that’s quieter or the fact that you’re able to sleep without any problems because you’re just totally used to that noise is habituation. Or let’s say that you go to and sit in a porta potty at, like, a music festival or something, and it smells absolutely terrible, but you have to poop. And you’re in there for five minutes, and then all of a sudden, it doesn’t smell so bad because, you know, you’ve gotten you’re habituating that, that scent.

You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Okay. So it’s a stock down because I love the porta potty example. I didn’t understand anything you said before that, and you told me that example.

I said, gotcha. Yeah. Locked in back. Now you get it. And you’re, like, very comfortable episode in the porta potty.

You’re like, this isn’t that bad. What was I upset about this? Yeah. Exactly. And you leave, and you’re like, Jesus Christ.

That was terrible. What did I thinking? Yeah. I mean, it’s even even at home. You know?

I might have a number two, and then the wife goes in there. She’s like, that smells absolutely rancid. No. It it smells good when you do it. That’s flies.

Roses. Once you go back, you realize, oh, yeah. That indeed does. So at first, with this book, I was taken aback with Tunglass’ death. We had just kind of gotten to know this odd Obsidian who seems pretty cool.

I’m like, oh, he’s gonna join the crew. This is gonna be really fun, and then he dies. It’s like, oh, well, that’s terrible. I’m really upset because I wanted to enjoy Tunglas more. By the time Ephraim dies at the end, I was like, oh, that’s too bad.

And then I just moved on to the next page. You know? He was Yeah. Your favorite character in the last book. He was I think mine or him and Lyria were up there for me.

I know. It was Ephraim. I I love Ephraim. I loved him in this book too. He was so good.

Mhmm. But there are just so many deaths that I had that habituation response to all of it where towards the end, it it it evokes no stimuli for me. I was not I was not stimulated in one way. I mean, check out this list. You got tongueless, Seraphina, Orion, Dancer, Daxo, Theodora, Freyhild, Ulysses, Harmony, Cephe, Xenophon, Ephraim, Alexander, Kalimdorra, all of them die in this book.

It’s Yeah. It’s wild, and some of them were characters from way the way back. Some of them were characters in iron gold. But iron gold’s a long book, so we really got to know these people. And and some of them were characters in iron gold and then in this book, and, you know, they’re all of a sudden gone.

It was it was wild to me. So, yeah, it’s it’s I like that Pierce Brown has kind of become, you know, George r r Martin where, like you said, don’t get too close to anyone because eventually they’re probably just gonna die. But at some point, it starts to lose its effect on me. And I’m almost purposefully not attached so that I can’t get hurt. Yeah.

No. I was gonna say that Ephraim, that that’s when it really solidified. Oh, this this is just Game of Thrones because you it was a really good character arc. He got back to Volga. You see that nice Yeah.

And he says, like, you’re my Etta. Like, you’re my family. It’s so nice. It was great. And we’re gonna send you off to here and you’re like, uh-oh.

No. That’s not don’t do that. That’s not good. You you they knew they weren’t just gonna be like, you know, here’s a quick meeting. I’ll come back to Volga.

We’ll be good to go. He was, like, uh-oh. Yeah. But then he’s got the whole ploy of always got the thing in his shoe. He’s gonna blow the other guy up.

He’s gonna get out of this. But I don’t even honestly know how it happened. It was, like, it went from him blowing the other guy up to all of a sudden That was was a suicide vest type move. Right? I think.

Was it? I don’t think so. But I think he knew it was gonna blow them all up. I think I think he knew I think he’s not even getting out of it. Okay.

Yeah. Well, fuck. Terrible. Terrible. Yeah.

I’m sad to not have Efrem. And Volga’s I’m I’m excited to see what happens with Volga because she she really grown me on this book. Do you have other stock downs? Yeah. Last one is just, Will Hunting stock down.

Good. You ever see Jay inside of Bob Strike Back? Of course. In theaters. Souls, The second Good Will Hunting, Good Will Hunting two they’re filming.

Remember that? Where where they’re like, now I’ve hit the books. I mean, you’ve lost a step and you’re no longer the young, hungry, angry guy anymore. And he’s like, uh-oh, you know? And so there’s a whole scene where they replay the, what you reading, Gordon Wood, you know, type thing.

How about them apples? So yeah. Apple supplies. And yeah. And and Will Hunting no longer is the the step.

That’s that’s what I think I I mentioned earlier. That’s what this book has become. We’re we’re in we’re in the the second version and the guy that’s the the hero that, you know, the scrappy, young, angry person is no longer the leader and the person that’s outthinking everyone. Everyone’s doing what he’s, been doing previously. So it’s tough it’s tough to watch.

And I mentioned, like, Lyrio being the only one that’s really kind of playing the hero role. But everyone else is kinda just, like, not the smartest person in the room anymore. You’re just kinda waiting to see how they react to something that they when they get third thrown a curve ball. So they’re, like, no longer taking initiative of now this is what we’re gonna do. They’re not gonna see us coming.

It’s not, like, well, they saw that coming. So this is what we have to do now. Like, oh, shit. They they are once up ahead of us again. You know, you look to, like, Lysander doing this.

You look to, like, Atlanta just done it multiple times. All these these people are kind of outsmarting them. Yeah. Lewis Talk to watch. And, the the clone.

Yeah. Yeah. The Yeah. Mustang was way behind. Her whole story arc in this one, unfortunately, is Yeah.

Yeah. What happened to Mustang being, like, the smartest person in the room? Like, she is not she is really not She’s well, now she’s trying to she has to get so many people on board to do stuff. She can’t just, like, do it on her own, or she tried to, but couldn’t. I don’t know exactly.

The whole thing is her saying she’s gonna save Darrow and then doesn’t, and then her feeling guilty because Cassius flew in there with one plane. It’s Rogue One. They didn’t wanna go and go to Scarif and get the plan, so they had to get Rogue One to do it. It’s the same same idea for those people following along. But, yeah.

Her her storyline’s okay. Unfortunately, I’m starting to like Lysandre a lot. I think he’s got his mind in the right place. He just needs to fine tune it. And I I don’t know how it’s gonna end, and I’m excited for the next book because of that.

He obviously wants whatever it was in the past with Gold, you know, being the head of the society. But he he’s a good person. You know, when he goes in the desert and he tries to mercy kill those reds who were impaled by Atlas, he you know, he’s he’s they’re reds. He has no reason to do that. He he was raised to believe that they’re not even human pretty much, but he does that even though it it backfires on on him.

But I’m just interested to see what becomes of him because he seems like he’s got his head in the right place, but it’s still not tuned exactly right. So how will this change now with the information at the end of the book that his grandmother assassinated his parents because, you know, his mom seemed like she was down with whatever her grandma her mom was not doing. I think it was probably her mom. But, you know, they she wanted to end the chaos that was happening within Gold. So we’ll see.

But but I like I like his character. So I’m I’m interested. I mean, you like him more than I do, I think. I I I think he’s very he still is, like, wants to do the class system which obviously, you know, I think is not if you had these type of people like a Lysander on your side for the Republic working to make that work, that would be more productive than him saying, well, the old way was really good for me. And, yeah, everyone else suffered.

Whatever. At least we had peace then. If he was like, you know what? I’m gonna reset the society, but I’m gonna become a red once it’s preset. Fine.

I respect that. You can’t be like, let’s reset to the society, and I’ll be at the top of it again. It’s like, no. That you’re not doing that for anyone but yourself. Yeah.

I think he can find somewhere in the middle that will fit everyone’s needs, but I have no idea. And I honestly don’t want this story to end cleanly. Like, there should be some area where you’re wondering, well, how is this gonna work out? What’s my thought? My next stock down, Eli Roth, stock down.

You familiar with Eli Roth and Glorious Bastards? What’s his what’s his name? The Jew bastard? The Bear Jew. Bear Jew?

Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. He’s also a great, screenwriter and and director. He’s directed a couple horror movies that you might be familiar with.

One, Hostel, to Green Inferno. I don’t know if you saw that one. I have not. Oh. I’m not big I’m not a big horror movie guy.

That’s too bad. Yeah. Hostel is known for how grotesque it is. And Green Inferno, which I have seen, equally grotesque. Yeah.

That that’s messed up. If if anyone wants to go watch that Amazonian tribe kind of thing, people go into some kids go into the woods to think they’re helping, you know, save the rainforest or whatever or help these lost tribes, and then the tribes just end up absolutely boiling them alive and messed up stuff. So, yeah, Eli Roth’s known for doing this kind of gruesome and grotesque horror movies, but Pierce Brown is out here making him look like a Pixar director with the shit that he’s got going on in this one. Like, Sephi’s death? Are you kidding me?

Yeah. That was rugged. What’s his I had this in my Luvs, by the way, but go go on. You had Sephi’s death in your Luvs? I had I had the the ruggedness of this book.

It went zero to it’s used to be a You book. Remember that? Yeah. For for a hot minute, it was a You book. And Yeah.

This is he’s telling her that she’s Sephi the Quiet so you can go to Valhalla if you stay quiet. As I legitimately peel your back off, cut through your ribs and rip your lungs out. You have to stay quiet throughout that whole experience. And then eat your heart? Yeah.

Yeah. And then eat your heart. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Ulysses’ death. Ulysses is a two hour old baby and they nail him upside down to a tree after bashing his skull in. Excuse me? What? Pierce, who hurt you?

Who hurt you? This is some fucked up shit. And that’s not even to mention all of the heads split in half and eyes popping out and people burning to death in terribly gruesome ways. Guys getting their legs blown off and drowning in bat guano until some sort of centipede eats them as they’re drowning in bat guano. Like, crazy.

Crazy. Pierce. I love it. It’s wild. It’s some wild stuff.

I just don’t know what’s going on in your head. But, you know, you see interviews with the guy. He seems like such a nice and unassuming man. But he’s got some he’s got some dark shit dark shit going on in his head that all came to that all came out. That might answer my question from the the first one.

What do you mean the first one? The the first one, I was like, I know. What’s going on with this guy? Because you can’t be a writer and be that attractive. Writers are just fucking curmudgeons that sit at home and type on the computer.

They look like me. You know? You can’t you can’t be both good looking and a a writer. Like, that’s not allowed to fall. George R.

Martin. Exactly. I was always like, there’s something off with this guy. I don’t trust him. And, yeah.

I’m just jealous of him immensely. Yeah. Well, that’s it. He’s just sick in the head. Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. For our benefit because it it is Yeah. Descriptive in a great and horrifying way.

Do you have like a favorite part or favorite storyline throughout this one? We talked a bunch about different things. So any of those? Yeah. I think I mentioned Lyria.

I mean, I think all of the bad guy storylines were pretty good and good twists. Like the I mean, the red like, the thing is like the red wedding, you hate that type of thing. Right? But it’s such good. It’s so entertaining.

Yeah. I had that same exact feeling when the the poison stuff went down in the senate. I was like, oh, shit. And then, like, people start rioting, you know. That was that was a tough thing to to read.

Yeah. When they’re ripping the I was scared it was gonna get into, like, rapey territory with Mustang because people are grabbing at her and stuff like that, and that’s that skeeves me out. Luckily, it was just insane violence. But, yeah. I agree with you.

That was That whole process and then the turn of, like, where the I mean, this always happens where, like, someone thinks they’re doing something for, like, the benefit of the society. They’re, like, oh, I’m gonna, like, stab someone in the back, to help out, like, what I think. Oh, like, plebeas or whatever? Yeah. They’re not the one that’s actually they’re like the puppet.

The initial reason that you do try over to the government’s good and then the per most powerful person takes over and says, yeah, that’s cute. We’re actually gonna do what I wanna do. Now you do you’re doing it for a valid reason maybe, but, yeah, we’re not doing that actually. Yeah. That was another big miss by Mustang when she thought whatever that guy’s name was, Plebeus or Plutarch.

I don’t even remember what the guy’s name was. She’s like, oh, he’s behind this thing, but he’s an idiot. So why would she think that he was behind it? There was obviously something else going on. So Well, he was a good actor.

So I mean I guess you know? Like, she was he was able to hide it for this long, so that means you’re pretty good at something. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think the I already mentioned the Ephraim story arc.

I think it’s a great story arc in Red Rising fashion. We we get that arc and you feel like, oh, now he’s gonna be like a hero and he’s gonna, like, go maybe to Mercury and help out or he’s gonna do it and it’s like, now he’s dead. Yeah. So all those things combined, I would say Lyria in general was the best, but the the bad guy stuff was kinda really took the cake in this one. Yeah.

It’s funny because I agree with you. The odd throuple was my favorite with, Lyria, Volga, and Viktra. We have Peerless Scarred Gold. We got an Obsidian potential queen and a Red Gamma who somehow find themselves all together. It’s it’s a little pulp fiction.

They find themselves in the basement and they got the gimp coming at them. And even though they’re adversaries, they all get together for this one moment to fight the Red Hand. They found a common enemy. And it all really stems around Lyria for sure. But Volta and Viktor are also just some badass stuff.

I mean, Viktor Viktor is, like, an absolute animal when Lyria finally gets her going. But Lyria’s plan was cool. It was it was almost a story within a story, that whole red hand, Lyria situation in the mines. Her getting all those wives or girls that are gonna be wives on her side and planting these teeth in them. It was very creative and just cool.

It was a really cool Yeah. And her stuff. Like punching the shit out of the one girl that thinks she thought I was gonna be a rat. I was like, alright, Larry. Alright.

Yeah. Now you got me. Now I’m on like, that’s why I was she’s my favorite character. That’s That girl’s gonna be a rat. So cool.

I’m not gonna kill her, but I’m gonna break her jaw so she can’t speak. Yeah. She went zero to a 100 real, real quick this morning. I love it. Shattered jaws happening in here.

Yeah. We’ve seen Mission Impossible two. Yeah. So I mean Good one. Good call.

I know they can heal stuff like the medicis or whatever can heal pretty much anything. And with carving Yeah. Everyone can be fixed. You know? Ephraim loses a leg and he’s got a new leg.

No big deal, which is a real necessary part of what Pierce Brown created in this universe because otherwise, people would be dying of infections and gangrene and no one would speak again because of broken jaws all all the time. So it was smart to include that kinda that kinda stuff. We have a bunch of new characters. I don’t even know if you had a favorite one or if it was one from the old ones. Or is it just Lyria because she stepped up so much for this one?

I think that was the biggest one. Let me what about you? Yeah. Well, you know, you got Alexander. You got Atlas.

You got, Ajax. Obviously, Lilith, the clone. You know, there’s a bunch of mostly the bad guys really are the are the new people. There aren’t a ton of, new good guys. So, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I didn’t necessarily have I like Volga. I once again, I like Ephraim. I think because of Ephraim’s storyline and the way it ended, there’s some closure there. So I can say, okay.

Yeah. I I really liked how Ephraim changed. But, yeah, no. I think PAX is really growing up. The next book might be setting up for, like, a PAX jackal situation the way his dad had with the jackal, but now it’s PAX because now they’re both kids.

It’s gonna be a battle of 12 year olds, so should be interesting. But not necessarily, like, a favorite. There’s just so much jumping around, and maybe it’s a love for me, but I did love how even though there’s so much going on, the way Pierce Brown broke it up where it wasn’t like one chapter of one character and then we jump to another character and then we have to, you know, jump back to the first one and we don’t know how we got there, he did, like, segments, like, four chapter segments. So it’d be sticking with one character for four chapters. Okay.

We got a bunch of stuff going on and then there was a, you know, a clean break, and then did another character, and then we came back to them. So I like I like how we did that. But because of that, it didn’t necessarily create, you know, one character that became something that I could really focus on. But because I said love, let’s just jump into love hate. What what did you love about Dark Age?

The biggest thing is you could never ever predict what’s gonna happen next in this book. Most most of these type of books, you’re like, alright. Well, it’s gonna follow these beats and then eventually it’s gonna end up here. There’s something like, it could end in the bad guys could win. I have no I have no idea.

Yeah. You know? And as much as I love, like, a Mitch wrap series, they introduce the bad guy and I can usually be like, well, he’s greedy and he’s this and this. So he’s his own greed is gonna be his downfall. You know, like that’s what’s gonna happen.

You know, like, you can kinda see the weaknesses in their character and be like, this is probably what’s gonna cost them. And this is the one you could just get a bull to the head like Alexander for no nothing. You know? Yeah. There’s no They build Alexander’s character up.

Oh, okay. Great. He’s Lorna Arkos’ grandson. Okay. Cool.

He’s gonna be a big character and at least have, a sword fight or a razor battle with Lysander who’s also studied the Willow Way or whatever the thing is. Or that’s just a stance. The Willow Way is from, Shogun. But that’s about sex. But you think he’s gonna have, you know, some sort of fight, and it just turns into no.

He’s just shot in the head dead. Boom. See you later. Yeah. I mean that’s that’s really the the biggest thing and then you already mentioned I I just love the the ruggedness of it.

The zero to a 100 a lot of the the scenes. I just think that makes it it makes it cringe at the time but it makes it very memorable. That’s for sure. I I remember the the first book when the jackal cut his arm off. Mhmm.

That was when I was like, holy shit. This is a different type book, you know. Like, it’s so rugged to think about and he’s only been like, well, I gotta up it now. Like, I think I keep upping it. You don’t think he could but the next thing you know there’s a baby that’s getting his head smashed in and it’s nailed to a tree and you’re like, how so what is the next book gonna entail?

I I don’t even understand. So, yeah, definitely the brutality and ruggedness for sure. I like the tech in this one. I love the tech was pretty cool. The storm gods were a fun little feature that they it was, like, ancient technology that they dug out of the ice and used in on Mercury.

That was fun. The Drakenjagers, which are it’s basically the iron giant, I guess, that people control. Like, Rona is now I don’t know. Whatever they a pilot for it or whatever the case is, but you have to have all the you have to get hooked into it almost like in the matrix once again with all the Mhmm. The ports on your body and stuff.

And they have hundreds of them, and I wanted to say they said they were, like, a 100 feet tall or something crazy, like, 40 feet tall. I don’t know. Seems wild to me, but they were super cool. Psycho spikes, you know, whatever the chair is that Mustang has like from Octavia Loon, that thing seemed pretty wild. Whatever they did to, who was the guy that was in the syndicate that they interrogated, and she knew what he was gonna say because she basically, like, erased his memory.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was a pretty cool scene with her where she was showing some some of her interrogation tactics there. And then obviously, whatever Lyria is becoming with that parasite in her, she is now Figment. It seems like Figment is this parasite.

So, she is now Figment. So, what is that gonna give her? She has a little superhero story arc thing going on, so I can I can dig that? I thought the new tech that he added was fun was fun for this one. Yeah.

What about hate? Same as last one with the names. I realized what the issue was and I actually for book three, I’ve kind of started to figure all of them out. So it’s gonna be easier for whatever reason. Maybe it’s just repetitiveness or thirty hours of listening has finally helped me.

But the Atlas, Atlantia, Apollonus, Au, everything Yeah. Those are all what that fucks me up. And they call people by different names, but things. So, like, what’s Cassius’ like Alun or something? Uh-huh.

Or Yeah. So like that’s so I’ll I’ll get a name down in that, like, so there’s just too many of those things. Alright. Yeah. Give me some no non a names or give me like a just like a there’s a Joey crack over there.

He’s he’s, you know. Yeah. They’re like, oh, it’s a bolono. An Alexander, the other in there. I’m like, can we get another a non a name?

Is that all that kind of bolono? Or yeah. I come from the Juli’s. It’s like, wait. Who who what?

What? The only one I know is Barca because it’s Sevro, Al Barca. It’s like, okay. Barca. Got it.

Sevro. So I’m starting to figure out the other ones. But, yeah, you are right. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of a names. Everyone has an a in their name, at least.

Looking up the summaries, I was like, who’s Orian? Who the fuck is this person? That’s overnished. Yeah. Nice.

That’s why you don’t Whoops. That’s why you listen to audiobooks. Yeah. I agree with you. It’s the only other thing that I really hated.

Well, there’s two. But one is that there’s a lot of characters, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But based on the Red Rising Wiki, there are 92 characters in this book, and they’re all in different places but all Yeah. Intertwined. And so I was just so confused.

At the end, Darrow’s talking to Harnassus as he has a fucking razor through his chest, and he’s having a chat, a stop and chat with Harnassus. And I’m like, Who the hell is Harnassus? And I had to look up that, Oh, right. At the beginning of the book, he’s the guy who they put on Mercury to lead or, you know, he’s their governor or whatever of Mercury that he was chatting with at the beginning. But I was like, between he was the first character that you introduced in this book, and we’ve had 90 since then.

I don’t remember this guy. Yeah. Yeah. And all the Obsidian names, I was that was really tough for me was that Ephraim storyline and Pax and Elektra with everything that was happening with the different Obsidians because he had one guy’s like a shaman, and then the other guy is, like, Sephi’s boy toy. Was he a blue or something?

And I don’t know. Yeah. It was I was very confused with the Obsidians, unfortunately, because I feel like I didn’t get enough out of that story because I wasn’t exactly sure who was doing what. Like, oh, they killed Cepheys Griffin. It’s Thegalopolis.

I’m like, wait. Who’s the who’s the what’s that guy? Oh, that’s her husband. Yeah. Yeah.

Why? Oh, then then they’re like, it won’t Okay. Not just me. That was Turns out it wasn’t him that did it. It was this other guy.

I’m like, wait. Who is that guy? So, yeah, that was tough. And then my only other hate, and this one is, like, an actual hate, and I was kinda pissed off when I got here, but a clone trope, really? Yeah.

Yeah. I was gonna bring it up too. Come on. Oh, the jackal’s back. No.

Come on. No. Absolutely not. We had the jackal. The jackal is gone.

Let’s move on. You’re killing so many people. Now you just open the whole clone idea. It’s like, well, just clone Darrow. Now Darrow’s clone.

Like, Avatar. Have you seen the new one? No. Well, I started No. I watch every movie I see.

I watch it till it’s completed no matter how bad it is. Still have not finished that movie, and I loved Avatar. Yeah. It was it was fine. It’s kinda like, watching Happy Gilmore two.

If you go in being like, this is gonna be the best movie all of all time, you’re not you’re gonna be very disappointed. It’s it’s kinda what you expect. But Happy Gilmore two, they’re not spending $2,000,000,000 to make the movie and that this is gonna be super sweet, and then it’s just a story about this little boy clone or whatever the thing is. I I don’t care. It is a clone.

Yeah. It’s a bad guy clone in that one too. So, anyways but, I agree with you. It is there’s, like, zero tropes to to add this in as, like, a well, I mean, it’s a kind of a cop out, and you have so many good bad guy characters that you don’t really need him anymore. Yeah.

It’s like Lilith couldn’t be behind it. Who is it? Oh, it’s a I mean, at least he did it in a cool enough way where it is a clone, but it’s not him. You know, usually, when it’s a clone, it’s like this is the exact same person. He just introduced the same character.

Yeah. So it is and it isn’t him. So there I feel like there’s gonna be some interesting stuff there, but at the same time, we’re done with the Jackal. Move on. Let’s there’s all other bad guys to choose from.

Just move on. Yeah. No. I agree. That that and the like, we just didn’t really get enough Sevro in this book.

Like, that does too big. I first wrote it down. But, yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking before. No Sevro. And when we do see Sevro for that one interrogation scene, it’s awesome.

And it’s like, oh, this this really sucks because she’s so good, and we get and we get almost none. Yeah. When the lights turned off, I was like, Sevro is here. Let’s go. And I was like, no.

It’s not here. He’s still back. He’s still captured. I was like, oh. Yeah.

Lights turned off. I was like, is that Sevres music? He was like, no. Yeah. It’s it’s like in the WWE when they start the music, but then they change it to someone else’s.

We got Vince McMahon. Alright. Well, that was Dark Age, a thirty hour book. I think we did it in an hour, so not bad for us. Who is the book for, and how many buddies are you giving it out of five?

Yeah. I mean, I think we already know who it’s for. It’s for Red Rising fans. I think this can be suggested to epic fantasy followers again like we talked about last one. So I think the first series, anyone could do this.

This is a you gotta be kinda strapped in. You gotta be you gotta be a little bit more, ready for the fantasy and the the, the gore element that you’re gonna face here. I give it a 4.25. I think it was better than the last one. I still think it’s not as good as the first trilogy still.

It’s thirty hours. I was happy every time I got in my car I could listen to it. There’s been plenty, plenty of books that that’s not been the case. This is, over four all day for me. What about you?

Yeah. I like how you said that where you could read the first trilogy and not be necessarily, like, super in not necessarily, like, into it, but you don’t have to be as invested in that trilogy, I feel like, as you would to read this one because it’s so much more intense. You have to pay attention more. You really have to be invested in the characters to be able to get through it. And I don’t mean get through it like it’s tough read because I agree every time I picked it up I really enjoyed it.

And it took me a while, but I was listening to it in like five hour stretches. Like, once I picked it up, I just couldn’t stop. I give four. It’s a four buddies out of five. I think the other ones are the first trilogy is still better to me.

And, really, the only it’s amazing. Just the only downside is that I couldn’t necessarily follow with the characters. But it’s so creative. Like, any Brandon Sanderson fan, I feel like could enjoy this even though they might initially feel like it’s not nearly on the same scope. But once you get to this series, it’s like, oh, this is Brandon Sanderson’s scope.

So yeah. Yeah. For sure. Alright. Well, what do we got coming up next?

Book six. We’re gonna finish this thing out. Book six is Lightbringer. So I think this is the end of the trilogy. There might be a seventh.

I’m not positive. I gotta look that up. Yeah. I well the seventh is out. I I think that he might be writing a seventh though.

But yeah, so we’ll jump into that and then probably try to find some shorter, summer reads after that to, to cool down with. Yeah. So Yeah. I’m I’m very much enjoying it but these are, these are long books and I like how we’re mixing up some long ones and then we’ll we’ll slide back With our Harry Potter thing, at least we had some movies to cut in between, and this one’s just like, well Yeah. Yeah.

You know? We don’t we don’t like to have this long of a hiatus, but we we gotta we gotta, you know, sometimes you gotta read the long ones. It is what it is. Alright, Keith. Well, that was Dark Age.

Thanks for chatting it out and for providing that summary at the top because that was helpful to rack my brain. I haven’t started Lightbringer, so I’ll start it now. It was, it was fun chatting with you, and I’ll talk to you, for Lightbringer. Indeed. Alright.

Alright. Bye now. Bye now.

The Buddies are back from their extended hiatus (sorry vacations, bats, and constipation got in the way) to tackle Pierce Brown’s “Iron Gold,” the fourth book in his Red Rising series. The first trilogy currently sits #1 in both Keith and Dman’s rankings, so big expectations for this one. The Buddies got to revisit their old friends Darrow, Severo, Mustang, and many more along with some new friends as well. Did Iron Gold meet the Buddies high standards? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out. So, grab your razor, practice your “Hail Reaper” salute (but maybe not in public), and join the Buddies as they navigate Pierce Brown’s expanded universe of morally questionable heroes and volume-inconsistent narrators! 

Intro (0:00-3:13)

Stock Up/Down (3:14-34:25)

Favorite Scene/Character (34:26-41:40)

Love/Hate (41:41-50:36)

Conclusion (50:37-53:25)

NEXT BOOK: Dark Age (Red Rising Book 5) by Pierce Brown

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

Alright. Welcome to my book club. I’m Dylan here with the last bone rider. Keith, what’s up, buddy? D man, my good man.

It’s been a bloody damn long time. It really has. I feel like it’s been this is one of our longer hiatuses. You were on vacation. It’s a long book.

Things happen. But here at the Buddy Book Club, we’re breaking down some bestsellers, and this week, we’ll be discussing twenty eighteen’s Iron Gold by Pierce Brown, our boy. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out about any past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybookclub.com. Sign into our DMs on x or Instagram, that’s buddy book club podcast. You can listen to us iTunes, Spotify, radio podcasts.

Actually, a lot of people listen on I guess it’s not iTunes, it’s like Apple podcasts. So I don’t know why I always say iTunes, but whatever. Download, subscribe, five star review, please, and thank you. So Keith, our buddy Pierce Brown came out with the Red Rising trilogy in 2014, hammered them out one year after another, 2014, 2015, 2016. We’ve initially fell in love with Red Rising, which is interesting because if from what I understand, if you ask people to rank both series, like the two trilogies, they would put and this is conjecture, so what do I know?

But they would put either Red Rising or Iron Gold at the bottom, which means Iron Gold must be fire because we loved Red Rising. Yeah. Yeah. The first book. Yeah.

So we create those out back to back back to back years. And then I guess he thought he was gonna be done with the whole series, which is interesting because he left a lot of things open in Morningstar. But 2018, he decided to, you know, follow-up his trilogy with a with another trilogy which takes place ten years later. So the war has been going on for for ten years. I didn’t think much of it when I heard that there was a second trilogy.

Potentially a money grab in my opinion, and I say that with no judgment at all to Pierce because you gotta squeeze that IP for all it’s worth. I I respect it. I mean, you don’t have to go like George Lucas level, but one level below that is is totally fine for me. But you had heard that these were good books and we’re in kind of this summer beach read season. And even though they’re long, I still feel like they fit the beach read for the sci fi fantasy group.

Would you agree? Yeah. I think they’re we’re getting into more of an adult sci fi now. Like the first ones, I think you could get away with saying they’re You. I didn’t think they were at the time.

But this these are like now we’re getting a lot more characters. We’re getting the rim. We’re getting Mars. We’re getting Venus. We’re getting every planet out there.

You have to remember a lot of characters. So it’s a little different. It’s a little more, grown grown up Red Rising for for the kids. Yeah. And you like everything involving rimming.

Right? Right. I’m a big rim guy. I stick around the rim. Not just in basketball and in other things.

You know? In your personal life. The Right. The that trip to Italy, things you know, the different way of loving is rubbed off on you. So with that, we can just jump right into stock up, stock down.

Keep whatever stock up. Stock up, Harvey Dent. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. No true words ever been spoken, but my boy, Darrow, it was a tough book for Darrow. We come in and you think he’s a family man now.

He’s at home and he’s trying to help set up the this new society. Nope. He’s he’s been at war for ten years. Barely sees his kids, his wife. He’s kinda going against the Republic for and for all of which it stands.

The A little of America in there? Yeah. When we get to him and he’s like, I did all this stuff for the Republic to win the war, and they’re like, fuck you. And he’s like, instead of being like, alright. Whatever.

Like, you don’t you don’t need me then. Like, I’m the I’m the, like, the the dude that brought you this. You don’t need me. We’ll we’ll see what happens then. And waiting for them to, like, come to him groveling and be like, you know, alright.

We were wrong. He he’s like, no. I’m right. And and then kind of instead of, like, saying screw you, he kinda is like, screw you, but I’m gonna also go do my own thing again. He kills Wolfgar, which was, like, one of his buddies and to escape, which I I didn’t care for either.

You don’t pull your razor out unless you ex wanna kill someone. He’s like, I didn’t mean to. It’s like, well then don’t pull the razor out. And then the biggest thing really is that makes me question everything is that Sevro, his right hand man, his ride or die from been there since day one. Once he starts disagreeing with you, you know you’re fucking up.

You know what I mean? Like, that’s that’s like the really the pulse check. He should really be checking in with him more being like, yo, am I doing the right thing? Because because Sevro is the the guy that will almost always be like, yo, yeah. Absolutely.

You’re you know what you’re doing. You’re doing it. Yeah. Sevro’s gonna tell you how it is. Yeah.

And then when he starts saying you’re not doing what you you’re supposed to be doing, then we got issues. So I just think it was a tough book for for Darrow, and I’m hoping the next two books, we we see the old Darrow. Yeah. But I think and and this is this is probably the biggest thing for me in this book, so I’m glad you brought it up first. Also, you ruined one of my stock downs, which was rat or die guy stock down because Dara doesn’t give a shit about Severo anymore.

Like, well, you know, and and Severo just leaves him, which I feel like Severo would’ve in my mind, Severo would’ve had a little bit more of a blowout before leaving him in in previous books. But time has changed. People change. You know, you ended that, very well said stock up with, I hope we see more of the old Darrow going forward. But that might be the problem, is it seems like Darrow hasn’t really changed.

And the old Darrow was what they needed for this revolution, but now that there’s a government in place and the Vox populi, which is important, that’s the voice of the people, you have these things in place so that everyone is represented, but Daryl wants to be the commander in chief during wartime. He wants to be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, how he sees fit, but you’ve built a bureaucracy now. You know, you’ve built a bureaucracy that’s not just gold. The bureaucracy is all colors, and with this big bureaucracy that’s solar system wide, things don’t move as fast as Darrow wants, and when things don’t move in his favor, he instead of just say, okay. That’s the way it is, he pushes back.

And that’s why eventually, you know, an arrest warrant comes out for him. So I’m wondering if this is the Darrow the Darrow of old is still the Darrow of today, and that’s not not the right Darrow for the situation. Because, you know, when we had the first trilogy, Darrow was almost like Maximus from Gladiator, and that’s probably how it should have ended for him in death in the final duel kind of situation, but we just all assumed that he would do what Maximus was striving for. I guess if his wife didn’t get raped and murdered in front of her child’s eyes, who then also got murdered and who knows what else. But he would do what Maximus would wanna do and just go and see his wife and child and be happy and ride off into the sunset, into Elysium, if you will.

But that’s not with Adeiro that that we have. And I was kind of wondering it was also, you know, one of my lingering questions is what is gonna become of Darrow in the the rest of this trilogy? Because this was definitely a setup book. That’s for sure. And I’m wondering if Darrow is like the Anakin Skywalker of this story.

Is he not gonna be willing to move off of whatever cause he sees or the way he sees this playing out. And I’m not saying he’s not gonna go full Vader vibe, but he’s already showing that he’s he’s not gonna listen to the government, which is a government that he helped put in place. I think I would agree with you if with the book ended and he was like, I was right all along these idiots. But he does end the book and he’s like remorseful, which that when I said the old Daryl, that’s what I mean. Like, the thing that sticks out to me about the old Daryl was the guy that says hand up and then he’s like, someone in my unit made a mistake.

I’ll take a beating for them. That’s the type of person I am. Like, he’ll take a beating but I’m taking a beating also because I’m the leader. He hasn’t really done that here. Like, he hasn’t really been done the hand up.

The end of the book, he started being like, I fucked all this up. That’s on me, which I wish he came to that sooner. The other thing I didn’t really like was the whole hail reaper. Mhmm. I I the only the last person I remember that used the hail thing wasn’t wasn’t great.

So I was like, can we yeah. Can we use a different slogan? I I’m guessing it’s like a Roman Empire thing. I don’t know. But Yeah.

Hail Caesar. Okay. Yeah. Alright. That’s I didn’t realize that.

I was like, hail reaper. What the what the fuck? Sig Heil reaper. What? Yeah.

I’m I’m interested to see how it how it plays out because he went rogue and, obviously, is going for his his own what he wants to do. You know, he’s but that’s the problem with and that’s what’s interesting about this book and and many books that Pierce Brown has done, like the other trilogies too, is that everyone has perspectives and everyone’s perspectives are different. So what he sees is the right way to do it. He’s not he’s not an evil person by any means, and he’s not doing it in evil ways. And that’s I think that’s an interesting thing about stories in general is the way that people feel like they’re doing the right thing, but either they’re going about it the wrong way or it’s like just definitely not the right thing.

But speaking of perspective, that is my first stock up is perspective. We have a whole kind of paradigm shift, I guess, in the way that Pierce Brown’s approaching this not only this novel, but presumably the entire series. We have only we’ve only read, Iron Gold. But he’s going from multiple point of views. He’s got as opposed to just Darrow’s point of view.

So this one, he’s got four. It’s Darrow, Lysander, Lyria, and Ephraim. Those are those are the four. I guess before I get into my fields, I’ll put I’ll put you on the spot. How did you feel about it going from just Darrow’s first person perspective to, like, these these four?

Yeah. I thought it was a really good move because the reason that Darrow’s story is so good is because he come goes from lower class to upper class. Basically, when we go through his initial three books, we’re seeing everything as he sees it. Now he’s like the head of things. So there’s not a lot more perspective he can give other than like, there’s a battle.

So now we’re getting perspective of like a red and now we’re getting someone that’s like Ephraim, like, kind of a con artist slash person that’s been disillusioned by all this stuff that’s going on and He was like an insurance adjuster. Like, that was his job. Yes. I do think it’s a really smart move to get more perspectives and see, like, the whole world open up again. Yeah.

I liked it as I liked it as well. In some ways, we’ve already done the Darrow story. Like, I don’t need more Darrow growth that seems somewhat repetitive, and he’s already changed so much that I’m fine with having more more Darrow, of course, but I don’t want it to be the only voice that’s happening and also the only perspective. And I think that’s the point here, and that’s what’s interesting. The scope is getting bigger, it seems like, in this trilogy.

Obviously, the, you know, the last ones we had, it was pretty much Mars, there was some Luna, and then a little bit of the rim. You know, him going to the rim for, like, a a hot minute. But now it’s there’s Mercury, there’s Venus, there’s Mars, there’s Luna. You know, everything’s going on, and the themes as well as the scope is expanding, I feel like. Mhmm.

Yeah. So having these different perspectives of people who now we have the aftermath of what happened from Morningstar. It’s been ten years of war, and we have these perspectives, like you said, of different people at different societal levels that are all somewhat intertwined. I liked the way they intertwined Ephraim and Lyria because at the beginning, I was a little I didn’t like jumping around so much. I was just trying to find my way back into the story, and I didn’t necessarily love jumping from one thing to another because I I wasn’t sure how they all tied together.

But I did like how they tied Ephraim and Lyria together. And then, I mean, Lysandre’s gonna play a big part in this story. He has to. Right? I’m wondering if, like, Lysandre is gonna be the next Darrow of this trilogy because he has a very unique perspective, and he seems like he’s somewhat set in his ways or or his idea of what the right way to have this society is with gold at the top, and and to him, that was order.

And I see that. You know, if you’ve been at war, if Darrow promised this, you know, this uprising that was gonna stop, you know, pretty much stop wars and create peace, and now it’s been ten years of war, Lysandre, he idolized Darrow at the beginning or in the in the last trilogy. He was like, oh, Darrow’s the biggest badass in the whole place. And then finding out he’s a Red, whatever the case is, obviously not super happy when he, like, murders his grandmother or whatnot. But I think he’s gonna have a really interesting story line.

I mean, it already started out pretty interesting. So kinda having all those perspectives, I I really liked. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.

Do you have anything else for stock up? The weight of things, stock up? Is that a song by Tool or something? No. I’m just saying, the impact of things.

The way that the the way that things is more because, I’m not talking about Italy even though the way that things are up. Let’s put it that way from Italy. I’ll have pizza and pasta. Oh, yeah. And trust me, I I didn’t shit for the whole trip.

Not once. It was I came back and I was like, I may explode. It was like, I’m not gonna pack up for you. Eating cheese the whole time. I’m like and I you it’s like, I look up weird as I do in order to like, it’s like, oh, yeah.

That’s pretty common. So what you should do is walk a lot. I walk more than I’ve ever walked my entire life. Yeah. I was like, I I sit at my meter all day, and I’m perfectly regular.

I go out there. I’m walking every single day. I drink more water than I’ve ever drank. I drink that’s like, yeah. Then do all these I’m, like, doing every single thing.

It says, like, drink coffee. I drink more coffee than I’ve ever drank. It’s like Yeah. It’s crazy. I did the whole Italy trip.

You know, we went all over Europe when I was in my early twenties Mhmm. With a couple of friends. And we this is, you know, your early twenties, so we’re staying in hostels. We’re doing it on the cheap as cheap as we possibly can. That ideal.

And we started in Italy. We went, like, you know, Rome, Florence. We did the same thing you did. You went Rome, Florence, and, Venice. Right?

Yeah. So we did the same thing. I didn’t shit in Italy. I didn’t I didn’t shit until we got to Switzerland. Like, it was it was, like, a solid nine days.

Yeah. I thought I was I was, like, something’s gonna happen. Right? Like, it just pierces through your intestines or, like, comes out your mouth. I think you start sweating it out or something.

I don’t know. It’s it’s weird. So But yeah. So I I had a I had a very serious Me too. Yeah.

But I’ll tell you, when that first one comes, oh my god. Yeah. So yeah. You get the weight of things. Yeah.

But these books that what I just remember when the books come to an end, there’s always this huge, like, oh, this is just the beginning type feeling. I I don’t know if you recall the the end of the second book especially where he gets captured and he’s, like, everything’s over. And I was, like, oh my god. Like, do you, like, have this sense of dread? But, like, the the books never end and you’re like, alright.

Like, maybe I’ll read the next there you they end and you’re like, oh, shit. Like, the whole world is at stake at this point. Mhmm. So he does a really, really good job of that. If you feel like you just went on this long, long swim with him to get through this and you’re, like, everything’s a battle.

Everything is tough. You get to the end, and you’re like, oh, I’m in a triathlon. Like, we just started the right like, this is not even you know what I mean? Like, that’s what it feels like when we get to the end. I thought you were gonna say we have to swim back, which is a a little Gattaca reference.

I don’t know if you’re a Gattaca fan, but that’s a great I just remember him combing his hair, really. Oh, yeah. It’s shot sloughing off his skin. Yeah. No.

The whole point of him and his brother, they used to do swim battles, and he would always beat his brother even though his brother was, like, a peak human being. Yeah. And so he was like, how did you always beat me, you know, for on the swims? He said, you have to save some for the way back. And he’s like, I never saved anything for the way back.

That’s good. Fully fully committed. I love that. Yeah. Gattaca is a great film.

No people haven’t seen it. I guess I spoiled some of it right there. But You watched that in biology class. That’s the best, best day I’ve seen that class. I love those high school classes where they’re like, alright.

Put this on. Like, I took a photo class, and they were like, you today, we’re gonna watch Blade Runner. I was like, yes, please. I don’t know what I mean, I get it’s beautifully shot, but Yeah. You know, I just Yeah.

Don’t ask questions. Yeah. Don’t worry about that. I’d be a great teacher in high school. I’d just be watching movies all day.

Yeah. Yeah. I’d be like, oh, we’re studying ancient Rome? Gladiator. That’s coming up.

Yeah. I guess I felt stopping in the middle of a sentence kind of thing. Well, he he broke a guy out of jail that he didn’t wanna break out of jail. He did this huge operation to get to was it Venus? Yeah.

He went to Venus to get You know, he’s he’s got gone through all this whole process, all with the end goal, and just by the means. Like, that’s his whole mindset. Hey. Listen. I’m doing all these shitty things, but you know what?

It will be worth it because I’ll end the war when I go in here. He breaks in and then the guy’s just sitting there and he’s like, this guy’s not even been running this. So he basically just did all of this shit. And then, Severo’s like, and I’m out. So he loses his best friend.

He like, the republic’s falling. His kids are kidnapped. Like, everything just comes crashing down in front of him. And he’s, like then he’s, like, oh, I’ve made a huge mistake. And you’re, like, oh, shit.

And then he realized it’s just beginning. So Yeah. The Ash lord is legitimately Ash at this point. Yeah. And he he’s almost like the guy from seven who they wake up in bed, you know, like, he’s he’s pretty much that guy, and which is because of, like, Apollonia somehow was able to poison him from jail or something.

I I don’t know. I didn’t a 100% follow that. But you also know the Ashlord’s daughter is a super badass herself, and she’s running a lot of this, like, she’s running a lot of this space battle stuff. So, like, you have to get hurt too. You know?

It’d be like killing Hitler, but you still got, like, Himmler and Goebbels and whoever that other shitty air force guy was. Like, you still got those guys out there who are still running the show. Like, yeah, it’s good, but you still got these other people who are doing it. So you knew it for that. I mean, at least in my mind, I was like, hey.

This isn’t gonna be the end of it, obviously. I mean, we have a trilogy, so, of course, it’s not. And then I guess Lyria got captured or something at the end. Right? She either captured or dead.

We don’t know. Ephraim is doing his thing. He might be. And Lysander is now, like, going back to the It’s weird. You like Lysander.

I was like, he’s kind of a baby back bitch. I don’t really like him. He like Oh, really? Yeah. He doesn’t fight for himself.

He’s like high class knob that pretends he’s about certain morals, but he doesn’t have any morals. He’s backstabbing. He doesn’t he’s like, oh, I’ll let Cassius die. Like, you know, he that’s what he wants. That’s what he wants.

And then, like, his girl starts fighting her and he’s like, no. The girl I just met, I don’t want them to fight. I’m like, that’s gonna be your breaking point? Like, you know, he’s a bitch. I mean, oh, I can He def he definitely, you know, is using his his gold piece like a wand.

That’s for sure. You know, he’s that let nothing what are those, like, water sticks that you use to, like, find water in the in the desert? What? I don’t know what to do. There’s like these they’re like it’s like a it’s like a witchcraft y type thing.

You’d get, like, a stick and you hold it in front of you, and it finds water. That’s pretty much what he’s doing. Put in front of you. But, yeah, he’s he’s got his heart on for Seraphina. And I did think that Cassius’ death was Lysander was pretty chill about the whole thing.

Yeah. I actually thought that was kinda cool because it was kind of like a a departed exit where they’re like, oh, he’s obviously gonna be fine. Like, you know, and they’re like, no. He’s dead. I was like, oh, wait.

What? But are we I mean, that was another lingering question of mine. Are are we sure? Yeah. There’s no they said he died of, of exsanguination, which is, I think, blood loss if my Latin comes back to me.

Maybe it’s Greek. I don’t know. But I think it’s just blood like, he died of blood loss from the battle, and they just told him that. You know? Yeah.

I guess it’s Let me see the body. Yeah. Or what I need to see the body. So, that was one of my lingering questions, I guess. Is Cassius is Cassius coming back?

But, yeah. I I we’ll see. I mean, that’s why I wanted to you know, for our next episode, we’re jumping right right into what is it? Dark Ages? Is that the name of the second book?

Yeah. We’re jumping right into that because I I felt like it was, it left it didn’t leave me, like, oh, I need to read this next book, but it left me feeling like this, I need a continuation. Like, I need to just keep keep going because I I didn’t get anything answer wise, which I understand. I’m not not mad about it. My last stock up was Half Baked, the movie.

Oh, okay. Yeah. The, specifically, the who’s coming with me? Because, like, that’s pretty much the move that Daryl pulls after he learns there’s an arrest warrant coming down for him. It’s you know, he’s the lead the leader, the you know, everyone expects that he’s for the republic and this, that, and the other thing, all of his people.

Next thing you know, the republic’s got an arrest warrant. He’s like, alright, guys. So, they’re coming for me, and, I’m gonna just go for the Ashlord even though there’s we were trying to get an entire Armada to go after him, and they said no. So I’m gonna need all you guys to to come with me and probably do this suicide mission. You guys down?

People like Who’s Kyle we taking? To be fair, a lot of them were, like, we’re overthrowing the government, I assume. Right? And he’s like, nah. We’re good.

We’re good. That because he could’ve done that. He could’ve gone back to Mars and been like, alright. Let’s ride. Everybody would’ve they went over another government.

So he could’ve. Yeah. They’re sticking true, which I like about Pierce Brown, to this Roman love, you know, this idea of ancient Rome as the pinnacle of societies or or whatnot because that’s exactly what a Roman general would do. They’d be like, oh, the government said the senate says you’re out. Well, I have this army, so let me just bring my army into Rome and I’ll walk it up to the senate and say, are you sure?

You sure? How about them apples? Yeah. So I just I thought it was kinda funny that he was just like, yeah. Who’s gonna come on the suicide mission mission with me?

It’s like, what what, boss? What do you have for Sucked Down? Sucked Down being in a female’s head? I will say we get introduced. We have the first female character introduced to that word in our head in this in this book, Lyra.

I think there is a lot of great women characters in this. Great leaders, great fighters. We got Mustang. We got Victor, Daryl’s mom. Just name a few.

There’s a bunch of them. But Lyra, I don’t know if it was the narrator or what it was, but it seemed like she was just, like the narrator’s, like, voice was made it sound like she was crying every single thing she was saying. She’s like, then I walked over to, like, the the grocery store, and she’s like, and then I walked over to the like, that’s how she was, like, saying each line, and I was like, what? So it just made it sound like this character is whining the whole time, where when you think of, like, Darrow’s narrator voice and, again, we we did an audiobook, so this is might be different read differently for different people. But even when he’s upset or sad, you can hear the anger in his voice.

He’s like, and then I pulled my father, like, father’s legs down. And then I you know, you can, like, see it building, like, where you’re, like, yes. Let’s go. Whereas this is kinda goes back to the typical, like, You, like, complaining person. I didn’t didn’t love that.

I also thought that her role in the book, she plays a kind of pivotal role just but she’s just along for the ride. Nothing she does is that by she’s not doing anything herself. The only thing she really did yeah. But the only thing she really did was pull out what’s his name from from the water. Other than that, every single other decision that’s made is just basically her going along for the ride and, you know, like, which is like complete opposite of Darrow where Darrow is like, oh, those are the rules?

Great. I’m rewriting the rules. I’ll do whatever the fuck I wanna do to make this thing happen. Where she’s like, I’m just gonna go along and see what hap you know? Like, that’s kind of what seems to be the difference between the two characters.

So wasn’t a big fan of hers. Not great being in the first female side of them in this book series. Yeah. I’m not I think I’m gonna kinda blame Aiden Maloney, I think, is her is her name. I think that’s how you pronounce it.

Okay. Aiden. Because, one, to some degree, you’re right. I don’t think you’re you’re wrong that she didn’t do a ton. She does escape from the syndicate, like, the the guy who’s trying to kill her, which is probably I would’ve probably just curled up and died.

I wasn’t I’m not jumping through no, like, air shaft or something like that. I’d be out. I’d just be like, alright. Kill me. That’s fine.

And I think that our boy, Tim Gerald Reynold, Gerard Reynold, who does Darrow, is just the best. Like, he’s really, really good. Yeah. He’s not you know what I mean? He’s in the top tier of audiobook narrators that I’ve heard.

I think he really does that justice to that character where there were some other ones that might not have. And and that’s sometimes the problem when you get an ensemble cast for these is that you can like one and not like the other, and that’s kinda the way it goes. And they’re obviously gonna take some artistic liberties as they should with how they voice their character. But Lyria is also I think this is gonna be part of her storyline because she had some serious trauma in her, like, gamma red camp as the red hand or whoever the, like, militant group is that’s coming in and, like, the reds that are going and, like, killing gammas or whatnot for past grievances, which makes a lot of sense. But, you know, I she’s had some trauma with all these people dying around her, and she’s responsible for her nephew.

Every you know, like I said, her whole family’s pretty much dead, and then she’s pulled off a planet. Like, she is the fish out of water in this story. So the idea of her not being bold and aggressive off the bat makes a lot of sense. I think that down the line, something will happen. But she stands up to Ephraim.

I mean, when Mustang is, you know, pretty much threatening to torture her or whatnot or the people around her are, she holds a stand up to them and, you know, tells her story and, like, tells the truth and isn’t but at the same time, isn’t, like, meek and just kill me, you know, whatever the case is. So I’m I I I like the character. We’ll see how it goes. I’m gonna blame them. Well, yeah.

I would have liked her better if she we got the perspective of, like, a terrorist or something. She became a terrorist. Like, even though that would make her a bad care like, person, it would be interesting to see how someone that is a red goes from being a red to terrorist. I also wanted to get more on the red hand. I don’t wanna understand how you’re getting, like, absolutely dominated by a group of people.

When you finally decide to fight back, it’s, like, now against the same people that have the same issue like, same issues that you were experiencing. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Right? It’d be, like, like, British oppressors coming in and you and you never fighting them. I guess this does happen in a lot of countries, though.

Never mind. Anyway Yeah. You you rehash old grievances. So if there are, like, multiple tribes within a country that Britain has been ruling and then Brit Britain steps out of there, then those tribes are gonna be like, well, you guys were friends with the British when they were here, so we’re gonna kill all of you. I guess that does make sense.

Alright. Good good good talk. Yeah. I mean, I do I wouldn’t think that they would wanna the Reds would wanna band together and fight the Grays, the people that were, like, holding them down the whole time. So it is I mean, it’s annoying to me that they’re like, now we’re gonna fight, now that we’re free.

It’s like, Yeah. Now we’re gonna fight other Reds because you guys were the Gammas, and you guys always won the laurels, and you were helping them. The whole point. Like, do they not see that? I know.

But, no, they don’t. You know what I mean? It’s and also when there’s a giant war going on, it’s hard to, like when a new society is created, it just it can be bedlam. And it’s kind of what’s going on. The real problem with Darrow.

He should have spent more of his it’d be like George Washington beating the British and being like, well, we gotta go establish democracy everywhere now. I’m, like, leaving The US, like, in the infancy stages. Like, no. You gotta develop. And also ten years, I like how Lysander is, like, ten years is too long.

To overthrow an established government, that’s gonna take fifty years at minimum. Like, that’s just like, The US really wasn’t a good country until I don’t know when we’ve ever been a good country. But, you know what I mean? Like, we really There was a possibility period. Yeah.

But the civil war happened, what, a hundred years after or seventy five years after? Like, it things were still not established very well. So, yeah, I think the ten year barrier for a a successful society is pretty crazy from Lysander. Yeah. The I and it’s interesting perspective, this idea of this, like, George what would George Washington do if if and we’re just using I know you’re not saying, like, George Washington did all these things.

We’re not who knows? But, you know, we’re not that good at American history. But my the interesting thought there is that, yeah, he’s not gonna go and go to all these other countries and say we have to do democracy here, but what if all those other countries were in your backyard? Because we couldn’t do anything. We’re a a giant nation on the other side of the globe from, you know, England and these other places.

But in this world where it’s a solar system that you can get from one place to another so quickly, it’s like, hey, there are enemies. You know, enemies are always at the gate because they can just show up in their spaceships. And you have this you know, the Ashlar’s just giving them the runaround, so that’s why Darrow thinks that, like, oh, I just gotta finish this thing so then I can turn around, and we can then start figuring out how to govern the society. But, unfortunately, as you’re trying to finish this thing, one, it’s dragging on, and, two, the society still has to run. So Yeah.

You’re putting together your own house before you start going fixing other people’s houses is what I would say. You know what I mean? Yeah. Stuck down. Yeah.

I got it. No. Like like it. It’s interesting what you brought up about the the narrators because my only other stock down after you burned my router die guy was, the unfreezing process, stock down. Never.

Never stock down. Well, because due to the unfreezing process, I cannot control the volume of my voice, which is how I felt about the narrators in this. Lysander’s narrator is so quiet compared to Tim Gerard Reynolds, who does Darrow, that I would be listening to this on my audiobook, and I’d have, like, a Lysander chapter going, and it’d be on blast. And then all of a sudden, it would switch to a different narrator, and it would, like, blow my eardrums out. So and and then, Lyria, like you said, was, like, pretty quiet and meek.

So it was every different Yeah. Everyone was different. It it seems like they didn’t produce it well or something, that the levels were all off. So I found myself I don’t bit more on that. Car.

So when I listened to it just on my phone, it was fine. I didn’t notice it. But when the car, I would I had the volume up to, like, 30 on my car thing, which is super high. I’m like and then they’d talk and it’d be like an action scene. I’m like, oh my god.

My ear. Jesus. Yeah. It was the same for me. Like, I’m I’m listening on CarPlay.

You know, I got a new car. I’m like, oh, loving it. You know? Driving around, it’s been beautiful out. If I put the window down even like a crack, I couldn’t hear it unless I was going max volume.

Yeah. But it’s beautiful, and I wanna have the windows down. So I I was I was like, I’m gonna blow these speakers out just trying to hear what Lysander has to say. Yeah. So I was gonna that was my that was my finish was they they need you to engineer the next one.

Well, I guess they’re already all out. Maybe they need to. I mean, people probably have listened to this and are like, you may be the worst audio engineer you’ve ever heard. Well, my guy, Dan Carlin, who I love, absolutely love. I’ve been listening to a lot of hardcore history lately and common sense.

I just love Dan Carlin. But all of his comments is people like, you need a better sound engineer. You need a better sound engineer. Because he gets so excited when he reads quotes Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That he’s just, like, goes up 10 octaves in a quote, and people get really upset about that. So if it works for him, it’ll work for us. I’m I am mad about it. What else do you have for Sucked Down?

Last one, big reveals before you die, Sucked Down. I think Game of Thrones really did this best when Lady, Olenna, is that her name? Reveals Olenna. Yeah. That she poisoned Joffrey and she’s like, tell her I did it, you know, type the ending thing.

It was amazing. And she’s just about to die when she does it. And this one, we we meet the Ashthorpe and he’s like, by the way, you guys are all slaves. You’ll always be slaves to me. And I kid after your kids, and they’re like, what the fuck?

And he just sits there and he’s like, oh, shit. And they just burn him alive. I’m like, maybe wait until you’re about to die before you reveal this of It’s not like the smartest plan. You know what I mean? Or just die with the secrets.

Like, what what are you doing? Yeah. That’s why that was one of the reasons why I thought Darrow was gonna go, like, hard in the paint of being a bad guy because Apollonius or whatever gives him the look as he’s about to burn him alive and Darrow does the the head nod, like, yeah. Let’s do this thing. Oh, okay.

You know? Yeah. So that was, like, another thing I was like, oh, oh, okay. I mean, I know Darryl’s a little fucked in the head, and that’s one of the things we love about him. But, yeah.

You know, burning people alive is just, like, not super cool. To your point, it was, serendipitous. You know? They buy the ash, die by the ash, if you will. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Shouldn’t have been called the Ash Lord. Should have been called the, like, die peacefully in my sleep lord. What was your favorite part of the book or your favorite storyline?

And I also want my rankings now. Yeah. I would say, Ephraim, number one for me. Thought he was a really interesting character. We also haven’t got a ton of relationship stuff outside of Darrow and his wife from the first book.

So it was an interesting take on that. Like him intrigued, you’re saying? Yeah. And like how, like, oh, well, yeah. I guess I could see how you he hated Darrow and anyone that, like, was kinda around that.

Well, because he was in Ephraim was in the rising and participated in the rising and obviously saw some messed up stuff and participated in some messed up stuff and got out of the rising, became a insurance adjuster or whatever, and now he does heists or whatever the case is. You know, he’s kind of a man for hire, if you will. I will agree with you. I mean, I’m not gonna agree with you that his is the best storyline, but I thought his was my number two because one, there was like cool stuff going on. Like, he was he was doing cool stuff and he’s an interesting character, but also just he’s so broken.

You know, he’s just such a broken human being. Like, he’s a good person inside and you can tell that he’s such a good person, but he does all of these things that they’re not, like, necessarily bad things, but they’re so self destructive. Like, you know it’s he knows it’s not gonna turn out well for him. I mean, even, you know, contemplating committing suicide at one point. So he knows these things aren’t gonna turn out for him, but then he finds Lyria, and he forms this bond with her that he did not expect, and, you know, maybe that’s gonna pull the humanity back out of him.

Well, he’s the perfect lead in, what’s those those, like, Sin City? What’s that kind of movie called? A noir? Yeah. He’s, like, perfect, like, noir guy.

Like, where he’s, like Yeah. Hates everything, hates everyone, does does the most shitty things. But at the end of the day, you’re like, he’s a good guy. Yeah. He’s a he’s a morally opaque human being who, you know, has, like, a good heart.

He’s a good guy that does that does bad things, except he’s not walking around calling people like toots and slapping them across the face or something like that. That’s what you need to do as a noir? Yeah. Well yeah. Yeah.

You ever read the Maltese Falcon? You ever read that book? Yeah. It’s a it’s a great book, and it’s a classic, but it’s just funny for that time period where if there’s a woman that’s, like, talking, having an opinion, it’s like you just slap her around and you just say, you know, get get a grip of yourself, woman. You know?

It’s like, what? So Efren was your number one. What’s your number two? Darrow, I think, is number two. Lysandre, I’m guessing is near your number one, but I thought he was interesting story, but at the same time, he’s a he’s a baby back bitch.

I already said that, and then Lyra’s four. What about you? Yeah. I think that’s fair. Lysandre’s my number one.

It’s not necessarily because of Lysander. I think the Rym storyline is was the most interesting story. That was very Game of Thronesian to me, you know, with this inner fighting between husband and wife and, you know, for a power struggle that eventually leads to the leads to the husband having to gets, sentenced to death, but does this crazy walk into the you know, out in the wild or whatever the case is. And she doesn’t want him to die, but that’s just the way it goes when the government gets involved. And so Lysander’s, a witness to all of this.

So it’s it’s interesting because it’s his perspective, but of these other customs and this whole unfolding storyline of what’s going on on the rim. So that’s why I liked the Lysander storyline the most. I just thought that was the most interesting from that perspective. And then Ephraim, and then Darrow, which I’ll get into probably in in my hates, and then Lyria. So Okay.

That was that was my four. Did you have, like, a specific part of the book or that you enjoyed? The the necklace blowing up in the the ship was I thought it was pretty because you you they don’t tell you what the heist is gonna be, what it’s around. So you’re kind of just like, hey. What?

What’s happening? So I I thought that was, I thought that was probably the best scene. Yeah. That was cool. I think probably for me was the the Cassius duel because I was like, how is this gonna work?

You know, he does that first duel and he wins, and you’re immediately like, okay. Cassius is gonna win. They’re gonna free him, and, you know, he’s somehow gonna get involved in this. And then she sends, like, her next nephew down. And and then once again, you realize, oh, there’s politics here because now as he’s killing all these people, now they’re like, all those people are turning on Cassius even more and then aligning themselves with the the queen or whatever on the rim.

So Dido or whatever her name was. So that was was interesting, and then also just, like, you know, I love a good duel, and he has, like, five of them in a row. So, that was kinda cool as well as the first Lysander when they find the ship, that, like, almost alien esque interaction where they find the the broken down ship and it’s full of obsidians and they have to, like, fight their way out. They get Seraphina, but they have to, like, leave the rest of the the other people. So I was like, sorry.

Sorry. Not sorry. I thought that was that was a good part too. What about characters? We have a bunch of new ones, obviously, like you said at the top.

Ephraim, Lyria, Tongueless, the Ashlord, we actually, like, meet. Volga, Ephraim’s, number two. The Duke of Hands, who’s the syndicate guy, Seraphina, Diomedes or Diomedes, Apollonius, Rona, who we even even talked about, who’s Darrow’s niece, who is 1000000% gonna die. Never never thought that was not gonna happen. It’s like, I promised your dad I wouldn’t let you die.

It’s like, okay. So she’s dead. There’s some other ones I missed. Were any of those, your favorite characters or Yeah. Just, like, the big part.

I think I said at the top. I had a tough time, following Haltic characters because they’re Yeah. They’re all Greek Yeah. There’s a lot. Roman names, and they’re all, like, Aorra and Ra, you know, and whatever stuff.

I’m like I’m like, I don’t know what’s going on here. So, I mean, I’ll stick with Ephraim for that. And then as, like, a side person, I did, like, Tungus. So that that was a a nice character. So I like Tungus too.

I like Tungus. Speaking about it, I guess we just like Obsidians because I was a big fan of Volga. Yeah. I was right too. Good call.

Effor’s number two. She she knows him. She knows what he’s, like, trying to do. She also knows that he’s, like, a good guy. You know, she’s almost like the the angel on his shoulder.

Yeah. And so so I liked I liked her a lot. I’m I’m intrigued by Apollonius and Diomedes. I’m I’m intrigued by them. Because Apollonius is what’s that guy’s name from the last one who was Darrow’s friend but was also, like, a little messed up in the head, and Lorna Al Arkos ended up killing him, like, in the basement before he could kill the younglings, Titus or something like that.

Whatever. It’s his, like, older brother is who Apollonius is. So, and he seems like an absolute psychopath. So, I’m I’m intrigued to see what happens there. And Diomedes is, like, the super badass, you know, the best fighter from the rim.

So I’m intrigued to see what happens with him as well. So, yeah. There’s there’s but, yeah, I agree. There’s a lot of characters. It was hard for me to follow.

That’s what I need to make. This is a TV show. I can start to see see the people here Game of Thrones in. Yeah. Combine some of these characters into one because I’m too dumb to follow all of them.

What about Love Hate? Let’s get into that. What do you love about Iron Gold? I just like being back in the world again. I think I liked it more than you did, but I just, I think it’s a masterpiece.

It’s literally, like, every time Really? I I’m not Not this book specifically. I just think the world he’s built. Yeah. I mean, like, just the whole concept of, like we we, like, learned about, like, helldivers, and that was, like, where I thought the book was gonna be about.

It was gonna be a mining book. Like, that’s what it started on. And now we’re in the rim, and we’re learning about new like, the society norms in the rim. They don’t have mirrors in the rim. You could make a whole book on just the rim.

You know what I mean? Where it’s, like, that’s just a small part of the book of the fourth book, which I don’t know. It just seems to keep on opening up and keeps on getting bigger and bigger, and you just don’t not for one second am I, like, not thinking this is a real world. The whole time I’m in it. I’m just like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Like, obviously, they’re in the rim now. Like, yeah. It makes sense where they are. I think they’re in different places, different characters.

So I just think it’s super, super well written and well thought out. And, yeah, I I I just really like it. Have you seen those digital images that people make online? I feel like I see them on Reddit here and there where it’s, like, a very simple picture of something digitally created and then you zoom in on it. Oh, and it’s like a little keyhole.

Yeah. In that keyhole is like another story or like another picture and you, like, keep zooming in on one thing and it’s that’s how I feel like he’s created with this universe, is that you think you kinda have everything under wraps, and then it’s not like he shows you something new. It’s just like something that was referenced before he zooms in on, and you realize, oh my god. There’s so much life here too. Yeah.

And then you go somewhere else, and you zoom in on that. And it’s like, oh my god. There’s there’s so much here too. Like, it was all it was all there. And I agree with you.

It’s very well done. My love, and it’s kinda related to that I guess, is with this book, we we get a little of it all. You know? There’s there’s heists. There’s kidnapping.

There’s a rescue mission. There’s covert assassination ops. There’s prison break. There’s space battles. There’s, you know, diplomacy happening in multiple different places.

There’s a ton going on. And this book compared to Dark Age, which when I started, I was like, this book’s thirty three hours long. Holy shit. But the Iron Gold isn’t that long. It’s, like, twenty hours.

So Yeah. And it feels like it’s much shorter than that. It felt much shorter. Did. Yeah.

So I when I finished it, I was like, I can’t believe I finished this. This that was that flew by. So, yeah, if you want if you like any of that stuff, you really get all of it. So, you know, there’s duals like I talked about. You know?

It’s like there’s there’s a little bit for everybody, and it’s like one of those ice cream parlors that you go to that has the the belly busters, what we used to have at Chadwick’s, RIP, that place. But you go there and have, like, 27 scoops in one bowl. Like, yeah, it might be a lot, but you’re gonna enjoy it Mhmm. For at least the first half hour until you’re all bound up the next day like Keith. What else what else, Jill?

I don’t remember what scene this was. I think it was when they get captured, but the exploding handcuffs like the movie Swordfish, where if they run away from them, then their handcuffs explode, blow their arms off. I like that. I like the all I already mentioned too. They’re they’re all the rim stuff, like, they’re returning to dust.

It was kinda, like, very silo esque almost, their own society, which is kinda funny. It’s interesting how they’ve got they’re, like, so advanced, and they’re golds, obviously, and so they have all the technology and whatnot. But, you know, they’re they’re living on rations. Like like, the whole family is even, you know, the Yeah. The head of the golds, they’re like, alright.

We only eat meat once a week. It’s like, what? What? And when we eat meat, we have a small portion. It’s like, oh, okay.

Okay. Good. Sounds terrible. But, I feel like those are almost like the more badass fighters then. Like, those are like the Spartans.

But we’ll I guess we’ll find out later on. My my other love was, besides the multiple point of views, which I loved about this one, which we already talked about. My other love was the few homages we get in here, and I feel like Pierce did this in the other books, to varying degrees of success, and sometimes they were over my head, but I did notice a few of them. He says, House Barca sends their regards, Sev Sevro says that, which is a Game of Thrones reference, for the Republic, which I’m pretty sure was a Star Wars reference. Like, it was tied in pretty well, but I’m I’m pretty sure it was a Star Wars reference.

They called Carl Carl Sagan, like, a great philosopher from thousands of years ago or something like that. I’m like, oh, okay. Shout out to Carl Sagan. And then, of course, the prison warden, I think it’s Apollonia or one of them is talking about the prison warden’s rug, and he says that rug really ties the room together, which is right out of Big Lebowski. Like, that was very clearly a Big Lebowski reference.

There’s no question about that one. So I like how he throws those in there. You know, he’s having fun. You can tell he’s having a good time. Yeah.

I like it. What about hates? I think I said most of my hates. I think just too many names and moving parts that got me a little bit, I’m not a I think, like, hardcore fantasy people would be, like, finally, this is what we need. Whereas me, I’m, like, still amateurish, you know.

I I’m I still need to be kind of spoon fed a lot of this stuff. Yeah. I agree. I’m I’m the same way. Didn’t you read Game of Thrones, though?

Well, Game of Thrones for me was so deep of an obsession that I was spending time on the Internet in between reading, like, looking up the houses. It was like I was doing side learning. So if they if they had that or if I was that interested in this or or I didn’t have bats and ants and a baby, I I might be I might be interested in finding the wiki, but I’m I’m always nervous to look at the wiki, especially like, if we were this is the the last book or we’re, like, there’s no new books out yet, and I go to the wiki and do a research. But I’m nervous to click on someone’s name. They’re, like, yeah.

Of course, he dies in book five. You know, I’m like, goddamn it. So I don’t wanna do that. For Dungeon Crawler Carl, I, like, needed the wiki because there’s, like, you it’s almost like Magic the Gathering or something like that, like the Dungeons and Dragons where who these characters are, what their skills are, all that stuff, I needed to know. This one, I didn’t wanna dive into the wiki either.

But my only hate is the same as yours, really. It’s that well, one, I feel like I don’t know Darrow’s crew anymore. You know? He had the howlers. I knew all the howlers in the first three books.

You know? When a howler died, it was I’m pulling my wolf cloak uptight. I’m feeling sad. And and this time, I’m like, I don’t really know. He has, like, Thessalonia or someone.

Alexander, who is Lord Alarghos’ grandson. Like, I get that, but I also I’m not attached to him at all. Like, the only one with Severo. There’s Pebble and Clown are in there, and they’re married now, which is I’m like, okay. Cool.

But they’re not really a part of it. Those are our ride or die was, you know, the wolf cloaks. And now I I don’t really know them, so I don’t know who’s surrounding Darrow that’s helpful. You know? So that’s a problem.

And then I think it’s also I’m I think I’m just not good at visualization or something because it was hard for me to visualize some of the stuff that was going on, whether it be Darrow’s having this this battle to get to the Ashlord’s place or whatever the case was. And I just couldn’t really see it in my head. There was, like, Sevro set off a nuke, and they’re doing this fighting, and they’re in star shells, but they’re fighting a ton of golds. I I couldn’t I honestly just couldn’t visualize it, which took me I feel like I wasn’t getting the most out of it that I could be, and and it’s almost 99% my fault. I’m not gonna blame this on Pierce Brown for, like, not being good at explaining things, but it was just tough for me, personally.

Yeah. I could see that. I was just picturing, like, a moat, and there was, like, a big thing. Is that right? Is that what it was?

Like, an island I have no idea if you’re asking the wrong person. That’s what I was I was like, alright. So I’ll just make up what I think is going on. I saw in my head, I saw, like, the Space Needle, like, the Seattle Space Needle. And Oh, okay.

And he was at the top, and they were on, like, you know, a desolate ground, and they were fighting there, but then there’s, like, this space needle that they need to get to. And that could be so far off what was happening. It’s like we’re playing a game of telephone, and I was explaining this story to someone, and and Pierce Brown’s like, nope. That’s not it at all. It’s like I sat down at the French Laundry, which is a really good restaurant, and I had just had hot soup for breakfast.

So I just couldn’t taste anything is how I felt. Like, I know it was good. Right. I just couldn’t taste it. For breakfast guy or I don’t know.

Why are you doing that? Yeah. Big soup for breakfast. Well, you should have said oatmeal or something. Yeah.

Yeah. Oatmeal. Some super hot oatmeal. Burn your tongue on bacon. Mhmm.

Well, that’ll That’s hard to do. It’ll be bacon grease, I guess. That would be the only way to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I just drink bake bacon grease, of course. Helps hangovers. So Alright, Keith. What do you give it out of five? Like, we’re doing Goodreads style.

What do you give it out of five and who’s the book for? Yeah. I think it’s for fantasy people and people who like the first three. I think, so far I would say, yeah. I’d pick it up but I’m also banking that the next two are gonna be better.

I I give it a four out of five. I think that’s just because I like the world a lot. I don’t think I think it was the fourth best book so far. Mhmm. So the other ones I mean, Red Rising’s a five for me, the first book.

The other two are probably like 4.7 fives, you know, like that’s I think that’s how high they are. So this one getting a four is probably a pretty big downgrade, but I still think it’s I’d read I’d read 10 more of these books. So, you know, it’d basically be like a Harry Potter book, like the book two or, what’s the one I didn’t like? Book three or book five maybe? Like, I’d read those again a 100% of the time.

So no no no issues, but just wasn’t the best of the series, I would say. How about you? Yeah. And you couldn’t you couldn’t read this series without reading the other trilogy. Right?

Yeah. I don’t think so. Yeah. You No. I don’t I don’t think so.

Too much going. You gotta introduce way to people. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Plus, you don’t really know the stakes. Like, you’re not Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

If you pick this up, you may think Dara’s a bad guy. You know? Who knows? Yeah. So it’s I mean, to who who would read it, it has to be someone who’s read the first three books, which is unfortunate because it really limits the scope.

But then go read the first three books and what are you doing? What are you doing, people? Go read the first three books. I give it a 3.75 because I feel like we have to do increments of point two five, and it’s more than a three five, but it’s probably less than a three seven five. But I’m going three seven five.

So that’s alright. That’s alright, man. That’s disappointing. Hopefully, the next one gets back. What do you mean disappointing?

Three seven five is a great score. Alright. Three seven that’s probably the best score I’ve given out of besides, like, all the colors of the dark this year. Mhmm. Yeah.

Okay. I’m with you. I think it’s probably the weakest out of the four, but by no means does that mean it’s bad. It’s a three seven five. It’s like I’m I’m excited to be back here.

I got, you know, some some of my boys back, some some new characters who I’m starting to enjoy, and and a world that I’ve been excited to get back into. So so, yeah, I’m I’m excited to read Dark Age, although I’m, like, I don’t know, an hour in, and I realized that I still have, like, thirty two hours left. Just don’t look at the clock and just just let it go. Yeah. I guess so.

Alright. Well, that was Iron Gold, and we’re gonna go quick and get, Dark Age, out the door next. But for those of you that have Spotify premium, both of these books are available on Spotify premium, so you don’t have to buy them on Audible. So, you know, that’ll save you a credit unless you’re just racking up credits like Keith over there. That was Iron Gold, and we’ll have, dark age coming up soon.

Alrighty. Good times, Keith. Indeed. Alright. Bye now.

Bye now.

The Buddies close out Pierce Brown’s, Red Rising trilogy, with book 3: Morning Star. It was sad to see one of the Buddies favorite trilogies come to an end, but luckily in five years they’ll completely forget the series and be able to do it all over again! The Buddies got to chatting about: yearbooks, the prisoner’s dilemma, and the drawbacks of filming everything (especially violent massacres). So equip your SlingBlade and wolf cloaks for one last ride (in this trilogy at least) as we finish book 3 in the Red Rising Series.

Intro (0:00-1:21)
Stock Up/Down (1:22-28:29)
Favorite Scene/Character (28:30-38:30)
Love/Hate (38:31-46:20)
Recapping Series & Conclusion (46:21-50:08)

NEXT EPISODE: Shōgun (2024 TV series)

NEXT BOOK: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome, buddy book club. I’m Dylan here with the only man I want to share a meal, baby pit
fibers and cockroaches with Keith. What’s up, buddy? Would you be able to handle the initiation
process? Absolutely not. We’ll get into that for sure. Okay. Okay. Here at the money book club, we’re
breaking down some best others. And this week, we’ll be discussing Morningstar, the third and final
installment in the red rising trilogy. It’s actually, I think the red rising saga because now
there are more books. But either way, it’s my Peter Sproun. If you’d like to recommend a book for us
to read or reach out to us when I passed episodes, you can visit our website, but at book club.com,
or sign to our DMs on Twitter, Instagram, buddy book on podcast, you can list us iTunes, Spotify,
wherever your podcast. So please download, give us a five star review, follow us on social channels,
be terrible in your review. I don’t care as long as it’s five stars. The feedback’s fun. So why not?
We’re finishing a trilogy. It’s not something we do very often here at the buddy book club. I
think we’ve finished Mistborn. And I think that’s it. Granted, we’ve started Dune, we started Ender’s
game. There’s a bunch of other ones I know. But you know what, when it came to Pierce Brown, we
decided we need to finish it, especially in preparation for our Harry Potter series. So, you know, we
wanted to get some series under our belt before that. I think we did it here. Keith, stock up for
Morningstar. What do you got? Yes, stock up opening the yearbook. Oh, we don’t do that. We
close the yearbook. I know. I know you’re fond of saying close the yearbook. Every time I hear you
say that I laugh. Did you come up with that? No, I was like, ah, you should have just said yes,
or I’m gonna cut that. Yeah, you did. Okay. Perfect. I love it. Whenever you’re talking,
especially now we’re in our late 30s. And someone’s talking about like their high school football
days or something like that. It’s like close the yearbook, buddy. That’s a perfect segue because
that’s literally what’s happening in this book of many occasions. They reference the
Institute in the relationships form. They’re like, the only reason Pax’s dad even likes
Darrow in any way is because of the Institute. He was like an ally with them in there. So,
every single thing is referenced is tying back to the Institute. And then what’s funny is this
is basically like being in the Super Bowl, and you’re playing the highest level, like they’re
in a world war or galactic war with millions and millions of people dying. And they’re like,
referring back to like high school rivalries. They’re like, every time we were in the, you know,
they keep on bringing it back, which is real. That would happen. I still think so. But I do
think they maybe should focus the closing your book once in a while and focus a little bit more
on the situation in hand and not like that is the allies, ships we had in the Institute, you know,
we’re meeting so meaningful. Yeah, but anyway, that was kind of funny.
Unlike the championship game or whatever, and remember the Titans or any given Sunday,
whatever you want to pick out for a sports thing, Lilith or Vixxis or whatever, like they
murdered Leah, like that was that happened at the Institute, you know, there was, there was
murder and there was, and there was rape and there was terrible, terrible things happening at the
Institute. So I can understand all around them right now. But I could understand a little bit of
lingering PTSD. I’m never going to argue the fact of so much a closing your book, and it would have
been awesome if Pierce Brown consulted us and somehow worked that into the script. Like when
Cassius and Darrow are just sitting there watching old movies and must think she’d walk
in and be like, close the script guys, there are people being killed in space right now.
Like there are shit, that shit that needs to get done. Although I did appreciate several being
like, you know, you got tortured and we’re in a black hole for a year, Darrow closed the yearbook
bud with over, you know, it was like Jesus, he was like, come on, we need you back to normal,
which I kind of agreed with, honestly. Yeah, it was time to move past that, Darrow, which,
I’m not going to talk about it at all. So maybe we’ll just talk about it right here.
Darrow spending nine months locked away in a box. I don’t know if it’s possible to come out of that
with any semblance of sanity. No, yeah. Like you’re getting fed through a tube or something, and
I don’t even know how he was going to the bathroom. I think he kind of briefly discussed it. But
yeah, day two, I would have been hitting my head against the thing killed myself. But I’d be like,
I’ve been in here for six months and it’d be like eight hours and I’d be like, I can’t do it anymore.
I’m out.
We were citing full novels in his head, which I don’t know how you could possibly do that.
He’s obviously got a bigger brain than I. But yeah, I think any study done on solitary confinement
is like, it’s one of the worst things you can do to a human being. It legitimately makes them go
crazy. So not only like the muscle atrophy and whatnot, but the actual mental side, I don’t know how
I survive. But you know, there is a different guy. He’s got something he’s got another level,
another gear that we don’t have. My first stock up is hazing. So in general, hazing is definitely
the stock is pretty low in our society. I think most institutions now frown upon hazing as opposed
to just turning around, turning the other way, whatever the case is and not paying attention to it.
But in this story, we talked about the howler initiation last time around, but we didn’t know
what it was. And now we do know, I totally forgot that this was part of it. So we get up behind the
scenes of the howler initiation and boys at a doozy. So you get jumped while naked trying to shower
peacefully jumped and like beat up. So it’s very much like a jump in in the in the gang world. I
think that’s what they call it a jump in. Then you’re forced to drink a bottle of booze.
You’re forced to eat a bucket of baby pit vipers and cockroaches with your fellow initiates. So it
it sounds terrible and pointless as does hazing. But actually, it has a meaning about it. You know,
it’s meant to break you down so badly that you can’t get up on your own. And you need the help
of one of your fellow howler brother and sisters to get you on your feet. It’s that simple. It’s
like Victra and Darrow who are the couple of the biggest, baddest, gold teenagers in the solar system
can’t get up on their own. And they need a helping hand. And that’s what it’s all about. You always
got your howlers at your back. Like when you’re down, they’re going to pick you up. So I appreciated
that aspect. And it put a little twist on hazing for me. Although I think that’s how all hazing
starts. It’s like, Hey, we’re going to break them down to build them back up. And then like the
next thing you know, you’re doing like a elephant walk. So it’s I think that’s how it all starts.
And then somehow progresses to humiliation and degradation. Sure. Yeah, I also walk it. I never
understood that. But hey, maybe you just got to support. That wasn’t hazing. I did that.
That’s about supporting your brethren, you know, you’re physically supporting them. So right.
That’s all about. What else do you have for stock up? Good will hunting stock up.
I mean, this will always be a stock up for two good Boston boys. I’m sure you caught the seed.
I think you can say it’s not your fault once you can say it twice. But once you hit them with the
it’s not your fault a third time, like, come on, peers, come on, man. We come on, we all know
what’s going on here. So the just for those that didn’t catch that, but I think it’s like one of
the funerals, maybe it was roaks, but Mustang comes up to Darrow. It’s not your fault. And he’s like,
come on. It’s like, it’s not your fault. It’s the exact same seed from Goodwill hunting. I thought
that was kind of kind of hilarious. And then when you also think about it, their relationship,
Darrows and Mustangs is kind of like Will and Skyler’s had a look up her name, Skyler, you know,
the love interest. Mustang is kind of this well to do gold rich person, but her family is dead and,
you know, it would definitely would give all that up in order to see her family again. Right.
That’s what Skyler’s whole arc was. And then there’s that secret between them where the reason
that Will can’t commit is because he has all these childhood trauma and all that stuff.
It’s kind of the same as Darrows. He resents her for being a gold or rich or whatever the
case is. And you know, he’s all that childhood drama. You felt like there was resentment between
Darrow and Mustang? Like he resented her? No, he resents the goal, the idea of gold, like gold.
Like that’s why he never wanted to like commit to her or be in a relationship with her at first,
because he was like, this is my enemy. And then eventually that breaks, obviously. I think the
jackal also hit it on the head too when he was talking to Darrow. One point, he says to him,
pretty much you tried gold on for size. And your problem is that you realized you like it.
And now you feel bad, because he does feel like a gold and he feels superior to these other people.
And he’s like, shit, you know, that’s part of Darrow’s character is just the idea that he tried
gold on for size and liked it. And I mean, that’s the problem. You see that even in, I’m gonna bring up
the wire and I’m gonna bring up the wire again later. But we’re on season five. So we’re almost
finished. We’re crushing it. But you see that with Mayor Carquetti when he becomes married,
he’s got all these ideas on the city council. But with power, you know, like Spider-Man,
great power comes great responsibility. Next thing you know, he gets that power and he can
actually make changes. And then he all of a sudden is like, I’m gonna try to focus on my own political
career now because all holy smokes, I just became mayor like now I could be governor.
Yeah. So it turns all thing down. You know, it’s like a seal door. It’s like a seal door when he
gets the ring, you know, you’re supposed to throw the ring into the Mount Doom. I think I’m gonna
keep it. Yeah, you know, that’s what happens when power touches you. So Darrow touched the power
and he was able to overcome it. So unlike Darth Vader, I wouldn’t just keep going.
I think Darrow likes being a leader and being someone that takes responsibility or does his
own thing. That’s why he was a hell-diver. All the responsibility was on his back. You know,
no one else was helping him. And that’s what he just likes being a leader. So when he was a gold,
he’s a leader. So I mean, that’s just his role in life. So I don’t think that’s that’s
defined just by being a gold. I think he would be a leader no matter what situation he is. So I
don’t think that’s necessarily the actual case. It’s not like he’s like, Oh, I love being in,
you know, having this like status symbol. I think he’s just like, No, I’m fucking leading
chicks. I know best. Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. I think that’s a good take too. I just like mine
better. Yeah. It was funny the way you phrase that because I totally agree on the, um,
it’s not your fault once. It’s like, Oh, okay, that’s just a line. Not even thinking about it.
Twice. I’m like, Oh, all right. And is that sound like good will hunting? And then three times like,
Oh my God, you just straight up stole that from credible hunting. But I think I think it was not.
Oh my God. What’s so how do you say that? Oh, my gosh, or homage? I think if you’re douchebag,
you say homage. Yeah. So a mosh. Also, they said, just like I said, doer a lot in this book.
And I always thought it was down. I always thought it was dower. And I was like, Hmm, I know what that
means. But what does that mean for our listeners? It just means like fancy. Not sad, but a serious
sad look on your face. What am I thinking of dope do beyond? Doobaton? Debbie, there we go. Yeah.
There was a lot of different and he Pierschbrand has done this throughout the trilogy. So they’re
almost like Easter egg. Oh, Maja. So I agree that it’s not your fault was a, you know, a little nod
to good will hunting. But there’s a few other ones in here, whether it be people’s names. And
we’ve talked about this in other episodes. But they’re fun little Easter eggs and like pop culture,
which which I found to be enjoyable. I hope they were purposeful. My next stock up and we’re going
back to back at bees with this one. So it’s our first back to back stock up. It’s Scott Evil.
He’s coming back into it for a different reason, because I just need to make note for all the bad
guys and good guys out there. If the enemy is in chains at your feet that you’ve been hunting for
years and they keep slipping out of your grasp, just kill them. I don’t care if it’s the sovereign
who wants to showcase Darrow’s execution or Darrow. And when you catch the jackal, you want him to
like face quote unquote justice. Both these guys are wily and have proven they can wiggle out of
any trap. Just shoot them in the head. Boom. Done. It’s just like, you know, just like Scott says,
like, why are, why are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him? It’s like, why don’t you shoot
him out? It’s like, I have a gun. It’s in my room. We’ll shoot him together. It’ll be fun.
Thanks. Done. They did get jacked at the end. He waited on trial and they got it. Yeah, he only had
to kill another 30 million people or 50 million people before that I think I said like 10 nukes
went off or like 12 nukes. The whole plan, like jackal’s whole plan, if he was just like dead,
what are they going to do? I guess they could just have nuked everything. But I do like him
pulling the tongue out. Yeah, that was great. That was great. Great final kill. Well, not kill
because he obviously hot hung later. But yeah, taking his greatest weapon away from him, ripping
his tongue out. Okay, my last one. The tree of souls from Avatar, are you familiar with this
film? Yes. Are you familiar with this particular tree? Don’t remember. I just saw the second one
recently. Oh, really? Recently, whenever it came out. Yeah. Terrible, right? It’s about what you
expect. I didn’t think it was bad. A lot of people were like, Oh, it’s amazing. And I was like, yeah,
it was what I expected. Interesting. I watched the first half of it and never went back to watch
the second half, which is, I said movie theater. I also think that it was 3D glasses. I was like,
this is pretty cool. Yeah, okay. But the story, if you just read the story of either
Avatar, you’re like, wow, this is pretty pretty basic. There’s not a lot going on. It’s not red
rising. Let’s go to that way. The first one’s like Fern Gully. It’s exactly the same, which is a
great film. Yeah. So I’m okay with it. And then the second one had the kid knit and the kid just
threw me off. I was like, why is there this kid here? What is he doing? It was like a weird jungle
book, Mowgli situation. But the tree of souls is there like special God tree that not only they
used to pray around and whatnot, but also can save people like it saves Sigourney Weaver,
whoever gets shot, something like that, you know, saves them brings them back to life for the cases.
Why do they not have this for the obsidians on the poles of Mars? It just makes too much sense
for golds to put this in there, in my mind, because you’re trying to create a society that
believes that you’re gods. And so you’ve done that by building this Norse mythology
into their culture. I’m certain there must be some sort of like tree of life or something in
Norse mythology. There’s got to be something along those. But for this particular story,
the way they use obsidians as warriors, and once you train obsidian for a long time,
they can be very useful. You don’t really want them to die. You know, it’s like one of your best
warriors. I know that they call them at the early stages, and that’s part of their thing. So I get
that. But once you have a proven warrior, when you want to hold on to them, so why wouldn’t you,
and they also don’t give them any of your medical, like they don’t have yellows. So why don’t you
instead put these like tree of souls or whatever type thing on the poles so that when obsidians
get hurt, they can bring it to this tree and they think that gods are coming down and healing them,
but really it’s just some of their normal medical technology. It seems too smart. And most
importantly, it would have saved fucking Ragnar. I’m so sad that Ragnar died. I thought it happened,
but I wasn’t sure because this is our second read through this. You’ve read through this before,
right? Yeah, I didn’t remember this book. Yeah, I didn’t either. So I thought someone big died,
and but then I was like, oh, that was packs. So I was like, I don’t know if it happens with Ragnar,
and then it happened. And I was so upset. Why do you just let Ragnar go one v one on Asia
when later in the story, you’re going to go like four v one. It’s just throwing Ragnar away,
honestly, couldn’t stand for it. Didn’t care for either. And just to answer your question,
trees don’t grow in the north and south pole. So that’s even cooler. Yeah,
I sure enough. Yeah, if you give me a little igloo that cures people,
now he’s making my language. I like it. It’s just like you have to put your person in there and
then close the door and then all of a sudden, like a yellow walks out and just gives them an IV
and they’re back to life. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve just I was really upset. I agree with that.
That’s a good point. Do you think they would have rushed in there in time and actually saved
them? I would hope so. I honestly thought there was something that they were going to do to save
him. I was like, okay, this is he’s okay. He’s all right. He’s all right. And then he didn’t. What
can you do? All right. What do you got for stock down? Stock down, Roke. Oh, yeah.
This is going to back to our like original reasons for stock. I would say this is not a
this is that we intended it. I think the first time we used it was when we I used it for like a
book that you had multiple characters and we were betting or determining which person was more
likely to kill someone and we were like, all right, I think this person is more likely than that.
We read the second half. We stocked up, sucked down them based off of what our projections are.
That’s what we really didn’t turn it for. And then the next episode, we just kept doing it and I
just would add stupid things and you’re like, wait a minute. What? I was like, yeah, that’s all I
don’t know about it. And this is what it’s evolved to on episode 98. Yeah. We’re finally figuring it
out, I think. But you’re back to your back to square one with this. Yeah, no, it’s paying homage
to or homage to but you lamented Roke last episode talking about kind of but this book terrible.
I honestly don’t get why Darryl was even mourning him. It doesn’t really make any sense to me.
I know he’d agree these people can change and he thinks Roke had a good heart. I get that.
But he showed his true color as pun intended when even though I’m friends with you, Roke says,
and even though I have empathy for what happened to your wife and even though you just beat me in
this massive attack and showed your superiority to me, which I’m supposed to be the best at because
I’m gold, I still think that all Reds deserve to be our slaves and that what I did is best for
our society and I think I should be in this position because I deserve it.
Is that a direct quote? Did he say slave? No, but like that’s what they are.
Yeah. Like that’s it. He’s like you’re a lesser person, the main, you’re born lesser and that’s
what you deserve and I’ll kill myself before admitting to you that that’s not the case.
That’s literally his principles. Let’s see, just prove that. And then so that’s what he does.
Wait, so this is the guy you’re defending. I mean, that’s no different than any
terrible dictator in the history of the world that’s tried to cleanse or do any genocides.
It’s like that’s the mindset they have. Yeah. And for Roke, he’s supposed to be a philosophical,
you know, a poet, these kinds of things. He’s supposed to be a little bit smarter. Can he just
take an idea of just how history worked and that this wasn’t the case. It’s not like this is how
people were born into, you know what I mean? You’re not born scrawny or whatever. It’s like all
these people go to get surgeries done or whatnot. If you’re gold and you actually have better meals
and just look at that and say, hey, you know what, maybe there’s a different world out there
that could happen. That would be better for everybody as a whole. It doesn’t make a lot of
sense. It all stems, it seems like, from when when Quinn dies, like, when did it start? He’s
like, it started when Quinn died. It’s like, that wasn’t Darrow’s fault. The Jack. And he even said
the Jackal told me that he killed her. He straight up killed her. And now you’re
siding with him, but you’re saying it started when Quinn died. It’s a logical. Yeah, it’s
totally a logical for someone that’s supposed to be one of the most logical. And I know that
Pierce Brown obviously doesn’t just do these things by mistake. So it’s supposed to show that
some people can just be unmoving and they have their own principles that they’re going to stand
by and they’re going to live and eventually die by them. But yeah, I don’t know why Darrow’s crying
over it. But I hate that they were like, he’s sensitive. Like that was like what they call
his described him as like always sensitive. But he’s not like actually if you’re sensitive,
you like have empathy and you can walk him out and see if he couldn’t do that. The reason he’s
sensitive is he’s a baby back bitch. That’s what he is. Oh, yeah. That’s all you preach. Yeah.
He’s sensitive. He’s your boy last step, by the way. So that’s on you. My boy, Ro? Yeah. You were
like, Ro? Like deserve better last up. And I was like, I don’t know about that. We’ll see now.
Well, I think I was of two minds that he deserved to be informed. You know what I mean?
That’s fair. He deserved to be informed. Being facetious about that. Yeah.
Yeah. Because I don’t want you to mince my words. When someone just read Morningstar,
my first lockdown and this has been a stock down before or maybe a stock up. But, uh, nepotism.
So stock down on nepotism. Just because Sevro is Airy’s son, it doesn’t make him the best choice
of filling in his father’s shoes once Fitchner gets got, you know, it’s like because he’s
Fitchner’s son, he just picks up the mantle of Airy’s. And I understand that there isn’t a box
and Mustangs on the lamb. But there’s got to be someone more equipped to managing the bureaucratic
duties needed to house feed, provide medical care for all these refugees and Tino’s. It’s just
Sevro deciding on this stuff while also managing his howler duties. And that’s what he’s good at.
Leave Sevro as the leader of the howlers and have them do all their runs. He can be the military
leader too, even though he’s not really good at strategy. He’s a better tactical military person
than a strategy military person. He doesn’t have the big picture. So especially when you’ve now
opened up your ranks to, you know, blues and silvers and all the other colors of the rainbow,
there’s got to be someone in there that you could that is part of the sons that can handle
some of this bureaucratic duties. So I’m actually kind of surprised he didn’t want to throw it back
to to Darrow immediately, because I’d be like, Hey, this ain’t why he wasn’t right yet. So that’s
true. I will also say too that I was a little disappointed in Darrow and Darrow, I’ve
think is the amazing character, the first two books, but this book I thought at times when he
went off to go find Quicksilver, first of all, before if you have doubts about his leadership
before, you got to pull him aside be like, Hey, this is the things I think where we got to change
up, you know, someone that’s been in your shoes. Here’s what I would do differently. It take my
advice if you want to, if not, you know, whatever. But once you’re on the actual mission and the
chain of command is Sevro as a leader in your follower, you do not question him in front of
people. I did not like that at all. I mean, you can’t do that. That’s just like going to break the
whole chain of command. Whether someone did that to Darrow when he was doing it, Sevro would never
do that to show him up in front of people. I didn’t like it at all. Didn’t care from that for Darrow.
So even if he’s leading me to my death, Sevro is such a loyal person and has like earned that trust
that I don’t think you ever show him up like that in front of people. I don’t like that.
Okay, interesting. You’ve been watching Savannah Brothers or something like that.
You’re into it. You don’t salute the, what’s it? You don’t salute the soldier you suit the rank
or something. So even if you don’t agree with the decision, he’s earned that rank.
Is that what they say to Solvall?
Yeah, so good. Yeah. But my, oh, do you know it’s on to your stock down, right?
Yeah, what do you got? I may have skipped one for stock up, but I can double negative this.
Not using the President’s dilemma stock down. The President’s dilemma is pretty straight forward.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but they just spent more time at the Institute learning
this instead of, you know, I don’t know what they’re doing, skinning goats or whatever.
They referenced that a few times. Like, oh, I remember back in the good old days when we were
like, skinning goats me and he’d like, no one wanted to do it. I was like, what? I don’t remember
that. But anyways, they have Tony and Fissil and they’re both imprisoned. And the whole point of
the President’s dilemma is you give the prisoners options. And I can read it right from what the
President’s dilemma is. The first line of the prison is, two people are imprisoned. The literally
second line is each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to each
other or exchanging messages. That’s it. That’s like literally the way the reason it works. And
the whole point is you give them an option that’s going to either fuck over the other person or,
and they don’t know if they’re going to fuck them over. You just assume the other person’s
going to fuck you over, right? But instead, they let them like, chat it out, which is,
why would you do that? They know they’re getting recorded. They could have secret messages
passing back and forth. So I’m like, why would they do this? Does it make any sense? And then
stupidly, and Tony kills the one person because that gives her more leverage. So, yeah, read a
book one time for me. Prisoner’s dilemma. I like it once again. We’re on the same page here,
because my next lockdown was interplanetary interrogation tactics.
Oh, so this happens to the wire a lot too. They do that. That was what I was saying. I told
you I was going to talk about the wire again. Oh, okay. Great. So as Darrow not seeing the wire on
the holidays, like they just they don’t have it on the hollows. They got everything else. They got
everything about. Replying that. Ancient Roman civilization, but they don’t have the wire. Come on.
So our boy, Bonkmoreland homicide detective and one of the greatest characters on the wire,
he knows how to play captives off each other. I did. I knew nothing about this prisoner’s dilemma.
When you said that, I thought that was the railroad one where you like either kill one person or I
think it’s similar mindset. But yeah, the other 20, whatever. But let’s just talk about the McDonald’s
play, because I think that’s in season five, which is a great one. He’s got two guys in different
cells separated. They don’t know what the other one is saying. He tells one guy, your buddy gave
you up. The guy’s like, Bullshit. And then he tells him his buddy’s McDonald’s order. And he’s
like, yeah, he’s working with us. We got him McDonald’s. Everything’s nice and easy for him.
And then has the other detective walk the guy with McDonald’s by the first prisoner. And as that
guy’s eating his McDonald’s, he’s like, I’m still not going to tell you guys shit. I don’t care if
you’re having McDonald’s, but the other guy can’t hear it. So then the first prisoner gives up
everything. It’s simple as that. And Darrow on the other hand leaves Antonio and Thistle in
adjoining cells, not only in the same room, but adjoining cells. Like you said, they could be
hand signaling, they could be talking to each other, whatever. But it allows Antonio to mess
with Thistle’s mind and eventually getting here close enough to be able to be her to death. So,
and on top of that, not five minutes before that, Thistle’s like, I’m ready to give everything up.
Just I’m good. I’m good here. Yeah, good pouring in. Yeah. They’re like, wait, let them talk it out.
See what happens. She just said she’s ready to give it up. What are you talking about? So,
yeah, Darrow, there was a lot of stuff, but he does not know how to interrogate. That’s for sure.
So since we both burn that, I’ll go to my next one, which is simply a society that films everything
stock down. So I know this is a big thing just in the world now is how societies have cameras on
every corner and your cell phones have cameras that can tap into those if that’s what people
are saying. Who knows what people say on the internet, but either way, not potentially not the right
answer for those that are seeking power, because for Cassius to do his heel turn and his reverse
heel turn, all Darrow needs to do is give Cassius this hollow of Cassius is the the balona family
just being brutally murdered. Women and children, we got, what’s that little big top or little
round top? What’s that massacre? Either way, Boston massacre? Sure, that one. But yeah, it’s
like he just gives him this hollow, which why was it being filmed in the first place? Who’s filming
them murdering children? But hey, you know what, a society that films everything, they got a hollow
of it, give it to Cassius and now he’s back on your side. Can you explain the history of that?
I didn’t like this is way back when or the Boston massacre. So yeah, it was pretty 1776.
Yeah, yeah, it was right outside post office square and there’s an exchange building and
some bus don’t even got shot. They’re throwing snowballs and stuff at other things.
Two different sizes. Two different ones. No, you’re the other British side. Wow. Yeah,
John Adams defended those Brits and he I think he got them off. And then they also
really all my style. Sorry, what did you want me to explain how that worked? The massacre that
he was watching was that when when was that? Right? What was it? I don’t really know. I didn’t
know they’re sent the context of that. I think it was at the night that he and Cassius got their
duel when like everything was going crazy. Did they kill his whole family and say or was it before
that? I don’t know. I thought that was his grandparents and like her parents or whatever that happened
to. I don’t know. That’s why I didn’t understand. I didn’t know if you know. Yeah, it happened to
like his uncles and nieces and nephews and basically the whole Bologna family. Yeah, I don’t know. Either
way it happened. Did you have a favorite scene? So I mean, I wouldn’t say that this book. I mean,
obviously there’s there’s lots of scenes in it. There’s tons of them to choose from and we can go
through those. The thing I like or one of the things I liked about this book and kind of all
the other ones in general is that things happen somewhat literally. There’s not a bunch of jumping
back and forth to different places. And there’s very defined things that are happening. So maybe
this makes it like a YA book, but you know, you got Darrows imprisonment and his escape, the whole
situation on Tino’s, then Phobos when they go to capture Quicksilver like we talked about before,
then allying with the obsidians, the moonlords and the outer rim and the ensuing space battle.
And then you got Luna where Cassius shows as he’s double agent and the fall of the sovereign and
the jackal. That’s pretty much it. And when we’re on Mars with the obsidians, we’re not like jumping
back and forth between like what Sevro’s doing and then what Darrow’s doing and then back to
what Sevro’s doing. It’s just here’s the story. Then they go back and they link up with Sevro.
We kind of catch up at what’s been kind of like the first person narrative without the first
person. It is first person. It is Darrows perspective. I guess he does. Yeah, the only part that’s he
cheated is the whole Cassius betrayal where they’re pretending in Darrow’s head. Oh, yeah,
except for his dad, Sevro’s dad. Oh my god. But he knows Sevro’s not dead, but you need that. So I
understand that. But then obviously within those different sections of the book, there’s scenes
in there, which are great. So did you have any specific one that you liked, potentially the
scene at the end on Luna or the battle with Azja or anything on Mars? What do you got?
Yeah, for me, the hanging scene was the best. I thought when there’s basically a riot in the
ship and then… Oh, that hanging scene. Yeah, they’re trying to hang Cassius. Sevro comes up and he’s
like wild-eyed and he’s like, I’m the fucking… I’ve done killed so many people. I’ve done all
these things. And he’s like, and hang me. And he just hangs himself. I was like, oh shit. And it was
nice callback to the first book when Darrow did that. So he kind of took notes from Darrow on the,
not hanging himself, but getting whipped because he’s like, I’m responsible for this as well. I
love both. Those are such good leadership traits and being like, hey, what’s that? If you’re gonna
get mad at someone, then you get mad at me also or whatnot. So I love that. I thought, again,
you never see it coming. And I knew the scenes. And I was like, I can’t believe Sevro would do this.
And I’m like, yeah, let’s go Sevro. You know? Like, yeah. Oh man, I loved it. I couldn’t agree
with you more. Great callback to the whipping because it is so much like that because Sevro is
saying, oh, murdering is not allowed in the society, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we should hang all
murders. Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m a murderer. What do you do to me? Boobs. It was awesome. And
I think as a reader, the fun part is in your mind running from like Sevro. What the hell are you
doing to like, he’s not going to do this to oh wait, he’s doing this for a perp. You know, you’ve
kind of figuring that out is really is really fun. A lot of those big riling speeches is just,
they’re just words when someone actually just hangs themselves. That’s like, oh, that’s pretty,
that’s a pretty cool scene. Yeah, he’s screaming freedom. Well, the scuts are getting pulled up.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I really liked that one as well. And then in general for me,
anything that happened on the ice with the obsidian is great. Whether that be the cannibal scene,
which I thought was super cool. Because it’s like all of a sudden Mustang and Darrow are in this
space crashes, any sort of when there’s a spaceship and shit’s going on around it,
but it’s on the ground. I’m into it, especially when this cannibals involve.
I was just picturing Hoth from Star Wars on the whole time. Yeah, same. 100%
on the same page. Yeah. And back to actually, because you said Star Wars, when you first said
the hanging, I thought you meant the Jackals hanging, which in like a weird way is like that
metal scene in Star Wars. Well, just because it’s like, it’s not really a scene. It’s more of
just like everyone knows credits on the other side. Yeah, it’s like a credit type scene. I know
all the obvious that the Jackal isn’t, but and I was like, wait, that’s your favorite scene. It’s
weird. But either way, I think also when they kill the golds that are pretending to be Norseman,
I like that as well. And then I guess the fight at the end was pretty fun. Just wondering like,
how that’s going to play out. I guess let’s talk about that. Did you remember that Cassius
did the double agent thing? Well, the thing, the problem is, is I can just go right into my one of
my hates, because this is was the thing is like, I just didn’t believe that Cassius would do that.
If that were a Roke, I would make more sense to me that he was able to flip based off what you
said last book and base about what we were kind of thinking Roke as is someone that’s like,
logical can be kind of swayed with our good argument, where Cassius was the dude that was holding a
grudge because Darrow had to kill his brother in an institute that set it up where he had to
kill his brother. Like, it wasn’t like he sought him out and killed him. It was just a lock, it was
dumb lock, it was chance. It had nothing to do with anything personal. Yet he’s like holding a grudge,
his whole family’s holding a grudge over that. It’s like, it’s like logical doesn’t make any sense,
right? So that same guy then viewing something and being like, you know what, I’m going to go
against everything I believe in all of society because I saw this video. I get that he’s very
family oriented, but at the same time, I don’t think he’d be anti gold all of a sudden because
of that. It’s just, I don’t know. That’s that was the reason why I didn’t think that was going to
happen at the end because I was like, Cassius is such a like a dickhead. There’s no way he’s
actually going to see the light. I can understand that. I think the Julian thing, I can understand how
Cassius would hold that against Darrow. It’s like heart, you have to hold it against someone and to
hold it against your own society would be immediately blaming them for it, which is also how he’s able
to turn at the end because once he starts seeing other stuff, he even says when he has Lysander,
the world needed Julian. He’s agreeing with Odaras at the whole time. Yeah. Just the idea that this
weak person who just wanted like love and cared for other people that he’s able to just be thrown
away by the society, like obviously something’s broken, but it took something else to turn him,
which is Cassius is almost like a knight from the Middle Ages, or at least our idea of them,
which is about duty and honor and all of these in gallantry and all this stuff. And so that’s
the the person he is. And that’s what he believes in. And then he gets turned by Darrow by, you know,
pretty much lying to him, which is like, all right, that’s not honorable. So he goes through that.
And then even with the sovereign at the end, he says like, why did you turn? It’s like because
you lied. And it was about his family. But the idea of honor just got through like the goals are
more honorable, just got thrown out the window. And now he’s able to let the rest of those ideas
shuffle in. That’s a good point. Yeah. We had a couple new characters.
Sefi the quiet, her mom, I can’t remember what the mom’s name was. She didn’t work out for very
long. And we got regular son, aka Quicksilver, holiday T Nakamura and her brother, Trig,
any new characters that became favorites for you? Or were they just ancillary?
I thought the new characters were kind of meh. Holiday didn’t really have a distinct personality.
She’s kind of just a foot soldier that didn’t, that was kind of there.
She had some comic relief moments.
Yeah, I didn’t really understand Quicksilver. And then they also introduced like the person
that was the head of Mustang’s ship. They’re like, I have this person and I didn’t even know
what that person was. Yeah, who is that? That’s the blue that Darryl put in power in Golden Sun.
Oh, okay. I was like, who’s Orion? I mean, I guess you got the Moonlord 2,
who had an Australian accent, which I really liked the voice actor in the Australian accent
forum. But yeah, no, I didn’t think any of them really kind of moved the needle. Although I will
say one thing that was only very shortly in the book was the bone riders.
Those are fucking awesome. All right, let’s just be honest, they’re wearing bones and just going
around like thinking like, let’s go bone riders. I was like, all right, that’s sick. I was like a
book just on them. Honestly, that was awesome. He’s good with names to Pierce Brown, you know,
whether that be like Iron Rain or bone riders. Like it’s just, it sounds, it sounds badass.
When it could really sound not badass, if you know what I mean. I’m just thinking Nick Cage
was doing the kind of six seconds let’s ride thing. That’s like third motto.
Like I picture these guys with a motorcycle spaceship. Oh yeah.
I remember that when I was like, the leather jackets with both the bone chains hanging on them
somehow. I don’t know. Leather jackets on them. It made sense to me. I could, I get why you’d
fall on the jack-off once you killed somebody who presented you with like ornate bones to wear.
Yeah, I kind of, I kind of agree. I thought Zephyr was kind of unfortunate considering
how robust of a character Ragnar was. And I know she doesn’t have enough screen time per se to
to really become a character. But she has like one moment, which is really just that,
at least to the hanging and then her afterwards, you know, and I guess a little bit on the rocks,
but like not really, like on the, on the ice. So yeah, in Quicksilver, I agree. Just,
it explained a lot. He was very good for explaining how the Sons of Ares could actually function.
Like obviously they need some sort of financial backing. And so like that makes too much sense.
So I appreciated that because it makes the story more plausible. But outside of that,
he wasn’t, he wasn’t really much. So I was okay with holiday. And honestly, maybe the only reason
why, because she’s from Earth, the narrator did an American accent for her and it, I thought it was
kind of funny. So yeah. Yeah, it’s really good. I did enjoy also, because it’s going back to
scene though, I did enjoy the escape with them when they, they’re trying to get Darrow off and
like her brother just gets God. It’s like, well, okay, we’re starting off with a bang. Like,
I thought this guy was going to be a character. So see ya. All right, since you’re out of Birds
of Hates, let’s jump into love hate. Would you love about it before you start getting negative
all over again, burning two hates right there? Once again, I mean, there’s so many unique and
amazing action sequences. I feel like a lot of the books we read, you kind of can predict or have
some sort of inkling of what’s coming up next. And we read this book before and I was like,
what’s happened? I’m on the edge of my seat. I got to the point when there was two or three
hours left in the audiobook, where I would would listen to it less because I was so upset I was
going to be ending it. Like, that’s how good the book is. Really? It H.P. do you got Harry Potter
by this? Yeah, I’m doing the same thing with Harry Potter. I’m starting it and I’m like getting
that like nostalgia coming back and I’m like, Oh, no, I don’t want to read this so fast. Like,
I got to put it down for a little bit. I was really surprised you said you were starting it
already because we still have another epi to do. Like, we’re not going to do it for a couple
weeks potentially. I know. That’s why I’ve been kind of doing small doses. I don’t want to get
addicted yet. Yeah. So I would already be on like book four if I had already popped it open.
You’re injecting it into your veins. I’m just smoking it. I’m not actually injecting it yet.
It’s healthier, right? That’s how it works. But so this one got you, got you in the fields.
Oh, no, it’s coming into an end. So I was slow playing the end of it pretty, pretty hard. Like,
I texted you. I was like four days in like through the first 15 hours. I was like,
Oh, we ready to do this one? You’re like, what? I was like, no, you did.
Usually it’s the other way around outside of football season. But yeah, I agree. You started
by saying the action sequences and he I feel like he just writes those really well, even at the end
when it’s a four V one fight against Asia, you would think that would be kind of hard to visualize
or whatnot. But the way he wrote it, it’s like you could kind of see the whole battle,
the whole fight going down. It’s almost like return to the Jedi or whatnot when in the background,
you’re sure like out of these holes is like a whole space battle going on around them as they’re
doing this thing. So yeah, I really enjoyed all the different, you know, quote unquote set pieces
or whatnot that were in there. Probably my biggest love is the character growth that we see for
some of our biggest characters in this one. And because we spent so much time with them in the past,
and we know he does such a good job at this too, of like, you know, advancing these characters.
But Victor joining the howlers when Darrow takes her out of the cave, and then they have a really
good conversation that leads her to join him. And they have another conversation even later when
she’s like, you know, I didn’t join because of you, you know, or she originally says revenge against
her sister. But it’s more than that for her. And we see that in the relationship she has with
several. And to be about several, his speech, which we already talked about was awesome. That
like talk about growth of a character, several becoming just kind of this like war leader to now
a leader leader was great to see. And then I really liked, I did like Cassius coming back into the
fold. I thought it made sense. And I led that earlier asking if you saw it coming. And I was
asking because I wasn’t sure if I remembered it or not. But and I guess this might be one of my
hates. I wasn’t sure if I remember it. I didn’t think so. But I thought there was, it was so obvious
leading up to it that he was going to turn back. I don’t know why. But after he shot several, I was
like, holy smokes, I cannot believe that happened. Like what? And then I was like, Oh, pierce, like,
that’s badass. You just went and killed several like that. And then maybe like five pages later,
I was like, wait, I remember the hemat this oil or whatever. Yeah, that dare I did. The and I’ve seen
what do they call those ketchup packets or whatever vests that they put on in movies?
Squibs. Those are people that are can’t be magic, right? Yeah, they are too. Yeah,
they’re fun. They’re both back. Yeah, so I kind of saw that comment. So maybe that’s a hate of mine is
I wish I was a little more surprised. But I guess we’re just doing love sates at the same time. Do
you have a love or hate? I actually thought the ending will after that fact was good because the
society isn’t perfect. It’s like still fractured in some ways. It wasn’t nice little like, Hey,
we’re coming together. We’re going to start making some changes. But it wasn’t and the reds will rise
up and everything will change. I did think that it kind of shows that there’s not there’s like this
perfect ending or society that can just change immediately. It’s like, there’s still gonna be
tons of issues. It’s just now different issues. But that was cool. Yeah, and they couldn’t solve
that in three books. And it’s said so much by Mustang and other characters. It’s just like,
well, what’s your plan for after? Like, yes, Sarah, we know you can wage war. But can you can you do
it without having a sling blade in your hand? Can you rule? Even though they don’t want him to rule
it like what’s your vision for the future? So one, it helps peers like open up three more books in
this series, which if you’re if you’re inclined, you can go read them, sure they’re great. But also,
yeah, it’s like it’s like the end of a new hope, like the metal scene we were talking about. Because
yeah, it’s a great moment, but there’s still a lot of bad out there and a lot to still be done,
especially when it comes to the people. But hey, if you’re a minor, you have to worry about laurels.
Like you do your job, you get medical care and you go home, just live your life. Yeah, it’s funny
that you said the ending because that was actually one of the hates of mine. And not necessarily
that aspect of it. I just thought in the end in general, there it was too much of a happy ending
for me for how brutal this book was. And then just in the people that I mean, I’m not saying
kill off main characters necessarily, but I don’t know, there could have been something worse,
because and then when you put it the end, Mustang says, Oh, I we have a son. It’s like, okay,
like, I got it. Is everything going right?
I want to know the size of that kid because it’s going to he’s going to be another several.
He’s going to be half size, right? Well, I was thinking about this too,
which is interesting because for several parents, they had to mess with the body parts, you know,
they took care of the body parts so that the genetic systems would work. It just goes to show
how thorough Mickey was that not only was he creating this super advanced gold that could,
you know, dominate these other teenagers, but he was like, I might as well put some functioning
semen in this guy because ladies are going to want him and in the future, you know, I should
figure this one out. So yeah, Mickey’s definitely the best carver. That’s for sure. Basically,
my point is that I think that it’s a fully grown gold, like Mickey, okay,
because like the genetics, he changed the genetic code, not just the yeah, like he,
yeah, he fixed something in there or puts a nano semen in there, whatever he’s doing.
I didn’t mind the ending because that you could go the opposite direction when we saw
what Game of Thrones where it’s like, well, I need to make such crazy ending because everyone
expects it for me. It’s that I’ll do the stupidest shit ever. Yeah, instead of just no one’s going
to complain if you have just a HP coming up. There’s definitely a good ending, right? It’s not like
it’s not perfect, but it’s not a terrible ending. But in that’s fine. You could really fuck it up
way worse. I wasn’t that upset. I guess at the same time, there was like 12 nukes dropped.
So everyone goes home happy. There’s like 50 million people dead and how it already blacked
out and starving. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. Okay, I will say, which was kind of my one of my
hits is I almost wished. I mean, this is bad, but I wish early on in the book, something fired
there up because I feel like he didn’t have that hunger that he’s had in the first two books where
he’s like, I gotta do this. Yeah, you almost needed Mustang to get killed or something like that
early on this book where he’s like, now I gotta come back and just be an absolute psychopath again.
Yeah, because that’s the dare I missed. That’s what living solo in a box will do for nine months.
Yeah, you lose the fire. Yeah, it’s all dark confinement. Not great.
Yeah, so it’s got a four or five two or something on Goodreads, which is wild.
But you know, I that might be the highest we’ve ever read, you know, especially with some of
this many reviews, I think Golden Sun had like a four to four, four, eight and Red Rising had like
a four to five, let’s say, they’re not. I don’t know why Red Rising was so like, I think we talked
about though, like the reason that the third one is so high is because if you’re reading the third
one, you’re a huge fan at that point. You’re not going to read three books of a book you don’t like,
you’re narrowing it down to the biggest fans. And then as long as it’s a good book, you’re going to
say it’s yeah. Well, I think also what’s interesting is that from what I’ve gathered from people
who have read this and just like through reviews and whatnot, I haven’t talked to that many people
let’s say, but most think that this is the best book, Golden Sun is the second best book,
and Red Rising is the worst book. Yeah, that’s kind of crazy to me. Yeah, because I like Red
Rising the most. Yeah, I agree. Such a fun little story that, you know, and this obviously is a
bigger deal, but I think their order of release Red Rising first, I think this one was third,
but at the same time, there’s only so many twists and turns and things you can do. And like,
this book was still had him, but I don’t think there’s like that much of a gap between all of
them. But I still think those were that would be the order for me. What about you? 132 for me.
Yeah, I like this, but I think Golden Sun, I think the Cassius turn and the several stuff was great.
I mean, we got some good Ragnar, but we didn’t get Ragnar. If you could put Ragnar’s best from
two into this, like, oh my god, this would be, this might be number one for me overall.
All right, so that was Morningstar. We finished our second trilogy ever, Keith Pat on the back,
proud of you. And it’s really just getting us ready for what do you call a series with seven books,
trilogy three set up, six, six, something.
Septology, either way, Keith, would you recommend Morningstar to our listeners?
Yeah, I still think I would tell any person this is a series that’s right up there with Harry Potter
in terms of my favorite reads. I recommend it all the time. So yeah, I would continue to do that.
And second read through is just as enjoyable. Can’t wait to forget this in five years and do it again.
Yeah, and we’re going to talk about that in the next series because it’s great when you
like a book so much, and then you totally forget it, and you’re able to go back and read it with
mostly fresh eyes. It’s so enjoyable, and it’s a strategy viewed before, and I will definitely
use it again with this series. I’ll probably be like, I want to read at some point in the future,
I want to read the next trilogy, but I’ll be like, oh wait, what happened to that first one?
Then I’ll start it red rising and I’ll do it all over again. So that’s generally how I feel about it.
Keith, it’s been fun. What do we have coming up next? We’re doing the TV show for Shogun.
That’ll be next. So sorry. And then Harry Potter, we’re going to do, are we still planning to do the
read the book, then do the movie, then read the next book and do the movie or do we have to?
Yeah, especially the fact that you haven’t seen the movies. I need an immediate take after you’ve
read the book. Give me an e in that flow. Yeah, that’s what I think I’ve seen.
We’re all knocking off your boom Trevor. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, we’re doing that. So that’s
14 episodes basically planned out. Yeah, that that’ll probably take us through the summer.
It’s the summer, so it’s perfect. Yeah, if you’re not reading Harry Potter this summer,
what is wrong with you? Because that’s what I’ll be doing. So Keith, it’s been fun doing this
trilogy with you. I’m excited for some Shogun, even though I need to watch some epies and I’m
so excited for Harry Potter. It’s like we’re opening a closing yearbooks left and right over
here. Oh yeah. This is a good yearbook to open. All right, it’s been fun. Good stuff. Bye.

The Buddies we’re so happy to see their friends, Darrow, Sevro, and Mustang again as they read Golden Son, book 2 of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Series. The Buddies have talked about how this is one of the only series to come close to Harry Potter, and book 1 currently sits on top of their favorite books read on the podcast. So how did this one turn out? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out! And maybe give us a bloody damn review if you have the chance.

Intro (0:00-3:38)
Stock Up/Down (3:39-29:55)
Favorite Scene/Character (29:56-37:29)
Love/Hate (37:30-51:15)
Casting the Movie (51:16-53:39)
Conclusion (53:40-55:25)

NEXT BOOK: Morning Star (Red Rising Series, Book 3) by Pierce Brown

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

– All right, welcome to “Buddy Booklup”.
I’m Dylan here with a fellow holler.
– Oh!
– Keith, what’s up, buddy?
– And I’m joined by Dylan, Ah, Baloney.
(laughing)
I just like a cackle laugh.
– It’s funny, you got me there.
That’s loving and fruit, but I like it.
I like it.
So here at “Buddy Booklup”, we’re bringing us
the best dollars in this week.
We’ll be discussing “Golden Sun”, the middle child
in the “Red Rising Saga” by Pierce Brown.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read,
reach out to us in the past episodes.
You can visit the website, buddybookup.com,
sign to the DMs on Twitter, Instagram,
buddybookup.com, you can list us an iTunes,
but if I’m really your podcast,
please download and give us a review while you’re at it.
You know, give us a follow on the social channel.
Please, and thank you.
If you didn’t read “Red Rising”, well, you can’t see me,
but I’m flipping you the crocs because shame on you,
Keith, we did an episode on “Red Rising”.
I looked it up as to when we did it.
That was over two years ago.
It was January of 2022.
For those of you who have not read it,
or Keith, just in case, you needed a little bit extra,
little something to wake up the demon inside of you
and get that demon dust in your nose like Titus.
I wanna tell you about another book I have on my shelf.
The book is called “Flower Water Salt Yeast”.
Are you familiar with this book?
Red?”
– It is a book on “Red” by Ken Forkish.
Here’s a wonderful baker out of Portland.
It’s a great book, and the book talks about
how all it takes to make the world’s most delicious bread
is for ingredients.
That’s all you need.
And honestly, it’s the same
with a wonderful science fiction novel.
You take Harry Potter,
and then you add a healthy dash of some Hunger Games,
fold in a bit of Ender’s Game,
and finish it by sprinkling some Braveheart on top.
You got “Red Rising” right there.
The whole EO being murdered,
that then vaults Darrow into his whole story.
It has a lot of Braveheart to it,
and it also helps because the narrator is Scottish
or something like that.
It’s a perfect Braveheart tie right there.
And then the school aspect has Harry Potter,
the houses and whatnot.
It also manurves the smart people,
manurve a McGonagall anybody.
And then Hunger Games is probably what is mostly similar to
just an idea of they’re putting this place in everyone,
battles each other out.
And then Ender’s Game,
because Ender’s kind of a fish out of water,
just like Darrow is,
but he’s a natural-born leader.
He kind of forms his fellowship around his friends,
and they can want to kind of take on the system a little bit.
That’s how I saw it.
The last thing before we get to the talk-up talk-down,
’cause I did want to just fill in for some actual story stuff,
where we left off at “Red Rising” Darrow’s now,
Nero Agostasist Prodeche.
We don’t know exactly what that means yet, though.
And we also have some lingering questions
around whether several herd or did not hear Darrow say bloody damn
when he was doing the audio stuff in “Red Rising.”
And if several was able to put those pieces together.
So with that, let’s get to “Golden Sun.”
Let’s do it.
Stock-up, stock-down, “Golden Sun.”
What do you got, stock-up?
Stock-up, secret training.
Oh, training And secret in revealing your secret skills
always hits, works every time, every single time,
whether that’s, you’ve seen them show those wedding videos
where they’re like, well, actually,
you didn’t think I could dance,
but I’ve been secretly training good dancers,
– Oh, yes. – That’s right.
Or like, oh, I actually know how to play the piano
or I’m able to speak Korean or whatever it is.
– I’m waiting for one of those wedding videos
where, and honestly, they do touch my heart,
where someone is a paraplegic or something like that,
and they dance in the wheelchair,
or their dad or brother-in-law helps them up,
and they help them with the dance
or something along those lines.
I’m waiting for someone to take it to the next level
where they actually stand up and get out of their chair
during the dance, and the whole idea
that they didn’t have use of their legs
was just a long con for that exact moment.
That’s what I’m waiting for.
(laughs)
– All right, well, you’d really turn that whole concept
into a negative, or there is media that’s like that.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the Ted Lasso, like, Dart scene.
Oh, yeah, great scene.
– The Habachi scene and how I met your mother,
or in the final scene in Beer Fest,
where they’re like, we’re not that drunk.
Great, I love all of it.
And Darro, no difference in this,
is when he challenges Cassius,
but he’s been secretly trained by the law.
But this guy’s bringing me to some of the question
or quam here is that, is there anything
that you could think of that you could,
you haven’t really trained for your whole life,
just pick up and practice for a year,
how long is he practicing?
I was like every morning for two years.
– I’m trying to think of,
I mean, I’m also not an athlete like Darro,
but like, is there anything you could just pick up
and be the best of all time all of a sudden,
because you’ve just put the work in for two years?
yeah, I think The situation here is That he has
that natural ability, like he has the natural born talent,
he just never got schooled in it.
I think with that amount of training,
we could probably do something that was in our wheelhouse.
You know, I couldn’t become a theoretical physicist
in two years or something like that
if I tried every day,
and the montage would be super boring.
Full disclosure, this is my second read through,
me as well. – Of Golden Sun.
I read it probably a couple years ago,
we originally did red rising,
so I didn’t remember a ton of it,
but once Darro at the beginning started
kind of using those Lauren phrases,
or you know how he was saying,
like these axioms that Lauren would say,
kind of like Marcus Aurelius or something like that.
I was like, “Oh, right, he’s been training.”
So like I remembered that aspect of it,
which is unfortunate,
’cause it kind of took the surprise away for me,
but I do remember the first time reading it being like,
nice, like that’s a cool twist,
and I do think that if they were ever to make this
into a movie or TV series,
I would love for when he first does that,
like quick sparring with Cassius and Cassius realizes,
like, “Oh shit, Darro knows how to use a razor
for a montage to happen.
I need a montage with him. – Yeah, I need a flashback montage,
with him training with Lauren,
because I think that would be so much fun
just to see Darro learning.
Lauren’s even saying he used to, later in the end of the book,
he like gives Lauren some troupe whiskey or something like that.
He’s like, “Oh, this is what used to bribe me with
for an extra hour of training in the morning.”
And so all that stuff would have been fun to see.
– That’s a good point.
I definitely would like to see that.
I also thought, there’s so much I forgot.
I thought Lauren was Aries.
I forgot that he, maybe like when I first read it,
I was thinking that, and I just immediately thought,
Oh, is this guy that’s Aries?
And then he dies, I was like,
Wait, what the hell?
At the end, I was like,
He’s not a, he forgot that he, that Lauren is murdered.
I also forgot that too.
Okay, I have a quick stock up.
My first stock up is killing younglings.
(laughs)
So, – I was always a stock up on this side.
yeah, yeah.
I mean, Anakin did it and lived on to rule the galaxy for a time.
Tactists didn’t do it, he decided against it,
and he died immediately.
So, – Yeah, he’s so faxed.
he really called out in The lawyer realm.
(laughs)
– It’s so faxed though.
– No, it’s so faxed though, that’s what I like to say.
– All right, it’s so faxed.
– Yeah, we’re not Latin here.
If The year around a group of children
and the world is at your back and call,
then you can take them out.
The more you murder kids, The better off.
– But it has to be, they have to be referred to as younglings,
’cause that’s the best.
And for those that haven’t seen,
which movie is that?
I can’t remember the text.
– Star Wars, the “Menge of the Sith” episode three.
– Yeah, it’s episode three, I just don’t remember the titles.
– Also, there was a little,
the hat tip to “Star Wars” as well,
as did you, did you catch the,
never tell me the odds?
Mm-hmm.
Porsche in here?
I was like, wait a second.
I know that line.
Come on, Pierce, you can’t slip that bias, come on, bud.
– Yeah, if you haven’t seen episode three in a while,
watch “When Anakin pulls that lightsaber out.”
One kid is the best acting out of anyone I’ve ever seen.
He just, like, shivers.
It’s perfect.
– Perfect acting, that’s just that.
– Yeah, I just scared, yeah, I’m just, yeah.
He was legitimately scared.
Like, his parents didn’t tell him what was coming,
and they just put him on set,
and all of a sudden this guy pulls out a sword,
shit, his pants.
All right, what else can I ever stock up?
Media manipulation, Stock up.
The Jackal Noody was doing.
I mean, control the media, control the narrative.
The famous office episode is, like,
get out in front of the story, you know?
And he was doing that.
You know what I’m proud of my see in this again,
probably will be covered in book three,
but you’ve kind of broadcasted and made
build Darro up to be the hero.
So at this point, I’m not really sure
what he does with the media from there.
You either kill him or make him go away,
and he becomes this martyr figure, right?
This, like, leader of a rebellion.
If you reveal that he’s actually a red,
it’s like the worst thing you do.
Where you go from here?
I’m wondering, kind of, what you do?
Commit it up to the media as much as you want,
but, like, people go back and watch all of his videos,
watch all of these clips of him and stuff,
like, this little lives on forever.
Once you blot it out there,
and you create this narrative, you can’t take it back.
It’s out there forever.
So, do you think they’re just gonna hit him with, like,
the, what are they doing these days?
You got to hit him with, like, the, he’s Jared Fogel, right?
You got to hit him with that, or you got to hit him with,
like, the, the P-ditty thing,
which I have a stock coming up for him pretty soon.
You know, you got to hit him with one of these things, right?
Like, that’s the only way to knock him down a peg, right?
That’s the only strategy.
– I was thinking more of, like, a Barry Bond-type situation,
because– – He was juicin.
People love to see their heroes fall.
I mean, it’s a fucked up part of society,
but even Tom Brady right now
with, not necessarily this roast thing,
but with his wife, leave him in the crypto stuff.
People love to just see their heroes fall,
even in the Boston area, which is, which is sad,
and it’s something that people must discuss
about the human psychology.
But with Barry Bond, it’s like,
Dara really was juicin.
He did it next level with the carvers,
like, going into the carvers, so–
– Oh, I see what you’re saying.
And I would like to know how much of him was shown
on, like, the H.C. to the low-collars?
I’m wondering, is it most of this stuff?
‘Cause you said, oh, I go back and watch your stuff,
but that was Octavia Loon’s, like, grandson, who is saying it.
So, if most of these exploits are shown to the golds,
then his star will fall rather quickly,
but if it’s something where they’re showing him giving power
to low-collars, like he does with some of the blues
and the oranges and the grays that are around him,
if they’re showing him on the H.C. doing that,
and then all of a sudden, they show that he’s a red,
the jackal’s just gonna have an uprising on his hands.
yeah.
Well, I thought he was broadcasting it to get
different societies to jump in on the rebellion,
so I thought he was doing that, but I don’t know.
– Yeah, but he obviously couldn’t be because at the end,
he, the H.C. whole plan is like, he’s working with the sovereign,
’cause, like, Aja’s there and the sovereign ships are coming.
I don’t know, he’s cut some sort of deal,
but we’ll learn more about that in the future.
I like that one, yeah, he’s doing his own
rebert Murdoch situation.
My next stock up is someone we’ve talked about before
in our lives, it’s Scott Evil, Dr. Evil’s son,
if you’re not familiar, so stock up for Scott.
There’s a lot of similarities between Scott
and Dr. Evil’s relationship and the Aja’s
Nero relationship.
Both fathers are trying to take over the world.
Both fathers tried to murder their sons.
Both sons are quite astute and wily like their old man.
(laughs)
That’s worth a similarity, Zend though.
Maybe because Adria’s a Nero never had a breakthrough in group.
As seemingly complex as Adria’s A.K. the Jackal is,
it all boils down to these daddy issues he has.
He’s sad that Nero, Awa Gustus,
never gave him a pat on the back.
With that, he decided to become a psychopath.
I did thoroughly enjoy him telling his father at the end
that he used his dad’s money to quote unquote invest
in his future by paying Cassius’ brother
to murder his brother.
That was like, whoa, that was cool.
But he was like, oh, dad, remember that money I borrowed from you?
Yeah, he used it to take a hit out on your favorite son.
So that’s a tough one.
But at the same time with all the stuff that the Jackal is,
oh wow, he’s such a mastermind.
He’s doing this for powers, doing this for his own plan.
He’s really just doing this to get back at his dad
and never hugged him, which is sad in its own right.
We have a bunch of books about it with neptism
and all this stuff about coddling the weaker child
or whatnot.
So yeah, it was refreshing, frankly.
And that’s how you really get a great evil doer.
And that’s what we need in this book.
And so good job.
Good job all around.
I agree.
And it is messed up, though.
And I’m not going to take anything away from the Jackal here.
But his dad did try to kill him in the Spartan way
of throwing him off a cliff when he was a baby or something
like that.
So maybe the world slash a Augustus deserves.
Deserves.
That’s where I’m at.
All right.
Yeah, I don’t get it.
What do you get for stock that?
Stock down, P-ditty.
It sucks pretty high right now.
I don’t think I’ve heard anything in the news recently.
Really high stock.
Hold on to it.
I would always invest in this.
It’s like a blue chip stock, usually.
But his song, Coming Home–
It’s a complete jam.
You know that song?
Coming home.
Paul Pierce is homecoming when he came back to the Southeast.
Yeah.
I’ll take some rates, because I’m coming home.
Just gives me chills anytime I watch that video.
But Darrow’s homecoming.
In a word, underwhelming.
Not great.
To summarize it, it was, wow, this place looks a lot shittier
and smaller than I remember.
Oh, yeah, it wasn’t that perfect.
Our grave kind of sucks.
And my mom kind of hates me.
It doesn’t really believe in anything I’m doing.
And then my girlfriend finds out and just bounces.
That’s a mariza.
That was his homecoming.
Pretty shitty homecoming, am I right?
Yeah.
Did you take it as like his mom was upset with him
for what he was doing?
His mom was like, indifferent.
She was like, oh, you’re here.
He’s like, you’re not surprised.
She’s like, oh, whatever.
I don’t know.
It’s like, I know you’re not dead, Darrow.
I know you’ve been alive the whole time, my son.
And then he’s like, well, I’m doing this whole big thing.
She’s like, well, you know, you guys
got to fight for something, I guess.
But it’s a lot of young folks always
have these big old fans ahead.
They just need a cup of tea and to relax.
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
So it was very uninspiring.
I was like, oh, that should be like, not only should you
go out there and fight, but kill them all.
Kill every last one of them.
You know, I should need it some pupa,
but it was pretty depressing.
Yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t great, but I thought it was endearing.
And I’ve seen some other people say that maybe
it was a little early for that kind of reunion.
It was like four years past.
How long do we show you weight?
Two and a half years.
I agree.
And especially with the way that the minds work,
the mind is like living in one of these minds
is like the guy in interstellar who was on the spaceship
when they came back and he’s like, I’ve been here for 30 years.
Because they age so quick, all of a sudden his mom
sat at a stroke.
She’s like 42.
She’s had a stroke.
She’s dying of emphysema.
It’s like, good God.
And it makes this cool mind and Kentucky look like, you know,
you’re doing some white collar easy living.
Other than the reunion was nice.
I did wonder if that child was his though.
I was thinking about that.
He’s like, the kid was born shortly thereafter three years ago.
Like the time kind of checks out,
but I don’t know how they would have got a baby out of you.
And that’s his sister?
Isn’t that sister’s kid?
It was.
They say like, oh, that’s your uncle Darryl.
But she just said it was his sister’s kid, you know?
Oh, God, you’re welcome.
Who knows exactly?
How did you have the kid?
How did you do that in secret?
Well, yeah, I don’t know.
I just, you know, these weird twists and turns, who knows?
I didn’t–
Speaking of weird family thing, it was kind of weird
that Nero was like, I’m going to adopt you.
Now you’re going to marry my daughter.
Wait, now the brother and sister are marrying each other?
Buddy, have you not seen Clueless?
It’s come on.
Oh, OK.
That was 1990 and it was fun.
Obviously, he’s a stepbrother stuff recently.
All right.
OK.
All right.
But it’s Paul Rudden, Alicia Silverstone.
You know, you look the other way, I guess.
Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.
It’s an adopted son.
I’m sure this was very common in Rome, which they–
There, yeah.
Rome’s cool, for sure.
But these golds just love Rome so much
they’re going to build their society off of it
and treat the Romans like gods.
What’s going on here?
Get over it.
Close the ear book on Rome.
Move on.
The golds gave Norse mythology to the obsidians, which
is like, that’s the cool stuff.
Why did you give it to them?
That’s like Zeus and stuff or–
No, that’s like Odin and Thor and Loki, all those fun folks.
Oh, OK.
Yeah, all right.
Zeus is the Greeks.
They all blend together, I mean, I’m not sure.
The Norse mythology is like, those are the bad ass.
Those are the guys that are going to Valhalla.
They’re just straight up warriors, which
I understand it makes sense if these are going
to be your warrior cast in this universe,
that yes, you give them this warrior religion,
but get over the whole Rome thing.
My first lockdown is elite military training.
I don’t really know who needs it.
It seems like it might be not necessary,
because the howlers who are pretty much part secret service
and part a commando unit have a training regimen that
includes snakes, alcohol, and mushrooms.
Besides that, the whole regimen is more secret than buds,
basic underwater demolition school.
So whatever they do with snakes, booze, and trumps,
it works, because they are the most bad ass of Daryl’s followers
and the most loyal.
So they didn’t tell Daryl what that entailed
that I was trying to figure it out.
And I was thinking probably maybe some pit-fipers,
and they all get wasted and get on mushrooms,
and they got to corral some venomous snakes.
That’s the only thing I could think of.
I don’t know how that makes you an elite fighter.
That was just their initiation, right?
Yeah, that was an initiation.
But at the same time, the way that quote-unquote school
works in this society, I don’t really understand either.
Everyone is adept at fighting and by politics and knowledge.
I think they’re all very good at this.
But from our understanding, the only school they did
was when all the leaders threw them in this place in Mars
and said, kill each other.
There was no learning.
Is it just assumed that every family just does it on their own?
They were talking about how all the families
are privately training them and doing all this stuff,
because remember Cassius’ whole family,
they’re born with the razor and their crib, essentially.
They’re saying.
So I think it’s like a–
they’re so wealthy in thing they had all the best teachers
and everything like that, and then they were just
training them for their academy, which is kind of weird
that they were able to keep the secrets of what happens.
You would obviously slip that to your kids.
Oh, yeah, you’re going to get to this.
Oh, a billion percent.
I mean, that’s more of a hate, potentially, for red rising.
But I don’t know how you don’t tell your kid
that he’s going to face the passage and be potentially
murdered.
It’s the first thing you would say if your son was like,
oh, I’m not going to learn about hand-to-hand fighting.
It’s like, hey, just so you know, you not doing your homework here
could have you murdered in three years.
So get it figured out.
That would motivate me.
That would motivate me, too, for sure.
What else do you have for stockdown?
Last one, saving lives, stockdown.
You want to save someone’s life once or maybe in twice fine,
but once you start doing it more than that,
you’re testing fate.
That’s why they always say in movies, like,
I owe you my life.
You don’t keep owing a lot.
You can’t do multiple lives.
You have to basically pay it back, right?
Otherwise, I think it’s the movie Final Destination,
where if the person is supposed to die,
and you’ve got to save their life three times,
that you should have killed them.
They should be dead, because otherwise,
the final destination ghost thing will turn around
and start trying to kill you.
You know what I mean?
I think that’s how that math works.
Is that what Final Destination was about?
Really good ghost?
It was like fate, essentially.
I got it.
Yeah, I got that.
Yeah, if you go against fate, then fate will find a way
to kill you, and that’s why random objects would go up to you.
The reason I bring this up is because Dero does this with a jackal,
not once, not twice, but I could list them out.
There’s a bomb place next to him, like,
the very beginning by Harmony, moves the bomb, saves him.
The summit, when Octavia was going to kill
the whole family saves him.
The water, when they’re escaping from,
when Octavia is holding them there,
and then they basically get attacked.
Those are kind of one, though, but yeah.
No, but they were going to bomb them at the,
or are you going to actually kill them?
Oh, I get it.
Dero is going to do the whole, a little awkward by ya.
Yeah, well, no, Dero’s, (laughs)
got, (laughs)
the plan was, at this summit, was for them to kill them.
Yeah, but Dero’s going to blow himself up.
And that, yeah, so I can see, I mean, but he’s not saving them,
because he didn’t decide to kill them,
I’m not counting that one, but,
(laughs)
(laughs)
And then again, when he takes over the packs,
Mm-hmm, Oh, yeah.
– So there’s like so many different times,
and when Pliny captures them, it holds them hostage,
he saves them, it’s like over and over and over,
it’s like bro.
Let him die.
And every single person is telling him not to trust him.
Yeah, like, I’m like, okay, no, it would be easier
if you just let this do a die and you take over
his medium part.
yeah, just Let his medium part go away.
The medium part’s already done the work.
When his sister comes to you and she’s like,
hey, you’re too close to my brother.
Like, do you trust him too much?
You should probably not be doing that.
He’s like, I have a purpose.
Dero, chill.
And I do also understand that the point of this all
is to make Dero valuable.
He makes mistakes just like anyone else.
He is a young kid, and these are mistakes
that are gonna cost lives, and they’re serious mistakes,
but he got put into a very high state game,
so he’s gotta do it, but at the same time,
it’s like no, you’re enemy, bro.
Seriously.
All right, my next stock down.
We’re talking about this, so it ties in pretty well,
but keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
People say that, I never really understood it.
I mean, I understand it in stories,
but not really in life, like who wants to do that?
But it turns out that that phrase is complete bullshit.
If Dero had kept Roke closer than the fucking jackal,
he made it out of been left holding the bag
or the box in the situation at the end of the book.
What’s in the box?
What’s in the box?
I will say in a sidebar, Pierce Brown did a really good job
of Dero opening the box, me like, holy shit,
and then everything else goes down, and then only like,
I don’t know, 10 pages later, does he look in the box
and see that it’s Fitchner’s head?
So I did–
– But Fitcher Head reveal wasn’t even like top five of that scene.
– Yeah, it was like holy shit, what’s going on?
– Yeah, the brutal murder of Maureen was–
he did a great job too of, you have that whole huge battle,
and then there’s like a lull for like three chapters.
Things slow down so much that really does not–
you’re not ready for that last like 15 pages
of like holy shit, you know what just says?
– Yeah, it slows down, it’s like total bureaucratic.
Dero finally gets his laurel that he’s been looking for,
except it’s not in the minds, it’s with a gustus,
and then for this Iron Rainy call down.
But I want to talk about the whole Dero Roke relationship.
I honestly have no idea why Dero would keep Roke
out of the whole plan to track the sovereign to Mars,
which was Roke’s biggest issue presumably,
because Roke loved Quinn, she was murdered by Aja.
Obviously Roke wants revenge, so when they’re on
whatever Saturn moon or whatever Jupiter moon
in any case is that Lauren lives on,
and they see Aja there,
Roke’s leaving his battle in space to get on Dero’s calm
to be like, don’t fucking lose Aja, do not lose her,
do not lose her, and then Dero just lets her go
without telling Roke why, not to explain to Roke,
hey, I have a bigger plan, there’s going to be a battle
at some point, I want to be able to know where the sovereign is.
The sovereign’s always with Aja,
we put a radioactive tracker on her,
and now we’re gonna find her, trust me.
My goal is the same as yours, we will get revenge,
but instead he leaves Roke completely out of it
until when they’re attacking Mars,
it’s like the sovereign’s on Mars,
and Dero’s like, oh Roke, I already knew that,
because that’s why we left Aja lot.
Like, Roke is not only should be your number two or three,
whatever, he’s in your top three,
like he’s in your triumvirate between Mustangs,
several in him, but Roke is potentially,
not only the smartest of that group,
but he’s the most emotional,
and probably the person that would be best at bringing
these different levels of this society together.
He understands poetry and literature,
and bigger philosophical ideas
than some of these other people might.
So the idea that he would be able to figure out
how to bring these groups together makes a lot of sense to me.
I didn’t understand why Dero would do that,
and a little bit seemed laziness from the writing side.
It just didn’t make any sense to me.
They’re so close,
why would he continue distancing himself from Roke?
I do agree that.
I wish he had a better excuse for while he knocked him out.
I think that’s when the trust started to–
– Well, that’s when it really started to evaporate for sure.
well, Roke is insanely good with ships And stuff like that.
So I can’t have him against me,
otherwise everything falls apart.
So the reason he was keeping him distance,
because he’s like, well, he might just get the sense that,
I don’t really like this dude anymore,
I’m gonna go off my own and take all these ships.
Now I’m running shit.
Like that was the reason he was trying
to compartmentalize things,
and Dero’s point is like,
he obviously wants revenge, all the things,
but then he allies with the very person that killed Quinn.
So I don’t think he’s,
I’m gonna fly far off and thinking that this dude might turn his back on me
and potentially ally with someone that,
we think we have the same interest, but it’s clearly he doesn’t.
– Well, he turned his back on him,
because he never let him in.
But why would you then ally with The person That killed
the girl he was?
– Well, once again, we don’t know what’s happening in Morningstar.
I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of Roke stuff,
and there should be.
– I don’t really remember him from the first book,
so what happened?
yeah, they were just boy.
The first one when he says at the end,
I remember the first thing I ever told you was,
they pretty much met right after the passage,
and obviously Daryl had just killed Julien
and was affected by it and Roke who doesn’t seem like someone
that would brutally murder someone with his bare hands,
had his own situation,
and he took kind of took Daryl aside,
and pretty much came at it from like a philosophical perspective,
and also just like a piece of humanity,
just being a human, like one human to another,
so just like, this is life,
and we’re gonna deal with it,
whatever the eye to camera really said,
but the point is he extended his hand in friendship to him
at that point,
and then from there on out, they were besties.
Obviously Cassius and him were one and two,
but he was his consigliary, really.
He was the guy who Daryl would have some idea,
and Roke would kinda be like,
Yeah, let’s check that, whatever.
And Roke originally had Liyah who he liked,
and then Liyah was murdered,
so Daryl went and helped him out there,
and then they, him and several, both like Quinn, whatever.
And even your point of saying,
Okay, Roke has all, he’s now a Praetorian,
or whatever that thing is,
like he controls all these ships.
It’s like, “Yeah, isn’t that more of a reason
to keep him close and in your inner circle?
yeah.
– There’s bigger themes and ideas in this,
which I did like,
and the idea of how am I gonna explain this Roke,
and Daryl often leaves people at arm’s length,
because he’s concerned about the future,
and when he does reveal himself,
that he’s gonna lose these friends who he holds so dear,
but he’s not realizing that he’s losing them already
by not bringing them in.
You know, just, you don’t have to tell him you’re red,
or whatever that case is,
or tell him all your deep dark secrets,
but especially with this Ajah stuff,
and he used to talk about his,
he slipped off Mickey when he was going to the party.
It didn’t make any sense what his explanation was,
it was like, “Oh, I didn’t want you
to have to be part of that.
So you always conserved for your safeties.
What do you mean?
You fought Cassius, and then everyone ran away.
You gotta told him, be like,
“Hey, there’s some shit that’s gonna go down,

776
00:29:49,480 –> 00:29:50,480
you should get out of here.”””
Not slip of Mickey and put it a bit, you know,
it doesn’t make any sense.
Favorite scene?
Do you ever favorite scene in this one?
– Just the whole, when they get into the sovereign’s place,
the whole like back and forth questioning
with the poisonous snakes.
little gom Jabbar action?
My heart was going for that.
I was like, “Oh man, this is intense.”
That followed by Mustang coming in, followed by
Severe.
Severe And The boys, real, real, grouping again.
I was like, “We’re back.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I’m saying?
The boys, the group, yeah.
We’re all riding, like so it was just kind of like
a meeting of the minds.
Everyone coming back together,
we getting the old crew back.
I really liked that.
That was great.
yeah, I liked That as well.
And they took a while to get Severe back in the show.
And I was like, “Come on, man, what’s going on?
The summer’s my boy.
What’s going on in the hall is in general.
It’s just, you know, it’d be so fun to have them there.
And because Severe is also like a little bit of
comic relief in this and he keeps Darro grounded
and keeps the whole thing fun,
even though it’s like pretty murderous.
But my favorite scene was Darro Mustang
and Ragnar in the cave at the end
when they’re in Mars and after the homecoming.
And I just thought that was like so well done.
And I really didn’t know what was gonna happen
because I was like, holy shit, is Ragnar gonna kill Mustang?
Like, there’s no way, but you never know.
Like, is that gonna happen?
Darro’s trying to explain like people can change.
Like things can change.
And she’s looking at Ragnar who her entire life,
she just knows as obsidians are these
pretty much like brainless murderers,
but that’s just how her people made them.
But she’s like, oh, these are these people who just
do whatever their person says,
like whoever their leader is.
And Ragnar steals the show instead of killing her,
like gets down on his knees next to Darro
and is like, hey, you can kill me too.
And his whole speech about like all the scars he got
for doing all this stuff for the golds.
And then when he talks about the scars he got for Darro,
he references them, it’s he earned for him.
And it was like, it was cool.
– I mean, there’s so many good scenes in this.
Like that wouldn’t even cross my mind,
but you’re right, that’s such a good scene.
– That just different maybe is it’s also like
the culmination of everything.
And like if there was nothing else that could show her
that there’s more to this world
than that people can change
and that you’re not just whatever you’re born to be.
yeah.
– It’s Ragnar, this fricking giant obsidian
with skull tattoos on his face
and it’ll shave Ted with a giant silver ponytail
getting on his knees and being like,
hey, you can kill me if you want.
And it’s also the narrator doing Ragnar’s voice is so good.
Unottable, you can get the ensemble cast.
They do in two parts.
So you have to pay like a credit for each part
which kind of sucks for all the books.
But I was like, if there was ever a book
that didn’t need an ensemble cast, it’s this one.
Because the hammer– – You said they’re doing
that for Harry Potter too.
I was like, what are you insane?
yeah, Jim Dale, what?
And People talk about It The other guy
that British crew that does it,
being like, how good he is, I’m like, bro,
no one touches Jim Dale, it’s not even close.
– But yeah, he’s, his is really good.
I’ve listened to his version too,
but Jim Dale is just the best.
– It is, it’s so partial.
– It’s so, it’s Jim Dale.
– It’s unfortunate that he did it,
Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry.
yeah, yeah.
– It’s unfortunate that he did it because he’s so good,
but it’d be like Scotty Pippin
against Jordan or something,
Scotty Pippin alone is phenomenal.
But he’s whatever, he’s second fettled
because it’s, you know, Jim Dale’s Jordan.
– Do you have a character you’d like to pick?
I mean, we got lots of new characters in this one
from Vickdra, who we really haven’t talked a lot about,
but she’s great, Pliny, who’s a total piece of shit,
but you know, that’s what you need.
Ragnar, of course, Lornau Arcos, Aja,
and then we even get like deeper looks
into some other characters, Nero Augustus.
We get his backstory, which is like,
very game of Thronzean, pretty cool,
his situation, and then Fitchner, his sad tale
about his wife and also Severe being a half breed, if you will.
Any of those are one of the old ones that–
– Yeah, you’re still my thunder with the Ragnar thing.
yeah, I have.
– Particularly with the, I really, really like to quote,
why he falls orders.
He says, “Mordals die a thousand times.”
Basically, like, the more you think about stuff,
you can die in your head a thousand different ways.
I only die once because I do or do not.
I’m like, fuck, that’s a good quote.
That is so good.
– Dero Telsen, like, that’s what humanity is,
that’s what being a person is is,
you have to deal with those.
So if you want agency in this world,
you need to live those thousand lives
or die those thousand deaths, like that’s the way.
But I, yeah, Ragnar’s speech in the cave sold it to me
when he’s like, “Dotor to the Valhkarri,
and Mother to the Seven Sparals of the Northern God.
It’s like, fuck, this guy is amazing.
This is so good.
I fight for my brother.
I fight for my two sisters.
I think the marriage makes him so much better
’cause it’s like, he goes into this, like,
jeep or voicemail when he does it.
yeah, yeah. – Fucking great.
Quick note of Vickdra loved her.
I thought she was really great.
Nothing negative to say about her.
I thought she was like a pretty well done character
for how little time we really spent with her.
And Pliny, I don’t really know.
Do you ever thought some Pliny?
in terms of what?
He’s a politician, right?
That’s all he was.
– I mean, yes, he’s a politician,
but he’s more like, like a little finger
or something like that.
Like kind of like a, like, has the ear of Nero.
So he’s like a number two.
– There’s a million Plinys.
We’ve all seen those type of characters.
I didn’t think he was necessarily way different
or unique, whereas like, some of these other characters,
I thought were so different.
No, I agree with you.
And that’s what I’m saying.
Because yes, we have Octavia Loon,
who’s the ultimate bad guy in that, you know,
she’s running this show.
And then we obviously have the jackal.
But neither one of them plays like a pretty big part in this.
It’s really like Pliny, who’s the real bad guy
throughout all of this.
– Well, I like that all, there’s like four different shades
of bad guy, jackal, Nero, obviously, sovereign.
There’s not just like one,
is the bad guy and this will be the bad guy for everything.
There’s all like shades of badness,
which I really think is great.
– Yeah, there’s not like Voldemort and his followers.
– Right, yeah, that means they’re all different.
Voldemort has his own agenda
and then everyone else has their,
like all the dead theaters have Voldemort’s agenda.
Whereas here, there’s like four people that are all shitty
but all have their own agenda.
That is different from one another.
– I also thought it was cool that you could see Nero’s,
oh, like his mindset is a certain way
that he’ll do anything in order to protect this certain mindset,
which is, a mindset we think is completely wrong.
But at least you can understand that.
Like where he’s kind of like a Batman villain,
whereas the jackals like the Joker,
where you’re like,
Oh, you just want to fuck everything up.
That’s a really good point.
Yeah, which is also funny because you said Nero is like
a Batman villain but then you used a Batman villain
for the jackal.
But I know what I know.
you sound like that.
– Like a superhero villain who is,
there’s more out of these.
a lot of bad guys have good origins.
– It’s fucked up, but they have a point where they’re going.
It’s like, “No, I think you’re a little fucking crazy.”
But at the same time, it’s like,
Yeah, I can also see what you’re saying.
Whereas the jackal and the Joker
just kind of like chaos for chaos’s sake
and to laughing the face of fire.
What about love hate?
What are different loves?
I mean, I really do think The sequel did not disappoint.
This is very rare.
I think most sequels I think you kind of have that let down
already built in.
A lot of the times they’ll do what the Hunter Games did.
It was just like, let’s just run it back
to the exact same story,
but they’re a slightly different thing in where this is,
we did already a Hunter Games version of book one.
We’re now doing something completely different,
which is like a full-on war.
And there was so many tent pole scenes
that you can kind of call back to that were,
like I said, you went over a lot of them,
but like we could go on for it.
You could say any scene in this book was your favorite
and I wouldn’t be like that stupid.
I’d be like, “That makes sense.”
yeah, I agree with you.
And I think that two-year jumping time was really smart
and was one of my loves as well.
Because if you cover the institute or the academy,
which is, I don’t know what it’s called,
the Institute of the Academy,
whatever is doing in space,
which is how this book starts.
So if you just start the book right after Red Rising ends,
we’re doing what you just said with the Hunger Games.
Like we’re just going back into a different school.
It’s the same thing as Red Rising,
just with the new setting.
It’s Red Rising, but in space is pretty much
what it would be.
So I love the idea of, we don’t need,
we’ve already done that with Red Rising.
Let’s move on topless years.
Let’s wait till he’s out of the academy
or whatever the case is,
whatever the thing’s called.
And get into the bigger picture story,
stay with our characters.
Let’s not really rehash what they’ve been doing
for the past years.
Like, oh, several of them flew out.
Yeah, okay, Mustangs working for the Sovereign.
Okay, we don’t need so much background.
Let’s just now pick it up
and deal with these relationships
and also tie it into the bigger picture
of what’s happening in the world.
So I like that.
What else you got?
– The world expanding, that’s like the whole,
I always talk about, like,
if Star Wars just was like in that one little planet,
it wouldn’t be that great.
The fact that it’s like endless stories could happen
because there’s endless planets and endless things.
That’s, it really does expand.
I also did like, I think you pointed out too,
that Daryl is the hero,
but he also has his doubts and has, you know, he’s a human.
He, he, he, he, he, he definitely is battling like demons
of, I kind of like these people, but also fuck them.
Yeah, like a lot of that stuff comes up all the time.
And typical YA book would spend the whole book to rehashing,
I wish I didn’t have to kill people
and I wish I didn’t have to do this and all this stuff.
He does it for like one minute
and then it’s like, fuck, there’s, let’s get angry.
And then he turns, he turns the dial, which,
– He’s like, I just wanna, – He bloodied
damn, killed my wife.
– Yeah, so I, I do think that you’re,
you does feel human, but he’s like spends a minute complaining
and then the rest of the time just being like,
fuck it, let’s get after this.
So, I love that part.
And then The same vein because we get this story
from a first person perspective,
like we’re all getting it from Daryl’s perspective.
In a YA book, you would get a lot more
of this love triangle with him Mustang and his dead wife,
yo, where he’d be like, oh, I love Mustang,
but I owe it to my wife not to do this.
Like, why am I doing this?
Like, can I love again in my over my wife?
You just get that all the time and you don’t.
But he still puts the love interest of Mustang,
like in the forefront of the book,
it’s just not on top of you the whole time.
Like it would be for a lot of this.
Even, you know, the Hunger Games was trying to enjoy it.
It’s a fun series, but her and the bigger kid
or whatever the thing was, it’s like, you know,
a lot of times it was just like,
I don’t care so much about their relationship
and like, should you guys right now,
like there’s something bigger going on.
And I feel like that’s what he did really well with this is like,
yes, I love Mustang and I have these complicated feelings
because I still love my wife, but at the same time,
I gotta represent the reds here.
There’s also a world to galaxy or to excuse me,
solar systems to take off first.
So, I like how he did that.
Yeah, the other trope too that I think is that he avoided,
which I don’t like is that whenever someone has that big secret
and they’re like, you know what, I have to come clean
and reveal it, it always, always gets revealed
before they have the chance to tell the person.
You know, like it’s like, I was gonna tell you I swear.
Right, where this is, they just said, no,
I’m gonna actually tell the person and they show that he does.
And I was like, I love that.
Like it just instead of doing that typical trope,
where he’s like, the jackal would have been to Mustang
and she would have been the one to bring him in.
And he’s like, no, no, I was about to explain the whole thing to you.
That I’ve been such a bad trope,
but I’m so happy that they didn’t do that
and they did show that originalness
and like, that coming back to the homecoming,
I mean, it was kind of making fun of it in the stock down,
but I thought was really a really good necessary thing
for the book that has so much action that earned that
like grounded in story and that like emotional part
because it was such a good story everywhere else that earned that.
Yeah, I would say, Darro, if you’re listening, by the way,
probably go be like, hey, watch this hollow of me getting carved
as this I’m a red instead,
maybe just have Mustang wear a ghost cloak
and come into your mom’s house with you
but have the ghost cloak on the whole time
and just watch you have a conversation with your mother
to humanize this whole thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just show like, oh, this is my mom, she loves me.
This is where I grew up, this absolute hellhole.
And as opposed to just being like,
here’s this terrible plastic surgery I got.
It’s like, she’s basically saying,
watch botched surgery on TLC as opposed to coming into my house
and having like a legit moment
as seeing this for yourself.
Probably not Darro’s best move but it all works out
and it all went to the same with Ragnar
which is all that matters to me.
Yeah, so one of the things I love is red rising was a fun romp.
I really love red rising, it’s really good.
Some, I was actually kind of surprised
about some of the reviews, they didn’t like it.
Or not didn’t like it but just thought it wasn’t necessarily
like a promising start to a series
and a lot of people think this book is a lot better than that book.
I think it’s just very different.
That book I found to be like super fun, super readable
and this is now such a good sequel and that it’s just
its own thing.
So I appreciate that.
And I really like about it is how the stakes are raised
and gold and something.
We’ve talked about this a couple times but I just
want to reiterate, we got a bigger scope,
we got bigger themes, the idea that people can change
even gold is something that is going to continue on
to morning star.
And I just thought it was almost reminded me of reading Harry Potter
when I was a kid and it kind of started off like,
okay, like these are little kids are 11 year olds.
I’m the same age, I just that.
And then as you go on it’s like, oh shit, it gets darker.
And the same with the movies which you haven’t seen
but once you do see them, I want you to notice
that the intro song to the Harry Potter movies,
they get progressively darker like on purpose.
So like the first one it’s like, da da da da da da da da da da da.
And then as you get going it’s like, da da da da da da da da da da.
Do you know it’s just evolving as the series goes on
and I loved how this was also an evolution of the series
as opposed to a continuation of it.
Unfortunately to get into hate’s key to it.
Dero just being underappreciated.
I feel like, again, I mentioned earlier
but him saving that family, the Augustus is like 10 different
times and then being like, you’re really helpful.
It’s like, yeah, you’d be fucking all dead if it weren’t for me.
So many 10 times over.
Like not like, oh, they really helped out.
It was, no, you were literally drowning and I saved you.
And then you were literally about to get blown up by a ship
and I say, there’s so many times over.
I mean, if I were him, you know, again,
after being underappreciated many times,
once he took over the packs, I’d just be like,
okay, I have a warship now.
I’m just gonna go start recruiting and this will be–
– It’s firefly all of a sudden?
– What’s firefly?
– Firefly’s the TV show.
It’s a cult classic TV show, sci-fi show.
It’s with Nathan Phillian.
Nathan Phillian.
It’s a Joss Whedon show.
He did Buffett of Vampire Slayer.
But yeah, he basically has a ship that he goes around
and they get stories every episode.
It’s episodic, whatever.
Oh, yeah, I turn into Firefly.
There we go.
yeah.
I agree with you.
Although I will say on the other side, Dero,
he’s a little too smart.
It’s just like, it’s hard to believe for me sometimes.
It’s like, okay, I understand that he can,
he does it all, he has like a different gear
because he’s driven by something that’s deeper
than what these people are driven by.
Like I understand that.
And so like those fight scenes at him shooting himself
out of a plane to go out of a spaceship
to go into another spaceship’s cockpit
is like something no one would guess.
So like he has that element of surprise
and a different way of looking at stuff
that allows him to do those things
that are so anti-gold but make him the best gold.
But then at the same time he has,
he’s like at the table when they’re discussing politics
or whatnot or their own giant strategy
and he’s the one that’s like, all right, shut up everybody.
Listen to me.
He’s still kind of a kid.
Like having these other people done things
that they should have some good ideas.
Like he’s the only one with good ideas.
Well, I think he’s an outside the box thinker
and he’s able to see the society for what it is
versus like all these people that are born in the society
and grown in the society and say this is how things work
when anything different occurs.
Like for instance when they’re trying to throw a belly
and things like that, they just don’t know.
All they’ve done is live in the society.
I think that’s why he brings that perspective.
But yeah, I see you’re saying.
– He’s saying there’s like so, so, so much stagnation
that’s going on that he’s able to kind of flush it.
– Yeah, when you’re paddling the back your whole life
and told you’re the best
that you’re getting served grapes by pinks left and right.
It’s tough for you to understand.
I’m gonna send my fucking cell phone to this little
this thing and go full sent, you know, bonsai.
– Yeah, they’re the turd, he’s the plunger, I got it.
Any other hates you yet?
– The only thing I didn’t like too is he’s holding
the sovereign’s son hostage.
And she’s like, this is your only bargaining chip,
remember that and he’s like, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
And then they have Quinn get fucked up
by the cat girl there, that’s her name?
Asia?
– Yeah, that’s not the only bargaining chips.
Your son’s sanity and his limbs and his ability
to not be tortured is part of, you know,
like right when he did that, did that, she’s like,
oh, okay, now I’m gonna fuck your son up.
That’s what I’m out of it on.
Your son is fucked up.
he was never gonna do that.
So.
– Well, she doesn’t know that.
– Yeah, but that’s the point is like he,
she shouldn’t know in the second he didn’t do anything for it.
– There’s so many things more that you could
fuck the son up with before you take his life.
So, I was pissed.
– I don’t really know the younglings.
He just ain’t in it.
Oh, he should have had several in a rope going to a room
and be like, take care of this kid right now.
Like, fuck him up.
Oh My gosh.
what?
You know, no good?
– No, sorry, I’m terrible person.
– I’m telling him to start to shoot at this kid.
You’re like, no, I’m bad.
I’m like, alright.
– I agree, but at the same time,
Darro doesn’t want to do that.
He doesn’t want to hurt this kid.
And then additionally, he even says later on,
like, wow, it’s surprising they only killed Quinn
because they could have killed everybody else,
you know, around me.
– Yeah, it wouldn’t have done anything.
Like, he didn’t have a ton of leverage there.
Like, eventually, yeah, I would have got Nero out,
but that would have been probably it.
So, yeah, I will agree though.
It, take a finger off or something, you know?
– Yeah, he’s a finger for everyone.
But it’s your biggest fan, you know?
Imagine if we had one of our biggest fans.
you gonna learn today?
– Hey, you got one with us,
and then we had to start cutting our fingers off.
Like, it’d be tough.
It’d be tough.
– For the greater, greater the podcast,
you gotta do a lot of do.
They don’t understand, I think.
yeah.
My only other real hate, and I already kind of talked
about the Darrow Rook stuff,
so I’m not gonna get in there.
But a lot of the technology in this,
I didn’t understand.
They keep talking about a pulse fist.
I’m like, what is a pulse fist?
What does it do?
And I don’t necessarily need a ton of exposition
as to what all this stuff does
because there’s a ton of technology in there.
And I feel like they explain the razor pretty well,
which is everyone’s dueling tool,
or like their primary weapon as a gold.
So I understand that.
But they’d say like, oh, we’re throwing a whatever type
of grenade or this kind of thing.
And it’s like, what does that exactly do?
And there’s all these like pulse and static
and gravitational stuff.
Like at one point, when he hits up Asia,
there’s like three different grenade,
and he says it shoots people up in the air
and slams them back down and then blows them up.
It’s like some wily, eki-ody, looney-tunes type shit.
And I didn’t understand some of the other stuff,
but at the same time also didn’t want them
to just explain what all the weapons do.
So I feel like in visual, it would be pretty fun
or if there was like a fun companion novel
of like just the world, you know, like George Martin,
does that stuff or whatnot?
I’d just say, hey, this is the world
and these are what happens in these different places.
Yeah, that would be kind of cool.
It wasn’t super upset about it, but I had to find something.
Yeah, I got you.
I feel like it didn’t prevent me from imagining it
at any point, but I could see how some of those stuff was
not necessarily flushed out.
You kind of had to make up your own imagination
of what it would be.
Pulse fist, honestly, just sounds like something
I can drive up the road to Provincetown
and find in a shot.
Did you cast this at all?
I actually just saw, speaking of Hunger Games, the new one.
I actually think that Tom Blithdude, the blonde dude in it,
who’s like a young snow.
There’s a new Hunger Games movie?
Yeah, the movie, the story made zero sentence,
but the actor was really good.
I had Sam Claflin, who’s the guy who played Daisy Jones
in the Six, he played the–
Oh, yeah.
Because he’s like good looking.
He’s not–
I mean, he’s very good looking.
He’s not like the best looking guy in the world,
but he’s also like chiseled and–
It does look a little older, but yeah.
Well, I was kind of thinking 30-year-olds at this point,
because I don’t really know 20-year-olds.
And then, Anna Taylor Joy, I kept the same as Mustang.
That was what I had initially done, too.
I think we– or one of us had done.
For several, I changed that.
I think we had even Stevens there as a–
I’m Shia LeBuff.
I changed it to Barry Keegan or Cogan, or what
was name is?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I could see him being a little crazy.
I’d like to see him in like a fun role,
as opposed to being crazy.
I also just can’t unsee salt burn in my head.
Did you watch salt burn?
No, I didn’t know her.
Oh, my god.
I don’t know.
It’s fucking weird.
It’s really weird.
Yeah.
Last one, we had Gerald Butler as a fishner.
Oh, Gerald Butler.
Yeah.
Gerald Butler, sorry.
Yeah.
I could dig that.
The only additions I had was for Cassius,
Scott Eastwood, or Austin Butler, or Glenn Powell,
either of those–
All those things.
I just think you need chiseled jaws.
That’s for sure.
And Austin Butler also has a little slide look to him,
so that would be helpful.
And then I had Jamie Bell as the jackal,
because I think he fits as maybe a little more diminutive,
but also could probably play that role.
So I liked him.
I also was imagining–
I mean, this is with a role.
He’s stuck in it every time.
But Dave Batista as Ragnar–
Yeah.
-is too old, unfortunately.
Is Ragnar young?
He’s not like 45.
Maybe in some sort of costume, I assume, or some sort of–
I did see some fan art and of an obsidian,
and it looks kind of like Dave Batista.
That’s just an acting, yeah.
Because it was like, yeah, that totally fits.
And I think Dave Batista is a good actor.
Don’t get me wrong.
I think what he’s done with this career is phenomenal.
I just don’t know if he could do Ragnar.
I don’t know.
All right, Keith.
With that being said, everything being said, long epi,
I appreciate that because there’s lots
to be said about Golden Sun.
Would you recommend it to our listeners, other?
Yeah, we talked about it last time.
It being up there with HP, which is verified error.
You don’t talk about that lightly.
So I still think, on the second reread,
it’s so goddamn good.
It’s so bloody damn good.
Is that what it is?
It’s bloody damn or gory damn.
Gory damn.
Which one is pixie?
Oh, damn it.
Which one’s classy?
Gory damn.
Bloody damn, then.
It’s so bloody damn good.
Yeah, absolutely.
I couldn’t agree with you more.
I mean, it’s everything.
If you like sci-fi type stuff, which this is even really
like sci-fi, you know what I mean?
It’s more just like people.
It’s just different.
It’s just a different world.
So if you like that kind of stuff,
or really anything in general, just good stories, then yeah.
I would recommend it.
If someone wanted to start a series,
this would probably be my first one I would recommend.
It’s easy.
It’s like, it’s, what, it’s 16 hours?
It’s like longer than the first one, which is probably
like 10 hours, but it flies by.
It flies by.
So are we doing Morningstar next?
Yeah, I think Morningstar next.
And then the show gun TV show and then Harry Potter starts.
So this is episode 97.
98 will be the next one.
99 will be show gun.
100 will be Harry Potter.
This is my favorite run.
This is quite the run right now.
Absolutely.
All right, well, that was Golden Sun.
If you want to check out the Red Rising episode,
look at the cider on Spotify or iTunes or whatever.
It was two years ago, but we had our front guest,
Miko on for that.
And we’ll have Morningstar coming at you pretty soon.
So Keith, thanks for coming on.
It was a bloody damn good time.
And I’ll catch you from Morningstar.
All righty.
Bye now.

In our Making it a Movie section we play the role of movie producers and map out the movie production. Currently Red Rising sits as both Dylan and Keith’s favorite book they’ve read and one that should absolutely be made into a movie.

Based on: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Genre: Action/Dystopian Thriller

Logline: The perfect mix of Braveheart and Hunger Games

Darrow, born in the lowest cast of a futuristic world, has his eyes opened to the real world and the lies he’s been fed. He infiltrates the highest “Gold” class and attends the elite school. The school, which is really a Lord of the Flies/Hunger Games/survival of the fittest arena, tests him in all things related to war, leadership, friendship, love, hate and revenge.

Main Characters/Casting:

Darrow – he’s basically a young William Wallace, driven to revenge after the death of his wife, Darrow goes all Captain America and changes from a scrawny ‘Red’ miner into a Golden God (shoutout to Dennis Reynolds).

We need a young budding star that can carry this role. We went with Tom Holland, who is about as big as it gets as far as young stars. This role calls for a bit more darkness and anger than a Spiderman would, but it’d be a great test for the young Brit.

Sevro – Sevro is Darrow’s right hand man. An overlooked ‘low-draft’, turns out to be one of the best characters in the book. The blood soaked, wolves-skin draping ‘goblin’ is as loyal as he is crazy. For this role we need someone that is believable as a legit psycho. While Shia LaBeouf is likely on the older end, he just fits too perfect for this role. 

Shia LaBeouf as Sevro

Mustang – Mustang is initially Darrow’s adversary.  She quickly becomes known for her smarts and one of the only golds that shows heart/compassion. Anya Taylor-Joy already looks a Gold based on the books description, plus she is smart, cunning, and beautiful. Easy casting.

Fitchner – Fitchner basically plays the role of Haymitch from Hunger Games. He’s profane, quick-witted and brutally honest. At the end of the day he has a good heart and good intentions. Perfect role for Gerald Butler who would make sense as a father figure to Darrow and Sevro.

Pax – Pax is a big, fierce, but ultimatly goofy warrior that screams out his name constantly in battle. Role was made for Gronk’s acting debut. 

There are a lot of other characters we could cast here but for now we’ll stick with these. Let us know what we got wrong and who we’re missing!

Production Notes:

As of September 25th, 2021 – Pierce Brown confirmed that one “Netflix, Apple +, Disney, Amazon Prime, HBO” has shown interest in making Red Rising into a TV series. Seems like a no-brainer and if casted correctly could have the potential to be a multi-season hit (there are 5 Red Rising series books out now).  For now we’ll continue to cross our fingers and hope to see this dream become a reality. If any TV producers want to hit us up for casting suggestions, we’re ready.

Check out our full episode on the book here. Who do you think should play these characters? Let us know!

The Buddies read (rising) an all-time favorite,  as the they launch themselves into the gory damn world of Red Rising, by Pierce Brown.  They are joined by good buddy Mikko (@mikko_mcdonald) and discuss this being the first book he’s EVER read cover to cover. Red Rising combines all of the buddies favorite elements of Braveheart and Hunger Games,  which is why it was crowned the #1 book by Dylan, Keith (and Mikko by default), which book can supplant it?

 Intro: (0:00-2:53)
 Favorite Scene (2:54-7:51)
 Stock Up/Down w/ Mikko (7:52-46:44 )
 Favorite Character (46:45-50:12)
 Love/Hate (50:13-1:02:08)
 Casting the Movie (1:02:09-1:06:21)
 Conclusion (1:06:22-1:08:30)
 
 Next Book: PROJECT HAIL MARY by ANDY WEIR

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome to Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with the Primus of the Pod. Keith, what’s up, Goodman? How are we doing? Fucking love this book. We’re breaking down some bestsellers, and this week we’ll be discussing Piercebrown’s 2014 Dystopian science fiction novel. The book is Red Rising. If you like to recommend a book for us to read or to reach out to us about this episode or any past episodes, you can visit our website, Buddybookclub.com or sign to our DMs on Twitter or Instagram. Buddy Book Club podcast you can listen to on itunes and Spotify, so please download and subscribe. Let’s get into Red Rising Keith. Red Rising is. Well, let’s just start off with it as a great opening line. All Men are not created Equal just peeled right off. What is it, the Declaration of Independence? Yeah, that sounds right. As an American, I should probably know that. Except instead of All Men are created equal, flip the script in a reverse card. All Men are not created equal. Red Rising, which is set on Mars, follows 16 year old Darrow, son of Dale. I like a good son of it reminds me of Lord of the Rings. Darrow, son of Dale, the Hell Diver of Lycos, who, after the death of his wife, goes on a quest to infiltrate the ruling class and bring the entire society down from within. I can give you my brief overview as well. By the way, I wrote one down because I liked yours, but I wanted to add my two cent. Oh, please add three. It’s a young adult book that delves into lighthearted topics of slavery, horrific violence, the deprivative of war, and the importance of using upper class slang words. It’s Raveheart, plus 2000 years, plus Hunger Games. That’s how I would describe it. That’s hilarious, because I have written down Hunger Games plus Braveheart. Okay, I appreciate you doing that. A little light hearted one, because I didn’t have a light hearted summary. I just went right for the meat. We’ve got a lot of categories to get through. We get some stock ups sucked down, which we’ll have a guest on for our buddy. Miko is going to be great. We get some love hate, Castle movie, favorite character, all that good stuff. But before we get into that, we like to do a libation, which we like to enjoy during the podcast. And you guys should hopefully enjoy one as well. We could drink wine, but that’s for the bloody damn gold. I’m thinking something more along the lines of Swell, which is the drink of the Red, specifically the Lambda clan. They say it’s fermented from a bacteria, so I imagine this is like moonshine or whatever they drink in the Matrix. But since I don’t want to go blind, I’m going to spin it back in the summer and have a white cloth tea. So you, I think, have like twelve different drinks, including water, coffee, and a Bushlight. So Congratulations. Bushlight, raspberry tea, coffee and water. There we go. Favorite scene. We’ve been through a lot of books that lately. I feel like that don’t have specific scenes that are enjoyable or the favorite. They all kind of like meld together. This is a cinematic book. It’s almost written, like it’s ready to get put in the can. So I assume we’re going to have some good favorite scenes here. What did you have? Yes, I had a lot from the Riddle at the beginning. I love riddles. Just love riddles to get into any clan. What was the Riddle? It’s was the two pieces of paper and said if you select the right one, you’ll get in. If you don’t eat the piece of paper, forking the road picking up. Yeah, exactly. I love any Riddle that’s, like, you can’t get in here unless you solve this puzzle or Riddle to the reveal the actual world to the one be one death match to Storming Olympus. I think the book just took you on tons of roller coasters. A lot of good scenes. But my favorite was the handling of the whipping and how he basically got whipped himself, and he was like, I am the army, so therefore, anyone does anything bad. Basically, I did something bad. I fucking loved that. He basically put in the prisoner’s dilemma and somehow solved it. Just was like, yeah, this is the answer to that equation. I remember reading that the first time being like, what would I do as a leader? I had no idea. Even the second time reading it, I was like, oh, shit, that’s still. Yeah, well, to be clear, because you said reading it again, this is the second time we both read this book. I read it. I think last year it was one of the best books I read. I’ve been waiting to do this on the pod, and it had reached that perfect pinnacle for a second read where I kind of knew the beats but forgot all of the detail within that because just like any book I read, I immediately forget it, of course. So I’m glad we hit it now because I really enjoyed it the second time around. My favorite scene, though, I had a few as well. The initial assault on Minerva, that was great because I feel like up until that point, we didn’t get a lot of action. It was more like world building and setting the stage and then moving the pieces on the board. It was almost like in StarCraft, once you build up your forces and get to finally execute the plan you’ve been working for. Did you ever play, like, StarCraft or. Oh, yeah, red alert. Red alert. That’s the other one I was thinking of. Command and conquers. Yeah, those are freaking great. You just get all the dogs in your dog kennel and you just unleash them on the Ruskies. It’s great. So I like that one. I also liked. This is pretty short, but the Severo Darrow reunion several has one eye now, and Darrow hasn’t seen them in so long. He gives Darrow back his sling blade, which is. It’s like Elrond giving Aragorn on Dural in Lord of the Rings. It was just like, that’s the part. It’s almost part of him that Slingblade. So when he kind of unfurls it and gives it back to him, he was like, oh, yeah, let’s go, let’s go. And the whole Jackal chapter, we spend most of the book just, like, hearing whispers of the Jackal. And then finally the Jackal is revealed. But it’s in a really interesting way where he was in disguise. It was all a ruse. Like the whole drinking of the wine stuff, Darrow’s whole house or his whole army just, like, gets up off the floor, which I don’t think a bunch of 17 year old kids are going to be able to fake drunk, but I’m allowing myself to suspend disbelief because maybe the other kids wait 1 second. The last pod, or maybe two pods ago, you said they used to drink one or two beers and then pretend you were hammered. So what are you talking about? I did. I got to call you out here. Remember you said you used to split a 30 between eight guys or ten guys and then go meet up with girls? And you were like, oh, I’m hammered? Yeah. I mean, we’re talking like, high school, but yeah, I guess maybe that’s true. Yeah. That’s the auditor comes out here. Come on. But in that chapter, we also get some 127 Hours action with the arms sawing off and then culminates with PAX dying. Like, what the fuck? That hurt. Yes, that one did hurt. I forgot he died. I was like, oh, and then PAX. And then the sequels, I remember. And then great. And then I was like, Wait a second. What? He dies? Yeah. So we didn’t mention that this is part of a three book series, but I also forgot that PAX died and was like, Wait, isn’t PAX the front of his force in the second book? But I’d be like, the crazy Irishman dying in Braveheart. It’s Moin Island. Yeah, Ireland. It’s Moin. All right, Brownie, you’re talking crazy. Also, when he throws that sword. That’s such a great scene in Braveheart. Fuck. I got to rewatch that movie. All right. I think that pretty much covers it. I mean, there’s so many good scenes you could pick out of, but how is this not a movie? That’s really what it comes down. It’s written like a movie. It’s amazing. Yeah. I mean, more importantly, why isn’t it a series? If it was a movie, I feel like you wouldn’t be able to cover it. Yeah, I guess that’s true. It should be a Game of Thrones series. We’re going to jump into some stock up. Stock down. But for this section, we have a special guest, our buddy Miko, who I think is on. And I also think this was the first book he ever read. So before we get into Stuck Down, I would really like to ask him about that. Thanks for having me. I love all things BBC. Yeah. Welcome to the Buddy Book Club. Another buddy. Love to have you. So let’s clear it up. Is this the first book you ever read? I was confused. I would like to declare exclusively here for the first time that up until this book, I have never read a book cover to cover. How did you get their high school? Listen, I’d like to give a shout out to my mother if she’s listening. I’m really sorry for all the times I lied to you about those book reports. Summer reading assignments. I never did them. You guys reviewed Hatchet. I remember the cover of that book, and I remember never finishing it. So sorry, mom. Wow. I let you down. But then you read this book in like three days. How do you possibly do that? Well, I know how to read, if that’s what you’re asking. Thanks, Keith. Well, first off, speaking for one of us here, I don’t. So let’s not start pointing fingers here. I see how you subtly work that question in without actually asking it. But no. Yeah, it was a page Turner. For the first time in my life, I was actively sitting there with my wife while she watched TV and I was reading a book. It was mind blowing. Wow. You’d love to see that. Yes. Really? I’m glad we’re influencing people somehow, even one. It starts. It’s crazy. I now understand how high and mighty those people feel when they say, I don’t even own a TV. You know, those people. I feel like that. And learn this line. Also, the book was better. Yeah. That’s important. Every time, no matter what it is, you say that and you might have the opportunity with this book. So I’m excited for when this eventually comes out in some sort of media format. And you can just say, no, it was good, but the book was better. So your bookcase at home now has like one book in it. Yeah. It’s a world saddest bookcase. Wonderful. Okay, well, thanks for joining us. And specifically for stock up, stock down. I have no idea where you’re going to go with this, and that’s kind of the point of stock up, stock down. We’re buying and selling stocks that may or may not have anything to do with the book, and it can really mean anything at all. So I guess, Keith, you kick it off to give a vibe and then migrate. You can go from there for me. Pierce Brown, the author stock up here at the Buddy Book Club. We don’t believe in objectifying women. So, Miko, I know you’re on here to do that, and I just want to stay up front. We’re not about that here, so just leave at the door. However, I’ll just say that now we are about objectifying men. And let me tell you about Pierce Brown. I looked him up on Instagram just so I was going to see if maybe he’d. Come on. This dude is a dreamboat, an absolute stunt. So take your time right now. Look him up. This dude is gorgeous. But not objectifying. Them, but objectifying. But I just wanted to say that stock up to him. And it’s also bullshit that if you’re a good writer, you can actually be attractive. That’s bullshit. You should look kind of like George R. R. Martin. No offense there. Or, like, a nerd, right? No. Pierce Brown looks like Dennis from all the Sunny, but he has pictures on IG of him in model poses. I was like, oh, it must be the wrong guy. So I kept on looking like, Wait a second, this is actually him. What’s going on? Reminds me of Sam Hunt, the country artist. He’s got a great voice. Catchy singer voice. But he’s also attractive, tall, and was a D one quarterback. You can’t have all those things. It’s bullshit. So stock up. Pierce Brown. But I’m also pissed. So that’s how I’m going to start. He’s pretty dreamy. I’m not going to lie Myco with Jeffrey stock up. I wanted to start off with stock up. Yeah, I think I only have one stock down. So most of my stock ups, I was in a positive mindset when I read this book, when I wrote down my stocks. Stock up. Number one, gravity. Oh, I don’t know if you guys know this about me, but I grew up on Earth, and here on Earth, gravity is literally holding you down, right? You could fall. You get hurt, fall out of the tree, climbing as a kid, whatever. But turns out, thanks to gravity, I would be jacked on other planets. And weren’t they operating at, like, .3 gravity or something like that? Exactly. So they’re, like, jumping, throwing boulders around and doing all this shit. And if we stepped on to Mars, we would have fucking crushed it in that Institute. I mean, I just stock up on gravity. It’s underrated. I think I’d be a pink. I think I’d be a pink. You know what? Fair point. Touche you’d be a pink. And quick shout out to Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity even though he died. Is that right? Tough. Really an Fu to Isaac, because the gravity he found just doesn’t matter because we’re on Mars now. And also virginity. Not a good look. Just ricochet shots left and right at Isaac to use my first stock up is going to be dancing. It used to be people would know dances like the Charleston. And people would be like, oh, of course, everyone waltzes. Everyone knows how to waltz. 12312 three. Yeah, everyone knows that. But nowadays, dancing is like, for Tik Tok videos. It’s a flash in the pan kind of thing. But who would have thought that’s that dancing actually prepares you for war? Similar to Stanley Ipkiss when he puts on the mask and is able to Dodge bullets and shake the moroccas? I mean, it’s a stock that’s trading high on the Brazilian stock market since they invented Cappu era. But outside of that, we have no dance fighting. And it turns out that Darrow, he knows this ancient dance from his uncle. And because of that, he’s a superior fighter than everyone else. Doesn’t matter about all the body modifications. He’s like, no, I learned this cool dance, so now I can fight. So dancing Stock up. I had the exact same thing I had dancing and singing Stock Up. But I also gave a caveat there that the prerequisite for those to be stock up is six to ten years deep. But that’s just me. But I like that one. I liked it a lot. You cut rugs at weddings, Keith. I have two dances. The chop it up, which is just me not moving anything other than my hands and chopping up and down. That’s the chop it up or the basketball. That’s like if you’re in a dance circle and you’re supposed to do it, everyone’s doing their own dance bottle thing. Yeah. If you have that, I go in there and I pretend I’m bouncing a basketball that I start spinning it and then headed off to someone. It’s super cringy. What about you guys? Wait, what you’ve seen? It’s not cringe. I’m actually getting blowback or mines. Back to the first bar Mitz that I went to where Scottsky shout out to Scott. Did the invisible ball blowing up and passing around thing. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that, but it was quite basically like the invisible basketball. But then when you pick it up, you like, fake blow it up. It’s like half mime, half dancing. It was extremely uncomfortable. I mean, we’re doing bar mitzvah shout outs. Shout out to Jonathan Rosenberg. First bar mitzvah I went to, I don’t remember them doing that, even though they had great DJs. My dance move is a lot on the shoulders, and it’s just jumping. A lot of jumping shoulders and jumping, too, especially as a large man. And by large, I mean tall, not rotated. Yeah, it’s fine, but jumping is. You could scare some people off the dance floor. Yeah, it separates the boys from the men on the dance floor, for sure. And that’s what I’m looking to do. When I go to weddings, you wake up the next day and have a calf workout. Your calves are burning because that’s how you know you hit the dancer hard. My feet are torched, especially in those Brown leather shoes. The blistes totally worth it, though. I will say the women have really figured that out when it comes to dancing, how they’ll bring, like, flats as well as their heels for the dance floor. It’s really genius. And I started just bringing tennis shoes to weddings and wearing tennis shoes. After the dinner is over, no one noticed. Everyone’s beer is deep, no one notices, no one cares. And you’re just way more comfortable. Where do you bring them? Like, how do you store them? I just tie them to my belt, and then I walk around like that, like a little satchel. I have tennis shoes. No, I mean, it depends what kind of wedding situation you’re at. But if you can get into the reception early, you just throw them under the table or just put them somewhere. No one’s looking at some shoes that are in a corner. Just put them somewhere. And if someone asks you, why are you carrying shoes around? Oh, I’m but to carry up with a dance part. They’re like, nice. The man’s at a five star hotel and a restaurant and carrying around his sweaty gym shoes like, oh, where do I put these guys? I was on the table. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, I bring gym shorts, too. And I cut off. No big deal. Keith, what else do you have for stock up? I already alluded to this, but stock up young adult books. So I think in general, and I’m in a Reddit young adult group. Careful with that group. Book group. Okay. I think it gets a bad rap. It’s basically about angsty, teenagers complaining, and basically love triangles and romance novels. That’s basically what people think of A-Y-A. But this book is considered Y a. And we get brutal hand to hand combat and murders. We got rape, torture, Gore, Cory, damn stabbing eyes out to kill someone sowing off limbs. If this is Ya, I’m in Ya all day. I don’t really get how this gets defined as that, but this is definitely a huge stock up and win for the Ya section. Yeah, it’s almost like Y Isha if someone had got this in middle school or something, I feel like a teacher would find it and read it and be like, no, this should go in the forbidden book section or something like that. Shout out Harry Potter. But yeah, this is a little too much for ya. But I agree. This is almost a spy in the Ya section. And if I happen to find this, I’d be like, oh, my God. Yes. Finally, something that is more interesting than Katniss. Oh, PETA love you. Yeah. Isn’t there, like, always protests, like every year somewhere in the Bible belt of Catcher in the Rye or some book like that. I feel like this is way worse. Yeah, we do those on the weekends. Have you not been coming to this? Yes, we’re like Westborough Baptist Church people. You didn’t know that got you. I must have missed that invite. No, but I do remember in 6th grade when the Harry Potter thing was around people like, oh, have you read Harry Potter? Yet. If you’re in Harry Potter, the backlash with Christian groups because of the wizardry and whatnot Miko. What else do you have for stock up? Stock up. Reading. Reading is pretty cool. Guys, I don’t know about you. I mean this podcast obviously is any evidence. You guys enjoy a good book. And apologies again to my mother. We love you, mom. I finally came back to the old reading is cool at age 30. I skipped out on the first 30 years. But yeah, it’s cool. I will buy that stock. I feel like these trends are cyclical where TV and movies took over and maybe now those are dipping and now books are going to make a comeback and books are going to be cool. So I’m just saying buy it early while paper and everything is down and we’re going green or whatever and get a Kindle listen to audiobooks. Buy Bookstock now because it’s going to be the next game. Stop Barnes and Noble. We’re coming for you. Start open brick and mortars. Yeah. I’m actually going to be moving into my new house in less than two weeks and I have a giant fireplace and I’m very excited to sit in front of it in a big comfortable leather chair and read books. It’s going to be great. So you were going to burn books for a second there. Now you said that you’re hooked. It took you three days to read The Red Rising. What’s the next book now? I don’t know. So I’m this way with music. I love music but I don’t go out and seek new things. I’m horrible at like learning whatever the new song is and new artist. Yada yada. I need somebody to tell me. So I think I will turn to the BBC. I’m going to look the BBC right in the eye and ask what do I do? What’s next for me in the yard? I would suggest going to Buddy Book Club.com and seeing what we’ve read. I think you would be a big fan of City of Thieves, written by Bendioff. Is that who did it? David Benioff? Yeah, I think so. The showrunner for Game of Thrones. He wrote a pretty interesting novel there. Good quick read too. Page Turner, I think. At least it was an earbud Turner. So my next stock up is grip strength. So Darrow goes through an entire body transformation. But for some reason it’s his grip strength that sets him apart, even though he’s had that since he was a child. Like becoming a red or being a red. Being a hell diver on Lycos gave him incredible grip strength, which also in the future if you’re operating heavy machinery, I feel like it wouldn’t have a lot of recoil or like you wouldn’t have to be super jacked. Like I don’t remember Ben Affleck on Armageddon having these giant hands like Mason hands, but irregardless. He has incredible grip strength. And as a society I feel like we’ve forgotten about the importance of grip strength. Remember how everyone had those grip strengtheners? That was just a thing that everyone had when you were growing up. If you had no other weights, you had those metal with rubber grip strengtheners, right. No one has those anymore. And I think that the grip strength stock used to be, oh, give someone a real strong handshake. And I think maybe because of the men becoming a little bit softer, it’s like you don’t have to squeeze someone else’s hand, which I’m appreciative. Nothing is worse than when someone just tries to squeeze your hand to that. It’s like, cool, dude. You got good grip strength. But maybe I’m wrong. Grip strength. I think the stocks back up. Darrell approved it. I’m buying. I like that. Yeah, that’s a good one. I lived in an apartment building with a Fijian family on the floor that I lived on. And when I tell you that this man’s hands were literally ballpark Frank fingers, the biggest hands I’ve ever seen, whatever Shaq has, but, like, thick. That’s what I was imagining. Darrow’s hands looking like just some thick meaty ballpark Frank fingers. So Fijian are people from France, right? Just for our listeners, yes. They border Germany, so they are their neighbors. Keep what else you have to stock up. Plastic surgery. Stock up. I just picture that scene where he’s getting chopped up is basically the Captain America scene where he’s like, this puny dude, and then all of a sudden he comes out like this Jack, muscular guy just ready to go to war. That’s what kind of. I assume the one thing, though, that I did have an issue with is that they’re like 1000 years in the future improving every single thing. Can they just do brain surgery at this point to make people smarter? They did, though. They had brain tools they were using. I mean, it was like stuff that they were taking. And then also you do that along with brain games to increase your knowledge, things. I think that was part of the book. Right, Miko? It is. I know they’re doing sleeping stuff, but, I mean, I was thinking the other way around is like making the Reds be subservient, doing brain surgery on that. Making people dumber. Oh, very Hitler review. Yeah. All right. Not the first time. Even compared to Hitler, you and the Kellogg family and Hitler can all get together and do brain surgery on the other people and enslave them. Well, it’s funny you say that, because I had body modification as one of my stock ups, because, yes, the stock is already up in 2022. We have lip fillers, we got Botox, we got calf implants. We got liposuction. We even have the Lizard Man. And if you don’t know who that is, you just Google them. But we’re talking about the ability for full body and brain transformation that they have here. Mickey the cutter. It’s funny you said Captain America because I was thinking more about Minority Report. When they do the I switch thing, they cut the guy’s eyes out, put eyes in it’s like that on steroids. Literally. They give our boy Darrow HGH and steroids to get all jacked up along with the body modification. It feels like we’re almost there. But with this potential, he shits on Fitchner for just not getting the fat sucked out of him. Like he just eats metabolizers as opposed to going to the cutter and just cutting it off because it’s that easy. And I’m big into healthcare and nanobot transformation in the next 20 years or so by the stocks. So I’m buying these stocks. I’m already in on healthcare in my actual portfolio, so why not for body modification? I’m there. I’m with you, Keith. Let’s buy. All right. I like it. Mick, what else do you have for stock up? What else do I have for stock up? Stock up accents. So I read this book myself. I wasn’t listening to the book, which is kind of a bummer. I feel like I missed out. But anyways, I think that I found out later that the accents that I was doing were similar to kind of what was actually being done for these characters. But what I was doing was I was reading the Reds, and they were Irish. It just worked for me. I don’t know why. And then the golds. I was going aristocratic inbreeding Brits. English people like a Stewie Griffin off a family guy, that sort of vibe. So that, for me, made the read more enjoyable because I felt like I was portraying all these different characters as I read in my mind, I don’t read aloud. Just to be clear in accent. Imagine the wife while she’s watching TV and you’re running aloud in accents next door. She’s like, I’m just trying to catch up with the Kardashians. And what the fuck are you doing? Oh, Uncle Narrow, how are you doing? There we go. Miko, you are a natural reader. Do you know why you are? Because Pierce Brown said that he was inspired to write this book by the plight of the Irish immigrants in the 19th century and the disenfranchisement of the working class. So the Irish men in this book are really the Reds, so you are on top of it. And who are the Irish fighting? They were fighting the fucking shitty Brits. Check out Peeky Blinders. Piki. Fucking Blinders. So you are on top of it. Gory. Damn, Nico. Good for you. Thank you. You know what I do? You know what my mnemonic device is to get into the Irish accent. It’s season one. Peeky Blinders. It’s the cop that’s after him when he says the main guy’s name Shelby, he goes, Mr. Shelby. And then I go into the Irish accent from there. So it’s Master Shelby. This is important insight. I mean, Brad Pitt wouldn’t even give us this insight. And Brad Pitt did it in what movie was that with Harrison Ford? That was a good one. He plays like an IRA guy. I don’t know. I was thinking Snatch. No, also a great movie. But no, he’s like a Gypsy in that movie. You can’t understand half the things he says, but Patty Wicker Bluetooth, Brad Pitts and a porno, but good movie. And also that guy in Peeky Blinders is a guy from Jurassic Park, which we also love. Nico, did you have any other stock ups? Stock up red Weddings? I know that’s a trigger or microaggression. Probably saying that phrase for some people, other book franchises. The Red Wedding a horrible thing. But here’s the thing. Darryl basically goes on this journey to join the sons of Aries and Yada. Yada become a gold go through all this shit because of his wife and the sacrifice and her martyrdom and whatever. But I looked it up. They were married for, like, six months. Okay? I’ve been married for eight or nine months. I’m not doing any of that for my wife. I’m Uncle Narrow in this scenario. I’m just drinking and just trying not to get bit by whatever pitfiper. That’s how I’m spending the rest of my life. I’m not going on this Mickey the Carver through all this crap, with all these people dying and getting every fucking bone in my body broken for the next foreseeable future. What happened to this red wedding that they’re married for six months? That he wants to go do all this for her? So stock up Red Weddings like a Minx? No, I agree with you. There’s one point in the book where he’s with Mustang or whatever, and he realizes that EO has been dead for longer than they were married. And I was like, yeah, buddy, close the yearbook. Mustang is hot. Get up. Ride that. Mayor, what are you doing? So I’m with you, obviously. Rip, we miss you. We love you. But, Darryl, build me a bridge and get the fuck over it. All right, my last stock up is razor blades and food. Yes, it was a big thing in the 90s, around Halloween. It was. Oh, that’s when I was trick or treating. Don’t accept anything that isn’t wrapped. There could be razor blades in it, but with the Internet, it turned out to be an old wives tale, and it fell out of public consciousness, not unlike the Dark Lord Sauron’s ring. But now these industrious kids on Mars are stuffing bread loaves and apples with rusty nails and shrapnel. So I feel like razor blades and food is back. Watch out when you go to your local bakery. I’m buying razor blades and food. I’m going to tell my kids, hey, watch out. Interesting purchase, but okay, you’re definitely getting flagged by the ATF or somebody with those purchases. If the ATF came knocking on my door, I would be proud. I’d be like, oh, you guys are listening. Awesome. Really. Thanks for downloading and subscribing, Buddybook.com. Really appreciate it. Let’s jump into stockdown. Keith, what did you ever stock down? Draft analysis. Stock down. I’ve been following the NFL draft for about 15 or 16 years now. Has a long history. Draft Analysis.com, no big deal. But Finchner, come on, buddy, you got to take some draft notes at this point. So Mars is basically the Cincinnati Bengals of old where they were just drafting all these terrible character issue players. And he keeps doing it year over, year over year. They’re like, yeah, Mars always fizzled out in these competitions because they draft like aggressive dudes that end up sucking at the end. So why don’t you change your draft strategy, buddy? What are you doing, Fisher? And they say that the proctors get all the credit if their team wins. So why would you not be drafting guys that are more team chemistry guys and people that are like different attributes rather than all these conniving, aggressive people? It doesn’t make any sense, buddy, figure this out, right? Also, why are you drafting two siblings on the same team if you know one of them is going to end up getting killed by one of your other better people? That’s a terrible, terrible draft strategy, Fisher. Figure it out. Draft analysis, stock down. Well, so with this draft, this is actually a really interesting point. I feel like we’d have an entire podcast on this draft strategy because with this draft, it’s almost like you pick the top 50 and then your 2nd 50 are just dead. Like you’re just assuming those 50 are dead. And I’m going to defend Fitchner here because he somehow was able to Peel his own son with a 100th pick and several. I don’t know, he’s a second round pick. He can’t necessarily be a first round pick because he’s not the leader. You want your Tom Brady as your first round pick. Granted, he went in the 6th, but several he gets with the last pick who fucks up. What’s the guy’s name? Primitius prime. Yeah, he fucks up. Prim like, no problem. And then he’s exactly what Mars is looking for, though. He’s got all that aggression, but he’s just a psychopath. He’s just ready to go off. What’s his name? Riggs from Rigs. From Lethal Weapon. He’s good at what he does, but the X Factor is what really makes him a stud. So I think we’re giving Fitchner not enough credit yet. It didn’t work year over year. But you know what? He pulled Darrow out and he got him. So, Mercury, you fucked up. You should take in Darrow. So, yeah, I agree with you. But at the same time, they’re working on incomplete information. It’s not. You have the McDonald’s all Americans out there you don’t really know. And people are pumping up their own kids. They have a combined beforehand. I mean, that’s what it is, right? It’s just a combined. Yeah, but the combine is like a Little League try out. You really don’t know. You really don’t know what you’re going to get. So I kind of picture like that when all the dads are sitting around in their cargo shorts and tucked in shirts and TVs and socks on. Like they don’t know what the fuck they’re drafting. So I’m going to give Fitzner a little bit of credit. If I was picking, I picked the cycle ofats too, because you just never know. Because at the end of the day, this is a bloody and gory and fucked up school. So you might as well get all the crazies. And if they can form together, you got something. You got a team like this year. Cincinnati Bengals, Joe Burrow. What’s up, Joey? Back doors. Let’s go. Yeah. I mean, Darryl and Jackal are basically two massive psychopaths, I think. Yeah, for sure. Those are normal people. What are you talking about? Mega. Yeah. So we’re going to agree to disagree on there. But I like it. I like it. No, I think you draft a psychopath, you draft a leader, but then you fill it with guys that are team chemistry player. So I like the rogue pick. He’s like a philosopher. He’s the knowledge base guys. I like the cyber pick. Yeah, there’s a lot of good picks. But then you also pick on other people that are going to be backstabbers or challenge the leadership of the number one pick. You can’t have it. It’s like dropping like three quarterbacks in the same draft. It doesn’t make any sense. You got to spread out. Miko, would you have a stock down? Stock down. I had education and we’ve had that before, so that’s good. Glad I could help. Yeah. Look, we’ve already admitted or I’ve already admitted to my lacking in reading and not taking that part of school. Serious shocker that extended out to other classes and other areas of my education growing up. And turns out in this world again, I should just be on Mars. I should be a red or gold or whatever. I don’t care. I just want to be in the society because your point, Keith? When he was with Mickey the Carver, there was one point where he basically Darrow just takes a limitless pill and overnight he, quote, absorbs 3000 years of literature and history. That’s my dream. If I don’t have to go to school and you just give me a pill and I know everything perfect. We can just cut out the 13 years I wasted doing nothing. I took French for 13 years. Okay. From the Fiji. You took French for 13 years? First grade. I started French all the way through high school. I kept it going. I had Fijians living down the hall from me. I could have gone over there and cut it up with those French Fox. But I didn’t. I didn’t use it ever. Every year it was the same shit over and over, just relearning everything. What a waste of time. I could have just taken a pill limitless, been like, Darrow and just fucking moved on with my life. So stock down education. It’s bullshit. So do you not speak French? Yeah, I can throw a little accent up there. I don’t say croissant. I say koissan

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speaker. Yeah, I could cut it up with the Parisians. I could get over there and get after it, but I’m not using it. I should have taken Spanish at the very least. At least then I would have some Amigos and Armanos to cut it up within this country. But where the fuck am I going? I agree with you, though. I mean, where is the Matrix style plug into the back of the neck and just learn everything instantly. I think we should be having that by now. I completely agree with you. Talk to Elon. Well, Interestingly enough, one of my stock downs was getting accepted into a prestigious school, because that’s like the thing when you’re in high school, it’s like, oh, did you know that one kid in your class is going to Yale? Going to be the next brain surgeon is like, good for him. But it turns out if you get accepted into prestigious school, you can get murdered on your first day. Like, literally murdered. You go into school, half of the people are dead. So everyone is super excited for Julian. Oh, my God, Julian got accepted to school. This is amazing. It’s like his dad sitting there being like, yes, Julian is going to fucking die. Whatever. So maybe it’s not that cool. Like, let’s not get excited when someone goes to Brown. I mean, it’s also poop. So why would you be jazzed about that? Pass. Prestigious schools, go to a state school, save your money, become a doctor a different way. Simple. I’m with you 100%. Also, how do all these kids go through their lives not knowing what takes place at this Institute? That really made no sense. No one knowing what the passage is or knowing what the school entails. You’re telling me that these gold parents who want their kids to be the best, they want their kids to be primates aren’t, like, secretly telling them, okay, here’s actually what’s going on there. So be prepared for this and the other thing. And I know they said Julian worked on his fighting and whatnot, and I know the whole thing was kind of a way for the Bologna to fuck over the Andromeda family, or whatever that family’s name is. I understand how it ties in, but there’s just no way that these parents aren’t leaking some information as to what exactly is going to happen and giving some strategic tips. Yeah, there isn’t some College scandal where Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin of the Red Rising aren’t giving their kids yacht scholarships or they get into the Institute and throw the money. Exactly. That’s a great reference. Thank you, but I think it’s also there supposed to be like the Roman or whatever. The 300 society. There Spartans. Yeah. Their son isn’t good enough. Then he should deserve to die kind of thing, right? That’s like the mentality of the society. Yeah, the Spartans were Greek, but you’re close. It’s fine. Good education. They’re all the same. Keith, what else do you ever stock down? Don’t take that out of context. The Germans are loving that line. I had relegation stock up or down depending, but I actually didn’t think the society was that bad. A few issues here and there, but the way we fix this is relegation. So if you want to move up in class as you put them in this Hunger Games type thing, and they win, they move up, they lose, they die. And that’s how you kind of allow people to go up and down the food chain or the class structure. I just didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t change class. Other than that, I think it’s fine. I don’t think there’s a big issue other than that big fact that you are stuck in your class. The Untouchables in India might have some issues with that. You can move. Yeah, that’s the problem. You get bored in a class, you should be like, oh, I want to move up. It’s like, all right, well, you’re going to have to go to this deathifying game. It’s like, all right, that’s the price you have to pay. Shout out to episode one, because Keith is over here digging himself a hole, if you know what I’m saying. Little BBC kickback. We like it. My stock down is pelotons. Everyone’s got one now. Stocks way up. I mean, the literal stock is way up, but instead of a peloton, we need constant traction machines, which is what Darrow was in when he was hanging out with Mickey. It’s immersive. It works the entire body. Plus you can race against Panthers. It’s not like, oh, you want to take a bike ride through the Alps and the timing is not really right and you can’t look left or right. It’s just like we’re on a bike path. It’s like, that’s not very exciting. No, you can step into this constant traction machine and work your entire body as you race against a Panther. That sounds phenomenal. I would do it. You’re in the Jungle Book. It’s you and Bagheera hanging out. Why not? I get exercised that way. This idea of a peloton. Oh, you have an iPad in front of you that there’s someone on it saying, oh, you’re doing great. Look at Keith. He’s moving up in the pack like, no, that’s boring. I want to be in the jungle. I want to be running with wild animals. And that’s why I prefer to get my exercise. So pelotons, you’re out. Constant tracking machines. You’re in. When I was, like, eight, I used to go to the gym with my dad and I would go on the rowers and they had a thing where you would basically race another rower. And that was I hated rowing, but I was like, oh, I have to do this because it’s the best thing ever. So if you make that more immersive. Yeah, of course I’m into that. Yeah. It’s like, you’re the Cox. Was that the Coxman Coxon. You’re the Coxon. That’s the kind of exercise I want someone else that’s on the rowing machine, and I just sit in front of them and they go yellow. Speaking of gyms, going to gyms as a kid, a lot of balls, right? The men’s locker rooms, a lot of balls. I mean, only now do we know about pedophiles. I feel like that wasn’t discussed when we were kids, but there’s no way those guys just hanging out in the locker room. And I really do mean hanging out weren’t, like, doing that on purpose. It was disgusting and boorish and uncouth, and I don’t support it. When we were on the swim team, I was like, ten. We had a locker room monitor that was a dude that was like 50 with a beard and just would watch us change. And I remember even at that age, I was like, what is up with this fucking dude? This is really fucking weird. Nowadays. You imagine being like, yeah, we just need someone that goes in there and just watches these kids change to make sure they’re not around. Like, wait, what? That is wild fuck you talking about. All right, well, tell us about the second time you were touched. Yeah, it looked like Santa. So, I mean, it was all fine. You told me to get presents for it. Yeah, now they would do that. Remember when the FBI gave away free tickets or whatever to the Washington Redskins games and it was just to collect people that had outstanding warrants? That would be the thing now would be like, oh, we have an open job opening on LinkedIn for locker room attendant. They show up there and it’s like, all right, yeah, cool. Get in the van, you’re fucking pedophile. Speaking my night report, that’s like Precog. Like, these guys put them all in jail. Yes. Pricogs right there. Miko, you did have another stock download, correct? Yeah, I did have a serious one. If I can bring it back to a more serious note. Stock down asparagus. So I love asparagus. I love eating it, throw it on the grill, throw it on a sheet and throw it in the oven or whatever. 425 I do. But, like, the first ten pages of this book, they scarred me because the only downside to asparagus is the smell after you eat asparagus. And I’m talking about urine, piss. Pierce Brown, he’s a good looking dude, but what is going on? Well established. He’s got some kind of hidden fetish here that is not so hidden because in those first ten or more pages, the way that he weaves this golden tapestry of smells is just like, I’m going to Puke. Thinking about the piss sweat combination in Darrows and suits. I think he says at one point they’re like basically astronauts or whatever, right? In that sort of a get up. And you can’t wipe suits. Yeah, thank you. You can’t wipe the sweat from your brow. And the first couple of times you try to do it before you learn that, obviously you can’t get in the suit or whatever. It just like stinging in your eyes when you put sunscreen on your forehead and then you’re sweating because it’s hot and it gets in your eyes. I don’t know. It really bothered me and really kind of ruined asparagus for me. So stock down on asparagus. Yeah, that’s a good point. Although the asparagus having your P smell is actually a gene thing, so like some people, it doesn’t smell. And also more Interestingly is you being able to smell asparagus. Piss is a separate gene thing. So you could think that, oh, when I eat asparagus, my pee doesn’t smell, but it might smell, but you don’t have the other gene monitor which allows you to smell that. So it’s kind of a weird catch 22 things. You really have to have a bunch of people in a bathroom and everyone hangs out and smells each other’s piss, and then someone will let you know. Sounds like my Friday night. But yes, he did paint a very beautiful picture of the smells of the underworld of Mars, and I appreciated that, Pierce. So thank you. So real quick on the genes, though. If I have those genes, I’m a higher form of life or where do I fall? You’d be a pink. I still think pink. You know how they like, they got rats to be able to sniff out minds and diabetes and stuff like that. You’re basically one of them. One of those African rats. They’re pretty. But actually, you might have a side gig where if you can smell the asparagus pea, if people don’t know, they could just hire you to come in and smell their pee. Awesome. I could have my dream job of just working in a bathroom. A boy’s locker. You could work in a little boy’s locker room in a pool. That would be great. Stop doing it for free, Keith. Oh, good God, Keith, do you have any other stock downs? No, that’s it. All right, Miko, I don’t know what your plan is, but you’re more than welcome to hang around if you want, and we can go through the rest of this. Or if you got stuff to do, feel free to log off. Cool. I might hang around for a little bit. Just listen in. Just creep a little like the guy in Keith’s locker room growing up. I’ll just be in the corner.

Participant #1:

Keith, let’s get into pick your character. Who is your favorite character from this novel? That is Red Rising. Yeah, I think the obvious one is Several. He’s the best. I don’t see myself as him, but I also see myself as him. I want to be him. I would never be him because I’m not that type of person. I’m too much of a pussy. But I was like, that’s the guy. The guy that’s just like the loyal. I’m going to go off and get things done. Just like the scavenger. I loved him. I liked PAX, too. There’s a lot of people I liked in this book, but I think Several is the number one for me. Yeah, I’m with you. He’s like, Eureka from Princess Mononoke. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that wonderful film. Bless you with that. Fijian. You just stick in there. No, she’s a girl in Princess Mononoke. She’s raised by Wolves. She wears a Wolf pelt. She’s always covered in blood. She’s phenomenal. But his loyalty is endearing. He’s willing to do all the dirty jobs. Allah Mike Rowe. He pulls in Andy DuFran and climbs through a shit tunnel to get Darrow a Castle. He also pulls a Luke Skywalker and spends a night inside a dead animal. Plus, once he loses an eye, he must look so badass. Like, just this one eyed eyepatched, Wolf skin covered boy just in mud and shit and just ready to do whatever it takes. That’s the last guy I want to fight. I would rather fight Cassius. I’d rather fight PACs. I’d rather fight anybody than Several, because he’s just got the crazy eyes. Oh, yeah, it reminds me of that quote that’s like, I always used to think I wanted to be boxed until I met someone that actually wanted to box. That’s him. Like the guy that’s like, oh, no, I live for this. I’ll die for this game. And I’m like, yeah, what I was upset about, too, is that this is going to be more than hate. But when he at the end of book signs on with the arch governor or whatever, I feel like that would only be contingent on my boys riding with me. These guys are all agreed, I’m not leaving. That was also something for me where he just kind of left several in the dust there. Like, didn’t you can’t do that or something? And really, it should be like, hey, as long as I can have several at my side, I know that no one is going to be able to sneak up on me. But also, my other favorite character was Paxo tomatoes, which Miko didn’t read the or didn’t listen to the audiobook, but the guy did a phenomenal job doing his Paxo telemolos. And PAX is from New Zealand, so he’s just a big rowdy rugby bro. That’s what I pictured him as. I pictured him as not to burn one of my characters later, but Gronk. I just thought he was Gronk the whole time. He’s like this big happy, but like, an absolute beast of a dude. It’s like about partying and killing. Yeah, for sure. I mean, he cries when he has to whip Darrow, which is just, like, so cute. It’s like one of those big Rottweilers that is actually just, like super cuddly. And I was actually just super pissed when he died. We’ve already touched on that. But it turns out Pierce Brown was too. He just pulled when he was writing the book, he just pulled all the characters names. He put all the characters names in a hat and pulled one out. Besides Darrow and Mustang. He left us the side, and he pulled out packs. And supposedly he had this big story arc where Darrell was going to join the telemonicas and fight the arch governor’s people. But he was like, you know what? I got to do it. I pulled it out. He was like, I could put it back in and just pull another name. But he was like, no, I got to do it. And so that’s how he decided to kill PAX. But he’s such a good writer to be able to do that and be like, all right, I guess I’ll just do a poll, change my current story arc. Okay, let’s jump into some love hate. We’re running long, so we’ll try to kind of blow through this, but at the same time, I don’t really want to because this book was so good. We could have should have dropped this into, like, four different podcasts. It was such a good book. So love hate. Or as I’d like to call for this pod prime slag. What was prime? What was flag? Let’s get into prime first. What do you got for prime? Prime for me, how the world expands and things just get bigger and bigger. When I first read this book, I didn’t read any descriptions and read anything, and I thought it was about an Uprise in a drilling community. I was like, oh, that’s kind of cool. And then it becomes a huge Star Wars type world with politics, everything. I was just amazed at the imagination of the world and society, the politics of everything, the language. Everything is amazing to be in this. I also think that you could have just done the typical trope of fish out of water. Hey, I’m in this new gold society. I don’t know what’s going on, and I have to just constantly protect and be in fear that I’m going to trip up and give away that I’m not really a gold. That could have been done, and that could have been the Ya book, right? Yeah. And that’s been done a thousand times. But instead, the book is about war, leadership, anger, and love. That’s what it’s really about, which is amazing. That’s just a side part of it. It just becomes this whole other thing. So I love that. Yes. One of the things I love is the conquest itself, and they really just briefly talk about it. And I love lore with all this stuff and Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and all these kind of fantasy books, more Sci-Fi. I mean, we talk about doing whatever, but I love the lore that is kind of talked about, but you don’t ever see it. And that’s why Star Wars was so good until they decided to dive into the lore and they just fucked it all up. But The Conquest, I see it like the opening of Lord of the Rings when Kate Blanchett’s narrating, but it’s basically iron gold from Luna battling against the Earthlings to create the society that we know today. And it could be just like Lord of the Rings, the beginning there where it’s just kind of like smash cut, but just that little. Even though it’s probably only a couple of pages, it was just like, oh, okay, I get how this society came to be. And he did it so concisely, so well done. And I saw it in my mind, and just like people battling and grab boots and stuff like that, it seemed really fucking cool. So even though it was a little bit into the book, it really kind of set the idea for the society. So I really like The Conquest. What else do you have? The villains. The villains were awesome. From the Jackal to Titus to the Proctors to arch governors, it wasn’t just like one enemy or one bad guy. Everyone kind of had a shade of bad guy next to them. Really appreciate that. Also like the twist with that sister being the sister, the Jackal. I didn’t realize that in the first one. I was like, oh, shit. But he lays the groundwork, like, throughout the book. It was very obvious when I re read it, I was like, oh, yeah, I don’t know how I didn’t see that. It was so obvious. Yeah. And then just overall turning things around in the Proctors, I really appreciated that. And just. It felt like a real war. The hunger, the fear, the pain, the smell, which Mika talked about earlier. He describes the smell of Thor a lot. Well, to tie into yours, the Titus read reveal when he says bloody damn and kind of like what you were alluding to in terms of a reread. This book is a great reread. There’s so much there that you didn’t realize upon the first time. Reading not only Titus, but like Jacob and the Mustang being siblings, several being Fitchner’s kids. It’s so well done that when I read it the first time, it was like, oh, these are great reveals. But then when I read it the second time, I was like, oh, my God, it’s all right here. And the reveals aren’t made in this book to be like some of the other thrillers we’ve read. It doesn’t depend on it exactly. The story isn’t based around these reveals. The story is separate, but then includes these fun reveals throughout, and he just does it in such a good way that Pierce Brown stock up. Love you. Good job. I’m going to go for another one because you went through like ten. But my other love is the passage itself, because up until that point, this is a Ya book. Obviously there’s a hanging. But Besides that, it’s like, okay, this is Ya. And when the passage comes around, you’re like, oh, it’s like Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat. He’s going to find out what house he’s in, but then he’s brutally murdering Julia and there’s eyes getting popped out of their heads and you’re like, Holy shit, this is not Harry Potter. Fucking Harry would be curled up in a ball crying if this ever happened to him, even though he’s all about courage and Gryffindor. Like, no, this is some fucked up slithering shit. So the passage was up there for Milo because it definitely set the scene for how the school is going to work. And by the time Titus starts raping people, you’re like, yeah, duh. Yeah, I had that in my favorite scene. The one V one Death Match is when you really flip the script, you’re like, oh, shit. Wait, what? Yeah. Because I thought it was going to be like, oh, this school is all for like, what? They’re all gold. But it’s like, no, we’re doing handhand compat you’re naked and you’re not walking out of this room unless someone died. It’s like, oh, okay, yeah. If you read Hunger Games before this and you’re like, wow, someone got shot with an arrow that’s fucked up. And it’s like some crazy shit smashing someone’s head against a wall until it pops. It’s like, oh, all right, I’m in a different realm here. What else do you have for love? The song, the song at the end, that’s oh in the audiobook. Yeah. Don’t turn the audiobook off until after the song because you get a little drop on that song. Time do that. It would be phenomenal. But the song is in the book. At one point, he sings it to Mustang, which I thought for because he’s kind of like. I’m like, all right, buddy, it was a little bit much. I agree. But then at the end, I was like, oh, this is the title track for the TV series. This is fucking awesome. So, yeah, if you listen to the audiobook, definitely don’t skip the end. And if you didn’t listen to the audiobook, I’d say download it and just listen to the song. I wonder if they have that song on itunes somewhere. It must be, right? It’s got to be somewhere. I loved about this book, how the romance isn’t overplayed. And I know we’re kind of shooting on The Hunger Games here, but I like The Hunger Games, or at least the first book. But this is no Hunger Games. That was one of the things that bothered me about it was just like, oh, petal catness. The romance, it builds into a nice place, and it’s not really a storyline. It’s just like, you know, these people have feelings for each other. You can tell that through their actions, through what’s going on. There’s no reason to have this weird teen angst first pube belonging. I don’t need that when I’m reading this book. So I appreciate how he didn’t overplay it. He let it kind of figure itself out throughout the book. So, Pierce, once again, thank you. Agreed? Yeah. Okay, let’s jump into hate. What do you hate? Yeah. So I said I basically like every character in this book. The one I do not like is Cassius. Cassius is a huge bitch. Hated him. He’s just a bitch. He whines about his brother. Darryl didn’t kill your brother. The game did. That’s what happened. You don’t blame someone that didn’t. Actually, he had to do what he had to do. So are you saying don’t hate the player, hate the game? Absolutely. Goddamn right. Yes. That really just annoyed me. And then when he comes to him and he’s ready to apologize, even though you just stabbed this dude, you know how they did the one on one match up? Yeah. He gets stabbed, and then Darrell’s there about to apologize. Darrow should go there and cut his head off. But instead, he’s like, you know what? I killed his brother. I understand his anger. And then he’s like, all right, there’s a blood feud after that. Why? What? No. Darryl should be mad at you all the other way around. That’s bullshit. So fuck Cassius. Fuck you, Cassius. Yeah. Good name, though. Cassius is a good name. Yeah, Cass. Decent nickname. One of the things I hated, actually, really, the only thing I hated was the book itself. I found it hard to visualize, and that’s the problem with books in general, as opposed to other media functions, is you can’t really see what’s happening. So you have to do it in your own mind, which is good and bad. Usually it’s good because Lord of the Rings, it’s like, okay, there’s horses. I know what a horse looks like. And there’s horses in this, too, but, like, okay, there’s a Goblin. There’s a troll. I can figure that out. But in this book, they got all this technology. Grab boots, force fields, punch fists. And that’s not even to mention what these gory damn highboards look like. And then the setting itself, I was just picturing people in my head, like, when they were fighting or whatnot? Or when they’re talking. I didn’t picture them as these giant, golden haired, tanned, golden eyed people. I just pictured them as people. Right. So I think it’s hard to really visualize exactly what the people in the setting look like. And that’s why I think this would be such a good video product where you’d be able to say, like, oh, shit. Okay, now I see it. And if I reread this book afterwards. Even if the book is better, you’d still be able to take some of those pictures and put them to paper. That wasn’t a big issue for me, but I can see that and that’s a video format would be amazing. What else do you hate? I didn’t care for Darryl getting tricked twice by the whole waking up in the middle of night and, hey, come outside the Castle quick by yourself. There’s something needs to get saved. I can understand it the first time with Antonio or whatever doing that. The second time, the exact same thing happens with Cassius. He’s like, Cassie’s, like, come outside. I need you right away. And he does the same exact thing and then gets into that duel with him. So I was like, bro, Phool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Like, come on, kid. No, the line is fool me twice. Never going to fool me again. Yeah,

good. J. Coulson. Yes, I’m with you there. Darrow is too smart for that. So the only thing is like, oh, he trusted Cassie. So maybe that’s what we’re supposed to believe. But the only other thing I hated from this book, and once again, these are such light hates. But the Jackal climax. I mean, we talked about this a little bit. The build up was so big that then the whole thing with the Jackal happened, which was great when he killed Packs and cut his own arm off. Like, that stuff was great. But then it’s like, that’s it. He goes to see Mustang, and she’s like, no, I was actually Truthful to you, like, here’s the Jackal standard. And here’s the Jackal. Like, I got him. He’s my brother. Yeah, I got him. And it’s like, oh, okay, the game is over. You won. I was just like, oh, I thought there was going to be, like, some sort of crazy duel or something like that where he would have had to use his sling blade in some way. And I know that the first one was fun, but I just thought because the whole thing, he was like, I should have never let this guy go. Like, I can’t believe he cut his own arm off. This was a big mistake. And then you realize, oh, Mustangs got some sort of relation to him. And then Fishner is like, it’s his sister. And you just give half your army to him. And then she shows up and she’s like, no, I was on your side the whole time. No problem. Yeah, I can see that. I actually kind of like it because it kind of bucked the trend. I’m more of a fan of books or movies that have the immediate either death or just no big climax where all of a sudden it’s like, all right, we’re going to fight to the duel, and it’s this long battle. It’s like, no, just make something quick. Make it something like, you’re not seeing coming, so I’d have a big issue with that. But I could definitely see how it was like a build up to like kind of a fizzle. So you’re saying you hated Death of the Fate or whatever that song is in Phantom Menace, like the only good part of that movie when QuiGon and Obiwan fight due to Faith dual, the fates, the only redeeming quality of the first Star Wars or the prequel there you’ve just done a 90 minutes movie of Darth Maul fighting people up and they go, all right, that’s fine. Let’s cast the movie. The rights for this movie, as in Red Rising, was sold to Universal Pictures in 2014, but the project was scrapped. Thank God our boy Pierce Brown started developing Red Rising as a TV series in 2018 and supposedly has secured a director and a showrunner. This is as of September 2021. So exciting stuff ahead. I think this is way better as a TV series than it would be a movie, which we kind of discussed earlier. If they’re not casting, then they’re about to be. So who do you got? Yeah, for Darrow. I had Lucas Hedges. I don’t know who that is. He’s in a few movies. He looks kind of young, I think. Still, he has some crazy eyes. So that’s the problem is you need to get actors that are like a little bit crazy for all these parts. I’ve seen him in Manchester by the Sea in Honey Boy. He’s only in it for a little bit, but he’s like a crazy person. That’s what I was thinking of. What about you? I had and I think you kind of need a big name for this if you’re going to do a three part series. And so I had Tom Holland, and maybe this isn’t perfect, but I think he fits the age range and he can play younger, and he also plays the part of being like a hard nose but like scrawny person. So the transformation thing would be pretty good for him. So he’s beautiful. I’m taking Tom Holland. I think he can pull it off for several. I had Thomas Brody sinkster he’s in Game of Thrones, but he’s also kind of plays a crazy dude and other things, too. Oh, really? When you say Game of Thrones, I thought you’re talking about the guy who cuts people’s skin off. But you’re talking about the. Oh, that would be a good one. Wow. You change my answer. That’s the right answer. I apologize. Yeah, you’re right and I’m wrong. That’s 100% what it should be for several. I went, Talk about Honey Boy. I went Chile of Booth. I feel like he’d be a good Chevrolet mangy, but ready to fuck you up. If they made this with 30 year old, it would be much easier to cast. They can. Yeah, really? They can do that. You’re right. Good point. Who else did you have for PAX? Having Gronk as the acting debut. No, please note. Yes. All you have to say is one line. He’s like, Hodor, based on his Navy credit Union or whatever I’m out on. I didn’t castrate all this one. I think this is on you here. So I didn’t have Pac, so I’m glad you filled it with Gronk. But Fitchner, I had either. Gerald Butler. Oh, nice. I’m talking like Den of thieves. Gerald Butler, where he’s fat and drinks a lot and smokes a lot. Just overdone not 300. Gerald Butler. Yeah. I’d also accept Ron Perlman, who played Hellboy and was in, like, I think Sons of Anarchy. Right. I think he’d be really good as Fisher as well. And then for Mustang, I had Anya Taylor Joy, the girl from Queens, Gambit, who is beautiful but also has this Regal but cunning vibe to her. I think she’d be really good there. It looks like a gold. Really? Yeah, exactly. She already looks like a gold. So you can save some money in post production that you don’t have to do too much. And then Octavia Aloon, who’s the sovereign of the society, she’s not really in this one. And she’s a little bit in the second one. I don’t know about the third, actually. I’m not going to get any spoilers, but I want Kate Blanchett for her, not only because Kate Blanchett is beautiful and Regal and could totally just dominate that part, but I do want Octavia Aloon, aka Kate Blanchett, doing the voiceover of the Conquest, which is really just what I want from Lord of the Rings. And that was all I had for Cast and Mum. But I mean, hey, we really have a full cast here. For the Cutter, I had Jared Leto. They described Jared Leto. Wow. Yes. That’s the only good casting, I think. And I want Jared Leto from Dallas Buyers Club. Not HIV positive, but, like, skinny and sickly. We did it. It’s pretty clear from this whether we would recommend this book. I mean, just the length itself. If we were going to shit on a book for this long, I would hope someone would stop listening to us because we don’t want to bring that sort of negativity into our life. But Keith, would you recommend this book? You know what? When you read a book and you think it’s amazing and then you’re like, nervous to read it again because you’re like, maybe I was just in a good mood, or maybe I was nervous for this book. Reread it. I loved it. It rivals Harry Potter for me. That’s how good I thought it was. At Botany is my number one of all the books we’ve read? I think it’s my number one so far. I mean, I agree with you. It’s my number one as well. Like we said before, it’s Hunger Games meets Braveheart meets Harry Potter. What else do you need in terms of the world building, the storyline, the characters? It not getting too full of itself. No, preachiness to it. It keeps the themes understated. It’s like, hey, enjoy the ride and if you take anything out of it, then good for you. And I don’t take anything out of anything because I’m a Dullard, but I really just enjoyed the ride. Keep you guessing at all times. It really does. That’s all you can ask for, really. The fact that it’s a three part series. I’ve read the second one. It’s not as good as the first one, but definitely after reading this again, I’m like, okay, I’m reading the second one again. It’s just guaranteed. So I loved it. Vaults up to the top of our list, which is exciting for the buddyballclub.com. We’re going to get some fresh names there and the top five and maybe we might have more because next week or next two weeks we are going to be reading another book, which is oh, no, are we diving back in? Are we giving it another shot? Project hail Mary by Andy Weir. We’ve already read one anywhere book wasn’t his best, but this one has a 4.5 out of five on Goodreads, which is I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book this many reviews that is that high. So by comparison, red rising is a 4.2 and I think that’s pretty well received. I’m expecting big things. We’re hoping for big things and we may or may not have a guest next week. We’ll see. Until next time. We’ll see you then. Thanks for checking us out and bye now. Bye now.