Who is Janci Patterson? — Intentionally Blank Ep. 279

0:03 Hi, Jancy. Hello. We are having guest star Jancy Patterson. Yes. Pen name. Jancy Patterson.

0:12 Yes.

0:13 And we're going to talk to Jancy today. Because Dan is on another vacation. This is a real one, we think. The last few times he hasn't been here, he hasn't actually been on vacation. He's been doing work things in other places, and this time he might actually be on vacation. That's at least what Donald thinks.

0:30 I believe so, from what I've been told.

0:31 Dan deserves a vacation.

0:33 Jancy is one of my oldest friends. And we just wrote a book together, so this is good timing for Dan to vanish since you know our book came out. We didn't get book scanned yet, did we? Did Joshua not send that yesterday?

0:45 I haven't seen it.

0:46 We need to poke Joshua to get the book scan. We did hit number two on the New York Times list.

0:52 Very exciting.

0:53 Yeah. Is this our first appearance on the Times? No, the collection hit. And Bastille did too. Actually, actually hit? Yeah. Oh, that's on the middle grade.

1:02 So now we've hit together a two different I think it's three different lists because the collection went on the series list, and this one I thought would go on the series list, but it didn't. It's on just general hardcover because they didn't connect it to the Skyward series.

1:14 Three different.

1:15 Yeah, three different things.

1:16 Is number two our highest?

1:18 I think so. I'm not 100% sure what the other numbers were. I know we haven't hit number one yet. I don't get the number one yet.

1:23 Don't get the number one.

1:24 Someday I want to put that S like New York Times bestselling authors.

1:28 Yes.

1:28 Someday. Yes. Someday we're gonna.

1:30 Oh, right now it can be New York Times bestselling authors if they don't put the number one. They do put the number one though. I did a whole thing on my channel recently. People on the internet don't understand the bestseller list.

1:44 Oh, like what it is.

1:45 Yeah. Like the New York Times list. They think it is more shadowy cabal than it really is.

1:50 They just can't tell the exact algorithm because as soon as they do, people try to game it.

1:54 Yes.

1:54 So if people wouldn't do that, we could have nice things.

1:57 But theirs is always within a place or two of the raw sales.

2:03 Oh yeah.

2:04 And it's just that they wait certain bookstores a little bit more.

2:07 Yeah.

2:08 And so something that's number five on the raw total sales might be number four on the times list. But people think they're just picking which ones go, and they're not.

2:16 No.

2:17 They wait certain stores that are independent bookstores.

2:21 Well, and USA Today used to use just the raw numbers, and people were literally having buy-ins to get your book into like a collection and then using the money from the buy-in to buy gift cards, to give to people, to buy the it was not it needs to be books that are actually selling to people.

2:34 People know about those ones, and that's part of why the gaming of the system just doesn't happen like it used to.

2:39 And USA Today fixed that too. It doesn't happen there either anymore, which is good.

2:43 But anyway, let's talk about Jansey and how we met. Did we meet first at Leading Edge?

2:47 No, it was I actually went to Leading Edge because of your class. Okay. So it was first in your class. It was the first year you taught it, and Elantras wasn't even out yet. So I had no idea who you were, and neither did anybody else in that class. There were like maybe 15 of us.

2:58 There's a bunch of friends I met, like Isaac was the next year. But because I was a brand new grad student, a lot of my students were my age in the class. And so bookstore guy was in that class, Steve Diamond. And Isaac was in the next class and things like this. And so the early classes were a lot of my peers.

3:20 It's not that way necessarily anymore, though once in a while, not once in a while, I still regularly have people my age.

3:25 Yeah.

3:26 But I don't have like my peers, which are other aspiring writers who were kind of in the same place as me.

3:34 Well, and we got to be friends because we then took the same class together. Yes. It was a graduate level class that I took as a senior.

3:40 You took that class and Heather was in that class as well.

3:43 And Bryce.

3:44 And Bryce. Oh, Bryce was in that class. And then that's where we started our writing group.

3:47 Yeah. We you guys were already meeting at Sally Taylor's. She was a professor. And you guys were already meeting at Sally Taylor's, and then you invited me and Heather.

3:54 Okay.

3:55 To join, I think is the way it went.

3:57 One of Jancy's claims to fame is she's one of the very first readers of the Alcatraz books. Yes. A very early big proponent of the Alcatraz books.

4:07 Yeah, I was a huge fan before they were published.

4:10 One of the very first people to ever read The Arhythmatist.

4:12 Yeah, that's right. Back when it was like first draft.

4:15 First draft back when it was called Scribbler.

4:17 Oh yeah. I forgot about that. I still like that title. Why did she change it?

4:21 The publishers like we think this will just sell better to your audience. Because it sounds like a science fantasy term.

4:28 Yeah, yeah. And the other one sounded more like Alcatrazzi in genre. Yeah. That makes sense.

4:34 And then you went on and sold some books.

4:37 I did. So I think we started doing critique group together in like 2005.

4:42 Yeah, it was before I met Emily. It might have been 2004, but I think I took your class in 2004 and then it was. Yeah, yeah.

4:50 Yeah, that sounds right. And then and then I sold my first book. It sold in 2010. 2010. And came out in 2012.

4:56 Okay, yeah. Yeah. So another thing that we share. Jancy is very, very good at Halo. Freakishly good at Halo.

5:07 Am I? I'm not freakishly good, like people on the internet are good.

5:10 Not freakishly good. You're freaking like I think I'm pretty good at Halo, right? We live streamed me playing Halo, and people are like, wow, Brandon's actually pretty good at this game. Jancy stomps me at deathmatch. I cannot hold a candle to Jancy when Deathmatch happens.

5:26 I don't love doing PvP. I prefer a campaign or to like do the what do they call the horde mode things. That's not what it's called in Halo.

5:31 Firefight.

5:32 Firefight, yes.

5:33 I didn't have the requisite Xbox to play three when it first came out. And you did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You came over and played at your house. That's right. I remember that. That was my first experience because I've been waiting for three, but then it came out on I don't know what the thing was.

5:49 So you're like, oh, just come play it. Probably the 360.

5:51 Yeah, play it. Yeah. So I experienced Halo 3 and the Gravity Hammer for the first time.

5:59 That's a good game.

6:00 Yeah. Yeah.

6:01 I haven't played any of the ones since four. I played four.

6:04 That's not a terrible decision. This is what I've heard. Four with my kids, and we're like, ugh. So I didn't play five or infinite.

6:12 I think it was we rage quit because five didn't split screen. Like you had to, and I was like, people do still play in the same room as one another. That's how I did Halo 3. So man, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so then I kind of just wandered away.

6:24 Yeah. Is Halo your favorite franchise for gaming?

6:28 Oh, favorite is hard. My favorite is probably Elder Scrolls.

6:31 Okay.

6:31 I've played a lot of Elder Scrolls. I also, right now I'm playing Pocopia with my kids. Very fun.

6:38 Super fun. My kids are all playing Pocopia. I haven't like that style of game I get bored of too quickly.

6:44 It's not my thing either, but this one has a story. Okay. I can't do it if it doesn't have a story. So I didn't love, and this is gonna sound funny, but Animal Crossing is too dark for me. Oh like the it's the like critique of capitalism where you're just always in debt to the like I just can't do it.

6:58 It just feels so icky to me. And like it's it's supposed to, right? But it's not not in a fun way for me. But but it has a story, Pocopia does, and so it it pulls me along. It's fun.

7:08 We can talk video games because I know you have at least one controversial view. Because we got an argument once where I made the I'm like, well, I think that's it.

7:16 Oh yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. You said bioware games were best writing in video games.

7:22 Some of the best writing is exactly what I said.

7:25 I don't think that's what you said. Maybe what you meant.

7:28 Uh-huh. We had a big argument of this. I think Mass Effect has a great story.

7:32 Oh my gosh. It doesn't.

7:34 It's like I haven't played three. Wow.

7:35 Here's the thing. You haven't played three?

7:37 No. So even at the end of the story. Well, one has a self-contained story.

7:41 Does it?

7:42 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

7:43 It's been a bit since I've played it, so I don't totally remember exactly what the increments of the story were and where one ends.

7:48 I mean, Knights of the Old Republic, the best Star Wars media since the originals.

7:54 And I haven't played that one, so I can't comment on that one. I actually, it was funny because I got to the end of Mass Effect and I actually loved the ending and everyone else hated it. Like the whole world of three. I thought it was great. Yeah. And everyone else was like, why?

8:08 Well, the patch didn't even do that much for it.

8:10 I played it unplugged so that I could play it without the patch.

8:13 I almost bought it, but Scar, I had Scar get me a new gaming PC because Joel, my eldest, moved out, and I'm like, well, one way I can spend time with Joel is I can get a new gaming PC.

8:24 Yeah.

8:25 Does this happen to you? I buy a gaming PC and then it slowly becomes one of the kids' PCs.

8:30 That makes sense. No, I I don't game on PC because I don't want to mix work and video games. Like the internet is bad enough. Like Instagram is bad enough. I don't need my video game time on my computer. And so I only do console.

8:43 What is the best story in video games that you have played?

8:47 Oh, the argument that we had turned into what defines a story. Yeah. Right? My favorite writing and my favorite stories, I think, are the persona games. I love those. Three, four, and five, I think, have amazing stories.

8:58 I assume you've played those, Donald. Oh, yes. All three love them, Donald.

9:02 Are you a persona fans?

9:03 Oh, big fan.

9:04 Nice.

9:04 I have not done them.

9:05 Woo! They're long. They're real long.

9:08 They're JRPGs, right? Yes.

9:10 Yeah, I love JRPGs.

9:11 They've always looked like to me dating simulators when I see people. There's a little bit of that. And so I didn't know if there was like actual gameplay.

9:20 Oh, yeah.

9:20 Or if there was just dating sim.

9:22 It's buffy. So it's not just dating, it's like a social sim. You've got relationships with teachers, you've got relationships with friends, you've got dating relationships, and you do those during the day, and you develop all of these connections, and the connections make you better at fusing monsters together and making them fight for you.

9:37 It's kind of like evil Pokemon.

9:38 Evil Pokemon. Yeah. Like a dating sim slash life sim.

9:42 But you're like the times of day vary, but it you're kind of like high school student by day and then like demon hunter by night. Okay. Sounds very anime. Yeah, it's very anime. Yeah. And then they have like apocalyptic storylines that are super fun. I think the writing's really good, and I love the characters.

9:57 Did you play Claire Obscura?

9:59 I haven't yet. I've heard really good things about it though.

10:02 You will love it. It's just persona combat. Like is it?

10:05 Is it turn-based?

10:05 It's turn-based, and they have, in my opinion, they improve on the persona formula a little bit because of the Perry Dodge system. It lets you be more interactive in the combat. I think you're gonna love. I'm thinking about it.

10:16 I don't love, I don't love quick time events. Is that what we're talking about when we say interactive?

10:19 Not as QTE kind of, but more in the moment. I'm more curious, knowing that now, where you'll stand. But it's yeah, it's fantastic. It's worth the time.

10:27 I can put up with a mechanic that I don't love if the story's good enough.

10:30 QTEs either.

10:31 Yeah, it's not my favorite. But Mass Effect had those and they were not great.

10:35 They're never great, but it's an evolution of a style. Yeah. Right? Like Mass Effect was one of the first to try to use a bunch of those. Yeah. And turns out, like the new Spider-Man games do them. And they're so much better. I still don't love them, but they're so much better in the new Spider-Man games.

10:51 So, you know, Mass Effect stumbled on the QTEs so that Spider-Man could fly. Do you have some others? Because I haven't played the Persona games.

11:00 Bioshock? Did you play Bioshock?

11:02 Bioshock, very, very good story.

11:03 Yeah, the first one, I feel like that's up there with like the great dystopian stories, and it uses the like mechanics of video game for like I don't know what you call it when it's a video game, but like literary purposes. And like I think that's legitimate like high arc.

11:17 The Ludo narrative.

11:18 I thought that writing was just incredible.

11:20 So I'm the weirdo who likes Infinite the most.

11:24 I loved Infinite. Other people didn't like it. I don't think I liked it better than the story in the first one, but gameplay was way better, though. The mechanics improved the first time.

11:31 The story is a little better in the first one.

11:32 I love that ending too. I love the ending.

11:34 But I love the ending of Infinite.

11:36 Yeah.

11:36 It's a fantastic ending.

11:38 So good.

11:38 And there's some things about it that don't quite click because it's such so high concept. But it's that sort of thing that I'm like, you know what? You tried so hard to make something so different and interesting that I give you full points. Yeah. Even though there's a little clunkiness in trying to tell that story.

11:57 And we won't spoil it, but I really like Infinite.

12:00 Yeah. Um and that story is only more relevant than it was even when it came out.

12:05 And also, it does the same thing. And I can't do it without spoiling. Like the game mechanics play into.

12:11 Yeah.

12:11 Like it is a game that gives you a Disney princess as a sidekick. And then what happens with the Disney princess, you get to feel what the main character you are put into the position of the character through gang mechanics in ways that are really cool. Yeah.

12:26 So I really liked her as a character too. I saw some like critiques of her. It worked for me.

12:31 So yeah, all right. We can agree on that. Yeah. Bioshock games are definitely among the best stories I've ever played.

12:36 The issue that I have with the bioware writing is that I couldn't ever tell based on what was happening when I made a choice, I couldn't tell what the outcome was going to be. And so the choices felt kind of meaningless to me that I would be like, okay, I don't like this person. I don't really want to be friends with them.

12:50 I'm going to choose this standoffish answer. And that person would somehow think that was great. And now I'm dating them. And I'd be like, what is happening? And so there was just a lot of talking for a lack of information on my part of what was happening.

13:03 That's odd because I never felt that.

13:04 Really?

13:05 Yeah.

13:05 Especially in Mass Effect. I didn't play, I didn't play Knights of the Old Republic. I'm trying to remember, I did play the first Dragon Age.

13:11 Mm-hmm. And so I have oddly not played any of the Dragon Age games. Okay. What? Yeah. I've played both KOTORs, though, of course, the second one is not Bioware. Right. The second one is Obsidian. But yeah. So not played Dragon Age. For whatever reason, I just you'd think the fantasy guy would play Dragon Age, but I like KOTOR so much, and Mass Effect began its life as KOTOR 3.

13:36 Yeah, okay.

13:37 Right. And then they had disputes with LucasArts and blah blah blah. And they're like, we're just gonna, you know, we'll do it ourselves. So that's why I jumped immediately to those.

13:47 Yeah, we did. I I love the setting, the Mass Effect setting. We did an RPG set in that world. It was fun. I played a Krogan.

13:55 Ah, there you go.

13:56 I'm I shouldn't be allowed to play large characters because I do crazy things.

14:00 Are you playing an RPG right now? Like with your kids?

14:04 We went like 20 years and then we finally fell apart. It took a long time. But then just, you know, life and stuff. So it's been a about two years since I've had a gaming group.

14:15 Mine fell apart in part because of me. Like I got married, but that kind of happened to a bunch of us. And I have real trouble role-playing because I feel like I do that all day for work.

14:29 Yeah.

14:29 And so I don't find it fun anymore.

14:32 That makes sense.

14:33 I find still hanging out with people fun. But I don't enjoy the role-playing too. That makes sense. And so I started to feel like, you know, that plus the marriage, plus having kids, I dropped out, and then I think it just kind of also fell apart.

14:49 It wasn't just me, but I don't have that problem with role-playing, but the thing that I have a really hard time doing anymore is watching TV and movies. Like if it's really good, I can watch it because then my brain doesn't sit there and rewrite it. But if it's not like impeccably excellent, I just sit there and I rewrite it and now I'm working.

15:05 And I cannot work 24-7. So I watch a lot of reality TV. Not because I think it's great, but because I don't work while I watch it.

15:12 That might explain why I enjoy YouTube in times where I don't want to watch a movie. You know, like I'll watch Louis Scott Vargas draft because it doesn't use that part of my brain.

15:21 Yeah, like something won't come together in a story, and I'm just like, oh, what they should have done, and now I'm working, and I can't I can't work all the time.

15:27 Speaking of excellent, I have to save this for Dan because he's been waiting for me, but I watched Sinners last night.

15:34 Oh yes! Finally!

15:37 Sinners is so good.

15:38 What is it?

15:39 Sinners is a really fantastic movie by Ryan Kugler who made Black Panther and things, and it is 1930s, 1920s, something like that. South two men both played by Michael B. Jordan as twins, come back to their hometown after spending a dot seven years in Chicago amongst the gangsters making a fortune.

16:04 Okay.

16:04 And they come back to their kind of small town in Tennessee or Mississippi, Mississippi, I think it is, and they wanna start a what do they call it, a juke. They're gonna buy a barn to juke joint. And they're gonna have play the blues played, and they're gonna serve drinks, and it's gonna be like, you know, for them.

16:23 For the pro black people, a juke joint for them. And it's fantastic. It won the Oscar, I think. Best picture. I know Michael B. Jordan won best actor, but it is really gory.

16:38 Okay.

16:38 And so that's the one thing like I've been telling people is like it was a fantastic movie that's kind of not for me.

16:44 What kind of story is it? Is it like to tell you a gangster type story? Like like a noir ish type thing. It sounds right up my alley. Have you seen Ozark?

16:54 Oh. Like that kind of a thing? No.

16:57 I really liked Ozark.

16:58 There's a spoiler that is in the trailers. Yep. I don't watch trailers for this reason.

17:05 I can tell it to you, but Do you think I should know or no?

17:10 I knew and it didn't change the movie, but I think that if I hadn't known, it would be very, very cool.

17:15 So it's a movie, it's not a TV show. It's a movie. Okay. Don't tell me.

17:18 Okay. Okay. Okay. Halfway through, there is a very unexpected twist.

17:23 Okay.

17:24 All right. And it thematically is fantastic.

17:28 Okay.

17:29 But it also turns into a movie that's a little less for me. Um because, man, it got bloody.

17:35 Do you don't like gore?

17:36 I don't like gore.

17:36 Okay. Gore doesn't bother me.

17:38 People who like gore really like how this turns.

17:41 I wouldn't say I'm not like there for the gore, but gore doesn't bother me. Like I loved all the Mike Flanagan, the like House of Usher and the Midnight Mass, and I loved all of those.

17:50 So but it is R-rated for a reason. Okay. Yep. All right. I'll just say that. Fantastic performances, very good writing, and very just cool thematic. So we will do an episode on that coming up with Dan because it is his favorite film of the year last year.

18:06 Okay.

18:06 I believe he told me. And I've been waiting to see it. Yeah. I knew Emily wouldn't like it because I had heard that it was gory and that's not her thing. Really doesn't like gore. Yeah. And so she's out of town right now. She's with her sister and mom at Prince Edward Island.

18:21 Oh, fun.

18:22 And I was behind on signatures. And so Scar came and set up all the signatures for me last night in my theater, and I turned on a film, which I've been meaning to get to this. It is the sort of film I probably shouldn't have been signing pages, but it was good enough that I didn't get all the pages signed that I needed to sign.

18:43 So I'll tell you those who love it. I did pay attention to the film more than that might sound. So nice.

18:49 Well, you you have to do this on autopilot.

18:51 I do it on autopilot. It's cinematically filmed really well.

18:54 And so you want to be watching it.

18:56 So there are lots of parts where I would just look at it and then they would go to talkie bits and I could at least look down for some of that.

19:01 That makes sense.

19:02 So did win the Academy Award for cinematography. It makes sense. Yeah. So what have you seen lately? You don't watch a lot of movies you said.

19:10 Serious amount of reality TV.

19:11 Like, what's your favorite reality T? I do not watch any.

19:14 My absolute favorite is Vanderpump Rules. You might not even know what that is.

19:18 Nope.

19:18 It's a spin-off of The Real Housewives, which I'm sure you've heard of. I watch a lot of Real Housewives.

19:22 Do you watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? Yes.

19:25 It is good stuff.

19:26 It's hilarious because when I go to Hollywood, that is what like my agents and people want to talk to me about. They're like, have you seen the latest episode? And things like that. Because they're just they're like.

19:37 Is that because you're from Utah?

19:39 Yeah. Yeah. They're like, dirty sodas. Are they a real thing? They talk about that.

19:43 Dirty sodas are a real thing.

19:44 They want to talk about all sorts of stuff about, you know, Utah culture and whatnot, which is which is very fun because they've watched the Secret Lives from Mormon Lives. I have not seen any of it.

19:53 And Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I stopped watching that one, not because I don't like it, but because there's a certain amount of like you want fighting and drama because that's what you're there for, otherwise it's boring. And you also want like people you can root for and like like good things happening in people's lives, and also people like having the consequences of their bad behavior that we've been watching for years, like things falling apart.

20:11 Like, not that you want their lives to fall apart, but you want them to figure it out, right? You want all of these things going on, and Salt Lake turned into just screaming. The scene would begin and they were screaming. You want to build up to the screaming, right? You want an arc, and then for them to lose it with each other, and no, that was just like wall-to-wall screaming, and I just couldn't be screamed at anymore.

20:26 So I turned on Salt Lake, but it was really good.

20:29 I'm not sure if I've seen an episode of like true reality TV.

20:34 Have you ever seen Survivor?

20:35 I've never seen an episode of Survivor.

20:37 I binged the whole thing during the pandemic. Whole thing?

20:40 Like, aren't there like 25 seasons?

20:44 41 is coming out very soon. No, no, 51. We're up to 51 now. Wow. It's not a year. No, they do two a year.

20:50 Oh yeah. Okay.

20:52 Yeah, they just did season 50, which was a big deal. 40 was winners at war. It was all winners. They had enough to go.

20:58 So you saw Rafe's season then. He was the showrunner of the Wheel of Time show. He was on like season 11 or something.

21:05 Okay, yeah. I would have you happened to know where that was, like what the location was?

21:09 No idea. You want to look it up? Yeah.

21:11 There's something like 700 people have played now, and so I don't necessarily remember them all, but I remember a lot of them.

21:16 I've seen the great British Bake Show. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:21 I have not actually seen that one.

21:23 They're all so nice.

21:24 Yeah.

21:25 There's not a lot of fighting.

21:26 Survivor is like they're telling a more positive story, right? Like people fight and stuff sometimes too, but like what they want to talk about is like how hardship helps people to like grow. And so it's it's a much more like, let's find a positive story about like going through something difficult and finding like your inner strength and all of that.

21:42 And so they got complaints, and that's why, or has it always been that way?

21:46 It's always been that way. That's always been their tone. If there's drama between people, they show it because it's like the tone has always been about like trying to showcase people, like succeeding and like overcoming it.

21:58 You know, and the clips I've seen where they Send someone off the island are very empathetic.

22:02 Yeah.

22:02 Compared to like the clips I've seen of like The Bachelor, where everyone I've watched a lot of The Bachelor.

22:08 I stopped watching that one because they're all the same. Like down to like they say the same. You can tell that they're being coached in the interviews. Like they're asking the questions very specifically because they will say the same lines. You can make like a drinking game out of the lines that they say.

22:21 It's like, I just I just couldn't anymore talk about like I can't remember them right now because it's been a while. What this rose means to me.

22:29 Did you see Project Hail Mary? Yeah, I loved it. Okay. So that one's good enough that you weren't having to rewrite that book.

22:35 That was was it two years ago that I first read that one or last year? But that was my favorite book of the year when I read it. I loved it. It was mine also that book.

22:42 But I read it before everyone else. So I couldn't talk about it because I got it.

22:46 Oh, you got an early one?

22:47 Yeah, so I got it like six months early or something like that. And then I'm like, this book's amazing.

22:53 Yeah.

22:53 This is somehow better than The Martian, which was already a 10 out of 10.

22:57 It's already so good.

22:58 Yeah.

22:58 So I need to read that one you keep recommending. What's the science fiction one you keep recommending?

23:03 Fire Upon the Deep.

23:03 I need to read that.

23:04 Yeah, it depends. It depends on like Fire Upon the Deep is slower. And I liken it to Dune, but that's not a very good comparison. It's like Dune in pacing, but Dune is like miserable. It's not that slow. No, it's not. Fire Upon the Deep is not miserable. If that makes sense.

23:24 Does it have like a plot?

23:25 Yeah, it does. It has, I will be frank with you, has less of a plot than like a thriller or a romance. Well, obviously. Right. Yeah. But like there is a story to it.

23:37 Yeah. The problem that I have with science fiction is it's really hard to find something that has really good characters and a plot that moves and has pacing and good science all together. Like two of the three is really easy. Like there's lots and lots of things with two of the three. But like, and I know not everybody's into Andy Weir's characters, but I love them.

23:55 Oh, I think it's works for me. Yeah. Yeah.

23:57 Yeah. I would say Fire Up on the Deep does that for me.

23:59 Okay. I'll have to check it out.

24:01 Have you ever read Hyperion?

24:02 No.

24:03 Oh. Star, you read Hyperion? I have. So Hyperion, here's the pitch. Hyperion is Canterbury Tales in Space.

24:11 Ooh. Oh.

24:12 So it is a group of people going on a pilgrimage on a planet on the eve of intergalactic war. And the pilgrimage is to a place where there is this eldritch entity on this planet that will grant the wish of one of them and murder horrifically everyone else in the pilgrimage. So it's Canterbury Tales if you knew that at the end you were most likely going to be slaughtered.

24:39 This sounds amazing. Yeah. Is it by?

24:41 It's by not Dan Simmons. It is Dan Simmons. It is Dan Simmons. Dan Simmons. And you have to have another warning. It's only half the stories. It's two books. Oh, okay.

24:50 So just know it's not going to have it. How long is it?

24:52 Is it it's not terribly long. Like when I was reading it, I didn't think in word counts, but it's probably like I would guess 125, 150.

25:00 Okay. So like the two together is a really long book.

25:02 Like, yeah, one really long book.

25:04 Really long book when we're not talking about you.

25:06 It's about 170. First one's 170. 177. Okay. Then a little longer than I said. But all the stories are super messed up in brilliant ways. He's a really good writer. Okay. And because who are the people that are willing to risk all of this? Right. What psychology drives you to be willing to do this? And so it goes from the desperate to the psychotic in their stories.

25:31 So is this the one with the shrike? Is that the name of that? The strike is the Eldritch entity. Okay. I've heard a lot of good stuff. This is like Scar, would you give it a thumbs up?

25:40unknown Absolutely.

25:40 Yeah, okay. Scar is our resident science fiction expert. And Hyperion. It's also from the 90s, but yeah. World building story and character are all there, but it does read like a short story collection with the interstitials, right? Because like Canterbury tells, yeah. Everyone's telling their story.

25:57 Are they interconnected though? Some they are.

25:59 Yeah, there's like a frame story that's there's a frame story, and some of the stories are interconnected. Some of them are standalone, but they're all together telling their story by firelight as they're going on this pilgrimage.

26:10 I have a hard time sometimes with the ones that are like like I want to get invested in someone's story and be in it. And sometimes when it's there's lots of stories, I have a hard time just like staying focused.

26:20 But if there's a strong enough frame story, it's it is, and you do have to kind of accept it as a short story collection. Yeah. With a pretty solid frame story.

26:27 Okay. Yeah.

26:27 Yeah.

26:28 This is a weird book, but there's I read one recently. It was called We'll Prescribe You a Cat.

26:34 Oh, that's a good title.

26:35 And it's it's it's a collection of interconnected stories, and it's about this clinic where you go in and people go in with all these problems that they have, and no matter what problem they come in with, they prescribe them a cat, and they take home the cat, and the cat solves their problems by destroying their lives and by blowing up their lives in various ways.

26:52 Turns out it's like a fantasy story, also, and there's these like speculative elements, and it all kind of comes together with the like the story behind this clinic and how it came to be, and it's really cute. It was so fun to read.

27:05 We'll prescribe you a cat. We'll prescribe you a cat. It's such a good title.

27:08 Right? And there's a sequel, it's We'll Prescribe You Another Cat. I haven't read the sequel yet. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it was fun. We never talked about Eye of the World, though. I read Eye of the World last year for the first time. Wow. And I didn't hate it. You told me this when I didn't hate it.

27:24 I expected to hate it, and I did not hate it.

27:27 Yeah, I mean, I think Robert Jordan is a fantastic writer. Oh, yeah. His use of language is brilliant and things like this. He's a very good world builder, and he's really good with characterization. With the caveat that some people find that some of his women's characters start to sound similar.

27:43 So I had heard so much complaining about his women, and actually they didn't bother me at all. I love Moraine. I loved, I thought I didn't have a problem. Yeah, I didn't have a problem at all. I did have a little bit of a problem with the three guys being like one dude, and there's only three of them, so that we can have them in different places because they all have the same personality.

28:00 But I hear they grow personalities as you go on.

28:02 Yeah. Particularly the one with the least personality, Matt, grows a personality and becomes very distinctive later on. And he is the weak link in the first one. And I think, you know, did he get everything right? Maybe not. But what he was trying to do is write a world with female privilege.

28:20 Yeah.

28:20 And that shows and comes through, and it's like, Yeah, I thought he did a decent job.

28:25 Like you can see things from our world bleeding in for sure. But also, like a lot of the stuff that I could see like in the fantasy that I've read that's been written since, I can see where some of the stuff comes from now. Like that he like was the pioneer of some of these things.

28:38 Yeah. So, I mean, I still think they're fantastic. I go back periodically and read and I'm like, man, I could just, you know. And that's so nice. Granted, I knew this because I worked on the books as an adult. Right. But the suck fairy exists. Yeah. You know what the suck fairy is, right? Uh-huh. Yeah.

28:54 And the suck fairy did touch some of my favorite childhood books. Yes. Something about being a teenager makes you willing, and this is probably a good thing.

29:02 Yeah.

29:03 To read a lot of different things and not be so judgmental.

29:06 Yeah. And being a writer is the opposite of that. Yes.

29:08 Being a writer is the opposite of that. Though it hit me, it started to hit me right at about 18.

29:12 Yeah.

29:13 I can remember the moment. I think I've told this before on the podcast. The moment that it hit me, I was in the middle of a Piers Anthony book.

29:21 You're in the middle of the book?

29:22 Of a Piers Anthony. Did you ever read any Piers Anthony?

29:25 I didn't.

29:25 I was in the middle of a Piers Anthony book and I realized, oh, this is awful. Huh. Oh, that's a long. All due respect to Piers, who had, you know, a very influential part in a lot of people's lives. Halfway through, I was like, have these always been awful? And I went back and I read one of the early ones and I'm like, oh yeah, this is awful too.

29:47 This is this is really bad. And yeah, it's strange because I've since been on the internet and Piers and Anthony was the one that did that to a lot of people.

29:56 Really? Yeah.

29:57 I don't know what it is about his writing. And there are I haven't gone back. There are things that he wrote that people say, no, this was legit great. That there are certain other things he wrote that maybe Yeah.

30:08 Nostalgia can be really powerful now. Yeah.

30:10 So what's he most known for? Uh he's most known for a book series called Xanth. Which is about a world where puns are taken literally. And so the world and everyone has a magic talent, but even the first book of Xanth is like that's when I tried rereading. I'm like, do I remember? I mean, there's just some enormously misogynistic things.

30:36 Just like as a teenager, and as a teenager, I was pretty conservative. Right? And I read that first book again. I'm like, how did I not get disgusted by this? Yeah. Right. So anyway. But also just a lot of the writing happened to me. Yeah. So the Stuck Fairy appeared and touched all the books while I was in the middle of reading one of them.

30:57 Yeah. Long, slow fantasy books about men are not my thing. And so I did not expect to like Eye of the World. But I what happened was I went to JordanCon because my friends, who are your beta readers, who I'm now all friends with, they finally talked to me into it. I kept saying, like, I've never read Robert Jordan, I can't go to JordanCon.

31:12 And they were like, you don't have to. And so I went and they were like, you really don't have to have read it. It'll be fine. A lot of the stuff is about Brandon's books anyway. It's totally fine. And then I went and I would say they were like 80% correct. And the other 20% was people walking up to me and expecting me to know what they were talking about.

31:26 And I had no idea. And I was like, if I'm gonna go again, I gotta read something. So that was why I read Eye of the World. And I will continue. I just was not up for another one immediately after I finished that one because it was real long. They're long books.

31:37 They are long books, they get longer. Yeah.

31:39 I will continue though for sure.

31:41 The length of the books is generally an indication of how good they are.

31:44 Yeah, this is what I hear. And that's that's the reason I had never started them, really, was that whole two million words that everyone hates in the middle is a little bit.

31:51 But if I get to where I I can get you through them.

31:53 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

31:55 Yeah. I can I can I can get I can give you the Luis from the MCU summary. Ah, there we go.

32:00 I figured I could always just go read a wiki if I wasn't gonna do it and then jump to your book.

32:04 The other thing about it is, and I'm being completely honest to this, the last time or two times ago when I reread the series, that was when I was rereading to write the books. I've read it one time in between.

32:14 Yeah.

32:15 I got to those and they didn't bother me anymore.

32:17 That was what I remember you saying, like when you weren't waiting for a book and when I was waiting, yeah.

32:21 Then you know, parts of Winter's Heart, book 10, are still rough.

32:26 Yeah.

32:26 But the other ones that I was annoyed by, I was no longer annoyed by. Because it was more the situation than well, and I also knew the like part of the reason is there's these side characters and it starts to devote a lot of time to side characters. I now knew those side characters, yeah, and I knew that they were going to have endings because I was coming up with them.

32:47 Yeah, yeah.

32:47 And I knew that the series was going to end, and therefore it wasn't going to be side characters forever. And he already, even before my books in book 11, started to refocus on the main cast. And so it that I'm like, I can now just enjoy these people's stories as side stories while until I get there.

33:06 So um I had an experience with it where I at a lot of conventions, you know, I'll go and I'll do workshops and things, and I read a lot of first chapters of fantasy novels about dudes in small towns who are just kind of living their normal lives and weird things are happening, but there's no story. And I'd been given a ton of advice about like, okay, we need an inciting incident, we need some tension, we need these things.

33:27 And then I read the beginning of Eye of the World, which for the record, I think really worked. I thought the tension in that really worked. And I read it and I was like, oh, this is what they were trying to do. And if I had known, I could have like pointed out some of the things that he did atmospherically that weren't a story starting.

33:43 There's no story starting yet, but like there's tension there that wasn't there in some of these people who were trying to do something very similar.

33:50 Rand knows something is wrong. Yeah. Something is off and it keeps pervading until the attack happens. Yeah. And he gets to the attack really quickly.

33:59 Yeah. So and even as we're getting to know these like townspeople and things, there's just this sense of dread that keeps you turning pages even though nothing has happened yet. But it was just funny. I was like, oh, I get it now. This is what you were trying to do. I understand. I didn't understand before.

34:12 Well, we'll probably end there. Jancy, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for watching me sign Mistborn. Our book is out, Blightfall. You don't have to have read Skyward to read Blightfall.

34:22 Check it out.

34:23 So go check it out. It's getting really good reviews.