Fiction Fans
“We read books – and other words, too.” Two cousins read and discuss a wide variety of books from self pub to indie to trad pub. Episodes are divided into a “Spoiler Free” conversation and then a clearly delineated “Spoiler-y” discussion, so listeners can enjoy every episode regardless of whether they’ve read the book or not. Most of the books covered on the podcast are Fantasy, Science Fiction, or some middle ground between the two, but they also read Literary Fiction, Poetry, and Non Fiction, and Fan Fiction.
Fiction Fans recently finished a readthrough of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.
Fiction Fans
First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In an unintentionally timely coincidence, your hosts discuss visiting the moon in First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston. They talk about disability representation, the fun blend of magic and scifi, and how much they liked Whitlaw Goddard.
Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,
SaraI'm Sarah, and today we will be talking about first Maj on the Moon by Cameron Johnston.
Lillybut first, our quick five minute introduction. What's something great that happened recently?
SaraSomething great that happened recently is a coworker came over, I guess I should say, ex coworker, former coworker. Came over to pick up some camping gear that he's borrowing from me and stayed for a cup of tea and we had a chat and it was lovely to catch up.
LillyWell, that is wonderful. It is funny how X coworker has a much more dramatic connotation than former coworker.
SaraIt really does.
LillyI mean, there is drama in that. Every single person was let go all at once. But that like, it implies interpersonal drama. Maybe just because of the ex like boyfriend girlfriend
SaraI, I do think that that association brings some connotations implications.
LillyYeah. Like saying ex-boss versus former boss. I make assumptions. Right.
SaraYeah. Also, I'm going to have a second one because dumpling is asleep and wagging her tail right now, and it's very cute
LillyOh sweetie, that is very good.
Saraand it's happening right before my eyes, so I, I had to, had to share.
LillyMy good thing is that I explored Norwes Con. I won't say I attended it because I was really only there for a couple of hours at the very end of the convention, but it is a local science fiction and fantasy convention up here near the airport in Seattle, which is very close to my house. So I was like, well,
SaraI mean, at that point, yeah, at that point you gotta.
LillyAnd it, Well, we really just did like the, the art show, the dealer's hall. We didn't actually attend any panels, so I don't know how that went. but just, you know, the environment is nice and one of our friends had never been to a nerd convention before, so it was nice to like usher him into that culture.
SaraIt means that next year you have to properly initiate him. He's, he's dipped the toe, the toe in the water.
Lillyexactly. Yeah. And it was funny 'cause I was my husband and his friend, we were wandering around looking for like the, the board game, free play session. And they walked past someone who was painting war hammer figurines. And so that was a, it was a, a protracted distraction. That was perfect. 'cause it was like, yes, these are our people.
SaraYeah.
LillyIt felt like a good glimpse into the world, if you will.
SaraWell that sounds like a lovely time.
LillyIt was really fun. What are you drinking today?
SaraI have some oolong tea.
LillyLovely. I'm just drinking coffee.
SaraI mean, that's also good, I guess.
LillyYeah, I was trying to think if there's a beverage I ought to be drinking for this book, but not really.
SaraI mean, they, they do drink wine and mead. But also it is 10 30 in the morning.
LillyWell, yes, I wore meant, even though it's mentioned in the book, it doesn't feel like thematic very much.
SaraI feel like this book could be a cider book. Honestly, it's not really mentioned, but it's got that kind of down and dirty practical vibe that I feel goes well with cider or beer, but I'm not a beer drinker.
LillyYeah, I could see that for sure. Well, have you read anything extracurricular lately?
SaraA whole lot of job descriptions and
Lillyyeah.
Saraand technical documentation for the take home exercise that I'm doing for one of the application processes or the interview processes. But besides that, no.
LillyWell, good luck and I'm not gonna ask if you would recommend it for others.
SaraProbably a good choice,
LillySo first, maj on the Moon. I think it's pretty obvious from the title we're looking at a science fantasy novel.
Sarawhich was a lot of fun. that's, honestly, that's one of the, the things that attracted me to this book, just the title. It sounded, it sounded interesting, a neat concept. And overall I think that it really delivers. I, I did really enjoy the book, but it was a little long. I, I thought it, it could have been condensed and tightened just a little bit.
LillyI definitely agree. I particularly struggled with the beginning. I think it took a little bit too much time to get to the space race part, and not an egregious amount of time. I just, like you said, a little bit of tightening and then also in the middle with a lot of technical scenes. And then also at the end, the whole book could've used a little tightening.
SaraYeah, I, I think mostly I didn't struggle with the beginning as much as, as you did? I think. I thought that was okay, and I, I really enjoyed the technical scenes of them building this rocket. They call it a friar dragon. They don't use the term rocket because this is science fantasy. It's not science fiction. So I really enjoyed those scenes, but I also feel like there were so many of them. We didn't need all of them for the story.
LillyYeah. they were very vibey with a, the vibe of the book, which was very good and fun, but they weren't doing a lot of additional things.
SaraYeah, yeah. Like you got enough of them that after a certain point, they stopped bringing anything to the story other than just, Hey, this is a fun scene.
LillyYeah, I, I think part of why I struggled with the beginning beyond the pacing was not this book's fault in any way, but the, what a piece of promotional material that we got with the book. Referred to it as Horror slash Supernatural thriller, and around page 82, I texted you. You know, sure there are zombies in this book, but I wouldn't exactly call it horror, and you were aghast.
SaraYeah, because it's not a horror book. And I think that was a mistake on the promotional material material. Like not, not an intentional thing that they did, that something left over from some other book that, that they were promoting.
LillyI agree with you 100%, and of course the one time I actually look at the additional stuff that comes with the book, because I so rarely do that.
SaraI was a little surprised when you said that that was where you got the, the idea that it was horror. And to be fair, none of the other, like promotional material, none of, none of the tags when you look at the book on websites, call it horror. So this really was just a, a typo.
LillyTruly and like the only one is of course the one that I looked at, but I think that did sort of affect. When I was trying to get into it, in the beginning it was a, a little slow, and b, not very thrillery.
SaraYeah. I mean that
LillySo I was kind of like confused, disgruntled, and waiting for about a hundred pages, which is sort of an unfair sabotage for my reading experience.
SaraYeah, I mean, it's unfair for the book a little bit, but not your, not your fault. Because if you go into it expecting that it's gonna be two very specific genres that are not science fiction or fantasy you are going to be a little disgruntled that it's not, not meeting your expectations.
Lillyso once that got cleared up, that's also, you know, about a quarter of the way into the book was where that happened. It also picks up quite a bit, so. I think a lot of things sort of aligned to shift my reading experience dramatically. Once I was approaching it with science fantasy in my head, I was so much more engaged.
SaraYes. And obviously that was not a problem that I had. I, I went in expecting science fantasy.
LillyWhat a delightful blend. Also, it. I think some of the genre tags that I've seen for this have just said like fantasy, epic fantasy, but I think science fantasy is a much better, is going to give you a much better idea of what you're in for.
SaraI agree. I, I think it leans more on the fantasy than the science aspect because the science is all powered by fantasy elements, right? They're, they are using magic to create this rocket. But it's a really nice blend and it was a really a. Fun blend too. Like it was, it was done really well. And it was neat to see them talk about the things they, didn't know in very like, 16 hundreds religious terms except mythology.
LillyIt. They were using magic, but they were approaching it with the scientific method is kind of how I.
Sarayes.
LillyCategorize it. So even though it was like, ah, yes, we must pull ether out of the atmosphere to power these room stones, they were still like, you know, theorizing trial and error doing mathematical calculations. Like it, it felt the tone was science, even though the content was not, which was honestly kind of perfect because when we read harder sci-fi. It reads like magic to me anyway. 'cause I don't know any of it.
SaraYeah,
LillySo like, no difference.
Sarait was a very scientific approach to to using magic, and I agree the, the perfect blend.
LillyYeah. And then just like such a, just such, just such a fun genre approach. I, I really enjoyed it. And also I love Bon Science. So when the characters were saying things like, well, you know, the stone is beloved by Mother Earth, so it returns to her instead of gravity or something. It was just delightful and I love that, that those were the concepts they were working with
SaraYeah. Yeah. It just a really, a really fun, not just fun premise, but a fun way of putting it together.
Lillythe execution. Yeah.
SaraYeah. There was also a very somber bent to it. I mean, we've, we've talked about how fun it was, but it starts off with the execution of a main character and then does a time skip back. And so, you know, from the get go that it's not gonna be all fun and games like you, you do have that very sinister aspect to it.
LillyYeah, that really does. Sort of underscore every scene, especially when you see him, because I agree he is a main character, but he is definitely not one of the like core, main characters.
SaraRight.
LillyHe does not have as much page time after that opening scene as our engineer team does.
SaraYeah. The, the opening scene. Kind of gives you the impression that he's going to be central to the story and he ends up being more secondary, but I would still call him a main character for the book.
LillyYes, absolutely. But because he's not in it as much, when he does show up, it's kind of reminds you.
SaraMm-hmm.
LillyYou're going along and you're like, oh, Ella, she is improving her career. Good for you, girl. And then, you know, Whitlock shows up and it's like, oh fuck, he dies. It, it's a very abrupt reminder, or at least it felt like it. Not in a bad way. Just in, in a, like you said, like in a sobering way. Like, we know that this does not end great for everybody.
SaraYeah, and you can't forget it because you, like you say, you were reminded every time WI TLA is on the page.
LillyHe was also probably my favorite character, despite his minimal page time in, in the first half of the novel. because of that timing, I cannot talk about it until the spoiler section, but,
SaraI, I agree with you on both counts.
LillyI, he was amazing and part of it was because we saw such controlled bits of him, like, like from a narrative perspective, the like vision we have, the impression we have of his character was just so well curated and everything about him was fantastic.
SaraYes, agreed. Speaking of characters I really liked the disabled representation that we get in Ella, who is one of the main characters who also does actually get a lot of Paige time. She has had an accident piloting a sky ship and. Can't use her legs, so she's in a wheelchair. And you really see a lot of that, not in a way that feels intrusive, but in a way that just feels emblematic of some of the issues that wheelchair users do face, like going over cobblestones and how much that sucks in a wheelchair or, being given quarters that require going up a bunch of stairs that she can't do because she's in a wheelchair.
LillyOr even one stare, right? Like people, people went, oh, it's, yeah, it's just, you know, you have to get over the threshold, which didn't even hit their radar, but for her is like an actual problem. I can't speak to the accuracy of her representation, but I felt like Johnston did a really amazing job in including accessibility issues in the novel and. Having her wheelchair use be consistent and important. And part of her character, it didn't feel like you know, like representation sprinkles, you know, like, it actually felt like something that she genuinely struggled with every day of her life and also didn't take over the plot. This book wasn't about her disability, she was just a person with a disability who is also going to the moon. And I, that felt like really the, a lovely balance for her to like, to have those issues highlighted without reducing her to only those things.
SaraYes, I agree. It, it didn't feel like she was there to be the token disabled character but it also didn't feel like that was the only thing to her character.
LillyExactly, yeah. the frequency of those struggles in her scenes and, and the storyline just the, the amount of page time it got felt. Really well balanced, and we're saying that about a lot of aspects of this book, but it's true. but you, you mentioned in our notes that your mom has said that cobblestones are indeed a pain in the butt. Literally,
SaraYeah, so my mother doesn't use a wheelchair all the time but she uses a wheelchair if she has to. Like do any kind of extended walking. So not necessarily for running to the store, but if she travels, she, she travels with a wheelchair. And a long time ago, like a decade ago we went to Scotland and there are a lot of cobblestones in, you know, Edinburgh. And that was definitely something that she complained about. So I can't speak to how accurate all of the representation of Ella's wheelchair use was, but that definitely struck a chord.
LillyYeah. Well, it sounds like that's a definitely a, a good sign.
SaraYeah.
LillySpeaking of this book, fitting into the real world. I know that, that this episode is not coming out today, but. I sure was reading this book during the Artemis two landing, so that was pretty perfect.
SaraIt was incredible timing. And my understanding is that that's pretty accidental, but the fact yeah, we're reading a book about a moon race, a fantasy moon race, sure. But a, a race to the moon while there is. An actual launch happening was pretty cool.
LillyYeah, although we did get arcs, so we're reading it a little bit before everyone else, so the timing was perfect for us.
SaraYes, the timing was perfect for us.
LillyThere was also some extremely timely. Hey, maybe war is the worst themes in this book.
SaraYeah, this, uh, this, this book is not shy about saying that war is bad. And a lot of the higher ups, like the, the upper class profiteers from it, benefits from it Economically science should be used to make life better and, and not to make more weapons. It's not subtle.
LillyWell, I, I think what struck me was. this book specifically called out the Upper Class, benefiting economically from the war, from the forever war between the two. There's the unity, which is where most our main characters are, and they've been in a war basically forever with the Empire, which we don't see very much. We get a little bit of it. And War is bad, is not a hard argument to make. But to actually call out the specifics of why this forever war is being drawn out and it, it's not the focus of the story in any way, but I appreciated the concrete call out.
SaraYeah, Johnston doesn't dance around the point,
LillyYeah.
Sarawhich is nice,
LillyMm-hmm. anyone can say war is bad, but like, let's blame someone for it, you know?
Sarabut also like, I feel that, and this is a little bit of a tangent, given that we're not talking about Andy Weir, but he came out recently and said, oh, my books never have a political message, whatever, whatever. And like that kind of bullshit. And so it's, it's nice to see a novel, acknowledge that. Yeah, there's a point, there's a very clear point that I'm making here.
LillyIt is that the privilege of being able to ignore politics when, for a lot of people, really everybody, life is politics, but it's just how, how much are you forced to deal with that day to day?
SaraYeah,
LillyYeah, but that was not actually the point of this book. This book was fun. Hijinks going to the moon, except actually very sad
Saraso basically you get everything in it.
Lillyjust about who would read this book or who should read this book.
SaraI think you should read this book if you like fun hijinks and the idea of this kind of science fantasy blend where you take a very scientific approach to doing something magical but you also enjoy hurting. Because it does not have a happy ending. You know this. This is not a spoiler. You know it from the first chapter.
Lillyepisode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by sotia.
SaraThat's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way.
LillyPD. F and EPUB versions can be purchased on our website and Patreon, supporters of all levels get free digital copies.
SaraYou can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.
LillyThe remainder of this episode contains spoilers. They do make it to the moon.
SaraThey do make it to the moon, what they find there. So they're looking for the city of the gods because they want to ask the gods, why do you allow this? Continued protracted war, which leads to all of this suffering. And they find it empty and abandoned. The gods have moved on. But they have left a caretaker of some sort who was a literal day sex macina. And. They've had all kinds of problems in actually getting to the moon, and then their, flight back is essentially fine because the caretaker does his, it's Dave ex Mina thing for them.
LillyIt fixes the ship. Yeah.
Sarayeah. And I, I thought that was a little like, eh, I think it's related to the pacing issues, though.
LillyThat's interesting. I didn't have a problem with that because, so the idea is they want to confront the gods, like you said. And so of course the question I had is, are they gonna get to the moon and there is a city of the gods, or is it gonna be a moon? You know?
SaraYeah.
LillySo for me it really hinged on are the god's real or not? But in a world where there are true deities, I think it would've felt cheap if whatever being that they found up there had gone, no, I cannot interfere. Like that's bogus and very lame. So the fact that the caretaker did help them, I mean, they didn't, you know, fix everything. They weren't like, yeah, Ella, you have legs that work. Again
Sarashe does ask.
LillyWhich of course.
SaraYeah. So I think my issue with the caretaker. Fixing everything is not so much specifically that the caretaker fixes everything. It's that we spend so much time on the building of the fire dragon and the problems in actually getting to the moon once they're, you know, in space that the amount of time that it took for them to get back. For everything to be hand waved away and magically fixed and for them to get back just felt disproportionate.
LillyInteresting. I thought that the ending felt unnecessarily drawn out mostly. So while they are ascending. On their trip up to the moon, they are broadcasting to like all of the unsecured scrying stones or whatever the, the magical verbiage was for it. And we kept getting yanked away from that journey to see like random people's reactions to this. And some of them felt relevant and compelling. But it happened too much and felt like it was just drawing out that that process, so that the ascension would take up more page length,
SaraI,
Lillyunnecessary.
SaraI, I agree that, that some of those scenes felt unnecessary. And I, I didn't want the ascension to take more time. Specifically, I, I think it comes down to I wouldn't have had an issue if the building of the rocket had been shorter.
LillyYeah, I think it's a lot of the scenes, the scene types in this book, the building, the rocket scene, the. Foreign national other research teams reacting to this broadcast, that kind of thing. They were interesting the first or second time, but then we got too many of them.
SaraYeah, it just, like we said at the beginning of this episode the pacing was a little off. I think it needed to be tightened a little
LillyMm-hmm.
SaraIt could have lost probably a hundred pages.
LillyYeah. When, when vanilla asks the caretaker, where are the gods? Why is this an empty city? And they say that this world is currently hosting no players. For a second I thought it was going to be like they're all in a video game, and I didn't know how I felt about that. And then we found out that that's not the case, and I was very glad.
SaraYeah, it, it did, it did feel like there was gonna be some kind of video game sci-fi aspect for a while.
LillyJust the word players I think
SaraMm-hmm.
Lillyreally hit that for me I loved the inclusion that. The Gods are flippant and not at all invested in their creations and totally abandoned them and don't give a shit, and we're just fucking around with them to begin with. That's all great. The gods are just playing games with the lives of mortals. Yes. If it had been like this is actually a virtual world that people are phasing in and playing, that would've felt not cheap, but. It doesn't matter. It didn't happen.
SaraI agree, although I, I will say that I would've liked to see more struggling with the idea that, that the gods are disinterested and, and don't care and have moved on. We see one of the characters struggle with it a little bit, but,
Lillywe're told he's panicking while he's in the spaceship, but we don't really get a lot of that
SaraYeah. I, I would've liked to see a little bit more of that just because this is a highly religious society. Both, the Empire and unity are pretty religious. And so to have that foundation kind of. Shaken, should have been a big thing.
LillyYou'd think, and they do get punished for daring to trespass on the moon. But it was much more because it made the upper class look bad, and that I believe wholeheartedly.
SaraYes.
LillySpeaking of this space journey though, where did they pee?
SaraSo they bring it up because when they're in the rocket, they realize that that gravity is a thing. And they don't have gravity and they had buckets to pee in. And that's not gonna work. And then it's never talked about what their solution is.
LillyYeah, at the time when it first comes up, they're just like, oh, well, I guess I'll hold it until we figure something out. And then 24 hours later they're approaching the moon and it's like, wait, no, I am invested in this now.
SaraYeah, you can't, you can't bring this, this question up and then just not answer it.
LillyThe character who does run into that problem or addresses the problem for the audience was Catherine, who was the alchemist slash mathematician on the team, and she was pretty ditzy slash privileged. It didn't bother me because that was clearly the point and you often got Ella. Mentally going, oh boy. She does not have a lot of life experience, so it was okay, but I would never want to be in the same room as her.
SaraI don't know if I would go so far as to say I'd never wanna be in the same room with her. Because she was nice, she was caring. she was, she was friendly, but I don't know if I would be. Like good friends with her because, because she is very privileged and she starts to realize that a little bit as, as she works with the rest of the team. Many of whom come from, or some of whom come from much less privileged backgrounds like Ella. But she has a lot of growing up to do.
LillyShe does, and we don't really see it happen. I think it's implied. I mean, she goes through this very traumatic experience with the space exploration. She loses an arm just due to mechanical mishaps, basically in the spaceship. And so I think it's, we're supposed to assume. That she has grown and has had a reality check, but we don't get to see any of that.
SaraYeah, and I mean, she does see her father executed when they get back down.
LillyAlso trauma.
Saraalso trauma,
Lillyokay. So I thought that was so interesting. Catherine is Whit law's daughter, Whitt Law, being the the chief of, I don't call it research and development, but that's basically what it is. The one who takes the fall and we see him at the beginning get executed at taking all of the blame for the project so that no one else is punished. And I was just thinking she had to be there. Okay. Because think about like the two different versions of this story. If Whitlow was just taking the blame for his employees going rogue and committing treason, that would've been so dark. Whereas this way, I mean, he is still kind of doing that, but it's also to save his daughter, which makes it more bittersweet and still extremely sad, but less like the. Incidental quirk of a cruel world and more like something he is doing on purpose to save people he cares about.
SaraI mean, yes, the fact that he's doing it to save his daughter specifically is adds, adds a layer of intentionality to what he's doing.
LillyYeah, he's not just getting the blame because he happened to be there. He's actually going out of his way to take the blame.
SaraYeah. And it is really sweet. One of the things that I loved about his character was how focused he was on making sure that his daughter was going to be okay. And it's not that he, because they, so they hide this project from him. He, he genuinely doesn't know. What's happening for a good portion of the book. And when he finds out, his first thought is, well, okay, Catherine, I'm gonna take you away and we'll leave the rest of these fools to, to do, do what they want. They can get the blame and deal with the consequences. And when she says no, that's when he says, okay, then I will take the fall. I mean, he doesn't necessarily announce that to her, but internally,
Lillyyeah. And. He realizes the project has to work because if they make it to the moon and back, then he can spin it as like a triumph, right? Whereas if the project kind of fizzles out halfway through, they have no leverage. His politicking was so good.
SaraOh, it was excellent.
LillyI loved it so much. The first hint we get is before he knows. About the, the true purpose of this project. All he knows is that this like team of four dingus scientists have been given an unlimited budget and they're scheming, like, how can we milk this noble asshole for all he's worth and what can we spend money on? And Wilo says. They will be watching you like this. Money comes with strings. Do not trust anybody. You know, be so careful. And that was kind of the first moment where you're like, oh, he is very plugged in. Like he knows exactly what he's doing. He's a mid-level bureaucrat, but on purpose because it's safe there.
SaraYeah, and you don't, you don't even get that impression from the execution scene like in that, in that first scene in, in the first chapter, like you think, okay, he's, not necessarily that competent. He's taking the fall because he loves his daughter and, and he wants her to, survive. And then as the story progresses, you start to learn that actually he has a lot of sense and a lot of skill and also a lot of magical power. And he's decided that this is the level he wants to stay at because, like you said, it, it's safest for him.
LillyJust learning how he has not manipulated everyone around him, but kind of a little bit. Not in a, you know, exploitative way. Just his social and emotional intelligence is off the charts and we learned that over the course of the book. And yeah, I just, his character was fantastic. Oh, the scene at the end where he goes toe to toe with the battle MAs, are these like. Terrifying Badass. The cream of the crop magic users. And we find out that he's as powerful as them. He just never told anyone 'cause he didn't wanna go to war, like brilliant.
SaraSo good. the one problem I had with his character though, and this is not actually a problem with his character, I think it's a little bit more an issue with the implementation that Johnston does with this scene, is he is bargaining with the hierarchy. You know, this, this. Upper class nobleman to spare the lives of everyone who worked on the fire dragon. And he'll take the fall for it. And he has some comment about how like if if Gruman Gruman Lord Rack IV does this, he can spin it so that, gruman Lord Rock will be seen as a hero. And I just didn't understand how that was going to happen. And it also is, I think, undermined by the fact that we learned that, that three years later there's a people's revolution and Gruman, Lord Rock gets nailed to the door or something. He's like one of the first noblemen to suffer. And so I just didn't like. I needed a little bit more from that scene, but it's not the fact that, Whitlow was doing the scheming because that I liked It was just how like Johnston describes it.
LillyI would've even been okay with Whitlow lying his ass off about it,
SaraYeah.
Lillybut that's just not what we see on the page.
SaraYeah.
LillyI, I think that is, well, a, I love interpersonal politicking. B I'm always gonna be a, a character driven reader, but I, I think that really could have gotten more time. I wish the moments like dealing with the aftermath of this journey had more page time less of the construction of the spaceship.
SaraYes. Yes, I agree. Like I said, I had a lot of fun with the construction of the spaceship, but I do think that some of that page time could have been given to other things and it would've been a stronger story.
LillyYeah. Because even if, yeah, Whitlow was just playing Grubman. Tell me that, you know,
SaraBut I also didn't get the sense that he was playing Gruman.
Lillyno, I don't think so. And he says like, oh, I still have connections. I, you know, we can still like spin this and then we don't see any of that, which was too bad.
SaraYeah. Yeah. I, I just wanted the, the scene felt a little thin. I just wanted a little bit more, but not an issue with Grumman's character. I mean, not Gruman with, with Whittler's character.
LillyYeah, I agree. The cutaways to the empire, the rival country, I really liked. Even though I said at in some points there were too many cutaways, the ones to the empire. Well, that it always felt relevant 'cause it was the big rival, you
SaraYeah, I mean it was the, the Russia to the Unity us.
LillyYeah. It. First we see that character drinking vodka, and then near the end she says yet, and it's like, okay, we're not, you're not trying to make me guess here.
SaraNo. Yeah, I, I would've liked to see, again, a little bit more of them, just because they were interesting characters and I think that they could have, added things, you know, to the story. I liked what we saw though.
LillyYeah, it is interesting. The promotional materials. And then also we have been saying space race to talk about this book. There's not actually a, they're not racing against someone else trying to get to the moon. They're racing against being caught trying to go to the moon,
SaraYeah. It's, it's not a, space race in the traditional sense.
Lillywhich I liked. 'cause you don't want it to be too close of an allegory,
SaraYeah.
Lillyor at least I don't.
SaraYeah. No, I, I don't think it needed to, to be an actual race against the empire. And the empire ends up helping them because they. Can't get all of the resources they need because the hierarchy is onto them or someone is onto them. And so, Whitlow reaches out to his counterpart in the empire and is like, Hey, we're trying to go to the moon. Do you want in on this? she does
Lillyincredible. Like that was amazing. Whit Law's the coolest.
Sarawas so good.
LillyI'm sad that he died, but like it felt in character. I mean, of course he was willing to do anything to save Catherine. It was just,
Sarayeah,
Lillyeverything, everything, Whit Law does is perfect.
SaraI didn't want him to die, but also it made sense that he died.
LillyYeah. I will say there were a few moments around like the three quarter mark that I, I was thinking to myself, did we see him truly die in the beginning or was he just standing in the gallows? And then it cut to three years earlier,
SaraI had that question myself too.
LillyI didn't actually go back and check. I should have probably.
Sarawe, we do see, there's a line where it talks about how like the gods came and took his soul away or whatever. So it is pretty clear that, that he does die. But I was wondering if that could be walked back a little bit.
LillyWell, and I'm just saying 300 pages later, I didn't remember the specifics. So I think, yeah, I was pretty sure that we had that. It was not in question at all, but even then the, okay, the gods came and took his soul away. Until we find out that the Gods have abandoned them. I was still like, they could have interfered, you know.
SaraOr that could have just been some kind of euphemism for he, you know, got knocked out.
LillyYeah. But that was just me loving Whitlock with every fiber of my being. I didn't,
Sarayeah, I was really trying to find some kind of justification for myself as to why he would not be dead at the end of the book,
Lillyyeah, I did. I didn't ever genuinely thought or. I was trying to find some gray area, but I was not very, like, I was not genuinely like, oh, maybe there, maybe there's a loophole there. Like, no.
SaraYeah, I was, it was pretty clear, but I didn't want it to be clear.
LillyYeah,
SaraI wanted him to survive.
Lillybut having it be concrete in that way I think is. What makes this book so emotionally powerful? You know, he doesn't die when he's fighting the battle, ma, you
SaraMm-hmm.
Lillyand you know that he is, does end up sacrificing everything to save this group of very smart fools. And that just adds to his character because then everything you learn about him, you're like, oh, he, he did this Fully. Eyes open on purpose. It was not the hierarchy that gave him this deal. Like he came up with and negotiated this.
SaraYeah, I mean it, it adds a lot of emotional weight to his storyline in,
LillyYeah. I just loved him the most.
SaraYeah.
LillyI also liked, yeah, I mean, I liked the engineers too. Jack Jacon, I don't remember his name, which kind of undercuts me saying how much I liked him.
SaraJhan
LillyJacon. Yeah.
Sarahowever it's pronounced.
LillyHe was the, he was the one. Who was first working on this? Although not exactly to go to the moon, but he's sort of the, the grizz older engineer who just wants to make bridges, not weapons.
Sarait, starts off as a genuine attempt to make a weapon for unity. And then when he sees the potential, he is like, I don't wanna make more war weapons,
LillyCannons are lame. Let's go to the moon.
Sarawhich, you know, valid.
LillyYeah.
SaraYeah, I, I liked him too. And I liked all of the characters pretty much. Oh, actually I do have, I do have one, this is not in our notes, but I do have one kind of gripe, which is that his cousin, the Sumner, learns about what they're doing like halfway through the book and then that's never brought up again.
LillyYeah, I got the impression that he was scheming something, but then we don't really get any follow through on that.
SaraYeah. I would've liked to see something that goes somewhere.
LillyYeah, it felt more like this world as, imagined had demon summoning in it. And so the cousin was kind of just shoved in to tell the reader about that and. Which was too bad because him and like his sort of bickering relationship with the impm that he has summoned and, uh, there's all sorts of implications. But yeah, it kind of, the demon sumer and the P bucket just kind of get lost.
SaraYeah, there like there were definitely some threads that could have been picked up that just kind of dangle.
LillyNot Whit Law. He was flawless.
SaraWhit was flawless.
LillyThank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
SaraCome disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at Fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube.
LillyIf you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
SaraWe also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
LillyThanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye.