First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston

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.

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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

Transcript

Lilly 0:04

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,

Sara 0:10

I'm Sarah, and today we will be talking about first Maj on the Moon by Cameron Johnston.

Lilly 0:16

but first, our quick five minute introduction. What's something great that happened recently?

Sara 0:22

Something 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.

Lilly 0:38

Well, that is wonderful. It is funny how X coworker has a much more dramatic connotation than former coworker.

Sara 0:47

It really does.

Lilly 0:50

I 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

Sara 1:01

I, I do think that that association brings some connotations implications.

Lilly 1:08

Yeah. Like saying ex-boss versus former boss. I make assumptions. Right.

Sara 1:13

Yeah. Also, I'm going to have a second one because dumpling is asleep and wagging her tail right now, and it's very cute

Lilly 1:22

Oh sweetie, that is very good.

Sara 1:25

and it's happening right before my eyes, so I, I had to, had to share.

Lilly 1:31

My 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,

Sara 1:56

I mean, at that point, yeah, at that point you gotta.

Lilly 2:00

And 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.

Sara 2:18

It means that next year you have to properly initiate him. He's, he's dipped the toe, the toe in the water.

Lilly 2:24

exactly. 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.

Sara 2:46

Yeah.

Lilly 2:47

It felt like a good glimpse into the world, if you will.

Sara 2:51

Well that sounds like a lovely time.

Lilly 2:53

It was really fun. What are you drinking today?

Sara 2:56

I have some oolong tea.

Lilly 2:59

Lovely. I'm just drinking coffee.

Sara 3:01

I mean, that's also good, I guess.

Lilly 3:04

Yeah, I was trying to think if there's a beverage I ought to be drinking for this book, but not really.

Sara 3:11

I mean, they, they do drink wine and mead. But also it is 10 30 in the morning.

Lilly 3:18

Well, yes, I wore meant, even though it's mentioned in the book, it doesn't feel like thematic very much.

Sara 3:25

I 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.

Lilly 3:41

Yeah, I could see that for sure. Well, have you read anything extracurricular lately?

Sara 3:47

A whole lot of job descriptions and

Lilly 3:50

yeah.

Sara 3:51

and 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.

Lilly 4:03

Well, good luck and I'm not gonna ask if you would recommend it for others.

Sara 4:07

Probably a good choice,

Lilly 4:09

So first, maj on the Moon. I think it's pretty obvious from the title we're looking at a science fantasy novel.

Sara 4:18

which 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.

Lilly 4:42

I 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.

Sara 5:06

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 5:38

Yeah. 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.

Sara 5:47

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 5:57

Yeah, 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.

Sara 6:29

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 6:43

I 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.

Sara 6:54

I 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.

Lilly 7:12

Truly 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.

Sara 7:28

Yeah. I mean that

Lilly 7:29

So 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.

Sara 7:40

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 8:02

so 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.

Sara 8:24

Yes. And obviously that was not a problem that I had. I, I went in expecting science fantasy.

Lilly 8:30

What 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.

Sara 8:47

I 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.

Lilly 9:22

It. They were using magic, but they were approaching it with the scientific method is kind of how I.

Sara 9:28

yes.

Lilly 9:29

Categorize 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.

Sara 9:58

Yeah,

Lilly 9:58

So like, no difference.

Sara 10:00

it was a very scientific approach to to using magic, and I agree the, the perfect blend.

Lilly 10:07

Yeah. 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

Sara 10:36

Yeah. Yeah. It just a really, a really fun, not just fun premise, but a fun way of putting it together.

Lilly 10:44

the execution. Yeah.

Sara 10:45

Yeah. 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.

Lilly 11:08

Yeah, 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.

Sara 11:22

Right.

Lilly 11:22

He does not have as much page time after that opening scene as our engineer team does.

Sara 11:29

Yeah. 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.

Lilly 11:42

Yes, absolutely. But because he's not in it as much, when he does show up, it's kind of reminds you.

Sara 11:49

Mm-hmm.

Lilly 11:50

You'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.

Sara 12:14

Yeah, and you can't forget it because you, like you say, you were reminded every time WI TLA is on the page.

Lilly 12:20

He 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,

Sara 12:34

I, I agree with you on both counts.

Lilly 12:38

I, 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.

Sara 12:58

Yes, 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.

Lilly 13:48

Or 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.

Sara 14:54

Yes, 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.

Lilly 15:07

Exactly, 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,

Sara 15:32

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 16:11

Yeah. Well, it sounds like that's a definitely a, a good sign.

Sara 16:15

Yeah.

Lilly 16:17

Speaking 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.

Sara 16:32

It 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.

Lilly 16:53

Yeah, although we did get arcs, so we're reading it a little bit before everyone else, so the timing was perfect for us.

Sara 17:00

Yes, the timing was perfect for us.

Lilly 17:02

There was also some extremely timely. Hey, maybe war is the worst themes in this book.

Sara 17:09

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 17:30

Well, 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.

Sara 18:15

Yeah, Johnston doesn't dance around the point,

Lilly 18:17

Yeah.

Sara 18:18

which is nice,

Lilly 18:20

Mm-hmm. anyone can say war is bad, but like, let's blame someone for it, you know?

Sara 18:26

but 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.

Lilly 18:50

It 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?

Sara 19:04

Yeah,

Lilly 19:05

Yeah, but that was not actually the point of this book. This book was fun. Hijinks going to the moon, except actually very sad

Sara 19:14

so basically you get everything in it.

Lilly 19:16

just about who would read this book or who should read this book.

Sara 19:20

I 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.

Lilly 19:50

episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by sotia.

Sara 19:54

That's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way.

Lilly 20:00

PD. F and EPUB versions can be purchased on our website and Patreon, supporters of all levels get free digital copies.

Sara 20:08

You can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.

Lilly 20:15

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. They do make it to the moon.

Sara 20:24

They 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.

Lilly 21:05

It fixes the ship. Yeah.

Sara 21:07

yeah. And I, I thought that was a little like, eh, I think it's related to the pacing issues, though.

Lilly 21:16

That'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?

Sara 21:35

Yeah.

Lilly 21:36

So 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

Sara 22:04

she does ask.

Lilly 22:05

Which of course.

Sara 22:06

Yeah. 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.

Lilly 22:44

Interesting. 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,

Sara 23:29

I,

Lilly 23:29

unnecessary.

Sara 23:30

I, 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.

Lilly 23:47

Yeah, 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.

Sara 24:07

Yeah, 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

Lilly 24:14

Mm-hmm.

Sara 24:15

It could have lost probably a hundred pages.

Lilly 24:17

Yeah. 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.

Sara 24:42

Yeah, it, it did, it did feel like there was gonna be some kind of video game sci-fi aspect for a while.

Lilly 24:49

Just the word players I think

Sara 24:52

Mm-hmm.

Lilly 24:52

really 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.

Sara 25:25

I 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,

Lilly 25:41

we're told he's panicking while he's in the spaceship, but we don't really get a lot of that

Sara 25:47

Yeah. 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.

Lilly 26:06

You'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.

Sara 26:19

Yes.

Lilly 26:20

Speaking of this space journey though, where did they pee?

Sara 26:25

So 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.

Lilly 26:42

Yeah, 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.

Sara 26:55

Yeah, you can't, you can't bring this, this question up and then just not answer it.

Lilly 27:01

The 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.

Sara 27:35

I 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.

Lilly 28:06

She 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.

Sara 28:29

Yeah, and I mean, she does see her father executed when they get back down.

Lilly 28:35

Also trauma.

Sara 28:36

also trauma,

Lilly 28:37

okay. 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.

Sara 29:39

I 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.

Lilly 29:50

Yeah, 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.

Sara 29:55

Yeah. 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,

Lilly 30:44

yeah. 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.

Sara 31:05

Oh, it was excellent.

Lilly 31:07

I 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.

Sara 31:56

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 32:34

Just 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.

Sara 33:15

So 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.

Lilly 34:33

I would've even been okay with Whitlow lying his ass off about it,

Sara 34:39

Yeah.

Lilly 34:41

but that's just not what we see on the page.

Sara 34:44

Yeah.

Lilly 34:45

I, 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.

Sara 35:10

Yes. 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.

Lilly 35:21

Yeah. Because even if, yeah, Whitlow was just playing Grubman. Tell me that, you know,

Sara 35:30

But I also didn't get the sense that he was playing Gruman.

Lilly 35:33

no, 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.

Sara 35:41

Yeah. 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.

Lilly 35:52

Yeah, 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

Sara 36:09

Yeah, I mean it was the, the Russia to the Unity us.

Lilly 36:12

Yeah. 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.

Sara 36:22

No. 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.

Lilly 36:35

Yeah, 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,

Sara 36:54

Yeah. It's, it's not a, space race in the traditional sense.

Lilly 36:58

which I liked.'cause you don't want it to be too close of an allegory,

Sara 37:02

Yeah.

Lilly 37:03

or at least I don't.

Sara 37:04

Yeah. 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

Lilly 37:31

incredible. Like that was amazing. Whit Law's the coolest.

Sara 37:36

was so good.

Lilly 37:37

I'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,

Sara 37:45

yeah,

Lilly 37:45

everything, everything, Whit Law does is perfect.

Sara 37:48

I didn't want him to die, but also it made sense that he died.

Lilly 37:52

Yeah. 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,

Sara 38:10

I had that question myself too.

Lilly 38:12

I didn't actually go back and check. I should have probably.

Sara 38:15

we, 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.

Lilly 38:34

Well, 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.

Sara 38:58

Or that could have just been some kind of euphemism for he, you know, got knocked out.

Lilly 39:03

Yeah. But that was just me loving Whitlock with every fiber of my being. I didn't,

Sara 39:08

yeah, 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,

Lilly 39:16

yeah, 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.

Sara 39:28

Yeah, I was, it was pretty clear, but I didn't want it to be clear.

Lilly 39:32

Yeah,

Sara 39:34

I wanted him to survive.

Lilly 39:36

but 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

Sara 39:48

Mm-hmm.

Lilly 39:49

and 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.

Sara 40:14

Yeah, I mean it, it adds a lot of emotional weight to his storyline in,

Lilly 40:19

Yeah. I just loved him the most.

Sara 40:22

Yeah.

Lilly 40:23

I 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.

Sara 40:32

Jhan

Lilly 40:33

Jacon. Yeah.

Sara 40:34

however it's pronounced.

Lilly 40:36

He 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.

Sara 40:48

it, 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,

Lilly 40:59

Cannons are lame. Let's go to the moon.

Sara 41:02

which, you know, valid.

Lilly 41:04

Yeah.

Sara 41:05

Yeah, 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.

Lilly 41:23

Yeah, I got the impression that he was scheming something, but then we don't really get any follow through on that.

Sara 41:31

Yeah. I would've liked to see something that goes somewhere.

Lilly 41:35

Yeah, 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.

Sara 42:07

Yeah, there like there were definitely some threads that could have been picked up that just kind of dangle.

Lilly 42:14

Not Whit Law. He was flawless.

Sara 42:17

Whit was flawless.

Lilly 42:22

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara 42:26

Come 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.

Lilly 42:36

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Sara 42:43

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly 42:49

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye.