House of Earth and Blood

Through love all things are possible...

 House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City book 1) by Sarah J Maas is the start of the most recent series by the wildly popular fantasy/ romantasy author. Follow Bryce as she goes from party girl to fighting demons, finding out maybe she didn't know her best friend as well as she thought.

 Jen and Ellie review the worldbuilding, plot, language and how they'd fair against underwater monsters.

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Transcript

IWST_Episode_6_CrescentCity1
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Ellie: [00:00:00] Hi and welcome to If We Survive This, a podcast where we read fantasy books and discuss how likely we'd be to survive the challenges in them. A quick warning that this podcast is filled with spoilers for all aspects of the book.

Jen: I'm Jen, the slightly more bookish side of the podcast, though I do have some fitness credentials.

Ellie: And I'm Ellie, I could survive in the wild for weeks as long as I have a good audiobook. Today we're discussing House of Earth and Blood, aka Crescent City, Book 1 by Sarah J. Maas. Let's see if we survive this. Bryce Quinlan is a half fae, half human living in Crescent City. In a world where the Asteri are the ultimate power, Magical races called Vanir are favoured and humans are waging an eternal war for recognition and freedom.

Bryce is a party girl, along with her best friend Danika, who is destined to be the next prime of the Wolfshifters and assume a role leading the city. Until then, she and her pack work as protectors. To achieve [00:01:00] immortality, they both need to complete the drop, a somewhat deadly journey to awaken your power and the death of your mortality.

The two friends have decided to hold off until they're older and enjoy life now, even if it makes things more dangerous. After an unassuming night out, Bryce returns to her apartment to find Danika and the pack dead, torn to pieces. And on instinct, she chases the demon she thinks is responsible from the building.

It gets away from her only barely after she finds an angel near mortally wounded and stops to help him. Two years pass and Bryce is contacted by the governor of Crescent City, the archangel Micah. He compels her to help an investigation into sightings of the demon who killed Danika amid fears of more attacks before a summit meeting happening in the city.

Hunt Alathar, Micah's assassin, is assigned to watch over her. Hunt is an enslaved angel. whose failed rebellion 200 years ago still haunts him. This rebellion was integral to the class system that exists among the Vanir today, [00:02:00] with many who survived enslaved as punishment for their involvement. At the same time, the Autumn King, leader of the Fae and secretly Bryce's father, orders his acknowledged son, Ruhn Danaan, to find an artifact that was stolen from the Fae temple around the same time as Danika's murder.

Luna's horn is a broken magical weapon that was an important symbol for the Fae, and Ruhn approaches Bryce for help due to her experience as an antiques dealer. They realize that a new drug on the street, called Synth, might be able to repair the weapon, and theorize that the demons are hunting the horn down.

Bryce and Hunt's relationship grows as they spend more time together chasing down leads and fending off attacks. And over time, they both fall for each other. Their investigations slowly show that Danika, Luna's horn, and Synth are interlinked, and they try to hunt down the source of this new drug. In a betrayal, we find that Hunt has tried to smuggle Synth out of the city, with Bryce crashing the deal and the rebel Vanir being arrested.

Micah [00:03:00] exacts his punishment and Hunt is sold back to Sandriel, his malicious original enslaver. As the summit finally starts, the leading Vanir of the city find themselves discussing the issues without the governor. Bryce calls her boss, Jesiba, at the summit and reveals that Micah is in the antiques shop and everything comes together.

Micah has realized that Luna's horn has been ground down and mixed with witch ink by Danika. And is in the tattoo on Bryce's back, waiting for synth and an influx of power to activate it. Luna's horn can open portals to different dimensions, and Micah intends to use it. After attacking Bryce and trying to activate the horn, he figures he has failed and prepares for a second try.

Bryce fights back and an ugly battle ensues. She eventually finds her way to the Godslayer rifle. And manages to kill Micah, all while the summit watches. Bryce leaves the shop, expecting retribution, only to find that Luna's horn has worked, and portals [00:04:00] to hell have opened all over the city. Bryce aims to protect the human districts, killing demons as she goes, and the summit springs into action, with the Witch Queen freeing Hunt of his enslavement and allowing him to kill Sandriel.

They make for the city to help, but are too late. The Asteri start bombing the city to destroy the portals, with no regard for the citizens still on the streets. Bryce reaches into her power and makes the drop to immortality, activating Luna's horn with her starborn magic and sending a wave to close all the portals.

Her drop is successful and she returns with more power than expected, and heals the city and those around her in the process. Afterwards, Bryce and Hunt are allowed to live by the Asteri, but not without solid threats about the secrecy of the events. The city is in uproar awaiting a new leader, and it looks like things will only get more complicated from here.

Jen: Yay! Success! 

Ellie: I'm so sorry.

Jen: I'm sorry [00:05:00] you had to say so much, like, this is ridiculous. 

Ellie: It's, but we're like skimming over so much. 

Jen: Yeah. It's still a very summarized summary. It's still really long. 

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. For an 800 page book, you cannot make a shorter summary. But yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're still many minutes in.

Okay. So anyway, Jen, did you like the book? 

Jen: Yes. Um,

I'm a big fan of Sarah J Maas. Um, I find her books very entertaining and, um, Yeah, I definitely, I, I really like this one and I'm kind of surprised because, uh, you see, I had, I had pre ordered this book when it was, like, first available for pre order and it sat on my Kindle since then and I, I just, like, never read it because I'm [00:06:00] not usually a big fan of urban fantasy and I was worried that if I read this book it would kind of like put me off her other books because of just like, Oh, I read this thing I really didn't like and all this.

But, uh, yeah, I was, I was pleasantly surprised. What about you? 

Ellie: Well, yes, I also really liked it and I am newer to the Sarah J Maas world. I started reading her books at the end of last summer, maybe like September or so on your recommendation and I read through all of her other two series, which amounts to five and eight, 13 books, uh, over the final few months of 2023.

And so. You gave me this book for Christmas actually, and I literally, like, I knew nothing about this book. So when I opened the first page and realized it was an urban fantasy, I was actually thrown. I didn't even know it was urban fantasy. That's how [00:07:00] little I knew going into this book, like absolutely nothing.

But yes, I, I, I did really like it. Sarah J Maas is like such a popular author at the moment that I almost have a fear each time I pick up one of her books that it's not going to be as good as the hype. Even though I've loved the previous 13 books she has written, more or less. 

Jen: Yeah, I really feel like, for me, Sarah J Maas does live up to the hype, which I am kind of continuously surprised by, for myself.

Now, I really enjoyed this book. I, I read it really fast. I thought it was going to take us ages to get through this because it's like 800 pages. But in saying that, God, I've got so many criticisms of it. Just, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm a big adhere, I'm a big believer in, um, being critical of the media you love.

So just saying, just because I really, really like this So it doesn't mean I'm not going to try and tear it to shreds.

Ellie: Fantastic. Fantastic. Um, actually in reading it and you were like, I thought [00:08:00] this is going to take us ages, me too. But I also spent a weekend and I, I did what I know I shouldn't do. And I binged this book in like a couple of days and then couldn't bring myself to tell you that I had been such a child.

So I've actually read this book. 1. 6 times in the run up to this podcast. I was tempted, I was really tempted to try and finish a second reading of it before, before we recorded. So that like the ending was fresh in my mind, but I didn't, I didn't quite get there. Uh, I actually did have to do some work at some point, you know, um, 

Jen: Well, that is dedication.

I don't have that kind of dedication. 

Ellie: Yes. Which I think I'm glad I did because. I read it a bit too fast at first. And so like this helped me find one or two things that like, like one or two sentences that I was like, Oh, I don't like that sentence, but also one or two things that I had been critical of the [00:09:00] first time around I was less critical of on the second pass.

Jen: Hmm. Yeah, I don't think we can really talk about this book without just diving straight into the world building. 

Ellie: Mm hmm. 

Jen: It's definitely what I see is like, joked about most, um, like reels and whatever is people being like, Oh my God, there's so much of this. And um, I have to say, initially I was kind of, before reading the book, I was kind of dismissive of it.

I was like, oh, is this people who just aren't used to fantasy books, who are now reading something that's a bit more fantasy than romantasy? But I gotta say, the start of this book is a world building complete dump. It is not well done. And it's a lot of information not really conveyed in the best way.

And it is just pages and pages of backstory, like for the world. And it's, 

Ellie: yeah. 

Jen: I know that she wanted to build, well, you know, it feels like she wanted to build this like complex world that all this stuff is happening in and it's great like once you get kind of a third of the way through the book when things start happening, [00:10:00] but for that first like third, it's just reams and reams of info and it is, yeah, not good.

Ellie: It is so much. That's something that I appreciated reading the first third or like the first, like when rereading that bit again, it like. solidified the world in my head because the first time I'd just been kind of like, uh, okay. Okay. Okay. Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll remember that somehow. And then I finished the book and it's all like kind of there, but a bit hazy.

And then the second time around I was like, okay, yes. FiRo. means five roses and all these like things that were like mentioned once, but then shortened into the like colloquialisms of the place or like just not particularly like specified or whatever in the first pass. Um, I kinda got more, but that's not really something that should be necessary for.

Jen: Yeah. 

Ellie: [00:11:00] Yeah. 

Jen: Oh yeah. Like I, I feel like I need to. Reread it myself just so I can be like, Oh yeah, and connect them back, but not in the, Oh, I noticed this like secret thing they put in kind of way, just as in, I'm trying to figure out what's actually going on here and yeah, you shouldn't, shouldn't need that.

Ellie: Yeah. Because it is an incredibly. Complex, like, big world. So we have humans, we have the Fae in a very kind of traditional, like, at least in my head, quite traditional, elf ish version of the Fae. We have, like, sprites and elementals. We have shifters, like from anything from werewolves to, I think there's like foxes and they mentioned other shifter like every, yeah.

Yeah. Every animal. Yeah. We have demonaki. I don't know exactly how you pronounce that phrase, which is when like the demons from hell have bred. With [00:12:00] people in Midgard, the name of the world that they currently inhabit, so that people can be a half demon, half shifter. They can be, yeah. It's then we have, but, but then within that we also have the angels, and then we have the Asteri.

These like even higher up, all powerful beings, . Oh, and we have the witches 

Jen: and we have the vampires, and we have the reapers and we have the mer people. 

Ellie: Yes. Yeah. Like. Everything is here and it's, it's kind of interesting because in reading the book and learning that there were different rifts opened between worlds and that this has kind of become almost like a melting pot for all these different powerful races that the humans are kind of trodden underfoot because in no sane world would all of these species be able to, or maybe they would all be able to evolve alongside each other.

I don't know, but, uh, it definitely works. It's just. There's a lot. There's a lot [00:13:00] there. 

Jen: Yeah, it feels like it tried to dive too deep into too many things for the start of the first book. Like, take for example, the vampires. There's only one vampire character that really does anything and he doesn't need to be a vampire for his character to do that.

But we get like the whole vampire backstory and all the information there and it's like now we haven't read the rest of the series but like you could say in book two we have an important vampire character and then we'll tell you all about the vampires and more about this house. Did we need to have all of those backstories for everything in the first book?

Like could they have just been mentioned and you know you're going to learn about them later? 

Ellie: Hmm. 

That's, that's a good point. 

Yeah, that you kind of, you, you assume that more exists in the world that you don't yet know about and then when it becomes more relevant for you to know about this particular race, you then learn about it as opposed to it all being in the first book.

Like, my little fantasy heart was exploding with joy. Like there was literally everything there. Actually everything bar [00:14:00] dragons.

Jen: Yeah, no dragons. 

Ellie: No dragons. Come on. 

Jen: Disgraceful. 

Ellie: But, um, 

Jen: Yeah, I also am usually not a fan of, um, Um, like guns and technology in my fantasy worlds, um, I'm a, I'm a solid adherent to like medieval esque fantasy.

You can have swords and stuff. That's cool. But the second you start shooting things, I, I kind of disengage, but I didn't mind it in this because it kind of done a, it felt almost more that it was like a sci fi fantasy because of the technology they had. It didn't feel very human. It was human, but it was like too advanced kind of thing.

Yeah. I felt like it managed to circumvent that ick for me. 

Ellie: Oh yeah. No, no, no. I agree. Because like quite often I can read sci fi and there being like technology, obviously totally fine. But sometimes when I read fantasy, it's like, no, I don't want you to have a computer to Google things. That just feels [00:15:00] wrong.

But it worked. It worked well. Once I got over the initial shock of being like, Oh my gosh, there are cameras. Like I think in the, yeah, in the first, on the first page, it like. It, it mentioned something about like Bryce, I think, looking out like the camera, the security camera for the front door of the Antiques Gallery, and I was like, Oh my God, I was expecting medieval.

What is going on here? But I think it worked very well, especially because it's only in the Um, the time since the rifts opened that that technology has kind of developed to the level it's at. Um, I'm pretty sure is, is, is how the kind of lore goes. 

Jen: Yeah. I definitely felt like the humans were kind of at a, I'm going to say like ancient Greek level kind of thing, maybe, um, which I'm mainly getting from the parallel references to a kind of library of Alexandria.

I can't remember what they call it, but essentially that. So I'm like, Oh yeah, aroundthat era.

Ellie: Um, [00:16:00] yeah, I'm undecided where humans were at if they were like, yeah, if they were like that far behind where we are now, if they were closer to, closer to our, like, they weren't at our level because our level is kind of where they're at in the books, but just how far backwards it goes.

I think. Yeah. Greek kind of works. I think that the angels want you to believe that the humans were just like animals before they arrived.

Jen: But it definitely has to be pre industrial revolution because their industrial revolution is based on first light, which they wouldn't have had to kind of like bother with if they had, you know, coal and stuff.

Ellie: Yes. Renewable resources, eh? 

Jen: Yeah, just keep having more people. it feels like- The way that they have the first light being, um, like their power source doesn't feel right. Like in my mind, if, if you have something that is as exact, well, if you have something [00:17:00] that different people contribute different amounts to, and then sure, they all have to like, Buy it back.

But you would expect people like the Fae to be like, well, we contribute more to the First Light. Therefore we should get free First Light because this is from us. And you'd expect it to be more like in that kind of, at least I expected it to be more in that kind of way. You know, after it was explained, it's like, it doesn't feel, uh, realistic in the setting for them to then just pay money for it without having any kind of like caveat for I gave you more, I get more.

Ellie: Yeah. Okay. I guess I have two things. So first off, First Light, for anybody who hasn't yet read the book, is when people make the drop to like become immortal and to get their full access to all their powers, they like emit a radiant blast of white light, shiny power kind of stuff. And the government collects that and that's what becomes the power source.

I agree. This is one of the things that like, I could poke holes in or like feels the least [00:18:00] solid. Like First Light just seems like. You just have to accept it and not really think too hard. I think in relation to the Fae and such, especially because it only comes from this kind of upper class of, uh, Vanir, like the humans don't make a drop.

They don't become immortals. They don't contribute. The only thing that I can kind of say to counter why they, the Fae haven't, I guess, pushed for more. Is because the, the book really threads that line of like, oh yeah, we live in a democracy, but it's like, definitely not a, like, it is a, an extreme dictatorship, I think, and that their rebellion of 200 years ago proves that like, you can, you can push your, you can push your bounds so far, but there's also just some things that you just don't question.

Jen: Yeah. So this is more a direct order from the Asteri as opposed to the way it would have appeared. [00:19:00] 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah. I mean, 

Ellie: this is just the world and if you want to live, you just have to accept that they take this. You have a very disbelieving face. 

Jen: Yeah. That, that's just, that feels just like a cop out explanation.

It's like, well, if I had to make it real, cause at no point is it mentioned that this was ever an issue. And like, there's. Yeah. 

Ellie: Well, actually they do have gasoline and stuff in this world because early on in the book, yeah, they have a generator in the antiques gallery because it mentions a power outage.

Okay. So actually it's mentioned like that, and then. Sorry about. No, it is, it is gasoline. So it's like mentioned in that regard. And then also to skip 700 pages on to the very end of the book, when Bryce kills Micah, the archangel governor of the city, she then doses him in gasoline. 

Jen: Oh yeah, good [00:20:00] point. 

Ellie: Yeah.

And burns body. 

Jen: Wow. So it, it wasn't pre-Industrial revolution then, or? Or did they, like, find it as well? 

Ellie: Yeah, I don't know. Yes. So there we go. We're really getting into the nitty gritty here of this book. 

Jen: You see, this is why you got your, your second reread in. You're picking up on the, the little mentions of gasoline.

You see, this is, we wouldn't have got this if we hadn't gone through it a second time. So I'm all in favor of Ellie reading the books, like, three times before we get to. 

Ellie: I was going to say this just balances out the fact that you're the one who puts together all of the notes and does all of the editing.

I am utilizing the free time that I have not having to edit the podcasts by getting to like read the books more. Also, Jen is definitely the more, I wasn't going to say book literate, but like criticism literate of the two of us.

Jen: I like to complain more, so 

Ellie: No, but you're better at picking up on [00:21:00] those things first time around, I feel like.

So this is, this is me trying to up my, uh, my criticism game. Yeah. 

Jen: Um, so kind of like, With world building, because I feel like, I mean, I feel like it might come up again in other stuff we're talking about, but just in actual topics. I think kind of like hand in hand is the way exposition is used in this as well.

Ellie: Okay. 

Jen: So in other words, it's, it's clunky. So most of the book is like essentially a fantasy Detective romance novel, and this big mystery is being put up that they're trying to figure out what's going on while everything else is happening, um, and lots of stuff are coming into interplay with, um, Danika, with the horn, with, um, all the different characters and all that's happening.

And then at the end of it, Micah turns out to be the big bad. And we just get like pages, [00:22:00] pages and pages of his villain monologue where he explains everything. And. We're watching it, we're, we're like watching it from the summit with the other characters. They're not really inside Bryce's head most of the time and um, Bryce will ask you a question and Micah will start talking and talking and talking and explain all the things that you might not have picked up in the book or explain the things that weren't said in the book.

So now you've, oh, this is how it all came together. I guess that makes sense. And it is. Yeah, it, it stands out as, you know, I'm trying to tie up all the loose ends. So here was my entire evil plan.

Ellie: I admit, so in my secondary reading, I got like over halfway through and then today I was like, okay, I'm not going to make it to the end.

So I'm going to skip ahead to when Micah. Reaches the, the antiques gallery halfway through the summit and like go from there and work our way towards the end because these are the [00:23:00] bits that I need to remember. I partially did that to be like, wait, was it really just like, was it just Micah all along?

Like, was that the whole bit? And I reread it and I was like, Oh yeah, it was. Okay. Uh, we just had a, uh, uh, uh, fanatical archangel who wanted more, more power, more, more everything, and didn't really see life as anything worth preserving or saving. I didn't mind his monologue too much, because I guess there's a satisfaction in being like, now we know what's happened and Danika was a good guy as she had to be in my heart, but I can, I definitely see your point of it being like, and now let me explain it all.

Like, here is the reveal. 

Jen: Yeah, one of the things I went back to. to, like, just before starting recording was, as we mentioned in the summary, after Danika gets murdered, Bryce runs after the demon and [00:24:00] she has to stop because she finds an angel in the street that is nearly dead, has been attacked, and she tries to save him and the demon gets away.

So, we find out through the book that that angel is Micah. So, I was like, oh yeah, wait, why did he let himself get hurt like that because we've established throughout the book that the demon that they've been chasing all the time isn't that strong. Couldn't really, couldn't have done that to him really anyways.

So it's kind of like did, did he just stand there and let this thing try to tear him open? Doesn't make any sense like for how badly he was wounded as well. It just kind of, I went back because I was like, oh, there must be like an explanation that I just missed. Like, I missed the line that said, oh, this was such.

And it's like, Bryce says, oh, you, you just got yourself attacked by the demon. So people would be thrown off the scent. And then Micah's like, and another thing. Now, I don't know if that was an intentional dismissal. And we're going to find out later that it's like, oh, no, he [00:25:00] actually got killed, like attacked by another thing this time.

And he's just being like, Was saving face or whatever, but in the context of the information we have at the moment, that just seems really, it was thrown in to make it hard to follow as opposed to making sense in the plan.

Ellie: Hmm. I feel like I need to build up a bigger repertoire of, damn, Jen has made a good point and now I need to think about it for a minute.

Uh, yeah, I also just kind of accepted that on my second reading. I wonder, like. This is just my brain, I guess, justifying as opposed to actually critically analysing. Could he have been injured in the murdering of Danika and her pack, and then the demon came along and surprised him and ripped him apart?

Or is it just that the demon started off being very, very, very deadly, and then, as time went on, He was just a little less deadly? Or was it a case that that was his first time summoning the demon and didn't really know how to control it all that well? I don't [00:26:00] know. I don't have solid thoughts on this, but.

Jen: I do also wonder how he managed to get out. So, uh, we're, I'm starting to feel bad now because I'm going on to these, like, book writing stuff, which is going all throughout the plot, all over the shop. But, so we find out at the end that Danika, the way that Danika and the pack died is, um, Micah injected her with synth.

The synth has this effect where people essentially get super strength, but then they kind of go insane and go super self destructive and they tear themselves to pieces. So what had happened is Micah gave synth to Danika, Danika killed her own pack and then killed herself. And then Micah Got away to get attacked by the demon on the other side of the city.

How was he, how did he inject Danika, be, but be like, far enough away that she didn't attack him or wasn't able to attack him, and [00:27:00] could only attack her own pack and then kill herself without anyone there attacking Micah. And he was, he was there long enough to know what happened. And that she killed herself in the end, so he had to be close enough to have observed the entire thing.

Ellie: Well, I think it 

is clear that Micah is incredibly powerful. Maybe I'll rescind and be like, okay, yes, the Crystalis demon being able to attack him and wound him. Like, I think you either want one or the other. He can either survive the, like, he can control the pack enough with his magic and inject Danika and not be hurt in that process, but if he's that powerful, he shouldn't be hurt by the Chrysalis, and then if he is weak enough to be hurt by the demon, then he shouldn't have been able to stand by and watch the pack rip each other apart.

Yeah, it's one or the other. Yeah, you can't have both. 

Jen: And also if like, kind of, I got the impression from like the dangerousness that they had [00:28:00] of the synth, that it really boosts your powers. If Danika was the one. You know, she was going to be the next prime. She is essentially the strongest of the wolf shifters.

If her power is magnified like a billion times with the Synth, then nothing should have been able to stop her. I don't know. I think I just feel like this is an entire section. Like I enjoyed it in the book, but there's a lot of holes.

Ellie: Yeah. I guess I just don't know how powerful angels are. The archangel.

Yeah. Asteri. To that level. But okay. Yes. I accept your criticisms. 

Jen: Not so powerful. That, you know, an angel couldn't kill them. Hunt just killed Sandrial. 

Ellie: Yes. 

Jen: I know 

Hunt is a very powerful angel, but he's not an archangel, so he's able to just kill Sandrial. So they can't be that ridiculously more powerful than an angel.

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Anyways, anyways, okay, sorry. 

Ellie: Before Jen completely unravels all my thoughts. So while the world [00:29:00] building and the whole book itself is mammoth, the pacing is well done enough that this was an 800 page book, well 799 in the edition that I had. And I still flew through it, or I didn't feel like I was marching my way through an 800 page book.

Jen: Yeah, definitely. So it was a bit slow at the start, but I feel like Sarah J Maas does her, um, character development and inter character relationships so well, that once you start getting into those, It just bombs. Like, it just goes so fast. Once you start having some investment in the characters, like, give me another 800 pages.

I don't care. This is great.

Ellie: Yes. Yeah, her inter character relationships are just So good.

Jen: Obviously we're going to have to talk about like the relationship relationships, but can we first talk about Ellie's favorite character, Lehaba?

Ellie: Oh,[00:30:00] 

I don't know if she's my favorite character, but she's the only character where I broke our unwritten rule of not discussing the book at all before the podcast. I can't believe I'm admitting this. Yeah, I am. So, yeah. Like, when Lehaba sacrificed herself, it was the first time I cried in the book, on the first reading.

I cried again on my second reading. I don't know if that just comments on the emotional state that I am living through, or on the writing of Sarah J Maas. Maybe it's a little bit of both. But yeah, I think what I love so much about this book in particular is that I feel like Sarah J Maas has done Um, in previous books of hers that I've read, an incredible job of developing the, like, love relationships really well.

And then it would only kind of come further on, like, later in the series where they're like, the kind of [00:31:00] friendship relationships were like, as intricate and as important as the love relationships were. And I feel like from this book, like from the get go. It was that like deep platonic friendship, love that was like as big and catastrophic as a romantic love, um, romantic relationship.

Does that make sense? 

Jen: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. She, um.

Ellie: Like the first time I read the book. I refused to believe that Danika was actually dead until the end. I refused. I believed that she was like, it was going to be one of the twists that she'd faked her own death to escape to help the rebels or something.

Like I deeply, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this is going to come around. This is going to come around. She's still out there. Um, yeah.

Jen: I mean, she kind of was. 

Ellie: Oh, yeah, that, that, that, that was then the next [00:32:00] time that I cried.

Jen: Um, yeah, she, like in this book, she definitely puts a lot more focus on the platonic relationships, like the relationship between Bryce and Danika and how close they were and how it's also very, it's explicitly said, this is like, they're just, they're, best, best friends. They love each other, but it's like platonic love.

They're, they're not in a relationship. And I think that's great. Like you don't need to be in a relationship to love someone and to care about them. Um, and then there's such, um, focus even from the very start with the pack and how much the pack, like there are some relationships going on there, but they are a group and they're all together and they're all sticking by each other and they're all like friends.

Um, and then Bryce has friends, Bryce has friends who make Like, continue to be her friends, as opposed to, you know, Oh, I used to have a friend in the past when I went to the village, but now I'm in the magical world and I don't. And it's like, no, she still has her, [00:33:00] uh, dancer friend, whose name I don't remember.

Ellie: Oh, um, oh my god, Fury and 

Jen: Juniper. 

Ellie: Juniper! There we go. That's it. Yes. 

Jen: Yeah. So like she says, Juniper and, um, Fury, who has gone for a while and comes back. And then also has like the tension of a friend that has left you at a time of need and come back. And you are still friends, but you're kind of pissed off at them.

But you also understand why they're doing that. You know, it's one of these, like, it's, it's a It's a human emotion. It's what it's actually really like, um, and yeah, that was, it was so nice to see in this book. It was also great to see, um, essentially her calling out a lot of her previous books. I feel bad that this is like the first Sarah J.

Maas book we're talking about because so much of this seems to be in response to criticism of her other like works, um, but like specifically calling out the [00:34:00] possessive. Male, uh, Vanir thing, um, which is a hallmark of all of the other, like, Massiverse stuff. Even the good guys that you're supposed to love who are the actual, like, interests and all this.

It's like, Oh yeah, no, they're still like weirdly possessive. And the women are independent, but only independent until they find the right man. Um, and this is just like, that's bullshit. It was great. And it was so, it was just so enjoy, enjoyable, like. 

Ellie: Yeah. And like alpha holes, like what a, what a true phrase.

And I, I would say the second time when I started reading it, I did have a moment where I was like, is Bryce to something with the whole alpha holes thing? And then I was like, no, she's like in her like late twenties, she's grown up her whole life. Surrounded by men like this, [00:35:00] like, of course, you would be as aggressive about it as she is.

Jen: Like, I feel like she's being as aggressive towards them as they are towards her. Like, Hunt at times starts laughing that she's the alpha hole in the relationship and it's like, because she's just responding like, You're going to be like this to me? Fine, I'll be like that to you. And this is my default.

And if you think you're going to, like, out alpha hole me, he'll, Me, I'm going to, out alphahole you. 

Ellie: Yes. Yes. Especially, um, as she comes from a half Fae, half human background, which paints her as disposable and, and, and very like, like she should be at the beck and call of full blooded Fae or Vany or whatever. I, I, yeah, I think that was built really well.

The only, actually, okay. So the only criticism. And one of the few criticisms that I myself have for this book, so Hunt is a 230 year old [00:36:00] angel. And at one point, like, as they are well and truly on the way to being in some sort of a relationship ish thing. Um, where are we? How many pages are we? We're almost 300 pages in.

And It basically, like, it's like Bryce wore a little black dress today, her makeup more subdued, heavier on the eyes, lighter on the lipsticks. Armor, he realized, as she and Searing swam their way through the tourists and whatever. It's like, oh my god, women can use makeup, but beauty is armor, I was like.

That was the one moment where I had like a facepalm, like you're 230 years old, like, Oh yeah, you have your battle armor, but she has her like beauty armor. Like, that was the only moment where I was like, Oh, come on. You did not need to put that line in. It just felt so, [00:37:00] like, like we all got that. We all get it.

We all get it. We've all seen Legally Blonde. 

Jen: Some men it just takes a bit longer. Most women know this at least by their thirties. Some, some males, it will take an extra 200 years and suddenly it will click.

Ellie: Oh my God. If that is true, like as much as I want to go live in a fantasy world, if it takes men 200 years to have those kinds of thoughts click, maybe I don't.

Jen: Maybe that's why all the male love interests in her books are significantly older than the female ones, cause they're only starting to like catch up with the introspection.

No, like I totally agree. That's yeah, I remember reading that and being kind of like, Oh, this is a bit cringe, like, okay. 

Ellie: Cool. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. Um, yeah, mentioning Hunt's, uh, very basic take, um, something that I did. enjoy, [00:38:00] and I don't really know how to describe, so I might have to rely on your wordiness for this bit, is this book switches perspectives constantly.

And it can be just between like a paragraph break, like not necessarily, there won't necessarily be the little like dot, dot, dots to be like, and now we're seeing it from this point of view. It'd be like, no, no, you're like, you're seeing it from Bryce's point of view. And then suddenly you're kind of in the head of Ruhn.

And then you go over and actually you're, you're seeing things from Hunt's view and then you're shifting to whoever. Um, for something that felt like it was very fluid, I, this isn't, actually, it's not a complaint. It, I enjoyed the fluidity of the point of views. Um, normally in the majority of modern, you know, Fantasy anyway, and definitely, definitely modern, like [00:39:00] romantasy, you stick with like the main characters POV for the whole first book.

And then the second book, there's this like big reveal when you also get to read some chapters from like the love interests point of view. And it's like, it goes by, it goes like chapter by chapter, like takes turns on POVs. And this book does that like a little bit. It's like you might. Like a chapter might then switch location and context by starting the next chapter to a different character.

But in general, it wasn't like as restrictive with its character POV as many other books are. Have I explained that in a way that makes sense at all? 

Jen: Yes. Yeah, totally. Um, this is something I'm not sure. about with the writing style. I did like, I enjoyed it, but so you have like, okay, so obviously it's third person and you have a narrator and with narrators, you have a choice between they're [00:40:00] limited or they're omniscient.

Um, and this seems to play halfway between both. It feels like an omniscient one. But also it just doesn't put in some information and it's something that actually like it kind of, uh, I'll get back to it. Okay. Good. Um, you do get to see inside the different characters heads and it like speeds up the pace, which is great.

There feels like an almost strange choice of who the narrator is following. 

Ellie: Mm hmm. 

Jen: And. Okay, okay. Essentially, what I'm trying to talk up to, and I'm just going to say it and then I can talk back to other things because it's like, just say the thing. Um, towards the end, we have two examples of characters knowing something that the audience doesn't.

That, like, the reader doesn't know that then comes out in the book. And they're both handled differently. And one of them works and one of them doesn't really work. [00:41:00] So the one that works is we have Bryce, who has found out that Luna's horn is on her back around the same time that Micah does. And this all gets revealed.

And the reason I found that this one worked totally fine, even though, like, we're usually very close to Bryce. We know what she's thinking most of the time. The only, we were only with her for a very short amount of time after that when she was focused specifically on, um, research stuff. And then it goes into the next time we see her, it's from like a distant perspective of like watching her on the video feeds and this stuff gets said.

And you're like, okay, so we never had a chance to be beside her to hear her think about having Luna's horn on her back. But the thing that didn't work for me was Hunt. So Hunt's thing with the synth. We are beside Hunt when he kills these drug dealers. We're then beside Hunt when he gets back to [00:42:00] the apartment and has a shower and is recovering from all this kind of stuff and we're right in his mind the entire time and he never thinks about it.

This world shattering, oh my God, I've suddenly realized the way that this rebellion can like survive and thrive and do all this kind of stuff. And he doesn't, doesn't think about it once. So having that perspective, being so close to him and usually giving us his thoughts and giving us his thoughts, but just deciding not to give us his thoughts on that.

So it could be a reveal later. That was really frustrating to me because I was looking at it as like, can this even be hunt because we were in his head. At that point, and it did not come up, um, So that's kind of a thing that I find is like hit and miss with this kind of perspective because if you are from like a hundred percent in someone else's other perspective, then you know you're not seeing what's going on in this other character's head.

But if you're jumping between all the perspectives and into everyone's head, it can just be like, oh, well, I, I [00:43:00] just, you know, You just happened to not hear him have that thought, as opposed to this was like woven in. 

Ellie: I learned some new terminology. Third person, um, omnipotent? Omniscient.

Jen: Omniscient. Uh, just an explanation for anyone who doesn't know, that is a third person narrator who knows everything that's going on and decides what information to give you.

Ellie: Yeah, I will say, yes, I agree with the Hunt stuff. It just felt like such a big Thing for us not to know about and actually one thing that like I like some something else that we clearly still don't know about fully was he and everybody is still stuck at the summit off in this faraway building and The attack is happening like the hell demons are all loose and he calls the Viper Queen To be like you owe me a favor get like get people out to help Bryce Is it what Um, is [00:44:00] that, like, that's referring to more stuff that I feel like we could have missed out on.

Jen: I felt like that was referring to she double crossed him and got him caught by Micah.

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: So you owe me. But to be fair, that's not an, owe, that's a, like, she double crossed you. She doesn't like you. 

Ellie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, yeah, there's definitely, I feel like now that you've described this third person omniscient, it's gonna take me a while to learn the word, uh, versus like third person from one POV, um, like it definitely feels like it was a 80% Or, well, no, it was definitely leaning on the, like, You're, you're only getting snippets of other people, you're mostly getting Bryce and then you're getting like bits of other people, but not enough to give you all context.

Yeah, I don't know. I, it's the first time I've read that [00:45:00] style and enjoyed it. 

Jen: Mm. Yeah, I usually don't like it. 

Ellie: Yeah, in like a sci fi setting. And I've just been like, I think I've normally actually read it when there's a huge cast of characters. And I'm just like, Oh my God, who is who? What is happening?

Not for me. So, yeah. 

Jen: Yeah, I feel like that was definitely done well, that we were kind of more anchored in Bryce. Um, we were having a whole discussion earlier on about the main character of this book because you have so many perspectives and it's like, yes, Bryce is very much the main character, but then you do have all of, like, lots of Hunt's perspective and then another, like, step down, I guess, in the amount would be, uh, Ruhn's perspective.

So, like, it does, even though it is on all the characters, it does give you a feeling of, like, the priority, um, and, yeah. 

Ellie: We have a flicker of Lehaba's perspective.

Jen: Flicker of Lehaba, yeah. Um, [00:46:00] yeah, like, I thought it was overall a really, Good choice in writing style because like her other books, um, we have the limited is it limited?

We have the third person for Throne of Glass. We have first person for ACOTAR. But there are definitely different styles to what this one is and I feel like yeah, this one This one worked pretty well, like obviously I've, I've got some issues with some of the things that were done with it, but it was still an engaging writing style, and it's actually kind of rare to find authors who can write in so many different styles and do it well, like people tend to have a strength and everything else kind of not be quite as good, but um, Yeah, this, this one also worked.

I think one of the things that's great about it is for the inter character relationships and that development, it lets you be pretty much as close as a first person while being able to like stay further out to give you more perspective on a bigger world building story.

Ellie: Yes. I agree. [00:47:00] I concur. 

Jen: Do you want to talk about language?

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: So there's, I, this is, I feel like this is always my biggest place for criticism and I have some, uh, so many things highlighted I want to go through. However, I'm going to go really quickly to the first thing, so don't forget it, that I was going to send you and I was like, no, I can't break our rules about not talking about it.

Ellie: Okay. 

Jen: Because, okay, this, this requires a little bit of backstory, but in, in, um, Sarah J Mass books. The Fae frequently use a lot of Irish terms for stuff. It's, it's a very Irish folklore based thing, which, yes, I, I, I hate that usage, . I get past it, but I hate it. But what we have in this book is the Fae do have some Irish words.

I'm gonna assume they're Irish. They could be other Celtic languages, but I'm gonna go with Irish. Uh, so like, [00:48:00] they're. Their god of light is called Solas, which is the Irish word for light. So that's just establishing that this is a thing. And I just wanted to let you know that during the week, I found out the Irish word for secret, which is rún.

Just, just wanted to put that out there. Don't know what this means.

Ellie: Spelt, spelt, spelt the way his name is 

spelt? 

Jen: No. r-u-fada-n. 

Ellie: Yeah, I was going to say, I've never seen an Irish word 

with

Jen: But it's pronounced the same. And that would probably be how you'd want to phonetically write r-u-fada-n.

Ellie: Oh God, just now have become mildly apprehensive at my ambition to now learn Irish this year to not a fluent level, but a conversational level that suddenly a lot more fantasy books are going to be, uh, not, not ruined, but you know, ruined, um, but you know, I'm, I'm going to be encountering or having the same, uh, [00:49:00] stumbling blocks when I encounter these things as you do.

So we'll wait and see. 

Jen: You're probably safe if you don't already have it with the books. Because so for me, I, I like my fantasy. novels to have fantasy words. I don't like when they don't. I don't like when they use a word that already exists. And Sarah J Maas used to not do this. And she has slowly got lazy, which is the only word I can use for it.

And she started in Court of Silver Flames of just using random words, names of things like putting in Valkyrie and putting in, Corinthian. Corinthian. Like, come on. Okay. Anyways, this book doubles down on this and I'm surprised. Like, if it wasn't for it being Sarah J Maas and her writing style, I probably would have just, like, rage quit because of the amount of these bloody words.

[00:50:00] Midgard. It's Midgard, is it? It's the, the Norse. word for earth. Okay, cool. Like Norse mythology word for earth. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Shahar, the day star, you know, the morning star, Lucifer. Sure. Okay, cool. The one that got me the most and this is you. I've wanted to complain about this since, like, the fifth page in the book or something like this.

Ellie: Okay.

Jen: S P Q M.

Ellie: Hmm? 

Jen: Ah, okay, so this is obviously a play on, um, S P Q R, which was, uh, a Roman, uh, uh, kind of like patriotic signal. Signal? Yeah, they would have it on all their flags and, um, some of the, the Roman soldiers would have it like tattooed on them. And it means, it stands for Senatus Populisque Romanus, which is the Senate and the Roman people.

Now, this was a sign of honor, this was a thing that the Romans liked, this was something that they praised, this was a [00:51:00] good thing. The movie Gladiator has a scene in it where Russell Crowe, aka The Gladiator, has a SPQR tattoo on his arm and he's trying to, like, cut it off. And, uh, I feel like a lot of people got the impression that that means it was like a slave thing, but he was an army deserter and he was trying to remove his like association with the army, which is the meaning of that scene.

And this being used for SPQM as a slave tattoo to show that like your servitude, and to show that you were against the people. And it even gets specifically said to be the Senatus Populis Cae Midgar. So it's like, there was a level of research here, and then just the intentional using it wrong. And I was so annoyed.

So annoyed. 

And I just, I just had to get that off my chest. Sorry.

Ellie: It's okay. It's what this space is [00:52:00] for. 

Jen: You're like, I'm suddenly disturbed that the amount that Jen knows about, uh, the ancient Roman armies. Uh, sure. 

Ellie: Well, I, I, I could ask you, um, what is your Roman empire, but clearly it's the Roman empire.

Jen: Actually, my Roman empire is Alexander the Great. I will have, you know, Prince Alexander of Macedonia. 

Ellie: The more you know about your friends, um, could it be that in this universe that, uh, or in, in Midgard, which seems when I should, okay, so the Midgard thing I did see, and I kind of had like a, and I was like, Oh, do I want to actually go and research?

the Norse mythology in relation to this, would that give me more context for the world building that's happening here? And I was like, you know what, I'll do this afterwards. I don't want to spoil myself on anything in case there's a very obvious translation between the two. Um, [00:53:00] my, so that one, I guess, uh, my only, uh, defense for Sarah J Maas, I guess.

I feel like I'm like the defense attorney against your, um, is that maybe they also had SPQ or, is that right, um, in this world, in a variation, you know, like seeing as, seeing as it feels like the rift opened back in kind of like ancient days and maybe nobody alive. Remembers that apart from the Asteri who have now purposefully, uh, like, uh, sullied or like, are, are, are, uh, oh, what's the word?

Like when you do something 

Jen: appropriated 

Ellie: Yeah, 

but in like a

Jen: or misappropriated 

Ellie: Yeah. Or purposely misappropriating in a like. Yeah, or like [00:54:00] purposely like appropriating in, in, in a derogatory like way that like nobody now will understand, but they themselves can like be like, and another, another lash against the humans that we're like appropriating a history that they don't even remember because we did such a good job of trotting them underfoot.

I'm not saying this is real at all, this is just me being, this is just my imagination running wild while you're telling me stuff that I didn't notice. 

Jen: So to a point I was saying like, oh, SPQM, fine, look, she's chosen this to be a signal of enslavement. that's all it is. It's not accurate to what it actually means, but whatever.

But then later on in the book it's also used as a patriotic symbol as well. I don't have it highlighted where but I remember reading that and being like well now of course it can't be. It's, yeah, it's just this thing of like having the same symbol mean different things. Like servitude to the, like enslavement of forced [00:55:00] servitude to an ideal and also it being the patriotic ideal.

Like there, you wouldn't use the same things, you know, I don't think historically when looking at how people act, you there, people like to have a separation between my ideal of the perfectness that is my country is this image. And then this is what we're making our enemies do. You wouldn't use the same image.

You know, so that was, yeah, that's, that's, that's my big rant. That's been the rant that's just been sitting there for days.

Ellie: Okay. Well, tell me all your, all your, all your littler rants.

Jen: Um, the H Squad, oh, H Squad, that is such a rant.

Ellie: H Squad? 

Jen: So, they're not, 

I just call them the H Squad. So Sandriel's, um, triarii are called Hammer, Hawk, [00:56:00] Hellhound, Harpy, Hind, and at one point Hunt.

Why? 

Ellie: Is Pollock a part of them as well?

Jen: Pollock is the hammer. Pollux is the hammer. Oh, yes. Yeah. Why do they all have H names? Also, why do they all have to have their like little nicknames? This, this got me a lot earlier before I realized that everyone in that other triarii had a nickname, but it's like, if you're going to have Hunt be called the Umbra Mortis, cool.

He's got a thing. He's got a name. But then The next time you meet like a feared person, it's Pollux the Hammer. And it's like, uh, and then everyone who's like, well, you know, they're like a main character or potentially a bad guy because they've got another name. It's like, it's not cool if everyone has one.

Ellie: Yes, I will accept this language criticism. I have, I, I have no, I have no words of refute against that. Uh, I didn't notice at all. 

Jen: [00:57:00] Uh, it's, it's something that only happens really like briefly. So it's kind of like, yeah, I, but I, they're going to be like bigger characters. 

Ellie: Oh yeah, definitely. 

Jen: The rest of the series.

So yeah, there is also something that, so this is a technique I actually, enjoy and I, I like it's very simple the way she does. So the only one that I have highlighted is light met light met light met light. And it works really well in like just a very simplistic evocative way of like this repetition that it is just, it's just getting bigger, more stuff is happening.

It's, it's rebounding. It's like an emotion rebounding, a thing rebounding and that works really well. But she used it so many times towards the end of the book. It, I felt like it was like maybe every five or six pages we got an example of this. style of line and it kind of started losing its efficacy because it's like, [00:58:00] oh, it used to be this really simple, like, clean way to describe an overwhelming something, but this is happening, like, all the time to everybody and it's just, yeah.

That was, that was disappointing to see. I feel like it could have been done better. 

Ellie: All I can quite do is nod along at this point because we have exhausted my ability at literary criticism. I have no, no more, no more notes left for this bit. So I'll take your word on it. Sorry. I feel like I, I'm not, uh, a very, I'm not doing my job of enabling, uh, The critique right now, because I'm just like, oh, oh, and now I have to make some more notes for myself to, uh, to pay attention or to look out for.

Jen: Well, I'll, I'll end this on a very simple one that you will totally have an opinion on. The angels are in [00:59:00] legions and she always refers them as legionaries. Mm-Hmm. . And I would argue very strongly that the word legionnaire is hella cooler than legionaries. And she should have just said Legionnaire. 

Ellie: Okay.

Yes, I agree with that because also Legionnaire just makes me think of the disease. 

Jen: Well, the disease is Legionnaire's disease, not Legionnaires, but, uh, . Okay. I just feel like Legionnaire, I feel like Legionnaire is the more kind of like accepted and understood. And like, I actually looked up legionaries and I was like, is that right?

Like, is that an accurate way to say a member of a legion? It's like, oh, it is. Oh, okay. It also doesn't sound as cool. 

Ellie: When I'm just reading a word being like, ah, yes, my brain just kind of reads half the word and autofills the second half. So yeah. Uh, but no, I agree that, that, that, that, that is an easy one for me to say yes or no to.

Jen: Uh, um, yeah, those are all my, my, my words criticism. 

Ellie: Ooh, [01:00:00] not too bad. 

Jen: Could have been worse. Could have been a lot worse.

Ellie: For a book you liked, I think that was like a nice level of criticism. I guess this kind of ties into world building, kind of ties into some of our discussion in a bit about challenges.

But one thing that even in my almost fully like rereading, I have three question marks after it, and it's just the ordeal, three question marks. So the drop is explained really well as you. Like plummet into your power and your body goes limp and you have a friend or somebody anchor you and you dive into your power and then you just like swim back up, um, through it all and, and you like become immortal by doing this thing.

And then in the first half of the book, at some point, Ruhn is discussing how he [01:01:00] came to be. Crown Prince of the Valbaran Fae, um, I had to say that line because that's all over the internet at the moment, um, how he became to be the kind of the star born, chosen one character by going through his quote unquote ordeal.

And I was like, Wait, an ordeal? And it was capitalized, or like, the O was capitalized, so I was like, okay, this is a thing. And then, and as like a challenge that you and your possibly closest friends have to go through to survive to, before you can kind of make your drop, is how it's kind of like, very, very vaguely framed in that moment.

But no other race or character mentions it. And Ruhn is the only, Full blooded Fae that we kind of have a perspective from. So I was like, oh, so is this just a Fae thing? And then at the end, or like, yeah, in the last 150 pages when, um, Bryce is having her showdown [01:02:00] with Micah, Ruhn says, like as he's watching through the cameras, Oh, this is her ordeal.

And I'm like, she's half Fae. Is it because she's like, Actually, the, the, like, is this something that only the royalty go through? Is this a Fae thing? Is this an everyone thing? I don't know. 

Jen: Yeah, it was very unclear. I kind of want to say it was Tristan that said this is her ordeal. It's Flynn. Ah, just had the page open.

Flynn, who is also Fae. So like. 

Ellie: Yeah, but he was, 

I think he was part 

of. It wasn't Flynn, Declan, and, and Ruhn, I think the three of them were together. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jen: During the ordeal.

Ellie: And they went through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. But I'm like, somebody explain what this thing is, like, and, and, and what does it exactly do for the character?

Jen: Yeah. Like in my head, I kind of had the idea that like, [01:03:00] the worse your ordeal, the more power you got. Mm. Like you survived a bigger thing and therefore you got more out of it, because, yeah, like it's always ordeal and then drop, and they're very closely tied in my mind. But also, I don't know if that's right, like, you could have your ordeal and then drop it like two weeks later, or do you do it straight away, but it can't be straight away, because although that happened with Bryce.

Ruhn ended up finding a sword during his ordeal. You don't just like find a sword. 

Ellie: Was it in a crypt or something? 

Jen: Yeah.

Ellie: In a cave? 

Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah, it felt like a very like sword from the stone kind of thing. But your drop has to happen Usually your drop would happen in this like controlled environment where they harvest the first light.

So obviously he didn't drop in the cave. So they're not exactly linked, but they're linked. Yeah, I hope it goes into more information later because it seemed like, it seemed weird we got so much information on everything else, even things that [01:04:00] like rarely came up. And then to have something happen and have very little information on what the hell this means.

Um, yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah, I almost wonder how many times in this book It's the word, like, the ordeal there, because I feel like it literally just mentioned that one time with Ruhn, and then this, like, 500 pages later, this one moment, and no other context, like, it, yeah, that, that is my, uh, my, one of my burning questions at the end, when it came up again, I was like, that was something that I think took me out of the moment of reading.

I'm a very immersive reader. I just, like, sit and I go and I go and I go, and I, you know, Don't question. I just, I just consume. But that was like a, one of those jarring moments of being like, Oh. So, so is she gonna like, she gonna pull a shining sword out of, well, I guess she does actually have a sword at the end of that scene.

It's Danika's old sword, but, uh, certainly wasn't pulled out of a stone. 

Jen: So on potentially an [01:05:00] entirely different topic, I just want to say I did not believe the Danika character assassination at all. It was interesting to see how much she had going on in her life that Bryce didn't know about and have areas of that expanded in a way that, like, not only did Bryce not know about it, she didn't necessarily agree with it, and she was very shocked by it, and a lot of it being real, and I'm super interested to see what Danika's experiments Um, in the lab turned out to be, but when they're saying about, you know, Oh yeah, Danika took synth herself cause she needed to get the high and do this.

And it's like, no, like I have notes when on this in the Kindle being like, she's not that stupid. You like, no one would do that if she had seen what Danika had seen. Like, that's absolutely ridiculous. And. Yeah. So just, just not here for the Danika slander, just saying. [01:06:00] 

Ellie: Oh, I already said how, like, that I refused, that I was hoping, it's all hope that, that, that, like, she was still going to be alive at the end because, so while I said earlier, I went into this book, not even knowing it was an urban fantasy, like literally knowing nothing.

One of the only things that I had accidentally consumed. Pre reading the book was, of course, a real TikTok thing that used the audio. Light it up, Danika, light it up. Like, really, like, like Bryce being like really, really, like, insistent, like, light it up, light it up, light it up, Danika. Um, and so, because That like intensity and that phrasing wasn't used before Danika's death.

I think that was like part of what in my heart, like helped me hold onto this kernel of like, she can't be gone. I think that's why it made it all the more brutal for me emotionally when Bryce made her drop [01:07:00] and Danika was there. And helped launch her back up to reality, uh, at the cost of the little bit of her soul that was left disappearing.

Yeah, that was, that was a big cry moment for me. Uh. 

Jen: Oh, that was great though. Like having Danika be the person and then like, it's also just the confirmation that people who get across to the Bone Quarter do actually get to live as ghosts essentially, but like their spirit does live on. It's not just something that people say, you know?

Ellie: Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We've got to get into our challenges. So our five challenges for this book are going to start off with chasing the Chrysallis at the very beginning, well, relatively very beginning when the pack are obliterated and Bryce sees this creature, hears this creature fleeing. So how good are you at running when you're drunk, [01:08:00] Jen?

Jen: Uh, I mean, I have, I have definitely been drunk and I have definitely been running. There are a lot of different stages in my life, like not just different days, different stages. Um, Could I have gone from, like, a party girl night on the town, get home, and then chase a demon? I mean, I'd probably try, and it would be a really bad idea.

I get very Impulsive when I'm drunk, but like dumb impulsive. Like I'm a five year old, not like cool impulsive. So like, I'm just going to run down the street barefoot. Of course I am like, yeah, I don't know if I'd have enough brain to be like, Oh, I have to follow this and get a good, like clear ID on the demon so that like, I can't stop it, but I can figure out what it is.

Like, I think my biggest question would be like, would I follow the big scary thing that I think has just torn [01:09:00] all my loved ones to shreds? I don't know. 

Yeah. What about you? 

Ellie: We can't assume that we, I was gonna say, we can't assume that we also have some Fae heritage to us if we're in this world that helps us.

Jen: Yeah. 

Ellie: Not necessarily, like, she definitely doesn't get the toxins out of her system, but helps her, it seems, at least clear a little bit of the happy brain fog that, well, I guess, I guess in that regard we can, because, uh, unlike Bryce, when we have got out, it has not been to ingest a load of drugs as well.

Jen: I mean, like, I've definitely had times where I've sobered up super fast when I have a friend who's like, Significantly drunker or doing something really like stupid or dangerous. 

Ellie: Yes. 

Jen: So I definitely have like a sober switch somewhere that could go. No, sober as in like, I'm soberer than I was not sober as in I think I can drive.

Ellie: I [01:10:00] do have the experience of like when I was in college, I did also live in town. So when I would go out on a night out, I would then walk myself home. Um, And definitely, like, have run through Dublin. drunk Would I have her athleticism to like jump cars and do it quite the level that Bryce did? Not entirely sure.

I don't know if I could have given chase for that many blocks. Like I was able to somewhat run back then, but I was not the runner I am. Oh no, we're assuming that we are the runners we are now. 

Jen: Hmm. 

Ellie: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So while my alcohol tolerance is now. Significantly lower. Significantly lower than when I was a drunk college student walking home, like it's on the floor.

Could I, could I chase a demon now? Yes. Hell yes. And also if we're assuming that we're going into the world as we are now. I don't go out and get drunk. I go out and I have a good [01:11:00] night. 

Jen: Yeah. You don't, you don't get that choice though. You're in the, you're in this situation. Yeah. The challenge is doing it drunk.

Ellie: Ah, the challenge is doing it drunk. Then, then I might be a little bit screwed. Um, although maybe, maybe the challenge can be that you do it drunk, but like, you don't have to have like, Bryce is a party girl at this point in her life. So she has like, 

Jen: you have the tolerance.

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Maybe we can assume that we have at least some of the tolerance or at least 

Jen: our own party girl tolerance.

Ellie: Exactly. Exactly. Um, yeah. So at least I would be able to bring in the, the chasing down ness. Don't think I have. The current party girl experience to, to switch so well, like I'm doing, I'm doing some interval training at the moment. I'm getting my speed work up. So who knows, but, uh, 

Jen: Throwing that in in case our coach is listening.

Ellie: [01:12:00] Uh, yeah. Yeah, this, this is a hard challenge to start off with. And realistically, like if we failed at chasing down. this demon Like Bryce doesn't catch it in the end either because she finds this bleeding out angel. Maybe it would have been beneficial for us not to reach Micah, not to find this bleeding out angel.

Jen: True. 

Ellie: Like, maybe 

Jen: Wouldn't want to find that bleeding angel. 

Ellie: No, exactly. So who knows, maybe it would have been, maybe the real success would have been in failing at this challenge, even more so than Bryce did. 

Jen: True. But like, uh, then, 

Ellie: then Hunt would never have come into the story. So 

Jen: Bryce and Hunt would never get together.

And, I mean, it's worth all the, the death and murder that happens along the way for those two, two cuties, rooting for those two.

Ellie: To try and heal their souls.

Jen: Okay, so next one is [01:13:00] getting into the Viper Queen. Bryce thinks that the, Viper Queen will have information on how the crystal demons are being summoned and just have more information about what's going on and they know it's going to be next to impossible to get an official audience.

So she goes through the, like the black market essentially, and talks to all the right people and intimidates the right people until she is granted a audience with the Viper Queen unofficially. Do you think you'd have the, uh, the know how to, um, I don't know.

Ellie: The audacity. 

Jen: The audacity.

Ellie: Um, I think it is a very good play by Bryce to get to the Viper Queen this way, this quickly.

And I think this and, and, and the next, um, challenge kind of draw on this very specific skill of Bryce is a really good actor. Like she is not given the credit she deserves in. [01:14:00] like who she is versus who she wants people to perceive her as being. Um, so this really would be a case of, do I think I could, yeah, bluff act my way, like through this scene of being like, Oh yeah, yeah.

Like my boss wants this. I'm like, Oh, if you don't give it to me, like, she's just going to come in here and kill you basically. But, uh, here hunt, look at this cute picture of my puppy or like my cousin's puppy. Like it's that kind of. Like, I'm just here doing my job. I could not care less about you, you tiny little, like, sniveling fawn creature.

Um, could I do it? Ugghhh. I don't know. I don't really like drawing attention to myself in that way. I don't like being the center of attention. So, oh, it's a hard one. Like, I, like, I appreciate it as a move. I see how it's like the best way to go or like the fastest way to get there. I would find it really, really hard to actually follow through.

How about you? 

Jen: [01:15:00] Oh, like, no, I'm not, like, I'm failing the challenge. It's so hard. Too much, too much is like the wrong kind of lying. Like there's, there's certain kinds that I'd be able to do and certain kinds of like bluffs and whatnot. But just, yeah, I'm too like exact when it comes to those things that I wouldn't be able to do the like, Oh, this, that, I don't care.

Just yeah. I don't think I could fake that.

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, same. I am too much of a people pleaser in life. I, I, I'm, I'm just really bad at being rude. So I haven't been enough around, I haven't been around enough alpha holes to, uh, to gain that skill of being purposefully rude. But someday, someday we can practice.

You can practice ahead of the next book. I don't know where or how. [01:16:00] I certainly don't want to practice on you.

Yes. Okay. So we're, we're, we're not doing so, we're not really surviving this world so well. 

Jen: Oh no. Um, 

Ellie: no, no. 

Jen: Let's make it worse. Challenge number three.

Ellie: So what we've decided is our third challenge is when Sandriel arrives early to the Commitium and Hunt just locks up. This is the person. Who is his, like, mortal enemy, and suddenly she's standing in front of him and everyone's down on one knee and bowing.

And Hunt, uh, and then, and Bryce realizes, oh shit, this could go really, really wrong. So I am going to play into the stereotype that everyone sees me to be. And I am going to suddenly start, like, snapping pictures, like the dumb. Pretty girl I am of like, Oh my God, look at the, like, I got a selfie with two archangels in the background and like, just play into that character [01:17:00] so thoroughly.

How are you feeling, Jen? 

Jen: I mean, I'm going to start this by saying I don't think that Bryce actually succeeded at this challenge. Like, I, I don't think what she did worked in pretty much any way. Um, so we're good to fail. That being said, being put in that position would like my response be, I'm going to do like the legally blonde thing.

No, I'd just be like, can we run? Can we run? Can we just like run now? Or just like stand there and be like, I don't know what the protocol is here. Like, because you don't like what what what have you done something that caused them to attack you? Like, what have you just made everything worse because you're in a crowd of lots of people bowing to like the all mighty's before you.

They're in an elevator. So just hit the elevator button like crazy. That's what I do. I just hit the elevator button. Be like, come on, come on, come on, [01:18:00] come on, come on. 

Ellie: Oh, are they still in it? They haven't stepped out of the elevator yet at that point. I thought they had stepped out and that was like the, 

Jen: I thought it was just like it opened and they saw her.

But look, if you're not in the elevator anymore, Hit the button to get the elevator back. Just the elevator is my goal. Get in that, get out of there.

Ellie: Yeah. Hit, Hunt really hard in the stomach with your elbow. It should be like, snap out of it. We are running away now. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Um. Yeah, like, the nerves and steel it takes to do that kind of a move.

Jen: Yeah, no, like, mm. 

Ellie: Yeah. I don't think she completely fails, but also, yeah, doesn't succeed. Like, because Hunt, at least, doesn't become the center of attention anymore. She does deflect. 

Jen: She deflects it onto herself, who's standing right beside Hunt, and says, Thanks, Hunt, for bringing me here so I can take a picture.

So, still, 

Ellie: mm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay. [01:19:00] Okay. 

Yeah. Okay. Well, failure's all around. But yeah, I think this, uh, like, I, I, I, I enjoyed the, like, who you are versus what the world thinks of you, legally blonde esque ness of, of, uh, of Bryce's, uh, talents. Because on the complete flip side, our fourth challenge is 

Jen: Not an escalation at all here.

Okay.

Ellie: No, but, so, we are fighting our first archangel. See, our fourth challenge. Fighting Micah. So, throughout the book, we know that Bryce's stepfather was a master gunman, sniper, warrior extraordinaire. But this is the, one of the first times we see Bryce fully, I guess, channel her warrior mode. [01:20:00] And it's, it's a success, for Bryce, obviously, but only by the skin of her teeth.

Hmm. And not without cost. 

Jen: Lehaba. 

Ellie: Oh, my friends are behind me and I'm not afraid or whatever, whatever the line is, it's something like that. Oh, my poor heart. 

Jen: That's one of the things I really liked about this, um, is how close she was to not winning. And it does really like, if Lehaba hadn't sacrificed herself.

Bryce is dead. 100%. And there's nothing that she could have done to fix that. And that felt like the right kind of thing with one of these kind of battles because she is completely outmatched and it's, it's said often enough she doesn't have magic, she doesn't have any of this kind of stuff. So I did enjoy that.

Do I think I could do it? No. At one point it, it involves jumping into a massive tank of water [01:21:00] fighting an evil, like, Mer eel thing that's trying to kill you. Um, I don't even know, first of all, how to pronounce nock properly. And second of all, how to describe a nock. I guess it's more like a selkie. 

Ellie: Mare eel sounds good.

Oh, it is quite selkie ish. Yeah, it's, 

Jen: yeah, it's probably, I'm going to say selkie eel. And yeah, like the other stuff, maybe. That, the whole thing. No, no. 

Ellie: Okay. So I was going to say like. 

Jen: I can't swim by the way. That's why I'm saying no, I can't really swim. 

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I have, um, in the last six weeks joined my local gym with a swimming pool and I'm working on regaining my front crawl.

Like the first night I was in there, I could do like half the pool and I was dying. I just, I just could not get the breathing right anymore. The only bit I could probably do at the moment. is the swimming out of the tank. Like, I don't know if I could fight off the evil mer creature thing. [01:22:00] Like we're, we're, we're, we're so so on that, but my breathing is finally there, where I def I think I can do the swimming in the tank bit.

Can I grab an antique gun that is in four parts in my boss's office and assemble it while sprinting across a room? To then shoot out of the window down into the main gallery floor.

Jen: So I don't, I don't have faith that I could put a gun together that fast. Give me, give me like 10 minutes and I figure I'd be able to get it together.

I'm very good at putting things together like that, but not, not instantaneous, you know, never done it before. I do however think I'd be pretty Good at shooting though, which now one shot because I'm not used to recoil and I'd go flying across the room But I'm pretty sure I'd get like one good shot um, this is based [01:23:00] on like a mixture of my weird ability to play darts and The many many video games that I played through my life Which I'm sure people who can shoot guns are like, what is your problem?

But this is what I'm going with my darts and my video games. I could be a sniper for one shot.

Ellie: Um, I've done target shooting and I'm good at target shooting. So as long as Micah runs into the room and stops, I got him. I haven't done any sort of like clay pigeon. Slash moving target shooting. Oh. So I don't 

know. 

Jen: It would be great if you done Clay Pigeon cause like a pigeon and an angel are practically the same thing.

Ellie: Um, I did really love, like, I only got to do shooting for like a couple of summers as a teenager. Um, and I absolutely loved it. So maybe. Maybe Jen will head off someday and do some clay pigeon shooting and see how we get on. It could be a bonus episode. Who [01:24:00] knows? Um, and we'll just, we'll just leave the gun assembly to the gods.

It is the God Slayer gun. Who knows? Maybe. Yeah. 

Jen: Um, so we both die uh at this point, but let's pretend we didn't and let's go trying to close the portal, which

Ellie: Oh yeah. Okay. So, so if we're going to talk about close the portal drop, we're just going to assume that we survive the sprinting across the cities and the, all the, all the more target practice we're getting.

Yeah. But by the time we get to closing the portal slash the drop our target shooting, like we're, we're good now. We're good. 

Jen: Crash course. Yeah. We're experts. Yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah, swordplay, swordplay, no problem. That, that is something I have not tried at all. 

Jen: We should try it sometime. We should, we should, like, as kids, we had my, like, my parents got us wooden swords at one point and then realized this was a terrible idea.

Cause we walloped each other with them and that is the extent. So we should try [01:25:00] actual like fencing at some point. That would be a lot of fun, but okay. 

Ellie: Okay. 

Jen: You go first on this one. 

Ellie: Okay. Oh, like this, this really feels like it's like an ability check in D& D. You're just kind of rolling the dice and hoping that you get a 20 and not a one.

Jen: Like If this involves actual dice rolls, then I fail. I cannot roll dice. But I always get the worst possible score. Like I will constantly get like ones and twos and people are like, that's against probability. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but I'm still doing it.

Ellie: Oh, okay. Remind me never to go. Oh no. 

Jen: You're like, remind me always to battle you at these things.

I'm like, yeah, you will win. 

Ellie: No, I was going to say never go gambling with you. 

Jen: Oh, only gamble against me. 

Ellie: Yeah. You know what? If we have survived to this point. I would say this, like, if we [01:26:00] have, if we have actually survived everything else that this world has thrown at us, we can possibly survive this.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, it feels like the main thing you need is an anchor.

Mm hmm. The idea to close the portals by connecting them to the gates is like, Obviously the second there's a portal on a gate, you're like, they're all connected. Go close them all together. 

Ellie: Yes. 

Jen: So yeah. Yeah. I mean, 

Ellie: And for how deeply in love I fell with Danika on this like platonic friendship scale in this book, for how hard I sobbed, Danika could even be my anchor.

And I was still, but actually there's two of us. We just anchor each other. Yeah. Sort of. There we go.

Jen: I was feeling very betrayed there. It's like you're going for Danika over me. 

Ellie: No, no, no. 

Jen: Well, I'm put in my place. Uh, yeah, yeah. I think, I think we'd, we'd survive [01:27:00] the drop. 

Ellie: Yeah. Who knows how magical we would, we would be.

Yeah. I guess that's also part of this is that like, can you survive a drop that is significantly deeper than you were supposed to go. 

Um, I feel 

Jen: like that wouldn't be too much of a problem for me. Like I always tend to over prepare and then over do. Like if someone's like, you need to, to get out of the drop, you need to do 10. I'm like, I'm going to do 65 just in case.

So I would be prepped with my 65. 

Ellie: Yes. Yes. Nice. Yes. We are very similar in this regard. We are the over preparers. Fantastic. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So on, on, on an overall scale, I think we've got a 20 percent chance of surviving. 

Jen: That was a very generous 20.

Ellie: I know. 

Jen: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. 

Ellie: Let's give ourselves 20 percent chance of survival.

Yeah. Maybe. 

Jen: So as a kind of like bonus round for this, [01:28:00] we are wondering, like, What would your future from the Sphinx be? Like, does it, cause it seems to kind of get really specific things, like it's not an overarching everything about your life, it's like one specific moment, like a pivotal moment. What would that be?

Ellie: I think for me, if I think of my life so far, a pivotal moment is having made the outdoors such a huge part of my life, like it always was, but the pivotal moment, I think, I guess I'd have to be somewhat cryptic. Um, so it might be telling me that like, going to Spain is the, the fork that will forever change your life.

Because that's where I walked my first long distance walk, one of the Caminos. And that inspired Carl and myself to then walk many thousands of kilometres around Ireland, [01:29:00] which then Prompted me to climb lots of mountains. I feel like it really snowballed too.

Jen: Always it's doing 

more. Gotta go bigger. 

Ellie: Yeah, so maybe, maybe the Sphinx would either warn me away from going to Spain or tell me it is the do or die choice.

There you go. But who, maybe we haven't reached our, our life changing moments yet either, who knows? 

Jen: Yeah, maybe not. Maybe launching this podcast.

Ellie: Heh, heh, heh, heh. 

Jen: I mean, all I can think of is mine would be really dull and she'd be like, I just see a lot of computer screens, but it could be computer screens for the podcast.

Ellie: It could be, it could be all the screens that are mentioned in this book. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Ellie: Who knows? 

Jen: Uh, if you have an idea of what vision the Sphinx would see for you, uh, let us know. We'd love to hear [01:30:00] them. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and you can find us on Instagram at ifwesurvivedthis.

We're also on threads. Let us know of any books you'd like us to review. 

Ellie: And our next episode will be Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. Okay. Bye! Bye!