What time is it? SHOW TIME. It’s Wednesday, and I double-posted but not because I don’t love you; just because it’s really important to me to give Milky Collins his due. This week, we were honored to be joined by the wonderful Renay of Fangirl Happy Hour and Lady Business. We updated her on our progress with her SF Starter Pack, chatted about what we do when we find an author we truly adore, and discussed John Scalzi’s SF classic Old Man’s War.
You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures, if you want to skip around:
1:45 – What we’re reading
8:47 – SEA OR SPACE
10:24 – What comes next when we fall in love with an author
29:55 – SF starter pack update
35:23 – Old Man’s War, John Scalzi
47:35 – Choose Your Own Adventure
54:58 – What We’re Reading Next Time!
Books and Links
One Piece, Eiichiro Oda
Here’s Renay’s One Piece readalong!
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, Ari Berman
A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers
Wilkie Collins, Andrew Lycett
and watching Black Sails, the greatest show of our time
Here’s the Rec Center’s primer on Black Sails!
The Kairos Mechanism, Kate Milford (author of The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands)
The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie
October Daye books, Seanan Maguire (the first one is Rosemary and Rue)
The Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
the Company series, Kage Baker (the first one is In the Garden of Iden)
Here’s the Neil Gaiman post about visiting Alabama!
White Tears, Hari Kunzru
Gods without Men, Hari Kunzru
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
Affinity, Sarah Waters
Night Watch, Sarah Waters
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Binti: Home, Nnedi Okorafor
Larklight, Philip Reeve
Star Crossed, Philip Reeve
Mars Evacuees, Sophia McDougall
Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
White Is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara
Old Man’s War, John Scalzi
Should you wish to play Whiskey Jenny’s Choose Your Own Adventure game, you can do so here.
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads, as well as Ashley. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcript is available under the jump!
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to, or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End bookcast with the democratically similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we are super excited today to welcome very special guest star, Renay.
RENAY: Hello!
WHISKEY JENNY: Hello.
GIN JENNY: Hi, Renay! So good to have you back with us.
RENAY: Thank you for inviting me.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m really excited to talk about all the books I’ve been reading on the Sci-fi Starter Pack with you.
GIN JENNY: So many.
WHISKEY JENNY: But first we’re going to talk about what we’re all reading. Our topic that we decided to chat about this time is how we interact with authors that we fall in deep, deep love with and get obsessed with, and all the ways that we hunt them down— in a non-creepy way.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Oh, a non-creepy way. OK.
GIN JENNY: This is quite the intro.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We all read Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi, who I believe is one of Renay’s favorite authors.
RENAY: Aw, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So I need to break it down with you. And then we’re going to do a sci-fi choose your own adventure story.
GIN JENNY: I’m not excited. Just medium.
WHISKEY JENNY: No. Everyone lower your expectations appropriately. [LAUGHTER] Because I wrote it and it’s very silly. And then Gin Jenny is going to tell us what we’re reading next time. So first up, Renay, what are you reading right now?
RENAY: This is a hard question every time I get asked, ‘cause I’m always reading eight zillion things at once.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh man, I’m so impressed at people who do that. I think Gin Jenny does that too, and I just couldn’t keep everything straight in my head.
RENAY: It’s because, I think, I split it between different styles. Like, I’m reading One Piece, which is a manga. I’m doing a read-along for Barnes and Noble.
GIN JENNY: Oh yeah, which we’ll link to in the show notes so you guys can experience that as well. I’m so intimidated by One Piece. It’s massive. It’s like— Renay, how long is it?
RENAY: Currently in English, I think you can read through volume 81.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s so many volumes.
RENAY: The reason I’m doing the read-along is because we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary, because that’s how long it’s been running. And it’s not done yet.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, wow.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, the world-building sounds absolutely astonishing.
RENAY: It’s great. I love it. It’s so good. I’m also reading Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, by Ari Berman, which is a book about, you know, voting rights, that was written, I think, in 2015. So it’s not quite up to date with the current trash fire that we’re experiencing.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: But it does cover the time after the Voting Rights Act was gutted. And I’m also reading A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers, which is a companion novel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, part of my Hugo reading.
GIN JENNY: Did you— what were your feelings about A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet? Remind me.
RENAY: I really liked it a whole lot. It read a lot like fanfic to me. It just didn’t feel like a traditional novel. Because I think in science fiction and fantasy, it’s really hard to do just character driven novels, where plot isn’t really the point. You’ve kind of got to go to literary fiction for that.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s kind of a hang out novel.
RENAY: So yeah, I really, really liked it.
GIN JENNY: And are you finding Closed and Common Orbit to be similarly awesome?
RENAY: It’s about an AI.
GIN JENNY: Oh, you love that.
RENAY: I know! I’m excited. [LAUGHTER] I’m only like 50 pages in, so we’ll see. And that’s what I’m reading.
WHISKEY JENNY: Gin Jenny, what are you reading?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I’m kind of still in my reading slump, you guys. It’s been a weird time for me. I’m reading a biography of Wilkie Collins for a blog read-along, but that’s kind of it. And I’m not reading it with any great speed. I’ve been continuing to watch Black Sails, which is amazing. And I basically just, every time I have a conversation with someone, I just want to recap the most recent episode of Black Sails that I’ve watched, because I like it so much. When Renay was online earlier and Whiskey Jenny wasn’t online yet, I had to really resist just explaining everything that had just happened to Black Sails before I came on to Skype to record this podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well you do have us both right now. Do you want to give us any updates?
GIN JENNY: I mean, at this point there’s so many machinations that I would have to go kind of deep. So I want to spare you and the listeners from that. But you know, maybe another time.
WHISKEY JENNY: I just really enjoy when you recount stories.
GIN JENNY: Oh, you’re so sweet. Well then, you probably will hear from me about Black Sails tomorrow. The good thing about Black Sails and you, Whiskey Jenny, is that I don’t think you should watch it, so I don’t feel bad spoiling it for you. Because I really don’t think you would enjoy it at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I don’t think I would either, but I’m really enjoying your recaps of it. Renay, do you watch this show?
RENAY: I don’t even know what it is.
GIN JENNY: Renay, oh my God, it’s so great. Elizabeth Minkel and Gavia Baker-Whitelaw have been talking about it a lot, so I was like, oh yeah, OK, I’ll give it a try. It’s this pirate show that I think aired on Starz, but it’s now on Hulu. And it’s about pirates, and all these pirate characters who want to live lives of freedom. And more of the characters are gay than I expected, so that’s cool. More of them are women than I expected, so that’s cool. It has some real life pirates from history in it. And I’ve been given to understand that in a later episode someone actually gets keelhauled. So I’m really liking it, like a lot.
RENAY: OK, so I’m going to watch this show.
GIN JENNY: Yes! Excellent.
WHISKEY JENNY: You did it. You got one.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Congratulations on capturing me.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Thank you.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t wait to hear more about it.
GIN JENNY: You surely shall. So what are you reading, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well I know I said last time that I was going to start Sorcerer to the Crown, and I am sorry to say I did not, because book club got scheduled for early August and I didn’t want to read it too early.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, you’d forget everything that happened.
WHISKEY JENNY: Exactly. So instead I just read The Kairos Mechanism, by Kate Milford. The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands are her longer novels, and this is sort of a shorter, 100-page little—
GIN JENNY: Oh, fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: —story that’s set in the same town as, I want to say The Boneshaker, with the same protagonist, Natalie, who’s a spunky little girl. In this one she’s complaining a lot that the boys are starting to treat her like a girl and not like one of the boys anymore. And she’s very annoyed by this, because she just wants to play baseball with them and they want to pull her pigtail now. [LAUGHTER] So that was adorable. And there’s some fun time travel in this one.
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: Nope, it’s not fun at all. The one time we actual time travel, it’s horrifying. But there is time travel as a plot point, and that’s cool. Yeah, it was just really lovely to read about this little girl who saves the town again. Way to go Natalie. And then I need to read my other book club book, which is a Rachel Carson book, but I don’t really want to read it on the plane for attention reasons. I think I get to start The Thief.
GIN JENNY: [GASP]!
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: That was a lot of excitement very suddenly.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I just wasn’t expecting it. [LAUGHTER] Oh my God, I’m so excited!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I got it from the library. I have it now.
GIN JENNY: I’m so excited and happy for you. And I’m really happy for me, as well.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: But she’s mostly happy for herself. That’s how Megan Whalen Turner’s books make fans react when other people read them.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, Renay agreed with her podcasting partner to read these books. So do you need me to spoil the thing for you?
WHISKEY JENNY: Because you think it’ll make me like it more.
GIN JENNY: Maybe, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: When does the thing get revealed?
GIN JENNY: Like at the very end.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it? All right, let me think about it some more.
GIN JENNY: Renay, do you have any feedback on this? Because you recently read The Thief and you were bothered by the thing.
RENAY: I read The Thief several years ago, and I hated it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. Oh! Drama.
GIN JENNY: Oh, dear.
RENAY: I really broke a lot of people’s hearts when I hated this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, no.
GIN JENNY: But it was for that reason, right? You didn’t like the reveal at the end.
RENAY: I just thought that the reveal came too late. It wasn’t that I didn’t really like the reveal. I just thought that if there was foreshadowing or whatever, it just didn’t happen soon enough.
WHISKEY JENNY: It wasn’t earned.
RENAY: She keeps everything too close to her chest.
GIN JENNY: I mean that’s a fair criticism, I think.
RENAY: Not in this latest book. The latest book is great.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I was going to say, I can afford to be gracious now, because Renay has really enjoyed the most recent Megan Whalen Turner book. Because of me. I don’t want to brag, but I think it was because of me.
RENAY: Yeah, it really was because of you. I wouldn’t have read that as quickly as I did if you hadn’t been like, Renay, this book is super gay. [LAUGHTER] I’m there! Sign me up!
GIN JENNY: Well, OK, Whiskey Jenny, have a think. I’m so, so excited. I hope you like it. It will be OK if you don’t, but I hope you do.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: It’s OK if you don’t like The Thief, because the other books after it are much better.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. I think maybe if Renay also was annoyed by the end, maybe like a quarter of the way through you can spoil it for me.
GIN JENNY: OK, sounds good.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, Renay, before we get into the topic, I asked Gin Jenny if we’d asked you this very important question before, and she said no. So I’m going to ask you now to weigh in on sea versus space.
RENAY: Space.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh!
GIN JENNY: Interesting. Twist.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think we’ve been a heavy sea podcast previously, so please say on about your love for space.
RENAY: Space is great. I don’t know, what kind of quiz is this? [LAUGHTER] I don’t like water that much. But I like space because there’s so much of it, and there’s so much out there that we don’t understand. And eventually we’ll be living out there, because we’re going to destroy our planet. And we’re going to need to know how to navigate space.
GIN JENNY: This is kind of how I feel about the sea. I think we’re not smart enough to go live in space. I think we’re going to have to live under the water.
RENAY: Oh my God, never!
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You think we’re going to live under the water?
GIN JENNY: I mean, yeah, it’s occurred to me. I mean, the water is going to be everywhere because of global warming. Where else are we going to go?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my God. I think that’s interesting, though, because I also like the sea for that reason, that I feel like it’s so unknown.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I know. It’s fascinating.
RENAY: It would be easier to live in space. Although more deadly. Because space is empty.
GIN JENNY: That’s true.
RENAY: It’s just the radiation that’s a problem.
GIN JENNY: Or is it empty? We’ll find out when we talk about Old Man’s War.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Maybe I just need to find some books written by women or about women, about the sea. And then maybe I will like the sea.
GIN JENNY: Or, you could watch Black Sails, a show that stars several major women.
RENAY: You’ve already sold me.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: OK, good.
GIN JENNY: All right, our first vote for space, I think.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think so, too. Congratulations, Renay.
RENAY: Yay. I like being first.
WHISKEY JENNY: So speaking of space, we read Old Man’s War by John Scalzi this time, who is one of Renay’s favorite authors. So we thought we would talk about favorite authors in general and things that we do when we get obsessed with an author.
GIN JENNY: So Renay, you want to kick us off? What do you do if you read a book and you’re wildly in love with it? Do you pursue that author to the end of the earth.
RENAY: So I think the thing that I do what I like an author is not the same as what everybody else does, which is go and read their entire backlist. I don’t do that. I get too nervous. I’m just like, what if I read everything and then I have nothing left? Also what if I don’t like everything? What does that mean? So I’ll anxiety myself out of reading their whole backlist all at once. And I feel like that’s the opposite of what usually happens. When you find a new author you like, you just go and read everything they have. I do it sometimes, but if the author’s backlist is huge, I won’t.
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny, do you tend to do that? Do you plow through an author’s backlist?
WHISKEY JENNY: I would say also no. I think I also like the idea of having more out there by a favorite offer that I can read. And I also like to spread it out and mix it up a little, and not read the same kind of thing back to back. So even if I really, really loved a book, I want to stick something else in between reading something else by that author, just to sprinkle a little variance in there.
But I guess there’s a lot of books out there, and so that ends up with sometimes I just forget, and don’t go back to the backlists of authors that I really like. But it’s nice to hold on to at night, that there’s a lot of book that I probably will love that I haven’t read yet.
GIN JENNY: Interesting.
WHISKEY JENNY: What about you? Do you devour a backlist immediately?
GIN JENNY: I have— yes. Historically, when I discover a new author I like, I will plow through their backlist. I think that that was more the case before I started book blogging, because I was constantly on the hunt for new stuff to read. And now I think they have more channels for getting recommendations. So I think I at least feel less urgency to go through an author’s backlist.
I used to do this thing— I haven’t done this in a while. I used to do this thing where if an author had a substantial backlist, I would try and guess which of the books in the backlist I was going to like the least and then start with that one. Because I had the same thing Renay had. I didn’t want to set my expectations so high that I would be disappointed. But this is a really bad plan, because you can’t predict what you’re going to like and not like.
So when I read Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie, I really liked it. And I looked up his other books to see which ones people didn’t like. And they didn’t like The Ground Beneath Her Feet, so I was like, OK, cool, I’ll start with that one. It’ll be the worst one, and then I’ll read all his other books. But actually The Ground Beneath Her Feet is my favorite of his books, and ever since then it’s been— none of them have ever lived up to how much I love The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I played myself. Yeah. I regret it to this day.
But I also think that nowadays, I’m quicker to give up on an author’s backlist. If I read something from their backlist and don’t like it, I’ll pretty much just be done with that author until someone else tells me some other book of theirs that I should read. Like I read White Tears. I checked out and read another of Hari Kunzru’s books, Gods Without Men, and I didn’t like it at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: Really?
GIN JENNY: At all. It felt very disconnected plot-wise. It wasn’t dealing with issues I found interesting. And there were some portrayals that bothered me. There were some parents of an autistic child, and some of the ways that they talked about the kid were really strange and uncomfortable. So for the time being, at least, I’m not searching out more stuff by Hari Kunzru.
WHISKEY JENNY: Renay, if you read something in a backlist that you don’t like, do you bail pretty quickly, or do you give it a couple more goes?
RENAY: I’m actually not as likely to just dump the author completely. If I don’t like something, I’m like, oh, OK, I didn’t like that. If it’s something in a series, I probably won’t read the rest of that series, but I won’t not read other books by them.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I have a question then. This isn’t about backlist, but if you read a book by an author in a series, are each of you likely to then read the rest of the series in quick succession, or—
RENAY: No.
WHISKEY JENNY: You spread the series out?
RENAY: The only exception to this recently has been October Daye. I read the first book and then took a break. Then Jodie, who I co-blog with at LadyBusiness, wanted to read this second. And something happened when I reread the first one, I was just like— I just zoomed through the whole series. That is really, really rare. It’s also that I’m really bad at tension.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Sure.
RENAY: I get really anxious and I’m just like, this is too suspenseful. I need a break.
GIN JENNY: That’s why I read the end, or get people who read the series before to tell me what happens.
RENAY: I can see why, because it’s really uncomfortable to be that anxious all the time about books.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, it is. You’re so right. [LAUGHTER] Whiskey Jenny, do you zoom through a series?
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I probably about half and half. Sometimes I, again, will want to mix things up and not have the same thing again. But then there’s some things where I’m like, I have to read. I have to keep going. I have to know what happens! Like, I think I read The Hunger Games recently all pretty in quick succession. I think that’s the last full series that I made it through. And I do not regret that decision at all. I think that was the correct decision to zoom through those. That was a lot of— it was a fun week, or whatever.
Let’s see, I just started— I recently finished The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and I haven’t kept going yet.
RENAY: Oh, that book. Oh.
GIN JENNY: Oh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
GIN JENNY: Did you not like it?
RENAY: I had some feelings about that book.
GIN JENNY: Oh, what were your feelings?
RENAY: You read through the whole book and it’s one book, and then at the very end, it changes genre completely and becomes a secondary world fantasy.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I was so into it. I thought it was so ballsy. I was like, God damn, this woman just threw away everything she did up till now. And then it happens more. Like, as the series goes on, that keeps happening. She puts all this energy into the world building, and then she just throws it all away and starts something new. It’s amazing.
RENAY: I couldn’t handle the tone shift, so I never read the rest of the books. And now I kind of regret it. Maybe I’ll go back one day.
GIN JENNY: Well, if you didn’t like that element, the series might just not be for you.
RENAY: I think it was less that I didn’t like it and more that I was just was not expecting that type of—
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: —like, “yeah, I’m going for it” approach to a climax of a novel. It’s not something I’ve seen before. It was probably just a tone shift I was not prepared for, and I should probably give it another try.
GIN JENNY: Only if you want to.
RENAY: I mean, there’s a lot of books out there.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, exactly.
WHISKEY JENNY: There are so many books out there. I think I had kind of the opposite reaction to that switch, in that as soon as we were in that other world I was like, well this is so cool! Why we’ve been farting around in Prague this whole time? [LAUGHTER] Why didn’t we start with this?
GIN JENNY: You know what it sounds like to me, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: What?
GIN JENNY: It sounds like you’re the kind of person who would just let a golem eat everyone in Prague and do nothing about it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, if it’s regular people, you know, I think we all agree that it doesn’t really matter.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: See, so I think I tend to try and tear through an entire series at once. I will often— and I know that this is not what I should do if I want the sequels to actually get published— but I will often put off reading a series if it’s not fully published yet, because I love just tearing through a whole trilogy in one weekend or whatever. That’s very, very fun for me. And I feel like I’m constantly chasing that feeling. I always want that feeling, that it’s events unfolding too fast for me to keep up with, and I have to just keep reading and reading and reading and reading.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, I love that feeling. That like Harry Potter feeling.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I just love when that happens. Like a while ago, in 2009, someone recommended Kage Baker’s Company series, which is a science fiction series. It’s about time traveling androids, basically. And it is cool. Effing fantastic. Yeah, it’s really good. And each of the first four books are just very, very different. And I just remember sitting there and just reading one after the other. My eyes couldn’t read fast enough, and the library couldn’t get the next books in fast enough for me to— as much as I wanted, because I was just enjoying so much that experience of reading them all one after another. That’s the dream.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s the dream, man. Yeah. So if y’all really like an author, do you want to go see them in person?
RENAY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: Not really.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Fight! Fight! Fight!
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I think that’s just because of where I live. I don’t ever have that option. I’ve lived here my whole life, in this rural city in the armpit of Arkansas. And since authors never came here, when an author finally came nearby— PS, it was John Scalzi— [LAUGHTER] and I got to go, it was so wonderful to get to see somebody who had books and ideas that I really liked, and to be in the company of like-minded people. Surprise! That doesn’t happen very often here.
So I just think it was the fact that I’ve just never been in a culture where that was common, because I’ve never lived in a big city.
GIN JENNY: And I think it’s kind of also a self-fulfilling prophecy, as well. Because I think publishers don’t think anyone will come, so they don’t set up the events. So no one has the opportunity, so they’re always like, no, it would never. It’s impossible.
RENAY: Well, it’s a lie, because people come to Memphis all the time, and there are lots of people there.
GIN JENNY: Well, I remember Neil Gaiman talking about this one time, because he went to—
RENAY: Alabama. I remember this post.
GIN JENNY: Right, yeah? It meant a lot to me.
RENAY: I shared it constantly for a month. I’m just like, read this. This is what I’m talking about. Like, they sold out.
GIN JENNY: In like five minutes. And everyone was just so, so, so excited that he was coming. Because yeah, publishers don’t send people. They send people to Atlanta, and Austin. Not really New Orleans.
RENAY: Rarely. Because it’s only seven hours from me.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
RENAY: I know this. I know the hour difference between all the big cities around here, and I will pay attention to authors’ tour dates and be like, well, New Orleans got ignored again. So did St. Louis, and so did Memphis, and so did Little Rock. I get so upset about it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it bugs me. I mean, needless to say it bugs me.
RENAY: Yeah, this is a whole topic in itself. [LAUGHTER] Let’s rant about how publishers mistreat the South.
GIN JENNY: But regardless, though, when I lived in New York, I also didn’t really attend that any author events. Because I do like hearing authors talk; I do not like meeting them.
RENAY: I like meeting the ones that aren’t jerks.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, but you never know, number one.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I don’t know, I follow a lot of authors on Twitter now. Maybe before you couldn’t know, but now authors are so public in a lot of ways that it’s really easy to get a read on what type of person they are.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, at least a preliminary sense.
RENAY: I mean, you can’t ever be sure that they won’t be a jerk.
GIN JENNY: But Whiskey Jenny, you like going to see authors, right? Do you like meeting them?
WHISKEY JENNY: I do not like meeting them. Good lord, no.
RENAY: I’m the only one.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: But I do really like going to see them speak, because I feel like you get an extra context around the book, or how they like to write, or their writing process. And I really enjoy that. Like I went to Zan Romanoff’s New York event, and she told everyone what her idea was, where she thought Grace ended up after the book.
RENAY: Jealous!
WHISKEY JENNY: It was so cute! And now I got to hear that, and I wouldn’t have gotten to hear that otherwise.
GIN JENNY: Well for that type of thing, Whiskey Jenny, I really enjoy— and you do not— looking up interviews and other reviews, and just like paratexts in general, especially if I think the author’s doing something that I find particularly interesting or that I haven’t seen before. That’s definitely something that’s interesting to me, and also something that helps me decide if I want to read more stuff by them.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I just forget that that’s an option to me. I’m not opposed to it.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Instead of actually reading backlists, that’s another thing that I will actually do. If I like an author’s work, I’ll go look up all their interviews. I don’t go and read their backlist. I go and read the things they’ve said about writing. Which is maybe weird?
GIN JENNY: No, I don’t think so. I think that stuff can be super interesting.
WHISKEY JENNY: I love hearing people talking about writing, yeah.
GIN JENNY: I will also sometimes, but very inconsistently, I’ll sometimes follow authors on social media and stuff. Renay, you live on the internet. Is that a thing you— you don’t really do that. Do you follow authors?
RENAY: I used to, and then I stopped abruptly.
GIN JENNY: I don’t know, I feel like I’m constantly trying to tweak how I create my online experience. So I feel like I’ve never settled into how I want my online experience to look.
RENAY: I have a rule. It’s written on my wall. I printed out a list of Twitter rules for myself.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: And one of the rules is don’t follow authors. If they follow me, I can follow them back, but I can’t follow them first.
GIN JENNY: Can you say why?
WHISKEY JENNY: Can I ask why not?
RENAY: I am mostly in the science fiction and fantasy community, and I’m afraid of a lot of the authors there.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: 2013 was a bad year for me and author interactions. And after 2013, when I made a lot of authors really angry, I was like, OK. I’m going to draw a line between me and authors. And if they want to develop a reviewer/author relationship or a friendship with me, they can follow me first. Otherwise I’ll just leave them alone. And it’s worked out pretty well for me, I think.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I would say the tricky thing about engaging with authors on social media— I mean, the nice thing is that more about them, but that also is kind of the bad thing as well. Because stuff comes up— right?— in the world, and people can really let you down.
I mean, there was a— I can’t remember what this was about, but there was something a while back where all the comics people that I followed and liked were saying really stupid and terrible things. Do you remember this?
RENAY: Oh yeah. I don’t remember what it was about, but it was really disappointing.
GIN JENNY: It was! I wish I could remember what the deal was. There was something that had happened in the comics world, and all the comics creators that I followed— and now have either unfollowed or muted— were just saying really unpleasant things, and things that suggested they had a certain degree of contempt for their readers that I was not comfortable with. And it just is a bummer. Like when that happens, you’re like, oh no, I wish I didn’t know this. But it’s too late by then. By then you already know that about them.
RENAY: You can’t unknow anything. It’s the worst.
WHISKEY JENNY: You can never unknow. Except the stuff that I want to remember. I’m like, that’s so cool. I’m going to remember that forever, and then I forget it the next day.
GIN JENNY: Oh, absolutely, me too. I wish my brain would obey me better.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know, right? Why can’t it work the other way?
RENAY: And when that stuff happens and I really like an author, but I haven’t read their backlist yet, I’m like, oh no!
GIN JENNY: Yeah!
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh no.
RENAY: Goodbye backlist!
WHISKEY JENNY: I would say my actually number one response after reading a book that I love is to just talk about it all the time. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Hard same.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you guys feel the same, or is that just a me problem?
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I’ll put it this way. I read Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott. I wrote some thank you cards earlier this year, and in the thank you cards, I was like, PS, if you need a book rec, Black Wolves by Kate Elliott is great.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard, and I immediately— I have two thank you notes I need to write, and now I’m like, can I work in a book rec?
RENAY: And not only that, I made these little cards. I made 50 of them. I was like this is the limit, Renay. You’re cut off after 50. And they had a list of five great fantasy novels, and they were all by women. And for every fantasy novel at the library I love, I’ll put one of these little cards, I’ll tuck it in the back of the book.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP]
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, that is the best idea.
RENAY: And then return the book to the library.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is the literal best.
GIN JENNY: I love it. That is such a mitzvah.
RENAY: It’s so extra.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] That’s so cool.
GIN JENNY: That’s amazing. That’s such a great idea.
WHISKEY JENNY: Such a great idea. Way to go.
GIN JENNY: I want to start doing that now.
RENAY: I call them Library Love Notes.
WHISKEY JENNY: I want to start handing them out to people, though.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Like just make a bunch every quarter and be like, OK, my favorite books this quarter were these. And just make little note cards, little business cards, and just hand them out to people. Hey, you want some book recs? Here you go.
WHISKEY JENNY: Someone at my office recently laid a trap for me to talk about Barbarian Days [LAUGHTER] over the interoffice chat to another person, were like, hey, ask Jenny about that surfing book she read. [LAUGHTER] I immediately fell for it was like, oh my God, it was Barbarian Days and I loved it so much. And the person started laughing really hard.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: The final thing that I do if I really love a book, if the author doesn’t have much of a backlist or if I’m just desperate for more in that world, I now will go look up the fic of the thing.
RENAY: I love fanfic.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh.
GIN JENNY: It’s an excellent way of life I can never go back.
RENAY: I’m glad. Because I’m hoping you’ll write me some Thick as Thieves fanfic.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, that was the first thing I did when I finished Thick as Thieves, is I went to AO3 and I was like, who’s read this faster than I did? [LAUGHTER] Couple people. Not that many. It’s not a big fandom.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, really?
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: It’s very small.
WHISKEY JENNY: Small but passionate, I’m sure.
GIN JENNY: Yes. Very.
RENAY: Me and Jenny are definitely passionate, so. We’re at least half the fandom.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Renay, I’m still so floored by this library book idea. That is so cool.
GIN JENNY: It’s such a good idea.
RENAY: I will send you the template that I use—
GIN JENNY: [GASP] OK.
RENAY: —you can steal it.
GIN JENNY: Great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Will you send me what the five were, too?
RENAY: I remember two of them, but not all five. But I’ll look them up.
WHISKEY JENNY: So cool.
RENAY: I have one last question.
GIN JENNY: OK.
RENAY: OK, so authors that you’ve read in the last year. Which of them have backlists that you’re still wanting to explore?
GIN JENNY: Ooh, that’s a great question. Yeah, so not very many. Mostly what I have is authors that I’m really excited for them to write more stuff, because right now they don’t have much.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a lot of Benjamin Alire Sáenz to read. I’ve only read The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, which I read this year, and then Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club.
RENAY: Have you not read Aris—
GIN JENNY: No, she hasn’t!
RENAY: You haven’t read Aristotle and Dante?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I haven’t.
GIN JENNY: It’s really sweet.
RENAY: Oh, man, he’s going to write a sequel, too.
GIN JENNY: I actually— this is not a new author discovery for me, but this year was the year that I finally cracked and read everything else that Intisar Khanani had written. She wrote this book Sunbolt, a novella actually that I read a couple of years ago, and I loved it. But she only had two other things. And I loved Sunbolt so much, I was like well, I don’t want to use all this up. I want to save some stuff. But this year the sequel to Sunbolt came out, Memories of Ash, and it was so great. And I was like, you know what, screw it. I’m just going to read Thorn, which is her other novel. And it was so good, and so sweet. Not saccharine at all, but just a very optimistic and kind book. And it was just really what I needed in this darkest timeline that we find ourselves in.
WHISKEY JENNY: What about you, Renay?
RENAY: I was trying to think, because it’s hard.
GIN JENNY: It is hard.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, you know what? I read a Sarah Waters book.
GIN JENNY: [GASP]
WHISKEY JENNY: This was within the past 12 months. I read Tipping the Velvet, and I am definitely parsing out my Sarah Waters. [LAUGHTER] I think I own a copy of The Paying Guests, and one more. The Little Stranger, I want to say?
GIN JENNY: You’ve read Fingersmith, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’ve read Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet. And I loved them both so much that I’m very, very slowly working my way through.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, she writes slowly, so you’ve got some time to kill.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: I would say my ranking of Sarah Waters books— because I’ve thought about this a lot— goes, from worst to best— Affinity, which I’ve still never finished; The Little Stranger; Tipping the Velvet— these last three are all very close— Night Watch, Paying Guests, Fingersmith.
WHISKEY JENNY: Fingersmith!
GIN JENNY: Renay, have you read Fingersmith?
RENAY: Oh boy.
GIN JENNY: Uh oh. Did you hate it?
RENAY: I have not read it. I own this book, and I have owned it for over five years.
GIN JENNY: It’s so good. I think you would really like it.
RENAY: It’s so large and intimidating.
GIN JENNY: It is. It’s huge.
WHISKEY JENNY: It is huge.
GIN JENNY: It’s true.
WHISKEY JENNY: I found it a very fast read, though, if that helps.
RENAY: I’m going to give it a shot.
GIN JENNY: It has a lot of events, so it goes through pretty quickly.
RENAY: I was trying to think of an author to answer my own question. And I think— yeah, I read Binti, even though it came out in 2015, by Nnedi Okorafor, in 2016. So 2016 was the first time that I read Nnedi Okorafor. And I’ve read Binti, and I’ve read the sequel, Binti: Home. And she has a lot of other books, and I want to read all of them, because they sound amazing. But I’m so scared slash depressed about running out, because I loved her novellas so much, and her writing. So I think that would be my author. I’m going to do it. I’m going to get to her backlist.
GIN JENNY: I mean, since we’re talking about Binti anyway, Whiskey Jenny, do you want to give Renay a quick update of all the SF starter pack books that you’ve read?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: Yes!
GIN JENNY: Because it’s so many.
RENAY: I don’t even remember what was on that pack now. [LAUGHTER] I’m nervous.
WHISKEY JENNY: Most recently I read Binti. And— well, I’ll tell you now, I enjoyed them all. I didn’t hate any of them. They’ve all been so much fun, and thank you so much for making the starter pack.
Yeah, Binti was the most recent one. Really enjoyed the mix of Earth stuff and alien stuff, I guess. That was really cool. I feel like in that one, I a little bit got whiplash, because it’s so compact. So much happens very, very quickly.
RENAY: Novellas are very jam-packed with stuff.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is impressive, that you packed all of that in. But I was a little bit like, oh OK, this is going to be— here we go.
RENAY: Roller coaster!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, here we go. But let me see, what else did I read? Oh, I read Larklight.
RENAY: [WHISPERS] Yes.
GIN JENNY: And Renay, I want you to know, when she mentioned Larklight to me, I was like, now remember, Whiskey Jenny, don’t read the sequels.
WHISKEY JENNY: Nope. Not gonna read the sequels.
RENAY: You can read the second one.
GIN JENNY: Nu-uh! You said Larklight stands alone, and I’m quoting you directly.
RENAY: It does stand alone. But you can read the second one. You just can’t read the third one unless you want to get really angry about gender roles.
WHISKEY JENNY: So let me— OK, I’m glad that you mentioned that, because I was getting a wee bit annoyed in the first one about gender roles. And I was a little frustrated that the younger boy character was our narrator and kept digging his sister for not being interested in the same things as him. And I was like, well, maybe she lives in a society where this is the only stuff she’s allowed to be interested in!
RENAY: Starcross is a little bit better about female characters. Mothstorm, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Stay away.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so Starcross gets a little better?
RENAY: Mhm.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, that’s good to know. Let’s see, the first one I think I read was Mars Evacuees, and that was such a delight.
RENAY: Yay!
WHISKEY JENNY: Such a delight.
RENAY: It also has a sequel, PS.
WHISKEY JENNY: You know what, I knew that, and then I couldn’t get it from the library, and then I immediately forgot about it. I will re-find it, because I really enjoyed that one. In that one, the girl character got to do a lot of stuff, and I was very excited about that. There was a little note at the end I think she wrote, that some publishers were like, eh, this is too many girls in space.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: [SADLY] Oh.
WHISKEY JENNY: And that made me so sad, but also so happy that it still managed to get published, and that I got to read it. Because it was really sweet. And I guess this is a spoiler, but I love that everyone ends up getting along in the end. [LAUGHTER] They’re like, why are we fighting? We probably should just stop the war. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Oh great. Oh, fantastic.
RENAY: Such a cute book.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was so cute. And then, so we’re going to talk about Old Man’s War. And then— oh, I also read Karen Memory.
RENAY: Yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: Which was so great. I really loved that one as well. I would say Mars Evacuees and Karen Memory were my two favorite, but again, super great hit rate of all of them. Karen Memory was so inventive. I found that I had no problem picturing all the things that she was talking about in that world, even though some of them were like, walking robot spiders or something.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Elizabeth Weir did a lot of research for that novel.
WHISKEY JENNY: Really?
RENAY: Because the black character who is the— not police.
WHISKEY JENNY: He’s like a US Marshal, I think.
RENAY: He was real.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is so cool
RENAY: A Marshal who was African-American. And I know she pulled a lot of the stuff from history. I listened to an interview and it was fascinating.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s fascinating.
GIN JENNY: We’re missing one, though.
WHISKEY JENNY: Are we?
GIN JENNY: You said Larklight, Karen Memory, Mars Evacuees, Old Man’s War, Binti. That’s five.
WHISKEY JENNY: We already talked about “The Girl Thing Who Went out for Sushi.”
GIN JENNY: Oh, right. OK, so I’ve read two!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay, you’ve read two!
GIN JENNY: That’s better than one.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Well, Jenny, don’t feel bad. You gave me a list of literary fiction, and I’m still only halfway through the first book.
GIN JENNY: That actually makes me feel so much better.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, what was the first book though?
RENAY: I’m in the middle of White Is for Witching.
GIN JENNY: Do you like it so far?
RENAY: Yes, I do. It’s very good. It’s just I got really busy and I couldn’t finish it.
GIN JENNY: No, no, that’s no problem. I’m just excited that you enjoy it so far.
RENAY: You recommended me a lot of great sounding things, like turtles that make you immortal.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah.
RENAY: Xenophobic houses.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: And murder by classmates. There was a lot on that list.
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny did not like Secret History, by the way.
RENAY: Oh.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was like, wait. OK, so that third one was Secret History, and that first one is People Who Live in the Trees?
GIN JENNY: People in the Trees.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sorry, People in the Trees. What was the second one?
GIN JENNY: The second one is White Is for Witching. It’s about a racist haunted house.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, that’s the xenophobic houses. OK, I got it.
RENAY: So I feel like we’re pretty equal, except Whiskey Jenny is blowing us out of the water.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Well I got really excited. They were just all really fun.
GIN JENNY: I’m so happy you’re enjoying them. That makes me really happy.
RENAY: Yay! I’m so glad they worked for you. Because it’s hard. You never know what somebody’s going to like.
WHISKEY JENNY: You never know.
GIN JENNY: It’s true. Just also, even if she hates all of the remaining four, the hit rate so far is so high that, you know, you’ve already succeeded. You’ve already won.
WHISKEY JENNY: You’ve got— yeah.
RENAY: I don’t even know what the other four were, but I hope—
GIN JENNY: Me neither, off the top of my head.
RENAY: —she doesn’t hate them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you want to know? The other four are Spin, World War Z, which is really hard to say for some reason.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah. I have that, too. And I have read it, and it’s great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, you’ve read that one.
GIN JENNY: So I’ve read three!
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You’ve read three.
GIN JENNY: I had read World War Z before Renay came on the podcast, so that doesn’t really count.
WHISKEY JENNY: Zoo City.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And The Killing Moon.
RENAY: I feel like Spin is going to be the one that’s the most likely, because it’s more literary. There’s not as much science fictional stuff to pick up. But the other two are very genre-heavy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well good. I’m glad I saved them for last then and I worked my way up to them.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: Good job. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: OK. Well, do we want to talk about the sixth book in Whiskey Jenny’s SF experience? Old Man’s War.
WHISKEY JENNY: Old Man’s War.
RENAY: Yay!
GIN JENNY: Well, Renay, why don’t you give us a brief summary of what Old Man’s War is about.
RENAY: Old Man’s War is about John Perry, who, at 75 years old, goes to sign up for the army. The army is in space. It’s called Colonial Defense Forces. It’s very secretive. Nobody understands how this army can take aging people into their ranks. And the way they do it is a very hush hush process. And he leaves because his wife died. And it’s about his adventures with his team in space, and politics, and how he meets somebody that he used to know.
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice. That’s a good description of that.
RENAY: And I love it very much.
GIN JENNY: Renay, was this your first ever experience with John Scalzi, this book?
RENAY: It was. I got a PDF from Tor. They gave it away free, way back in 2006 or 2007. And I read it, and then I turned around and I read it again.
JENNYS: Aw!
RENAY: And then I read The Ghost Brigades almost immediately after, because I think it was already out. But I think I had to wait for The Last Colony.
GIN JENNY: Are those the two sequels?
RENAY: Ghost Brigades is a companion novel set in the same universe. The Last Colony follows the characters from Old Man’s War. And Zoe’s Tale is a retelling of The Last Colony from the perspective of a teenage girl.
GIN JENNY: OK. Well, Whiskey Jenny, what did you think of this book?
WHISKEY JENNY: I would say overall I enjoyed it.
GIN JENNY: Woo!
RENAY: Yes!
GIN JENNY: Yes, I did too. I thought it was just really fun. It was just a fun space adventure.
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought it had a really great sense of humor about everything that was happening. He set it up smartly, in that the process is super secret to everyone and nobody knows what’s going on, so the character sort of finds out with you. And that’s a really helpful way to explain all the tech to you the reader, as well as to the characters. And then they get to have similar reactions that you as a non-space human would have to all the crazy stuff, and enjoy going on that journey, I guess, with all the characters as they’re learning the surprise.
And then I also found it packed a real emotional punch that I was not expecting from, I guess the summary, or the first couple of pages. And then it really had a heart to it, too, that I loved.
GIN JENNY: To me the setup was a little slow. I felt like the first maybe third of the book was— and you know, it’s an origin story. So there’s a lot of setup at the front end. And that went a little bit slowly for me. But once— I mean, this is going to sound a little morbid, but once people started dying, I like the book a lot better. But just because [LAUGHTER] we suddenly have stakes for what’s going on in a way that is very real. Because people that John cares about are dying in these battles. So it makes it feel more like a war and less like a jolly jaunt into space.
RENAY: I really like the opening, though. Because in the military, from what I have understood from my father, who served in the military, it’s very hurry up and wait.
GIN JENNY: That’s true.
RENAY: The beginning evokes that. But I think if you don’t have the context, you might be like, why is nothing happening?
GIN JENNY: Well it wasn’t so much that I was like, why is nothing happening? I mean, I got why nothing was happening. I just wanted them to hurry up and get to the fireworks factory.
WHISKEY JENNY: For me it felt like things were happening. Because they’re learning about what they’re going to be doing in the army, and what the big army secret is. And they’re make it a little gang and calling themselves the old farts, and making jokes with each other. And I was like, great, let’s just make jokes forever. [LAUGHTER] Which did not happen, but I think I got more enjoyment out of that part, maybe, than you did.
GIN JENNY: I mean, it was definitely fun, for sure. I just was happy when— not happy. Just when people started dying, I was like, yeah, this is it. We’re getting down to it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That first death, though. I mean, that was a beautiful, beautiful scene.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Overall one of the things that struck me about the book is how good John Scalzi is at thinking of all these different kinds of aliens, and the kinds of things that would happen in battles with all these different kinds of aliens. That was really interesting and fun and weird. And I think he does a good job of making the point that if you’re encountering aliens, not only are you out of your depth, but the whole framework that you have for dealing with other creatures can be totally useless, because you’re dealing with completely different types of civilizations, and organisms.
WHISKEY JENNY: I loved that about it, too, which I think is why I maybe gave him like one demerit— out of 1,000 plus demerits, I mean. Or, plus promerits. So I very, very slightly dinged him, just because I felt like John Perry was immediately really, really, really good at the soldiering. And I was—
GIN JENNY: That was my small note, as well.
WHISKEY JENNY: I guess it’s cool that we’re following the best special snowflake around. But he was a little bit like, immediately he had all the great ideas.
GIN JENNY: So my feeling was about that, I wouldn’t have minded if he did really well in battle. That’s fine. But I think I would have been less of side-eye-y about that if he had connected his successes in the battle to stuff that he had done in his previous life on Earth. Like if he’d been like, well, I’m a writer and therefore I notice all these small details, and therefore I can have this idea. But it was just kind of like, oh, he’s just really great at everything. And he was always like, who me? Oh shucks, I’m just a fella.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Golly.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I think also that we can tie that back to the fact that Scalzi for a long time was a film critic. So he was rushing a lot of Hollywood films. And as we know, in Hollywood films, the main dude often is super special. So if he was watching tons of films and then coming to write books, he may have just unconsciously picked up on that habit.
GIN JENNY: Sure.
RENAY: Although I do appreciate that in later books he improves on that score quite a bit. And his female characters actually expand a lot and become amazing. He’s also a very cinematic writer.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I agree.
RENAY: I’m really surprised that these books have not been optioned. Or if they have been optioned, which maybe they have been, but they haven’t been made.
GIN JENNY: I know. It seems like it would be a natural fit for like SyFy to do a series like this.
RENAY: I guess it’s probably just money.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
RENAY: Because there’s a lot of aliens. And I do agree with your criticism that John Perry is the most special snowflake. [LAUGHTER] I do enjoy that in the second book we’re not following John Perry, because it’s a companion novel with a different character, who is a snowflake in a different way.
GIN JENNY: Well, do we want to get into spoiler territory?
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it time is it time is it time? Yeah.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, so about 2/3 of the way through the book, John Perry is rescued by soldiers from what’s called the Ghost Brigade. And they’re not normal soldiers. They’re even more special and advanced. And one of them looks uncannily like his late wife. And it turns out that she, while alive, had been planning to sign up for the army after she reached the cutoff age or whatever, so they used her DNA to build one of these super soldiers.
RENAY: A little creepy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Super creepy. And I have to say, I did not see it coming. I thought it was going to be like, and now, space adventures, and then shit got real.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so he encounters this woman, Jane, who was made from his wife’s DNA. But she has no memory of her life as his wife, so she really wants to hear all about what it was like being this person and living on Earth. And they have kind of a strange relationship, and it’s weird for him, and it’s weird for her, but it was really interesting to read.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it really was. And I thought they both, as characters, were pretty respectful of each other. And that was lovely to read.
RENAY: I know so many things about them from later books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sorry, is Jane the main character in Ghost Brigade?
RENAY: No.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it someone we’ve met?
RENAY: No.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, OK.
RENAY: Ghost Brigade is a totally different character. Although events in Ghost Brigade, you’ll be sort of familiar with them from the end of Old Man’s War.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool.
RENAY: I really liked Jane. Surprisingly, the first time I read through this book, I was like, oh of course, how convenient that he is going to meet somebody with his wife’s body and fall in love, and they’re going to have a little romance. Of course, why not? But I actually come to appreciate her way more, especially when I come back to this book from other books, especially The Last Colony. Jane is great. The end.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really liked Jane immediately, so I’m glad that there’s more Jane coming.
GIN JENNY: I also liked the small details of what it was like to hang out with the Ghost Brigade. Because every character is kind of a super soldier, but the Ghost Brigade is like, super super soldiers. And I liked all their little weirdnesses from— they’re all very young. They’re newly created, so none of them I think is older than six. But they function as fully grown adults. You know, they communicate just in their brains, and they’re monstrously fast, and I just enjoyed all the stuff with that, where John was just so out of his element with them.
RENAY: I also liked the special forces people who are rocks. Do you meet those in Old Man’s War?
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I don’t remember any rocks.
RENAY: Wait till you meet the special forces people who are rocks.
WHISKEY JENNY: I can’t wait.
GIN JENNY: Boy, I’m excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s so cool.
GIN JENNY: I also liked how the plot develops and you start realizing all the things that the characters don’t know. There’s some messed up stuff going on, but I liked that it didn’t turn out to be some kind of brutally repressive dystopia. Because my appetite for that is not the highest that it’s ever been.
RENAY: Yeah, I don’t think this universe is a dystopia at all. I think it is a very tightly controlled oligarchy,
GIN JENNY: Mhm. Mhm.
RENAY: —might be the right word, because it’s about money and influence and power. And so the series actually unpacks all of that and eventually does really interesting things with it. I tend to like Scalzi’s books because he’s not into, like, the final dramatic battle solves all the problems. It’s not just about, oh yay, explosions. Problems are solved. Other things need to happen, like communication and collaboration, to make the endings work. It’s just not about fighting.
That’s a theme through all of his books, where it’s not just about resolving problems with violence.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m glad you brought that up, because I was starting to get a little annoyed at this book that the guy who’s making the diplomacy argument is kind of a dolt, I would say. And I was sad that that was happening, because I thought he was making a valid argument. But then I like that the book immediately turns around and his sergeant or—
GIN JENNY: Superior officer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Superior officer, thank you— is like, no, no, I totally agree with him, too. We gotta fix some stuff around in here. But you just can’t do it in the heat of battle. You gotta have your teammate’s back in the heat of battle. And I was like, oh OK, great, great. Thank you. Thank you so much for making that point.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I went through the same emotional trajectory.
WHISKEY JENNY: I shouldn’t have been worried. I should have trusted whose hands I was in. But I got a little worried.
RENAY: A lot of people compare Scalzi to Heinlein, and I haven’t really read any Heinlein, so I don’t know how accurate that is.
GIN JENNY: I tried to read Stranger in a Strange Land, and there was a lot of talk of boobs in sweaters. And I was like, goodbye, Heinlein.
RENAY: I don’t blame you. I’ve heard the same. [LAUGHTER] But Scalzi’s books remind me of the visual science fiction that I loved as a teenager, like in the ‘90s. Like Lost in Space, and Armageddon, Deep Impact, where people go into space to solve problems, and how hopeful and optimistic they could be. His work has an optimism that I think not a lot of things have right now, because we’re kind of in this weird transition period, where things are dark and grim. I mean, the world’s on fire and has been for a little bit. So I mean, there’s a reason. But I really love the tone of his books.
This book, I think, is really accessible to new fans, just because it’s open and it wants to invite you in. And it doesn’t try to confuse you. It doesn’t throw a lot of terminology that it doesn’t explain.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I really liked that about it. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Very accessible, you’re right.
RENAY: And that’s why I think it works. I love John Scalzi.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I was reading the very end on the subway. And when I was reading Jane’s postcard, there were tears streaming down my face. And the lady next to me asked if I was bothered by what she was eating, and I felt so bad! I was like, no, it’s not you. I just got to a sad part. [LAUGHTER] But man. It just really got me. Yeah, it was sweet.
RENAY: Good choice, Renay!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! Way to go.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, definitely.
RENAY: Now everybody can feel free to go read The Collapsing Empire. Unless you want to continue with this series.
GIN JENNY: So this is my second John Scalzi book, I think, and definitely makes me want to read more of his stuff.
RENAY: You can read all of it.
GIN JENNY: I know. Well, Whiskey Jenny, beautiful genius that she is, has— I believe she’s composed a choose your own adventure for me and Renay. Is that correct, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: That is correct. And I want to say, A, it’s very, very dumb and silly, so get ready for that. And B, I was so into the software that I— I guess it’s a web application— that I was using to write it. It was so cool. There’s this special program online that you can write choose your own adventure stories on. And it’s a really nice design. So if you want we can post the full story on the—
GIN JENNY: Yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: —show notes, and then you can see how they put it together for you once you’ve written it. It was just really cool.
OK, so we decided that Renay and Gin Jenny are going to try and pick the same options, but may diverge storylines.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, we’re going to work together, but if the time comes that we have to part ways, so be it.
WHISKEY JENNY: There are a couple of annoying trick endings. So if you hit one of those, obviously you get to go back.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. Once upon a time—
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I’m so excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: —Renay and Gin Jenny were two extremely brave astronauts on the merry ship Beowulf. One morning, their captain blasted through to everyone’s pods that she had a very important announcement to make. Everyone hated when she did that, because from within the sleeping pod, the sound reverberated all around and it felt like drowning in a sea of gongs.
When the whole crew gathered, grumbling, Captain Abigail— she hated her last name and put anyone who called her by it on latrine duty for a week, so don’t call her anything but Captain Abigail—
GIN JENNY: I won’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: —rapped on the table to get everyone’s attention. She said she had an important mission. The prime minister’s pet has gone missing.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] !
RENAY: Oh my God.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: The last time the puppy’s tracker had pinged before going offline—
GIN JENNY: Oh my God.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: —was somewhere on the nearby planet Mearcstapa. You’ll need to break out into two teams, the tech support team on the ship, and the team that will be teleporting to Mearcstapa to find and retrieve the puppy. Which team do you want to be on?
GIN JENNY: I mean, we’ve got to be on the team that retrieves the puppy, right?
RENAY: Yeah, we have to go get the puppy!
GIN JENNY: OK, yeah, good, good. Same page.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: So you’re going to be on the search team. You high five your new teammates. You all head over to the teleportation shuttle. When you get there, either it’s been sabotaged or it looks fine.
GIN JENNY: Oh, man. I’m afraid if it looks fine it secretly has been sabotaged.
RENAY: I know. Oh, gee.
GIN JENNY: But I also want to be able to rescue the puppy, so I’m really torn.
RENAY: I think maybe it looks OK? And then we can go get the puppy?
GIN JENNY: OK, yeah. Ship looks fine. We go get the puppy.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, ship looks fine. OK, the teleportation process goes smoothly— nice job, guys.
GIN JENNY: Great.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Surprising, since you were all up pretty late last night celebrating Niamh’s birthday. Niamh is the shuttle pilot, and Tanner, who is the onship teleportation officer, was there, as well. And teleportation requires both of them working in sync. “Lucky one,” Tanner says over coms after you land. “Sh, not so loud,” groans Niamh. “This better not affect the mission,” comes Captain Abigail’s voice. Jenkins starts to say, “But Captain, I seem to remember you last night dancing on that—” Everyone collectively tackles him to the ground to shut him up. Captain Abigail—
GIN JENNY: I love this space team.
WHISKEY JENNY: —is all business during a mission and would not appreciate this specific digression.
You look around the planet Mearcstapa, which is a planet full of lush greenery and sparkling blue ponds. From within a nearby forest, you see a lot of shadows flitting around, and every time you look away and look back, it seems like the shadows are closer. Your teammate Jenkins looks particularly nervous. He’s the newest rookie and is about to take the safety off his blaster. “Easy there, Jenkins. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, or if they’re friendly.” He shoots anyways.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Jenkins!
WHISKEY JENNY: “Dammit Jenkins!” you yell as all hell breaks loose. [LAUGHTER] The creatures in the forest start firing back, and their blasters are way stronger than yours, but you recognize the bluish tint of the rays. It could only be— either, do you want it to be space vampires or space werewolves?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh my God.
RENAY: Oh no.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God. Oh, gosh. Renay, do you have a preference? This is tough.
RENAY: I mean, I’ve watched Stargate Atlantis, so I know all about space vampires.
GIN JENNY: So do you think we should do the one that you know about, or do you think we should launch ourselves into unknown territory?
RENAY: Maybe we should do the one that I know about.
GIN JENNY: OK, yeah, space vampires.
RENAY: Maybe. Let’s go.
GIN JENNY: No, I’m into it.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s space vampires. You say a little prayer inside and attach a white flag to your blaster, and then poke it out tentatively. Humans have recently formed an alliance with vampires, and you hope you can stop the shooting and just talk. “Cease fire!” you yell. Jenkins takes the longest to stop shooting. The vampires then stop firing pretty quickly, as well.
GIN JENNY: God dammit, Jenkins!
WHISKEY JENNY: “Sorry about that,” you say. “This rookie is on a hair trigger. No harm meant.” There’s a pause, and then out from the woods comes a very tall woman with her hands up. She looks like that old movie actress Tilda Swinton. You gingerly put your weapon down and your hands up, and you step out to meet her. Recognition lights in both your eyes.
“Hey, babe,” she says. How do you respond? A, you can try to flirt back with her. Or B, you can give her an enormous hug.
GIN JENNY: Hug. Right? Hug.
RENAY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: You give her an enormous hug.
GIN JENNY: Space hugs!
WHISKEY JENNY: Y’all were best friends in university and you had no idea you were posted so close together.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, this is amazing!
WHISKEY JENNY: No harm, no foul, everyone agrees. You all head back to the vampires’ headquarters for dinner together so they can give you more information about the planet, planning for a long, hard mission. Along the way, though, a puppy comes bounding up to you.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: So you can choose to either give him a hard stare for all the trouble he’s caused, or you can cuddle him extensively.
RENAY: No, cuddles! Cuddles!
GIN JENNY: Cuddle him. Of course, cuddle him! What am I, a monster?
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. You cuddle him extensively, everyone enjoys a great meal together, and your captain congratulates you for such a clean mission when your team returns. The end.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Renay, we did this perfectly. We navigated this difficult story flawlessly.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: And Jenkins, man. Listen, you could have messed this up for us, Jenkins.
WHISKEY JENNY: He really could have, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Seriously.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was touch and go.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, that was so amazing.
RENAY: That was so great.
GIN JENNY: I feel so happy right now. So Whiskey Jenny, what could have happened to us? Like, what were the worst fates that could have befallen us?
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, I’m going to give a slight spoiler for all of them. [LAUGHTER] Everything works out pretty well for all of them. [LAUGHTER] There are a couple that don’t end, and I ended with a “to be continued,” which I guess is kind of a dick move. But they still end up— it’s like an act one, and then I was like, to be continued. Which I guess is annoying as a reader.
RENAY: You know your audience, because puppies.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Wait, I have a question, though. What would happen if I gave the puppy a hard stare for all the trouble he caused?
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, you ready? Wait, I have to get to it. [LAUGHTER] OK, so you give him a hard stare for all the trouble he’s caused. The puppy comes bounding up to you anyway. Your heart melts, and you cuddle him extensively. Everyone enjoys a great meal together, and your captain congratulates you for such a clean mission when your team returns. The end. [LAUGHTER] There’s no getting out of cuddling this puppy.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I’m so excited. This is my brand.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: This is the greatest science fiction story of all time.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I really want you to publish this, and then I’m going to link it as my favorite science fiction short story of 2017 so far.
GIN JENNY: Oh, man. That was great, Whiskey Jenny. That was magnificent.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well yay. I’m glad you enjoyed it. You have the link now, so you can click around and make some different choices and see where it takes you.
GIN JENNY: I will. I’m really excited that we got to rescue the puppy and the puppy was OK at the end.
RENAY: I know, I was real worried.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing it, so thanks for playing.
GIN JENNY: Well, do you want to hear what we are reading for next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: Lay it on us.
GIN JENNY: OK, so for next time I have selected Victor LaValle’s book The Changeling. I read one of his previous books, The Devil in Silver and I liked it a lot. That one is set in a mental hospital, and it’s just really clear-eyed about mental illness and mental health care in a way that I don’t encounter a lot in fantasy or at all. So The Changeling is about a new father— he’s a bookseller, I think— who experiences a personal tragedy and embarks on a quest into the magical corners of New York. And it’s supposed to be really smart about parenthood and technology and modern racism, and it just sounds really great. And I also really love changeling stories, so this sounds right up my alley.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m looking forward.
GIN JENNY: Well, Renay, where can the people find you on the internet?
RENAY: I am at LadyBusiness, ladybusiness.dreamwidth.org. I’m also on Twitter, where I yell about politics a lot these days, at Renay— R-E-N-A-Y. And I also have my own podcast with Ana from The Book Smugglers, FangirlHappyHour.com.
GIN JENNY: A wonderful podcast. And I’ll link to all of those in the show notes so that you can find Renay with great ease.
RENAY: Thank you!
GIN JENNY: Thank you for coming on. It was so great to have you back, and I’m glad that we got to talk about science fiction, and that you got to hear about how great Whiskey Jenny is doing with your rec list.
RENAY: I’m excited. You have to update me so I know how the rest of it goes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Thank you so much for the list, and for this delightful time.
GIN JENNY: Well, this has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys and special guest star Renay. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter @readingtheend. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us— please do— at readingtheend@gmail.com. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.
Until next time, a quote from A Box of Matches, by Nicholson Baker. “I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns and ask them how they’re able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, be careful, stay away from this train or it will run you over, and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night.”
[GLASSES CLINK]THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
[BEEP]WHISKEY JENNY: And today, we’re very excited to welcome back very special guest scar Renay.
RENAY: Hello!
GIN JENNY: Hi! Great to have you.
RENAY: Thank you for having me back.
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny, no shots, but did you say special guest scar?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Yeah, I did.
[LAUGHTER]RENAY: I was just going to roll with it. I’m like, sure.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: OK, I’m gonna do it again from the top, and I’m going to get it right this time.
[BEEP]WHISKEY JENNY: Oh! Sorry, a flower petal just fell on me. Sorry.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I’m leaving that in. I feel it typifies your persona on the podcast.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, that was lovely.