Happy Wednesday! We have a very special podcast for you today that’s been a long time coming. After a few false starts, we’ve managed to get our pal Robert Repino on the podcast to talk about his wonderful, weird, dystopian War with No Name series, of which the latest installment is D’Arc.
You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
You can find Robert Repino at his website or on Twitter; you can also experience the joy of his Tor.com articles. If you want to read his fantasy casting of Mort(e), you can check it out here; and you can also check out his D’Arc playlist at Largehearted Boy.
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. 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!
TRANSCRIPT
ROBERT REPINO: I want to sing the theme song.
GIN JENNY: Oh my god, I’m so excited Do it.
ROBERT REPINO: You ready? [SINGING FALSETTO] You don’t judge a book by its cover, la la la.
That’s all I got.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That was so good!
ROBERT REPINO: See, Jessie Barbour is a bit of a hack.
GIN JENNY: Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m Whiskey Jenny. And we are here again to talk to you about books and literary happenings. I know we said on the last podcast that we would be discussing Salt Houses and starting a new Serial Box book club on this podcast. But instead we’re bringing you something even better! An interview with our pal Robert Repino, author of the War With No Name series, of which the most recent installment is his book D’Arc. Robert, welcome to the podcast.
ROBERT REPINO: Thank you for having me.
GIN JENNY: We’re so pleased to have you. We had plans to have you on the podcast one previous time, but we were foiled by technical difficulties.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, I think the technical difficulties involved my computer from the year 2003.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, who can say?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Sea or space?
ROBERT REPINO: Sea or space? Probably sea.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay!
GIN JENNY: All right, all right. You’re with the majority. Can you tell us why sea?
ROBERT REPINO: I think I’ve recently been converted to it.
GIN JENNY: Oh, interesting.
ROBERT REPINO: If you had asked me that question when I was 12, I probably would have said space without even hesitating. But actually, in researching this book I had to do a lot of reading and talking to people about nautical terms and the history and culture of navies and maritime terminology, and kind of fell in love with it a little bit. There’s a big chunk of the book that involves the orders that are given on a ship and the terms that are used.
And I actually have a friend in the Marines to whom I showed the early draft of the book. And it was hilarious, because he corrected a million things on it. Like originally, I put all the distances in meters, for example. He was like, nope, it’s all in feet. I was like, even European countries? He’s like, yeah. Because the English were the masters of the sea for so long.
Other things— I stole a thing from Star Trek where—
GIN JENNY: Nice.
ROBERT REPINO: So in Star Trek II, because it was written around the time of the Equal Rights Amendment, part of the terminology in Star Trek II is that they refer to the women as Mister. So Kirstie Alley’s character is referred to as Mr. Saavik. So there were a bunch of scenes where people refer to female officers as sir. That was in the first book, and I think I corrected it for the second. Because my friend was like, yeah you don’t do that. That’s actually regarded as disrespectful.
GIN JENNY: I’m interested and surprised, because I recall that Battlestar Galactica, if I’m remembering this correctly, also referred to the female officers as sir.
ROBERT REPINO: You know, I’ve only seen two episodes of the new Battlestar. I wouldn’t be surprised. I think—
GIN JENNY: “Of the new Battlestar.” You’re such an old man.
ROBERT REPINO: All right. That’s it. Interview’s over.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: When I go to edit this podcast, your end of the thing is just going to be the crinkling of butterscotch candy wrappers.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I didn’t give him a box of Cheez-Its that he could use to make that sound effect.
[LAUGHTER]ROBERT REPINO: I said that if you said anything I didn’t like, I was going to stuff my mouth full of Cheez-Its and chew slowly.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: That would have been even better if you and Whiskey Jenny had been able to record in the same room and you could just maintain eye contact with her.
WHISKEY JENNY: Just slowly, angrily eat Cheez-Its.
[LAUGHTER]ROBERT REPINO: Yes. But to get back to your point, yeah, I really want to learn more about nautical stuff. Believe it or not, I actually did learn how to sail a boat— not very well, but I can get a boat from point A to point B. Even a big one. Not like a little dinghy.
GIN JENNY: What’s the max size of a boat you can get from point A to point B?
ROBERT REPINO: The boat that I learned how to sail on was I think like 30 feet, not including the pointy thing at the front. OK, look, I suck at this, OK? [LAUGHTER] I can do it!
WHISKEY JENNY: Is this the kind of boat that you’re doing yourself, or are you issuing orders?
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah. Great question.
ROBERT REPINO: I could do it myself. It’s not as easy. But issuing orders, if you have people who know what they’re doing with you, then you can tell them to tack, or to move the sail, move the tiller in one direction.
GIN JENNY: Sure, sure. So a really resounding sea from you.
ROBERT REPINO: You know, hopefully in our lifetime we will witness some extraordinary innovation in space travel and maybe I’ll swing back in the other direction.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I think a mission to Mars would definitely sway my opinion.
ROBERT REPINO: That will solve all our problems.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, right. Well, before we get into our interview proper, I want to talk about what we’re all reading. So Robert, what are you reading right now?
ROBERT REPINO: I am reading a book called #Gods by Matthew Gallaway.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah, “Hashtag Gods,” right?
ROBERT REPINO: “Hashtag Gods.” And it’s excellent. And it’s a big, sprawling adventure, and it’s a real page turner. There’s sort of a noir feel to it that’s surprising and welcome. It’s a work of real genius, I’m going to say.
GIN JENNY: Wow.
ROBERT REPINO: But full disclosure, I know Matt Gallaway, so you can take that as just me puffing up my friend here. But I really admired his first novel, Metropolis Case, and this is really an amazing book, and I highly recommend it.
GIN JENNY: Well, Whiskey Jenny, what are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I just started All the Light We Cannot See.
GIN JENNY: Uh. [FLAT] How do you like it?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Goodness. I’m liking it so far, but I’m like a chapter in, so who knows what kind of turns it’s going to take?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I got three chapters in and I was like, this is torture. I’m going to die if I continue reading this book. I hated the writing style so much. I’m sorry.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, did you hate it after the first chapter?
GIN JENNY: Oh, yes, intensely. I hated it immediately.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, there you go.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, you might love it still.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s just not for some people. What are you reading right now?
GIN JENNY: I am reading The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin. She just won the Hugo award for best novel for the second year in a row. And so I’m celebrating by finally reading something on her back list. The book she won the Hugo for this year is the second in a series of three, and the third one hasn’t come out yet. So I didn’t want to start reading the series and then have to wait and wait for the series conclusion.
WHISKEY JENNY: Did the first one that she write win last year?
GIN JENNY: Yes, the first one in that series did, yeah. And The Killing Moon is her series before this one. So it’s pretty good. All right, well, let’s get into it with D’Arc. Robert, do you want to give us a summary of what D’Arc is about?
ROBERT REPINO: So D’Arc is the latest novel in the War With No Name series. The series started with Mort(e), which is a novel about a war between humans and animals. And in this war— it’s instigated by a race of evil, intelligent ants, led by a queen who is been on revenge against humans. And she uses this strange technology to lift up the animals from their estate, let’s say, and turn them into bipedal, speaking, intelligent creatures that rise up and wipe out the humans.
And in the aftermath of this chaos, there’s a cat named Mort(e) who is sort of notorious for hunting humans. And he goes on a mission to find his friend named Sheba who is a dog and who was believed to be killed in the war but it turns out she may in fact still be alive. And his only way of finding her seems to be through working with the humans who were his sworn enemy. So that’s the first book.
Now, this latest book picks up where the last one left off. Spoiler alert, he did find her.
GIN JENNY: I was so relieved, because the book is quite dark. Mort(e) is quite dark, and when I was reading it, I was not confident that he was going to find Sheba in the end.
ROBERT REPINO: Although there is some twist to it. Because when he finds her, it’s not exactly what he was hoping.
GIN JENNY: Right.
ROBERT REPINO: So this latest book is about the aftermath of all that. He and Sheba are living this quiet, secluded life, the life that he’s sort of trying to recreate how things used to be when he was a pet. And so he’s living this nice life on a ranch. And then, of course, danger comes looking for them.
GIN JENNY: Would you almost say he gets pulled in for one last job?
ROBERT REPINO: I would more than just almost say it. I would definitely say it. I’m there. I’m saying it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes!
ROBERT REPINO: Although this time it’s even more reluctant, because what happens is Sheba, as much as he loves living on the ranch, sort of wants an adventure, and wants to break out on her own and be her own person, and not just be defined by her relationship with Mort(e). So she’s the one who really pushes him into doing this new adventure. And really, it’s her desire for independence and to have her own identity that drives the action of the story.
The action, though, involves, let’s say, a new danger on the horizon. New mutations from the Queen’s evil experiment that involve, among other things, a giant spider and some fish people who believe that they are carrying on the queen’s mission. And also a weird cult of humans who want to roll back the clock and go back to the way things were before the animals took over. So many things collide in the climax of the book.
GIN JENNY: So I know that your sea creatures are not monster ants, but they are being controlled by the Queen of the ants, and I just wondered if you had always planned to have sea monsters as part of this world.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, I came up with the story for D’Arc around the time I was wrapping up Mort(e), really. I was thinking about where this goes next, and I thought, well, if I want to expand this world, I would like to have other parts of the planet that have not really been explored. And so obviously the sea would be the logical step there.
This goes back to what we were talking about earlier. I mean, so much of the sea is unexplored.
GIN JENNY: [WHISPERED] Yes.
ROBERT REPINO: So much of it has animals in it that we just can’t even begin to comprehend. Because some of them exist without sunlight, they have weird food supplies. They’re just things that have evolved in a way that we can’t really anticipate or understand yet. So the potential for mystery and danger there, and the unknown and the other coming from that part of the world is just, you know, very great.
GIN JENNY: You said you did a ton of research on the sea as you were preparing for this book. What were some of your favorite things to research when you were working on this?
ROBERT REPINO: There’s been a lot of work published, mostly in article form, regarding consciousness among, especially, cephalopods.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: It’s incredible, the stuff that we’re seeing. And there’s so much material now on how intelligent they are, how they can solve problems, how they have a type of consciousness that we are just starting to understand. And so there’s a lot there.
There’s also— I read a lot and watched a few documentaries on beavers. Probably, if you’re going to ask me my favorite thing to research, it was the beavers. Because there is a city of beavers in this story.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes there is.
ROBERT REPINO: Beavers are effing amazing. They are so cool. I’m glad that I didn’t think of putting them in the first book, because if I had, I would have scrapped the whole book and just written an entire book about beavers.
Because they mate for life. They’re intelligent, and they’re hardworking little creatures. They are very good for the environment. I mean, there are people who want to breed beavers and put them in places like New Mexico and Arizona so they can stop up a stream and then turn it into a pond.
GIN JENNY: Oh.
ROBERT REPINO: They are vital for the health of an ecosystem. They really should be the national animal, not the bald eagle.
WHISKEY JENNY: Stupid bald eagle.
ROBERT REPINO: Stupid. Yeah. Imagine a beaver holding, what, a bunch of arrows in one hand and— I forget what the eagle holds in the national symbol. Anyway.
GIN JENNY: I’m imagining, and it’s a very beautiful mental image.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. Yeah, the beavers, I was really into that. I actually watched a PBS documentary about people who are breeding beavers. And it actually gets really emotional at one point. There’s a lady who finds a beaver that was injured, rehabilitates it, puts it back in the wild, and then is led to believe that the beaver has been killed. And she’s beside herself.
GIN JENNY: Oh!
ROBERT REPINO: I mean, it’s so emotional. Not just because it was their friend, but also the health of the ecosystem depended on this beaver.
GIN JENNY: Right.
ROBERT REPINO: They’re amazing animals. And the mascot of my grade school for a brief time was the beaver, but they changed it for— let’s say the reasons— you can imagine what the reasons are. Let’s move on.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I have to say, your love of beavers really shone through as I was reading. I was like, oh man. These beavers are the greatest.
WHISKEY JENNY: They were so great. They have songs in the book that you wrote.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. The beavers like to sing their history.
GIN JENNY: Gosh, it was so sweet. It was just the nicest thing. I mean, the beavers have to go to war, and it’s rough and sad, and some of them die. But still, they just came across as such sweet, good creatures.
WHISKEY JENNY: They really did.
ROBERT REPINO: The mating for life thing, I think, is really cool. I think that’s like— I don’t know. I mean, obviously that’s a very, you know, we project our human tendencies onto these animals sometimes. So that’s a sort of obvious connection between our two species.
GIN JENNY: Yeah
ROBERT REPINO: When the beavers are reunited with their families, and when they’re talking about family bonds and stuff, yeah, there was a lot to mine, let’s say.
WHISKEY JENNY: So when you were writing the beaver songs, do they have a tune, also?
ROBERT REPINO: You know, I need to bring in like a Jessie Barbour kind of person to actually set them to music. Because I don’t really have any music writing skills at all. I don’t know how to play an instrument or anything. The way I describe it in the book is that they occasionally pat their tails on the ground for percussion, and that they have singers in the forefront and then people who are humming in the background. So there’s sort of an old churchy style, call and response kind of thing to when they’re singing. But it’s hard to describe that in prose. I mean, it’s really hard to explain music in prose. Especially music no one’s ever heard before.
GIN JENNY: I mean, what you just described is exactly what I took away from the book, so I would say you succeeded.
ROBERT REPINO: All right, good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I was imagining a lot of chanting, also.
GIN JENNY: And a choral sort of backing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: I pictured it, too, as it starts with humming. I think there’s a scene where they start humming spontaneously, and the non-beaver characters are like, oh boy, here we go.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: There they go again. You started them off again.
ROBERT REPINO: And I think there was a scene, too, that I really enjoyed writing, where they were all singing, but it was the beavers who typically don’t lead the song. And so they end up hitting a high note and then going back down. And then they all laugh, because they couldn’t believe that they hit it. I feel like that’s the way people do it in karaoke when they’re doing it. Like, oh my god, I hit that Freddie Mercury note. I must be really drunk.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You mentioned that special band that Mort(e) and Sheba have at the time, before she renames herself as D’Arc, and that you got to explore and deepen that relationship. I feel like that’s a sort of relationship I haven’t read about very often, where it’s so intimate but platonic. So how was the process of writing about that relationship, and did you have any specific influences on them?
ROBERT REPINO: I can’t really think of a particular literary influence to it.
GIN JENNY: So it was just Star Trek.
ROBERT REPINO: Let’s just say Star Trek. I’m sure there’s all sorts of things that are buried in there. Oh boy, this is hard to talk about. Because I think—you know, I think I knew from the beginning that this story was not going to follow the typical patterns of these stories, where it wasn’t just going to be one person pining for the other and eventually winning them. In a lot of ways, this story is about people dealing with change, and how people deal with change. Some people are in denial about it; some people embrace it. And also, the story was supposed to talk about how one person in the relationship might be really happy with the way things are, and then that’s the exact moment that the other person is ready to move on.
So yeah, what are my influences for that? I don’t know, I guess my own personal experiences. [LAUGHTER] I mean, I definitely wanted this to be a little bit tragic. And I also wanted to explore the idea that sometimes a person trying to become what they want to be might end up hurting somebody else. And that’s nobody’s fault. That’s just the way life works sometimes.
GIN JENNY: I really, really loved that about D’Arc. Because like you say, D’Arc is not trying to do something to Mort(e). She really loves him. She really cares about him. But the path that her life is taking her is inexorably taking her away from him.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah. And I wanted to have Mort(e) be damaged by that. I wanted him to sort of like use his experiences from the other book to get through it and to deal with it. But I also wanted him to deal with it in a very imperfect way. Which he does. He’s not the most constructive person sometimes.
It was important that we show that he’s not perfect, and that he’s dealing with a lot of trauma himself. And so when things start to go wrong with D’Arc, he doesn’t know who to blame. The only way he’s learned to deal with things is through violence. So I really wanted to explore that.
I’ve talked to some people about it, and they’ve interpreted it as me just sort of bashing more Mort(e). Like oh, Mort(e)’s just some stupid guy who wants to control a woman.
GIN JENNY: Oh, no, no, no.
WHISKEY JENNY: No!
ROBERT REPINO: I mean, certainly that’s a bad thing. I don’t think that’s what I’m going for with Mort(e). I don’t think that’s his attitude. I think he knows that that’s the wrong attitude, but he also acknowledges, like, wow, maybe I do want to just keep D’Arc here, even if she doesn’t really want to stay here anymore. I mean, he’s sort of wrestling with his own dark impulses there.
GIN JENNY: Haw haw haw. Dark impulses.
WHISKEY JENNY: Get it? [LAUGHTER]
ROBERT REPINO: His dark impulses regarding D’Arc. All right.
So I definitely wanted to be complex. I don’t want to have any good guys or bad guys in it. I’m hoping anybody can read it and say, like, well, Mort(e) did the right thing and D’Arc was wrong, or D’Arc did the right thing and Mort(e) was wrong. I want that complexity, because that’s the way life is. It’s messy. And sometimes there are no right answers, there are no winners, there are no good guys.
GIN JENNY: I think you did a good job of making the book not take a side with D’Arc and Mort(e). Because even when he sometimes is thinking, oh, she shouldn’t leave me, this and that, it’s clear that the book doesn’t necessarily take that position. Which I thought was good, because that must have been a tricky balance to strike.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, that was the plan.
GIN JENNY: I have to know when you picked Sheba’s new name. I’m very curious how you picked D’Arc. Because it’s so perfect, and I just wonder if it came to you in a flash of light.
ROBERT REPINO: It did not. It was after many discussions with my agent and my editor, actually. I wish I could be like, oh, one day the inspiration hit me and my genius produced this work. No, we went through a bunch of names. And I think I had made it to the fourth chapter of the book and wasn’t sure what I was going to call her yet. At one point I even wanted to call her Gulaga, which ended up being the name of the spider.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: And the reason being was, because she was going to assist in that battle, she was going to take the name Gulaga on herself, as sort of like a pelt almost. You know what I mean?
GIN JENNY: Oh, nice.
ROBERT REPINO: But the name is really ugly. It’s not really good for the hero. So yeah, we ended up throwing around a lot of names of like, let’s say mythical heroes that may have been female. There was an Athena at one point. There was— I think my agent even suggested Uhura. [LAUGHTER] Because she and I have talked about Uhura. I love— there’s a scene in Star Trek III where Uhura totally kicks ass. And I’ve jokingly said that my agent is like Uhura in that scene.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
ROBERT REPINO: Basically Uhura pulls a gun on a guy to get him to help the Enterprise crew. And I jokingly said that my agent is like her in that way. So I think that’s why that name ended up getting thrown in the mix, among many others.
But yeah, it wasn’t until I was literally starting the chapter where she finally picks the name for herself. And that’s where, after several conversations, we sort of settled on D’Arc. So it was a real messy process. I think it was better that way. Because I’ve leaned a lot on my agent and my editor for these projects, and so it made sense that I needed their guidance.
GIN JENNY: Can I ask what else changed between your initial conception of the book and what we have before us today?
ROBERT REPINO: Oh, a lot. A lot. And this does involve some spoilers, I should mention.
WHISKEY JENNY: Listeners, be aware.
ROBERT REPINO: Well for one thing, originally there was less sex. And the later drafts had more sex. And that’s really important to me. Because some of these fantasy books don’t have sex in them, or not enough.
GIN JENNY: Catastrophe.
ROBERT REPINO: It needs to be tasteful, of course. I’m not talking— you know. [LAUGHTER] But that’s actually one of my problems with The Lord of the Rings books and the CS Lewis books, is that I wish they had more— like, just desire or something. That’s such an important part of the human experience, and the animal experience.
GIN JENNY: Sure. Beavers banging is what you wanted out of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. Yes. I ask so little, and it still didn’t have it.
GIN JENNY: I mean, who among us?
WHISKEY JENNY: I think Mr. Tumnus is pretty sexy already.
ROBERT REPINO: Oh dear.
GIN JENNY: I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, the McAvoy version.
GIN JENNY: Ah. OK.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. So that changed. And also, some of the consequences of that as well. Like the ending of the book is a little different. And it’s hard to talk about it without totally giving it away, but there were more people involved in the expedition at the end, in the first draft.
GIN JENNY: The expedition that he’s talking about, listeners, is that— I love this— there is a plan to send a ship out into the wider world to see what’s happened as a result of this animal uprising, to see what’s happened in other countries.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, exactly. And originally it actually ended with D’Arc and Falkirk going together.
JENNYS: Oh, man.
ROBERT REPINO: I decided to change it. Because so much of the book is about D’Arc being independent, so that sort of undermined it. I wanted it to have her just going where very solo. Another thing that changed drastically was the character of the Sarcops, which are the fish creatures, the sea creatures that are sort of the antagonist in the book. My editor read it and was like, look, they’re cool, but they’re not weird enough. They need to be more, like, the Other.
GIN JENNY: Man. Well, you nailed it in the second draft.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Great job.
[LAUGHTER]ROBERT REPINO: Good, I’m glad. You know what one of the problems was. One of the things that happens in the book is that the leader of the Sarcops is this creature named Taalik who believes he’s receiving visions from the Queen, and revelations, as if he’s some sort of prophet. And he is surrounded by this harem of his mates who protect him and enforce his orders and so on. And the leader of the harem is a sea creature called Orak.
And I think what happened in the early drafts— and I guess this just ended up being a cheap way for adding tension to the manuscript— was by having Orak repeatedly complain and question and second guess every single thing he did. So in the first draft, by the end of it the culmination of that was that Taalik was this henpecked husband. And that was wrong in a number of ways. I mean, it was unfair to Orak, because she was supposed to be a cool character. And it made the Sarcops too human, almost to the point where it’s like a sitcom. Not what I was going for.
This is why editors are so important. Because my editor was like, look, I want you to make it really, really much weirder than that. Where they have this understanding, but Orak’s arc should not just be her bugging Taalik every time he makes a decision. That doesn’t work for her and it doesn’t work for the story. So it’s hard to explain how much of a change that was, but I assure you it was quite a large one.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, it sounds big. Well, talking of things that change that you had to cut, was there anyone’s backstory in particular, pre-change life that you wanted to include but you didn’t get a chance to? Because I love reading about everyone’s backstory and wondered if there was more, more!
ROBERT REPINO: This is a case where, much like the first manuscript, my editor looked at it and said, I need you to take out 100 pages. And I was like, you’re insane. But then when I looked at it, I was like, OK, I think I could. So I don’t think anybody lost a backstory, but the backstories definitely got trimmed a lot.
There was even a scene— this is my proudest moment when it comes to editing this book— there was even a scene where Falkirk, who’s the husky, and D’Arc— or I guess she’s Sheba at that point— they’re at the beaver village, and they sit around planning out things. And I changed it from six pages to one paragraph. And it still conveyed the same information. And I was so proud of myself.
GIN JENNY: Oh, good work. Great work.
ROBERT REPINO: That is good summarizing. [LAUGHTER] That could use a good summarizin’! So there was a lot of that kind of stuff, where the backstory just got trimmed down to a couple of sentences. And that’s really all you need to know. I mean, some of these characters are side characters.
There’s a character, for example, named Razz who’s a pug, who specializes in making moonshine, basically.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right, right.
ROBERT REPINO: So she has a little backstory just to explain who she is. Because the fact that she’s a pug automatically tags her as a former pet. And the animals who were former pets are sort of looked upon with some suspicion, because, like, oh, you got to live in a house and a human got to feed you other animal meat? You asshole, you know. That was a case where I think in the first draft, it was a really long story about how she had a master and blah, blah, blah. But I think I changed it to half a page or something. So I was able to keep all of them, and that’s the bottom line.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, that’s exciting, because I always love reading about them. I’m glad you brought up former pets, because thinking back, is it true that everyone whose point of view that we get, except for Taalik, used to be a former pet or domesticated in some way?
ROBERT REPINO: Well, in the second book I think that’s correct. In the first book, we have the Queen, and we also have a character named Culdesac who is a wild bobcat.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: So yeah, most of the animals had some kind of relationship with humans beforehand, either as pets, or in the case of Falkirk, he was a sledding dog on some ranch or something. Like a dog sledding kennel or something like that.
WHISKEY JENNY: And are there any wild characters that you want to tell more from, maybe the bats? I don’t know? [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny’s like, I don’t know, just one among many examples.
[LAUGHTER]ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, I didn’t set out to only focus on those kind of characters, but it ended up working out that way. Because so much of the action, especially in this book, involves the humans and the animals learning to work together. So it made sense that the animals who had some experience dealing with the humans would be at the forefront of all that. Wawa in particular, who has a very ambiguous relationship with the animals, because she used to be a dog fighting pit bull.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: A lot of people don’t know about her past in the story. The other characters don’t know, but the reader knows. It’s understood that she has a suspicion of them, but she knows them really well. She knows how to read them, and why is that? But it’s because she’s seen them at their worst, shall we say.
To answer your question, though, other characters that I would love to expand more. I don’t know where the story is going next exactly, but I do want to have a story involving Nikaya, the grumbly old beaver who maybe went wrong. I’m thinking specifically— and again, a bit of a spoiler, but— I’m thinking of writing a jailbreak story involving her.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Yes.
ROBERT REPINO: Her escaping from bat prison.
GIN JENNY: I was actually going to ask about this. I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but do you have plans to continue in this world?
ROBERT REPINO: I have very tentative plans. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it yet. Because I want to do this Nikaya story, which could be another novella.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: But I also have a vague idea of where I’m going next with the next story. And I’m not sure if I should do a novella and a novel, or if I should smash them together into one novel. I’m not sure yet.
GIN JENNY: Does the novel involve the sea?
ROBERT REPINO: Not as much. The thing I’ve been saying to people when they ask is [CREEPY VOICE] the wolves are coming.
WHISKEY JENNY: [GASP] Oh. My. God.
GIN JENNY: That’s great. Whiskey Jenny must be so excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so excited. I mean, my number one choice would be bats, but the wolves also seemed bananas, so that’s exciting.
ROBERT REPINO: What’s going to have to happen next is that this fledgling human-animal city is going to continue to grow. And it’s going to continue to try to make deals with animals living outside of it, and that’s going to lead to all sorts of problems.
So I think there’s going to be some territorial disputes. And I think there’s going to be a group of wolves that think that they can tip the balance of power. And I think it’s going to involve as well some humans who want to form an alliance with the wolves in a very bizarre way. So yeah, there’s all sorts of shenanigans afoot.
I need to just sit down and map it out again. Because that’s what I did with D’Arc. I drew up all the scenes, all the chapters that needed to happen, all the POV characters, and then went from there. So I need to just do that for the next book. But I’m working on some other stuff at the moment, so I’m not ready to get there yet. Maybe in 2018. That’s the plan.
GIN JENNY: OK, I have two short a follow ups. Number one, are there specific tools that you use to do your outlining? Like are there computer programs that work for you, or do you have a murder wall in your bedroom, or—?
ROBERT REPINO: Really I could do it on paper or on a Microsoft Word program, but basically I just come up with the chapters and what has to happen in each one.
GIN JENNY: OK.
ROBERT REPINO: I’ve tried to write it so that each chapter is pretty self-contained. It might end with a bit of a cliffhanger, and I guess that’s what you want, but each chapter is sort of a building block of the story, typically not just a meandering. I’ve tried to keep things focused that way. You have to, because if you have a big, sprawling story with multiple POVs, you really can’t wander from the storyline too much.
GIN JENNY: Right.
ROBERT REPINO: Even if you’re doing it because you think you’re building a character, or you think you’re just playing with the prose, or playing with the ideas, the story does not allow you to do that. And I’ve learned the hard way twice now, because when we went into the editing phase, it’s like, you can lose 100 pages. Tighten it up. I’m hoping the next time I don’t have to remove 100 pages, but at this point it’s part of the process.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Are you working on anything non-D’Arc at the moment?
ROBERT REPINO: Non-talking animal?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
ROBERT REPINO: I’m working on two manuscripts, and I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. One of them is a middle grade story.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeees. I’m so excited for it.
ROBERT REPINO: Have we talked about this off the—?
WHISKEY JENNY: We have, off air, and I’m so excited.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah it’s still— you know, I’m working with my agent, and I don’t know what’s going to— I’m totally new to this field. So it’s possible that it might not see the light of day. But basically I’m saying it’s a cross between Toy Story, Poltergeist, and The Dirty Dozen.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Ah. That sounds great.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, so it will involve a group of teddy bears who were trying to protect a kid who’s being threatened by monsters. So it’s like a league of teddy bears that protect children, and they’re fighting some monster that can travel between worlds and steal little children. So it’s— yeah, I don’t know. I’m hoping it works. We’re still in the middle of editing it.
Meanwhile I’m also doing a novel that’s based— it’s sort of the autobiographical novel. It’s kids going to Catholic school in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. So.
GIN JENNY: Ah, yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Catholicism.
ROBERT REPINO: It’s supposed to be a story in which a kid is blackmailing his principal. Which is not autobiographical. That part is not.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I was just about to be so excited for you.
ROBERT REPINO: No, I never pulled a stunt like that. Yeah, I’m trying to still edit it. It’s really been a long process. And that one might not see the light of day either. I mean, I’m still dealing with this sort of thing in my writing career where I write something and I’m like, actually, it turned out that’s not going to work. So let’s just move on to the next thing.
GIN JENNY: Back to the drawing board.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah. I’m still optimistic. Like, I have a full draft of it. But it still needs a lot of editing and maybe even some rethinking. I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Cool. Well, I’ll look forward to seeing whatever it turns out to be.
ROBERT REPINO: Thank you, thank you.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, one last D’Arc question. If this gets turned into a movie, do you have any ideal fantasy casting for any of the parts?
ROBERT REPINO: I actually wrote something about this for Tor.com. Maybe things have changed since then. But I was thinking for the Mort(e) character, I think around the time I gave that interview I was just starting to watch Game of Thrones, and I think I said Peter Dinklage could be Mort(e).
GIN JENNY: Nice.
ROBERT REPINO: I liked the idea of having this person sound a little vulnerable. And I thought his performance as Tyrion fit well with Mort(e). I think the character Culdesac would have to be some older tough guy, and I think I’d said either Denzel or Liam Neeson.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. Love it.
ROBERT REPINO: The character of Wawa would have to be a pretty tough person too. I think I’d said Viola Davis at the time.
GIN JENNY: Fantastic.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah. Although it’s interesting, because in the audio book the narrator, Bronson Pinchot, he interpreted her as sort of a tough like New York lady, with a New York accent. So I’m like, huh. Maybe that could work.
And the queen, because she takes the voice of this sweet housewife as a sort of fake out, I was saying Amy Adams.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh!
ROBERT REPINO: That would be really creepy, actually.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I love that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my god.
ROBERT REPINO: D’Arc, I don’t know. I mean, I think it would have to be a younger actor. You know, while Mort(e) is supposed to be a little more old and wizened a little bit, D’Arc would have to be a younger— I don’t know who. I’m open to suggestions on that. Let’s say Jennifer Lawrence. Let’s throw that out there.
GIN JENNY: All right, yeah, let’s do it.
ROBERT REPINO: All right. Who am I missing? Maybe Falkirk, but I don’t know. That could just be any pretty boy. [LAUGHTER] Because he’s sort of a square. That’s his thing, is that he’s an officer who does the right thing. The fake-out with Falkirk is that he’s actually a trustworthy person, as opposed to everybody else who’s like, I’m damaged, so now I’m going to do something terrible.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I’m a wild card! Yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: And you asked earlier how the book changed. Another thing that changed a lot was Falkirk. Because he was this side character who grows in the plot. And originally he was more of a scaredy cat. In the first draft of the story, he is sort of bullied into taking command of the Vesuvius, which is the airship that is used for this important mission. In the later draft, he volunteers to do it, and basically bullies his way into doing it. So that shows you how he changed, because I wanted him to be a little more active and not just like galumphing along. That’s always the worst thing to do with a character, is that they’re just watching things happen to them and then sort of being shoved along.
GIN JENNY: It’s hard to identify with them then.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah. And really, the characters have to push the action. They have to drive the action. I hope I’ve achieved that, for whatever other mistakes I’ve made. I hope it works.
GIN JENNY: Well, I liked Falkirk, for whatever that’s worth. I enjoyed Falkirk.
ROBERT REPINO: I appreciate that. Yeah, he was a tough one, because he’s an interloper, and he’s sort of a square.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he’s kind of a straight ahead guy, and that can be hard to write in an interesting way.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. Although, in case people didn’t figure it out yet, the sexy stuff does involve him. So, you know. [LAUGHTER] So there you go.
WHISKEY JENNY: The so-called pretty boy.
ROBERT REPINO: If you haven’t bought the book yet, you definitely will now, I think. [LAUGHTER] Oh, animal sex, great. Sign me up.
GIN JENNY: Well, Robert, in honor of this series, I’ve constructed a game for you and Whiskey Jenny to play.
ROBERT REPINO: I’m really nervous here, because I’ve listened to your games before, and I’m really worried that my literary knowledge will not be up to it. But OK, I’ll try my best.
GIN JENNY: As always, Whiskey Jenny can tell you, making a game is very nerve-wracking, because it’s very hard to strike the right balance between way too easy and impossibly, insanely difficult.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s tricky, yeah.
ROBERT REPINO: OK.
GIN JENNY: I’ve striven to strike a balance here.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sure you’ve done a great job and I’m so excited to play. This is going to be great.
GIN JENNY: So what I’ve done here is that I’ve replaced elements of classic book titles with animals. So I’m going to describe the plot to you, and you have to guess the revised book title.
ROBERT REPINO: All right, let’s give it a shot.
GIN JENNY: OK, each of you pick a number between 1 and 50, and whoever is closer gets to go first.
ROBERT REPINO: 38.
WHISKEY JENNY: 16.
GIN JENNY: OK, Robert’s going to go first. It was 42. All right, you ready for it, Robert?
ROBERT REPINO: [NERVOUS] Yes.
GIN JENNY: The first one’s kind of hard. I apologize.
ROBERT REPINO: Augh, god.
GIN JENNY: A white Southern hunting dog and his family struggle to deal with the collapse of their fortunes in the first half of the 20th century. If you want a hint, I can tell you the author.
ROBERT REPINO: Augh. I’m guessing it’s a William Faulkner book.
GIN JENNY: I can’t say until you request a hint. I’m going to say you get two points if you guess it right off, and then one point if you need the author’s name as a hint.
ROBERT REPINO: All right, I’ll take a hint then, since I can’t guess it off the top of my head.
GIN JENNY: OK, it is William Faulkner.
ROBERT REPINO: [AUDIBLY ROLLING HIS EYES] It is William Faulkner. [LAUGHTER] I mean, I think the only Faulkner I read is As I Lay Dying, but I don’t think that’s the correct one. I don’t know which one it would be.
GIN JENNY: It’s The Hound and the Fury.
ROBERT REPINO: I’m going to— all right. All right. OK. [LAUGHTER] I was about to say The Power and the Glory, but I knew that was not it.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was close, though.
GIN JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: All right, The Hound and the Fury. That’s what it was. All right, Whiskey Jenny, you ready?
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, I’m ready
GIN JENNY: When a nut-loving rodent disappears from her home, her husband must fight to prove his innocence of her abduction and murder.
WHISKEY JENNY: Gone Squirrel!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: You got it, too!
ROBERT REPINO: Oh, jeez. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Sorry. [LAUGHTER] I got really excited.
ROBERT REPINO: All right, there’s too much giggling going on.
GIN JENNY: “There’s too much giggling going on” is actually our motto. OK, Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes.
GIN JENNY: An aging mollusk and his family struggle to deal with the fact that he and his line of work are becoming obsolete.
ROBERT REPINO: Death of a Mollusk. Death of an Octopus. I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Death of a Snailsman. You were so close. [LAUGHTER] I’m so charmed by my own game. All right, Whiskey Jenny.
ROBERT REPINO: Wait, is an octopus a mollusk? Did I get that wrong?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know.
ROBERT REPINO: I gotta look that up. OK, I was on the right track with some of these. OK, I’m not totally stupid.
GIN JENNY: You were very close.
WHISKEY JENNY: Can I have a quick pause in the game to mention something that I wanted to mention about octopuses and their consciousness?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: So there were two octopus consciousness books that came out recently and, Robert, I just wanted to make sure that you knew that one of them was selected by Andrew Luck for his book club.
ROBERT REPINO: I heard about that, yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, great.
GIN JENNY: So important.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, game.
GIN JENNY: All right, Whiskey Jenny. Impoverished ungulates fight for justice, equality, and love in 19th century France.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know what an ungulate is.
GIN JENNY: It’s a hooved mammal.
WHISKEY JENNY: Um, I feel like it’s Les Mis, but I can’t think of any horned animals that rhyme with Les Mis. Hmm.
GIN JENNY: Hee hee hee, hee hee hee, hee. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Hay Mis. I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: It’s actually Les Mooserables.
WHISKEY JENNY: Les Mooserables!
ROBERT REPINO: Oh, get out of here.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Are you kidding me?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Robert storms out.
ROBERT REPINO: I just flipped this table over, by the way.
GIN JENNY: Robert, an elderly man struggles to reel in a parasitical insect in his ship off the coast of Florida.
ROBERT REPINO: The Old Man and the Flea!
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: All right, Whiskey Jenny. Two Colombian birds of peace fall in love but cannot be together. The book follows the course of their relationship over the years.
WHISKEY JENNY: Colombian birds of peace? Doves in the Time of Cholera?
ROBERT REPINO: Wow!
GIN JENNY: Yes! I’m glad you got that one, because if that had been given to me, there’s no chance I would have gotten it. OK, Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: OK.
GIN JENNY: So this book about frogs traveling cross country is considered one of the defining works of the counter-cultural movement that followed World War II.
ROBERT REPINO: On the Toad.
GIN JENNY: On the Toad! [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw. Just hopping along.
ROBERT REPINO: All right.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It’s a pleasant mental image.
ROBERT REPINO: I was about to think Wind in the Willows there, but I was like, wait, no, no that’s not right. That’s not right.
GIN JENNY: That’s a real book. All right, Whiskey Jenny. A group of medieval bird monks is cast into disarray when members of their order begin to die under mysterious circumstances.
WHISKEY JENNY: Bird monks?
GIN JENNY: Well, monk birds. I mean, you know, they’re monks that are also birds.
WHISKEY JENNY: Name of the Crows?
GIN JENNY: Name of the Crows!
ROBERT REPINO: Ah! I knew it! [BANGING]
GIN JENNY: OK, Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: All right.
GIN JENNY: An imaginative orphan insect goes to live with a middle aged brother and sister in a small Canadian town.
ROBERT REPINO: Geez, I don’t even know the book that you’re describing, so I don’t know what— well, I’ll take the author name, sure.
GIN JENNY: LM Montgomery.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, I don’t think I know this one. Sorry.
GIN JENNY: I’m imagining Whiskey Jenny rocking back and forth in her chair. [LAUGHTER] It is Ant of Green Gables.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Right, right?
ROBERT REPINO: I didn’t know there was in Canada. I’m a jerk. I’m a jerk. I’m horrible. I’m a horrible person. I didn’t read it.
GIN JENNY: No, you’re fine. I really don’t think there’s a moral valence attached to having read or not read a particular book. All right, Whiskey Jenny. A young British woman nearly misses her chance for marriage because she’s too obsessed with the possibility that something sinister is happening with her suitor Henry’s family crustacean.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have no idea what book that is, so I need the author.
GIN JENNY: Jane Austen.
WHISKEY JENNY: The one with Henry? Hm. [LAUGHTER] All right, all right. There’s only so many Jane Austens. Which one rhymes with crab, or lobster, or shrimp?
GIN JENNY: That’s a very good grasp on crustaceans you have.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you, thank you. Northanger Crabby?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Northanger Crabby is correct.
ROBERT REPINO: What!?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: I’m getting destroyed here. I think I’m going to make a comeback. I think I’m feeling good about this one.
GIN JENNY: I think you are, too. While on a pilgrimage, a large pod of sea mammals share their life stories with one another.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. No, I know the book that you’re talking about. I’m just trying to figure out how to work an animal— how to shoehorn an animal in here.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Gracefully.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes. All right, I know it’s Canterbury Tales, right? But I— dolphins travel in a pad. Oof. Yeah, sorry, I don’t know that one.
GIN JENNY: No, that’s OK. It’s The Canterbury Whales.
ROBERT REPINO: Wait, they’re in pods, too?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, man.
ROBERT REPINO: I didn’t think so. I thought only dolphins were in pods.
GIN JENNY: No, I think whales are in pods. Although now I’m doubting myself.
ROBERT REPINO: You know what’s funny, I thought that was too easy. I was like, no, it’s gotta be dolphins. It’s some other word for dolphins. I was way overthinking this. No, that was a good one. I’m going to chug some more wine over here, OK?
WHISKEY JENNY: That’ll help.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, do it. Whiskey Jenny. All right, a wolflike animal from Spain endeavors to right the world’s wrongs by becoming a knight errant.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, oh, oh! This one’s so good! [LAUGHTER] I’m excited! Don Coyote!
GIN JENNY: Don Coyote! I appreciate y’all’s support from my really ridiculous—
WHISKEY JENNY: I love it.
ROBERT REPINO: This is great. Aw, man, I’m—
GIN JENNY: OK, no, you’re brilliant, Robert. Here’s your next one.
ROBERT REPINO: All right. Redemption’s here.
WHISKEY JENNY: Rally cap.
GIN JENNY: An orphaned water mammal discovers his true magical heritage when he goes off to wizard school.
ROBERT REPINO: Uh, so that will be Harry Otter.
GIN JENNY: Harry Otter is correct.
ROBERT REPINO: Jeez, thank you. Good job randomizer. I appreciate that one. Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I had to choose between Harry Otter and Otterhouse Five, and I want you guys to know, it was a really difficult decision.
ROBERT REPINO: I would’ve screwed up Otterhouse Five. I’ll tell you that right now.
GIN JENNY: I couldn’t think of a plot description for Otterhouse Five.
ROBERT REPINO: Yeah, that’s a tall order.
GIN JENNY: All right, Whiskey Jenny. A woolly private investigator is called in to track down the blackmailer of a wealthy veteran’s daughter.
WHISKEY JENNY: Woolly private investigator. I guess I need a hint.
GIN JENNY: OK, the author is Raymond Chandler.
WHISKEY JENNY: See, all right. The Big Sheep.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: The Big Sheep is correct.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was trying to think. All I could think of was the detective’s name, so I was like, oh, Philip Marlowe. But I couldn’t put an animal name in there. I forgot to think of the title.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I do imagine that in this case his name is Philip Ma-ah-ah-ahrlowe.
ROBERT REPINO: [MOAN] Oh jeez. [LAUGHTER] I flipped the table again. I just put it back up, and then I flipped it again.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: OK Robert, your turn. A water bird and a slave escape from a small town in Missouri and encounter colorful characters on their travels.
ROBERT REPINO: OK, so I think we’re talking about Huckleberry Finn.
WHISKEY JENNY: A Huckleberry Finn water bird?
ROBERT REPINO: Huckleberry Finch?
GIN JENNY: Oh, that’s really strong. You know, I’m going to take that.
ROBERT REPINO: What was it?
GIN JENNY: It was Duckleberry Finn, but I think Huckleberry Finch also works.
ROBERT REPINO: But I don’t think finch is a water bird, so I don’t think I should have that point.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s a duckleberry?
GIN JENNY: Duck. Duck.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Right.
ROBERT REPINO: Again, I was fixated on the wrong word. Because I figured Finn was like— I was like, wait. Is there a bird called a finn? I think it’s just Hucklebutter Finn then. That’s what I was thinking. I was like, dude, they’re trying to get me on a trick question! That’s what I was thinking.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: All right, Whiskey Jenny, this one’s kind of a trick question, so bear with me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, no. OK.
GIN JENNY: A sister and brother in 1930s Alabama grapple with the impact of their father’s decision to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman.
WHISKEY JENNY: [IN A TINY VOICE] But. [LAUGHTER] But.
ROBERT REPINO: So evil.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is it? Well now I don’t want to— is it To Kill a Mockingbird?
GIN JENNY: It is To Kill A Mockingbird.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, OK.
ROBERT REPINO: See, so there was one of those!
GIN JENNY: Yeah, there was one of those.
ROBERT REPINO: Oi.
GIN JENNY: Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: Yes?
GIN JENNY: Five families of waterfowl grapple with the 1812 French invasion of Russia and its aftermath in this epic novel.
ROBERT REPINO: War and Geese?
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw, War and Geese!
ROBERT REPINO: OK.
GIN JENNY: A mysterious feline millionaire comes to New Jersey throwing wild parties and spending money like water as part of a plan to win back the love of his life.
WHISKEY JENNY: The Great Catsby!
GIN JENNY: The Great Catsby.
[LAUGHTER]ROBERT REPINO: That’s the story of Mort(e). That was the original title for it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Make it rain!
GIN JENNY: OK, Robert, last one.
ROBERT REPINO: OK.
GIN JENNY: An upper class linguist teaches a young flower-selling swine to speak the King’s English.
ROBERT REPINO: Oh, I’m going to need a hint on that. I’m not sure what the book is, so I’ll need a hint.
ROBERT REPINO: It by George Bernard Shaw.
ROBERT REPINO: Ooh. Sorry to go out like this. I’m not sure.
GIN JENNY: It’s Pigmalion. It’s, again, slightly a trick.
ROBERT REPINO: Augh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Curses.
GIN JENNY: My sister always said she was going to get two pigs and name them Hamlet and Pygmalion.
ROBERT REPINO: You know what’s been funny? I’m looking at the sound waves on my screen here. And the sound waves that go with me making noises like aargh and gaah and eugh are very fun to look at.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I do like looking at the way the waveforms look. I can always tell when I’ve got a little bit of vocal fry because I can see it on the screen. All right, Whiskey Jenny, your last one.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, I’m ready.
GIN JENNY: A cranky songbird and his put-upon dog team up to ruin the holidays of a nearby village.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, How the Finch Stole Christmas?
GIN JENNY: How the Finch Stole Christmas is correct.
ROBERT REPINO: I knew there had to be a finch in there somewhere.
WHISKEY JENNY: There you go.
GIN JENNY: And you were correct.
WHISKEY JENNY: I had finches on the brain thanks to Robert.
ROBERT REPINO: So we can skip the final score, right? Just move on to the next— oh boy.
GIN JENNY: Everyone is a winner, except for me and my terrible puns, let’s be honest.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, they were so great!
ROBERT REPINO: I am so impressed. And really, I should be listening to your show more, because I need to brush up on these things.
GIN JENNY: Well we can’t often do a game, because usually it’s just the two of us. So we can’t— so we’re always excited to have a guest on and do one of our ridiculous games.
ROBERT REPINO: And destroy their souls, yes.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, that’s the main goal, I would say.
ROBERT REPINO: Right.
GIN JENNY: Well, Robert, if the people want to find you on the internet, where can they go to track you down?
ROBERT REPINO: I do have a website that I need to work, on robertrepino.com But I also have a Twitter feed, Repino1 at Twitter. And I think if you Google me you might see some of my articles on Tor.com. I occasionally write for them about pop culture and movies. And I think my most recent one was on the movie Blue Thunder, a movie I grew up with, and its legacy among the schlocky ‘80s action films. Yeah, I think those are the main places you can find me.
GIN JENNY: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It was such a delight to have you, and I really enjoyed the book, and I’m looking forward to whatever you’re going to do next.
ROBERT REPINO: Thank you so much. I love your podcast, and I’m honored to be here. And I really appreciate it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, no, thank you.
GIN JENNY: All right, Whiskey Jenny, want to take us out?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m going to take us out. Well, this has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys, and very special guest Robert Repino. He just told you where to find him. You can find us at the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter @readingtheend. we’re both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. You can email us— please do, we love getting questions— at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.
And until next time, an excerpt from a beaver song from D’Arc by Robert Repino. “We will meet again in the darkness, where you and I will be the only light.”