Latest / Nerds of the Old Republic: The Drinking Person’s #Scifi Club / Dungeon Crawler Carl: Talking Cats, LitRPG and the Hilarious Apocalypse

Transcript

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Talking Cats, LitRPG and the Hilarious Apocalypse · Nerds of the Old Republic: The Drinking Person’s #Scifi Club

• 0:00
  Speaker0: I like to read.
• 0:01
  Speaker1: Well, I was
• 0:04
  Speaker1: gonna do this bit, but we're just gonna start with that.
• 0:06
  Speaker0: Did you
• 0:08
  Speaker0: catch that?
• 0:09
  Speaker2: I like to read.
• 0:09
  Speaker1: Hot open, yeah. I
• 0:11
  Speaker0: like to
• 0:11
  Speaker0: read. Books
• 0:12
  Speaker2: are cool. Yay,
• 0:15
  Speaker2: books!
• 0:16
  Speaker1: Then I'm gonna change the intro. Ready?
• 0:18
  Speaker1: New achievement! You've admitted something
• 0:22
  Speaker1: embarrassing that most adults would never say out loud in
• 0:26
  Speaker1: a voice that was infantilizing. You get a
• 0:31
  Speaker1: hug from a family member!
• 0:34
  Speaker0: Goddammit,
• 0:36
  Speaker0: Adam.
• 0:40
  Speaker1: Well,
• 0:46
  Speaker1: uh, firstly, if you don't know what we're talking about,
• 0:50
  Speaker1: um, we are Nerds of the Old Republic and we like to drink
• 0:54
  Speaker1: and read. That's pretty much it.
• 0:55
  Speaker2: It's true.
• 0:56
  Speaker0: Yeah, guilty as charged.
• 0:57
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 0:58
  Speaker1: Sean admitted something that we were all concerned about,
• 1:01
  Speaker1: and we know he likes to read now, which is good because he's been putting
• 1:05
  Speaker1: up with us for 6 seasons now. So I'm glad that you like to do
• 1:09
  Speaker1: something that we've been doing together.
• 1:10
  Speaker0: It's the best 6 seasons of my life,
• 1:12
  Speaker0: guys.
• 1:12
  Speaker1: Oh wow. Wow.
• 1:15
  Speaker1: Um, your family doesn't listen to this, do they?
• 1:18
  Speaker0: Uh,
• 1:18
  Speaker0: maybe? I have family who does,
• 1:22
  Speaker0: yes, but not like my immediate family. Okay. I have forbidden my children
• 1:26
  Speaker0: from ever looking me up in my, uh, My wife could care less.
• 1:29
  Speaker2: Well, they have the pleasure of listening to you every day.
• 1:32
  Speaker0: Yeah, they don't
• 1:33
  Speaker0: need to hear this voice any more than this.
• 1:35
  Speaker1: Yeah, and my family
• 1:37
  Speaker1: has the same opinion about this whole endeavor, so they choose not
• 1:40
  Speaker1: to listen. So okay, good. Then I can admit some things on the air today
• 1:44
  Speaker1: too.
• 1:44
  Speaker0: Excellent.
• 1:45
  Speaker2: Well, and see, so what happens is my son falls
• 1:47
  Speaker2: asleep with his Alexa on listening to stuff on Spotify,
• 1:52
  Speaker2: but when something ends on Spotify, it'll just pick
• 1:56
  Speaker2: something else from your Spotify and start playing it, and I have caught him numerous
• 1:59
  Speaker2: times times late at night listening, or he's told me the next day,
• 2:03
  Speaker2: like, Daddy, your podcast came on. I'm like, oh,
• 2:06
  Speaker2: that's great. Did you hear anything, uh, interesting? And he'd be like, well, you said
• 2:10
  Speaker2: some, some words, Daddy.
• 2:12
  Speaker0: Words you only ever say in
• 2:14
  Speaker0: the car.
• 2:14
  Speaker2: Or when the Sabres are on.
• 2:15
  Speaker1: Well, that explains
• 2:18
  Speaker1: our one American listener.
• 2:20
  Speaker2: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
• 2:22
  Speaker1: No, I'm just kidding. Thank you if you are back here with us for season
• 2:26
  Speaker1: 6, or if this is your first find of us. We are Nerds of the
• 2:28
  Speaker1: Old Republic, and we are going to be talking about Dungeon Crawler Karl. And if
• 2:32
  Speaker1: you've never been with us before, the very first thing we do so that I
• 2:35
  Speaker1: feel like I'm smarter than I normally am is we have a drink.
• 2:39
  Speaker1: So Sean was in charge of, uh, this cast drink. What'd you
• 2:42
  Speaker1: bring us?
• 2:43
  Speaker0: All right, so, uh, since we're talking about Karl and
• 2:46
  Speaker0: Donut— I'm sorry, Princess Donut.
• 2:49
  Speaker1: Best in Show.
• 2:50
  Speaker0: Best in Show, the Queen and Chonk.
• 2:53
  Speaker1: Very good.
• 2:53
  Speaker0: I, I had to get the best beer I could find that sort
• 2:57
  Speaker0: of captured that idea. And I got us
• 3:01
  Speaker0: a beer that's called Fat Orange Cat Chunky.
• 3:05
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 3:05
  Speaker1: Wow.
• 3:06
  Speaker0: And it's a double IPA, bitches, so you know I'm
• 3:09
  Speaker0: gonna suffer.
• 3:10
  Speaker2: There is—
• 3:10
  Speaker1: I appreciate you suffering.
• 3:11
  Speaker2: There is nothing you will not
• 3:13
  Speaker2: do for this cast.
• 3:13
  Speaker0: I— well, you know, I bought the beer because of the
• 3:16
  Speaker0: can. I didn't buy the beer for what the beer is, so.
• 3:20
  Speaker2: Well, this cast has done so much for you.
• 3:23
  Speaker2: It's natural that you would want to get something back.
• 3:26
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 3:26
  Speaker0: Are there— I don't know if there's anything to read on the scan.
• 3:29
  Speaker1: I just looked now.
• 3:30
  Speaker0: Yeah, wait a minute, I see
• 3:32
  Speaker0: 8% alcohol by volume.
• 3:37
  Speaker0: Fuck! That's gonna fuck us up, boys.
• 3:39
  Speaker2: Good thing we're only recording one
• 3:41
  Speaker2: episode tonight.
• 3:41
  Speaker1: That's true, yeah. If this were like a night where we decided to
• 3:44
  Speaker1: do 3 episodes or something, that would hurt.
• 3:46
  Speaker0: Oh my God, why would anyone want
• 3:48
  Speaker0: to do that?
• 3:48
  Speaker2: It's like we had, uh, you know, the last time
• 3:52
  Speaker2: that we 3 met a month ago and drank that cider when we were Recorded
• 3:56
  Speaker2: Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that was excellent.
• 3:57
  Speaker1: Yeah, I'm hoping this
• 3:59
  Speaker1: is as good too.
• 4:00
  Speaker0: And when we 3 shall meet again, we'll have another beverage.
• 4:03
  Speaker0: That's right,
• 4:04
  Speaker2: another
• 4:04
  Speaker0: Monopoly-themed.
• 4:07
  Speaker0: Oh God. Oh,
• 4:08
  Speaker1: you
• 4:08
  Speaker0: can't
• 4:10
  Speaker1: see it,
• 4:10
  Speaker1: but Sean just took a smell of the beer. He didn't— he got
• 4:14
  Speaker1: it to his chin.
• 4:15
  Speaker2: Oh yeah, people familiar with
• 4:18
  Speaker2: the cast will know, uh, the baked-in mythology here where Sean hates IPA but
• 4:22
  Speaker2: regularly brings them himself.
• 4:24
  Speaker1: Yes, Mike and I will drink whatever
• 4:26
  Speaker1: Sean brings.
• 4:27
  Speaker0: I always choose a book by its cover.
• 4:30
  Speaker1: That's fair.
• 4:31
  Speaker0: Damn, this is like— this beer smells like the cat on
• 4:34
  Speaker0: the label pissed into this can.
• 4:37
  Speaker2: This is
• 4:39
  Speaker2: before we have taken sip 1.
• 4:41
  Speaker1: Yeah, for listeners
• 4:43
  Speaker1: who know their hops, it smells of CitMo. It's Citron Mosaic is
• 4:47
  Speaker1: what it smells like. So if you like IPAs, it's gonna be for you.
• 4:50
  Speaker0: Fuck your hops. All right, I'm sorry, let's just drink this thing.
• 4:53
  Speaker1: Never give a
• 4:54
  Speaker1: new fucker's hops.
• 4:55
  Speaker2: Well, I, I like to pour it in the glass because I
• 4:57
  Speaker2: love seeing the color on these things. And this is a hazier one, not the
• 5:01
  Speaker2: haziest of the hazy IPAs. It's not like a grapefruit juice, but—
• 5:04
  Speaker1: Yeah, you can't
• 5:05
  Speaker1: see it. That's opaque.
• 5:06
  Speaker2: Yeah. All right, cheers, gentlemen.
• 5:07
  Speaker1: Cheers.
• 5:08
  Speaker0: Enjoy.
• 5:10
  Speaker2: It's pretty good.
• 5:14
  Speaker1: God damn
• 5:15
  Speaker1: it, Donut, that's good.
• 5:16
  Speaker2: It's, uh, it's almost, uh,
• 5:18
  Speaker2: very pineapple-y, I would say.
• 5:20
  Speaker1: It is. That's a good way to describe
• 5:22
  Speaker1: it.
• 5:22
  Speaker0: Pineapple-y?
• 5:23
  Speaker2: Pineapple-y.
• 5:24
  Speaker0: Okay.
• 5:26
  Speaker0: One sip in, it's not the worst IPA I've ever
• 5:30
  Speaker0: drank.
• 5:30
  Speaker2: Okay, all right, well then. Yeah, for the beer it
• 5:32
  Speaker1: is.
• 5:33
  Speaker0: It's okay.
• 5:34
  Speaker1: At 8%, I don't get that like alcohol-y aftertaste
• 5:38
  Speaker1: at the end of it, which you sometimes do in the higher side. So yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker0: it's not killing me.
• 5:42
  Speaker2: There are certain IPAs where I feel like
• 5:45
  Speaker2: I'm being stabbed between my rib cage because they're just so acidic.
• 5:49
  Speaker2: Yeah, um, this one, not getting that at all. This is nice.
• 5:53
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 5:53
  Speaker0: it's drinkable so far.
• 5:55
  Speaker1: Quaffable.
• 5:56
  Speaker1: It's—
• 5:56
  Speaker0: it's not quaffable, goddamn it.
• 5:58
  Speaker0: It's drinkable.
• 6:00
  Speaker1: Yeah, at 8%,
• 6:02
  Speaker1: when you get halfway through the can, you're gonna enjoy it.
• 6:05
  Speaker2: That, that's how a, a good IPA should function.
• 6:09
  Speaker2: The first few sips you should be like, eh, but by about the
• 6:13
  Speaker2: dozenth sip you should be like, this is fucking excellent.
• 6:15
  Speaker1: I love this.
• 6:16
  Speaker0: Yeah,
• 6:16
  Speaker0: you guys don't know how many stouts and porters I passed up for this.
• 6:21
  Speaker0: So
• 6:22
  Speaker1: I— one, I appreciate it, but I
• 6:25
  Speaker1: think, you know, Mike and I would literally drink. Yeah, we've drinking— I know,
• 6:28
  Speaker1: Jenny Cream Ale.
• 6:29
  Speaker2: Yeah,
• 6:29
  Speaker0: none of them were— none of them were on,
• 6:32
  Speaker0: um, theme, so I couldn't—
• 6:34
  Speaker2: Honestly, I will say
• 6:36
  Speaker2: you could not have done better thematically. This is outstanding.
• 6:39
  Speaker0: Chunky.
• 6:40
  Speaker2: How you got a cat and the
• 6:42
  Speaker2: word chunk on here, that is, uh,
• 6:45
  Speaker2: about perfect.
• 6:49
  Speaker0: Even a blind squirrel drinks the shittiest beers or not. It's not
• 6:53
  Speaker0: that bad. No. We've had much worse on this cast.
• 6:56
  Speaker1: This is true.
• 6:57
  Speaker1: This is true. Um, I'm thinking about some generic ChatGPT
• 7:02
  Speaker1: drinks that we had that were just sugar and vodka.
• 7:05
  Speaker2: There was of course our journey into absinthe.
• 7:08
  Speaker1: That's right.
• 7:09
  Speaker0: Wait till next time.
• 7:10
  Speaker2: Another high point.
• 7:11
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Speaker1: I'm, I'm looking forward to that
• 7:15
  Speaker1: one.
• 7:15
  Speaker0: Oh man, this is like, uh, uh, okay,
• 7:18
  Speaker0: it's, it's a beer.
• 7:19
  Speaker1: Just untucking his shirt.
• 7:21
  Speaker0: Yeah. Oh, my,
• 7:22
  Speaker0: uh, my Zabils, uh, shirt that you guys own. Shout out to our friend Cast.
• 7:26
  Speaker0: Oh yeah, brother Cast. Za Bills. They're going strong
• 7:30
  Speaker0: in the Bills season right now.
• 7:31
  Speaker1: Go Bills! Yeah, go Bills!
• 7:32
  Speaker0: Listen to Za Bills
• 7:33
  Speaker0: wherever you can get your podcasts.
• 7:35
  Speaker1: Well, let's,
• 7:36
  Speaker1: uh, let's lead into this. So Dungeon Crawler Carl is having a moment, and I
• 7:40
  Speaker1: don't know how much I need to describe it, but it's
• 7:43
  Speaker0: a cultural zeitgeist.
• 7:45
  Speaker1: Yeah, I'll give it a quick TL;DR sort of glance and then we'll talk about
• 7:49
  Speaker1: it. So, uh, affectionately called Lit RPG Which would be
• 7:53
  Speaker1: a literature take on RPG. Um, have you guys
• 7:56
  Speaker1: played like RPG video games before?
• 7:59
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 7:59
  Speaker1: Okay.
• 8:00
  Speaker2: Uh, very almost zero. Not,
• 8:03
  Speaker2: not zero, but like almost. Yes.
• 8:06
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 8:06
  Speaker1: I, I spent 120 hours playing Final Fantasy 8.
• 8:10
  Speaker0: Ah, yes.
• 8:10
  Speaker1: So like, that's, that's my background
• 8:14
  Speaker1: in this. And then obviously playing D&D a lot. So this is, um, pretty much
• 8:17
  Speaker1: like if you play D&D or any of those like Baldur's Gate, BG3 now
• 8:21
  Speaker1: is the most recent one.
• 8:22
  Speaker0: Breath of the Wild.
• 8:23
  Speaker1: Breath of Yeah,
• 8:24
  Speaker1: that'll get you.
• 8:26
  Speaker0: Oh, it's so fucking good!
• 8:29
  Speaker2: That, that is the one I think that I've played. Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker2: Um, we bought a system for my son years ago and that game, and I,
• 8:35
  Speaker2: I played it for a couple of days.
• 8:38
  Speaker2: That's great. It's just very cool to look
• 8:42
  Speaker2: at, but I have no background in video games at all and I was confused
• 8:45
  Speaker2: the whole time.
• 8:45
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker1: Yeah. And like,
• 8:49
  Speaker1: I feel that way now about modern video games. Maybe that's why I didn't pick
• 8:52
  Speaker1: up Breath of the Wild. Like, I don't play RPGs now.
• 8:54
  Speaker0: Guys, I, I am
• 8:55
  Speaker0: not a modern video game guy, but that is probably the greatest game
• 8:59
  Speaker0: ever made by man.
• 9:00
  Speaker1: Wow.
• 9:00
  Speaker2: It's gorgeous to look at. I mean,
• 9:02
  Speaker2: you know, we were just talking about Lord of the Rings wandering around in the
• 9:05
  Speaker2: wild, and that whole video game, it was just like—
• 9:08
  Speaker2: I, I would get annoyed when the plot would come into it
• 9:12
  Speaker2: at all because I'm like, I kind of just want to run around in the
• 9:14
  Speaker2: world.
• 9:15
  Speaker0: And you can, right? You can. Kingdom and stuff. And Mike,
• 9:18
  Speaker0: honestly, it's, it's like Carl. It's really easy
• 9:22
  Speaker0: to pick it up as you go.
• 9:23
  Speaker2: Yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker0: If you just give it a little
• 9:24
  Speaker0: bit of time, like pretend your life depends on it and the world has come
• 9:28
  Speaker0: to an end and you have to survive this video game.
• 9:30
  Speaker2: That's the problem.
• 9:31
  Speaker2: There's no time to get it.
• 9:33
  Speaker1: You know, the Switch is a portable game
• 9:35
  Speaker1: system.
• 9:35
  Speaker2: That is true.
• 9:36
  Speaker1: You just ignore your family while being with them.
• 9:38
  Speaker0: Oh yeah, see, be, be together, but be you.
• 9:42
  Speaker2: Yeah, could probably do that at work as well. No, I'm glad we had this
• 9:46
  Speaker2: conversation.
• 9:46
  Speaker1: I'm not going to encourage that. We did have a colleague who did bring
• 9:50
  Speaker1: a game system every once in a while.
• 9:51
  Speaker0: Hmm, who is that?
• 9:53
  Speaker1: Uh,
• 9:53
  Speaker1: he is—
• 9:55
  Speaker0: Oh, that guy. Yeah, okay, never mind.
• 9:57
  Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, he's not with us anymore, but he was filling a long-term need.
• 10:01
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker1: And
• 10:02
  Speaker2: oh, recently?
• 10:03
  Speaker1: Yeah, I know who you mean. Yeah.
• 10:05
  Speaker1: Um, well, all the side tangent is to say that I
• 10:09
  Speaker1: think this like lit RPG trend is trying to bring
• 10:14
  Speaker1: back books to the masses in a way so that like, you know, if you
• 10:17
  Speaker1: play video games, everything, the setup feels familiar. You know, the story
• 10:20
  Speaker1: structure feels familiar.
• 10:21
  Speaker0: Kind of like Ready Player One too, in a way. Like,
• 10:23
  Speaker0: sure, that's sort of like the immersive— like, it's not
• 10:27
  Speaker0: a video game, it's real, and it is like an RPG, but there's
• 10:31
  Speaker0: a lot of that video game mechanic to it, like his inventory, stuff like
• 10:35
  Speaker0: that.
• 10:35
  Speaker1: Yeah, the, um, the,
• 10:38
  Speaker1: the setup, if you haven't read it yet, listener, is that, uh,
• 10:42
  Speaker1: Carl is a Basic average
• 10:46
  Speaker1: white man struggling with his relationship with his girlfriend and
• 10:51
  Speaker1: his cat. Well, her cat,
• 10:54
  Speaker1: this prize show-winning best-in-show Queen
• 10:58
  Speaker1: Anne Chonk, goes out the window one night and he
• 11:02
  Speaker1: just like slaps on some— what, his leather jacket,
• 11:04
  Speaker1: right?
• 11:05
  Speaker0: Leather jacket, boxer shorts.
• 11:07
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker1: Yeah. To run outside in the wintertime to go get her. And then aliens
• 11:11
  Speaker1: come and flatten the entire Earth. If you're inside of a building, you get flattened
• 11:15
  Speaker1: in the building. and you're dead.
• 11:16
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker1: So he was saved by this cat who
• 11:19
  Speaker1: he didn't really like very much. Well, he, he does,
• 11:23
  Speaker1: but—
• 11:23
  Speaker0: What a great, like, first scene too, when he's like, goddamn it, Donut!
• 11:27
  Speaker0: He's chasing the cat, and then the lady sticks her head out the window just
• 11:30
  Speaker0: as it happens, and like the severed head and everything. And it's like, dear Lord,
• 11:33
  Speaker0: what the fuck am I reading?
• 11:34
  Speaker1: Yeah, yeah, it, it definitely gave me,
• 11:38
  Speaker1: uh, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy vibes.
• 11:39
  Speaker0: Yes!
• 11:40
  Speaker1: Guy wakes up and the aliens
• 11:42
  Speaker1: come to the planet.
• 11:42
  Speaker2: I was going to This was a point I was,
• 11:45
  Speaker2: I was going to make, is that the beginning of this book is nearly
• 11:49
  Speaker2: identical to Hitchhiker. That's a book in which the aliens
• 11:53
  Speaker2: come to Earth, and it's the just total rando
• 11:57
  Speaker2: dude as our main character, the John Everyman. And he goes
• 12:00
  Speaker2: up into space in Hitchhiker. He goes into the video game here in
• 12:04
  Speaker2: essentially his pajamas. I believe it's a bathrobe in Hitchhiker's, right?
• 12:08
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 12:09
  Speaker2: And also, the aliens introduce themselves
• 12:12
  Speaker2: to Earth as this sort of like intergalactic corporation.
• 12:17
  Speaker2: Because in Hitchhiker, they're there like, you know, the plans to demolish
• 12:21
  Speaker2: your planet have been posted for decades and you had all this time to review
• 12:24
  Speaker2: it. And here it's like the same thing. It's a voice going through
• 12:27
  Speaker2: all the bureaucracy of, of what's about to happen. So it's a nearly identical,
• 12:32
  Speaker2: uh, introduction.
• 12:33
  Speaker0: I had that same reaction because my wife
• 12:36
  Speaker0: recommended reading this and she had already read the first book when I got into
• 12:39
  Speaker0: it. And I was sitting there, I remember sitting on our porch and having
• 12:43
  Speaker0: that exact same thought, like, This is just fucking Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• 12:46
  Speaker0: Why am I— I didn't even like that book. Why am I reading this?
• 12:49
  Speaker0: But I kept doing it because she was— she said stick with it, it's incredible.
• 12:53
  Speaker0: Yeah. And once you get past that first, like, the setup, which is essentially like
• 12:57
  Speaker0: a very, very loving homage to Hitchhiker, you're like,
• 13:00
  Speaker0: oh man, this is his own thing, his own voice. And it is completely so,
• 13:04
  Speaker0: to me, much better than that one.
• 13:06
  Speaker2: Strongly disagree with that point,
• 13:08
  Speaker2: but it definitely—
• 13:09
  Speaker1: Here's the disagreement.
• 13:10
  Speaker2: Well, no, it's not— all right,
• 13:12
  Speaker2: it's not an insult to Dungeon Crawler, just, you know, You know,
• 13:16
  Speaker2: obviously Hitchhiker is something I revere, so,
• 13:19
  Speaker2: um, it definitely becomes— it's what me and many
• 13:23
  Speaker2: other people have made that mistake then.
• 13:27
  Speaker2: But it's, uh, it'd be— it— after that nearly identical
• 13:31
  Speaker2: setup becomes very much a different property. Yeah, for sure. To your point,
• 13:35
  Speaker1: I think now that I'm thinking about it,
• 13:39
  Speaker1: besides being like the Hitchhiker for 2026, I actually
• 13:43
  Speaker1: don't remember when the first book was written because he's on book 8 now.
• 13:45
  Speaker0: Yeah,
• 13:46
  Speaker2: um, 2025.
• 13:47
  Speaker1: Thank you. No, I mean, it might be— we
• 13:50
  Speaker1: talked about how quickly the publishing industry makes you write books now.
• 13:52
  Speaker2: And these ones,
• 13:53
  Speaker2: I feel like they are dropping. I only became aware of this a couple years
• 13:56
  Speaker2: ago, uh, and I, I think I had told you, Sean.
• 13:59
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 14:00
  Speaker2: That I had
• 14:00
  Speaker2: started reading it maybe 8 or 10 months ago, and I put it down because
• 14:04
  Speaker2: it was more— I loved the premise, and it was more video gamey than I
• 14:08
  Speaker2: realized when I started reading it. And it was all like inventories and rules
• 14:12
  Speaker2: and like level bosses, and so I was like, oh shit, that's really video gamey.
• 14:16
  Speaker2: And so I put it down because I thought like,
• 14:19
  Speaker2: well, maybe I'm just not the, the audience for this. Um, but,
• 14:23
  Speaker2: uh, that was prior to us picking it back up for the podcast.
• 14:27
  Speaker2: Um, so yeah, I don't know what the point was I started out to make
• 14:31
  Speaker2: there and all,
• 14:31
  Speaker1: but— Oh, we were just talking about how this is like the—
• 14:34
  Speaker1: I was making the point that this is—
• 14:35
  Speaker2: Oh, how quickly they were coming out.
• 14:37
  Speaker2: That's right. Yeah. So, uh, it seems like it got very popular just
• 14:41
  Speaker2: within the past couple of years, and I don't know if that is when the
• 14:44
  Speaker2: first book came out, but—
• 14:45
  Speaker0: I think it was a pandemic writer or something.
• 14:47
  Speaker0: Okay. And he self-published it on Amazon. And then it gained some, like,
• 14:50
  Speaker0: a following there, and then it got picked up, and then it became this
• 14:54
  Speaker0: huge thing with— and this is where it gets interesting. If you don't
• 14:57
  Speaker0: know anything about this, folks, there's like 3 versions of every text.
• 15:02
  Speaker0: There's the print version, there's the audiobook version, and then there's the ebook version.
• 15:06
  Speaker0: And each one of them has different elements baked into it that are different from
• 15:09
  Speaker0: each other.
• 15:10
  Speaker2: I did not know that.
• 15:11
  Speaker1: I could believe that with audio and,
• 15:13
  Speaker1: and print.
• 15:13
  Speaker2: Now hang on a second. Did you read the print book?
• 15:17
  Speaker0: I read one of the print books. I've read most of them digitally.
• 15:20
  Speaker2: Okay, because I, I read the Kindle book and you did the audiobook,
• 15:24
  Speaker2: right? So that's interesting.
• 15:25
  Speaker1: We have the entire gamut.
• 15:27
  Speaker0: There's like
• 15:28
  Speaker0: the— there's this pineapple parade, there's all these other like, like things that happen in
• 15:31
  Speaker0: the epilogues and the prologues and whatever that are unique or
• 15:35
  Speaker0: bespoke for each version of the book. So it's
• 15:39
  Speaker0: interesting how they built this whole thing. And I guess I didn't know about that
• 15:42
  Speaker0: until a colleague of mine who was also an avid fan told me about it.
• 15:45
  Speaker0: He said you can find all the stuff online and you can kind of up
• 15:47
  Speaker0: with it there. But like, the audiobook has like this narrator that people like
• 15:51
  Speaker0: love. This guy narrator, oh, he does all the voices and everything.
• 15:54
  Speaker1: I was trying
• 15:55
  Speaker1: to channel him when I was doing the new achievement thing. That's how I hear
• 15:58
  Speaker1: his voice.
• 15:58
  Speaker0: It's crazy. I didn't, I didn't hear Princess Donut as a
• 16:02
  Speaker0: British voice. I heard her more of just sort of like a, like a yuppie
• 16:05
  Speaker0: kind of voice. But that aside, his, his range is incredible.
• 16:09
  Speaker0: Like, it's— and it's become this huge thing. And I guess Peacock is now gonna
• 16:13
  Speaker0: do— they've optioned it for a TV series, which I don't know how the hell
• 16:16
  Speaker0: you're gonna turn this into a TV show, that's gonna be an
• 16:20
  Speaker0: epic pass.
• 16:21
  Speaker2: However, that said, I don't know how
• 16:23
  Speaker2: the hell you don't turn this into some kind of thing. Like, as I was
• 16:27
  Speaker2: reading it, I just— I kept thinking to myself, this— somebody's
• 16:31
  Speaker2: got to be working on this. This, this has to be—
• 16:33
  Speaker0: It almost has to
• 16:34
  Speaker0: be animated though, just because the level of craziness in some of this stuff.
• 16:37
  Speaker0: Like, how can you pull this off even with digital effects? Yeah, it's insane.
• 16:41
  Speaker1: It— I'm just thinking about even like,
• 16:45
  Speaker1: yeah, the bosses and stuff and the goblins. Like,
• 16:49
  Speaker1: there's gonna be a lot of CGI if they're doing that.
• 16:52
  Speaker0: I wish it was
• 16:52
  Speaker0: like 20 or 30 years ago though, because Bruce Campbell would have been perfect to
• 16:55
  Speaker0: play Carl.
• 16:56
  Speaker1: Oh my God, Bruce can't wait. Bruce Campbell is Mordecai.
• 16:59
  Speaker0: Oh, he's in it.
• 17:01
  Speaker1: He is, but he's— no, I mean like he would
• 17:03
  Speaker1: be in there, but he wouldn't be the main role.
• 17:04
  Speaker0: He's got a terminal diagnosis.
• 17:06
  Speaker1: Bruce Campbell is not gonna make it.
• 17:08
  Speaker0: There are people talking like the guy— yeah,
• 17:10
  Speaker0: people have talked about, uh, the guy who plays Putty. From Seinfeld, what's his name?
• 17:15
  Speaker0: Uh, he was in The Tick.
• 17:15
  Speaker2: Oh yeah, that guy. Yeah, the guy, he does
• 17:17
  Speaker2: the voices for everything. He's Joe in Family Guy.
• 17:20
  Speaker0: Yeah, they were saying he could
• 17:21
  Speaker0: play Carl. Like, he's too old. He's way too old. Yeah, you gotta find a
• 17:24
  Speaker0: guy who's young and can pull it. Anyway, we're getting way up on a tangent.
• 17:28
  Speaker0: It's, it's becoming a thing. It's a real genuine something
• 17:32
  Speaker0: new. I mean, it's not like it's derivative of other things like we said,
• 17:36
  Speaker0: but it's a genuinely hot new property that, you know,
• 17:40
  Speaker0: you get these every once in a while. You gotta enjoy them when you get
• 17:42
  Speaker0: them. I had— I cannot
• 17:44
  Speaker2: I can honestly say I've never read anything like that
• 17:46
  Speaker2: before. That was wholly unique in my experience.
• 17:49
  Speaker1: I do
• 17:50
  Speaker1: think it is like the genre of lit RPG,
• 17:54
  Speaker1: I think, is more than just Matt Dinneman. I haven't read anybody
• 17:57
  Speaker1: else in it, but it seems to be a trending genre
• 18:01
  Speaker1: now that people are writing in.
• 18:02
  Speaker0: The guy's a greeting card writer. That was his
• 18:05
  Speaker0: like job before this. Really? Yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker1: That's— so to imagine you're like Hallmark card greeting writer where
• 18:12
  Speaker1: it's like, I'm so sorry that you lost your
• 18:16
  Speaker1: pet goldfish. They were the light of your life and they will always
• 18:19
  Speaker1: be around. And then you get to like level 2 of Dungeon Crawler Carl and
• 18:24
  Speaker1: it's like, mm, smush that
• 18:27
  Speaker1: orc. Which, by the way, like, I recommend
• 18:31
  Speaker1: you just go look up, like Sean was saying, the narrator. Like,
• 18:35
  Speaker1: watching the narrator read for the audiobook is transfixing because
• 18:39
  Speaker1: he does Like, it's this— he's got to be like 30,
• 18:42
  Speaker1: 35 maybe. And, you know, of course there's cuts where
• 18:47
  Speaker1: like they just put like his voices back to back. I'm sure there are different
• 18:49
  Speaker1: takes. I'm sure he stops between characters.
• 18:51
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker1: But like, as you watch
• 18:53
  Speaker1: a video of him reading the— just narrating, reading the book, it's phenomenal.
• 18:57
  Speaker1: It's like watching a live play, um,
• 19:00
  Speaker1: D&D game where people play the characters.
• 19:02
  Speaker0: Yeah,
• 19:03
  Speaker1: like
• 19:03
  Speaker0: he's
• 19:04
  Speaker0: like a radio drama.
• 19:05
  Speaker1: It is a radio drama. It's fantastic. It's transfixing.
• 19:07
  Speaker2: Okay.
• 19:08
  Speaker1: Um, so I literally
• 19:12
  Speaker1: came into this like, I don't know where to start because the whole premise
• 19:16
  Speaker1: of the book is pretty overwhelming.
• 19:17
  Speaker2: Yeah.
• 19:17
  Speaker1: And to know where to start, like,
• 19:19
  Speaker1: we could talk level by level, we could talk
• 19:22
  Speaker1: favorite parts, I think, um, characters.
• 19:24
  Speaker0: I mean, like, for people who
• 19:26
  Speaker0: haven't read it yet, stop this podcast right now, hit pause,
• 19:30
  Speaker0: go read it, and then come back and hit play. But it's— we've
• 19:34
  Speaker0: pretty much essentially explained it's an apocalyptic book. as a premise,
• 19:38
  Speaker0: but it's— I think
• 19:42
  Speaker0: the surface story— and now I've read most of the other
• 19:46
  Speaker0: texts so far. I don't know if you guys have gotten too deep into the
• 19:48
  Speaker0: catalog yet, but—
• 19:49
  Speaker1: No, I needed a palate cleanser after book 1.
• 19:51
  Speaker0: Okay. The, the brilliant thing I think that Deniman is able to achieve here is
• 19:56
  Speaker0: he's built a world out of this, a universe out of it that goes well
• 20:00
  Speaker0: beyond just the game. Because you're thinking, fucking 8 books about this game? Like,
• 20:03
  Speaker0: okay, they get a little old after a while. Okay, achievements, great. And yeah,
• 20:06
  Speaker0: the AI is funny every once in a while, blah blah blah. But he's— he
• 20:10
  Speaker0: works in intrigue and politics and all this
• 20:14
  Speaker0: stuff. And this— the, the universe has like this, um,
• 20:18
  Speaker0: uh, like this whole thing going on outside the game that it—
• 20:23
  Speaker0: I think it's actually really, really well achieved to get into it. So I— where
• 20:27
  Speaker0: the hell was I going with
• 20:27
  Speaker1: this? I'm just talking about how it's not just
• 20:30
  Speaker1: a video game.
• 20:31
  Speaker2: And, and, yeah, you know, I've only read the first book for
• 20:34
  Speaker2: this cast, but I can say that you definitely sense that that's the
• 20:38
  Speaker2: case because by halfway through the book, he's like appearing on
• 20:42
  Speaker2: intergalactic shows and there's competition between these shows.
• 20:45
  Speaker2: And then like administration starts showing up and
• 20:49
  Speaker2: then you find out that like administration is like,
• 20:53
  Speaker2: you know, working for quote unquote the party. So there's
• 20:57
  Speaker2: politics and, um, also that they're running the show out of desperation
• 21:01
  Speaker2: because like the party has like— like crashed and burned, like the economy
• 21:05
  Speaker2: or some shit. I don't know. Yeah, but you— there's little, like, you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker2: the second— the back half of the first book, you start picking up on that,
• 21:13
  Speaker2: like, much larger world going on.
• 21:14
  Speaker0: Yeah, there's— and even, like, the jokes about,
• 21:17
  Speaker0: like, Donut makes about Miss B and how she's cheating on Carl left and right
• 21:20
  Speaker0: and all this stuff, like, that gets, like, an emotional payoff at a certain point.
• 21:24
  Speaker0: Like, it's pretty— it's pretty incredible, like, how he'll pick up a throwaway
• 21:28
  Speaker0: thing that's like, oh, that's just a joke, and he turns it into this incredible
• 21:31
  Speaker0: pathos in this moment for the characters. And it's like, fuck, man, I I
• 21:35
  Speaker0: did not see that. There's— I can't— I can't remember a time I read a
• 21:38
  Speaker0: series of books where I was like, I did not see that coming. And this
• 21:41
  Speaker0: is one of those books where I'm like, I thought I saw it coming.
• 21:44
  Speaker0: That's not what I saw come.
• 21:46
  Speaker1: You get a little taste of that actually pretty
• 21:48
  Speaker1: early on when, um, I don't remember if
• 21:52
  Speaker1: Donut has had the special pet biscuit so she can talk
• 21:56
  Speaker1: or not yet, but there's that scene where he's got to decide
• 22:00
  Speaker1: whether or not to kill the first boss.
• 22:03
  Speaker0: Oh yeah.
• 22:04
  Speaker1: Um,
• 22:04
  Speaker1: and he's like, she's just a person.
• 22:07
  Speaker0: Yeah, that was
• 22:07
  Speaker1: like
• 22:08
  Speaker1: a person.
• 22:08
  Speaker0: Yeah, Donut has the biscuit like really early on, so it was— she
• 22:11
  Speaker0: was definitely like at that point sentient.
• 22:15
  Speaker1: So there's
• 22:16
  Speaker1: that part. The other part I was actually thinking about is when Carl
• 22:20
  Speaker1: starts getting into the act of killing in the dungeon and he's killing
• 22:23
  Speaker1: the, the goblins or the orcs, I always get confused. And he's like,
• 22:27
  Speaker1: goddamn it, Donut, there were kids in there, there were babies in there. He blows
• 22:30
  Speaker1: up a room full of babies.
• 22:32
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker1: And my son,
• 22:33
  Speaker1: who is 11, is reading it and he's like, Dad,
• 22:38
  Speaker1: like, he did a terrible thing. And then he felt terrible.
• 22:41
  Speaker1: And I'm like, what did he do? Oh my God, he blew up a room
• 22:44
  Speaker1: full of— but like, when you hear it or read it
• 22:47
  Speaker1: in the book, you're like, oh, that's actually a real character, like,
• 22:52
  Speaker1: making a choice he didn't want to make.
• 22:54
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 22:54
  Speaker1: And it's Donut's
• 22:56
  Speaker1: fault. I'm just gonna say it.
• 22:57
  Speaker0: Well, yeah, but he— The, the repercussions
• 23:01
  Speaker0: of that go well beyond even the immediacy of it because it's— you can tell
• 23:05
  Speaker0: he's, he's just trying to survive. He's just trying
• 23:08
  Speaker0: to like get through this game and see what the hell the next corner,
• 23:12
  Speaker0: you know, around what's around the next corner. But like that kind
• 23:15
  Speaker0: of stuff haunts him. It really does.
• 23:17
  Speaker2: And there's, uh,
• 23:19
  Speaker2: one of the things that I noticed is amidst all the frivolity and over-the-topness and,
• 23:24
  Speaker2: you know, all the stuff that's really you know, meant to be,
• 23:28
  Speaker2: you know, how far can we push this? And it's kind of funny and wild
• 23:31
  Speaker2: and exciting. There's constant references made to,
• 23:35
  Speaker2: um, the number of survivors in the game going
• 23:39
  Speaker2: down, and Carl always pauses to like look at
• 23:43
  Speaker2: that and, and have a moment of disbelief, like how many people just died in
• 23:46
  Speaker2: the last hour, you know? Yeah. And so, uh, you know, he,
• 23:50
  Speaker2: he definitely I wouldn't say it
• 23:53
  Speaker2: exactly balances out the over-the-topness of it, but it— the book wouldn't
• 23:57
  Speaker2: work. You certainly couldn't get 8+ books out of a series that was just
• 24:01
  Speaker2: crazy video game shenanigans. There has to be that, you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker2: sense of real— you use the word pathos, you know, or it
• 24:08
  Speaker2: wouldn't feel, you know, like there was
• 24:12
  Speaker2: worth. I'm kind of fumbling here at the end, but it adds
• 24:16
  Speaker2: something to it.
• 24:17
  Speaker0: There's more dimension to him. He's not just like this, like,
• 24:20
  Speaker0: okay, if you got got stuck in this situation where, oh my God, the rules
• 24:24
  Speaker0: are like whatever you can do and you can kill anybody and it's all good.
• 24:27
  Speaker0: Like the character Lou Shammar, and she's in the first one,
• 24:30
  Speaker0: right? Yeah, she's like that, like, like in
• 24:34
  Speaker0: South America. Yeah, I think they talk about— do the recaps, and she's like that
• 24:37
  Speaker0: girl who's got the dogs.
• 24:38
  Speaker1: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 24:39
  Speaker0: That's a character who
• 24:41
  Speaker0: is like gleefully approaching this as like, I can do whatever the fuck I want,
• 24:44
  Speaker0: I'm gonna do everything. Yes, exactly. Whereas Carl is
• 24:48
  Speaker0: still like, no, these are people. This is like— there are
• 24:52
  Speaker0: billions of people who are dead. What the fuck? This is fucked up.
• 24:55
  Speaker1: He spends
• 24:55
  Speaker1: 3 chapters with an old folks home.
• 24:58
  Speaker0: Yes. Right.
• 24:59
  Speaker0: Yes. So he gets how fucked up everything is in this,
• 25:02
  Speaker0: and he's just trying his best to make like what he can out of it
• 25:06
  Speaker0: and protect Donut the whole time. He's like his only family, really.
• 25:10
  Speaker0: And then you got other characters who are just like, fuck it, I'm all in,
• 25:12
  Speaker0: and they just go full murder and just kill everything
• 25:16
  Speaker0: and everybody around them because they think it's all just like this crazy nightmare
• 25:20
  Speaker0: dream game thing or something.
• 25:22
  Speaker1: And even if it wasn't
• 25:25
  Speaker1: a nightmare, I like was trying to find myself like, what would I do?
• 25:29
  Speaker1: Because, you know, when I play D&D, I try not to be the murder hobo,
• 25:32
  Speaker1: which is the phrase for like a group of characters who go around and just
• 25:36
  Speaker1: have fun killing everything because it's, it's just a game in the imagination and
• 25:40
  Speaker1: it's fine. It's fine to do that.
• 25:41
  Speaker0: Murder hobo sounds like a mob from this
• 25:43
  Speaker0: book.
• 25:44
  Speaker1: Yeah, actually. Right, like, new achievement!
• 25:48
  Speaker1: Oh, you've murdered a murder hobo mob.
• 25:50
  Speaker0: Oh my God, I didn't even know what
• 25:51
  Speaker0: mobs were. I had to like look that up on my mobile character thing or
• 25:55
  Speaker0: something, and it's like— or NPCs. Like, I knew what an NPC was.
• 25:58
  Speaker2: So I
• 25:59
  Speaker2: was gonna say, I, I feel like there's probably so much in this book that
• 26:02
  Speaker2: went so far over my head because like I just assumed that like a
• 26:06
  Speaker2: mob, oh, it's like a bunch of like a bunch of characters all together that
• 26:09
  Speaker2: he's got to kill at once. It's a mob, you know? I, I didn't know
• 26:12
  Speaker2: that that was a thing.
• 26:13
  Speaker0: Yeah, that's— I guess it's just a term that gamers
• 26:15
  Speaker0: use for like a single enemy you're fighting.
• 26:18
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker2: So what
• 26:20
  Speaker2: did you guys think of, um, because you were talking about like the voiceover and
• 26:23
  Speaker2: the new achievement and all that shit. Like,
• 26:26
  Speaker2: I'm, I'm just curious because like I'm not a video gamer
• 26:30
  Speaker2: and, uh, this stuff is all new to me.
• 26:33
  Speaker2: But, um, like when it
• 26:36
  Speaker2: would do that kind of stuff, you know, like new achievement and, uh,
• 26:41
  Speaker2: added to your inventory, and some of that stuff would go on for like on
• 26:43
  Speaker2: my Kindle like 2 or 3 pages, it felt
• 26:46
  Speaker2: like.
• 26:46
  Speaker1: Yeah, you and I talked in the hall about that.
• 26:48
  Speaker2: Yeah, so that— and
• 26:49
  Speaker2: I'm just wondering, is that like— is that— did you guys ever find that
• 26:53
  Speaker2: excessive? Or like, like, as a non-gamer, to me,
• 26:57
  Speaker2: I found myself skimming a lot of that. And I don't want to say that
• 27:00
  Speaker2: that was a problem with the book. I'm thinking that maybe that was a problem
• 27:04
  Speaker2: with me as the audience.
• 27:05
  Speaker0: No, it does get tedious after a little while.
• 27:08
  Speaker0: The achievement boxes and the stuff they get, it's important
• 27:12
  Speaker0: to the story, But Denamon does spend a lot
• 27:15
  Speaker0: of time doing like the achievement thing. And I guess it's like, you know,
• 27:20
  Speaker0: I— you look at it a certain way, you can think like, oh, it's the
• 27:22
  Speaker0: gift, it's the present they get for surviving this. And it's like, oh, it's like
• 27:25
  Speaker0: a little moment, like catch your breath kind of thing. But there's a little bit
• 27:28
  Speaker0: of tedium to it. I can say in later books he does pull back from
• 27:32
  Speaker0: that a bit.
• 27:32
  Speaker2: Dials it down.
• 27:33
  Speaker0: Yeah. And it does kind of come away a
• 27:35
  Speaker0: little bit more towards the, the outer bigger
• 27:39
  Speaker0: story than just the dungeon stuff.
• 27:41
  Speaker1: And it— that makes sense in a couple
• 27:43
  Speaker1: different ways. Like, as you play video games or as you play like
• 27:47
  Speaker1: D&D, the, the— strictly speaking from the D&D side,
• 27:50
  Speaker1: like, you want to get the player up to level 3 fast because that's when
• 27:54
  Speaker1: all the cool stuff happens for characters' choices and like the gear and
• 27:59
  Speaker1: whatnot. And then like 3 through 7 are a
• 28:02
  Speaker1: slog. Like, it takes a lot of effort to get up to there. So it
• 28:05
  Speaker1: makes sense that they pull it back. I mean, he's level 10 though before the
• 28:08
  Speaker1: end of the book, the first book. Um,
• 28:10
  Speaker0: yeah,
• 28:11
  Speaker1: but at the same time,
• 28:12
  Speaker1: I— just to answer your question, Mike, I did find it in the first
• 28:15
  Speaker1: couple chapters, like, I would zone out. Yeah, as you're going through,
• 28:19
  Speaker1: like, 4 level 2 pet biscuits,
• 28:22
  Speaker1: right? 13 dungeon wafers and 3 pairs
• 28:26
  Speaker1: of socks with a hole in the sole.
• 28:28
  Speaker0: Yeah, the, the thing about the
• 28:30
  Speaker0: AI is, uh, which actually is the one reading all the voices, is it becomes
• 28:34
  Speaker0: a character in itself. Yeah, as the story evolves. And I think that's also pretty
• 28:37
  Speaker0: cool that, like, like the game master or the dungeon master
• 28:42
  Speaker0: essentially is becoming its own thing. And like, and Karl's noticing it,
• 28:45
  Speaker0: he's like, the fuck?
• 28:46
  Speaker1: Yeah, he does in the middle of the first book.
• 28:48
  Speaker1: Yeah, because, uh, he stomps on something. Yeah. And then there's a
• 28:52
  Speaker1: reward for stomping it, and he's like, I know if I put
• 28:56
  Speaker1: these boots on, I'm not gonna have the buff anymore for my stomp attack.
• 28:59
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 29:00
  Speaker1: But I don't want to hear the creepy AI anymore.
• 29:03
  Speaker0: But that's
• 29:03
  Speaker0: his gamemanship. He knows that he's gotta also make the AI Horny.
• 29:08
  Speaker0: Yeah, it does.
• 29:09
  Speaker1: Yeah, for lack of a better word. Like, even, even Donut,
• 29:11
  Speaker1: like, encourages him to play it up.
• 29:13
  Speaker0: Yep. I think Donut is
• 29:15
  Speaker0: one of the best characters. I, I—
• 29:17
  Speaker1: people love Donut.
• 29:18
  Speaker0: Oh my God, Donut's amazing.
• 29:19
  Speaker0: My wife got a Donut shirt for her birthday from my daughter because she's just
• 29:22
  Speaker0: like, so loves that character. And it's like, it's a cat, first of all.
• 29:26
  Speaker0: How do you not love a cat character? A talking cat that's sassy.
• 29:29
  Speaker1: She's orange, right?
• 29:30
  Speaker0: Uh, no, she's like a a tortie or
• 29:34
  Speaker0: something, but she's, um, uh, an utterly unique
• 29:37
  Speaker0: character. And what they— what he does with this character I find so fascinating
• 29:42
  Speaker0: because she's a child essentially who has like the intelligence beyond Carl's intelligence.
• 29:46
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker0: But not like the emotional or the like situational intelligence
• 29:50
  Speaker0: yet. So it's interesting how he plays the 2 characters. Like Carl knows what
• 29:54
  Speaker0: to do because Carl's a gamer.
• 29:55
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker0: Carl knows this stuff. Donut is
• 29:58
  Speaker0: ridiculously intelligent and charismatic and everything and just Just
• 30:03
  Speaker0: the way that they sort of like almost— not as they use each other,
• 30:05
  Speaker0: but work together is super awesome. Like, just a dude and a fucking
• 30:09
  Speaker0: talking cat. Like, who comes up with this shit? But it's— it
• 30:13
  Speaker0: works so well.
• 30:14
  Speaker1: So good. Yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker0: Oh, when they got Master Splinter like giving them
• 30:16
  Speaker0: tips in there, like in the, you know, in their back room that they can
• 30:19
  Speaker0: go to, and there's a dude flicking hamburgers at them. Like, it's— the
• 30:22
  Speaker0: whole thing is just— it's just outlandish but awesome. I can't
• 30:27
  Speaker0: say enough good things about it. Honestly,
• 30:28
  Speaker2: yeah, I, um, I, I respect
• 30:31
  Speaker2: it a lot more than I enjoyed it. And it's
• 30:35
  Speaker2: not disagreement at all.
• 30:37
  Speaker1: I was trying to stoke the flame. I
• 30:38
  Speaker2: think that what
• 30:39
  Speaker2: Sean is saying—
• 30:42
  Speaker1: What's the,
• 30:42
  Speaker1: what's the thing that that host gets his audience to chant and
• 30:46
  Speaker1: they're like piggies?
• 30:47
  Speaker0: Oh, it was Maestro.
• 30:48
  Speaker1: It was really dirty and whatever,
• 30:52
  Speaker1: but
• 30:52
  Speaker0: yeah.
• 30:53
  Speaker1: He was like stoking their fervor
• 30:55
  Speaker1: for— like they were young kids and he was getting them to make noises or
• 30:59
  Speaker1: whatever. But in any case, I was gonna do that just to like— because I
• 31:03
  Speaker1: promised Dissension last, uh, last cast. But sorry, Mike, you were saying?
• 31:06
  Speaker2: I was just—
• 31:07
  Speaker2: the, the whole time I was reading it, I was marveling
• 31:11
  Speaker2: at the sheer magnitude of the creativity that
• 31:16
  Speaker2: must have gone into this and the way it's
• 31:20
  Speaker2: all written. In such a simplistic
• 31:24
  Speaker2: way is deceptive because there's— we've
• 31:28
  Speaker2: already talked about how there's a much bigger world coming. You've talked about that.
• 31:32
  Speaker2: And it's so obvious in the first book very early on.
• 31:36
  Speaker2: I mean, there's just these little hints like, oh, like, oh, we opened already.
• 31:39
  Speaker2: We weren't supposed to open yet. And, you know, like, oh, that's obviously a
• 31:43
  Speaker2: trigger, right? Or like a hint that there's like bigger stuff going on,
• 31:46
  Speaker2: right? So, you know, he's got this massive complex story
• 31:50
  Speaker2: in his head. So the sheer scale of the creativity I was marveling at.
• 31:55
  Speaker2: I also don't want to
• 31:59
  Speaker2: say that because I'm not a gamer is the reason I didn't personally enjoy
• 32:02
  Speaker2: it so much, because I was also thinking as I was
• 32:05
  Speaker2: reading it is like, he makes it so accessible. You don't have to be a
• 32:09
  Speaker2: gamer to enjoy all this stuff.
• 32:13
  Speaker2: But it helps, I think. It does. And for me, like,
• 32:16
  Speaker2: that was, that was the part that kept taking me out of it was like
• 32:19
  Speaker2: when it got too video gamey. It was, you know, like I said, the pages
• 32:21
  Speaker2: of rewards. and you've unlocked this achievement,
• 32:25
  Speaker2: and this goes into your inventory. And I mean, the first— I remembered
• 32:30
  Speaker2: the first time I quit reading the book 8 or 10 months ago was when
• 32:33
  Speaker2: he first meets Mordecai, and Mordecai is going on and on.
• 32:38
  Speaker2: I mean, this must be like 18 pages worth of like, here's the rules,
• 32:41
  Speaker2: here's how this works, let me explain this to you. And I'm like, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker2: this is what we call an, an info dump, but it works here because it's
• 32:48
  Speaker2: like, you know, it's a video game. So it's like, we got to give you
• 32:50
  Speaker2: the rules and stuff.
• 32:51
  Speaker0: It's a tutorial.
• 32:51
  Speaker2: So that's how they— that's how they excuse
• 32:53
  Speaker2: the info dump, but that's how it felt to me reading it. So anyways,
• 32:56
  Speaker2: All of that is to say that is not a criticism. I thought that this
• 32:59
  Speaker2: was brilliantly done and achieved, and I think that,
• 33:03
  Speaker2: you know, almost everybody who reads it, video gamer or not, is gonna really appreciate
• 33:07
  Speaker2: it. I appreciate it and respected it, but I just—
• 33:11
  Speaker2: I felt like there were parts that I just was dragging a little bit,
• 33:13
  Speaker2: like my eyes were just skimming things. And
• 33:15
  Speaker0: that's a fair criticism.
• 33:17
  Speaker0: I think that it does suffer from that modern literature tendency
• 33:21
  Speaker0: to just be expository and not let the
• 33:25
  Speaker0: narrative kind of explain things to you as it goes in some ways.
• 33:29
  Speaker0: So there is— it's not a perfect piece of writing. What works so
• 33:33
  Speaker0: well for me, and again, like, my wife's not a gamer, never has been
• 33:36
  Speaker0: a gamer in her entire life. I don't think she's played a video game for
• 33:38
  Speaker0: more than 10 minutes ever. But she, um, she just really likes it because
• 33:43
  Speaker0: of the humor.
• 33:43
  Speaker2: Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker0: And I think the humor, the craziness,
• 33:46
  Speaker0: the ridiculous stuff that happens, it's like,
• 33:49
  Speaker0: it's so absurd. That it's charming. Yeah,
• 33:52
  Speaker0: there's a certain charm to this book that I feel like it—
• 33:56
  Speaker2: It reminded
• 33:56
  Speaker2: me in that way of Rick and Morty. Yeah, it's— it wants
• 34:00
  Speaker2: very much— a lot of the humor, a lot of the humor comes from being
• 34:04
  Speaker2: like, how far can we push this?
• 34:07
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 34:07
  Speaker2: And it's like winking at the audience, like, we're in this together, like,
• 34:11
  Speaker2: we know we're being absurd, and that's what makes it fun.
• 34:13
  Speaker0: No, that was a
• 34:14
  Speaker0: great connection. It's, it's definitely got that like surreal absurdism that
• 34:18
  Speaker0: just— you're like, okay, let's just go for this ride. Now I'm just gonna have
• 34:21
  Speaker0: fun with it because fuck it.
• 34:22
  Speaker2: Is the— do we know, is the author
• 34:25
  Speaker2: British? Do we know that?
• 34:26
  Speaker0: He's American.
• 34:26
  Speaker2: He's American. Okay, because it also— it did
• 34:28
  Speaker2: feel— I know we compared it to Hitchhiker before. Um, it— a
• 34:33
  Speaker2: lot of the humor felt very British to me. A lot of it was like
• 34:36
  Speaker2: very dry in its delivery. It felt like very British. So I didn't know if,
• 34:39
  Speaker2: uh, if the guy was British or not, but
• 34:42
  Speaker1: it, it would make
• 34:44
  Speaker1: sense. And I, like, I can't pick out a specific
• 34:47
  Speaker1: moment, but I can, like, connect to what you're saying in terms of, like,
• 34:51
  Speaker1: some of, like, the one-liners that are just delivered so dry that
• 34:55
  Speaker1: you would expect it. He's done— yeah, Dinniman's done a
• 34:59
  Speaker1: bunch of media lately, like, saying that, um,
• 35:02
  Speaker1: he's gonna be done with, with the whole series in 8 books,
• 35:05
  Speaker1: but book 8 is gonna be 2 parts.
• 35:07
  Speaker2: Okay.
• 35:08
  Speaker1: You know, and, like,
• 35:09
  Speaker1: sarcastically saying it just to, like, egg on the audience, just like his writing does.
• 35:12
  Speaker2: That's what I mean. It's like, it's that very droll delivery that just, as I'm
• 35:16
  Speaker2: reading it, I'm like, this guy has to be British. Like, it just sounds like
• 35:19
  Speaker2: British humor. Oh, stand corrected.
• 35:22
  Speaker1: Well, you know, I'm trying to think, is there anything
• 35:25
  Speaker1: else we haven't touched on? We've touched on the experience. It's, it's a new genre,
• 35:30
  Speaker1: right? Um, we've touched on a little bit of the story and the humanizing
• 35:33
  Speaker1: of the characters, and we love a cat no matter what.
• 35:36
  Speaker0: This is an
• 35:38
  Speaker0: adult cast, but I will say that, you know, Just put that disclaimer out
• 35:41
  Speaker0: there, it is a very adult series. Like, there's stuff
• 35:45
  Speaker0: going on and things said that it's like, holy shit, make sure your little kids
• 35:49
  Speaker0: are not around.
• 35:50
  Speaker1: So, um, my son read
• 35:54
  Speaker1: the first book, and I mean, my sons are 11 and 13, and you can
• 35:58
  Speaker1: judge me as you will once you finish the book. We talk about a lot
• 36:01
  Speaker1: of the stuff in it, and he was like, you know, bringing up the
• 36:05
  Speaker1: stuff like, well, Well, the character's really about— or the
• 36:09
  Speaker1: AI's really got this, like, he used the word foot fetish because I think fetish
• 36:13
  Speaker1: is used in the book. I don't think he knew it before that. And
• 36:16
  Speaker0: he
• 36:17
  Speaker0: got over somehow.
• 36:17
  Speaker1: And I'm like, yeah, that's some people's thing,
• 36:21
  Speaker1: but it's just not for me.
• 36:22
  Speaker0: I think it's emotional age too.
• 36:25
  Speaker0: Like, if a kid can handle it, they can handle it. Like, I'm just— I
• 36:27
  Speaker0: just feel like it's one of those, like, if you're not ready for it,
• 36:31
  Speaker0: like, it's— it can get super raunchy, you know what I mean?
• 36:33
  Speaker1: Yeah, you cannot
• 36:35
  Speaker1: play this out loud.
• 36:36
  Speaker0: Yeah,
• 36:36
  Speaker1: like you just— unless you know you're by yourself or
• 36:38
  Speaker1: you know your room.
• 36:39
  Speaker0: I'm not teaching this to a class.
• 36:40
  Speaker1: No.
• 36:41
  Speaker2: Even when
• 36:42
  Speaker2: it's not raunchy, it's still like— a lot of it is just like, you,
• 36:46
  Speaker2: you know, you'd appreciate or you'd understand it better if you were like— my,
• 36:48
  Speaker2: my— one of my favorite parts of the book is when they fight that level
• 36:51
  Speaker2: boss who's like a, like a gym bro, like steroid user dude.
• 36:55
  Speaker2: And—
• 36:55
  Speaker1: Oh bro, that hurt.
• 36:56
  Speaker2: Yeah, yeah, like stop, bro. Like, this is not cool,
• 36:59
  Speaker2: bro. And, um, You know,
• 37:03
  Speaker2: that's like, you know, that's the joke. Like, I don't think— yeah!
• 37:06
  Speaker2: Oh, we're on, we got a cast going.
• 37:08
  Speaker1: That's all right. You're watching
• 37:10
  Speaker1: a Sabres—
• 37:10
  Speaker2: Dear
• 37:10
  Speaker1: listeners,
• 37:11
  Speaker0: yes, we scored!
• 37:13
  Speaker2: We are watching the Buffalo Sabres
• 37:15
  Speaker2: as we record, and a goal, an important goal, was just had. I apologize.
• 37:19
  Speaker1: It's not the go-ahead goal.
• 37:22
  Speaker0: Yeah, that was a genuine reaction.
• 37:24
  Speaker2: It is the go-ahead goal. Yeah, it is.
• 37:25
  Speaker1: I'm not gonna say that until we're
• 37:27
  Speaker1: up by at least—
• 37:27
  Speaker2: It's not the game-winning goal, but it was the go-ahead goal.
• 37:30
  Speaker2: So I'm sorry, I've I've been— we've been resisting this all evening and I— my
• 37:33
  Speaker2: instinct just got the better of me.
• 37:35
  Speaker1: We did warn people in the previous
• 37:38
  Speaker1: cast that we were watching. We— I just forgot to set up the disclaimer.
• 37:41
  Speaker1: Sorry.
• 37:41
  Speaker2: There have been—
• 37:42
  Speaker0: the Steelers play every time that we record.
• 37:44
  Speaker1: Yeah, well, Saturday night games are very common.
• 37:46
  Speaker0: Yeah, of course.
• 37:46
  Speaker2: Well, they did up
• 37:48
  Speaker2: it to 84 games this season, so that's true.
• 37:50
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 37:50
  Speaker2: All right, well, there have
• 37:51
  Speaker2: been other interruptions to this cast, so—
• 37:53
  Speaker1: Yeah, a bit of tech malfunction in
• 37:55
  Speaker1: the beginning.
• 37:57
  Speaker0: Language malfunction.
• 37:58
  Speaker1: Um, well,
• 37:59
  Speaker1: and we're right back to it, right? Because you're just saying like, you— this is
• 38:03
  Speaker1: an interesting series, by the way. I mean, this is in
• 38:06
  Speaker1: like a lot of libraries. It's like in a lot
• 38:10
  Speaker1: of kids' hands, and I'm not against it.
• 38:13
  Speaker0: No, I, I even—
• 38:15
  Speaker0: I— full disclosure, I did encourage my own children who are, uh, 15 and 17
• 38:19
  Speaker0: to read it too. And I've— and we've been encouraging like before they
• 38:23
  Speaker0: turned 15 instead of 14 to 16.
• 38:24
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker0: So it's like we understand it.
• 38:27
  Speaker0: They— this is— it's not shit that these kids aren't hearing on the bus or
• 38:29
  Speaker0: anything, or not learning in school anyway. It's not like it's that outlandish,
• 38:32
  Speaker0: but it's like, fuck,
• 38:35
  Speaker0: it gets people reading.
• 38:36
  Speaker2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker0: And to me, that is— that's—
• 38:39
  Speaker0: that is a successful piece of literature. That is an author
• 38:43
  Speaker0: who's done the world a service. Hey, open a book, goddamn it!
• 38:46
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 38:46
  Speaker0: It's way
• 38:47
  Speaker0: better than looking at a screen.
• 38:48
  Speaker1: New achievement! Yeah, you used
• 38:51
  Speaker1: the thing between your ears!
• 38:52
  Speaker0: Yeah, exactly. It's just— oh my
• 38:54
  Speaker0: God.
• 38:54
  Speaker2: It's a great point.
• 38:56
  Speaker0: That's— that's— that is its overwhelming
• 38:59
  Speaker0: success, is that people are actually talking about a book and it's not Harry Potter.
• 39:03
  Speaker0: You know, my God, it's—
• 39:04
  Speaker1: And the author's not trying to say like a whole
• 39:07
  Speaker1: classification of people don't exist.
• 39:08
  Speaker0: Yeah, yeah. As far as we know, Denham is a
• 39:10
  Speaker0: good dude. So yeah, from what we know.
• 39:12
  Speaker1: And that's the compliment I
• 39:14
  Speaker1: was trying to give it earlier when I compared it to Hitchhikers, because I know
• 39:16
  Speaker1: Hitchhikers was that for a lot of people.
• 39:18
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 39:18
  Speaker1: Back in the day.
• 39:19
  Speaker1: So,
• 39:20
  Speaker0: yep,
• 39:21
  Speaker1: um, deserves all the credit it gets. And hopefully
• 39:24
  Speaker1: the— you said Paramount picked it up?
• 39:26
  Speaker0: Peacock.
• 39:26
  Speaker1: Peacock.
• 39:27
  Speaker0: NBC is
• 39:27
  Speaker0: actually captaining this thing, so we'll see what, what the fuck they're gonna do with
• 39:31
  Speaker0: it.
• 39:31
  Speaker1: I mean, I know that it's exclusively on Audible.
• 39:34
  Speaker1: You can't— there aren't audiobook versions of it outside Audible. So like,
• 39:39
  Speaker1: you know, it's, it's been busy, it's been popular. So this is
• 39:43
  Speaker1: a rare start to our season, guys. This is 2 for Well, okay, I'm skip—
• 39:48
  Speaker1: I'm putting the cart before the horse.
• 39:49
  Speaker0: Yeah, what the fuck?
• 39:49
  Speaker1: Jumping the shark.
• 39:50
  Speaker0: I might throw you a loop, man.
• 39:52
  Speaker1: Fine. All right, I am a yes.
• 39:54
  Speaker1: I haven't gotten to book 2, but the reviews I've seen of book 2 are
• 39:58
  Speaker1: people getting upset because there are emotions in
• 40:02
  Speaker1: their lit RPG when they just wanted to have a fun time.
• 40:05
  Speaker2: Oh.
• 40:05
  Speaker1: And if
• 40:05
  Speaker1: that's the complaint, then I'd read book 2 for that reason.
• 40:08
  Speaker2: I mean, that sounds
• 40:09
  Speaker2: like a compliment to the book to me, but
• 40:10
  Speaker1: yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker2: Depends on the reader,
• 40:12
  Speaker2: I guess. Uh, my recommendation is yeah, absolutely. Um, you know,
• 40:16
  Speaker2: I, I think there will be a small percentage of readers like
• 40:21
  Speaker2: me who are like, I don't know what the fuck's going on at all,
• 40:23
  Speaker2: and then I'm confused and whatever. But, um, I,
• 40:27
  Speaker2: I respect the hell out of the creativity. I did have fun in a lot
• 40:30
  Speaker2: of parts of it, and I think this is a book that will appeal to
• 40:33
  Speaker2: most readers. And, uh, and I love the point that you made before,
• 40:37
  Speaker2: Sean. Anything that gets people reading
• 40:39
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker0: All right, I'm gonna hold— withhold my rating for a minute, or my
• 40:43
  Speaker0: recommendation. Mike, have you ever said no to a book?
• 40:46
  Speaker1: Yes,
• 40:47
  Speaker1: he has.
• 40:47
  Speaker0: Which one?
• 40:48
  Speaker1: Um, shit,
• 40:48
  Speaker2: uh, the one we mentioned before, I think.
• 40:50
  Speaker0: The City We Became?
• 40:51
  Speaker2: Yeah.
• 40:52
  Speaker0: But didn't you also qualify that to like,
• 40:54
  Speaker0: yeah, it's okay?
• 40:55
  Speaker2: Did I?
• 40:56
  Speaker0: Probably.
• 40:56
  Speaker1: No,
• 40:58
  Speaker1: no, we all said no to City We Became. 2 of us didn't
• 41:01
  Speaker1: finish it.
• 41:02
  Speaker0: Okay. And I was the only one that finished it.
• 41:04
  Speaker1: You were.
• 41:05
  Speaker1: You were. Mike and I didn't finish it because I remember we were on your
• 41:08
  Speaker1: back patio recording outside.
• 41:10
  Speaker0: Yeah, you're right. I'm just right. It's a rare— it's
• 41:12
  Speaker0: a rare Mike no. Yeah, it's rare.
• 41:15
  Speaker2: Yeah, I,
• 41:16
  Speaker2: um, I, I, I— you're right. No, I was gonna qualify that, but you're right.
• 41:20
  Speaker2: I rarely, rarely say no outright.
• 41:22
  Speaker0: Good stuff.
• 41:23
  Speaker1: Usually we do. Yeah, we try not to pick stuff we're not gonna like.
• 41:26
  Speaker2: You know what, I did say no to the Neal Stephenson book.
• 41:29
  Speaker0: Oh, that's right.
• 41:31
  Speaker2: But with, with the qualification that you should read any other Neal Stephenson
• 41:34
  Speaker2: book because they're all great except that one.
• 41:36
  Speaker0: I didn't mind that one.
• 41:37
  Speaker1: Did you
• 41:38
  Speaker1: say no No to— like, it's right at your head height, so I'm thinking of
• 41:40
  Speaker1: it now. Did you say no to Gideon the Ninth as well?
• 41:42
  Speaker0: No, no,
• 41:43
  Speaker0: no, no, I like that one.
• 41:44
  Speaker1: Okay. Yeah, okay.
• 41:46
  Speaker0: Lesbian space necromancers,
• 41:48
  Speaker0: how can you go wrong?
• 41:48
  Speaker1: Yeah, I mean, actually, yeah,
• 41:50
  Speaker2: that's pretty
• 41:50
  Speaker1: awesome. All right,
• 41:51
  Speaker1: so firstly,
• 41:52
  Speaker0: uh, whoa, whoa, I haven't actually given my recommendation,
• 41:55
  Speaker0: Adam.
• 41:56
  Speaker2: Here comes the curveball. Pumping the brakes. Here comes the
• 41:59
  Speaker2: twist ending.
• 41:59
  Speaker0: God damn it, Adam.
• 42:01
  Speaker1: Wow. M.
• 42:02
  Speaker2: Night Shyamalan
• 42:03
  Speaker2: twist ending incoming.
• 42:04
  Speaker1: Yeah, turns out Adam's allergic to beer and dies.
• 42:08
  Speaker0: Oh no!
• 42:09
  Speaker1: I have a
• 42:10
  Speaker0: beer
• 42:10
  Speaker1: every night with
• 42:12
  Speaker1: you guys.
• 42:14
  Speaker2: I don't know if that'd be a twist or just like a shocking
• 42:16
  Speaker2: tragedy.
• 42:17
  Speaker0: Yeah, I'll be like, ruined like everything.
• 42:18
  Speaker2: And we still put the
• 42:20
  Speaker2: episode out.
• 42:23
  Speaker2: It's like 30 minutes of us screaming like, does he have a pulse?
• 42:30
  Speaker0: Oh
• 42:30
  Speaker2: God, call 911! Do
• 42:32
  Speaker0: compressions!
• 42:32
  Speaker2: I got no signal!
• 42:34
  Speaker0: Oh my God,
• 42:35
  Speaker1: I hope you guys would at least put a warning at the
• 42:37
  Speaker1: beginning, like, warning, you're about to hear some really traumatic shit.
• 42:41
  Speaker1: It's real. We lost Adam. Oh no, we needed the listens.
• 42:45
  Speaker1: What
• 42:45
  Speaker0: if they joke about that?
• 42:46
  Speaker2: Yeah, sounds like, stay tuned for the most epic
• 42:49
  Speaker2: episode of Nerds of the Older Podcast.
• 42:52
  Speaker0: Sunday,
• 42:53
  Speaker0: Sunday, Sunday, Adam has a coronary. Oh my God.
• 42:56
  Speaker0: We're looking for a new Adam.
• 42:58
  Speaker1: Wow, I'm still
• 43:00
  Speaker1: here!
• 43:02
  Speaker2: That's also right at the beginning.
• 43:04
  Speaker2: If you're interested in joining—
• 43:05
  Speaker0: Write Adam's character off, he just wants to get out
• 43:08
  Speaker0: of this.
• 43:07
  Speaker2: Please send your application to—
• 43:10
  Speaker1: Are you a fun-loving
• 43:12
  Speaker1: guy who likes to drink beer with new people and read books?
• 43:15
  Speaker1: Well, find our post on ZipRecruiter,
• 43:17
  Speaker1: ziprecruiter.com.
• 43:19
  Speaker0: Oh, you must be Adam.
• 43:20
  Speaker2: All we
• 43:21
  Speaker2: ask is that you not die mid-episode.
• 43:23
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 43:23
  Speaker0: no, I will,
• 43:24
  Speaker0: uh, I'm not gonna give this book a yes.
• 43:26
  Speaker2: Okay, well, there it is.
• 43:27
  Speaker2: That's a twist.
• 43:28
  Speaker0: I'm giving it a hell yeah. There
• 43:30
  Speaker1: it is.
• 43:31
  Speaker0: Fucking read this whole— Here's another one for you. Thank you.
• 43:34
  Speaker0: Read this whole damn series. I am in the midst of the 8th
• 43:39
  Speaker0: book, I think, whatever the last one is he released,
• 43:41
  Speaker0: and it hasn't— for me, it hasn't missed
• 43:45
  Speaker0: a beat. It's been, it's been awesome from the jump. I read all of them
• 43:49
  Speaker0: over the summer. It's been great. I'm, uh, I actually put
• 43:52
  Speaker0: The Wheel of Time on pause to get through this series.
• 43:56
  Speaker2: Wow, high praise.
• 43:57
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 43:57
  Speaker0: And went back to The Wheel of Time and
• 44:01
  Speaker0: immediately regretted it, and then went back to Dungeon Crawler Carol for the
• 44:05
  Speaker0: 8th book because I'm like, I need another break.
• 44:07
  Speaker1: I'm glad. So I'm glad
• 44:09
  Speaker1: it doesn't get redundant. I was worried about that when I saw how fast they
• 44:13
  Speaker1: were moving through the dungeons, you know, and then it could just like bogged
• 44:17
  Speaker1: down in like level 6 or something.
• 44:19
  Speaker0: Each floor is something totally unique and different.
• 44:21
  Speaker1: Cool.
• 44:21
  Speaker0: And like, some stuff is repetitive, but you get
• 44:25
  Speaker0: through it. And trust me, the character development
• 44:29
  Speaker0: and the world development is worth it.
• 44:31
  Speaker1: That's great to hear.
• 44:31
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 44:32
  Speaker1: All right,
• 44:34
  Speaker1: uh,
• 44:34
  Speaker0: send us money, Matt Inaman.
• 44:36
  Speaker1: Hey, we'd love to talk to
• 44:37
  Speaker1: you.
• 44:38
  Speaker0: Yes, give us a call, man. Seriously, we'd love to have
• 44:41
  Speaker0: you on.
• 44:41
  Speaker1: Yeah. Um, have your people call us.
• 44:45
  Speaker0: Yeah,
• 44:46
  Speaker1: we don't have people.
• 44:46
  Speaker0: We're on Gmail.
• 44:48
  Speaker1: We are.
• 44:49
  Speaker1: Yeah, nerdsofolderepublic@gmail.com. Yeah. Uh, well,
• 44:52
  Speaker1: 2 rare yeses— sorry,
• 44:55
  Speaker1: 2 casts back to back of rare yeses from us.
• 44:58
  Speaker1: So I promised Division, and I guess
• 45:02
  Speaker1: like maybe you're not here for the hate listen, dear listener,
• 45:05
  Speaker1: but it's at least going to get way more complicated in the next cast when
• 45:09
  Speaker1: we talk about '90s music. Um, if these
• 45:13
  Speaker1: books weren't your thing, firstly, um,
• 45:16
  Speaker1: I— hi, I'm not sure what you're
• 45:20
  Speaker1: doing here because we covered Lord of the Rings and Dungeon
• 45:25
  Speaker1: Crawler Carl, but you could go find our other stuff. I mentioned, uh,
• 45:27
  Speaker1: Gideon the Ninth, which is some old— gosh, what was that,
• 45:30
  Speaker1: like 2nd, 3rd season? That was a while.
• 45:32
  Speaker0: That was a while ago.
• 45:33
  Speaker1: Yeah, we liked, we liked that one.
• 45:35
  Speaker0: Yeah, we've done Space Lizards
• 45:37
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 45:38
  Speaker1: I did finish that entire series actually.
• 45:40
  Speaker0: Did you?
• 45:40
  Speaker2: Oh, did you?
• 45:41
  Speaker1: I did.
• 45:42
  Speaker0: Okay.
• 45:42
  Speaker1: Uh, enjoyed it. The first book was probably awesome.
• 45:44
  Speaker2: I always
• 45:45
  Speaker2: meant to go on vaguely but never did.
• 45:48
  Speaker1: Uh,
• 45:49
  Speaker1: yeah,
• 45:51
  Speaker0: we— it's worth it. We have a rich and diverse back
• 45:54
  Speaker0: catalog. Check us out.
• 45:54
  Speaker2: Yeah, we definitely do.
• 45:55
  Speaker1: This is 6th season and we actually
• 45:57
  Speaker1: are in the top, uh, 10% of podcasters in terms of how
• 46:02
  Speaker1: many seasons we've been going And how many episodes we have out.
• 46:04
  Speaker0: Really?
• 46:05
  Speaker1: Yeah,
• 46:06
  Speaker1: most podcasts don't make it this far.
• 46:08
  Speaker2: So there's something to be
• 46:09
  Speaker2: said for just sheer stubborn persistence.
• 46:12
  Speaker1: That is right.
• 46:13
  Speaker1: I'll tell you what, uh, we're gonna persist into the 90s,
• 46:17
  Speaker1: uh, next cast. So we'll catch you next month, and until
• 46:21
  Speaker1: then,
• 46:22
  Speaker0: go Sabres, go Bills!
• 46:23
  Speaker1: Yeah, go Sabres, go Bills!
• 46:25
  Speaker2: Cheers!